Saturday, July 31, 2010
Understudies! Fingered By Fosse
Julie Klausner: A big pet peeve of mine is when people confuse Bob Fosse's stiff jazz hands for spirit fingers.
Natasha Vargas-Cooper: UGH! Jazz hands are like Lady Liberty's crown of spikes. They make a precise statement. Spirit fingers are for RENAISSANCE FAIRE WEIRDOS.
Julie: They're deeply sexual, Fosse's hands, especially when you consider that he stuck his troll pole in every chorus girl. READ MORE
Disney Saved Broadway—By Hiring the "Most Original Creative Minds in the Room"
Without Disney, Broadway-and New York theater in general-would be like those depressing days when Chorus Line was the only show to see in a grim Times Square and you had to fight past hookers in rabbit fur coats to get to the box office. Many resent the "Disneyfication" of Times Square. Sure, I had a great time sipping nine dollar low-quality red wines out of plastic glasses at Runway 69 as much as the next gay. Sometimes, in bitter moods, I totally get why this weirdo likes to boycott Disney stores. But one of the great things Disney has done (besides inventing animatronics) is put a massive amount of money behind one of America's dying art forms-the theatre. (Yes, I'm going to spell it that way because I'm fancy.) READ MORE
The Anticipation List
Good People with Frances McDormand, the Manhattan Theatre Club.
Robert Lepage's Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung. READ MORE
Understudies! How 'Spring Awakening' Changed the Business of Musical Theater
Spring Awakening was first produced off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Company, an institution that has built its reputation on the in-your-face masculine hyperrealism of Mamet and Shepherd and McDonagh. It featured music by somewhat disappeared (but actually really good!) pop singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik, and words by playwright Stephen Sater.
The musical transferred to Broadway and was the runaway hit-also the critical and artistic darling-of the 2006 season. READ MORE
Well this is a terrible surprise: something something recovery something something slowdown something something no one has a job. | July 30, 2010
Showed Up: Last Night's "Mega Secret Private" Robyn Show
Seth Colter Walls: Mary, thanks for inviting me to the "secret" Robyn concert in TriBeCa last night!
Mary HK Choi: Pshaw bro. It was absolutely my pleasure.
Seth: Don't fucking bro me what to do!
Mary: Here bro. Drink this.
Seth: So it wasn't actually that big of a secret was it? Was it a radio contest or something? READ MORE
The Gay Games are starting tomorrow in Germany... and pretty much everyone there is traveling under a pseudonym. Especially Mexico's big gay soccer team. | July 30, 2010
"Try not to fall too hard for Anthony Weiner. As riveting as they are, his theatrics — last night and every time he makes noise on the House floor or cable television — are best understood as part of a shrewd strategy to position Weiner for the 2013 New York mayor's race." | July 30, 2010
When "White Folks' Bay High School" Did 'The Wiz'
When the choir director, Mr. Swiggum, announced that the spring musical my senior year at Whitefish Bay High School would be The Wiz, it seemed an absurd choice. Our northern Milwaukee suburb was already colloquially known as "White Folks' Bay," and the preceding year had not done much to improve the community's image in a city that studies have suggested is America's most segregated. READ MORE
"Paul the psychic octopus may have retired from predicting football matches, but his advertising career has just begun. The eight-legged oracle recently appeared in an advertisement for a German supermarket chain and has received more than 160 endorsement offers, including a book deal, according to the mollusk's agent."
-WHAT A FREAKING PHONY. I remember when it was all about forecasting which collection of athletes who were competing in a task that would be completely inexplicable to the octopus if he saw what they were doing, which he didn't, by choosing the flag of one nation-another impossible concept for a cephalopod to comprehend-over another, man. You can't trust anyone. | July 30, 2010
The Great San Francisco Craigslist Rent Grifter
"A San Francisco woman has been arrested and charged with bilking would-be apartment renters of thousands of dollars apiece by accepting their deposits and then spinning a tale that they couldn't move in for a while because her mother had cancer, police said Thursday." Notes one victim, Awl pal Mat Honan: "She has a tiny gray dog, I'm not sure of the breed, but it's more than 20 years old and essentially lame. It was bleeding from the rectum when I last saw it. If you see her, please drop a dime. Side note: in the three bedroom apartment she showed us (where I now suspect she was a renter) she had one bedroom that was nothing but shoes. All the walls were lined with six foot high shoe racks, and completely full of designer shoes. So, you know, she may also answer to Imelda."
My Men of Journolist: An Empty Inbox and a Broken Heart
I was tempted by Andrew Breitbart's offer of $100 grand for the full archives of Journolist-but I could never sacrifice the deep, sensual, never-ending love that Ezra Klein has given me year after year. The Daily Caller's Mark Judge may not be impressed by my dating choices ("People have made cracks about the whiteness of the list, but the other lack of diversity is the total absence of hotness"). But the heart has reasons that reason knows not, Mark. And come on, you can't NOT look into Chris Hayes' baby blues and swoon.
When Ezra turned out the lights on Journolist, he turned out the lights in my heart. READ MORE
Understudies! Don’t Cry For My Dad, Argentina
I'll never forget the night my mom quit going to musicals: it felt like the first and only time she abandoned the family because, technically, she did. It was 1993 and as a very special treat, just before Christmas, my mom, dad, brother and I went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Donny Osmond at the Chicago Theater. We'd have dinner, see the show and then spend the night downtown. Fancy! READ MORE
"So look: unless someone's prepared to make an argument that a straight line runs between Cordoba House and Usama bin Laden, no objection to Cordoba House's location makes any sense. That's the only sense in which the Cordoba House could actually offend the reasonable sensibilities of those victimized by 9/11. No one can make that argument without sounding like bin Laden himself. Everything else about this debate is just ugly noise. Those who sincerely believe that Cordoba House is offensive need to tell a Muslim serving in the U.S. military precisely how far from Ground Zero he may acceptably practice his religion." | July 30, 2010
