Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals

Is Paulo Szot Gay?

I've been getting a lot of search activity recently from people wondering whether South Pacific star and Tony Award nominee Paulo Szot is gay.

I have no idea.

Did Ben Brantley Like It? Check This Site

Proposition #1: It's fun to hate Ben Brantley. There's something about the position of lead drama critic at the New York Times that seems to invite scorn, but there's also something about Brantley himself that makes him that much easier to hate. I mean, check out his NYT headshot. This is the photo that he chose to portray himself to his reading public. Even so, he's the most powerful theater critic in the country, and whether he's spot-on or way off base, what he says can have a huge impact on the success of a particular show.

Proposition #2: Yeah, Brantley's powerful, but that doesn't mean I want to read his every word in order to find out whether he liked the show. Also, he's not the only theater critic out there, and it's always fruitful to seek out a variety of opinions rather than relying on one dyspeptic scribe. Wouldn't it be great if there was a Web site that collected the opinions of all the different drama critics into one easy-to-understand format? Kind of like what Metacritic does for movies, books, DVDs, and video games.

Well, now there is. It's called www.didhelikeit.com. The site collects the available reviews from the major critics and represents the basic upshot for each with a simple graphic element -- the Ben-ometer, modeled after old Benny boy. The site appears to be a work in progress: the site's creator apparently has plans to eventually include Off-Broadway shows as well. But it's a valiant effort overall, and a welcome addition to my list of must-see theater sites.

What to Do When You Miss Curtain Time

How annoying is this?

Last weekend, I was heading down to New York City for one of my regular theater weekends. I don't usually see shows on Friday night, mostly because I don't want to contend with Friday-night traffic. But I was using a discount code to see The Color Purple, and it wasn't good for Saturdays. So I figured I'd break with tradition and get a ticket for Friday night. I mean, how bad could the traffic be?

Bad. Really really bad. I left Boston 1:30 PM, and I didn't make it to New Rochelle until 6:30 PM, which is bad enough. But then it took me TWO AND A HALF HOURS to get from New Rochelle to the George Washington Bridge (which should only really take about 20 minutes), only to find out that the GWB doesn't go into Manhattan from route 95, it goes to New Jersey.

Grrrr...

Needless to say, I missed my Friday night show, which was actually to be my first visit to The Color Purple. I had heard great things about Fantasia Barrino, so I was kinda looking forward to it. It was also to be my first time ever in the Broadway Theater, which I was actually a bit more excited about than seeing the show. There are only four Broadway theaters that I've never been in -- the Lyceum, the Longacre, the Winter Garden, and the Broadway -- and I was looking forward to crossing that last one off my list.

Of course, as for missing curtain time, I was pissed, and I cursed the theater gods repeatedly from the front seat of my Jetta. But then I remembered an article that I read on Playbill.com: a recent Ask Playbill column focused on the issue of what you can do when you miss a show that you have tickets for. It's called "past dating," it's not really an official policy, and it varies from theater to theater. For some shows, you can call the theater on the day of the performance and see if the show is sold out. If not, you might be able to snag a ticket.

I called Ticketmaster and told them my tale of whoa, and they mentioned a similar policy. I told them I come from out of town and that I'd really rather have a set date. So they told me to write a letter and explain my situation, and to give a number of alternate dates when I could see the show, as long as those dates are on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Given that the official policy is "no refunds or exchanges," I think that such courtesy arrangements are more than fair. They don't have to replace my ticket, so the fact that I will need to see the show on a weekday seems a minor inconvenience at best.

So, if you should ever get caught in traffic on a rainy Friday afternoon, or if your dog starts barfing his brains out on a show night, don't despair. Depending on the show that you have tickets for, you might still be able to see the show at a later date. If it's a big hit like Jersey Boys or Wicked, it might be much much later. But it's better than eating a $120 loss.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Les Miserables?

Saw the following Google link while reading another theater blog:

Les Miserables
Lloyd Webber's Sensational Classic
Tickets to the Hit Broadway Show
www.eazydealz.com

Um...shouldn't someone selling tickets to a show know who actually wrote the damn thing? I'm sure that over the years there have been many people sans clue who have erroneously assumed that Andrew Lloyd Webber was responsible for every over-bloated blockbuster to hit Broadway in the 1980s.

