Theatre Gossip #320: “Phone rings, door chimes, in comes some fucked up Company” Edition

Damn, the other thread closed before I had a chance to post a link to this.

Is this new Company revival set today or in the past?

R2 -- I don't know the answer, but considering that one of the couples is same-sex, I assume it is satin the present ish.

I hope R595 from the previous thread, a SAG member who does non union work, not only gets reported but is thrown out of SAG. Fuck you, R595.

[quote]Those good and crazy people, my British friends.

Please don't lump Patti LuPone in with the rest of us!

Patti LuPone trying to be Bette Midler.

Someone late last thread mentioned reunions for actors who did nudie musicals Oh Calcutta and Naked Boys Singing. He mentioned he thought the original Courier was in one of the shows. If he means Scott Jarvis, he died in 1990, which would’ve been before “Naked Boys Singing,” I think, and I can’t find any evidence of his having been in Oh Calcutta.

I remember Scott when he was the maitre’d at Palsson’s when Forbidden Broadway was there, around early-mid 1980s.

I like this title! Thanks for not bowing to the pushiness of the Magic Beans Troll, OP.

Aw, thanks.

Signed, the OP

R7 He was a replacement in the revival.

He's third from the left, looking very happy.

Don't believe the charmer from the previous thread's analysis of theatre, with particular regard to NETWORK. This astute commentator obviously had problems with high school English; anyone else reading Lee Hall's script - which I have next to me as I write this - will see that Hall and van Hove have skewed it entirely towards Howard Beale; the Beatrice Straight character - given an Oscar in the film for her one scene - is all but invisible, and Max and Diana seem almost incidental (though, to be fair, neither Henshall nor Dockery was much good, so the roles might shine more with actors who actually have some chemistry). Whoever this dolt is, is probably going now to request comparative line counts, which he can do over the weekend should he wish to in between picking his toenails.

Or read the reviews of the production and you can see how the responses fell in accordance with Hall et al's intentions.

Fuck you, r11. Your cuntiness is marked by a notable absence of wit, which leaves you just nasty. (And no, I’m not the poster you’re insulting. I just like to have some humor from DL’s glorious cunts, and you have nothing).

Felicity Huffman would have been good

I couldn’t have put it better, R12. I’m the one who actually saw the production of Network at the National. Max and Diana are absolutely NOT sidelined in Lee Hall and Ivo van Hove’s adaptation. R11 is not just being a contrary cunt but is obviously an utter moron with zero proof to back up his ludicrous claim.

you're both tiresome

Very few people give a fuck about Network.

Now can we please talk about Follies again for the 15,629,983rd time?

Sure r16.

No one will ever surpass Dorothy Collins. No one. Ever.

Going back to talking about Into The Woods, stage vs movie, when they cut the song between the Baker and the Father, I think the really poignant lyrics of the father were lost. I don't remember them showing up anywhere else in the movie, but it really went to the heart of the Baker's story of searching for a sense of stability when a parent fucks up. And I think these are some of Sondheim's best lyrics.

Running away, let's do it, Free from the ties that bind

No more despair, or burdens to bear, Out there in the yonder

Running away, go to it, Where did you have in mind?

Have to take care... unless there's a 'where', You'll only be wandering blind

Just more questions.. different kinds

Where are we to go? Where are we ever to go?

Running away, we'll do it, Why sit around, resigned?

Trouble is, son, the farther you run, The more you'll feel undefined

For what you have left undone, and more, What you've left behind

We disappoint, we leave a mess, we die, but we don't

Well, to be honest, no one will ever really surpass Alexis Smith and Yvonne De Carlo, either. Gene Nelson, too.

[quote]He's third from the left, looking very happy.

You'd be looking happy, too, if your dick was rubbing up against the ass of a cutie like the one in front of him. Who is that actor? The only other person besides Scott Jarvis that I recognize in that picture is Richert Easley, one of the most annoying people on the planet. But he has his little piece of immortality thanks to that movie with drag queen Craig Russell, "Outrageous," when Easley hilariously shows up on Halloween as Karen Black in "Airport '75," screaming "I can't fly this plane alone! I can't! I can't!"

I've seen several productions of Follies and nobody has been able to do Broadway Baby better than Ethel Shutta. It's become such a Broadway anthem that performers now want to make it a belty, production number. Shutta was an old lady having fun with the song. She didn't need to prove anything and in so doing did the best rendition of the song.

I've said on discussion threads before that Josephine Barstow did the definitive Heidi in the National's Follies. The song always bored me. But her frail look and the desperation on her face blended with the song and made it the best I've ever seen. I teared up when I saw it (I know, Mary!!) but it's just perfection. I'm sure if I post the clip of her, youtube will take it down immediately, so maybe once this revival run closes, I'll try and see if I can get it posted.

Like everything Ivo does, NETWORK will be hailed as revolutionary, which means most of us will find it to be another tiresome, look-at-me, piece of shit.

R18: "where are we to go? Where are we ever to go?" makes me cry every time. And I agree, the loss of that song and the Mysterious Man weakens the story.

......to say nothing of the BEANS.

BEANS?!

The magic beans

I let him go.

I didn’t know he had stolen the beans.

The *SPECIAL* beans, R25!

R21: There was a moment when Barstow was silhouetted as she frailly began to walk off, only to turn back as the Young Heidi began to sing. I can't remember in which part of the song it happened, and she didn't appear silhouetted in the NT LIve broadcast, but I'll remember that image for the rest of my life. I also (MARY!) cried.

I think Richert Easley looks pretty cute there and also here--wouldn't have minded seeing him frontal back then. The first guy on the left is Norman Weiler (a/k/a Dutweiler) who became a theater manager and the other guy next to Scott Jarvis is the very cute Gary Meitrott.

I think the moustache makes all the difference.

Are those supposed to be the same actors as the black and white pic? The only one who looks the same is Richert Easley. The cute guy from the black and white is nowhere to be seen in the color shot.

That line needed more strabismus, r20.

[quote]wouldn't have minded seeing him frontal back then

He has quite an impressive cock. It's the only non-annoying thing about him. Although to be fair, I knew him in the 70s and 80s. It's entirely possible he has mellowed with age. (See pic - he's in a wheelchair for the part in the play he was in, in really life he's hale and hearty and ambulatory. This pic is a few years old.)

The guy to Jarvis' right in the black and white photo is way on the right in the color photo. There was a big turnover in the casts of the show.

Actually, r31, what it really needs is Rich Easley as Karen Black.

[quote][R21]: There was a moment when Barstow was silhouetted as she frailly began to walk off, only to turn back as the Young Heidi began to sing. I can't remember in which part of the song it happened, and she didn't appear silhouetted in the NT LIve broadcast, but I'll remember that image for the rest of my life. I also (MARY!) cried.

It was so well staged and even though the filming did a brilliant job, there's no way they could capture every moment of the production. It may have been when Young Heidi took over the song. As her younger self takes over, Heidi walks back to the chairs to pick up her purse and flowers. This is what I love about British theater. It's not just an actress making way for another actress to take center stage. The movement has a specific purpose. And the frail, stooped Barstow was physically perfect for the role and emotionally right on target.

Oddly, the Heidi-Young Heidi scene was my favorite--I thought Barstow was just breathtaking. It's really the only moment I remember clearly from the NT Live Broadcast.

The guys I remember in "Oh! Calcutta!" was a really gorgeous dark-haired guy with a moustache named Nick Mangano (who I think is bald now, but still very cute theater professor) and a rather cute, more charactery guy named Charles E. Gerber, who still acts.

The very cute Gary Meitrott from Oh Calcutta, about nine years ago. He's the one introducing this video about the Rutland Vt. Halloween parade.

A year ago.

Agreed with all of the above on the One More Kiss scene in the NT Follies. I suddenly found myself misty-eyed at a song that, while a lovely operetta pastiche, never did a thing for me.

I bought a ticket to see Patti in Company. It might be her final musical, she has a great number to perform.

When are you going, R41---and when does it open?

Please don't let Follies kill off another thread!

Amazing that all the discussions on this thread are about shows in the UK: Network, the National Follies, the upcoming Company.

And rightfully so. Things ain't so grand in NYC. The shows that are about to make an impact this coming season (The Ferryman, The Jungle) are also from the UK.

That said, someone in the last thread asked about Play-by-Play right before that thread ended, and I too was wondering, so I'm going to repeat the question here. Does anyone on DL use the service?

R41 In October. Opens 26th Sep and closes 22nd Dec. Short run.

[quote]Please don't let Follies kill off another thread!

We were asked to.

And "One More Kiss" sums absolutely the entire show.

Thanks, R45. Be sure to post, won't you?

for those who have never seen it in all it's 70's glory, I give you a pro mastered version of "Oh Calcutta " circa 1972

Bill Macy. Naked.

I don't know if this was shot to show in adult theaters or what, but some of the most interesting footage is the audience coming in.

[quote]And "One More Kiss" sums absolutely the entire show.

If I hear one more comment about Josephine Barstow and her life-altering "One Last Kiss" I am going to puke my fucking guts out.

Combing two themes of this thread: how about a "Follies" set within an reunion of "Oh! Calcutta" actors? They can use the Equity weeks.

Other than the nudity, Oh! Calcutta! has nothing going for it. It's the most boring musical I've ever sat through. And I've sat through hundreds.

Yes! And all the Follies numbers are done nude! They'd have to be careful in casting, though, to get a young and older Ben and Buddy who have matching cocks.

Ummm ....now 70, do I really want to see Kurt Peterson nude?

A lot of the writing in "Oh! Calcutta!" is really bad, which is kind of surprising since people like Jules Feiffer, Sam Shepard, and others contributed to it. The naked dance is rather nice, but the music they dance to is not.

Cats is coming December 20, 2019.

Back then this production ran for two weeks. LuPone isn’t kind for the director in her memoirs. The director fired the male lead after first rehearsal. But Sir Cameron produced it and it was the first time he mentioned there could be a role for Patti in a musical about French revolution.

Does anyone know what form the Cats movie will take? Will it be animated? Will the actors wear costumes similar to the Broadway version? Will it be body motion capture, and then transformed into some form of animation? Will it be like, say, Avatar, a hybrid of recognizable people and computer-generated creatures? I can't imagine that it will work in any, way, shape, or form. There are a few good songs, but it was mostly the dancing and the spectacle and the immersive environment that made it a hit. There is nothing there that belongs on a screen.

Just a lot of pussies grabbing each other.

Despite a few missteps here and there (Phyllis' hideous costume, the underwhelming Loveland segment, etc.), I think the NT Follies is about as great a production as we'll ever see. The staging was brilliant and haunting. It felt very film-like. I was moved by moments in that production that have never moved me before. I don't know how they did it, but it really is a genius feat. The show was so close to really working for the first time. That Loveland really was a mess, though. I hope they retool that when they open it again. It was my only big beef with the production. It felt like they spent so much time rehearsing act I and combing the script for every possible nuance that they forgot about act II until 2 days before opening and just slapped it together.

I wasn't even as bothered by Imelda as some. She was a bit manic at times, but it suits the character and she was nowhere near as awful as she was in the BBC taping of Gypsy. I'm surprised she hasn't had every copy destroyed. I still don't know what was going on there. I saw her live and she was damn near definitive in the role.

Is Cats a Universal production? What's happening to the film version of Wicked?

R58, it's going to be stop-action animation, like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but using taxidermy rescue cats all chosen and culled from a shelter specifically for the production. If it goes well, they'll all end up on display at the Smithsonian.

[quote]Is Cats a Universal production? What's happening to the film version of Wicked?

Wicked ain't happening.

It was just announced that Wicked would be delayed, but I only saw the headline, didn't read the article.

I still don't understand what problem DL posters have with the NT set for Losing My Mind. Loveland is a fantasy sequence. This isn't Sally's dressing table in Arizona. This is some glamorous femme fatale's boudoir. And Losing My Mind is exactly the kind of torch song she might sing in private to an absent, unrequited love. Imelda hardly looks like a femme fatale, but that's beside the point.

Aargh...and I get pulled into a Follies discussion yet again. The NT production was incredibly moving, but I don't know if that is because they jsut did everything right and found meaning where none really existed before, or because I am now the same age as the four leads, and can look back on my life and see which roads I should have taken, and which I should not have, and still loving someone who is long in the past. It was personal and emotion this time. The only faults I had with the production are minor. The transformation into Loveland just felt meh. I wanted to feel like I was transported to an entirely different plane and reality, and it just felt cheap and unexciting. I wanted to be WOWED! I wish Sally were more tempered and honestly vulnerable and lovable. I would have preferred that we could fall in love with a lively, lovely woman before her obsessive interior exposed itself, but we saw too much too soon. I don't know if that was the director's or Imelda's fault, but it did not detract from a glorious production. To those of you who are bored and annoyed that Follies continues to dominate the boards, you should track down a copy and watch it, so you understand why it has such a powerful grip on so many of us. It is truly a remarkable musical, and the NT production is the definitive production.

I felt like they were dredging up the Hayworth/Harlow bit for their Loveland numbers that was rightfully changed in the original, r65.

I didn't mind the set for Sally's Loveland number at all. It was one of the more colorful and interesting looking pieces of the Loveland sequence. I didn't even hate Phyllis' number. Maybe bringing in young Phyllis was a bit on the nose.

