Millicent Martin...

Top, far left as part of the 1954 cast of The Boy Friend...with an 18 year old Julie Andrews on the right
Bottom, with David Frost in That Was the Week that Was.

Side by Side by Side

From Company...original cast.  Elaine Stritch is second from the left...Beth Howland and Dean Jones on the right. 

Martin and Bernadette

The Goodbye Girl (the musical)...Martin Short's Broadway debut, with Bernadette Peters.

Lauren Bacall...Applause!

A 1970 Tony for a glittering performance...

Playlist for Sunday, March 2, 2014: Side by Side by Side!

I chose this week's playlist title for many reasons!  First, we're sampling the musical (and lyrical) creations of Stephen Sondheim, opening with that very Company tune: "Side by Side by Side/What Would We Do Without You."  But also (and here comes Reason #2) we'll be playing the lesser known songs "along side" the epic classics, like "A Little Priest" from Sweeney with "It's That Kind of a Neighborhood" from Saturday Night. ANNNND (here's #3) we're also going to hear from that musical revue "Side by Side by Sondheim" that brought a few of these more esoteric selections to mind.  So for all of the above, we'll have a real conglomeration of Sondheim, the known, the almost known, and the WOW, never knew that!!

That includes a little ditty called "The Boy From...," which is a parody of (yes, you guessed right!) "The Girl From Ipanema."  Mary Rodgers wrote the tune for The Mad Show, a little off-Broadway revue from 1966, and Sondheim the marvelously funny lyric.  Millicent Martin (remember her? From That Was The Week That Was and Alfie???) sings in an appropriately sexy, out of breath, pseudo-Brazilian style.  Ai-yi-yi.


Side by Side by Side/What Would We Do Without You (Dean Jones, Ensemble,
                                       Company)
Bring Me My Bride (Ron Holgate, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to
                                       the Forum)
Dirty Old Man (Ruth Kobart, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum)
Back Stage Babble (Len Cariou, Ensemble, Applause)
But Alive (Lauren Bacall, Ensemble, Applause)
Children and Art (Bernadette Peters, Mandy Patinkin, Sunday in the Park with
                                      George)
I Remember (David Kernan, Side by Side by Sondheim, orig. from Evening
                                      Primrose)
A Beat Behind (Bernadette Peters, Ensemble, The Goodbye Girl)
Too Good to Be True (Ensemble, The Goodbye Girl)
It's That Kind of a Neighborhood (Ensemble, Saturday Night)
A Little Priest (Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou, Sweeney Todd)
The Boy From...(Millicent Martin, Side by Side by Sondheim, orig. from The Mad
                                      Show)
***If Time:  All Aboard (John Byner, The Frogs)

Two Kim McAfees...in Bye Bye Birdie

 Susan Watson, age 22...the Broadway Kim. (1960)

Ann-Margret, age 22...the movie Kim. (1963)

Curtains...2007

Karen Ziemba, Debra Monk, David Hyde Pierce, Jason Danieley, Edward Hibbert

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, 2005

Deborah S. Craig, as Marcy Parks (I Speak Six Languages).

Jill Clayburgh

Top, in Pippin with John Rubinstein, 1973.
Bottom, those gorgeous later years!

Beth Howland

Top, Steve Elmore and Beth Howland in the recording studio, Company 1970.
Bottom, Beth as she appeared as Vera, in Alice (1976-1985).

Playlist for Sunday, February 23, 2014: There's No Business Like...well, you know!

Button Up Your Overcoat...well, I HAD to fit that song in sometime this winter, right? It's part of the 1993 revival of Good News, a 1927 musical that inspired two movies.  First sung by Helen Kane (that Boop Boop a Doop Girl), and here performed by Ann Morrison and Wayne Bryan.  And You're the Cream in My Coffee...an oldie but goodie, that mentions my favorite beverage A LOT.

Super favorites in this week's playlist:  Show People, which has wonderful Debra Monk and David Hyde Pierce kvetching at a cast which would rather take the train back to NY than have the show GO ON!...and anything from City of Angels, with that jazzy Cy Coleman music and pithy David Zippel lyrics. 

And hope you enjoy that Liza with a Z opener...Bye Bye Blackbird!  You can certainly hear the Bob Fosse (director AND choreographer of that show) influence in the arrangement ...AND finger snaps! 

See ya Sunday!

Bye Bye Blackbird (Liza Minelli, Liza with a Z)
Show People (Debra Monk, David Hyde Pierce, Ensemble, Curtains)
There's No Business Like Show Business (Ensemble, Annie Get Your Gun)
Marry the Man Today (Vivian Blaine, Isabel Bigley, Guys and Dolls)
If Mamma Was Married (Sandra Church, Lane Bradbury, Gypsy)
Getting Married Today (Beth Howland, Company)
Button Up Your Overcoat (Ann Morrison, Wayne Bryan, Good News)
You're the Cream in My Coffee (Hal Davis, Linda Michele, Good News)
Lost and Found (Rachel York, City of Angels)
You're Nothing Without Me (Greg Edelman, James Naughton, City of Angels)
I Speak Six Languages (Deborah S. Craig, The 25th Annual Putnam County
                       Spelling Bee)
Telly (Paul Kaye, Matilda)
How Lovely to be a Woman (Susan Watson, Bye Bye Birdie)
Kind of Woman (Jill Clayburgh, Pippin)
It Takes a Woman (David Burns, Ensemble, Hello Dolly!)