But even the Broadway dilettante could tell you that Les Miserables is the work of Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil, with English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. As far as I know, the only connection Lloyd Webber has to Les Miserables is that the show played the Palace Theater in London, which Lloyd Webber happens to own.

But to give credit where it's due, I must point out that EasyDealz.com at least got Andrew Lloyd Webber's last name right: it's "Lloyd Webber," not "Webber," as many of my Boston Conservatory students refer to him in their papers and essays that skewer the man's work.

Cat Destroys Phantom 2 Score

It sounds like something out of The Onion, but apparently, Andrew Lloyd Webber's six-month-old cat Otto has managed to delete the entire score to the composer's proposed sequel to Phantom of the Opera. Lloyd Webber had apparently programmed the score into the memory of his electronic grand piano, and a frisky Otto somehow pressed the right buttons to delete the whole damned thing.

So the cats are striking back at the phantom, now that the latter has surpassed the former.

Poetic justice? A message from the gods? You be the judge.

Happy Liza Doolittle Day!

ELIZA
One day I'll be famous!
I'll be proper and prim!
Go to Saint James so often I will call it Saint Jim.
One evening the King will say,
"Oh Liza, old thing,
I want all of England your praises to sing."

KING
"Next week, on the twentieth of May,
I proclaim Liza Doolittle Day!
All the people will celebrate the glory of you,
And whatever you wish and want
I gladly will do."

ELIZA
"Thanks a lot, King," says I, in a manner well bred. But all I want is 'enry 'iggins 'ead!"

From "Just You Wait," My Fair Lady

Happy Liza Doolittle Day, everyone!

Ben Brantley and I Agree: Film at Eleven

Ben Brantley and I agreed on both Legally Blonde and 110 in the Shade.

I'm frightened, Auntie Em, I'm frightened.

Brantley and I were in almost complete accord on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the above productions. I found Legally Blonde blunt and shrill, as did he. And he thought the performances were the best thing in the Roundabout revival of 110 in the Shade, which opened last night at Studio 54. He positively, and justifiably, gushed about the divine Audra McDonald. He also found Steve Kazee as Starbuck underwhelming, while he characterized Christopher Innvar's performance as File as "smoldering."

What's more, we came very close to agreeing on the merits of LoveMusik, which Brantley found "tedious" and "unmissable." Nice as it is to have my views validated by so august a news outlet as the New York Times, I'm a little uncomfortable with being consistently in the same camp as Brantley. 

Hmm...maybe Brantley's not such a bad critic after all. Because the true mark of someone's professional quality is to what extent that person reinforces one's personal views and prejudices.

Right?

Spamalot World Record

There's nothing like a good publicity stunt.

Last March, the producers of the hit Broadway version of Spamalot gathered 1,789 Monty Python fans together in New York's Shubert Alley to create what was then the biggest-ever, and presumably the first-ever, all-coconut orchestra.

Participants banged together empty halves of coconut shells, an homage to the preferred mode of transportation in the classic "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," to the tune of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." (Which is actually from "Life of Brian," but I digress.)

In a case of friendly oneupmanship, members of the London production amassed 5,567 coconut-wielding enthusiasts in London's Trafalgar Square, handily breaking the world record. Original Python members Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam were on hand to conduct the proceedings.

The event got tons of press. At this writing, Google lists about 339,000 Internet references to the event. Even NPR included a blurb on the event on Monday's "All Things Considered."

As I've posted before, I'm a huge Monty Python fan, so I was ecstatic when I heard about Spamalot. But I was a bit disappointed in the actual show. It's a tremendous amount of fun, but it's not great musical theater. The book and the staging are hysterical, but the score is just awful: puerile melodies, bad scansion, too much assonance. It works in the theater, but it doesn't hold up on repeated listenings.

But I'm glad that the show has become and international hit. Currently there are productions on in New York, London, Las Vegas, as well as a U.S. touring production. Blockbusters tend raise the profile of musical theater in the eyes of potential ticket buyers, and a rising tide, to a certain extent, lifts all boats.

The Death of Lloyd Webber?

