edjames

Everybody hates Faye.... Gay personal assistant says Faye Dunaway called him ‘a little homosexual boy’: lawsuit Actress Faye Dunaway relentlessly berated her gay personal assistant on play “Tea at Five,” calling him “a little homosexual boy” before he was fired for complaining, a new lawsuit alleges. Michael Rocha says in his Manhattan Supreme Court suit that he began working for the Broadway-bound production — from which Dunaway was eventually fired — on April 5 and was tasked with shopping, helping the actress take her meds, arranging her schedule and getting her to and from rehearsals. Rocha — who worked at the Oscar-winning star’s East 57th Street apartment and was paid $1,500 per week — alleges that Dunaway “regularly and relentlessly subjected plaintiff to abusive demeaning tirades” and used his sexual orientation as a gay man to “demean and humiliate him at work,” the court papers charge. On May 2, the “Mommie Dearest” star called Rocha and other workers “little gay people” and later that month called him “a little homosexual boy,” which he says he has a recording of, the suit claims. Rocha reported it to the general manager and general counsel for the one-woman play, in which Dunaway portrayed actress Katharine Hepburn, and also gave them the tape of the offensive comment, he claims. About two weeks later, on June 12, Rocha was fired and told that Dunaway “is not comfortable with you anymore,” the court documents allege. Rocha was not the only employee allegedly forced to endure Dunaway’s diva ways.

Michael Reidel in today's NYPost reports Vannessa Redgrave will not be appearing in the Broadway production: Here’s hoping Vanessa Redgrave isn’t done with Broadway Let’s hear it for the great Lois Smith, who rode to the rescue this week when “The Inheritance,” coming in from London, was missing a key cast member: Vanessa Redgrave. She won raves for her performance as a mother trying to make sense of her son’s homosexuality, and producers Sonia Friedman and Tom Kirdahy had their fingers crossed she’d reprise it here. But they didn’t press the 82-year-old, who, at the last minute, decided she just wasn’t up to reproducing what one critic called an “achingly frail” performance. The scramble was on to find an actress of her caliber. Director Stephen Daldry met with Smith, and knew he had found the right replacement. The 88-year-old Obie award winner returns to Broadway for the first time since the 1996 revival of “Buried Child.” Matthew Lopez’s “The Inheritance” is loosely based on E.M. Forster’s “Howards End,” with a lot of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” thrown in. Gay men fight over real estate against the backdrop of the lingering AIDS epidemic. Politics, sex, death and debates about the mainstreaming of gay culture swirl throughout this meaty epic. One New York theater producer who saw it says it’s the most brilliant, gay-themed play since “Angels.” Another says: “It has 2 ¹/₂ hours of brilliant writing, but it should have been cut. Why does every ‘important’ play have to be in two parts?” Wherever you come down on it, “The Inheritance,” which starts previews Sept. 27, is shaping up to be a cultural event of the new season. I hope we see Redgrave at least one more time here. She was rhapsodic as Vita Sackville-West in “Vita and Virginia” in 1994. She held audiences rapt as Joan Didion in “The Year of Magical Thinking” in 2007. And she broke our hearts as Mary Tyrone in the 2003 revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” Brian Dennehy, who played James Tyrone in that production, has a great story about Redgrave. He had done the play in Chicago and thought the Broadway run would be fairly easygoing. After all, he knew the lines, the role and the play. But at the first table reading with Redgrave, he told me, “She was doing so many astonishing things, I realized I had to throw out everything I thought I knew and start all over again.” Sometimes she’d make her first entrance from the porch, sometimes from the dark at the top of the stairs. Dennehy and co-stars Robert Sean Leonard and Philip Seymour Hoffman were never sure what she was going to be like each night — which made the production all that much more brilliant, since the Tyrones never know what to expect from Mary, a morphine addict. Redgrave was not playing Mary Tyrone. She was Mary Tyrone. It was a remarkable performance for which she won the Tony. Speaking of great Dames, another we may never see in New York again is Maggie Smith. Last spring, the 84-year-old returned to the London stage in a one-woman show about the secretary to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Christopher Hampton’s “A German Life” sold out in about 20 minutes. Smith received raves and offers to bring the play to New York. But, like Redgrave, she apparently decided a run in the Big Apple was a bit much at this point in her life. That’s a pity: She hasn’t been here since 1990, when she starred in “Lettice and Lovage” — another performance that, if you saw it, you’ll never forget it. “A German Life” is a very good play, by the way. I’m not sure Lois Smith is quite right for the part of Goebbels’ secretary, but there are other actresses of a certain age who could do it. I think one of our nonprofit theaters should look into it. One Dame you will be able to see on Broadway is Eileen Atkins. The 85-year-old Emmy, Obie and Olivier award winner stars opposite Jonathan Pryce in “The Height of the Storm,” previewing Sept. 10. A generation of great British actresses is receding. Atkins may be the last of that generation we see here. Don’t miss her.

I love boh cities and have visited many times. I agree with what others have posted. A car seems a hassle when you factor in time, parking and other costs. A quick "budget' flight between Lisbon and Madrid is the quickest way to get there, or you can take the train if you want to invest the time. The rain takes 10+ hours but low fares can be had for under $30. A quick search revealed airfares of $71, but I was unable to plug in your travel dates, and you will have to factor in the airport-city transportation costs. Getting around Madrid is easy, and there's plenty to see, but if you're anxious to visit other places, outside of Madrid, there are a number of day tours available to places like Toledo, Segovia, Avila, El Escorial and The Valley of the Fallen. They are inexpensive and easy. Good luck and have a great time...

