Sweeney, Nine, and Awards

Well, it's been a busy weekend despite numerous client cancellations, and I'm not just talking about the never-ending reading and discussion question postings for class, over the weekend, not only did I see Sweeney on Saturday, I also went to Nine on Sunday.

Sweeney was, as expected, fabulous. Other than one emotional slipup, David Hess was as fabulous as I expected in the role. The real surprise was Judy Kaye. I fully expect to be struck down by lightning when I finish typing this sentence, but she was even better than Patti. She really was Mrs. Lovett on all levels, while Patti, although fabulous, had more of an air of Patti playing Mrs. Lovett (which fortunately, is not there with her Mama Rose and should result in a Tony this time). All I have to say is, a pox on the Sun-Times! The show is fabulous, and holds up extremely well. You've got until Sunday, go see it.

Since I've got obligations pretty much every weekend until the end of June, Sunday was really my only chance to go see Nine. My companion didn't want to go, so I went by myself and had a great time. Porchlight is now back in my good graces. This was a completely professional production. The stage was sparse and uncluttered but fully effective. While some of the fake Italian accents bordered on grating, all the performers were excellent, particularly Jeff Parker as Guido, Heather Townsend as his wife Louisa, and Marie Svejda-Groh as Claudia, who delivered a gorgeous "Unusual Way." Also entertaining was Danielle Brothers, as Lilliane, the role Chita played in the revival a few years ago. She wasn't as affected as she was playing Ada in Flora, but then the part didn't call for that like it did in Flora. She looked the part and was fabulous. It's a very short, but powerful show with gorgeous singing and music (no novocained trumpet players this time). I can see how the original Broadway production trumped Dreamgirls and how the revival trumped the Bernadette Gypsy. I can't wait for the movie.

More awards nominations have been announced, both the Drama League and the Drama Desks. The Drama League only nominated play, musical, revival play, and revival musical, and then has one category for performer of the year. Young Frankenstein and Xanadu are both in the musical category, along with Adding Machine (the one to beat) and Cry-Baby, but not Little Mermaid or In The Heights, which is in danger of getting Grey-Gardens-ed. Of course August: Osage County is the play to beat, although I would like to see The Receptionist take it. However, Grease was not in the revival category, although the three suspects were, with South Pacific my prediction to win. When it comes to the performer category, pretty much anyone that was in anything during the year is nominated, so Jane Houdyshell has her nomination for The Receptionist, and Cheyenne Jackson and Kerry Butler are nominated, but Max and Laura from Grease are not. That Best Revival Tony for Pajama Game is going to prove very expensive for Kathleen Marshall's career. Patti of course is the one to beat, but with so many performers, it's always a toss-up. Last year it should have been Brian F. O'Byrne for his performance across three plays in Utopia, but ended up going to Liev Schreiber for Talk Radio, even though he didn't win anything else all season, with Best Actor going to Frank Langella at the Tonys. Then the Drama Desk award nominations were announced. Young Frankenstein got knocked off its pedestal by A Catered Affair, which got 12 nominations. YF was ignored for Best Musical, with Affair being joined by Xanadu, Adding Machine, and Passing Strange. Again, Heights is losing out on a lot of momentum and is in danger of only taking Best Actor at the Tonys. This time Cheyenne got a nomination, along with Mary Testa (in the supporting category) but Kerry and Jackie Hoffman were out. Sierra Bogess got a nomination in the leading actress category, but otherwise Mermaid was shut out, and Grease was completely shut out. The surprise was Matty M. getting a nomination in the leading category for 10 Million Miles, the show's only nomination. Unfortunately, but consistent with the other awards, he did not get a nomination for South Pacific, which is not speaking well for his Tony chances. We'll have to see what removing Adding Machine from the mix does for the Tony race, although while the show has been nominated for musical, score, and book awards, no one in the cast has gotten a nomination yet, so its absence may not have that much of an impact other than allowing Cry-Baby a shot at a nomination if it can capitalize on Heights' pre-Tony's absence.

