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Quote of the Day: The Theatre Blogger’s Creed

The Theatre Blogger’s Creed
From Sister SarahB, with Father Kevin:

I believe in Rodgers & Hammerstein, the almighty, creator of musical theatre heaven. I believe in Stephen Sondheim, their only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the composer and born of the Divas. He suffered under the critics, was crucified, died, and was buried. At the Tony Awards he rose again. He ascended into theatre heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Fathers. He will come again with a revival and will judge the living and the dead ticket buyers. I believe in the original cast recording, the holy revival cast recording, the Tony Award, the forgiveness of critics, the proliferation of the Divas, and the eleven o’clock number. As it was at the overture and shall be at the exit music, bliss without end. Amen.

(Where, Where, Where, Where) Where Is She?

This interview isn’t new (it took place in 2002), but it’s a fascinating read about one of the most unique and most enigmatic Broadway stars. She had quite a string of successes on both stage and screen, making a name for herself as a quirky comedienne who could act and sing. She earned several Tony nominations (one win – The Apple Tree) and an Oscar nomination. However, Barbara Harris virtually disappeared from the public eye, becoming disinterested in acting and taking refuge in Phoenix, Arizona – far from the lights of either Hollywood or Broadway (and likely to never return to either). Harris spoke with Robert Pela of the Phoenix New Sun in an interesting and candid interview, in which she provides interesting comments about Mike Nichols, Alfred Hitchcock, musical comedy, acting and as you will learn from the interview’s title, politics.

Though Harris’ Broadway musical career was rather short-lived (two starring roles back to back in 1965 and 1966), her contribution is enormous. The role of Daisy Gamble in the poorly conceived On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Lerner & Lane) is probably to be forever eclipsed by the leaden film adaptation made in 1970 starring Barbra Streisand. While Harris doesn’t have the voice Streisand has, her charm, quirkiness and warmth make the Clear Day cast album definitive. (She had me at the lead-in to “Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here!” – her first song in the show). Her inspired star turn in The Apple Tree, three linked one-act musicals by Bock & Harnick, carried the show. As she played a feisty, spirited but loving Eve to Alan Alda’s Adam in act one (her “What Makes Me Love Him?” will never topped) to the raunchy, half-crazed seductress in the second act adaptation of “The Lady and the Tiger, to the third act fairy-tale-turned-on-its-ear “Passionella.” Interestingly enough, both shows were built around the uniqueness of Harris, whose comic persona and look, especially in Freaky Friday, is reminiscent of Madeline Kahn. Both shows received revivals at the City Center Encores!, with Kristin Chenoweth taking the reigns both times. All due respect, she’s got nothing on the one of a kind Barbara Harris.

One note to the author of the piece: Walter Kerr labeled Miss Harris “the square root of noisy sex” for her star turn in The Apple Tree. Sandy Dennis portrayed Barbara Markowitz for the entire original run of A Thousand Clowns; Barbara played the role on screen.

Barbara Harris Knew That Bill Clinton Was White Trash
Robert L. Pela

Thespians, take note: Barbara Harris has moved to town, and she’s hung up her teaching shingle. Local acting students could do worse; Harris’ brief but notable Broadway career snagged her a Tony Award for The Apple Tree in 1967, and she was nominated for her role in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Her more memorable films include Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975), Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot (1976), and a turn as Jodie Foster’s mom in Freaky Friday (1977) — all three performances nominated for a Golden Globe — and her Oscar-nominated spin in Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971).
We met for drinks at Mancuso’s at the Borgata, where our sniffy waiter served Miss Harris a whisper of white wine and a whole lot of attitude, and where I tried and failed to convince her that she is some kind of a legend.

New Times: So, what’s a famous actress doing in Scottsdale?

Barbara Harris: I knew you’d ask that. I’m teaching acting classes. I had been based in New York, and maybe I should have stayed. I mean, I like it here, but it’s very conservative, isn’t it? I was talking to this man the other night, and he was ranting about people who come here from the East and wreck the state by voting Democrat. Hey, how would you vote on Prop 202?

