THEATRE GOSSIP #352: March to the Tonys begins

[quote]Will Adam Driver fuck or slap Keri Russell?

I am unaware that they are mutually exclusive.

Rupert did see Ink in London, and met the cast.

He didn’t share his opinions on the play however.

So Best Musicals, I think The Prom and Hadestown are locks. What are the other two slots?

Head Over Heels Gettin' The Band Back Together Pretty Woman: The Musical King Kong The Cher Show Be More Chill Ain't Too Proud Tootsie Beetlejuice

That should have been a list:

Head Over Heels

Gettin' The Band Back Together

Pretty Woman: The Musical

King Kong

The Cher Show

Be More Chill

Ain't Too Proud

Tootsie

Beetlejuice

I’d love to know if anyone has seen Ink or Gary, and what you made of them.

I loved Ink both in London and am excited to see it on Broadway and see how it’s changed. Haven’t seen Gary but saw one of Taylor Mac’s other plays (“Hir” about trans issues and veteran PTSD) in London.

"The Prom" is the little show that should. I have yet to see "Hadestown", but the word on "Beetlejuice" and "Tootsie" is "eh....." No interest in "Be More Chill" or "Oklahoma!", with or without chilli. "King Kong" & "Head Over Heels" are deliciously bad and will most likely be completely ignored, even in technical categories. "Ain't Too Proud" got respectful reviews.

I am seeing "Gary" on Saturday. I have not heard good things about it. It is 90 minutes of poop jokes I heard. That may make the audience "scat" in spite of Nathan Lane.

"The Ferryman", "Network", "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Choir Boy" I predict as Best Play nominees. The young actor from "Choir Boy" is also in "Ain't Too Proud" so he could be double nominated.

I think Ain't Too Proud will be #3. The Tonys will get too much shit if they shut out a black show.

I think Best Musicals are Ain't Too Proud, Hadestown, The Prom and Tootsie. The Cher Show, if there's a fifth nominee.

“Hir” was all vomit jokes. Taylor Mac seems obsessed with bodily fluids.

I thought Taylor Mac was supposedly a genius or something.

[quote]Who will the Best Musicals be? Will Be More Chill, King Kong or the Cher Show be left out?

"Who"?

"Who" would indicate a win by Tootsie, Cher, Beetlejuice, or Kong.

R11 and R12 is why people don't start these threads.

Do you think Boys in the Band will get any nominations?

You are delusional if you don’t think Be More Chill will be nominated. It’s a phenomenon that goes well beyond Broadway. It will be nominated.

R15 The nominating committee isn't 15 years old. They have taste....and class.

[quote]They have taste....and class.

Have you met the nominating committee?

I wouldn't leave Ink off that list of Best Plays.

Though, if it were eligible, The Lehman Trilogy would not only get a nomination, it would win the category. And those three actors! Genius.

why can't we finsih one of the two remaining 351s first?

I think the four nominees will be: Ain't Too Proud, The Prom Hadestown and Cher. Tootsie and Beetlejuice both feel like inept retreads. I've seen both, and they are definitely subpar experiences

We can NEVER have enough theater threads! That's all we know.

I have no idea what sort of ratings she gets these days, but I would guess that the Tonys want Cher on the broadcast. Whether or not that will translate to a nomination or a "this is also on Broadway medley" like Dolly Parton did with 9 to 5 is unclear.

Cher seems so disconnected to the show I'm not sure a Tony nom would get her there, especially since she's smart enough to know there's no way The Cher Show would win.

Guess again, R23.

[quote] You are delusional if you don’t think Be More Chill will be nominated. It’s a phenomenon that goes well beyond Broadway. It will be nominated.

A phenomenon how, exactly? Its grosses and attendance have dropped every week for the last four weeks, and it is now grossing at levels $200K lower than its best week. That's not the behavior of a phenomenon. It's a show that is starting to circle the drain.

We don’t know how hard the respective productions are actively award campaigning, and the Tonys are one of the awards where lobbying makes a huge difference.

I know a couple of productions who are actively working the awards campaign trail, I assume all the likely candidates are to some extent, but we can’t know exactly who is doing what and how hard.

The nominees will be Pretty Woman, Getting The Band Back Together, Be More Chill and King Kong.

R27 What? No Head Over Heels? You must be mad!

Any of these shows would be more entertaining than King Kong.

R29 "Dance of the Vampires" was more entertaining than "King Kong!"

[quote] Cher seems so disconnected to the show I'm not sure a Tony nom would get her there, especially since she's smart enough to know there's no way The Cher Show would win.

What exactly is her relationship to the show? Is she financially involved? It's not very good and I think she's aware of that but I wonder why she didn't involve herself in it more to make it not suck.

She is a real producer who had complete input. Vote "The Cher Show "so she can get her EGOT!

Will the new West Side Story movie use the original choreography? Anyone know?

The WSS film choreography will be "based" on Robbins but created by Mr. flavor of the Month, Justin Peck!

Peck did an "audition" piece for the Robbins estate that was approved. They loved it.

That “musical theatre fails” video is more entertaining than everything this season combined. More more more!

Who manages the Jerome Robbins Estate?

Jussie Smollett out ‘of Take Me Out’ There's no way Quinto is flashing dick. He must have the only Tony winning no nudity role.

THE PROM will get Best Musical and Beth Leavel and Brooks Ashmanskas will get the performance Tonys. Beth *could* get bested by Stephanie Block. Bryan Cranston is obviously the Best Dramatic Actor winner. And watch out for wheelchair Ado Annie for Best Supporting Musical Actress..

Adam Driver took Bryan Cranston's Tony with this morning's BURN THIS reviews.

The Prom is putting a shit-ton of money into their Tony campaign. No idea where the money's coming from, but maybe it'll pay off.

Right now, the Musical nominees will be: Prom, Hadestown, Ain't Too Proud and ?????

R39 Beth Leavel was a hoot in "The Prom", topping her Tony winning role "as" "The Drowsy Chaperone" and Tony nominated role as Florence Greenberg in "Baby It's You". While I'd definitely applaud her win, I wouldn't mind it going to her younger co-star, Caitlin Kinnunen, got it for being the heart & soul of that show. Something tells me that Beth would be up on her feet the minute she heard Caitlin's first name announced.

Caitlin is about as interesting as a stick of butter. She won't get a nomination.

One of Caitlin's understudies--Gabi Campo--is much better in the role. Caitlin is sweet but very wooden.

R44 & R45 I saw it during previews and thought she was very touching. I've seen understudies in lead roles too (Kristen Chenoweth was out when I saw "On the 20th Century", and the understudy was just delightful!), and often they give more because they want that break that might get them some attention if a producer from a not yet cast show sees them.

Oh, and by the way, I find butter very interesting!

Once again, I try every variation on the search engine and this thread never appears

[quote]The Prom is putting a shit-ton of money into their Tony campaign. No idea where the money's coming from

Ryan Murphy, maybe?

Even though "The Prom" is only hitting 54% of its potential gross, it is filling 77-81% of the theater which is still pretty good. I don't recall seeing a show announce a closing at that high percentage rate. "Be More Chill" is doing a bit of the same weekly percentage (only slightly higher in potential gross), but it just started its run. Obviously, "The Prom" is overall more of a crowd pleaser and brings in a much larger range of audience members.

I saw Hillary and Clinton Saturday night and absolutely adored it.

Saw the Ferryman in the afternoon and couldn't get into it, but I appreciated it.

Jesus Christ are those arrangements are abhorrent. I forgot how horrible the Kenny Werner era was... Sondheim and ALW should have had him shot. Oy!

[QUOTE] Once again, I try every variation on the search engine and this thread never appears

Yeah DL's thread searching sucks lately.

[quote] The Prom is putting a shit-ton of money into their Tony campaign. No idea where the money's coming from

I think The Prom is angling to be the next Gentleman's Guide which had a lot of trouble making traction but held out and won the Tony.

I hope Beth and Brooks win Tonys. They're bound to be more entertaining and gracious in their 30 second speeches than James Corden has managed to be across the entirety of his career.

Coming to Netflix

I'm hoping for a good revival of "High Button Shoes", the last Encores of the season. Certainly, they need a masterful comic as Floy, and I am unfamiliar with Michael Urie outside his name. With both Brooks & Nathan busy on Broadway, they had to scamper to find someone. Betsy Wolfe, though, in the Nanette Fabray role, and Kevin Chamberlain in a supporting part are good choices. I'm hoping that the Atlantic City ballet is done with the same fury they did in "Jerome Robbins' Broadway". It was the best part of that show. I heard that they had couches backstage for the dancers to collapse in after that number because it was so fast & furious.

If Zach Quinto goes into Take Me Out wouldn't he play the Denis O'Hare role, which requires no nudity? Mind you, I think he would be badly miscast in that role.

I'd like to see Gideon Glick in that role even if he's a little bit young for it.

I saw Gary last weekend. I expected it to be a mess, but I actually thought it was kind of brilliant. Yes, dick and poop/fart jokes--Aristophanes had them too and Mac is aiming for social and political humor about who has to clean up after the upper-class finish killing each other. The writings is very smart, the design elements are a delight, and there are no better actors of theatrical comedy than Lane, Nielse, and White--from baggy pants, prop humor to the verse (rhyming couplets and blank verse at various times). I suspects critics will not be positive and audiences may stay away, but I thought it was great.

Also Jackson in Lear--she's worth the experience, but the production itself is a mess, with very uneven acting (Kent, Edmund, and Ruth Wilson doubling as Cordelia/Fool were all excellent). Ink is excellent, if uneven structurally--Carviel and Miller alone are worth it. Metcalf makes Hillary and Clinton worth seeing--Lithgow partners her well, but it is her play. And the Yiddish Fiddler (off-Bdwy) is moving and very well-directed (by Joel Grey) and performed. Even Jackie Hoffman is disciplined as Yente--maybe Che should always perform in Yiddish.

Some Tony Predictions for Musical Categories:

Best Musical : WILL WIN The Prom SHOULD WIN Hadestown POSSIBLE UPSET: Hadestown

Best Revival of a Musical WILL WIN: Oklahoma SHOULD WIN Oklahoma

Best Leading Actor: WILL WIN Brooks Ashmanskas - The Prom SHOULD WIN: Brooks Ashmanskas - The Prom POSSIBLE UPSET Santino Fontana - Tootsie

Best Leading Actress: WILL WIN Stephanie Block - The Cher Show SHOULD WIN : Amber Gray (if she is in this category if not Stephanie Block) POSSIBLE UPSET: Kelli O'Hara - Kiss Me Kate

Best Featured Actor: WILL WIN Andre Deshields - Hadestown SHOULD WIN: Patrick Vaill - Oklahoma POSSIBLE UPSET: Anyone from Ain't Too Proud

Best Featured Actress: WILL WIN Ali Stroker - Oklahoma SHOULD WIN: Amber Gray - Hadestown POSSIBLE UPSET - Leslie Kritzer Beetlejuice or Sarah Stiles Tootsie

Best Score: WILL WIN - Anais Mitchell - Hadestown SHOULD WIN : Anais Mitchell - Hadestown POSSIBLE UPSET - Matthew Sklar - The Prom

Best Book: WILL WIN - Robert Horn - TOOTSIE SHOULD WIN - Robert Horn - TOOTSIE POSSIBLE UPSET - Bob Martin and Chad Beguilin - THE PROM

Best Director - Daniel Fish - OKLAHOMA SHOULD WIN - Rachel Chavkin - HADESTOWN or Daniel Fish OKLAHOMA POSSIBLE UPSET - Casey Nicholaw - THE PROM

I don't want to put a cast and crew out of work, but how -- how? -- is Pretty Woman still running? Are there that many tourists?

Ok theatre gays, I need your help. I'm going to NYC next weekend. I've already purchased tickets for BURN THIS, and we only have time for one other show. I'm trying to decide between NETWORK and HADESTOWN. I am not sure I want to see two serious plays on this short trip, so I'm leaning toward HADESTOWN. There are no other musicals I am really interested in...I don't think I can make it through THE CHER SHOW and I'm iffy on TOOTSIE. I wish HEAD OVER HEELS was still playing. I know it got mixed reviews, but it looked fun to me.

I am a huge Tatiana Maslany fan so I want to see NETWORK, but everyone I've talked to who has seen HADESTOWN has raved about it. So..NETWORK or HADESTOWN?

See HADESTOWN.

[quote]maybe Che should always perform in Yiddish.

Well, that would certainly make for a memorable "Evita."

R63 I've seen neither, but with my usual uninformed snarky Datalounge opinion, I'd see Hadestown.

Network is strictly for people in the Van Hove cult. There’s nothing there outside of his usual bag of tricks.

I liked Network but it’s really nothing revelatory. If you’ve seen the movie, you don’t need to see it. I love van Hove (his Roman Tragedies was incredible) but this is him being generic.

I did not personally connect with Hadestown but objectively it is a far superior production.

If you're a fan of Maslany, then skip Network. She's fucking awful in it.

maybe Che should always perform in Yiddish.

I thought that read that "Cher" should always perform in Yiddish.

I don't even think she ever tried Italian,and she was married to Italian stud Sonny Bono (who never seemed to have the body of his Broadway enactor, Jarrod Spector).

But hey, I'd love to see Cher doing a version of, say, Tzenza, Tzena, Tzena. Maybe with Stephanie Block they could give it the Barry Sisters treatment (yes, I was taken to the Catskills as a kid). Here's an example -- Use your imagination. Jeez.

Go to 1:43 for Tzena. I can totally hear Cher doing it. Hehe.

Part of the joke is that "Tzena" means teeth; I 've been meaning to ask the folks over at NYU Dental Clinic to play it when I come to my appointments.

On a Sunday, by the sea,

You will always find my baby and me....

Yeah, the ballet was one of the best but not the only great moment from Jerome Robbins' Broadway. What a wonderful show. My friend and I were both in tears at the end. He said "You're crying because you know we'll never see this material so well done again." I said Yes, he hugged me, and we left.

I agree about Jerome Robbins Broadway and I'm shocked that it's never gotten nearly the love of Follies.

Practically all of the shows except for "High Button Shoes" and "Billion Dollar Baby" have been revived from "High Button Shoes", several more than once. "West Side Story": 1 (another on the way). "Forum": 1. "Gypsy" 3. "King & I": 2 "On the Town": 2.

