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Snapshots Released for Licensing!

INDUSTRY NEWS

Stephen Schwartz Musical Snapshots: A Musical Scrapbook Released for Licensing

Songs from Pippin, Godspell, The Baker’s Wife, and Enchanted, as well as the precursor to Wicked’s “The Wizard and I,” are featured in the score.

Stephen Schwartz
Stephen Schwartz Jospeh Marzullo/WENN

Snapshots: A Musical Scrapbook, an original book musical that re-contextualizes songs by Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz to tell the story of a married couple on the verge of divorce, has been released for amateur and professional licensing by Music Theatre International.

Part revue, part traditional book musical, Snapshots was conceived by Michael Scheman and David Stern, who approached Schwartz in the mid-1990s about using his music to tell an original story. Schwartz joined in the development process, rewriting lyrics to several of his songs for the production.

“I entered into an exercise that proved to be both challenging and a lot of fun, especially to a ‘puzzle mind’ like mine: taking existing songs, retaining their titles and the music and for the most part their original structure, but starting from scratch with the lyrics,” Schwartz said in a statement. “Now, literally decades later, we have arrived at Snapshots. To my knowledge, it is a unique form. Is it a book musical? Kind of. Is it a revue? Well, that too. There’s no genre it fits into neatly, so we call it a ‘musical scrapbook’.”

The musical incorporates over two dozen of the Academy Award winner’s songs, culling from Pippin, Godspell, The Baker’s Wife, Rags, The Magic Show, Personals, Working, Children of EdenCaptain Louie, Enchanted, and Wicked—including “Making Good,” which was cut from workshops for the Broadway smash Wicked and later replaced with “The Wizard and I.” Songs written in collaboration with David Crane, Seth Friedman, Marta Kaufman, Alan Menken, and Charles Strouse are also included. Original orchestrations are by Steve Orich.

Snapshots follows Sue and Dan, a suburban couple on the verge of divorce after 30 years of marriage. A hidden suitcase in their attic containing photographs of their life together reconnects them with their past as younger versions of themselves appear and play out “snapshots” from their relationship.

Drew Cohen, President and CEO of MTI, states, “We are thrilled that some of the finest songs from the Stephen Schwartz songbook have been woven together brilliantly by David Stern and Stephen Schwartz to create a fresh, new musical that conveys the emotion, brilliance and joy of each Stephen’s songs while delivering a completely new and exciting experience to the audience. Whether audience members know the songs be heart or are new to Stephen’s work, the response to Snapshots has been the same: pure delight.”

Visit mtishows.com for licensing information.

New Evan is a Hit!

Tyler Trensch has replaced Ben Platt as the title character in the musical “Dear Evan Hansen” at the Music Box Theater. CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

Everything is the same. And everything is different.

And then again, everything is the same.

Yes, “Dear Evan Hansen,” which officially introduced Taylor Trensch as its new Evan on Thursday, is still a gut-punching, breathtaking knockout of a musical. But it is differently gut-punching and breathtaking now than it was during the year that Ben Platt led the cast.

It would have to be. Even before Mr. Platt opened the show on Broadway, he had been living with Evan Hansen for years: He played the role from the very first reading of the musical in 2014. In some ways it seemed that the authors (songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul; book by Steven Levenson) had sewn the character directly onto his skin.

Certainly he yowled as if they had; it’s difficult to recall another Broadway musical performance so saturated with pain and confusion. The role could absorb it, though; when Evan tries to comfort the family of Connor, a schoolmate who has committed suicide, their need for information gets tangled with his need to be noticed and a moral nightmare ensues. Also a practical nightmare, as the lies he tells, amplified by social media, return to haunt him. These are big issues.

Playing the anxiety-riddled high school senior, Mr. Platt provoked in the audience a reverse suspension of disbelief: As he cried and belted, often at the same time, it was hard not to fear for the actor’s own well-being. On the two occasions I saw him in the role, I wanted to dose myself afterward with a cocktail of Zoloft and Mucinex.

Mr. Trensch — who recently finished a 10-month run as a zany Barnaby Tucker in “Hello, Dolly!” — is not playing his illustrious predecessor. (Noah Galvin took over the role during a two-month interregnum.) He has pruned Mr. Platt’s armamentarium of tics and twitches to just a few blinks, a stammer and some wringings of the right hand. He is more naturalistically and intermittently troubled than Mr. Platt was, more apprehensible as an actual 17-year-old.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW

Grammy Nomination for Dear Evan Hansen!

Dear Evan Hansen, Come From Away, Hello, Dolly! Cast Albums Among 2018 Grammy Award Nominations

Only three musical theatre albums were nominated; five recordings have been recognized in recent years.

Ben Platt
Ben Platt Joan Marcus

The Recording Academy recognized three cast recordings in the Best Musical Theater Album category for the 2017 Grammy Awards. The nominations were announced November 28.

The Original Broadway Cast Album for the 2017 Tony-winning Best Musical Dear Evan Hansen was among the nominations in the category, as were the recordings for Come From Away and the Bette Midler-led Hello, Dolly!

The three-album race follows three consecutive years of five recordings receiving nominations in the category. This is the third time in Grammy history that three musical theatre albums were nominated (after 2012 and 2014).

Dear Evan Hansen original headliner Ben Platt and Hello, Dolly!’s Midler, who both earned Tony Awards earlier this year for their performances, are the only vocalists included in the Musical Theater Album nominations.

Also listed in the nominations are Dear Evan Hansen composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who were additionally recognized as producers with Alex Lacamoire and Stacey MindichCome From Away composers David Hein and Irene Sankoff—again listed as album producers with Ian Eisendrath, August Eriksmoen, and David Lai, and Hello, Dolly! album producer Steven Epstein.

Last year’s Grammy went to the cast recording for the Cynthia Erivo and Jennifer Hudson-led revival of The Color Purple, with Hamilton earning the honor the year before.

Tony winners Pasek and Paul were also nominated in the Best Song Written for Visual Media category, sharing the nod with Justin Hurwitz for their Oscar-winning “City of Stars” from La La Land. Joining them in the category is Hamilton Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner Lin-Manuel Miranda, for Moana‘s “How Far I’ll Go.”

Adding to the Broadway representation in this year’s nominations is Leonard Bernstein – The Composer. The comprehensive, 25-disc retrospective, released by Sony Classical earlier this year as part of the continuing Bernstein centennial celebration, was nominated for Best Historical Album.

The 60th annual ceremony will take place January 28, 2018—from New York City for the first time since 2003.

For the full list of Grammy nominees, click here.