I love Ken Davenport’s line, “He’s just not that into you.” I think of it daily when I’m at work.
In my job, I filter through applications, resumes, and phone calls to determine who to bring in for interviews. Fewer than ten percent of the people who contact me—typically at least two hundred in a month—are ever people I would consider bringing in (and fewer of those are ever offered work).
I get these annoying people who call me back every two months, most of whom don’t realize they are doing that. They just don’t keep jobs for long and start from scratch when they walk off their job or are fired. Some of them, though, are purposefully calling back again and again, perhaps thinking that by putting their name or voice in front of me, I’ll warm up to their job jumping, I’m-so-desperate-for-a-job-though-I’ve-had-three-in-the-past-year resume and finally bring them in. Because I’m always busy, I can’t help but think when I get these calls, “He’s just not that into you!”
With Thanksgiving coming up, last week was particularly busy for me because of people needing time off from work. This one woman called in again. I finally got annoyed enough to call her and say in a very respectful, professional tone, “I talked with you in July, and you’ve called me four times since. If I have anything, I will give you a call.” Of course, in another month, she’ll be paging through the phone book and call again anyway.
If it’s that bad for me, think about what it must be like for producers on Broadway and in Hollywood. No wonder they put up so many barriers to reading work! Everyone is working on a screenplay or a musical, and we can only guess how many of them aren’t very good.
So, the answer to “He’s just not that into you” is perhaps not to keep annoying people until they beat you over the head with a stick. Like me with my job, they don’t need to spend ten days with you to know if you’re going to suit their needs or not. With my job, within two or three questions, I can almost always tell if I’m going to bring someone in for an interview and whether we will hire them.
The answer, then, has to be to improve, to change somehow. Because when you call on them again a third or a fourth time, their cough medicine or the quality of lettuce with their lunch isn’t going to change their perspective. You have to face the fact that you are lacking something they are searching for. The only way that producer or director is going to change their perspective is if something about you changes.
If you’ve never read David Wienir and Jodie Langel’s Making It On Broadway, read it. There’s a great story in there from Cory English, who was part of the cast that changed my life with Hello, Dolly! in 1994 (and he was recently cast in Young Frankenstein). In Making It On Broadway, he talks about auditioning for Jerome Robbins’ Broadway nineteen times, wearing the same shirt to each audition. Talk about fortitude! But the reality is, there’s a long string of shows listed under his name in the book, and not one of them is Jerome Robbins’ Broadway. They just weren’t into him. But the hope for us all lies in his bio, which is that his persistence got him nowhere then, but somewhere along the line, he improved or found someone who saw the qualities they needed in him. After all, he does, indeed, have a long line of shows under his name, and he’s still adding to that list to this day.
the Broadway Mouth
November 24, 2008
Showing posts with label Hello Dolly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hello Dolly. Show all posts
Monday, November 24, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
The Magical First: Hello, Dolly!
I learned what a real standing ovation was. It came after Carol Channing and cast sang the title number to Hello, Dolly! in 1994, during the show’s pre-Broadway tour. If you’ve seen the show, you know the scene. Dolly Levi returns to her old haunting ground, the Harmonia Gardens restaurant, her return to living life after years of mourning the loss of her late husband. She arrives and is greeted with joy by the waiters and chefs. Great Gower Champion choreography ensues (largely recreated for the tour), and when the casts stops, the audience begins.
That Tuesday night (October 12, 1994), I was one of the first to stand to my feet, a shy eighteen-year old seeing his first Broadway musical, not because I wanted to but because I had to. The only decision made was not to check my shyness at the door because I knew even standing for such a performance by such a woman still wouldn’t be enough to express what was going on in that theatre and inside of me.
This repeated for the curtain call, another thrilling moment when my legs spoke for me. I couldn’t clap hard enough when Carol Channing came down in her wedding dress. I knew I had seen something phenomenal, something I would never get a chance to relive.
It was a miracle I even went. As a high school student, plays weren’t even on my radar. Like so many other kids, my experience with drama was from well-intentioned teachers who took us on field trips to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream or some other unreachable play that made drama seem boring. Furthermore, for my family, the cost of attending a Broadway musical (even in 1994) was high enough that it was literally the equivalent of going to Italy for many other families. Broadway musical was nowhere in my vocabulary.