Lastly, the case recording of Make Me A Song is out today. Hopefully it will find its way to emusic by the time my downloads refresh next month. I got all of Bea Arthur last week, although I'm a little irritated because some of the tracks have some static that sounds like the mp3's were made from a dirty disc. I can't tell if it's from the performance, maybe the piano player or Bea flipping pages too close to the mike, but it happens in random places. Still, it's a very funny and entertaining recording. I still need to get the last track of Evil Monkey Man, which I'll do next month and then start working on the NEO concert recording if Make Me A Song isn't available. Oh, the new Madonna CD is out today, and while it does have too many guest rappers, it's still excellent. That's it for new. I've got Les Miz on Saturday, good or bad that will be an experience.

And They're Off. . .

Awards season has just heated up with today's announcements of the Outer Critics Cirle Nominations. The full list is at:

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/116967.html

and is full of surprises. I can't say any surprise is the biggest because they're all pretty shocking, so we'll just run them all down. First, as stated in the article's title, Young Frankenstein leads the pack with 10 nominations. Pretty good for a show that was completely reviled by critics, although it may turn out to be this year's Wicked or Spamalot, lauded with nominations in recognition of its clout, but rewarded with very few wins. While Young Frankenstein was raking them in, Off-Broadway's Frankenstein was shut out, as were Broadway's In The Heights (shocking, but it may be in a similar situation as Grey Gardens was last year, which is too bad because it will lose a lot of visibility among Tony voters as awards season goes on) and Grease (while I'm not upset about that one, it's disappointing for Max). Xanadu only got one nomination for best musical, no acting or directing nominations. The Little Mermaid also only got one nomination, Sherie Renee Scott for Featured Actress (Sierra got shut out of Actress, along with Kerry Butler, opening up Patti's way for her long overdue second Tony. With those two out of the way, though Kelli O'Hara could be a bigger challenge). Off-Broadway's Adding Maching (yay!!!) and Make Me A Song (bigger yay!!!) got nominations for best off-bway musical, and The Receptionist got a well deserved nomination for best off-bway play, but no acting nominations. Jane Houdyshell did get a nomination for her featured performance in The New Century, but I can't imagine anyone was better than her portrayal of Beverly Wilkins, major oversight. Gypsy and South Pacific (which both got A's from Entertainment Weekly last week) will be slugging it out all spring, although Sunday in the Park could throw in some spoilers. Best Musicals were kind of snooze, and again it was shocking that Cry Baby, which hasn't even officially opened yet got a nomination while In The Heights got nothing. However, Glory Days was not eligible, but will be next year, so once that gets thrown into the mix, the Tony Awards could be much better. Still, it's a very unexpected start to the season, no telling where it will go from here.

Seasons

Well, I've figured out why Ravinia decided to crap out on its season this year; the Edens construction project. In rush hour traffic, it could easily take 3 hours or more to get to Ravinia from downtown during the week, and weekends aren't going to be much better. People are not going to want to put up with that. I think that's why we're seeing many, many more pop concerts this year, which encourage use of the train due to the insufficient parking, thereby bypassing having to take the Edens altogether. With that realization, I'm totally skipping BSB, as well as Donna Summer and just sticking with the Martin series (and I may even see if I can just sell the Gershwin queen ticket, although god knows who'd want to buy it) and the Browns. With two of the Sunday Martin concerts being at 4, I should be able to get up there fairly easily taking Sheridan all the way, and that only leaves one at 7. The other Martin concert is on a Wednesday as is the Browns, so I can just go up locally from work on 41 and then take Sheridan back home afterwards. Tickets are onsale tomorrow.

Broadway in Chicago also announced next year's season, and while most of it's a snooze (Spamalot, again???, Mary Poppins, Bronx Tale, Cirque du Soleil), there are two very exciting events: Xanadu (presumably with original Sonny James Carpinello, but no casting announcement has been made yet), and A Chorus Line. It'll be interesting to see how well Xanadu plays in a larger house since Chicago's smallest available possible space is still going to be larger than the Helen Hayes (only the Apollo would be close, and I can't imagine them using that, it's too out of the way). Plus, with A Chorus Line coming here, I can cross it off my list for the next NY trip (hopefully in June either the weekend of the Tony's, although it would suck to be on a plane back here while the Tony's are going on, or the weekend after), and make room for Gypsy, South Pacific, Young Frankenstin (got to catch it while Megan's still around) and Glory Days. Sunday probably won't happen b/c my companion hated it when Ravinia did it, and Mermaid will just have to wait until I can catch a Wednesday matinee without my companion. November, as well as off-bway's Little Flower of East Orange and the Diva show are also on standby if one of the first choices is sold out.

