Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Analysis

Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a production made to show children the importance of forgiveness and to tell the story of Joseph from The Book of Genesis. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery when they finally became tired of his presumptuous dream interpreting. This play does well at exposing the obstacles he encounters and how forgiving he is at the end. It also captures how jealousy can get the best of people. It was nothing at all what I expected; I did not anticipate that this musical would be completely sung through. Now, I realize that when a production is said to be in musical form, it is understood singing and dancing will be significant factors; however, past musicals I have seen have had about as much dialogue

The house was almost entirely filled and the show was about to begin. As the show began, I had noticed that they incorporated young children in the play; at the beginning, they were sitting around in a circle and throughout the play, they had them sit in a single line on each side of the stage to signify that story telling appearance. However, they also got up to sing along on stage with the rest of the cast, which was an interesting feature of the show. I enjoyed seeing the characters walk up the stairs along the sides of the auditorium; even though the actors are not necessarily breaking the fourth wall, it made me feel as though I was involved and being recognized. I appreciated the fact that the entire cast were all under the age of twenty, which can really make a difference in the eyes of younger viewers; as a young audience member, seeing actors my age made me feel relatable to them compared to an older cast. Another significant thing I noticed about this production is that they wanted to cater to the parents/adults in the audience as well as the children. By doing so, they dressed the character, Pharaoh, similar to a famous cultural icon of the fifties; Elvis Presley. Dressing this character like Elvis conveys the artist’s priority to relate with the adults in the crowd. Also, by giving

Chase Nelson (Joseph) had such a smooth and steady voice that stood out from the rest. The three narrators also had lovely voices, but of the three, Jessica Farfan had such a sweet yet powerful voice; to realize that she is only a freshman in high school with a voice like that is unbelievable. Finally, Russell Levin (Reuben) had a very comedic voice in “One More Angel in Heaven”. He really sold the part considering the song was intended to be sung like a western style tune. Although the actors all had lovely voices, the lyrics were often difficult to understand. Because some words were difficult to recognize, I often found myself getting lost; if it was hard enough for me to follow along with the lyrics, I can only wonder if younger viewers had the same problem. On top of that, because there was no dialogue for further clarification of the events, it was easy to get distracted and lost in the music. As far as the dancing goes, their movements appeared very natural and swift; each character had apparent