Did I miss anything?

JRB by its structure is essentially a revue. There’s very little emotional involvement because the characters come and go. It’s a fantastic show but no one is going to pick apart the casting and interpretations like people do with Follies or Gypsy.

R74, in one case, you did not mean "High Button Shoes".

There is an extensive sequence from Fiddler. Also I’m Flying from Peter Pan, and Mr Monotony from Miss Liberty.

R76 Oye, just noticed that. I have "On a Sunday By the Sea" going through my head (searching for Encores tickets), so forgive my brain fart. (Laughing at myself.)

Thanks, R77, for adding "Fiddler" & "Peter". There have been 3 revivals of "Fiddler" since (not including the Off Broadway production now on in Yiddish), and 2 "Peter's" w/Cathy Rigby (she also did it at Madison Square Garden).

This is gearing up to be the worst Tony season in a long while.

Everything just sucks in Bway right now. Who the fuck is going to pay $400 a ticket to shit like BeetleJuice and Tootsie???!!

Not including City Center or State Theatre revivals, there have been four Fiddlers, three On the Towns, two West Side Storys, four Gypsys, two Forums, and four King & Is.

The only decent plays I’ve seen on Broadway are the British transfers, and only about half of them at that.

Tourists with money to burn who don't know any better, R79.

R82 While Nanette wasn't Nanette, I saw her in "No No Nanette" in the Ruby Keeler role w/Gavin MacLeod & Kay Ballard, Long Beach CA, 1994.

[quote]Everything just sucks in Bway right now. Who the fuck is going to pay $400 a ticket to shit like BeetleJuice and Tootsie???!!

Who says anyone is? If they don't sell close to showtime they go cheaper.

"Who the fuck is going to pay $400 a ticket to shit like BeetleJuice and Tootsie???!!"

Audiences, like nature, abhor a vacuum.

"Tootsie" and "Beetlejuice" will be on TDF soon enough, if they haven't been, and my friend will grab it for us then. I am in no hurry to see it even before the Tony's unless either announce their closing. He got "Pretty Woman" off of it, and all I could do was clap politely. Glad I paid $49 as opposed to $149.

Tootsie has already been on TDF. That's how I got to see it three weeks ago.

I saw Jerome Robbins Broadway at The Muny last summer. It was thrilling. They had a full cast and orchestra and the dancing was thrilling. Rob McClure did the Jason Alexander part and he was wonderful.

I guess people presume people want to see a 37 years old Dustin Hofffman movie musicalized. Is "The Graduate" next, though that already has famous Simon and Garfunkel music on its soundtrack. People seem to be more enthused about some of the jokes and some the supporting players than the leads and the score though of "Tootsie".

R89, Rob McClure is usually wonderful, but he does seem to get shit shows.

Beetlejuice has been on TDF too.

It's sad to say but Broadway, which used to be the playground of the Best and the Brightest, has come to represent a staggering lack of imagination, poverty of ideas and a deep, deep cynicism. But it can only reflect the culture-at-large.

But, shows about empowered women will save the day!!!!

I know it's wildly expensive to produce and run, but I would love another chance to see Jerome Robbins' Broadway. I saw the original, and it was two hours-plus of musical heaven. The Bathing Beauties Ballet alone was worth the price of admission.

Encores is doing High Button Shoes next month, although I’m not sure how they are going to do the bathing beauties dance with the orchestra taking up half that stage.

I saw the Muny JRB and it was amazing seeing such a large cast on stage. They had fifty cast members and when they were all on stage dancing together, the scope almost brought tears to my eyes. I know - MARY! Theater under the Stars in Houston is doing the show next month. Then it might go back into storage forever. There are very few theaters that can put on such a large show and make it work financially.

I saw a bootleg of Pretty Woman. I hated the movie, and expected to hate the musical, too. Although it was absolutely horrible -- the book and some of the lead-ins to the songs were laughably bad -- I was more entertained than I had any right to be. I've thought Andy Karl was excellent in the four other musicals I've seen him in, but he was not good in Pretty Woman; he had no energy or spark, and it felt like he was just going through the motions. Also, the songs sounded like they were keyed too high for him.

so is this the new thread? title is shite

I agree -- I prefer the "Take Me Out" penises, Patti LuPone and Gwen and Bob Fosse

The comments on BWW about the recent Jerome Robbins' Broadway at MUNY were extremely good and the upcoming Houston show is evidently the same production.

INK is definitely getting a Best Play nomination, folks. It's superb.

It lost the Olivier to THE FERRYMAN, as did NETWORK. (The other nominee was OSLO, which won the Tony before heading to London.) I think FERRYMAN is going to be victorious at the Tony Awards as well, against two of the same nominees, with that fourth nomination going to... Hmm... CHOIR BOY?

I hear NOTHING about TKAM. Nothing. Also, Scott Rudin pissed off a LOT of people with his shenanigans with that show. Jeff Daniels will certainly be nominated, against Bryan Cranston and Adam Driver and... those other two spots are up for grabs among several deserving men.

What about The Lifespan of a Fact?

[quote]Peck did an "audition" piece for the Robbins estate that was approved. They loved it.

Estates love $. How else to explain R&H authorizing that godawful King & I animated movie or the Gershwin estate allowing that Porgy & Bess revival (with a new name for the show that eliminated one of the authors).

Ink is phenomenal, and Miller definitely deserves a nomination.

Didn't Ariana Grande decide to give R&H royalties for her rings song?

[quote] It's sad to say but Broadway, which used to be the playground of the Best and the Brightest, has come to represent a staggering lack of imagination, poverty of ideas and a deep, deep cynicism. But it can only reflect the culture-at-large.

It reflects exactly how capitalism can destroy creativity

[quote] Didn't Ariana Grande decide to give R&H royalties for her rings song?

They are officially listed as co-authors on her song. She got permission from the estates to record it.

Of course the song is 90% My Favorite Things

It doesn't sound like she got permission. This article indicates that the song was brought to Concord, the company that holds the rights to Rodgers and Hammerstein's songs, "a few weeks" before its release. Concord asked for, and received, 90% of the songs royalties, and Grande's team accepted.

The R&H heirs sold their company to an outside conglomerate. Ted Chapin is still at R&H but I don’t think he has much power to veto or greenlight anything. That awful King & I cartoon was done when R&H was still family-owned.

Someone is working overtime to promote The Prom for the Tonies

I wish I could get behind The Prom, but the score feels like a second-rate composer’s first draft. The plot holes are also frustrating - especially one central to the story. If Alyssa Greene’s mother has pushed her so hard to succeed, and wants her to have a “normal” prom, why is she ok with Alyssa not having a date? It’s really lazy writing.

R&H are listed as *co-authors* on Arianna Grande's song? What kind of parallel universe is this?

I'm with you, R111. The Prom's heart is in the right place. There's some fun to be had. The cast is appealing - though you can see they are working hard. But the writing, which has a smug, self-satisfied quality, really lets it down, time and again. There are a few numbers that should have never made it out of workshop, especially that gospel number in Act 2 for poor Chris Sieber. The physical production is kind of ugly as well. Points for originality and all, but I wish it were a better show.

KING LEAR was the most abhorrent excuse of a vanity piece I've ever seen produced. I have nothing but respect for Glenda Jackson, but for as outspoken as she notoriously is in rehearsal (she once sniped at Edward Albee's direction of her in "...VIRGINIA WOLFF" and the man WROTE the piece!), how could she have sat back and allowed Sam Gold to surround her with a mixture of ineptitude and mediocrity. The set is a "black box" or rather a hammered gold box with a purple shag carpet that looks like they skinned Barney the Dinosaur. Actors woodenly overturn tables and fling chairs to feign their anger, and in "Act 2" the stage is strewn with garbage that is never once cleverly re-configured for utilitarian use. It's just ... garbage. Or maybe that's meant to be symbolic of the production. You have a hodgepodge of accents -- High Class Brit, Cockney, Irish, Mid-Atlantic American, Spanglish (Edgar is apparently from the barrio, and even delivers some of his lines in Spanish for comic effect), and for a bit of diversity, Cornwall is a hearing impaired actor who alternately signs his lines, has an interpreter speak them for him, or, when he is overcome with emotion, hollowly screams his words so that they are unintelligible Though one of the characters is described in the text as having been stabbed, Sam Gold has him shot on stage. With a revolver. What period is this play set in? Regan is dressed as Lee Radziwell in a metallic copper capris pants ensemble, Lear in an Edwardian style black suit, the Fool in a baggy-pants vaudeville outfit, complete with Chaplin-esque bowler hat and (inexplicably) red-white-and-blue American Flag socks (and yes, I know the Union Jack is also red white and blue -- these are AMERICAN flag socks). The climax, which has a few soldiers rush off to save someone, only to have that character lowered to the stage from the rafters by a noose, was unintentionally funny. At least, one hopes it was unintentional. What a mess. And how said that Jackson allowed all this chaos to have gone on around her in what is likely her ultimate NY stage performance. But then again, how absolutely fitting, that the "king" had no idea of the chaos that surrounds. That, however, is a metaphor that I wish I hadn't paid to see.

I don’t always agree with Brantley, but I agree with his assessment that this Lear lacks unity. There are a lot of showy directorial touches, but what exactly is the concept? As R114 says, it’s not even clear what the place or time period is supposed to be. And Regan and Goneril were apparently raised in nurseries on different continents.

I had really been looking forward to this production since it was announced, and it was a major disappointment.

It’s hard to believe the same person directed this Lear and Fun Home.

[quote][R82] While Nanette wasn't Nanette, I saw her in "No No Nanette" in the Ruby Keeler role w/Gavin MacLeod & Kay Ballard, Long Beach CA, 1994.

I saw Nanette play the Ruby Keeler role in "No No, Nanette" around 1973 or '74. In that production, Nanette was played by DL legend Bonnie Franklin, post-"Applause" but pre-"One Day at a Time."

I guess Bonnie is a legend in the fact that we talk about her here and her non-wearing of a bra, and her over=emphatic delivery of lines on tv that really seemed like she was aiming for the second balcony, etc. Anyone have the clip where she says "Hold me, David!"?

Everyone seems to be forgetting Kerry Washington as a Best Actress nominee. I'd lay odds "American Son" will pop up on Netflix in May, just in time for the TONY voters to catch it. There are no accidents.

Was it recorded for future playback with contracts in place for it to be shown for streaming?

[quote]I guess Bonnie is a legend in the fact that we talk about her here and her non-wearing of a bra, and her over=emphatic delivery of lines on tv that really seemed like she was aiming for the second balcony, etc.

For these reasons and so many more. Don't forget her mugging for the camera, "Damn it, Julie," her vicious slaps (like a D-list Joan Crawford), and the fact that she hated to exercise but loved to tap. Also for the enduring mystery of how someone with such modest acting talent and a wonky eye was chosen to star in what became a long-running sitcom.

You forgot her jazzy, menthol-cool, vocal stylings, r118.

I don't have a clip, but there was also the Tony Awards broadcast that opened with Bonnie's interior monologue about the "first time" she won a Tony, illustrated by her exaggerated facial expressions.

Let's face it- Everyone hated Bonnie, and for good reason.

R109, Ted no longer has the power to approve or deny R&H productions. His name is still on their letterhead, but he has definitely been neutered.

Correction: Bonnie was nominated for a supporting Tony for "Applause" but didn't win.

SO many Broadway credits had Bonnie!

Joan McCracken on Fosse/Verdon got me to thinking about her and the few YT videos of her show she was such a wonderful performer. And then I thought, that's who Bonnie Franklin was trying to be. But she ddn't have her talent or charm.

I don't even remember but what was it about her part in "Oklahoma" that was so special. She got mention in the program as "the girl who fell down", also the name of her autobiography, but what was it that made it a star making moment. In the spectacular Ballet as Jive clip, she does a fall shortly after she enters the dance club so was that the same thing?

McCracken never wrote an autobiography. She died very young.

There is a biography that came out about 3 or 4 decades after her death called The Girl Who Fell Down.

The Ballet in Jive clip was a cluttered mess. It needed a better choreographer thanLeRoy Prinz and McCracken and others wore horrible Milo Anderson costumes.

While some of you beat the shit out the score to The Prom, I have been listening to it with respect. It’s Not About Me; We Look to You; Unruly Heart; Barry’s Going to the Prom; Tonight Belongs to You. These are a few of the winners. There is a variety, wit, soul, and melody to these delicious show tunes. Bravo Sklar/Beguelin!

oh please, Chad

^ Haha! I wish!

What's not to love?

The show..it's garbage.

The Prom is muddling trash. Shut the fuck up you stupid shill.

Paul Wontorek promotes The Prom practically on an hourly basis.

R137 I think Paul has found us, cause some tasteless slut is really pushing the shit that is 'The Prom'

Wow, r136, you have a great deal of hostility going on in there. Can’t we respectfully disagree, darling?

R139 Honey, it has been an endlessly bad year for musicals, so don't be surprised if someone raves about a musical that many here find wanting in everyway.

r136 is off his meds again.

I'm second to none in my admiration for Mac's talent and theatrical genius (yes, genius) in his 24-hour song cycle, of which I've seen 18 hours. But GARY left me cold, and thinking that judy is working way out of judy's range. I laughed twice. I think I have a sense of what the play intends to do, but couldn't swear by it. And the three performers, skilled as they are, work up a prodigious sweat to entertain us, but all are in their respective wheelhouses and never stretch. I can't wait to see the reviews. It won't surprise me if some critics see the points that eluded me, but I was left exhausted and a bit grumpy.

I'm still reeling at the thought of Barbara Eden starring in Woman of the Year at the age of 87.

Lear was awful. Everyone in the mezz near me hated it.

The Moulin Rouge marquee is up.

We interrupt this thread for a bit of lovely......

I’m glad some people are seeing sense by realizing that Bryan Cranston has the Tony on lockdown. Jeff Daniels never stood a chance.

[quote]I am a huge Tatiana Maslany fan so I want to see NETWORK, but everyone I've talked to who has seen HADESTOWN has raved about it. So..NETWORK or HADESTOWN?

