Latest / The BSB Podcast / 'Back To The Future: The Musical' Music and Stagecraft | The Box Seat Babes Podcast
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back listeners to part two of our Back to the Future discussion.
- 0:04No, we're not talking about the sequel to the Robert Zemeckis film, but instead our Boxe Babes part two discussion where we'll be talking about the incredible stagecraft and music
- 0:12from the touring show of Back to the Future the musical.
- 0:15uh Spoiler warning, if you haven't seen this blast from the past show and want to go without any spoilers, then it's time to hightail it out of here before any further damage
- 0:25to our timeline has occurred.
- 0:27However, if still here,
- 0:28Let's jump right into the journey that doesn't require any roads Just about a half an hour of your time.
- 0:33Before we jump into it, follow and subscribe to us on all major social media platforms to stay up to date on news and reviews from here in Michigan and larger theater community.
- 0:41But thank you again, RJ, for being here.
- 0:44It's a pleasure to be back in 1955 with you, or 1985, or 2005.
- 0:50It's all...
- 0:51That's actually kind of cool.
- 0:52We're doing this in the year of the five.
- 0:55But thanks again for joining me and being here and talking about the music, stagecraft, and everything else under the sun.
- 1:02Quite possibly the better part of Back to the Future, which might be blasphemous for some of our listeners.
- 1:07Yes.
- 1:08Well, we'll see.
- 1:10This might be the redemption episode.
- 1:12It might not be the redemption episode.
- 1:15If you're still with us after last week, thank you for being here.
- 1:18enjoy it.
- 1:19I hope that you like this one better.
- 1:21Um, and to give you a recap of last episode, we did talk about this, the story and the characters from Back to the Future.
- 1:29Again, the same story everybody knows, the same characters everybody knows, except RJ who has not seen the film.
- 1:35Again, watch part one if you haven't, we had a whole discussion.
- 1:37He missed out on a essential childhood film and he will be going back to watch it at some point.
- 1:43Add it to the list.
- 1:44It never ends.
- 1:46but we talked about how this story does it work?
- 1:49Does it not work?
- 1:50Did they capture the nostalgia?
- 1:52Did they not?
- 1:53Um, in our opinions, it's was meh..
- 1:58Is that, is that, is Matt the right way to say that RJ?
- 2:03Yeah, that's basically how I put it in a text to someone earlier.
- 2:06So that's, that's pretty correct.
- 2:08Yeah, it was meh.
- 2:09was the story itself, as somebody who grew up on it, it did not connect with me the way I wanted it to.
- 2:15Be it maybe I haven't seen the film in quite some time.
- 2:18Maybe I haven't enjoyed.
- 2:21I was going to actually watch it last night and I didn't because I was tired after getting home because it is kind of a long show, which is kind of funny too because act one is not
- 2:29as long as act two.
- 2:30Act two was actually longer, which is usually not what happens for Broadway show, but I digress.
- 2:36So all that to say, we are setting the story and the characters aside and we're going to talk about first the music.
- 2:40Obviously, RJ, you know who Al, wow, not Alvin, Alan Silvestri is because he is kind of the iconic, you know, 1990s, 1980s, like music man for movies.
- 2:56Would you agree with that?
- 2:57Like that's kind of like his whole shtick is like writing some of the most iconic songs and music.
- 3:03or some of the biggest movies out there.
- 3:05Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people kind of have an era where their work like does really well or doesn't do really well.
- 3:15um And that was his.
- 3:21Absolutely.
- 3:22again, I'm going through some of his just some of his work, some of his films here again, back to the future.
- 3:30Obviously, that's why we're here.
- 3:32Flight of the Navigator.
- 3:33We have Predator.
- 3:34We have, you know, it goes on and on.
- 3:38Father of the Bride, which, you know, for Dianne Keaton fans, you know, that's this is a touching moment to talk about that.
- 3:45Death Becomes Her, which already still hasn't seen.
- 3:47We've got to fix that.
- 3:49Um, but like there's just a lot of really important movies.
