This week, host Luisa Lyons chats with actor Jalynn Steele about the upcoming livestream of Titanique the Maiden Voyage Concert. Titanique is a new parody musical that reveals what really happened to Jack and Rose on that fateful night, as told by Céline Dion! 
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In this laugh-filled chat, we talk about the joy of performing, going to State for theatre, what Jalynn learnt during the pandemic, performing with COVID restrictions, The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, and the importance of diverse representation on Broadway.

Jalynn Steele is an energetic light placed here on earth to shine joy to everyone. Through the years she has graced many stages across the world and is extremely excited to join the awesome cast of Titanique! Credits include; Broadway: The Lightning Thief: A Percy Jackson Musical, Off Broadway: Sistas: The Musical, National/International Tour: Fosse, Regional Theatre: Mamma Mia, Beehive, and Little Shop of Horrors. Other credits include; Sesame Street, After Midnight, Rock of Ages, Burn the Floor, The Wiz, Songs for a New World, and recently, many virtual performances. Her life’s creed, “Live, laugh & love!” Follow on Facebook and Instagram. 

Titanique the Maiden Voyage Concert will be livestreamed at 7.30pm EDT on May 2. Tickets are available from Stellar. 

The Filmed Live Musicals podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! If you like what you hear, please leave a review and help get the word out! 

This week host Luisa Lyons chats with Filipino-American artist Lourds Lane - book writer, composer, lyricist, arranger, and violin-playing co-star of the new rock musical SuperYou. The musical was scheduled to open off-Broadway in May 2020, but was postponed due to the pandemic. Instead, a concert version was performed on the back of pick-up trucks at a drive-in in upstate New York. The concert was filmed and is available to stream on Broadway on Demand!

We talk about how music inspires, how writing music for a touring rock band helped Lourds write a musical, the Medusa Festival, the intensely personal inspiration behind SuperYou, why the team defied industry malaise at the start of the pandemic and staged the drive-in concert, how the concert was filmed, and putting your work online.

Learn more about Lourds Lane at www.lourdslane.com and SuperYou at www.superyoumusical.com. 

SuperYou is available to stream on demand until April 15, 2021 at Broadway on Demand.

You can listen to the Filmed Live Musicals podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and more! Subscribe for new content every two weeks! 

Thank you to the Filmed Live Musicals patrons Josh Brandon, Mercedes Esteban, Rachel Esteban, James Lane, David Negrin, Jesse Rabinowitz and Brenda Goodman, Al Monaco, David and Katherine Rabinowitz, and Bec Twist for your support.

Filmed Live Musicals is the most comprehensive online searchable database for musicals that have been filmed live on stage. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can also support the site at Patreon. Patrons get early access to content, no matter how much you pledge.

On episode 17 of the Filmed Live Musicals podcast, host Luisa Lyons chats with the Creative Director of HMDT Music, Tertia Sefton-Green. 

We chat about HMDT Music's extraordinary children's theatre education program pre-pandemic, the fortuitous decision to downscale in 2019, and the new female-led musical Jina and the STEM Sisters. The musical is available to stream on demand worldwide until April 11. Book your tickets here! 

HMDT Music, twice winner of the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Education and of the 2020 Excellence in Musical Theatre Award, is a leader in commissioning inspiring musical works embedding the arts across all areas of learning for young people. Key successes include: Trench Brothers commemorating ethnic minority soldiers in WW1; Shadowball ground-breaking baseball and jazz opera; Hear Our Voice international tour of a new work compiled from children’s Holocaust writings. HMDT runs an extensive Saturday Music Programme and arts-rehabilitation projects for young offenders. Their Creative Director Tertia Sefton-Green has created, commissioned, managed all their large-scale projects in addition to fundraising and writing some of the libretti. She also conducts their I Can Sing! music theatre programme. Learn more at www.hmdt.org.uk.

Thank you to the Filmed Live Musicals patrons Josh Brandon, Mercedes Esteban, Rachel Esteban, James Lane, David Negrin, Jesse Rabinowitz and Brenda Goodman, Al Monaco, David and Katherine Rabinowitz, and Bec Twist for your support.

Filmed Live Musicals is the most comprehensive online searchable database for musicals that have been filmed live on stage. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can also support the site at Patreon. Patrons get early access to content, no matter how much you pledge.

This week on the podcast, host Luisa Lyons chats with Marc Teitler and Tim Phillips, the composers of the smash-hit British musical The Grinning Man.

Filmed live at the Bristol Old Vic in 2016, The Grinning Man is a dark and visceral musical based on Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughed. Topics include the development of the musical, Marc and Tim's initial resistance to releasing the archival footage, how the musical came to be filmed with motion capture, and more!

The Grinning Man is currently available to stream on demand from the Bristol Old Vic. More tickets and info here.

Follow Marc Teitler on Twitter, and Tim Phillips on Twitter. 

