Music I can wish you

In this season's revival of Guys and Dolls at the Nederlander Theatre, Oliver Platt plays short-on-cash Nathan Detroit (who runs an illegal permanent floating craps game in New York City). To make the $1000 he needs for the venue, he bets Sky Masterson (Craig Bierko pictured above), that he can't take a woman of Nathan's choosing, to dinner. Sky accepts the challenge.
The gracious Lauren Graham as Miss Adelaide in her fabulous Broadway debut. She is Mr. Detroit's long-suffering fiancee, the star performer at the Hot Box nightclub.
Adelaide's Lament was so hilarious. She has perfect comic timing and a fine talent for physical comedy.
She has a lovely singing voice and who knew Lorelai Gilmore can dance?
Kate Jenning Grant was Sarah Brown, a sergeant of the Save-A-Soul Mission, trying to reform the ways of New York City's sinners. Sky asks her out to dinner...in Havana, Cuba!
The show has been rightfully Tony-nominated for Best Revival and Best Scenic Design. It was wonderful seeing vintage shots of New York City.
The doors outside the Nederlander
It felt strange to be in the Nederlander and not be there to watch Rent.
Tituss Burgess(Nicely-Nicely Johnson) and Mary Testa (General Cartwright) were on hand to steal the show with the crowd-pleasing "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat". They received the loudest and longest ovation of the show.

UP: I have just met you and I love you

Pixar's done it again! The studio just keeps churning out gem after gem of a film. Bravo to director Pete Docter, co-director/writer Bob Peterson (who also voiced the hilarious Dug the dog), and the amazing animators for breaking my heart then mending it yet again with a wondrous visual feast. Pixar's strength has always been its story-telling. And the touching and eye-popping UP is no exception.

I've been waiting to see UP from the first time I saw its trailer. I can see myself in the curmudgeonly Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner). I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but we all know Carl goes on a South American adventure by tying balloons to his house. He is joined in his fanciful journey by Wilderness Explorer Russell (Jordan Nagai), who only wants to earn his badge for assisting the elderly. (The pairing is highly unusual: a 78 year old man with an Asian boy sidekick. Kudos Disney/Pixar!) Christopher Plummer is the voice of explorer Christopher Muntz, Carl's childhood hero.

The film is filled with astonishing images, splashes of color, gorgeous palettes and life-like textures. The love story of Carl and his wife Ellie is told in a silent, exquisite montage. It is animation and filmmaking at its best. A true work of art, but at its center lies a fun yet extremely wise fable about love, loss, letting go, following your dreams, and the adventure we call life.

The film is rated PG because of its grown-up themes. In fact, when I saw it yesterday, most of the audience members were adults. But kids will have a blast, too. (The pack of dogs could have their own spin-off movie.) And don't miss the charming short animated feature Partly Cloudy that precedes the film. Two thumbs UP...WAY UP for UP!

(poster from Aintitcool)

Tony Awards Preview Concert

Alice Ripley and Aaron Tveit of Next To Normal


Just like last year, Visa Signature is sponsoring this year's Tony Awards Preview Concert. The show will will feature performances from this season's Broadway musicals including: Lauren Graham and Kate Jennings Grant from Guys & Dolls; Gavin Creel and the cast of Hair; Matt Cavenaugh & Josefina Scaglione from West Side Story; Stephanie Block from 9 to 5: The Musical; Carole Shelley from Billy Elliot, The Musical; Alice Ripley, Jennifer Damiano and Aaron Tveit from Next to Normal; Constantine Maroulis & Amy Spanger from Rock of Ages; and Sutton Foster, Leah Greenhaus and Marissa O'Donnell from Shrek The Musical.

The one hour special will air on CBS and it's affiliates. For NYC, it's on May 30 @ 8pm and I know here in Chicago, it's going to be on May 31 @ 11 am. For full listings of CBS airings in other states please check here.

(photo from TonyAwards.com)

I Miss The Mountains

For those who missed Next To Normal in The View yesterday (5/27), here's Alice Ripley singing I Miss The Mountains.

A Royal Visit

New York City will be welcoming Prince Harry tomorrow in his first official visit to the United States. His visit will last only until Saturday, 30 May, and his schedule is packed. He will visit the World Trade Center site tomorrow, play in a polo match on Saturday to raise funds for his Lesotho charity, Sentebale.
He will also name Hanover Square's British Memorial Garden to commemorate British victims of the 9-11 attacks. He will be meeting with wounded veterans at Manhattan's VA Medical Center.

A Big Apple Welcome to His Royal Highness Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales!

Theatre Camp

If you live in New York's Mid-Hudson Valley area, 4th Wall Productions is now registering students for their annual theatre arts summer camp for July and August.

