From the Archives: TV star Tina Fey argues for importance of the arts at University of Virginia

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 14, 2013. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

TV star Tina Fey argues for importance of the arts at University of Virginia

Award-winning actress, writer, and producer Tina Fey was the inaugural speaker at the University of Virginia's President’s Speaker Series for the Arts on September 14. Fey, a 1992 graduate of the University, was introduced by UVA president Teresa Sullivan and, following her lecture, engaged in a Q&A with drama professor Robert Chapel. Virginia Film Festival director Jody Kielbasa opened the evening's proceedings.

In a wide-ranging, hour-long address that drew on her experiences on stage in high school and college, in television on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, and as a mother of two young daughters, Fey discussed the importance of the arts – including music, theatre, film, and graphic arts – to society and human fulfillment.

Fey singled out three artists that she particularly admires and views as role models: British feminist playwright Caryl Churchill (Cloud Nine, Top Girls, Mad Forest); stand-up comedian Chris Rock; and Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim (Into the Woods, Follies).

These three artists, she explained, “meant a lot to me,” saying that, although she had often acknowledged the influence of comediennes like Mary Tyler Moore, Gilda Radner, and Carol Burnett, “I've never really talked about these particular people whose work really thrills me and really inspires me, which is the way I think art should make you feel.”

Caryl Churchill

Churchill's work, she said, is “so fascinating to me because it really made you think about what you think is normal and what is deviant and what is societally acceptable. It didn't tell you what to think, but it made you think about it.”

The things she “loves most about Caryl Churchill's writing,” Fey explained, are that she writes “spare dialogue,” that she plays around with theatrical conventions, and that “she inspires me to write politically, to try to write about something, to write about things that are important.”

On that latter point, Fey gave the example of her film Mean Girls, costarring Lindsay Lohan.

That movie, she said, was a high school comedy but also “intended to be a jumping-off point for a conversation about what they call 'relational aggression' among girls."

"And we fixed it; the movie fixed it,” she added sarcastically.

The TV series 30 Rock, she explained, was meant to explore gender, class, and racial differences among the main characters, Liz Lemon, Jack Donaghy, and Tracy Jordan.

Chris Rock

What she admires about Chris Rock, Fey said, is that he is “the greatest stand-up comedian of his generation, of my generation.”

Rock, she explained, has a special ability to “look closely, to look at the world really, really, really closely and notice something that's true, that no one's ever said before, and then say it. Call out something that no one's ever said out loud before. That's the best way to write a joke because only the truth is funny.”

Rock's social and (sometimes) political commentary, Fey noted, is sometimes too vulgar to repeat in front of a general audience like the one gathered in the McIntire Amphitheatre, but it is no less sharp-edged and relevant because of that.

Stephen Sondheim

“Obviously, the third artist in this completely organic triumvirate of my favorite people, is musical theater composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim,” Fey said, noting that she used to watch the VHS copy of Into the Woods every Friday night in UVA's Clemons Library.

Sondheim “is the master of many things,” she said, recommending his two books on lyric-writing to the audience. “My favorite thing about him is that he's the master of a beautiful song in a creepy context,” giving as an example “Not While I'm Around” from Sweeney Todd, as well as the show Assassins.

Like Fey, Sondheim is in the theatre because “he's interested in communication with audiences.”

What she has hoped to have learned from Sondheim, Fey said, are to “set the level of difficulty really high … and to challenge your audience, expect them to pay attention and to be smart, expect them to love language.”

Sondheim's work is “so finished,” she said, “it's made with so much care,” adding that she and her colleagues at 30 Rock would treat their script pages “as though they were going to the Smithsonian.”

“We would check every detail of the set because it's your work. It doesn't matter if it's a school play or a dumb TV show. It's your work. You should care about it so much that people get annoyed with you.”

Another lesson Fey learned from Sondheim is that it's OK to make things that are not for everyone. Setting out to create a huge commercial success is like “a recipe for Cream of Wheat.” She suggested that the “best-selling book in the world,” Fifty Shades of Grey, was written by a malfunctioning ATM machine.

“Money is not the way to measure success in the arts,” Fey concluded.

Remembering Adolph Green at 100

A report from NPR's Jeff Lunden today on "All Things Considered" recalls that today marks the 100th birthday of Broadway lyricist and Hollywood screenwriter Adolph Green, whose works include On the Town, Wonderful Town, Bells Are Ringing, Singing in the Rain, The Bandwagon, and about half of the 1954 version of Peter Pan.  That last show will be presented on NBC-TV this coming Thursday as Peter Pan Live!

The 1954 Peter Pan had one set of songs by composer Mark Charlap and lyricist Carolyn Leigh, which included "I've Got to Crow," "I'm Flying," and "I Won't Grow Up," among others.  (The use of first-person nominative in those song titles must indicate something about the character of Peter Pan's embedded egoism.)

Along with his lyric-writing partner, Betty Comden, and composer Jule Styne, Green contributed a number of songs to Peter Pan, including "Wendy," "Ugg-a-Wugg," "Distant Melody," and the haunting "Neverland," sung in the clip below by Mary Martin in a kinescope of the 1955 live NBC-TV production.  (Kathleen Nolan appears as Wendy Darling in this production, which was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins.)