In class the other day, I was defending Andrew Lloyd Webber to my students, as I always do at this point in the course. For me, Lloyd Webber is a double-edged sword: yes his shows are of often questionable quality, but there's no denying the influence he has over the general theater-going public.

Each year, I ask my students to raise their hands if the first professional show they ever saw was a Disney show or an Andrew Lloyd Webber show, and usually about 95% of them do so. Say what you want about the spectacle-mongers, they've certainly brought a new generation of theater queens to the fore.

On the heels of that hand-raising exercise, someone sent me this YouTube clip lampooning Andrew Lloyd Webber, which had me in hysterics. Check it out.

Yeah, it's pretty mean. Sometimes, funny hurts.

April Makes Such Fools of Us All

OK, I almost bought this.

On Sunday, April 1st, I read an item on BroadwayWorld.com about a proposed TV reality show to cast an upcoming revival of The Who's Tommy. I was in the process of writing up a blog post about same, when I noticed the following:

• The fact that no other site had posted news about this event
• Another post on BroadwayWorld.com about Dakota Fanning supposedly making her Broadway debut in Spring Awakening
• Yet another post about Raul Esparza and Julia Murney in a Dead Kennedys jukebox musical.
• The posting date of the all the articles

In other words: April Fool's.

Here's the problem though: it's not funny. At least the Tommy article isn't. A thirteen-year-old Dakota Fanning in a hard-rocking teen-sex tragedy: somewhat funny. A Dead Kennedys jukebox show: pretty darned funny. But a Tommy reality show? Not even remotely humorous.

Evidently, I wasn't the only one fooled, however temporarily. One of my students in my Boston Conservatory course announced with disbelief that someone was planning a Tommy-based reality show. I gently disabused him.

I'm including my originally intended post in the interest of full disclosure and profound humility. Keep in mind that at the time, I thought it was in earnest:

Once again, my prognostication skills prove non-existent.

Forget the shows that I've listed to the left in my most recent poll. Fox TV, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that the next show to receive that "You're The One That I Want" reality-show treatment a la Grease will be...get this...The Who's Tommy.

My reaction to the show's first incarnation was that it was a terrific production looking for a show to do: great staging and visuals, but the show itself didn't add up to much. Maybe this time the show will have an actual second act.

As Forbidden Broadway's Gerard Alessandrini put it: "Though it's exciting, what does it mean?" By all accounts, Des McAnuff's latest Broadway outing, Jersey Boys, would seem to fall into the same less-than-the-sum-of-its-parts category.

Grease: Who Cares?

I didn't watch a single minute of the NBC series "Grease: You're the One That I Want." Nor will I likely attend the show when it opens at the Brooks Atkinson. For all I know, Max Crumm and Laura Osnes could well be extremely talented performers. And Kathleen Marshall is a creditable director and choreographer.

But I sooooooo don't give a rat's ass. 

To be honest, I might have cared a little bit had they picked a more interesting show. I'm so over Grease, and once the novelty wears off, I get the feeling that the general public will be, too. But I must confess that my track record with predicting the success of revivals isn't very good. I thought it was far too soon the revive A Chorus Line, Les Miserables, and The Fantasticks, but recent history has proved me resoundingly wrong. So who knows. Maybe this new Grease will be a hit, too.

If they decide to try again with the reality-show-casting thang, might I suggest a far more interesting show: West Side Story. A real crowd pleaser, and it hasn't been on Broadway in about twenty five years.

Any other suggestions, fair reader?

Jersey Boys Dispute

This is friggin' hysterical.

In a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jersey Boys director Des McAnuff made some comments that inflamed the ire of librettist Marshall Brickman. Evidently, Brickman took issue with how McAnuff seemed to take just a little too much credit for the creation of Jersey Boys.

In response, Brickman fired off a priceless letter to the editor with a laundry list of counter-accusations, including that McAnuff was a chilly and imperious director, that he habitually arrived late to rehearsals, and that he made a habit of humiliating his cast members. Follow the link and read the letter. It's a hoot.

Apparently the two have since made nice nice, but the exchange offered a telling glimpse into the men behind the mega-hit.

