THE STORY OF MY LIFE - Final Performance - 02.22.09 — Page 2

Many thanks to FRONTROWCENTRE2 for posting Peter Filichia's Diary on THE STORY OF MY LIFE. It was one of the most insightful and detailed looks at this remarkable new musical that I have read. For those of us who were enthusiastic about the prospects of seeing this show, based on word of mouth from our friends who saw it or from the few pieces of music we heard on the show's website, or the great video Broadway WORLD.COM provided as a sneak peak, it was wonderful to hear this beautiful score will be recorded. Many of us who were accused of being "shills" for this show for merely expressing our enthusiasm can now take some joy in knowing that we will at least get to hear the complete score. I do hope we see regional productions of this show but I regret we will not get to see Will Chase and Malcolm Gets in these roles as well as a first rate orchestra playing Tunick's beautiful orchestrations. Maybe, but I doubt we will see anything quite like this original Broadway cast and production. It is too bad that this initial New York production was not done off-Broadway at a venue like Vineyard or Atlantic Theatre Company, where it may have had a chance to run longer. It was disconcerting to be called a shill for this show when all I was doing was expressing enthusiasm for it based on opinions of friends whom I respect who saw it either in Toronto in 2006 or at Goodspeed in 2008. I soon learned that some people who post here on this message board try to tear others down, merely because they do not like certain opinions expressed. To me, that is counterproductive to creating dialogue between people who share a love for all things "theatre". Fortunately, there are many more wonderful insights given by people who post here, than there are the negative posters. I can already see there are a specific group of posters who pretty much do nothing but post degrading comments meant to devalue others, but I see many more posts from people of good will. The Story of My Life did not hold a high value to some who saw it but the overwhelming number of positive opinions about this little musical outweighed those and I enjoyed reading WHY people liked or did not like this new work.

I really home the cast recording comes to fruition. First of all for purely selfish reasons, because I really adored the score and I want a recording of it. But, secondly, I do feel this show has regional potential but it's going to be a hard sell since most out-of-town producers probably didn't get to see the show during it's extremely brief run. I personally know two theaters off-hand that would likely jump at this show if exposed to it. A cast recording is going to get the show out there to a wider audience.

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I was also at the performance last night. One of the most amazing performances by two amazing actors. I also talked to Neil Batram, Brian Hill, and Richard Maltby Jr., who are all extremely nice people.

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Not exactly a cast album, but on the website there is now a recording of Malcolm singing "Mrs. Remington" and Will singing "The Butterfly". http://www.thestoryofmylife.com/

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I was at the same matinee performance, and although I thought it a nice little entry into the theatrical season and was very happy to have seen it...I walked away with the same feelings that I did walking away from A Class Act...melancholy. It touched a bit too close to home in terms of bringing up past loneliness for me. That's probably why I've only listened to the CD once-it saddened me.

Could anyone who has seen the show on B'way say more about Alvin's miming his father's eulogy? This is the part I'm most curious about.

I didn't see the show, but I just finished playing Alvin at my local theater a couple weeks ago. I can just tell you that I personally "mimed" telling stories about my actual father (who died 15 years ago) adn froze JUST as Thomas began to sing the song. I, however, didn't cry. I instead "found" Alvin's joy in his father and in his story telling, so by the time I froze it was with an air of sadness, yet subdued joy at the same time.

This show meant SO much to me. It is truly the greatest theatrical experience of my entire life (and I've been doing this crap since I'm 10 years old!)

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It didn't survive on Broadway cuz it
was a teeny tiny show with teeny tiny
thoughts and a teeny tiny show that
didn't belong in a Broadway house!

And it played in a "teeny tiny" theatre. Evidently a lot of people enjoyed this show, so why don't you fly away and crap on some other beachhead, Roz?

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I had tickets to see the first preview of Guys and Dolls. That got canceled and I decided to see this little gem of a show. I can't tell you how grateful I am to have seen it! Beautiful music, great book, stellar cast...I had tears in my eyes by the end. I'll never forget it!

(And it was a major plus that I didn't have to sit through the awful revival that was G&D)

sadly my memories of this show are fading, as i've said in this thread i saw it numerous times during its out of town run in CT and several times on Broadway including opening night and the final performance. it may have been a teeny tiny show to some people but it had a profound effect on me. I *believe* that Malcolm mimed throughout the entire song, although I can't say for sure any longer.

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Sheila: It's HTML coding. To make something italic, put < i > (without the spaces) before the text you want italicized, and < /i > after.

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It didn't survive on Broadway cuz it
was a teeny tiny show ...

Behold! Another seagull!

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