‘Give in!’ Buy Gwen Verdon portrait at Bonhams auction
little man little lola wants you. 12.5 x 17.75 in. As “Lola” in Damn Yankees, Gwen Verdon brought down the house with her powerhouse performance and her inimitable version of “Whatever Lola Wants,” performing the role over 1,000 times. She began both a working and personal relationship with choreographer Bob Fosse as a result of ...
David Winters ‘Cool’ solo, in ‘West Side Story’
Jets boys, David Winters at center in red In an interview with Toni Basil that includes rare footage of the original Broadway cast of West Side Story, Jerome Robbins protege David Winters (1939 – 2019) explains how he conjured his unusual solo in the role of “Baby John” in 1957. When it came time for ...
Drive-in movie for the angels
Nov
29
2020
photo by taylor umphenour courtesy of hollywood legion drive in We don’t need no suburban drive-in movie. We have the Hollywood Legion Drive In, a very urban one inside the wee village of Los Angeles. It’s the “first-ever drive in in the heart of Hollywood.” And here’s how it looks at night! Tonight, the hills ...
The Hollywood Hills are alive … with ‘The Sound of Music’
Nov
28
2020
julie & the hills It’s the holiday season and we’re all nearly croaking of isolation in our cobbled, separated, lonely, despairing but well-worn nests at home. There’s one remaining way to go out and safely be with others. No, not a walk in mother nature. Rather, a big spin on a cinematic mountain-top with Julie ...
‘Sittin’ In’ at golden-era jazz clubs 1
bird & friendscourtesy of jeff gold These days, every self-respecting college and civic performing arts center has a subscription jazz series. It’s no surprise, then, that many people see jazz as concert music. But it wasn’t always so. 1930s and ‘40s jazz musicians mostly worked in ballrooms with dance bands, but they stretched out and ...
I get by with a little help from Gwen Verdon
carol burnett, phyllis diller, bobby gentry, gwen verdon Dateline Nov 20: It’s been a wretched week. A crazy person, with “a little help” from his equally crazy friends, is foisting a coup d’etat on our democracy; the very air of my neighborhood has become a dicey thing to breathe; and the Doris Duke Theatre where ...
Dance world on fire, at Jacob’s Pillow
Heart-rending sight, courtesy BerkshireEdge.com The dance world responded with shock and sorrow on Tuesday to the news that an early-morning fire had completely destroyed the Doris Duke Theater at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Located on a bucolic 220-acre campus in the Berkshire area of Massachusetts, the internationally-known Festival had added the more intimate Duke ...
Searching for Nina(s), with coffee & Al Hirschfeld
I don’t quite agree with the exhibition title that calls ‘looking for Ninas’ “a “national insanity.” Donald Trump has a lock on that. But apparently that was how the late great caricaturist/arts journalist Al Hirschfeld, whose charming shtick of inserting his daughter’s name into his cartoons in the Sunday New York Times Arts & Leisure ...
Looks beautiful: Christian Petzold’s ‘Undine’ at German Currents Film Festival
One of Germany’s most celebrated film auteurs, Christian Petzold, brings a Los Angeles premiere to the German Currents Film Festival which kicks off today. Petzold’s UNDINE is a retelling, updated, of the myth of a water-nymph who marries a mortal. The story is set in modern-day Berlin. Told through Petzold’s precise visual style, the film ...
Singalong Saturday: He’s gone where the goblins go
Nov
7
2020
As mayor of the Munchkin CityIn the County of the Land of OzI welcome you mostly regally(But we’ve got to verify if legally)To see … If she …Is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably DEADAs Coroner, I must aver, I’ve thoroughly examined herAnd she is not merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead.So this ...