This weekend was very 1980s for me. Yesterday I had a story about Xanadu published and I went to see the show Xanadu. I also watched a lot of Live Earth footage of bands most popular in the 1980s. AND, to top it off, I got into a discussion about how musicals have changed since the 1980s. Have I ever said on this blog that I believe Jane Eyre might have run if it opened in the 1980s? I do not believe the same is not true of Pirate Queen. (Oh--also--for those blog readers who know me personally, please know that today I gave my roller-sneakers a test run and I am all in one piece as I write this.)

Moving on… Often I don't notice blog comments, so there were some comments below that I did not respond to in a timely manner. I tried to remedy that by responding to the two most recent comments. Let me say, I also got a lot of emails about both of those posts. Esteemed Time Out theater guy David Cote posted a comment in response to my Old Acquaintance post and his sentiments were pretty much echoed in the emails I received. I still contend, as you see in my response below, that theater companies should not need to explain their choices. I believe this even though I do not agree with many of their choices. Also, I received an anonymous three-page email defending Philip Boroff. Draw your own conclusions from that, but note that I did not mean my post about that piece to be a personal attack on Boroff. I have said here multiple times that it is hard to know what the writer intended by looking at a finished piece. (That being said, I do not believe writers can be consistently absolved of all guilt, but that is a matter for another time.)

Anyway, since Wednesday basically no one in theater was around and not much happened. Lance Bass was announced. While it doesn’t make sense to me that he would want to play Corny Collins, it does make sense that Hairspray would grab him. However I am having a hard time grasping the hiring of Ashley Spencer to play Amber. Now, if she is going to be just announcer random Amber, ok, fine. But if they are going to try to promote her as “from Grease: You’re the One that I Want” or whatever, I think they are sort of crazy. I mean, this is a show no one watched. It’s also a show that had two Ashleys that no one could keep straight. I’m just saying…

And now I’m out of interesting things to say. I could have written a big stagehands union thing, but that seems to serious for the end of the holiday time.