There are a few different ways that the contemporary rock band musical is structured. Most of them take a paper-thin, random plot and tack a bunch of songs from, say, Abba or Queen or Billy Joel onto it. Their triumphs and failures correspond to the rising and falling crescendos of "Take A Chance On Me" or "We Didn't Start The Fire", and audiences who like the idea of a night at the theater, but bristle at the notion of hearing songs that they aren't already familiar with, get what they paid for. more ›

Perhaps The Wizard of Oz, a touring musical based on a late 1980s Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation of the 1939 MGM movie-musical based on the 1900 children's novel by L. Frank Baum (did you get all that?) can be forgiven for its association with the annoying "remake/reimagining" trend, if only because the various adaptations have all had a bit more time to age. Regardless, Austin was recently host to a three-night stand of the show at the University of Texas' Bass Concert Hall, and the production's largely British creative team and relatively youthful American cast played to crowds filled with delighted children, and managed to largely avoid the wink-wink “this joke is for the parents” Disney-isms endemic to child-oriented entertainment in the past few decades. more ›

Fifteen years after the quintessential 90s musical made its debut at the New York Theatre Workshop and over a decade since it won the Pulitzer and big stack of Tony Awards for its portrayal of artistic types living in America at the end of the millennium, Rent is coming to Bass Concert Hall, thanks to Broadway Across America. Originally conceived as a way to "bring Musical theater to the MTV generation", Rent exists as both a product of and a comment on the decade in which it's set. more ›

Season subscriptions are now available for the newly-announced 2009-2010 Broadway Across America series, which locally is held at Bass Concert Hall. The season, which starts in October, includes Spring Awakening, The Color Purple, Fiddler on the Roof, In the Heights, and A Chorus Line. Individual tickets will be made available about two months before each production. [Broadway Across America] more ›

Spamalot is "lovingly ripped off" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Many fans of the movie, ourselves included, know its dialog so well that we can hear even the subtlest variances in line reading—not just the words, but the cadence and rhythm. In several spots, Spamalot is directly lifted from Holy Grail, and curiously enough that's where the show is weakest. We expected some repetition of the original—a musician with a blockbuster hit can hardly skip performing the song in concert—and we enjoyed the taunting Frenchman, the not-dead-yet plague victim, and the black knight. However, we laughed most either when the actors chose a notably different take on a line, or when the script took off in another direction altogether. more ›

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Tickets for the hotly anticipated Broadway Across America performances of The Lion King at Bass Concert Hall go on sale tomorrow morning. An insider tipster tells us that there's already someone lined up. As the limited engagement is almost guaranteed to sell out, UT PAC recomends that you show up in advance before tomorrow morning's ticket sale begins. For the first three hours, tickets are only available in person at the Bass Concert Hall box... more ›