Available wherever you listen to podcasts! If you like what you hear, make sure to like and subscribe, and leave us a review! UPDATE: The podcast may take a couple of days to appear in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast due to an attack on Buzzsprout's servers. 

Want to find out what musicals are streaming this weekend? Sign up to the free Filmed Live Musicals newsletter and receive weekly updates on upcoming streams! 

Want more content?! Become a Patron! You can join for as little as $3 a month, and no matter how much you pledge, you'll receive early access to the podcast and content on the site! 

Thank you to patrons Rachel Esteban, Mercedes Esteban-Lyons, James Lane, Al Monaco, David Negrin, Jesse Rabinowitz & Brenda Goodman, David & Katherine Rabinowitz, and Bec Twist, for financially supporting Filmed Live Musicals.

While some of us are spending the pandemic baking bread, binging Netflix, and staring into the void afraid and half-hopeful that this will now be life as we know it, folks across the world are jumping online to make art, and specifically, musicals. The rapid turnaround of these musicals and, more importantly, their immense popularity, is leading folks in the theatre community to wonder if virtual development is the future of musical theatre making.

The most prominent musical flavoring much of the discussion is Ratatouille The Musical, the world’s first musical “created entirely over TikTok.” Based on the 2007 Disney animation about a Parisian rat who loves to cook, the musical had a very short gestation period. It began life in October 2020, when a TikTok user Emily Jacobsen posted a love ballad for Remy the Rat that went viral. In December 2020 Seaview Productions (who got a shoutout in the December newsletter for their promising new partnership with Sony Productions) negotiated with Disney to put on a virtual production of Ratatouille the Musical as a benefit for the Actors Fund.

Ratatouille the Musical aired on January 1st, 2021, and was only available to stream for 3 days, followed by a one-off encore screening a week later. The cast featured the talents of Wayne Brady, Tituss Burgess, Kevin Chamberlin, André de Shields, Andrew Barth Feldman, Adam Lambert, Priscilla Lopez, Ashley Park, and Mary Testa, under the direction of Six writer and director Lucy Moss. The music was recorded by the recently formed The Broadway Sinfonietta, an all-female identifying, majority women of color orchestral collective. The event was viewed by over 200,000 people, and raised $2million, the most successful fundraiser in Actors Fund history.

While yet to be performed on a physical stage, Ratatouille the Musical already has a huge global following, was put together in a month, and for a budget of $200,000. When you think of the years, and millions of dollars, it normally takes to mount a Broadway show, it’s no wonder theatre folks are excited.

Director Lucy Moss has stated “I hope it opens the doors and/or eyes of producers and the gatekeepers to democratize theater even further, and to show them that something of real merit can be created not in the “traditional” way.” Writing for Forbes, Lee Seymour believes virtual productions could help bolster Broadway’s return — “crowdsourced projects could provide a solution, or at least an augmentation, especially to cultivate younger fans.”

A new in-the-works musical starting to generate some heat is Bridgerton the Musical, based on the recently released original Netflix series, Bridgerton. Composed by Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, early songs have gone viral, with “Burn For You” reaching over 4.5 million views. The hashtag #BridgertonTheMusical has attracted over 2.5million views. Receiving some attention from Netflix itself, Barlow has claimed “…the gatekeepers that be are kind of no longer in power. The people have the power, and that’s an exciting thing.”

Another new created-virtually musical, or series of musicals, garnering attention is Averno. Created by 21-year-old Morgan Smith, Averno is “is a transmedia universe — think the Marvel universe, but with musicals (and comics and novels and more) about witches.” Through collaboration with a diverse group of young artists, Averno has created “13 musicals, 4 novels, a TV Show, a podcast, a concept album, a webcomic musical, virtual reality, and more.” The universe exists across various websites and social media platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Spotify, and YouTube. Broadway Records, one of theatre’s leading record labels, recently released three Averno musicals as concept albums — “Over and Out,” “Willow,” and “Bittersummer.”
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What do you think? Will Ratatouille be served up on Broadway? Could Bridgerton The Musical sit alongside Bridgerton on Netflix? Will the Averno universe come to rival that of Marvel?

This week on the podcast, I interview British director and producer Adam Lenson! We had a great time chatting about Merrily We Roll Along, what should we call filmed theatre, Signal Online, Alt+Right+Shift, making new work without a theatre, filming theatre without an audience, and more! 

Based in London, Adam Lenson is a director, producer, dramaturg, and musical theatre specialist. He was recently included in The Stage 100, a list recognizing theatremakers for their extraordinary achievements in 2020. He is the founder Signal and Signal Online, programs for incubating new musical theatre, Make Your Own Musicals which provides activity packs for children, and Theatrical Solutions which offers affordable solutions for theatrical livestreaming.

