Everything's Coming Up Merman for Klea and for You

My favorite moment in one of Forbidden Broadway's best Ethel Merman numbers came when whoever was playing Ethel stood with her feet planted center stage and brassily sang to the audience, "Don't you wish I was on Broadway now?" Of course, the answer to that rhetorical question was and is a resounding "Yes, we do!"

The Merm has left us for that big, SRO theater in the sky, but you can get a very good idea of what made her so great now that Klea Blackhurst has brought her critically lauded Merman tribute show, Everything the Traffic Will Allow, back to NYC. Every Saturday evening through September 5, you have the opportunity to catch Klea singing the signature songs of her idol -- as well as some obscurities -- at the Snapple Theater Center. Here are some highlights of our recent phone chat.

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BROADWAYSTARS: I haven't seen your show since 2001, and I can't wait to see it again.

KLEA BLACKHURST: Thanks so much. I've done the show all over the country and in London, so it's not difficult to conjure it back up. We had big houses for the first two nights at the Snapple. It's going really well there.

STARS: I know you've made a lot of appearances with symphony orchestras. Do you do this show in those venues?

KLEA: No, but over the past five years or so, I've been building up charts in preparation for eventually doing the entire show with orchestra. For example, when I did a Gershwin evening, I got fabulous orchestrations of "Sam and Delilah" and "I Got Rhythm." I also have charts for "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" and "There's No Business Like Show Business." Those songs are great even with just piano, bass, and drums, but there's nothing like hearing them played by a full brass section.

STARS: "Sam and Delilah" is a real gem among the lesser-known songs by the Gershwins. I think Ira's lyrics are amazing.

KLEA: I agree. We have a ball doing it. I get asked all the time about the line that goes, "She got into action, she showed him her cooch." People want to know, "What does THAT mean?!" I explain, "Well, the hoochie coochie was a famous dance at the turn of the century..." But that line still scandalizes today. The double meaning really tickles people.

STARS: Among the less famous Merman numbers you perform, which ones are the biggest hits with the audience?

KLEA: Well, it's not extremely unknown, but "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries" has become my favorite Merman song, and it goes over very well. It's like any great old song; the more simple the message is, the more it resonates through the years. You can put all of today's meaning on that song, and it works perfectly. People also seem to like "Just a Moment Ago," the Roger Edens number that was added to Happy Hunting, and "World, Take Me Back," the Jerry Herman song from Hello, Dolly!

STARS: I saw Merman in Dolly!, and I'll never forget it. I've also heard audio tapes of her closing performances in that show and in Gypsy. I assume you've heard them, too?

KLEA: Yes. The thing that's so amazing about the Gypsy tape is how funny the scenes are. She gets laughs in places where other people don't get laughs. That joke, "Mama, why do I have three fathers?" "Because you're lucky!" -- uproarious laughter!

STARS: On one of the Broadway's Lost Treasures DVDs, there's a clip of Merman singing "Everything's Coming Up Roses" on the Tony Awards in 1972, I think. It should be required viewing for anyone who claims she couldn't act. In the final section of the song -- "Everything's coming up roses and daffodils, bright lights and lollipops, sunshine and Santa Claus" -- she comes across as really desperate.

KLEA: I think she listened to whatever direction she got from Jerome Robbins or Arthur Laurents and wrote it down in her script with her red pen. Have you seen the clip of her singing that song for Reagan at his inauguration? When she gets to the last part, even though she changes a couple of lyrics -- you know, "Everything's coming up jelly beans" -- she gives it that same "I'm-gonna-burst-into-tears" delivery. It's very funny, under the circumstances.

STARS: Even some people who adore Merman contend that she probably wouldn't have been great in the movie of Gypsy because her style of acting wouldn't have worked for that role on the screen, but I disagree.

KLEA: I'm with you. It's not even about comparing the quality of Merman's performance to Rosalind Russell's, it's just the loss of what Gypsy was on stage with Merman. It breaks my heart that we don't have that.

STARS: One last question: There are so many hilarious stories about outrageous things that Merman supposedly said and did. Which ones, if any, do you suspect are true?

KLEA: I don't believe any of them are true, but I think all of them have roots in truth. They're like urban legends. Merman didn't really have a filter. She was so fun and so much bigger than life that no matter how ridiculous the stories about her may be, they're still believable. I just love her. We'll never have the likes of that woman again.

