Tag Archives: broadway

October 24, 2013 · 4:30 pm

NBC To Resurrect ‘Murder, She Wrote’ with Octavia Spencer

Now, I love Octavia Spencer and she’s an excellent actress, but this just screams “hot mess”.

What ever happened to new ideas?

And Angela Lansbury is only 88 and doing 8 shows a week on Broadway as recently as the last year or so, so I’m not sure she is ready to give this role up.  She may have been planning some specials or movies or something over the next few years….

From Variety:

Turns out, you can’t kill “Murder, She Wrote.”

NBC is reviving the onetime Universal TV series that aired for years on CBS, placing Octavia Spencer in the starring role once held by Angela Lansbury and giving the project a put pilot committment.

David Janollari and Alexandra Cunningham (“Desperate Housewives”) will exec produce the drama, which will aim for a light, contemporary feel, according to NBC. Spencer will play the hospital administrator and amateur sleuth who self-publishes her first mystery novel, then becomes an active participant in true crime investigations.

via NBC To Resurrect ‘Murder, She Wrote’ with Octavia Spencer | Variety.

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October 15, 2013 · 7:25 pm

Sondheim Working on a Revised Version of ‘Company’

My first reaction was:  “Oh god, not yet another production of “Company”.  Then I read more….

This is intriguing….and with great people attached.

And I always thought Bobby was Gay anyway…

From the New York Times today…

 

The acclaimed composer Stephen Sondheim and the Tony Award-winning director John Tiffany (“Once”) are collaborating on a major revision of Mr. Sondheim’s celebrated 1970 musical “Company,” a project that Roundabout Theater Company is eyeing for a possible production, according to Mr. Sondheim and others involved.

The biggest change in this new “Company” would be the central character of Bobby. Whereas he has always been a straight man struggling with commitment issues and multiple girlfriends, he has been reconceived by Mr. Tiffany as a gay man with commitment issues and multiple boyfriends. And some characters have had gender reversals; the character of Joanne, who sings “The Ladies Who Lunch” and was originally played by Elaine Stritch on Broadway, is being played by the Tony winner Alan Cumming (“Cabaret”) in Mr. Tiffany’s reading of the work at Roundabout this week.

For years Mr. Sondheim and the musical’s book writer, George Furth, who died in 2008, batted back suggestions that Bobby was furtively intended to be a closeted gay man. But when Mr. Tiffany proposed actually making Bobby gay, Mr. Sondheim said in a telephone interview on Tuesday, the idea intrigued him.

“It’s still a musical about commitment, but marriage is seen as something very different in 2013 than it was in 1970,” Mr. Sondheim said. “We don’t deal with gay marriage as such, but this version lets us explore the issues of commitment in a fresh way.”

MORE:   Sondheim Working on a Revised Version of ‘Company’ – NYTimes.com.

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March 23, 2013 · 12:44 am

Back to Before | My Southern Gothic Life

A Mini-Post on my other blog:

 

This one is a “one off” post….

I’ll never forget seeing Marin Mazzie sing “Back to Before” in “Ragtime” on Broadway back in 1998 at the, then, Ford Center.

Steve and I had been together about a year.  I had only been officially “out” for a very few years.  I was getting ready to turn 40…

And I saw my life flash before my eyes when she sang this song…

I saw Danville, I saw W&L and I saw who I was becoming and who I had been at other points in my life….

It was a “Broadway Moment” that one always hopes for where art comes home to you and you relate your life to the character’s and start to think…

via Back to Before | My Southern Gothic Life.

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March 22, 2013 · 8:04 pm

This Week’s Friday Night Videos: New Broadway Does Old Broadway

I kind of enjoy playing on YouTube on a Friday evening….

This evenings theme is:  Old Show Tunes by New Stars:  A New Generation Does Broadway:

First up, Kyle Dean Massey, who was in “Next to Normal” a couple of seasons ago doing an old Anthony Newly/ Sammy Davis Jr song:

Cheyenne Jackson and Kate Baldwin, from a wonderful production of “Finian’s Rainbow” that we saw on Broadway a couple of years ago:

Idina Menzel does two Barbra classics from “Funny Girl”:

I’m not sure people realize how heavily “Glee” pulls talent from Broadway….

Here is Matthew Morrison, “Pre-Glee”, in the wonderful revival of “South Pacific”:

One of my favorite new Broadway Stars, Kelli O’Hara:

And let’s close with “Glee’s” Chris Colfer living every theatre queen’s dream and doing “Rose’s Turn” from “Gypsy”:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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March 12, 2013 · 10:46 pm

What Do the Simple Folk Do?

At the risk of sounding elitist-which bothers me not at all- I was thinking of this song from Camelot tonight….

