2017 Tony Awards

Just finished watching my favorite show of the year, the Tony's. It didn't disappoint. I sobbed my way through it. I read one reviewer who compared it to last year and the Hamilton triumph. I thought this year's awards were fabulous. My days of seeing shows are over, sadly. But everything I read indicated that it was a great Broadway season. 

Kevin Spacey did a great job as emcee. Kudos, Kevin.

I was so hoping that Bette Midler would win for Hello Dolly! And she did. And she gave a singular acceptance speech which was classic Bette. When she went on too long and the orchestra started playing music to signal that her time was up, she told them to "Shut up." And they did. It was the ultimate Divine Miss M moment ever. Kudos to her for the award and the command performance in accepting the award. When this diva speaks we all should listen. I don't think anyone on the planet during these award shows has ever told the orchestra to shut up and the orchestra stopped. That is power!

I so wish I could have seen shows this season. I saw two of my favorite actresses, Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon on Andy Cohen's talk show and I was so fascinated by the way their play, Little Foxes, was being presented (https://www.nytimes.com/…/little-foxes-review-cynthia-nixon…). Cynthia Nixon won an award and I was thrilled. Laura Linney didn't. This actor is long overdue for an Oscar and a Tony. I would love to see this show twice and watch the actors play the same role.

I'd read about the new musical Dear Evan Hansen and I had a feeling it was in contention. There several great performances but Ben Platt's (Dear Evan Hansen) was astonishing. The musical went on to win 6 Tony Awards including Ben Platt for Best Actor in a Musical. 

Another remarkable moment for me, was when Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersol sang for the nominated musical "War Paint". What an amazing pairing of vocal genius. I read somewhere that Ms. LuPone thinks this is her last show. I hope not.

Finally, this award show had a show ending. Kevin Spacey and Patti LuPone sang a Frank Sinatra-esque song and all the winners came out. This year was star power even though Lin-Manuel Miranda made a short appearance to present an award. What a season that I missed. (Would love to have seen Sally Field and Cate Blanchett, both who were up for rewards.

A Complete List Of The 2017 Tony Award Winners

A year after "Hamilton" dominated the Tonys, Broadway shines.

HUFFINGTONPOST.COM|BY KATY BROOKS

A New MUSICAL with JEFF BUCKLEY's music

A new musical inspired by the work of Jeff Buckley will open in San Diego at the Old Globe Theater and may end up on Broadway.

The Last Goodbye sets Buckley's haunting music to the script of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Read more of this story at the Telegraph or The Hollywood Reporter.

See another blog entry from this site about Buckley, who is one of my favorite singers ever.

BARBRA STREISAND's NEW album. Who Knew?

What a great, understated new album by the original Diva herself. Lady Gaga? Mariah Carey? Who's that? No one....and I mean NO ONE embodies every element of the term diva more than this goddess.

Before anyone (except Garland, Callas, and Merman) there was and is La Diva Streisand. This album is a lovely selection of some of my favorite old standards. Before her overdone symphonic albums like Yentl, etc, Ms. Streisand was putting out some of the most brilliant works ever recorded. This album harkens back to that time, in my opinion.

The entire collection of songs and Streisand's restrained and brilliant vocal interpretation coupled with the exquisite piano and instrument arrangements by Diana Krall and her band, make this in my opinion one of the diva's best albums ever.

Here's two of my favorite songs that are on her new album. See what I mean. Sheer perfection, this woman.

Some Other Time
Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Comden/Green

On the Town is a musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, based on Jerome Robbins' idea for his 1944 ballet Fancy Free, which he had set to Bernstein's music. The musical introduced several popular and classic songs, among them "New York, New York", "Lonely Town", "I Can Cook, Too", and "Some Other Time". The story concerns three American sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City during wartime 1944. Each of the three sailors becomes enamoured of a particular woman — and of the city itself.

On the Town was first produced on Broadway in 1944 and was made into a film in 1949. The show has enjoyed a number of major revivals. The musical integrates dance into its storytelling: Robbins made a number of ballets and extended dance sequences for the show, including the "Imaginary Coney Island" ballet.

See my other blogs about the masterful Leonard Bernstein.

Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most...
Lyrics by Fran Landesman, set to music by Tommy Wolf.

Landesman's first career was in the fashion industry in New York. She and her husband then moved to his home of St Louis, where he and his brother started up the "Crystal Palace", a cabaret. This was a successful venture, attracting big-name acts as well as producing avant-garde theatre.

Fran Landesman's experiences sitting in the bar of the Crystal Palace, listening to musicians and audiences, led her to begin writing song lyrics in 1952. One of her best-known is "Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most", her exploration of T.S. Eliot's "April is the cruelest month..." The Palace's pianist Tommy Wolf set her lyrics to music, and the song became a hit, leading to more Landesman–Wolf creations.


This is an album for anyone who truly is devoted to the honest telling of brilliant lyrics, songs sung angelically, and the emotional landscape realized perfectly.

