THEATRE GOSSIP #451: The "Melissa Errico Tits! When am I Gonna Show Tits?" Edition

Previous thread

Might Andre Leon Talley have had a musical in him?

Excellent title, OP. Well done.

I'm sure a lot of them could have fit r2

At matinee of Company, saw London production in December 2018. Cast overall is a huge improvement (Jennifer Simard’s Sarah over Mel Giedroyc’s sticks out the most) although I preferred Jonathan Bailey to Matt Doyle and Richard Fleeshman’s body to Claybourne Elder’s. The latter is quite funny albeit in a different way to Fleeshman’s puppy dog/adolescent boy portrayal. Fleeshman got a huge laugh in London for his exasperated “BARCELONA!” and Elder doesn’t make that choice at all. I was glad the stupid subway set got ditched. And the “Another Hundred People” guy playing PJ was no longer Australian. And Patti…well…she’s fabulous in this and I’m in no way a fan of hers. Lenk is as many have already described her here-good actress but that voice? Yikes. During “Being Alive” (which she struggled like hell to get through) I thought how Lady Gaga would sing the shit out of it. And Stefania whatsername is actually 35 years old. Bradley Cooper should try to get the rights to film this for her and not Cabaret. Anyway I’m glad I went. And no understudied and/or swings were on today although according to a segment on WNYC/NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show it’s International Swing Day! Who knew?

Ugh. Write a show for a woman. Flipping the gender is silly.

[quote] Might Andre Leon Talley have had a musical in him?

Only if it was deep fried.

I was at the little ceremony when the Broadway theaters dimmed the lights for Sondheim a few months ago. I had stationed myself in front of the theater where "Company" is playing for the dimming. After the lights came back on, I overheard two guys singing, "You're always sorry, you're always grateful---she hits a note!" while they pointed to a photo of Katarina Lenk that was outside the theater. They must have been Dataloungers. I laughed myself silly.

AKB only looks huge because he's so small overall. As we've seen, his dick is only just bigger than a hot dog bun.

I thought that was Barrowman.

[Quote] Stefania whatsername is actually 35 years old.

Huh?

The internet knows everything

Anybody remember That's Life?

Did anyone else watch the PBS show about Broadway's exciting comeback with DL fave Frank DiLella?

Sadly, they had mostly focused on TINA, DIANA, JAGGED LITTLE PILL and WAITRESS which have all closed. Little did they know. They did have a disclaimer of sorts at the top of the show though.

[quote]And Patti…well…she’s fabulous in this and I’m in no way a fan of hers.

I thought she was woefully miscast, just as she was when she played Joanne in that NY Philharmonic staged concert. Joanne is not supposed to be a suburban matron, and "The Ladies Who Lunch" is not supposed to be sung that way, with all those affectations and all of that sliding around the notes.

[quote]Did anyone else watch the PBS show about Broadway's exciting comeback with DL fave Frank DiLella? Sadly, they had mostly focused on TINA, DIANA, JAGGED LITTLE PILL and WAITRESS which have all closed.

I'm guessing those unfortunate choices were probably DiLella's. He's not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.

Those were probably the Broadway shows that needed the publicity the most and gave Frank the best/cheapest deals.

R11, sorry, I meant Lady Gaga/Stefani. She’s 35 years old, same age as Bobbi in Company.

Tina hasn’t closed r14

R2 The Andre Leon Talley musical would like the Donna Summer and Cher musical, it would require three actors to play him, but unlike the earlier ones who play different ages, the three actors would be required to capture his great size and be on stage simultaneously as one person.

Please, that role SCREAMS Alex Newell.

The Signature tribute to Sondheim.

Anthony Sher.

'I am Gavins' Hair'.

R23 I saw that, is that for a role, or something that happens to you post Covid-19? Will all who got sick and survive have such hair?

Gavin's a cute, appealing guy. But that bleached-out mullet makes him look like he's fronting a JOURNEY/VAN HALEN tribute band. The worst.

Just to add concurrence to the several pleas for something rather less horrible than the most recent thread. its late redemption by the thrilling Charlie Williams video was most welcome, but, as Elaine Stritch was wont to say, and often, “I mean, come ON!” Too much pedantry of the dullest sort. Even during the covid nightmare we really must make an effort to be civil and to exercise whatever intelligence (and there may be precious little) we have been blessed with. GET A GRIP, GIRLS!

Oh, good, a hall monitor telling everyone to do better.

R26 is 💯% right and I will personally Olivo your ass if you either disagree or revert to the pathetic, pedantic and oh so tiresome behavior we endured back there. Are we clear?

This is the omicron winter of our discontent, and we need — we [italic]deserve [/italic] —worthy, wet [bold] gossip [/bold]. GET A GRIP, GIRLS, INDEED.

There is LITERALLY nothing worse than unworthy, dry gossip.

...yes, r29, which includes legal debate about the shall-not-be-named-as-Phyllis-Stone-is-my-witness topics were that sucked up [italic](and not in the delicious good way, darlings)[/italic] sufficient of the last thread.

Now, honeys, please remind us from whence that Charlie Williams video surfaced? Is the bartender who posted it somewhere to show off?

WHAT CHARLIE WILLIAMS VIDEO!?

check #588 on the previous thread dear. (It took all my strength not to toss out a snarky "Try to keep up" because this is going to be a kind and gentle thread - at least at this early stage.)

R31 Was that the confusing video from the last thread that took forever to load and I never saw the so called identifying tattoo?

R14, I didn’t see the show, but I saw photos from the screening. William Ivey Long was apparently there, popping up in several of the “official” red carpet-style photos, including one with Frank. Call him Teflon Willy, because those sex abuse allegations just don’t seem to stick.

Patti was similarly miscast in the Encores PAL JOEY. The role calls for cool sophistication, Patti gave fishwife.

I agree with you, r35, yet the recording is wonderful.

How was Daisy Prince?

Is Frank DiLella unaware that there are plays on Broadway, not just musicals?

Do you think tourists care about plays, R38? No. Musicals and only musicals. It isn't like that show was made just for NYC residents.

r33, that's the one. The tattoo only makes a brief appearance (high on his right leg, on the left side of the video) but his voice gives it away--at least in the original video with sound. The posted video looks like a screen capture/recording from a site it was posted on, so the sound may not be as clear. The real proof may be that he always has it quickly removed from any site it's been posted on. I understand why, while also finding it a bit of a shame. It's a short video, it's not that explicit, and he looks both great and like he knows what he's doing. It doesn't seem that terrible to have out there.

[quote] it's not that explicit

It shows him vigorously stroking a fully erect cock and then taking said cock deep into his face and suckling away like a hungry piglet. It also shows him repeatedly stroking his own fully erect cock.

What would it take for you to call it "explicit"

How does Charlie go about having the video taken down? How does one do that??

DMCA notice.

R39, some tourists might be interested in plays if they knew about them but when TV specials ignore them completely and the Tony Awards broadcasts give them short shrift, musicals are all they hear about.

I just found the CW video in an old LPSG post. He is one enthusiastic consumer, that's for sure. R41, there was no cumshot so how can it be explicit?

r41, frankly, anal. Or clearer shots of everything you mentioned. A fuzzy cell phone video with enough plausible deniability some aren't buying it's him doesn't seem that explicit to me. Clearly you and those who've agreed with you feel differently.

The supposed sex video of a chorus boy. Has Covid isolation turned everyone into a boring drone? I found the conversation about LuPone forcing her baps on Spike Lee more interesting.

Y'all [italic] pay [/italic] $200/year or more to view videos on LPSG?

[quote] Y'all pay $200/year or more to view videos on LPSG?

They pay $20 a year to make bitchy comments on DataLounge.

Could someone re-post the CW video? I can't find it in the last thread.

[quote]Some tourists might be interested in plays if they knew about them but when TV specials ignore them completely and the Tony Awards broadcasts give them short shrift, musicals are all they hear about.

DiLella might have included MOCKINGBIRD in his show, but as it turned out, that would have been another mistake, as it's yet another show that's "going on hiatus" for an extended period.

BONNIE AND CLYDE is back, for you Wildhorn fans.

Have we discussed this? In previews at MTC.

Apparently, the running time is 3.5 hours, with 2 intermissions.

Will JJ be doing it in the nude?

You don’t have to pay anything to view videos on LPSG. There is a workaround to view them.

R21-Those "singers" from Signature's Sondheim tribute sound fucking awful. This is what audiences have to suffer through in the D.C. area?

r54, he refused to do the nudity on Broadway (unlike Stark Sands in the original La Jolla production). Hard to believe he'd be willing to do it a decade later when he's a bigger name, unfortunately.

cool, r55, thanks. How do I find the workaround?

New Broadway designs! Marquees that are almost impossible to read!

And Another!

r49 types poor.

Has anyone seen clips of the Music Man curtain call? I really question the wisdom of having ALL the actors dressed in the same band uniforms with those majorette hats crushing down on their heads - no one is recognizable. The actors must hate them

In the original MM, the cast wore band costumes. Can't speak for the current production, but the original curtain call was thrilling.

The LPSG workaround is to reload the page at 3 or 7 minutes. So 12:43 or 6:57 or 11:17 and so on…. Works most of the time.

wow. BRB. I'll see you at 11:43 or 11:47

r56: I'm not r21, but I agree with you that the quality of the Signature tribute was really poor in every way. And yet I've seen nearly all of them in one or another Sondheim show and they were all quite good. Holly Twyford, a DC theater legend for good reason, played Desiree a few seasons ago and was wonderful, but she butchered Send In The Clowns in the tribute. Horrible.

I don't love the slightly fuzzy quality of digital marquees in general, and the Lyceum's marquee has always been a little too small for the building - it does make it a little difficult to read the title for A Strange Loop. But I don't have any such trouble reading the text for Paradise Square's marquees, even without expanding the image. That one looks pretty sharp to me.

That's on purpose. They're trying to make it so fuzzy that you think you're coming in to buy tickets for The Music Man. It's their only strategy for selling tickets to that garbage heap.

Is Christian Lewis going to write an article on how transphobic those marquees are? You know he's really a voice we should be listening to...

Signature has long been very cliquey, and the scandalous departure of Eric Schaeffer in the middle of the pandemic leaves that clique a little exposed. The tribute performances were actually bad, but Signature has mostly been about aiming for polished mediocrity.

And yea, Holly Twyford - like Catherine Zeta-Jones - was a strong Desiree, but you wouldn’t believe it from the video evidence.

Reading some negative feedback on "Music Man" over at ATC -- apparently they've cut the book and at least one of the songs in favor of too much dancing, not trusting the original material. Hugh just playing Hugh as well, not really Harold Hill. Others wondering how they screwed this up. But then again, Dick Van Dyke's production messed up, too.

Has Eric Schaeffer re-surfaced yet? I think the DC theater community won't make space for him--it's too small and he's not good enough to rationalize giving him a home. Matthew Gardiner (who seems v. good despite staging the abysmal tribute) was likely propping Schaeffer up for some time before the scandal broke.

The ALW crapfest Cinderella is taking a Shubert house in the Fall.

Did Barbara Cook and Pert Kelton really wear band uniforms in the curtain call of the original Music Man?? I doubt that.

WEHT to Sunny Brooke Moriber?

or was it Brooke Sunny?

