Playlist For Sunday, March 11, 2018: Meet The Merm!

I have been waiting for this show for a long time. I have wanted (AND threatened) to play an Ethel Merman edition of 2 On The Aisle for over 5 years, and now it has come to pass. I may lose my listeners, I may lose my mind, but Ethel deserves a tribute. Now is the time.

That said, let's make it easy on all you non-Mermanized fans! And we'll do that in 2 (on the Aisle!) ways:

1.) We'll bring in Klea Blackhurst (or at least her CD!). Klea's "Everything The Traffic Will Allow" live-recorded cabaret act of 2002 is a damn homage. Klea sings songs of Ethel, Klea tells tales of Ethel (so I don't have to), so that we might better understand what made Ethel "tick" and the theatre-of-the-day's love affair with her. And in between, around, and through, I'll embellish those renditions and stories with the real thing, the unique if loud sounds of Ms. Merman.

2.) And that ain't all...we'll take breaks (whew!). With Honeymoon In Vegas, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and even some testosterone-y men in a ...well, I guess you could call it a Man Set. There you go. So it won't be wall-to-wall Ethel. No one could face that.

But I'm very excited. Join me for (not quite 2 hours...maybe an hour forty...possibly less) of the lady who has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the Musical Comedy Stage"... All Hail! :)



There's No Business Like Show Business (Ethel Merman, There's No
      Business Like Show Business)
Johnny One Note/I Got Rhythm (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The Traffic Will
      Allow)
You're The Top (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The Traffic Will Allow)
Anything Goes (Ethel Merman, Anything Goes)
Make It Another Old Fashioned Please (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The
      Traffic Will Allow)
Make It Another Old Fashioned Please (Ethel Merman, Panama Hattie)
I Ain't Down Yet (Tammy Grimes, Ensemble, The Unsinkable Molly Brown)
My Own Brass Bed (Tammy Grimes, The Unsinkable Molly Brown)
Keep-A-Hoppin'/Leadville Johnny Brown (Harve Presnell, Ensemble,
      The Unsinkable Molly Brown)
Ridin' High (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The Traffic Will Allow)
Sam And Delilah (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The Traffic Will Allow)
I've Still Got My Health (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The Traffic Will Allow)
I Got The Sun In The Morning (Ethel Merman, Annie Get Your Gun)
Physical Fitness (Male Ensemble, All American)
The Man I Used To Be (William Johnson, Pipe Dream)
Man (Patrick Wilson, John Ellison Conlee, The Full Monty)
Mr. Livingston (Ethel Merman, Happy Hunting)
Just A Moment Ago (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The Traffic Will Allow)
I Love Betsy (Rob McClure, Honeymoon In Vegas)
Out Of The Sun (Tony Danza, Honeymoon In Vegas)
Higher Love (David Josefsberg, Ensemble, Honeymoon In Vegas)
Heat Wave (Ethel Merman, As Thousands Cheer)
You're Just In Love (Ethel Merman, Russell Nype, Call Me Madam)
Ethel Merman and Sunset Boulevard (Christine Pedi, Bryan Batt,
      Forbidden Broadway Strikes Back)
Some People (Ethel Merman, Gypsy)
Rose's Turn (Ethel Merman, Gypsy)

Yes, Yes, Nanette!

Ruby Bernadette Nanette Fabares

was born in 1920, in San Diego.

Tap dance lessons, some with Bojangles Robinson,

 (of course) and a professional debut at age 3 (of course)

as "Miss New Year's Eve"...

that's how things rolled for Ruby!

She made her film debut at age 19 in

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex with Bette Davis.

She toured in the show, Meet The People (1940-41),

singing "Caro Nome" from Rigoletto WHILE tap dancing.

The story goes that she was introduced at one point in that tour

by Ed Sullivan who mispronounced her name (of course)

as "Nanette Fa-bare-ass."

She changed the spelling to Fabray probably about 7 seconds later.

In 1950, it was Arms And The Girl,

a Morton Gould/Dorothy Fields musical

with Nanette and Pearl Bailey.

 Below, the Playbill from Love Life, 1949,

which had the music of Kurt Weill, lyrics Alan Jay Lerner,

starring Nanette and Ray Middleton 

(who later played Frank Butler in the original Annie, Get Your Gun).

