Well I fell asleep during the Academy Awards. No, I didn't just nod off during the award for best Grip. I missed a fair chunk of the broadcast. But I did see enough to decide it was one of the most unexciting, unglamorous, unremarkable, ho hum (which is what you say to Beyonce to get her to sing...) Oscar nights I'd ever seen. And what made it worse was the tribute to Johnny Carson, although touching, only served to remind me of how great the Oscars USED to be!

It started off well enough, if not particularly eventful, with movie clips. This montage did contain an unusually large number of movie musical clips, which was encouraging. And Renee Zellweger did look gorgeous in her black hair and super thin de-Bridgeted body.

But the whole thing looked a bit like a hastily assembled telethon, what with awards being given in the aisles, in the box seats, in the bathroom, etc. Chris Rock was fine. But not classy. And he has one decibel level -- yelling. And was Beyonce the only singer available? I can’t believe Celine Dion wasn't available...she's always available!

Where were the stars? Where was Jack Nicholson? Tom Hanks? Nicole Kidman? Tom Cruise? Hugh Jackman? Meryl Streep? Catherine Zeta-Jones? Did the invitations not go out in time? Were they printed with the wrong date?

Well, Mickey Rooney was there...And I understand why Jude Law wasn't there. It just seemed to me like the nominated stars were there, and that was about it.

And why wasn't Kevin Kline nominated for De-Lovely? Why isn't there a movie musical category? I mean, there's an animated category. Why, why, why!!!

The highlight of the evening for me was the clip of Johnny Carson and Miss Piggy and the Oscar Meyer joke! For others it might have been Jenny Lumet.

So endeth the rant.

I know this has nothing to do with theater, but I thought it was funny. I'm sure it's apocryphal, but the joke is still interesting (and I think it's an oldie...I dimly remember reading this in the '90s). Maybe it can be musicalized...

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon".

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Every morning as I drive my kids to school I listen to Q107 with John Derringer. Partly for the classic rock, but mostly to listen to the very funny The Last Word with Auntie Mo' (Maureen Holloway) which comes on at 8 am. Like clockwork, the last commercial break before Maureen comes on is a commercial for "Korry's Men's Clothing", a store on the Danforth, always read by "Korry" himself. I always think, "...good for him, I wonder how long he's been in business..." Well, now I know.

Last night I finally got around to watching one of four The Songwriters -- An Intimate Evening of Songs and Stories DVDs that my wonderful husband bought for me. I thought they were some kind of rediscovered PBS specials, and they are DVDs that profile legendary theater/film songwriting teams performing their own material. We started with the Kander and Ebb/Alan Jay Lerner edition. Liza Minelli starts off the Kander and Ebb portion and by her good condition the date seems to be somewhere in the late '70s. Oh, didn't you know that you tell the time by a sundial, and the year by Liza Minelli's physical condition? The next hour was John Kander (aka The King O' Vamps) at the piano and Fred Ebb singing and sweating at the microphone. At Fred's request this was shot in one continuous take. It was so, so, sooo amazing!

There is nothing -- I mean nothing -- like hearing great songwriters talk about their songs and then sing them with the intensity and meaning and the inflection they had imagined when they were writing. I didn't want it to end. Fred's voice was fine, but his enthusiasm and commitment to a song was so compelling.

I only wish that some of the sad-excuse-for-singer tarts today would watch this kind of stuff to get a clue on how to perform. Ooops, did I say that out loud? Sorry. Anyway, after watching them, I wish I knew these people.

And why doesn't somebody do a production of Flora The Red Menace instead of Bat Boy? My seven year old has fallen in love with the score of Flora ("You're a Communist, sign here!").

Fred Ebb talked about how they wrote a song about BoBo's Bar and Grill after receiving the news that one of their mutual friends had committed suicide. At the other end of the spectrum they did one of their "party songs", an ode to Sara Lee. What a joy.

As the credits rolled on this program (still no idea where it was shot) it said "Guests stayed at the Inn On The Park in Toronto" and John and Fred's clothes were done by "Korry's Menswear"! Oh my gosh, this was shot in Toronto! And they were dressed by Mr Korry-on-the Danforth himself, no less! Kewl.

OK, here's what I was talking about in the title of this post. All the audience shots during the Kander and Ebb performance showed everyone (well almost everyone) wearing huge eyeglasses! Not sunglasses but prescription glasses. I know that this was the fashion then, but to see a whole audience with these big beauties is a bit freaky. Are the glasses so big, so you can find them easily when you're not wearing them? Or did the bottom fall out of the glass market in the 1970s making it really cheap to buy a lot of glass? Or were they doubling as ski goggles? Inquiring minds want to know. Inquiring minds NEED to know.

Miss you Fred.

Welcome to Toronto Theater! Come on in, make yourself at home...but oh...don't stay a while!

I just finished reading the Globe and Mail review of Bat Boy ("Quite Simply Bloody Awful" by Kamal Al-Solaylee in the Globe and Mail, February 24, 2005) and -- wow -- that smarts! He gave it a zero!

Now that's harsh. Even the movie Road Trip 2 got a 1/2 star in the Globe! I haven't seen it yet [Bat Boy the Musical, not Road Trip 2], so I can't comment on whether he was off base, but you can't help feeling badly for the production when a critic (origin of the word: CRITICAL!) really goes to town on a show. No matter how correct he/she may be, you know a lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into bringing it to stage. I know how devastated I felt after reading the Queen's Journal review of The Pajama Game (Queen's Musical Theatre, 1984) and the critic said of my portrayal of Gladys Hotchkiss that I was "mincing and simpering". It still haunts me twenty years later...revenge is a dish best served cold....but I digress. After a review like Kamal's, the show is bound to close early. At least that's what happens in New York. Money and dreams down the drain. Excuse me, I need a tissue!

Kamal hated everything from the book, music, lyrics, direction, cast...even the money ($500M). How can you criticize cash? Theater reviewers seem to have a problem with "businessmen" investing in theatre unless they have been starving for twenty years. Now, I did listen to the CD and didn't really care for it, but I was hoping the production would give it more life.

And Toronto casts always seem to be a bit, well, not top notch. (which I used to think was due to the lack of talent here, but it turns out I am constantly running into amazing musical theater singers, so I think the problem is the casting, not the talent). But I still wanted to see it, damn the review!

Until I read these four words "...miked to near deafness...". Now I will definitely NOT go to see it. I cannot stand when shows are too loud. I know I sound like that Huey Lewis character in Back To The Future -- "you're just too darn loud". But Toronto seems to have a problem controlling sound! And I don't expect to have my eardrums permanently damaged when I go to the theater. Same damn thing happened at Mamma Mia, and Hedwig and The Angry Inch. (Oh and during Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway" at the Juno's some years back). Rock/Pop music in a show can be loud enough to be exciting (eg. The Boy From Oz in New York, Cher's show at the ACC) but doesn't need to be so loud that blood starts to trickle out of my ears.