- 3:53I mean, the bodyguard, Forrest Gump, like this is, correct me if I'm wrong, I think he also did Harry Potter.
- 4:01I could be wrong.
- 4:02I could be totally showing my age here and not knowing these things, but I digress.
- 4:06Anyways, so the point is, that he's kind of the music, one of the musical geniuses that we have for films.
- 4:11And he, his work is very much, um, present here because obviously the score is still pretty much the same.
- 4:19As our music man, before we get into the new songs, I want to talk about that score a little bit.
- 4:24Did you recognize the iconic music even though you haven't seen the film?
- 4:27So there's a main, what I would consider the main theme, which is really only a small section of maybe the title song um that I recognized because of my history in band.
- 4:43And anytime you kind of do a, you know, film score medley, uh this was one of those things, right?
- 4:53Like it probably would have been in a medley similar to
- 4:56something with Jurassic Park and something with Star Wars and then this and so kind of those uh sci-fi movies.
- 5:03uh So, you know, played a couple bars could probably, you know, la di da a couple lines, but aside from that, not, not really.
- 5:15That's fair.
- 5:16I mean, that's fair.
- 5:17mean, this is, there is definitely a score that most people who have seen this film could recognize.
- 5:24And I feel like with those, like that era of film, every film had a score that was so, like when we saw Death Becomes Her, and when they started the show and I said, that's the
- 5:33music from the movie.
- 5:36And you see my face is lighting up more talking about that than the current one we're on.
- 5:39that, it's great stuff.
- 5:41great.
- 5:41We're loving here.
- 5:42ah But,
- 5:44This show, which obviously the movie is not a musical, takes that.
- 5:49And then it brings in Glenn Ballard, who did a lot of music and lyrics for some of the greats out there, Wilson Phillips, Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill no doubt.
- 5:58And along with Nick Finlow brings together a whole bunch of music to the show.
- 6:06One of the things I just want to start off right off the bat by saying about the music is I really struggled with...
- 6:12that there didn't seem to be a specific identity for the 80s to the 50s back to the 80s, if that makes any sense.
- 6:20Did you feel that?
- 6:21Like, it felt like we were just blending all this music.
- 6:23There wasn't like a specifically 1950s feel to the 50s part.
- 6:27There wasn't like a a like a synth pop 80s feel to the 80s part.
- 6:31I feel like we were that was a part of this that was missing for me.
- 6:33Yeah, I mean, I think again, because of the very short spent time in the eighties, like the costuming was doing all of the work.
- 6:46And because we got, basically got like two numbers, three, three numbers, I would say at most four.
- 6:55um
- 6:57that
- 6:58really would have been falling under the 80s before they make the jump and they were all
- 7:06They were all so hardcore musical theater without giving a specific time of musical theater.
- 7:15Whereas then when we do the 30 year back, it's so clearly like I thought the fifties had way more of an identity than the eighties.
- 7:28They reference the music of the eighties towards the end because they literally do pop music.
- 7:34There was nothing original that told me.
- 7:40we are into different time continuums basically.
- 7:43Aside from, you know, the dance, dance music, dances, the live band.
- 7:51yes, correct.
- 7:54I had someone earlier describe it in a very interesting way and they said, it is 100 % reflective of a current musical and not of the decades that it came from, which I thought
- 8:06was interesting because I think that is actually true.
- 8:08It feels like a musical made for today.
- 8:12Yes, which when we look at the people that made this score, right, you're talking about Alan making the score score, which is really
- 8:21the undertones, it's not actually what they're singing or saying over music.
- 8:26Glenn with the music and lyrics, but then Nick with the vocal and music arrangements.
- 8:34So like Glenn and Nick would have been the people to really be making the decisions on, at least, I mean, I'm sure they were all working together, but in regards to the lyrics and
- 8:46the characterization of the music, like that just comp-
- 8:51completely felt off and I don't know if because it was because they were shaping it up for Broadway and they wanted it to be like a block it felt like a wannabe blockbuster that was
- 9:10completely like if you took the songs completely out of this show and just put them in their own show
- 9:17I don't know what the plot to that would be, but you could probably do it.
