Category: The Arts

Kinky Friedman

One of the funniest authors I know is Kinky Friedman. He began his career in the 60s as a folk musician with the band The Texas Jewboys, and also played backup for Bob Dylan and many others. His biggest hits were Sold American and They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore.

Then, in the 1980s, he reinvented himself as a mystery novelist. His detective, named Kinky Friedman, was a lot like him, and most of the characters in the books were his real friends. Willy Nelson even appears. It’s impossible for me to read a page of one of his novels without laughing out loud.

In the 2000s Kinky began writing non-fiction, and ran for governor of Texas. He also has a line of tequila.

Last night Dani and I walked down the street to SPACE, our favorite performance space, and listened to Kinky play his songs, tell jokes, and read from his latest book. He also graciously signed a couple of first editions I brought with me. He’s a nice guy, and I’d definitely go to see him again.

Johnny Mercer Songwriter’s Showcase

My favorite entertainment event of the year is the Johnny Mercer Songwriter’s Showcase. It’s held a Northwestern University’s Theatre and Interpretation Center. Each year Master Teachers Craig Carnelia (Tony Award-nominated composer and lyricist), Andrew Lippa (Grammy Award-nominated composer and lyricist) and Lari White (Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter) host sixteen student musicians.

On Friday night they each perform a song, often with the help of some of the other students. The neat thing is that these songs have been written during the last few days–often within the last few hours–before the performance. And yet they are almost without exception simply wonderful. The songs tend to be about one third musical theatre pieces and two thirds what I call singer/songwriter (because they’re not shallow, like pop music tends to be).

Then on Saturday the students become part of the Johnny Mercer Celebration Concert, where they are joined by a well-known star. In past years we saw Stephen Schwartz (Wicked) and Charles Strouse (Applause), who both sat at the piano and told stories about writing their shows. This year it was Tony-nominated performer Ann Hampton Callaway, who is also a lyricist and pianist. In the best segment of the show, she sat at the piano, backed by a small orchestra, and she and the sixteen students improvised a (quite good and very entertaining) song on the spot.

The audience for these show is the typical geriatric musical theatre audience, so I’m always impressed by how enthusiastic they are for the new, often edgy, music created each year. Friday’s event is held in the intimate Josephine Louis Theater, which has superb acoustics and crystal clear sounds reinforcement. Saturday’s event is in the larger Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, which ironically has terrible acoustics and a sound system that renders even speech nearly unintelligible. Needless to say, Friday is the best event.

This year’s group of students were better pedigreed than usual, with many of them making a living from music, and already self-published. So as you might expect, the songs were even better than usual. In fact, among the sixteen numbers, it was hard to pick a favorite.

The event is funded by the patrons who attend, and by the Johnny Mercer Foundation, which in turn is funded by the royalties from his songs. What a wonderful project!

Here are the bios of this year’s students:

Matilde Bernabei will be graduating next year with a BFA in Musical Theatre from Texas State University.  She has been honing her craft as a vocal performer for eight years and is ready to hone her craft as a songwriter. She has been composing music and playing the guitar for five years, performing her songs for school functions and local groups.  Matilde is grateful for the opportunity to work with talented, professional artists and collaborate with other songwriters.

Jeff Bienstock was born in Santa Monica, California.  He began his musical career as a clarinetist, but became interested in composition at college.  In 2006, he moved east to earn a Masters in Composition at NYU; there, he began work on what would eventually become his first full-length musical, the award-winning The Morning After/The Night Before.  The show was produced in 2010 as part of the NYC Fringe Festival, and had a sold-out run at the Off-Broadway Lortel Theater.  Jeff has been participating in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop since 2008.  He currently lives in Brooklyn.

Kayley Bishop is fresh out of the Boston Conservatory where she graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in musical theatre.  She’s from Fort Myers, Florida, although her childhood was spent in Tennessee and can surely account for her love of bluegrass music and cowboy boots.  She’s new to songwriting, having only spent the last year working the craft, but she’s been singing ever since she could talk.  She feels very blessed to be accepted into the Johnny Mercer program amongst so many talented musicians and looks forward to the music she’ll get to make with them during this special week.

Cassie Boettcher (pronunciation: cass-ee betcher, like “betch your bottom dollar”) is a Milwaukee pop singer-songwriter whose music showcases unique lyrics and catchy melodies.  Having been compared to Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, and Ingrid Michaelson, she has received positive attention from industry professionals and fans around the world.  Cassie has opened for Rosi Golan, Kate York (writer of Jonny Diaz’s “More Beautiful You”), Natalie Hemby (writer of Miranda Lambert’s “White Liar,” “Only Prettier,” Carrie Underwood’s “Play On”).  She has been acknowledged nationally as one of 50 upcoming acts by the Aloft Hotel chain and currently is an artist ambassador for the Supercuts ‘Rock the Cut’ campaign.

Andrea Daly’s soulful voice and clever lyrics make her a dynamic performer to hear.  Although she garners frequent comparisons to Sara Bareilles or Fiona Apple, Andrea is inspired by a melting pot of influences, from Broadway and classical composers to indie songwriters like Ben Folds and Regina Spektor.  With creativity and subtlety, she crafts refreshingly honest songs. Andrea lives in NYC and has performed solo at Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Auditorium, The Bitter End, Googies Lounge, and National Underground, among other venues.  Her EP “Moving Through This” was released in 2010, and she is currently working on a full-length album.

With his laid-back vocal delivery and acoustic songwriting, John Gurney draws much of his inspiration from the music of 1970’s Chicago folk scene, which his mother was at the center of as a singer-songwriter and performer.  It was during his time at the University of Missouri (2011) that songwriting and performance became his focal point. His first album City Of Strangers was released in February 2012.

