THEATRE GOSSIP #471: The “Frozen 2!” Starring Katrina Lenk Edition

Link to previous thread:

Bryan Perri, Aaron Tveit's musical director.

[quote]bring your Beanie

If you can find her

He’s gorge, R2!!

Beanie’s performing at my nephew’s bar mitzvah out here in Glen Cove and her rendition of “Woman in Love” from Barbra’s Guilty album is like buttah, if a tad inappropriate for a bar mitzvah.

Stop trying to make Bryan Perri happen!

Lousy title, OP. So glad you rushed to put it up so no one would beat you to it.

The fat queen admin on the FB Broadway Remembered page has issued this decree:

YOO HOO! Oaken from the Broadway musical FROZEN here. Your admins have enlisted my help to explain a few things. We are in this group for some Broadway HYGGE! To be hygge, there must be good feelings.

The people here are HYGGE.

The love here is HYGGE.

Sharing Broadway and theatre is HYGGE.

Flaming Patti - not HYGGE!

Flaming Beanie - not HYGGE!

Flaming James Corden - not HYGGE!

Trying to burn the group with your flames - not HYGGE!

Before you post, think: Is it HYGGE? Would Oaken approve?

Thank you, beautiful theatre fans!

r8 The FG reviews really must have made him lose his goddamn mind. Why does anyone stay in the group, other than to watch the meltdown?

I just wish Katrina Lenk had a stronger voice for Being Alive

So, is there like a full-blow COVID outbreak at Aladdin? They've cancelled several shows.

[Quote] Flaming Patti - not HYGGE! Flaming Beanie - not HYGGE! Flaming James Corden - not HYGGE!

What do these three fat people have in common?

Fanny Benko announced on Instagram that she’s on for the matinee and she sounded surprised. One of her followers tried to compare her to shady Lainie Kazan but Benko was very gracious about it. WTF. Leave her alone. At least she’s excited about the show and wants to be there.

Shady? Lainie was playing Fanny. If a reviewer wanted to review her, so be it.

On the previous thread someone suggested that Tennesee Williams thought that Laura i disability is all in her mind. They posited that if Williams intended her to have a real disabiiltiy it would have been played that way in the original production.

Looking at reviews from the 1945, including the Times, Laura is repeatedly refered to as a "cripple." So it seems she did indeed have a visible disapility of some sort more than a slight limp.

Has Michael Cerveris done anything lately? Haven't heard his name in quite a while.

Oh, never mind. Just checked his IMDb and saw that he was in The Gilded Age.

Billie Jean King suggested a Callaway sister sing a P!nk song in tribute to her. How delightfully lesbian.

Laura’s disability is like Hamlet’s madness. It’s both real and pretend.

The queens version of "Cell Black Tango" a few years ago was more effection than Tveit's "Mein Herr."

[quotes]It’s both real and pretend

As are Amanda's gentlemen callers.

[quote] Laura’s disability is like Hamlet’s madness. It’s both real and pretend.

The same could be said of Beanie’s talent.

[quote]Flaming Patti - not HYGGE! Flaming Beanie - not HYGGE! Flaming James Corden - not HYGGE! What do these three fat people have in common?

Apparently they are all supposed to inspire HYGGEiness.

Is hyggeness two kinds of ice cream? Finding your skate key?

Could this thread start all over again? It's no fun and bizarrely off the rails in less than 25 posts.

It’s mug-cradling in an oversized sweater.

Oh, like we won't have 200+ posts on Follies in the next hour ...

[Quote] It's no fun

Whereas you're a laugh riot, I bet.

Why don't you try and make it more fun, r25? Must we do *everything* for you?

Julie Benko for Young Sally!

Julie Benko for Ghost Christine Crane!

Re Jeremy Jordan's sexuality from the last thread: I think if he were gay, he would have come out by now. Several years ago, a gay cousin of his in their native Texas was being forced to undergo conversion therapy and he was outspoken against that and very publicly supportive of his cousin.. He even went on 20/20 when they did a timely segment on Christian camps.

Colton Haynes made a point of talking about gay brother while claiming Emma Stone was his crush...

*about his gay brother

can we talk about dicks in Take Me Out again?

MIchael Riedel looked... different in the Company documentary

Jenner different?

Remember that "Pray Away The Gay" Broadway documentary? Was that just a DL fever dream?

Lenk would be a great choice for Desiree in the inevitable LMN revival

Whose face is in Beanie’s muff right now? Let’s take bets

[quote]Michael Mayer said it best in that Spring Awakening documentary: he’s just a chorus boy.

[quote]Mayer that hack said that?? On camera?

Yes, Mayer did say this on camera, except he was referring to his feelings about Groff in 2005, when he was auditioning for Spring Awakening.

If Groff is a chorus boy, what is Beanie? (And Groff doesn't dance well enough to be a chorus boy...)

The chorus boy hasn't learned the lines you'd like to hear.

Just watched the new Company doc. Why the fuck were morons like Candace Bushnell and Cynthia Nixon and LMM in it? I hate that shit.

Also, Chris Sieber is a big fat person again, I see.

This production looks painful to sit through. I am a huge fan of Company, but I have never seen a really good production of it. The closest it's come has been the 2011 one with NPH. I'm fairly certain from the clips that I would hate this new one.

And what's up with Matt Doyle? He looks like the crypt keeper. And his performance (from the clip I saw) is incredibly overrated. That's what's going to win a Tony? He should have stayed as a personal trainer.

You’re delightfully candid, R44. Now your thoughts on the Liv Ullman musical Lost Horizon, please.

[Quote] And his performance (from the clip I saw) is incredibly overrated.

Typical DL comment.

Back To the Future is being re-written, which is why they need the out of town.

[quote]If you don't understand the function that Bobby/Bobbi's character plays in the show, I'm not going to try to explain it to you, but Katrina Lenk was the wrong choice. If Bobbi is such a cipher, why does she even need to be attractive?

It has always seemed to be that the one essential of the character Bobby, or Bobbi, is that he or she must be very attractive both physically and in terms of personality. So perhaps YOU are the one who doesn't understand the function of the character and how the role should be cast.

Larry Kert, an attractive personality?

Incidentally, does anyone know how Wildhorn's Bonnie & Clyde musical is doing on the West End?

Do I want to know how Back to the Future is being rewritten? More like the movie? Less like the movie? Adding in stuff from the sequels?

Tveit was a fabulous Bobby a few summers ago in the Berkshires. The blankness/blandness of his personality fit the character perfectly, but he was adorable so you could see why everyone was drawn to him. And he sang like an angel.

A glance at the thumbnail and I thought DL fave Cynthia Erivo was headlining "My Fair Lady." DL's head would explode.

It's hilarious that a little movement sends Tveit out of breath in that "Mein Herr" clip. I suppose 40 is fairly old.

Of course, as soon as someone paid Tveit a compliment, someone had to tear him down just moments later. 🙄

Tear him down? This isn't Tveit's Instagram page, dear.

R54-So, I suppose Tveit won't be doing the revival of Barnum.

R52, I saw that production three evenings in a row from the same front row seat. On the third evening, Sondheim was there.

I was hoping Aaron might be staying at my hotel, but I was told he had rented a house for the engagement so he could have his dog with him.

I wanna be your dog.

[quote]DL's head would explode.

Pics please.

R39 - LMN? Oh, dear.

[quote]Oh, dear.

Oh, fuck yourself. Fully. Running.

[quote]Whose face is in Beanie’s muff right now? Let’s take bets

I'd offer, but she's so rarely here...

Little Miss No Expression?

[quote]Larry Kert, an attractive personality?

Yes, dear. Unlike your repellent one.

All these sites are full or breathless Beanie updates. Who's behind all this? Benko's agent? Some ex lover? Some rogue Streisand fanatic?

Can someone explain to me why The New York Times thinks we are interested in their critics talking to each other, and then printing the transcript? Mary, please! I'd rather watch wallpaper dry.

Funny Girl is about an ugly duckling, a term which describes most theatre queens. You do the math.

I agree with r44 that Bushnell, Nixon, and LMM weren't welcome additions to the Company documentary. Oddly, since I'm normally impatient with both of them, I thought both Als' and Reidel's comments were right on the nose.

Re Tveit's Bobby, I think I remember that Sondheim was especially taken with his performance.

Could they really not have nominated ONE other person alongside Aaron Tveit at the Tonys that year? Really - he was it and no one else could be considered?

[Quote] I think I remember that Sondheim was especially taken with his performance.

And then you woke up.

[Quote] Could they really not have nominated ONE other person alongside Aaron Tveit at the Tonys that year? Really - he was it and no one else could be considered?

When you're It. You're It.

IIRC, they also made it a condition that year that Tweit take at least 60% of the vote, which he did. Whatever. There have been worse, less deserving winners.

R69, Sondheim posing with Aaron and the cast of Company in 2017.

R73, Indeed. I'm looking at you, Jason Alexander.

Tweet by David Gordon:

The PBS Company documentary is a very nice primer on the show and about a thousand other things, and the editing is some of the most amateur I’ve ever seen in a professional movie.

R76. Oh well. Can’t please everybody.

And of course the self-serving, narcissistic, or flatly untrue nonsense spouted by some of the interviewees undermines whatever salient points the documentary has to make.

Did they include Sondheim telling Patti on Graham Norton's show that she's not a star?

[quote]All these sites are full or breathless Beanie updates. Who's behind all this?

People who enjoy being proven right in their prediction that once she failed to get a nomination her commitment would disappear

r79 Podcast. Neither of them are stars enough to be on his shows

The editing was atrocious. Should have been seamless. Wasn't.

Having met Hilton Als several times, I can't help but roll my eyes when he speaks.He's a pompous blowhard.

[Quote] Podcast. Neither of them are stars enough to be on his shows

Radio show, actually, which is then edited down to a highlights podcast.

[Quote] I saw that production three evenings in a row from the same front row seat

Where to begin?

Get a life.

We’re impressed you had a front row seat in the fucking Berkshires. Whom do you know praytell.

Get a fucking life.

What about the restraining order?

Is anyone else surprised there hasn't been a really excellent American Masters on Sondheim? I of course realize he just passed away, but even while he was still alive? The Bernstein one is quite good as I recall, and the Jerome Robbins one was absolutely excellent.

Austin Pendleton teared up at one point talking about Robbins' brilliant direction of FIDDLER and it has stayed with me forever. Pendleton related how the extreme difficulty of dancing the bottle dance (at the wedding) was itself a metaphor for the challenges the marriage would face. That, to me, is an example of what a good director does.

I was surprised that there was no mention that the gender-swap production of Company started in England. The documentary made it sound like it made its first appearance on Broadway.

Totally agree, R86. I found that curious. If you didn’t know better, you’d think Katrina was the first female Bobbie.

But otherwise it was really watchable.

And can I just say Katrina is totally winning and warm in her interviews on the doc. If she appears "cold and distant" in Company, blame it on her director.

Katrina isn't miscast, she's misdirected.

"Pendleton related how the extreme difficulty of dancing the bottle dance (at the wedding) was itself a metaphor for the challenges the marriage would face. That, to me, is an example of what a good director does."

I yield to no one in my admiration of Robbins, but the above sounds like overthinking to me, or faulty memory on Pendleton's part. Does Motel dance the Bottle Dance? I don't think so. And I don't think it was meant to be any more than a celebration of male prowess, certainly pertinent to a marriage ceremony, but as a metaphor of marriage itself? Without women (however forbidden), it's a metaphor that would be not thought all the way through, very unlike Robbins.

I couldn't help but observein the doc that this COMPANY production seems WAY over-directed. So much busy-ness in the numbers. Is this true, from those who've seen it? Was also disappointed in the praise heaped on the Doyle version, which I hated.

[quote] And his performance (from the clip I saw) is incredibly overrated.

[quote] Typical DL comment.

Sweetie, when his entire "performance" is comprised of one song and that's the clip I saw, then it's a sure bet he didn't do anything better that I might have missed.

[quote] And can I just say Katrina is totally winning and warm in her interviews on the doc. If she appears "cold and distant" in Company, blame it on her director. Katrina isn't miscast, she's misdirected.

You can say it, but it would be a stupid comment.

[quote] Does Motel dance the Bottle Dance? I don't think so.

