On the other hand, Maury Yeston strikes me as very over-rated. Too much of his composing is sloppy, to my ear. His two best shows, Nine and Titanic, have relied heavily on stagecraft gimmickry, be it a stage flooded with women or tilting on it's side.
your ten favorite musical theater composer/lyricists (not necessarily the best, just your faves)
Most Happy Fella (this just breaks my heart)
The most overrated musicals?
Tie with Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. Take away all the fancy sets, costumes and special effects and you have a fair to mediocre musicals.
For the interest of the few pop people (of a certain age) at HHW,I have also recorded hard to find US singles "There's No Such Thing" (Jimmy Darren -from "Gidget")
and Paul Anthony Stewart (I've never heard of him)
...The Lion King (while I found some of it to be gorgeous to look at, I found the hoopla surrounding it to be mystifying, mediocre score, some great set and directorial pieces and a standard story told w/o much new or exciting)
I really like the album (2 disk OBC) - I wonder how it works on stage?
der Brucer
I think I found a new definition of ironic:
As I've written MANY times (and which I'm sure you've read, der Brucer
WHAT ARE YOU GONNA BELIEVE: WHAT YOU SEE OR WHAT WE TELL YOU?
A runaway Washington, DC, subway train smashed into the back of another, injuring 20 people on Thursday. To which a subway spokespinner said, “We know that there have been a series of situations in the last few months that have happened on Metro, but we want to assure our customers that the rail system (is) safe.”
Guess we now know where Baghdad Bob ended up, huh?
WHAT TO DO ABOUT SNARLIN’ ARLEN
Sen. Arlen Specter was quoted in an Associated Press story on Wednesday “warning” President Bush not to send conservative judges his way once he takes over as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Specter only wants to see “moderate” judges receive presidential appointments.
Well, this set off a firestorm of outrage among the conservative grassroots organizations. By Thursday afternoon, Snarlin’ Arlen was revising and extending his remarks, maintaining, with a straight face, that he had not issued any such warning to the White House. Heck, he was just trying to be helpful and respectful.
Of course, no one with an IQ above room temperature bought that. They know that once Specter is officially installed as Chairman, he’ll make good on the threat he now says he didn’t make.
The question is, do the conservative Republicans in the Senate have the testosterone to block Specter from ascending to throne before it’s too late? They haven’t shown any in the past, but maybe Tuesday’s election results gave ‘em a shot of courage. We’ll see...but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Though I dissed the set - MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY has some terrific guest stars including Dean Martin, Dinah Shore, and Judy Canova!
Canova does a bit of what must have been her nightclub act. She yodels Reveille, does some comic songs, and sings a wonderful ballad!
As for PARADE. Well, I knew the Leo Frank story from such films as THEY WON'T FORGET and THE MURDER OF MARY PHAGAN. I saw the first national tour without benefit of having heard the score prior to the viewing and was moved to tears several times. I found no troubles at all with the score, and supposedly some book changes had been made prior to the tour - though there were still a couple of book problems.
Even after having read AND THE DEAD SHALL RISE, Steve Oney's magnficent non-fiction, well researched book on the subject, I don't think that PARADE deals in stereotypes.
In pharmacology, all drugs have two names - a trade name and a generic
name. For example, the trade name of Tylenol is acetaminophen. Aleve is known as naproxen, Amoxil is amoxicillin, and Advil is ibuprofen.
The FDA has been looking for a generic name for Viagra. After
consideration by a team of government experts, it recently announced it has settled on the generic name of mycoxafloppin.
Also considered were mycoxafailin, mydixadrupin, mydixarizin, mydixadud, dixafix, and of course ibepokin.
Pfizer Corp. is making an announcement today that Viagra will soon be available in liquid form and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer.
Pepsi's proposed ad campaign claims it will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one.
Obviously we can no longer call this a soft drink. This additive gives new meaning to the names of cocktails, highballs and just a good old fashioned stiff drink. Pepsi will market the new concoction by the name of Mount & Do.
My overrated show is Kiss of the Spider Woman.
I am also not a fan of Blood Brothers.
Other overrated shows have been mentioned as well, including:
Les Miz
Cats
Miss Saigon
The Lion King
My overrated show is Kiss of the Spider Woman. I know this show has many fans on board but I LOATHED the movie and do not care for the musical at all.
Blood Brothers
Les Miz
Miss Saigon
The Lion King
And that's horseracing.
DRSWW, I saw the original NINE...one of the most memorable scores I've ever heard in the theatre. ...I was the first person, to my knowledge, to score Maury's song "New Words" for more than a small ensemble, and I think it's one of the most wonderful songs any composer-lyricist has penned...
