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I am a producer of world class media (stage, film, TV, audio recording), and in addition I develop and produce original, indigenous talent in all areas of media production, in concert with production possibilities in major U.S. cities. In my spare time, I screw around on the Internet. I used to post here as gvendo2005, but in turning over a new leaf with regard to my Internet persona, I felt a new account was needed. And... here I am!
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Artist David Edward Byrd has passed... Feb 5
2025, 01:56:49 PM
He must have retained some kind of rights, because when he was struggling with medical bills, he sold repros for a while through Etsy. I got his JCS poster that way.
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Roses That Never Were Jan 11
2025, 02:17:34 PM
CATSNYrevival said: "Bea Arthur sang Some People in her one-woman show and talked about how she wanted to play the role. Maybe she wouldn’t have been the best to ever sing the role but I think she would have been great. It’s a shame she never got to play it."
She proved she'd do better with Roz Russell/Lisa Kirk's keys than either of them did, I'll tell ya that much.
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Roses That Never Were Jan 11
2025, 12:25:44 AM
I'll give you two, one for the cinema and one for live theater, with the caveat that the latter may be more of an "it could happen if someone moves fast."
Screen
By the time she finally essayed it, it might have been too much, too little, too late, but as someone who's read the second draft of Barbra's proposed Gypsy film*, it's perhaps the best screenplay I've ever seen for the property (and that includes straight-up filmi
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How to get into Candide? Dec 30
2024, 09:19:42 PM
I like Caird's version the best. Trim the narration from Voltaire a tad, do some showing rather than telling, and you'd have a winner. (As, comparing their respective song-stacks, Mary Zimmerman seems to have learned, give or take one number...)
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Jon M. Chu will direct a movie-musical adaptation of JOSEPH...DREAMCOAT for Amazon Dec 24
2024, 09:13:54 PM
Yes, because what Joseph needed was new songs.
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Modern musical choices for Encores! Dec 24
2024, 09:13:23 PM
Jeffrey Karasarides said: "I'd also add...
Candide"
Ah, but which version of Candide?
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GYPSY Previews Dec 15
2024, 08:34:42 PM
theblackumbrella said: "Leslie Uggams, Whoopi Goldberg, Jenifer Lewis as Madame Armfeldt?"
Of the three, I like Whoopi and Jenifer most, and Jenifer the best, but then I had no problem with how Stritch acted it in the last one, unlike many.
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Probability of a PIPPIN movie musical, post-WICKED success? Dec 4
2024, 05:01:56 PM
EricMontreal22 said: "WOW, *that* I didn't know. Do you know if they planned on having both it and Wizard and I?"
He didn't say one way or the other, but I remember reading it in a news story here, so the bare fact of considering reintroducing the song has to be buried somewhere among the news pages.
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Probability of a PIPPIN movie musical, post-WICKED success? Dec 4
2024, 03:34:39 PM
You know, Eric, the mild expansion required for a TV movie of the week type adaptation of The Baker's Wife might be the only situation where Schwartz would be persuaded to restore "Endless Delights." After all, back in the Stephen Daldry period, he almost put "Making Good" (precursor to "The Wizard and I") back in the Wicked movie...
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Probability of a PIPPIN movie musical, post-WICKED success? Dec 4
2024, 12:31:10 PM
...you do know The Baker's Wife is based on a movie, right? Wasn't a trifle for late Thirties/early Forties French cinema. Even won a couple of major awards.
