Profile for monestere

It's Alright with Me (Can-Can) Till There was You (The Music Man) Fanny (Fanny) I Say Hello (Destry Rides Again) And This is my Beloved (Kismet) Softly as in a Morning Sunrise (New Moon)

A superbly written, produced & acted show. I wish it was more widely shown uncut in the US.

Michael Sarrazin was a prominent film & stage actor and will be greatly missed. Michael Sarrazin, the understated star of films like They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and The Flim-Flam Man, died Sunday, April 17 in Montreal after a brief, quiet battle with cancer, surrounded by his family. He was 70 years old. http://www.montrealgazette.com/story_print.html?id=4635866&sponsor

Although they never recorded it, Arthur Fiedler and John Williams conducted the Gypsy Overture in concerts at least once each in the 1960s & 1980s, but not in Boston. The version used in the majority of instances by symphony orchestras is not the Sid Ramin original for about 30 players used on cast recordings but Frank Perkins' expanded version of Ramin's orchestration used in the 1962 film version which calls for 70 players. Jule Styne himself conducts this version on the film soundtrack but...

My favourite Hammerstein lyric: Softly, as in a morning sunrise The light of love comes stealing Into a new born day -- oh Flaming with all the glow of sunrise A burning kiss is sealing The vow that all betray For the passions that thrill love And lift you high to heaven Are the passions that kill love And let you fall to hell So ends the story Softly, as in an evening sunset The light that gave you glory Will take it all away

Also: KISMET, SHOW BOAT, THE NEW MOON, DEAR WORLD & THE KING AND I

Audrey Hepburn is one of only three actresses to receive a Best Actress Oscar (Roman Holiday) and Best Actress Tony (Ondine) in the same year, in addition to a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for her performances in Roman Holiday (1953), The Nun’s Story (1959) and Charade (1963). Any intelligent person who sees her in “Sabrina”, “The Nun’s Story”, “Love in the Afternoon”, "Breakfast at Tiffany's", “Charade”, “Wait Until Dark”, “Two for the Road” and yes, “My Fair Lady”, can attest that not only is s...

ALSO: Harve Presnell (Unsinkable Molly Brown) William Tabbert (the original Joe Cable in SP & Marius in Fanny) Mark Dawson (High Button Shoes, Fiorello) Dennis King (The 3 Musketeers, Desert Song) Wilbur Evans (Up in Central Park, South Pacific, New Moon) Earl Wrightson (The Firebrand of Florence, Kiss Me Kate) Gene Kelly (Leave it to Me & the original and for most people still unsurpassed as "Joey" in Pal Joey, who went on the an even bigger career in films as a musical performer, choreograp...

From the master of witty and clever, Cole Porter: There's a prince whose home has become a must For the lower men of the upper crust Cause his high born wife Has such a low cut bust Come along with me If you'd like to dine with an old Marquis Who will swear that technically he is free But his wife's the only technicality Come along with me from Can-Can (1953)

The Swedish science fiction comedy "Kenny Begins", which is a prequel to the excellent TV series "Kenny Starfighter" about two intergalactic misfits would be an unusual but perfect fit for a Sondheim score in a musical stage adaptation. Why? Because every other composer currently writing Broadway scores would provide a futuristic score in the present that would quickly become dated but, if inspired by the material, Sondheim would provide a futuristic score that would be ahead of its time in t...

KISMET (which has never been revived if you don't count the 1970's reworked all black staging called "Timbuktu") THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN (It may not be a hit like "The Music Man", but the movie version was a monster hit and the show has been a reliable hit in regional theater for many years.) WILDCAT (which was a big hit that only closed early because star Lucille Ball got exhausted and abruptly left the show. Christine Ebersole would be great in a revival.) FANNY (yes, Encores is doing a ...

One of the most beautiful and talented actresses ever to appear on stage and in films. No actress today even comes close in comparison..

The 2001 remake of South Pacific with grandma Glenn Close playing Nellie, Rade Serbedzija playing Emile like he is in a coma, Lori Tan Chinn portraying Bloody Mary as a filthy bag lady and worst of all, Harry Connick attempting to play Cable, who is from Philadelphia, with his usual fake Cajun accent. And if that isn't enough, the score was truncated beyond recognition and sung badly. A misfire from the word go.

The best combination of performance and sound has to be the 1960 revival cast recording with Jeannie Carson, Biff McGuire, Howard Morris & especially Carol Brice's superb vocal of "Necessity". The early stereo sound is still quite clean and the full sized original orchestrations are used. The 1968 film soundtrack uses Ray Heindorf's gorgeous expanded orchestrations played to perfection by the 65 piece Warner Bros studio orchestra. That combined with Petula Clark's still unsurpassed vocals of ...

Actually, until the era of digital recording in the 1980's, motion picture sound recording quality has always been at least a decade or more ahead of anything the record labels could achieve, especially in the 1940's, 50's & 60's. "Recorded directly from the Sound Track" is a marketing phrase used by MGM Records, no different than RCA's "An Original Sound Track Recording", Decca's "Music from the Sound Track" and other variations used by other labels. All such recordings, beginning with "Till...

Stella Adler & Lee Strasberg , who revolutionized the craft of acting on the American stage by introducing and teaching the Stanislavski system, which later came to be known as the "Method". Tennessee Williams, whose plays tackled controversial characters and subjects with a frank, unflinching realism that was made to order for the new generation of brilliant young actors (Brando, Dean, Clift, etc) trained by Adler and Strasberg in the "Method" style of acting, and embraced by cutting edge di...

MARY, MARY by Jean Kerr

I know that Wilma Cozart Fine, who passed away on Sept. 24, and her late brilliant engineer husband, Robert Fine, are usually more associated with classical music but it is appropriate to remember her on Broadway world because the Fines also produced the superb Frederick Fennell albums devoted to the music of Victor Herbert, Cole Porter, George Gershwin and other Musical Theater composers which are still prized and enjoyed today and in many cases served as an introduction to the music of thes...

1. Show Boat 2. Carousel 3. Company 4. My Fair Lady 5. West Side Story 6. Candide 7. Kismet 8. The Most Happy Fella 9. Crazy for You 10. Hair How did you hear about 7? I saw the 1955 movie in the 1970's and attended a regional stage production later. Would 4 make a good movie? It was made in 1964 and will likely never be surpassed by any remake. What's your favorite song from 10? Easy to be Hard Who's your favorite actor from the original cast (Broadway, London) of number 3? Larry Kert How ma...