My pitas page

Once upon a swishy Monday, a young boy and girl found themselves in a place they had never been before... The boy and girl had simply been walking along a busy city street. The girl was humming a musical piece from a new show. She and the boy (whose name was Brent) were on their way to audition for the show. Suddenly a large, overbearing bully cut in front of them and almost knocked poor Melissa off her feet. Brent saved her by grabbing her elbow. He also shouted KISS MY ASS to the rude man. At that point, everything went dark, the wind blew up and they found themselves in a new place...a place they had never been before... Much to young Melissa and Brent's surprise, they had been magically transported to THE LAND OF ASSASSINATED MUSICALS!!! They could of course tell that they were indeed in such a land by reading a very handy sign sticking out of the ground that read "WELCOME TO THE LAND OF ASSASSINATED MUSICALS! POPULATION: GROWING". It also included a sign that said "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS". Melissa was perplexed. "Why would anyone ever want to assassinate a musical?" she asked - her eyebrows forming perfect pyramids. "I always thought you couldn't assasinate a non-living abstract term!" "That answer is simple," responded Brent. He went on to describe it in greater detail. Before he did, Melissa and Brent noticed that they were standing on a broad boulevard, called Andrew Lloyd Webber Avenue. A narrow side street nearby was called Ricky Ian Gordon Way. "I wanted to describe why people would assassinate musicals," said Brent. "I really did, but I can't now because I feel a song coming on. " Brent then proceeded to sing and dance down Kander and Ebb Way. The song was catchy. It went something like this: Come on Miss Why don't we paint this town... and wear a FEZ.. (and wear a fez) Melissa, aghast, interrupted Brent. "The song doesn't go like THAT, darling! And besides, you look simply ghastly in a fez...I much prefer your head in a smart little pillbox." Melissa, caught up in this spirit of song in the Land of Assassinated Musicals, began to trill The Ballad of Guiteau, but then a shadow loomed on the horizon... KISS MY ASS, they shouted simultaneouely. Before he could get any further in his very strange yet oddly endearing song, Brent and Melissa were approached by a man dressed in colored tights and pantaloons. He smiled mischievously, and said "I've never heard music like that!" He continued, "Upbeat, rhythmic, why, it's even memorable!" A woman wearing a "PARADE" T-shirt had joined the other three and nodded her head in agreement. "I don't understand," Melissa puzzled. "Are you saying that Jerry Herman's PARADE isn't upbeat, rhythmic and memorable? That's so unlike him??" Brent assured her that PARADE sounded just like all of Mr. Herman's other shows. Suddenly, from amidst the cornstalks, the ghost of Oscar Hammerstein appeared... "Hello, young lovers, I am the ghost of Oscar Hammerstein. If it wasn't for me Stephen Sondheim would be selling aluminum siding." Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the ghost of Larry Hart appeared beside the ghost of Oscar Hammerstein. Melissa gasped, "You look nothing like Mickey Rooney!" Then the ghost of Hammerstein said to the ghost of Hart, "Shall We Dance?" And they did. Confusion was reigning (also raining) in The Land of Assassinated Musicals. Were they feeling modern (Frank Wildhorn, Jason Robert Brown, etc.) Classic (Hammerstein, Kern, Rodgers, etc.) or mid-Golden Era. No one could tell. It was up to Melissa and Brent to sort things out. As the ghosts of old composers swirled around in a scrim-like mist and the voices of still living composers grew louder and louder threatening to Crescendo as they stood there they realized they had to come up with a plan to sort things out. "You know," Brent said in a deep, deep voice, "I feel twitchy and bitchy and manic". "How funny," said Melissa, in the same deep, deep voice, "because I'm calm and collected, no sign of panic." "At least you're ALIVE!" said the ghost of Cole Porter... Just then Richard Adler and the ghost of Jerry Ross appeared and sang: You gotta have Hart All you really need is Hart Oscar Hammerstein had a Hart attack and died a second time. Mitzi Gaynor suddenly appeared and was concerned to find herself in such glorious company, until she realized that, yes, her career was finally dead. Mitzi Gaynor started to sing "I'm as corny as Kansas in August" but Brent interrupted her and said, "First of all, I have the feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, and second of all, where are the color filters? You can't sing that song without your color filters. So, shut up." Mitzi tap danced down Arthur Schwartz