Host Luisa Lyons chats with Singaporean actress, singer-songwriter and arts educator Ethel Yap.
Learn how Ethel worked to establish herself as an actor in her home country of Singapore after training in London, how Pangdemonium was formed, how working with The Theatre Practise (TTP) helped Ethel learn Mandarin, the state of unions — and the role of government — in Singaporean theatre, Chinese-language musicals Liao Zhai Rocks! and Lao Jiu, and Pangdemonium’s production of Urinetown. Ethel Yap is a Singaporean actress, singer-songwriter and arts educator who has appeared in numerous theatre and television productions in a variety of lead and supporting roles. Her work includes Liao Zhai Rocks, Beauty World, Lao Jiu: The Musical, Four Horse Road, Untitled Women, PROJECT Utopia and the Singapore stagings of Tribes by Nina Raine and Urinetown: The Musical. As a singer-songwriter, she released her debut EP in 2017 and continues to write music that centres on themes of identity and meaning in the folk genre. She is also a passionate arts educator and momma of one very active little boy! Learn more at www.ethelyap.com and follow Ethel on Facebook, and Instagram.
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Host Luisa Lyons chats with Maribel Legarda and Liza Magtoto, the director and writer of the hit Filipino jukebox musical Rak of Aegis.
Topics include the formation of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), and how PETA operates and fulfills its founders’ mission to create a Filipino theater. We discuss the development of Rak of Aegis, why Maribel double cast the show, the significance of the incredible set, and why an audience member saw the show 21 times! We also take a look at how the show came to be streamed, and how the pandemic has changed thinking about streaming going forward. Maribel Legarda is a multi-disciplinary director and the Artistic Director of PETA. As a Senior Artist-Teacher of the company, she has directed and choreographed major productions including “Care Divas,” “William,” and “Pamana”. Maribel has also conducted workshops for Dance, Women and Children’s Theater, both locally and internationally. Liza Magtoto is a playwright and freelance scriptwriter, a member of The Writer’s Bloc and an artist-teacher of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA). Recent works include “Rak of Aegis,” “Rated PG,” “A Game of Trolls” and “Care Divas.” A recipient of Gawad Buhay! and the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Francisco Balagtas, Liza also won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, and three of her award-winning plays are published in Bienvenida de Soltera, an anthology of her earlier works. Learn more about PETA at www.petatheater.com and follow on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
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On episode 22 of the Filmed Live Musicals podcast, host Luisa Lyons chats with Susan Jamson, Press and PR Manager for the north London based inclusive theatre company Chickenshed.
Chickenshed is an inclusive theatre company that first began in 1974. Primarily based at their purpose-built venue in North London, they create theatre for all ages and run successful outreach projects, education courses and membership programmes throughout the year. As a result of lockdown, Chickenshed have made many of their past shows available for free online. In this moving chat, Susan shares some of the stories from her 30 years with Chickenshed, her experience of raising a child with down syndrome, how finding an inclusive theatre company changed her family's life, the origins of Chickenshed and how the company has grown over the years, how they adapted to lockdown, and the importance of filming theatre. Learn more about Chickenshed at www.chickenshed.org.uk and visit their YouTube channel to see some of their incredible work!
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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.
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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 Filmed Live Musicals podcast, host Luisa Lyons chats with New York-based Australian director Benita de Wit.
We chat about creating pertinent work with college students during a pandemic, the LIU Post Sondheim cabaret One More Thing Not to Think About, what makes a good theatre capture, what makes theatre “live” and human, why a student production of Kiss Me, Kate stuck in Benita’s memory, the upcoming stream Alter/Ego and how Bowie is relevant to Gen Z, and what it means to theatricalize pop music. Benita de Wit is a New York-based Australian director of theatre and performance. They are the Associate Director for the international tour of “Bat Out of Hell” and have an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. Recent credits include “One More Thing Not To Think About” (Post Theatre Company), “The Laramie Project” (Pace University), “Slaughterhouse” by Anchuli Felicia King (Belvoir, 25A), “The Silence” (MIT, Associate Director), "The Moors" (Off Broadway, Assistant Director), "The Rape of The Sabine Women by Grace B Matthias". Benita is an Adjunct Professor at Pace University and an Associate Member of SDC. Learn more at www.benitadewit.com. Show Links One More Thing Not to Think About https://vimeo.com/jstudiosny/review/486420579/14dffcb021 Password: N3wSw!*LIU2020 The Laramie Project https://performingarts.pace.edu/current-season Alter/Ego https://www.facebook.com/liuposttheatrecompany/
Filmed Live Musicals is the most comprehensive online searchable database for musicals that have been filmed live on stage. Visit www.filmedlivemusicals.com to learn more. 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 Eliza Jackson, an Australian producer based in the UK whom The Stage recently listed as one of the Top 100 Theatre Makers of 2020.
