There's a Broadway premiere currently in motion! Yes! Live streaming on YouTube. Paul Gordon was nominated for a 2001 Tony Award for composing the music and lyrics to the musical Jane Eyre. A full staging of his latest Pride and Prejudice has another performance later tonight. This is not disappointing so far! Elizabeth Bennet's Headstrong grabs the attention immediately (reprised in a great Act 2 duet with, guess who…?) This musical is available to rent ($4.99) and buy after this evening’s free virtual premiere. Such fun to be live with all that talent. (The show itself was pre-recorded in front of a live audience.)
My client cat Kitty of course immediately interested when there was a character, Kitty. Once I explained the story, she went into one of her far-away looks, quietly meowed and:. "I met a Mr. Darcy cat. Every creature said he was horrible. When everyone was horrible to my Momma with their hissing lies, he was the only creature who barked and barked and barked and 'dogged' them off! His paws were purr-fectly lovely.”
t.b.c…at
If Jane Austen isn't quite edgy enough for you then for 48 hours is an English flipside, fantastic 'Occupy Wall Street' arena 2012 production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. What a cast! Great musicals Lloyd Webber. Trust your eyes, ears and hearts rather than critics. Every Friday there is a new free stream, a collaboration with Universal Home Entertainment for the YouTube channel The Shows Must Go On!
Though his musicals are enormously popular, Lloyd Webber's (and lyricist Tim Rice's) greatest financial and artistic successes have explored rather unpopular material. Cats doesn't exactly 'leap' off the page as a successful 'pitch'. Like the film Joker, perhaps they simply strike a chord long lurking in our communal psyche. He's also been accused several times of musical plagiarism, in fact, a contemporary classical composer whom I greatly admire was scathing.
Yet so, so often doesn't one hear in all music a chord progression, a riff, a few notes that stops you, that sounds familiar? Not immersing myself in that argument today.
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Amazon Prime is streaming the stage version of Phoebe Waller-Bridge's highly original bitter sweet comedy/drama Fleabag for two weeks beginning Friday, April 10. The 48-hour rental will cost $5 and proceeds will be given to charities helping to fight the coronavirus.
btw Ms. Phoebe, methinks Felicity that desperate adventurous cat was transported by the Gulf Stream to upstate NY! She looks exactly like my steely eyed stray Persian. Art imitates life imitates art… (Not giving all my life away for free, but, I actually had such a weird dream with Bill Paterson in it last night (it's been like 2weeks since I watched all Fleabag). Not sure it was a major or minor role, but he was heavily made up as a Bill Paterson knight statue. I bumped into him trying to get out of all of this only to Huis Clos! Someone was filming an enormous movie at Somerset House. Why or how I was there..? Perhaps 'cause I'd just watched Jesus Christ Superstar but the security was, well, I guess no different to any other major movie. Then my body clock, whatever, woke me up with the sun at 6.30am, thankfully, as I had an all day delivery due. Screwed up my alarm clock as always. Be, J! Was watching Lloyd Webber till midnight!
Kitty: This is the kitten, this is the day, when…
Andrew: Kit, would you stop potentially getting me into trouble! You'd probably get away with that one, though;)
Oh, where are the simple joys of amoeba-hood?
bbtw I did thoroughly enjoy Paul Gordon's Pride and Prejudice musical last night. Always trepidacious about things I do hope will work. You know in another year he might have actually won a Tony in 2001 but up against The Producers, and 42nd Street as a revival! Then again, he might have had the misfortune to open in the Spring of 2002 after 9/11. Would the public have preferred the love of Jane Eyre to Thoroughly Modern Millie that season? Nobody knows. It's all a crap shoot. Everyone must always believe in what they do and hope their voice is heard in the crowd or the wilderness.
This music & lyrics by Peter Mills song is a favorite of mine and one poignant for our times. Fo the first time in any one's memory we are all in the same boat. (except maybe the Owl and the Pussy-cat..)
Sung by the quietly great Kate Baldwin (wish I'd been able to see her and Bette Midler in Hello Dolly!)
But hey, I'm afloat!
…they danced by the light of the moon.
P.S. I'm not a huge fan of Gounod's opera Roméo et Juliette but what heavenly arias and duets (director Bart Sher- what he can't do with an enormous bed sheet probably isn't worth knowing;) Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo. Some may say cats on an haut tin roof. For others, the dawn of time. You two are welcome at cat school any day:)
EXT: sun-rise on the sea's horizon.
The Owl and the Pussy-cat in a boat. After watching Roméo et Juliette at the ocean sail-in.
Owl/Cat: Aren't we lucky not to be human!
Handel’s Messiah premiered in Mozart Week in Salzburg in a production staged by American director and visual artist Robert Wilson. Not available in America.
