Fame or Famine

OK, the show is growing on me. And not only me, obviously other people like it as well – the cast recording of In the Heights debuted at #1, and, well, there is the whole Best Musical thing.
Visit the Heights
Broadway.com has a charming little video where Lin-Manuel Miranda takes you backstage of In the Heights for a very personal tour backstage. He doesn’t do the normal “We’re so happy to be here, blah blahblah.” Instead he shares the video games he likes, the personal notes from people, his own personal image issues (“I think this mirror makes me look fat!”).
Some …read more

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I know, you were all so stumped you weren’t able to figure out the clues to who said what, so here are the answers. Remember, the choices for celebrity quotes were: John Lithgow, Kristin Chenoweth, Brooke Shields, L. Ron Hubbard, and Gray Miller (well known B5Media Entertainment blogger, dontcha know).
Here are the quotes, and who said them:

“She’s a pro and I’d say to be herself,” John Lithgow, her co-star in All My Sons
“She’s going to be wonderful.” That would be John Lithgow again.
“We haven’t worked together yet but it’s going to be great.” Once again, Mr. Lithgow, beginning to sound …read more

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At the Tony Awards last night several A-List Broadway (and TV and Film) personalities if they had any advice for Katie Holmes in her upcoming role in the straight-play revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. Rather than tell you about it, let’s play a match-up game: match which star said what to her.

“She’s a pro and I’d say to be herself,”
“She’s going to be wonderful.”
“We haven’t worked together yet but it’s going to be great.”
[She] “will be so happy. There is nothing like it. It’s the Olympics. It’s the college of theater,”
“Get a lot of sleep and stay healthy. …read more

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In a word, disappointed.
Passing Over Passing Strange
One award: best book of a musical. Now, don’t get me wrong – Stew is probably quite pleased to have gotten that. He’s on record as saying that he considers himself first a musician, and that the idea of getting a Tony is pretty far removed from most musicians.
Maybe that’s why I wanted him to sweep the Tony’s. Something to do with the underdog, the newcomer, something capturing the imagination rather than dominating to distraction with some huge Disneyesque production. Yes, yes, I know that Miranda winning Best Musical for The Heights is also …read more

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Avenue Q (winner of the 2004 Tony for Best Musical) has been making the rounds of my friends of late. I confess to being kind of surprised that it took them so long; my friends, even the ones not from NYC, tend to be pretty aware of current issues and trends, and the Sesame Street parody for Generation X is all about that.
More Than GenX
I got introduced to it by my daughter, believe it or not, who is as big a Renthead as you can get. The producers of Rent, along with composers/lyricists Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, put …read more

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Next Sunday it’s the Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall. I’ve talked about a lot of them here on the blog, and you can catch a lot of the musical numbers in various places on the web such as YouTube. But here are the ones that are my favorite:

Passing Strange – I can’t say enough about this one. 7 Tony Nominations, the autobiography of Stew, this one has gotta be the #1
In the Heights – “Salsa, hip-hop, merengue, Reggaeton, traditional Broadway” – this sounds as rich as NYC itself.
Xanadu – Yeah, I know, I’m as surprised as anyone that …read more

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It’s a banner day on Broadway, especially for some of the stories I’ve been tracking on this blog.
Stew Gets an Obie for Passing Strange
I wrote recently how musician and auteur Stew had garnered no fewer than seven Tony nominations – but there’s more out there than Tony. The Village Voice also gives out its own theatre award, the “Obie”, and Passing Strange has secured Best New Theatre Piece. I’m a little amused, though, because part of the prize is $1,000 – to be split between Stew, co-author Heidi Rodewald and director Annie Dorsen – which I think is just about …read more

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Correction: While having lunch with Douglas Rosenberg today, he corrected one fact that was not clear in my recent post about John Henry. While it is true that John Henry never actually served in Vietnam, he was in the army, and served honorably; the interesting thing is that the metaphor of the war and combat experiences became a metaphor for the struggles he endured as a gay man, as an artist, and as someone fighting AIDS. I apologize for the error.
Jealous of my Friends: A fellow blogger and online friend of mine, Viviane, is sitting as I write this at …read more

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I realize that I may seem a little obsessed about Mary Poppins right now, strange during Dancing With the Stars season, but it is necessary. I’m crestfallen at Penn Jillette’s abysmal scores, his massive feet not as fleet as I’d hoped. There is some satisfaction at Adam Carolla’s similarly abysmal performance, but it doesn’t quite make up for it.
A Spoonful of Sugar
Which is why Broadway.com’s essay by Gavin Lee about his first two years on Broadway in the role of Bert makes me happy. A veteran of the London production, he reshaped the role for a Broadway audience and seemed …read more

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While my attention is happily distracted by the joy of Dancing with the Stars (it’s interesting! It’s exciting! I can like Bruno and Carrie again!) there is some news from the original reality/talent show American Idol:
 
MARIAH CAREY, DOLLY PARTON, NEIL DIAMOND AND ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER TO MENTOR FINALISTS AND PERFORM ON “AMERICAN IDOL”
Whaddaya mean, “mentor”?
Apparently the stars will help guide the finalists through the final few weeks of American Idol, and even perform live on the show. While I can see some crass commercialism here – Dollie Parton’s recent album, Backwoods Barbie, certainly won’t suffer from this added exposure, and …read more

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