In the original, the young men of the village dance the Bottle Dance, and Motel follows it up with a vigorous can-can, showing his ass to the women of the village as a way of saying “this is no longer available to you.”

They also cut Motel's counter tenor aria based on Lucia's mad scene where he created all the destruction of the pogrom

r52 and r58 - My fantasy is they once Lenk exits this hideous Company revival, they reverse the whole dumb experiment and let Tveit have a brief run as Bobby. He's mentioned that he would love to do the show again on Broadway. Of course, this will never happen, but a fella can dream. Also, no surprise Sondheim liked his Bobby. He was just as horny an old queen as the rest of us.

I did love Matt Doyle saying they wanted to see him for Paul and definitely not Jamie then at the audition they realized he was a Jamie.

I still can't believe Sieber let himself go again so badly. He had really worked hard to get a great body.

Sieber may have let himself go, but he’s still nowhere near as heavy as he was at his worst.

That's true, R98, but I remember him at his best, and he had never had a body like that.

Thank you, r90. "So much busy-ness in the numbers" is exactly what bothered me about Elliott's direction, and I was never able to articulate it.

You're forgetting Motel's solo (once cut, but now incorporated for a harsher age), Dear Little Sewing Machine, where, in a disturbing visionary trance, he jams his finger under the needle as a metaphor for all the trouble to come.

Did the estate of Elaine Stritch send a cease and desist letter to this company documentary? Except for a few brief glances she’s not in it or mentioned?

There was also Yente’s cautionary “trance” number, “A Whole Lotta Oven” where she predicts ovens will be the death of their ancestors 40 years on. It was cut in Boston, and Bea Arthur almost quit the show because of it.

I was surprised Patti allowed herself on camera with no makeup.

Lay off Sieber. He's a great guy.

Just because you think so doesn't make it true.

I wonder if Sieber was disturbed about the high level of narcissistic exhibitionism that was on display when he did the Batman/Robin (?) number with his bf at Broadway Bares.

[quote]I yield to no one in my admiration of Robbins, but the above sounds like overthinking to me, or faulty memory on Pendleton's part. Does Motel dance the Bottle Dance? I don't think so. And I don't think it was meant to be any more than a celebration of male prowess, certainly pertinent to a marriage ceremony, but as a metaphor of marriage itself? Without women (however forbidden), it's a metaphor that would be not thought all the way through, very unlike Robbins.

First of all, who said Motel was in the bottle dance? He's NOT in the dance, but he's in the scene. Isn't Pendleton allowed to share his thoughts on it? Anyway, it seems to be I've read and heard that the bottle dance was a metaphor not for marriage but for Jewish life, another illustration -- like the fiddler on the roof -- of how precarious their lives are.

In the fantastic Berlin production of Fiddler I’ve seen twice the wedding concludes with the Russkies rounding up Tevye, his family and Motel and pouring a huge pail of milk on them. I wonder what sort symbolism was intended with THAT coup d’theatre.

[quote]IIRC, they also made it a condition that year that Tweit take at least 60% of the vote, which he did.

I was actually glad he did, not because I'm a fan (I've never seen him in anything) but just because of how embarrassing it would've been to lose in a category in which you're the only nominee. As Archie Bunker used to say, talk about a kick in the groin.

I said *groan* you meathead!

I just watched Tveit's "Mein Herr" performance and it was ... okay. Not the best but not embarrassing either. He's got great legs and a nice ass, I'll give him that.

R112, Yes, please.

Could Aaron play Carl Magnus in my imaginary revival of LNM in which everyone is cast as hot and age appropriate … or does he not have the voice for it?

Am I the only theater queen that just doesn't like "Company"? I find the score ugly. Not one song I ever find myself singing, and I can. Even "Being Alive" sounds like a dirge for me. Have zero interest in the characters, and I'm very familiar with it since seeing the original doc as a kid, and seeing the stupid revival where the actors had to play instruments. This new documentary just confirms it for me. "Bobby...Bobby Baby"....ugh.

I watched that Company documentary last night and found the first hour intriguing. The last 20 minutes when the inarticulate, but I trying to sound deep and thoughtful blather began. And the critic from The New Yorker? Just. Stop. Talking.

Nice to see Barbara Barrie, Donna McKechnie and Pamela Myers from the original cast. I think Riedel has some excellent points to make about the show, and as someone upthread commented, something was off about his appearance... bad camera angle? Has he put on weight? The casual dress accentuating a doughy bod?

Matt Doyle (he plays Jaime/Amy, right?) was exhausting... yap, yap, yap all because he gets to sing "Not Getting Married Today"? ugh... and btw Matt, the tats are ridiculous as well.

I saw the Barrington Stage production of Company, don't remember anything remarkable about Arron's Bobby. The "Side by Side" number was really poorly choreographed, BUT (and I had to look up the name) Ellen Harvey's performance as Joanne and her "Ladies Who Lunch" was excellent. That's the song/performance that I remember most. fingers crossed the Barrington's ALNM is lavish and lovingly produced and directed. I've already bought my tickets.

R116, You don't remember the snot pouring from Aaron's nose as he cried while singing Being Alive?

Not to egg on the Groff/Tveit comparisons, but Jonathan Groff played Bobby in a Hollywood Bowl production and he was great.

Rob Houchen is much better than Groff or Tveit.

Rather pinched sound.

Not sure why there was little of Stritch in the doc, but I think her appearance in the first doc has been discussed ad nauseum. Not much more to say IMO.

What is linked to at R113?

It was shitty for the Tony’s to exclude the Lightning Thief guy and only nominate Tveit. What a cruel slap in the face. What harm it have done to nominate the poof guy ?

R113 that is a naked man in a bed. I am sorry you have never seen one. they can be nice.

That particular one is Aaron Tveit. Only girls get to see that one. Apparently

R115 is one of those tiresome queens who, whenever they don't like a song, call it a "dirge." So damned annoying. Anyway, the COMPANY score is great, R115, and you have no taste.

R124, I got a redirect notice when I clicked on that link, and I just wanted to make sure it was okay and worth it to proceed.

Raul will always be my best Bobby

[quote]they reverse the whole dumb experiment and let Tveit have a brief run as Bobby

Because if Lenk wasn't bland enough for you...

R124 has already won Fucking Moron of the Year . . . and it's only May.

WTF r128? I was just kidding around. Relax

Riedel looked "off" in the Company doc because it's about 5 years since you've seen him. He's simply gotten older. Everyone ages and he must be about 50 now.

Thank you, R130. I guess it doesn't occur to some people that time marches on.

Michael Riedel claims to be straight. He said as much on an edition of Theater Talk, to Hugh Jackman, no less.

Booze.

Whatever, Riedel made intelligent and thoughtful comments.

Michael Reidel is straight. And politically conservative. He’s very open about both these things.

And yet he makes his money on Broadway theatre gossip.

Only a straight Republican would try and destroy Bernadette Peters.

When CamMac casts ALNM, get ready for hot sexy Frederick. Late 20s, ripped and shirtless. It’s what the script demands!

Jesse Williams as Carl Magnum

I miss Riedel’s show Theater Talk that used to come on Friday nights on PBS.

I miss anything that used to come on Friday night

R135, Riedel was merciless in his attacks on Christina Applegate before Sweet Charity even opened on Broadway. He later walked back his remarks when it finally opened and she was surprisingly good.

Christina was quite good. Unfortunately the production was shite.

"Michael Reidel is straight. And politically conservative. He’s very open about both these things."

Michael Riedel is about as straight as Rex Reed.

R140, Boy George launched a media attack on Riedel when he trashed Taboo.

r115

If you find the score to Company ‘ugly,’ you’re a boorish, feckless cunt!

I enjoyed both Applegate and that production. It sucks that it was getting so much negative publicity

Remind me why Riedel left the NY Post....was that his decision? Or theirs?

We really need a good gossip columnist covering Broadway and the NY theatre scene!

Well Dorothy, why don't you just go ahead and start a contemporary, now-a-go-go gossip column!

When lazy divas like Beanie announce "No, I will not be performing per contract and will be a no-show at matinees" do the producers get to adjust the contract accordingly?

It seems unfair to get paid the same amount when you're not doing some of the job. Especially when you're not doing some of the job because you're angry about bad reviews and Tony snubs.

R147, You really are a piece of shit, you know that? Your endless inane comments are not the least bit amusing and only prove to the rest of us what an asswipe you are.

I think Riedel wants to become a more serious journalist; his two books were well-researched and well-written. And well-received. I used to know his sister, who told me years ago that he had felt trapped by the Addison DeWitt persona he created for himself at the Post. That makes sense. He's now writing for pubs like Vanity Fair and making serious appearances on things like this doc. Like him or not, he's smart.

And he just got married. To a woman. Proves nothing, but still . . .

Reidel isn't gay, per se...He's just sort of up for anything.

R151, He's always reminded me of Wally Cox.

"And he just got married. To a woman."

So did Leonard Bernstein, Moss Hart, Cole Porter, Josh Logan, Garson Kanin, Alfred Lunt, Joel Grey, Vincent Minnelli, etc.

All gay.

I thought his departure from the Post coincided with Covid. For a while there was no theater so I wasn’t surprised he disappeared but then maybe, with their budget issues, they decided they didn’t need him back. Or maybe I’m wrong.

His column was gone from the Post way before Covid, though.

Didn’t realize that. People in the industry hated that column (except them he was attacking someone they didn’t like).

Hard to mount a big production when guttersnipes like him revel in telling tales about it before it’s even come to town.

Yikes, R119. Whatever your motivation for posting that video of Rob Houchen, it can't be to show off his vocal prowess. The guy is awful.

He has nothing to report since Scott Rudin left the biz. He got all his info from that fat fuck.

[quote]The documentary made it sound like it made its first appearance on Broadway.

Uh … they showed footage from the pre-West End workshop, Rosie singing. It kind of looked like a lot of the cast in the workshop were not the ones who wound up in the West End cast. There was also no s big of footage from the West Emd production.

[quote]You can say it, but it would be a stupid comment.

The stupid comment is yours. She’s warm and engaging in the doc, and sounds great.

[quite]Michael Riedel is about as straight as Rex Reed.

"Move over, Barbra. Welcome, Beanie. A new star is born."

[quote][R115] is one of those tiresome queens who, whenever they don't like a song, call it a "dirge." So damned annoying. Anyway, the COMPANY score is great, [R115], and you have no taste.

Begone Sondheimite, you have no power over me.

[quote] The stupid comment is yours. She’s warm and engaging in the doc, and sounds great.

That wasn't the stupid comment, dear. The stupid comment was you assuming that because someone IS something that they can also ACT it, and that it must be the director's fault if they don't.

So by your way of thinking, I guess because Madonna is such a naturally sexual woman and provocative and somewhat scandalous, her horrific performance in Body of Evidence playing the same sort of woman wasn't her fault, let's blame the director instead.

Yeah I thought as well Riedel was looking middle-aged. Not off but simply getting older. He for so long looked boyish. I guess that's what strikes people. It did me.

I was a kid when I saw the original production(not with Jones unfortunately but Kert was really good.) So it was for me not a breakthrough musical. What context did I have? It was just another terrific Broadway musical like the others that were still on Broadway at the time. I can't imagine getting to know it from what I've seen of the subsequent productions. But people do and love it all the same. It's a great score. My parents even liked it and they went back to the age of South Pacific and Pajama Game.

I got to know Company from sub-ushering the reunion concert at Lincoln Center in the early 90s. I didn't even want to do it because it was my night off, but I needed the money (poor college student). I was so blown away by the score, which I'd never heard before. I went out and got the cast album the next day and fell in love with it. And I then spent the next 30 years being disappointed by nearly every production of it I've ever seen. It's a fantastic score with one of the shittiest books ever written. And no cast has ever bested the original.

Well you should have seen that production! Prince, Aronson and Bennett at the height of their genius which of course would continue for a number of years. There was a Broadway professionalism in the best shows that is long gone. It died in the 80s with the death of Bennett and the even Prince would never be as good again as he was in the 70s.

The choreography of the men in You Could Drive a Person Crazy in the current production from what I saw in this doc is so amateurish how does the choreographer get work?

[quote]My parents even liked it and they went back to the age of South Pacific and Pajama Game.

I also go back to the age of "The Pajama Game."