I think there's a Rebecca in there...

and a Farm?

The afore mentioned 'Broadway - The Reopening'.

Alvin Ailey documentary.

[Quote] Hard to believe he'd be willing to do it a decade later when he's a bigger name, unfortunately.

It's actually not that unusual for actors to do nudity once middle age beckons.

R81, not those with “religious values” like JJ.

Was this one of you, by any stretch?

[Quote] not those with “religious values” like JJ.

Jeremy Jordan was outspoken when his niece was put into "ex-gay therapy."

R83 Sounds made up. No photos/video of the damage?

Thanks, R84. I have never heard that Jeremy is a religious zealot.

What's so upsetting about Tambo & Bones? I hardly think the Playwrights Horizons audience is filled with racists.

[quote]I hardly think the Playwrights Horizons audience is filled with racists.

Sometimes do-gooders give homeless and street people tickets they don't want. This sounds like someone who may have had mental problems before they went into the show.

and if a white playwright had specified that a black man stormed out?

Enough with the lies! Jeremy Jordan is NOT a religious zealot. I've worked with him a couple of times. Far from it.

Lies? One person implied it, hon.

That Reopening special on Great Performances was my first exposure to Frank DiLella (West Coaster here). Is he always that inane? "How did you FEEL when your show shut down/reopened? What was going through your mind?" I loathe that question because it's such a softball question that you know exactly how the person is going to respond ("I cried/I was so excited"). I cannot roll my eyes hard enough when it's asked of athletes after a game -- "What was going through your mind when you hit that walk-off home run?" "Oh, I just did for the team," or whatever media-training canned response they're taught to give. Gah... Ask better questions! Ones without obvious answers!

And Jeremy Jordan stole the election from Trump! Probably when he was praying to Satan!

Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster Open Up About The Music Man’s Broadway Return:

For anyone who missed it, DiLella's documentary is available online:

THIS DAY IN BROADWAY HISTORY: In 1971, a revival of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" opened at the Billy Rose Theatre.

R95 Meet R79

Sorry, R79!

r96...

We make a great team, R99!

[quote]Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster Open Up

Wouldn't be the first time!

Is Jeremy Jordan a religious zealot? I read on some website that he wouldn't even show his dick on stage.

I thought Jeremy J grew up Jewish (which wouldn't preclude him from being a zealot, but still). I recall him saying that in an interview.

Yup. Mother was Jewish.

[quote]What's so upsetting about Tambo & Bones? I hardly think the Playwrights Horizons audience is filled with racists.

Tambo and Bones were part of the 19th-century minstrel shows. Mirth-filled Negro revelry and all that.

One can only imagine why a white dude would be so upset by radical reimagining of deeply racist characters.

[quote]One can only imagine why a white dude would be so upset by radical reimagining of deeply racist characters.

In a bar in rural Kentucky, sure. But at Playwrights Horizons?

[quote]Jeremy Jordan was outspoken when his niece was put into "ex-gay therapy."

Jeremy Jordan played identical twins, one of them gay and partnered, in a Hallmark movie last year.

[quote] Lies? One person implied it, hon.

Maybe you misinterpreted. I read the same comment as being that JJ was outspoken about his niece going to ex-gay therapy because he felt it was wrong.

“It’s You” for the quartet is the cut song in MM. And they are using the original cut draft of My White Knight for some reason, with a long patter section (“handsome, hand-kissing wine tasting, silk pillowed hookah smoker”) and then Sutton belts the refrain, ending with a most unfortunate screeched final note. She’s incredibly miscast. They should fire her & bring in Erin Dilly.

Kate Baldwin.

Nathan Lane would be better thanSutton.

I saw that Peter Brook landmark production of Midsummer when I was a freshman in college, waaaaay back in the late 1960s. It was the very first Shakespeare I ever saw....little did I know it would be one of the very best and unlike most I saw that followed it. Looking at the program years later, I was impressed to see that a young Ben Kingsley played Demetrius.

ok understudies let's all post when stars are out of shows and you can wonder why people aren't showing up when you're on, even though your fabulous friends who don't buy tickets think it's great for you

Sir King Bensley.

Nathan would actually not be bad as Harold Hill if they got someone more charactery as Marion.

R113 Didn't Lainie Kazan get fired for that during "Funny Girl", but she did get some great reviews from press who showed up. Barbra still shudders when she hears Lainie's name, as it tells her the truth that she might have been replaceable.

Mary Testa, r115.

Judy Kaye for Marion!

Speaking of the nudity in "Dracula," does no one else remember when they decided to do nudity- free matinees, in an attempt to be more "family friendly?"

Which one would you have rather seen, r116?

I think they are using that version of "My White Knight" R109. because Sutton can't sustain a lyrical number by herself. Plus, the key for the whole thing is lowered by at least a third.

Interesting that they cast a non-belter as Streisand's standby.

Was Lainie Kazan's singing teacher British?

2016...

[quote]According to a company member, as of Aug. 6 there has been no full-company meeting or announcement about the matinee nudity issue.

They may have batted the idea around, r119, but it never was seriously discussed and certainly never happened.

Lainie stunk by the 1970s.

Lainie was a lot of fun in the movie version and Broadway musical version of "My Favorite Year".

MFY press reel

Her choice of material was generally poor.

Lainie's first albums were pretty great. Wish they were on CD.

Now THIS is a scathing review.

Anybody know who was in that tour of Bartlett Sher’s production of Fiddler that played Boston’s Colonial Theater last month?

r131 here's Curly

[quote] for the profoundly painful 2 hours and 45 minutes it took for this desecration of a glorious American musical theater classic to play itself out, all I could think about was that its genius creators Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Jr. were not only rolling over in their graves, but were pounding their fists on their headstones as they wondered how those who now hold the rights to their brilliant initial collaboration, and its many glorious and groundbreaking elements, allowed this to happen.

Wow there's a pull-quote for the tour!

Here's the famous Lainie/Funny Girl story.

Barbra had one scheduled absence on FF and that afternoon, Lainie got her first full orchestra run through before the evening performance. Midway through I'm the Greatest Star, the conductor rapped his podium with his baton and said "No, no, no. Barbra does it like this" Then he hummed a few bars.

Lainie just stood there giving him the glare of death before finally saying slowly "I'M. NOT. BARBRA."

He didn't interrupt again.

and this from the end of the Oklahoma review

[quote] “Oh what a horrible evening. Oh what a godawful show.”

I'm only focusing on this because I hated the show and several people involved with it.

Is there a theatre critic in the New York area brave enough to write a review like that?

R133 Is he still pretending to be straight?

[quote]That Reopening special on Great Performances was my first exposure to Frank DiLella (West Coaster here). Is he always that inane?

Yes.

R137, that is Hedy Weiss the only critic brave enough to point out that the costume design of Wicked is anti-semitism, that Caroline or Change is proof that Tony Kushner is a self-hating Jew, that Pass Over was wrong to present a racist cop since most crime is black on black,

She is a nut job.

[quote]Nathan would actually not be bad as Harold Hill if they got someone more charactery as Marion.

Harold Hill is supposed to be reasonably attractive, not look like a toad.

Nathan has won over many an audience. That's a type of attractiveness.

Nathan Lane is a Marcellus Washburn, not a Harold Hill.

And Sutton Foster is a Millie Dilmount, not a Marian. Apparently nothing like that matters anymore.

r140 yes she's a nut job but she nailed the BS [italic] Oklahoma [/italic]

Was that the Oklahoma that was done in Yiddish?

[quote] And Sutton Foster is a Millie Dilmount, not a Marian.

Kristin Chenoweth also did both: She was Marian in the lamentable TV film version of "Music Man," and "Millie" was created with Kristin in mind (she did the original workshop, with Bea Arthur as Mrs. Meers).

No, that was Oyveyklahoma!, r146.

Is there nudity in this Oklahoma, I’ve always wanted to see Sean Grandillo in the buff with his tight little ass clenching and unclenching, and has he now sworn off girls and dived into the guys side of his bisexuality?

Is he openly bi?

WHET to Damon Duanno (sp?) who was Curly in the original Fish Oklahoma? He was the only thing I like about it. He was so effortlessly straight boy sexy.

Hedy is a little unhinged, but I truly detested that Oklahoma. I was harrumphing all through intermission and refused the damn cornbread, I tell ya.

How did Hedy explain the Wicked costumes as being anti-Semitic?

The review has been scrubbed it seems, R153. The one detail I remember was that she obviously the munchkin's costumes were meant to evoke the prisoners uniforms in the death camps. She wrote this as if anyone would have seen this. I also recall she saw other deliberate echoes of the Holocaust.

Weiss clearly has family trauma she is working through, but she has tended to see Holocaust references and antisemitism is a great number of works--always with the assumption that we all see it, but are not admitting it.

Was I the only person who liked the Oklahoma! revival? It seems like everything else gets to be re-examined, why the hell should an R&H show be off limits?

R155, I liked the Fish Oklahoma probably as much as anybody did, despite the unforgivables. Those include the “ballet” or perhaps more accurately the “wtf” that opened the second act (inexplicable and please don’t even try) which had nothing whatever to do with the play, and to a lesser degree Curly murdering Jud in cold blood. But even that, if one reads the stage direction in the right frame of mind, makes a sick kind of sense not completely at odds with a straightforward reading of the text. I and perhaps I alone thought that James Davis was the show’s most outstanding performer, and he received a Theatre World award for his efforts. He was VERY funny and pretty darn sexy to boot. the scenic design was charming and the often annoying Circle stage space was used to excellent advantage. And finally the excellent orchestrations brought a real country freshness to a score that had become a little stale through endless repetition.

Yes, I liked it, saw it twice, both times very nesr the end of the run.

[quote]Was I the only person who liked the Oklahoma! revival?

Almost. R156 liked it too.

[quote]Nathan would actually not be bad as Harold Hill if they got someone more charactery as Marion.

Well they're not likely to get someone LESS charactery, are they?

r153 and r154 here's a bit more info from a little DuckDuckGo action, including Mantello's response

From Weiss:

[quote] And by the way, are the Munchkins, in their blue-and-white striped uniforms, supposed to be inmates of a concentration camp?

Hedy Weiss has two surprising errors in her review. One is where she refers to Hammerstein as 'Oscar Hammerstein, Jr,' She also refers to de Mille's Dream Ballet as having opened Act 2, when it (quite famously) closes Act 1.

[quote]Was I the only person who liked the Oklahoma! revival? It seems like everything else gets to be re-examined, why the hell should an R&H show be off limits?

It wasn't a "re-examination," it was an abomination. Almost nothing in in that production had anything to do with the musical that Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote.

Agnes de Mille was no Martha Graham.

I’ve just today bought tickets for the London production of Fish’s staging, opening in a few months.

I love regietheater nonsense, so I’m quite looking forward.

I quite liked Fish's "Oklahoma". Then again I don't view musicals as untouchable museum pieces.

Fish's Oklahoma was whiny and shallow. Fish's sole point seemed to be "look at me!"

Directors should not be allowed to change the story. The Curley in Hammerstein's script was not a murderer. If you want a story about a corrupt justice system, write your own. Don't distort someone else's story.

[quote] I don't view musicals as untouchable museum pieces.

