Well, dear readers, yesterday was quite the Tony Awards Do partay here at haineshisway.com. With over 1200 postings, the day became our fourth highest posting day ever. The fun flew wild and wooly and also wooly and wild. And the East Coast contingent was very careful about spoilers, which was nice for our West Coasters like li’l ol’ me. The show had highlights and lowlights, moved right along only to come to a crashing halt and turn into a big borefest. So, let’s get right down to brass tacks or, at the very least, aluminum tacks. For me, the highlights were Miss Patti LuPone’s Everything’s Coming Up Roses (and the scene that went with it), the medley from South Pacific, most of Whoopi Goldberg’s hosting duties, and a handful of the speeches (best speech of the evening belonged to Miss Laura Benanti – I was very happy to see her win). Lowlights were Passing Strange and Into The Heights, neither of which looked very good, although I’m sure they’re both much better in context, at least one can hope they are. I thought Xanadu picked a bad number to do on the show, which only showed off the talent and legs of Mr. Cheyenne Jackson, and which left its Tony-nominated star in the background. They should have done Suddenly, which I think more people know and would have been a lot better for Miss Kerry Butler (the heart and soul of the show) and more fun for the audience at home. The biggest lowlight was the horrifyingly inept and terrible Grease presentation. That this thing, this presentation that would barely pass muster in a middle school, is playing on Broadway just because there was a reality show attached to it, just says so much about why so much of theater today is getting to be like the movie business. It doesn’t matter how terrible the production is, they get to see Max and Laura from the TV reality show, as if that were a reason to do a Broadway musical. A Catered Affair’s presentation was neither here nor there and I’m sure did nothing to sell one ticket. And the number from the new Mel Brooks musical, Young Frankenstein, was a travesty – one of the least funny things I have ever seen – considering the scene that it’s adapted from in the film, which is truly hilarious, well, it was just a big bust for me. I guess there were some surprises here and there, but when you haven’t seen the shows it’s hard to know why they’re a surprise. That’s the big difference between the Tonys and the Oscars – with the Oscars, most people have actually seen the movies and performances that are up – with the Tonys, there’s no real rooting interest outside of the Broadway community and those boards where the youngsters congregate and post about “their” shows. I will say it again, they need new people to produce the Tonys and, especially, to direct. The coverage of the numbers was appallingly bad. And the sound was equally bad. And the one improvement that could be made would be to move the show back to a real Broadway house and remove once and for all the screaming fan-atics in the balcony. It’s nice that there are fan-atics, but they have no real reason to attend the show, do they? They’re not up for awards, they don’t vote for awards, most of them aren’t in the business at all, and, for me, it just cheapens the whole thing. The producers did keep the show to exactly three hours, which meant more like two and change given the very long commercial breaks. Biggest shock to my system – the new face of Andrea Martin. Where did the real Andrea Martin go? It was fun to see my pal Danny Burstein in the audience with his ever-lovin’ (and one of my favorite people) Rebecca Luker. All in all, it was the usual sort of Tony Awards broadcast. For a blow by blow description of the entire evening, do check out our forty-two pages of postings.
Yesterday was a rather leisurely day. I did do some proofing, did do some driving about in my motor car, did eat some foodstuffs, and did watch some more episodes of Mannix. It’s not really a great show, but I must say that Mr. Mike Connors does do a very good job in it, and I just love all the guest stars, some of who are very young – i.e. Tom Skerritt, Richard Mulligan, Brooke Bundy, and a whole slew of other familiar faces. It’s also fun to see these episodes because they all contain fully original scores for each episode – George Duning did my favorite so far, Jerry Fielding has done two so far, Richard Hazard and Jeff Alexander have done one each, and there is, of course, Lalo Schifrin’s great theme. Also, we’ve now had two iconic rock and roll acts in these episodes – Neil Diamond and Buffalo Springfield. I do wish there were more locations – they seem to have done a lot of the drive-bys and street shooting at once, on Los Feliz Blvd, and up in Griffith Park and the zoo.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get up very early, shave and shower, and then attend a recording session that I’m producing as a favor to a singer in Australia.
Today, I shall be attending a recording session I’m producing as a favor to a singer who’s come in from Australia. I don’t really know him at all – a friend of his contacted me and really wanted a professional session and producer to record a demo of six songs. So, I agreed to do it, and, of course, enlisted the aid of Mr. Grant Geissman, who’s putting together the six backing tracks. We’re recording in his home studio. We begin at ten-thirty, and I’m not sure if we’re going the whole day or not. I do have a few important telephonic calls to attend to, and I hope I can do them prior to the session. If not, they’ll have to wait until we’re on a break.
Tuesday, I’ll be attending to casting matters for the upcoming staged reading of the musical I’m mentoring, and I’ll finish proofing the lead sheets for same. Wednesday, we’re back at Grant’s to finish the vocals. Then Grant and I will have a day of mixing whilst the singer returns to Australia.
The rest of the week will be filled with meetings, lunches, and whatnot. I actually scheduled a lunch meeting for Wednesday, but I don’t know that we’ll be finished with the session and I may have to resched. On Friday night, there’s a cast party for The Brain, and I suppose I’ll be traipsing out to the Heim of Ana for it.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a couple of telephonic calls where I’m going to have to kick some major butt cheeks, I must have a recording session, then I must come home and sit on my couch like so much fish. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s everyone’s favorite day – Monday – The Initials Game day. Remember, everyone is on the honor system and should not look things up in books or on the Internet – you should figure out things for yourself, and you should know who the person is whose name you’re using and what they do. One name per post. Celebs, sports figures, political figures, fictional characters, cartoon characters all work. Next door neighbors do not. Today’s initials: M.D. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and thanks to all who help make yesterday our fourth highest posting day ever.