Topic: THE MYSTERY OF THE LEEKS (Read 96717 times)

bk · « **Reply #180 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:18:18 PM »

Firm Polenta is the title of my new novel.

Aside from Hatch, I can't remember, but they were all well-known. I've e-mailed someone who I think might be the person who let me hear the LPs (I remember dubbing them off to cassette, but I'll be horn-swoggled if I can find any trace of them.

bk · « **Reply #181 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:19:01 PM »

Has anyone noticed that I didn't close the parens? Here: ) Now we have closure, parens-wise.

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #182 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:19:34 PM »

Good Evening!

-Just finished reading all the posts up to now...

I'm back in Richmond. The matinee went well, and it went fast. -I think the three boxes of Krispy Kremes that the contractor brought in helped keep our energy up.

The drive back to Richmond was a breeze - I just missed the start of the real DC rush hour. And I made a stop at Ukrop's on the way in to pick up some baking stuff. So...

bk · « **Reply #183 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:23:09 PM »

Good luck - just hear back from the guy I e-mailed and it was indeed him who'd let me hear the two LPs worth of Chips demos. He's burning me a CD and I should have it shortly.

For those who love Chips, there is something in the works that will make you very very happy. I can say no more.

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #184 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:24:17 PM »

RE: Lillias White and the DREAMGIRLS in Concert CD. I've heard Lillias White in person performing "And I Am Telling You", and she's not well-represented on the concert recording. There were a couple of people who were "publicly" sick during those concerts - Billy Porter being the most "public" about his cold/throat troubles. Maybe she was also dealing with health issues at the time too, but did not mention it to anyone. ....Or something like that.

-Btw, I do think that Billy Porter has a nice voice, but I do wish I didn't find myself constantly wishing he would just pull it back sometimes... all the time.

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #185 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:27:27 PM »

RE: LADY IN THE DARK - I'm not all that familiar with the show, but I did have to wonder about the production that was done in Philadelphia a few years ago with Andrea Marcovicci. Talk about transposing the songs down a few keys! -And I'm also one of those who just doesn't "get" Ms. Marcovicci's vocal color, style or supposed "beauty". I've always thought labelling oneself's a "chanteuse" meant that you couldn't sing on pitch.

elmore3003 · « **Reply #186 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:28:05 PM »

Quote from: JoseSPiano on January 11, 2005, 03:24:17 PM

-Btw, I do think that Billy Porter has a nice voice, but I do wish I didn't find myself constantly wishing he would just pull it back sometimes... all the time.

DRJose, I worked with him in 2003 at the Chicago Humanities Festival. and he sang the Eubie Blake things beautifully. Nice man, to boot!

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #187 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:29:12 PM »

DR Stuart - Welcome home.

elmore3003 · « **Reply #188 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:29:23 PM »

Quote from: JoseSPiano on January 11, 2005, 03:27:27 PM

RE: LADY IN THE DARK - I'm not all that familiar with the show, but I did have to wonder about the production that was done in Philadelphia a few years ago with Andrea Marcovicci. Talk about transposing the songs down a few keys! -And I'm also one of those who just doesn't "get" Ms. Marcovicci's vocal color, style or supposed "beauty". I've always thought labelling oneself's a "chanteuse" meant that you couldn't sing on pitch.

I think chanteuses sing on pitch and diseuses, like diseases, don't! La Marcovicci as Liza Elliot terrifies me.

George · « **Reply #189 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:30:36 PM »

Quote from: elmore3003 on January 11, 2005, 03:06:22 PM

DRGeorge, thank you so much!

You're welcome! And let me know if anything's broken. $:-\$ I put the CDs in a padded envelope, but they still may be too Fragilé (a "Christmas Story" reference!). I can very easily send them again.

Jane · « **Reply #190 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:31:29 PM »

Tomovoz those bear pictures are making my day.

I am ready for a nap. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to finish reading DAUGHTER OF TIME.

Charles Pogue, now that I have finished reading the book-who do you think did it?

