Friday Dance Party: Wooden Anniversary

After 5 years, there are now
(gulp) 254 Dance Parties
archived in these pages.

You mean I've been writing this segment five years, and all I get to call it is "wood"??? Five years should at least have some sort of stone attached to it, even if it's only granite.  Sheesh.  Yes, it's true, the Friday Dance Party turns five years old this week.  Oh, what poor Larry Dalke wrought, when he began playing with the idea on his own personal blog five years ago.  He dropped the idea, and his blog, soon afterward, and went on with his life, bless him.  But not me. 

Larry and our favorite leading lady.

I stole my friend's idea and turned it into this catch-all monstrosity of current events, obituaries, birthday celebrations, deathday celebrations, and other assorted rants and raves.  This week each year, I have to go back and point the finger at good ol' Larry, and blame him.

This 5th year's entrees are a bit different than the previous four, at least in number.  Though this segment is always clearly marked the Friday Dance Party, it has often appeared on other days.  Even worse, it has occasionally not appeared at all. 


It was not all fun and games at the Dance Party. When a verdict was handed down in the Steubenville rape case, I wrote about the culture of rape in our popular entertainment, such as in Carousel (above), and included Sophia Loren's burnished blowout from Man of La Mancha.

This fifth year, time seems to have slipped away from me a bit, and there were more than a few weeks which saw no Dance Party, on Friday or any other day of the week.  So, if you happen to count this year's Parties, don't be concerned, we did not lose 10 weeks this year.  There were in fact only 42 Dance Parties since this time last year.  So sue me.

"Easy Street" has appeared in 3
different versions on the Dance Party.
This year's rendition was plucked
from the feature film Annie.

Our most frequent star this year was Carol Burnett, who is having a bit of a resurgence lately.  She turned 80, an achievement itself, and also won the Mark Twain Award for Humor;  she appeared 3 times on the Dance Party.  Here she longs for Easy Street, which is usually a showstopping number from Annie, and here she is with her gal pal and mentor, Lucy.  And when Jim Nabors quietly married his longtime companion, confirming what everybody already knew, Jim's flame dame Carol popped up on his sitcom, Gomer Pyle.

Tying Carol Burnett's score on the Dance Party, we had yet another Triple Dipper this year. Neil Patrick Harris, who is always welcome in these pages, hosted the Tonys (with the most talked about award show opening of the year, the audience gave it a standing O) and also helped celebrate the birthday of Mad Men's Christina Hendricks (by bedding her in Company).  NPH also starred in one of the more uncomfortable of the clips this year;  the week the Sandy Hill massacre stunned us all, we were in no mood for musical clips, but the following week, this song from Sondheim's controversial Assassins was another reminder of the presence of violence in American lives.

Lucy's second Dance Party this year was from
the disastrous Mame, though her bosom buddy
 wasn't half bad.

Tim Curry was another repeat offender this year;  he co-starred with Burnett in the aforementioned clip from Annie (Bernadette Peters is in that one too), and on his birthday, his iconic performance as Frank N. Furter was examined. 

If I'm accused of supporting a Gay Agenda, I'm probably guilty, at least in these pages.  The 15th Anniversary of Matthew Shepherd's murder had to be commemorated (and who better to do so than that shirtless goofball Davey Wavey, above?).  On a brighter note, when the Supreme Court handed down some decisions which helped further marriage equality, a DC Gay Men's Choir celebrated with a number from Ragtime.  Oh, and when Victor Garber came out, everybody shrugged, which is definitely progress!

But back to birthdays. 

You can be dead and still have a birthday, so Fred Astaire
got a Dance Party and a drum solo.

Yes, I mentioned my own birthday this year, which was celebrated by Jennifer Holliday's memorable Tony appearance, but my favorite birthday this year would have to be Chita Rivera's;  she provided this explosive medley of a few of her dance hits.


The annual controversy over the Washington Redskins (specifically, the name, which many consider racist) inspired my recollection of appearing as a Native American in Li'l Abner.  Other current event-type entrees included a kerfuffle at the Helen Hayes Awards, which led to this clip from The Color Purple.  The announcement that Gigi is being revamped for a new generation inspired last week's clip from the original souffle.



