bostonman

Well, I think to Moore's dismay, some of the women are much stronger than he would have hoped.

I got hooked on Guiding Light when I was in high school - most days I was home early enough to watch it. That would have been around 1980. I stayed with it (often through the magic of the VCR) through the early 2000's, then found myself dropping off from it...ironically, I did start trying to watch again towards the end of that decade, but, as soaps go, by that point so many of the characters and plot points had changed that I found it hard to get back into it. Then the show went off the air shortly after that. The last actor to play one of the show's famous villains, Alan Spaulding, was actor Ron Raines, who is also quite a wonderful baritone. I got to meet him when he sang in Boston a few years ago, which was very fun.

Or maybe something about ketchup? ;-) Maybe Guy Noir can help solve this?

Keillor is, of the current crop of celebs in this mess, the first one that I personally connect with as a performer. I started listening to A Prairie Home Companion as a teen, and always enjoyed his quirky humor and style. I admit I haven't tuned in to the show since he left it - somehow it wouldn't feel the same to me. So, it's not that he gets a pass from me or anything, just that I'm truly sorry to discover that he's yet another in the list.

Try so-called Judge Jeanine Pirro instead.

I think that's fake news. But his daughter sure made for a disappointing Peter Pan...(working opposite a shamelessly underrehearsed Christopher Walken...)

Another bizarro world moment as the news coverage continues - Brian Williams covering the Matt Lauer story. (Don't forget that Williams was suspended by NBC and eventually reassigned to MSNBC because of lying about his helicopter adventures in Iraq.) The world is just getting weirder and weirder...

Good. I miss Avery Fisher Hall.

Indeed. This is tough for everyone - those involved, those who are close to the victims and the perpetrators, and those of us who are seeing household name celebs and others in a new and horrible light. Garrison Keillor has also just been accused and fired.

Cynic that I have become, I am waiting for the royal tweet about "failing NBC News" and Lauer's demise. I can't imagine that the moron who can throw out a "pocohontas" slur during an honor ceremony for American Indians and retweet anti-Muslim videos will be able to resist.

And sometimes things felt a bit too "rehearsed" or overdone - the shudder-y "eww" reaction to the idea of the sperm bank insemination, for instance. Or, those moments when you really have to suspend all disbelief, like when they all, all of a sudden, start singing the "Miami" contest song that they don't really know yet - but it sounds like they've known it for years lol. But, that episode is all worth it for Rose's laughably awful attempts at writing lyrics - the whole "thrice" bit - and "your cuter than / an intrauterine..."

Growing up with Maude in its initial run (which featured both Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan), I have more of a fondness for that show and those characters. But of course the addition of Betty White in particular does make a huge case for enjoying The Golden Girls. And Estelle Getty was no chopped liver either. Interesting that originally White was slated as Blanche, and McClanahan as Rose - but because those roles were more similar to their earlier shows (McClanahan as the dippy Vivian on Maude, White as the would-be sexpot Sue Anne on The Mary Tyler Moore Show), they switched.

It does seem to be on a number of channels, lol. Hallmark runs it also, when they aren't doing their nauseating binge of treacly Christmas movies, lol. Hallmark, the home of the also nauseating "Home and Family" show, edits "objectionable" moments out of the classic sitcom. There's an episode where Dorothy meets and befriends a female author who turns out to be a horrible snob and a potential racist - and Dorothy ends the relationship by saying "go to hell." That line is cut from the Hallmark version of the episode. Really - imagine that even in 2017 "go to hell" is that offensive??

As I had mentioned, I was in the 200's even section, right near where Asaka was cooking during the pre-show. Very fun!! And this was right by where the band was, above us. I stopped on my way out to give my congrats to the musical director for a truly wonderful-sounding show. I too had no trouble hearing anyone - I thought the sound design was very well done. Unfortunately Mr. Darrington was out the night I saw the show, but his understudy was great. No one's mentioned the occasional shirtless male eye candy in the show as well, lol. That was enjoyable too. Boykin is wonderful as Tonton. I remember him annoying me slightly when he was in On The Town, adding some gratuitous low notes and the like (Bernstein's score needs zero "improvements" IMO), but here I thought he was perfection. And yes, Merle Dandridge made for a very exciting and dangerous Papa Ge. I've already decided that this needs to win the Tony for best revival, lol - though I will be conflicted if Carousel is also a big success, as I have a colleague in the ensemble (her Broadway debut - so excited for her), and would of course want to root for her show to win too. We'll see...

I tend to call these kind of shows the "Behind The Music: The Musical" musicals. That's because it's much much easier to do this kind of bio approach in a shorter TV format, with archival visuals, interviews, etc. But onstage, indeed, it has to be about the songs and how to get from one to another - and most singer/songwriter's personal/professional lives aren't easily fit into that format, beyond the expected cliches. It seems to me that the books to Jersey Boys and Beautiful rose very well above that banality, but that in general it's not going to be an easy thing to do. However, I'm excited at the prospect that Jeff Whitty of Avenue Q fame will be writing the book to the upcoming Go-Go's jukebox show, which is currently titled Head Over Heels. That could be interesting. But in general, I tend to wish that producers/directors/writers would go for the revue approach instead - where the songs really can showcase themselves without the filler. One of the earliest jukebox shows, Smokey Joe's Cafe, did quite well without one single word of dialogue (and you can always go looking for info on writers Leiber and Stoller afterwards - just the nostalgia for the songs is enough to keep the show cooking along - and it's a great fun musical meal, lol). And the show that I consider to be the king of all Broadway "composer catalogue revues" - Ain't Misbehavin' - has very very little dialogue, and most of what is there is craftily made up of Fats Waller's own bon mots. But still, the songs provided their own contexts - you really didn't need anything else.

