bostonman

Hmm. I guess kids ask a lot of questions. ? I guess if I could only pick one question, the latter one would be more important.

My question might have been more like "why do I like touching my friend Tim's big boner, and should I put my mouth on it?"

Ha! ? But of course what I pictured in my head seemed to have nothing to do with sex.

I seem to remember my mom having "the talk" with me, but don't remember much about it. I do remember the sex ed unit we had in school, though - maybe 5th grade? - as a part of health class. I'm sure I don't remember a lot of things as they were actually said, but I do have some odd memories, like hearing intercourse described thus: "there is a time in a man's life when his penis becomes erect, then he mounts the woman and they have intercourse." I remember that because of two immediate impressions. One was the "there is a time in a man's life" rhetoric - I was very confused by that. What if it happens and the woman isn't around? Does that mean I miss the chance? Does it only happen once in my lifetime? Etc. The other was the "mounts the woman" part. To me, the immediate image of "mounts" was like one does with a horse. So the image I saw in my head was the woman standing up and bent over so that the man could get on her back. Didn't make sense to me. ?

Cooper - I'm so glad you are able to have this rapport with the doctors. I hope and trust that they recognize/respect your friendship with Daddy and continue to keep you updated without any issues.

My gratitude as well. Thank you, Cooper, for doing all that you have for Daddy. We all appreciate it so much, and I'm sure he does too, even if he can't express it right now.

Though yes, shows that purposely have a large time span can be tricky to cast. Act II of Showboat for sure, and Merrily We Roll Along is another show where if you cast older actors they seem too old at the end, and if you cast young actors (as did the original production) it’s that much harder to believe them as the adults they portray early on.

Though yes, shows that purposely have a large time span can be tricky to cast. Act II of Showboat for sure, and Merrily We Roll Along is another show where if you cast older actors they seem too old at the end, and if you cast young actors (as did the original production) it’s that much harder to believe them as the adults they portray early on.

Merman was 38 when she first played the teenage Annie Oakley, and 58 for the Lincoln Center revival. Bernadette Peters was no spring chicken when she did the 1999 revival either. And it’s hard to suspend disbelief when Annie’s three younger siblings (always cast as kids) seem more naturally to be her own kids if not grandkids. But, no one ever seems to complain about it...:-)

Merman was 38 when she first played the teenage Annie Oakley, and 58 for the Lincoln Center revival. Bernadette Peters was no spring chicken when she did the 1999 revival either. And it’s hard to suspend disbelief when Annie’s three younger siblings (always cast as kids) seem more naturally to be her own kids if not grandkids. But, no one ever seems to complain about it...:-)

Yes, though Officer Lockstock doesn't correct Little Sally on that point - he tells this to the audience right at the top. "Well, hello there. And welcome -- to Urinetown! Not the place, of course. The musical. Urinetown "the place" is...well, it's a place you'll hear people referring to a lot throughout the show...it's kind of a mythical place, you understand. A bad place. A place you won't see until Act Two. And then...? Well, let's just say that it's filled with symbolism and things like that." The dialogue with Little Sally is more about "too much exposition" killing the show, and likewise the "bad title." ? Hail Malthus!!!

I wonder if they do it in English or German (either would be very possible). I tend to think something like "Freight is great / we carry weight / 'cause we are freight" would lose something in translation. ?

Actually, it's not. There's no colon in the logo. (The "the musical" is in smaller print underneath "Urinetown," but there's no ":") Outside of the logo itself, Music Theatre International (which holds the rights to the show) simply refers to it as Urinetown. The published script also generally refers to it by Urinetown alone. Looking at the posters from the two productions of the show I've done, one included "the musical" and one didn't. The logo for the London production did include "the musical" but again, with no colon. (Update - I just noticed that the spine of the published script does indeed include the colon in the title. But that's the only time I've ever seen it used.) ?