Topics including making the switch from acting to producing, the joys and challenges of producing virtual theatre content during the pandemic, paying artists during lockdown, the future of streaming, what it means to make theatre during this time, and Lambert Jackson Productions streams of The Last Five Years, Songs for A New World, [title of show], and the upcoming I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. Australian born Eliza Jackson trained in Musical Theatre at the prestigious NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) in Sydney. She moved to London in 2012 and since then, has worked in the theatre industry both on and off stage. In 2018, Lambert Jackson Productions was born and their first project was to take Eliza’s one-woman show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show, The Voice Behind the Stars received 5-star reviews across the board and was then toured around Australia with much success. On her return, she took on the role of Creative Director of Lambert Jackson full time. I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change will stream at select times between January 28-30, 2021. More info and tickets available from the London Coliseum. Available wherever you listen to podcasts! If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave a review!  So, 2020, huh?! It has been a tumultuous, painful, bizarre year with so much loss, grief, and uncertainty. But on the other side of darkness, there is light. And if one good thing has come out of the pandemic, it’s that filmed live theatre content is more available than ever. From Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Shows Must Go Online, The National Theatre and Met Opera’s weekly streams, Disney+ releasing Hamilton, to smaller independent theatres like Southwark Playhouse, Wise Children, or Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe releasing previously filmed content, and creating new musicals to stream.  This year I launched the Filmed Live Musicals podcast. I chatted with director and writer Al Monaco, Tony nominee Brenda Braxton, the founder of Scenesaver Caroline Friedman, the executive director of Sarasota’s Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe Julie Leach, dancer and engineer Lena Wolfe, actor and puppeteer David Colston Corris, actor and producer Kimberly Faye Greenberg, academic Kelly Kessler, dancer and associate choreographer Barry Busby, collector Robert Sokol, and the award-winning composer Paul Gordon! The Filmed Live Musicals podcast is available for download wherever you listen to podcasts, and transcripts are available for each episode. The Filmed Live Musicals database currently has information on nearly 200 musicals. The list I’m currently working on has almost twice that! And that’s not even including musicals that have been filmed without an audience, or the new genre of “zoomsicals”, musicals performed over Zoom. In 2021, I’m looking forward to continuing to grow the site, learning about new filmed live musicals, and spotlighting artists from all around the world who make them happen.  My Favorite Things (2020)To close out 2020, here's a list (in no particular order) of my favorite filmed live musicals released this year!
Filmed Live Without an Audience
Zoomsicals (musicals performed online/virtually)
Bonus Play
What did you see this year that you loved? Let me know in the comments, or on Twitter and Facebook! Don’t want to miss upcoming streams? Sign-up for the weekly Filmed Live Musicals newsletter! Thank you to patrons Josh Brandon, Rachel Esteban, Mercedes Esteban-Lyons, Al Monaco, Jesse Rabinowitz & Brenda Goodman, David & Katherine Rabinowitz, and Bec Twist, for financially supporting Filmed Live Musicals.
No matter what level you pledge, patrons receive early access to content, including the Filmed Live Musicals podcast! Become a patron today to support the site! 
In this week's episode of the podcast, I chat with Kelly Kessler, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at DePaul University, about her new book Broadway in the Box: Television's Lasting Love Affair with the Musical.
