Jason Robert Brown

Broadway discovers teen appeal Entire ’13’ cast, orchestra is teenaged By GORDON COX Variety, October 3, 2008 Teens aren’t just hot in Hollywood. Broadway, too, has discovered the Jonas Brothers demo, as producers plot to lure tween auds, and depictions of adolescent angst gain artistic cred, thanks in part to 2007 Tony winner “Spring Awakening.” For the new musical “13,” it’s all teens all the time. Although the rock tuner was conceived and composed by an adult — Jason Robert Brown, whose résumé includes such sophisticated legit offerings as “Parade” and “The Last Five Years” — the production’s entire castRead More »

Has Jason Robert Brown’s musical ’13’ come of age? Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times October 3, 2008 | 10:52 am The musical “13,” which had its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in 2007, opens Sunday on Broadway , and the big question is: Has the show matured enough to succeed on the Great White Way? The producers had better make a collective birthday wish, because if this pubescent musical is anything like it was in L.A., it’s going to be one angsty road. Naturally, we wish the new set of kids luck. But in an economic downturn, who’sRead More »

The whole thing was just a lark, a little goofy thing to do on an afternoon in July when I didn’t want to write a football song (that I eventually wrote and that eventually got cut, making the whole thing an exercise in superfluousness), and then all of a sudden there were over two hundred entries – and even more that came in after the deadline – and then literally thousands of votes and every time I checked my email someone was yelling at me “Who won the contest? Who won the contest?” and I’m trying to WRITE A BROADWAYRead More »

If Only the Cool Kids Could See Him Now (at Least Hear His Songs) By BRUCE WEBER New York Times, October 1, 2008 He was never much of a student, but Jason Robert Brown was a precocious kid. Growing up in Monsey, N.Y., about an hour north of Manhattan, he became enthralled by music at age 4, was taking lessons at 5. At his first recital — age 6 — he not only outplayed his teacher’s other students, he also supplied the verbal patter of a natural entertainer. “He just started chatting with the audience,” his mother, Deborah Brown, recalled.Read More »