I'm unfamiliar with Maslany's previous work, but she hardly registers at all in NETWORK, partly because she's so completely miscast. So I would say definitely do not go see that show for her, or you will be very disappointed.

[quote]I am in no hurry to see it even before the Tony's unless either announce their closing.

Gotta ask, why do SO MANY people think the way to make the word "Tony" plural is to add an apostrophe and an "s" to it? For crying out loud, people, it's a simple plural: Tonys.

[quote]I'm with you, [R111]. The Prom's heart is in the right place. There's some fun to be had. The cast is appealing - though you can see they are working hard. But the writing, which has a smug, self-satisfied quality, really lets it down, time and again. There are a few numbers that should have never made it out of workshop, especially that gospel number in Act 2 for poor Chris Sieber. The physical production is kind of ugly as well. Points for originality and all, but I wish it were a better show.

I think the show has the opposite of a "smug, self-satisfied quality," and I think Sieber's number is a highlight. What's your problem with that number? Don't you agree with the point it makes?

[quote]It’s hard to believe the same person directed this Lear and Fun Home.

For some reason, as many have commented, Sam Gold seems to do a good job with new material and an incredibly horrendous job with older/classic materials. I'm guessing it's because, with older/classic material, he's determined to "put his stamp" on it, even if his stamp destroys it, whereas with new material. that's not an issue in the same way.

What a shitty Tonys this will be. For the first time in my life, I might skip watching it

You know what? There is a decidedly Trumpian sensibility to this thread; if you disagree with someone, you flame them, kick them to the curb, and bloody them up. What’s with that? Have you girls lost all civility? Lighten the fuck up!

R151 Not nearly as tiresome as people who insist on bringing Trump into every fucking thread. Go for a walk

^ oh, brother. Have a nice evening...

Do those who like The Prom like the show or do they like the actors? The show sucks, but the actors are fun.

[quote]I’m glad some people are seeing sense by realizing that Bryan Cranston has the Tony on lockdown. Jeff Daniels never stood a chance.

At least he’ll live to accept it.

Chad Beguelin gives hacks a bad name.

Chad Beguelin IS a bad name.

[quote]I saw Jerome Robbins Broadway at The Muny last summer. It was thrilling. They had a full cast and orchestra and the dancing was thrilling. Rob McClure did the Jason Alexander part and he was wonderful.

Sincerely glad you liked but I have a question about The Muny. In seeing their videos it seems like it's a chore to watch a show there. It's huge. Were you close or do you have to watch a giant monitor?

Barbara Eden is not doing "Woman Of The Year". She is touring with Hal Linden in "Love Letters". The most strenuous thing she does is turn a page.

Not a fangurl but I do have a soft spot in my heart for this song....

I like both R154, but I admit I think the actors are stronger than the material and bring most of the appeal for me. I've been a fan of the four leads for a long time and if nothing else, the show does a great job of giving them big moments and showing off all of their talents, and that's a joy to watch.

Having said that, it's by no means a BAD show. And I don't think it's pretending to be anything deeper or more grandiose than what it is, unlike a lot of shows these days.

I don't get that Angie Shworer. Is she some kind of Broadway royalty? I don't think I've ever seen her in anything else. What's the deal? Is she Broadway's oldest chorus girl....is that the joke?

IBDB is available, R161.

So many thanks to the poster above who posted that clip of Sandy Duncan and her husband Don Correia performing that clip of the Castle Walk. So much talent, so much hotness. I saw Twiggy and Tommy Tune in the original My Only My One and Only, I wish so much I could have seen Duncan and Correia in the national tour. Duncan had replaced Twiggy in the OBC after Twiggy's affair with Tommy Tune had broken up and she refused to renew her original contract. Yes, Tommy Tune is gay and yes, he and Twiggy had an affair during the original run. Not really strange. People have weird personal lives.

Gary is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. Mac is not a playwright—and ultimately not much of a thinker, either, genius grant be damned.

The Prom score is so bourgeois and mediocre it made me cry.

R146 Thanks for that fabulous clip of Sandy Duncan and Don Correia. They transported me to a whole different era for a couple of minutes with their wonderful dancing and made me very happy.

I came across a clip of something called "Gypsy Of The Year" where the cast of Come From Away are performing and they do the opening number Welcome To The Rock, but the twist is that they have professional dancers "fill in" for the dance number. It really looks far better than the clips I've seen of the actors doing that same number- couldn't they have done that for the actual Broadway show?

After all, in films, a lot of actors don't do their own stunts - they hire stunt persons. So couldn't they have hired "stunt dancers" to do the numbers that require more intricate dance moves?

R154

The actors. I am almost always interested in theater for the actors.

Has anyone noticed the Easter Bonnet Competition has been renamed "Broadway Bonnets?" Apparently now Easter is offensive to the theater SJWs, too.

R163 here. I don't know what happened to my post, I had also included a paragraph about how hot Don Correia was in Singing in the Rain, Twyla Tharp's misguided Broadway version of the film. He was great, the rest of the show had its moments but it just didn't work. He was also a great replacement in A Chorus Line (not all of the replacements over the years were) and not to mention he was one of the best things in that lacklustre 2001 Follies revival. Have always adored him and felt happy that he and Sandy Duncan seem to have had a good life together since I have always admired and loved her work too. Never saw Martin or Rigby live in Peter Pan but I saw Duncan three times on Broadway and it was theatre heaven.

I know, MARY!, but I love both of them.

Don’t understand the vitriolic hate some here are feeling for The Prom. I thought it was a fun, sweet show with an okay score and some terrific performances. I’d give it a “B” grade overall. I haven’t seen Hadestown yet, but if The Prom wins best Tony I’ll be happy for them.

R159, I have always had a soft spot for the groom (well, maybe "soft" is not the right word.)

Seriously, the open of The Wedding Singer is one of the best opening numbers in recent years. It is a shame the rest of the show was never that good. My only memory was that I hated Laura Benanti in this and I actually like her in general. The male lead was really pretty good.

Cranston will get the Tony, who else do we think will be nominated? Lithgow and Miller, not sure who else I’d pick.

I don't think Cranston will get the Tony, I think it'll be Daniels. There's more affection for Mockingbird, and Daniels himself has gone off several times to have a film and TV career, but he always, always comes back to NY and the theatre.

That clip of Sandy Duncan and Don Correia is really wonderful, thank you, r146. And I love the song they're using, "Too Much Mustard" (which is one of the same songs that the Castles used).

In other news, isn't one of their sons a big ol' queen?

It's a good theory about Gold, but his Vanya was possibly the best production of it I've ever seen, and it's my favorite play. Maybe that one gets bracketed out because it was with Annie Baker?

No way for Daniels, but wb the possibility that Driver, coming later in the season, could still take it from Cranston, whose impact has faded?

[quote]In other news, isn't one of their sons a big ol' queen?

PleaseletitbeJasonBatemanpleaseletitbeJasonBatemanpleaseletitbeJa...oh, you mean their REAL sons. Never mind.

Here's a boot of Don Correia and Sandy Duncan performing "S'Wonderful," from My One and Only. Looks like Correia has nice feets!

On a random side note, has anyone listened to the 2012 Follies remaster? I ordered it, and it was lost in the mail. Did the remaster really improve the quality enough to justify buying it?

NO, R139. Now fuck off.

[quote]Has anyone noticed the Easter Bonnet Competition has been renamed "Broadway Bonnets?" Apparently now Easter is offensive to the theater SJWs, too.

When that "gypsy" nonsense happened, I half-jokingly predicted that the title of the Easter Bonnet Competition would have to be changed as well. Scary times....

[quote]Has anyone listened to the 2012 Follies remaster? I ordered it, and it was lost in the mail. Did the remaster really improve the quality enough to justify buying it?

It IS better -- I would say enough to the point where it's worth buying --, but in my opinion, there's not nearly such a huge difference as some people insist.

My husband’s feet are nicer.

Disagree about FOLLIES recording. The remaster is a huge improvement and is well worth buying.

I think this year's Tony Awards will be very interesting. There could be a genuine race for Best Musical and there are several acting categories that may be too close to call. And, Bryan Cranston is not a lock for Best Actor, not at all.

Broadway has turned into an SJW mecca and PC reigns supreme. The musicals have turned into social experiment lectures, rather than entertainment vehicles.People want to see musicals to get away from the bombardment of daily conflict. Now, we spend good money to be hit with female empowerment, stunt casting for the sake of social experiment, and lectures on what we should think or how we should act. So, it's no wonder the names of the events were changed to reflect this. How so until the Tony Awards are renamed the Antoinettes to reflect female empowerment, or we get " Best Performance by a Cis-gender Male"?

The late Nicky Martin had a phrase he used about musicals like The Prom: "It would have closed out of town in the 50s". I didn't hate it, but it's far from great.

The Prom was a cliche.

The Prom:

" Anything in the news?"

"Trump"

Such edgy writing

Minneapolis review of Betty. The reviewer obviously doesn't get out very much or is on the payroll:

Betty Buckley may not have the box-office power to open a show on Broadway, but given the chance, she radiates charisma, has the comic flair to land every joke, fully embodies the matchmaker's fertile mind as she spontaneously hatches plot after plot, and sings beautifully—no surprise there. Her inspiring rendition of "Before the Parade Passes By," fills the house, she offers a swell vaudevillian turn in "So Long, Dearie," and she has the entire room eating out of her hands coming down the stairs in that dazzling red dress, singing the iconic title song.

R168 Not true:

It is not the SJWs who made them change the name of the Easter Bonnet. It is the Jews---they always have to be included in everything!

Judaism is social justice.

I saw Gary right after its delayed previews opened and happened to rather like it, although as I said on a previous thread, it feels like a show that should have played Oregon Shakespeare and then done the touring circuit for high-brow shows at small theatres across the country (Arts Emerson, the Kennedy Center, etc.) where it would have really made a name for itself. It's just so... queer, and non-commercial that there doesn't seem to be a reason for it to exist on Broadway. Kristine is surprisingly great, and Nathan is fine, although maybe too old for the role. I hope it gets good notices from the smart critics (todays write up in the New Yorker might be as close as it gets to a flat out "good review"). It's not a slam dunk, but it's the kind of show that takes enough risks it should be appreciated.

It's no Ferryman and honestly its not as good as Constitution, but it's far more rewarding than most of the other new shows that made it to Broadway this year. I'd much prefer a yearly Gary to a yearly... Lifespan of a Fact.

R186, even in death it's hard to imagine Nicky Martin NOT loving anything Brooks does.

What kind of sad lives do you lead that you're that emotionally invested in what BC/EFA calls their programming? Really who gives a shit? What impact does it have on your life if they're called Broadway Bonnet or Red Bucket Follies, etc? It's more ridiculous to make such a stink about the name changes than it was to change the names. It's fundraising for a good cause; that's what's important. Move on.

[quote]After all, in films, a lot of actors don't do their own stunts - they hire stunt persons. So couldn't they have hired "stunt dancers" to do the numbers that require more intricate dance moves?

It costs MONEY.

Don Correia has turned into Chevy Chase.

I agree about the Follies remaster. Bruce Kimmel is a real asshole, but he really knows what he's doing when he remasters these CDs. Follies is a huge improvement over the original release.

Are One More Kiss and Rain on the Roof included in the remastered version?

Is Correia a terrible manager? Because Sandy Duncan's career...

Promises, Promises with Jerry Orbach was also improved by Kimmel and Co.?

Has anyone picked up some of the recent Ben Bagley reissues? Some of the original CDs (and presumably LPs) had audio issues - off notes etc.

Are these remastered versions now on iTunes?

Yes, the "Promises, Promises" CD came with the 2 discs: the original pressing and a cleaned up one, since the original had Jerry Orbach and some of the men especially singing off-pitch in a number of their songs. The new CD put them back in tune and sounds much better, plus after a gap of about 30 seconds at the end of Orbach's title song, there's another take of Jill O'Hara singing the song as well. O'Hara must have been effective in the show, but she always takes me a few seconds to get used to her very unusual timbre and manner of singing when I put on the recording. But I never really want to hear the un-cleaned up version of the CD with its off-pitch singing again. Orbach had a really good vocal instrument but his hearing or something was off since this isn't the only recording of his where his pitch isn't the greatest. This makes the show more of a pleasure to hear.

Correira also looks like Christian Bale as Dick Cheney.

And Bale looked like Chevy Chase, too.

If actors of color don't win Tonys this year we know it's rigged again.

Well not rigged, but WRONG. Representation matters! Don't let the Tonys be so white!

Then cast people of color as characters other than "Ensemble"!!!

Please come up with a formula of exactly how the quota would work. How many "people of color " ( always read " black')? How many "gender fluid"? Let's award Tonys based on this formula, rather than by accomplishment. It will make the award so much more prestigious for the recipients. Hey, let's give the award to Christiani Pitts for King Kong, because she's black, portrays a powerful liberated woman, and that's enough.

" And now for best performance by a person of color who culturally appropriated a white role in order to make the producers seem "woke" is..............

"I want to talk about colorblind casting" is truly DL Theatre Gossip's "I want to talk about Madeleine Ashton".

TKTS seats to today’s Hadestown matinee are $118 at 50% off. Business must be booming.

Why don't we just give everybody a Tony Participation Trophy? That would be about as meaningful as what some of you are suggesting.

Interesting, R190. I follow BC/EFA and other orgs on Instagram and they are ALL calling it Broadway Bonnets, to the degree that it looks like it was something that was dictated to them to start rebranding the event. I would be thrilled if I was incorrect about it, and I'm going to assume by what you posted that I am.

Here's what I like about THE PROM: It starts out as a hoaky theatre "in-joke" with broad narcissistic characters and, over the course of two hours or so, transforms into a piece about community, acceptance, realizing the things we value or believe we want aren't always the things we think they are. It turns from a piece about "me" into a piece about "us." People you would never expect to make the altruistic choice learn that there is truly something more rewarding than awards. That said, the production values are a bit cheesy. The "teens" don't come off as teens, but then again, in what show do they? Up until recently you had a 27 year old Ben Platt playing Evan Hansen and 28 year old Taylor Louderman playing high school queen bee Regina George in MEAN GIRLS. More disappointing, though, is that the lesbian couple at the heart of THE PROM is just a bit boring when placed side-by-side against the "show biz" types. I'm not sure if the roles were cast differently, written differently, or directed differently that it would have made a difference, but for me, that's the imbalance of the show. But it's not such an imbalance that the show isn't entertaining, moving, and a bit surprising. For me, that's enough to give it my support. I don't know that I'll be running back to see it again, but I sure did enjoy seeing it once.