It was when the producers offered a 50% discount on tickets that my mom saw the ad and suggested we go. I had labored my summer away in utter misery at Target, and I had some of the money left over (my parents would no way have had the money to fund two tickets). My mom wanted to see Carol Channing, and on a whim, I agreed to go. We didn’t go for the highest priced ticket because it seemed superfluous all things considered and went for the second-tier pricing (those seats, by the way, are now considered first-tier pricing). I paid $21.75 for row BB. I paid $21.75 for one of the best nights of my life.
It’s hard to explain the magic of that night. People who haven’t seen Carol Channing on stage can’t possible understand the impact she has on an audience, the domination she has over comedic timing and musical delivery, not to mention the magnitude of stage presence she carries in her hip pocket. Remember, I was an eighteen-year old, and women of her age weren’t exactly on my radar; it’s not like she was a cast member from Saved By the Bell. But the moment she appeared on stage, I knew. I knew this was going to be something special.
My favorite moment from the evening was “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” with those Victorian-era costumes in bright reds, greens, and oranges. Like its star, the number was larger-than-life. But in truth, so much of that evening still stands out in my mind—moments of Channing’s performance, looks she gave, bits of stage business.
Amazingly, ten years to the week that I had originally seen Hello, Dolly!, Carol Channing came to town in her one-woman show. In that show, she performed the title number in its entirety, including the choreography, even going so far as to indicate when she pulled up on her dress. Yes, I had tingles, lots and lots of tingles.
It’s sad to me that so little of her performance has been captured on film. I know there was a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade performance from a number of years ago that has yet to make it on YouTube as well as a CBS Sunday Morning profile from 1995 that featured a healthy dose of clips, but off all the cities she toured, of all the performances she played as Dolly Levi, there sure isn’t much of her performance recorded. I don’t know if it was recorded for the Lincoln Center, but if you live in New York City or visit there, make a point of checking to see if it was.
The God-send in all this—and I do mean God-send—is the wonderful PBS documentary Words and Music by Jerry Herman DVD, which provides the entire “Hello, Dolly!” number in black-and-white as a bonus feature. What’s interesting is that as someone who was so moved by that number, seeing it in its entirety almost as I saw it (there were some changes made for the revival), I was so incredibly moved. For others, though, seeing it on the screen doesn’t really do justice (as is the case with most filmed live performances); I don’t know if the average Joe would grasp exactly how powerful that number is with that woman and that choreography when performed live.
The legacy of the Lee Roy Reams-directed revival lives on. At the theatre, I bought the OBCR and literally listened to it for three straight months, never popping in another CD the whole time (and when the revival cast recording was released, I got that too). In the week after seeing it, I generated the idea for my first musical (which I would produce and direct a reading of in 2003). Yeah, after that, I knew I needed to write musicals, that I had to have more of this in my life. And when I started directing plays at a high school, the first show I did was Hello, Dolly!.
We Broadway fans, we all have similar stories, stories of how the bug bit us, the story of that magical first time. I urge everyone out there, take a young person to a Broadway musical or tour. Pick a show that you think they’ll like, then make it a magical first time. Get them the CD, the program, and if you can, take them out to dinner. Like me, that child might become a lifelong Broadway fan, whose ticket dollars and cast recording purchases continues to fuel Broadway for generations.
the Broadway Mouth
November 8, 2008
That Tuesday night (October 12, 1994), I was one of the first to stand to my feet, a shy eighteen-year old seeing his first Broadway musical, not because I wanted to but because I had to. The only decision made was not to check my shyness at the door because I knew even standing for such a performance by such a woman still wouldn’t be enough to express what was going on in that theatre and inside of me.
This repeated for the curtain call, another thrilling moment when my legs spoke for me. I couldn’t clap hard enough when Carol Channing came down in her wedding dress. I knew I had seen something phenomenal, something I would never get a chance to relive.
It was a miracle I even went. As a high school student, plays weren’t even on my radar. Like so many other kids, my experience with drama was from well-intentioned teachers who took us on field trips to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream or some other unreachable play that made drama seem boring. Furthermore, for my family, the cost of attending a Broadway musical (even in 1994) was high enough that it was literally the equivalent of going to Italy for many other families. Broadway musical was nowhere in my vocabulary.
