#also i went to see the lion king on broadway this week and the child actor for simba on that day looks like baby ru lol!!!

[eeveemasters]

hey, all you lovely people!  full disclosure i talk a lot and i have thought about this character thoroughly when you look under that read more... oh boy... just a heads up. anywho... guess i’m the last here i see, well, that’s typical. I’m late to literally everything, although this time I do have a good excuse. i’d tell you what it is but you don’t really wanna read about me gettin’ it in all weekend and drew is my bro -like literally. we share blood. we came outta the same womb. 26 hours of labor. 19 minutes apart. our poor mother-  so he def doesn’t wanna read about it and that is a swill of information about me before ya even know my name which says a lot, doesn’t it? inst-y-ways, I’m maddie and I’m Jewish, you’ll figure out why i’m putting that out there now. also hello again. i hope y’all are ready to get this party started, cause this is where it’s at! look below & hit that read more and I will tell you all about my baby girl, Eevee.

TW: DEATH, DEPRESSION, STALKER, MURDER, KIDNAPPING

★ ━  ( candice patton,   cis-female,   she/her )  ━ ★   just to be clear, ya didn’t get this information from me.   The person you’re lookin’ for is     EVELYN LUCIA MASTERS.   also known as     EEVEE.    Last I heard she was born on   APRIL 7TH, 1988    in    SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS,   but she’s been livin’ in   RICHMOND,    for about    EIGHT MONTHS.    Word around the districts is, this doll,    EEVEE  can be    VENGEFUL,   SELF-RIGHTEOUS,   &    A KNOW-IT-ALL,   but i gotta tell, ya, alls I seen is good things, like the fact that she’s   RESILIENT,   CHARISMATIC,    &     ENERGETIC.   I guess that depends on how well ya know ‘em, though.   the last thing ya need to know is that she works as an   A-LIST ACTRESS  &  CO-OWNER OF EXCALIBUR COMICS.  I don’t know much about what that’s all about but I do know that’s all I can tell ya the rest you gotta find out on ya, own.  ━     ( ooc:  maddie,   pst,   28,   she/her ) 

Evelyn Lucia Masters.

the irony of her name is that it means “wished for child”

she was definitely not.

hence why she goes by... 

Eevee. 

Yes, like the Pokemon.

No, it’s not a stage name or a gimmick.

She legally changed her name.

It’s on her credit card. ( so are kittens! )  

Born in San Antonio Texas.

Jewish, Bisexual & Very Proud.

Collette Rivers

Her mother.

One of the first and few Black, Soap Opera stars.

Had a wildly popular sitcom for a hot minute.

Career was on fire in the 80′s & 90′s.

Transitioned to clothing designer and eventually a reality tv real housewife when she couldn’t get jobs anymore.

Joseph Masters.

Her Father.

a former actor

was very well known for CSI.

was on broadway.

became a sought after director.

it’s a whole family in the biz, so of course...

@ two years of age, Eevee became an Actress™

baby diaper commercials with her mom.

then singing lessons.

then dance lessons.

then pageants.

more commercials.

a bit of child modeling.

more commercials.

reoccurring kid on sesame street.

then a reoccurring (but not staring) role on Gullah Gullah Island.

1998. She’s 10.

lands a role on Broadway opposite Leon Thomas III as Nala in The Lion King. 

this is the jumping-off point of her career. where it really shot off

but ignoring that for a minute...

Eevee has 5 other siblings.

4 of them are alive.

when Eevee was 15 she’d just gotten season 1st ( and eventually only ) season of her Disney show renewed and she had a stalker. on her 16th birthday, the stalker snuck into her sweet 16, cornered her when she and her older, brother Elias were alone, stabbed Elias, and kidnapped Eevee. Elias was rushed to the hospital when they found him but died shortly after.  They found Eevee, recovered her from the stalker unharmed, but when she asked about Elias... shortly after Eevee sunk deeper into her depression, and also suffered from survivors’ guilt and eventually had to stay in a mental hospital and was released a year later, a few days after her 17th birthday. being in the real world was hard for her and in a few weeks time, became legally emancipated from her parents because her father had taken control of monitoring her finances, her decisions, and became too controlling of her schedule and time out of his concern for her and her mother acted like none of it happened and expected Eevee to pick up where she left off and to get more jobs and keep working. It was an environment detrimental to her health and sanity so she had to get out of that and got her own place and moved away from her parents and unfortunately, her twin sister and younger brother.

Took a break from acting to finish high school.

had to have private tutors

excelled at the school aspect of her life.

had very few friends but she did have a girlfriend.

eventually, Eevee broke up with her

to seize her 5 minutes of fame she outted Eevee as a lesbian to TMZ.

It didn’t take long for Eevee to speak out.

At 17, in 2005, Eevee came out publically as Bisexual.

as a Black 17-year-old girl she was proud of herself.

but it did not go well for her in the media or in magazines.

didn’t help what little career she had left.

but she also kinda didn’t care

Became known for outspoken activism for LGBTQ+ youth.

Started her own charity and outreach program to finance and help struggling youth in the LGBTQ+ community by providing them with shelter, food, and treatment for health issues both mental and physical.  

went to college...

Northwestern State University.

joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority

double-majored in theater and business

got married to one of her best friends at one point to help him out with his financial situation.

graduated with degrees. 

and real friends in and out of her sorority.

WORKED HER ASS OFF TO GET HER CAREER BACK ON TRACK.

it took a lot of hard work.

a lot of mediocre jobs.

a lot of auditions. 

a lot of shmoozing & playing the long game.

she pulled every single string

cashed every single favor

ate a lot of shit.

including going to her mother whom she hadn’t spoken to in six years.

EVENTUALLY ROSE BACK TO THE A-LIST WITH A VENGENCE.

Several Independent Films.

Supporting roles in TV shows.

Supporting roles in a few movies.

Starring roles in a number of pilots that never got greenlit.

Starring roles in 2 tv shows. 

one was canceled the first season.

the other had THREE SEASONS.

won an Emmy

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

landed a few ad campaigns

Eevee went back to Broadway a few times over the years.

Bring It On: The Musical

played Danielle

won a tony

Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

Newsies: The Musical

played Katherine.

dream come true.

Hadestown

played Eurydice.

nominated for a Tony.

The Lion King

played adult Nala.

life coming full circle.

Currently stars in her own Netflix show. 

season 2 just finished filming which is why she has moved to Portland.

PERSONALITY:

very much a complete dork. loves video games, loves comic books, has a lot of memorabilia all through her house, it’s practically a dork museum, always telling puns. always joking. always been an adorable ray of sunshine. she really likes to be a light and enforce positivity for her friends and others.

talks far too much for her own good especially when she’s nervous.

very kind, generous, and loving, always willing to help a friend.

always willing to cook for someone as a way to comfort them. She’s a well-versed home chef and an excellent baker.

she’s in-between the vodka aunt and the mom friend. she’s the first to suggest doing shots and getting fucked up, but she’ll also make sure everyone’s okay and be responsible.

She’s that friend who if you fuck with one of her friends in any way she will go into protective mamma bear mode and straight-up end that person for you. if you need someone to back you up in a fight, literally, and have your back she is your girl.

she isn’t great at flirting or really being around anyone she finds attractive, she turns into a rambling, nonstop talking, pile of adorable.

up until the end of December last year, she was a virgin. She’s only ever slept with one person so she’s not really the sleep around kind of girl but respects those who do, you do you boo, but also please don’t mistake her for a relationship type girl either. she’s neither. she’s great at fooling around and hookups that usually stop before they get to the sex part. she’s actually just very awkward when it comes to intimacy and feelings and getting close to people in that way. It fucks with her anxiety so she just needs someone who can get her out of her head and that is very hard to find for her.

She’s a feminist and believes women should be there to support each other, but also is aware that feminism isn’t always equal and some women don’t include her as a woman to support because she is a woman of color and because she’s Black and will call someone out on their white feminist or anti-black bullshit.

she’s kind but is in no way a pushover. she’s very opinionated and steadfast and isn’t afraid to reason with someone and argue with them and stand up for herself.

POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS:

Friends: people who can put up with her non-stop chatter and find it endearing.

Fake Friends: people who are using her for fame, recognition and what her name can do for them.

Crushes: could be one-sided, could be both-sided, let’s talk about it.

Boxing Friendship: sparing partners, or someone who sees her at the boxing gym in her workout outfits that include but is not limited to color-coordinated custom gloves, that match both her outfit, her shoes, her gym bag and the giant cheerleading bow on the top of her high ponytail,  but has never actually stuck around to see her box so don’t believe she can throw an actual punch because they can’t take that seriously, because she’s just a pretty little celebrity what can she actually do, but then one day end up in an argument with her and challenge her to a sparring match and to their surprise kicks their ass and they become sparring partners. I don’t know, clearly I haven’t given that plot much thought.

Step-family member: Eevee doesn’t have a relationship with her mom, but she is aware the woman got married to another woman who has kids when Eevee was 19 or so. She’s never met any of them. Never spoken to any of them. Never been invited to family functions. Knows full well they exist and they know full well she exists and they have actually hung out with other members of her family, just not her. So that sounds like awkward and traumatic fun for all involved right?? Bring the angst.

Fellow Actors: They could be real friends, could be fake friends, could have worked together, could just know of each other, could be a publicity friendship, dude, I don’t know.

Fans / Haters: like her work or don’t like her work???????????? I don’t know I’m just throwing stuff out there at this point.

I don’t know we’ll figure something out, I AM PUMPED AND EXCITED!!

#pb:intro #pb:ooc #death tw #depression tw #murder tw #stalker tw #kidnapping tw

[ghostlyfartnight-blog]

Dancing With The Stars Announces The Expert Companions For The Cast Of Season 9

If you're a parent looking to entertain children this Halloween, spice up the party with some age-suitable, child-pleasant Halloween tunes to keep the celebration going. The present frontrunners are: read this article, Mya, Donny Osmond followed by Natalie Coughlin, Mark Decascos and perhaps Kelly Osbourne if she can bring up the degree of her dancing once more. Deb Mazar needs to be a little softer to get over the mainly female audience. She finished up in the base two despite having a a lot much better performance than many of the other contestants.

I will admit to becoming tired of great dancers like Cheryl Burke, Edyta Swilinska, Jonathan Roberts, and Tony Dovolani being paired with celebs that make sure them an early fall out. On the other hand, it's fun to watch "So You Believe You Can Dance" alumnus Dmitry aaron carter fool's gold Chaplin, Chelsie Hightower, and Lacey Schwimmer strut their considerable skills on the floor.

Aaron Carter Net Worth 2016

"The Addams Family" concept tune written by Vic Mizzy. Even though The Addams Family members only aired from 1964-1966, its concept song remains hugely recognizable.

I began thinking about my lack of enthusiasm and what was powering it. It wasn't a make a difference of no lengthier enjoying the professional dancers do what they do best. That enthusiasm was still there, despite mourning the loss of Julianne Hough or the return of poor boys Alec Mazo and Maksim Chmerkovskiy. NFL star Michael Irvin and partner Anna Demidova were subsequent up on DWTS with their Samba. Michael's really had a difficult time with the judging panels this period. The factor I value about Michael is his performer's heart: He seems to have fun each week, even when he's nailed by Len, Carrie Ann and Bruno. That said, it believed their Samba lacked a small. It seemed sluggish and just not exactly what I'm used to seeing for the style of dance. Bruno stated "sometimes you danced this like a tank" and proceeded to beat him down. Ouch. Carrie Ann stated "I certainly believe you have rhythm but you're dancing too little". Len said "it's a difficult dance for a big man" and "I'm frightened it was a bit disappointing". Oof. Michael Irvin and Anna Demidova's Dancing with the Stars Fall 2009 week 3 scores: 5, 4, 5 = 14.

