THEATRE GOSSIP #313- Stoke the fire in the hold, as the roles draw back (the WEHT Brian Stokes Mitchell) Edition

Diana Rigg brought new meaning to “I want her to know it was me” earlier this month when she aired her dirty My Fair Lady laundry out to the New York Post, venting her annoyance at the show’s star Lauren Ambrose for taking Sunday matinees off. As it turns out, Rigg, age 79, is not the only “old-fashioned” theater veteran on the boards this season; Anastasia’s Mary Beth Peil, age 78, thinks she has a point. “I’m still old-school,” Peil said, speaking with Vulture about what she called “the bust-up” at My Fair Lady at Saturday’s 20th annual Broadway Barks event. “The show must go on, and you signed up for it. You signed on, and if you can, you do it. You do eight shows a week. It goes with the territory.”

When Rigg’s remarks were made public, many, especially those of a younger generation, sided with Ambrose, arguing that a mother of two might deserve a day off. The task of playing Eliza Doolittle nearly bested the great Julie Andrews, after all. Peil, however, pointed out that she’s still held to the same expectations as performers a third her age. “As a 78 year old, I’m expected to do eight shows a week at the same kind of routine as the 25-year-olds in my show,” she said. “If you were a 78-year-old athlete, you wouldn’t be playing with the 20- and 30-year-olds.”

Peil said she does understand, however, that a reprieve from an eight-show work week benefits even the most tireless of actors. “I have learned to appreciate the time off,” she admitted. “I am from Diana Riggs’s [generation]. It never occurred to me to take a vacation or a personal day or let alone to do less than eight shows a week. But now that I’m in a run of over a year and half, I do understand that — even though we older generations have a different kind of mind-set about the performance rigor. We’re from that school, but there’s a new time a-comin’.”

Is anyone surprised that there is a clip of Bernadette taking her bow? Rudin has every usher on high alert. I got bitched out for trying to take a second Playbill at Boys.

Has Peil ever played Madame Armfeldt in ALMN? I'd cast her in my Bart Sher-directed revival at Lincoln Center with Katrina Lenk as Desiree. Matthew Morrison and Laura Benanti as the Malcolms. I'm stumped as to the Egermans.

r3 That you would cast Matthew Morrison in anything reveals a level of taste lower than that of the poster who liked Linda Lavin's Rose's Turn.

BSM had a good run as a B+ Broadway performer. I can see him becoming a John Cullum type, playing supporting roles in fair-to-middlin' roles.

Why hasn't Anything Goes been made into a movie?

Anything Goes was a movie, you idiot.

[quote]Norm Lewis got all the roles that Brian Stokes Mitchell should have played.

Norm Lewis is a charter member of the BBDC. BSM - not.

That explains it all.

No one has seen BSM except the wife.

ANYTHING GOES has been filmed twice -- in 1936 and 1956. Also for television.

I don't have any quarrel with Ms Piel and Dame Enid's opinion that performers ought to show up and perform. My objection is that first Rigg spoke publicly about a matter involving a cast member, and now Piel's piling on. Seems like bad form to me.

You can have The Merm....

The 1956 version doesn’t really count, r10, because it has a completely different plot. No Reno Sweeney, no Billy Crocker, etc.

But, it had........

Bullshit, r11. The only person in the wrong is Ambrose, who has suddenly decided she’s not up to the same Broadway schedule everyone else plays. Well, and Sher and the producers, for not informing the company before it was announced.

Dame Diana sent a private email. Her complaint came from the surprise of hearing IN THE PRESS that their leading lady wasn’t going to be doing Sundays anymore. And why shouldn’t Peil comment when she was asked? Although it’s Vulture that seems to want to make this more of a “thing” than it actually is, and wants to make it an old vs. young battle.

I saw the 1956 Anything Goes at the Castro Theatre about twenty years ago. It was just awful, a real piece of shit. There’s a reason why it’s pretty much forgotten.

If you're looking for eye candy, most of it pretty lame, then THIS AIN'T NO DISCO is the show for you. If you're looking for coherence, a great score and a logical story, then you're shit outta luck. The actor playing Steve Rubell should be forcibly removed from the stage, or at least, permanently banned. Who knew Andy Warhol had black roots? Ian's balls are nice, but that pasty white boy playing Rake? OMIGOD, what a fucking mistake.

Better hurry, because you'll never see this shitfest again. Anywhere.

Poor Ethel Merman. In her latter days, she would take anything that would pay money. Even if it meant walking down a rain soaked Shubert Alley singing her greatest hits. I'm assuming this was filmed live? Thank God her dress didn't blow up. Nobody needs to see that.

Who wrote the book for This Ain’t No Disco?

Don't be ridiculous, r18. The idea, Merman marches down Broadway, was solid. The fact that the weather didn't cooperate isn't her fault. They should have provided someone to follow her with an umbrella rather than forcing her to hold it herself, but otherwise it's fine.

[quote]Thank God her dress didn't blow up. Nobody needs to see that.

Some of us would have appreciated the opportunity

[quote] The idea, Merman marches down Broadway, was solid.

But she wasn't marching down Broadway. She was cutting through Shubert Alley to get to Sardis, neither of which are ON Broadway.

Dorothy Loudon interpreting one of Liza's songs from The Act. It really suits Loudon.

Any reports from the CHER show?

Oh, thanks for posting that, r23! It's been years since I've listened to either Loudon or THE ACT. What once seemed like a completely throwaway number thirty years ago now seems a very clever novelty number, worthy of Irving Berlin...

[quote]Oh, thanks for posting that, [R23]! It's been years since I've listened to either Loudon or THE ACT. What once seemed like a completely throwaway number thirty years ago now seems a very clever novelty number, worthy of Irving Berlin...

I think the song suits Loudon better than it did Liza. I can imagine Dorothy Loudon, dressed in a sequined cowgirl outfit, sitting in a bar, watching the door and waiting for Big Tex to come walking in so she can flirt with him. She goes there every Thursday night to participate in line dancing and hangs out with her girlfriend, Marva Lou. Her job is probably secretary at the local chemical plant and Bobo's on Thursday night is the highlight of her week.

How sweet is this farewell photo from the... exterior balcony.... of the Shubert? It's a shame it wasn't captured with a better camera...

The score for THE ACT is criminally underrated. I'm too young to have seen the show (and it is never, ever revived; probably for good reason given what people say about it), but the cast album is one of my absolute favorites. I truly believe the score is every bit as good as CABARET and CHICAGO - unarguably leagues better than 70, GIRLS, 70, THE HAPPY TIME, STEEL PIER, THE VISIT and some other Kander/Ebb scores. Liza sells the shit out of the songs (duh!), but "The Money Tree" and "City Lights" alone are on par with the best stuff in K&E's finest shows. Plus, stuff like "Hot Enough For You?" and "Arthur In The Afternoon" are so of their time and campy as to be a perennial delight (at least to me).

Just for shits and giggles I would kill to see Jane Krakowski take a stab at the score (although an all-star concert with a slew of divas could be fun). She certainly has the proper pizzazz quotient and chic style - not to mention the versatility - to put over the vast range of styles the show requires. No?

r28, I love the idea of a slew of divas each singing a different song.

The Loudon "Broadway Baby" album is a lot of fun.

Loudon was a great song stylist. She knew how to put a song over.

Cue whoever it is that talks about how hammy she was

Woof!

Oooh Me Me Me, r32!

She was a hambone. Sometimes it was kind of endearing, other times you wanted to give her a tranquilizer.

R34 Yeah we need more Kelli O'Haras' and her never intersting balls

Christ, how many queens were involved with that Merman five minutes and couldn't see she was wearing a lovely black and white outfit and no one could muster a classic black umbrella? Shame on them, shame.

[quote] Any reports from the CHER show?

I've heard from a few people who have seen the show that the general promise of the show is there, but that having three Chers a la the Summer musica is not really working.

Any reports from the Go-Go's show? I wanted it to work, but based on everything I'm hearing it sounds DOA.

R37 Think he was meaning the cancellation tonight of the last night of 'Cher' due to problems with the set, not the book, the book is perfect

The Go-Gos thing will close before Labor Day.

Where do I find Evan Todd?

[quote]I love the idea of a slew of divas each singing a different song.

Especially if they are different songs from a different musical than the dreadful “The Act”!

Who’s had Evan Todd? Does he have a current boyfriend?

He’s in “Waitress,” r41.

I think The Act has been done at 54 Below with Cady Huffman and a slew of other divas whose names I'm forgetting.....

Oops,, he’s in “Beautiful,”not Waitress. I knew it was a Jessie Mueller musical.

HEAD OVER HEELS,(which is the exact opposite of Whitty's favorite position) is a piece of shit.

Nothing can save it, and nothing will.

I never miss an Anneliese van der Pol musical.

[quote]Storm Lineberger (the national tour of The Phantom of the Opera) will play her husband and co-star, Desi Arnaz.

Storm Lineberger? Is this a porn musical? Because that's definitely a porn name.

Does Bernadette's dressing room open up to where that photo was taken? I don't think I've ever seen someone on that roof.

Storm Lineberger (on the left) actually looks like good casting for Desi Arnaz.

But I think I’d rather see him do porn.

R49 - At least he's not one those annoying, predictable 'triple-name' performers that seem to be emerging out of EVERY theatre program across the country. So ridiculous!

Do you think "Summertheater" at ATC is real or just some kind of online performance art?

Well, we're currently being treated to another of white boy w/black boyfriend who acts like he's black boyfriend Singapore/Fling's verbose / "gotta have the last word" BS idea on non-traditional casting and banning traditional casting in "The Mikado" and "The King and I", among other shows.

Plus some new jerk LivingMyDream complaining that cast members aren't signing his Playbills legibly -- probably so he can't convince someone on ebay to buy it.

I remember wanting to buy a ticket....but then not buying a ticket.

I want Evan Todd inside me quite deeply.

Is Bronx Tale some sort of Mafia front? I have never seen a show be so... blah, have absolutely no buzz, 0 stars, and yet still manage to run for nearly a year and a half.

Who is seeing this show? Is this like when H.W. used to buy tickets to Finding Neverland just to make it appear more successful?

About Brian Stokes Mitchell- I've seen him in many Broadway shows, and I've always liked him a lot, so when I noticed his name on the call sheet (schedule) for my very first tv role, I was excited, but worried. I knew my tiny scene with two lines was a scene we'd be in together with a couple other of the show's leads, and that they'd probably treat me like a big nobody.

The shoot arrived and BSM, grabbed my hand to shake it announcing "Call me Stokes!" was a total pro and an incredibly friendly guy. I was nervous, but Stokes and the rest were great. All went smoothly and I left the set triumphant. I was even asked to return for another episode!

Well, show biz being what it is, the second episode never happened, and when I tuned in for my episode, not only was I completely edited out, but so was Stokes and the ENTIRE subplot! Oh well, it was fun, and the check cleared!

BSM was horrible in Shuffling Along. He seemed frail and out of it, and the part didn't do him any favors. At one point he had to moon the audience, and honestly instead of feeling like a triumphant fuck you it just felt sad. Maybe he was ill? Maybe he was spending too much time at the Chipotle with Audra.

I'm sure he was happy the show closed early. If he could have gotten pregnant to get out of it sooner, I'm sure he would have.

I thought BSM was terrific in Women on the Verge. The show stank, but he was good. So was Justin Guarini.

[quote]He’s in “Waitress,” [R41].

Lucky waitress.

R17 is right, THIS AIN'T NO DISCO is the biggest train wreck I have ever seen (and I have seen so many...). Take Rent, put it in Studio 54, awful songs, the worst musical number I have ever seen (The Egyptian dance)....and the lyric "I want you to know me/I want you to blow me." Jaw-dropping awful. We bolted after the first act. The songs are mediocre, the book is non-existent...You have to see it to believe it.

R62, I guess it is telling that the Video tab on the official site does not work. It appears they are so embarrassed by the show that they will only show stills.

Peil as Madame Armfeldt is a good one, as is Benanti as Charlotte, even though the world does not need another meh revival of ALNM - you could believe that Peil as a young woman would have been a courtesan (looking at you Stritchie)

Benanti's singing voice is way too legit and strong for Charlotte. Saw her do Ann in Night Music 15 or so years ago at LA Opera. She was wonderful then. Peil as Madame A is good, though. I can totally see that.

Is Menken & Rice's "King David" ever performed anywhere? I have the cd, but I haven't listened to it in years. It seems like it was done in concert version and then just shelved, never to be mentioned again.

So continuing our "worst Follies revival cast" theme, yesterday Trump played the "Live, Laugh, Love" folly. And just like in the recent London production where they had young and old Phyllis appearing together in their Follies number, here we have Putin as Young Ben alongside demented Old Ben.