Mary Shelley's birthday was celebrated this year, with a peek at her most monstrous creation, revived musically by Mel Brooks.  Mary's creation also popped up on Halloween, natch, in this tribute to the Bride of Frankenstein, Elsa Lanchester.  I didn't spend too much time celebrating holidays this year, though we spent Christmas with James Taylor and Thanksgiving with Diana Krall.

Young Frankenstein, the musical.

Linda Ronstadt retired from singing and Elaine Stritch retired from acting, so attention had to be paid to both.  And when I finally slogged my way through the film version of Les Miz (it took me multiple tries), I was in the mood for something livelier, which Hugh Jackman graciously provided.

None of the actors from TV's Smash died (as far as I know), but the show itself suffered a slow and painful demise in its second season.  As a true theatre dog, I had to report my findings, and include dueling clips from the two stars of the show. 

But as usual, it was dead people who provided the most inspiration this year.  We had Broadway babes Jane Connell and Bonnie Franklin both pass away this year, as well as recording star Edie Gorme (whose Dance Party tribute actually included 3 short clips, so maybe that counts toward the weekly score card?).  Another songstress, Patti Page, was still alive when she recorded this version of her biggest hit, but you'd never know it, as it looks like she's sleepwalking. 

A couple of politicos died and provided Dance Parties.  Sen.
Daniel Inouye inspired Bette Midler to jump out of a
clamshell, and Maggie Thatcher's influence over the
plot of Billy Elliot caused this mad dance moment.

Eileen Brennan never slept through anything, and provided proof in this moment with Madeline Kahn and Cybill Shepherd.  Glee star Cory Monteith got a mention, as did Esther Williams (who turned down a role for which Shelley Winters then picked up an Oscar nod). TV legend Larry Hagman's tribute clip turned him into a supporting player; his mom, Mary Martin, hogged the spotlight. 


Speaking of Oscar nominations,
Charles Durning got one too,
for this moment from
 Best Little Whorehouse in
Texas.
 

The most hilariously telling Dance Party this year must be this one, posted when Pope Ratzinger abruptly retired.  He had hosted a team of muscular acrobats, who began their routine by slowly stripping off their shirts.  Now I understand why acrobats may wish to be shirtless while they fling each other in the air, but why they didn't simply ARRIVE shirtless, I don't know.  The striptease went viral, of course.  There was one other "What the Hell...??" moment this year, when I stumbled upon this music video from Sweden, with the cheesiest choreography you've ever seen.  At least the pope wasn't there.

My personal life provided a few hits this year.  


My own blindness (I wasn't wearing
my contacs) caused me to dash right
by Kelli O'Hara while I was playing
Gloucester in King Lear.

A lingering cold reminded me that Faith Prince also caught post-nasal drip, and a truly disastrous audition (really, the worst all year or perhaps of my life) had to be addressed, so I posted my audition song the way it was supposed to be performed (from Pirates of Penzance).

So there you have it, 42 Dance Parties comprising the fifth year of this silly little blog segment. If you are a crazy person with unlimited time to kill, you can access all 42 Dance Parties, in reverse chronological order, here. Actually, the count will be 43, as we must include a new clip for this week.  Keeping with tradition, the anniversary Dance Party really is dance, and really is performed by an amateur.  This is the kind of clip my buddy Larry had in mind when he invented the weekly Dance Party, so at least once a year, it must return to its roots.

Friday Dance Party: The Night They Invented Cradle Robbing

Look who raised her ugly mug last week!

Of course, that's the lovely and talented Leslie Caron as prostitute-in-training Gigi.  The 1958 film contains a respected score by Lerner and Leowe, who wrote it as one of only two they composed strictly for the movies (the other was The Little Prince in 1974).  But though our guys thought they were done with Gigi once the film was completed, they weren't, or at least, their score wasn't. 

Soap opera ingenue Karin Wolfe was chosen to
bring Gigi to Broadway in 1973. She should have
stayed on Days Of Our Lives.

Attempts to adapt the movie into a stage version didn't go so well the first time.  Back in 1973, a stage adaptation toured for a while before landing on Broadway for a rather inconsequential run (Agnes Moorehead, bless her, gave her final stage performance in it, before succumbing to cancer). 

