We Witnessed These Ten Huge Bombs! Really!

With the Tony Awards approaching, Broadway will soon celebrate the season's most successful plays and musicals. Mostly forgotten (as always) will be the flops -- the shows that simply didn't make it on the Great While Way.
And, you know what they say: "There's a broken heart (and a closed show) for every light on Broadway."
Well, it's hard to believe but, over the years, we have actually seen ten of the biggest Broadway musical flops that you can image.
Some of these shows barely arrived on Broadway.

Hey, when you see lots of Broadway shows, you're gonna see some flops along the way, right?
Anyway, some only played on the Great White Way for a few performances.
Some played for a week or a month or even a bit longer.
And some never even got to Broadway. They closed out of town.
But all we're money-losers -- some monumentally so. Among them are star-vehicles, shows based fully or in part on successful movies and shows penned by renowned authors, composers and lyricists or boasting name directors and/or producers.
Some have even been revived from time to time and tinkered with in efforts to rehabilitate them. But they all bombed -- each and every one of them. And we saw every single one.
Not only that but we sat through every one. Some were excruciatingly bad -- cacophonous, confusing and tedious, to say the least. But some we actually enjoyed -- somewhat.
Here, from the best of the worst to the worst of the worst are the top ten:

10. Teddy and Alice (1987). We enjoyed what the New York Times called an "extravagant treatment of the life of our 26th President [Teddy Roosevelt] and his terminally spunky daughter." We thought the show had a lot of charm but the Times summed it up in two words: Rough riding. It closed after 77 performances.

9. Passion (1994). Set in 19th century Italy, this Stephen Sondheim musical wanted us to believe that a devastatingly handsome soldier would abandon a ravishingly beautiful young woman for a grotesque, decrepit invalid. Not only was the premise dumb but the show contains what is probably the worst score Sondheim ever wrote. Yes, the show won the Tony Award as best musical but with 280 performances it is the shortest-running musical ever to win the Tony. We left the theater with a headache -- and we're huge Sondheim fans. It was revived in London in 2010 but ran there for only two months. A failure, no matter how you measure it.

8. A Joyful Noise (1966). We saw this show in tryout. Starring the great John Raitt (father of Bonnie) it told the tale of a wandering minstrel in the Tennessee hills. Yes, the choreography was wonderful. But then again this show marked the Broadway debut of choreographer (and later, director) Michael Bennett. Though we enjoyed it, the show closed on Broadway after only 12 performances.

7. Grind (1985). What a terrible title for a musical. And that was just the beginning! We don't remember much about the show except that it took place in the depths of the depression in Chicago and it was dreary and grimy. It did feature a star turn by Ben Vreen but that was not enough to save it. It closed after 79 performances.

6. I Remember Mama (1979). Would you believe that Liv Ullmann (pictured above) actually starred in a Broadway musical? She did star in this one. But she simply couldn't sing and reportedly had trouble remembering her lines. We saw this in tryout with Ullmann and George S. Irving. With such star power and music by the legendary Richard Rodgers, the show was based on the famous book, radio and TV show of the same name. So, it had a huge advance sale and it actually ran for 108 performances. But it was one of the first musicals to cost more than a million bucks to mount and it actually lost $1.5 million.

5. We Take The Town (1961). Opening in New Haven and closing (mercifully) in Philadelphia, this show never made it to Broadway. With Robert Preston as Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, this was a star vehicle but Preston emerged from it bruised and battered even though years later he insisted this was his favorite role. We went to see this show because a friend's parents had tickets for it and (wisely) decided not to go. It was one of our first Broadway musicals -- maybe even the first. All we remember about it was a lot of feigned machismo.

4. The Red Shoes (1993). We thought we'd take a chance on this extravagant $8 million musical based on the book by Hans Christian Andersen and the successful 1948 movie. It tells the story of a middle-aged impresario who wants to control Victoria (a beautiful ballerina) both on-stage and off. She is torn between this control-freak, and a handsome but egocentric young composer. Both get in the way of her desire to simply dance. Ultimately, she commits suicide. We never read the book and we never so the movie so we didn't know about poor Victoria. The show closed after only five performances -- one of which we attended!

