Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's about time we get down to business. Since 2013, we’ve been receiving at least one live television musical a year. It all started at NBC, and then FOX got in on the action. ABC was supposed to finally get in on the action earlier this month with The Little Mermaid, which would’ve been a hybrid of the animated film with live performances of the songs, but was postponed indefinitely. NBC may have been airing one live musical annually, but they’ll actually be taking this year off. They were suppose to do Bye Bye Birdie this year, but was postponed until next year in order to accommodate the schedule of its star, Jennifer Lopez. So to put you all in the know, here are some details about the next live television musical to look forward to...
A Christmas Story
December 17th, 2017
This holiday season, FOX will finally be giving us all their long-awaited successor to Grease: Live with the musical adaptation of the 1983 classic, A Christmas Story. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the musical adaptation, you can listen to the score from the World Premiere Cast Recording. This production will star newcomer Andy Walken as Ralphie Parker, Matthew Broderick (providing narrations) as Older Ralphie Parker, Maya Rudolph as Mrs. Parker, Chris Diamantopoulos as Mr. Parker, Tyler Wladis as Randy Parker, Jane Krakowski as Miss Shields, and Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Schwartz.
A Christmas Story
December 17th, 2017
This holiday season, FOX will finally be giving us all their long-awaited successor to Grease: Live with the musical adaptation of the 1983 classic, A Christmas Story. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the musical adaptation, you can listen to the score from the World Premiere Cast Recording. This production will star newcomer Andy Walken as Ralphie Parker, Matthew Broderick (providing narrations) as Older Ralphie Parker, Maya Rudolph as Mrs. Parker, Chris Diamantopoulos as Mr. Parker, Tyler Wladis as Randy Parker, Jane Krakowski as Miss Shields, and Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Schwartz.
It will also feature stage direction by eight-time Tony nominee Scott Ellis (yeah, he's pretty much the Peter O'Toole of theater directors) while Emmy winner Alex Rudzinski (Grease: Live) will be directing the telecast. The songwriting team of Benj Pasek & Justin Paul are also working on two new songs for the telecast (hoping to achieve EGOT status within the next year).
Ana Gasteyer even confirmed in an interview on The Today Show that one of the new songs will be for her, thus she'll actually have something to sing this time around since she didn't really have anything in Grease: Live (she is a former Elphaba after all). Not to mention that Pasek & Paul went on to make some further modifications to the score after it was originally recorded. I recently interviewed actress Karen Mason, who played Miss Shields in the pre-Broadway tour, and she told me that Benj & Justin wrote the song ‘You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out’ with her in mind. I even remember that they both talked about the genesis of that song in an interview with Richard Ridge for BroadwayWorld. They said that their previous song for that more mirrored that moment in the original movie, which featured The Wicked Witch of the West. Yet, they had to scrap that to avoid similarities with Wicked. It was choreographer Warren Carlyle who came up with the idea of doing a tap number. Hopefully this time, we’ll get an official recording of ‘You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out’ (especially since I think Jane Krakowski is the perfect performer for it) as that song can now only be found from when the cast of the Broadway production performed on the Tony Awards.
Ana Gasteyer even confirmed in an interview on The Today Show that one of the new songs will be for her, thus she'll actually have something to sing this time around since she didn't really have anything in Grease: Live (she is a former Elphaba after all). Not to mention that Pasek & Paul went on to make some further modifications to the score after it was originally recorded. I recently interviewed actress Karen Mason, who played Miss Shields in the pre-Broadway tour, and she told me that Benj & Justin wrote the song ‘You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out’ with her in mind. I even remember that they both talked about the genesis of that song in an interview with Richard Ridge for BroadwayWorld. They said that their previous song for that more mirrored that moment in the original movie, which featured The Wicked Witch of the West. Yet, they had to scrap that to avoid similarities with Wicked. It was choreographer Warren Carlyle who came up with the idea of doing a tap number. Hopefully this time, we’ll get an official recording of ‘You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out’ (especially since I think Jane Krakowski is the perfect performer for it) as that song can now only be found from when the cast of the Broadway production performed on the Tony Awards.