[quote]Daniels himself has gone off several times to have a film and TV career, but he always, always comes back to NY and the theatre.

So has Cranston.

[quote]That clip of Sandy Duncan and Don Correia is really wonderful, thank you, [R146]

Sandy Duncan on "Dancing With The Stars", please.

Nicky would have loved Brooks, but not the show.

R215 - That is a lovely way of describing The Prom. I like the show more than most of the posters on here, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was that moved me. I think you did a wonderful job of explaining it. Yes, it is slight, but it was also moving and had more heart than almost every musical I've seen lately.

Kimmel had the multi-channel tracks from the recording sessions of Promises, Promises so they were able to pitch-correct notes without affecting the orchestra. It's unlikely that multi-channel tracks were available for the Ben Bagley albums.

I also had a Kritzerland CD get lost in the mail and they made no attempt to fix the situation. So, after buying Kimmel discs from Varese Sarabande, Bay Cities, Fynsworth Alley, and Kritzerland, I am unwilling to buy CDs that may or may not arrive.

The Prom is cliche and everyone is caricature. But, if you like it, that's fine.

The whole point of THE PROM is that everyone ISN'T cliche or a caricature. Did you even see the show???

I’m glad they don’t tend to cast teenagers to play teens. We see teenagers in musicals all across the country and it’s awful. Minimally, it’s not worth $150 a ticket.

Very rarely are actual teenagers good at playing teens. A few exceptions would be Jennifer Damiano in Next to Normal, Danielle Ferland in Into the Woods, and the kid currently starring in Dear Evan Hansen.

I had a Kritzerland DVD get “lost in the mail” as well with “customer service” informing me I was SOL. This is obviously not a coincidence we have all had this happen. One more reason to detest BK. Ugh.

Reason #338 (in an unlimited series) to hate BK: he has eliminated Ben Bagley’s witty liner notes from the reissued CDs. But BK does find room to pat himself on the back for improving the CD’s sonics.

Well, we'll always have "The First Nudie Musical"!

Actually, we won’t. That’s what I ordered that got “lost in the mail”. What a prick.

I had never heard of Kirtziland until this thread. I went to their site, and there are a few snippets of the Follies remix online. The difference from the OCR mix is apparent. The upright bass and piano, especially, sound much clearer, and in their own space. I'm not sure how they managed to do it, since the original was recorded onto only 8 tracks, so there had to have been a lot of remixing beforehand, or multiple instruments shared a microphone, and, thus, track. There is only so much remixing you can do if there are only 8 tracks to start off with, but they make an improvement.

Isn't there software that allows resaonably convincing "stereo" mixes to be made from mono mixes? It's known as DES - Digitally Extracted Stereo. I expect they can do something similar with multitracks- isolating elements.

Are the improved sonics on the Bagley reissues credible? Junking the original liner notes was a poor choice.

*claims of improved sonics

Scales!

1. Overbearing mother who doesn't approve of lesbians at prom ( of course she is white and Midwestern) or anyone who is different.

2. Sweet lesbian, slightly gawky and made to look less than attractive ( because hick dykes are)

3. Liberal New York theater people who want to enlighten the backwards hicks.

4. In liberating a "suddenly welcoming" community, they learn a valuable lesson for themselves.

5. Lesbian goes to prom in said "suddenly welcoming" community

6. Everyone goes home happy, having learned something about themselves and the people they have judged

No, nothing cliche about that.

There was one of his earliest reissues where he left off the liner notes in favor of his "remembrance" of the musical (it might have been Sugar) and there was precious little other info about the recording as a result. People bitched about it and he basically said "Fuck you." Actually, "fuck you" is his answer to everybody about everything.

When Dame Julie was able to sing anything and everything. What a voice!

Okay, if that preview is an accurate representation, "The First Nudie Musical" is shit. What an embarrassment.

It's a fun movie, and the music numbers are supposed to be kind of "out there". Haven't seen it in years, but Cindy Williams and Stephan Nathan (who was really good but went into producing) were especially good in the main plot.

Since when is Cranston losing momentum for the Best Actor Tony? Come on now, he’s had it on lockdown since the first preview.

And Adam Driver opened last week. His performance (which I haven't seen and am relying on the reviewers and word of mouth) changes everything.

Adam Driver <— best acting

Bryan Cranston <— most acting

R230, I hate to break it to you, but people with those attributes actually exist in the world. The Prom is a musical. Go find an 800-page novel if you need every single nuance of a character's humanity explained to you in order for you to view their actions and appearances as something other than cliché.

Some of your criticisms, particularly #3, are things that the show intentionally subverts fairly early on in Act I. The liberal Broadway actors are made to look like complete asses time and time again for the assumptions they make about the midwesterners and the arrogance of them thinking they can just swoop in and change everybody's minds. Sorry you weren't able to see that.

Everyone does NOT go home happy. They could've easily had the Mrs. Greene character immediately accept that her daughter is a lesbian, but that story is wrapped up with a much more complicated "we'll talk later." Barry gets to go to a prom--29 years after missing his own prom--but his relationship with his mother is still unresolved. He gets a moment of triumph but there are still notes of sadness underneath it.

It's fine if you didn't like The Prom but it's interesting that your reasons show a lack of depth that you accuse the show of having.

The Prom has no nuance. That’s one of its biggest weaknesses.

NUANCE....the Musical!

Where the hell is BUNUEL??

He ran out for a pack of cigs.

So can anyone answer my previous question:

Does the remastered Follies have the previously cut songs?

[quote]What kind of sad lives do you lead that you're that emotionally invested in what BC/EFA calls their programming? Really who gives a shit?

On thread #352 of an infinite series of catfights over the minutiae of the original cast recording of "Follies"?

srsly?

R246, it has One Last Kiss - which has been on every CD release of the OBC. No other commercially recorded material is known to exist.

Oh one last kiss

Oh give me one last kiss

It never felt like this

It never was such bliss

The biggest flaw of The Prom is that it is not REVELATORY.

Or woke.

I went to see the McCoy-Rigby "Singin' In the Rain" today (La Mirada, CA -- and for those of you keeping score at home, Cosmo and Zelda were played by black actors, and Kathy looked Asian/Pacific) and pre-show, Mr. Rigby (Tom McCoy) came out and discussed the upcoming season and mentioned the "West Coast premiere" of a musical I was completely unaware of-- "Grumpy Old Men!" That really seems like an unlikely candidate for musicalization -- but since he said it was the "West Coast premiere," presumably it's been produced elsewhere. Any thoughts, comments, or reviews? BTW, McCoy said their production would star Hal Linden and Ms. Rigby. (No casting for the second male lead yet.)

[quote]for those of you keeping score at home, Cosmo and Zelda were played by black actors, and Kathy looked Asian/Pacific)

When I see casting like this, I wonder, do they decide ahead of time that those parts will be played by people of color and then just audition the POC actors?

Why can't Cosmo be black? When they did the show with Don Correia, Gregg Burge auditioned and was obviously rejected. I think he correctly noted that the producers could have given him the role and especially since it was a supporting role, no one would have noticed, especially since he would have kicked ass in the dancing numbers.

There's no reason Cosmo can't be black. Unless you're a racist, of course.

[quote]I went to see the McCoy-Rigby "Singin' In the Rain" today

The guy who plays the Gene Kelly role in that, Mike Starr, was hot as a pistol in that otherwise dreary Reprise version of "The World Goes Round" last summer. A highlight was his striptease in "Arthur in the Afternoon."

R255 Name one black man working on films in a senior position in the 20s? Just one cunt

Stop embarrassing yourself, twisted racist at R257.

Racist is just a synonym for cracker.

[quote]There's no reason Cosmo can't be black. Unless you're a racist, of course.

Why post something preposterous and then immediately play the race card? The story takes place in 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Furthermore, Cosmo is Don's former vaudeville partner and now head of the music department at the studio. Thus, Cosmo can't possibly be anything but white if we were going to cast historically and traditionally. But since this is color-blind casting, the actor's race doesn't matter. However, it is disingenuous of you to say that there's no reason why he can't be black.

Meant to say "there's no reason why the *character* can't be black." There's a difference between actors and characters.

[quote]Why post something preposterous and then immediately play the race card? The story takes place in 1920s/1930s Hollywood. Furthermore, Cosmo is Don's former vaudeville partner and now head of the music department at the studio. Thus, Cosmo can't possibly be anything but white if we were going to cast historically and traditionally. But since this is color-blind casting, the actor's race doesn't matter. However, it is disingenuous of you to say that there's no reason why he can't be black.

Sweetie, its a fucking MUSICAL COMEDY, not a documentary. The realism goes out the door when the first character breaks out in song and dance and your head would probably explode when it actually starts raining INSIDE the theater!

Looks like Matt is back with his unique racist views. That’s him at r257 and r259.

[quote]The guy who plays the Gene Kelly role in that, Mike Starr, was hot as a pistol in that otherwise dreary Reprise version of "The World Goes Round" last summer. A highlight was his striptease in "Arthur in the Afternoon."

Sorry I missed that one. (I did see Reprise's "Sweet Charity.) I saw Starr as Richard Henry Lee in the La Mirada "1776) and was impressed.

Somebody started a Shangri-las thread. Where's THEIR Broadway show?

R246 -- It's easy enough to find the site on the web, and see for yourself which songs are included on the remaster, non? But, to answer your question: according the site, the songs were already truncated and cut before they were recorded, so there is no commercial recording of any additional material.

R262 Meh, I would prefer to have actual black history and black stories told, rather than just having them shoved into white characters just to reach a qouta or pander to fuckwits who think seeing colour equates to black stories and history being told

R262, August Wilson:

To mount an all-black production of a Death of a Salesman or any other play conceived for white actors as an investigation of the human condition through the specifics of white culture is to deny us our humanity our own history, and the need to make our own investigations from the culture ground on which we stand as black Americans. It is an assault on our presence, our difficult but honorable history in America; it is an insult to our intelligence, our playwrights, and our many and varied contributions to the society and the world at large. The idea of colorblind casting is the same idea of assimilation that black Americans have been rejecting for the past 380 years. For the record, we reject it again. We reject any attempt to blot us out, to reinvent history and ignore our presence or to maim our spiritual product. We must not continue to meet on this path. We will not deny our history, and we will not allow it to be made to be of little consequence, to be ignored or misinterpreted.

The time has come for black playwrights to confer with one another, to come together to meet each other face to face, to address question of aesthetics and ways to defend ourselves from the nay-sayers who would trumpet our talents as insufficient to warrant the same manner of investigation and exploration as the majority. We need to develop guidelines for the protection of our cultural property, our contributions and the influence they accrue. It is time we took responsibility for our talents in our own hands. We cannot depend on others. We cannot depend on the directors, the managers or the actors to do the work we should be doing for ourselves. It is our lives and the pursuit of our fulfillment that are being encumbered by false ideas and perceptions.

R268 Hear Hear

I have a theory.

Perhaps the reason why people of color (an by extension SJWs) are attracted to the classic musicals, which usually take place in the past, is because that way POC can take part in portraying the past without having to confront it.

R267 mentioned writing new works about POC and their history. However, I've noticed that many millennials and younger DO NOT like to think about racism or anything bad. They prefer to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that we all live in a multiracial utopia. If they were to write about black history, for example, they would have to confront racism, slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, etc. -- all taboo subjects to them. Instead, they think, let's just do THE MUSIC MAN or OKLAHOMA! and cast it with all the colors of the rainbow, then join hands and sing kumbaya!

Hi Matt!

Guess you're off your meds again, huh? We are so truly blessed.

*snort*

R271 so instead of taking part in a thoughtful discussion, you're just going to be dismissive and pretend I'm some Matt poster?

R272 I blocked that one, all he seemingly does is wander the halls of DL mumbling about 'Matt The Loon', like a morphine addict in a Eugene O'Neill play

I'm all for diversity when appropriate. But if "The realism goes out the door when the first character breaks out in song and dance," then the rest of the show has to be grounded in reality.

Didn’t Judy Garland sing about him? No, that was Mack the Black.

August Wilson was a very smart man, and he left all of us a great legacy in our being able to quote his opposition to colorblind casting. Because if any white person expresses the same opinion, they are immediately labeled as racist, but it's rather difficult to label August Wilson as racist.

[quote]Didn’t Judy Garland sing about him? No, that was Mack the Black.

Matt the Fatt

Hates blacks & latinos!

Matt the Fatt

Aspie and Obnoxious

Aspie and Obnoxious and a Pain in the Ass!

R277, how much do you weigh?

I'd love to see an all white cast of Raisin in the Sun done

Except they should make the white guy Chinese.

[quote]Well, we'll always have "The First Nudie Musical"!

He has the nerve to look down on my movie while he directed that!

R279 been there, done that!

"Instead, they think, let's just do THE MUSIC MAN or OKLAHOMA! and cast it with all the colors of the rainbow, then join hands and sing kumbaya!"

Those are not millennials, they are the producers and creative teams who think that it is groundbreaking to have a black Harold Hill or a black Laurie. They are the lazy ones who think that just by colorblind casting, they are on the cutting edge of "social justice." Wilson would condemn them.

Wilson didn't want the black characters of his shows to be played by other races either. He did write a few parts for white actors, but it's all spelled out.

Does The Prom have a coup de theatre?

Yes - the end of the first act. I have never seen a bag of potato chips used to greater effect.

This thread has been taken over by a bunch of middle-schoolers. "Matt the Fatt"--really?

What's next: "I know you are but what am i?"

Exactly, R287. This thread has done a lot to challenge gay stereotypes. Mainly the one that all gay men are witty, stylish, and sophisticated. I’ve heard better comebacks on [italic]Mama’s Family[/italic] and [italic]What’s Happening!![/italic]

I saw the Saturday matinee of "Gary". It got a standing ovation (but doesn't everything?). As I left the theater, I heard several conversations that basically came down to "What the fuck was that that we just saw?"

