TONY Award Ceremony 2015

Buddy Beaverhausen watched the TONYs tonight. He was not disappointed but hopes it got good ratings as it was up against some popular sports event on a rival network. Buddy's choice of competitive event, however, was firmly CBS' TONYs.

I adore watching all the production numbers. All singing, all dancing! And that's entertainment!

Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenowith made a wonderful, slightly edgy couple of hosts. Chenowith also performed a production number  from the current revival of On the 20th Century with some of her co-stars. The year's Broadway winner, however, turned out to be The King and I.

I was happy that at least part of Tommy Tune's Lifetime Achievement Award was televised. Chalk this up to Richard Skipper and others in the media for their activism. Apparently, it paid off. Thank you.

TONYs are usually quite an electric, eclectic  and lively affair. This year was no exception.

Chita Rivera and company did a number from the Broadway staging of the current The Visit, though Rivera's character walks with a cane, so her dance steps were curtailed. Still, it was fabulous.

Joel Grey and daughter, Jennifer Grey, came to present. Coincidentally, perhaps, Dirty Dancing: the musical is coming to the Great White Way.

Bernadette Peters presented the Best Actor award (Alan Sharp). Doogie Hauser awarded Kelli O'Hara the Best Actress in a musical trophy for The King and I. Helen Mirren won Best Actress in a play (The Audience).

Best Show was the musical Fun Home. The cast of Jersey Boys closed the event with the self-congratulatory "Oh, What a Night."

There was so much I enjoyed and admired in this telecast. It was a joy to watch the acceptance speeches and stagings. God bless the TONYs. And thanks to my cousin Walter for supplying the popcorn.

Exclusive Q&A with Broadway Icon, Lee Roy Reams part 2

Buddy Beaverhausen: Am I correct that your Broadway debut was in Sweet Charity in 1966?
Lee Roy Reams: Yes, that's correct.
BB: Oh my God, you were so young!
LRR" Yes. Well, you see, at the time there were not that many people who could sing, dance and act! That was the key, really.
  I was cast in a small role as "Young Spanish Man," opposite Chita Rivera, and I had a few lines but it was a lovely experience. I got to meet and work with Juliet Prowse. And then I got to go out to L.A. and work on a tv variety show, but that's not what I wanted to do. So, I headed back to New York, to Broadway, and was cast by Richard Rogers in a musical revival of Oklahoma with Margaret Hamilton ("The Wicked Witch of the West" from The Wizard of Oz), and it was a very exciting time in my life, 1969. So, I've had the great fortune to have worked with these people. And going on to be in Applause with Lauren Bacall and on and on!
  Then, I met Carol Channing shortly after that and worked with her in Lorelei, then Hello, Dolly. And that was the beginning of my relationship with Carol and Jerry Herman, actually.

BB: You've worked with the very best but... without mentioning names... is there anyone you'd refuse to work with again?
LRR: Hmmmm.... No, not really. I've been very lucky that way in the theater J guess. I've directed so many great talents who were always professional and with whom I loved to work, too.  Jo Ann Worley, Leslie Uggams.... All wonderful! So, no, there really is no one I'd refuse to work with in the future that I can think of.

BB: What do you thnk of the state of Broadway theater in 2015?
LRR: There are still so many wonderful shows out there. But the big difference today is that there are no individual producers any more. You know? It used to be everyone could look forward to, say, a David Merrick production every year. Now, everything is put together by conglomerates; whomever can get together and put the money up. So, that is a big change in the manner in which shows are produced.

BB: You won't remember this, but I met you at BB King's a couple of years back, and we were introduced by Sherry Eaker....
LRR: Yes! Yes, I do remember you. Small world! It was at the Melissa Manchester show.
BB: Right. By the way, she's coming to 54 Below in March.
LRR: Wonderful! I'll have to go. Are you going?
BB: I hope to.
LRR: Great,  I hope to see you, again, there!

BB: Last question. What do you like to do when you're not working? To relax?
LRR: I love living in New York City. I love going out! Broadway, off-Broadway, cabaret, shows! I love nothing more than to go out and partake in what's going on out there. I can't imagine living anywhere else or any other way!

On the Town with Buddy B: Kinky Boots

It was certainly the evening for boots -- kinky or otherwise -- in Times Square, where slush was everywhere and piles of frozen snow complicated crossing the streets during freezing temperatures and gusty wind chill.

