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"King" of Broadway

8 May

The announcement today that Whoppi Goldberg will host the Tony Awards this year reminded me that I never put up a link to my story about likely nominee Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of the Broadway show In the Heights.

Lin-Manuel, who is only 28, started writing his show when he was a sophomore at Wesleyan and never expected to act in it.

But his collaborators found that no one knew the show’s freestyle raps as well as he did, and thus, somewhere along the way to Broadway, Lin-Manuel became the star.

The rest, as they say, is history. Continue reading →

Goodbye, Superstar

23 Apr

I’ve always known American Idol was a total crock, but tonight, with the premature ouster of Carly Smithson, the show proved again that the voters clearly don’t recognize talent. This video below is of Carly’s performance last night of “Superstar,” from Jesus Christ Superstar (it was Andrew Lloyd Webber night), and damn if it wasn’t one of the top 3 of the night (another being Syesha Mercado‘s performance of “One Rock & Roll Too Many”). Brooke White and/or Jason Castro definitely should have been in the bottom two, and one of them should have gone home. Sigh … Oh well. Goodbye, Carly. Best of luck to you.

Raise this Roof

2 Mar

Hey there. Just a quick plug because an article I’ve written is now live on the Interweb for you to read and enjoy. It’s about the new Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which for the first time features an all-African-American cast. I interviewed Debbie Allen (who you most likely know from the TV show Fame), and, well, you can see what she had to say right here.

Have I Got a Show for You

19 Feb

Just a quick TV PSA: A filmed version of the recent Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, which I saw and loved, will be making its television debut Wednesday night on your local PBS station.

Check the local listings for the station and time in your city.

Here’s a link to an excerpt from the opening number.

If you can’t watch the show Wednesday, don’t worry: it’s going to be repeated a few times over the next couple weeks.

Or just set your DVR. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Attend This Tale of Sweeney Todd

22 Dec

How excited was I to see Sweeney Todd?

Well, as I’ve previously stated, it’s one of my favorite musicals of all time, and I had high hopes based on the trailer.

And now, having seen the film, I’m happy to say I was not disappointed.

Sweeney Todd tells the story of Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp), a wrongly imprisoned barber who returns to London having rechristened himself Sweeney Todd. He’s hellbent on having his revenge against the judge who took his wife and child away from him. But when Sweeney decides not to stop at just the judge, and that “they all deserve to die,” he hatches a plan with Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), his downstairs neighbor, to grind up the bodies and turn them into meat pies.

Soon the city population is a fraction of what it once was, and Mrs. Lovett is making the most popular pies in London.

The film is directed by Mr. Macabre himself, Tim Burton, so needless to say, it’s a very dark film and there’s a lot of blood.

And yes, if you missed it above, this is a musical. But it’s safe to say you’ve never seen a musical quite like this. Continue reading →

Bright Guy, Big City

9 Dec

So yeah, I took a couple days off from work last week and spent them down in New York.

And for the first time in a long while, most of the time was spent in the city, playing tourist.

Here are some snapshots from the weekend.

O Christmas Tree: Bean, meet the Christmas tree at 30 Rock. Decided to get my Christmas on, so I spent a bit of time at Rockefeller Center trying to take the perfect picture of the big tree (after all, it’s never too early to start working on next year’s A Very Marty Xmas CD). But as I kept learning, it’s hard to take a picture of a lit-up tree at night. My damned camera didn’t seem to want to focus. This one here is probably the best one I took.

Number one or number two, it’s completely up to you: Best thing ever was Charmin’s second annual, temporary, free public restroom next door to the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. That’s all it is. You go up a tall escalator, wait on line, and you get to use one of the 20 or so toilets. They were spotless (cleaned after each use), colorful, and the attendants were having such a good time helping out that it was hard not to smile. As marketing gimmicks go, this one was pretty fun. And it was really convenient, because at the time, I really had to go.