Maria Karnalova and Alfred Drake, both Tony winners, could not save the stage version of Gigi.

But news was released last week that Gigi, like Cher, Madonna, and Vampira, is rising from the dead. 

Endora Plays Broadway: as Aunt Alicia, Agnes
Moorehead was the most recognizable name in
Broadway's Gigi. The exhaustive 6 month tour
which preceded the show's NY arrival did her
health no favors. She died during the run and was
replaced by Arlene Francis.

A reinvented version will open at the Kennedy Center in 2015 (they like to plan ahead), to be directed by DC's own Eric Schaeffer.  There will be a new book, apparently, but surely all your favorite tunes from the movie will be present.

Gigi the film won 9 Oscars, setting a record which lasted only a year, until Ben Hur rode up on his chariot and won 11. It's fascinating to note, though, that not a single one of those Oscars was for a performance.  In fact, no one in the cast even received a nomination! Here are Lesley Caron and Louis Jordan, of course, and that's Hermione Gingold on the right;  no, she's not wearing antlers, that's a chandelier.

Gigi the film is not one of my favorites, which is surprising, since it stars one of my Favorite Ladies of a Certain Age, Hermione Gingold, and has some fun performances by Maurice Chevalier and a young Eva Gabor.  I'm afraid, though, that the film adaptations of Lerner and Leowe musicals leave me cold. 

When you ask Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood
to sing, you deserve what you get. Paint Your
Wagon is considered one of the worst movie
musicals ever.

My Fair Lady is considered a classic musical film, but I find it a bit of a sludge to get through (that sucker is looooong), and the less said about Paint Your Wagon, the better.  When Brigadoon was adapted for the movies, it was reinvented as a dance show, to accommodate stars Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse.

Efforts to make Caron seem even more innocent, such as her childish sailor suit above, only increase the feeling that a grown, mature man has no business romancing a teenager. In this light, even Maurice Chevalier's big solo, "Thank Heaven For Little Girls," gives me the creeps.

But back to our gal pal Gigi.  Director Vincente Minnelli certainly delivered his usual high quality product, but I find the story just a little icky. 

Gigi was one of a number of "Francophilia" films of the 1950s.
And its old man / young girl romance was not new; I wrote
about that yucky theme in this Dance Party, again starring
Lesley Caron, this time paired with Fred Astaire.

It is, after all, about the training and coming of age of a hooker, however elegantly you style it.  And the romance which blossoms between the romantic leads adds to the ick factor;  there is a substantial age difference between the characters played by Louis Jordan and Lesley Caron, and my modern sensibility looks upon the relationship as a bit predatory. 

Aunt Alicia checks Gigi for pimples,
common in a teenager, but unacceptable
in a courtesan.

Still, everyone loves the music, and the original film broke the record for Oscar wins (9).

Gingold won the Golden Globe; she was the only
actor to win anything for the film.

When the new and improved stage version shows up year after next, you can bet the casting will be along very different lines. 

The stage Gigi was revived in 2008, in Regent's Open Air Theatre in the UK. That's Millicent Martin and Linda Thorson (remember Thorson? She was the poor woman who had to replace Diana Rigg in The Avengers).

A look back at the original Gigi reveals that none of the actors can claim to be fine singers. 


Gingold and Chevalier were well-known for their cabaret and
revue work, but they had "character voices" which one rarely
finds in professional musicals today. These two were to re-team
in the 1964 rom-com I'd Rather Be Rich.

The clip below illustrates that, while Gingold and Chevalier have very musical qualities, they cannot hold onto a note very long or very strongly.  Louis Jordan did only one other musical (Can-Can), and Caron was dubbed.  

Eric Schaeffer has developed a reputation as an interpreter of Sondheim's works; his Signature Theatre in suburban DC was practically built on its Sondheim productions, and it won the Regional Theatre Tony in 2009.  Eric has delivered several projects to Broadway, and now has an international reputation, but DC still claims him as their own. I know Eric only slightly, but have seen a buttload of his directorial work.  He put the great Christine Baranski in Mame, and effectively shrank Hello, Dolly! for a smaller cast.  His Million Dollar Quartet has companies running all over the place, and his commitment to the development of new musicals has a significant influence over the seasons produced at Signature.  Can he successfully adapt the sophisticated bon-bon Gigi for the stage?  Stay tuned.

