1970s one-hit-wonders The Buggles famously proclaimed, "Video killed the radio star." Although that particular sentiment is up for debate, the creation and success of The Online Musical, an interactive online theater project created and performed by University students, begs a different question: "Did the Internet kill the Broadway star?"
Perhaps not, but the members of TOM are taking full advantage of the digital world as a means of producing a whole new genre of theater performance, which they appropriately have dubbed "interactive online theatre." Since the first musical vignette premiered last fall, TOM productions have garnered tens of thousands of views, overwhelmingly positive publicity from the likes of The Washington Post and Playbill.com, and a rapidly growing fan base extending well beyond Grounds.
Fourth-year College student Jeff Luppino-Esposito, who is majoring in English and American Studies, and third-year College student Matt Savarese, who is majoring in music and Media Studies, are the masterminds behind the digital madness. The two teamed up last year for a one-act musical called "Sorting Through" and have been making beautiful, strictly platonic music together ever since, beginning with the aptly-titled "Musical: The Online Musical" series of webisodes.
"[After the dramatic] 'Sorting Through,' we've been all about comedies ... and we knew we wanted to pair our love of musical theater with our passion for the web," Luppino-Esposito said. "We realized that the Internet, and specifically YouTube, was a space where musical theater could reclaim its influence in popular culture."
Thus, "MTOM" was born and disseminated via YouTube in 10 installments. Members of the First Year Players and the drama department gladly stepped in to take part in the innovative production. Each 10-minute installment details the happenings in the life of Henry, a young man whose world is - wait for it - a musical. But Luppino-Esposito and Savarase wanted to take the concept one step further, and they decided to make the plot of the play up to its viewers.
"What better way to democratize the art form than to make it interactive?" Luppino-Esposito posited. "We knew that we wanted to start with a basic concept, write and record the first 10 minutes, and then ask our audience each week, 'What do you want to happen next?' Based on their responses, we'd craft the next 10 minutes, film the following weekend and provide the content the next Monday on YouTube."
Following the completion of 'MTOM' last semester, Luppino-Esposito knew the TOM crew didn't want to stop creating online content, but it also knew it "needed to try new forms." The crew decided to create a series of mini-musicals based on "whatever pop culture icon, historical moment or metaphysical concept" that viewers wanted to see made into a "micromusical." Third-year College student Anna McGrady works as a production manager for TOM and is excited about the mini-musical's potential to further expand TOM's audience.
"We've cut down on the amount of time that viewers have to devote to the viewing processes," she said. "[We are] essentially creating bite-size bits of musical theater."
"Thomas Jefferson: The Musical" was the first viewer idea TOM chose to produce - an "obvious choice," McGrady added - and the pint-sized production already has garnered close to 2,000 YouTube views since its April 4 upload. The 11-minute musical centers around the writer's block and romantic problems of our nation's third president and University's founder; it is described on TOM's website as a "comedic, entirely historically inaccurate ... tale of how this great nation was born."
Historically inaccurate is an understatement, but the fun of "TJTM" more than makes up for its factual fallacies. From the psuedo-dramatic opening number "Hard Out Here for a Patriot" to the raucous closer "In TJ We Trust" and everything in between - well, there's only one number in between, but that's why it's a "mini" musical - "TJTM" is witty, irreverent and often hilarious. It also begs the question, what will this talented crew do next?
"Matt and I have high hopes for the future," Luppino-Esposito said. "First up we've got 'Pokemon: The Musical' slated to be released on YouTube on May 2 ... As for next year, our big plan is to produce a full-length original musical on Grounds at U.Va. in the spring."
I may have opened with the wisdom of The Buggles, but I will close with that of Shakespeare: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." By taking this famous sentiment to heart, The Online Musical has opened doors not only to widespread accessibility of musical theater but also to audience participation in it. As Luppino-Esposito put it, "We've always believed that theater was the art of the people, and by putting content for free online, we're able to put it back into their hands."
Check out The Online Musical's latest productions and past works at TheOnlineMusical.com.
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