I'm seeing Pacific Overtures on Wednesday, December 22nd. My major concern is I'm in the back of the orchestra and my last experience at Studio 54 seeing Assassins annoyed me because I missed seeing parts of the show due to the staging. The balcony overhang is severe in this theatre and it's like Joe Mantello totally ignored that when he staged the show. PO is my absolute, bar none favorite piece of musical theatre in all of history (have I gone just a bit too far) and I'm sure the same thing will happen at some point (visually that is) during PO. I only took this subscription so I could be sure to get a ticket for the show....What do you call a Pacific Overtures fan when he sees a production that's badly staged? "P. O.'d," of course! ;D
I have heard one of the Martin Guerre cast recordings and it left me cold also. I have a friend who loves the show but I don't think I could sit through it after listening to the recording.
I just picked up the most interesting book, a first edition entitled Three for Bedroom C. Now, you might ask, what is so consarned interesting about a first edition of a novel entitled Three for Bedroom C? Well, I'm not going to tell you. You shall have to guess. Here are clews: It is, I believe, the only novel of its author. Its author is not known as an author at all, but as someone who has something in common with me, and who is legendary in his chosen field. The year in which the book was written also plays an interesting part.
Goddard Lieberson is responsible for my whole recording career in the United States, since it was he who convinced me to record the Rite of Spring in April, 1940. I knew Goddard only distantly then. I knew his wife ten years before that and only with difficulty can I relate the young A&R executive with the man who has for the last decade been one of my dearest friends. Goddard Lieberson has always held that the sales department of a record company must not be allowed to dictate to the artists and repertory department and to that policy the whole of contemporary music is indebted, for Columbia Records, thanks to Goddard Lieberson, has almost single-handedly championed the modern composer rather than the established mediocrities amongst performers. Goddard Lieberson is a man of great talents and illuminating wit. He is also extremely gentle and is a man who is constantly learning, reading, developing. I cannot say more of someone whom I am so fond.
Igor Stravinsky, 1961
Would it be pedantic to point out that the title of the 12th Night musical is Your Own Thing. I've never heard of Do Your Own Thing - is it something else?
Doubt it all you like, but it was a brilliant production and the show worked because of it. As played by its original cast, you felt for the "dweebs" as you call them - you may not have liked them but you understood them and felt for them. The show worked on so many levels it was breathtaking. You saw the London production, which was MUCH revised, and the Roundabout, which also used text revisions which are not as good as the original. But, you will never know whereof I (and many many others) speak because you didn't see it. If you had, I can guarantee you you would be saying the same thing.
Tonight I am going to theater, to see When Pigs Fly. If they can make helicopters fly on stage why not pigs?
Charles Pogue said:
"Dame Edna gets old with me real fast."
Wow, I never mentioned it before because I thought I was the only one here who felt that way.
And I'd bet that had I seen the original production of Oklahoma, with its original cast, and in the context of its time, I, too, would be touting that as brilliant.
I do have a question. Forgive the ignorance but if I don’t ask I’ll never learn. For my Jewish friends here on the board, is it ok to send you a Christmas card or would that offend you? I bought some (C)hanuka (is that with a C or a H I see it both ways) cards but if I slip up and send you the wrong kind of card, will you be ok with it?
[i
We survived the first week of our project. The workers are gone for the weekend and the house has been dusted and cleaned and my hair washed. Now my throat doesn’t hurt anymore. :D
Francois, I got the theme of La Cage okay.
But I have never understand why gay men who are attracted to men delight in seeing them dressed as women. Just don't get it.
So,
You Had To Wash That Dust Right Out Of Your Hair?? :D
These Saturday night gadabouts (of which I'm about to be one) better get their butt cheeks in here when they return from gadabouting.
I don't like the word "hate" so I won't mention what I don't care for; waste of time and not constructive!AT LAST! Someone who also doesn't like the word "hate," which has to be one of the most over-used (and abused) words in the English language.
How can anyone "hate" a musical, anyway, unless it offends decency and intelligence?
I've seen Follies twice - original London production and that Roundabout revival from the balcony. I've read the book and played through the score. A lot of people I respect say that the original Broadway production, directed by both Michael Bennett and Harold Prince, was among the greatest musicals ever. And I still doubt it, because, no matter how you dress it up, it's still about middle-aged dweebs regretting their life choices. If it's entertaining, it's entertaining in SPITE of that.Noel, I think you've missed the point of Follies entirely. Of the entire cast of characters, only the central four regret their life choices. Everyone else celebrates how their lives have gone. Sally, Ben, Buddy and Phyllis are all in stark contrast to their peers, who have all gone on with their lives, through their ups and down, and are satisfied with the results. What Follies is about, and what the Loveland sequence points out, is the folly of regretting what has past instead of living in the present. I'm surprised you missed that.