DVR Alert: In The Heights on PBS and Next To Normal on The View

In The Heights


Next To Normal

Tomorrow, Wednesday (5/27), get your dvr's ready because 2 good shows will be featured on tv. The cast of Next To Normal will be making a guest appearance in The View (11 ET/10 CT). Yay! They're getting national exposure! And on PBS at 8 pm ET, Great Performances will feature In The Heights - Chasing Broadway Dreams. It's a behind the scenes look at the journey of In The Heights to Broadway and Tony success. I've enjoyed the other PBS behind the scenes features of Finding Billy and Grey Gardens - From East Hampton To Broadway so I'm also excited for this one.

(Top photo from PBS.org and bottom photo from Playbill.com)

33 Variations

On the eve of May 16th I went to see 33 Variations , a play with music considering one of the main characters is Beethoven. The play written by Moises Kaufman stars Jane Fonda as Dr. Katherine Brandt, a musicologist who tries to discover why Beethoven (Zach Grenier) spent 3 years of his life making 33 variations of a mediocre waltz initially composed by Anton Diabelli. It's set in present time and in the 1800's just around the time when Beethoven loses his hearing. It is a parallel story in which Beethoven struggles with debt, eviction and deafness with Dr. Brandt's struggle with her debilitating illness, Lou Gehrig's Disease. It also explores a prickly relationship between mother-daughter as well as how one handles the possibility of death and dying. It's a really good play with a good premise.

Initially, Dr. Brandt surmises that Beethoven made the 33 variations to demonstrate that Diabelli made a mediocre waltz and he wanted to show that a great composer could make it a masterpiece. Through her research she gains friendship with another music scholar Dr. Gertrude Ladenburger (Susan Kellerman) and as her illness progresses she eventually also gains self-acceptance as well as closeness and understanding with her daughter, Clara (Samantha Mathis). It is actually her daughter, Clara who gives her the "light bulb" moment in understanding Beethoven's motives. Clara humms the Diabelli waltz one day and her mom asks her why she's humming it. She declares "because I like it. I think it's beautiful." At that moment, Dr. Brandt then realizes that Beethoven didn't find it mediocre at all but instead thought that it was beautiful. Simple but beautiful. So as he was losing his hearing, the waltz had spoken to him and he just wanted to stop time and capture every moment of the notes. Thus a 50 second piece developed into a 50 minute collection of music from Beethoven. Interesting premise isn't it?

The play has a great cast of actors who were wonderful and so connected. But what's facinating in this show is the staging. The past and the present become interwoven. As Dr. Brandt studies the original charts of the variations, scenes of Beethoven struggling to write the variations come alive. A lot of the dialog is directed toward the audience and you feel like you were going on this journey to discovery with Dr. Brandt. The story telling is even enhanced by the presence of a grand piano with a classical pianist (Diane Walsh) located stage right. As a character talks about a segment of music or if they compare one variation to another, the pianist plays the music so the audience fully experiences it's beauty. There is this one powerful scene towards the end of the play when Beethoven finishes the last of the variation stands center stage and talks through how the peice should be played. He states out "start soft.......build up to a crescendo.......then fortissimo......." well, as he says this dialog, the pianist plays it as he directs it. It's intellectually stimulating as well as very pleasing aurally.


The set (by Derek MacLane) is also very well thought of. As you can see from the next 2 pictures (taken from Theatremania.com) below, the stage is framed by archival shelves that slide in and out during scenes. Also, projections of the original music charts with Beethoven's writing are projected onstage. Even the erasures and corrections he made. It sort of showed you how the master was thinking or even struggling when he was composing them. It gives you an appreciation of how meticulous he is as a musician.

I'm really glad I caught the show before it closed last Thursday. It was a really unique experience.





Some photos I took that night:

Samantha Mathis as Clara Brandt (the daughter)

Zach Grenier (Beethoven)

Don Amendiola (Anton Diabelli)

Colin Hanks (Mike Clark)

Susan Kellerman (Dr. Gertrude Ladenburger)

Jane Fonda (Katherine Brandt)

Tulea (Jane Fonda's dog)

Women Thriving in Theatre

There's this really good article by Patricia Cohen of the NY Times about women over 40 thriving on stage. Read about it here.

(photo from NY Times)

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway

Broadway became a car-free zone as of yesterday, from 42nd to 47th streets and in Herald Square between 33rd and 35th streets. "They say there's always magic in the air, especially now walkin' down the street."

To celebrate Memorial Day and Fleet Week, the movie "On the Town" will be screened today on the Jumbotron next to TKTS.

A Walk on the UWS part 2

As I was walking around the Lincoln Center area last Monday, I saw this concert by music students in front of Alice Tully Hall. Now I don't know if they were students from Juilliard or from the LaGuardia HS of the Performing Arts (which is also located around the area) but they were good! Enjoy!

What makes a Monster and what makes a Man?

