THEATRE GOSSIP #597: The "Miss Piggy for Mame!" Edition

Here's the previous thread.

For fun, Che k out the seat maps for IZZY. She’s playing to 10% houses!

I miss seeing Jean as Izzy

Izzy made $56k last week. A puppet show depicting the Burning of Atlanta would bring in more money.

How embarrassing for her.

🤣 I saw the seating. It left a lot to be desired.

As did the play.

If Delta Burke did anything for film or stage, it would be an EVENT!

Delta Burke was a replacement Mrs. Mears in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE and Truvy in STEEL MAGNOLIAS, both on Broadway. Neither qualified as an EVENT.

Lawd, I saw Delta in Steel Magnolia's at The Ethel Barrymore and the audience prayed she'd break her knee and get off the stage. Besides, with Marsha Mason as Ouizzer, there was so little room for the rest of us anyway.

At least Steel Magnolias didn’t have a dirty toilet and 50 tickets sold each show!

Don't talk about my like I'm not here!

That Steel Magnolias was a dreary event on all levels.

What was fun at the little Lortel on Christopher St. 20 years earlier was not sufficient for Broadway. And wasn't it at the Lyceum Theatre, the one with all the pink velvet seats and the deadly upper balcony (not that anyone was sitting up there for this one)?

I feel bad for Jean. To come back to Broadway a star after all these years only to realize the material she chose doesn't interest anyone and then to have a terrible accident on the streets of NYC, in the hot sweltering weather no less and have to get around in a wheelchair or cane....well, that's all just too sad.

I imagine the show will post a closing notice before this coming week is over. She'll probably never come to NYC again, even to visit.

It just so happens that this week marks 20 years since that Steel Magnolias revival closed at the Lyceum.

R14 she is 75 and hadn’t done a play in 25 years.

She’s made her choices and need to live with the consequences

[quote]For fun, Che k out the seat maps for IZZY. She’s playing to 10% houses!

Yes, but Jean is only doing this because she's so dedicated to her work, and to her fans who bought that 10% of box office. There is no monetary gains for Jean to return to the stage with a bad knee and empty house - it's all about the dedication to this work. (Wink, wink).

All the same, r16, I hate that this has been such a hard and painful flop for her.

It's a shame that Alice Ghostley never played Mama Rose or Mame.

It's a shame no one knows who the fuck Alice Ghostley was. Move on.

Ghostly was a Gooch or Miss Cratchitt

[quote]Ghostly was a Gooch or Miss Cratchitt.

Alice Ghostly was a Miss Hannigan and an ugly stepsister.

[quote]For fun, [Check] out the seat maps for IZZY. She’s playing to 10% houses!

That is sad. It reminds me of HIGH a few years ago, a nightmare of a play by DL "fave" Matthew Lombardo, who infamously sued Harper for dropping out of his play LOOPED because she had Cancer. HIGH starred Kathleen Turner. It quite rightfully closed the week that it opened, but I don't think it ever dropped below 20%.

I don't think it ever rose above that either. It couldn't have happened to a better playwright, and clearly no one ever said no to Ms Turner.

She was a scenery chewing disaster.

Half Empty Houses La La La

R20 Speak for yourself, bitch!

[quote]Izzy made $56k last week. A puppet show depicting the Burning of Atlanta would bring in more money.

So, clearly, the wisest move for the producers would have been what several people here suggested: They should have closed the show while Smart was out with her injury, and tacitly blamed it on the fact that no one wanted to see the show without the star. Rather than having the star return to the show and it becoming clear that no one wanted to see it with her in it, either.

[quote] A puppet show depicting the Burning of Atlanta would bring in more money.

And beat Wicked at the Tonys too.

[quote]Izzy made $56k last week.

I thought this said, “Izzy made $56.00 last week”

! ! !

I attended the Stratford Festival last week and witnessed something I hadn't before,, except on Canada Day. Before the start of " Annie," ( I know, I know), the orchestra began playing "O Canada" and the entire audience immediately sprang to their feet and sang louder than I had ever heard. It was proud and defiant, much more so than on their national holiday. None of the other shows began this way, which made me wonder if it was because the show was set in the US.

^ and, of course, it was very anti-Trump and a declaration of national pride and defiance.

Apparently nobody told R20 that this is a theater thread, not a thread on superhero movies, and that many posters here certainly do know who Alice Ghostly is.

After a week in London..."Till the Stars Come Down" is pretty good. "Giant" and "Inter Alia" are just solid plays. But "Evita" is incredible. Zegler is the real deal.

R31 she was Dill’s Aunt Stephanie and Mrs. Singleman…two of the best movies of the 60s.

The newly redesigned tdf website is nearly unusable.

Frances Sternhagen was the only reason to see that dreadful Steel Magnolias. She was, as always, sublime.

Alice Ghostly was the first star I ever saw live (as a kid I saw her as Miss Hannigan.) It was exciting to see someone you knew from TV live.

You’re were in the special class at school, weren’t you?

[quote]Apparently nobody told [R20] that this is a theater thread, not a thread on superhero movies, and that many posters here certainly do know who Alice Ghostly is.

Not enough to know how her name is spelled...

[quote]So, clearly, the wisest move for the producers would have been what several people here suggested: They should have closed the show while Smart was out with her injury, and tacitly blamed it on the fact that no one wanted to see the show without the star. Rather than having the star return to the show and it becoming clear that no one wanted to see it with her in it, either.

This is what I was saying throughout the previous thread - close while she was out for two weeks (and I'm certain she and her agent had that discussion with all involved). But the Jean Smart stans on this forum insisted she was 'dedicated' and a 'professional' and would never let that happen. So here we are with Smart playing to 90% empty houses because she's a dedicated professional.

On another note, I'm surprised the theater is allowing this to run. The theater gets a percentage from the box office, and it's always in their contract that if the box office slips below a certain number (I believe the standard is 60%) the theater can have the producers end the run so they can make the space available to other potential shows. I'm surprised the landlords haven't tossed this show out yet (unless they have absolutely no other production interested in B'way space in the coming months).

R35 she actually didn’t get good notices. It was Lily Rabe as Annelle that got the only acting nomination for that piece.

[quote]I attended the Stratford Festival last week and witnessed something I hadn't before,, except on Canada Day. Before the start of " Annie," ( I know, I know), the orchestra began playing "O Canada" and the entire audience immediately sprang to their feet and sang louder than I had ever heard. It was proud and defiant, much more so than on their national holiday. None of the other shows began this way, which made me wonder if it was because the show was set in the US.

I remember going to a movie in Vancouver (probably back in the '80s or '90s where they played the national anthem before the film, and people stood up and sang. Very odd (to this American.)

[quote]I'm surprised the theater is allowing this to run. The theater gets a percentage from the box office, and it's always in their contract that if the box office slips below a certain number (I believe the standard is 60%) the theater can have the producers end the run so they can make the space available to other potential shows. I'm surprised the landlords haven't tossed this show out yet (unless they have absolutely no other production interested in B'way space in the coming months).

You answered your own question: It's very easy to believe that no other show is ready or wants to move into that theater in the middle of the summer, so the "landlord" -- namely, the Roundabout (feh!) -- might as well allow IZZY to keep running as long as the show's producers continue to pay the rent.

r39, I find it curious that you disparage Jean Smart for returning to IZZY.

Personally, I think she should be applauded for at least attempting to make some money back for her producers and investors. And perhaps to prove that she really was felled with a debilitating knee. It could have been an easy out for her to just go away but she chose not to take it.

She's a big enough name now that if the show closes with her in it, I believe it will not really affect her her TV career.

R41 That's been the case at various sporting events and the like since Trump's comments re: Canada. It's not surprising to hear that it happened at the festival, too.

[quote]I find it curious that you disparage Jean Smart for returning to IZZY. Personally, I think she should be applauded for at least attempting to make some money back for her producers and investors.

I didn't read that post as "disparaging" Smart for returning to the show, but rather, as expressing the opinion that it was a very unwise business decision. Because keeping the show open at the current grosses must actually mean that more and more money is being lost for the producers and investors every week.

[quote]And perhaps to prove that she really was felled with a debilitating knee.

Now, that I would say is a good reason for her return to the show, but you know what I think should have happened? It should have been announced that she would return for one week only, and then the show would close. That would have given everyone who hadn't seen her in the show another week's worth of chances to do so without dragging out the run till the middle of August when ticket sales are SO slow.

I'm certainly surprised IZZY didn't close and that Smart returned. It's not a hit - the show is DOA - and with her return it's dying a slow, prolonged death.

Apparently word of mouth on "Izzy" was not helpful.

Word!

I'm assuming Izzy is being heavily papered. Poor Jean.

Not heavily enough.

CALL ME IZZY is just a Lifetime movie on stage.

Thus, it has very limited appeal.

My god, the last Bway season was pure shit

Every show I saw at the Stratford Festival on a weekend in 1982 began with O, Canada. They've been doing it for eons.

But not for epochs.

There was a production of Arms And The Man at Stratford in the 80s that began with the Star-Spangled Banner and O, Canada, but it was an in-joke over the politics of the play.

Who's going to Twelfth Night at the refurbished Delacorte to see Sandra Oh, Lupita N'yongo, Peter Dinklage and Jesse Tyler Ferguson? I've long said I don't need to see another production of it, but I'd see this one for Sandra and Lupita.

R32, please refrain from putting in quotation marks when listing stage productions. It’s unseemly.

serious question... could they keep Izy open for tax purposes?

Nunavut.

YES! I’ve been clamoring to see that stage DIVA

*checks notes*

Sandra Oh make her grand return to the NY stage!

[quote]My god, the last Bway season was pure shit

I dunno. I LOVED The Hills of California and I liked Death Becomes Her and Maybe Happy Ending. I didn't get to see it, but people raved about English, too.

How can Sandra possibly compare with Kyra?

[quote]Personally, I think she should be applauded for at least attempting to make some money back for her producers and investors.

Quelle surprise.

[quote]serious question... could they keep Izy open for tax purposes?

At this point. it can only serve as a tax write-off for all involved - including the landlord. Everyone will write this off as a loss on their profit sheet on December 31, and the loss will set off any 'profitable' taxes.

IZZY has inspired a Datalounge TIZZY!

R61 has never driven the 5.

I’ve seen better hills of California from Mickey D’s in Kettleman City. Or was it Buttonwillow?

*smacks head*

I shoulda named the thread "The 'Miss Piggy for Izzy!' Edition."

It is interesting the way the conversation has gone from myopic focus on a certain OTHER leading lady's performance to all the Izzy chatter. I guess the bitchery can only handle one at a time.

It will circle back, for sure.

It will be swell!

R68 LOL!

I remember when I began posting on the Theater Gossip thread around 2018, someone stated that eventually all discussions become about GYPSY or FOLLIES.

They weren't kidding.

Dante’s circles …and just like that

[quote]Every show I saw at the Stratford Festival on a weekend in 1982 began with O, Canada. They've been doing it for eons.

Not since the 90s, except on Canada Day. And " Annie" was the only show where the anthem was played

Everything about the Izzy trainwreck is just so odd.

I haven't seen the play or read the script but apparently it's not good. Yet a bunch of people, including Jean Smart and a bunch of producers/backers with money thought it wise to bring a meh play to Broadway, in the summer, for an extended run, in a theater far too large for its audience.

It's always astounding when obvious terrible decisions are made by professionals.

[quote]Everything about the Izzy trainwreck is just so odd.

*Nothing* about this production is odd, r27, no matter how badly the clucking hens want to find scandal. It simply flopped. Flops happen in actors' careers. Injuries happen in actors' careers. We're in the summer doldrums and some posters are desperate to scratch and claw. The thing that surprises me is that it's being directed at Jean Smart of all people.

I do wonder how the relatively unknown Sarna Lapine came to direct IZZY. She's the niece of James Lapine but surely that didn't get her the job. Not that another director might have guided it into a hit.

