Playlist For Sunday, June 2, 2024: To bust or not to bust, that's the question!

A rainy Memorial Day, so here I sit inside...kind of content, truth to tell. I snuck (sneaked? sneakered? snacked?) in a quick bike ride early, to avoid the forecasted forecast, but now it's like a free inside day. Am I turning into a rain-loving Otto Bruno? Maybe I'll paint a cabinet, maybe I'll re-binge Ripley...or nap, like a 68,000 year old lady is expected to. Or maybe I'll concoct another 2 On The Aisle playlist.

 

 

But I can't do JUNE. As in Carousel's JUNE. 

Because I never liked Carousel.

Too sappy. If I hear that soliloquy one more time. Clam Bakes. June busting out all over. Mr. Snow. Not for me. Same with most Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. I sorta put up with 'em. Maybe Bloody Mary. Maybe that Goatherd song (once a year). Maybe Something Good (Elaine Stritch's version, less sap). That's about it. Otherwise, all those cowboys and farmers and nuns and Mitzi washing her hair give me headaches. 

 Tra La. It's June. Let's bust out!

ALTHOUGH June IS busting out, at last. And I guess I should play it? ....Nah.

But there is a birthday that we've gotta celebrate: Marvin Hamlisch's natal day is this week. We can't walk by that one (Gosh, "I hope I get it " THIS TIME!) or dance by it, either. Also Marilyn Monroe's BD is June 3. No, she did not do anything on Broadway, but she did "do" Hollywood, and I think she's underrated as a singer. That's my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking with it! 

 

Marvin and Marilyn...just a pair of Geminis.

 

Plus Chicago. It opened 49 years ago (June 3 is its anniversary) and it's still running (and running and running). I guess he really had it coming. The Razzle and the Dazzle are on loop.

 

So give a listen, if you can, come Sunday...enjoy your free inside (or outside) days as we bust out (or not) into June. (Okay, maybe I'll play it NEXT Sunday. But no promises.) Huzzah!

Lazy (Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, There's No Business Like Show Business)

Razzle Dazzle (Jerry Orbach, Chicago)

Roxie (Gwen Verdon, Chicago)

He Had It Coming/Cell Block Tango (Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ensemble, Chicago)

The Column (John Lithgow, Sweet Smell Of Success)

One Track Mind (John Noseworthy, Sweet Smell Of Success)

Welcome To The Night (John Lithgow, Ensemble, Sweet Smell Of Success)

Sunshine, Lollipops, and Roses (Lesley Gore)

The Travelin' Life (Liza Minnelli, Liza! Liza!)

Life Is What You Make It (Johnny Mathis)

A Private Man (Marvin Hamlisch)

Workin' It Out (Robert Klein, Lucie Arnaz, They're Playing Our Song)

Fallin' (Robert Klein, They're Playing Our Song)

They're Playing My Song (Company, They're Playing Our Song)

Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen (Company, A Chorus Line)

I Can Do That (Wayne Cilento, A Chorus Line)

I Hope I Get It (Company, A Chorus Line)

After You Get What You Want (Marilyn Monroe, There's No Business Like Show Business)

River Of No Return (Marilyn Monroe, River Of No Return)

Old Black Magic (Marilyn Monroe, Don Murray, Bus Stop)

Good News, Bad News (Martin Short, Bernadette Peters, Tammy Minoff, The Goodbye Girl)

What A Guy (Bernadette Peters, The Goodbye Girl)

Too Good To Be Bad (Bernadette Peters, Carol Woods, Susann Fletcher, The Goodbye Girl)

Dreamers (Sarah Brightman, Jean Seberg)

Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon, The Spy Who Loved Me)

The Way We Were (Barbra Streisand, The Way We Were)

You'd Be Surprised (Marilyn Monroe)

Heat Wave (Marilyn Monroe, There's No Business Like Show Business)

Bye Bye Baby (Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)

Playlist For Sunday, May 26, 2024: Bibbidees!

Random thoughts: 

1.) George Clooney is coming to Broadway. Sutton's coming BACK to Broadway. Plus 1,700 shows have opened in the last 2 months, just in time to be celebrated (or ignored) by the Tonys. My head is spinning with all the Broadway that I haven't seen or heard. UGH. I can't keep up. I'll definitely watch the Tony ceremonies, but it'll all be NEW to me. 