Peil is fantastic. I saw her doing a play at the Steppenwolf. It was a monologue based on Proust's Recherche. I do not remember the title was she was mesmerizing. I thought it would come to NYC asap.

It was not based on Recherche. It was based on Proust's housekeeper's memoir.

Reminded me of that great movie from the 80s, Celeste which was based on the same memoir. That film is virtually impossible to find these days.

You are right r69!

[quote]I truly believe the score is every bit as good as CABARET and CHICAGO

No. Just no.

[quote]unarguably leagues better than 70, GIRLS, 70, THE HAPPY TIME, STEEL PIER, THE VISIT and some other Kander/Ebb scores.

I'll argue it with you. It's not even close. The Act is third-rate Kander and Ebb. The best song, Liza's ode to s&m, "Please Sir," got dropped in San Francisco (when it was still "Shine It On.") I saw it in LA, from the front row. I vividly remember Liza spritzing us all with her flop sweat, especially in "City Lights" when she came and sat down on the lip of the stage. What a truly dreadful evening it was.

R71, interesting because Bobo's was originally about an S&M bar. I heard K&E sing it at a party before The Act was even an idea. I think this is one of the many problems with The Act. It seems as if many of the songs were pulled from the proverbial trunk, unless pulled from a Shaker hymnal.

[quote]THIS AIN'T NO DISCO is the biggest train wreck I have ever seen (and I have seen so many...).

( Fill in the blank) ....is the biggest train wreck I have ever seen (and I have seen so many...)

You hate EVERYTHING.

I'm feeling as lazy today as Lauren Ambrose on a Sunday afternoon!'

Judy Kuhn sings "Nobody's Side" for the first time in 30 years, sounds great. Was the highlight of "Chess". Who is the guy in the orange shirt right behind her, he look familiar.

riveting story.

[quote]It was not based on Recherche. It was based on Proust's housekeeper's memoir.

So, just like "Hazel," then?

I wonder how LuPone’s Company rehearsals are going

I don't hate everything, but I have to agree that THIS AIN'T NO DISCO ain't no good!

Ugh, I wish I could sell my tickets for this Sunday.

r75 Boy, Judy Kuhn can make dreck work.

Maybe she could have made Shrek work.

Read further down r75's article to Sondheim explaining a hidden pun in Moments in the Woods (emphasis supplied below). I never realized this!

Is it always "or?"

Is it never "and?"

That's what WOULDS are for

For those moments in the woods

Sondheim then leaned in and explained the lyrics to

“That’s the night the lights when out in Georgia”

Not unlike, r77. Proust's housekeeper was known to frequently use the word "doozy".

[quote] Is Bronx Tale some sort of Mafia front? I have never seen a show be so... blah, have absolutely no buzz, 0 stars, and yet still manage to run for nearly a year and a half. Who is seeing this show? Is this like when H.W. used to buy tickets to Finding Neverland just to make it appear more successful?

Old people. My parents are in their 60s and every single one of their friends has seen it. Some twice.

What will go into the Winter Garden?

R87, I predict it will be Ivo van Hove’s production of Network, co-produced by Scott Rudin and the National Theatre.

It would never happen but Ann-Margret as Mme Armfeldt is great casting. She would have been a great Desiree as well.

R87 - possibly Moulin Rouge?

Moulin Rouge would be more likely to go into the Marquis.

Some of you THE ACT fans might be interested to know that Arthur in the Afternoon started out life as Mamie in the Afternoon, written for A Family Affair.

Wouldn't Moulin Rouge need a bigger house?

Thank goodness. Gross negligence involved. Evidence being collected. Bobbie and Harvey Weinstein will be sharing a cell soon.

Mamie in the Afternoon....

Is School of Rock closing?

R94, where do you see the words "gross negligence"?

But Kander and Ebb got no credit for Mamie in the Afternoon. Bobby Lewis is credited as the songwriter.

Who else can we cast in the worst Follies revival ever? Sarah Huckabee Sanders as Hattie? Kellyanne and her hubby as the Whitmans? Queen Elizabeth as Heidi?

Judy Kuhn singing Someone Else's Story in the original bway Chess is something I'll never forget. Great cast. Beautiful sore. Terrible book and ugly production.

School of Rock doesn’t close until Jan 20th. That’s why I think the timing is right for Scott Rudin to grab it for Network for a limited run beginning in March or thereabouts contingent on Bryan Cranston’s schedule. Van Hove would probably make a window for it following the February premiere of his production on All About Eve in London in mid February. I can really see the Network logo screaming from that enormous billboard above the Winter Garden.

Mamie in the Afternoon? I should only BE so lucky. I'm stuck with that bitch 24/7!!

No, there are no songwriters listed on that MAMIE single, just the vocalist (no attribution to composer or lyricist in parentheses, unlike TOSSIN' AND TURNIN'.

The lyrics to Mamie were by the Goldman brothers

Which Goldman brothers?

Who the hell is Bobby Lewis? Kander and Ebb wrote iArthur in the Afternoon for The Act. Same song.

A friend is involved in the producing of a Bernstein 100th Birthday Concert in Massachusetts next month. Sondheim was approached to participate or at least attend. He refused both, citing that his name was not displayed prominently enough in the event's publicity.

[r107] if that’s true, it’s good to see him being as petty as his dear frenemy Arthur Laurents

So who is the guy behind Judy Kuhn? You Queens are supposed to know everyone.

R29- I saw BSM naked in shower 20 years ago. I had to take a second look. Not at his dick but just his skin color. He looks white. How did he get cast as Coalhouse?

R110, How many remember when he was a series regular on "Trapper John, M. D." and billed as Brian Mitchell?

I remember thinking he was either Italian or hispanic on that show. He certainly didn’t look African-American.

I accidentally ended up at Broadway Barks trying to get to the parking lot to get my car and saw DL fave Chad Kimball. I had to see this ass you guys are always talking about. He was skinny and the ass was the biggest part on his body but I was disappointed.

I served on a theater panel for a few days with Stokes in the late 1990s and he was incredibly handsome, elegant and gracious back then. Amazing charisma up close and in person.

I think his biggest problem onstage is he has no idea how to be funny and can also seem rather ponderous and self-important. Which is sad because I know he can also be great in the right roles or in concert.

That doesn't make sense, R107. If Sondheim refused when approached, how could his name already have been featured, prominently or otherwise, in publicity material?

Judy Kuhn has a fantastic voice. Someone Else's Story and the Mountain Duet in Chess and Days and Days from Fun Home are all knock-out numbers. Love Colors of the Wind as well.

Kuhn's song God Is There from Dream True is the only thing I can remember (other than the amazing projection design).

That Sondheim story is as fake as they come. Not his style.

[quote]How many remember when he was a series regular on "Trapper John, M. D." and billed as Brian Mitchell?

Me!

"Mamie In the Afternoon?" Honey, I lived it.

And, just because no one has mentioned Follies in this thread yet, isn't that Mary McCarty as a Nurse on Trapper John?

[quote]How did he get cast as Coalhouse?

He used Lena Horne's "Light Egyptian".

The label for "Mamie in the Afternoon" credits Kander, Goldman, Goldman from the Broadway musical A FAMILY AFFAIR.

Evan Todd has amazing arms and loves to show them off. He's that delicious combo of sexy, built and slightly nerdy. Who's had him?

From the Wikipedia entry for A Family Affair (paraphrased): the writing credits were shared by all three (Goldmans and Kander) equally. "I would not say I was a major contributor to the lyrics, but we decided all three of us would take the billing." (Wm Goldman). So that would explain the credits on the record. Mamie in the Afternoon isn't in the song list, but it may have been cut and then turned up later in The Act with the name and gender changed.

Btw the Wiki entry is a short, fun read.

[quote]Boy, Judy Kuhn can make dreck work.

Maybe they should have hired her for Tales of the City

Shame Judy Kuhn never did ALNM, I think she could have been a great Anne when she was in her twenties.

Can Judy Kuhn do comedy? How was she in She Loves Me?

Judy Kuhn's voice is the bomb. One of a kind. No one sounds like her.

Well, r129.....

Speaking of a theoretical ALNM with Peil as Madame Armfeldt, I’d think Katrina Lenk would be a great Desiree sometime in the next 5 years.

R132, welcome back, Rip Van Runkle.

From an old Sondheim "various artists" compilation.

Judy Kuhn was fantastic doing the number from Rags on the Tonys. Wasn't that the same year she was also Cosette in Les Mis?

Judy Kuhn has always been a favorite of mine. I can't think of another performer with a voice as dynamic as her's. I'd love to see her as Margaret in The Light in the Piazza.

I love her voice, too, and I love Light in the Piazza, but I think she may be too intense for Margaret. She'd be terrific toward the end ("Let's Walk" and "Fable") but she lacks a dry kind of humor that animated Vicky Clark's Margaret.

r135 Yes. She performed twice.

Judy Kuhn has done a whole album of Laura Nyro. Interesting stuff.

I love love love her voice, R138, but I hate hate hated that CD. I bought it, listened to it once, and vowed never again.

What can I say, r139? It grew on me! Some Joni Mitchell, perhaps?

lovely.

[quote]isn't that Mary McCarty as a Nurse on Trapper John?

Yes. Poor Mary McCarty. Thrilled to be on a hit TV series at last, she wolfed down the diet pills to lose thirty pounds, and was delighted she'd get to show off her new figure for the second season. But they weakened her heart, and she died of a heart attack. Her long time "companion" was 1930s movie ingenue Margaret Lindsay, who died almost exactly a year later.

Judy Kuhn sang "I Don't Know How to Love Him " on the ALW tribute and she was dreadful. Audra McDonald proved there's a difference between girls and women and Kuhn was a girl.

I don't know if that arrangement did any of the three any favours, r143. And with Audra doing her generic look-afar, furrow-your-brow delivery, it's hard to watch past the first minute.

R115, He did not feel properly credited/showcased on the printed material covering West Side Story.

I'm so beyond people thinking Audra is a good singer. She's just...ugh. Ridiculous.

I see, R145; thanks. He is usually pretty gracious about these things, but maybe he's had enough of Lenny's 100th, or maybe that friendship was broken at some point

r107 I hope he plans to spend the evening writing!

Many years (1993?) ago I saw the wonderful Judy Kuhn at Hartford Stage Co. in CT in a new Martin Guerre musical that was not the one that played in London. Patrick Cassidy and DL fave Malcolm Gets played her husbands and I remember the production fondly. Sorry it never made it to Broadway.

Judy Kuhn is great! Wish she had a belty number in Fun Home

At least she had the big 11 o'clock power ballad though, R150. It was definitely the musical highlight of the show.

Is Evan Todd wearing boxers in Madrid?

R151 yes that is true but I was thinking after all the years In that fucked up marriage she would open up and belt from her cervix.

Holy shit, Judy Kuhn is 60! She’s almost hit her own Mme. Armfeldt phase!

For the love of God, hasn’t anyone around here fucked Evan Todd?

That would be "hoo-hoo", r153.

Who is Evan Todd’s husband?

Judy Kuhn never tested her mettle in comedy.

I went to Metropolis in London in the late 80s to see Judy not knowing anything about the show...and she was out. :-( I still enjoyed the show overall. Too bad it wasn't able to make the journey to Broadway.

Evan Todd projects masculinity in still photos, but on video, not so much.

Judy was great in the ballad of little jo in steppenwolf Jose Llana was awful as a cowboy

I thought Evan Todd was partnered With a Broadway person

R162, His boyfriend is Darren Bluestone.

Was.

Judy’s song in Fun Home was utterly ordinary. She only sounds meh on the more recent clips,

Speaking of Rags, I didn't realize there was footage of Teresa Stratas in the show...

Just to beat a horse to death...

MAMIE isn't on the cast album, so it was, indeed, probably cut along the way. That said, the song was published (I have a copy), which was included in A FAMILY AFFAIR'S vocal selections.

What's un-masculine about Evan Todd in that broadway.com vid? Did you expect him to be chopping wood? He sounds as charming as he looks - and I was surprised, by the way, to see a rejection letter from Yale that was so long. What else is there to say besides, "No" ?

I kinda hate that the lead in RAGS is a soprano. Should be a belt.

I didn't either, r166. I'm so very glad to see that.

R146 totally agree. Especially in the press reels for Ragtime. She's totally off pitch.

Have to somewhat agree on Audra. When she's singing material that's MEANT to be sung operatically she can be sublime. But, LORD, when she tries to "belt" she sounds so... strident.

Off topic -- but wasn't there supposed to be a 'revisal' of Pirates of Penzance from Boston, coming in this season or next? I heard it got a ton of buzz and goodwill out of town...and the reworking was in the spirit of what Papp did in the 80s. You need a uniformly killer cast though...ideally with some creative stunt casting! Hell, I'd settle for a remount of Papp's production next summer at the Delacorte...80s synths and all!