[quote]R72 A bunch of people, including Jean Smart and a bunch of producers/backers with money, thought it wise to bring a meh play to Broadway

And yet she found THAT to be a fitting return to Broadway over the role of Phyllis in 2001.

Un-[italic]FUCKING[/italic]-believable!

R74 only Karen Ziemba could have made this a hit with a pantylees cartwheel

[quote]IZZY has inspired a Datalounge TIZZY!

Not to be confused with that lovable, laughable teenager.

Tizzy was no Emmy Lou.

[quote]It is interesting the way the conversation has gone from myopic focus on a certain OTHER leading lady's performance to all the Izzy chatter. I guess the bitchery can only handle one at a time.

Because the other leading lady's performance is terribly old news that has already been thoroughly debated, and now her super-hyped show is closing with a whimper and with steeply discounted tickets. This was definitely a case of pride going before a fall.

[quote] I'm assuming Izzy is being heavily papered.

Toilet paper presumably.

Would Audra's voice have been better suited for IZZY? Would Sondheim have approved of her in the role?

In the slow summer theatre season, would someone kindly educate me on the origins of the Karen Ziemba pantyless cartwheel story? I've heard about Tovah showing off her delicates as Mdme Rose, but I don't know about our dear old Karen.

Oh, dear! *I* brought it back to Gypsy. It really *IS* inevitable.

Summertime! You rang?

Fuck Audra.....THIS is the definitive " Summertime"!

Grosses are out. Miss Porter regrets, indeed. Average ticket was $92 for Cabaret, gross is down over $500k.

How embarrassing for Billy.

Do we think the producers of La Cage are having second thoughts?

R86-Despite a subscription to Encores, I won't be exposing myself, my friends, or anyone else to the embarrassment that is bound to be Miss Porter in La Cage.

All bets are on that 'Cabaret' will be closing much sooner than they announced - word of mouth with Porter in the lead has been awful.

I'm sure Miss Porter is drafting a statement as we speak, saying audiences don't want to see black performers in such iconic roles, and didn't appreciate his 'reimagining' the character as an expat, etc. He will never blame his lack of acting and singing skills, that's for sure.

A business associate of an acquaintance of mine, someone involved in CABARET on the production end, has recently been offering FREE tickets to paper the house and has had difficulty finding any takers. Think about that for a moment.

[quote]R87 Despite a subscription to Encores, I won't be exposing myself, my friends, [bold][italic]or anyone else [/italic][/bold]to the embarrassment that is bound to be Miss Porter in La Cage.

A threat ? ?

[quote]A business associate of an acquaintance of mine, someone involved in CABARET on the production end, has recently been offering FREE tickets to paper the house and has had difficulty finding any takers. Think about that for a moment.

I alerted Sunny Hostin to your post, and she's thinking about this, all right. She's really pondering this. She will release a statement about 'how racist' Cabaret audiences are, and will release it within 24 hours.

[Quote] dunno. I LOVED The Hills of California and I liked Death Becomes Her and Maybe Happy Ending. I didn't get to see it, but people raved about English, too.

I saw all of them and didn’t get the raves. Most were meh and will be forgotten soon enough. All it of it was middling stuff

Why don't Billy Porter and Jean Smart trade parts. It couldn't hurt.

Blue Moon

That all looked incredible ^^^^^^^^^^^^^except for Margaret Qualley's grotesque blonde wig. Why do they never get these period hairstyles right when there is so much primary research available? It can't be because anybody thought that was prettier.

I thought Hawke was too handsome to play Hart. Not the way he looks here! He could play Fosca in Passion.

R96. Not while I’m around!

Blue Moon is entirely set in NYC but was shot entirely in Ireland. Therefore it can go fuck itself.

Agree about Qualley’s hair. By the late ‘30s, women were wearing their hair longer with looser, softer waves and curls, it was a flattering look. Why make her hair look contemporary, with those segmented aborted sausage curls?

And why is Larry Hart given an important fag hag? Are they de-gaying him?

R99 probably so!

Worked for me and my story!

The trailer indicates its based on the letters of Hart and this woman. Have they been published?

[quote]Blue Moon is entirely set in NYC but was shot entirely in Ireland. Therefore it can go fuck itself.

You tell 'em, R98! Worse still, the movie was only made in the last couple of years, not in 1948 when it's SUPPOSED to be set!

^^^ Whoops! I mean, 1943 (I shamefacedly admit).

The Blue Moon trailer sent me down an R&H rabbit hole and I started listening to Allegro (1948) for the first time in ages.

Jessica Lange and Ed Harris shot a film of Long Day's Journey in Ireland a few years ago (even though the "action" is set in Connecticut) that still hasn't seen the light of day.

Hmmmm..........

R104, that’s fine IMO. It’s basically one set and a small amount of principal actors and that’s it.

Blue Moon has several locations with a lot of background actors in addition to principal actors. Quite a lot of it apparently takes place in Sardi’s on opening night of Oklahoma! Many opportunities for tri state area SAG actors were denied because they wanted to shoot it in fucking Ireland for cheap labor. Shame on them.

Does anyone know if a COMPLETE list of the Broadway Actors who populate the cast of The Gilded Age Season 3 exists online somewhere? I need to show it to my summer conservatory students and the lists on Playbill and Broadway World are missing names of actors on the show who have appeared on Broadway. Last year there was a very comprehensive list on BWW for season two, but they apparently left it to interns this year and its not complete. Before anyone flames me know I am right now grabbing the names off IMDB and putting them into IBDB and have found 4 names that they omitted, but my class is at 2 pm

r103 "Allegro" was Rodgers and Hammerstein, not Hart. (You did say "R&H" but this is Larry Hart thread.)

So, you basically want us to do your lesson plan for you? In exchange for what?

This seems like something AI could do in five seconds.

Just curious. Why would your students need such a list? Do they really care? Would they recognize most of the names?

R98/R105 the globalist Democrats (who run Hollywood and Broadway) don't give a fuck about American workers.

It's becoming clearer and clearer to everyone.

Also, "Miss Piggy for Mamet" doing glenngarry Glenn ross.

True, r107. Buut the movie takes place at the opening of OKLAHOMA! So wanting to explore another Rodgers and Hammerstein show seems logical.

Speaking of Glenngarry Glen Ross, there was substantial talk about it the all female cast coming in, did that die with Patti Lupone’s career?

I would hardly think that a masterpiece like Glengarry Ross would depend on Patti LuPone's casting to reach Broadway, especially in an all female production.

No thoughts here on the Maybe Happening Ending casting catastrophe?

Personally, I think it's ridiculous.

I hope Andrew backs out, the show closes and jobs are lost.

They should cast a black trans woman in a wheelchair in the role and shut them up.

[quote]I hope Andrew backs out, the show closes and jobs are lost.

That would be poetic justice, but I'm sure it wouldn't faze the ultra-woke idiots who have expressed their outrage at the casting. Because I think they would rather see the show close and all those jobs and all that money lost so long as their incredibly stupid standards are upheld.

Are Telly Leung or Jason Tam not as big box office as Andrew Barf Theldman?

R36, I know what you mean about seeing someone from TV on stage. Apparently many, many years ago, I was a complete Philistine in the theater. My parents purchased tickets to see a revival of "You Can't Take it With You" starring Jason Robards, with Colleen Dewhurst and other stars in the cast.

All of thta was fine... I knew who Jason Robards was... but then Nicholas Surovy walked out on stage and all I could think was, "oh my God, he plays Mike Roy on All My Children! He's a real actor!!"

Isn't that crazy? I'm watching a play with actors are truly famous for stage, film and TV work and I'm swooning over a soap actor.

R36, I know what you mean about seeing someone from TV on stage. Apparently many, many years ago, I was a complete Philistine in the theater. My parents purchased tickets to see a revival of "You Can't Take it With You" starring Jason Robards, with Colleen Dewhurst and other stars in the cast.

All of thta was fine... I knew who Jason Robards was... but then Nicholas Surovy walked out on stage and all I could think was, "oh my God, he plays Mike Roy on All My Children! He's a real actor!!"

Isn't that crazy? I'm watching a play with actors are truly famous for stage, film and TV work and I'm swooning over a soap actor.

WHET Nicolas Surovy? He was very hot back in the day.

He is (or was) the son of opera singer Rise Stevens.

[quote]Every show I saw at the Stratford Festival on a weekend in 1982 began with O, Canada. They've been doing it for eons.

From Chicago Tribune:

Settling in my seat for “Annie” at the Stratford Festival of Canada, I awaited with perennial pleasure the overture’s trumpet solo for “Tomorrow,” followed by the chirpy sounds of “It’s the Hard-Knock Life,” a masterful little combo that first argues for optimism at all times before empathizing with our daily grinds.

But it didn’t happen. Instead, the 1,800 people inside the sold-out Festival Theatre here rose to their feet and sang the music of Calixa Lavallée, not Charles Strouse: “O Canada, Our Home and Native Land.”

The moment was striking because in some 30 years of attending Canada’s most prominent theater festival every summer, I’d never heard the Canadian national anthem sung at a regular performance of a show. The Stratford Festival, founded by a British man, dedicated to a British playwright and popular with Chicagoans and other Americans for decades, had always existed within a kind of multinational, English-language detente. This year, surely as a reaction to President Donald Trump’s rhetorical campaign to render Canada the 51st state, it just felt a whole lot more Canadian.

[quote]R111 Also, "Miss Piggy for Mamet" doing glenngarry Glenn ross.

Is Miss Piggy a Sally or a Phyllis?

She's VERY much a Carlotta...if not a Hattie.

This thread has really went down the fucking tubes!

Why did THEATRE GOSSIP #597 go straight down the shitter?

[quote]r122 = He is (or was) the son of opera singer Rise Stevens.

The Risë Stevens recording was my introduction to Lady in the Dark.

Mr. Surovy is in his 80s. Hopefully he's happily retired.

[quote]Why did THEATRE GOSSIP #597 go straight down the shitter?

No one wants to talk about Audra or Patti anymore.

R115 - I think the whole thing is such a shame. There is a long history of poor and unfair choices in casting related to Asian characters -- and many of them earned their legitimate criticism (see: Jonathan Pryce in Miss Saigon.) But I'm not sure this particular case falls in that category. Yes, the show is very clearly set in Korea and has Korean origins, but the role in question is that of a robot. I 100% agree that the role of the actual human characters in the show (essentially, the robot owners) should always be cast with Asian actors. It would be so sad if this campaign leads to the show prematurely closing when Criss leaves.

[quote]That would be poetic justice, but I'm sure it wouldn't faze the ultra-woke idiots who have expressed their outrage at the casting. Because I think they would rather see the show close and all those jobs and all that money lost so long as their incredibly stupid standards are upheld.

Let's give Cynthia Erivo a call.

She single-handedly closed down the Broadway musical "Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812" back in 2017 with her social media, when she didn't like the casting rumors to replace her friend Okieriete Onaodowan as 'Pierre' and claiming it was a racist move to replace the horrible actor with Justin Timberlake or Mandy Patinkin (of course she did), effectively putting hundreds of cast and crew members (one of the most diverse companies on B'way at the time) in the unemployment line.

She did it once, she can do it again.

The producers and Feldman must have expected a backlash. Hopefully, they won't give in.

The reviews of 'Dolly' coming out of Nashville are some of the worst reviews ever written by audience members who have seen the previews the past week or so (the show opens August 8). They are describing it as a 'disaster of Biblical proportions' and after sitting through this 3 hour and 30 minute musical, it feels more like a 'punishment' to Dolly Parton fans than a 'tribute' to her. Others are calling it a 'wreckage' of Titanic proportions. One attendee said it doesn't know whether to be a concert, a musical biopic covering her life, or just a musical focused on her early years ? It's unclear where the show goes. Act 1 clocks in at 90 minutes. (Some more recent reviews are saying they shaved off about thirty minutes so far from the production).