"Skynet became self-aware."---one of the best movie lines ever, the stuff of sci-fi nightmares, science and technology gone awry. It gave me chills. And no one can have anything bad to say about Terminator's iconic theme music. But after James Cameron's excellent T2:Judgment Day and the disappointing T3: Rise of the Machines, I figured the series was over. So I was excited when Lynn told me that a fourth Terminator was in the works. Thankfully, writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris with director McG (while no James Cameron), have managed to passably resurrect the series with Terminator Salvation.

Christian Bale is Resistance leader John Connor, aided in his fight against Skynet and its HKs(Hunters-Killers) by Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard), Barnes (Common), Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood), and Sam Worthington as the enigmatic Marcus Wright. Anton Yelchin, most recently seen as Chekov in Star Trek, is a budding Resistance fighter along with his silent ward Star (Jadagrace). Helena Bonham Carter is the not-quite-mad scientist Dr. Serena Kogan, a role she supposedly accepted because boyfriend Tim Burton is a Terminator fan.

The movie started off slow for me. I managed a little catnap a few minutes into the film, despite the shoot-em-up, blow-em-up scenes, but then I quickly got into the plot. The post-apocalyptic world is appropriately bleak, and we even get to see Skynet Central---a high-tech Mordor/Isengard hybrid. Mr. Bale is his usual intense and angry self (thank goodness John Connor's voice is more intelligible than his Batman voice). The time travel bit is as mind-boggling as ever, but Sam Worthington's nuanced performance as the conflicted hero/villain provides the emotional center of the film. His character brings to mind XMen's Wolverine, trying to find his identity, but I cared more for Marcus than Logan. Having said that, this film is still probably the most unemotional and the least humorous of the series. Fans will appreciate the occasional nods and references to the previous movies.

Terminator Salvation is not T-rrible. It's summer...it's a holiday. Just have a good time.

Still Rockin' and Rollin'

Spinal Tap reunion! Go to Unwigged for more details.

A Walk on the UWS

Last Monday, I took a walk around NYC's Upper West Side to see the newly made Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Here are photos of that day:


The Metropolitan Opera House, home of the Met Opera and the American Ballet Theatre




Juilliard School

Juilliard Lobby on 65th Street

The facade of Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center

It has an outdoor seating for outdoor concerts

This is the corner of 65th and Broadway

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, home of the NY Philharmonic

David H. Koch Theatre, home of the NYC Ballet and NYC Opera

the gift shop at the Metropolitan Opera House

look they even sell opera glasses!

NY Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center - it houses archival videos of almost all of the Broadway shows. The public is allowed to view their requested show as long as they have a valid reason.

So Anyway......

Last Monday night (5/18) the Actors Fund presented Julia Murney in Concert at Feinstein's in NYC. It was part of the Actors Fund Concert Series. This concert had a different feel compared to her concerts in the past mainly because it was in a more formal lounge and instead of a band she only had a piano (Tony nominee Tom Kitt, who also served as Music Director), cello (Mairi Dorman) and guitar (Michael Aarons) accompanying her. It had a more acoustic feel to it. Beautiful and intimate.

The set list includes:
Crazy For You
Misery and Happiness
Gravity
Much at All
Regretting What I Said (A Musical Apology)
Brave Parade
Seeing You Again
Cindy
So Anyway
Maria
Good Thing Going/Not A Day Goes By
It's Amazing The Things That Float
Rainbow Sleeves
Perfect
Fancy

What can I say......great song choices......and the voice.....stunning! It was more ballad heavy this night but she made sure there were funny songs sandwiched between. One of my favorite is Cindy, a song by Andrew Lippa (on a side note, I've actually heard him sing it in a high girly voice at the Johnny Mercer Symposium here at Northwestern University in 2007). It's a song about Cinderella transforming into a dominatrix once she gets her Prince Charming. It's very, very amusing!

I've always loved her version of Misery and Happiness from her cd but this time, since I was sitting house right by the cello, it was really lovely to hear the cello during this song. The hero of the night would be Tom Kitt for insisting that she sing one of the songs from Next To Normal. It turns out to be So Anyway which is a devastating song in itself but tonight I really did find myself teary-eyed after her rendition. It doesn't usually happen to me in a concert. In a show yes, but at a concert.....only now. Maybe because she also had tears welling up and was devastatingly moving plus this haunting cello arrangement in the background. I really was moved. Other highlights of the night, Much at All, Seeing You Again and Brave Parade.

I've seen other Broadway artists at their solo concerts and particularly during the banter, they feel very scripted so I am constantly amazed at how Julia Murney grabs hold of her audience during her concerts. She's just a natural and very at ease or even if she's not, she manages to turn it into an amusing banter off the cuff. What a great night and to top it all, got to meet nice people too!

Here are some of the pics I took:

The marquee





Tom Kitt (Hero and Music Director of the night)

You Go Girls!