As a director, original works include WASTED (World Premiere, Southwark Playhouse), SUPERHERO (World Premiere, Southwark Playhouse), THE SORROWS OF SATAN (World Premiere, Tristan Bates Theatre), LOCK AND KEY (World Premiere, Vault Festival), THE LEFTOVERS (World Premiere, National Tour). Other works include THE RINK (Southwark Playhouse), THE STORM (Helios Collective/ENO),  35MM (The Other Palace), WHISPER HOUSE (The Other Palace), SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD (St James Theatre, 20th Anniversary Production), DISGRACED (English Theatre Frankfurt), DARK TOURISM (Park Theatre), GHOST (GSA), SEE WHAT I WANNA SEE  (Jermyn Street Theatre), REEL LIFE (Ustinov Theatre Bath and St James Studio), THE GOODBYE GIRL (Upstairs at the Gatehouse), WEST END RECAST (Duke of York’s Theatre, Phoenix Theatre), ORDINARY DAYS (Trafalgar Studios), LITTLE FISH and SATURN RETURNS (Finborough Theatre), COME FLY WITH ME (Salisbury Playhouse), THE DEAD GUY (English Theatre Frankfurt) and THE FAMILY (Old Vic US/UK Exchange, Public Theater, NY).

You can learn more about Adam at www.adamlenson.com and follow him on Instagram and Twitter.

Tickets to Public Domain, streaming live on Jan 15 and 16 2021, are available at Southwark Playhouse. ​

In episode 6 of the Filmed Live Musicals podcast, I chat with actor David Colston Corris who portrayed Maximus the horse in the recently released filmed live Disney musical Tangled, which was performed aboard the cruise ship Disney Magic. We chat about puppeteering, working on a cruise ship, and what it took to bring Maximus to life. 

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, David has performed for audiences all over the world! National/International Tours: AVENUE Q (Princeton/Rod), RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER: THE MUSICAL (Coach Comet, Charlie-in-the-Box), CURIOUS GEORGE LIVE! (Freddy), and John Tartagila's IMAGINOCEAN (Dorsel). Cruise Lines: DISNEY CRUISE LINE (World Premier cast of TANGLED: THE MUSICAL (Maximus), FROZEN: A MUSICAL SPECTACULAR  (Olaf, Duke of Weselton) and NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE (Nickelodeon Host). Regional Theaters: CASA MANANA, SAN JOSE STAGE COMPANY, THE HANGAR THEATRE, GEVA THEATRE CENTER. Theme Parks: WALT DISNEY WORLD, UNIVERSAL STUDIOS ORLANDO, SESAME PLACE and STORYLAND. In addition to performing, David designs and builds puppets. He has also taught puppetry privately, regionally, and for shows and workshops at WALT DISNEY WORLD. David is an active member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. David holds a B.F.A. in Musical Theater from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. 

Available now on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast and more! Click here for links! 

Check out behind-the-scenes footage from Oh My Disney of David puppeteering Maximus, and learn more about Tangled in the database! 

If you like what you hear, make sure to like and subscribe, and leave a review! ​

On episode 2 of the Filmed Live Musicals podcast, Luisa chats with Caroline Friedman, founder of new theatre streaming of Scenesaver. 

Scenesaver is the only website making performances from off Broadway, off- West End, small theatres, and emerging artists accessible to everyone online. It's free to register and watch with 150 shows of all genres from around the world available now. New work is being added all the time.  

Available on all podcast apps now! 

There are so many musicals streaming online right now it's hard to keep up! 

Today alone, the 8th of May, there are THREE filmed live musicals being made available for a limited time for free (not to mention all the musicals already available online)!

If you are so able, please consider making a donation to the institutions providing these streams, especially the independent theatres. Times are tough for everyone right now, and the theatre industry is facing an incredibly difficult time. Theatres rely on ticket sales to bring in income, and with the shutdown, many institutions are facing serious economic difficulty. If we can, let's give back to the places that give us so much joy.  

Pieces of String 
A new British musical set simultaneously in 1940 and the present day exploring LGBT themes, and the impact of secrets on generations. Free to watch from 10am - 11.59pm (GMT) on May 8 only at Mercury Theatre Colchester. If you miss the free screening, it's also available for a small fee from Digital Theatre. 

The King and I 
Bartlett Sher's gorgeous Lincoln Center revival starring Kelli O'Hara and Ken Watanabe filmed live during its West End run at the London Palladium. Free watch party on May 8 at 8pm (EST) hosted BroadwayHD and Playbill. Only available in North America. Also available through a BroadwayHD subscription. 

By Jeeves 
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn's musical based on the book by P.G. Wodehouse. Will be available to stream for free from 2pm on May 8 for 48 hours on YouTube. 

Royal Court Livestream
Missing being inside an actual theatre? This one is not a musical, but London's Royal Court theatre is live-streaming from within the empty auditorium on May 8th with Caretaker, a "durational installation" by Hester Chillingworth. 7.30pm GMT. Visit Royal Court for more info. 

Still want MORE musicals?! You can visit the Filmed Live Musicals database and search for musicals to watch online! There are currently 75 musicals listed as available online, with more being added each week. 

Happy viewing!