Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Pages: 1 ... 7 8 [9] 10 11   Go Down

Author Topic: ONLY THE UPSIDE  (Read 88019 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

JoseSPiano

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 58983
  • Who wants ice cream?
    • The View From A Piano Bench
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #240 on: January 10, 2005, 04:57:09 PM »

I am very excited about CANDIDE on PBS Wednesday evening.  I am assuming this is a full production.  I think it has been mentioned here at HHW before.  Any more details?  


It will be a broadcast of the semi-staged, semi-costumed Concert version of CANDIDE that starred Kristin Chenoweth and La LuPone.
Logged
Make Your Own Luck.

bk

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 136008
  • What is it, fish?
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #241 on: January 10, 2005, 04:57:31 PM »

That machine SUCKS.  I have never seen such a sucking machine.  The sucking power of this machine is amazing.  I'm gonna go back and watch more sucking.
Logged

DERBRUCER

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18462
  • Let's hear it for the Bruces
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #242 on: January 10, 2005, 04:59:05 PM »


I am very excited about CANDIDE on PBS Wednesday evening.  I am assuming this is a full production.  I think it has been mentioned here at HHW before.  Any more details?  


Extracts from the PBS website:


Quote
Broadway and operetta unite in the New York Philharmonic's semistaged performance of the satirical, effervescent musical "Candide" by Leonard Bernstein, the conductor and composer who was so intimately associated with the orchestra. Equally drawn from the classical and musical theater worlds, the cast includes Broadway's "Wicked" Kristin Chenoweth as Cunegonde, Patti LuPone in a star turn as The Old Lady, Paul Groves as Candide, and Sir Thomas Allen as Dr. Pangloss/Narrator. Staged by Broadway actor-director Lonny Price, whose recent work includes the San Francisco Symphony's Emmy Award-winning, semistaged production of Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" in 2000, "Candide" features Bernstein protégé Marin Alsop conducting the New York Philharmonic, with the participation of the Westminster Symphonic Choir.

More extracts from a wonderful essay on the site:

Quote
When "Candide" first opened on Broadway in 1956, expectations were very high. Voltaire's comic novella of 1759 for the musical stage was adapted by Lillian Hellman, one of America's pre-eminent playwrights, and famed composer Leonard Bernstein wrote the music. He had already composed the scores for such musical theater hits as "On the Town" and "Wonderful Town" and, within a year, would be represented on Broadway again with "West Side Story." The lyricists for "Candide" included the young and promising John Latouche, the renowned wit Dorothy Parker, and the celebrated American poet Richard Wilbur. The production was staged by esteemed drama and opera director Tyrone Guthrie and the cast featured two of the most beautiful voices heard on Broadway in the 1950s: Barbara Cook and Robert Rounseville. Rarely had a show opened on Broadway with a more distinguished pedigree.

Perhaps such impressive credits could only lead to disappointment, for audiences and critics were generally let down.

It barely managed to run three months on Broadway, closing after 73 performances. However, the cast recording immediately became a classic, while Bernstein's overture became one of the most frequently performed and beloved of all orchestral pieces.

The musical was saved from sinking into relative obscurity in 1973 when director Harold Prince and librettist Hugh Wheeler refashioned the piece into a raucous, silly, and playful farce that was closer to Voltaire's comic book original. Much of the score was deleted, Stephen Sondheim wrote some additional lyrics to existing Bernstein music, and a young and very unoperatic cast performed it in a circuslike setting at the Chelsea Theatre Center in the Brooklyn Academy of Music and later on Broadway. This time "Candide" was a hit, running 740 performances (though it still lost money due to the limited seating in the environmental rearrangement of the large Broadway Theatre).

As "Candide" was revived across the country and in Europe, much of the Bernstein score was restored, and today the "comic operetta" (as it can most accurately be described) is a combination of the original 1956 version and the 1973 revised revival. The score now takes precedence, but it is held together by Wheeler's book. As the philosophical Dr. Pangloss might say, today's "Candide" is "the best of all possible Candides." Ironically, there is no definitive "Candide." Every production picks and chooses from the wide selection of songs and instrumental pieces that have been used over the years. To perform all the music available would take several hours. Before his death in 1990, Bernstein himself conducted a complete recording of all the "Candide" musical variations; it is a dazzling, remarkable collection, but not something that can be put on the stage effectively.
….
The staged concert version with the New York Philharmonic broadcast on GREAT PERFORMANCES is no exception. Director and adaptor Lonny Price retains much of the Wheeler book, adding his own narration and contemporary jokes to the 1973 script. But unlike in that version, several songs from the 1956 production are restored. The character of The Old Lady only had one song in the 1973 revival: the delicious Latin number "I Am Easily Assimilated." However, in this concert version, The Old Lady (played with panache by Patti LuPone) is featured in five songs, including the rarely heard duet "We Are Women," which was cut from the original production. Another unusual number, also cut in 1956, is "Dear Boy," perhaps the most cynical song in the score. It is performed by Sir Thomas Allen as Dr. Pangloss and, while it tends to slow down the action, it is a fascinating sample of the tone that pervaded much of Hellman's original script.

