Copious Notes

BlondeTV: That's TRIPLE threat

Vocal coach Seth Rudetsky breaks down this week's episode.

Last week on Leagally Blonde The Musical -- The Search for Elle Woods, we saw Emma, the competitor who came to the competition with Reese Witherspoon looks and Broadway in her veins, finally rally and live up to her promise.

This week, we saw her go home.

It was a somewhat stunning turn of fortune because, despite battling bronchitis, she seemed to turn in a good dance audition with the lightning fast "shake your junk" sequence from Positive.

But three other competitors turned in great auditions, and this week really emphasized the point that all three elements of the triple threat are essential to make it on Broadway. That's why we had two of the most talented actors and singers, Emma and Autumn, standing in the casting office: They were not that great on their toes -- or in four-inch stiletto heels, as the case was.

Natalie, Bailey and Lauren were the standouts with Rhiannon doing just well enough to avoid a private audience with the judges.

In the course of the show, Emma allowed that she had not taken a dance class in five years, and that is probably the key to why she didn't make the final five. For all her self-awareness, for her maturity and for her savvy, it's kind of strange that she did not prepare better prior to the competition for the dance auditions that were sure to come.

So yes, in her bitter closing comments, Emma is right: Bailey, 20; Lauren, 19; and Rhiannon, 19, are "children," under-aged for the role. But they and 24-year-old Natalie kicked her butt on the dance floor. And yes, she was sick. But we're at a juncture in this competition where one bad day alone will not kill you if the judges think you have a shot. So sending home Emma, who looked like a front runner out of the gate, was a statement that she was not working for them. And while it is understandable that she's frustrated, she bears a great deal of responsibility for her early departure because she neglected one of the three pillars of the triple threat.

Program notes: That "vote for the worst" challenge was a provocative little device that went nowhere. If you didn't see it, the competitors were told late night, in the midst of prepping for their demanding audition, to pick the worst actor, singer, dancer, etc. Autumn took charge, turning it into a best list, but we never heard about it again. Reality TV.

A fun note of Broadway reality was that the Legally Blonde set is full of stairs and tracks for set pieces that, "eat stiletto heels," according associate choreographer Denis Jones. We also learned that Laura Bell Bundy dances in higher heels than the four-inch "Pepto-Bismol" numbers the competitors wore last night.

EW's New classics: Up for debate (of course)

John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Is it really the No. 1 classic movie of the lat 25 years?

Last weekend, the editors of Entertainment Weekly dropped their annual summer double issue and gave  us a good two weeks of debating material.

Is Pulp Fiction really the best film of the last 25 years?

Does Amy Winehouse's year-old debut already deserve Top 10 classic status?

Public Enemy doesn't make the Top 50?

Yes, it's another set of lists. We say that with no derision, because hey, we're going to give you some lists on Sunday. Lists are fun, because they are always a matter of opinion, which means most everyone who reads one will have some modicum of disagreement with it.

EW's new lists are pretty ambitious: The New Classics is 1,000 of the best movies, TV shows, albums, books and other stuff over the past 25 years. My favorite list was actually the final one: Tech, where they named the, "top 25 innovations that changed entertainment."

Even there though, I'd argue against ranking the iPod at No. 4, below the DVD player, Napster and TiVo. Yes, the DVD is a cool advance in home video, but it still was just another method of delivering the videos in some tangible form. The iPod introduced the concept of owning a whole album without leaving your home, or even just picking and choosing the songs you want; singles, but you choose what's a single. It's the most radical change in the distribution of recorded music since the beginning of recorded music. How do you top that?

See, arguing it is almost inescapable.

Pulp Fiction, for me, was a good place to start. I've always considered it a bit overrated, over romanticized. Good movie, snappy dialog and engaging story structure, but not quite all that.

But if you want to argue towering influence, then its No. 1 seems a bit more legit. How many Pulp wannabes have we seen since 1994? Interestingly, Forrest Gump, the movie that beat Pulp Fiction for the Oscar for best picture, isn't even on EW's Top 100. (It's worth noting that EW has always been in love with Pulp.)

There are some nice picks on the movie list, such as Blue Velvet at No. 4, acknowledging the off-kilter brilliance of David Lynch, and giving Merchant Ivory's A Room with a View a nod at No. 24. The Helena Bonham Carter starmaker ushered in the chick-flick-as-literary-costume-drama era we're still in today.