But as r166 and r165 are saying, they [italic] are [/italic] created by actual people who wrote them and totally bulldozing their intentions is at best questionable.

Preaching to the choir r167.

A review that vitriolic would nudge me to the box office. Anything that supposedly awful would grab my attention.

As for the Fish Oklahoma!, I saw it twice in New York and loved it both times (and yes, the Dream Ballet was a huge mistake). I can certainly see why it was not to everyone's taste, but some people act as if it was a desecration of a scared. text. The original show still exists, it will be seen again in some version of what R&H first conceived, and peace will reign throughout the land. Such wailing and gnashing of teeth!!

Aren't we talking about a property based on another? (Green Grow The Lilacs.)

Never saw a dream ballet I couldn't sleep through.

[quote] Aren't we talking about a property based on another? (Green Grow The Lilacs.)

Yes. What's your point? (I don't mean that sarcastically; genuinely asking.)

His point is why is the “this far and no farther” line at the original production of Oklahoma, when it was derivative of an earlier work.

The question isn't whether or not a property should be re-imagined, it's does your product illuminate or improve upon it?

OKLAHOMA (not GREEN GROW THE LILACS) is the intellectual property of Rodgers and Hammerstein (and their estate).

Not the director's, not the author of LILACS, not the cast or the costume designer or the producers of any given production.

And yet, their estates gave the rights for this production to be produced.

What I think will be beneficial in Fish's revision is that, hopefully, future productions of Oklahoma will take some of the good ideas in his concept, e.g. a Laurey who is more knowing and pro-active, Oklahomans who are perhaps not so naive and gullible, a more psychologically complex Jud, etc., and incorporate them into more moderate revivals.

I don't think we'll see another revival that won't be influenced by some of Fish's ideas. We can't really go back to the Oklahoma of Gordon McCrae and Shirley Jones.

"Their estates" had nothing to do with it. The families sold their rights away to a Dutch firm who planned to use the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows purely as an investment. This firm will say yes to any production as long as it gets its money.

And who is managing the estate of Meredith Wilson?

[quote] His point is why is the “this far and no farther” line at the original production of Oklahoma, when it was derivative of an earlier work.

Then make a new work, as R&H did.

Isn't Wilson's estate just basically Music Man and a wee bit o'Molly Brown, r179?

[Quote] And who is managing the estate of Meredith Wilson?

Is she under a conservatorship too?

Cameron MacKintosh - 50th hagiography.

Shoshana Bean Concert.

Clyde's.

"King Lear" is an abomination! No more woke revisions of 12-century sagas! "Leir of Britain" or nothing!

Valens is back, baby. Just in time for a frigid weekend.

[quote] Laurey who is more knowing and pro-active, … a more psychologically complex Jud, etc.

Both of those have been a part of Oklahoma at least since the 1998 RNT production that Hugh Jackman did. That was the first production to take Laurey out of her gingham dress & put her in overalls. Etc.

The comment about the Oklahoma! revival's orchestrations was a good one. That was the first time I'd ever heard genuine twang with "People Will Say We're in Love."

[quote] "Their estates" had nothing to do with it. The families sold their rights away to a Dutch firm who planned to use the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows purely as an investment. This firm will say yes to any production as long as it gets its money.

Then the estates made their decision to give up control and allow these productions to happen when they sold the rights to the Dutch firm.

That’s the level of respect the families had towards these works. Why should we expect anyone else to care more?

Well, this seems unnecessary. Does EVERYthing with high name recognition have to be musicalized?

Laurey has always been a bitch in "Oklahoma!" who uses Jud to make Curley jealous, and Jud ends up dead because of her.

I think the estate of musical director and co-producer Herbert Greene might possibly still own some of the rights of "The Music Man". Greene also conducted "Unsinkable Molly Brown", and his name is used as an inside joke in "The Most Hapy Fella" lyrics in the postman scene. One of Greene's late ex-wives was Carolyn Jones, yep, Morticia Addams herself.

"Say, who's Pearl?"

R193 Very sharp and quick!

[quote]Aren't we talking about a property based on another? (Green Grow The Lilacs.)

Yes, and your point is.....????

[quote]His point is why is the “this far and no farther” line at the original production of Oklahoma, when it was derivative of an earlier work.

Because they're completely different situations in many ways, most importantly because a musical based on a play is a very different animal than a radically revised production of a musical, with the same title, that changes the essentials of the original work. Plus it's also a question of degree. If one were to follow your idiotic argument to its natural conclusion, chopping someone's hand off would be essentially the same thing as slapping them on the butt.

You asked a question about the other poster’s point, and I explained it to you. It’s not my point. But you were defiant in your stupidity, and I deigned to enlighten you. Now you have resorted to personal attacks calling a straightforward response “idiotic” when the only thing “idiotic” was your feigned confusion.

[quote]What I think will be beneficial in Fish's revision is that, hopefully, future productions of Oklahoma will take some of the good ideas in his concept, e.g. a Laurey who is more knowing and pro-active, Oklahomans who are perhaps not so naive and gullible, a more psychologically complex Jud, etc., and incorporate them into more moderate revivals.

1) The whole point of Laurey's character is that she's not meant to be "knowing and pro-active." She's supposed to be a silly, immature young girl who behaves as such throughout most of the show but gains some maturity by the end. Hence the title of the source material, GREEN GROW THE LILACS.

2) In what way are the Oklahomans portrayed as naive and gullible in the original?

3) The character of Jud has been psychologically complex since the beginning. It's all in the writing, and of course that complexity has been more obvious in some past performances than in others.

R196, it wasn't me who asked that question. I reacted negatively to your post because I thought you yourself were implying that there's any comparison between an adaptation like OKLAHOMA! (based on GREEN GROW THE LILACS) and a bizarre, wholesale revisal of OKLAHOMA! that's a desecration of the musical as written. If you didn't intend to imply such a comparison, then I apologize.

Carol would have been perfect for Mary Berry, r191!

You may be correct in all your points r197 but, mark my words. all future major revivals of Oklahoma (and many in colleges and even community theater) will show the mark of Daniel Fish, whether you like it or not. If nothing else, directors will be looking for "modernizing" the costumes to make the story more "timely" - please note my quotes.

The door has been opened and will never be shut. Not unlike like what Sam Mendes did to Cabaret.

R200, I think you may be right, at least to some extent. And you're also correct that I don't like it. At all.

This "Fish" is more memorable.

did someone here say "feign" and "deign" in a single post. My stars.

[quote] You asked a question about the other poster’s point, and I explained it to you.

...and, Deign Feign, nobody asked you. It's not your reign here. Do I need to further expleign?

The Reign in Speign ..

And r196 is such a peign.

Please refreign from doing this ageign.

Re: R185 link to Clyde's I'm shocked that everyone on that stage is screaming every line and gesturing wildly. Not one believable moment. Bizarre.

Thanks for that R185. All of my Firefox add-ons to download YouTube videos don’t seem to be working anymore. Has anyone found a new one that works?

I bet John Barrowman will be in that Bake-Off musical and will find a way to expose himself by the Act 1 curtain.

[quote]His point is why is the “this far and no farther” line at the original production of Oklahoma, when it was derivative of an earlier work.

At least get your terms straight. "Oklahoma!" isn't "derivative" of "Green Grow the Lilacs." It's a musical adaptation of the play. Many classic musicals are adaptations of straight plays. Or do you think "My Fair Lady" is "derivative" of "Pygmalion"? It may be derivative of the 1938 movie version of "Pygmalion," but that's a whole other issue.

Well, we should complain about the ending of "My Fair Lady."

DL often has, R212.

I fixed that ending

R209 Try Loader

Thanks, R211. Needless to say, some people who post here think they know a lot more than they actually do.

“Derivative” means “based on”, as in “Oklahoma is based on, i.e., derivative of, Lilacs.”

No, R217. In theater criticism, "derivative" means "imitative," and has a strongly negative connotation.

Exactly, R218. "Derivative" has a very negative connotation. When the author of a new work acknowledges the source material it's based on, the new work is never called "derivative" of the old one.

Is DERIVED FROM the same as DERIVATIVE?

[quote]I bet John Barrowman will be in that Bake-Off musical and will find a way to expose himself by the Act 1 curtain.

If there's a god.

R218 Theatre criticism has its own language now, does it? It means both, it depends how the word is used, as a noun or adjective.

So much for this thread being free from pedantry.

[quote] Try Loader

That comment has been made on several, ahem, other DL threads too.

We'll see the Barrowman wiener when the musical does a number about making hot dog buns.

Cannoli

Derivative can have a negative connotation if the borrowed elements aren't used successfully and/or aren't credited to their original source.

The Fish Oklahoma! was not a hit, despite its Tony, and had an extremely niche following. The tour is confounding audiences across the nation. Mendes’ Cabaret was popular on Broadway and on tour. He had a strong concept and execution , which is why it launched his career along with Alan Cumming’s.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think future revivals are going to be eager to splatter Jud Fry’s blood on Laurey’s wedding dress. And I don’t see Fish and Stroker or any of the cast moving on to greater success.

Didn't Britain ever get the Roundabout CABARET? (I know about the Donmar version prior.)

From what I gather it's the Rufus Norris version that hand a long life in Mendes' native land.

*that had

Daniel Fish directs all over Europe. Not so much in the US.

I agree with all you say, r227, and yet, mark my words, as I warned the poster upthread, Fish's influence (if not his bloody wedding dress) will be seen and felt in all important Oklahoma revivals from now on. Millions of people may not have seen his revival but every young and impressionable hopeful director in America most likely did.

You can't go home again.

Those of you thinking of Laurie as a silly immature girl never saw Christine Andreas in the 1979 revival, where she was shrewd and cunning and lured Jud into taking her to the box social to make Curly jealous and then nearly got raped for her efforts in the smokehouse scene. The audience was so much on the edge of their seats you could literally have heard a pin drop. Simply playing the original Hammerstein scripts as written can can be astonishing. Remember the early 90s revival of Carousel if you were there.

^ Those Bowdlerized1950s film versions are no way to remember the R&H shows.

[quote]Those of you thinking of Laurie as a silly immature girl never saw Christine Andreas in the 1979 revival, where she was shrewd and cunning and lured Jud into taking her to the box social to make Curly jealous and then nearly got raped for her efforts in the smokehouse scene.

That doesn't at all contradict my point, and in fact only reinforces it. Laurey knows she wants to be with Curly but, for whatever reason, she's playing "hard to get" and acting like a silly, spoiled child to the point where she leads Jud on by accepting his invitation to the box social just to make Curly jealous, even though she has no romantic interest in Jud and is in fact afraid of him. Understand?

Of course I understand. I saw Christine Andreas 43 years ago.

R234, I wasn't trying to contradict your point, I was trying to support it.

You must be terribly insecure.

[quote] Understand?

Insufferable. Take your toxicity elsewhere.

I went to the Fish "Oklahoma" with a friend from out of town. He's a real estate agent, but he loves theater. At intermission, I turned to him and asked what he thought of the production. He told me, "I won't eat their chili, and I'm definitely not drinking this Kool-aid." He was so right....I loathed it as well.

Is there a play that's considered as much of a sacred cow as Oklahoma! apparently is?

I don’t think any plays have been tested like this, except Shakespeare which gets reinterpreted all the time.