In the rare clip below, from a 1957 broadcast on the Dumont network of Art Ford's Greenwich Village Party, Comden and Green sing their duet from On the Town, "I Get Carried Away." Art Ford reminds his viewers that Comden and Green had worked with Judy Holliday in a nightclub act in the 1940s called The Revuers, which led to their collaboration with Leonard Bernstein on On the Town, and that Holliday was then starring in their latest collaboration (with Jule Styne), Bells Are Ringing.

After Green sets up the number, it begins at the 3:30 mark on the video.

Another snippet of Comden and Green and performers can be seen in this compilation of songs from the 1985 Follies in Concert.  They sing "Rain on the Roof" beginning at 2:00 (and, sadly, ending at 2:10).  The video clip also includes the late Elaine Stritch singing "Broadway Baby" and Adolph Green's wife, Phyllis Newman, as part of the ensemble on "Who's That Woman?" as well as Carol Burnett proclaiming "I'm Still Here" -- along with leading players Barbara Cook, George Hearn, Mandy Patinkin, and Lee Remick.

A look at Adolph Green's credits on IBDB shows how prolific an artist he was. In addition to the shows already mentioned, he contributed either book or lyrics (or, sometimes, both) to Billion Dollar Baby, with David Burns and Helen Gallagher (1945), Two on the Aisle, with Bert Lahr and Dolores Gray (1951), Say, Darling (1958), A Party with Betty Comden & Adolph Green (1958 and 1977), Do Re Mi, with Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker (1960), Subways Are for Sleeping, with Carol Lawrence and Sydney Chaplin (1961), Fade Out-Fade In, with Carol Burnett and Jack Cassidy (1964), Hallelujah, Baby!, with Leslie Uggams (1967), Applause, with Lauren Bacall and Len Cariou (1970), Lorelei, with Carol Channing (1974), On the Twentieth Century, with Imogene Coca, John Cullum, Madeline Kahn, and Kevin Kline (1978), A Doll's Life, with what seems like the cast of Sweeney Todd -- George Hearn, Betsy Joslyn, and Edmund Lyndeck (1982), and The Will Rogers Follies, with Keith Carradine, Dee Hoty, and the voice of Gregory Peck (1991).

The list of Adolph Green's collaborators could itself be a book about the history of the musical theatre:  George Abbott, Lee Adams, Richard Bissell, Abe Burrows, Jerome Chodorov, Cy Coleman, William and Jean Eckart, Lehman Engel, Ron Field, Joseph A. Fields, Bob Fosse, Paul Gemignani, Garson Kanin, Michael Kidd, Arthur Laurents, David Merrick, Harold Prince, Burt Shevelove, Irene Sharaff, Oliver Smith, Peter Stone, Charles Strouse, Tommy Tune, Robin Wagner, and Freddie Wittop -- to name just a few.

Considering that Peter Pan Live! goes on the air this week, that there is a current revival of On the Town on Broadway, and the first full Broadway revival of On the Twentieth Century opens early next year, Adolph Green is having a pretty good season for a centenarian who has been dead for twelve years.

Signature Theatre to Resurrect Political Musical 'The Fix'

Welcome news arrived in the form of an emailed news release from Arlington's Signature Theatre this week.  To mark the end of its 25th anniversary season, Signature will be reviving The Fix, a musical play about political corruption that was produced there in 1998 in its first American outing.

For someone like me, whose interests in musical theatre and politics rarely overlap, this is a development worth celebrating.

As explained in the press release:

The revival, directed by Signature’s Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, will round out an anniversary season chock-full of work by some of the Theatre’s brightest collaborators from the past 25 years.

“The Fix paints a picture of American politics that’s part fun-house, part haunted house,” said Schaeffer. “It’s twisted, and it pushes boundaries. It instantly became one of Signature’s favorite projects. And on top of that, it’s one of the shows most requested by our audiences. It’s only fitting that we close the season celebrating our first 25 years by bringing it back in an all-new production.”

With a rock-laced, eclectic score and scandalous lyrics, The Fix skewers the American bureaucratic machine. Reminiscent of Sondheim, with tinges of Kander and Ebb and a voice uniquely its own, it is a darkly brilliant, over-the-top, audaciously fun ride through the shenanigans of political elections.

When a popular presidential candidate dies in his mistress’s bed, his ambitious wife Violet thrusts their lackluster son Cal into the spotlight. With the help of her strategic brother-in-law, Violet transforms Cal into the perfect citizen. Together they create one of the most dysfunctional – and brutally entertaining – almost-first families ever.

(My original review of The Fix from April 1998 can be found here.)

Writing in the Washington Post Style section, Jessica Goldstein reports:

For its 25th anniversary season, Signature is bringing back “The Fix,” a production which, unless the political process somehow gets squeaky clean between press time and when you read this, is as relevant a show today as it ever was. “The Fix” will run in 2015, from May 12 to June 28.

“I say it’s ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ meets ‘Caligula,’ ” said Signature Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, who directed the 1998 production and will helm 2015’s as well. For the young’uns, that basically means it’s like “Scandal” meets, well, “Scandal.”

The script will be getting some tweaks to allow for changes in “the communication things, sending this picture and that,” Schaeffer said. Even our fictional politicians don’t know that no one wants to catch them with their pants down on Twitter. “John [Dempsey, who wrote the book and lyrics] is looking to make it even more dangerous.”

Signature's current musical production is the classic Gypsy, with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.  The show, directed by Joe Calarco, has been extended through January 26 and first reviews should appear early next week.

From the Archives: 'West Side Racist?'

