The World’s Most Misunderstood Cast Album
So you think that the first “so-bad-it’s-good” musical was The Rocky Horror Show? A case can be made for a very different property: Say, Darling. Truth to tell, Say, Darling was less of a musical than a play with music. We assume that it was a musical because the 1958 show yielded an original cast […]
Song of Norway Is Coming Your Way
My buddy Ingrid Gammerman has told me that she does it. So has my pal Donald Tesione. On occasion, I’ve done it, too. That is, play a cast album on the precise night of an all-star concert version event that I can’t attend. You, too? Then I guess if you can’t be in Carnegie Hall […]
The Other Anyone Can Whistle
On Wednesday, April 8, 1964, Variety told me that Anyone Can Whistle had opened the previous Saturday to three raves and three pans. I’d never seen such an extreme split from the New York newspaper critics. When I read that the Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents musical would close on Saturday, I wasn’t all that surprised; the […]
Jerry Herman’s Most Delicate Score
Were you among the many who’d planned to go see Betty Buckley do Dear World in London – only to find the show had shuttered earlier than expected? “I’m not surprised,” says my buddy Steven Brinberg. “I know where that little theater is in London, but not many people do. It is impossible to find.” […]
As We Conclude March Madness
Have you been wondering why the National Collegiate Athletic Association nicknames its annual basketball tournament “March Madness” when the tournament heats up in April? Or why CBS calls its broadcast “The Road to the Final Four” even after the final four teams have been narrowed down to the final two teams? Never mind. These are, […]