3. Metro (1992). Metro was the Polish musical. Yes, a Polish Broadway musical, if you can imagine that. We don't know what we ere thinking when we bought tickets to this one. It focused on the story of a group of youngsters who, for various reasons, decide to live underground, in the subway tunnels. The play, initially staged in Warsaw was a hit on native soil. But it didn't transfer very well into a musical and it didn't travel well. This mostly grim outing also involved suicide. We didn't know, honest! It closed after an appropriate number of performances -- 13! We don't remember whether or not we attended the 13th performance but we were there for one of them. Ugh!

2. Miss Moffatt (1974). In 1945 Bette Davis played a schoolteacher in a Welsh mining town in one of her favorite films, The Corn Is Green. In 1974 she agreed to star in a musical based on the same story. But this time Miss Moffatt (the teacher) would be teaching in the cane fields of the American South and her star pupil would be a black field hand. Bette Davis wasn't meant to sing. And she wasn't particularly good at stage acting. Plus, she was 62 years-old playing a middle-aged spinster. To say that the short-lived show had a nonetheless stormy run would be an understatement. But the cast did include Nell Carter in one of her first stage outings. Due to Miss Davis' "illness" Miss Moffatt closed in Philadelphia and never made it to Broadway. Four years later Nell Carter won the Tony Award for Ain't Misbehavin.

1. Kelly (1964). Kelly has been called the most notorious flop of all postwar Broadway musicals. It opened and closed on Broadway on the same night. We saw it in Philadelphia. It was all about a man who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. Yes, his name was Kelly -- Hop Kelly, a young busboy. It was based on the true-life story of Steve Brodie who may or may not have jumped off the bridge in the 1880s. The show starred Canadian actor Don Francks and became Broadway's biggest money loser ($650,000) up to that point. Did Hop Kelly survive his jump off the bridge? We'll just say he had better luck than the show.

Cruising The Blue Danube: First Photos From Budapest

A Broadway Legend's Dramatic Return?

On one of a strolls along Broadway a few years ago as we were preparing a story for our new blog Dan On Broadway, we once again walked past the legendary Brill Building. Only this time, we stopped and peeked inside.

The Brill Building (built 1931 as the Alan E. Lefcourt Building and designed by Victor Bark Jr.) is an office building located at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the Theater District, just north of Times Square. 

It is famous for housing music industry offices and studios where some of the most popular American music tunes were written. The building is 11 stories and has approximately 175,000 square feet of rentable area. The "Brill" name comes from a haberdasher who once operated a store at street level and subsequently bought the building. The Brill Building was purchased by 1619 Broadway Realty LLC in June 2013 and is now undergoing a significant renovation. No problem, however. The current management was all to happy to have us take a look around and snap some photos.

The Brill Building's name has been widely adopted as a shorthand term for a broad and influential stream of American mainstream popular song (strongly influenced by Latin music, Traditional black gospel and rhythm and blues) which enjoyed great commercial success in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. Many significant American and international publishing companies, music agencies and recording labels were based in New York, and although these ventures were naturally spread across many locations, the Brill Building was regarded as probably the most prestigious address in New York for music business professionals.

By 1962 the Brill Building contained 165 music businesses. A musician could find a publisher and printer, cut a demo, promote the record and cut a deal with radio promoters, all within this one building. The creative culture of the independent music companies in the Brill Building and the nearby 1650 Broadway came to define the influential "Brill Building Sound" and the style of popular songwriting and recording created by its writers and producers.

Carole King described the atmosphere at the "Brill Building" publishing houses of the period:

Every day we squeezed into our respective cubby holes with just enough room for a piano, a bench, and maybe a chair for the lyricist if you were lucky. You'd sit there and write and you could hear someone in the next cubby hole composing a song exactly like yours. The pressure in the Brill Building was really terrific—because Donny (Kirshner) would play one songwriter against another. He'd say: "We need a new smash hit"—and we'd all go back and write a song and the next day we'd each audition for Bobby Vee's producer.
—Quoted in The Sociology of Rock by Simon Frith.

Among the hundreds of hits written in The Brill Building are "Yakety Yak" (Leiber-Stoller), "Save the Last Dance for Me" (Pomus-Shuman), "The Look of Love" (Bacharach-David), "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (Sedaka-Greenfield), "Devil in Disguise" (Giant-Baum-Kaye), "The Loco-Motion" (Goffin-King), "Supernatural Thing" (Fyre-Guthrie), "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" (Mann-Weil), and "River Deep, Mountain High" (Spector-Greenwich-Barry).

