Everyone knows the story of the Von Trapp family and their governess Maria. Maria is sent from the convent in which she lived to take care of Captain Von Trapp’s children. Through music, she is able to calm the seven rambunctious children and convince their father he doesn’t have to run the household like the captain of a naval ship. Maria and Captain Von Trapp fall in love and are able to escape with the children out of Nazi-controlled Austria through the mountains into Switzerland. The plot is heartwarming and the music aims to keep audiences misty-eyed with joy: a formula Hollywood is revamping for today’s youth.
Musicals seem to be moving from the stage to the big screen, and films are simultaneously being transformed into live shows. From Chicago and The Producers to Spamalot and Legally Blonde: The Musical, no plot is safe from Hollywood or Broadway.[scream]
Musicals have held steady success with early films like Singing the Rain, Grease, My Fair Lady and Footloose. The 1980s brought a rut to American musicals, when new styles and changes in European shows were booming. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats and Les Miserables adapted and composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil became two of the longest running performances. Other than the consistent melodies of Disney cartoons, America had a hard time competing, until 2001, when Moulin Rouge hit the box offices.
This film changed the way the American public looked at theater. Musicals no longer had to be old-fashioned and predictable. “It made it OK for a movie to be upfront with what it’s doing,” said American studies graduate student Kathryn Edney, who is writing her dissertation on memory and nostalgia in American musical theater. With extravagance and complexity in every scene and character, Moulin Rouge appealed to a wider audience than the typical theater lovers. Its music was louder and closer to rock and roll than the classic orchestral melodies. The plot provided a much darker and scandalous alternative to what America was used to. It was closer to a drama or even action film than the predictable – and sometimes tacky – musical movies had been. These differences caught the eyes of many unexpected viewers. [musicals1]
After Moulin Rouge came a number of box office hits like Chicago, Hairspray and most recently, Sweeney Todd. Although there have been a lot of musical movies, Edney wouldn’t necessarily call the trend a surge, as with the horror movies in the past; it’s happening in “fits and starts.” However, this could be explained by the fact that musicals are harder and more complicated to produce. The actors must be able to sing and dance, not just scream. “If you don’t hit the right notes, it’ll flop,” Edney said.
Film studies professor Jeff Wray agrees musicals are very difficult to produce, but can see this trend continuing for quite a while. “Success breeds success,” he said. “Once they stop making money, musicals will stop.” But not completely. He went on to explain that people still enjoy musicals and their production will continue to occur, albiet not frequently.
“They’re running out of (musicals) that’ll hit the box office,” said Zoe Zuidveld, a freshman at the Residential College for Arts and Humanities. She could not think of many more musicals that would be as good on film as they are on stage, but would like to see more anyway. “They’re a good break from what you normally see in the theaters,” she said. This break could be the main reason for the increase in popularity. After Sept. 11, Edney explained, America needed the nostalgia and comfort musicals offer. “People have a desire for the ideals musicals represent,” she said. The Producers, for example, seemed to have the “throwback” style, even though there was a lot of new technology throughout the film. For example, the scene with the dancing Nazis on the rooftop required a lot of digital editing. [break]
Better technology is also benefiting musicals’ reputations. In the past, people could watch a performance, and all they had to take away from it was a memory. Eventually, recordings of the music were available to the public. But now, anyone can get a copy of a certain performance, or watch a movie several times over and “hold on to it,” Edney said. Movies make seeing popular musicals more affordable as well. Producers only have to pay for the production once for a movie, but for live performances, they have to continually pay the cast and crew and maintain the stage and facility. Tickets for Broadway shows are on the expensive side, but one can go to the movie theater or rent a DVD for a fraction of the price.
Apart from parents being able to afford to sit their kids down for a musical more often and in the privacy of their own homes, musicals are increasingly adapting to the tastes of today’s youth. Rock and pop music are making their way onto center stage. Popular music has changed, and musical and filmmakers have finally shifted their focus. The melodies featured in High School Musical are a prime example. The songs sound just like what kids can hear on the radio, with drums and guitar. “Kids were looking for it,” Edney said. “It’s a very straight-forward musical romance.” The characters and situations aren’t new; it’s the way they are presented to the audience. Wray described it as an “exciting breakthrough,” but the sequels were simply “cash cows” made to make money. Idlewild with Outkast is another example. Still using many of the same stock characters and circumstances, it managed great success, largely due to its use of hip-hop music.
