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I have just watched the most wonderful film. Based upon it’s themes and story, none of it was what you would call uplifting or immediately identify as inspiring. The Great War. Alcoholism. Addiction. Abandonment. Failed parenting. Unrequited love. Affairs. Death. Loss. Grief. Music. La Vie En Rose is the tragic story of Edith Piaf, the French songstress who wooed the world with her hearty Parisian vocals and lived a most tortured and sad existence. It seems that for all the joy Edith Piaf brought into the world with her beautiful voice, she was destined to suffer endless tragedy and hardship in her own personal life.
The film, starring Marion Cotillard as the “little sparrow,” is stunning. The way the film plays with time, jumping back and forth from the famous and established, yet quivering wreck of a grown up, Edith Piaf to her sylph of a childhood self, is gut wrenching. We want life to get better, and are continually devastated when it never does. It is the magical performance of Marion Cotillard that inspires me in this film. Her performance is utterly stunning, and absolutely deserving of the seven different Best Actress awards she garnered for her performance.
In the midst of the worst, there is always beauty. The sparkle behind the eyes. The living, the breathing. The working at your craft when you are tired, miserable, fed up, feeling like all in the world is lost to you. The gift of music, of living for your craft because there is nothing else to live for. That is powerful stuff, and the kind of stuff that grips you at your very heart and soul. Marion Cottilard, and all the myriad of people involved in the making of La Vie En Rose, thank you.
The film, starring Marion Cotillard as the “little sparrow,” is stunning. The way the film plays with time, jumping back and forth from the famous and established, yet quivering wreck of a grown up, Edith Piaf to her sylph of a childhood self, is gut wrenching. We want life to get better, and are continually devastated when it never does. It is the magical performance of Marion Cotillard that inspires me in this film. Her performance is utterly stunning, and absolutely deserving of the seven different Best Actress awards she garnered for her performance.
In the midst of the worst, there is always beauty. The sparkle behind the eyes. The living, the breathing. The working at your craft when you are tired, miserable, fed up, feeling like all in the world is lost to you. The gift of music, of living for your craft because there is nothing else to live for. That is powerful stuff, and the kind of stuff that grips you at your very heart and soul. Marion Cottilard, and all the myriad of people involved in the making of La Vie En Rose, thank you.
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I just returned from a most delightful evening at the theatre. And by theatre I mean the outdoor amphitheater at Centennial Park. The production was A Midsummer Night’s Dream staged by Wild Rumpus Productions. The audience sat beneath the trees with picnic rugs and hampers full of food. We had Mersey Valley cheddar and Jalsberg and dips and berries and fresh bread and wine and juice and olives and eggplant and semi-dried tomatoes and fresh tomatoes. Is it obvious that we feasted? And as the sun set to the west, the players gathered around us to tell the story of lusting lovers and impish elves and fairies. No set, no props, beautiful simple costumes, simple lighting, and some wonderful good old-fashioned story telling. This was Shakespeare at it’s best. Wild Rumpus Productions claims in the program notes to create performances “that are bold, irreverent and of the highest professional standard,” and that they did. Young and old, from the four-year-old pink fairy sitting behind us, to the oldest grown-ups were all kept entertained with spirited and playful performances that bought the Shakespeare text to life. Can life get any better than this? Sydney on a beautiful clear night, summer fruits coming into season, wonderful friends, fabulous food, and a night out at theatre. My Oberon! What visions have I seen! And thankfully, not a dream, but the stuff that dreams are made of. Wonderful.
Wild Rumpus' production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is running until 28 Nov, every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7.30pm. Highly, highly recommended! Tickets can be booked here.
Wild Rumpus' production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is running until 28 Nov, every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7.30pm. Highly, highly recommended! Tickets can be booked here.
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When one thinks of moments of beauty, inspiration, and excitement, a cemetery is probably not on the list of things that spring to mind. Let us travel back to the Victorian era... First of all, death was considered in an entirely different way to the way we view it today. It was much more out in the open, publicly discussed, shared, and mourned. Concurrently in this period, we see the development of public green spaces - large beautifully designed parks and public spaces for people to enjoy fresh air, sunshine, and be close to nature. Central Park, Hyde Park (both in London and Sydney), and the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens, are beautiful examples of such parks.
These two notions came together in the form of the necropolis, or “city of the dead” (from the Latin words “necro” for dead body and “polis” for city), a large open space that was at once a park and a cemetery, or as it was referred to by our Victorian counterparts, a garden cemetery. A space for people to come and bury their dead, mourn the loss of their loved ones, and be in a beautiful environment. In Sydney, we are home to one of the the largest necropolis’ in the world, and what is considered to be one of the best examples of a Victorian necropolis in the world, Rookwood Necropolis (a tiny portion of which is pictured above, picture is from the Rookwood website). Located between Lidcombe and Strathfield in Sydney’s west, Rookwood comprises 700 acres of burial grounds, featuring beautiful gardens, architecture, and the names of over 800,000 people who are interred within the grounds.
Arriving at Rookwood on the free shuttle from Lidcombe Station for the Open Day yesterday was entirely bizzare. There were bands playing music, sausage sizzles and Devonshire tea stalls, face painting for the kids, and people everywhere. People of all ages and backgrounds were wandering around the grounds, looking at headstones, listening to volunteer tour guides share the histories of the cemetery and some of its more infamous inhabitants, and looking for graves of relatives and ancestors. If there is one thing that unites humanity, it’s death. No matter where we are born, under what circumstances we live, what we do, at some point or other, we will all no longer be living.
