Playlist For Sunday, April 17, 2016: Tepid Joe, maybe?

A cup of cold coffee sits beside my computer, a banana peel draped on an empty CD case, my cat on my lap (legs at the pins and needles stage of falling asleep), and if I smoked, I'm sure there'd be an ash tray, mounded high with butts, balancing on my printer (or the cat). This doesn't sound romantic, like Raymond Chandler might write it, it just sounds ugly. Cuz Broadway, right?

I sit here piecing together the esoteric, the classic, the over-ripe of musicals every week, and realize daily: What do I know? Here in my upstate cocoon, far from the bright lights of NYC, I exist in a Broadway Time Warp. Despite trying to stay current/edgy/a la mode (and like actually pick up a Times or a Backstage and play what's ON BROADWAY), I end up rerunning the musicals of the past. All the singers in them are dead, all the composers commemorated (or roasted), all the choreographers now dancing in Hell...I am a planet away from what's happenin'. Like the cold coffee on my desk, I'm dealing with stuff from a good half hour ago.

I'm usually fine with that (on a sunny day, when it's around 72 degrees, and the birds are singing, there's a fat balance in my checking account, and I'm fitting into my jeans). I make up for my loss of currency with an historical attempt, a purist attitude (hey, that's EASY!), and snark. I'm hoping that's enough to make this thing work. If you want IN TOUCH, look over there. But I'll still be HERE, with my tepid Joe.

See ya in the funny papers.  :)


Twenty Million People (Evan Pappas, Company, My Favorite Year)
Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin' (Gordon MacRae, Oklahoma!)
All Er Nuthin' (Gene Nelson, Gloria Grahame, Oklahoma!)
People Will Say We're In Love (Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Oklahoma!)
The Farmer And The Cowman (Charlotte Greenwood, Company, Oklahoma!)
One Of The Boys (Lauren Bacall, Ensemble, Woman Of The Year)
So What Else Is New? (Harry Guardino, "Katz", Woman Of The Year)
It Isn't Working (Ensemble, Woman Of The Year)
Little Girls (Carol Burnett, Annie)
Call Me Savage (Carol Burnett, Fade Out-Fade In)
Shy (Carol Burnett, Ensemble, Once Upon A Mattress)
The Ladies Who Lunch (Carol Burnett, Putting It Together)
It's You (Bernadette Peters, David Christmas, Dames At Sea)
Wall Street (Tamara Long, Dames At Sea)
Raining In My Heart (Bernadette Peters, Dames At Sea)
Politics And Poker (Howard DaSilva, Ensemble, Fiorello!)
God Bless The Human Elbow (Robert Preston, Ensemble, Ben Franklin in
         Paris)
Fear (Jack Cassidy, Ensemble, Fade Out - Fade In)
Lament For Ten Men (Ensemble, Breakfast At Tiffany's)
Backstage Babble (Len Cariou, Ensemble, Applause)
One Of A Kind (Len Cariou, Lauren Bacall, Applause)
But Alive (Lauren Bacall, Ensemble, Applause)
The Trolley Song (Judy Garland, Meet Me In St. Louis)
Waitin' For The Evening Train (Mary Martin, Jennie)
Subway Directions (Sydney Chaplin, Ensemble, Subways Are For Sleeping)
In The Same Boat (David Hyde Pierce, Karen Ziemba, Ensemble, Curtains)
On The Highway Of Love (Robert Roznowski, Jennifer Simard, I Love You,
         You're Perfect, Now Change)
The King Kaiser Comedy Calvacade (Ensemble, My Favorite Year)
The Gospel According To King (Tom Mardirosian, Ensemble, My Favorite
         Year)
Welcome To Brooklyn (Evan Pappas, Tim Curry, Lainie Kazan, Ensemble,
         My Favorite Year)
Professional Showbizness Comedy (Andrea Martin, Tom Mardirosian,
         My Favorite Year)

Bullets. We Hardly Knew Ye.

 The cast of Bullets Over Broadway, 2014,

minus the rival gangs and errant flappers of course.

Starring were Vincent Pastore, Helene Yorke, Nick Cordero, Marin Mazzie, Brooks Ashmanskas, Zach Braff, Lenny Wolpe, and Betsy Wolfe.

It lasted only 4 months on Broadway.

Some critics praised the show "as much sheer, shameless fun as any show you'll see this season"

while others called it "occasionally funny but mostly just loud."

 Marin Mazzie as Helen Sinclair

 Zach Braff, Helene Yorke, and Lenny Wolpe...

Helene Yorke (center),

with her cat club...

or are they leopards?

