THEATRE GOSSIP #395 - What is It That We’re Living For Edition

Can you imagine what a fraught, tense atmosphere it must be to work with Pinkins?

According to Pinkins, "White people don’t have to be smart or talented or experienced."

^^ What a bitch.

Dolores looked a million dollars with the up-do. Less so in that bar scene.

Pinkins was laughably bad in Fear the Walking Dead.

Great title, OP.

Love the title, OP. I loved the part in Pinkins' article where she talked about how difficult it is to be so intelligent and how she rarely gets to interact with anyone who matches her intellect.

Also how only the cream of the crop, the smartest and most intellectual, of the black race exists today because they had to survive slavery. But white people didn't have to go through anything like that so there are just a bunch of talentless, mediocre, stupid white people left in the world today.

Very enlightening.

TYTA

I love John Wilson. Thanks, r8. "Strange how potent cheap music is."

"Or like the Todd Haines play “Maxx and Emma” at The Flea Theater where Haines took the news story about the Latinx women who murdered the kids she was nanny for and turned her into a Black woman. I turned that role down."

I think Ms Pinkins meant Todd Haynes, not Haines. Except Todd Haynes didn't direct and write Maxx and Emma. Todd Solondz did. Maybe white, gay, film-making Todds look the same to her. ( But they're different. Just as black actresses are.)

Who does this Tony Pinkins think they are?

I've known Tonya for nearly 20 years. Her psychiatric challenges are widely known and she has spoken about them. Her life has often been in considerable disarray. The incoherence of this piece makes me wonder if she's taking the right care of herself.

Unfortunately, the link for the AMND led to a 404 page. Oh, well. Thanks for trying, anyway.

I owe my career to Tonya. Back in 2004, my agent had left the business and I had nothing going. No auditions. Nothing. I took free seminar from Tonya at AEA and I won a drawing to take her weekend retreat at the Public a month later. It was called the Actorpreneur Attitude. It challenged my life. We did things like breaking boards of wood and an exercise in which she asked to bring a $100 bill and then burn it in this lights out ritual but then she flicked out the lights before we did it and asked why the fuck we were going to go along with it . I came out of that retreat on FIRE. Everything was possible. Two months later, I booked the biggest role of my life in a world premiere production of a new musical opposite an Oscar winning actress. Then, I did a specific mantra while doing various physical exercises every day. The mantra was "There is a large enough audience that wants what I have to offer and will make me rich." I never had believed that before I started doing these exercises. I moved to LA the morning after the musical closed. I auditioned for a pilot 3 days later and booked it. I had a series regular role on a successful TV series for 3 years. Thank you Tonya!

That's a nice, uplifting story.

I think black people are going to start losing a lot of goodwill, but not from whites. I'm Latino and some of the Latinos and Asians I know are getting fed up with black people always playing the race card and feeling entitled to awards/accolades without earning them. It's gotten really out of hand the past 4 years or so.

Only in a DL theater thread could you find as asinine an observation as R16’s. 🙄

I think R16 is merely stating what has come to be : in the US, diversity = black. Period.

Thanks to the person in the last thread who posted the London "Merrily We Roll Along."

I still don't like the show. For me, Act 1 is deadly dull. And I think every attempt to fix it makes it worse. The song they have Gussie sing in Act 1 is a slog. And I think it's wrong to have Beth sing "Not A Day Goes By." It doesn't even make sense. We've just met her and suddenly we're hit with a tearful ballad (and one of the better songs in the show). Plus, it takes away a level of Franklin in that when he sings it, we can see he's not an insensitive jerk and that he truly does love her.

The problem with these fixes is that they've beefed up the material for Gussie and Beth. But that's not the correct choice. The show seems to be about the lives of Franklin, Charley and Mary, for at the end of the show those are the three characters we're left with. By beefing up Franklin's wives, the show becomes solely about Franklin. Charley and Mary become sidekicks along with Gussie and Beth.

What was going on in Sondheim's life that the music is so sub-par? He had just come off an extremely successful decade music-wise with Company, Follies, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd, all which produced excellent music and won him Tony Awards.

In the revised version, Gussie's music brings the whole score together in some interesting ways. She is the one who sings that sort of sinuous chromatic melody that is a major part of the Overture (the part that the saxes and trumpets play after the drum solo about 15 seconds into it). In "Growing Up," it's the melody when she sings "Life is knowing what you want, darling...". That same melody is heard over and over in the orchestrations. It's in that buzzing synthesizer in "Franklin Shepard, Inc.," and when the friends are fighting in "Old Friends." I think that Gussie music represents Franklin selling out to commercial interest, rather than his original artistic inspiration and her theme is always undermining everything. Also, the main melody of "Growing Up" is the same melody as "The Blob" (cut from the show in 1981, and added back into the revised version).

I also had some issues when "Not a Day Goes By" was reassigned to Beth, but now I respond to it, since it contrasts so well with the Act 2 version with its youthful hopeful innocence (and Mary's unrequited love for Frank). The original Act 1 Frank version really doesn't have a lot of dramatic heft. I don't know how newbies to Merrily feel about its effectiveness. It has been a show that I've followed for so many years that I can't be entirely objective about it.

I won't try to sell you on a show you don't like, R19. But I feel there are musicals that have succeeded on a lot less.

[quote]It has been a show that I've followed for so many years

Thoughts and prayers!

r20, I have listened to the OCR hundreds of times (and saw the original production the day before it closed) and I never noticed how often that motif is repeated. Thanks!

No, R18. R16 is a racist, full stop.

Was Roller Skate Rag the original roller skating number in the stage version (that they cut)?

No, the cut number that inspired the logo was "I Did It On Roller Skates (and I Can't Wait to Do It On Skis)."

I can't wait to do it on a pogo stick.

When history writes COVID and BLM and Broadway, they'll mark the death of an empire.

[quote]Opening in 2021 at the Pinkins!

Or as we insiders will undoubtedly call it, "The Pink."

[quote]What was going on in Sondheim's life that the music is so sub-par?

I think "Merrily" is one of his best scores. I love just about every song. The book is meh, but I'll still go see any production I can just to hear the songs. (I've seen it at least six times -- all community and regional theater.)

Agree, r29. It's a wonderful score. The book is really not fixable. I've seen the original--awful but so vibrant and emotional--as well as a revisal at Arena Stage in DC and the recent Fiasco production, and film of a couple others. The score is strong enough to survive all the tinkering with the book, but no amount of revision can help there.

I refuse to believe Broadway won't bounce back after a little time. It's survived so much before this.

I believe it will bounce back also, R31. It may take a while -- perhaps even a year or more -- but it will be back.

Is Andy Karl the king of screen to stage musicals?

Saturday Night Fever

The Wedding Singer

Legally Blonde

9 To 5

Rocky

Groundhog Day

Pretty Woman: The Musical

I love that story about the Merrily overture striking up as part of a benefit concert on one of the nights the original London FOLLIES was dark, and Dolores Gray exclaiming "That's Broadway" to the young un's around her.

Lungs - The first socially distanced piece of theatre. With Matt Smith and Claire Foy.

Mood Music - more socially distanced theatre.

R33, it's pretty hard not to be the king of screen to stage musicals when that is about all that gets created any more, unless it's...even worse...a jukebox show.

Fleabag - easy to do socially distanced theatre.

For some reason I thought you all would appreciate this

r33 I guess Andy just wasn't right for Tootsie.

Actually, r20, Beth did sing NOT A DAY GOES BY originally until they gave it to Frank late in previews. (I saw it and remember the audience was trying to figure out who the hell was singing.) It went back to Beth in the next major production (the first with adults) where Marin Mazzie sang it. Not sure after that...

I pass my title of Floperetta Queen to Mr. Karl, r33.

I think the original intention of the authors (or maybe just Sondheim) to give "Not A Day Goes By" to Beth makes sense. It's a gorgeous sad and angry song that expresses what Beth is going through at this point in the story. It makes no sense to give it to Frank, who is a shit at this same point in the show. The problem, and this is the big problem with the show, is that this character of Beth arrives almost out of nowhere and sings this searing song of anger and frustration, but she hasn't earned any sympathy or understanding from the audience at this point. As much as I love the song, and I especially love Mary's reprise in the wedding scene, it just doesn't work in the first act. MAYBE if we knew more about Beth, but I doubt even that would work.

Thought this thread was referring to Pia Zadora before it got serious.

Any idea why the National Theatre At Home streaming series is ending after next week's Amadeus? It's not like they've exhausted their library of shows to stream. Is it a copyright and/or unions issue? I've watched all or some of each play so far and would happily throw some money their way (just for that Midsummer Night's Dream alone) if they hadn't limited donations to UK viewers only.

Many, many thanks to our NT poster for Follies and The Habit of Art, but I'd love for NTL to stream those, too. And Present Laughter and Cyrano, as well, pleaseandthankyou.

R45 Unless the NT release it, Pesent Laughter is 'lost'.

Cyrano Act One.

Cyrano - Act two.

Of course “Not A Day Goes By” makes sense. The story is being told in reverse!

Debating "Hamilton" as It Shifts from Stage to Screen:

Review: Covid Responders Have Their Harrowing Say in "The Line":

R43, have you considered that an angry song seemingly coming out of nowhere might be exactly what was needed? We often encounter people in unflattering situations, without the benefit of context that might make perfect sense of their response. It’s a jarring moment, but one that pays off when it is “reprised” in the second act.

I wonder how jarring is it, really. You've heard that Frank is in divorce court. When Beth appears, what is she meant to sing? "It's De-Lovely"? What works for me in the Act 1 "Not a Day Goes By" is that the song's expressive and yearning melody is coupled to a bitter lyric and delivery, and it creates a dramatic tension, even if you don't know anything about Beth at that point. Because it is so melodic, I think you quickly get the point that there was love there once, but a lot of shit went down and now it's gone.

R51 I agree with you that it should work, but having Beth sing that song in the first act did not work in the original production, which is why they (unwisely, I think) shifted it to Frank. It’s one of my favorite Sondheim songs, but it’s difficult to make it work in the first act.

But with the whole show, you get the ugliness up front and the dramatic and emotional impact in the second act when you realize how lovely they were as young adults. I found that very moving.

And I think the problem of giving the song to Beth in the first act was just that she (Sally something) wasn't a strong singer/performer.

WHY was the previous thread allowed to lumber along for over a week at the rate of one or two posts a day by the People who Paid? They are the ones with all the power to finish off a thread when it gets paywalled. But nuthin'!

That torture did not have to happen. People who Pay, when the place grinds to a halt, just know that Muriel did it. Step up and do your duty! If you don't, there are people and productions that will go un-dished for days and days. It's not right, and you folks are the ones with the power to stop it.

Thank you.

"In the revised version, Gussie's music brings the whole score together in some interesting ways. She is the one who sings that sort of sinuous chromatic melody that is a major part of the Overture (the part that the saxes and trumpets play after the drum solo about 15 seconds into it). In "Growing Up," it's the melody when she sings "Life is knowing what you want, darling...". That same melody is heard over and over in the orchestrations. It's in that buzzing synthesizer in "Franklin Shepard, Inc.," and when the friends are fighting in "Old Friends." I think that Gussie music represents Franklin selling out to commercial interest, rather than his original artistic inspiration and her theme is always undermining everything. Also, the main melody of "Growing Up" is the same melody as "The Blob" (cut from the show in 1981, and added back into the revised version)"

And it all couldn't matter less.

How rude and stupid you are, r56. That was an intelligent and interesting comment; it doesn't have to be to your liking.

This "We see you, white American theater" document is absurd. From the "demands": "The coalition, known as We See You, White American Theater, calls for what would be a massive shift in employment demographics in which BIPOC workers would make up “the majority of writers, directors and designers onstage for the foreseeable future.” Nonprofit theater companies should staff a BIPOC majority of leadership, middle management and literary departments." They also want to tell IATSE how to do business? (Good luck). And they want tech weeks to be easier and less hours. Are people actually taking these insane "demands" seriously?

[quote]Are people actually taking these insane "demands" seriously?

With 'rona closing down Broadway and many other theater companies until 2021, I doubt it.

I think the poster was implying that the score is shit so "Gussie bringing it together" couldn't matter less.