Now, as to the topic of the thread -- Pippin as a movie? I don't personally think it would work, it's very stage-bound. I know Fosse was indifferent to the very idea (having been burned by his experience on Sweet Charity and not especially wanting to relive other of his Broadway catalogue on the silver screen), but the producer, Stuart Ostrow, couldn't let go of the notion. Kevin Winkler's Big Deal includes excerpts from a memo titled "PIPPIN Motion Picture Impressions" where he took the notion of "a boy searching the world over for fulfillment" and opened it up by going all Godspell on it, setting each sequence in a different, instantly recognizable theatrical venue: "Magic to Do" at the Acropolis or Stonehenge, the "War" sequence everywhere from the Roman Coliseum to Bob Hope's USO tours to onstage at the Palace, Pippin's introduction to sex in Vegas and at the Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris, his life with Catherine and Theo played out on an "Andy Hardy street" on a Hollywood soundstage evoking old movie images, etc. (Frankly, it sounds like Michael Sarne tripped over this treatment when he was trying to decipher Myra Breckinridge.)
That said, I think Ostrow's film ideas, which in some ways eerily presage what Bill Condon and Rob Marshall did with Chicago 30 years later, indicate he had somewhat disconnected from what property was in his hands by the time Bob had filled it with tits and glitz and feathers glued together with darkness. If it was just a boy searching for fulfillment and settling for what he could achieve, he might as well have gotten somebody with a visual sensibility to guide Hal Prince through sticking his Candide on screen.
Especially by the time Fosse had had his way with it, Pippin is "Unreliable Narrator: The Musical." He's a college grad who's given up trying to find himself in a morally and emotionally barren landscape, and his finger is on the trigger. He is considering what led him to the point of no return through the lens of cognitive distortion. To quote Stephen Schwartz, "...the way to think about the Players is to realize that they are actually in Pippin's head, just as we all have those internalized voices that tell us we're not good enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, etc., and that we have to make our goals conform to the shallow and misplaced goals we see touted by the media and our so-called societal leaders. The Players are not so much malevolent as they are eternally cynical and dissatisfied, because nothing in real life can be glamorous enough or spectacular enough to achieve the sort of romanticized perfection we carry in the movie in our heads."
The whole show is Pippin's fever dream, a hallucination full of the magic he never found in his life, all happening in the moment before he kills himself. He's his own tormentor, revving himself up to take the final step. There's a reason his family is populated by perverse stereotypes, his fantasies filled with frightening characters of his own creation. The spectacle is symbolic of what Pippin is building "extraordinary" up to be in his head, of what he thinks he must achieve.
The Players greet his straightforward heartfelt anthem of individuality and drive, "Corner of the Sky," with sarcastic applause, muted laughter, and rolling eyes... of course they do! When you're getting ready to shuffle off the mortal coil, you'll see that earlier version of you, so confident, so youthful, as immature, self-involved, clueless, cocky, too-earnest, with zero self-awareness. "If you knew then what you know now..."
If you're laughing knowingly at "Extraordinary," then your own inner Players are talking: "Extraordinary, huh? Hey, genius, you don't become extraordinary just because you say you are! Based on the evidence so far, not only do you not seem extraordinary, it's doubtful you ever will be!"
In this dark night of the soul, he sees himself as failing at everything he's tried in life. Trying to live up to his father's expectations didn't work; losing himself in sex didn't work; trying to do better than his father didn't work; he initially fails to realize that stepping up for Catherine and Theo did work because he doesn't think just getting through the day-to-day can possibly be enough.
But he learns what we do: yes, we face disillusionment in life. Yes, we make compromises. Everybody feels trapped in their lives to some degree. But those compromises can provide us with a sense of peace, even joy. So he'll never be a great soldier, or lead a carefree life, or be a successful politician, or succeed at anything, really, except an average life. Maybe that's all he really needs. Is it happily ever after? Who knows? But whether it's "extraordinary" or not, he now has that meaning in his life that he wanted. He has someone, something, to live for. (If only he could protect his (now-)son from the same journey...)
Does every generation have to go through it? It might, as long as we create outrageous expectations for our young people and then sabotage their chances at attaining them, increasingly asking them to grow up faster at an alarming rate, rarely offering them role models and destroying the ones they have, lying to them about how they can have anything they want. (And we wonder why murder and suicide among teenagers continues to increase, and where that "entitlement" comes from.)
