Playlist For Sunday, June 11, 2017: Antoinette Then, Tony Now...

 And as the spotlights dance across the mezzanine, the proverbial (pro-adverbial?) question is "Who will the next winner be?" Yes, it's nail-biting Tony season again, and this year it's almost a horse race. Last year's Hamilton seemed such a shoe-in, it was almost a why-bother event. You KNEW it would scoop every "Best", from Andy's choreography to Daveed's hair. But this year, we have 4 hopefuls: Labrador, a Russian comet-opera, teenage angst, and a Minchin-esque rodent on rinse/repeat. So why NOT celebrate!?

Along with sampling these newbies, who are sure to be presently sweating it out in Nominee Land, we'll spotlight the classic winners of the past (no, not all 68 of them...I had to hand pick). But because I almost always play Broadway At Its Best (not to mention Broadway At Its FLOP!), a lot of these samples you'll already know by heart; you'll be able to sing/tap/emote along to them. But there may be a quiz at the end, so do pay attention. There will be questions about dates. You may need a calculator.  And maps. There will be maps. :)

And then watch the TONYS! You'll be primed!!! 


Another Op'nin (Ensemble, Kiss Me Kate)
We Open In Venice (Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk, Harold
       Lang, Kiss Me Kate)
Fugue for Tin Horns (Stubby Kaye, Johnny Silver, Douglas Deane,
       Guys And Dolls)
Shall We Dance? (Gertrude Lawrence, Yul Brynner, The King And I)
Welcome To the Rock (Ensemble, Come From Away)Me And The Sky (Jenn Colella, Come From Away)
Seventy-Six Trombones (Robert Preston, The Music Man)
Who's Got The Pain? (Gwen Verdon, Ensemble, Damn Yankees)
Ti Voiglio Bene/Be Italian (Kathi Moss, Ensemble, Nine)
There Will Be Sun (Ensemble, Groundhog Day)
One Day (Barrett Doss, Groundhog Day)
Letters (Company, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet Of 1812)
What I Did For Love (Priscilla Lopez, A Chorus Line)
Send In The Clowns (Glynis Johns, A Little Night Music)
With One Look (Patti Lupone, Sunset Boulevard)
Embraceable You (Jodie Benson, Harry Groener, Crazy For You)
Hello! (Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad, Ensemble, The Book Of Mormon)
We Can Do It (Nathan Lane, Mathew Broderick, The Producers)
Lost And Found (Rachel York, City Of Angels)
Circle Of Life (Tsidii Le Loka, Ensemble, The Lion King)
Falling Slowly (Steve Kazee, Cristin Miloiti, Once)
Flying Away (Sydney Lucas, Beth Malone, Emily Skeggs, Fun Home)
You're A D'ysquith (Jane Carr, Bryce Pinkham, A Gentleman's Guide
       To Love And Murder)
Champagne (Karen Olivo, Lin-Manuel Miranda, In The Heights)
Satisfied (Renee Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Su, Lin-Manuel Miranda,
       Hamilton)
Sincerely, Me (Ben Platt, Mike Faist, Will Roland, Dear Evan Hansen)
For Forever (Ben Platt, Dear Evan Hansen)

Definitely MORE than 4 Cohans!

 "The King Of Broadway",

George M. Cohan...(1878-1942).

Composer, lyricist, performer, producer, director...

George started his life on the stage with his family,

The Four Cohans.

He became

"the greatest single figure the American theatre ever produced",

writing/producing (or contributing to)

over 50 musicals.

Below, George and unnamed chorine

attempting to learn that "Cohan style."

 James Cagney did his best to 

imitate that style in Yankee Doodle Dandy,

released in 1942, just after Cohan's death.

Below, with Joan Leslie who played his wife, Mary.

George evidently wanted Fred Astaire to portray him in the movie,

but Astaire turned him down,

saying that his dance style was at odds with Cohan's.

Jimmy was just right. :)

 The Four Cohans were played in the movie by

Jeanne Cagney (Jimmy's real life sister), Walter Huston,

and Rosemary DeCamp.

"My mother thanks you, my father thanks you..."

The Times called it "corking good entertainment",

if a bit dubious biography-wise.

Come 1968, it was time for George M!,

starring Joel Grey, who won a Tony for his performance.

But the production was trashed by the critics:

"The musical is a scrappy, ill-prepared mediocrely written account 

of George M. Cohan...", wrote Clive Barnes.

The choreography (by Joe Layton)

and Joel's portrayal were both praised.

 The Four Cohans, this time around:
Joel, Bernadette Peters, Jerry Dodge, and Betty Ann Grove.

We'll hear Jacqueline Alloway

(next to Joel), who played Fay Templeton,

sing "Mary".

Rose, Mary, Samantha. Tom, Dick and...Lancelot (he likes to dance a lot)!