My one praise for the show is for the crew members who now had to get everything back the way it was for the evening performance, then did it again for opening night yesterday. There's a lot of use of props, especially the cloth corpses with erect penises and huge testicles. They all have to be back in the proper place, as well as the severed heads and limbs, and the dolls that squirt water and have their intestines pulled out have to be re-filled. That's a tremendous job, not that it makes the play any better.

I expect it will be totally overlooked next Tuesday.

With all of Nathan Lane's reference to maids, I wanted him to say, "Everybody out to have one...." in reference to "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", which easily could have been set during this time.

You can dislike Daniel Fish's OKLAHOMA for all kinds of reasons, but laziness is not one of them.

I have worked with Daniel Fish in the past and what his process involves is taking a classic script and asking his collaborators to approach it as if it's never been seen before, not the script nor a production of it.

While this was difficult for me (to erase my preconceptions), it's a fascinating approach, as simplistic as it may seem. It really is most successful with young collaborators who have not seen a lot of theater and are more easily open to rethinking everything.

I imagine Sam Gold has the same approach to classics.

If this OKLAHOMA is financially successful, look for a lot more of these kinds of radical reinterpretations of the classics on Broadway.

I would forgive The Prom all of its weaknesses if it had a score that never rises above slick mediocrity.

There is a good, solid two-hour show to be had in [italic]Anastasia[/italic]. Unfortunately it is two and a half hours long. Not every show needs to be epic length.

I wonder why ANASTASIA didn't do well on Broadway? Most everyone I know has seen the movie and cherished it as a child. It was a modest box office success (because evil Disney re-released THE LITTLE MERMAID the week before) but even more popular on home video. I worked in a toy store at the time and the merchandise were sellers. The show itself is all right and no worse than the recent Disney attempts.

Sex thread ? Por favor Anita

R294 I went into "Anastasia" on Broadway having never seen the movie and only knowing the songs from certain piano bar performers. I was completely enchanted. I particularly loved Caroline O'Connor in it as the vivacious countess, but she's a dynamic performer under any circumstance!

The only point I got from "Gary: A Sequel...." is that "War is bad and most people simply just want to live in peace without the threat of being tortured and murdered by people who have no reason to be their enemies." I'm baffled by the mixture of reviews, 50/50 good & bad. I didn't hate it, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

Nathan Lane's wig made him look as if he was cast in an all-white production of "The Wiz" as the lion.

R292, all the more reason to hope for its collapse.

[quote]I wonder why ANASTASIA didn't do well on Broadway? Most everyone I know has seen the movie and cherished it as a child. It was a modest box office success (because evil Disney re-released THE LITTLE MERMAID the week before) but even more popular on home video. I worked in a toy store at the time and the merchandise were sellers. The show itself is all right and no worse than the recent Disney attempts.

Maybe all the paranoia about Russia made it a hard sell. And didn’t Disney open [italic]Frozen[/italic] around the same time? That’s my theory about why they changed the lyric “my underwear got frozen standing here all week.”

[quote]I wonder why ANASTASIA didn't do well on Broadway?

Didn’t it, though? It had a decent run, and was making serious money for the first 9 months or so. It may not have broken even, but it spawned a tour and several notable foreign productions. It might not be Wicked, but it’s done well-enough.

I enjoyed the show but I felt parts of it were padded, like they were there just because other shows are that long.

I also wondered what it would be like to see this OK! with people who had never seen a production before, or knew anything. Fortunately, a group of high schoolers sat behind me at Circle, and this was part of a Spring Break trip. Listening to them beforehand, all the knew was "This is one of the old ones, right?"

Their responses were fascinating: Outright laughter at the blackouts and the Poor Jud video. Lots of yawns. Lots of "what is this?" No laughter. Screams of WTF during the Dream Ballet. And finally, shocking screams at the "big" second act moment, with follow up WTF?

Walking out, they all felt cheated and didn't know why.

Daniel Fish may pretend that he’s treating the material like it’s never been seen but he’s relying on people’s familiarity with the text to make shortcuts. Fraud of the highest order!

So no one knows anything about "Grumpy Old Men - The Musical?"

That's a very trenchant observation, r304.

Seriously. I wonder if that's what's really gnawing at people.

Anastasia did respectable on Broadway. I didn't really enjoy it and there's an ick factor to romanticizing the Romanovs. They were brutal terrible dictators who lived in absurd opulence while people starved and their successors are only marginally better.

R304: if that was their attitude, then they might have gotten more out of staying home and watching the movie.

[quote]They were brutal terrible dictators who lived in absurd opulence while people starved and their successors are even worse, and they banned homosexuality.

Fixed.

Anyone else see the Yiddish Fiddler? (I notice their crew wifi networks are named “Yiddler” lol). I’m from the same background so it’s meaningful for me, but I thought it was just a fantastic production.

[quote]he’s relying on people’s familiarity with the text to make shortcuts.

As someone who hasn't yet seen the new revival, what does that mean?

Saw and loved the Yiddish Fiddler as well, R310. Very moving, and Steven Skybell is a fantastic Tevye, There's even a disciplined performance from Jackie Hoffman, something I previously thought impossible.

R312 Even though Yente is a comical role, it's the first serious play she's ever done. That's why I was impressed by her in "Feud", having seen her in wacky parts on stage in "Hairspray", "Xanadu", "Addams Family", "On the Town" & "Charlie/Chocolate" which I thought toned her down a bit as well. (Perhaps because it was just so awful I just forgot about her mugging, though....)

Jackie's a throwback to stage character actors like Jane Connell, Marilyn Cooper, Alice Pearce, Alice Ghostley and Patsy Kelly. Her "Xanadu" co-star Mary Testa is very similar in nature. Ironic that they both got lauded for "On the Town" w/Mary getting a Tony nomination for a less successful revival.

Sorry, meant "show" or "musical" (not play) in R313. Damned coffee isn't working today.

You could still get schticky and cartoonish with Yente, but I was impressed that Hoffman seemed to be underplaying it, and the jokes all land, even somewhat remarkably, "The Rumor."

Not previously mentioned as a virtue of the production: the Fyedka is a blonde with a great body, and very tight clothing.

Well, by all means if a group of high schoolers were confused and felt cheated by O!, close the fucking show down. To hell with those who have enjoyed and admired it, and to those cast members and crew who enjoy having a job.

r316 I think the point was that people who don't know Oklahoma won't have a fucking clue what the show or the fuss is about. unlike some other recent 'reinvented' revivals (Porgy & Bess, Pippin, Color Purple) this one is there to serve the director *and the critics, not to illuminate the story or the characters. same thing happened with doyle's Company but these performers are even more fucked

You really thought the "reinventions" in Porgy and Bess illuminated the story or the characters? I thought they were the work of a self-indulgent and arrogant creative team and did nothing for the story or its characters.

But I agree with your take on Okla!

[quote] You really thought the "reinventions" in Porgy and Bess illuminated the story or the characters? I thought they were the work of a self-indulgent and arrogant creative team and did nothing for the story or its characters.

The only real re- invention in P&B was that it was shortened to make it more palatable to Bway audiences. The opera version goes on for fucking ever and remains a mighty bore.

Over the weekend I was talking to some older family members about theater, people who grew up seeing lots of theater, etc.

I described the Oklahoma concept to them and they were very puzzled. One said, "why not just write a new musical and stop messing around with classics?" There was also zero interest in the Yiddish Fiddler which was interesting because many of them saw it with Zero Mostel and they're all Jewish. My Great Aunt said "I've seen it and I don't speak Yiddish."

In general I thought it was very interesting how unexcited these theatergoers were with Broadway offerings. I wonder if the push to excite millennials and "woke audiences" is alienating a number of traditional theatergoers.

R320 I'm a goy, and I've seen so many revivals of "Fiddler" (stock/community/national tours/2 Broadway revivals, one twice with a cast change), and I'm very interested in this "Fiddler", because I'd love to experience it as it could have happened, although something tells me that there was a mixture of Yiddish and Russian spoken because of the non-Jewish characters. I wouldn't mind seeing a revival of "Rags" with a mixture of Yiddish, English & other languages, as that show is worthy of being re-discovered as a short lived flop that was highly underrated.

This goy would love to see the Yiddish Fiddler, as I've only seen a terrible community theater production of it (and the movie, several times). I went to the Dolly! tour in SF because, again, I'd never seen a professional production of the show. Loved the production, despite the miscasting of Betty Buckley. I have no interest in Noklahoma! at all, which seems like Too Much Director Not Letting the Show Speak for Itself.

After seeing what they did to [italic]Oklahoma![/italic], I will never say a word against John Huston’s [italic]Annie[/italic] again.

I saw a pretty good Fiddler done by my high school.

Don't need to see it again

The Fiddler I saw in Berlin last December has dwarfed most of my theatergoing experiences of the past twenty years. It was incredible-60 member cast with a symphony orchestra. And the never-ending snow in Act 2 would put La Boheme to shame. There was a questionable framing device involving a 14 year old blond goy with a violin but everything else about it was just so superb.

It’s Berlin, R326. The fact that they even do [italic]Fiddler[/italic] at all there speaks volumes.

Hi Matt.

Incidentally, have they ever done THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK in Germany?

Bye, R328.

[quote]I have worked with Daniel Fish in the past and what his process involves is taking a classic script and asking his collaborators to approach it as if it's never been seen before, not the script nor a production of it. While this was difficult for me (to erase my preconceptions), it's a fascinating approach, as simplistic as it may seem. It really is most successful with young collaborators who have not seen a lot of theater and are more easily open to rethinking everything. I have worked with Daniel Fish in the past and what his process involves is taking a classic script and asking his collaborators to approach it as if it's never been seen before, not the script nor a production of it.

This is great in theory, but when the "rethinking" runs counter to the text and the intentions of the creators, that's when these radical reinterpretations become insufferable.

[quote]I would forgive The Prom all of its weaknesses if it had a score that never rises above slick mediocrity.

Wanna try that again?

[quote]I wonder why ANASTASIA didn't do well on Broadway? Most everyone I know has seen the movie and cherished it as a child.

I never thought of the movie as that popular, but regardless, the Broadway musical is crap. The tone keeps changing wildly from one scene to the next, Caroline O'Connor was appallingly unfunny and overacted shamelessly, and the new role that was played by Ramin Karimloo was an epic fail.

[quote]You really thought the "reinventions" in Porgy and Bess illuminated the story or the characters? I thought they were the work of a self-indulgent and arrogant creative team and did nothing for the story or its characters.

Me too.

[quote]Not previously mentioned as a virtue of the production: the Fyedka is a blonde with a great body, and very tight clothing.

AND a gorgeous face and beautiful singing voice.

[quote]There was a questionable framing device involving a 14 year old blond goy with a violin but everything else about it was just so superb.

The single misstep of the Yiddish FIDDLER is that the onstage fiddler is unaccountably a woman -- although she's a woman made up to look like a man, but not really. Can't imagine why they did that.

"The opera version goes on for fucking ever and remains a mighty bore."

So, so untrue.

"as that show is worthy of being re-discovered as a short lived flop that was highly underrated."

Not really. Neither script nor score work.

"I didn't really enjoy it and there's an ick factor to romanticizing the Romanovs. They were brutal terrible dictators who lived in absurd opulence while people starved and their successors are only marginally better."

People starving is one thing...an underwhelming score is another.

[quote] Incidentally, have they ever done THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK in Germany?

Yes, and it was a German film in 2016.

A lot of the existing [italic]Anastasia[/italic] song lyrics were rewritten; “Paris Holds The Key” used to have a reference to Freud, now gone. The book could be improved by shortening both acts by 10 minutes.

They cut out the following? Why?

♪ Paris holds the key to l'amour!

And not even Freud knows the cure! ♫

After all those raves, OK! has barely gone up at the box office and still isn't selling out the tiny Circle in the Square. The public knows when something is shite, no matter what Ms. Brantley says.

[quote]After all those raves, OK! has barely gone up at the box office and still isn't selling out the tiny Circle in the Square. The public knows when something is shite, no matter what Ms. Brantley says.

I'm really glad to hear that. Hope it's not around long. There are good things in it, including some of the cast, but that director and choreographer deserve the humiliation of a flop.

Any info on Derek Klena? I think he has real cross over movie star potential. So does Aaron Tveit, but his manager is far too possessive and clinging. Sort of like Selena's. Just hope it ends better.

Why, r337. For trying something different? Nobody's forcing you to see it, and audiences may reject it, but I think it's a mistake to trash people for following their creativity.

It's too early to rate Oklahoma's box office progress. Last week they were still heavily comping for press and pr purposes.

R219 reference to Bruce Kimmel made me Google him... I assumed he was gay, but at one time he was married and has a grown daughter.

The Yiddish Fiddler would be an excellent production in English, though the physical production is spare. The Trevor Nunn production has perfect sets and costumes, but really weak choreography and some acting /directorial choices that are wrongheaded and flat out bad. Turns out you can screw things up even with traditional casting.

Wasn't Bruce Kimmel the name of the cute curly-haired actor that was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman?

Tootsie crossed $900,000 last week and they're ready to hang themselves over at The Prom.

Stop trying to make The Prom happen!

It got rave reviews but audiences simply aren't interested.

It could win the Best Musical Tony and audiences still won't be interested.

Tootsie’s gross isn’t that exciting considering they’d make $1,691,592 if it was selling out. Especially a show with that kind of name recognition.

Not that Prom wouldn’t be excited to gross that much.

I think that's the same Bruce Kimmel, r343. At least he used to be a sitcom actor. For a period of time maybe 10-12 years ago he had an active theater website/chat board that I followed briefly. It was very inside baseball with small but devoted and pretty knowledgeable group of denizens. Bruce was the king--he exercised very tight control-- and they were his loyal subjects.

[quote]Any info on Derek Klena? I think he has real cross over movie star potential.

He's gorgeous! Last I heard, he was with JAGGED LITTLE PILL last year when it premiered in Cambridge, Mass. I think that show is coming to Broadway in the fall.

[quote]They cut out the following? Why? ♪ Paris holds the key to l'amour! And not even Freud knows the cure! ♫

Don’t ask me, ask Ahrens and Flaherty. At least they left “Once Upon a December” and “Journey to the Past” alone.

r343 and r347

Bruce Soloman was the actor on Mary Hartman, not Bruce Kimmel.

