Theatre Gossip #350: The "Alexandra Billings IS matinee Tootsie" Edition

Waxy Bush was a fun character. I never cared for Billings on Transparent but thought she was excellent in The Nap. Hope she gets a Tony nomination for it.

I would seriously hope the producers of The Ferryman push Laura Donnelly for Featured (which she is) instead of Lead because she'd got no chance in Lead and she will easily win in Featured. She was fantastic and deserves a Tony.

I believe Billings played Madame Rose in a production of GYPSY in Chicago 20 or so years ago.

I bet Arthur approved THAT casting

Arthur doesn't vet dinner theater.

[quote]Arthur doesn't vet dinner theater.

Except for Tulsa. He vetted every Tulsa that ever appeared in any production of Gypsy. He would call the actor into his office and say, "Dance for me!"

hahaha

Correction: he'd say "Take off your clothes and dance for me!"

All I ever needed was the music, and the mirror and the chance to bottom for you!

[italic]Transparent[/italic] made it easy for me to admit I can’t stand Judith Lightweight.

To continue the discussion from the last thread, Betty Comden was beautiful enough to be cast as the elderly Greta Garbo by Sidney Lumet in his film GARBO TALKS.

Scroll down to see the photo at the link of Ms Comden.

I keep putting Helen Gallagher on my Broadway Death List and she keeps surviving. I think she's in a race to see if she can outlive Olivia de Havilland, star, plaintiff, National Treasure.

I'm re-thinking my earlier comment, r12--Betty Comden had a kind of beauty. But I still think Elaine is the more beautiful of the two

Thank you, r14.

IMHO Elaine was sexier and had an earthy voluptuous thing going, but Betty was a classier and glamorous kind of pretty.

I was kind of hoping for a 'Benanti as Time's Square Fosca' thread. But this is good too.

Here is the second link to more on the 'not a lady, not trans, just gayer than Dumbledore's phoenix' Lynn Riggs -- In case anyone else is surprised that Oklahoma!'s source material was written by a gay man and not a woman.

By the way, Who is the matinee Tootsie? Who's Santino's understudy?

[quote]By the way, Who is the matinee Tootsie? Who's Santino's understudy?

Donna Murphy. She's the only one that looks mannish enough to accomplish the task and work one performance a week.

And..now.....

Boy, that Nichols and May stuff did not age well at all. Talk about mediocrity!

R12, If you saw the movie, Betty's face was covered throughout by large sunglasses and a wide brimmed floppy hat.

Fun Fact: Since Betty Comden and Betty Bacall were both close friends with Adolph Green and Phyllis Newman, they were known within the Green household as Betty C and Betty B.

seriously, r20? I still think it's great.

Hey, r22, don't forget about me! I was a Revuer too, ya know.....

R20, A bad reaction to a whooping-cough vaccine at age 4 left Nichols permanently hairless, according to the New Yorker magazine. Later he would come to rely on wigs and fake eyebrows.

Nichols and May stuff is simply perfect and timeless.

Agree with R20. I found it unfunny and tedious

Was Nichols and May stuff funny in its time period? I never found Stills and Meara shtick funny. All that Jewish boy/Catholic girl stuff was tedious.

[quote]Nichols and May stuff is simply perfect and timeless.

[quote]I found it unfunny and tedious

I agree with the first statement above. To each his own, but -- some people have no sense of humor.

It's about as funny as a Carol Burnett sketch

R30 is proof millennials killed comedy.

Have you watched the reruns of her show on MeTV, R31? Practically laugh-free and extremely dated. The comedy is just very much of its time, like Nichols and May. People were roaring in that audience at things that are not remotely amusing.

Unless it contains the word," Fuck," millennials don't find any comedy funny.

Plenty of the comedy from yesteryear holds up just fine. Just not Nichols and May.

Elaine May's TONY would be for lifetime achievement and would subsequently bring down the house.

[quote]Plenty of the comedy from yesteryear holds up just fine. Just not Nichols and May.

A lot of people disagree with you, so please don't make that statement like it's incontrovertible fact. Makes you look stupid.

A lot? Several people, including me, think that Nichols and May does not hold up

"I never found Stills and Meara shtick funny."

Oh, dear!

[quote]A lot? Several people, including me, think that Nichols and May does not hold up

A lot of people in the world disagree with you. There is a world beyond DataLounge. You're entitled to your opinion, just please don't state it as a fact that Nichols and May's comedy doesn't hold up.

Fine. So far, the clips that have been offered up of Nichols and May are about as funny as cancer...TO ME

Jesus. Every clip posted of them gets worse.

And this.....this is the side of the car.....

[quote]So far, the clips that have been offered up of Nichols and May are about as funny as cancer...TO ME

Duly noted, but I shudder to think what you DO find funny.

[quote] they were known within the Green household as Betty C and Betty B.

So Betty Cunt and Betty Bitch?

Was that Anna May Wong thing supposed to be funny? It was terrible.

I wish their defenders would explain why they find it (still) funny. I'm really at a loss.

I don't know what that Anna May Wong thing is, but it sounds like a private recording of something that was not in intended to be a comedy routine. I for one find both the driving teacher sketch and the funeral sketch enduringly funny in a classic style.

[quote]I wish their defenders would explain why they find it (still) funny. I'm really at a loss.

Yes, and it's your loss. It's very hard to explain humor. I might as well ask you to explain why you DON'T find it funny, but I really don't care.

Humor makes people laugh. These clips are like seeing a self-indulgent improv group watch paint dry.

Good luck finding someone who can explain why something is funny, r48. If you don't think it's funny, no explanation (even if one were possible) is going to convince you otherwise.

O.K. kids, moving....on!

Buckley will be out April 2-7 with her understudy(s) going on. Lots of people saying she was disappointing in the role and some suggesting she doesn't have the stamina to do it. Buckley says her absence will be a vacation, which she needs. That SF video of her showed her voice is now totally gone.

Betty Buckley looks a bit like Judy Kaye in those videos. Why don't they get Judy Kaye? She's probably kept her voice in fine shape and can be promoted as a two-time Tony winner, one more than Buckley. In other words, no more or less famous to folks outside NY.

I'm weighing in on this thread for the first time.

No, I never found Nichols and May all that funny. Guess you had to be there.

I don't find Lenny Bruce remotely funny, either, based on his recordings.

You are all so welcome to enjoy it. I don't want to deprive you. But please stop insisting that I share your opinion.

I've been following this conversation and the only posters I noticed insisting that we share their opinion are the ones who dislike Nichols and May.

I saw Judy Kaye as Rizzo in the Grease tour, r55.

R58, John Travolta was on that tour. But forget Judy, what about Lucie Arnaz?

Who is Alexandra Billings? Haven't heard of her. Why start a thread with people not too many folks have even heard of to get the joke? Is she related to the zookeeper who Mildred Natwick sings about in the "Elephant Song" in "70, Girls, 70"? Mr. Billings? Mr. Billings?

Where DID the elephant go, Mr. Billings?

Ever notice how people who write about comedy are rarely ever funny themselves?

And R32, those [italic]Carol Burnett Show[/italic] reruns on ME TV are the cut-down 30 minute versions that are mostly the Tim Conway years. Anything before that you have to fork over money to buy on DVD. And many of the sketches do hold up, so what show are you watching? [italic]Full House[/italic]? [italic]Friends[/italic]? [italic]Saved by the Fucking Bell[/italic]? Those shows are so bad they make the case for censorship just by existing.

[quote]But please stop insisting that I share your opinion.

Only if you stop projecting your inability to understand anything more complex than swearing and post-1990 pop culture references onto the rest of us.

List of actually funny millennial comedians:

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A lot of what passed muster as far as comedy with Lorne Michaels to put on the air on SNL has sucked over the years. A higher percentage was really good at the beginning, but with a few bumps at times, he's probably only had about 30% of sketches that were good. Ok, you can argue the percentage, but there's a lot of misses over the years.

Can we at least agree that Elaine May's AFI tribute to Mike Nichols is funny?

r21, did you actually look at my link?

I remember that in the film GARBO TALKS we only get glimpses of her face, but there's a clear photo at the link of Betty Comden in costume as the older Greta Garbo and she looks unerringly like her, and quite beautiful.

SNL is no one’s best work.

It may be hard for younger posters here to understand, but there was NO ONE performing that kind of topical urban satirical humor successfully before the advent of Nichols and May. If their routines haven't aged well, it's really because they've been so endlessly copied and watered down over the years, there's no surprise or shock value left to enjoy.

And, no, Stiller and Meara never came close to the brilliance of Mike and Elaine.

There were plenty of people performing humor. The problem is that the Nichols and May stuff is not funny

[quote]SNL is no one’s best work.

Not even Victoria Jackson?

To this day, I still think of Nichols and May whenever I hear about a vapid starlet on a talk show ... and I immediately dub her "Barbara Musk." (I also think of that name every time I hear about Tesla.)

Some of Steve Martin's and Gilda Radner's best work was done there.

I love Gilda but she never did good work outside of SNL.

I've never personally dated ..... r72? But word comes back from those who have he's a real great guy.

Uma, Oprah......

[quote]Not even Victoria Jackson?

Not even her.

[quote]I was kind of hoping for a 'Benanti as Time's Square Fosca' thread.

Thank God we didn't get that. I couldn't deal with seeing "Time's Square" for the next 600 posts.

Wow. This thread has an awful lot of awfully angry people talking about what makes them laugh.

Well, well, well. I just got back from BEETLEJUICE tonight. Horrid dreck. Trying soooo hard to be hip and current with the ghetto kids of today. They had rapping in the couple's first song! I HATE lin manuel. Some 27 year olds behind me said "he's got bars". UGH. The guy playing Beetlejuice is a JOKE. He's like a low budget Robin Williams. Spazzing out using an annoying affected voice. They teased his hair and colored it with spray. So lame. Why does Broadway always cast the stage actors so low end? Lyrics were things like "so woke" "new phone, who dis?" "Adam is wiser, that old Adam is fertilizer." Who wrote this crap?! The jokes were all toilet humor and juvenile. Gay jokes and theatre jokes. They referenced Dolly Levi! And referenced BRIGADOON. Saying the couple were more boring than Brigadoon and "FUCK BRIGADOON" was repeated TWICE, in Beetlejuice! The best one was Lydia although she too had an affected voice. The annoying baby voice female pop singer of today voice. The only moment I enjoyed was the Miss Argentina number. She stole the show. The actress was much better there than as Delia, which was not the actress' faukt. They completely ruined that character making her a ditz instead of a vapid bitch. I appreciate them trying to do their own story, but no. They ripped off Disney's COCO in the second act. Only hints of the actual movie here and there. I don't know what was scarier, the material or that the audience seemed to enjoy it! The people who financed this are the kind of people who would throw money at Elizabeth theranos. Broadway is dead.

The slippery slope is real and Scamilton is living proof of it.

[quote]I love Gilda but she never did good work outside of SNL.

Bill Murray is the opposite. His best work was in movies.

"Beetlejuice" stank in D.C., full of cheap, vulgar humor apparently geared toward millennials. I thought it would get a major reworking before going to Broadway, but it sounds like it didn't.

R84 YES! Miss Argentina even said, "Okurrr". Ugh. I cringed.

Can someone explain why TPTB/producers are so sure that something like BEETLEJUICE will even connect with these elusive millennial audiences?

Did I miss something back in 1988, when some of them were not yet born? Is the film some millennial favorite? None of the original actors would seem to be. Tim Burton has been making crap movies for years now? What is the connection?

I actually liked the film, back in the day, but not as a future Bway musical.

I think it's Jeff Kready, R17.

In other musical news, the revival of THE CRADLE WILL ROCK at CSC appears to be set in an oil refinery.

Everything we go to theatre for!

When will American Son air on Netflix?

[quote]"Beetlejuice" stank in D.C., full of cheap, vulgar humor apparently geared toward millennials.

As opposed to shows with cheap, vulgar humor geared toward Baby Boomers and Gen Xers?

[quote]As opposed to shows with cheap, vulgar humor geared toward Baby Boomers and Gen Xers?

Hey! Don't knock Sugar Babies!

[quote]Betty Buckley looks a bit like Judy Kaye in those videos. Why don't they get Judy Kaye?

They would have had to add flying buttresses to the Harmonia Gardens staircase to support Judy's weight.

gawd I love this.

Older theater goers need to realize that the days of actual stories with dramatic arcs, songs with melodies, and character development are long gone. It's all flash, one dimensional characters, and pop music crap that is being produced now.

So a Hannah-Barbera take on OKLAHOMA! is all the rage now.

Cute.

When vaudeville died it took most of its performers and theaters with it. Broadway was smart enough to figure out a successful business model that protected its real estate after the collapse.

You’ve got to respect an industry that can survive on the idea of a memory half forgotten.

R93, it is, of course difficult to judge that out of context of the entire play, but that was pretty terrible. It is a good example of the difference between a singer singing a song and an actress performing a song. Most of her "stylings" are affectations. They are not character driven. Also, the burlesque Hillbilly accent is pretty offensive. That is not how people in Oklahoma speak or sing.

