Theatre Gossip #435, "Introducing the Newest Cocktail at the Shubert Bar: Sutton Foster's Nipple" Edition

Link to previous thread

And I wanted a toaster!

Sutton, if you're reading this, I apologize for the OP.

Sutton can't read. Otherwise she never would have done Shrek.

“Leave Sutton Alone!”

Well that certainly crosses the line of bad taste. Adam was a friend of mine for almost thirty years, and was the nicest mensch. I'm still shocked and saddened by how quickly his illness returned and ended his life. He was a sweet, very decent guy.

You'll get over it, sweetheart.

You are obviously vile, r7. I imagine nothing related to friendship could sink in.

I believe the local saying is "Die in a grease fire!" if I'm not mistaken?!

You're overreacting, dear.

Well, this thread started out with a bang.

Well, at least Sutton Foster’s nipple is from this century.

It’s that title. It’s just as rotten as always. Is this the same OP as the last few? Because he keeps hitting new lows.

Yeah, it's too bad the guy who did "Beanie's Beanie's Beanie's" wasn't quicker on the draw. THAT was WIT!

This is the only Bean song I can think of.

Sutton Foster -from nipples of Venus to nipples of Vulcan

R2, Fred told me that but I couldn't believe you could be that dull!

I'd hang you from the nipples...

I expect to see a new DL thread titled "Why Did Theatre Gossip #235 Go Straight Down the Shitter?"

Theatre Gossip #235? Was that the one where we were discussing whether Mrs. Patrick Campbell was too old to play Eliza Doolittle?

I sincerely apologize for bringing nipples into the DL universe in the last thread. I had no idea I'd be creating a monster.

Don't worry r20, the only person we hate here is r7/r9

Here's why Sutton Foster is not a good Reno Sweeney. She's not a broad. She's one of the girls who's one of the girls. That's not Reno. Sutton is talented, but every actress benefits from being well suited to a role.

Can you imagine Ethel Merman going for tofutti and bottled water after her yoga class? No. But you can easily imagine Sutton Foster doing just that.

Can you imagine Sutton Foster in a smoke filled room, dining on a large steak and knocking back a scotch and soda? There is no Reno Sweeney to be found in Sutton Foster.

[quote]I believe the local saying is "Die in a grease fire!" if I'm not mistaken?!

I beg your pardon!

R19 I saw her. She wasn't.

Bean song you old show queens will know. All the key changes should get the DL spinsters excited.

Ahem!

[quote] the DL spinsters

We are the DL confirmed bachelors you asshole.

DL spinsters...

I wish all of you could have seen Sutton as a dominatrix. She looked like she was late for the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. The sight of her in leather must have excited Choo Choo Cannavale, though, because he immediately moved in.

R7/R9 is indeed a tiresome cunt.

Hey R7/9. There's a great bridge over the Hudson you could fling yourself from.

I was listening to the PR guy of “Thoroughly Modern Millie” on the podcast Backstage Babble. He was talking about how they had written the song “Gimme Gimme” specifically to fit Sutton. I thought, if I were Sutton Foster, I would have sent the song back and asked for something better.

so Erin dilly never got to sing it? Dilly Dilly

Gimme

[quote] so Erin dilly never got to sing it?

No, at the time Sutton did her Eve Harrington bit, the show was still being workshopped. Apparently, they wrote “Gimme Gimme” in the foyer of a theater and it sounds like it.

Does Sutton have osteoporosis? Why can’t she stand up straight in that Rosie clip? I guess since she didn’t spend much time in the chorus, she never learned, “Tits up.” All stars should start out learning their trade in the chorus so they don’t look like the Hunchback of Notre Dane in a red sequined dress.

[quote] No, at the time Sutton did her Eve Harrington bit, the show was still being workshopped.

No r35 Erin performed at La Jolla

[quote]Hunchback of Notre Dane

Pics please.

[quote] Erin performed at La Jolla

La Jolla is on a college campus. They were workshopping the show there. The PR guy says that when Sutton took over, the script just had in brackets “Song for Millie”. They hadn’t gotten around to writing “Gimme Gimme” yet.

It was an out-of-town tryout but not a workshop. Full production with ticket sales, nothing at all to do with college

This review from the last thread needs to be on DL in its entirety:

[Quote] 'ANYTHING GOES' DOESN'T, THANKS TO MITZI GAYNOR

[Quote] By Elizabeth Maupin, Sentinel Theater Critic / THE ORLANDO SENTINEL

[Quote] November 2, 1989

[Quote] Mitzi Gaynor may be capable of conquering the glitzier peaks of show business - selling out the smoke-filled rooms of Las Vegas, starring in her own TV variety shows, bursting from Bob Mackie gowns that are cut to reveal the lower reaches of her cleavage and the upper reaches of her legs.

[Quote] But Gaynor has no more business playing Reno Sweeney, a nightclub singer 20 or 30 years her junior, than Roseanne Barr has playing Juliet. Gaynor is as wrong for a Cole Porter musical as she can be, and her attempt to play Reno Sweeney turns Anything Goes on its ear.

[Quote] The problem isn't just Gaynor's age, although Gaynor, at 58, is more than 30 years older than Ethel Merman was when she first played the role. The problem is also her mannered style of singing, which may be perfect for Las Vegas but turns Porter's witty lyrics into unintelligible mush.

[Quote] With a different actress, this Anything Goes in the Orlando Broadway Series might be a perfectly pleasant touring production - a little lackluster, maybe, but boasting several winning performances and at least half a dozen of Porter's most memorable songs. With Gaynor, it's a curiosity - a show with a caricature where a character should be.

[Quote] The Anything Goes that we see today is not the same one that Merman played in 55 years ago and not the one its creators set out to write. The producer who decided to put together the perfect musical comedy - with Cole Porter writing the music and lyrics and with Ethel Merman as one of the leads - had the idea of a show about an eccentric group of people thrown together by a shipwreck. But the original book had to be scrapped when a real-life ship met disaster, and Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse were called in to create a new plot.

[Quote] Crouse's son Timothy (author of the political bestseller The Boys on the Bus) and John Weidman updated the show for the 1980s - preserving the period but scrapping the arcane references and some of the cornier jokes. That version, produced at Lincoln Center in 1987 with Patti LuPone as Reno Sweeney, is the original of the touring production we're seeing at Carr Performing Arts Centre.

[Quote] The story, still set on a ship, has to do with a sort of love quadrangle - Billy Crocker, a dashing young stockbroker's assistant; Hope Harcourt, the aristocratic love of his life; her fiance, Lord Evelyn Oakleigh; and Reno Sweeney, who is both nightclub singer and evangelist. They all get mixed up with Moonface Martin, a gangster proud of his designation as Public Enemy No. 13, and, unsurprisingly, everything turns out delightful and de-lovely in the end.

[Quote] The New York revival was praised for the 1930s set and costumes of Tony Walton, and Walton's smoothly elegant designs, with their cool colors and nautical motifs, are also used here. The New York show also was lauded for its witty performances. Some of that wit remains, especially in the character parts - Gordon Connell as an amiably drunken stockbroker, Dorothy Kiara as a lusty gangster's moll. Robert Nichols is funny as the benign Moonface, and Richard Sabellico (featured in the Asolo Theatre Company's 1985 Dames at Sea and in the same show on Broadway) is wonderful as Lord Evelyn, a quirky Brit who manages to be eccentric and manly all at once.

[Quote] Donna English is a spirited Hope, with a clear, beautiful voice; her singing makes for the production's loveliest moments. And the lanky Scott Stevenson is a likable Billy Crocker. He may sound at times a little too much like Al Jolson (or, as one audience member said, Mandy Patinkin imitating Al Jolson), but his high spirits all but carry the show.

[Quote] None of them, though, seems able to help the production's lackadaisical pacing. And none of them can do anything about the innapropriate and inane performance of Gaynor, whose chirpy coquettishness in the role of Reno Sweeney could give both nightclub singers and evangelists a bad name.

[Quote] It's hard enough to accept Gaynor in a role that pairs her romantically with two men whose mother she could easily be. It's hard enough to hear Reno described, even semi-facetiously, as possessing "innocent girlhood" without laughing out loud.

[Quote] But Gaynor proceeds, even further, to do herself in. She traipses about not in Walton's costumes, like the rest of the cast, but in clothes by her personal designer, Bob Mackie, that make her look like she's off to a Las Vegas barbecue. She layers her face with makeup suitable for a close personal friend of Tammy Faye Bakker. And she seems more interested in showing her still-great legs than in dancing, more interested in mugging than in communicating any of Porter's inimitable words.

[Quote] Audiences may still want to see Mitzi Gaynor, and her own variety show may display her singing and dancing talents much better than they're displayed here. In fact, her habit of running her own show may explain some of the stranger baggage of Anything Goes - the personal designer, the little out-of-character bows, the first-act curtain call. But theater isn't Las Vegas, and Gaynor ought to realize it. It's not always true that anything goes.

I don't blame a sixty year old for wanting to show of their gams and leave it at that. Did Mitzi do any TV performances to promote the production?

Everyone who was working with Lear de Bessonet on new projects are jumping ship. She's unfortunately an average talent who was promoted for the optics, not the talent. People work with her once, and then never again.

And people will go to her Encores productions once, and then never again.

It's the old Peter principle.

" Everyone rises to their own level of incompetence".

[quote] The problem is also her mannered style of singing, which may be perfect for Las Vegas but turns Porter's witty lyrics into unintelligible mush.

IbegtodifferwithyaElizabeth!

While the review is funny, the critic acts like Anything Goes is a good show, which it isn't.

What I seem to remember about that ANYTHING GOES, was that there were two different tours, the glitzy Mitzi one and the tour of the Broadway production, neither of which were doing well, so it was decided to combine them...et voila!

Decided by whom to combine them, r48? Did they have the same producer? Leslie Uggams was the original star of the tour.

Speaking of reviews, all you Sutton haters, you might want to read the London reviews of "Anything Goes". They ran out of superlatives, as they say...

Bajour! with Lens Dunham

Wasn't Erin Dilly replaced with Sutton in previews during the La Jolla run? I've assumed audio of Dilly in the part would have surfaced by now if there was any. Recordings of Kristin Chenoweth and Bea Arthur (as Meers) in one of the readings surface every once in a while, but I've always been interested in the earlier reading with Susan Egan and Faith Prince as Muzzy. I saw Egan as a replacement Millie late in the run and she had more polish but less grit and determination than Foster. Leslie Uggams was Muzzy and she was able to make much more out of a nothing role than Sheryl Lee Ralph was able to muster.

Here's audio of La Jolla's Muzzy Tonya Pinkins attempting to put over a more bluesy take on "Jazz Baby" which was probably too slow a throwaway number for that point in the second act.

I saw Ann Miller play Reno during a tour in the mid-70's. Now, that was a believable broad. And yes, she tapped!

I thought Patti was the first Reno Sweeney that tapped.

How can ya not love the ol' broad. And by God...that HAIR!

Lens Dunham will bring this production to BROADWAY!

You saw hair r55?

Jane Krakowski IS Lily St. Regis

Well, Jane has done exemplary work as characters with a fag hag subtext.

That's sort of a shitty role for Jane. There's not much to it.

Ann was not very good in that Anything Goes performance. Cole Porter would have been appalled.

Gideon Glick and Noah Galvin in the new episode of The Other Two plus Liz McCartney - I think - with one line in the opening crowd scene

Trans March on Broadway, Protesting Statements Made by Cameron Mackintosh, to Take Place September 6:

"Dear Evan Hansen" Oral History: How Broadway’s Biggest Hit Since "Hamilton" Became an Awards Season Movie:

Re: the trans march: CM's comments, of course, were taken out of context. He didn't say he wouldn't cast a trans actor, he said MAKING established characters trans would be a gimmick. HUGE difference. But of course, these agitators wouldn't dream of getting the full story when they can scream and feel persecuted.

I always wanted to see Divine play Medea, Mrs. Danvers and/or Lady MacBeth (Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe topful of direst cruelty!).

r26

Looking ahead, I think yours should be the next thread title.

Cameron’s comments were taken totally out of context but the woke Twitter mob eviscerated him anyway… pathetic. I can’t even imagine what those precious snowflakes would say had they ever read PL Travers’s original Mary Poppins stories.

No fan of Mackintosh here, but the "outrage" over his comments (from a Daily Mail recap of a lengthy interview in the Telegraph, mind you) and their doubling down on it even after the full interview was made available, just goes to show how artificial, self-aggrandizing and intellectually fraudulent this sort of outrage can be.

the woke mob is very, very easily manipulated.

Fascinating how none of the Patti-as-Reno worshippers ever notices that she's excused from a long chunk of the title song, so she can smile and wiggle in the back. Sutton Foster, by contrast, had a far longer version of the number to deliver, and she tapped (and tapped far better) throughout.