To some, when everything else is trashed, all that's left is the Grand Finale. But that doesn't have to be the case. You don't have to do extraordinary things to be extraordinary. You don't have to reach the highest high to be worth something. Sometimes succeeding at average, ordinary, everyday life is enough. And you don't have to follow all the rules and get everything "right" to do that. That's what Pippin is about. That's what it means.
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GYPSY Previews - most important question Dec 1
2024, 07:14:26 PM
With Arthur dead, and the show needing something of its own to distinguish it apart from the casting choice, I'm kind of surprised they stuck with the Garden of Eden bit and didn't go back to the Stripper Christmas Tree.
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GYPSY Previews - most important question Nov 28
2024, 11:52:23 AM
Actually, that line was originally in Arthur's book, but he chose at some point to delete it. (Source: I have the revised copy from the LuPone production, with a lot of handwritten cuts and revisions -- and some typewritten insertions where changes were dramatic -- that presumably came from Arthur.)
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GYPSY Previews - most important question Nov 25
2024, 02:55:45 PM
Sally Durant Plummer said: "CurtainsUpat8 said: "I am a playwright with published works. "Gypsy" was written about the experiences of a white woman in a certain situation in a specific time and place. That experience would be different if the character was Black in the same situation and time and place. It would be written differently. You can't shoehorn the two experiences together. It doesn't do anyone any good. Write a new Gypsy from a Black charact
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First Preview Gift Thread Nov 22
2024, 12:20:45 AM
binau said: "A release of Arthur Laurents’ notes to Sam Mendes from the archives??"
Mainly on Directing, available wherever books are sold.
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Michael Riedel has been let go from his radio show at 710 WOR Nov 20
2024, 09:08:51 PM
...you all must be simply delightful at parties. Jesus H...
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Musicals You'd Like to See Jon M. Chu Adapt for Film Nov 20
2024, 05:52:05 PM
Jordan Catalano said: "The Schelle Williams one? I think they knew that was garbage and scrapped all plans for it moving forward."
Christ, I hope so.
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Musicals You'd Like to See Jon M. Chu Adapt for Film Nov 20
2024, 02:00:10 PM
Jordan Catalano said: "Globefan said: "Aida with Cynthia and Ariana"
In one of their interviews they said they'd love to do that show together and honestly - yes. 100% yes."
But only if it goes back to the original. The Dutch revisal was a goddamn travesty.
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Nicole Scherzinger Nov 8
2024, 12:21:36 PM
I'd like to return to hearing uncomfortable viewpoints and being open to debate. And if we were back in the era where people whose beliefs I disagree with chose to practice decorum, I might even think that there was a shot at changing minds.
Here's the thing: over the past decade and change, the line between "teenage edgelord" and legitimate political rhetoric has become increasingly blurred. Those just voted into power and their supporters sound like screenshots of anons on Tumblr
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Phantom of the Opera Returns! Nov 2
2024, 11:44:55 AM
Pernigraniline said: "Flyboy_46259 said: "The greatest shame is that there is no official high-quality recording of the production."
There are several, just not totally in the public domain. There's several proshots of London at least held by CamMac/RUG, large chunks of which were released on the POTO film DVD as extras in the documentary, and the OLC has a large amount of filmed footage." To say nothing of the OBC video now available at the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at NYPL, which fans have already had a chance to view, and posted thoughts about on Tumblr (and another who spoke about their experience on a podcast, in fact). The interesting takeaway from reading/hearing both, for me at least, was how much had already been watered down by the years in the precious "Brilliant Original," which makes sense and also makes me feel a lot less hopeless than people who evidently never viewed it in that light seem to feel because of this thread...
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Bio-Musicals: Why So Many Oct 23
2024, 12:04:07 AM
The Beatles have also explored other opportunities for stage licensing of their catalog with the help of young upstart Broadway Licensing. Let It Be (which quite frankly looks to be a "poor man's Across the Universe") and the forthcoming adaptation of the animated Netflix series Beat Bugs are gonna clean up in the school market.
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