The BCEFA events are uniformly awesome. Easter Bonnets provides spoof versions of musical numbers every year (I remember a song a few years ago called "Real Broadway Show," parodying standard "Real Live Girl," in which cast members from some edgy and short-lived Broadway flop wish they could get ensemble roles in a…

There were some groans at my Tonys party when Streisand came out dressed a la "Hamilton" to give it the award. A friend of mine even joked, "if the best musical was Shuffle Along, would she have been in blackface?"

The Tonys in the past have had some difficulties when they either insinuate "theatre is gay" or "gay people are heavily associated with the theatre." Given that the theme of this year was "diversity," the lack of queer humor or signifiers was somewhat notable. I feel like they stepped around it by dedicating the event…

I hadn't noticed it during the actual airing, but somebody over on BroadwayWorld mentioned in passing that there were no gay jokes this year, probably in deference to the tragedy of the morning. I wonder if there was a big "gay bit" or comic routine cut at the last minute, prompting the re-airing of Corden's "Carpool…

He got Marvelled. When Howard's word got more intertwined with the rest of the Marvel universe, having a character clearly drawn "off-model" as a parody of Disney funny animals started to look odd. A sore thumb, more than the "sore thumb" of a character warranted. Add to that the squabbles with Disney over how much…

Will it be the same soapy Nashville we saw on ABC? I never watched it, but the commercials made it look like your typical network 10 PM primetime soap, and CMT semi-famously banned a video where Julianne Hough danced in a bra, essentially kicking her out of country music.
I'm not sure fans will take to a kinder,…

Apparently pickled cheese is some Czech traditional food. I would not recommend it.

Pretty damn close. Now imagine it being said and served by a guy with hair died silverwhite and styled like a Hipster Donald Trump, speaking with what I can only describe as "that judgey-gay voice like Magic Man on Adventure Time."

True Showbiz Tales #3: When I had my first meeting with producers about the marketing rights to my upcoming show, it was at this delicious but somewhat insufferable jazz bar. The sort of place where they spot big spenders and immediately send over some kind of glad-hander to offer us "a complimentary charcuterie…

So the question really is, what KIND of late night host are we looking for? A party emcee, like Jimmy Fallon and James Corden? If you want a woman for that job, what about Jane Lynch? A Letterman-style comedian host? Amy Poehler or Chelsea Handler could have done that… maybe even Amy Sedaris. But if they're getting…

Passionmon: JewTwo Strikes Back

When I was a little kid, my uncle Gus told me a story he had allegedly learned as a boy in Ecuador- sort of a twist on the "Old Man Old Year, Baby New Year" mythology of Europe.
In "Uncle Gus's Christmas Tale," the reason the Second Coming hasn't happened yet, according to Ecuadorian Legend, is that Jesus keeps trying…

When people look at the culture of the 2010s, they're going to see it as the decade the musical genuinely came back as an American pop-cultural entity. And it's a good thing: the form has expanded enough in its potential and its variants that the public can embrace it without expecting every show to be a "girls, gays…

So an understanding of writing detail-heavy music with character and personality, a love of period sounds and an understanding of classical and Cajun elements? Somebody call Thomas Dolby- his first Tony Award is waiting for him!

Jim Steinman has had plans underway for almost twenty years to make a "Bat out of Hell" stage show, but he keeps reconceiving it, scrapping everything and reimagining. It's been planned as a concert tour, a rock opera, a movie, a stage musical, a ballet, and most recently a spectacle beyond any budget or logic. His…

You want a bootleg or the NYPL copy.

I was just in the pit orchestra for "American Idiot" last week and was surprised by what the actual message of the show is: life sucks, deal with it. Angst is stupid, and if you have something to rebel against, rebel against it, but if you're just pissed off for no reason, fuck you, shut up and sit down.

I would like to hear Les Mis reorchestrated by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The score is stuck frozen between grand classicism and proto-rock opera, and recent adaptations and revisions (especially the film) have tilted it towards symphonic Phantom of the Opera stuff. I'd like to hear it back in the other direction,…

Just get a fantastic, Batman-equaling voice cast in there. Clancy Brown is a well-loved Luthor, but none of the other character voices maintain a definitive or even iconic status. If the budget for this thing were high enough, I'd recommend Jon Hamm as Superman, Clancy Brown or Kevin Spacey as Luthor, Alison Brie as…

The first episode of AHS: Hotel seemed like it was going to become an interesting adaptation of the dense psychological-meets-Lovecraftian horror in the song "Hotel California," before turning into anything but that.
THERE'S a prompt for the future: What piece of pop culture stubbornly refuses to be quite what you want…