Part 2 – “The Darryl Winston Show” – Rich Massabny interviews author Sharon Rich
Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald and the book Sweethearts is discussed.
Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy discussed on “The Darryl Winston Show” – Rich Massabny interviews author Sharon Rich
Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald and the book Sweethearts is discussed. Part one:
Things Ottawa…including Nelson Eddy singing at the Capitol Theatre
Things Ottawa
This is a bit of a reminiscence of memories of my hometown Ottawa that have somehow seeped up from the brain, in no particular order, for no particular reason.
The number 61 Elmvale Acres bus. It was the 61 Bayshore until it got the other end of city, when it became the 61 Elmvale. It took almost two hours for the bus to do the whole loop through the downtown core, east to Elmvale Shopping Centre, back around Urbandale Acres, through Elmvale again, to downtown, then out to the wilds of the West End: Westgate Shopping Centre, Carlingwood and eventually a loop of Bayshore Drive, before there was a Bayshore Shopping Centre. You could see almost the whole city for 50 cents.
Tiny Tom Donuts in the Pure Food building at the Ex. Every year mystery people would bring a convoluted machine that would poop out tiny donuts by the hundreds at the Central Canada Exhibition. They would be hot, greasy and lightly sprinkled with white sugar and if you paid extra, cinnamon and sugar. There were also Shopsy Hot Dogs, Pizza, and Back Bacon on a Bun. Why it was called the Pure Food building, I’ll never know, as the only thing that was ‘Pure” in there was the grease.
Hobbyland. Downtown for a thousand years. As all the small buildings downtown were bought up, then razed to make way for huge office buildings, Hobbyland survived. If you needed Testor’s Candy Apple Red and some new brushes for your Eldon slot car, Hobbyland had it in stock.
The Capitol Theatre was a monster classic cinema and theatre originally built in 1920 with Thomas W. Lamb as the architect. The Capitol was an old-fashioned movie palace that sat 2530 patrons in luxury. The stage hosted everyone from Nelson Eddy to Jimi Hendrix over its’ fifty-year life.
13 Facts about Rhode Island…including Nelson Eddy
- The Rhode Island state bird is a Rhode Island Red. A chicken. For some reason, this cracks me up.
- The state flower is a viola. Pretty little Johnny Jump Ups make me smile in the spring.
- The state tree is the Red Maple, and the state has 14 state parks. Damn, there must be a state park around every corner!
- Rhode Island was the 13th state to join the United States, and their state flags is 13 stars (to symbolize the original 13 colonies) around a gold ship’s anchor. Beneath the anchor is a banner that reads “hope.”
- The Industrial Revolution in the United States began in Rhode Island, after the first successful water-powered cotton mill began operation in Pawtucket in 1793.
- It’s nickname is the “Ocean State” – yep, that’s why I’m going there!
- The state has a population of just over 1 million people. In contrast, the metro area of Chicago has almost 3 million people in it.
- It is the smallest state in the union, and one of the most densely-populated.
- The population is 52% female, 48% male, and a whopping 85% Caucasian. The median age is 37, with only 15% of the population over 65.
- James Woods, Harry Anderson, Nelson Eddy, and Spaulding Gray are some famous native Rhode Islanders.
- Tourism generates over a billion dollars a year in revenue for the state, but jewelry making is one of its largest non-maritime industries. Who knew?
- One of the “places to see” in Rhode Island is Block Island, a 7 mile long island off the coast at the eastern entrance to Long Island Sound. The ferry to Block Island and seeing the famous Block Island Lighthouse is one adventure I hope to take on my vacation.
- The best clam chowder I’ve ever had was during last year’s vacation, when Mags took me to Iggy’s Doughboys and Chowderhouse, the Clam Shack location on Point Judith Road. The doughboys were awesome, too. Definitely a stop planned there for me this year!!!
Broadway “A Tale of Two Cities” Star “looks exactly like Jeanette MacDonald”
Not a great review, but check out the paragraph below in blue:
If you loved “Les Miz” and “The Scarlet Pimpernel” on Broadway, you might like “A Tale of Two Cities.”
