CB #2

CB #1

Correction…(Busking for Burma)

I discovered that the Etype performance I wrote about yesterday in Rundle Mall for the ABC Radio 891 live broadcast with Grant Cameron & Peter Goers has been shifted to today at 5.40pm (Australian Central Standard Time). Not that the first forty minutes won’t be worth listening to, of course…

If you don’t have a radio nearby you could possibly listen to it here, although I admit I had trouble getting the link to work on my Mac.

The event is titled “Busking for Burma” and is to raise awareness and funds for the 2.5 millions people left homeless in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.

If anyone’s interested in joining me – after the performance I’ll be heading to another event I’ve coined “Dining for Darfur”.

Anyone remember Starship’s “We Built This City”?

“Marconi plays the mamba” – one of the weirdest lyrics in the soundtrack to my life. But it came to mind when I set about writing this post as the next line in the song is “listen to the radio”.

Etype are performing in Rundle Mall for a live-to-air broadcast on Grant Cameron’s drive-time show on Adelaide Radio ABC 891 at 5pm tomorrow (Friday May 23, 08).

Isn’t every show on terrestrial radio a drive-time show? Does anyone listen to radio except when they’re in the car these days?

For another look at the esoteric meaning behind Bernie Taupin’s lyric for We Built This City – read this.

Sunday in the Park with Tony

What a day it’s been. The recently elected new Australian Government presented their first Federal Budget today AND the 2008 Tony Award Nominations were announced.

I’m going to address the Tony Nominations first. 

I’m so pleased that my friends at ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ were recognised with nine nominations.

1. Best Revival of a Musical: Sunday in the Park with George, alongside Grease, Gypsy and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific.

2. Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical: Daniel Evans, alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights), Stew (Passing Strange), Paulo Szot (South Pacific) and Tom Wopat (A Catered Affair).

3. Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical: Jenna Russell, alongside Kerry Butler (Xanadu), Patti LuPone (Gypsy), Kelli O’Hara (South Pacific) and Faith Prince (A Catered Affair).

4. Best Scenic Design of a Musical: David Farley and Timothy Bird & the Knifedge Creative Network, alongside Anna Louizos (In the Heights), Robin Wagner (The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein), Michael Yeargan (South Pacific).

5. Best Costume Design of a Musical: David Farley, alongside Martin Pakledinaz (Gypsy), Paul Tazewell (In the Heights) and Catherine Zuber (South Pacific).

6. Best Lighting Design of a Musical: Ken Billington, alongside Howell Binkley (In the Heights), Donald Holder (South Pacific) and Natasha Katz (The Little Mermaid).

7. Best Sound Design of a Musical: Sebastian Frost, alongside Acme Sound Partners (In the Heights), Scott Lehrer (South Pacific) and Dan Moses Schreier (Gypsy).

8. Best Direction of a Musical: Sam Buntrock, alongside Thomas Kail (In the Heights), Arthur Laurents (Gypsy) and Bartlett Sher (South Pacific).

9. Best Orchestrations: Jason Carr, alongside Alex Lacamoire and Bill Sherman (In the Heights), Stew and Heidi Rodewald (Passing Strange) and Jonathan Tunick (A Catered Affair).

Also, Christopher Gatelli who is credited with Musical Staging at SITPWG is nominated in the category of Best Choreography for his work on South Pacific.

 

Sunday in the Park with George’s composer, Stephen Sondheim, will be honoured with a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. 

More information can be found on the Tony Awards website and winners will be announced on Sunday June 15.

 

Oh – and I never intended to talk about the Federal Budget…

What happens when you mix prescriptions…

How She Succeeded in Cabaret

From “Rip It Up”

Issue 982, May 8-14, 2008

 

 

How to Succeed in Show Business – From Someone Who’s Really Trying

Queen’s Arms Hotel, Sat May 3

 Adelaide’s own divine diva, Johanna Allen, played to a packed house of enthusiastic and exceptionally appreciative fans. In a way, this was something of a temporary farewell performance as Allen is leaving Oz, the real country, to go to Oz, the imaginary one, taking part in Wicked, the musical that looks at life in the Merry Old Land Of Oz long before the arrival of Dorothy and her dreadful weapon, the house of Witch Destruction.

 Allen took the chance to sing a song from the show, one that she does not actually get to sing in the production, as part of the performance. And what a performance! From gentle ballads to riotously funny numbers, and all points in between, Allen showed just how amazingly versatile a performer she is. Her thoughtful rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s Nothing’s Gonna Harm You from Sweeney Todd, was a standout. Humorous patter introduced each song, with the occasional bit of banter with Matthew Carey adding to the laughs.