If Brickman's charges are true, then McAnuff is indeed in august company. Other directors with demagogic tendencies have included Jerome Robbins, Michael Bennett, and Bob Fosse. And I'm told that a certain much-in-demand director has a very strong nasty streak. Which prompts one to think, do being a genius and an asshole go hand in hand? Not necessarily. I hear that the legendary Hal Prince is a most amiable director. James Lapine is, by all accounts, a real sweetheart. Both men are formidable artists.

Talent is never an excuse for being a dickhead. Anyone who rules or manages by fear and intimidation is saying more about their defects as a human being than they are about their supposed abilities as a leader.

But I editorialize.

Lloyd Webber Crafting Phantom Sequel

Andrew Lloyd Webber is apparently forging ahead with his idea for a sequel to his phenomenally successful The Phantom of the Opera.

God help us all.

Now, I'm not one of those knee-jerk Lloyd Webber bashers. I consider each of his shows individually, and judge them on their relative merits. I'm actually quite fond of Evita, and, believe it or not, Sunset Boulevard. And in my Boston Conservatory course, I make a point of discussing that Cats, for all its detractors, was actually an innovative and risky show for its time.

And I'm also not going to say that sequels are automatically doomed from their conception, despite the fact that no sequel to a Broadway show has ever been successful. Consider the following:

Show (Sequel to)
Let 'Em Eat Cake (Of Thee I Sing)
Bring Back Birdie (Bye Bye Birdie)
Annie Warbucks (Annie)
Divorce Me, Darling (The Boyfriend)
The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public (The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas)

Not a very auspicious lot, to be sure. But that's not to say that a musical sequel could never be successful. As I've said many times, there's no such thing as a bad idea for a musical, only bad execution.

Even so, somehow the very notion of a sequel to Phantom reeks of disaster. What more is there to tell? Sure, the Phantom disappears at the end of the show, but do we really want him to return? Where's the dramatic necessity of dragging him back into Christine Daae's tortured life?

Is it possible that such a show could be a success, either artistically or financially? Absolutely. Is it likely? I'm not optimistic.

Life of Brian -- The Oratorio

I'm a huge Monty Python fan. A fanatic, in fact. I have every book, every CD, every DVD available by and about the Pythons. So I was particularly thrilled when I first heard about Spamalot, a musical version of the troupe's classic film, "Monty Python and The Holy Grail." An artistic marriage of my two great obsessions: Python and musical theater. What could be better?

Well, I certainly had fun when I saw Spamalot. A lot of fun. But I was disappointed in the quality of the score. The book was flat out hysterical, the direction was spot-on, but the music and lyrics were a bit pedestrian. It's the sort of score that goes down reasonably well in the theater, but doesn't hold up upon repeated listening.

Anyway, now comes news that Spamalot creators Eric Idle and John Du Prez are working on a "light-hearted oratorio" based on another Python masterpiece, The Life of Brian. The pair are collaborating with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the music director of which is Eric Idle's cousin. The work is called Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy).

I must say, I'd be a whole lot more excited about this venture if I liked the score to Spamalot. I wish Idle and Du Prez the best in their collaboration, but I can't see myself flying up to Toronto to take the piece in. Of course, if the work eventually turns into a Broadway musical, I'll certainly see it. But my expectations will be somewhat lessened by experience.

American Idol Lifts Blog Traffic

In the past few weeks, I've blogged about American Idol a couple of times. Two weeks ago I discussed the American Idol effect on Broadway. And earlier this week I mentioned that American Idol runner up Constantine Maroulis hasn't exactly been the box-office boon that the producers of The Wedding Singer and Jacques Brel had hoped for.

Well, both times my traffic went through the roof. The Maroulis post lifted visits to my blog some 600%. The earlier post had a similarly buoyant effect. Not only did I get more visits, I got more comments, more links to my blog, and more hate mail. (God forbid you say anything even remotely negative about their collective raison d'etre. Some AI fans need to take a trip to the "life" store and ask for extra large.)

