A musical about Latino communities in New York – it’s not Steven Spielberg’s long-awaited remake of West Side Story but In the Heights – by Hamilton creator Lin Manuel Miranda. It’s all singing, rapping and dancing and screams “summer”! It’s a feelgood story about a Manhattan neighbourhood threatened with gentrification, and the aspirations of the … Continue reading “Musical New York Taken to New Heights”
The educational TV channel Lumni is offering the Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise film of West Side Story free to stream for collège and lycée classes. The film of the musical comedy by Bernstein, Sondheim and Robbins is a reworking of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with the Capulets and Montagues being replaced by rival gangs … Continue reading “West Side Story Free for Classes”
An online class about West Side Story would be great for students studying Shine Bright LLCER File 13 “Staging Emotions”, or the film West Side Story, which is on the list of oeuvres intégrales for LLCER Première. Or any class interested in musicals, Puerto Rico or Romeo and Juliet. “Amour et rêve américain : quand la … Continue reading “Staging Emotions: West Side Story”
The Education Ministry has commissioned a series of filmed lessons for pupils, to be shown on France 4. There are classes in English for lycée level, every Wednesday, starting on 25 March. The first lesson is on written comprehension, for 1ère and Terminale, around a letter to Judy Garland, an extract from Love Letters to … Continue reading “Classes on TV for your lycée students”
The Châtelet Theatre in Paris is re-opening in September and returning to its tradition of putting on large-scale musicals, in their original language. The opening offering is George and Ira Gershwin’s An American in Paris. There are special matinée performances for schools on Thursdays 12 and 19 December at 3 p.m. An American in Paris … Continue reading “Take Your Students to “An American in Paris””
This A2 article about musicals and the tradition of high school performances in the USA should be of particular interest to those among your students who may have seen the exhibition in Paris, but also to any student with a taste for films or music. As usual, the document is but a starting point for … Continue reading “Musicals”
Hamilton, a hip-hop musical about one of America’s Founding Fathers, is one of the most unlikely Broadway hits ever. It is finally arriving on this side of the pond, playing to sold-out houses in London’s West End. Hamilton is the brainchild of Lin Manuel Miranda, singer, dancer and author of In the Heights, his first … Continue reading “Hamilton Musical Arrives in London”
Music legend David Bowie died on 10 January, but the consummate showman couldn’t resist stage-managing his life and work right up to the end. Shortly before his death, after suffering from cancer for 18 months, he co-wrote a musical, Lazarus, a sequel to his 1976 film The Man Who Fell to Earth. After a sell-out … Continue reading “David Bowie Rises Again”