Due to the sheer size of the place, I unfortunately missed the talks I was hoping to attend - behind the scenes at the crematorium, and the history of embalming, but it was rather incredible to just wander through the grounds for an hour and a half. I felt that the original designers of Rookwood would have been proudly watching over the creation yesterday. Their
ideal of the garden cemetery was not realised in the nineteenth century owing to poor burial practices, issues with sewerage, and poor management, but today Rookwood is an eerily beautiful place. It is steeped in history, and captures the ethos of a time gone by.
Is it morbid to enjoy learning about the history of death? Or is it just a natural part of living? I find it fascinating, and I think we could do well to take a note from our Victorian forebears and bring the discussion of death back into a more public domain. Tours are run by the Friends of Rookwood (a volunteer organisation that works to promote the “social, historical, and cultural values” and preservation of the site), on the first Sunday of the month. It would be great to go back and experience it again.
These two notions came together in the form of the necropolis, or “city of the dead” (from the Latin words “necro” for dead body and “polis” for city), a large open space that was at once a park and a cemetery, or as it was referred to by our Victorian counterparts, a garden cemetery. A space for people to come and bury their dead, mourn the loss of their loved ones, and be in a beautiful environment. In Sydney, we are home to one of the the largest necropolis’ in the world, and what is considered to be one of the best examples of a Victorian necropolis in the world, Rookwood Necropolis (a tiny portion of which is pictured above, picture is from the Rookwood website). Located between Lidcombe and Strathfield in Sydney’s west, Rookwood comprises 700 acres of burial grounds, featuring beautiful gardens, architecture, and the names of over 800,000 people who are interred within the grounds.
Arriving at Rookwood on the free shuttle from Lidcombe Station for the Open Day yesterday was entirely bizzare. There were bands playing music, sausage sizzles and Devonshire tea stalls, face painting for the kids, and people everywhere. People of all ages and backgrounds were wandering around the grounds, looking at headstones, listening to volunteer tour guides share the histories of the cemetery and some of its more infamous inhabitants, and looking for graves of relatives and ancestors. If there is one thing that unites humanity, it’s death. No matter where we are born, under what circumstances we live, what we do, at some point or other, we will all no longer be living.
Due to the sheer size of the place, I unfortunately missed the talks I was hoping to attend - behind the scenes at the crematorium, and the history of embalming, but it was rather incredible to just wander through the grounds for an hour and a half. I felt that the original designers of Rookwood would have been proudly watching over the creation yesterday. Their
ideal of the garden cemetery was not realised in the nineteenth century owing to poor burial practices, issues with sewerage, and poor management, but today Rookwood is an eerily beautiful place. It is steeped in history, and captures the ethos of a time gone by.
Is it morbid to enjoy learning about the history of death? Or is it just a natural part of living? I find it fascinating, and I think we could do well to take a note from our Victorian forebears and bring the discussion of death back into a more public domain. Tours are run by the Friends of Rookwood (a volunteer organisation that works to promote the “social, historical, and cultural values” and preservation of the site), on the first Sunday of the month. It would be great to go back and experience it again.
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I used to be incredibly frustrated by what I didn’t know. I remember being in kindergarten and being annoyed at the way grown-ups kept using words I did not know the meaning of. As a six year-old trying to fit into and navigate the world around me, I was convinced that somewhere in the city were old men in suits whose job it was to invent new words and disseminate them amongst the adult population on a daily basis in order that there would always be words I would never know.
As a grown-up, there are still many things I do not know. A big topic at the moment is global warming and climate change. As an average person with no scientific training and a slight aversion to numbers, I don’t “get” the science behind the debate. But as an average person, I can comprehend this. The stuff we use to fuel our society, namely fossil fuels, is finite. Humans live in a way that is detrimental to our health and the planet’s.
Last week I attended a talk at Town Hall on a new report called Beyond Zero Emissions: Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan. Thirty scientists, engineers, and academics got together and asked how can Australia move toward a more sustainable renewable energy existence. And they came up with a 200-page document thats shows how Australia can move to 100% renewable energy by 2020. And you know what got me excited? The men in suits say its possible. It’s not just bearded patchouli hippies. It’s Malcolm Turnbull and Bob Carr and former Australian Chief Scientist Robin Batterham and British engineer Allan Jones.
We have to believe that change is entirely possible. It’s happening in Spain and Germany and the United States. Commercial scale renewable energy. It was something I didn’t really understand when I was walking the Camino across northern Spain a couple of years ago. I saw wind turbines and solar panels on a scale I had never encountered and I started asking myself questions about energy and how it all works.
I still do not entirely understand the world. But tell my six year-old self that she would one day go to university and spend four years learning words she never knew and even after majoring in English there would still be an untold world of words beyond her cognition, and that’s not frustrating but entirely exciting. And tell the girl who read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and walked across Spain and saw wind turbines and solar panels that in just over 6 months she would be working for a sustainability shop and going to the Farmer’s Markets every week and eating beautiful organic food and learning that there is so much possibility.
The world may be on the brink of collapse, but I choose not to be frustrated by what the men in suits beyond my understanding make up and implement across the globe. I choose to believe it is possible for men, and women, to put their brains together and come up with ways to make the world a better place to live in. As Annie Leonard says in the wonderfully
eloquent Story of Stuff, with all the clever people on the planet, surely we can come up with a way to live that is not detrimental to our health and very existence.