Directors don't put up with hiring Actors for musicals these days, they want singers with chops, so the new Gigi cast will presumably be filled with Broadway-type belters. While we wait, enjoy this week's Dance Party, one of the memorable moments from 1958's Gigi. The song is well-known;  two old lovers are unexpectedly reunited. 

Friday Dance Party: Always A Bride

My grandmother bore a resemblance to the star of this week's Dance Party;  that may be why I have always been fascinated by her.

I know, it's a little too late for a Halloween-inspired entry, but who cares?  Are we all really ready to move on to Christmas? Our star had a birthday this week, or would have, if she weren't long gone.  Do dead people still have birthdays?  That's discussion for another time, but in addition to celebrating the day of her birth, Halloween itself brings this gal to mind. 

The Bride of Frankenstein is always resurrected during the Halloween season, and Elsa Lanchester reappears in the title role.  The film itself is a classic, and many critics believe it to be one of those unusual sequels which is superior to the original which inspired it.  Much of the plot of the film is included in Mary Shelley's original novel Frankenstein, and in fact, Lanchester plays a duel role, that of the man-made wife and of Mary Shelley herself, who appears in a prologue reminding viewers where the first film left off.  Haven't had enough of Frankenstein yet?  I wrote more on the subject in a previous Dance Party, go here for that report.

Elsa's glamour period was relatively short. Her
many middle-aged character roles are the ones
which first caught my attention as a kid.

I confess to never having seen Bride of Frankenstein, as I am not a fan of the horror film.  But I am indeed a fan of Elsa Lanchester's.  She had an extremely long career in film and on stage, but was consistently remembered primarily as the wife of Charles Laughton. 

Elsa had a brief comic turn as Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, in the film which earned her husband an Oscar.  Their childless marriage appeared to be a happy one, despite Laughton's homosexuality, which Lanchester confirmed in her autobiography.

Laughton predeceased his wife by many decades, and it was in her later career that she caught my youthful attention.  I have always had an artistic attraction to middle-aged character actresses such as Lanchester, Hermione Gingold, the Baddeley Sisters (Angela of Upstairs / Downstairs fame, and Hermione of Maude) and other quirky gals. 

My tastes were odd even as a child.  My favorite scene from Mary Poppins was not the animated one, nor the one on the roof, nor the one in mid-air.  This throwaway moment, though, made me very happy.  Elsa Lanchester's irritable Katie Nana gets sucked into Glynis Johns's "Sister Suffragette."  With both Hermione Baddely and Reta Shaw along for the ride, I was hooked.

Elsa was born of socialist parents who never married, quite the scandal in the early part of the 20th century, and our heroine was treated to an eccentric childhood, to say the least. 

Elsa displayed both comedic and villainous chops in The
Inspector General, opposite Danny Kaye.

She studied dance with Isadore Duncan, whom she detested, and was only in her early teens when she began appearing on cabaret stages in her native England.  Lanchester's stage career, in fact, was to be spent largely in cabaret settings, including a 15 year stint with the Turnabout Theatre in Los Angeles. 

I wish it was always Bell, Book, and Candle which reappears on Halloween, rather than that Bride. It's all about witches, after all. But I don't give a hoot about Kim Novak, Jimmy Stewart, or even Jack Lemmon in the film.  I watch it for my two ladies, Elsa Lanchester and Hermione Gingold.  The film was to inspire the sitcom Bewitched, and Elsa's character, Aunt Queenie, inspired Samantha's dotty Aunt Clara in the series.

Elsa worked 6 nights a week for no pay at the
Turnabout Theatre in Los Angeles.

The concept at the Turnabout was an odd one:  act one of the evening was a puppet show geared toward adults, then, during the intermission, the audience was instructed to swivel their chairs around 180 degrees.  Act two was performed at the opposite end of the theatre, and here our Elsa took the spotlight.  She was an expert interpreter of bawdy songs of previous eras, though her act was also full of songs written especially for her talent with the double entendre. 


Both Lanchester and Laughton were nominated for Oscars for their work in Witness for the Prosecution (they both lost, though Lanchester won the Golden Globe).  Elsa's role was written specifically for the film, and does not appear in the original stage play by Agatha Christie.