The Toronto Star piled on with its own 1-star review ("Bat Boy a low-flying creation" by Robert Crew in The Toronto Star on February 23)

At the end of Bat Boy: The Musical, a character rushes in, looks at the dead bodies sprawled across the stage and asks, "What happened here?"

To which the sheriff solemnly replies: "It's a long story. I don't know where to begin."

Know that feeling. But let's try this: Bat Boy, which opened last night at the Bathurst Street Theatre, is one of the most over hyped, underachieving musicals to hit town in a long time.

It has been touted as the latest cult hit but any wit or style seems to have deserted the show in its Toronto incarnation...Mind you, they and everyone else weren't helped by the fact that the performers were all vastly overmiked...Director Michael McGinn fails to exploit the environment to the max. Too often, the cast ends up strung across the stage. No bite, no charm, no fangs, no thanks. This particular Bat Boy has struck out.

Now, I'm not 100% sure what's going on here...this musical seems to be garnering extremely mixed reviews. They loved it in NYC, but hated it in London, and now in Toronto. And the movie is in production...

Wow, I'm impressed at all the creative Blogway Baby fans out there. Maybe I wasn't so far off the base when I advocated the return of Oh! Calcutta! back in January.

Further to my "pr0ny versions of famous musicals" post, here are my favorite additions from Comments:

From Joshua, at 1:12 PM
Guys In Dolls

==

From Brighterbuc, at 1:36 PM
Into Ms. Woods
Anything Goes
Da Kink In My Bed
A Little Night Moaning
The Fantasdicks
My Fair Lay
Chickie Chickie Bang Bang
Porgy Does Bess
Not So Lil' Abner
Eat Me In St. Louis
Pimpin'
Balls Are Ringing
Bye Bye Panties
A Class Ass
Damn, Yank Me!
The Good Thigh Girl
Panties From Heaven
Screwing In The Park With George

==

From Anonymous, at 1:54 PM
Cumalot
Broads' Way: Melody of 69
Damn Wankers
Seven Brides For One Brother
The Wang and I
Titanic Girls Gone Wild

It only seems appropriate that the Candadian Sex in the City would be based in L.A., which not many people know is actually Canada's second largest city. That's right, more Canadians live in L.A. than any other city except Toronto. And I can almost guarantee that most people in Toronto wish they were living in L.A. -- especially right now.

The article in Wednesday's Globe and Mail profiles "a scantily clad Brigitte Bako", a Canadian actress who spent a dozen years trying to break into the big time acting scene in L.A., but after some early successes ended up in soft-core porn. Well, at least she got lots of exposure on CityTV, so all her friends would get to see her acting...

From the article:

In G-Spot, Bako plays Gigi, a one-time acting prodigy whose roles in acclaimed films seemed destined to make her a star. Like the fictional version of herself, Bako started out on a roll, boarding a Voyageur bus, at age 19, from Montreal to New York, where her first, small movie role was in Woody Allen's 1989 New York Stories (her segment was directed by Martin Scorsese).

From there, Bako landed other decent parts in films such as One Good Cop (starring Michael Keaton). But then her luck turned. In the mid-1990s, her mother died. Her boyfriend dumped her and she was in a car accident that left her in traction for several months. She lost roles in four major studio pictures, including Don Juan DeMarco with Johnny Depp and The Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas.

When she got back on her feet, she opted to take a part in the soft-porn TV show, Red Shoe Diaries -- from which point she started aggressively accumulating material for the G-Spot scripts. "Red Shoe Diaries became this cult hit, and then basically every script I got after that I was naked by page four."

Her career then became an ever-growing repertoire of late-night B-movies, with titles such as Paranoia, Sweet Revenge and Wrong Number. Bako recalls she almost jumped on the Voyageur bus back to Montreal.

But at dinner parties, she kept her friends in stitches, recounting tales of her career lows. "They told me to write it down. So I did. I ended up with 10 scripts. I'd never written a thing in my life before," says Bako, most recently in HBO's The Mind of the Married Man.

Then Lantos heard through the entertainment grapevine that the actress, whom he'd met a few years earlier when she was in the feature I Love a Man in Uniform, had written some pretty funny stuff.

"He called me and said, 'Bako, I hear you wrote something,' " she says, adopting a strong Eastern European accent. "I said, 'Yup.' He says, 'I'm heading to the cottage and I want to read it.' I had four scripts at the time so I mailed them. At the end of his cottage vacation, he said, 'Well, Bako, you can write.' And so it started."

Gigi's co-stars are Stella, played by Heather Hanson (The Chris Isaak Show); Francesca, played by Kristin Lehman (Judging Amy); and Roxy, played by Kimberly Huie (Deep Impact). All are Canadians, now living in Los Angeles, who were repatriated to do G-Spot, which filmed for six gruelling weeks last summer.

"Every girl on this show is single," adds Bako. "I made sure of that. I wasn't going to hire anyone who had a better love life than me."

Featuring a blonde, a brunette, a raven-haired character and a redhead, Bako calls the cast a "Revlon ad in the making" and agrees the comparisons to Sex and the City are inevitable, if a tad old.

"Sex and the City is the grande dame. They started it all. But basically, any show that now comes along and talks about womanhood, sexuality or penises is going to be compared to it.

"What we have in common is that we all have vaginas. That's about it. We can't afford the shoes they wear. Our show is multiracial, multicultural, we're mostly unemployed and we can't get laid.

"We're celibacy in the suburb. That's what we are."

Nice article in the February 17, 2005 issue of eye Weekly on Bat Boy the Musical.

The article does a nice job of profiling the new impresario, Morris Berchard, who is funding this mid-size musical, to the tune of $500K...he's certainly done a good job of building advertising awareness with a significant bus shelter campaign.

With theater in Toronto a definitely iffie proposition in Toronto over the last two years, it's nice to see new producers jumping into the fray. Especially in the under-served mid-sized musical department. From the article:

Bat Boy the Musical was inspired by stories that appeared in the early '90s in the tabloid Weekly World News. To this day, the paper's former managing editor claims the stories of a hybrid child were true, although it must be noted that the tabloid owns the Bat Boy trademark and has taken royalties from productions off Broadway, in London's West End and across the US.

Bat Boy the Musical is being marketed as a universal story of an outsider trying to fit in. That's what appealed to producer Morris Berchard, who's spending close to $500,000 of his own money to bring it to the Toronto stage. Just like Schramek and several of the sort-of-familiar character actors who comprise the cast of 10, Berchard sees Bat Boy the Musical as his bid for wider acceptance.

