Broadway takes a hiatus....

2 On the Aisle will be on vacation for 2 weeks!  Back to live shows on September 14th...In the interim, Jazz 90.1 will be playing two of my previously recorded shows, so tune in anyway! 

Cuz even from afar, I'm saving you a seat...

Easy to Love...Not So Easy to Sing!

In Born to Dance, 1936...Eleanor Powell (singing voice dubbed),

and Jimmy Stewart (undubbed!).

Go figure.

Curtains...A Backstage Musical Mystery "Tour"...a Kander and Ebb Gem from 2007

 "Show People," everybody but David Hyde Pierce who

is soon to make his appearance as Lt. Frank Cioffi.

 Jill Paice and David, "Tough Act to Follow." 

 Jill, David, and Debra Monk.

Curtains' leads: Karen Ziemba, Debra Monk

David Hyde Pierce, Ernie Sabella, and Edward Hibbert.

West Side Story: "The Musical that Broke the Rules"

 Original Broadway Cast Album,

showing Carol Lawrence as Maria and Larry Kert as Tony.

 Rehearsing Cool...Jerome Robbins (center),

and George Chakiris (who was in both the staged and

movie productions) to his left.

 

Jerome Robbins rehearsing

on the streets of New York 

for the movie version...

 

      From the left, Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), Arthur Laurents (libretto)         

Hal Prince and Robert Griffith (producers)

          Leonard Bernstein (music) and Jerome Robbins (choreography).                   

The buildings in the soon-to-be-built Lincoln Center area,

where several movie scenes were filmed.

The area was cleared for Lincoln Center soon after.

Barbara Stanwyck: 1907 - 1990

 From Ball of Fire, 1941, Drum Boogie!

 

From Baby Face, 1933...very pre-code

 Double Indemnity, with Fred MacMurray, 1944

Sorry Wrong Number, 1948

And Big Valley days...1965 to 1969.

Playlist for Sunday, August 24, 2014: My Kinda Show

I'll be going on a little vacation after this week's show, and traditionally before that happens, I do a show chocked-full of my favorites.  Sorry, but I'm sending myself off with a memorable "Bon Voyage"...so we'll start with a rousing gotta-be-Broadway opener, from Sugar, and then launch into some "Cool" from Bernstein's West Side Story. That's probably the only blockbuster in the hour; as you well know, my tastes run toward the quirky. Curtains, Saturday Night, and other lesser knows (that means CULT!) dot the "landscape" this week.

I was never a fan of "Moon River," over-done as it was back in the 1960s, but Audra McDonald's take on this is superb. Ditto Charmian Carr (yup, Liesl in The Sound of Music) and her rendition of "I Remember," from Sondheim's Evening Primrose. And searching for an addition to our Movie Musical Corner, I came across "Drum Boogie," from Ball of Fire, a favorite from way back. I always thought it was Barbara Stanwyck herself, singing along to Gene Krupa's drum boogie-ing.  Nope, she was dubbed! Geez...same with Eleanor Powell in Born to Dance.  What a let down! Well, we can pretend.

Our finale includes "Baltimore," whose men I now MUST avoid, and "The Boy From..."  Never realized vermilion rhymed with Lillian!  


When You Meet a Man in Chicago (Sheila Smith, Ensemble, Sugar)
Something's Coming (Richard Beymer, West Side Story)
Cool (Michael Callan, Ensemble, West Side Story)
The Woman's Dead (Ensemble, Curtains)
Coffee Shop Nights (David Hyde Pierce, Karen Ziemba, Curtains)
That's the Beginning of the End (Elaine Stritch, Stritch)
I Remember (Charmian Carr, Evening Primrose)
Moon River (Audra McDonald, Breakfast at Tiffany's)
Mean to Me (Doris Day, Love Me or Leave Me)
Easy to Love (Jimmy Stewart, Marjorie Lane, Born to Dance)
Drum Boogie (Martha Tilton, Ball of Fire)
I Remember That (Mark Haddigan, Tracie Bennett, Saturday Night)
Baltimore (Audra McDonald, Go Back Home)
The Boy From... (Millicent Martin, Side by Side by Sondheim)

Miss Hannigan...Dorothy and Carol!

 Dorothy Loudon received a Tony for her portrayal 

of Miss Hannigan in the 

original Broadway production of Annie,

1977.

 Here with Sandy Faison, as Grace.

The movie version, done in 1982, 

starred Carol Burnett in the part.

Here with Bernadette Peters as Lily St. Regis,

and Tim Curry as Rooster...

Paul Lynde: 1926 - 1982

Paul was one of the few of the original

Bye Bye Birdie Broadway cast members to 

star in the movie version as well.

