Good night, Baltimore

Clearly, Hollywood doesn't understand the concept of there being too much of a good thing.

They hit it big with Hairspray on Broadway and on film in the 80's and again last year. Then they hit it not-so-big when they attempted to adapt Crybaby for the Broadway stage.

Does Jon Waters owe someone a huge sum of money? Because for someone who has recently attacked Hampden's annual HONFest (only one of the best Baltimore summer traditions EVER) for being "condescending," he sure seems to be selling out.

"Why, Downbeat? Why are you so incredibly incensed over Jon Waters and Hollywood?" I hear you asking yourself right now. My enlivened state is in swift response to this special little headline that popped up on HuffPo this morning: "Hairspray" Sequel Set for 2010. Are you kidding me? Lay a good thing to rest. There are two popular versions of Baltimore in the Hollywood scope: that of Homicide: Life on the Streets/The Corner/The Wire, and that of Jon Waters' 50's era pink flamingos and greasers. Neither of them is the Baltimore that I know and love.

AND... on top of all of that... if they bring John Travolta back with that absolutely heinous cockney that he calls Bawlmerese (the "charming" Baltimore accent that is mocked by many and mastered by a few for the non-Baltimoron readership), I will find the nearest window and jump out of it.

Jon Waters, you are a sell out. Pure and simple. I hope making that dollar holler is worth it, because your Hairspray legacy is about to be tainted.

Forget Hairspray. I'll take HONFestival any day on Jon Waters.


HONFest 2006 with the cast of Beehive: The 60s Musical and some young fans showing their hon pride

Live blogging the Tonys

So I'm watching the Tonys telecast live at The Hippodrome. I'm a bad
musical theatre junkie. It's my drug of choice, but I don't follow it
like some
die-hards. All that to say I didn't watch the show last year.

8:01 pm The Lion King has seriously been on Broadway forever.

8:05 pm Whoopi looks like a crab.

8:08 pm Lawrence Fishburn has gotten fat.

8:10 pm Rhondi Reed = Harvey Fierstein according to Troy.

8:11 pm You know we're in Baltimore when Jon Waters gets the first bit
of applause in this place.

8:23 pm Laura Linney's dress is hot.

8:25 pm Why is a Counting Crow at the Tonys presenting?

8:28 pm Passing Strange = black people w/ English accents.

8:41 pm In the words of Jack from Will & Grace: "Shut UP, Patti
Lupone!" And I need for people to stop thinking she's the Second Coming.

8:46 pm Whoopi singing Phantom saved me from jumping off the ledge.

8:56 pm In the Heights acceptance speech is a rap. And he's talking
about Sondheim and people think he's funny. I'm perplexed.

8:58 pm The South Pacific revival looks like the Oklahoma revival. All
of these "classic Broadway" shows should be put in a vault for
sociological purposes... not brought back and produced.

9:14 pm The Grease set is trippy looking. Was Grease is the Word even
in the musical? The performance was marginally interesting-looking.

9:24 Troy is incensed that Boyd Gaines won his 4th Tony... for Herbie.
These acceptance speeches are too long.

9:26 pm I like how the audience at the Tonys just laughed at Ariel
saying "What do you call them? Oh! Feet!" That was funny 18 years ago
when the movie originally came out. They all know the punchline.

9:30 pm Megan Mullaly isn't doing a good job at convincing me to see
Young Frankenstein.

9:37 pm Whoopi has too many rosettes on her blouse.

9:45 pm The director from August: Osage County is crying. I need her
to stop.

10:00 pm I need this boy from In the Heights to stop assaulting my
ears. Apparently it's good.......? He looks like Bud Bundy. And
there's an urban pas de deux happening in the background.

10:12 pm August: Osage county wins for best play. They've won
everything already, so that gets a big fat yawn from me.

10:14 pm Finally got played off for that never-ending speech.

10:16 pm Sondheim got a lifetime achievement award and couldn't bother
to show up. I think it's because he's already dead. He got Mandy
Patinkin to read his speech for him.

10:21 pm Completely non-plussed by Move On from Sunday in the Park.

10:28 pm South Pacific. Again. Really? I'm ready to go home.

10:30 pm Lily Tomlin came stalking out on stage making sexy eyes at
me. That's definitely the best thing that's happened on the screen in
at least an hour.

10:34 pm Xanadu looks super camp. But at least I laughed out loud.

10:43 pm RENT is so washed up. The original Bway cast is so old.

10:47 pm Why. The. Hell. Did. Someone. Let. Liza. Minelli. On. Stage.
Wearing. Nothing. But. A. Tuxedo. Jacket. .........?

10:52 pm Livid that Patti won for best actress, but at least she
thanked her voice teacher. ...then again, not sure I'd tell people I
taught Patti to sing.

10:54 pm God bless Whoopi for being the comic relief for the night...
39 Whoopis on stage dressed in Chorus Line regalia. Best thing EVER.

10:59 pm That rap musical won best musical. That's kind of anti-
climactic. And that rapping man is standing on people's shoulders.