Riedel has never had an original thought. He got all his gossip from Broadway flacks, who knew he would print verbatim. He never did any real reporting/snooping, just re-printing. He even took shit from the chat rooms, which people quickly learned, and put stuff there as bait for him. Rudin was a primary source also, and two other still prominent producers who spend most of their days spreading bitchy gossip anyway. Reidel's books were simply retreads of already printed/known stories.

Bobby/Bobbie should be a gorgeous cipher, irresistible to the friends but also slightly mysterious or unexplained to them, always seeming to be holding something back. Not fully present even when he's physically in their space. At a remove. The kind of friendship where they all feel they are giving just a little bit more than Bobby is...but he's so magnetic they can't help but do the work to keep the friendship alive anyway.

And an excellent Bobby/Bobbie must be able to wow you with a piece of singing that is also deeply felt and well acted when the character finally breaks through and connects. You can't be worried about them getting through the song or hitting notes.

Fanny in Funny Girl shares some of these requirements: charismatic enough to hold an imperfect show together, and able to knock the audience out with a piece of singing. Looking back: Hines, Kazan, Cook, Lawrence, Kritzer, Beechman, Prowse in her all-belt kind of way, Lewis, even more current Fannys like Bianco or Block could do this with their voices--not just Streisand.

David Carroll sang Bobby beautifully in an otherwise bad production of Company done at the York in 87

[quote]David Carroll sang Bobby beautifully

David Carroll sang everything beautifully. What a voice. And what a loss.

I found this quote from Sondheim about the York Theatre Company: "There was one time when I saw the show where ["Being Alive"] worked, and I can’t tell you why, but it was an off-Broadway production at the York Theatre some years ago. Susan Schulman directed it, and the leading part was sung by a guy, now dead, named David James Carroll, and somehow, when he turned front and sang that song, it was as if the whole evening had led to it. I don’t know how he did it, but it was completely fulfilling. I thought, My God, we don’t need a transition if the right actor’s playing it."

Here's David Carroll's "Being Alive." The song starts about one minute in---there's dialogue beforehand.

R173 So, the song never worked except for this one time?

I don't know, R175, ask Sondheim!

You're correct. David Carroll had the goods. It's a shame he died so young and that it took him so long to really get noticed. He toiled in more than a decade's worth of short-lived flops before he really began to make a name for himself.

Ask r170. She knows everything

[quote] [R173] So, the song never worked except for this one time?

Well, that's not exactly what Sondheim is saying. He's saying the song worked on its own and as its own entity, without anything that had come before it. And also, you have to remember that this was a production from 1987, so there hadn't been a bunch of revivals or productions prior to the original at this point.

Watching the company documentary didn’t make me want to see the current production at all

I want to hear about this woman that Michael Riedel married. I'm still amazed.

A WOMAN?!

Why? Has Riedel been linked to men?

David Carroll was often pitchy, including in that recording of Being Alive.

It’s always interesting when people say Sondheim was so much nicer than Arthur Laurents when Sondheim says:

Audra McDonald fucked up Porgy and Bess

Lady Gaga sounded horrible at the Oscars during the Sound of Music Tribute

Patti LuPone is NOT a star and no one outside of the theatre knows who she is.

Betty Buckley fucked up his music during her cds and was a terrible Rose in Gypsy

Barbra Streisand is NOT to play Rose under any circumstances in a movie version of Gypsy

David Carroll was the ONLY person to make Being Alive work and all the other guys playing the part wasn’t good enough to make it work.

[quote] David Carroll was often pitchy, including in that recording of Being Alive.

Thank you, Randy Jackson.

There haven't been METOO rumblings about Sondheim, unlike Arthur Laurents.

R117, I guess I was too far from the stage to notice Aaron's runny nose. Personally, I enjoyed the Neil Patrick Harris (I can already hear the Eldergays hissing like a radiator in February) production of Company. Some very funny moments, and surprising (meaning good) performances from Colbert, Cryer, Hendricks, and Plimpton (a delight!) Even Patti's "Ladies Who Lunch had not become schtick (which it is from that doc I watched Saturday evening).

R184 And that's not including all the VERY bitchy things he said about all the famous dead lyricists in his book "Finishing the Hat."

Even his mentor.

[quote] David Carroll was the ONLY person to make Being Alive work and all the other guys playing the part wasn’t good enough to make it work.

This is not what he said.

[quote]Personally, I enjoyed the Neil Patrick Harris (I can already hear the Eldergays hissing like a radiator in February) production of Company.

68 year old eldergay here who absolutely enjoyed the NPH Company.

That quote does seem to say that Carroll made it work like no one before him.

Sondheim was not warm and fuzzy, but r184’s list is willfully misrepresenting what Sondheim said in almost every case. Look at his Porgy and Bess Op-Ed for starters.

NPH doesn't have the voice for Being Alive. The book scenes really worked. Those sitcom actors had it down. The person I saw it with only liked "Not Getting Married Today."

Don't forget that Sondheim banished Kim Criswell to Britain!

Sondheim could be blunt, but he usually knew when to speak and when not to. I don't think he was ever gratuitously nasty unlike Laurents who seemed to get off on it.

In his defense, Buckley kept asking him what he thought of her recordings of his work and he finally told her the truth. Those recordings are terrible and don't even sound like his songs at all. It's not like she wasn't capable of singing them beautifully, but the arrangements were horrible. And yes, her performance as Rose was beautifully sung and dramatically misconceived. You left that theater feeling nothing after the show which isn't what you're supposed to feel after a production of Gypsy. Even in that case, I believe he let Laurents do most of the trashing for the both of them.

David James was also a wonderfully nice person.

Sondheim was to Scott Rudin what Laurents was to Harvey Weinstein.

So Company never had the right actor until David Carroll?

Oscar Hammerstein was a man of limited talent. Not counting the fact that he was the most influential man of the American musical theater in the 20th Century.

Sondheim has said more than once that he doesn’t think the ending to Company works, and he blames the compromise that is Being Alive. He wanted a more ambivalent ending Carroll made it work for him - and that performance was only a decade or so after the show was written.

NPH had the right balance for Bobby of being charming and charismatic yet also blank and impersonal

Sondheim's original closing song "Happily Ever After" fits the tone of the rest of the show better, but it sure isn't a crowd pleaser. I can understand why they changed it, but he's right in that it's never really felt earned no matter who's played the role. It sort of forces a character arc onto a character who's done none of the work to have such an epiphany. I've never bought that Joanne's line is the big "ah ha" moment for him/her.

Sondheim didn't say that Audra ruined Porgy and Bess, or anything close to it. His criticism was directed to the A.R.T. production, Diane Paulus, and Suzan-Lori Parks. I think at least a few of r184's cavils are misleading; others are just plain wrong.

According to Sondheim (in one of the lyrics books, maybe) it was Hal Prince who hated "Happily Ever After," and said if he sat in an audience and heard that song he wouldn't get married for anything in the world. So it was out. It was the more honest ending, but certainly not the most satisfying--notwithstanding that "Being Alive" seems to come out of left field.

Oh for chrissakes, r198. Carroll's rendition of that song impressed Sondheim. Can you just not leave it at that?

Did you know David Carroll, R198? I would love to hear more about him, if you did.

Oops, that should be R196.

E206-Brain Bedford knew him inside and out.

Someone wrote a recollection of David Carroll and his wealthy partner. It was probably on a blogspot.

R205, this wouldn't be DL if the theater queens wouldn't carry on about every little minutia of Sondheim. That's all they have in life, so let them have their moments, as tedious as they might be.

Did Malcolm Gets ever do Company?

This is a theater thread on DL so R210 your life is as tedious as everyone else's and just as bitchy. And if I want to discuss why Sondheim says a certain actor fulfilled his expectation for a character many years after that character was created I don't know why it causes you and R205 such theater queen trauma. Now both of you take your valium and listen to the obc of I Had a Ball. It will calm you both down and make you happy.

Did anyone see George Chakiris play Bobby? I liked NPH because his (to me) Bobby was gay but he and his friends pretended he wasn’t so he dated women and they were always fixing him up hoping he would settle into a hereto marriage. Not sure if that was the productions intention but that’s how I saw it.

I thought it was interesting that in an interview Chakiris made it clear he was not a fan of Harold Prince but he did not go into specifics.

And do Luba Lisa's chicken dance!

Nobody does, r214, except to say that Prince was a screamer (well, except for PattiLu, but she wasn't very specific)

I left the NPH Company at intermission. His "love-me-love-me-love-me" personality/neediness sunk the evening for me.

I've never thought of NPH as a "Love Me, Love Me!" type. Zachary Levi, sure.

[r203] actually he did blast Audra in his letter. So please do your research before you act like you know everything.

“ Four-time Tony winner Audra McDonald didn’t escape Sondheim’s ire, either, for her quote that Bess is “often more of a plot device than a full-blooded character.” Responded the composer: “Often? Meaning sometimes she’s full-blooded and other times not? She’s always full-blooded when she’s acted full-bloodedly.”

After handing the entire creative team their heads, Sondheim ended his letter on a (slightly) positive note: “Perhaps [the production] will be wonderful. Certainly I can think of no better Porgy than Norm Lewis nor a better Bess than Audra McDonald, whose voice is one of the glories of the American theater.” Then came another zinger: “Perhaps Ms. Paulus and company will have earned their arrogance.”

On top of criticizing her comments about the character and criticizing her acting choices, at the end, he called her “arrogant”

But again please lecture me [r203] and [r192]

This is awful.

It was Paulus nd Company who were arrogant. Learn to read, please.

What did Matthew Morrison do ?

“Four-time Tony winner Audra McDonald didn’t escape Sondheim’s ire, either”

You too, doll!

[Quote] I can think of no better Porgy than Norm Lewis

What a bald faced lie.

Unfortunately, r167, that amateurishness is virtually state-of-the-art on Broadway now.

"notwithstanding that "Being Alive" seems to come out of left field."

No more than Nora's declaration of independence at the end of A DOLL'S HOUSE. The entire plays sets it up beautifully, and if Bobby in COMPANY is played as an active observer (which is exactly what made NPH's performance so excellent), Being Alive is the natural and inevitable conclusion to the story.

r206, I knew David casually through a mutual friend. The three of us hung out together, went to a movie or three (Terms of Endearment was one), had meals. I visited the two of them at Goodspeed where they were doing Kern's Oh, Boy! His version of Till the Clouds Roll By was heaven. He was always gracious and funny and very grateful for a compliment. I also hear from my friend he was something of a sex addict. Absolutely a great loss to the theater.

That arm around the neck looks quite intimate.

I imagine he didn't have to do much to find available sex partners.

Malcolm Gets and Boyd Gaines are not well. Sad.

As you wish, r219. The statement I addressed regarding Audra was that she "fucked up Porgy & Bess." Sondheim didn't say anything like that. But I never suggested that he didn't "blast" her. If you're the original poster, you've changed horses in midstream. If you're not, you need a quick course in reading comprehension, and a "mute" button for your arrogance. In the meantime, you can fuck right off.

Fine...just...

Was Morrow studlicious in general or was just her take on Oakley?

Yeah, that really wasn't a "blast" of Audra but of the production and how it was directed.

I love it when people who whip out the "you have a problem with comprehension" zinger are actually the ones who completely miss the boat on the actual meaning of things.

Did Nancy Dussault smoke her voice away? It declined relatively young.

Did somebody say Gale Storm?

I found that blog post about David Carroll and his partner, in case anyone is interested...

After attending "The Skin of Our Teeth" yesterday, I am convinced that Broadway absolutely is dead, along with its audience.

For some reason, there was a very slight curtain covering the back part of the set. Downstage was a chair, a couch, etc., and the curtain was in the back of thi.

The lights dimmed, the small curtain started to raise (without yet a view of the set) and the man next to me said, "Wow!"

Seriously. WTH.

“ Malcolm Gets and Boyd Gaines are not well. Sad.”

What’s wrong with them?

I'm sure we all can't wait for more of r237's fascinating anecdotes

R238 Boyd Gaines has never recovered from seeing Bonnie Franklin totally nude in her dressing room at "One Day At A Time" being cornholed by Pat Harrington and Glenn Scarpelli taking turns at having a go at her while Nanette Fabray diddled herself in a corner.

Who’s replacing Andre in Hadestown?

[quote]Malcolm Gets and Boyd Gaines are not well. Sad.

Please stop.