 The music list had several nice visionary choices, such as Madonna's self-titled 1983 album at No. 5, OutKast's Stankonia at No. 12, and R.E.M.'s Life's Rich Pageant at No. 32. All were great albums, and all set the stage for the artists' subsequent chart toppers -- Like a Virgin, Speakerboxx/The Love Below and Document, respectively. But then, somehow, Nirvana's Nevermind is left off in favor of MTV Unplugged. ?!

See, debating is sooooo easy. And fun.

I will also give EW props for trying to limit the number of entries from any one artist to one or two. I seem to remember years ago when Rolling Stone dropped a list of the best rock albums ever, and half the Top 10 was by The Beatles. But then, that list also gave this young rock fan a lot of listening to go do.

And this list from Entertainment Weekly seems to come at a perfect time, right before the laziest days of summer. I'd write more, but I've got some watching and listening to do.

P.S.: A very cool thing about the Top 50 stage list is that four of the shows -- Angels in America (No. 1), Elaine Stritch at Liberty (17), Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk (24) and Topdog/Underdog (49) were all directed by Frankfort's own George C. Wolf. People, we don't revere this guy enough.

Summer classic: 'The Wizard of Oz'

Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Kristen Chenoweth as Glinda perform Defying Gravity, the green witch's anthem from Wicked, at the 2004 Tony Awards.

For 64 years, we knew how to take The Wizard of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West: She was the green-skinned meanie who wanted to kill sweet Dorothy, and her little dog, too. She commanded the  Flying Monkeys and an iconic cackle. And she looked remarkably like mean old Elmira Gulch, who tried to take little Toto away from Dorothy, before the Kansas girl rode her tornado to Oz.

We hated the Wicked Witch of the West, and a remarkable performance by Margaret Hamilton only enhanced our loathing (ding).

What was that -- "loa-thing, pure and un-adulterated loa-thing."

It's that contempt anthem from Wicked, the hit Broadway musical that turned the whole Wizard of Oz story on its head.

Was the green witch actually wicked? Or was she merely suppressed by a conformist regime led by the Wizard himself? Were she and Glinda actually good friends whose bond was strained by the "good" witch's inability to break away from the establishment? Were they in fact in cahoots to stage the Wizard's banishment from Oz so Glinda could take over and Elphaba could escape with her true love, Fiyero, aka The Scarecrow?

Kinda casts a whole new light on the whole "Wicked" witch deal, eh?

Well, whether you adhere to the original story in L. Frank Baum's novel or the new take, based on Gregory Maguire's 1996 novel, there's no denying the 1939 film of The Wizard of Oz is a bona fide classic and well-worth seeing on a big screen. The transformation from black-and-white Kansas to color Oz is particularly stunning shown floor to ceiling, as it will be at 1:30 and 7:15 p.m. Wednesday at the Kentucky Theatre. The Wizard is this week's entry in the Kentucky's Summer Classics series. Admission is $3.

Blonde TV: Cassies battle for the bottom

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Cassie O. from Toledo singing So Much Better. The judges liked her voice, but her acting . . . not so much.

"Mean what you say," actor Paul Canaan told Cassie O., who replied with a clueless, "OK."

"I don't feel the intensity of what this needs," writer Heather Hach added.

That the Cassie from Toledo seemed oblivious to a craft called acting during and following her wooden audition  made her the obvious first victim in Legally Blonde The Musical -- The Search for Elle Woods, the MTV reality show searching for the actor to replace Laura Bell Bundy in the leading role in the Broadway hit.

Last week, we said that none of these 10 girls appeared to be anywhere close to being ready to star on Broadway, and nothing that happened tonight changed that. 

Tonight was acting night -- which alone says this show has gone farther than Grease: You're the One that I Want, which spent next-to-no time looking at acting, in testing at the whole performer.

Legally Blonde -- The Musical associate director Paul Bruni showed up to conduct an acting workshop in which Bailey from South Carolina excelled at, among other things, losing her Southern accent. It probably caused some snickers on the coasts, but checking a strong accent is a real issue for actors from regions such as the Southeast.

Bailey and current BFF Lindsay won quality time with LB actress Nikki Snelson, who plays aerobics instructor Brooke Wyndham. They got to rehearse a scene with Nikki, where Elle and Brooke bond over their Delta Nu-ness, which turned out to be everyone's audition scene with Snelson.