It wasn’t from Boston, it was from Barrington VT.

Could Judy Kuhn effectively pull off Norma Desmond? I'm trying to decide what role could finally give her the big spotlight she deserves.

r173 The star of that Pirates production was Kyle Dean Massey’s ass

For you, r83...

Whenever I feel afraid,

I hold my head erect

and....

I remember that Pirates of Penzance performance making a big splash. What was that... two years ago? Never transferred did it?

It was mediocre, OK at best. A shadow of the delight of Papp's production. A slight, charming confection for the summer that would have quickly melted under the lights of Broadway.

Speaking of Judy Kuhn and Rags, I just listened to that album recently, and the title number pissed me off. Bella is an ungrateful cunt. I’d have left her ass in the motherland. Glad she died in the fire.

Stratas was a brilliant artist but a tortured one and in her later years she became notorious for cancelling performances at the last minute. Opera houses couldn't engage her without engaging a talented name standby. I still don't understand why she thought maybe she could reinvent herself by moving to Broadway, where she would be expected to go on eight shows a week.

During the Boston tryouts, she missed over a week's worth of consecutive performances. I don't think there's any video footage but does anyone know of or have a link to her standby going on, the divine Christine Andreas?

And Julia Migenes is quite fine on the recording, made much later due to financial issues but which otherwise features the OBC.

Operetta was a dead art even in the '80s. While some thought POP was a delight, lots of others were bored silly. When the movie came out, more than a few critics noted that there was very little press that it was an operetta and modern audiences would likely find it rough going. The same could be said for "Sweeney Todd" with Johnny Depp.

POP, r183? It's late and I'm drawing a blank. Meanwhile, Depp received excellent reviews as Sweeney, including from the lead classical music critic of the NY TImes, and the film made a profit on its initial release, even if small.

Pirates of Penzance. Sorry. I'm not saying that Depp wasn't good but the concept that it was a musical was hidden. Would it have made that profit if audiences went in knowing that Jack Sparrow was going to be singing most of his role?

LOL, I'm embarrassed that I didn't get POP, r185, as I'm a big G&S aficionado but adored Papp's Pirates in the Park even though I'm usually a big G&S traditionalist.

And you're absolutely right that all the early publicity about Burton's Sweeney, including the first (and maybe the second, I can't remember) trailer deliberately concealed that the film was a musical.

R166, I've seen a boot of an entire performance, much clearer than that clip. Strange curtain call, Stratas takes her solo call first and then brings out the rest of the cast.

R168, To each his own. I found him even less masculine on this video recording.

Here's Teresa Stratas on a 1962 "To Tell the Truth", where she gets into a minor skirmish with DL fave Dorothy Kilgallen.

Is there video of Stratas singing "Blame It On the Summer Night"? She was especially sublime performing that song in the show. I liked "Rags", but it tried to do too much -- like a combo of whatever happened to Tevye-like emigrants, linked with "Fiorello", plus killing off the ingenue soon after she does her big number, etc. Book was too unwieldy, but score was great.

Thanks, r189. Wonderful that singer Stratas was given a carton of cigarettes for appearing on the show.

And that exchange between Stratas and Kilgallen is famous and was mentioned on the the Dorothy Kilgallen thread a few days ago. Not many had the balls to take on famously vituperative columnist Kilgallen and put her down.

Stratas was a great singing actress, but also kind of a bit nuts too. She was a rather tiny lady with a big voice -- opera singers aren't usually that thin. One time she apparently was mugged on the UWS and a couple of seconds later she ran after the mugger and knocked him over and got back her purse! I think she also cancelled a lot since she volunteered with Mother Teresa, and as a result of her time in India, she has recurrent tuberculosis.

As I mentioned above, it's a shame Stratas wasn't available for the recording when it was finally made but Migenes is really wonderful. And I would love to hear Andreas as well.

I'm not familiar with Rag's various revisals -- I know there've been several and they've been major -- but one of the problems with the original is that the very best music is loaded up front, in the first third or so of the show, and that there's a noticeable drop in its quality as the show goes on.

^Rags' various revisals, not Rag's. Sorry.

He's adorable, R160.

The revival that younger audiences have been longing for....

DOONESBURY!

It's time.

Evan Todd looks like he could be David Strathairn's younger brother.

R197 -- Featuring a young Gary Beach as Uncle Duke, no less! JK Simmons was in the touring company of this Liz Swados gem. Not a great show by any stretch, but had a few catchy tunes!

R199, as I remember the show ends with Zonker driving a bulldozer through the house. This expensive bit of stage business probably prevents it from being revived often or done in high schools. It is not like Little Shop where you can rent a Seymour Plant.

I saw POP twice at the Delacorte and the entire audience both times was in a state of delirium. I was as well.

Papp wanting to turn it into a money printer stuck it into the most god awful airplane hangar ever the Uris where it got lost. It should have played at the Broadhurst or a similar theater.

Frank Rich being given a close up choice seat said it was even better there. What was happening was he was seeing it for the second time where it revealed itself as being even more wonderful. Of course he was not seeing what the rest of the audience was seeing and typically he hadn't a clue. So I can understand opinions being divided there.

I should add I saw it twice at the Uris. The first time from the rear of the Orch and then halfway back. Then I never wanted to see it again because in that place it was meh. And when I love a show I could see it many more times than that. Not that I do because I can't afford it.

Didn’t it also play the Minskoff for a while?

Strouse gave an interview not too long ago where he said the Rags score was written for Migenes. They ended up with Stratas because, well, if you can get Teresa Stratas, you get her. Comparing their vocals though, between the cast recording and the various bootlegs of Stratas, I actually think their voices are remarkably similar. In the original version, the ingenue Bella has her big number, the title song, in Act One, but doesn't die until fairly late in Act Two. I haven't seen the revisals, and it's true that the best music is in Act 1, but there are still a few outstanding items in Act 2, including Wanting, Three Sunny Rooms and Uptown. The show was in such turmoil pre-Broadway that it came into New York as a hopeless cause, but I do hope it gets a definitive version some day. Unlike some flop shows that will never be satisfying, there's a good score and show in there worth salvaging.

Regarding Pirates of Penzance, Frank Rich was not blind to the inhospitable qualities of the Uris Theatre. He mentioned in his review how they built the show forward to try to combat the theatre's lack of intimacy, and let the action spill out from off the stage to bring it closer. What he appreciated was how much the performances had grown in the time between the park and the move to Broadway. I also remember when he re-reviewed the production when it moved to the Minskoff, he mentioned had the misfortune to move from Broadway's most antiseptic theatre into its second most antiseptic theatre.

[quote]Speaking of Judy Kuhn and Rags, I just listened to that album recently, and the title number pissed me off. Bella is an ungrateful cunt. I’d have left her ass in the motherland. Glad she died in the fire.

Fun fact: Rags was conceived as being the continuing story of Fiddler on the Roof, although obviously they couldn't use the same characters. It was to tell the story of when those people left Russia and came to America.

I've interacted with some Russian immigrants in the 1980s, and ungrateful cunt is putting it mildly. For people who never knew complete freedom, they sure know how to criticize the United States, all the while living in peace and freedom. So for me, Rags was more of a documentary.

[quote] I saw POP twice at the Delacorte and the entire audience both times was in a state of delirium. I was as well.

There's a video of this production for sale (and I think most of it is on YouTube). Even in the crude 1980s videotape, you can tell how fun the show was, so it must have been even better live. Patricia Routledge as the nursemaid is sublime and it's a shame she wasn't able to do the Broadway run and the movie. However, I think she went back to London because there was rumor that a new farce called "Noises Off" was in the works and farce was right up Pat's alley.

That's weird. I can't see R188 and R189's posts and I have the highest tolerance on posts set ("asbestos eyeballs" or whatever).

Stratas seemed to be wonderful in Rags, but what I love most is when she sings Weill. She was born to sing his music. Did she ever perform 7 Deadly Sins live? She's fantastic on some kind of odd made for TV performance. It used to be on YouTube, but I can't find it now, unfortunately.

I've tried to watch that video and I can't. It's too poor a representation of what we saw live. But if you've never seen the show it's a must. And Estelle Parsons was a huge let down after Routledge who I had never heard of before. I was like who is this wonderful woman? Then a number of years later she becomes world famous.

I saw Rags on broadway hoping to see Christine Andreas but got Stratas instead. She was sublime. Tiny, tiny woman in a black dress and flaming red hair and she gave an unforgettable performance.

Is everyone ready for the next big hit? Will it be bigger than Tuck Everlasting?

The only way I’d see Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants is if it starred the current cast of Boys In The Band in drag.

What rhymes with “ya-ya?”

Did Olivia Newton-John have the vocal range to play Mabel in Pirates of Penzance? The Papp production was in Central Park in 1980. After coming off the success of Grease, Olivia filmed Xanadu which was a bomb and released in 1980. I wonder if she was considered for Mabel or was it always Linda Rondstadt?

Papp could have moved the production to the West End. He probably could have guaranteed George Rose and Patricia Routledge with a West End run. Kevin Kline would have gone to get London exposure and to get away from girlfriend Patti LuPone who was starring in Evita. I imagine Rex Smith would have transferred to the West End and then he could have put ON-J in the West End production.

[quote] It is not like Little Shop where you can rent a Seymour Plant.

Even the plants are transitioning now?

the POP at Barrington could have been a hit with a couple of judicious cast changes (but not KDM's ass). By the way, Barrington is in MA, not VT.

Was Mamie in the Afternoon about a hooker, as it was in THE ACT? Can't see that would have been allowed in the early 60's.

FAMILY AFFAIR has one of my favorite silly couplets, no matter who wrote it: "Like a sailor courtin's cutie/Or a little tune from Cosi Fan Tutti!"

Has anyone heard anything about GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER? I believe previews start tomorrow. They can't seem to throw away tickets to this thing. Ken Davenport is writing books of musicals now?

They could do it in repertory with "The Boys in the Band," "The Band's Visit," and "Bandstand."

And interpolate "You're in the Band" from "School of Rock."

R201, I saw it at the Uris and three people around me fell asleep. A teen boy said later that he enjoyed A Chorus Line but there was just too much singing in this, something later used to adapt that horrifying Pirate Movie starring Kristy McNichol.

If you're expecting The Music Man and get Song of Norway, audiences will be pissed. G&S has become more and more of an acquired taste.

I saw Pirates from the back balcony of the Uris. I enjoyed the show, but it was like watching a flea circus. Ronstadt was out, so we got Karla DeVito, who was terrific.

Who are the people defending Ambrose by saying she is a mother with 2 small children? That's an incredibly sexist irrational argument. Women can't commit to 8 performances a week because they have small children? Since when? Like since never.

Broadway needs a revival of Dark of the Moon.

Oh god no, R221.

Evan Todd was good in Beautiful. I just streamed his movie, 4th Man Out, where his character comes out to his friends. It's a cute movie actually

[quote]Oh god no, [R221].

Why not? It's as good as Our Town.

Springsteen show going to Netflix- wasn't this announced on Datalounge like 2 months ago?

BSM is an exceedingly nice guy both onstage and off, especially in recent years, always a solid member of the company, his main problem is he’s never deep enough, he stays exactly where he landed somewhere in mid-rehearsals and that’s pretty much it. When he did Javert at the Hollywood Bowl he was like a really good high school student who essayed the role with small effort.

I left The Act during act 2. I just couldn't take anymore of the glitzy Las Vegas floor show it seemed to me. Also it is very far from K and E's best. It was like this is going to make a ton of money no matter what so we don't have to put out best into it. But then I love the score to Zorba which so many people hate.

There was an off-Broadway revival of "Dark of the Moon" in the 1970s in which all the witch people were nude.

People who hate Zorba have no taste.

I think it has to do with the fact that both leading ladies die - one murdered violently, in fact - the other with a "cute" death - I think that's what people have trouble with.

[quote]I kinda hate that the lead in RAGS is a soprano. Should be a belt.

No. Bella is the belter. Rebecca's legit soprano is one of the strengths of the score.

[quote]There was an off-Broadway revival of "Dark of the Moon" in the 1970s in which all the witch people were nude.

Who wasn't nude in the 1970s.

We need a revival of "Yours, Anne" to hear those great lyrics one more time!

I'm not a Jew

Like in the zoo

I'm not a Jew!

There was a lot of back and forth about the RAGS album, but it didn't have to do with money. Stratas would only do it if it was on Columbia Masterworks, but the label wouldn't go for that, only for "Columbia Special Products." So Stratas said no. The album was mostly recorded within three months of the closing, but the only release it got initially was cassette copies that were distributed to Tony voters that spring. A year or two later, more recording was done in London (the overture, primarily) and it was finally released to the general public.

"It's a very nice attic -

With a very nice chair.

And with a toilet that really flushes!

I'll be happy to stay here, and not go to Auschwitz.