Paul Groves and Kristen Chenoweth, as Candide and Cunegonde, sing most of the score's most famous pieces, from "Oh, Happy We" to "Make Our Garden Grow," which are heard in all productions of the operetta. But director Price sees to it that these numbers do not become too reverent or set pieces that are removed from the rest of the show. The duets and Cunegonde's explosive aria "Glitter and Be Gay" are played primarily as comic songs, which they are, rather than operatic showcases. Chenoweth brings down the house with her solo, but it is as much for her astute comic skills as for her considerable vocal pyrotechnics.

In many ways this staged concert version is "the best of all possible worlds" because it wisely mixes Broadway performers with opera talents. In this way both the musical genius and the comic ingenuity of the piece are justly served. Yet such a grand performance would not be possible without Prince and Wheeler's rethinking and revitalizing "Candide" in 1973. One of American theater's most beloved flops was given new life and a prodigious future on stages around the world was secured. It remains the greatest theatrical rescue in Broadway history.

der Brucer
Logged
We live in a universe not of clocks but of clouds.

bk

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 136008
  • What is it, fish?
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #243 on: January 10, 2005, 05:00:16 PM »

I cannot tell you of the sucking that is going on in my bedroom.  
Logged

JoseSPiano

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 58983
  • Who wants ice cream?
    • The View From A Piano Bench
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #244 on: January 10, 2005, 05:00:53 PM »

For more info, click below:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/candide/

There's even a video clip.
Logged
Make Your Own Luck.

DERBRUCER

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18462
  • Let's hear it for the Bruces
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #245 on: January 10, 2005, 05:00:57 PM »

That machine SUCKS.  I have never seen such a sucking machine.  The sucking power of this machine is amazing.  I'm gonna go back and watch more sucking.

These machines are often advertized in Men's Magazines 8)
Logged
We live in a universe not of clocks but of clouds.

DERBRUCER

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18462
  • Let's hear it for the Bruces
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #246 on: January 10, 2005, 05:02:20 PM »

I cannot tell you of the sucking that is going on in my bedroom.  

You know what they say - Film at Eleven!
Logged
We live in a universe not of clocks but of clouds.

JoseSPiano

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 58983
  • Who wants ice cream?
    • The View From A Piano Bench
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #247 on: January 10, 2005, 05:03:41 PM »

...Or you can read the excerpts that DR DERBRUCER just posted.

The one quibble that most people had with the production was the updating of the script.  Most notable in the personage of the "Trump-esque" Inquisitor, and the subsequent Apprentice-linked jokes.
Logged
Make Your Own Luck.

George

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 133728
  • A person should celebrate what passes by.
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #248 on: January 10, 2005, 05:06:31 PM »

Here's my contribution to the L'il Abner Topic of the Day.  How about the TV sit-com version?:

L'il Abner - Kelsey Grammer
Daisy Mae - Candice Bergen
Pappy Yokum - David Spade
Mammy Yokum - Reba McEntire
Marryin' Sam - Jerry Seinfeld
Available Jones - Ray Romano
Stupefyin' Jones - Doris Roberts
Earthquake McGoon - Jim Belushi
Appassionata Von Climax - Holland Taylor
General Bullmoose - Rosanne Barr
Evil Eye Fleagle - Alan Alda

 ;D
Logged
Voldemort is basically a middle school girl: he has a locket, a diary, a tiara, a ring, and is completely obsessed with a teenage boy.

DERBRUCER

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18462
  • Let's hear it for the Bruces
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #249 on: January 10, 2005, 05:09:16 PM »

It's been gloomy here, too, and the Ohio River is flooding all over the place.  Will post a picture if I can.

Does this help?


Caption;Jan. 8, 2005: Lew Hanes, left, and Jon Barnes guide their boat through the intersection of Ohio 26 and Ohio 7 in downtown Marietta, Ohio.

Yes folks, this is downtown!

der Brucer
Logged
We live in a universe not of clocks but of clouds.

DERBRUCER

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18462
  • Let's hear it for the Bruces
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #250 on: January 10, 2005, 05:14:41 PM »

Here's my contribution to the L'il Abner Topic of the Day.  How about the TV sit-com version?:


Linda Hunt as Pappy!
Logged
We live in a universe not of clocks but of clouds.

bk

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 136008
  • What is it, fish?
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #251 on: January 10, 2005, 05:17:16 PM »

The sucking continues unabated.  Of course, now that the man is on the roof putting plastic covering over the leaky bits, the rain is nowhere to be found.  