The transition into Loveland is what really needs to be retooled.

[quote]we saw too much too soon

Agreed. From her first entrance, she already looked unhinged, a little too excited about the reunion, a little too eager to meet her old acquaintances. She had nowhere to go after that. Seeing Ben again after many years should have made her knees buckle (maybe not literally). It didn't.

Her Mama Rose on the broadcast version was similar. She was manic right from the beginning and that kept her from being charmingly crafty (Some People), flirtatious (Small World), or just in love (You'll Never Get Away from Me). All she offered was single-mindedness, and that could have had greater impact if it had first appeared on Everything's Coming Up Roses.

Hey, look, a post on Follies AND Gypsy.

If you had only worked in Company, you'd have had the trifecta, R69.

r70 I'll have to wait for Imelda to do Joanne. (Oh, dear God, no.)

[quote]Maybe bringing in young Phyllis was a bit on the nose.

Yeah. Cooke was wagging a finger to remind us that Lucy and Jessie are younger and older Phyllis, not Sally and Phyllis.

If you thought Imelda had nowhere to go as Sally, you should have seen Bernadette.

It comes through on the recording, r72!

I can actually picture Imelda replacing LuPone in Company if it extends or something. Sondheim clearly has a hardon for her.

I actually thought Imelda was a brilliant Rose on the BBC recording... from "Everything's Coming Up Roses" onward. She was terrifying. Unfortunately, she played the rest of act I the same way and it just doesn't make sense. Call me crazy, but I like my Roses to start out as optimistic, slightly annoying, and maybe a bit daffy before showing what they're really capable of. When it builds, it's so powerful.

I saw Bernadette as Sally at the Kennedy Center, so I'm not sure what changed for Broadway except that goddamn red dress, but I remember her practically sobbing the moment she walked on stage. Really left her nowhere to go for the rest of the show. I still remember her delivery of the line "have you told Phyl yet?" getting a HUGE laugh from the audience. I don't like it was unintentional either. It seems like she delivered it that way to get a laugh. It was odd.

R62 you made me laugh. Thank you!

And I love the Oliver! performance at R57. Patti is in good voice and enjoying herself.

During a visit to London a couple of years ago, I saw Roy Hudd (Fagin in the clip) in a Christmas panto (my first) at Wilton's Music Hall. He is sort of a specialist in the British music hall tradition, and I enjoyed his performance as the panto dame very much.

When I say Patti killed this song, I mean she stabbed it several dozen times, making sure she hit all the vital organs, shot it in the head, once in each eye, poured acid down its mouth, and then left it for dead. It's not subtle, but it sure is compelling.

Deadly tempo and schmaltzy arrangement aside, Judy's As Long as He Needs Me from her TV show is really good.

Since we're on the subject of Patti...

R76 hilarious but true description. I'm R75 btw.

I find the lyric flub she makes in the Royal Variety Show very charming.

Did someone suggest a magic beans/Follies casting thread hijack option?

Why not a Follies using the Vanessa Williams Revival cast of Into The Woods?

Laura Benanti would be a lovely Phyllis. Kerry O'Malley is the perfect Sally. Vanessa Williams gets to be the most sexy Carlotta ever.

Definitive.

And Greg Edelman as the staircase, the role he was born to play.

That makes Christopher Sieber for Rosco, right?

Chad Kimball as Ben and Stephan DeRosa as Buddy?

OMG. Judi Dench is literally credited with being in that because of that recording. Wow.

We need a death match between Dame Judi and Vanessa Williams for Carlotta.

Take One More Kiss down an octave and a half, and Judi would make the perfect Heidi.

[quote]Did someone suggest a magic beans/Follies casting thread hijack option

No, no one did, because none of us are as annoyingly obsessed as you are with the fucking magic beans. Kindly go jump off a tall skyscraper now, asshole.

[quote]Ummm ....now 70, do I really want to see Kurt Peterson nude?

Who said anything about Kurt Peterson? He's too old for Ben now. Why would he be involved in Nude Follies?

Speaking of Peterson, did anyone see the production (was it a concert?) years ago - I think it was in Michigan - where all four of the original Broadway "young" actors played the older parts? I think it was about 15 years ago.

"This is some glamorous femme fatale's boudoir."

And a torch song sang at a boudoir/vanity is just banal, no matter how glamorous. I doubt it would have ever appeared in a real Follies.

Into The Woods and (carrying over from the previous thread) Passion are two of SS's least appealing and gnarly scores.

The National Theatre podcast is great. The interview with Josephine Barstow shed a lot of insight on why the production worked----it was fully thought through.

Barstow discussed how she and the director tried to find a reason for Heidi to come to the reunion. The decided that she is dying and came to say goodbye to everything. I think this is why her relationship with the young Heidi is so strong and why Barstow is so fully present and engaged throughout the whole show. I imagine all the actors having similar discussions and building a full character.

[quote] Into The Woods and (carrying over from the previous thread) Passion are two of SS's least appealing and gnarly scores.

That's not true. ITW has some nice songs.

Passion is warmed over, pretentious crap.

Follies and Into the Woods are the only topics that've been discussed over the past two threads.

It would be fascinating to read Aaron Sorkin's script for the proposed FOLLIES movie back a decade ago or so... Rob Marshall wanted to follow up CHICAGO with it and M even commented in interviews about having spoken to Marshall about it (playing Phyllis). Obviously, they ultimately teamed up for the ITW movie, but with Marshall at the helm, a FOLLIES movie would probably have been a hatchet job along the lines of NINE (which is not unlike FOLLIES in the parade of ladies of a certain age). Sam Mendes seems a better fit... I wonder why he hasn't done a movie musical yet. He was in late stage talks for SWEENEY, even going so far as screen tests with Russell Crowe and M. I guess we dodged that bullet. Has anyone read either of those scripts?

Then, there is the proposed Hal Prince FOLLIES from the 70s planned to star all the old MGM headliners... guess we dodged a bullet there, too, given what Prince's directorial efforts have turned out to be. Can some of the FOLLIES queens please comment? I read the script treatment at the NYPL years ago but barely remember details.

Also, had the Marshall FOLLIES happened with M would G have played Sally? Perhaps we were spared a travesty (which, despite some sensational sequences, NINE definitely was)...

Skyscraper, r83?

Gettin' The Band Back Together has posted its closing notice: Sept. 16.

Catch it if you can!

I thought Marshall and Streep were thinking of doing the Follies movie recently, not before Into the Woods. Streep's too old now. Maybe for Carlotta (if she went full on Madeline Ashton mode), Stella, or Heidi, but not for the leads. Toni Collette has a great voice and is around the right age. I'd love to see her involved in some way.

10/15 years ago, Diane Keaton would have been a wonderful Sally. She always had a lovely voice, but didn't use it that much.

I don't think Keaton has enough voice for Losing My Mind.

Let's start the weekend off with a laugh!

[quote]had the Marshall FOLLIES happened with M would G have played Sally?

Why would she have? She's only been in what, one movie with M? It's not like they're a matched set.

Sandy Dennis as Sally!

Dennis Franz as Sally!

Oh, r91, you picked one of the worst songs in the score! Although I do like the reference to Rudi Gernrich.

"Opposites" and "Everybody Has the Right to Be Wrong" are the only really good songs in that dismal score.

Two (both flops), R96. I'd rather forget about it, too...

Wow. That was hard to listen to, R91.

Iain Armitage as Sally!

Holy shit! If Sandy could sing and were still alive, she'd have been a brilliant Sally.

I know Meryl excels at steely, cold, upper class types and could play Phyllis in her sleep, but who could ever play Sally opposite her? That role's hard to cast enough as is on stage, but God knows the talent pool of stars who sing is much smaller in the film world. It's funny - I can think of 20 potentially great actresses for Phyllis, but none for Sally. That's a tough role to cast.

Kate Winslet sings a bit, doesn't she? Could she be a Sally?

I'm young! I'm beautiful! Sign me up!

Harvey Evans played Buddy in the Long Beach revival and he was terrible. He clearly still thought he was Young Buddy but was totally winded during Buddy's Blues. It was sad.

It would have been ridiculous to imagine Sandy Dennis as a former Follies chorine.

If you think Dorothy Collins didn't look "unhinged" making her entrance in that pink organza 1950s crinoline gown, you weren't around in 1971.

We're all used to the look now and love it but back then it seemed like a very radical costume choice. Fortunately, Dorothy was a subtle actress and made it work.

Didn't Dorothy Collins also have something of a lisp? Maybe sonething along the lines of 30's movies star Kay Francis or Barbara Walters. I recall that she had one when doing "Your Hit Parade". Maybe that made her seem even a bit more sympathetic or pathetic as Sally.

I could play the "young Sally!"

Wavishing Kay Fwancis!

who might have made a great Phyllis if she could sing (and if she were still with us, but hey, folks are talking about Sandy Dennis)...

This is never going to be equaled, is it?

Neil is senshational, but letsh be real for a shecond?

[quote] This is never going to be equaled, is it?

Why, were the Tonys canceled?

Barbara Harris as Sally.

R103 Kate Winslet would’ve is a good choice as Sally but not opposite Meryl. Opposite Meryl what about Diane Keaton? She can sing.

If Liza did Hattie/"Broadway Baby" in a film... I can't even imagine, even now. M as Carlotta. RDJ as Ben and Toni as Phyllis. Kate Winslet Sally? James Corden Buddy?

Wow, that Tony opening at r113 was a big fat mess. And poor Liza, trying to sing one of her signature songs with that train wreck of a voice she was left with.

THIS is the best opening number in Tony Awards history. Accept no substitutes.

Lin Manuel wrote the NPH 2013 opening. It really was thrilling and possibly will not be topped.

Wasn't the year of The Lion King considered one of the best Tony openings? I forget what year it was -- '94 or '95 perhaps?

It was nominated in '98 so I don't think they had any material available for '94 or '95.

I don't think it was the opening -- but the number clearly thrilled...

The sound issues in the opening number at R113 are amusing. Around 1:45, an offstage mic has been brought up way too early--and then inexplicably left on! It sounds like Karen Olivo is chatting, coughing, and warming up, though it could be another performer.

And Kid Rock really did get hit hard by that drop. That looks painful.

R119, what a crappy song, but I will admit that it sure builds to a big climax.

R99, "I'll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her" is a good song.

Frank Sinatra

Tony Bennett

Harry Connick

Buddy Greco

Bobby Scott

Johnny Adams

Bobby Darin

Blossom Dearie

Scott Hamilton

Nancy Wilson

Dennis Bono

Johnny Gamboa

Oh Jesus Christ. Just what we need; a Skyscraper troll.

The Harry Allen - Joe Cohn Quartet

Brenda Lee

Frankie Fanelli

Salena Jones

Hugh Shannon

Peggy Lee

Mimi Hines

Lin Trans-Smell Esmerelda is more like Steve Jobs than a songwriter. This is not a compliment.

Seth McFarlane

Jeezus, enough already.

Ignore is a wonderful invention.

The Poppins loon is back to ruin another thread.

Dontcha like that song?

R99 said that "Opposites" and "Everybody Has the Right to Be Wrong" are the only really good songs from that show but it seems many singers like "I'll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her."

This is the worst theatre gossip thread I've ever read. I'm OD'ing on Skyscraper and Follies. I'd rather OD with a heroin needle in my arm.

Skyscraper didn't get this much attention when it was running.

I didn't pay this much attention to it when I was starring in it.

How come nobody ever seems to acknowledge Charles Nelson Reilly as being a Tony winner on "Match Game" reruns? He was in two of the biggest musical comedy hits of all time in the original "How to Succeed" and "Hello, Dolly!" Also, why didn't he continue to appear on Broadway after those successes? He apparently was a good director, as no less than Julie Harris (yes, star of "Skyscraper"!) hire him to direct her in several shows. Why has Cornelius now cast as a typical juvenile rather than the more characterful way Reilly was?

That is, why "is" Cornelius cast, etc.

Speaking of Cornelius I'm quite fond of Nic Rouleau's facial hair.

Mr. Reilly......

To the National Theatre Follies's credit, the libretto does set Losing My Mind in "A Boudoir in Loveland."

It's so weird, because Toni Collette's look screams Sally to me, but I know she's more of a belter and not a soprano, so her voice is more suited to Phyllis. Kate Winslet might be a good Sally. Liza as Hattie or Stella would be phenomenal. Bette Midler could do whichever one Liza doesn't do.

[quote]How come nobody ever seems to acknowledge Charles Nelson Reilly as being a Tony winner on "Match Game" reruns?

The panelists' achievements in the legitimate theater wasn't really the focus of this terribly highbrow show.

The Poppins Loon (Matt) is disgusting. I was hoping it had finally gotten the right dosage of its meds, but apparently not.

[quote]Liza as Hattie or Stella would be phenomenal.

She can barely walk, and her years of cigarettes, drugs, and botched surgery have left her with nothing but gravel for a voice. How is she supposed to make “phenomenal “ happen?

Judy Holliday would have made a wonderful Sally.

Judy Holliday died six years before Follies even existed. Who the fuck cares? Plus she didn’t have the vocal chops for Sally. A terrible idea.

