May 21, 2018 - Giving Tom and Kathy a Rest

[Chris L]

I know you guys have been pulling far more than your weight on creating Dailies. And I should have noticed that there wasn't one yesterday and started it myself. Once the Dailies start slipping, so goes the site. But I'm happy to chip in with this one.

We've seen a couple of great shows lately, a bizarrely hilarious new musical by David Henry Hwang and Jean Tesori called Soft Power, about how the Chinese view Americans and how Hwang still believes in democracy despite the defeat of Hilary Clinton. (Clinton is actually a major character in the musical within the framing story of a shorter play.) And a concert by the incomparable Audra McDonald, who was in superb voice, funny, charming and, of course, beautiful. She sang pretty much nothing but showtunes, including two by Sondheim ("Children Will Listen" and "Being Alive.") I may write more about these elsewhere on the site when I get the time (or the energy).

Somebody else write the Daily for Tuesday and let us know you're still alive and around.

[Hester Jean]

We've seen a couple of great shows lately, a bizarrely hilarious new musical by David Henry Hwang and Jean Tesori called Soft Power, about how the Chinese view Americans and how Hwang still believes in democracy despite the defeat of Hilary Clinton. (Clinton is actually a major character in the musical within the framing story of a shorter play.) And a concert by the incomparable Audra McDonald, who was in superb voice, funny, charming and, of course, beautiful. She sang pretty much nothing but showtunes, including two by Sondheim ("Children Will Listen" and "Being Alive.") I may write more about these elsewhere on the site when I get the time (or the energy).

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is premiering an opera by David Henry Hwang and Huang Ruo called An American Soldier about the death of soldier Danny Chen.  I have heard several songs from it and they are beautiful, but I am pretty sure this isn't going to be a laugh riot!!! In fact, our entire season is a little on the downer side.  Luckily they picked the happy ending to Orfeo & Euridice (apparently, Gluck wrote several versions and one gets to pick and chose what bits one wants!)  They are also doing La Traviata with Patricia Racette making her directorial debut and Regina featuring Susan Graham.

Also @Bookman George and I saw Audra a couple of weeks ago.  She was everything you said.  We also got the movie version of "The Glamorous Life" about which she had the funniest story of the evening.

[Chris L]

Yes, she told that story here too. Amy actually found a clip of the event itself on YouTube: