We live in exciting times – the “death of live performance” that was feared with the advent of digital media never happened, and if anything there is more live performances simply because they can now be webcast, broadcast, etc. More people than ever are appreciating and understanding dance and music thanks to the reality shows and the specials, and Broadway itself is booming. Suddenly, thanks to “High School Musical,” being in a school musical is cool again, something that makes me wish I could go back to my high school days and point out to my young nerdy self.

But all things have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and this will be the final blog entry in this particular blog. I am off to other writing endeavors, and B5Media has plenty of other blogs covering specific parts of the performing arts. I’d like to thank Arieanna, my content editor, for her guidance and patience while I’ve been here.

Gray Miller

exeunt omnes

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Everyone was happy and excited for Bailey Hanks, winner of MTV’s Legally Blonde reality competition. She beat out the other legal blondes and landed her leading role, which she premiered last Wednesday. The other contestants went home, heads hung low, bitter and defeated, right?

Well, not so much.

Surprise! You’ve Got Contracts!

As it turned out, the producers had jobs in mind for all four of the top contestants in the show.

• Rhiannon Hansen will play Margot, Elle’s best friend, in the touring company of Legally Blonde
• Autumn Hurlbert will join the Broadway cast as Elle’s understudy
• Lauren Zakrin will not only join the touring company in the ensemble but also act as a second understudy for the Broadway show.

So all four top contestants won contracts, and all four seem to be pretty happy about it. “I couldn’t be at a better place; this is better for me now and this is where I’m supposed to be,” Rhiannon told the Deseret News.

I think this is a piece of brilliance on the part of the producers, and could change the way people get cast in these shows. They came out of this with (I’m presuming) a profit from the MTV show, four solid leads for their main star, and everybody’s happy.

Could this be the end of the Cattle Call?

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Dance 3, Presence 10

She’s not all that technically brilliant, according to my Middle Eastern Dance Research Team (yes, I have one, doesn’t everyone?). But what she has is presence – she’s obviously having a great time as she dances and entertains, and it’s contagious.

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What does this have to do with the performing arts? Why, I’m glad you asked…

Everything’s Coming Up Musicals

I’ve written here before about the Creature From the Black Lagoon as a musical. But did you know there are others?

• Evil Dead the Musical
• Toxic Avenger the Musical
• The Fly
• Repo: the Genetic Opera
  

I didn’t know about some of these, until I read his column over on A&E. I was able to remind him of Point Break LIVE! which doesn’t really count, as it’s not a musical (but the fact that Keanu Reeves’ part is read by a random audience member off of cue cards is pretty interesting) . He also mentions the old standby, Rocky Horror Picture Show, but strangely enough missed the beginning of the genre, Little Shop of Horrors, and of course the newest Broadway fiasco noble effort, Young Frankenstein.

No, I’ve NOT Seen Dr. Horrible!

Of course, Joss Whedon is the talk of the town with his new Dr. Horrible  , and no, I’ve not seen it yet (about four of my friends suggested I write about it when I started this entry). I will subscribe to it tonight, watch it tomorrow on my new iPhone, and give it a proper Fame or Famine review. OK? So leave me alone already!

It makes one wonder, though…are we in a new age of musicals, clever and witty and pretty and gay…? 

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All Around the Edge

Friday night’s theme is “Before the Edge”,  with art and performances with sexual themes that are playful and teasing, such as a Atomic Cheesecake Pinup Pageant and performers such as

• Eliza Charming
• ShortStaxx
• Lee Luscious/Lee Harrington
• Coco Mource
• Dix Washington

and other art and performances on the site. The headliner is the famous sex educator, performance artist, and feminist Annie Sprinkle.

Saturday things get a bit darker, with performances featuring more BDSM and kinky themes such as flesh pulls, rope bondage, and poetry.  Some performers like Lee Harrington and Annie Sprinkle will be reprising appearances with a more explicit theme, and they will be joined by fetish performers such as Klawdya Rothschild, Julie Simone, Graydancer, Sacred Mark Sanctuary,  and more.

It all takes place at the Load of Fun gallery, 120 W. North Ave in Baltimore, beginning at 7pm. Admission is $15.

image used permission of Suzannah Gerber

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While the staging looks minimal, I suspect that the lighting and other designers will have made the entire theatre into a magical candyland before the night is out. I’d especially love to see how they shrink Mike Teevee on the stage. Click past the cut for a preview.

With luck I’ll get to it before it closes August 17th. If you check it out, please let me know! Here’s a preview piece from the Tribune:

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It’s only a preview, but it’s a breath of great things to come: the review of the premiere of “Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition,” by Bill T. Jones seems to hint at a magnificent work to come. Commissioned to create a work celebrating the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, it’s a pretty tall order for anyone but Mr. Jones.

He assembled, along with his usual fantastically talented company, an amazing creative team: Janet Wong on video, singer Lisa Komara, score by Jerome Begin and Christopher Antonio William Lancaster, Liz Prince’s amazing costume design and a set consisting of moveable columns by Bjorn G. Amelan.

The review describes some tricks not working so well – video flames on the columns, for example – but on the whole it sounds like Jones once again is exploring a subject that seems so incredibly overdone in new and amazing ways. It’s a disjointed but serious look at war, racism, and other themes of the day, and his choreography, always pushing the limits of the human form, addresses it like a hologram – in pieces, but each piece containing suggestions of the whole.

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Image details: Cast Members From "Rent" Perform At Broadway For Life served by picapp.com

The question becomes, then, why does it have such appeal outside New York? If it’s too unrealistic to people who live there now, what is it that makes it appeal so much to people like my daughters (who in fact introduced me to the songs and story, and who have seen it on Broadway)?

I suppose part of it, at least, is that it’s not an original story – the theme was borrowed directly from La Boheme, and that’s not to impugn the immense talent of Jonathan Larson at all. As Robinson notes in his article, RENT captures the flavor and spirit of New York in a way that makes it, now that the wheel of time has moved on, almost a historical narrative, as accurate as any text by Herodotus. As a cultural memento of the way a microcosm of culture reacted to crisis…it is a monument as well as a work of art.

So I bid it farewell as it leaves Broadway, knowing that while I’ll never see it there, my children have, and so we, too, are a part of that cultural icon.

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The problem lies in the fact that there is both a state law in Illinois and a city of Chicago law, and the latter is forbidden from making the former any weaker. This means that an exemption for theater can be tricky – lest Chicago fall to the thespian hedonism currently infesting Minneapolis.

Before the Ban, With a Cast of Thousands

Thanks to a comment by Karl, I learned that in Minneapolis there are many bars getting around the smoking ban by declaring their bars  theatrical venues and the cigarettes props. The actors, of course, are the customers, “playing themselves before the ban on cigarettes.” It’s a pretty ingenious little loophole, and while it may seem ridiculous, so does the idea that people need that much babysitting.

Alderman Brendan Reilly, who is fighting to get an exemption for Chicago theatre, realizes that this is not a great example for the opponents of smoing in any form. Still, as he fights for the rights of the Jersey Boys and others to light up, he is confident it can be overcome. ” “The Department of Public Health will know the difference between the Chicago Theater and Joe’s Pub.”

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That’s right. Jersey Boys, currently playing in Chicago, had portrayed the doo-wop singers accurately – that is, singing on the street corners with cigarettes hanging out of the their mouths. But since Chicago has a city-wide smoking ban, an “irate theatre goer” complained to…well, to someone, but no one seems to know who, or where the complaint originated. However, the play has removed the butts from the production (ifs & ands seem to be safe, for the moment).

Think of the Stagehands!

…or something like that. The city aldermen aren’t saying that an actor lighting up a butt on stage is going to actually give anyone cancer (kind of reminds me of when I was juggling torches and I’d reassure the audience that it was ok, I was using stage flame). But still, Health Committee Chairman Ed Smith says, “”We would be duplicitous if we say it’s alright to allow people to smoke on stage. … It’s an adversity to people who come to see those plays and the stagehands.”

As for those plays where lighting up really is written into the script, his advice is that they “modify the lines of the their plays to strike references to smoking and smoke-filled rooms.” Yeah, just change those lines. And by the way, it’s rather bad to show killing, and high heels kill your back, and do you realize what ballet does to your knees? It’s an adversity!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be improving. Alderman Bernard Stone, one of a couple who tried to get an exemption from the city-wide ban on smoking for theatres, said “”When you take it out of the production, you’re changing history. If you want to be true to the times, you’ll allow them to smoke on stage. To do otherwise is like blue laws in the Puritan times.” But apparently everyone else on the council was afraid to sign for smoking…and so, the Jersey Boys, and the rest of the plays, will have to leave their lighters at home.

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