Apologies to all, but I love THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH; I've never found Tom Ewell anything but rather peculiar looking. I also adore Patti Lupone, who was wonderful in EVITA, miscast in ANYTHING GOES, fantastic in CAN-CAN and everything else I've seen her do. I can't stand the generally inept, constantly overrated and undervoiced, Bernadette Peters, from whom I've seen one good performance in 20 years (SUNDAY IN THE PARK).
I've just returned from the Series C evening of one-acts at the Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon 2006. The last one-act on the program was a 15-minute musical, THE BUS TO BUENOS AIRES, by Curtis Moore and Thomas Mizer. I found it a beautiful, poetic piece for 3 women, one man, and a guitarist. The cast was quite good: the man was played by Sebastian LaCause, and the three ladies, all with lovely voices, sang in beautiful harmony. The guitarist memorized the score and his wonderful playing fit the piece beautifully.
The other four one-acts ran from good to dreadful, but there were familiar faces on and offstage:
My friend Lou Jacob directed a too-long, too-wordy, too-actory piece with two wonderful actors who deserved better.
Actor Andrew McCarthy directed an absurdist piece "The Night That Roger Went to Visit the Parents of an Old High School Girlfriend," which featured actor Daniel Geroll, whose work I've always liked.
Will Janowitz, who plays Finn (Meadow's boyfriend) on THE SOPRANOS, was in a strange comedy "Lila On the Wall."
It was an interesting evening, overall, but THE BUS TO BUENOS AIRES was the best of the lot. If you'd like to hear some of my friends' work, here is the website:
http://www.trickybox.com/weblog/