Theatre

[Lyle (Mooska)]

I'm expecting to talk to my friend Rich tonight or tomorrow--he went up to
San Francisco this past weekend to see the new Tales of the City musical as
well as a production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

On a sour note (to "me") he told me recently that the people who wrote the
musical Ragtime, which I think is great, are in the process of making a musical
titled Rocky.  Guess what that's about?  I cringe at the notion.

[andy]

Isn't this just fabulous?

http://www.towleroad.com/2011/06/book-of-mormon-wins-big-at-the-tonys.html

[BayCityJohn]

Passion ignites in ‘Fool for Love’
By CHRISTINE DOLEN
cdolen@MiamiHerald.com



Eddie and May, the volatile duo in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love, aren’t so very different from Ennis and Jack in Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain. Both couples are bound by passion that crosses the line into violence. Both have reason to hide the true nature of their relationship. Yet try as they might to end it, these addicted lovers in a still-wild West just can’t quit each other.

Shepard’s 1983 script, now getting a new production by the Alliance Theatre Lab in Miami Lakes, is a tight piece that peels back its mysteries until the scope of one more American family tragedy is revealed. As in many of his plays, Shepard considers the linkage of love and violence, the mythic West, damage done by an absent alcoholic father, divergent takes on a family’s history.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/12/2263632/passion-ignites-in-fool-for-love.html#ixzz1PHI1WZmy

[killersmom]

Isn't this just fabulous?

http://www.towleroad.com/2011/06/book-of-mormon-wins-big-at-the-tonys.html

It really was, Andy.
The opening number was really really great and I loved the dueling hosts!!

[Lyle (Mooska)]

A Room with a View

A WORLD PREMIERE MUSICAL!

Based on the novel by E.M. FORSTER
Book by MARC ACITO | Music by JEFFREY STOCK
Lyrics by JEFFREY STOCK and MARC ACITO
Directed by SCOTT SCHWARTZ

OLD GLOBE THEATRE
SAN DIEGO
Conrad Prebys Theatre Center
March 2 – April 8, 2012

From the beloved novel that inspired the Academy Award-winning film comes an enchanting new musical.
Amid the golden sunlight and violet-covered hills of Tuscany, sheltered English girl Lucy Honeychurch meets freethinking George Emerson. For the first time, she glimpses a world of longing and passion she never imagined. Back in her corseted Edwardian life, Lucy must decide whether to yield to convention or give up everything she has ever known. Comic, romantic, satirical and real, A Room with a View blends a gorgeous score with this timeless story that gives a new voice to these unforgettable characters.

[bubba]

My son and his girlfriend saw Billy Elliott in Toronto, said it was one of the best they have seen.  I would love to get tickets!

[suelyblu]

Have just come back from the theatre where I went to see a young classical acoustic guitarist named Morgan Szymanski.
He was born in Mexico City and is said to have been playing the guitar since he was six years old.
For his todays programme he chose to play music from Spain,Mexico,Venezuela , Brazil and Italy.
This young man is so talented and passionate about his music. It was a joy to sit there and listen to him and let the music just wash over you. What a beautiful evening I've had......By the way ....he was very dishy too !!!!


I am going to another concert tomorrow night. Different kind of music this time. The group of musicians call themselves  " Salsa Celtica".They take Scottish and Irish traditional music and mould it to the Salsa beat.
Will let you know more tomorrow

[Lyle (Mooska)]

At one time on this thread I mentioned that a group in L.A. in the early 90's had gotten
permission from some Bbroadway greats to make "gay themed versions" of their works
to benefit aids charities.  They did 4 productions in about 6 years that were called:

West Hollywood Story (West Side Story)
Fiddler on the West Hollywood Roof (Fiddler on the Roof)
West Hollywood Gypsy (Gypsy)
and Oliver Twisted (Oliver!)

I had mentioned the Fiddler song that was transformed into "If I Were a Gay Man"
from "If I Were a Rich Man" and I happened to actually see a youtube video of this
number from one of the performances online recently!

There is much laughter so it's hard to hear the lyrics, but it brings back memories of
working on the show.  (There was never supposed to be any recordings of these
productions per the wishes of the people who granted the rights, but I know that
happened surreptitiously.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4zJNIvmhSA

[killersmom]

That was a GREAT performance, Lyle. It would have been wonderful to see. He did a fantastic job and the lyrics are too funny!

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Linda, I am glad you enjoyed it!  These productions were really excellent and I've
often wished there was some way to revisit them.  It's not like there'd be any
revivals or anything.  Since I knew that there was a recording made of it I was
hoping any of it might pop up on youtube someday!

