Profile for Prisoner 24601

The productin of Caroline, Or Change at the Court Theatre in Chicago a few years ago was a very moving experience.

"I'm an Indian Too" was not in the show. According to the program, Josh has been in Night Music, Sunday, and Anyone Can Whistle at Ravinia.

Forgot about Camelot. Yeah, that one sucked.

I saw the performance tonight. George Hearn was spot-on with lyrics and just all-around adorable. Patti only had a few little line flubs, but nothing show-halting. She charmed the pants off of everyone in the pavilion. It was weird watching her and her son playing characters who were supposed to be roughly the same age. But hey, Merman was no spring chicken either. Another thing- Suzanne Sole played Dolly Tate as if SHE WAS Patti LuPone. Their scenes together were bizarrely mesmerizing. Paul ...

I can't wait to see how they do. How common is it for a Broadway show to close for three weeks and then reopen like this? Is it better from a financial standpoint to close the show 'till new stars come in rather than bring in other replacements and keep running?

As we know, the last lyric is "Not Sweeney. Not Sweeney Todd. The demon..." etc. There's a little difference in the Ballad between the OBCR and any subsequent recording of the show and I can't think of why this difference exists. On the OBCR, the interval between "Swee" and "ney" on the line "Not Sweeney" is a major third. On any other recording, that interval is a major second. Also, in the repeating two-triplet pattern that appears in the xylophone, strings, etc after the last lyric (it's m...

This is all very interesting! Every time I played pit for an MTI show, it became immediately clear from trying to play along with recordings that the keys we were given were not the keys from the cast recording, and they were also different from the published vocal selections (which is maddening when trying to prepare for auditions, not knowing how high or low you'll actually have to sing!). Most of the time, the transposition would be noted in each musician's score- it would say "down a half...

My director is afraid to do ITW because of the cast size. There's lots of leads, but besides that she doesn't think there's enough ensemble involvment to satisfy the 50+ kids our principal requires her to cast (we cast from two schools in our district). So any Sondheim besides West Side and Forum is basically out of the question. I saw a teriffic production of Company done at a high school last November. They kept the pot smoking but they didn't have the scene between Bobby and Peter about be...

What's written in pink on that backstage mirror?

I was 12. A couple friends from summer camp who were a few years older were always gushing about Sondheim shows. I guess at 12 I didn't really have a good grasp on what makes some shows better than others; the composer didn't really matter so much as the subject matter, I guess. Basically all musical theatre experience would thrill me. When I was younger if I would see a musical on television I would tape it and watch it over and over, learn the dances and songs till I found something new. It...

The liner notes for "Sondheim Evening" say that "Singing Out Loud" was going to be a movie about making a movie. The scene with Water Under the Bridge featured the character of the singer recording the song in the studio with the character of the composer in the booth. Both characters were to sing their thoughts in counterpoint with the actual song as it was being recorded. The Gravitte version only features the actual song and not the counterpoint. That's all I know about the plot.

The Drowsy Chaperone (Nat'l Tour- Chicago) Sweeney Todd (Nat'l Tour- Chicago) August: Osage County (B'way) Gypsy (B'way) A Midsummer Night's Dream (local High School) Jekyll and Hyde (the play. Northlight, Skokie IL) Caroline, or Change (Court Theatre, Chicago) Sweeney Todd (Northwestern U) Company (local HS) Grey Gardens (Northlight, Skokie IL)

Initially, it didn't really sit right with me to hear about actors tipping members of the crew, because to me that just widened the gap between actors and crew that seems to exist to some extent in every show. You know, the attitude that all work done on the show is only meant to serve the people on stage. Every member of the production is working towards the same goal, putting on a good show, and it seemed odd for people working for the same entity to tip each other. But, when you describe y...

I've been told I sound like Frederica von Stade. I want to know what would happen if I sounded like George Hearn.

DRS flopped? I didn't think flops got national tours.

I'd steal that lamb puppet from Gypsy in hopes that they would replace it with a real lamb.

I see. When it's less than a day's notice it makes sense for the stage manager to make the call, cause the directors or producers aren't typically at the show every night.

They probably arm wrestle for it. I have no idea, but you'd think it'd be decided in the two actors' contracts, if not explicitly stated in the program, who would go on under which circumstances. I don't see why it would be the stage manager's decision.

Don't you recognize her from Equus?