I live in a world where anything is possible. I can choose to understand. I can choose to make a difference. As Allan Jones said at the talk on Thursday night, “the barriers to 100% renewable energy are not technological or economic, but regulatory mindset and vested inteterest.” I may have felt powerless and small against the men in suits as six year-old. And I could continue to feel small and powerless against the people in suits today. But I chose to be inspired. I choose to be excited. I choose to believe the world I live in and the way in which I live on it can be beautiful, rich, creative, and sustainable.
As a grown-up, there are still many things I do not know. A big topic at the moment is global warming and climate change. As an average person with no scientific training and a slight aversion to numbers, I don’t “get” the science behind the debate. But as an average person, I can comprehend this. The stuff we use to fuel our society, namely fossil fuels, is finite. Humans live in a way that is detrimental to our health and the planet’s.
Last week I attended a talk at Town Hall on a new report called Beyond Zero Emissions: Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan. Thirty scientists, engineers, and academics got together and asked how can Australia move toward a more sustainable renewable energy existence. And they came up with a 200-page document thats shows how Australia can move to 100% renewable energy by 2020. And you know what got me excited? The men in suits say its possible. It’s not just bearded patchouli hippies. It’s Malcolm Turnbull and Bob Carr and former Australian Chief Scientist Robin Batterham and British engineer Allan Jones.
We have to believe that change is entirely possible. It’s happening in Spain and Germany and the United States. Commercial scale renewable energy. It was something I didn’t really understand when I was walking the Camino across northern Spain a couple of years ago. I saw wind turbines and solar panels on a scale I had never encountered and I started asking myself questions about energy and how it all works.
I still do not entirely understand the world. But tell my six year-old self that she would one day go to university and spend four years learning words she never knew and even after majoring in English there would still be an untold world of words beyond her cognition, and that’s not frustrating but entirely exciting. And tell the girl who read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and walked across Spain and saw wind turbines and solar panels that in just over 6 months she would be working for a sustainability shop and going to the Farmer’s Markets every week and eating beautiful organic food and learning that there is so much possibility.
The world may be on the brink of collapse, but I choose not to be frustrated by what the men in suits beyond my understanding make up and implement across the globe. I choose to believe it is possible for men, and women, to put their brains together and come up with ways to make the world a better place to live in. As Annie Leonard says in the wonderfully
eloquent Story of Stuff, with all the clever people on the planet, surely we can come up with a way to live that is not detrimental to our health and very existence.
I live in a world where anything is possible. I can choose to understand. I can choose to make a difference. As Allan Jones said at the talk on Thursday night, “the barriers to 100% renewable energy are not technological or economic, but regulatory mindset and vested inteterest.” I may have felt powerless and small against the men in suits as six year-old. And I could continue to feel small and powerless against the people in suits today. But I chose to be inspired. I choose to be excited. I choose to believe the world I live in and the way in which I live on it can be beautiful, rich, creative, and sustainable.
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I had the absolute pleasure of seeing a new production of West Side Story at the Lyric Theatre on Friday night. I admit I wasn't going to see this production. The advertising has been billing the show as "new, hot, and vibrant", and I wondered how anyone could make a fifty year old classic musical "new". But when some discounted tickets came up, I had to go.
Whilst paying tribute to the original Jerome Robbins staging, Joey McKneely's slick and gutsy production injects modern flair and sensibility into a Broadway classic. Aside from the dancing, which was absolutely phenomenal, what stood out for me in this production was the story of immigration: everyone, at some point in the American story, is an immigrant, everyone struggles, and living in the city is tough. And when the fiery passions of the people defending "their" turf, and dream of a new life collide, you have a tragedy of Shakespearean scale on your hands. Paul Gallis' stylised and stark fire-escape set, along with the use of projected 1950s black and white images of New York City, created a sense of alienation and evoked the harsh reality of living in the city. The athletic and punchy choreography gave a sense of the raw strength and primal energy of the dueling gangs, making the stylised fight scenes entirely believable and gripping.
The ensemble as a whole were fantastic, and their commitment to playing street-toughened teens was convincing. I loved the unusual interpretation of the "Officer Krupke" number. It is usually played for comic relief, but in this production, it highlights the raw energy of disillusioned young men, and you can well understand why these boys would turn to gang life for solace. Alinta Chitdz as Anita was the standout lead. She is a total knock-out, and her saucy renditions of "America" and "A Boy Like That" were thrilling.
McKneely's production was refreshingly all about story-telling. No celebrity castings, or flashy stage effects, just a strong and highly talented ensemble using song and dance to tell a story about the tragedy of alienation, violence, and forbidden love in the harsh and unforgiving city. It was interesting to note however the audience's reactions to the seemingly over-sentimental and heightened love between Tony and Maria. Even in a classic well-known musical, modern audiences can't buy this all passionate all consuming climbing fire escapes in the middle of the night, proclaiming I love you's and I'm going to marry you's, and "I'm going to have a thousand babies and name them all after Doc - even the girls" in the first five minutes of meeting a forbidden love.
The biggest barrier to this show is not sentimentality, but price. At $120 a ticket (for A reserve), I imagine many people are going to miss this show, which is a great shame, because we don't get musicals of this standard in Australia very often. The billing of the show as new, hot, and vibrant is spot on, and if you like dance this is a must-see production.
