We Got The Beat!

Carly Martin

01 May 2026 — 4 min read

Happy May Day folks. Hope everyone called out of work so they had a day free to read the newsletter. Today we're discussing all things musical theatre.

May Ins and Outs

Once again from the top

ins:

arts and crafts, generally
cheetah print as a neutral
putting a book in your bag and then never, not once reaching for it

outs:

self check outs
menstruation
professionalism, as a concept

Choreo Carly

Ur girl is choreographing a show for the first time in like 7 years. We open tomorrow (if you're into it, you can buy tix here). In celebration, allow me to place the musical numbers on an alignment chart.

For those unfamiliar with the show, it's called Head Over Heels, it's a jukebox show featuring music from the Go-Go's and Belinda Carlisle with a book adapted from a 16th century story called Old Arcadia by Sir Phillip Sidney. The plot follows a royal family as they attempt to outrun an oracle's prophecy of doom for the kingdom which inevitably leads to hijinks, some cross dressing, and a few production numbers.

For those new to the newsletter, there are short defenses made for each alignment choice:

Lawful Good - Get Up and Go happens 4th in the show and the tempo is so fast for no reason. I can literally see the stress enter the dancers faces when we come back out of half time in the dance break.

Lawful Neutral - If you've never come up with or danced choreography, often you'll explain moves and natural sections kind of emerge as people try to remember things, and then you'll have give them stupid titles so people know what you're talking about. You'll end up saying things like "can we take it from the toxic boyband moment?" or "let's start at something's in the air: gay wondering". Hamlet crown just looks sharp as hell rn and I love it.

Lawful Evil - People are sprinting around the stage, but, fear not. They almost know where they're going.

Neutral Good - It's so pretty and ballet. It's so not in the style of the rest of the show, but idec.

True Neutral - Consistently looks good and sounds good. Love an all women 3-part harmony.

Neutral Evil - I have a deep dislike for choreo'd party scenes.

Chaotic Good - Props galore! Who's coming onstage to hold them? Only time will tell!

Chaotic Neutral - It was more chaotic when everyone had a personal lesbian flag to wave around, so it's actually a skosh more sane than it has been.

Chaotic Evil - The directions given to folks onstage was that I wanted these 'thankless' and 'ridiculous' and I think they are all delivering to the nth degree.

It's a Musical!

Sticking in the MT theme. For better or for worse, I have been listening to a lot of musical theater in the car on my way to work in the last like ~3 weeks. As such, I have now developed a ranked list of the top 5 best musicals. Criteria for this list includes things like casual listenability of the music, singing to dialogue ratio, and general aesthetic. This is a definitive ranking, so, no arguing.

Merrily We Roll Along - What can I say here, it keeps getting revived for a reason. I do love that this flopped enormously in its original production because they cast teenagers as all three leads. I saw this with Eden Espinosa as Mary at The Huntington a few years ago and "Not A Day Goes By (Reprise)" ripped my heart out and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

Shrek: The Musical - I don't think I have to defend her. I think there are lots of Shrek shooters in the audience. Fun and dancey with a Jeanine Tesori score - I don't think it gets much better. Also, I think "Who I'd Be" is one of the best act 1 closers ever.

Chicago - I'm ride or die for Kander and Ebb shows. I could've put Cabaret or Kiss of The Spider Woman here but my parents allowed me to watch the movie version of this show with Catherine Zeta-Jones far too early and I'm pretty sure it's a contributing factor to me being queer today.

A Chorus Line - I'm a dancer first, folks. Where to begin with what's good about ACL? Michael Bennet choreo, brass heavy, true ensemble cast, iconic songs, I mean truly what's not to like.