Putting It Together

So, as I write this, I’m not in my apartment. (For those of you who don’t know me, you can conjure up the mental image that I usually write to you in a t-shirt and pajama pants with cows on them from within my studio apartment, which has bright yellow walls, a Tassimo machine and a sad little wall kitchen.) I therefore can’t really write a lot. Alas. There will be a better post on Sunday… Maybe.

Anyway, I will say that I just finished watching Damages and it got me thinking… What happened to A Little Night Music? For that matter—what happened to Glenn Close in general? If you painted her green and stuck silver dots on her neck, she could totally play Frankenstein. This all led me to revive in my mind the oft-debated question of whether non-singers should really be picked to headline musicals. Certain show queens I know feel VERY strongly about this subject, but I actually go back and forth. Jennifer Jason Leigh was one of my favorite Sally Bowles and she may have sung worse than any of the others. So does singing matter? It seems a ridiculous question—this is a musical after all—but it is one to be asked in certain cases. Of course I mean this question to be relevant in only very limited instances—I don’t want to see Jennifer Jason Leigh in Sunday in the Park With George. And, also, the question itself has to be phrased in terms of degree: certainly you don’t want to go see a musical and have someone tone deaf sing 7 songs. You might lose your pre-theater meal. But, with average singing, people win Tonys for starring in musicals (and I’m not talking Harvey Fierstein). Is that reasonable? Hmm…

OK, I have to go watch a movie and return a phone call I just received asking me what I knew about a possible Broadway production of Stormy Weather. I love how people ridiculously can’t wait until the off-Broadway production opens and gets reviewed (or is even announced) before calling and asking things like that. That’s how we get stories with a Broadway theater for Radiant Baby.