#formatting is a little wonky because i wrote too many notes and it made tumblr mad

[terrainofheartfelt]

Gossip Girl Playlists: Theatre Kid AU edition! —Blair’s

[Dan's] [Nate's] [Serena's]

I don’t even remember exactly how this started, but it’s @strideofpride’s fault. 

The concept began as: if they were in this world, what would be in the GG mains’ MT books? What would be their go-to song? Their 16 bar cut? And then, I got on spotify, and got wayyyy too carried away (typical me), and it sort of morphed into: what are the NJBC’s (plus Daniel’s) senior musical theatre recital programs? And now I have this: a quartet of playlists of repertoire handpicked by me for these fake people, and I am very proud of them. 

All selections based on my very particular taste, honed from a childhood in community theater, an adolescence in high school musicals, and a 4 year degree from a majority musical theatre school

And, as in the tradition of Glee and all plays within a play, the rep reflects something profoundly personal about the character, because you know I love a theme. 

the meta:

Blair could be nothing but the ingenue right??? She wants to be the lead, the romantic girl, the one who gets to fall in love and gets the happy ending at every curtain. She wants to be the star. 

Her voice: born to be the golden age ingenue. I actually have a lot of Thoughts on how modern singers sing this music (snobby bitchy angry thoughts), and I am inclined to think Blair would agree with me. And I didn’t quite know what it was until I was talking with my dad about a production of Fiddler I just saw with the worst “Far From the Home I Love” I ever heard but I digress and I told him: “these women. Sing like they know what an email is.” and that’s the thing. Blair as an MT though, she would bring in that warmth, that roundedness. 

References: Kelli O’Hara, Audra McDonald, Pippa Soo, Cristin Miloti, Judy Garland, and a girl in my class in undergrad who I swear to god was Shirley Jones’ second coming. She’s also a pageant queen, so let’s call her Miss Iowa 

the tracklist:

The Beauty Is — The Light in the Piazza

Now, most people would go for the title song of this musical, but I think Blair would prefer the technical challenge of the ingenue’s first solo. 

Now, there was once this guy, Richard Rodgers, and he was a god of song, and he had this grandson, Adam Guettel, and Adam Guettel is a god damn genius, and has, sadly, written so few masterpieces for us to enjoy. (is it bc he and his muse Kelli O’Hara broke up? Who’s to say). But he gave us this opus, a neoromantic musical callback to his ancestor’s work, about an american woman and her daughter that travel to Florence on vacation, and they get swept up in the city, and ROMANCE. 

Clara wanders the Uffizi Gallery, musing about humanity and thinking about the boy who saved her hat from being blown away

Much More — The Fantasticks

It’s the world’s longest running musical ever, so it must be doing something right! It’s an inverse Romeo and Juliet. Two fathers pretend to feud for years, to reverse psychology their children into falling in love. There’s also this spanish bandit? Idk. the fathers go a bit overboard with the plot and some strife happens, but there’s a happy ending!

The sheltered, but ambitious dreamer Luisa sings about living a grand life. She’s a little….out there, in a way that reminds me of baby blair of the early seasons. “Please god please don’t let me be normal!”

No One Else — Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812

Dave Malloy knew that, unlike Les Mis, the only way to get away with a War and Peace: The Musical musical was to zero in on only one section. Galaxy brained. And you just KNOW that Blair Waldorf would be so so so into playing Natasha Rostova. (Pippa Soo leads with the belt in the recording, bc she’s amazing at it, but I see Blair adding her own Kelli O’Hara mix to it).

This has become thee ingenue song of contemporary lit. Natasha Rostova, dreamer and romantic, waits and waits and waits in Moscow for her fiance Andrey to return from the war. 

Just You Wait — My Fair Lady

Blair would ever-so-deftly do a Pygmalion/Taming of the Shrew set for her recital. I just know she would. 

Eliza Doolittle, fed up with her tutor Henry Higgins’ bullshit, is determined to prove him wrong. She shall be a lady, and show him the fuck UP.

I Hate Men — Kiss Me, Kate

A play within a play! Lilli Vanessi is playing Katherine in a new musical of Taming of the Shrew, which forces her to work with her ex. She is Not Amused. 

Show Me — My Fair Lady

Another song where Eliza Doolittle has HAD it. This time with young Freddy, whose more a words than actions guy. 

Everybody Loves Louis — Sunday in the Park with George

Sondheim wrote a whole-ass musical based on a painting and it is a goddamn masterpiece! Plus like, the name in the song, it was too perfect to pass up. 

Famous (not yet) painter, George Seuraut’s love interest Dot (I know lmao), compares the absentminded George to the attentive baker Louis, and makes her choice. 

Getting Married Today — Company

Next in her Sondheim set, from the classic introspective comedy on adulthood and adult relationships. Patter song of all time. Also so very close to blair’s show arc that I HAD to do it. 

Amy gets a mad case of cold feet right before walking down the aisle to marry Paul. 