[quote]People who Pay...

... owe you absolutely nothing.

Beth is about to go into divorce court. Why would she sing the following:

[quote]But you're somewhere a part of my life

[quote]And it looks like you'll stay

She wants to divorce him, so it doesn't look like he'll stay.

So literal. In her heart.

R62 really?

So is MERRILY this thread's APPLAUSE? Just trying to keep up.

I was shut out of the (seemingly endless) finish of the last thread. Did we ever get around to discussing Bernadette's BWAY CARES Concert? From 2009, was it? Bernie is so lovable, so well-meaning, so open-hearted (not one, but 2 musical numbers featuring dogs up for adoption), that I feel like the Grinch, but I'll say it....

The voice is not what it once was, or even close. She looked fabulous, and was charming, but....

The magic in her voice is long, long gone. She's just one more Bway legend (hello PattiLu) whose glory days were decades ago. Several long decades ago.

The real problem with the revisions to MWRA is the removal of the graduation bookends.

You are absolutely right, r66. Of all the "fixes," that was the worst (and none of them improved the show).

[quote]The real problem with the revisions to MWRA is the removal of the graduation bookends.

I dunno. I sort of like the show ending with "Our Time."

[quote]The real problem with the revisions to MWRA is the removal of the graduation bookends.

I agree. I love the graduation bookends. For one thing, at the start of the show, they provided a context for the song "Merrily We Roll Along." The first time I saw a production, at the Kennedy Center in 2002, people started appearing on stage singing "Merrily We Roll Along." I thought, "Oh, they're singing the opening number." I thought it really got the show off to a weak start. Then came the terrible "That Frank," which didn't help matters any. Through all the revisions, I kept waiting for the graduation bookends to be restored, and was sorry that it never happened.

The bookend works great on the recording, but not so much in performance. The ending of Our Time is far more powerful than returning to another actor playing Frank, with the younger selves onstage but not in the roles we have seen them play all evening. That said, r69 is right that the beginning then makes zero sense. That Kennedy Center production had many problems, but the bisexual papi was amazing without even showing his feets.

The hills of tomorrow....

Well, that was lugubrious r71.

R39 - that was cute. I know that since she's only in her 30s, she can only play ingenues, but any thoughts on what roles you'd dreamcast CZJ in if she ever came back to Broadway? I feel like she's one of the few people who could headline Kiss of the Spiderwoman and make it work. A triple threat with the requisite touch of sexiness and glamour and an above the title name. No, not a massive star, but still, bigger than most theatre triple threats.

R73 Annie.

Anytime Annie, R73?

R70 one of the Bacalll roles from the last Thread. Too bad the shows aren’t better.

I meant r73

Did any of you see the Bus and Truck of SEESAW? John Raitt and Liz Torres. Tommy Tune started with the show and was replaced at some point by Ron Kurowski. The National Tour with Lucie Arnaz, John Gavin, and Tommy Tune was heavenly, but I've always wondered about that B&T.

Our Rosalie Craig has been doing quite well since Company. She's appeared in episodes of Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders and Father Brown.

[quote]but any thoughts on what roles you'd dreamcast CZJ in if she ever came back to Broadway?

Mame. But in today's climate, they'll never revive that show.

[quote]Mame. But in today's climate, they'll never revive that show.

Glory Hallelujah!

[quote]I also had some issues when "Not a Day Goes By" was reassigned to Beth, but now I respond to it, since it contrasts so well with the Act 2 version with its youthful hopeful innocence (and Mary's unrequited love for Frank). The original Act 1 Frank version really doesn't have a lot of dramatic heft. I

The Beth version of "Not a Day Goes By" may work well in retrospect after you've seen the Act II version, but do you really think the Act I version has LESS dramatic heft when Frank sings it than when it's sung by Beth, a character we have met for the first time just a few moments earlier? This issue is part and parcel of the general difficulty in coherently telling the story backwards.

[quote]I think the original intention of the authors (or maybe just Sondheim) to give "Not A Day Goes By" to Beth makes sense. It's a gorgeous sad and angry song that expresses what Beth is going through at this point in the story. It makes no sense to give it to Frank, who is a shit at this same point in the show.

That's exactly why it's good to have Frank sing the song in Act I. It helps humanize him. Do you think he's so much of a monster by that point that he can't be very sad over the end of his marriage?

Technically, if you're telling a story backwards, like Merrily We Roll Along, can you reprise songs? Not A Day Goes By is reprised in Act 2, but technically that would be the first time the characters sing it. So it's not a reprise, is it?

That's been a problem all along, r83, but since the show goes backwards, it's usually not convincingly explained away.

I saw the original all those years ago during the last week of previews and we in my group were all so upset at how bad it was. It was the latest Sondheim/Prince musical so we were expecting something interesting if imperfect but not the visual and dramatic mess that was thrust upon us despite a few fine Sondheim tunes. We liked some of the songs but the whole thing was just so -- awful.

I agree with the posters above who say that the omission of The Hills of Tomorrow from all the revisals is a mistake.

It's Time! Stephen Sondheim Could Achieve EGOT Status with "Take Me to the World":

An Emmy because other people sang your at least 25 to 60 year old songs to pay tribute to you? That's pretty dumb in my mind. He's still great without an EGOT.

You know whose career Andy Karl is having?

Nanette Fabray's.

Great notices, lots talent and numerous leading roles.... in flop shows.

Watching the original Bway cast of INTO THE WOODS (the version they taped for PBS). It's fun. But I have as many questions as answers!

To begin:

Why does the Big Bad Wolf have a penis? A fully exposed, fully articulated penis is part of his costume. It makes the scenes with Little Red really fucking creepy.

Sorry, but this is the best image I could find.

Try listening to the lyrics, R88. What the Wolf sings about is pretty fucking creepy.

Wait. Was this edited for the PBS and Bravo (remember when Bravo was an ARTS channel) broadcast? I probably haven't watched the full Into the Woods production since I was in middle school, but I feel like I'd remember seeing that wolf D flapping around.

MWRA is the new Follies. Sondheimites, you're out of control!

R90 Turn in your gay card.

R90 The show was taped in May 1989 during the end of its run for PBS's American Playhouse, but it didn't air until March 1991. And, yes, the dong was there in all its glory.

[quote]R39 “What Catherine Zeta-Jones Can’t Live Without“

Her anti psychotic meds?

Nanette did have a hit show in "HIgh Button Shoes" and her Tony winning show "Love Life" played about a year; it unfortunately just wasn't recorded due to a recording strike. Unlucky show, the Encores revival was cancelled because of the pandemic.

Have we become so prudish that people take offense at a wolf's fake dong in a musical?I don't recall people being offended/disgusted until fairly recently.

The trouble with the wolf dong is that I find myself staring at it the entire number.

[quote]You know whose career Andy Karl is having? Nanette Fabray's.

I know who I would rather see in a jock.

Really? “Not A Day Goes By” is a perfect song in its place as Beth’s soliloquy after the divorce scene. It establishes her as a broken part of Frank’s wheel of destruction, yet the one with his son (Not Mary!). She’s not a part of him anymore but he will always “stay” because of their child together and her love for him. And maybe there’s some of Frank in it all, too.

FOLLIES!

I'd totally forgotten about the Wolf's dick. ITW has become such a staple of community theatres and schools, it's sometimes easy to forget that when it first opened, it was squarely aimed at an adult audience.

Andy Karl would be good as the Wolf. Including the cock.

That cock got a lot of press when the show opened. It was much discussed.

[quote] Technically, if you're telling a story backwards, like Merrily We Roll Along, can you reprise songs? Not A Day Goes By is reprised in Act 2, but technically that would be the first time the characters sing it. So it's not a reprise, is it?

Structurally, the first act “NaDGB” is a reprise of the second act one. The second act one sets up the song as a sweet love song, then the first act one rips it apart into bitterness.

We just don’t experience them in that order.

Erase that. I had the song placement backwards.

R18 Latinos are the biggest minority in the USA and yet we're underrepresented compared to blacks.

PBS's Broadway At Home schedule.

R87-Next, Andy will be playing Mary's mother in the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" reboot.

Well, they did a "One Day At a Time" reboot and he wasn't invited.

[R88]: When I saw the original ITW in previews in 1987, the wolf had a cock, which added a distinctly adult element to his scenes, and was very effective. ITW was.never meant to be a kids show. Predictably, the cock was removed from later productions, either altogether, or giving the wolf pants, like the Disney character.

I appreciated the original notion, but considered he’d be more wolf-like if he showed a wolf cock, which wouldn’t hang, but be concealed. The balls could still dangle.

But, like the notorious Ken doll, producers feel safer if male genitalia are either invisible, or disappeared. And there you have a basic American conundrum. Males in public are not allowed to be seen as obviously male.

But I digress...

I don't remember a single word about the cock when MERRILY opened. I think it was acceptable because the sight of an animal's penis is pretty natural.

wut?

Oh. that Lonny Price. Always getting his cock out.

I saw this on TV last night. It's Idina's new GEICO commercial:

Obie Awards streaming tonight at 8:

When Broadway comes back in 2021 (or later), do you think the first productions to open will be aimed at the local crowd or tourists? Yes, the big, massive long running hits like Lion King, Wicked and Phantom would probably have run for many more years if Covid hadn't struck, but, by now, I have to assume the majority of their audience was made up of tourists. Is it possible that newer productions aimed at local theatregoers would actually open before the long running tourist shows?

I know, I know... no one has a crystal ball. Just curious about your opinions.

CHICAGO - THE MUSICAL starring CUBA GOODING, JR.

The audience for PHANTOM is tourists. But not very bright tourists. This show was NEVER for the cognoscenti. There is no shortage of dim bulb tourists who, mainly, won't know of other shows to see and would be afraid to try them. That's why there is a Chevy's in the theater district. And an Olive Garden. It's all of an unsophisticated piece.

The audience for WICKED is adolescent girls. The audience for LION KING is little boys. The producers have a new crop of new adolescents and little boys every year. These shows will close only when they somehow fall out of fashion. Their audiences replenish themselves, year in and year out.

There was a Catalan production of Into the Woods where Rapunzel was costumed to appear as if she was naked. I remember thinking the first time I saw photographs of it that of course - it makes perfect sense. Why would she need to hide her modesty when she is hidden away from the world?

I can't find an image online, but here's one of the Wolf - who also appears to be becocked.

[quote]The audience for LION KING is little boys.

Go on.

The next thread’s title HAS to be something like My, What a Big Cock You Have, Mr. Wolf! Edition.

Cocky Like the Wolf!

I'm looking forward to seeing Andy Karl in the revival of "Mr. President."

Love Life ran 252 performances, just about seven months, not a year. It was never seen as a big hit because it was so crazy--there was no attempt to make it clear to the audience that the characters were advancing through history without aging, which confused some people, at least during Act One.

Some of the songs were popular at the time, and Fabray won a Tony. But the show never really caught on. It can't be called a flop, but it was really just another in Fabray's string of also-rans and failures that followed her taking over the star part in Bloomer Girl after Celeste Holm left the show--which won Fabray a lot of attention--and her one big hit, High Button Shoes. Though even there that was more a Phil Silvers and Jerome Robbins triumph than Fabray's. Bloomer Girl (and for that matter Love Life) requires a very special performer, so Fabray was well cast. But High Button Shoes' Mama Longstreet could have been played by anyone.

And the audience for newer Sondheim shows is....................... well, nobody.

I can't wait to see Travolta in Ryan Murphy's revival of "The Normal Heart". Or anything where Johnny gets to come out BIG.

He did HAIRSPRAY without coming out at all, let alone BIG.

If that didn't do it, nothing will.

Yeah, but did you see his performance in Hairspray?

It was like watching a black hole devour a perfectly good galaxy

I think LOVE LIFE can truly claim to be the first "concept" American musical, followed by the imports of STOP THE WORLD and THE ROAR OF THE GREASEPAINT. Then of course Hal and company picked up the torch and started a cottage industry around it. How thrilling it must have been to witness the birth of these iconoclastic shows!

R129 Don't forget "Allegro", also an early concept musical.

His Edna had a distinct Down Syndrome look, r128.