I met my friend, actor/director Kathy Towson, at Don Giovanni restaurant on West 44th Street for an early, pre-show dinner before moving on to the 7 pm performance of Kinky Boots at the Al Hirschfeld on 45th.

Obviously, musicals about drag queens are the new family-friendly tribal-rock entertainment on Broadway. Just as with Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical, Kinky Boots had the audience on its feet during its final number, enthusiastically clapping in rhythm and stomping its collective feet.

Jerry Mitchell's choreography is a marvel of precision and pizzazz, and his direction and staging are marvelously clear-cut and impressive, especially a number on a conveyor belt. Cyndi Lauper, long a friend and major supporter of the LGBT community, has created music and lyrics that are wonderful, versatile and sensitive. Harvey Fierstein, who is what he is, has created a book based on the 2005 British comedy, featuring especially sharp dialogue. Well, the man wrote the book for La Cage aux Folles, so he's pretty much cornered the feel-good drag-queen musicals market!

The cast is uniformly wonderful now with Kyle Taylor Parker playing Lola as a hybrid of Tim Curry's sweet transvestite, Donna Summer and Whitney Houston. Andy Kelso rocks the house as boot manufacturer Charlie. Jeanna de Waal channels Cyndi as love interest, Lauren. And veteran Christopher Gurr's character gets more interesting and funnier the more the play lets his character break loose.

Cyndi herself had a club hit with the show's number "Sex Is in the Heel" and the show's final song, "Raise You Up," gets everyone to their feet. "Not My Father's Son" is especially poignant and "Hold Me to Your Heart" is throw-down-the-gauntlet diva fabulousness.

Set mostly in northern England, the whole, two-and-one-half-hour (including intermission) sha-bang climaxes on a runway in Milan. The storyline is, basically, about extended family and its triumph through shared love and humanity. That, I think, is the power and the glory of Kinky Boots. Oh, and the boots are brilliant, receiving their own applause. Tony well-deserved for Best Musical.

The New Nostalgia and the Triumph of Cabaret Culture

Songs from the American songbook of the 20th Century have made a major comeback over the past season, many of them selling briskly over the internet as cds or downloads, enough that a distinct trend can be gleaned. And that trend may be based on a sociological need for escape to times that seem better, at least, because we know how things resolved themselves, and based on our cravings for a bit of sentimentality to sweeten the daily, the predictable and the mundane. It is also, however, a renunciation of the au current styles of pop music and the state of music radio.

We have experienced this type of pop phenomenon once before: during the recession of the early 1970s, when Bette Midler brought back The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and Chapel of Love, swing bands went disco a'la Dr Buzzard's Savannah Band and Vicki Sue Robinson, and the smooth retro harmonies of the Manhattan Transfer were in favor. Now, as our economy rebounds from another recessionary financial period, we find the New Nostalgia dominating pop music.

Lady Gaga certainly knows a trend when she hears one. She teamed up with Tony Bennett to record ballad and upbeat jazz and swing numbers like Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," and "It Don't Mean a Thing" on their album, Cheek to Cheek, which was a major financial and critical success this year. And Bette Midler returns to form with her all-girl group concept album, It's the Girls, bringing back tunes by The Andrew Sisters, the Ronettes, doing a duet with girl-group original, Darlene Love, and even reaching back to the 1930s to recreate that seminal girl-group, The Boswell Sisters.

Much of this material has been kept alive, largely here in New York City cabarets, through the decades, where it has evolved. I've been to several shows this past season where songs have mostly come from the doo-wop '50s through the house-music dance classics of the '90s. And disco nostalgia is all the rage! (We can, perhaps, thank Broadway's Mama Mia for that influence, and for finally making '70s disco legit.) Ronnie Giles' "Revenge of the Third-Rate Lounge Singer," received a very positive review from Broadway World! Kim Grogg's "Go Where the Love Is" (both these shows were at the venerable Don't Tell Mama cabaret) and Carly Ozard's musical bouquets to Bette, "Midler on the Roof" were also among the finest, and they played to full houses. And off-Broadway's Sylester musical, "Mighty Real" will return January 11 at the Gramercy Theater as a concert, further cementing the disco-era as part of the New Nostalgia.

Aretha's latest album, covering divas past and present, has Ms Franklin back in disco mode with classics like "I Will Survive." Kristin Chenoweth's recent Coming Home album includes Broadway show tunes and "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)!" If a gay sensibility runs through all the albums and shows I've mentioned, what could be trendier or more part of this tradition of quality music?