All Singin' All Dancin'

On Monday, July 27, as part of the 2009 Summer Broadway Festival at The Town Hall, Scott Siegel presented the third annual All Singin' All Dancin' concert. Co-directed (with Siegel) and choreographed by Josh Prince, the one-night-only event showcased the talents of hoofers Cameron Adams, Kevin Bernard, Jessica Lee Goldyn, Kendrick Jones, Joe Komara, Spencer Liff, Erica Mansfield, Michael Mindlin, Bobby Pestka, Jeffrey Schecter, Ali Solomon, Amber Stone, and Ryan Worsing. Also on hand were powerhouse singers Liz Callaway, Alexander Gemignani, Douglas Ladnier, Karen Murphy, and the ever-young, golden-age chanteuse Marilyn Maye. Here are my pix of this fabulous show.

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Jeffrey Schecter and Jessica Lee Goldyn, "Me and My Girl."

Liz Callaway sounded great, as always, in "Cheek to Cheek."

Marilyn Maye offered a "Dancing" lesson to Spencer Liff (see next two photos) by way of that delightful song from "Hello, Dolly!"

"When there's someone you hardly know..."

"...but wish you were closer to!"

"Just Another Rhumba" for Karen Murphy.

Kevin Bernard and Jeffrey Schecter as the irrepressible brothers Benny and Bernie Buchsbaum in "Be a Performer," from the Cy Coleman-Carolyn Leigh-Neil Simon musical Little Me.

In this series of four photos, we see Jessica Lee Goldyn and company in Josh Prince's spiffy re-conception of the "I Want to Go to Hollywood" number from Grand Hotel.

"You gotta have heart, miles and miles and miles of heart!"

Douglas Ladnier wowed the crowd with Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" and two songs by Ervin Drake, who was in attendance at Town Hall: "Good Morning Heartache" (pictured here) and "I Believe."

Alexander Gemignani made the point that "Leading Men Don't Dance."

Kendrick Jones, "I Wanna Be a Dancin' Man."

Here are Marilyn Maye and the women in a unique performance of the old standard "Mean to Me."

And here are two parting shots of the finale, "Broadway Melody."

A Broadway Summer at The Town Hall

Summertime Broadway openings aren't entirely unknown; let's not forget Hairspray and Avenue Q. This year, Burn the Floor is set to bow on August 2. But such events are still rare. So, other than listening to cast albums and re-seeing favorite shows that opened during the previous season, what is a musical theater enthusiast to do until fall?

Well, for starters, he or she can attend the offerings of the Summer Broadway Festival at The Town Hall, one of this city's best performance venues. Unless you were lucky enough to be at the hall this past Monday, July 13, you've already missed the first of the festival's three 2009 presentations: Broadway Winners!, an all-star concert of music from all-time classics (Cabaret, She Loves Me, Funny Girl, etc.) and terrific scores of more recent vintage (e.g., Next to Normal).

Among the show's highlights were Anika Noni Rose's vocally and dramatically stunning rendition of "Home" from The Wiz (see photo) and Martin Vidnovic's powerful take on "I Am What I Am" from La Cage aux Folles. Other standouts were Alex Gemignani in the title song from She Loves Me, Donna Lynn Champlin in "Gooch's Song" from Mame, and James Barbour reprising his tour-de-force performance of "Molasses to Rum" from the recent Paper Mill Playhouse production of 1776.

If you missed Broadway Winners!, don't despair: This coming Monday, July 20, Town Hall will give us a Broadway Rising Stars concert featuring the brightest talent selected from some of the nation's finest musical theater schools -- including AMDA, CAP 21, Juilliard, CCM, Carnegie Mellon, NYU Steinhardt and Tisch Schools, Marymount, and The New School -- directed by Emily Skinner and Scott Coulter. The following Monday, the 27th, such crooning hoofers as Joe Komara, Erica Mansfield, Jeffrey Schecter, and Ryan Worsing will strut their stuff as the festival concludes with an All Singin', All Dancin' program directed by Scott Siegel and Josh Prince, choreographed by Prince.

Make no mistake, Town Hall is home to lots of musical theater-related shows not just in summer but throughout the year, all of them put together and hosted by the intrepid Scott Siegel. Be sure to mark your calendar for November 16, when Siegel will present the next edition of Broadway Unplugged, a concert in which great theater songs are performed by Broadway notables with no amplification whatsoever. Past participants have included Michael Cerveris, Sutton Foster, Cheyenne Jackson, Marc Kudisch, Beth Leavel, and Alice Ripley. This year's lineup has not yet been announced, but you can bet the farm that it will be stellar. See you there!

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Bravo Angelo!

