Weekend

Started the weekend with an after show supper on Sunday night at the home of two Goodspeed benefactors. A delightful catered supper and a surprise as we dined. The radio suddenly started blaring Klea Blackhurst singing "Sam and Delilah" !

Our hosts had a full wall-sized quilt made from t-shirts from past Goodspeed productions. Gorgeous!

 

 

They collect teapots

 

And coffee mugs! 

 

 

Next morning, Jeremy Morse and I headed off for Cape Cod to see a new production of DOLLY and to soak up the sun on the beach.

 

 The first beach we found was sparsely populated 

No surf, the water was warm and still

 

Jeremy claimed our spot

 

 

And the baking began!
We had booked two rooms in a bed and breakfast near the theatre and we arrived a couple of hours early to find the place open but no-one in sight. We walked around calling out "Hello...?"

But not a creature was stirring

 

Everything was quiet, like the Marie Celeste

So we took the liberty of finding our rooms and dropping off our bags. We went out for dinner and returned two hours later to find the whole place STILL empty!

This time I checked every room in the house, convinced I would find butchered bodies in at least one of them. But no, dear reader. So we boldly took ownership of our rooms, showered and ironed and dressed and took ourselves to the theatre. A few minutes later my phone rang and it was the B&B owner, completely unperturbed. He hadn't been expecting us til later so he'd gone off to do some errands. I finally met him after we'd seen the show at 11pm and he wasn't remotely worried that we'd made ourselves at home. "Isn't that what a bed and breakfast is for?", he said.
After a lovely breakfast we decided to find another beach with surf. On the way we spotted this gorgeous windmill.

 

 

 

A one room house. This'll do! When we found "the best beach in Cape Cod" we were required to leave the car in a parking lot some distance away and queue for a shuttle bus.

 

 It was like the Universal Studios tour

This beach was seriously packed 

and full of character 

But there were gentle waves 

Enough for Sheldy to surf! 

Three hours and some burnt bits later we headed back to Main Street, otherwise known as route 6A 

This is one of the oldest and most beautiful roads on the east coast, passing through several towns and lined with the most beautiful old homes and gardens. 

truly gorgeous and meditative and we didn't want it to end. But we were starving and craving Cape Cod seafood so we stopped at a cafe for lobster rolls, soft white toasted bread rolls piled high with lobster (day off, diet out window). At $21 each they were value for money. 

I fell in love with the decor. The lights below were held by steel silhouettes of men

 

 

A young female chef wandered out of the kitchen and whined "Do you like the decorations?"

"Yes!", I enthused, snapping away feverishly like Richard Avedon 

She looked at me doubtfully. "I suppose it's like...foreign...advertising", she ventured. 

"More 60s retro Italian", I suggested. She shrugged and slouched back to the kitchen. 

We left, sated and broke, and passed a gardening shop featuring meditating frogs 

And we reluctantly headed home. A final treat... 

A minature Sydney Harbour Bridge! Farewell  Cape Cod! 

 

 

 

 

Cape Playhouse

Jeremy Morse who plays Barnaby kindly volunteered to drive the three hours to Cape Cod on our day off so that we could attend the first performance of HELLO, DOLLY! starring our gorgeous friend, Tony-winner Beth Leavel at the legendary Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. This was the summer stock theatre run at one stage by Richard Aldrich, Gertrude Lawrence's husband and where she made many appearances.

 

“Bette Davis began her career here as an usher, and Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda and Gregory Peck all honed their skills here before taking Hollywood by storm. Already a superstar in the 1950s, Tallulah Bankhead arrived, pet leopards in tow, for her Dennis engagements. Actress Shirley Booth, star of the 1960s sitcom “Hazel,” performed here often late in her career, during the 1970s; she bequeathed to the playhouse her 1953 Oscar (for best actress in the role of Lola Delaney in Come Back, Little Sheba).”

 

 

 

And look who else has done a play here! 

 

Jeremy's friend Erik Mann also played Barnaby in DOLLY. You can see why they've often been cast as a team in previous shows. I think a BOYS FROM SYRACUSE revival is in order!

Beth was fantastic, of course. A cross between Ann Miller and Shirley Bassey!

 

This gazebo in the grounds was aglow as we left the theatre.