I saw the Yiddish Fiddler a couple of weeks ago, going to see the London one next week. V interested to compare the two.

I did a theatre trip to Berlin a couple of years ago. Odd. Very odd.

That reminds me, anyone seen the Ben Wishaw thing Katie Mitchell is directing? She’s very influenced by the German school.

Thanks, r350. Kimmel nevertheless was an actor at some point early in his life--I'm thinking the seventies--in sitcom and series TV.

Quinto flashed dick in Angels in America and it was a blink-and-you-miss-it thing, and not due to the duration of the scene but the length of the peen.

"They cut out the following? Why? ♪ Paris holds the key to l'amour! And not even Freud knows the cure!"

Maybe because it makes no sense?

[quote]I did a theatre trip to Berlin a couple of years ago. Odd. Very odd.

Could you elaborate?

R354 I think it makes sense. Isn't Freud known for his work with love and sex-related issues?

Count me in as another fan of the Yiddish Fiddler (and I am a goyische kopf). Best Fiddler production I've seen, and I saw Mostel when he brought it to the admittedly awful cavern the Arie Crown in Chicago in the late 70s. I wouldn't always want to see/hear it in Yiddish, but it was fascinating and moving--and simply a fine production. It inspired me to get the Aleichem stories.

According to Playbill.com, "Oklahoma!" is playing to standing-room-only audiences.

If Paris holds the key to love (presumably meaning the libido/romance/identity find release, satisfaction and acceptance in Paris), then why does it need a cure, r356?

cant wait to see the cher show.....it gunna be a HUGE HIT !

Are any of the recent Broadway shows going to be made for film? I thought someone had said they were making "War Paint" into a film but I don't see who would be interested in that.

SUPER HAPPI BOYS IN BAND GONNA BE ON NETFLIX ...THX NETFLIX !!!!

Ryan Murphy is doing a movie of The Prom.

settle down, r362.

War Paint -- starring G as Elizabeth and M as Helena. Dubbers to your marks!

A Come From Away movie is going to be done.

Will they use the chairs for it, R366? I can see Anne Hathaway in Jen Colella’s role. She’d be less dykey though.

I am looking forward to the the Yiddish Oklahoma.

If Oklahoma is playing to standing room only, why is the actress in the picture at r358 sitting down?

I guarantee you if you saw the opera Porgy and Bess done as it was at the Mark Hellinger by the Houston Grand Opera with Clamma Dale and Donnie Ray Albert it would have been one of the greatest theatrical experiences of your life. I am 100% sure of that.

If you think it's a bore then the only excuse is that they were bad productions.

Good lord, did someone actually say that Porgy and Bess is a bore? (I've scrolled up a bit and can't find a post)

In the professional theater you can't pretend Oklahoma has never been done before. How in the world can you when it's been done constantly for more than 75 years? The director sounds like a complete idiot.

I love chili and cornbread but the smell of it in the theater would be revolting. Like smelling beer and bratwurst at the Sound of Music.

Poor R372. He's so fucking literal.

I bet you get all confused when people in musicals break out into song, don't you?

R373 you have to be the idiot director. And you must do nothing but shit a trail of chili wherever you go.

R319 made the moronic comment about Porgy and Bess and must be R373 because no one else can know so little about the history of Broadway.

The majority of directors claim that they try to look at a script as if it had never been done before. This is not some strange Daniel Fish idiosyncrasy, but a cliche.

Hell, I bet that at the first readthrough Jack O'Brien invited the cast to look at All My Sons to look at the script as if it were a new play never performed before.

Thanks for clarifying, r375. That post responded to mine complaining about the A.R.T. revisions but it wasn't worth pursuing.

[quote]Any info on Derek Klena? I think he has real cross over movie star potential. So does Aaron Tveit, but his manager is far too possessive and clinging.

Whether you love or hate Tveit on stage, he does not have a movie face and he is not a movie actor, as was proven by LES MIZ.

[quote]Nobody's forcing you to see it, and audiences may reject it, but I think it's a mistake to trash people for following their creativity.

First of all, what "creativity" is involved in throwing a bomb into the middle of a classic and calling the result "my interpretation?" And secondly, having ALREADY seen the show, I am entitled to trash it if I think it deserves to be trashed, which I certainly do. Your "nobody is forcing you to see it" argument is childish and nonsensical.

[quote]I guarantee you if you saw the opera Porgy and Bess done as it was at the Mark Hellinger by the Houston Grand Opera with Clamma Dale and Donnie Ray Albert it would have been one of the greatest theatrical experiences of your life. I am 100% sure of that. If you think it's a bore then the only excuse is that they were bad productions.

I agree with you 100 percent, BUT that was not an uncut production of the opera. I'm guesstimating they cut AT LEAST half an hour from the full score, maybe more. I think the Met Opera production was either full-length or close to it. This is is no way meant to be interpreted as an endorsement or even a defense of the most recent Broadway production, which was an abortion.

But was the original Mamoulian production closer in length to the Met's or the Houston Grand Opera's? Simply the size of the Met works against it. Its first production was at the Alvin.

Was Bonnie Franklin really that bad. She doesn't sound like she has a bad voice. No worse than a lot of big Broadway legends. Was she just cunty behind the scenes or something, because I don't find the clips of her performances that bad at all. She seems more full of life than most of the Broadway performers these days.

Don't crucify me, but I kinda wouldn't mind seeing a wildly different, gritty Gypsy. Maybe not as idiotic as Sam Gold's work, but something radically different. We all know a new revival will be announced within a matter of days, so we might as well hope for something a little different.

[quote][R373] you have to be the idiot director. And you must do nothing but shit a trail of chili wherever you go.

Oh my heart. How shall I ever recover from such scathing wit? Noel Coward has serious competition.

*snort*

All this talk about Oklahoma's chili and cornbread makes me realize a dinner theater could have a heck of a time with R&H in their repertoire.

Gypsy hasn't been on Broadway in ten years. Have y'all lost all sense of time?

And Follies is getting close to not being on Broadway for a decade, too. Better fix that soon.

[quote]Was Bonnie Franklin really that bad. She doesn't sound like she has a bad voice

The issue with La Franklin was never her singing (the same might not be said of Linda Lavin) or even her tapping. Ann Romano may have been the most annoying lead character on a sitcom ever. The myriad reasons have been well documented on many a Datalounge thread.

[quote]The majority of directors claim that they try to look at a script as if it had never been done before. This is not some strange Daniel Fish idiosyncrasy, but a cliche.

Oh honey. It's called breathing life into a show. It's called not putting a reanimated corpse onstage with a fresh coat of lipstick.

I can't think of a single person who hasn't done Follies that I would cast in a 2019 version of Follies.

I say this with hesitation because I know the color blind casting enrages so many and I also think it is taken way too far sometimes, but if Gypsy is indeed the Hamlet of female Broadway musicals, it's high time a woman of color played Rose.

Rose Erivo?

R389 Jessica Christ, on;y if Porgy and Bess gets a white production

Didn't Cleo Laine do Porgy and Bess with Mel Torme?

Porgy and Bess needs to be revived with a male actor who really is crippled, and a female actor who's really a drug addict.

Nathan Lane is emotionally crippled. Will that do?

R394 Nathan lane as Porgy is a beautiful and modern idea. why the tickets will fly out the door

I draw the line at Matthew Broderick as Bess. Can Elizabeth Ashley sing?

Ali Stroker as Porgy.

Good lord, r397. What an abomination.

Luann DeLesseps as Bess.

Oh great a film of Come From Away so everyone involved can shamelessly make further bank off the backs of slaughtered 9/11 victims. Charming.

We will remain un-woke until we cast our piscine brethren in the Gershwins-Heyward magnum opus...

[quote]All this talk about Oklahoma's chili and cornbread makes me realize a dinner theater could have a heck of a time with R&H in their repertoire.

I saw an ad for a dinner theater that was doing Sweeney Todd. Seemed somewhat inappropriate, and I hope they didn't serve meat pies.

Was that Houston Grand Opera/Clamma Dale "Porgy" the one that was at Radio City in the early or mid-'80s?

Audra is the only bankable Broadway option for a multicultural GYPSY... J Hud still is too young (technically) and everyone hates Errivo (and she isn't a name).

[quote]But was the original Mamoulian production closer in length to the Met's or the Houston Grand Opera's? Simply the size of the Met works against it. Its first production was at the Alvin.

Much closer to the HGO production, I'm almost positive.

[quote]Oh great a film of Come From Away so everyone involved can shamelessly make further bank off the backs of slaughtered 9/11 victims. Charming.

First of all, COME FROM AWAY is only indirectly about the people who died on on 9/11, and anyway, even if it DID address those deaths directly, what are you saying? Are you saying there should be no non-documentary movies about the Holocaust? Or that ALL money made from those movies should have gone to Jewish charities? You are an idiot who writes a lot of bullshit before even thinking twice about it.

Just back from Tootsie. Loud and forced and it had a mediocre score. Santino is working too hard. The actor and actress in the Bill Murray and Terri Garr roles broke character and cracked each other up at one point as the audience whooped it up and egged them on. The script is pretty funny, but there was no reason to make this a musical.

Everything Scott Ellis touches is loud and forced, even She Loves Me.

Have a gorgeous Fyedka didn’t start with the Yiddish production. Raymond Lovelock, who played Fyedka in the movie of FIDDLER, was also blond and beautiful.

What about The Diary of Anne Frank, which has been making bank off the backs of slaughtered Holocaust victims for sixty years?

R366- If they make Come From Away a film, then they'll need to keep the music and songs as background. We've gone past the "breaking into song" style of musical. They'll also need to ditch the break in the fourth wall because that's obviously not going to work in a film.

I can picture Tom Hanks as Oz Fudge and John Goodman as the mayor. And maybe Cate Blanchett as Beverly Bass.

[quote]Ann Romano may have been the most annoying lead character on a sitcom ever.

We beg to differ.

[quote]the onstage fiddler is unaccountably a woman -- although she's a woman made up to look like a man, but not really. Can't imagine why they did that.

To make her/him fashionably "trans" of course!

She wasn’t the problem. Alan Rafkin’s typical hetero male misogyny was.

"then they'll need to keep the music and songs as background"

One can only hope.

"We've gone past the "breaking into song" style of musical."

No, "we" haven't. But it requires talent, taste and know-how to handle the transition from speech to song, just as it does in a stage musical. And all those qualities are in short supply these days.

[italic]The Boys in the Band[/italic] doesn’t need another movie version, especially not from a sellout hack like Ryan Murphy.

R361, I hadn’t heard that rumor. However, when I saw it, I thought a non-musical film of the story would be quite interesting and engaging.

Replacing Jews with gentiles is always antisemitic. Always.

[quote]The Boys in the Band doesn’t need another movie version

Agreed. It’s such a rotten, regressive play that one was enough.

You don't need to breath new life into a classic or rethink it or do it as if it were never done before. That is incredibly stupid dimwitted thinking. You're just pouring a bad thick lumpy sauce of your own recipe on an excellent dish hiding it revealing nothing.

It just has to be done as written by the great creators superbly and these people can't so they make up bullshit which assholes like the snorting pig R382 roll around in like his own befouled mud.

And if you think these shows are corpses what can one say to such a jawdropping statement?

You, too, can join Andrew Keenan-Bolger and his husband on their vacation trip to Costa Rica! Only $1695 plus airfare!

Mel Torme did a "complete" jazz version of PORGY with Frances Faye, who included "I Loves You Porgy" in her nightclub act (see above). Cleo Laine did her album with Ray Charles.

If you are going to recast Rose as a woman of color, how about taking it in a completely different direction and cast Michelle Yeoh?

Someone needs to write about the trend of failed chorus boys earning a living by marketing their gay marriages on Insta ... if you think AKB is bad, check out Chris Rice

I'm still waiting for "Elephant! The Musical!" to transfer from the West End. And where is "Songbird"? I've been waiting for the musical version of "Sweet Bird of Youth" since they woke the dead with Madeline Ashton!

Nell Carter would have been the perfect Rose for an all-black [italic]Gypsy[/italic], but she’s dead. Who could do it now?

saw E. Faye Butler do Rose in Chicago - and was incredible. It wasn't all black - but she, Louise and June were. And all three were amazing

[quote]saw E. Faye Butler do Rose in Chicago - and was incredible. It wasn't all black - but she, Louise and June were. And all three were amazing

Oy vey. How this woman has managed to have a career has always been a mystery to me. She stinks up a lot of shows in the DC area and plays everything the same way. Her voice is barely there these days.

No need to wait for your all white Porgy and Bess.

I’m still waiting for the all-Inuit [italic]Sound Of Music[/italic].

Coming soon to Anchorage Rep, r430.

What happened to Kevin Cahoon? There was a time it seemed he was always on Broadway.

I really think an all black Carrie: The Musical would work better.

The reviews of "All My Sons" weren't so hot.

[quote] Gypsy hasn't been on Broadway in ten years. Have y'all lost all sense of time?

and I hope it doesn't come back for another 10. Stop the revivals already

[quote] It’s Berlin, [R326]. The fact that they even do Fiddler at all there speaks volumes.

Germany seems to be trying so hard to show it's sorry for the Holocaust.

[quote] That story doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The Gershwin Estate allows for non-black casts outside of the US

R428, um, she sounds great in that video

[quote] You, too, can join Andrew Keenan-Bolger and his husband on their vacation trip to Costa Rica! Only $1695 plus airfare!

That's odd. Why would anyone want to go with them?

Outer Critic's nominations has some surprising omissions. Let the griping/cheering begin!

R439 They probably get the trip for free if the enlist a certain number of people to go with them. You don't have to be a celeb to do this with some travel companies.

[quote] That's odd. Why would anyone want to go with them?

You may not be aware but Andrew Keenan-Bolger has a masters degree in Latin American Studies and is an expert tour guide known throughout Costa Rica.

Or maybe you just want to see him in a bathing suit?

Would the "Come From Away" movie eliminate the multiple roles played by each cast member and just do the traditional "one actor - one role" casting?

According to IG there are only 3 spots left on Andrew Keenan-Bolger's Costa Rican adventure so maybe this is something people want to do.

Costa Rica means Rich Coast

WHET Seth Numrich?

