I didn’t even know this existed until I started surfing a certain wave on the YouTube. Here is Sutton Foster demolishing her showstopper from “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” followed by Sara Ramirez just being freakin’ brilliant as she attacks Gershwin. (more…)
I’m on a “Chorus Line” bender right now.
This is Natalie Cortez from the revival cast of 2008, at her final performance. I never saw this production…it’s so engrained in my system from the old days that I didn’t want to have some kind of acid flashback (or have to restrain my legs from dancing along, which has happened during tribute events). (more…)
I started doing the show just after Michael Bennett put up this special performance to celebrate “Chorus Line” being the longest-running musical in Broadway history. They had to add extra support to the stage to accommodate this amazing thing. (more…)
I don’t know where this bootleg came from. It’s apparently from the original national tour…and I’m suspecting that was circa 1977.
I still get choked up when Zack counts out Jazz for the third group of boys…even when I’m not in the group dancing it. (more…)
This is pretty cute. (more…)
Now that I’m choreographing again, I need one of these signs:
Hey, kids, one of those funny girls from [title of show] (and I mean actual girls, not one of the two guys who march to their own drummer) has her own new Webshow. It probably won’t make much of a diff to you unless you like the theater and/or musicals and/or Broadway. And if you don’t like any of those things, do you really see much hope for this relationship?
This funny [title of show] girl licks her guests. And one of her guests is Jonathan Groff. I would lick that. (more…)
An occasional, abbreviated list of writing that I have gratitude for:
1. Tiny Kushner — Yesterday I got to see this collection of Tony Kushner short plays for the second time. It might’ve actually been more impactful than the first time. Three out of five of these plays are wise almost beyond words, the acting (at Berkeley Rep) was uniformly brilliant, and the director, Tony Taccone, is my new favorite person to pay excessive homage to. But I shouldn’t stray too far from the utter, scary excellence of Tony Kushner. I love this guy so much.
Tonight’s 2009 Tony Awards telecast was one of the better and worser Tonys in a long time. It had the worst camera work in years, and truly the worst sound of any program telecast live anywhere, including emerging Third World countries. And the idea of showing numbers from touring shows like “Mamma Mia” was to puke over (though seeing Five Dueling Jersey Boys was trippy).
But what was betterer, of the many virtues tonight (that included a hot-mess, melting-pot-of-musical-humanity opening number, and an acceptance speech by Karen Olivos for Anita in “West Side Story” that was fab), was Neil Patrick Harris as host. Yes, Hugh Jackman is talented, affable, and nice to look at. But keep him in scripted stuff or on a talk-show dais, cuz he leaves me cold as host. NPH was swell, and hip, and sharp, and winning, and out, and unabashed, and understated (yes…at the same time).
Okay, so there’s this website called dlisted.com, and the guy who writes it is so over-the-top that sometimes I just reach a critical mass of guilty laughter. Take, for example, his announcement of the forthcoming Broadway show starring both Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig:
File this under: news that made my nipples pass out. . . . Hugh Jackmeoff and Daniel Craig will star in a Broadway play together later this fall. That theater is going to constantly smell like spoiled goat milk, hot dog water and discarded tuna cans.
I just can’t print the rest of his post…even I have my standards. But you can read it here.