May 2011
82 posts
April 2011
110 posts
YouTube - Anyone Can Whistle- Me And My Town
Angela Lansbury - Me & My Town — Anyone Can Whistle
Some day, I will figure out a way to have a backup chorus of four boys follow me around at all times, on call just in case I need to bust out in a Kay Thompson-style supper club number.
Send in the Clowns
Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey - Send In the Clowns
That Dirty Old Man
The Trotter Trio
“That Dirty Old Man” from The Trotter Trio’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum…in Jazz.
“Bear in mind that musicals are presentational plays. The whole idea of a musical is out front. Numbers go out front, no matter how intense, they go out front… That’s what makes musicals entirely different from plays. As an actor, you can just play the scene. If you’re a performer and it’s a number, you have to make it land, if that’s what’s required. And to make it land doesn’t mean just to sing loudly. It means everything—from the acting to the voice to the presentation. Also the lights. Remember, when a musical number begins, the lights go down. That doesn’t often happen in a scene. So everything conspires to make the moment false. And your job is to make it true. And at the same time please the audience.”
—Stephen Sondheim, interviewed by James Lipton during a craft seminar at the New School in New York City, which appeared on the Bravo network as an episode of Inside the Actors Studio, later excerpted in The Paris Review.
“Gypsy (1962) — An extremely unpleasant version of the Broadway musical based on Gypsy Rose Lee’s Memoirs.”
—
Pauline Kael’s review of Gypsy (as reprinted in 5001 Nights at the Movies)
(Thanks to marathonpacks for reminding me of the beauty of Kael’s language and alerting me to the availability of 5001 Nights at the Movies on Google Books.)
“This picture has been made as if the director (Harold Prince) had never seen a movie.”
—Pauline Kael’s review of A Little Night Music (as reprinted in 5001 Nights at the Movies)
Take The Moment
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett, “Take the Moment” from Do I Hear a Waltz? from his album If I Ruled The World: Songs for the Jet Set
A Very Short Violin Sonata
Christina Sunnerstam, violin
A Very Short Violin Sonata, one of Sondheim’s few instrumentals that was not composed for a play or film. World-premiere recording by Christina Sunnerstam from Sondheim Tonight: Live from the Barbican Centre.
I Feel Pretty
Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews // I Feel Pretty