The judges decided to throw the hopefuls a curve, having Snelson drop a line to see how they reacted. Most actors  that we were shown at least paused.  Some struggled with it. Some struggled with other things. Rhiannon -- parents big Fleetwood Mac fans? -- was shown flubbing a few lines, but she had the right spirit. Autumn had the best save of the ladies we were shown, turning the initial flustered moment into part of the scene.

But Cassie O. had to be saved by Snelson, just part of the affirmation that in a group of actors who don't belong there, she really wasn't ready for Broadway. 

Exaggeration watch: This show is already showing a knack for gross exaggerations, such as repeatedly calling Blonde director Jerry Mitchell, "legendary director," several times last week. We love Jerry. But Blonde is his first show directing, and no one becomes a legend on one show.

This week, host Haylie Duff informed us that these would be rigorous auditions like  "no one on Broadway has experienced." Maybe not on TV. But having interviewed numerous Broadway actors over the years, I've heard plenty of horror stories about extrapolated, grueling, soul-destroying auditions, and as Canaan pointed out, if you don't make the cut, you usually aren't told why. 

Box Office: Variety reports Blonde saw an increase in ticket sales after the reality show debuted.

Lexington Children's Theatre's 70th Season

Vivian Snipes (above), photographed in 2004 in front of Lexington Children's Theatre, and her husband Larry (below), have both penned new scripts that will premier at LCT next season.

World premieres and pirates highlight Lexington Children’s Theatre’s 2008-09 season, its 70th year in business.

The holiday season will put Larry and ­Vivian Snipes, the theater’s producing director and associate artistic director, respectively, in the spotlight with new scripts.

Larry Snipes has penned a script from Laura ­Numeroff’s If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, scheduled to run Nov. 29 to Dec. 27 at the Lexington Opera House. Vivian Snipes’ adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen will play at LCT Dec. 14 to 20.

Feb. 15 to 21, LCT makes a contribution to the Lincoln bicentennial with the world premiere of ­Keeping Mr. Lincoln, which the theater commissioned from playwright Sandra Fenichel Asher.

Children’s Theatre will end its season with the musical How I Became a Pirate from May 3 to 10.

The rest of the season includes some classics and contemporary favorites.

■ The season opens Sept. 28 to Oct. 5 with Eric Coble’s ­adaptation of Lois Lowry’s Newberry Award-winning novel The Giver.

■ The Headless ­Horseman rides in for a Halloween run of The ­Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Oct. 26 to Nov. 2.

■ The Russian folktale Katerina the Clever plays one weekend, Nov. 8 and 9.

■ Jack and the Wonderbeans returns Jan. 25 to Feb. 1.

■ The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 takes a Flint, Mich., family to one of the most volatile times and places in American history on March 15 to 22.

For season subscription information, call (859) 254-4546 or visit the theater's website. Individual show tickets will go on sale Sept. 1.

Video: Grand Night for Singing

A Grand Night for Singing opens this weekend at the Singletary Center for the Arts. In our story for today's paper, we talked about the talented "brain trust" that puts Grand Night together from scratch, every year. To compliment that, photographer and producer Emily Spence and I went out to talk to some of the singers about the tunes they get to share and the town and gown camaraderie of Grand Night.

BlondeTV: So much better than expected

Haylie Duff, far right, and assistant choreographer Dennis Jones, to the left of Duff, brief the contestants in Legally Blonde The Musical -- The Search for Elle Woods. Copyrighted photo courtesy of MTV.

We will confess our misgivings up front: It is reality TV, which we have no faith in for substance, and MTV, which completely ceased being relevant to me after the third season of The Real World. Add to that, we saw this before in NBC's dreadful Grease: You're the One That I Want, which tapped the stars of the Grease revival currently running on Broadway.

So, I was not expecting much from Legally Blonde The Musical -- The Search for Elle Woods, which debuted on Monday night on MTV and will run for seven more weeks.

But if the show can stay on the level of its premier, you can shut me up like Professor Callahan.

The object here is to find a successor to Lexington native Laura Bell Bundy as Elle Woods in the Broadway production of Legally Blonde -- The Musical.

One of the best signs this show has a chance to be good comes in the first segment when Legally Blonde director Jerry Mitchell tells the hopefuls, "Casting the next Elle Woods will be my decision."