NT: That’s the Indian gaming prop.

Harris: The commercials are hysterical! All that carrying on about how Indians are being greedy, but the commercials never once tell you anything about the proposition itself. So you end up having to read the Republic or some other piece of nonsense. But since I’m one of those nasty Easterners, I’ll probably vote straight Democrat. It’s just how it goes. I didn’t want to vote for Clinton, but I had to — even though I figured he was white trash.

NT: You have a pretty distinctive voice and personality. Do you get recognized in the grocery?

Harris: No, thank goodness. I don’t usually mention that I have been in movies, because I’m afraid people will say, “Well, I don’t watch black-and-white films.” Most people don’t know who I am.

NT: Come on. You’ve starred in some pretty well-regarded movies.

Harris: I used to try to get through one film a year, but I always chose movies that I thought would fail, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the fame thing. I turned down Alfred Hitchcock when he first asked me to be in one of his movies.

NT: But you eventually appeared in Hitchcock’s Family Plot.

Harris: Yes. Mr. Hitchcock was a wonderful man. He always wanted emotionless people in his movies. There was a scene in our film, where Karen Black was acting, acting, acting — all that Lee Strasberg human-struggle stuff. And it took her so long to get those tears going, and Mr. Hitchcock turned to the cameraman and said, “We will just photograph the actors’ feet in this scene.” He wanted a beautiful woman who wasn’t showing her life’s history in a scene.

NT: In his review of A Thousand Clowns, theater critic Walter Kerr described you as “the square root of noisy sex.”

Harris: He did? My goodness, mathematicians are going to be furious! By the way, I called a friend of mine in New York and had him read me some of your reviews. Why did you write that A Thousand Clowns is dated?

NT: Well, a story that condemns socialism was more relevant in the early ’60s. And the notion of a single-parent household isn’t all that shocking today.

Harris: I wish you’d written that.

NT: So, now you’re teaching acting. But I thought all actors wanted to be directors.

Harris: I’m much more interested in what’s behind acting, which is the inquiry into the human condition. Everyone gets acting mixed up with the desire to be famous, but some of us really just stumbled into the fame part, while we were really just interested in the process of acting.

NT: I can see the joy of appearing on Broadway or in a big Hollywood film, but where’s the joy in teaching people how to cry?

Harris: Who wants to be up on the stage all the time? It isn’t easy. You have to be awfully invested in the fame aspect, and I really never was. What I cared about was the discipline of acting, whether I did well or not.

NT: Still, you did pretty well.

Harris: Well, sometimes. People always want to talk about the ones that won you awards, but I have a better memory of my first part, which was Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The critic for the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Will someone please get rid of Peter Rabbit?” I was crushed, and after that I had to be pushed out on stage. Of course, I had made my own costume. That may have been a mistake. But anyway, we weren’t up there on that stage for any reason other than the process of acting. We certainly weren’t making any money back then, my friends and I. Elaine May was eating grapefruit rinds.

NT: Your friends were a rare group.

Harris: Yes. Mike Nichols was a toughie. He could be very kind, but if you weren’t first-rate, watch out. He’d let you know. Elaine May read Molière night and day.

NT: You seem completely unimpressed with your own celebrity.

Harris: I’m a has-been!

NT: Does that mean you’ve left acting?

Harris: Well, if someone handed me something fantastic for 10 million dollars, I’d work again. But I haven’t worked in a long time as an actor. I don’t miss it. I think the only thing that drew me to acting in the first place was the group of people I was working with: Ed Asner, Paul Sills, Mike Nichols, Elaine May. And all I really wanted to do back then was rehearsal. I was in it for the process, and I really resented having to go out and do a performance for an audience, because the process stopped; it had to freeze and be the same every night. It wasn’t as interesting.

NT: You were also in the Compass Players, the first improvisational theater troupe in America. You’re acknowledged as one of the pioneering women in the field of improv, and scenes you created with the Second City and Compass companies are still studied as masterpieces of the form.