Hiding hard as I can from a very mean man in a very nice attic!"

Evan Todd and Darren Bluestone broke up almost two years ago. Who's he fucking now?

There are quite a few clips of the Australian company of Papp's 'Pirates', starring Jon English from the mid 80s on YouTube (search keywords 'Penzance Papp Oz'). Same costumes/sets/choreo... The Major General here doesn't hold a candle to George Rose, but the vibrancy and pure fun the cast is having is hard to ignore. It would be a blast to see Papp's version revived in the park...maybe a 40th anniversary production in 2020?

Gary Beach has died at 70.

Dark of the Moon was just revived as recently as 1991 by a regional theater in New Jersey. Must we have the same shows revived over and over, year after year?

You're worried about a revival at a regional NJ theater?

R237 - OMG. That's just tragic. Such a kind, talented man. What a loss.

"Why not? It's as good as Our Town."

Not anywhere near it.

Dame Diana Rigg is leaving MFL on Sept 9th. She’s finally had enough of all the bullshit.

Nobody can compare to Rose in Pirates or Drood. After the recent Drood revival it really made me appreciate how Rose could command an entire theater and then disappear while still on stage when he needed to. Very magical.

Excellent, r234, especially the delicious third line! However, the accent falls on the wrong syl-LA-ble at the end of the fourth line, and I think you should have concluded the last line with: "Hiding hard as I can from a very mean man with a very mean stare" to rhyme with "chair" and adhere to the scansion.

Just a suggestion...

PiRATES was done in London. Tim Curry was the Pirate King. Bonnie Langford was one of the daughters.

Allegedly Kate Bush was offered Mabel.

RIP Gary Beach. I worked as a stand-in on The Producers and he couldn’t have been sweeter. Just a lovely guy.

I wish they'd do The Pirate Movie as a musical. That movie was fun. Lorna Luft would be great in the Kristy McNichol role. Or maybe Winona Ryder.

Dark of the Moon is already on Broadway under the name Once On This Island.

Very sad about Gary Beach. Really nice guy and loved his work.

Gary at his best.

Christ, Betty Hutton was horrible in that clip.

[quote]Gary Beach has died at 70.

That's young. Did he have some disease that caused him to die early?

Gary was fine yesterday and apparently had a heart attack in his sleep last night.

I love her, but Kate Bush as Mabel would have been just a mess. I feel the same way about Linda Ronstadt. The creative team should have changed keys around so that she could belt everything, not make her switch to head voice, which was totally disconnected from her chest voice. I don't know what they would have done with the coloratura portions, but it's not as if they were faithful to the score.

Rex Smith was really hot. Is Massey hotter than this, or just his ass?

Is it just the YouTube clip at R254, or was the lip-syncing this bad in the actual movie?

Nice ass on Rex Smith, by the way. He’s also adorable.

r255 Whole movie.

He's also supposedly majorly hung.

r258 Yes, supposedly.

In some of his photos, Storm Lineberger looks quite a lot like a young Desi Arnaz, and even more like a young Desi Jr.

[quote]The world does not need another meh revival of ALNM

I'm really surprised the NY Philharmonic STILL hasn't done ALNM. I wonder why?

[quote]A 21-year veteran cast member who had been with the revival since it opened in 1996, Loeffelholz was the standby for Mary Sunshine. He was the last remaining cast member signed to their original run-of-show-contract, a standard agreement found in all Broadway production contracts meant to protect jobs for members of a show’s original cast.

This makes it sound like all original cast members of a Broadway show STILL get run-of-the-play contracts. Sloppy writing.

[quote]I think his biggest problem onstage is he has no idea how to be funny and can also seem rather ponderous and self-important. Which is sad because I know he can also be great in the right roles or in concert.

I remember Stokes having a few funny moments in KISS ME, KATE, but only a few. He was not well cast in that show.

[quote]Evan Todd projects masculinity in still photos, but on video, not so much

I think he comes across fine in that video. And I didn't know he went to Juilliard. That's pretty impressive. And yes, so are his arms.

Shit Stirrer Diana Rigg is departing MFL early September.

The initial run of MFL was scheduled to end July 8 so Dame Diana has actually extended her original agreement/contract.

Hah! Diana’s star paycheck and digs for a bit part come to an early conclusion.

Pass her the Tylenol.

‘Diane’s’

Sister daughter, sister daughter

Just heard on the local evening news here in NYC that Netflix is going to live broadcast Springsteen's final show.

r266 9 hours of the show was already broadcast during the Tony Awards, how much more could there possibly be?

R258, In "The Warhol Diaries", Andy was impressed by Rex Smith's impressive VPL at some public event.

I saw the wonderful Papp POP and even chatted with Jerry Brown in the lobby between acts and he was truly magnetic in his youth , almost enough to make you forget Kevin and Rex

Did Jerry Brown have VPL? No? Okay then.

jk, r269! I didn't know Jerry and Linda were still together during the Pirates run.

You're an idiot, r263. As has already been pointed out, Dame Diana actually extended her stay by two months. No one’s leaving early. Except for My Fair Lazy Lauren Ambrose, who’s skipping those Sundays she finds such a bother.

Not to be a shit stirrer-ok I'm really being a shit stirrer-but isn't this the first time in a MFL production on Broadway, during a national tour or in London that the Eliza is being a major slacker? Or have there been other Elizas who have taken a personal day every week?

R243 -- I agree wholeheartedly. The 2012 revival of DROOD was a great production that deserved more attention. However, Jim Norton, wonderful as he can be in other things, was no match in terms of size, skill and style for George Rose. His sordid personal life aside (if you can do such a thing) -- as an actor, there was no one more ferocious or funnier on stage. Always had that special 'glint' in the eye that Noel Coward talked about. He also spent his youth playing music hall/revues in Britain, so really brought an authenticity to those roles old (to everything he did really). Clive Revill, who replaced him in both POP and DROOD was perfectly fine in both parts, but not particularly memorable.

[quote]Not to be a shit stirrer-ok I'm really being a shit stirrer-but isn't this the first time in a MFL production on Broadway, during a national tour or in London that the Eliza is being a major slacker? Or have there been other Elizas who have taken a personal day every week?

Martine McCutcheon in the West End revival.

Rex Smith met the son he never knew while signing Playbills at the stage door during the Toronto production of SUNSET BLVD

Reports indicate that father and son recognized each other from their VPL's.

Oh no. TheHarveyBoy didn't use a spoiler warning about the staging at the end of MFL and now MockingbirdGirl is beside herself.

I can only imagine how unbearable that place was when Forbidden Broadway did a song about them. But at least DL got a mention too I guess.

The end is not exactly a spoiler, because it is incredibly ambiguous. Did she walk off to her room? To the neighbor's house? To Harrod's to buy him another pair of slippers? it's not as though she took the slippers and bashed his skull in or something. Why would anyone be angry about someone spoiling such a vague non ending?

Not the ending itself, the staging of the ending.

R275, Here they are . . .

Are they supposed to look alike? Does anyone know what became of the long lost son?!?

Is Charlie Williams single again? I saw him in The Cher Show last week....meh.

[quote]Gary Beach has died at 70.

I blame R199.

R284 Yes he is, he saw you, and thought you looked puffy

Was Googling Walter Bobbie and found an interview Don Shewey did with him for The Advocate, in which Bobbie comes across as very defensive about and uncomfortable with being identified as gay. Granted, the interview was 20 years ago, but he seemed a troubled, somewhat borderline personality. There were red flags about his capacity for unpleasantness even in the interview.

Do you think Sierra Boggess is bitter that she doesn't have a Tony nomination?

R278, I found DL thanks to that spoof. Thanks for all the wasted time Alessandrini!

R288 What is the song called please?

So, if MFL was supposed to wrap on 7/8 maybe Ambrose agreed to stick around longer if she could cut back to 7 shows per week.

I know if will never happen but I'd love to see Joanna Lumley replace Rigg as Mrs. Higgins.

R289 - All That Chat, it's on Forbidden Broadway Goes to Rehab

R292 Thanks love

Yeah - thanks R292

I seriously doubt MFL was only scheduked to run unti July. That would have been a first for LCT at the Beaumont.

MFL was originally announced as selling tickets till Sept. 2.

Wow. Lazy Lauren’s had an effect on her other leads.

“Harry Hadden-Paton will not appear in the following performances:

- Tuesday, August 7 at 7pm through Sunday, August 12 at 3pm - Saturday, September 22 at 2pm through Sunday, October 14 at 3pm

Norbert Leo Butz will not appear in performances Tuesday, November 6 at 7pm through Sunday, November 11 at 3pm

So Harry Haddon Paton is taking a week off in August and three more weeks off in Sept-Oct, so on all those Sundays, theatregoers won’t get either the original Higgins or the original Eliza,

Scott Rudin was really cruel to me once. Would killing myself end his career? It seems almost worth it.

The above-referenced interview with Walter Bobbie. He is extremely testy at the start about the gay thing, then later in the interview gets very emotional and starts crying.

I LOVED Brian Stokes Mitchell in Ragtime on Broadway back in the 90's. His Coalhouse Walker was so sexy, dramatic and that voice! Audra was pretty awesome too.

Here is BSM's schedule

BTW - 21 years later, Audra looks exactly the same. Brian, not so much :(

Since Sandy Duncan is a DL fave and is mentioned in the theatre thread, did you know Antenna TV Channel is showing THE HOGAN FAMILY. Upcoming episode is Sandy's first. Movin on. I'm loving it. A blast from the past. Love her.

What note is Audra hitting at 4:10 in R300's video?

I have found Rex Smith superhot and sexy since "SOONER OR LATER" (TV movie, 1979), and saw him in PIRATES at the Delacorte twice (I was an obsessed gayling, back when you camped out all day for tickets).

But everyone ages. Smith is 62, and not too terrible. Gravity takes its toll. At least he's not sacrificing himself to plastic surgery.

But I miss his sex-god splendor of youth (his AND mine).

RE the Band's Visit. Spoilers ahead. I saw it, and thought it was lovely, sweet, heartbreaking, and incredibly slight. Maybe I'm a little too pedantic, but I wanted SOMETHING to happen. Blah blah blah, the power of music to connect us. I can see Mama Mia to learn that. I just wish that there was a slight something to show that the visit had an effect. An easy fix would be for Dina to ambivalently hang a "for sale" sign on the cafe. The ending would still be ambiguous. Nothing really would have happened, still. But at least it would show that people were effected by the night's events. I know that might be a cheesy end, but at least it would make you think a little more about the actual effects of such an event.

How was my beloved Etai and Ari'el?

[quote]easy fix would be for Dina to ambivalently hang a "for sale" sign on the cafe.

Here's an idea - why doesn't Dina walk up the aisle and out of the theatre?

Here’s an idea - be true to the material. This is a show about the people who are not ever going to change, certainly not in the way musical comedy characters are transformed in song just about 2 and quarter hours into the evening. I thought that was refreshing. It made me think of fascinating people in the small towns where I have lived. They don’t put up For Sale signs on their humble businesses.

R295, Bartlett Sher said on Theater Talk that the MFL run was open ended.

Am I missing something about Girl From the North Country that the parents are white and the daughter is black? I haven't seen it, so this is a genuine question about the story

So THAT's where Isaac gets it from

^^^we talked about this. His coloring comes from mom but the looks and body are from daddy. His dad wins muscle competitions too.

Between Gary Beach and Betty Hutton in that "Annie" clip, there's not one ounce of scenery that hasn't been thoroughly masticated.

Good lord why are people getting so fired up over scheduled absences at MFL especially when ticket buyers are notified in advance so, if they desperately want to see Harrywhatshisname they know not to buy tickets for those performances. Yes, actors miss performances and take vacations much more often than they did in the past. Get over it. Merman was rarely out of any of her shows yet there are audience members who saw her and creatives who worked with her who bitch about how she got bored and walked through performances. Perhaps a vacation once in a while would have helped.

Diana Rigg has long been the Queen of Thorns (and garlic). I'm stunned that no one else here remembered that she was literally credited with having bullied her James Bond into giving up his place in the franchise.