In a recent commentary on controversies surrounding sports team names, Winston Jones wrote in the Douglas County (Ga.) Sentinel:

Our society has gotten too picky and thin-skinned so that too many people are offended by too many things. And too many people are running circles around themselves to try to be politically correct on everything. Don't take life so seriously.

That's the point I tried to make in an opinion piece I wrote 14 years ago in reaction to complaints about a New England high school's production of West Side Story. The article appeared on November 21, 1999, in the Daily News of Bowling Green, Kentucky, under the headline, "West Side racist? - Objections to classic play is a sad commentary on our times." The only other place it is available on the Web is here.

This text, however, is more accessible.

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Word comes from Amherst, Massachusetts, that some students and parents object to a planned production of the classic 1957 musical play, West Side Story, at the local high school. They are insisting that it be canceled.

The local newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette noted in its Nov. 11 edition that a petition presented to the school board with over 150 signatures states: "The play continues to generate negative stereotypes of Puerto Ricans in society and perpetuates the racism that we as students have been working so hard to eliminate in our school and community." Other complaints cited the play's use of violence as a way to solve problems.

This is yet another case of ill-informed cultural critics failing to see the forest for the trees. Anyone who has seen West Side Story - or performed in it - cannot help but be touched by its message against prejudice and violence. The message is not subtle. It is not hidden. It is not difficult to grasp.

Like a previous protests against such literary works as Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the complainers seem not to understand that in order to present a theme that condemns racial prejudice and stereotyping, it is necessary also to present unsavory characters and dialogue that express the ideas and conditions to author wishes to condemn. Because these types of protests are successful, students are denied an opportunity for fruitful exploration of some of the complex and sad problems faced by our society.


West Side Story is itself based upon an earlier classic, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In its original concept, it was called East Side Story and its focus was to be on a conflicted Catholic-Jewish relationship. As creators Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins and Arthur Laurents (and later Stephen Sondheim) moved forward on the project, they became aware of the tensions in Los Angeles between Americans and Mexican immigrants and in New York's West Side between native English speakers and recent migrants from Puerto Rico. They decided to reset their play in this environment.

But does it "perpetuate stereotypes"? Does it inflame racial or ethnic tensions? Hardly. As Ethan Mordden notes in the chapter on West Side Story in his history of the Broadway musical in the 1950's, Coming Up Roses, "West Side Story is about real people: real life, real love and something is possible, for all the despair."

In Amherst, one alumna said the possibility of her high school presenting West Side Story is "humiliating." A parent, Elizabeth Capifali (a doctoral candidate in the multicultural education at the University of Massachusetts), called it "a very racist play" that is "replete with racial discrimination, creating negative images of Puerto Ricans and poor European immigrants."

Which European immigrants? The characters in the play are all "Americans" - but the ones who speak English and originally lived in New York come off looking much worse, morally speaking, than the Americans who speak Spanish and come from Puerto Rico. It is the "Anglos" who are unwelcoming, disrespectful and hostile toward their new neighbors. It is the "natives" who would rather fight the Puerto Ricans than work and play alongside them. The "natives" are blustery Archie-Bunkers-in-training, with a violent, gangster-like bent. The Puerto Rican characters - also Americans, as they don't hesitate to remind us, and their adversaries - simply want to make a better life for themselves. What kind of negative stereotype is that?

Bowling Green Daily News, November 21, 1999

Aside from the play's message, which can only be missed by someone wearing blinders and earplugs, it is a landmark of the American stage that deserves to be seen and performed by young people who wish to be culturally literate.

West Side Story was cutting-edge in 1957, yet seems somewhat old-fashioned today. (This was my reaction to a London revival earlier this year [1999] that recreated the original production, including the sets and costumes.) Still, students of the theatre recognize its innovations: in music and lyrics, in its focus on young people to the exclusion of adults, in its daring realism in a medium that relies on fantasy. Its progeny include Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Sweeney Todd, and Ragtime. To deny members of the Amherst Regional High School community an opportunity to participate in, observe and learn from West Side Story is petty and barbarous.

We can only hope that the level-headed faculty, students, and school board members stand up to these philistines. The show must go on.

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For more discussion about West Side Story, check out these videos of a post-screening discussion about the movie from the 2008 Virginia Film Festival.

Part I:


Part II:

From the Archives: Review of a 1997 'Sunday in the Park with George'

Having previously thought that all of my theatre reviews from the late 1990s had been posted here for archival access, just this week I uncovered a piece that had been inaccessible because it had somewhat mysteriously been converted into an old WordPerfect format.

Yesterday I found an online resource that will convert text documents from one format to another and -- ta-dah! -- I have a review of the 1997 joint production by Washington's Arena Stage and Arlington's Signature Theatre of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George.

So, for the first time on line, here is my May 1997 review, which appeared in the Metro Herald under the headline, "Sunday Sings!"

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Washington audiences have an embarrassment of riches available this spring. Within a few days, Chicago, The King and I, and Sunday in the Park with George all opened. Together, these three plays offer examples of the best by the giants of American musical theatre: Bob Fosse, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Stephen Sondheim.

In a historic collaboration, Arlington's Signature Theatre and Washington's Arena Stage have joined forces to present a play that neither could produce on its own: the Pulitzer-prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George, by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. This production is directed by Signature's Eric D. Schaeffer, whose work at the tiny but innovative Signature Theatre has earned him a national reputation, and produced by Arena's outgoing artistic director, Douglas C. Wager.