Shirley Maclaine would have made a definitive Sally but she more or less ended up playing the same role in The Turning Point (although her character got the guy by trapping him via a pregnancy).

R119 Was the color "story" designed by Michael Arden?

Poor Shirley might be able to croak her way through "Don't Look At Me", but they'd have to lower the keys further than they did for Imelda to get her sounded anywhere near passable on most of Sally's songs.

Come to think of it, if she can still dance and has any tiny bit of a voice left, she'd be a great Stella or Hattie.

Seeing that collection of "I'll Only Miss Her (When I Think Of Her)" reminds me of how sad it is that today's pop singers aren't into covering Broadway. Then again, what's to cover?

Broadway songs used to be big hits back in the day. That's changed a good deal. A shame, too, but it's not like the current crop of Broadway writers are creating anything worthy of covering.

Judy Holliday starred on Broadway in "Bells Are Ringing" when there wasn't the use of body mikes. Plus she also recorded some jazz albums with her then-boyfriend Gerry Mulligan. She'd have made a fine Sally and an even better Dolly Levi.

I actually watched a Match Game recently that had on Bobby Van, his wife Elaine Joyce (now widowed by Neil Simon) and Nanette Fabray. The host Gene Rayburn I believe acknowledged Van's wonderful work in "No, No, Nanette", then after applause said Nanette Fabray was great in "Yes, Yes,, Bobby Van" jokingly. Then Rayburn said Elaine Joyce had done fine work starring on Broadway in "Sugar", and you could see that she liked that someone had remembered. But no one brought up Tony-winning actor, sitting right there, Charles Nelson Reilly!!!! You'd a thunk he'd have said something a la Bud Frump from "How to Succeed"! He seemed like a very nice guy. One time I was going to the Met Opera and the house managers outside greeted a rather tipsy Reilly as he entered the building. One of the house managers who I had been talking to said, "That's Charles!" in a friendly manner, which kind of acknowledged that Charles showed up pretty regularly, and perhaps in a bit of a jovial and tipsy manner. Kind of a fun memory now that I think of it.

I worked with Charles briefly years ago and he was a kind, considerate man.

[quote]She'd have made a fine Sally and an even better Dolly Levi.

Sally, no. She did not have the range for the soprano notes in Too Many Mornings. But she could have been a definitive Dolly. If she hadn’t died in 1965, she would have been the perfect screen Dolly, although I don’t kniw that she would have had much movie star cred by 1968.

If they did an all-black version of Follies, I think Audra could be a great Sally.

[quote]I'm quite fond of Nic Rouleau's facial hair.

Yes, it helps mitigate the goofiness of his lower face. Unfortunately, he’ll have to be clean-shaven for the tour, just as he had to be for BOM.

Speculating on casting for non-existent productions of Follies is the Theatre Gossip version of masturbation.

Oh, R177, it's far more self-indulgent and much less fun. Sigh.

I think Judy Holliday had been mentioned as a possible Rose in the film version of Gypsy. The creators told Warner that they wanted Judy to play the role, but he thought they meant Judy Holliday and not Garland like the creators wanted. I do wonder what a Judy Holliday Gypsy would have been like.

Don’t tease, r175. You know I’ve always wanted to play young Heidi. I’m a youthful 70!

Jesus, Kathleen Battle had an incredible instrument as well as being thin and glamorous. Too bad she let it all go to her head and ruined her career.

[quote]Speculating on casting for non-existent productions of Follies is the Theatre Gossip version of masturbation.

Well, one thing you can say for speculating on casting for non-existent productions of Follies, you certainly don’t have to look your best.

I don't know if Judy Holliday's genuiness and niceness would have necessarily have worked for Rose in "Gypsy". I think it's probably good that she didn't do Lina Lamont in "Singin' in the Rain"--in certain ways a written practically written for her by her friends Comden and Green--since I don't think we basically would have wanted to see her humiliated as Lina and give her the final comeuppance the way we would a brilliant, supporting actress like Jean Hagen. Hagen's Lina is fun, but she's also nasty. Rose in "Gypsy" isn't nasty, but she can be rather raw. Even in "Adam's Rib", where Judy's character shot her husband, it's rather played for laughs, with her basically being "hungry" after she shot him a big joke. Btw, "Too Many Mornings" could have been transposed and/or Ben given the higher notes.

Ha. I had forgotten when I made my joke of the history between Battle and Broadway Heidi Rosalind Elias. Even better, then?

Yes, Battle was finally turned into a fleeing squirimish when she insulted Rosalind Elias at a Met rehearsal and Elias' friend, the Artistic Director of the Met at the time, Joseph Volpe, fired Battle. There had been stories of Battle's antics for years before this though.

skirmish

If they did a Latinx version of Follies in 30 years, I think Karen Olivo would make a great Hattie.

If they did a 90s TV version of Follies in 40 years, I think Jennifer Love Hewitt would make a great Heidi.

Carole Shelley's sad last days have ended.

None of that's true, r179. The Gypsy film was packaged from the get-go as a starring vehicle for Roz Russell, whose hubby (The Lizard of Roz, as Merman called him) had bought the rights and brought them to Warner.

R189 That's nice.

So the thing about FOLLIES is...

The stories about Battle insane and legendary. During an engagement in San Francisco, she called her manager in New York from the backseat of her limo to have him call the limo company to have them tell the driver to adjust the heat.

[quote]Btw, "Too Many Mornings" could have been transposed and/or Ben given the higher notes.

Which would have ruined it.

Why does someone keep speculating about Judy Holliday playing Sally as if it were a missed opportunity? She was long dead by the time Follies was in existence. She was even dead when Sondheim and Goldman started on the pre-Follies, "The Girls Upstairs."

At least she was alive when Hello Dolly was being created.

[quote]R99 said that "Opposites" and "Everybody Has the Right to Be Wrong" are the only really good songs from that show but it seems many singers like "I'll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her."

Well, now everyone hates that song because you beat it into the ground (you're probably the Follies casting poster, too). You could have made your point by just posting the Sinatra version, and mentioning in the same post some of the others who had covered it. But no, you had to hijack the thread and ruin it, as you've often done.

R185 the detail about insulting Elias is new to me. Very interesting.

Judy Holliday had a lovely but ditsy fragility that would have kept her from being the ideal Dolly. Dolly is pushy and irascible, that's where her humor lies.

And brilliant Barbara Harris would have over-powered the role of Sally. She had vulnerability in spades but was never quite fragile.

[quote]Shirley Maclaine would have made a definitive Sally

Assuming that your idea of a "definite" Sally is someone who can sing about as well as Rosalind Russell in "Gypsy" when she wasn't being dubbed by Lisa Kirk. Her "Losing My Mind" would have had made ears bleed.

RIP Carole Shelley

"A shame, too, but it's not like the current crop of Broadway writers are creating anything worthy of covering."

There's more musical interest in one measure of a a Grade B, second-tier score like SKYSCRAPER than anything currently on Broadway.

[quote]Why does someone keep speculating about Judy Holliday playing Sally as if it were a missed opportunity?

I was the original one that posted about Judy Holliday. And it was a missed opportunity. She died in 1965 at the age of 43. Had she not been taken out by cancer, she would have been 49 when Follies opened. And if Sondheim had agreed to her casting, he would have written the music in her key and fashioned the music for her, like he did with Yvonne DeCarlo. I think she could have done a wonderful "Losing My Mind" as wonderfully as she did "The Party's Over."

So, with Getting the Band Together closing in just over two weeks, which show's next on the chopping block?

"Judy Holliday had a lovely but ditsy fragility"

So did Shirley Booth, r196

I'm not eager to put casts and crews out of work, but how are Kinky Boots, Waitress and Beautiful still running?

Tourists.

RIP Madame Morrible

R204, well that is how every show is still running.

^^^so? it's still the explanation.

But the inference it was the reason only those particular shows are still running. Quality doesn't matter as much as one would hope. Hence Cats and Phantom.

Oh r200, you’re so obsessed you have lost all sense of logic. A missed opportunity means there was an opportunity to do something, and it didn’t get done or a different choice made - but the opportunity was there. In Holliday’s case re Follies, there was NO opportunity because she’d been dead for years. No one missed that chance because it never existed.

And using DeCarlo to prove your point doesn’t work. “I’m Still Here” was written for her as an out of town replacement song. The actors were cast for the material, not the other way around. “Losing My Mind” and “Too Many Mornings” were in the show before it was cast. It’s presumptuous of you to assume Sondheim would have written the song “in her key.”

[quote] It’s presumptuous of you to assume Sondheim would have written the song “in her key.”

Currently in London, there is a production of Company with a female Bobby and a man singing "Not Getting Married." Your point about Sondheim is what, now?

Wasn't "Losing My Mind" written for Phyllis, but Alexis Smitg knew it was beyond her?

Losing My Mind was written for Alexis Smith. She wasn't comfortable with it so she approached Prince, Bennett and Sondheim and suggested that Collins might make something special out of it. They agreed and Bennett and Smith asked Sondheim for something more uptempo for her.

Sondheim has spoken about tailoring Sunday for Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters. Something about "He sings way up here and she down there".

The logic of your first paragraph is pretty impeccable, R209. Your second paragraph, not so much.

And I think Sondheim has occasionally mentioned that he had to adjust keys for singers, so I'm not sure the comment was presumptuou in any case.

Sondheim adapted "Can That Boy Foxtrot" to show off DeCarlo's range. And "I'm Here" was written with knowledge of that range.

Sondheim wrote "Send in the Clowns" with Glynnis Johns limited range in mind.

But surely Dorothy Collins' range was part of what landed her the role? And not vice versa?

I believe some of the music for Into The Woods was reconfigured. Bernadette didn't have the strong belt that Betty Buckley had.

Yvonne DeCarlo auditioned originally for Phyllis. She could have handled the range of "Losing My Mind" better than Alexis Smith. But Smith got the part...

Tailoring the material to the performer is as old as Broadway itself.

Noel Coward began writing his operetta Bitter Sweet for Gertrude Lawrence. Midway through, he realized she'd never be able to sing it. When he broke the news to her, he told her not to worry because he was going to write a part no one else would ever be able to play, or at least play as well.

The result was Private Lives.

^ I should have said as old as theater itself, not just Broadway.

Keys are always negotiated for the original cast and often for replacements, too, if it doesn’t have too big a knock-on effect.

Only VERY pretentious twat composers like Adam Guettel and maybe JRB refuse to defile the glorious, godlike perfection of their music.

Bless Carole Shelley.

*There's* a conversation topic. The career trajectories of Guettel, JRB, Andrew Lippa and LaChiusa.

Speaking of Alexis Smith, is there only the one tape of her singing “Uptown, Downtown” in Boston? On the one I’ve got, she talks the entire song, but I think she had the flu or something when it was taped. Yvonne does “Can That Boy Foxtrot” - after hearing for years that she “couldn’t handle the patter” I assumed there was a middle part with one of Sondheim’s rapid-fire patter sections. When I finally heard it, I realized that the latter was dialogue, not musical.

Not handling music wasn't a big issue for Sondheim. Beth Howland couldn't handle the beginning of "Not Getting Married" with that rapid fire music. She had to speak it rather than sing it.

I never hear anything about the Harry Potter play; I almost forgot it was still on. I've just started watching a bootleg -- flame away, but I will never get to NYC to see it -- and I am totally lost. I haven't read any of the books, and only seen two of the movies, and have no clue who any of the characters are that they talk about. I know that I am in the minority, but I wish they had written a play that doesn't rely on previous knowledge. The story drags, but some of the special effects are lovely and understated.

[quote] I don't know if this was shot to show in adult theaters or what, but some of the most interesting footage is the audience coming in.

"Oh Calcutta" was video taped and transferred to film and played all over the country in first run theaters. It was in general release.

I love how dressed up the audience it. Those were the days when people wore nice clothes to go to the theater. Now, alas, it sweats and t shirts.

I have to imagine Harry Potter's primary audience is tourists. How well did that book sell, anyway?

Where is the Bway Sex Thread bitches?

The Harry Potter play sucks. I loathed it. All spectacle, and an over-long story with multiple endings.

I actually read the books after I saw the play to see what the fuss was about. The books are superb. It's just this play that is crapola. (And before anyone says it: The friend I took had read all the books prior to seeing the play, and at the dinner break he said: "This really is nothing.") We were so disappointed.

Tragic that it won the Tony and Olivier Awards for Best Play. What utter kaka.

I doubt the audience for Harry Potter is tourists. It is a two part play, so it would require careful schedule and a longer time commitment than I would think most tourists would be up for. The special effects really are fantastic. The story? What is the level below "meh?"

This is as close as you get, R231. A bunch of old guys giving a figurative blow job to Follies.

LOL, R194, sorry you are so triggered by that song. You must have listened to all those versions of the song to make you sick of it. I guess you never thought of scrolling past them. Oh, and I am neither the POPPINS nor FOLLIES loon.

Are you kidding, R233? All of Broadway is kept going by tourists. Do you really think they all come in just for one show on one day? And that they don't buy their tickets ahead of time so it's easy to schedule?

Of course they buy their tickets in advance, I assume, but I would think that tourists would rather see two shows --an musicals! -- rather than just one two-part non musical play. Maybe I'm wrong.