R240, you could have just stopped at "seeing Bonnie Franklin nude."

R239, I love you!

In all of Sondheim's incredible mentoring and encouraging of young writers, there were no women. Thanks, Foxy: "There's always a woman..."

Sondheim also quipped that Julie Andrews was a rug-munching diesel dyke and quite famously called Mother Theresa a gaping cunt. Google is your friend, folks.

So every time Sondheim is even mentioned from now on Lin-Manuel Miranda has to stick his face in front of the camera?

Miranda hasn't missed an opportunity to center himself in all matters Sondheim since November 26. I'm surprised his father isn't doing it as well.

[quote]So every time Sondheim is even mentioned from now on Lin-Manuel Miranda has to stick his face in front of the camera?

I thought it was interesting that he sorta slammed Sondheim (now that he's dead) in the Company documentary by saying how outlandish it was that Sondheim thought he understood straight marriages because of a conversation with Mary Rogers.

Marianne Elliot spent 90% of her screen time in the Company documentary looking up at the mezzanine instead of at the camera. What’s up there, Marianne? Is someone getting a blowjob?

And included himself in the company of people who were "close to Steve" sharing their dreams about him.

The guy is shameless.

Well, I was off about the particular show and how long it would take to get there, but we have indeeed gotten 200+ comments on a Sondheim musical. For my next prediction ... they're going to release the nudes from the rest of the Take Me Out cast. (Now, watch, it'll be something silly like the guy in Aladdin having a wardrobe malfunction.)

r247 Complete with a Drama Book Shop sign in the background - because no chance should be missed by Lin to shill one of his ventures

R198, It certainly wasn't John Barrowman in the 2002 Washington, DC production.

Just watched Andre’s final curtain call on Instagram. Mayor Adams declared today ANDRE DE SHIELDS DAY and Andre sang Believe in Yourself from The Wiz. Very sweet and touching.

Ok now I just got the bluray of Flower Drum Song and if you know what's good for you you'll get it without question even if you don't like the movie.

You'll never see a better title sequence in your life. Put it on your bluray player, play it on your 4k UHD TV and through your stereo system and wallow in the gloriousness of it all. Between Dong Kingman and Alfred Newman...well I can't even begin.

[quote] And if I want to discuss why Sondheim says a certain actor fulfilled his expectation for a character many years after that character was created I don't know why it causes you and [R205] such theater queen trauma.

To paraphrase Blanche to Dorothy: It's all you have, so I'm going to be happy for you.

Sadly I missed Hadetown altogether with DeShields, and I love him as a performer.

I’ll eventually get to Hadetown in a month or two. Hopefully his replacement will be good

Poor Lin probably doesn’t know how little Steve actually thought of his work.

A friend of mine was in the recording studio with him when David Carroll died in the bathroom.

It was crazy

Actually, poor Steve was the one who would have done anything to have a hit on the level of Hamilton, something he himself admitted.

Isn't there some posthumously published tell-all autobiography by Mary Rodgers Guettel that's about to come out soon? I wonder if she was prescient enough to assume Sondheim would be dead by then (now) and all could be revealed?

R262, It should have plenty to say about Arthur Laurents.

Her father, Arthur, Steve, young Carol Burnett ... she had plenty to write about.

[quote] A friend of mine was in the recording studio with him when David Carroll died in the bathroom.

Holy shit, how awful. They brought him in beforehand, yes? And without the musicians. Who was working with him?

CHESS

Oh, please, he knew Lin was a shameless self-promoter who wrote a Zeitgeist show, nothing more. There is nothing in Lin’s arsenal that can even remotely match the Sondheim canon.

Sondheim worried that his legacy would soon be forgotten as his popularity was so limited. Realistically, even revivals of his shows have never been smash hits. As such, LMM has been able to live within the era of great success, something Sondheim did not. I really don't know why people fight that. Sondheim was a genius but he also wanted success. He was also clearly aware that you have no way of predicting what will be popular or even remember in the future. So it's best to shoot your wad while you're still alive.

[quote]So it's best to shoot your wad while you're still alive

Pics please

I'd rather have decades of flop Sondheim revivals instead of having another LMM ego-trip foisted on me as the greatest thing ever. Popular success is no indication of artistic merit; surely DL knows this.

[quote]Ok now I just got the bluray of Flower Drum Song and if you know what's good for you you'll get it without question even if you don't like the movie.

i have the DVD signed by Miss Nancy Kwan. Thanks CHILLER! Would have loved to have seen it at Radio City Music Hall where it premiered.

r261 What point do you think you're making? What relevance does popularity have with regards to quality?

Oh stop with this shit, no artist works years on a project to have sit unseen in a closet.

LMM has one huge advantage over Sondheim - People actually see his shows.

Oh my god, another squabble about Sondheim's popular success vs the quality of his shows. Another dead horse topic.

Thread should have been THEATRE GOSSIP #471: The Coupla of Sad Queens Who Have No Memorial Day Weekend Plans Sittin”Around Bitching Edition

Saw Fat Ham yesterday. Not a great play, but a most entertaining one. And a delightful production with a lovely cast. The older, mostly white audience ate it up.

Hard though to reconcile a Pulitzer when seen within a cavalcade that includes LONG DAY"S JOURNEY, DELICATE BALANCE, SOUTH PACIFIC, etc. etc. But such is the state of the current theater.

In the long run, the only Sondheim shows that will get revivals with any regularity with be Into the Woods and maybe Sweeney Todd.

r276 And yet here you are too

I cannot think of another American artist besides Stephen Sondheim who died in old age, going out knowing how fully and fervently embraced he was by the public who mattered to him.

Well, there is finally a TV commercial for Funny Girl featuring Beanie singing the final lines of Don't Rain on My Parade and I'm truly shocked. I haven't seen the show, but that voice is thiiiiiiiinnnnnnn.......

R281. Don’t worry, I’m the theatre the beef up the sound by increasing the volume dramatically at climaxes

But why didn't they "beef up" her sound for the TV commercial?

R280, I can, Irving Berlin.

[quote]Saw Fat Ham yesterday.

Be nice.

Saw Fat Ham last night and loved it. The audience was in a great mood. The cast is terrific, especially Juicy and the Horatio, His monologue towards the end will be audition fodder for a long time to come. It's a blast, and unlike A Strange Loop, I understood every word.

[quote] I cannot think of another American artist besides Stephen Sondheim who died in old age, going out knowing how fully and fervently embraced he was by the public who mattered to him.

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet....hyperbole.

Not so much hyperbole as it is a platitude.

r281

do you know where we could see it oinline?

There are already Merrily, Sweeney and ITW revivals announced for New York. Frankly, too many! He left an incredible catalogue with tremendous breadth, high art (Sunday) to bawdy farce (Forum). Let me know when Lin One-Note has a show at the National…

R280, I’ve known some beloved legends who SHOULD have known they were beloved legends, but it was never enough.

Stew was sitting in the front row of Fat Ham Sunday night. He seemed to enjoy himself immensely.

I love Stew

[Quote] Let me know when Lin One-Note has a show at the National…

LMM has only had two Bway shows at this point in his career. One has become a classic by this point. He’s also branched out into movies and documentaries. Give him time. I’m sure he’ll have a lot of hits in his lifetime.

Give in

Sondheim shows will continue to be produced for a very long time for the same reason Shakespeare plays are. Some are hampered by their books, but invariably the songs have psychological depth, so that good actors and directors will want to have a go at them, will want to apply different interpretations and different approaches to bringing out meaning in different productions. It may be that they gravitate towards the National Theatre type of playhouse, because they are serious theatre. Most musicals these days are just trying to be a good night out, and that doesn't last for any type of theatre except maybe farce. Hamilton will date drastically when rap and hip hop date, but it is extremely energetic and the story will always have resonance in America, so I can see it having revivals from time to time down the track. Miranda will have to produce a lot more material to allow us to compare his legacy with Sondheim's, though. In the Heights is a snore.

As for Being Alive, it IS the right ending. If Bobby ends up even more cynical or defensive about marriage than he is at the start, what's been the point of the show? I hate the word Journey but you do have to be going somewhere. If it's entirely dependent on a uniquely gifted actor to make the song look right, the immediate dramaturgical conclusion is that the rest of the show always needed a bit of a re-work to point it more solidly in the direction of the inevitable denouement. The fact that it's not until Bobby is in the middle of his epiphany that one of the marrieds says, "It's a lot better living it than looking at it!" is an indicator. That should have been said, or better, demonstrated by the couples, at the end of Act 1 and two or three times in Act 2. The early vignettes should all show why Bobby feels the need to stand outside marriage, but the later ones should increasingly show the advantages of being inside and the disadvantages of alienation (The Ladies Who Lunch being a really good example of that, well placed in the show).

I wanted to see Fat Ham last night, but Beanie was out.

So is it "official" that Beanie is no longer doing matinees, or is that just the haters wishing.

The only difference with Berlin is that he reportedly didn't appreciate the good will, turning into a bitter recluse. (So may have Sondheim if he had lived another 10 year!)

No one will know, r298, but the footage of Sondheim at Company 11 days before he died suggests the opposite. He was both bashful and glowing. It’s hard to imagine a better exit, especially for the man he was for most of his life.

Speaking of Sondheim revivals, what is the latest with the NYTW Merrily We Roll Along with Harry Potter? Isn't Groff supposed to do this? Why haven't they announced the rest of the cast yet?

They are still looking for an equally starry Mary.

Isn't Beanie doing a filmed version of Merrily?

God save us.

Quality is subjective, popularity is not, which sounds like something from SITPWG. Fact is, Hamilton, Wicked and Chicago have run longer on Broadway than all Sondheim shows combined and that includes revivals. The only revival that lasted longer than the original was Forum and that might have been aided by Whoopi's incessant plugging. It's been 50 years since Company et. al and none of them have had significant runs and Sondheim's exit from Broadway was Passion, 30 years ago. He will always have his fans, deservedly so, but his was a very esoteric gift and he wrote for a total populist form, the Broadway Musical. His own observation is why he told LuPone she's not a star because she's not known outside of New York. If G&S is seldom performed and they were Gods when they were alive, what is his legacy? And that's Sondheim's own question when he did an interview with Costco magazine when they were releasing a DVD collection of his works. And it's not like he didn't try. He wrote songs for Madonna for God's sake.

" Hamilton" is bigger than all of the Sondheim shows combined. And don't think of including " Gypsy," and " WSS."

Has Blake Jenner been replaced for Merrily movie?

It's a shame Company wasn't made into a movie. It probably would have worked better than the similarly episodic Sweet Charity.

Tens of people will have flocked to see the " Company " movie.

Not if Mr Dean Jones and Miss Sandy Duncan co-starred.

"Sondheim worried that his legacy would soon be forgotten as his popularity was so limited. Realistically, even revivals of his shows have never been smash hits.”

But has there been a more feted, lionized, anthologized and celebrated musical theatre writer than Sondheim in his own lifetime? It's not like he died unproduced and interred in an unmarked pauper's grave. No, not every one of his shows was a barnburner but there is no denying their artistic quality. To perceive his popularity as "limited' seems a little silly to me. R270 and R280 get it right.

"One has become a classic by this point." Please. Only posterity deems what is or what is not "classic," meaning something that speaks to generations of audiences over time. Mediocrity is inevitably consigned to the dustbin of oblivion.

COMPANY will win a few Tonys...and still not sell that many tickets. It's current box office is money losing, and to their unfortunate timing, they've lost so much with the stoppages, hiring extras, extra rehearsals, etc...It's been a real challenge. But its Sondheim, so it won't make money.

It's a time honored tradition for a Sondheim show.

Losing money, that is.

And losing money is why Sondheim shows will not be produced with much regularity.

Even worse, is maybe only Into The Woods has any attraction to the huge high school show market.

Company is too dated as those whose heyday was in the 60’s and 70’s die out. Follies is solely lived by DLers. Sweeney is great but only has limited appeal. Same with Assassins and Bounce and SIPWG and Passion.

Sondheim shows will likely become a NYC novelty.

That's fine; keep them there.

If it'll shut up the Sondhemites, take that shitty black box Sondheim theater and just do his shows in rotation, same repertory cast, change shows every three months and leave everyone else alone. They can stick to their side of 7th Ave.

I can't believe there's no Ethel Merman Theatre.