You might recognize NYC-based artist Caleb Hawley from season 10 of American Idol, when he had the Aerosmith icon Steven Tyler singing along and jamming out, while recognizing him as “Something new and something different”.  In addition to his stint in reality TV, this Harlem based blue-eyed soul singer has toured the country along with his “merch-dog” Fargo, playing nearly 1000 shows over the past four years.  Along the way Hawley has received top honors in the prestigious New York Songwriters Circle Contest (2008 and 2009), the John Lennon Songwriting Contest (2009), the Telluride Festival (2010), and most recently took first prize in the Rocky Mountain Folk Fest (2011) for his songwriting.

Patrick Lundquist is a Singer/Songwriter residing in Los Angeles, California.  He began his career working for the singer Al Jarreau.  Patrick’s musicality intrigued Mr. Jarreau and soon they were writing songs together.  Eventually, Patrick was singing backup for Al in the studio and in concert.  In January 2011, Patrick branched away, co-writing an EP for his vocal group Embassy Tide.  The EP debuted at #9 on the iTunes vocal charts. Patrick’s voice has been heard on numerous studio releases, including Adam Lambert’s For Your Entertainment and the soundtrack of the movie Easy A.

Rebekah Greer Melocik is a proud graduate of NYU’s Musical Theater Writing MFA program, and has been lucky enough to study with Rachel Sheinkin, Jason Robert Brown, Sybille Pearson and Michael John LaChiusa.  Rebekah was part of the inaugural season of the Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat in 2011, and has had her work performed in Los Angeles, New York and Sydney.  Current projects include two musicals with Jacob Yandura: Dogwood Days and The Disillusionist.  She is a co-founder of PVBLIC BATH, an artist collective that strives to provide points of access between members of the local and global community.

Gregory Nabours works as a musical director, composer and pianist in Los Angeles, California.  Classically competitive as a child, Gregory grew up with music.  In college, he branched out into choral, jazz, pop/rock, and film score, but never truly escaped his passion for theatre.  Gregory is the proud resident composer for the Courage Theatre Company, and his band, The Anix, has toured both nationally and internationally.  In 2011, he wrote and debuted The Trouble With Words, a full-length song cycle.  Public response was extraordinary, and Gregory received one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious theatre awards, the “2011 Ovation Award for Original Music and Lyrics”, as well as “Best Musical” at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.

A little bit gritty, a little bit country, and all heart, Sarah Nisch’s debut EP, By Heart, was released on February 14th, 2012.  The album was fan-funded via Kickstarter and written entirely by Sarah and her talented friends in Brooklyn, NYC.  Listeners are taken on a roller-coaster ride from Sarah’s modest, mid-western upbringing to the angst-filled passion of survival in the city, and back down again to the tender melancholy of many a broken heart.  (Jewel meets Taylor Swift for coffee at Avril Lavigne’s Brooklyn loft.)  Sarah is eternally grateful for the Mercer experience.

Jennifer Sanchez is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the state question “red or green” has always made her happy to have taste buds.  She grew up all over the country as an Air Force kid and now lives in NYC where she can be seen in the Broadway musical Ghost.  She began writing songs as a girl to help with the constant moving and replacing of friends/pets/schools.  She is overwhelmed to join this group of creators and would like to thank her father for teaching her guitar, her mother for teaching her to harmonize, and her sisters for keeping her out of trouble.

Peter Seibert is a composer, conductor, and producer based in Los Angeles.  Additional music and/or arrangement film credits include One for the Money, Footloose, Alice in Wonderland, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Disney’s Prom and Dear John.  Peter was one of 25 composers (alongside legendaries such as Marvin Hamlisch and Dave Grusin) to contribute music to Haiti: A Symphony of Hope.  The collaborative piece debuts in Los Angeles August 2012.  Peter is a recipient of ASCAP’s Harold Arlen Award for Film and TV Music.  He currently writes additional music for the television series Drop Dead Diva.

Shaina Taub is a New York-based performer, songwriter and Ars Nova’s 2012 Composer-in-Residence. Her band has been playing in the city for three years, with a regular residency at Rockwood Music Hall, and her EP, What Otters Do was released last summer.  Taub’s original opera, The Daughters, was produced at CAP21 Theatre Company and the Yale Institute of Music Theater.  She’s currently writing the score of a new musical with playwright Kim Rosenstock, commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is developing music for Walt Disney Imagineering, and recently received a 2011 MacDowell Fellowship.  Shaina recently performed with Karen O in her alt-rock opera, Stop the Virgens, at St. Ann’s Warehouse and the Sydney Opera House.

Becky Warren is the Washington, DC-based songwriter and lead singer for the alt-country band The Great Unknowns. Their first record found its way to Indigo Girl Amy Ray, who declared it “Excellent songwriting in the Americana tradition-really one of the best things I have heard this year” and released it on her independent label, Daemon Records. The songwriting quickly attracted accolades.  All Music Guide wrote: “Warren’s voice and lyrics perfectly flow together, conveying longing and hope with a sense of tough pride…It’s the highlight of a terrific debut that shows tremendous potential from Becky Warren.”  The band’s new record, Homefront, proves that Warren can pick up right where she left off -the album has earned several songwriting awards, including the grand prize in the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest.

Jacob Yandura holds a B.A. in Music Composition from Kenyon College and an M.F.A from New York University’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.  In 2009, his musical, Morning’s Song, was premiered at Kenyon College.  His current projects include Dogwood Days and The Disillusionist (book and lyrics by Rebekah Melocik).  Most recently, Jacob was a part of the inaugural season of the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat and the Broadway’s Future @ Lincoln Center concerts.  His work has been performed in various cabarets around New York, Nashville and Florence, Italy.  Jacob is a founding member of PVBLIC BATH, an artist collective, with Rebekah Melocik and Lexa Freshwater Burton.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark gets a makeover

We just got back from Spider-Man. This is the second time we’ve seen a show before and after they fixed it (The Addams Family was the first). The original version was so bad it prompted me to write a review entitled Spiderman: Turn Off the Suck. This version of Spider-Man is nearly a total rewrite. I’d say more than half the dialogue was new. They added 30 minutes of exposition to explain the plot and motivations, rearranged some confusing scenes, re-staged most scenes, cut several subplots that didn’t work, made much better use of their moving video walls, and essentially discarded the original act 2, nearly in its entirety. They also got rid of the “geek” chorus, the spiders with mannequin legs and the lonely guitarists standing at the edge of the stage.