The Tonys version (of the Foster version!) is fun, but the full number in the theater was absolutely thrilling. The second time I saw her do it, it was a Sunday night performance -- astonishing to think that she did that twice Saturday AND twice Sunday.

Patti's game "dancing" with the company? No contest.

I'd rather have a Reno with the appropriate sound for Reno than one who's tops in taps, r71. Sorry, but Sutton is just more Peggy Sawyer than Reno Sweeney.

What on earth makes Sutton Foster's sound wrong for Reno? It's loud, brassy and clear, and as an added bonus her words are clear as day. Audio-wise she's a lot closer to Merman than LuPone was.

Both Patti and Ethel have a signature sound. Sutton is a fine singer....but she doesn't have a sound.

I remember sitting through Millie feeling bad for Sutton that they hadn't given her a knock it out of the park song. I think Give Me, Give Me was definitely what she and the show needed.

Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon, and Their Greatest Legacy: Nicole Fosse Remembers Her Famous Parents and Their Upper West Side Life:

LuPone bellows " Anything Goes"

Foster misses as a diva

Diva

Bigger Diva:

Thank God that Joanna Gleason beat her for the Tony that year, R77.

the Mitz

Foster lacks a certain star power that screams," Here I am, bitches." She will never be more than a "nice" performer, who would plaster on a fake smile and bring nothing new or exciting to a role.

Sutton Foster is a "deb" not a "broad". She's technically proficient, but not a star. I know she's today's idea of a star, but she's not my idea of one.

"Trans March on Broadway"? Theater really does deserve to die if this is what the professional theater community really thinks is the problem with Broadway today. I'm an actor in NYC and it's not exactly a MENSA crowd, these are people who get information from their dumb friends and like Trumpers, eschew all nuance for a full-throated screech, or whine of victimhood!

Currently at the St. Louis Muni the production of "Chicago" has a man playing Roxie Hart! Not a "trans woman", just the guy who was the understudy for Lola in "Kinky Boots"! I guess one fewer job for a 40ish actress is what woke actresses like! Hell, give ALL the roles to penised persons! No gimmick there at all! Who is this foolishness for? Was there no available actress to play the role? Did John Kander approve of this? Shame on him if he did!

I agree that Foster was miscast in Anything Goes, but after watching that number, can we really put the blame on her? Kathleen Marshall has to work a lot harder to even make it to the rung of "hack." That choreography is so fucking pedestrian. Do you think the dancers laugh at her behind her back after she lays out the routine and they realize it's the same one they used to do in their kiddie dance classes back in Sheboygan?

Did you see the choreography for that Muny Chicago production in the video they put out of the man playing Velma? Awful

Millie as a Broadway musical was godawful yet isn't it a huge hit with community theaters and high schools? Even fucking Camelot would be preferable.

I have to pull out my bluray of the movie of TMM which I just got and finally watch it. Just to clear that gimme gimme shit from my brain. The Tapioca never sounded so good.

The Thoroughly Modern Millie movie was a huge hit. It was among the Top 10 grossers of 1967, the dawn of the New Hollywood sparked by Bonnie & Clyde and The Graduate.

I liked what I saw of Rachel York in the National Tour.

Who did she play, Mrs. Meers?

Those male dancers with Mitzi have nice butts in tight pants.

Julie, dear, you did the scorning. You personally were not scorned. Your show, on the other hand, was indeed scorned.

No, the National Tour of Anything Goes.

Even in low-quality audio, Barbra still thrills with this. Let's see Beanie try to come close...

Any audio of Barbara?

All we need now is video of Beanie’s “Anything Goes.” Can’t wait to see her tap dancing.

A lot of you know this but for those who don't, TMM came about when producer Ross Hunter tried to buy the film rights to The Boy Friend for Julie Andrews. This was shortly after TSOM. The Boy Friend, a parody of 20s musicals, had been Andrews' Broadway debut.

For some reason, composer/lyricist/bookwriter Sandy Wilson thought he had Hunter over a barrel and demanded an extravagant amount for the rights. Hunter basically told Wilson to fuck himself and put together his own 20s musical for Andrews using period songs with a handful of new numbers by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn.

Jazz Baby was popular song from the 20s but Hunter had to license the rights from General Mills. For years they had been using the song to promote Wheaties cereal.

"Have you tried Wheaties?

Breakfast of champions!"

Thanks, r84. What’s really great is how spontaneous she is in that performance, which is completely different from the cast recording. She apparently phoned in many performances and certainly lost this audacious sensibility sometime the 70s, but she was the real deal.

A missed opportunity for Reno casting.

r98 which clip of who?

[quote] Fascinating how none of the Patti-as-Reno worshippers ever notices that she's excused from a long chunk of the title song, so she can smile and wiggle in the back. Sutton Foster, by contrast, had a far longer version of the number to deliver, and she tapped (and tapped far better) throughout.

yes r71 no doubt Sutton had more dancing to do, and she did it well (or maybe fine). But that's a false criterion. The show and Kathleen were basically wrong-headed to build a Reno around her tapping rather than her personality. I agree with r72 when they say:

[quote] I'd rather have a Reno with the appropriate sound for Reno than one who's tops in taps

Mostly, Sutton is very very skilled and did a very good job - as she almost always does - but it felt throughout that she was doing a paper-thin caricature of a "broad" as one would do for a 3-minute improv exercise, not a full character for Anything Goes.

[quote] Hunter basically told Wilson to fuck himself and put together his own 20s musical for Andrews using period songs with a handful of new numbers by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn.

He also used the white slavery plot line of the British musical, Chrysanthemum.

"Hell, give ALL the roles to penised persons! No gimmick there at all! Who is this foolishness for? Was there no available actress to play the role? Did John Kander approve of this? Shame on him if he did!"

I agree. I HATE all of this changing of genders for a gimmick.

The fate of Broadway seems doomed. The ultra-liberal SJWs now running the show don't seem to know or care that their target audience are whites. You know, 75% of the U.S. population. That's who you market your wares to and what Hollywood/Broadway used to do until they became 'woke.' Preferring to promote a radical leftist agenda than to create successful art will be the death of Hollywood/Broadway.

But, it will get me many Tonys, R 104. No one dares vote against me and risk being labeled a racist.

Ms. LuPone looking fabulous!

People besides Barbra can be thrilling in that music. Yes, she's young and not the seasoned performer she has become here, but the voice is already there, and some of the authority. The ability to connect with a song and thrill an audience with the sound of her singing is there. And I love the way she mixes. Some singers just shout the score as if they were warning the audience of a nearby fire.

I noticed someone took down that clip of Heather bombing a big note (or was it a series of notes) at a benefit performance. It wasn't professional footage. It always made me laugh, though. I should have known to save the video, as I did with Tovah's panties clip.

Interestingly Hunter had another huge hit, a blockbuster really, with the old-fashioned Hollywood studio style glossy Airport in the midst of the 'new' Hollywood in '70. Of course Lost Horizon was the bomb of all bombs with a wretched screenplay by DL icon Larry Kramer(so nasty he probably did it on purpose) but Columbia paid for that and Hunter just said I'm too fabulously wealthy to deal with Hollywood any longer and retired from films. He might have done some TV movies later. Not that he had too.

Hunter? Ross fucking Hunter? Do you know where you are, Blanche?

THIS DAY IN BROADWAY HISTORY: In 1924, "Rose-Marie" opened at the Imperial Theatre.

[quote]All we need now is video of Beanie’s “Anything Goes.” Can’t wait to see her tap dancing.

We're all for it!

Does anyone else find themselves thinking (regarding seeing shows): Is this show worth getting Covid for?

If this was 1971 and the show was FOLLIES, then of course it would be worth it, r113.

The scuttlebutt I recall was production/Kathleen Marshall basically begged a very trepidacious Sutton to do Anything Goes. I saw an early preview and Sutton definitely had the air of a little girl trying on mother's fur but was nowhere near as disastrous as Joel Grey who seemed to be in a totally different plane of reality from the rest of the cast.

Weren't Reba and Catherine Zeta-Jones at one time courted to open the revival? I believe there was an invited reading or workshop with Donna Murphy as Reno (but I might be confusing that with Roundabout's Pal Joey... or both) basically in search of a star. Wonder how Marshall would have reworked her take on the title song without a strong hoofer as Reno.

I love Donna, but I don't think she's a Reno, either.

There's a saying, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." This applies to anyone hiring Kathleen Marshall.

Ethel Shutta Takes Your Life Away!

It being Covid, r118, she takes my breath away.

[quote] Fascinating how none of the Patti-as-Reno worshippers ever notices that she's excused from a long chunk of the title song, so she can smile and wiggle in the back. Sutton Foster, by contrast, had a far longer version of the number to deliver, and she tapped (and tapped far better) throughout. The Tonys version (of the Foster version!) is fun, but the full number in the theater was absolutely thrilling. The second time I saw her do it, it was a Sunday night performance -- astonishing to think that she did that twice Saturday AND twice Sunday. Patti's game "dancing" with the company? No contest.

I guess it all depends on what you want from your Reno. I thought it diminished the role to have Foster tapping away with the chorus kids for the duration of the number. The way it is handled with LuPone doing a verse, a few jaunty steps, handing the stage over to the dancers and then returning to belt the end of the number is so old-fashioned musical comedy star treatment that I absolutely adore it. The late Michael Smuin's choreography for the Lincoln Center production was also vastly more exciting - it too is missing a section, but the number builds, pays off and ends, whereas the Marshall version just goes on and on and ON. I don't give any extra points to Foster just because she did more.

Elaine.

Sutton, Jr.

Sally Ann (who was Young Phyllis in Hello, Follies!)

[quote]Does anyone else find themselves thinking (regarding seeing shows): Is this show worth getting Covid for?

Yes, but I ask myself that same question about EVERYTHING these days.

"The way it is handled with LuPone doing a verse, a few jaunty steps, handing the stage over to the dancers and then returning to belt the end of the number is so old-fashioned musical comedy star treatment that I absolutely adore it."

*

Agreed, r120. I don't know why that poster seems to think it was originally a Reno dance number that they dumbed down for Patti. If you're going to have it be a Reno dance number, cast somebody with a character belt. Yes, I know Caroline's choreography isn't as extensive as Sutton's, but her vocals are much better suited to the character. Sutton just isn't a dame.

"The gay butterfly's wings are folded" - A Theatre's queen's pandemic.

Dolores is starving right now in 𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑹𝑹𝒀!.

The issue is that there aren't many true broads left on Broadway. Most up and coming theatre stars have voices and personalities like Sutton. Pleasant, on pitch, and perfectly competent, but not very interesting or memorable in the long run.

We need more broads.

[quote]We need more broads.

Something I never expected to see on the Datalounge.

Do the broads need to be broad where a broad should be broad?

It *is* called BROADway after all...

Martha Plimpton is an old-school broad.

Watched "Hansard" on National Theatre At Home. The play was rather meh -- WAoVirginiaWoolf-lite, minus the younger couple, but with the much-talked-about absent son -- but Lindsay Duncan and Alex Jennings were quite good.

R110 do you know where you fucking are? If it weren't for Ross fucking Hunter Sutton Foster would be working at a Burger King smiling at customers asking if they wanted to super size it or whatever they ask to make Americans obese.

Martha Plimpton! Now, that's a great idea for Reno.

Sutton Foster seems more like an Assistant Manager at The Gap....but, not a nice one. The old tacky suburban mall out by the Interstate.

Has anyone seen ANNETTE yet? I haven't but I plan to (I never miss an Adam Driver musical!)

I'm listening to the original soundtrack on streaming right now..... WTF?

I don't know what to think. Should I blame LA LA LAND?

Best description I heard of Sutton: Dancing Librarian. Think I heard it on DL.

Annette is wonderful. An original musical with a great cast, a fascinating story, inspired puppeteering and an amazing child actress at the end.

Well worth your time.

[quote] Best description I heard of Sutton: Dancing Librarian

But can she hit the high notes in “My White Knight”?

I don't think Our Miss Foster would be folding cotton cashmere at The Gap if it wasn't for Ross Hunter creating a Roaring Twenties vehicle for Julie Andrews but do wonder if she'd have found a breakout vehicle a la Millie. If nothing else, she probably would have been seen for Peggy Sawyer for the 2001 revival of 42nd Street. Looking at her pre-Millie resume, Sutton had played Sandy in Grease and Eponine in Les Miz on Broadway so it wasn't like she was strictly an ensemble chorus girl.

Sutton Foster's stage persona reminds me always of Mary Tyler Moore. All American and quintessentially nice.

She has not demonstrated having anything like MTM's acting chops. Not yet, anyway. But they are strongly similar. If a Dick Van Dyke Show musical was formulated... she's you're Laura Petrie.

^^^ Include me out.

She's not nearly as pretty as MTM and as ambitious as Moore was she had the genius of not coming across as annoyingly aggressive.

[quote]Has anyone seen ANNETTE yet?

I was planning to see it, until I found out that it isn't about Miss Funicello.