"Right now, I'm a little bit like Bat Boy. I'm an outsider trying to get in," says Berchard, a youthful looking 49, assessing his relationship to Toronto's theatre community. Winnipeg-born Berchard always dreamed of being an actor, but his parents advised him to seek greater financial security. So he took his psychology and sociology degrees to a fledgling Toronto firm in the early '80s and helped turn it into Canada's biggest purveyor of employee assistance programs. Berchard is vice-chairman of WarrenShepell, a company that no longer requires his day-to-day attention, leaving him vulnerable to the theatre bug.

He became transfixed by Bat Boy the Musical last spring, after he attended a reading by the original off-Broadway cast. The show was a cult-hit in New York, and Berchard was considering an investment in the London run. "It just blew me away," he says, and he ended up bringing it to Toronto with the creators' blessings. "They took a bit of a chance, because I'd never produced anything in Toronto before."

Perhaps not, but Berchard is getting top-notch advice from Donald Farber, a veteran entertainment lawyer in New York. The show's associate producer is Marlene Smith, the seasoned Toronto producer known for bringing Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats to town in the 1980s. As well, Berchard isn't cutting corners.

"He didn't cheap out, you know?" says Schramek, who notes the quality of the tech equipment, props and costumes. "What a wonderful thing for an impresario to come out of the woodwork. This guy who loves theatre has the potential to produce stuff and isn't afraid to go quality."

While it's not strictly an Equity production, Berchard has signed Equity contracts with the actors. Doing otherwise has been a sore point for the non-union Blue Man Group production that's going into the refurbished New Yorker Theatre. "After we all got our contracts," says Schramek, "Morris invited us over for a meet-and-greet. No producer I've ever worked with has just said, 'Come over to my place. I'll cater a night.'"

Berchard is the last to deny that he gets a thrill mixing with theatre people and watching their eyes light up when, for example, they first saw the elaborate set on the theatre stage. "They were so delighted to be working on the show, being on the stage," says Berchard. "It was a magical moment for me."

The producer has plans to bring other New York properties to Toronto, concentrating on the mid-sized 400- to 500-seat houses. Schramek also sees a lot of potential in that range, as well as in the style of new musical that Bat Boy typifies.

Some of you are wondering what a review of the 1970s sitcom One Day At A Time reunion show was doing on Blogway Baby. In my nostalgic fervor I forgot to mention the all important relevant link. Bonnie Franklin, as it seems to be with so many famous TV personalities (eg. Jason Alexander, Jerry Orbach, Betty Buckley), started her career in musical theater!

So, when she was singing "On The Good Ship Lollipop" in one those classic ODAT episodes, she was just drawing on her theatah roots! Bonnie received a Tony nomination in 1970 for her work in Applause.

There. Happy now?

Braniff Airways is the inspiration behind the airline Venus Airlines in my musical, Plane Crazy. Oh, how I wish Braniff was still flying today...

In today's world of cut-rate airlines, it's difficult to remember that air travel was once a much more rarefied experience. Even routine flights would include roses for female passengers and seven-course meals on fine china and linen tablecloths. Stews at the time were required to make omelettes from real eggs in the galley, to cook steaks to order, and to run a complete bar.

"...boarding a plane was such an event that stewardesses took souvenir Polaroids of passengers as if they were sailing on an ocean liner or catching a dinner show. Once, there were planes with piano lounges. Once, a first-class meal might have included turtle soup served from a tureen, Chateaubriand carved seatside, and cherries jubilee. Steaks would be cooked to order -- eggs, too, on breakfast flights."

-- Bruce Handy, Glamour With Altitude, Vanity Fair, October 2002

The time period of the mid-1960s, when Plane Crazy is set, was also about freedom. It was a unique period in history where technological changes (computers, Pill, jets), social changes (mass media, leisure society, Baby Boom teenagers), and political changes (Civil Rights, Vietnam, Cold War) combined in an explosive fusion of color, sound, and energy.

Forty years later, the decade of the 1960s continues to capture our imagination in movies, music, and popular media. Plane Crazy has chosen to focus on two interesting and contrasting themes of the time: The glamour, pizzazz and flash of the mass media "Jet Age" fascination; and the serious issues and compelling questions of the Women's Movement.

"It rained very hard the day we made our first flights as stewardesses. Our brand new, custom-tailored, form-fitting, wrinkle-proof, Paris-inspired uniforms became soaked in the dash to the cab."

-- Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones, Coffee, Tea, or Me?: The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses, Putnam, 1967

Coffee, Tea, or Me? was a big bestseller, testament to a strange elation that was sweeping the nation. The book was written in worldly first person, and it was illustrated by Bill Wenzell, who turned those two stews into "Wenzell Girls," a cartoon type he made famous in Esquire magazine (butt like a beach ball, breasts like twin missiles, Barbie Doll feet).

"This morning, sightseeing in New York -- and in about five hours, I'll meet my date for dinner in San Francisco."

-- American Airlines recruiting poster, circa 1961

Faith and Rachel weren't just serving caffeine -- they were mixing an explosive cultural cocktail. Call it "The Sexy Skies". Made of airplanes, advertising, and affluence, this sky-highball was first shaken-not-stirred in 1965, two years before the publication of Coffee,Tea, or Me? The key ingredient was a sassy new uniform for stewardesses.

The instigator for uniform change was Mary Wells, and she worked for Jack Tinker & Partners, the advertising agency hired in 1965 by Braniff Airways. It was imagination and pizzazz that earned Wells her fame, and she brought both to the Braniff account. The aim was to enlarge and update Braniff's image, a campaign that coincided with company expansion into new technology and new international routes.

In 1961, when Continental Airlines launched its "Proud Bird with the Golden Tail," it simultaneously put its stewardesses in gold uniforms -- a classy bit of innuendo. Wells went Continental two better. She hired the designer Alexander Girard to redesign Braniff terminals and repaint its planes, and she hired Emilio Pucci, himself a "bomber" (he flew missions in WWII), to design new stewardess uniforms. These designers took Braniff over the rainbow, leaving stately silvers and golds behind for a jewel-toned palette with an Op Art jiggle.

"The End of the Plain Plane," Braniff ads boasted, and could as easily have said "The End of the Plain Jane." Wells made her campaign a play of perceptions, a party game of double meanings. Sex was the message and in an era famous for its subliminal advertising, there was nothing subliminal about Braniff. Girard fitted its famous Love Field terminal with round mirrors on the ceilings, and the gate areas were hung with huge white globe lights -- a bachelor pad in heaven.

Well, "the wish to fly," wrote Freud way back in 1910, "...is a longing to be capable of sexual performance." In Business Week, in 1967, Mary Wells put it bluntly: "When a tired businessman gets on an airplane, we think he ought to be allowed to look at a pretty girl." In her new Pucci uniform, the Braniff stewardess was like no other girl on the concourse.