Bravo, La Streisand!

WITHOUT YOU--a beautiful memoir by Anthony Rapp--star of RENT

I finished reading a remarkably poignant memoir recently titled, entitled Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent, by Rent lead, Anthony Rapp. The book is primarily about the actors experience in the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical, Rent, which was a groundbreaking new musical theater experience when it debuted on Broadway in 1996.

The story of the play itself is remarkable which was makes Rapp's memoir riveting. For those unfamiliar, here's why: Rent was written by Jonathan Larson, a completely unknown playwright and composer before the show opened. It is a rock musical based upon Puccini's opera La Boheme. At one point in the book, Larson tells someone that he is going to change musical theater, which is what Rent did accomplish. It truly created a new sound for musicals--a modern rock-based show. Larson said his ultimate dream was to write a rock opera "to bring musical theater to the MTV generation."

But even more groundbreaking is the show's subject matter: AIDS. Set in New York's Lower East Side, it is the story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of AIDS. Several of the characters are afflicted with the disease, at a time when there was little treatment or hope. The musical is a remarkable work of art but is made even more so because of Larson's death the night before the show made its off-Broadway debut. He died of an aortic aneurysym which went undiagnosed after three trips to emergency rooms.

Rapp originated the role of the show's narrator, Mark Cohen. The actor was actually involved with the play in its infancy. He was cast in the role before most of the other actors appearing early on in the first seen limited three-week Workshop production at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1994. Rapp's book tells the story of the development of the show from the early workshop and his friendship with Larson. The musical is one of the most successful Broadway musicals ever and was made into a film in 2007, a fine example of a translation from stage to film where they are equally well done. The movie included most of the original cast including Rapp, Adam Pascal, the goddess/diva and Idina Mendel (Wicked), Taye Diggs, among other notable original cast members who have gone on to distinguished acting careers.

Here's a video clip of a live performance by Rapp and Pascal, who originated the musical's two main leads, singing the song "What You Own" on the Today Show to promote the movie.


Rapp's book is a beautiful, heart-wrenching, candid, soulful read about the musical's development, Larson's death and the emotional impact on the cast, Rapp's own acting career as a child actor, the death of his mother, as well as the actor's own evolution as a gay man. It was truly a beautiful exquisite book. At two points I was literally sobbing from sadness, the first as the actor talks about the performances the night after Larson's death and the second moment at his mother's death from cancer while he was still performing the show on Broadway. I seldom have that strong of an emotional response, crying, from reading a book. I frequently guffaw and laugh but books (unlike movies or tv) seldom make me cry.

What was fascinating was learning about Rapp's acting career which began when he was a child and included an early Broadway show the flop The Little Prince and the Aviator, a musical based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novel The Little Prince. He also acted in the film




Adventures in Babysitting in 1986 and "several movies and Broadway shows, most notably as intellectuals. His notable work includes films Dazed and Confused, A Beautiful Mind, School Ties, Road Trip, the stage and film versions of Six Degrees of Separation, An American Family, Danny Roane: First Time Director and, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." (wikipedia).

Rapp and his brother, playwright, novelist, and filmmaker Adam Rapp, lived in New York and travel back and forth to their hometown in Joliet, Illinois, throughout their mother's illness with cancer. One of the things that profoundly influenced me and stays with me to this moment, is the following quote from the book:

"The only way out, is through."

This beautiful advice seems to me to be almost divine. This wonderful observation is given to Anthony by a friend who is helping him with the grieving process as his mother is dying. It becomes a process which defines much of Rapp's own evolution portrayed in the book, as the actor goes through a series of remarkable life-altering experience: the success of RENT, Larson's untimely death, his mother's slow and painful death from cancer, the actor's own youthful experiences of love. It seems to me that it is an "actor's" book.

The Broadway musical is still running. You should see it. And see the movie. I was very impressed with director's Christopher Columbus' translation. It is much more current and of our time, without losing any of the original musical's brilliance.

Here's La Vie Boheme, a video clip from the 2007 film


Read this book! Laugh with this book! Cry with this book! Relish every perfect word in Without You by Anthony Rapp, a very appealing, honest, interesting actor and human!

The only way out, is through! A beautiful and enlightened way to live indeed.

GREY GARDENS-the documentary-Astonishing movie

A few days ago I watched Grey Gardens by brothers David and Albert Maysles (the 1975 documentary, not the recent HBO film). What an astonishing, breathtaking film. There is not a scriptwriter alive that could have written a screenplay like that. You really must see this film. We got it on Netflix. Okay, so this is a cult classic. But I didn't see it until now. So I'm behind!

I wanted to watch the documentary before I see the new HBO film, Grey Gardens, which stars Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as Mother Edie ("Big Edie") and her daughter, Edie Bouvier Beale, who were aunt and cousin respectively to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. While these two actresses are brilliant casting (I haven't seen the film yet), I am a little hesitant now to watch the movie after seeing the brilliant original documentary. How can anyone play these ladies, Big and Little Edie, better than themselves?