Harris: Boy, you really did your homework. Uh, yes. We were the first to do improv, and it was hard, because improv was new and no one had come before us.

NT: You starred in Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad and Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?. Do you enjoy selecting films with long-winded titles?

Harris: That’s a very silly question. Well, you writers do like words, don’t you? And so those titles must have been written by writers. No, there wasn’t a great deal of design to the path of my career. I was a small-town, middle-class girl who wore a cashmere sweater very nicely and ended up on Broadway because that’s the way the wind was blowing. I didn’t have my sights set there. When I was at Second City, there was a vote about whether we should take our show to Broadway or not. Andrew Duncan and I voted no. I stayed in New York, but only because Richard Rodgers and Alan Jay Lerner came and said, “We want to write a musical for you!” Well, I wasn’t big on musical theater. I had seen part of South Pacific in Chicago and I walked out. But it was Richard Rodgers calling!

NT: You stayed, and you ended up with a Tony. Speaking of theater awards, I heard you’re a Zonis judge. Say it isn’t so!

Harris: I am now. They rejected me, at first. I filled out the application, and they just never called. (Arizona Jewish Theatre artistic director) Janet Arnold, who’s a real sweetheart, called and told them, “Hey, it’s Barbara Harris! Call her back!”

NT: You’re a famous actress living in Scottsdale, so you’re probably hanging out with Marshall Mason and Dale Wasserman, our other resident theater legends.

Harris: I wish I knew Marshall Mason. I didn’t know Dale Wasserman lives here, too. So, you see? Famous theater people are everywhere in this town. You just don’t see us because we’re hiding under things.

Addendum: Harris briefly resurfaced on XM Satellite radio in a guest appearance for the Radio Repertory Company of America’s broadcast of Anne Manx on Amazonia in 2005. She is still living in a delicious reclusivity, enjoying every minute of it and hasn’t taken on any other acting work since (most definitely our loss).

"I do not do anything ‘merely’…"

Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack took home Tony awards for their work in Peter Shaffer’s comedy Lettice & Lovage. The play, about the friendship between two unlikely ladies working for a historical society in England, was written specifically for Smith and proved a successful vehicle for her at the Globe Theatre in London in 1987 and the Ethel Barrymore in NY in 1990 (with direction by the esteemed Michael Blakemore). Smith was Lettice Duffet, an extravagantly and flamboyantly extroverted woman with an active imagination who, while giving tours of one of the dullest of British houses, starts making incredulous embellishments to amuse herself and her tourists. This leads to a conflict with Lotte, the representative of the trust who is a rather dour realist and is not at all pleased with Lettice’s antics. While the play itself received mixed reviews, there was nothing but raves for Smith’s bravura performance and also for Tyzack as her stern foil.

Here is a scene as performed on the 1990 Tony awards where the two ladies have it out. How I wish I could have been there to see this play. Enjoy.

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And here is Maggie Smith’s Tony acceptance speech:

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"To This We’ve Come"

Gian-Carlo Menotti’s The Consul, one of the rare operas composed specifically for production on Broadway, was a statement by the composer about the state of revolutionary idealists and refugees, mainly those suffering under the dictatorship of Soviet control in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Menotti (with whom, incidentally, I share a birthday) is probably best known for his TV opera Amahl and the Night Visitor, the first opera ever written specifically for television and The Medium.

The Consul, his first attempt at a full opera, opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 15, 1950 ran for 269 performances and was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music as well as the New York Drama Critics Award as Best Musical and the long-defunct Tony award for Best Conductor (Lehman Engel). The score contains considerable stretches of recitative rather than aria, with a jauntiness and dissonance that reflects the uneasiness and danger of the political climate of the onstage environment. Soprano Patricia Neway, best known for her Tony-winning turn as the Mother Abbess in the original Broadway cast of The Sound of Music, played the tragic heroine Magda Sorel.

During the run of The Sound of Music, Neway reprised her role of Magda for a paying television audience (in an early unsuccessful attempt at pay-per-view programming in 1960). The television production was discovered and released on DVD a few years ago and provides us with the extraordinary opportunity to see a performer recreating the role of a lifetime. (While we have the DVD and its accompanying soundtrack, the Decca original cast album remains unavailable on CD).