Aside from the disaster of a production - everything from the choices of director Bartlett Sher, the horrible acting, the costumes, the stage design, the lighting, the script, the musical numbers, etc - audience members are shocked at the ticket prices to see this production at The Fisher Center. The first ten rows of the orchestra seats are $295 (then it goes down to $140, then $50 for the very last few rows). People are criticizing the 'Broadway level pricing - and this is for a 'work in progress' in Nashville, not even a finished Broadway production ! Attendees did mention that there's 'plenty of merchandise to buy' in the lobby of the theater.

The show is expected to open in the Spring of 2026, at the Wilson Theater - which is where 'Cabaret' is currently playing through the fall.

Where are you reading audience (or professional) reviews, r134?

This why why he was cast:

And I thought he was gay.

Lots of gay men date Asian women.

For reasons which are well known to them.

R137 because they are embarrassed to show their tiny dicks to other gay men?

Anyone catch Michael Riedel on Patrick Pacheco's All the Moving Parts YouTube talk show? He looked like he'd just rolled out of bed after a three-day bender. The. whole show seemed like a paid commercial for the upcoming CHESS.

Yep, that pretty much describes Riedel these days.

I saw Riedel out in public a few months ago and he looked great, so I'm sure he has his good and bad days like the rest of us :-)

Based on my vast life experience white men who partner up with Asian women are gay, have small dicks or are gay with small dicks. There are exceptions, of course.

R142, I thought 12 yr olds were not allowed to post on DL.

r134 They need to bring in Lavarious Slaughter as a show doctor.

For anyone who'd like to watch the episode R139 posted about:

Avant garde theatre director Robert Wilson died. I once read somewhere that he and Richard Gere were “in a relationship.”

This MHE “outrage” is ridiculous. If the production team thought the part was Asian then of course they would have cast an Asian actor. Sit down.

[quote]If the production team thought the part was Asian then of course they would have cast an Asian actor.

Exactly. And the production team includes the authors, who have specifically stated that they do not feel the roles of the robots necessarily have to be played by Asians.

The Donna McKechnie interview by Patrick Pacheco in R145's post is terrific. Donna looks great (for her age), and the clips from A CHORUS LINE remind us of how truly spectacular she was in that role. There's been a lot of criticism of Bennett's choreography of that number, but what I've come to realize is that it only works with Donna. I saw ACL at the Public Theatre before it moved to Broadway, and I remember thinking how incredibly lucky I was to experience that show so early in its development. I may be mistaken, but I think in the version I saw, Cassie was not picked to be in the chorus at the end.

R149, I had input on that issue.

[quote]I may be mistaken, but I think in the version I saw, Cassie was not picked to be in the chorus at the end.

I assume that' would have been before Marsha Mason Simon butted in, r149. And I agree given Donna's unique strengths that that number won't quite be an exact fit for other dancers.

Why the hell is Bartlett Sher directing this Dolly show, which seem eminently more suitable for Branson than Broadway? I wish Lincoln Center would hire him to do ALNM at the Beaumont with a full orchestra and gorgeous production.

The National's camp revival of The Importance of Being Earnest is moving to the West End for a autumn/holiday run (minus everyone, I believe, from the original production). If you've ever wanted to see Stephen Fry as Lady Bracknell, now's your chance.

There's a lot of speculation that 'Dolly' will end up not going to B'way after all, and wind up as a production at 'Dollywood' next year, instead. One attendee said it seemed more geared for that audience.

Bess Wohl’s Acclaimed Play ‘Liberation’ To Debut On Broadway This Fall:

I saw the very first preview of ACL at The Public. At that performance, Cassie arrived late wearing a fur chubbie, griege silk Theoni A. slacks and carrying a small round suitcase. She'd just arrived from "the coast" and hoped Zach would let her audition. I have no idea how long that idea stayed in the show.

Riedel doesn't look hung over on that show. Just old and a bit greasy.

[quote]Why the hell is Bartlett Sher directing this Dolly show, which seem eminently more suitable for Branson than Broadway? I wish Lincoln Center would hire him to do ALNM at the Beaumont with a full orchestra and gorgeous production.

Yes, please! I think LCT is probably our only hope for a full scale revival of ALNM.

I see no reason why LCT won't do ALNM but you can be sure it'll be directed by their new AD Lear de Bessonet. I think Bart Sher is gradually flunking his way out of there.

R156. And that's Cassie's entrance in the movie. Amazing that they took something that didn't work on stage and put it in the film .

Nice statement and it sounds like Andrew isn't going anywhere.

Nice statement. Embarrassing it should even be a conversation.

Ricamora should shut the fuck up after playing Abe Lincoln for over a year.

John Stamos to play Herod at Hollywood Bowl.

Well, when I think of Josh Gad, Stamos immediately comes to *my* mind.

When I think of evil fucks like Herod, Stamos comes to mind.

R142, how did you manage to say nothing and still waste our time?

R162, do you really expect us to believe there's no difference between Ricamora's OH MARY! role and the male lead in MAYBE HAPPY ENDING, racially speaking? Come on.

The male lead in MHE is a robot not a real person like Lincoln. That makes the “controversy” even more stupid.

I would bet that 99% of the American people don't know that Criss was part Asian.

Although Deb Messing is unrelenting, it looks like, in recent weeks, Seth Rudetsky has ceased posting any remotely... political content online. A few months ago, he was very vocal.

It’s funny to me that at one time, Debra Messing was the face of the resistance to Donald Trump, when you know in one year, she will be publicly supporting his actions on Instagram.

R163 it suddenly just became Herod & Maude.

Music and the Mirror only works with Donna because Bennett specifically geared it toward her strengths and refused to change it for any incoming replacement. Donna could do two things that other dancers couldn’t that are really tricks more than anything else. She could do half layouts that were somewhat deep and those annoying head/neck pops that she did multiple times in Turkey Lurkey, and Tick Tock from Company. Pretty much the entire last two minutes of M&M is her doing layouts into lazy pirouettes into head pops. Every other poor dancer who comes in and doesn’t naturally have those two things (and the one back bend during the cringe “sexy” section) is basically screwed during the number.

God knows Charlotte D'Amboise looked awful doing them in the revival.

R174 Hi Terrence! We loved you in Les Miserables!!

All this talk about Gypsy being dated. And, here we have A Chorus Line. I dunno... Gypsy just feels like a (brilliant) period piece to me, but A Chorus Line feels SO of/for/stuck in its time. I'm sure you "had to be there", but I wasn't even a glint in the milk man's eye when ACL was dominating Broadway.

There's plenty of stuff from the 70s I love. But ACL -- with its schmaltzy (though, undeniably good) score -- feels quite dated and a little cheesy to me.

[quoted]All this talk about Gypsy being dated

Gypsy isn't dated, it's just been overdone.

We've been through this BS before, but for some reason the outrage over Darren Criss' replacement is really annoying me.

Irony alert: So many Koreans were adopted overseas, and grew up to marry into their local ‘culture.’

Thee are thousands of Northern European-Korean and Korean-Americans who look just like a helpbot!

I'm going to take a wild guess that you're not of Asian heritage, R178.

THIS DAY IN BROADWAY HISTORY: In 1993, a revival of “In the Summer House” opened at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.

[quote]THIS DAY IN BROADWAY HISTORY: In 1993, a revival of “In the Summer House” opened at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.

Did Stamos get a facelift, because he looks amazing!

Amazingly feminine!

"Dolly" opens in less than a week, and tickets are simply not selling. That could be the reason why prices are dropping from $295 to about half that for the month of August. The Nashville run goes through Labor Day weekend, then it plans to 'hit the road' for out-of-town tryouts before it hits Broadway in the Spring of 2026.

How much more fun to have a Herod with some sexual appeal instead of fat gross (and predictably hammy) Josh Gad. And I'm sure Stamos will be hilarious, too.

Nobody in Nashville or NYC wants to see a show about Dolly Parton that she's not in. Especially with outrageously expensive tickets.

R186, I will always remember how surprised I was by how good Stamos was as the Emcee in “Cabaret” many years ago at Studio 54. I went in expecting the worst but he delivered a very fine performance (I think Jane Leeves played Sally).

R187 I don't know about the local Nashville audiences, but Broadway theater-goers have been going to these 'biopic' musicals for years, without the the celebrity being in the show. The success rate has been mixed.

Gypsy isn't dated. If you see a production that feels that way, it's the direction. Gypsy was a period piece when it was originally produced so it's not tied to the trap of "current day".

Company, A Chorus Line and Rent can more easily feel dated. They're so thematically and stylistically entwined with their current day settings. I think Company and ACL can overcome that problem with strong direction but it's not easy. (And, not by updating! HATE that.)

I don't feel that way about Rent. I think it's because, as much as I loved it back in the day, it really does have a clunky book. And, it really is "the AIDS musical" and who wants to go through that again?

I think it's one thing when the musical bio is about a group like The 4 Seasons or The Temptations or about a modest performer like Carole King (all hits), but when the show is all about Cher, Donna Summer, Tina Turner or ESPECIALLY Dolly Parton, the audience really doesn't want to see an imitation.

Good point, r191.

There was no way Donna Summer could possibly star in her own B'way biopic in 2018.

I agree “Rent” feels dated. It had some beautiful songs in its score but it really was of its time.

You grossly miss the point, r193.

Has anyone seen Elizabeth McGovern in the Ava Gardner play yet? I think it’s in previews already.

R188 aren’t you mixing up Cabaret for Chicago with that z-cast. LOL

I had totally forgotten about that one, r196.

I’ve seen the subway ad. Does that count?

[quote](I think Jane Leeves played Sally)

I just saw her on Murphy Brown. I had forgotten that she was on it.

Didn't Stamos also do NINE?

Rent has ALWAYS been shite.

I saw DOLLY in Nashville, and can verify the terrible word of mouth. It' s just lumbering and inept, and uses the same trope that "Summer" and "Cher Show" did -- three different Dolly's! The book is boring, the music is mostly solos and duets so no energy builds, and the direction is total lackluster. Cast is fine, but they can't save themselves. The video work is hilariously trite and the curtain call inlclu It will totally tank on Broadway. Reminded me of "Good Vibrations," that Beach Boys travesty.

New Yorkers aren't going to flock to a Dolly Parton musical, and tourism is about to die. Remember to thank the bloated orange turd.

R203 How much did you pay for tickets ? I hope not the $300.

I remember Stamos also starred in 'How to Succeed in Business' in the mid-90s revival. IIRC, he replaced Matthew Broderick earlier in the run when MB was on vacation, then replaced him permanently when MB left the show. I think Stamos was in it for a few months before the show closed. I didn't get a chance to see it, but I do recall friends who went to see it with both MB and JS, and liked Stamos much better.

I should add from my post above (for theater purists on this forum), Matthew Broderick opened the revival in March, 1995 and stayed with the show through November. Stamos came in to replace him from November through March, 1996. Broderick then returned (he pulled a Tyne Daly) to the show in March, 1996 and stayed with the show until it closed in July, 1996.

R167, your suggesting only Asians can play robots? They’re robots, Rose, not Korean nationals.

Christ, if I were Andrew Barth Feldman, I’d be trying to get out of this shit show.

Was Stamos any good in the Roundabout Bye Bye Birdie?

R207, your disingenuousness is unappealing. The feel of MAYBE HAPPY ENDING is Korean. The sensibility of OH, MARY! is convention-flounting (hence Asian and black actors as Abe).

Also . . . oh, dear.

R209 yes, I saw that one. He was fine, but Bill Irwin really ruined it for me.

Stamos to replace Audra in Gypsy.

R210, I’m not arguing anything about Ricamora or Oh Mary. I’m arguing that robots don’t have races, any more than they can fall in love.

I’m also legally blind, so my typos often go unnoticed. But at least you feel better.

R211 you are correct about Irwin - his unfunny schtick ruined the show every moment he showed his scrunched up face.

I paid $140 for my Dolly ticket. I wish I could get a refund.

WHET Nolan Gerard Funk?

[quote]The feel of MAYBE HAPPY ENDING is Korean.

Darrin Criss is part-Filipino. So I guess he shouldn't have been cast either?