Aaron Carter And Hilary Duff

With ABC promoting the display's lights out each period, beginning with the annual Great Early morning America new solid announcement, Dancing with the Stars 2009 ought to be as large as at any time. The initial 7 days of Dancing with the Stars season 9 is in the background publications, and there was plenty of action featured on tonight's first results display. The solid of Broadway's musical smash The Lion King and Sean Kingston provided up performances, and there was a touching tribute to actor Patrick Swayze, who recently died of most cancers. And of course, no Dancing with the Stars outcomes display is complete with an elimination: Two celebs and their expert partners had been sent packing by show's end. So now you want to know who went house on Dancing with the Stars! Read on for a complete recap and the large reveals. 'Dancing With The Stars' premieres September 21, and while followers are thrilled to see their favorite dancers paired up with celebrities like click for info and Joanna Krupa, it will also be the first time that Maks and Karina appear with each other post-split. That's correct, the dance is more than for them as they have damaged off their engagement.

Madison Parker Aaron Carter

Carrie Anne commented that while it was obvious he hadn't danced prior to, she liked that he revered the dance and display the pleasure of dancing, but he has to learn to use his heels. Macy Gray. Sweet mercy that voice is back again. Allow's hope for an early exit, or for her to put on 1 of these attire advertising her new album like she did on MTV's VMAs that 1 yr.

Aaron Carter Neck Tattoo

Melissa Joan Hart and Mark Ballas - Not a particularly unforgettable performance, but that might be because of to the reality that Mark Ballas was a small under the climate. But I hope it was good enough to maintain Melissa Joan Hart in the competitors because she seems to be taking pleasure in herself - and I think she's capable of turning in some fantastic performances - provided she's offered the correct dance style. Score: 23. Mark Dacascos and Lacey Schwimmer. Mark Dacascos is best known as "The Chairman" and host of Food Network's Iron Chef America. Can he take the warmth on DWTS? His rebel partner is Lacey Schwimmer, who is in her third season of DWTS. This award-successful dancer has been partnered with Steve-O and Lance Bass. The quirky mixture of uniqueness and character might take this few much in the competition. Appear out for this group. Ashley Hamilton was happy to be there he said, son of George Hamilton and just trying to follow in his father's footsteps. Companion Edyta Sliwinska wore an outfit that was very complementary and both seemed dapper on the flooring, but Ashley also looked very rigid. Total score of 19.

[mastcomm]

Snakes on a Field: The 1995 Super Bowl Halftime Served Up a Spectacle

MIAMI — Dale Girard was wearing long underwear covered in what he said looked like “ectoplasmic slime from ‘Ghostbusters’” but was actually freezing cold fire gel. Costumed as “The Executioner,” he was in a holding area underneath a massive metal stage as it was being rolled onto the field at what was then known as Joe Robbie Stadium.

There was one thing on his mind, he recalled this week: “I’m about to be set on fire, and I’m three feet from Patti LaBelle.”

Welcome to the 1995 Super Bowl halftime show.

This Sunday, about 100 million people in the United States will watch as the pop stars Jennifer Lopez and Shakira perform during halftime of the Super Bowl. They were recruited in part by Jay-Z and his company, Roc Nation, which signed a deal with the N.F.L. last year to become the league’s “live music entertainment strategist.”

For the N.F.L., far more important than the quality of the show is the absence of controversy. Last year several artists, including Rihanna, reportedly declined to perform during the Super Bowl halftime out of concern for Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who has not played in the N.F.L. since the 2016 season, when he knelt during the national anthem to protest racism and police brutality. Once the league landed its performers, Maroon 5 and Travis Scott, it opted to cancel the traditional news conference ahead of the show, pre-empting questions about the decision.

Super Bowl halftime shows have not always been delicate issues. And they have not always been just concerts. They used to have speaking roles and narrative arcs, more akin to theater. They used to be campy. They used to make no sense.

That changed along with the N.F.L. itself, as the league’s airtime ballooned in value and made the Super Bowl show one of the most coveted gigs in entertainment. The marching bands of early shows gave way to Up With People — an educational organization — and eventually to theatrical spectacles and concerts from megastars.

Perhaps the most bizarre halftime show in Super Bowl history happened 25 years ago, here in South Florida, the fifth and last time the San Francisco 49ers won the Lombardi Trophy.

“Bring to me, the trophy,” boomed a musclebound king, wearing a crown of snakes and clutching a skull-topped scepter. Just minutes before, Steve Young and the 49ers had jogged off the field, up by 28-10 and on their way to a 49-26 blowout against the Chargers. But in seconds the stadium was transformed into a giant temple, replete with torches, snakehead drummers and men on stilts.

Over a frenetic 11 minutes, the odd show played out. A costumed temple worker brought the N.F.L.’s Lombardi Trophy to the king, and LaBelle, dressed as a temple goddess, belted out the opening lines to “Release Yourself.” But alas, this gang’s ambitions of stealing the trophy would be foiled by Indiana Jones and his sidekick, Marion Ravenwood, who both sky-dived onto the field.

They battled the temple guards — including Girard’s “Executioner,” who was set on fire with a torch — were threatened with snakes, and ultimately made their way into Club Disney, where Tony Bennett, the jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and the Miami Sound Machine performed.

After Marion and Indiana recaptured the trophy, they held it aloft as LaBelle, Bennett and the supporting cast of dozens for some reason broke into a rendition of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” — an Elton John song from the movie “The Lion King.”

A quarter-century later, it makes even less sense.

The show was the brainchild of a Disney marketing executive. One month after the Super Bowl, Disneyland would open a ride called The Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye. And as part of an estimated $20 million marketing budget for a ride that required years of construction and reorienting Disneyland, why not put it front and center on television’s biggest stage?

A few months before the Super Bowl, a stuntman named Bryan Friday was performing at the Six Flags amusement park in Dallas. He heard there were auditions for a new Indiana Jones stunt show at Disney World in Orlando so he piled into a car with four friends for the long drive to Florida.

The audition went well, he said in an interview last week, but he was told that he was too tall for the permanent role of Indiana Jones at the park. But did he want to come back the next day, when Disney was holding auditions for a Super Bowl show?

And that is how Friday came to perform as an iconic movie character in front of tens of millions of people. Not that he was paid handsomely. “I want to say it was $3,000, and that was for three weeks,” he said. “But you figure, 1995? It was definitely worth doing.”

He also didn’t get to watch the Super Bowl. The cast members thought they might get to see the second half, but they were shepherded onto buses and driven out of the stadium. “They took us to Don Shula’s restaurant,” Friday said, referring to the longtime Miami Dolphins coach, “and we ate and drank there and had a really nice party at their expense.”

There was an unexpected perk, however. “I met Patti, and she was actually kind of flirty with me,” Friday said.

“I probably was, if he was cute,” LaBelle said in a telephone interview.

Though the television viewers probably didn’t notice, there were a handful of minor problems with the show. In a full dress rehearsal the day before, the flares worn by sky divers singed the field. The N.F.L. forbade the performers to wear them during the actual halftime, so that part of the broadcast came from video shot during the rehearsal.

The metal stage also had numerous holes, to make it lighter and improve traction, which LaBelle says wreaked havoc on her high-heeled strutting.

And, of course, the snakes. Indiana Jones is famously afraid of snakes, so what would an Indiana Jones show be without them? Two purple-turbaned snake charmers performed in the show with 12-foot reptiles — Storm and Slither. There was only one problem.

“They scared the absolute bejeebers out of Patti,” said Ron Magill, the longtime communications director of the Miami-Dade Zoological Park and Gardens who is a South Florida celebrity. Magill was one of the snake charmers. “It was Patti LaBelle and Tony Bennett, and Patti just screeched, ‘Oh no, child. Oh no, child.’”

“I am petrified of snakes,” LaBelle said, remembering her response: “You all gotta do something different right now. You gotta move those snakes.”

In many ways, the halftime show has become simpler. “It was like a Broadway play back in the day,” LaBelle said. “Today you go out there, you have your three- or four-song set, you do it and you go home.”

But the current versions are far more lavish than the shows at the first 20 or so Super Bowls. Michael Eisner, Disney’s chief executive from 1984 to 2005, pegged the evolution to the spectacular opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“John Williams created what is now the music that introduces everything in the Olympics,” he said. “That was really a monumental moment.”

As the 1995 show and several subsequent Super Bowl halftimes have proven, those moments are not easily manufactured, no matter how many snakes are involved.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/snakes-on-a-field-the-1995-super-bowl-halftime-served-up-a-spectacle/

#Sport

[newyorktheater]

  The city has announced plans  to build a performing arts center dedicated to Immigrants. The proposed Immigrant Research and Performing Arts Center will go up in Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood in Manhattan

Meanwhile, Waterwell theater company and the Broadway Advocacy Coalition launched the  Flores Exhibits, now available online, part of a national campaign to establish legal protections for immigrant children held in U.S. government facilities. Named after the  1997 Flores Settlement Agreement that set a limit on the length of time a child can be detained — an agreement that the Trump Administration wants to rescind — the exhibits are a series of videos read by about a dozen actors from David Schwimmer to Elizabeth Rodriguez and theater artists such as playwright David Henry Hwang and costume designer Clint Ramos, along with  lawyers and advocates. They each read aloud the sworn testimony of experts and also of young people detained at the Clint and Ursula border detention facilities that were collected in June of this year by a team of immigration lawyers.

“Many of the detainees were teen mothers, already being exposed to tremendous trauma in their home countries,” Kathleen Chalfant reads the testimony of  pediatrician Dr. Dolly Lucio Sevier, who examined the detainees…The conditions in which they are being held could be compared to torture facilities….extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no access to medical care, basic sanitation, water or adequate food….To deny parents the ability to wash their infant’s bottles is unconscionable, and could be considered intentional mental and emotional abuse.”

Scene at Broadway Flea Market

Celebs like Brandon Uranowitz waiting to serve their Selfie duty

Adam Cohen, who plays the rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, baked cookies for the Fiddler table. Notice the clever brown paper poster behind him.

Staffing The Lion King booth at the Broadway flea is Local 1 stage hand Nick Liotta, who made up his own Lion King stage hand T-shirt

flea crowd

auctioning

swag from Roundabout

child buskers

a collage of The Cher Show by the entire cast, auctioned off for Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS

Broadway Live on Netflix and Audible and…

currently on Netflix

Thoughts on the new era of Broadway streaming on the occasion of the death of Betty Corwin, 98, the founder of Theater on Tape and Film (TOFT) at the Lincoln Center library.

. @MrJasonRBrown‘s 2008 musical “13” will be adapted as a family film for @Netflix by @rhorn1 (Tony-winning book writer for @TootsieMusical.) Added to my post about the evolution of Broadway stage-to- stream (@Netflix, @Audible, @BroadwayHD etc)https://t.co/xkhtfpiNV6 pic.twitter.com/uK97JPc4Ni

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) September 21, 2019

  The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Dimitri Moise and Brandon Gill. Photo by Gioncarlo Valentine.

As Much As I Can

“As Much As I Can,” a show that illustrates the continuing AIDS crisis among African-American men, exists on two different planes, which are not in complete alignment with one another. It is a work of theater, running for just five days at Joe’s Pub (two final performances this evening.) The 14-member cast is largely comprised of professional New York stage actors.

