Oh, No.

And it just keeps getting worse. The worst American Idol winner ever (although not the worst contestant, that would be John Stevens), just signed on to join the revival of one of the worst musicals ever directed by one of the most overrated director/choreographers ever. Taylor Hicks is going to play Teen Angel in Grease. At least the part is somewhat age appropriate, he could have been cast as Danny, perfectly replicating the movie's aesthetic of 40 year olds pretending to be 17. And, while Grease (and everyone involved, except for Max who deserves better) has at least gotten the non-recognition it deserves this time around, the fact that Taylor Hicks can get cast in anything music related just gives too much validation to his obnoxious personality to talent ratio. It tells anyone out there with no musical talent that if they go on a reality show and act spastic to music, they can get a theatre career, which is not the message we want to be sending.

However, the replacement cast news is not all bad. This is Jonathon Groff's last weekend in Spring Awakening (and Lea's as well but we don't care about the girls), and this Kyle Riabko guy they got to replace him is GORGEOUS It would totally be worth seeing the show again just to get an u close view of that naked butt. Kyle is on my list of invitees for some special 1 on 1 (or more depending on who else shows up) time the next time I'm in New York.

Now We've Got Four!

While the Tony nominations were not as exciting as I had hoped (Cry Baby up for Best Musical? Grease for Best Revival of a Musical? Rufus Sewell for Best Actor in a Play? And who the hell is this Stew guy anyways? He's got Cheyenne's nomination), there was one shining spot besides Heights' 13 nominations (no Grey Gardens-ing this year, I'm predicting more of a Spring Awkening-ing), and that was Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's winning the Best Regional Theatre award. When Victory Gardens won a few years ago we became the only city to have 3 companies with the award, and now we've increased that lead. Despite double digit sales taxes, massive corruption, untravellable streets, and incompetent public transportation, the theatre scene keeps this city livable. The Outer Critics Circle awards were announced on Monday and may offer some clues to how the Tonys should play out. The ignoring of Y. Frankenstein and Catered Affair certainly presaged their almost ignoring here. It looks like it should be Patti's year, finally, but more on specific predictions later. The bigger surprises were Grease's inclusion for Best Revival but no other nominations, Little Mermaids's nomination for Best Score (and don't get me wrong, it's a great score, but it's already a movie score. I know the Tony Committee made a specific ruling about this, but if Mermaid could get a nomination, Xanadu should have too), and Andrea Burns's nomination. . .for Young Frank (while Megan is still a never-been-nominated, and Sutton's sure thing streak came crashing to an end too). While I'm not surprised that Max didn't get nominated (maybe in June he, Cheyenne, Matty Mo, and I can have a group comforting), I am surprised that Priscilla Lopez didn't. They Tony's are very feast or famine when it comes to subsequent nominations for their winners, and they've been on quite a famine streak since 2001,when Nathan Lane got his second, with only Christine and Audra picking up repeat wins since (at least off the top of my head I think that's correct, if you can think of any others, let me know). Anyways, you can view the entire list and some "official" commentary here (plus a reposting of my favorite picture; come on, doesn't someone who can take a picture like this deserve a Tony nomination?):

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/117686.html

The show is on June 15th, look for my commentary, assuming I've got time to write any between schoolwork, the week before. Gooooooo Patti!

Carrie Lives On!!!!!

Well, we haven't had one of these in quite a while. The Times They Are A Changin' and High Fidelty both closed after about 2 weeks, but Glory Days has now closed after one performance. I guess I can scratch that off my list of shows to see next month. I'd say its impact on the Tony Awards is going to be nil. I'm surprised since it was a huge hit at its world premiere engagement in Arlington, but then, Carrie was a big hit in London before coming to New York. Hopefully at some point we'll get a cast recording, if Kelly could get one then every failed show deserves to have one, although we're still waiting on that Carrie recording. Still, even though it took 12 years, we did get Anna Karenina, and it was worth the wait, that one's really growing on me the more I listen to it. It's very Maury Yeston-sounding. Maybe we'll get an all pop-star recording of GBoys in 10 years or so. The cast and creators are going to be on Seth Rudetsky's Chatterbox on Sirius tonight, since my companion got Sirius for his birthday, maybe I'll try to steal it and check it out to see what they have to say.

