Dyin' Before the Good Stuff, Part Four

THE THEATER

6--Jonathan Larson wrote for the theater for fourteen years with nods of encouragement here and there but with no breakthrough until a forty thousand dollar grant that helped fund a workshop of his musical, Rent.  On the eve of the show's first preview, after much encouragement from friends and an off-the-record compliment from a reporter at the New York Times, he died at home of an aortic aneurism at the age of 35.  The show would go on to win every major award that year including several Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  It would transfer to Broadway in April, 1996 and play until September, 2008, becoming the seventh longest-running show in Broadway history.  It would be performed in theaters around the world and influence countless other composers including this year's Tony winner, Lin Manuel Miranda.  It would also retain its power to provoke--just this February, the decision to ban the musical by a principal of a high school in Orange County sparked outrage.  The production was reinstated.

7--Gower Champion, the director of Bye, Bye Birdie and Hello, Dolly, died hours before his final show, 42nd Street, officially opened.  The shrewd and frequently outrageous producer, David Merrick, the "Abominable Showman," waited until the end of several curtain calls before shocking the cast and audience with the news.  That stunt ensured the musical landed on the front page of The New York Times multiple times that week.  42nd Street would go on to play 3486 performances.

If You're Going to the Theater This Weekend, Please Turn Off Your Cell Phone and Don't Pee

Now that audiences are texting, tweeting, snoring, boozing it up and copulating, we're not too far away from those rowdy Groundlings.  Read Linda Winer's Audiences' Bad Behavior Can Lead to a 'Patti LuPone.'

Tiny Tidbytes...Cayce Recommends:

A lesson learned about books and their covers.
If you haven't seen it yet, you may shed a tear.
Not sophisticated, but moving.

Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent

Demi Moore said on Twitter.com that it reduced her to tears as well.

Actress Andrea Burns Debates Theater with a Four-Year-Old

One of my favorite exchanges of the last few months took place on Election Night between Andrea Burns (Danielle in the Tony-award-winning In the Heights) and her son, Hudson, who appeared in several Little Bytes videos when he was three.  (He plays the eponymous Little Tourist Who Could in the Bowling Green tour.) 

(This picture was taken of the family one year before the 2008 debate.)

Hudson was kneeling behind a chair in the living room, putting on a puppet show for his parents and me, but he was four and I'm not afraid to say that the narrative was all over the place--the characters were inconsistent, the voice work muddy, the themes carelessly established and then just as carelessly abandoned.

Besides, Andrea and I hadn't seen each other in a while and we were trying to catch up.  When the constant chatter became too much for the puppetmaster, he stood up from behind the chair and scolded us for not paying attention.

"Hudson," Andrea stopped him, declaiming: "The number one rule in the Theater:  Never bully your audience."

Hudson, who's been attending the theater since he was less than a year old, replied:  "I thought the number one rule was:  The audience has to be quiet."

Touche.

The puppet show resumed.

The Highest Compliment Paid by a Minnesotan

Two years ago, I had a group that was supposed to leave New York on a Thursday afternoon, but because of a winter storm couldn't leave the east coast until Monday evening...from Baltimore!  Listening to the weather reports, I thought that the group I led this weekend would suffer a similar fate.

But I was wrong.  My thirty-three did fly home yesterday despite the winter storms and all of the other cancellations.  Then again, they weren't flying south where airports are closed by an inch of snow--they were flying between JFK and Minneapolis.

The picture was taken on Sunday afternoon, before the snowfall, when they paid me one of the highest compliments a group of Minnesotans can pay a New Yorker.  "We were freezing," they told me at dinner.  "You looked so much warmer than we were." 

I might have blushed at this--I endured a winter day better than a Minnesotan?!?!?!

But before I buy myself a trophy, here's a likely explanation:  While dressing that morning, the Minnesotans thought, "This is New York, it's not nearly as cold as Minneapolis.  I don't need a hat, I don't need my gloves, I'll wear my light jacket." 

Meanwhile, this New Yorker, hearing the forecast, thought:  "Holy crap, it's going to be cold today.  Layer and bundle, layer and bundle.  I'll wear long underwear, my heaviest coat, my hat, my scarf and my gloves."

Click on the photo to enlarge it and count the number of hatless heads. 

One last note:  Since they were a theater group, I thought I'd post an informal poll.  While the shows they saw (Billy Elliot, Shrek and Fuerza Bruta) were very different, I forced them to pick a favorite.

Fuerza Bruta:  60%

Billy Elliot:  40%

Shrek:  0%  (Yikes.)

Behind the Scenes with Patti Lupone

In the poll we posted back in December, Little Byters recommended Gypsy and Spring Awakening as the two shows to see before closing.  On January 11th, Gypsy played its final performance and last week's New York Magazine printed a wonderful behind-the-scenes photo journal (by Gillian Laub) of Patti Lupone on that day--from waking up in her windowless pied-a-terre through stretches in her dressing room and backstage respites to the curtain call and autographs at the stage door.  There are many more photos included online at their website.  To see all 37 pictures, view their slideshow.  