That hurt my ears. If there's an afterlife, R&H are weeping.

She'll still get the Tony.

I expect she will.

I know this makes me terminally un-hip, but this production strikes me as extremely self indulgent. I had the same response to Diane Paulus' attitude to Porgy and Bess.

As stated above, Ali Stroker can’t be bothered to perform the song. More proof that she’s merely a novelty.

Oh, I think she's performing it. She's making choices; they're just bad ones.

Director letting her be indulgent instead of character-based. And as usual, neither performer nor director trusts the lyrics to land. Why is she grabbing - apparently at a guy's balls - when she sings "I can feel the undertow"? It's like the girl in Kate arching back (get it?) for "and not Back Bay."

R103, exactly.

Couldn’t get through that clip.

Do they know what the song is about?

Or is it just about screaming and keeping your eyes closed

Are there any actors in this production of Oklahoma or is it more of a recital?

Wouldn’t she get stuck in the cornfield with the least bit of rain?

I can't understand why the R&H organization signed off on this. They've always been so strict with their properties.

R108, Ted Chapin is no longer there.

Oh, I diddn't realize.

Still....

I believe Randy Rainbow is matinee Tootsie. He received accolades for his performance in "Call Me Madam" at Encores.

Seriously? That's pretty cool, if so.

R109, Ted Chapin is still the custodian of the R&H catalog. At the link, scroll down the page for an article about his thinking.

Could someone please explain how this updated Oklahoma! works? Did they revise the book since it appears it now has LGBT characters? Does it still take place in 1906? Does the show require a lot of suspension of disbelief to include a multiracial and/or handicapped cast?

R113 are all theater critics woke or desperately want to 'fit in'? That drivel was nauseating. Comparing HAMILTON to OKLAHOMA? Bitch, please!

I liked the Rich piece; he's clearly given this a lot of thought. Are you referring to Rich, r115? He's no longer a theater critic and hasn't been for ages.

r113, thanks for pointing out the Chapin interview--I hadn't noticed it before.

Frank Rich is an overrated hack and that treasonous drivel is just another example of why. It’s in no small part because of him that Broadway has been in decline since the 1980s at least.

Are you the first Mrs. Rich, r117?

Treasonous? Really?

Why does Broadway thrill any time a director decides to make a musical dark? Oh, it’s SO DARK!

Treason to musical theatre is treason to the USA as far as I’m concerned. And since Lynn Riggs was a gay man it comes off as pretty homophobic to cite that show as an example of racism.

Ted Chapin also did nothing to stop the animated [italic]King & I[/italic] or the virtually colorless, Eisnerized TV version of [italic]South Pacific[/italic] with G as a geriatric Nellie Forbush.

Your reaction (including your scattershot attacks on Chapin and Rich) strikes me as just a tad excessive, r120, but I'm sure you know best. I hope the rest of your day is more cheering for you.

[quote]I don't know what that Anna May Wong thing is, but it sounds like a private recording of something that was not in intended to be a comedy routine.

It sounds to me like something from one of their comedy albums.

“Comedy” album, you mean

[quote]In other musical news, the revival of THE CRADLE WILL ROCK at CSC appears to be set in an oil refinery.

Which is stupid because part of the premise of the show is that one of the characters is trying to unionize. Is there any oil refinery that Isn't unionized?

Call me when they set the show in Wal-Mart. THEN I'll be interested.

r114 - First of all, the entire cast is in wheelchairs. They serve chili and cornbread throughout the show, and Ado Annie and Laurie end up together. Curly and Jud kill each other in a violent gunfight at the end of the evening.

So Jud Fry is not a real person, Frank Rich. He’s the villain of the play because the play says so. He’s a stalker and he plots to murder. He’s not merely a shy outsider and it changes the story to imply otherwise. And having his blood splatter the leads is absurd and indulgent.

Maybe it's an homage to Sam Peckinpah, r126.

Thank you, r126. That silly article set a new bar for pretentiousness, especially when I read that contractually the direction had to adhere to the script. Really, it's come to this?

"the revival of THE CRADLE WILL ROCK at CSC appears to be set in an oil refinery."

CARMEN JONES was set in a munitions factory. Perhaps it's a seasonal theme.

"He received accolades for his performance in "Call Me Madam" at Encores."

Not really.

"It's like the girl in Kate arching back (get it?) for "and not Back Bay.""

Or Krasinski doing those vulgar splits in the last SHE LOVES ME.

I find this Nichols and May parody of PRIVATE LIVES very clever and funny...

Wasn't the blood splattered Jud ripped-off from another production? I seem to remember another production outside of NY where Curly kills Jud in cold blood rather than his death being an accident. Or, is this the same production which has just taken some time to get to the NYC area?

Doesn't Billy Bigelow also accidentally fall on his own knife in CAROUSEL? R&H had two shows in a row with similar themes?

[quote]Doesn't Billy Bigelow also accidentally fall on his own knife in CAROUSEL?

In the original, I don't think it's an accident. I think he kills himself.

R126 I hate this relatively new trend of trying to sympathize with classic villains. Write your own damn show! Don't reinterpret someone else's work in a way it was never meant to be. Oklahoma! was never meant to be a commentary on anything. It's just a musical comedy play.

[quote]I've been following this conversation and the only posters I noticed insisting that we share their opinion are the ones who dislike Nichols and May.

Exactly. Thank you.

[quote]Doesn't Billy Bigelow also accidentally fall on his own knife in CAROUSEL? R&H had two shows in a row with similar themes?

According to the stage directions in the original stage version of CAROUSEL, Billy purposely plunges a knife into his chest (or stomach, I don't remember for sure) to kill himself rather than go to jail. In the movie version, this was rewritten so he does, indeed, fall on his own knife while trying to escape, I assume because suicide was thought to be unacceptable in film musical in those days.

[quote]Billy purposely plunges a knife into his chest (or stomach, I don't remember for sure) to kill himself rather than go to jail. In the movie version, this was rewritten so he does, indeed, fall on his own knife while trying to escape, I assume because suicide was thought to be unacceptable in film musical in those days.

I was in a production where suicide was not considered acceptable, so the director had a policeman shoot Billy.

Please don't tell Ted Chapin.

And since we're speaking of suicides, in Brigadoon one of the citizens tries to escape and gets killed. What was his method? Was he shot or fell off a cliff or something? I think the stage version and the movie version were different as well.

[quote]I was in a production where suicide was not considered acceptable

Was it a church basement production?

My favorite onstage death was the poor young guy in Fields of Ambrosia who said something like “It’s always one thing after another” after getting gang raped and before hanging himself.

[quote]In Brigadoon one of the citizens tries to escape and gets killed. What was his method? Was he shot or fell off a cliff or something? I think the stage version and the movie version were different as well.

In the show, we're told after the fact that Jeff, while hunting, accidentally shot Harry Beaton (thinking he was an animal or a bird), but the shooting happens offstage. In the movie, we actually see it happen.

[quote]Was it a church basement production?

Religious college. We had an actual auditorium that seated 700, so it wasn't a rinky dink production. It was ok to portray a person can go to heaven and then return to Earth and earn their way back to Heaven, but someone contemplating suicide? Not happening.

In productions, we could also say, "damn" but never "god damn."

Wasn't there a play where the religious actress refused to say "god damn!"; so, it was changed to "shit!". She was fine with that, just not "god damn".

[quote]Wasn't there a play where the religious actress refused to say "god damn!"; so, it was changed to "shit!". She was fine with that, just not "god damn".

I was in a production of "Crimes of the Heart" in a community theater in the South. Babe could sleep with a black man and try to murder her husband, Meg could take pills and imply that she was having sex with a married man, but nobody could say, "God damn."

R140, I think that was Kathie Lee Gifford when she was a replacement in "Putting It Together" and sang "Could I Leave You?" She didn't want to sing "Wait a goddamn minute," so, demure flower that she is, she sang, "Wait a fucking minute" instead."

I love that story, r142. It just never gets old.

Wow, Ali Stroker is fucking horrible! Thanks for posting that clip. Now I know to stay away from that mess.

Seriously, why do they cast Ali Stroker? She brings so little to the table.

Is it possible that that clip is an April Fool's Day prank? Can they really expect ticket sales to soar as a result of this video?

Wasn't she cast because she's in a wheelchair? Isn't that the gimmick? Or one of them?

Because they get to feel good about themselves casting a cripple, and they know they have at least one Tony in the bag. Who isn't gonna vote for speshul needz?

R142 wasn't Kathie Lee Carol Burnett's alternate? So Kathie Lee sang "fucking" during matinees and Burnett said "goddamn" in the evenings?

Goddamn, that fucking Ali Stroker is terrible.

[quote] Or Krasinski doing those vulgar splits in the last SHE LOVES ME.

No, r128, that's just crass , character-inappropriate staging. The subject was lyrics.

And you mean Krakowski not Krasinki although if Krasinki would like to do vulgar splits, I would vulgarly watch

If you're referring to Chapin's sidebar, r128, I thought Chapin gave a cogent and rational account of how he makes his decisions. Unfortunately, he wasn't aware that r120 was so opposed.

An apt description of Curley and Judd from Oklahoma is that Curley is the kind of asshole who trolls reddit constantly telling people to kill themselves while Judd is an angry incel building up enough resentment and rage to kill a bunch of people. It is a musical about deplorables doing their deplorable thing back when 'Murica was great.

Oklahoma! doesn't really NEED to be updated to be relevant today.

If ever there was proof that casting a handicapped person in a normal role was ludicrous and offensive, that clip proved it.

R140, When Ginger Rogers toured in Coco, she refused to say the word "shit", but agreed to say "merde", it's French equivalent.

Laurey is enough of a villain in the original, using Jud to try to get Curley jealous; she then basically humiliates and horsewhips Jud. Curley doesn't help matters by passive-aggressively encouraging Jud to think about death and suicide in "Pore Jud is Daid". Yes, Jud has issues, but why the hell provoke him? Btw, how does the Ado Annie in this ever know what sitting on the velveteen settee is like if she's on a wheelchair?

The reason the R&H estate okayed this is R&H is desperate to be relevant today. No one is doing Oklahoma because it's a relic of a musical

R155 "Merde" wouldn't hurt her image, since Americans don't know what it means. They sure know what the other word meant!

Does anyone watching the movie "Top Hat" wish that Ginger Rogers ended up with Erik Rhodes as Bedini? He's so pretty as opposed to Fred Astaire. Yes, Fred dances like a dream, but Bedini was really very cute! He was also great fun in "The Gay Divorcee" with Fred and Ginger. I would have stayed with him in that bedroom rather than put a paper cut-out of two people on the turntable to make it look like two people were dancing in its shadow.

She isn't awful because of her handicap, r154. She's awful because she chose to caterwaul that song.

r159, are you maybe in the wrong thread?

R156

The whole dark aspect of Oklahoma! is so far from being outdated. Even the victim blaming in the original play -- of course an orphan who has attracted the interest of a violent stalker is at fault for his behavior.

I think it would be interesting to play it as if Laurie never really liked Curley -- but only realized that she needed to ally herself with him to be safe from Judd because assholes are less likely to kill you than fedora-tippers and those were her only options.

R161 No, someone started talking about Ginger Rogers, and Erik Rhodes was in the stage and films versions of the "Gay Divorce" renamed "The Gay Divorcee" for films, so it's still on topic.

R162 Oh, Laurey would have had some other guy buying her lunch box at the box social; she was pretty in looks, but not in personality. Eventually a beau would find that out. I don't think Curley and Laurey ended up happily ever after.

[quote]Because they get to feel good about themselves casting a cripple, and they know they have at least one Tony in the bag. Who isn't gonna vote for speshul needz?

Then where is Cousin Geri’s Emmy?

"I think it would be interesting to play it as if Laurie never really liked Curley"

Which would of course run contrary to the authors' intentions and genre conventions.

Alexandra Billings as matinee anything, I'd watch.

I hope she gets a nom for Waxy Bush. The play was a flop but she was quite a creation.

R157 I've seen several high school and community theater productions within this decade. Even watched some UK and Irish productions on YouTube. So people are still putting it on.

Does anyone show their panties?

It's a classic musical with a great score -- plus it has lots of young characters. So yes, much more fitting for high schools than "Follies", though of course, there have been high school productions of that, too. Oy vey!

If I do this number, r170.....

The problem with shows such as Oklahoma! is trying to impose 21st values on a period piece. It is similar to Way Down East. Driving a girl into a storm to certain death is only a problem if she is a "good girl". Had she actually been a "bad girl", her murder by snow storm would be justified.

I will say that 9/11 was still very much in my mind when I saw the Cameron Mackintosh production of Oklahoma! in previews early in 2002. The part about ignoring the rule of law so the newlyweds could have their honeymoon really disturbed me. This was the time when there was serious talk about rounding up Muslims and putting them on prison ships. That part never bothered me before, but I found it really disturbing at the time.

[quote] Older theater goers need to realize that the days of actual stories with dramatic arcs, songs with melodies, and character development are long gone. It's all flash, one dimensional characters, and pop music crap that is being produced now.