- 9:21And the show would be fine.
- 9:26because yeah, yeah.
- 9:27The, I didn't need a song to tell me where are we going?
- 9:32I didn't need a song to tell me my dad has no spine.
- 9:36I didn't need a song to tell me I'm going to be mayor, though you can happily keep that one in because that was probably
- 9:45the best song of the entire show.
- 9:47ah
- 9:48Yeah, like the the and the ensemble numbers Yeah, it felt very like I almost felt like a part of like at least two or three of the numbers I was like Are we about to have a kick
- 9:58line?
- 9:59Like where the identity of this music is?
- 10:03all over the place
- 10:04which I think is also telling, cause we had a conversation on the drive home when we couldn't really remember a song from the movie.
- 10:13And you said, I almost wish, not the movie, the show, the musical.
- 10:17And you said, I almost wish that this was a straight show.
- 10:19And I have to agree because there was no sense of identity.
- 10:23And there were some times that I didn't even know when we were in a new song, cause it all sounded melodically the same.
- 10:28It all sounded like it blended into one another.
- 10:31And part of this, I wonder, is also because we did have lot of music issues.
- 10:36We had a lot of sound mixing problems where the music was too loud, the microphones were too soft.
- 10:42But also, don't think that there was really, with the exception of My Baby, Pretty Baby, and Something About That Boy, I can't tell you a single song that I really listened to in
- 10:51Act One.
- 10:51And I only know those because I'm looking at a list and I'm like, I can identify Pretty Baby because that's the song that Lorraine's singing about Marty.
- 10:58And Something About That Boy closed out the show.
- 11:00But they didn't have like a, there wasn't a defying gravity moment here.
- 11:04There wasn't like each song has its clear intention.
- 11:07They all sounded like the exact same song that you would hear every hour on the radio currently.
- 11:14You know what I mean?
- 11:14Yeah, like I just think of the, you know, I'll give an example from one the more recent ones we've attended, Beetlejuice.
- 11:22Like automatically, I think dead mom.
- 11:26Correct.
- 11:28specific to her character, right?
- 11:30Like I can draw that parallel can, those two things are simultaneous to each other.
- 11:35And that is a character moment.
- 11:39And I'm getting something from her character in that moment.
- 11:43Whereas these, and I'll just say like, of course the cast was incredibly talented.
- 11:49Um, they did a wonderful job.
- 11:53I just, the writing.
- 11:55didn't do them any favors, in my opinion.
- 12:00And there was no memorable moment where I was like, this song feels, I really feel the character through this song.
- 12:12Because like you said, the song list for this is actually insane.
- 12:19It never stopped.
- 12:21I was like, my gosh, it actually reminded me right away of which I, I'm only drawing this parallel because of the way in which the show runs.
- 12:32But I was thinking of SUFFS because SUFFS almost, they almost never stopped singing.
- 12:38It is almost a show where you have minimal scenes with speaking only.
- 12:45And I thought that this musical was going to be like,
- 12:5090 % talking with like 10, 15, 20 % music.
- 12:58So when we started out and it just kept going, I was like, yeah, like you said, everything felt the same.
- 13:09It felt like one very, very long.
- 13:13ballad
- 13:15Well, yeah.
- 13:16Yeah.
- 13:20A lot of ballad.
- 13:21Well, and they just they didn't supplement each other well because we had a lot of ballads, but then you'd have like these super high energy energy numbers with the
- 13:30ensemble.
- 13:31um And it didn't the flow wasn't there like it was it was almost like they wanted to make sure that we were still awake after the ballad.
- 13:43And so they were like,
- 13:45Let's put in a high power number that feels a little bit wonky, but we're gonna play it off like it's a comedy thing.
- 13:57I'm specifically thinking of the moment that they basically, it wasn't tap dancing, but it felt like it um in the docs space.
