Honey, What's With The Torture?

Lots of big news. First of all, the lead story on playbill.com today was that Megan Mullally will be playing Beverly Wilkins in an LA production of The Receptionist in August and September! From a boozy unreliable receptionist for an interior decorator to an efficient, yet antique teacup addicted, receptionist for a professional torture organization, she's moving up in the world! If Blithe Spirit and 33 Variations hadn't already claimed the title, this would be the one show I would want to see this year, unfortunately it'll end up with a 33 Variations ending (ie not getting to see it) instead of a Blithe Spirit ending. Still, doing it in LA may provide some impetus towards a movie project, although I would love to see Jayne Houdyshell get the part. So, those of you in the LA area, get your tickets now.

The other big news is the massive addition to emusic's catalog. Seriously, take a look at them. They've got actual pop music that people listen to (Aerosmith's entire catalogue, The Offspring, The Eurythmics, Michael Jackson, everything that I've been wanting to get but not willing to buy and the library doesn't have). Plus, their cast recording offering has gone through the roof. They don't yet have West Side Story or Road Show, but they do have Hair as well as a massive amount of older recordings, including Best Foot Forward, Liza Minnelli's theatrical debut and impossible to find on CD! Best of all, they have just about every single album Barbra Streisand has ever recorded. They are going to keep me busy for years. Another nice update is now that if you get an album at once, most albums that are over 12 tracks will only cost 12 credits, meaning that you can now get a couple of complete albums every month. Even better, if you have less than 12 credits left, you can get as many tracks as you have credits for and then next month, when you go back, it will let you download the rest of the album for the difference between the full 12 credits and the amount of credits that you used last month. So, if you have 5 credits left and want to get a 17 track cast recording, you can download the first 5 tracks, and then next month download the remaining 12 tracks for 7 credits, you don't lose out on anything. I got my monthly allotment last night and finished up The Story of My Life (spending only 6 credits to get the remaining 11 tracks!), The Offspring's Greatest Hits, the Eurythmics tracks from their first Greatest Hits CD that didn't make it onto their 2006 Ultimate Collection CD and some dance mixes, Mahler's First Symphony recorded by the CSO, and Brahms' 2nd Symphony recorded by the Vienna Philharmonic (a historic recording that you can tell was mastered from a record by still very good). Next month I'm getting the 1973 Candide recording (24 tracks, 12 for each disc) and then starting Kyle Riabko's Parkdale Sessions CD. The only problem so far is that not every CD over 12 is 12 credits, the Hair recording, which is 37 tracks is still the full 37 credits, so that'll take a couple months to work on, but I'll start it the next month after completing Parkdale Sessions. There's never been a better time to join.

Wednesday I've got Garrick Ohlson at Ravinia and Thursday is Boleros for the disenchanted at the Goodman. I'm back in class again so while I can say I'll try to report on them right away, I'm not making any promises, but I will see you soon.