men like you can never change...

Wow... Jason Segal and Neil Patrick Harris singing "Confrontation" from Les Miserables. Check out those smokin' bass notes from NPH.

holy crap

Campbell Robertson is going to Iraq. From The New York Observer:

“We were out last night and he was picking my brain on Iraq,” said Times Baghdad bureau chief Jim Glanz in a telephone interview on June 17. “He said that people have been asking him when he’s going to Iraq. And he said he’ll go once the Tonys are over!”...

“Look, he’s an untraditional war correspondent the way a lot of us are,” said Mr. Glanz, who was a science writer before leaving for Baghdad four years ago. “He’s coming from a different background and point of view from everyone else there. And right now, we can use some fresh ideas and perspectives.”

You can't argue with that, we sure do need a new perspective. What a cool, brave, and unexpected move from the Times' lead theater reporter. I look forward to reading his coverage of what's really happening over there.

Also - if you haven't seen it yet, you must immediately get a copy of No End In Sight, Charles Ferguson's enraging and illuminating documentary on the war in Iraq. You will be shocked at how little we Americans actually know about the real situation, and all that the Bush administration has done to dig the Iraqis into an inescapable hole. Watch it, get mad, and then tell all your friends.

Questionable Cover Letter #1

"Why should you consider me among hundreds of actors? I will also admit that I might not have the training and/or experience that other actors might have. Well the answer is simple, because I am the actor with the most passion, drive, and natural talent... humbleness is of my utmost importance."

**************************

Questionable Cover Letters is a new tradition on Moxie the Maven, in which Moxie will provide illuminating examples of what not to write in the cover letter that will accompany your headshot.

Let us now have a moment for Passing Strange. It was one of the few great new musicals that Broadway has seen in years. It's single win tonight at the Tony's is a real shame. It deserved more.

THE TONYS!

The tonys are coming! The tonys are coming! Here how I predict it will go down.

Best Play: August: Osage County, obviously. (sorry, Tom Stoppard)

Best Musical: In The Heights, because Tony voters love something traditional disguised as something new and original. Not that I don't love it, but it's a classic book musical with hip hop beats and bodegas, and that's why it will beat Passing Strange.

Best Book of a Musical: Passing Strange, if there's any sense in the world. In the Heights' book is it's biggest weakness, and Xanadu and Cry-Baby... whatever. I'm too bored just thinking about those shows to come up with anything clever to say.

Best Original Score: Passing Strange should win, but this one will be close. Stew and Heidi Rodewald rock the Belasco to its core every night, and that rock score is really the center of why the show is fucking awesome. On the other hand, the classic musical thing that In the Heights has going on is a big selling point, and voters really want to reward Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Best Revival of a Play: The Homecoming.

Best Revival of a Musical: Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, probably the most beautiful revival I have ever seen, and far more remarkable than the other big contender, Gypsy, a fantastic, almost perfect revival, but ultimately just a little less captivating production.

Best Performance By a Leading Actor in a Play: "And the Tony goes to... Mark Rylance, Boeing-Boeing!" ...and 99.9% of viewers scratch their heads in a nationwide chorus of "wait, who?"

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play: Amy Morton, August: Osage County.

Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical: Lin-Manuel Miranda, this year's golden boy of Broadway.

Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical: Kerry Butler, obviously! Just kidding, (chuckle chuckle). Patti wins this one. I'll say it one more time, though, Kelli O'Hara is giving an absolutely remarkable performance in South Pacific, and would deserve every bit of that award were she to somehow win it. I just don't think it's possible.

Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play: Raul Esparza, The Homecoming. Robbed last year, now it's payback time.

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play: Rondi Reed might be a shoo-in, but Sinead Cusack blew my mind in Rock 'n' Roll. One of the two ladies will take it.

Best Performance By a Featured Actor in a Musical: Boyd Gaines! Boyd Gaines! Boyd Gaines! Too bad for Danny Burstein, though, because he is soooo talented, and so winning and charming in South Pacific. But Boyd's Herbie is unparalleled.

