FOLLIES

[scenicdesign71]

Jesse Green considers Follies on its approaching 50th anniversary:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/theater/follies-broadway-50-year-anniversary.html

Also, Ben Brantley recalls being thunderstruck, at 16, by the original 1971 production.

And Green and Scott Heller have fun dream-casting a hypothetical 2046 75th-anniversay revival, although, among their choices, only Justin Vivian Bond as Carlotta really excites me (and Bond, now 57, may be a bit too long in the tooth for the role by then; could someone please make this happen sooner?).

Speaking of which, I'm glad I'm not the only one to have wondered: is "I'm Still Here" really meant to be Carlotta's Follies number from back in the day, or is it more of a "book" song describing her life since then (and if the former, how is that even possible?)  Or is it somehow both?

[Bobster]

Carlotta's original number ("Can That Boy Foxtrot!") of course was her Follies number.

Yes, "I'm Still Here" is a book (non-diegetic) number.

For the London 1987 "Revisal" is was changed to a Follies number.

[scenicdesign71]

Oh boy, oh boy, can that boy foxtrot:

As SJS said of his homage, ultimately cut from Follies, this too is a single dirty joke spun out for three and a half minutes.  But out of context (with no larger story being interrupted, no star requiring a song she can make a fuller meal of), both "...Foxtrot" and this 1919 Irving Berlin bauble are delightful.

Eddie Cantor's original rendition (from Ziegfeld's Follies of 1919, in fact) and Marilyn Monroe's 1954 cover are worth a listen, but Madeleine Kahn -- whose charms as a singer have sometimes escaped me in other contexts -- is in this case my favorite.

[scenicdesign71]

NYT:  The Bathysphere Book chronicles the Depression-era ocean explorations of William Beebe


Heebie-jeebies sounds about right.

You cannot view this attachment.

(from Astra Publishing, 5/16/23)

[scenicdesign71]

Posted on YouTube about a month ago, and recently shared by Alan on the Facebook FTC group:

From the audio collection of production stage manager Craig Jacobs is this complete recording of Dorothy Collins Sings Sondheim. Preserved at Michael's Pub, 211 East 55th Street in Manhattan, on Tuesday, October 16, 1979, at 11:30 p.m., the cabaret gave Collins a chance to perform songs from Sondheim's career leading up to 1979, including "Not While I'm Around" and "Wait" from Sweeney Todd, which opened at New York City's Uris Theater six months prior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpxfPKWhiak
(60 min, audio only)

1. Medley: "Comedy Tonight," "Tonight" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses"
2. "Remember?" and "I Remember"
3. "Love Is in the Air"
4. "That'll Show Him"
5. "Sorry-Grateful"
6. "Could I Leave You?"
7. "Send in the Clowns"
8. "Uptown, Downtown"
9. "Not While I'm Around" and "Wait"
10. "Do I Hear a Waltz?"
11. "Broadway" and "Broadway Baby"
12.  Follies Reminiscences: "The Road You Didn't Take" and "Too Many Mornings"
13. "Losing My Mind"
14. "I'm Still Here"
15. "Being Alive"
16. "With So Little to Be Sure Of"