But it is also an effort at outreach. The script, credited to Sarah Hall, is based on interviews with hundreds of men in two communities hard hit by HIV — Baltimore, Maryland and Jackson, Mississippi

Ken Barnett, Justin Genna

Novenas for a Lost Hospital

How do people care for one another in dangerous times? That’s the still-relevant question underlying this beautiful, sad, enraging, uplifting, and awesomely staged theater piece that sweeps through the 161-year history of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, dwelling on two traumatic periods – the cholera epidemic, during which four nuns from the Sisters of Charity founded the hospital in 1849, and the AIDS epidemic that surrounded it in the 1980s and 90s….There are many personal reasons why I considered “Novenas” a must-see…

Madelyn Rose Robinson, Susan Ly, Mirra Kardonne, Alice Marcondes, Drita Kabashi, Ana Semedo, Macy Lanceta, Sophia Aranda, Zoe Zimin | Photo by Hunter Canning

The Invention of Tragedy

“The Invention of Tragedy,” a 70-minute excursion into a puzzling world of word play, cat ears, and synchronized neon footwear, is the third of the five plays in the Mac Wellman festival at The Flea. What I like best about it is the title. This would not be the work I would personally choose as the ideal introduction for a first-time Wellman watcher. Yet there are three ways of looking at “The Invention of Tragedy” that offer some satisfactions – as a political parable, as a metaphor for Western theater,  or as entertaining nonsense full of such surface pleasures as colorful design, pleasing music and an appealing cast.

Book: Discovering the Clown

Christopher Bayes, founder of the Funny School of Good Acting in Brooklyn and professor and head of physical acting at the Yale School of Drama,…offers  many zany Zen-like observations and instructions in “Discovering the Clown,” a brief, off-beat book that attempts to translate Bayes’ teaching to the printed page, but is more effective as a tease for his classes.

entrance to the exhibition

The “Theatre is a Gamble” roulette wheel that Prince’s associate producer Ruth Mitchell created for him as a gift in 1998, with the names of his shows.

Michael Bennett, Ruth Mitchell and Harold Prince during rehearsals for the stage production Company, around 1970.

Exhibition: Harold Prince at Lincoln Center Library

The Week in Awards

New York Independent Theater Awards

Multiple-winning shows include “Eight Tales of Pedro” by The Secret Theater; “Shinka” by Ren Gyo Soh, “Electronic City” by New Stage Theatre Company. Special awards went to Magie Dominic, one of the founding members of the Off-Off Broadway movement; playwright Barbara Kahn; La MaMa curator and long-time downtown figure Nicky Paraiso,  and TOSOS – The Other Side of Silence, the first professional gay theatre company in NY

Broadway at the Emmys: Billy Porter wins 

Billy Porter is now an O away from an EGOT.

— Mark Peikert (@MarkPeikert) September 23, 2019

Celebrate @theebillyporter‘s big five-o today by rewatching his AMAZING karaoke of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” during a #TonyAwards commercial break – captured by @JKCorden & @latelateshow. Happy birthday to a Tony Award-winning #Broadway superstar! https://t.co/4QahcPrmy1

— The Tony Awards (@TheTonyAwards) September 21, 2019

74th Annual Tony Awards will be held once again at Radio City Music Hall —  on Sunday, June 7, 2020. The eligibility cut-off date will be Thursday, April 23, 2020 — earlier than in the past (which may mean a very crowded schedule of openings.) Nominations will be announced April 28th.

LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Leslie Uggams at the 9th annual Salute Her Awards

Black women of Broadway were honored at the 9th annual Salute Her awards:  Leslie Uggams (Legend Award), LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Director’s Award), Lynn Nottage (International Playwright Award), Alia Jones-Harvey (Broadway Producer Award), Dominique Morisseau (Playwright Award), Dr. Indira Etwaroo(Theater Community Award), Cookie Jordan (Woman of Style Award), Linda Stewart (Trailblazer Award).

The Week in New York Theater News

NYC Off-Broadway Week

Beginning today, 33 participating shows, 19 of which are new to the program this season, offer 2-for-1 performances through October 6

Added to my Broadway 2019-2020 Season Guide

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” the fifth Broadway production of Albee’s 1962 play about George and Martha (& Nick and Honey) w/ Rupert Everett, Laurie Metcalf, Patsy Ferran, Russell Tovey. It opens April 9th at the Booth

Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell will star in the fourth Broadway production of David Mamet’s rat-a-tat 1977 play about three low-level crooks conjuring up a get-rich-quick scheme. It opens April 14, though no theater yet (nor website nor Twitter!)

This apparently takes up the slot planned by the same producers for the all-female production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glenn Ross? Its producers say it has been delayed until the 2020-2021 season.

Sara Holdren is leaving her post as the theater critic at New York Magazine in early October to go back to directing.  She was hired in July 2017.

Top 14 Most Produced Plays in 2019-2020…and 22 most produced playwrights in America

“A Doll’s House, Part 2” by Lucas Hnath and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Simon Stephens have tied as the most produced plays scheduled for the 2019-2020 season, according to the annual compilation of Top 10 Most Produced by American Theatre Magazine.

Tony Kushner at the Public

Cast for Public Theater’s revival of Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day: Michael Esper, Grace Gummer, Nikki James, Crystal Lucas-Perry, Mark Margolis, Nadine Malouf, Michael Urie, Max Woertendyke added to the previously announced Linda Emond, Jonathan Hadary, Estelle Parsons.

Quincy Tyler Bernstine

Sean Carvajal

Liza Colon Zayas

Playwright Stephen Adly Gurigis

Terrific cast announced for Stephen Adly Guirgis’s new play “Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven” at Atlantic: Victor Almanzar, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Elizabeth Canavan, Sean Carvajal, Molly Collier, Liza Colón-Zayas, Esteban Cruz, Greg Keller, Kristina Poe, Neil Tyrone Pritchard, Andrea Syglowski, Benja Kay Thomas, Pernell Walker, and Kara Young.

Choreographer Raja Feather Kelly

What a pairing – playwright Young Jean Lee and director/choreographer Raja Feather Kelly in a new production of Lee’s rock concert/confessional “We’re Gonna Die” performed by Janelle Mcdormeth at Second Stages Feb 4 – March 29

Full schedule of plays-in-progress, panels and a party, etc. at @segalcenter‘s #Prelude2019 Oct 3 – 5 mostly at @GC_CUNYhttps://t.co/luZQtHekG5 pic.twitter.com/RmXVJH62uS

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) September 16, 2019

The difference between principals, swings and standbys

Scenes at Broadway Flea. Immigrants Get Their Own Theater, and a Voice. Billy Porter Wins at 50. #Stageworthy News of the Week The city has announced plans  to build a performing arts center dedicated to Immigrants. The proposed Immigrant Research and Performing Arts Center will go up in Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood in Manhattan…

[readexplorerepeat]

A Week in NYC. What to do? A Kid-Friendly guide

Visiting the big apple can be overwhelming if you don't know what to do, where to go, where to start.  The best thing to do when visiting NYC, and any other new place really, is to educate yourself on the best places to see, how to get from point A to point B, and about how much things are going to cost you (so you can budget, and also, so you don't get ripped off by the seldom opportunist hustler).  We put together a guide of kid-friendly things to do when you visit The Big Apple; from where to stay, to how to understand transportation, and some good places to eat we found along the way.  So, keep reading and plan your trip!

WHERE TO STAY

Basically, the answer to this question depends on your budget.  As you may already know, NYC is divided into boroughs, and they all vary in price considerably. If you stay in Manhattan you will probably pay a tad more than if you stay a little farther from the touristic sites. We always check out deals that include airfare and hotel on Groupon, or Expedia, or even just lodging through Airbnb for the best prices. 

HOW TO BOOK LODGING/AIRFARE AT A REASONABLE PRICE

Don't settle by checking just one site. Check them all, several times a day, several days a week as the specials change by the hour. We have noticed that a lot of good deals are released on Wednesdays and/or Thursdays nights. If it's Saturday, and you want to book your vacation right away, you will pay more. Similarly, if your stay includes a weekend, you can also pay more as hotel rooms, and plane tickets increase in price if your travel plans include Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Try booking during the week and you could pay less.  

TRAVELING ON A BUDGET?  READ THIS!!!

I FOUND A GREAT DEAL, NOW WHAT?

Once you've found the ideal price for your flight/hotel, start loosely planning your days. We like to have a simple and flexible itinerary when traveling. Yes, sometimes is great to do things as they appear, but finding fun things along the way is not always that easy. You don't want to "waste" your day away while deciding what to do, where to go, and how to get there. Have a plan...IF you find something better along the way, then you can change your itinerary. Flexibility is key. 

RELATED: PACKING WHEN TRAVELING WITH KIDS

START YOUR FIRST DAY ON A LOW KEY

Don't burn yourself out on the first day, especially if you arrive to your destination later on the day.  Relaxing is a very important part of the concept of Vacation. Start sightseeing with whatever is closest and/or easiest to get to, or simply enjoy a good dinner and a short walk.  If you already feel rested, or you are one of those people with extreme amounts of energy, try to follow your itinerary the first day.  

HOW TO GET AROUND

In NYC, you can walk, take the metro, train, taxi or Uber/Lyft. Up to you. Our preferred method for this visit was Metro. Since we knew we were going to use it a lot, several times a day, we opted for purchasing the week-metro card (about $35). You can purchase single tickets as well. Just don't try to skip the entry gate...if they catch you, it's not pretty.  

First thing you want to do is to make sure you have Google maps installed on your phone.  Second, know where you are on a map to decide if you need to go in the "uptown" or "downtown" directions.  Basically, downtown is south, uptown is north...or pretty close. Plug in the address or landmark onto Google maps, and it will tell you, step by step, what train to take, and the times of arrival based on your location.  IT'S AMAZING! Even if the train is running late or if there are scheduled maintenance conflicts, this app will let you know and give your alternative routes and options.  

We recommend that you still get a physical map of the metro, just in case your phone dies or your internet stops working... you never know! Don't get overwhelmed by the map. Once you get familiar with the system, it becomes very easy to read. The trains are color coded and the connection stations are clearly marked on the maps. Grab one before you leave your hotel! They are usually free.

YOUR ITINERARY

Know what you want to see before you arrive to NYC. I've been to the city many times, and I still haven't see it all. Don't think that you can go see everything in a few days... you will burn out.  Here's a list of our recommended places to see and eat while in NYC. You can google the names to get the address and directions. Please note that this is just a personal opinion and does not mean these are the best things to do or eat. If you know of other sites or restaurants that are a must do/see, PLEASE comment down below and let us know!! We would love to try them when we come back!  

WHAT TO SEE

1. THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Do you know that museum from the movie "Night at the Museum"? Yes, the same! (and if things come alive at night, sign me up for the night shift!) We enjoyed our afternoon at the museum.  NOTE: wear comfortable shoes because it's a lot of walking! The museum is large and there's a lot to cover.  In fact, you might not be able to see it all if you try to rush. There are four accessible floors in this massive building. You might start on the second floor, as the iconic main entrance on Central Park West leads to the second floor. You will have the opportunity to purchase general admission and/or tickets for the additional attractions. The museum is divided by wings, which are pretty much divided by continents fauna/cultures/sub-cultures.  Then you can find ocean life, minerals, and of course, the dinosaurs on the fourth floor. It also has a great planetarium with a stellar presentation narrated by Neal Degrasse Tyson. Don't miss it!

2. TIME SQUARE

This one is a big, "duh!!" Obviously you can't come to The Big Apple and not visit Times Square. The main things to do here are 1. admire the lights and colorful advertising on the buildings, 2. Great dinning, 3. Shopping, 4. Entertainment.   