Baltimore Pride.... no, not that kind.

I have this morning ritual where I try to put off getting out of bed as long as humanly possible by watching the Today Show and bargaining with Al Roker through the TV. "5 more minutes, Al.... I'm just waiting until Al Roker makes one more bone-headed comment and then I'll get out of bed, I promise!" (The things one does when they live alone and aren't held accountable by anyone for their complete and utter weirdness) This almost always results in a 15 to 20 minute rush to pick out something to wear that's suitable for work, brush my teeth, wash my face, find my phone and keys which have invariably hid themselves inconspicuously during the night, and get out the door. I try to turn Matt and Meredith and Ann and Al off during this time, but sometimes, something is coming up which hinders me from pressing the POWER button on the TV.

This special little scenario became happenstance on Monday when they announced that the cast of Cry-Baby on Broadway would performing live in Rockafellar Plaza. I sat on the edge of my bed, half-dressed, toothbrush-in-mouth watching these amazing dancing boys do an entire tap number with license plates strapped to their feet and got a little twinkle in my eye every time they turned around to reveal the "Baltimore County" emblem on the back of their jailhouse jumpsuits. It was a fantastic number. It made me proud of things I have no reason to be proud of: John Waters, 1950s Baltimore, etc.



I get super excitable, however, when at least two of my worlds collide. When THREE of my worlds collide like they did on Monday (The Today Show, Baltimore, musical theatre), my head explodes in happiness. I seriously cannot wait to see this nonsense. I read a few reviews. The Chicago Tribuneseems to think it's campy and trite. The NY Times thinks it's precocious. I think I'm going to hear one reference to Baltimore and lose my nut. Especially when it's not Homicide: Life on the Street or The Wire or The Corner or anything else characterizing Baltimore as a city dead to drugs and gangs. Who's taking the train up to NY to see it with me?

Good morning, Baltimore!

Ben Pillow over on b, the site just wrote this cool piece on selling Baltimore as an awesome city through the Broadway stage. The Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association (better known as BACVA) will apparently be running an ad campaign in the Broadway Playbills for both Hairspray and Cry Baby stating "You've seen the musical, now visit the set." Things like this warm my heart, and cancel out that time that Oprah told the entire world that she'd never invest in Baltimore City schools because they were beyond hope. What a bright ray on an otherwise gloomy morning.

Source: Boosters for Baltimore [b, the site]

The ACL revival

I know this isn't about Baltimore, but I was in NYC this weekend. We didn't plan in advance to go and see a show... the strike just ended a week or two ago, so it wasn't like we could've made reservations ahead of time. At any rate, as soon as we got off the bus around 11 am in front of the Winter Garden Theatre (Mamma Mia), we headed over to the TKTS booth to see what was going on. The bus driver told us that because of the strike, he had heard that they weren't offering tickets 50% off, and we'd be lucky to get 10 or 20% discounts. Much to our surprise, however, we found a list 3 screens long of tickets to matinees all 50% off. Stephen said I could pick whatever I wanted to see. I started to make my list(for which I'm sure I'll be judged): Spring Awakening, Avenue Q, A Chorus Line... and then I saw it at the very end of the last screen... XANADU! I started jumping up and down and screaming like that announcer dude on The Price is Right had just called my name and said "COME ON DOOOOOOWN!" Stephen even agreed that the tongue-in-cheek roller disco romp was a good choice since it was something like 70 minutes with no intermission, so we could get in and out and still cram lots of stuff in our short day in the city.

We stood in the long but quickly-moving line and got to the window within 45 minutes. When we got there, we were informed (by the super rude woman behind the window) that there were three tickets to Xanadu, but we couldn't sit together. We went to the second choice of A Chorus Line and got mezzanine seats for $45 + tax. Despite the fact that I'm a singer before anything else and the original Bway cast recording is horrendous because they're all dancers before anything else, I've been obsessed with ACL for awhile, so I was super stoked.

We ate at Playwright's Tavern and got out just in time to run the few blocks back to the theatre to get seated. In keeping tradition with his totally charmed life, 6'5" Stephen complained to an usher that he couldn't sit in the [way-more-cramped-than-the-Hippodrome] seats and asked if he could move to an unoccupied end seat in an adjacent row. She told him no, but then let him sit in an unoccupied box by himself so he could lounge to his heart's content (can you imagine... paying $45 for a $200+ seat?!). The show was everything I expected and more. There were three understudies on. I can't remember which ones were. Everyone was amazing, though. And the singing was so TOTALLY on point. And I got to see Deidre Goodwin ("And then he ran into my knife: he ran into my knife TEN times" from the film adaptation of Chicago) as Sheila, on whom I have a small woman-to-woman crush.

Overall, the Broadway experience this go-around was quite enjoyable. If only the Chinatown experience that night had the same outcome....

Seriously...?

Reinforcing my belief that there is very little commercially viable new theatre being produced these days, it has just been announced that foghorn... erm... I mean Patti LuPone will be reprising her role as Mama Rose in Gypsy on Broadway. May God have mercy on our souls.