skynyc

A dear-departed pal was Tulsa on Broadway under her...she left to tour and he stayed to work with Betty Grable and subsequently Ginger Rogers.

"Ethel was professional, Ginger was pleasant, but Betty was an absolute sweetheart." 

On 6/10/2024 at 7:26 PM, WilliamM said:

 May be the only member here who saw Merman from the first row. My ears have never been the same   August 1060

Love this and so jealous. I once asked a theater-loving friend who'd seen thousands of shows since the late-forties, if he could go back and see one show, what would it be? He replied..."Anything with Ethel Merman". 

I'm not a huge fan of the Tonys whose Board of Directors seems to want to keep them in the 1970s, but will watch this year because there are some really interesting races. I won't say that there will be upsets, because I think there are several categories, where there are several folks getting a lot of buzz. 

I do think Merrily has a lock on Best Musical Revival, Actor, Featured Actor, Featured Actress, Director, and Orchestration. 

And I think Stereophonic will win Best Play, Director, Sound...but with most of the cast competing against each other in the acting categories, I suspect they'll cancel each other out. (Hey, Tony committee: Where's an award for ENSEMBLE?) 

But many of the other categories? 

Best Actor/Play...both Jeremy Strong and Leslie Odom, Jr, getting buzz...Purlie is closed, but it was great, and Enemy of the People is the one nominated show I have not seen, so I cannot "vote".  

Best Actress/Play...Jessica Lange, Rachel McAdams, and Sara Paulson, all deserving. (Jessica and Sarah both won the Drama Desk, over the men! DD is now not separating Actor/Actress and just doubling number of nominees in each category and naming two winners. This year 8 of the 9 acting awards went to women.) 

Best Actress/Musical...Malea Joi Moon, Kelli O'Hara, and Marianne Plunkett. I know several Tony voters and their votes are spread. Malea is so young...Kelli's show has closed...Marianne barely sings...but they're all giving amazing performances. 

Best Featured Actress/Play...if anyone from Stereophonic was going to break through it might be Sarah Pidgeon here, but this is Kara Young's third consecutive nomination. Is it her year? 

The design awards are tough to call. Committee determines whether projections are Scenic Design or Lighting Design depending on the show...why not make that a separate category? My favorite Scenic Design (including projections) was Great Gatsby which wasn't nominated. 

Best Revival/Play...both Appropriate and Purlie have ardent fans. Purlie has a LOT more producers, and if they all have votes....

Best Musical...this is where it could be REALLY interesting...most often, there's one show that gets Best Musical, Book, Score, Choreography, and Direction. This year Direction will most certainly go to Maria Friedman for Merrily Revival. But I suspect this year, the winners of the other categories will NOT be the same. It will be interesting to see. 

I'll be watching with friends...and I have definite favorites. 

I was impressed by every aspect of the show. Performances, vocals, projections, production value...but was completely unmoved by any of it. Not sorry to have seen...we had good seats, (and no one directly in front of us); I just didn't connect with it at all. I would recommend to Who fans, but there's a lot on the boards now, and I'd see it fairly quick. It only got one Tony nomination, (Best Revival/Musical) and that is one of the few catagories this year that is a total lock: Merrily. 

Off this topic, but I love Porchlight...travel to Chciago a couple times a year to see their stuff. And E Faye Butler is directing a production of Ain't Misbehavin' this Summer at the Drury Lane...may have to go back (and catch pre-Broadway Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.) 

Mama Rose is one of those roles I've "collected" for 40 years. I'll travel to see someone interesting's take on the role. So sorry to not have seen Angela Lansbury do it...(ever my favorite.) There hasn't been one that I wasn't intrigued by...(but if you've been reading my posts here, I'm a pretty easy audience.). I have enjoyed all the recent Broadway divas, and usually their standbys as well...) A couple real notables: Joanne Worley at in Pittsburgh, (I think) with Lenny Wolpe as her Herbie...and I just saw him in Drood at Goodspeed. Beth Leavel at MUNY (her husband Adam Heller was her Herbie.) Karen Mason and Sally Mayes.  And I've seen two Black Roses: Leslie Uggams and E Faye Butler in Chicago.  
I will see Audra, but haven't decided whether to sell a kidney or rob a Brinks truck to get there. 

Don't get me wrong, I love a "hot" musical, and see a lot of them as well. (I'm lucky to live 20 blocks from the theater district.) But I like to recommend things that I love that seem to be under the radar.

I've seen a lot of good plays this year.

I loved Mother Play and Stereophonic (I think Tony winner.)  I thought Appropriate was great.  Went back to Purlie twice. 

Awed by Mary Jane. 

Jaja's African Hair Braiding and The Shark is Broken were both very entertaining. 