I think just about every actor/singer has the keys adjusted to their voice. Even if they can sing them in the original keys, every person has a different sweet spot in their voice. It makes sense to retool the score to fit the person singing them.

[quote]I think just about every actor/singer has the keys adjusted to their voice.

It happens frequently but far from always. And when shows are licensed, there may be alternate key orchestrations made available, or it may be allowed to do or it very occasionally might be forbidden. There's no hard and fast set rule.

I'm a tourist, and the last two times I came to NY (2017 and 2009) I saw eight shows in six days. (Six evening and two matinees.)

[quote] But no one brought up Tony-winning actor, sitting right there, Charles Nelson Reilly!!!! You'd a thunk he'd have said something a la Bud Frump from "How to Succeed"!

As someone who is an habitual viewer of Match Game on both GSN and Buzzr, I can tell you that Gene made mention of Charles work in theater multiple times, including H2S, and his understudying Gene in Bye, Bye Birdie. Also, several times Charles took leave of absences from the show to direct in NYC and it was always mentioned (though usually not mentioned when he returned as the shows tended to flop.) Fannie Flagg also got several theater mentions when she did a show called Patio/Porch. Bobby Van also got a mention for Dr. Jazz, but it was when Elayne was on and Gene brought up that her husband was in a new show. No, Broadway was discussed quite a bit on the show.

I think with most professional productions where the composers and creators are involved, they change keys if need be. Listen to Bernadette Peters as the Witch in Into the Woods and then listen to Vanessa Williams as the Witch. Sondheim definitely changed the keys for her and it's a pretty big difference. It seems like every production of Company has different keys for Bobby. Even in regional or community theaters, keys have been raised and lowered since the beginning of time.

Gower Chanpion deliberately cast against type with Reilly and Eileen Brennan in the original Dolly. Brennan was fabulously talented but just a bit eccentric. He didn't want the show to suffer from stereotypes.

There’s a difference between adjusting keys and revoicing a character, r238. Revoicing is not common, but has happened - Vivenne Segal’s soprano Vera Simpson becoming an alto to suit Carol Bruce, Mary Martin’s alto Maria becoming a soprano for Julie Andrews. It was far more common in movie versions of stage musicals than in the theatre.

Most roles are not revoiced when other actors take over, even if a key is adjusted. Bernadette Peters and Judith Ivey both sang Sally in the original keys (poor Bernie dredging up her soprano notes for the first time since Dames at Sea). Imelda had an adjusted key or two, but the songs weren’t revoiced. All the Broadway Elizas have sung “Fair Lady” in the original keys. Molasses to Rum is never turned into a bass-baritone song. Cunegonde always has to have the notes that Cook sang, likewise with Amalia Balash. Neither role has ever been turned into an alto. And on and on.

Brilliant, r244.

Even Merman sang different keys on the Gypsy cast recording than she did live. This has confused people who are doing the show forever since the keys are different in the published script. I think most Roses have played with some keys here and there. Angela Lansbury definitely had different keys than Merman and I think Staunton used those keys, too.

[quote]Even Merman sang different keys on the Gypsy cast recording than she did live.

Merman sand in the higher keys through opening week on Broadway. She’d okay them for certain performances (when someone special was in the audience) but mostly she sang the role live, as you said, in the lower keys. There’s a good tape of the show in Los Angeles and she’s singing in the lower keys.

[quote]Gower Chanpion deliberately cast against type with Reilly and Eileen Brennan in the original Dolly.

I read somewhere, maybe the CD liner notes, that, having cast Channing with her exaggerated comic style, Champion decided he needed a Cornelius and Irene who could play in the same ballpark.

Lenya sang in soprano keys in the original 1928 Threepenny Opera and the 1931 film. But by the time of the Blitzstein revival at the Theatre de Lys in the 1950s, she was singing in mezzo keys.

Enough of all this, dudes. More to the point: who's fucking whom? (Note proper grammar, too.)

I've read that Lenya and Weill had an open marriage but who were their playmates?

Weill was a nudist; there' s a photo of him out there somewhere. Btw, what did he die of? He was only 50.

Heart attack, r252. His health was always delicate and then think of the times and the things he lived through.

[quote]But by the time of the Blitzstein revival at the Theatre de Lys in the 1950s, she was singing in mezzo keys.

By the time of Cabaret, she was singing in Roz Russell’s Gypsy keys.

[quote]who were their playmates?

I don’t want to name name, but it was a great bunch of gals.

At least, in Lenya’s case.

Do you guys honestly think that Sondheim personally changes the keys when new performers go into his shows? I’m sure he has some input, but that job would always be done by the musical director.

Rock icon Ellen Foley was the original (bulldyke, leather jacketed) Witch in ITW - and also the last, as matter of fact - so whomever is spouting off about it being written for Betty Buckley (who was in the running for Cinderella, not The Witch) can think again. Also, Sondheim fucking hates BB so... no. Just no.

[quote]Merman sand in the higher keys through opening week on Broadway. She’d okay them for certain performances (when someone special was in the audience) but mostly she sang the role live, as you said, in the lower keys. There’s a good tape of the show in Los Angeles and she’s singing in the lower keys.

Can you imagine the uproar here and on the chat boards if today, Patti or Betty or Bernadette opened the show with one set of keys but then took everything down after the Tonys?

All hail!

R257 Shut up. Betty Buckley played the Witch during workshops but neither of the Witch’s big songs were in then. And it was Patti LuPone who was offered to audition for the Witch but wanted Cinderella.

r257 r260 The only source I have ever read on Sondheim writing any song from Into the Woods specifically for Buckley is an interview with Buckley herself. I'm not saying she's lying, but I'm not prepared to believe her without corroboration.

You might as well go ahead and say she's lying. Woman's delusional, and he was writing late for that show in any case--she'd likely have been gone already. Sondheim's book doesn't mention that anything was written for Buckley, but I'm not sure that's dispositive.

r262 I hear ya. This is the exact quote from said interview: "The witch had these rap tunes and that one little perfect melody which Sondheim told me in rehearsals that he wrote for me, the 'Stay with me' melody." As I said, I'm not prepared to believe her.

But the best part of the interview is this: "I said, 'Mr. Sondheim, I sent you my CDs and you never responded.' He said, 'Well I wouldn't have brought it up but since you did, I'll tell you: I don't like what you've done with my songs.'" See, now, that I'm prepared to believe.

I saw Ellen Foley at the end of the broadway run. If the show had opened with her it never would have run. I cannot imagine Patti Lu would ever want to play Cinderella or any supporting role. Anything Goes opened in the same season as ITW and Reno is most definitely a star part.

So, is Network going into the Court or the Belasco?

I hate to bring this up (really, I do) but the perfect little "Stay With Me" melody is.......TA DAAH! The Beans Motif.

The Cort.

Sondheim did revoice two roles. When he was writing Sunday in the Park with George, he'd conceived of George as a bass/baritone, and Dot as a soprano. He got Mandy and Bernadette, so that notion went out the window. George became a tenor, Dot became a low mezzo, and the rest is history.

I'm surprised that Getting The Band Back Together is closing.

I thought Ken Davenport was a genius.

Guess not.

How would Losing My Mind make sense as a song for Phyllis tho?

And as long as we're dream casting Sally, Debbie Reynolds = Sally (as Donald O'Connor = Buddy), and I'm always surprised there isn't some story about wanting to cast them and then settling for their B-list imitations. Meanwhile, Shirley MacLaine, who is a tough survivor, is about as far from Sally as anyone could imagine.

[quote]I'm a tourist, and the last two times I came to NY (2017 and 2009) I saw eight shows in six days. (Six evening and two matinees.)

Sweetie, you just described every member of All That Chat!

There's always a bit of neurotic in Shirley MacLaine's performances. It wouldn't have worked for Sally or Phyllis. She might could have pulled off Stella.

[quote]And as long as we're dream casting Sally, Debbie Reynolds

More like nightmare casting. Debbie Reynolds would have been wrong for Sally in just about every way I can think of, including the fact that she could not have begun to handle Sally's songs. As a singer, Debbie was only slightly better than Connie Stevens.

I think that must be the worst possible insult to a singer, R273. Not that I disagree--I hope to have an opportunity to use it someday.

Patti LuPone was never considered for Cinderella. Cinderella is supposed to be beautiful and Patti ain't.

....and no one could be less right for the role. ^^

Patti could have done Jack's mother

And Patti LuPone as Milky White

R275, Patti claims in her autobiography that Sondheim initially offered her the role of Fosca in Passion, but she was already committed to Sunset Boulevard.

r275 r276 It doesn't mean she didn't want it. She's talked about this many times and never sounded like she was kidding.

The only way Shirley MacLaine could be right for a role in Follies is if Theodore and Emily were reconceived as a ventriloquist and his dummy.

As implausible as that seems, R279, I wouldn't entirely rule it out. He gets fixes on people (for good or ill). I just don't think she was on his short list in 1993-4.

[quote]More like nightmare casting. Debbie Reynolds would have been wrong for Sally in just about every way I can think of, including the fact that she could not have begun to handle Sally's songs. As a singer, Debbie was only slightly better than Connie Stevens.

Ohhh the Sondhemite has spoken. Well, I don't see Dorothy Collins, Judith Ivey or Bernadette Peters having a five week number one song and then various albums and soundtracks on the Billboard chart as Debbie did.

Aaaand apparently we have a Debbie Reynolds troll in our midst. Who'd'a thunk it?

[quote]Ohhh the Sondhemite has spoken. Well, I don't see Dorothy Collins, Judith Ivey or Bernadette Peters having a five week number one song and then various albums and soundtracks on the Billboard chart as Debbie did.

Because having songs on Billboard charts is a reliable indicator of vocal talent.

Speaking of Cahn/Van Huesen, the score to WALKING HAPPY has a handful of excellent songs, more than SKYSCRAPER, which I saw pre-Broadway. Love the title tune, I Don't Think I'm in Love, I'll Make a Man of the Man, What Makes It Happen. Also has several dogs, almost as many as SKYSCRAPER. C&V were pop songwriters, brilliant ones, but not theater folk.

Back to Harry Potter...Is it my imagination, or is there some latent homosexual relationship between Scorpiius and Aldus? The kid who plays Adus is adorable. Any gossip?

Which role were they interested in me for? Sally? Phyllis?

[quote]And Patti LuPone as Milky White

Over my lumpy, dead body!

[quote]As a singer, Debbie was only slightly better than Connie Stevens.

The same goes for their blowjobs.

I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANOTHER PRODUCTION OF FOLLIES AS LONG AS I LIVE!

Miss Shelley.....

r290 You must have seen the one with Gwyneth's mom.

R227 I read the books and saw the plays. And I can understand why you'd feel that way. The plays are impressively presented, but I couldn't recommend them to people who are not familiar with the books.

R232 You said it much more bluntly and truthfully than I could have said it. I did have a good time at the plays, because they're like comfort food for a Harry Potter follower. However, the low points for me involved the familiar characters from the books that were brought back for a scene or two. So, we had "And now, a special cameo by Voldemort!" And "You're in luck! Let's revisit Hagrid's first visit to the Dursleys!"

R286 The characters are definitely affectionate with each other, which was nice to see. Both actors are very talented.

Audiences were a mix of locals and tourists when I saw it here in NYC. I think fans of Harry Potter come to NYC specifically to see these plays, as opposed to picking a show randomly while on a trip to NYC.

Who's the cute twink in that vid with Carole tho

R294 I believe that is Michael Hayden, the actor who played Billy Bigelow in the Hytner revival of Carousel.

STFU about Follies!!! I don’t give a fuck!!

An apt DL observation was that Follies freaks are like heroin addicts chasing the high they got from the original without even realizing the first version wasn't all that great to begin with.

R284, Bless you for the shout out.

All roads lead to FOLLIES!

I'd rather hear about the "Will Rogers Follies" once in a while. That was a great production with Tommy Tune's wonderful direction, plus I believe the Indian at the beginning was bare-assed.

The discussion of changing keys for specific voices is always fascinating. It happens far more frequently than people may realize -- especially as some are fairly minor (ie. a half-step up or down from the original show keys). More radical character re-voicings often do happen in TV/Film adaptations (think Chenoweth in that ghastly ABC 'Music Man') with some being more successful than others. Robert Goulet changed the keys for Billy Bigelow in his TV adaptation, so the entire score sat in bass-baritone range vs. the typical John Raitt tenor/lyric baritone fach. I actually kind of love 'If I Loved You' in a darker, baritone key...and for the more intimate/conversational medium of TV, I think it helps the dramatization for the small screen.

I hadn't realized that Sondheim had originally envisioned George as a bass-baritone...very interesting! Keys were shifted all over the place in the original 'Sweeney Todd' -- when the replacements came in, 'Johanna', 'Ephiphany' and 'Green Finch' all shifted up by one to two steps. In 1776, 'Molasses to Rum' was raised (from the recorded key) to suit John Cullum's vocal range. When Timothy Nolen replaced Michael Crawford in Phantom, he (as a true bass-baritone) was promised by ALW and Hal that the score would be transposed down to better suit his range. They never made the changes and he suffered considerable vocal damage as a result. Other examples: Howard McGillin in the London 'Mack and Mabel' (they raised 'I Won't Send Roses' by 2 full steps and added a modulation) and Nathan Lane's return to The Producers in 2003/04 (all of his keys were shifted down by 1-2 steps)

Robert Goulet was so sexy. He looks so much better without the mustache.