There’s “The Women”, which still has in its rental contract that all parts must be played by biological women.

Has there ever been a modern dress “Crucible”?

Even the old British theatrical warhorse “An Inspector Calls” was given a revisal and everyone loved it.

There are endless ways to revitalize the R&H catalogue in ways that are innovative and still respectful of the source material, and of the genius of the authors.

Look at the Lincoln Center production of SOUTH PACIFIC. Beautiful and surprising.

There are endless ways to revitalize the R&H catalogue in ways that are innovative and still respectful of the source material, and of the genius of the authors.

Look at the Lincoln Center production of SOUTH PACIFIC. Beautiful and surprising.

Once the estate sold the rights, it’s too late to demand that revivals meet your specifications.

They had the power to keep revivals “respectful”, and they choose not to. There’s nothing you can do now except whine.

I have never understood what was "innovative" or "surprising" about the LCT revival of South Pacific. That's not really meant as a criticism of the production. But it just seemed to me that what was special about that revival was that it was presented very traditionally as written. And it was expensively produced with a big orchestra and well-designed, which perhaps hadn't been done in a very long time. Can someone enlighten me if I'm missing something?

I remember the South Pacific revival at Lincoln Center in the mid-60s with Florence Henderson that was just as good and even more joyous and engaging.

I hate Florence on that recording. Her chest voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I'd rather Dorothy Collins had got the role.

[quote]Look at the Lincoln Center production of SOUTH PACIFIC. Beautiful and surprising.

The LCT South Pacific was absolutely gorgeous and absolutely, positively, 100% unsurprising.

Nah, that Oklahoma didn’t have the cultural impact the Mendes Cabaret did. The only person to come out of that Oklahoma is wheelchair girl who I’ve seen popping up on various TV shows.

No one cares about regietheater on Broadway. It’s not a thing. WSS was roundly rejected and VanHove has run his course. Regie is much more a thing in American opera where companies are desperate for any artistic attention. Of course, regie rules Germany across theatre, musicals, and opera, much to its detriment.

[quote]I don’t think any plays have been tested like this, except Shakespeare which gets reinterpreted all the time.

Bwah-ha-ha...ha!

I felt the same way, R244. That old Lincoln Center SP was excellent--because Rodgers himself produced it in authentic style.

The later revival was basic SP, yes, but on the dull side, because the director wouldn't let Danny Burstein play Luther Billis as a comic character--the very reason he's there at all. There were very few laughs in this SP; it isn't supposed to play that way.

And speaking as a gay man, I thought it putrid and oh so hetero that the seabees were generally--deliberately-- unattractive. There are supposed to be a few hunks among them, and this has been hard-wired into the piece since its inception. This director is too self-important for that. He likes to show his contempt for audience expectations. And he does it every time.

But it works for him, so why should he change? His SP was a huge hit.

Wasn't he accused of sexual harassment?

No, not Bart Sher. But the SP stage manager was accused of watching the ladies dressing room through a peep hole, was dismissed and never worked in professional theater again. Quite a scandal that was hushed up by LCT at the time. Shame, because he was a great stage manager, lol.

r249, I couldn't agree with you more.

I also felt that Kelli O'Hara was far too subdued as Nellie as if Sher was afraid to allow any Mary Martin sunniness and exuberance in. The night I saw the revival, the cast did a collection for Broadway Cares at the curtain call and Kelli showed so much warmth and passion in her little speech - I wish she'd been allowed to let some of that into her Nellie.

Sher's technique with these revivals is to take them very seriously and make his actors do the same. The critics fall for it every time. (Doyle tends to think that draining comedy is also the way to revisit classics, although he let some good comedy shine through with Color Purple.)

Fun does not signal frivolity.

Not on your Nellie, Kelli!

Kelli always come across as a bit bland in every single role that I have seen her in!

She technically proficient and always dull and unthrilling.

Like DL faves Karen Carpentry and Sutton Foster!!

Kelli can be funny, though.

If anything, I’d guess that the Trevor Nunn/Susan Stroman Oklahoma will make more of a footprint than the Daniel Fish production, not least because it was filmed.

Not all people agree, but I had the same impression as r256 and r255 until I saw Kelli O’Hara live. I find her charming but also genuine, committed, and emotionally precise. Her Francesca really surprised me. I had the same experience with Rebecca Luker - I wonder how many people write them off because of their looks and traditional singing.

The King and I revival finally woke up and became a great show when Marin replaced Kelli.

[quote]I wasn't trying to contradict your point, I was trying to support it. You must be terribly insecure.

Sorry, but the language you used made it sound to me as if you thought I was wrong to describe Laurey as a silly, immature girl.

Then you need a course in reading comprehension. Or to stop posting drunk late at night.

[quote] The later revival was basic SP, yes, but on the dull side, because the director wouldn't let Danny Burstein play Luther Billis as a comic character--the very reason he's there at all. There were very few laughs in this SP; it isn't supposed to play that way. And speaking as a gay man, I thought it putrid and oh so hetero that the seabees were generally--deliberately-- unattractive. There are supposed to be a few hunks among them, and this has been hard-wired into the piece since its inception.

I have lots of issues with Bart Sher, but in this case, I really think you must have seen a different show from the one I saw. First of all, Burstein absolutely played Billis for comedy, and the evidence is in the PBS broadcast for those who wish to check that out. And as for your other comment, there were definitely a few beauties among the Seabees, including this one. They're NOT all supposed to be hunky model-types, that would be ridiculous.

As ridiculous as Sally Bowles singing well?

[quote]Those of you thinking of Laurie as a silly immature girl never saw Christine Andreas in the 1979 revival, where she was shrewd and cunning and lured Jud into taking her to the box social to make Curly jealous and then nearly got raped for her efforts in the smokehouse scene.

That's what you wrote, R263. It reads as if you're saying Laurey is NOT a silly, immature girl but is instead shrewd and cunning. I'm saying she's both, and it's her immaturity that causes her to play hard to get with Curly even though she really wants to be with him and is understandably afraid of Jud. So maybe the problem here is not my reading comprehension but your writing skills.

Another beauty from the male ensemble of SOUTH PACIFIC was Peter Lockyer, and I think he eventually replaced as Cable.

On a shallow note, let's talk about opportunities to cast sexy guys in Rodgers & Hammerstein shows. You've got Cable, Will Parker, Wang Ta ...

r251, thanks for the info. I missed that at the time. I wonder where he is now.

But remember, that 1979 Oklahoma had a Jud that was just as attractive as the Curly, and maybe even more so.

Brandon Victor Dixon.

[quote] But remember, that 1979 Oklahoma had a Jud that was just as attractive as the Curly, and maybe even more so.

You think Laura Benanti’s father is sexier than Laurence Guittard?

The problem with that 1979 Oklahoma is that it looks like it’s from the 1970s. All the men were allowed to keep their 1970s hair.

John and Jen.

Anything Goes.

I very much enjoyed Sher's South Pacific. There were interesting spins, both little and large, on the characters -- Nellie was played as someone who perhaps belonged to a Little Rock country club instead of a total hick from the sticks; I found that believable for the character. And Bloody Mary was much nastier than usual, especially her delivery of Happy Talk, a song I usually cannot wait to end. And, hey, look! Some of the nurses are lesbians! It all worked for me. Some productions of SP can be a slog; this one flew by.

I’m listening to Sutton’s strange memoir/crafting autobiography. Her mom was very deeply troubled and awful to her and everyone in her life. It really makes me feel for her and be impressed she managed to escape such a horrible upbringing relatively intact despite the dark cloud that emanated from her mother. I was always impressed with her lighthearted smile and sunny disposition, but now I recognize it as a mask she obviously reflexively hides behind. Her dying is probably one of the best things to happen to her and must of felt like being set free. She’s just becoming involved with Christian, but it’s coming off as very platonic and as if they weren’t really a romantic couple?

Hunter Foster contributed material to “Clue” playing at Papermill.

[Quote] I was always impressed with her lighthearted smile and sunny disposition, but now I recognize why she so rarely ran a brush through her hair.

Stritch '79

Buh-bye [italic] Slave Play [/italic]. Did anyone even notice you this time ‘round?

R246 The "South Pacific" at LCT was quite good. I though Kelli O'Hara was about the best she had been since first seeing and being impressed by her years ago in "Sweet Smell of Success". She's usually very good but non-definitive in most of her roles, but her Nellie was quite good and very well-acted. Singing was duck soup, as Nellie's an easy sing. Paulo Szot's acting was more impressive than his still very good singing; I don't know if he was directed or just didn't really sing fortissimo those "Never let her go"s in "Some Enchanted Evening" especially at Act 1 and Act 2 curtains. He was also younger and closer in age to Nellie, which still worked.

Bloody Mary, Loretta Able Sayre, was great, and Danny Burstein for once didn't have an understudy on (he's been out about 3 of 5 of shows he was schedule to be in) and was very good. The Cable, Andrew Samonsky, had taken over the role from ATC favorite notorious thread topic of the treasure trail. Samonsky played the role in a very weird way, one that was kind of sexy, but really also kind of rather off-putting as well. I almost felt Liat had avoided some trouble when he was out of the picture. But it was an excellent production, and great to see a much fuller orchestra than what has become something of an anemic norm on Broadway these days.

For Oklahoma! to make psychosexual sense, Jud should be sexy in an animal magnetism way, making the dream ballet a conflict between Agape and Eros.

I'd rather see Sutton Foster's Nellie Forbush and Kelli's Marian Paroo.

Does anyone know if Laurence Guittard is gay? I'm a FB friend of his and he posts fairly frequently, yet I still can't tell from his posts. What an incredibly handsome leading man he was in the 1970s!

I believe he is, r284.

Wasn't Raul Esparza's then boyfriend in SP? He was pretty cute.

Speaking of updated plays, the current LONG DAY'S JOURNEY is set in the present and heavily cut (1 hour 40 w/o out intermission). Color-blind casting (both sons are black). Doesn't work, as hard as the cast tries. The language of the play—"dope fiend" for example—sounds incongruous today—and whether the son's disease is Covid-related is unclear, though a mask or two are present.

So what exactly is wrong at City Center? Assuming the girl with the Jake Gyllenhaal story isn't making everything up, the leadership there being fine with offering an intern up to a Hollywood celeb seems pretty fucked up in this day and age. Combined with the stories that some here have hinted at about the casting process for Encores it all seems rather seedy there.

What are you talking about, r288. There is no Jake Gyllenhaal story.

[quote] For Oklahoma! to make psychosexual sense, Jud should

…. fuck Curley thoroughly in each act.

Laurence Guittard is openly gay to his friends and family.

Not to dwell on that last Oklahoma! revival, but the scene in the smokehouse did have the energy where if Curley and Jud were going to fuck, it would have happened right then and there. Make of that what you will.

R289 You not believing it doesn't make it not exist

Guittard is independently wealthy via his family. I wonder if he spent some of it on the escorts hired by Sondheim and Laurents.

Laurence Guittard is from the Guittard Chocolates Guittards.

According to this, Laurence Guittard’s current net worth is 216 million!

Laurence Guittard was more than hot enough in his Sondheim/Laurents days to get hot guys without money.THe photo at r296 doesn't do him justice.

