El Gato Con Botas

photo by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Moises Kaufman directs a puppet opera this weekend. I had the pleasure of writing it up for the paper of record.

Płeć Farsy

My mom was part Polish, but apart from the pastries, I don't have a lot in common with my Polish neighbors in Greenpoint. Then one night last week, my wife and I were walking home and someone handed us this postcard:

This Polish version of the stewardess sex farce that played on Broadway last season (and will now play at every regional theater in America, by law, in the coming season--I exaggerate slightly) will play in Montclair, NJ, on Nov. 20 and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center on Nov. 21. I'm almost tempted to go.

A free online translator tells me that

"Boeing Boeing" story Maks, whose life emotional and erotic shall be governed by the international flight timetable...Max has as many as three fiancees, all of them are stewardesses, and each of them think of course, that it is the only. The precise organisation aid and reliable, although not avoiding from sarcastic comments, serving Maksowi always goes to coordinate visits subsequent fiancess, which also, he says he loves equally...What will become but when the minor changes to the air traffic, all of them will appear at Maks almost the same time? What role will play in the history of years of their youth friend Maks Paweł? And what the most important, whether it is found that the Max so well coping with women, whether or not it is they deal with him?

St. Billie

So Billie Joe himself is going to jump off the Broadway bridge in his American Idiot for a limited run starting tomorrow. Playbill calls it a "rare" instance of a pop star doing this on Broadway, but honestly I can't think of it ever happening with a rock musical on Broadway. Pete Townshend couldn't have jumped into Tommy to save his life. Could Frankie Valli fill in at Jersey Boys? I'm among the fans of Idiot who's not a huge fan of Green Day, so I don't feel the need to rush out and see this. But if this is a box-office stunt (and of course in showbiz, what isn't?), it's certainly a case of the creator putting himself on the line for his creation.

A Church of Art

photo by Yana Peskova for the NY Times

I've been attending Chris Wells' secular art church, the Secret City, on and off for the past few years (he even had me pinch-hit on guitar one service two summers ago). And I've been watching and loving Chris' work on stage since the mid-1990s (a review of one of his last shows in L.A. before he moved east is here). So it's really gratifying to have the privilege of writing up him and his church-performance thing for the paper of record. Even better, there's this web-only slideshow. Go in peace.

Sidewalk Story

Down the street from my apartment last weekend:

"Whoever took the plant from this bench on 09-16-10 at 5:30, please return it. It was not thrown out, it was purposely put out for rain, please return to Theresa."

Looks like a happy ending, unless this isn't the same plant.

Early Hamm

Jon Hamm as Czolgosz in Assassins? Pretty interesting to contemplate. Hamm as Selig in Joe Turner? Harder to picture, except that here it is, from his college days in Missouri:


(h/t)

What Ever Happened to Laughs?

Last week my mother got groped at Mass
What ever happened to class?
-cut lyric from Kander & Ebb's "Class"

Being funny in song is one of the hardest things a writer can do. If comedy is about timing, think about how hard it is to make a joke's rhythm work when the time is mapped out as rigidly as in song. Lots of songs make us smile at their cleverness or quirkiness, but laugh out loud? That's a high bar. In the BMI Workshop, they've talked about how the punchlines have got to always be in the same spot metrically--except when they're not, and you want to give the gift of surprise.

The above lyric was cut from the song "Class" when it was met with a "deafening silence" in a preview, according to John Kander, who did a BMI master class a few years back. "It drove my late partner crazy," Kander said then of Fred Ebb. "He never knew what was going to be funny. The only way to know is get it up in front of an audience." David Yazbek, who was on hand for the same master class, said that "Chimp in a Suit" from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is one of his own personal favorite songs he's written, even though he admitted that he "never thought it totally worked" with audiences.

I'm actually at a loss to think of songs, in musical theater or otherwise, that have actually made me laugh. A well-performed "A Little Priest" has done the trick, if I recall right. Beck's "Hollywood Freaks" almost always makes me chuckle. On a good day, Allan Sherman still gets me. As far as musical theater goes, Marx and Lopez are fine craftsmen, of course (and Lopez's work with the South Park boys is, of course, duly anticipated).

I welcome other examples, dear readers.