Tag Archives: Alex Timbers

The Music From Whit Stillman’s ‘Metropolitan’ Influenced the New Version of ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’

Brush up your Shakespeare  By Harry Haun at The New York Observer

Harry Haun at The New York Observer writes about Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman’s new take on Love’s Labour’s Lost and how the music in it was influenced by Metropolitan among others.  Mark Suozzo and Tom Judson created the original music for Metropolitan.  If anyone has seen the musical please let us know in the comments section how it compares to it’s influences.

Overall, he said, the Shakespeare musical has “an all-pop score. I was inspired by music from Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan and Kicking and Screaming and other movies about reunions. I listened to all those soundtracks. I wouldn’t say anything’s directly inspired, but the flavor is there.”

Shakespeare

His songs are distributed democratically among the cast. When played by overqualified performers (Rebecca Naomi Jones as Jaquenetta, Kevin Del Aguila as Dull), characters with little to say end up with much to sing. “It was fun,” Mr. Friedman said, “but, at the same time, you don’t want to get into that rut of, ‘Oh God, is every single person in this play going to get a song?’ But I think we’ve been able to mess that up so we have the solo numbers and group stuff and surprises in the last 20 minutes.”