I remember browsing through my old BAKER STREET Playbill and surprised to see Laurence, then billed with his real name Horace Guittard, listed in the ensemble with Tommy Tune and Christopher Walken.

R288 please explain yourself

Oh I guess it’s this.

"Laura Benanti's father," back in the day. What's your problem, R272?

R300 Did he complain and bitch about being a working actor as much as she does?

He was really good in "Brigadoon" revival. Don't know why his career (and Meg Bussert's who was Tony nominated and got great reviews) didn't prove sustainable or get bigger.

Wowza, in that long treatise about the intern & Jake, Ms. Jeanine Tesori comes off rather like Ghislaine Maxwell.

That long treatise was painfully long and insanely self-indulgent. A 23-year-old (insufferable) adult woman is romanced by a movie star 13 years her senior. And no one at City Center stops them. Call the police!

Truth be told, I don't like the straight Jake G that's emerged from stories like these. He's an obnoxious entitled little Hollywood bitch. I prefer the sweeter, closeted gay Jake of yesteryear who was in love with Heath. Who knows what the truth is?

I get the impression that Jeanine Tesori would seriously cut a bitch when it came to advancing her own career, by the way. Heaven knows her talent alone is insufficient.

R297, throughout the annals of time good looking, hell, even hot men have hired escorts. It’s a rather convenient, less complex way to go about “scratching an itch,” if you catch my drift. Catch my drift? No, I didn’t think so.

Has Tesori responded to this? This is insane.

It's nonsense that Tesori shouldn't acknowledge.

And to answer the upthread poster's question, Nick Mayo, former boyfriend of Joe Mantello and subsequently and more notoriously Papi Raul Esparza (DL threads about foot rubs at the Westway Diner were legendary) was indeed a sexy sailor in South Pacific.

Wait! Or was the foot rub bf someone named Fred....something who was in Doyle's Company but not in SP?

Anyone??

Mayo is now married to ex-publicist Michael Hartman isn’t he?

Fred Rose

Yes and yes!

Which guy did the Westway foot rubs with Raul?

Papi met Fred during Caabaret

Sondheim and Laurents and Guittard?? Will someone explain, please? In detail, please?

[quote]I get the impression that Jeanine Tesori would seriously cut a bitch when it came to advancing her own career, by the way. Heaven knows her talent alone is insufficient.

I don't know if this is still true, but I was told that, at one time, Tesori was heavily into that frightening "Landmark Forum" thing, which is often described as "Scientology light" and which also was reportedly partly responsible for Cheyenne Jackson going off the deep end some years ago.

Benanti's father destroyed his career by way of a serious relationship with the bottle.

And Footloose

Pretty dangerous being too footloose when on the bottle...

Randy Graf should play Kathy Griffin or vice versa or something

Vidnovic was a good Sky replacement in the 92 guys and dolls

Marty is now 74 and presumably floating in a jar of pickled vegetables somewhere in Laura's basement.

[quote]Marty is now 74 and presumably floating in a jar of pickled vegetables somewhere in Laura's basement.

In actuality, he still performs fairly frequently, and his voice is pretty much intact.

Kafkas' Monkey.

An Evening with Brian Cox.

Constellations with Peter Capaldi and Zoe Wanamaker.

I saw Black No More, a scifi musical about black people changing races to escape discrimination. I assumed it could be kind of a funny concept.

So preachy and the songs were so unmemorable I zoned out multiple times. Maybe 2 good songs out of 30 + Songs! Just college freshman level insights given the talented people involved like John Ridley. What the $%#!

Lillias White coughed and seemed to lose her place in a song and was barely used in this, which disappointed me.

But heres the best part: it looks like some kind of creative blow up happened since they added composers and other credited people just days before openingT. They also cancelled the first night multiple times. I smell a HEAD OVER HEELS level of creative and legal fighting.

JUSTICE FOR DOMENICA! Tesori and City Center brass groom young intern for oral sex duties with star.

R326, I have no inside information on this, but considering what company is producing this show, and considering who runs that company (the same person who's directing the show), I'm neither surprised nor sorry to hear that there's a lot of strife involved.

I would be happy to volunteer my services for oral sex duty with a star.

Scott Elliott is maybe NYC’s greatest hack and poseur

Jeanine Tesori is Jerome Kern compared to Ricky Ian Gordon. We just fled his opera “Intimate Apparel” at intermission. Lyrics projected on the walls of the Mitzi Newhouse because not a word is understandable. And to quote Sondheim, “there’s not a tune you can hum.” Has he ever written a good score?

Here's a goodie. From the Chicago production, not the John Doyle abomination.

This is very gay.

LCT having a banner season

Cute pic tho

what did the harry potter guy allegedly do?

Probably nothing.

If only Jan Maxwell had received similar support...

[quote] If only Jan Maxwell had received similar support

Jan Maxwell knows what she did! Fat pig!

Thanks for posting that, R335. I remember there was a poster in one of the past threads who thought it was odd that no one commented on Snyder's very abrupt departure from HARRY POTTER and wondered what that was all about, so I guess this article answers that question even if it doesn't go into specifics.

I can't imagine working to get someone fired unless they were a raging monster.

Sondheim's estate worth roughly $75 million.

Maybe he refused to refer to her by her preferred House.

LCT's banner season will continue with a BIPOC production of Wilder's The Skin Of Our Teeth. Are they trying to alienate every subscriber left alive? That should bump off a few more of the living dead.

Riedel manages another love letter to his benefactor Scott Rudin, this time in Vanity Fair

[Quote] The press piled on, and Rudin, once a master manipulator of reporters, found that they had stitched him up in a bag and tossed him in the river.

Poor Scott.

I’ll console Snyder anytime

Do people usually take a leave of absence after they get someone fired?

[quote]Sondheim's estate worth roughly $75 million.

This makes more sense to me than the paltry $20 million originally cited when he passed away. His career lasted almost 70 years, with multiple recordings, productions all over the world, and film versions.

The beneficiaries run the gamut from the husband and some close friends to the Library of Congress (I'm assuming this is the promised papers and not necessarily a financial bequest), to a foundation to be established, to James Lapine--21 beneficiaries in all.

From R345's link:

[quote]A bunch of theater producers gathered at Sardi’s that night to commiserate. One of them had a cough. A few days later, many of them, including Rudin, came down with COVID.

I thought the producers were meant to be the clever ones?

For r326 or anyone who's seen BLACK NO MORE, how does the show deal with turning black people white, which is a major plot point of the novel? I read the book, which is a comedic satire with serious overtones, years ago and remember the black folks stepping through some kind of contraption that changed their skin color.

Horrified to hear about James Snyder who I worked with about 7 years ago and found to be the sweetest young guy. Very upsetting especially when news like this is reported without ANY details.

If you like him so much, the details might actually be more upsetting for you.

It's odd that the producers decided to put out a press release and then forbid anyone to reveal what happened and refrain from saying anything more. They didn't have to put out a massive press release. Such drama .

[quote] Do people usually take a leave of absence after they get someone fired?

It may not have been her choice.

Also thought Snyder was lovely when we worked together. And hot.

"misconduct" used to mean something. Now, it could be absolutely anything.

So is Snyder the so-called cursed child in the production?

Do you think leave of absence girl got knocked up by him and went off to have the baby?

At least try to be amusing.

[quote]what did the harry potter guy allegedly do?

Probably nothing as bad as people will be imagining after that vague announcement.

Is Snyder a get out your cock Barrowman type?

[quote] what did the harry potter guy allegedly do?

Whatever it was, let’s blame Jeanine Tesori.

I’m sure whatever he did was more melodic than anything Tesori has done

I'm bummed to hear that the score for Intimate Apparel sucks. I had been planning on seeing it, but maybe I'll take a pass now.

r355, except they specifically said it was.

"Ms. Davis has made the personal decision to take a leave of absence."

[quote]I'm bummed to hear that the score for Intimate Apparel sucks. I had been planning on seeing it, but maybe I'll take a pass now.

Are you seriously going to "take a pass on it now" because ONE person posted that they don't like the score? That would be an extremely foolish thing to do, wouldn't it?

I worked with Snyder many years ago and found him to be incredibly kind and very professional. What the hell?

Did Snyder address the person by the wrong pronoun?

Someone would make a big case out of it, too.

[quote] except they specifically said it was. "Ms. Davis has made the personal decision to take a leave of absence."

That doesn’t mean anything. It could be she made the personal decision to take leave rather than be fired.

If the actor did do something, the producers may force her to sign a no talk agreement and take a leave of absence so as not to sow discord among the other cast members.

Someone knows what happened. Spill

This is tiresome

[Quote] We are committed to fostering a safe and inclusive workplace, which is why we have robust workplace policies and procedures in place for all those involved in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This includes strict prohibitions against harassment in any form, as well as channels through which any employee can report conduct that they believe is inappropriate. We will continue to do all we can to ensure the extremely talented team that brings this production to life feels safe, empowered, and fully supported.

Yeah, not wanting harassment in your workplace, how tiresome

I, too, have worked with Snyder. Super-attractive, warm, funny, a dreamboat. Color me confused. And then Color me Barbra.

Are you female?

What would prompt a massive press release if they want to keep this under wraps? Fear of someone else going to the press? Still, it's very tabloid for them to put out such a huge announcement. Just deal with it internally and move on. Jesus.

They may have wanted to get ahead of an article/interview.

They’re trying to draw attention away from the Jake Gyllenhaal story.

Maybe he confided to someone that JK Rowling was right about trans loons.

r373: "Yeah, not wanting harassment in your workplace, how tiresome."

What's tiresome is the quote below about Snyder. This quote is an exercise is in bullshit. It's religion. It's a devotional prayer for the 20s. Something to ward off mean tweets.

"We are committed to fostering a safe and inclusive workplace, which is why we have robust workplace policies and procedures in place for all those involved in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This includes strict prohibitions against harassment in any form, as well as channels through which any employee can report conduct that they believe is inappropriate. We will continue to do all we can to ensure the extremely talented team that brings this production to life feels safe, empowered, and fully supported."

Yes that’ll what I meant exactly

[quote]This quote is an exercise is in bullshit. It's religion. It's a devotional prayer for the 20s. Something to ward off mean tweets.

Are you actually an idiot? Companies have put out statements like that - using the exact same language - to cover their ass for decades. What's truly tiresome is older people constantly trying to pin every single thing you don't like as somehow being the fault of younger people.

[Quote] This quote is an exercise is in bullshit.

The bullshit is that you and others automatically believe that Snyder is innocent, despite knowing no details.

For it to be announced in Variety means they’re trying to get ahead of something very big. The fact they fired him quickly and she’s taking a leave? Everyone knows what that implies.

But that's what is so frustrating and upsetting, r383, not knowing any details. I'm one of the posters who've worked with Snyder, and while I can't say I know him well, I knew him in a workplace situation similar to HP - a large cast show, in which his behavior as one of the leads was exemplary. I'd be willing to give the accuser some validation if I knew something of the situation. Only knowing Snyder, it's difficult to give her credibility. So doing a big press release without more info seems very unfair to both sides.

R384 They didn't announce it in Variety. They issued a press release, and Variety reported on it. I've seen repeated instances of posters here insisting there was some big announcement. No. There was a press release. Which they had to do to explain why their lead was being replaced.