 

Can you imagine the swarm for tickets?

And the swarm at the stage door?

Ms. Foster will be taking on the mantle

   (and the moat's seaweed)

of Princess Fred, come Spring '25.

2.) It's NOT too darn hot. It's waaaaay too early to start complaining about the heat and the bugs and the weeds. It's embarrassing! After all those months spent complaining about cold? Can't do it. (But it IS rather warm. Like really. I really hate it. Geez.)

3.) I quit the band. Some of you may remember my blithely joining up with the community band out here. Somebody threw me an alto sax and said "You can do it!" and I believed them? I never caught the practice bug, never taught my embouchure to behave, and just basically sucked. So a Quitter am I! UGH. Easier to talk music than make it. (I did learn the Poirot theme song, however. That's something.)

 

4.) All those heroes and villains from last Sunday's 2 On The Aisle has metamorphosed into a Fairy Tale Theme! A Once Upon a Time/Happily Ever After collection, including Shrek, Cinderella, Into The Woods, Mattress...I'll try not to play too many saccharine love songs and Bibbidee Bobbidees, but some WILL appear. Apologies if your teeth start to ache (or your nose starts to grow). What price Broadway, huh?

 

And hey, send me a request or 7! Or toss me theme! I get desperate sometimes, out here sweating in the heat, without a sax, missing the Clooney, and trying to create more wacky 2 On The Aisles for y'all. See ya Sunday. :)

 

 

Once Upon A Time (Maureen McGovern)

Story Of My Life (John Tartaglia, Ensemble, Shrek The Musical)

I Think I Got You Beat (Sutton Foster, Brian d'Arcy James, Shrek The Musical)

What's Up, Duloc? (Christopher Sieber, Ensemble, Shrek The Musical)

The Prince Is Giving A Ball (Ensemble, Cinderella)

Stepsisters' Lament (Brandy Zarle, Jen Bechter, Cinderella)

In My Own Little Corner (Lea Salonga, Cinderella)

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes (Ilene Woods, Cinderella)

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo (Ensemble, Cinderella)

So This Is Love (Ilene Woods, Mike Douglas, Cinderella)

An Opening For A Princess (Company, Once Upon A Mattress)

Happily Ever After (Carol Burnett, Once Upon A Mattress)

Very Soft Shoes (Matt Mattox, Once Upon A Mattress)

Happily Ever After (Craig Lucas, Marry Me A Little)

Pleasant Little Kingdom (Stephen Sondheim, Sondheim Sings, Vol. 1)

Two Fairy Tales (Craig Lucas, Suzanne Henry, Marry Me A Little)

I've Got No Strings (Dickie Jones, Pinocchio)

Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (Walter Catlett, Pinocchio)

Who's Been Sitting In My Chair (Elaine Stritch, Goldilocks)

Be Our Guest (Jerry Orbach, Angela Lansbury, Ensemble, Beauty And The Beast)

Gaston (Richard White, Jesse Corti, Beauty And The Beast)

On The Steps Of The Palace (Kim Crosby, Into The Woods)

Ever After (Tom Aldredge, Company, Into The Woods)

No One Is Alone (Kim Crosby, Chip Zien, Ensemble, Into The Woods)

Some Day My Prince Will Come (Adriana Caselotti, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs)

I Built A Fairy Palace In The Sky (Ursula Connors, Chu Chin Chow)

The Queen Of Terre Haute (Peggy Cass, Fifty Million Frenchmen)

Queen Lucy (Reva Rose, Bob Balaban, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown)

Where In The World Is My Prince? (Faith Prince, Miss Spectacular) 

Friend Like Me (Robin Williams, Aladdin) 

Part Of That World (Jodi Benson, Little Mermaid)

I've Got A Dream (Brad Garrett, Jeffrey Tambour, Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Tangled)

Once Upon A Dream (Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Sleeping Beauty)

Once Upon A Dream (Christiane Noll, Jekyll & Hyde)

Once Upon A Time (Ray Bolger, All American)

Playlist For Sunday, May 19, 2024: Devil May Care!

