GIVE 'EM THE OLD RAZZLE DAZZLE

AUGUST 1999 (Volume 9)

National Library of Canada ISSN 1481-7934

Peter Poullos, Assistant Editor

A New Monthly Theatre E-zine

No reprints without written permission from the publisher, although permission is granted to forward a copy to your friends and business associates.

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IN THIS ISSUE

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-CLAIR SEDORE; OBITUARIES DIETZ/SCHWARTZ ROBIN WAGNER WAYNE CILENTO MORTON DACOSTA JEAN GENET ACTORS STUDIO HIPPODROME BARBARA HARRIS NORMA THE MINSKYS THE PAJAMA GAME COMING IN SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER MEMORIES - My Fifty Years of Theatregoing 1950-1999 GEORGE GERSHWIN TONY WALTON JACQUES D'AMBOISE TYRONE GUTHRIE ARTHUR KOPIT MANHATTAN THEATRE CLUB BILLY ROSE HAL HOLBROOK OTHELLO ********************* >^,,^< Litter Box Mews >^,,^< Disrespectful, Sarcastic, Politically Incorrect Humor For the Adult mind. To Subscribe: http://www.katscratch.com/subscribe.html *********************** SOME REVIEWS OF OUR EIGHTH ISSUE

**************************************************************************** ********** Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 15:54:13 -0400 From: Paul Vierra Organization: Livent Inc. To: Clair Sedore <927121@ican.net> CC: Raymond Cheong , aslayer@livent.com Subject: Re: [Fwd: [Livent Webmaster] Livent Website] Dear Clair, Thank you for thinking about us when you created your web site. I am quite flattered that you have linked to our site. We are in the process of redesigning our site. One of the new features will be a links page. Once built we will be adding your site to the page. Again, thank you for thinking of us as a link for your web site. Sincerely, Paul Vierra Senior Director, Sales Livent Inc. *********************************** Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 14:21:00 -0700 From: "Metropolitan Opera" Subject: Re: Metropolitan Opera To: "Clair Sedore" <927121@ican.net> Dear Clair Sedore, Thank you for letting us know about your link to our site. At this time we are not linking to any organizations other than Texaco, one of our major funders, and the Metropolitan Opera Guild, our sister organization. We wish you luck with your ezine and website and appreciate your Interest and thoughtfulness in the Metropolitan Opera. Dear Clair: thank you for your wonderful letter. We are way behind in updating our site due to trying to run the theater and our base business, which is audio visual rental, support and consults for conventions in cancun. We just finished producing two children's musicals and by July 10th things at our El Forito Theater (214 seats, opened Oct 31, 1998) will have slowed down. We rent the theater to whomever wants to use it, with sound and lighting staff. I represent the theater with clients and occasionally produce, as i did for the children's group. I am a 48-year theater fool, a passionate theater-goer when I can find it (good theater??!) It's uphill all the way in cancun. We've two theaters (the city in general) and no patrons to speak of and little response from the public, but we keep on. I am also (to pay the rent) a translator, copywriter and writer of travelogues for local and national magazines here in Mexico. Let's keep in touch and i will certainly visit your site and add a link to it. Thanks again. Best, sharon at Unicom. *********************** AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR OUR SUBSCRIBERS GET PAID TO BROWSE THE WEB Try one, two, three or all of these programmes to make money while you browse. All four companies are amazing and there is no reason why you cannot join them all! All Advantage http://alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=APQ-919 Go To World http://www.gotoworld.com/getpaid/default.asp?rid=1011420166 ePIPO http://www.epipo.com/sine.asp?19381948 Utopiad http://www.utopiad.com/member/getPaid?refId=35898 Might as well make some money for surfing the net! Let me know what you think!! Clair Sedore, Editor ******************************** BIG MAC JOKES now comes in two flavors, regular and clean. For "regular", see http://bigmacjokeattack.listbot.com, or send a blank email to bigmacjokeattack-subscribe@listbot.com For "clean", http://bigmaccleanjokeattac@listbot.com, or a blank email to bigmaccleanjokeattac-subscribe@listbot.com ************************ CAN YOU HONESTLY SAY YOU ARE SATISFIED? 1 - Are you being compensated & fairly rewarded for your efforts? 2 - Are you using the most powerful marketing tools today? 3 - Are you maximizing your investment of your time online? Ruth Townsend has done it again with her unequaled insights that has made her a powerful Internet presence and now is offering more than what anyone thought could be done! Take a minute and visit http://sunmoments.com/rewards.html ******************************** KEEP