We talk about Kelly's research, why television networks produce live musicals, the role of adverts, the first musicals on television, the first Broadway musical to air live on television (and who got to watch it), and why we should put musicals on television! Broadway in the Box: Television's Lasting Love Affair with the Musical is available at all major bookstores. About This Week's Guest Kelly Kessler is an Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at DePaul University. Her work draws on three main areas: the American musical, the intersection of genre and gender, and the mainstreaming of lesbianism in American television and film. Her scholarship can be found in works such as Studies in Musical Theatre, The Journal of E-Media Studies, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, Television and New Media, Movies, Moves, and Music: The Sonic World of the Dance Film, Televising Queer Women: A Reader, and The New Queer Aesthetic on Television: Essays on Recent Programming. Kessler has published two books, including Destabilizing the Hollywood Musical: Music, Masculinity and Mayhem and Broadway in the Box: Television's Lasting Love Affair with the Musical.  Pride Month may be over, but that's no reason to stop celebrating, and definitely not a reason to stop advocating for LGBTQI rights and representation. While there is an ever-growing list of mainstream musicals where gay and lesbian characters are treated as more than the punchline, very few of these musicals have been filmed live and publicly released. Oh, how I wish Head Over Heels (which in 2018 featured the first openly transgender woman, Peppermint, originating a role on Broadway) and The Prom (telling the story of a group of Broadway actors who help a lesbian student bring her girlfriend to prom) had been filmed live during their Broadway runs. #MORELesbiansOnBroadway! In alphabetical order, here’s a look at some filmed live musicals with LGBTQ themes and central characters who identify as LGBTQ. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie Everybody’s Talking About Jamie tells the story of a gay teenager who lives in a Yorkshire council estate and dreams of becoming a drag queen. Composed by first-time theatre writers Dan Gillespie Sells (music) and Tom MacRae (book and lyrics), it was inspired by the 2011 BBC documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16. The musical opened on the West End in 2016. It was filmed live in 2018, and broadcast in cinemas throughout the UK and Ireland, and in the North America. A movie adaptation was due for release this year, but has been postponed due to COVID. I really hope they release the filmed live version, because it is GLORIOUS. Falsettos Adapted from earlier William Finn works, Falsettos tells the story of a dysfunctional but loving Jewish New York family in the late 1970s. Marvin leaves his family, wife Trina and young son Jason, when he falls in love with another man, Whizzer. Trina ends up with the family psychiatrist Mendel, and the “family” is completed by lesbian neighbors Dr. Charlotte and Cordelia. When Whizzer is diagnosed with AIDS, the whole family comes together. The musical first opened on Broadway to rave reviews at the Golden Theater in 1992. Lincoln Center staged a highly praised revival in 2016, which was filmed live in 2017 for Live from Lincoln Center and later broadcast in cinemas across North America. The musical was also broadcast on PBS, and is now available to stream on BroadwayHD. Fun Home Composed by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron, and based on Alison Bechdel’s best-selling graphic novel of the same name, Fun Home is an intimate musical in which grown-up Alison looks back on her life in relation to her closeted father’s suicide shortly after she came out as a lesbian. After an award-winning run at the Public Theater in 2013, the musical transferred to Broadway where it played a the Circle in the Square Theatre and became the first musical to win a Tony Award for Best Original Score by an all-female writing team. Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago staged a production well-received production in 2017 which was recorded for archival purposes. In response to the COVID-19 shutdown, Victory Gardens Theater streamed the archival recording for a limited time in May. Kinky Boots Inspired by a true story, Kinky Boots tells the story of Charlie, who reverses the sinking fortunes of his family’s shoe business after meeting Lola, a drag queen in need of a sexy but sturdy shoe. With a score by Cyndi Lauper and book by Harvey Fierstein, the musical adaptation opened on Broadway in 2013 starring Billy Porter in the role of Lola. The West End production opened in 2015 and was later filmed live by BroadwayHD. It was aired in cinemas in 2019, and is now available to view on BroadwayHD. Pieces of String Pieces of String is an original musical set both in 1940 and the present