Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez Created a Full-Fledged Musical for Hulu
The husband and wife duo behind some of the biggest musical hits of all time are creating a brand new musical for television. Up Here, which premiered on March 24, is the latest collaboration for this award-winning Duo. Robert Lopez has achieved two-time EGOT status. Kristen Anderson-Lopez is only a Tony Award away from joining the exclusive group of artists to earn an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.
Up Here is based on their 2015 theater project, also co-created for HULU, which features eight musical episodes. The show follows Mae Whitman, Carlos Valdes, and a Greek Chorus of voices around New York City. The duo recently sat down with TheaterMania to discuss the significant step in their careers.
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Robert Lopez said, “The seed of the idea for the stage show went back a long time to when I really first started in the BMI workshop. I wanted to tell a story about an introvert in New York City like me. That’s when it dawned on me, what if you set a show in the character’s mind, and externalized the internal obstacles? Kristen and I met in the workshop, and she was the one who said to make it a romantic comedy, because when two soulmates collide, they really challenge each other.”
Kristen-Anderson Lopez added, “They say that when you meet your soulmate, it’s not that everything’s going to be great. Actually, a soulmate holds a mirror to the part of yourself that you could grow into, and you can become your best self. There are these things that you want to bring out in each other, like wanting to be better, wanting to learn how to communicate more. That’s why I thought it would be a great way to bring up conflict.”
Up Here on HULU is radically different from the staged version says Robert Lopez. “We chucked everything about the stage show, the characters, the story. There’s a little bit of musical material that overlaps. Some songs have the same music, some have the same hook. And thematically, there’s some similarity, but there’s almost nothing that survived.”
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Their work on Up Here has reinvigorated the duo’s love for theater. Kristen Anderson-Lopez added that “working in TV makes me love going to live musicals again, and then working live musicals makes me love going to TV. And we’re very, very lucky that we never get to feel like we’re stuck in one place. We get to keep growing and learning.”
Check out their latest collaboration now on HULU starting March 24th. We look forward to more musical synergy from the dynamic duo in the upcoming future. Have you had a chance to check out Up Here? What do you think of this brand-new show? Share your thoughts in a comment.
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