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Same content, different name, more me.
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So I just finished coming back from my cousin (Steve’s cousin), Jason Robert Brown’s, musical “13.” Jason is a Broadway veteran and won a Tony for his score on the musical “Parade” which was directed by Harold Prince and played at the Lincoln Center theatre. He’s been touted as one of the best songwriters since Stephen Sondheim. For anyone who is not into Broadway musicals, that’s pretty huge.
Anyway, so Jason has been working on this show called 13 for a while. It’s a story about a 13 year old Jewish boy who moves to Indiana from NYC and attempts to get all the popular kids to come to his Bar Mitzvah so he can be/feel cool as well.
What’s amazingly impressive is that the entire cast is comprised of thirteen 13-17 year olds. The band/orchestra members/rock band are all in that age range as well. Uh- Ma-Zing! And they are all triple threats – amazing actors/singers/dancers. Amazing. I especially loved Sarah Niemietz as Patrice.
The musical opens up with a song about what it feel like to be thirteen. You want to feel like you belong, you’re constantly told what you can’t do, you just want to fit in and be liked. Throughout the show there are songs about geeks, and betrayal, and crushes, and gossip, and friendships… and you realize – “I think I’m still 13. I am in a perpetual state of 13.”
It especially made me think of the online world, which can be soo very High School. Yes it can. Don’t deny it. :) Popularity, stats, comments. At times it’s enough to make you sick. Other times it’s enough to make you high on life. I mean, who doesn’t want to feel accepted and liked for who they are and what they do? Everyone. Sometimes though, it just feels like too much work to keep up. And it is. Because there comes a point when you have to say “fuck it.”
As the play progresses the protagonist, Evan, realizes that striving to be liked and be popular comes at the cost of his real friends, who like him for who he is. And ultimately, being who he is makes for becoming popular.
I was reminded of myself at thirteen. That awfully awkward, tall and lanky kid who just could not for the life of her fit in anywhere. And how after much struggling to fit in, gave into herself. Because the realization comes after a while, that it doesn’t matter who does and doesn’t like you. But to know you have friends you can count on, and who care about you, can make you feel like the most popular (and lucky) kid in the room.
If you’re in Los Angeles, definitely take a peek at the show and let me know what you think.
Steve Woolf, Steve Garfield and I recorded another episode of New Mediacracy yesterday and TalkShoe still, STILL hasn’t generated the mp3 file. We’ve sent emails to see what was up and no response.
Seriously. WTF?
I don’t really get star-struck, but I live in LA and it occurred to me that it may be interesting and amusing to document the times that I see celebrities in the neighborhood.
The other night Steve and I went out for our daily green tea at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and while we were waiting for our order we realized that Robbie Williams was in front of us with a friend. He was much tanner and older looking than I expected. He was dressed pretty chill and was totally casual. Nobody even glanced his way… except for us.
Above is one of his latest videos, which is pretty cool.
I was just reading a post on Will Video For Food which highlights a quote by Wired Magazine’s editor Chris Anderson stating that “the age of the blockbuster is over.” I found it by way of Micki Krimmel’s post which covers the same subject. Micki counters that it’s far from over because of our need to connect with our media emotionally.
This made me think about a conversation that I had in the past with Steve about how we interact with media, and more generally entertainment.
I agree that we as humans have a need to congregate. In the future I think audiences will naturally splinter because of the new forms of media available, but the idea of “event” will always be a strong pull.
I still like going to the theatre; it offers a different experience from going to the movies every week, or watching television every day, or sitting in front of my computer screen every hour, or checking my mobile phone every minute.
I think of live theatre in that it still exists, and is entertaining, but has become more of an event, and is much more expensive because of the cost to make it profitable. Now we have shows like “You’re the one that I want” (which a family member is involved in, btw) in order to drive audiences to live theatre. So in a sense, one medium can help fuel attention to another.
Some people say new media will kill television. I laugh. It won’t. It’s different.
I still want to see the summer blockbuster. And independent films (a whole other conversation). I also realize that a few years from now it’ll be much more expensive to attend. It may be like going to the theatre. A more special event.
So in a sense, perhaps the blockbuster as we know it is dead… and slowly evolving in order to make room for the next new thing.