[Added 7/12/09]: I also should mention the Broadway musical, Grey Gardens, which won a Tony Award for Best Costume Design, and its two stars Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson each won Tony Awards for their performances. The Broadway production closed on July 29, 2007. It was the first musical on Broadway ever to be adapted from a documentary. (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Gardens). While I didn't see this show I do have the cast recording and it is excellent. I particularly noticed the attention to the unique dialect of both Big and Little Edie which I thought translated quite well into a musical format.

Anyway this really is just a brilliant film in every way. It sort of transcends all genres of film: while it is a documentary it oftentimes seems like a play.

Here's the general story: two aging women, Big Edie and daughter, Edie, live in a rundown estate in East Hampton....really it is a state of complete, but elegant, dishabille and squalor. The two women are very eccentric. Very intelligent. Crazy really but in a wonderful way. The movie is a series of interviews and conversations with the two which at the same time highlights the completely rundown house. Edie sings, they both sing, they tell stories, they fight (a lot). It is one of the most fulfilling and captivating movies I have ever seen.

The two, daughter and mother, had been quite beautiful in the past. Young Edie had once been a model and an aspiring actress. Little Edie, born in 1917 and the eldest of ten grandchildren, was the family beauty, "surpassing even the dark charm of Jacqueline," according to their cousin John H. Davis, a professor who wrote a book about the Bouviers. (from New York magazine A "Return to Grey Gardens: There are still secrets left to tell about Little Edie Beale, including her diary. " By Gail Sheehy, Oct 29, 2006 http://nymag.com/arts/theater/features/23484/index1.html). In her younger days according to the article, "Edie dated Howard Hughes and likely had proposals from Joe Kennedy Jr. and J. Paul Getty, says Eva Beale, but always she sent her suitors away." (photo at right is from Everett Collection)

Little Edie constantly has her head covered throughout the film. She wears the most insane concoctions of clothing, brooches, scarves, shirts on her head, but they are absolutely gorgeous and chic, albeit bizarre, ensembles. According to Sheehy in her 2006 NewYork magazine article, Little Edie was bald because: "....cousin John told me about a summer afternoon when he watched Little Edie climb a catalpa tree outside Grey Gardens. She took out a lighter. He begged her not to do it. She set her hair ablaze. And in that act of self-immolation, she sealed her fate as a prisoner of the love of her mother."

The article in NewYork was written by Gail Sheehy who originally profiled the Beales for the cover story of the January 10, 1972 New York magazine. It was the magazine that caught the attention of the Maysles brothers. (the photo at left is from the New York article. Photo caption: Edith Bouvier Beale (Big Edie), David and Albert Maysles, and Edie Beale (Little Edie) during the filming of Grey Gardens; the author's New York Magazine cover story, January 10, 1972. (Photo: Everett Collection))

Here's a short clip (2min 46secs) from the film which I think captures the eccentricity. This segment features Little Edie Beale discussing "conformity" and East Hampton and the ultimate title of the original David and Albert Maysles documentary.

Here's one more short clip where you can see what I'm talking about Edie's fashion style. This is one of her more outrageous outfits ("the revolutionary costume" I think she calls it):

This movie is really just perfect. And the more background you read on the Beales the more intriguing and enigmatic their story. Here's just one interesting observation by Sheehy (I strongly recommend you read her article before you see the film.....the article is very fascinating http://nymag.com/arts/theater/features/23484/index1.html):

"Passed over by history, the ladies of Grey Gardens were left to the wreck of their lives until, sweet revenge! In the sixties, they were suddenly being indulged by a nervous White House. Secret Service cars were posted outside. As Davis recalls in his book, the Kennedy inauguration gave Little Edie a chance for her own theatrics. She reminded Joe Kennedy Sr. that she was once almost engaged to his firstborn son. And if Joe’s plane hadn’t gone down while he was bombing Nazis, 'she probably would have married him, and he would have become President instead of Jack and she would have become First Lady instead of Jackie!'"

And if you're interested in the HBO film with la Lange and la Barrymore here's the trailer *it's short too, only 2 minutes):

Goosebump City--the goddess RENEE FLEMING-AMT Performance of Make Our Garden Grow from Bernstein's masterpiece Candide-MOST BEAUTIFUL SONG EVER!!

I'm never sure if there is a God. But when I hear this song I certainly think it's possible, particularly because of diva Fleming. Perhaps this is one of the most beautiful songs ever written?

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One of the most beautiful songs ever written: ALL THE WASTED TIME from the underappreciated 1999 musical Parade

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tg7AuR4NUk

The caption from youtube: "Brent Carver and Carolee Carmello perform the fantastic song All the Wasted Time from the musical Parade by Jason Robert Brown. This video is an excerpt from the Rosie O'Donnell Show, January 25, 1999."