But here is a sample of the feud which continued after the movie opened -- I've cut and pasted and know the formatting is all screwed up which may make the delicious bitchiness and resulting salt unreadable:

[quote]January 1970: Daily Mirror. An open letter from Diana Rigg to George Lazenby, her co-star in the new James Bond film, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" 28, Finchley Road, NW8 Dear George, The film has opened and is, I hear, making a great deal of money at the box office. This means you have been accepted by the public, which bodes well for your future career. Why, then, do you persist in dwelling on your petty grievances? I’m tired of reading those paranoid statements to the Press wherein you were solely surrounded by hostile people. I agree that by the end of the film most of the crew were hostile, but only because of your extreme behaviour. Why else would your dresser threaten to hand in his notice? Why else would three chauffeurs leave you within a week? Why else was one member of the unit restrained from striking you after one inexcusable and crude outburst against one of the girls in the film? Remember once telling me you valued honesty greatly and that I was “if nothing else, honest”? Perhaps you would prefer not to. But, let’s get some of those highly-coloured incidents between us straightened out truthfully. NO, GEORGE, I did not eat garlic on purpose. Why would I? To ruin an important scene for both of us? That is not what acting together means. And if you recollect, on discovering what I’d done, I apologised and took every precaution – sprays, pills, etc. NO, GEORGE, I was not, as you said, guzzling champagne in some warm bar when we had the row. I was attempting to back the Cougar car on a very icy road. You were telling me what to do - and since you know more about cars than I, you had every right. But the manner of telling me - abusively with threats to “Bash my ---- face in” - was hardly the best way. I felt ill, unable to fight back on that level - and I cried. Later, some weeks later, you apologised. But the damage was done. Neither do I think it was entirely truthful of you to suggest I was keeping the crew waiting. This was your particular pleasure and it is to their everlasting credit that they treated you throughout with patience and consideration. Even the cameramen took it in his stride when, after only a few weeks of filming, you began telling him what to do. He was a gentleman – remember George? Yes, I did talk to the crew rather than you. Quite simply I preferred their company. And as to Peter Hunt, the director, not once did he lose his temper under the constant provocation of your storming off the set, turning up late and sulking. As far as money is concerned, George, let’s face it: £22,000 for your first film – with perks thrown in – cannot be a hardship. Few would consider it so. And concerning your relations with the producers, I know little except that they found it impossible to meet your demands for more money, bigger chauffeur-driven cars, grander apartments, etc. I do know, too, that the producers are both men capable of generosity, and I was present on one occasion when “Cubby” Broccoli spontaneously gave you - off his wrist - a gold watch you had admired. It is against all my principles and beliefs in the work we as actors do to fight at all – let alone openly and crudely as you have been doing. However, your injustices and blatant distortions to the Press have finally forced me to speak. It is all in the past now, George. The people concerned have been prepared to forget – why can’t you? I’ll say no more. Yours faithfully, Diana Rigg 49, Eaton Square, SW1

Diana Rigg is built like a brick basilica with inadequate flying buttresses and doesn't suggest either intense womanliness or outstanding intellect.

Well it was his only claim to fame and was certainly not asked back. She was being honest and the truth hurts.

Lazenby replied with an open letter:

[quote]Dearest Diana,

[quote]I cannot understand what you have written, but I am trying to answer it in the most honest way. I have dwelt on my “petty” grievances because they may have been petty to you at the time because you have been in the business for 15 years. But I am just a beginner. My grievances and my “paranoid statements to the Press,” as you put it, are all part of somebody trying desperately to co-operate and become a good actor. I am, as you know, a raw recruit to show business. We all make mistakes, and I know I’ve made mine, as there are in every film. And that includes my dresser. But at the end of the film we’re all good mates. The chauffeurs? The one I had in London, Ernie Freeman, I took to Portugal to film. Because he was a stranger there he stayed as my guest more than anything. My second chauffeur was a bullfighter who drove like a lunatic. And, if I die young I’d rather drive myself. The third chauffeur was not outside a restaurant one night. A girl friend and I left and found no car, but there was a rowdy mob of fishermen sending me up as James Bond. The only thing I could do was to walk into the centre of them, rather than let them descend on me. What would you do, darling, if you left with your boy friend, Philip Saville, and found a jeering mob and no car? I was frightened, to be honest, and I shook the ringleader’s hand. Then the car arrived. I took the tension out on the chauffeur and that was wrong, I admit. But he won, because I walked home. I don’t remember any outburst worth speaking of that would get someone uptight enough to want to have a go. I’m sure we had slight disagreements, but they are past and forgotten. I never said you had garlic on purpose, although it was unfortunate you did. Darling, I’ve seen you drink champagne for breakfast. I have it, too, but it’s not exactly my scene. Give me apple juice any day. OK, so I said things about your driving but you don’t think I was right. The film crew I respected. If I can always get a crew like that I will be very happy. They kept me from going insane. The cameraman I could go on and on about. A great guy, Michael Reed. He was a gentleman. You will laugh, Diana about the money scene. But I would have accepted nothing for the part because I wanted to become an actor. It was the greatest screen test of all times. The watch!! I admired Cubby’s watch at the Variety Club Ball, and Cubby said he would get me one. Anyway, another actor had bought one and I mentioned that Cubby was going to give me one. And, two hours later Cubby, being the generous man that he is, handed his over. Obviously the word went down the line. I was very embarrassed and tried to give it back but he insisted that his wife wanted me to have it. I am sorry you brought that up. But what knocks me out the most is that you said it was against your principles and beliefs to bring other people into a fight. I am sorry it worked out this way, but there is a statement that a bigger man than I am has made recently. He puts it in a nutshell: “War is over if you want it.” Peace. George

George Lazenby was a talentless schmuck who practically killed off the franchise with his charm-free performance.

The real scoop would be why r316 has such a vendetta against Dame Diana? He’s been down this road before with other performers. It’s a sign of his mental illness, I guess.

Of all hills to die on, why the one defending Lauren Ambrose?

Of all the theatre gossip threads, why the one with a discussion of a prehistoric bitch fight between Diana Rigg and (of all people) George Lazenby?

I bet Lauren bitchy. I can tell. I saw a little bit of it when i did the WEEKENDS AT BELLEVUE pilot. I mentioned here before. I don't know anything about Diana Rigg but her writing these open letters are HILARIOUS. It seems like she is just calling out assholes and has no tolerance for the bullshit.

[quote]It seems like she is just calling out assholes and has no tolerance for the bullshit.

Except, it would seem, her own.

R320

I don't have a vendetta against Rigg. I think she was completely in the right and hilarious about it (then with Lazenby and now with Ambrose). I think she is tremendous.

Would Merman's shows close down for a week or two when she took her vacation time?

What’s ridiculous is Rigg is responding to a earlier article in which Lazenby trashed the film and the experience.

She didn’t “bully” him into giving up the franchise. He was such a pain to deal with that literally no one wanted him back. He “turned down” the chance to do more Bond films, but the truth is, no ne was offered,

“In 1978 Broccoli described casting Lazenby as "my biggest mistake in 16 years. He just couldn't deal with success. He was so arrogant. There was the stature and looks of a Bond but Lazenby couldn't get along with the other performers and technicians."

You are right, R327

Rigg didn't bully him -- but he did whine about it and push the narrative for decades which has always only reflected poorly on him.

They should get Linda Thorson to replace Rigg in MFL.

RUN don't walk to see THIS AIN'T NO DISCO. That is, if you're a fan of the elusive (off) broadway disaster. This one is legendary. It's like watching someone throw a bowl of spaghetti at a brick wall - As I was watching the incomprehensible opening number, I kept thinking, "maybe I should leave at intermission" and then thought, "when will I get to see this level of disaster again?". To be fair, it actually improves in the second act, but the damage has already been done. I'd say about a third of the audience left.

[quote]You are right, R327, Rigg didn't bully him

Then why did you say she did? You say “she was literally credited with having bullied her James Bond into giving up his place in the franchise“ in your post at r316, and that is just a lie.

You didn’t have to be in the business to know the scoop on Lazenby in 1973. The critics trashed his inept performance, and gossip columns were full of stories of his undeserved star attitude and arrogance.

r330 You are so right about the level of disaster on the Atlantic Stage right now. I was one of many who left the theatre after the first act. It is such a mess! I wonder how do those "things" get produced? And was she a cutter? I thought she was cutting herself when she is on the toilet but my friends did not see it.

How did This Ain’t No Disco get produced? Is Darko that big of a name? Or Trask?

[quote] It's like watching someone throw a bowl of spaghetti at a brick wall

Was it drained first?

I thought after Gent's Guide that Darko showed promise but after Anastasia and now Ain't/Disco it seems he's not all that.

Names like Darko and Beowulf will only get you so far on Broadway.....

OMG I love Linda Thorson. Haven't heard that name in a long, long time. Didn't she have a kid with formerly hot NY talk show host Bill Boggs?????

Baz Bamigboye just tweeted that Taylor Swift and James Corden will be in Tom Hooper’s film of Cats. And Ian McKellen is in negotiations.

And, oh yeah, Jennifer Hudson will play Grizabella.

I don't even understand this. Will they be in costume? Will it be all CGI?

I would have cast Betty Buckley as Grizz because no one sings that fucking song like she does not even Streisand.

SANG, R340. Past tense. Still, would be fun for her and Elaine to make a brief cameo ala Cheets in the Chicago film.

R331

Right - it WAS a lie - but it was also the narrative for years; that Lazenby couldn't handle her laughing at him.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's directing a film adaptation of Tick, Tick...Boom!

[quote] In what shapes up as a stage-to-film transfer with iconic Broadway talent, Imagine Entertainment has set Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda to make his feature directorial debut on Tick, Tick…Boom! That is based on the autobiographical musical by Jonathan Larson, the late playwright behind the smash musical Rent. The Tony-winning Dear Evan Hansen book writer Steven Levenson is aboard to write the screen adaptation. Miranda will produce alongside Imagine chairmen Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, along with Imagine’s Julie Oh. Larson’s sister Julie will be executive producer.

There is just no escaping this guy. Imagine how insufferable he will be now.

No, r342, it wasn’t the narrative. I was fifteen in 1969, I remember the film’s release well. The only narrative was that the producers had hired an incompetent asshole who couldn’t act and it was the downfall of the film. It was big news, the debacle of OHMSS (both the filming of it and the finished product). No one expected Lazenby to have a career after the trashing he got in the press, and it had nothing to do with Rigg. Rigg didn’t fare too well either as far as the film went, not because she wasn’t good, but no one associated with it escaped unscathed.

Now it’s regarded as not being bad at all, but rather well done in spite of Lazenby, but that wasn’t the attitude back then.

Betty and Elaine: Road Kill Cat #1 and Road Kill Cat #2.

Good news, Eldergays! You can now experience teenage dick in public. But only through July 29th.

Gary Beach is not well. Sad.

Six Degrees of Separation just got dated

r348 He's fine! He sends his love!

[quote]Gary Beach is not well. Sad.

Um, he died yesterday.

I do hope r348 was just making a particularly stupid joke....

That's exactly what he was doing.

Anyone done Sleep No More? Is it worth it? And, kind of a dumb question, but are the masks very uncomfortable for those of us who wear glasses?

So the film of most commercially successful dance show of the past thirty 30 or so years is being cast with non-dancers.

Sounds about right.

Then he succeeded brilliantly, R353.

Well, Grizabella isn't a dancing cat. Are there other cats who don’t dance that much that Swift and Cordden could be playing?

Of course, maybe it’s going to be a non-dancing CATS.

Taylor Swift is already working with her acting coach.

Grizabella is supposed to be an old, broken down cat at the end of her life.

There’s no reason they couldn’t have cast Elaine or Batty Betty. They would have hardly needed makeup.

Or Stokes, for that matter

Who in the hell would want to see Cats the movie when Cats the stage show was so god awful?

Not to mention it's already been filmed once with Elaine Page and actual, you know, dancers.

Fuck the kitties, when are they going to make the movie-musical version of Sunset Boulevard?

R362 John Mills FTW

Norma-dor, wait!

[quote]Not to mention it's already been filmed once with Elaine Page and actual, you know, dancers.

But they cut the entire Growltiger sequence, which is really the only sequence that's filmable.

[quote] Baz Bamigboye just tweeted that Taylor Swift and James Corden will be in Tom Hooper’s film of Cats. And Ian McKellen is in negotiations.

Corden will probably play Bustopher Jones. That cat doesn't dance much. I hope they haven't cast him as Old Deuteronomy.

I don't know who they think Taylor Swift would play.

One article reported ALW was writing a new song for Victoria. Is it possible Swift is playing that character? I assume Ian McKellan would be Gus?

Is there a part for little Charlie Stemp?

r367 The same actor usually plays Bustopher Jones and Gus the Theatre Cat so, yeah, probably. Unless they won't double up actors for the movie. Gus seems more substantial, since he also plays Growltiger.

Who do they think is going to go see this? The only audience is 60+ year old women. Does anyone here even like the show?

I have a soft spot for some of the music but an actual production is torture to sit through

Who for Rum Tum Tugger? I hate Robbie Williams but it should be him.

Harry Styles, r373.

Everyone hates on CATS now, but back when it premiered in 1980 (!) it was a wildly risky and tricky endeavor. ALW truly masterminded it in masterful fashion, gaining favor with TS Eliot's widow (who suffers no fools) as well as the (then) esteemed Trevor Nunn, mortgaging his own estate in the process. It seems easy now to imagine, but back when ALW did it it was absolutely revolutionary and I doubt LES MIZ, PHANTOM and the mega-musical as we know it would even exist had he not did what he did (along with Cameron Mackintosh). ALW writes at length about the labyrinth process in his new autobiography, which is surprisingly candid, witty and fun (while being 500+ pages, only covering up to PHANTOM). I know it's more fun to be catty, but...