[quote]Sweeney is great but only has limited appeal. Same with Assassins and Bounce and SIPWG and Passion.

I can assure you that no one is going to be doing "Bounce." Ever. It's hardly in the same category as "Sunday in the Park With George."

r305 No. And they can't now, really, as they've already shot the first set of scenes with him.

[quote]I can't believe there's no Ethel Merman Theatre.

I can believe it.

"Welcome to the Ethel Merman Theater, where every production plays to the back row."

R315: A Sondheim repertory company is my dream. Just as a one-off, though, for maybe two years, not an open-ended run. I want full productions, not stripped-down ones, with full orchestras. They don't have to be reproductions of the original shows, but no regietheatre and no actors playing instruments. Not in a black-box theater, but something like the Beaumont. (Or running buck wild, do it at the National Theatre in London -- Sweeney Todd in the Olivier, ALNM in the Lyttleton and Assassins in the Dorfman, all on one night.) I realize, of course, that this would be prohibitively expensive, and only some tech titan could afford to put up (and lose) the money (yeah, like any of them give a crap about the arts, much less Sondheim). Still, it's fun to think about.

There should be a MerMar.

The Broadhurst should be the Fosse/Verdon, and The Majestic should be the Andrew Lloyd Webber. No one has put more asses in theater seats than him all over the world.

I agree. If we really cared about our theatre culture: rename all of them--

The Kander/Ebb

The Michael Bennett

The Cy Coleman

The Sheldon Harnick

It's bad enough that a few are named for dead producers; it's an outrage that a major theatre is named after a long dead, not especially memorable theatre critic.

Recognize the people who make/made theatre happen.

The Suzanne Somers!

I would say the following theaters could be renamed for people such as Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett, Julie Harris, Hal Prince, Stritch, Merman, Carol Channing, Jerome Robbins, Alan Jay Lerner, shit, even the Elia Kazan would be preferable to Samuel Fucking J. Friedman

The Ambassador

The Belasco

The Broadhurst

The Booth

The Cort

The Hudson

The Golden

The Imperial

The Longacre

The Majestic

The Marquis

The Music Box

The Sam Friedman

and the James

Take back your mink, r325.

West Side Story

Gypsy

Anyone Can Whistle

Funny Thing Happened on Way to Forum

Evening Primrose

Company

Follies

Little Night Music

Pacific Overtures

Sweeney Todd

Merrily We Roll Along

Sunday In the Park With George

Into the Woods

Passion

Road Show

*Putting It Together Revue Marry Me a Little Revue Side By Side By Sondheim Revue

If a Broadway theatre did revivals of those shows and did two a year it would take ten years to go through them all.

If a Broadway theatre did revivals of Passion and Road Show it would take ten years to sit through just one of them.

(And what? No love for "The Frogs"?)

[quote]Follies is solely lived by DLers.

I see myself as more of a Sally.

DL is a roomful of sad Sallys who pretend to be Phyllis.

People kept saying Sondheim was so ahead of his time but the lack of success of revivals disproves that. I think he was very much a composer/lyricist of his time and that does not bode well for his longevity. He was experimenting with rap back during Company, maybe even before, but he could never really connect it with popular audiences.

And who in the 1970s would have thought Chicago would have totally outlasted A Chorus Line? Hard to believe Passion was 30 years ago and it remains as bad as it was when it premiered.

You know what? I'm a Hattie and I'm proud!

[quote]He was experimenting with rap back during Company, maybe even before

Care to clarify, R332?

R334, Sondheim has said that Getting Married Today was the beginning of his interest in rap type structures, rhythms although nowhere near what happened with Into the Woods, which is another reason why ITW is so well liked by young people.

The Ethel Merman!

Interesting, R335. I have no doubt he said it

But rap/hip-hop as we know it wasn't even a thing until years after COMPANY, so it's an odd claim for Sondheim. (Most music critics talk about the urban origins of rap/hip-hop ca. 1975-77)

MY FAIR LADY has "spoken word" songs, and it wasn't even the first. No one is claiming those as rap.

Raps predate hip hop. It was basically sermonizing. See Loleatta Holloway's mid-song raps on her disco anthems. Joe Tex also did the rap thing. And R&B songs in general started to add spoken word intros as part of their story songs as radio began to allow longer songs.

A patter song is not the same as rap

Thank you r339.

I'm a Sondheim fan, and I love INTO THE WOODS. But the Witch's "rap" is mildly embarrassing, now and forever. More "clever" than funny or entertaining, it's a man with a rhyming dictionary showing off:

Greens green and nothing but green! Parsley, peppers, cabbages, and celery. Asparagus and Watercress and Fiddlefern and Lettuce.

He said "Alright!" But it wasn't quite cause I caught him in the autumn in my garden one night!

He was robbing me, Raping me.

Rooting through my rutabagga, raiding my arugula ripping up the Rampion.

MY CHAMPION MY FAVORITE!

I shoulda laid a spell on him right THERE! Coulda turned him into stone or a dog or chair.

But I let him have the rampion, I'd lots to spare in return however I said fair is fair. You can let me have the baby that your wife will bear.. And we'll call it square.

[quote] Speaking of Sondheim revivals, what is the latest with the NYTW Merrily We Roll Along with Harry Potter? Isn't Groff supposed to do this? Why haven't they announced the rest of the cast yet?

Wasn’t the rumor that it will be Groff and Lindsay Mendez as Frank and Mary? The fact that there’s been radio silence on an announcement makes me think one of them dropped out.

Well, now I won't be satisfied until an all-out rap battle between Eliza Doolittle and Amy/Jamie.

Whatayatalk! Whatayatalk!

The film soundtrack of West Side Story is the best selling LP in the US. And of course it is a huge international bestseller. Which is why Sondheim said he made a big financial mistake when he did not take full financial royalties as lyricist when it was originally offered to him by Bernstein. He said at the time he was so appreciative just to have sole credit as lyricist.

Even Comden and Green seemed somewhat chagrinned not to have had that one hit that runs for year and becomes a huge international success.

The world of opera might form a good comparison with this Sondheim revival discussion. For example, Richard Strauss's most popular work is Rosenkavalier and that's the one that is still performed the most around the world in opera houses, probably. Salome and Elektra follow, and so on. But today, even the big houses will do an Arabella, Daphne, Intermezzo, Das Liebe der Danae or all those ones that were dismissed as minor/not top tier Strauss in his lifetime. Same with the lesser works of Puccini, Verdi, even Mozart, and the rest of them. So with Sondheim, I expect. I agree wholeheartedly with r295. Sondheim will continue to be performed because for musical theater directors, producers, actors, and musicians, he provides the richest material and opportunity to re-envision and re-interpret his works. He is a giant and performers will want to keep exploring all his work for as long as musical theater exists. So, yes Into the Woods and Sweeney the most, and so on. But Passion and Pacific and Assassins and maybe even Bounce (shudder) will still get done in the future.

Oh, and I agree with r341, I cringe every time the witch "raps".

Comden and Green's work was mostly very average.

The Cort, a Shubert theater, is being renamed for James Earl Jones, which is just wonderful.

The Nederlander Organization says it will do the same--name one of its theaters for a Black theater artist. I think it's fun to think who that would be--especially if they chose a Black woman.

I think Lorraine Hansberry is the obvious choice. Cicely Tyson. Who else?

Meant to add the link, sorry.

Sondheim as composer and lyricist had 3 'hits' in the sense that they were popular successes in their initial Broadway run- Funny Thing, Company and Night Music. And of the 3 I would gather the only one to be a sold out smash when it first opened was Funny Thing. Though I'm not even sure about that. I believe it has been said that even the original WSS and Gypsy were not difficult to get into as opposed to The Sound of Music.

[Quote] A patter song is not the same as rap

Well, Joe Tex felt emboldened to call his 1972 album "From The Roots Came The Rapper." Before party rap and hip hop, that's what rapping was.

I would think the most obvious choice would be Ethel Waters. And even above Jones I would place Paul Robeson.

Dee Dee West and proud of it.

I'm the waiter Phyllis tries to fuck. Has an actor ever sounded str8 while playing this role?

Which of the Nederlander houses will get the rename? Especially since so many of them are already named-or-renamed after people.

[quote]And who in the 1970s would have thought Chicago would have totally outlasted A Chorus Line?

A Chorus Line remains stuck in the '70s. Chicago's inspiration is a 1926 play that had topical themes. Those particular themes don't ever seem to *not* be topical.

There will be literal violence if one of the leads in the Merrily revival isn’t a woman of color.

And just a black Gussie won’t do.

Lindsay Mendez is, in fact, a POC.

Whoa, Black Gussie... (Bam-ba-lam)

Lorraine Hansberry had one great show. Oscar Hammerstein had maybe a dozen or more, but he doesn’t get a theater?

[quote] The film soundtrack of West Side Story is the best selling LP in the US. And of course it is a huge international bestseller.

The film soundtrack of WSS doesn't even come close to being the best selling album in the US. It's The Eagles Greatest Hits 71-75, followed by Thriller, followed by Hotel California, followed by Back in Black by AC/DC.

[r360] yes but Lorraine threw the first brick! So…. she deserves a theatre and to be anointed as deity

Hit it, Lorraine!

Julian Ovenden's version of Being Alive is impressive.

It's strange. I usually like an old timey singing style. But Ovenden's doesn't work me. It seems affected.

" I think he was very much a composer/lyricist of his time and that does not bode well for his longevity"

Nonsense. Sondheim's compositional style was an extension of where Bernstein left off: elevated, "composed," theatrical, with a sophisticated musical syntax. Given his love for the French Impressionists, his output might not have stood the classical world on its ear. But in a populist entertainment like the Broadway musical, it was innovative. And compared to the amateurish, infantile dreck that currently graces our stages, his technique remains, as it was during most of his career, ahead of the pack. Just because dumbed-down, musically illiterate audiences don't/won't/can't appreciate it is their (and our culture's) problem, not Sondheim's.

R356 they weren't considered topical in 1975. Audiences and critics both hated the show. The tide turned in 1992 when LBCLO did the show and performances were cancelled one night because of the Rodney King riots.

"It's The Eagles Greatest Hits 71-75, followed by Thriller, followed by Hotel California, followed by Back in Black by AC/DC."

How sad...and predictable. Never underestimate the taste, etc.

Ok i was wrong. This is what I read- Released in 1961, the soundtrack spent 54 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's album charts, giving it the longest run at No. 1 of any album in history,

Still very impressive.

[quote]they weren't considered topical in 1975. Audiences and critics both hated the show.

Saw both Chorus Line and Chicago in 1975. Loved Chicago. Liked Chorus Line.

Was Marni Nixon credited on the album?

R359, you made me lol

If there's one thing I love, it's a Gilbert and Sullivan rap song.

Break on the breakdancing little mates from school!

R366, I love when Sondheimites insist he was so ahead of the pack when popular audiences in the 70s and 80s did not respond to his work. If he's so ahead of the pack, his earlier works would have found greater favor with audiences in the future and they have absolutely not. His last hit was 1987 with ITW and his last Broadway show was a resounding flop, although some Sondheimites still insist it was a masterpiece that was above the heads of the audience.

I think you just like typing Sondheimites.

Wasn’t To Kill a Mockingbird supposed to reopen by now?

[Quote] G. Kinnear studying my lines

With J. Elfman.

I just saw Ethel Shutta in an episode of Wagon Train on ME Tv. She didn't dance.....in fact she was insufferable and her bonnet was an ugly one.

{quote}I think you just like typing Sondheimites.

Didn't that star Sharon McNight?

2014's INTO THE WOODS (one of his least appealing shows and scores, IMO) but in any event, Oscar nominee in three categories.

Enough said.

"Sondheimites."

Is that anything like catamites?

2007's SWEENEY TODD, with two Oscar nods and 1 win.

Enough said.

>>Comden and Green's work was mostly very average

They wrote a whole lot, so, maybe. But ON THE TOWN, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, WONDERFUL TOWN, BELLS ARE RINGING, and the underrated HALLELUJAH, BABY! -- that's an excellent pile of work. Actually, I think their worst is "average."

[quote]they weren't considered topical in 1975

Oh that's right, r367, 1975 was the one year where there was no crime and corruption in this country. Not every critic disliked the show and it did get a two year run. The cynical aspect of the show wasn't for everybody and ACL was a juggernaut that stole any thunder that Chicago might have had otherwise.