Whilst paying tribute to the original Jerome Robbins staging, Joey McKneely's slick and gutsy production injects modern flair and sensibility into a Broadway classic. Aside from the dancing, which was absolutely phenomenal, what stood out for me in this production was the story of immigration: everyone, at some point in the American story, is an immigrant, everyone struggles, and living in the city is tough. And when the fiery passions of the people defending "their" turf, and dream of a new life collide, you have a tragedy of Shakespearean scale on your hands. Paul Gallis' stylised and stark fire-escape set, along with the use of projected 1950s black and white images of New York City, created a sense of alienation and evoked the harsh reality of living in the city. The athletic and punchy choreography gave a sense of the raw strength and primal energy of the dueling gangs, making the stylised fight scenes entirely believable and gripping.
The ensemble as a whole were fantastic, and their commitment to playing street-toughened teens was convincing. I loved the unusual interpretation of the "Officer Krupke" number. It is usually played for comic relief, but in this production, it highlights the raw energy of disillusioned young men, and you can well understand why these boys would turn to gang life for solace. Alinta Chitdz as Anita was the standout lead. She is a total knock-out, and her saucy renditions of "America" and "A Boy Like That" were thrilling.
McKneely's production was refreshingly all about story-telling. No celebrity castings, or flashy stage effects, just a strong and highly talented ensemble using song and dance to tell a story about the tragedy of alienation, violence, and forbidden love in the harsh and unforgiving city. It was interesting to note however the audience's reactions to the seemingly over-sentimental and heightened love between Tony and Maria. Even in a classic well-known musical, modern audiences can't buy this all passionate all consuming climbing fire escapes in the middle of the night, proclaiming I love you's and I'm going to marry you's, and "I'm going to have a thousand babies and name them all after Doc - even the girls" in the first five minutes of meeting a forbidden love.
The biggest barrier to this show is not sentimentality, but price. At $120 a ticket (for A reserve), I imagine many people are going to miss this show, which is a great shame, because we don't get musicals of this standard in Australia very often. The billing of the show as new, hot, and vibrant is spot on, and if you like dance this is a must-see production.
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Sydney is just under 16,000km from New York City, and if Luisa can’t be on Broadway, then you must bring Broadway to Luisa! And fortuitously for me, Broadway well and truly came to Australia this week. In the past 7 days, I have seen composer Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, and Wicked, among many others), actresses Shoshana Bean (Hairspray, and Wicked), and Donna McKechnie (A Chorus Line, Follies, Company, among many, many other shows)!
Last Sunday found me at the City Recital Hall in Angel Place surrounded by a full-house of fellow musical theatre nerds for “An Evening with Stephen Schwartz: Festival of Broadway”. The evening was a showcase of Stephen Schwartz’s music, beginning with Godspell and ending with “the W show,” Wicked, along with a discussion between Stephen Schwartz and Michael A. Kerker, (Director of Musical Theatre for ASCAP - the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers). Directed by questions from Kerker, Schwartz discussed the processes behind developing a musical, his journey to the Great White Way, what it was like to have three shows playing simultaneously on Broadway, working with Alan Menken on the Disney projects, traveling to Denmark with a commission to write a new musical celebrating the life of Hans Christian Anderson, working on a new opera, and the story behind the inspiration for Wicked.
Hearing showtunes played by a full symphony orchestra is always a treat, and watching Liz Callaway, (another Broadway veteran, and also the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in
Aladdin and the title role of Anastasia) was fabulous, but my highlight of the evening was definitely Stephen himself singing and playing his own compositions. He played early versions of “The Wizard and I”, and shared how the song, and subsequently the Wicked
plot, progressed from early drafts to the version we know (and utterly love) today. The night finished with a beautiful rendition of “For Good,” with Schwartz playing solo on the piano. “For Good” is a moving ballad of friendship and reflection, and to be sitting three rows from the composer himself, was nothing short of glorious. His warm spirit and youthful sense of joy absolutely shone through, and I just melted.
Three days later, I jetted up to Brisbane for the evening to see “Broadway to BrisVegas: Shoshana Bean Live in Concert”. The venue was the Brisbane Powerhouse, a former power station, that has been converted into a cultural centre in the lovely suburb of New Farm. The show opened with a jazz version of “Wouldn’t It be Loverly” from My Fair Lady and not a schmaltzy Michael Buble kind of jazz, but a vocally gymnastic riffed tribute-to-Ella kind of jazz. Wow! I had chills up and down my spine all through the song - a reaction I had right throughout the concert. The following numbers, including “Down with Love,” and “My Funny Valentine”, showed off Shoshana’s vocal range and ability to seamlessly transition from swing to sultry to sumptuous. The pianist, James Sampliner, also the MD of the evening (and later I found out the MD of Legally Blonde The Musical... OHMYGOD!), was an amazingly gifted musician. The audience was as much in love with him as they were with Shoshana Bean, and throughout his dazzling and spirited solos I could not believe that the piano was able to stay in one piece or not fly off the stage from all the energy poured in through each number.
After honouring the “classics,” Bean moved onto more contemporary Broadway composers, including Jeremy Schoenberg, Jason Robert Brown, and Georgia Stitt. Although she is well known for her Broadway showtune belting, the stand out numbers from the evening were from Bean’s own (debut) album, “Superhero”, written by Ms. Bean herself. It was amazing to see her singing her own material. It was almost as if she had stripped off a veneer (warm and beautiful as it is) to reveal her true self (equally as warm and beautiful), and it was breath-taking. Another highlight was Shoshana sharing her horrifying realisation, when she was about 13, that she wasn’t black. And so she sang a medley of all the parts she will never get to play as a white woman - ranging from AIDA, RENT, Porgy and Bess, Once on This Island, Ragtime, Children of Eden and Dream Girls. She jumped from pop to musical theatre to opera and back all within a breath. Hilariously brilliant.