It takes a lot of skill, training, practice and talent to play the piano well, but even the greatest pianists do not often make good accompanists. That is a genre apart, and one that Carey fits into perfectly. Allen certainly knows how to choose her musical company. Carey not only plays piano, but also sings duets and harmony lines, making him an invaluable asset to any performance. As if that is not enough, the Ruby Frost Quartet joins them in the second half where, among many other items, Allen adds a little spice to Bizet’s Carmen as she and the string quartet try hard to keep straight faces as they present an intricate juxtaposition of styles.

Great songs and musical accompaniment, clever comedy, Allen’s bright, effervescent personality and a top polished performance made this a top night out.

 

Barry Lenny.

 

 

 

 

The New Etype CD – Behind the scenes

I want to tell you all about the new cd that I’m working on with Etype. But I don’t know where to begin!

After what has felt like weeks or months of waiting for things to happen behind the scenes we got the initial mixes of the songs in our hands a couple of weeks ago now and everything is suddenly moving full steam ahead.

Becc Bates our manager might tear at her hair if she reads that I felt like we were waiting for ages, and rightly so. She has been working tirelessly exploring different strategies for releasing this cd and she’s been in constant touch with the producer, marketing/public relations people and many other people within the industry pulling the business side of things together.

Our goal is to have the cd ready to sell a limited edition ‘pre-release’ version at our performances at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival on June 11 & 13. This means getting the final mixes back from Paul Wiltshire who is producing the album, sending them to be mastered in New York and then pressed in time to have them for sale. While that’s happening we’ll finalise the artwork for the cd cover etc with designer Sam Iannucci in Canada. With all the conference calls and long distance calls we’ve had in preparation of this cd I’m inclined to nickname the album ‘Etype Skype’.

No Day But Today

We finished casting RENT today. Scott Nell (director), Sam Kluppels (production manager), Leigh Warren (choreographer) and I spent last weekend auditioning around a hundred people for principal roles and today saw another thirty or so for ensemble parts.

I really enjoyed the process. It was a chance to see and hear some people that I hadn’t yet discovered and also an opportunity to see friends that I have worked with in the past and see just how much they have grown in terms of their skill and confidence.

The audition process is such an artificial environment in many ways. Especially given the time restraints inherent in having to process a great number of people in a limited amount of time. I sometimes felt harsh about how little individual time we were able to devote to each person we were seeing, and yet I know from experience in other audition situations that in comparison to the 8 bar auditions for The Lion King, we were really quite generous in allotting time!

There is a lot to try and discover about a person in the few minutes you can spend with him/her in an audition. A lot of it is based on gut instinct and reactions, a little based on previous experience (if any) with the auditionee and the rest is trying to foretell if we think this person can be/discover the character we need.

I try and be as open-minded as possible and believe me, I want you to be brilliant at LEAST as much as you want it. The better you are, the easier my job will be and the more we can accomplish by working together.

So thank you to everyone who auditioned for this show. I have deep respect for anyone who is willing to step up and undergo the audition process in the first place. I hope that it was as positive an experience for you as it was for me. We saw a great bunch of people with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of talent.

More info soon on who made it through to the actual cast!

 

Shush already!

We began the audition process for the Adelaide premiere production of RENT last weekend. It was really successful – so many wonderfully talented people came along and sang their hearts out. Well not literally – we didn’t have to pick any hearts up off the floor of Leigh Warren’s studio. Mind you…there were a couple of minor spillages on the day…but four lapdances in 3 minutes can have that effect, right FF?

We are so blessed by the support of not only the local theatre community which has been wonderful so far, but also by the support of the local media. Six months before opening night the show has already been mentioned a couple of times in the Sunday Mail and particular thanks must go to Blaze who ran a great interview with director Scott Nell a few issues ago and have supported our ‘Search for an Angel’ campaign as well.

We made it really clear at our information night that Blaze would announce the RENT cast with a cover photo as soon as the show was cast. I thought it was a good idea – because it is. A great idea, in fact!

In my mind, if Blaze is announcing the cast, they’d like it to be exclusive to them. I think that’s fair enough. I’m certainly not going to publish the cast details here before the Blaze cover is released. If you’re wondering, they’re not spilling the beans at Catchy Title either.

So why would people start sharing what news they think they know on sites like Facebook? It’s not that private, you know. Even the private profiles on Facebook are pretty public.  I’d like to think that anyone who was at or involved with the auditions last weekend would care enough about the production to help respect the support shown to us by Blaze and not blab/gossip information all over the place.

It’s not cool.