The three-act opera follows the tragic story (it’s an opera about the horrors of dictatorship, this cannot possibly end well) of Magda, a young wife and mother in a deliberately unnamed totalitarian nation. Her husband is a rebel wanted by the secret police. After he is wounded, her husband makes a run to the border to hide while Magda is left to make arrangements to transport the family out of the country safely. Magda’s troubles multiply as her mother-in-law and child become seriously ill and she finds herself constantly followed and interrogated by the secret police. Much to her growing frustration she discovers that the bureaucracy at the consulate is unstoppable, leaving herself and many others stranded vis-a-vis a sea of red tape and paperwork. When her child dies, she makes another imploring visit to the consulate and when rejected once again by the callous secretary, her emotions and anger explode in the show-stopping aria “To This We’ve Come,” which brings the second act – and the opera itself – to a climax with one of the few moments of musical assonance heard in the score.

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Life Lessons from the Merm

All the following quotes have been credited to Ethel Merman. Some of them quite choice. I can’t say for certain whether or not she actually said all of them, but I wouldn’t be surprised… I offer them for your enjoyment. 

– Always give them the old fire, even when you feel like a squashed cake of ice.

– Any audience that gets a laugh out of me gets it while I’m facing them.

– As far as dramas are concerned, it’s considered passe for playwrights to turn out anything the average person can understand.

– At a flea market I always head for the junk jewelry table first.

– At one time I smoked, but in 1959 I couldn’t think of anything else to give up for Lent so I stopped – and I haven’t had a cigarette since.

– Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I’ve been very good to Broadway.

– Christmas carols always brought tears to my eyes. I also cry at weddings. I should have cried at a couple of my own.

– Cole Porter had a worldwide reputation as a sophisticate and hedonist.

– Cole Porter wrote Anything Goes and four more hits for me.

– Eisenhower was my war hero and the President I admire and respect most.

– I am known to be able to take care of myself when I become angry. I don’t mince words.

– I attend surprisingly few shows. The type of theater that is popular today just doesn’t appeal to me.

– I can never remember being afraid of an audience. If the audience could do better, they’d be up here on stage and I’d be out there watching them.

– I don’t like to read. The only things I read are gossip columns. If someone gives me a book, it had better have lots of pictures.

– I have plenty of invitations to go places, lots to do. If I’m not working, I go to have my hair taken care of and work at needlepoint.

– I preferred delivering my performance in person. I liked to be in control. You couldn’t be in films.

– I take a breath when I have to.

– I was born in my parents’ bedroom on January 16. The World Almanac says it was 1909. I say it was 1912. But what difference does it make as long as I feel 33?

– I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me.

– I wasn’t straining at the bit to become a movie star any more than I had plotted to get out of vaudeville and into Broadway musicals.

– I work as often as I want and yet I’m free as a bird.

– People who retire fall apart. As long as you’ve still got it, use it.

– I wouldn’t change one thing about my professional life, and I make it a point not to dwell on my mistakes.

– I wouldn’t trust any man as far as you can throw a piano.

– I’ll pat myself on the back and admit I have talent. Beyond that, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

– I’ve made a wonderful living playing that theatrical character – the professional brassy dame.

– I’ve never cooked. I can’t do much more in the kitchen than make a cup of tea and some toast.

– I’ve never suffered stage fright. That fascinates people.

– If I feel in need of sleep, I just open a book or turn on the television. Both are better than any sleeping pill.

– In my case, things have pretty much been handed to me.

– Legend has it that when God created me, he gave me a big distinctive voice, a lot of boldness and no heart.

– Mom and Pop were proud of my popularity, but from their point of view, show business was no way to make a living.

– Mom claimed that I could carry a tune at 2 or 3 years of age. Maybe she was a little prejudiced.

– Music, in the past few years… anything singable or understandable is square.