Jeez, not enough of a costume to be sure!

Show Biz: There's No Business Like It

 Debra Monk as Producer Carmen Bernstein,

and "It's A Business" from Curtains (2007), with music by

John Kander and Fred Ebb.

Fred passed away before the show could be completed,

so Rupert Holmes (Drood, The Pina Colada Song!)

stepped in to help.

 Another song for our "Show Biz" set,

"You Gotta Have A Gimmick"

from Gypsy, the 1962 movie...

From left, Tessie Tura, Mazeppa, and Electra,

played by Betty Bruce, Faith Dane (reprising her role in the 

Broadway production) and Roxanne Arlen.

 The Glorious Ones (2007), with music by Stephen Flaherty

and Lynn Ahrens,

an off-Broadway Comedia D'ell Arte musical,

with Julyana Soelistyo, John Kassir, Jeremy Webb, 

Marc Kudisch and David Patrick Kelly.

Marc played Trevor Graydon III in 

Thoroughly Modern Millie opposite Sutton Foster,

and was most recently seen on House of Cards,

as Senator Henry Mitchell...he gets around!

We'll hear "I Was Here."

 George Hearn

and "I Am What I Am"

from Jerry Herman's La Cage Aux Folles.

And 2 from 42nd Street...

above with Jerry Orbach as Julian Marsh,

the director we love to hate, and Wanda Richert,

and below Lee Roy Reems and Wanda.

All Singing, All Dancing, All Broadway. 

Why not Ebb and Kander?

Kander and Ebb's Zorba

opened in 1968, with Hershel Bernardi and Maria Karnilova,

(tho the above pic shows the 1970 touring company with John Raitt)...

It lost the Tony to 1776,

but has had many revivals.

We'll hear the one from 1983, which featured Anthony Quinn,

Lila Kedrova and Debbie Shapiro (now Gravitte!)

 Woman Of The Year, 1981.

Star Lauren Bacall won one of the four Tonys

the show was nominated for...

and Best Score went to Kander and Ebb.

Above, Lauren in rehearsal with cast members

and choreographer Tony Charmoli.

 Not a lot of great photos of 70, Girls, 70!

done by the team in 1971.

Only 35 performances, but a great cast:

Mildred Natwick, Hans Conreid, Lillian Hayman, Gil Lamb.

 In 1965, Kander and Ebb created their first musical together,

 featuring 19 year old Liza Minelli 

(on right, with Bob Dishy, her co-star, center,

and at left, choreographer Lee Theodore)

in Flora The Red Menace.

Only 87 performances, but hey, you have to start somewhere! 

 Another flop was The Happy Time (1968)

with Robert Goulet (center) and David Wayne (right).

A French Canadian setting, with Robert as a ne'er do well photographer,

who's come home to his irascible family.

Goulet and Gower Champion (who directed and choreographed)

garnered Tonys,

but the show is known more for the fact that it was the 

first musical to lose a million bucks,

than it is for its songs.

John Kander, at left, will turn 89 years old this year,

but unfortunately Fred Ebb passed away in 2004,

before completing their last musical together,

Curtains.

Playlist for Sunday, April 10, 2016: Still. Yet. Again.

So I waited for April 1st...remember I had a countdown?  90 plus days from Jan 1 to April 1 to get thru the gulag that is upstate New York, at whence (I love "whence") point I would toss my muffler, my galoshes, my overcoat (old cozy winter words from childhood), and my weather-hunched shoulders into a closet (in this old stone house, I have 2!!! My, the choices!) and break out the spring dresses (I have 2!! My, the choices!). Like that happened. Yesterday I shoveled. Today I wore wool. And tomorrow...well, let's just say the hot water bottle is still at the foot of my bed. Someone very intelligent once called April the cruelest month, and he/she/(insert gender-neutral pronoun here) was spot on.

So this kind of cruelty demands life-affirming Broadway, like "Life Is" from Zorba. Like "I Was Here" from The Glorious Ones. Like "Don't Rain/Snow/Hail On My Parade" from Funny Babs. Some snarky Kander and Ebb, like "The Grass Is Always Greener" (what grass?$*&%@&#*$&), and a nostalgic "Walking Among My Yesterdays" when Bob Goulet was the stuff of A Chorus Line's chorus line's dream. I feel deeply connected to Jerry Orbach when he exorts Wanda Richert to leave "Allentown???" forever, and throw her tap shoes into the Broadway ring.  Get me outta this climate, Jerry...let me join Olive in a "Tiger Rag" and warm my toes on a real Hot Dog man.