Middle photo shows Paul's Broadway MacAfee family,

including Susan Watson (left) as Kim,

and the movie version at the bottom with Dick Van Dyke.

I think the bathrobe was in both productions, too!

Lauren...1924 - 2014

 Harper's Bazaar model at 19,

"To Have or Have Not" star at 20.

 With President Truman...

 "The Big Sleep," with Bogart...

 "How to Marry a Millionaire," with Marilyn and Betty

 Two from "Applause," 1970...

Adams and Strouse...Words and Music

 Lee Adams (with glasses), Clifford Odets, and Charles Strouse

at the piano...is this how they really created "Golden Boy?" 

 Charles...circa 1970.

 Lee Addams, journalism major turned lyricist.

And still going strong! 

Playlist for Sunday, August 17, 2014: A Tribute to Charles Strouse and Lee Adams

If Charles Strouse and Lee Adams aren't exactly household names, maybe they should be.  From Bye Bye Birdie, their first Broadway hit, to that All in the Family theme song (and a lot in between), we've been listening to their music for awhile now! They met at a party...Adams, straight from Columbia University, where he was getting a graduate degree in journalism, and Strouse, a native New Yorker who'd gone the classical music route at Eastman.  And after that party back in the 1950s, they worked together for almost 20 years...

They had their hits (Birdie, Applause, Golden Boy), and their flops (All American, It's a Bird, It's a Plane...It's Superman!)...and Charles would go on to work with other lyricists, like Martin Charnin (Annie), Stephen Scwartz (Rags), and others...but together they were a great creative team, with the ability to write big, bright Broadway.

Favorites on this list? You've Got Possibilities, sung by a young Linda Lavin, the only song to transcend that Man Of Steel musical...and But Alive, with Lauren...such a 1970's feel! Visions of mirror balls, hip huggers, and side burns. And of course The Telephone Hour, from Birdie, which I always pretended to be about THIS Kim, not Kim MacAfee!  Dream on!


Applause (Bonnie Franklin, Ensemble, Applause)
The Telephone Hour (Ensemble, Bye Bye Birdie)
One Boy (Susan Watson, Bye Bye Birdie)
Kids (Paul Lynde, Ensemble, Bye Bye Birdie)
You've Got Possibilities (Linda Lavin, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman)
So Long, Big Guy (Jack Cassidy, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman)
Once Upon a Time (Ray Bolger, Eileen Herlie, All American)
Blame it on the Summer Night (Julia Migenes, Rags)
Let's Go Home (Joanna Gleason, Nick & Nora)
Tomorrow (Andrea McArdle, Annie)
It's the Hard-Knock Life (Ensemble, Annie)
Little Girls (Dorothy Loudon, Annie)
While the City Sleeps (Billy Daniels, Golden Boy)
Don't Forget 127th Street (Sammy Davis Jr., Ensemble, Golden Boy)
Who's That Girl? (Lauren Bacall, Applause)
But Alive (Lauren Bacall, Applause)
Those Were the Days (Jean Stapleton, Carroll O'Connor, All in the Family)

Zero: 1915 - 1977

Born Samuel Joel Mostel...Because of his leftist leanings,

Zero was blacklisted and  spent most of the 1950s unemployed..

it took till 1957 for him to be cast again, 

this time in the film Panic in the Streets with Jack Palance

 With Phil Silvers, Buster Keaton and Jack Gilford in the film version of

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

 With Estelle Winwood (Hold Me! Touch Me!) in The Producers, 1968

 1961...Waiting for Godot, with Burgess Meredith

 In 1943 Life magazine described him as 

"just about the funniest American now living".

An art major, at the City College of New York,

with a part time "gig" as a tour guide at NYC museums...

Zero's banter was more comedic than academic.

Still, he never gave up painting.

An American in Paris: With Oscar!

 With Georges Guetary and Gene Kelly,

and NOT singing "S'Wonderful."

 At the piano for Gene's "Tra La Lah."

1906 - 1972

Composer, conductor, actor, wit.

"Roses are red, violets are blue,

I'm schizophrenic and so am I."

Meet Me in St. Louis...1944

 Judy Garland and Tom Drake

 That "Trolley Song"

 

 That RED dress!  June Lockhart, Judy, and Lucille Bremer

The Smith Family's humble abode.

Judith Tuvim....aka Miss Holliday!

 Two shots from "Born Yesterday,"

the bottom one is the infamous gin game with

Broderick Crawford, 1950.

 In "Adam's Rib," as the desperate wife....Doris Attinger,

1949.

 As part of the Revuers, in the early 40's...

with Betty Comden and Adolph Green (on the right).

 With Dean Martin in the movie version of

"Bells Are Ringing," 1960

1921 - 1965