It was when the producers offered a 50% discount on tickets that my mom saw the ad and suggested we go. I had labored my summer away in utter misery at Target, and I had some of the money left over (my parents would no way have had the money to fund two tickets). My mom wanted to see Carol Channing, and on a whim, I agreed to go. We didn’t go for the highest priced ticket because it seemed superfluous all things considered and went for the second-tier pricing (those seats, by the way, are now considered first-tier pricing). I paid $21.75 for row BB. I paid $21.75 for one of the best nights of my life.
It’s hard to explain the magic of that night. People who haven’t seen Carol Channing on stage can’t possible understand the impact she has on an audience, the domination she has over comedic timing and musical delivery, not to mention the magnitude of stage presence she carries in her hip pocket. Remember, I was an eighteen-year old, and women of her age weren’t exactly on my radar; it’s not like she was a cast member from Saved By the Bell. But the moment she appeared on stage, I knew. I knew this was going to be something special.
My favorite moment from the evening was “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” with those Victorian-era costumes in bright reds, greens, and oranges. Like its star, the number was larger-than-life. But in truth, so much of that evening still stands out in my mind—moments of Channing’s performance, looks she gave, bits of stage business.
Amazingly, ten years to the week that I had originally seen Hello, Dolly!, Carol Channing came to town in her one-woman show. In that show, she performed the title number in its entirety, including the choreography, even going so far as to indicate when she pulled up on her dress. Yes, I had tingles, lots and lots of tingles.
It’s sad to me that so little of her performance has been captured on film. I know there was a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade performance from a number of years ago that has yet to make it on YouTube as well as a CBS Sunday Morning profile from 1995 that featured a healthy dose of clips, but off all the cities she toured, of all the performances she played as Dolly Levi, there sure isn’t much of her performance recorded. I don’t know if it was recorded for the Lincoln Center, but if you live in New York City or visit there, make a point of checking to see if it was.
The God-send in all this—and I do mean God-send—is the wonderful PBS documentary Words and Music by Jerry Herman DVD, which provides the entire “Hello, Dolly!” number in black-and-white as a bonus feature. What’s interesting is that as someone who was so moved by that number, seeing it in its entirety almost as I saw it (there were some changes made for the revival), I was so incredibly moved. For others, though, seeing it on the screen doesn’t really do justice (as is the case with most filmed live performances); I don’t know if the average Joe would grasp exactly how powerful that number is with that woman and that choreography when performed live.
The legacy of the Lee Roy Reams-directed revival lives on. At the theatre, I bought the OBCR and literally listened to it for three straight months, never popping in another CD the whole time (and when the revival cast recording was released, I got that too). In the week after seeing it, I generated the idea for my first musical (which I would produce and direct a reading of in 2003). Yeah, after that, I knew I needed to write musicals, that I had to have more of this in my life. And when I started directing plays at a high school, the first show I did was Hello, Dolly!.
We Broadway fans, we all have similar stories, stories of how the bug bit us, the story of that magical first time. I urge everyone out there, take a young person to a Broadway musical or tour. Pick a show that you think they’ll like, then make it a magical first time. Get them the CD, the program, and if you can, take them out to dinner. Like me, that child might become a lifelong Broadway fan, whose ticket dollars and cast recording purchases continues to fuel Broadway for generations.
the Broadway Mouth
November 8, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
New Broadway Shows to Naysayers: I Ain’t Down Yet
In her memoir of sorts, Just Lucky I Guess, Carol Channing wrote:
“Most every worthwhile project as far as I have seen goes through a period of, ‘It’s not going to work, why did we ever start this?’ The storm has to come.”
According to Carol Channing, Hello, Dolly! was a mess out of town. In her one-woman show, she has said that the producer was going to close it, the show was such a mess.
Shortly thereafter, Hello, Dolly!, of course, became the show to win the most Tony Awards until The Producers came along, was the longest-running show for a short time, and is one of the happiest evenings you could ever have in a theatre.
What changed the course of events? A song. One song.
Okay, it was really Jerry Herman because he wrote the song, but the point is that what the show started out as isn’t what it came to be. Could you imagine the message board posts about the Detroit tryout if it was being produced today?
hateseverythingheseestheatrefan09:
I saw the show in Detroit. Yeah, whoever gave Carol a show should have their taps permanently revoked. Give her a revival of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Idina should have gotten it. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the show is an unmitigated mess.
bwaybebe:
I agree. The show had some moments, but it never builds. The title song and “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” worked well, but other than that, there’s no reason for it to exist. I should know; I used to sell drinks at the Plymouth. It’ll close before previews.
