Profile for halfhourcheckwithmerman

okfromthetop said: "slightly disappointed if this means we're missing Joshua Henry's cooing to Coalhouse Jr! It was one of my favorite moments of this revival — watchinghim cross to the crib and pack a full arc of discovering, hesitating, and acceptingfatherhood in just a few lines of music."

Seconded!! My favorite moment in the show by far!

Not what you're asking, but I did digital rush and was all the way over to the right in Row M --- marked as partial view but I thought it was a perfect seat. (How rare to have good sightlines in the St. James!) 

Sarah Holdren continues to prove that she is the best critic in NY at the moment. (with the possible exception of Helen Shaw, but her longform stuff falls into a slightly different category.)

Whether Bentwood Chair is BroadwayFlash or not, I do appreciate the two frames of reference in their review being DEAR WORLD and THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES. I hope that every review of any show on this board from here on out first tells us how it compares to DEAR WORLD, and then how it compares to VERSAILLES. 

Some of these may be too niche --- some not niche enough --- but ---

My all time favorite Sondheim interpretation is Joanna Riding's "Losing My Mind." 

Then --- Raul Esparza doing the "Flag Song."

Bebe Neuwirth doing "I Never Do Anything Twice" (to me, Sondheim's funniest song ever. He always talked about the difference between funny songs and clever songs --- this is miraculously both, mostly because the cleverness is so ****ing filthy!). 

Christine Ebersole Mrs. Lovett. ("Is that just disgusting" --- OMG!). 

Marin doing Steps of the Palace --- are you kidding me? 

There's Always A Woman --- Carol Burnett / Ruthie Henshall. 

Also from PUTTING IT TOGETHER --- Carol / George Hearn "Country House". 

And is there anything better than Julia McKenzie doing "The Miller's Son"? 

How about Melissa Errico doing this gorgeous cut song from FOLLIES, It Wasn't Meant to Happen... a three-act play in song if ever there was one. 

I am a Donna Murphy superfan, so this is a little horrific to say --- but to me the Classic Stage PASSION recording is definitive, for Judy Kuhn, Rebecca Luker (who was not even in that production), Ryan Silverman, and the MARVEL that is Rob Berman conducting Tunick's reduced orchestrations --- another crazy take, but those reduced orchestrations are definitive to me and present the score much better, more clearly, and more grippingly than the original ones. 

Thank you, Auggie, for a very well written and insightful commentary on this show that seems to match my thoughts on the difficulty of this material to a T. 

I think that is the previous poster's point. They have avoided this pitfall. 

Yes!!

I thought this was pretty dreadful. A shame because I love Lipton's work, and love the play. It's three torturous hours. Everybody on that stage is working very hard, but in support of a book and score that is not supporting them. Maybe I'll elaborate later, but now I'm just tired. 

I loved the dinosaur. 

Stephen Schwartz has seven questions for writing a musical --- he says this in every talk / interview / panel / etc --- 

I know this won't happen for a hundred reasons, but it would be very funny if this show in particular hired a bunch of scabs.

I think having a Queenie this age could actually be quite moving. She's not THAT much older than Nadine. She feels old and washed up, and that happens pretty quickly in a world like this. 

This is one of my favorite scores... I think Jasmine will eat into this wonderfully.

I thought this was a near-perfect, gripping, brillinat play until the last 15 minutes. The scene of him meeting the parents is incredibly written and so subtle and so complicated and so wonderful --- and then there's a blunt 15 minutes that to me ruined all of the subtlety and insight of the entire play we had had before.

I for one am cautiously optimistic about this. I think there is a small chance this turns out to be really great --- fun, sexy, and smart. It's a nicely tested creative team; this isn't Billy Porter's THE LIFE. 

I think there's also a reasonable chance it's a complete disaster. But what's the fun in that?