bostonman

To be honest, I'm inclined to believe all that too. But, the rumor is interesting...

I used to live in an apartment in a 3-family home - my two roommates and I shared the whole left side of the property (3 floors), other tenants lived on the first floor right side, and the landlord and his family had the top 2 floors on that side. My bedroom was on the top floor, and there was a small half-door in one of my walls that led, "tunnel-like," to the landlord's apartment. Out of privacy I never used it - but also, early on, we discovered that the landlord was a raving asshole. So even with my sense of propriety, I really DARED NOT use that door lol. But I have to say I did wonder, from time to time, if one of them might have come to their side of that door to try to "spy." I would not have put that past them. We lived there a year and a half before we all decided to get out. It was a decent place in a very nice neighborhood, but that family were spawns of satan. Meanwhile, there is a story that a colleague of mine tells about Irving Berlin, whose Music Box Theatre (still on Broadway now) was built for him and his shows. My friend says he got to go on a tour of the theatre once, and he got to go up to an abandoned room in the back of the house that used to be Berlin's private office. He said that the guide pushed one of the walls, and it turned, just like in a suspense movie, to reveal a small hidden room. Small, but big enough to hold a bed, etc. The guide told him, "...and this is where Mr. Berlin would bed the chorus girls." One of the shows Berlin wrote for this theatre is a revue called As Thousands Cheer, which features a song called "Through A Keyhole," about a snoop who likes to spy that way. (Berlin could indeed write filthy songs when he wanted to lol). The last lyric of the song is, "If you really want to know / How she got into the show / Take a look." One never knows, do one...

I remember one time I was in rehearsal for a show, but was able to leave early one night, and since I'm without a car and the only way to get directly there and back is by car, I had to call a cab to get back to the train station. I was talking with the cabbie along the way - a guy probably in his late 20's - and he was curious about my work at the theatre. He wasn't a theatre person at all - but he did slay me when he said something like "but my girlfriend likes to drag me to shows sometimes. We've seen Blue Man Group, and Stomp (etc)..." - and it seemed to me that he had never actually ever seen a "real" play or musical before. (So, although I certainly would have suggested he come to our show - and in fact may have anyway - it was Sondheim's Pacific Overtures, and I doubt that would have been quite his style, lol.)

No - no - no - they were asking for GOOD songs. (IMO, "Little Drummer Boy" has to be one of the worst things ever written - and no singer on earth can make it sound good. Pa ruppa pum pum my ass.)

Yes - ok - I kind of assumed that's what you probably meant, but wasn't sure. But that does mean that your first experience with him must have been good, though.

I'm confused. If you didn't have a good experience, why were you seeing him regularly over 6 months? Or am I misunderstanding what you wrote?

Another classic, beautiful James McMullan poster design...but this time I fail to see what his drawing really has to do with the show. It's way too busy. (I wasn't very pleased with the Carousel revival logo either - it's as if the show takes place in Greece instead of Maine, lol.)

I wasn't attempting to make Follies one of "7 possible plots" - rather, alluding to the fact that it borrows from a lot of ideas and puts them in a new light - and a dark light at that. Follies couldn't exist without the world of the real Follies that came before it. No monster to overcome? I disagree. All 4 of the leads battle with extreme and debilitating inner monsters. Sally's is the one we may follow most, but Ben is the one that has the breakdown. We see Buddy struggle with his marriage and affair, knowing that "I don't love the right girl" and having to live with that - and Phyllis, who has spent her life scrambing to become the upper crust woman Ben wanted her to be, now questions all of it, in the face of a loveless marriage. Fay Apple can "slay a dragon, any old day - easy" - but these poor folks can't. No rage to riches? I give you Ben, whose empty rise to the top now leaves him with nothing - and Phyllis, who is his "partner in crime" through all of it. No quest? What is this, Man of La Mancha lol? Not to say that all 4 of these characters don't have their impossible dreams. Sally has dreamed impossibly of Ben for 30 years. But she was never his Dulcinea, not even after sleeping together 30 years ago, and certainly not now. No voyage/return? I think the entire party, culminating in the Twilight Zone-ish world of Loveland, is the voyage - and the bleak final scene is certainly a return. No rebirth? Well, those empty promises in the final scene might fill in for that. Though I tend to think that neither couple is going to wind up any better than they were at the start of the night. And, the final image of the show - the 4 younger selves - remind us that even if there's no "rebirth," the old memories and longings never go away. Heidi may admonish us to "never look back" - but the end of the show intimates that such a thing isn't possible. Sondheim would explore this same theme in Merrily We Roll Along. I'd agree it's neither tragedy (in the classical sense) nor comedy - but I do think it's tragic nonetheless. With an acerbic wit throughout to boot. A lot of wonderful entertaining moments but always with a bite. Anyway, back to sitcoms lol.

I bet Harris will be awesome - as will Benanti. There was a US tour of the Mackintosh London production about a decade ago, in which the late great Marni Nixon played Mrs. Higgins. I didn't think all that much of the tone of the production (or the "Stomp"-like rewriting of the dance numbers, etc), but Nixon was fantastic.

Actually, Follies takes the classic "two couples" idea (prevalent in a lot of classic musicals too - Oklahoma, for example) and puts it in a very different and dark setting. Also - I'm sure this was not deliberate - but I've always thought it was funny that one of those couples is Buddy and Sally - the same names of Rob Petrie's comedy-writing cohorts on "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Surely coincidence, but still... (Wouldn't it have been fun to imagine Morey Amsterdam clowning his way through "Buddy's Blues" lol? And Rose-Marie might even have made an interesting, if more caustic, Sally Durant. It would have been cool to hear her take on "Losing My Mind.")