In 2015, the Brill Building's new owners said that the building is "is now transforming into a state-of-the-art office complex for today’s media, fashion, tech, music and entertainment companies. A new 49th Street entrance will offer tenants privacy and security, with all the convenience of Times Square." 

But it appears as if nothing much has happened since.

So, the future of this legendary building may be doubtful.

Still, next time you're in the neighborhood, check it out.

Interior building photos copyright 2015 by Dan Cirucci.

'Who The Hell's In It,' Anyway? Huh?

I've had the pleasure of reading Who The Hell's In It by writer, producer, director Peter Bogdanovich and it's one of the best books about the movies I've ever read. It's lively, thorough and full of great stories.
This is not a new book but it is a book that seems to grow more meaningful and more relevant with age.
Peter Bogdanovich, known primarily as a director, film historian and critic, has been working with professional actors all his life. He started out as an actor (he debuted on the stage in his sixth-grade production ofFinian’s Rainbow); he watched actors work (he went to the theater every week from the age of thirteen and saw every important show on, or off, Broadway for the next decade); he studied acting, starting at sixteen, with Stella Adler (his work with her became the foundation for all he would ever do as an actor and a director).
Now, in this book, Bogdanovich draws upon a lifetime of experience, observation and understanding of the art to write about the actors he came to know along the way; actors he admired from afar; actors he worked with, directed, befriended. Among them: Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, John Cassavetes, Charlie Chaplin, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Fonda, Ben Gazzara, Audrey Hepburn, Boris Karloff, Dean Martin, Marilyn Monroe, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, Frank Sinatra, and James Stewart.
Bogdanovich captures—in their words and his—their work, their individual styles, what made them who they were, what gave them their appeal and why they’ve continued to be America’s iconic actors.
I particularly enjoyed the author's profiles of Lillian Gish, Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich, Boris Karloff, Anthony Perkins, John Wayne and Frank Sinatra.
Bogdanovich tells wonderful stories and has great insight. His knowledge of the movies is astounding and his respect for great stars, great movies, the old studio system and great directors is inspiring.
Bogdanovich believes that the ascent of stars as independent agents and deal-makers (absent the studio system) was the beginning of the end of the golden age of movies. And he makes a very valid case to support his claim.
But whether you agree with this movie maker and movie critic or not, you will be spellbound by this book.
It's a wonderful read!
BTW: This is a companion book to Bogdanovich's book about movie directors called Who The Devil Made It

Amidst Sunshine, The Distant Chill Of A Troubled History

As we travel through Eastern Europe we are currently enjoying our time in Krakow.
This city, which sits along a winding river was one of the few parts of Poland that was largely untouched by World War II.
It survived the German occupation and the Germans left just about all of the historic city intact.
The great university here survived even though many of its professors were sent to concentration camps where many of them perished.
Also, the countless great works of art that that this city enjoyed were either taken by the Nazis and shuttled away to Hitler's private museum or hidden away if they had the good fortune to be "saved".
Sadly, thousands of these were lost. Only a relatively small portion were returned to Krakow.
Of course, this city is but a short distance from Auschwitx so reminders of the horrors of Nazism are very real here. And this was the home of  Schindler -- this is where his factory was. So, it's all very present even amidst the beautiful university campus, the spacious plazas and the lush parks of this verdant city.
Today, this is a very young city.
More than one in five persons here is a student.
So, it's a fresh, inviting, spirited, lively town of about 750,000 people.
At this time of year it can be gloriously sunny one minute and then cloudy the next.
So, sometimes, as you turn a corner the quick chill of an earlier time may makes itself know.

A Vibrant, Youthful, Stunning City Of Old And New!

Here they are, some of our first photos from beautiful Warsaw, Poland!

Revealed: A Great Star's Scandalous Secret!

She was one of the greatest stars of all time.
Her image came to be synonymous with seduction.
She exuded glamour, sultriness, and a simmering sexuality that appealed to both men and women.
Her heavy-lidded eyes, her high cheekbones, her sensuous lips, her shapely figure, her tempting voice and her magnificent legs made her an international sensation.
But beneath the garments that often seemed to be sewn onto her sinuous frame, Marlene Dietrich had a secret -- a secret which has only recently been revealed.

