One of our castmates shared a story about another Sondheim show he’d been part of, when he blanked on his lyrics in front of an audience and had to stop the song. I asked if he’d been mortified. “Not really,” he said. “I think you have to embrace the whole process.”
William Lanfear’s wigs and makeup were spectacular; Peggy Frantz’s costumes were excellent; Ryan Decker’s end-of-show baritone solo as Lurch was exactly what I’d hoped for (gorgeous and funny); Randy Fields had a nice bit of choreography in the climatic tango number.
Sarah Crill is gently magnetic as Musoka, a terminally ill woman who may or may not be a woodland creature. My eyes stayed on her the entire show – a study in graceful movement.
Both sides of my brain were singing, another part was trying to think of the next move, but the LOUDEST part of my brain screamed, “YOU FOOL, YOU’RE 45 YEARS OLD, YOU’RE GOING TO TEAR A LIGAMENT IN YOUR KNEE!”
The concert on the whole is wonderful – part of the pleasure is the thrill of discovery, and part is how much of a departure the tour concept was… If this concert doesn’t have the manic, sometimes desperate energy of Springsteen’s 1970s concerts, it solidifies his reputation as a master showman.
At first glance, Michael Showalter and David Wain’s Wet Hot American Summer looks like a beat-for-beat remake of Meatballs. It’s also sentimental, but it’s sentimental about dumb sex comedies, not about its characters. The send-up is so smooth and affectionate it doesn’t immediately register as parody.
Life isn’t usually so sweet. God, I know it isn’t. I just read that Charles Antzelevitch, Director at the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory in Utica, NY was removed from his position.
In three weeks, we’ll be presenting Stephen Sondheim’s Putting It Together at The Earlville Opera House. The dreams have started – where I’m onstage without a clue what to sing, the lights aren’t ready, and I’m in pajamas. (I hate pajamas, so that’s worse than being naked onstage.) Right on schedule.
Steven Spielberg’s first five movies are interesting because while Spielberg’s technical proficiency grows by leaps and bounds, his interest in character steadily declines. Perhaps the first doesn’t necessarily crowd out the second, but it might. Raiders of the Lost Ark, conceived with George Lucas, is the ultimate pulp homage by two men who see movies as a funhouse and little else.
Once upon a time, there was a director named Steven, a prince in the Kingdom of Hollywood. Stephen was very talented and successful, so the king allowed him to make whatever movies he wanted, no matter how much time or treasure they took. Steven thought it would be funny to make a film about a Japanese submarine threatening Los Angeles shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The king thought this was a great idea and opened his vaults and instructed his courtiers to do whatever Steven wanted.
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