Teens Taking Over Broadway?
In preparation for this Sunday's opening of the Broadway musical 13 -- featuring a cast no older than high school freshmen in a story about the woes of a teenager whose life is turned upside down when his family moves from cosmopolitan Manhattan to rural Indiana -- the New York Times published a story last week about the other teens in the show.
This is because the musical's orchestra is also made up of teen musicians, all of which are younger than 18 years old.
According to the article, Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown always envisioned the score of 18 songs to be performed by teenagers.
From "Making the Band, the Broadway Edition":
“It is the heart of the show as far as I’m concerned,” he said during a break in a recent band rehearsal. “My reasoning is always ‘If you see it, you get it.’ I knew what the show would sound like if it were played by a bunch of union guys in their 40s who all had to get home on the train. There was a very specific energy to the show that I was looking for, and it was something about what happened when you let those kids on the stage.”
The orchestra performs onstage in full view of the audience...
Several players said the score challenged them, but not one has confessed to of being inadequate to the task. “He’s got a clear vision. It’s good to work with someone who knows exactly what he wants,” said Zach Page, a 15-year-old guitarist with a stadium-rock-ready name.
“They don’t want to be told that anything’s too difficult,” Mr. Brown said.
Other work habits, however, needed to be taught. “They don’t write anything down,” Mr. Brown said. “To get them to pick a pencil and make a notation — they just think, ‘Oh, yeah, I got that.’ If you look at the books these guys had written after three weeks, it was impenetrable. It was like it was in code.”
Read the full New York Times article here.
Above photo by Sara Krulwich for the New York Times. Clockwise from far right: Lexi Bodick, Zac Coe, Chris Raymond, Charlie Rosen, Zach Page and Adam Michael Kaufman.
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