This 'older theatergoer' (61) indeed realizes this.

It's why I now go to one or two productions a year instead of one or two productions a week, as I was doing 15-20 years ago.

At the prices they're now charging, even a half-price ticket from TKTS is too much for an evening of 'pop music crap that is being produced now'.

And the audiences are excruciating, endlessly snapping selfies before the show and during intermission, and collectively leaping to their feet as soon as the curtain falls as if their seats have been electrified.

I'm seeing a lot more independent and foreign movies now, and saving a bundle as well.

But....but.....

R172

How would it have felt if you had seen it right after the Oklahoma City bombing?

To me the show holds up in terms of being thematically relevant today. It isn't made less theatrical because those aspects of the show feel alarming. The unsettling parts of the story being brushed off as just dandy has always been part of the show's tension. It does feel like such a sweet and charming ride with the lowest of stakes but rape and riot, murder and lynching are plot points and the casually stupid attitude characters have about these things are part of what drives the story forward.

Are producers really targeting millennials with shows like Beetlejuice, Pretty Woman, Tootsie, etc.? Gross generalization, but I thought millennials didn't have any money and lived with their parents. The last few times I've been to the theater the vast majority of the audience has been in their 50s or older. I can't imagine that The Olds are particularly interested in any of the above-mentioned shows or too many of the jukebox musicals. Say what you will about Lincoln Center's Bart Sher revivals of classic musicals, but LC seems to know who's buying tickets. I'm not wishing for an endless stream of beautifully produced revivals of musicals and plays (well, not much...), but it would seem smarter for producers to at least nod to the people who are actually going to the theater these days.

That Oklahoma sounds ghastly. If I hear FO***ES mentioned one more fucking time on this sight, so help me God. I'm taking the shotgun off the wall.

[quote]The part about ignoring the rule of law so the newlyweds could have their honeymoon really disturbed me.

Did it bother you in Les Miserables when Jean Val Jean resists arrest? Javert even sings about it: I am the law and the law is NOT mocked. He eventually commits suicide over it.

Team Javert! I guess that's why val Jean's fate was Patti LuPone as an angel screaming a motif we had already heard 100 times in the three and a half hours of the show.

The biggest problem with R&H shows are that their books are sort of pallid. Sure, they deal with racism and evil and blah blah blah, but in such a quaint way compare to what we see nowadays.

R179 = idiot with no concept of historical context whatsoever.

Please tell me they reinforced the stage at the New Amsterdam. FUCK!!!! Tell me they reinforced 42nd Street. What a fucking buffalo herd.

R179 how do you want them to deal with racism? Remember, it has to reflect the times it's set in.

The character of Jud in Oklahomo is not a villain. He is dealing with latent homosexuality and his feelings for Will Parker. If you had someone as fine as Harry Groener wiggling his ass, er I mean dancing, in front of you, wouldn't you be confused?

Homophobia wounds, even in a Broadway musical.

"The problem with shows such as Oklahoma! is trying to impose 21st values on a period piece"

Not only that, but if you don't honor genre conventions (or you mix them up), as Francis Ford Coppola once said about movies, you're left with neither fish nor fowl, like that ridiculous "revisal" of FLOWER DRUM SONG years ago. These shows are musical comedy romances.

R175/R178. You missed the point. That was my reaction solely due to the events of the previous six months. I never had that reaction before, and I doubt that I would have that reaction if I saw it now. It was purely in-the-moment. However, at that point Oklahoma! spoke to me in a way that it never had before, and it wasn't because some director decided to impose some concept on it. I

"it would seem smarter for producers to at least nod to the people who are actually going to the theater these days."

Exactly. They don't know their audience at all.

I saw the '79 revival of the big O! It was at the height of the Iranian hostage crisis. It was a brilliant production, beautifully mounted and played. Without a word of the script being changed, it awoke the same patriotic fervor in 1979 as it must have for audiences in 1943. THAT's what the show was designed to do, and that's how it should be played, IMHO.

If producers want to know their audiences, then they should be scanning tickets or at least standing at the back of the house before the show to see who's filling the seats. Forget surveys and social media -- open your eyes. It's not like relying on Nielsen ratings, your audience is RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU.

[quote] like that ridiculous "revisal" of FLOWER DRUM SONG years ago

Please! Any show which features cute young shirtless Asian men dancing with gigantic pairs of chopsticks is NOT ridiculous!

For those that love this new Oklahoma revival, what did it reveal to you about the show and the characters that you weren't aware of in previous productions? I keep on hearing the word "revelatory" but without any follow-up.

Btw, for those that haven't seen it, this new revival is set in the present, or at least the recent past.

"revelatory" in most of these cases refers to making points more explicitly and crudely - in all senses of the word - for an audience of shorter attention spans and a shallow capacity for meaning. So everything has to be hit harder or faster or more obviously, further dulling our sense and senses and creating an endless cycle of dumber audiences and more dumbed-down executions. It's not really very different from amplification in the theater. Everyone's lazier, which makes everyone lazier.

Harry Beaton isn't shot in the stage Brigadoon. While he's running, Jeff sticks out his foot and trips him, he falls and hits his head on a rock.

It might be different in the film.

Alexandra Billings really is quite good in the right role. I was in Chicago when she did Gypsy all those years ago and she was quite good as Rose. It was a teeny tiny little production, though. I almost want to say their "orchestra" was more like a piano and someone playing some blocks or something. It has a real Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "let's put on a show" feeling.

The last major revival of Oklahoma!, that came with all sorts accolades from London, was so fucking boring, it's soured me on the show forever

Alexandra Billings for Laurey! Think of all the great laughs she’ll get every time someone talks about what’s in her her box lunch.

I doubt if that Oklahoma! performance on Fallon last night will sell many tickets.

If Ali Stroker married Al Roker, she'd be Ali Stroker Roker.

R197 LOL

R196 my friend/roommie, who despises musical theater, watched that performance with me. The look on his face the entire time was priceless. He doesn't know what the show is about, but he guessed it was about an "unabashed slutty paraplegic." LOL! He didn't believe me that it's about when Oklahoma became a state in 1907. He was like "Why is she dressed modern?" I said I honestly don't know.

R194 why did you find it boring? I was completely enthralled by Act I but quickly lost interest after "The Farmer and the Cowman" in Act II. For some reason, it dragged for me and I can't put my finger on it.

Maybe that hand movement for grabbing the balls would work if a naked cowhand had entered and been near her. Otherwise, she has a good voice, but it's over the top vocally with some strange choices vocally. She seemed more like an over-caffeinated Annie Oakley who had been thrown off a bull, injured herself, but still hoped to go riding again someday.

R200 Because "Oklahoma!" has a simple plot. Who will take Laurey to the box social -- Curley or Jud? Simple subplot -- can Will Parker get horny Ado Annie to settle down and stop hanging out with Ai Hakim. That's about it, though Laurey is a manipulative bitch, Jud has some real feelings even though he's just a hired hand and Curley's kind of a passive-aggressive jerk who probably deserves stuck-up Laurey. That's really about it.

[quote]"Revelatory" in most of these cases refers to making points more explicitly and crudely - in all senses of the word - for an audience of shorter attention spans and a shallow capacity for meaning. So everything has to be hit harder or faster or more obviously, further dulling our sense and senses and creating an endless cycle of dumber audiences and more dumbed-down executions. It's not really very different from amplification in the theater. Everyone's lazier, which makes everyone lazier.

Exactly, like that "revelatory" CABARET, a.k.a. "sledgehammer theater."

Haven't seen the new OKLAHOMA! but what conceivable sense does it make to say that it's set in the present day? On what level of reality, or unreality, does the show operate?

[quote]He doesn't know what the show is about, but he guessed it was about an "unabashed slutty paraplegic."

Uncanny. That’s exactly what we were going for!

Great review for Michelle Williams, not so great for the show itself:

I'm not a fan of this new Oklahoma but I don't quibble with it being set in modern times (that's the least of the problems). Other than that lyric about "a brand new state" I don't think Oklahoma's statehood is mentioned anywhere else in the script.

And apparently 99% of the original dialogue is there and I can't remember any particular anachronisms, period-wise.

R206, I’m sure the people of Kansas City will be thrilled with how up to date everything is in kC!

Some audio/video of JHud singing Memory.

"Other than that lyric about "a brand new state" I don't think Oklahoma's statehood is mentioned anywhere else in the script."

And that (along with the surrey with the fringe on top, peddlers, fascinators...but why go on?) is indicative of the period.

[quote]I will say that 9/11 was still very much in my mind when I saw the Cameron Mackintosh production of Oklahoma! in previews early in 2002. The part about ignoring the rule of law so the newlyweds could have their honeymoon really disturbed me. This was the time when there was serious talk about rounding up Muslims and putting them on prison ships. That part never bothered me before, but I found it really disturbing at the time.

How do you think *I* felt?

Lack of motor cars, box socials being the big event in town, a seven-story skyscraper...

Damn r151, Krasinski is just wasted on Emily Blunt. Oh the sinful thoughts!

R211, et all, the thing is, none of this bothers 20-thirty somethings. What does bother them is Merchant-Ivory type attention to historical detail. It alienates them. They do not feel included. If they do not see themselves reflected in the material in some way, they turn off.

The " creative types" of old Broadway brought us new ideas, beautiful music, and books that were not riddled with "messages." They died off, due to age or AIDS. What filled the chasm are producers who need to have a sure box office smash, so they re-create movies, do jukebox musicals, or revive the classics with " edgy" new messages for a modern era. I went to see shows at Christmas and felt as if I was attending a lecture, not a musical. I grew quickly weary of the social justice messages that were being forced on the audience. I go to the theater to be entertained or to thrill at the depth of excellent characterizations. This time, I was hit with female empowerment, LGBT acceptance, racism, and basically how terrible white males are. All the musicals had less than memorable moments. Constantly getting hit over the head with these messages makes for a night of hell. So, forgive me if I have no interest in seeing an Ado Annie in a wheelchair or a black Harold Hill. Write shows for them; August Wilson stated as much. Then, market it that way. The "edginess" of the new theater people is just tired and lazy.

R189: Have some LSD, Mr. Goldstone...

[quote]Other than that lyric about "a brand new state" I don't think Oklahoma's statehood is mentioned anywhere else in the script.

There's also these lyrics from "The Farmer and the Cowman":

"And when this territory is a state

And joins the Union just like all the others

The farmer and the cowman and the merchant

Must all behave theirselves and act like brothers"

Territory folks should stick together, territory folks should all be pals!

R210 LOL

That Taylor Mac puff piece in the Times makes him seem like the most pretentious bullshit spinner ever. Although I enjoy his spectacle, the singing voice, like Justin Vivian Bond, is really unsatisfactory—and one would be hard-pressed to label him a “playwright.”

At first glance (and before the vid appeared, I thought r208 wrote, "Jud Singing Memory"

…When there's a moon in my winder She is smiling alone Then the shadder of a tree starts a-dancin' on the wall The withered leaves collect at my feet And I'm better than that smart-aleck cowhand And I mustn’t give in The girl I want Ain't afraid of my arms A streetlamp dies It was all a pack o’ lies Touch me! It’s so easy to leave me Goin outside Git myself a bride Look, a new day has begun….

When Jennifer Hudson dies, do you think the obituaries will say "Poor JHud Is Daid"?

R221 LMAO!

After Ike Turner croaked, wasn't there a headline that read "Ike Beats Tina To Death"?

[quote]This time, I was hit with female empowerment, LGBT acceptance, racism, and basically how terrible white males are.

R214 That reminds me, in a recent THIS IS US episode, Randall's wife tells him she's tired of his "white brother." For those who don't know, Randall and his wife are black, and Randall was adopted by a white family as an infant. Anyway, it quickly made me think what if it was a white character saying that about her black brother-in-law? "I'm tired of your black brother!" I don't think it would fly.

BTW: I'm not advocating that they should've changed the line, because people do talk like that. I loathe censorship in any form. Just saying there were no repercussions on Twitter or elsewhere but there would have been if the roles were reversed.

I agree that Alexandra Billings was quite good in THE NAP but for me the best part by far was Ben Schnetzer's incredible ass.

And Ben Schnetzer's very good acting.

R225 are you smitten by this Ben Schnetzer?

Where/when was this?

With all this bitching about a black Harold Hill, and Cab Calloway did it at Lincoln Center 50 years ago. Giancarlo Esposito was Winthrop.

If not, r222, there should have been!

Ben Schnetzer did full backal in The Nap?

[quote]I'm not a fan of this new Oklahoma but I don't quibble with it being set in modern times (that's the least of the problems). Other than that lyric about "a brand new state" I don't think Oklahoma's statehood is mentioned anywhere else in the script.

There is also the lyric in "The Farmer and the Cowman," as someone pointed out above, and there's also at least one line in the script about Oklahoma becoming a new state. And of course, as others have mentioned, the script and lyrics are full of references that clearly date the action back more than 100 years before today. So I don't understand why you don't "quibble" with the show being reset in the present day.

Ben Schnetzer inherited his hot ass.

