Cake, or It Takes a Village

I didn't realize until recently that I know a lot of people who know a lot about cake. But when it became clear that the 30 frosted cakes the run of Transport Group's BOYS IN THE BAND requires would be my problem, I began to assemble my small army of cake experts. A list of everyone who has been involved (I'm writing this on my blackberry during the show, so no links or images):

1) Katya Schapiro-baker and blogger. She answered my first panicked email on this subject with via gchat and made me realize that it IS possible to make 30 cakes, that you can reeze them before icing, and that some icings don't require refrigeration.

2) Peiyi Wong-set designer (asst on BOYS), roommate and former cookie lady assistant. She talked me through some practicalities and contacted her former boss (the aforementioned cookie lady) who lent me 4 cake pans (which Peiyi picked up). Also offered advice throughout this process.

3) The cookie lady-lady who makes cookies. See above.

4) Ali Marts-former college roommate, actress turned pastry chef, life saver. Ali made 18 cake rounds on a super tight budget (this is a non-profit we're dealing with). She also gave me a lesson in cake icing (as I have to ice the cakes at the space for every show).

5) Wendy Patten-BOYS PSM (I am the SM). Picked up 15 jars of icing from a Stop N Shop in White Plains. Will buy "nice cake" for gala opening

6) Susan Horowitz-Teacher. Help carry still warm plates to Ali's car today so I could get home in time to come to the theater for today's rehearsal/performance.

How it works: each night we use 1/2 a cake. During the 2nd act I frost the next day's cake as the current days cake is being consumed. The cake I frost during the show is comprised of the un-used half cake from the previous performance plus a frozen cake half. It. Has white vanilla frosting with green trim. Starting Wed it will also say "Happy Birthday" (or possibly even "Happy Birthday Harold").

Visit http://www.TransportGroup.org for ticket info so you can see these cakes (and the fabulous play around it).

Best Night Ever

As a member of the ITBA, I frequently get comp offers to varied theatrical events.  I've seen shows like Fela!, Avenue Q and Oleanna, and been invited to much, much more.  However, nothing has (or likely ever will) top the sheer delight and euphoria that resulted from seeing Betty Buckley at Feinstein's.

First off, I had never been to Feinstein's before.  It's a place for bitches far classier--and 10-50 years older--than I, who can afford $99 prixe fixes that include a glass of Michael Feinstein's own brand of wine.  This is the type of place where the hostess says "Right this way, Mr. Butchko" before leading me to an amazingly comfortable rounded corner booth with the perfect view of the "stage".  I was almost afraid the night was going to peak before it started.  But no amount of hyperbole could really prepare me for what was to come.

It was definitely an cabaret evening.  That word, "cabaret", typically fills me with the same sort of unease that words like "song cycle" or "webisode" yield--I think of lugubrious, breathy, piano-heavy arrangements of songs that sound just fine they way they are "intended" to sound.  Ms. Buckley's set was indeed lugubrious, breathy and piano-heavy (though an excellent bassist and versatile percussion/reed player did wonders), but it was also absolutely thrilling.  Ms. Buckley is an excellent actress and was able to imbue each number with enough meaning to justify the decadent arrangements, so even though each song got a similar Buckley-treatment (small voiced/almost sing-speak versus that blossom into a strong if vulnerable belt), each song also felt like a new journey.

"Spoiler Alerts" about her song set to follow.  I so enjoyed being surprised that if you have even a faint inkling to go, I would skip this paragraph until you (a) see the show or it (b) closes.  She started off with a Rogers and Hart medley which included "I Could Write a Book", "This Can't Be Love" and a third song I cannot remember.  Nice and breezy, along the lines of what I expected.  She then sang a pairing of "We Kiss in a Shadow" and "I Have Dreamed".  The pairing and arrangement was quite inspired--both songs have never quite sustained my interested before, but in tandem (with the boring parts of each song jettisoned), it was lush and moving with Buckley's interpretation far more nuanced than I thought possible.  Then came the number that almost made me fall out of my seat: "Fine, Fine Line" from Avenue Q.  The song is such a lesson in catharsis in the first place.  Add to that Buckley's initial hesitation in hitting the high note in the "I don't think you even KNOW what you're looking for" section of the bridge, coupled with her triumphant belt by the end of the song.  I died.  What followed included a cute novelty number called "When I Belt", a sultry "Lazy Afternoon", a stirring and superbly acted Jacques Brel number (I think it was "Ne me quitte pas"...but it was in English), "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", and a charming "You've Got Possibility", in addition to a few others I cannot recall.  The second time my heart stopped was her closing number: "Home" from THE WIZ.  Typically a riffing playground, it was nice to hear the melody stand up to the more subtle, but no less impassioned arrangement and performance Buckley performed.  For her encore, she sang "Memory", the song we knew she couldn't NOT sing.  It was as if I heard the song for the first time and was as much as my gay heart could possibly handle--if she had segued into "14 Dwight Ave, Natick Massachusetts", I literally would have gone into cardiac arrest.