Her belting, her riffing, her legit voice, her comic timing, her melty jazz voice, her perfectly not annoying pingy musical theatre twang... oh my! I LOVED IT! Am I gushing? She was gorgeous. I floated back to my hotel room totally and utterly inspired. And what about the effort of flying up to Brisbane to be there for less than 12 hours, and enduring a 6 hour commute to work the next morning, all for one hour(ish) of musical theatre? So worth it - so worth it in fact, I’m seeing her again tonight in Sydney! WOOHOO!*
On Thursday night, I headed out to the Factory Theatre in Marrickville to see Broadway royalty Donna McKechnie perform her cabaret show “My Musical Comedy Life”. McKechnie swanned on stage, looking every bit the Broadway performer, with fake eyelashes, theatrical make up, and glitter everywhere. The script felt rehearsed and a little overstaged, and I worried that McKechnie wouldn’t be able to hit all the notes after her first number left her out of breath, but while she found it difficult to speak between numbers, her singing voice was still clear and strong. And despite arthritis and her age, she can still dance!
A Chorus Line was the first musical I saw live, and I spent many inspired hours of my childhood listening, and dancing along, to the original Broadway cast recording. The ultimate moment of the evening for me therefore, was of course “Music and the Mirror”. The number was made all the more special by the back story of how the song came to be (it was the last number written for the show), and seeing McKechnie at sixty-nine years of age still belting it out just like that disembodied voice that has floated out of my grandma’s stereo so many countless times bought me to tears.
*I’m home from Shoshana Bean at The Factory... what can I say?! AMAZING. I am completely and utterly inspired and excited. The past seven days have been thrilling. I want to sing. I want to dance. I want to write music. I want to listen to every musical ever written. I want to see a thousand Broadway shows. I want to live in NYC and be surrounded by all of this day and night. Thank you thank you thank you Stephen Schwartz, Liz Callaway, Donna McKechnie, Shoshana Bean and James Sampliner for traversing 16,000km of continents and ocean and bringing a touch of Broadway to the land of Oz. It has been nothing short of WONDERFUL!
Last Sunday found me at the City Recital Hall in Angel Place surrounded by a full-house of fellow musical theatre nerds for “An Evening with Stephen Schwartz: Festival of Broadway”. The evening was a showcase of Stephen Schwartz’s music, beginning with Godspell and ending with “the W show,” Wicked, along with a discussion between Stephen Schwartz and Michael A. Kerker, (Director of Musical Theatre for ASCAP - the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers). Directed by questions from Kerker, Schwartz discussed the processes behind developing a musical, his journey to the Great White Way, what it was like to have three shows playing simultaneously on Broadway, working with Alan Menken on the Disney projects, traveling to Denmark with a commission to write a new musical celebrating the life of Hans Christian Anderson, working on a new opera, and the story behind the inspiration for Wicked.
Hearing showtunes played by a full symphony orchestra is always a treat, and watching Liz Callaway, (another Broadway veteran, and also the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in
Aladdin and the title role of Anastasia) was fabulous, but my highlight of the evening was definitely Stephen himself singing and playing his own compositions. He played early versions of “The Wizard and I”, and shared how the song, and subsequently the Wicked
plot, progressed from early drafts to the version we know (and utterly love) today. The night finished with a beautiful rendition of “For Good,” with Schwartz playing solo on the piano. “For Good” is a moving ballad of friendship and reflection, and to be sitting three rows from the composer himself, was nothing short of glorious. His warm spirit and youthful sense of joy absolutely shone through, and I just melted.
Three days later, I jetted up to Brisbane for the evening to see “Broadway to BrisVegas: Shoshana Bean Live in Concert”. The venue was the Brisbane Powerhouse, a former power station, that has been converted into a cultural centre in the lovely suburb of New Farm. The show opened with a jazz version of “Wouldn’t It be Loverly” from My Fair Lady and not a schmaltzy Michael Buble kind of jazz, but a vocally gymnastic riffed tribute-to-Ella kind of jazz. Wow! I had chills up and down my spine all through the song - a reaction I had right throughout the concert. The following numbers, including “Down with Love,” and “My Funny Valentine”, showed off Shoshana’s vocal range and ability to seamlessly transition from swing to sultry to sumptuous. The pianist, James Sampliner, also the MD of the evening (and later I found out the MD of Legally Blonde The Musical... OHMYGOD!), was an amazingly gifted musician. The audience was as much in love with him as they were with Shoshana Bean, and throughout his dazzling and spirited solos I could not believe that the piano was able to stay in one piece or not fly off the stage from all the energy poured in through each number.
After honouring the “classics,” Bean moved onto more contemporary Broadway composers, including Jeremy Schoenberg, Jason Robert Brown, and Georgia Stitt. Although she is well known for her Broadway showtune belting, the stand out numbers from the evening were from Bean’s own (debut) album, “Superhero”, written by Ms. Bean herself. It was amazing to see her singing her own material. It was almost as if she had stripped off a veneer (warm and beautiful as it is) to reveal her true self (equally as warm and beautiful), and it was breath-taking. Another highlight was Shoshana sharing her horrifying realisation, when she was about 13, that she wasn’t black. And so she sang a medley of all the parts she will never get to play as a white woman - ranging from AIDA, RENT, Porgy and Bess, Once on This Island, Ragtime, Children of Eden and Dream Girls. She jumped from pop to musical theatre to opera and back all within a breath. Hilariously brilliant.