Yep, R374, it’ll probably be Harry Styles.

*LOVE* that suggestion, R374.

You read it here first, r376!

Will Moulin Rouge make Aaron Tveit the Broadway star he deserves to be?

r375 And let's not forget that Dame Judi Dench was supposed to be Grizzabella. and it would have been a very different character. She broke her foot going up the Heavyside layer(????) If only a tape of rehearsals would ever surface....

No, R379.

But how did people not see through the schlock 38 years ago? And who knew that "Now and Forever" was an actual curse that was going to come true. Honestly, you want them all to die after the first 15 minutes.

[QUOTE]But how did people not see through the schlock 38 years ago?

Has anyone seen Jessica Walter on stage? I'm watching the latest season of Arrested Development (kind of a stinker) and, frankly, the only thing I'm sticking around for at this stage are her scenes. Some sharp writing and fabulous costumes and she'd be the hit of the season, no?

“Aeschylus did not invent theater to have it end up a bunch of chorus kids wondering which of them will go to Kitty Kat Heaven.”

[quote]And let's not forget that Dame Judi Dench was supposed to be Grizzabella. and it would have been a very different character. She broke her foot going up the Heavyside layer

Actually it was her achilles tendon.

I second a poster upstream: ALW's memoirs are really great, and I am not a fan of his musicals. The book is breezy, witty, light, and candid. It's worth reading whether you like what he does or not. I look forward to a part 2, if he writes it.

Couldn't they just take Judi to the vet?

Will Carolee Carmello be Broadway's next Rose in Gypsy?

[quote]Miranda once starred in the off-Broadway production of Tick, Tick…Boom!

Well.....not quite. He was in the Encores production. That Deadline article about this is a mess, short as it is.

As for a CATS movie: Whether you love or hate the stage show, I think a large part of the appeal is (or was) experiencing it live in a theater -- the junkyard world they created, the costumes, the dancing, and all. I can't even imagine how boring a movie version would be, seeing how the damned thing has no plot. (And no, I've never seen the existing video version.)

r389 This promises to be a Mama Rose even hammier than Bette Midler's, even more humourless than BJ Betty's, and even more overwrought than Video Imelda's.

LOL @ R391. Is Carolee that bad? I don't think I've ever seen her on stage. I liked her on the Parade original cast recording. I guess that's the limit of my exposure to her work. Pretty big name for some theatre in Sacramento, I guess.

[quote]there a part for little Charlie Stemp?

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer? (Whichever one of them is the guy)

Harry styles has been quite vociferous about how much he hates making movies. He loathed doing Dunkirk, and it was the moviemaking process itself that he hated.

[quote]And no, I've never seen the existing video version

Don't bother. It's deadly dull. And I like the show!

The fun part about seeing the original Broadway production of Cats was that you got to go up onstage at intermission. I went up and stood center stage where Barbra Streisand stood and belted out "People."

They doing motion capture for Cats? Also, Hooper's such a boring director...

[quote]But how did people not see through the schlock 38 years ago? And who knew that "Now and Forever" was an actual curse that was going to come true. Honestly, you want them all to die after the first 15 minutes.

Frank Rich's review was not glowing praise, though he said it would run because it offered fantasy that was in short supply at the time. It's also one of those shows in which you don't need to know much English to understand, so it did well with foreign tour groups. After a certain point in longevity, people checked it out precisely because it had run so long (I was one of those). I saw a tour that I found terrible. I gave it a second chance in NY and my opinion didn't change, though it certainly played better in the Winter Garden in an environmental setting.

In the London production of Cats, didn't the stage do a 180 revolve at the beginning? Or am I think of another show?

R398 Yes, the stage and the first few rows of seating

r394 Anyone would have hated to do Dunkirk. What a dreadful movie.

[quote]Has anyone seen Jessica Walter on stage? I'm watching the latest season of Arrested Development (kind of a stinker) and, frankly, the only thing I'm sticking around for at this stage are her scenes. Some sharp writing and fabulous costumes and she'd be the hit of the season, no?

She and Linda Lavin need to do a show together. Is it too soon for a revival of "War Paint?"

Isn't Faith Prince married to someone with Sacramento Music Circus? Why isn't SHE playing Rose?

Thank you, r400. Impossible to follow any of the characters---I mean, when you can't recognize Tom Hardy because he's hidden in a mask the entire time...

Don't mind me, r392. I'm just lovesick and bitter.

r403 And this movie was motherfucking LOUD. It was shown exclusively on IMAX, so you couldn't even get a version that didn't have the volume turned up to 11.

Is anyone going to the Fathom Events encore presentation of "Newsies" next week? I just saw the stage version (in a regional theater) and really liked it, so I'm anxious to check out the Broadway version.

It's streaming on Netflix.

Saw “Head Over Heels” tonight. I have not seen something so jaw droppingly bad since “In My Life”

But is it worse than This Ain't No Disco?

R379 NO, and he doesn't deserve to be. CATS is just flat out horrendous and stupid.

I've lived in Manhattan since the early 1970s. Cats was a joke when it opened and has always been since. A big disappointment. to put it mildly, to those of us who had kind of liked JCS and Evita and thought maybe ALW was going to turn out to be somebody.

I hated "Cats". Too many pussies.

r391 relax. Carolee can be quite funny and did really strong comedic work in Addams Family and just last year in Sweeney Todd where everyone raved she was great.

R375 and R382, Cats was always a head scratcher. It came in with a lot of hype. But after it opened the word of mouth was terrible. Everyone thought it would close fast...but it did not.

It still is baffling. It was about 10 years into the run before I finally met someone who said they enjoyed it.

I was watching THE TURNING POINT the other day. Why didn't Arthur Laurents turn it into a stage musical? I'm not a big fan of movie to musical shit but I think this one would have worked plus they could have fabulous ballet sequences on stage. Had it been done 30 yrs ago we could have had Donna McKechnie in the MacLaine role and Annie Pie Reinking as Annie Pie Bancroft.

Somebody has written a musical of The Turning Point but I forget who.

[quote]Everyone hates on CATS now, but back when it premiered in 1980, blah, blah, blah....

Some of us saw through the hype from the beginning.

I saw it early in the run when it still had Growltiger’s Last Stand talking about fighting the “chinks”. I went in with high hopes, I left hating that piece of shit with a passion.

Klea Blackhurst will be Broadway's next Mama Rose.

Broadway has become the land of Trump voters. Who else would keep lame brain musicals running for years?

On the Vintage NY Theater FB page, someone posted photos of the original publicity shoot from 1776 (done perhaps before it even went into rehearsal but with actors in costumes). Fascinating!

There was an actress playing Martha Jefferson (who nobody could identify) who apparently briefly played her before she was fired and Betty Buckley fortuitously got off the bus and was hired. There was also a third woman in the cast who appeared to be playing some sort of a doxy who had a fling (and a musical number) with Ben Franklin and a scene of John and Martha Adams in their nightgowns in their bedroom. And then in some of the photos Gretchen Cryer appears as either Martha or Abigail as she was the understudy for both roles.

I had no idea 1776 went through so much change and upheaval on its way to Broadway.

Has anyone seen Smokey Joe's Cafe? A friend who went the other night said that at 68, he was the youngest member of the small audience.

I saw Smokey Joe's in Ogunquit - it is sort of what you expect it to be; cast is energetic for the most part, a lot of mugging to keep the energy up (faster, louder, funnier) - Jelani Remy and Kyle Taylor Parker are standouts, as well as our favorite Alysha Umphress. But really you have to be in the mood to hear those songs for 90 minutes. I think they've made cuts since then... but still, it gets repetitive quickly. I'd rather listen to an album of it honestly.

I can't believe you Cats haters. It's a delightful musical. It's like a feline A Chorus Line.

I can't believe people are still talking about who's going to be the next Rose in "Gypsy." That's a show that needs to be put in mothballs for a while.

Ken Page in “Gypsy”

Meow, I hope I get it!

How many kitties does he need?

I do not believe the original cast can be rivaled for Smokey Joe’s Cafe. I saw the national tour first and it was a pleasant evening. Then my mother wanted to see it on Broadway and it played much better. I saw a recent production in the regions that was a boring slog.I guess a lot of it depends on cast cohesion as well as having true vocal powerhouses. The woman who did the BJ track in this Equity regional production certainly couldn’t put over her big song.

I really need this yarn

Please God, I need this yarn

I've gotta get this yaaaaarn!

[quote]I do not believe the original cast can be rivaled for Smokey Joe’s Cafe.

I saw the original cast plus the cast in London. It's a deceptive show. It's not just standing up there and singing. The singers have to be top notch and there has to be a lot of energy in the show. Nobody did "Pearl's A Singer" quite like Patti Darcy Jones. Her performance was amazing. It seems like such a throwaway song until you see it done live and in the moment.

Everything was beautiful at the scratch post

Raise your paws and stretch out towards the top

Yes, everything was beautiful at the scratch post, at the scratch post, at the scratch poooooooooooooooost

You're all looking at my whiskers now aren't you?

Do the production code!

I had not seen Cats nor listened to the OCR since I saw it when it first opened in London, a very long time ago. I had forgotten much about it, so I just now watched the video they made of the stage show. There are a few good songs -- the intro is pretty great -- but, wow, what a piece of dreck. Most of the songs are just not that strong, and, removed from a somewhat immersive theater environment, there is just nothing to hold your interest. How on earth are they going to make a movie of this? The only way I can seat working at all is if it has the off-kilter feel of the Edward Gorey illustrations that were done for the Elliot book. Otherwise, who on earth would this appeal to ?

Toni Collette really would make a fantastic Rose in five years or so.

Toni Collette was phenomenol in THE WILD PARTY

Can't forget, won't regret

What I did for Nip

r420 what's the actual name of the FB page? I can't find it. Thanks.

Re the choreography for Cats. It's crap, isn't it? Lynne might be a good and respected choreographer, but has she even SEEN a cat before? The dancing in Cats is supposed to mimic cats' movements, but it is just a bunch of silly poses and movements that have as much to do with cats' movements as a bowel movement. Actually, since it is a bunch of crap, it is closer to the latter. How is it that her choreography in this is so lauded?

Like soap opera (so nix the SOAPDISH adaptation ideas), ballet isn't in vogue today as it was in the 70s, courtesy Baryshiknov, et al.

R437, on Facebook, look for the Forgotten Musical page. I think that's where the early pics of 1776 was posted. I think they also have a post for songs that were cut before opening night.

[quote]it is just a bunch of silly poses and movements that have as much to do with cats' movements as a bowel movement.

Perhaps it could be adapted for the new ALW musical "Bowels"?

At least in A Chorus Line, eight of the cats get to go to kitty-cat heaven.

I now make my living as an theatre academic, mostly focusing on indulgently experimental non-mainstream performance work that only exists so that it gives academics something to write about in order to justify their existence.

And I fucking love Cats. I fell in love with theatre after seeing a Saturday matinee as a 10 year-old. I saw the recent Broadway revival, thinking that as over 25 years had passed since that heady Saturday afternoon, and now that I'm a clever grown up with a PhD and a rigorous understanding of critical theory that I'd probably find it to be garbage. But nah - I still absolutely fucking *loved* it. While the Jake G SITPWG moved me tremendously, apart from Bette in Hello, Dolly! nothing in a Broadway musical that season viscerally thrilled me as much as belting climax in Memory.

I also happen to think all the criticisms regularly levelled at Cats are perfectly legit, but it remains unlike anything else before or since (even Starlight Express had the semblance of a conventional narrative, which Cats lacks). But it's easily the most commercially successful piece of avant-garde theatre ever staged, and I'll fight anybody who disagrees.

Cats ran so long on its foreign tourist trade. You didn't have to understand English to get it. It became a joke that any night you went the Winter Garden there'd be hundreds of Japanese tourists who couldn't speak English.

It's actually kind of a perverse show if you think about it. The little plot the show has revolves around who God is going to kill in some sort of feline sacrifice ritual.

sorry to hear about Gary Beach.. Damn.. he was so funny in "THE PRODUCERS" and a really nice guy. RIP

R443. It is possible that Cats is the most successful avant-garde theatre piece ever mounted, AND not very good. Those are not two mutually exclusive things. If it were just bad, I think we could just move on and never look bad, but what bothers me is that is could have been so much better. I love dance, and some of the dances are quite good, but really don't have anything to do with cat movement. And some of the music is really special, but the majority of it is lifeless and forgettable. The original poems are sublime, and I imagine that it was hard to set them to music in a way that Elliot's wife would approve, but, dear God, some of them just lay there, with no energy or memorable melody. It also is hampered by the fact that, true to its origins, most of the songs are sung ABOUT a cat, rather than by. It becomes tedious.