Everyone in Hollywood came to see Charles Laughton's wife in this revue during the late 50s and early 60s.  Elsa's film career, meanwhile, was prolific if not as substantive as her husband's. 

It was Elsa's presence which enticed me
to see this low-budget horror film about
a boy and his rats. Willard was the sleeper
smash of 1971, inspiring a sequel, Ben,
which in turn inspired Michael Jackson's
first #1 solo hit.

She usually played supporting characters (in fact, she received star billing only once, in Passport to Destiny, in which she played a Cockney maid intent on assassinating Hitler), but she received two Oscar nominations for her work in supporting categories. 


Lanchester played one of the first female mad scientists when she guested in the first season of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  Despite her significant resume of motion pictures, I remember her primarily from her television work.

Particularly after her husband's death, Lanchester turned to television (and the occasional Disney film) for most of her work. 

I did not watch the sitcom Nanny and the Professor, but I love this story.  Hermione Gingold was hired to guest star as the Nanny's eccentric aunt; she was to make her first entrance riding an elephant.  The first day of shooting the episode, Gingold (another of my Favorite Ladies Of A Certain Age) fell off the elephant and broke her leg.  An emergency call went out, and our Elsa was hired to replace her.  It turned into a recurring gig for her.

But as much TV and film work which Lanchester accomplished in a 50-year career, she was most proud of her work at the tiny Turnabout Theatre on La Cienega Blvd in Los Angeles. 

Ann Davis (pre-Brady Bunch) and Elsa
were regulars on this short-lived sitcom
starring a pre-Dynasty John Forsythe.

This week's Dance Party comes from those cabaret days.  The clip is actually preserved in a documentary film about the puppeteers who shared the stage with Elsa;  thankfully, puppets do not appear in this particular segment (you know how I feel about those).  Though most of Lanchester's repertoire consisted of bawdy songs (with titles such as "I'm Glad To See Your Back Again," a sly wink at sodomy), this one has a serious bent.  Elsa Lanchester would have turned a piddling 111 years old last Monday, and of course, Halloween, which will always conjure up images of her, has just passed.  See you next year, Elsa!

My New York Branch, Year Two: "I Got A Rock."

This is actually not my building, I am in its twin
next door.

Just about everybody I know, who has moved to New York City from elsewhere, knows the exact date of their arrival, and takes at least passing notice of that date every year.  There must be something about this city which causes people to remember such a thing;  I am not aware that other folks who move to other cities commemorate the exact date of their arrival. 

The lobby displays in my building continue to impress.  These are real pumpkins, all carved differently by who knows whom.  From the frequency with which the lobby display changes, according to season and/or holiday, there must be someone employed full-time to handle it all.

I certainly do not know the exact date I moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles back in the early 70s, nor do I know the exact date I moved from LA to Salt Lake City in the early 80s.  I do not know the date I moved back to LA from SLC, nor do I know the date I moved from LA back to Atlanta in the late 80s.  Nine months after that, I moved back to LA, but I do not know the exact date I did so. (Are you detecting a pattern? It sometimes seems, looking back, that I never really knew where I wanted to live...) 

I am now unsure if always following the sign is a good thing.

I don't know the exact date I moved cross country to South Carolina, and I don't know the date I moved from Columbia to DC.  But I DO most definitely know the date I moved (at least part-time) to New York.  It was exactly two years ago.  By sheer coincidence, the day was Halloween.

I was surely lucky to snag a place at Manhattan Plaza two years ago.  I wonder if that luck has run out?  I don't get many presents from my NY life these days...

Last year, I wrote a bit about how my first year as a Manhattanite (part-time) had gone.  Tonight, as I listen to sugar-hyped children charge up and down the hallway of my building, I'm trying to clarify, for myself, how my second year has gone.  Well, I am much better at negotiating my bi-urban lifestyle (a term I invented to describe the fact that I live, simultaneously, in two cities).  I spent a lot more time in NY this second year, and have become comfortable here.  If I spend a long while in DC, as I did at the beginning of 2013, I actually miss my view out the 29th floor of Manhattan Plaza.