No, it didn't concern anything that was fake. There were no false parts. Everything was real.
And the secret wasn't a secret about something the Great Dietrich did or had or kept.
Rather, it concerned something she didn't do, something she didn't keep, something she never wore.
In Charlotte Chandler's book Marlene, Chandler reveals that Dietrich never wore panties. Never.
"I don't like to wear panties,' Dietrich told Chandler. "They are so confining. And when they show through and make a line, it looks terrible."
And Dietrich said this was her attitude from an very early age. "I've never understood why the absence of panties was so shocking and was considered a mark of not being a decent woman," Dirtrich explained.
"In school," she said "I couldn't have any of the other girls, even my best friends, know my secret. I had to be especially careful on gym days."
"If she had caught me, my mother mother would have punished me for my guilty secret . . . fortunately, the revelation that I was not a lady, even when I was only a little girl, didn't happen and it was not exposed that I was exposed. Then, finally the day came when I didn't have to answer to anyone."
Dietrich said that when she met the man who was to become her husband, he didn't care about the fact that she didn't wear panties. And that was just fine with Dietrich since by that time she had no intention of changing her ways.
"He never seemed to mind anything that I did," Dietrich said of her ever-tolerant husband. 
As always, Dietrich made her own rules.
And this is just one of the many quirks and various aspects of her fascinating life.
BTW: Author Ernest Hemingway (who was widely believed to have conducted a lifelong relationship with Dietrich) always felt underwear to be confining. So, he never wore underwear. Maybe that was part of the mutual attraction between these two icons.

This Is No Place For A Hollow Anything!

We have a habit.
A habit that we've discussed here before.
We hollow out the center of bagels.
We like bagels but we know they are fairly high in calories. So we hollow out the center (as you see here) toast the bagel and figure we're eliminating some fat -- both on the bagel and on us.
But when we travel, we don't hollow out anything.
And after a few days in Poland, we can tell you this: This is NO place for anything hollow or empty or otherwise cratered. No, indeed. Poland has had enough of that -- and so have we, as long as we're here.
Poland is the land of stuffed delights -- nothing puny or hollow. We've already had wonderfully stuffed and fried Polish dumplings (pierogie) and deliciously plump Polish jelly donuts (no, they're nothing like the ones at home, folks) and fat Polish sausage (kielbasa) and  plentiful fresh Polish ham (tomight's menu even featured piglet) and variety of other scrumptious treats.
This is a land of indulgence.
Out tour guide told us today that Poland "is in a bad neighborhood". And, in as much as Poland is situated between Germany and Russia, that's been the case for eons. To get to Germany from Russia, armies have marched through Poland. And, to get to Russia from Germany, well -- you get the idea.
But things are quite tranquil in Poland right now and have been pretty much since 1990.
Warsaw, Poland's capital city, is a remarkably compact and spotlessly clean urban environment that houses more that two million people and welcomes countless more from throughout the world. And it all seems to run quite efficiently, thank you.
This is a city of both sprawling boulevards and intimate, narrow, curving side streets; a city of striking modern architecture and historic edifices; a city that's been destroyed more than once only to rise again even to the point of scrupulous recreation; a city with a homogeneous population that maintains a nonetheless sophisticated and cosmopolitan flair.
This is not a boastful or showy city.
It doesn't strut its stuff.
It's not all neon and flashy. Rather, it embraces its own primary colors -- colors that bespeak a sense of security and, one might even say solidarity, yes?
This is Warsaw and this is Poland now.
We recommend it and we'll post some photos here just as soon as we can. Visiting here is easy and relatively economical. But, if you come, come ready to enjoy robust daily treats that are packed with flavor. And, don't even try to skimp.

A Celebrity As President? THIS Guy Wrote The Book!

Sometimes we've talked about "the dangers of electing a celebrity President."