Nanette pocketed a Tony for that show.

 Other Fabray shows of that era were

High Button Shoes, Bloomer Girl, By Jupiter, and Make A Wish.

Television called, and Nanette answered!

She won 3 (count 'em, 3) Emmys for her work on Caesar's Hour,

1954-56,

above with Sid,

and below with a bevy of talent from that show:

Howard Morris, Sid, Nanette, and Carl Reiner.

The Bandwagon came along in 1953

and Nanette jumped on:

Music, Arthur Schwartz, Lyrics, Howard Dietz and

starring Nanette, Fred Astaire, Jack Buchanan,

Cyd Charisse and Oscar Levant.

She played "Betty Comden" to Oscar's "Adolph Green".

Below, the infamous "Triplets." 

 Tons of television appearances (1960 - 90),

above with Lucille Ball ("Here's Lucy!")

and below as Katherine Romano, Ann Romano's mom

(Ann played by Bonnie Franklin).

Nanette played a lot of MOMS

(The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Coach),

as well as 3 different dames on Love Boat,

a suspect on Murder She Wrote,

and even had her own sitcom back in 1961,

called "Yes, Yes, Nanette!"

Nanette suffered from a hearing impairment all her life, 

 and was an advocate for the deaf and hard-of-hearing for many years.

 She wasn't diagnosed til her 20s...

when her acting teacher encouraged her to get tested.

"I always thought I was stupid,

but in reality I just had a hearing problem."

RIP....1920 - 2018

A Band And A Diva: 2 Hot Tickets!

 

The Band's Visit,

with the tantalizing music of David Yazbek,

and a book by Itamar Moses,

stars Tony Shaloub and Katrina Lenk, above.

A plot that reminds me of an Agatha Christie set up:

a group of people "marooned" (wrong bus!) in a place with

a whole OTHER group of people,

with no chance of "escaping" til tomorrow (right bus!).

No deaths by curare,

but a lovely, intimate show,

called by the NY Times,

 "one of the most ravishing musicals you will ever be seduced by".

 It's based on an Israeli film of the same name from 2007.

 The musical, which is the 4th Broadway show 

in the David Yazbek cannon

(The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, 

Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown came before it)

began off Broadway in 2016,

and has already won Obies, Drama Desk, and other awards

for that initial run.

Composer/lyricist David Yazbek, born in NYC in 1961,

wrote for David Letterman for a time (and garnered an Emmy for it),

has released 5 rock albums (!),

written commercial jingles...and the theme song for 

"Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago?"

Below with Dean Sharenow, music coordinator for the show.

 If you are a Patti LuPone nut,

like you SHOULD BE,

you'll want to add her most recent album to your collection:

Don't Monkey With Broadway.

Lots of incredible classics on this,

along with plenty of Patti trivia

 which means juicy Broadway nuggets galore. 

And while you're listening,

pick up Patti LuPone: A Memoir,

which has 17 times more stories!

 The list of shows (and awards) that came Patti's way

is as long as both of your arms put together.

Above, with John Houseman,

when she was part of The Acting Company 

in the 1970s.

As Eva Peron in Evita...

which brought her a Drama Desk and a Tony Award 

for Best Actress (1979)

 As Fantine,

in the original London cast of Les Miserables.

An Olivier (1985)!

As Norma Desmond

in the London cast of Sunset Boulevard (1993)

 As Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes (1988),

and below

as a tuba-toting Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (2006).

 Above and below,

in David Yazbek's 

Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (2010)

As Helene Rubenstein

in War Paint (2017).

Now what I wanna know,

is... what's next?

Playlist For March 4, 2018: Broadway Crack

So I'm full of vim (which used to be a detergent, right?) and vigor (which DIDN'T used to be a detergent) due to a.) something I think is the SUN shining presently thru the crack in my curtains, and b.) 2 new offerings for this Sunday's show: The Band's Visit and Patti LuPone's Don't Monkey With Broadway. It's sorta like being on a Broadway opioid, having these 2 (both wonderful) brand spanking new CDs in my hands. Because let's just say it, every track is THAT good. (*Side note: most CDs I buy (for $22.50 "Like New!") engender disappointment and a side helping of that uncomfortable feeling of rip-offedness...not so this time. Just hurrah!)