 The Buffalo Bills Barbershop Quartet

played The School Board in both the original Broadway production

and the movie of The Music Man.

They were winners of the "American Idol" of their day:

The Barbershop Harmony Society International Quartet Contest.

They appeared on Arthur Godfrey's radio show,

which is where Meredith Wilson first heard them.

They all had to quit their day jobs and move to NYC,

where they became (overnight!) Broadway stars.

We'll hear them duet with Barbara Cook..."Lida Rose".

 "It's A Jolly Holiday (with Mary)"

Dick Van Dyke as Bert and Julie Andrews as Mary

in Mary Poppins,

which had the music of the Sherman Brothers.

Dick has gone on record,

ruing the day he ever attempted a Cockney accent for this role.

 Robert Morse and his "Rosemary",

Bonnie Scott,

in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying,

a winner for all concerned:

7 Tonys and the 1962 Pulitzer Prize.

 Bing, Grace Kelly, and Louis Calhern (Uncle WILLY!)

in High Society.

This was Grace's final appearance in films;
by the time it was released, she was already wed to 

Prince Ranier of Monaco.

(She wore her engagement "rock" IN the movie!)

Bing was 53, Frank Sinatra was 40...and Grace, a nubile 26! 

We'll hear Cole Porter's "I Love You, Samantha",

which was evidently Tracy Lord's middle name

(who knew?).

 Karen Ziemba, recording the cast album of 

Kander and Ebb's And The World Goes 'Round.

Though never a household name

(well, maybe in THIS household),

Karen has played in A Chorus Line, Crazy For You, Curtains,

I Do! I Do!, won a Tony for her role in Contact,

and has worked steadily on Broadway for many years.

We'll hear her take on "Arthur In The Afternoon".

 Any Tom, Dick or Harry will do!

And these guys are the original set...

Edwin Clay, Charles Wood, and Harold Lang,

vying for the hand of Lisa Kirk in 

Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate.

 A strangely cropped version

of the above folks,

recording the cast album.

I guess they were close.

 Christian Borle and Hank Azaria

assuming 2 of the many roles they played in
Spamalot.

Below, Christian and Hank are French knights #2 and 3,

counting from the top.

Christian (BTW) is up for a Tony next week,

for his role in Falsettos.

We'll hear "His Name Is Lancelot".

Playlist For Sunday, June 4, 2017: A Murray By Any Other Name...

 Mary, Rose, Alice, Johanna. Tom, Dick, Bernie and Bill. I'm up to my old tricks again with a theme for this Sunday's 2 On The Aisle...NAME that tune. Well, not exactly. Just a tune with a NAME in it. Yeah, I know, you're saying when will this woman stop with the cheesey themes??? Never, okay? I like 'em! They're an excellent excuse to jam up (and jelly tight!) songs that would never ever get together. Songs that would (if given the cocktail party opportunity) never mingle, never jostle elbows while reaching for the cornichons, let alone swap napkins, toothpicks, or LinkedIn "Professional Networks". But if you can talk them into appearing on a playlist together, you get some fascinating pairings (like goat cheese with ...uh...prunes!).

Like this little juxtaposition: "Arthur In the Afternoon" (Kander and Ebb), which leads to "Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing In A Hurry (Betty Hutton), which staggers over to "Just One Step" (Jessica Molaskey...screaming at hubby MURRAY!), and ending with Babs & Murray (of Murder For Two) j'accusing each other of doing in ARTHUR Whitney! Man, what a musical mobius strip we weave (when first we try  to make a playlist late at night with anything stronger than Kool-aid).

Enough. Come join me on Sunday; your name might be among the list, and you'll see it as a sign!