Lane which, by the way, had colored filters. The colored filters on Arthur Schwartz Lane obscured the view of Brent and Melissa and they failed to see the rapidly approaching bisexual scarecrow screaming and pointing "Some people go both ways!" He was followed by Nancy Walker yelling at the Village People that "You Can't Stop the Music, I haven't finished directing the sequence" Just then everyone disappeared except for Brent and Melissa. Then, the ghost of Doug Henning stepped out of a shadow. "Neat trick, huh? I did Merlin, you know. Every night we had less people in the audience. What they didn't realize is that that was part of the show - I MADE them disappear. If only the producers had realized that we'd still be running today." He then sang West End Avenue while reciting lines from West Side Story. And then the inevitable happened as the ghosts of Broadway's past swarmed around the disbelieving figures of our young hero and heroine, Brent and Melissa... A voice began to resonate, ricocheting between the buildings of Sondheim Street and Andrew Lloyd Webber Avenue. And then the ghost of Ethel Merman appeared! AAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Ethel was waving the Bernadette Peters GYPSY cd and yelling to beat the band. The band - fled! Miss Merman immediately began a diatribe. "What is this SHIT about my not acting the role of Rose? I acted the SHIT out of Rose. Bernadette Peters can KISS MY ASS." Then she began to sing Riding High. Meanwhile, in another universe, Elaine Stritch suddenly fell off the wagon... Just then Fritz Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner arrived and said, "Elaine, you must not fall off our wagon you must paint your wagon." Elaine turned to them and replied in her usual manner, "Oh, go talk to the trees whydon't you?" Suddenly (and without warning, hence the suddenly) - Brent and Melissa in unison at the top of their lungs shouted "ELAINE... KISS MY ASS!" and right before their very eyes... The entire cast of HAIR appeared, in the nude, as if it were the close of the first act. In unison, they all turned around, and bent from the waist, so all Melissa and Brent could see was a sea of exposed posteriors. ...two giant lips appeared out of the mist...but what Brent and Melissa didn't know was that those giant lips belonged too... A big red curtain drops before the readers of HHW and we learn that we have been witness to the first act of "Death by Musical: A Musical in 4 Acts" * Intermission * As our un-nemed entracte comes to a close, the audience rejoins Melissa and Brent in their continued adventures. "My" said Melissa, looking at her surrounding, "It appears that the Land of Assasinated Musicals is getting ready for a new arrival." "My dear Melissa," responded Brent, "did you ever manage to figure that out?" Melissa turned and pointed to a large lamp post in the middle of the forsaken landscape. A sign was posted next to it which read: "WHEN LIGHT IS FLASHING NEW ARRIVAL WARNING IS IN PLACE". In smaller print it read "In such a case, all citizens will please turn immediately to the nearest rotten vegetable stand. Those without tossing arms are required by law to prominently display their audience response reprieval form at all times" Melissa and Brent, being the law abiding people that they are, immediately started towards the nearest vegetable stand. "I hope they have plenty of tomatoes" Brent said, rubbing his hands together. But suddenly, out of the desert mist, a vision appeared. Brent and Melissa could tell immediately that this vision was of grave symbolic importance, and would come to give further meaning to their journey and indeed, to the strange land in which they now walked. As the vision drew closer, it became apparent that it was Harvey Fierstein who began singing, "Yes, we have no tomatoes...we have no tomatoes today." Why did they keep falling asleep? The man in the tails woke them again. "We must rehearse, you two." The man in the tails then vanished as quickly as he'd arrived. "Strange goings on, Melissa, no?" asked Brent. "Yes, strange indeed, since I prefer to sing folk rock in small clubs. And I really hate thick scripts like this." Brent then tried to say "I hate thick scripts" five times fast and found that he couldn't. "Why am I hanging around with you?" asked Melissa under her breath. Why indeed Suddenly, Brent and Melissa were seized by some unseen force. Desperate, crazed looks came over their faces. The danced a macabre dance to strange, macabre music. The more they danced, the closer they got to the audience. Brent drew a knife and began waving it in the air like a madman; suddently, Melissa grabbed the knife from him, jumped into the first row and stabbed the audience member named