I guess even in its own way, "Me and Juliet" was a little adventurous, but it's never, ever done. I don't know if it would qualify as a concept musical, since it does rehash some stuff that "Kiss Me, Kate" did.

The brilliant Mr. Caesar and Miss Fabray...

I just read that there is some live, silent footage from Gower Champion's original Broadway production of "Carnival" that will be included in a new Kaye Ballard documentary. The footage was licensed from Miles Kreuger's Institute of the American Musical. What other video treasures does that crazy hoarder have?

Act 2 of Carrie on Broadway? Or was that made up by Ken Mandelbaum who would only trade it for a video of Ethel Merman’s TV Annie Get Your Gun, which, reportedly, only Miles possesses? The incestuousness never ends...

You are so right, r130, Allegro predating Love Life by a year. How could I have forgotten?

Thanks for the prompt.

From Love Life....

And...

R135 At least we have Mary as Annie.

Broadway in 1987 was a very different place, apparently.

At least for those of us less enthusiastic about child-rape.

We have the black and white kinescope of Mary in Annie from a live 1957 color telecast. With John Raitt, slightly abridged. We also have one number from Granny Get Your Gun with Ethel in color from the Sullivan show. it was posted above or in the last thread. The famous network 1967 color telecast of Merman was evidently erased because color video tape was extremely expensive and the tape was re-used,

But friends who saw Ethel in that 1966 Lincoln Center revival produced by Richard Rodgers have told me that the 90 minute abridgement shown on TV was awful and despite its fame as a lost film/TV show, it is no big loss.

^ To be clear, they said Ethel's 1966 stage production was fabulous but the lost TV version sucked.

On ATC someone posted these great Youtube interviews of a long term gay couple (together 41 years) who worked in the Bway business.

Titled "Old Show Queens," they talk for about 10 minutes an episode about working with the great actors and directors.

R140, thanks for representing the dimwit’s perspective. 1987 audiences were also thoroughly enchanted by slicing off toes, marketing children’s hair as a ladder, and slaughtering pets. Others understood that the show was representing the often disturbing subtexts of fairy tales that has been sanitized by Disney and others.

Annie Get Your Gun - with Mary Martin.

Trying to figure out what show r14 is talking about. What Oscar winning actress did a musical around 2004 or later?

Thanks for posting that link, r145. I'm ashamed I was too lazy.

R143 - that was GREAT. Love hearing their stories, though 10 minutes feels so rushed. I wouldn't mind if they' doubled the length of the episodes.

R146 - any of these? (link below)

[quote] Trying to figure out what show [R14] is talking about. What Oscar winning actress did a musical around 2004 or later?

He’s talking about Harold & Maude. I think it was at Papermill. He played Harold.

R145, thanks so much for posting the link to the Martin/Raitt version of Annie. i haven't seen it in at least 15 or 20 years and the last time I saw it was on a very messy VHS tape obviously many times removed from the original. I had forgotten what a treat it is, especially cleaned up. So bad it doesn't survive in color.

A wonderful version of one of my favorite shows. Thanks again.

Thanks for trying, PBS, but that Broadway At Home lineup is all repeats. I'm not mad about airing that revival of She Loves Me again (even though I have some issues with how that production was directed). And I assume that Present Laughter is the Kevin Kline revival, not the Andrew Scott revival from London some of us are panting for.

The Great Performances back catalog is pretty amazing, and I wish they'd dipped into that, rights and copyrights be damned.

Fun article for you OCR collectors. I've gotten so spoiled by Spotify, Amazon Music, etc. that I'm astonished to hear when something isn't available.

IN TROUSERS! PIRATE QUEEN! SAIL AWAY!

You forgot eyes getting pecked out by birds, r144.

was this good?

I think a lot of the score of INTO THE WOODS is sublime. But I've always thought Lapine's book wasn't nearly as smart or or sharp or funny as it could have been (or as Lapine presumed it was). A lot of the humor is merely broad and obvious and, at times, grotesque. (Pecking out the evil stepsisters' eyes may be true to Grimm--but is it funny? Or just gross?) The great character insights come through Sondheim's lyrics and not at all through Lapine's book.

They actually succeeded at making it funny, r156.

It was okay, R155. Had it been better, it would have gone farther.

It never came together has a compelling play. The subject matter is interesting. Very interesting. And there might be a compelling play to make from it. But this one did not get there.

What is r155's pic from?

THE TEMPERMENTALS was fantastic, R155. Produced by Darryl Roth and Stacy Shane and directed by Jonathan Silverstein, it told the story of the founding of the Mattachine Society and the love affair of two of its founding members, Harry Hay (Thomas Jay Ryan) and Rudi Gernreich (Michael Urie). Unfortunately, it did not have a very long run off-Broadway.

R116, though of course no one can predict the future, I think MAYBE the first shows that might open when Broadway returns will be presented by the institutional theaters -- Lincoln Center, the Roundabout, MTC, and the others -- because those companies have more of a financial base, and the shows always technically begin as limited runs. We shall see.

[quote]The famous network 1967 color telecast of Merman was evidently erased because color video tape was extremely expensive and the tape was re-used,

Does it work that way? Can you (or could you) erase a show on videotape and then use the tape to record something else? Even if that is true, it seems like an idiotic thing to do. By the way, I've recently heard some of the audio of that show, and what I heard sounded quite good, but I can see how a video of Merman at that age -- presumably with at least some close-ups -- would not have come across well.

I want to see The Women revived with an all gay cast. With Anita Loos' film script, which is how she wrote it, not the Claire Boothe Luce original play.

Rudi!

[quote]Can you (or could you) erase a show on videotape and then use the tape to record something else? Even if that is true, it seems like an idiotic thing to do

I think this happened with Johnny Carson's first year as host of The Tonight Show. When he found out they were being erased, he took over production and ensured each broadcast was kept.

It happened to Carson for years which is why his first contract renewal gave him copies of all his shows.

Nearly all of Paul WInchell's shows were erased, and he sued and I believe won. But a lot his legacy and Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smith's was wiped out, though they did show up on "What's My Line" sometimes.

R155: Yes, THE TEMPERAMENTALS was excellent. And I think it had a decent run for a small Off-Broadway show. In fact, I think it played in at least two theaters.

R156: Agreed 100 percent. IMHO, Lapine's talent is minimal and doesn't justify the praise and recognition he has received as Sondheim's late-career collaborator. What's good or great about those shows is all about Sondheim's work, not Lapine's.

I apologize again for my comment about The Women. My first apology disappeared. That comment was intended for the shows that are never revived thread.

Let's go back to basics and bring back Tobacco Road.

Knucklehead Smiff, not Smith.

See, if the videos were around....

I saw the Granny Get Your Gun broadcast. I was only 12, so I'm going only to say that even at 12 years of age I thought it wasn't very good. I remember Ethel riding a motorcycle while sharpshooting. It wasn't convincing. At all. I had seen the Betty Hutton film and knew even then that this TV production was just not right.

If someone told me that Ethel erased it herself, I would know that it might be possible.

Have you ever seen the TV production of "Damn Yankees?" That one is also AWFUL.

[quote]Let's go back to basics and bring back Tobacco Road.

Great idea, along with that other long-running hit that "Tobacco Road" ultimately surpassed in number of performances, "Abie's Irish Rose."

Well... speak of the Devil!

Ladies and gentlemen, "Damn Yankees."

r118 [quote]The audience for PHANTOM is tourists. But not very bright tourists. This show was NEVER for the cognoscenti.

When Phantom first came out I knew plenty of theater queens who also enjoy ballet, opera or both who would not stop raving about Phantom, they loved it. I had to be subjected to the soundtrack and I hated it, it's sappy melodrama and I didn't care for Crawford or Brightman.

During this quarantine I watched Phantom 25th at Royal Albert Hall and although I've read here distain for Sierra Boggess she delivered a performance, both vocally and acting, that made the best of that material. She and Karimloo made it a great piece for me who has always hated that score.

I never knew about that TV Damn Yankees. Wow. And Linda Lavin!

R175 is on the nose. Phantom 25 is fucking astounding and the actors perform the shit out of the material to such an extent that a myriad of writing flaws are forgiven. People raving about Hamilton should check that out for some real acting and how to film a show well. I’d watch Phantom 25 ten more times than having to endure Hamilton again, and I am no phan.

I love Phantom. It is not a great musical, but it is a great show. Hal Prince, Gillian Lynne and Maria Bjornson made it a great show. Now that those three are dead, Cameron Mackintosh will minimize their contributions, cheapen and change and destroy the production to maximize profit. Hes been doing it for most of the last decade, and now comes word they are hiding behind COVID-19 to cut half the orchestra and do god knows what else to the original London production. Michael Crawford was magical and still unequaled as the Phantom.

The staging was great and the RA is a small stage. I can only imagine what it was like on a full stage. I also loved the choreography.

I can see why people who love melodrama and romance (i guess) love it. It's a creepy story but from talking to others who love it they find it romantic and love the story of Christine and Erik. Like I said, the performances pulled me in and I found myself enjoying it. Ramin Karimloo is sexy as the Phantom and he has nice meaty hands that get featured in a number of shots. His fans refer to him as "sexy noodles".

I hope PHANTOM never reopens.

I hope most long-running shows on Bway and the West End don't reopen. The trend of huge megashows, running on fumes for decades on end is unhealthy: bad for theatre, for art in general, for new theatre audiences. We need to clear some room for new, riskier ventures and points of view.

I don't want to see musical theatre turn into opera.

That Damn Yankees seems to have 3 baseball players.

Live ones. There are one or two more who are cartoons.

Phil Silvers was fabulous as Applegate. As if the part were written for him. Which I've heard it was.

Otherwise, what a weird, odd artifact. I've seen it before. Entertaining but weird. If I remember correctly, it was first shown on late night TV, not in primetime, against The Tonight Show.

There also seems to be no choreographer or choreography. They cut to stop motion animation. And many closeups with the few performers very clos together. Like it’s on a postage-stamp size stage. All super cheap.

[quote]We need to clear some room for new, riskier ventures and points of view.

I think it's rather optimistic to think that whenever theatres do re-open producers are going to do anything risky. I'd imagine we'd be in for a season of safe shows, with the leading roles cast with famous faces so they can jack up the prices on the seats they can actually sell.

Once the theaters re-open, the producers and theater owners will need shows that will bring people into the theater, despite the risk of Covid-19. Some might think the producers and theater owners will look for thoughtful and probing important new work, but it seems just as likely they will decide to sell corn dogs and deep-friend Snickers bars and allow you to bring them to your seat to enjoy during the show.

Oh, and don't forget. Chili Dogs!

God, I know eldergays worship her, but I find Ethel Merman's voice so grating. Yes, it seems like she had impressive stamina and could project her voice over the orchestra without amplification, but if that foghorn is the sound you're producing is that such an advantage? Also, if Bernadette got criticized for being a less than convincing Annie Oakley, did Ethel Merman ever sound remotely believable as a woman from the wild west? She sounds like a New Jersey taxi cab dispatcher.

Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed some of her film appearances -- she's obviously a talented comedienne, but, lord, that singing voice.

It's not limited to eldergays. George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jule Styne and Jerry Herman, and more, all hired that voice and wrote for it. Collectively, at the very least, their choice to work with her and write for her must be a clear endorsement of her abilities.

[quote]We need to clear some room for new, riskier ventures and points of view.

[quote]I think it's rather optimistic to think that whenever theatres do re-open producers are going to do anything risky.

I would also think the big, splashy, long-running shows like "Phantom" also help make it possible for producers to be able to spend money on the newer, riskier material.

[quote] Collectively, at the very least, their choice to work with her and write for her must be a clear endorsement of her abilities.

She was good 'n' loud!

R189, yeah, and where are they now? Dead.

Merman was like Stritch.

C list actor is well known to be Eric Millegan.

The musical opposite the Oscar winning actress was Harold and Maude at Papermill where he was Harold to Estelle Parsons' Maude.

The TV series was Bones in which he played Zach Addy.

He's quite talented, but not the easiest man to cast.

R190 Not when that producer is Cameron Mackintosh.

[quote]Merman was like Stritch.

Stritch was like Merman without a sense of pitch.