I feel I should also give special mention to the exquisite sound system and their fantastic compact LED lights which highlighted Ms. Buckley's beauty while practically disappearing into the ceiling.  I want them in my living room (you know, for parties or times I want to do a really thorough PRETTYBELLE sing-a-long).

I had such a grand time that I was once again inspired to become disgustingly rich (or to date someone who is).  If you currently find yourself in such a position, then get thee to Feinstein's pronto!  Otherwise, envy me.

My New Favorite Thing

Dropbox is the best thing the internet has provided for me in a long time.  It's devilishly simple: Register for an account and download the program to every computer you frequently use--at home, work, etc.  It creates a "My Dropbox" folder.  Store all the documents you frequently need to access and update in that folder.  BAM!  You have the SAME up to date file on every computer you use, automatically updated whever you have the program downloaded.  You can also access the files at any other computer via the interwebz.  Even better, you can SHARE ENTIRE FOLDERS.  3 people working on a spreadsheet, share the folder and any time 1 of you updates it, EVERYONE has the updated version.  It's like google docs, only with real documents.  It has changed my life (for the better).  Click on this link and get started.

Homework: Guilty Pleasure

One of my long-time guilty pleasures has been HEARTBEATS, a sort of jukebox musical of Amanda "The Rose" McBroom's cabaret songs (plus a few presumably written for the show).  The thin story focuses on a woman turning 40 and wondering what went wrong with her marriage.  For some reason, the show and its 90s lite pop score really resonated with me when I was in the 7th grade.  I got the cast recording.  The L.A. cast recording.  I don't know how one got the L.A. cast recording of HEARTBEATS 40 minutes west of Cleveland in 1996, but by gum, I found a way. 

My favorite song had always been "Putting Things Away", a song which finds parallels in putting away groceries and dreams.  The lyric is a bit on the nose and the music cheesey, but I love this song:

   

  Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io 

 

In trying to find some mention of it on the internet, I found this most peculiar item--an assignment for an ESL class at the National Taiwan University.  Most of the assignment is about identifying the many household items and activities mentioned in the song--it really is a esl vocab paradise.  But the last study question--"What explanation in the second part of the song does the singer give for not liking to put things away? How do the last things she says in the song affect the interpretation of the rest of the song?"--would actually be difficult for me to answer.  How DOES the end of the song affect your interpretation of the beginning.  Because you don't want to play the ending of the song, but yet...and I remember why I got out of performing.  


One last tidbit: whilst at amazon looking for a jpeg of the cast recording I found this review I wrote while a Jr. in High School (I wrote a lot of amazon reviews back then).

Late Night Nonsense

I don't have a whole lot to weigh in on the current situation going on with respect to NBC's late night programming, other than to say, in my opinion, the ball was dropped in the mid-90s, when Jay Leno took over The Tonight Show instead of Letterman.  Fact: David Letterman is far funnier than Jay Leno.  I suppose there is something simple and non-threatening about Leno that appeases "those people" in America (the same "those people" who are afraid of Thai food and homosexuals and fans of Sarah Palin).  But as these past seven months have proven, "those people" have happily accepted Letterman as their late night leader.  Though Leno was the habitual "winner" in the ratings throughout his "competition" against Letterman, it was a competition NBC made for themselves by not giving Letterman the show in the first place.  I sincerely doubt Leno would have had the chutzpah to move to CBS (or any other network) against Letterman had Letterman been crowned Carson's successor, and NBC would have continued its unrestricted dominion over late night TV.  As it stands, NBC may have very well killed the Tonight Show, leaving Letterman the lone player on the field.  Watch the following clip and show me a Leno clip that is even remotely as funny.  It's a dare.