His father Stephen is a hot fucker, as well.

That Killing of Sister George was at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven a few years ago. I think Kathleen Turner maybe even directed it as well as played Sister George. I heard it was a disaster.

The set design for this Oklahoma is extremely minimalist, with cheap white trashy costumes that look like they could be set anywhere between now and 1970.

Which is not to say that it makes all the period anachronisms OK, but the visuals are so blandly neutral and negligible, the period seems besides the point, like they're doing a concert version.

No question this revival will be highly divisive and those of you here who haven't seen it, really should. Not because it's good or bad but because it will be talked about for years to come.

Clea Alsip is wonderful.

I did like the musical accompaniment in the OKLAHOMA clip. I'm curious to hear the new orchestrations to the score.

I wasn't impressed by Ado Annie, though.

So we've established that the person who liked this OKLAHOMA wasn't really paying attention

That person could hardly have avoided paying attention when Ado Annie began screeching "I cain't say no." That racket would wake the dead.

Whoever said Ted Chapin is no longer at R&H is wrong.

This article is from three weeks ago.

I've always argued that Jud should be sex on a stick. He can be unkempt. ill dressed, but he has to be hot for the central triangle to make any sense. If Jud makes the audience cream their jeans, then the dream ballet becomes the conflict between Agape and Eros and all of a sudden Laurey's feelings start to make sense, including why she even said yes to Jud escorting her to the box social.

I agree, R242. Rod Steiger's lumpen, not-hot Jud is one of the failings of the movie for me (which I otherwise enjoy).

Matt Bomer for matinee Jud.

Rod Steiger is genuinely scary in [italic]Oklahoma! [/italic] when he tries to kill both of them. That’s why they cast him.

R241, He is still there, but he no longer has the sole authority he enjoyed in the past.

"He continues as President and Chief Creative Officer of Rodgers & Hammerstein under Concord Music ownership, following the sale to the music company in 2017."

R242, Like Robert Mitchum in his prime.

[quote]Matt Bomer for matinee Jud.

Nobody wants a Jud Fry who secretly longs for Curley. Especially since if they got married his name would be Curley Fry.

Joe Manganiello as Matinee Judd!

Joe was offered the role of Jud, but his True Blood schedule made it impossible.

"I've always argued that Jud should be sex on a stick"

Which is why Martin Vidnovic was so effective in the '79 revival. Imagine being torn between him and Lawrence Guittard….

I rather wish I could have seen Ms. Benanti's father in "Colette"; he looks like he was hot without his shirt.

Btw, the original Jud in the musical was Howard Da Silva, who about 25 years or so later played Ben Franklin in "1776".

And Shuler Hensley was no beauty queen either

Nobody cares about OKLAHOMA! and it will flop. The whole wheelchair Ado Annie is absurd and epitomizes SJW fever at its worst. Thank u, next.

JHud singing Memory attains at least a shred of theatricality and genuine reinvention, even if you hate her. At a stupid movie investor showcase, no less.

I saw the show last week and despite some anachronistic musical instruments and equipment, I think it is still set in its original period...

Howard Da Silva was kind of hot in a trashy way when he was young.

Farley Granger gazing longingly at Howard DaSilva in They Live By Night, five years after Oklahoma. I think Howard got a blowjob that night.

R252, Marty was hot as fuck in Baby, especially when he wore just a pair of boxers for the bedroom scenes.

How the hell is Ali going to get on stage to accept her Tony? Climb? That’s another reason her casting is absurd.

You are making yourself ridiculous, r259.

A minimalist "Oklahoma!" at Broadway prices will attract an artsy/fartsy crowd, but those who saw any of the City Center productions in the 1950's and 60's, the Lincoln Center production in 1969, the tour that ended up at the Palace in 1979 and the revival next door at the Gershwin in 2002 (which I did see) might skip this. I've seen the entire 1979 revival on video, and a friend got to see the 1969 production where Margaret Hamilton was a very earthy Aunt Eller, just like her pal Mary Wickes was a decade later. Andrea Martin in the 2002 production was an absolute delight, and I truly enjoyed it. Jackie Hoffman gave a nod to "Xanadu" pal Mary Testa on her Twitter account, basically calling Aunt Eller the "Yente" of the Oklahoma Territory, although having seen Andrea Martin in "Fiddler" as Golde, I might call Aunt Eller a combination of both, without Golde's coldness (which Martin warmed up as only she can) and without Yente's pity-party mentality. (I'm sure Jackie Hoffman has made Yente more formidable, and I hope to see it!)

I didn't know Laura Benanti was second generation 'Broadway royalty.' That explains her casting as Maria in the '90s revival of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, when she was still a teenager.

Is she estranged from her bio dad? Wikipedia says that her stepfather adopted her and took on all fatherly responsibilities.

I am the one who posted the Oklahoma clip and stand by my love for it. I appreciate the bluegrass sound of it and hope that the album will contain more of the same.

The original production of Green Grows the Lilacs included traditional bluegrass music and this production seems to be adapting the score to that sound.

R262 Ironic that she took over from Rebecca Luker in that production, and for the revival of "Nine", Ms. Luker took over for her. Years ago, I saw Rebecca in the L.A. "Reprise" production of "She Loves Me" which of course Laura did at Roundabout.

I like traditional bluegrass music, r263. It was specifically Ms. Stroker's singing in that clip that hurt my ears. I don't know whether I'll see this production, but if I do I suspect I'll admire it without liking it very much.

I can see why people like this new Ado Annie's rendition of I Cain't Say No, even if I find it too much of what it is and not liekly to fit in with with the ways the others cast members are singing. But what I can't abide is the audience's insisting on clapping to the song's rhythm.

You aren't part of the show, you lurid jackwagons. Just sit there and watch the thing. Yes, they give up after a while, but then they start up again later. I don't want to hear the public trying to join the outfit. I want to hear the musicians and the actress and not be thrown out of the action by cretins who don't know how to sit still.

NO ONE ASKED YOU TO JOIN IN!

The ending of Green Grow the Lilacs is also very different. Yes, Curly kills Jeeter (Jud), but he is arrested and taken to jail and told he will certainly get off on a self defense plea. Curly doesn't want to leave Laurey, so he breaks out of jail and come back to Aunt Eller's to be with her. The sheriff then shows up and has to arrest him as he has now committed a crime (jailbreak) that he can't get out of. Aunt Eller persuades him to wait until morning to take him in so Curly and Laurey can have their wedding night. It's a more satisfying ending, to me, than the sham trial and everybody sing.

After finally seeing OKLAHOMA! on a big screen I remarked to my partner I thought Steiger was sort of hot. I don’t know if it is age or change in taste but I didn’t find him unattractive.

The more I read about this Oklahoma production, the less I want to see it - despite friends who insist I "must"!

I like the bluegrass arrangement, too. In and of itself, I suppose it’s refreshing. Very Robber Bridegroom.

But if the director and creative staff are trying to dig deep into the place and time of the show, why bluegrass? What does bluegrass have to do with Oklahoma in that time period?

R270 Did you see the Roundabout revival of "The Robber Bridegroom"? The score is a lot of fun. Leslie Kritzer stole the show as the evil stepmom, and Stephen Pasquale was delicious to look at too!

[quote] It's a more satisfying ending, to me, than the sham trial and everybody sing

It very well might be, but it's not what wartime audiences needed or wanted in 1943.

And The Theatre Guild needed a hit. LILACS was a flop in 1931, closing in less than 2 months.

Thirty years later Marsha Mason would tell Michael Bennett that he needed to change the ending of A CHORUS LINE so that Cassie gets cast in the show, even though in reality, she most likely would not have been. Audiences need to leave the theater feeling good, or if not good, at least hopeful that the people they've rooting for for the last two and a half hours are going to be all right.

R272, I have always wanted to direct A Chorus Line with the original ending. Doubt the Bennett estate would allow it.

I h-a-t-e-d the OKLAHOMA revival. Jones cannot sing. Or act. And if the bitch is going to insist on belting/screaming Laurie’s entire score (PEOPLE WILL SAAAAAAAAY WE’RE IN LOVVVVVVVE!), transpose the fucker down. She is so charm-free that you can’t understand why Curley would be interested in her for a nanosecond.

As for Curley, he can’t sing, either, and the vocal affectations (yelps, yodels) are ghastly. It’s like a bus and truck Chris Isaak. So unsexy in his physicality, cocking his hips in terrible, cheap, ironed K-Mart jeans.

Will Parker is terrible, too. Unfunny. And slapping his ass in a bizarre way as to indicate....who knows what.

Wheelchair Ali is adequate but barely.

Testa brings some humor and musical theater chops to the proceedings.

I hated the orchestrations.

And the very long Jud/Curley book scenes in complete darkness, while most of the other scenes are played with the lights on.

As for the dream ballet, now it opens Act 2. Complete embarrassment.

Is the director gay? Methinks not. This is what happens when straight academic MFA degree program graduates get their hands on musicals. Bad singing, bad staging and a High Concept imposed on the entire enterprise.

And clocking in at just under three hours, it is like a third-tier European Wagner production....

The use of bluegrass music is merely a New York perspective of what Oklahoma music must have been. After all, Oklahoma is a flyover state of no consequence, so no reason to actually do research.

Western or cowboy Prior to Oklahoma's opening for settlement, cowboys pushing cattle from Texas to the railheads developed a style and subject of music that became known as Cowboy or Western. As they settled on the ranches they continued their traditional style of singing. The romanticism of the cowboy in the popular culture brought a wider audience to the music. Although the writers of these traditional Western songs are mostly unknown, Dr. Brewster Highley, author of perhaps the most famous of the cowboy ballads, "Home on the Range", followed the frontier into Oklahoma where he died in 1911.

Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys were the first nationally popular cowboy band. Formed in 1924 by William McGinty, Oklahoma pioneer and former Rough Rider, the band performed on radio and national vaudeville circuits from 1924 through 1936. Otto Gray, the first singing cowboy, and all of the band members were recruited from Oklahoma ranches.[3]

Western Swing Oklahoma was a center for the development and spread of Western swing. Performers playing the traditional western music, influenced heavily by the territory bands, added fiddles and steel guitars to their orchestras to produce a new and very popular type of music. Bob Wills, and His Texas Playboys, based in Tulsa, influenced this music for more than a generation. One of the more distinctive early Western swing bands from Oklahoma was Big Chief Henry's Indian String Band, a family group of Choctaw Indians, who performed out of Wichita, Kansas, during the 1920s, and who were recorded by H. C. Speir of Victor Records in 1929. Bob Dunn was a pioneer steel guitarist born in Beggs.

JHud is going to have two Oscars ...

If A Chorus Line were to be produced today, when Zach screams for Cassie not to pop her head, show would take out a gun and shoot him. Morales and the women would then sing, " What I Did for Love" and she would be hailed as a powerful woman, refusing to be abused by a white male. The women would then kick out all of the cis males and replace them with trans men. It would be a tribute to female empowerment, following in the footsteps of that classic " women can do anything" musical, King Kong.

I didn’t want to see deaf kids do Spring Awakening and I won’t be seeing grown ups in wheelchairs doing Oklahoma! So sue me.

R277 Yes, and we all know the success that the "King Kong" musical is, just like the #metoo movement.

I love those Colette photos, r251.....

First her (silent) role is cut from the Cats film, then Sunset Blvd is mysteriously put in turnaround. Perhaps “some” of us have cooled to Glenn’s, uh, “charms” as of late.

Glennie doesn't have charm, she has countercharm.

Ain’t no mystery to Sunset Blvd being put in turnaround. It was never going to happen. The best Glennie could have hoped for was being seen and heard doing “Everything’s As If We Never Said Goodbye” on a loop forever in that 42nd Street Theater Museum thing that failed to materialize.

[quote]I won’t be seeing grown ups in wheelchairs doing Oklahoma!

Why don't they do STARLIGHT EXPRESS and replace the roller skates with wheelchairs? Some wheelchair-bound people can really move on those things.

Wait, the Sunset movie is not happening now?

[quote] I think Kathleen Turner maybe even directed it as well as played Sister George. I heard it was a disaster.

Several years ago, Kathleen Turner directed a production of Crimes of the Heart off-Broadway. It was terrible. She didn't get any of the humor. And even the "built-in" jokes didn't land.

Will the US ever have a National Theater? I thought during the Obama administration, he would appoint someone to look into establishing a National Theater, but I guess he wasn't really interested in the arts.

Tony Randall tried in the 1990s, but it was more "National Theater Starring Tony Randall" and some of the productions were just awful.

An arts college in North Carolina did less damage to that show than an actual professional production. What the hell happened?

I'm reading this and wishing now I'd made the effort to see it. It sounds like the play was the letdown, not Kathleen.

Next they’ll do [italic]Annie[/italic] with an actual girl who was born without pupils.

[quote]But if the director and creative staff are trying to dig deep into the place and time of the show, why bluegrass?

Has anyone involved in the production stated that the point of the current OKLAHOMA! is to "dig deep into the place and time of the show?" From what I've heard and read, it sure doesn't sound to me like that's what they're doing. And the fact that there seems to be a lot of confusion over whether or not the action is set in the present-day is evidence that lack of clarity of intention might be a huge issue in this production.

