Oh My Goodness.....
Last night / afternoon, Eddie and I went to see the show "Gypsy of the Year". This is kind of an inside-Broadway show where current shows celebrate their fund raising achievements and put-on-a-show together. It was mind-blowingly cool.
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First, understand that the skits and numbers are generally done by the non-leads and aren't from the show. For example, some of the people from Follies (including Jan Maxwell) did the Requium Evita number from Evita (only sang it as Requium Follies) because their show is closing so that a previously booked "Evita" with Rikcy Martin can go into the theater. FYI - at the end of that number, the Original Original Evita, Elaine Paige, came up through the stage to sing "Don't Cry For Me..".
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It started by a set from the Original (40 years ago!) cast of Grease, including Barry Bostwick and Adrian Barbeau. You haven't lived until you've seen Barry Bostwick sing.summer Lovin'.
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Then the cast of Anything Goes sang "June", which apparently Leslie Uggums sung more than once and forgot the words. So they sang her words from some old recording, completely with mis-pronouciations, missed words, humming and then the words June June belted out. In the second chorus, they showed the "lines" as sung on cards. They were a mess. On the 3rd chorus the cast parted and, on stage, was Miss Leslie Uggums. I shit you not!.
Chicago became the longest running American musical, so they had a fleet of handsome young people in various states of undress do numbers from Chorus Line (which won the Tony their opening year). And Billy Elliot is closing in January so they had EVERY Billy from the US run and every other cast member up their singing (except Kiril - long story).
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| Barry Bostwich - Kennicky! |
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| The Men of chicago |
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| Adrian Barbeau (still looking good) |
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| Elaine Page. Original |
Evita