Billie/Push Me Around In My Push Cart - Ring To The Name Of Rose
      (Jamie Donnelly, Joel Grey, Ensemble, George M!)
Mary's A Grand Old Name (James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy)
It's A Jolly Holiday With Mary (Dick Van Dyke, Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins)
Little Mary Sunshine (Eileen Brennan, Ensemble, Little Mary Sunshine)
Mary (Jacqueline Alloway, George M!)
Rosemary (Robert Morse, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying)
Second Hand Rose (Fanny Brice)
Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You? (Barbara Cook, The Buffalo Bills,
       The Music Man)
Honeysuckle Rose (Ken Page, Nell Carter, Ain't Misbehavin')
Arthur In The Afternoon (Karen Ziemba, And The World Goes Round)
Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing In A Hurry (Betty Hutton)
Just One Step (Jessica Molaskey, Songs For A New World)
It Was Her (Jeff Blumenkrantz, Murder For Two)
They Call The Wind Mariah (Rufus Smith, Paint Your Wagon)
Mira (Anna Maria Alberghetti, Carnival)
With Anne On My Arm (John Weiner, Gene Barry, La Cage Aux Folles)
Johanna (Victor Garber, Len Cariou, Merle Louise, Sweeney Todd)
Tom, Dick Or Harry (Lisa Kirk, Harold Lang, Ensemble, Kiss Me Kate)
Sam And Delilah (Louise Carlyle, Girl Crazy)
Miss Marmelstein (Barbra Streisand, I Can Get It For You Wholesale)
My Attorney Bernie (Jessica Molaskey, At The Algonquin)
Bill (Anita Darian, Show Boat)
Alice Blue Gown (Debby Reynolds, Irene)
I Love You, Samantha (Bing Crosby, High Society)
Suddenly Seymour (Lee Wilkof, Ellen Greene, Little Shop Of Horrors)
My Name Is James (Paul Terry, James And The Giant Peach)
Drop That Name (Judy Holliday, Bells Are Ringing)
My Name (Danny Seewell, Oliver!)
His Name Is Lancelot (Christian Borle, Hank Azaria, Spamalot)
Give My Regards To Broadway (Joel Grey, George M!)

Broadway Bookends, aka Comets with Tales

 Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet Of 1812 

is a piece of Tolstoy pie,

70 pages from War and Peace, presented as an 

"electro pop opera."

It began life in 2012 with stagings done off Broadway and

in Cambridge, Mass.

It landed on Broadway in 2016...and has received 11 Tony nominations.

Music, lyrics and book by Dave Malloy.

 Starring
Josh Groban (in his Broadway debut) as Pierre and

 Denee Benton as Natasha.

 Lucas Steele as Anatole.

Josh, Denee and Lucas are all nominated for Tonys.

 It's a complicated Russian novel,

everyone's got 9 different names...

hence the "family" tree.

 Dave Malloy on accordian

in the Cambridge production.

 Nicholas Belton as Old Prince Bolkonsky,

is double cast as Andrey.

 At the other end of the Broadway spectrum

is A Bronx Tale,

based on the life of writer/actor Chazz Palmenteri.

It features the music of Al Menken and Glenn Slater,

famous for their Disney scores.

 It's been called a combination 

of Jersey Boys and West Side Story...

and stars Nick Cordero (top center)

Hudson Loverro (the short one), 

Bobby Conte Thornton (above center),

and Ariana DeBose (below center).

 Palmenteri first performed the story as a 

one-man show,

and then Robert DeNiro approached him about making it into a movie.

It came back to off-Broadway in 2007,

and finally morphed into a musical,

launching ON Broadway in 2016.

No nominations, just feel good songs and lots of happy audiences. 

As Charles Isherwood of the Times wrote,

"Sometimes plain old pasta with red sauce is just what the doctor ordered."

Oh! Ah! Ooh! Uh-Oh!

Starting off our theme of 

"OH!",

Alfred Drake as the original Curly in

R&H's Oklahoma!,

here with Aunt Eller, Betty Garde.

Betty was a CBS radio player in the 1930s,

and would go on to do movies

(Call Northside 777, Caged, Queen High)

and television

(The Honeymooners, as Trixie's "maid", The Twilight Zone,

and Car 54, just to name a few).

"Oh, Sing Sweet Nightingale"

from Disney's Cinderella.

Drizella (in yellow) has the first verse,

voiced by Rhoda Williams...

and Ilene Wood, as Cinderella

(she's out back scrubbing the floor),

does the second.

 Gene Nelson and Doris Day

taking off with "Oh Me, Oh My, Oh You"

in Tea For Two, 1950.

This movie marked the first time Doris danced in a film.

Though she tapped with Gene,

her "heart" (in the film, that is)

belonged to leading man, Gordon MacRae.

Bosley Crowther of the NYTIMES wrote, 

"Miss Day and Mr. MacRae . . . complement each other like 

peanut butter and jelly."

 In the "Ah" category, we have

Lilianne Montevecchi,

who sang in the concert version of 

Stephen Sondheim's Follies...

"Ah, Paris!"

 Irving Berlin took his early version of 

Yip Yip Yaphank 

and turned it into 2 staged versions
(and a movie)

of This Is The Army.

We'll hear him singing a solo in

"Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning!"

Am I gonna have trouble with you?

No way, Shirl...

Poor Little Rich Girl, 1936:

Miss Temple was 8 years old

and at the peak of her performing career.

"Oh My Goodness!"

The movie co-starred Jack Haley and Alice Faye,

whose presence in the film was lamented by critic,

Frank Nugent :

  “Short of becoming a defeated candidate for Vice President,

 we can think of no better way of guaranteeing one’s anonymity than appearing in the moppet’s films.”

 "Ah, Sweet Mystery Of Life"

was the signature song of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald.