Like most Sondheim musicals, Sunday is not for everyone. For Sondheim fans, however, it is bedazzling. The intimate setting of Arena's Kreeger Theater is far superior to the larger auditoriums in which earlier Sunday productions have been staged. Sondheim's sophisticated lyrics and intricate melodies and counterpoints are far more easily heard in such a venue.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the smaller auditorium is the ability of the audience to see more closely Patricia Zipprodt's costumes. Because of the foresight of Schaeffer, the costumes used in this production of Sunday are the same ones used originally on Broadway (and since used by the Arlington Players a few years back). Zipprodt has successfully simulated the pointillist style of painting invented by Sunday's protagonist, neo impressionist Georges Seurat, for his masterpiece (now hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago) Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte.

Seurat's work and style of work is the focus of the first act. George (played by Sal Viviano) is obsessed by light, color, balance, design. He has discovered that it is possible to create the illusion of mixed colors by setting discrete points or dots of color side by side, in juxtaposition to each other. He is fully absorbed by his work, ignoring and therefore losing his mistress, appropriately named Dot (Viviano's real-life spouse, Liz Larsen). We meet the characters whom we see in the final painting, but whether they are real people or the imaginings of George is hard to say.

The second act focuses on another artist, also named George, who may be the great grandson of the first act's George. At least his grandmother, Marie, insists that this is so. Act II's George also works in a new medium, but his primary challenge is raising the money to pursue his art. Tired of criticism that he has lost his way, that his work is no longer new or creative, he travels to France to visit the island of La Grand Jatte. There, he encounters his (perhaps?) great grandmother, Dot, who counsels him to "move on."

This synopsis cannot do the play justice. Sunday in the Park with George is not a typical musical. This is not a simple boy meets girl, boy loses girl scenario. Indeed, there is no conventional plot at all. Through the integration of music, lyrics, movement, lighting, and costumes, composer and playwright raise important issues about artistic integrity, personal relationships, and the importance of family.

Viviano plays the two Georges in contrast. Act I George is cold, obsessive. At first Viviano's stiffness in the first act is off putting, but soon it becomes apparent that this is what drives Dot away, into the arms of the more caring Louis, the baker who takes her to America. Highly rational and highly intellectual, focused laser-like on his creative endeavors, this George will be all too familiar to Washingtonians, who encounter this type every day. Act II George is more well rounded, though still devoted to his work. He seems more able to connect to his fellow human beings, particularly his grandmother, and has a deeper understanding of his own faults and shortcomings.

As Dot and Marie, Liz Larsen is astonishing. Her voice is as clear as a bell, her emotions sincere and convincing. We know she genuinely loves George, but cannot spend her life with him because he has another love his art. Her warmth contrasts suitably with George's chilliness, and the comparison helps us better understand the central character. Singing "Children and Art" in the second act, we begin to understand what really counts in life. And her rendition of "Move On" to and with George in Act II makes it hard to believe that Sondheim has written anything more, well, moving.

The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent. Drawn from the professional ranks of New York, regional, and Washington theatre, this cast includes a number of Arena and Signature veterans.

Anyone who works in the non profit world or, for that matter, anyone who is engaged in campaign fundraising will be captivated by the action, lyrics, and dialogue of the Act II number, "Putting It Together," which describes the schmoozing and bootlicking that are necessary to keep one's head above water in these situations.

Schaeffer has done well in bringing Sunday in the Park with George up to date. The modern art in Act II is now computer generated graphics and music, rather than the laser light show that was so cutting edge in 1984. One quibble, however, may be necessary as future productions are planned. The script requires that Marie be born in 1885. With the second act set in 1984, this was not hard to believe many people live to be 98 or 99 years old. Now that the second act has been brought forward to 1996, however, it stretches our credulity to have Marie, now 111 years old, as the grandmother of a 32 year old grandson. Will a revival in 2007 have a 122 year old Marie?

The Arena/Signature Sunday in the Park with George is breathtaking. I hope it will have an extended run that will allow multiple visits for those of us who are truly moved by Sondheim's best work.

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As I dig through paper and virtual files, more surprises may turn up.  Please stay tuned!

Four Music Videos for the Rapture that Didn't Happen

Reports from beyond the International Dateline suggest that Harold Camping was wrong again.  There were no earthquakes or tsunamis or asteroid crashes that led to the end of the world, time zone by time zone.

Not that anyone of sound mind took Camping's predictions seriously.  He had been wrong before, and he'll no doubt make another inaccurate prediction again.  (I hope nobody is taking stock market advice from this crackpot.)

Still, unlike in 1994, the last time the Family Radio mogul made his wild-eyed prediction that the Rapture was imminent, for some reason the "end-is-near-and-it's-May 21" meme caught the popular imagination. 

People were having fun with it.  There actually may be some disappointment among those who planned to be Left Behind that there will be no post-Rapture parties (raves? barn dances? orgies? pig-outs at Hooters?) to celebrate the departure of the prigs and the prudes.

In the spirit of post-Rapture bacchanalia, however, I present four examples of the kind of music that might have been played at those non-stop dance parties.  Enjoy!

First, here's Skeeter Davis singing her hit country song, "Don't They Know It's the End of the World?," from "The Star Route Show" on television in 1963:

There has long been a rumor among high school debaters that Michael Stipe wrote the R.E.M. song "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" based upon his own experience as a debater, piling disadvantage upon disadvantage on top of the podium. As I understand it Stipe has denied the connection, but the rumors persist -- and no wonder, since the rhythms of the verse mimic the delivery of a debater at full-spread speed.