PLACES IN TIMES SQUARE

RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

This place is AMAZING!! Definitely a must do in NYC. I've been to other Ripley's museums around the country, but the one on Times Square takes the gold. It's full of interactive, weird artifacts and fun activities for the whole family.  It also makes for amazing photo ops!!  It's worth it.

LIKE CHOCOLATE? VISIT M&M WORLD AND HERSHEY'S WORLD ON TIMES SQUARE

Yes, both of these MASSIVE stores are located diagonally from each other right in the heart of Times Square. Word of advice, they are obviously overpriced... like, I can literally buy the same amount of M&Ms at Target for a fraction of the price. The cool thing is that they do offer products that you can't find anywhere else or they are rarely available in stores. We tried to purchase the rare candy and stayed away from the normal products... save your pennies! 

THEATER... THE BEST

Plays like The Lion King, Wicked, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are located in Times Square...unfortunately we couldn't purchase tickets in advance...and the fact that are incredibly expensive! You can, however, find great sales on Broadway tickets in Time Square! Keep an eye for those.  

Sleep No More is another AMAZING off-broadway interactive play.  Read the review here ... Just so you know, Sleep No More is NOT kid friendly...so adults only.  

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTER: OCEAN ODYSSEY

This fabulous interactive experience will take you into the deep ocean and will make you feel very close to the marine life of our world.  Parts of it feel as if you are inside the ocean, while other parts were a little cheesy. Overall, it was good. The kids thoroughly enjoy this guided tour of the seas.  

EATING AT TIMES SQUARE

Two of my favorite places are:  

BUBBA GUMP SHRIMP COMPANY 

Run Forest, Run! Yes, maybe because Forest Gump is one of my ultimate favorite movies of all times, or just because this place is pretty cool, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company had amazing food! Have shrimp anyway you can imagine... this is the place for that. 

CARMINE'S

You better make reservations for this family style Italian Restaurant or you'll be waiting a long while for a table. The restaurant has been around since 1990 and continues the tradition of large meals for the whole table. Believe me... you don't need an appetizer if it's just two of you. The portions are SO BIG that are aimed for a family of 4+.  We didn't even have room for dessert and we just had ONE entree. It was fantastic!

 3. CENTRAL PARK

This colossal green space in the heart of Manhattan is not only iconic, but also beautiful.  It's a green paradise away (and inside) a jungle of asphalt. Take a morning walk, or have a picnic by a lake while gazing over the city.  It's relaxing.  

4. CENTRAL PARK ZOO

While walking around Central Park, we encounter the zoo. It is NOT very big, but big enough to spend a good couple of hours observing the animals and shopping around.  

5. STATUE OF LIBERTY AND ELLIS ISLAND

Everyone knows New York's most iconic symbol, the Statue of Liberty.  Located on Liberty Island, it is worth visiting this lady at least once. She doesn't look that big from a distance. In fact, she looks faded and small if you observe her from Battery Park. Take a ferry tour (purchase tickets in advance.  Beware of scammers.  I learned that only Statuecruises.com is the direct seller, and most others will charge you an extra fee to get your ticket.  So go directly to statuecruises.com to get them).  When you see Lady Liberty close and in person, you'll realize that she's not only massive, but also bright and colorful.  We opted to do the Crown pass... We saw it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to climb up the very, very, very tight 354 steps to the top. The view was fantastic!

Once you are done with the statue, get on the ferry again towards Ellis Island. Here, you can walk through the shoes of the immigrants that entered this country so long ago.  The things they went through, the things they suffered, how they were treated. This fascinating museum is powerful and interesting.  Don't skip it!

6. CONEY ISLAND

We didn't get in the ocean, but the beach looked beautiful! We walked by the pier and along the boardwalk. It was a fun day of (expensive) carnival rides, and funnel cake! We stopped by NATHAN'S famous Hot Dogs, and shopped for souvenirs. The rides are good, but they cost a pretty penny, so choose wisely.  

WHERE TO EAT?

So many options!!! I cannot possibly tell you about every single place or this list would have to be a book.  Besides the two places in Times Square mentioned above, we visited a couple of local landmarks that are a must: 

LOMBARDI'S

Established in 1905, it's said to be the very first pizzeria in the US! Now, I don't know how true this is, but this place looked pretty retro and has a great atmosphere. Beware! Cash only my friends!! Enjoy good pizza, but bring your cash, as plastic is not accepted. The walls are covered with pictures of the celebrities that have visited the restaurant.  

VENIERO'S

Hands down my favorite dessert place in the world...Another very old city landmark. If you want amazing desserts, go straight there.  Everyone that visits NYC should go here first. Serving pastries and desserts since 1894, this family owned cafe has been in business for five generations. Sweet and heavenly place this is.

BLACK TAP

Black Tap offers craft burgers and beer as well as the most amazing and creative milk shakes you would ever encounter. The milkshakes are massive and should probably be shared and not consumed alone....unless you are OK with the million calories you can ingest. They are deliciously tempting!

PATACON PISAO

In the mood for some good, affordable, Venezuelan cuisine? Go to Patacon Pisao. This very small hole in the wall is made for big taste buds. Get your food to go, or eat it there (if there's a table).  They cook the food as you order it, right in front of you. Guaranteed that you will lick your fingers.

 WHAT ABOUT BREWERIES? 

If you would like to taste some good craft beer you don't have to go very far.  NYC has a few breweries that are kid friendly, so no excuses!  

HEARTLAND BREWERY

With several convenient locations, Heartland Brewery offers great beer and good food.  Their Time Square location is within walking distance of many attractions, so swing by in between or have dinner with your beer!... Or beer with your dinner...whatever.

CONEY ISLAND BREWERY

Like the name suggest, Coney Island Brewery is located in Coney Island.  After a hot day of walking about the boardwalk, take a rest and have a cold one at the brewery.  We weren't sure how kid friendly this place is, but it seemed OK if you sit down outside by a shaded picnic bench.  Their beer was interesting, with cotton candy flavors, and other sours (which are my favorite).  Hubby enjoyed the IPA.  

BROOKLYN BREWERY

By far my favorite NYC brewery.  We tried many of their beers over the week and they were all amazing.  The facilities are very inviting, spacious, and kid friendly.  Definitely a place I would come back to.  Also, the staff is extremely helpful and friendly.  LOVED IT!

OTHER LANDMARKS

There were many other places we visited and many many more we wanted to visit but didn't have the time.  Here are other places you may want to consider for your sightseeing adventure:

*Empire State Building.  

You can climb the stairs or take the elevator to see the city from this 102 floor building.  There's really nothing much else to do, just take a pic and make your way back down.

*MACY'S

I've never seen a store this big in my entire life.  This block long, 10 story building feels like a city within itself.  I am pretty certain that you could find anything you can ever need here.  Also, it's NOT cheap.  I couldn't find a cute outfit under $100.  Cool, but not my kind of store.

*9/11 MEMORIAL

Commemorate those who died in this tragic attack by visiting the museum.  Read the stories and learn about the history and the rebirth of the city after the attack.

*HOBOKEN, NJ

Yes, I know this is not New York, but Hoboken is just a short train ride away.  Hop over the river into the shore of New Jersey, and observe New York skyline from the other side.  It's breathtaking and peaceful.  Also, Hoboken has plenty of restaurants and entertainment to offer!

*CHINATOWN

This culturally rich neighborhood in Manhattan has a lot to offer for a fun afternoon of great food and good, cheap shopping.  Hundreds of vendors and stores will try to lure you into their shops, while the smell of good food will lure your nostrils and wake your appetite.  Beware of scammers and be vigilant of offers that sound too good to be true!

There are many, many more attractions, museums, landmarks, and sites that I didn't mention. I mean, NYC is a place with 8.5 million people! I'm giving testimony of what I've experienced when I traveled.  Please feel free to add to this list by commenting below!!!

Bon Voyage!!

Always, 

Mia

[anothergirlrecovering]