Speaking of handsome Michael Hayden, r291, I've never understood why he didn't have a bigger career on stage or TV. I know his vocal talent was wanting on Carousel but that could be said of a lot of successful stage performers without the looks or acting talent Michael possesses. And I've worked with him, too, and know he's a very disciplined and dedicated actor and lovely guy.

He's still relatively young so it's not over yet but....what happened??

I remember hearing that a lot of movies changed the keys for the film versions of stage musicals to make it seem more intimate and less shrieky at times, especially when it came to songs sung by sopranos.

[quote]I hadn't realized that Sondheim had originally envisioned George as a bass-baritone

I wonder if he was thinking along the lines of Len Cariou/George Hearn?

R300, wasn't it Jerry Mitchell's bare ass?

FULL OUT!

r300 Dee Hoty played Phyllis at Paper Mill. See, it's always about Follies!

Not to read too much into Harry Potter, but I do think that Scorpius and Aldus are closet gay lovers. There is a moment at the end when they talk about women that they want to date, and it seems like they are trying to talk themselves into believing it. And, then, there is a moment when Scorpius hugs Aldus, and Aldus says something along the lines of "I thought we agreed we weren't going to hug anymore," making me think that they realize they are attracted to each other, and have to fight it. I thought it was very touching and sweet, and the actors really were endearing.

They're both cuties.

Follies is garbage. No more Follies. FFS.

More FOLLIES you say?!

I"m a Potter fan but after reading the ridiculously contrived and overly complicated plot for "Cursed Child" , I"m not that keen to see it...

R303, I saw Michael Hayden as Frank in "Merrily We Roll Along," which was part of the Kennedy Center's Sondheim celebration in 2001. He was quite good, but overshadowed by Raul Esparza as Charlie. I had always hated "Franklin Shepard Inc." on the original cast recording, but Raul turned it into a tour de force and brought down the house.

Who is Dorothy Collins?

It also sees like an odd idea to do a play "sequel" that VERY much relies on the audience being a fan of all the books and intimate to every plot point of the 7 original novels and plots. Why not do a new story using the children of the original main characters as a starting off point to NEW adventures instead of rehashing all the old ones?

It's creatively lazy. Even as a Potter fan, I have no desire to see Voldemort play ANY kind of role in further Potterverse adventures. Create new monsters!

Raul doing "Franklin Shepard Inc."

Typo. The Kennedy Center Sondheim celebration was in the summer of 2002, not 2001.

Back when Raul could still sing...

R315

I love Dorothy Collins’ version of this song. I always think of her as Young Sally here, already obsessed with Ben.

I agree about the plot to Harry Potter. I am not a fan, and had no clue who most of the characters were who got a reaction when their name was mentioned. Why rehash old plot lines? It seemed lazy, and geared towards touching all the bases so the fans would be happy. It would have been so much more enjoyable if the plot moved forward, and the next generation created their own universe and cast of characters. The special effects were extraordinary, but the plot was barely serviceable; it was just a bunch of random names and odd plots strung together, with little effect, although I did find the end oddly moving. What a missed opportunity to have created something fresh and new. Although I detest the Star Wars movies, I read an interesting interview with George Lucas shortly after the first Disney-produced Star Wars movie came out. He initially expressed extreme disappointment in the movie, because he said that he created a new universe for every movie, but the Disney movie did not create anything new; rather, it just reused information from previous movies. I think he's got a point. Each chapter in a series like that -- and Harry Potter -- should create whole new worlds that fit within the existing universe, rather than just cut and paste information from previous chapters.

I'm not a Potter fan at all, but I've seen quite a backlash against Cursed Child even amongst the Potter fans, calling it a cash in (as if the books and movies weren't? Christ, there's another three Fantastic Beasts films lined up after the one currently in production/post). I think it's part of a general backlash against Rowling which really gained steam with her defence of Johnny Depp.

Cursed child is all about the brilliant direction and stagecraft.

I did not realize there was a backlash against JK Rowling. I don't know much about her, but I have seen her present opinions and liberal ideas that could cost her income, so I admire her for that. I would not put it past her to say in five years time that the two young leads were, indeed, latent homosexuals. She seems open and honest and willing to tweak a few noses.

She doesn't care about additional income. She's a billionaire already.

R316 and R322 -- those are very valid points, in my opinion. I'm R293 by the way. There is one plot point in particular that completely depends on the audience knowing and loving a character from the books, since the character does not even appear in the plays. The plays work best when they focus on Scorpius and Albus.

R324 that summarizes it well.

R325 I, too, see many things to admire in J.K. Rowling.

I'm not a Potter fan at all but love J.K. Rowling. She's a really cool chick.

[QUOTE]but I have seen her present opinions and liberal ideas that could cost her income, so I admire her for that.

A lot of it seems to be centred around the fact that she took those risky liberal ideas after the fact - like making that one character gay only after she'd made her tens of millions. Similar arguments were made - from the left - about casting a black woman for Cursed Child - that to start out with all the characters were white, but now she's made her money she tries and pretends the characters could be any race (even though, apparently, the character is actually described as being white in the books). It's stuff like that, basically SJW types saying she wasn't trying hard enough (as is their wont), and then it snowballed with the Depp stuff.

Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of Broadway today knows the overwhelming majority of the audience is made up of tourists. The percentage may be somewhat less for certain types of shows, especially at the subscription houses, and I'm sure there's more of what's left of the New York audience at the beginning of any show's run than as the run continues, but a show like HARRY POTTER certainly has a large majority percentage of tourists in the audience from the get-go.

I am not always a fan of color blind casting. I think it looks gimmicky and trying to hard. That said, making Hermione black did not bother me, but I don't know if that is because the color really didn't matter in this case, of because I thought the actress was so wonderful that I was glad to see her act. Also, and this might sound weird, but I almost liked that she was black. Her imperiousness and her command of wizardry, and her blackness put the magic in the play on a subtle continuum with voodoo and tribal magic.

Did some late night grocery shopping tonight and you'll never guess what I found at Publix...

I wonder if the plan is, to use the "Fantastic Beasts" franchise to tide fans over until Radcliffe, Watson and Grint are actually old enough to play 37 or so, so they can continue the film series by turning "Cursed Child" into a film(s).

Radcliffe is 29....4 or 5 more years and he's old enough to play the part again.

Michael Hayden has always been strangely blank on stage, and even more so on screen. There’s just no there there. He was at the height of his beauty straight out of Juilliard in Carousel, but faded quickly when he went to Hollywood. He was completely charisma free on Murder One, and never really recovered from that.

R333 Isn't Hemorrhoids black now?

I somehow missed this from earlier this year. I fucking DIED at her answer to her favorite Spice Girl. Hilarious.

Christine Pedi as Liza is tired, tired, tired.

R333

I don't think they'll be dumb enough to dump Emma Watson for the movie version. You know they want the Original Three to draw in the fans.

Hermione was cast with a black actress but she's not reconned to being canonically black. Rowling tried to hem and haw by saying she never really specified in the books, but....Jo is very good at p.r.

She also said the play wouldn't just rehash previous plots...which is EXACTLY what it does!

Well that hasn't stopped Tveit from being cast, r334

[quote]Well that hasn't stopped Tveit from being cast

Or Boyd Gaines.

I saw a blond chubby Michael Hayden play Roy Cohn at Juilliard.

What a weird thing that was!

R339, Aaron Tveit is supremely talented.

Can anyone say anything about Purple Money accusing Teresa Rebeck of sexual harassment on ATC?

Or did he just not know what #metoo means?

Bernhardt/Hamlet? Should I see it?

Its Teresa Rebeck. It may have interesting exchanges and monologues, but the play as a whole will not be worth it.

Is Rebeck gay or straight?

Tveit can at least passably sing and move for musical theater R339. Hayden cannot, despite being cast early in his career on one of the most difficult male musical roles.

Hayden got the role because he put out for Hynter. There is no other reason. He couldn't sing the score and his acting was competent but not astounding for a production that reimagined the entire show. Juillard actors are highly overrated as well. They're not putting out anyone that truly astounds.

Who the fuck is Teresa Rebeck?

Much as I’m intrigued by the reported stagecraft of Cursed Child, after reading the published script, which is made up of 32 very short scenes, I realized it’s more of a screen treatment than a play. So I decided to save a few hundred bucks and wait for the movie.

With all this talk of what appeals to tourists, I’ve become aware of a very real chasm that’s yawned open, between the general tourist, and people who are more artistically interested in theater. Reminds me of a greater political divide in our country in general. We are seeing mediocrity supercede quality, in many ways.

A few weeks ago, I saw Kerstin Anderson, Lauren Ambrose's Sunday matinee replacement. She was wonderful, able to hold her own in acting, and singing beautifully. And I was moved by the altered ending. The way they played it, it was quite clear that, though Eliza cares for Higgins, she has matured beyond him, and realizes any deeper connection just wouldn’t work. Very touching.

With more talk of Follies, which seems to have replaced the original Candide as the-original-production-I-saw-that-you-didn’t show, I just want to share a copy of the 1971 program I found on E-bay, for only about $15 as I recall, signed (!) by Fifi D’Orsay, Gene Nelson, Alexis Smith, and Dorothy Collins! (Still can’t believe I got it that cheap!)

And, yes, Bay’s English Muffins are the best!

Hytner is notorious for casting guys he’s in love with (and presumably sleeping with) who clearly aren’t good enough. His battles with Cameron Mackintosh over casting Willy Falk in Miss Saigon were fairly bloody, I hear. And of course Jack Noseworthy's role in Sweet Smell Of Success kept growing and growing with every set of rewrites.

But Hytner was spot-on in recognizing and utilizing the enormous charisma and talents of young Dominic Cooper in The History Boys.

Theresa Rebeck, though she seems like a perfectly pleasant woman (I saw her speak at a conference once), is another one of those playwrights whose success has always been somewhat baffling. Not that she's a bad writer but her plays never really seem to catch fire with critics, none of whom have ever declared her to be a talent on the level of, say, Annie Baker, Lynn Nottage, or Suzan-Lori Parks. But perhaps she's usually just commercially successful enough at the box office and that's what justifies the continued push to produce her work? Just guessing.

[quote] And, yes, Bay’s English Muffins are the best!

They're kept in the refrigerated section. They don't sit on the shelf for weeks on end like those other English Muffins.

[quote] just commercially successful enough at the box office

There is a comment like this on ATC as well that I find baffling. What are/were Rebeck's "commercial" successes?

Was Seminar considered a hit? I remember it ran for a year in a smallish theatre but I don't recall it ever being a difficult ticket to get. And I remember a lot of people being much more interested in the cast than the play itself.

Dead Accounts was a flop too and everything else has been produced by non profits.

R351-So did Noseworthy's dick.

They see Rebeck's work in scene study and auditions. It is excerptable, so it shows up a lot. But the plays as a whole suck. And she is a vile person. So not much produced.

Her work is horrendously sexist, yet she claims to be a feminist.

I also thought it was amusing that a mailer I got for this show said "from the creator of SMASH" as though that was a selling point....

Speaking of writers with questionable talent, I have not seen anything on the boards lately from Adam Rapp. Has he finally taken the hint and given up trying to write for the stage? I'm sure all of the theater critics out there forced to review his work would be eternally grateful if he has.

Didn't Charles Isherwood publicly state that he would no longer review his plays?

He did, R360, and I'm surprised he was the only one.

New York is brimming with wannabe playwrights and the sea of unproduced plays is far and wide, which is why I've often heard it said that the only difference between playwrights who get produced in this town and those who don't is a matter of connections -- i.e., those who have them vs. those who don't -- and, if that's true, it would probably explain the success of people like Rebeck, Rapp and several others. They knew the right people, thus they have careers. Talent had very little if anything to do with it.

One problem I have with the concept of the show "Company": when a lot of couples get married, especially straight ones, they tend to bid goodbye to their single friends, not wanting to have a third wheel around or a reminder of their single past. It's possible a real-life Bobby might have one or two couples he still socializes with, but like 5 or 6 in the show? Not likely. Of course, when some of these couples head for splitsville and want to reach out to the friends they've taken off their list, one would have to be rather forgiving to do so, but I bet a lot of guys wouldn't. But to the point, couples tend to want to hang out with couples -- perhaps the husband on his own might still meet up with the single friend for lunch or tennis, but not with the wife.

R363, maybe they just want to get rid of you? The rest of us single folk have married friends without the complications you describe.

[quote]Didn't Charles Isherwood publicly state that he would no longer review his plays?

Not that I don’t fully support his decision, but what was Isherwood's rationale for not covering Rapp's work? Did he cross some line?

R364 Oh, it happens.

[quote] I also thought it was amusing that a mailer I got for this show said "from the creator of SMASH" as though that was a selling point....

Sadly, in this day and age....

Ha! Charles Isherwood is now out at the Times, and Adam Rapp got sensational reviews for his play at Williamstown this summer, so Rapp will be having the last laugh when his play comes to town.

r366 You're extrapolating from the several anecdotal cases in that link. Besides, Bobby is adorable. I don't know about Bobbi, who looks like a hard 35.

