A HARD BED AND A CHAIR
Did you miss A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair? It was the Stephen Sondheim-Wynton Marsalis revue that played City Center a few weeks ago. That’s all right. Not being able to make it may have been a blessing in disguise. The show was somewhere between a noble failure and a dud. […]
Mary Martin Remembered
Don’t let December 1 go by without celebrating the 100th birthday of one of Broadway’s favorite stars. “Mary Martin” sounds as if it’s a stage name, doesn’t it? In fact, it’s the actual name (plus a Virginia in between) that Mr. and Mrs. Martin gave the future multi-Tony-winning star on Dec. 1, 1913 when she […]
The Toughest Cut on Any Original Cast Album
“Fifty years from now, they’ll still be arguing about the grassy knoll, the Mafia, some Cuban crouched behind a stockade fence.” The lines come from a surreal scene in Assassins. Twenty-seven year-old John Wilkes Booth, ninety-eight years dead, is encouraging twenty-four-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot President John F. Kennedy. John Weidman wrote those words […]
Do You Know Juno?
I was a little shocked while watching Charlotte Moore’s splendid revival of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock at the Irish Repertory Theatre. I wasn’t surprised that J. Smith Cameron was sensational as Juno, the housewife who’s unlucky to be living in a Civil War-torn Ireland in 1922. That Juno is married to “Captain Jack,” […]
Give Him a Grinch and He’ll Take a Smile
At last! After years of waiting, one of the most endearing scores of recent vintage has finally been recorded and released. It’s going to be in a number of stockings that are hung by the mantle with care, and not just because CDs tend to fit in Christmas stockings. Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole […]