I mentioned earlier that a lot of cast recordings are coming out in the next couple of months (although still no word on Gypsy), and I realized, it's been way over a year since the Legends of Broadway CD's came out, where's the next batch? I had thought they said it was supposed to be the start of a series, and how can you have a series of legends and not include the Merm, Carol Channing, Robert Preston, or Mary Martin, just to name a few? Let's get moving on that Sony. With the complete collapse of your crappy Connect music store (that I still blame for fucking up my old laptop altogether), you've got plenty of time to devote to creating new collections.

Speaking of laptops and crap, have you heard about Blockbuster's proposed buyout of Circuit City? The two companies I hate the most consolidating into one, it's kind of poetic. Blockbuster just sucks on so many levels, but I personally hate them because in early 2000, the one in Hyde Park (which really sucked more than your average Blockbuster to start with, you'd think being in U of C's neighborhood they'd have a more intellectual collection, but no, it was actually even more dumbed down, I guess in deference to the surrounding neighborhoods), kept trying to tell me I was returning movies late, or not at all, which was totally not true. I'm so neurotic about that, I can tell you the exact date and time I've returned every movie I've ever rented from anywhere, including Netflix. They also kept trying to screw me over on their Blockbuster rewards program, saying I didn't have all the credits towards free movies I knew I did every month and trying to get out of having to give me free movies. Their shadiness knew no bounds, and the second time they called me and said I had a movie two weeks or more overdue that I had returned the day after I watched it, I was done. I complained vociferously to their regional headquarters and after ripping them new ones, got them to clean my account so it didn't look like anything was missing and that I didn't owe them any money, and have not gone back since. Then, the less said about Circuit City, the better. However, it's been a year and I'm forgiving the Bannana, as soon as I need a new pair of khakis, I'm there.

Lastly, Melrose Place Season 4 came out yesterday, and this time all Best Buys in the area had it in stock. It's very strange the way Season 3, which was the most popular, and the best, season got swept under the rug (they still don't have a picture of it with its listing on BB's website), while Season 4, the season that started the show's long decline as it crossed the line from high drama to over the top, causing a massive hemorrhaging of viewers, is getting VIP treatment. Oh well, bad Melrose Place is still better than good OC, One Tree Hill, or any of the other wannabes from recent memory. We're at the median now, three previous seasons out, this one, and then three more to go and I'll have it all. Of course, then they'll release some sort of deluxe collector's edition with the real music in all the episodes or something, but we'll see how well I can resist temptation or not.

Me in chair

Alright Chicago, you've got one week left. The Drowsy Chaperone is even better on tour than it was in New York. The pacing seems a little tighter which keeps the action moving a bit better. As much as I loved it the first time, it did seem to get bogged down a bit. That problem was not present this time. The only change I noticed was the bit of MIC's dialogue about the Morosco Theatre having been torn down and a gaudy hotel built in its place. Otherwise, everything was there, just delivered better. Not to say that the NY production was awful, it was still one of the best things I've ever seen, this production just seemed to have fine tuned the one area that needed just a smidgen of improvement and has come up with a perfect show. The theatre was packed and the audience just seemed to love the production, including two student groups that were up in the balcony with us - take that, Jersey Boys! Nancy Opel (as the Chaperone), Jonathan Crombie (as MIC), and Georgia Engel were all fabulous, as was the rest of the cast. While it's too bad that Nancy isn't getting to reprise her performance of Miss Mazeppa on Broadway (truly one of the highlights of Gypsy's second act, next to Patti's Rose's Turn), she was just terrific as the Chaperone, ably portraying both the Chaperone character and the actress behind her (forgive me, I'm blanking on the name at the moment), more so than Beth Leavell did. While Bob Martin is the definitive MIC, Jonathan Crombie was just as good. My only quibble is that from our seats in the balcony, it was hard to hear the performers, it seems like the mics were stuck at 6 or 7 when they should have been at 10. Whenever anyone coughed or laughed, it completely obfuscated what was being said on stage. It didn't bother me so much since I've seen it and have the score memorized, but our friend that was with us seemed to miss some stuff. Still, that's a minor issue if you get main floor seats, which you should.