ANNETTE swings for the fences and misses by a wide mark. For me, anyway. But I certainly admire the ambition.

I'm praying that r136 has not triggered the Gap Playlist Guy.

R101, "a full character for Anything Goes"??? Right. That's what the show calls for. Lord.

And kindly explain how Marshall "buil[t] a Reno around her tapping rather than her personality." You make it sound as if she tapped in number after number.

The relentless Sutton Foster-bashing on this site is in some ways hilarious -- much of it from queens who don't realize they sound exactly like the generation in the '80s who said that LuPone was no Merman. But it's not surprising, really -- most people here also seem to dismiss Kelli O'Hara (a wonderful and subtle actress with a fabulous voice) as a bland nothing. So much easier to lionize what was instead of appreciate what is.

[quote] most people here also seem to dismiss Kelli O'Hara (a wonderful and subtle actress with a fabulous voice)

Thanks for playing, R148, we have some lovely parting gifts for you.

O'Hara in Bells are Ringing was lousy. Are you defending her in that? More Broadway porridge.

O'Hara was also hopelessly mediocre in Kiss Me Kate. Just a boring performer with a pretty voice.

I didn't see Kelli O'Hara in the Encores! BELLS ARE RINGING, but a theater-savvy friend told me how pleasantly surprised he was by her performance -- fresh, real, not trying to ape (the great) Judy Holliday.

She sang very well in KISS ME, KATE, but I agree that she wasn't ideal in it. Frankly, I found the whole production so blandly conceived that I'm not inclined to blame her.

The first lead I saw her do was PAJAMA GAME, and based on that alone I'd agree with the conventional wisdom here -- she was pretty and enjoyable but a bit bland. (I'd say the same about NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT, but in her defense there wasn't a lot of there there. In both cases Kathleen Marshall presumably shoulders a fair amount of the blame.)

What changed my mind about her was SOUTH PACIFIC, where she dug deep and really explored the character in an inventive and meaningful way. I thought she was ideally deployed in FAR FROM HEAVEN; whatever didn't work there, she was wonderful (and very, very pregnant).

In BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, the accent wasn't great, but she sang spectacularly and really felt the character. I liked her in KING AND I but didn't find it revelatory the way I had SOUTH PACIFIC (but I'd say that about the production overall).

I'm also astonished that someone as physically beautiful as she hasn't been snapped up for films and/or TV. (She was one of very few people who escaped the awful TV PETER PAN unscathed -- I thought she read very well onscreen.)

[quote] O'Hara in Bells are Ringing was lousy. Are you defending her in that?

Well let’s face, neither Merman nor Martin nor LuPone nor Peters batted a thousand every time. Merman’s an ancient embarrassment in that Ed Sullivan clip from Granny Get Your Gun.

Kelli O’Hara was terrific in KMK and has been in most of her Broadway work. The bitchy DL cunts who complain about EVERYTHING and lying if they tell you different.

No matter how many clips I've seen of Elaine Page, and I'm talking probably thousands, I still just don't get her. She's marginally talented at best, no presence and an adequate voice with no color or nuance. And that clip above is almost as bad as the Kathleen Marshall debacle. Those dancers around Sutton do about 37 maxi fords which is just switching your weight and step shuffle ball change with various arm movements. It's so elementary and amateur.

Buck wouldn't like Sutton Foster.

I blame all these cookie-cutter, assembly line BFA programs for sucking the individuality and eccentricities out of our 'modern' Broadway stars. They're all technically proficient, but most of the time -- super bland, and NOT exciting to watch on stage. There's nothing dangerous about them. There's no glint in the eye. No real command of an audience -- certainly not in the way that the stars of the 50/60/70s would.

NYU, Carnegie Mellon, CCM...they all churn out professional, well-prepared young actors. But they're devoid of any edge or personality. Sutton Foster is perfectly fine. A great belt, great legs and a good feel for light comedy. But she doesn't hold a candle to the ol broads who've played those kind of parts before. I'm sure it has to do with the era these people grew up in (the Millennials and Gen Z'rs display the blandness all the more).

The same goes with the men. Aaron Tveit? I'm sure he's a lovely guy but is this is the best leading man we can do? I also blame the kind of shows being produced. They all ask for whiny, pop tenors and nasally belters. It's that trite 'modern' Broadway sound that wishes it were contemporary 'pop' but is still Broadway. And sadly, not representative (most of the time) of even the best kind of Broadway. A shame!

Drama schools mostly prioritise "serious" acting, which is about losing yourself in the character. Serious theatre should be about the whole play, not individual stars, and the audience wants to be drawn in to the point where it forgets to breathe.

Musicals are the opposite. The songs and subsequent applause break up the illusion at regular intervals, so you don't get sucked into another world the same way. Songs require stars, and if you're a star the audience needs you to be able to throw your personality across the footlights at them. The more you can mediate it into the character's personality the better, but even if it's just you it's still better than a character who never makes it off the stage. The worst thing you can be is competent.

[quote]The worst thing you can be is competent.

I saw Gina Gershon in Bye Bye Birdie. Trust me, there are worst things than competence.

Except Mary Tyler Moore had tons of charisma. The camera really loved here and she really did "turn the world on with her smile".

Sutton Foster couldn't turn on a pen light with her smile.

And yet Sutton Foster is one of the few modern Broadway performers to become a screen star.

I’m what world is Sutton Foster a screen star???

"Younger" has had about seven seasons, I think.

Don't blame the training the young performers now receive. (Well, maybe CCM that specializes in churning out the nelliest young men I've ever seen. I've seen a few of their NYC student show cases and I don't know how they produce all those nellie boys. )

College theater programs is all they have. Blame the paucity of opportunities to work on stage and grow and built their skills. Dinner theater. Summer stock. Straw Hat circuit. Regional theaters. Touring companies. At every turn, opportunities are long gone or sharply curtailed. If today's stage performers are bland, I would start with the general state of the theater. It does not offer enough opportunity to ever at any point in the foreseeable future produce the wealth of performers we once had.

It's just about dead, kids.

What about online opportunities to write and perform?

Camera work is not theater. Camera work does not teach you how to fill a theater. It takes you the opposite direction. The more camera work a young performer gets, the more stage work that person needs to fully flesh out his or her talent, abilities, and skill.

That rehearsal above of Kelli O'Hara's roles shocked me by reminding me how many times I've seen her onstage. And yet I don't remember any very well except for SOUTH PACIFIC, in which I think she was buoyed by Sher's wonderful production. (Kind of liked her in PAJAMA GAME, too). But mostly she just disappears for me, beautiful voice notwithstanding. And in BRIDGES she was about as sensual as as a footstool.

Did no one like her performance in Light in the Piazza?

[quote] Did no one like her performance in Light in the Piazza?

Not particularly.

People love to carp on Kelli O'Hara as a bland actress but I've never seen someone consistently have great on-stage chemistry with their leading men. From Matt Morrison to Harry Connick Jr, Paolo Szot, Matthew Broderick, Ken Watanabe, and Steven Pasquale, she has smoldered with each of them. She couldn't have been having steamy backstage affairs with all of 'em (the rumor swirling during Pajama Game). Is she always suitably well-cast? No, but clearly Bart Sher and Kathleen Marshall continuously look to work with her (or at least know she will turn in a competent performance when someone else isn't available).

To bring it back to Sutton, she and Harry Connick did a reading of Nice Work If You Can Get It which is where Sutton and Bobby Cannavale met (he was one of the other bootleggers)

I think O'Hara has been great in some things (particularly South Pacific, The Pajama Game and Light in the Piazza), and adequate to listless in some of her other work. It was particularly noticeable to me when I returned to see Marin Mazzie in The King & I, who enlivened that whole production and even made the impossible "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?" work, with a much more colorful and idiosyncratic performance than O'Hara delivered.

But I come to praise not bury. The role that got away, unfortunately, is Amalia in She Loves Me. I thought O'Hara was sensational, the best I've ever seen her, at the Roundabout's one night only concert in 2016 where she was opposite Josh Radnor. Warm, funny, smart, vulnerable. So much better than the harsh, flinty, brittle approach Laura Benanti took in the subsequent production. Listen to O'Hara land all of the humor in "Ice Cream" and then soar and linger on the high B at the end at 22:38.

All these actresses mentioned have done spectacular work at some point or other. I was not a big Sutton fan at first but I really liked her in DROWSY CHAPERONE, and she was brilliant in VIOLET. Kelli O'Hara, when cast properly, can be great. Particularly in parts close to herself. The two that come to mind are SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS and FAR FROM HEAVEN. I thought she was really good in SOUTH PACIFIC but I've seen better. Faith Prince, was wonderful early in her career in NICK AND NORA (she stole the show) and GUYS AND DOLLS, but later stuff did nothing for me until A CATERED AFFAIR, which totally surprised me. She said at the time that Doyle forced her to get rid of all her mannerisms and it was the best thing I've seen her do.

Musical Theater kids are being trained to get cast in the revival of " Mean Girls, the Musical," since that is all that Broadway is producing.

[quote]The cast of Waitress takes its first curtain call after reopening, Amanda Kloots joins onstage, and all pay tribute to Nick Cordero with a special performance of "Live Your Life"

Well of course she does!

CCM has always specialized in turning out bland, cookie cutter, screaming theatre queens. They've had much better luck with the women because the teachers there encourage the women to play a character. They only encourage the boys to prance and shake their booty i.e. Jason Graae.

Kloots!

They don't look that queeny.

Isaac Powell?

O'Hara has never once "smoldered" with anyone. She barely has a pulse on stage.

I don't know who the O'Hara apologist on here is but you're not gonna convert anyone.

I think it was all of Kelli's sexy co-stars (Pasquale, Szot, Connick, Morrison, Watanabe.....I can't explain Broderick, lol) who brought any of that heat onstage. She had nothing to contribute.

I would have loved to see Marin Mazzie in that Roundabout PAJAMA GAME. Now, there was a sexy babe who was also a warm and touching leading lady with a gorgeous voice. What a loss! And what a shame that she wasn't given even more opportunities to shine and show her range.

And HUGE bazooms!

Stephen Schwartz is one of us.

So there will no longer be intermissions? Aren't they helpful to give the actors a 15-minute break between acts of a really long show?

Ben Platt performs "You Will Be Found" on America's Got Talent:

This thread needs some new threads...

There used to be a video on YouTube of Marin Mazzie performing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" with not an ounce of playful humor. I was taken aback.

[r184] Hadestown had an intermission last night. I don't know why the article says that. Maybe they are referring to Harry Potter condensing into one show, but that is poor wording.

[quote] No matter how many clips I've seen of Elaine Page, and I'm talking probably thousands...

are we just going to let that go without comment?

I expect I'm in the minority but I favor the McGlinn recording. The tempos allow the lyrics to receive their proper focus.

There is no planet on which Sutton Foster is “a screen star.”

Gurl, bye.

Bonnie Franklin was a screen star. You can wish it way like Bonnie Franklin dreams the Tonys, or whatever that was. But it happened.

[quote]So there will no longer be intermissions? Aren't they helpful to give the actors a 15-minute break between acts of a really long show?

Not to mention all the eldergay theatergoers being denied bathroom breaks, which will mean lots of people getting up from their seats and disturbing their seat neighbors during performances.

"Screen star" usually refers to movies, not television.

lol. Sweetie, Bonnie Franklin was on a hit major network prime time sitcom for years. Yes, she WAS a screen star. Sutton Foster is NOT. Period. No one cares about “Young” or whatever. There is zero equivalency between Sutton Foster and Bonnie Franklin.

[quote]I expect I'm in the minority but I favor the McGlinn recording.

Posey McGlinn? That tramp?

That "Younger" show has been going for multiple seasons - 5, 7, something like that. Sutton Foster done crossed over.

It’s what Elaine would want r189.

[quote]which will mean lots of people getting up from their seats and disturbing their seat neighbors during performances.

This eldergay is just gonna pee in his seat.

R197 What channel did it play on?

"Unless, of course, you are a bitter Datalounger"

Or someone with discernment.

"The songs and subsequent applause break up the illusion at regular intervals, so you don't get sucked into another world the same way. "

Only if it's done poorly. Which is 99 percent of the time.

R125 Didn't Caroline O'Connor also play Ethel Merman doing some of "Anything Goes" in that dreadful Kevin (who should have De-Klined) film "De-Lovely"? I seem to recall O'Connor was like the best thing in the film, and her number was probably best.

Yes, r202...

R148 LuPone has a big belting voice in the Merman tradition, as well as a big personality and command of the stage. What LuPone does not have, usually, and infamously, is Merman's perfect diction which I the famous story is a well-known songwriter told a famous lyricist that you better write a good lyric for Merman because whether it's good or not, everyone in the audience is going to hear it [and presumably, understand it.] The same can't be said for Ms. LuPone.

O'Connor should have got the Encores "Call Me Madam" but I guess Carmen Cusack's had more heat coming off the Tonys.

