Indina Menzel, Lillias Piro White, Cynthia Erivo and others perform their covers of “Don’t Rain On My Parade”. We will leave Beanie Feldstein’s rendition out of this collection. Poor thing. The reviews have been brutal. But then again it was expected.
Tag Archives: Broadway
WATCH: Patti LuPone Sing “Ladies Who Lunch” from the Broadway Production of COMPANY [VIDEO]
If you can’t make it to New York City to see the new “gender bending” production of COMPANY starring La Diva’ herself Patti LuPone fear not. You can get a sip of Patti’s potently potable rendition below.
Enjoy, have a double, and please wear a hat.
Let’s hear it for the ladies who lunch! Everybody rise! 🍸 pic.twitter.com/8AEJULOM72
— COMPANY (@CompanyBway) March 8, 2022
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Gay History – August 21, 1983: La Cage aux Folles Opens on Broadway! [Video]
On this day in gay history the musical La Cage aux Folles (Yea Theatre Queens!) with a book by Harvey Fierstein and lyrics and music by Jerry Herman opened on Broadway in 1983.
Based on the 1973 French play of the same name by Jean Poiret, it focuses on a gay couple: Georges, the manager of a Saint-Tropez nightclub featuring drag entertainment, and Albin, his romantic partner and star attraction, and the farcical adventures that ensue when Georges’s son, Jean-Michel, brings home his fiancée’s ultra-conservative parents to meet them. La cage aux folles literally means “the cage of mad women”. However, folles is also a slang term for effeminate homosexuals (queens).
According to Playbill Radio program director Robert Viagas, La Cage aux Folles predated the widespread “Ellen,” “Will & Grace” and “Queer Eye”-type recognition. “La Cage opened in a time when gays were just starting to be accepted and homosexuality was just starting to be talked about openly,” Viagas said. “A Chorus Line opened the door and then [came] Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy. La Cage took it a step further showing to a general audience that gays could actually form stable, long-term relationships and even raise children. The message of La Cage could be phrased as ‘Honor your mother — even if she’s a man.’ That was a revelation at the time, at least in the mass media.”
The early-season musical would beat out the rest of the year’s competition — including shows like Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s The Rink and David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr.’s Baby — taking home the top trio of musical prizes for Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book. Actor Hearn, director Laurents and costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge would bring the show to a topping tally of six awards.
The production starred George Hearn as Albin and Gene Barry as Georges
Souces: Playbill
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WATCH: Broadway Backwards 2021 – BROADWAY CARES/EQUITY FIGHTS AIDS (VIDEO)
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas Theatre Queens!
This virtual edition of Broadway Backwards 2021 will explore how the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic has specifically affected the LGBT community. The show will feature Jay Armstrong Johnson as an isolated New Yorker who dreams a fantastical journey guided by a late night television host, portrayed by Jenn Colella.
This year’s production includes a special opening number with Stephanie J. Block, Deborah Cox and Lea Salonga. And the star-studded finale includes new performances by Amy Adams, James Monroe Iglehart, Cheyenne Jackson, L Morgan Lee, Raymond J. Lee, Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Ruthie Ann Miles, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jessie Mueller, Kelli O’Hara, Karen Olivo, Bernadette Peters, Sis and Elizabeth Stanley. The finale also includes special appearances by Debbie Allen, Matt Bomer, Brenda Braxton, Len Cariou, Glenn Close, Loretta Devine, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Cherry Jones, Aasif Mandvi, Michael McElroy, Javier Muñoz, Jim Parsons, Eve Plumb, Roslyn Ruff and Tony Yazbeck.
Other special guests include: Chasten Buttigieg, Anderson Cooper, Ariana DeBose, Don Lemon, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Robin Roberts, Tony Shalhoub and Ben Vereen.
Broadway Backwards is produced by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and benefits Broadway Cares and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City. The free online event, can be viewed at here through 11:59 pm Saturday, April 3.
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![WATCH: "ANGELS IN AMERICA" National Theater/Broadway Cast Production - Full Play [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/www.back2stonewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/National-Theater-Angels-in-America.png?resize=494%2C270)
WATCH: “ANGELS IN AMERICA” National Theater/Broadway Cast Production – Full Play [Video]
The National Theater presents the Broadway Live production of Tony Kushner’s multi-award-winning two-part play directed by Tony award-winning director Marianne Elliott.
America in the mid-1980s. In the midst of the AIDS crisis and a conservative Reagan administration, New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell.
The cast includes Andrew Garfield playing Prior Walter, Denise Gough playing Harper Pitt, Nathan Lane playing Roy Cohn, James McArdle playing Louis Ironson and Russell Tovey playing Joe Pitt.
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WATCH: The KINKY BOOTS – “Raise You Up” – International Pride Cast Reunion 2020 Starring: EVERYBODY!
To celebrate NYC Pride 2020, the smash-hit Tony Award-winning, Olivier Award-winning, Grammy Award-winning Broadway legend KINKY BOOTS brings together cast members from around the globe and reunites original Broadway stars Billy Porter, Stark Sands and Annaleigh Ashford for epic at-home music video of its finale anthem “Raise You Up” by Cyndi Lauper. Productions from seven nations across four continents represented!
