2012-11-17 Dreamgirls at Signature

2012-11-17 and 18 Washington, D.C.

I joined Bill in Washington, D.C. for the weekend to see some theatre, visit a friend, and to sees sights. I arrived late Friday night so we could have Sat. and Sunday for our adventure. Our only scheduled times were for seeing My Fair Lady on Sat. night at the Arena Stage and Sunday matinee of Dreamgirls at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Va.

On Sat. we decided to have lunch at Legal Seafoods in the Chinatown area of Washington. This restaurant has become one of our favorites in DC.  And once again we were not disappointed. From there we went to Regal Theats to see Cloud Atlas, the newish movie starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. This movie be the Wachowski Bros. who did The Matrix movies has a very convoluted plot and uses the same actors in many roles. It was somewhat confusing at first, but started to make sense about midway thru. I enjoyed it very much and feel it will probably receive many accolades in the near futureyy. I look forward to seeing it again either on blu-ray or on a premium channel.

I forgot to mention that we had about an hour and a half after lunch and before the movie. W e went to the National Portrait Gallery to see an exhibit of paintings and photograhs dealing with the Civil War. It was a very moving exhibit reflecting a great deal of insight from the viewpoint of many of the famous artists of that time period and photograhs depicting the horror of war, the blodshed, ane rhe destruction of many of the southern cities. I was very moved by the overall exhibit.

That evening we took the Metro to the soutern waterfront area of Washington where the Aren Stage is located. We had tried to make a reservation at 4 , a restaurant near the theatre. They seated us with no problem. Our waitress Kristen had waited on us on a previous trip. We had a delightful meal and sat next tothe actor who was playing Col. Pickering at Arena which we were about to see.

We have been to the revamped Arena a couple of times before. We saw The Music Man a coupleof months ago and Mary Zimmerman's Arabian Nights. The main theatre is in the round and they have added two more new theatres and surrounded them with a beautiful glass facade. The entire complex is quite striking. My issue with the mainstage is that everything produced there is in the round. I'm old fashioned and I love to see sets which you don't get a lot of here. So I was disappointed with My Fair Lady. The leads were good, the singing good, but I feel there were too many liberties taken with the script of the musical including adding a scene from the movie version and moving the first act ending later in the show. I was glad I got to see it.

Sunday morning we got up packed and headed to another favorite restaurant called Ris near Foggy Bottom to meet up with our friend David Tannous. David is an avid theatre, opera, and art lover. He gets us all of our tickets for shows in Washington. Last year he was named the Theatregoer of the Year in the Washington area. Once again, we had another wonderful brunch at Ris.

It was then on to the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia to see their latest production, Dreamgirls. I loved this version of the show. It was well acted, sung, designed and executed. I would not be surprised if some New York producers go down to Arlington to see the show and want to move it to New York.

After the show, we returned to our hotel, grabbed our bags and headed to the Union Station to take the train back to New York. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend in our nation's capital.

2012-10-12 Linda Eder "A New Life"

Poster for Concert

Robert Cuccioli

Christianne Noll

Linda Eder

Linda Eder at Town Hall with Robert Cuccoli and Christianne Noll, Oct. 13, 2012

It's been a while since I added to my blog. Last night I saw one of the most amazing concerts that I have seen in a long time. Linda Eder, who is my favorite singer on the planet appeared at the Cabaret Convention at Town Hall which Scott Siegel does every year. The title of the concert was "A New Life," one of the songs from Jekyll and Hyde which had a wonderful run on Broadway. Her invited guests were Robert Cuccioli and Christianne Noll who appeared in the show with her. I have a long history with Jekyll and Hyde dating back from the initial concept album in 1991 with Linda and Colm Wilkinson. It then leads to seeing the show in 1995 in Houston, which will probably be the only time that anyone could see the total show before many cuts were made. I then saw it on tour a few times, at the Schubert in New Haven and in Baltimore at the Mechanic right before it began its Broadway run. I have been a Linda Eder devotee from the very beginning when I saw her appear on Star Search and won that year. Since I worked for Sam Goody when the concept CD of Jekyll  came out in 1995 with Anthony Warlow and Linda, I promoted the Cd in the stores, and was fortunate enough to take that trip to Houston to see the world premiere of the show. (By the way, it had been produced in Houston at the Alley Theatre five years before with Chuck Wagner in the lead roll.) So much for the history of the show. I saw it at least five times on Broadway and followed Linda's recording career ever since, travelling to Carnegie Hall, New Jersey perfoming arts theatre, a production of Camille Claudell at Goodspeed Opera house, a concert in Queens, yet another Town Hall performance a couple of years ago, and at a small theatre on 14th street where she premiered her country album. Needless to say, I am a devoted fan of Linda's.

On to the concert last night at Town Hall in NYC. Linda was in superb vocal performance throughout the evening. She did many of her memorable songs,  but it was the songs from Jekyll and Hyde that made the evening so memorable. She graciously shared the stage with Robert and Christianne to perform a good deal of the most exciting songs from this show. The highlight for me was Linda and Christianne singing the duet "In His Eyes" from Jekyll and Hyde. It was spectacular. The other highlight for me was Robert's anthem of "This is the Moment." His remarks about this song becoming the singular song that people will remember him by was especially moving. And Linda also performed the song cut on Broadway, "Bring on the Men" and said that she should have put her diva foot down and insist that it not be cut. The audience roared their approval. It was an immense pleasure to see these incredible performers back on stage together, and to experience the amazing camaraderie of them working together again.

This was Linda's concert and she did not disappoint. She performed an amazing version of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep." Other highlights included Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and an astonishing "Over the Rainbow" as her encore. She also performed the song "Anthem" from Chess which the audience loved.  I feel that Linda is one of the most overlooked performers around.

I waited about an hour after the concert to say hello and was not disappointed. I got the chance to say hello to Robert, Christianne, and Linda before I left for home. This was an incredible night, and one that I will not soon forget.