[quote]I want to see The Women revived with an all gay cast. With Anita Loos' film script, which is how she wrote it, not the Claire Boothe Luce original play.

Gay men or gay women?

[quote]Gay men or gay women?

I'm guessing gay men. The movie really doesn't at all resemble "Let's be a lesbian Thanksgiving."

"I don't want to see musical theatre turn into opera."

But that's EXACTLY what we need: serious, elevated, COMPOSED work, not the pedestrian. Phantom, Lez Miz and all the other (fill in the blank) are the furthest thing from the power of opera and true musical theatre.

I remember that TV Damn Yankees, particularly the rendition of THE GAME, which I thought very hot at the very tender age of 11. But my memory had the guys in baseball uniforms singing their libidos out beneath a tree.

I think people who have only heard Merman sing on recordings, on TV and in film can't really imagine how much better her voice sounded when she was projecting it in large Broadway theaters before the era of excessive amplification.

In 1918, Theaters Stayed Open:

A friend told me that Phantom is definitely not reopening. Is this true?

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s team tells Donald Trump to stop using "Memory" at rallies:

And Betty Buckley approves:

[R164]: I remember reading the same thing happened to NBC’s color videotape of their perennial Christmas special, Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” Reputedly, it had been mistakenly erased, necessitating a new production, starring Teresa Stratas, who was very good, but she lacked the intensity of the original Mother, Rosemary Kuhlman.

Now there’s a holiday favorite that’s disappeared! And, now that we’re on the subject, is “”Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” with its lovely Jule Styne score, still shown? (Because there was never a commercial recording, I actually recorded the whole show on a reel-to reel tape recorder., I loved that score so much!)

I’d suggest a Christmas TV Musicals thread, but how many would understand it, except we Elder Gays, who remember such ancient things?

[quote]is “”Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” with its lovely Jule Styne score, still shown?

I don't know if it's shown on TV, but it is still very much in existence. It's available on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital. (I own it digitally and it looks terrific.)

"...and razzleberry dressing!"

R188, Merman was not a foghorn. Bacall was a foghorn. Merman was a trumpet.

Interesting article on ALW trying to reopen the Palladium. The technology they’ve been using in South Korea is fascinating.

The Temperamentals failed because we all know that the Mattachine Society was started by black trannies

When I was growing up, I would see Merman on TV and was unimpressed. I was about 14 when Granny Get Your Gun was on and she seemed really old and fat and loud with that horrible vibratto. (though I loved her in Mad, Mad World.) It was, sadly, only after she did Dolly that I got to know her earlier work, so I never got to see her live in a show. And if you listen to her, up to Gypsy, her voice was still clear and the vibratto wasn't too bad. The vibratto wasn't even there during Call Me Madam.

It's been said many times that seeing Merman live was essential to understanding her magic. She was so much more than a loud voice. She was born for the stage, not the screen. I saw Granny Get Your Gun in high school on tour in Detroit. There was a technical snafu backstage and she was stuck in an elevator for several minutes. Right before the Indian number. Seemed endless to the audience as the chorus just sat there banging on those tom toms and nothing happening.

Afterwards, I went back to get her to sign my program and she was in no mood to be nice. Fortunately, Jerry Orbach was with her and cajoled her into giving us a break. But she never smiled. Onstage, though, she was supreme.

When I was in college, Ethel came to my city for one of her late-career symphony concerts. 45 minutes of Ethel trumpeting out hit after hit, almost all of them WRITTEN FOR HER. Her book had just recently come out. You could buy her recordings or her book in the store and she would sign them for you there, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. You could not bring in anything else for signature.

Being a young showmo, I was dying when I arrived that afternoon at Peaches Records. I found the stockroom doors and peeked through the window. There she was. Sitting on a crate of records. At exactly 1:00 p.m., she stood up, smoothed her dress, put on a smile, and strode out to the table that had been set up for her. Not one minute early, despite a line with 50 people there to meet her.

People filed up, one by one, placed their book or recording before her and gushed whatever they were going to gush. She smiled at each person, said, "Thank you. What's your name?" Then she signed, pushed it back at them, and said, "Thank you for coming." And she put a really clear period on that 'thank you' so that you would move on. She kept it up for two hours. Exactly at 3:00 p.m., with people still waiting in line with merch they had just purchased to get signed, she stood up and said, "Thank you, everyone. It's three o'clock and I've got to go. Sorry. But I'm singing tomorrow and I have to roll my hair."

Her obligation met, she turned on her heel and made a bee line for the stockroom.

I saw her the next night. She was about 70 years old, but she radiated energy for 45 minutes. I've never again seen quite what Ethel was doing. It was the like the spotlight was onstage and pointed at us in the audience. Carol Channing had her own way of capturing and holding an audience, but it was her way, not Ethel's. Ethel was like a train coming at you for 45 minutes. She had on-stage superpowers that had to be experienced to be recognized and appreciated. Movies didn't capture it. Television had an even harder time with her.

Uhhh, well...DUH. It was a stupid idea to begin with. It was never going to work. Ain’t no theatre happening in the UK until 2021.

[quote] Collectively, at the very least, their choice to work with her and write for her must be a clear endorsement of her abilities.

With no amplification how much choice did they have?

"Let's see we could hire this great little lady over here who only projects to the 10th row, or we could hire the air raid siren with the beehive hair."

[quote]I'm guessing gay men. The movie really doesn't at all resemble "Let's be a lesbian Thanksgiving."

I don't know about that, it could be the Hollywood lipstick crowd.

There was some projection - lights at the edge of the stage, right?

*mics, not lights

R210, I appreciate your thoughts, but you're not using the word "vibrato" correctly. At the VERY end of her career, maybe just the last few years, Merman's vibrato seems to have loosened a bit, but before that, I would say she had an exciting, controlled, tight vibrato pretty much throughout her career. I've always thought she actually sounds even better on the 1966 ANNIE GET YOUR GUN recording than on the GYPSY cast album, I guess maybe because she was just in a little bit better voice for the recording sessions.

Ethel was a regular at the restaurant Harper's, on 3rd Avenue and 75th Street. The owner was a nasty, bitter old queen. But when I worked there, Ethel was a regular.

I don’t understand why pop Bway shows have to be so damned UGLY looking. Kinky B, Six, The Prom; all hideously ugly costumes, sets, etc.

The SIX parking lot tour was never going to happen. Their cast was refusing to do the tour.

This video is real. Beef and Boards is open, and ready to entertain YOU!

That video is appallingly tone deaf. Who wants to go watch masked theater Christine *and* the Phantom are going to wear masks, in the version that actually has a lot of dialogue about masks and peaks when he removes his? Beef, Boards, and Covid.

Oh, bless their hearts.

this videos has showed up before on the theatre threads but I don't know if we ever got an answer, does anyone know the context of this clip? Obviously it is from Company and PBS but from what show?

Elaine looks a lot better there than she did earlier. Did she have some work done? I watched "The Perfect Furlough" the other night TCM and man, she pales mightily in comparison to Janet Leigh and Linda Crisal (who just died recently). Granted, she's playing more of a Jane Hathaway kind of character, but still!

The Phantom of the Opera | At The Royal Albert Hall, London

2020 Obie Award winners:

Did anyone else watch Terrence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea on National Theatre Live? Fantastic double-decker set that in the end served no real purpose, other than, perhaps, to distract you from "the well-made play" that just sat there on the stage. The performances were fine, largely, but to what end? I guessed pretty much how it would end about 10 minutes in (and was right). Great part for the leading actress, but, again, it goes nowhere, really.

Still wish NT Live would continue streaming their catalog, though.

thanks BB. sexy noodles!

I just may watch it again.

Hope all the grouches will give it chance.

Ms Boggess won my heart she's really quite a good actress. She has a bit of old Hollywood beauty going for her in this as well.

[quote] Hope all the grouches will give it chance.

No one with a brain should embrace that SHITTY score.

Did Ethel still date or did she close shop after Borgnine?

Isn't that Elaine clip from London?

I know the score is shitty 231 I said so in other posts but I'd only ever heard the soundtrack, never seen the production.

I enjoyed this production, the performances elevate the material.

Don't be scared, give it a go. And if you actually enjoy it, you can come back and say how much you hated it.

I loved Peaches, r212. They had the best cut-outs. I got the Capitol re-issues of Flahooley and By the Beautiful Sea. I always wondered if I should have purchased Miss Medford's GYPSY. Once I finally heard it on Youtube...

R229, I think the answer 'to what end' for a lot of the NT's productions, especially in the Lyttelton, is: because they can. And to a lesser degree: as they're the 'national theatre', because they should.

I remember thinking when I was watching Rodney Ackland's Absolute Hell there two years ago, that there was no other theatre in the UK would come close have the resources to stage this at the scale which it demanded. It was another production with large and gorgeous double-decker set that wasn't wholly necessary, but nobody else could do it like that. Similarly, Lucy Kirkwood's The Welkin that was staged there earlier this year had a very elaborate design, if only for its opening scene. (It was the last really great piece I saw before lockdown. It's a shame that the NT Live broadcast was cancelled and that it didn't get a wider audience, as there's a musical moment in the second act that will be forever seared on my heart).

But the ending of The Deep Blue Sea, though? Ugh. Gorgeous. I think about it often.

Broadway Bares Will Go Virtual August 1:

Just watched Scott Elliot of The New Group interviewing Suzanne Vega about BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE (!), among other things. He directed her in that (woeful and misbegotten) production.

I never realized before: he IS Corky St. Clair. But without the charm.

That clip of LADIES WHO LUNCH was made for the PBS show THE GREAT AMERICAN DREAM MACHINE, which was broadcast in the early 70s. It was a weekly anthology of sketch/musical comedy, satirical in tone, which skewed contemporary topics. I remember watching it as a mid-teen and loving it.

[quote]I never realized before: he IS Corky St. Clair. But without the charm.

Yeah, how Scott Elliott has managed to keep working in the theater and remain artistic director of that company is hard to comprehend. Seemed to me he almost ran the company out of existence some years ago, around the time of that execrable production of MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, but somehow he survived.

How would a short run revival if Hair do post covid and who would star in it?

FOLLIES!

Ah my love.

There you are.

"Hair" was revived a little over 10 years ago. Too soon.

So are productions of Follies always set in 1971 or thereabouts or have there been attempts (legal or otherwise) to modernize it somehow? Obviously it is a very time-specific show. For instance, what about the 1987 West End revisal? Was that set in present day or back in 1971?

[Quote] How would a short run revival if Hair do post covid and who would star in it?

Shawn Mendes could join the ranks of Jonathan Groff and Gavin Creel.

It wasn't a West End revival. It was the original West End production. Didn't it use perspex?

R247, I purposefully used the term revisal, not revival. And considering it contained four new songs and a significantly rewritten book, revisal is indeed what it was.

Chu Chem!

SARAVA!

I've never seen the London revival from the 80's, but the costumes and hairstyles sure looked like it took place in the 80's and not the 70's.

Diana Rigg looks like she just walked off the set of Dynasty after a cat fight with Joan Collins.

FOLLIES really just doesn't make sense outside of 1971. The cultural references and characters' timelines would be completely off.

I love the show, but it's a bit of a leap for most audiences under 65 now, trying to imagine what a "Follies girl" would be about.

It's best not just to set FOLLIES in 1971, but it should also be performed in 1971. That way, the audience is in on the same timeline as the characters, the actors, and the Wisemann Theater, itself.

But that's hard to do. Still, the farther any element of FOLLIES strays from 1971, the weaker it inevitably becomes.

I might have agreed before the NT production...

[quote]So are productions of Follies always set in 1971 or thereabouts or have there been attempts (legal or otherwise) to modernize it somehow? Obviously it is a very time-specific show. For instance, what about the 1987 West End revisal?

Seeing how you answered your own question, why did you bother to ask it?

no-one's got anything to say about jay Binder?

Murdered by a casting couch participant?

What happened to Jay Binder?

[quote]What happened to Jay Binder?

He retired, Rose

The “Rose” line doesn’t work when you the the actual true thing, Dorothy.

FOLLIES discourse collides with Golden Girls discourse, and DL finally goes supernova and collapses in on itself.