Marin Mazzie in "Kiss Me, Kate" was Golden Age terrific. Brian Stokes was very good but not up to her level. Kelli O'Hara can be very good with a lovely voice, but never approached Golden Age.

Younger was on fucking TV Land before it switched over to, what, Hulu?

Most people in the US wouldn’t know who Sutton Foster is if she’d tap danced on their ass.

Well, they'd know after that, r207.

I still can’t believe Caroline O’Connor played Anita in a British production of West Side Story that was recorded. Her Spanish accent, complete with rolling “R’s” (“Puerrrrto Rrrrrico…”) is really something to hear.

Ethel Merman had a party trick. She carried peanut brittle in her purse. She would take it out, stick it in her mouth and sing "I've Got Rhythm."

If that's your diva, I'll pass. I don't have to resort to tricks to be invited to parties.

My understanding is that the very gifted Carmen Cusack got CALL ME MADAM because the hoped-for star (Chenoweth? -- not the role I'd pick for her, but that's what I heard) proved unavailable.

Yes, R211. Carmen Cusack is talented, but she basically got CALL ME MADAM when Cheno bailed late on a Monday evening and Cusack answered the phone on Tuesday morning. Any number of other ladies didn't bother.

Now Carmen Cusack got Julia Sugarbaker.

[quote]If that's your diva, I'll pass. I don't have to resort to tricks to be invited to parties.

Performing them or turning them?

Ethel's other party trick: she got her hands on Roz Russell's, original unedited vocal tracks for Gypsy and played them for her guests.

She also blew Ernie Borgnine and got him to fart a B flat at the same time.

Carmen Cusack is very bland.

Why don’t you tell us someone you DON’T think is bland, r217?

Comparing Mary Tyler Moore's TV career of starring in two classic, beloved network sitcoms (The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show) with Sutton Foster headlining a show that started on a basic cable network before moving to a pay streaming network and essentially a show that no one ever discusses and gets zero attention from the media is ludicrous.

Even Patti LuPone with her not very highly rated but media loved dramedy Life Goes On (aka "That Show with Patti LuPone and the Downs Kid) has stronger TV cred than Sutton "no, she will never ever be a beloved icon like MTM or Patti LuPone" Foster.

It is September. Before a rainfall. Start at 20:00 minutes in. This is the color version that surfaced a year or two ago. I think that this may be the version that was broadcast. The black and white version, which circulated for years, was a kinescope of the final dress rehearsal.

The black and white version. I can't decide whether they are the same performance. Certainly the color performance is clearer and has better sound but this has its own charms.

Comments on the black and white version before the color version surfaced said that it was a final rehearsal version made to help director George Schaefer and the DOP make final decisions on camera angles and transitions.

But that was many years ago. I doubt that anyone would know.

I've always preferred that one hour Hallmark Hall of Fame abridgement to the original show. I love The Fantasticks but always hate sitting through the Indian and the Old Actor. Perhaps the TV version is closer to the one act original.

Susan Watson was always Schmidt and Jones first choice for The Girl after appearing in the Barnard College preview production. But by the time the show was ready for off Broadway. she had already hit it big on Broadway in Bye, Bye Birdie and wasn't available.

[Quote] but media loved dramedy Life Goes On

Oh, put a sock in it. Beloved TV icon? Even Patty Lapone herself admits that's she a hard sell in TV. Sutton has been accepted with open arms.

I don’t care what y’all saw, Sutton turns the world on with her smile for me!

Speaking of Anything Goes, no love for Eileen Rodgers?

I call BS on that peanut brittle story.

Wasn't the story on CALL ME MADAM that something like 11 actresses turned down the role before Cusack said yes? They should have shelved the show like LOVE LIFE.

according to celebrity net worth (reliable, I know) Sutton has $4m, Cynthia Erivo at $3M and Kelli has $2M

For those who care about new musicals, BACK TO THE FUTURE has opened at Manchester, England's Southwark Theatre to rave reviews.

Presented with and by an all-British creative team and cast with the exception of director John Rando and star (and former DL fave) Roger Bart. Will this one make it Broadway or even the West End?

They'll fuck it up for Broadway.

[quote] For those who care about new musicals, BACK TO THE FUTURE has opened at Manchester, England's Southwark Theatre to rave reviews.

It played that run already. It actually just opened at the Adelphi in the West End.

Oh, I didn't realize that. Thanks, 230. Doing a search on the musical, only the Southwark production came up.

Were the West End reviews as smashing as the regional reviews?

Links are always helpful

There is very little comparison to be made between the careers of MTM and Sutton Foster.

But the actresses, personally, are very strongly the same type.

[quote]But the actresses, personally, are very strongly the same type.

Sutton doesn't have the acting ability. I think that Beth Jarrett was closer to MTM's real personality than Mary Richards or Laura Petrie, but you still see her acting range. Sutton could never play Beth Jarrett.

[quote]Sutton doesn't have the acting ability.

Whatever. My post was about type. Not talent.

The two women look much alike. That's all.

And I don't seem to be the first person to have noticed.

Was Kelli O'Hara considered for The Music Man's Marian? Obviously, she can sing the role as written better....but was Sutton deemed bigger box office because of her TV credits?

they needed someone really tall to look good with Hugh

I'm pretty sure the black and white and color videos of the TV version of THE FANTASTICKS are the same performance. I don't have both at hand now to compare, but I seem to remember that Susan Watson and the orchestra are not quite together in the same section of "Much More" in both videos.

Was there much discussion on DL about the WICKED special on PBS, and I missed it? Or was it ignored?

It was essentially another extended PBS pledge drive with some programming wrapped around it.

That said: it was surprisingly tacky and cheesy looking. Even under pandemic conditions, it looked and felt like amateur night. And Cheno and Idina both looked like hell. I have no idea who some of the younger performers were, and I'm not that old.

R240 Who did the drag Queen from Glee play, there doesn’t seem to be a corresponding role in the show that would fit?

Alex Newell sang "Popular," and did a good job. (In a floral dress and go-go boots.) A little too strenuous on the camping, but a good job.

I was surprised when Cheno introduced Newell with "him" pronouns. I didn't care for him on GLEE, but he was very entertaining on "Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist." He's talented.

Given the way TV/series/network circumstances have shifted over the decades, comparing the TV careers of Mary Tyler Moore, Patti LuPone and Sutton Foster is textbook "apples and oranges."

Also, those who hyperventilate over the "legendary" TV career of MTM rarely mentions that she never had a hit show after MTM -- and not for lack of trying. MARY (1978): 3 episodes . . . THE MARY TYLER MOORE HOUR (1979): 11 episodes . . . MARY (1985): 13 episodes . . . ANNIE McGUIRE (1989): 10 episodes . . . NEW YORK NEWS (1995): 13 episodes.

This doesn't mean that MTM wasn't delightful in THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW or that THE MARY TYLER MOORE show wasn't groundbreaking and influential. And she's scarcely the only "iconic" TV comedienne never to match her biggest success (cf. Ball, Lucille and Burnett, Carol). But using her as a stick with which to beat Sutton Foster (or anyone else) doesn't make a lick of sense.

Um, "mention."

I saw BACK TO THE FUTURE. It's a standard-issue British movie-into-musical piece in that you could cut every single song and still have the same basic show. As a matter of fact, I wish they would cut the songs. They're dreadful and add nothing. But the spectacle of the second act and the famous moments from the movie, recreated inflection for inflection by the cast, seem to be making the audience happy.

Roger Bart, not surprisingly, is the only actor not doing a slavish imitation of his movie counterpart.

My favorite number from, much maligned on DL, Schmigadoon!

They really did a terrific job with this one.

Muny production of Chicago cancelled remaining performances due to a few cast/crew members testing positive for Covid. And so it begins.......

[quote]But the spectacle of the second act and the famous moments from the movie, recreated inflection for inflection by the cast, seem to be making the audience happy.

Was there a coup de théâtre?

But was it revelatory???

Did Kristin and Idina sing anything, either individually or together, during that recent special?

Wasn't Amber Riley on the Wicked special?

They dueted at the end on "For Good." And they were very good, even as Cheno flashed her ginormous forced smile and looked ready to arm-wrestle Idina to the ground, perhaps into her grave.

They were very good together.

Yes, Amber Riley did "Defying Gravity." I like Amber. She was fine but I've heard her do better elsewhere.

So why did the person upthread claim to not know anyone beyond the original cast? Riley has been mentioned plenty here because of the London Dreamgirls.

Can Alex Newell act? I'd quite like a Sylvester movie and he seems the most likely to star in one.

r254 But who would play Tweety Bird?

You, dear r255.

Bernadette for Granny, r255!

[quote]But the spectacle of the second act and the famous moments from the movie, recreated inflection for inflection by the cast, seem to be making the audience happy.

[quote]Roger Bart, not surprisingly, is the only actor not doing a slavish imitation of his movie counterpart.

Sounds like self-contradiction.

Apologies, R258, I misread what you wrote.

The Chenoweth/Menzel "For Good" was from a previous performance.

[quote] Alex Newell sang "Popular," and did a good job.

I thought he was awful. I was also surprised that Amber Riley, who was good with the opening, was very under-powered I’m Defying Gravity. Same with Ariana Denise, whom I love, but she was a little underwhelming in The Wizard and I.

What I think is that now there are all these Twitter Wicked-heads demanding that Alex Newell and Amber Riley be cast in the film.

Isaac Powell could do Fiyero in the film, but that’s it from the TV special.

Who the fuck cares about the Wicked film?

Is the fellow who directed the In the Heights film still directing the Wicked film? I wouldn't be surprised if he was let go after the vast disappointment with ITH.

He’s still directing it. ITH was a financial disaster but he’s not getting blamed for it. And he did direct the wildly successful Crazy Rich Asians.

I can't enjoy any song from Schmigadoon! Not with those twee music arrangements.

[quote] Muny production of Chicago cancelled remaining performances due to a few cast/crew members testing positive for Covid. And so it begins.......

You're trying to be inflammatory. The [bold]three[/bold] remaining performances, out of six, have been canceled. It's their fifth production of the season, and they completed 32 of 35 total performances.

[quote] Is the fellow who directed the In the Heights film still directing the Wicked film? I wouldn't be surprised if he was let go after the vast disappointment with ITH.

"Vast disappointment"? Nobody knows what's successful and unsuccessful, box-office-wise, under these circumstances. And the movie has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 84 on Metacritic, as far as the critical response.

That Schmigadoon clip only made me want to watch this.

[quote]Same with Ariana Denise, whom I love, but she was a little underwhelming in The Wizard and I.

WHO?

Happy 90th to the fabulous Miss Mitzi Gaynor!

[quote]Happy 90th to the fabulous Miss Mitzi Gaynor!

Does this deserve its own thread?

I'll just leave this here.

[quote]Does this deserve its own thread?

Never mind. Mitzi does have half a thread.

Leave it,leave it, how can you leave it, r272?

Liza & Chita

Yannick.

South Pacific with Julian.

Chita.

Rita.

R279, that one’s blocked but thanks a bunch, anyway.

R267 We know it disappointed on streaming too, though. A Warner exec said that streaming performance matched box office performance.

Julian Ovenden is too vertically challenged for roles like Emile deBeque and Georg Von Trapp.

R280 In America and Cuba.

Thank you, R276. Watched this on PBS last night and loved it (and him!).

R282, and he has the wrong voice. The role is written for a man with the weight of a bass-baritone to contrast with the tenor of Lt. Cable.

r252 or anyone that can answer, why do Idina and Kristin have tension with each other? This is something I heard whisper of a long time ago but never any story to go along with it.

Is it because Kristin can truly act and Idina can't?

Why is Chita wearing what looks like a black t-shirt in the Hot Honey Rag number with Liza? Didn’t Gwen and Chita wear the same outfit when they did that number?

R287, that footage is from a tech rehearsal --Chita did not wear a black t-shirt in actual performance.

R6, I knew Adam from when he was in high school. The last contact I had with him was in May of this year. He was a singular character.

Julian capers around and makes too many funny faces to emphasize each line of the lyrics, in his version of Some Enchanted Evening. It’s a romantic song, not a character number.

r268 love Pennies from Heaven but Schmig did just as good job performancewise. Considering it is believed there is a dearth of talent these days those kids did a better job and were tighter in their performance than the kids in Pennies from Heaven. And Bernie didn't sing and did less dancing.

I’m not R268 and I love Schmigadoon, but that Pennies From Heaven number clearly inspired the Schmig number, and Pennies did it better.

The Wicked concert, for those overseas.

Great NY Times article today on choreographer JoAnn Hunter, who most recently devised the dances for ALW's CINDERELLA. She looks to be the next big thing on Broadway.

I guess if you have had to settle for Elaine Paige as your prime musical theater star, then Sutton Foster will be a revelation.

That is only reason I can see for the rapturous reception of her performance in Anything Goes.