It would be a shame to forget Blondie's "Rapture," which charted 30 years ago and brought rap music to a wider audience. The video based on the song was also something of a genre-bender. (Videos were not widely seen back then; MTV didn't take to the airwaves until August 1981, eight months after "Rapture" was released.)

Finally, I want to add a song I heard performed by Elaine Paige the other night, in the new production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies at the Kennedy Center. Considering that the Rapture hasn't happened, what can be more appropriate than "I'm Still Here."

Here's the original Carlotta (Yvonne DeCarlo -- yes, Lily Munster), performing the song on a 1979 television show. (Unfortunately, whoever posted this on YouTube provided no more specific information about the program.) There's a slight hiccup at about 2 minutes in, cutting the words "Beverly Hills," but the rest is largely intact -- which is more than you can say for the original cast recording. (The vamp at the end is also cut short. C'est la vie!)

Enjoy the remains of your day -- even for Harold Camping, it's the first day of the rest of your life!

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Kennedy Center Reveals Full Cast of 'Follies' Revival with Bernadette Peters

I received a news release from the Kennedy Center today, with a complete cast list for what promises to be the -- no, make that THE -- biggest musical theatre event of 2011:  a revival of James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim's Follies starring Bernadette Peters.

Here's the rest of the cast, as revealed by the Kennedy Center:

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced complete casting for the Kennedy Center revival production of Follies. Principal casting includes Bernadette Peters as Sally Durant Plummer, Jan Maxwell as Phyllis Rogers Stone, Danny Burstein as Buddy Plummer, Ron Raines as Benjamin Stone, and Elaine Paige as Carlotta Campion.

The production will also star Terrence Currier as Theodore Whitman, Christian Delcroix as Young Buddy, Rosalind Elias as Heidi Schiller, Colleen Fitzpatrick as Dee Dee West, Lora Lee Gayer as Young Sally, Michael Hayes as Roscoe, Florence Lacey as Sandra Crane, Linda Lavin as Hattie Walker, Régine as Solange LaFitte, David Sabin as Dimitri Weismann, Kirsten Scott as Young Phyllis, Frederick Strothers as Max Deems, Nick Verina as Young Ben, Susan Watson as Emily Whitman and Terri White as Stella Deems.

Rounding out the ensemble will be Lawrence Alexander, Brandon Bieber, John Carroll, Sara Edwards, Leslie Flesner, Jenifer Foote, Leah Horowitz, Suzanne Hylenski, Danielle Jordan, Joe Kolinski, Amanda Larsen, Brittany Marcin, Edrie Means, Erin Moore, Pamela Otterson, Clifton Samuels, Kiira Schmidt, Brian Shepard, Sam Strasfeld, Amos Wolff and Ashley Yeater.

If the run of the show -- which opens on May 7 in the Eisenhower Theatre and closes on June 19 -- is not already nearly sold out, I would be surprised.

If not, according to the news release, "[t]ickets starting at $45 are available at the Kennedy Center box office or by calling Instant Charge at (202) 467-4600. Patrons living outside the Washington metropolitan area may dial toll-free at (800) 444-1324 or visit us online at www.kennedy-center.org."

I can hardly wait.

Angela Lansbury Receives Stephen Sondheim Award

Arlington County's Signature Theatre tonight presented its first Stephen Sondheim Award to Angela Lansbury, an award-winning and versatile actress who has appeared in every medium available to her: stage, screen, television, and recordings.

Here's the news release from Signature:

Angela Lansbury, Star of Stage, Film, and Television, Saluted with ‘The Stephen Sondheim Award’ Given by Virginia’s Signature Theatre

Gala Benefit at the Embassy of Italy Exceeded Goal, Raising $350,000, a Record for Signature’s Annual Gala

Evening highlights included musical tributes by Broadway stars Victor Garber, Marin Mazzie, and Jason Danieley, and Signature favorite Sherri L. Edelen

Washington, DC − April 12, 2010, 9:15 pm – Angela Lansbury, the great star of stage, film, and television, was honored tonight with the first annual Stephen Sondheim Award, given by Virginia’s Signature Theatre at a black-tie Gala Benefit at the Embassy of Italy. The Sondheim Award, established by Signature last year in the name of America’s most influential contemporary musical theater writer and composer, was presented to the actress by Mr. Sondheim himself.

The presentation followed a dinner and tribute performance to Ms. Lansbury by Broadway stars Victor Garber, Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley, and Washington favorite Sherri L. Edelen, staged by Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, co-founder of Signature Theatre. Signature, the 2009 recipient of the Tony Award® for Regional Theatre, is internationally renowned for its productions of Sondheim works.

When Ms. Lansbury’s award was announced Mr. Sondheim stated, “Angela Lansbury’s first appearance on the musical stage was in a show called Anyone Can Whistle, for which I wrote the score. That appearance was a gift to the musical theater, although perhaps not such a gift to her, since the show only ran for nine performances. I am thrilled that Signature Theatre is helping me make it up to her by giving her the first Stephen Sondheim Award.”

More than 350 guests attended the black-tie dinner and tribute raising $350,000 in support of artistic, education, and outreach programs of Signature Theatre. The Gala exceeded the company’s goal and is the most successful fundraising gala in the Theatre’s history. The Gala was chaired by C. Daniel and Juliann Clemente with Honorary Hosts actors Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bernadette Peters, and Michael Cerveris; philanthropists Helen Henderson and Ted and Mary Jo Shen; political leaders Italian Ambassador Giulio Terzi, Virginia Senator Jim Webb and Mrs. Webb, and Virginia Congressman James Moran and LuAnn Bennett; and Platinum Level Sponsors Bonnie and Kenneth Feld.