Having survived a financial crisis that actually preceded the current meltdown of the U.S. economy, the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ now seems to be back on an even keel under its present administration. That's wonderful news, because the theater has a history of excellence -- much of which was the direct responsibility of Angelo Del Rossi, its head honcho for 40 years, from 1963 to 2003.

Though Del Rossi is gone from Paper Mill, he will never be forgotten by anyone who worked at the theater during his tenure. To officially honor him, a plaque commemorating his brilliant career was unveiled at a reception held yesterday (Thursday, July 16) at Sardi's.

Among those on hand to congratulate the man of the hour were such Paper Mill alumni as Christine Ebersole (pictured here with Del Rossi), Tony Roberts, Susan Stroman, George S. Irving, Ron Raines, Jim Walton, Lee Roy Reams, Kelli Rabke, Judy McLane, Paul Iacono (one of the stars of the forthcoming new film version of Fame), and Vincent D'Elia (whose Paper Mill credits include Jesus Christ Superstar and Children of Eden).

Said Roy Miller, who worked with Del Rossi for years at Paper Mill and is now one of the producers of the Broadway revival of West Side Story, "Angelo not only taught me the nuts and bolts of producing, but more importantly -- and I think everyone in this room will agree -- he taught us all to have passion and not apologize for it, and to take risks at the risk of failing."

"I got started at the Paper Mill Playhouse," said Stroman. "Angelo took a chance on me and gave me the opportunity to hone my craft on new material. For young talent coming up today, it's hard to find that place anymore. Angelo was what I thought an impresario should be: always dapper in his suit, always pacing back and forth, watching me do my work. But when I would look down at him, he would smile and would be there to support me. Angelo, I'm so honored to be here today and to see you still looking like the great impresario."

The plaque honoring Del Rossi, which will soon be installed at Paper Mill, lauds him as a "dedicated champion of the arts, executive producer, loyal friend, and inspirational mentor."

The Funny Girl Has Three Faces

Steven Brinberg has been acclaimed for his performances as Barbra Streisand in major concert venues, nightclubs, and theaters in New York and throughout the U.S., as well as abroad. Of course, he has sung many songs from Funny Girl over the years, but only now is he being given the chance to play the signature Streisand role of Fanny Brice in a production of the entire show -- which is kind of like a pianist who has mastered the Rachmaninoff preludes finally getting a professional shot at the Concerto No. 2 in C minor.

The date and time: Saturday, July 11 at 8pm. The place: The Paramount Theater in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Be there to see Brinberg as Streisand as Brice. The cast of ReVision Theatre's staged concert presentation of the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill-Isobel Lennart musical also includes Broadway veterans Grant Norman as Nick Arnstein, Loni Ackerman as Mrs. Brice, Harvey Evans as Florenz Ziegfeld, Gene Castle as Mr. Keeney, and Lainie Kazan -- who understudied Streisand in the Broadway production and famously went on for her only once -- in a special guest appearance. I recently spoke with Steven about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

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BROADWAYSTARS: How great that you're getting to do all of Funny Girl. Are you very familiar with the stage version?

STEVEN BRINBERG: Not really. I've only seen the show a couple of times, but I grew up watching the movie and listening to the soundtrack. Our production should be really interesting for people who only know the movie, because there are so many differences. The show has lots of numbers that give opportunities for the chorus and the dancers: "Cornet Man," "Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat," "Henry Street." One of my favorite numbers that's not in the movie is "I Want to Be Seen With You," the first duet between Fanny and Nick Arnstein. But I also love the ballads, "Who Are You Now?" and "The Music That Makes Me Dance."

STARS: Are you sorry that those songs aren't in the film?

SB: Well, they typically cut some songs when they make a movie of a Broadway show. Funny Girl was long enough as it is, plus they added "My Man" and a few other numbers. You know, if you listen close when you watch the movie, you can hear at least two of the cut songs used as background music: "I Want to Be Seen With You" and "Henry Street."

STARS: I know there was originally going to be a comic roller-skating number in the show, which is why the logo art is an upside-down figure of a girl on skates. But the number was cut and they used a different song, "The Roller-Skate Rag," for that slot in the movie.

SB: The song they wrote for the show was called "I Did It on Roller Skates." There were so many changes to the score before they got to opening night on Broadway. Marvin Hamlisch, who was the rehearsal pianist, told me it was very common for a song to be in for one performance and out the next. There was a Baby Snooks number called "Why Are the Girls Different From the Boys?" And, of course, "Absent Minded Me," which Barbra recorded for the People album.