Is JoAnn Hunter the same as JoAnn M Hunter? She's been around for close to 30 years.

R263-As long as it's not Rob Ashford, who's scheduled to direct/fuck up the film of ALW's Sunset Boulevard.

Well, they're unlikely to get the financing on Glenn Close's name so unless she dies soon, Ashford probably won't make the movie.

R298-And that's a fucking relief. Ashford can't direct stage for shit, imagine letting him loose on a movie set? He sees himself as the next Bob Fosse. But ya ain't Blanche.

[quote]He was a singular character.

But was he a singular sensation?

[quote]Julian Ovenden is too vertically challenged for roles like Emile deBeque and Georg Von Trapp.

Beg pardon?

Julian looked to be about 5 foot 9 when I saw him in concert. I was pretty close to the stage. I expect he claims 5 foot 11.

Years of costuming and wardrobe teach you, r302, that actresses lie about their weight and actors lie about their height.

r292 Pennies had a bigger budget and a famous name in Bernie, it was brighter, shinier and expensive looking, but not better.

The kids in the Schmig number were tighter and better doing the routine and Ariana DeBose had more to do than Bernie with her singing and dancing and delivered. Schmig was a better performance, Pennies was a better spectacle.

[quote]As long as it's not Rob Ashford, who's scheduled to direct/fuck up the film of ALW's Sunset Boulevard.

No one is "scheduled" to direct the movie, as there will probably never be one, and certainly not anytime soon. That said, I'm flabbergasted that Ashford is indeed listed as the director of the film, which as listed as being in "pre-production." (Of course, that means absolutely nothing.)

With regard to the MTM/Foster contest, can I point out that MTM is a major star everywhere in the English-speaking world, and nobody outside New York has heard of Sutton Foster?

If we were only talking Broadway of course that would be fine, but apparently someone is wanting to represent Foster as a screen star as well.

Miss Collins at Melody Top...

Ovenden is definitely no taller than 5’9”.

Jesus, who is this idiot who keeps insisting Pennies from Heaven can't compare to some shitty, third rate Apple sitcom?

Someone who understands that Pennies from Heaven was no great shakes itself, certainly not the feature version.

You're right, R306.

Mary Tyler Moore was such a "major star" that she headlined exactly zero hit movies, plays and/or TV series in the 37 years between ORDINARY PEOPLE and her death.

I saw Julian naked on the West End in My Night With Reg. Nice cock!

[quote] Mary Tyler Moore was such a "major star" that she headlined exactly zero hit movies, plays and/or TV series in the 37 years between ORDINARY PEOPLE and her death.

What a ridiculous attempt to lessen Mary Tyler Moore's status as the legend and icon she was. (And however you feel about her work personally, she was absolutely a legend and icon of television.) You make it sound like she had exactly one single hit in 1980 and nothing ever before or since.

The fact is that Mary actually had several highly rated television films after OP, won another Emmy, worked consistently, even when her illnesses got the better of her, and remained someone treasured, respected and adored for those 37 years after OP, even without the same success she'd achieved, and well after her death.

She received three Emmy nominations after Ordinary People and won one. She was sensational as Mary Todd Lincoln opposite Sam Waterston in the adaptation of Gore Vidal's book. She was a hit replacing Tom Conti in Whose Life Is It Anyway and received an honorary Tony. She got Oscar buzz and was considered a possibility for a nomination for Flirting with Disaster. Plus she gave the A.R. Gurney play a healthy run on Broadway. (They closed it because she was the draw and they couldn't find a replacement they thought would keep the box office going.)

[quote]NYU, Carnegie Mellon, CCM...they all churn out professional, well-prepared young actors

What's CCM?

R311 is a fucking loon.

Julian Ovenden is a British male equivalent to Sutton Foster.

Equally bland and unmemorable.

R315 - Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.

[quote] Pennies from Heaven was no great shakes itself, certainly not the feature version.

I beg to disagree

I too loved Pennies From Heaven but also thought it was a missed opportunity. The two thoughts are not mutually exclusive.

Why cast Bernadette Fucking Peters if you are gonna dub her voice?

OMG, r320. ALL the songs were dubbed, as they were on the original British series. That was the concept.

Pennies from Heaven also was choreographed by the sensational Danny Daniels. Tremendously talented and probably not as appreciated in his day as he should have been, likely because the shows he choreographed (All American, Walking Happy, Granny Get Your Gun, The Tap Dance Kid), were either failures or only moderately successful, although his work was usually the best thing in them. His choreography throughout Pennies from Heaven is wonderful, not just "Love Is Good..." but also "Yes, Yes," "It's The Girl," "Let's Misbehave," "Pennies from Heaven," "Let's Face the Music and Dance," and "The Glory of Love." To bring this thread back to Anything Goes, Daniels also choreographed the crazy tap dance that opens Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Chris Gatelli's work for Schmigadoon barely rises above a simmer. I thought his work was impoverished of ideas, but I could say that for the entire series. If you are going to satirize great works of musical theatre, you'd better hope you are as good as the original creators. I thought "Cross that Bridge" was the only number in the series that had a little spark of its own and I'm being generous.

As a palate cleanser, here is Danny Daniels' delightful "Clog and Grog" number from Walking Happy, performed on the Ed Sullivan Show, with more energy, humor and ideas in three minutes than Gatelli delivered in six hours.

Has [bold][italic]anyone[/italic][/bold] seen Pass Over?

Sorry: Has [italic][bold]anyone[/italic][/bold] seen Pass Over?

never mind

I just realized I never knew what a "tinhorn" is. Now that I've looked it up, I don't really understand why Frank Loesser called the "I got the horse right here" by this particular word.

[quote] noun North American informal. a contemptible person, especially one pretending to have money, influence, or ability: [as modifier ] : tinhorn politicians | he portrayed Wyatt Earp as a narcissistic tinhorn.

Because they don't work. They're on the fringes of society. Betting on horses to make some money and get by. They are all a bunch of grifters.

Harry the Horse : I just acquired five thousand fish.

Nicely Nicely Johnson : Five thousand? If it can be told, where did you take on this fine bundle of lettuce?

Harry the Horse : I have nothing to hide. I collected the reward on my father.

Benny Southstreet : It is an advantage to have a successful father. Nobody ever wanted my old man for as much as five hundred.

R234, Kelli O'Hara had stated, in a roundabout way, that since "The Music Man" was being produced by Rudin, she wouldn't have anything to do with it. She implied that she was offered the role first, if I recall correctly. What I do remember is that it was stated in a bitchy "They wanted me first!" sort of way, and that she was way too much of an activist to do the show. This was the most heat I have ever seen Kelli produce.

Oops! I didn't mean my last post specifically for R234. I can't find the post where someone asked about Kelli O'Hara, but my post was meant for them.

Actually Kelli O'Hara (who has played so many roles she isn't right for) would have been perfect for Marian the Librarian.

Agreed, R330. Kelli would have been perfect for Marian.

Well, yes, that's why asked about Kelli and The Music Man. Finally, a role she'd be perfect for and Sutton, who isn't right for it at all, is doing it.

I'm not going if it's not Peppermint or Alex Newell as Marian.

O'Hara would sing Marian beautifully.

She lacks the spunk and the fire and the backbone to stand up to the entire town and defend her closely held principles. She would never be able to align with Harold in spite of what she knows about him. Marian has an improbable arc, to say the least. It takes a lot of skill for an actress to carry it off.

O'Hara never would have come close to Marian the Librarian

uh.... just no

[quote]I'm not going if it's not Peppermint or Alex Newell as Marian.

Alex Newell is an Ethel Toffelmier

WHET Patrick Cassidy?

He's the artistic director of this theater company

Schmigadoon! is for people who wish Galavant lasted more than 2 seasons.

Marian should be Sierra Boggess. She has plenty of spunk.

Exactly, R313. Aside from whatever effects Mary Tyler Moore's illness may have had on her energy level, her vision, and her general well being, it began to have a significant negative effect on her appearance quite a few years before her death. And, of course the situation only got worse as she got older. So all of that would certainly have caused her to work less in her later years than she would have if she had been in great health, which anyone but an asshole like R311 would have brains enough to realize.

No, I think it's a far point to make: As a screen star, MTM's career went steeply downhill after "Ordinary People."

[quote]effects Mary Tyler Moore's illness may have had on her energy level, her vision

Judi Dench is going blind, but that doesn't stop her from working. Stiff upper lip Brit and all.

*fair point to make

[quote]MTM's career went steeply downhill after "Ordinary People."

I played Sante Kimes!

r309

They are not comparable, the scene from Pennies is about spectable, the scene from Schmig is about execution and it was executed brilliantly. The scene from Pennies is great because of spectacle and if you actually pay attention the execution of the dance number is not as clean as the one in Schmig. It's something I notice since I used to be a dancer.

Every number in Schmigadoon references a scene from a well known musical, it's part of the plot of the show.

[quote]Marian should be Sierra Boggess. She has plenty of spunk.

Sierra is going to be at 54 Below from Sept 8-11, if I were in New York I'd go check her out. Curious to know now she sounds in concert.

[quote]They are not comparable, the scene from Pennies is about spectable, the scene from Schmig is about execution and it was executed brilliantly. The scene from Pennies is great because of spectacle and if you actually pay attention the execution of the dance number is not as clean as the one in Schmig.

You can keep on repeating that if you want, but that doesn't mean other people have to agree with you.

Who cares about execution when the number in Schmigadoon is so boring and derivative? It's also filmed so flatly, as if no one involved ever saw a movie musical.

Spectacle is executed, hon.

It's really sad how many people in this thread struggle with reading comprehension.

Heads so far up their own asses they can't see the words properly.

The Clog Dance shows just how many bright spots there were in mediocre shows in those days: See I Had a Ball, Joyful Noise, Bravo, Giovanni, Here's Love, and—yes—Bajour.

It's nice to see people expressing strong opinions about choreography and dance, for a change. You might think it was completely dead based on many stage and movie musicals over the past 40-50 years.

Speaking of which, whatever happened to Stro?

[quote] The Clog Dance shows just how many bright spots there were in mediocre shows in those days: See I Had a Ball, Joyful Noise, Bravo, Giovanni, Here's Love, and—yes—Bajour.

Here's a textbook example. I always loved the story that when Gillian Lynne was fired on the road, Bennett came in and started his work by re-choreographing this number, which reportedly was the only number that had been working.

I can't find the whip dance...

*

Note in the comments that Yvonne DeCarlo's son posted!

Speaking of Danny Daniels - you likely won't be seeing THIS by the time Encores! gets done with it.

Ed sure liked Dolores.

That cunt...

That was an odd number at R358. Why were there hundreds of sailors in the background who never got involved in the song? And who told Dolores she could dance? Patti LuPone?

Someone had Dolores doing a lot of choreography here as well. She almost loses her balance at times. I guess it was a way to get a little jiggle show.

[Quote] Why were there hundreds of sailors in the background who never got involved in the song?

[Quote] Broadcast from the USS Iowa docked at the Hudson River. Dolores also sang and/or danced "Yankee Doodle Dandy", "Harrigan", "I Ought to Know More About You" and ""Just One of Those Things". Bill Kenny, original lead singer of the Ink Spots performed a medley of their hits, as well as "Mary". The Step Brothers danced to "Give My Regards to Broadway" and acrobatic dancer Eileen O'Dare performed, among others.

Dolores also almost falls off the podium here as well.

Liza does Danny...

Dolores was quite the mediocre klutz.

Mediocre? Her voice was among the best of Broadway.

R355 Wouldn’t you want to take that one working dance number down first to assert your dominance and also make sure if time ran out they didn’t just keep it in as is?

I saw Pass Over in Seattle 3 years ago.

It was "ok".

Trying too hard to be Ghetto Godot.

For those that don’t want to risk Covid, Pass Over is on Amazon prime.

Who choreographed Dolores Gray's number "Thanks A Lot But No Thanks" in IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER? That's got be one of the wittiest and sharpest dance numbers in Hollywood history. IIRC the chorus boys do most of the brilliant dancing around Dolores but she's, nevertheless, in command.

Jack Cole. And apparently Dolores wanted to do it her own way. Saner heads prevailed.

[quote] [R355] Wouldn’t you want to take that one working dance number down first to assert your dominance and also make sure if time ran out they didn’t just keep it in as is?

Probably so. Tommy Tune talks about it in the A Chorus Line book by Ken Mandelbaum. He says: "I joined the show in Boston on the night they fired Madeline Kahn, whose part was written out... He did the damndest thing on Dow Jones. There was one number in the show that working on the road, 'Step to the Rear.' That was the first thing he attacked, and he made it work a hundred times better. That was a brave thing, because usually you just go where the hideousness lies, but he took the best number and made it better."

This isn't Destry but there ARE whips!

I prefer that number with Gene Kelly's thighs on display in hot pants.