R385 You sound utterly pathetic. You're 'frustrated and upset' because you don't know all the details of how someone was harassed.

But hey, if he's oh-so-innocent, where's his statement saying he intends to challenge this? His complaint to Equity about the unfair treatment?

It made the BBC

Aren't non-star leads replaced on Broadway all the time without press releases?

r386, it's upsetting and frustrating to me because I know James. And, no, I don't know him well enough to contact him and ask for explanations. But, still...

Have you ever worked with someone you liked and admired who was publicly but mysteriously accused of sexual harassment?

I hope Lapine uses his Sondheim money to buy some real talent whose work he can then steal and replicate.

What the Harry Potter team has done to James Snyder is end his career forever. For that, they should be sued. Firing witht stating the reason makes him sound like a monster. So they've successfully cancelled him. FUCK THEM.

[quote]What the Harry Potter team has done to James Snyder is end his career forever. For that, they should be sued. Firing witht stating the reason makes him sound like a monster. So they've successfully cancelled him. FUCK THEM.

And also, as someone else pointed out, it's very unusual for there to be a press release resulting in multiple news articles about a non-star replacement being let go from a show. Even among people who know who Snyder is, I have a feeling that few people knew he was in the show until it was announced that he was fired.

On the other hand, if Snyder feels that he was fired unjustly, of course he's free to make statements to the press. I wonder if that will happen soon, or ever.

You people are so naive or unwilling to see what is actually happening. James Snyder was basically cancelled because he is a cis straight white male, which is anathema to the left, particularly the radicals who have usurped power on Broadway. In general, they want to eliminate the white race altogether, but in the meantime they are going to get rid of whites, particularly the men, any which way. Since the far-left controls the U.S. entertainment industry that is where most of this is happening.

None of us know anything about this so our opinions are entirely based on conjecture or, in several cases, some familiarity with the accused. The behavior doesn't seem consistent with what we know.

[quote] You sound utterly pathetic.

[quote] Are you actually an idiot?

However, r382/r386, your behavior is clearly offensive. As often happens, the person most "offended" is the most offensive.

[quote] What's truly tiresome is older people constantly trying to pin every single thing you don't like as somehow being the fault of younger people.

r380 meant the 2020s, not people in their 20s.

Well crikey Uncle Adolf, you're onto our "operation destroy white men" plot!

The only solution left is to send an ANTIFA hit squad to your house.

Be a dear and post your physical address, will you?

kthxbye darling MAGAtwat.

Misconduct can literally mean anything these days (including not giving nonbinary loons their own dressing room). By not giving details AND doing the press release, it makes people's minds automatically go to sexual harassment, which is unfair to Snyder as a jobbing actor.

Agreed. And some sites (like asshole Roger Friedman) has already added "sexual" to the claim, when there was no reference to sexual in the statement.

[quote][R380] meant the 2020s, not people in their 20s.

That's even dumber

[quote]As often happens, the person most "offended" is the most offensive.

When did I say I was offended? Apart from by the stupidity.

[quote] Firing witht stating the reason makes him sound like a monster

They did state the reason - harassment.

[quote]it makes people's minds automatically go to sexual harassment

Or maybe it's his conduct on other shows that makes people's minds go to sexual harassment.

In other news:

TRUE CRIME: Off-Broadway performances of Perfect Crime and The Office: A Musical Parody have been temporarily halted after the Theater Center’s copper pipes were stolen, according to press representatives. Thieves reportedly disconnected and took all of the building’s copper pipes, which provide water and heat to the theaters, and returned early this morning to smash the theater’s main entrance. The

R397 No, we've definitely been conditioned by the media onslaught of "MeToo" to coincide "misconduct" with something sexual. You're talking out of your ass.

R399 Fuck off back to Fox News.

Block R400 and all the loony frau posts on this thread disappear! How quaint.

[quote]Or maybe it's his conduct on other shows that makes people's minds go to sexual harassment.

Examples, r397?

This Snyder press release comes off ten times worse then all the Rudin shit, and he was a monster.

I assume someone less important can be dispensed with more summarily

Interesting that the date of the complaint was the date their performance was canceled at the last minute, for what the production would only say was due to a performer being unable to go on and it wasn't Covid-related. Seeing the photo Playbill chose to use, it's almost as if they knew and were tipping off their readers...

Also interesting to read now.

[quote] TRUE CRIME: Off-Broadway performances of Perfect Crime and The Office: A Musical Parody have been temporarily halted after the Theater Center’s copper pipes were stolen, according to press representatives. Thieves reportedly disconnected and took all of the building’s copper pipes, which provide water and heat to the theaters, and returned early this morning to smash the theater’s main entrance.

It may not be thievery. Perhaps it’s an act of retribution by someone who paid to see Perfect Crime.

I wanted to love the new The Music Man, but instead found it mildly entertaining. He's got charisma, but it's still The Music Man. Didn't realize he sings like Anthony Newley.

Jackman always needs a strong director and musical director. He doesn't have either this time. But he's still game and tries.

Zaks is a strong director but maybe can't make Jackman a better actor.

As shows, "Music Man" always paled a bit in comparison to "Dolly" or "Fiddler." Even Jackman and Foster can't overcome that. It's just a little bit tedious no matter what you do...It has some great, extraordinary moments, but as a whole...

From the [italic] VF [/italic] article at r94 and repeated at r345

[quote] “He’s not a nice guy,” said Jackman. “He’s not a terrible guy. He’s making a living, and he’s sort of on the bottom side, probably a little rougher edge to the bottom side of things.” Jackman, flashing that grin that’s charmed audiences all over the world, added, “He’s got to be a lot less Hugh Jackman.”

OK so my timing is off and no one would buy tickets but James Snyder would make a great Harold Hill?

Music Man beat WSS for best musical. There's a reason for that.

They should have done The Music Man in Yiddish.

It's a shame that 2 of the best male voices for legit tenor singing, James Snyder and James Barbour, have been sidelined. At least they can act -- that leaves us with Gregg Edelman -- fine voice, but boring.

You got tsuris!

Anthony Newley had a great and very distinctive voice -- Jackman has a serviceable voice with lots of vocal problems. Harold Hill's not that hard a sing, so probably doesn't matter as much as when he did Jean Valjean (and he was almost, ok, almost as hard to listen to as Russell Crowe).

R415 It could be taking place in the Theresienstadt transit camp during that documentary filming to make the camps look humane and in the end all the children are marched into the awaiting boxcars as they play 76 Trombones and head off to Auschwitz and you find out that Harold and Marian are really Nazi collaborators. I would go see that Music Man.

Since when is fucking Leni Riefenstahl posting on datalounge?

Surprising that Jackman himself is looking a little rough in that VF spread. For those who’ve seen it, is he reading as too old?

There's a Yiddish Pinafore, so why not a Yiddish Music Man?

There are no "stronger" musical theater directors on Broadway than Jerry Zaks who is known for giving literal line readings to actors, but I assume he can't really control Hugh Jackman, who after all, is only a mediocre musical theatre talent. And most audiences seeing Music Man are there to see Hugh, not Harold Hill.

[quote] It could be taking place in the Theresienstadt transit camp during that documentary filming to make the camps look humane and in the end all the children are marched into the awaiting boxcars as they play 76 Trombones and head off to Auschwitz and you find out that Harold and Marian are really Nazi collaborators. I would go see that Music Man.

Make Marcellus trans, put them in a wheelchair and I think I’ve got my next show!

[Quote] It's a shame that 2 of the best male voices for legit tenor singing, James Snyder and James Barbour, have been sidelined.

A shame? James Barbour stuck his dick in a kid. AND he still works.

[quote]It's a shame that 2 of the best male voices for legit tenor singing, James Snyder and James Barbour, have been sidelined.

[quote]A shame? James Barbour stuck his dick in a kid. AND he still works.

It was a blowjob, the kid was 15, and Barbour served time for his crime. Ought he never be allowed to work again?

Jesus Christ

wow and I thought #450 was the [italic] Diana [/italic] of threads.

Mood Music.

[Quote] It was a blowjob, the kid was 15, and Barbour served time for his crime. Ought he never be allowed to work again?

You probably consider that a neat sidestep. It's not. IBDB says Barbour was last on Broadway in 2015. He hasn't been "cancelled." But you're not satisfied with that. No man whose talent you enjoy (or whom you want to "service") should be held accountable for abuse.

Ride the Cyclone.

Wow, R398. Somebody REALLY didn't like "Perfect Crime."

[quote]It was a blowjob, the kid was 15, and Barbour served time for his crime. Ought he never be allowed to work again?

AND, according to all reliable reports, the whole situation was a complete set-up, and the barely underage female very aggressively pursued a sexual relationship with Barbour. This DOES NOT excuse what he did, but it's a very different situation from a rape or even an outright seduction of a young person by an older one.

[Quote] AND, according to all reliable reports, the whole situation was a complete set-up, and the barely underage female very aggressively pursued a sexual relationship with Barbour. This DOES NOT excuse what he did, but it's a very different situation from a rape or even an outright seduction of a young person by an older one.

Cite some of these reliable reports, hon.

*anti-wokism pedo apologists have entered the chat*

Pedos seem to be pro-woke. The woke destruction of meaning allows one to elide terms like “age of consent” and “rape”.

Pedos are all Libertarians.

Up to and including the idiots posting here who are about to explain with great vehemence how pedophilia and ephebophilia are different things.

And here I though Libertarians were just republicans that want to make weed legal.

I would happily console Snyder by holding him as a prelude to a long rimming session.

This photo sparked a question, something I've always wondered: Were the dancers set like this by the choreographer or did they take it upon themselves to execute the pose just so? Reinking's pose is more extreme, more dramatic, more eyecatching than Frederick's... Bergman with the turned in knee also stands out.

I'll do the front, you do the back.

[quote]James Barbour stuck his dick in a kid. AND he still works.

[quote]It was a blowjob, the kid was 15, and Barbour served time for his crime. Ought he never be allowed to work again?

[quote]You probably consider that a neat sidestep [ [r426] ]. It's not. IBDB says Barbour was last on Broadway in 2015. He hasn't been "cancelled." But you're not satisfied with that. No man whose talent you enjoy (or whom you want to "service") should be held accountable for abuse.

I think Barbour is a despicable piece of shit, r430. Whether he was set up or not is irrelevant. He knew the kid was a minor and he deserved to serve time for it - and he did. He was held accountable for his crime. That was justice.

I have never seen Barbour perform except when I was paid to, and never will. I even called him out as a scab in the previous thread for working on Wildhorn's Dracula the Musical's "concept" recording instead of informing the cast, as Esparza did when Wildhorn asked him. For that alone, I don't care if he ever works again. I have no interest in "servicing" him, and I don't care for him as a singer - for r425 to say "James Barbour stuck his dick in a kid. AND he still works." could be construed to mean that he forcibly raped a child and shouldn't work again. My response was merely clarification.

I saw Flying Over Sunset. Too long but interesting. I wish it had opened in another time.

[Quote] "James Barbour stuck his dick in a kid. AND he still works." could be construed to mean that he forcibly raped a child and shouldn't work again. My response was merely clarification.

Merely clarification, my ass. You put on your cape. Own it.