Ravinia has put out its calendar, with tickets going on sale April 17, and I'm much less than impressed. While the Martini's in the Martin series looks good (Betty Buckley, Barbara Cook, and Carol Lawrence, plus some queen singing Gershwin which I'm not all that excited about), there's no Broadway show this year, and there's a much heavier focus on pop, including having the Backstreet Boys perform, which just sounds so odd I'm tempted to buy a ticket just to see how that's going to get pulled off. I think I'm just going to get the MitM Sunday series and The 5 Browns and leave it at that. Since the Browns are on a Wednesay, and 3 of the Martin shows are on Sundays with the 4th being on a Wednesday, it won't disrupt my client schedule like last summer did. However, I can plug the gap this year with more shows. Nine is starting up for the next six weeks, and TimeLine will be reprising Fiorello! starting in a couple of weeks, and I really want to see that this time around. Plus, Steppenwolf is doing Dead Man's Cell Phone, although without Mary Louise Parker, but the show itself sounds interesting enough that I'd love to see it. So, while Ravinia may be declining in quality, there's still plenty to see.

My Honey Bun

You MUST check this link out now:

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/116512.html

While the story is very good news for the most part (ignoring the implications for Patti and Gypsy as a whole at the Tony's), the highlight comes when you scroll all the way down to the bottom. If that's in the show, I'm getting front row seats for every night I'm in NY.

Matt also had a Q & A piece earlier this week, and while most of it wasn't too eyebrow raising, he was asked who would play him in the movie of his life, and he said his "best friend" (male of course) who knows him better than anyone. As we all know, it's a small step from "best friend" to "roommate." No mention though of a girlfriend living in Canada.

Lastly, speaking of good reviews, Drowsy got a fabulous review from the Sun Times, at least someone truly appreciates it. While Bob Martin is no longer with it, it looks like we'll still be getting Georgia Engel. With tomorrow looking to be the nicest day so far this year, there's a lot to look forward to.

He's a Diva!

Well, there's a lot of news to report, but the biggest of all, as I'm sure you've heard by now is Mandy Patinkin. It's taken me a while to figure out my feelings about it, hence the somewhat tardy report. Musically it was wonderful. His voice is still in fine form, and he did a great selection of songs, about 2/3 from Sondheim and 1/3 from other sources. There were some self-indulgent moments, such as unnecessary Yiddish versions of White Christmas, Take Me Out To The Ballgame, and Maria, a very bizarre A Tisket A Tasket, I Lost My Yellow Basket, his crazy stylized movements, and at the very end, a monologue from Princess Bride, one of the worst movies ever. However, the real drama came in about the first 10 minutes. After taking the stage with his pianist and sole accompanist, and opening with Children and Art and Sunday, Mandy began a dialogue and started to segue into a recognition of earth hour, which started right at the beginning of the concert. Now, I don't know if he thought he was performing in Carnegie Hall or Symphony Center or what, but the Chicago Theatre (which is looking a bit dilapidated these days, dirty seats, dirty proscenium, threadbare carpeting) allows drinks in the theatre and provides service to the VIP ticket holders in the first few rows. Well, the waitress came in after the opening numbers and started distributing the drinks to the people who had ordered them, and Mandy had a drag-queen sized hissy fit. At first it seemed like he was joking, but as he kept tearing into the waitress, it just got uncomfortable. She, unlike Mandy, remained professional and finished handing out her drinks, collected her money, all the while with Mandy making shitty comments to her, and then walked out without making any sort of scene. While it was a questionable decision on the part of the theatre, a true artist would have gone on with the show and let the woman do her job. It was very disappointing and took quite a while for Mandy to get the momentum back. The audience around us was very disconcerted and took a few songs for the whispered chattering to stop, although they may have been discombobulated by the overall bizarness of the night, with his stage design and stage presentation. To start with, the staging was rather odd, although I gather it's standard for him. It was him and a piano, performing on a bare, stripped down stage, reminiscent of the Pet Shop Boy's stage design for their 2002 Release tour. He came out, obviously having listened to his own instructions, dressed fairly casually in black slacks and a grey henley, and with a Madonna-style headset, although it was wired, giving him a fairly short leash, adding to the overall bizarness of his presentation. He started most of his songs standing next to the piano, hands glued to his thighs Jerry Espenson-style, and about halfway through each song started doing Mummenschanz-style movements. It was the craziest thing to watch, but his voice was so good that he pulled it off. Having just a piano as his accompaniment also helped keep the histrionic level at tolerable, I gather from some of his reviews that when he's with an orchestra it can get pretty schmaltzy. Highlights included great renditions of On The Atchison, Topeka, & the Santa Fe, Sorry-Grateful, In Sally's Eyes, Franklin Shepherd Inc., a blistering Brother Can You Spare A Dime, and a vaudeville-style When Movies Were Movies, and a terrific ending of the main set with Being Alive, among so many others. Interestingly though, other than the songs from Sunday in the Park with George (the opening numbers as well as Finishing The Hat later on), he didn't do anything from any of the shows he's been in. I can understand having solidarity with Patti and not doing anything from Evita, but I would have thought he would have worked something in from Falsettos or The Secret Garden. Still, it ended up being a great night. If only he had been a little more professional, it could have been a perfect night.