Okay, I'll admit it. I slept thru the Northern Lights. On the first night (Friday? the 10th?), I totally forgot and went to bed at 10. The second night, I remembered and went to be bed at 9:30. I do have an excuse: Both mornings I had gotten up at 4:30am, so sans a Nap Time, I was comatose by twilight. But now I regret it. All "those photos up on the wall" (Company), this time the wall of FaceBook, and I have nary a one. Ah well...at least I got some beauty sleep, as all around me will no doubt appreciate. (Hah!) 

Yep, missed it!

 

But another week, another theme, right? And this one was simply HANDED to me, from current events (the OTHER less celestial current events)! Bad guys. Villains. Evil Doers. Staring out (or sleeping mid-witness?) from allllll of my screens this week. Fortunately for us, most real life villains don't jump up and sing and dance (cuz they'd for sure be off key and fail miserably at slap ball changes). So I DEFINITELY prefer Broadway Bad Guys. They can hoof. :)

 

That's the theme, Broadway Villains annnnnd Broadway Heroes. Can't have one without the other. Can't have baloney without whipped cream, or so sayeth Moe. And that's easy, too. Plenty of musical champions and their nemesisssses (nemisi?) on the Great White Way. 

 

Mr. Applegate, brought to you by Ray Walston.

 

Bob Holiday as The Man Of Steel!

 

Clive Revill, possibly recording his version of Fagin.

Brian d'Arcy James as good guy Shrek 

(oh, and that's Daniel Breaker as Donkey...who I saw as Aaron Burr in Hamilton!)

 

 

So Superman, Shrek, Mr. Applegate, Ursula, a White Knight, Mordred...that's who's scheduled to appear. Exhortations to Be Good, Do Good, rescue the planet or change the world, along with temptations and poison cake and musical MEANess! The gamut (which I once heard pronounced ga-MUTT. Whatever). 

Take a break from Real Life Bad Un's and enjoy the Villains that can modulate, sing a sneer, and pirouette a threat. And take heart with those Heroes (I need a hero!) lifting us up (wind beneath my wings? Ugh. No.). It'll be fun...on Broadway. 

 

I Wanna Be Bad (Annette Hanshaw)

Captain Hook's Waltz (Cyril Ritchard, Peter Pan)

Poor Unfortunate Souls (Sherie Rene Scott, The Little Mermaid)

Witches' Brew (Leslie Uggams, Ensemble, Hallelujah, Baby!)

I'm A Bad, Bad Man (Ray Middleton, Annie Get Your Gun)

Bad Companions (Nathaniel Frey, Margaret Hamilton, Ensemble, Goldilocks)

Bad (John Behlmann, Shucked)

Reviewing The Situation (Clive Revill, Oliver!)

They Don't Know (Harriet Harris, Thoroughly Modern Millie)

You Can Get Away With Anything (Michael Crawford, The Woman In White)

The Seven Deadly Virtues (Roddy McDowell, Camelot)

Those Were The Good Old Days (Ray Walston, Damn Yankees)

Revenge (Michael O'Sullivan, It's A Bird...It's A Plane...It's Superman)

Dentist! (Douglas Sills, Little Shop Of Horrors)

Think Vulgar (David Ross, Emil Wolk, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)

Be Prepared (Jon Vickery, Lion King)

Hello, Little Girl (Robert Westenberg, Into The Woods)

Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf  (Barbra Streisand)

Zero To Hero (LaChanze, Lillias White, Ensemble, Hercules)

Man Of La Mancha (Richard Kiley, Man Of La Mancha)

My White Knight (Barbara Cook, The Music Man)

It's Superman (Patricia Marand, It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman)

Doing Good (Bob Holiday, It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman)

Being Good (Leslie Uggams, Hallelujah, Baby!)

Be Good Or Be Gone (Cass Morgan, Pump Boys And Dinettes)

Something Good (Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, The Sound Of Music)

Fie On Goodness (Ensemble, Camelot)

Heroes (Janet Dacal, Ensemble, Wonderland)

Who I'd Be (Brian d'Arcy James, Sutton Foster, Shrek)

Be The Hero (Norbert Leo Butz, Company, Big Fish)

There Won't Be Trumpets (Bernadette Peters, Anyone Can Whistle)

Once In A Lifetime (Anthony Newley, Stop The World I Want To Get Off)

One Person (Angela Lansbury, Company, Dear World)

 

 

 

Playlist For Sunday, May 12, 2024: Send A Dozen Gardenias

I lost my mom in 1995. That's 29 years ago. I can't really believe it's been that long. It's not hard to remember her face. Plenty of photos, of course, to help keep her image in mind...from high school age Gerry, to college (cavorting on a dorm roof?), to the mom I remember (she's always 40 years old in my memory banks, wearing a special black number, her hair bee-hived up...and a big rhinestone broach that I gave her for Christmas). She was 70 when she died. That sort of gives me the shivers, because I'm almost that now. 