Lynn 81

I got there five minutes early and the door was locked so no one was at Lynn’s office yet so I actually walked across the parking lot and use the bathroom at one of the other offices. When I came back when was there and had her door open and invited me in. She said hey stranger and I said hey, if feels like it’s been so long and she was like I know and I was like well I guess it has been like 2 1/2 weeks and she was like yeah. She asked me how I was doing and as usual, I said I was good. I said I couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen come from away and she was like you know I listen to music for at least one of the songs and he didn’t really like it that much so I wasn’t really pushing for it and the tickets were hard to get an expensive and I was like listen you just sought mean girls and she laughed and was like OK but that’s one of those shows that’s right in my wheelhouse and she said that she would see the show and I was like do you not like Irish sounding music and she was like well I don’t know I just didn’t like whatever song that I had listen to you very much and she Was like but I’ll go see it and I was like OK. She asked how my trip was and what we did and I told her about how my mom was just super nice the entire time and how we went and saw the Phantom of the opera and I didn’t really like it and that they had gone to dinner and how shocked I was that my mom had actually said that she would come back to my brothers apartment and watch the Tonys with me and Lynn was like well maybe since you put up some boundaries maybe your parents had to be nice and I was like I don’t now and she was like well I think that when you put boundaries up people have to learn how to respect them and you know at first it’s difficult but you’ve been doing this for a while and maybe that you taking this trip and staying with your brother and not them really show them that you are an adult and are setting boundaries and they are trying to respect them. She said anyone can be a nice person but they are going to act crazy when they have boundary issues but if you give them boundaries they might just be the nice people that they are and I was like yeah I guess so and I told her about how my mom did some of the typical controlling text about did I do this or that or where was I and what was I doing and I should go stay with my cousin and I should get my brothers girlfriends phone number and things that I was like what the heck I don’t need your advice I got this. I said I wish that I just didn’t have such an emotional response to it with feeling anxious and irritated. I told her also about how my mom‘s best friends daughter said that her mom gave her crap on Mother’s Day to and how she was saying that she thinks social media ruins the both of them and that they just sit there and compare everyone’s lives and I was like I can totally see that and I was like not that I’m glad that it happens to Marissa to and Lynn was like but you were glad to have it normalized and I was like yeah exactly was nice to know that I’m not the only one who’s mom is being bitchy and superficial and taking it out on me. I told her about our schedule and how on Saturday I woke up for the rush tickets and got there at 5:45 which Lynn was like oh my gosh that’s early and I was like you know but I got second row tickets and saw a great show for 38 bucks and Lynn was like yeah that’s really early and I was like it’s not a big deal and I said how I had to British people in line next to me around my age and we mostly just talked the whole time and then there was a doctor which I was like what the heck go home you don’t need rush tickets and she laughed and was like he’s being frugal and I was like no he just bought himself a studio apartment a block from the theater and has a house in New Jersey he doesn’t need a rush tickets and she laughed and was like maybe not. I told her about how I really liked my brother’s girlfriend and how I didn’t see her being controlling and crazy and if anything I saw my brother being more of the problem because he got that nasty attitude with her which was the same way that My husband said that I got nasty with him and it hit me how embarrassing and like obnoxious it was and I was like oh man and how I told my brother that my husband had talked to me about it and that it was something that I had to work on and I was like you don’t have to say anything back to that which he didn’t but I was like you know it’s embarrassing when dad gets nasty like that but it’s also embarrassing when we do it too and I told Lyn about how me and my dad got into some argument where it was like the first one was because I asked him what made him want to start a café coffee shop in New York City and I didn’t mean it like in a mean kind away implying like you fucked up, but that I was sincerely curious like you just got your degree as a culinary chef what would make you want to go the coffee café route but that he had gotten super defensive and nasty about it and went on and on about how I wouldn’t have wanted to know about it when I was younger and I was like I might not have wanted to know your financial advice about starting a café but I would have liked to know that you had one and he was just nasty about it and when we got to this bakery and my mom asked what kind of coffee you wanted I had jokingly said decaf because it was late at night and he got nasty about that to you and did the whole reverse psychology of like using things that I say and being like well you don’t like when people talk for you right? And you don’t like when people try to make decisions for you right? Why are you trying to do that for me and got all mad about it meanwhile I was just joking and I was like whatever and I was like to my mom he’s your problem if he has regular caffeinated coffee and can’t sleep later like you’re gonna have to deal with the complaining not me and she was like let’s be real he complains about everything and he’ll find a way to complain either way I am and I was like whatever. So Lynn gave me a long speech about men and how sensitive they are about being providers and their success and how I probably triggered something for him because maybe this felt like a failure for him and maybe that was his dream and I was like well his dream is to open his own deli and catering company and he did that and that did fail and she was like so what are you know about trauma and I was like it all runs together and she was like exactly so maybe talking about the café thing triggered some of those feelings of in adequacy and I was like yeah I guess so and she was like you’ll see it the more men that you work with it’s almost always going to be related to this feeling of not being a good enough provider or successful or a general weakness. She said to remind myself that it wasn’t really about me at all and that the more that I step into this adult role and not the child Rome it will be easier to step back and have compassion for him, not that it excuses his behavior towards you but that it makes it easier to step back and think how sad that he still carrying around stuff from the past like that. And I was like yeah I guess that’s true. She asked me if the arguments were keeping me up at night and I was like no honestly I kind of just sat there and was like what the F and she laughed and was like yeah that makes sense and I was like it was so stupid and I was like the thing that did kind of bother me honestly was actually with my brother. I explained how my brother and I get along really well but that one night when I was there he thought that I had gone to bed and I went back to go to the bathroom and I could smell that he was smoking weed like by himself in his bedroom with the lights out and so I talk to him about it the next day and he just kind of blew it off and didn’t really want to talk about it and just said that he smokes every night to go to bed and part of me was like you know I don’t really care if he smoking weed recreationally with friends and stuff but I was like I’m a little worried like are you OK if you feel like you need it to sleep every night? And she was kind of like yeah she was like so he’s actually smoking and not be a bang and I was like no it was definitely straight up weed and he acknowledged that it was and she was like oh OK and I was like yeah but he didn’t want to talk about it and I didn’t want to push him or anything but I mean I hope he’s fine but at that point I’m like whatever and haven’t really thought about it too much since then. I explained how being at all of these shows did make me think that maybe I need to focus more on doing Mindfulness because I realize how often I was checking out and not really even paying attention and she was like in which shows and I was like literally all of them she was like even dear Evan Hanson and I was like exactly and she was like well theater does take a lot of attention and I think it’s normal to space out sometimes because for some reason it just seems like he doesn’t carry all the same stimuli that something like a movie does. She made a comment about how she is sensitive to sound and so when somebody’s like opening a rapper were fidgeting in their purse or something show is gets distracted and I was like yeah that’s really annoying but I guess what made me think that it was more of a mindfulness issue was that there is nothing distracting me except for my own brain checking out because it was literally just I’d be sitting there and then my mind would wander to thinking about things bothering me and she was like oh OK well you know what to do and I was like yeah I guess. I said also that would go hand-in-hand with my difficulty with sitting still and how much I fidget and I said how as a little kid I remember seeing lion King on Broadway and when it was over a lady behind me started yelling at me and saying how I ruined the show for her because I hadn’t sat still the entire time and Lynn laughed and was like May we need to reprocess that and I was like yeah maybe but I was like I think you know I fidget in movie theaters and when I’m just sitting at work and all these other places but I think it’s so much more noticeable and I get anxious about it in the theater because I’m sitting there worrying if I’m ruining everybody else’s experiences by not sitting still and Lynn pointed out that it’s hard to sit still for long time for most people and I was like no I think this is a little bit more but whatever she was still kind of like well maybe with some mindfulness you can decrease some of that and I was like yeah I hope so. She said that she has asked her daughter and her son if they ever get bored during shows when they are actually performing and she said that they were both like oh yeah for sure but you have it memorized so you have to kind of try to pay attention but she said that it’s apparently super normal and that her daughter is stressing her out because she will go backstage in between sets and be like face timing her and she’ll be like aren’t you supposed to be getting ready to go back on and she’s like oh yeah I need to go in a minute and Lynn was like oh my gosh what the heck like freaking out for her but she said it’s always fine but even they have trouble sometimes staying present in their own shows because it just becomes repetitive. She was like it sounds like you had a really fun trip though and I was like yeah I really did it was honestly like the first vacation in so long that I can remember just really having a good time and I don’t know if that was because I had more downtime where usually I am scrambling trying to pack everything in on a vacation or if it was just because I enjoy the people that I saw but it really was a good time. Lynn was like look at you being a theater person and I was like I know I’m catching up slowly. I said and also my husband and I might have bought a house and she was like wait what? And I was like yeah and she’s like well that’s exciting! She said congratulations and asked if I had pictures and I was like well just the ones on realtor.com but I think we are trying to wait until things are more finalized to get excited about it because right now I think we are anxious and she pointed out again that my husband is more of the worrier and more of the prone to anxious thoughts and I was like well he’s freaking out about whether or not we are overpaying and how some of the houses in the neighborhood were cheaper when they sold and I was like I mean we just don’t know if they needed a bunch of work because all of our house has been updated and based on the year these houses were all made they would have been due for upgrades in more recent years so it’s possible that they were sold before updates were made and I said how the backyard is smaller than we wanted but everything else about it really is good I mean it’s a big house and has everything else that we want to and she was like a basement and I was like OK stop it doesn’t have a basement and she laughed and I was like but we had excepted that a basement was something we would love but not a non-negotiable because it’s so hard to find houses in our area that even have basements and maybe one day when our budget is bigger we will find a home with a basement and she was like basically giving her house advice and she said how you know she has never found this perfect house and she still looking for and she joked and said that one of her friends has the perfect house and she wants them to sell it to her but her friends not moving LOL she said that they have owned three homes now because her husband owned one when they first got married and she said when they saw that she was pregnant with twins and she had found this one house that had a good bit of property to it and she said that it seemed like the perfect home and they really loved it and wanted it and it had been on the market for a while and when they put in an offer it turned out that you other people the same day had put in an offer and they actually got beat out and they were scrambling because she was pregnant and didn’t want her twins in the apartment and so they ended up hiring and taking a home that was in a neighborhood where the houses were close together like she didn’t want but she said it turned out to be the best thing because the neighborhood ended up being such a good neighborhood for their kids and how it was so community driven because the houses were close together and everybody knew each other and the kids always had somebody to play with and they would have like a Fourth of July parade where the kids would decorate their wagons and the fire department would come and she said basically that sometimes what you want isn’t the best because when she looks back at the original house that she thought was perfect their experience in that house would have been so different because it wouldn’t have had that community aspect and so she was like you know at least while your kids are little I think it’s really great to have that and she also pointed out that she was like I like the fact that if I were to scream in the middle the night my neighbors can probably hear me and I was like what? And she was like you know like if somebody broken or something and I was like you know? That’s not something I had ever even thought about LOL. Lynn was like well now you know. She said regarding the finances really just can’t ever predict anything regarding the housing market. She said that when they sold that first house they actually made a decent bit of money and they had invested it into a different house around 2008 right before the market crashed and I thought this was gonna be such a great investment and they put all this money into renovations on their current house and they were expecting that their current house would make them a bunch of money and it turns out she’s like based on the current market we won’t really make much at all and so she was like he really just can’t predict it so she was like I wouldn’t really try to base your decision off of that. I said the advice that was given to me was that it’s better to have the worst house in the best neighborhood then the best house in the worst neighborhood and she was like I completely agree. She said she has the cheapest house in her neighborhood but that it is such a good neighborhood and people will buy to be in that neighborhood and when she looks back at the different houses she was like you know if we had gotten that perfect home our kids would have been a different school and it’s possible that my kids would’ve never gotten involved with theater and their whole lives could’ve planned out so differently and she was like so it’s cool how it all works together and I was like well that’s nice. She said that she is hoping to downgrade and really wants a home with a basement so that way when people come over they could stay down there and she can have her space LOL which is such a Lynn thing to say but she was like with the kids moving out we don’t really need such a big house and she was like I would honestly be happy living in a condo I don’t like outdoor work and we just need something small and then we could just travel which is kind of our future goals is to really be doing more traveling well that’s nice. She said that’s exciting and she thinks it will all work out and I was like yeah we will see and I said I’m trying not to get excited yet until things are a bit more finalize like after the appraisal and she asked when we were close and I said July 20. At some point shebeought up washers and dryers and how hers are new and they’re always breaking and they just don’t make stuff to last anymore and for the money she’s put into repairs she could have just bought a new one. Also I told her about how I hadn’t really talk to my parents because I wanted to avoid those conversations because I know that they will ask me 1 million questions and pressure me and drive me nuts and I just didn’t want to deal with that so I actually have just been asking other adults that I know for advice and I said how I asked this other mom at my job for her suggestions and that it was helpful. Lynn was like look at you getting your needs met and I was like yeah I’m trying. She was like well next time I guess I will need to tell you about some of the protocols I learned that my training and I was like oh yeah that’s right and she was like a lot of it was really experiential. She said there was one that involves drawing and one that involves like rocks and kind of drawing upon positive experiences and she was like so pretty much drawing on the really good things and using it as a resource installation and I was like that’s gone she was like I think that that might be really good for you and that way when you have these experiences where your parents are being crabby you can draw upon those really positive memories and I was like that sounds good and she was like a lot of it was you know looking at the different parts and figuring out what’s still left and she was like because you know even with you she was like I see so much progress and things that have really gotten so much better cause she was like even looking at how this trip went for you and I was like yeah honestly this is the first time that I really remember like enjoying my time up there and she was like yeah and I think that’s because you set boundaries with your parents this time and she was hopeful that things will continue to be better with visits with them and I was like I hope so. She was like I think some of these activities that I learned in the training might be helpful in figuring out what’s still left because you’ve done a lot of work and I was like so you want me to be your guinea pig LOL and she was like hey I’ve use this with several people in the past few weeks and I’ve actually gone really well. She mentioned using rocks and symbolism and I was like I don’t know about that and she was like well I don’t like it in the training but then when I used it with people that actually worked well and I was like I think there’s definitely a subset of people who really likes symbolism and things and then there’s people like me who just don’t get into it and she was like yeah I don’t know I think that it still helpful in figuring out what is still left. She said that it’s about figuring out the different parts of yourself and I was like OK dick shorts and internal family systems and she was like yeah I definitely got the I FS I think that it still helpful in figuring out what is still left. She said that it’s about figuring out the different parts of yourself and I was like OK dick shorts and internal family systems and she was like yeah I definitely got the IFS vibe but it actually came from psycho drama and I was like oh good all Jason marina and she acted surprised I knew him and She was like yeah because he did a lot of sculpting with different parts and I was like yeah we learned a lot about him and my graduate program because he did a lot of that work with families so he was really one of the pioneers of family therapy when that was for us becoming a thing and she was like oh that’s right and I was like yeah so I think that they really cover that a lot in marriage and family therapy masters programs but not so much and other programs that are focused more on individuals and she was like yeah that makes more sense. She was like he can also even do it with the different eating is ordered parts and I was like oh man well if you can get rid of the eating disorder voice in my head I will try anything and she was like well it’s worth a shot I was like yeah that’s true. I was like you know in general it’s pretty manageable but at times of high stress and anxiety like right now with the whole house thing, it’s like all day long my brain is constantly obsessing over how I’m fat and it’s like I know the purpose of that is my brain trying to focus on my body because losing weight is within my control and I don’t really have any control over anything happening with the house but it just is so frustrating because it’s like even though I know that it doesn’t take away the voice from being there and she was like well maybe will be able to figure out where that voice is even coming from and process it and I was like I would be forever grateful and she was like so for scheduling she said she didn’t know if she would be there the week of July 4 and I was like that’s fine I’ll be going away anyway and she was like OK that’s easy so for the week after she was like I think I might only be there for part of the week and I was like OK and she was like well I know Monday and Tuesday are safe bet and I was like oh we can do one of those and she was like it’s just hard when I haven’t figured out which days yet I’m going to be there or not and I was like man you’re living the rough life Lynn, not sure which days you want to take an extended vacation again and she laughed and was like well it’s mostly just that I’m visiting my daughter and I was like oh yeah there’s that hard life coming out again and she laughed and was like well and I asked her if her daughter was up in New York for the summer and she said no her daughter was up in Chicago being bell in beauty in the beast and I was like oh that’s really cool and she was like yeah they’re super weird town outside of Chicago and I was like LOL beauty in the beast takes place in a weird little town so I guess that’s fitting and she was like I hadn’t even thought of that but I am she said it was a really good show though and that she had driven up there saw it and then ended up doing her training that weekend and then came back and then drove 12 hours with her parents in the car which now that I’m thinking about it I should’ve asked if I was her mom too but I believe it was her dad and I don’t know if she has stepmom but she was like yeah 12 hours in the car with your parents and you’ll start to realize things about yourself and about them and she said that she was sitting there like oh that’s where I get my road rage from and I couldn’t help but laugh because I was so not surprised that Lynnwood have road rage when people tail her. We scheduled and I paid and I headed out.

