Profile for Wilmingtom

A Man and a Woman from 110 In the Shade

A Man and a Woman from 110 In the Shade

A Chorus Line - OBC

Higgins didn't sing much when Harrison played him. I've heard others sing the hell out of it.

I'm in the camp who thinks the invaluable BP was miscast. At the beginning of the show her accent was so thick you'd be forgiven for thinking she was mentally challenged. Annie is from Ohio, not Appalachia. She delivered her ballads as if it was her club act (I'll lay some blame for that at the feet of John McDaniels, whom I adore). Wopat was terrific but the rewrite didn't grab me (with all due respect to the legendary Peter Stone). "There's No Business Like Show Business" is a number you bu...

Promises, Promises in 1969 with the wonderful original cast. As a kid from the Midwest, I had never seen automated scenery that moved on its own and I was enthralled. I was already a Bacharach fan but Tunick's orchestrations and Wheeler's dance arrangements lifted the songs through the roof. It was the perfect introduction to Broadway for a guy with my showbiz sensibility, all I imagined Broadway would be.

Not so fast about Jumbo :)

When RENT landed on the cover of Time (or was it Newsweek?) as the future of the musical theater, I thought, "The future?" I've seen this a dozen times before, from the Kumbaya-let's-all-hold-hands of Hair and Godspell and, less successfully, Salvation and Dude. Mostly what RENT did is make me look forward to what Larson would write next. But, alas...

K&I is not a story about race. It's a story of two strong-willed people squaring off with each other, the woman a progressive and the man threatened by change. I'd hate to think that schools and community theaters can't do this wonderful, uplifting musical if they don't have an Asian community. Just cast the show with who you have and the audience will go with you, no yellowface needed.

Roger Bart was replaced by Chris Kattan during previews of The Frogs.

All the Livelong Day (opening number from "Working&quotIt's a Typical Day (opening Number from "Li'l Abner" in which the characters are introduced)

If they're carding, just be honest. "We'r'e seventeen but we're not here to drink. We just want the piano bar experience." Of course it's against the law to admit you so if they won't, no hard feelings.

3rd row center mezz, at face value $250. Tue. 8/7 @ 7pm. Please let me know if you're interested, and thanks.

Testa was fantastic when she went on for Liza and she'd be great as the mother today. Anyone at Arena Stage listening?

Minnie's Boys with Tyne Daly.

There's little motivation for producers to spend $200K+ to appear on a TV special when your show has virtually gone clean. And not getting a big production number just made people want to see it all the more.

Could someone comment on Gattelli's choreography, please?

I liked the set, which got us from here to there without fussy scene changes to kill the momentum while keeping the focus firmly on the performances. I always knew exactly where they were at any given moment. I wasn't enamored of Rosenthal's performance but the others were all wonderful, especially Borle.

Finale: Exodus from Fiddler, proving that a finale doesn't need to be noisy. Rose's Turn and the brief denouement that follows is a great finale.

The Mankiewicz.screenplay is structured like a play, befitting its theatrical setting, and I think is a natural for a stage adaptation. It doesn't require a great deal of embellishment or structural rehab to make it stageworthy. Writing its adaptation is really an editing job, the character development and plot being fine as is. Blanchett seems a good choice to me, so believable in any period, but it's Eve's story. That's the casting news I'm really eager for.