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Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

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#1

Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 8:56pm

The stage and screen legend Angela Lansbury, for instance, said in an interview this week that she used an earpiece to stay on cue during her Tony Award-winning turn in Blithe Spirit on Broadway last season.

Its not something you ever want to do, but if were going to play important roles at our age, where our names are above the title on the marquee, were going to ask for some support if we need it, said Ms. Lansbury, 84, who is set to star this winter in the Broadway revival of A Little Night Music.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/theater/29actors.html?_r=1&ref=theater

Well it was true.....
#3

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 9:43pm

Hey, it's better than the large glowing teleprompters used on Broadway by Kelsey Grammer in MACBETH, etc. where it is clear the actor has no INTENTION of learning all the lines, not using an earpiece as a back up used in case of a slip-up so as to not disappoint the audience or interrupt the mood of the play.

And Angie just wows me with her classiness EVERY - SINGLE - TIME. She is a TRUE legend.

P
#4

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 9:45pm

And Angie just wows me with her classiness EVERY - SINGLE - TIME. She is a TRUE legend.

I SO agree!
I have adored every single performance of hers that I have had the good fortune to see!
"Two drifters off to see the world. There's such a lot of world to see. . ."

Updated On: 10/29/09 at 09:45 PM

#5

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 9:48pm

"“In the early days of theater, there was a ‘prompt corner’ with a person ready to throw the line to any actor,” Ms. Lansbury recalled. “In the electronic age, some 80-year-old performers wear earpieces. And all of us lose ourselves in a play at moments. Laurence Olivier did at the height of his career. This is part of theater.”"

So true, Angie, so true!

P
#6

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 10:00pm

And I will still pay my heard earned money to see Angela Lansbury in a show. Every. Single. Time. You go, girl!
"What a mystery this world. One day you love them and the next day you want to kill them a thousand times over." The Masked Bandit in THE FALL
#8

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 10:09pm

I loved it when people were so offended last spring when the whole earpiece rumour came about. I think they made a bigger deal about it than Angela did!


"Hey little girls, look at all the men in shiny shirts and no wives!" - Jackie Hoffman, Xanadu, 19 Feb 2008
#10

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 10:13pm

I'm 25 and I don't know if I could make it through "Liasons", let alone Armfeldt's track, 8 times a week! And who knows if Steve might give her something new to sing, perhaps in the 2nd act (perhaps "Silly People"?).

It's a deceptively difficult role... she is much like the Emcee in CABARET in that she almost controls the events of the evening, or at least steers or guides them. AND explains them.

P
#13

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 10:56pm

Several years ago I was in the audience of a concert that Patti LuPone was filming for PBS. At the back of the theater was a teleprompter with all the lyrics and all her banter. I should have yelled out her punchlines before she did. Then I would have been on PBS.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
#14

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 11:58pm

I agree she's incredibly classy. Seeing her command that stage in BLITHE SPIRIT was such a joyful experience. I am looking forward to seeing her in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#15

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/29/09 at 11:58pm

I'm glad she used an ear piece.

Matthew Broderick called out for his lines from a prompter in the front row of the new off Broadway show he's starring in at least 10 times the other night. He actually read a monologue that he didn't finish memorizing...a temporary fill in read from the script the whole show since he was cast within the past week...the show was not ready to start previews....
#16

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/30/09 at 12:12am

Who cares? She was absolutely BRILLIANT!
Rant, Wickud, Rant, Wickud, Rant! We're not gonna pay Rant! 'Cause everythink is Wickud!

"Leave Walt Disney Theatricals new sparkling production of The Little Mermaid on Broadway alone!!!"

lakezurich will be played by Paul Groves in the BWW musical
#17

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/30/09 at 12:26am

I heard about that too, after I had seen the show. Could not have been able to tell at all. :) she is brilliant.
<--- the set of A Midsummer Night's Dream that I was assistant stage manager for during the 2007 season at the STNJ outdoor stage.

-Dre-
You must remember all the same that at the crux of every game is knowing when it's time to leave the table... And it's important to be artful in your exit. No turning back, you must accept the con is done... It was a ball, it was a blast. And it's a shame it couldn't last. But every chapter has to end, you must agree.
~Dirty Rotten Scoundrels~

There's a special kind of people known as show people. We live in a world full of dreams. Sometimes we're not too certain what's false and what's real. But we're seldom in doubt about what we feel.
~Curtains~

It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to, than I have ever known.
~A Tale of Two Cities ~
#19

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/30/09 at 12:32am

It's excusable for the 84-year-old Lansbury to be prompted, especially in such an unobtrusive manner.

But Broderick has no excuse to be shouting out "Line?" in a performance.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#22

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/30/09 at 1:30am

At the end of the article --

>>>This season “A Steady Rain” is one of the most dialogue-driven plays on Broadway, with the actors Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig — who have extensive experience in the theater, not just movies — shouldering all 90 minutes of dialogue. A spokesman for the show said this week that neither man used prompts. Still, Mr. Jackman said in an interview in August that the amount of memorization was a tall order and that he and Mr. Craig even tossed a ball back and forth while running their lines.

“I hope we won’t have to use cue cards,” Mr. Jackman joked, then added, “It’s a slog to learn the whole script, but there’s no other way to do it.”<<<

Having a reknowned thespian using ear prompts due to age is something I would trade off rather than miss their talents onstage...but for younger stage actors, maybe they should have more focus and discipline. As witness the case of Jackman and Craig, who alternate with very long monologues and exchange occasional dialogues in the whole of 90 minutes of the show.


#23

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/30/09 at 9:05am

I don't care that she wore an earpiece. I don't feel it makes her any less of a professional. I'm sure when she was much younger and in some of those musicals â?? Mame and Gypsy â?? it was all memory and no prompting. I don't think they probably even did prompting back then. When it came to Deuce, I'm surprised she didn't use an earpiece. I don't think she must have, because in an interview (when she and Marian Seldes were on Theatre Talk) both of the ladies talked about how they would sometimes forget a little, but each of them were able to help the other. Really, I don't see why the fact that she wore an earpiece for Blithe was even put in the news at all. How is it newsworthy really?

Besides, I feel that song lyrics are easier to memorize anyhow. I'm planning on coming out to NY again so I can see her in "Night Music!" I'm really looking forward to seeing her singing "Liaisons." And I can't wait to see her costume. She'll probably wear a wig also. I know she'll be beautiful.

Updated On: 10/30/09 at 09:05 AM

#25

re: Angela Lansbury admits to using an earpiece prompt in BLITHE SPIRIT

Posted: 10/30/09 at 3:07pm

Even with the earpiece, she was flubbing lines and stepping on other people's lines the night I saw BLITHE SPIRIT.

Love her, of course, but maybe after a certain point retirement is just the best policy?
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/

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