The Adventure Continues


TT in the Blue Mountains and Sheldy in New York.

Culture Shock.





Sunday, March 31, 2013

It's not easy being green

(tt)  Our dear friend Alison, who is also a paint nazi, finally and rightly got me back into the work togs and we continued on the transformation of the "library". It had had a partial undercoating and this weekend we broke its back as far as the walls and ceiling.  I cannot take any credit for the slog..but I did keep up the supply of tea and food. I thank her with all my heart.

How I broke my neck

The palette. I made Alison drive half the way back to Sydney to a hardware shop for these. we could have gone to one three minutes away!!  The smaller pots are for detailing the shelves and edges in a couple of weeks

All starting to work

Thank God for painters tape

 Wow! But who's the dork?
The ceiling and walls have had their full coats. Shelves soon. Half the undercoat went down my overalls
All ready for my mum to visit next Friday!!

The full effect with ghastly twist


Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Coming Attractions

Who is this aristocratic gentleman awaiting his white tie?
And why are the streets teeming with parlour maids...?

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Music Music


Tony Sheldon & More Set for SONGS OF SAM WILLMOTT Concert, 4/8


Winner of the 2012 Fred Ebb Award, musical theatre composer/lyricist Sam Willmott will showcase his work with The Songs of Sam Willmott at the York Theatre on Monday, April 8th at 6:30 PM. Presented by the Fred Ebb Foundation in association with the York Theatre Company, the free concert event will feature Tony nominee Tony Sheldon (Priscilla: Queen of the Desert) with Etai BenShlomo (Wicked), Griffin Birney (Fun Home), Alyse Alan Louis (Mamma Mia!), Grace McLean (The Last Goodbye), Matthew Schechter (Mary Poppins), and Sam Teldaldi (Fantasy Football: The Musical). The band includes Gregg Monteith and Peter Sachon. Sam Pinkleton directs with musical direction by Matt Aument. Rachel Sussman produces.
Sam Willmott is a musical theatre composer/lyricist whose work has been performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the Walnut Street Theatre, 54 Below, Joe's Pub at The Public Theatre, The York Theatre and other venues across the country. His work includes Standardized Testing - The Musical!!!! (2009 Kennedy Center ACTF Musical Theatre Award for music and lyrics, Penn State NU Musicals Series, published through Playscripts, Inc., Emerson College's 2012-2013 fall mainstage musical), the mini-musical Scarlet Takes a Tumble (2011 Humana Festival Heideman Award Finalist), and Yo, Vikings! with lyricist Marcus Stevens (commissioned by Upper Darby Summer Stage, 2011 Richard Rodgers Award Finalist, 2012 Weston New Musical Award nominee). Sam is an alumnus of the 2013 Johnny Mercer Colony at Goodspeed, a 2009 Music Theatre Fellowship at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center, the 2011 Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, and a member of the Dramatists Guild, Local 802 AFM, and the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop.
The Fred Ebb Award recognizes excellence in musical theatre songwriting, by a songwriter or songwriting team that has not yet achieved significant commercial success. The award is meant to encourage and support aspiring songwriters to create new works for the musical theatre. The prize includes a $50,000 award. In addition to the monetary prize, the Fred Ebb Foundation will produce a one-night-only showcase of the winner's work. The Fred Ebb Foundation is funded by royalties from Mr. Ebb's vast catalogue of work. Each year, the Foundation also makes a donation to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Past winners include John Bucchino (2005), Steve Lutvak and Robert L. Freedman (2006), Peter Mills (2007), Adam Gwon (2008), Marcy Heisler & Zina Goldrich (2009), and Douglas C. Cohen (2010) and Jeff Blumenkrantz (2011). This year's selection panel was comprised of: Foundation Trustee Mitchell S. Bernard; Actress Mary Testa; lyricist, writer and composer Sheldon Harnick; music director David Loud; playwright and producer Tim Pinckney; and theatre producer Arthur Whitelaw.

