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Archive for the ‘New York City’ Category

NEWSIES – A Broadway Musical

Posted in Broadway, musical, musicals, New York City, theater, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2012| 3 Comments »


The show, NEWSIES,  is what Broadway is meant to be – poetry in motion.  It has all the elements working together to create an extraordinary experience.  No wonder it won a Tony for music and choreography – they bring the book to life and weave story, power and emotion into a frenzy that keeps the audience engaged and applauding enthusiastically.  I’m among the regular whoopers at the end of a powerfully performed number.  I can’t contain myself – the emotion has to go somewhere so why not channel it into my hands and out of my mouth!  The cast appreciates the appreciation and I don’t have to explode.  Win, win right?

Here’s their page on broadway.com

Newcomer Corey Cott plays the vulnerable lead in Jack Kelly.  Fresh out of Carnegie Mellon University, Corey landed this role as his Broadway debut.  Not too shabby.  And he’s great too.  He has a lovely tenor voice that needs a bit of strengthening to project more powerfully into the audience.  But I suspect that will come with practice.  In fact, all the fellows who play the news boys are terrific singers and dancers who bring to life the struggle of trying to make a buck as little guys against big business.  These guys win in the end – and oh how good that feels!

 Here’s a number from the show.

The writing team of Harvey Fierstein (book), Alan Menken (composer) and Jack Feldman (lyrics) is dynamic and magical.  I always marvel at how the strongly produced musicals seamlessly weave those vital elements together.  It’s a mystery to me and one that continually fills me with awe.

The set is so inventive and useful as it is continuously reconfigured to move the story along in place and for dance numbers.  Direction is tight and purposeful.  And the performers are top-notch!

NEWSIES is Broadway musical at its best.  What an exhilarating way to spend an evening!  How is it remotely possible that NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT won the Tony for best musical?!  Crazy!

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The Bustle of NYC

Posted in Big Apple, Broadway, Great White Way, musings, New York City, tagged , on December 1, 2011| 5 Comments »


New York makes me nervous.  The constant rushing, people walking every which way, mobs of people moving shoulder to shoulder – it makes me irritable and brusque at the same time it stimulates and invigorates.

It doesn’t help to stay in the theater district during Thanksgiving time.  Broadway around Times Square is one packed people mover, everybody with their own agendas and absorbed in their own worlds.  And if it’s raining?  Forget it – expect to be poked and prodded with umbrellas – no body part is off-limits as people rush in every direction hurrying to their destinations.  Me included, by the way.  I have no patience for strolling tourists who block entries to stores and stand gawking at the galaxy of mega neon signs in high-rise city.  They stand in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to pedestrian traffic around them.  This is every man and woman for themselves time and I find my temperament adjusting accordingly.

When we finally make it to the hotel and into the pint-sized elevator to our closet sized room the quiet becomes a deafening respite to the symphony of noises outside.  Sigh…. and collapse onto the bed.  At home in Tennessee, every window invites a view of the woods and gardens.  Here on the 6th floor of the Amsterdam Court Hotel on 50th between Broadway and 7th – I get a peek through a dirty window at an even dirtier building next door.  There is no nature to soothe the senses until you make it to one of the many small parks – and the mother of them all, Central Park.

And yet – I love it.  For a short time it’s the only place I want to be.  Enveloped in a myriad of foreign languages, I love the direct and forthrightness of life in the Big Apple.  Listening to New Yorkers yell at each other as part of casual conversational discourse is refreshing and reminiscent of home in Philadelphia.  That’s just the way North Easterners talk to each other, thank you very much.  A brusque, in your face, no holds barred style of conversing.  Say it like it is, no hidden agendas.  Ahhhhh… home.

The sophistication, the melting pot of nationalities, the open-minded acceptance of every creed and sexual identity is what America is about.  Should be about, anyway.  And I appreciate the individual expression of it all.

But I’m also glad to come home.  To take a rest from the crazy, bustling, busy busy busy world of NYC to the woods, hills and mountains of Tennessee.  The nervousness fades, the irritation subsides and the deep breathing resumes.

Carry on…

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