A true legend has left the stage. May he rest in peace. He will always be remembered.

A very entertaining production. I adore Brandon Uranowitz. Raul Esparza was good as the conniving devious brother. The radio show device failed. It did not detract from the show but somewhere along the way it got lost and was forgotten. I found new gems in this production and despite no intermission, it was a joy to rediscover it. Why do they not include an intermission? Nor did they include a notice in the Playbill. 2+ hours is a very long time for an "elderly" audience to sit. LOL And yes, of note was the lovely number sung by actress Mary Beth Peil, "Isn't He Something." Rousing standing ovation, so well done!

Thank you...I love Sondheim and I've seen this show on 3 occasions. Not one of my favorite Sondheim shows but I find his musical genius intriguing. A lovely man, I had the pleasure and honor to meet him one evening and have a private conversation. I've seen him at a number of performances and concerts of his works.

NYTimes liked it but the show is still flawed. I'm seeing it tonight... Review: Sondheim’s Bumpy ‘Road Show,’ Now at the End of the Line An Encores! Off-Center revival reveals the tantalizing cleverness and intractable faults of the 1997 (and 1999, 2003, 2004 and 2008) musical. There are a lot of fingerprints on “Road Show,” even beyond the ones that grub up everyday musicals. Naturally, there are those of its authors, Stephen Sondheim (songs) and John Weidman (book). But there are also those of every director who has had his hands on it from its first reading in 1997, when it was called “Wise Guys,” through various incarnations and titles, including “Gold” and “Bounce,” as it expanded and contracted, shifted focus and shuffled its songs. Nor have those directors been exactly unhandsy: Sam Mendes, Hal Prince and John Doyle are no wallflowers. To the story of the Mizner brothers, flailing and failing their way through early 20th-century America, they brought completely different attitudes and aesthetics, as well as actors as varied as Nathan Lane, Victor Garber, Richard Kind and Michael Cerveris. You would hardly think one show could accommodate so many contrasting visions and talents. It couldn’t, and as such the other hand smearing our view of “Road Show” is history’s. Fans of Mr. Sondheim — who as a songwriter but also as a dramatist has done more to nd of the line. Unless his much-announced adaptation of two Luis Buñuel films re-emerges from its seemingly endless doldrums, “Road Show” is the last new artistic statement we’re likely to have from the master. the musical than any other artist — fear that this may be the end of the line. And what we can see of it in the torpid semi-staged production that opened at City Center on Wednesday — basically a revival of the version seen at the Public Theater in 2008 — seems only intermittently like his work. The genius glints through, of course; still in evidence everywhere is the way he packs insights about human nature into tight coils of words that spring open like penknives. When Mama Mizner (Mary Beth Peil) sings that her son Wilson (Raúl Esparza) is a joy despite his fecklessness — “If he had the slightest sense of shame, it would be a shame” — you suddenly see brightly into a depth of human nature. That she sings this to her other son, Addison (Brandon Uranowitz), who is more dependable and dull, only twists the knife. But such moments, however they may glint, emerge from a story that has become something of a palimpsest and thus something of a blur. It cannot have been easy for Will Davis, the director and choreographer of this Encores! Off-Center offering — the third and last of the season — to find a way into material that is already so overwrought. His first instinct, though, is a good one: He frames the story as a radio drama, with actors in a recording studio, speaking into mikes and making their own sound effects. The Encores! orchestra, sublime as always, plays Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations in the same setting. For a while, as the tale takes Wilson and Addison from their parents’ California home to the Alaska gold rush, this works well. Pruning extraneous sensory data focuses our attention on the weirdly close, quasi-incestuous but also furious Cain-and-Abel-like rivalry of these two outsized avatars of the American dream. We can savor every turn of phrase, both musical and lyrical, as it twists down into character. But when other strands of the show’s DNA start to express themselves, Mr. Davis breaks faith with the concept. The radio show cannot accommodate the sense of spectacle built into passages like the one in which Addison travels the world “to find my road” and winds up in a travelogue of disaster. As Mr. Davis begins to give us visuals to support the narrative — picture postcards, awkward props — his frame breaks and all the overbusy contents of the story leak out. There’s no putting it back together, either. Though there are charming moments throughout, especially when Addison finally finds nonfraternal love in the form of the rich dilettante Hollis Bessemer (Jin Ha), the exigencies of staging the picaresque tale overwhelm our interest in it. It doesn’t help that the men’s adventures are structured as three- or four-part shaggy-dog stories: Addison dabbles as a fight promoter, then a playwright, then a racetrack fixer, all in one song. Basically you are tired of him, and the bit, after the first example, despite the bottomless wit of Mr. Sondheim’s patented wordplay. What ultimately undermines “Road Show” is that sense of diminishing rather than increasing returns. In recent versions, and especially in this one, we don’t much care about either brother; though both sing beautifully, Mr. Esparza is seedy bad news from the start and Mr. Uranowitz a mopey mess. Nothing about their characters improves with age, which may be the point. Fine, but this is a musical, not a treatise. Ideas about what people stand for (and what they are willing to stand) are important underpinnings of many great works, including Mr. Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd,” which doesn’t lack for darkness. But in “Road Show,” the portrait of America as a contest between inept dreamers and expert scammers is the whole story, relentlessly repeated. (Papa Mizner, played by Chuck Cooper, has little else to do but deliver soul-of-a-nation soliloquies.) The plot and the characterizations have been bent around the theory, instead of the other way around. That may be why the characters we most look forward to are the ones who bear less freight as symbols: Mama and Hollis. Ms. Peil’s rendition of the song about Wilson (“Isn’t He Something!”) and Mr. Ha’s two numbers, delivered in a bright, clarion tenor, are highlights. Alas, the story finds mother and lover no less disposable than the brothers do. Mr. Sondheim is not only one of the theater’s great artists, he is one of its great collaborators. That can feel like a contradiction in terms, particularly when a work like “Road Show,” tirelessly revised in search of its true self, seems to be heading every way but his. What a shame that so much beautiful material was dropped like excess baggage along the way! And yet, if he had the slightest sense of shame, it would be a shame. Even here, even now, isn’t he something! Road Show Tickets Through July 27 at New York City Center, Manhattan; 212-581-1212, nycitycenter.org. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.