I do give ALW and CM great credit for undertaking it, because its success at the time was anything but assured, but it could have been such an incredible work of art, instead of dance night for the tourists, and that is why I don't like it. It's a wasted opportunity .

I just don't see how this can work as a movie, since dance movies generally don't work nowadays, and the music and story are not strong enough to support a movie. The lack of theatricality will expose it for the weak show that it is.

[quote] While the Jake G SITPWG moved me tremendously, apart from Bette in Hello, Dolly! nothing in a Broadway musical that season viscerally thrilled me as much as belting climax in Memory.

Considering Cats stinks and Bette was barely passable as Dolly in a creaky, cheap production, it would seem you're easily pleased. Sounds like a PhD was a waste of money.

I dunno, R447. The PhD means that I now get paid a good salary to think and talk and write about theatre, so me being easily pleased seems neither here nor there. Have a great weekend! xx

I'm a tough critic, but I, too, was moved by SITWG. When I saw the original production, I thought the second act was terrible and unnecessary. The revival, though, made the second act vital and moving, and Ashford was absolutely mesmerizing. I know it's heresy to say, but I preferred her to Peters, whom I saw in the original several times. It was really a brilliant production. And good for you, R448. What a wonderful thing to be able to do.

Actually, the FB page with the 1776 photos is Vintage New York Stage. It's a much more informed and civilized page than the Forgotten Musicals page. It's closely moderated and rudeness will not be tolerated there. I'd recommend it if you can get in.

[quote]There was also a third woman in the cast who appeared to be playing some sort of a doxy who had a fling (and a musical number) with Ben Franklin and a scene of John and Martha Adams in their nightgowns in their bedroom.

It was the same scene. When Franklin and Adams and Chase go to New Brunswick (this happens while Cool Cool Men is going on), Franklin and Chase play with the whores, while Adams has another of his imaginary visits with Abigail. They all share a song called “Encrease and Multiply.” John and Abigail had two other songs out of town as well.

Of these three this season which is worst:

Head Over Heels

This Ain’t No Disco

Getting the Band Back Together

[quote]I also happen to think all the criticisms regularly levelled at Cats are perfectly legit, but it remains unlike anything else before or since....

Thank Christ!

[quote]Most of the songs are just not that strong, and, removed from a somewhat immersive theater environment, there is just nothing to hold your interest.

Bingo, that's exactly what I was getting at in my post.

[quote]It's easily the most commercially successful piece of avant-garde theatre ever staged, and I'll fight anybody who disagrees.

Claws in, you cat!

[quote]Bette was barely passable as Dolly in a creaky, cheap production, it would seem you're easily pleased. Sounds like a PhD was a waste of money.

In describing the current Broadway production of DOLLY! as "creaky" and "cheap," you have proved that you don't know what you're talking about, and so your posts should be dismissed.

More jukebox!

[quote]Klea Blackhurst will be Broadway's next Mama Rose

Klea Blackhurst is fat as a cow now. The only part she’s right for in Gypsy these days is Minsky’s Burlesque House.

[quote]Too many pussies.

My very words!

R454 I thought he'd quit acting to be a personal trainer?

[quote] The PhD means that I now get paid a good salary to think and talk and write about theatre.

Darling, NO ONE gets paid a good salary to talk about theater anymore. Everyone knows that.

I thought Hello Dolly looked cheap, too. It can't imagine that the set of the touring production is going to be much different, at all, and, usually, the Broadway version is much more dazzling. There were so many opportunities for them to have pulled out all stops and had a really wonderful set and design, but it all looked like it was done on a budget.

[quote] In describing the current Broadway production of DOLLY! as "creaky" and "cheap," you have proved that you don't know what you're talking about, and so your posts should be dismissed.

It was both of these and many agreed. The set looked like bus and truck (though the costumes were quite wonderful). Bette was Bette and nothing more, which would have been acceptable except that Bette's been coasting on fumes for years now and is a lazy performer. The rest of the acting was either hammy garbage or non-existent, only playing up the age of the book. The big Harmonia Gardens number needed oxygen midway through, it was trying so hard to look effortless but panted all the way.

[quote] it all looked like it was done on a budget.

I would love to hear about a Broadway show that did not have a budget for its set.

Are you that pedantic, R461? You must know that "on a budget" means that it was not everything it could have been, that they did not have enough money to do it right.

Toni Collette is probably the only person who could get me excited for a GYPSY revival or new film version. If she managed to do a film version, it'd probably end up being definitive. She's the right age, has the voice for it, and would act the shit out of it. Even better, she'd probably actually get a lot of the humor in act I unlike many recent Roses who insist on playing Rose as dour and humorless as possible.

And there are ten fewer ensemble members in this production than were in the original.

Toni Collette as Sally Bowles in the Cabaret revival was seriously a missed opportunity. She would have been brilliant.

These are the only cats I want to see in a musical film.

What's the latest on Chicago?

I saw Dolly last Fall with Bette and then again this Spring with Bernadette. I sat in the orchestra for Bette and front mezz for Bernadette. I will say that when I first saw the production the sets also felt a little cheap at times to me, as well. But something about the vantage of seeing them from the front mezz greatly improved the experience and everything seemed a bit ritzier.

Toni really would have been a great Sally. They really did have a lot of interesting Sallys in that production. Jennifer Jason Leigh was the first replacement for Natasha Richardson and I thought she was excellent and very underrated. Wasn't Toni supposed to come right after her?

Toni was also the other contender besides Helena Bonham Carter for Mrs. Lovett in the Sweeney Todd film. That one is a crying shame.

The script/bible for the original production of Cats is actually very impressive. Nunn created a very rich, detailed world with dozens of little stories the audience never fully comprehended but which still had a visceral impact on them.

Toni would also have made a great Roxie in the film of Chicago but she apparently wasn’t big enough a box office draw.

I know I'm in the minority but I loved Rene Z as Roxie. Gwenyth Paltrow and Jennifer Jason Leigh were also in the running.

[quote] Toni was also the other contender besides Helena Bonham Carter for Mrs. Lovett in the Sweeney Todd film. That one is a crying shame.

So someone other than Burton's completely miscast and tone deaf wife was actually being considered for the role?

[quote] I know I'm in the minority but I loved Rene Z as Roxie.

Agreed. While Toni Collette can always improve something, I thought Renee did a damn good job (and CZJ was even better.) And Gere should have gotten a nomination, especially over John C. Reilly. And the less said about Latifah, the better.

Toni was really pissed off because she didn't get the Bridget Jones franchise.

Anybody see Nefertiti?

Eldergays, did any of you see Ann Reinking in the ORIGINAL Chicago production? I wish some footage existed. I mean, the way she looked and moved in the 70s and early 80s... she was such a knockout.

Also, is IBDB accurate? Did she also end up joining the cast of Fosse after it opened? Which number(s) did she perform?

The definitive and unforgettable Reinking performance was in DANCIN'.

She was incomparably superb dancing to Sing, Sing Sing!

SING X 3

R468, Weren't the sets redesigned for Bernadette?

"The script/bible for the original production of Cats is actually very impressive. Nunn created a very rich, detailed world with dozens of little stories the audience never fully comprehended but which still had a visceral impact on them."

I'm not sure I'd call them impressive, but, yes, every kitty-cat had its own back story. If memory serves, I believe Grizabella was a traumatized rape victim...

[quote] [R468], Weren't the sets redesigned for Bernadette?

They just gave em a little spruce, covered up all the teeth marks from where Bette chewed the scenery. Small stuff.

Like the DOLLY sets or not, the design was very clearly meant to evoke scenery from the Golden Age of Broadway with painted drops, no projections and minimal mechanized set pieces.

Reinking was fantastic in the original production of Chicago. Very sexy. And she didn't wear that awful curly wig that she wore for publicity pics before she took over. She wore a short blonde wig. And she originated her roles in Dancin' but left a few months later to film All That Jazz but she did return for a few months after that and was given a star bow at the end (before all of the dancers bowed alphabetically). Vicki Frederick moved into Ann's roles while she was out and she was equally as stunning.

I'll never forget Reinking in the ensemble of Pippin where she stood out from all those other girls, most of whom were prettier.

R485, reign it in, Cassie.

[quote] Like the DOLLY sets or not, the design was very clearly meant to evoke scenery from the Golden Age of Broadway with painted drops, no projections and minimal mechanized set pieces.

Didn't work. It just came off looking cheap.

I thought the Dolly sets added to the charm of the show. No floating mansions, no helicopters, no special effects. Just a strong book, score and cast.

r474: Don't share your enthusiasm about Gere. It was offered to Spacey who would had the perfect combination of show biz fizz and sleaze, but he was doing "Pay It Forward" (or another forgettable movie).

[quote]I've lived in Manhattan since the early 1970s. Cats was a joke when it opened and has always been since.

Well that's horseshit and you know it. It was a sensation. It was an event. Buckley was thrilling. I saw the first matinee after opening night and the audience ate it up. It sold out for years and ran for twenty.

Buckley’s MEMORY was a once-in-a-lifetime is thrilling moment of theater.

Celine Dion's version has to be seen to be believed. (Dis)honourable mention: Ruthie Henshall. No wonder her voice is now shot.

I usually get castigated when I post this here and elsewhere but I thought Chicago was leaps and bounds better with Reinking and our own divine Lenora Nemetz. It was faster, meaner, funnier, snarkier and there was tons more dancing.

And then it closed.

Agree! Nemetz was great

Buckley is untouchable as Grizabella. Both live and recording. It’s the thing she’ll be remembered for, and she’s sensational in it.

r495 wins!

However, Betty was fucking batty as shit backstage in her bellicose conversations with God from her dressing room.

[quote] [R474]: Don't share your enthusiasm about Gere. It was offered to Spacey who would had the perfect combination of show biz fizz and sleaze, but he was doing "Pay It Forward" (or another forgettable movie).

That's too bad re: Spacey. I think he'd have been great, but I'm still happy w/ Gere.

I actually prefer Elaine Paige as Grizabella in the original London production, beautifully sung and touching. Buckley was very good indeed in NY, but it sounded like they really souped up the amps when she sang the climax in "Memory", and lordy, she already has a steely enough voice without the sound people hitting you in the head with steel. Also, Lloyd Webber changed some of the music in NY -- I much preferred the original "Mungojerry and Rumpleteazer" that Bonnie Langford did in London. Plus the revolving audience (well some rows of the stalls) and stage was a fun way to start the evening.

Are there any pictures or video of this revolving audience in the London Cats? I'm trying to imagine how that worked and all I'm picturing is the first few rows getting revolved 180 and having their backs to the stage? That can't be right.

God, all these Reinking remembrances are making me jealous. I wish I'd been around to see her in her prime.

CATS in London was where it really made its mark. Nabbing the prized Winter Garden in NYC was a coup, but the whole deal ALW/Cameron worked out to do the OLC production in that abandoned theater/TV studio really made the immersive nature of the OLC iteration more pronounced. It ran for 20+ years even, no? Did anyone here sit on the revolve?

I can’t believe people are seriously examining.....CATS. The score, the choreography, the concept= SHITE sandwich. The Donald Trump of musicals.

As for the PhD in theatre....well, let’s just say that academics and theatre are two disiciplines that should never, ever cross-pollinate

Really? We deplorably have HAMILTON for you, R502. All yours.

Ann Reinking was very good in the original "Chicago", but she was imitating Gwen Verdon, right down to her voice. There were a number of dancers around Gwen's age (and who worked with her) who started affecting her voice for some reason. Maybe they thought it would get them work (or maybe get them Fosse for a while).

R500 Not exactly what you were asking for, but hopefully this clears it up a little - the first few rows and the stage revolved together.

I did sit on the seats on the revolve once - and have no real memory of it, as I guess the effect really only hit those sitting in the normal seats. On the revolve your view didn't change too much - or my memory is just awful, I was a kid at the time.

Probably helps if I add that before the show started, the seats on the revolve are facing downstage, then as it starts, the revolve turns 180 so it matches the seating plan I linked to.

Someone above mentioned Van Johnson and Keenan Wynn. Yes, they were a thing but the story is weirder than that. When LB Mayer told Johnson he had to get married, Keenan and his wife got a quickie divorce and she immediately married Johnson. The three had some strange thruple relationship in the years following. I don't remember the details but it's easily googled.

^ Sorry, I posted that in the Gay Flings in Old Hollywood thread. I wondered were it ended up.

R508 - that thread sounds fun. What's the title (or, link us to it, would ya?)

Here ya go, r509.