Countdown extended to May.  :(


 Life Is (Debbie Gravitte, Ensemble, Zorba)
We're In The Money (Karen Prunczik, Wanda Richert, Ginny King,
          Ensemble, 42nd Street)
Young And Healthy (Lee Roy Reams, Wanda Richert, 42nd Street)
Lullaby Of Broadway (Jerry Orbach, Wanda Richert, Company, 42nd Street)
It Never Entered My Mind (Shirley Ross, Higher And Higher)
The Saga Of Jenny (Christine Ebersole)
What Has She Got (Faith Prince, Redhead)
After You Get What You Want, You Don't Want It (Marilyn Monroe, There's
          No Business Like Show Business)
Don't Rain On My Parade (Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl)
I Was Here (Marc Kudisch, The Glorious Ones)
When You're Right, You're Right (Lauren Bacall, Woman Of The Year)
I Am What I Am (George Hearn, La Cage Aux Folles)
I Ham What I Ham (Gerard Alessandrini, Forbidden Broadway Vol. 2)
Not Every Day Of The Week (Bob Dishy, Liza Minelli, Flora The Red Menace)
You've Let Yourself Go (Liza Minelli, Liza With A 'Z')
But The World Goes 'Round (Liza Minelli, New York, New York)
Welcome To The Theatre (Lauren Bacall, Applause)
There's No Business Like Show Business (Ensemble, Annie Get Your Gun)
You Gotta Have A Gimmick (Maria Karnilova, Ensemble, Gypsy)
We Can Do It (Nathan Lane, Mathew Broderick, The Producers)
It's A Business (Debra Monk, Ensemble, Curtains)
The Grass Is Always Greener (Karen Mason, Brenda Pressley, And The World
         Goes 'Round)
Coffee In A Cardboard Cup (Ensemble, 70 Girls 70)
Colored Lights (Karen Mason, And The World Goes 'Round)
(Walking) Among My Yesterdays (Robert Goulet, The Happy Time)
Tiger Rag (Company, Bullets Over Broadway)
Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle (Marin Mazzie, Zach Braff, Bullets Over
         Broadway)
'Tain't A Fit Night Out For Man Or Beast (Ensemble, Bullets Over Broadway)
The Hot Dog Song (Helene Yorke, Jim Borstelmann, Bullets Over Broadway)

The D'Ysquiths at it again...

 "Poison In My Pocket,"

with Catherine Walker, Bryce Pinkham and Jefferson Mays

in A Gentleman's Guide To Love And Murder,

which closed just this past January.

Damn, I missed it! 

 Jane Carr as Miss Shingle, and Bryce as Monty.

"You're A D'Ysquith." 

Critics were almost unanimous in their praise, calling it

"dazzling", "delightful", "morbidly hilarious"

and  filled with "memorable melody with fizzily witty turns of phrase."

Best Musical and Best Book Tony Awards, 2014.

 

 

Jefferson Mays receiving a special

"Having Died 1000 Times"

certificate...

he played every member of the D'Ysquith Family

and had lots of opportunities!

Good Old Reliable Nathan...

 Joseph Lane 

(who changed his name to Nathan, after a favorite "Detroit" character)

was born in Jersey City in 1956,

and made his Broadway debut in Private Lives 

(with George C. Scott, in a smashing smoking jacket, btw!)

in 1982. 

Success followed!

(Above with Mathew Broderick in The Producers.

We'll hear their duet, "Where Did We Go Right?")

 The Frogs, 2004...

Nathan collaborated with Stephen Sondheim,

helping to update the book.

He continued an association with Sondheim,

starring in a revival of Forum, workshops for Assassins

and Wise Guys (though it used to be called Road Show,

and before that Bounce.  Make up your mind!).

(Above, as Dionysus with umbrella drink. :)

 We'll hear "I Love To Travel" with Roger Bart.

 With Bebe Neuwirth in The Addams Family,

Nathan as Gomez Addams.

Despite Ben Brantley's (and others') dissing

("A tepid goulash of vaudeville song-and-dance routines, Borscht Belt jokes, stingless sitcom zingers and homey romantic plotlines")

Nathan (as usual) was lauded. 

 "When You're An Addams!"

Starting just this week,Nathan is back in It's Only A Play

written by Terrence McNally

(he was gone, but now he's back!).

Above, the opening night curtain call with

Rupert Grint, Stockard Channing 

(who's had WAY too much "work" done if you know what I mean), 

Mathew, and Megan Mullally.

Tickets are SELLING again.

From Timon to Estragon to Nathan Detroit,

and he's just hitting his 60s.