R290 Miss Hannigan salutes you!

However many references there may be in the book and lyrics to the Oklahoma Territory, the story is very much set in that period. The idea of vaguely, half-assedly moving it to the present tells me all I need to know about this new production.

Are there production photos of this Oklahoma on line yet? Please look at them, if so.

Clearly this production is set in modern times (if not 2019), Laurey is in tight jeans, Ado Annie is in Daisy Dukes, and in the box lunch, the ladies are all wearing those hideous cheap square dance dresses. It looks shopped at JC Penney.

That 1986 cast of Camille with Kathleen Turner linked at r289, also included the very young David Hyde Pierce (though missing the Hyde), Gina (pre-Show Girls) Gershon, and Fresh Prince's DL fave Janet Hubert.

Tootsie should have been about a man who can’t get an acting job who pretends he’s a paraplegic to get cast in a musical.

If the execution is this subpar, then our ideas about [italic]Tootie[/italic] might actually have made for a more artistically satisfying evening of theatre if anyone actually went through the trouble to raise money, pay for the rights, stage, cast, and produce it.

I miss Pushing Daisies.....

Oklahoma! is just hokey. That's why I dont need to ever see it again an be just fine

"What does bluegrass have to do with Oklahoma in that time period?"

Especially for a score that has its roots in operetta. They're "cowboy" songs via Vienna.

Count me as one who found this Oklahoma! as more than a little unnecessary. I didn't think it really offered any revelations or insights, but its didn't bother me until the end. I found it really tone-deaf and total masturbation from the director. Given what's going on in the U.S. right now with guns and mass shootings, to use this as a "technique" to make OK! hipper or more relevant really angered me. It was at that point the whole thing leapt to pretentiousness instead of mere ridiculousness.

Forget Kathleen. I want to know how many saw Bonnie Franklin play Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"

I was mesmerized by this OKLAHOMA! but understand how people might not agree. But to treat it as if its some injury to the immortal soul of the universe is just silly. And if you haven't seen it, you really should just shut up until you do.

All these goofy and self-important conceptual add-ons to this show went into overdrive once Imagem bought the R&H Organization. They got tired of slavishly literal revivals so now they try to make them hip and relevant in ways that just make them even more dated. Someone seeing this show for the first time won’t know what the hoopla is about, and someone familiar with it will just feel patronized by the pandering.

[quote]And if you haven't seen it, you really should just shut up until you do.

That’s like saying you can’t comment on the radiation in Chernobyl unless you’ve actually been there.

No r305. It is nothing like that all.

Oh, please.

R299, I never knew that Morning has Broken sounds exactly like Suddenly Seymour.

"Tootsie should have been about a man who can’t get an acting job who pretends he’s a paraplegic to get cast in a musical."

Now THAT would be gritty realism! Bravo!

"it is like a third-tier European Wagner production.... '

So true, like Parsifal set on Mars. That kind of imposition used to be exclusive to opera, but now it's making inroads into our musical theatre.

[quote]No [R305]. It is nothing like that all.

Oh yes it is. That is exactly how it is and you know it, so stop denying it. The same people pushing it are the same people using pseudoscience to justify gay erasure.

Did anyone watch Chenoweth sing Kathie-Lee's song about the kidney today?

It’s a toss-up as to what I’d prefer to have seen: Joyce Dewitt in Gypsy or Bonnie Franklin in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Bonnie Franklin as Martha. Now why didn’t we think of that?

R313 You were too busy trying to get Ruth Buzzi to become Eva Perone and leave Gladys in the past.

They should have done it in repertory switching roles, r312.

R314 Ruth Buzzi would have added some levity to the role of Evita. Here's an example of her perhaps coming off of a "Rainbow High".

My sister bought us full-priced Oklahoma! tickets (she likes a good seat) and afterwards said it was OK but sure not worth $175. a pop...!

" Hmmm, there are no good shows to produce. I know, let's put on a revival. But we have to have a selling point that makes it new and refreshing. Let's stunt cast different races, genders, and disabilities. Let's set it in modern times and give a hip-hop flair. That's sure to bring in the young crowd. How about getting a pop star who has had no stage experience to headline?. Fuck the theater vets. This is a new era with new, edgy ideas. Let's change the story around to reflect social justice concerns. That'll bring in the liberals. Above all, we can't let it go on as written, since the people will complain about white male privilege . Then, let's open on Broadway! The theatrical, pseudo-intellectual dilettantes will write about all of the subtle, modernistic nuances we have given them. And then, we'll make a bundle."

If Ali Stroker does win, will we see future productions where they shoehorn her into some role she shouldn’t be playing? You can’t tell me she was the very best choice at the auditions. In all of New York and the surrounding areas, she was the absolute best?

I saw Bonnie Franklin in Virginia Woolf! As far as I can remember, nothing to write home about. Not horrible but not great either.

[quote]If Ali Stroker does win, will we see future productions where they shoehorn her into some role she shouldn’t be playing? You can’t tell me she was the very best choice at the auditions. In all of New York and the surrounding areas, she was the absolute best?

I think you may have missed the point. In this case, it seems the main criterion in casting the lead and featured roles was that all of the actors chosen had to be VERY different in one way or another from any of the traditional types we have seen in these roles. So I don't think any of them were cast because they were the "best," but because they were "different."

I was listening to "You Will Be Found" from Dear Evan Hanson, and it dawned on me that it sounds just like Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn"

It should be said, however, that this revival of Oklahoma began life several years ago in a small not-for-profit venue, then a few years later at Bard SummerScape Festival. It was not intended originally for Broadway nor for a commercial audience. But it was always the rave reviews and determination of commercial producers that have brought the revival this far.

And for that it should be admired. Oklahoma will survive this rethinking just as it has survived thousands of mediocre to worse high school, college, regional theater, community theater and other Broadway revivals. It's healthy and refreshing to see something familiar in a different conception.

I'm not even a fan of the revival but I do admire its audacity and it certainly has stayed with me. I suggest you all go see it.

Today would have been the 66th birthday of the great Laurie Beechman. Gone, but never forgotten.

Ooh, good call, R323. I wouldn't describe it as an outright steal, but... yes.

I can't wait to see the revival of Gypsy where the strippers all walk around showing their beavers in all their scenes and shooting heroin into their arms before "You Gotta Get A Gimmick." So edgy!

I'd say that I'd love to see Rose strip during "Rose's Turn", but Tovah beat me to it with her panty flashing performance.

The Arena Stage Oklahoma! - which people seem to have forgotten - was interesting in suggesting that the frontier was not just populated by white people - so in that way I did find it an eye-opening twist in an otherwise straightforward production

Geez, can Andrea McArdle look any MORE like a man in drag?

The Selma Little Theater Presents Oklahoma.

In this edgy, new production, the farmers are played by white men and the cow hands are played by black men. This discerning productions examines the scope of the feelings that were going on in Selma in the 1960s.

The revival’s audacity to achieve what? Cut off shorts? I just don’t understand what this revival is accomplishing or revealing about the material.

At least THE CHER SHOW respects its source material.

R330, except that fewer than 5% of the population in OK was black in 1900. The majority lived in towns and cities with more than 2,500 people.

The TV clip of Ali above doesn't really show how delightful she is live. She stopped the show at St. Ann's Warehouse the night I saw it with her performance of "I Cain't Say No." She is wonderful in the show and totally deserves a Tony. I still hate the new dream ballet, though.

And I totally agree with the poster who wants the audience to keep their hands in their laps and not clap along during a song. Are they doing that at Circle in the Square now or was it just for this TV appearance? It didn't happen at St. Ann's.

Dud she receive the huge ovation because she was that good or because the audience didn't think a woman in a wheelchair could sing, or was it a "sympathy" reaction?

It’s not that Ali is simply lackluster in the clip. It’s that she didn’t bother to get bogged down in any, you know, acting at all. If she was cast merely because she is “different” than other Ado Annies, I’m sorry but that isn’t good enough. Not for a Broadway stage. I have an expectation that she can also perform among the best of the best. She isn’t one of those. She’s been cast for the sake of novelty, and I have a problem with that. Especially at ticket prices over $150. She simply doesn’t deliver.

R337 Well, if you start from the assumption that the only way disabled performers can receive plaudits is because they are disabled, they can never be judged fairly anyway, right--disabled performers all always be a stunt to you and, therefore, never "able" to be judged on their own merits? I think you give both performers and audiences far too little credit.

BTW, I saw the Sally Field-Joe Mantello Glass Menagerie and I thought the Laura (Madison Ferris) was pretty awful--but her awfulness had nothing to do with her using a wheelchair. I just found her monotone and lacking in any kind of interior life. That would have been true whatever her mobility. I seem to be one of the few who admired Celia Keenan-Bolger's Laura--I thought she found more internal anger and some sense of gumption (particularly at the end of the scene with the Gentleman Caller and the breaking of the unicorn) than I am used to seeing.

I can't find it now, but I remember a review of Joyce DeWitt in "Gypsy" at the Bucks County Playhouse that was one of the funniest things I've ever read. Apparently at one point a stagehand chased a rat across the stage with a broom.

[Did she receive the huge ovation because she was that good or because the audience didn't think a woman in a wheelchair could sing, or was it a "sympathy" reaction?]

I can't speak for the rest of the audience, but I thought she was great. I suspect most of the rest of the audience thought so, too.

I always heard Joyce DeWitt was admirable in that Gypsy production. Not because she was brilliant or anything, but because she was the least awful thing in the show. Makes me feel for her. I've heard sound clips from the show and she's not the worst. Not exactly a powerhouse, but she doesn't embarrass herself. Maybe a little Tyne Daly-ish in the vocals department.

That’s exactly what limey doofus wanted to do with his Gypsy, R328, but I would have none of it! Instead, I threatened to pull the rights and sanitized his abomination into an aberrant mess. Just desserts. Exactly what those stupid producers deserved for not hiring me to once again direct the masterpiece that I wrote.

Chenoweth singing about the kidney to the donor will be recreated by drag queens throughout the next decade.

Beth Leavel is Show Boat.

She's no Miss Vanderkellen. Go to 18:15.......

[quote]"Tootsie should have been about a man who can’t get an acting job who pretends he’s a paraplegic to get cast in a musical."

There’s actually a musical making the rounds in the U.K. about a non-disabled actor lobbying to get cast as the lead in a musical of My Left Foot. I think some of the songs are by the guy who wrote Jerry Springer.

One does have to wonder what Mendes' Gypsy would have been like if Laurents hadn't meddled. Maybe it would have been a trainwreck or maybe it would have been interesting. I do like his Cabaret even if it is super heavy handed. I think that show supports a little extra darkness and grit. To me, Gypsy might, too. As long as they still have Rose semi-funny, I'm fine with anything.

I'm just trying to imagine all the tourists coming to see Mendes' Gypsy starring that sweet little Bernadette Peters and being treated to fully nude strippers humping stagehands.

Hey, at least it sounded different. What we ended up getting was basically the exact same production that we'd seen a million times but with a muted color scheme. Were there ANY colors in that production besides Bernadette's purple "Rose's Turn" dress? I remember everything being so bland.

Speaking of disabilities, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has cast four, I believe, developmentally disabled kids in the chorus of this season's Hairspray. Per the OSF website this "honors John Waters' original subversive vision of the story in a wildly joyful production that celebrates radical inclusion at its heart."

There were a few seasons awhile back when OSF had a deaf actor in the company who played secondary roles. He was fine as Marcellus in The Music Man (his girlfriend Ether Toffelmeier translated/spoke his lines or if she wasn't around Harold Hill would speak his replies since most of Marcellus's scenes are with Harold), and gave at least a little depth to River City, but ASL in a period production of Shakespeare took me right out of it.

Shakespeare in English is insufferable enough, thank you.

[quote]If Ali Stroker does win, will we see future productions where they shoehorn her into some role she shouldn’t be playing?

Ali Stroker IS Cassie!

Ali Stroker was going on and on during a podcast about how she COULD do all the choreography in Spring Awakening. Ok. If flailing your arms up occasionally is doing the choreography, fine. Make her Cassie.

Any bets on the King Lear reviews?

"ASL in a period production of Shakespeare took me right out of it."

Guess you haven't seen Glenda's KING LEAR (though it's not period). I found the ASL maddening--it upstaged Lear's entrance and was a distraction throughout, not to mention confusing at a climax point.

Audiences want to be entertained, even in a tragedy, not lectured.

Last year, I saw a high school production of WIldhorn's BONNIE & CLYDE. Two of the leads (Ted, Blanche) couldn't sing, so when their songs came up, the girl who sang as the Preacher took over for them. Stood right beside them during their respective songs as they mimed the words. Very weird, and it made we wonder if we've come to this? When I was in high school in the '90s, you actually had to have some talent to be cast in the high school productions.

Not just talent, r355......

R352, ironically, flailing your arms up is exactly the Cassie choreography.

You definitely need legs though...

Maybe we can convince the SJW set that standing ovations are ableist and do away with them altogether?