The Band's Visit, with music by David Yazbek, really shows the composer's roots: he's Lebanese by way of Italy. Egyptian, Israeli ...the music just makes you want to order falafel takeout. I mean that in the nicest way possible. I was already a fan (Women On The Verge, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty), but now I am a FAN. Tony Shaloub stars, as the conductor in the "Sergeant Pepper Suit", along with Katrina Lenk, and John Cariani. Whisking away to NYC in 2 weeks to see it, that's how much I'm crushing. (That AND Hamilton. Yeah. Go Me. :))

And Patti, in a big Broadway musical tribute that she's touring with. Hie Thee to the Box Office of the Eastman, if you haven't already gotten your tickets for her April 29th performance! Currently reading her memoir, and man. She has Done It All. The CD is a tour of iconic Broadway. You can just sort of climb in, pull up the covers, and dream away.

And I'd be totally remiss if I didn't include a tribute to Nanette Fabray, who passed away just a week ago, so along with hot off the press, we'll honor an actress who did it all back in the day. Did she write a memoir? Please say yes. Still searching.

Vim and Vigor in check, but circling. :)



Please Don't Monkey With Broadway (Patti LuPone, Don't Monkey With
      Broadway)
A Wonderful Day Like Today (Cyril Ritchard, The Roar Of The Greasepaint,
      The Smell Of The Crowd)
It's A Lovely Day Today (Walter Charles, Melissa Errico, Call Me Madam)
Ev'ry Sunday Afternoon (Dawn Upshaw, Dawn Upshaw Sings Rodgers And
      Hart)
Not Every Day Of The Week (Bob Dishy, Liza Minelli, Flora The Red Menace)
Waiting (The Residents Of Bet Hatikva,The Band's Visit)
Welcome To Nowhere (Katrina Lenk, John Cariani, Etai Benson,
      The Band's Visit)
The Beat Of Your Heart (Andrew Polk, John Cariani, Alok Tewari,
      George Abud, The Band's Visit)
Itgara'a/Something Different (Tony Shaloub, Katrina Lenk, The Band's Visit)
Louisiana Hayride (Nanette Fabray, The Bandwagon)
How Soon Will I Be Seeing You? (Nanette Fabray)
Sweet Music (Nanette Fabray, Oscar Levant, The Bandwagon)
Triplets (Nanette Fabray, Fred Astaire, Jack Buchanan, The Bandwagon)
Got A Bran' New Suit (Nanette Fabray, Fred Astaire, The Bandwagon)
They Love Me (Nanette Fabray, The President)
Good Morning, Good Day (Daniel Massey, Barbara Baxley, Jack Cassidy,
      Nathaniel Frey, She Loves Me)
That'll Be The Day (Mens Ensemble, The Happiest Girl In The World)
Once-A-Year-Day (John Raitt, Janis Paige, Company, The Pajama Game)
Those Were The Good Old Days (Ray Walston, Damn Yankees)
It's Today (Ann Hampton-Callaway, Liz Callaway, Sibling Revelry)
Come To The Supermarket (In Old Peking)(Barbra Streisand, The Barbra
      Streisand Album)
Muqin (Harriet Harris, Ken Leung, Francis Jue, Thoroughly Modern Millie)
Singapore Sue (Joseph R. Sicari, Company, Dames At Sea)
Give Them What They Want (John Lithgow, Gregory Jbara, Dirty
      Rotten Scoundrels)
Here I Am! (Sherie Rene Scott, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)
Dirty Rotten Number (John Lithgow, Norbert Leo Butz, Dirty Rotten
      Scoundrels)
Island (Sherie Rene Scott, Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown)
Model Behaviour (Laura Benanti, Women On The Verge)
My Crazy Heart (Patti LuPone, Ensemble, Women On The Verge)
If (Patti LuPone, Don't Monkey With Broadway)
Anyone Can Whistle (Patti LuPone, Don't Monkey With Broadway)
Back On Top (Patti LuPone, War Paint)
Give My Regards To Broadway (Patti LuPone, Don't Monkey With Broadway)

Brioche...bagels...it's all gluten to me

 Try, just TRY to find better photos of The Baker's Wife.