[quote]DL finally goes supernova and collapses in on itself.

Or explodes in a suffocating cloud of glitter.

a cloud of glitter and Metamucil .

What happened to Jay Binder?

Yes, Rose, he's retiring.

The people mourning the Andrew Scott Present Laughter really shouldn't. It's a horrible misfire. The worst thing is Scott himself. He starts completely hysterical and then has to sustain that note throughout: he has nowhere else to go. It is a long play and this is very tedious. It is also a red flag that the director is going to be a problem.

Then, the director is determined to treat the play as though it has serious elements, which it does not. This makes it Edgy and makes critics call it Fresh, but it also makes it very much less funny. The play is too light a vehicle to carry any weight. The serious elements consist primarily of (1) introducing a gay intrigue by making Joanna into the very masculine Joe (and Henry unaccountaby into a butch lesbian), and (2) treating Garry's hysteria about ageing as actually tragic, rather than allowing the true extent of his fears to peep out occasionally and subtly from under his lavish curtain of habitual drama-queening. Garry is not a character who is going to share his deepest feelings honestly with the world at large.

You'd think the gay intrigue (it's not a romance) would work, given that Coward's plays are as gay as Frasier, but it is quite leaden in this particular execution, and I'm not sure it's achievable at all. Joanna is an adult and a vamp: this is an easy-to-grasp stereotype for a woman but as far as I know there's no ready translation of this type to the masculine. Sexual aggression in a straight woman reads very differently from the same thing in a gay man. You might be able to play Joe as an ambitious twink and keep it funny, but because he has to be well over 30, someone who could feasibly have been part of their group for years AND he has to not upstage Scott, once he's got past the eye-fucking stage it's quite a conundrum how to play it. Although the production is by definition gayer, it's way less frivolously camp than the usual interpretation, where Garry is coded gay and being relentlessly pursued by the diva Joanna wielding a vast, bejewelled decolletage.

A smarter director would have done its more famous cousin. A male actor could have enormous fun with Amanda in Private Lives without any damage to the play. Interpretations of her could work across the spectrum, from quite stereotypically masculine in a British kind of way, to gender-fluid, in a gown in Act 1 and male clothes in the rambunctious Act 2.

Just my opinion, of course, but I hope that makes everyone feel better about it being lost.

Lost? Where is the last place you had it?

MikeR invited me to a Zoom benefit performance he was hosting. It was kinda weird though, because, as far as I could tell, I was the only remote audience member and the entire benefit consisted of him, wearing only a dance belt and staring intently into the webcam and singing this passage from I Do Miracles...

[quote]Blood on your slender hips

[quote]Blood underneath your eyes

[quote]Blood on your firm, young thighs

[quote]Let me kiss it away

[quote]So that I can hear you say

[quote]That I do miracles

All of the major Coward plays have serious subtexts.

MikeR has been absent from ATC for quite a while. But if he's summoned there, he usually appears. Kind of like the ghost of Hamlet's dad.

Jay Binder...Now there's a #gaymetoo story...

Most if not all of Sondheim's shows are time/era specific, r252. Is it a leap for audiences to try and imagine what life in ancient Rome would be about? Or life in 1900 Sweden? I think 50 years from now, FOLLIES will be judged by its book and score, not the fact that it's set in 1971.

Three of Sondheim’s biggest shows were specifically written in the (then) present: Follies, Company, and the second act of Sunday.

This makes these three shows age strangely.

Hedwig has this problem to, as it’s supposed to be really happening in front of you in the present, but Hedwig had to have grown up in East Berlin before the wall came down.

Oh, and “Next” in Pacific Overtures was also specifically set in the present, but that’s an easy update.

I feel twitchy and bitchy and manic

Calm and collected and choking with panic

But alive, but alive, but alive!

[quote]What is It That We’re Living For?

Boy, I wish I knew.

Bev Garland would have been a tremendous Margo.

Cute video announcement for West End cast of Frozen, opening at The Drur in April:

Patti’s Ladies Who Lunch, Broadway production. Excellent rendition, good acting. Dress is different from London. Who was able to film this?

There was a handbag up, for two hours.

Stars In The House with Seth Rudetsky & James Wesley

With 30 Rocks guests

Jane Krakowski

Tina Fey & Jeff Richmond

They talk quite a bit about the music on 30 Rock and Jeff plays/sings, as well as Jane.

Watching this made me think that I'd love these folks to do a send up of Applause (a recent topic here) with Jane playing Margot and Rachel Bloom (a little old I know) as Eve. Done in the tradition of Murder By Death, Clue, Airplane. . . you get the idea.

Jane isn't a Margo.

Jane is a Bonnie.

The only Bonnie that comes out of an "Applause" show is Bonnie....and that's ME, baby, remember?

There were rumors back in the day of 30 ROCK's network run that Tina Fey was an occasional DL lurker.

I'd believe it.

Oh. Look what happened to Mabel.

R279 - that was much better than the dreadful London revival cast recording and Patti looks good. But I think it pales in comparison to her performances of Ladies Who Lunch in the Sondheim 80th Birthday Concert or the NY Phil Company Concert. I suppose that anemic "orchestra" doesn't help.

Both the band and that new arrangement suck!

^Reed thin.

Poor Jay Binder is busy drinking himself to death.

That WSJ photo of him is not recent and the last time I ran into him I gasped, he looked so awful. I only know him a little but for awhile through friends who've worked with him a lot.

I know, MARY!

r144- but then Disney produced INTO THE WOODS as a movie.

I auditioned for Jay Binder a couple years ago and he was lovely. He cast me in the past so I'm forever grateful.

Did you have to present hole?

R293 Is it art?

His hole?

Could some kind soul supply a link to NT’s “The Deep Blue Sea”? It got pulled before I could see the last 30 minutes - thank you!

Aaron Tveit, Jeremy Jordan & More Broadway Faves Tapped for Hallmark Holiday Movies:

Aaaron looks pretty good in that pic.

This will call for real acting from Tveit - romancing a female.

Well, with Broadway shut down, you gotta make that check somehow, I guess. That rent ain't gonna pay itself, baby.

Are any Broadway types visiting Steve's Dungeon?

Surprised to see that the latest Zoom “Merrily” reunion finally brought Sally Klein out of the woodwork. Does anyone know the scoop on why she’s avoided everything till know?

Link please, R302.

Will the new Hallmark Christmas movies follow guidelines for social distancing?

Phyllis Somerville, great actress who was last in To Kill a Mockingbird, has died.

[quote]R212 Her obligation met, she turned on her heel and made a bee line for the stockroom.

She sounds like a true, hard boiled cunt.

"The Girl in Pink Tights" star and "Hans Christian Andersen" co-star Zizi Jeanmaire has died at 96.

The girl kept to her schedule, r306.

Holy cow, r307, had no idea she was still alive.

[quote]Will the new Hallmark Christmas movies follow guidelines for social distancing?

Yes, they will be.

I auditioned for the Tveit Hallmark Christmas film. They are going to quarantine the cast and crew for a week on location, with testing before and after, and limit any exposure to pre-tested quarantined actors/crew on a small set. This script was created after the shutdown started to be shot in the safest possible manner.

Naturally I'm bummed I haven't heard from them to play Laura Osnes' dad. Yes, I'm old enough.

Zizi...

More Zizi...

Zizi and Danny Kaye. ""Hans Christian Andersen" has a wonderful score by Frank Loesser.

UK government handing out “false hope” about reopening, according to Matthew Bourne. Nice to see SOMEONE is facing reality.

R297, Will they be doing their love scenes with blowup dolls like the soaps are now doing?

R232, Ethel's ex-husbands tended to rebound successfully.

Bob Six was happily married to Audrey Meadows until his death and Ernest Borgnine was happily married to Tova until he died.

R296 Deep Blue Sea.

Jeanmaire nearly played Lola in Damn Yankees. The part was written with Marilyn Monroe in mind and she was interested. She were strung the producers along through pre-contract negotiations but she unexpectedly withdrew a few weeks before rehearsals were to start. The runners up were Mitzi Gaynor, Jeanmaire and Verdon.

Have to say about that video at R279, it takes balls to videotape Patti in a theater. I would fear for my life if she caught me.

[quote]Sorry. But I'm singing tomorrow and I have to roll my hair

Whoever starts the next TG thread--consider this as your next title.

Have any of you spent two hours signing books? Sore wrist?

Richard Adler said years later that losing Monroe and getting Verdon was the best thing that could have happened for the show.

Poor Patti. It's all so much easier when you have Tunick's orchestration to help set the mood.

Jane was no lady of the stage, was she?

A real singer.

R322 Was Monroe considered for the stage version of "Damn Yankees"? I mean, she acted in scenes at the Actors Studio, but was there any evidence she could have pulled off 8 shows a week for even 1 week? I could see her doing the film version, with a huge amount of changes in the choreography especially for "Who's Got the Pain", though she probably could have pulled off the role otherwise. But Verdon's the gold standard for Lola -- a brilliant comedienne and dancer, and her voice was still very good belting at that point before the smoking started to weaken it.

R426 It was a feather.

[quote]Was Monroe considered for the stage version of "Damn Yankees"?

Yes. The part was written for her but later the creatives thanked their lucky stars they ended up Verdon and not her, as the Adler quote above shows.

R327 I think Verdon was out of "Chicago" for inhaling a feather or some confetti during "Chicago" when Liza famously took over for a few weeks, but Verdon's voice, though a fabulous singing actress, started to weaken from smoking show by show. Her voice kind of sounds dried up almost by the time of the "Chicago" recording, though the "Roxie" monologue is brilliant (as her entire performance was in the theater).

In the documtary they say it was during Charity

It was both SWEET CHARITY and CHICAGO.

On Sweet Charity: “I inhaled a feather one night, and I had to go into a big medical procedure — don’t ask me the name of it — to take it out. They did a good enough job that time, but they wouldn’t later.”

On Chicago: “This time, a piece of confetti landed on my vocal cord. They removed the confetti, but strangely enough, they paralyzed my larynx and vocal cord while operating. I had to learn to speak all over again, but pronouncing a ‘p’ was too tough. So when I got back into the show and reached the lyric in ‘Funny Honey,’ ‘He’s a whole lot greater than the sum of his parts,’ I had to substitute ‘parts’ with ‘barts.’ I didn’t know what else to do.”

It makes little sense that movie star Marilyn would have ever seriously considered a stage musical at the height of her movie career, especially as she didn't much dance and her singing voice didn't project.

I don't think she was seriously considering it but she loved the attention and stringing the producers along.

^ And of course she sang and danced. Gentlemen pPrefer Blondes, There's No Business Like Show Business, etc. She was never dubbed, she did her own singing, although I've read Marni Nixon dubbed one high note for her in Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend.

Marni Nixon does more than one notes. She does the soprano intro to "Diamonds." Broadway singers had to be loud back then. Marilyn couldn't have projected well enough.

R332 She was very unsecure, no way she could have done a Broadway show.

Completely agree, R287. Of course, a lot of it is the direction as well. She looks fantastic (the hair, dress, and, especially, fur coat are all perfect) but that doesn't touch what she did in the concert version with NPH. That whole scene was very effective. This is like a bad attempt at forced comedy. Was everyone in that audience on uppers? Laughing that much at lines that aren't funny ruins the show experience.

By 1955 (DAMN YANKEES' opening on Bway), Monroe had already starred in SEVEN YEAR ITCH, HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE, GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, and NIAGRA. She was shooting the movie of BUS STOP in 1955. Assuming she was interested, when would she have had time to spend a year (or more) in DAMN YANKEES on Bway?

I don't question that the rumor exists, and that those connected with the show repeat it, but it doesn't mean that it was ever anything than a good story.

Plus, there is the issue of her tiny little sliver of a singing voice, and 1955 Bway acoustics...

[quote]On Chicago: “This time, a piece of confetti landed on my vocal cord. They removed the confetti, but strangely enough, they paralyzed my larynx and vocal cord while operating.

Some say this was just a cover story. Various rumors, one of which says she had a polyp on her vocal cord.

Do not believe anything a performer tells you about a health problem. Their entire career is entirely dependent on being able to show up and perform 8 a week.