[quote]and there was tons more dancing

No there wasn't. The exact same amount of dancing. It may have seemed like more, especially in Reinking's case, because she was at the height of her dancing stardom and Gwen was slowing down, but it was the same dances (Reinking did "The Strut" for Me and My Baby, just as Gwen did. That was the main dance sequence for Roxie in the show (which is why it was added) save for the "Hot Honey Rag." Reinking looked spectacular dancing in "Chicago," but it hardly showed off what she could do, dance-wise. Unfortunately, by the time of the Encores "Chicago," her body had thickened. She could do the moves of her youth, mostly, but she didn't look the same. Verdon's body never thickened like that, but she wasn't nearly as magical a mover in her 50s as she had been in her 20s-40s.

I don't care who are are, who you claim to be, or what your relationship to the show is, there was more dancing in the show when Reinking and Nemetz took over, including gloved jazz hands appearing from the stage floor and wings during the Roxie number. And the confetti came back. The show was faster, funnier and meaner and the world better for it. Gwen and Chita were both wonderful in their own way but the show was funereal with them. They were both 20 years too old for their parts and their choreography in the original and it all came to life when Reinking and Nemetz took over.

And of course.....

I did, r476. In Chicago. It was terrible, and I was oh-so-clever in dubbing it "A Grim Pharaoh Tale."

So the London Cats was more like an in-the-round production or maybe three-quarters round. The Broadway version was proscenium but the cast entered through the audience.

Most actors are lucky to hit one...Betty has three Grizabella,

and is the definitive Norma, better than who preceded or since.

And finally....

Betty also had her turkeys. Triumph of Love was awful. And Betty couldn't bring in the people; the tickets were on TKTS all the time until its pitiful closing.

Betty also had her nonstarters, like Brothers and Sisters.

Was she supposed to have the Sally Field role? God, she would have been awful.

r520 Yes.

Would it have then been referred to as "The Betty Buckley Programme?"

Would she have given blowjobs to the actors playing her sons before shooting?

Reinking was absolutely gorgeous onstage and off. Those long legs and big blue eyes. She was excellent in Over Here!, Goodtime Charley, ACL, Dancin' and the original Chicago, I don't know what happened after that but she slipped into bizarre caricature performances in Sweet Charity and the Chicago revival although she was very, VERY different in the Encores staging. There she played Roxie as dangerous and sexy. Her performance during the broadway run was just bizarre.

Reinking did FOSSE with Vereen and they're both in the video capture of the show that was commercially available

How on earth did they persuade Andy Karl to take over in Pretty Woman? Surely he could have found something more interesting. I'm not sure if he's even right for the part. I hope they're paying him a bloody fortune. I just watched the first curtain call on youtube and even that was boring.

r526 Orfeh looks high-maintenance to me.

Reinking had a very unique face...too unique for my tastes. She was a good dancer, though.

[quote]Reinking had a very unique face

So did John Merrick.

Anybody going up to Poughkeepsie to catch Vassar's Powerhouse Theater production of The Waves, starring DL fave Raul Esparza?

Pretty Woman. Zzzzzzzzz

Anyone in Pittsburgh see Brigadoon? That would be a great show to revive.

"Brigadoon" has a gorgeous score but a creaky 1940s book.

Didn't they just do an encore Brigadoon with Patrick Wilson that got a great review for the production, but a mediocre one for the play itself?

How is the book for Brigadoon any creakier than MFL, Dolly, or Carousel? Just go ahead and set the "present" in the 40s so it's a period piece within a period piece. The score is great, all of the stuff in Scotland leads to great visuals, and the original departure scene when you think "that is it" is a nice twist.

[quote]reign it in, Cassie.

Oh, dear.

Miss Reinking torchin' for Bill.......

I want to know about BB's "bellicose conversations with god"

Wasn't Toni Collette basically hired for Roxie in Chicago before Renee came on the scene? Like others have said, I rather liked Renee in the film and thought she did a terrific job. I even think her singing voice is pretty good, especially for those songs.

I remember hearing that tons of people went in for Mrs. Lovett in the Sweeney Todd movie. Toni, Emma Thompson, Annette Bening, and even Bernadette Peters. Why they ended up going with Helena is beyond me, especially since it seems like she was treated poorly on the set and Burton seemed insistent on hammering out any humor that she would have brought to the role. Her singing was quiet, but passable. She hit the notes, but just without any power which seemed to be in line with Burton's vision of the character. I'm not sure why he wanted to her to whisper every line. She fared better in Les Mis if you ask me.

Charlize Theron was talking recently about how SHE had been hired as Roxie before Rob Marshall came aboard and then she was dropped along with everyone else who'd been signed on. I have a hard time picturing her in that role. I think she has dance training, but I've never heard her sing. Is she hiding a talent from us?

Well, R540...

Maybe they were planning on dubbing her. Or maybe she was doing a bit.

Looks like Renee was a trade up after all.

"a creaky 1940s book."

Not hardly. But you need a team that: 1. know how to read a script 2. believe in it 3. secure a cast that understand the style

Eldergays, any memories of the original 42nd Street? Was it mainly about the big tap numbers or was it more than that?

It was Dames at Sea on steroids, r545.

Nobody was looking for Charlize in 2000. She was a joke.

The fantasy stuff in BRIGADOON doesn't work in these days. Another show better off as a concert. As long as Robbie Fairchild wears a kilt.

In the proper Scottish manner, r548.

I saw 42nd Street when it was trying out in DC, in a Kennedy Center Opera House audience full of seniors who'd seen the film at their neighborhood Rialto--well dressed and well heeled, but.....In any case, they were wildly enthusiastic and cheered for everything. During the performance I saw fairly large props (One of the giant coins from "We're in the Money" and I think part of a train fell into the pit. Lee Roy Reams danced up a storm wearing an enormous shit eating grin and the ingenue who was shtupping Gower was moderately good, but nothing special. I predicted to my friends that it would close on opening night.....

Much like No, No, Nanette, the thing wasn't much but it had a ready made audience in nostalgia buffs.

Christ, r513, Liza needed another line before that performance. That was the most low-energy, coma-inducing rendition of Roxie I’ve ever heard.

[quote] Lee Roy Reams danced up a storm wearing an enormous shit eating grin

Well, I had had a snack in between shows!

It was a well-crafted Gower Champion show. I saw it in L.A. and remember feeling that while it started with a big bang, the finale was a bit of a let down. I loved the finale in the revival so I don't know what that's about. I didn't think Richert or Levering had any significant stage presence though they certainly both were tops in taps.

Was corn involved, r552?

Continuing our journey though 1980-81 ... who exactly was the audience for Tintypes?

Well, it had the wonderful Lynne Thigpen, so there's that, r555.

Any word on DAVE in DC?

Brigadoon has the problem that all the townspeople seem mean spirited when the guy tries to get away and dies under mysterious circumstances.

[quote]Ann Morrison then and now

[quote]Reinking was absolutely gorgeous onstage and off. Those long legs and big blue eyes. She was excellent in Over Here!, Goodtime Charley,

She was the best Joan of Arc I've ever seen in "Goodtime Charley." I've heard she could be "off" some performances, especially as it got closer to closing, but she was brilliant the night I saw it.

Ann Morrison in RUTHLESS!

R558, Not if you are paying attention. If he leaves, Brigadoon is no more. His death is their self preservation.

[quote]there was more dancing in the show when Reinking and Nemetz took over, including gloved jazz hands appearing from the stage floor and wings during the Roxie number.

You've already proved how faulty your memory is with your insistence that Reinking toured in "Chicago" post-Broadway. It's equally faulty now. None of that is true. Fosse spent exactly two days with the show, one of which was a run-through with the cast, when Reinking went in. The rest of her rehearsals were with the stage manager Bob Corpora and Graciela Daniele, (plus Gwen herself) who put her into the show with understudies, as is the usual custom.

[quote]Gwen and Chita were both wonderful in their own way but the show was funereal with them.

No it wasn't. The show was hot from the beginning. It got hotter, but less well-acted, when Minnelli came in. To call it "funereal" invalidates everything you've said (if your own misinformation hadn't done that already).

Reinking and Nemetz

R559 - Ann's husband (or, boyfriend?) is a ZADDY

Agree, R562. He's threatening to kill every single person in the village.

It's very surprising there hasn't been a Michael Bennett revue in all the years since FOSSE won Best Musical. Yes, of course, his style was show-dependent, but nonetheless the chance to recreate scenes from PROMISES, PROMISES, COMPANY, FOLLIES, A CHORUS LINE, DREAMGIRLS and even the standout songs from his lesser-known works (COCO, BALLROOM, A JOYFUL NOISE, SEESAW, HENRY, SWEET HENRY) plus the specialty songs from HULLABALOO, etc. must be worthy of a revue. Perhaps John Breglio doesn't have any interest, since he'd who have to shepherd it or at least approve of it. Or maybe the PRINCE OF BROADWAY flop harms any chance for the foreseeable future. Be that as it may, how exhilarating it would be to see the stagings of the Milliken Industrials, the scenes he prepared for CHESS and most importantly the SCANDAL work. Jerry Mitchell has said Bennett had extensive choreographic plots and notation of all his later work, so the stagings exist for at least everything from BALLROOM/DREAMGIRLS on... but, obviously no one cares.

Am I the only one here who mixed up Gary Beach with Lee Roy Reams?

That looks like Blake Walton, r565. He was her husband in the mid 80s, and father of their son Huck, but he came out as gay and they got divorced. They’ve stayed very close, though, and are still very good friends,

[quote] Or maybe the PRINCE OF BROADWAY flop harms any chance for the foreseeable future.

That, definitely.

[quote]Am I the only one here who mixed up Gary Beach with Lee Roy Reams?

Lee Roy played the director role in The Producers tour

I was in attendance on opening night, r545, and, needless to say, Merrick's announcement stunned the glitzy crowd. As for the show itself, I thought the opening, with the curtain going up on a stage of tap-dancing feet, was terrifically exciting, and the self-referential Champion touches throughout were amusing (little did we know they were a last hurrah). From a musician's viewpoint, I thought the orchestrations were anachronistic and standard issue.

"Any word on DAVE in DC?"

Yes.

Why?

The three times i saw Gwen and Chita in Chicago, Gwen simply didn't dance. She leaned on her cane and swayed to the music while being held up by her elbows by two chorus boys, who held her up and moved her around the stage even during her dialog scenes. Well, to be fair, she did walk unassisted the last time I saw her but she didn't dance. Reinking was a revelation and suddenly Roxie was a big production number, which it hadn't been before.

^ I meant to say a big, glitzy production number, which it hadn't been before.

Gwen did the last two months of Chicago using a walker. She really knew how to work that thing in “Hot Honey Rag.”

The funereal touch came from the fact that Gwen was helped out of a coffin for her bow.

Yes, they dance in CATS but it's actually more of a singing show than you guys remember. That's why they need pit singers. There are roles that have no dancing at all which is what Corden and Hudson and Swift will be playing. Geesh.

you think andy karl can do better than pretty woman? Bahahaha

Lee Roy also replaced Beach in Beauty and the Beast when Beach left for the LA company in 1995. Interestingly, Beach replaced Lee Roy in The Producers 1st national when it reached LA and gained Marty Short and Jason Alexander.

OH BOY.

we need Pretty Woman reports here. Trust you bitches more than the chat boards

A friend has roped me into going to see "Head Over Heels" this week but I'm not looking forward to it at all. I don't like jukebox musicals.

Not one word of what r574 says is true.

Gwen never did Chicago?

[quote]How on earth did they persuade Andy Karl to take over in Pretty Woman? Surely he could have found something more interesting. I'm not sure if he's even right for the part. I hope they're paying him a bloody fortune. I just watched the first curtain call on youtube and even that was boring.

What are you babbling about? He's a working actor and was offered a lead in a new Broadway show. You think he can afford to sit around and wait for whatever job you deem appropriate?

I believe Lee Roy and Gary were cut from the same chiffon.

I think Andy Karl realized he should stick to working in theatre instead of in TV/film because after his stint on Law & Order: SVU it was abundantly clear he’d never get offered substantial roles on those. In the theatre he would.

I think of them more as crepe satin, r586.

Does Andy Karl not have the looks for TV and film? Or the talent?

R589 he has the talent but not sure how he looks in camera

He was a regular pn L&O SVU for a couple of years, r590. Looked fine.

R572, In today's TMZ world, the news of Gower Champion's death would never be kept secret for all those hours.

Then I guess the answer is yes Andy Karl has the looks and talent for tv

Play us off, Judy Kuhn!

If I remember correctly, secret even from the cast, R592.

Play us off, Evan Todd!

I'm at MFL right now, most of the people around me have no idea Lauren Ambrose won't be performing. No wonder Diana Rigg was pissed.

Nothing at the lobby, r597?

Play us off, Betty Buckley!

(Not from Tender Mercies)

Play us off, Stokes!