With those words, we know this will not turn into a popularity contest where the winner will be determined by whoever has the fan base that can text the quickest. It will be a professional Broadway director, plus veteran casting director Bernard Telsey, Legally Blonde book writer Heather Hach and actor Paul Canaan, who tells the hopefuls, "I wanted to be Elle Woods, but there was a height issue . . . "

By then, we also know that the show isn't going to waste our time with preliminaries. No lingering in the hinterlands to see what crazy, delusional people show up at the open calls. We start with the ladies who got to come to New York, and quicklywe are down to a final 15 who have to be whittled to a final 10 in 45 minutes. So we see a lot of dancing and trying to sing the Act I finale, So Much Better, in which the final note is held for 16 bars. We really do get a sense of how tough being in a Broadway show is.

When Emma, a hopeful who claims Broadway is in her blood because her parents met working on the original Grease, asks associate choreographer Dennis Jones if he could demonstrate a move slower, he says, "I am."

Emma provides the most drama of the night, walking in touting her Broadway bloodline  but apparently not bringing her A game to the audition. But she makes it, and the show also starts to develop some characters, like Bailey, a 20-year-old Southern Belle from Anderson, S.C., who seems destined to become the show's bumpkin, and Lauren, already becoming the meanie.

There is a classic moment in Lauren's singing audition, where she brags, "I'm not here for my 15 minutes of fame making friends with the other girls."

Hach responds, "But Elle Woods would take it to the top, but she'd also make friends with the other girls."

Lauren starts backing up immediately, "All the other girls here are really nice . . . "

Yes, judging by the preview, there will be some drama, some tears, some backstabbing, and you want a little of that on reality TV.

But like Project Runway at its best, The Search for Elle seems to be aiming to present the process of the craft. The main whining in the first episode is about exhaustion. Bundy, who looks a couple of decades more mature than any of these girls when she meets them at the end of the premier, says, "If you are tired right now, that is nothing."

That does bring us back to the overall misgiving about this process, this premise. Dismissing the final contestant cut, Telsey says, "We can't cast based on potential."

But at this juncture, isn't that basically what this show is doing? None of these actors appear to have much professional seasoning in the premier. So really, they are looking for someone who's right for the part and has the potential to be able to go from this pressure cooker to centerstage at the Palace Theatre in a few months.

That's asking a lot.

But fortunately, watching MTV's Blonde talent search doesn't appear to be asking for too much.

'Blonde' reality show unlikely to find another Bundy

Laura Bell Bundy takes a bow on the opening night of Legally Blonde -- The Musical, April 29, 2007. Before she bows out, we'll see her a few times on the MTV reality/competition show that will name her replacement. Copyrighted Herald-Leader photo by Aaron Lee Fineman. Below: A moment from Legally Blonde The Musicial: The Search for Elle Woods. Copyrighted photo courtesy of MTV.

The argument against a reality show to find Laura Bell Bundy's replacement as the lead in the Broadway production of Legally Blonde -- The Musical is Laura Bell Bundy.

This isn't argument Bundy is making. She has said nothing against Legally Blonde The Musical -- The Search for Elle Woods, the MTV show that premiers tonight with 10 aspiring starlets competing to inherit Elle's hot pink wardrobe. In fact, she's promoting the show, will appear in several episodes and help train the winner for her big debut.

But you cannot deny that this show is a purely commercial move designed to keep Blonde in the spotlight after its Tony Award-nominated star exits. Yes, there is always that chance that The Search will turn up some diamond in the rough, a previously unknown talent with the skills, magnetism and stamina to fill Bundy's pink high heels.

But that's doubtful, because Bundy didn't walk into the show straight out of Lexington Catholic High School, and that's not how most of Broadway's leading lights got to center stage. Bundy first turned heads when she was 10, taking an Obie Award nominated star turn in Ruthless! The Musical. She had roles in movies such as Jumanji and guest turns on Home Improvement that you can still see on Nickelodeon. If she'd been born 10 years later, in an entertainment landscape like today's that offers more opportunities to child stars, she could have been a Miley Cyrus or Ashley Tisdale. But she actually went to high school here, then went back to New York and walked onto a plum role in a hit daytime drama, followed by a Broadway debut in a Tony Award-winning musical. When we talked to her directors and colleagues on Blonde, almost all referred to the years of work she put in leading up to this show as being of paramount importance to her landing and succeeding in the part.

She paid her dues, but even more importantly, she gained valuable experience that prepared her for a colossally demanding role that is plausibly billed as being as big as Gypsy's Mama Rose. Granted, Blonde does not have Gypsy's literary cachet. But as Elle, Bundy is dancing, singing, acting a range from humor to heartache and basically executing every play in the triple threat book with only a few minutes off stage.