"It was a piece of confetti! Not my chain smoking. Never that." Uh huh. Sure.

Bibi

Bibi singing the above...

When we're back, will there be a place on Broadway for the senior class of legends? What shows out there are possibilities for Chita? Does Ben Vereen still have magic to do? Was taking a bow in the balcony at the West Side Story revival Carol Lawrence's final bow? Do Julie or Angie have one more play in them? Is Betty Buckley due for a late stage turn? Can Donna Mckecknie still dazzle?

R343 - No, there won't be any more stage performances from Angie. She's already said as much in interviews from the last couple of years. I imagine that benefit performance of The Importance of Being Earnest at Roundabout will be her final stage performance.

Chita is so naturally funny -- not something we always get to see. It only really clicked for me in an older Theatre Gossip thread in which someone posted several clips from The Rink. The time may have passed for any future musical roles for Chita, but I'd love to see her do a non-musical comedy (stage or TV).

Yes, r313, the Loesser score is one of the best ever written for the screen. Too bad it had to be delivered (mostly) by the icky Danny Kate.

Len Cariou admits to fucking Bacall.

[quote]Yes, R313, the Loesser score is one of the best ever written for the screen. Too bad it had to be delivered (mostly) by the icky Danny Kaye.

I agree with you there, R345. And Loesser even provided Kaye with a Sylvia FIne-like patter song, "The King's New Clothes."

Carol got rhythm!

I wonder will remote recording become even more of a thing... It would be nice for Lansbury to do radio plays for instance, and she mightn't even have to leave her abode.

R348, Phyllis Newman said Carol Lawrence was a cunt during the Broadway run of Subways Are For Sleeping.

I love Angela Lansbury, but I think some of you believe that she is just waiting for the next acting gig to materialize.

She's 94. And worth an estimated $70 million. She has a Lifetime Achievement Oscar. She also has arthritis and has replaced a hip and a knee. She may, in fact, find other satisfying ways to fill her days.

Some performers do choose to retire. It's not necessarily tragic.

[Quote] She may, in fact, find other satisfying ways to fill her days.

Prank calls?

Carol Lawrence had looks, that glorious voice, and she could move. (I don't love that version of "Fascinatin' Rhythm" but still.)

Was she a terrible actor? Impossible to work with? How else to explain her relative bust of a career after WSS?

Back in the day, Miss Lawrence did an outdoor stock tour of FUNNY GIRL. Part of her compensation was housing. In one city on the Starlight tour, the theater maintained a nice home for the comfort of their stars. Miss Lawrence had her two children in tow while doing this tour. Before the week's engagement was complete, the general manager threw her out of the guest housing and told her to find her own hotel. The kids tore up the home and she was a complete and total bitch to the staff who tried to repair the damage.

She doesn't have a great reputation in the business. She might have done more if people could stand her.

[quote]She may, in fact, find other satisfying ways to fill her days.

Crazed meth-fueled orgies with Filipino houseboys.

She didn't have a true distinction in her looks, voice, or dancing, r353. I saw her in Spider Woman and she was fine in it. We were a bit far back and it could have been Chita up there except her dancing just didn't have that Chita *snap*.

I hated the bitch.

Next!

Elinor Donahue should have had a bigger career. Could she sing at all? Not a beauty, but decent looking enough for Bway.

She also should have changed her name. "Elinor" is just a dick wilter.

Not bad, Elinor. But it seems she had a lot of good ballet training and not all that much tap. There wasn't much going on in those shoes.

Not bad, Elinor. But it seems she had a lot of good ballet training and not all that much tap. There wasn't much going on in those shoes.

Was that a Z movie? The sequence was so boringly shot. (And no, I'm not advocating for Rob... Marshall? MTV type cutting.)

It probably killed her that she was the star of Subway but Phyllis walked away with the show. Carol should have pulled a Merman and gotten I was a Shoo-In cut. And forced Newman to wear a dressing gown instead of a towel.

Old television. Robert Young was there. This is from an episode of Father Knows Best.

[Quote] Carol should have pulled a Merman and gotten I was a Shoo-In cut. And forced Newman to wear a dressing gown instead of a towel.

Or taken the number for herself.

Besides "Father Knows Best", Elinor joined the casts of "Andy Griffith Show" for a few seasons and then later joined the cast of "The Odd Couple" as Felix's girl friend, so she got work over the years. As a little girl, she was also in "Three Daring Daughters" as one of Jane Powell's younger sisters/youngest daughter of Jeanette McDonald, so she's been in the business a long time.

Someone well-known in the business said that Carol Lawrence was one of the best auditioners he had ever seen. I think perhaps in performance she was quite good, but not particularly in a way that was weird enough like Merman, Martin, Verdon and Channing, who all were very distinctive performers. Lawrence and Sydney Chaplin were apparently pretty jealous of Phyllis Newman and Orson Bean in "Subways Are For Sleeping", since their secondary characters were stealing the show. Apparently Lawrence and Chaplin urged the creators to cut the other two character's part down. "Saratoga" was also a flop for her on Broadway. Ms. Lawrence did an off-Broadway show about 5 years ago, so she's been hanging in there.

Imagine being upstaged by Phyllis "She'll have to do" Newman.

Cheese on rice.

R350 . . .

Newman recalled the friction backstage. "Carol was really difficult, I have to say--enough time has gone by-and she didn't have a part that showed off her strengths, but she was unpleasant. She wouldn't let me watch the show from the wings. She did not want me watching her. I never had that happen to me in my life, but with her . . ."

Elinor could sing. At least The Dickey Bird song...

Verdon was lying about the confetti in Chicago. Bitch had potentially cancerous throat polyps. Performers never want to give off any sense that they’re actually ill, especially The Big C. Harder for projects to get insurance if they’ve had it.

I'd like to give those gals at R369 a ride on my Dickey Bird, heh heh.

Once upon a time, she really was sumthin'...

Wish there was footage of the complete Central Park concert. Warts and all.

Barbra almost looks.... pretty (kinda, sorta) in that clip!

Megan's Mabel...

R373 What is missing from the recording?

[quote]R350 Phyllis Newman said Carol Lawrence was a cunt during the Broadway run of Subways Are For Sleeping.

I used to wait on one of the replacement Tonys (who was a doll) (gay) in a NYC restaurant and once I said, “A friend of yours was in here the other night... Carol Lawrence!”

He shuddered and said, “Not MY friend!”

Oh my God....Has anyone on the chain seen a show after 1972?

Fuck off R378, gossip is gossip, no matter how vintage.

[quote]Besides "Father Knows Best", Elinor joined the casts of "Andy Griffith Show" for a few seasons and then later joined the cast of "The Odd Couple" as Felix's girl friend, so she got work over the years. As a little girl, she was also in "Three Daring Daughters" as one of Jane Powell's younger sisters/youngest daughter of Jeanette McDonald, so she's been in the business a long time.

You've forgotten her most prominent role (at least to DL denizens) as Stan's bride-to-be on "The Golden Girls." In real life she was married to Harry Ackerman for nearly 30 years; he was involved in many TV shows on the production side: Father Knows Best, Leave it To Beaver, Gidget, I Love Lucy, etc.

Remember when THE INHERITANCE closing announcement was a big theatre story?

That was February. Of this year.

Five months ago.

Elinor also played the kind salesgirl who helped Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman

How has Aaron Tveit been filling his days during the Broadway shutdown?

Rum, sodomy and the lash.

God bless, you r384. That’s one of my all-time favorite quotes.

Princess...

I've never seen Father Knows Best, or My 3 Sons. Or Lassie or the Danny Thomas Show.

They're just a lump of programing that's so domestic I'm not interested in them.

After watching the 30 rock special, anyone know why Cheyenne Jackson wasn't on for very long?

Donahue was good in FATHER KNOWS BEST, but the show was always a scarily sanitized and airbrushed vision of American family life. Sanitized and airbrushed by 1950s network standards. And they all had that weird mid-Atlantic diction that had fallen out of favor even then.

Seen today, it's from Mars.

Cheyenne was physically striking but otherwise he made little impression.

My guess about 30 ROCK is that Cheyenne may have had some personal issues (ahem) at the time. Or not. Similar to how he was cast, then replaced on GLEE (Jonathan Groff's chararcter reappeared and was rewritten to take over Jackson's duties as the villain coach).

But his character was poorly written and poorly conceived ("he's good-looking, Canadian, and too nice! LOL"). They never knew what to do with him. I was a big 30 ROCK fan at the time but was disappointed by his turn on the show. He was not the only actor poorly served by the writing--look at the "writing staff" of the show within the show.

Cheyenne has been, and will always be, a black hole of a person.

[quote]How has Aaron Tveit been filling his days during the Broadway shutdown?

How has he been filling his hole?

The only one of those I'll watch is FKB, r387. It has its charms. The Bud in a bath house episode is priceless. And it's fun to hate on Lauren Chapin.

Was Cheyenne part of the zoom call? I didn’t even notice him.

R378 jesus fucking christ yes. Not pretty.

[quote]How has Aaron Tveit been filling his days during the Broadway shutdown?

He's filming a Hallmark Christmas movie upstate with Laura Osnes that started shooting just this week.

Try to stay current!

Wait, Bud was in a bathhouse ?

R397, It will be a reunion.

OMG. Tveit is awful in that performance of Tonight. His vocal production is all through his nose. His "acting" is all indicating exactly what is being stated in each word he sings.

And then there is his ridiculous hair.

He needs help. Poor thing. Awful work in that video.

OMG. Tveit is awful in that performance of Tonight. His vocal production is all through his nose. His "acting" is all indicating exactly what is being stated in each word he sings.

And then there is his ridiculous hair.

He needs help. Poor thing. Awful work in that video.

A lot of musical theater people think good voice + hot = "good actor"

David Carroll, rest in peace, sang pretty much all the time through his nose, but people were polite and still not saying it. Now it can be said. Diana Ross also sings through her nose, though I think someone said it (probably Mary Wilson).

Jeremy Jordan shows Tveit how it's done in this video with the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl. (Note: this was Solea Pfeiffer's first professional performance. She went on to be cast as Eliza in the National Tour of HAMILTON.)

Singing starts at the 1:15 mark.

Oh, my. Yes. Infinitely better. And totally believable as a heterosexual.

He nails "Maria," too.

Lucky Maria.

Ain't it awful, the heat, ain't it awful....

Who is that in r407?

R407, Jeremy Jordan, I think.

God I hate those face pimples. I see one and I'm immediately turned off no matter how good the performance.

Ass pimples are worse.

Good As New - with Julianne Moore.

Peter Pan - NT.

Hope Emerson!

Well, r398, it was more a Man's club. Bunch of old men and Bud in towels in a steam room and I think a massage was involved.

R334/R335 I believe she only did the high, operatic no's as the beginning of the song. The rest sounds like Marilyn.

R318 Was Marilyn considered for the film version of DAMN YANKEES? I don't think Verdon was very believable in it. She was just not sexy or pretty. On stage, you can suspend disbelief but not on a large screen with close-ups.

Apropos of nothing, I think this is very pretty.

Are those of you who know a lot about technique etc. impressed by this? (You bitches have made me second guess myself!)

KMK!

Miss Morison...

R421 Had dinner with Pat and her companion. What a darling.

Was she a lezzie-loo?

^^ can’t decide on spelling, though

R423 Les-yes.

And Shirley MacLaine should have been in Pajama Game instead of Haney who didn't come across well on screen. And Keel or MacRae should have been opposite Day.

She wipes Raitt off the screen. He simply doesn't have the wattage to be her costar. It would have been such a classic.

Shirley Maclaine has always been an engaging presence on screen. But at the time that PAJAMA GAME was filmed, she was too young, and looked it, to play Gladys. She would be engaging on screen, but she was not half the dancer that Carol Haney was.

"Steam Heat" turned out perfectly. We would all be the poorer without having preserved forever that bit of Carol Haney dancing Fosse's signature work.

R419 his technique is excellent! The only flaws are a couple weird vowel modifications (which probably come from the accent he’s using) and that his tongue is just a tad too far forward for the legit style.