Wow, no Laura Donnelly in the OCC nominations. And Denis Jones got a nomination for his lumbering grade school marking choreography in Tootsie

And, no Jeff Daniels for "Mockingbird"

Whoa, I didn't even notice that. I think I just took it for granted.

Seth Numrich is playing Val Xavier in Orpheus Descending in London this June.

"Head Over Heels" is this year's "Margaritaville", and it ended up getting nominated for Best Musical, just like "Escape" did.

R443- I think they'd have to go the traditional route. It would be too hard to have actors change characters and a film audience wouldn't go for it.

They should get rid of Welcome To The Rock because that's the weakest song. Heave Away should be the original Fables cut and they could still use that in a party scene. Somewhere In The Middle of Nowhere is the catchiest song and they can use that as a background song. The rest of the songs have no place in a film version but they could keep some kind of Celtic background music.

No Jonny Lee Miller for Ink.

Anyone cast in Take Me Out?

Personally despite it's low production values (the sets looked like a high school musical), I enjoyed Head Over Heels immensely more than The Cher Show or Beetlejuice.

R454 Zachary Quinto

I hated Natasha Pierre.... so it seems like Hadestown is more of the same? I especially hated having the "dancers" all up in my face. Does she do that again?

[quote]I'm still waiting for "Elephant! The Musical!"

They really should do a musical of The Tall Guy, the movie that features that musical. It would be hysterical. Nathan Lane for the Rowan Atkinson role. Or hell, Rowan Atkinson for the Rowan Atkinson role.

Seth Numrich gave the best performance of the season in last year's Roundabout production of Travesties and he wasn't even nominated for a Tony.

He is spectacularly talented and hot as hell so he must have a really lousy agent/manager to not be working more on Broadway and in films. But good for London if they get to see him in Orpheus Descending. Does anyone know who's playing Lady opposite him?

I can't imagine how COME FROM AWAY could ever make a good movie. The show is stylized in a way that, I think, completely resists adaptation to film.

[quote]I hated Natasha Pierre.... so it seems like Hadestown is more of the same? I especially hated having the "dancers" all up in my face. Does she do that again?

No, there are no performance spaces in the house for HADESTOWN, and no actors in the aisles (I think maybe with one brief exception). All of the performers remain on the main stage all night.

The issue with a black Rose is that Audra could act it, but her voice is all wrong for the role. Bitch can't belt to save her life and no one wants to hear "Rose's Turn" in head voice. J. Hud could sing the shit out of it, but she can't act to save her life. Errivo could do sing and act it to hell and back, but she's not a name and might be too young (plus, she seems like a major bitch work with). I'm sure there are tons of talented black actresses who could sing it and act it, but they aren't names and I doubt they'd restage Gypsy on Broadway without a name for Rose (unless they cast big names for Louise and/or Herbie).

There is no way I’d pay to see Errivo as Rose. I’m not even sure I’d want a comp.

Guys, C'mon. We all know songbird Laverne Cox is playing Rose. She can't act or sing, but she's a trans woman of color and that's all this new Gypsy needs to stand out and be relevant to the youth.

What about Tonya Pinkens for Black Gypsy?

Or here's an idea: how about no Black Gypsy?

They should do a musical about black Vaudeville. Because black performers were not accepted in the regular circuit due to racism and/or Jim Crow laws, they formed their own Black Circuit. There's a whole history rich with material to mine from right there! I remember PBS did a documentary about it.

Shufffle Along, anyone?

I've been wishing for a real, historically accurate vaudeville revue for ages (black or white). I'd even be happy if they revived Sugar Babies.

It's absurd that Tootsie got an OCC choreographer nomination over Casey Nicholaw or Spencer Liff.

Welcome to show business!

How about Sugar Babies where the "Ann Miller" diva is a subtly flamboyant gay man, and the low comic is a funny lesbian?

Ink has extended again, on the same day they got five nominations (and the same day a big Xmas TV adaptation of the playwright’s last play was announced, someone’s certainly having a good Easter).

Except for the raves, R434.

Spencer Liff directed and choreographed that La Mirada "Singin' in the Rain" mentioned upthread.

There are no funny lesbians, R472.

I would lick Spencer Liff's shitter.

Variety Tootsie review is a rave

R477 do you think he has a butthole?

Another good Tootsie review. Are these people retarded?

Just two more opening nights -- Ink and Beetlejuice.

[quote][R428], um, she sounds great in that video

I suppose if you think that 2-bar phrases and a wobble as wide as the Grand Canyon is "great," then she's great!

R438 is the reason why jukebox shows and movie adaptations rule Broadway.

Agree. She sounds like a late career Liza. Does r438 have hearing loss? He might just be enraptured by her big bazooms?

Some people think showing lots of effort is good performing.

From the Deadline review of TOOTSIE:

[quote]Now, to address that big elephant: A farce based on gender disguise – even one as woke as Tootsie, which addresses (though mostly dismisses) the sticky issue of a man stealing a role from not only a woman but all women – could unwrap its misunderstandings with a simple 21st Century solution never entertained by this musical or its characters. Michael Dorsey is a heterosexual man who chooses, for whatever reason, to present as a woman named Dorothy. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Wait -- what???? In the movie of TOOTSIE, and apparently in the musical as well (I haven't seen it yet), Michael decides to masquerade as a woman so he will get acting jobs NOT because he thinks there are better roles for women, but because he as an actor has gained a reputation in the theater community for being extremely difficult, and he wants to start auditioning in an unrecognizable disguise. So the Deadline critic's simple "solution" to the misunderstandings in the show is incorrect and also completely beside the point, isn't it?

Well, she’s certainly showing a lot of effort!

Bruce Kimmel usually uses his own name professionally but has also occasionally also used the name Guy Haines. Which is funny because as I type this here in NYC, Strangers on a Train is being shown on one of those over the air digital subchannels. See the first trivia point in the IMDB link below.

After the Gershwins and Dubose Heyward finished Porgy and Bess, they received two offers to produce it: one from the Metropolitan Opera and one from the Theatre Guild. Both offers came with restrictions: the Met would do a full production but in blackface with Lawrence Tibbett and Helen Jepson while the Theatre Guild couldn't afford to do a full length, fully orchestrated production but agreed to do it with an all Negro cast.

Gershwin wouldn't consider the Met's offer. But after accepting the Theatre Guild's offer, he had to make substantial cuts and downsize both the cast and the orchestra to fit their budget. The Theatre Guild revived their production in the early 1940s and were able at that time to to include more music and larger forces, though still far from what Gershwin had originally written. This is the production with Todd Duncan that was famously recorded as the original Broadway cast by Decca. Still closer to a musical than the grand opera Gershwin had written but he was satisfied with it.

In the early 1950s, the US State Department sponsored a long running national and international tour that at one point starred the young Leontyne Price and William Warfield. While still having some major cuts, this was the first production that came close to presenting the opera as originally written. The tour caused a major international kerfuffle when the Soviet Union suddenly cancelled a scheduled Moscow appearance because of Cold War politics.

""So the Deadline critic's simple "solution" to the misunderstandings in the show is incorrect and also completely beside the point, isn't it?"

Of course it is. There's one and only one premise: when a man wears a dress, it's funny.

Sorry, I meant Tibbett, not Tibbetts above. Tibbett and Jepson nevertheless recorded highlights from Porgy and Bess conducted by Alexander Smallens, who conducted the original production, even after the proposed Met production fell through. These were the recordings by which Porgy's music first became well known.

Jesse Green is confusing everyone with his hate for All My Sons and love for Tootsie.

At about the same time as that famous international tour of Porgy, Goddard Lieberson made a three disc album of the opera conducted by Lehman Engel. Again, a few major cuts, like that tour, but upon hearing the recording and seeing that tour, music critics and scholars became aware that Gershwin had written a major grand opera, not the "folk opera" he had originally been credited with.

[quote]and the low comic is a funny lesbian?

You rang?

The reviews for Tootsie seem to be almost all very positive. Could it be that the DL NYC theater queens are wrong?

[quote]The Theatre Guild revived their production in the early 1940s ... still closer to a musical than the grand opera Gershwin had written but he was satisfied with it.

Of course, he had been dead for several years at that point, so that probably colored his opinion.

Well, sorry, I meant to say that Gershwin was satisfied with the Theatre Guild's original 1935 production, despite the cuts and downsizing.

[quote] The reviews for Tootsie seem to be almost all very positive. Could it be that the DL NYC theater queens are wrong?

Nope.

Was Gershwin gay? It's been widely rumored over the years. He was considered handsome in his day yet died unmarried in his late 30s. His "girlfriends" if you read his biographies carefully come across more as close friends who were women rather than as "girlfriends." I've lived in Manhattan for well over 40 years and have so often heard that he was gay but it was a carefully protected secret because he was so well loved and respected.

R497 Ask Kitty

Kitty was Gershwin's date to the opening of "Porgy"

[quote]Has anyone noticed the Easter Bonnet Competition has been renamed "Broadway Bonnets?" Apparently now Easter is offensive to the theater SJWs, too.

Uh ... Several people have posted pics of it on FB and they all say “Easter Bonnet” on posters as well as the playbill.

Scott Ellis must be feeling pretty annoyed this morning after reading the NY Times review. 95% of it was a rave but the last 5% was hate for his staging. I didn't think the score was all that great, but I certainly agree that Ellis's staging sucked. I hated what he did to She Loves Me. Why does he keep getting hired? And Rob Ashford, too?

I think the hetero Gershwin had a great fear of commitment or some other kind of psycho-sexual impediment. This may going out on a limb but I think he identified with the crippled Porgy on some level, that the character and story had deeply personal meaning for him, The result was the stupendous magnum opus that is PORGY AND BESS.

There were a lot of interesting family dynamics going on in the Gershwin family. George insisted that brother Ira get a smaller share of royalties from the songs they wrote together. Ira never publicly complained about this, but his wife Leonore (who was apparently quite a piece of work) deeply resented it and disliked George, even though she allowed George to live with her and Ira in Hollywood. She thought that George was a hypochondriac (which he probably was) until the fatal brain tumor that killed him. She must have been dealing with a lot of guilt in the years that followed, and I seem to remember reading somewhere that on her own deathbed she expressed her love for George, not Ira.

"I'd even be happy if they revived Sugar Babies."

Over my dead body!

Hard to imagine it would be over your live body Ms. Miller.

Reading the reviews here of Glenda Jackson's King Lear and I'd like the perspective of someone actually in the biz: I was at a dinner party several months ago and was seated next to an actor, not "famous" but has done Broadway and Off Broadway and many TV shows that film in NY> He was very low key but I recognized him from a Boardwalk Empire episode I had just watched. The subject of King Lear with Glenda Jackson came up and I asked him if was going to try out or try to get in it. He told me he tried to get seen but the casting agent didn't respond to his agents request. He said it was just as well because he did some lucrative television projects instead that he would have had to give up.

Was he lying? Why would a casting agent refuse to see an actor with so many credits? He said he often has to fight to be seen for things and other things just come without any effort. Is this the standard?

My partner insists this is true ( he is peripherally in the biz in advertising) Don't casting agents want to see as many qualified actors as possible especially when something like Lear is going on and (as reported here) many of the performances weren't up to Jackson and Ruth Wilson.

I don't know why this actor would lie about it, he seemed very casual about it all. I think it would kill me to not get the chance to tryout or audition for something I really wanted.

My question is why is it it hard for actors with Broadway movie and tv credits to get an audition for something like that?

They have to do an open call, but very little casting is done from that. Established actors will rarely attend, as it is a sign of weakness and has an extremely low probability of success. Agent submissions are where the real work is done, and the production team is not required to see anyone.

Adele Astaire is quoted as saying in the biography about her and her brother that 'George was not heterosexual. If he was I would have know. But neither was he homosexual. He was neuter.' I guess their term for asexual. And no matter how busy a straight man is he has time for female companionship. He was handsome, rich, famous, respected and from a jewish family. Pushing 40 and not married. And in the 1930s. Something was going on there.

R506 Why do you find this so hard to believe? There are hundreds of agents pushing God knows how many actors for a part and a casting director will decide who will get seen by them and/or the creative team. Even "qualified" actors simply may be deemed wrong for a specific part. Sometimes the cast directors are right; sometimes they're wrong. Beyond that they all have favorites they can't stand personally and/or professionally guiding their choices. See? Just like real life.

R509 here. Sorry. That sentence should have read: Beyond that, they all have favorites as well as others they can't stand personally or professionally with those pre-conceived opinions often guiding their choices.

Okay, but has anyone heard from Phillipa Soo?

R511 She just got a newly premiered tv series on CBS. The Code with Dana Delany.

casting directors work for producers and directors, they don't have as much autonomy as people might think. They have to please the client. Some directors, like George C Wolfe for instance, don't want to see many actors for each role, just a few and have a strong preference for people they have worked with previously. Others are more open. The actor you talked with at the dinner party was much better off doing the money gigs he got on tv rather than being sucked up that dark hole Lear. Nobody other than Jackson and Wilson are going to get any attention from that production.

I saw the original production of Take Me Out 3 times. It's a good play. Really. And I loved Denis O'Hare's performance.

But the 3 act version off Broadway was far superior. And the cuts did not make it a success. Also the actor giving my favorite performance outside of O'Hare didn't move to Broadway. I wondered if he didn't want to do all that full frontal in a major Broadway theater. While not the best looking he certainly was the sexiest and was terrific in a crucial scene. His Broadway replacement had major gayface and voice which killed the whole reason for the character.

Yeah that was a strikingly direct dis of Ellis ... like every single thing about this show is great ... OH EXCEPT WAIT

Does anyone really like Frank Dilella? He's a terrible interviewer and everything about him seems so disingenuous.

[quote]Scott Ellis must be feeling pretty annoyed this morning after reading the NY Times review. 95% of it was a rave but the last 5% was hate for his staging. I didn't think the score was all that great, but I certainly agree that Ellis's staging sucked. I hated what he did to She Loves Me. Why does he keep getting hired? And Rob Ashford, too?

Hard to decide who among those two is less talented as a director. Both are nearly talent-free and just happened to get very, very lucky. I'm guessing maybe it's because they're easygoing in rehearsals, and some producers prefer that to a more demanding and even temperamental director who actually has some talent.