Now, backtracking a few days, I have wireless internet! As usual with Comcast though, nothing went smoothly. They gave us a window of 8-noon, and of course showed up at 11:50 when I had a 1:30 appointment elsewhere. We had told them we would provide our own modem and router, but when I showed the guy what we had, he said that his order showed that they were providing the equipment and since they have to program in the serial number and MAC address of the equipment prior to connection (to prevent service theft, which I can understand), he had to complete the installation with his equipment. We could call later and have them make another trip to uninstall their equipment and install ours (all for an additional fee, plus a rental fee for the time we use their equipment). So, I've got about $150 of wireless networking equipment that's now useless. However, the network is set up, and is FAST, and I kind of don't want to mess with it now that I've got the Tivo connected and all our computers are set up to automatically connect. We'll take a look at the bill and see how we feel about paying a rental fee every month. We already opened the cable modem and router boxes so they can't be returned, but we can save them for our next place or I can try to sell them with my old laptop. It is so nice to not have to manually connect the Tivo to the phone line every Saturday afternoon now. I also got my monthly 30 downloads from emusic in about 10 minutes, as opposed to 6 hours with my cell phone modem. I finished Lauren Kennedy's album (terrific), got Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova's album, which is basically the same as the Once soundtrack, got the cast recording of Gone Missing (interesting, for being only 20 minutes it's strange how it can still kind of fizzle out by the end, but it starts very strong), and started on David Yazbek's Crazy Monkey Man. Next month I'll finish that and get Bea Arthur on Broadway for my companion's birthday (I'm sure I've mentioned his Golden Girls fetish before somewhere on here). Then on Saturday my project was due for class, and it took all of 90 seconds from the time I flipped on the wireless antenna switch until I got to the screen that said Assignment Submitted. So nice.

Speaking of music, there's going to be a lot more soon. While there's no offical word on Gypsy yet (and with the reception it's getting it'll only be a matter of time), it was announced this week that In The Heights, A Catered Affair, South Pacific and The Adding Machine will all be getting cast albums, with a good probability of Glory Days getting one as well. This is going to be a very interesting Tony Awards, and it looks like all the shows (with the exception of Adding Machine which is Off-Bway) are trying to capitalize on that by releasing within 1-2 weeks of the ceremony, and Adding Machine is trying to piggyback on that and release in that time frame as well. One more reason to look forward to summer.

This weekend it's Drowsy Chaperone, hopefully next weekend will be Nine, and then on the 25th it's Sweeney, with hopefully a trip to NY in early June, maybe coinciding with the Tony Awards. Finally, it's show seeing season again!