Shirley MacLaine was a wonderful actress and a competent, but not a star dancer. I'm glad this performance of Haney exists. John Raitt's gorgeous voice, presence and topless final scene are all appreciated. I'm glad the rest of the Broadway cast is there as well, though I rather wish the few dropped songs weren't dispensed with. Raitt really sings "A New Town Is A Blue Town" sublimely on the OCR.

[quote]his tongue is just a tad too far forward

Personally, I've always enjoyed men with forward tongues.

Gray is charming here. Raitt seems rather a zero.

Lambert is an amazing technician, not so much in the track linked above but in the scream-y rock stuff he does, solo and with Queen. That he can do that in a healthy way that doesn't destroy his cords; that's truly impressive.

Years ago, I used to live next door to Cheryl Freeman who was a seriously trained, classical singer. I'd hear her singing gorgeously during the day, and then she'd go off to the St. James every night and sing "Acid Queen" in TOMMY. That's technique.

Why do you guys hate John Raitt?

Lambert's rendition of COME TO ME, BEND TO ME is flawless. The beauty of tone, line, control and sensitivity to lyric and phrasing are astounding in one so young.

R431, Raitt is also charming in that clip if less aggressively charming than Dolores Gray. And the keys are tailored to her range. They are two of the best theatre voices ever.

Count me as someone else who thinks Raitt comes across as wonderfully charming in that clip with DG. And that voice of his, just beautiful.

The late, great Barbara Cook LOVED Adam Lambert's rendition of "Come to Me, Bend To Me," so much so that she praised him for it online and I think also in an interview.

I have to sadly agree that, all things considered, it was a mistake to cast Gwen Verdon in the movie of DAMN YANKEES. Although her dancing of course is phenomenal, and her body is GREAT, somehow she doesn't come across as truly sexy at all -- partly because she always had more of a character actor's face than a beautiful one, and she literally looks old enough to be Tab Hunter's mother. I think the movie would have been much better with a younger and sexier Lola such as Marilyn Monroe, even if the dancing was nowhere near what Verdon could do. Plus, of course, they could have cut a lot of the choreography for the movie -- Lola doesn't have to dance THAT much, and if someone other than Verdon had been cast in the show originally, she probably wouldn't have to begin with.

Plus Raitt was very hunky!

Lola in DAMN YANKEES is a comedy role. She's not a sexpot, she's pretending to be a sexpot.

I'm glad Verdon did the film. She made Lola a great characterization because she was simultaneously sexy and funny. If she had just been sexy, the women going to the theater would have hated her for being a homewrecker. Her sense of humor while going about seducing Joe, which according to Verdon, was based on Lola still being a fat, ugly girl put into Lola's amazing dancer's bod, helped put a whole diffferent level to the character. Bob Fosse directed Verdon to play it that way. And yes, Verdon was a character actress, a brilliant one, and a sexy one, who went on to get great reviews comparing her to Garbo favorably in her next show "New Girl in Town", then playing a spinster breaking free in "Redhead", all around the time of the film "Damn Yankees". Monroe might have added a neediness perhaps to Lola, but there wouldn't have been that much dancing. Verdon is pretty iconic in the role. I'm glad someone cookie-cutter beautiful too wasn't cast in the role, because Verdon really had that standout musical individualist thing in addition to her triple threat talents, which made her a star.

The Encores! production of Damn Yankees with Sean Hayes, Cheyenne Jackson and Jane Krakowski was outstanding.

There's a commercial quality bootleg that preserved it beautifully.

r440 - that actually sounds like great casting on all three roles!

Why hasn't "Come to Me, Bend to Me" become a gay anthem?

The American theater in the 20th Century produced four important choreographers. Jerome Robbins, Agnes de Mille, Michael Bennett and Bob Fosse. And only one of them also found great success in film. Fosse's genius is without peer.

His work for the theater is always deeply infused with character. The Shoeless Joe ballet, Once a Year Day, I Would Trust Her, Hernando's Hideaway, If My Friends Could See Me Now, all perfectly capture the characters dancing who are dancing them, as well as the moment they seek to convey. "Whatever Lola Wants" is one of the best examples of that (aside from "Big Spender" which tops them all. It doesn't have any dancing at all, just pure character through movement.) His work deserves to have the very best dancers available to bring it to life and preserve it for the camera.

In an alternate reality, Marilyn Monroe would be wonderful as Lola in a film version of "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant." Even in a musical version. But Damn Yankees is about Fosse, start to finish. And that does not match the considerable strengths of Marilyn Monroe. So, no. No, she would not have made a good Lola in a film version of "Damn Yankees." The inevitable loss of Fosse's contribution makes that impossible.

Ooops. "I'll Never Be Jealous Again." Sorry. (And I left out "The Rich Kids Rag.")

Ooops. "I'll Never Be Jealous Again." Sorry. (And I left out "The Rich Kids Rag.")

[quote]Years ago, I used to live next door to Cheryl Freeman who was a seriously trained, classical singer. I'd hear her singing gorgeously during the day, and then she'd go off to the St. James every night and sing "Acid Queen" in TOMMY. That's technique.

Cheryl Freeman -- there's a name I have not heard in years. I just checked IMDb and her last credit was a TV movie called "Rediscovering Christmas" in 2019 that also starred DL fave Jessica Walter.

R443, No love for Tommy Tune?

[quote] (And I left out "The Rich Kids Rag.")

Do you mean “The Rich Man’s Frug”?

Much love for Tommy Tune. He worked brilliantly within the standard forms. And he was a very fine director. But I don't think he broke through the standard to give us anything unequivocally new and uniquely his own.

[quote] Do you mean “The Rich Man’s Frug”?

Nope. I meant "The Rich Kid's Rag." Bob Fosse choreographed LITTLE ME, too. The Rich Kid's Rag was a dance number for the rich kids from the right side of the tracks. And every movement in their dance conveys just that.

American Dance Machine thought it worthy enough to include in its repertoire. It was performed and filmed by members of the company. (No, I have no link for that video.)

Oh, then you left out “Rich Man’s Frug”

Kidding, I realize there’re at least a half a dozen other dances you could have picked that fit into your theory.

My personal favorite of his dances is the three-act play in seven minutes: “Take Off With Us”.

“I don’t know about the audience, but I think it’s the best work you’ve ever done. You son of a bitch”

R438 and R439, I appreciate your arguments, but I still think Verdon was too old and not conventionally sexy or beautiful enough for the movie of DAMN YANKEES. According to the info I can find online, Verdon was born in 1925, which means she would only have been around 32 or 33 when she filmed the movie, but to me she looks MUCH older than that (and I believe she used to lie about her age).

IMHO, Lola is supposed to be truly beautiful and sexy AND also a great comic actress. A big point of the story is that Applegate gives Lola and Joe youth and beauty in return for owning their souls. That's certainly believable with Tab Hunter, but the story doesn't make much sense if Lola has the face of a middle-aged woman. Yes, Jane Krakowski was great in that Encores! production, and someone like her would have been perfect for a movie remake as long as she was age appropriate.

Again, no musical past 1974. YAWWWWNNNNNNNN

Again, people whining without adding anything to the conversation. YAWWWWNNNNNNNN

R453, if you have to start your post with the word, "Again," that's your first clue that you are repeating your boring self.

r432 - Acid Queen

Jane Krakowski isn't beautiful and she's never been cast as such. She's not unattractive, of course.

Have there BEEN musicals since 1974?

There was SWEENEY TODD. Then there was SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. And... um... let me think about it and get back with you, R458.

R458, your post made me try to remember what modern musicals were so acclaimed that the NY Times started reviews for those shows on page 1 of the front section. The ones that I'm pretty sure earned that spot were the Nathan Lane Guys & Dolls revival and Tommy. I'm sure there were others, including maybe The Producers or Hamlton? Anyone remember?

[quote] Have there BEEN musicals since 1974?

Ahem.

[quote]R442 Why hasn't "Come to Me, Bend to Me" become a gay anthem?

The alternate lyrics “Bend (Over) for Me, Come for Me” weren’t allowed on the airwaves, and screwed up the meter, anyway. There’s tape of one disastrous performance of it for a PBS fundraiser, with John Davidson singing.

That, plus this blooper at the 1:30 mark, kind of cooled his career for a while : (

WE SEE YOU, WHITE AMERICAN THEATER!

[quote]Jane Krakowski isn't beautiful and she's never been cast as such. She's not unattractive, of course.

I kind of half-agree. She's actually quite attractive on screen, but she is not a total sex bomb screen goddess on CAM-EH-REH [said in the Jenna Maroney 'accent']. So, you may be right about a film version. But, I will say, on stage, she's one of those performs who can be insanely sexy. I remember seeing her in Guys & Dolls in the West End and although she has amazing comic chops I found her almost too sexy for Adelaide. I'm not exaggerating to say that during some numbers in which she danced with incredible... control and showed off her fabulous figure the audience literally gasped at how striking she looked. And then, of course, there's that ultimate sexy performance of hers from Nine. It's funny, there are some actors/actresses who are enormously sexy on screen and are complete duds on stage. While Jane is still pretty on screen, it's on stage where she truly lights up.

On stage, Krakowski IS the woman Jenna Maroney thought she was.

ALW is apparently working on a new version of “Tell Me on a Sunday” in which the character is a gay man.

The highlight of the film of Pajama Game is the old time vaudevillian softshoe of I Would Trust Her. I much prefer it to the trying too hard Steam Heat. The effortless charm of Shaw and Foy really is something.

And the best Fosse on film is Rich Man's Frug. Everyone is choreographed within an inch of their lives and Charney gives one of the all time great dance performances on film.

I suppose we now all know why John Davidson never got a tour of duty as Billy Flynn in the Weisslerized CHICAGO revival.

[Quote] ALW is apparently working on a new version of “Tell Me on a Sunday” in which the character is a gay man.

Adam Lambert's return to the legitimate theatre is imminent!

On Stage.

Anyone else watch the NT Live stream of Amadeus? It was awfully.... misguided. I did like having the orchestra on stage and moving about, and that huge sliding platform of stairs was nice (as was a very handsome cellist), but the acting was all over the place. I missed the malignant slyness of Ian McKellan's Broadway performance -- this Salieri just seemed cranky-- not to mention McKellan's acting chops (after the long opening monologue as the aged Salieri, when McKellan rose from his wheelchair, shifted his posture and voice and his old-man costume fell away to reveal the younger Salieri in a blue silk coat and breeches the audience gasped). And the NT's Mozart started at Volume 12 and had no place to go except to an ear/nose/throat specialist.

That said, I'm sad that that's the last NT Live stream. There are So. Many. More! they could show. I was very happy to see One Man, Two Guvnors again, but the Bridge Theatre's Midsummer wins Best of Shows hands down.

The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny - directed by Ivan Vo Hoe.

The Boy Who Danced On Air.

[quote] I suppose we now all know why John Davidson never got a tour of duty as Billy Flynn in the Weisslerized CHICAGO revival.

Because then they would have had to cast Joyce Bulifant as Velma Kelly.

Thanks R471 !!!!!!

Rather beautiful song from short runner

What? No more Foreign Broadway livestreams? I'm very sad.

Thank you r469, that was great...

Is the Stratas Mahagonny available?

R478 Shall have a look around.

Davidson was great as Curly in those wretched Sylvia Kaye Fine PBS specials.

If he's not a BIPOC gay man, what's the point?

R481 Are you insane? They are delicious.

I was actually surprised to find that John Davidson is an atheist. I always assumed his reputation and fan base was pretty L7 based on his Disney movies and game shows.

I'm with R480 about Sylvia Fine and those shows she hosted. So much money spent and too little gotten in return.

A better producer and director could have taken the same budget, the same performers and the same repertoire and made much more out of it. It's not to have (some of) what finally aired, but for the most part, it's a series of missed opportunities.

R484 Meh. I always presumed their focus was to bring a bit of glamour and Broadway to the provinces. Which they do.

Fuck R484. Sylvia knew great talent when she saw it and also knew what shows were the best suited for it.

Dammit, Emile!

Thank you, R486. You prove the point. No reason to cast Bonnie Franklin for that. It's not the original staging. Not the original setting. Not the original musical arrangements.

For an evening about musical theater history, that performance is devoid of it.

Juliet Prowse had an eating disorder or a drug habit in the early 1980s?

