bree, did you witness "line-fluffling" or was that just an opening nite problem?
I did witness line-fluffing. The incident that stands out most clearly in my memory was when James Fox stumbled two or three times over the word "pharmaceutical" before he finally got it out, and then rolled his eyes in apparent frustration.
According to this article from Playbill.com, it sounds as if there may not be a Pulitzer Prize for drama awarded this year. I thought the part about the change in eligibility dates, which I hadn't known about before, was interesting.
Rapp, Durang, Jones Among Hopefuls for 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
By Robert Simonson
April 13, 2006
The 2006 Pulitzer Prizes will be announced by Columbia University on April 17 and, unlike in recent years, there it no obvious front-runner for the Drama award.
In recent seasons, plays like Proof, I Am My Own Wife, Wit and Doubt have seemed natural choices for the honor. Each was widely praised by critics in New York and across the U.S. No play produced during the recent period of eligibility, however, fits that bill.
The 2006 Pulitzers are unusual in another way. For years, the eligibility period ran from spring to spring, but, due to a recent ruling change, is was cut short at the end of 2005, leading to a truncated span of consideration spanning from March 2 to Dec. 31. Because of this, plays that opened in January and February, such as David Lindsay-Abaire's well-liked Rabbit Hole , will not be considered this time around. The 2007 prize will be selected from plays which open between Jan. 1, 2006 and Dec. 31.
According to sources close to the process, the plays known to be in contention this year include Red Light Winter , the intense drama by Adam Rapp about two friends who encounter a prostitute in Amsterdam; Rolin Jones' The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, in which a smart, but agoraphobic young woman creates a robotic version of herself to explore the outside world; and Miss Witherspoon , Christopher Durang's wild comedy about a woman who refuses to be reincarnated. Another script which was submitted, but does not appear to be in the running, is Wendy Wasserstein's last work, Third .
Many observers in the theatre community expect that 2006 may be one of those years in which the Pulitzer committee asserts its right not to award a prize for Drama. The last time that happened was in 1997.
Oh, that's very interesting, bree. Thank you for posting the article. Have you seen any of the plays mentioned?
The only one I've seen is Third, which, according to the article, "does not appear to be in the running".
Yes, thanks for posting the article. I haven't followed the competition much in the past. That little backstage peek is fascinating.
Bree, did you see the current revival of Pajama Game? There's a thread in Performing Arts asking if anyone's seen it.
mac, I haven't seen the current revival of Pajama Game. I'm not a big fan of Harry Connick Jr., I don't like the theater it's playing in, and I saw a production of the show in the Encores series a couple of years ago (with Brent Barrett and Karen Ziemba), so I decided I didn't need to see this one. Then it opened and got such great reviews that it became impossible to get tickets, so I can't change my mind now even though I might like to.
So...you'd go if someone handed you a ticket?
bree, why don't you like Harry Connick Jr.?
It's hard to say why, eoe -- it's a matter of taste, and his singing has just never appealed to me (maybe because, in his early days anyway, he seemed to be trying too hard to imitate Sinatra, and I thought the original did it better).
I recently saw a TV interview with Harry Connick Jr. in which he came across as very personable and unpretentious, so maybe I should reconsider my opinion.
I figured as much. Why bother with imitators when the original is just an album away? Actually, I think he's a better singer than Sinatra but, he was just a kid at the time and his sound was too pasteurized, IMO. To sing Sinatra, you've got to have LIVED with some serious boozin' and broads under your belt.
I'll always think of "The Pajama Game" as being John Raitt's show, but the funny thing is that he only sang two solos in the show - "Hey There" and "A New Town is a Blue Town" . He did, however, duet on "Small Talk" and "There Once Ws A Man".
Did I ever tell you about the time an understudy stepped in for Carol Haney in Pittsburgh performing "Hernando's Hideway" and "Steam Heat" and became a star ...... ..
No, I'm not going to tell it again.
Oh, a good story always bears repeating!
Bree
Question of the day:
While the audience hissed and booed when they heard Carol Haney sprained her ankle and would not appear in "Pajama Game" on the Nixon stage in Pittsburgh, who was the understudy who got a standing ovation for her performance (Steam Heat and Hernando's Hideaway), and is now a famous star?
(I was hissing when she said on a recent interview on TCM that she got her break (when Haney cancelled) at some theater some place in Ohio. Grrr.)
Would that be Shirley MacLaine?
Maybe the Ohio appearance was in one of her other lives.
Love your reasoning, bree.
And your answer is correct. I'll send you your prize box of popcorn as soon as it's popped.
I love that story, Raggedy. Thanks for telling it.
I'm guessing that geography isn't Shirley's forte and that she's a little vague on where that life-changing event actually happened after all these years...
Thank you, Mac.
And, didn't you once see Shirley in concert?
Yep, in 1983 in Dallas. Had a great seat, and she was wonderful.
