Haines His Way

And one for Mahler! (No Sammy Cahn was Gustav.)

Mr. Moore, how's the back? And, did you resolve your air conditioner problem? It's muggy and uncomfortable. It's worse if you're in pain.

DRBen,  I spent all day yesterday in bed.  After standing all day Friday and Saturday at Barnes and Noble, I could hardly move.  I do think it's improving.  I just want and demand instant gratification.

Anachronisms in musicals?  It's my observation that a lot of musicals, from Victor Herbert on, may be set in mitter-Europe, anywhere on earth, but they always end up in New York, e.g.:

    BABES IN TOYLAND (1903):  sort of English pantomime, but a lot of the jokes are topical New York ones, especially the lead-in to "Before and After."
    THE RED MILL (1907?):  Con Kidder and Kid Conner may be  stuck in Holland, but they're New Yorkers and they're taking the innkeeper's daughter back to New York to star on Broadway! The Big song?  "In Old New York."
    THE LADY OF THE SLIPPER (1912):  Cinderella, her stepsisters and prince may live in some foreign land, but the Scarecrow and Pumpkinhead (Montgomery and Stone) are brash New Yorkers.
    I MARRIED AN ANGEL (1937?):  Set in Budapest, everyone jumps into a New York number "At the Roxy Music Hall."
    THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE (1938):  full of anachronisms:  set in Ancient Greece, there are references to Romeo and Juliet, the Brothers Shubert (known as "the boys from Syracuse," NY), the Hudson River Night Boat to Albany.
    A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (1962):  right next door to Minsky's and its burlesque comedians.

Anybody want to add more?
   

Panni how wonderful and sweet.

For a good laugh check out this Girlie Man t-shirt site.

http://www.acapparel.com/Promos/girlie_man_tshirts.htm

Dan (the Man) they were (are?) large donators to the antiabortionist groups.

Dan (the Man) they were (are?) large donators to the antiabortionist groups.

I thought Pizza Hut was the donator to the pro-life groups.

Uh-oh...

An essay I wrote in 1999 defined five periods in the history of musical theatre:
1) the operetta era, ending in the 20's
2) the musical comedy era, spanning the career of Rodgers & Hart
3) the Golden Age, which one usually ends around Hair
4) Director's Theatre, when the director was often more important than the writers.  Quick, it's whose A Chorus Line?
5) Eurotrash, which seems to have begun with Les Miserables

In the twenties and thirties, musicals were fun romps, and the books merely held together a collection of songs the writers expected to become hits.  It wasn't important to them to accurately depict time and place, they were just looking for a hit, so you get September Song in Knickerbocker Holiday, a show set in the Dutch period of New York history.

The Boys From Syracuse is a prime example of a musical comedy, words and music meant to make one laugh, and, in the musical theatre of the 1930s, the genre hadn't evolved, yet, to discover the importance of musically dramatizing time and place.

The composers that are writing today should be aware of the innovations of the Golden Age.  My trouble with much that's been written in the past 30 years or so is that they ignore the virtues of coloring time and place with music, eschewing self-pity, including subtext and wit, and rhyming correctly.

Luckily, there are still writers around who value those virtues: Maltby & Shire, Yeston, Sondheim, Kander & Ebb, Larry Grossman, Carnelia & Hamlisch, Strouse & Adams, and Jones & Schmidt, to name a few

No, SUNSET BLVD. was not updated to the 1960s. Cecil B. DeMille is a principal character in the second act, and he was dead by the 1960s. The time is 1949, just like the movie.

Zero Mostel used to give results of baseball games and boxing matches during FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and FORUM. I think people thought it was part of the zany fun of FORUM, but it was totally wrong for FIDDLER. I would have been outraged to be taken out of that time and place if I had been there to have him do that to an audience. Some stars think they can do no wrong.

I didn't much care for Pearl Bailey ad-libbing during HELLO, DOLLY either, but I've beat that criticism of her Dolly into the ground.

 I won'teat at the restaurant across from my office because they hire waitresses who barely speak English and always get my order wrong: the straw that broke the camel's back: on the menu they have item called "chicken salad melt on pita with an order of potato salad"; list time I ordered it I got potato salad on a pita!

You won WHAT at the restaurant across from your office??