[quote] No, I think it's a far point to make: As a screen star, MTM's career went steeply downhill after "Ordinary People."

How is it a fair point to make when Mary was never a movie star to begin with and was barely a movie actress. She ONLY made two movies after Ordinary People until 1996, and prior to Ordinary People, her last movie was Change of Habit in 1969.

There's no looking at trends in Mary's film career because she didn't have one. She was a television actress who occasionally worked in film. She had no track record to go steeply downhill. She had one hit film.

That being said- none of that takes away her legendary status as one of the first ladies of television. After Lucille Ball, I would say Mary is the most beloved television actress of all time.

Who can forget Mary's virus pandemic movie?

I beg to differ, r375.....

[quote] You can keep on repeating that if you want, but that doesn't mean other people have to agree with you.

They don’t have to agree with you, either, r348. You need a big dose of your own medicine.

Mary deserved better...

[quote] I beg to differ, [R375].....—Carol Burnett

Carol, honey, you're floating around somewhere in the middle of the Top 10, below Betty White and Bea Arthur, but above Valerie Harper, Rue McLanahan and Jennifer Aniston.

We could (and maybe should) start a thread about why Mary Tyler Moore never had a film career. One thing I wonder -- did she get a lot of money for SIX WEEKS or did she just want to keep making movies? You'd think the fact that several actresses had passed on it would have been a red flag.

r358 Until 1955, "The Ed Sullivan Show" was officially called "The Toast of the Town;" hence the "Toastettes."

Sadly, Carol Burnett's comedy has not aged as well as Lucy Ricardo's or Laura Petrie's and Mary Richards.'

The much-loathed R311 here.

I was specifically responding to R306's statement "MTM is a major star everywhere in the English-speaking world." Yes, she was and remains an icon (an overused word, but she deserves it) of TV comedy. So are Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett -- neither of whom could have been described as "major stars" of any medium after their biggest vehicles folded.

By R306's standard, Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox are "major stars everywhere in the English-speaking world."

Mary Tyler Moore was wonderful in her 2 famous series and just right in ORDINARY PEOPLE and FLIRTING WITH DISASTER. She will always be remembered by lovers of the classic American sitcom, and rightly so. But the idea that she was some kind of superstar is (to me) silly and meaningless, as are all the apples-and-oranges comparisons between her and Sutton Foster.

Jennifer Anniston IS a bigger star than MTM.

I had no idea Madeline Kahn had been fired from How Now Dow Jones. What did she play?

[quote]Sadly, Carol Burnett's comedy has not aged as well as Lucy Ricardo's or Laura Petrie's and Mary Richards.'

Carol's show is fine. Her Scarlett O'Hara coming down the stairs in a set of drapes still elicits laughs. The thing that holds her back is that her shows are not as readily available as Lucy and Mary. The music rights have held up releasing the entirety of her show.

Bajour is several cuts above the other mediocre shows in r352’s list.

I saw HOW NOW DOW JONES in its Boston tryout so I guess I saw Kahn though I can't really say I remember her in it. I do sort of remember Brenda Vaccaro in it and it seems odd to me that they would have needed both of them in the same show. Perhaps they fired the wrong lady? The show was very lame.

I also saw TWO BY TWO in Boston and distinctly remember Kahn in that mediocre show. She was the only thing good about it.

And I saw PRETTYBELLE and LOLITA MY LOVE in Boston, bitches!

I guess technically Madeline was fired, but is that really accurate when they just cut the part? It's more like she was let go.

R387, there is plenty of Burnett material available. The main thing missing are the musical numbers which were embarrassing even in the first run.

The truth is that her humor has not aged well. I was a big fan when younger, but the targets of her parodies are more obscure today. The mores she treats are also not very current. Her performance style seems a bit hokey to today's eyes. Older comedians feel more current in style than she does.

Strangely enough is though I was an obsessive fan in the past, now when I listen I find her speaking voice so harsh and dissonant that it is hard to listen to her.

R389, yeah, but did you see Molly in Boston like I did, bitch?

The only thing in the Carol Burnett show that's aged well are the Eunice and Mama sketches because they were actually written and acted well. Everything else is barely above the level of high school variety show proficiency and is also incredibly dated. I daresay the only two reasons TCBS has such a terrific nostalgic rep are for the Eunice sketches and because everyone loved when the actors broke up during the sketches. People remember all this laughter, therefore they remember the sketches as being funny. They weren't, we just laughed at the actors breaking character and laughing.

I have a feeling that if the full shows were available, Burnett's reputation would plummet. As it is the best sketches can be seen and all the filler (and there was a lot) is hidden.

Burnett, herself, has admitted that a lot of it doesn't hold up.

I did see MOLLY in Boston, bitch. Didn't think it was worth mentioning.

A lot of Carol Burnett's sketches have been and remain available. I loved her show as a kid, but I find the majority of her sketches unwatchable now. She, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway constantly breaking up during sketches is cheesy and insufferable. She always claimed they weren't doing it on purpose. I don't believe her for a minute. I also think Tim Conway was the least funny man on television, but I'm sure many would disagree with me.

[quote]They don’t have to agree with you, either, [R348]. You need a big dose of your own medicine.

The big difference between you and me is that I'm aware other people don't have to agree with me, whereas you think that if you simply KEEP REPEATING your opinions, somehow that will make everyone say, "You know, he's right."

[quote]Strangely enough is though I was an obsessive fan in the past, now when I listen I find her speaking voice so harsh and dissonant that it is hard to listen to her.

It's fine if you have decided you don't like Carol Burnett's speaking voice for whatever reason(s), but her normal speaking voice isn't remotely "harsh" or "dissonant." Of course, when she's playing a particular character that involves yelling or some strange accent or inflections, her voice isn't going to sound pleasant, but that's true of anyone, whether or not you have the sense to realize it. I'm always annoyed when people don't have the vocabulary to express what they think they mean, so they use whatever adjectives they know, even if they're not accurate.

[quote]The only thing in the Carol Burnett show that's aged well are the Eunice and Mama sketches because they were actually written and acted well. Everything else is barely above the level of high school variety show proficiency and is also incredibly dated.

That's a gross and ignorant generalization. How and why would sketches that made fun of all-time classic movies like GONE WITH THE WIND and SUNSET BOULEVARD, which were old movies even when Burnett parodied them back in the '70s, seem "incredibly dated" today?

This still works.

Carol Burnett is the Ema Bombeck of Television

[quote] That's a gross and ignorant generalization. How and why would sketches that made fun of all-time classic movies like GONE WITH THE WIND and SUNSET BOULEVARD, which were old movies even when Burnett parodied them back in the '70s, seem "incredibly dated" today?

Because several of the references they make in those parodies are dated. I don't agree with the person who was dogging MTM, but I have to say- you're a way bigger asshole. You're accusing him of doing something you're doing tenfold.

I was just watching the bluray of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Joe Layton's numbers are far better than those insipid tap numbers everybody seems to be posting. They make you hate tap dancing. His elevator dance is brilliant in comparison.

And you want to see bad Broadway? Try Walking Happy's title number from the 67 Tonys. Maybe it was better watching it in the theater. The only really terrific numbers from the lates 60s that were caught on video seem to be all Bennett's work. A Joyful Noise, Henry Sweet Henry, Promises, and Coco.

*Was* the Erma Bombeck, r400.

There is a Carol Burnett sketch where her husband has been taken hostage and a newscaster asks her to make a statement. As the sketch goes on, the wife wants to keep refilming the statement. It's a funny, yet very razor sharp sketch. Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore were funny, but never did anything as edgy as that sketch.

Here, r404...

R398, you are right, that Burnett's speaking voice is fine. But when she puts on a character voice she almost always goes for harsh and/or dissonant. Seeing her shows less frequently on the Saturday nights you were home, it was less noticeable.

But now you can watch a number of sketches in a short period of time and you see can more easily see the limits of her vocal characterizations. Physically though, she has a much wider range. But the voice....not so much.

What's "edgy" about that skit at R405? It's not even funny.

Please! More about Molly in Boston!

Does the DL acknowledge that Mary Tyler Moore's multiple plastic surgeries and/or cosmetic procedures had any "effect on her later appearance"? Funny that didn't get mentioned.

[quote]The big difference between you and me is that I'm aware other people don't have to agree with me

r398

Thing is if this were true your response would have had a different tone. You aren't simply disagreeing, you are insulting someone for having a different opinion than you, an opinion that you are sure is more valid then the person you are responding to.

Btw there are a couple of people communicating with you about this, not just one.

I saw Sweet Sue without MTM who was ill. Karen Grassle who played Ma Ingells on Little House was her standby and she was excellent.

Did anyone see Madeline Kahn when she was in Promises, Promises?

[quote]There's no looking at trends in Mary's film career because she didn't have one. She was a television actress who occasionally worked in film. She had no track record to go steeply downhill. She had one hit film.

R375 MTM had more than on hit film. ORDINARY PEOPLE notwithstanding, she also had THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, which was the 8th highest-grossing film of 1967.

Yes, R413, that's delightful. We were talking about "Mary Tyler Moore" hit films, not hit films in which Mary Tyler Moore appeared.

Is there really audio of musical numbers from Coco? The only thing I've ever seen from it is that strange and awkward scene that was on the Tony Awards. With canned laughter and applause.

There is audio of at least one entire performance, r415. Hepburn’s closing night, for one, but at least one other as well. Danielle Darrieux also recorded a couple of songs and you can see how much better they sound with a real singer singing them.

Yes, there is audio

Damn, I meant video, sorry!

I just rewatched the Mary Louise Wilson doc today. It's such a trifle of a movie, but I really enjoy it. I wish I would have gotten to see more of her work in theater. I saw Cabaret, Bosoms & Neglect, Grey Gardens, and I saw Alice in Wonderland and The Women on video. But she's such a wonderful actress, and her film work is so scant. I wish she would have played the role in Nebraska that horrible community theater cunt June Squibb played. They should have switched parts.

Who in the the hell cay-uhhs? What a woman way-uhhs?

Though they were often just one scene minor roles, it seemed like Mary Louise Wilson appeared in countless films made in NY in the 70s and 80s, usually playing a prissy bureaucrat (Klute, Up the Sandbox, The Money Pit, Green Card, etc.). But, yes, I also wish she had enjoyed a bigger and better film career.

Was Madeline Kahn ever in Promises, Promises?

I don't think so.

Perhaps if Mary Louise Wilson had changed her name to Meryl, she would have had more success.

Didn't Aida Turturro plays sister to David Burtka in a movie that aslo featured Mary Louise Wilson as an amorous lush?

*also

I guess I'm the only one left alive who saw Mary Louise Wilson in Promises Promises. She was hilarious.

So now that they won't be submitting the weekly box office numbers, we'll have to rely on anecdote. What about Pass Over or the musicals? Is anyone purchasing tickets enough to fill the theater at each performance?

Are you SERIOUSLY trying to compare MARY TYLER MOORE, a NATIONAL ENTERTAINMENT ICON for nearly sixty fucking years to SUTTON FUCKING FOSTER, a total mediocrity who lucked into her Tonys and who no one could give a single shit about outside of NY and the five people that watch her unwatchable show on Hulu of which she is not even the main fucking character??

FUCKING REALLY?

Just shut up.

Material ages as do styles of performance. No, not all of the Burnett show has aged well but there are plenty of sketches that still "work".

Not all of I Love Lucy has aged well either, or, for that matter, The Golden Girls.

There are many theatergoers who love Sutton Foster. I have no idea why but they do. Millie was quite a trial to sit through. And it managed to be even more racist than the movie which is quite an achievement. Attempting to send up racism it was embarrassing.

How is she not the main character? "Younger" refers to Sutton's character faking her age.

I'm just glad you're not complaining about my Tonys.

MTM's singing wasn't even good enough to be called mediocre in that video above.

[quote] Didn't Aida Turturro plays sister to David Burtka in a movie that aslo featured Mary Louise Wilson as an amorous lush?

I don't think she played his sister. I think he was the love interest. (Not hers.)

Actually, yeah, I think Aida was the sister of the lead. David was the dizzy love interest.

Buck would never have done a movie with Aida Turturro, David Burtka and Mary Louise Wilson!

Did NPH get him that role, too?

That's what the Theatre Gossip threads have devolved into...MOLfriggin'LY?

[quote]Because several of the references they make in those parodies are dated. I don't agree with the person who was dogging MTM, but I have to say- you're a way bigger asshole. You're accusing him of doing something you're doing tenfold.

I suppose the parodies of GONE WITH THE WIND and SUNSET BOULEVARD etc. are "dated" if you don't know those old movies. Sorry, but the person dogging MTM is the true asshole here, and if you don't think so, you and that person are a good pair.

[quote][R398], you are right, that Burnett's speaking voice is fine. But when she puts on a character voice she almost always goes for harsh and/or dissonant. Seeing her shows less frequently on the Saturday nights you were home, it was less noticeable. But now you can watch a number of sketches in a short period of time and you see can more easily see the limits of her vocal characterizations. Physically though, she has a much wider range. But the voice....not so much.