So, the question has arisen: "Wasn't Reagan a celebrity?"
As we're writing this we're looking at a shelf full of books about Reagan (at least a dozen of them) all of which we've read.
Ronald Reagan certainly defied the old adage that "there are no second acts in American lives."
Ronald Reagan's life had at least three distinct acts. In fact, it's almost as if he had three different lives:

1) Ronald Reagan the radio broadcaster honed his talents as a mellow-voiced, reassuring presence who was heard throughout the broad center of the nation. He mastered the art of the soundbite before anybody even knew what it was and since he wrote most of his own radio copy he also became an accomplished writer and skilled editor. If you know anything about radio you know that you must be able to say a whole lot with very few words to adhere to the medium's time constraints. Ronald Reagan knew it and did it.

2) Ronald Reagan the Hollywood star was never the biggest star in Tinseltown but he and his films were a staple at Warner Brothers and he learned his lessons well from the studio. He was a dutiful contract player who became a favorite of the gossip columnists -- particular the legendary Hedda Hopper. And yes, Reagan did become a celebrity of sorts but he was certainly never a superstar. In fact, as a Hollywood star he was never really the object of adulation. He was far and away eclipsed by the likes of Clark Gable (earlier) and Rock Hudson (later). Reagan was rarely a leading man. He starred mostly in "B" movies and he played the best friend or jilted lover or simply the "other guy." It's safe to say that not many movie fans 

swooned or fainted over Ronald Reagan.

3) Ronald Reagan the politician did have his roots in Reagan the Hollywood union leader but the real career switch came when Reagan decided to run for Governor of California. By that time Reagan's image as a "star" had clearly faded and, indeed, he was joked about as "a forgotten, old 'B' movie actor." When he began his political career Ronald Reagan was no celebrity. To the contrary, he was the butt of jokes.

To his credit, Reagan seemed to make clean, clear breaks between the three important acts of his life but he always took everything he learned with him.
Was Reagan, the leader charismatic? Damned right he was.
But there was more than image to Reagan. Though he enjoyed being underestimated, the man was never an empty suit.

And any Hollywood star who's thinking about entering politics today (and a few immediately come to mind) would do well to study the life and careers of Reagan.

Ronald Reagan understood that fame was fleeting and that Celebrityland was shallow. He worked his whole life to be more than just a "star" -- even a forgotten one -- and more than a household name. He defied the odds. And in the end, he had both depth and heft.

What he accomplished was nothing short of remarkable.
Ronald Reagan was the real deal.

Is A Once Proud Tradition Being Squandared?

Tradition.
It's an important word.
And it's something that's really quite priceless.
If you forget your tradition (especially if it is a proud and winning tradition) or if you don't appreciate it or if you turn your back on it or if you defy what made you exceptional in the first place, well -- you're asking for trouble.
And we're afraid that's exactly what's happening at Bishop Eustace "Preparatory" High School in South Jersey where increasing secularism and questionable leadership seem to be shoving the school in the wrong direction, even as students and parents question -- with growing alarm -- recent actions by the school administration. Quite a few veteran teachers have been let go, including beloved Dean of Students and field hockey coach Alice Penza who has been at the school more than 20 years.
Hey, we know a bit at Eustace.
We sent both our kids there.
The school HAD a sterling reputation and routinely graduated the best and the brightest amidst a rigorous academiic atmosphere that routinely sent its students to America's top colleges and universities. Our kids were enriched by their experienced at Eustace -- enriched several times over.
But that was 20 years ago.
And since then the school hasn't done enough to enhance or even maintain its credentials.
Astoundingly, at a time when discriminating parents are increasingly searching for top-notch secondary schools, Eustace has actually seen its enrollment drop.
Something's wrong with this picture.
This is the ONLY private Catholic co-ed prep school in the region. So, it has (or SHOULD have) a unique advantage.
But, as the Pallotine religious order has loosened its hold on the school, standards have slipped. And a new, largely inexperienced team appears to have worsened the situation.
The current school administration seems to be lackluster at best. Where is the plan for the future of Eustace? Where are the goals and standards that will guarantee that it will not just survive but thrive? Where is the ambitious program that will nourish the Eustace tradition and even help grow that tradition?
All seem to be lacking.
Eustace parents and students: If you are upset with recent staff cuts (and most of you obviously are) now is your chance to step forward and DEMAND changes. This is your opportunity to halt the atrophy before it's too late.
You may not get this chance again.
But you will only succeed if you rise up and insist on a fresh, bold, new course for the school NOW!
For it appears there are no alternatives and no second, third or fourth chances ahead.
Are you ready to rumble, Eustacians? Are you?