[quote]Does anyone really like Frank Dilella? He's a terrible interviewer and everything about him seems so disingenuous.

I assume some people like him, but I know a lot of people who can't stand him (me included). Just saw an item trumpeting him as an Emmy winner. I wasn't aware of this, and had to look it up: "In 2018, "Frank DiLella accepted the 'Magazine Program' award on behalf of the 'On Stage' team, which included 'In Focus' and 'NY1 Live At Ten' Host Cheryl Wills."

[quote] Uh ... Several people have posted pics of it on FB and they all say “Easter Bonnet” on posters as well as the playbill.

Uh...yes, this was discussed shortly after the original post and already settled.

R514 are you referring to Dominic Fumusa (Nurse Jackie) and David Eigenberg (Sex and the City)?

Yes definitely Fumosa now that I look at his picture. Do you know the story why he didn't come to Broadway with the show?

And yes Eigenberg was his replacement. Looked at his photos and he has gayface. Seems though he's straight. Nowhere near the masculine aura Fumosa had.

If you watch any artist who is reasonably intelligent looks bewildered and at times annoyed by Frank Dilella. Didn't he elbow his way into NY1 and then ruin On Stage?

Eigenberg has a babyvoice. I don't think I ever heard that on a man before. It was jarring at first on SEX AND THE CITY.

R520 I couldn't tell you. I've been wanting to find out, too. This snippet is all I could find so far:

[quote]Dominic Fumusa (Tape and [sic]) won't make the leap to the Kerr; the role is being recast. Fumusa played Toddy Koovitz, one of the macho ballplayers on a Yankees-like team surprised when the star player comes out of the closet in an incident-packed season.

[quote]Also the actor giving my favorite performance outside of O'Hare didn't move to Broadway. I wondered if he didn't want to do all that full frontal in a major Broadway theater.

I do't think he had a problem with nudity. This is what he had to say at the time about being fully naked on stage:

[quote]“It’s a little weird,” he said. “At the same time, there’s something really liberating and freeing about it. You’re on stage naked, looking at a 65-year-old woman and they’re probably a little wigged out. I guess that’s not a bad thing.”

Is Disney deciding between Hercules (Central Park this summer) and Beauty and the Beast (Papermill this summer) as their next bet for Broadway? Anyone have insider knowledge?

Beauty and the Beast is coming back to Broadway?

If I looked like Fumosa(which sadly I do not) I'd find being naked on stage liberating as well.

Annie's wigs exist somewhere. Probably on some 90 year old drag queen who only taps now by accident.

I wonder where Beauty and the Beast will go? The Palace is still out of commission. The Lion King will probably have the Minskoff for eternity. The New Amsterdam or the St. James? With either Aladdin or Frozen closing and the second show moving to the remaining location? Or is there a fourth place I haven't even thought of?

They shouldn't have closed BatB last decade to make room for Little Mermaid. I remember at the time Disney didn't want two princesses on Broadway for whatever reason. But Mermaid flopped. BatB probably would've been still running had it not closed and would have the distinction of being the longest-running American show on Broadway instead of the Chicago revival.

[quote]some 90 year old drag queen who only taps now by accident.

There's a show in there somewhere.

It just feels like BatB is the SAFE option if they need to replace Aladdin or Frozen, and there's a chance that Hercules could turn out really well and be a diverse hit that Disney needs, but they aren't sure, so they'll test it this summer... just prognostication

[quote] there's a chance that Hercules could turn out really well

I wouldn't bank on that given their track record.

Whose track record?

[quote] Or here's an idea: how about no Black Gypsy?

Or here's an idea: No more fucking Gypsys at all.

Wasn't Disney working on a Hunchback of Notre Dame for stage? What happened?

How about a black Hercules with gender identity issue+daddy issue?

R537 If they did "Hunchback of Notre Dame" it would be great if they contributed a percentage of receipts to renovate the real Notre Dame. Good publicity, but otherwise it would look kind of heartless if they didn't.

How do cast members of "Take Me Out" and also "Naked Boys Singing" feel when they discover there are photos of the former and also at least one long video clip surreptitiously taken from a later performance, and they are on-line?

of that latter, regarding the video

Here's what Daniel Sunjata had to say about being nude:

[quote]“The worst part was appearing naked on stage in front of strangers every day, and having people take illegal pictures of you that appear places that you wish they wouldn’t,“ says Rescue Me’s Daniel Sunjata, who did the full monty for the gay baseball play, Take Me Out, that won the 2003 Tony Award. How did Sunjata prepare? “A lot of chicken, fish, fruits, vegetables, water, and gym time!” he says. “And when it comes time to strip down, you just try to focus on the other characters in the scene and forget that people are watching you, and get on with it.” Still, despite some reluctance, the actor says he didn’t hesitate for a minute to take the part in what he calls a “brilliant” play. “I don’t even like taking off my shirt on Rescue Me,” he says. “But I don’t know how [playwright] Richard Greenberg could have communicated the underpinnings of how a homoerotic presence changes the dynamic of a machismo environment like the locker room, the last bastion of sanctioned homophobia. How could you show that without showing guys changing their clothes in front of each other? There were ten minutes of nudity in a two-hour play, but they were necessary.”

[quote]He was honored with a Theatre World Award and nominations for the Tony and Outer Circle Critics Awards for his role as Darren Lemming in Richard Greenberg's Tony-winning Take Me Out. "It was the first time that I read a part for a person of mixed race — and I happened to fit the bill." Did the nudity required for shower scenes give Sunjata any pause? "It didn't cross my mind until after I read the script. Then I thought, 'Oh, gee, I guess I'm going to have to be naked.' But [Greenberg] had delivered such a solid piece of art that nudity wasn't gratuitous. Without nudity, I don't think Richard would have been able to underscore and illuminate the play's homophobic, homoerotic elements. "But it did take some getting used to. From the first performance to the last, I was always self-conscious during the seconds preceding disrobing: Oh, God, I have to get naked. But there is the cliché that being nude in front of a group of people is kind of a liberating experience. I would say it was simultaneously liberating and unnerving. I'm now trying to keep my clothes on, as much as possible."

Ken Kercheval is dead to us.....at 83.

Disney on Broadway, A Recap

Opens Beauty

Opens Lion King and forever changes Broadway...

Opens Aida, it's not great, but Adam Pascal is hawt..

Opens Tarzan, it's REALLY not great but Josh "I'm not on a gay sex app" Strickland is v. hawt and Thomas Shumacher def does not touch the merch...

Closes Beauty to open Little Mermaid which is awful and features fucking healies...

Gets strong-armed by Alan Menken to let Newsies come to the stage, where it is actually some what successful...

Opens Aladdin which no one thinks is particularly bad, but no one thinks is particularly good...

And now we have Frozen which it seems no one wants to admit is another Disney shit show...

Now back to Beauty and the Beast?

You left out Mary Poppins, a coproduction with Sir Cameron.

And are we sure Thomas never touched the jungle man? Did they really only go loincloth shopping together?

Assuming the next thread starts after the consensus on INK is reached, I propose "One Day More (of 2018-19) as the next thread title.

[quote]Is Disney deciding between Hercules (Central Park this summer) and Beauty and the Beast (Papermill this summer) as their next bet for Broadway?

And are they going to stick with their announced plan that they will only consider African-American actors for the role of Hercules? I'd think that would have to be illegal and would leave them wide open to a lawsuit if any non-black actors had the nerve to file one.

[quote] And are we sure Thomas never touched the jungle man? Did they really only go loincloth shopping together?

I believe he took a break from fucking Andrew Rannnell's tallest BF ever to vehemently deny any impropriety during his time in the loin cloth.

The thing to realize about the new Beauty and the Beast revival is that they are planning to use the original director and choreographer. So Rob Roth And Matt West fans should rejoice!

That original Beauty and the Beast was like a Disney on Ice production, with none of the theatrical ingenuity that Taymor brought to Lion King. Why in the world wouldn’t they rethink it?

Disney is giving 5 million to Notre Dame. Which is pocket change to Iger personally considering his salary plus bonus. But everybody is giving a ton of money so why bother. They should give it to employees who have to seek help from social services to survive.

If you had to have one, would you rather Disney do Snow White on Broadway or Sleeping Beauty on Broadway? They're obviously never going to be able to do Cinderella and they'd be asking for it many times over with Pocahontas.

They should do Bedpans and Bloomers.

It would make at least one person happy.

I cringe to think how they would do the 7 dwarves (or is it dwarfs?). Children? Puppets? Adults like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

Radio City did Snow White decades ago. I think it's on vhs tape.

Dwarfs are very upsetting.

Small children are afraid of dwarfs, for some reason. There would be panic in the theatre.

[quote]Radio City did Snow White decades ago.

So did I.

MULAN onstage would seem a wise business decision for Disney, especially to tap into the ever elusive Asian theatrical market... but, the movie score is barely there and they really fucked up by not using Stephen Schwartz's original score so they'd have to either use the lame original composer or find someone new. I would love to know the whole story about all that. I guess Schwartz wasn't that pissed off at them since he did ENCHANTED after that fracas, but it's gotta sting to be the most successful American musical theatre songwriter and get fired only to be replaced by a nobody with even weaker material.

Who among us here have NOT experienced this?

BTW Here are Schwartz's diplomatic thoughts on the MULAN situation... I wonder what the real reason he was fired really was, though.

"If you had to have one, would you rather Disney do Snow White on Broadway or Sleeping Beauty on Broadway? They're obviously never going to be able to do Cinderella and they'd be asking for it many times over with Pocahontas."

How about an ADULT show with ADULT themes and an ADULT score?

R563 must be some kind of radical.

We tried that, R563. It was meh.

What does R563 want? The Life? Oh Calcutta!?

A corporation that backs musicals wants something that has a good chance of running for decades. Even a Dolly or Fiddler run today would be considered a disappointment.

Just felt like listening to this.....

Hey Disney! Are you listening? How about "Song of the South" with book by Jeremy O. Harris and direction by Robert O'Hara? Zip-a-dee-do-dah ya believe the line outside the box office?!

[quote]the most successful American musical theatre songwriter

I’m guessing you meant “living” American musical theatre songwriter, but I’m not even sure that’s right. Jerry Herman, Kander & Ebb and Sondheim have probably made more money and have created more successful (and respected) shows.

R548 is that true? They can't be that tone-deaf, can they?

R556 are you referring to this? I found this on YouTube a few months back. It's actually pretty good.

r560 and r569, I guess it depends on how you define "successful." Schwartz may have made as much as (or even more than) the others (well, maybe not Herman), and he's had some major commercial successes. But Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, and even Jerry Herman have achieved legendary status--I don't think you can put a $$ amount on that.

Schwartz has Wicked (mega-hit) and Pippin and Godspell (hits with probably lots of regional). I don’t think that begins to compare with all the hits the others have had.

[quote]And if you think these shows are corpses what can one say to such a jawdropping statement?

Oh do tell, what can one say? One could say one has a distinct taste for necrophilia. Could not one.

I've sat through enough reanimated corpses for a lifetime. Anybody who regularly watches NY theatre has. For those ticket prices theatre should aspire to being more exciting than staged television or remounting the exact same fucking sawhorse for the 12,932nd time.

Peter Brook said that theatre is like the human body - the differences between a live body and a dead corpse are subtle but quite important. Any given moment on stage either contains a spark of life or it...doesn't. Shame you can't tell the difference.

I will be available to play Pocahontas!

Broadway musicals are now being written for the USA Today crowd.

"What does [R563] want?...A corporation that backs musicals wants something that has a good chance of running for decades. Even a Dolly or Fiddler run today would be considered a disappointment."

How about entertainment with an idea, r566? Or is the dumbing down and infantilization of culture acceptable, as long as corporations turn a profit?

R544 Beauty and the Beast deserves more credit than that. It was a game-changer. If Beauty had flopped, we wouldn't have had a Lion King.

Unless Disney does some brilliant re-think of the "little people"/dwarves (making them not all male, for all a start, and giving them their own storylines), a stage version of SNOW WHITE is doomed from the start. More important, charming as Snow may be, she is not a feminist heroine for these times. Major rewrite needed.

You may not care for any of this, but ticketbuyers, ie, parents of young girls, care very much about this sort of thing. Times change.

PS: Sleeping Beauty isn't a lot better, BTW. But at least there's no magical dwarf fetishization going on.

[quote]Unless Disney does some brilliant re-think of the "little people"/dwarves (making them not all male, for all a start,

No! No! No! The dwarfs have to be male. It's the only way the story works.

R580 you sound like an SJW. "Magical dwarf fetishization"? That's what you got from the movie?

Not a SJW at all. I do have lots of friends with young children, and they're theatregoers.

And I suspect little people (preferred term, I believe) would have strong feelings about the Seven Dwarfs.

I think the classic Disney film is charming. But it would be a mistake to recreate it onstage as is.

No Prince Charming can kiss Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, lest he be arrested for sexual imposition.

Well, an unconscious woman can't really give consent, now can she?

Okay, scratch Snow White and Sleeping Beauty too, I suppose. And Cinderella, who is an enslaved person.

Cinderella is an oppressed but proud and resourceful POC (Person of Cinders).

FIRST MIDNIGHT!

How NOT to cast MULAN.

Can anyone name a musical that an SJW wouldn't find offensive?

So I guess we move onto Pinocchio, or Robin Hood ...

I'm a SJW (Spiritual Justice Warrior) and demand fairy and folk tales be interpreted as the moral and religious allegories they were designed to be.

Robin Hood was a SJW in his day.

And he always struck me as.... well, kinda non-binary.

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

Is thread 353 ready to go?

How fucking old are the people on this thread? You all sound pathetically out of touch. Thank god the world is starting to outgrow your limited perspective.

Tick-tock....

THIRD MIDNIGHT approaches...

574 If you think these are corpses why the fuck do you go see them? Don't go to see these musicals. What are we supposed to do? Applaud your stupidity? If you want dropping cowboy boots and splattered blood I'm sure you can write your own musical and horseshoe that shit in. I've seen great productions of Oklahoma and they've been done as written and why don't you just say a person who loves a great old movie is a necrophiliac?

Really your stupidity IS jawdropping.

I cannot tell a lie....

Bring Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet to Broadway!

FOLLIES!

351 or 353?