Easy listening and middle-of-the-road no longer are dirty words for me. Not necessarily, anyhow. It's been said, "nostalgia isn't what it used to be" but 2014 proved it's even better.

A Farewell to Broadway Legend Elaine Stritch

There will never be another like her. Today's New York Times obit described 89-year-old Elaine Stritch as a "Tart-Tongued Broadway Actress and Singer" in its headline.

Younger audiences may know Stritch from her tv appearances on tv's 30 Rock and Law & Order. Or as Jane Fonda's mother-in-law in the film Monster in Law. But her first love, and the medium in which she perhaps did her best work, was the stage.

I was fortunate to have seen her on Broadway in her one-woman show, At Liberty, and she was truly a phenomenon; a force of nature. She talked frankly about her alcoholism, including the anecdote about how she "blew the audition" for the role of Dorothy Zbornack on tv's The Golden Girls when she got juiced before audition and, when asked to read, threw a few choice obscenities into her delivery. The role, of course, went to Bea Arthur.

I recall, also, some good gossip about Ms Stritch when she was to be honored at a cabaret awards ceremony in New York City. One of her demands was having her hair coiffed for the occasion. She submitted an astronomical bill. The awards ceremony's organizer (who told me this story) had a Carol Channing impersonator call Elaine and say (as Channing) he'd heard about the salon through the grapevine and enquired as to cost. He was given a significantly lower price tag. When Elaine Stritch showed up for her award, she was wearing a hat. Now that was a diva!

In musical theater, Elaine worked with the legendary Noel Coward and Stephen Sondheim, famously singing "Ladies Who Lunch" in Company.

She co-starred in a few films, including A Farewell to Arms opposite Rock Hudson, and Who Killed Teddy Bear with Sal Mineo.

Although Stritch claimed to have overcome her alcoholism in At Liberty, on a recent Today Show appearance (February 2014), she freely dropped the F word with Kathy Lee and Hoda when she was promoting her documentary, Shoot Me. Then, she barked out that she, not her hosts, would have the last word on her segment.

And so another great icon departs. Buddy Beaverhausen pays her this tribute. Elaine Stritch was a unique talent, absolutely one-of-a-kind, and she is missed. Tonight, I expect, the lights on Broadway will be dimmed in her honor. Elaine Stritch will always be a star wherever she shines. I imagine, right now, she's doing cocktails in heaven with the winged ladies who lunch.

Broadway Beaverhausen: You'll Eat Bette Midler Up

Entering the Booth Theatre, where Bette Midler is appearing on previews in I'll Eat You Last (opening April 24), the first thing you'll see is this notice on the stage curtain:  WARNING This play contains profanity, smoking, alcohol consumption, drug use, & gossip. You'll not be disappointed in that promise.

What happened to matinees' blue-haired old ladies? Our sold-out Sunday afternoon crowd was pretty hep, smartly dressed and not too unlike the evening crowd, without a blue rinse in sight.

And what was not to love once Bette Midler took to the stage as Sue Mengers? It was the perfect play for her to tackle, in my opinion, and she was clearly having fun with this 90-minute, no-intermission,  no-holds-barred, one-woman show.

Mengers was the high-powered Hollywood super-agent who died in 2011 due to complications from a series of strokes and pneumonia at age 79, after ruling the Hollywood roost of the '60s and '70s. I'll Eat You Last (the title derived from a throw-away line in the show) is set in her living room in 1981. Playwright Josh Logan (Tony winner for Red, a drama about artist Mark Rothko) certainly supplies Ms Midler with delicious dialogue that she sinks her teeth into with great relish. Gossip? Oh, my dears! This is dish on a grand scale! "Trash with flash" as the Divine Miss M might put it. It's a thrill ride for fans.

The play's Miss M(engers) has much to share with us about Julie Harris, Gene Hackman, Ali McGraw, Faye Dunaway, who were clients, as well as Sissy Spacek, Diana Ross, Jane Fonda and Steve McQueen as she remains on her couch, holding court. The anecdotes (which I will not spoil by divulging here) are boldly delivered in high style and Bette is at her outrageous best, making them work with trademark delivery. There are times when her Ms Mengers merges with Ms Midler's Divine Miss M and Sophie Tucker!