Now, I'm not the kind of person to take advantage of this sort of thing. Nope, not me. Just because people are out there searching for "Katherine McPhee" and "Constantine Maroulis" and "Diana Degarmo" every day of their lives, that doesn't mean that I'm going to pander to that set just to raise my site traffic. I mean, I could continue to mention names like Josh Strickland, Amy Adams, and Frenchie Davis on a regular basis, and it would likely lift my visitor stats, but I'm above that sort of thing. Just because there are a lot of people out there doing searches for such American Idol faves as Jennifer Hudson and Anthony Federov, that doesn't mean I have to stoop to throwing them into my text just to get some cheap hits.

Oh, and speaking of Anthony Federov, he's about to join the Off Broadway cast of The Fantasticks, stepping into the lead part of Matt. The AI effect continues. But again, I'm not going to lower myself to mentioning his name simply for the purpose of attracting more readers to my blog.

No siree Bob.

Armageddon -- the Musical

Don't ask me why, but for some reason the other day I found myself Googling the words "Armageddon" and "musical." And, sure enough, the search bore fruit.

As far as I can tell, Armageddon -- the Musical is just meant to be an absurdist title to a Douglas-Adams-esque sci-fi romp. There appears to be no actual musical in the book, although the story does prominently feature Elvis Presley. The book is by one Robert Rankin, who also wrote something called "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse," so I guess the man traffics in whimsy.

But it got me thinking about what a great punchline "...the musical" has become. Just pick your most unlikely candidate, add "the musical" as a suffix, and voila -- instant comedy. For example:

Schindler's List -- The Musical
Antiques Road Show  -- the Musical
The Warren Report -- the Musical
The Blair Witch Project -- the Musical
9/11 -- the Musical
America's Test Kitchen -- the Musical
'Night, Mother -- the Musical
NPR -- the Musical
Root Canal -- the musical
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary  -- the Musical
Lord of the Rings -- the Musical
Showgirls -- the Musical
The Apprentice -- the Musical
Thalidomide -- the Musical
Titanic -- the Musical

Of course, those last five are no joke, at least in terms of their being real projects. But remember when they first announced Titanic would become a musical? I remember I laughed out loud. But then I saw the show, and really enjoyed it. Yeah, it's far from perfect. The characters are indistinct, and the show has no real focus. (Say what you want about James Cameron's Oscar-winning opus, it certainly had focus, albeit on two fictional characters.) I remember thinking when the Strausses came out to sing the very moving "Still" in the second act, "Wow, this is great, But who the f*#@ are these people?" The show had failed to set up the Strausses as sympathetic, three-dimensional characters, so the power of the the song was lost.

Anyway, whenever I have that kind of negative gut reaction to some idea for a musical, I have to remind myself of the well-worn maxim that I repeat time and again in my Conservatory course: "There's no such thing as a bad idea for a musical, only bad execution."

Showgirls -- the Musical?

Another sign of impending armageddon: Showgirls -- the musical.

The Omen: the musical?

I'm surprised that on this most portentous of dates (6-6-06) that no one has announced a musical version of the schlock classic The Omen, although Hollywood saw fit to remake that Gregory Peck/Lee Remick vehicle and release it today.

Hmm, maybe an Omen tuner is something I should try my hand at. After all, I am known as "Evil Chris." And my confirmation name was Damien. Something to think about in my copious spare time.  

Gladiator: The Musical

It seems like every week I encounter a challenge to my maxim: "There's no such thing as a bad idea for a musical, only poor execution." A while back it was Apprentice: The Musical. (The mind reels.) Now it's a tuner based on the incredibly overrated Russell Crowe movie Gladiator. One mitigating factor is the man who's doing the adaptation, William Nicholson, a somewhat renown playwright and author of Shadowlands. On the other hand, he was partly responsible for the original screenplay to Gladiator, which I thought was cliched and manipulative, although based on the fact that the movie won best picture, it would seem that I'm in the minority.

Poseidon: The Musical

Oh, and one more thing. Since the remake of The Poseidon Adventure opens today, I though I'd mention that a few years back I had this idea that the producers of the musical Titanic should save the set when the show had closed, turn it upside down, and create a musical version of that wonderful/awful Shelly Winters vehicle we all thrilled to in our youth. I was kidding, of course. But someone actually did turn Poseidon into a musical, but a campy one. I got a copy of the CD off eBay (again, because I have this disease), and I REALLY don't recommend it. It's like a bad Ryan Landry production, which admittedly is redundant.