In the original version, the main villain, the Green Goblin, died very early in the show, and the second act was incomprehensible nonsense about a spider goddess making Peter Parker think New York had been destroyed so he would fall in love with her. Thankfully, that is gone, and now the Green Goblin survives until the very end. Because he was so funny, they have given him several opportunities to essentially do a standup schtick with the audience, and there is a hysterical bit where he tries to navigate a voice mail system to leave a threatening message. This also moves the climactic battle to the end of the show. Duh. These changes have upgraded the show from a D- to a B+. It was an expensive but shrewd move to close this show for six weeks, dump director Julie Taymor and start over. I applaud those who had the guts to take a chance on it.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Some Broadway shows have plots so convoluted that it requires advance study to follow them. This is a not a problem for Priscilla Queen of the Desert. The entire plot may be summarized as: three drag queens and a bus.

That’s not to say the show isn’t fun. It is. Filled with stunning costumes (cupcakes, human paint brushes, a dress made of flip flops), top notch musical performances, and a collection of pop hits from the 70s and 80s, the show will delight anyone who enjoyed La Cage Aux Folles (although that show actually has a deep story).

As good as the cast was, they were at times upstaged by the bus. It twirls, spins, opens up, hangs over the front rows of the audience, serves as an anchor for a twenty foot long high-heeled shoe, and eventually every surface of it is revealed to be a video wall. If it sounds tacky, it is, but all in good fun. The audience ate it up.

Earlier in the day we had lunch at Jean Georges, one of our favorites, and New York’s best lunch deal. It was a novelty to simply walk downstairs from our room to go to the restaurant.

Then we went for a long walk in Central Park. I’d never really had a chance to explore before, and we climbed to the top of Belvedere Castle. It was fun, but hot, and we all needed showers when we got back to the room.

Our late dinner after the show was at db Bistro Moderne. So nice to be in a town where you can make an 11pm dinner reservation and not be keeping the waiters up late.

Hall and Oates at Ravinia

Here’s a trivia question for you:

What is the biggest selling musical duo of all time?

Awww, you peeked. Yup, it’s Hall and Oates. Don’t bother to try to guess who’s number two. (It’s The Pet Shop Boys.) Clearly, there are not a lot of musical duos.

When we were at Ravinia for Deep Purple last week, I thought it was sold out. Turns out, though that the lawn can hold a lot more people. I mean, a LOT more people:

Basically, Hall and Oates is mostly Hall (the blond with the personality, who sings almost every song). Of the eight piece band, the sax player and lead guitarist do most of the heavy lifting. They put on a good show, but were hampered by audio problems that kept the crowd from really getting into it until the end of their less than 90 minute set.

Before the show we talked our way into the Park View restaurant, although our reservations were really for the Mirabella buffet downstairs. Really impressive food for a seasonal restaurant staffed by college kids.

Leaving the concert during the second encore was a good move, as we rolled home on the Metra train as thousands of people gathered to wait for the next one.

Songwriters Showcase

Last night we attended the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Showcase, where 16 incredibly talented young songwriters show off the songs they’ve written during the past week’s workshop. Last year it was the highlight of the summer shows we saw, and it didn’t disappoint this year. Every song was a winner.

Tonight we attended Applause! Applause! where the best of those songs were presented to a larger audience, along with professional performances from the songbook of Charles Strouse, who was honored with an award. Strouse wrote Bye, Bye Birdie, Applause, Annie, and quite a few other musicals, as well as the theme song from All In The Family. At the end of the evening he received his award and entertained at the piano and told some hilarious stories; he’s quite the card for an 83 year old.

Earlier today Dani and I walked through the closed streets of Evanston, where there was an art festival, and then walked up to Central to buy some spices at The Spice House and some cheese and bread at the gourmet market. All together it was a five mile walk, and her ankle held up well, its first real outing since taking her cast off and starting physical therapy.

During our walk we revisited some of the fallen trees from last week’s storm, which have now been cut up and cleared. It’s not hard to figure out why this large branch—that I photographed previously—broke off:

Deep Purple at the Ravinia Festival

Ravinia is an outdoor music festival founded in 1904. It’s a few miles North of Evanston.

Dani and I went to see Deep Purple with the Ravinia Festival Orchestra and opening band Ernie and the Automatics.

Dinner at the upstairs restaurant was quite pleasant. It’s amazing to have to kick start a fine dining restaurant every summer.

It was an unexpected treat that two members of Ernie and the Automatics were the guitarist and drummer from Boston, who played a Boston medley.

Deep Purple was excellent– very talented guitarist and keyboard player– and it was fun to hear them with an orchestra.

Owl City

Dani and I went to see Owl City at The House of Blues. The first warm-up band, Unwed Sailor, consisted of a talented drummer and three people who stared at the floor.  In the absence of any melody or words (no singer) all of their songs sounded like the first five seconds, repeated for five minutes.

The second act was Mat Kearney, who was quite good.

But the audience was clearly there to see Owl City. This was a very different audience than I’d ever encountered at House of Blues, which normally attracts—how can I put this—drunk Gen Xers. Owl City attracts ages 8 to 60, but the average was probably 14. We also noticed the audience was essentially 100% Caucasion. The place was packed, upstairs and down.