Her belting, her riffing, her legit voice, her comic timing, her melty jazz voice, her perfectly not annoying pingy musical theatre twang... oh my! I LOVED IT! Am I gushing? She was gorgeous. I floated back to my hotel room totally and utterly inspired. And what about the effort of flying up to Brisbane to be there for less than 12 hours, and enduring a 6 hour commute to work the next morning, all for one hour(ish) of musical theatre? So worth it - so worth it in fact, I’m seeing her again tonight in Sydney! WOOHOO!*
On Thursday night, I headed out to the Factory Theatre in Marrickville to see Broadway royalty Donna McKechnie perform her cabaret show “My Musical Comedy Life”. McKechnie swanned on stage, looking every bit the Broadway performer, with fake eyelashes, theatrical make up, and glitter everywhere. The script felt rehearsed and a little overstaged, and I worried that McKechnie wouldn’t be able to hit all the notes after her first number left her out of breath, but while she found it difficult to speak between numbers, her singing voice was still clear and strong. And despite arthritis and her age, she can still dance!
A Chorus Line was the first musical I saw live, and I spent many inspired hours of my childhood listening, and dancing along, to the original Broadway cast recording. The ultimate moment of the evening for me therefore, was of course “Music and the Mirror”. The number was made all the more special by the back story of how the song came to be (it was the last number written for the show), and seeing McKechnie at sixty-nine years of age still belting it out just like that disembodied voice that has floated out of my grandma’s stereo so many countless times bought me to tears.
*I’m home from Shoshana Bean at The Factory... what can I say?! AMAZING. I am completely and utterly inspired and excited. The past seven days have been thrilling. I want to sing. I want to dance. I want to write music. I want to listen to every musical ever written. I want to see a thousand Broadway shows. I want to live in NYC and be surrounded by all of this day and night. Thank you thank you thank you Stephen Schwartz, Liz Callaway, Donna McKechnie, Shoshana Bean and James Sampliner for traversing 16,000km of continents and ocean and bringing a touch of Broadway to the land of Oz. It has been nothing short of WONDERFUL!
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Musical theatre fans are often lauded as spirit finger, glitter loving, show tune belting freaks. There are “normal” people who experience life. And then there are people, who stand next to normal folk, who experience life and then sing and dance about it. I am in the latter category. And damn proud of it too. And as it turns out I am far from alone in the universe when it comes to making this statement. For hours of musical listening fun, deconstructions of divas belting out showtunes, and “daily shoutouts,” visit www.sethrudestky.com. For the latest in Broadway news visit www.playbill.com and click on Seth’s hi-larious blog/podcast Onstage and Backstage. And for weekly news/interviews/tidbits on what is happening on the West End, visit MusicalTalk and subscribe to their podcast.
Despite their fluffly reputation, many musicals tell the stories of serious issues - from racism and the nature of war in “South Pacific”, American politics in “Assassins”, AIDS in “RENT”, and most recently depression in “Next to Normal”. And in exciting sort-of-recent news, one of my favourite recent Broadway musicals, “Next to Normal”, won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama. “Next to Normal” tells the story of Diana, a suburban mother, and her battle with depression. The music style ranges from rock to country to pastiche, and articulately describes the experience of depression, the medical merry-go-round of “curing” it, and the drama of depression within modern suburban life. It’s a gusty, unafraid musical that is full of energy and emotion. As Ben Brantley states in his positive review of the show, “Nor do musicals have to bubble with cheer to transport an audience as this one does”. Highly recommended listening (and viewing if you’re in NYC!). And then if you really need some good quality spirit finger glitter loving show tune belting fluff, you should like, totally check
out Legally Blonde The Musical.
Despite their fluffly reputation, many musicals tell the stories of serious issues - from racism and the nature of war in “South Pacific”, American politics in “Assassins”, AIDS in “RENT”, and most recently depression in “Next to Normal”. And in exciting sort-of-recent news, one of my favourite recent Broadway musicals, “Next to Normal”, won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama. “Next to Normal” tells the story of Diana, a suburban mother, and her battle with depression. The music style ranges from rock to country to pastiche, and articulately describes the experience of depression, the medical merry-go-round of “curing” it, and the drama of depression within modern suburban life. It’s a gusty, unafraid musical that is full of energy and emotion. As Ben Brantley states in his positive review of the show, “Nor do musicals have to bubble with cheer to transport an audience as this one does”. Highly recommended listening (and viewing if you’re in NYC!). And then if you really need some good quality spirit finger glitter loving show tune belting fluff, you should like, totally check
out Legally Blonde The Musical.
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You may have noticed that the majority of this blog has been about food. That’s because food is awesome. Since reading Barbara Kingsolver’s delicious “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” I have become a little obsessed with eating local, fresh, and where possible, organic, produce. I don’t care what the skeptics say about organic food, you CAN taste the difference, and it is a million times better. The flavours! The colour! The variety! I mean,
when was the last time you saw a round zucchin in the supermarket (pictured above)?