So very sad. Not unexpected, as the diagnosis was some time ago, but so sad. He was an amazing artist blessed with a gorgeous voice.

As Marta says in Company, "That's why I love New York!" I remember waiting on the TKTS line back in the summer of 1994, for seats to Sondheim's Passion, looking over at the Palace Theatre, where Beauty and The Beast had recently opened. I'm not sure what's in the vicinity of the Palace now (where Spongebob is now in previews), but at the time, right near (and I think above) the theatre, there were ads for "LIVE SEX" and the like. And I remember wondering if all the kids going to Beauty were wondering what that was all about. Only in NY, indeed... Though, speaking of nudity, the first scene of Passion was done, very tastefully, in the nude. (Much like Afterglow, the show opens just after the couple has finished sex.) It didn't seem gratuitous at all. Though I'm sure some people hated that bit of realism. What actually impressed me was the seamless sound design, as they could really croon the opening phrases of the duet intimately and yet be heard clearly - there must have been mics built into the bed.

It's hardly been the best anything in years. And this time, with no big names in the cast and half an orchestra, it couldn't be expected to be nearly what it once was. Time to send it all up to the heaviside layer for the last time...

I'm not sure what the deal is with the movie theatres. The one closest to me dropped out for a season - now they're back. They're building a new movie theatre complex right down the street from me, which is part of a huge extension of an existing shopping center - they should be operating by this coming summer. I'm crossing my fingers that they will offer the Met HD-casts as well as other arts-related programming, but I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, I'm sure PBS will be showing The Exterminating Angel later this season - and that it will also become available on the Met On Demand website. I'll be seeing the encore broadcast a week from Wednesday. And the NT Live broadcast of Follies the night after that. I'm very sorry that your movie theatre caved in, though.

I saw this on Saturday night, 4th preview. This is a must-see. Period. The material itself has not changed (though the orchestrations and vocal arrangements have gotten a tasteful and artful facelift), but the setting is now much more "literal" and inventive. Get to your seats early and enjoy the improvised pre-show, complete with goings-on like Alex Newell cooking a jambalaya-ish dish right onstage (I was sitting in that section and the aroma was quite inviting lol). I don't want to give away too much about the look/concept of the show, but I will say it works wonderfully well. This is about as far away as one can get from the more idealized, picturesque 1990 Broadway version, but IMO it's much more effective. Though many will come for the "names" - certainly Lea Salonga, and the aforementioned Newell, and a few others, this is already a very strong, very tight ensemble cast - yes, Salonga and Newell are terrific, but so is every person on that stage. (And even the goat. Yes, that's what I said.) The two roles cast against their original gender (Newell as Asaka, the embodiment of "Mother Earth" and Merle Dandridge as Papa Ge, the spirit of death) are a revelation - played very honestly, not for camp's sake - I should also mention that Newell sings "Mama Will Provide" in the original key, and nails it. The two young leads (Hailey Kilgore, after a nationwide search, as Ti Moune, and Isaac Powell as Daniel) do beautiful work. Philip Boykin and Kenita Miller are perfectly cast as Ti Moune's parents. I did see one understudy on - T. Oliver Reid filling in for Quentin Earl Darrington as Agwe - but I can't imagine anyone better. Emerson Davis as the little girl was adorable - sometimes it was a bit hard to understand her lyrics, but so be it. I also want to mention Alysha Deslorieux, who, as Andrea, has one of the most challenging characters to play - but she played the character with a dignity and grace that made it very hard to hate Andrea for her somewhat villainous role in the story. I am one of those people that has become very cynical about the proliferation of the "automatic standing ovation" - but I have to confess I was one of the first people (of those that I could see, at least) who jumped to their feet at the curtain call. I was that excited and moved. And the show really is that good. Go see this!

I love the goofiness of this one as well. It's also just a little trump-ian in its own way, lol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ2Fa0zVglU

Like a number of ads, it was cute/funny the first time, but starts to get more and more obnoxious on repeated viewings.

I don't remember "Mr. Softee" specifically in our neighborhood, but we did get the Good Humor truck. And they had that wonderful ice cream bar that had a hard chocolate candy center...that was to die for lol. (I think at one point they had a version of those that they sold in supermarkets, but it definitely wasn't the same.) I guess those were the first real "food trucks" lol. Plus ca change...(Except of course with today's food trucks, they park somewhere and you go to them, instead of them roving the neighborhoods.)

I think as far as ice cream chains go, I enjoyed Baskin Robbins best as a kid. But, there was a Friendly's that was much closer to where I lived, and I spent way too much time there too lol. When I moved to Boston for college, I discovered Steve's Ice Cream (and the even better Herrell's in Harvard Square, owned by the same guy) - but I think they're all gone now. J.P. Licks is still around...I also liked Cold Stone, but they've faded away too.

And they both did the cones with the dipped chocolate sauce that hardened, yes? (Sort of like the "Magic Shell" stuff you can buy today, but better, as I remember it.) I spent a summer out in the boonies of central Massachusetts doing mediocre summerstock lol, and the only places to eat within reasonable walking distance were a Dairy Queen and a small sub shop. At first the Dairy Queen was kinda fun, but the food quickly became boring and unsatisfying day after day. That's when I started bringing lunch... (Though really, any food can get too routine, so this is not really a knock on Dairy Queen. Except that a DQ burger every day for lunch is certainly not healthy eating lol.)