I don't really see the connection, other than the "slapstick-ish" nature of both teams. More properly, L&S was really a spinoff of Happy Days - and spinoffs have always been a popular way to keep things going. That group of shows also included the successful Mork and Mindy - the other spinoffs in that group didn't catch on nearly as much. I'd include "Lucy" in the pantheon of classic "couple" shows - one can see a line leading from, say, The Honeymooners to I Love Lucy to The Flintstones and beyond...one might include The Dick Van Dyke Show...certainly All In The Family (and its spinoffs like The Jeffersons and Maude)...all using the basic formula of two married couples who are also close friends (or, relatives, in the case of All In The Family). And one can also see the link to shows such as Friends, Will and Grace, and even Seinfeld, even though by that point, the "couples" idea isn't quite the same - though still with a lead cast of 4. Interesting that the 2 Lucy spinoffs (The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy) never came anywhere close to her original classic series. Even though Vivian Vance co-starred with her again in The Lucy Show, and in both those shows, Lucy got her wish of getting to work with the fabulous Gale Gordon. Getting to re-watch both shows fairly recently in syndication, I'm actually amazed they survived as long as they did, lol.

As I become more aware of the world of microagression, I do much wonder if making the witch the black half of the couple is not really a good idea. (Much as I'm all for color-blind casting, a lot of people won't see it as such.) That said, I'll echo other sentiments in this thread and say that I don't like this whole re-make idea in general - especially in a case like this when the deservedly classic original series is readily available in syndication. Plot devices can and are constantly recycled - so if they want to produce a NEW sitcom about a family with a witch, sure. But why try to replicate the specifics of Bewitched? (Don't forget there was also I Dream Of Jeannie, which had an obviously similar theme, but was not really the same in any other way. The two shows are forever linked, but they're actually quite different in feel.)

Another way to access all the photos in a profile (at least on a PC - I don't know if this also works on a mac): 1) Open the profile in question, and right-click on any of the photos 2) Click on "view page source" in the menu that comes up. This will open a new page. 3) On the new page, scroll down to around line 575 or so (line numbers are on the far left) 4) You will see a series of clickable links - each is to one photo on the profile. Clicking on a link will open a new page with that pic, which can then be copied/saved, or searched for. (Private photos are included in this if you already have access to them and have opened them.)

This really should be an article from The Onion. Much as I have admired the formidable Dame Rigg, she's gone cuckoo. Nothing is worth vocal cord injuries, and she should know better than to suggest the show is more important than ones' vocal health. Mrs. Higgins is a small (though potentially scene-stealing) role, and it's a privilege to have her in this production. But she should be nurturing and encouraging her younger colleagues, not asking them to kill their voices. I may go try to see this production with Ms. Benanti in November, when I'm in NYC for a weekend. I'm hoping Rigg will be out by then. Sorry...

Run times that I see listed in various sources tend to say either 2:50 or 2:55, which sounds right to me. After the 3 hour mark, the orchestra (and I believe also the crew?) goes into overtime pay. So I assume they're keeping the tempos up to insure the show doesn't run long. (The show did originally run over 3 hours - they had to keep cutting it down to make it cost-worthy. I have a friend who played in the band for the original tour in the 80's-90's, and he said they kept making all sorts of tiny cuts that the general audience wouldn't even notice.) Comparing the tempos on the cast recordings may not help. Tempos are often sped up a bit on show recordings, to compensate for the energy that you miss by not having a visual element. (As a musical director, that's one of those things that can be really hard to explain to directors who are way too used to the recorded tempos and are always trying to push me to go there, lol.) I just looked at the tour site - I had no idea that one of my former students, and also another Boston colleague, are both in the ensemble.

It's funny the things we learn from TV, lol. I had never heard the phrase "walking the dog" until Dawson's Creek lol. Seinfeld got away with some fun euphemisms too - not only was there "master of my domain" (meaning one had control over one's urges to masturbate), but there was the episode where one of George's girlfriends walks out on him, and he says, in dismay, "but I had hand" (meaning having the upper hand in the relationship), to which her exit line is, "and you're gonna need it."

"How to ask a rentmen "pornstar" to prove their legit?" To prove their legit what?

I'm currently logged in to both sites, and am looking at Kyle Strong's ad. On Rent.men, I indeed see the version quoted above: "Gay Porn Movies | Erotic Massage | Bodywork | Boyfriend Experience | Stripping" But on Rentmen.eu, I see: "Escorting | Erotic Massage | Bodywork | BF Experience | Stripping" So, it does seem to be something different between the sites. Odd. (My default site is the .eu one - I like that layout better than on the rent.men site.)

I don't know about filtering/searching, but I still see "escorting" in the "Available for" listing in the ads I'm checking.

I just checked a bunch of random ads on rentmen.eu - the word "escorting" is still listed in every ad I checked.

No need for clarification. It simply doesn't matter if she worked for/with trump. No one cares. Today is all about HER. Period.

Perhaps if you actually went back to read my post you'd get the reference, lol. But you're in the ballpark - my point was that I'm not sure if the "ordinary schlubs trying to build on their old high school dreams" theme is all that appealing/original. In this case, compared to the more compelling reason why the band in Bandstand is formed.

Moose Murders is one of those legendary shows that someone must have seen, but I've never known anyone who has admitted they did, lol. Though to clarify, my mention of Glory Days was because of the "going back to high school after high school" theme it shares with Gettin' The Band.

I think that would allow time for just the so-called Elephant Love Medley lol. (And I guess I liked the show a lot more than you did, lol. That's ok...)