Michael Hayden, Willy Falk, Jack Noseworthy. These guys could play brothers. Hytner sure has a type.

As for Hermione's race in the play versus her race in the movies and in the book, I do think Ms. Rowling is being rather disingenuous with her responses to the matter.

Note: The actress who originated the stage Hermione is wonderful, and I do not begrudge her the role or the spotlight it has given her. If anything, I am thankful, because she's deserving of the attention.

That said, I read the books after the brouhaha came up and after I'd seen the play, so I paid particular attention to this point. It's pretty damn clear that Hermione, as described in the books, is Caucasian, especially since all the students of other races, including the black students, are specifically described as such. Even the way Hermione's hair is described would not fit that bill.

So no, it's not that vague in the book, but heck, it's Rowling's work, so Hermione can be multiple races and Dumbledore can be gay.

I don't think that play will ever turn into a film. Not as written. There's no there there.

As someone who worked at Williamstown in the hey day of Nikos and his all star Chekhovs, I'm very curious: are they attracting big audiences for all these new plays without stars? I admire the change in programming but wonder if summer theaters can exist like that.

[quote]It's pretty damn clear that Hermione, as described in the books, is Caucasian

You don’t say!

R347, Passably sing? Aaron Tveit's tonsils were kissed by the angels.

Those weren’t angels

Why does no one address the teeth on that actress who plays Hermione? I thought they were prosthetics but then saw her on the Tonys.

Nearly everyone on planet Earth has either read at least one of the Harry Potter books or seen some of the movies. So those complaining about the inaccessibility of Cursed Child are beyond ridiculous.

R376 I read one book, saw none of the films and the script of Cursed Child made little sense to me, causehad no idea who many of the characters or events were.

The Williamstown theaters aren't large, so filling them isn't difficult.

If I were producing a dinner theatre Follies, my dream team female leads would be Loretta Wait as Phyllis and Sally Struthers as Sally Durant Plummer.

Loretta SWIT

Swit could wander into other people's Follies numbers, like when she would glare through the windows in scenes she wasn't in during Drood.

R376. Really? I read the first book shortly after it came out, and I saw maybe one of the movies. I saw the play and had no clue who most of the characters are. Do you really expect me to remember the name of someone I encountered in one book and one movie twenty years ago?!? Is your memory that good? I had absolutely no clue whom they were talking about half the time in the play. Who the fuck is Nigel Longbottom, and why should I care? I don't. SPOILER -- and why should I care about whoever the fuck died and they are trying to revive. I forget the character's name. If I were to care about these and the other characters they mention just to send shock waves of recognition through the audience, it should be because of how they were dramatized within the play. As it were, many of the characters exist solely as a mentioned name, which is incredibly lazy writing, and annoying as fuck if you're watching a play that could have easily been free-standing. (Nigel Longbottom , by the way, is a porn name if there ever was.)

[quote]If I were producing a dinner theatre Follies, my dream team female leads

Who the fuck cares? What's on the menu?

[quote]what was Isherwood's rationale for not covering Rapp's work? Did he cross some line?

I think I found Isherwood's column about it. See link.

[quote]Ha! Charles Isherwood is now out at the Times, and Adam Rapp got sensational reviews for his play at Williamstown this summer, so Rapp will be having the last laugh when his play comes to town.

Which of Rapp's plays was this?

[quote]Loretta Wait as Phyllis

Are we supposed to know who Loretta Wait is?

R383

Pasta that has been strained.

I like r386 as an answer to r385!

[quote]Who the fuck cares? What's on the menu?

Bread and water. Sally Struthers ate everything else.

Wait! I need to know who Loretta is!

r383 Ham. Followed by turkey.

[quote]Wait! I need to know who Loretta is!

Loretta Lynn, Rose. She's going to be playing the title role in Annie. You won't be able to contain yourself with her version of "Hard Knock Life."

R389 Loretta Young, Rose. She makes an entrance that will turn your hair greyer

Loretta Haggers from "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", Rose. Wait till you hear what she tells Dinah Shore!

Speaking of Follies, I watched the Kennedy Center production last night, and I thought it was horrendous (aside from the Loveland transition and the young 4). Linda Lavin as Hattie? Elaine Paige as Carlotta? Horribly miscast all around. I’ve seen better productions right here on DL.

[quote]Speaking of Follies, I watched the Kennedy Center production last night, and I thought it was horrendous

Eric Schaeffer is a hack.

I had the misfortune of going to see the Kennedy Center production when i was in DC on business some years back. I could not believe the raves this piece of shit got. You all bitched about Bernadette as though she was the only thing wrong in an otherwise pristine production. That's like complaining about the color of paint on the walls of a house that's been destroyed by an earthquake.

Eric Schaeffer is, hands down, the worst stage director I've ever seen.

Loretta for the SJW crowd.

Get back, Loretta!

Good, random reference, R398.

^^^YOUR!

My kingdom for an edit feature.

Loretta, wait!

R373, lol um no.

Loretta Devine !

How about an all black Follies? Audra and Cynthia Erivo.

R404 Diahann Carroll as Carlotta

What role can Loretta Devine be? Love her.

Have any of you theatre professionals ever used the TOFT Archive at the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center? Betty L. Corwin created it and got a special Tony Award for doing so in 2001.

R407 I fantasize about having access to it. Let us break in. There must be cat burglar DLers, the sleuths here are great

❤️❤️❤️❤️

Whoever is behind the You'reGonnaLoveTomorrow and AuroraSpiderwoman YT accounts should get a special Tony award. I mean, I've read about this show in these threads for YEARS. Never thought I'd see a clip from it.

I thought Jan Maxwell and Danny Burstein were wonderful in the Follies revival, but that was about it. The Loveland transition wasn't too bad, I guess. It was certainly better than the one from the National Theatre (although, the production altogether was FAR superior). Granted, I only saw it at the Kennedy Center where Linda Levin was hamming it up and changing the melody of "Broadway Baby" like she was the only one in the show. That bitch even made the entire thing a solo if I recall correctly. She just ends the song by herself without The Whitmans and Solange.

It's interesting that Bernadette never talks about it. It's like it never happened. Then again, it couldn't have felt good to get snubbed for a Tony nomination, especially after the Gypsy incident.

R411 Oh fuck, that is golden

R410, The full bootleg recording has been in circulation for well over 10 years.

R410 Thanks for that. I must say, that Carol really is very, very good in that. Mary comes off rather tentative by comparison.

[quote]I must say, that Carol really is very, very good in that

That's how I remember her in it - I saw it in LA, and I thought it was quite impressive, that she played against her image, even to going with a dark wig. She looked nothing like the daffy Carol of Dolly or Lorelei.

Wow, that clip really showed how awful the play was, but Carol manages to wring every laugh she can out of it.

I’m shocked Jan left her palatial subsidized digs at Manhattan Plaza to appear in that fiasco. It’s not like she needed the dough to pay her far below market rent.

Donna Murphy and Victor Garber were the greatest Phyllis and Ben post-OBC ... it's too bad that more people didn't see them. Ben's breakdown was especially effective in the context of Encores because people in the audience (who didn't already know the show obviously) really did think he was forgetting the words and losing his place.

Honey, if there’s one show everyone in the Encores audience knows, it’s FOLLIES.

R406, Loretta Devine IS Hattie. She'd also be a good Stella, though I'd worry about her in the tap dance break. Either solo could have a jazz tinge like her take on "I Miss You Old Friend" in the Dreamgirls movie.

Diahann Carroll definitely IS Carlotta - if she can get over the stage fright or line/lyric issues or whatever it is that's kept her out of doing plays whenever she has committed recently.

Cynthia Erivo isn't even 30 yet, I believe. She sho do look oldah than 30, but too old for the young ghosts, so I think we can hold off on her for a bit. LaChanze to replace her, but who is whom? Audra could play Phyllis to LaChanze's Sally, but Audra would be a great Sally, too.

[quote]Diahann Carroll definitely IS Carlotta

With added dementia!

Diahann Carrol is 83 years old. What is it with playing these women so old? Phyllis, Sally and Carlotta are all in the 45-55 age range.

I'd also like to see Loretta Devine do a role, but her voice isn't a match for any of the pastiche numbers. Her voice is light and soprano. Most of the pastiche numbers are belty (Broadway Baby, Who's That Woman, Ah, Paree).

I love Aurora Spiderwoman.

[quote]Have any of you theatre professionals ever used the TOFT Archive at the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center? Betty L. Corwin created it and got a special Tony Award for doing so in 2001. —One of the donors

Poor Betty deserved more than a Tony. She realized how fleeting stage productions were and the need to archive as much as possible. When she first started out, she had an uphill battle. Nobody wanted to let her film anything even though she was working under the auspices of The New York Public Library. Slowly, she began to make headway and she's been able to get some real gems recorded. However, the archives still has an uphill battle with some artists. I won't name names, but there are some real buttheads out there.

Ugh. This thread has turned me off to all things Sondheim. Especially fucking FOLLIES.

^^He asked me to tell you that he is crushed. Crushed. ^^

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

The good news for Neil is that hardly anyone showed up to this fiasco.

R417 Well, bitch, maybe she needed some money to help pay for her cancer treatments?

Wow, David Burtka is looking really old and has a dad bod

[quote] Wow, David Burtka is looking really old and has a dad bod

He bonded with Tyne during that thing they did on Broadway and they've decided to go out on tour in a revival of Side Show

[quote]Michael Hayden, Willy Falk, Jack Noseworthy. These guys could play brothers. Hytner sure has a type

Really? I see very little resemblance between those three guys.

In response to some people here falling all over themselves about "One More Kiss" in the NT FOLLIES, I just re-watched it. And I think it's actually one of the low points of the production, mostly because the tempo is REALLY slow.

[quote]And I think it's actually one of the low points of the production, mostly because the tempo is REALLY slow.

Or maybe you've just always heard it sped up because it was performed so poorly in the past that everyone just wanted to speed past it.

Add me to the list of those who thought One More Kiss was tedious. I admit that I was so bored I fast forwarded through it. I shall watch it again, and hope the charm will not be lost on me this time.

Fast forward? Did someone point a camera at the cinema screen during one of the broadcasts?

I thought Josephine was enchanting.

Agree, R436. Loved her.

R435 There’s a copy floating around that’s definitely not a “point and shoot” job.

Heidi has become a role for aging opera singers—Barstow, Elias, Albanese. Frankly, if they want to luxuriate in that great song by slowing it down a bit, I say let them. Barstow’s voice was obviously past its prime but she worked that to her advantage by turning in an emotionally devastating performance. Wasn’t Elias actually slower (in YouTube clips from, I guess, Kennedy Center)? I’m not sure about that; I’d have to check. But it wouldn’t surprise me because her voice was in relatively good shape. Albanese was fast because she’s a second-rate diva who can’t sustain. JUST KIDDING. My favourite Mimì on records.

Add me to the chorus of those who didn't like Josephine Barstow.

Is there no love for Justine Johnston, the original Heidi? I wonder if that's because her version didn't make the cut on the OBC? Was it considered sub-par at the time?

Just googling her to confirm the spelling of her name, I discovered she was only 70 when she opened in Follies, though I think we're supposed to think she's about 90 and starred in the Follies around 1900-1910. Does anyone remember the year on her sash?

Did they ever dim the lights for Neil Simon and Carole Shelly -- or are they counting that brief power outage yesterday as 'respects.'?

Since Carole was in "The Odd Couple," can they do a two-fer?

r440 1918

^ Sorry, that was the year on Barstow's sash. I don't know if this changes from Heidi to Heidi.

R440, it was recorded.

[quote]Is there no love for Justine Johnston, the original Heidi?

Although the one now included with the Kimmel remastering is lovely, the version on the Scrabble album is even better.

Can you find a part for me in this Follies, Mary?

R445, it was recorded but not included in the original LP release. It was first released on the CD issue.

I've been wanting to ask the person from the last thread who mentioned someone having played "The Baron" in The Sound of Music: Is that the ex-husband of the Baroness who never comes on stage?

Remember when someone posted "Carole Shelley is not well" and no one believed it? Same goes for Boyd Gaines.

Anika Noni Rose and Heather Headley as Sally and Phyllis.

Anyone going to The Gospel at Colonus at the Delacort this week? I saw the original production and cried about five times just from the singing alone. That choir was fanTAStic.

I'm not quite old enough to remember Justine Johnston's career before Follies, but I think she was a very familiar face on TV variety hours in the 1950s, appearing on Arthur Godrey's show and others. She was never an opera singer like future Heidis.

So I wonder if she was cast partially because of the nostalgia factor which I assume was in play for Dorothy, Alexis, Yvonne and Gene. And, of course, Fifi!

Has anyone ever noted how so many of those wonderful actors, well-reviewed creating memorable roles in Sondheim/Prince musicals like Company, Night Music and Follies, never seemed to go on to another great role on Broadway? To name just a few: D. Jamin Bartlett, Teri Ralston, Pamela Myers, Mark Lambert, Kurt Peterson, Marti Rolph, Victoria Mallory, Laurence Guittard, et, al.

And those are just some of the younger, more castable names.....

R450 Condolences to the datalounger who knew her well enough to give us fair warning.