- 14:06I don't know if that's his house or his shed or what that is, but wherever we were and
- 14:15then they just let and then we were like, ha ha, they're still here, oh
- 14:19and then back into a ballad
- 14:20And I think what's interesting too, just about this music is that I, the songs that were memorable, really, besides I gotta start somewhere with Goldie Wilson, that number's
- 14:32great.
- 14:33But the only ones that were really memorable to me were the ones that weren't even written for the show.
- 14:37Earth Angel, Johnny B Good, Power of Love, those songs that were actually real songs, those were the ones that stood out, but they also were the ones that were in the original
- 14:46film, and so it makes sense you have those.
- 14:48I was like, you let...
- 14:50another person's music overshadow yours when you had a whole show you could write.
- 14:54Yeah, yeah.
- 14:56we have, I mean, I feel like every re-song had a, every re-song, every song had a reprise uh because they didn't have anything else to put in it, which a lot of shows do, let's be
- 15:13fair.
- 15:15But.
- 15:16Did you need it?
- 15:17Do you need a reprise to Pretty Baby?
- 15:20Do you need like, yeah, struggling.
- 15:25I love a reprise.
- 15:27I love a callback, but there were so many callbacks.
- 15:29Like literally in the middle of a song, they'd be like, all of a sudden Lorraine will just be like hitting like a pretty baby note in the background.
- 15:35I'm like, what's, like I get what you're calling back to, but also like too many layers, too many things.
- 15:42You could have cut out three or four songs from each act and still had the story.
- 15:47And also like, did we need a song where George is singing about peeping Tom on?
- 15:52his future wife.
- 15:53Like, I mean, like, there were some of these, I'm just like, I get what you're going for, but like, it's not doing it for me.
- 16:00Yeah, I think Endgame, they were hoping for more comedic relief coming from the music.
- 16:08And for some reason, maybe it was just because it was, it's on the line.
- 16:16Like so many of plot points in the show are on the line of cringe, but because it was a comedy and because of the, it's just sci-fi and like people can kind of laugh it off.
- 16:26But when you put it in a musical and then you make a whole song about it.
- 16:30There wasn't uh nearly enough laughter.
- 16:33when I think when I put this, when we keep citing Death Becomes Her, but like if you were to put a laugh track of like what the audience sounds like in Death Becomes Her versus
- 16:44this show.
- 16:45I maybe heard like a handful of times that the audience actually audibly laughed throughout almost three hours of a show.
- 16:57Yes.
- 16:58Which again, I'm not here to shit on the show completely.
- 17:01And so this is where I am going to turn towards the effects because I feel like that's where the show really shines.
- 17:07And I did, I just wanted to say, granted, this means nothing to anybody other than RJ here, but I misspoke last night when I said that I won the Tony award for best, you know,
- 17:15best staging, best effects.
- 17:16It did not, it was nominated, but it never won.
- 17:20But this is where Back to the Future really shines is the effects of the staging with the car specifically.
- 17:27the lighting design with the car and the way that they used both the scrim in the front and the digital screen in the back.
- 17:34That is the sole reason why I liked parts of this show.
- 17:39What was your take on all that?
- 17:41Yeah, I mean, literally, I completely like, thank God, thank God, because it is the redeeming quality of this production.
- 17:54um And that is where it blows my mind a little bit.
- 18:00I'm like, this thing, you did this thing so well, like so well.
- 18:07um
- 18:09And it was in those moments where the audience was like audibly gasping and like, whoa, that's so cool.
- 18:16Like it was just electric, literally.
- 18:21And man, if they could have just spanned that more throughout, I think this production would have been 10 times as good.
- 18:29Don't ask me exactly what that looks like, but I agree the special effects and we've seen similar special effects, but
- 18:37they just really capitalized.
- 18:40What they did, they did very, very well.
- 18:43And it is unlike any other production, I think, that I at least have seen in recent years.
- 18:50uh So whatever creative minds got together and were like, this is a good plan, um you really are probably the saviors of this show.