I was afraid Owl City would turn out to be one guy (Adam Young) with a Macbook, but there were actually six talented musicians, and an assortment of instruments: two drum sets, many keyboards, cello, violin, bass, vibraphone, xylophone, and many guitars.  Since there is almost no guitar in their music as first I thought the guitars were just props, but they did play a couple of songs where Adam demonstrated excellent guitar proficiency.

It was surprising that the music sounded completely different when played live. They used almost no auto-tune on the voices, and there was much more acoustic stuff. Definitely more complex than the typical tween band. They played two hours, which was great, but it meant we were standing for four hours. House of Blues is still the worst venue in town, but this was an excellent concert.

Spiderman: Turn Off the Suck

When we first planned this trip to New York, I asked Ron if there were any Broadway shows he wanted to see, and he mentioned Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark. Having heard how awful the show was, and that it was by far the most expensive Broadway show ever produced, I admit to a morbid fascination to see just how bad it was. So we got tickets to see it. When we purchased them, American Express insisted on reading a warning that many purchasers had been unhappy with the show and that there would be no refunds. Not a good sign when you’re spending $300 a seat!

We knew the show had never officially “opened.” technically it is still in previews, the longest any show has ever remained so, and a sure sign of trouble. Nevertheless, it continues to be sold out. Since the day we bought the tickets there have been two other interesting developments: the director, Julie Taymor, was essentially fired, and they’ve announced the show will close to for a month or two to be reworked. In fact, today is its last day.

With all that going against it, I was expecting it to be bad, and I wasn’t disappointed. It might not be the worst Broadway show ever, but it’s in contention. If you factor in production cost, it’s a clear winner.

The main reason it sucks is the usual one: story. It seems as if they couldn’t bear to just retell Spiderman’s origin, so they layered two incomprehensible plotlines on top of it.

Incomprehensible plot line number 1: Four unidentified teens are attempting to come up with a Spiderman story that is essentially this show. The story is… a retelling of Spiderman’s origin, combined with incomprehensible plot line number 2.

Incomprehensible plot line number 2: Arachne is a mythical character who committed suicide and became an immortal spider. Now she is in love with Peter Parker and is creating imaginary versions of his past villains and convincing everyone on the planet that the world is being destroyed (or not) to convince Peter to be with her rather than Mary Jane. If that sounds like it makes no sense, it’s because it makes no sense. It is, however, a good excuse for having lots of people dressed as spiders dangling from cables.

The first half of Act 1 is so bad that the audience was giggling in embarrassment over how bad it was! I’ve never experienced that before.

The other huge problem with the show is the dull, repetitive and poor music by Bono and U2. There might be five halfway decent songs, and that’s being generous.

A lot of people have said they don’t know where the 70 or 80 million bucks went for this show, but I didn’t feel that way. There are tons of giant moving things: set pieces, video walls, ramps, lifts, hoists, plus a rigging system that can fly two people over the audience as they fight. It looks expensive.

The show has exactly two things going for it: those giant moving things, and the impressive arial work of the eight stuntmen dressed as Spiderman. I’ve seen a lot of over-audience flying, but this is truly impressive. It’s also the reason the audience applauds at the end, although there was no unanimous standing ovation, the first time in a while I’ve seen that.

If they can continue to pack the theater after they rework (and presumably officially “open”) they may, at $300, eventually pay back the investment, but this show can’t travel, which limits its revenues. If you take away the gimmicks that are clearly not portable, it would be unbearable.

The show sucks mainly because Julie Taymor, who co-wrote and directed, is a mask designer, not a writer or director. She won a Tony for directing Lion King, but that already had a story and a score, and she won the Tony because it was her idea to design cool masks and put them on top of characters’ heads instead of over their faces. That doesn’t make her a writer or director. Obviously.

So now that they’ve called in others to fix it, what will they do? Will they have the guts to discard the two incomprehensible plot lines and all but five songs? That seems unlikely. As a result, I’m betting that the Spectacular Spiderman will continue to suck, but perhaps just not so spectacularly.

The 5 Browns

The 5 Browns is a classical music group of five siblings—Desirae, Deondra, Gregory, Melody and Ryan Brown—who play piano. Five pianos. All Steinways, all at the same time. They put on a great show last night at the Plaza, playing a combination of classical and more modern “classical” music, plus several film scores.

I hadn’t been to the larger of the two theaters at the Plaza before. The concert wasn’t well attended, with only about 150 people there. I blame that on poor marketing, because the Browns certainly put on a great show. The day before the show, Martin sent me a special offer to see them at the Plaza theater last night, and I ended up with a $45 fifth row ticket for $10! That hardly pays to move five Steinways around the country.

My favorite moments of the show were:

  • The opening number, Holst’s Planets, where the orchestral parts were divvied up amongst the pianos.
  • A suite of music from Star Wars. Apparently they also recorded this at LucasFilm.
  • Reflections On “Shenandoah,” a modern piece composed for five pianos.
  • A solo performance of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. I’d only ever seen Daffy Duck perform this, so it was pretty impressive to see how a human accomplishes this near-impossible piece!

The Browns were extremely professional at what must have been a difficult time, given the events of the previous day. I’m really glad Martin alerted me to this show.

 

Rachael Sage

Martin and I went to see Rachael Sage, one of my favorite performers. It was no small feat finding this concert, which was inexplicably part of the monthly Orlando Folk Music meeting. It was originally advertised as being at a diner in Osteen (wherever that is) and then at Lieu Gardens, but it turned out to be at a private home on Lake Ivanhoe. The home featured an upstairs art gallery which proved to be a good performance space. About thirty people showed up, which was basically a full house. As far as I could tell, three of us knew who Rachael Sage was (including Martin, who didn’t know two days ago). The rest seemed to be the regular folk music society members, who, surprisingly, seemed to mostly be retirees.

