#how to succeed in business without really trying

[mikifoldi]

Daniel Radcliffe / digital painting by Miki Foldi

[nakoayas]

Otozuki Kei as J. Pierrepont Finch and Maihane Mimi as Rosemary Pilkington for the 2011 Snow Troupe's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying! performance programme ❄️

Scanned from my personal collection.

[d-criss-news]

From Hedwig to Helperbot: Darren Criss Looks Back on His Stage Journey

It’s nap time for Darren Criss’s newborn son, Brother, when the Glee star hops on our video chat. The camera’s off, but he quickly turns it on to say hello face-to-face dressed in workout clothes — a green sleeveless top and a ball cap — as he tries to do some chores at the same time.

Criss has a limited window at home as he prepares to star in the new musical Maybe Happy Ending, now playing at Broadway’s Belasco Theatre. The story, with book, music, and lyrics by Will Aronson and Hue Park, takes place 100 years in the future in Seoul, South Korea. Criss plays Oliver, an obsolete Belperbot along the lines of Siri or Google, “except more human-like, who is definitely past his prime and has been just waiting [in a Helperbot retirement facility] for his owner to pick him up,” Criss describes to Broadway Direct of the role. He stars opposite rising star Helen J Shen, who plays Oliver’s retired Helperbot neighbor. “It almost feels like two people in an old-folks’ home trying to connect with a family member.”

The plot sounds dramatic, but “make no mistake: This is a musical. It’s a musical comedy,” says Criss. “It has a lot of heart and a lot of joy and a lot of humor and amazing music, and it’s a hell of a spectacle.”

His friend Michael Arden, who won a Tony Award for his direction of Parade, was a big reason for Criss to sign on to the project — and serve as an executive producer as well. Arden brought the show to Criss’s attention many years ago, and again recently when Criss was starring in Little Shop of Horrors Off-Broadway.

“This had been kind of percolating for a while, and between the pandemic and strikes and just a lot of other things, that really comes down to timing. So the stars just kind of aligned,” Criss says.

Criss, a figure on Broadway for well over a decade, started to gather a following while at University of Michigan as a founding member of Team StarKid, the student-run theater company behind the viral Harry Potter musical parody A Very Potter Musical. His big break came on the hit Fox TV show Glee back in 2010. The show had already aired for a full season before he was cast as Warbler Blaine Anderson and future love interest to Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel. If not for Glee, he believes his career would not have had the same trajectory.

“I felt like this was my master’s in performance of music on camera,” Criss says, admitting that, until Glee, he didn’t consider himself a singer — rather, a musician who acted. “I have that show to thank for giving me any headway in the musical-theater space.”

In the middle of filming Glee in 2012, his Broadway debut called. Criss was asked to succeed Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for three weeks during a winter break from filming Glee. “I left on, like, a Friday night from my last day of shooting. I started rehearsal on a Saturday. Within 10 days, I was on a Broadway stage. I left my Sunday matinee, got on the plane, and went to work [at Glee] Monday morning as if nothing had happened. So it was a bit of a fever dream. It goes by as quickly as it came, like all other moments in life.”

Three years later, Criss stepped into his next Broadway role. This time, he played Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch for about two and half months, succeeding John Cameron Mitchell. “People always ask me, ‘What’s your dream role?’ I’m like, ‘I kind of did it,’” he says of the opportunity. “Hedwig was a role I always loved so much when I was a teenager, and getting to jump into it was so special to me and my wife. We both love Hedwig so much. It’s a big part of our relationship.”

More recently on Broadway, Criss starred in the play American Buffalo with Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell in 2022 for a three-month limited run. “I completely idolized them,” he says of his scene partners. “I mean, if you see a pattern here, I recommend this to everybody, to just chase their heroes. I’ve just been chasing my heroes my whole life, and I’m not being bashful about it at all.”

Getting Rachel Evan Wood to play Audrey opposite Criss’s Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre earlier this year was something that he says was his idea.

“I pitched her pretty hard,” he said of getting casting directors to choose the Westworld actress as his costar. “When they heard her sing, I think it was very clear that this wasn’t like a favor to anybody. She was doing us a favor. The fact that she said yes just blew my mind.” The role of the nerdy floral shop worker wasn’t something Criss thought he’d get the opportunity to add to his résumé “because it just was never something that I thought anybody would let me do. … I wasn’t sprinting to that in the way that I was the other things in my life.”

Criss welcomed Brother, his second baby, this past June with his wife Mia. The timing couldn’t be more coincidental, since their first, Bluesy, was born during his run of American Buffalo.

As our conversation comes to a close, Criss says he kind of got all of his chores done and haphazardly put things away and folded laundry. The next project he wants to pursue is his writing, something he hasn’t tackled much in five years. Until then, he’s reveling in Maybe Happy Ending.