Like the film industry, theater producers have also found ways to attract a more diverse range of audiences. Like musicals into movies, film is being converted onto the stage. And producers and directors have been turning the most unlikely movies into Broadway hits. Few would have expected Legally Blonde or The Lord of the Rings to succeed in song, which is one of reasons why their musical versions have become so popular. “There’s a curiosity factor,” Edney said. “How can you possibly make a musical out of that?” Spamalot is another unique example. Even though it was inevitably going to happen at some point, Monty Python’s British mockeries came at a right time. Someone was finally poking fun at European theater, not the American version, as in the past.
[cheese]Audiences are also watching more musicals based on music from popular artists, like Movin’ Out from Billy Joel’s classics or ABBA’s Mama Mia. These are often referred to as “jukebox musicals.” Plots are written to include existing popular songs. However, these don’t always go over well with the masses. Because the original artists are not the people singing, some feel the musicals seem to be lacking something. But others, who happen to be huge fans of the particular artists, may love the performances because they already love the songs. “You know the songs you’re going to get,” Edney said. And younger viewers, who may not be familiar with the original voices and melodies, might also love the overall show due to its novelty.
Much speculation over the quality of remakes exists simultaneously with rave reviews. People question whether the stage version is better than the movie, or vice versa. The Theory of Adaptation, a book by Linda Hutcheon, examines these suspicions. “It does seem to be more or less acceptable to adapt Romeo and Juliet into a respected high art form, like an opera or a ballet, but not to make it into a movie,” she wrote. Wray said movie musicals have to have “energy, angst, romance” to be successful, but comedies fall under different criteria. “They have to be a bit cheesy or have at least a self-awareness of the cheese factor,” he said, using Spamalot as an example.
Musicals, adapted or not, may have yet another mark against them. Critics argue that, realistically, no one actually breaks out into song and dance – at least not as frequently as most musicals. But Edney argues while this may be true, the world also doesn’t encounter aliens and talking animals. Fantasies are even more unrealistic than musicals. English freshman Emily Sieting explained that, to her, musicals are not that far-fetched. “They keep you more entertained,” she said. “And people do sing a lot in high schools, like in the hallways and before class.”
How long this trend will continue is uncertain. But as long as unique and modern musicals are produced, on a stage or on a screen, people will buy tickets. No matter if it is out of curiosity, speculation or to escape, tickets and other merchandise will sell. And as long as those things are being purchased, musical movies will hit a chord with both audiences and producers.

Athletes have always been revered as superstars in the eyes of many children; these players are admirable performers who provide a feeling of belonging, even in the heart of the eight-year-old who may never see a live contest or meet any team members. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to find this desire often continues past childhood, as many adults cling to TV screens every Monday night during football season or tune into AM radio stations to catch the latest hockey match. In addition, it is arguable a large portion of the most-watched programs in history have been related to sports. Sports have dominated our lives for decades and show no sign of letting up.
Last winter, Detroit’s economy got a boost of $273.9 million because Super Bowl XL came to town. Greece spent almost $12 billion hosting the 2004 Summer Olympics. The 2006 FIFA World Cup drew in a television audience of 1.2 billion people, 17 percent of the world population. With numbers like these, it is obvious sports impact our lives, and it is especially evident at Big Ten schools like MSU. It’s clear sports can affect certain locations, and the existence of athletics – and the performances of the athletes – can alter perceptions of these places. [hockey13]
In the local spectrum, it’s undeniable the performances of our major athletic teams have an effect on the thoughts and actions of current students and Spartan alumni. East Lansing certainly showed its pride when the men’s hockey team brought home the 2007 NCAA National Championship, sparking an interesting camaraderie among students. The new bonds may not have been forged over a shared interest over the sport, but they were clearly made in the sense of a common spirit for the university. As for football, tens of thousands of people show up at Spartan Stadium on Saturdays during the fall to cheer for the same colors. They come to experience an exciting, although not always victorious, game of football. “People change on game days,” Spanish junior Katie Hansen said. “Everyone understands. You have this unspoken bond.” Hansen couldn’t imagine her college life without Big Ten sports. Not only do they add a lot of excitement, but they also give the school a lot more recognition than smaller schools.
But why have athletics become so much more important to universities than a friendly competition? “[Sports are] what people who are linked to an institution think people relate to,” sociology professor Toby Ten Eyck said. “They believe it’s what personifies their institution.” Sporting events are social and fun. “Who would want to watch a classroom?” Ten Eyck said.