Gwen and Chita didn't look so hot in those costumes, which was probably the point. The revival looks cheap but sexy.

History goes in directions that artists can’t predict. In 1975, confessional art seemed the way forward - rejecting the constraints of uptight America. Michael Bennett could hardly have foreseen the cynical backlash of the 80s that would make Chicago more relevant.

Hamilton may find itself the victim of change in both right wing and left wing ideology. During the pandemic, many leftists turned against Hamilton because it simply reinscribed American political mythology.

R387 and that's the exact point Sondheim was trying to make about his own work.

First time I've ever heard HALLELUJAH, BABY "Underrated." The book stinks.

Wonderful Town and Bells Are Ringing are both second rate.

Eh, they made people laugh, had happy endings and were led by movie stars. Sometimes that's enough.

Trouble at "Funny Girl"?

It's over. Quit beating a dead beanie.

Is no one mentioning the fact that Sondheim almost always dealt with really uncomfortable themes in all of his shows? Even his more accessible shows like Into the Woods deal with some really dark stuff.

Even something like Gypsy might have one of the greatest scores in Broadway history, but what it's trying to say has never sat well with most audiences who usually go to a musical to have a few laughs and leave smiling. Every now and then, he dipped his toe into more crowd pleasing shows. I do think Forum and Company are both really funny with the right production, but even Company has a cynical edge that puts some people off.

He just wasn't for everyone and never will be. A lot of people don't like confronting subject matter like this. That said, his work will most certainly live on. Some more than others.

[quote]Wonderful Town and Bells Are Ringing are both second rate

The problem, r390, is that they were star vehicles carefully tailored to the specific talents and personalities of two beloved actresses.

[quote]The fact that Beanie was ignored is really criminal: she’s excellent and deserved the nomination.

So that article at R392 was written by Rex Reed under a pseudonym?

[quote]It's strange. I usually like an old timey singing style. But Ovenden's doesn't work me. It seems affected.

Yes, I don't understand why he decided to sing "Being Alive" in the style of Rudy Vallee.

None of the ghost singers were credited on the "West Side Story" soundtrack, R371.

[Quote] Old timey?

Yes. I particularly don't like his vowels. "Ever frands"?

Comden and Green also wrote the wonderful The Band Wagon and It's Always Fair Weather. When I was a boy the films they had written watching them on TV defined New York for me. Of course by the time I was able to go in on my own it was the NY of Panic in Needle Park. Still for a mid 20th Century view of NY I always feel that was the best place to be ever. And it seems the old people I knew most of them now dead for them that's the way NY really was. Walking around the city late at night without fear. Going to the midtown movie palaces to see the newest hits and the big bands and best singers on stage between the movies and then the golden age of Broadway. They said that's the way it was and that's the way it should be. Not really golden you just expected it to be that good.

THEATRE GOSSIP #471: TL;DR Diarrhea of the Keyboard Edition

Audio of Pam Anderson doing Roxie. Thoughts (when you’re done queensplaining Sondheim)?

Forget about Pam, that audience at Chicago ought to be shot.

[quote]Lorraine Hansberry had one great show. Oscar Hammerstein had maybe a dozen or more, but he doesn’t get a theater?

He'll have to settle for a ballroom.

I Had a Ball...room!

[quote]Forget about Pam, that audience at Chicago ought to be shot.

You begrudge an audience for enjoying themselves, that's why to go. But it also explains why "Chicago" is still running,, you can cast C list and Bumfucke Housewives and keep the show going. Try casting Pam Anderson as Cassie and see what you get. "Chicago" is fast food, "A Chorus Line" is fine dining

[quote] "A Chorus Line" is fine dining

The revivals would beg to differ

[quote] You begrudge an audience for enjoying themselves, that's why to go.

There's enjoying yourself and there's being an audience member at a taping of Married With Children. Lately it seems Broadway audiences can't tell the difference.

Harvey promoting Julie benko promoting his book. I bet he’s had it with beanie

That's fabulous, r409.

It would be cute if Harvey wasn't an insufferable asshole.

Harvey should step in as Mrs Bryce.

Wow, r409 - that seems pretty clear. Harvey has taken a stand. As far as he is concerned, Fanny is Julie Benko.

Harvey doesn't give a fuck about anything but the check.

Love this

r375

There’s just no way to say it, other than…

you’re common as dirt.

Audiences flock to MAMMA MIA. MAMMA MIA is a huge piece of shit.

The Sondheim canon is filled with brilliant wordplay, compositional rigor and brilliant dramatic storytelling.

You won’t find that in Wicked, you pedant.

Gott in Himmel!

backwards

[quote] The Sondheim canon is filled with brilliant wordplay, compositional rigor and brilliant dramatic storytelling.

But, if no one goes to see it and hear it, it was made simply to display Sondheim's wordsmanship and bankrupt the producers.

You can bet Pamela Anderson will be presenting at the Tony Awards.

[quote]You can bet Pamela Anderson will be presenting at the Tony Awards.

Definitely. Maybe she'll also be handing out one of the awards.

Hasn't everyone already seen what she's presented?

What's the word on the "Devil Wears Prada" musical? Elton John is back, bitches!

Oooh, triggered R416. In case you were unaware numb nuts, Mamma Mia is a hit because it's based on hit songs that people enjoy listening to, things Sondheim has never and will never have. But of course that's too basic for Sondheimites to understand. Thanks for playing, doll!

R424 So, you just want to be blocked, huh? Cause you seem twiggered. And sad.

[quote]R172 David Carroll sang everything beautifully. What a voice. And what a loss.

I wonder what the production of La Boheme he did with Linda Ronstadt was like.

Is that your answer R425? My response was that people enjoy listening to music they like when they go to the theater and Sondheim doesn't fit into that category. You can block me now.

[quote] I wonder what the production of La Boheme he did with Linda Ronstadt was like.

I have seen some rehearsal footage of it and both he and Ronstadt sounded wonderful. I couldn't really get an idea of the production from that, though.

^^ thank you

Give a listen...

Every few threads the Anti-Sondheim nutters (or nut, for all we know it's just the Loon) have to emerge to squawk "Sondheim isn't popular!" and "His shows all lose money" and yet...

Every day his shows are still being produced all over the world. And, albums sold and his songs sung by singers.

And, in 50 and a hundred years, that'll still be the case.

Howard McGillin was also quite excellent in that production of La Boheme. I believe it was his first big role in New York before he hit it big with DROOD and Anything Goes.

Just saw him at 54 Below not too long ago and he's still got the pipes!

That La Boheme audio is so interesting. The romanticism is taken down a notch for me because the translation sounds so straightforward. But good for them for stretching themselves and trying something new!

That happens in this English language performance of Puccini, too. The lyrics just don’t have any magic:

Since when does being warm in an interview make you a good actress?

R406 is a dumb post. There are hundreds great actors who can’t play Cassie in A Chorus Line. When did Cassie become the benchmark for great acting? Chicago is a fantastic show. You can always throw a C-lister into the role of Zach in ACL by the way.

[quote]You can always throw a C-lister into the role of Zach in ACL by the way.

I prefer to think of myself as B-list, thank you very much.

But I’ve got an A-list ass.

Pam is no Melanie Griffith. You can tell every line has been "set" and she still stumbles over her words.

[quote] Every few threads the Anti-Sondheim nutters (or nut, for all we know it's just the Loon) have to emerge to squawk "Sondheim isn't popular!" and "His shows all lose money" Every day his shows are still being produced all over the world.

Sondheim was a big hit at the Bremerton Community Theater. We actually sold 50 tickets!!!

r434, no one ever said being "warm in an interview" made one a good actress.

What was said was that Katrina's warmth in interviews, specifically on the Company documentary, showed that she could and should be good casting as Bobbi and her "cold and distant" performance in the show was NOT due to miscasting but to misdirecting. Now, whether or not she has the notes is another issue but then I would say she was not miscast but simply doesn't have the specific talent to do the role justice.

Is that Zero Mostel in the Gianni Schicchi clip at r433?

Andre deShields sang “Believe” from The Wiz rather than giving a curtain speech at his final performance of Hadestown. How very creepy and arrogant of him. I guess in his deluded mind thanking the cast, crew and front of house staff like Rob McClure did at Mrs. Doubtfire just wouldn’t have sufficed. Asshole.

[Quote] Now, whether or not she has the notes is another issue but then I would say she was not miscast but simply doesn't have the specific talent to do the role justice.

DEFINITION FOR PEDANTIC (1 OF 1) adjective ostentatious in one's learning. overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching.

When I look back at the most fulfilling times I've had watching a Bway show, rarely, if ever, is it watching a Sondheim show (although the last Forum decades ago was lots of fun).

I absolutely adore Sondheim but there's only so much lecturing I can take after a hard day at work. Most audience members feel that way.

Sure that leads to alot of "junk" like Mamma Mia being hugely popular, but if we hate the popular shows, we have to wonder what the point of Bway is really supposed to be.

Sondheim is an acquired taste. His songs do not have the universal appeal of say a Jerry Herman.

DEFINITION FOR BLOVIATE (1 OF 1) verb (used without object), blo·vi·at·ed, blo·vi·at·ing. to speak pompously.

R444, interesting that, after seeing the latest Hello Dolly! revival with Midler, Herman's songs come off pretty dated too.

R446, Hello, Dolly! is a period piece, genius.

[quote] Sure that leads to alot of "junk" like Mamma Mia being hugely popular, but if we hate the popular shows, we have to wonder what the point of Bway is really supposed to be.

The popular shows fund the experimental shows. Hamilton got a lot of little theater produced.

Hamilton also isn't junk

Quentin Lett's is an odious piece of right wing shit, but this is amusing about the Open Air Legally Blonde

[quote]Moss, seeking new political relevance, has cast fuller-bodied, nonbinary actors and turned the whole thing into a relentlessly zingy assertion of minority pride. Fellow fatties of the world, first we take Harvard, then we take Brenda Hale’s old seat on the Supreme Court. ... The stage’s superstructure wobbles under the weight of the company’s loosely choreographed gyrations.

Which caused this tweet from the theatre:

[quote]We expect that everyone comments with respect and sensitivity, and those who decide not to will no longer be invited back to our theatre.

And yes, most other reviews were positive, which is mind-boggling

[quote] Hello, Dolly! is a period piece, genius.

As if the song Hello, Dolly! was written to mimic 1890's music. Please.

DL's resident asshole is alive and well, unfortunately, at R451.

R452, if telling the truth and calling out stupid posts make one an a-hole, so be it.

I saw the Regent's Legally Blonde. Shite.

R443, what you *don’t* enjoy doesn’t say a lot. What are these “most fulfilling times”?

Maybe Andre thanked the cast, crew and house staff privately? Maybe singing If You Believe was his way of expressing love and gratitude? Not everything has to be a public display. Andre is pure class and loved by everyone. Plus at this point in his life and career he’s earned the right to do whatever the fuck he wants.

The score to Hello Dolly is endlessly joyous, The original obc is one of the very best. The show and score is still beloved.

Ok I'm old. But the original productions of the Sondheim/Prince shows were about the most fulfilling theatrical experience one could have. They were on a level with the Ingmar Bergman productions out in Brooklyn.

Sometimes I think the original Pacific Overtures might be the best thing I've seen in my life. Friends I went with we still talk about it as a defining moment in our lives. Of course when I go see a revival of one of those shows(I've stopped going) I've been bitterly disappointed.

Jesus Christ 'are still beloved.'

Will Beanie give her notice soon?

Notice to munch?

Andre Deshields curtain call at his last Hadestown performance.

Absolutely a class act

"But, if no one goes to see it and hear it, it was made simply to display Sondheim's wordsmanship and bankrupt the producers"

As Sondheim himself wrote in FINISHING THE HAT: I saw a picture of the Statue of Liberty. It was a picture taken from a helicopter and it showed the top of the statue's head. I was amazed at the detail there. The sculptor had done a painstaking job with the lady's coiffure, and yet he must have been pretty sure that the only eyes that would ever see this detail would be the uncritical eyes of seagulls. He could not have dreamt that any man would ever fly over this head and take a picture of it. He was artist enough, however, to finish off this part of the statue with as much care as he had devoted to her face and her arms and the torch and everything that people can see as they sail up the bay. He was right. When you are creating a work of art, or any other kind of work, finish the job off perfectly. You never know when a helicopter, or some other instrument not at the moment invented, may come along and find you out."