[kansascityhappenings]

Robert Guillaume, Emmy-winning actor for ‘Soap’, star of ‘Benson’ dies at 89

NEW YORK (AP) — Robert Guillaume, who rose from squalid beginnings in St. Louis slums to become a star in stage musicals and win Emmy Awards for his portrayal of the sharp-tongued butler in the TV sitcoms “Soap” and “Benson,” has died at age 89.

Guillaume died at home Tuesday in Los Angeles, according to his widow, Donna Brown Guillaume. He had been battling prostate cancer, she told The Associated Press.

Among Guillaume’s achievements was playing Nathan Detroit in the first all-black version of “Guys and Dolls,” earning him a Tony nomination in 1977. He became the first African-American to sing the title role of “Phantom of the Opera,” in a Los Angeles-based production, and was the voice of the shaman-slash-mandrill Rafiki in the film version of “The Lion King.”

Guillaume won a Grammy in 1995 when a read-aloud version of “The Lion King,” which he narrated, was cited for best spoken word album for children. He also served as narrator for the animated HBO series “Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child,” which aired form 1995-2000.

“Giant of stage + screen,” tweeted filmmaker Ava DuVernay. “Also let’s remember that Robert Guillaume was among the first celebs to appear at AIDS fundraisers. Thank you, sir.” Actor Josh Charles tweeted “Robert Guillaume radiated such warmth, light, dignity, and above all, class. That smile and laugh touched us all.”

While playing in “Guys and Dolls, Guillaume was asked to test for the role of an acerbic butler of a governor’s mansion in “Soap,” a prime-time TV sitcom that satirized soap operas.

“The minute I saw the script, I knew I had a live one,” he recalled in 2001. “Every role was written against type, especially Benson, who wasn’t subservient to anyone. To me, Benson was the revenge for all those stereotyped guys who looked like Benson in the ’40s and ’50s (movies) and had to keep their mouths shut.”

The character became so popular that ABC was persuaded to launch a spinoff, simply called “Benson,” which lasted from 1979 to 1986. In the series, the main character went from running the kitchen for a governor to becoming a political aide to eventually becoming lieutenant governor. “Benson” made Guillaume wealthy and famous, but he regretted that his character’s wit had to be toned down to make him more appealing as the lead star.

The career of Robert Guillaume (pronounced with a hard “g”: gee-yome) almost ended in January 1999 at Walt Disney Studio. He was appearing in the TV series “Sports Night” as Isaac Jaffee, executive producer of a sports highlight show. Returning to his dressing room after a meal away from the studio, he suddenly collapsed.

“I fell on the floor, and I couldn’t get up,” he told an interviewer in 2001. “I kept floundering about on the floor and I didn’t know why I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know it was it was caused by my left side being weaker than the other.”

Fortunately, St. Joseph Hospital was directly across from the studio. The 71-year-old actor was taken there and treated for a stroke— the result of a blood clot that blocked circulation of blood to the brain. They are fatal in 15 percent of the cases.

Guillaume’s stroke was minor, causing relatively slight damage and little effect on his speech. After six weeks in the hospital, he underwent a therapy of walks and sessions in the gym. He returned to the second season of “Sports Talk,” and it was written into the script that Isaac Jaffee was recovering from a stroke. Because of slim ratings, the second season proved to be the last for the much-praised show.

Guillaume resumed his career and traveled as a new spokesman for the American Stroke Association. He also made appearance for the American Heart Association.

“I’m a bastard, a Catholic, the son of a prostitute, and a product of the poorest slums of St. Louis.”

This was the opening of “Guillaume: A Life,” his 2002 autobiography in which he laid bare his troubled life. He was born fatherless on Nov. 30, 1927, in St. Louis, one of four children. His mother named him Robert Peter Williams; when he became a performer he adopted Guillaume, a French version of William, believing the change would give him distinction.

His early years were spent in a back-alley apartment without plumbing or electricity; an outhouse was shared with two dozen people. His alcoholic mother hated him because of his dark skin, and his grandmother rescued him, taught him to read and enrolled him in a Catholic school.

Seeking but denied his mother’s love and scorned by nuns and students because of his dark skin, the boy became a rebel, and that carried into his adult life. He was expelled from school and then the Army, though he was granted an honorable discharge. He fathered a daughter and abandoned the child and her mother. He did the same to his first wife and two sons and to another woman and a daughter.

He worked in a department store, the post office and as St. Louis’s first black streetcar motorman. Seeking something better, he enrolled at St. Louis University, excelling in philosophy and Shakespeare, and then at Washington University (St. Louis) where a music professor trained the young man’s superb tenor singing voice.

After serving as an apprentice at theaters in Aspen, Colorado, and Cleveland, the newly named Guillaume toured with Broadway shows “Finian’s Rainbow,” ”Golden Boy,” ”Porgy and Bess” and “Purlie,” and began appearing on sitcoms such as “The Jeffersons” and “Sanford and Son.” Then came “Soap” and “Benson.” His period of greatest success was marred by tragedy when his 33-year-old son Jacques died of complications from AIDS in 1990.

Guillaume’s first stable relationship came when he married TV producer Donna Brown in the mid-1980s and had a daughter, Rachel. At last he was able to shrug off the bitterness he had felt throughout his life.

“To assuage bitterness requires more than human effort,” he wrote at the end of his autobiography. “Relief comes from a source we cannot see but can only feel. I am content to call that source love.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2017/10/24/robert-guillaume-emmy-winning-actor-for-soap-star-of-benson-dies-at-89/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2017/10/24/robert-guillaume-emmy-winning-actor-for-soap-star-of-benson-dies-at-89/

[mastcomm]

Snakes on a Field: The 1995 Super Bowl Halftime Served Up a Spectacle

MIAMI — Dale Girard was wearing long underwear covered in what he said looked like “ectoplasmic slime from ‘Ghostbusters’” but was actually freezing cold fire gel. Costumed as “The Executioner,” he was in a holding area underneath a massive metal stage as it was being rolled onto the field at what was then known as Joe Robbie Stadium.

There was one thing on his mind, he recalled this week: “I’m about to be set on fire, and I’m three feet from Patti LaBelle.”

Welcome to the 1995 Super Bowl halftime show.

This Sunday, about 100 million people in the United States will watch as the pop stars Jennifer Lopez and Shakira perform during halftime of the Super Bowl. They were recruited in part by Jay-Z and his company, Roc Nation, which signed a deal with the N.F.L. last year to become the league’s “live music entertainment strategist.”

For the N.F.L., far more important than the quality of the show is the absence of controversy. Last year several artists, including Rihanna, reportedly declined to perform during the Super Bowl halftime out of concern for Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who has not played in the N.F.L. since the 2016 season, when he knelt during the national anthem to protest racism and police brutality. Once the league landed its performers, Maroon 5 and Travis Scott, it opted to cancel the traditional news conference ahead of the show, pre-empting questions about the decision.

Super Bowl halftime shows have not always been delicate issues. And they have not always been just concerts. They used to have speaking roles and narrative arcs, more akin to theater. They used to be campy. They used to make no sense.

That changed along with the N.F.L. itself, as the league’s airtime ballooned in value and made the Super Bowl show one of the most coveted gigs in entertainment. The marching bands of early shows gave way to Up With People — an educational organization — and eventually to theatrical spectacles and concerts from megastars.

Perhaps the most bizarre halftime show in Super Bowl history happened 25 years ago, here in South Florida, the fifth and last time the San Francisco 49ers won the Lombardi Trophy.

“Bring to me, the trophy,” boomed a musclebound king, wearing a crown of snakes and clutching a skull-topped scepter. Just minutes before, Steve Young and the 49ers had jogged off the field, up by 28-10 and on their way to a 49-26 blowout against the Chargers. But in seconds the stadium was transformed into a giant temple, replete with torches, snakehead drummers and men on stilts.

Over a frenetic 11 minutes, the odd show played out. A costumed temple worker brought the N.F.L.’s Lombardi Trophy to the king, and LaBelle, dressed as a temple goddess, belted out the opening lines to “Release Yourself.” But alas, this gang’s ambitions of stealing the trophy would be foiled by Indiana Jones and his sidekick, Marion Ravenwood, who both sky-dived onto the field.

They battled the temple guards — including Girard’s “Executioner,” who was set on fire with a torch — were threatened with snakes, and ultimately made their way into Club Disney, where Tony Bennett, the jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and the Miami Sound Machine performed.

After Marion and Indiana recaptured the trophy, they held it aloft as LaBelle, Bennett and the supporting cast of dozens for some reason broke into a rendition of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” — an Elton John song from the movie “The Lion King.”

A quarter-century later, it makes even less sense.

The show was the brainchild of a Disney marketing executive. One month after the Super Bowl, Disneyland would open a ride called The Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye. And as part of an estimated $20 million marketing budget for a ride that required years of construction and reorienting Disneyland, why not put it front and center on television’s biggest stage?

A few months before the Super Bowl, a stuntman named Bryan Friday was performing at the Six Flags amusement park in Dallas. He heard there were auditions for a new Indiana Jones stunt show at Disney World in Orlando so he piled into a car with four friends for the long drive to Florida.

The audition went well, he said in an interview last week, but he was told that he was too tall for the permanent role of Indiana Jones at the park. But did he want to come back the next day, when Disney was holding auditions for a Super Bowl show?

And that is how Friday came to perform as an iconic movie character in front of tens of millions of people. Not that he was paid handsomely. “I want to say it was $3,000, and that was for three weeks,” he said. “But you figure, 1995? It was definitely worth doing.”