My homelife at ManPlaza has been dominated this year by: these guys.  The complex is undergoing some major structural realignment, so all year long, teams of workers have hauled themselves up the sides of the building and drilled, baby, drilled.  I'm not kidding you, on a daily basis, and depending on where the guys are located, the walls shake and the noise drowns out even your thoughts.  Unless it's raining, the work runs non-stop from 8-4.  I've learned if I want to take a nap, it must be from 11:45 to 12:45, when the workmen take their lunch.  It sounds, and feels, like the building itself is having a root canal.

Posters for my 5 NY shows are the only things
adorning my wall.  They are concrete reminders
that I am doing something here.

The view inside my apt hasn't changed much in the past year.  As opposed to my DC Branch, whose walls are crammed with all sorts of photos (of me, natch), posters, and other paraphernalia, I have kept the NY Branch remarkably clutter-free.  Above my desk, I have hung posters of the shows I've done since arriving in NY, and on another wall, a lonely digital clock reminds me that, well, the clock is ticking.

While the outside world ignores me, I continue
to nest.

My flat screen TV was actually purchased in the early days of my life in NY, but for the first year, I steadfastly refused to add a cable bill to my monthly nut.  I hooked the thing up to the building's antennae on the roof (16 flights above me).  Though there are about 1600 tenants in this building, I was apparently the only one who was using the ancient relic, and it was woefully inadequate. 

I spent all summer in NY, working outside. My
apt faces East, so the sun shines unmercifully.
I finally ordered drapes to try to mask the sun.
Note the aptly named tiebacks I use.

I got ABC and PBS only.  This year, I bit the bullet, and enrolled in a very basic cable service;  I still don't get any news channels or even basic ones such as TBS or Lifetime, but I do now get the broadcast networks, plus about a dozen local stations in foreign languages.  This might be a good time for me to learn Spanish or Mandarin.

Let's face it, the major, in fact only, reason for me to be juggling a bi-urban lifestyle (see how that term's catching on?) is professionally.  And along those lines, I must face the fact that my career has not progressed very much since last year. 

I added three more shows to my New York resume, all of them artistically satisfying but financially embarrassing.  I have put off the biggest chore an actor has when relocating to New York: acquiring an agent. 

I started my 2nd year in a
wintertime production of
Midsummer.

I know very well that my professional career is not going to expand much without one, yet I confess that I've used every excuse in the book to avoid the arduous (and deflating) task of getting one.  That really has to be my next big priority, if I intend to continue living, even part-time, in New York.

So what HAVE I been doing here the past year?  By my count, I have attended 35 cattle call auditions, including the one this morning which may sum up the quasi-uselessness I am currently feeling. 

Two outdoor shows kept me in
NY all summer.

I visit the Actors Equity casting website at least once a day, and whenever there is a general audition for a show, or a theatre, or a season, which I feel may have a possibility for me, I print out that announcement and add it to my calendar.  Two weeks ago, I did exactly that, for a bus-and-truck tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  They were looking for, among others, the exact roles I played a few years ago in DC, so I optimistically thought there may be a chance at snagging this gig. 

I don't audition for many musicals
in NY, but having played this role
before, I thought there might be
a chance.

The audition was scheduled at one of the many rehearsal/audition spaces in Manhattan, but because the audition was basically "first come / first served," I awoke early and schlepped downtown to wait in line to snag an audition slot.  I was surprised when I arrived.  For a project such as this, there is usually an onslaught of people crowding the room to be seen;  today, there were only an handful.  I waited over an hour for the Equity Approved Monitor to arrive to begin to sign up actors for slots, at which time I discovered that this was not an audition for principles, as the website had announced, but a chorus call.

So, a wasted morning.  Is this a metaphor for my past year in New York?  I hope not. 

In DC, I have a large pendulum clock which
comfortingly ticks and chimes and does not tell
time. In NY, this digital timepiece makes no noise,
and keeps perfect time,
but whenever I look at it, it reminds me:
the clock is ticking.  Time is passing.  Am I wasting it?

I did two more shows in Manhattan in the past year, and it looks likely I will return to some of those haunts next spring.  But if I intend to begin to book projects which pay more than subway fare, the next step is the most distasteful to me: finding representation.  Stay tuned for those horror stories.