Norbert Leo Butz

If you aren't obsessed with Norbert Leo Butz, you either hate musicals or don't have ears.

An audio only of him singing One Song Glory in '98.  I believe he was the 1st Roger replacement.  The recording is okay...aside from a few moments of technical difficulty.  Norbert is perfection.



Here he playing Mark to Adam Pascall's Roger (I guess Norbert was a swing as well).  Why was this recorded in the first place?  Thank god RENT inspired the rabid fandom it did, prompting fans to record and collect live performances.  I'm curious as to what else exists out there...



Here he is in DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDREL (the show for which he won a Tony).  I really enjoyed this show--a legitimately funny musical comedy is a hard thing to pull off.



in Cabaret



Here he is in LAST 5 YEARS.  I chose this particular one because he is shirtless.  But pretty much all of the original production can be found here. 



As Fieryo in WICKED.  He basically outsings Idina here.  He was an interesting short for the romantic lead--i mean, he's shorter than Elphaba--but probably the smartest decision WICKED made.

South Pacific and Avatar: When is it okay to look away?

I don't think many people seen an inherent link between SOUTH PACIFIC and AVATAR.  But, at least for me, there are a few similiarties: I saw both at Lincoln Center in the first week of 2010, both are over 2.5 hours, both deal with warfare in tropical locales and troubled relations with "natives", but are absolutely stunning, stunning enough to negate some substantial flaws.

 When I say South Pacific is flawed, I do not mean to dismiss its substantial merit.  The score is gorgeous, tuneful, and memorable.  The characters are unlike any others in the music theater cannon, and the situations it deals likewise break any sort of mold that has existed before or since.  But things get confusing when the 2nd act becomes a bunch of guys in khaki barking and listening to the radio, someone gets MALARIA, but that turns out not to be so big a deal and he goes on a top secret mission (which, for some reason, requires the aid of a random French plantation owner).  The mission itself--as well as its consequences--is vague and confusing.  Oh, and that malaria victim falls in love (even though he has a girlfriend) with a local girl just because she's hot.  But she is so hot that he realizes he's racist for not wanting to marry her, even though there are many legitimate reasons not to marry her, like his girlfriend lack of knowledge about anything north of her lady parts.  And I'm not even going to start on the first scene ending with our heroine saying (forgive me for paraphrasing) "You tell me you've killed a man, but yet I can tell that it's okay."

With the amateur productions I've seen, these dramaturgical quibbles were enough to seriously taint the experience, but the production at Lincoln center was so stunningly designed, acted and sung that most of the more bizarre elements of the book didn't reveal themselves until I allowed myself the think about them afterwards.  Even those tedious "listen to the exciting stuff happen off stage" scenes were styling enough to hold my interest.

 Despite it's flaws, SOUTH PACIFIC is still unquestionably a masterpiece, deserving of it's Pulitzer prize.  The Lincoln Center production merely shook the cobwebs off and gave it what I can imagine to be an emotional punch similar to what audiences felt in the 1940s.  AVATAR is a remarkable technical achievement, manipulative and predictable.  It is, in fact, exactly the sort of movie I have spent 26 years avoiding.  But it was visually stunning, even moving at times, with many unforgettable moments.  In short, it was "worth it".

So at what point is it okay to ignore flaws and relish in the abundant resources of a production?  Is it somehow "cheating" or "quitting" to allow a movie like AVATAR wow us with razzle dazzle, even if it was somewhat (though not entirely) lacking in substance?  Another example: I loved FINNIAN'S RAINBOW.  A friend of mine hated it.  He loved the score, but couldn't get over the lack of conflict in the book, or the underdeveloped characters, or the hastily created romance.  I, for one, didn't care how hasty the romance was, since it created an excuse for me to hear the delightful "If This Isn't Love".  Sure, the character development was fairly crude compared to that of, say, A CATERED AFFAIR, but the richness and joy in FINNIAN'S score made it the more satisfying evening.  And really, most everything can be picked apart if held up to close enough scrutiny; the whole is almost always greater than the sum of its parts.  It's a fine fine line indeed.