The afternoon began with a guitar duo who played mediocre folk/bluegrass/blues for a half hour. I presume this is the usual fare for this club. Then Rachael Sage came on, solo, and played piano and sang for two 45 minute sets. I was concerned that her music–which is certainly not folk, but rather complex contemporary alternative–would not be well-received, but the crowd was very enthusiastic. She has a great personality, and shared lots of stories about herself and the songs, and didn’t take things too seriously, interspersing her lyrics with comments to the audience, and also the owners’ dog, who kept strolling through!

Her set list was a dream. Essentially she played my entire five-star Rachel Sage playlist, drawing upon, as near as I could tell, all nine of her albums. At intermission I asked for my favorite, Jane’s Demitri, and she noodled around with it, but couldn’t quite remember the details, but she told my that next time, if I posted the request to Facebook, she’d practice it in advance. Wow.

This was a wonderful concert, and I felt guilty that it only cost $12, and that I already own all nine of her CDs, so couldn’t buy anything.

West Side Story

The touring production of West Side Story visited Orlando this week, and Linda and I saw it on our season ticket subscription to Broadway Across America. Of all the hundreds of musicals we’ve seen, it’s curious that neither of us had ever seen this show onstage. Of course, we’ve seen the movie, but the show’s complex orchestral score must be beyond the talents of regional theaters, so we had to wait for this revival.

Surely no other fifty-year-old musical stands up as well as this one. Even today the orchestration is fresh, cutting edge, and unlike anything else. And the choreography is simply the best we’ve seen, easily outdoing other famous “dance” musicals such as Oklahoma. The extremely young troupe put incredible energy into each number, and it was easy to believe they were two teen gangs; they were!

The voices in this show were good, particularly Michelle Aravena as Anita. (We saw her on Broadway in 2006 in A Chorus Line.) Ali Ewoldt as Maria was also good. Sadly, the lead for Tony was sick, and his understudy wasn’t at the level of the other performers; he seemed more like he belonged in a (good) school production of the show.

Amazingly, the Bob Carr acoustics failed to defeat the sound engineer, perhaps because the levels were lower than most shows. As a result, the orchestra sounded great. Most of the lyrics were also clear, although America was inexplicably unintelligible.

This show mixes fairly extensive Spanish dialogue and lyrics with English, which works great and adds to the believability of the antagonistic relationship between the Sharks and Jets. Because the plot is conveyed through the action, no translation is needed. An excellent show.

Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow rarely leaves Vegas these days, but last night he kicked off a new tour at the Amway Center in Orlando. This is the second concert I’ve seen there, and the jury is still out on the acoustics, but Barry’s sound man definitely didn’t have a handle on it. I’ve never heard so much feedback in a major concert production. Since this was the first stop on the tour, hopefully they’ll get it straightened out by the next show.

But Barry did a great job. We saw him thirty years ago at the Greek Theatre in LA, and he still has the voice and puts on a great show, even in the face of adversity, which the sound mix certainly created.

My favorite moments were the ballads, but I also really enjoyed seeing four guys play one piano at the same time!

Some excerpts from the Sentinel’s unusually on-target review:

Although Manilow will tell you that the road show doesn’t aim to copy the glitzy production of his Vegas act, there was a decent amount of that showroom pop Thursday at Amway Center, especially in the oversized opening moments and the thunderous, confetti-adorned finale.

The orchestra, about 70 members strong, looked to be having a blast, waving instruments in the air in the opening moments to a pounding drumbeat…

The sound mix was a blaring, muddled mess, especially in the monster crescendos … in the early going. Equally frustrating, Manilow’s voice almost disappeared when he dipped into the lower register in the understated moments…

And the man was working the room. He prowled the stage energetically, if awkwardly, belting out songs to the back row with crazy arm gestures that might have been showbiz semaphore decipherable only to veteran casino patrons…

If Manilow likes things big, it’s not because he can’t do a ballad. One of the night’s most captivating moments also was among the most delicate. Seated on a stool, the singer tenderly offered “When October Goes,” a song that he adapted from unfinished lyrics by the iconic Johnny Mercer.

Of course, Manilow himself has no shortage of songs…

“You didn’t think we’d let you go home without doing this one,” he said, launching into the obligatory “Copacabana.” Like most everything he does, it was over the top.

Rock of Ages more like Gravel

For a decade we held season tickets to the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, which hosted some of the best productions in the Southeast, but then they terminated their affiliation with Broadway Across America, and stopped getting the interesting touring companies. So, for the past two years, we’ve subscribed to the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center in Orlando, a theater with worse acoustics than the average 7-Eleven restroom.

Once again last night, the Bob Carr soundly defeated the audio system (pun intended). But the touring show Rock of Ages has far worse problems than audio. With the exception of the female lead, this was the most untalented cast I’ve ever heard in a national touring company. And her ability to sing and act simply made everyone else look even worse. Honestly, I’ve seen many high school casts better than this one. As the Orlando Sentinel critic noted, we couldn’t tell if they were paying homage to the songs, or parodying them.

The song choices themselves were good, and the on-stage musicians played them fine. But the songs have so little relationship to the show that, even if they had been well sung, they could have provided no emotional tug.

Like In The Heights, the show attracts non-theatregoers. The misanthropes next to me appeared to have never been to a cultural event, talking through the show and occasionally shouting at the players.

While some in the audience did laugh at the bits of dialogue they could understand, it had the feeling of nervous laughter, since the book writer seems to have simply thrown in every idea that came to him (again quoting from the Sentinel) with an emphasis on middle school references to sexual anatomy.

The best thing about the show was the second act, because we were at home, asleep.

