by Karen Tortora-Lee on December 14, 2011
Three heavy hitters have teamed up on Broadway to give audiences an evening of kinship wrapped in contention with Relatively Speaking: three one-act comedies which cover various forms of familial remedy, rivalry and racket. Four-time Oscar winner Ethan Coen, two-time Oscar nominee Elaine May and multiple award winner Woody Allen each offer up their views on the subject, resulting in short plays which each bear the distinct mark of their unique brand of writing; all delivered under the deft direction of John Turturro.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on December 26, 2010
My parents spent a great deal of money on my education. First they chose a strict parochial grammar school for 8 years, then I was sent off to an exclusive prep school for 4 years, and finally my education was capped off with a fancy private college. All this was done to ensure that I had a good working knowledge of the world. Yet my European-born mother still sadly shakes her head when I make such public blunders as exclaiming to a roomful of people that I have no idea where Holland is in relation to Norway. “I always thought they were the same place!” I remark, blithely, with not even a hint of embarrassment. “Aren’t they, though?” I go on – digging the hole deeper. Oh – American Education – how you failed me. Surely someone could have made politics, history, and geography stick in my brain in a way that made sense so that I don’t continually shame my family?
After spending a night with Colin Quinn as he delivered his one-man show Long Story Short (directed by Jerry Seinfeld) it’s obvious that he was that someone. Colin Quinn is like that teacher who comes into the urban school and makes all the tough kids love learning. But he already knows that. In fact, at some point during Long Story Short, he even does a spot on send-up of every To Sir With Love / Stand and Deliver / Dangerous Minds movie ever spit out by Hollywood — though his version ends with the teacher taking a job at the cushy prep school at the end of it all. The very prep school where I would have benefited so much! So you see how we’ve come full circle here. But wait! That’s only the introduction . . .
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by Anne Jordanova on September 30, 2010
For those of us who were there last night, either as fans of Green Day, Broadway, or their rock opera American Idiot- it was a legendary moment. Billie Joe Armstrong- lead singer of Green Day, main lyricist, and guitarist of the band for the past 20 years made his Broadway debut appropriately as the character ‘St. Jimmy’ last night, September 28th at the St. James Theater. (Where he runs through a limited 7 day engagement).
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by Anne Jordanova on May 1, 2010
Curtain Call - Cast Finale
So this evening, I had the pleasure of finally seeing American Idiot The Musical on Broadway at the gorgeous St. John’s Theater, and I am without words on where to begin.
This musical truly is a brilliant, creative masterpiece, and stands alone in a genre of its own originality and style. Certainly a ROCK OPERA, the play is based on Green Day‘s multi-platinum and Grammy Award winning 2004 CD of the same name.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on October 30, 2009
The Man and The Music - Charles Strouse
Charles Strouse isn’t a name that immediately rings a bell with most people the way, say, Andrew Lloyd Webber does. If you say “the great musical composer, Charles Strouse” people don’t go “Ahhhh, right, of course”. But mention some of his iconic songs and right away the “wow, I didn’t know he wrote that“s and “seriously, that was him?“s come rolling in. So, for those of you who don’t know and need me to hum a few bars …
… Once upon a time a girl with moonlight in her eyes / Put her hand in mine and said she loved me so …
No? Not yet? How about
… Grey skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face! / Brush off the clouds and cheer up, put on a happy face!
Warmer? Well you’ve gotta know this one …
… Boy the way Glenn Miller played / Songs that made the Hit Parade / Guys like us we had it made … those were the days
Yeah? Starting to come together? Want the big finish?
… Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya, tomorrow! You’ll always a day away!
OHHHHH! THAT’S Charles Strouse! Yes … THAT’s Charles Strouse, writer of musicals such as Bye, Bye, Birdie, Annie, Applause and composer of movie scores and TV scores like “All in the Family”. With writing partner Lee Adams he penned half a dozen musicals, and even after that collaboration ended he went on to create a half dozen more with other lyricists (most notably one of my 2nd favorte Muscial Theatre Stephens after Sondheim — Stehen Schwartz for RAGS).
… Once upon a time a girl with moonlight in her eyes / Put her hand in mine and said she loved me so …
No? Not yet? How about
… Grey skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face! / Brush off the clouds and cheer up, put on a happy face!
Warmer? Well you’ve gotta know this one …
… Boy the way Glenn Miller played / Songs that made the Hit Parade / Guys like us we had it made … those were the days!
Yeah? Starting to come together? Want the big finish?
… Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya, tomorrow! You’re always a day away!