– My beloved Mom and Pop always rated tops with each other, and that’s the way it will always be.

– My career at Warner Brothers consisted of one musical short subject. I was running around in a bear skin. Very chic.

– My father taught me to read music and play the piano-but not well, even though people have said that I’m a natural musician.

– Of my four marriages, the one to Bob Levitt is the only one I don’t regret.

– Once I had all the attention, all I had to do was deliver.

– The slapdash way producers used to assemble a show seems a little unbelievable when we talk about them now.

– There have been people who have tried to take advantage of me. They want to be linked to me just because I’m Ethel Merman.

– There’s such a thing as theater discipline. One player doesn’t appropriate another’s inventions.

– When I’m asked how to succeed in show business, I always say I haven’t the foggiest.

– When you are in deep conflict about something, sometimes the most trivial thing can tip the scales.

– There are lots of show tunes left to do.

– You can’t buck a nun. (Losing the Tony for her Rose to Mary Martin’s Maria von Trapp)

– Call Miss Bird’s Eye 1950, this show is frozen! (being presented new lyrics for Call Me Madam)

"Don’t Touch the Coat…"

Pacific Overtures is one of the most fascinating of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals. A concept musical about the westernization of imperial Japan in the 19th century, and its impact on Japanese culture and traditions is not your typical musical. Sondheim studied Eastern music for months, director Hal Prince adapted the styles of Kabuki theatre for the production in its design and staging. The results are mesmerizing. The show featured an almost all-male cast that included Mako, Yuki Shimodo (the original Ito in Auntie Mame!), Sab Shimino, Alvin Ing (who reprised his role for Roundabout) and Gedde Watanabe (later part of Sixteen Candles? Anyone?). The show opened in 1976 at the Winter Garden, where it ran for 193 performances. I saw the Roundabout revival, starring B.D. Wong. While I didn’t particularly care for that production on the whole, I was able to look past what I disliked to admire the brilliance in the writing of Sondheim and librettist John Weidman.

While the show boasts the ever-brilliant favorite of Sondheim, “Someone in a Tree,” I would have to admit that “Please, Hello” is my personal favorite song in the entire score. It’s mammoth 9 minute act two opener in which America, Britain, Holland, France and Russia are vying for detente with Japan. It’s a marvel of sophistication, historical accuracy, pastiche (each country is represented by a native musical style of the period) and vocal arrangement. The number was the highlight of the revival, bringing the show to a halt.

The original production was taped for broadcast on Japanese television, but has never been aired in the US. (Calling PBS!! Or Image Home Entertainment!)

Here is the original cast performing “Please, Hello.” Enjoy.

"Everything’s Coming Up Laura"

As per my new tradition, I attended a post-Tony performance for the second year in a row. Last year was Grey Gardens, this year it was the revival of Gypsy, you know, the one with the short broad who sings loud? For those of you who know, Patti LuPone, Boyd Gaines and Laura Benanti were all recipients of the Tony award the other evening for their work in this production. A whole gang of us ended up at the show – which included a pre-show dinner at Angus.

The energy in a post-Tony win house is indescribable. A mutual admiration society develops between the kids onstage and the kids in the house. The Gypsy overture began; always a crowd favorite. I noticed Patti LuPone had entered the house with a small stage management entourage and proceeded to get prepared to go on. I had deja vu flashbacks to the final performance of the 2003 revival. On her cue, LuPone vaulted down the aisle of the St. James to the reception of a standing ovation from the crowd. To assuage the fans, she broke and took a very short but deep bow, then got back to work. And here is where I express my disappointment. I had an almost immediate sinking feeling as she began her lines. In the first several scenes, LuPone overshot the runway. Her deliveries were extravagantly broad, and she was playing to the house, not for character. “I hope they didn’t make a huge mistake Sunday night” was the thought that crossed my mind just before “Some People” (which is where the normalcy seemed to return to her performance). Well, it’s not a huge mistake. Either she brought it back down, or I adjusted to her style because from that point onward I was okay with her performance.