Genius!

[quote]I can't wait to see the revival of Gypsy where the strippers all walk around showing their beavers

Why do they have to walk around? Can’t they show their beavers in a wheelchair? I do it all the time!

I remember seeing a high school production of some musical where the lead had the right look but a terrible singing voice. There was a scene where he's supposed to sing into a tape recorder or something and, when he did, it was his typical awful voice, but when he played it back it was some chorus guy who could actually sing. It was hilarious. Happens all the time in high schools. You either settle for the kid who looks the part, can act the part, or can sing the part. You rarely get one who's all of the above.

That's "The Pajama Game" and the song is "Hey There" that it sounds like you describing. Did he at least look good topless in the pajamas at the end?

Ben hated the KING LEAR production, loved Glenda. He's mostly wrong about the production, particularly when he disses all the other performances. I thought Houdyshell, in particular, was really fine. Ben wanted a production that worshipped and centered on The Star. If Glenda had wanted that, that's what it would have been; the production wouldn't and couldn't have happened without her. It's an edgy version, in places problematic, but overall very good. I think ticket sales are meh because today's New York audiences just don't want to sit through KING LEAR.

Today's New York audiences love King Kong.

R355, How was that touching duet between Bonnie and Blanche handled, "You Love Who You Love"?

Saw Beetlejuice tonight. It’s vastly better than I would have imagined.

What did y’all think of the use of disabled performers in that play The Cost of Living a few seasons back?

That's pretty much the opposite of what he said, r364, but thanks for playing

God’ll get you for that, Goneril!

I'd give my left nut to see Bea Arthur as King Lear, with Adrienne Barboobies as Cordelia.

I'm going to need to see that nut before I commit R371.

R368 The playwright specifies that the two disabled characters in that play must be played by disabled actors. She doesn't specify that the actors must have the same disabilities as the characters (this is in the script), but I assume she means mobility-impaired actors, as both of the characters have variations (one a neurological disease, the other, IIRC, a result of an accident) on paralysis.

So, I assume that in licensing the play for regional, college, or community productions, that will be a stipulation. As the playwright herself is disabled (though not in the same way as the characters), I'm assuming she wants to avoid "cripface" and also to provide more acting opportunities for disabld actors.

Adrienne Barbeau is old enough to play one of the witches in the Scottish play.

R374 But she still looks great

I bet Adrienne Barbeau would have been good in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

[quote]It’s not that Ali is simply lackluster in the clip. It’s that she didn’t bother to get bogged down in any, you know, acting at all. If she was cast merely because she is “different” than other Ado Annies, I’m sorry but that isn’t good enough. Not for a Broadway stage. I have an expectation that she can also perform among the best of the best. She isn’t one of those. She’s been cast for the sake of novelty, and I have a problem with that. Especially at ticket prices over $150. She simply doesn’t deliver.

I haven't seen OKLAHOMA! but I've seen Ali Stroker perform in various special event concerts, and she was very good in all of those. So IF she is bad as Ado Annie, I expect it's because of the director.

R376 Adrienne's character in the movie "Creepshow" is very similar to Martha in "Virginia Woolf", so I'm sure she would have been superb! Hal Holbrook as George would have been great casting opposite her.

You'll be wearing your balls for earrings!

The worst actor in "King Lear" is the abysmal Sean Carvajal as Edgar. Never occurred to me a "ghetto" Edgar would fit into "lear". Who the fuck did he have to fuck to get into this show?

[quote] What did y’all think of the use of disabled performers in that play The Cost of Living a few seasons back?

SPOILER ALERT:

The scene where the quadriplegic character slips down under the water in the bathtub elicited a collective loud, almost primal, shriek from the audience. I can't imagine the same reaction if the actress actually had her legs

R382 thank you for reminding me of that detail. I saw the play but hadn't thought about it in a while. All of the actors were excellent.

I loved Adrienne Barbeau in Creepshow. She was hilarious and, yes, very Martha-ish. I always loved that The Crate was pretty much Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with blood-thirsty monsters.

Vintage Broadway Adrienne, ya wanna Bette?

I wonder if Adrienne and Bette wore the same cup size, giggle.

While the club set were enjoying.....

Ali is perfectly charming as Ado Annie. Perhaps if you didn't depend on an out-of-context performance to judge her, you'd think differently.

Perhaps that's so, r388, but those of us who haven't seen this Oklahoma have only this clip to judge by.

Well, unless she tap dances in the actual production, I'm not exactly sure how much radically different her performance would be. And we thought it was shit.

[quote]Well, unless she tap dances in the actual production,

She actually does. Right after the "All Er Nothin" song, she realizes that Will's love is the most important thing to her. As a symbol of her change in personality, she gets up out of the wheelchair and tap dances. If you look at the tiny print in the Playbill, it says, "Ado Annie tap dance choreographed by Karen Ziemba."

Wheelchair tap dancing requires a lot of bottle caps.

Well I'll be darned. I just read that Joanna Merlin was the original Tzeitel in Fiddler. I guess she went to law school after leaving Anatevka.

[italic]The set design for this Oklahoma is extremely minimalist

Is there enough scenery for Mary Testa to chew?

[quote] Well I'll be darned. I just read that Joanna Merlin was the original Tzeitel in Fiddler. I guess she went to law school after leaving Anatevka.

Joanna Merlin continued to act (most notably in the film Fame) and was also Sondheim's casting director for years.

Fun fact: one of the co-producers of Glenda's LEAR, along with Scott Rudin?

DL fave Candy Spelling.

Candy is already a Tony winner for producing the revival of The Color Purple.

Pia Zadora was also in that production of Fiddler with Bette and Adrienne.

I guess I’m crazy but for $150 I expect more out of Ali Stroker than “charming.” I’d actually prefer that she can use her supposed charm to create a character. Apparently she can’t do that. She went on live television to represent her show and to sell tickets. She didn’t do that. Who is going to spend the money to find out that a performance MIGHT be better in the theater than what they saw on television for free? It doesn’t work like that.

I know, r396. Hence my law school line.....

Touching loving tribute to the one and only Patti. She has said she loved the company of Company. She had the boys in her dressing room eating talking laughing. Girls weren’t allowed. It seems those boys fell in love with her. I saw the show during its thrid week or so and truly hope Patti with several other cast members will bring it Broadway.

R396, Joanna Merlin was Hal Prince’s casting director, not Sondheim’s.

Cute, R402. Who's the fledgling songwriter?

Don't quit your day job. Or any other job.

R398, Candy was also one of the Promises, Promises revival producers.

Why the hell isn't Jonathan Bailey in Patti's dressing room with all,the other guys??

[quote] I know, [R396]. Hence my law school line.....

Ahh, gotcha. Haha. Sorry : )

[quote] [R396], Joanna Merlin was Hal Prince’s casting director, not Sondheim’s.

Looks like she was both. She cast Into the Woods.

That video is a little weird with no Jonathan Bailey nor his on-stage hubby, Alex Gaumond.

What's also interesting is that I don't think there's any other company that Patti's worked with that would have made such a "we love you!" video for her, because usually they don't.

[quote]Pia Zadora was also in that production of Fiddler with Bette and Adrienne.

What would it take for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS or someone like that to get them back together to do that number again?

Maybe Jonathan Bailey was off writing his Olivier Award acceptance speech in case he wins. At least Richard Fleeshman was in the video.

Come back to Broadway, Kathie Lee!

Pia Zadora played Bielke, one of Tevye's two youngest daughters, in Fiddler, she wasn't one of the three "Matchmaker" daughters like Bette and Adrienne B were.

R408, songwriters don’t have casting directiors, only producers/directors do.

She looks like a Bielke, r413.....

or a Shiksa...

R416 LOL

Mr. Billings, Mr. Billings!!!

I WOULD actually like to see Kathie Lee come back to Broadway- in an actual role. She was quite good in Putting it Together (and her changing "goddamn" to "fucking" got quite a few gasps in the way "goddamn" never would except in the Bible Belt) and in Annie. She's got a great voice and pretty great stage presence.

Kathie Lee on SOUTH PARK.

[quote] [R408], songwriters don’t have casting directiors, only producers/directors do.

Sondheim has whatever he wants.

The YouTube commenters love this but I it very pushed.

Whereas this performance was less well received by the commenters. I think it's a lovely performance.

*I find it very pushed.

That's actually the first time I've understood all the words of that song

Santino singing Let It Go

Kathie Lee was actually excellent in PIT, perhaps even better than Carol Burnett since she actually made a character out of it instead of just schtick. Her “Like It Was” was very effective and moving. Sondheim did the rewrite for KLG for “Could I Leave You” and I personally love it. I’d love to see that lyric in FOLLIES itself.

Let's watch some Broadway singers and stare at the beautiful Derek Klena

If you liked Kathie Lee’s singing, wait until you hear Regis Philbin:

No, he doesn’t, R421. He didn’t have his own casting director. Casting directors are hired by producers. Period. End of story.

Oh, my goodness--do calm down, r431.

Is Regis the biggest queen in the history of queendom that will never admit to any of his queendom to anyone ever?

Regis broke into blubbery tears the night he walked off as co-host of The Joey Bishop Show.

Why does Regis Philbin always sound congested?

He's a New Yorker. New Yorkers never get fresh air.

Is the fact that Isaac is a much better performer than Wes going to doom their relationship? Can Wes stand to play second fiddle?

Wes is starting to look freakishly thin.

Wes is actually pretty awful, isn’t he? How does he keep getting cast?

He was great in SpongeBob. I think he starts off well in shows but gets bored easily and becomes too hammy and over the top. Isn't that why Nathan Lane bitched him out in Addams Family?

I thought he was awful in Addams Family and I saw the gypsy run. He was poorly cast anyway. I mean, he looks like an Addams Family member. Kind of hard to buy that the Family would find him out of place.

Oh my goodness, R432, just shut the fuck up. I’m stating a fact. Challenging facts like this is simply stupid.

Too hammy for Nathan Lane? Good God!

[quote] No, he doesn’t, [R421]. He didn’t have his own casting director. Casting directors are hired by producers. Period. End of story.

Oh shut the fuck up already. Did I claim she had a 1099 from Stephen Sondheim Productions Inc? I said she was Sondheim's casting director in that she cast all his shows in the 70s. She also cast Into the Woods. Who gives a shit who signs her checks?

God, you're a miserable person. You probably don't get invited anywhere. Lucky us.

Who was the director Jessica Walter was married to at the time of that painful interview at r430? My god, she had the patience of a saint.

I'm always surprised that Nathan Lane and Our Miss Brooks are friends. I doubt that would've been the case if their time in The Producers overlapped. NL hates anyone out-hamming him.

I'm not sure out-hamming Nathan Lane is even possible.

R445 how do you mean?

My stars. Was that Connie Gavin versatile....

R447, did you SEE Brooks in Something Rotten?

Oh dear why?

[quote]I'm not sure out-hamming Nathan Lane is even possible.

Even I’m more subtle and nuanced.

R444, Good God, your post amused me so much. YOU DON’T KNOW ME, dipshit. I’m perfectly happy, thanks, and have done a good joh surrounding myself with friends and not imbeciles such as yourself.

Do you also use the term “casted” and “casting agent”? I bet you do. Too damn funny

Some of us need to walk away from Datalounge for an hour or two!

Why, R454? Because I don’t tolerate ignorant pieces of shit like you?

I’m not the one you were fighting with. I’m just another poster who thinks you seem unhinged. Breathe. It’s good for you.

Also your feelings are off topic.

I'm not the poster you're fighting with either, r455, but I agree you should cool out. You're behaving like a consummate jerk.

Wow, that clip of J-Hud singing Memory at R451 is something. How many steps down has that been transposed?

Jeezus, stop making me have to pull out Barbara Nichols!

R459 The movie’s Grizabella. Was she the best available? Who will want to see it? Hear her trying to get through it?

Ouch!!! Who is this creature and do these things happen?

[quote]Or rather, a holographic Hammerstein says this. I cannot explain the technology, called IceMagic, but somehow, with much whirring and repositioning of ungainly equipment, it turns a prerecorded actor, Bob Meenan, into a creepy, palsied ghost with a bizarrely strong Bronx accent. And yet he is more substantial than the live action onstage.

Oh Jesse, you BITCH.

[quote]the staging, by Dugg McDonough, is completely inert — unless you count Hammerstein’s holographic ghost. When he finishes interjecting his treacly observations, he magically decomposes into flower petals or sunsets or storms you can walk though with your head held high. Which is impressive, even if a more truthful image would show him spinning in his grave.

Let's ALL go.

NO-KLAHOMA!

Will Gary Flop??? I’ve heard nothing but horrible comments about it.

Of course the N.Y. critics will love and then suddenly on ATC everyone will post how much they love it. Typical on ATC

In Ptown, I saw ads for Broke-LaHomo

Regis and Kathie Lee will headline a revival of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf! With Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Ripa as Nick and Honey.