He also didn’t get to watch the Super Bowl. The cast members thought they might get to see the second half, but they were shepherded onto buses and driven out of the stadium. “They took us to Don Shula’s restaurant,” Friday said, referring to the longtime Miami Dolphins coach, “and we ate and drank there and had a really nice party at their expense.”

There was an unexpected perk, however. “I met Patti, and she was actually kind of flirty with me,” Friday said.

“I probably was, if he was cute,” LaBelle said in a telephone interview.

Though the television viewers probably didn’t notice, there were a handful of minor problems with the show. In a full dress rehearsal the day before, the flares worn by sky divers singed the field. The N.F.L. forbade the performers to wear them during the actual halftime, so that part of the broadcast came from video shot during the rehearsal.

The metal stage also had numerous holes, to make it lighter and improve traction, which LaBelle says wreaked havoc on her high-heeled strutting.

And, of course, the snakes. Indiana Jones is famously afraid of snakes, so what would an Indiana Jones show be without them? Two purple-turbaned snake charmers performed in the show with 12-foot reptiles — Storm and Slither. There was only one problem.

“They scared the absolute bejeebers out of Patti,” said Ron Magill, the longtime communications director of the Miami-Dade Zoological Park and Gardens who is a South Florida celebrity. Magill was one of the snake charmers. “It was Patti LaBelle and Tony Bennett, and Patti just screeched, ‘Oh no, child. Oh no, child.’”

“I am petrified of snakes,” LaBelle said, remembering her response: “You all gotta do something different right now. You gotta move those snakes.”

In many ways, the halftime show has become simpler. “It was like a Broadway play back in the day,” LaBelle said. “Today you go out there, you have your three- or four-song set, you do it and you go home.”

But the current versions are far more lavish than the shows at the first 20 or so Super Bowls. Michael Eisner, Disney’s chief executive from 1984 to 2005, pegged the evolution to the spectacular opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“John Williams created what is now the music that introduces everything in the Olympics,” he said. “That was really a monumental moment.”

As the 1995 show and several subsequent Super Bowl halftimes have proven, those moments are not easily manufactured, no matter how many snakes are involved.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/snakes-on-a-field-the-1995-super-bowl-halftime-served-up-a-spectacle/

#Sport

[newyorktheater]

Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall

Some people wonder why the same holiday shows are so popular, year after year. Some people just attend them year after year.

Below, see the schedule for Broadway shows both during the week leading up to Christmas (this week) and the week following (next week.)

Above that is a list of holiday shows, which range from Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular, which began in 1933, to the annual drag queen mock Christmas extravaganzas at the Laurie Beechman Theater.

George Balanchine’s Nutcracker at the Met

Elf at MSG

Lesli Margherita as Cindy Lou Who in WHO’S HOLIDAY!,

Sergei Prokofiev’s ‘Peter & the Wolf ” Conceived, Directed and Narrated by Isaac Mizrahi, at the Guggenheim

But first, a question: What are the upside and downside of perennial holiday shows?

Holiday Shows, Pro and Con

Theatermania’s critics Hayley Levitt and Zachary Stewart recently debated the question: Is it time to kill A Christmas Carol? Stewart: There’s a passage in Max Posner’s play Judy, which is set in the year 2040, in which an adult teaches a child what a play is: “They were these events people went to around Christmastime. People recited words to each other in the same order, in the same outfits, night after night…And we would pay a lot of money to go sit.” We may laugh at that description, but for a lot of people who only attend the theater once a year, it’s already a reality. You and I both know that the theater can do more. So why should theaters serve the same nuked leftovers the one time that irregular theatergoers show up?

Levitt: Why do you think they’re showing up at all? Because these theaters are putting on a recognizable title with an accessible story that may inspire theater newbies to become theater regulars. And as theater gateway drugs go, you could do far worse than A Christmas Carol. It’s a piece of literature with a valuable message about generosity and charitable giving.

There is something else to consider, which I first learned when I interviewed Johnny Marks, the composer of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Some people might be surprised that somebody actually wrote Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; it seems like a song that’s just always been there every Christmas. But no, Marks wrote it, and a dozen other Christmas songs, which is how he learned that Christmas cheer is a cut-throat business.  The success of his little ditty and others such as Jingle Bells fill the airwaves every December, making it nearly impossible to get airtime for new Christmas songs, including his own.

Could you make the same argument for Christmas theater? Do such 800-pound reindeer as our first two holiday shows listed below crowd out any holiday upstarts?

HOLIDAY TRADITIONS

Radio City Christmas Spectacular (Radio City Music Hall)

Now through January 1, 2018

This 90-minute show starring the Radio City Rockettes has been an annual tradition since 1933, helping to define the holiday season.

  George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker (Lincoln Center’s Koch Theater)

November 24 – December 31, 2017

An annual tradition since 1954, New York City Ballet employs all of its 90 dancers, as well as 62 musicians, 32 stagehands and two casts of 50 young students each from the School of American Ballet to present this Tchaikovsky-scored ballet about a brave young girl who “turns the tide in a battle between toy soldiers and mischievous mice.” There’s also an onstage blizzard and a Christmas tree that grows to 40 feet.

    As the critics’ debate above makes clear, there are many versions of A Christmas Carol – for example at the Players Theater in the Village for the ninth year (November 26 through December 30). For the fifth year, the Merchant House Museum (November 30 – January 31, 2018) will re-create the time in 1867, when Charles Dickens traveled to New York to perform his story.

  NEW TRADITIONS, OR TRYING TO BE

Elf (The Theater at Madison Square Garden.)

December 13 – 29, 2017

A stage adaptation of the movie about a human taken in by Santa who travels to New York to find his real family, this show was launched on Broadway as a holiday show in 2010, but has since become an annual affair at Madison Square Garden.

  Home for the Holidays (August Wilson Theatre)

November 17 – December 30, 2017

The winners of TV talent competitions —Candice Glover (American Idol), Josh Kaufman (The Voice) and Bianca Ryan (America’s Got Talent)—are the stars of this debut holiday concert of some 25 “perennial favorite” songs in a Broadway theater, which also features some YouTube stars and actor Danny Aiello. This is a surreal experience, especially when Danny Aiello says things like “If we lived every day of our lives as if it were Christmas, we’d never grow old.” (Some of us would also quickly go broke)

  It’s a Wonderful Life (Irish Rep)

November 29 – December 31, 2017

A radio play version of Frank Capra’s holiday movie that starred Jimmy Stewart, which is set in a radio station in the 1940s

ALTERNATIVE HOLIDAY SHOWS

There are alternative annual Nutcrackers, not all of them rated G, several of which are trying to become as perennial as their mainstream cousins.

Nutcracker Rouge (383 Troutman Theatre Space)

November 23 – January 14, 2018

Austin McCormick and his erotic dance-theater group present the Burlesque version of the Nutcracker Suite, strictly for ages 18 and over. First performed in Greenwich Village in 2013, it continues its holiday tradition in a new theater in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Who’s Holiday (Westside Theater)

November 20-December 31, 2017

In a take-off of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Lesli Margherita (of Matilda fame) gives a solo star turn in Matthew Lombardo’s play about drunken middle-aged Cindy Lou Who, now residing in a beaten down trailer in the snowy hills of Mount Crumpit. As she prepares to serve as host to a Christmas Eve party for her friends, she recalls that fated night when she first met the Grinch

The Laurie Beechman Theater, in the basement of the West Bank Café on 42nd Street, has an annual tradition of holiday specials presided over by some of RuPaul’s favorite drag queens. This year, Twizted Sisterz presented Kracked Kristmess on November 24 and December 1; Alaska has return with her fifth annual holiday show, For Heaven’s Snakes, December 13 to 20,;and, from December 27 to 30, Sharon Needles presents The Nightmare After Christmas

Wait Until Next Year

The following shows have finished their run this year, but these happen every year,  so worth mentioning.

The Magic Flute (The Metropolitan Opera House)

November 25 – December 9, 2017

Julie Taymor directed this 100-minute English-language version of Mozart’s opera, which debuted a decade ago. She also created the costumes and supplied the puppets.

Peter and the Wolf with Isaac Mizrahi (Guggenheim Museum)

December 2-3, then 8-10

The fashion designer narrates Sergei Prokofiev’s children’s classic which he first performed at the museum in 2007. Mizrahi also designed the costumes: Peter, for example, has a beanie with a pinwheel on top

Times Square Angel (Theater for the New City)

December 18

In Charles Busch’s 19th annual staged reading of his homage to holiday films from the 1940s, he performs as Irish O’Flanagan, a tough-as-nails nightclub chanteuse in 1940’s Manhattan who makes Scrooge look like a sentimental sap.

There’s nothing that says you have to spend your holiday watching a holiday show. You can see any show on Broadway, which has a changed schedule over the next two weeks.

Christmas Weeks Schedule

Show Run Time Theatre Mon 12/18 Tue 12/19 Wed 12/20 Thu 12/21 Fri 12/22 Sat 12/23 Aladdin 2h 30min New Amsterdam 7:00 7:00 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Anastasia 2h 25min Broadhurst 7:30 2:00 & 7:30 7:30 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 The Band’s Visit 90min Barrymore 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Beautiful – The Carole King Musical 2h 15min Stephen Sondheim 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 The Book of Mormon 2h 30min Eugene O’Neill 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 A Bronx Tale The Musical 2h 10min Longacre 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Cats 2h 20min Neil Simon 8:00 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 2h 30min Lunt-Fontanne 7:00 7:00 1:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Chicago 2h 30min Ambassador 8:00 8:00 8:00 8:00 8:00 2:30 & 8:00 The Children 1h 50min Samuel J. Friedman 7:00 7:00 8:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Come From Away 100min Schoenfeld 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Dear Evan Hansen 2h 25min Music Box 7:00 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Farinelli and the King Belasco 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 8:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Hamilton 2h 40min Richard Rodgers 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Hello, Dolly! 2h 40min Shubert 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Home for the Holidays August Wilson 7:00 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 John Lithgow: Stories By Heart American Airlines 8:00 8:00 8:00 Junk 2h 30min Vivian Beaumont 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Kinky Boots 2h 20min Hirschfeld 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Latin History for Morons 95min Studio 54 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 The Lion King 2h 30min Minskoff 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 M. Butterfly

closed Dec 17

2h 0min Cort Meteor Shower 90min Booth 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Miss Saigon 2h 40min Broadway 8:00 7:00 8:00 8:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Once on This Island 90min Circle in the Square 8:00 7:00 2:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 The Parisian Woman 90min Hudson 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 The Phantom of the Opera 2h 30min Majestic 8:00 7:00 8:00 8:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 The Play That Goes Wrong 2h 0min Lyceum 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 School of Rock The Musical 2h 30min Winter Garden 7:00 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 SpongeBob SquarePants Springsteen on Broadway 2h 0min Walter Kerr 8:00 8:00 8:00 8:00 2:00 Waitress 2h 30min Brooks Atkinson 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 Wicked 2h 45min Gershwin 7:00 7:00 7:00 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 8:00

Many Broadway shows have an irregular performance schedule during the week of December 24–30.  Notice 11 shows are offering Sunday matinees on Christmas Eve, and 14 shows offering evening performances on Christmas Day, which is a Monday

