I’m enjoying the Apple TV+ production of Manhunt about the search for Lincoln’s assassin. It gets a bit confusing at times with its zigzagging around in time, which normally I like, but this show overdoes it, I think. Never mind. It gets more things right than not, and that’s what’s important. I saw some grousing … Continue reading Damn You, Booth!
Sondheim
John Bell
When he was 18, John Bell wrote a fan letter to Stephen Sondheim to tell him how much Sondheim's music meant to him. Sondheim was so taken with the letter that he wrote back with his phone number and told John to give him a call if he was ever in New York City. How … Continue reading John Bell
Is There a Moral?
I wish I had included this video in my list a few days ago, but I hadn’t watched it at that point. Now that I have, I would rank it as one of the best videos, if not the best, about Into the Woods. Possibly as good as the ones with Sondheim himself. I had been … Continue reading Is There a Moral?
Giants in the Sky
Note: I have been trying to stock up on blog posts in advance so I can keep my daily streak (currently at 518 days) going, while I work on a longer series of posts that require a bit more effort than my daily posts normally do. Hence, I might be writing about the same subject … Continue reading Giants in the Sky
The Grimm Brothers
As I mentioned, Sondheim and Lapine used the Grimm Brothers’ versions of the tales (except for Jack and the Beanstalk which is an English folk tale) when they were developing Into the Woods. Now The Brothers Grimm, Jacob und Wilhelm, did not write the tales for which they became famous themselves; they spent years collecting those … Continue reading The Grimm Brothers
Going Deeper Into the Woods
If you’ve enjoyed Into the Woods, either via the video that I linked to yesterday or having seen it in some other way, you might wish to go a little deeper into the creation of the show with Lapine and Sondheim. There are lots of YouTube videos to help. For example, here is a conversation that … Continue reading Going Deeper Into the Woods
Everyone tells tiny lies
“What's important, really, is the size.” Continuing with the Sondheim birthday theme, I just discovered a wonderful free way to watch the Original Broadway Cast in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s fairy tale musical Into the Woods. It’s generally considered the most accessible of the Sondheim shows and is the only one that is really family-friendly. … Continue reading Everyone tells tiny lies
Getting Away With Murder
I was excited on Sunday March 31, 1996, as I boarded an Amtrak train to take me to New York City for I had a ticket to see the matinee performance of a mystery play entitled Getting Away With Murder that had just opened a couple weeks earlier at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway. I had … Continue reading Getting Away With Murder
Old Friends Video
Here’s a music video of the song “Old Friends” for the cast recording of the current Broadway revival of George Furth and Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. This song has been among my top ten favorite Sondheim songs ever since I saw it performed in the original Broadway production; you know, the one that … Continue reading Old Friends Video
Law & Order Humor
I recently bought the DVD set of the first 20 seasons of Law & Order and added them to my Plex library. Law & Order, while I liked the show a lot, is not one of my top ten favorite shows of the 20th century. It generally took a ripped-from-the-headlines approach to picking stories to … Continue reading Law & Order Humor