bostonman

It's actually very common for tenors to start out as baritones. I also seem to recall that Domingo played Figaro on a recording of The Barber Of Seville at some point early on. I think it's much less common for older tenors to go back to baritone roles. But I do give Domingo a lot of credit, even if his still mostly tenor-y timbre can sound odd (IMO) in the heavy baritone roles he has chosen over the last few decades. I heard the live broadcast of the Met's Il Trittico the other night where Domingo was honored, onstage, for his 50 years of singing at the Met. It's hard not to be moved by that achievement. Quite amazing. He did do a recording (in English) of Man Of La Mancha (as Cervantes/Quijana/Quixote) sometime in the 1990's, when there were a glut of those kind of "crossover" recordings of Broadway shows. Unfortunately I've never heard most of it. It includes Mandy Patinkin doing some horrid "Speedy Gonzales" stereotype with Sancho, and that was so unlistenable to me that I never spent any time with the rest of the recording. (It actually surprises me that Patinkin didn't realize that Sancho, in the musical, is much more of a "Borscht Belt" comic role than anything else.)

Count me as someone who LOVED Domingo’s Otello. If anything, he could border on the hammy, but it was still exciting.

Agreed with all. I suppose I’ve been on both sides of this issue but I’m certainly in support of the existence of Friendboy. I guess I’d just love more specifics on how the site has been improved instead of the generalities. Here’s to more productive discussion.

If you say so.

If you say so.

To clarify - I don't notice anything different about the site. When apps get updated on my phone, they may explain that they're making changes "under the hood" so to speak - such changes are usually designed to make the site run smoother but without the look or user operation feeling any different. But they don't call those "new" apps, they just call them revisions. "New and improved" has been an advertising catchphrase for a long time. But, how often do we, as consumers, really notice the difference between the improved and the old? Half the time I tend to wonder if the only thing new about the product is they they're advertising it as "new and improved." It's a bit of a mind fuck. Tell consumers it's been improved, and a lot of people will probably believe it. If improvements and changes have been made, great. I hope they do and will affect the way the site is running. But I don't notice the differences, so it seems rather strange to be touting them constantly. Though, I suppose it's better than the people (not) running Doublelist (the site that started as a clone of the Craigslist personals after they got shut down). They have made so many promises on site improvements, and almost none have happened. Most, I predict, never will. I use it, and it's adequate for now, but I think they made a big mistake hyping too many potential improvements.

To clarify - I don't notice anything different about the site. When apps get updated on my phone, they may explain that they're making changes "under the hood" so to speak - such changes are usually designed to make the site run smoother but without the look or user operation feeling any different. But they don't call those "new" apps, they just call them revisions. "New and improved" has been an advertising catchphrase for a long time. But, how often do we, as consumers, really notice the difference between the improved and the old? Half the time I tend to wonder if the only thing new about the product is they they're advertising it as "new and improved." It's a bit of a mind fuck. Tell consumers it's been improved, and a lot of people will probably believe it. If improvements and changes have been made, great. I hope they do and will affect the way the site is running. But I don't notice the differences, so it seems rather strange to be touting them constantly. Though, I suppose it's better than the people (not) running Doublelist (the site that started as a clone of the Craigslist personals after they got shut down). They have made so many promises on site improvements, and almost none have happened. Most, I predict, never will. I use it, and it's adequate for now, but I think they made a big mistake hyping too many potential improvements.

You mean, technically, it's the exact same website. The only thing that has changed, technically speaking, is the name. Some things may have changed internally, but on the surface (i.e. everything we see on the site and how it operates for us) is the same. There is no question about that.

You mean, technically, it's the exact same website. The only thing that has changed, technically speaking, is the name. Some things may have changed internally, but on the surface (i.e. everything we see on the site and how it operates for us) is the same. There is no question about that.