Dramaturge into a thousand pieces of raw, bloody meat. Melissa looked up to the back of the house and smiled at the Humble Writer as the audience cheered! But it wasn't the dramaturge at all - it was someone who'd been drugged and then dressed to resemble the dramaturge. The real dramaturge stepped out from the wings. "This defies logic," said a rather taken aback Brent. "Ah," said the dramaturge. "But this is the logic of a dream. The logic can change from moment to moment. That is because....It only takes a moment..." "Shut up with the Hello, Dolly stuff, will ya," shouted Melissa, who only liked folk rock songs, despite her Broadway success. In his hand he carried a weapon so feared, so unspeakably awful. He raised his arm and shouted: "Bwa ha ha!" "Watch out Brent!" yelled Melissa. "The true dramaturge is behind you and he has a... a..." It was, obviously, a moment for a cutsie number. Enter Jackie Gleason and Eileen Herlie to provide some comic relief with the charming duet, "Butt Cheeks." Yes, the dramaturge was holding butt cheeks and was about to hurl them at Brent and Melissa. Normally the dramaturge only hurled vile epithets but today he was hurling vile butt cheeks. Suddenly, the dramaturge heard something behind him. It was the sound of swishy shorts. He wheeled around. It was a *deus ex machina** named Sarah and she swooped down and savagely grabbed those butt cheeks and beat the dramaturge over the head with them!!! "You charlatan!" cried Sarah as she whipped the dramaturge with the butt cheeks. "All of you so-called 'dramaturges' are a fraud!" "Spare me," cried the dramaturge. "Okay," said Sarah. "I'll spare you if you can meet one condition." Sarah named her condition with a great swish of the buttcheek-weapon. "Bring me the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn and the slipper as pure as gold." The dramturgue replied "It is as good as done." So the dramturge started out on his quest. Suddenly he had the horrid realization that he had succeeded in becoming the main character in the story! The stress of carrying so convoluted a plot-line eventually got to him. He died shortly after leaving Melissa and Brent, who buried him and placed the a gravestone over the site with the following epitath: CUT!!!!! screams the very intoxicated director, Orson Wells.. No No No.. this is all CRAP! You can all KISS MY ASS.. Now where the hell are my damn todka and vonics?? Melissa and Brent, not sure if Orson was indeed the director of THEIR show, or just a director IN the show (a very Alice in Wonderland moment) sat down on their collective butt cheeks for a lull.... And then who should come down the street but Charity Hope Valentine singing I'm an ASS Band, I'm a harpsichord...." Of a sudden, Glinda the Good Witch appeared. "Look," she said to Brent and Melissa, "I know my show hasn't opened yet and we're still in previews, but if you two want to get your blessed butt cheeks out of this nightmare, you best follow my instructions." Melissa and Brent (and Brent and Melissa) looked at Kristin in shock and said, "you mean we had the power to remove ourselves from this heinous musical in 4 acts all along"" To which Kristin replied, "No.. I was just messin' Now Kiss My Ass!" Melissa, shocked and rather overwhelmed, broke down into tears and cried out, "Please, let me out of here! Could it be any worse?" Just then, the cast of "Cats" appeared out of the mist, chanting "Jellicle Cats", and leaping throughout the air. "Melissa, remind me to hang myself sometime in the near future." Brent said, his eyes twitching. Then, without warning, Melissa stood tall and proud and said "Gimme Gimme.. this thing called love...." Brent stood even taller, and in a mellifluous baritone, sang, "What is this thing, called love?" Melissa sang the 11 o'clock number with a thrilling silver-throated ease until she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was a tall brunette in a fringed red flapper dress. "Girl, I know you did not!" Melissa turned to see Sutton Foster staring at her. "I'm sorry for singing your song, Sutton! I shouldn't have done it. It was totally and completely my bad!" Melissa apologized. Sutton shrugged. "It's okay. I think I've just been in Millie for too long. Can someone open a nice revival for me?" Suddenly, the ghost of David Merrick appeared. "Sutton, I'm glad you mentioned in because I was just about to mount a revival of "Ass Thousands Cheer!" Sutton leaned over and whispered sweetly into Merrick's ear "no thank you.. I've always wanted to do Kiss My Spiderwoman Ass!" Brent, agreeing most readily said "yes.. yes.. that is what I want most in the world too" Merrick shrugged and walked away shaking his head muttering something about a revival of One Night Stand.