People watching: Mitzi, Fetus, and I had a very very very minor celeb sighting Thursday night when we spotted Danny, from the New Orleans cast of The Real World, in the Times Square Toys ‘R’ Us just wandering around. And it occured to me how none of the current viewers of that show must know who he is. I think I also saw Andre 3000 from OutKast there. Oh, and Sean Dugan, an old college roommate, was on the same train into the city on Friday, but we didn’t get a chance to talk. And though she’s also on Broadway these days, in Cyrano de Bergerac, you’ll be happy to know I did not stalk wait for Jennifer Garner outside the stage door.

Flame on: Turned a corner at 9th and 44th on Friday and saw this taxi on fire. No one seemed to know how or why it happened. And while I knew the thing could have exploded at any second, for a change I did the stupid thing and got out my camera to take a picture, instead of running for cover. (What?! It’s not like the other people doing the same thing were any smarter than me.) Thankfully, the NYFD showed up just in time and put the fire out.

Show time: As I’ve previously mentioned, seeing Spring Awakening was unexpected. Here’s why. After lunch with Anna on Friday, I decided to hang out in Times Square and go to a couple places, then head back to meet up with Mitzi, Jason, and Fetus for dinner. Long story short, a couple guys on the corner of Broadway and 44th were selling discounted tix to a few shows, including Spring Awakening. Of course I was skeptical, and I did some background checks, even asking a cop a few feet away if he knew if the guys on the corner were scalpers. As it turned out, they were totally legit. So I took the chance, changed my plans, and saved $40 on top seats (12th row center) for what ended up being an awesome show. Money well-spent, even if at the time I felt like I was a total sucker buying Broadway show tickets from a random guy on the street.

Hmmmmm…:Believe it or not, I so enjoyed the day and a half that I spent in New York City that for maybe 15–30 minutes I actually thought about moving there. The cold winds snapped that thought out of me quickly enough, but I suppose that only goes to show you how good a time I had in the Big Apple. I need to do stuff like this more often.

I’ve Got Spring Fever

8 Dec

Unexpectedly, I also got the chance to see Spring Awakening this weekend. And what a great, great show it was.

Is.

No wonder this won the Tony Award back in June for Best Musical — and Best Direction, Score, and five others.

Spring Awakening is so full of energy, so full of passion, so full of life that it’s hard not to be moved or shaken to the core while watching it. I haven’t liked a new show this much in, oh, I don’t know how long. Continue reading →

Bart and Martin

8 Dec

Mitzi, Fetus, and I went to see Young Frankenstein on Broadway Thursday night. The show’s been so heavily hyped and it has such a great pedigree and it’s based on such a classic movie … so how could it not be a disappointment?

I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I’ll say the conventional line that while YF is entertaining, it’s no The Producers: it’s not as funny and none of the songs are as memorable.

That said, the sets are huge and impressive, as are the special effects, and Andrea Martin, who plays Frau Blücher, and Christopher Fitzgerald, who plays Igor (pronounced “eye-gor,” of course), are both really good. And Roger Bart … Continue reading →

Monster Man

5 Nov

The new Continental magazine is now on planes, and in it is my profile of Roger Bart, who you may recognize from his roles as Carmen Ghia in The Producers, George the psychotic pharmacist on Desperate Housewives, or the federal prosecutor who gets into it with Russell Crowe in American Gangster.

Bart was a really fun interview, and I’d like to think the story at least partly captures that. Continue reading →

Will It Be a Cut Above?

5 Oct

Just wanted to say I’m totally digging the trailer for Sweeney Todd, the new Johnny Depp–Tim Burton collaboration coming to theaters this Christmas. Longtime readers of this blog know I love the show, and the film adaptation looks dark and cool, albeit less musical than the show itself (but perhaps that’s intentional for marketing purposes). I’m hoping Depp’s performance is less Jack Sparrow Gone Mad than the trailer appears, but given that he’s rockin’ another English accent, comparisons are easy to make. (HollywoodElsewhere.com says it’s Depp’s “best performance ever.”) Anyway, check out the trailer for yourself and let me know what you think.

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