I’ve been visiting the Eveleigh Farmer’s Markets for about two months now with my market buddy Len (hi Lenny!), and I’ve become utterly addicted. Not only is the food fabulous, but the people (who also happen to be the farmers) are utterly wonderful. Karen and her completely brilliant Willowbrae goat’s curd, David and Kerrie’s Hand ‘n’ Hoe sensational roasted macadamia nut butter (no really, it’s so good I’ve pretty much single-handedly made my way through three bottles of the stuff in less than two months) and the best garlic on the
planet, Champion's Mountain Organics from the Central Coast with the best herbs, eggs, and veggies in the whole market, Yuri’s Sustainable Produce with the most wonderful seasonal fruits and farmers who will not take your money until your bag is full to bursting with produce (“It’s still not full enough. Here, have some grapes...”), and the Mancini family with their deliciously aromatic brilliant-for-cooking-but-so-good-you-could-use-it-as-a-dip
The Little General olive oil from Griffith are among my favourites.
Between the farmer’s markets and a new find, Harmony Wholefoods in Glebe, I’ve been able to eat pretty much all organic and mostly local food 7 days a week. I’ve been baking bread with wholegrain biodynamic flour (variations on a plain brown loaf have thus far included poppy seeds, oats, chia seeds, and rosemary), vegetable soups, salads bursting with so much flavour you don’t even need dressing, pizzas from scratch, tortillas, chickpea patties, fruit salads with apples, peaches, plums, pears, and passionfruit (oh my!) that have my office all sniffing the air enviously and asking where the delicious smell is coming from, freshly squeezed orange juice... And all this for less than $100 a week. Mmm hmm! Now let us all open our mouths and enjoy wonderful food, marvellous food, glorious food!
when was the last time you saw a round zucchin in the supermarket (pictured above)?
I’ve been visiting the Eveleigh Farmer’s Markets for about two months now with my market buddy Len (hi Lenny!), and I’ve become utterly addicted. Not only is the food fabulous, but the people (who also happen to be the farmers) are utterly wonderful. Karen and her completely brilliant Willowbrae goat’s curd, David and Kerrie’s Hand ‘n’ Hoe sensational roasted macadamia nut butter (no really, it’s so good I’ve pretty much single-handedly made my way through three bottles of the stuff in less than two months) and the best garlic on the
planet, Champion's Mountain Organics from the Central Coast with the best herbs, eggs, and veggies in the whole market, Yuri’s Sustainable Produce with the most wonderful seasonal fruits and farmers who will not take your money until your bag is full to bursting with produce (“It’s still not full enough. Here, have some grapes...”), and the Mancini family with their deliciously aromatic brilliant-for-cooking-but-so-good-you-could-use-it-as-a-dip
The Little General olive oil from Griffith are among my favourites.
Between the farmer’s markets and a new find, Harmony Wholefoods in Glebe, I’ve been able to eat pretty much all organic and mostly local food 7 days a week. I’ve been baking bread with wholegrain biodynamic flour (variations on a plain brown loaf have thus far included poppy seeds, oats, chia seeds, and rosemary), vegetable soups, salads bursting with so much flavour you don’t even need dressing, pizzas from scratch, tortillas, chickpea patties, fruit salads with apples, peaches, plums, pears, and passionfruit (oh my!) that have my office all sniffing the air enviously and asking where the delicious smell is coming from, freshly squeezed orange juice... And all this for less than $100 a week. Mmm hmm! Now let us all open our mouths and enjoy wonderful food, marvellous food, glorious food!
- Published on
When you find yourself in times of trouble, Mother Superior tells you to turn around and face those troubles, climb every mountain, and ford every stream until you find your dream. When you’re feeling down and out, nothing lifts your spirits more than sitting in one of Sydney’s most beautiful theatres surrounded by twelve hundred obsessed fans of “The Sound of Music”. And as luck would have it, this is exactly where I found myself earlier this week, sitting in the third row of the mezz in the State Theatre for the annual “Sing-a-long Sound of Music”. Part of the world famous Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the Sing-a-long Sound of Music is an event for die-hard “Sound of Music” fans. It is an event that makes me feel that I am not alone in this world. There are countless others, of all ages and backgrounds, who like me, have watched “The Sound of Music” so many times that every word, lyric, tune, inflection, and dramatic pause has been committed to memory and stored in the heart, ready to burst open on a night such as this.
The night commences with a fashion parade. The small children go up first, dressed in party dresses or traditional Austrian costumes, they are the Von Trapp children (or as one poor child proudly announced, the Van Trapp children... The fabulous female host laughed and said she must have lived next door to the Von Trapp’s). The children are followed by a motley conglomerate of nun’s. Traditional nuns in black and white habits with large crosses around their necks, naughty nun’s with red stockings beneath their habits, nuns with short skirts and a business man who has miraculously transformed his suit jacket into a rather convincing habit. The third group are people are dressed in traditional leiderhosen, girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, brown paper bags tied up with string, Maria’s, baronesses, Captain’s, an older gentleman fresh off the Mardi Gras float last Saturday in the most stunning cupcake wedding dress, and even a giant raindrop clutching a bunch of roses.
The screening begins. The host talks us through the gorgeous opening shots of Austria. The field appears, and Maria is a tiny speck in the distance. The audience, with great excitement, shouts, “She’s coming! She’s coming!” Maria spins into view and the audience goes wild. The lyrics appear at the bottom of the screen (not that this audience needs help with lyrics), and along with Julie Andrews, we sing to the rafters, “The hills are alive!” We each have a showbag, containing 5 “magic moment” items. For magic moment number one we have two picture cards with an image on each side of the card - a question mark, a picture of Maria, the word “flibbertigibbet”, and a will of a wisp which looks like a “manic sperm.” When the nun’s sing “How do you solve a problem like Maria”, we flash the appropriate cards towards the screen. Magic moment number two is represented by a square piece of floral fabric. After “My Favourite Things,” (throughout which every time the line “girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes” is repeated, the people dressed as such jump up and cheer), Maria and the Captain have an argument regarding new material for play clothes for the children. The Captain leaves and Maria angrily flops into an armchair by the window. We, the audience, shout “BEHIND YOU!” and wave our curtain strips to encourage Maria to realise the curtains behind her will make PERFECT play clothes for 7 children, and when she does, oh the ripples of joy throughout the crowd!