[quote][R386], it's upsetting and frustrating to me because I know James. And, no, I don't know him well enough to contact him and ask for explanations. But, still...

[quote]Have you ever worked with someone you liked and admired who was publicly but mysteriously accused of sexual harassment?

No one has said it was sexual harassment, r389. They mention "strict prohibitions against harassment in any form", but technically, don't even accuse him of harassment at all. Alec Baldwin has never been accused of sexual harassment but has definitely harassed coworkers. Likewise Daniel Davis. Mandy Patinkin.

I have worked with all three and they were very pleasant coworkers. Always nice to me.

Well, except when Patinkin lost his mind during Wild Party

[quote]forcibly raped

As opposed to, what? Unforced rape?

[quote] As opposed to, what? Unforced rape?

Do I have to say it?

r444, I've also worked with Alec Baldwin and Daniel Davis, as well as James Snyder. The first two were utterly miserable experiences because of those two men whereas James Snyder made our workplace a warmer and happier experience. Believe me, I've been around a long time.

".....but technically, don't even accuse him (James Snyder) of harassment at all."

And you don't get my frustration?

Reach out to James Snyder. It might alleviate your upset. You never know, wishing him well might cause the dam to break and he'll tell you his version of events. It pains me that you're having to sit here in frustration.

[quote]".....but technically, don't even accuse him (James Snyder) of harassment at all."

I'm not sure what this means. In what way is he "technically" not accused of harassment? All we're going from is the news articles based on the press release, which make it pretty clear to me that they are accusing him of some form of harassment, even though there are no details.

Attempts at linguistic pedantry to get Snyder of the hook...

Bajour?

R447 thinks the world revolves around him. How dare those producers not tell him all the details he wants to know. Don't they know how frustrated he gets, not being able to jack off thinking about some asshole harassing a castmate?

If this has really been going on for months, I’m shocked that something hasn’t leaked out. That is a humongous company. How have they kept a lid on this all this time?

I wonder if it's because the show is part of a multi media franchise.

Does anyone have the actual receipts on Danny Davis in La Cage? It's been told in fragments on here over the years. And sweet Gary Beach passed away before he could spill the tea in a memoir (which given his career, would've been a dishy read...if only for "Legends!")

I've seen cast members on Facebook throwing shade at Davis years after the fact (ie. "this photo must have been taken while DD was screaming at his dresser down the hall!") but does anyone know what led up to the Nederlanders shitcanning him?

Are they rebooting The Nanny? I think I read they were. Was Davis among the returning cast?

Happy birthday, Chita!

[quote]If this has really been going on for months

The investigation went on for months, it doesn't necessarily mean the harassment did. So very possible the company doesn't know what happened themselves. Plus I'm sure they've been told to STFU.

[quote]If this has really been going on for months, I’m shocked that something hasn’t leaked out. That is a humongous company. How have they kept a lid on this all this time?

Did you ever hear what happened to Adrian Bailey at The Little Mermaid, r453? I'm guessing not. I doubt you'd heard of the Harry Potter situation if the producers hadn't put out that release.

Why did the Maguire/Stroman story leak?

*WHEN did the Maguire/Stroman story leak?

While we're digging up vintage gossip...here's a DL thread for the ages: "Broadway stars who are no longer employable..."

That reminds me: I went looking for an Ellen Greene thread - one recent, one close to a decade ago. I couldn't find either. I guess someone complained.

That happened years & years ago, r461.

[quote] I doubt you'd heard of the Harry Potter situation if the producers hadn't put out that release.

That's just silly, there were people asking about it on here well before the release and plenty of rumours on social media, etc. Even if they'd quietly gotten rid of him, people would've been able to work out the broad strokes of what had happened.

The people on here who were asking about the Snyder situation weeks ago got the same respect that the Malcolm Gets and Boyd Gaines poster got. The truth will come out on all of it.

Does anyone remember Irving Berlin's 1948 version of Ragtime with Mary Martin, John Raitt, Dooley Wilson and The Nicholas Brothers? There was no OBCR because of the recording strike that year.

^ Pearl Bailey was allegedly fantastic as Sarah and there's a good audio boot of "I Loves You, Coalhouse" from her club act.

Yes, Bailey is superb in that recording but the piano, bass and drums is no substitute for Russell Bennett's original orchestration.

I'm partial to Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett's 1963 recording of Wicked.

My favorite was always the Alfred Drake/Carol Channing Avenue Q from 1949 with Monty Wooley as Trekkie Monster

You haven't lived until you've heard the 1965 Anna Maria Alberghetti recording of her Lutiebelle in "Purlie".

R469, I've heard that Russell Bennett's original charts are still laying away undiscovered on a lower shelf in that Secaucus warehouse.

None of you show queens have checked out The Gilded Age on HBO yet? Claybourne Elder plays a homo descendant of John Quincy Adams!

Claybourne Elder in Passion. I doubt the original production would have bored me so much if he had been in it.

Was Clay born with that nose?

Who's looking at his nose?

[quote]I'm partial to Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett's 1963 recording of Wicked.

[quote]My favorite was always the Alfred Drake/Carol Channing Avenue Q from 1949 with Monty Wooley as Trekkie Monster.

These posts are the opposite of amusing, clever, or witty.

Clay plays straight really well in Company, which is nice to see because he hasn't always been as successful at it. Case in point:

WTF is that from, r479?

Well it has finally happened, Claybourne Elder's body has finally gotten him a foothold in the NY theater, even though his talent is shall we say limited. I think it also helped a lot that he's playing a himbo in COMPANY, and I have to say he is good at that. We'll see what kind of career he has in future.

r480:

[quote]Clay plays straight really well in Company, which is nice to see because he hasn't always been as successful at it.

I was going to mention that as well. I thought he came across as gay in some straight roles in the past, and for that matter, some people have said they think his character comes across as gay in COMPANY, although he is very funny in the part.

re: Snyder. This is interesting. Could be BS, but I don't know why anyone would go to that board of all places to attempt damage control

Oh, Claybourne, come to me, bend to me, kiss me good day.

Then bend over deeper.

And there you fucking have it.

The Gilded Age has pretty much every name actor working in New York theater today except....

Where's Our Miss Patti LuPone? And, the Divine Miss Bernadette?

Saving them for Season 2 perhaps? Conniving rival Little Italy fishwives who have kids who become servants to the poshes Uptown?

I mean, they can't be playing the Gentry....

Re r467: There really are no OBCRs from 1948 because of a recording strike by the musicians' union. It's why we have no recording of Love Life. Why did Encores postpone it again now that the restoration is finished and will we ever hear it?

There's also no OBCR of Frank Loesser's Where's Charley? because of that same recording ban. Will the film ever get a home video release?

I always heard there was a rights dispute over the film of Where's Charley because Warner Bros. wouldn't pay anything near what the Loesser Estate demanded for the music rights to allow it to be released for home video. I saw it once or twice on local TV when I moved to New York in the 1970s. The film is OK but stagey and no great loss by its absence. They should have made some kind of deal years ago. There's certainly no market now for a 1952 film of a minor 1948 musical.

Comments I read years ago at Home Theater Forum said the film elements of Where's Charley? are in such bad shape that the cost of restoring them would never allow them to recoup the costs for a home video release. We'll probably never see anything but low quality boots, which are out there. And yeah, kind of fun in spots but no lost treasure.

Jo Sullivan was a worse bitch than The Widow Goldman.

I've never understood the mindset of keeping something from the public would make it more desired instead of just forgotten.

I have a pro shot of booth in Tick… Tick… Boom! Still hard to listen to considering, you know, his brother.

R484 None of that makes any sense. Not least them firing him because they don't want a lawsuit - as if he wouldn't immediately file a suit which he'd easily win if there's an outside investigator's report totally exonerating him. That poster can't seem to make up their minds either, claiming the report showed he was totally innocent but then also saying he isn't totally blameless.

relax r478 and just smile

and bravo r467 for shaking up the thread before it imploded under its own self-important weight

1. Tambo and Bones

I can now understand why someone would want to throw a planter after that show. Not because of the show's exhausting wokeness, but because it's so damn awful. Why is Playwrights Horizons producing this on their larger stage? It's banal and, at 90 interminable minutes, overly long.

2. The Music Man

Hugh Jackman really does have a thin voice. He's very charismatic, but this performance is simply okay. He smiles from start to finish, and the audience eats it up, but it doesn't serve the show. Nor do the overly long dance numbers, and I love me a good dance number, but these seemed fairly endless at times, even when beautifully executed. Again, they're not serving the story. Wildly, and surprisingly, Sutton Foster is coming off best in this production. She's a much better singer than Jackman, and her comic timing is superb. Given the pedigree of this cast (a lot of Tony winners on that stage) and creative team, I expected more. The show is a delightful souffle of nostalgia. Nothing more.

3. Prayer for the French Republic

Very powerful work. Great performances. It's a long show (three acts) but the time flies by because the material is so strong. Joshua Harmon hasn't quite landed on the ending yet, or at least not one that is as excellent as all that's come before, but the show is still in previews so there's time yet.

4. Skeleton Crew

Liked this play a lot, but this should be on MTC'S OB stage, and Prayer for the French Republic should be in MTC's Broadway house.

[quote]The Gilded Age has pretty much every name actor working in New York theater today

Peter Marks noticed also:

THIS DAY IN BROADWAY HISTORY: In 2007, a revival of "Translations" opened at the Biltmore Theatre.

Thanks for the report, R498. I was thinking of skipping Prayer for the French Republic, but now maybe I'll get a ticket.

Someone get this man a musical:

Skeleton Crew worked beautifully at Atlantic Theatre Company both on 20th Street and their smaller theatre on 16th Street. It's an off-Broadway play on Broadway for the sake of diversity. This is why I've let several subscriptions expire.

Didn’t he do Cats. I thought I heard he was the best thing in it?

Yeah the acting is so outstanding on that show that even Ron Raines is good.

McKellan/MAME!

McKellan/Mrs. Lovett!

What we have to look forward to next, or Jeremy O. Harris's next play now that the one about slaves has mercifully (and very, very quietly) closed

R508, FWIW, I believe the return of SLAVE PLAY was always announced for a very limited run to end on January 23, which is when it did in fact close.

...and Ian McKellan as The Starkeeper seems to be the obvious choice. Or the John Mills role in Cats.

He's not a Mme. Armfeldt.

Awww r510 I was [italic] just [/italic] going to say Armfeldt, with Olivia Colman as Desiree.

I guess I'm kidding re McKellan but what say ye, DL, re Colman?

[quote] overly long dance numbers, and I love me a good dance number, but these seemed fairly endless at times, even when beautifully executed. Again, they're not serving the story.

r498 as we've discussed here re other choreo, do the numbers build to something or is that part of the problem? We've oft discussed how Stro [italic] can [/italic] build a number and K Marshall cannot

Ian can play Lady Bracknell in the first Broadway mounting of "Ernest in Love". She's got a great number.

Yes, Slave Play was a limited return. But it pretty much crawled back to Broadway and died there.

Ian McKellen would be great in CANDIDE. I don't think we'll ever see a new Broadway revival of that, but maybe another New York Philharmonic production, or maybe at Encores!