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #191 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:31:36 PM »

Quote from: elmore3003 on January 11, 2005, 03:28:05 PM

DRJose, I worked with him in 2003 at the Chicago Humanities Festival. and he sang the Eubie Blake things beautifully. Nice man, to boot!

Good to hear. I guess the few times I've heard him in person, he was doing more pop-oriented material. Yes, sometimes it calls for a more over-the-top approach, but I found it was always over-the-top.

Didn't he have a Tribute-type show off-Broadway last year?

George · « **Reply #192 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:32:00 PM »

Quote from: Jane on January 11, 2005, 03:09:53 PM

George, before we moved out of our bedroom again I checked if the DVD of SAMANTHA worked, and it does. Thank you. Not Keith’s sort of movie. I will watch it some afternoon by myself.

And you're welcome, too!

bk · « **Reply #193 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:32:28 PM »

Okay, the other composers were: Tony Hatch (presumably with Jackie Trent), Andre Previn and Dory Langdon, and Rod McKuen.

I can't wait to hear this stuff again, especially the Previn tracks.

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #194 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:33:39 PM »

DR RLP - FEEL BETTER VIBES!

-Hope you get some sun up in NoCal soon too!

elmore3003 · « **Reply #195 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:37:41 PM »

Quote from: JoseSPiano on January 11, 2005, 03:31:36 PM

Didn't he have a Tribute-type show off-Broadway last year?

That sounds right, but I have no memory of it.

DERBRUCER · « **Reply #196 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:37:46 PM »

Quote from: Charles Pogue on January 11, 2005, 12:21:00 PM

Another Shaffer play I'd like to see is GIFT OF THE GORGON, which played London in '94 and, to my knowledge, hasn't been revived since. It is the single greatest play I've read in the last dozen years.

I pressume that means you didn't see it in London.

Caoline Rees reviews the RSC Production: (excerpts)

Quote

The combatants here are playwright Edward Damson and his wife/muse Helen; the play opens with the former’s coffin being carried from their Greek villa. His son Philip (the abandoned product of a two-week fling) turns up and persuades his stepmother to feed him the material for a biography of the dead dramatist. She agrees, but warns he will hate what he hears.

Their turbulent life together is enacted as Helen recalls it, with Philip scribbling furiously in the background. Initially they exist on a diet of sex and Shakespeare, but eventually a completed script is required to pay the rent
…
The acting is first rate and draining. As Edward, an impulsive, dogmatic, extravagant ‘wastrel’, Michael Pennington is variously splattered in blood, water and red wine. He hollers, pleads and dances, but for all the exasperating characteristics of the role, Pennington is compulsive viewing. Helen is another of Judi Dench’s sensible women trying to stay in control, and she mixes it with hurt and stony fury impeccably. Jeremy Northam is suitably on-edge as Philip, shifting from one foot to the other with nervous anticipation. There’s also an eccentric cameo from Michael Poole as Edward’s racist Russian father, chattering away about the “real McCoy-ski” and the “nigg-skis” upstairs.

Peter Hall directs this meaty RSC production like a dog shaking a squeaky toy, enticing every ounce of energy out of the actors and the stark space of The Pit. Whether Shaffer is arguing that revenge or reason is right, or whether he’s not so sure that it’s a black-and-white choice, the audience was hotly philosophising all the way out. And that has to be success enough.

A reader comment at Amazon says:

Quote

I saw this play many years ago when it first opened in London & was completely blown away by it (didn't hurt to have 2 fabulous actors playing the leads - Judi Dench for one). I subsequently bought the book & it reads just as well. I am only sorry that because of difficulties with Actors equity it hasn't yet been performed in New York.
The themes of love and revenge are dealt with in ways both tender and terrible. It gets you in the gut.

Again I presume - the "difficulties" are casting Dame Judy in the USA?

And about this writer's problem with "exist(ing) on a diet of sex and Shakespeare".....?

der Brucer (with another play on his Amazon "wish list")

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #197 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:39:30 PM »

RE: CHESS - There's a bootleg of that Long Beach production floating out there. It's one of my favorite performances by Jodi Benson, as well as Marcia Mitzman - IIRC.

