Jerome Kern's ROBERTA Full Studio Cast Recording
Dec 12
2014, 06:24:09 PM
The old Lieberson recording is a bit sleepy, though Kaye Ballard's numbers are terrific. Anyway, the Kitty Carlisle Decca version is very theatrical, with a cast (including Alfred Drake and Paula Laurence) that could easily have played the show if it had been produced in the 1940s instead of in 1933.
And while it is good to have the complete score with the original orchestrations, this isn't one of those "big" Kern scores with a ton of songs, like Show Boat, Sweet Adeline, Music in the
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Jerome Kern's ROBERTA Full Studio Cast Recording
Sep 30
2014, 08:19:08 AM
The Goddard Lieberson recording isn't the only previous Roberta. Decca issued one sometime in the 1940s with Kitty Carlisle and Alfred Drake. It's on CD as we speak.
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Souvenir Programs
Sep 3
2014, 08:34:48 AM
These are ridiculously overpriced. You could bunch up any ten of them on eBay for fifteen dollars and still no one would bid.
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re: Shanghai Gesture
Jun 19
2014, 12:54:40 PM
Thanks for the update. Too bad there isn't a website we can google our way to with intel on tryout and tour casts.
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re: Shanghai Gesture
Jun 18
2014, 06:34:31 AM
I think that line is "Yet I survived!"
And where did Mrs. Leslie Carter come from? Mother Goddam was played
by Florence Reed.
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re: LaChiusa Wild Party
Jun 3
2014, 11:47:18 PM
The senior Albee, the vaudeville magnate, was the playwright's grandfather, not his father.
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Susan Johnson
Mar 25
2014, 01:32:50 AM
Hushpuppy: The CD with Susan Johnson's "Sweet Thursday" is
You Can't Put Ketchup on the Moon: Broadway Flops and Roadkills
1925-1955. She also sings "Charm," from Maggie. The CD label
is Rialto Recordings and it's unit no. SLRR 9201.
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Recommended Threepenny Opera Recording?
Dec 16
2013, 09:15:22 PM
The 1954 Theatre de Lys recording was made a bit late in the run, so it's not exactly the "original cast"--the Mr. Peachum is a replacement. Still, this performance has a theatricality that no other Threepenny cast album has, perhaps because its performers are more from the Broadway musical world than from the spoken theatre. They're not actors, but singing actors. The Polly was to play the heroine of The Most Happy Fella, and the Lucy was appear prominently in Fiddler on the Roof and Mame. The
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On a Clear Day - Don't Tamper with My Sister
Dec 9
2013, 12:57:29 PM
The Clear Day vocal score is not a reliable guide to the show as it was presented on Broadway. It adhered at least somewhat to a revision that Lerner made for the national tour. Thus, it has a number called something like "The Marriage Contract," which starts "The father of the bride/Must free- and willingly provide..." This number wasn't in the show in New York, as I recall.
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Harvey Evans Love Thread
Dec 1
2013, 11:42:00 AM
As everyone here has said, he's a great guy. But also: he's a great dancer,
having worked with Fosse, Robbins, and so on. I saw him on a showcase of
Going Hollywood, based on the Kaufman and Hart comedy Once in a Lifetime, and
he was really charming. It's too bad the piece didn't go on to Broadway.
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Must have Musical Albums!
Nov 23
2013, 01:02:22 PM
Bonnie & Clyde is actually very tuneful and atmospheric, and the two leads are especially good. If you're a Wildhorn fan, it truly is a must-have.
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Susan Haskins of Theater Talk
Nov 22
2013, 08:22:01 AM
To tell the truth, I think they make a perfect odd couple. Michael is the mischievous one and Susan the serious one, so together they create an air of merry disputation that contributes to the show's vitality. They've been at this for years and everyone in the theatre wants to be on their show--Hugh Jackman, Elaine Stritch, etc. That wouldn't happen if they weren't good at what they do.
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Susan Haskins of Theater Talk
Nov 21
2013, 06:34:28 PM
People of my acquaintance who have guested on Theater Talk over the years have nothing but good things to say about her. The general feeling is that she gives her guests a great framework in which to discuss their work. It's good for the guest, good for the guest's show (and for keeping many people employed), and good for the theatre.
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Grand Hotel: 24 Years Ago Today
Nov 16
2013, 01:47:16 AM
Actually, the musical changed the spelling of both her names very slightly, calling her "Raffaela Ottanio," I assumed for legal reasons (though the actress was long dead by then).
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Ziegfeld- Made for TV Movie
Nov 14
2013, 03:50:40 PM
Yes, Inga Swenson is in it, as Nora Bayes. It's a terrible show, though, with one of the worst scripts a backstager ever had. All clichés and no authenticity.
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Male equivalent of 'My White Knight'
Oct 24
2013, 11:11:45 PM
Gaveston: On her Carnegie Hall CD, Cook sings an earlier version of "My White Knight," and while it's just as unusual as the version they ended up with, it sounds a little more like the rest of the Music Man score. It's possible that Loesser mentored Willson in refining the number into its present state, and of course "mentored" could mean a lot of things.
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Question to all the pianists out there: What was the hardest Broadway piece you've encountered?
Oct 14
2013, 07:51:37 PM
Though it isn't difficult, "Wick" in the Secret Garden vocal selections gives the
pianist a great workout. The accompaniment is in the form of a toccata, so you are
tearing away non-stop from first measure to last. Very satisfying.
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New book on history of musicals
Oct 14
2013, 03:19:59 PM
JV: Mordden's previous books on the musical concentrated on smallish subjects--musicals of a particular decade, or Rodgers and Hammerstein. This time he's tackling the entire history of the musical from The Beggar's Opera and Gilbert and Sullivan through Show Boat and The Cradle Will Rock right up to Wicked and Bonnie & Clyde. That's almost three hundred years of a theatre genre to deal with, so he had to leave out or deal lightly with some of it. I was disappointed on how little there was about
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West Side Story - most recent revival
Oct 14
2013, 02:24:50 PM
Previous West Side Story revivals hewed closely to the original Jerome Robbins staging. This last WSS was directed by Arthur Laurents in an attempt to claim the show for himself, so he made it as different from Robbins as possible. He couldn't arrange for new choreography, either contractually or because that would have created a scandal. But using Spanish, making quirky directorial choices, and so on were all part of the plan to invent an Arthur Laurents West Side Story. And Laurents was a writ
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Which Wild Party is better?
Oct 14
2013, 02:50:37 AM
I liked them both, but it must be said that the Lippa version played in a single set in an off-Broadway environment while the LaChiusa was a full-fledged Broadway show using a turntable to rove cinematically through the story's "places." That in itself made it a more interesting production. Both albums are well worth hearing now that the shows themselves have closed, and you can even hear LaChiusa's director, George Wolfe, on the CD shouting, "Will everyone please go home?" The line was invented
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