Santa Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Dennis semi-recently became obsessed with Broadway musicals.  Last night, he got us last-minute tickets to Newsies.

While yes, ok, I'm a bit of a theater snob and I really recommend you go see Nina Arianda take her star-making turn in Venus in Fur before it closes in June... I loved this freaking show.  I'm not sure how you couldn't.  Those ragtag street urchins can dance, dammit!  No really; it's ridiculous.  You should probably see it.  There's a ticket lottery 2 hours before each show that's not particularly hard to win - you'll get okay (near the front, off to the side - technically partial view but you're so close it doesn't matter) seats for $30 (!).  And then, when the show ends (SPOILER: it all works out) and you're like, awwwww, I could've watched those boys dance all night, they come out and do a completely superfluous dance number before the curtain call!  Newsies 4vr!

Update: Knotted, Polka-Dotted/ Twisted, Beaded, Braided...

Dan got us tickets to HAIR tonight!  (my love for this musical explained here).

I'm so excited.  Sometimes when I listen to it on the subway, I get teary-eyed.  Is that weird?

Also, I'm way more excited for JoAnne Akalitis's Bacchae than I am for Annie Hathaway in Twelfth Night?  I think I'm over Twelfth Night, guys.  It's cute and all, but after seeing it in every possible iteration (except, come to think of it, its traditional written setting), I think I'm done.

There's Nothing Ironic About Show Choir

This show was essentially designed for me, so it shouldn't be a shocker that I liked it:

(I'm not sure how long the pilot'll be online, but there it is for now).  Glee, as you might imagine, is about a high school glee club.  It features Jane "Hey, It's That Lady!" Lynch in a hopefully permanent supporting role, which is always promising.

And, best of all, lots of cheesy-ass musical numbers.  

I worry, however, that the 98% of the population that isn't embarrisingly into musical theater won't get the delicious hideousness of a poorly performed "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat," or Lea Michele, star of the boundary-pushing rock musical Spring Awakening singing "On My Own" for an audition.  You don't ever sing "On My Own" for an audition, guys!  Any diva knows that!  It ranks right after "Tomorrow" and "Castle on a Cloud" with songs unacceptable to perform (after age twelve) anywhere other than your shower or the car.  Aw.  I miss performing.

Anyway, it's a promising pilot, especially since even good pilots traditionally blow chunks, and I'm excited for its full season this fall.  If you haven't seen it, it's on Hulu and free on iTunes (I watched it on my iPod!).

When You're A Jet, You're A Jet All The Way

I'm so thrilled that West Side Story is back on Broadway.  I directed a production of West Side in college, in the spring of my senior year.  I'm particularly excited about this production, because although WSS is by far the best American musical, it has several massive problems, all apparently fixed:

1. The book.  The script and many of the lyrics for this show are terrible ("cos every Puerto Rickan... is a lousy chic-ken!"  Seriously).  West Side is closer to an awesome musical ballet than a traditional musical-- without the dance and music it's kind of a mess.  When we did it in college, I cast two horrible actors with excellent opera training as Tony and Maria.  Looking back, that isn't something I'd change.  Tony and Maria are two of the most boring characters to ever appear on stage.  But apparently, in the new production a lot of the libretto is updated, and the Sharks speak to each other in Spanish.  Dios mio!

2. The leads.  As I stated, Tony and Maria are little more than bell-voiced teens with terrible dialogue, but apparently in the new production, they're great!  That's awesome.

3. The dream ballet.  Ha, just kidding.  They've kept the dream ballet.  

This is a long, pointless ballet number in which Maria and Tony imagine their ideal life in the country or something.  We never considered doing it, except for in an April Fool's email I sent to the cast a week before opening, telling them I thought we should put it back in, and that with a couple of all-nighters and an extra build day we could totally do it.  I was almost lynched.

4.  "I Feel Pretty."  I hated working on this number, because it included all of the would-be Marias who were super pissed at me for casting them in minor roles.  It's also pretty stupid.  In the revival, though, it's in Spanish and apparently adorable.  Don't they look cute?  And I bet the dancers in this show are just happy to be there, and don't put up passive aggressive away messages whenever they have to rehearse.

5.  "Tonight"!  This number is awesome.  I fucking love it.  It's the basis for "One Day More" in Les Miz, which in turn inspired "La Resistance" in the South Park movie!  The whole cast is stomping around their corners of the stage, singing about the upcoming rumble/ sexytime/ romancetime, pointing at each other even though they're supposed to be in different parts of town.  Doesn't it look cool?

I need to get tickets!  Which are apparently selling like gang warfare in the late 1950s.

Gleaming Streaming Flaxen Waxen...

Q: Which major movie star appeared in the original Broadway cast of Hair?

A: Diane Keaton! Here she is singing "Black Boys."


I think she's the one in the middle.

Next question.

Q: Which occasional blogger was in a high school production of Hair that featured a 90% female cast and did not feature the song "Black Boys"?

A: ME!

I'm just like Diane Keaton.