I'm not sure what that means. The site clearly started as Rentboy.pro and simply changed their name for caution's sake. There was no "rebirth" - the only real "rebirth" was the use of the name Rentboy for the current site after the other one was shut down a few years ago. As I recall, it actually took some time for the website to decide on its official title - for a while, it had BOTH "Rentboy" and "Friendboy" in different places on the site when you first entered - which made it seem like it wasn't organized. They've finally fixed that. Angel - I would also hope you develop a thicker skin. I don't think anyone here is "hating" on Friendboy. Just that it seems that so far the site isn't making such a huge impact for those of us who are used to RM. It's fine to have different sites that have different approaches. To me, RM seems to offer more info on the escorts in general. What's ironic is that back in the day, I preferred using the original Rentboy over the design of RM, and there are still things about RM that bug me a little. We should be thankful for the fact that any of these sites are accessible to us, in our current web climate. Let's not make this into "hating," because it's not, and it shouldn't be seen that way. People can and will use or not use whatever sites they personally decide to. Period. Thanks.

I tend to think they didn't really think carefully about the title. Most jukebox musicals wind up with titles that don't directly mention the group or star they are based on - and most of the ones that do (for instance Beautiful: The Carole King Musical or Summer: The Donna Summer Musical) clarify, at least, that's it's a musical. The Cher Show could certainly be misconstrued as something akin to a long-running concert appearance, like the current Bruce Springteeen show. That said, there also have been times when the star writer/performer has stepped into their own show, such as Billie Joe Armstrong doing part of the run of American Idiot (though he was not a planned part of the original cast). And promotional appearances, such as the Tony Awards excerpt of Beautiful, where Carole King appeared together with the actress playing her in the show, Jessie Mueller. So, I guess it would be easy to assume that Cher could indeed be part of her own musical. Titles can be misleading. I think there are plenty of people who mistakenly assume that Ethel Merman played the "title role" in Gypsy - this being a case where the starring role was NOT the title role.

I might have suggested they be called Cher, Cher Alike, and possibly Fair Cher. Carry on...

Seems to me that quite a while ago, they must have changed the algorithm (or whatever the proper term is). Maybe there were potential privacy issues involved (even though any search would only involve pics already on the web)? This certainly isn't a new thing - it's been like this now for some time.

I think the original writers are always involved in these school adaptations. Or, at very least, I'm sure that they get final approval of the changes, even if someone else does the work.

Back in the 90's, when there were still magazines like "Theater Week," I remember an interesting exchange in the letters section. An irate father had written in about the Broadway production of Falsettos, complaining because he had taken his young daughter to see it, and they were completely unaware of the subject of the show, and were shocked. He said that next time, he wouldn't risk taking her to a new show, but something "proven" and "safe" (my words and quotes, but that was his gist) such as Oklahoma. Someone replied that in that case, they hope he'd be ready to explain to his daughter about Ado Annie's behavior... In terms of the trigger warning thing, although I understand the basic principle, I also feel it can be and will be (and already has been) abused. When are such warnings reasonable, and when are they overreaching? It will be too easy to go down that slippery slope of searching for the smallest thing that could offend the smallest amount of people. Or, that moments in a show will be so micro-over-analyzed as to be ridiculously overcautious. After all, if someone can be hugely offended by Daddy Warbucks saying "damn" (this was mentioned in the NY Times article above), where do things stop? I did a production of Billy Elliot a few years ago, for a theatre company that caters to young and family audiences. The show has a lot of raw language, as well as some frank talk about homosexuality and crossdressing, etc. There's also a very funny moment involving a male dancer's endowment. We all wanted to keep as much as we could, feeling that the frankness of the show is truly one of its raison d'etres. We ultimately decided that the sexuality issues (even including the ample dance belt) would stay as is, and we would soften but not eliminate the swearing, especially in terms of the boys' vocabulary. (The script also makes alternative suggestions, so this is all allowed by the authors anyway). We added one more thing - in the pre-show speech, the producer gave a short and professional explanation that this show involved characters going through very difficult and tense times, both personally and as a community, and their language was sometimes understandably rough. If there were any complaints about anything seen/heard in the show, I was never aware of it. The audiences seemed to eat the show up, as a matter of fact. I think we handled everything with just the right balance. The funniest thing was that our young actor playing Billy had done the show before, as written, and in rehearsals, he would keep forgetting not to swear.

And yet, La Cage has already had 2 revivals.