Matt Trierweiler, a 2004 telecommunications graduate of MSU, agrees. Since he moved to Los Angeles, he has benefited from the Big Ten name. “Even if they don’t know if the program I was in was any good, they’ve heard of the school and that’s all that matters,” he said. Trierweiler is an executive assistant for Liquid Theory, a production company, where he makes pitches, coordinates casting, organizes schedules and helps with the production. “No one in entertainment talks about academics,” Trierweiler said. “Everyone just talks about sports.” He explained schools like Northwestern University, for example, focus more of their attention on their academic standards simply because their sports teams don’t do as well in the Big Ten conference. [sports13]
Because of that desire to have incredible wins, kids are feeling pressure to become great athletes. More parents are encouraging their miniature athletes to pursue distant goals. Beyond the physical benefits of exercise, athletic talent can lead to scholarships and other opportunities that kids might not have been able to get otherwise. At MSU, 750 student-athletes are given scholarship support through the Ralph Young Fund. All donations to the fund are from private donors who can choose which area or program of the athletic department they would like their money to go to.
Although she would have liked financial aid because of her high school academic performance, Hansen understands why student-athletes get so much. “They pour every second into [their sport],” she said. “It’s like their job.” Because they put spend so much time practicing to better the university’s athletic reputation, most athletes don’t have time to work and pay tuition during school.
The fame of athletes can be easily be likened to the fame of Hollywood stars. They become role models through their abilities; being able to throw a ball into a hoop or running quickly in a circle can turn one into a celebrity. “[Athletes] can do things normal people can’t,” Hansen explained. “They can get hit by the biggest, strongest guys and bounce back up.” Ten Eyck said kids also look up to sports stars because their lives are glamorous. Athletes get to have fun for a living, which differs from perceptions of the lives of politicians or firemen, for example. He raised the questions of why kids look up athletes as opposed to other well-known figures, and why kids don’t have the same star-struck appreciation for their parents. The answer to the second, Ten Eyck said, is simply, “[Parents] are around so much.” Athletes are the most attractive alternatives; they have money and popularity. Why would an eight-year-old idolize Al Gore over Tom Brady? [sports3]
Not all MSU students see sports as one of their priorities, however. “I’ve tried to get into sports, but I just don’t see what all the hype is about,” said Cory Garcia, a telecommunications senior with a specialization in film studies. “MSU is not a football team, it is a school. Sports have nothing to do with the place or the people who go there. It is just an activity and people take it too far. I think it is odd that so many Americans allow sports to define our culture.”
Even though sports, in some cases, replace some of our priorities, they still manage to unify. With so many disputes in today’s world, it’s a wonder millions of people will tune into the same channel at the same time to root for the same team. Ten Eyck mentioned that in headlines, “It’s not ‘the Michigan State football team won,’ it’s ‘Michigan State won.’” Every fan is victorious, not just the players.
The bonds produced over common interests in athletic performance can extend after one leaves his or her city of sports idolation. When students graduate and set up house in different cities or states, other fans of favorite teams will likely exist. Trierweiler’s boss, for instance, also went to MSU. “That helped in the interview and when we watch the NCAA tourney,” Trierweiler said. The spirit of competition and the tendency for the success of athletes to translate into pride for the fans make sports an inviable part of a location’s identity. In East Lansing, defeats of the Spartans can reflect negatively on the university, while victories can unite residents. And sparking up a conversation about the latest MSU contest is certainly an easy task for student sports enthusiasts…even if a loss causes a momentary slip in the bond between athletics and the university.

Ticket in hand, you walk up to the door of the Fairchild Theatre and exchange it for the night\’s performance. After finding your seat, awaiting the entrances of the show\’s most eccentric characters, you flip through the program and read the dozens of names involved with the show, both actors and crew. Suddenly the curtain gracefully opens, and you escape from the usual world of homework and your job. You escape momentarily into the scene on stage and forget the exam lurking in your near future. You focus on the characters; you\’re not distracted by mismatched furniture or wardrobe malfunctions. The world on stage is as real as your own.
Much like an artist sculpts his latest masterpiece, dozens of people spend weeks working behind the scenes to create a world to where the audience can travel. Set and costume designers, prop coordinators, technical directors and many other individuals hidden from the spotlights are necessary for a theater production to succeed. When immersed in a story\’s plot line, most theater-goers quickly forget what goes into a show. It takes about 80 hours to simply design the set; another 100 hours to construct it and making just one costume from scratch can take nearly 12 hours. And, for most of MSU\’s Department of Theatre productions, all of this is crammed into four weeks.
A Place to Roam
[domer]Design for the background or set begins with a collage of images the director puts together in order to convey a premise and a mood for the designer to build from. For the production \”As Bees in Honey Drown,\” director Jeanine Cull used magazine covers and expensive furniture and clothing to display a very glamorous and luxurious attitude. From those concepts, MSU set designer Kirk Domer will make a virtual version of a potential set. Using PhotoShop and 3D Studio Max, a program typically used for interior design, he can arrange furniture, lighting, color and other specific details. These things then transform the stage. \”Lighting is a manipulation,\” Domer said. Different angles of lighting change the mood and atmosphere of the sets. They also are able to disguise cheaply-made props and backdrops into realistic artifacts from the characters\’ world.