Man, I wish I knew you in real life, r457! My brutha!

Actually, r462, that Statue of Liberty story was told to Sondheim by Oscar Hammerstein; Sondheim repeated it fairly often but wouldn't have claimed it as a personal experience.

Any musical with actual melodies is outdated. We go for tuneless dirges now.

[quote]"Chicago" is fast food, "A Chorus Line" is fine dining

Oh, honey . . . Outback isn't a great steak house.

There's a place for Sondheim and a place for light fluff. I enjoyed the last revival of Hello, Dolly just as much as I enjoyed several productions of Sweeney Todd or Follies. They hit different parts of the mind and soul. What's dangerous is only having fluff. There needs to always be a balance and, these days, the fluff is outweighing the stuff with real substance. The same thing is happening with the movies. The only ones going to theaters are the comic book movies or reboots of established franchises. At least a lot of TV and streaming still takes some risks.

There's a place for Sondheim Somewhere a place for Sondheim A time for an internal rhyme Wait for us, Sondheim There's a time for Sondheim Someday a time for Sondheim With a bad book, but clever lyrics to spare Come, take a look, try to care Sondheim! Sondheim!

[quote] "Chicago" is fast food, "A Chorus Line" is fine dining

And yet I enjoyed Chicago 20x more than I did ACL

[quote]There's a place for Sondheim Somewhere a place for Sondheim A time for an internal rhyme

Parody lyrics that don't fit the original melody are always a bust.

[quote]Parody lyrics that don't fit the original melody are always a bust.

Cunts like you are tedious.

Just trying to be helpful, R471.

Ticketing Alert from Funny Girl

[quote] So is it "official" that Beanie is no longer doing matinees, or is that just the haters wishing.

According to the website bot, r297:

[quote] While we understand its importance, we are unable to guarantee the presence of any particular cast member for a specific show. We can confirm that all of our principals (including Beanie) are scheduled to perform all eight (8) performances a week barring an unforeseen absence. However, Beanie does have a pre-scheduled vacation August 26 through 28. All of our principal cast will be with us through the entire summer (at a minimum)!

So she'll be gone at the end of the summer?

I think the show might be gone by the end of summer.

Is Beanie really that popular that she can still fill the theatre night after night?

r477 see r473

Beanie’s AND Julie’s pussies stink.

By July 4th Funny Girl will have exhausted all of those crazed and indiscriminating young fans of Beanie's and the show will fold by Labor Day. Probably with Julie Benko playing Fanny.

Is Jane Lynch still playing a Maine lighthouse keeper in Funny Girl?

This is a great story:

R461, this story talks about how De Shields has been "thriving" while living with HIV for over three decades:

Shhhh. You'll trigger the "Andre De Shields has facial wasting" troll, R483.

THIS DAY IN BROADWAY HISTORY: In 1982, "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

is r441 the worst person here?

And she was gone when Autumn came, r475.

They didn't believe her.

Well, no one can ever say Glenn’s voice got worse as she aged after viewing that unfortunate ancient clip.

It's not whether Hello, Dolly was written as a "period piece," but rather that the song is NOT inappropriate for the period in which it's set...unlike the majority of contemporary scores, which resort to lazy, pedestrian pop-rock styles, regardless of period, place or people.

A defining moment in your lives r457? One “Mary!” seems hardly sufficient.

"A defining moment in your lives [R457]? One “Mary!” seems hardly sufficient."

Yes, a "defining moment." When an experience--such as the Eiffel Tower, or the Grand Canyon or Anna Karenina or Les Demoiselles d'Avignon or Citizen Kane or, yes, Pacific Overtures---overwhelms you with such beauty, intelligence, poetry, passion and power, it lingers in your memory for the rest of your life. You're right--only five "MARYS!!!!!!" would suffice.

What the F do you care, R492, if Overtures was a big deal for him? Maybe he's a composer or a playwright. Or an actor. I remember the first time I heard Le Sacre, first time I saw Dennehy on stage. Art can change one's life!

I think it’s obvious what happened with Funny Girl

1) Michael Mayer dug a grave by casting Beanie. Whoever funded that decision is responsible with Michael Mayer for ruining the legacy of a beloved show

2) Beanie truly believed it was her destiny to play the part and I think she was genuinely shocked by the reviews and lack of award nominations. Like American Idol contestants, nobody along the way told her the truth, so the reality of the situation was humiliating to the point that she lost interest quickly.

3) Julie Benko is not a star, but she’s better than Beanie and has a great attitude, so people are trying to create the narrative that she’s a “star is born” even though she’s not really talented enough to warrant the claim. This isn’t Sutton Foster in Millie replacing Erin Dilly. This is a competent performer playing a role a little better than an incompetent star.

4) Jane Lynch was cast because of her name. Playing the role as an old lady who’s dentures don’t fit, wasn’t a great choice. She was equally upset by the lack of nomination, but is a pro, and doesn’t let the disappointment ruin her performance.

A beloved show that has hardly been done since the '70s?

"What the F do you care, [R492], if Overtures was a big deal for him? Maybe he's a composer or a playwright. Or an actor. I remember the first time I heard Le Sacre, first time I saw Dennehy on stage. Art can change one's life!"

Irony is wasted on you, r493.

[Quote] people are trying to create the narrative that she’s a “star is born” even though she’s not really talented enough to warrant the claim.

Sounds familiar.

Beanie's fate is the natural consequence of a childhood full of participation trophies.

True R498. As I asked in a previous thread, what will her Participation Tony look like?

Melba

"Aurora Spiderwoman" has clips of the original cast of "Grand Hotel" up on their youtube channel.

(You just know that the whole performance exists somewhere)

It includes all of David Carroll's big numbers.

Nene leaks is available for Funny Girl. Shed be a great Fanny Brick

R502. I’m holding out for her Momma Rose

[quote] people are trying to create the narrative that she’s a “star is born”

Who is doing that? No one.

[quote] Nene leaks

Does she? Oh, dear.

[quote]Who is doing that? No one.

Exactly, r504.

I love the fights over fluff v substance

[r504] [r505] if you follow theatre Twitter or the chat boards it’s all about how Benko is a “star”

Yes Pacific Overtures at the Winter Garden was something I will never forget. Just think of one of the best experiences you ever had watching a film or piece of theater. Something that truly shook you up and at the same time left you in a state of wonder like nothing had before or since. That wasn't a defining moment in your life? Well then nothing you have ever seen has transported you and left you stunned.

I'm sure it is, r507. But we really haven't done the star is born thing on DL. Benko should get a nice boost to her career and it's given her some visibility, but Shirley MacLaine star level? No.

I saw PACIFIC OVERTURES twice during its original run at the Winter Garden Theater – once during previews and once near the end of its run. Like some others have said, it was an incredible theatrical experience. Not without flaws, but so complex and beautiful and beyond anything that Broadway was offering at the time. Sondheim did his homework. As did Boris Aronson (his last show).

There’s one unscripted moment that I will never forget. It happened during the preview performance. I’m not sure which scene it was, but that particular set consisted of a beautiful blue backdrop painted in a very Japonesque way with hints of clouds and birds and sky and Japanese lotus trees - almost like a mural. In front of the backdrop was a large piece hanging from the rafters with an array of kites with long, flowing tails floating in the air.

When the scene ended, the backdrop and the kites were supposed to fly up into the rafters, but on this occasion, one of the kites hit something as it was ascending, and it broke away and began to fall to the ground. As it did, the corner of the kite - where the tail would meet the body of the kite – hit the top right corner of the backdrop, and like a slow-motion samurai wielding the sharpest of swords, began to slice the painted scrim diagonally down to the left bottom. The sickening sound was that of cloth slowly ripping.

The audience (including me) gasped in horror as it happened. I remember a stagehand appearing from the wings and looking up to see if anything could be done, but the kite was on its own, and gravity was its master. It was like watching a masterpiece – like A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - being destroyed right in front of our eyes. But the show continued on as if nothing had happened

Afterward, everyone around me was talking about it, and I expected that there might be a story in one of the papers about it... but nothing.

When I went back to see the show a few months later, I looked to see if the backdrop had been repaired. I looked closely but saw no hint of the slashing anywhere. So I suspect that they replaced the scrim. Either that, or some really skilled person made it like new. I’ve always wanted to talk with a cast member or stagehand to get their recollection and see if it was as vivid for them as it was for me.

R501, Thank you! I adored that production—it has such style and Michael Jeter gave the greatest performance I’ve ever witness on stage

[quote]Benko should get a nice boost to her career and it's given her some visibility, but Shirley MacLaine star level? No.

No, it isn't a "star is born" moment. But I think the overwhelmingly positive response is also a not-so-subtle way of commenting on how underwhelming Beanie is as Fanny and on what a mistake it was to cast her.

I blame Scott Rudin for beanie Feldstein

Could Beanie have been better with a more mature director?

[quote]Could Beanie have been better with a more mature director?

A really good director wouldn't have been much help with her reed-thin, nasal singing voice.

More mature? Mayer is 60+!!!

R516, He just dresses like a twentysomething.

I love these stories about Pacific Overtures! I saw the Doyle production at CSC and it was dismal. Ann Harada was a lot of fun in it though.

R509 I don't think Shirley MacLaine got a big write-up or even really created that much of a sensation, other than giving a good performance and saying "shit" audibly when she dropped her hat during "Steam Heat" at a time when obscenities were rare on Broadway. The big thing with her was that the right person producer Hal Wallis, was scouting Carol Haney for a part in Alfred Hitchcock's new movie and had heard Haney was an unusual type which they wanted for it. Shirley was on that performance. I don't know how long she took over before Haney recovered, but did she really garner much press at the time?

But, after Hitchcock had considered Grace Kelly for the kooky, offbeat movie role (!), Wallis or someone from his office remembered MacLaine and arranged a meeting with Hitchcock. She thoroughly charmed him, and he cast her in her first starring role in "The Trouble with Harry". Haney at least got to do her original "Pajama Game" role on film, but MacLaine's film career took off. It wasn't all this Madeline Kahn/Judy Kaye stuff where both were great (with differences of opinion) or Beanie Feldstein/Julie Benko where Beanie isn't up to the demands of the role and Benko is. MacLaine was in the right place at the right time to be seen by a movie producer to cast her in a role to make an instant star of a natural actress without acting experience.

No they aren't exactly the same scenarios, r519. Nobody said they were. But the MacLaine story is the "star is born" one.

Haney was homely. MacLaine wasn't. The former would never have been a movie star.

Yes, we get the point, r521.

MacLaine was cute. If you see the movie version of "The Matchmaker" where MacLaine played Irene Molly, they really cast a very plain actress to play Minnie Fay to make Shirley look pretty by contrast.

Gwen was quite sexy. Imagine the athletic sex she and Fosse must have had!

Irene Molloy, that is

Shirley and Shirley also did Hot Spell...

[quote] Haney was homely

And Jessie was dressy. What of it?

Shirley & Eileen

I saw "Grand Hotel" in previews and just loved it. A friend knew someone in on the production side, and I'm (just a little) ashamed to say that I stole their passes to the opening night party at some nightclub on West 57th and 11th, I think. Like an idiot, I went really early and no one was there yet. But what I remember so vividly was this film of close-ups of all of the lead characters that was projected on the wall of the nightclub. Tommy Tune probably shot all the close ups for the tv commercial, but none of it that I saw was yet edited, so there was like 5 minutes of close-ups of each lead actor looking into the camera and making different poses and faces. I wonder whatever happened to that footage.

Is it too late to say a "really mature director" wouldn't have cast Beanie to begin with?

I think after FG closes the true story of Beanie's father and brother providing the dough to produce the revival in NY will finally come out. Really, how else do you explain Beanie getting cast from a Zoom audition and with no competition for the role when she can barely sing the score?

And Margaret Whiting sang Hot Spell. Who wrote it?

Is Beanie's father also engineering the dip in box office when The Beanster is out?

Sadly for him, the dip in the box office is beyond Mr. Feldstein's control.

About Mrs. Leslie

"About Mrs. Leslie" is a fun film actually, though it's greatest WTF is how much Robert Ryan really wants to see Shirley Booth in her bathing suit!