“I do find myself at a loss for words, trying to truly put into words how special this experience has been,” he adds. “I think it really is a thing of beauty that can really add quite a bit of ornamentation in perhaps a grim world.”

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Had a dream the other night where I asked someone if they'd seen Daniel Radcliffe's turn in how to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and the dream friend said no.

And, like, he spent 40 hours a week for a YEAR learning to dance for this show, and he's SO GOOD.

So here. Watch it.

[tammydarling]

On this episode of Where In The World Is Hedy LaRue...

[doyouknowthismusical]

[musicthyme]

The Company Way / Paris Original (Company Party)" from How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (1967) Songs by Frank Loesser Arranged by Nelson Riddle

[haveyouseenthismusical]

[thestarlightforge]

“Clerics Have Necromancy”

8/28/24

******

Sometimes, I wonder—

“Promise me?” said Caroline Argo.

After stumbling from sport to sport, school to school—

“Promise me, if something should ever go wrong…” Caroline asked the Boy Detective.

From musical to musical & play to play—

“I need you,” said Wendy Darling by her bedroom window.

If, these days, I am being brave, still trying to connect, despite all that I’ve survived—

“I felt that, and I bet you did, too,” said Slightly of Neverland.

Or if I am blundering through life, collecting ghosts.

“Promise me, you’ll send me a sign, to tell me you’re somewhere?” asked Caroline.

I wonder if this is how my Cleric felt in “Dungeons and Dragons,” the first time he used the same coin for healing as he had to speak with the dead.

“Sometimes people leave you… Halfway through the wood… Others may deceive you… You decide what's good… You decide alone… But no one is alone,” said Cinderella.

Wonder if you should let yourself laugh with the world—

“I believe in you,” said Rosemary Pilkington.

Or cry, as time and chance slip on—

“His eyes were blue. His eyes were brown. His eyes were green,” questioned the Lost Girls.

And try to memorize their faces.

“A little brush of whiskers, and that distant smile…” said Alice Spencer.

Because you’ve glimpsed at possibility, but only one you know by heart:

“In the story, there’s no moment of farewell, you know,” said Alfred Hallam.

You know?

[enohpollems]

Mr. Boss would love How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying I just know it in my heart

[spamhamandeggs]

I should take up knitting. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to knit my way to a promotion!

[thewickedbohemian]

Dream Animated Movie Musical Tournament Seed Round Group J

For information on this tournament as well as the seed poll for group A go here

Why I think these musicals should be animated movies (in my opinion)

Be More Chill: it's got the kind of plot that'd be hard to make work live-action but the kind of cult following that'd go see an animated teen movie and in the right hands (which if I had my druthers would be people like the studio behind Miraculous, some have suggested Illumination but have they ever made something non-family-friendly) it could turn into something truly awesome that could get the acclaim it never got at the Tonys

Starmites: speaking of shit that hits a certain sort of Tumblr teen demographic I'm surprised this show isn't bigger given it's basically to superhero comics and "toyline cartoons" what The Owl House is to Harry Potter and YA fantasy to the point where both even start with the neurodivergent heroine's call to adventure happening after her mom makes her get rid of her beloved books because she's been acting out at school. Also this wouldn't be all-animation as the parts set on Earth at the beginning and end would be live-action, the rest animated in if I had my druthers a style similar to She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power. Only issue is I first found the show through the school version and the professional version's different but the school version makes some but not all decisions I like better so if I made this I wouldn't be sure how to merge them

How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying: this one I think would work animated for a combo of a couple reasons I've used for other ones as kinda just vibes kinda larger-than-life kinda animation dulls the datedness of period setting. I just really feel like this could be something surprisingly fun

Repo! The Genetic Opera: yeah this hasn't had a stage show or at least a Broadway one but I wish it did and I wish this movie was more of a well-known thing and an animated remake capitalizing off how it kinda feels like a sci-fi version of those dark fairytale retellings you sometimes see could help get more eyes its way

Fiddler On The Roof: it deserves a remake because its themes are relevant and it's been a while I think since it was even revived and people on my other socials when I asked about this idea specifically even said it could have saved Fox Animation if they'd made one in the 90s. While I'm not sure who'd make it now that at least proves an animated one could have legs

Ragtime: given the kinds of stories being told and just how "big" this musical feels but in a different way than stuff like Legally Blonde or Hairspray it feels like only animation could best do it justice

Tuck Everlasting: another underappreciated musical and another sorta-fairytale vibe but this time based on something that could get adult viewers nostalgic

[benedictusantonius]

"A Secretary Is Not a Toy" from How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967)

[tammydarling]

On this episode of Where In The World Is Hedy LaRue...

[namedafterflowerstournament]

Botanic Tournament : Aromatic Herbs and Spices Bracket !

Round 1 Part 1 Poll 3

Estragon/Tarragon :

Rosemary :

[im-wicked23]

Good Morning ☀️

Matthew in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (1995)