Trivia Question: 75 Years of Amateur Night at the Apollo

Last week, the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem held a 75th anniversary celebration for its famous Amateur Night, which premiered in 1934.  The theater opened in 1914 as the Hurtig and Seamon's New Burlesque Theater, which admitted only white audiences.  In 1934, under new ownership, that policy changed and a show premiered that permitted audiences to boo amateur acts that didn't live up to their exectations.

My favorite story has to do with one of the first winners from that same year.  Orphaned at the age of 15, she escaped various state institutions and was living on the street when, on November 21st, she went to the Apollo to dance.  The act preceding hers, the Edwards Sisters, was one of Harlem's most famous dance duos; intimidated, the seventeen-year-old decided to sing instead.  She sang Judy and The Object of My Affection and won first prize.  Almost immediately, she began to work with bandleader Chick Webb on a journey that would make hers one of the most famous voices of the twentieth century.

NAME THAT SINGER!

Oprah's Birthday and Cat Playing Piano

Another tidbyte from desperate Cayce:

In an obvious attempt to drive traffic to the blog, I give you Oprah's birthday(she turns 55 today) and the old, tried and true favorite, Nora, the cat, playing the piano. What do these 2 things have to do with New York? Well, Oprah produced a successful show on Broadway, The Color Purple, and people in NYC love cats. Oh yeah, there was a very successful Broadway show called CATS. Are you buying any of this?

Here's Oprah(and her close friend, TOM)!

Here's the ever enchanting Nora!

...she did pick the president.

Jerome Kern and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Today we celebrate the birth of 2 great musical talents:

Jerome Kern

Mr. Kern died at the young age of 60 collapsing in front of 450 Park Avenue, in his birthplace of New York City. His best known theater success is the musical "Showboat". Some of his great songs are: "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight", and one song particularly suited for today's economic times, "Pick Yourself Up."

Our other birthday boy is

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Download Marriage of Figaro, K. 492, Overture

Mozart dies at the incredibly young age of 35. There isn't room to go into all of his fabulous music, however his NYC connection is that a wonderful play depicting his life (more or less) was produced on Broadway. The play, entitled Amadeus, premiered on Broadway in 1980 with Ian McKellen as Salieri and Tim Curry as Mozart. It ran for 1,181 performances and was nominated for seven Tony Awards (best actor for both McKellen and Curry, best director for Peter Hall, best play, best costume design, lighting, and set design for John Bury), of which it won five (including a best actor Tony for McKellen).

The lights on Broadway burn a little brighter thanks to these talented gentlemen.

How to Save Broadway

Neil Patrick Harris and the cast of Saturday Night Live stage a brainstorming session on how to save Broadway in the current economy.  It has a great punch and several funny lines. ("Wow, that's racist." "Still relevant.") 

 

Things We Lost in 2008

Recently, every year seems to be a banner year of lost NYC institutions, but 2008 is one for the record books.  Here are ten off the top of my head:

Wall Street 

(If you think that one way arrow should be pointing down, realize that it is pointing south.) 

However Wall Street survives, it's going to be drastically transformed with the loss of 40% of the Dow's value since its high last October, and the fall of some of the largest investment banks around including:

From Seth Rudetsky: Hell's Kitchen

Seth Rudetsky, author, actor, musician, and comedian, has one of my favorite weekly columns posted at Playbill.com.  It's called Onstage and Backstage and usually includes the juiciest, funniest, or most inspiring moments from his week's interviews on Sirius Radio or at the Chatterbox.  Last week, he shared the following: 

Freddie Gershon...the CEO of Music Theater International which licenses Annie...talked about licensing the show down South but then getting all the material back in the mail a week later. He called the principal of the school to see why it was returned. The principal said that "Annie" was Satanic. Huh? Freddie asked what was Satanic about it (besides the E flat that Star-to-Be has to sustain which obviously requires a deal with the devil) and the principal says that the script mentions…Hells Kitchen!!! Freddie explained the misunderstanding:

FREDDIE: Hells Kitchen? Satanic? Hells Kitchen is the name of a neighborhood in New York City.
PRINCIPAL: I rest my case.

Little Bytes Recommends...Before They Close

It's a crazy time for every industry.  CEO's of car companies are acting humble, publishers are taking a break from buying books, and the world of Broadway is being turned upside down.  The existence of Wednesday matinees is being seriously reconsidered and producers are having to shutter some very popular productions, including several Tony winners for Best Musical.

