All tagged The Grass Harp
Summer is such a popular time for weddings, everyone betting the bank on happiness and receiving gifts for trying. I’m not a fan of weddings and I often find myself drifting into distraction when I’m at one. At a recent wedding, during all the pomp and circumstance and the ongoing blah blah blah, I of course had to entertain myself somehow to keep from nodding off. So, I got to thinking about showtunes about getting married and decided to make a list of them. My one rule: any song that made the list had to include the words “married” or “marriage” in its title in some form. Here is what I came up with…
It rained a little on Broadway this week with the passing of Barbara Cook, a legend of the Broadway musical whose clarion soprano and boundless emotion took songs into the outer stratosphere. Cook, who has been a presence on the Broadway scene since the 1950s in both musicals and concerts, died on August 8 at the age of 89 after a long illness. Her legions of fans are mourning the loss of the great lady who, among myriad roles, originated the role of Marion Paroo in the 1957 production of The Music Man.
Have you ever picked up a Broadway cast recording that you’d only vaguely heard of (or had never heard of), listened to it and said “This score is so good! Why isn’t this show being performed all the time?”. Just because a Broadway show has problems, it doesn’t always mean that the score is bad. In fact, many flop or troubled musicals have superior scores that will make you keep wondering “Was that musical AWFUL or WONDERFUL?”. Here are nine cast albums that will keep you wondering why that musical wasn’t a bigger hit.
2015 was an exciting year on Broadway. Who would have guessed it would prove to be such a sparkling year with such groundbreaking shows as Fun Home, Allegiance and Hamilton, as well as such stunning revivals as On the 20th Century, The King and I, and The Color Purple? As we look forward to 2016, the bar has been set high and here are some of MY wishes for what is to come...