NYPost: ‘Moulin Rouge!’ review: NYC’s hottest nightclub is on Broadway 2 hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission. At the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45th St., Who needs ecstasy when we’ve got “Moulin Rouge!”? That’s the effect of the fabulous new musical that opened Thursday night on Broadway: raucous sensory overload. From its sexy sword swallowers to the newly pumped-up pop songbook and from-the-loins dancing, the show’s as subtle as Liberace’s toy poodle: a glitter bomb on Broadway. The high begins the instant you walk into the theater, which set designer Derek McLane turned into the sort of uber-cool, members-only nightclub that keeps rejecting my application. Bathed in red light, four sultry, crystal-bedecked performers start singing “Lady Marmalade,” which cancan kicks off the story of a penniless American writer in Paris and his dangerous fling with a cabaret star. Just don’t show up looking for a Madame Tussauds’ wax replica of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film. Songs such as “El Tango de Roxanne,” “Come What May,” “Your Song” and “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” are still here, but they’re joined by about 70 party crashers: Walk the Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance” and Sia’s “Chandelier” among them. Those energetic new numbers boldly propel the show into the present, and bring giggles every time one is cleverly introduced. The evil Duke of Monroth (Tam Mutu) introduces himself by crooning “Sympathy for the Devil,” and there’s a pulse-pounding group dance to “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga. And, by God, it works! The finest show of its kind since “Mamma Mia!,” “Moulin Rouge!” is a reminder that jukebox musicals aren’t required to be soulless behemoth tourist traps. They can be — gasp! — creative. That said, the story is about a tourist who feels trapped: It’s 1899, and Christian (Aaron Tveit), a songwriter, ditches Lima, Ohio, for Paris, only to find love at the Moulin Rouge, a decadent nightclub that caters to men’s wildest fantasies. The hopeless romantic is there to persuade Satine (Karen Olivo) to perform his new show, but, in a farcical mix-up, she mistakes him for the powerful Duke of Monroth. Still, the two fall madly in love, because falling in love with Tveit ain’t hard. But love is a battlefield, and Christian is at war with the Duke, a sadistic snob who agrees to subsidize the struggling nightclub if owner Harold Zidler (Danny Burstein) forks over his “Sparkling Diamond,” Satine. She, in turn, must decide between duty and cutie. Director Alex Timbers’ smartest move is not trying to replicate Luhrmann’s quick-cut sense of humor, which would crash and burn onstage. Instead, he focuses on grandiose emotions, sensuality and the storybook sensation of first love, for which Tveit’s puppy-dog innocence is ideal. A lyric like “Tonight . . . we are young. So, let’s set the world on fire, we will burn brighter than the sun!” isn’t exactly “Send in the Clowns.” But Tveit sings it with such earnestness that it comes off as meaningful poetry. He’s well matched with Olivo’s regal Satine, who’s more practical and empowered than Nicole Kidman’s incarnation. That Mutu’s Duke is not only filthy rich but hot makes the fight for Satine’s heart much more compelling. Just what Broadway needed: A “Rouge” awakening.