Raunchy — 110 in the Shade

From the dream team that gave us the Fantasticks: this bop

Lizzie, a lovely, headstrong spinster, spry of wit and sharp of tongue, day dreams about stepping out of her comfort zone, and being the center of attention. 

Sooner or Later — Dick Tracy

Not technically a musical, Sondheim wrote this for the 90s movie Dick Tracy & Madonna. The definitive femme fatale ballad. 

Breathless Mahoney—I swear to god that’s the character’s name—is a nightclub singer and mobster girlfriend and should probs be in witness protection. She sings this song instead. 

Its Gotta Be Bad to Be Good

A cabaret song by Lenny Bernstein. I like this recording bc it’s the right balance of schmultzy and technical. And it fits how I imagine Blair would sing it. (like the float at the end? So very Blair.)

Circus

Again, not from a show, Drew Gasparini is a fabulous composer, but as of right now, most of his releases are great concepts for shows that haven’t been on a major stage. Maybe if we stopped all this jukebox nonsense but that’s none of my business

Anyways, I love this song. He really did write Victoria Pedretti in You, the Song, before You was even a thing. It’s that right level of batshit insane that Blair inhabits so well, but rarely really shows. I can see the gang convincing her to program this because it plays to a different facet of her personality than all the ingenue stuff. And that facet is: terrifying. 

Honey Bun — South Pacific

Blair was born to sing all the R&H girls. Nellie I think is one where her and Serena’s types and strengths overlap, which of course is rich with story opportunity!

The nurses and GIs at this WWII base put on a Follies production of their own for some holiday cheer. Nellie closes out the show with this number. Idk if they meant for it to come off so gay, but I aint mad about it. 

People Will Say We’re in Love (duet w/ Dan) — Oklahoma!

This was a late addition, but when I thought of it I couldn’t NOT. It’s about the Plausible Deniability™ 

In a small cowtown (where a certain blogger went to preschool winkwonk) Laurey and Curly insist that they do not like each other! Nope!

What Do You Call A Man Like That? — The Bridges of Madison County

Mmmm okay so, this is one of my favorite musicals ever, and it may just have to do with the time in my life that I got into it, but I think it is truly underrated and beautiful and really the only JRB that’s worth the hype of his name (she says even though there is a L5Y playlist on Spotify that she made herself). It’s based off the novel and the film (starring Meryl Streep!) and it combines the lady country heartland style of middle america with big sweeping italian romanticism, giving us this golden age in the 21st century sound and we didn’t appreciate it enough!!!!

(maybe I only like it because Kelli O’Hara sings it and Steven Pasquale is a DILF, idc. I’m right.)

Francesca, an Italian war wife who moved to Iowa after marrying an american GI, is now a housewife with two teenage kids. Her husband and kids go away for a farmer’s convention (county fair), and while they’re away, she runs into and falls for Robert, a Nat Geo photographer who, again, is a hunk. She sings this song after their first meeting and trip to the famous covered bridge. “He’s so sincere, what the fuck is up with that?” daircore

The Gentleman Is a Dope — Allegro

Daircore

Kind of an oddball complicated flop for R&H, but it brought us this song, so it’s a winner. Emily, Dr. Joseph Taylor Jr.’s colleague, thinks he’s an idiot [affectionate].

If You Want Me — Once

A departure from the old world mt that’s dominated this playlist, but I think, in a world of Blair, consummate theater kid, who absolutely stuck with piano because it suited her ambitious end to stardom, would be really good at this role. Is it because I think Meester and Milioti have similar voices and vibes? Maybe. But the contemporary music in this isn’t like 21st century MT. it’s folk and indie, and I think Blair could inhabit that very well. And she’s got the range for this vocalizing

Brought together by music, a Girl in Dublin plays another song written by some Guy, hinting that she’s begun to fall for him. even though she’s married 

The Hill — Once

All of the above. And just think about her sitting at the piano and singing this, like — 

It’s The Number, the italicized “oh” number. 

The Man that Got Away — A Star is Born (1954)

The second film in a legendary saga. Really a vehicle for Judy to make us FEEL things. Like with this number. You may recognize it from the other GG. 

La Vie en Rose — as performed by Ute Lemper

You know she would. 

What Good Would the Moon Be? — Street Scene

The Weil Foundation owes me money for talking up this show, but honestly, it’s so good. At least, the half-hour chunk I’ve shoehorned into these playlists is. 

Rose’s skeazy boss insists that he could make her a star, but she elegantly and eloquently shuts him down with this cavatina

Simple Little Things — 110 in the Shade

It’s about the pure and simple love, babes!

In a deep philosophical discussion with the handsome stranger that’s new in town, Lizzie defends her own dreams

When Did I Fall in Love? — Fiorello

I may have gone overboard with the schmulz in this playlist, but like, it’s Blair, so…

Thea LaGuardia, as her husband Fiorello runs for mayor of NYC in 1929, is shocked to discover she’s actually in love with the guy. 

Time After Time — Cyndi Lauper (as performed by Morgan James and Doug Wamble)

guitar!Dan agenda strikes again.