Boyd Gaines and Laura Benanti received extensive applause. Gaines is very amiable onstage – the perfect Herbie, unlikely to be better realized by other actors. For the latter, it was so lengthy, the alarm clock sound cue went to the intermission cell phone cue. (I sat just in front of the sound booth during the first act; second row center for the second). The audience was very genuinely moved when Benanti spontaneously burst into tears at the reception. Of course, that also proved to be the moment that Benanti gave the shining star-turn performance of the decade.

If I live to be 115, I will never see “The Strip” so brilliantly executed. Benanti was, if anything, even better than the previous two times I’d seen her in the production. Her moments – discovery of kinship with June in “If Momma Was Married,” the crush on Tulsa – how “All I Need is the Girl” is there for her (great point, Noah), the devastation in the act one finale – both of Tulsa’s marriage to June, and how that sets off her mother. Not to mention the moment she realizes she has an ally and the potential for the normalcy she’s desired in Herbie. Then came the second act, with her refreshingly honest take on the dialogue, mining the moments without overshooting her runway. Many tears onstage and in the house when she looked into that mirror and realized she was pretty. And how. Her “Strip.” The awkwardness and almost disgust at what’s she doing, until she realizes she has the audience in the palm of her hand. It’s a miraculous moment as you see the shades of her confidence grow – and turn into superstardom. It’s all sorts of funny and sexy – her acting is superb. In the dressing room scene, she dominated Patti. The awkward silence that followed was brittle, real and ripe with the tension and embarrassment that follow confrontations of that calilber. How moving though, was the scene following “Rose’s Turn”? I can’t get over it. She is the heart and soul of this revival. Patti, for all her intensity (her ferocious “Turn” received the usual Routledge – an emotional tour de force so expected at this point, it’s almost cliche – relax, I said almost) and pathos, just wasn’t the highlight for me last night. It was Benanti, hands down.

I did enjoy the second act on the whole, more than the first. I made eye contact with both Patti and Laura. I winked at Patti, swooned over Laura. And the story goes on.

However, the show could use a stage manager or Mr. Laurents himself to give some notes. Actors should be allowed to test the waters during a long run, but they should also remember that it is their job first and foremost to tell the story. Leigh Ann Larkin is going over the top with her monotone Louise (particularly in the office scene). The show ran long last night, till eleven, and not just because of the standing ovations. Other stage business is superfluous and detrimental to the experience. And let’s be real about this, kids- Gypsy doesn’t need any help, just the restoration of the original libretto. Rose loses facets of dimension without the Kringelein scene and the necessary “Small World” reprise after Herbie walks out (among other bits that have been altered).

As I was walking away from the St. James towards Times Square, I passed Anderson Cooper the moment Patti came out of the stage and the stage door crowd’s roar echoed through the cavernous city block. His look was priceless and I only wish I’d had a camera for it.

"The 2008 Theatre World Awards – Or There and Back Again"

Call me Odysseus. I had the most horrifying commute into Manhattan for the Theatre World Awards, where it seemed that all that was missing was the woman with the baby carriage from The French Connection. The morning was set to begin early; my friend and I were going to drive in. Originally, he was going to go with me to the awards, then backed out when the prospect of an audition came up. However, the plan was still that we would head in together. I call that morning, wake him up. I proceed to get ready, with a warning that he might not be able to swing it into NY until later in the afternoon. Okay. I requested a ride from the train station as I was pretty much out of luck otherwise. He had just commenced shaving, so I made the garrulous decision to call a taxi. It was 11:29 – and the train was at 12:12. I figured that was plenty of time to get into the cab, have a nice relaxing ride to the station with some genial but rather meaningless conversation with the cab-driver. Standing there, my panic and anxiety started to skyrocket – also, it was practically 100 degrees and felt like I was breathing through a moist face towel. At 11:56 I call the cab company again – and, would you believe it, I am put on hold. At this point, I begin to quietly have an aneurysm or some other *insert medical hyperbole here*. I’m told that the cab would be arriving shortly. So I wait with frenzied tension, checking both ways for the sound of an engine – you know, I had no idea my road was so well traveled – until finally at 12:05, I see the blue blur emerge in front of my house. Yes – I haven’t even left the house at this point.