I must have one of these sucking machines.  Soon the carpet and pad underneath will be completely dry, and hopefully the covering will prevent any more problems.  At some point when the rain is through they'll come back and do some re-roofing.  But at least I shan't have to worry if the big storm they're predicting comes this evening.  Hopefully, the LA weather report will be as wrong as it usually is.
Logged

MBarnum

  • Guest
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #252 on: January 10, 2005, 05:23:10 PM »

Good vibes to both DRs Elmore3003 and Ann!

[move=left,scroll,6,transparent,100%]   :-*  :-*  :-*  :-*  :-*  ;D  :-*  :-*  :-*  :-*  :-*  :'(  :-*  [/move]
Logged

MBarnum

  • Guest
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #253 on: January 10, 2005, 05:28:02 PM »

I will be taping HOW'D THEY DO THAT.

At 7pm I must tune to channel 15 to watch a special preview of a pilot for a proposed television show. At 8:30 pm I will be called on the telephone to answer multiple questions about the show to find out what I thought of it.

I did this once before, several months ago. It was fun to give my opinion of the show and it's cast...even though the show sort of sucked...but unlike BK's machine, it sucked in a bad way.

When they called to ask me to watch the show they kept asking me about programs like LAW AND ORDER and DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES....so I imagine this program that I will be watching will be along the lines of one of those two.
Logged

bk

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 136008
  • What is it, fish?
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #254 on: January 10, 2005, 05:29:00 PM »

Sucking is over.  The carpet is still a little damp, but not sopping wet like it was.  I'm really glad this got taken care of (it just occured late yesterday afternoon) - if it had gone another day it would have been much worse.  It was getting wet under the dresser, and that could have been a disaster in the making.  The man is on the roof in the dark, putting up whatever stuff he is to block the leaks.
Logged

Kerry

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6618
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #255 on: January 10, 2005, 05:31:47 PM »

I forgot what I was going to say.....
Logged
I like boat races.

bk

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 136008
  • What is it, fish?
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #256 on: January 10, 2005, 05:31:54 PM »

I must say, all that sucking has really given me an appetite.  

I did eat a Subway Club earlier, so I don't want TOO much.
Logged

elmore3003

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 68752
  • What is it, fish?
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #257 on: January 10, 2005, 05:53:57 PM »

There's an error about the CANDIDE composition in the PBS site:  "We Are Women" was written for the 1958 London production.  It replaced "Quiet!," and it was sung by Cunegonde and The Old Lady in heavily padded costumes, the point being that while under the protection of the Governor of Buenos Aires they had grown enormously fat.  Part of the joke was their singing about being dainty little women so light they could dance on eggs.

Denis Quilley, who played Candide in that production, says in his posthumous bio that Sandy Wilson was the reason for the show's failure in London; CANDIDE replaced/drove VALMOUTH out of the Savoy (?) and Sandy wilson's scathing review wasa the nail in the coffin.  He quotes the entire review in his bio.  In 1999, he played the King in JUBILEE and we got to talk a bit about the 1958 production.
Logged
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats" - Albert Schweitzer

DERBRUCER

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18462
  • Let's hear it for the Bruces
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #258 on: January 10, 2005, 06:11:05 PM »

From the once punctiltious National Review:
Quote
It was widely assumed the former governor would next bide his time for a semcond White House run in 2008.

Semcond!!! Are there no proof readers left!

Poor Bill Buckley - Apres vous, le crapolla!
Logged
We live in a universe not of clocks but of clouds.

Charles Pogue

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4582
  • "The heart must bleed; not slobber." - F. Loesser
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #259 on: January 10, 2005, 06:17:09 PM »

Elmore, was Denis Quilley as nice a man as I suspect he was? I saw him in his next to last play, HUMBLE BOY, in which Diana Rigg had the best programme bio I ever read.  I quote it in its entirety: "Diana Rigg has been around a very long time and this is the sixth time she has coupled with Denis Quilley."

der Brucer:  Thanks for thinking of appropriate sartorial accesories for me.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2005, 06:38:20 PM by Charles Pogue »
Logged

DERBRUCER

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18462
  • Let's hear it for the Bruces
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #260 on: January 10, 2005, 06:26:33 PM »

From Broadway.com:

Quote
Harry Connick, Jr. to Star in Fall 2005 B'way Pajama Game Revival

Harry Connick, Jr. is set to play Sid Sorokin in a revival of the musical The Pajama Game on the Great White Way. The production, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, is aiming for a Broadway berth in November 2005, according to The New York Times.

As previously reported, this revival of The Pajama Game is expected to feature two news songs by Adler and a revised book by Peter Ackerman (the actor-turned-writer behind the play Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight and the film Ice Age).