Bold faced dates= added performance Italic dates= different curtain time

SHOW Sun. Dec. 24 Mon. Dec. 25 Tue. Dec. 26 Wed. Dec. 27 Thu. Dec. 28 Fri. Dec. 29 Sat. Dec. 30 Aladdin 1pm, DARK 7pm 1p, 7pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Anastasia 2pm DARK 2pm, 7:30pm 2pm, 7:30pm 7:30pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm The Band’s Visit 7pm 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Beautiful – The Carole King Musical 7pm 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm The Book of Mormon DARK 2pm, 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm A Bronx Tale The Musical 7pm 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Cats 8pm 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 7pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Chicago 8pm 8pm 2:30pm, 8pm 8pm 2:30pm, 8pm 2:30pm, 8pm The Children 2pm DARK 7pm 2pm, 7pm 8pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm Come From Away 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm Dear Evan Hansen DARK 8pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Farinelli and the King DARK 7pm 2pm, 8pm 8pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm Hamilton DARK 7pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Hello, Dolly! 2pm DARK 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm Home for the Holidays 1pm, 5pm 7pm 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm John Lithgow: Stories by Heart DARK 8pm 2pm, 8pm 8pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm Junk 3pm DARK 7pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm Kinky Boots 8pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Latin History for Morons DARK 7pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm The Lion King 1pm, DARK 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm M. Butterfly

closed Dec 17

Meteor Shower DARK 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Miss Saigon 8pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Once on This Island 3pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm 8pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm The Parisian Woman 3pm DARK 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm The Phantom of the Opera DARK 8pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm The Play That Goes Wrong 2pm DARK 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 2p, 8pm 2pm, 8pm School of Rock The Musical 7pm 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm SpongeBob SquarePants 3pm, DARK 7pm 2pm, 8pm 7pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm Springsteen on Broadway DARK DARK 8pm 8pm 8pm 8pm 8pm Waitress 7pm 2pm, 7pm 7pm 2pm, 7pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm Wicked 8pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm 8pm 2pm, 8pm 2pm, 8pm

Holiday Shows 2017, And Why. Plus: Broadway Christmas Week Schedules Some people wonder why the same holiday shows are so popular, year after year. Some people just attend them year after year.

#Christmas shows #HOLIDAY ALTERNATIVES

[kansascityhappenings]

Comedy icon Jerry Lewis dies at 91

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LOS ANGELES — Jerry Lewis, the manic, rubber-faced showman who jumped and hollered to fame in a lucrative partnership with Dean Martin, settled down to become a self-conscious screen auteur and found an even greater following as the tireless, teary host of the annual muscular dystrophy telethons, has died. He was 91.

Publicist Candi Cazau says Lewis died Sunday morning of natural causes at age 91 in Las Vegas with his family by his side.

Lewis’ career spanned the history of show business in the 20th century, beginning in his parents’ vaudeville act at the age of 5. He was just 20 when his pairing with Martin made them international stars. He went on to make such favorites as “The Bellboy” and “The Nutty Professor,” was featured in Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy” and appeared as himself in Billy Crystal’s “Mr. Saturday Night.”

Jerry Lewis attends the ‘Max Rose’ photocall during The 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival at the Palais des Festivals on May 23, 2013 in Cannes, France. Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images

In the 1990s, he scored a stage comeback as the devil in the Broadway revival of “Damn Yankees.” And after a 20-year break from making movies, Lewis returned as the star of the independent drama “Max Rose,” released in 2016.

In his 80s, he was still traveling the world, working on a stage version of “The Nutty Professor.” He was so active he would sometimes forget the basics, like eating, his associates would recall. In 2012, Lewis missed an awards ceremony thrown by his beloved Friars Club because his blood sugar dropped from lack of food and he had to spend the night in the hospital.

In his 90s, he was still performing standup shows.

A major influence on Jim Carrey and other slapstick performers, Lewis also was known as the ringmaster of the Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Association, joking and reminiscing and introducing guests, sharing stories about ailing kids and concluding with his personal anthem, the ballad “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” From the 1960s onward, the telethons raised some $1.5 billion, including more than $60 million in 2009. He announced in 2011 that he would step down as host, but would remain chairman of the association he joined some 60 years ago.

His fundraising efforts won him the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2009 Oscar telecast, an honor he said “touches my heart and the very depth of my soul.” But the telethon was also criticized for being mawkish and exploitative of children, known as “Jerry’s Kids.” A 1960s muscular dystrophy poster boy, Mike Ervin, later made a documentary called “The Kids Are All Alright,” in which he alleged that Lewis and the Muscular Dystrophy Association had treated him and others as objects of pity rather than real people.

“He and his telethon symbolize an antiquated and destructive 1950s charity mentality,” Ervin wrote in 2009.

Responded Lewis: “You don’t want to be pitied because you’re a cripple in a wheelchair, stay in your house!”

He was the classic funnyman who longed to play “Hamlet,” crying as hard as he laughed. He sassed and snarled at critics and interviewers who displeased him. He pontificated on talk shows, lectured to college students and compiled his thoughts in the 1971 book “The Total Film-Maker.”

“I believe, in my own way, that I say something on film. I’m getting to those who probably don’t have the mentality to understand what … ‘A Man for All Seasons’ is all about, plus many who did understand it,” he wrote. “I am not ashamed or embarrassed at how seemingly trite or saccharine something in my films will sound. I really do make films for my great-great-grandchildren and not for my fellows at the Screen Directors Guild or for the critics.”

In his early movies, he played the kind of fellows who would have had no idea what the elder Lewis was talking about: loose-limbed, buck-toothed, overgrown adolescents, trouble-prone and inclined to wail when beset by enemies. American critics recognized the comedian’s popular appeal but not his aspirations to higher art; the French did. Writing in Paris’ Le Monde newspaper, Jacques Siclier praised Lewis’ “apish allure, his conduct of a child, his grimaces, his contortions, his maladjustment to the world, his morbid fear of women, his way of disturbing order everywhere he appeared.”

The French government awarded Lewis the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1983 and Commander of Arts and Letters the following year. Film critic Andrew Sarris observed: “The fact that Lewis lacks verbal wit on the screen doesn’t particularly bother the French.”

Lewis had teamed up with Martin after World War II, and their radio and stage antics delighted audiences, although not immediately. Their debut, in 1946 at Atlantic City’s 500 Club, was a bust. Warned by owner “Skinny” D’Amato that they might be fired, Martin and Lewis tossed the script and improvised their way into history. New York columnists Walter Winchell and Ed Sullivan came to the club and raved over the sexy singer and the berserk clown.

Lewis described their fledgling act in his 1982 autobiography, “Jerry Lewis in Person”: “We juggle and drop a few dishes and try a few handstands. I conduct the three-piece band with one of my shoes, burn their music, jump offstage, run around the tables, sit down with the customers and spill things while Dean keeps singing.”

Hollywood producer Hal Wallis saw them at New York’s Copacabana and signed them to a film contract. Martin and Lewis first appeared in supporting roles in “My Friend Irma” and “My Friend Irma Goes West.” Then they began a hit series of starring vehicles, including “At War With the Army,” ”That’s My Boy” and “Artists and Models.”

But in the mid-1950s, their partnership began to wear. Lewis longed for more than laughs. Martin had tired of playing straight man and of Lewis’ attempts to add Chaplinesque pathos. He also wearied of the pace of films, television, nightclub and theater appearances, benefits and publicity junkets on which Lewis thrived. The rift became increasingly public as the two camps sparred verbally.

“I knew we were in trouble the day someone gave Jerry a book about Charlie Chaplin,” Martin cracked.

On July 24, 1956, Martin and Lewis closed shop, at the Copa, and remained estranged for years. Martin, who died in 1995, did make a dramatic, surprise appearance on Lewis’ telethon in 1976 (a reunion brokered by mutual pal Frank Sinatra), and director Peter Bogdonavich nearly persuaded them to appear in a film together as former colleagues who no longer speak to each other. After Martin’s death, Lewis said the two had again become friendly during his former partner’s final years and he would repeatedly express his admiration for Martin above all others.

The entertainment trade at first considered Martin the casualty of the split, since his talents, except as a singer, were unexplored. He fooled his detractors by cultivating a comic, drunken persona, becoming star of a long-running TV variety show and a respected actor in such films as “Some Came Running,” ”The Young Lions” and “Rio Bravo.”

Lewis also distinguished himself after the break, revealing a serious side as unexpected as Martin’s gift for comedy.

He brought in comedy director Frank Tashlin for “Rock-a-bye Baby,” ”Cinderfella,” ”The Disorderly Orderly,” ”The Geisha Boy” and “Who’s Minding the Store?”, in which he did a pantomime of a typist trying to keep up with Leroy Anderson’s speedy song “The Typewriter.”

With “The Bellboy,” though, Lewis assumed the posts of producer, director, writer and star, like his idol Chaplin. Among his hits under his own direction was the 1963 “The Nutty Professor,” playing a dual Jekyll and Hyde role, transforming himself from a nerdy college teacher to a sexy (and conceited) lounge singer, Buddy Love, regarded as a spoof of his old partner Martin.

He also directed “The Patsy,” ”The Errand Boy,” ”The Family Jewels” and “The Big Mouth.” Lewis’ more recent film credits included such low-budget releases as “Arizona Dream,” co-starring Johnny Depp, and “Max Rose,” which came out in 2016. He had a guest shot on television’s “Mad About You” and was seen briefly in Eddie Murphy’s remake of “The Nutty Professor.”

He was born Joseph Levitch in Newark, New Jersey, on March 16, 1926. His father, billed as Danny Lewis, was a singer on the borscht and burlesque circuits. His mother played piano for Danny’s act. Their only child was often left alone in hotel rooms, or lived in Brooklyn with his paternal grandparents, Russian Jewish immigrants, or his aunts in New Jersey.

“All my life I’ve been afraid of being alone,” Lewis once said. In his later years the solitude haunted him, and he surrounded himself with an entourage at work and at home.

Joey Levitch made his professional debut at age 5, singing the Depression tearjerker “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” to great applause. He recalled that he eventually lost all interest in school and “began to clown around to attract people’s attention.”

By 16, Jerry Lewis (as his billing read) had dropped out of school and was earning as much as $150 a week as a solo performer. He appeared in a “record act,” mouthing crazily to the records of Danny Kaye, Spike Jones and other artists. Rejected by the Army because of a heart murmur and punctured eardrum, Lewis entertained troops in World War II and continued touring with his lip-sync act. In 1944 he married Patti Palmer, a band vocalist.

The following year he met Martin, on a March day in 1945 in Manhattan, Broadway and 54th to be exact. Lewis was on his way to see an agent, walking with a friend, when his friend spotted an “incredibly handsome” man wearing a camel’s hair coat. Lewis and Martin were introduced and Lewis knew right off that this new acquaintance, nine years older than him, was “the real deal.”

“‘Harry Horses,’ I thought,” Lewis wrote in the memoir “Dean and Me,” published in 2005. “That was what we used to call a guy who thought he was smooth with the ladies. Anybody who wore a camel’s-hair overcoat, with a camel’s-hair belt and fake diamond cuff links, was automatically Harry Horses.”

Lewis couldn’t escape from small-time bookings. The same was true of Martin, who sang romantic songs in nightclubs. In 1946, Lewis was playing the 500 Club, and the seats were empty. Lewis suggested hiring Martin to bolster the bill, promising he could do comedy as well as sing.

Fame brought him women and Lewis wrote openly of his many partners. After 36 years of marriage and six sons, Patti Lewis sued her husband for divorce in 1982. She later wrote a book claiming that he was an adulterer and drug addict who abused their children. Son Gary became a pop singer whose group, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, had a string of hits in 1965-66.

In his late 50s, Lewis married Sandra Pitnick, 32, a former airline stewardess. They had a daughter, Dani, named for Jerry’s father.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2017/08/20/comedy-icon-jerry-lewis-dies-at-91/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2017/08/20/comedy-icon-jerry-lewis-dies-at-91/