Search Results for: sondheim

Longtime reader of this site Galen Fott just wrote to tell me something I didn't know; that the version of "The Glamorous Life" that Audra McDonald sang in this video posted earlier is the version that Mr. Sondheim wrote for the movie version of A Little Night Music. It starts the same as the song of the same name did on Broadway but then turns into a very different tune. I just checked out the cast albums and he's right. I like the movie version better. I suppose Sondheim did too or he wouldn't have changed it.

This is from the concert on Stephen Sondheim's eightieth birthday at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. Paul Gemignani is conducting the New York Philharmonic as Audra McDonald sings "The Glamorous Life" from the Wheeler/Sondheim show, A Little Night Music. And sings it about as well as it's humanly possible to sing it…

BuzzR is that cable channel that most of us have that reruns old game shows.  On Sunday, May 16, they're rerunning an episode of Password from 1966 with four celebrity players: Lee Remick, Peter Lawford, Audrey Meadows and Stephen Sondheim.  That's right: Stephen Sondheim.  Sure, he can rhyme all those words but can he guess them with Lee Remick giving him the clues?  The schedule says it airs at 3 PM Eastern Time, which might mean 12 PM on your cable or 3 PM or just about anything.

• Derek Chauvin wants a new trial. Donald Trump wants a new election. I want a new Stephen Sondheim musical.

A new fad on YouTube is to compile videos of what you consider the Top 100 Broadway Songs of All Time. Someone who calls himself Mister Lister has compiled this one. I don't expect you to agree with his rankings — I don't — but you might enjoy spending an hour listening to a teensy excerpt of each. And the video is very well edited.

I've seen about a dozen of these online, some of which have been taken down due to alleged copyright infringements. All the ones I've seen show a preference for recent musicals, especially Hamilton, Wicked, The Book of Mormon, Dear Evan Hansen and Les Miz. In fact, every one I've looked at has more selections from Hamilton than from the entire collaborative works that involved Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein or both. The list compilers are of course entitled to their opinions but you wonder how much of their selections have to do with what speaks more directly to their generation…or maybe they just haven't seen that many shows.

Mr. Lister's Top 100 here has, I think, one Lerner and Loewe song, not much Sondheim, one Cole Porter, no Meredith Willson, lotsa Lloyd-Webber, etc. His rules for inclusion exclude instrumentals and shows that never played Broadway. He says songs written for movies are ineligible but he includes "You're the One That I Want," which was written for the movie of Grease. Some of the other lists don't have the same rules. One I saw includes some of the Four Seasons' songs heard in Jersey Boys and "Singin' in the Rain," which was not only not written for the stage, it wasn't even written for the movie, Singin' in the Rain.

But hey, they're all just someone's list. When you make up your list, you can make up your rules at the same time. Your list wouldn't match mine, mine wouldn't match yours…or even mine if I redid it tomorrow. Just enjoy the excerpts and don't bitch that so many of your favorites aren't in this…

If you have ever wanted to write songs or plays — or really anything — you will enjoy this conversation between Adam Guettel and Stephen Sondheim. It's just two guys who write great stuff for the Broadway stage sitting around and yakking…

A couple of times in the past on this blog, I've recommended Mastergate, a "play on words" by the fine comedy writer, Larry Gelbart. Larry decided to try and see if he could top the absurdity of the Iran-Contra hearings with a spoof thereof. The play consists of a series of Congressional hearings. On the spot (or maybe the spit) is a soldier named Major Manley Battle who, not unlike Oliver North, arranges for some U.S. weapons to go someplace they weren't supposed to go — in this case to guerilla forces in Central America, ostensibly to use in filming a war movie. As noted in the L.A. Times noted when the play debuted on Showtime…

"I feel that these kinds of situations are going to be with us forever with government, the military and business being as big as they are," said Gelbart, whose long list of credits includes creator of TV's M*A*S*H and Tony-winning writer of City of Angels. "But first and foremost, Mastergate is a play about the language. It's not for me to discover that politicians are corrupt or full of hot air. It's really about what they and television have done to the way we speak and the way we listen."

The dialogue is amazing…and difficult. Broadway singers have been known to say that the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim are wonderful but very, very challenging for the performer who has to perform them. The speeches, many of them lengthy that Gelbart wrote for Mastergate presented the same challenge to a cast that included James Coburn, Robert Guillaume, Dennis Weaver, Bruno Kirby, Ed Begley Jr., Marcia Strassman, Darren McGavin, Henry Jones, Pat Morita, Tim Reid, Buck Henry, Jerry Ohrbach, Richard Kiley, David Ogden Stiers, Paul Winfield, Ken Howard and Ben Stein.