It is a role you work up to, not one you walk into off the street.

Broadway already tried this once, when the revival of Grease held a reality show audition for the leading roles of Danny and Sandy. Likable Max Crumm and Laura Osnes won via viewer votes over a few folks who had more seasoning, and the opening night reviews were not kind. Normally, these roles have gone to veterans who worked their ways up through the ranks or were filled with a little stunt casting. Actually, Grease is resorting to that now, with American Idol champ Taylor Hicks joining the cast for the summer.

Broadway is a business -- big business. And with so many lights on Times Square producers need to do something to make theirs shine brighter. Maybe being the show with the girl from MTV will help Blonde, now well into its second year. But it's not a move that shows a tremendous amount of respect for Bundy, her supporting players or hundreds of other actors who have put in their time on auditions, rejections and bit parts to get roles like this. And in many ways, it will put the eventual winner of the contest in precarious position she'll need Elle-like determination to overcome.

Starting tonight, we'll find out if anyone fits that bill.

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Lyndy is 'Dancing with the Stars'

Lexington-native Lyndy Franklin and her fellow castmates from A Chorus Line will be on Dancing with the Stars at 9 tonight (May 6) on ABC. Franklin made her Broadway debut in the hit revival of A Chorus Line in 2006 and is now the company's dance captain. Along for the ride was company manager and fellow Lexingtonian Adam J. Miller. Miller and Franklin went to the Sayre School together.

Copyrighted Herald-Leader photo by Aaron Lee Fineman.

Review: The Music Man

Iowa has been good for Paragon Music Theatre.

Four years ago, the company went there for its debut production, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s State Fair. It was a stunningly good production for Paragon, especially considering it was its first show.

This spring, the company is back in the Hawkeye State for Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man.

Since March 2004, Paragon has staged numerous excellent shows, so now we have expectations.
In many respects, Music Man lives up to those, particularly in providing strong leads and a solid orchestra. In every respect, you have to admire the effort.

There are moments, particularly the first act showstoppers Ya Got Trouble and Seventy-Six Trombones, where the stage floods with around 50 performers.

Photo, above: Jessie Rose Pennington plays Marian the librarian in Paragon Music Theatre's production of The Music Man. LexGo photo by David Perry.

Artsy TV (video included)

The cast of the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company, which originated at Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park. Photo by Joe Sinnott, courtesy of Thirteen/WNET.

I had the best of intentions of screening the Great Performances film of the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company, which airs at 9 tonight on PBS. But, to paraphrase one of my favorite Lyle Lovett tunes, "He wasn't good, but he had good intentions."

SO, life happened, and I haven't gotten to it. But the word is this is a first rate film of a first rate performance, featuring Raul Esparza in a production that has the singers playing their own instruments. If this is a Sondheim you've missed, then you must be in front of the tube tonight (It does repeat at 1 a.m. and airs again at 3 a.m. Friday and Monday, for night owls and those of you with video recorders). Years ago, back in the Dick Pardy era, a touring production rolled through the Opera House. Pardy told me one of his great frustrations was that shows needed a movie version to help sell them, and Company was a hard sell because there was no film of it. But it was a gem, and I'm really glad he badgered me to make sure I saw it. I can already hear the opening in my head -- "Bobby . . . Bobby . . . "

This version originated at Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park, and the Cincy Enquirer's Jackie Demaline gave the Great Performances version a rave, writing:

"This Company revival was spellbinding in its original staging at Playhouse. It remained wonderful in its Broadway transfer, although adapting from a thrust to a proscenium noticeably flattened the staging. For television, 10 cameras have gone a long way to restoring the magic as friends swirl around an emotionally isolated Bobby."

Click here for Jackie's complete review.

Also, read about ABC's film version of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, starring Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald.

Speaking of great arts television, if you missed the 60 Minutes profile of Gustavo Dudamel, check this out:

 

CBS is the only major network that still devotes quality time to covering performing arts, primarily on 60 Minutes and Sunday Morning, and Bob Simon's piece on the conducting prodigy is a prime example. It conveys the excitement swirling around the 26-year-old conductor who took New York by storm in the fall and will be taking over the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I don't normally sit in front of my computer for 12-minute video clips, but this is well worth it (there is a commercial before the segment, but it wraps up quickly).