Okay. It’s 12:05, the train leaves Peekskill at 12:12. I’m mildly optimistic, but the optimism cannot override the increasing dread that has been building up inside me for the past half hour. There is another fare in the car with me, a very genial fellow who decided to be the world’s greatest conversationalist at a moment where I wanted him to go to hell. Not his fault by any means, when I have something important going on, it typically demands all my attention. We drive down the hill, and the another cab comes riding past. They honk at each other. I die a little inside realizing that they had dispatched another cab to get me. Then in a series of unavoidable circumstances, it turns into quite an adventure. We sit at a traffic light for an inexorably extensive period, then get behind someone who’s decided to go twenty miles under the speed limit. And in making matters even richer, we hit road work and are sitting staring at the little orange man and his stop sign which might as well have said, “I win! Love, the Universe.”

As we pass the construction, it is now 12:10. Every one of us realizes that I am not going to make this 12:12 train. Again, the death inside was small but prescient. The driver verbalizes this thought and asks what I want to do. I ask him “How much to Croton Harmon?” (another station a few miles south).

So we pick up the pace. We get rid of the Pollyanna to my right and the driver steps on it. We critique every driver in our way. Let’s face it, it played out like an action film. Every bad driver in town decided to get in front of the taxi. I’m sitting back there trying to remember the Rosary. We deal with more tortoise drivers, dodge vehicles jutting out too far into the road way. And then in a last belch of irony, get stuck behind a slow-moving utility truck – that belongs to Metro-North.

After all this, I make to Croton Harmon, get my ticket and panic – it’s 12:27. The train is in. Well as Dame Fortune would have it, there was a technical glitch on the train that dispatched from Poughkeepsie, so they had to switch out at C-H. Take that universe. It took me to about Yonkers to calm down after the adrenaline fueled-John McClane experience my noon-tide became.

Well, I made it in time for the Theatre World awards. And what a blessed event, as always. This year, the ceremony took place in the Helen Hayes, on the set of Xanadu and marked the first time I had ever entered this theatre. (What a tiny house!) SarahB got there ahead of me, and got us ridiculously perfect seats in Row G. It’s turned into something of an annual tradition for us. I first went in 2004, with an invite from Peter Filichia, where I sat at a table in Studio 54 next to Tandy Cronyn (which I didn’t learn until everyone came up to her to discuss her parents). I met Noah only a few days later at that closing performance of Gypsy, that for the three of us will hold special meaning. As a result of the chance meeting I had with Noah, we became very good friends and indirectly have led me to be writing to you today. Thanks, Bernadette!

Anyway, we’ve gone together for the last couple of years and have had a fantastic time. The presenters and the recipients are always warm and gracious, without fail. When you are in attendance for this awards ceremony, you forget the negative aspects of show business that tend to distort and jade the more avid theatregoers. It’s a time for celebration and community. There is no sense of competition, being that all twelve recipients are winners. Many who’ve won often talk about it as being the special award, or the one that really counts. And in many ways it is. There is unending support from the community – something which many of the outsiders from Chicago and London and Honolulu made special note.

The show opened with a bizarro nightclub medley of West Side Story in which Carol Lawrence, the original Maria, deconstructed the entire show in three minutes (something presenter Lin-Manuel Miranda made note of later) complete with choreography. It was a bit of what was is known as a hot mess, but we still applauded Carol Lawrence because, well, she’s Carol Lawrence!

Other performances included Tyler Maynard singing “Epiphany” from Altar Boyz, Alice Playten doing a rather pointless Piaf impersonation (which in lieu of one of her socko Henry Sweet Henry numbers, proved a disappointing cop-out – I WANTED “KAFRITZ.” Ok, I’m better now) and Karen Akers wrapping those lush mahogany tones around a poorly written Ahrens and Flaherty song. So the performances aren’t up to those we’ve seen in the past, but the presentations were as interesting as ever.