Why am I mentioning this now? Because its producer, David Jablin, just let me know it's now available to watch on Amazon Prime. I did and it still holds up. Here's a little preview…

One of my favorite Broadway-style performers, Kelli O'Hara, favors us with a tune from the first show for which Stephen Sondheim wrote the score. This was in Saturday Night, which didn't get produced in 1954 as was planned because its producer, Lemuel Ayers, died. Since Mr. Sondheim became famous for the later shows he did that did get produced, Saturday Night has been staged a few times here and there. I don't think it ever excites people like Sondheim's later works did but some of the numbers, like this one, are pretty good…

One of my favorite performers, Stephanie J. Block, performs one of my favorite Sondheim songs…

If you love show tunes, you may love this a little less than two hours of them in Kings of Broadway 2020, a video revue of great singers singing from their homes — all or most of them apparently singing live even though few microphones are in evidence. There are a few speeches in there about the George Floyd matter and they reminded me of a term I once heard — "The choir preaching to the choir" — and most of songs chosen are about sadness and heartbreak and getting over them.

But most of the performances are quite splendid though one gent does display the chutzpah of thinking he can improve on Sondheim lyrics. And it's a fund-raiser for Acting For Others, NHS Charities Together and Black Lives Matter Global Charities so if you enjoy it as much as I did, send some bucks to the cause like I did…

Here's thirteen and a half minutes of S. Sondheim's show Into the Woods performed quarantine style…

The problems with my car turned out to be deeper than just the battery and I wound up having it towed into the dealership yesterday. I just okayed repairs that will total a bit over $2500…on a car I probably won't drive more than three or four times the next few months. My mechanic said they're shorthanded and asked if he could have a few days on it. I told him he could have a few months on it.

Aside from that, the big news here ain't terribly big at all. It's just me playing with online videos and doing these nightly chats for the next few days and then the Cartoon Voices Panel on Saturday. I honestly don't know how much of this I'm going to do in the future. This is kind of a learning experience for me. I want to learn how to do it and I want to learn how much I do or don't enjoy doing it.

And my iPhone just received breaking news that "sources" say Hillary Clinton will endorse Joe Biden for president. Shouldn't "breaking news" tell you something that you couldn't have just assumed? You and I could have been the sources for that story.

Lastly for now: A lot of folks have written in to ask why I haven't discussed or embedded the big online Sondheim Tribute the other night. I figured everyone who would be interested in it didn't need me to guide them to it…and I haven't had time to watch it yet. Mr. Sondheim has no greater admirer than Yours Truly and I recognize that given his age and past repertoire, we shouldn't expect or need more masterpieces from the guy…but wouldn't it be nice if every time he gets a birthday tribute, he gives Bernadette Peters one new song to sing?

Josh Groban performs one of Stephen Sondheim's best songs from Sunday in the Park With George — "Finishing the Hat"…

Stephen Sondheim has eight Tony Awards, more than any other composer who ever composed. One was a Lifetime Achievement Award. The other seven were for six of his shows. His first two were for Company back when they gave out one Tony for lyrics and one for the music and he did both. After that, there was just a Tony for "Best Score" so he got one each for Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Passion.

A lot of folks think his best score was Sunday in the Park with George but the year he was up for that one, the Tony went to Jerry Herman for La Cage aux Folles. Mr. Herman's acceptance speech, which is included in the clip package below, was interpreted by many as a dig at Mr. Sondheim.

You can see all of his wins (and his one loss) in this collection of excerpts from each year's ceremony…

Lots of neat stuff is turning up on the Internet these days to keep us shut-ins entertained. Here's a video from "Sondheim Unplugged," which is a long-running, performed-occasionally revue in New York at Feinstein's 54 Below. The idea as I understand it is to strip down Mr. Sondheim's songs to just a singer and a piano so as to focus on the melodies and lyrics, and to make the show cheap enough to turn a profit. The songs vary as do the singers.

The title card on this video says this is from Sunday, March 29 but I think this is some sort of rebroadcast on that date of an earlier show. I don't think these people all crowded into a New York cabaret room, sans masks and gloves, last Sunday…