Blast Background Information
Blast! is a Broadway production that exclusively uses brass and percussion as its instruments, which indicates the show’s origins in the drum and bugle corps. This production was created by James Mason and Cook Group Incorporated, which formerly were the director and organization that operated the Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps, respectively.
The performers in the musical pay trumpets, mellophones, baritone horns, tubas, trombones, French horns, and also includes a full complement of the percussion instruments such as snare drums, bass drums, tenor drums, tympani, xylophones and marimbas, and others.
more Blast! Also incorporates instruments that are not usually found in drum corps. These instruments include French horns, concert euphoniums, synthesizers, trombones, and bass trombones. The playing of the wind and percussion is accompanied by the Visual Ensemble (VE), a group of dancers who use different props similar to a color guard.
The Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps were founded in 1984. The following year, it started to compete in the Drum Corps International circuit, continuing to do so until the 1993 season. It also won the World Championship in 1991 and became a respected Midwestern Corps. After the 1993 season, the Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps left the DCI circuit to join the Canadian Brass, which was a new opera called Brass Theater, on tour.
Blast! premiered at London Apollo in Hammersmith on December 14, 1999. It arrived in the United States on August 23, 2000. On April of the following year, Blast! opened at the Broadway Theater on Broadway. Within the same year, it began its first national tour on September 7 in St. Louis, Missouri. The success of the original production was met with the production of Blast II Shockwave. This was eventually developed and toured the United States in 2002–2003. The Blast II Shockwave production added woodwind instruments.
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