KEEP *********************************************************************** · Check out my new alphabetical site of New York, London, Toronto, and International Theatres. This is very much a work in progress and will change constantly over time. It will never be completed being a live site. As theatre changes so will the site. It is a wealth of useful theatrical information, and probably one of the greatest theatre sites on the web. It is great not only for theatregoers, but for academics, theatre students as well as seniors. It would be very easy to spend many days at this site, and emerge quite knowledgeable about theatre in general. In doing the research, it is very interesting to note that in New York most of the theatres originated in the late 1800s, whereas in England, 1500, 1600 and 1700 are quite common. It is a listing of not only the current theatres, which most are clickable, to the point where you can buy tickets online, but demolished and abandoned ones, of renovated ones, including the year built, seating where known, important plays seen in these theatres, and a listing of half-price ticket booths, as well as the URLS for many other great and useful theatre sites: http://www.linkopp.com/members/clairsedore ***************

*********************************************************** THE PAJAMA GAME The Royal Alexandra/Princess of Wales subscription series of eight plays opened with The Pajama Game from the Birmingham Repertory Theatre of England. The stars, Camilla Scott of Canadian talk-show fame and Graham Bickley (They're Playing Our Song, The Pirates of Penzance, Les Miserables and Sleuth) could not save this tired production. Reminiscent of a bad high school production, the show had no positive features, the sets were terrible, the costumes were terrible, the choreography was terrible. The only question that came to mind was why resurrect this so-so 50s musical, and especially with lesser people, and without the brilliant Bob Fosse who made the original show come alive. Gone also is Carol Haney who along with Bob Fosse made "Steam Heat" a show-stopper. Seven shows to go, one of which is The Lion King which is worth the entire series. ************************* Riddlesandmore.com Thought provoking riddles Side splitting jokes Bombastic words Scrumptious recipes & Hot hyperlinks daily by http://www.riddlesandmore.com No web access? No problem send email to mailto:invitation@riddlesandmore.com ******************************** FREE GIVEAWAY- Hand Technologies Computer Superstore! ($145+ retail value) FREE website and 5,000+ products to sell- computers, software and training. Recognized by Business Week, CNN, CNBC, and the Wall Street Journal. Computer Retail listed Hand as one of the top 10 retailers! All the details at: http://www.wealthavenue.com ******************************** THEATRES - THE HIPPODROME - The largest theatre of its day (it took up an entire city block) with 5,200 seats and 800 standing room at 6th Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets, opened in 1905 with a spectacle "A Society Circus," the theatre was famous for its horses which dove into a huge tank at the head of the stage. It did two shows a day, and finally was turned into just a vaudeville house when the crowds dwindled and then just a film house, until Billy Rose's Jumbo opened in 1935. It was part vaudeville and part circus with some spectacular performers, headlined by Jimmy Durante, and music and lyrics by the incomparible Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The show lost more than 150,000 which was a fortune in 1935. Billy Rose was the husband of comedienne Fanny Brice. It was demolished in 1939. Billy Rose died in 1966 at the age of 70. THE ACTORS' STUDIO - A workshop for professional actors founded in 1947 by Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan, and Robert Lewis, with membership by invitation only and very limited. In 1948 Lee Strasberg joined the Studio with his "method" acting. This style of acting became a major force in the contemporary theatre. Among its student body were Geraldine Page, Kim Stanley, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, Sally Field, Ellen Burstyn, Arthur Penn, Lee Grant and Joanne Woodward. In 1963 the Company produced a revival of Strange Interlude, which I was fortunate enough to see, with an all star cast including William Prince, Franchot Tone, Geraldine Page, Ben Gazzara, Pat Hingle, Betty Field, Richard Thomas, Jane Fonda and Geoffrey Horne, and in 1982, shortly after Lee Strasberg's death, Ellen Burstyn and Al Pacino were appointed as directors. The brownstone has become the Nation's largest actors training centre in the nation, now with a branch in Los Angeles, for over 50 years. ************************ Enter To Win a Casio Digital Camera http://www.ncbuy.com/computing/contest/?id=clairsedore ************************ Per Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618, further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to you by sending a reply to this email address with the word "remove" in the subject line. One of my sites where you can do FREE advertising: Free and Busy Links Page http://www.megabanners.com/freelinks/cs13775.html and another: http://www.ffanet.com/links/clairsedore.htm Add your pages Disceptatio: Difficult to pronounce, yet so easy to read. Details at - http://victorian.fortunecity.com/poetry/310 We do not make our mailing list publicly accessible. We respect your privacy as our subscribers. 3X-FREE Internet marketing secrets, business tips, resources, and cutting-edge tools for maximum PROFITS! Read WealthFunnel News for SUCCESS! Just mailto:webmaster@wealthfunnel.com with "Subscribe WFN" in Subject 3X-DOES YOUR WEB SITE SEND YOU MONTHLY CHECKS? Own your Computer Hardware and Software Superstore, and collect the profits, without any inventory, using an automated system! For info mailto:superstore@GetResponse.Com -Vote for your Favourite Websites: http://www.worldcharts.nl/ gvote.html?add=[1234] **************************************************************************** ****** KEEP -