But if he can’t sing, as he admitted, what part would he play? We already heard Adolph Green fail as Pangloss, and at least Green was a musical performer…but with not much of a voice left by the time he made the Candide recording. I guess Sir Ian could speak the Candide lyrics the same way Rex Harrison did in My Fair Lady.

McKellan could never sing Dr. Pangloss.

Liai--- line!

Sorry, I didn't know he had admitted he can't sing. And I wish everybody would stop misspelling his name. It's McKellen.

I'd love to see a first rate revival of THE HAPPY TIME and Ian McKellen would be wonderful and capable of singing Grandpapa.

Ian McKellen IS Harold Hill!

Bernadette Peters for Marian Paroo!

Angela Lansbury for Mrs. Paroo!

Glenda Jackson for Eulalie McKechnie Shinn!

Ian McKellen is Oliver Warbucks!

Not a starring role, but Ian McKellen as King George?

Ian McKellen IS the Rabbi!

Ian McKellen IS Quentin Crisp in Crisp!

In regards to James Snyder. What is the reputation of the woman who brought the complaint? Is she well thought of or a troublemaker. The things that occur to me - a workplace affair that ended badly and the night in question they got into it and it escalated and perhaps got physical. The two of them did not care for each other and she needled him backstage until he went off on her.

Ian could play my role in The Band's Visit. I won a Tony and never sang a note.

Is there a role for Ian in [italic] Bajour [/italic] ?

It seems like the opinion of most people who’ve worked with Snyder jibes with the view that he would be exonerated. Big if he *was* exonerated fully, why would the producers say they fired him, rather than letting him “resign” or something? And why would they be afraid of Diane the cunt’s attorney and not Snyder’s, since Snyder would now have a case for unreasonable dismissal?

I was so looking forward to Prayers for the French Republic as I've loved all of Joshua Harmon's previous plays but I found this one very didactic, unemotional and rather humorless. Not that you'd necessarily expect a play about anti-Semitism to be a laugh riot but this writer usually has some great comic set pieces.

Anyway, it certainly didn't need to be 3 &1/4 hours with 2 intermissions. 45 minutes could easily be cut. Some really great performances though, even if the awkward set design and muddy lighting don't provide the most graceful staging and transitions by the usually dependable David Cromer.

I'll be curious to read the reviews and hear what others say. This might well turn into a big snob hit.

R512,

Great question, and great point. No, the numbers don't really build to anything. That is likely the problem. All the dancers are strong and the music is fun, but the numbers just felt long.

R530,

PFTFR is a bit didactic at times, but I thought the play was very funny at times, especially any and all scenes with the daughter.

I do agree with you that the set design is a bit muddy. My biggest issue is that it didn't feel very French. (And I worked in Paris for a year.)

Carlyle is usually better than that isn’t he?

[quote] Carlyle is usually better than that isn’t he?

Not really. I think he's marginally better than Kathleen Marshall or Rob Ashford, but not by a lot. He won a Tony for After Midnight, which was mostly the work of the individual dancers. Anything he changed of Gower Champion's choreography in Hello, Dolly! he truly ruined. His work on She Loves Me was broad and crass. I've liked a few of his numbers in Christmas Story and Kiss Me, Kate, assuming they were choreographed by him and not an associate.

To be kind, The Music Man also stymied Michael Kidd and Susan Stroman, so he's in good company if his dances aren't landing. Like a lot of the work of Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett, Jerome Robbins and Gower Champion, I don't think Onna White's original choreography can be improved upon. Her work as preserved in the film is still fresh, funny, quirky and delightful. It's just a perfect match with the material. Everyone else has gone at it trying to create out-for-blood showstoppers. She just did what was appropriate for the task at hand.

R534, very much agree with your list (Fosse, Bennett, Robbins, Champion). My question to you is: what are the reasons we don't we have geniuses like this today, in spite of many many more music theatre training programs? While Onna White is a different tier, I agree about her Music Man work. I'd also put Tommy Tune, Joe Layton, and even Ron Field on the good list when they were working at their best.

Why didn't the legacy carry on with the current crop of choreographers? When did the gap begin? AIDS might be one reason...a common excuse is "they didn't get the opportunities because there were fewer good musicals" but it seems more complex than those two reasons, yet I can't articulate all the whys.

How would a new choreographer who wasn't among the anointed even go about getting a Broadway show these days?

There is just less of a pipeline R535. With fewer shows, fewer tours, fewer nighclub acts, fewer broadcast variety shows, etc. there are less opportunities for dancers to work and choreographers to develop.

So they are coming to Bway at a lesser stage of development.

also agents push and everyone wants to be a directorslashchoreographer asap.

Current choreographers can't possibly be inspired by the shlock they're asked to deal with. Not the way the great ones, who had Herman, Bernstein/Sondheim, Bock/Harnick, Kander/Ebb, Meredith Willson, Styne, etc. to. work with.

r538, your point makes no sense as so much of the bad choreography we currently see is in revivals by the composers you mention.

But thanks, anyway.

[quote] While Onna White is a different tier, I agree about her Music Man work

White’s work on the original productions of Mame and Half a Sixpence has survived in part or in whole, and it’s excellent. She also did outstanding work for the films of The Music Man and Oliver, even being awarded a rare Oscar for the latter.

[quote] But thanks, anyway.

No need to be a cunt, even here.

[quote]White’s work on the original productions of Mame and Half a Sixpence has survived in part or in whole, and it’s excellent. She also did outstanding work for the films of The Music Man and Oliver, even being awarded a rare Oscar for the latter.

Sadly, she was also saddled with doing the choreography for "Lucy Mame," in which she had the chorus boys pick up Lucy and round around the Beekman Place set with her.

Thanking someone for trying is hardly cuntery, r541. You better toughen up.

MILESTONE: 34 years ago today, "The Phantom of the Opera" opened at the Majestic Theatre.

Don’t remind us, r544.

Poor Onna White. In the Broadway “Mame,” she had Angela Lansbury, who could mice beautifully and knew how to look like a real dancer.

Then came Lucy. Back in the day, Lucy herself could move extremely well, as she proved on several ILL episodes. But she was 61 when Mame started filming, and still recovering from a broken leg. Onna’s hands were tied.

Actually, I think Lucy looks fine in what relatively little dancing she does in the "Mame" number, and also I guess in "Open a New Window," though she does looks pretty stiff in "It's Today."

As I've said, r546, casting Angela ended up making Mame a triple threat role. Now you always end up with a Mame who's lacking in one of the areas.

*3* MAMES *3*

[quote]Angela Lansbury, who could mice beautifully

Pics please.

Once again, we argue about Lucy MAME. Seriously, can we at least begin in 2000 for these pointless memories...

What about Jeanine T’s involvement with serving up young interns to Jake G?

Your complaints are tiresome, r551. Either contribute something else to the discourse or go to a different thread.

[quote]Once again, we argue about Lucy MAME. Seriously, can we at least begin in 2000 for these pointless memories...

No.

[quote] can we at least begin in 2000

Should’ve asked that question in 1999, r551.

Well...let's see....we could talk about...Brittany!

I remember her when she was Suzanne Cupito.

[quote]I remember her when she was Suzanne Cupito.

The name she's billed under as Baby June in the 1962 movie of "Gypsy." Dainty June is Ann Jillian, billed as Ann Jilliann.

Miss Jilliann was DAINTY June, r558...

Sondheim, when being Music and Lyrics, hardly provided a great platform for choreographers. The direction Broadway musicals took under his influence was fantastic for drama, but not the best for dance.

Except for FOLLIES. (As if I would forget that.)

I just amused myself by thinking of the "Sunday" number, choreographed by Fosse, Bennett and Robbins in turn.

"Skeleton Crew" review:

If nothing else the Lucy Mame gave us Bea Arthur and Jane Connell in their original roles and both are great.

Bea should have slapped Theodora from here to Canarsie, r562.

I don't think it was so much Theodora van Runkle's costumes that did Bea in as her hair (wigs) and makeup design.

It was *all* of that, r564.

Brittany has become quite the Deplorable, for what it's worth. That tour of Mame is non-union and you can see how everything has been simplified, depopulated, and made smaller and cheaper (they even cut the hook for the bugle).

Here's what a Mame tour looks like with a Mame who can do the kick when she's getting off the piano and the banister slide.

Poor Juliet Prowse. She had been sick during the run of Mame (notice how thin she is,especially her arms), and the week after it closed she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The other dates for the short tour were cancelled. Amazingly, by the end of the year she had gone into remission and was able to go out on tour in ‘95 with Sugar Babies (which was much easier on her than Mame was). By the following year, 1996, she was ill again and passed away in September.

R567 Jesus, I need a little Xmas.

Thanks, R567. I didn't know all those details. I have read that Juliet was the first Roxie Hart they had in mind for CHICAGO at Encores! but then she became too ill to do it. So sad.

Because of Long Beach, r569...

Thanks, R570

THIS DAY IN BROADWAY HISTORY: In 1982, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" opened at the Royale Theatre.

1982

Andrea remembers Laurie...

Anything/Anyone past 2000? Anyone?

I'm only 68 r575.

^^^you first

R576 = CZJ, hoping no one realizes it’s her

Fun interview with Lee Roy Reams conducted by guy who’s mostly been interviewing former daytime soap stars:

Oh, Lee Roy has stopped dying his hair! Finally.

Does Lee Roy dish in this? Otherwise I'm not interested.

Theatre folks: is there a resource that might list the singers and dancers from a show 20 years ago?

I just remembered a guy from Chicago around 2002. He had a website where he'd answer fan questions. But I cannot remember his name (great body, though).

ibdb.com is pretty comprehensive for Broadway, and sometimes has a Broadway production's tour info0

Dan LoBuono it was. Thx r583.

Well, here we are at the end of January. It looks like Broadway's not exactly going on hiatus for the winter, but anything new will open in the spring glut rather than try making a go of it earlier.

A Broadway Couple Says ‘I Do’ to Great Applause:

THIS DAY IN BROADWAY HISTORY: In 1989, "Sarafina!" opened at the Cort Theatre.

^

How the fuck did I never realize Joe Mantegna did the trucker song???

Wow, I didn’t know that either, r589. I do know that the Newsboy was Matt McGrath, who used to work in NYC all he time, but I think he married his boyfriend and moved to California.

Playbill

Patti has FORBIDDEN r591's link from appearing.

Yeah, it said “forbidden” when I clicked on it.

Wonderful sweet article at r586! Thanks for posting.

I've known Devario for several years but have been out of touch through the pandemic. So pleased to see and hear he's doing so well. An incredibly talented, handsome, generous and sweet costume designer and gentleman.

Here ya go, r592 and r593...

Stephen Schwartz gave Patti the small part in Working because she was desperate for work to keep up her AEA insurance.

“Fathers and Sons,” the song that Bob Gunton sang in Working, never fails to bring a tear to my eye.

And I believe it was something of a consolation prize from Schwartz to Patti for sticking with his Baker's Wife so loyally and diligently. Though her stories about that production, BW not Working, are hilarious. Insane though that Schwartz couldn't come up with a number for her in Working. I think her main character was a prostitute....no trunk songs? Seems like it could practically write itself.

I thought she did have a number that was cut, r598.

why the hell is there not a thread 452 that I can find?

I created one, but feel free to redirect to a different 452

Hallelujah!