What I cannot believe is that this production was done 20 years ago!  What?
The plot of this "Fiddler" was that Tevye was a Sparklett's water delivery man in
the Fairfax district and all three of his children (two sons and one daughter) are
gay and want their father to accept them (I don't recall the idea of marriage
being brought up which it would have now).  People were in tears during the
"Do you love them?" song where the mother asks, not if he loves her as in the
original, but do you love your gay children--do you love them?

I remember when this group started out--like Mickey and Judy putting on a show--and
they got Sondheim to agree to let them parody his lyrics from West Side Story.  He has
NEVER let anyone do that before.  Apparently, he has turned down every request that
people have brought to him to especially parody his "I want to be in America" song lyrics,
but he did here.

The guy who wrote all the new lyrics to most of these shows was really good.  Okay,
he was excellent, but I guess I am just really jealous of him!  And he was a professional
dentist besides!  A very handsome dentist!  His brilliant lyric writing was just a hobby!  His
real dream at first is that he wanted to do a gay version of South Pacific.  That show
is about a woman who can't accept who her love interest had previously been married to
and had children by.  This version would have been similar only they'd have been men
and would've also dealt with gays in the military way before the subject became prominent.
The Rogers & Hammerstein group refused to grant the rights to do it at first.  Then, with
the huge success of the first production they finally agreed to it, but only if the group paid
the royalties that would have been paid if it was any standard version.  But the group was
set up to make money for an aids hospice and paying the royalties was ultimately deemed
not what the group was trying to do, so they did not do it.  It was this huge problem of
getting rights and permission to parody these shows that ultimately tired the group out
from continuing.  A subsequent supreme court decision about being able to parody something
without being subjected to lawsuits might have overturned some of this, but using the music
might have become another issue.

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble about this down memory lane for a bit!
I worked in the publicity, promotion, house/box office area for all but one of these.
 

[suelyblu]

Have just come back from the theatre where I went to see a young classical acoustic guitarist named Morgan Szymanski.
He was born in Mexico City and is said to have been playing the guitar since he was six years old.
For his todays programme he chose to play music from Spain,Mexico,Venezuela , Brazil and Italy.
This young man is so talented and passionate about his music. It was a joy to sit there and listen to him and let the music just wash over you. What a beautiful evening I've had......By the way ....he was very dishy too !!!!


I am going to another concert tomorrow night. Different kind of music this time. The group of musicians call themselves " Salsa Celtica".They take Scottish and Irish traditional music and mould it to the Salsa beat.
Will let you know more tomorrow

Was too tired to report on last nights entertainment. !! The musicians were first class. Everyone was dancing to the Cuban / Brazilian beat. How can anyone sit still with that going on !!! The whole theatre (The Garrick) erupted with applause after each piece of music.

[canmark]

Saw Hugh Jackman in Concert, a stage show where Hugh sings and dances and offers some patter and stories about his life. He had done the show previously in San Francisco and the rave reviews in Toronto have started rumours that he may do it on Broadway as well. I was not as overwhelmed as some of the reviewers were. I enjoyed the show--Hugh is impossible not to like--and as for the songs, I particularly liked Soliloquy from Carousel, the Peter Allen song Tenterfield Saddler and his rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Could have lived without Fever and A Little Less Conversation. I would have liked the show to be a bit more personal, though, as I didn't come away with an impression of Hugh Jackman other than that he's talented and a super nice guy.

[canmark]

Saw Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking show. I quite enjoyed it. It's a one-woman show where she talks about her dizzying life and family: the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher; her father left her mother for Elizabeth Taylor; her mother had various other disastrous marriages to men who squandered her money; she (Carrie) had a tempestuous relationship and brief marriage to Paul Simon; she later married a man who was gay; she had various substance abuse problems; oh, and she has bipolar disorder. She tells it in a dry, droll manner. And although it's a scripted show that she's performed for years (and there's a filmed HBO version), she makes it feel fresh and she makes it feel like she's invited you to her house and is regaling you with stories of her life. No pretensions (despite her famous background and her own fame as Princess Leia) she really seems like a person you would want to know and be friends with.

Trailer for HBO version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUi3twmOdyE
Clip from Broadway version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL_wGGqnGb4

[canmark]

Just saw the touring production of the Broadway musical Next to Normal with its original (Tony Award-winning) star, Alice Ripley. Good, mostly sung musical about a family where the mother suffers from mental illness. Though the show is set mostly in the family house or doctors office, the non-naturalistic set is like a 3-level scaffold, with modern, graphic lighting. Characters move up and down the levels (the musicians are on the second and third levels) and often there are things going on on different levels at the same time. Loved that design and staging. Very solid cast all around.

http://www.nexttonormal.com/

[Marz]

Seeing 'We Will Rock you' tomorrow at the DOMINION THEATRE, my best mates cousin is playing Galileo for the first time tomorrow night (he's the understudies understudy!) there is a bring group of us going, gonna be good! an expensive evening but good, we are going up by train