Other the other hand, William, stunning and glowing reviews from the NYPost and NYTimes. While it was 108 degrees in Paris yesterday, the Al Hirsfield theater sizzled on opening night. NYTimes said "pulses with thrills," "euphoric," "plump, sleek," etc. Broadway die-hards will boo-hoo and say this is not classic theater, but I bet this show rakes in millions and will be a sell-out for years to come. I have a ticket for Aug 22 and cannot wait to join in the experience. Review: ‘Moulin Rouge! The Musical’ Offers a Party, and a Playlist, for the Ages By Ben Brantley Forbidden pleasures abound in this spectacular musical, starring a dazzling Karen Olivo as a doomed Parisian chanteuse. This one’s for the hedonists. All you party people should know that the Al Hirschfeld Theater has been refurbished as an opulent pleasure palace, wherein decadence comes without hangovers. That’s where the euphoric “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” opened on Thursday night in a shower of fireworks, confetti and glittering fragments of what feels like every pop hit ever written. Inspired and directed with wicked savvy by Alex Timbers, this “Moulin Rouge” is a cloud-surfing, natural high of a production. It has side effects, for sure, including the vertigo that comes from having your remembrance of songs past tickled silly and the temporary blockage of any allergies to jukebox musicals. But for its plump, sleek two-and-a-half hours of stage time, “Moulin Rouge” — which stars a knockout Karen Olivo, with Aaron Tveit and Danny Burstein doing their best Broadway work to date — has the febrile energy you may associate with the wilder parties of your youth, when gaudy nights seemed to stretch into infinity. Or rather, it’s like the memory of all those parties merged into one streamlined fantasy. The team behind “Moulin Rouge” — which includes the brilliant arranger and orchestrator Justin Levine and the choreographer Sonya Tayeh — know that familiar music opens the floodgates of recollection like few other stimuli. Though it is set in fin de siècle Paris, “Moulin Rouge” uses as both its score and its lingua franca roughly 70 songs, most of them chart-toppers of the past several decades. And since the majority of them concern the extreme joys and sorrows of being in love (or lust), they are likely to have figured in the soundtrack of your own romantic history. These are numbers that many of us fell in love to, made love to and fell out of love to, and they’ve kept playing in our heads ever since. Mr. Luhrmann had the inspired notion that such music is to our age what the arias of grand opera were to an earlier time. The movie “Moulin Rouge” pumped a verismo-style, gaslight-era plot — a hybrid of “La Traviata” and “La Bohème” — full of melodic anachronisms like “Your Song,” “Lady Marmalade” and even the title number from “The Sound of Music.” The stage version retains most of these but has added a whole lot more, many used only in snippets. (The characters here sometimes communicate in mash-up numbers through a giddy chain of “name-that-tune” lyrics.) At the same time, Mr. Timbers’s production, which features a strategically clichéd book by John Logan, translates the shimmery illusions of cinema into the grit and greasepaint of live theater. It picks up on the outmoded idea of show people as close kin to panderers and prostitutes, emphasizing the transactional relationship between live entertainers and their audiences. Thus when you enter the Hirschfeld you will immediately encounter variations on the idea of love for sale. Derek McLane’s dazzling nightclub set of the title — that’s the same Moulin Rouge associated with Toulouse-Lautrec, and yes, he’s a character here — is a gasp-inspiring nest of valentine hearts, cushioned nooks and outsize exotica, illumined in shades of pink and red by the lighting designer Justin Townsend. Lissome men and women, wearing little more than corsets and stockings, stare down the audience. (A top-form Catherine Zuber has dressed the cast sumptuously, in clothes designed to ravish.) Men in top hats and tails, cigars clamped between their lips, assess the human flesh on offer. And a splendidly seedy master of ceremonies greets us with flattering insults. That’s Harold Zidler, played with rouged cheeks, suspicious eyes and an all-embracing leer by a marvelous Mr. Burstein. “Welcome, you gorgeous collection of reprobates and rascals, artistes and arrivistes, soubrettes and sodomites,” he says. “No matter your sin, you are welcome here.” In contrast, there’s our other host, who says he’s summoning a cherished chapter of his life for our delectation. That’s the open-faced, virginal Christian (Mr. Tveit), newly arrived in Paris from Lima, Ohio, who asks us to “think back” and “try to remember your first real love affair.” The object of Christian’s adoration is Satine, a nightclub chanteuse and demimondaine, almost past her prime and riddled with consumption. On-screen, Nicole Kidman portrayed her as a gossamer-spun apparition. Ms. Olivo, in a performance that sends her into the constellation of great musical actresses, gives us a figure of palpable flesh, who deploys a coquette’s arsenal of wiles and illusions to conceal illness, desperation and a hard-lived past. When Ms. Olivo’s Satine, which has acquired even greater depth and polish since I saw this show in Boston a year ago, sings“Diamonds Are Forever,” “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” “Material Girl” and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” — all in one number — she’s a delicious compound of artifice and ardor. Like the show itself, she skillfully walks a tightrope between archness and sincerity, sophistication and gee-whiz wonder, without ever stumbling. The wide-eyed Mr. Tveit covers the “gee-whiz” part of the equation with appealing exuberance and a gleaming voice. He has been given two lively sidekicks — the Argentine tango dancer Santiago (the vibrant Ricky Rojas) and the painter and, uh, show-within-the-show director Toulouse-Lautrec (a charmingly melancholy Sahr Ngaujah). As Christian’s romantic rival, the Duke of Monroth, Tam Mutu swaggers suavely and menacingly. He introduces himself to Satine by singing (wouldn’t you know) “Sympathy for the Devil.” The stuff of radio-wallpaper has been repurposed here, but it’s never performed as karaoke throwaways. When Ms. Olivo sings the Katy Perry chart-topper “Firework” or Mr. Tveit does Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” it’s with an uncompromising, personal passion. Ms. Tayeh’s choreography — expertly performed by a delightful and delighted polymorphous ensemble — is a perpetual motion machine of often bruising sensuality. Standard period fare like the cancan (bien sûr) and La Danse Apache is reinterpreted with electric wit. Mr. Rojas and a snarling Robyn Hurder lead the sensational Act II showstopper, an angry blend of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and Britney Spears’s “Toxic.” (Ms. Hurder is also part of the fab quartet of divas — along with Jacqueline B. Arnold, Holly James and Jeigh Madjus — who give torrid life to “Lady Marmalade.”) When Mr. Burstein makes his jubilant entrance at the top of the show, you may find yourself thinking of another insinuating M.C., from another European nightclub, from another Broadway musical. I mean, of course, But there’s an all-important difference. When the M.C. in “Cabaret” (famously embodied by Joel Grey and, later, Alan Cumming) promises that “in here, life is beautiful,” he’s lying. Set in Weimar Berlin, “Cabaret” is ultimately a cautionary musical, finding the social heedlessness in divine decadence. In “Moulin Rouge,” life is beautiful, in a way reality never is. All is permitted, and forgiven, in the name of love. Bohemian poverty is exquisitely picturesque. Stardom is around the corner for the gifted and hungry. And even songs you thought you never wanted to hear again pulse with irresistible new sex appeal. What this emporium of impure temptations is really selling is pure escapism. You may not believe in it all by the next morning. But I swear you’ll feel nothing like regret.