Whenever I think about the national addiction to Reality TV- which I think about rarely- either national addictions or TV….

I think of this song from Camelot…

I guess there has always been a place for Kartrashians, Jersey Shores and Real Housewives of Whatever-the-hell….

Just not for me…..

I gave up on popular culture when it became evident the terms were mutually exclusive….

Of course, at least we haven’t yet sunk to feeding people to the lions in the Coliseum…

Oh, wait….NASCAR….

And the Republican House of Representatives….

Whatever….

At least it is apparently an age old problem….

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February 28, 2013 · 7:04 pm

Broadway Birthdays-Tommy Tune and Bernadette Peters

The stars must really align for Broadway stardom for people born on this day…

Two all time Broadway greats born today 11 years apart:

Tommy Tune is 74 today:

 

And Bernadette Peters gets her first Social Security check next month.  She’s 65 today:

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February 22, 2013 · 10:04 pm

Friday Night Video’s

It’s been a rough week….

Friends lost…the past creeping up on us….

Makes me a little reflective…

Some of my friends will get the associations in a special way…

For the rest of you,  it’s still relevant….

We are all in this together….

It’s an eclectic mix….just like me.

Here are some of the video’s that reflect that and my mood on a Friday evening….

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February 2, 2013 · 2:00 pm

Dancing in the Dark

Heading out shortly to Durham, NC for a jazzy evening at the Jane Monheit concert there tonight at the Carolina Theatre.

When dealing with troubled times, it’s best to just follow Irving Berlin’s advice:
“Let’s Face the Music and Dance.”

Even when, as Schwartz and Dietz wrote,  we we feel we are “Dancing in the Dark”:

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January 29, 2013 · 8:23 pm

For Your Consideration: Anne Hathaway

Let me start by saying, I love Anne Hathaway.  I find her extremely talented, likable, poised and attractive.  She is one of my favorite actresses and I see everything she does.

Criticizing her is almost like kicking a kitten….

But….

I’ve never seen such a blatant Oscar campaign as the one waged on her behalf this year….

She was very good in “Les Miz”, but not great….and that’s partly the Director’s fault.  Too many tight shots over blew the performances quite a bit and I was not thrilled with some of his other choices.  I thought Samantha Barks and Eddie Redmayne gave the best performances in the film.

“Lincoln” was also a flawed film, but with some great performances-especially by Daniel Day Lewis.  If I could vote, I wouldn’t vote for it for Best Picture either-“Argo” would be my choice.  But I would surely vote for Sally Field, over the lovely Anne, for Best Supporting Actress.  Ms Field was just wonderful as Mary Todd Lincoln and did the almost impossible- made me forget I was watching Sally Field.

Again, I love Anne Hathaway.  Her day on the podium will come, realistically, probably in a couple of weeks.  She’s definitely still the favorite.

But it should be later and for a better role and performance in a better film.

And unexpected upsets to the front runner have happened before.  Ask Lauren Bacall….

Anyway, what do I know?

In any event, here is a great parody of Anne’s campaign by the very talented Emma Fitzpatrick.

Thanks to my FB friend, Chris, for first posting it for me to see….

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January 7, 2013 · 9:50 pm

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

I keep having a recurring thought….

I may be alone here, but stick with me and we’ll see….

I first heard “Les Miserables” on an actual record album when it opened on Broadway in 1987.  It would be several more years before I actually saw it on stage.  I was in my 20’s and facing something I never thought I would face a that time in my life….

Death.  Young people I knew were suddenly dying….

AIDS was at it’s most deadly peak and I was starting to see people disappear.  They did that then.  They disappeared to die quietly in small towns and big cities while the rest of us were stunned and not sure how to go on with this new normal….

Most of America was still trying to work through this while so many young men just …..disappeared.

I think that’s why the song that stood out for me from “Les Miserables”  then was “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”.  We didn’t realize it was a revolution then, but it was….

A quiet, deadly one….

We weren’t all brave and selfless, but we couldn’t miss the empty chairs at empty tables…

It was quite a different context, but it seemed to resonate with me– and I think quite a few others.

And it changed our world….

I think that may have been what made “Les Miz” relevant to our generation….

I think this subtle, subliminal, un-intentional subplot meant more to a lot of us than we realized then and may have added a gravitas for us that the rest of the show may not have otherwise reached….

With this one song, the show became part of the time and place for so many of us…it made it real and in the moment for just that moment.

Like I said, you may not be with me on this, but I think more Gay men may have had this reaction- whether or not they were aware of it- than they realized….

I know I did…

I loved how Eddie Redmayne performed this song in the movie- even if I had issues with the movie as a whole- but his very real  version is not on YouTube yet.  But Michael Ball’s excellent concert version is…

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