I feel about Starlight Express similarly to the way I feel about Cats. The score itself is really kinda fun, if you let yourself just enjoy the whimsical nature of all of it and don't look for anything profound. But the physical production took itself so damn seriously that it tended to work against the fun of the music. More importantly, it was a hazardous show for the rollerskating dancers - I know there were a lot of bad injuries (possibly career-ending injuries in some instances). In that way it lives alongside the regrettable Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark and the very recent injury-prone revival of West Side Story.

I think the score for Do I Hear A Waltz has some fantastic songs in it, though some are not as good. But ultimately, Rodgers, Sondheim, and Laurents couldn't seem to get on the same page as collaborators, and it shows. But among the gems (IMO) are the ballads "Stay" and "Take The Moment," the zany uptempo "What Do We Do, We Fly," and the original version of "We're Gonna Be Alright" (which was rewritten by the time the show premiered, to its detriment). I may be paraphrasing Sondheim here, but I think that he's said that he feels the show was a waste of time.

I've heard people sing "Someone Is Here" from Nefertiti occasionally.

Thank you, Cooper. This is really not sounding good at all, but I think we need to keep up hope. I wish there was something I/we could do.

Let's not forget Golden Rainbow...

Yes - I would say that's definitely one of the better screen musical to stage adaptations.

Very nice job on "Carried Away." ? They really get the sense of the operatic parody that Comden and Green (and Bernstein) were aiming for, and I love that they got the "Buffalo" joke. I've seen much more elaborate and longer takes on the fantasy caveman dance, but frankly, what they did here works perfectly fine - short and sweet. (The only real plot point in the dance is that she has to wind up wrecking the dinosaur exhibit. Otherwise it's just to give the dancers another number lol.) I love On The Town (I've actually been involved in 4 productions of it lol.) A shame that the film version, even with some awesome dancing, is such an outright trashing of the stage show. (Most of Bernstein's score got thrown out, Roger Edens' replacement songs are ok but not any kind of comparable substitute for Bernstein's originals - and too many plot points are altered. But the dancing is still great.) I very much enjoyed the last Broadway revival - really well done, and with the full original orchestration which sounded like a million bucks. Only two misfires - one was the taxi duet which relied on a video gimmick that totally upstaged the song, and the casting of Jackie Hoffman, who upstaged every damn scene she was in, to no benefit. Otherwise, an outstanding production. I won't comment on the performance of "I'm Not Afraid Of Anything" (from Jason Robert Brown's Songs For A New World, which I sometimes like to call Songs For a Cruel World) which is not a song I particularly enjoy. All that pretentious rambling on and on for what? Because she really IS afraid of her relationship with this David guy? Ok...but the song goes on way too long for that one point. Just my $.02... ?

THAT you need to see! It's a classic for a reason. ?

I've personally never seen the stage version of Singin' In The Rain, but have been told that it's not all that satisfying because of the inevitable comparison to the film. (Same situations with Meet Me In St. Louis and State Fair.) I think it's one thing to make a musical out of a non-musical film, but translating a musical film to a stage show is tougher. I enjoyed Moulin Rouge when I saw the tryout in Boston, but I know a lot of people that didn't like it for similar reasons - comparison to the film was too easy to do. (I really wanted to get to NYC to see it there, to see if/how it had changed since the tryout - but, well, that never happened...)

The opening song is in fact called "Urinetown" lol. And the Act II opener is "What Is Urinetown?" I think it's actually quite a memorable score. But I suppose, like any show one hasn't heard before, you need to hear the songs a few times before they start to sink in. People who can actually "hum the tunes" the first time out (with any show) are either remarkable musicians, or the score is so derivative that they actually have heard the tunes before lol. ;-) (This is part of my theory as to why jukebox shows have become so popular - the audience can already "hum the tunes" before the show starts lol. Same with revivals, of course.)

Please let's just get back to Daddy and his hopeful recovery.

Clearly my response was too flip, and I apologize. But your response in turn feels way way out of proportion. No one said your opinion doesn't matter - where the hell did that come from? Meanwhile, I'm sorry you hated Urinetown. But of course it might be great to actually explain why... ?