 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

Some changes in DOLLY this week: Ashley Brown has a Disney gig in California so superswing Melissa Chaty is playing Irene Molloy until Sunday.

Melissa (R) with Brooke Shapiro (Ermengarde)

Mel is an ex-Miss America contestant so she's mighty purty in the frocks

 

and we also had a raffle winner who made a guest appearance as an extra in the parade sequence. Her name is Faith and I think she was more than happy with her prize.

New York Times Review

Theater Review | Connecticut

‘Hello, Dolly!’ in Another Light

A Review of ‘Hello, Dolly!’ at Goodspeed Opera House

Diane Sobolewski

Klea Blackhurst is Dolly Levi in “Hello, Dolly!” directed by Daniel Goldstein at the Goodspeed Opera House.

By SYLVIANE GOLD

Published: August 2, 2013

Thanks to the likes of Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey and Barbra Streisand, we tend to think of Dolly Levi as a flamboyant, stage-devouring diva. But before this exuberant busybody took to song and exclamatory punctuation in “Hello, Dolly!” she was simply “The Matchmaker” in the Thornton Wilder play — not low-key, exactly, but suited to more homespun character actresses like Ruth Gordon and Shirley Booth.                             

This softer, warmer heroine reappears in the “Hello, Dolly!” directed by Daniel Goldstein for Goodspeed Musicals, with the affable Klea Blackhurst in the title role. Best known for her Ethel Merman tribute show “Everything the Traffic Will Allow,” Ms. Blackhurst creates a down-to-earth Dolly who reminds us that Jerry Herman’s marvelous songs were originally meant to be sung not by the coyly glamorous Ms. Channing but by the forthrightly workaday Ms. Merman. It was only after the latter declined the part that the musical was imprinted with Ms. Channing’s bold signature. Ms. Merman finally got her turn, after Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, Phyllis Diller and others took theirs — the original Broadway production ran through numerous Dollys over a span of nearly seven years. When it closed, in 1970, it was with Ms. Merman’s more naturalistic interpretation of a by-then fabled role.

Mr. Goldstein, who directed the recent Broadway revival of “Godspell,” has gone back to “The Matchmaker” not just for his conception of the leading lady but also for his production’s comedic pulse. He’s given Goodspeed’s “Dolly” a more farcical, less romantic edge, sometimes to the detriment of the overall piece. After all, seen in the harshest light — which is what you get when you turn from comedy to farce — these characters are a pretty unsympathetic bunch: a lying, scheming widow; a cruel, miserly widower; his utterly feckless clerks; his annoyingly lachrymose niece and her useless fiancé; and an attractive, much younger shop owner determined to marry the old skinflint for his money.

Ever since Gower Champion’s original, Tony-winning extravaganza, however, these ordinarily off-putting elements have been cleverly hidden behind barrels and barrels of charm and high spirits. To begin with, there’s the 1890s setting, a period known in the last century as the Gay Nineties and still evocative of happy opulence. It’s built right into the architecture of the giddily Victorian Goodspeed Opera House, and then skillfully reiterated on the stage by the production’s design team. Adrian W. Jones establishes the nostalgic mood with a sepia-toned show curtain depicting a parade along a flag-bedecked New York City street. Three arches mimicking cast iron span the stage and serve equally well for the musical’s stores, train station and deluxe restaurant. And Wade Laboissonniere dresses the cast in scrupulously detailed costumes bustling with color and elaborate trim. (Jason Lyons’s lights catch every glistening feather and spangled fringe.)

Then there’s the airtight construction of Michael Stewart’s book, alternating between intimate conversations and bring-down-the-house production numbers. In this “Dolly!” Kelli Barclay provides a stylish homage to Mr. Champion’s original choreography for strutting travelers in their Sunday clothes and galloping waiters in their white aprons. As Ms. Barclay proved two years ago with her tap sequences for “My One and Only,” the small Goodspeed stage can seem to expand to accommodate a canny choreographer deploying a talented ensemble.

