Theater

Take all of today's voogling as an example of why DRM or digital restrictions rights management software or licenses are bad for our culture. Without Fair Use, we wouldn't have the little miracle I am about to present : Dreamgirl's original cast's performance of "And I am telling you" at the 1982 TONY Awards.

Matt Lauer had asked Jennifer Hudson if she had seen the performance. She said that the only reference to this song came from a Will Smith lip-syncing bit in one of his movies. She had only recently seen the 1982 clip AFTER years of singing the song and after filming her version of Effie.

Well, good thing for her because she made the role her own. But awesomeness for us that now we will have both versions readily available on the net.

I am DYING to see Dreamgirls; notwithstanding the presence of Beyonce in the movie. She and her pimping-parents have been chaffing me of late. The internets have been attwiter over how her parents have tried to sabotage Jennifer Hudson's moment in the limelight, particularly after every movie critic in this country has sang her praises and Hosannas.

Well, they're being smacked down by real talent.

In the next clip, Matt Lauer quotes Variety and I will so too :

An "American Idol" finalist without prior screen experience, Hudson comes fully-formed to film. It's the kind of galvanizing perf that calls to mind debuts like Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl" or Bette Midler in "The Rose," with a voice like the young Aretha. More fully developed here than onstage, Effie is the fierce, wounded, pulsating heart of the movie. Her big song and second explosive number "I Am Changing" both elicit audience cheers and applause.

I sent the following letter today, inspired by the NYT story below to pay the one compliment that deserving teachers treasure and the undeserving don't, probably because they: a) never hear it and b) never think to miss it.

It made my children's teachers cry.
They must be VERY deserving!

DEAR MISS MICHELE, Damien, and your handpicked staff of oh-so-special teachers,

No one finds and loves the unique best in each child the way you do, so they can find their own happy spot onstage and the star they are inside as well as out - you are gifted artists and teachers all, but for my children at least, what counts at our studio isn't so much your class but your CLASS!

What you do for your students is so complex and often unseen, steeped in Power of Story, family, teamwork -- it is as this news feature describes the experiences you offer through your art: elegant, graceful, smooth, supple and refined.

I know great technique when I see it demonstrated, and you know I'm a doctor of education, not dance. So you know I'm not just talking about the dancing.

Love to all!

The backstory to this letter is that my kids are definitely not standard issue. Not just their minds and heart but even their bodies are not standard. They aren't particularly built for dancing, nor are their parents; we didn't pass it to them by either nature or nurture, I am reasonably sure. But they love it, are drawn to it and everything to do with it. And their teachers help them love it more, rather than discourage them out of some sense of duty to be practical, because they might never dance professionally.

There's nothing like it! The old, the new, the coming-soon and the never-was blend seamlessly. Multidiscipline, multicultural and lingual, multieverything. I think Cirque du Soleil shows are incomparable even to each other, though the NYTimes review of "Corteo" opening last night suggests it's the only comparison we should even attempt.

[quote=John Rockwell]Drawing, like other major circuses, from the same international pool of small traveling circuses and circus schools, augmented by fresh talent from Eastern Europe and Asia, Cirque du Soleil has elevated the once marginal and innovative "new circus" experiments of Europe into an international brand name.

The Cirque format has surpassed the older-fashioned. . .
This is another exercise in slightly fey Cirque fantasizing
. . . accompanied by the sort of music mimes would make if mimes made music.[/quote]

I saw their resort show at DisneyWorld's Pleasure Island a few years ago, from the equivalent of center court, only three rows from the stage -- at any moment I was sure the tower of 50 chairs would fall directly on my head or a careening vehicle would drive off the lipless edge into my lap. And performers did come into the seats from all directions, you never quite knew what was coming or what it meant. Talk about live!

Associated Press

NEW YORK - Girl power on Broadway.

A musical version of "Legally Blonde," based on the hit movie starring Reese Witherspoon and the novel by Amanda Brown, will open on Broadway in April 2007.
. . . the show will mark the Broadway directorial debut of Jerry Mitchell, who won a 2005 Tony Award for his choreography for the revival of "La Cage aux Folles."

"I love the story," Mitchell said Tuesday of his new project. "It's so positive, especially for young girls to believe in themselves. And it's fun to root for a leading character you care about."

Mitchell, who also created the dances for "Hairspray" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," also will do the choreography for "Legally Blonde."

The show will open April 26, 2007, at a Broadway theater to be announced. Preview performances begin March 30. San Francisco will see the musical first, with a five-week engagement at the Orpheum Theatre beginning in late January.

What a week for trying to walk, talk, learn and think at the same time!

First, our 10-year-old son is listening to NPR in the car when he's riveted by news of an important fossil discovery linking fish and land creatures, a so-called tetrapod, lifeforms that left the water to walk on land.

He isn't interested in the news or politics, although he just
discovered Stephen Colbert and gets some of the comedy. He likes the
split screen where the contradictory wisecracks are on the right as
Stephen pontificates on the left. It reminds him of the wisecracking
moose commentary on the Brother Bear DVD.

But yesterday in the car, he suddenly wanted us to turn it up, so
he could hear all about the new fossil link. That was the first really
interesting "news" worth hearing, he proclaimed, but there wasn't enough
to the story. (He actually said this, exactly that way, pronouncing
judgment like a seasoned media critic.)
Intense investigation ensues when we can get online, after which my little boy, who has never been made to think about anything, hugs me with a goofy grin and says, "Hello, my fellow tetrapod!"

Can't resist throwing open this Culture of Fun column for comment, or bursting into song -- we sure loved it at my house.

April 3, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Playing to the Puritans By MARC ACITO, author of "How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater."

My high school castmates have become productive, respectable members of
society — raising children, paying taxes and, yes, occasionally still
singing "Summer Nights" into their hairbrushes. I'm not sure what Fulton (Mo)
fears for its children, but it sounds as if some people won't be satisfied
until we're all living like Puritans.

Just like "The Crucible."

Any other Musical Theatre is the Culture of Life believers out there?

What is gayer than the sight of two wet hobbits?