Signature Theatre also recognized an exciting emerging artist Patrick Thomas Cragin, with the 2010 Sondheim Award Gala “Young Artist Citation.” The encouragement of an exceptionally talented young person in the field of musical theater was made part of “The Stephen Sondheim Award” at the request of Mr. Sondheim, who has been generous throughout his career in giving his time and insights to young artists. Mr. Cragin, a senior at The Catholic University of America, has appeared on Signature’s stage as an understudy in two productions, Giant and Show Boat, as well as on various stages throughout the Washington area. After graduation he plans to relocate to New York City and make his career as a performer in musical theater. Signature presented him with a certificate and a round trip train ticket to New York for his next audition, and will continue to support his efforts.

Music for the tribute included songs significant to both Ms. Lansbury and Mr. Sondheim. Sherri L. Edelen sang the Styne/Sondheim song “Some People” from Gypsy and George and Ira Gershwin’s “A Foggy Day (in London Town)” which was Ms. Lansbury’s first audition song for Mr. Sondheim. Jason Danieley sang “Not While I’m Around” from Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Victor Garber sang “Anyone Can Whistle” and Marin Mazzie sang “There Won’t Be Trumpets” also from Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle. Patrick Thomas Cragin sang “Younger Than Springtime” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Oscar Hammerstein II was one of Mr. Sondheim’s mentors.



BIOGRAPHY
Angela Lansbury has enjoyed a career without precedent. Her professional life spans more sixty years during which she has flourished, first as a star of motion pictures, then as a five-time Tony Award®-winning Broadway musical star. Two of Ms. Lansbury’s Tonys are for Stephen Sondheim musicals: the role of Mama Rose in the 1974 revival of Gypsy and Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd in 1979. She is currently playing the role of Madame Armfeldt on Broadway in the revival of Sondheim's A Little Night Music, co-starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Ms. Lansbury appeared most recently on Broadway as Madame Arcati in the 2009 revival of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit, for which she received her fifth Tony Award, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards; and in 2006 in Terrence McNally's Deuce, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. She made her Broadway debut in 1957 starring as Bert Lahr's wife in the French farce, Hotel Paradiso.

In 1960, she came back to Broadway as Joan Plowright's mother in the season's most acclaimed drama, A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney. Her first musical role there was Stephen Sondheim’s 1964 Anyone Can Whistle. Ms. Lansbury returned to New York in triumph in 1966 as Mame, for which she won the first of her unprecedented four Tony Awards as Best Actress in a Musical; her second was for the Madwoman of Chaillot in Dear World (1968).

From 1984-1996 she starred as Jessica Fletcher, mystery-writing amateur sleuth, on "Murder, She Wrote," the longest-running detective drama series in the history of television, for which she won four Golden Globe Awards.

The tribute performers have many connections to Stephen Sondheim. Victor Garber originated two Sondheim roles, the young sailor Anthony in Sweeney Todd and John Wilkes Booth in Assassins. Marin Mazzie created the role of Clara in Passion, then interpreted it for television on PBS’s Great Performances. Ms. Mazzie has also performed Beth in Merrily We Roll Along, and the roles of Rapunzel, The Witch, and Cinderella from Into the Woods. For “Live at Carnegie Hall,” she performed and recorded Anyone Can Whistle — the musical that started Ms. Lansbury’s work with Stephen Sondheim. Ms. Mazzie’s husband, Jason Danieley, who won a Helen Hayes Award for his Signature Theatre performance of The Highest Yellow, is considered one of leading tenors on Broadway — with roles in Curtains, Candide, and The Full Monty — and joins his wife and frequent co-performer in saluting Ms. Lansbury. Sherri L. Edelen, an outstanding Washington-based actress, is coming to the Gala after performing Ms. Lansbury’s all time favorite role this spring, Mrs. Lovett, in Signature’s 20th anniversary production of Sweeney Todd.




THE STEPHEN SONDHEIM AWARD
In 2009 Signature Theatre inaugurated The Stephen Sondheim Award in recognition of the importance of Sondheim’s work to Signature and to theater in general. The Award is given on a yearly basis to an individual for his or her career contributions to interpreting, supporting, and collaborating on Stephen Sondheim’s music works. Signature has produced 18 productions of the works of Stephen Sondheim, more than any other theater in the United States. In 2002, Signature’s Eric Schaeffer was the Artistic Director of “The Sondheim Celebration” at the Kennedy Center. In the 2010-11 season, he will direct Side by Side by Sondheim at Signature and Follies at the Kennedy Center.

Sponsorship packages for the 2010 Sondheim Award Gala ranged from $1,000 to $50,000 and included rewarding, year-long visibility and entertainment benefits. Individual tickets and ticket packages ranged from $650 to $5,000.


ABOUT SIGNATURE
Recipient of the 2009 Regional Theater Tony Award®, Signature Theatre is a non-profit professional theater company dedicated to producing contemporary musicals and plays, reinventing classic musicals, and developing new work. Under the leadership of co-founder and Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer and Managing Director Maggie Boland, Signature has presented 27 world premiere productions and is renowned for combining Broadway-quality productions with intimate playing spaces. In addition to the finest talent from the DC metropolitan area and New York, Signature has been a home to such theater luminaries as John Kander and Fred Ebb, Cameron Mackintosh, Terrence McNally, and of course, Stephen Sondheim. Since its founding in 1989, Signature has been nominated for 284 Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in the professional theater and has been honored with 70 Helen Hayes Awards, including Outstanding Musical in 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2009, and Outstanding Play in 1999.