Shucks - new songs, revised book; why not add a falling chandelier, some foul mouth puppets and play the whole thing on roller skates and ensure a hit!

der Brucer (Put 'em back, the way they wuz!)
Logged
We live in a universe not of clocks but of clouds.

elmore3003

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 68752
  • What is it, fish?
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #261 on: January 10, 2005, 06:33:05 PM »

Elmore, was Denis Quilley as nice a man as I suspect he was? I saw him in his next to last play, HUMBLE BOY, in which Diana Rigg had the best programme bio I ever read.  I quote it in its entirety: "Diana Rigg has been around a very long time and this is the sixth time she has coupled with Denis Quilley."


Absolute delight!  While he was doing JUBILEE in concert, he was playing Martin in John Caird's adaptation of CANDIDE at the National.  These were the only two performances I saw him give onstage.  I'm bummed because I'd forgotten he was in the film of PRIVATES ON PARADE with my friend Simon Jones, and that would have been something else to ask him about.  He did do a mean impersonation of Lillian Hellman, who was still the credited librettist on the 1958 CANDIDE.
Logged
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats" - Albert Schweitzer

Jane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 132171
  • Have a REALLY nice day!
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #262 on: January 10, 2005, 07:07:02 PM »

Kerry thank you.  Sugar is a cutie and your house is very nice.  
I know you don’t look like Natalie Wood, so are you the one with or without the glasses?

Elmore, as always, you are too good to me.  :-* And if you and Panni find some marzipan pigs, please don’t forget about me. :D

Jose I have saved the tea info.  I have never seen and English/Asian tea shoppe, very interesting.  However, I may not be getting to DC next October so I can spend my free time in NY.  I expect you will be living there by then.

Dan (the Man) our Philly food treat was an original Alfredo’s for fettuccini Alfredo.  I wish I had known about the Crystal room then.

GOOD WEATHER VIBES TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA!!
Logged

bk

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 136008
  • What is it, fish?
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #263 on: January 10, 2005, 07:14:47 PM »

Men and machines are gone and hopefully whatever they did will work.  I'm going to be veddy British now by having an English Muffin.
Logged

JMK

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13812
  • G-d made stars galore.--ZMK, modern prophet
    • All About Jeff:  The Musical
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #264 on: January 10, 2005, 07:15:01 PM »

Today's Frances Farmer LOL moment (courtesy of IMDb):  well it's not a review, per se, but one of the unwashed masses that BK and Pogue have lamented posted at the IMDb that the reason Kim Stanley agreed to play Lillian Farmer in Frances is because she felt guilty that she was the actress who "stole" the role of Lorna Moon from Frances for the London production of Golden Boy.  Ummm....Kim Stanley would have been 13 in 1938, a tad young for Lorna, doncha think?  I of course excoriated him.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2005, 07:15:45 PM by JMK »
Logged
Would you like to take a picture of my lipoma for posterity?

"It is a tale of conflicting loyalties, megalomania, love, hate and a number of other issues I can't remember."

Jane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 132171
  • Have a REALLY nice day!
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #265 on: January 10, 2005, 07:19:00 PM »



DRIVE NOW, TALK LATER bumper stickers. It’s a good idea. Do you have it on your car, DR JOSE???

 ;D ;D ;D
Logged

td

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8900
  • td
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #266 on: January 10, 2005, 07:28:16 PM »

Men and machines are gone and hopefully whatever they did will work.  I'm going to be veddy British now by having an English Muffin.

After all that sucking in the bedroom, I should HOPE they're gone!
Logged
If I could be for only an hour, cute, cute, CUTE in a stupid-assed way!

Panni

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6119
  • What are men for -- if not to amuse a woman!
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #267 on: January 10, 2005, 07:31:15 PM »

Interesting - I think there's been so much horror on the news in the last few years - particularly recently - that people have become immune or desensitized. In ye olde days, when the kind of footage of the CA storm that's being shown on the (national) news and CNN overseas was aired, I would have gotten at least four calls by now from various parts of the world, asking if all was well. This time - not a single call of concern.
Logged

Jane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 132171
  • Have a REALLY nice day!
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #268 on: January 10, 2005, 07:32:26 PM »

D'ya think if I knock her off I could comfort said hubby?

LOL-he is cute.  What is the wife's name and what did she write?
Logged

Jane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 132171
  • Have a REALLY nice day!
Re:ONLY THE UPSIDE
« Reply #269 on: January 10, 2005, 07:40:12 PM »

Matt H you have grown hair again!  George thank you for putting Matt in the proper proportions-very nice picture.

DRLaura I like the black and white duck.

Elmore GOOD, GOOD, SUPER GOOD HEALTH VIBES!!

Ann are you in pain at all?  I would hope not having to wait so long for the surgery.  Will you stay with your parents for awhile following the surgery?

DerBrucer-cute pictures.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 7 8 [9] 10 11   Go Up