STARS: Though the part of Fanny is almost completely identified with Streisand, quite a few other women have played it over the years in regional, stock, and touring productions. Isn't that right?

SB: Sure. Barbara Cook did the show with George Hamilton in the late '60s at Westbury Music Fair. Marilyn Michaels and Carol Lawrence did it on tour, and later there were productions with Pia Zadora, Debbie Gibson, and Ana Gasteyer. I saw the show at Equity Library Theatre, with a woman named Carol Schweid -- she actually looked a lot like Fanny Brice, I remember that -- and at Paper Mill, with Leslie Kritzer. And I recently saw a production at Westchester Broadway Theatre, with Jill Abramovitz as Fannie and Grant Norman as Nick.

STARS: As Barbara Cook has said herself, she was an odd choice for the part in terms of her look and ethnicity. I know you've worked with her; did the two of you discuss her experience playing Fanny?

SB: Yes. She told me about a friend of hers who really loved her in the show. Then he went to see the movie, and he said he thought Streisand was too Jewish for the part!

STARS: I'm sure you'll bring your own spin to it.

SB: Well, I think the layers of gender-blind casting will make it really interesting. For instance, in "Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat," I'll be a man playing a woman playing a man.

STARS: I understand this is going to be a staged concert presentation, sort of like Encores!

SB: Yes. We're going to have a 14-piece orchestra, and the numbers will be fully staged and choreographed, but I think we'll be holding scripts for the book scenes. I hope so; it's a lot of lines! I'm thrilled that we're doing the show in the fabulous old Paramount Theatre. Maybe I should make my first entrance through the house, like Barbra does in the movie?

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[For more information about the ReVision Theatre production of Funny Girl, or to purchase tickets, visit www.ReVisionTheatre.org or call 732-455-3059.]

Beach Listening

Assuming that it will eventually stop raining this summer, folks will want to have their iPods or other personal listening devices loaded up with great stuff to enjoy at the beach and on the way to and from. Of course, this applies to musical theater lovers as much as anyone else. I've obtained the cast albums of all of the past season's musicals except for Stephen Sondheim's Road Show, which was officially released yesterday (June 30), and Dolly Parton's Nine to Five, due at the end of July. Here are some of my thoughts on several items of interest. (Note: The only recording of Billy Elliot, the London cast album, was released more than three years ago and I wrote about it back then.) Happy listening!

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Hair

It would be impossible for any recording to fully capture the thrill of experiencing the revival of the seminal Gerome Ragni-James Rado-Galt MacDermot rock musical Hair at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, but Ghostlight Records' cast album comes very close.

This is one of those cases in which it might have been interesting to record the show live in performance, but of course, that method entails tremendous challenges. Everyone involved in the new cast album should be congratulated for recreating the excitement of the show in a studio setting; an abundance of raw energy has been captured here.

The CD is a winner for Will Swenson's charismatic Berger and Gavin Creel's golden-voiced Claude Hooper Bukowski. Sasha Allen scores with "Aquarius" because she sings the song rather than screaming it, and Caissie Levy is persuasive in "I Believe in Love," "Easy to Be Hard," and "Good Morning, Starshine." Allison's Case's "Frank Mills" is perfection, and Bryce Ryness and Darius Nichols are vividly present as Woof and Hud. Music director/conductor/keyboardist Nadia Digiallonardo does an expert job of leading the singers and the awesome band.

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West Side Story

The cast album is emblematic of what's wrong with the current revival of this musical theater masterpiece. It starts off on a bad note with a sluggish, slack reading of the prologue by music director/conductor Patrick Vaccariello -- but not as sluggish and slack as "The Rumble" that ends Act I. There are plenty of other blunders throughout, such as the ludicrous "soprano sing-off" in "I Feel Pretty," one of the songs that have unwisely been translated into Spanish for this production.

As for the soloists, Josefina Scaglione (Maria) and Karen Olivo (Anita) come off best, as you probably have heard. Matt Cavenaugh displays a pleasing vocal tone as Tony, but his phrasing is questionable, his New York accent is not a success, and his delivery of his spoken lines in the "Dance at the Gym" sequence and at the start of the "Somewhere" track is terribly stilted. As Riff, Cody Green nails an impressive high note at the end of the "Jet Song," but his own attempt to sound "Noo Yawk" actually makes him sound as if he has a speech impediment. My advice? Pass on this CD and instead get your hands on the original Broadway cast album or the film soundtrack -- or both.