- 19:07So just to give listeners a kind of an idea of what's going on here.
- 19:10So obviously we have the DeLorean that comes out on stage, comes out very quickly.
- 19:13I did not know if that was going to stop on the stage.
- 19:15Obviously I know it's all timed and everything perfectly, but there is a middle, like not like a record.
- 19:21am I looking for?
- 19:21Like a turntable, correct?
- 19:22It's a turntable that they use in the staging of the show quite a bit.
- 19:27But when they are driving this car, the screen on the back is looking like you're flying 88 miles an hour.
- 19:35and this car is turning on this turntable, which just gave it such the coolest effect between the lighting and the turning and the way that the car was going off, that it truly
- 19:46felt like that car was going.
- 19:49And again, part of me is like, understand how they did it.
- 19:51And I also don't understand how they did it.
- 19:53If that makes any sense to anybody else other than me.
- 19:56Like there was just like this balance of like, I know the staging what's happening, but at the same time, you're getting that car to look like it's going.
- 20:04almost 90 miles an hour and it's not moving at all.
- 20:07Which is a very cool effect.
- 20:09Yes, um which yes, so I may have just done a tad bit of research.
- 20:18um
- 20:20Again, spoilers if you don't want to know how the car is operating, but it is obviously a specifically built prop, the car itself, but there is a robotic arm.
- 20:33Okay.
- 20:34and mechanisms, which of course makes sense because of the angles that we're getting.
- 20:38um I'm assuming it's lifted even just a bit off the ground when it seems like it is on the ground so that the tires can, I'm not even sure if the tires spin or just the lights make
- 20:52it look like they're spinning.
- 20:54Obviously there are moments where the tires are rotating, but uh
- 21:00I was very interested in knowing how it would be moving once it was off the ground.
- 21:10because I know on Broadway, obviously they build a set around, basically around this and it does or did a lot more, but you want to still have that razzle and dazzle on the road.
- 21:23And so you have to have a stage that ultimately can handle.
- 21:29having a, I mean, we were not far back.
- 21:34We were a middle orchestra, but it was pretty, I would say over the orchestra pit maybe even a little bit further.
- 21:43Um, so, and, turning at every angle, right.
- 21:53and just citing what it did on Broadway, it sounds like it did a
- 21:58360 barrel roll originally.
- 22:01um So yeah, it is incredible.
- 22:08Somebody probably with experience in automobiles and robotics obviously was a very big part of, I mean, I'm sure they have an operator just for that, just for the car, if not a
- 22:21team of operators.
- 22:25But yes, according to this, giant robotic hidden arm attached to the underside provides primary lift and movement.
- 22:34Which makes sense.
- 22:35And I was thinking it was maybe like a forklift kind of thing, kind of like Elphaba, but like that makes sense because it's like an actual, you need this to look and operate
- 22:41really quickly.
- 22:42And the way that it was moving, was, it's responding, like you're turning a corner, that car is whipping around that corner kind of dangerously, you know, like it's going.
- 22:52And so that makes sense that it'd be like a robotic arm that they either have to operate or program to go off without a hitch.
- 22:58Yeah, yeah.
- 22:59And how smooth it happens, right?
- 23:01Like, it has to be so controlled, because we've seen vehicles in shows before.
- 23:08I mean, we saw one in Outsiders, we saw one in Great Gatsby.
- 23:12There's probably more that I'm not even thinking of right now, where sometimes they're on a track.
- 23:18Sometimes they are freestanding.
- 23:20um But when you have something that's moving at the pace in which this one is moving,
- 23:28Yeah, you need some extra security in there and I'm sure you've got all kinds of seat belts and safety equipment um because unfortunately, as we know, anything can go wrong at
- 23:45any time, especially with technology and robotic uh type situations.
- 23:52So I'm positive there's like three seat belts in there and double locks on the doors and if they get something on the panel that says that it's not going right, I'm sure they do
- 24:06not go and do it.
- 24:10there's a no-fly zones for the DeLorean.
- 24:13Yeah, 100%.