When (and why) precisely did Matthew Broderick become such a boring and feeble actor? He was so charismatic in his teens and early 20s but by the mid-1990s it was all gone (including IMHO in The Producers and that How to Succeed revival).

He came to Bway, drank too Much, got chubby, did meth and married a horse of course. A tale as old as time.

R218 The Producers on stage was magic. The Odd Couple was satanic sorcery.

R215 Was that for the front center orchestra seat ? I hope so. The theater was charging $295 for the first 10 rows in the orchestra, up until this past week. There was so much public outcry from theater-goers saying this show was a 'work in progress' and wasn't worthy of 'Broadway prices'. I read a few days ago the theater dropped their price to $140, which was back orchestra prices (which now dropped to $50). What a scam they're running.

Boyish doesn't age well, r218.

R220, if the Maybe Happy Ending robots are so quintessentially Korean, why weren’t either cast with Koreans? Helen J Shen is Chinese, and (as r217 points out), Criss is half-Filipino. This is a controversy in search of a cause.

Broadway has yet another useless controversy.

Paging Cynthia Erivo! If you can shut one major production down, you can certainly do it again ! C'mon Cynthia - shut down MHE! Blame racism again.

Cynthia is simply on a higher level as a vocalist than Patti, Betty and Audra.

[quote][R188] aren’t you mixing up Cabaret for Chicago with that z-cast. LOL

No he isn´t

R227 doesn’t do sarcasm

[quote] [R227] doesn’t do sarcasm

That’s a big problem on a gay message board.

Erivo's Gethsemane in R226's post is 'okay'. This was the Hollywood Bowl Concert, and she needs some specific musical and staging direction to fix it before Broadway. First, she needs to learn that leaning forward and bending your body down towards the stage floor as you sing weakens the dramatic impact of the song. She wisely does not go into her head voice, but avoids some of the scream/riffs that we associate with when a man does this number. She can do it too - she just needs to learn how and when. Ending the song on her knees is a weak move. Again, a director can fix that. And finally, she picks the right note to end the song - she just needs to hold it right through to the very end with a lot of vibrato. Can't wait until she gets it perfect.

IMHO

[quote]I paid $140 for my Dolly ticket. I wish I could get a refund.

The cost of your ticket is fully refundable with an equivalent value of Dolly Parton products.

She needs stage direction for a non-stage concert version. Got it.

Josh Gad will return to JCS for Sundays performance.

Broderick did age strangely. As a young man, he was boyishly endearing, even sexy, with lots of energy. By the time he hit his 30s, he was just a bland, low energy puddingy nebbish.

I think the awful Irish car wreck and SJP drained the joy out of him.

Addiction does that to a man in pain. Even my gay primary care provider in the Village gossiped about him.

Bleecker Bottomshopper.

Most nepo babies aren’t built to last. They were coddled and cosseted their whole lives, and their systems give out.

At least his wife SJP is honest trash who pulled herself up by her own bra straps.

And paid top price to spawn!

Ok, yes, Matthew Broderick is the son of a respected actor, James Broderick but...I don't being the son of a man who was mostly known as a stage actor in NYC and got a big TV break when he was middle aged by starring in Family really provided Matthew a lavish, spoiled lifestyle or that much help into breaking into show business.

People really are weird about the whole nepo thing.

Exactly. When I saw Matthew early on in TORCH SONG, he was a dazzling presence, easily headed for stardom. I had no idea he had a modestly famous father.

R223, the complaints were not that the actor must be Korean, it was that the actor should be Asian, not that online complaints have much effect.

[quote]She needs stage direction for a non-stage concert version. Got it.

R232, it was a STAGED concert version, like Encores.

My favorite Chita Rivera moment was when she was interviewed on the red carpet.

Did you see John Stamos in Bye Bye Birdie?

Chita: No.

Will you?

Chita: No.

Which means it wasn’t staged like a show. Thank for your attention to this matter☮️

And not Indian Asian or Iraqui Asian or even Israeli Asian. But Asian Asian!!!

R242, the interviewer should have asked John Stamos if he saw Bring Back Birdie.

Erivo is exhausting.

R243, you were in the special classrooms at school, weren’t you? A performer can give an ineffective performance in a concert that would be more effective if they worked with a director. As Erivo clearly did.

Is Jesus Christ Superstar supposed to head to Bway or is it just a singular run in LA?

John Stamos is always brought in when a show is about to inevitably die

After The Producers, Matthew Broderick kept playing that same character in all his subsequent plates. Deadpan, no energy.

For the record, The Producers was a hit because Nathan Lane, not particularly because of MB

I think Cynthia Erivo is enormously talented. I'm not sure I find her JCS vocal performance as thrilling as everyone else. I'm sure it was great in person, but it's still very... smooth. I miss the more guttural rock scream of the best JC vocalists, like Ted Neeley.

[quote]John Stamos is always brought in when a show is about to inevitably die

Is he the Debbie or the Raquel?

That performer gave an effective performance in concert.

Now go back to Miss Maryann’s low readers’ group.

R252. He's the Billy Porter.

I find the Maybe Happy Ending situation sad. I get that Asian actors feel some sort of ownership over the show, but in this current Broadway environment, you can hardly blame either the producers or creators for wanting to extend the life of the show. There just aren't that many marketable Asian male stars who can sing and have the chops for Broadway that can ALSO sell enough tickets to keep the thing going after Criss leaves. I'm sure they would have cast someone if they could but at this point, they got ABF, who has a sizable following, to give them another nine weeks. I also think it keeps their leading lady happy, since he's her boyfriend. I really don't see what is wrong about this casting choice. If the creators say a white man can play the part, it's really not for anyone else to disagree. JK Rowling gave the okay for a black Hermione on Broadway. Why can't we let the people who created the character determine who can play them?

Why can't we let the community who supported the show ask the creators to dig deeper to determine who can play them? It’s a fair question. There’s nothing in particular that stands out about Andrew except his connection to the current lead. In no way is he there as a box office draw LOL

I will say something else interesting.

A lot of Broadway types are posting on TIK TOK/twitter that Andrew Lloyd Webber is having a moment right now between Sunset, Evita, Masquerade, Cats and now Jesus Christ Superstar.

They are using words like “cool again” “rock star”

Isn’t it wild that he is super beloved right now and Patti LuPone is cancelled and essentially kicked out of the business?

Nobody in 1994 would have ever believed that!

Nobody in 1994 would have believed how much further the world could sink.

On All That Chat, these crazed queens were arguing that, who cares how the creators envisioned the casting, once they put the show out into the world, it takes on shared ownership.

For fuck’s sake…

Honestly, perhaps you'll accuse me of a being a weak willy fence sitter, but I see both sides quite clearly. If I can speak in generalizations, of the major ethnic groups (in terms of casting), arguably, Asian actors have been the least represented on Broadway when compared to White and even Black and Latino actors. This season, there was highly visible celebration of Asian actors representation on Broadway...

(ex: see Lea Salonga's joyful posts about the relative abundance of Asian performers in new plays and musicals this season.... some in roles written specifically for Asian characters (like in Yellow Face) and others that just happened to cast Asian actors (like Lea herself in Old Friends or Conrad in Oh, Mary!...)

...there was, perhaps prematurely, a sense of tide-changing and I'm sure it was thrilling for many Asian people in the theatre world to witness this. Maybe Happy Ending was included in that celebration partly due to its casting and partly due to its setting and some of its creative team. So, yeah, I understand that sense of ownership many felt and why it may FEEL like a betrayal to that community.

Conversely, I think the MHE creators' statement was credible and believable and, to my recollection, there is nothing in the book or the lyrics that suggests the robots were all made in the owners' images. It would 100% be wrong to cast non-Asian actors in the human roles, but I DO see why the robots are more grey area.

Unfortunately, I think too much of the (well earned) disappointment of Asian performers is being put on MHE's lap. It's a sad situation and I hope this charming show can weather the storm. If they find they don't need Criss to continue strong business, I suspect they'll look at Asian actor for the next cast update.

R250, you wrote, "For the record, The Producers was a hit because Nathan Lane, not particularly because of MB"

Wow, really? Broderick had to put across and "sell" the songs, "I Want to be a Producer" and "That Face", which he did, wonderfully. He had to keep up with Nathan during each and every performance, which he did. He often had to play the proverbial straight man to other cast members and not get lost in the chaos, which he did.

Yes, Lane gets all sorts of accolades for Bialystock, but he ALWAYS needs to be counter-balanced (we all know how over the top Lane can get) and it takes an actor with a lot of skill, nuance and presence to do that, which is what Matthew pulled off. That was much more than "not particularly."

I'm with others who just don't understand what happened to Broderick after The Producers. He did seem to become flat in his acting, with no energy. He put on weight, seemed perpetually bored, dishevelled, distracted.

Menopause, r261.

I’ll just say it: Darren Criss looks Caucasian. Even if factually correct, the idea that he somehow represented a major win for AANHPI representation was always a bit of a stretch, and would have come as news to audiences who mostly know him as the dude from Glee.

And I find it hard to imagine that MHE would have become the success that it is without Criss’ involvement. To put it bluntly: it needed the involvement of a well-known actor, and that actor is white-passing. I can’t think of any other AANHPI performer who has the skills to perform the role, who would have drawn a musical theatre audience, and who could commit to almost a year of performances on Broadway.

Is this fair? No. Would we wish the world to be otherwise? Absolutely. But that’s showbiz, kid.

White passing? In 2025 …

Go away.

If I remember correctly (and at 71 that is an increasingly large if), Criss's ethnicity was extensively discussed during the time of "The Assassination of Gianni Versace".

Ignorance of his ethnicity at this point seems a bit disingenuous.

Not everyone reads everything published. I’ve seen Darren in lots of stuff but assumed he was white until the publicity around this particular role.

The history of Asian representation in the movies and theater has been rife with white actors playing Asian roles. Perhaps this is a reaction to that - just another case of whitewashing. The fact that the character is a robot and can be played by anyone is not the point; critics will say this just adds to the practice and that producers have learned nothing.

[quote]I can’t think of any other AANHPI performer who has the skills to perform the role, who would have drawn a musical theatre audience

Another poster suggested Harry Shum, Jr., also from Glee and Grey’s Anatomy, as a possible replacement.

Yeah, casting a white man as a robot is EXACTLY like Boris Karloff as Charlie Chan. It will cause harm, Asian actors and audiences will be sad because they can’t see themselves onstage as a robot, and a starving actor will go without a job.

Meanwhile, for Tuesday night, the remaining handful of tickets sell for $399 or $499.

In what universe does ABF have a "sizable following"?

What about Telly Leung or Jason Tam as the robot? I've loved them both in shows I've seen.

It would be nice to think MHE is a good enough show that it doesn't need a star name to head the cast at this point.

So Asian actors are interchangeable? Chinese can can Japanese and Filipinos can play Koreans. etc?

[quote]In what universe does ABF have a "sizable following"?

Trust me - he doesn't have a "sizable" anything.

If you were casting a Tevye, would it matter if the Jewish actor was born in Russia, Poland, Argentina or the Bronx?

If you were casting a Porgy, would it matter if the actor was born in South Carolina, Nigeria or Brazil?

[quote]So Asian actors are interchangeable? Chinese can can Japanese and Filipinos can play Koreans. etc?

It's done all of the time. Try something else.

If you were casting a Sally or a Phyllis, would it matter.................... I forgot that on DL it definitely would.

Too bad Mickey Rooney is dead - he'd be a perfect replacement.

[quote]Another poster suggested Harry Shum, Jr., also from Glee and Grey’s Anatomy, as a possible replacement.

That was me right after the Tonys back in June. I still think Shum would be the best choice, and he would ensure a long run.

Looks like Josh Gad performed in JCS last night after saying he wouldn't be back until Sunday.

Shum has a following?

R281 3M followers on Insta, and 15K tik tokkers. So yes, he has a following.

If I was John Stamos I would have been pissed.