She was now stewardess-as-jet-setter. In the sixties, a Pucci dress -- like Gucci shoes and an Hermes handbag -- was one of the status symbols among the rich and mobile. These little printed sheaths and A-lines in luxurious silk jersey were fantastic for travel, could roll up into a ball and come out swinging. And they were light as air. Pucci based his uniform on these high-society frequent flyers. He threw out that dread three-piecer of the last 30 years, and built Braniff women a with-it wardrobe of layers, pieces that could be added on or taken off depending on the weather -- a concept that was advertised, to cries of sexism, as the "Braniff Air Strip."

"Marriage is fine! But shouldn't you see the world first?"

-- United Airlines recruiting ad, circa 1967

Construction of the clothes was sixties simple, but with a curious recurring note of architectural interest: there's a round, rolled, slightly stand-away collar that appears throughout the collection. Though it makes room for a Pucci-print scarf, this wide, round collar really seems to be waiting for an astronaut's helmet. And it comes! Pucci's pièce de résistance was a clear, plastic bubble of a helmet, designed, he said, to preserve the women's hairdos. It was the perfect lack of gravity -- Mod meets moon walk. Wells' perception play was working. Braniff stewardesses were soon accepted as the best-looking women in America, leggy birds of paradise in their bright Pucci plumage, feathery exotics who might have picked up their colors on one of Braniff's South American flights (routes exclusive to Braniff).

Eventually they became brides of paradise, with Braniff a kind of breeding ground for the second wives of wealthy men. "Does your wife know you're flying with us?" asked one of Braniff's pointed print ads, yet another innuendo that hit home. Mary Wells herself became a second wife, marrying none other than Braniff president Harding Lawrence in 1967.

"Every [passenger] gets warmth, friendliness and extra care. And someone may get a wife."

-- United Airlines advertisement, late '60s

Braniff was based in Love Field in more ways than one. And "Love Field" is not a bad way to describe the famous patterning of those Pucci prints. Whether it was biomorphic forms in a frenzy of cell division, or jazzy geometrics riffing inside a short-wave, these imploding, oscillating color fields suggested good trips, Op Art orgasms.

Wow, I've accidentally stumbled onto the most amazing collection of paper doll books in the world.

I bought my daughter a Broadway stars paper doll book for her birthday. It was written and illustrated by an artist named Tom Tierney. On a lark, I Googled him to see what other books he may have published.

Holy God Almighty! Tom Tierney is a one-man paper doll publishing machine. He has created HUNDREDS of paper doll books. And from the book that I bought my daughter, these paper doll books are beautiful, and wonderfully made.

Check out some of these titles:

Carmen Miranda
Clark Gable
Favorite African-American Movie Stars
Glamorous Movie Stars of the 1950's
Glamorous Movie Stars of the Eighties
Glamorous Movie Stars of the Eighties
Glamorous Movie Stars of the Seventies
Glamorous Movie Stars of the Thirties
Glamorous Stars of the Forties
Glamorous Stars of the Sixties
Grace Kelly
Great Black Entertainers
Greta Garb
Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy
Joan Crawford
John Wayne
Judy Garland
Marilyn Monroe
Mikado
Rock 'n' Pop Stars of the Sixties
Rudolph Valentino
Sarah Bernhardt
Vivien Leigh

On his Web site, Tom Tierney writes:

In 1975 Tom was casting about for a unique Christmas present for his mother. Remembering that she had saved her paper doll collection from when she was a girl in the early 1900s (Lettie Lane, G.G. Drayton, and assorted movie star paperdolls) he decided to make her some paperdolls of the 1930s movie stars who had been her favorites.

Pleased with the dolls, Garbo, Harlow, and Gable, his mother showed them to a number of friends, one of whom turned out to be a literary agent.

The agent convinced Tom that a book was there and as a result, his first book, "Thirty from the `30s", was born. It was published by Prentice-Hall in 1976.

After "Thirty" had had a successful run it was retired.

In 1978 Dover Publications, Inc. contacted Tom and proposed that he do some paper doll books for them. It has been a happy and continuing relationship.

Although the creation of paper dolls now consumes the major portion of Tom's working time, he still "keeps his hand in" the field of commercial art, doing fashion illustration, movie posters, and other illustration for children's books.

He has also written, in collaboration with Malcolm Vance, a history of film costume design, which is as yet unpublished.

Well, I was all excited about going to Chicago this weekend to check out Millennium Park and to hopefully snap hundreds of photographs (and elude arrest) of "Cloud Gate", the jellybean reflecting structure at the apex of the Park.

Darn, it's covered in a giant tarp. Apparently, it's "under renovation" -- whatever that means. Seriously, how do you renovate a giant reflecting jellybean? Put in some granite counters?

After reading all the Boing Boing posts on Millennium Park, it was a bit disappointing to only see a bunch of skaters and some cheesy music. On the other hand, the Frank Gehry-designed stage looks fantastic! Can't wait to hang out on the grass in the summer.

In keeping with the theme of my musical Plane Crazy, maybe I should do a musical on Playboy magazine next?

Plane Crazy is a fun, upbeat musical about feminism set against the backdrop of glamour and innocent sex appeal of the swinging '60s Jet Age. A time when the stews were sexy and the world was sexist (TM).

Plane Crazy is set during an explosive time in history: The intersection between the dawn of intercontinental jet travel, the introduction of the Pill, the genesis of the modern Feminist Movement, and the Golden Age of Advertising.

While the Playboy club was an important cultural fixture at the time, it's only glancingly included in some of the winking comments that the males in the show make. I could easily do a whole bunny musical...

I have an old mid-sixties copy of Playboy and it's hilarious. The demure sexuality is one thing: Most of the pics would be rejected by Maxim or FHM as "too tame", but the ads are something else. There's one amazing cigar ad where a woman, dressed as a tiger, is actually IN A CAGE. Whew, you really have come a long way, baby!

So now I've run across this archive of Playboy models from 1956 to 1962. Wow, I almost fell out of my chair. Two words for these girls: Jenny + Craig...

ONE DAY AT A TIME, which ran on CBS from 1975-1984, followed Ann Romano, who moved with her two teenage daughters, Julie and Barbara Cooper, back to her hometown of Indianapolis to start fresh after her divorce. The three of them take on life challenges and learn to make it on their own by taking things one day at a time.

I LOVED this show, and saw every episode...it was great to see everyone together again.