In the 2007-2008 season, Signature celebrated the work of John Kander and Fred Ebb in a festival that included their musicals, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Happy Time, and their last project The Visit, starring Chita Rivera and George Hearn. In the 2008-2009 season Signature received national attention for its highly successful, revamped version of Les Misérables.

Administering the million-dollar American Musical Voices Project funded by the Shen Family Foundation, Signature has given awards and commissions to Bruce Coughlin, Ricky Ian Gordon, Peter Foley, Adam Guettel, Michael John LaChiusa, Audra McDonald, Marisa Michelson, Ted Sperling, Joseph Thalken, and other musical theater innovators. The April 2009 production of Michael John LaChiusa’s Giant was the first of seven musical commissions; the next is the May 2010 production of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Sycamore Trees.

Signature Theatre is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary with a season consisting of productions of Dirty Blonde, Show Boat, I Am My Own Wife, Sweeney Todd, [title of show], and the world premieres of Sycamore Trees and “First You Dream”: The Music of Kander & Ebb,

Signature is partially supported by a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts and by a gift from Arlington County through the Arlington Commission for the Arts and the Cultural Affairs Division of the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources.

Today Stephen Sondheim Is 80

Today is the 80th birthday of Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.

To celebrate, I am reprinting (below) a review of three of his shows that I wrote in 2001. In addition, I would like to point readers to some of the posts I made to mark Sondheim's 75th birthday in 2005: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, and Part Seven.

This tripartite review appeared in The Metro Herald (Alexandria, Va.) on July 6, 2001.  So far as I know, it has not been previously available in an easily retrievable format on line:

THREE BY SONDHEIM (INCLUDING A RAIN DELAY)

Richard E. Sincere, Jr.

Special to The Metro Herald

The theatre world is abuzz with the announcement that, next year, the Kennedy Center will be mounting a festival of six musicals by Stephen Sondheim, under the overall direction of Eric Schaeffer. Schaeffer, artistic director of the Signature Theatre in Arlington, has already garnered a worldwide reputation as an interpreter of Sondheim’s work and recently made his West End directorial debut with the new musical version of The Witches of Eastwick [see The Metro Herald, March 2, 2001].

While we await the Kennedy Center’s celebration of America’s greatest living composer-lyricist, Signature is whetting our appetite with a revue of Sondheim’s work, Putting it Together.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER
Originally conceived by actress/director Julia MacKenzie in England, Putting it Together had its first New York production about six years ago, starring Julie Andrews. It was later revived in Los Angeles and New York under Schaeffer’s direction, with Carol Burnett in the “lead,” with Kathy Lee Gifford substituting for her at some performances. (“Lead” is, well, misleading, since PIT is an ensemble production, with the five characters even lacking names.)

Signature is always at its best when presenting musicals, and even better than that when presenting Sondheim [see our reviews of A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, and A Stephen Sondheim Evening, for comparison]. So Signature patrons were suitably pleased to see PIT chosen to close the theatre’s current season.

Putting It Together is a collection of Sondheim songs, performed by five excellent singer/actors: Sheri L. Edelen, Jason Gilbert, Ty Hreben, Bob McDonald, and Jane Pesci-Townsend. There is no plot, as such, or story, but there is a dramatic arc. Songs that previously seemed wedded to their original contexts get refreshed here, gaining new layers of meaning and putting to bed the suggestion that Sondheim can’t write “hits.” While not all of the Master’s songs can stand on their own, many of them can, and those represented here prove it.

PIT includes not just songs from Broadway musicals (and off-Broadway, counting Assassins, and off- off-Broadway, counting The Frogs), but also from Sondheim’s Oscar®-winning score for the movie Dick Tracy. The wide variety gives each member of the cast a chance to shine—whether it’s Edelen’s “Sooner or Later” or Pesci-Townsend’s “Could I Leave You” or Gilbert’s amusing “Invocation and Instructions to the Audience” or—well, I could go on and on.

Director Eric Schaeffer has also designed the set for this production, a simple thrust stage that allows for maximum flexibility. The lighting design by Michael Phillipi enhances the entire unified effect, which extends even to the design for the show’s poster and program.
. . .


COMPANY
A five-night, free engagement of a concert version of Company at the Lubber Run amphitheatre in central Arlington almost became a four-night run when a thunderstorm and cloudburst suddenly crashed the party just as the curtain was about to rise. But Sondheim and Signature fans being what they are, the audience withstood the rain, soaked to the skin, and most held out for a one-hour rain delay. Thanks to the diligence and dedication of the crew—including several high-school students who volunteer with Signature Theatre—the show went on, and it was well worth the wait. One instrument, an electronic keyboard, was lost to the weather, but the rest of the orchestra was able to play. (Luckily there were no strings in the orchestra; it would be hard to expect them to withstand the rain and humidity.) And play they did!

Because this is a concert version of Company, it might be referred to as “Company-lite.” The focus is, as one might expect, on the songs. A few instances of dialogue are retained, just to keep the show flowing, but this is a considerably truncated version of the path-setting musical play that hit the scene in 1970 with an impact that has not yet dissipated.