Anyway, I think it's so badass that we did Hair at my high school, because it's not exactly high school material, and it gave me the chance to sport a 'fro. I was an idiot to miss it in the Park this summer:




...and am very excited that it's coming back to Broadway this spring! Yay! Obama will be in office and free love will reign again. Or something.

Double Double Toil and Bighead

I've seen Patrick Stewart on stage twice now and I can tell you that Jean-Luc Picard has a giant head. I'm sure he's very nice and humble in that British stage-actor "I interpret the human experience and am to be respected for my devotion to my craft" way (for some reason this is totally OK if the actor is British), but the size of his cranium is waaaay out of proportion to his torso.

Macbeth, in which he plays the title character, just moved to Broadway and I wanted to celebrate that by letting you know.

Also, if you ever see anything at BAM (where it was pre-Great White Way), doooon't sit in the gallery if you have vertigo. Had I been able to see more than the tops of the actors heads, they would have looked like this:




I had no idea Kate Fleetwood had such crazy cheekbones! I'm glad the Internet has enhanced my viewing experience.

Dream Date Royale

I've had a platonic crush on Mindy Kaling for a while. First, she wrote and co-starred in Matt and Ben, an off-Broadway show about Matt Damon and Ben Affleck writing Good Will Hunting. She played Ben. Second, she's a writer on The Office, and wrote the Dundies episode. Third, she plays Kelly on The Office and although I feel they go a little overboard with her annoyingness it's generally funny and of course I work with two people exactly like her. Also she has a blog devoted to random stuff she buys. A female comedy writer who acts like a girl and rhapsodizes over Mason Pearson hairbrushes? I feel like I could be friends with Mindy Kaling.



(Of course, that can never happen, because if I were to meet her and for some reason she found me cool and we started hanging out, I would never mention that I already knew her work and found her adorable, and then she'd Google herself, find this, discover the ruse, and it would be Because I Said So for girls. Also, she lives in Los Angeles. And is way more successful than I).

Anyway. I like her blog. We've been dark (not taping) lately and I've been kind of bored, so I read the whole thing the other day. She introduced me to Sriracha (also featured on Top Chef) and Kookaburra licorice and a bunch of clothes I can't afford, like---



---a tunic-length cashmere cardigan from Banana Republic in "Dream Date Royale." Says Mindy of this color name, while lavishing proper praise upon said tunic-length: "What a bunch of queerballs."

See why I like her?

Vertical Fidelious

I could easily make a Top 5 list of Things I Like About High Fidelity, The Contemporary Novel By Nick Hornby. Here, I'll do it.

1. Comprehensible stream of consciousness.
2. Appropriate and effective use of exclamatory punctuation.
3. Barry's recruitment into the band "Barrytown" due to his first name.
4. Incessant yet sparing use of Top 5 lists.
5. Identification with an irritating and immature protagonist that is still somehow uplifting.

It would be even simpler to compose a Top Five Things I Enjoyed About High Fidelity, The Film Starring John Cusack and Featuring Jack Black In His First Notice-Me Role, or even sub-divide it into Top Five Things I Appreciated About High Fidelity, The Film Starring John Cusack and Featuring Jack Black In His First Notice-Me Role, On The Film's Own Merits, Top Five Effectively Translated Moments From The Book To The Movie, and Top Five Bits I Preferred In The Adaptation, In Spite Of Myself (first on that one: making Laura, for absolutely no apparent reason, Danish).

So I suppose it makes sense that the producing powers that be wish to capitalize on America's proclivity towards Top Five lists: High Fidelity is now a Broadway musical, joining Jekyll and Hyde, The Color Purple, and… The Scarlet Pimpernel… as a possessor of the book-movie-musical Triple Crown. Maurbags got some free tickets, so we* saw it last night.

It wasn't bad. It wasn't awesome, and it had none of the appeal of the book/movie, but it didn't try to; it was a pretty different animal. The staging was unfocused but I was in love with the set, the female casting was terrible but the male chorus rocked it out, and the whole thing had a positive energy that took getting used to-- Hornby's Rob would never refer to Championship Vinyl as "the last real/best record store on Earth," but rather as a symbol of his downward mobility and depressive existence (blamed, of course, on an ex). Rob never did anything constructive to win Laura back--- he never got over her, wished her the best, and got on with his life, showing her he had changed enough for her to come back. In the book--and I want to say in the movie, but am I making this up?--she takes him back because she's too tired to find anyone else, but they end up happy anyway, eventually. And the DJ gig that Rob arranges "all by himself" in the musical? Laura arranges, pays for, and forces him to attend in the book.

I guess what I'm saying is that I didn't guiltily or increduously see myself in the show. I remember thinking throughout the movie--and I first saw the movie in high school, when the closest I'd come to heartbreak was Mike Romankiewicz ignoring me at a Chester party in the spring of 1999--"this is just like me! And I'm a girl!" Throughout the musical I just kept thinking--

"Aw, that's sweet---

--But that never happens."



*Yes, Roommate Maurbags, who works routine 14-hour days at the O'Neill, spent her night off at the theater.