From the CBS Web site, featuring tonight's special on One Day At A Time, which I just finished watching:

The ONE DAY AT A TIME REUNION SPECIAL reunites original cast members Bonnie Franklin (Ann Romano,) Valerie Bertinelli (Barbara Cooper,) Mackenzie Phillips (Julie Cooper) and Pat Harrington (Dwayne Schneider) to reminisce about their days together on Norman Lear's popular, long-running comedy about a single, divorced mother raising two teenage daughters. The cast looks back at their days on the series that mirrored what was happening in society in the 1970s. They discuss the serious issues the show addressed--divorce, teen sex, peer pressure and marriage--as well as the fashion and hairstyles worn at the time and how their on-screen struggles often reflected what was happening in their off-screen lives. Pat Harrington also joins them to talk about how his character protected the three women, his outrageous entrances into the Romano apartment and Schneider's secret crush on Ann.

In separate interviews, recurring cast members Richard Masur (David Kane), Shelley Fabares (Francine Webster), Nanette Fabray (Grandma Katherine Romano), Michael Lembeck (Max Horvath) and Glenn Scarpelli (Alex Handris) share their feelings about their time on the show and their characters' relationships with Ann, Barbara and Julie.

I'm not worthy!

Breaking news...Blogway Baby has just been awarded top honors! I have been blogged by the great and powerful Cory Doctorow on the venerable Boing Boing! Thanks Cory, you're the best!

I don't think Blogway Baby is in Kansas anymore!

Oh, and how could I forget:

Diddler on the Roof

(Although I think I might have heard that one before...)

Continuing with my series of flops I wished I'd seen...here's one of the greatest, known for its record number of previews (71 performances) and brevity of run (9 performances). Ouch! I'm talking about Nick & Nora, of course.

Not the stylish pajamas, but the Broadway musical based on The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett (author of The Maltese Falcon, famous for his hardboiled detectives, blacklisted in the '50s)

On the face of it, this should have been an out-of-the-park hit.

It appeared at the Marquis, and Arthur Laurents was the librettist and director, score by Charles Strouse and Richard Maltby, Jr. It starred two of my favorite musical theater stars: Joanna Gleason (Into The Woods) and Barry Bostwick (The Rocky Horror Picture Show) in the title roles of Nora and Nick Charles. Of course, Mandy Patinkin couldn't save Wild Party, so maybe that's not saying much.

And before we go too much further, let me state that I am a HUGE a fan of Nick and Nora Charles. I was introduced to Nick & Nora in The Thin Man movie series of the 1930s and 1940s, starring Myrna Loy and William Powell.

I just loved the relationship between Nick & Nora in those movies. They lived a lavish lifestyle, wandering the country solving crimes, drinking like fish, and generally sarcastically bantering with each other. However, their sarcasm contained very real affection. And although it was only hinted at, they gave the impression that they had a really fantastic sex life.

So what happened with the musical?

Laurents himself describes it as "...the biggest flop of my career..." and most critics agreed...it just didn't work. The greatest failure? No chemistry between Nick & Nora, which in a show about a couple called Nick & Nora, is a really, really big problem.

However, the original cast recording is available on Amazon, and it's worth a listen. Perhaps it will get a loving rewrite and restaging in about 10 years and return triumphant...

I saw The Producers with my children yesterday at the beautiful Auditorium Theatre in downtown Chicago.

Wow, what a great production! It really highlights the problems with the Toronto show, which suffered from very weak leads in the roles of Max Bialystock (Sean Cullen) and Leo Bloom (Michael Therriault). What were the Mirvishes thinking?

This touring company BLEW AWAY the Toronto production.

Bob Amaral (Max Bialystock), Andy Taylor (Leo Bloom), and Ida Leigh Curtis (Ulla) all brought sparkling energy and real polish to their roles. Ida was especially strong as the curvaceous Ulla (wow, what a rack)...sexy, but not perfect. I think that to play Ulla properly, Ulla has to act like she's better looking than she really is...lots of the right parts, but not Barbie perfect. It's what creates the essential vulnerability of the role.

The cast seemed like they were really having fun, and they fed off good energy from the audience. The set pieces seemed almost identical to the Toronto sit-down, which surprised me since this show only ran in Chicago from February 2 to 20.

As a side note, the Auditorium Theatre is spectacular. I don't think I've ever been in such a beautiful theatre. It would be a perfect venue for Plane Crazy...

Let me start off by saying that I am not a fan of pr0n. Hey, I love a good roll in the hay at least as much or probably more than the average farm girl, but I don't like watching other people do it. But, as befits my libertarian politics: Pr0n is fine for some, it is not for me, but do want you want.

However, I do love a good pun. And a lot of pr0n titles are hilarious puns.

In fact, there's a popular parlor game where you take the titles of famous movies and make them into pr0n titles. For example: Driving Miss Daisy becomes Doing Miss Daisy. You get the idea. Here are a few of my favorites:

On Golden Blonde
Good Will Humping
Apollo 69
Terms of Enrearment
Little Orphan Anal
When Harry Did Sally
James Blonde: The Man With the Golden Rod
The Slutty Professor
Harry Poontang and the Sorcerer's Bone
I Know Who You Did Last Summer
Forrest Hump
Jurassic Pork
Romancing the Bone
Sex Toy Story
Rambone
The Bare Wench Project
Snatch Adams
The XXX Files

These are real titles. So, here's my question: How come there aren't any musical take-offs in the pr0n world? Has musical theater become such a backwater niche that not even the PORNOGRAPHERS are interested in it? Wow, talk about falling out of the mainstream of popular culture...this is ridiculous!

So, in the interests of bringing musical theater back into the imagination of popular culture, here are some humble suggestions for pr0n musical theater adaptations:

Beauty and the Bestiality
There's No Business Like 'Ho Business
Annie Get Your Come
Eat-her Parade
The Seducers
Wicked [sic]
Little Shop of Whores
Les Jiz
Twice Upon A Mattress
Good Vibrators
My Special Pal Joey

...and my personal favorite:

An American in Paris Hilton

Any additions?

Yahoo! has a fantastic movie musical link database. I'm going to put it into our permanent links section.

It has comprehensive link listings for a huge number of movie musical stars. I found myself taking an interesting cruise through the Cyd Charisse links, which is someone I should talk about more. Best legs in the business, bar none.

Well, Dietrich had nice legs too, but she couldn't move like Cyd.

Nancy Ford is the other half of the Gretchen/Ford writing team that wrote the American Girl musical Circle of Friends.

Nancy has done the music for Now Is The Time For All Good Men, I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road, Shelter, The Game Of Love, and Circle of Friends: An American Girl Musical.

She's somewhat elusive online...even her Internet Broadway Database entry is extremely sketchy, although it does note that she's married to performer Keith Charles.

OK, so now I'm officially fascinated by the writers of the American Girl musical Circle of Friends. Who are these two women, and how did they get this AG gig? And hey: They're 70!

Alright...what a great testament to the longevity of musical theater careers...and something for me to look forward to in 30 years...

From the Composer's and Lyricists database:

Gretchen Cryer
b. October 17, 1935, Dunreith, IN
Writer, actress, lyricist.