Got my seat! An intimate theater just off 9th Ave.

New Yorker magazine did a profile on this good looking Polish countertenor making a sensation in the classical world. Described "as if Michaelangelo's statue of David came to life," he's a creating a rock star appeal. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/22/a-millennial-countertenors-pop-star-appeal Not only is he a great singer, but he also models, and breakdances. Worth checking out... This video of him singing Vivaldi's aria "Vedro con mio diletto", from the opera "Il Giustino", been viewed over 3.5 million times:

The Web - long gone but not forgotten. Try The Cock in the east village for seedy action. (?)

I would be remiss not to note that Jack Vietel is leaving his post of City Center Encores after 20 years and after the conclusion of next season. How Encores! gives new life to fading Broadway musicals After 20 years, Jack Viertel is giving up the job that everyone who loves musical theater covets: producing Encores! at City Center. As I shouldn’t have to remind my readers, Encores! presents concert versions of musicals that, for one reason or another, have slipped away or are in danger of doing so. The first show Viertel wanted to produce had disappeared altogether: “Juno,” an adaptation of a Sean O’Casey play that had a score by Marc Blitzstein (“The Threepenny Opera”). “I have loved the score to ‘Juno’ since I was 14,” 70-year-old Viertel tells me. “But it’s a drama. People get killed. It’s not ‘Hello, Dolly!’ So I thought I better try to prove myself in the job before I do ‘Juno.’ ” The first Encores! show he produced was Rodgers and Hart’s “A Connecticut Yankee,” in 2001. Viertel did it as a tribute to his parents, who took him to Broadway shows when he was a kid. They loved Ella Fitzgerald’s album “The Rodgers and Hart Song Book,” which has the definitive rendition of that musical’s “Thou Swell.” The Encores! production was just so-so — “The show was more problematic than I thought,” Viertel says — but Christine Ebersole, singing “To Keep My Love Alive,” brought the house down. Three months later, he did “Hair,” which, with Idina Menzel, Gavin Creel, Michael McElroy and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, was a sensation. “We sold every single ticket to that show,” he says. But he got hate mail from Encores! subscribers who objected to the nudity. “They said it was obscene and disgusting,” Viertel says. “Those letters could have been written in 1967. It must have taken a long time for them to be delivered.” More successes followed, including “The Apple Tree,” “Finian’s Rainbow” and “Gypsy,” starring Patti LuPone — all of which transferred to Broadway. Viertel says he never felt the pressure to give Broadway another “Chicago,” the long-running revival that started with his predecessors at Encores! “It was always about the score,” he says. “Do we want to hear the score? And if the book is not good, how do we make it tolerable?” He tried it with “Juno,” and while critics praised the score, one called the musical’s plot “the stuff of nightmares.” Another show Viertel couldn’t salvage was his 2003 production of “House of Flowers,” based on Truman Capote’s book about rival brothels, with music by Harold Arlen. Pearl Bailey starred in the 1954 original, but the show was troubled out of town. By the time it got to New York, Bailey had turned it into something like a nightclub act. “I love the score,” Viertel says. “And we tried it. But the show had just torn itself to pieces, and we could not fix it.” Because of its prestigious reputation — 30-piece orchestras are the norm at Encores! — City Center has attracted stars. The one Viertel wanted most was Hugh Jackman for Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s 1961 show, “Stop the World — I Want To Get Off.” “We had a meeting, and he was interested, but we couldn’t get him for nine days of rehearsals for just seven shows,” Viertel says. One of his most acclaimed Encores! shows was 2018’s “Grand Hotel,” with a beautiful score by Robert Wright, George Forrest and Maury Yeston. Viertel had been involved in the original 1989 production as an executive of Jujamcyn Theaters, which produced the musical. It had a difficult tryout in Boston, but director Tommy Tune fixed it for Broadway, where it went on to win five Tony Awards. Viertel says he was watching the Encores! production when he thought, “First you do shows you saw the first time. But when you start doing shows you produced the first time — well, that’s when you know it’s time to get off.”