I keep meaning to check in with others who saw the Broadway production during it's run. Apparently, the ending of the show changed a few times during the preview period. One ending had Florence singing a version of "Anthem" after she had just realized she had been betrayed by both the USSR and the USA. Works for me. -And with Judy Kuhn singing that...

I also remember that CHESS was one of the first musicals to open right after the smoking ban was instituted in NYC. There was a bit in the show for the Russian "leader" where he stepped to the lip of the stage, lit his cigar, and said something along the lines of, "I can't believe I'm not allowed to smoke in the hall." Apparently, the line got cheers and applause some nights.

DERBRUCER · « **Reply #198 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:40:09 PM »

Quote from: Dan (the Man) on January 11, 2005, 12:35:18 PM

Mickey Rooney--there's your Marryin' Sam!

Then we have to make room for Ann Miller!

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #199 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:42:07 PM »

OK - I need to run an errand... And then I should get started on my baking for the evening... I think...

Laters...

JMK · « **Reply #200 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:44:29 PM »

Was it on this Board that someone mentioned there's a 2CD Chips soundtrack due this year?

JMK · « **Reply #201 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:49:12 PM »

Sorry if I'm repeating something that was posted here already (I know I read about this recently but I can't recall where--oy), but, yes, Chips is due out by FSM soon. Here's a link:

http://www.petulaclark.net/ipcsnews.html#chipscd

George · « **Reply #202 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:49:19 PM »

Quote from: JMK on January 11, 2005, 03:15:30 PM

Thanks, George. Gifthorse time: if you feel like sending me 1776, I'll trade something to be determined at a later date. Am I still on the What If list?

I can, and...um...you are now!

Jane · « **Reply #203 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:49:44 PM »

Ron aka RLP you changed your posting name again.

TCB at least the reviewer states “Tom Birkeland, doing powerful work”

DERBRUCER · « **Reply #204 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:49:54 PM »

Quote from: Stuart on January 11, 2005, 01:27:33 PM

And I love Blythe Danner. I always have.

Have you been watching her in HUFF?

der Brucer

Joey · « **Reply #205 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:56:30 PM »

. It's back!!! It's back!!!!!! I feel complete again! Our cable was restored while I was down in Indy for my neurologist appointment. No more having to go to the library to check email and feeling disconnected from the world. It will take me a few days to get back in the swing of things though.

Since I forgot to answer it earlier, I would love to see Of Thee I Sing done as a revival. I am not exactly sure why right now, btu it is a gut feeling. Maybe I'll be able to figure out why my gut wishes it to be revived later, but I am extremely sleepy so I think I will take a power nap or I'll never make it through the rest of this evening.

Jane · « **Reply #206 on:** January 11, 2005, 03:59:45 PM »

The office and the big computer are mine,

for now. Keith and our contractor are playing pool. I am so glad to be out of the other room where the dust from the work is bothering my throat and making me congested. They are sanding the new section of hardwood floor.

Unfortunately now that my allergies have been triggered I will not be able to eat any nuts or other foods that might bother me. The good news is I’m such a pig the box of cookies I received yesterday, with pecans and almonds, is just about gone already.

Jane · « **Reply #207 on:** January 11, 2005, 04:00:31 PM »

Welcome back Joey. I hope your appointment went well.

bk · « **Reply #208 on:** January 11, 2005, 04:02:16 PM »

That's it, JMK. Didn't realize someone had spilled the beans yet. It's going to be a great set, I think, but will not include any of the demos except for the already released Tony Hatch song.

Jane · « **Reply #209 on:** January 11, 2005, 04:09:29 PM »

Speaking of the box of goodies I received….this past week has been a very hard one for me, yet I feel so lucky to have met so many wonderful people here. The outpouring of postings on this site, along with the many personal emails, cards, phone calls and gifts I received have made me feel very special and fortunate and have helped to fill a portion of the hole currently in my heart.

News:

Author Topic: THE MYSTERY OF THE LEEKS (Read 96717 times)