My favorite is Loretta Ables-Sayre, who won for her NY debut as Bloody Mary in the LCT revival of South Pacific. The woman is endlessly entertaining. Her warmth and openness and gratitude are so incredibly genuine, you can’t help but love her. She talked about her experiences as a chick singer, singing with bands and doing this and that in Hawaii. I cannot believe she almost didn’t even bother going to the audition. There is a glorious soul in her person, one that touches everyone she meets. So moved was she and so moving was her speech, the audience gave her that kind of applause that Filichia loves, it started to die down, but then surged forward with a burst of energy. She is a real treat to NY theatre this season and I tell you, I’m a fan. For me, that was the highlight of the ceremony.

I almost missed it. For in my earlier fiasco I overhydrated myself to counteract the intense heat. And getting to the theatre when I did, I didn’t run down to the Little Boy’s Room like I should have. So in the middle of Griffin Dunne’s speech I had to get up and get out. I got back in time to hear him call her up onstage and don’t know what he said about her, but I’m sure it was glowing.

Alec Baldwin discussed his love of theatre and the effect August: Osage County had on his day, which had been terrible until the performance. He presented to Deanna Dunagan, the senior member of the class of ’08, to whom he left a note in her dressing room telling her he’d love to work with her. Of course when giving a shout out to Odessa, TX, Sarah couldn’t resist clapping. Loved it. Mark Rylance discussed his earliest memory, when he was three years old and saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time. His presenter, Jonathan Cake, only learned he was a winner last week. Turns out no one told him – and he won for the Fiona Shaw Medea in 2002! He received his award that afternoon. Jenna Russell talked about playing Sondheim at 2AM, singing along at full volume. (I’m sure no one who’s reading this has done that…). John Cullum had an interesting “emergency,” in which his wife needed the keys to the basement cages (?) However it played out, it turned into a rather hilarious spontaneous moment. Andrea Martin is enjoyable, bringing a red velvet cupcake for Alli Mauzey from Cry-Baby. Paulo Szot was humbled by the acceptance of the NY theatre community of an opera singer. And let’s face it, love was all around. And it was better than anything we could expect from the Tony telecast this weekend. Except perhaps Patti LuPone unhinging her jaw and swallowing Kelli O’Hara whole.

We didn’t go to the party this year, but instead enjoyed a nice late lunch at Mercury’s on 9th Avenue (their caesar wrap is stellar). I tell you, you aren’t likely to find two theatregoing companions as fun and entertaining as our Moon Lady and her Little Love.

I can’t wait for next year!

"Ain’t It Awful, the Heat?"

I’ve not felt the urge to blog in this heat, but to seek refuge away from anything that emits heat. I have also been working a lot lately, which is great for the checking account but poor for my writing. I do get a vacation soon (when should I take it…and how shall I enjoy it?) so we’ll see what that brings…

So yeah, how about this ridiculous weather? I anticipate this sort of streak in mid-July, not now. So I’ve been going through thinking of all the ‘hot’ songs my mind can muster. So far in my heat-induced coma, I’ve thought of “Gonna Be Another Hot Day” from 110 in the Shade, “It’s Hot Up Here” from Sunday in the Park With George, “Ain’t It Awful, the Heat?” from Street Scene, “Too Darn Hot” from Kiss Me Kate. Any others that fit…?

Though we’ve known it for weeks, it’s now official: Deanna Dunagan plays her final performance as Violet Weston in August: Osage County this coming Sunday, June 15 (and then the Tonys!) so if you miss her performance, don’t come crying to me, you’ve had six months. Instead, enjoy Estelle Parsons – which should prove to be an interesting performance, I’ve no doubt. Rondi Reed, Jeff Perry and Francis Guinan are also departing the company. I’ll be there on the 15th to cheer them on – and also take my best friend to see them in it for an early birthday present.

But before I do that, it’s the Theatre World awards tomorrow with my regulars. I cannot wait. I’m off to cool down/melt/self-immolate. Whichever happens first.