You're Ellen! Your sweetness makes it easy for you
to be everyone's best friend. Sometimes you
wish people would love you as more than a
sister.

Which Character from Camp Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla Since I just took the Camp quiz, I may as well talk about my reactions to the movie, which I saw on Wednesday. The bad first-- Okay...I have to address the cliches. How many times do we have to see a gay boy with parental unacceptance issues, a mousy girl with a crush on a seemingly unattainable boy, and a washed-up alcoholic director? Come on...it was Fame meets 42nd Street meets Days of Our Life, as I put it on HHW. And the character of Vlad annoyed me on many levels. He was a total tease and fuckwit. And Ellen, who I am supposedly most like (I would rather have been Fritzi) was a dork for falling for him. Okay, I'll admit he was hot. Now the good...it was packed with theatre jokes and things I could totally relate to. Feeling like a Sondheim-loving freak in a plastic Britney-worshipping world. Wanting the spotlight like a lover's embrace. I loved it, loved it, when Sondheim got out of his limo and the kids seized upon him as if he were God. Which in a way he is, lol. The production numbers were awesome. Great Jerry Mitchell choreography. And Anna Kendrick is a star in the making....I loved her Ladies Who Lunch. And the montage of girls doing I'm Still Here was great. And Turkey Lurkey Time was totally cute. You know, I suddenly REALLY want to play Joanne in Company.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas a tale of revenge and deceit - excellent reading

what book are you?
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You are a musical theatre fanatic! You spend your
life in Times Square and see every show that
goes up. You parade around in the clothes you
buy at the show and relate everything you do to
musical theatre. Grab a costume and start
singing!

How musical theatre savvy are you?
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Theatre Freak!
oh you are such a theatre freak! oh yeah! go you!

Are you a theatre freak like me??
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You are Frederico Fellini's 8 1/2. You are very
creative but you have a hard time living up to
your responsibilities. You also desire to have
total control over your own work and respond
badly to suggestions and criticism. But most of
the time you'd rather immerse yourself in
flights of fancy than take care of the tasks at
hand.

Which Classic Art Film Are You?
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You are "Welcome to the Caribbean, love."
You're more than a little world-weary, but also
intelligent and you keep your head when things
get dodgy. You're everybody's favorite
drinking buddy, but your stubbornness does get
in the way sometimes.

Which one of Captain Jack Sparrow's bizarre sayings from Pirates of the Caribbean are you?
brought to you by Quizilla I love Jack Sparrow...or rather I love Johnny Depp. Damn Vanessa Paradis...damn her, damn her!

Well, I've got my Bounce tickets...yay!!! I ordered 3 tickets on my credit card for me, Kate and her friend Melanie, and they're going to pay me back later. I've read so many lukewarm reviews of the show (yes, I know it's still in previews) that I'm almost bracing myself to be disappointed. A Sondheim musical comedy that actually plays up on the laughs and songs rather than the dark side of human nature or romantic ambiguities? God forbid! Why can't Sondheim have the freedom to go on a musical lark...he's already written like 10 masterpieces. I'm going to get in that theatre at the Kennedy Center and not expect to see Sweeney Todd and George Seurat up there. Michele Pawk rocks...she alone would be worth the price of the tickets. So does Howard McGillin. And while I was somewhat under-impressed with Gavin Creel in Thoroughly Modern Millie, he's a beautiful boy. I still need to get up to NYC and see Nine. I want to see Antonio, but John Stamos may not be so bad. He's indelibly etched into my memories as Uncle Jessie from Full House, but he's supposed to be a good musical theatre actor and has already proven himself as such. Which is more than anyone can say for Jenna Elfman.

You know, since I've been doing all these tests, I may as well do some actual writing. Let me talk about the last shows I saw, in most recent order: Barbara Cook in Concert: This woman is the eight wonder of the world! How come she is more than 3 times my age and sings better than I ever will? It wasn't her Mostly Sondheim concert, but she did do some Sondheim at the end including In Buddy's Eyes, Send in the Clowns, You Could Drive a Person Crazy. She did a lot of R & H. I haven't been too much into R & H lately but she really did phenomenal singing all the worn-out standards. I wish I could have gone to the stage door to meet her, but I had a cold that day and would never have forgiven myself if I got her sick. Gypsy--I had read so much debate about Bernie's Rose that I would not have been surprised if she had been a horror or terrific. Fortunately, she was great. Mind you, I still prefer Merman as the definitive Mama Rose, but Bernadette really did deserve her standing O. John Dossett, Tammy Blanchard (both of whom I met) and the strippers were great too. 1776--Saw this at Ford's Theatre with Kate. I didn't know the show very well going in but it was really, really well-done and well-acted. Thought the guy playing John Adams was totally hot. Next show to see--BOUNCE!!!