KEEP **************************************************************************** ********** THEATRE OBITUARIES ************************************ Ron Link (58) who was stage manager for two off-Broadway hits, The Fantasticks and Little Mary Sunshine as well as director and creator of many shows for Caffe Cino and La Mama ETC, including Women Behind Bars with Divine, which he produced in 1974; the wonderful Sylvia Sidney who I was fortunate enough to see play Auntie Mame and in Come Blow Your Horn on stage, and her filmwork was highlighted by such films as City Streets, Street Scene, You Only Live Once, Summer Wishes Winter Dreams, An Early Frost and Beetlejuice; novelist Mario Puzo, 79, who co-wrote the screenplays for the Godfather films, as well as Earthquake, Superman and Superman II, Cotton Club and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery; Hollywood and Broadway producer Allan Carr, 62, who produced La Cage aux Folles, Bette Davis in The World of Carl Sandburg and Tennessee Williams' Garden District, Sunday in New York with newcomer Marlo Thomas, and Grease and the film Can't Stop The Music - a very flamboyant man, friends with Elton John and personal manager to Marlo Thomas, Ann-Margret, Peter Sellers, Melina Mercouri, Marvin Hamlisch, Tijuana Brass, Dyan Cannon, Paul Anka, Petula Clark, Peggy Lee and Rosalind Russell; Italian film director Mario Soldati, 93, who made such films as Scandal in the Roman Bath, The Wayward Wife, Woman of the River, etc.; comedian/writer Ronny Graham at 79 - wrote with Mel Brooks, collaborated on many of Brook's films, also wrote material for Broadway's New Faces 1952 and the Italian import Bravo Giovanni, for which he was the lyricist; big band singer Helen Forrest, 82, who sang with Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and appeared with an all black band, Lionel Hampton, when it was unheard of for a white singer to do that - her many, many songs included All The Things You Are and The Man I Love - she also sang with Billie Holiday; Toronto Film Board devotee, Patricia Thompson, 71, in car accident; Ms. Thompson was one of the founding members of the Toronto Film Board; ************************* Ezine owners subscribe to DOZENS of lists. Ever wonder which ones THEY think are the best? Get a list of the ezines worthy of being called "the Best of the AEC" ! It's the OSCARS of EZINES! Check it out through our autoresponder - Send a blank email to BestofAEC@harari.org ************************* Per Section 301, Paragraph (a)(2)(C) of S. 1618, further transmissions to you by the sender of this email may be stopped at no cost to you by sending a reply to this email address<927121@ican.net> with the word "removerazzle" in the subject line.

