Gone Too Soon

I unfortunately never saw a performance of David Carroll's, but the recordings of this late performer give evidence of a startlingly wonderful voice. He originated the role of Baron Felix Von Gaigern in the 1989 musical of Grand Hotel, and while he died before preserving his performance on that cast recording, he can be heard on a bonus track on that CD, a live recording of his big number from the show, "Love Can't Happen," one of the greatest love songs to be written for Broadway in the last 25 years. Here is a grainy video of his performance of that number in the show.


"Love Can't Happen," Grand Hotel, Maury Yeston (with Liliane Montevecchi)

And of his performance of "Where I Want to Be"' from Chess:


Benny Anderson and Björn Ulvaeus (music) and Tim Rice (lyrics)

*****

Also gone too soon was Madeline Kahn, a great comedienne and singer who lent her talents to On the Twentieth Century, an adaptation of the play/film The Twentieth Century, as well as a concert version of Anyone Can Whistle with Bernadette Peters and Scott Bakula.

Here she is performing a couple of songs on a television appearance in 1991.

*****

And cabaret singer Nancy LaMott. Her presence is unassuming; watch a clip of her performing, and she might not seem to be 'doing much.' But her voice contains warmth, vulnerability, sadness, and . She is one of those performers who can make singing seem like simply existing-it really all appears that effortless. She also passed away much too young, and just as she was beginning to gain the reputation she deserved.


Bill, Show Boat, Jerome Kern (music) and P.G. Wodehouse and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics)

Oops!

In an entirely un-mean-spirited way, you may find something to chuckle at it in the following clips.


Leslie Uggams singing "June is Bustin' Out All Over," (Carousel, Rodgers/Hammerstein)


Josh Groban singing "Music of the Night" (The Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber) at the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors (Webber was an honoree that year)


Dinah Shore and Jane Russell (a replacement in the original production of Company) singing a duet of Sondheim's "Ladies Who Lunch"

Peter Filichia

Peter Filichia has been writing about theater for a long time, and going to the theater for even longer. He reviews New Jersey productions for The Star-Ledger, and writes a thrice-weekly column for TheaterMania.com. In it, he'll include interviews with performers or writers (famous or otherwise), quizzes, book reviews, reports on small productions from around the country (or, occasionally, the world). The column is the forum for a man who really loves the theater, and enjoys discussing his likes and dislikes (but more the former than the latter).

A recent column turns attention to HBO's reality show about a Nevada whorehouse that is putting on a musical revue, with the help of a theatrical director-choreographer and musical director.

An excerpt:

“We always had to wait for them to finish their main line of work before we could start work with them. I’d ask, ‘May Candy rehearse now?’ only to be told that she was doing a threesome, or was busy with a married couple. Then when she or any of the others arrived, they’d be clad in only pasties and a thong. I grew up in a large family, and have been in many dressing rooms in my time, but I’ve never seen so much of so many bodies. It took them a while to see that there are people in the world who operate on a different plane.”

Adds Thompson, “Every time we worked with them, we also inadvertently made all these double entendres – like ‘Open your mouth wider,’ and a million others. That the place was right across from a roadhouse called Dick’s didn’t help.”

You can read the whole article here.

And a brief clip of the show (I'm not sure which of the ladies this is performing, so forgive me for not giving credit to her):


"You've Got Possibilities," It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, Charles Strouse and Lee Adams

And, if you'd like to read more about Filichia, Talkin' Broadway has in interview with him.

Jon Robin Baitz

Not long after it was announced that playwright Jon Robin Baitz (The Paris Letter, Ten Unknowns)--whose series Brothers and Sisters is now in its second season on ABC--signed a contract to develop two more ABC television shows, comes word that he has been 'ousted' from Brothers and Sisters and 'very politely fired' from the network.

In a three-part blog entry entitled "Leaving Los Angeles," Baitz writes of his experience working on the show, what led up to his leaving ABC, the mirroring of his work and personal struggles, the writers' strike, and returning to New York. It's hearbreaking and fascinating reading. Here's an excerpt:

I was told that my ideas were steeped in the theater (and therefore, too much angst, a phrase used repeatedly to end discussions with me), and that it was perhaps better for me to offer less resistance to the now smoothly-running machinery. I would be told that I was tired and to take a few days or a week or so here and there away, and then would be told, in the midst of arguing for my voice, that I wasn't around enough to merit the opinion.

As work on the first season ended last April, there was tension, and a meeting. The sympathetic studio head, always a gentleman, always warm and considerate, suggested that perhaps I might now spend more time thinking of new projects for Disney. I sighed, looked at my watchful and protective agent, and in May, before coming home to New York, signed on the line, conceding the point that life would be better if I just let the trained TV professionals do their thing at the show I had nominally created.

I tried and succeeded minimally in not taking it too personally, hardly my strong suit. Years before, the theater and opera director Peter Sellars had offered the unasked for opinion that my plays felt like those of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero - which was not a compliment. When I looked at him with a certain expression on my face, he laughed and said the truest thing I ever heard about show business: "Robbie, come on, you have to have a thick skin in this business." To which I would add, some twenty years later, "Well, Peter, it also helps if people are too fucking scared of you to insult you."

Read the full posts here:

Part I

Part II

Part III

For more on Baitz:

An interview with AfterElton.com in which he talks about the conception of Brothers and Sisters

Video: Baitz on "Charlie Rose"

A 1992 New York Times interview

Interview with Bomb magazine in 2003

Broadway Performers on MySpace

Here are links to the MySpace pages of some Broadway performers. Much of the music featured on these pages is outside the standard musical theater fare for which these performers are best known, but displays their skill just as strongly.

Gavin Creel
(Thoroughly Modern Millie, Bounce, La Cage Aux Folles, West End Mary Poppins)

Jason Danieley
(Curtains, Candide, The Full Monty)


Melissa Errico
(My Fair Lady, High Society, Dracula, Finian's Rainbow)


Sam Harris
(The Life, Grease)

Jessica Molaskey
(Songs For a New World, Parade, A Man of No Importance)


Adam Pascal
(Rent, Aida)

Billy Porter
(Five Guys Named Moe, Grease, Actors' Fund benefit concerts of Dreamgirls and Hair)


Sherie Rene Scott
(The Little Mermaid, The Last Five Years, Aida, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)

Stearns Matthews

Another YouTube discovery. Mr. Matthews is an intelligent performer who, at his best, has a very natural and unaffected presence that lends itself to material that's comedic or dramatic, classic or contemporary.


"Chloe," Neil Moret and Gus Kahn


"Her Face," Carnival, Bob Merrill

Old School

Here are some of the greatest, doing what they do best, long after they first became famous for doing it.


Barbara Cook, "Come Rain or Come Shine," St. Louis Woman, Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer



Doris Eaton Travis--the oldest living Ziegfeld girl!--"Balling the Jack," Chris Smith



Florence Henderson, "When You're Good to Mama," Chicago, John Kander/Fred Ebb



Angela Lansbury, "We Need a Little Christmas," Mame, Jerry Herman



Lansbury with Len Cariou, "A Little Priest," Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim



Dorothy Loudon, "Fifty Percent," Ballroom, Billy Goldenberg/Alan and Marilyn Bergman



Chita Rivera



members of the original cast of West Side Story (including Ms. Rivera)