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on June 3, 2009
I’m here to set the record straight. I’ve spent years thinking that Phylicia Rashad‘s career was based on giving life to characters that sprung forth from Bill Cosby‘s head, the straight (wo)man standing patiently by as William Henry Cosby, Jr. Ed.D. gave in to one of his patented Cosby-eque tirades. After all, she played his wife, lawyer Claire Huxtable, for eight seasons on The Cosby Show, then signed on for the gig again, playing Ruth Lucas on Cosby. She took Claire Huxtable on the road and over to A Different World to visit her “daughter” when ratings required her to do so, and she had no issue with voicing the mother of Little Bill, Cosby’s saccharine animation for the 3-and-under set. She’d even appeared in an episode of The Cosby Mysteries. (Ever hear of it? Me neither). Almost more stereotyped than Henry (who?) “The Fonz” (oh …) Winkler, she even Claire Huxtable’d her way through those Jenny Craig commercials. I know she’s had other roles, but her main body of work remained so uninteresting to me that I never bothered to catch her in A Raisin In The Sun or anything else, quite frankly. So it wasn’t really on my radar that she won a Tony … or even that she was up for one.
And then I spent a night at August:Osage County. Never, and I mean EVER, have I ever done anyone a greater disservice. Phylicia, if you’re out there, I apologize. I more than apologize, I owe you a steak dinner. I owe all the Huxtables (even you, Grown Up Rudy) a steak dinner. Because Phylicia Rashad, you left me ashamed at my small-mindedness, humbled by your skill and in awe of your complete transformation. You really ARE a great actress.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on May 27, 2009
The other day a friend of mine went to see Sessions. I asked her how she liked it and she said, “I didn’t expect it to be so heavy. I guess when I saw “musical” I expected “light”. Huh.
Comedy Tonight!
As a life long devotee to Sondheim, who’s every musical (even the deceptively named Follies) is filled with some combination of longing, regret, despair, confusion, anger, revenge, lethargy, emptiness, callousness, greed, murder, mental illness, and scorn, the last thing I tend to expect from a musical is “light”. Even the first song from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (“Comedy Tonight”) takes the time to tell you what you will NOT see: NO ROYAL CURSE, // NO TROJAN HORSE, // AND A HAPPY ENDING, OF COURSE! // GOODNESS AND BADNESS, // MAN IN HIS MADNESS, // THIS TIME IT ALL TURNS OUT ALL RIGHT! // TRAGEDY TOMORROW! // COMEDY TONIGHT! as if to caution “If you’ve come here for the typical Sondheim fare you’ll be disappointed by all the jubilation!” Of course Sondheim is brilliant in any mood, so there’ no fear of disappointment, it’s just rarely does a musical start off with the disclaimer WARNING … HAPPY ENDING AHEAD!
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on May 7, 2009
Bea Arthur as Vera Charles (with Lucille Ball as Mame)
My first encounter with Bea Arthur wasn’t in her role as Dorothy Zbornak on Golden Girls, or even as Maude Findlay in Maude. I was first introduced to Bea Arthur’s disembodied baritone as it came seeping through my bedroom floor boards.
Picture it – Brooklyn, early seventies. A young six year old is trying to get her beauty sleep, but in vain. A lot is going on when you’re six years old; you’re in first grade, making new friends, learning how to raise your hand before speaking, and getting the rules of Red Light Green Light One Two Three down pat so as to not end up shunned by the kids who had older siblings and already knew all the tricks of winning. It’s a very impressionable time. It’s also the time in my life when my father decided to renovate the basement and spent many a late night hammering, spackling and painting till well after my bedtime. He’d cleverly housed the stereo speakers in the ceiling and one speaker happened to be directly under my bed.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on February 3, 2009
For those who know their Broadway Show history, I Can Get It for You Wholesale is the 1962 musical responsible for bringing a teen-aged Barbra Streisand to the New York stage; she not only debuted to critical acclaim, but she sang her way into a Tony Nomination as well for her role as Miss Marmelstein. (For those who know their Karen Tortora [sans Lee] history, the Miss Marmelstein song was in very heavy rotation during the Spring/Summer season of Karen’s Basement Follies of 1982. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’m an only child who, alas, garnered no such critical acclaim).
In any case, today “I can get if for you wholesale” is more than just a link you can click while you’re reading your way through my column. Today it’s also a very clever pun because I, I … can help get you a ticket to a Broadway (okay, off-Broadway) show for what will feel like wholesale. And these days, that’s saying a lot.
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