Best Performance By a Featured Actress in a Musical: Laura Benanti. She is remarkable as Louise in Gypsy, so convincingly unremarkable at first, and then so believably glamorous in pitch-perfect style for that era.

Best Direction of a Play: Anna D. Shapiro, for August: Osage County.

Best Direction of a Musical: Arthur Laurents, Gypsy. You can dispute that the man who created the show nailed it in a way no director ever has. What could be more worthy of the Tony than that?

Best Choreography: Andy Blankenbuehler for In The Heights, as I predicted last year!

Best Orchestrations: I gotta go with Passing Strange again here. I don't even know what counts as orchestrations, but that band fucking rocks in a way that's more compelling than anything else on Broadway.

Best Scenic Design of a Play: August: Osage County.

Best Scenic Design of a Musical: Sunday In The Park With George, I suppose.

Best Costume Design of a Play: Les Liasons Dangereuses seems like a no-brainer, despite the fact that Mamie Gummer said she looks like an upside-down teacup.

Best Costume Design of a Musical: In the Heights. So fun, and manages to be realistic and credible while looking amazing in those big dance numbers.

Best Lighting Design of a Play: August: Osage County.

Best Lighting Design of a Musical: Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific.

Best Sound Design of a Play: Rock 'n' Roll.

Best Sound Design of a Musical: In the Heights.


And for making all the way to the bottom of my Tony picks, here's a little Tony-time present from Moxie to her dear readers:




hubba hubba.

cars

Not your usual moxie post, but check this out. (thanks, kottke)

The average U.S. citizen completely ignores the regularity with which the automobile kills him, maims him, embroils him with the law and provides mobile shelter for rakes intent on seducing his daughters. He takes it into his garage as fondly as an Arab leading a prize mare into his tent. He woos it with Simoniz, Prestone, Ethyl and rich lubricants -- and goes broke trading it in on something flashier an hour after he has made the last payment on the old one.

By last week, this peculiar state of mind had not only sucked thousands of American oil wells dry, stripped the rubber groves of Malaya, produced the world's most inhuman industry and its most recalcitrant labor union, but had filled U.S. streets with so many automobiles that it was almost impossible to drive one. In some big cities, vast traffic jams never really got untangled from dawn to midnight; the bray of horns, the stink of exhaust fumes, and the crunch of crumpling metal eddied up from them as insistently as the vaporous roar of Niagara.

That's from Time magazine in 1947. [via kottke, david.]

"have you ever drank bailey's from a shoe?"

Readers, for your edification and enjoyment, I give you...

Old Greg. This shit is funny.



you're welcome.

Tony Noms - Who Got the Shaft?

Moxie is celebrating the nominees, especially little Robin De Jesus, the talented and beautiful de'Adre Aziza, and Kelli O'Hara, who might just swoop in and steal that Tony from shoo-in Patti LuPone. Thank god for a crap season of musicals in which Passing Strange can get the recognition it deserves - last year it would have gotten way less notice... but my guilty pleasure is always this paragraph in Playbill's announcement:

Notable omissions include Tony Award winner Kevin Kline, who did not receive a Best Actor in a Play nomination for his acclaimed performance in the revival of Cyrano de Bergerac; A Catered Affair director John Doyle, who won a Tony for his direction of Sweeney Todd and was Tony-nominated for his actor-musician Company; Cheyenne Jackson, who failed to receive a Best Actor in a Musical nomination for his work in Xanadu; Elizabeth Marvel, who was overlooked for her powerful performance in Top Girls; the exclusion of A Catered Affair from the Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score of a Musical categories; and the lack of a single nomination for the Debbie Allen-directed revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which features such Broadway favorites as Phylicia Rashad, James Earl Jones and Anika Noni Rose.

That's right, no love for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and very little love for MTC's Top Girls (there must be some fine print somewhere that Martha Plimpton gets a nomination by default. Just like David Pittu). Not much love for A Catered Affair, either - I haven't seen it, but it must be a trainwreck to get snubbed in favor of Cry-Baby. Ah yes, and Mauritius got just one nomination, for Bobby Cannavale. Meh.

The most surprising snub was Kevin Adams not being nominated for Passing Strange and it's giant light-wall. That was seriously awesome, and you will never convince me that the lighting in The Little Mermaid is better. Puh-lease.