Originally from Victor Herbert's 

Naughty Marietta, 

it was pilfered for Thoroughly Modern Millie,

in which Angela Christian and Marc Kudisch (below) got to warble it

(that's Sutton Foster sandwiched between them...

unhappily, it seems!).

Couldn't resist the above photo

of another Trevor Graydon III and Miss Dorothy

from TMM, the movie:

John Gavin and Mary Tyler Moore.

Playlist For Sunday, May 28, 2017: Do I Hear An Electro Pop Opera?

Fasten your seat belts, gird your loins, and tuck in that shirt for The Great Comet! Yes, this Sunday we'll be experiencing Natasha (young), Anatole (hot), Mary (plain), Andrey (who's not even there yet!), and Pierre (what about Pierre???). It's been called an electro pop opera, with indie mixing with Russian folk dance, Klezmer clarinet and accordian. Most NY critics are over the moon...tho it takes a real listen. Like fine wine (and me), it may be an acquired taste, that appreciates like your 401k (and me) with time. The first time I inhaled, I exhaled right away. Now...another story.

On the other side of that Broadway coin (remember those subway tokens? I should have my leftovers made into earrings), is the pablum that is A Bronx Tale. Called "a combo of Jersey Boys and Westside Story."  I would add to that list: Hercules, Aladdin, Tangled, and Newsies. There is something so Disney about this score that no matter what the mob gangsters SAY in "Bronx", you know it will be fine in 1.75 hours, Sonny will not be wearing cement shoes, and Disneyland will be establishing a new beach head in Hoboken within the decade. This is movie-treacle Broadway, and it should be torched immediately.

BUT I WILL PLAY IT. Because it's what's happening on Broadway today. But keep listening past those Bronx Tales til Comet! Please!

P.S. Did you like Bette's Dolly efforts? I don't know about you, but I found it lackluster. It just lacked ....luster. No pizazz in Bette's voice. NOT a Broadway voice. Perhaps this is due to a lack of direction during the recording process, and that she is better in person ("Explosive", "Earthquake Insurance" read the reviews), but not here on this recording. A disappointment.


Prologue (Ensemble, Natasha, Pierre And The Great Comet Of 1812)
Oh, What A Beautiful Morning (Alfred Drake, Oklahoma!)
Oh, Happy We (Robert Rounseville, Barbara Cook, Candide)
Oh, Sing Sweet Nightingale (Rhoda Williams, Ilene Woods, Cinderella)
Oh Me, Oh My, Oh You (Doris Day, Gene Nelson, Tea For Two)
Upstairs At O'Neals (Ensemble, Upstairs At O'Neals)
Stools (Bebe Neuwirth, Douglas Bernstein, Richard Ryders, Upstairs
       At O'Neals)
Something (Douglas Bernstein, Upstairs At O'Neals)
Theatre Party Ladies (John Driver, Jeffrey Haddow, Roger Neil,
       Scrambled Feet)
Belmont Avenue (Bobby Conte Thornton, Ensemble, A Bronx Tale)
I Like It (Hudson Loverro, A Bronx Tale)
Out Of Your Head (Bobby Conte Thornton, Ariana DeBose, A Bronx Tale)
The Three B's (Nancy Walker, June Allyson, Gloria DeHaven, Best Foot
       Forward)
The Three Of Us (Michael McKean, The Pajama Game)
Three Friends (Lynne Wintersteller, Sally Mayes, Richard Muenz,
       Closer Than Ever)
Three Coins In The Fountain (Jason Graae, Ensemble, Forever Plaid)
Three Little Maids (Veronica Hart, Alison Jiear, Paulette Ivory, Hot Mikado)
Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning (Irving Berlin, Ensemble,
       This Is The Army)
Oh, My Goodness (Shirley Temple, Poor Little Rich Girl)
Uh-Oh! (Margery Gray, Byron Mitchell, Tovarich)
I Can Do Better Than That (Sherie Rene Scott, The Last 5 Years)
Shiksa Goddess (Norbert Leo Butz, The Last 5 Years)
Goodbye Until Tomorrow (Sherie Rene Scott, The Last 5 Years)
Ooh! My Feet! (Susan Johnson, The Most Happy Fella)
Ooh, Do You Love You! (Linda Lavin, It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman)
Ah! Paris (Liliane Montevecchi, Follies)
Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life/I'm Falling In Love With Someone (Marc Kudisch,
       Angela Christian, Thoroughly Modern Millie)
Pierre (Josh Groban, Natasha, Pierre And The Great Comet Of 1812)
The Private And Intimate Life Of The House (Gelsey Bell, Nicholas
       Belton, Natasha, Pierre And The Great Comet Of 1812)
Natasha & Anatole ( Denee Benton, Lucas Steele, Natasha, Pierre
       And The Great Comet Of 1812)