Blast! (musical)

"Blast!" is a Broadway production created by James Mason and Cook Group Incorporated, the director and organization formerly operating the Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps. It was the 2001 Winner of the Tony Award for "Best Special Theatrical Event" [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0881145.html] and also won the 2001 Emmy Award for "Best Choreography". [http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/Emmy_Awards/2001]

"Blast!"'s instrumentation is exclusively brass and percussion, a nod to the show's roots in the drum and bugle corps activity. "Blast!"'s performers use trumpets, flugelhorns, mellophones, baritone horns, tubas, trombones (including one on a unicycle during "Gee, Officer Krupke!"), french horns, and a full complement of percussion instruments including snare drums, tenor drums, bass drums, xylophones and marimbas, tympani, and other standard percussion equipment. In addition, "Blast!" adds instruments not normally found in drum corps, such as French horns, concert euphoniums, trombones and bass trombones, and synthesizers. [http://www.blasttheshow.com/careers/vertical_winds.html] [http://www.blasttheshow.com/careers/vertical_perc.html] Accompanying the wind and percussion is the Visual Ensemble (or VE for short), a group of dancers who manipulate a variety of props, similar to a color guard.

History

The Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps, founded in 1984, began competition in the Drum Corps International circuit in 1985 and continued through the 1993 season. [http://www.corpsreps.com/corpsreps.cfm?view=corpsdet&corps=31&corpstype=Junior] Highly successful, it won the 1991 World Championship, and was a respected Midwestern corps. After the 1993 season, the program left the DCI circuit to tour with the Canadian Brass, in a new program dubbed "Brass Theater". On December 14th, 1999, "Blast!" premiered at the London Apollo in Hammersmith, and arrived in the United States on August 23rd, 2000, at the Wang Center in Boston, Massachusetts. On April 17th, 2001, "Blast!" opened on Broadway at the Broadway Theater, and later that year commenced its first national tour starting September 7th in St. Louis, Missouri. [http://www.blasttheshow.com/blast101/vertical_time.html]

Following the success of the original production, "Blast II Shockwave" was developed and toured the United States in 2002-2003. This production added woodwind instruments. "Shockwave" has not been released on CD or DVD. Additionally, a second sequel, "Blast II: MIX, Music in X-treme", debuted in 2006, and toured in Japan in 2008.

Musical Numbers

"Blast!"

Act One

*"Boléro" – (M. Ravel)
*"Color Wheel" – (J. Lee)
*"Split Complimentaries" – (J. Talbott)
*"Everybody Loves the Blues" – (M. Ferguson/N. Lane)
*"Loss" – (D. Ellis)
*"Simple Gifts"/"Appalachian Spring" – (A. Copland)
*"Battery Battle" – (T. Hannum/J. Lee)
*"Medea" – (S. Barber)

Act Two

*"Color Wheel Too" – (J. Vanderkolff)
*"Gee, Officer Krupke!" (from "West Side Story") – (L. Bernstein/S. Sondheim)
*"Lemontech" – (J. Vanderkolff)
*"Tangerinamadidge" – (B. Epperson/J. Vanderkolff)
*"Land of Make Believe" – (C. Mangione)
*"Spiritual of the Earth"
*"Marimba Spiritual"/"Earth Beat" – (M. Miki)/(M. Spiro)
*"Malagueña" – (E. Lecuona) [http://www.blasttheshow.com/tour/vertical_rep.html]

Recent editions of "Blast!" have omitted "Simple Gifts" and "Gee, Officer Krupke!", and moved "Tangerinamadidge" immediately before "Lemontech".

"Blast! II Shockwave"

Act One

*"Starburst" – (E. Finkel/G. Krupa)
*"Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs" – (L. Bernstein)
*"First Circle" – (L. Mays/P. Metheny)
*"Blue Rondo a la Turk" – (D. Brubeck)
*"Guaguanco" – (A. Sandoval)
*"God Bless the Child" – (A. Herzog Jr./B. Holiday)
*"Drum, Drum, Drum" – (L. Prima/B. Dubinski/D. Delucucia/J. Lee)
*"Adagio for Strings" – (S. Barber)
*"Channel One Suite" – (W. Reddie)

Act Two

*"Excerpts from Carmina Burana" – (C. Orff)
*"Good Vibrations" – (B. Wilson/The Beach Boys)
*"Star Children" – (D. Ellis)
*"Uninvited" – (A. Morissette)
*"Turkish Bath" – (D. Ellis)
*"Bohemian Rhapsody" – (F. Mercury)
*"Lullaby for Nancy Carol" – (C. Mangione)
*"Swing, Swing, Swing" – (J. Williams)

"Blast II: MIX, Music in X-treme"

*"Flight of the Bumble Bee" – (N. Rimsky-Korsakov)
*"Shapes"
*"Tribal Towers"
*"The Rite of Spring" – (I. Stravinsky)

External links

* [http://www.blasttheshow.com/ Official website]
* [http://www.starofindiana.com/ Star of Indiana homepage]
* [http://www.cookgroup.com/index.html Cook Group Incorporated homepage]
* [http://megshows.com/ Mason Entertainment Group homepage]

References

*cite web | title=2001 Tony (Antoinette Perry) Awards | work=Infoplease | url=http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0881145.html | accessdate=December 20 | accessyear=2005
*cite web | title=Emmy Awards: 2001 | work=The Internet Movie Database | url=http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/Emmy_Awards/2001 | accessdate=December 20 | accessyear=2005
*cite web | title=Brass Instruments & Model Numbers | work=blasttheshow.com | url=http://www.blasttheshow.com/careers/vertical_winds.html | accessdate=December 20 | accessyear=2005
*cite web | title=Percussion Instruments & Model Numbers | work=blasttheshow.com | url=http://www.blasttheshow.com/careers/vertical_perc.html | accessdate=December 20 | accessyear=2005
*cite web | title=Song History for Star of Indiana | work=Corpreps.com | url=http://www.corpsreps.com/corpsreps.cfm?view=corpsdet&corps=31&corpstype=Junior | accessdate=December 20 | accessyear=2005
*cite web | title=Blast Timeline | work=blasttheshow.com | url=http://www.blasttheshow.com/blast101/vertical_time.html | accessdate=December 20 | accessyear=2005
*cite web | title=Blast: An Explosive Musical Celebration | work=Amazon.com | url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004WH76/qid=1135096033/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-3528193-2391055?n=507846&s=music&v=glance | accessdate=December 20 | accessyear=2005