So Tootsie is this weird amiable mess. The primary problem is that the show sort of proves that Tootsie doesn't really need music to tell its story. Yazbeck is at a low point here (and I loved Band's Visit) and the book is like this sledgehammer laugh machine. Some of the jokes are funny, but most of the best have nothing to do with the story of Tootsie. Santino is good but not great, so the idea has the big whole in the center. You don't really believe he'd get cast as that woman. Lili Cooper is absent, but so's her material. The soap opera hunk is great eye candy.

I think you mean "big hole in the center," r469. "The big whole in the center" is something else entirely.

Wow, Patrick Vaill, the new Judd Fry, is really queen in that interview. Definitely seems like this particular Judd would want to take Curley to the box social, not Laurey.

Damon Daunno seems a little "light" too, although he only says one quick thing, so it's hard to tell.

Damon Daunno has a really effortless sexiness to him. He's one of the few things about this Oklahoma that I really liked. And Ali Stroker, too, she's just great fun and quite adorable.....sorry, bitches!

Everything else is awful and in no way revelatory, unless you're a kindergartener.

I'm intrigued by this Oklahoma!, but don't know what to make out of the fact that purses fall out of the mouths of not only the Curly but the Jud in the interview video linked with the production photos above. Is this reflected onstage? Are they supposed to be emo, but come off as in lust with each other rather than Laurey? Or are they just more modern man-boys? No square-jawed traditional leading men, they.

The Will Parker, who usually could be forgiven for being a bit light in the loafers, is not interviewed, I don't think.

In complete agreement with you,. r472.

[quote]The primary problem is that the show sort of proves that Tootsie doesn't really need music to tell its story.

Someone could just as well say that PYGMALION didn't need music to tell its story, or that LILIOM didn't need music to tell its story. I don't know how good or bad TOOTSIE the musical is, as I haven't seen it yet, but your opinion of its "primary problem" sounds like hogwash to me.

I'd love to see John Behelmann -- the hunk from Tootsie -- do Broadway Bares.

Whoops, one too many letters. Behlmann.

"I don't know how good or bad TOOTSIE the musical is, as I haven't seen it yet, but your opinion of its "primary problem" sounds like hogwash to me.

So true. PYGMALION didn't need music. LILIOM didn't need music. But the authors who adapted them thought they did.. Why? Because they had something to say (very important) that warranted a new form.

Avoiding comparisons to contemporary writers, the authors of MY FAIR LADY and CAROUSEL knew how to:

1. pick a good story that not only lended itself to lyrical treatment but one in which they were emotionally invested

2. "spot" songs to tell their stories in a dramatic fashion that paid off dramatically, musically and emotionally .

The proof is in the results and their lasting influence.

Well said, R478.

Good musicals (adaptations or originals) need the songs to relay the story. I'm astonished by the number of people who think musical numbers are just some fun respite from the dramatic action, and terrified when I meet people working in the theatre who think this way.

Of course all these guys are light in the loafers with purses falling out of their mouths. Gotta kill that "toxic" masculinity.

I thought Damon Daunno was WILDLY unsexy in Oklahoma. And looks terrible in those jeans, he does not have a good ass. The way he moves is so....not sexy.

R478, you deserve all the WWs they give out for saying what I wanted to but didn’t get a chance to. There’s a world of difference between adapting British and French plays into musicals and creating numbingly literal screen-to-stage translations cynically constructed by the numbers to cash in on nostalgia for the none-too-distant past.

I thought Wes and Isaac broke up

Molnar loved Carousel as much as Wilder adored Hello, Dolly! Which is to say a lot, in both cases. Well documented.

All of Tootsie's music is functional but not revelatory. You could remove all of it, and the show would be just as successful. I don't think you can say the same about "My Fair Lady" or "Carousel." If you just produced those musicals without the music (meaning their books, not the original plays they were based on) they would be incomplete and unsatisfying. If you took every song out of Tootsie and did the show with just the book scenes, it would work just fine. It was similar to watching "9 to 5" -- the music got in the way. So it means one of two things -- 1). The director didn't know how to pare back the book so the songs had a legitimate role in telling the story; or 2) the score just refuses to provide the emotional/dramatic truth the characters need. Go to the Marquis and take your pick!

This is such a shitty season on Bway.

I had a day off a week ago and there wasn’t a single show I wanted to see

R480 the far left really come off like they hate masculinity, no?

I'm sick of identity politics. Just watched a good flick on Netflix last night. The Highwaymen, with Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson. Got very mixed reviews from critics (although regular people really seem to like it). I think because the movie is about:

1) the heroes are two old white men

2) the main female character (the governor, no less) is not very likable and is a bit of an antagonist to our hero

3) it's primarily a white cast with a couple POC as extras

4) lots of guns and the movie doesn't stop to make a statement about them one way or another, even when Costner visits a gun shop.

But these days, any movie/show with female empowerment and/or racial/sexual diversity as its themes automatically gets a rave, it seems. Everything else gets panned or ignored.

Masculinity isn’t toxic, heterosexuality is.

Has anyone seen King Lear? I’m debating whether to go with friends next weekend ...

With it’s great score by Dave Grusin, Tootsie always felt like a musical to me anyway. A story that’s ripe for musical adaptation has to “sing” in some way with characters that open themselves up to song - who sing because simply speaking wouldn’t do. The songs have to move the story forward.

What do they do with the Sydney Pollack role in the musical?

Gotta agree that this season kind of sucks. There have been some good new plays, but the revivals have been disappointing in general as have the new musicals. A lot of meh is getting Tony-nominated because there isn’t enough good to fill out Best Musical and Revival of a Play.

Last season was pretty meh for new musicals also, which is how The Bands Visit ended up with such a high Tony count. About twenty new musicals in the past two years, and maybe four or five of them are good.

I think the reviews for Tootsie and Beetlejuice will be very harsh, with critics really coming down on lazy adaptations of films, much as they did for Pretty Woman. It's going to be very sad when those shows garner some Tony noms just to fill out categories.

OTOH the critics may go out of their way to praise Hadestown, only to watch its box office decline after opening out of tourist disinterest, much like The Prom.

Oklahoma's fate will be most fascinating to see. Will the presumed raves tonight produce a hit or will word of mouth ultimately kill the revival's success?

[quote]What do they do with the Sydney Pollack role in the musical?

It was reimagined and the character is now a bi-racial lesbian in a mobility scooter.

[quote]It was reimagined and the character is now a bi-racial lesbian in a mobility scooter.

Soooo funny.

I think Oklahoma will complete its announced run through the summer but that will be it. The response on the theater message boards has been pretty negative. Although they will probably present a very misleading excerpt on the Tonys, and I think they will do well for the next couple of months, negative word of mouth will kill an extension.

I think it will get a bunch of Tony nominations (it isn’t getting set or costumes or choreography, but it could conceivably get five acting noms), but I don’t think the voting demographic will care for the show. Stroker will probably win but that will be its only win.

I expect a NOKLAHOMA backlash from middle-class theatregoers (yes, that includes a beleaguered but loyal NYC home audience) whose response will be, "We paid Bway musical prices--for THIS?"

Critic's darlings die on the street by poisonous word-of-mouth.

[quot] Stroker will probably win but that will be its only win.

I don't think much of it, but Oklahoma! will win Revival of a Musical. The sleepy Kiss Me Kate is not much competition.

I think it will get best revival as well, because (a) as r497 says, KMK is pretty sleepy; and (b) I think the voters may be inclined to reward originality and inventiveness--at least if they don't want to see an endless parade of jukebox musicals and teenybopper fare.

The Poor Jud is Dead number is very homoerotic in this staging, but I thought neither of them seemed nelly , but rather very sexy, onstage at least. To each his own.

If there is a popular backlash against NOKLAHOMA (and I think there will be), will the TONY committee really risk alienating their core audiences with such a contentious and divisive show? I'm not convinced.

At this point I won't be surprised if The Prom winds up being the top Best Musical contender. It's a weak season. I think Hadestown will get good reviews and win best score/best director, but The Prom will be far more attractive to voters who vote with touring potential in mind.

I liked FUN HOME, but it only ran for about a year and a half, even after sweeping the TONYs. (I got a discount ticket.) Did it make its money back? Turn a profit?

Just wondering about THE PROM and its commercial viability.

Yes, FUN HOME recouped and the tour has done reasonably well (they were smart and booked smallish venues). I think it would've had a longer Broadway run had it not been almost immediately overshadowed by HAMILTON, which opened just a few months after FH won Best Musical.

Thanks, R503.

Is there a reputable published source for knowing which shows are profitable? I glance at the grosses on Playbill, etc., but that only tells the short-term story. I'm interested in the finances of theatre.

Real New York theater goers love the new Oklahoma, because it's intellectually challenging, opening up new avenues of exploration into the text. The only ones who complain are the mental midgets who want the show staged as it was originally intended.

Well, even if it's true that's not terribly useful to the discussion, r505, but you do you.

If any show was ready to move to Circle In The Square from St. Ann's, it should have been "The Jungle" and not that half-baked, cretinous piece of shit they say is "Oklahoma!".

I don't care about having the show staged as it was originally intended, I don't think it should be staged at all. Who hasn't seen it a million times in a million venues. It has nothing left to say any more than The Sound of Music does. Both should be permanently retired from the professional stage.

I think it's all beyond horrid. How could they nominate ANYTHING at all?! I think this is the worst season I've ever seen. I brokedown and saw stupid Beetlejuice. Tomorrow I'm seeing TOOTSIE just because. I get free tickets so whatever. ugh. R487 YUP.

Has Moulin Rouge lost all of it's Boston momentum?

R505 proved Madame Rose had a point with her “New York is the center of New York” speech.

"Moulin Rouge" will be the saving grace on Broadway, just a little too late to save this lousy season.

[quote] What do they do with the Sydney Pollack role in the musical?

Two shitty scenes, one being a retread of where Michael barges into his office and the agent tells him no one will hire hime, and another made up whole cloth where he barges into the apartment AFTER the whole near seduction of Dorothy by the soap hunk and Jeff interrupts. The character is not privy to the Michael/Dorothy secret and serves no function whatsoever and may as well be cut. The same can be said for the character of Rita Marshall the producer, played by Julie Halston. Neither actor is given anything to do.

The book writer for TOOTSIE, Robert Horn, has 2 other Bway credits: 13 and DAME EDNA: BACK WITH A VENGEANCE.

Well, that's... interesting. Neither of those was really a book musical, per se, were they?

The voters for the Tonys have become less stodgy over the years, as have those for the Oscars and the Grammys, but I think Noklahoma will be hated by a lot of voters. And there’s little touring potential for this revival. I’m not sure any recent tour has had such a bloody, violent section.

Rebecca Naomi Jones is playing Laurey? Isn't she close to 50? She looks it.

[quote]Yes, FUN HOME recouped and the tour has done reasonably well (they were smart and booked smallish venues).

You mean like the 2000-seat Ahmanson?

R509 - I want a FULL review! TIA.

I think NOKLAHOMA sounds interesting. A look forward to a King and I revisal where Anna is portrayed as a snooty white colonialist and a Sound of Music where Maria is a young novice forced into white slavery and raped by the Captain. Sound of Music has always been a musical about fucking the babysitter to me anyway.

Rebecca Jones is supposedly 37. I would have said she was about 30 in Passing Strange, from 2009. She’s one of the few African-American performers who looks older than she is. I think it’s because of her body type. She’s probably not technically overweight but she has an unflattering weight distribution. It’s too bad because I think she’s very talented. I really like her voice, and she deserved a Tony nom for Passing Strange.

Oklahoma will get a nom for Best Lighting Design just because you notice the absence of lighting design.

A lot of people thought SPONGEBOB would beat BAND'S VISIT last year because of the mythical "touring vote." Didn't happen.

What happened to Naughty Rob? He was once all over ATC.

I think ATC has been pretty successful in cutting him off, although he turns up there sporadically with some lukewarm gossip he's recycled from Page Six. He's really quite odious.

People stopped responding to his misguided attempts at attention, and he apparently left. If only the press reacted in this way to some of Trump's shenanigans....

It's chekky who left who many would have at least like to have known who he was.

Oliviers so far:

Best Play: The Inheritance

Best Director: Stephen Daldry, The Inheritance

Best Lead Actor: Kyle Soller, The Inheritance

Best Lighting Design: Whatshisname, The Inheritance

Watch out, Broadway, we're coming your way!!!!

Katharine McPhee came off as something of a cunt in the live stream on FB of The Oliviers’ interval with Frank DiNelli. I think only the first part was streaming live, we’ll have to wait until they’re over to watch the whole thing (including Patti’s speech). Rosalie Craig performed “Being Alive” and gave ample proof why she shouldn’t do the role on Broadway. So happy Kyle Soller won for The Inheritance. He made a very pointed speech with a reference to the AIDS crisis and gays being stoned to death in other countries. The camera cut to a stone-faced (pardon my pun) Ian McKellen.

[quote]Rosalie Craig performed “Being Alive” and gave ample proof why she shouldn’t do the role on Broadway.

How do you mean?

OMG--Chekky. He was like a snake: repellent and fascinating at the same time. I've often wondered if he posts here, but I've never noticed anyone with his....je ne sais quoi.

