Following in the Broadway tradition using the most unlikely subjects for musicals, Ana Serrano, Romeo Candido, and Carmen De Jesus are turning the story of the dancing inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines into a web-only musical production. It will debut on the prisondancer YouTube channel in 12 episodes beginning in March. -via Buzzfeed

Musical Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree – $34.95

Are you having trouble getting into the holiday spirit? Recapture your Christmas joy with the Musical Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree from the NeatoShop. This adorable 24″ tree plays the Peanuts theme song.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Christmas Decorations.

Link

It might be lowbrow humor at its lowest, but it gets laughs. Why? Unfortunately the cast and crew can’t say. You just have to have an open mind … and open nostrils.

“I love fart jokes and I think that everyone should,” said Charlie Schulman, who wrote the show’s book. “It’s one of those things in life that makes people laugh, but I don’t know why.”

More flatulent sound effects fill the air of the Manhattan dinner theater where the show opened last week than at a Whoopee cushion factory.

“You could be at a funeral, and if somebody farts, people will laugh,” said Steven Scott, a standup comedian who produces every gassy sound in “The Fartiste” with his mouth. “There’s just something funny about it.”

So far, the show has received good reviews. Link

(Image credit: Carol Rosegg)

Take a 150-year-old British story, soak it in the culture of cute Japanese anime, and run it through the technology of Vocaloid audio recording and animation software, and you end up with a cartoon production that resembles a Broadway musical! -Thanks, Daniel!

George Takei will turn 74 years old in a couple of weeks. However, that doesn’t matter when you have the magic of special effects! And adequate medical insurance, of course…. This video is labeled “episode one, ” so we can assume this campaign will continue with further videos. -via The Daily What

This production number is called “Millennium Falcon,” a song set to the tune of “Greased Lightning” from Grease. It’s a part of the 1996 high school musical version of Star Wars produced by the students of Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. Other numbers used tunes from Godspell, Les Miserables, and Tommy. The entire production is available (with subtitles) in six video segments posted at Salon. Link -via Metafilter

A musical production in Madison Square Park leads to a surprise proposal. The happy couple left in a horse-drawn carriage. -via Buzzfeed

The American TV musical show Glee was just released in Japan. This video is a commercial for it, featuring the Hawaiian-born sumo wrestler Akebono Taro singing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

via Topless Robot

How can you make the Dark Knight just that much more awesome? Simply
add a little Neil Patrick Harris – that’s right, in the new TV cartoon, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, NPH plays the Music Meister, who can control people by singing.

The result is a whimsical Batman musical, titled Mayhem of the Music Meister (series producer James Tucker described that the "plot itself is just a framework, an excuse to have everybody sing!" Every Batman episode should be like this! Link [embedded YouTube clips]

Anton Hecht, who brought us Blinking Balet (a wonderful YouTube clip of old people dancing in the street to Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights posted before on Neatorama) is back. In his new clip, Anton interviewed the residents of an apartment tower in Newcastle, England … in the form of a musical:

Five residents were interviewed and their words turned into a short song. Each resident was then filmed in their flat singing their words to camera with a small live band accompanying them. This was edited together to form the full song that moves between the flats of the singing residents with the band accompanying them.

The guys are delightfully off-key and seem very sincere. I wonder what my life would be like if it were a musical … Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

What could be better than the Internet? How about the Interweb, the musical? Here’s Web Side Story (but of course), a musical by College Humor about all the good things on the Net in the style of West Side Story. Leonard Bernstein is probably spinning in his grave.

Web Side Story, written and directed by Sam Reich, produced by Eva Wong.

Hit play or go to Link [College Humor Video] – Thanks Stephanie!

The new Star Trek movie may not have the Klingon language in it,  but Klingons may have the last laugh yet. They have center stage in a renewal of a long-lost art form: the Klingon opera.

Every culture has its epic tales of mighty warriors. Odysseus blinds the Cyclops. Beowulf rips out the arm of Grendel. For Klingons, there’s Kahless, who dices 500 warriors with a sword forged from his own hair and some help from the Lady Lukara. To celebrate their victory, they make love in the ankle-deep blood.

The story of Kahless the Unforgettable is a cornerstone of Klingon mythology, as told in the opera u. Members of the Klingon Terran Research Ensemble — based in The Hague, the Netherlands — have been workshopping u for the last year with an ambitious goal: to mount the first authentic performances of Klingon opera here on earth.

“The first time I read that proposal, I thought they were freaks,” says Jorn Weisbrodt, the creative director for the Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation in New York. “But they’re really being very serious. And I think it really is the result that matters, and I found the result quite fascinating and interesting and strange and weird.”

Link – via npr

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by CheeseDuck.

If there’s one thing Star Wars fans and non-fans can agree on its’ that the music for each film, composed and conducted by John Williams, is simply outstanding. The familiar tunes have transcended time to become some of the most recognizable and best scores in the history of cinema.

Lucasfilm and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have teamed for Star Wars: A Musical Journey which is set to unveil in April at London’s O2 arena before blasting off on a European tour. The two hour show features clips from all six films, live narration and orchestration.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

Now this is a clever and entertaining classroom prank: here’s Reach! A lecture musical prank by Prangstgrüp, starring Mike Barry with lyrics by Brian Jacobs. Even Prof. James Valentini, who teaches chemistry at Columbia College was amused.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Suhan Li!