I’m sorry but Josh Gad should have bowed out.

Nah, he was contractually obligated to perform the role if healthy. So if he tested negative and was up to it, it was his role and his obligation to play it.

Why is more blame not placed on the Asian actor for abandoning a role? This is yielding visibility of his race onstage, as this recasting debacle has shown. Of course I do not blame the victim, but am only pointing out some simple math.

How is he abandoning the role?

It opened last November and they were on rehearsals since probably Sept. A Broadway show is grueling. That’s a long run and a lead role.

Does Shum sing? On "Glee" he was primarily a dancer.

The Asians should insist on run of the play contracts to cement their visibility. Not blithely waltz away from roles once they’ve got them.

R287 I have a feeling with today's technology and some voice / singing lessons, he could do fine in the role. Plus he's eye candy on stage, just like Criss.

We have never heard of this Shum person.

Stamos probably took the role with the understanding Gad would return when he tested negative a few days in a row. Hey, Johnny got some nice PR out of it and he got to play to a huge Hollywood Bowl audience.

yeah, r291, I think he's good.

I don't think ABF is a massive ticket seller but he does have a rabid, youthful following among theatre "kids," especially due to his time on the Disney show and from his pandemic videos. There are plenty of actors with big followings whose followers wouldn't pay for a Broadway ticket. If that were true, some influencers like Amber Ardolino would be doing big business every time they are in a show, but it's one thing to follow someone because they provide free, fun content or sell $15 lipsticks (like Kylie Jenner) but asking those followers to fork over $129 for a Broadway show is probably too much. I previously pointed out ABF does have a following, and I probably should have clarified that it's among young people who likely would pay (maybe not top dollar but a mid-level price) for theater tickets. I love Telly and Jason Tam but Telly couldn't sell out his last run at 54 Below, and Jason being in that Jonathan Larson show off Broadway didn't help ticket sales. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be cast, they are both wonderful actors and singers. However, if you are looking to extend the life of your show, you need more than that. It's possible Andrew will also not sell tickets, but I do see it as a bit of stunt casting that has interesting marketing potential and that's probably what attracted the producers/creators to the idea. Also, making your leading lady stay on - the show probably couldn't survive both leads leaving at once.

I don't think ABF is a massive ticket seller but he does have a rabid, youthful following among theatre "kids,"

🤣LOL…as if a Broadway producer gives a rat’s ass. The show’s value is in its past critical/commercial success and awards. Theater kids?—it also has a following with prostitution whores for all we know ;)

[quote]The Asians should insist on run of the play contracts to cement their visibility. Not blithely waltz away from roles once they’ve got them.

I never thought that Darren Criss blithely waltzed away from the show. Do you know the details of his contract? Are you sure he violated it? If you have inside knowledge, please share it with us.

If ABF or whomever gets good word of mouth because they are great on the role, it will help sell tickets, including to those who saw it with Darren and want to compare.

It seems some of you bitches are unaware that Darren Criss, in addition to playing the leading male role in MAYBE HAPPY ENDING, is also one of the show's major producers. Maybe that fact would change some people's stupid opinion that he isn't committed to the show and is now "abandoning" it.

Thank you, R297. For any of us who know people who have played major roles on Broadway, it is incredibly exhausting.

You get home at midnight, or later, if you stop to have a drink to wind down, and you are still revved up from the adrenaline of the performance. Sleep is not easy to come by and you have to be incredibly disciplined in terms of your eating sometimes working to preserve your voice. Doing a run a length that he has done is incredibly taxing.

Maybe I misunderstood the casting announcement but I thought Andrew will be filling in while Darren takes a break and will return to the show.

Audra MacDonald has announced she is abandoning GYPSY due to lack of ticket sales.

Did she have a press conference at Chipotle?

R296 Helen’s mouth is half-full just now…

R271, Jason Tam is too old for MHE and Telly is too…nelly.

[quote]casting a white man as a robot is EXACTLY like Boris Karloff as Charlie Chan.

Boris Karloff never played Charlie Chan. He was the villain in Charlie Chan at the Opera, but Warner Orland played Chan.

Telly is in the new Phantom or whatever that is.

Jason Tam is 43. Isn't Criss 38-39? Nellie Telly is 45.

[quote]Telly is in the new Phantom or whatever that is

Phantom Phollies?

[quote]R297 Some of you bitches are unaware that Darren Criss, in addition to playing the leading male role in MAYBE HAPPY ENDING, is also one of the show's major producers.

So, he’s the one approving the white replacements??

The show won Best Musical! You could replace Criss with Morey Amsterdam and it would still sell tickets.

I saw Morey Amsterdam in 1776 and was NOT impressed!

Is Morey Amsterdam a Sally or a Phyllis?

Rose Marie is Sally!!!!

Rose Marie was a Hattie.

Rose Marie was a Baby.

[quote]R259 On All That Chat, these crazed queens were arguing that, who cares how the creators envisioned the casting, once they put the show out into the world, it takes on shared ownership.

Well, how do you think it should work? After 100 years the creator’s vision can be set aside? Upon their death? Never?

Ooofff. Audio of Miss Billy Porter in CABARET is jaw-droppingly bad.

I saw Morey Amsterdam in COMPANY and he was wonderful singing "Not Getting Married."

Cynthia Erivo's performance on Night Two is jaw-dropping. She topped Jennifer Holliday's performance of "And I Am Telling You" in Dreamgirls on Broadway.

R316 part of the problem is Billy himself.

He continues to sing like he did 25 years ago, and the instrument is no longer there.

[quote]The Asians should insist on run of the play contracts to cement their visibility.

"The" Asians?

r316

where did you hear it?

Those Asians should've dialed me up...I know all about run of the play contracts!

At least no one has referred to them as 'Orientals.'.

[quote]Some of you bitches are unaware that Darren Criss, in addition to playing the leading male role in MAYBE HAPPY ENDING, is also one of the show's major producers.

[quote]So, he’s the one approving the white replacements??

Well, yes, he's ONE of the people approving the "white replacements."

The set for this new German production of Titanic looks quite impressive.

Right now, Jean Smart is so happy all the attention has shifted to 'MHE' and not her failing box office/

[quote]I saw Morey Amsterdam in 1776 and was NOT impressed!

I didn't realize you were both so old!

[quote]At least no one has referred to them as 'Orientals.'.

quote]Warner Orland played Chan.

OLAND

I believe Sara Porkalob is free!

She's played male roles before.

Briefly, and at 75%.

[quote]R323 At least no one has referred to them as 'Orientals.'.

or ‘Mings’

Telly Leung is over on 57th Street playing Raoul in "Masquerade" and I haven't heard a fucking peep.

Assholes.

Do you guys listen to yourselves?

It's disturbing how openly the woke left has become with their anti-white bigotry.

Also, I thought you theater people believed in color-blind casting?

So, it's okay for blacks/Asians/Latinos to play roles originated by whites, but not the other way around?

The hypocritical Democrats and their double standards.

Little wonder they're losing support from many Americans.

Telly is playing the Phantom. Or one of the Phantoms. Not Raoul.

Danke, Hermann R333

The six Phantoms.

[quote]R334 Telly is playing the Phantom. Or one of the Phantoms. Not Raoul.

Plot Twist: ONE of the phantoms ? ?

R337, look at the post right above yours.

The producers/creators were dumb about the cast change.

They should have hired a BLACK actor with some star value to replace Criss and there wouldn't have been a peep. It would also create a precedent that the role is COLOR BLIND especially since it's a fucking robot.

Really, the only character that should be definitely Asian is the James/Other Characters slot played by Marcus Choi.

If only Jordan Donica was schtupping Helen Shen.

R309 - not necessarily true. The Outsiders is doing fine, A Strange Loop and Kimberly Akimbo tanked. Dear Evan Hansen, Moulin Rouge, and Hamilton did well after the Tony, but Fun Home, Memphis, and The Band's Visit didn't. But for the show's sake, I hope you are right. I think it's harder if you start out with a star, than when you don't - such as GREAT COMET where the audience expects a star.

What are you talking about R341? THE BAND'S VISIT ran for almost a year after its Best Musical win. FUN HOME ran for over a year after its win, and MEMPHIS ran for two after its win.

[quote] I think it's harder if you start out with a star, than when you don't - such as GREAT COMET where the audience expects a star.

And came very close to getting Justin Timberlake in the role until Erivo cried "Racism!" - so he dropped out. Then came close to getting Mandy Patinkin until Erivo cried 'Racism!' even louder, so he dropped out. And then the producers decided to close down the production rather than keep pushing the water uphill with the broom, and Erivo ended up putting over 200 people - of different genders, race, religions, ages, sexuality - out of work, because of 'Racism!'. And then she walked away, knowing her work was done here.

R340 who is Jordan sleeping with?

He’s sexy but reads as a queenie straight man.

See also

Darren Criss

Jeremy Jordan

Yes she cast a spell over the producers and the director. The had no agency—nothing could overcome her single-handed effort to destroy Broadway.

Like all her people, she’s devoted to dismantling the white centric, patriarchal Broadway we know today. And which gave her her start!

It’s shameful. Shameful.

She got her start in London 🫣

[quote]And came very close to getting Justin Timberlake in the role until Erivo cried "Racism!" - so he dropped out. Then came close to getting Mandy Patinkin until Erivo cried 'Racism!' even louder, so he dropped out.

I never heard about Timberlake. What's your source for that? Patinkin's name was the first one I heard as taking over the role when Poison Oak wasn't quite ready for it.

I had money in both Band's Visit and Fun Home. Both did quite well. So did their tours.

I can’t wait to see Erivo’s Mama Rose some day!

(fingers crossed)

R349, thank you for that. Two of the really great contemporary musicals.

R349. Interesting!

Have you invested in shows that DIDN'T do well?

[quote]Yes she cast a spell over the producers and the director. The had no agency—nothing could overcome her single-handed effort to destroy Broadway.

R345, your stupid comment shows that you have no idea how these things work.

Please explain how they work.

r336 When (and WHY) did Hugh Panaro become a blond?

"Highlights" from the 50th anniversary of ACL. So much looks like it was cribbed from Bennett's staging when it became the longest running show on Broadway and Music and the Mirror looks so much better with multiple Cassies.

[quote]R347 She got her start in London 🫣

Erivo??

Why is she allowed to take acting jobs away from Americans over here??

Singer Jane Morgan has died at 101. She played Mame in the original Broadway production, preceding Ann Miller.

[quote]Yes she cast a spell over the producers and the director. The had no agency—nothing could overcome her single-handed effort to destroy Broadway.

She did indeed. She was a prime example of knowing the power of social media and how to work it to her advantage - Instagram, TikTok, Twitter (as tit was called back then) and even Facebook.

And when she realized the inferno she set and she ended up shutting down the production and putting hundreds of cast and crew out of work, she quietly shut down all of her social media as she didn't know the skill of damage control . She didn't want to be the victim of the backlash, so she tried walking away and say "It wasn't me!".

what is an IZZY?

[quote]I never heard about Timberlake. What's your source for that? Patinkin's name was the first one I heard as taking over the role when Poison Oak wasn't quite ready for it.

My sources are two actors who co-starred in the production back then, and very proud of the show and their work. They - like the other 200 members of the production - were shocked and confused when it shut down abruptly.

Timberlake was in talks with the producers in the Spring, towards the end of Groban's run. It was the worst kept secret on Broadway (the producers kept dropping 'a big name who will be making his Broadway debut'). Timberlake couldn't join in the summer, he was scheduled for the night after Labor Day, and 'Oak' was only hired as a 'placeholder' until Timberlake got there.

Oak knew all along the role was not his forever, only for those twelve weeks or so for the summer. His contract was not intended to be renewed, and he knew this. He was horrible in the role, and horrible with cast and crew (ask anyone associated with the show). The stories my two friends shared about him over that summer would blow your mind on how unprofessional he was. But by late July, he got the 'racism' talk started, and quickly got his friend Cynthia to join his cause. The rest is history.