CBS evening news here in NYC reported there is a doctor shortage in NJ.. https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/07/15/resident-physician-shortage-reduction-act-doctors-new-jersey/

Sorry to hear of your problems. I have been having shoulder and neck pain for several weeks. Had a spinal MRI and thankfully the results were "Normal spinal cord" and some left foraminal narrowing C3-C4 and some right foraminal narrowing C5-6. I have a followup with the neurologist but you know how difficult it is to get a doctor's appointment . I have been having weekly adjustments with my new chiropractor. I've also been going to the massage therapist, at least twice a week, and things are beginning to improve, but I am not out of the woods yet. Been applying a hot pack on the neck a couple of times a day/evening. Been thinking of intense bourbon therapy! My thought and prayers are with you..

I, too, just had a air conditioning problem. Saturday morning, after 9 years of faithful service, my window AC unit died a peaceful and quiet death. We have been having hot and humid weather here in NYC, and the apartment became very uncomfortable. My building handyman arrived and was able to provide me with a "loaner" AC until I could replace mine. I called an AC sales and installation company here in NYC and they got back to me saying there was nothing they could do for me. They were booked up for 6 weeks! Yikes. I went on the internet, looked up some prices for the unit I wanted to purchase (Just an upgraded model - Fridgeaire) and found one of the lowest rices was at a large appliance/electronics store near me but the delivery time was a week away. However Amazon had the same make/model and promised delivery on Monday evening (yesterday). Needless to say the Amazon price was $10 higher but with Amazon Prime, I got free delivery and a better delivery date. In conclusion, the unit is up and running and I am in blissful coolness. Stay cool.

Not only did we have to worry about the mob, but the cops were all in one the scams and frequency accepted, or demanded, bribes from gay bars. I saw many an "officer" stop in go to the end of the bar and accept his envelope for payoffs. There were a number of beatings from mob goons against bartenders and managers who were under suspicion of stealing from the till. It was not uncommon to walk into a gay bar in the sixties and be faced with a sign that said This Is A Raided Premises. Gay men were not allowed to face each other. A lot of cruising went on via the mirror behind the bar.

Moving right along, Hugh is on tour and is booked into huge arenas. He played Madison Square Garden Friday night and the review was "so-so"....he was upstaged by Keala Settle, who, according to the Times review, blew the roof off the house! In other times, I probably would have gotten a ticket but I hate arena shows/concerts. I'll wait for the Music Man. Review: Hugh Jackman Isn’t Quite the Greatest Showman in an Arena His world tour “The Man. The Music. The Show.” stopped at Madison Square Garden. But it would have been better on Broadway. Hugh Jackman is a shape-shifting master of showbiz: as the big-screen Wolverine, ripped and brooding; as a charismatic song-and-dance man, ripped and Broadway. Arena concert tours, though, are their own special beast, and in the vastness of Madison Square Garden on Friday night, where he performed with a 22-piece orchestra and a team of acrobatic dancers, he never did fit all those thousands of fans in the palm of his hand. “We’re going to get to know each other a little better by the end of the night,” Mr. Jackman promised a couple of numbers in, before he cast off the jacket and bow tie that went with his body-hugging tux pants. But for all his razzle-dazzle over two and a half hardworking hours— starting with a pair of percussive pop numbers from the 2017 movie musical “The Greatest Showman,” in which he starred as P.T. Barnum — there was an inescapable sense of being kept at a distance, of Mr. Jackman holding himself in reserve. He was a little awkward speaking about his own life, even in scripted patter; slipping into a character’s skin, he appeared much more at ease. But he also seemed conquered by the scale of the room, uncertain how to make the electric connection of live performance when so many of us were so far away. Fortunately — even thrillingly — he had some guest artists who knew how to pull that off. The tour, titled “The Man. The Music. The Show.,” touched down at the Garden for three performances and continues across the United States before heading to Mr. Jackman’s native Australia in August and returning to North America in October. Packed with musical highlights from his idiosyncratic career, it borrows from two of his stage shows, “The Boy From Oz” — for which he won a 2004 Tony Award as the Australian composer and entertainer Peter Allen, a high-camp role he also inhabits here — and “Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway.” It draws most rewardingly, though, from “The Greatest Showman,” and from his relationship with that film’s songwriters, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The night’s first moving moment arrived with a song from their Tony-winning musical “Dear Evan Hansen.” With Mr. Jackman playing piano at the start of “You Will Be Found,” the number deepened into a startling gorgeousness when the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus joined him onstage. (Having already performed a tribute to his wife, plucking her out of the audience for a couple of kisses, Mr. Jackman identified himself emphatically as an ally.) “A Million Dreams,” sung in “The Greatest Showman” on a rooftop amid a field of billowing bedsheets, has been beautifully translated for the stage, with choreography by Warren Carlyle (who is also the show’s director) that includes lyrics performed in American Sign Language. But “This Is Me,” the movie’s Oscar-nominated anthem, proved the evening’s one true blazing number. With Mr. Paul at the piano and Mr. Pasek onstage nearby, — who played Lettie, the bearded lady, in the film — entered in a sparkling jumpsuit and set the arena on fire through the force of her voice and presence. Mr. Jackman never reached that level. With jumbo screens flanking the stage, he seemed to play less to the audience than to the cameras that tracked him. It was like watching the taping of a movie musical or variety show. In close-ups on those screens, Mr. Jackman sometimes looked like a man feeling the pure joy of performing music he loves. But he also had red-rimmed eyes; if that was a sign of fatigue, who could blame him? Physically, the show is hugely demanding, which could be why he at times came across as rotely professional. Maybe he was rationing his energy. The disconnect made me wish I were nearer — and in that sense, this show is a superb advertisement for the intimacy of Broadway. You’d never feel so far away in one of its theaters. Luckily, Mr. Jackman is scheduled to return there next year in “The Music Man.” It’s a safe bet that we’ll feel his considerable magnetism then, turned up to its full power.