[quote]According to Sondheim (in one of the lyrics books, maybe) it was Hal Prince who hated "Happily Ever After," and said if he sat in an audience and heard that song he wouldn't get married for anything in the world. So it was out. It was the more honest ending, but certainly not the most satisfying--notwithstanding that "Being Alive" seems to come out of left field.

If "Happily Ever After" had remained as the last song in that show, that would have been a terrible, boring, anti-climactic ending, because it's so negative and basically just a repetition of things that Bobby has said before. Whereas "Being Alive" starts off with the same ambivalence with a definite nod towards the negative, but then the song becomes very moving as Bobby finally realizes that, when it comes to a committed relationship, the good things are more than worth dealing with the bad ones.

[quote]Oh for chrissakes, [R198]. Carroll's rendition of that song impressed Sondheim. Can you just not leave it at that?

In my opinion, Sondheim had a bad habit in that sometimes, when he would offer praise or criticism, he would go way overboard, and I think this is an example of that. He could have praised Carroll's performance of "Being Alive" without stating that the song never really worked until he did it.

[quote]Ok now I just got the bluray of Flower Drum Song and if you know what's good for you you'll get it without question even if you don't like the movie. You'll never see a better title sequence in your life. Put it on your bluray player, play it on your 4k UHD TV and through your stereo system and wallow in the gloriousness of it all. Between Dong Kingman and Alfred Newman...well I can't even begin.

Agreed 1000 percent. I really enjoy the movie overall, but that main title sequence is indeed glorious.

When I first saw Pacific Overtures it was after it had opened but still very early in the run and I was hearing the score for the first time as was probably most of the audience. Without anybody realizing it except for the conductor the cast got off track in the middle of Someone in a Tree. For the only time in my theater going life the conductor literally stopped the show and you could tell he was talking with the actors. It seemed like a very long time although it was probably like 20 seconds but still the entire audience was suspended in this what the hell is going on silence. It then started up again with the actors on track but we couldn't tell what had happened. It was a new Sondheim show so who could tell if anything was wrong.

[quote]The fact that it's not until Bobby is in the middle of his epiphany that one of the marrieds says, "It's a lot better living it than looking at it!" is an indicator. That should have been said, or better, demonstrated by the couples, at the end of Act 1 and two or three times in Act 2.

Several lines to that general effect are sprinkled throughout the show. I guess you just weren't paying attention.

The original production of Pacific Overtures was proshot for Japanese television. It's on YouTube

[quote]MacLaine was cute. If you see the movie version of "The Matchmaker" where MacLaine played Irene Molly, they really cast a very plain actress to play Minnie Fay to make Shirley look pretty by contrast.

Is that why a very plain actress was cast as Minnie Fay in the Bette Midler "Hello, Dolly!"?

Julie Benko could do Anne or Petra depending on her range (and on whether Petra is going to become the Stella/Marta designated POC role)

In an effort to being more diversity and inclusion to Broadway, the revival of " Pacific Overtures" will have no Asian cast members, since Asians are currently over-represented on the Broadway stage.

I’m thrilled that Pacific Overtures is getting Follies-level love on this thread.

One of the reasons that revivals of it (like revivals of Follies) never really recapture that magic, is simply money. The size of the cast, the size of the orchestra, the breadth of the design. No one will ever invest that much money in such an uncommercial show again, unless it’s something like the NT in London, I suppose.

R490, but the title song of Hello Dolly sounds so completely out of period. Maybe if you do not know music of the early 20th century, it will sound okay.

But it really sounds like 60s Broadway. It is not a bad song, but to claim it is consistent with the period? Pul-leeze

I'm guessing that Sondheim's frequently "overpraising" a production or performance is something all of us do. And I very much suspect that he had no idea that his every utterance would be repeated and dissected by a bunch of loony obsessives (myself included) after his death.

New details are emerging about Matthew Morrison's sudden departure from his judging gig on So You Think You Can Dance.

A source close to the Fox reality show tells PEOPLE that Morrison, 43, was fired from the series "after he had an inappropriate relationship with a female contestant."

"They didn't have sex, but he reached out to her through flirty direct messages on social media," the source says. "She felt uncomfortable with his line of comments and went to producers, who then got Fox involved. He was fired after they did their own investigation."

The source adds that Morrison and the unidentified female contestant "never met up off-set."

"It was just messages that crossed the line," the source notes.

Thank you r547. GOSSIP at last.

I always heard that MM was a real dog in his broadway casts

Plus there was that rumour that he got Finding Neverland because he was fucking Georgina Chapman

"[R490], but the title song of Hello Dolly sounds so completely out of period. Maybe if you do not know music of the early 20th century, it will sound okay."

It sounds (appropriately) like every Tin Pan Alley song of the period: Shine on Harvest Moon, Cuddle Up A Little Closer, Say Au Revoir But Not Goodbye, to name just a few.

[quote] "Chicago" is fast food, "A Chorus Line" is fine dining.

This is just ASTONISHINGLY dumb. Chicago in every way is musically superior to ACL. That’s just a fact. It’s one of Kander and Ebb’s best scores. With a couple of exceptions (At the Ballet, for example), ACL’s score is minor league. The show as a whole is exceptional because of Bennet and the choreography and the originality of the premise at the time, but musically there is no comparison. Really, comparing them is just dumb. They’re two completely different animals.

[Quote] And I very much suspect that he had no idea that his every utterance would be repeated and dissected by a bunch of loony obsessives (myself included) after his death.

Oh, please. You don't think he understood that public comments receive attention? That they become a matter of public record?

Didn’t Gwen and Chita refuse to perform on the Tonys because they were pissed that Donna was nominated in the best actress category when many felt she was featured since ACL is an ensemble show?

[quote] Julie Benko is not a star, but she’s better than Beanie and has a great attitude, so people are trying to create the narrative that she’s a “star is born” even though she’s not really talented enough to warrant the claim. This isn’t Sutton Foster in Millie replacing Erin Dilly. This is a competent performer playing a role a little better than an incompetent star.

EXACTLY

Speaking of going overboard with praise according to Rachel Zegler, Sondheim told her she sings "like a nightingale," which seems completely improbable to me.

Thank you, R552

[quote] He could have praised Carroll's performance of "Being Alive" without stating that the song never really worked until he did it.

I don't know why every one perseverates on how this song is done. It's not like it's every been a disaster--if it's sung remotely well, it makes its point.

Nene leaks sings like a robin

[quote] It sounds (appropriately) like every Tin Pan Alley song of the period: Shine on Harvest Moon, Cuddle Up A Little Closer, Say Au Revoir But Not Goodbye, to name just a few.

"Hello, Dolly" sounds nothing like those.

No, it sounds like "Mame."

Sure it does, r561: 4/4 tempo, preponderance of quarter notes in the tune itself, scalar melody with easy intervals. lightly rhythmic 16-note patterns--yup, all there!

It’s such a hoary cliche, R556. I find it hard to believe Sondheim would have used it in any circumstance.

I completely agree. I'm sure he was kind to her, and even complimentary, but I've never heard anything less Sondheim-like.

However, Sondheim did tell her "it's alarming how charming she sings."

Is Beanie in today's Matinee?

[quote]The title song of Hello Dolly sounds so completely out of period.

I don't hear it. Of course, the song is not an exact recreation of music of the 1890s, but I don't hear anything in it's that glaringly obvious as sounding too modern.

R567, either way, Hello Dolly! was NOT written as a period piece, like someone tried to claim. It sounds dated because that brash Herman style is out of style..

If it weren't for the main character's role, the show would just be presented in Encores, not major Bway revivals.

Is Beanie having breakfast?

Did she really think she was getting a Tony nod for that? She sounds awful.

[quote]I always heard that MM was a real dog in his broadway casts

I've always wondered if MM put out to get cast at Cable in the Lincoln Center SOUTH PACIFIC, seeing as how he really didn't sing the role very well but his body was bangin' at the time. Or maybe at least Bart Sher was sexually enamored with him, even if nothing actually happened. I know Sher is supposed to be straight, but I've never really believed that. I mean, have you ever seen and heard him in video interviews?

Morrison in SP.

r556 It does seem unlikely, but then again it also seems unlikely he would've sent this to Patti

[quote] the not-so-secret Josh Groban Sweeney Todd has achieved the rare feat of being mentioned by both Cindy Adams and Deuxmoi (with a Mrs. Lovett you can B Positive now has some free time).

R568 is a complete and utter moron. Please ignore him.

Mrs. Lovett will be black.

R575, sure, I'd do that...whatever

And, r573, even less likely that Sondheim would give Patti a note with two misspellings and a typed signature. I suppose he might have asked someone else to type it for him, but surely he would have signed it.

The minute Sondheim died, people who knew him but were likely not close friends began making all kinds of claims about their relationships with him. Most of the actual close friends have been pretty circumspect.

EPIPHANY at Lincoln Center...

Not selling well, and last night people were leaving in the middle of the two-hour play, cause it has no intermission. (AMAZING set though. Just stunning.)

FLYING OVER SUNSET, THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, now EPIPHANY... What is keeping LC afloat? These shows are hemorrhaging cash. And all three have had superb production values.

R578, that note is likely an email printout. What are the two misspellings?

R560, but it does sound like "Sunflower."

People can get sentimental as they age, and perhaps Sondheim was one of them. It's entirely possible he wrote that, but we'll probably never know. And I'm sure he was grateful for her contributions to some of his shows.

Just “enhanceing.”

Yes, I thought there was a second typo but I'm mistaken.

Patti said that she found it taped to her door (or her mirror), which doesn't suggest an email printout, but whatever--we'll never know, and he was certainly feeling more mellow toward her in his later years.

R584, it's not addressed to Patti so perhaps it was sent to Bernadette who pasted it on Patti's door. Then Patti cut off the "Dear Bernadette" part.

I regret not having seen the original (or any!) production of Pacific Overtures, one of my favorite Sondheim scores. The Japanese pro-shot version on YouTube is awfully grainy, but it's better than no record at all of the production. (I, too, would love to see the National Theatre do it, but I believe they did it in 1999, so it's unlikely to return any time soon.)

Upthread, someone said the original production was a show they'd never forget. Mine's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby on Broadway. Eight hours long and I would have happily sat through eight hours more.

[Quote] he was certainly feeling more mellow toward her in his later years.

He told her she wasn't a star live on air.

The Life?? Is it because it was the first Broadway show you fell asleep in?

[quote]While I think some of Patti LuPone's behavior has been pretty reprehensible, I highly doubt she would go so far as to make up a fake note from Sondheim.

As for Sondheim's quote about her not being a star, he was trying to make the point that even the biggest Broadway stars are not stars to the general public unless they also have a major presence in film or on TV.

R588, you might want to re-read that post you commented on.

[Quote] he was trying to make the point that even the biggest Broadway stars are not stars to the general public unless they also have a major presence in film or on TV.

He disrespected "Life Goes On." We get it.

I know Audra Ann was on that Medical Practice show but does she really have a major presence in movies and TV? I would argue: No.

Hi, sorry for that weird formatting above. Again:

While I think some of Patti LuPone's behavior has been pretty reprehensible, I highly doubt she would go so far as to make up a fake note from Sondheim.

As for Sondheim's quote about her not being a star, he was trying to make the point that even the biggest Broadway stars are not stars to the general public unless they also have a major presence in film or on TV.

And R591, you're probably joking, but LIFE GOES ON was on the air a REALLY long time ago.

I thought Patti got Sondheim’s not as an email and printed it out so she could put it on her mirror. But that doesn’t explain the misspellings.

thank you r589, now maybe DL can stop citing - on every theatre thread - that comment as something else than what it was.

Well, she said in some recent interview that she found it on her door or mirror. As for the misspellings, maybe he had an assistant type it out for him. It's odd that he didn't sign it, though.

r575's greatest hits:

[quote] R124 has already won Fucking Moron of the Year . . . and it's only May.

[quote] R568 is a complete and utter moron. Please ignore him.

[quote] DL's resident asshole is alive and well, unfortunately, at R451.

and the truly character-defining:

[quote] R52, I saw that production three evenings in a row from the same front row seat. On the third evening, Sondheim was there.

Bea-urkel

BOUNCE!

The Secret Affairs Of Mildred Wild!!

Doctor Jazz!

CARRIE!