Sunday, September 8, 2013
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that “There are no second acts in American lives.” For many of us, there are no second acts when we listen to original cast albums.
We get up in the mo…
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 12:03AMFriday, September 6, 2013
Mary Pope Osborne, the esteemed children’s writer, was looking for an idea. What would be a good book for kids aged six-to-nine who were currently in grades one-to-four? Then inspiration h…
SOURCE: Music Theatre International at 07:44AMOn the night of Sept, 26, 1960, was Arnold Auerbach gritting his teeth, shaking his head and thinking BLESS YOU ALL?
I suspect he was, as he watched, with 70 million other Americans, the …
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 07:36AMTuesday, September 3, 2013
As of June 25, 2013, the world was divided into two parts.
One part consisted of people who couldn’t wait to read Shirley Jones: A Memoir. They wanted to know everything the actress was w…
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 12:13AMFriday, August 30, 2013
Last week, while reviewing LES MISERABLES SCHOOL EDITION, I suggested that producing the British mega-hit may lead to one unexpected benefit. It may be a logical successor to WEST SIDE STORY…
SOURCE: Music Theatre International at 09:28AMMemo to all the young people who saw LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST at the Delacorte and adored it: the reasons you adored it were among the 1971-72 Tony voters' motivation for choosing TWO GENTLEMEN …
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 07:35AMMonday, August 26, 2013
Some of you may have noticed that I did a column on August’s minor holidays the first and second weeks of the month – but haven’t done one since.
Why?
I took a holiday.
But here we …
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 11:48PMFriday, August 23, 2013
Think you can cut the mustard to be part of the incoming frosh class at Broadway University?
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 07:36AMTuesday, August 20, 2013
Was Jerry Herman subtly trying to tell us something in La Cage aux Folles?
Note that he saved “The Best of Times (Is Now)” as his eleven o’clock number. No one knew it at the time, bu…
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 12:10AMFriday, August 16, 2013
There have been thousands upon thousands of T-shirts made for hundreds upon hundreds of productions of SEUSSICAL. But each one for sale in this lobby has a unique logo in its upper right han…
SOURCE: Music Theatre International at 12:16PMNo, it's not the 1963 musical version. But did you ever think you'd see a production of the play TOVARICH?
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 07:32AMTuesday, August 13, 2013
Do you know the term “pentimento”? Many of us didn’t until we read Lillian Hellman’s first memoir, in which she used the word as her title.
“Pentimento,” she taught us, was the…
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 12:21AMFriday, August 9, 2013
"I can give my subscribers one maverick show a season," says Music Theatre of Wichita producing artistic director Wayne Bryan. "Two could overwhelm them. But they seem to trust me enough to …
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 02:29PMJuly got off to a great start at the Minskoff Theatre where 31 boys and 31 girls competed for The National High School Musical Theatre Awards - more chummily known as "The Jimmys" (for James…
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 02:28PMI came late to Jackie Hoffman's party, and I'm so sorry I did. Oh, I did arrive at 54 Below in time for her 9:30 p.m. show this past Sunday - which was good, because it began precisely on th…
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 02:27PMMusic Theatre International founder Frank Loesser once wrote a song called “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” Now Music Theatre International and iTheatrics are asking middle school …
SOURCE: Music Theatre International at 10:56AMMonday, August 5, 2013
Last week I pointed out that August doesn’t have any major holidays, but it does have some minor ones. Here’s hoping that my reminding you of Sisters’ Day -- the first Sunday of the mo…
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 11:47PMFriday, August 2, 2013
Most assume that it’s nothing more than a feel-good, happy-go-lucky, fun-filled musical comedy. That novelist Amanda Brown even played on the expression “legally blind” to come up with…
SOURCE: Music Theatre International at 11:11AMMonday, July 29, 2013
We’re about to begin the one month of the year that doesn’t have a big holiday.
But at least August contains days that have been chosen as commemoratives. One such is Sisters’ Day, wh…
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 11:37PMTuesday, July 23, 2013
Last week, when I wrote about the cast album of Seven Come Eleven, I stressed its topicality. The 1961 nightclub revue mentioned The Peppermint Lounge, the Peace Corps, Mayor Wagner, civil r…
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 01:43AMFriday, July 19, 2013
Why must two-and-a-half hours pass before Ephraim Levi sends a sign to his widow Dolly that says he'll permit her remarriage? Now I finally understand. He doesn't need time to adjust to the …
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 05:48AMThere have been knock-knock jokes, ethnic jokes, and how many light-bulb jokes. But 50 years ago, the joke that was sweeping the country was the Tom Swifty.
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 05:47AMThursday, July 18, 2013
At the recent American Association of Community Theatre Festival in Carmel, Indiana, 12 companies ranging from Burlington, Massachusetts to Chula Vista, California came to show their wares. …
SOURCE: Music Theatre International at 10:25PMMonday, July 15, 2013
Decades ago, I vowed to obtain each and every original cast album. That meant searching second-hand dives and thrift shops and making many clandestine trips downstairs to dingy basements in …
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 11:37PMTuesday, July 9, 2013
So on July tenth, we’ll celebrate Jerry Herman’s eighty-fourth birthday.
And what do we immediately think of when we think of Jerry Herman?
Title songs, of course.
Herman’s first fo…
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 11:49AMMonday, July 8, 2013
“My name is Evan Goldman” are the first words said by the leading man of 13. Here, at the Thespian Festival in Lincoln, Nebraska, the line is stated unequivocally by Erick Patrick of Ola…
SOURCE: Music Theatre International at 10:29AMFriday, July 5, 2013
Back in 1998, I was on a Paper Mill Playhouse panel with Clive Barnes of the Post, Howard Kissel of the News and Gretchen van Benthuysen of the Asbury Park Press. One of the questions asked …
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 09:36AMTuesday, July 2, 2013
We've often heard the expression variously attributed to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Aby Warburg and Gustave Flaubert. But whichever of these men was the first to say it had a point.
"God is …
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 12:03AMSaturday, June 29, 2013
It's officially summertime, and the living is easy - unless you have kids home from school. Send them to Broadway Triple Threat 2013, the marvelous workshop for young performers.
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 07:08AMMonday, June 24, 2013
A couple of weeks ago, I trumpeted the Tony-winning musicals that can be heard thanks to Masterworks Broadway.
And how about Tony-LOSERS in the Best Musicals category?
These have been on m…
SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 10:54PMFriday, June 21, 2013
I've met many writers of new musicals, and plenty of them have said the same thing: "When I saw (insert here the name of an awful musical), I said to myself 'I know I can do better than that…
SOURCE: Kritzerland at 09:14AM 