The Ladies of The View vs. the idiotic Glenn "Crybaby" Beck. He couldn't even form a coherent sentence. (Pardon the caption of part 1 of the video...I just nicked it from Youtube. It wasn't an ambush at all.)

Part 1:


Part 2:

It's Gonna be Good

Pinky saw Next to Normal last year during its Off-Broadway run and raved about it. I was hesitant to watch it because it deals with mental illness, a topic not usually tackled in musical theatre, and something for which I wasn't prepared to see at the time. But I finally viewed it this past weekend with Pinky, and I was blown away. This musical had us both reaching for the tissues. It is packed with emotional wallop and universal truths.

Alice Ripley is Diana, struggling with her depression, bipolar disorder and other diagnoses. J. Robert Spencer took over the role of Dan (the ever supportive husband and father) from Brian D'Arcy James. Jennifer Damiano (Natalie) and Aaron Tveit(Gabe) are their children. Louis Hobson plays various doctors, while Adam Chanler-Berat is Henry, Natalie's loyal friend. The singing is outstanding. Tom Kitt's pop rock music is catchy---hummable and affecting. Most of our fellow audience members were older, and it was interesting to see them bob their heads and tap their feet to the music. The lyrics are alternately touching-funny and acerbic-funny, but always heart-breaking. The show is mostly through-sung, which made the show even more engaging. I was a captive viewer. The book is cleverly written, as we come to know each character's merits and malfunction bit by bit. But the sensitive subject is respectfully treated. I felt for all of these characters. This was the first show in a very long time that reduced me to a sobbing mess. If I was watching it alone at home, it would have been a chin-quivering, shoulder-shaking, complete meltdown.

So if you feel like this is just going to be Another Day, I am the One to tell you to see Next to Normal. Why Stay? It is Perfect for You. And although it left me feeling raw and ripped to shreds, it's good because it was courageous, gripping, honest yet hopeful about human nature. Next to Normal is a Light in the Dark.

It's Going To Be....LEGEN....Wait for it....DARY!

As Lani has posted, Neil Patrick Harris will be hosting this years Tonys. It's a very exciting choice! Just check him out as a host at this year's TV Land Awards.

Religion v. Science

Many might disagree, but I find Dan Brown's books entertaining. He combines mystery, intrigue, and my favorite conspiracy theories with facts and historical figures to weave good page-turning yarn. I end up finishing the book in one sitting. I always guess who the bad guy is, but it's still a compelling read. I thought The Da Vinci Code was movie-ready, but was sorely disappointed by Ron Howard's lumbering film adaptation. So I went to see Angels and Demons with lowered expectations, and left feeling satisfied. Secret societies---no wait---even better---The Illuminati?! The Vatican? The Hadron Collider and anti-matter? Enough said! I'm there on opening day!

Director Ron Howard has said that he doesn't want to repeat himself so he doesn't like to do sequels (although the book Angels and Demons actually preceded The Da Vinci Code, so it's technically a prequel). Thankfully, he didn't repeat himself in this one. I'm impressed that he made a fun, fast-paced and absorbing thriller, complete with a pulse-pounding Hans Zimmer musical score.

Tom Hanks is back as the symbologist Robert Langdon (but with a better haircut) to save the Catholic Church, the accomplished Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo, Ayelet Zurer as the physicist Vittoria Vetra, Stellan Skarsgard as the Swiss Guard Commander Richter, and the always exceptional Armin Mueller-Stahl as Cardinal Strauss. The script is tighter (mainly because the book is not as convoluted as Da Vinci, and the bomb threat naturally comes with a deadline). There are some plot changes but nothing that interfered with my enjoyment of the film. I especially relished the insider's look at the Church, all the rituals and ceremonies that come with the passing of a Pope and the election of a new Vicar of Christ. The tour of Rome and Vatican City, taking a pretend-peek into the Vatican Archives and its treasures, and the eternal debate between science and religion also rank high in my points of interest.

So if you just want to savor a popcorn potboiler and be diverted for 2 hours, go see Angels and Demons. You'll have a hell of a time.

(photo from Moviegoods)

Real Men Jete

I saw that phrase from a shirt once and I thought it was amusing. Anyway, Billy Elliot just won the NYC Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. Presenting the award to director Stephen Daldry is Ethan Stiefel. Yes, Cooper Nielsen himself from Center Stage! Mr. Nielsen is a principal dancer of the American Ballet Theatre and is currently the Dean of Dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Born in Pennsylvania coal country, Mr. Stiefel, himself is sort of a Billy Elliot. Check out his touching intro and the letter he reads from a young dancer in Utah. It's very touching.

NPH at the Tonys

Neil Patrick Harris will be hosting the 69th Tony Awards on 07 June. This year's telecast begins at 8 PM on CBS. It should be a fun evening with NPH as master of ceremonies.