Here are the five reasons you should be catching the perfect musical theatre geek’s show.
1. The Glee factor
After Glee and Smash went off the air in 2015 and 2013 respectively, what was a musical theatre nerd supposed to watch on television? Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fills that void that has been empty in our singing and dancing souls.
Star and creator Rachel Bloom understands that need to express herself through comedy and singing. It's not a job she takes lightly because she is one of us.
“I feel a massive responsibility to musical theatre geeks and all I can do is come from my own perspective because I am a musical theatre geek," Bloom said to Red Carpet Report at the 2016 Creative Arts Emmys. "And it’s [the show] is finally catching on amongst my ilk.”
Bloom wants the show to resonate in a way that is joyful, yet true to who she is as an actress and as a person.
“All I can do is approach it the way I approached it when I was five years old which is just reverence at the same time of being able to make fun of it and seeing the campiness of it," she said.
2. Choreography
Dance Network has spent quite a bit of time with choreographer Kathryn Burns during the Emmys season and it’s important to note that choreography in episodic comedy is rarely acknowledged. Her win this year was a very big deal.
However, Burns went right back to work and didn't place any pressure on herself after her big Emmy win.
"The pressure is that I continue doing good work and let the story shine and have the movement be authentic and fun and just keep doing it," she told Dance Network at the 2016 World Choreography Awards. "It’s funny this season we have some really amazing bad dancing and strangely enough, that’s the hardest part."
Creating movement for a script isn't as easy as you might think though. Burns explained how it all came together on the set of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
“When you’re working with a script and a story, you’re limited in a beautiful way to heightening the script and story and working with characters and developing jokes — making something heightened with comedy through movement," she said at the Emmys reception in September.
3. Variety of dance
The show does everything from Bollywood to tap to ballet and ballroom, so you will never get bored with one style of dance. Where else are you going to find a Bollywood yoga number and then find an old-school Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire dance? It’s something that keeps the show really fresh for viewers.
The Season 1 Christmas episode even featured a local crew, so you never know when you might be seeing young performers at the cusp of their budding careers.
“We hired the actual West Covina All-Male Dance Team — legitimately sophomores and freshmen,” said Burns at the Dizzy Feet Gala to Dance Network. "They are competition dancers who rehearse hundreds of hours for a three-minute [dance]. And this is television, so we had six hours. They were great though. We literally did it in three takes and then moved on."
4. The cameos
For Dancing With the Stars fans, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has cameos from some of your favorite past contestants. If you want to see Ricki Lake and Amber Riley dancing and singing on a plane in the same scene, then this is the show for you.
Disney Channel favorite and former DWTS contestant, Roshon Fegan, is even a part of the West Covina All-Male Dance Team in the Christmas episode. It’s moments like these that you don’t want to miss.
5. The story
Come on, we’ve all been there… that one guy or girl who sends your world spinning, but every time you try and get together, it just never works out. Call it bad timing, call never meant to be, but that’s exactly what Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is all about — the awkwardness.
“What our bodies want is often not what is good for Mr. Brain,” joked Rachel Bloom at EW’s PopFest in late October. “Obsessive love is a need and it takes you over. Your dopamine levels surge and your serotonin levels dip, which is also what happens when you are on cocaine.”
And that’s why you get off-kilter, but hilarious, songs like “We Should Definitely Not Have Sex Right Now.” That should give you enough insight into the show to realize that this series is quirky.
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