By the end of January, the following Broadway shows will be gone:  Hairspray, Spring Awakening, Spamalot, Young Frankenstein, 13, Boeing Boeing, Grease, and Gypsy.  (This doesn't include the limited engagement productions like The Seagull and All My Sons or the holiday shows like Irving Berlin's White Christmas which will also be gone by February.)  A number of shows closed in the last few months--Legally Blonde, title of show, A Tale of Two Cities, Xanadu, American Buffalo, and the groundbreaking musical Rent, which ran for twelve years.

So if you can only afford the time or money to see one, which would be the show to see?  Well, 18 Little Bytes alumni voted.  Our recommendations after the jump.

Gertrude Stein, Chattanooga, Pearl Harbor and the REAL Broadway

Here are more of my favorite quotes from the archives (originally posted on May 29, 2006):

Robert (at the eastern end of the Channel Gardens):  Do you all know Gertrude Stein?...Well, she was a great modernist...a poet, novelist, playwright...you might know one of her famous lines--'Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.'  Anyway, after Gertrude Stein first stood here, she said, 'The view of Rockefeller Center from Fifth Avenue is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen ever seen ever seen.'

Baffled boy (raising hand):  What was wrong with her?

During a conversation over coffee with a mother and daughter from Alabama, I was told that New York was by far the largest city the girl had ever seen.  She had almost gone to D.C., but her school canceled that trip after 9/11.

Girl:  Instead we went to Chattanooga.

Robert:  That's nice.  I've never been to Chattanooga.

Girl:  YOU'VE NEVER BEEN TO CHATTANOOGA?!?!?!?

Robert (trying not to spill my coffee):  No, but I'd like to go.  What's in Chattanooga?

Girl:  Well, um, there's this building where all these fish swim around.

Robert:  An aquarium?

Girl:  That's it!  You have been there.

In front of the Customs House, an eighth-grader from (state withheld for the sake of the history teacher) asked me about the different places I grew up.  When I mentioned Hawaii, specified Pearl City on Oahu, he jumped up and down.

Excited boy:  Were you there?

Robert:  Where?

Excited boy:  Were you there when the Chinese bombed Pearl Harbor?

Robert:  ?????

And the last comment comes from Daniel, a high school student from Arizona.  His line has become a personal favorite for the simple reason that I haven't been able to stop using it since April.  There's a moment in the musical, Spamalot, when, with the boom of a cannon, there is an explosion of colored confetti that swirls throughout the entire theater.  After the paper finally settled over our audience, Daniel turned to me, nodded slowly, and with great critical authority, announced:  "Now that's real Broadway."

Little Bytes Recommends...

..."Black Watch."

After an all-too-brief, sold-out run at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO last year, the National Theatre of Scotland returned this fall for another limited engagement.  Following more critical raves (the kind that urge you to do anything short of murder to snag a ticket), the show was extended and is now playing through December 21st.  It's a riveting, hyper-theatrical production improvised from interviews and full of high octane physicality that tells the history of Scotland's most celebrated regiment, focusing on their most recent deployment in Iraq (their last tour of duty under their historic name).  Much of the emotion comes from the stylized, choreographed sequences set to music, all of which build to the theater company's own version of a military show parade, an unforgettable finale.

Watch another preview video after the jump.

Stroessenreuther in the Park

This was originally posted on the old blog on September 12th at the close of this season's Shakespeare in the Park.

Travis Stroessenreuther, friend, fellow guide, and Little Byter (Slaves and a Haircut, Madison Avenue, Park Avenue Part One:  Death Avenue) has agreed to share my favorite story (his own) about the lengths people will go to claim those free tickets to the productions at the Delacorte. Travis is also a great actor and a company member of the improv troupe Eight Is Never Enough.

Here's Travis:

Let us start at the very beginning.....

I'm a stable man.  I like simple pleasures, good food, good music and the like.  While I am spontaneous, I do go forth in life with, I feel, a clear head--I know the difference between good and bad ideas.  And when I'm foggy on that detail, I turn to my wife, Julianna, to help me.

Which is why I don't know why on earth she let me go and do the thing I was about to go and do.....

HOUSE SEATS IN TIMES SQUARE

One of the my favorite sequences in the movie I Am Legend, set in the year 2010, takes place in Times Square and features a red staircase that did not exist during production of the film.  This month, the staircase and the new TKTS discount booth (which takes credit cards!!) opened at long last in Duffy Square. 

Now you can sit where Seventh and Broadway intersect, watch the crowds and inhale the exhaust from buses and taxis stuck in traffic.

EVICTED

After dinner we headed back towards where they were all staying.  It was the night after the musical Rent ended its historic twelve-year run on Broadway, and we were walking on 53rd Street, by the row of advertising on the wall of the Broadway theater, when I saw that the Rent placard was being ripped from its perch and dropped without ceremony on the ground.

 

You can see what replaced it.  Shrek: The Musical.  Coming soon.  We can’t wait.  I’m sure it will transform all our lives.