For a brief time there was a poster on the old Sondheim.com board who had some vaguely Chekky-like attributes, but I'm not sure anyone ever made the connection, and I can't remember much about him now.

R529, she simply isn’t anything special. She just alright looking with a good singing voice. Very generic. There are many performers over here who are way more accomplished and distinctive than she is.

Such as who, r532?

Who would you cast as Bobbie on Broadway? Reasonable choices only, please!

I'm no fan of Sutton Foster but this is one role for which she might actually be OK.

I think Ann at ATC knew who chekky was, but she won't say apparently.

I'd rather see Sutton as Bobbi than as Marian the Librarian.

I wonder why, r534.

R535, I completely agree.

Sutton could end up doing both, R535.

R537 Could sh fit it in, as she is starring in that truly dreadful 'Younger'?

Goody.

I do hope my fuzzy bum love machine Jonathon wins the Olivier

With all the hype, Company is sure to come to Broadway though I wonder if Patti will turn it down if her London cast mates aren't invited?

Personally, I'd rather see Donna Murphy play Joanne to Sutton's Bobbi. I saw the show in London. Patti was a vulgar ham and Rosalie was forgettable. And all the supporting players except Jonathan Bailey and Richard Fleeshman need to be replaced with actors who understand what New Yorkers are really like..

He did, r540, and so did Patti.

And Rosie lost to the Caroline, or Change actress.

Because, R543, she was just only good as Bobbi. She was in no way outstanding. I still think Renee Elise Goldsberry should play Bobbi on Broadway.

Company on red carpet today at the Olivier Awards

How about Rachel Bay Jones as Bobbi?

Patti won in 1985 for Les Mis and Cradle Will Rock and today again. She has two Tonys and two Oliviers. She should stay in London and keep working in West End.

[quote]The book writer for TOOTSIE, Robert Horn, has 2 other Bway credits: 13 and DAME EDNA: BACK WITH A VENGEANCE.

He also wrote the book for that Hee-Haw musical. The reading was actually pretty damn funny, although I have no idea how it turned out when they did it in Dallas.

This is something! Patti finally entered social media!

Two DL icons, Betty Lynn replied to Patti Ann. What a way to start tweeting by the way

What makes Ali Stroker so refreshing is that she actually sings the song. The purposeful off-key wailing of Celeste Holm and every other Ado Annie is just grating. "Acting" should never be an excuse for bad singing. Ali Stroker sings well and acts the character as well, so it has always been possible.

[quote]The purposeful off-key wailing of Celeste Holm and every other Ado Annie is just grating.

R551 to be fair, Ado Annie is just a prairie farmgirl who's never taken a voice lesson in her life.

[quote]All of Tootsie's music is functional but not revelatory. You could remove all of it, and the show would be just as successful. I don't think you can say the same about "My Fair Lady" or "Carousel." If you just produced those musicals without the music (meaning their books, not the original plays they were based on) they would be incomplete and unsatisfying.

[quote]A story that’s ripe for musical adaptation has to “sing” in some way with characters that open themselves up to song - who sing because simply speaking wouldn’t do. The songs have to move the story forward.

To clarify: Someone here posted that TOOTSIE doesn't work as a musical because "it doesn't really need music to tell its story." But, again, I don't think this story "needs" music any less than PYGMALION or LILIOM did. Also, the characters in PYGMALION and LILIOM obviously didn't need to sing in those plays, though the equivalent characters very much need to sing in the musicals. So it's all about the skill and quality of the adaptations.

[quote]The book writer for TOOTSIE, Robert Horn, has 2 other Bway credits: 13 and DAME EDNA: BACK WITH A VENGEANCE. Well, that's... interesting. Neither of those was really a book musical, per se, were they?

Love it of hate it, 13 was definitely a book musical. What makes you say it wasn't one "per se?"

[quote]The purposeful off-key wailing of Celeste Holm and every other Ado Annie is just grating.

I don't know of any Ado Annie in any major professional production of OKLAHOMA! who has sung the song "off key," including Celeste Holm.

R552, yes, so you are squarely in the acting is an excuse for bad singing camp.

And if you listen at the link, Holm is sharp on a number of the notes, especially in the verse. I think singing off-pitch is supposed to be funny. But it is hard to listen to.

Gloria Grahame's recorded take for the OK! film had to be pieced together note for note, a la Lucy in Mame. But Grahame, despite being too old for the part, was brilliant, IMO, so there's that.

[quote]Gloria Grahame's recorded take for the OK! film had to be pieced together note for note,

What's your source for this? The final version doesn't sound like that's how it was recorded at all. I'm sure there were some edits and multiple takes, but don't exaggerate.

I've heard that rumor as well, but I don't think they had the tech to make note to note seamless back then; Gloria sounds pretty darn good.

The story with Celeste Holm when she auditioned for the original "Oklahoma!" was that she sang a Schubert song, "An die Musik" to show off her supposedly trained voice. Then Rodgers or Hammerstein asked her to demonstre calling hogs like a country girl might on the farm, so she did a few "SU-EEEE"s and got the part. Funny thing is though about 1948 or 49 she did this funny film "Everybody Does It" with Paul Douglas where her character is trying to be singer and has this ok voice (supposedly Holm purposely sang bad), and her husband a rank amateur has this fabulous opera voice (dubbed by another singer for the film). But Holm doesn't sound that much different from her regular self -- I mean she sounds ok in "Bloomer Girl" and she must have projected well in the theater in a character voice, but it was never to my ears a legit voice. Probably Rodgers figured she couldn't pull off Schubert, but as a country girl she got somethin'.

Sharon D. Clarke deserved that Olivier for Caroline, or Change - the whole production was magnificent. Should've won Best Revival.

Monica Dolan was the ONLY good thing about All About Eve. By a long way.

I have no idea how Patsy Ferran won an Olivier for that collection of avant garde cliches that was the Almeida's production of Summer and Smoke. It was so compelling, I left at the first interval. Must've been a weak year for actresses.

Kyle Soller's win for The Inheritance was likely more a nod to the entire ensemble. He ostensibly plays the Emma Thompson role of Margaret Schlegel but there are other equally good, if not better, performances especially from Andrew Burnap as Toby Darling. I was surprised he didn't get a featured nod.

I’m shocked Rosalie Craig didn’t win. Caroline or Change is such a dreary little nothingburger of a show.

I’m not shocked Rosalie Craig lost. Bobby/Bobbie is a Nominee role NOT a win role.

I'm also shocked that Andrew Burnap and Samuel Levine weren't nominated for Featured Actor roles in The Inheritance. Kyle Soller is brilliant in the play but so are they (and in much showier roles).

I didn't see that Summer and Smoke but the production photos look dreadfully uninspired. What was so special about it? It's not even a very good play.

But I will say it's wonderful how these very quirky looking actresses in the UK like Patsy Ferran and Olivia Colman play leading ladies, not just character roles. They would never get cast as leads in the US, no matter their talent.

Mr. Billings, I'm happy to report that it seems Patsy the elephant trampled on a poacher of rhinos in Africa who was then eaten by a pride of lions.

We have the makings of "70, Lion Kings, 70" here. Of course, did the Zoological Society sponsor Patsy's trip? I so liked feeding her every day, and she was so cute!

The Oliviers were a good show overall but the In Memoriam was a fucking disgrace. Because of the relentless focus on Beverley Knight singing fucking “Memory” we barely saw onscreen half of those who had died. Unforgivable.

Patti was enjoyable on the red carpet before the show, especially when during the interview when told tonight’s festivities were like a wrap party she bitched “Well, it’s a better wrap party we were GIVEN! I wanted to say that out loud!” Oh, don’t ever change, Patti.

Sorry, I meant to type “Well, it’s a better wrap party than the one we were GIVEN!”

Patti rules

Olympia Dukakis still hasn't taken her face out of her script, nor has she gotten all her Boom Ditties straight.

I imagine Miss Jane Powell was pretty much perfection.

The actors playing Curley and Jud sounded a bit queeny in that clip abive, but they definitely played it traditional masculine in the show

R568 Jane Powell just turned 90 this week!

Why do these old women in their mid to late 40s keep getting recommended for Bobbi? Rachel Bay Jones, Renee Elise G, Sutton, etc. Is there no age-appropriate musical actress in NY to play the part? If it were a straight revival of the show, people would not accept a near 50ish man for the part of Bobby. Dean Jones and NPH were both 38 when they played Bobby, Larry Kert was 39, and Papi Raul was 37. Rosalie Craig is 37. All within spitting distance of the character's age of 35.

If they have Patti in NY, it's not like they need a superstar name for Bobbi. Isn't there someone who's actually in her 30s?

Patrick Vaill, who plays Judd, is openly gay and partnered with another actor. What about Damon Daunno?

Can't believe they gay the Olivier to that British bitch in Caroline, Or Change, while the legendary actress who originated the role went home empty-handed on Broadway. Disgraceful!

Sure, R572

Let Jackie Burns and Jessica Vosk fight for it.

I'm ready, r575. Where do I sign?

Should we expect the official announcement of a Company transfer and the solidification of Tina at the Lunt Fontanne after Monday? After tonight's ruling on Oklahoma!, it's a quiet week.

Rosalee Craigs being alive, at least on the Olivier‘s, was unfocused and pitchy as bloody hell. She seems to have no idea what it is about except ‘emotion’

Marilyn Stasio's review of Oklahoma in Variety isn't quite a rave, but it's pretty close.

But this comment rang very true: "Nowadays, I think they drum you out of the Directors Guild if you direct a classic the way it was written."

Of course, the "Director's Guild" is for films. Stage directors are in the SDC (formerly the SSDC).

Stasio is truly an idiot.

r489, I thought Lear a mixed bag, from what I saw (had to leave at intermission). However, I truly enjoyed Jackson and her signature strengths: intelligence, diction, attention to language, stamina (especially!). As far as stage performances go, I found hers and Jacobi among the most effective onstage Lears I've seen, over Kline and Plummer. Liked all three daughters sufficiently, even Wilson as the Fool (a tough role) and the Edgar (probably the most credible one I've seen in his creation of Poor Tom). The signed Cornwall was a well-intentioned and completely misjudged choice, upstaging Jackson on her entrance (which really pissed me off), proving somewhat effective mid-Act and unnecessarily confusing at curtain (the gunshot and exactly who got killed??). Houdyshell seemed off--jumping lines, making early entrances, etc. so I don't know what performance Brantley was talking about. I thought the Edmund tame--where was the delight in the depravity of evil? I kept thinking of Michael Cerveris at the Public, a much more delicious performance, IMHO. Liked the overall production scheme (except for the damn duct tape...Really? At a top of $130??). Avoiding a spoiler, I'll say that a feature of the set design made for an effective Heath Scene (though sound forgot to bump up GJ's mic, so a lot of the rant got lost in the noise and music, which, considering it was Philip Glass, I actually liked). Despite the lapses, I found myself engaged overall and am glad I saw it, however abbreviated.

R576

Well, why not. Pitchy is so yesterday. Throw in a jackhammer-vibrato and you're on to something.

In a actual fight I would put my money on Burns.

What about Nikki Renee Daniels, R572? She's late 30s. I saw she just started as Angelica in Hamilton in Chicago for the rest of the year.

I think she would want to be in Chicago's Hamilton for a year before hopefully being Broadway Angelica?

But yeah - another strong 35 year old.

Chief Wiggins IS matinee Aunt Eller!

Here is one ATC take on OKLAHOMA. Why do interns feel the need to shill and think people can't tell? They realize that most of us have been going to shows longer than they've been alive, right?

[quote]I saw this production at St. Ann's, then again on their first preview and am going back next week. I have never liked OKLAHOMA!, it is my least favorite of the R&H catalogue, and I love it now. Maybe because it feels so current, so relevant, and much more powerful than the film or any stage production I have seen. It is astonishing to me that without changing a word of the libretto, Fish & Co. have managed to burrow deep under my skin and look at this Golden Age Classic through the unfortunate lens of Trump's America. And it is startling, and shocking, and sad, and exactly what good theatre should be.

Calling CAROLINE OR CHANGE a "nothingburger" is just plain sad.

Sad because it’s true?

Michael Cerveris did not play Edmund at The Public with Kevin Kline's Lear, r581. He was Kent and Logan Marshall Green was Edmund (and very hot, I remember him well, he should do more stage work).

Yeah, I figured that as well, R585, but is Broadway Angelica better than Broadway Bobbi?

No one who can help your career is seeing Hamilton on Broadway any more. They've all come and gone.

Bobbi in Company would definitely be a better bigger gig now.

Broadway Angelica is certainly better than Chicago Angelica.

Why not just play Omaha, too?

"He was Kent and Logan Marshall Green was Edmund (and very hot, I remember him well, he should do more stage work)."

Of course you're right. Funny, how the synapses conflate....

[quote]Why not just play Omaha, too?

Nikki James has first dibs on the Omaha company.

Finish this up

Somebody say bajour

Everybody Say Yeah

Where Does An Elephant Go?

THIRD MIDNIGHT!

Everybody say AIN'T NO MORE....