Today I went to the Macaulay Honors College SING event, and saw Hunter College’s musical. This art form falls under the category of theater since it was a musical. I had many friends participating in the production of this musical. I also had seen the musical in its development stages, where it was being written, and where it seemed that it would be a flop. So I had a great deal of sentimental attachment to seeing this play, and seeing it through to what it would become. Luckily and somewhat surprisingly it all came out very well in the end, better then I ever could have fathomed. The theme of the musical was New York City and it started out with Oliver Houser, singing an introduction song, which welcomed the audience to the city. The city is full of hipsters, businessmen and foreigners and they all joined Oliver in song, and in welcoming us to the big apple. Oliver in this play is somewhat the unstated narrator that is at times seems to be playing the part of director. At the end of the song a group of tourists come on to the stage, they show how little they know the city and their excitement to be there, and they are off (and off stage). The succeeding scenes show how all of the above stated tourists are dragged off by one of the stereotypes that I mentioned, hipster, businessman, and foreigner. The musical is supposed to be a comedy, so thus it is hilarious from start to finish, through the use of excessively strong language, many unexpected twists and heavy irony. I’m sure that this play would appeals to many sorts of people because of its diverse use of humor that suits many different senses of humor. I found that the songs were quite well written, which is surprising for the amount of time allotted for the actual writing of the musical. Though in the same stroke it isn’t very surprising since I know these people who wrote it, and I also know that they are very musically talented. To me this artwork put the city under a critical lens and poked fun at it. This artwork literally encompassed the city and embodied the essence (or the perceived essence) of the city. This artwork doesn’t relate to anything that we have done in out class. But it is what the class is all about, since it is art in the city, and what more it is about the city.
Name of Artist: Shekeima Dockery, Prahelika Gadtaula, Gabriela Geselowitz, Hunter Gross, Tome Hart, Christine Hirt, Oliver Houser, Linda Huang, Henry Kramer, Michael Lanci, Genevieve Mcnamara, Cynthia Perez, Shanika Powell, Jason Sloan, Ashley van der Grinten
Title of Work:
Date of Work: November 17, 2011
Materials/Medium: stage, musical, singing, acting, visual props, and background
Duration/Running Time: 30 min
Genre: Musical Comedy
Venue: Macaulay Honors College Building West 67th street New York, NY
People (where there any with you?): Chrisitna McEachern, Macaulay Honors Scholar