DonnaFan:
I thought the songs were pretty forgettable. I heard them once and can’t hum a single one.
Britannia:
I think it has potential. It’s not perfect, but it is out of town for a reason.
hateseverythingheseestheatrefan09:
Die, schill, die!
There’s nothing wrong with people posting about shows on message boards or criticizing during previews because, as someone somewhere once said, if people are paying to see the show, they have a right to know how it is. After all, $125 during previews is $125.
But let’s remember that no show is a lost cause until it officially opens. Something as simple as a song can refocus the material (like it did for Hello, Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum). Five lines of dialogue can provide needed character development or exposition (something like in The Light in the Piazza). Recasting a role can reinterpret a character (like with Thoroughly Modern Millie). Those were very important changes, but in the grand scope of the shows’ creations, they were relatively minor.
Anything Goes, don’t forget, was rewritten in two months. The score for Wonderful Town was rewritten in one month. What matters most are not the names or the experience of the people involved, what the naysayers say, or the quality of the source material. What matters most is the talent of the people involved, the union of the creative team, and the support of the producers.
So, let’s add a new entry to our message board discussion above.
NewBroadwayShow:
Doesn’t make a bit-a
Difference for you to keep
Saying’ I’m downnn, till
I say to
Too.
the Broadway Mouth
April 12, 2008
“Most every worthwhile project as far as I have seen goes through a period of, ‘It’s not going to work, why did we ever start this?’ The storm has to come.”
According to Carol Channing, Hello, Dolly! was a mess out of town. In her one-woman show, she has said that the producer was going to close it, the show was such a mess.
Shortly thereafter, Hello, Dolly!, of course, became the show to win the most Tony Awards until The Producers came along, was the longest-running show for a short time, and is one of the happiest evenings you could ever have in a theatre.
What changed the course of events? A song. One song.
Okay, it was really Jerry Herman because he wrote the song, but the point is that what the show started out as isn’t what it came to be. Could you imagine the message board posts about the Detroit tryout if it was being produced today?
hateseverythingheseestheatrefan09:
I saw the show in Detroit. Yeah, whoever gave Carol a show should have their taps permanently revoked. Give her a revival of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Idina should have gotten it. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the show is an unmitigated mess.
bwaybebe:
I agree. The show had some moments, but it never builds. The title song and “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” worked well, but other than that, there’s no reason for it to exist. I should know; I used to sell drinks at the Plymouth. It’ll close before previews.
DonnaFan:
I thought the songs were pretty forgettable. I heard them once and can’t hum a single one.
Britannia:
I think it has potential. It’s not perfect, but it is out of town for a reason.
hateseverythingheseestheatrefan09:
Die, schill, die!
There’s nothing wrong with people posting about shows on message boards or criticizing during previews because, as someone somewhere once said, if people are paying to see the show, they have a right to know how it is. After all, $125 during previews is $125.
But let’s remember that no show is a lost cause until it officially opens. Something as simple as a song can refocus the material (like it did for Hello, Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum). Five lines of dialogue can provide needed character development or exposition (something like in The Light in the Piazza). Recasting a role can reinterpret a character (like with Thoroughly Modern Millie). Those were very important changes, but in the grand scope of the shows’ creations, they were relatively minor.
Anything Goes, don’t forget, was rewritten in two months. The score for Wonderful Town was rewritten in one month. What matters most are not the names or the experience of the people involved, what the naysayers say, or the quality of the source material. What matters most is the talent of the people involved, the union of the creative team, and the support of the producers.
So, let’s add a new entry to our message board discussion above.
NewBroadwayShow:
Doesn’t make a bit-a
Difference for you to keep
Saying’ I’m downnn, till
I say to
Too.
the Broadway Mouth
April 12, 2008
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Amazing Broadway Performer: Carol Channing
I owe a lot to Carol Channing. As I’ve mentioned before, it was her 1994 pre-Broadway tour of Hello, Dolly! that got me hooked on theatre. The show was a true God-send to me.