Cryer is not always happy to be called a 'feminist' lyricist. She is the words half of Broadway's only dual female composer-lyricist team, Cryer and Ford. She is best known for her off-Broadway musical libretto and lyrics for the show 'I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road'. This daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E.W. Kiger, Jr. (of Dunreith, IN) graduated from Spiceland High School and then DePauw University. Cryer, at age 18, met Nancy Ford when they were both attending DePauw University. Nancy was a music major, and Gretchen was also taking a few music courses while studying English as her major. Collaborating with Nancy Ford who wrote the music, Gretchen wrote the book and lyrics for a number of successful plays based on Gretchen's experiences growing up in Henry County, IN. Perhaps the most personal of her work is, "I'm Getting My Act Together And Taking It On The Road." And, among the other plays that Gretchen wrote with Ms. Ford are, "Now Is The Time For All Good Men," "The Last Sweet Days of Isaac" and "Shelter." While continuing her studies as a graduate student at Harvard University, Gretchen and Nancy Ford wrote a show 'For Reasons of Loyalty', that was produced by Boston Univ.

Cryer had been 'keeping company' with a student named David Cryer, and when he graduated, the two got married (in Indiana), after which David enrolled in Yale University's Berkeley Divinity School. Nancy Ford also married a man who was attending the Divinity School and so the two ladies went to live with their husbands in the Yale married students dormitory, and both got day jobs as secretarys. Cryer, from age 18, had performed as a chorus girl in summer stock musical shows, but never took any formal courses in playwriting. Gretchen's family had told her that she had two distant cousins, David Niven, and Cornelia Otis Skinner.

In 1967, the team mounted a musical 'Now Is the Time For All Good Men', on the New York Stage. It was produced by Cryer's husband and David Poland (no one else wanted the property). The show was about Cryer's Pacifist brother, and was panned by the critics.

In 1970, their off-Broadway show 'The Last Sweet Days of Isaac' was a big success. It won an Obie; Drama Desk; and Outer Circle Awards, and was hailed by the critics. Nancy Ford's music for the play has been described as 'Baroque Rock'.

In 1973, their first Broadway show, 'Shelter' had no great success despite some pleasant critical reviews. The show's main character was a computer that wrote commercials.

Gretchen was working as a chorus girl in Broadway musicals, helping to support the family. But, her feeling that she was not taking responsibility for her own life finally ended the marriage. In 1968, Cryer was divorced from husband David. David has given up the ministry for the theater. Her son Jon Cryer has appeared in many films and TV shows. Daughter Robin has appeared with her mother in Cabaret shows and youngest daughter Shelley works in theatre make-up.

Nancy and Gretchen had been continuing to write songs and singing them in cabarets. In 1978, her next show was 'I'm Getting My Act Together'; it contained much autobiographical material. Cryer sang and acted in her own play, with material relating to her own life. Despite being panned by the New York critics, the show eventually gained an audience, and producer Joe Papp moved it from the Public Theater to Circle On The Square Theater on Broadway, where it enjoyed a three year run.

When last heard of, Cryer was working on a show of Eleanor Roosevelt's life. It was to be mounted on a San Diego stage.

Blogway Baby is in Chicago this weekend, and we're going to The Producers closing night Sunday. More on that tomorrow.

In the meantime, I took my daughters to the American Girl Place store today. For those of you not in the know, American Girl, also affectionately known as "Bank of American Girl", is one of the most impressive marketing machines ever assembled in the history of dolldom.

The history of American Girl is a wonderful story of entrepreneurship. According to the Web site:

American Girl was established as Pleasant Company in 1985 by founder Pleasant T. Rowland, a former educator and publisher of educational materials. She created the American Girl brand as a way to educate and entertain girls with quality books, dolls, and toys that integrate learning and play experiences while emphasizing important traditional values. Since that time, American Girl has become one of the nation's most respected brands and has earned the loyal following of millions of girls and the praise and trust of parents and educators.

Mattel, Inc., the world's leading toy maker, acquired the American Girl business in 1998. The company continues to operate as an independent subsidiary out of its main headquarters in Middleton, Wisconsin.

At American Girl Place, they have their own restaurant (where you can have tea with your doll), a photo studio (where you can address and get your photo taken with your doll), a doll salon (where you can get your doll's hair done up), and a live musical theater show called Circle of Friends.

Circle of Friends was written by Gretchen Cryer (Book and Lyrics) and Nancy Ford (Music), who are frequent collaborators who wrote the landmark feminist musical I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road.

My kids liked the show. Y'know, it wasn't bad...the dialogue pieces out of the gate were weak, and the show gets off to a slow start. However, the numbers with the classic 'American Girls' are fun, and the show really picked up with Addy's number, which the young actress who played Addy sang the crap out of...

My girls were particularly interested in the story, which was about friendship and jealousy. They were able to easily identify with the problems the show was illustrating, and I think that a gentle lesson was easily imparted.

And all the music was live...no tracks. The band consisted of two keyboards and a flutist, which was different.

It's been a couple of crazy weeks here at Blogway Baby, but with good reason. My husband and I have been going through the U.S. Green Card immigration process, which we originally started 17 years ago. Yep, that's 17 years...

We officially "immigrated" on Friday, so now we're American permanent residents. We'll be going back and forth for a while, but now I've got the ability to work and live without restriction in the U.S. of A.

For a musical theater writer, this is very important, since, sadly, most of the action in musical theater is here in the U.S. Happily, the center of the Broadway universe is New York, so I'll still be close to home, and living in the GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD. Except for the rats and cockroaches of course...

Yesterday in Playbill it was announced that Ben Vereen was taking over the role of the Wizard in Wicked. Currently George Hearn plays the role, and he took it over from Joel Grey (who replaced Robert Morse in the west coast run. I'm still trying to dig up the truth about why he was turfed. Did he keep insisting on singing "I Believe In You" to Elphaba?).

Now I have a compelling reason to see Wicked in New York again. With Kirsten and Idina leaving and all, and the choppy book, and loving the CD on its own so much, I was finding it hard to work up the enthusiasm to go to see the show again.

But Ben Vereen! Ever since I saw All That Jazz I was a complete Ben fan. Oh, and isn't that him dancing in the Sweet Charity movie too? He is on my list of people I want to see perform live before I die. I've made good progress (Bette Midler, check, Liza Minelli, check, Julie Andrews, check, Patti Lupone, check, Mandy Patinkin, check, Ann Reinking, check, Bernadette Peters, check., Tim Curry, check, Carol Burnett, check, Chita Rivera, check, Joel Grey, check, Barbra Streisand...rats!) but still haven't checked off Mr. Vereen.

I almost gave up hope when Canada's own David Foster ran Ben down with his car in Malibu...