Pace, DR Noel, but I am going to disagree with you about your various periods of musical theatre.  It's my belief, from the turn of the 20th Century to the present, that musical theatre has always comprised three basic forms:
  1.  operetta
  2.  musical comedy
  3.  review

These forms are ever-changing but ever-constant in their attitudes if not their appellations, so in 1903, you might see
  1.  BABES IN TOYLAND (musical comedy termed "extravaganza") Victor Herbert
  2.  BABETTE (operetta) Victor Herbert
  3.  WHOOP-DE-DOO (a Weber-Fields variety show)

1917:
  1.  OH, LADY! LADY! (musical comedy) Jerome Kern
  2.  MAYTIME (operetta) Sigmund Romberg
  3.  ODDS AND ENDS OF 1917 (review)

1927:
  1.  SHOW BOAT (operetta) Jerome Kern
  2.  GOOD NEWS (musical comedy)  DaSilva, Henderson, Brown
  3.  THE GRAND STREET FOLLIES (review)
 
1945:
  1.  CAROUSEL (operetta renamed "musical play") Rodgers
  2.  BILLION DOLLAR BABY (musical comedy) Morton Gould
  3.  CONCERT VARIETIES (review)

1956:
  1.  CANDIDE (operetta) Leonard Bernstein
  2.  BELLS ARE RINGING (musical comedy) Jule Styne
  3.  NEW FACES (review)

In today's terrible economy, there aren't enough shows mounted, but here's what's in the THEATRE WORLD 2000-2001
  1.  FOLLIES & KISS ME, KATE (operetta)
  2.  FULL MONTY & ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (musical comedy)
  3.  FOSSE (Review)

I also don't believe that "September Song" is wedged into KNICKERBOCKER HOLIDAY to have a hit, but I do believe the stories that it was created to give Walter Houston a sentimental moment.  KNICKERBOCKER HOLIDAY, like the Gershwins'  STRIKE UP THE BAND and OF THEE I SING, Cole Porter's JUBILEE, and Rodgers & Hart's DEAREST ENEMY were clear attempts to Americanize the operas of Gilbert & Sullivan:  KNICKERBOCKER's model was THE MIKADO, and that's a pretty good piece to emulate.  I also think that the Kern-Wodehouse-Bolton shows of 1917-1920 were rather well put together.  A period show will certainly show its age, just as a film or opera will, but that doesn't mean its creators were more naive or unconcerned about the dramatic unities as our smarter and more informed contemporaries.

Zero Mostel used to give results of baseball games and boxing matches during FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and FORUM. I think people thought it was part of the zany fun of FORUM, but it was totally wrong for FIDDLER. I would have been outraged to be taken out of that time and place if I had been there to have him do that to an audience. Some stars think they can do no wrong.

I didn't much care for Pearl Bailey ad-libbing during HELLO, DOLLY either, but I've beat that criticism of her Dolly into the ground.

I've been wondering of late about how bad Mostel really was with the ad-libbing in Forum and Fiddler.  I don't remember hearing or reading about such behavior when he was doing straight plays.  When I saw him do the Fiddler revival in Philly in '76, he gave a straight-on performance.  And don't most stars start to ad-lib and play on-stage games during long runs?  Lane and Broderick admit they did it all the time in The Producers.  And there's Florence Eldridge and her hippo-dermic needle.  I wonder if Mostel is just getting a bad rep through the statements of a few.

I've just spent an hour I can't spare at the AT&T store -- and my phone still isn't fixed! Boycott anyone?

This reminds me of Lily Tomlin as Ernestine doing a commercial for the phone company.  The tag line was "We don't care.  We don't have to--We're The Phone Company."

Dan (the Man) you must have seen the same quality of performance we did.

Well, I've got two quotes about Mostel's shenanigans:

One from the book BROADWAY"S GREATEST MUSICAL by Abe Laufe:

"Commentators and critics have written a great deal about Zero Mostel's magnificent portrayal as Yevye, expressing their delight in his dymamic interpretation of the role when the show first opened, and their dissatisfaction with his ad libbing after the show had been running for awhile."

And from SONDHEIM & CO.m a direct quote from Sondheim:

" As far as Zero Mostel was concerned, he was wonderful on the road, but the minute he got to New York and became a star from the reviews, he would begin doing things like announcing the results of the heavyweight fight from the stage . . . wish everyone a happy Halloween. . . imitate the other actors. He did that in FIDDLER, too, which was even less seemly."