Laughed at Oh, Mary and Ibsen's Ghost. 

Primary Trust and Swing State both impressed and Philadelphia, Here I Come broke my heart. 

But All of Me which I saw last night at the Signature Pershing Theater Center was one of my favorite evenings of theater in a long time. Two disabled people meet, and communicate via text-to-speech technology. It wasn't on my radar at all until heartily recommended by a friend who is a much harsher critic than I.  

Now I am passing along a hearty recommendation. It's a very contemporary look at class, dating, parenting, and disability. 

I don't want to give too much away, but my fears of stereotypical characters and heavy dramatics were not realized. I was so impressed by the performances of the entire cast. (I only knew Madison Ferris from when she played the wheelchair-bound Laura in The Glass Menagerie with Sally Field (a production which I did NOT enjoy) and Kyra Sedgwick who has been on TV forever.) The production is tight and design fully depicts the differences of the two households. 

I bought my ticket for $37 on TDF three hours before the curtain, and we had amazing seats. Clearly not enough people are hearing about this play...(granted, because there's a LOT of good stuff on stage in NYC right now.) So I am bringing it to your attention. 

I went to a one-night reading of Mame with Charles Busch as Mame and Marion Seldes as Vera some years ago. It was a benefit for the Actor's Fund. It was quite a fun evening...the two of them left no carpet unchewed. 

One of the big problems...they would have to tweak the characterization of Mame's butler Ito. But they're rewriting many of the classics now to address issues that just won't fly with a contemporary audience...and many times they're real improvements. 

Honestly...I'd love to see Sutton Foster do it. At 49, she's older than Angela Lansbury was when she created it. 

I saw this last night, and there are some great things about it. It's very faithful to the book. (Didn't see the movie.) The score is stronger in the first act...but pretty deadly for a chunk of the second act. None of the ballads are very good. Jakob (Grant Gustin - TV's The Flash) has a song about stars that comes near the end of Act 1, that is too long and his singing is fine for the bigger numbers, but I don't think he was able to pull off the ballad, or the love duet in the second act. (However, he is pretty spectacular to look at.) Marlena (Isabelle MacCalla) has a ballad in the second act, which felt endless. The score is by "Pigpen Theatre Co." which according to the program consists of 7 fellows who have written and performed some off-Broadway and regional works. This collective didn't to my mind provide enough of a connective spirit for the score, but some of the bigger numbers were very strong, and there's some stunning choral arrangements for the cast. The ensemble is strong. Paul Alexander Nolan is truly a menacing villain, August. He is dangerous and mercurial, and not entirely two-dimensional, (...which he is in the book.) The show is pretty impressive viewing...there are some good circus acts, one in particular: a wounded horse imagining his younger days. The second act is muddled, and could be trimmed quite a lot...my companion didn't follow what happened in the big climax. (And there must have been some incident at the end of Act 1, because the intermission was longer than 25 minutes with a lot of folks running up and down the side aisle to the stage access door.) 
Part Lion King, part recent circus-themed revival of Pippin, part The Notebook (the reminiscent framing device seems to be very popular now), it's an engaging, if predictable story. It was worth the terrific discounted $100 seats we had, but I am glad we didn't pay more. 

This Encores production of the homage to the music of Jelly Roll Morton is pretty spectacular. The cast is superb, and I could write a sonnet to each. LOL. Nicholas Christopher is terrific as Jelly...so hard to tread that line of the anti-hero...mistreating everyone around him, and still make him likable. (Especially after Gregory Hines' Tony winning original which is still pretty iconic in my head.) Billy Porter is the best I've seen him lately as the Chimney Man. Leslie Uggams at age 80 is in great voice and looks like a million bucks. Joaquina Kalukangu sings the hell out of Anita. Like in Paradise Square two years ago, she holds her long notes that folks just don't wait for her to stop to start applauding. (which I hate, by the way.) And the highlight for me was the three original Hunnies: Allison Williams, Mamie Duncan Gibbs, and Stephanie Pope.
And the dancing is the best on Broadway this season...(and it's not on Broadway.) The tapping is spectacular. 
I don't know how they managed to put this together in their short rehearsal time, but I recommend it highly. 

A long fave of mine in film...now in NYC. Has anyone had personal experience? 

Annie was also my first show...came to NY to visit older sister and somehow our dad finagled amazing tickets. Dorothy Louden had just won the Tony...and I was the same age as Andrea, but what I remember most clearly about that night is the scenery...the way things flew and two treadmills...and Laurie Beechman standing center stage singing NYC (while the treadmills moved frozen cast members in New York poses behind her.) That voice, and that anthem to the city. I fell in love with both. Was fortunate to see her in Joseph and Cats before her too-early passing.  Saw several musicals after that, but my first Play was Amadeus, after my first year of college, again while visiting sis. And it was amazing to me see Frank-N-Furter on stage. LOL. 