Howard and Janet Kagan, who were the producers of Natasha and Pierre...., as well as the On the Town revival, divorced and are no longer producing. I assume he's gone back to his hedge funding.

Thanks, R361, but if what you say is correct, then why did Patinkin even enter the picture? Are you saying Oak was so bad in the role, and so unprepared for it, that the producers wanted to bring in Patinkin a.s.a.p. for three weeks because Timberlake wasn't ready yet, and the plan was still to bring in Timberlake after Labor Day if the show could be kept running that long? That would make sense to me.

I thought Mandy was being brought in to boost sales which had taken a big dip after Groban left. Oak was asked to step aside and his full contract would be paid. I remember Oak's first performance was delayed and he said the show wasn't ready for him when, actually, it was the other way around.

The producers should never have done what they did!

Yes, R364, that was my understanding as well. My question is whether or not Timberlake was in place to go into the show after Labor Day, after Oak and Patinkin.

[quote] I still think Shum would be the best choice, and he would ensure a long run.

lol, whut? This is one of the funnier things I’ve read here lately.

R366. I don't remember Timberlake being mentioned by name but Patinkin was being brought in to both boost the box office and keep the show open until a big name came in after Labor Day.

At least she’d be able to technically sing the role of Rose R350, unlike light lyric soprano Audra.

R359 She’s a witch! A wicked old witch!

Good thing we have you to bust open this case. Our very own Laura Loomer. Well done.

Lola rips off Zizi

Grosses are out. Lowest week ever for Cabaret, beating out last week for the spot. Oh, Billy.

I’m not shocked.

Both of the new leads (but especially Billy) keep doing press where they talk about how this is “their Cabaret” now and “their story to tell.”

They are finding out what happens when no one is interested in hearing that story told.

Audra tried doing press the same way for Gypsy and it also bombed at the box office.

Cabaret isn't doing much better than Izzy.

Jane's Mame and some high kickers.

RIP

That’s a rather tiny staircase. Is it even four steps?

O.K., r375, I just figured out why that number doesn't quite work for me. It's so presentational at the end. It doesn't feel like a madcap party because they aren't singing to each other.

Can Harry Shum act? I only have watched him in Glee and he was very bland there...though to be fair, he wasn't given much to do but other than the fact he's blandly good looking he didn't really have much charisma.

Cynthia also made some comments about Black Americans being ghetto and some other nonsense about British actors being superior to American actors so I’m not surprised she shut down her social media. I remember the backlash she got for that.

Laura—you’re the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Robots are bland, r379.

Does anyone think CABARET will make it to their planned October 19 closing ? All bets are a closing notice will post on Labor Day Weekend. Then we will be treated to Ms Porter pontificating on how racist Broadway audiences are (and he'll point to both his show and Audra's).

[quote]O.K., [R375], I just figured out why that number doesn't quite work for me. It's so presentational at the end. It doesn't feel like a madcap party because they aren't singing to each other.

That's how it comes across in that clip because, although Morgan sings the number very well, she tends to play very much "out front" and she's not a very good actress in general. I think if you watch this clip of the number with Lansbury, you'll feel there's a lot more interaction between her and the guests, and also among the guests.

Not to defend Jane Morgan (whose back phrasing drives me mad) but wasn't that the number filmed for the Ed Sullivan show on a much shallower stage than on Broadway? It's all rather flattened out. Jane was selling it to the cameras!

And please give those flappers some undies for the high kicks asap! Talk about selling it to the cameras.

I'm sure Jane felt she had to be bigger for the cameras.

I liked it.

R375. That IS tedious. Oy!

R384, the stage at the Sullivan is shallower and narrower. The Winter Garden has one of the widest prosceniums on Bway. This looks sooooo cramped.

And that is not an accurate representation of the final “button” as it was performed in the show. Angela SLID down the corkscrew bannister (the actual staircase was about twice as tall) right into arms of two chorus boys, did a massive high kick and landed down stage center.

But I love seeing Anne Francine in the black dress and wig trying to do her best Bea Arthur.

[quote]R322 Those Asians should've dialed me up...I know all about run of the play contracts! — Helen Lawson

The hasn’t been a revival of “Hit the Sky” in a while. Why is that?

Though I was lucky enough to see Angela L in Mame on Broadway, Bea Arthur had already departed and so I saw Anne Francine (not to be confused with Anne Francis!) who I can only imagine made Bea look like a delicate little flower. I'm not sure that's Miss Francine in Jane M's video. That lady looks too petite.

r388, we can all see Angela doing that slide down the corkscrew bannister at r383.

It’s Anne Francine in the video with Jane Morgan

I don't think Natasha and Pierre would have gone very much further even with Patinkin or Timberlake. There was barely a show there to begin with

It's Anne Francine in the conservatory with the wrench.

A friend told me the opening number of Anne Francine' cabaret act was "Shake Hands With a Loser."

[quote]I don't think Natasha and Pierre would have gone very much further even with Patinkin or Timberlake. There was barely a show there to begin with

I thought it was a wonderful show, and as I recall, it got some very good reviews. The show did well enough with Groban to demonstrate that it would have continued to do well with another star. And as mentioned above, Patinkin was only scheduled to be in it for, I believe, three weeks, so I guess you missed that bit of info.

Ann Francine at the Rose '92

^ Anne

Anne Francine worked with perpetually-angry, foul-mouthed and ever-scowling Long Guyland diva Patti LuPone in Anything Goes.

Wut da fuk do you think Ms. L has to say about Anne?

Anne Francine is hilarious in that clip that was posted. She seems like a nicer Elaine Stritch.

Too bad her career didn’t cement her as a star!

[quote]Wut da fuk do you think Ms. L has to say about Anne?

" Who"?

Damn, what did the house put in the water for that audience at LA's The Rose? Christ Francine hadn't done anything worthwhile or funny and they were howling and cackling like a barnyard in heat! Shut up and calm down people.

How come we haven't seen Anne Francine in anything in years?

R403 perhaps her dying in 1999 had something to do with it!

She was the happiest corpse I'd ever seen.

Just to add to the conversation Miss Juliet Prowse....

Cape Town Mame? Pretoria Mame?

Well that was certainly lively R405.

Poor Onna White had to dumb that down for Lucy in the movie.

Don't you think that Patti L would be a delightful Mame?! Or should Audra get a crack at that role first? Discuss bitches, because it's either that or those two will go tit-to-tit to ply Phyllis in the next Follies revival!

What was the story of Mandy Patinkin vs. Toni Collette in The Wild Party? He did something to make her feel like she never wanted to do another Broadway musical again, right? I vaguely recall the rumors at the time, but that was forever ago. If so, has he mellowed in old age? I follow his family on Instagram and he seems like such a genuine, even sweet person. His unapolgetic advocacy for the Palestinian people, his very un-Hollywood loving relationship with his wife.... it's hard to reconcile that with him being some kind of terror to his fellow actors.

He struck her onstage, and drew blood from Eartha Kitt. It was a very out of control performance.

I think he's just a self-absorbed loon. That doesn't preclude him from having some good qualities.

[quote]Don't you think that Patti L would be a delightful Mame?! Or should Audra get a crack at that role first?

TPOS will be revive before "Mame."

^^ revived ^^

[quote]He struck her onstage, and drew blood from Eartha Kitt. It was a very out of control performance.

Oh, shit. That's... not okay. Wait. What do you MEAN he drew blood from Eartha Kitt? By striking her, too??

No, he bit her.

Here’s the story, from (shudder) 25 years ago. Despite the drama, I really liked the show a lot.

Yikes. That sounds awful. Can't deny he (and Toni and Eartha) were fantastic in The Wild Party, though.

I briefly worked with Anne Francine in 1978 on the short-lived, ill-fated Strouse/Adams show A BROADWAY MUSICAL. It was supposed to be a comic retelling of their experience doing GOLDEN BOY - a white creative staff trying to do a black musical with a difficult black star. Anne played Shirley Wolfe, the leader of a large matinee ladies' group with the power to make or break a show. It was workshopped at the Riverside Church Theatre, where it played to a predominantly black audience. Francine stopped the show with her number YENTA POWER. And although the show got negative feedback, everyone thought it could be fixed, and so the producers moved it to Broadway.

Unfortunately, the Broadway audience was predominantly white, and to them, much of the story seemed stereotyped and a bit racist. YENTA POWER sank to the bottom of the theatrical sea when actual Jewish matinee ladies were in the audience. I will always remember Anne Francine finishing her number and waiting for the applause, only to be greeted with a smattering of claps and a lot of whispering among the theater-goers. The show closed on opening night.

Yes, yet another one of my shows destined for the poster wall at Joe Allen's, right next to ME JACK YOU JILL.

Poor Eartha. Orson Welles also bit her one night when she was playing Helen of Troy to his Faustus.

Apparently, the Public is opening their 85 million dollar renovated Delacorte in the park tomorrow night and there will be NO BATHROOMS for the audience because the Parks Dept. is responsible for the restrooms, and they're still working on them. They probably started work last week. Oskar better spring for Porta-Potties or there's going to be shit flying!

$85M didn't include bathrooms onsite? Theatergoers are STILL going to have to use the park bathrooms?!

Or a nearby bush!

My god, Billy Boy! Lisa Kirk, Barbara Baxley and Sylvia Sidney all on one stage (in Me Jack You Jill)?!?! You must have amazing stories.

r419 - love hearing about long forgotten flops like that. The premise sounds... well... I can't believe something like that would even make it to Broadway. Charles Strouse is an interesting case. A couple of monster hits and then flop after flop after flop. I'm sure the Annie royalties kept him quite wealthy, but I wonder if he got bitter about never really having any successes after the 1970s.

Just the title A Broadway Musical is so lazy, so cringey.

I know just seeing Mandy Patinkin in a Broadway musical made me NEVER want to see another Broadway Musical.

Here's an audio of ME JACK, YOU JILL for anyone who might be morbidly interested.

Mandy used to be a terror but had mellowed in his old age. I did a show with him in 2011 or 2012 and he was fine. We had heard stories and were bracing ourselves but he couldn’t have been nicer.

It's a shame Mandy never played Tevye.

[quote] it's hard to reconcile that with him being some kind of terror to his fellow actors.

Read Streisand's chapter on 'Yentl' in her 2023 memoir, and you will get her take on working with Patinkin - as both an actress and a director.

R430 I wonder how that role passed him by.

It seemed to be the kind of role that would fit him like a glove, but alas, it did never came to be.

[quote]It's a shame Mandy never played Tevye.

Tevye has been overacted enough over the years without Mandy putting his embarrassing spin on it.

From AI:

"Mandy Patinkin, a Tony Award-winning actor, played the role of Tevye in a University of Kansas (KU) production of "Fiddler on the Roof". This was a significant experience for him, as it was the last time his father saw him perform before his death. Patinkin also mentioned that he considered playing Tevye in Hebrew during a conversation, highlighting his connection to the character and the musical."

All these Mame wannabes show without reservation that an Angela Lansbury comes along once in a lifetime.

Doesn't Mandy have mental health issues? I would assume that he's gotten them under control with the aid of medications.

[quote]Doesn't Mandy have mental health issues?

He always drove ME crazy.

Mandy's cousin has been an over-rated journalist for my city paper since the early 80s. Though he thinks he's some sort of God in the community, no one can stand him. He used to be a customer in my store and I could not stand him for the ten minutes or so he was in there. His colleagues were a pleasure to have in my store (and none of them had a kind word to say about him). He was one who believed in his own hype and rubbed everyone the wrong way. The word 'humble' is not in his vocabulary.

Mandy could still do Fiddler. I saw Theodore Bikel play Tevye when he was in his early 70s and he did very well. More of a rabbinical Tevye.

[Quote] The show did well enough with Groban to demonstrate that it would have continued to do well with another star.

No, Groban has a built in fan base

Mandy has burned through TV programs as well... Chicago Hope and Criminal Minds. I think there are a lot of former cast members who could tell stories. Why they haven't, I don't know.