Elton John

Elton John has devoted this year to resurrecting the career of Leon Russell, his early inspiration. At Daytona Beach last night Sir Elton even came out first to introduce Leon’s half hour set. Leon’s long white hair and beard make him look like Santa Clause wearing a white cowboy hat. He’s frail, and shuffles onstage with the help of a cane, but his piano playing is undiminished, and his style is so similar to Elton’s that it’s often hard to tell who is playing.

Leon’s opening set ran 30 minutes, and included only two songs we knew, Tightrope and Song For You. Then he took a break and Elton took the stage, perking things up with Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting, and a half hour of other hits.

The center piece of the concert saw Leon return and the duo plus large backing band played nearly all of their new album, Union. Listening to the album on the way to Dayton, Linda and I found it slow and somber, but at the concert they performed a complex, uptempo version that was better. As Elton noted, “It’s hard to listen to new music,” but the crowd was enthusiastic. Elton was clearly delighted that the two of them had an album at number five, their first top ten “in decades.” The best song is probably Shilo. The final number, a gospel solo by Leon, is a song he wrote to thank Elton for being his “angel.”

The album complete, Leon headed for bed, and Elton played his hits for more than an hour. The audience was on its (overweight, middle aged) feet after every song. For me the highlight is always his improvised introduction to Take Me To The Pilot. If you haven’t experienced his phenomenal piano improvisations, check this out on youtube.

Well past the three hour mark, Elton returned for an encore of signing autographs and finished where he began his career, with a heartfelt Your Song, dedicated to the audience.

As we filtered into the parking lot we reflected on how nice it was to see a concert by someone who clearly wanted to be there, sharing his music with the audience, completely the opposite of our experience with The Eagles.

This concert was extraordinarily loud. Even with earplugs I’m still a bit deaf in one ear. I feel sorry for those who didn’t have them. It’s a shame they insist on cranking the music so loud, because it creates echoes in the arena. The sound was much better on the softer numbers.

Before the show we had dinner at The Cellar, a favorite restaurant in Daytona Beach. It’s in the basement of Warren G. Harding’s home. No kidding.

Pull

Another of my writing students has been published! Barbara Binns developed her book, Pull, while in my online class. It’s been published by WestSide Books and is available on amazon. Here’s my review:

Becoming A New Person

The greatest books invite us to become their main characters, experiencing their emotional and physical conflicts, suffering their defeats, and cheering for their triumphs. Pull, the brilliant debut novel by B. A. Binns, is just such a book.

Pull is populated with fully-realized inner city characters who are not stereotypes. While acknowledging the milieu of “dead-heads, thugs and wannabe” gangsta clowns, Pull’s characters defy expectation and avoid cliche. These are smart, thinking kids, who are well aware of their limitations as they struggle to make a place for themselves in the high school status quo.

From page one we’re launched into the precarious new life of David Albacore, who is running from a past that haunts him but is inescapable. As David struggles to take care of siblings orphaned by a father he despises, he finds himself unable to overcome the very same passions that drove that man to murder. And Binns perfectly captures the amped-up sexual angst of every teenage boy, as David is smitten by Yolanda, the hottest girl in the “in” crowd — a group he’s sworn to avoid.

When Yolando and David finally come together, sparks fly. But Yolanda means big trouble, because she’s pack leader Malik’s girl, and Malik has it out for David, not only as a romantic rival, but also on the basketball court and — most importantly — as a threat to David’s little sister.

Pull builds to an exciting climax, as David finds all of his problems converging, leaving him wondering what price he is willing to pay, and what it means to let go. Pull is a great read that will appeal to a wide variety of readers, because it’s about real people solving real problems, with love and compassion.

IAAPA 2010

This year’s IAAPA show (and the next ten years!) is back in Orlando. I did a book signing to benefit Give Kids the World. It was nice to see so many old friends who dropped by, but I think I’m going to keep my day job!

I also had a chance to drop by the Alcorn McBride booth, which looks fantastic. Loren really picked out nice furniture, and the show seemed busy.

Today was Ryan’s last day in Orlando, and he made the most of it, working with Adam until it was time to head to the airport. A very productive trip.

Marketing a Book

Theme Park Design is my latest book. It’s based upon the text of my Imagineering class. I published it through createspace.com, which is a division of amazon.com. I decided to publish it because David Green’s and my previous book, Building a Better Mouse, continues to sell well, even after three years.

The margins are excellent on books published through createspace, and it’s great that amazon owns them because they do the fulfillment, and copies are even available through Ingram for distribution to conventional bookstores.

It’s been interesting to do a real book launch; I’ve never tried it before. I began by contacting the various industry blogs and trade magazines, asking if they wanted a copy, and having them drop shipped from createspace. Meanwhile, Loren is doing a press release through PR Newswire on Tuesday, and is contacting newspapers.

I also tried some advertising on google and facebook. Originally the ads linked to the createspace page (because my margin is a bit better), but after a day of poor results I changed it to the amazon page. So far, with only one more day of data, it looks like people are much more willing to buy from amazon. Building a Better Mouse is usually about number 39,000 (out of 6 million) on their site, and yesterday Theme Park Design was number 29,000. Because the ads cost between fifty cents and a dollar per click, I suspect they won’t be cost effective, but I’ll try it for a week and see. The margin on createspace is at least ten times that of conventional publishing, or it would make no sense. Still, it’s amazing how few click there are for hundreds of thousands of impressions. However, I’m limiting my budget to $20 a day, just in case.

I also set up a Theme Perks Press blog through blogspot, because the RSS feed can be connected to my amazon author’s page.

My plan is to time this book release both for IAAPA (where we plan to do a book signing) and also for the holiday shopping season. If some of the blogs release reviews before Thanksgiving that could work out well. I have a suspicion that amazon sales behave as a positive feedback loop, and that if the book could be propelled into the top 1000 it might be self-sustaining for a while.

Anyway, it will be an interesting experiment.