A little.
The show that opened last night at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre is a musicalization of the 1859 Charles Dickens novel about the French Revolution. This is the actual French Revolution, not that mid-19th century student uprising that “Les Miz” was really about.
This show has book, music and lyrics by New Jersey’s Jill Santoriello, who has a thin Broadway résumé. Make that no Broadway résumé at all. Now 42, she reportedly started writing this show nearly 28 years ago, as a child, during the first Reagan administration.
Santoriello might just be the Sarah Palin of Broadway. Asked how familiar she was with Dickens’ other novels in a recent interview, she replied, “I’m a fan of his stories, and I’ve seen adaptations. But I still haven’t read any of the other novels. I’m saving those up for when this is over.”
“This” is likely to be over soon.
“A Tale of Two Cities” had its stage premiere a year ago at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Fla. Now, with 20 listed producers, it finally comes to Broadway. One problem with any show that takes nearly 28 years to come to Broadway is that by the time it gets there, it’s likely to be a bit dated.
“Les Miz” was a legitimate musical smash – its big melodies and larger-than-life themes dominating Broadway. Now we live in diminished times, to say the least, and the intimate focus of musicals like “Avenue Q” and “Spring Awakening” seem more to the point.
But a part of the Broadway audience still yearns for the big stories and the large choral melodies to go with it, and “A Tale of Two Cities” strives to give them that.
Strives is the operative word here. None of the songs quite gets off the ground, including “Until Tomorrow,” the attempt at an anthem that ends Act One. This is the moment at which the miserable street wretches of Paris decide enough is enough, and that it’s time to storm the Bastille.
Yes, “Until Tomorrow” is a knockoff of “One Day More,” the anthem from “Les Miz” that knocked your socks off.
Neither Santoriello’s musical talent nor her lyric-writing skills are really up to the job, though, as she plucks well-worn phrases from Dickens, and adds her own lame tweaks:
“Now is the best of times/The worst of times/And all things in between.” Hmmm.
Act Two focuses on the lawyer who will make the giant sacrifice of his life for the woman he secretly loves, the dissipated Sydney Carton. It builds to the great guillotine scene – which thrilled so many of us when we had to read the novel in junior high school.
Santoriello does Carton the favor of keeping Dickens’ magnificent exit line intact, and mercifully unsung.
James Barbour, who has a big baritone and a background in such shows (he starred in “Jane Eyre,” replaced Terrence Mann in “Beauty and the Beast,” and created this role in Sarasota), stars as Carton.
Aaron Lazar, Enjolras in the recent revival of “Les Miserables,” plays Charles Darnay, the French nobleman who gets into difficulties when he goes back to Paris at the height of the Terror.
Brandi Burkhardt, who looks exactly like the movie-operetta star Jeanette MacDonald here, is Lucie Manette, the woman both men love.
Gregg Edelman (“City of Angels”), long missing from Broadway, is the shell-shocked Dr. Alexandre Manette, who spent years in prison for having witnessed a horror of the old Regime.
Other appealing faces in this large cast include Westchester’s droll Nick Wyman (another “Les Miz” alum) as John Barsad, Katherine McGrath as the fussy and solicitous Miss Pros and Michael Hayward-Jones as the English banker, Jarvis Lorry.
Natalie Toro simply fails to terrorize as the sinister Madame Defarge, who knits patiently beside the guillotine.
The director, who keeps all this traffic moving at a brisk pace nevertheless, is Warren Carlyle.
What may be the biggest surprise here is the scenic design credit for Tony Walton, a distinguished Broadway veteran, who seems to have been given a 49-cent budget.
Two wooden contraptions roll off and on, faintly recalling the jungle gyms in “Les Miz.” Except that these seem to be made of matchsticks. Walton also seems to have recycled a couple of blue-painted backdrops from his show, “A Christmas Carol.” They only vaguely suggest the two cities of the title, London and Paris.
If you want to see “A Tale of Two Cities,” be quick about it. Chances are, in any case, that you’ll probably like the book better.
Bear in mind that it happens to be one of Dickens’ shortest.