pat

Me: The knock against Sondheim has always been that he's too cerebral. His work is too much in the head.
Kevin: Affects the head and not the heart?
Me: Right.
James: I'd much rather have cerebral than manipulative.

That's my boy. (Says she who detested Terms of Endearment because it was so damned manipulative.)

This started out as a discussion about "Putting it Together," the musical review, and then the song, and then the context for the song.

We have such cool dinnertime conversation.

Current Music: Voice Mail #1:Original Broadway Cast

Tags:

broadway,
kids

I don't have the musical vocabulary to express what's annoying me but...

Listening to Les Mis all the way through for the first time (yes, I know, I just am not a big fan of these Cameron Mckintosh spectacles, much preferring Sondheim), the music is bugging the hell out of me.

Two things: there seems to be far too much repetition of melodic elements. The more annoying thing is that several of the songs have the same structural feature: melody - bridge - change key up - more melody - change key up - more melody - another change in key up. Am I imagining this? Can someone who is familiar with the music tell me if I'm totally out to lunch? I listen to a lot of show tunes, and many of them have key changes, but not a lot of them have multiple key changes all in one direction. It's most noticeable in "One Day More" (compare where Jean Valjean starts the piece, and where he ends -- I love Colm Wilkinson's voice) but it also happens in other songs. I liked it, at first, but when it showed up in multiple places it was annoying.

Current Music: Overture and Night Waltz:Orchestra

Tags:

broadway

"Audiences, unaccustomed to actually thinking during a musical comedy, sometimes found the show confusing and disorienting, but for many the evening was stimulating and moving." Ken Bloom, Broadway: An Encyclopedic Guide to the History, People, and Places of Times Square, discussing Sondheim's Follies, which he described as "one of the greatest of all musicals."

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Hey,

si_anemome! You saw the SF production of Rent, right? I just wrote a review of it in WWF (even though it has already closed) and was wondering if your experience was similar to mine.

Current Music: Comfortably Numb:Pink Floyd

Tags:

broadway,
wwf blog

Looking at old Broadway footage... Jerry Orbach in his early thirties?

Oh. My. God.

Tall. Handsome. And a voice to melt butter.

Wow.

Current Music: Ohio (Digitally Remastered LP Version):Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Tags:

broadway

I might take your criticisms of the current state of Broadway more seriously if you did not have a footnote explaining how Jonathan Larsen screwed up the French grammar on "La Vie Boheme."

Current Music: La Vie Boheme - I Should Tell You - La Vie Boheme B:Original Broadway Cast

Tags:

broadway

It strikes me that several of the songs I am obsessed with lately have to do with creativity/self-expression/self-definition:

"La Vie Boheme" from Rent
"I Want to Be a Producer" from The Producers
"Move On" from Sunday in The Park With George
"Defying Gravity" from Wicked
"On Broadway"
"I Am What I Am" from La Cage Aux Folles
even, in some sense "Do You Hear The People Sing?"

And my mind keeps dwelling on specific *lines* within the songs (except for "I Am What I Am" -- the whole song keeps running through my head):

"I want be a producer, cause it's everything I'm not."

"The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation."

"Stop worrying if your vision is new, let others make that decision, they usually do, you keep moving on, Look at what you want, not at where you are, not at what you'll be"

"if you care to find me /Look to the western sky! /As someone told me lately: "Ev'ryone deserves the chance to fly!"

Well, time to stop with the navel-gazing, which is never attractive, and get something done.

Tags:

The current playlist I'm obsessively listening to:

"Move On" - (Sunday In The Park With George) Mandy Patinkin & Bernadette Peters
"One" - (A Chorus Line) Cast
"La Vie Boheme - I Should Tell You - La Vie Boheme B" Original Broadway Cast
"Do You Hear The People Sing?" - (Les Miserables) Michael Maguire & Cast
"Tonight" - (West Side Story) Larry Kert And Carol Lawrence
"I Go To Rio" - (Boy From Oz) Hugh Jackman & Company
"The Little Things You Do Together" (Elaine Stritch)
"I'll Never Fall In Love Again (Promises, Promises)" Jill O'Hara, Jerry Orbach
"The Music Of The Night" - (Phantom Of The Opera) Michael Crawford
"On Broadway "- (Smokey Joe's Cafe) Adrian Bailey, Frederick B. Owens, Ken Ard, & Victor Trent Cook
"I Wanna Be A Producer" - (The Producers)Matthew Broderick And Ensemble
"Defying Gravity" - (Wicked) Idina Menzel & Kristin Chenoweth
"Comedy Tonight" - (A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum) Zero Mostel & Cast
"I Am What I Am" - (La Cage aux Folles) George Hearn
"Try To Remember" - (The Fantasticks) Jerry Orbach
"Hakuna Matata" - (The Lion King: The Play) Max Casella, Tom Alan Robbins, Scott Irby-Ranniar & Jason Raize
"Camelot"- (Camelot) Richard Burton

Although I mixed the playlist using "shuffle" it now occurs to me that I should have started with "Comedy Tonight" and ended with "Moving On."

Current Music: The Little Things You Do Together (Elaine Stritch):Original Broadway Cast

Tags:

broadway,
music

So what is it with Puccini and Broadway and Law and Order?

La Boheme =>Rent/Jesse L. Martin (whom I will gladly pay good money to watch read the phone book) => Law & Order

Madame Butterfly=> M.Butterfly/B.D. Wong (who doesn't have to even read the phone book, just stand there) => L&O: SVU

I am getting punchy. I need to stop reading IBDb.com/IMDb.com and check on the laundry.

Oh, of the seven other primary characters in the movie version of Rent, four of those actors have had guest shots on either L&O or SVU at some point in their careers: Anthony Rapp and Wilson J. Heredia were on SVO, and Tye Diggs (speaking of people who only have to stand there) and Tracie Thoms were on L&O. All but Thoms had been in the original Broadway cast.

I'm sure it has to do with the fact that all the L&O shows are shot in New York.

Current Music: Christmas Bells:Original Broadway Cast

Tags:

( The Little Things You Do Together )

Current Music: The Little Things You Do Together (Elaine Stritch):Original Broadway Cast

Tags:

( Into The Woods )

Current Music: Act II, Finale: Children Will Listen:Stephen Sondheim

Tags:

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Meeeoooowww.....

Collecting Rent

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Seriously, dude.

Hmmm...

Current Soundtrack...

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