The dog days of summer are really beating down on us! Just a couple more days. Here are suggestions for beating the summertime blahs. What could be better than the new edition of Forbidden Broadway? Or lip-syncing from a genius of the art? Or a high priestess of theater in a big screen chiller thriller and news of her upcoming return to the stage? Hummmm. Not enough? How about the find of a "lost" demo of a failed Broadway musical and a hard to find soundtrack coming to CD?
David Benoit, Valerie Fagan, Jennifer Simard and Michael West with David Caldwell commanding a full orchestra on his piano. Forbidden Broadway, Summer Shock! will segue into a long run in mid-September. Alessandrini's unstoppable parody revue of Broadways's best and worst has been on the boards since 1982, and won numerous awards including the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Obie.
For tickets and information: TeleCharge, (212) 239-6200. Visit www.forbiddenbroadway.com.
It was one of her last public appearances. [She did occasionally pop into Gough's, the hangout of NYTimes staffers on 43rd Street, for a Pepsi to reminisce about her hoofer days on The Old 42nd Street.] The interview got quite intimate when Joanie discussed her love life - and made a graphic reference to former co-star Clark Gable, who had evidently come over for more than a soft drink.
Lypsinka is known to pull out all the stops. So except her to go full throttle performing the entire interview with Tony and Drama Desk-winning Scott Wittman [lyricist, Hairspray] in Springer's seat.
The tall, slinky, internationally renowned drag superstar is in real life tall, slinky John Epperson, originally from sleepy southwest Mississippi. He came to the big city to make his mark and quickly graduated from rehearsal pianist to lip-syncing a couple of songs. His repertory expanded to entire albums of countless divas. Last month, he expanded his horizons in D.C. with an autobiographical revue [yes, he sings, too!]. He says his Crawford tribute is his gift to her on what would be her 100th birthday.
Comic actor Steve Hayes will open, performing famous lines from Crawford films. Presented by TWEED TheaterWorks. For tickets and information, call SmartTix, (212) 868-4444. Visit www.lypsinka.com and www. tweedtheater.org.
[Fans of Grammy-winning, renowned classical violinst Hillary Hahn will be pleased to know she's prominently featured on the film's atmospheric James Newton Howard score, his fourth for Shyamalan and available on Hollywood Records. Her eagerly awaited Elgar Violin Concerto is due in September from Deutsche Grammophon.]
The good news is, come November, Jones, so respected by the time of her Tony for The Heiress that she was dubbed "the high priestess of New York theater," returns to the boards at Manhattan Theatre Company's Off Broadway Stage II [City Center] in John Patrick Shanley's Doubts, as mid-60s nun and junior high principal who suspects a well-like priest of funny business. It happens that Sister Aloysius, before running her fiefdom like a prison, was married and widowed. Doug Hughes is directing. The play had a reading last weekend as part of New York Stage and Film's season at Vassar.
Shanley, in addition to his theater work, wrote the screenplay for Moonstruck, now being developed into a Broadway musical.
Sister Aloysius is not the only nun in Jones' life. During the last six months, while Hollywooding it [guesting on The West Wing], she's cast in a recurring role in Clubhouse, the CBS/Mel Gibson coming-of-age Fall drama about a teen working in pro baseball. Mare Winningham and Jeremy Sumpter star.
Later this year, Jones is back on the big screen, featured in Julia Tyler's Swimmers, staring TV actress Sarah Paulson.
It was news, indeed, to learn that two-time Tony-winner James Earl Jones returns to the stage in between his long-running stint as Verizon commercial spokesman. September 28th - 0ctober 17th, after much too long an absence [but no doubt a triple millionaire from all those residuals] stars with another welcome returnee to the stage, Tony-winning Diahann Carroll in the Kennedy Center revival of Ernest Thompson's On Golden Pond. Tickets go on sale August 11th and can be purchased by calling (800) 444-1324 or (202) 467-4600 or at www.kennedy-center.org. Hopefully, it will make the transfer to Broadway.
It was the tryout from hell. Stars were fired, parts were eliminated and, by the time the show limped from the road onto Broadway, only two of Bart's songs survived the show's opening/closing [additional credit was given to Martin Charnin and Elliot Lawrence]. It was One Night Only for [the late] Larry Kert and, fresh from George M., Bernadette Peters. I recall Kert so upset, he was sitting on the 46th Street curb outside the Lunt-Fontanne weeping.
On the heels of the release of the recently discovered score to Sherry! -- a long run champ at two months compared to La Strada, Bayview Records is releasing the world premiere of Bart's entire score, produced by the composer in a lavish 1967 session that included a 25-piece orchestra and chorus. Label prez Peter Pinne said, "Even Lionel Bart's estate didn't know the of the existence of a demo. Imagine my excitement when a New York friend called last year to say he'd found a very battered copy. All I ever had was a tape one of the songs, ëMy Turn To Fall.' A lot of work has been done to ëclean it up' and bring it to acceptable sound levels for release on CD."
Having reissued three of Bart's shows on CD, including last year's remastered Maggie May, Bayview, which releases the Scott Siegel Broadway By the Year concerts, was in good stead with the estate. The session stars are New Jersey gospel singer and later cabaret singer and Columbia Records artist Madeline Bell [24 at the time; she had made a big impact in Langston Hughes' Off-Broadway hit Black Nativity] as Gelsomina and the Michael Sammes Singers. There's the overture, 11 tracks and a finale reprise.
"It's quite an ambitious score," says Pinne. "It captures much of the characters' private fears and anxieties in soliloquies and duets. There are several showstopping moments and the recording is filled with Bart's trademark lyric wordsmithery."
For more information, visit www.bayviewrecords.com.
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Ellis Nassour is an international media journalist, and author of Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline, which he has adapted into a musical for the stage. Visit www.patsyclinehta.com.
He can be reached at [email protected]
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