I've heard buzz that Hell's Kitchen is being slated to go into the Shubert Theater, where Some Like It Hot is closing on 12/30. Didn't move fast enough to get a ticket at the Public, where the Newman, at about 300 seats would be the place to see it. Hamilton there was pretty extraordinary...everyone knew it was something special. 

(And yes, I'm going to closing performance of SLIH. LOL) 

Curious if your "yawns" are for this set of revivals, or revivals in general. This year's options are classic and contemporary, and the casts - and known material - are drawing audiences...which is good for NY. 

Are there any revivals you'd particularly like to see? I've been chomping at the bit for City of Angels to come back...with modern technology, the Color vs. B/W could be pretty impressive. 

Yes, he told me he'd probably be back in NY this November, but didn't know if he'd be escorting. Last time I saw him, I asked him if there was a video he could share to tide me over, and he laughed and said he used to have an Only Fans page... sorry to have missed that. 

22 hours ago, RexB said:

Does anybody have any photos of this sensational Jason Markus? I'd like to see what I missed out on.

I will look for his Honcho spread...I also have a lousy VCR tape of him on the Robin Byrd show somewhere. He told me he was the guy who showed the other guys about tying up their dicks so they'd stay hard on camera. It's astonishing to realize how long ago this was....LOL 

23 hours ago, thejsmith71 said:

There are a bunch of guys I enjoyed meeting in the 2000s-2010s that I would hire again today if they came out of retirement:

• Mac Di Pietro
• Jason Markus
• Steve Roberts
• Paul Escort Dad aka DadNine
• "Travis" - Australian who lived in NYC for awhile
• "Dan" - Man To Man Escorts based in LA
• MackSF (met him but I got cold feet)

(If any of these fellas are reading this, DM me!)

We clearly have the same type. Other then "Dan" I had a great time with these guys too. Jason lived down the street from me for awhile. That was fun! 

Oh, the days of hiring from the back of Next Magazine, or in LA, Frontiers. I met up a couple times with a beautiful blonde surfer boy name Tod Canon in LA. So sweet and sexy. He was a couple years older than I, and not my usual type, smooth and blonde. But he had a gorgeous thick piece that he really knew how to use. And his bedroom talk was incredible. I wanted to date him so badly. I think in a scrapbook somewhere I have the Frontiers ad. 

On 9/13/2023 at 7:31 AM, muslnicknj said:

One of the most handsome guys I ever hired was former Colt model Joey Corsia in the mid 90’s. I remember buying his Colt photo pack and then shortly after seeing him dance and strip at Feathers, a club in northern NJ. Fast forward a few weeks and there was an ad in the advocate for a Colt model available in northern NJ. I spoke to his “handler” and discovered it was Joey! I hired him a couple of times and had a great time even though he identified as straight (his ass was delicious). I tried to find a pic of him on Google but he must’ve had all evidence of his past porn life removed from the internet.  

I remember Joey well...he danced at Splash fairly often. On several occasions he had a little too much to drink and didn't want to drive home, so he came to my place. Crashed on my couch, and once in my bed. Sadly nothing ever happened...he was very straight, and "didn't want to fuck up our friendship". 

Love this...who was Seymour opposite Ellen? I saw Hunter and Jake, and Jeremy when he did it a year ago...also Groff, Conrad Ricamora, and Skylar Astin...and yes, I probably go see Corbin Bleu. It's a great production of a terrific show. 

Jason Markus was a regular for years...third Thursday of the month. LOL Sadly, I have no pics to share. Lately, I did have great time with Cutlerx...need to practice more. 

I mostly concur. I thought that there were moments that were really funny, but for the most part, it was just schtick. There was a scene with the narrator (I saw Neil Patrick Harris) interacting with a kid in the audience during one of the "This is not funny" moments. And it wasn't...although the audience was beside themselves. When the one performer stepped onto the table, and was knocked out and hung there upside-down until the end of the act, I really laughed, because I didn't see it coming, but too much of it was too obvious. I did LOVE the fact that they brought the stage crew out for the curtain call, because those folks were REALLY busting their asses. I have a true fondness for Peter Pan, it was my third broadway show with Sandy Duncan, so I am glad to have seen it, but it should have been in one act. The Cottage, playing now at the Hayes with Eric McCormick is a decent farce, but again...could have been shortened to one act. 

Bumping this as I’m wondering same thing. 6year old pics seem like a red flag. 

I'm excited to be in contact with LiveNation to use this venue for a school event. I'm being given a tour in October.