In this case, the performers must do more than move and sing well. They have to generate enough good will to prevent the show’s cartoonish elements from sabotaging the sympathy audiences need to feel for Dolly and her entourage. When the thoroughly outwitted and outfoxed Horace Vandergelder closes “Hello, Dolly!” by exclaiming, “Wonderful woman!” we have to agree with him. And thanks to Ms. Blackhurst, and despite the knockabout tone of the proceedings, we do — it takes someone with her innate aplomb to chow down on corn on the cob in elbow-length white gloves without looking ridiculous.

As for Vandergelder, Tony Sheldon plays him as a likable rogue rather than a monster — when he kisses his cash register, he’s being funny, not repulsive. Broadway theatergoers will recall that Mr. Sheldon won a Tony nomination in 2011 for his stellar performance as the transsexual Bernadette in “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” and it’s a treat to watch his Vandergelder with the knowledge that he could do an utterly convincing Dolly as well.

Ashley Brown, another refugee from Broadway, brings the silvery soprano and inextinguishable sweetness that brightened her Mary Poppins to the role of Irene Malloy, the husband-shopping milliner. And unlike some of the other cast members on the night I attended, she could be heard clearly above the orchestra. But this problem is easily remedied, and besides — you already know the words.

“Hello, Dolly!” by Michael Stewart, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, based on the play “The Matchmaker” by Thornton Wilder, is at the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main Street, East Haddam, through Sept. 14; (860) 873-8668  (860) 873-8668 FREE or goodspeed.org.

A version of this review appeared in print on August 4, 2013, on page CT8 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Hello, Dolly!’ in Another Light.

Scoundrels Press Launch in Sydney

Couldn't be there in person so I sent a video from Connecticut. Matt Hetherington pretended he was talking to me.

Amy Lepahmer, Matt Hetherington, Anne Wood and Katrina Retallick

 

Playbill.Com

Tony Award Nominee Tony Sheldon Will Star in Australian Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

By Adam Hetrick
26 Jul 2013

Tony Sheldon
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

Tony Award nominee Tony Sheldon will star in a new Australian production of the David Yazbek-Jeffrey Lane musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which will premiere Oct. 24 at Sydney's Theatre Royal.

Sheldon, who made his Broadway debut in the Australian import Priscilla Queen of the Desert, will star as suave conman Lawrence Jameson opposite Matt Hetherington as Freddy Benson.
Roger Hodgman will direct the production that has a book by Lane and music and lyrics by Yazbek. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will be choreographed by Dana Jolly with musical direction by Guy Simpson. Stephen Doorey and George Youakim of James Anthony Productions produce the run.
Principal casting also includes Amy Lehpamer as Christine Colgate, with John Wood as Andre Thibault, Anne Wood as Muriel Eubanks and Katrina Retallick as Jolene Oakes.

Based on the 1988 film "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," the musical focuses on two con men living in the French Riviera, who become involved in a series of schemes to swindle wealthy women out of their riches.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was nominated for 11 Tony Awards in 2005, including Best Musical. The Broadway production starred John Lithgow, Norbert Leo Butz, Sherie Rene Scott, Greg Jbara, Sara Gettelfinger and Joanna Gleason. Jack O'Brien directed the Broadway production with choreography by Jerry Mitchell.
Visit dirtyrottenscoundrels.com.au.

Boston (Part 3)

It's a very beautiful city, filled with parks and history and graceful old buildings

These swan boats are peddled by the chappie in the back

 

The real swans paddle themselves

A statue of Paul Revere who apparently never said "The British are coming!" because they were already there. He said "The regulars are coming" or "THE BIRDS is coming", something entirely different.

The weather turned on our second day, just as we were meeting our friend Rich Carson for lunch near his office downtown. We cared not a fig and ventured to the waterfront.

There are expensive apartments just like in Walsh Bay in Sydney

We took a brief (45 mins) harbour Cruise, the water lapping around our feet on the decks.

 

A famous tall thing. I wasn't listening.

The famous ship known as Old Ironsides

You can see where the idea for the Glebe Island Bridge came from

This was John Hancock's house, who first signed the Declaration of Independence.

We disembarked and strolled through the Rose Kennedy flower garden, then caught another sightseeing trolley which took us to the posh shopping area near our railway station.

And from there, Lady Boston bid us farewell. Well, actually she was just a shop mannequin but I was waxing lyrical. And I was soaking wet.

A lovely two days in a beautiful city.