There were “concept musicals” before Company, but when Stephen Sondheim added music and lyrics to George Furth’s series of playlets about married couples in New York, adding—as the mortar in this mixture—a single man who is friend to them all, they created a revolution in musical theatre. Without Company, it is unlikely that we would ever have seen A Chorus Line, Falsettoland, or Cats. (Well, we could have lived quite nicely without Cats.) This is not to say that Company had no antecedents. Cabaret, Hair, and even Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Allegro contributed to the line of development that Company continued. But few realized where that line was going until Company’s debut.

Company’s own development did not end there. The score used in Signature’s Lubber Run concert is the one revised by the composer and used in 1995 in productions at the Roundabout Theatre in New York and the Donmar Warehouse in London. It differs slightly from what you would hear on the original cast album (with Dean Jones in the lead) or the original London cast (with Larry Kert as Robert, and the rest of the New York cast; Kert took over from Jones six weeks into the Broadway run). Both the Roundabout and Donmar cast recordings are available on CD.

Stepping up to the plate again— what a busy man!—Enc Schaeffer cast a talented set of singers for this concert. It is difficult to pick out the best moments, but surely Eleasha Gamble (as Marta) presented one of the freshest, almost optimistic renderings of “Another Hundred People” ever heard—in stunning contrast to the character’s cynicism as seen in the book. (Marta’s unforgettable scene—”I want to get all dressed up in black.. . and go sit in some bar at the end of the counter, and drink and cry.”—is missing from this version.) And Judy Simmons’ delivery of “The Ladies Who Lunch,” perhaps the best- known song from Company, resulted in the most sustained applause of the evening. And special credit must go to Amy McWilliams, as Amy. Humans being what they are (flawed), it is simply not possible for one of them to sing Amy’s part of “Getting Married Today” without at least one miscue or breathing error. McWilliams came as close to perfection as anyone I have ever heard or seen do this song, with only one noticeable flaw.

If there is any weak link in this chain of performers, it is, unfortunately, Scott Leonard Fortune as Robert. Although he has a rich, resonant baritone voice, Fortune simply failed to convince. Perhaps it is because the role was originally written for a tenor, but even with the songs transposed to his range, Fortune seemed to be out of his element. Or perhaps the rain had an unfortunate effect on him that night.

The rest of the cast included actors familiar to Washington-area theatre-goers: Suzanne Briar, Will Gartshore, Mary Payne, R. Scott Thompson, Jean Cantrell, Tom Sellwood, Tim Tourbin, Steven Cupo, Deanna Harris, and Tracy Lynn Olivera. Paul Raiman conducted the orchestra, while Signature stalwart Karma Camp did the musical staging.

Signature deserves a huge round of applause for giving to its community—Arlington County, which incubated Signature during its early years—this series of free concerts. Word is that this will become an annual event. Let’s hope so.


GYPSY
Unlike its Charlottesville neighbor, Live Arts, which often engages in the experimental, the avant garde, and the challenging, Heritage Repertory Theatre, a summer stock company that performs on the grounds of the University of Virginia, focuses on the tried and true. Its series of plays each summer consists mostly of critical or popular successes, Tony® and Pulitzer award-winning plays, or plays drawn from familiar American literature. This is not a fault, of course; it is just a demonstration of the depth and breadth of theatrical productions in this country, even in a small city like Charlottesville.

To launch its 28th season, HRT’s producing artistic director Robert Chapel chose Gypsy, an American “musical fable” by three-fourths of the team that gave us West Side Story: Arthur Laurents (book), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), and Jerome Robbins (director/choreographer). Jule Styne wrote the music, and there is little doubt that this is the best score of Styne’s 50- plus years in show business.

This production, directed by Chapel and choreographed by Kiira Schmidt, has a huge cast. (I actually lost count.) It is presented in a straightforward, traditional fashion, in contrast to Signature Theatre’s production earlier this year, which was directed by Baayork Lee.

To point out just one divergence:  at Signature, Lee chose to use the overture (one of the best-known in the American musical theatre) as an opportunity to introduce the setting and the characters, in a Runyonland-like pantomime on the thrust stage, with a setting that remained basically the same throughout the show. At HRT, the orchestra performs the overture in front of a brightly-lit act curtain, decorated with the original “Gypsy” logo (as seen on the original cast recording, for instance). At the end of the overture, the curtain rises, and we are on stage at an audition for Uncle Jocko’s children’s amateur vaudeville show. And we go on from there.

Where Lee emphasized some of the darker aspects of Gypsy—and there are many—Chapel hones in on the comic and the musical. Renee Dobson plays a sprightly Madame Rose, whereas Donna Migliaccio at Signature was more driven, more obsessive, more inward-looking. After “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” Migliaccio’s castmates were cowed and frightened; Dobson’s were simply resigned to their fate. In “Rose’s Turn,” Dobson seems to be having fun, wishing and wondering; Migliaccio had a nervous breakdown.

Still, HRT’s Gypsy is an entertaining evening. Some of the young talents—from the University of Virginia, Elon College, and local elementary, middle, and high schools—are obviously going places. The young girls who play the Baby June and Baby Louise (Allyson Graves and Maggie Horan) have tremendous stage presence, considering their ages. Nathan Moore does a star turn as Tulsa in “All I Need Is the Girl,” and Laurie Saylor convincingly transforms herself from doormat Louise to burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee in just a few, intense minutes.

Gypsy is a true classic of the American musical theatre. It is hard to pass up any opportunity to see it. If you get a chance to see this production in Charlottesville, please do so.

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