The Eagles

The Eagles played the first big concert at the new Amway Center. The event was actually rescheduled from an earlier date because Don Henley was sick. At nearly the last minute we decided to get tickets and were surprised at being able to get seats right next to the stage, although a side view.

Since it was Martin’s birthday, we took him to Shari Sushi Lounge for dinner before the show. The sushi was quite good, and the place has a nice vibe. And we were there so early that all the sushi items were $3.75. Such a deal.

The new Amway Center is bigger than the old Orena, although the major difference is lots of skyboxes and club space. There are supposed to be restaurants and bars, but these weren’t open. I don’t know if that’s because they are only for Magic games, or if they aren’t ready yet. There’s also a lot of bars on the club level that you can only get to if you have seats in that area, which is weird, since they aren’t really great seats.

For the most part the facility is quite nice, but there are a few things that need to be worked out. There were lines for the restrooms — even the men’s restroom — and the causeway to the parking garage is an obvious bottleneck. For the most part, though, it’s a fine facility.

When we went to our seats we found out why we’d been able to get them at the last minute. One of them didn’t exist! Fortunately, they knew they’d made a mistake, and the usher had replacement tickets for us, even closer. In fact we were in the second row. This was the view from our seats:

Unfortunately, there was a hyper active druggie — a middle aged woman with enormous fake boobs — next to us who continually bounced in her seat, rocking the entire row, even between songs, until we thought we were going to be sick. This was worsened by the fact that our section was a movable scaffold, rather than concrete. So, before the whole thing collapsed or she blew out a boob, for the second half we moved to the empty nose bleed section behind the stage. This was the view from our new seats:

As it turned out, they were pretty good seats, because we could watch the video, and the music wasn’t deafening (mostly). I found that watching everyone play guitar left-handed from behind the rear projection screen didn’t bother me, but the piano playing was a bit weird!

The band is really tight, and they can still hit those high notes, after almost 40(!) years. For some reason, though, they seemed to have no energy during the first half, and things really dragged. But, mysteriously (energy drinks? wink, wink), they came out after intermission completely energized, and the second half was excellent. They have about ten backup players, four different keyboard stations with at least seven keyboards, two drum sets, nine spotlight operators, at least five HD camera operators, and a mixing area that occupied the space for 100 seats. This is not a small operation. The video wall behind the band is one of those RGB LED curtains (I think) about 30 feet high and 40 feet wide. While my favorite songs are by Don Henley, the Joe Walsh numbers really got the audience excited. The country songs, performed by Glenn Frey and Tim Schmidt, seem light years away from the newer material.

The band was very generous with their time, and played for 3-1/2 hours. Definitely an excellent concert.  And yet… it’s funny. I go to concerts to get to know a band. It’s the stories and interaction that make them interesting. If I want to listen to the music I have an iPhone. While they expended a great deal of effort and were generous with their time, I never really felt like they were there onstage. I suppose I’d have trouble with that, too, if I had to play the same song and go through the same patter every night for forty years.

Winter Garden Noises Off

Tonight we had dinner at Thai Blossom in Winter Garden, a restaurant in the Edgewater Hotel around the corner from The Chef’s Table. The Thai food was mostly quite good, and the place was packed by the time we left. Our wine was opened by the owner, who then left to get ready to be in the show playing across the street at the Garden Theatre.

After dinner we listened to the jazz band that plays on the fourth Friday of every month, then strolled to the theatre and chatted with Becky Stafford, its president, who is the mother of a boy Dani performed with at Trinity.

Then we went in to see the play, a farce called Noises Off. It was entertaining, at times frenetic, but never quite the uproarious comedy intended. It’s divided into three acts, each of which contains the same play-within-a-play. In the first act it is being rehearsed by a band of fairly inept actors. In the second act the set is reversed, and we watch them fight backstage during a performance. In the final act things are flipped back around, but the production comes completely unglued. Good fun.

Del Frisco’s 39 Steps

It’s been more than a couple of years since we’ve been to Del Frisco’s, and it was near the Shakespeare Center, so we decided to have an early dinner there on Friday. Since our last visit they’ve completed the seamless connection of two different buildings, and created a new, large entry hall between them.

I still think Del Frisco’s is the best  steakhouse in Orlando, even with the explosion of competitors in recent years. The difference is that red-hot metal plate that lets you finish cooking your sliced prime strip steak any way you like (and the butter all over it doesn’t hurt, either). The spinach, sauteed onions, and house salad are really better than the other steakhouses’ also. It’s not a low-cal place, and it’s even more expensive than Morton’s, but when you want the best steak, it’s the place to go.

The 39 Steps is a comedic version of the classic Alfred Hitchcock film. It combines the original (fairly inane) plot with zany action made even zanier by the fact that four people have to play all the roles. It becomes increasingly manic, and by the end some of the characters are having conversations with themselves. Monty Python meets Alfred Hitchcock is a fairly good description. One fun aspect of the play was trying to find all the references to Hitchcock’s other films (in the scene at right, he’s about to climb through the “Rear Window”). It was quite amusing, although perhaps not quite as gut-bustingly hysterical as claimed.

Book Purge

Turn your back for just a minute and the library is overrun with books again. Whilst looking for a couple of misplaced ones I purged a hundred or so from the cupboards (I think they reproduce faster in the dark). Most of these will go to Windermere Prep, I guess.

Chez Josephine

After the always superb lunch at Jean Georges (perhaps my favorite restaurant in the world), we strolled down Broadway, which becomes a giant flea market closed to traffic on Saturdays. Then, in the evening, on the spur of the moment, we went to the revival of La Cage Aux Folles starring Kelsey Grammer. It was fun, as always, but I wasn’t sure it deserved its Tonys; I couldn’t help thinking that parts of the Trinity High School production had been better!