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COMPOSERS - HOWARD DIETZ (1896-1983) and ARTHUR SCHWARTZ (1900-1984) Great Broadway lyricist, whose lyrics first appeared in Poppy (1923), Dear Sir (1924) with music by Jerome Kern, and he then also worked for MGM film company, Merry Go Round (1927), and he then joined with Arthur Schwartz to create songs for The Little Show (1929), The Second Little Show (1930), Three's a Crowd (1930), The Band Wagon (1931), Flying Colors (1932), Revenge With Music (1934), At Home Abroad (1935), Between The Devil (1937), Inside USA (1948) and The Gay Life (1961) and Jennie (1963). As well as writing shows, they have penned such hits as Alone Together (Judy Garland), By Myself (Liza Minnelli), That's Entertainment (1953), You and the Night and the Music (1934), and Dancing in the Dark. PLAYWRIGHTS - JEAN GENET (1910-1986) Famous French playwright whose American audiences know him best for The Balcony, The Maids, Deathwatch, The Screens and The Blacks. He was the master of transforming erotic material into poetic vision and was the master of Theatre of the Absurd. He authored such books as Miracle of the Rose, Our Lady of the Flowers (1942), Querelle, The Thief's Journal. He spent many years in prison which gave him the insight for many of his writings, all homosexual in nature. He is buried, not in Paris, but in a Spanish cemetary in the outskirts of Larash in Morocco and his grave lies facing the Atlantic Ocean. DIRECTORS - MORTON DACOSTA (1914-1989) started out as an actor in Thornton Wilder's Skin of Our Teeth (1942), Hamlet (1945), Shaw's Man and Superman (1949), turning to directing with The Alchemist (1948), She Stoops to Conquer (1949), Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1950), Elmer Rice's Dream Girl (1951), The Wild Duck (1951), Plain and Fancy (1955), No Time For Sergeants (1955), Auntie Mame (1956) with Rosalind Russell, as well as the film with Ms. Russell, Forrest Tucker and Coral Browne, The Music Man (1957) with Robert Preston and Barbara Cook, and also directed the film version with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones, Saratoga (1959), The Wall (1960), Maggie Flynn (1968), The Women (1973), and A Musical Jubilee (1975) which brought Lillian Gish back to the stage. DESIGNERS - ROBIN WAGNER (1933- ) U.S. stage designer who did hits like Dreamgirls, Angels in America, Jelly's Last Jam, Crazy For You, City of Angels, Chess, A Chorus Line, Forty Second Street, Promises Promises, The Great White Hope, Victor Victoria, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair and On The Twentieth Century. DANCERS - WAYNE CILENTO (1949- ) U.S. Tony winning dancer whose big break came with A Chorus Line, followed by Dancin', The Act and Perfectly Frank. He is now a full fledged choreographer and does shows of his own. His current project is an evening of North American Indian dances called "Spirit - A Journey in Dance, Drums and Song, which is to be presented on Broadway in the year 2000.

ACTORS/ACTRESSES - BARBARA HARRIS (1936- ) Brilliant U.S. actress who reached the critics with Oh Dad Poor Dad Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad, by Arthur Kopit and then leaped even higher with the wonderful musical The Apple Tree and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, and after a brief stint in films, is now a voice coach for films, television and the theatre. OPERA- NORMA - Vincenzo Bellini's (1801-1835) opera in two acts premiered in La Scala, Milan in 1831 and is based on a Druid priestess who is condemned to be burned alive. It is Bellin's most famous opera. He is one of the most important composers of Italian opera. His other operas are Il Pirata which was staged at La Scala in 1827, I Capuletti I Montecchi (based on Romeo and Juliet), the brilliant and difficult La Sonnambula which premiered in Milan in 1831 and I Puritani which premiered in Paris in 1935. He became close friends with Rossini, and adored the lifestyle in Paris, but died alone in a country house outside of Paris. PRODUCERS - ABRAHAM MINSKY (1881-1949) and MICHAEL WILLIAM MINSKY (1891-1932) - sons of an immigrant started their career by running nickelodeons, and when their father built the National Theatre at Second Avenue and Houston Street, no tenant could be found for the smaller theatre on the roof, so the brothers turned it into another film house and later into a burlesque house with strippers and comics. By the 1920s their brothers joined in Herbert (1892-1959) and Morton (1902- ) and their chain of burlesque houses increased and reached further than New York. Their shows were raided by the police and were finally shut down by Mayor LaGuardia in 1937. Among the stars they nurtured were Gypsy Rose Lee, Phil Silvers and Abbott and Costello. Thought provoking riddles Side splitting jokes Bombastic words Scrumptious recipes & Hot hyperlinks daily by http://www.riddlesandmore.com No web access? No problem send email to mailto:invitation@riddlesandmore.com

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