Thursday, July 09, 2009

Totes Fierce and Brills

The Musical Theatre Dictionary will school you in the linguistic idiosyncrasies of Brooaaadwaaaay. Here are just a few gems:

"On That Stage" -saying- When you don't want to be mean about an obviously terrible performance, but the person being "on that stage" is the ONLY nice thing you can say.
Meg: How was KiKi in H.M.S. Pinafore?
Abby: Um...she was... on that stage.


"Jawbrato" -noun/verb- Describes a belter-screamer who chooses to accent their vibrato by visibly shaking their jaw up and down.
Morty: Babe, who is that singer friend of yours, the one who shakes when she sings? you know, the one with turrets or something?
Rosie:Oh, Morty, that's Cheryl, the gal who sings at the JCC. She doesn't have Tourret's Syndrome , you asshole, she just has a heavy jawbrato.

"Effie We All Got Pain" -saying- Response to a costar when he/she is throwing tons of diva comments your way. A reference to the musical Dreamgirls when Effie White's laundry-lists of excuses are met with this statement. The point being: you have struggles, so do we.
Diva: My Laduca Strap broke, I'm not warm yet, and if they make me wear this bullshit costume I'm going to flip.
Smart Actor: Effie, we all got pain.

(Thanks Isaac!)

1 comments:

isaac butler said...

You know in Coraline there's a lyric where one older actress sings:
"I made Portia mine!"
and the other older actress sings:
"You said each line/
Right on cue"

which i rather think captures "On That Stage" very nicely.