day. When Jane returns to the family home after her father’s funeral to begin clearing out the house, she unfolds a devastating secret, the ramifications of which stretch across generations. Writer and composer Gus Gowland was inspired to create Pieces of String after seeing a BBC documentary that briefly mentioned gay relationships in the UK and USA during World War II, and modern day stories of gay men being unable to donate blood. Gowland sought to widen the scope for the way gay male characters are portrayed in musical theatre (a topic which he later explored in his PhD dissertation), and attempted to ensure women were also equally represented in the musical. Pieces of String premiered at the UK’s Mercury Theatre Colchester in 2019 where it was filmed live. The musical is currently available to rent on Digital Theatre. RENT A modern re-interpretation of Puccini’s La Boheme, RENT tells the story of a group of friends and artists living in the East Village in New York in the late 1980s. The musical features several gay characters, including Tom Collins, a college professor who is gay and HIV positive, Angel Dumott Schunard, a drumming drag queen who is also HIV positive, Maureen Johnson, a bisexual performance artist, and Joanne Jefferson a public interest lawyer and lesbian. Following a sold-out run at the New York Theatre Workshop, RENT transferred to Broadway in 1996 and went on to play 5123 performances before closing in September 2008. The final night of the original Broadway production was filmed live, and RENT: Filmed Live on Broadway is widely available on DVD, YouTube, Amazon, VUDU, and Google Play. Taboo Taboo the Musical is a love story set against the artistic backdrop of the New Romantic period in 1980s England, interweaving autobiographical elements from the lives of Australian-born performance artist Leigh Bowery, and unashamedly-out pop star Boy George. The musical opened on the West End in 2002, and despite lukewarm reviews, was a smash hit with audiences. The original London production was filmed in 2003 and is available on DVD (Region 2 only). Yank! YANK! tells the story of male soldiers falling in love, depicting the gay world that “thrived just beneath the surface of the US Army in the 1940s.” The musical was a hit of the NY Musical Theatre Festival in 2005, and had a successful off-Broadway run in 2010. Below 54th hosted a 10th anniversary concert earlier this year, and the video is currently available on YouTube. Extra content: These musicals are not specifically focused around LGBT storylines, but feature LGBT characters or themes. Bad Girls: The Musical Based on the award-winning British drama, the musical premiered in 2006 before transferring to the West End in 2007. It was filmed live during its West End run is now available to rent on Vimeo. Naked Boys Singing A revue-style musical, with, as the title suggests, a group of men singing in a state of undress. Although the musical was a long-running off-Broadway staple, the filmed live version was panned by critics. If watching a bunch of naked dudes singing about things that affect dudes is your thing, you can watch it on Amazon. The Rocky Horror Show The cult-phenomenon started life as a stage show in 1973 that was put together in just three weeks. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Royal Court Theatre in 2006, a special production of The Rocky Horror Tribute Show was staged featuring original cast members from stage and screen. The event was filmed live and is now widely available on DVD. A 40th anniversary gala production was staged at the Playhouse in London in 2015. and the event was livestreamed in cinemas across Europe and the UK. It was later briefly available in the USA on BBC America. The film has not yet been officially released. Victor/Victoria Starring Julie Andrews and based on the 1982 film of the same name, the musical tells the story of Victoria Grant, an out-of-work British soprano who unsuccessfully auditions for a jazz club in Paris. She befriends Toddy who convinces her to disguise herself as a man pretending to be a woman. Filmed live on Broadway for Japanese television in 1995 with the original cast, the musical is widely available on DVD and Blu-Ray. Bonus Audio Content Queer Music Heritage has an excellent list of musicals queer-centric musicals that received commercial cast recordings. Filmed Live Musicals is a labor of love that takes many hours of research and hundreds of dollars to run.
Thank you to patrons Mercedes Esteban-Lyons, Jesse Rabinowitz & Brenda Goodman, David & Katherine Rabinowitz, and Bec Twist, for financially supporting the site. Become a patron and support original research into filmed live musicals. Tiers start at $1/month. $5+ patrons receive early access to content with a monthly newsletter, and $10+ patrons will also receive early access to the new Filmed Live Musicals podcast. |
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