I guess you might feel that way if you happen to watch, in a short period of time, a whole bunch of sketches where Burnett happens to use a harsh or grating voice, but in general, I disagree that she "almost always" goes for that kind of sound. She doesn't use a harsh or grating voice in either of her two most famous sketches, the parodies of GONE WITH THE WIND and SUNSET BOULEVARD, nor did she use a voice like that in the continuing series of sketches AS THE STOMACH TURNS. She did indeed use a harsh, grating voice where appropriate, as in the Eunice and Mama sketches and the Mrs. Wiggins sketches. And by the way, "dissonant" is an incorrect word to use in describing anyone's voice. Look it up, if you care to.

[quote]I saw Sweet Sue without MTM who was ill. Karen Grassle who played Ma Ingells on Little House was her standby and she was excellent.

I saw "Sweet Sue" in Boston with Mary Tyler Moore and Lynn Redgrave but had totally forgotten that I had, until you mentioned it, R411.

Buck would never get into flame wars with silly theater queens over a non-entity like Sutton Foster or her sad nipples.

Those movie parodies are horrible. I loved them as a kid but now they are god awful. Burnett has aged as well as milk. I can't even listen to Once Upon a Mattress anymore. I'm SHHHHHHHHY. What crap. I tried watching The Little Foxes parody recently. It was so bad.

I like most people loved Burnett once upon a time. I also liked Red Skelton too. Now watching him is agony. It is rare when TV comedy holds up. Some I Love Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, The Odd Couple, Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, Burns and Allen. Not a whole lot.

R442 That's nice, dear.

Thank you for sharing.

Oh yes, R442, you're absolutely right. Those movie parodies are horrible. Not a laugh in them. Or.....maybe the problem is that you have the sense of humor of a dried turd.

GWTW parody begins at 28:00, and it's still hilarious.

[quote]So now that they won't be submitting the weekly box office numbers, we'll have to rely on anecdote.

Wait, what? I didn't get the memo. We aren't going to be given the grosses anymore? Is this because they know that the crap they are foisting on the public won't sell well and they don't want these radical plays to look bad?

No. It's terrible. It's got the curtain rod joke which comes from Bob Mackie. I'm sure you still love Red Skelton as well so what can be said except 'enjoy.'

Her punching Harvey Korman in the gut is just not funny. But that's the level of humor in these skits.

The people who still find the Carol Burnett crap funny are the same ones who still laugh at the joke "Tell us how you REALLY feel!" (Or worse, still make it.)

R388 (iirc), BAJOUR is the biggest turd on that list by a long shot. If any of those shows is head and shoulders above the others, it’s surely the witty, charming, literate and very musical WALKING HAPPY. ALL AMERICAN has a mostly wonderful score and brilliant orchestrations but a rather trite —though not offensively so—book. The rest? Pure crap, but none of them—even the dreadful I HAD A BALL (which I sat through as a teen in Detroit and realized for the first time that not all theatre was magical)—as dreary and stupid as BAJOUR. Footnote: anyone who has seen HOT BLOOD—a goddam Jane Russell epic will wonder why there is no “based on” credit for it. Exact same story, better written and without the goddam musical numbers. Happy holiday!

I saw Pass Over. The orchestra was a little over half-filled, I’d say. Didn’t get a look at upstairs.

I want someone to rewrite the book for the musical version of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, keep many of the wonderful songs and get Sutton Foster to play Holly. Wouldn't that be marvelous?

Buck would never star in a musical version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s!

And I said, "What about BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S?"

She said, "I think I remember the film.

And as I recall, I think we both kind of liked it."

And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got."

R445, here you go:

Of course what is so stupid about the above statement is it removes the weekly reminder the shows are out there and exist. As these shows fail to find an audience - and believe me, they will fail to find an audience, the whole narrative of attracting audiences of color by bringing on plays written, directed and starring "people of color" (i.e. not Jews) will collapse.

R78 she is great there

I think what makes Bajour sound as good as it does are the high octane orchestrations by Mort Lindsey ("The Judy Garland Show," Streisand's "A Happening in Central Park"), in his only Broadway musical credit. With Bajour, he takes some pretty undistinguished or even idiotic material and elevates it.

I hope some day Sutton Foster plays MTM in the dramatic movie about the making of Ordinary People and wins the Oscar and y’all have to eat your words.

I love the majority of the score to BAJOUR, no matter how bad it was in the theater. And, yes, the orchestrations are wonderful too.

I saw " Sweet Sue" and the only thing I remember is Barry Tubb naked.

OMG I go to sleep and wake up to a frigging [italic]dumpster fire[/italic] in the Theatre thread. Over a hundred posts overnight, most of them endlessly repeated nonsense about MTM and Carol Burnett's TV work, for god's sake—and most of them between a few (two?) insufferable sleepless queens carping at each other instead of taking their Ambien and getting a good night's sleep. At least tonight, they can re-read their own blather and drift off easily like the rest of us.

Happy Labor Day, ladies.

Which returning performers are the most out of shape now that rehearsals have started?

Who's seen a screener of [italic]Come From Away[/italic]without Anti-Masker Kimball? How about [italic]Diana[/italic]? Will either streamcast help its Broadway show?

Who [italic]doesn't[/italic] think Mendoza will be WAY better than Olivio, and how happy is the rest of the company that the latter is gone?

Which [bold]upcoming[/bold] fall show's return will crash and burn the fastest?

Does Aaron Tveit really have a big cock to explain his very busy TV and stage career, as alleged on an earlier thread? Why is his public persona so sex-less and romance-less, even though he's had a long-term girlfriend or is that BS?

Is it true Adrenne's Warren's "limited" return will consist of just Act I of [italic]Tina[/italic] on the first night back?

Which show do you care less about: [italic]Jagged Little Pill[/italic] or [/italic]Diana[/italic]?

Whew.

I want to see a show called Jagged Little Diana, set to the music of Alanis Morrisette and Depeche Mode.

I want to see a musical called A Groom with a View, with Alice Ripley playing herself, and all the grown-up girls from Annie playing the damaged adult versions of those navel-gazing weeping girls who accused her.

r448, I saw I HAD A BALL in Detroit in high school too! Except for the odious Mr. Hackett, I had a good time, thanks to Karen Morrow, Richard Kiley, and Rosetta Le Noire. And of course Onna White. Did you also see PICKWICK and JENNIE and SKYSCRAPER and HERE'S LOVE? So many great flop musicals played there. (As did FIDDLER and DOLLY and NO STRINGS).

R462 I’d pay good money to see that show, even more if it won a Pulitzer.

I'm winning the next Pulitzer, bitch.

Question about THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE:

I've only seen the film (years ago), never saw the Broadway show, but is there a reason Mrs. Meers has to have Chinese henchmen? Would it be fairly easy to make the henchmen's ethnicity negligible and turn Mrs. Meers' laundry service into some other kind of business?

Couldn't really care less about the show but just wondering why this non-PC aspect of the story wasn't dealt with when the show was originally produced on Broadway.

For that matter, aren't there some Asian henchmen in ANYTHING GOES that don't really need to be Asian?

The film of Millie includes a Chinese laundry, a fireworks factory and white girls being sold into slavery: all really requiring an "evil Chinese" motif. Maybe they should have just ended the show with a song called "Chinatown".

I remember SWEET SUE quite well. Lovely play by AR Gurney about a middle aged suburban divorcee who makes a career out of being a greeting card illustrator with the commercial name of "Sweet Sue" whose son comes back to stay with her during a summer vacation from college. We never see the son but we meet his college roommate, who develops a flirty and then poignant (but unfulfilled) romantic relationship with Sue. But the gimmick of the play is that Sue and the boy are each played by two actors, who each express the outer and inner feelings of the characters, often seen on stage in the same scenes. MTM and John K. Linton (WEHT?) played the outer versions and Lynn Redgrave and Barry Tubb played the inner versions.

As Sue is an illustrator (who regrets that she never took her artistry more seriously), the play began with a scene of her sketching the boy in the nude (on Broadway we only saw him from the back) and then the play flashes backward to how the characters met until it climaxes with the nude scene again and an awkward declamation of love and desire.

The play IIRC had strangely homo-erotic vibes, as the sexual longing for the young men seemed more in keeping with gay sensibilities. Really fascinating play, and very different for Gurney. All four in the cast were quite wonderful, but the play got middling reviews and only ran for a few months even with the star names of MTM and Redgrave (who reportedly did not ultimately get along so well).

Anyone who saw it remember it as I do?

r467, well, I remember those details of the Chinese laundry and the white slavery ring from the film, but for today's young audiences, are those ethnic references even relatable? Does anyone under 40 think of Chinese laundries and white slavery rings as a thing? Again, just to ask, couldn't Mrs. Meers run an antique shop, for example (with a back room with lots of crates), and kidnap girls of all ethnicities to be sold into slavery to men of all ethnicities? Why drag anything particularly Asian into it?

Once again, I'm not trying to defend the show, just don't get why they didn't get rid of the un-PC aspects long ago?

Hadestown reopened a couple days ago. I was gifted a ticket and was pleasantly surprised to see Tom Hewitt as Hades instead of Patrick Page. I enjoy Page, but I love Hewitt. He can't reach the lower notes that Page can, but imo, is a better singer.

His Hades is more vital and definitely sexier. I think Page returns in a month or two.

The curtain call. We Raise Our Cups.

Tom Hewitt is an unsung (sort of) treasure of NY theater and a lovely man.

r466 is trying to take jobs away from POCS!!!!!

[quote]John K. Linton (WEHT?)

Any relation?

I'd like to hear more about Mary and Lynn not getting along during SWEET SUE. I wonder if it was the same for Mary and Karen.

R428 = the latest idiot who doesn't grasp that no one, and I mean no one, is suggesting that Sutton Foster is MORE FAMOUS than Mary Tyler Moore. That is indeed a ludicrous notion.

For some reason, countless people on DL foam at the mouth when someone dares intimate that a 6-time Tony nominee (and 2-time winner) who has starred in 7 Broadway musicals to date, 5 of which have run over a year or more -- a woman who has also found time to release a solo album or 2 and star in 2 TV series (the latter of which has run for several seasons) -- might, just might have something more going on than being a flash in the pan or a fraud.

FORGET IT. SHE'S A JOKE. AND EVERYONE WHO LIKES HER MUST DIE.

Maybe they could change the Chinese laundry to a movie studio and Mrs Meers to a Harvey Weinstein type.

please stop. Gimme gimme a BREAK from this blather.

[quote]Tom Hewitt is an unsung (sort of) treasure of NY theater and a lovely man.

He really is a sweetheart, r471. Also quite funny. He was an excellent Billy Flynn in CHICAGO some years ago.

Here he is is in ROCKY HORROR. Also in this clip: Raúl Esparza, Jarrod Emick. Alice Ripley, Matthew Morrison, Diedre Goodwin, Ana Gastenmeyer, Daphne Rubin-Vega

Has Sutton Foster done "They're Playing Our Song?" She's perfect for it!

Did Gretchen Wyler ever do it?

Maybe Sutton could do The Gretchen Wyler Story.

whoever's YT page that is has only that one video

yes r479 she did it with La Rudetsky for the Actors' Fund BTW Google could be your friend, in case you don't have others

No, no, no, no. A real production.

[quote]Couldn't Mrs. Meers run an antique shop, for example (with a back room with lots of crates), and kidnap girls of all ethnicities to be sold into slavery to men of all ethnicities? Why drag anything particularly Asian into it?

That would have been a very smart, clever way to rewrite the show, but unfortunately, the not-very talented people who were in charge of the rewrite didn't think of it. Apparently, the plot device of Asians kidnapping young girls and selling them into "white slavery" was a trope back in the '20s, which is why it's in the movie of TMM, but now so very few people are even aware of that trope that it should be cut for that reason, aside from the fact that it's so dicey in terms of racism.

Tubb naked in Sweet Sue with MTM and Lynn Redgrave.

I saw SWEET SUE and have very little memory of it, but I do remember the Tubb character being involved in some sort of discussion about whether or not he might be gay. As I recall, he said he wasn't, but for some reason the subject came up anyway. Sorry my memory isn't clearer.

Hi, R463. My Detroit theatregoing was unfortunately pretty limited and of those you mention I saw only PICKWICK (and that at the Hanna in Cleveland). I did see FIDDLER (Anatevka was not yet listed in the program but was in the show. How on earth do you end FIDDLER without Anatevka?) And, lucky me, FOXY, a really wonderful but completely luckless show. I waited eagerly for the cast album—and we all know how that turned out. Years later, I sprang for a CD of the notorious (well, notorious to me) lap-tape Lp, of which I had heard (dimly) the two numbers on JJA’s Bert Lahr Lp. To my great surprise, the supplier mentioned that he in fact had a second recording of a completely different performance! So now I have TWO FOXY ocb albums. I greatly regret missing all the shows you mention (especially NO STRINGS) but the one that really got away is POUSSE CAFE, which must have been almost unbearably awful, but still…

Did Vanessa Redgrave turn down "Sweet Sue"?

