Elaine May, THE WAVERLY GALLERY (2018)-- This gets the #1 spot because it might be the greatest performance I've ever seen an actor give onstage. The rest will be by year.
Jan Maxwell, FOLLIES (2011)
Danny Burstein, FOLLIES (2011)
Linda Lavin, THE LYONS (2012)
Tracy Letts, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (2012)
Harold Arlen, without question. Some of the others mentioned here are great-- Guettel, JRB-- but there's Arlen and then there are the others.
I also hold the theory that the reason why, unlike lyricists who wrote with multiple partners and didn't become true household names, like Dorothy Fields and Yip Harburg, Johnny Mercer became just that because of his wonderful singing career. He was a chart-topping singer in the 40s and 50s, and had a wonderful way of singing and st
I have nothing but admiration for Hal Prince-- a creative producer who took serious risks. He's perhaps THE most important figure in the history of the American musical in the second half of the 20th Century.
I can tell you one person I don't like though, and their username starts with a "z."
Oh great. More about the greed and egomania of Gerry Schoenfeld, Bernie Jacobs, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Macintosh, and yes, even Michael Bennett. More about how they aided in abetted sucking the risk and creativity out of the Broadway theatre, and their pointlessness of their obsession with the Tony Awards, self-inflicted rivalries and British mega schlock.
They may have made the area safer, but by delousing it, they opened the door for sterile, boring, corporat
Lara Spencer is an untalented, self-satisfied, shrill sh*t head. There. I said it. I have often thought so. She isn't worth anyone's time.
Ballet and dance builds strength and resilience, and of course, ANY creative outlet is important and must be encouraged in children. Someone as vapid as Ms. Spencer wouldn't know that. Or care to know it.
She's been pulling these, er, antics for years, and now it's dangerous. She should have been fired at the photo shoot. I don't buy the "She's not taking her meds" line, either. I have nothing but empathy for anyone struggling with mental illness, but Dunaway's "You must never look at me... You must never wear white... I hate this wig" sh*t seems to fall into the self-indulgent, ego maniacal loony tune category. Again, she's been doing it since
Jul 20
2019, 09:27:18 AM
Miss Lindsey (and Mother's Husband, Mike Pence) are two evil closet cases doing irrevocable damage to this country and its LGBTQ community. This isn't homophobic. It's what these two scumbags deserve. Go LuPone!
He's not wrong. But the revival I really think Andy Hammerstein should call out for being godawful was the last CAROUSEL. For some reason, I'll forgive this OKLAHOMA! easier than the evisceration of CAROUSEL last season.
This OKLAHOMA! is not what Dick and Oscar intended the piece to be, but I still came away admiring certain aspects, particularly the musical treatment (save for the ballet), which was different in sound, but still proved the durability and timelessness of
Viertel's theory, like his book, is glib. And it's time for him to step down from his post as Encores! Artistic Director, too.
The reason why MACK AND MABEL doesn't work and never will work is because the book is terrible-- absolutely slapdash and amateurish. It's amazing that Jerry Herman got such a colorful, characterful score out of it. I think his songs for Mabel are among the finest of his career, and unlike Mr. Viertel, I think "Movies Were Movies" gets
Wow, those pictures of the set model are remarkable. The set finally makes sense to me now.
I think MERRILY is, despite its legend and its wonderful score, an unworkable gimmick of a show, but a fascinating one. Thanks for sharing those links!
Isn't it a shame that a musical written in 1938 isn't "woke" 81 years later? Jeez.
I'm going tomorrow. I'm excited. They don't write charts like Hans Spialek used to, and any chance to restore his work is good enough excuse for a major restoration for me. Spring is here, I hear...
Oh dear. Rob Ashford. What will his direction to the actors be like? Don't pop the neck, Cassie, and wander around aimlessly? His bag of tricks as a choreographer run out after eight bars followed a trip to the chiropractor for his corps. His bag of tricks as a director are non-existent.
I think the original film MUST be somewhere online. I highly recommend close viewing of it once before watching this, but I'd say there's enough humor (and some of the lyric lines are funny-- the coke song is great) for it to be enjoyable with just passing knowledge or just memories of seeing the Stritch segment, etc.
Look, I am typically the perfect rhyme gestapo and still cringe in the theatre at false rhymes and glaring misaccents, but I've mellowed when it comes t
My favorite bit by far was the "harpooned/rooned" diction lesson. Really great stuff, but without knowledge (sometimes shot by shot knowledge) of the original, it'll be lost on most people. But who cares? Most people suck.
I'm the leader of the false rhyme police, but I've been more lenient about it in parody because... it's parody. This is supposed to be a show that closed on opening night, right?
But it would have been nice. However, I'll save my irritation about poor craftsmanship for the score of COME FROM AWAY, etc.
So many cigarettes. Mulaney has got Sondheim down. The real Sondheim makes the exact gesture on the cover of the CO-OP album when he's coaching Dean Jones on "Being Alive" in the control room. Brilliant.
It'll probably only appeal to about 5,000 people in the country (I think a lot of younger theatre fans-- by younger I mean tweens and teens will be absolutely clueless watching it), but that's the brilliance of this series.
While it may be a bit of an ALL THAT JAZZ-retread to focus a bit on CHICAGO (or LENNY for that matter), as Nicole Fosse says in a recent interview piece I read, Bob's movie of his life is definitely "romanticized" to the point where everyone is guilty of screwing him over except the Gwen Verdon character.
And that out of town tryout was uber dramatic. And awful.