NYTimes says: Review: A Familiar Set of Laborers Join the Cast of ‘Working’ This revival of the 1977 musical about the monotony of earning a living custom-tailors the original for City Center’s 75th anniversary. The most engaging workers in the concert revival of “Working,” which opened on Wednesday night at New York City Center, have only recently been added to this 1977 musical’s cast of characters. But they pulse with a vitality and human detail that makes you think, “Tell me more.” Take Abdou Sillah, a Gambian-born New Yorker whose résumé includes jobs as a sommelier, long-distance trucker, restroom cleaner and “fry guy” at Planet Hollywood. More immediately relevant, though, is Abdou’s current gig: site supervisor for security at the very place where Anne Kauffman’s production of “Working” runs through Saturday. “I am New York City Center’s face, I’ll say,” he offers, by way of introduction, “because I am the one who has direct contact with anybody who enters.” He continues: “Everybody who comes into this building, I have different ways of greeting each of them. So many gestures, I will wave, take five … some will dance, I will dance … ” Now that’s the kind of specifically individual talk that reminds you of the serendipitous pleasures of hearing someone you’ve never met before describe what she or he does for a living. This is especially true when the speaker makes you appreciate the unacknowledged labor of keeping a place you hold dear alive and functional. Mr. Sillah is not himself on stage. Instead, he is portrayed with becoming modesty and warmth by Christopher Jackson, whom you may remember for portraying George Washington in the original cast of “Hamilton.” For the 75th anniversary of New York City Center, the creators of this season’s Encores! Off-Center summer series of staged concerts came up with the charming idea of interviewing City Center employees and weaving their stories into the fabric of a show based on conversations with Americans about the pleasures and pains of how they earn their livings. So I was very pleased to encounter Mr. Sillah and his daughter Fatou (Tracie Thoms), who checks the bags of those entering City Center, and Angie White (the Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress Helen Hunt), a ticket taker. Then there are Ron (David Garrison), a box office manager, and his son and co-worker, Jon (Mateo Ferro). I learned all sorts of things about the process of ticket-taking, and how it’s changed over the decades. I wish that the show in which they appear — each in a multitude of roles — were similarly quirky and spontaneous-seeming. Yet there’s a weariness about this latest version of “Working,” which was adapted by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso from Studs Terkel’s oral history of the same title and features musical numbers by seven veteran songwriters. Much of its 90 minutes passes by in a pleasant, anodyne blur — even, or especially, when its performers are singing and dancing. Perhaps appropriately, “Working” remains a work in progress. Though its Broadway debut in 1978 — which featured Lynne Thigpen and a young Patti LuPone — closed after 24 performances, it quickly became a favorite among school and community theaters, and has been retooled for later productions to match the changing times and workscape. The current incarnation — an earlier version of which was presented by the Prospect Theater Company in 2012 — features additional written material by Gordon Greenberg and songs, if you please, by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the man who gave us “Hamilton.” But its parts have yet to cohere into a dynamic whole (a complaint made about “Working” even in its earliest forms). The show’s original songwriters are Mr. Schwartz, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers, Susan Birkenhead and James Taylor. With the exception of Mr. Taylor, each contributed tuneful, wistful melodies that tend to evaporate from memory even as you listen to them. (The unobtrusive, smooth onstage band here is led by Alvin Hough Jr.) Mr. Taylor composed what remains the show’s breakout anthem, It is nicely sung here by Ms. Thoms. Yet as in much of this show — which is choreographed by Avihai Haham — the staging feels distracting and oddly desultory, as if the cast were still awaiting fuller instruction. This production is blessed with the presences of Andrea Burns (a crowd pleaser as a self-dramatizing waitress) and Javier Muñoz, another “Hamilton” alumnus, who is allowed only once to fully unfurl his sweet, emotive singing voice, in a teary number by Mr. Carnelia called “Fathers and Sons.” The handsome set, by Donyale Werle, is likely to stir feelings of déjà vu. A neat shift of perspective at the show’s conclusion, achieved by the full raising of a curtain, makes you realize just where you’ve seen it before. Those doors, those steps, that stately facade? It’s the onstage version of City Center, which fully deserves its own curtain call. Correction: June 27, 2019 An earlier version of this article misstated the given name of a writer of a new production of “Working” at City Center. He is Gordon Greenberg, not Garth. It also misspelled the surname of the director. She is Anne Kauffman, not Kaufman. The given name of one of the performers in the musical’s Broadway debut was also misspelled. She is Lynne Thigpen, not Lynn. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/theater/review-a-familiar-set-of-laborers-join-the-cast-of-working.html