R441. Don't forget HOMELAND.

[quote]R417 Here’s the story, from (shudder) 25 years ago. Despite the drama, I really liked the show a lot.

From article:

[italic]He has also been prone to strange emotional outbursts – at one point holing up in his dressing room and sobbing uncontrollably for four hours because he was unhappy with the show’s lighting.[/italic]

Well, who amongst us of a certain age has NOT done this?

I love that the article ends with, “Calls to Patinkin’s lawyer were referred to the show’s press agent, who said the actor was ‘unavailable for comment.’”

Mandy just a few days ago

I think that might be a stinky linky

Mandy never gave without taking.

Mandy...there's a minister handy.

R445 - yes, both links were stinky. What were you trying to share?

Wasn't the Burstein FOTR revival originally intended for Mandy?

This old episode of Theater Talk dedicated to The Merm popped up in my YouTube feed today. As a child of the 80s and 90s, I was probably born too late to truly "get" Ethel Merman and her foghorn voice. So, I was surprised to find this so fascinating (and entertaining.)

[quote]The close personal friends of the late diva, now archivists of her estate, share stories and keepsakes of the incomparable star.

Never mind Tevye, I want to see Mandy's "Mame."

Is Mandy a Phyllis or a Sally?

He’s a Gooch

Mandy’s wife Kathryn Grody would have made a good Golde, too. Would it have killed him to get a production going somewhere like the Bucks County Playhouse?

Like any true gay, this is the only Mandy I acknowledge.

THIS DAY IN BROADWAY HISTORY: In 1984, “Hurlyburly” opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

[quote]Mandy used to be a terror but had mellowed in his old age.

He may have mellowed somewhat as far as mean, uncontrolled behavior, but he's still got only a tenuous grip on reality. I may have shared this story before: A few years ago, the Drama Desk needed to find a host for their awards ceremony on very short notice, after someone had dropped out. Somehow they got Patinkin to do the hosting duties with his wife. Everything went reasonably well until, for some reason, Patinkin started railing against theater critics while at the podium. Towards the end of his long rant, he suddenly had a realization and said, "I hope there are no critics in the Drama Desk." No one said anything to him at that point because it would have been too excruciatingly embarrassing, but presumably someone told him afterwards in private that the DD is made up ENTIRELY of theater critics. This was simultaneously one of the most hilarious and embarrassing blunders I have ever witnessed.

It’s bizarre that he and Patti LuPone got along well during Evita.

Then again, cunts be cunting!

Not just during EVITA, R458 -- many years later they reunited for a concert tour that I think included a Broadway stop. Poor drunk Paul Ford goes on and on and on about it in his incoherent book. (IIRC, the selections included the entire Bench Scene from CAROUSEL. The mind reels.)

Just verified that there was indeed a Broadway stop -- 57 performances at the Ethel Barrymore. Surprised to see a link for "Replacements," I clicked it and discovered:

Ethel Barrymore Theatre (Nov 21, 2011 - Jan 13, 2012) Gideon Grody-Patinkin during Patti LuPone's absence

Lord have mercy.

R460. Gideon Grody-Patinkin during Patti LuPone's absence

Marsha Mason wasn't available?

r459...

Mandy Patinkin obviously has longtime mental health issues, so I'd like to be more sympathetic toward him. But he's such an insufferable asshole, I simply can't.

Also, R463, it would be easier to have sympathy for Patinkin if he acknowledged his mental health issues, but as far as I know, he has never done so.

He’s so wildly inconsistent. You have restrained Mandy: George, Inigo Montoya. Che, Saul. Then you get manic Mandy in Wild Party, the Follies concert, The Secret Garden, and his solo work. I can get over his hammy performances with my memories of his great ones.

Hyper-active, self-indulgent Mandy!

[quote]He’s so wildly inconsistent.

And yet I find him consistently unbearable to watch.

R465 hasn't listened to EVITA's OBC recently.

I interviewed Mandy for a magazine when his first solo album came out. I remember he told me that he was close to finishing negotiations to costar with Meryl Streep in the movie of Evita, and my memory is that he told me that Oliver Stone was going to direct it.

469 that is correct. It just never came to be.

First though was Elaine Paige. She was in an affair with Tim Rice and he wanted her.

Then they signed Liza Minnelli who did a screen test and everything.

Then it went to Meryl.

Then Michelle Pfeiffer was hired. You can hear her audio demos on YouTube (or used to)

How it ended up with Madonna is anyone’s guess.

Liza's screen test was for Ken Russell, r470.

Michelle

Streep dropped out because they were to pay Jack Nicholson (as Peron) several million dollars… yet they wouldn’t come up with a single million dollars for her as the TITLE CHARACTER.

She had other offers, so just declined.

When I think of Bob Gunton singing, I immediately think of Jack Nicholson.

Michelle’s Evita

PORNOGRAPHY FOR FUN & PROFIT

It was 1971.

What was scaring Lee Grant?

^^ if you quote what you’re responding to, maybe more readers will have an answer.

r478 see r476

What *wasn't* scaring Lee Grant?

[quote]"Yes. I'm afraid.” Lee had said firmly in that deep, husky voice. “Afraid of dying. Afraid of failing. I'm afraid every time I go on stage that I’ve forgotten everything, that I can’t do it."

She was returning to Broadway that fall, for the first time in almost a decade, to star in "The Prisoner of Second Avenue." She doesn't mention being afraid of living to 100, but she will do so in a couple months, unless the Betty White/Alan Bergman jinx strikes again.

Thanks R480

25 years ago Forbidden Broadway had Mandy's number with "Somewhat Overindulgent." Enjoy!

I'll say this... at a time when very few prominent Broadway figures are willing to say a peep about Gaza, Mandy has been displaying his sanity (and humanity) in spades by unapologetically and passionately speaking up for the Palestinians.

Good to know, R483, that Patinkin speaks up for Palestinians, who REALLY hate gay people. Just in case you're unaware:

[quote]In the West Bank, same-sex sexual activity between men was decriminalized in 1951. However, in the Gaza Strip, under Hamas rule, same-sex activity can be interpreted as illegal based on the British colonial-era criminal code, and there are reports of individuals being punished, according to a Jerusalem Post opinion piece. There is a lack of specific laws protecting LGBTQ+ individuals from discrimination or harassment in Palestine.

[quote]LGBTQ individuals in Palestine face the risk of persecution and violence. There have been reported instances of harassment, abuse, and even arrests of individuals based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, particularly in Gaza. In some cases, individuals suspected of homosexuality have been targets of honor killings.

So, R483, maybe you and Mandy should plan a trip to Gaza to spend some time among those lovely people.

Pinkwashing, R484? In 2025? How... retro of you.

Billy Porter will be out of Cabaret Aug 21-24 if anyone is interested in seeing the show without him.

R486 that should be the billboard!

I didn’t have Ariana DeBose in an Off-Broadway production of The Baker’s Wife on my bingo card for 2025.

What this city needs is one more Meadowlark.

[quote]What this city needs is one more Meadowlark.

You rang?

After punching out several audience members for using cellphones, Patti sings " Meadowlark."

It's Patti's song.

I’m sure part of Patt’s rehabilitation tour will be to attend and take photos of her smiling with Ariana

Cut to 3 years later.

Patti in NY times: That production of Baker’s Wife was terrible and Ariana can’t sing!

R492. Fuck you

Cynthia sings Meadowlark much better than Patti and Betty.

Thanks for posting the Follies Show Magazine cover R476. I just grabbed a copy of it for $18 on ebay!

Andy with the shiny face sings and overacts " Meadowlark" better than any woman.

Liz Callaway sings the song much better than Patti.

Erivo has a voice that is easy to appreciate and impossible to love.

I agree, R498. LuPone always blasts through it like a Mack truck -- no vulnerability, no shade, no storytelling.

Like Liza's too-fast rendition of SOME PEOPLE problem, MEADOWLARK works best when the singer (and the musical director) slow down and tell the story as if we're hearing it for the first time. It's actually a complicated tale full of rich language, and the audience needs time to process the imagery. Schwartz's arrangement in the background is frantic, but it doesn't have to be loud or overbearing to be effective. I wish Schwartz had added a few extra measures between some lyrics to give the singer some time to emote/react before moving on. An example of what I mean happens after the lyric "But when the King came down that day...". There needs to be an extra bar or two of music before Genevieve sings "He found his meadowlark had died." We need to imagine what the King sees and his reaction.

FYI, I really liked both Andrew Rannells' and Liz Callaway's versions of the song, with the caveat I've explained above.

IMHO

If you support a regime that's killing civilians because you stupidly think those civilians all want to throw gays off a building, then you probably need to be thrown off a building.

I hate Meadowlark! Why does everyone insist on singing it??!

While Mandy has always been overindulgent, some DLers are specifically shitting on him now because he dares to condemn Israel.

He’s been rather irrelevant for a while—suddenly he’s a hot topic on DL for his acting overindulge?

Please

R503 Meadowlark Lemon— party!

Ann Francine and her Matinee Ladies singing YENTA POWER from the Strouse/Adams flop A BROADWAY MUSICAL.

She always seemed like a drag queen to me, especially with her height (6') and her voice an octave lower than mine.

[quote] I hate Meadowlark! Why does everyone insist on singing it??!

Is that you from the grave, David Merrick?

The only version of MEADOWLARK I can tolerate from time to time is Sarah Brightman's recording from 1989 on 'The Songs That Got Away'. Don't know if it's true, but I recall reading that Streisand had mildly considered it for 'Back to Broadway' in 1993, but producer David Foster talked her out of it. He finally gave someone good advice.

[italic]Step back, bitchez!

Is Ariana's movie career over now that she's crawling back to off Broadway?

Meadowlark feels like it's never going to end. I'm glad Patti has the good sense to barrel through it.

Did Bernadette ever sing Meadowlark?

Ariana has some upcoming projects, including the Scarpetta TV series based on Patricia Cornwell’s books.

[quote]R521 Did Bernadette ever sing Meadowlark?

Fuck Bernie… what of dear little Audra? Where is her version?

Maybe Our Audra was shut out, as until Cynthia defiantly broke the meadowlark ceiling it was a Whites Only number.

Who will play The Baker in The Baker's Wife? It is, after all, the eponymous lead.

Ariana seems way too strong for that character.

R470 The screenplay was co-written by Oliver Stone (who was initially hired to direct the movie) and Alan Parker (who ended up directing it). They made all the changes for the film adaptation before anyone was officially cast.

Stone was originally going to direct Meryl Streep in 1989 and then Michelle Pfeiffer in 1994, but they both backed out at the last minute. Streep cited "exhaustion" and "personal reasons" whereas Pfeiffer had a newborn and decided she did not want to be away from her family.

Parker took over in 1995 and Madonna wrote him a four-page letter begging for the part. Parker eventually gave in on the condition that Madonna (who is notorious for being hands-on with all her projects) could not interfere with the production, which was filmed in early 1996 and released on Christmas of that year.

It's Patti's.

Other than Meadowlark, is The Baker’s Wife any good?

It'll be much more dependent on the casting of the Baker than Ariana's role.

I imagine they're hoping for someone like Nobert Leo Butz or Danny Burstein but the role has some incredibly high operatic notes......so maybe not.

R517. Not really.

I wasn’t aware that there will be a production of the one act opera Amahl and the Night Visitors at Lincoln Center this hokiday season, directed by Kenny Leon. Can’t wait to not see it.

Kenny is directing it? Oh, fuck me.

WTF is this??

This is the bookend song to Meadowlark, r518.

I prefer Amyl and the Night Visitors

Is there any existing tape of Bennett's last project "Scandal"? I haven't heard any music from the show and all I know is that people say it was Bennett's masterpiece to others saying it just wasn't good enough for Broadway and that's why he pulled it. I sort of side with the not good enough group because we should have seen a production of it somewhere.

There were evidently videotapes of the “Scandal” workshop in Bob Avian’s garage in CT. I’m sure they’re in the hands of John Breglio by now.