I was a senior in high school and had worked away my summer in a miserable job at Target, but that job turned out to be the best thing ever because it gave me the money to see the show. My family was not well-to-do in the least, and when my mom saw that Carol Channing was coming to town in Hello, Dolly! and that there was this amazing discount on the tickets (I’ve never seen an Equity show do such discounts since), we went on a whim. She wanted to see Carol Channing, and while I knew who she was, I just went just for something different.
Everything about the show was amazing. I listened to the CD for two months straight afterwards, no exaggeration. In fact, it was in the week after seeing that show that I decided that I wanted to write a Broadway musical and came up with the premise for the show that I’ve been pursuing ever since (though I didn’t write the first draft until a year out of college).
It’s hard to explain Carol Channing’s appeal except to say that she filled that theatre with her presence. Yes, she had dead-on comedic timing, moved well, and was an amazing actress. But it was like she was a giant magnet and we, the audience, were all metal scraps unable to turn away. I was one of the first ones to stand up after the “Hello, Dolly!” number, and it was because I had to, not because I wanted to. Same with her curtain call at the end of the show. I was propelled to my feet; it wasn’t a choice. Even then, standing and clapping didn’t feel like enough to acknowledge this thing . . . this performance (which seems too small a word to describe it) which I had seen.
Ten years to the week after I had originally seen the tour, Carol Channing came to town again in her one woman show. She re-enacted the choreography for that wonderful title number, even indicating what she had done with her dress. I had chills down my spine remembering that moment and seeing this indescribable woman doing it again.
It is my dream to see her do the show again. Until then, I’d love to see some footage on YouTube (Hint, Hint). She’s recently indicated her desire to do it, though I don’t know if she could physically do it at her age. I once read in an interview that she does the show every 15 years, which means that she should be back coveting Vandergelder’s cash register in two years. I’m holding my breath.
In my dream world, when I’ve had hits on Broadway and on television and in film, I have enough money to build a new theatre on Broadway called the Carol Channing Theatre. Not only will it be one of those really big ones that can house expensive independent musicals with lots of knee room for people 6’5”, but it will have classical style artwork depicting great performances from great shows all over the walls. Above the proscenium arch will be Carol Channing with waiters in Hello, Dolly!
Broadway Mouth
July 11, 2007
I was a senior in high school and had worked away my summer in a miserable job at Target, but that job turned out to be the best thing ever because it gave me the money to see the show. My family was not well-to-do in the least, and when my mom saw that Carol Channing was coming to town in Hello, Dolly! and that there was this amazing discount on the tickets (I’ve never seen an Equity show do such discounts since), we went on a whim. She wanted to see Carol Channing, and while I knew who she was, I just went just for something different.
Everything about the show was amazing. I listened to the CD for two months straight afterwards, no exaggeration. In fact, it was in the week after seeing that show that I decided that I wanted to write a Broadway musical and came up with the premise for the show that I’ve been pursuing ever since (though I didn’t write the first draft until a year out of college).
It’s hard to explain Carol Channing’s appeal except to say that she filled that theatre with her presence. Yes, she had dead-on comedic timing, moved well, and was an amazing actress. But it was like she was a giant magnet and we, the audience, were all metal scraps unable to turn away. I was one of the first ones to stand up after the “Hello, Dolly!” number, and it was because I had to, not because I wanted to. Same with her curtain call at the end of the show. I was propelled to my feet; it wasn’t a choice. Even then, standing and clapping didn’t feel like enough to acknowledge this thing . . . this performance (which seems too small a word to describe it) which I had seen.
Ten years to the week after I had originally seen the tour, Carol Channing came to town again in her one woman show. She re-enacted the choreography for that wonderful title number, even indicating what she had done with her dress. I had chills down my spine remembering that moment and seeing this indescribable woman doing it again.
It is my dream to see her do the show again. Until then, I’d love to see some footage on YouTube (Hint, Hint). She’s recently indicated her desire to do it, though I don’t know if she could physically do it at her age. I once read in an interview that she does the show every 15 years, which means that she should be back coveting Vandergelder’s cash register in two years. I’m holding my breath.
In my dream world, when I’ve had hits on Broadway and on television and in film, I have enough money to build a new theatre on Broadway called the Carol Channing Theatre. Not only will it be one of those really big ones that can house expensive independent musicals with lots of knee room for people 6’5”, but it will have classical style artwork depicting great performances from great shows all over the walls. Above the proscenium arch will be Carol Channing with waiters in Hello, Dolly!
Broadway Mouth
July 11, 2007
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