Thursday, May 29, 2008

Show choir and Bridezillas!

So, I follow several Broadway themed blogs... including Andrew Keenan-Bolger's. He recently posted a clip of the failed (maybe?) MTV series SHOW CHOIR and it made me (for about ten minutes) obsessively look up other YouTube videos of show choirs in all their sequined glory. I found this... and about died. No offense to anyone in it, or anyone who was ever involved in show choir. Trust me, I'm a cheesy, musical theatre obsessed goon and only wish the show had made it to MTV... my DVR would have a new responsibility.



In other news... one of my dearest friends, Angela, is featured in the new (new to me anyway). You can check it out below. Angela's the one to your right of the center bride. Love it!

GREASE to get Speared?


I'm incredibly conflicted. Broadwayworld.com posted this news piece about 3 hours ago and I've been struggling with this ever since.

On the one hand, I loved Britney up through (and including) her STRONGER phase. She was fun, we all enjoyed her. We thought, "Now that is a good 2.5 minutes of pure bubble gum pop." It was almost (repeat... almost) as fun as Debbie Gibson and Tiffany.

On the other hand, she's gone bat ass crazy it seems and her stock has plummeted, risen a tad, plummeted, split shares with Cheetos, inched up, dove, yada yada. Now this.

So... I offer two scenarios:

A) This is an ingenious move by the producers to generate buzz for a show that has received generally negative reviews. In doing so, they generate sales, could possibly offer super-priced premium seats, run the show longer, yada yada. (The risk here is in turning the show into the revolving door of TV celebs like the 90s revival.)

or

B) This is a train wreck waiting to happen and the show will crumble under the weight of craziness, the paparazzi, the... you get the idea.

So, this will either be a major coup for the show... or the biggest disaster on Broadway since Bobbi Boland.

Stay tuned!

Monday, May 26, 2008

A light goes out in Hollywood

Actor, director, producer... genius... Sydney Pollack passed away today. The NY Times offers a respectful and thorough obituary (linked) but I wanted to take a moment to thank the gentlemen who directed so many amazing films ("Tootsie" being one of my favorite of all time). As a director he won an Oscar for his his 1985 film “Out of Africa” as was nominated for "They Shoot Horses, Don't They in 1969 and "Tootsie" in 1982. Yes, I was seven years old when that movie came out but I remember thinking it was funnier, sadder, sweeter than anything I would normally watch on TV.

Ok, maybe I wasn't that precocious (maybe I was), but seeing it on VHS and TV in later years, I knew it was something special.

Underwear: A Space Musical


So, it's official. I'm producing a great show by a really good friend of mine and his writing partner. UNDERWEAR: A SPACE MUSICAL will make its NYC premiere during FringeNYC.

Check out the link above (it is the title of this post) for details.

You can also click on the UNDERWEAR MySpace page to listen to some samples from the show. It's incredibly hysterical and you'll love ever irreverent minute of it. Come, enjoy, believe in your drawers.