Not an answer to r454, but anyone else remember the movie Somebody Killed Her Husband with Farrah Fawcett and Jeff Bridges? Laurence Guittard and Patricia Eliott, Carl-Magnus and Charlotte, were in it. (So was Tammy Grimes.)

R453, you must be thinking of someone else.

The original cast album of "Follies" cut a lot of music to make it a single-album release. That was part of the impetus behind "Follies in Concert": to produce a more complete cast recording.

[quote]Has anyone ever noted how so many of those wonderful actors, well-reviewed creating memorable roles in Sondheim/Prince musicals like Company, Night Music and Follies, never seemed to go on to another great role on Broadway?

Victoria Mallory played Young Heidi in Follies and then went on to play Anne in A Little Night Music. I think after that she married the actor who played Henrik and settled down to raise her daughter, who appeared as Anne in the revival.

[quote]Has anyone ever noted how so many of those wonderful actors, well-reviewed creating memorable roles in Sondheim/Prince musicals like Company, Night Music and Follies, never seemed to go on to another great role on Broadway? To name just a few: D. Jamin Bartlett, Teri Ralston, Pamela Myers, Mark Lambert, Kurt Peterson, Marti Rolph, Victoria Mallory, Laurence Guittard, et, al.

How many great character roles are there on Broadway?

[quote]I've been wanting to ask the person from the last thread who mentioned someone having played "The Baron" in The Sound of Music: Is that the ex-husband of the Baroness who never comes on stage?

This would have been a much snappier retort if you had thought of it in the last thread. I meant to say the Captain, but Georg is sometimes referred to as the Baron in the movie.

[quote]I'm not eager to put casts and crews out of work, but how are Kinky Boots, Waitress and Beautiful still running?

Let's look at last week's grosses, kids!

Kinky Boots: 65% capacity

Waitress: 78% capacity

Beautiful: 91% capacity (!)

Hovering at/near bottom: Head Over Heels (49%) and School of Rock (65%).

Pretty Woman (!) is just over 98%. How long should we wait before we declare it a hit (at least with audiences)?

I remember Justine Johnson being quite wonderful in the original Follies. She was very Brunhildesque with a cane, and had no nostalgic effect as she was basically an unknown. But she sort of floated through the show and was lovely in her number. I liked Barstow, but she milked her song for all it was worth and I admit, I thought it was a bit interminable.

R459, Mallory did The Young and the Restless for many years after that and became a big enough almost name to appear in places like the Muny.

I pass "Beautiful" every day on my way to work and there are people out there early in the morning waiting on line. I thought it was the "Supergirl" effect but she's gone (I think) and they're still there, so I guess that had nothing to do with it.

Before her Broadway fame, Victoria Mallory also appeared with The Prince Street Players, one of New York's best children's theaters. She was in two of the shows which they broadcast on tv: "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "Aladdin."

"The way they played it, it was quite clear that, though Eliza cares for Higgins, she has matured beyond him, and realizes any deeper connection just wouldn’t work. Very touching."

No, just a pandering, literal-minded cop-out.

"That was part of the impetus behind "Follies in Concert": to produce a more complete cast recording."

And what a faux-event that was.

[quote]I remember Justine Johnson being quite wonderful in the original Follies

Johnston, actually. Amazingly, she was only 49 when she opened in Follies. She was 86 when she passed away about 12 years ago, one of the last Follies leads to go. Only DeCarlo and McMartin and the four “young” leads outlived her.

[quote]Remember when someone posted "Carole Shelley is not well" and no one believed it? Same goes for Boyd Gaines.

Boyd Gaines, though, is doing a show.

Wesley Taylor is not well.

Leslie Caron as Solange.

I'm late to the party, and just now watching the NT broadcast of Angels in America. Two immediate thoughts: Nathan Lane just isn't scary enough. I saw Rob Liebman in the original run, and his evil and ferocity scared the shit out of me. I don't know if Lane has it in him to be that evil and frightening, or my memory of him in comedic roles makes it too hard for me to suspend disbelief. And: the camera angles are not great. I've seen a few of the NT live tapings, and they are usually filmed with much more intrusive camerawork. This, though seems like it was filmed from the audience, like they were afraid of getting the actors' or audience's way. It is disappointing.

[quote]To name just a few: D. Jamin Bartlett, Teri Ralston, Pamela Myers, Mark Lambert, Kurt Peterson, Marti Rolph, Victoria Mallory, Laurence Guittard, et, al.

Bartlett was a bitch to work with, which impacted her career possibilities. She replaced the well-liked Garn Stephens out of town, and was apparently not half the actress that Stephens was. But Stephens couldn’t handle “The Miller’s Son” and that was that. Teri Ralston moved to LA and did okay with regional/stock work. She moved back to NYC about 15 years ago. Pamela Myers likewise moved to LA, and was a regular on Sha Na Na for several years, and also did quite well with episodic TV work. She starred in a lot of regional theatre during this time, too. She moved back to Cincinnati to raise her son about 25 years ago. She shows up in NY frequently now for cabaret performances and auditions. After Victoria Mallory’s long, long stint on Y&R, she and Mark Lambert moved to Florida to raise their daughter. She was starting to really get back into the business when cancer hit her. Laurence Guittard is an heir to the Guittard Chocolate Fortune (ie, has always done fine financially), but he’s worked a lot in the theatre over the last 40 years (including his NT gig as Frederick opposite Judi Dench’s Desiree in “Night Music,” mid-90s.) Marti Rolph played Eileen to Nanette Fabray’s Ruth in Wonderful Town , and some other regional roles, before getting married and moving to the Midwest. She has surfaced very occasionally in the last 20 years or so.

[quote]I don't know if Lane has it in him to be that evil and frightening

Try working with him.

R466, Wasn't she also on a soap opera?

Guittard also played Curly in the revival of "Oklahoma!" opposite Christine Andreas around 1979 or so at the Palace. He also played Ben in the Paper Mill revival of "Follies".

Patricia Elliott, one of the "etc." I believe was on a soap for many years, plus I believe that she also did regional theater.

Mark Lambert was the voice to the Nazi youth in the movie "Cabaret" singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me".

r471 I'll play. Cynthia Erivo is not well.

Believe it or not, Michael Bennett was thisclose to casting Victoria Mallory as Diana in ACL.

I knew someone who had a brief affair with Laurence Guittard back in the late 1970s. Said he was super hot sex.

Theresa Rebeck gets quite a few productions of her 12,987 awful plays in regional theater for unknown reasons...all her plays feel unfinished and rushed.

I've seen 4 of her stinkers in the last few years.

Should Frances get out her tap shoes, R470?

[quote]I'm not eager to put casts and crews out of work, but how are Kinky Boots, Waitress and Beautiful still running?

There are lull weeks on Broadway just as there are in the movies. Broadway is dead the week before Labor Day because everyone is getting ready for back to school and work. Not unusual. Just as the week before Christmas is dead at the movies and the day after it explodes. That's the entertainment world folks!

Laurence Guittard: gay or straight?

Openly gay

The Captain is never once referred to as "The Baron" in the movie, primarily because he is not one.

Al Roker's joining Waitress.

I'm hoping this starts a long sting of casting weather people in Broadway shows....Lonnie Quinn in Hamilton....

Jesus r487, were Fran and Barry unwilling to consider Al Roker for Chicago? or is that his next triumph. Disgusting. Remember the Kenley Players and that straw hat circuit existed foir television stars including the occasional news anchor or "personality" would flex their stage aspirations? Broadway is becoming that. Not good.

Al is only doing 6 shows a week. Take that, you lazy leading ladies!

Does anyone know where I can find a boot of the London Network production with Cranston?

Fran and Barry are planning a color blind casting production of "Two for the Seesaw" Rumor has it Al Roker and Robin Roberts are on board! Tonys for everyone!

[quote]I'm hoping this starts a long sting of casting weather people in Broadway shows....Lonnie Quinn in Hamilton....

Sam Champion in Naked Boys Singing

Sam would be more appropriate for Old Joe at this point

R454, no mystery there. All those names from the 70s Sondheim shows are from a transitional time in American culture where a big Broadway success wouldn't get a "new" talent a screen test at a big studio, the cover of LIFE magazine, guest shots on all the TV shows that shot in NYC, etc. like it often did in the 50s or even the 60s right up to the late 60s/counterculture era. Even variety shows were winding down: HOLLYWOOD PALACE stopped in 1970, ED SULLIVAN in 71.

Traditional musicals were rarely made and out of style in film in the early-to-mid 70s, and/or they were huge flops like the NIGHT MUSIC movie.

New York City was at its worst in many ways during that time too.

An exception from the later part of this era would have been Donna McKechnie on magazine covers for A CHORUS LINE, and she'd been kicking around since the 60s in NYC and Hollywood...but what film musicals could she have starred in that were being made after her ACL fame? What variety shows could she have been on? SONNY AND CHER stopped in 1977 and CAROL BURNETT in 1978.

The film of GREASE was 1978, and was huge by any standard, but it was not cast with tons of people from the Broadway company. Travolta had been a replacement on Broadway and had the TV success of KOTTER already under his belt.

Also, the talents those actors had fit squarely in the "traditional musical theatre" category, and there wasn't a huge market for that on Broadway in the 70s. Not many new musicals were being written that sounded like Night Music, for example. (Even Sondheim didn't really repeat that. Sweeney Todd, maybe, but the subject matter was a totally different beast). Kurt Petersen and Teri Ralston were both in The Baker's Wife (I believe it's been speculated or confirmed on here that Teri was the cast member Patti Lu wrote about who was fucking Topol and defending him up and down to the company until he was fired), but that closed out of town, and how many scores that sounded like that were big hits on Broadway in this era? That's one reason (besides family money) why Guittard has only turned up in revivals, or Mallory only did stock and regional work when she wasn't on her soap. Soaps turned out to be a big boon for a lot of these talents, like Helen Gallagher, Stuart Damon or Ron Raines (and Patricia Elliot, who was more of an actress, anyway, and did get another Tony nom for The Shadow Box and replaced Carole Shelley in The Elephant Man for a long time, but still needed the paycheck at the end of the day). There are only so many big, splashy revivals one can do when the musical style you specialize in is no longer au courant.

I remember Judith Moore being interviewed after SUNDAY opened and saying that Sondheim promised to write for her in the future. Oops.

[quote]An exception from the later part of this era would have been Donna McKechnie on magazine covers for A CHORUS LINE, and she'd been kicking around since the 60s in NYC and Hollywood...but what film musicals could she have starred in that were being made after her ACL fame?

Additionally, Donna was a dancer. Her singing was mediocre (and would have been dubbed in a movie musical) and her acting was less than mediocre. ACL was really her life story. She appears as one of Sam's girlfriends on "Cheers" but she really didn't transition into tv or movies like some of her fellow castmates did.

Out of the original cast, Kelly Bishop had the most success with movies and tv. And even she had trouble finding her footing. She made a good showing in "An Unmarried Woman" but bumped along for several years after that until she hit it again in "Dirty Dancing" and then finally high profile tv in "The Gilmore Girls."

Nancy Lane did well in 1978 when she got a recurring role as a kooky friend when Rhoda was gasping along to its death. It's a shame that nobody knew what to do with Rhoda. It had potential, but the showrunner tried to rush it too much. And Nancy had a small recurring in Angie after that.

I wonder if Victoria Mallory was ever considered for Johanna in Sweeney Todd? She would have been 30 when it opened, so maybe she was considered not ingénue?

What was the word on Danielle Ferland? I know her primarily from the filmed versions of Sondheim's Into the Woods, A Little Night Music, and Sunday in the Park with George. Was she considered a wunderkind?

Was watching my new Bluray of "Tender Mercies" last night. Betty Buckley really did have an amazing voice in her prime. "Over You" is such a great song.

Be More Chill is opening at the Lyceum next February.

Danielle Ferland was recently in the HBO Normal Heart as a lesbian (?) who worked at the call center. It was nice to see her.

Cynthia Erivo not well in what sense?

So is Fucking Follies winning? or Fucking Company??

[quote]Cynthia Erivo not well in what sense?

She hates white people.

Donna McKechnie has an excellent voice. She sounds great on the recordings of "Company" and "A Chorus Line" and was great in person in the Paper Mill "Follies". Some dancer has to concede she dances well and compensates to make himself/herself feel better by disparaging the other aspects of her.

She does not have an excellent voice. She has a passable voice.

[quote]Donna McKechnie has an excellent voice.

For a community theater actress.

R491 -- I have a great source for boots, and can not get one of the London Network. There aren't a lot of boots that come from across the pond, and the quality of those that do are almost never as good as Broadway boots. I suspect that the theaters might be smaller in London, and the ushers more aggressive about thwarting taping, that fewer people are able to record them.

Donna is an excellent singer compared to Ann Reinking.

That those idiots would replace a trained professional like Bill Nolte with a talent-free weatherman tells you how long WAITRESS has left. Leslie Odom's wife in the lead? Opposite a fucking gasbag?

Gone by January 6th.

I'm really skeptical that Be More Chill can survive on Bway ... but who tf knows

They're going to try and go after the DEH audience, but a number of shows that have been on Broadway the past few seasons don't belong on Broadway. They should be Off Broadway, but Off Broadway doesn't exist anymore, not the Off Broadway that could have made a run of Head Over Heels, Getting the Band Back Together and Be More Chill. Maybe someone ought to consider building another New World Stages. Since all the good commercial OB houses have closed, perhaps it really is just lack of venue, NWS seems to be doing just fine and has housed many a 6-9-12 month run of a musical or play.