I think they should get Jerry Mitchell, Cynthia Onrubia and Troy Garza (MB’s assistants) to recreate the three completed dream ballets, using Bway’s best dancers. Swoosie Kurtz (the star) could narrate and Priscilla Lopez, and Kelly Bishop (also in the workshop) provide acerbic anecdotes about the show. I hear a couple of the Jimmy Webb songs are fantastic. One of the dream ballets is so steamy, it’s apparently where Jerry got the idea to start “Broadway Bares”.

It could be one of the greatest BC/EFA benefits ever.

[quote]Other than Meadowlark, is The Baker’s Wife any good?

I saw it during its Boston tryout, when Topol was the star. Patti is all I remember. I had never heard of her, of course, but was certain I'd be seeing a lot more of her.

The Baker’s Wife score on the OBC recording is fantastic. Really not a dud in the whole score. But I’m afraid it’s one of those shows—like St. Louis Woman or Chess or House of Flowers—that will just never work.

But who knows? Hal Prince rescued Candide in the 1970s.

That album is deceptive, as it just preserves the principals' numbers. The numbers for the townspeople are variable in quality, and some of them are completely floppo. The show is also very slight, with little plot. There are certainly worse shows out there, but The Baker's Wife has repeatedly defied resuscitation.

My question is why Ariana DeBose for this? It reminds me of Elena Rodger’s Evita.

You cannnot hire someone not known for being a strong singer to follow a role that Patti LuPone made famous.

We want a star diva with a strong belt!

Say what you will, but that helped make the new Sunset a success, Nicole had a thrilling voice.

[Quote] My question is why Ariana DeBose for this? It reminds me of Elena Rodger’s Evita. You cannnot hire someone not known for being a strong singer to follow a role that Patti LuPone made famous.

DeBose is a far stronger singer than Rodger, who seems to have disappeared. Maybe Ariana’s celebrity will carry the day

I'm betting most DLers here are familiar with it but if you've never heard Patti's 2 disc album PATTI LUPONE LIVE!, give it a listen. She made it at a club in LA just as she was wrapping up Life Goes On and heading home to Connecticut and then on to London in wild anticipation to begin rehearsals for Sunset Boulevard. The chatter she has with the audience throughout is genuinely hilarious (I think much of it written by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman).

She talks for a whole section about the doomed Baker's Wife, producer David Merrick's hate for the song Meadowlark, and says the show achieved a dubious record in Kennedy Center history as being the least attended production ever. At one performance there were only about 20 people at the KC Opera House who didn't want to move to better seats when invited and didn't even have the sense to at all get in one row. I'm paraphrasing badly but do give it a listen. The chat and her performance of her classic songs and new material is Patti at her best.

Genevieve in The Baker's Wife is a beautiful, wistful young ingenue, not exactly Ariana's strong suit.

R515: "Ariana seems way too strong for that character." R534: "Genevieve in The Baker's Wife is a beautiful, wistful young ingenue, not exactly Ariana's strong suit."

And Patti fucking LuPone is your go-to? Even in the mid-'70s, she never had any of those qualities.

The J2 Spotlight Musical group (they did Zorba this season) did BW a few years back. Its big flaws for me were a poky book and a lot of Borscht belt humor for the townsfolk. Maybe rewrites are in order.

Well, that's where we'll have to disagree, r535.

Hard as it may be to believe, before Evita and Anything Goes changed everything, Patti was the ingenue of the famed Acting Company and, among other roles, played the innocent Rosamund in The Robber Bridegroom and was nominated for a Tony for that role. Even her Fantine was "beautiful, wistful and young." And she had a lovely delicacy as Genevieve in The Baker's Wife, albeit a delicacy with a trumpet-like belt.

R508 Lucille Ball considered recording Meadowlark for “Lucy Calls The President” but Gary talked her out of it.

On another note, I just gave the 2021 London Cabaret recording another listen. Jessie Buckley is truly great. I think Cabaret can survive a weird or lackluster MC, but it’s really hard to make it work without a Sally who is a messy, selfish, sympathetic presence.

I don’t know how the title song turned into a screamfest coming to Broadway, but Buckley sounds like the real deal. I would have loved to see her - she bridges between the two best Sallys in my book, which were Natasha Richardson and Emma Stone.

I wish Ariana goes down the Liza Minnelli route—she could be Liza’s natural successor

R516 then Madonna announced she was pregnant (with Lourdes) shortly after EVITA began filming and Alan Parker nearly had a heart attack, but they were able to conceal her pregnancy for the entire shoot.

R533 My favorite part of her live concert (recorded in mid-January, 1993) is the very beginning, when she says (quite proudly), "I'm leaving Los Angeles after four years, to star in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Sunset Boulevard' for the next two."

Well, that didn't happen...

It's worth the price of the double CD just to hear the ending of the concert, when she goes into the Norma Desmond character, as she breaks down at the end of the song "Lost In The Stars". Sends chills down my spine every time I hear it.

R539, I strongly disagree with you about Jessie Buckley's recorded performance as Sally. She does a lot of talking and shouting rather than singing, and also A LOT of overacting, even if not quite to the insane degree that Gayle Rankin did on Broadway.

I may be the only one, but I really liked Rankin’s raspy, aggressive take on the character in the theatre

I didn’t dislike Rankin, and remember liking her as Fraulein Kost (though I thought Michelle Pawk was definitive). But the production of undercut her completely. Especially in the title song, where the staging is trying to convince us that Sally herself is going full fascist.

R543, I’m curious who you liked as Sally. I didn’t love all of Buckley’s choices, but her silky tone balanced them for me. But nearly every recorded Sally does a lot of talk singing.

[quote]Nearly every recorded Sally does a lot of talk singing.

No, that stupid approach didn't really start to take hold until fairly recently. The beginning of "Don't Tell Mama" is meant to be talk-sung, but none of the rest of Sally's songs, and "Cabaret" sounds terrible when it's talk-sung -- or, rather, screamed.

The Sallys I like are Jill Haworth, Judi Dench, Liza, and Natasha Richardson.

If you watch the original Pagnol film of The Baker's Wife, which is really charming, you can immediately spot the problem with turning it into a musical. It's a movie of "types", with lots of interesting French faces and local color, but short on plot. And the titular wife is not a character at all: just a whore who runs off with the first hot guy to show up at her door — I'm sure you all can relate. Without an old-fashioned sense of authenticity from provincial France, there's just nothing to adapt.

I always thought Meadowlark was a Sondheim song.

I saw Maude Apatow in London and she was really good! I preferred her to Gayle.

[quote]The Sallys I like are Jill Haworth, Judi Dench, Liza, and Natasha Richardson

Fuck you, r547.

Sorry, R551, I was very remiss in not including Ms. Gillette on my list of Sallys I have liked :-)

The arrangement for Betty Lynn’s Meadowlark at r509 has had too much coffee.

Can we please bring the focus back to GYPSY, dammit ? I have one week left of shows and I want to go out with a bang !

I’m going to the closing, because I thought she was great and really like seeing closing performances. And it’s unlikely they will cancel or that she’ll be out.

Tickets were expensive ($300 to 471 for anything orchestra), and they have slowly released them at increasing prices.

[quote]R554 Can we please bring the focus back to GYPSY, dammit ? I have one week left of shows and I want to go out with a bang !

I would love for black Mama Roses and black, womyn Jesus Christs with long nails to become the new industry standard.

Or there could be a new play for those archetypal characters: THE ROSE ON THE CROSS.

This Rose could hector Jesus into spearheading a more victorious speaking tour.

Trying too hard, R556.

Hi, remember me? My show's still running, for two more weeks!

Waaaaaaaaaaaay too hard, R556.

[quote]My show's still running, for two more weeks!

Maybe....

My favorite Sally will always be Jill Haworth, who I must have seen 4 times when I was in high school. She was unforgettably delightful.

R561, the consensus seemed to be that Haworth was the weak link. Can you say more about her performance?

Jill Haworth received a notoriously bad review from the NY Times critic, a review that many people thought was extremely unfair and betrayed a lack of understanding of the character, but I don't believe there was a "consensus" that she was the weak link. Hal Prince said she gave exactly the performance that he and the other creators wanted.

Lindsey Mendez is in deep doo-doo.

Is there pee-pee involved too R564. Asking for a friend

r563 is correct, r562.

[quote] I would love for black Mama Roses and black, womyn Jesus Christs with long nails to become the new industry standard.

Don’t worry. The next time there’s a white Mama Rose or a white male Jesus, Cynthia Erivo will shut it down.

A musical centered on a young wife stuck with an old husband is hard to sell. Wagner's show's the only one that's regularly revived.

[quote]A musical centered on a young wife stuck with an old husband is hard to sell

OK, KKKAROLINE!

[quote] The reviews of Haworth were not kind. “The British actress needs more vocal pep to do justice to the strong title song, her big number,” Variety said in its review of the Boston tryout. Of the Broadway staging Variety said, “Jill Haworth sings adequately as the young heroine, Sally Bowles, but overplays relentlessly and appears such a ninny that it’s hard to believe the novelist would fall for her.”

[quote] The cast is headed by Jill Haworth as Sally, who renders an over-acted, emotionless performance.

[quote] Emory Lewis, the reviewer for The Morning Call, wrote that "Jill Haworth, the lovely English actress who played Sally Bowles on opening night, was personable, but she was not sufficiently trained for so pivotal a role. And her voice was small and undramatic. Her performance threw 'Cabaret' out of kilter."

I wasn’t there, but there seem to have been more negative reviews than just Kerr.

Agree with up thread poster: I also think Meadowlark is Patti’s song. A young Patti belt (Evita) is pretty great.

Also re; Arianna’s “celebrity” I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Does ANYONE outside of NYC theater crowd know her name?

ENOUGH of the idiotic "No one outiside of sophisticated gay New York Theatre Queens know who that is!"

Sophisticated Outer Borough/Greater Tri State Area Theatre Queens know these people are, too!!!!

Wait, wait, wait! This is Datalounge and the only Sally to be discussed is SALLY DURANT from Follies!

Why are you focused on this other Sally (the one from Cabaret). And when did Natasha Richardson perform the Sondheim classique?

My favorite Sally was Cheno , a Tony winner.

r576 see r574

I'm everyone's favorite Sally!

Anyone seen Jinkx yet in Oh Mary?

r573 already expressed that, r578.

I thought that Haworth got stronger during the run but was so so at the opening. Hence the negative reviews. I think she stayed with the show for close to 2 years.

THE BAKER'S WIFE sounds like a prequel to INTO THE WOODS.

[quote]but it’s really hard to make it work without a Sally who is a messy,

Hey, that's MY song!

[quote]Lindsey Mendez is in deep doo-doo.

MORE! This sounds like a teaser for some juicy gossip.

I'd never heard of Scandal. Interesting concept. Has Swoosie Kurtz ever talked about the experience?

She does in her memoir, r586...if I recall correctly.

[quote]I'd never heard of Scandal.

But surely you've heard of my masterpiece, "Scandalous."

R587 - what a truly terrible title for a memoir. I almost can't believe it's real. There were meetings held at the publisher where they discussed titles and everyone in the room agreed THAT was the right one.

It's quite an appropriate title if you know anything about Swoosie Kurtz, r589. It explains her name. It's a good book.

Okayy... appreciate the reference, but I guess the target audience for Swoosie's book was people who could tell us what the original production of Showboat was like.

Team I have tickets for La Cage tonight at the Muny with hunk Norm Lewis. Has he ever engaged in the homosex?

R584 Some impropriety involving the training program she runs:

In re: the link that R593 just supplied -- (1) yikes! and (2) oh, dear (the poor boy doesn't know what "misgivings" means).

I always get excited when I hear about MUNY shows:

Then I realize it’s in Minnesota

Uh, no, R595.

R595 - bless your heart.

Missouri, Minnesota—is there really a difference?

Not for New Yorkers

Here's the new thread. BAJOUR!