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Rock of Ages

When the London cast recording of Mamma Mia! was released, I predicted that it probably wouldn't sell all that well. After all, I thought, even if multitudes of people loved the show, why would they want an album packed with ABBA covers that were crafted to sound as close to the originals as possible when they could buy the ABBA Gold collection and have the real thing instead?

Well, that Mamma Mia! CD went on to become a huge hit, so I'm not even going to guess how high New Line Records' original Broadway cast recording of Rock of Ages will chart. Let me just say that the disc is filled with spot-on covers of hits by Journey, Night Ranger, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Poison, and other '80s phenoms. High vocal honors go to Constantine Maroulis, James Carpinello, Lauren Molina, Adam Dannheisser, and poor Amy Spanger, who has already left the show for personal reasons.

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Next to Normal

The sad word on that street is that 2009 Tony Award winner Alice Ripley has been having trouble getting through eight a week of Next to Normal at the Booth Theater, her voice apparently having been compromised by her no-holds-barred performance and, in my analysis, by flawed technique. (Ripley sang consistently flat during the performance I attended, and she yielded the role of bipolar wife and mom Diana to her understudy for the show's first performance after the Tonys.)

The good news is that she sounds terrific on the cast album. So do J. Robert Spencer as Diana's husband, Aaron Tveit as her son, and Jennifer Damiano as her daughter. Whatever major flaws in construction this musical may exhibit, its Tony-winning score -- music by Tom Kitt, lyrics by Brian Yorkey -- fully deserves that honor. If you haven't already picked up Ghostlight's terrific two-disc recording, do yourself a favor and get it soon.

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Allegro

This is something of a miracle: A complete, two-disc, state-of-the-art, all-star studio recording of a lesser-known show by the greatest musical theater writing team of the 20th century, a show that was previously (mis)represented only by the severely truncated, monophonic original Broadway cast album.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's Allegro is generally regarded as the first concept musical: Its conventional story of a man from a small town who responds to the siren call of the big city but eventually returns to home and hearth is told in an overtly presentational manner, with much of the goings-on narrated and explicated by a Greek-style chorus. The show doesn't completely work, but the score has lots of wonderful pages. Though the best known songs are "A Fellow Needs a Girl," "So Far," and "The Gentleman is a Dope," I've always felt that Allegro's finest moment is the achingly lyrical "You Are Never Away," beautifully sung on the new CD by Patrick Wilson and ensemble.

The recording is luxury cast in its leads and featured roles (Wilson, Laura Benanti, Nathan Gunn, Audra McDonald, Liz Callaway, Norbert Leo Butz, Judy Kuhn), as well as the smaller parts (Judith Blazer, Ashley Brown, Danny Burstein) and cameos (Schuyler Chapin, Harvey Evans, Howard Kissel, Kurt Peterson, Stephen Sondheim). Even the great Oscar Hammerstein himself makes a posthumous appearance. And it's wonderful to have Marni Nixon, who dubbed Deborah Kerr's singing in the movie version of R&H's The King and I more than 50 years ago, on hand as Grandma Taylor.

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Les Miz: Original Cast Highlights

The recent, belated release of a CD of highlights from the original London cast album of Les Misérables gives me an excuse to rant about something I noticed a while ago: Cameron Mackintosh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and other movers and shapers behind Brit musicals and cast albums apparently have so little respect for performers that they sometimes exclude their names from CD covers.

I'm telling you, it's weird. To learn the names of the singers heard on the Lez Miz disc, you have to search the enclosed booklet; not one performer is identified anywhere on the outside packaging. The same is true of the two-CD original cast recording of The Phantom of the Opera -- although, oddly enough, the highlights disc does credit Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman, Steve Barton, et al. Decca's most recent recording of Jesus Christ Superstar is even more peculiar in this regard: Not only does the outer packaging fail to list the cast, it doesn't even specify which production this is or when and where it took place! (I believe what we have here is the cast album of the mid-'90s London revival that later moved to Broadway for a brief run.)

Yes, I know: Certain producers (and composers) deliberately downplay the contributions of performers on the theory that it makes better business sense if "the show is the star," rather than the people in it. But to actually hide the names of singers on a recording? If I may quote Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, "That's going a bit too far, don't you think?" For the record (as it were), the major soloists on the London Les Miz highlights disc are Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean, Roger Allam as Javert, Michael Ball as Marius, Frances Ruffelle as Eponine -- oh, and some unknown named Patti LuPone as Fantine. Surely, there was no point in advertising any of those names on the CD package!