(And if you can, send them to me immediately!!)

A production that never made it to Broadway

sort of evaporates on the internet,

unless you don't mind images of productions done

at the junior high down the road.

Back in 1952, it was bubble of an idea,

with music by Frank Loesser and a book by Abe Burrows...

the Baker in question would be played by

Bert Lahr.

That didn't happen.

Fast-forward 10 years, they're now trying to get it off the ground,

with Zero Mostel.

Nada.

Then in the 1970's, Stephen Schwartz entered the picture.

(Don't ask  who's in the photo below...

I think it's the Paper Mill Playhouse version!

Again, try to find it!)

 

 Carole Demas (fresh off the run of Grease)

was first cast as Genevieve,

THEE Baker's Wife,

but was quickly replaced with 

 Patti Lupone (above)

and Topol as said Baker.

They took the show to LA and then to DC,

but Topol didn't actually work out

(Patti loathed him),

and so HE was replaced mid-tour with Paul Sorvino.

Below, Patti with Kurt Peterson who played Dominique

and below THAT, Patti with Topol

(on a good day, it seems. Well, they WERE acting!).

 The song "Bread" caused problems from the start,

so much so that it became a running (rising?) joke as 

"The Waterloo" of the show.

The director left half way thru the LA run.

They took the only song Patti had away from her

("Meadowlark"), so SHE walked out,

and then things really got bad.

Below, possibly a more appropriate poster for this 1976 production,

the bill for the film it was based on:

La Femme Du Boulanger. 

 Below, a photo of Alun Armstrong and Sharon Lee-Hill

from the 1989 London Company...

which actually made a cast album.

 Another bagel that certainly took its time

reaching Broadway was

Breakfast At Tiffany's.

 Despite a creative team and cast to knock your socks off, 

it was a throw-out-the-book, change-the-title,

cut-5-songs, no-bring-them-back kinda show. 

Mary Tyler Moore was cast as Holly Golightly

(which someone along the way altered to
"Holly Went Badly"),

Richard Chamberlain was Somebody, 

and Sally Kellerman Somebody Else (who liked Coffee). 

They couldn't solve the problems.

David Merrick took out an ad in the New York Times

announcing that it would not open. 

("...rather than subject the critics and 

the public to an excruciatingly boring evening.")

So that was back in 1966.

In 2013, they actually did a version of the thing

on Broadway,

with additional music (Bob Merrill's wasn't enough?)

by Grant Olding.

It lasted a few months, then left on a UK vacation,

where I hear it's having a fine time. :)

 Thanks to a recording done in 2001

with Faith Prince, Hal Linden, and Sally Kellerman,

we can still sample the original songs

Sunday Gardeners

The Crooning Troubadour,

Nick Lucas,

introduced "Tip Toe Through The Tulips"

in the "musical talkie", Gold Diggers of  Broadway.

It was written back in 1929 by Al Dubin 

and Joe Burke.

Nick topped the charts with "Tip Toe"

for 10 solid weeks;

it had a good beat, and you can dance to it, Dick!

 Andy Rooney,

above with Ann Miller in Sugar Babies,

a very successful 1980s look-back at Burlesque sorta thing.

Mickey's Broadway debut, at the age of 59,

(Ann, 56 btw)!

It ran for 3 years...Carol Channing and Robert Morse

did a short-lived national tour.

We'll hear "Immigration Rose",

a song from 1923 by

Irwin Dash, Jimmy McHugh, and Eugene West.

 From The Shoe String Revue, 1955:

Dodi Goodman, above,

with "Someone Is Sending Me Flowers"

(and chocolates by the look of it),

a song that would stop the show every night she sang it.

Written by a young Sheldon Harnick and David Baker.

 Walter Chiari, Barbara Cook and Jules Munshin in

The Gay Life, from 1961...

but by the look and sound,

it didn't stray far from the 1910 play it was based on.

It's been re-christened since then as The High Life!

We'll hear Jules (who played Anatole) with 

"The Bloom Is Off The Rose".

 That "Spanish Rose"

from Allentown, PA,

Chita Rivera who said yes to the role of Rosie

(when Edie Gorme and Carol Haney both nixed it)

in Bye Bye Birdie.