- 24:14Before we wrap it up, I do want to touch real quick on the use of the front scrim, because I think that's really interesting.
- 24:19They did some really cool things with climbing stairs for the Doc without him having to climb stairs.
- 24:24And they did the clock tower, and a part of the clock tower was projection onto that front scrim.
- 24:29And I know last show that we saw Beauty and the Beast, did not like the front scrim.
- 24:33I actually really enjoyed how they implemented it, because I don't know if this was lit a little bit better, or backlit a little bit better.
- 24:41You saw the characters a little bit more.
- 24:42But was really cool because they implemented some really easy tactics without having to do a whole bunch of like set work or like a whole bunch of like tearing down sets and
- 24:54bringing them to another location.
- 24:55So I did like that.
- 24:56Well, and I think the difference now that I'm thinking about it is the engagement with whatever's happening.
- 25:03Like we've seen shows where they're just projecting stuff and, and you're not truly engaging in it.
- 25:12It's just, it's meant as a set piece or it's meant as, um, kind of almost like a background item.
- 25:20It feels like a second thought.
- 25:22Like it doesn't feel as intentional as this.
- 25:25felt like this was without those projections, those scenes did not happen.
- 25:31And so it was just so well timed and so well, you know, thought out and constructed and ultimately the actors did a great job in making sure that their timing because that is no
- 25:49I can only imagine how many times you had to practice that.
- 25:52Because if you're off by one step, like, it doesn't feel the same.
- 25:58But he wasn't.
- 25:59like when you miss your musical cue for the guitar.
- 26:02ah
- 26:07for, you know, only people who went last night will know what we're talking about.
- 26:13So, before we wrap up, RJ, we gotta score this, we have to give it a grade, we have to talk about rewatchability.
- 26:20uh I'm just gonna be brave, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna give it a C- and no, I would not see this again.
- 26:28ah And I don't have to explain myself.
- 26:34That That is true.
- 26:35Yeah, I would also...
- 26:39Man, C-.
- 26:40That's brave.
- 26:42You think it's less than that?
- 26:43No, I think that's probably...
- 26:46I just am always so sad to give a grade to a cast and creative that is doing such an incredible job with what they're doing.
- 26:55And yet, production itself just doesn't have the same shine.
- 27:02But yes, for, know, honestly, if we're talking books and music, if we're talking full on production, a C
- 27:09C minus, it does, it feels right, it feels right.
- 27:15If we're going just off the performances and not the story, not the technical issues we experienced, I would say that the performance wise, was an A.
- 27:23There were solid performances from so many actors.
- 27:25The singing was great.
- 27:27It's like the foundation of the show didn't do it for me.
- 27:32I would love to see this show after it's reworked in a revival, maybe in 20 years, and see what they do to maybe fine tune this into...
- 27:40make it a little more sleek and to bring back that car, because don't change that, change some of the other stuff, bring back that car the way it is.
- 27:49Yeah, yeah, and it does, makes me chuckle now thinking last night when we were waiting for the production to start, there was a couple, maybe a couple rows behind us that were
- 28:00talking about talking about it.
- 28:02Obviously they had just arrived and he must have opened the program because he said, oh, it's a musical.
- 28:09The partner or the wife, whoever was like, yeah, you didn't know.
- 28:15You didn't know that it wasn't.
- 28:17And he was like, no, I just thought, you know, the movie, the play, you know, I honestly bring it back and it's full glory of just a straight show with, with the scripting being a
- 28:35little bit altered, maybe even back to some of the original content.
- 28:39And maybe you have a blockbuster.
- 28:41don't know.
- 28:41And with that, call us.
- 28:43We'll help you out.
- 28:44ah But thank you so much.
- 28:50And with that, we are done with our part two discussion of Back to the Future, but stay tuned for future episodes of the Box Seat Babes podcast, where we'll be discussing more
- 28:58shows that arriving here in Detroit.
- 29:00Thank you again for joining us here in our box seats.
- 29:02Till next curtain call.