• Drama Desk Nominations

Frankly all of the non-Tony-Awards confuse me and I never can tell apart one from the other.

That said, Congratulations to my friends at Folksbiene for their nomination of outstanding musical revival for Di Yam Gazlonim (Pirates of Penzance in Yiddish) as well as their "Special Award", whatever it was won for.

Congrats, you Yids. Your nomination beat out A Chorus Line!

Check out these two articles:

• LoveMusik planning open-ended run?
• LoveMusik to have life after MTC production?

One of the following must be true:

1. They realize that the show's going to flop once reviews come out... and are trying to sell tickets now. (Hey, if I read an article that a limited run of something is going open-ended and is planned for other theatres, I'd assume it's pretty good and consider buying a ticket)
   
2. They have no idea what sort of mess the show is.
3. They see that it's a mess, but they believe they can make the changes needed before opening night (and I really hope they can).
   

If you've seen it, which one do you think it is?

I lied. I said I was going to wait until previews were over to post the LoveMusik abridge. I figured I wanted to wait to see how the previews went and what they changed before opening night. But let's face it; I'm not willing to pay for this one again.

This should have been a good idea. The choice to confine it to the love story was a good one, and some moments work incredibly well. I really wanted to like this. It just wasn't ready yet. I don't imagine that quick fixes during previews can save it.

I can imagine some director getting the rights to LoveMusik one day and...

• Doing it in a small blackbox.
  
• Getting rid of the scenery; keeping it simple.
• Cutting out all of the chorus numbers
• If keeping the chorus at all, then having them always onstage in the background, like a Schmidt/Jones musical.
• Cutting any scenes that don't have to do with Lenya or Kurt Weill.
• Adding Pirate Jenny in the two spots that they obviously are supposed to go into.
• Making it a 90 minute intermission-less one-act.

Great performances by both Cerveris and Murphy, though.

Musical Theatre people, ask a non-theatre friend why they don't like musicals. Invariably, one of the reasons that they'll respond with is that they don't "buy" it. People breaking out into song is unrealistic and hard to swallow. It's one of the reasons these people can stomach Avenue Q and Spamalot, because watching a Puppet or Python break out into song is much easier than watching a cowboy or 20th century teenager break out into song.

That said, why are people convinced that breaking out into song IN REAL LIFE won't be a pile of moldy cheese?

• "Chicago" and "Hairspray" Producers Don't Understand That People Don't Understand Musicals

Personally to me, it's a good thing musicals don't work well onscreen. Extends the longevity of the stage musical.

The past two weeks I've seen "Legally Blonde" and "LoveMusik". Both of which have a draft of an abridge written already, and both of which I'll post after opening night.

I wait until opening night for three reasons:

1. Just as newspaper reviews don't come out till opening night, I would prefer to not post my "version" of a review till then. It's fair.
2. A lot changes during previews.LoveMusik may end up being a good example of this, and I'm waiting to hear from the message board folks how the show fixes up over the course of previews.
   
3. A lot of the reviews for a show give me ideas of last-minute jokes I add to the abridges. Forbidden Broadway's Gerard Alessandrini says that sometimes, entire parodies he writes are just reformulations of a nasty Ben Brantley review. I liked that idea, so I promptly stole it.

It's insane how there was so little to see September through February, and suddenly March and April come around and I have a good ten things I want to see.

And dammit, the reviews were tepid; why can't I see Curtains for cheap SOMEHOW?

• Taymor to Direct Spider-Man Musical, Scored by Bono & Edge

If the second link didn't have a casting notice, I'd say this is a hysterically fan-made rumor.

Forget it. I still think this is a hysterical joke. Remember Jim Steinman's Batman musical?

...that existed when I stole it from Broadway.com.

Go ahead. Google this. See what comes up first:

And if you don't believe me, just go to http://www.google.com and try it yourself.

I'm seeing the Les Mis "revival" tonight. Been meaning to abridge that show for a long time. I've made a pledge that from now on, I do at least the first draft of an Abridge the night I see it, even if I have to stay up really late to get it done. I seem to write these things better when I'm cranky and tired anyway; the Chorus Line one was written during a 5 hour delayed flight from Chicago.

A couple of interesting things today:

• Altar Boyz to offer a pass that gives you unlimited Altar Boyz Tickets!
  That's the most hysterical ticketing idea I've heard in a long time. I can't tell if it's genius or idiotic. Good for them for experimenting.
  

• Phantom's performance tonight will be #8000!
  Quick! Somebody do something about this! The show must not go on!
  

• Paper Mill possibly closing on up?
  Hope they don't...
  

Unfortunately for city-dwellers like me, getting to Papermill from the city is difficult. Getting back is even tougher. Which is a shame since so many NYCers who don't have cars would love seeing a high-quality production of classics like "Carnival", often with Broadway Actors to boot. For city-dwellers, I've always been curious why there wasn't a "Paper Mill Bus". Even at an extra charge.
Would other city-people be more likely to see a PaperMill production if the transportation issue was figured out for them?