Maybe my indifference to La Cage is that I have never really understood the whole gay fascination for drag and drag queens.Neither do some of us who are gay.
I've never seen much talent displayed in dressing up as a woman and lip-synching to records.I suggest you not watch Saturday Night Live, then. ;)
Now, what if... we were to combine La Cage and Follies!!I think it's been done more than once, on gay motorcycle club runs.
Hmmmmm....
Eric, our Richie, ended up having a torn muscle in his leg, so he's out for the final shows. And since his understudy is also out, the other swing went on. Parker is doing a great job, and we all wish Eric a speedy and complete recovery. -He'll be flying back tomorrow morning so that he can see his doctor back home in NYC first thing Monday morning. -Oh, and Parker came in today at 10:00 and learned his new track. Go! *But it is quite interesting having a white Richie... "... and I'm white!" -No, we didn't change that line in the "roll call". :PThis is bringing on Lend Me a Tenor resonances.
I don't know either!The second reason is far more likely. In every survey I've come across, gay men do NOT want to be women, other than a significantly small minority.
My guess is that a lot of gay men would like to be .... women in some way! They like the grotesque side of it too...
François & SWW I can’t recall hating a musical – bored, or extremely bored works. Now love, yes I have loved some. The problem is we don’t have enough words in the English language to express different levels of love. How many do you have in French?
cuddle with the guys
Noel, I think you've missed the point of Follies entirely. Of the entire cast of characters, only the central four regret their life choices. Everyone else celebrates how their lives have gone. Sally, Ben, Buddy and Phyllis are all in stark contrast to their peers, who have all gone on with their lives, through their ups and down, and are satisfied with the results. What Follies is about, and what the Loveland sequence points out, is the folly of regretting what has past instead of living in the present. I'm surprised you missed that.
You think I've missed something? Whatever do you think I missed?
I missed the grandeur of the original production, and the brilliance of the original Broadway stars.
Follies spends most of its time on four characters. I'm well aware that they stand in marked contrast to the minor characters like Hattie, Carlotta and Dmitri who don't regret their lives for a moment.
But Ben, Sally, Phyllis and Buddy do. At length. Loudly and often. Have they learned anything by the end? It's doubtful, but open for interpretation.
I don't go to the theatre to see characters whine at me. It's why I loathed The Secret Garden. It's a main reason I couldn't get in to Rent. The whining thing is not my idea of a good time.
I'd rather see characters learn from each other, overcome whatever adversities they can, and move on. If Follies focussed on Carlotta and Hattie and put the regretful quartet in the background, I'd have liked it a whole lot better.
And do not misinterpret me as saying everything should be happy. Tragic things can happen. Look at Porgy. He gets Bess to love him and then she runs off with a drug dealer. Do we have to listen to him whine about it? Nope. He's On His Way, ever-faithful that the Lord will lead him to her. It breaks my heart, and I love it.
Now, really, what terrible tragedies do the Follies four endure? Well, one should have worn green. And they're in troubled marriages they don't bother to leave. Boo-hoo, I say! Boo f-ing hoo!
I'm with Pogue - the joys of drag have always eluded me. For some, La cage aux folles was a revelation: men being affectionate with each other on stage. But hadn't The World's Sexiest Man sung the gay love duet Why Can't the World Leave Us Alone a few years earlier? And, the gay relationship I absolutely loved seeing, years before La cage, was March of the Falsettos. Real, tender, compelling. And there's only drag in the nightmare of the title song. La cage aux folles seemed like old hat when it premiered, and I don't have high hopes for its revival now.
I'm with Pogue - the joys of drag have always eluded me. For some, La cage aux folles was a revelation: men being affectionate with each other on stage. But hadn't The World's Sexiest Man sung the gay love duet Why Can't the World Leave Us Alone a few years earlier? And, the gay relationship I absolutely loved seeing, years before La cage, was March of the Falsettos. Real, tender, compelling. And there's only drag in the nightmare of the title song. La cage aux folles seemed like old hat when it premiered, and I don't have high hopes for its revival now."Years" before La Cage? Try just two. March of the Falsettos opened in '81, La Cage in '83.
Correlating to fake singing, we were going through Hotspur's hand-me-down t-shirts (for those cold winter nights) for Tewkesbury and came across one we had made up that said: "I sang for Milli Vanilli". Another one said: "I killed Laura Palmer." Who'd have thunk I'd find bygone cultural references on old dog shirts.;D :D ;D :D ;D :D ;D :D ;D