Fame or Famine

“Academy Award nominated actor Harvey Keitel will star in the title role in Jerry Springer – The Opera in Concert…Jerry Springer – The Opera in Concert is inspired by America’s most lurid TV talk show host who brought worldwide television audiences episodes including “Pregnant by a Transsexual,” “Here Come the Hookers” and “I Refuse to Wear Clothes.”
Somehow the world is even stranger than I ever imagined. Full story here. What’s weird, to me, is the way they act as if this is just no big thing – the most natural thing in the world for Tough Guy Keitel (remember the …read more

Comments Off

Last night was really hectic. Foxy Veronica’s Peach Pies was performing as “entr’acte” numbers between five, count ‘em, five bands at the King Club in Madison. Keep in mind this is Madison’s Halloween weekend, a nationally infamous event. I’m not sure if that made the crowd weirder or more thinned out, as most of the revelries were taking place on State Street.
However, what I do know is that it was a sad event, because it was the final (for a while, at least) performance by Betty Wantsme, who you’ve read of in these entries during my reviews of SYTYCD. She’s …read more

1 Comment

Not only will I be attending, but I’ll be speaking on a panel for Ethics & Blogging. I know, I already wrote this, but I didn’t have a spiffy “featured speaker” badge to show off then…

Comments Off

This just in (well, ok, just in my view): They’re turning the Johnny Depp/Traci Lords vehicle “Cry Baby” into the next Broadway hit (a la “Hairspray”). The word off of the NYT rumor mill is that it has serious Tony potential:
“…my Spy-Babies say the show has a catchy score (by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne), funny lyrics (by “Daily Show” executive producer David Javerbaum) and a solid book (by Tom Meehan, Mel’s co-writer on “Young Frankenstein,” and Mark O’Donnell, who wrote “Hairspray”).
Choreographer Rob Ashford reportedly has staged some terrific musical numbers, including one set in a prison during which …read more

3 Comments

Here’s part of her take on a recent performance at the  Brooklyn Academy of Music by Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato’s modern dance troupe, Compania Nacional de Danza.
She makes me miss NYC, but better, she gives me such a wonderful idea of what it would have been like to be there…
Swan Lake Samba Girl
When the three groups danced together, the movement all became fluid and lyrical to me — making it both beautiful and violent and frightening. It seemed at times the ‘manly’ men would take on some of the more lyrical charms of the sopranos, symbolizing the fluid nature …read more

1 Comment

Special thanks to my friend Nyxx for sending me this link to a great interview/backstage tour given by Lisa O’Hare when she was doing Mary Poppins in London.
Secret confession time: right up there with Eliza’s Dad, the EmCee from Cabaret, and the Pirate King, I’ve always wanted to play Bert…
Question: My daughter tells me that “Dancing With the Stars” is really lame compared to SYTYCD. But is it worth covering here? Would it qualify as “fine arts?

2 Comments

One of the sorrowful parts of my whirlwind trip to Milwaukee last weekend was not getting to stay long enough to see my friend Li Chiao-Ping dance with her company at Danceworks. She has been first a teacher, then a colleague, and now a friend, and I also have done work with her partner Doug Rosenberg (who has been something of a mentor in my own dance work).
She did a fine job, apparently. If you get a chance to see her on tour, here’s what you can expect:
“Her unique vocabulary, tinged with Asian martial arts, fits her compact body like …read more

Comments Off

I got to go see “My Fair Lady” thanks to the generosity of a friend in Milwaukee. You can read about the tour here…my own impressions were surprising to me.
When Liza sang her first solo, I realized what an amazing amount of sound quality is lost in recording. Her voice was like a crystalline glass filled with gleaming in the morning sun. The lighting of the stage, the ingenuity of the set design and choreography..for example, at the Opening Day at Ascot section I would almost picture the palette scraps, the renderings the costume designer must have made, the choreography…
Well, …read more

Comments Off

Well, it’s official; since I’ve been invited by the esteemed Amy Gahran to be on a panel discussing the ethics of blogging, I will be going to Blogworld Expo in Vegas. Any other dance/performing arts bloggers going to be there? At podcast expos there are often “meetups” for themed podcasts; I’m hoping to find a similar real-life meeting with my peers (ah, to meet Swan Lake Samba Girl, Great Dance Blogger, or BeckyLoooo in person!). That and I’d really like to have my picture taken with Ariana Huffington.
I should mention that the entire thing is sponsored by my Wonderful …read more

2 Comments

It’s true. When I graduated High School, I came from an immersion in swing choir, summer musicals (Motel the Tailor and Harold Hill), the drama club (four years of Shakespearean adaptations, culminating in playing a rapping Hamlet), and individual voice training that got me 1-stars in the State Vocal Competition.
I was going to be a gypsy. The plan was to graduate from BYU’s Musical Dance Theatre program, and then take Broadway by storm.
Little things like a family and military service got in the way. There’s a part of me that realizes that I probably got my life saved by that, …read more

Comments Off