WE SEE YOU, WHITE BONNIE FRANKLIN!

R489, you do realize that Nicki is none other Cha Cha from Grease.

Yes, Juliet looks like shit in that clip. She did the role on tour and I think Internationally, but she's just not good.

John Davidson today . . .

R488 Just for you, honey.

R491, Elder gays will remember that Juliet was once engaged to Frank Sinatra.

Shit, Bonnie's "Honey Bun" is even worse than "Wonderful Guy".

I can't stand to even see Bonnie Franklin's face. I hate everything about it, including that stupid open-mouthed smile.

Here you go.

r480 Davidson really was that boy with something extra eh?

Juliet is good on the London cast recording.

After watching that clip it's difficult to believe anyone would want to pay Bonnie Franklin to do anything. Definition of mediocre.

Oh Carol, no.

I found his Cosmopolitan centerfold to be exciting in the extreme when I was a child.

R501 Carol was made for Tv variety specials.

[quote]ALW is apparently working on a new version of “Tell Me on a Sunday” in which the character is a gay man.

But they're changing the title to "Tell Me at a Sunday Brunch."

Richard Chamberlain would have been a great Bobby in Company and Bernadette does a wonderful job in their number. But good casting was very rare in those specials.

Fine claimed the reason young people didn't like theater was because it was too expensive so they sought out other sources like off Broadway. She hated rock musicals and clearly didn't get that her very ideas were what were old fashioned and unappealing to younger audiences.

Max Von Essen in "Spitroast Me on a Sunday."

[quote]clearly didn't get that her very ideas were what were old fashioned and unappealing to younger audiences.

Ironic comment for this theatre community no?

And when those younger audiences are old geezers, everything they love will be spat on and dismissed by future generations.

Did Sylvia Fine Kaye ever stop leaning against that damned piano?

"She hated rock musicals and clearly didn't get that her very ideas were what were old fashioned and unappealing to younger audiences."

And why should she? Alan Jay said it best: We’ve been living through a period when the gifted beginner has been so overpraised that it has deprived him of the incentive to grow and learn his craft. And the professional has been so scorned that he has become fearful of picking up a pen. But far more dangerous than all that, I think, is the constant and continuing cry, ‘We must attract the youth! Will the young people like it?’ Well, the theatre is not for the young, nor is it for the old. It’s not even for everybody. It’s for people who like the theatre, whatever their age. The people who go to be transported or amused or uplifted or enchanted on the highest possible level: the level that has made the theatre survive the ages.

RED LIVES MATTER!

510

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

R510 Bravo. Hear, Hear.

R512 New here? You missed the RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Sorry if this is a repeat post.

Andrew Scott starring in livestream July 29.

Three Kings will be performed five times starting from Wednesday 29th July, with tickets on general sale from 22nd July on the Old Vic website, at prices ranging from £10 to £40.

Any venture that does not attract younger audiences, nor strive towards it is doomed to failure. It's also why the only talk on this board from elder Theater queens is about Follies, a show you'd have to be over 70 to have seen originally and means zero to anyone under 40.

It is called "musicals". If the music is not resonating with the audiences, you've got a real problem. Most of the posters on this board don't seem to have liked any contemporary music not written by Sondheim since the 80s.

Great musicals since 1974:

Chicago

Chorus Line

Annie

Sweeney

Ragtime

Borderline:

Sunday and Into the Woods

RAGTIME and ANNIE?

Oh, for fuck's sake. Broadway is dead, kids. Just let it go.

Am I the only one who doesn't see what's so bad about Bonnie Franklin. Her singing is fine and not unpleasant and her biggest crime seems to be that she's too overeager like Anne Hathaway.

[quote]Am I the only one who doesn't see what's so bad about Bonnie Franklin

This is DL. Yes, you are literally the only one.

Well, I saw Munsel's bus and truck tour and Franklin is no Pia Zadora.

Hold me, Stewpot - I'm scared!

It's nice that this thread has finally come back around to Bonnie Franklin, it being the "What Is It That We're Living For" Edition.

Thread is no longer paywalled. It's been paywalled for several days, even when other threads were open. What's going on?

Look at that god damned punchable, untalented face and the stupid open-mouth smile. You can just hear the whining in your head.

R519 One of her problems is he never serves the text. She serves only her need for the audience to love her.

R525, what, no mention of her fried egg titties?

R525, that looks like a face that goes home and can't sleep at night because she's terrified that someone will catch on she's risen above her abilities.

R524, shut up before someone realizes the mistake.

R515 - I'm under 40 (well.. barely.. I'm 39) and I enjoy reading the first-hand experiences from eldergays on here. Yes, even goddamn Follies.

R525, Which one was her lazy eye?

Did someone mention titties?

Carousel Live

Moulin Rouge

Sylvia Fine Kaye is so aggressively dykey.

Surely she was a lesbian, married to that flamer the insufferable Danny Kaye, no?

Thank you, R532! I know some people on here seem to loathe Kelli, but I thought she was so wonderful in this concert production.

[quote]r519 Am I the only one who doesn't see what's so bad about Bonnie Franklin. Her singing is fine and not unpleasant and her biggest crime seems to be that she's too overeager like Anne Hathaway.

The woman is a known child abuseer.

That's not okay.

[quote]r500 Did Sylvia Fine Kaye ever stop leaning against that damned piano?

Now, that's a caftan!

[quote]r526 One of her problems is she never serves the text. She serves only her need for the audience to love her.

Seeing Bonnie Franklin steamroll Rodgers & Hammerstein with her pushy mediocrity definitely calls for a palet cleanser.

How do you download R533? Asking for a friend....

Bonnie Franklin truly was the luckiest woman in show business. How did she take so little so far in a business with so much competition???

But she can help all the fatties here lower their blood pressure. Not a bad thing to have happening at Data Lounge.

Bonnie Franklin truly was the luckiest woman in show business. How did she take so little so far in a business with so much competition???

But she can help all the fatties here lower their blood pressure. Not a bad thing to have happening at Data Lounge.

Okay, seriously, what is with the Bonnie Franklin obsession?

You're asking us? Go ask the folks at the Tony Awards.

I'm under 70 and I saw the original Follies its opening week. It was Easter break so I could go to the Wed mat. I also saw Hello Dolly at the St James with the original cast except for Eilleen Brennan.

I was quite the Mary! at 5.

Eileen

[quote]I also saw Hello Dolly at the St James with the original cast....

Ah, but you didn't get to see Ann Miller's Dolly. That was very special.

My problem with Bonnie Franklin was her hairstyle. Even back then. Hideous.

Bonnie Franklin had more than one hairstyle. Be specific!

Who was playing Irene, r544?

I apoligize, r548. The bowl cut.

Bonnie Franklin had ONE hair style. She just adjusted the length, from time to time.

[Quote] Bonnie Franklin had ONE hair style.

Wedge, r550....it's called...a wedge.

Why wasn’t Bonnie Franklin in any productions of Follies?

She is the ultimate Carlotta Campion. She was always there. The bitch NEVER went away.

She's a Sally without the voice.

I don't get the Bonnie Franklin hate, either.

Incidentally, Sylvia Fine makes me think of THE NANNY.

WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND!

[quote]I don't get the Bonnie Franklin hate, either.

I think most of it stems from "One Day at a Time," in which she took a character that wasn't very appealing to begin with and, through her questionable acting choices, made her, and, by extension, herself, really quite insufferable.

In high school I remember watching the cheerleaders turn on their fake enthusiasm for a cheer, then switch it off again and return to their bitchy selves.

That’s Bonnie Franklin, except she appears to have no off switch.

Anastasia - the Musical

Hairspray Live!

r561 ...a handbag...

To our beloved National Theatre poster: Do you have One Man, Two Guvnors in a downloadable format in your collection? TIA!

Here you go, R563.

When Franklin was doing ODAAT, she kept saying how much she hated LA and couldn't wait to get back to New York and Broadway. We can see how that turned out. It's very, very difficult to imagine her in anything.

The Tony awards made her hated in the theater community, but that wasn't her fault. The taped sequences were put on TV at the expense of some of the technical awards and she became a lightning rod for it.

WE SEE YOU, WHITE JOHN DAIDSON!

[quote]r566 It's very, very difficult to imagine her in anything.

Was she ever a potential Neely?

That, I'd like to see.[italic] ("DAMMIT, Ted!")

R539 For your friend

Title song with amazing Linzi

R558 No thank you. I saw it in West End years ago. Boring. Audience was laughing at it, really laughing. I decided then and there no more ALW musicals. But I have taken some friends to see good old POTO.

R564 Here ya go, downloadable now.

It’s funny how the pandemic turns out to be the only thing that could get Laurie Metcalf off the stage for awhile.

r529 you’re almost 40. You are an eldergay.

Thanks for the "Moulin", but anyone else think it was something of a slog to get through? Some very good voices, Burstein energetic, orchestrations thin as hell. Plus I thought it was going to be more spectacular. Lots of scenes taking place not quite "in 1" but not as all out eye-popping as I was led to believe. Glad I passed, but hope they can get back to work soon.

Burstein would probably be out if I went to see it; he has a record of missing performances in quite a few shows when I've gone.

The ushers inform him of your presence and he slips out the back.

For r570

Part 2 of 2

Franklin definitely doesn't offend me like she does many people, but her "Wonderful Guy" performance seems a little too manufactured and golly gosh darn/aw shucks for me. I could see her being a real life Rachel Berry from Glee. There's something very high school theatre department about her. That said, she's not awful. I'm sure we've all heard and seen worse sung versions of that song, so she has some talent.

R577 That's a shame and also doesn't help him with my Tony vote.

It seems improbable, but this thread might actually make it to 600 without being paywalled! Did you know who die of the 'rona?

[quote]Thanks for the "Moulin", but anyone else think it was something of a slog to get through? Some very good voices, Burstein energetic, orchestrations thin as hell. Plus I thought it was going to be more spectacular. Lots of scenes taking place not quite "in 1" but not as all out eye-popping as I was led to believe. Glad I passed, but hope they can get back to work soon.

I haven't looked at the video, but I would say the most eye-popping aspect of MOULIN ROUGE was the way the set was built way out beyond the proscenium, and I imagine most of that is lost in the video because there probably aren't that many really long shots.

Not that I want to sound like I'm defending the show, because I pretty much hated it.

I don’t know if the bootleg of Moulin Rouge linked above is the same one I saw a few months ago, but that one was some sort of archival recording, shot from a stationary camera at the back of the house, pretty much capturing the whole stage. The sound appeared to be direct from the sound board.

What an awful excuse for a show. Smug and gimmicky and completely devoid of emotion.

Is Olivio on?

R583 But it was the wrong type of windmill

R584 Yes, that describes the video of Moulin Rouge linked above. Static camera, from the center rear of the orchestra.

I actually prefer seeing shows recorded this way, as opposed to the drunken camera movements and wonky focus of the typical iPhone bootleg.

Moulin is devoid of emotion and smug because it was directed by insufferable, Ivy Leage frat-boy, straight douche Alex Timbers, who should be kept away from musicals.

[quote]But it was the wrong type of windmill

Was it repurposed from "Man of La Mancha?"

We seem to have hit a paywall again, so let's wrap this one up with a few anecdotes, shall we?

Here's an interview with Jo Stafford where she discusses Ethel Merman and why so many composers wrote great songs for her.

Paul Weston (Jo's husband and arranger): That's simple. She could be heard in the last row of the theater. Jo: Sometimes in the theater across the street. Paul: It's a fact that Broadway people never really appreciated what the pop singers brought to their music. Jo: It always upset me, because for the most part pop singers were the ones who made those songs into standards. Ethel Merman, bless her heart, never made a song into a standard in her life. And you can be sure it wasn't Ezio Pinza who made "Some Enchanted Evening" a hit, but Perry Como.

Discuss.

And here's a very funny story about Judith Anderson and Florence Reed from a book called "No Pickle, No Performance." The story is told on two pages of the book. Here's page one.

And here's page 2.

Almost done. So in conclusion...

Got tu go Disco

Rockabye Hamlet

Quilters

The new (hopefully not paywalled thread)...

And last, but certainly not least...

BAJOUR!