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.

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(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"

[scenicdesign71]

NYT:  David Edward Byrd, Whose Posters Captured Rock's Energy, Dies at 83
                              His designs for Jimi Hendrix, the Who and others embodied the spirit of the psychedelic era.
                                                       He also created images for stage shows like Godspell.

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[scenicdesign71]

Dept. of Roads Not Taken:  Jean Smart auditioned for Sondheim and was offered a role in Follies (I'm guessing the 2011 B'way revival?) — but turned it down.
She discusses it in this recent half-hour interview, starting at about 22:24...

I would assume she was probably up for Phyllis — and while, as a low-key Smart devotee of several decades, I have to respect her choice, it's hard not to wonder more than a little wistfully about the performance she might have given.  (Barring that, and as long as I'm fantasizing anyway: if the 2021 B'way Company had had the much longer run it deserved, I would have paid good money to see Ms. Smart as a star replacement for Patti LuPone's Joanne).

[KathyB]

Yesterday I saw Follies in Concert at the Vintage Theatre in Aurora, CO. This is one of the shows that I figured was going to be on my bucket list for the longest (along with Pacific Overtures).

I thought the entire thing was wonderful, exceeding my high expectations. The surprising highlight, for me, was "One More Kiss," which was sung by two singers with beautiful voices who sounded so good together. "Could I Leave You" was another strong song, as was "Ah, Paris!" But it's hard to pick favorites.  The one drawback of the show was my obstructed view.   I was in the front row, dead center, and there was a music stand in front of me, which partially blocked my view of some of the performers. It blocked my view of Sally's face during "Losing My Mind." 

I'm wondering what version of the book was used, as it seemed much shorter than the original (which, admittedly, is a long libretto). I'm guessing it was an abridged version of the original. 

The intermission was right after "I'm Still Here." 

The woman next to me (Roxanne) was quite talkative, mentioning how she had "Leap of Faith" season tickets (a promotion where Vintage Theatre offers season tickets before the season is announced, at a discount), among other things. She was unfamiliar with Follies, so I told her that the plot centered around a group of performers coming to a reunion as the theatre they performed at was about to be demolished. I said there was also a lot of wistful reflection. (Hoping my description did the show justice.) She mentioned how she liked singing and dancing, and we talked about the upcoming season, which has quite a bit of singing, but I'm not sure about dancing. We also discussed Guys and Dolls and one of the actors in the show.

Great show. "I'm so glad I came."

[scenicdesign71]

This YouTube bioclip has made me somewhat less vague about Gene Nelson's life and career than I was 25 minutes ago:

It also cemented, for me, the logic of Tony Yazbeck's showstopping performance of "The Right Girl", at an athletic barely-38, in Prince of Broadway eight years ago.  I'd previously been only hazily aware of Nelson's own tour-de-force rendition of that number in 1971, at 50 and likely battling the painful wear and tear of his youthful acrobatic virtuosity.  (Though it's not mentioned in this clip, Nelson later directed a shoestring 1985 revival of Follies in Los Angeles, opening just a few weeks after the glamorous Follies In Concert on the opposite coast).

[AmyG]

(Though it's not mentioned in this clip, Nelson later directed a shoestring 1985 revival of Follies in Los Angeles, opening just a few weeks after the glamorous Follies In Concert on the opposite coast).

I saw that production! It was my introduction to Follies since sadly I missed the Broadway production when it played in LA. This was a dinky production in a tiny theater, which of course, is all wrong for Follies but I was glad to have a chance to see it.

And can I just say, that is such a strange thing for you to be aware of.

[scenicdesign71]

I saw that production! It was my introduction to Follies since sadly I missed the Broadway production when it played in LA. This was a dinky production in a tiny theater, which of course, is all wrong for Follies but I was glad to have a chance to see it.

And can I just say, that is such a strange thing for you to be aware of.

Oh, I wasn't (aware of it)!  Not until writing that post, that is.  The proliferating links are the giveaway that, as with many of my posts on this forum, I'd been fact-checking my own musings and/or just internet-rabbit-holing the topic in question, and was overeager to share my findings.  I do try to integrate them in a readable manner, with variable success — but if I sometimes overshoot and end up sounding strangely encyclopedic in my "awareness" of this or that, don't be fooled: I just spend too much time Googling stuff.

The note about that production's near-synchronicity with the Lincoln Center concert was suggested by the above-linked L.A. Times review of the former, which mentioned the latter in passing and sent me haring off to compare their respective dates.  In recent years (over the past decade or so – a middle age thing, maybe?) I've developed a mild obsession with placing things in time relative to one another, so it was weirdly satisfying to find just how close, literally just a couple of weeks, Nelson's production (which I'd only just discovered the other day) had been to the concert (which I'd known of for almost forty years, since receiving the concert CD — my introduction to Follies — for Christmas as a teen in either '85 or '86).

ANYway: that's so cool that you saw his production!  Do you remember anything about it?  Performances?  Design?  (That review writes off the sets and costumes as "make-do" but cites no specific details — although the program credits various folks for "opening and mirror costumes", "styrofoam sculptures", and "Buddy's car and special stage designs".  It also suggests that the band consisted of piano, drums... and harp).  How much did you know about the show before seeing it?  Dinkiness aside, was it at all what you were expecting?

Speaking of internet rabbit-holes: someone on eBay is selling this xeroxed script from the Nelson/Melrose production, marked up by its lighting designer Joseph Taggart and including additional handwritten followspot notes, along with a copy of the program signed for him by Nelson himself.

Okay, I'll stop...

[AmyG]

Before seeing the production, I had heard the OBCR quite a few times. I don't remember that much detail. Since it was the first production for me, I was more focused on the book and the songs. I just remember my brother (that's who I went with) telling me to imagine something much more elaborate. Had he seen a production before this? I can't remember and I can't ask him because he died of AIDS in 91*. We both would have had an opportunity to see it with the original cast in 1972. I would have been 15 and he would have been 17. I know I didn't see it but maybe he did. I don't think either of us were huge Sondheim fans yet - I was into rock and Andy was into folk mostly in our teens.

Though we did both see Company with the family when it came here in 72 with George Chakiris and a lot of the original cast. I did not appreciate it as much as I should have I'm sad to say. I think I was in the never-trust-anyone-over-30 phase of my adolescence. The one thing I took away from it was that I loved the song "Another Hundred People." But I digress. Back to Follies. 

Anyway, before seeing the show, I knew only the songs that were on the OBCR and nothing about the book. Though my brother would explain to me a little about what the songs were about while we were listening. I do remember enjoying the show and vowing to see a full-sized production once I got that chance. I've now seen several including the Kennedy Center in 2011, that same production again when it came to Los Angeles with Victoria Clark, and the London revival in 2017.

Actually, I didn't really think you always knew about the production but even finding out about it on the internet would require some digging. I get it though. When you post about something, even on this forum with its limited readership, you want to make sure it factual and complete. So you do a lot of research. I can always tell reading your posts. You are so thorough and write so well, I can see you turning this into something professional, though I'm not sure what.  

That program and script on eBay is going to be a hard sell. I don't even want it and I was there!   But I'm not the target audience whoever that might be. 

*Incidentally, and apropos of nothing, I realized that this year will be mark the point of my life that I will have lived as long without Andy in my life as with him. This occurred to me because of an article I read in The Atlantic.