In what classic Woody Allen film do you belong?
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You are Isabelle Adjani. Naive, innocent, yet
worldly.

Which French New Wave Actress are you?
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You are William Blake! Wow. I'm impressed. Not
only are you a self-made artist and poet, but
you've suddenly become a very trendy guy to
like. It's not that we doubt that you have all
your marbles, it's just that we're not quite
sure what you did with them to come up with
those terrifying theological visions. The
people of your time were nowhere near as
forgiving as that, and all your neighbors
thought you were a grade-A nut job. But we
love you, so rest happy.

Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?
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You're.....Bernadette Peters! The reigning QUEEN
of Broadway! EVERYONE knows who you are!
Currently performing in Gypsy, you're suffering
from frequent illness, harsh criticism, and the
recent loss of a Tony (to that Hairspray
chick.) But it's okay, you're a godess and the
world loves you anyway!

Which Fabulous Broadway Actress are You?
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You're Millie Dillmount from Thoroughly Modern
Millie! Headstrong, determined, and, of course,
thoroughly modern. You go after what you want
and never give up until you're satisfied.

Which Broadway Leading Lady Are You?
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Congratulations, you're Jason Robert Brown. You're
young, hip, talented, and just a little
arrogant. You're not afraid of musical
discordance or difficult plots, and you've got
a cult fanbase willing to follow you
everywhere. Oh, and all of those corporate
jingles you wrote? FUNNY. Your shows:
"Songs for a New World,
"Parade," "The Last Five
Years."

What Broadway Composer (or Composer-Lyricist team) are you?
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Your ideal man is Erik, from The Phantom of the
Opera. He's a misfigured genius that reigns
below the Opera House in his own, unique world.
He's kind of a recluse, but hey, maybe you can
help him out. He's a murderer, so that might be
a bit of a drawback...but hey, he's sexy, the
whole creepy graceful thing really does the
trick, and he loves you. You've got the pick of
the litter!

Who is your ideal match from Broadway?
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You are: "Some People" from Gypsy

Which song are you from Linda Eder's Broadway My Way?
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You're Annie Get Your Gun! You always get what you
aim for, like that guy in Daredevil...but not
as creepy.

What Broadway musical are you?
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Into The Woods - You are childish, but generally popular among 7th grade girls who haven't yet discovered Phantom of the Opera. You're not always at the top of your game, but you certainly have your audience.

Which Stephen Sondheim Musical Are You?
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Congratulations, you're Eponine. The daughter of
the less than nice Thenardiers, you have a
thing for Cosette's man. Too bad he doesn't
love you back. You are shot during the student
rebellion, and you die in the man you love's
arms. How romantic.

Which Les Miserables Character are you?
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I really go through phases with my obsessions. I'm almost like the moon in that sense--and right now between my three great loves of theatre, literature and film, theatre is waxing. Of course I'm going to see the June 2nd Gypsy matinee in New York (I wish I could see Nine too but my grandma will worry if I get in too late) and when I get back on the 3rd, I'm going to see 1776 at Ford's Theatre with my new friend Kate, who is about as equally obsessed with musicals as I am. On her AIM profile, she says Sondheim is God. I agreed with this and said that that would make Andrew Lloyd Webber Satan. You know, with 1776, it's ironic that I'm going to see a show about presidents in the theatre where Lincoln was shot. It would be even more suprememly ironic if they ever performed "Assassins" there!

I'm starting this to be an exclusively theatre, film and book journal, in which I post my opinions about the above things. Let me just start with this....Lord of the Rings, the Musical???!!! What the hell are they thinking????? Though having said that, I would like to see this cast: Frodo--some cute gay guy Gandalf--George Hearn Aragorn--Brian Stokes Mitchell Arwen--Kristin Chenoweth Saruman--Mandy Patinikin Bilbo--Ian Holm should reprise