Gorey, Superman, and Hotties

Well, it's been an eventful few days. First of all, on Thursday I went to the library after work and picked up Fiorello, 42nd St (the 2001 revival with Christine Ebersole), Annie, Kismet, and I Love My Wife. I wanted to get Carol Burnett's Let Me Entertain You, and the computer said it wasn't checked out, but for the life of me I could not find it. There was some crazy homeless person going through the stacks and kept picking up CD's (he was holding about 20 of them, which is way over the 6 at a time max), so he may have had it and I wasn't about to interrupt his delirium to ask, so I'll check again next time I go. On Friday I got the March of the Falsettos/Falsettoland and Triumph of Love CD's that I ordered from half.com. The Falsettos discs are in fairly good shape, but for some reason everytime I try to copy the MOTF CD onto my mp3 player I get a message saying Music Match committed an invalid page fault and needs to shut down. I brought it to work and will try it here with a more recent edition of MM, otherwise I may have to do an audio capture. The Triumph disc has a large scratch in the middle of it, but it plays ok, and it looks like it copied ok (I didn't get any red boxes next to the track numbers as it copied, they were all blue except for the), except for the first track, which got a yellow box next to the track number in Music Match as it copied, and will not play on my CD player at work. However, the CD player is pretty basic, so I'll try it on another one later, and hopefully it at least copied fine which is really what I care about.

Saturday afternoon I looked up playbill.com and found out that my longtime crush Lance Bass (and I totally pegged him as royalty back in 2000, he wasn't fooling anyone) is going to be in Hairspray on Broadway starting on the 19th. Since I'm coming back on the 18th, I won't be catching him, but he should be in NY next week rehearsing, getting fitted, etc., so with any luck I can run into him and since he's newly single, finally fulfill a longstanding fantasy I've had for about the past 7 years. Lance if you're reading, I'll be staying at the Marquis Marriott in Times Square, catch me at the street level Starbucks on the south side of the hotel Monday or Tuesday around 10 or so. I also realized that Max should be deep in rehearsals for Grease and in the absence of Lance, I certainly wouldn't mind running into him and making an apology in person for what I said about his facial expressions. Max, I'll see you at Starbucks too. I also wouldn't mind running into Josh Strickland or Jonathan Groff, but ideally, I also realized reading New York Magazine, Matt Morrison should still be in town. They had a review of 10 Million Miles, and while they weren't enthusiastic about it, they weren't totally negative, and they had a picture of him and he looks so good, even better than I would have thought, with a buzz cut. The show ends right before we get there, I'm not sure if it ended yesterday or if it will play out the week, but with a little bit of luck he'll be sticking around, so Matt, see you at Starbucks as well, and guys, don't worry if more than one of you show up at a time, it'll be more fun to go around for all of us!

Now, on to the serious critical commentary, as you know, I saw Gorey Stories and Superman this weekend. Saturday night I went to Theatre on the Lake for the first time for Gorey Stories, which was the hottest night of the year so far. The building is totally nasty. It's falling apart, the bathrooms were disgusting (the frame around one of the windows had almost totally rotted away, makes you wonder what kind of creatures nested in there over the winter), and the theatre space was basically a tin shack with ceiling fans, no a/c. It's a Park District building and I can't believe with all the various taxes we pay in this city, the city can't keep its own buildings in decent shape. If it was a private building, it would have been condemned years ago. So, being underwhelmed by the surroundings, I counted on the show to blow me away, and it didn't quite do it. I was hoping for re-enactments of Edward Gorey stories, instead it was done in more of a Shockheaded Peter style, with a narrator basically saying what was going on and actors acting out what was being said, it was like watching a movie with all voiceover. They did a good job, and the costumes and what few props they used were fantastic, but it didn't grab me. I could have stayed home and listend to the Tiger Lillies (the theme of the night apparently) The Gorey End CD and sat in the air conditioning. However, after intermission, the second act really took off and provided more of a frame for what we had seen before. It was definitely the more enjoyable half of the show, especially since it wasn't narrated quite as much, and most of the narration that did occur was part of the story, as it concerned a crazy writer seeing his storey acted out in front of him. So, by the time it was done, I had a better opinion of the show. The cast definitely was very good, especially Jennifer Santanello, J. Predie Predmore (who bore an uncanny resemblance to the character Jason on Cartoon Network's Home Movies show), and the very cute Brent Frost. Then on Sunday, which turned out to be even hotter, my companion and I trekked to Oak Brook for It's a Bird It's a Plane It's Superman. We had a very nice brunch at Mon Ami Gabi, did some shopping, and then headed over to Drury Lane. I had been in the building once before about 10 years ago for a job fair, but have never seen a production there. I must have been in a different part of the building, because when my companion and I walked in the front door, he just burst out laughing at the decor. It was very over the top 70's Vegas. It really could have been kitsch if it wasn't obvious that the owner took it seriously. However, the theatre was very modern and nice. We were in the second row, which I think was about 5 rows too close, we were directly under the hanging speakers, so we didn't get any projection, which made it hard to hear sometimes. However, the set design was superb. It was so 60's it was perfect, as were the costumes. The musical has definitely improved with age, as 40 years later it can now be done with the kitsch factor set to high, which would have been much harder to do in the actual 60's when it first premiered. Yeah, the music still isn't great, but the performers did a good job selling the songs. I don't think it'll ever see a full scale Broadway revival, but it was great seeing it with such a dedicated cast and creative team. Superman (the character) was a bit older than I would have expected, but there was still some eye candy in the persons of Jason Bayle (as almost-love interest Jim Morgan) and Sean Michael Hunt as a member of the Rascalnikovs acrobatic troupe. However, the highlights were David Perkovich as the villain Dr. Sedgwick who bore an uncanny resemblence, not so much physically as emotionally/mentally, to my high school chemistry teacher, and Holly Stauder, as the Linda Lavin character Sydney. Their performances brought the show to life. It was a very enjoyable afternoon, and I'll have to keep an eye on that theatre, it's definitely one to watch for. Next season they're doing The Goodbye Girl, but it's unclear if it's the play or the musical. If it's the musical I'll definitely be out there. One of the other great things about this show is that one the way out, we were behind two fanboys who obviously don't get out much, and they were talking about the show and how it compared to the Superman mythos. It was nice to see a show bring in people that normally wouldn't go to a musical, hopefully they liked it and will consider checking out other shows in the future. It's kind of the Harry Potter of musical theatre. So, just a few short days and it's off to New York for a blitz of theatre. See you there!