And finally a reason to watch the Grammy's, as Wicked picked up the award for best musical show album...take that Avenue Q!

More Magic to Do: Pippin Tony Winner Ben Vereen to Be Wicked's Next Wizard, May 31

By Ernio Hernandez and Andrew Gans
14 Feb 2005

Pippin Tony Award winner Ben Vereen is returning to Broadway in another Stephen Schwartz musical. He'll play the Wizard in Wicked, starting May 31, a production spokesperson confirmed.

The actor will take over the role originated on Broadway by Cabaret's Joel Grey and currently played by George Hearn, a two-time Tony Award winner for his work in Sunset Boulevard and La Cage aux Folles.

A star of stage and screen, Ben Vereen made his Broadway debut as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, earning a Tony Award nomination for his performance. He nabbed the Tony for his work in Bob Fosse's production of Stephen Schwartz's Pippin (singing "Magic to Do") and has also starred on Broadway in Grind, Jelly's Last Jam, and Fosse. The recent revival of I'm Not Rappaport marked Vereen's non-musical Broadway debut. Vereen was nominated for Emmy Awards for his performances in Roots, Intruders, and 1976's The Bell Telephone Jubilee. He also received Golden Globe nominations for his work in Funny Lady and Ellis Island.

With a score by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman, Wicked began
previews on Broadway Oct. 8, 2003, with an official opening Oct. 30, 2003. The musical just earned the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album for the popular Decca Broadway original cast recording.

So, The Producers movie is going into production in Brooklyn with a cast of some of the original Broadway players...and some not. In Recording The
Producers: A Musical Romp With Mel Brooks cast album DVD, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick joke about if the musical was ever made into a movie, they would be replaced by Danny DeVito and Ben Stiller.

Well, Nathan and Mathew made the final cut (yeah!) and so did Roger Bart and Gary Beach. But Frans Leibkind will be played not by Brad Oscar, but by Will Ferrell.

Hmmm. I'm torn. Love the Ferrell, but can he sing well enough?

Too goofy? And Ula is to be played not by ice queen Nicole Kidman but by ice queen Uma Thurman. Uma playing Ula? Sounds like a bad Letterman Academy Award joke. Cady Huffman did such an amazing job (didn't she win a Tony or something??) and has such a great voice, and played it with a great sweet, bubbly sexy-innocence I can't imagine why they are going with a Hollywood stick figure. As you can guess I've never been a big Uma fan, even back in the Baron M. days.

This rant was inspired by the casting of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.

So we had our final Sing and Tell...sniff...sniff...

And what a crowd. The first session I attended there were eight people. This time around twenty five! And there was pizza and wine! We listened to everyone's songs and then we spent some time talking about next steps for ScriptLab and Canadian musical theater.

Leslie Arden played the song "You" from Moll, and "If I Were A Man" from her musical based on Much Ado About Nothing, set in 1945. The latter has just been picked up to be produced in Chicago! Congrats Leslie! Joey Miller played a CD of a song from his new musical Carnival (a Brazillian take on Oliver!) to be workshopped with Kelly Robinson at Mirvish Productions. Very peppy indeed!

And I did "Turbulence" from Plane Crazy.

Lots and lots of excellent work, incredibly diverse in style. But I'd have to say the highlight of the evening was Michael Rubinoff, there as a producer, who did "Brand New Me" from David Warrack's first revue Oops!. He had gone to the library and listened to the LP recording (what's an LP?) of the show over and over again to copy down the lyrics. Then he got David to dig up the lead sheet from his basement stash. Very funny song.

Interesting gripe from Leslie about Canstage. Turns out when you do a workshop there, they sit on the rights for two years. It would be okay if they actively worked it and pushed it, but they just sit on it like they are hatching an egg! No wonder she's excited about working in Chicago again!

I'm looking forward to hearing what ScriptLab is going to do!

OK, here starts a regular feature, which is a rundown of maligned, dead musicals that I wish I'd seen.

Today, we'll talk about Carrie, which as far as I can tell, everyone on Broadway was in...

Seriously, I wish I had a nickel for every bio in Playbill that included a credit for Carrie...

There is a great "unofficial" Carrie Web site which carries [sic] this review from 1988:

"This was one big expensive turkey musical with Betty Buckley based on the Stephen King horror story. Here are some of the blurbs from News critic Howard Kissel's review:

"Halfway through Carrie, I suddenly wished I could take back some of the nasty things I said a few weeks ago about Chess, because Carrie is so disgusting it makes Chess look adorable."

(About the female chorus he zings...) "The girls don't look like teenagers at all. Their bodies don't have the bloom of youth. They're either too angular or too fleshy. Their faces are hard and haggard, like they've just come off a bus-and-truck tour playing the hookers in Sweet Charity."

(Of the score...) "You already know the title song. Just sing "Call Me" with the word Carrie, and make the A flat as flat as possible, and you've got it.....for me the high point of the lyrics was rhyming "attitude" with "I've been screwed."

(Of the cast...) "For most of the cast, the goal seems to have been to make the characters obnoxious and everyone has succeeded mightily. The exception is the engaging Darlene Love as the gym teacher."

I couldn't possibly add anything to Howard's dead-on review. It's one of my favorites ever written. Now, the funny part is that I saw Carrie and I sort of liked it in an offbeat sort of way. Have you ever heard the expression, It was so bad it was good!

For excellent reading, I recommend the book Not since Carrie by Ken Mandelbaum, however it is hard to get because it is out of print, which is truly dumb, because this book belongs in every Broadway lover library. Go to Borders, or Barnes and Noble and they can do a database search and locate a copy in one of their stores throughout the land. Incidentally, Carrie was done in 1988 and Howard Kissel still gives the world his witty reviews in the New York Daily News."

When I was at the Scriptlab Sing and Tell on Monday, David Warrack played a song from his new musical "Catwalk". No it's not a jukebox musical of Stray Cats songs, but a new book musical about supermodels! What a great idea! He described it as a dance musical and is working with Donna Fiore, who will be director/ choreographer. (She also happens to be Colm Fiore's wife).

Hopefully it will be opening in Toronto on the same night as the opening of Fashion Week in the fall. What a great marketing tie-in. Hmmm.... Tut Tut opens with the Tut Exhibit, and Catwalk opens with Fashion Week. Maybe David is on to something.

Also, I'm sure David will be extremely involved with the casting and approving the costumes...

Gosh, one of my favorites is back performing live in NYC...Betty Buckley at the Cafe Carlyle...wouldn't that be fun! The last time I saw Betty Buckley, she was walking in EPCOT Center in Disneyworld (one of my many secret talents is that ability to speot any celebrity face, no matter how disguised, anytime, anywhere. My other secret talents I'll leave to your imagination...)