Buddy B and friend Tracey (photo by Merv)

There's a special irony when Bette Midler, in character, discusses Sue's friendship with Barbra Streisand. There's a twinkle of mischief in her eyes during these moments. Sue recalls seeing Streisand for the first time when her gay friends brought her to the bar, The Lion's Den, on 9th Street in the West Village. (Streisand was discovered when she then moved to the Bon Soir on 8th Street. I lived around the corner from both these landmarks for many years.) The two women bonded, were friends for many years, but eventually parted ways via events well detailed in the play.

The super-sedentary Sue Mengers is like the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, referenced in the play. Instead of a hookah, she has her roach clip and joint in hand, and never rises from her couch until the show's finale. In fact, she commands an audience member to come onstage to fetch things for her (joints, wine). She treats him grandly with charm and, alternately, scorn. But it is a brilliant and golden moment of interaction with the audience. Be careful where you sit.

I'll Eat You Last was in every way a total delight and Bette's delivery and facial gestures priceless. The packed house frequently responded with applause and laughter. Bette ad-libbed brilliantly when necessary but delivered a most disciplined performance that was hilarious yet poignant in a style all her own.

In the end, Sue Mengers gives some final advice to her audience, then stumbles off, stoned, to the sound of Barbra's "Stony End."  "I knew her when she was Bar-ba-ra," Bette's Mengers says.

Directed by Joe Mantello (Other Desert Cities) with great pinache. Lighting Design by Hugh Vanstone is especially expressive and noteworthy.

Highly recommended and on a limited run until June 30 (Gay Pride Day in NYC).

Beaverhausen on Broadway: Tom Hanks in "Lucky Guy"

Talk about synchronicity! Tom Hanks is now performing on Broadway, just down 44th Street from the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co restaurant! Not only that, but I'm reading the Clive Davis memoir, Soundtrack of My Life, so who should I sit directly three rows behind? Clive Davis! You could have knocked me over with a shrimp ball!

As for the play, Lucky Guy, now at the Broadhurst Theater, I think it shares a modern sense of tragedy with the musical, Evita. It's the tragedy of our shared mortality, pure and simple. In classic Greek tragedy, nemesis is divine punishment that determines the fall or death of a character. And, in theater, both the biographical Lucky Guy and Evita implicitly view illness and death as a punishment for pride and arrogance; what the Greeks labeled hubris. (That's Greek for cheeky, people!)

Lucky Guy has a Greek chorus, too, via the heavy-drinking, tough-talking, mostly Irish-American, old-school, all-male tabloid newspaper journalists to whom this play is an homage. Problem is: too much Greek chorus storytelling and not enough dramatic exposition.

The acting is pretty solid, though, and the main attraction in Lucky Guy. I had no idea that Peter Scolari was in the cast! I guess he and Tom Hanks really are Bosom Buddies, long after their gender-bender tv series of that name got canceled after two seasons! Courtney B. Vance, Mr. Angela Bassett and star of stage, screen and tv, is outstanding in the role of New York Daily News editor, Hap Hairston. And Maura Tierney shines as Hanks' long-suffering wife, Alice. The rest of the cast, without exception, are crackerjack.

As for Tom Hanks, in his Broadway debut, he puts on a most kinetic performance, rarely off the stage or off the mark (literally as well as figuratively).  He assays the role of Mike McAlary (pronounced Mac-a-larry), Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, warts and all. It's a forceful performance, though when Hanks' character is learning to walk and talk again after a very serious car accident, he sounds like he's speaking with a Swedish accent rather than a speech impediment. Granted, there's a thin line between the two!

Written by the late film director/screenwriter, Nora Ephron -- whose background was in the world of journalism as depicted at the outset of this play -- the drama moves like a well-edited movie. I'm not sure that's totally a good thing for the stage, although she certainly has a lot of territory to cover involving McAlary's crazy life. Director George C. Wolfe and David Rockwell (Scenic Design) certainly convey the snap, crackle and pop necessary to carry this off.

The ultimate tragedy is that, by the time the ambitious, often ruthless McAlary gets his Pulitzer, he is dying of colon cancer. His death, as represented in Lucky Guy, is poignant though not tear-jerking.  Tragic -- but where's that Greek catharsis we need, crave and deserve?

The printed press has given Lucky Guy mostly positive reviews, perhaps because they relate to the milieu depicted more than the overall production. The New York Times loved it! Liz Smith called it a "triumph" in The Chicago Tribune! Clive Davis looked happy. Me? I'm heading over to Bubba Gump's.