Sid Caesar, 1922-2014

Howard Morris, Sid, Nanette Fabray, Carl Reiner...

Kim Novak...

Circa Pal Joey, 1957...whatta great shot!

Funny Face...

Audrey was 28, Fred 58...still works! 

Edie Adams...

Top, in Wonderful Town, with Roz Russell.  Bottom, with hubby Ernie Kovacs.

Playlist for Sunday, February 16, 2014: Love is the Reason for it All!

Jumping on the Valentine's Day bandwagon, this Sunday's playlist is all about LOVE.  From the sappy to the sublime, the schmaltzy to the splendiferous, so you can just imagine...We'll hear from the iconic musicals, like Oklahoma, Camelot, and Brigadoon, as well as the also-rans, like Sail Away, Goldilocks and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, cuz they all sing about Love.

I'll try to keep the sweetness level down with a good deal of character songs. So along with "So in Love," from Kiss Me Kate, we'll hear "I Can't Be in Love," from Goldilocks to counterbalance the mood!  Favorite track has be "My Funny Valentine," sung by Kim Novak in the movie version of Pal Joey...she's breathy, she's smoky, she's not a singer.  But she's wonderful.  And remember, this song was actually first sung by a child star, Mitzi Green, in Babes in Arms...because it's a "let's put on a show" musical, and she was singing to her crush, a boy named "Valentine!"  But you already knew that, right?

OXOX, Me!


Love is a Many Splendored Thing (Ensemble, Forever Plaid)
Love is the Reason for It All (Shirley Booth, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)
She Loves Me (Daniel Massey, She Loves Me)
A Little Bit in Love (Edie Adams, Wonderful Town)
I Am in Love (Peter Cookson, Can Can)
I Can't Be in Love (Don Ameche, Goldilocks)
You're Just in Love (Ethel Merman, Russell Nype, Call Me Madam)
People Will Say We're in Love (Alfred Drake, Joan Roberts, Oklahoma)
So In Love (Patricia Morison, Kiss Me Kate)
I Loved You Once in Silence (Julie Andrews, Camelot)
He Loves and She Loves (Fred Astaire, Funny Face)
My Funny Valentine (Kim Novack, Pal Joey)
Almost Like Being in Love (Gene Kelly, Brigadoon)
Beatnik Love Affair (Grover Dale, Sail Away)
Lovesick (Sherie Rene Scott, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown)
Love is Here to Stay (Bobby Short, K-RA-ZY about Gershwin)
Love Sneaks In (John Lithgow, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)
Prisoners of Love (Ensemble, The Producers)

Le Jazz Hot!

Julie Andrews...the Victor part of Victor/Victoria!

Ethel and Irving!

At work on Annie Get Your Gun....The Merm and The Berlin, 1946.

Hirschfeld's drawing of No Strings..

Noelle Adam, Alvin Epstein, Diahann Carroll, and Richard Kiley, 1962.

Fit as a Fiddle, and Ready for Love!

Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly, singing a song that was a hit single for Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians. 

Playlist for Sunday, February 9, 2014: Just So Classic!

From Cole Porter to Frank Loesser to Richard Rodgers, this show has classics, with a capital CLASS.  I felt the urge to merge with Kiss Me Kate, Guys and Dolls, plus a lot of other old favorites this week, so that's what we're doing.  So many favorites, I can't pick just one, although in hunting for a Cyril Ritchard goodie (done as a request, but who doesn't want to play Cyril!?!?), I found that peculiar little "Oh My Mysterious Lady" from Peter Pan.  It's when Captain Hook is momentarily fooled into thinking Peter Pan is a lady (and of course he is, cuz it's Mary Martin, for lord's sake)...so it's, shall we say, comic relief.  Cyril slayed me when I was only 5 years old, back in Kindergarten.  My favorite villian, bar none.

Our Movie Musical Corner has samples from Singin' in the Rain and Top Hat.  Those selections held surprises...when I researched "Fit as a Fiddle" and "Singin' in the Rain," I found they were very old songs, done by several different performers in several different shows. They have a history as long as your arm...

Next week, a Broadway Valentine show.  I'll try not to get too sappy!


Le Jazz Hot (Julie Andrews, Victor/Victoria)
Another Op'nin', Another Show (Ensemble, Kiss Me Kate)
Tom, Dick or Harry (Lisa Kirk, Ensemble, Kiss Me Kate)
Bianca (Harold Lang, Kiss Me Kate)
Take Back Your Mink (Vivian Blaine, Guys and Dolls)
Guys and Dolls (Sam Levene, Stubby Kaye, Johnny Silver, Guys and Dolls)
It Never Entered My Mind (Shirley Ross, Higher and Higher)
They Say It's Wonderful (Ethel Merman, Annie Get Your Gun)
La La La (Noelle Adam, Alvin Epstein, No Strings)
Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly, Singin' in the Rain)
Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails (Fred Astaire, Top Hat)
Fit as a Fiddle (Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Singin' in the Rain)
I Don't Remember You/Sometimes a Day Goes By (Robert Cuccioli, Jim Walton,
                             And the World Goes Round)
But Not For Me (Bobby Short, Girl Crazy)
I'll Never Be Jealous Again (Reta Shaw, Eddie Foy, Jr., The Pajama Game)
Oh, My Mysterious Lady (Cyril Ritchard, Mary Martin, Peter Pan)