"Tony Award winner Betty Buckley has titled her upcoming cabaret engagement at the Café Carlyle A Time for Love.

Buckley, who now resides in Texas where she shows prize-winning cutting horses, will return to New York's famed cabaret March 1-April 9. Her new collection of songs will feature works by Henry Mancini, Johnny Mercer and Johnny Mandel as well as tunes by contemporary songwriters James Taylor, Randy Newman, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tom Waits, Julie Gold and Sarah McLachlan.

Concertgoers can expect Buckley to offer her interpretations of "Dreamsville," "Day In Day Out," "On the Fourth of July," "I Think It's Going to Rain Today," "Where Time Stands Still," "New Coat of Paint," "Good Night New York," "Angel" and "A Time for Love." The award-winning actress will be backed by musical director Kenny Werner on piano, Tony Marino on bass and Jamey Haddad on percussion.

Betty Buckley offered acclaimed performances in Sunset Boulevard, Carrie, Song & Dance, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 1776 and Promises, Promises. She won a Tony Award for her performance as Grizabella in the Broadway production of Cats, and she starred on the London stage in Promises, Promises and Sunset Boulevard, earning an Olivier Award nomination for her work in the latter. Also a TV ("Eight Is Enough") and film (Tender Mercies) star, the actress-singer devotes much of her time to concert appearances around the world. Her solo CD, "Stars and the Moon: Betty Buckley Live at the Donmar Warehouse," was nominated for a Grammy Award, and her newest recording, "The Doorway," is her first for the Fynsworth Alley label. The actress was also seen on the final season of the acclaimed HBO series "Oz," the detective drama "Monk" as well as the Lincoln Center revue, Elegies: A Song Cycle.

Show times are Tuesday-Saturday evenings at 8:45 PM with late shows on Fridays and Saturdays at 10:45 PM. Cover charges range from $60-$70; there is no minimum. The Cafe Carlyle is located within the Carlyle Hotel at Madison Avenue and 76th Street. Call (212) 744-1600 for reservations; visit www.thecarlyle.com for more information."

From the "I told you so" department. How about that...Good Vibrations is having problems... well, gosh, it's not like I might have posted something along those lines already. Isn't Blogway Baby great? It shows the wisdom of Suzy Conn, over and over again ;-) All bow to the power of Blogway Baby...

"Good Vibrations, the new Beach Boys musical at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, ends a fraught and lengthy preview period on Feb. 2, when the John Carrafa-directed production officially opens.

The new show, which arrives on Broadway without the luxury of an out-of-town tryout, offered its first performance back on Dec. 20. It was to have premiered on Jan. 27 (and indeed, the opening night party remained on that date), but the unveiling was pushed back to Feb. 2 while the creative team honed their work.

In early January, experienced New York director David Warren was brought in to assist in the staging. Warren reportedly began work at the O'Neill on Jan. 6. John Carrafa, however, remains the official director and choreographer on the project.

Good Vibrations uses more than 30 songs written by Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys -- some heard in their entirety, some in snippets. The plot is not a biographical tale of the blond-mopped California band that celebrated cars, girls and surfing in the 1960s. Instead, it follows a group of high school pals desperate to escape their one-factory, New England town and drive to California."

I don't want to say I told you so, but omigosh, I TOLD YOU SO...

"NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) -- The burgeoning genre of Broadway shows trafficking in vintage pop musical catalogs has probably already reached its nadir with this misbegotten show featuring the classic songs of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.

The far too inaccurately titled "Good Vibrations," featuring about three dozen of those great songs, is clearly trying to tap into the baby boomer nostalgia that has made hits out of such disparate shows as "Movin' Out" and "Mamma Mia." But this effort, about which bad rumors began brewing almost immediately, is likely to last as long as a single wave.

The book by Richard Dresser, a not untalented playwright with some decent off-Broadway plays to his credit ("Below the Belt," "Rounding Third"), is not a history of the legendarily troubled band. Rather, it tells an insipid story about a group of restless teens who travel from their drab East Coast town in search of the fun, sun and beautiful blondes of Southern California. Normally, more plot information would be provided here, but the coma that set in almost immediately after the opening number prevents memory of further details.

The show attempts to shoehorn in as many musical numbers as possible into its two-hour running time, and indeed hearing such wonderful songs as "The Warmth of the Sun," "California Girls," "Surfer Girl," "Sloop John B" and "God Only Knows" does have its nostalgic pleasures. But the insipid dialogue and cartoonish characterizations, which makes even "Mamma Mia" and "We Will Rock You" look like Shakespeare, gives the production the feel of a subpar sitcom. Choreographer John Carrafa, making his directorial debut, is clearly in over his hand, failing to infuse any of the musical numbers with any remote degree of originality or creativity."

Apparently Richard Greenblatt (he wrote Two Piano Four Hands with Ted Dykstra) is developing a musical/revue about Tom Lehrer. (Thanks Norm!)

It has been referred to as The Tom Lehrer Project (sort of like the Alan Parsons Project?) and Letters From Lehrer. From what I've heard it is supposed to be quite different from TomFoolery, the already existing Tom Lehrer piece. It has been recently workshopped at CanStage (which can be a blessing and a curse, or so I've been told...).

Who's Next? Be Prepared!

I attended the third ScriptLab Sing and Tell at Gerald Isaac's (Zazu in The Lion King) studio last night, and once again, had a great time. There were some new faces (new to me at least!) and some repeat attendees (like moi).

Patrick Rose was there, who wrote Jubalay (later renamed A Bistro Car on the CNR for an off-Broadway run in 1978 starring Tom Wopat -- yes, that Tom Wopat from Dukes of Hazzard and many Broadway musicals including Annie Get Your Gun with Bernadette Peters). Sadly he said he hadn't written any musical theater in over 20 years, concentrating more on the jingle business (read:mortgage/wife/kids). But now that the kids and mortgage were gone, (wife still around!), he was going to get back into it!

Gerald Isaac and David Warrack played a great song from David's musical Tut Tut, done in 1979 in conjunction with the big Tut exhibit (remember lining up for that?). It was a great number, when Tut takes his first chariot ride. It was Ben Hur on 88 keys! Gerald was amazing. He and David hadn't done that number in over 20 years (Gerald had played Tut) and it was flawless! But tsk tsk -- the show hasn't been done since then. Shame on us! David told us a funny story about how the house was packed and how the audience loved the First Act. Then when intermission came everyone started to leave, so David rushed down to tell the audience to stay 'cuz there was a whole Second Act.

The group said they really enjoyed it but had to leave to make their Tut exhibit timing (you've heard of dinner/theater, I guess this was theater/museum). So the Second Act never got performed!

I performed "Simpler Times" from Plane Crazy and had a blast. I'm so sad there is only one more of these meetings left...tsk,tsk.