Also, in my haste to wrap up Tuesday's post since my client showed up as I was typing, I do have to again reiterate that Les Miz was so fabulous, I wish I could have spent more time discussing what all I really liked about it, but just didn't have the time or energy to do so. Take your Mom on Sunday, it'll be her best Mother's Day ever, as well as your last chance to see the show. I'm looking forward to what they'll do with The Full Monty this summer. We're all going back for that one. Lastly, Cheyenne Jackson has signed on to do Encores' summer production of Damn Yankees, which will definitely be worth seeing. I might try to postpone the June trip until July since it'll be next to impossible to go both months. Curtis Holbrook will be playing Sonny in Xanadu while he's out, and that would actually be worth going back to see as well. So, now I think we're really caught up. Tony nominations are Tuesday, see you then.

One Week More

Ok, again this is a little late, even an easy week in my classes requires too much damn work. I can't wait to be done. So, the gist of it is that Les Miz was faboo. The cast was superb and the in the round production really worked. John Cudia was fabulous as Valjean, and I have to say that this is by far the hottest group of students I have seen, it's very easy to see how they inspired their followers to join them at the barricades. It ends this weekend, so go see it.

In other updates, the Gypsy cast recording should be out in February. Tony nominations are coming up and it will be interesting to see how everything shakes out. Look for my commentary sometime in the next month.

Updates

So, there's a lot to follow up on from my last post. First of all, and very good news indeed, emusic did add Make Me A Song to its lineup, and unlike Grey Gardens, Seesaw, and Pal Joey, is offering the entire album, all 30 tracks. The one problem is that I still need to get the final track of Evil Monkey Man, which would then only give me 29 tracks of MMAS, causing me to wait another month to finish it up and move on to the next album. Fortunately, Amazon offers both EMM and MMAS as mp3 downloads, like it does with Seesaw and Pal Joey, so I think I'll just spend the 99 cents and buy the last track of EMM and on May 20 go ahead and download all 30 tracks of MMAS. Then I can start June off with a clean slate. Maybe by that time they'll have Kerry Butler's solo CD available.

Speaking of Ms. Butler, is Xanadu in trouble? It was announced today that the 5 main performers (Cheyenne, Kerry, Tony, Mary, and Jackie) have all renewed their contracts through 2009. However, in recent history, both Sweeney Todd and Curtains made big announcements that the principles were renewing and then posted closing notices about 2 weeks later, ending the run well before the renewed contracts were supposed to end. While Mary Louise Wilson did not renew her Grey Gardens contract, Christine did and again and a big announcement was made that she renewed through October, but the show closed in July. The Tony odds will not be good if Xanadu posts a closing notice before the ceremony, let's hope it holds on, and if it makes a good showing, it might keep the show running, at least through summer.

I also mentioned on Tuesday that Javier Bardem was set to star in the movie version of Nine. Well, it was also announced today that he has withdrawn. I have to admit I was surprised they didn't offer the part to Antonio Banderas right off the bat (granted, he was not good in Evita, but his singing on the Nine cast recording was actually pretty good, and more in character with Guido). Hopefully they'll take this opportunity to right that wrong and actually let a show's star preserve the performance on film. Other than Rent, that hasn't happened in a long time, and the less said about Rent, the better.

Lastly, Boston Legal did it again. Christine Ebersole was on last night's show, in a very memorable performance, that at least has a small chance of appearing again. When can we expect to see Patti? Or at least Betty, Chita, Idina, or Judy Kaye? Granted, Kristin and Audra are busy with their own shows, but given that NBC in its heyday encouraged its must-see stars to jump around onto each other's shows on a routine basis, ABC should be able to follow suit.

So, that's it for now, hopefully I'll get my thoughts about Les Miz up on Sunday. See you then.