Review: Cry-Baby

What can be said about Cry-Baby? It's kinda like diet orange soda that's gone flat - it's calorie-free yet sickly-sweet, and seriously lacking in bubbly zip. Plus the songs, well, suck and it's not funny, but that doesn't have anything to do with orange soda. It's just a sad fact: Cry-Baby is a D+ version of Hairspray.

The good: Rob Ashford's choreography is sexy and fun, and Harriet Harris is kicking ass, getting laughs out of lines that should never get laughs. The costumes are kinda fun. The cast is talented - I know because I've seen them in other, more interesting shows. And that's about it for the good.

The list of the bad is, unfortunately, much much longer. Let's see, there's the utterly unfunny book, complemented by the unremarkable, unhummable songs. One theatergoer remarked, "It sounds like somebody heard a few old radio jingles from the 50's and thought, Hey! I can make a musical out of that!" Okay my date said that. But he was right! One song is actually called, "Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby (Baby Baby)." You might guess that the show is poking fun at the style and idealism of the era, but the songs, script, and direction aren't inventive or witty enough to demonstrate whether the creators are in on the joke, or if they're just doing a poor Grease imitation. And though the cast is a talented group, the characters aren't winning or charming enough to make you care. There's no Tracy and Edna Turnblad here, nor any of the other larger-than-life Hairspray crew - this show has stock characters, too, but the lifeless story (and book) leaves them two-dimensional. The actors are working their tails off, but the spark just isn't there.

I had been so looking forward to Cry-Baby. Reports of it being deliciously bad, so bad it could rival In My Life, had me all excited for gloriously terrible musical theater. Sadly, I can't even recommend that you see it to revel in it's awfulness. It's not good-bad, it's just... bad.

Les Liasons Dangereuses et Sexy

Maybe I was wrong. She looks really good! Maybe Laura Linney will be great as the dastardly Marquise de Merteuil. More photos here. Eeek... Mamie Gummer looks awful!

Becky Shaw is on her way to Second Stage

Up there in that photo is Mia Barron and David Wilson Barnes, in Gina Gionfriddo's bleak, hilarious, delightful yet scary play Becky Shaw at The Humana Festival. Note: the photo above might look awash in beige, but the play is full of juicy naughty human misbehavior and messiness. Annie Parisse, in the eponymous role, makes a grand entrance in a bright chartreuse, satin, too-short bubble dress. 'Nuff said.

I was in attendance for the festival, along with the literary managers from every major theater company in the country, and left Becky Shaw exclaiming two things: "David Wilson Barnes is a star! WHY is he not famous yet?!?" and "Mark my words: This play is totally going to be at Second Stage next season."

Then the Times review came out and Charles Isherwood was all "David Wilson Barnes is a star!" and I was like, uh, what did I say? Side note: Chuck himself was on my flight to Louisville for the festival, and while is he a very good dresser, he positively radiates snobbishness. We happened to be on the same shuttle to the hotel, and someone was chatting him up about Louisville's many cultural offerings. Here's how the conversation went:

Guy on Shuttle: I hear they have many fine museums here in Louisville.
Isherwood: Mmm, yes.
Guy on Shuttle: In fact, the Museum of Bourbon is supposed to be quite interesting.
Isherwood: My apartment is a museum of bourbon. Ba-dum-bum.

Yup, that's right, he even did the little ba-dum-bum part! It would have been cute, if he didn't look like he was about to burn through someones skull with his eyes.

So now Second Stage announced its season, and again, who called it? Moxie.

Hell Hath No Fury, Indeed

If the name Tricia Walsh Smith doesn't ring a bell, you might recall this incident that Page Six wrote about the cancellation of a benefit reading of her play "Addictions" due to a little mishap involving using a liquor company as the major sponsor of a play about substance abuse.