Once the computer design is approved by the director, it is then made into a miniature 3D model. Usually, Domer makes his models out of tissue and construction paper, paper clip wires and pennies to weigh things down. It takes about 60 hours to build a model and another 60 hours to adjust and arrange the design so it is accurate before building the real set.
It\’s the students, though, that do most of the actual scene construction. Gwen Lindsay, a graduate student in theater, oversaw the sets for October\’s performance of \”Pygmalion.\” The backgrounds were constantly changing right up until the opening show. \”You tweak it as you go along,\” Lindsay said. Since the crew only has about 10 days to build, they have to adapt to modifications in both script and costume. For example, the characters in \”Pygmalion\” wore hats with large diameters and could not fit through some of the doorways. The set builders had to expand the entryways immediately after the first dress rehearsal.
Regardless of the inevitable stress, Domer and Lindsay agree the theater allows for more of their own creativity than other designing careers. Unlike graphic design, where the designer must create something very specific to a client\’s image, scenery designers can put their own interpretations into their work. \”If you want to build something and it fits the dimensions at Home Depot, you aren\’t being creative enough,\” Domer said.
In addition to set designers, the technical director is also closely involved with the assembly of the sets. As the designers visualize the big picture, technical directors focus on the details. They figure out how to make several rooms with a very limited budget. For example, walls and furniture only need to be painted where the audience sees. Brian Adams, the technical director for MSU, explained although props on stage only have to look attractive from one side, they still want overall quality because of the pride they take in their work. But after the long days spent working to construct the sets, everything comes down just a few hours after the final show.
Dress Me Up, Dress Me Down
While scenery gives the actors a place to roam, costumes and props mold the actor into a character. \”We\’re about as familiar with the characters as the actors,\” said Karen Kangas-Preston, costume shop supervisor. The first thing costumers do for a production is read the script. They have to know the setting, the personalities of the characters and how much time the actors have to change from one outfit to another. Like set designers, they also meet with the director about once a week to make sure the wardrobes are correct to the time period and are coordinated with the backgrounds. Every character\’s outfits are sketched to be approved by the director. Costumers have to decide what colors and fabrics will work best for each costume.[cutting]
Every costumer is different, but Kangas-Preston usually starts looking for costumes in MSU\’s costume closets. Since they typically work on a tight budget, transforming \”really awful \’70s style suits\” instead of starting from scratch is a lot simpler and much more cost-efficient. Sometimes, however, costuming gets a bigger chunk of the funds if the show requires period-style clothing that has to be custom-made or if there is a bigger cast.
When a costume is made from scratch, Kangas-Preston and her team search through the school\’s library of clothing patterns. When they find one that works, they will sew it together first using low-cost linen to fit the actor; this way, if they do make a huge cutting error, it is not on the expensive material. Then, they will copy the mock-costume with the actual fabrics, continually re-fitting the actor so it will fit correctly for dress rehearsal.
Dress rehearsal is like the costumers\’ due date. Everything must be made by that day because then, the designers and costumers decide what works and what needs to be change before opening night. Costume changes are the biggest obstacle facing the costume shop. When an actor has only a few lines of dialogue before having to be on stage in something completely different, costumers have a few tricks to make that change smoother. The most common quick change alterations include the following: switching buttons to zippers and combining shirts and pants together into one easy step. Also there to help the actors are the students of Theatre 212: Production Design: Costumes and Make-up; they are required to be on the costume crew for at least one production.[karen]
To make sure no part of a costume is misplaced, there are check-in sheets so that at the end of a day, the costumers know everything made it back to the closets. This is similar to the organization of the show\’s props. Fine arts senior Erin Freeman was the prop coordinator for \”Pygmalion\” and described her job as the \”nitty-gritty detail person.\” When the costumers and designers create the big picture for the audience, prop coordinators make sure the little things are believable. If a character has to write down a phone number in a scene, they make sure that person has a pen on stage. For most productions, there are two large cabinets full of objects: one for big things and one for small. There is even a refrigerator backstage to store the edible items.
All of these things – sets, costumes and props – are always ready by opening night so the audience is captivated by the characters and story, not by extravagant objects. \”Our goal is not to be seen,\” Domer said. So, if you find yourself hunting for the actors\’ names at the end of the performance, the crew has succeeded. The next time you find yourself plunging into a play or musical, just know the characters you see on stage are illuminated by those individuals that put in so many late nights and early mornings just for you to have an evening of escape.