25 is still a lot, though - enough to still do some damage if one were inclined to do so. I participate in an opera forum which for a long time has limited users to 2 posts a day. Recently that was increased to 3. And yes, such restrictions do make one think more carefully about what is being posted - but it doesn't discourage disruption (several posters still have very annoying approaches to posting and/or are prone to insensitive, caustic replies), and frankly, it results in that I (and surely others) don't post very often. I would not be in favor of limiting the number of posts. But, I appreciate that you're suggesting it - don't get me wrong.

I so appreciate that we have all sorts of off-topic sub-sections to the forum, including the Politics one. As I said earlier, one thing I like about this forum is that it's not *just* for its one main topic, and that although we're assumedly all here because of that main topic, that we can get to also enjoy each others' online company through other kinds of discussions. So yes, I feel strongly that we should have a specific place to discuss politics, religion, etc - and especially in this very historic and difficult time. In terms of the "like" button - I was once asked by another poster why I didn't often "like" his posts - the honest answer is that I really would rather respond directly to a post than to "like" it. Occasionally I will hit "like,", when I just don't have anything to add, or when I only have time to make a very quick response. But I'd much rather discuss than to simply hit a default button. (On the gmail account I use at work, I've just noticed a new feature where I can send pre-fab responses to emails - I'm ignoring that, as I'd much rather take the extra few seconds to actually respond like a human being. I also feel the same about "likes" on Facebook - there I may "like" more often but I still tend to prefer to send an actual response.) If there's an implied "rating" system behind likes - well, I just don't play those games, sorry. (I used to frequent a board that had a built-in "karma" system that did the same kind of thing - I hated it. And boy, did people get upset when their karma was going down, etc. Too much drama for me.)

Marry the man today and change his ways tomorrow?

There's an actual term for this - they call them "mondegreens" - originating (supposedly) with a mishearing of a medieval ballad that included the lyric "and laid 'em on the green," misheard as "and Lady Mondegreen." One of my own personal favorites goes back to the 80's and the Go-Go's, who I thought had this great pro-lesbian hit with a song called "I Love Cecille." I was bummed to find out they were really singing "Our lips are sealed."

A great title? That's all they can say? Shall we consider that they stole it from an iconic movie, lol?

I'm jealous that you got to see Subways. I love that score.

Listening to the cast recording of Funny Girl, I feel Streisand is fine. (Even with that weirdo vocal tic at the end of "Rain On My Parade.") And even in the film (which I haven't seen for a long time, but even so) I think she's ok. Her earlier TV specials were charming and genuine. It's with the Dolly film, right from the over-caffeinated performance of "Just Leave Everything To Me" that the problems start for me. By the time we get to the first Broadway album with that god-awful overprocessed "Somewhere" and the crazed hammy exasperation of "Putting It Together," she no longer holds any appeal for me. But, I will say that I mostly enjoyed the televised "Back To Brooklyn" concert a few years ago. Except when she got to the Gypsy medley, which was vocally pushed and had "I'M TRYING TO PROVE TO YOU ALL THAT I CAN DO THIS MOVIE, DAMMIT" all over it. Truly tasteless. BTW - in terms of her leading man in Funny Girl, I do have to assume she wasn't referring to Sydney Chaplin. (But I assume Chaplin's replacements were not as strong?)

I agree about the first half of that, not really the 2nd half. But, I will say that I feel something about Liza that I also feel about Streisand - that as they grew up, they developed this rather hard-edged "see how fucking hard I'm working at this" sort of style that tends to put me off at times. Much more fun for me to see someone who makes what they do seem impossibly EASY, rather than trying to show us how TOUGH it is. (add Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin into that group as well.)

Well, she did it with all the book shows she was in - but the point is, she had trouble keeping to that. And yes, I think she was much better suited to concert appearances - but those weren't done with such a strict schedule I imagine. Some performers just aren't made for that kind of schedule or performance style. It's said that Burt Bacharach, who wrote the wonderful score for Promises, Promises, wasn't ever interested in writing for Broadway again after that show, because he found he couldn't relate well to the idea that the show wasn't rigidly the same every night. Seems he was a bit too used to the recording studio, lol.