 Merwin Goldsmith (above)
joined Jason Graae and Judy Blazer in 

a studio cast recording of Jerome Kern's

Sitting Pretty from 1924,

with the delightful lyrics of P.G. Wodehouse.

Merwin warbles "Tulip Time In Sing Sing" on Sunday.

 Lee Wilkof as Seymore 

and Ellen Green as Audrey I

in Little Shop of Horrors.

We'll hear "Grow For Me"...and it does!

Below the lady who made Audrey II lithe

and the man who made Audrey II damn ferocious. 

The original voice of A2 was Ron Taylor.

Playlist For Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018: Flour and Flowers, from the Flour/Flower City!

The city of Rochester was once called the Flour City, right? With the opening of the Erie Canal (1825-ish), flour mills spring/sprang/sprung up along the Genesee River and thousands of barrels of the fluffy stuff were shipped out of our port on to Albany, NYC and all points east. (Too much expostion, too boring...get to the point!) But by 1850, our flour industry  declined, and the seed and nursery biz "flour-ished!" A simple respelling, and voila...the Roc was renamed. Flour. Flower. A rose by any other name would be just as chewy!

And of course I had ALL that in mind when I chose our themes for Sunday's 2 On The Aisle. Actually, of course not! The serendipity (Serengeti?) of my themes spring/sprang/sprung from my head, like Athena from the head of Zeus (which is why I have plenty of Exedrin at my bedside), when I realized that my new Betty Buckley CD had a song from the Baker's Wife on it, ANNNNND that another "new" (old/borrowed/blue) CD of Sitting Pretty had a wonderful Jerome Kern tune called "When It's Tulip Time In Sing Sing." Of course I couldn't just do Tulips. And I couldn't do just Bread! Ahhh, but lightly folded...the synergy of the 2 astounds even me. :)

So this is a light, airy, aromatic show, with plenty of gardens (Secret!), growing (I Won't!), roses (Second Hand! Spanish!), bakers (with wives! in diners! equipped with razors!), and an obligatory ballad or 7. It will all make you yearn for a brioche...and a bouquet.


Chanson (Jill Martin, The Baker's Wife)
Bread (Ensemble, The Baker's Wife)
Plain And Simple (Alun Armstrong, Sharon Lee-Hill, The Baker's Wife)
Buzz A-Buzz (Alun Armstrong, Company, The Baker's Wife)
Someone Is Sending Me Flowers (Dody Goodman, Shoe String Revue)
Tip Toe Through The Tulips (Nick Lucas And His Troubadours)
Tulip Time In Sing Sing (Merwin Goldsmith, Sitting Pretty)
When You Wore A Tulip (Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, For Me And My Gal)
You Were There (Christine Ebersole, Christine Ebersole Sings Noel
      Coward)
Who Are You Now? (Judy Kuhn, Just In Time: Judy Kuhn Sings Jule Styne)
Love Look Away (Leslie Odom, Jr., Leslie Odom, Jr.)
Both Sides Now (Betty Buckley, Story Songs)
Grow For Me (Lee Wilkof, Little Shop Of Horrors)
When I Grow Up (Adrianna Bertola, Lauren Ward, Matilda)
Come To My Garden/Lift Me Up (Rebecca Luker, The Secret Garden)
I Won't Grow Up (Mary Martin, Peter Pan)
Second Hand Rose (Fanny Brice, The Ziegfeld Follies Of 1921)
Honeysuckle Rose (Ken Page, Nell Carter, Ain't Misbehavin')
The Rose (Ensemble, Breakfast At Tiffany's)
Spanish Rose (Chita Rivera, Bye Bye Birdie)
The Bloom Is Off The Rose (Jules Munshin, The High Life)
I Won't Send Roses (Robert Preston, Mack & Mabel)
Immigration Rose (Mickey Rooney, Sugar Babies)
Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You? (The Buffalo Bills Barbershop Quartet,
      Barbara Cook, The Music Man)
What's Inside (Jessie Mueller, Waitress)
Menu Song (Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, Pump Boys And Dinettes)
Sara Lee (Jim Walton, And The World Goes Round)
What Baking Can Do (Jessie Mueller, Waitress)
A Little Priest (Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou, Sweeney Todd)
I Can Cook, Too (Nancy Walker, On The Town)