It looks like Smith might be headed back to the gossip pages - she's posted a six-minute youtube diatribe against her philandering husband, entitled "One More Crazy Day in the Life of a Phoenix Rising from the Ashes". Oh, and her husband happens to be Phil Smith, the president of the Schubert Organization. In a cozy kitchen setting, Tricia tells the camera all about the family's legal drama, and the prenuptial agreement that is now allowing her husband to evict her from her New York apartment, "for no reason." If that's not enough, she wants everyone to know about Phil Smith's stash of viagra, porn, and condoms. Eeeeewww.

The video is here, watch it in all it's horrifying glory before they take it down. Fast forward to the end to hear Tricia sing a little "Maybe This Time." I love this woman!

Can I get a "hell yes!"

Hell yes, Damn Yankees is coming to town! Encores Summer Stars (which brought us the current revival of Gypsy) will stage the musical July 5-27 at City Center, starring Jane Krakowski and Sean Hayes!!! I am going to celebrate with a staging of "Whatever Lola Wants" in my office.

"I'm going to find it and I'm going to destroy it. I don't know how yet. Possibly with dynamite."

Moxie's birthday is coming up, and if anyone wants to send me these Steve Zissou legos, I would be very appreciative.

They even have an Alistair Hennessey one!

"Is this my espresso machine? Wh-what is-h-how did you get my espresso machine?"
"Well... uh... we fuckin' stole it, man."

Review: The Drunken City

In the opening moments of The Drunken City, three brides-to-be march out from house left, giggle to each other, and then, screaming gleefully, thrust their three sparkling engagement rings forward for all the audience to see. The rest of the play, like this opening moment, is both refreshingly joyful and maybe just a teensy bit annoying.

The story: Three gals from the suburbs head into the city to drink pink martinis and celebrate one's impending marriage. What glorious bridge-and-tunnel fun! Until the gals get way too drunk, some too-drunk men enter the picture, and suddenly the bride-to-be is making out with a black dude...

--- wait a second. I didn't mean to say "a black dude." I should have said "a stranger," or "a ridiculously hot stranger," since Mike Colter plays said dude. His race is so totally not the point, but my theatergoing instinct says that if the actor is black, it must be because his blackness is integral to the plot. And hey, let's be honest, my own innate racism is playing a role here, too. (What do you find yourself expecting when a non-caucasian actor walks onstage? Discuss.) But hey, white people aren't always talking about what it's like to be white, and I don't think everybody else is constantly talking about the color of their skin. So how fucking awesome is it that this is a play about love and relationships and New York City, and some of the people are white and some are not? I mean, thank god. In fact, as with many of Adam Bock's plays, The Drunken City uses a truly color-blind cast, featuring actors who are asian, hispanic, and african-american without their casting being due to a necessity in the script. To see this group of friends onstage who happen to be different ethnicities is refreshing to say the least, and reflects both the world I know and the world I hope to see. Enormous kudos to Adam Bock and to Playwrights Horizons awesome casting department for this. Anyway.

... When the bride-to-be heads off to god knows where with her hot, drunk man off the street, everyone (understandably) freaks. Through the fish-eye lens of their inebriation, we see that each character is a whole lotta lost, and pretty messy sober or not. The message is ultimately sweetly romantic and hopeful, and maybe secretly what all New Yorkers need to hear: everybody is secretly terrified, it's less scary when you get honest, and it's yes, you will find love. It's a little too sweet at times, and the running theme of utter intoxication wears thin after the first 45 minutes or so. But ultimately, it really is a delightful play.

Now here's the bad news. And I felt a lot worse about saying it before she got really good reviews, so maybe I just didn't get it, but... I did NOT go for Cassie Beck in the lead role. I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't believe her, I felt like she was acting and trying and full of effort and awkwardness and just. not. good. It pulled me right out of the play many times, and was just not an enjoyable performance, for me.

BUT! The rest of the cast is terrific, especially Sue Jean Kim, who is one of the *best* actresses you've probably never heard of. The girl is funny, smart, beautiful, and ought to be working constantly. And Alfredo Narciso is a revelation (at least to me), and gives a hilarious and moving performance that will blow you away. See this play for them, they are the bomb.

By the way, Playwrights Horizons has a ton of cool materials online. You can watch scenes from the play, hear a podcast from Adam Bock about drunkeness, and more. It's fun, check it out.