[quote]Al Roker's joining Waitress.

No doubt he'll perform in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

He'll perform his number on The Today Show and sell a lot of tickets because that audience doesn't know any better.

Didn't know William Daniels did A Little Night Music!

McKechnie sang in THE LITTLE PRINCE, did she not?

Oh, well hello Laurence!

RE Angels in America. I think Denise Gough is fantastic in it! I saw Marcia Gay Harden in the original, and, despite generally liking her, I did not get her character in AIA. I was bored whenever she was on the stage . Gaugh, though, fascinated me, and I finally understood the character. I remember reading on here that she is not a nice person. Was that confirmed, or was it just rumor. I have not seen her in anything else, but, based on AIA, at least, I think she in incredibly gifted.

Being a "traditional" musical theatre performer these days is difficult. The music is different (anyone not a belter or high rock tenor need not apply), the dancing is different and usually more athletic, and the acting is usually the last thing people put any thought into (most of the younger leads seem fresh from the chorus line and are still trying to blend in and not stand out). If they thought it was bad in the 70's, it's only gotten worse now. All one can hope for are a few good regional theatre gigs or a nice revival of a pre-80's musical.

If I remember correctly, McKechnie was dubbed for The Little Prince, her singing in addition to her dialogue.

To my ears, Donna McKechnie sounds great on the cast albums of A CHORUS LINE and the Paper Mill FOLLIES.

Get your ears checked.

[quote]Just googling her to confirm the spelling of her name, I discovered she was only 70 when she opened in Follies,

70? Per Wikipedia, she was just shy of 50 when she opened in Follies, and didn't die till 2006.

[quote]If I remember correctly, McKechnie was dubbed for The Little Prince, her singing in addition to her dialogue.

You're half-right. It's McKechnie doing the singing.

This post consist of Donna McKechnie AND Follies!

For those who've seen the show, what does "Old Joe" do in WAITRESS? I assume it's a small role with not many speaking lines? Surely it's not a singing role, is it?

Lights were dimmed for Neil and I think they're dimming for Carole tonite. So glad Carole is being remembered.

[quote]For those who've seen the show, what does "Old Joe" do in WAITRESS? I assume it's a small role with not many speaking lines? Surely it's not a singing role, is it?

It’s not a singing role. He owns the restaurant, then (spoiler) dies and leaves her the restaurant.

R528, it's a big part and has multiple scenes. He even has a big solo number.

r527 That is satisfactory at best. No legato. "You said you LOVED me" is yelled. If you don't have the high note, don't take the high note option.

And was she directed not to play a torch singer but a caricature of one? What's with that walk? And the neck rolls? And the Evita arm raise?

Ah, okay. Thank you, R530.

One of the "disappeared" Sondheim actors mentioned by r454. Good sustained notes, but this was loud and not much else.

Follies made the cover of Time in '71 when that really meant something.

Idiots Kerr(yes he was) and Barnes panned it in The New York Times.

Time magazine treated it as if it were an epochal event in America's cultural history. And it was.

And Sondheim made the cover of Newsweek (I think in '73) trashing Richard Rodgers(he was still alive at the time) inciting Irving Berlin to write an angry letter to the editor.

So Broadway was not dead dead.

R535, Ted Kalem of Time also said Gypsy was one of the worst Broadway shows in history. He called Angela Lansbury "second hand Rose".

The only critic who really went overboard in his praise of the show was Martin Gottfried who called it monumental. With the exception of Time and Newsweek, the reviews were very mixed across the board and the letters to Time about "Follies" were unanimously negative.

This has got to be one of the most excruciating theatre threads here in ages. And that’s saying alot.

That Losing My Mind video conclusively ends the discussion about Donna's voice.

But will it conclusively end the discussion about FOLLIES? Doubtful.

What kind of trouble would I get into if I posted Josephine Barstow's Follies clip on YouTube?

Barbara Cook was really something. Would have loved to see her play a role in Follies.

r540 A lot of trouble. Do it. Do it! DO IT!

r541 I see what you're doing.

How about Julie Andrews as Amalia in She Loves Me? (Back in the day, not now.) I'm sure she could have sung it.

Marilyn Maye does a lot of posing here as well, to similarly little effect.

Second of Maye

[Quote] What kind of trouble would I get into if I posted Josephine Barstow's Follies clip on YouTube?

You could post the whole broadcast. Just post it as an unlisted video. You'd hardly be cutting in on streaming revenue.

[quote]I believe it's been speculated or confirmed on here that Teri was the cast member Patti Lu wrote about who was fucking Topol and defending him up and down to the company until he was fired

Yes, confirmed. LuPone said (in her book) that two “Baker’s Wife” actresses were fucking Topol, one of them was one of the young “nieces” of the Marquis in the show, and the other, per Patti, was “an older actress,” who called everyone shits when they took Topol up on charges with Equity. That was Teri. although she was actually only 34 at the time. It was not a secret that she had been “seeing” Topol during the tour.

Patti's had a lot of trouble with dames named Teri.

I don't really see what's so bad about Donna's voice. Is it the best of all time? No, but she holds her own rather fine in just about everything I've seen her in. Sally in Follies is an especially tough sing and she carried it off better than others I've seen/heard.

Are there really people out there who think Gypsy is one of the worst musicals of all time? What idiots.

Ann Reinking may not have been a great singer and neither was Gwen Verdon and Chita was never much of a singer BUT they all have interesting voices with lots of inflection. Donna always sounds strained and monotone to me.

[quote] it's a big part and has multiple scenes. He even has a big solo number.

And a lengthy nude scene.

[quote]Lonnie Quinn in Hamilton....

Stormy Clearweather in "Mean Girls."

People always say Chita's not a great singer, but:

-the end of All That Jazz -"Albert, Albert, Aaa-aaaa-aaa-aaalbert" in English Teaccher -Anita's vocal line towards the end of the Tonight Quintet -big belting in Spider Woman -her solo recording of Carousel

prove that she had pipes and knew how to use them

It may not be on Broadway but I'd rather see Lonnie Quinn in "Naked Boys Singing."

A number of people who saw Lansbury thought she was second rate. Remember the original was only 14 years before so she could be easily sized up next to Merman.

Where do you get that Kalem thought Gypsy one of the worst Broadway musicals?

And remember Kalem just couldn't go to the head of Time/Life and say 'Put Follies on the cover of Time!' A Broadway musical in 1971? Life maybe. But probably the last one on the Time cover had been My Fair Lady in '56.

There had to be some huge important editorial support for this.

Newbie to Broadway producing Joe Papp gets a 2 record obc album for Two Gentlemen of Verona but already legend Hal Prince can't get a two lp obc from anybody for Follies?

It makes no sense.

[quote]A number of people who saw Lansbury thought she was second rate.

Lansbury was never a great singer. Competent, but not stunning. She acted her songs rather than sang them. She was better than Merman's legato-less singing (Every/thing's/com/ing/up/roses), but I imagine people were longing to hear the score sung beautifully and they didn't get that.

[quote] Newbie to Broadway producing Joe Papp gets a 2 record obc album for Two Gentlemen of Verona but already legend Hal Prince can't get a two lp obc from anybody for Follies?

Two Gentlemen was marketed to the 15-25 year old group which bought albums. Follies was a show about a bunch of old ladies getting together one more time before they croaked. There was no marketability for a Follies recording.

Florence Klotz had a huge crush on Teri Ralston and gave her the prettiest dress in A Little Night Music.

An antidote to the above abomination.

I love Donna and her voice-especially in ACL and the lower songs in Papermill’s Follies. It’s like butter in that register. The mid part of her head voice gets pitchy, but her high notes (like the original high C in Music and the Mirror) are pretty good. Regardless, she’s a wonderfully warm human being.

Marin’s jaw is like a PEZ dispenser.

Thanks, r545, that was fun. I LOVE how she held her right hand to her right temple on the first "losing my mind" and then her left hand to her left temple on the second. Ambidextrous Sally, it's nothing like we've ever seen before. She also tucks her chin to her neck on "stays bright", as if that were the only way she'd be able to hit the note.

R555, the title of his pan of the Lansbury Gypsy was "So Dread The Rose". His first lines were "Fifteen years has not changed "Gypsy". It is still gaudy awful". He said of Lansbury, "Early reports were that she had humanized Rose, am impossibility. What she has done is inject a sort of campy knowledge that detracts from Mama's impervious drive." "Although she valiantly lashes at the larynx, Lansbury simply cannot sound the classic Merman brass."

[quote]but already legend Hal Prince can't get a two lp obc from anybody for Follies?

Tom Shepard, the show music producer for Columbia, produced Company for Prince and Sondheim, and he said he would give it the two-disc treatment. But Prince was pissed off at Columbia because he felt they had botched the PR for the Company release, so he gave Follies to Capitol, who had done a decent job for him with Zorba. Capitol wouldn’t give him two discs, and everyone, including Prince himself, felt he had fucked up royally by another giving it to Columbia (and he went running back to Columbia for Night Music).

[quote]A number of people who saw Lansbury thought she was second rate

Really? I don’t know anyone who felt that, and 90% of her reviews were raves. I saw it at the Shubert in LA (pre-NY), and the reviews were total raves. It had already played Chicago and Toronto to excellent notices, and after LA it went to several East Coast cities before moving into NY.

So, who's fucking whom? Can we have some DISH?

Well I heard that on the set of FOLLIES...

I don't know what kind of "juicy gossip" you expect...it's early September and not a lot is going on. Especially since Broadway is currently booked with long running shows w/o any stars or newer shit, all of it based on bad movies, and also w/o any stars.

Even if we had "dish" from behind the scenes, would anyone really care that Braden Schmengie, a chorus boy in "Boring Musical Based on a Shitty Movie" is banging Caiden MacMichiganGraduate, a chorus boy in "Really Stupid Concept Musical Based On A Cartoon"?

Broadway is kinda dead.

So is Broadway gossip.

Braden Schmengie is the frontrunner for next year's Featured Actor Tony.

There's a rumor he's up for the lead in the movie version of Dear Evan Hansen...Ben Platt is too old for it. And, ugly.

Braden Schmengie is the name on everyone's lips right now.

Braden Schmengie has BDF.

A Trumper at Frozen got his flag snatched.

The hunk who took the flag:

The schlub who waved it... pouting outside, threatening to sue if he doesn't get it back.

r573 made me check out #frozenbroadway on Twitter and half of it was Patti Murin tweeting about what she had for intermission snack. Yes, she tweets fat.

The guy's head on r575 is freakishly long, like he has a weave sewn onto his MAGA visor.

I can't believe he went to a Broadway show wearing shorts and those tacky sliders.

Per his IG, Broadway hunk Evan Todd seems to have "fallen" for someone. I don't recognize the lucky guy he's kissing, but he says it's his roommate. It's unclear if he means his NYC roomie, or his roomie for Burning Man (where the pic was taken).

More gossip about Caiden MacMichiganGraduate! How does he feel about Follies?

Chita too often would implement her voice lessons into her onstage singing, like turning the word “now” into “nah-oo.”

Patti Murin's tweets can't even save this thread R537. It really is the worst.

Caiden MacMichiganGraduate is not well.

John Simon described it as a garage door going up and down, r562.

Miss Maye channeling Miss Lawson......

[quote]And Sondheim made the cover of Newsweek

Newsweek? Pepsi.

Lansbury was brilliant as Rose. Saw her twice. You can always find naysayers about any production/performance.

Frank Langella comes out! Well, kind of, and not in the most thoughtful way, and maybe not, ultimately. What do we think, DL?

Housecoat..

A shame that Langella waited until he was older in the tv film "Lolita" to do full frontal nudity. It's a violent scene, though with freeze frame he still looks good. But he was really quite something when he was younger.

He still seems insufferable but he's a terrific actor

I still think having Phyllis attend the reunion in her bathrobe is a brave choice.

[quote]More gossip about Caiden MacMichiganGraduate! How does he feel about Follies?

What’s Follies? Is that the new Pasek and Paul show?

Langella was very open about his sexual relations with men in his book several years ago.

Can #321 have ZERO Follies or Gypsy? Can we do it? 600 posts without the words "Phyllis," "Rose," "Sally" or "Lansbury"?

2 thoughts about r517 =- that tempo is SO slowwwww and Daniels looks like Victor/Victoria.

R595 Someone already made a #321 and included FOLLIES in the title as well as a FOLLIES video, so that ship has sailed.

R594, WTF?

Then it should be boycotted if for no other reason than this one is STILL GOING

Pesach and Gaul. #enddays

Let's talk about Tovah..... so I'm watching KISSING JESSICA STEIN which I've never seen before and, surprise, Tovah is playing a Jewish mother. She's actually quite funny and spot on. Then she has this amazing scene where she tells her daughter she knows her friend Helen is more than a friend and she lets her know she's perfectly ok with that. Tovah made me cry. Unfortunately, when someone becomes the butt of so many DL jokes you forget how talented they really are.

[quote] Wow, David Burtka is looking really old and has a dad bod

Too bad. When he did GYPSY, he had the best ass on Broadway