The Best People

...come to ART & SCIENCE. We've had a steady stream of friends coming to the play which is now in its final days, and last night we were visited by the great Charles Busch, pictured with Sheldy & John Tartaglia.
We look like a road company of "Dr. Zhivago"

Saturday, March 23, 2013

THE STORY OF OUR LIVES

DANCERS OVER 40 presents
A Song & Dance Concert
 
MONDAY APRIL 22nd   8pm
The ALVIN AILEY THEATRE
405 W55th Street, NYC

Hosted by CAROL LAWRENCE

With Special Guests
LILIANE MONTEVECCHI
and
TONY SHELDON

Friday, March 22, 2013

Reddy at Last!

Auntie Helen is out of retirement and back on the road after ten years. You can hear her roar this weekend at B.B. King's in NYC. Richard Hillman kindly took this lovely family portrait.

It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's....

I've loved the score for the 1966 Broadway musical SUPERMAN since I was a teenager with its smashing music & lyrics by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams and some of the best orchestrations (by Eddie Sauter) of the period.
Now Encores has brought the show back in high style for six performances and I sat there with a happy grin on my face from start to finish.
Ed Watts, who spent most of Kathie Lee Gifford's musical SCANDALOUS in a state of undress, puts his muscular frame and booming voice to much better use as Superman/Clark Kent. In Act Two, when he has lost the respect of the citizens of Metropolis, Superman sits in his apartment eating peanut butter out of the jar and sings of his sadness as he distractedly bends a standard lamp in half.
I've always adored Patricia Marand's singing as Lois Lane on the original cast album so I was delighted to discover the wonderful Jenny Powers who is as good if not better performing the title song and "What I've Always Wanted" and "We Don't Matter at All".
 Ali Mauzey, on a break from playing Glinda in WICKED, takes the role created by Linda Lavin who introduced the show's hit song "You've Got Possibilities", and was the audience favourite.
 Best of all were two time Tony nominee David Pittu as the mad scientist Abner Sedgewick, looking disturbingly like Zoe Caldwell, and my darling Will Swenson as scumbag reporter Max Mencken.
Will had the unenviable task of following original top-billed star Jack Cassidy but he tore into the role like a hungry tiger and mined any and every comic possibility. The pair's duet "You've Got What I Need" was a good, old fashioned showstopper.
 I couldn't have liked it more.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Second Anniversary

Will Swenson and I received an email this morning from Nick Adams reminding us that PRISCILLA opened on Broadway exactly two years ago today.
I asked them both to please stop pestering me as I have moved on and SO left the two of them behind. I am now working for free in a theatre that holds nineteen people.

Will Swenson has also asked us to cease and desist as he is doing porn.

More Backwards

Photos by Stephen Sorokoff
with Jim Brochu
with Judy Kaye and Anita Gillette
with Doris Roberts
"Be Happy"

Post-show party with Jamie De Roy
With an oblivious Sean Ewing

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Backwards is Behind Us

Oh, what a night! I am so very honoured to have been a part of it and director/creator/choreographer Rob Bartley fashioned the most wonderful storyline for Jim Brochu and I which served as the thread for the entire evening.
My thanks to Jim B and Steve Schalchlin for the rehearsal and post-show pics
Doris Roberts ("Everybody Loves Raymond") played my mother

Judy Kaye and Anita Gillette sang "Three Sunny Rooms" from RAGS
Karen Ziemba tap danced in a lesbian bar to "I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean"
Kyle Dean Massey, Mo Brady and co. did an all-male "A Weekend in the Country" from A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC set in a gym
and Estelle Parsons sang a glorious "September Song" from KNICKERBOCKER HOLIDAY
Curtain call with Stephanie J. Block ("Edwin Drood")

Partying with Jim Brochu and Karen Ziemba
Playbill writer Harry Haun
Bruce Vilanch in a Sheldy Brochu sandwich

Sunday, March 17, 2013

A Dabble in the Dada

(tt)   A tribute to the surreal with a find from a bonfire we had in the Valley.




















Now I am home in Katoomba and I have a permanent mounting for the objet