Barry Tubb was a truly beautiful young man. And SWEET SUE was a very enjoyable play. It’s been a while.

Vanessa was too old.

Must be weird to sit spread eagled in front of MTM

Tubb now at 58

I had no intention of seeing " Sweet Sue" until I walked past the theater and saw the naked picture of Tubb on the poster outside the theater. I immediately bought a ticket and enjoyed the show - both the play and Barry's ass.

Tubb then in Top Gun

Time is fucking bastard.

The gorgeous men of Top Gun

He was ok looking. Not a beauty.

r486, NO STRINGS was the first show I saw at the Fisher. So incredibly chic for a young teen, and I got to meet Rodgers at the stage door. Remember FOXY fondly, too, but don't have the cast albums. Missed POUSSE CAFE as well, but got to see SOPHIE, HENRY SWEET HENRY, ILYA DARLING, and PLEASURES AND PALACES. The one I really regret missing was THE GAY LIFE, which was the first show to play the Fisher, if I recall correctly.

[quote]Time is fucking bastard.

Not a fan of the Skivvies, but Tom Hewitt, last year, at 63.

Beards are men's wonderbras.

R471 and r478 I saw Hewitt in Jesus Christ Superstar several years ago which I really loved. As Hewitt was singing on stage the thought popped into my head that he should play Sweeney Todd someday because I could hear those songs in his voice.

I told him so at the stage door afterwards (I don’t normally stage door but my sister wanted to meet Josh Young who played Judas.). Hewitt replied to me that he was actually planning on learning Sweeney Todd’s songs. We had a nice conversation.

Wish I’d known he did end up playing Sweeney out of town one summer; would’ve like to have seen that!

This whole thread is starting to feel like Saturday night at the Old Actor's Home in Englewood, N.J.

Dick Kallman. Poor Dick.

"This whole thread is starting to feel like Saturday night at the Old Actor's Home in Englewood, N.J."

All of the theater threads are. Have you ever heard of " Follies"?

Speaking of ghosts of time past... can we discuss the young Stephen Sondheim's style choices?

ORANGE you glad it's not still 1973? Were there no mirrors back then?

MTM did not like Lynn Redgrave trying out new takes on her lines and business after SWEET SUE opened, or so I heard. And Mary was a gloomy grouch backstage, far more Beth Jarrett than Mary Richards. Apparently, they weren't speaking by the time the show closed.

I believe that's actually John K. Linton in the SWEET SUE photo, in spite of the caption at the link. He's the boy who was in the first scene nude, not Barry Tubb. And when the curtain went up, it was quite shocking (and confusing) seeing beloved Mary Tyler Moore on stage with a hot nude young man and Lynn Redgrave, dressed similarly and shadowing her onstage.

Don't know what happened to Linton after the show closed. He seemed to disappear and I can't find any photos of him at all. He was even hotter than Barry.

LOVE Tom Hewitt! Worked with him once a long time ago and he was so sexy and sweet and talented. Is he still with his BF Eddie Stadelmeyer (sp?)?? He was also quite hot (if not as talented) and made a pass at me.

Sondheim looked his best in late middle age. The beard and weight loss did a lot. The long haired pic at the link with Lenny... Oy.

[quote]Sondheim looked his best in late middle age.

Sondheim looked his best as nerdy Jewish twink.

[quote]This whole thread is starting to feel like Saturday night at the Old Actor's Home in Englewood, N.J.

Thanks for that insulting comment. Now go to hell. Please :-)

R508 He looks all fresh scrubbed ready to join the Disney music and lyrics teams in that picture.

The anti-Sutton queen really needs to take his meds. Or just finally admit Urinetown was a skit, not a musical.

OK, I'll "oh dear" myself. Just googled John K. Linton and there are suddenly lots of fairly recent photos of him online. Like Barry Tubb, time hasn't been very kind. I'll leave it to you to find them yourselves if you're curious.

[Quote] Sondheim looked his best as nerdy Jewish twink.

No, not with that hairline he didn't.

Who is the man with him in this pic?

Speaking of URINETOWN.... that thing won Best Book and Best Score of a Musical back in 2002. (MILLIE won Best Musical.)

Did the creative team ever go on to do anything else? Does URINETOWN get done regionally a lot?

Does TPOS?

R514, that's James Lapine.

In 1985, the year before he was in "Sweet Sue," Barry Tubb played a teenager who comes out as gay to his parents, played by Marlo Thomas and Martin Sheen, in a TV movie called "Consenting Adult." It was based on a novel by Laura Z. Hobson, who wrote "Gentleman's Agreement." I recall that Marlo was pretty good as the distraught mother who struggles to accept her son.

What's wrong with Sondheim's hairline? Unlike many men, he's kept a nice head of hair well into old age.

He took to brushing his hair forward for a reason, dearie.

He has never seemed to disguise his hairline. Very few photos have his hair forward and those are from his hair falling forward not brushed forward.

He's giving some half bang action here. And they shoot him from the bang side too, so the extreme height of his hairline on the other side isn't visible.

OK, Steve’s comb-over must be featured in the next thread title along with something about Detroit’s Fisher Theater.

And nothing about Sutton Foster or Mary Tyler Moore.

That's what I would call a peekaboo bang, r522.

What cause the makeover here? Did he fall in with the gay dodgeball crowd?

Nothing can top MY "Sweet Sue."

Mary Louise Wilson was amazingly bad in Cabaret, starting from not even bothering with an accent. Not a surprise that everyone else was nominated except her.

On right now...

Wilson is very good on the audience recording of the Lansbury Gypsy. She doesn't go for the typical squaky voiced take on Tessie .

[quote]Mary Louise Wilson was amazingly bad in Cabaret, starting from not even bothering with an accent. Not a surprise that everyone else was nominated except her.

She was nominated. She lost to Audra in Ragtime.

where is that r530?

r514 get out

[Quote] get out

I never remember the help.

I always thought Sondheim had decent hair, especially once he grew out of the hippie long hair era from the 70's. He looked great in the 80's. Quite cute and sexy.

People are acting like he's totally balding or something.

At least he never had his toupee ripped off by an overzealous rentboy.

Wilson's "Maude" episode was on FETV last night. She was very good and didn't go for the easy laughs until the scene where she drops dead from a heart attack.

I was one of the few who saw her play Rose. Gypsy at the Shubert in Century City was a huge hit with Lansbury and there was significant demand for matinees. So they did a Thursday matinee series with Wilson as Rose. I don't remember much except she wasn't Lansbury who was tearing it up.

Violet.

She's The best Thing In It.

I wanted to also say that Wilson's Tessie Tura was very, very close to Ginny, the part she played on ODAAT.

She was excellent in Bosoms and Neglect.

And also in Full Gallop.

"Japan!"

Sometime in the 70s, Sondheim hired a manservant/valet to run his household and style him. That was behind the major improvements in looks and grooming.

R543 Now that sounds the perfect kernel for a musical, did he ever develop that?

Wilson was a wonderful replacement in SISTER MARY IGNATIUS.

John Linton was not very good looking.

I also find it fascinating that they matched his looks to MTM's and Redgrave's to Tubb's as opposed to matching M/M and F/F.

Tranny march happening now.

How many crazies showed up?

Not sure what role fat black tranny Annie is correct for....

Of course, the very next post on that tweet is someone grifting for money for Trannie.

And then there's this:

Beth Von Iderstein @haleygrace2012 · 19h Replying to @ucancallmesis and @clewisreviews Please add alt text to your photos. This march excludes disabled people in several ways, not the least of which is a complete lack of communication regarding location.

Those Trannys OWN Hard Knock Life!

THE TRANSING OF THE OPERA

TRANNIE

TRANNY POPPINS

TRAN OF LA MANCHA

TRANNIE GET YOUR GUN

SPIDER-TRAN: TURN OFF THE DARK

TRANSILTON

TRANCIN'

TRANSALOT

DEAR EVAN TRANSEN

THE MUSIC TRAN

The only Sweet Sue I know is --

Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators!!!

John Loves Tranny

Shme Loves Me!

Getting back to those dreadful Carol Burnett movie parodies that people for some reason find funny. The Random Harvest is especially awful. The only good movie parody I could think of off the top of my head though I haven't seen it in quite a while was From Here to Eternity with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. That was hilarious.

It's just as broad as Burnett's parodies, r557. À chacun son goût.

THEY LOVE THEM.

Or is it THEY LOVE THEY?

I think I prefer THE TRANSMAN OF THE OPERA to TRANSING.

R557, I watched Went With the Wind and other than the costume and the line "I saw it in a window..." there was nothing funny there.

Although, I gotta say, Mackie's costumes have a lot more wit than the material. Not just the curtain dress, but Lawrence's and Shore's dresses seem to make sharper satiric points than any of the dialog does.

I wish the T obsessives could be banned from DL.

R561 Nope, this is effecting every area of life now.

[quote]I watched Went With the Wind and other than the costume and the line "I saw it in a window..." there was nothing funny there.

In your opinion, which isn't worth much if you have no sense of humor. And if you don't think Korman and Lawrence are funny in those sketches, you must be quite humorless.

Maybe *your* life, r562.

R564 This is a gay site. Don't like it fuck off to a tranny site.

wrong thread, ladies. Wrong site, wrong internet, wrong world. STFU

Oh, dear, R562.

^^ that was to r557 r563 etc the Statler and Waldorf pair talking Carol Burnett [italic]again[/italic] ^^

Oh yeah like discussing what played in Detroit 100 years ago is any more relevant to theater today.

oh good one you GOT me

The only good thing about all of the fucking stupid Carol Burnett arguing is that this thread will end soon.

Hi again R497 from the unofficial Detroit Theatre Historical Society. I really can’t bear to think of having missed THE GAY LIFE, with one of the greatest scores in Broadway history, but there you are. I’ve heard also that I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE played the Shubert Lafayette—which was torn down before I even knew it existed—with Lillian Roth. Did you catch that? I’m beginning to think this engagement is apocryphal, as I consulted the theatrical pages daily and would have pestered my parents mercilessly to get tickets for that one. By the way, I was characterized as “writing very gay” in a previous thread, and I just want to take this opportunity to thank whoever it was said so for the compliment. For the record, I am as gay as it gets and couldn’t be happier that I am.

Here, y'all can bitch about Lucille in Wildcat to close out the thread.

How comes this threads not paywalled, usually by this point they are?

Because more than the usual two or three posters have kept it going.

Can someone start #434 and link it here. That used to be the norm but it has stopped in recent time, I guess because the thread starters aren't subscribers.

R574 So long as posters don't post youtube clips one after the other after the other after the other the threads are not paywalled.

[quote] Can someone start #434 and link it here. That used to be the norm but it has stopped in recent time, I guess because the thread starters aren't subscribers.

A- It was never the norm.

B- It's pretty much happened the past few threads.

[quote] [R543] Now that sounds the perfect kernel for a musical, did he ever develop that?

Andrew Lloyd Webber already did. It was called By Jeeves.

[Quote] It was never the norm.

It was very common.

I've been in these threads since the beginning. It was non-existent for the most part.

Well, your memory is probably not what it used to be.

Is that you, Dick Scanlan?

I saw THE GAY LIFE and WILDCAT on Broadway but missed I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE which indeed played the Shubert in Detroit February 4-9, 1963, R572.

I once had a nightmare that the plane carrying the Fiddker company from Detroit crashed in a remote region and Zero Mostel ate several of the dead, drawing the line at Shprintze and Bielke.

I agree with r560. Went With the Wind is too long. The good stuff is in part two (except for the hot Yankee. Was that one of the dancers?). Vicky Lawrence is the show’s secret weapon. She’s really, really good, and she hasn’t acquired that old-fashioned burlesque style, so she feels fresh. She’s very funny as Sissy. Thank God she’s not in blackface, but they wouldn’t be able to get away with that today.

Black face by the 70s was already considered pretty offensive. Though among stupid people it continued until fairly recently.

R587 Indeed.

I WANT TO SEE MARY TYLER MOORE AND SUTTON FOSTER IN *FOLLIES*!!!

Urinetown is mostly done by colleges and the occasional private high school.

Did Mary know her lines in Sweet Sue?

How about a SWEET SUE revival with Sutton Foster and Kelli O'Hara?

It’s almost Last Midnight. Where is the next thread link?

Somebody come up with a new thread title and I’ll post it.

Waiting around for the brand new thread ...

After the last was paywalled....

Whoop-Up!

CARMELINA!

What was name of the Mary Louise Wilson play that poster couldn't be bothered to write beyond an ACRONYM?

Of course, at this point I can't remember what he (or she) said about it....

POUSSE CAFE!