Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

In a surreal twist, reality video inspires live entertainment. My youngest kid is in high school chorus. He brought home the sheet music to learn a song and dance number called Dance Evolution. He was ticking off some of the songs, I thought, Whoa, that sounds like that guy on YouTube who did the Evolution of Dance. We looked it up and sure enough, the high school production number matches Jud Laipply's performance song for song [well, a few were left out but the playlist is mostly intact]. When I went to the show this past weekend, and almost 100 kids were performing this medley, the audience went crazy. It was hard to tell: Were they remembering rockin’ out to Hammer Time and Mr. Roboto … or the first time they saw it on YouTube? Or both? It’s only a matter of time before the spring production will be “YouTube: The Musical.”