Magic moment number three is an invitation to the Captain’s Ball. When Gretel skips out of the parlour room, following the decision to have a party in honour of the Baroness, announcing “it will be my first party Father!”, we madly flap our invitations shouting “To the ball! To the ball!” Magic moment number four is a party popper. Maria and the Captain are in the gazebo. The Captain has told Maria there isn’t going to be a baroness, you can’t marry someone when you’re in love with someone else. The light is shadowy and blurry in the way that only classic love stories on the silver screen can be, the Captain and Maria lean ever closer and closer toward each other, and then, just when you can’t handle the suspense any longer, they kiss! And several hundred people pop their party poppers toward the screen. Fabulous. The final magic moment is when the Von Trapps sing Edelweiss at the Salzburg Music Festival, and with little plastic edelweiss flowers, we all wave the Von Trapps farewell.
There is honestly no time in my living memory when I haven’t seen “The Sound of Music”. I have watched it a thousand million times, and still every time I see it, it raises my heart, and lifts my soul. And on this magical night, with twelve hundred of my closest friends, I cheered for Maria, hissed the Baroness, booed the Nazis, fell in love with the Captain, and sighed for Gretel. I sang every note from Do to Ti, sobbed my eyes out during “Climb Every Mountain”, and swooned at the glorious rich sumptuousness of one of the most definitive all singing, all dancing, all technicolour musicals ever made. And watching it on the big screen, surrounded by people who love it as much as I do, is truly one of my favourite things.
The night commences with a fashion parade. The small children go up first, dressed in party dresses or traditional Austrian costumes, they are the Von Trapp children (or as one poor child proudly announced, the Van Trapp children... The fabulous female host laughed and said she must have lived next door to the Von Trapp’s). The children are followed by a motley conglomerate of nun’s. Traditional nuns in black and white habits with large crosses around their necks, naughty nun’s with red stockings beneath their habits, nuns with short skirts and a business man who has miraculously transformed his suit jacket into a rather convincing habit. The third group are people are dressed in traditional leiderhosen, girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, brown paper bags tied up with string, Maria’s, baronesses, Captain’s, an older gentleman fresh off the Mardi Gras float last Saturday in the most stunning cupcake wedding dress, and even a giant raindrop clutching a bunch of roses.
The screening begins. The host talks us through the gorgeous opening shots of Austria. The field appears, and Maria is a tiny speck in the distance. The audience, with great excitement, shouts, “She’s coming! She’s coming!” Maria spins into view and the audience goes wild. The lyrics appear at the bottom of the screen (not that this audience needs help with lyrics), and along with Julie Andrews, we sing to the rafters, “The hills are alive!” We each have a showbag, containing 5 “magic moment” items. For magic moment number one we have two picture cards with an image on each side of the card - a question mark, a picture of Maria, the word “flibbertigibbet”, and a will of a wisp which looks like a “manic sperm.” When the nun’s sing “How do you solve a problem like Maria”, we flash the appropriate cards towards the screen. Magic moment number two is represented by a square piece of floral fabric. After “My Favourite Things,” (throughout which every time the line “girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes” is repeated, the people dressed as such jump up and cheer), Maria and the Captain have an argument regarding new material for play clothes for the children. The Captain leaves and Maria angrily flops into an armchair by the window. We, the audience, shout “BEHIND YOU!” and wave our curtain strips to encourage Maria to realise the curtains behind her will make PERFECT play clothes for 7 children, and when she does, oh the ripples of joy throughout the crowd!
Magic moment number three is an invitation to the Captain’s Ball. When Gretel skips out of the parlour room, following the decision to have a party in honour of the Baroness, announcing “it will be my first party Father!”, we madly flap our invitations shouting “To the ball! To the ball!” Magic moment number four is a party popper. Maria and the Captain are in the gazebo. The Captain has told Maria there isn’t going to be a baroness, you can’t marry someone when you’re in love with someone else. The light is shadowy and blurry in the way that only classic love stories on the silver screen can be, the Captain and Maria lean ever closer and closer toward each other, and then, just when you can’t handle the suspense any longer, they kiss! And several hundred people pop their party poppers toward the screen. Fabulous. The final magic moment is when the Von Trapps sing Edelweiss at the Salzburg Music Festival, and with little plastic edelweiss flowers, we all wave the Von Trapps farewell.
There is honestly no time in my living memory when I haven’t seen “The Sound of Music”. I have watched it a thousand million times, and still every time I see it, it raises my heart, and lifts my soul. And on this magical night, with twelve hundred of my closest friends, I cheered for Maria, hissed the Baroness, booed the Nazis, fell in love with the Captain, and sighed for Gretel. I sang every note from Do to Ti, sobbed my eyes out during “Climb Every Mountain”, and swooned at the glorious rich sumptuousness of one of the most definitive all singing, all dancing, all technicolour musicals ever made. And watching it on the big screen, surrounded by people who love it as much as I do, is truly one of my favourite things.