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LOST FOOTAGE – Linzi Hateley Performs The Title Song from CARRIE: The Musical – 1988 Broadway Production – [VIDEO]
Perhaps the most misunderstood musical theater piece of the 20th century Carrie: The Musical started previews on April 28, 1988, at the Virginia Theatre on Broadway.
Ken Mandelbaum is quoted by Wollman, MacDermot, and Trask:
“Ken Mandelbaum writes of an audience divided during early previews, the curtain calls of which were greeted with a raucous mix of cheers and boos. However, in an instant, when Linzi Hateley and Betty Buckley rose to take their bows, the entire theatre turned to a standing ovation.”
The show was sold out weeks in advance and did indeed receive standing ovations at some previews, as well as on opening night but that couldn’t save it.
Carrie: The Musical officially opened on May 12, 1988. Hampered by scathing reviews by professional critics, the financial backers pulled their money out of the show, and it closed on May 15 after only 16 previews and 5 performances, guaranteeing its place in theatre history as one of the most expensive disasters of all time.
It wasn’t that Carrie:The Musical was a bad show. It was just badly directed, over produced and horribly choreographed (Thank you Debbie Allen.)
But Carrie: The Musical wasn’t dead and she would be resurrected and produced Off-Broadway as a limited run show at the Lucille Lortel Theatre by MCC Theater. Marin Mazzie starred as Margaret White and Molly Ranson as Carrie. Previews on January 31, 2012, and officially opened on March 1, 2012, and closed a month later to good solid reviews. The MCC directors said: “MCC, the authors, and the director achieved what we all set out to do – to rescue Carrie from oblivion and to give her new life.
Below is “lost footage” of the original Carrie, Linzi Hateley singing the title song from the 1988 Broadway production from an old press video reel with the audio and video cleaned up.
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Happy Mother’s Day! – Presenting. In Person. The GYPSY Mama Rose Supercut! – “Some People” Sung by Merman, Lupone, Judy, Midler, Liza and More! – Video
Nothing says Mother’s Day and GAY like “Gypsy” and Mama Rose. (Except maybe Mommy Dearest.)
“Louise! Bring me the Chowsie!”
Enjoy!
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Legendary Actress Carol Channing Passes Away at 97
The legendary Carol Channingdied at 12:31am on Tuesday, January 15th, 2019, at home in Rancho Mirage, CA of natural causes.
B Harlan Boll, Channing’s publicist, released the following statement:
It is with extreme heartache, that I have to announce the passing of an original Industry Pioneer, Legend and Icon – Miss Carol Channing. I admired her before I met her, and have loved her since the day she stepped … or fell rather … into my life. It is so very hard to see the final curtain lower on a woman who has been a daily part of my life for more than a third of it. We supported each other, cried with each other, argued with each other, but always ended up laughing with each other. Saying good-bye is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, but I know that when I feel those uncontrollable urges to laugh at everything and/or nothing at all, it will be because she is with me, tickling my funny bone.
Ms Channing was born Jan 31, 1921 in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of a prominent newspaper editor, who was very active in the Christian Science movement
A recipient of the 1995 Lifetime Achievement Tony Award, Ms. Channing has been a star of international acclaim since a Time magazine cover story hailed her performance as Lorelei Lee in “Gentleman Prefer Blondes” writing; “Perhaps once in a decade a nova explodes above the Great White Way with enough brilliance to re-illumine the whole gaudy legend of show business.” Since her 1948 Broadway debut in Blitzstein’s “No For An Answer,” her Broadway appearances have included “So Proudly We Hail,” “Let’s Face It,” “Lend An Ear,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “Show Girl,” “Pygmalion,” “The Millionairess,” “The Vamp,” “Four On A Garden,” and “Wonderful Town.” In addition to receiving a special Tony Award in 1968, she won the Tony Award in 1964 for her legendary portrayal of Dolly Levi in Jerry Herman‘s “Hello, Dolly!”
Ms Channing is survived by her son, Channing Lowe and close family member, Sylvia Long. Services have not yet been determined.
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Hair Composer Galt MacDermot Passes Away At Age 89
Rolling Stone reports:
Galt MacDermot, who composed the hit Broadway musicals Hair and Two Gentlemen of Verona, died Monday, a day before his 90th birthday. His death was confirmed to Playbill by his granddaughter, though a cause of death was not revealed. With a plot that questioned the Vietnam War, the production of Hair was a timely smash and earned two Tony nominations and won the Grammy for Best Score From an Original Cast Show Album.
MacDermot’s music, both from his stage productions and non-Broadway albums, had an immense impact on hip-hop. Samples of “Space,” from his Woman Is Sweetersoundtrack, have appeared in tracks by Snoop Dogg, Faith Evans and Busta Rhymes (“Woo-Hah!! Got You All in Check”). Additionally, Madlib, MF Doom, Run-DMC and Public Enemy, among many others, have all sampled his music in their recordings.