For dinner we walked to Hell’s Kitchen and had an nice French meal in the darkly romantic and jazzy Chez Josephine‘s, with live piano and trumpet jazz. Occasionally a patron would play a set; an elderly black woman really impressed with her sultry voice and lightning riffs.

Sunday morning our three-week adventure came to an end, with Dani winging her way back to Chicago and Linda and I headed back to Orlando.

Michelangelo Hotel

When we saw The Addams Family in Chicago during its test run, the songs were good, but the show was pretty poor. So poor we couldn’t imagine how it made it to Broadway (admittedly we saw it when its star, Nathan Lane was out sick). So, gluttons for punishment, we decided to see it on Broadway. I purchased tickets early enough that even though the theatre was sold out, we had front row seats.

From the first note it was clear that the entire show had been reworked. The first act was completely rewritten, with lame numbers cut, and an almost entirely new book. A new plot (one that actually made sense) had replaced much of the old, with The Addams Family now aware that they are strange, and attempting to be normal for one night (and failing miserably, of course). The songs mostly remained. The audience loved it, and certainly we loved the first act. Less work had been done on the second act, so the show only ended up being good, not great, but it was an amazing improvement. And Nathan Lane is indeed a comedic genius.

Afterward we went to our traditional post-theatre dinner at Sardi’s, which never changes.

I’m impressed with our hotel, The Michelangelo.

A large hallway connects the bedroom and living room.

It’s the nicest we’ve stayed at in the theatre district, with upscale furnishings in the lobby and rooms, and a very spacious one bedroom suite at a reasonable price. It’s just off 7th Avenue at 51st street, so an easy walk to all the theatres and to Columbus Circle for our lunch at Jean Georges.

Not Quite Iceland

It looks like this is the closest we’re going to get to Iceland. Although we can’t really detect it on the ship, apparently there is a 35 knot wind blowing across the harbor entrance, which makes it impossible to dock. So another port scratched off the itinerary.

Clouds approaching Iceland
Reading on the balcony in Iceland
A bumpy ride for the pilot
One third (!) of the ship's corridor

Entertainment

Years ago we sailed on the Norway (once the liner The France) and they did complete Broadway shows in their theatre. That’s probably the last time I really enjoyed a cruise ships entertainment program. Usually I just skip it. Linda tried one show on this ship and came to the same conclusion.

But this ship did have a lounge pianist, Eric Stone, who was in the original cast of A Chorus Line, and he was very good. Linda spent every night there. If you asked for a Broadway tune he would do a ten minute version of the whole show, with explanations of the plot!

A highlight of this cruise was that John Maxtone-Graham was on board, and delivered five very entertaining lectures about the history of ocean liners. I made sure not to miss any of those.

Love Never Dies But This Tooth Did

For the past month I’ve had sinus headaches and jaw aches, but when I went to my dentist at Starbase Dental last week he couldn’t identify a particular tooth that was the problem. He prescribed antibiotics and told me to check back after vacation. But the problem has been getting worse, with hot or cold foods causing a headache. The trouble is that nothing hurts except when I’m having the problem, which occurs only every few hours (or as soon as I lie down). Now I’m fairly sure the cause was my upper left wisdom tooth because that one hurt (but only when I was having a headache) if I wiggled it.

So rather than put up with another three weeks of sleep deprivation and headaches, today I went to the Carnaby Street Dentist and had it pulled. What a great place that is, with really friendly people; Sarah, who offered me several options, pulled it with absolutely no pain. She sent me off with hand-written instructions and some antibiotics. I’m sure it will hurt again later, but right now my head feels better than it has in a month.

Dani likes this sign because it’s the name of a Star Trek DS9 character. Well, the character’s name is Curzon Dax, not Curzon Plaza.

Earlier today we went to lunch at Nobu, the famous sushi place. We had… sushi. It was… sushi. Hmmm…. I must be missing something. Why is this famous?

Tonight we had theatre tickets to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new show, Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. (Full disclosure: I’ve always thought that Phantom was a dumb show with good music and staging.) In this version the Phantom has moved to New York’s Coney Island, and guess who happens to also show up there? This was an odd show that has proven to be unpopular, as shown by the half empty theatre. Defying the odds, I liked it the best of the three of us. The voices were superb, much better than any other Phantom production I’ve seen. Dani hated the music, but I thought most of the second half was very good. The problem is that the first act sucks dead toads. Then, weirdly, the second act manages to tell a more cohesive story than Phantom ever did. Unfortunately, it’s a tragedy. Between that and the rework needed on the first act, we’re betting it never opens on Broadway. Then again, we made the same bet about The Addams Family.

We had a late supper at Clos Maggiore in the theatre district, a romantic little restaurant with good food, a fantastic winelist and disjointed service. Then home to bed, my toothlessness still not a problem. Yay!

Into The Woods

I was awakened by Linda informing me it was 11:30AM and we were about to miss our lunch reservation! A quick shower and short cab ride took us to Petrus, one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, where we had a leisurely, expensive, pleasant but not remarkable lunch. The room and service were great, and I’m glad we had a chance to check it out at one fourth of the insane dinner prices.

Afterward, I was proud of myself for successfully navigating the surrounding residential area to take us straight to Harrods, where we laughed at the prices and bought some cheese, ham and bread for a picnic.

In the evening we went to our favorite London venue, the enchanting Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park. There’s something magical about theatre in the woods, all the more so since the show was Into the Woods! We enjoyed a bottle of wine, some stinky cheese and French bread at a picnic table and then went in to the show, where we had front row seats due to our extreme advance planning. This is the fourth show we’ve seen here, and while all were good, this was superb. As always, Sondheim’s material is challenging to both performers and audience, and the second half of this show is somewhat expendable, but the cast was fantastic, and the direction was genius. In fact, the director discovered a whole second show in the role of the narrator, who he cast as a young boy lost in the woods, telling the story using his toys. Wow!