 

 

Plus I'm living in her house. I've made a lot of changes, kept only a few items of her's, otherwise it'd be like living WITH her. But her recipe notes linger in the old cookbooks, her silverware in the drawer, her teapot, an evening bag...they're here. How long does DNA live? Cuz that's gotta coat a lot of surfaces, despite the errant Bon Amie and Pledge dustings I deign to do.

Keuka girls will be girls!

(That's Gerry on the left.)

Waxing a bit SAD here, and I shouldn't. You'll stop reading! But my guess is you all have similar connections to your moms, and it's bitter/sweet/sad/happy to think about them now.

 

Julie and a "game" lost to time? And it looks like such fun! :)

 

Sooooo ON A LIGHTER NOTE: We'll celebrate Moms AND May (it's a lusty month!), along with a couple favorite shows of mine (hey, I'm a mother, too!), like Life Begins At 8:40, The Drowsy Chaperone, and Me & My Girl. Plus a few comic "interludes". Gotta have comic interludes. 

 Beth Leavel feeling "Drowsy" and 

Robert Lindsay jumping about that lamp post,

in Me & My Girl.

What a cast! Du Barry starred Red Skelton, Virginia O'Brien,

Gene Kelly...we'll hear Salome (new to me!).

 

So tune in if you have a moment, between enjoying some SPRING and honoring that MOM. "Send a dozen gardenias."

 

 

The Lusty Month Of May (Julie Andrews, Camelot)

Mother's Day (Sami Gayle, Emma Rowley, Gyspy)

Motherhood (Carol Channing, Eileen Brennan, Sondra Lee, Hello, Dolly!)

You Remind Me Of My Mother (James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy)

My Mother Would Love You (Ethel Merman, Panama Hattie)

You're A Builder Upper (Christopher Fitzgerald, Jessica Stone, Life Begins At 8:40)

Spring Fever (Kate Baldwin, Life Begins At 8:40)

Quartet Erotica (Brad Oscar, Christopher Fitzgerald, Philip Chaffin, Graham Rowat, Life Begins At 8:40)

If Momma Was Married (Tracy Venner, Crista Moore, Gypsy)

A Mother Doesn't Matter Anymore (Tyne Daly, Bye Bye Birdie)

Mother's Day (Sherie Rene Scott, Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown)

Camelot (Richard Burton, Camelot)

The Simple Joys Of Maidenhood (Julie Andrews, Camelot)

C'est Moi (Robert Goulet, Camelot)

As We Stumble Along (Beth Leavel, The Drowsy Chaperone)

I Am Aldolpho (Danny Burstein, Beth Leavel, The Drowsy Chaperone)

Toledo Surprise (Jason and Garth Kravitz, Company, The Drowsy Chaperone)

Can't Stop Talkin' About Him (Audra McDonald)

Another Song About Paris (Dave Frishberg)

Hiding In Plain Sight (Jessica Molaskey, John Pizzarelli, A Kiss To Build A Dream On)

I'm Hip (Blossom Dearie, Blossom Time At Ronnie Scott's)

Peas In A Pod (Christine Ebersole, Erin Davie, Grey Gardens)

My Best Girl (Frankie Michaels, Angela Lansbury, Mame)

Mama, A Rainbow (Daniel Fortas, Shelley Winters, Minnie's Boys)

Momma Look Sharp (Scott Jarvis, William Duell, B.J. Slater, 1776)

Salome (Virginia O'Brien, Du Barry Was A Lady)

Salomee (Ensemble, Hazel Flagg)

Sam And Delilah (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The Traffic Will Allow)

Me And My Girl (Robert Lindsay, Maryann Plunkett, Me And My Girl)

Once You Lose Your Heart (Maryann Plunkett, Me And My Girl)

Leaning On A Lamp Post (Robert Lindsay, Me And My Girl)

Rose's Turn (Ethel Merman, Gypsy)