Cast: Bernadette Peters, Audra McDonald, Vanessa Williams, Carol Burnett, Eric McCormack, Anne Hathaway, Angela Lansbury, Warren Beatty, Barbara Streisand
For a complete cast list, see the Hollywood Bowl Sonheim's 75th: The Concert page.
I'm so happy that they did a west coast concert for Stephen Sondheim's 75th birthday. It's amazing how good he looks! He hasn't really changed a bit. Sondheim has done so much in his career in musical theatre and some of my favorite musicals were written by him, so this show was very exciting for me.
Unfortunately, some people originally announced (Nathan Lane, Emmy Rossum, etc.) did not make it for whatever reason.
The cast was really amazing, with a couple minor exceptions.
Before the show started, I heard that Barbara Streisand was there. This really bothered me, since I figured she would sing and I can't stand hearing her sing. She's butchered so many wonderful songs and I didn't want to have to experience her destroying a Sondheim song when I was there in person.
Fortunately, the girl in front of me (whose boyfriend was in the choir that sang in the last number) said her boyfriend had told her that Barbara Streisand was supposed to sing "Children will Listen" and at the last minute she pulled a diva bit and decided not to sing it when they wouldn't make the change she demanded. THANK GOODNESS! I can't even imagine having to hear her sing that when ,Bernadette Peters (the original Witch in Into the Woods) was there. It would have broken my heart (and my ear drums)! Thank goodness Streisand is too much of a diva. Apparently, sometimes that comes in handy. I actually did a little "I didn't have to hear Barbara sing" dance and bounced up and down after she left the stage without singing. Yippee!
Carol Burnett messed up a few times while singing "Loveland/Getting Married Today," but that is such a fast song and her comedic ability just enhanced the performance. It really was wonderful. I don't know how Eric McCormack & Marin Mazzie managed to keep a straight faces - especially Marin Mazzie, since Carol Burnett was in her face making faces at her and trying to mess her up.
It was great to see so many wonderful stars performing Sondheim's work in one night. We had really good seats and I'm so glad we were able to catch this performance.
If you're interested in pictures from this performance, see the Broadway.com Photo page.
Grade: B+
Labels: 2005, Anne Hathaway, Bernadette Peters, musical, Stephen Sondheim
Reviewed by Kat at the 8:00 PM show | 0 screams
Cast: Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Lloyd, Hank Azaria, Bernadette Peters
For complete cast info, see IMDb's Anastasia page.
I was so looking forward to this movie. They had a great cast (though I'm not a Meg Ryan fan), and the animation looked great. The animation was definitely better than any other non-Disney animated movie I've seen to date. However, that's the end of my praise for the movie.
The story was okay, but it could have been much better done. I'm not sure how they managed to get a G rating for a movie that had an animal being cut to pieces in it. I had been very excited about seeing Anastasia and saw it as soon as it reached our theaters. One of my friend's daughters was really looking forward to the movie, too. As soon as I saw it, I called my friend and told her to distract her daughter with thoughts of other movies and toys and to get her to forget the idea of Anastasia. Her little girl would not have liked this dark (and sometimes gruesome) animated interpretation of the story of Anastasia.
Anastasia had so much potential as an animated movie. I was very disappointed that they seemed to care more about making it dark and gross (and therefore separating it from Disney movies) than they did doing a good job with the story or making a movie that children (or their parents) could fully enjoy.
Grade: C
Labels: 1997, adventure, animated, Bernadette Peters, comedy, drama, family, John Cusack, Meg Ryan, movie
Reviewed by Kat at the 2:15 PM show | 0 screams
Cast: Bernadette Peters (Witch), Kim Crosby (Cinderella), Ben Wright (Jack), Chip Zien (Baker), Joanna Gleason (Baker's Wife)
The rest of the amazing original Broadway cast info can be found on IBDb's Into the Woods page.
WOW! What a show! We got so lucky! My high school thespians group went to see Into the Woods not knowing that they were recording for PBS that night and the entire original Broadway cast was back for one night only. Since I went to high school in Pittsburgh, PA, this was amazing luck for us. I now own the performance I saw of Into the Woods on DVD, which is wonderful, though I wish there was a commentary track like there is for Sunday in the Park with George.
Everyone in the original Broadway cast of Into the Woods was totally amazing! Not only were they wonderful on stage, but they were very friendly off stage, as well. I am so thankful that I got to see the original Broadway cast of this wonderful Stephen Sondheim musical. It is one of my favorite musicals of all time and probably will be for years to come. The music is so wonderful and the lyrics are perfect.
Obviously, I highly recommend Into the Woods to anyone. It's a great show for those who aren't as into musicals, too.
What Sondheim does is combine a bunch of fairy tales we all know (Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Little Red Ridinghood, etc.) with one he created (The Baker & his Wife) to tie them all together in the woods. This is such a great story with some of Sondheim's best music and lyrics.
Grade: A
Labels: Bernadette Peters, Broadway, Joanna Gleason, musical, original, Stephen Sondheim
Reviewed by Kat at the 8:00 PM show | 0 screams