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Dec. 8th, 2013 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsFor December 8th, evewithanapple asked me about my least favorite playwright/composers and why!
. . . I don't actually have a lot of least favorites, because when it comes to musical theater, I really love things that are terrible . . . so I am going to seize the opportunity to do the exact opposite and talk instead about my FAVORITE terrible playwright/composer, ~*~*~Frank Wildhorn~*~*~*~.
Frank Wildhorn, y'all. FRANK WILDHORN. Frank Wildhorn is an extremely prolific writer of amazingly cheesy musicals. All of his work is committed to being as spectacularly over-the-top as possible and none of it is at all committed to sounding any different from his previous work. I have experienced nowhere near all of his oeuvre, but I am COMMITTED to expanding my knowledge whenever I get a chance. Wildhorn musicals with which I am familiar (and which I have picspammed previously on my DW) include:
The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I actually love completely unironically in all of its over-the-top glory. This musical was my formative Scarlet Pimpernel iteration. ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES.
Jekyll and Hyde, which I watched whenever it came over PBS when I was a kid, and will still watch whenever I have the opportunity, and which is HILARIOUSLY TERRIBLE. Or at least the version with which I am familiar with, starring DAVID HASSELHOFF, is hilariously terrible. Jekyll's inexplicable daddy issues! Lucy the Sexy Prostitute and Emma the Pure Fiancee and the absolute textbook virgin/whore dichotomy! "Confrontation," in which the Hoff wears HALF A WIG and flings his hair back and forth like he just don't care before ripping open his shirt in a rage-driven frenzy! Oh, Jekyll and Hyde. What an amazing piece of musical theater.
Wonderland, a musically derivative but visually spectacular musical in which our heroine -- having had her marriage founder because she is the sole breadwinner -- dreams about her estranged husband rescuing her from her dark side, who wants to take over the kingdom of Wonderland from her mother-in-law. Then this saves her marriage. THANKS, FRANK WILDHORN.
I am also a little bit familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo because of that half a kdrama I watched which was about a production of Wildhorn's Count of Monte Cristo, but seeing that show in full is absolutely on my bucket list because over-the-top Dumasian revenge is EXACTLY the kind of thing Wildhorn is best suited for.
Frank Wildhorn's current projects include a musical about Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, which I feel confident will include a lot of really dramatically angsty power ballads and a lot of sentimental and hugely problematic tropes about mental illness, and Excalibur, which is a Frank Wildhorn musical ABOUT KING ARTHUR oh my god it's going to be so bad, I'M SO THERE.
But let's be real, when it comes to Frank Wildhorn, I am always there. It is a beautiful hatemance for the ages. No matter how much bad his stuff gets, no matter how I may be seething with rage 3/4 of the way through the show, I SWEAR TO YOU, I WILL BE THERE!
evewithanapple asked me about my least favorite playwright/composers and why! . . . I don't actually have a lot of least favorites, because when it comes to musical theater, I really love things that are terrible . . . so I am going to seize the opportunity to do the exact opposite and talk instead about my FAVORITE terrible playwright/composer, ~*~*~Frank Wildhorn~*~*~*~.
Frank Wildhorn, y'all. FRANK WILDHORN. Frank Wildhorn is an extremely prolific writer of amazingly cheesy musicals. All of his work is committed to being as spectacularly over-the-top as possible and none of it is at all committed to sounding any different from his previous work. I have experienced nowhere near all of his oeuvre, but I am COMMITTED to expanding my knowledge whenever I get a chance. Wildhorn musicals with which I am familiar (and which I have picspammed previously on my DW) include:
The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I actually love completely unironically in all of its over-the-top glory. This musical was my formative Scarlet Pimpernel iteration. ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES.
Jekyll and Hyde, which I watched whenever it came over PBS when I was a kid, and will still watch whenever I have the opportunity, and which is HILARIOUSLY TERRIBLE. Or at least the version with which I am familiar with, starring DAVID HASSELHOFF, is hilariously terrible. Jekyll's inexplicable daddy issues! Lucy the Sexy Prostitute and Emma the Pure Fiancee and the absolute textbook virgin/whore dichotomy! "Confrontation," in which the Hoff wears HALF A WIG and flings his hair back and forth like he just don't care before ripping open his shirt in a rage-driven frenzy! Oh, Jekyll and Hyde. What an amazing piece of musical theater.
Wonderland, a musically derivative but visually spectacular musical in which our heroine -- having had her marriage founder because she is the sole breadwinner -- dreams about her estranged husband rescuing her from her dark side, who wants to take over the kingdom of Wonderland from her mother-in-law. Then this saves her marriage. THANKS, FRANK WILDHORN.
I am also a little bit familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo because of that half a kdrama I watched which was about a production of Wildhorn's Count of Monte Cristo, but seeing that show in full is absolutely on my bucket list because over-the-top Dumasian revenge is EXACTLY the kind of thing Wildhorn is best suited for.
Frank Wildhorn's current projects include a musical about Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, which I feel confident will include a lot of really dramatically angsty power ballads and a lot of sentimental and hugely problematic tropes about mental illness, and Excalibur, which is a Frank Wildhorn musical ABOUT KING ARTHUR oh my god it's going to be so bad, I'M SO THERE.
But let's be real, when it comes to Frank Wildhorn, I am always there. It is a beautiful hatemance for the ages. No matter how much bad his stuff gets, no matter how I may be seething with rage 3/4 of the way through the show, I SWEAR TO YOU, I WILL BE THERE!
no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 08:21 pm (UTC)um. I think that you and I would be the DREAM TEAM of reviewers for this musical, is there any chance we can make it happen?
From your link:
"The Arthurian legend has many different Christian, Celtic and Oriental origins. The music will be correspondingly diverse: Pop music will melt with monumental symphonic elements and Celtic sounds. We hope to create something entirely new with Artus," said composer Frank Wildhorn.
oriental
ORIENTAL
ORIENTAL ORIGINS OF KING ARTHUR
oh dear
no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 08:24 pm (UTC)Or maybe there will be a bootleg download. >.>
no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 04:28 am (UTC)SO MUCH WHAT I DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN
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Date: 2013-12-11 02:54 am (UTC)