No surprise, closing notices, Aug 18... ‘King Kong’ and ‘Cher Show’ Musicals Announce Closings Each show arrived on Broadway with a big name in its title and major creative talents behind the scenes. But audiences kept their distance. “King Kong,” the big-budget musical driven by its massive namesake puppet, will close Aug. 18 after less than a year on Broadway, the show’s producers announced on Tuesday. “The Cher Show,” the jukebox musical that won Stephanie J. Block a Tony Award in the title role, will wrap up on the same day. Each show arrived on Broadway with a presold — and yes, larger than life — name in its title. And the closings come as major disappointments, given the time, talent and expense it took to bring them to the New York stage. Boasting three title performers and a bounty of tunes from the singer’s lengthy career, “The Cher Show” featured a book by Rick Elice (“Jersey Boys”) and direction by Jason Moore (“Avenue Q”). Jeffrey Seller, who brought “Hamilton” to Broadway, was a co-producer. Bob Mackie did the lavish costumes. But the critic Jesse Green, writing in The New York Times, called the production a “maddening mishmash.” For the week ending June 23, the show grossed $858,578, only 58 percent of its potential. Capitalized for up to $19 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it has not recouped those costs. “King Kong” was the first traditional stage production from Global Creatures, the Australian company whose realistic animatronics brought life to arena shows like “Walking With Dinosaurs” and “How to Train Your Dragon.” It arrived in New York later than expected. After a run in Melbourne, “King Kong” initially considered a 2014 opening, before eventually announcing its 2018 arrival in the spring of 2017. Various creative teams were attached along the way. “King Kong” was capitalized for $30 million, according to the production. That sum — enormous by Broadway standards — has not been recouped. The show eventually opened to stinging reviews, with most of the praise going to the towering title character himself, a colossal marionette clocking in at 20 feet tall and 2,000 pounds. For the week ending June 23, it grossed just shy of $783,000 at the box office, only 53 percent of its potential take. Fourteen performers operate the lifelike ape, whose innovative expressions and movements exceed what most audiences have typically seen from puppetry on Broadway, and were recognized with a special Tony Award this month. The creative team for “King Kong” included the writer Jack Thorne, who also was behind the script for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” and the director and choreographer Drew McOnie. The score was written by Marius de Vries, with songs by Eddie Perfect. At the time of its closing, the show will have played 324 performances and 29 previews at the Broadway Theater. “The Cher Show” will have played 296 performances and 34 previews at the Neil Simon Theater.

Great to hear the news! SAGE offers many services and opportunities. The Gay and Lesbian Center on 13th St also offers a lot of different options, but checking their website, I did not see any offerings for senior gays.

As previously explained Channel 7 is New York City's local ABC affliate channel. Services & Advocacy for LGBT Elders (SAGE) is America's oldest and largest non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) older adults, focusing on the issue of LGBT ageing. According to its mission statement, "SAGE leads in addressing issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) aging. In partnership with its constituents and allies, SAGE works to achieve a high quality of life for LGBT older people, supporters and advocates for their rights, fosters a greater understanding of aging in all communities, and promotes positive images of LGBT life in later years." SAGE is a 501©(3) organization that focuses on advocacy on the local and federal levels, as well as activities, groups and programs that encourage LGBT older adults to stay connected with each other and the community.(Senior Action in the s a national elder gay rights organization that has offices throughout the USA. https://www.sageusa.org I strongly urge all members, especially seniors) of this Message Forum to support this worthwhile group fighting for the rights of senior gay men and women. There is a Brooklyn location. Check it out: https://sagenyc.org/nyc/centers/brooklyn.cfm I have been working with SAGE for many years. QUESTIONS ANSWERED? ED

Also in NYC is Chelsea Piers. https://www.chelseapiers.com/fitness/locations/chelsea/ And, inexpensive and popular is the local YMCA's

She may have been with Bradley in Philly but today's NYPost reports: Patti LuPone spotted on the subway You wouldn’t expect to find Broadway icon Patti LuPone on the subway — but she was spotted on Friday on the 1 train with freshly crowned Tony winner Santino Fontana, the star of “Tootsie.” They were joined by award-winning composer Joseph Thalken. Fontana — who won Best Actor in a Musical — posted a photo of the trio, making a pun on LuPone’s famous “Evita” role by writing: “Don’t cry for me, Local One Train. Only in NY.”

Another one bites the dust.... Closing August 11 ‘Be More Chill’ to End Broadway Run in August The musical, fueled by social media love, opened in March — a tough time of year for a show with a largely student fan base. Social media got “Be More Chill” to Broadway. But it couldn’t keep it there. The supercharged sci-fi musical, about a nerdy teenager who swallows a supercomputer pill that promises to make him popular, will close on Aug. 11. The show’s Tony-nominated composer, Joe Iconis, announced the closing from the stage on Thursday night. At the time of its closing, the show will have played 30 preview and 177 regular performances. The musical, adapted from a 2004 young adult novel by Ned Vizzini, features music and lyrics by Mr. Iconis and a book by Joe Tracz; it is directed by Stephen Brackett. Be More Chill” got off to a promising start at the box office, grossing $738,384 during its first, seven-performance week, but was unable to sustain that. Last week it grossed $416,560 over eight performances. The Broadway production was capitalized for $9 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; that money has not been recouped. But the show still gave a major boost to the career of Mr. Iconis, a long-heralded songwriter and cabaret scene favorite who has struggled to find his footing in the commercial arena. Another musical he wrote, “Broadway Bounty Hunter,” will have a commercial Off Broadway run starting next month at the Greenwich House Theater. And there is new energy behind several others. His “Love in Hate Nation” is to have a production this fall at Two River Theater. And “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical” is expected to have a production at La Jolla Playhouse, which commissioned the work.