She Wanted to Say

For years on my office cork board, I had a Playbill story with the headline "Off-Broadway's Blue Is Extending to Jan. 12, 2003; Orange You Glad?" hanging up. It wasn't because I had any attachment to Blue/Orange, lord knows I did not, it was because I thought that was the most ridiculous headline ever. But I found a new winner when procrastination led me to catch up on two weeks of Playbill headlines. And it is.... drum roll.... "The End is Nighy: Hare Cut Short as Vertical Hour is No Moore March 11." I mean, come on, that's impressive. There are so many layers there. I just can't say enough about it. Well, actually, that is basically enough.

Is anyone buying it was "scheduling conflicts" that derailed City Opera's planned Ragtime mounting? Last weekend I heard from four different people, Marty Bell was nixing the production. Then I heard from one person that it was some other guy that was causing the show to go bye bye. In none of these phone calls did I hear "scheduling conflicts" and, yet, that was the announced reason. Now, if that was true, why not announce a replacement time? As in, "Frank Galati won't be available in Spring 2008, but he'll be hanging around in Fall 2008, so we'll do it then." But, nope. And yet we're asked to fully buy the "scheduling conflicts" thing? Yeah... uh, huh...

Jack Goes Boating opens tonight. It's been somewhat under-the-radar, proving that just because someone wins a Best Actor/Actress Oscar that doesn't mean that person will necessarily cause major buzz (even in our tiny stage community where people sadly consider Laura Benanti a big star).

And has anyone else noticed how Jackie Hoffman is very in demand these days? She did that Rudnick show recently, she has her own show, she is going to be off-Broadway in J.A.P. next month and then in May she is going to be in Xanadu. That's a lot. I'm not going anywhere with this really, I'm just saying... It's my little shout out.

Oh, speaking of shout outs... A couple of weeks ago, I posted that I had written this story about there being four off-Broadway shows with "Jew" in their title and I had read 3 or so other similarly-themed stories. I was trying to make the point that clearly a lot of people found this notable. AND, in response to that post, I got an email from a Canadian reader who sent me a similar story from a small Canadian paper. I loved it. (Plus--who knew I had Canadian readers?) So this is my shout out/public thank you to Toronto resident Dave Anabelle. He managed to amuse me.

On a last note--has anyone seem James Snyder do anything? Let me know... Because if he is stepping into Johnny Depp's shoes, I need to hear something great. (Especially because I'm partial to this particular Depp role... and to musicals...) I know you won't let me down.

This post has been very random. It's sort of like being in my mind.