"Jersey Boys" and the Three Rivers Arts Festival

We took in the first show of the Pittsburgh CLO season this year, which, if you zoom in on the picture of the marquee above, you can see if "Jersey Boys", the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.   The show was terrific, great performances by the cast, wonderfully staged, and, of course, all that great music of the Four Seasons.  Just a great theatrical experience.  

Seeing it on Saturday brought to mind two memories.  One was seeing the play back in 2009 on one of Marilyn's and my trips to Las Vegas.  There's a great story there about how we ended up with tickets in the second row that night, but too long to go into here.  The other memory was seeing Frankie Valli perform live at Heinz Hall, back in either 2008 or 2009.  A client of mine had asked if I could get tickets through Highmark for he and his wife, who REALLY wanted to see Valli perform, so off we went with low to medium expectations.  Valli was 75 years old at the time, so how good could he be?  Well, he was terrific, and it was and remains one of the better evenings of professional show biz entertainment that we had ever experienced.  I believe that Frankie Valli is still performing, even thought he now is in his late eighties.

A Three Star rating from The Grandstander for the CLO's "Jersey Boys".

********

While in town for the matinee performance, we strolled through that long time staple of the Pittsburgh summer scene, The Three Rivers Arts Festival.  Something now this year:  the Festival has abandoned its forever location at Gateway Center and Point State Park and has taken residence within the "Cultural District."  What they have done is block off Penn Avenue between Seventh and Ninth Streets and set up all of the booths and other exhibits, including the big stage, within those two blocks.  I'm sure that there is a story of political football behind such a move, but how was it anyway, you may ask?

First off, it seemed smaller.  There just could have been as many exhibitors there than in years past.  Also, the TRAF has been reduced to one week over two weekends, as opposed to two weeks over three weekends.  Whether all of this is good or bad for the Arts Festival, its vendors, and the economic impact it has on the City is to be determined, I suppose, but I must say that we liked the new set up.  It seemed that the foot traffic flowed more easily and you never felt as claustrophobic while walking through the place as you did in Gateway Center.

 

Purses

(This short entry originally was a post that I made on Facebook yesterday morning. I decided that I wanted it to be part of a more permanent record. Hence, this re-posting.)

If you knew my wife Marilyn, you know that one of her trademarks was the gigantic, heavy purses she would always lug around. Two of those purses have sat on the floor of our closet since her death in October, and last night I decided to empty them out so I could donate them to Goodwill. What I found inside was just so, so Her. Eighteen pens, three pair of earrings, an address book (filled with doctors’ phone numbers), a Tide Stick, five packets of artificial sweetener, a pill bottle filled with various aspirin, excedrin, Tylenol and such for “emergencies “, a clutch purse from Paris, a tiny Wonder Woman doll, a small pin of a sheep from Ireland, about thirty - I didn’t count them - pennies, and various other items such as band aids, wet wipes, hand sanitizers, and God knows what else. I went back and forth from smiling, laughing, and crying, mostly crying, all night long. I miss complaining to her about her “goddamned purses”, and I miss her.

A New York State of Mind

With apologies to Long Island's Billy Joel, Linda and I were indeed in a New York state of mind this past week as we spent about 48 hours in the Big Apple and we jammed quite a lot into those two days.

The main purpose of the trip was to see the revival of Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.  We also tacked on the revival of another play, Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite", which starred the real life husband and wife team of Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker.  I'll spare you the suspense of waiting until the end of the post:  both productions get the full Four Stars from The Grandstander!

"The Music Man" has long been one of my favorite shows.  I have seen several stage productions and watched the movie version more times than I can count.  When it was announced that this was going to be revived with Jackman and Foster in the lead roles,  Marilyn and made a vow to travel to New York and see it.  Of course, COVID shutdowns delayed the opening of the production, and sadly, fate decreed that Marilyn was not to see it.  I still wanted to see it, so the plans were made to do so earlier this year, so there we were at the Wintergreen Theater this past Tuesday evening.

As for the production, it's hard to imagine anyone but Robert Preston as Harold Hill, but let's face it, Hugh Jackman is HUGH JACKMAN, a major international star of stage and screen, and Sutton Foster is a multi-Tony Award winning Broadway star, so you were going to see them every bit as much as you were going to see the show.  They were great and they more than did justice to this classic show.  Highlights for us were, of course, "Trouble", the staging of "The Wells Fargo Wagon", and the choreography of the "Marian the Librarian" number, during which there were spots where all cast members tossed library books at each other in a game of catch that was flawless.  Not one book dropped.  And the curtain call!  The curtain call was a show and a production number unto itself.  It was amazing, as was the entire show.

Also to be noted:  Tony nominated Jayne Houdyshell as Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn was tremendous.  Also, Benjamin Pajek, Kayla Teruel, Emma Crow, and Gino Coscullela. the young actors who played, respectively, Winthrop, Amaryllis, Zaneeta, and Tommy were each making their Broadway debuts in this show.  And while Jefferson Mays gave a game effort as Mayor Shinn, he was no Paul Ford, but who could be in that role?

We decided that our second show to see would be "Plaza Suite" because (a) we thought it would be nice to see a play instead of a musical, (b) it's a Neil Simon play so it would be funny, and (c) the stars, Broderick and Parker.  We were not disappointed.

In the summer of 1969, as a part of my high school graduation gift, my Dad took me to New York on one of his business trips.  The Broadway show we saw there was "Plaza Suite".   That was fifty-three years ago,  Seeing it on Wednesday, I realized a couple of things:

• Neil Simon was an authentic genius of American comedy and culture.  His comedy is timeless.   The producers of this show made the choice to keep the play set in 1968-69, the time when it was written and first produced.  Thus, you have reference to a wedding at the Plaza costing $8,000.  There is no need to alter the time or setting of this show.
• Broderick and Parker are real pros.  When you have only seen them on TV or in movies, seeing them live and on stage is a revelation.   They know how to play to an audience.  Also, I never thought of either of them as being physical comedic actors, but they were amazing in performing the physical schtick required of them in this play.
• I loved this show and laughed uproariously, sheiekingly so, on several occasions, and I also appreciated some of the more bittersweet observations that Simon sprinkled into the show.  I also know that while I enjoyed the show when I saw it back in 1969, there could have been no way that I would have appreciated it nearly as much as a seventeen year old  than I appreciated it now.

By the way, the show biz marriage of Broderick and Parker has now lasted for twenty-five years and, apparently, is still going strong.  Could you have imagined this scene at the dinner table one evening?  "What would you like to do this year, dear?"  "Well, how about we do a Neil Simon play on Broadway?  That would probably be fun."

The shows aside, we had an absolute ball in New York.  I spent one afternoon in the city with Bill and Joann Montrose in 2017, but had not spent any extended time there since a week long business trip in 1983, so it was like being there for the first time.  The noise, the thousands upon thousands of people, the constant activity.  It was a forty-eight hour adrenaline rush for both of us.   We have vowed to make a trip like this an annual event, at least, for us.

There were many highlights.  Highlights like....

• Remember the scene in "The Godfather" where Luca Brasi was stabbed in the hand with an icepick and garroted to death?  That as filmed at the bar in the Hotel Edison where we stayed. We had a drink there.  The name of the restaurant is Bond 45, and I am amazed that there isn't an historical plaque there to commemorate it.
• Walking through Times Square at 11:00 on a Tuesday night amidst thousands, tens of thousands, of people.  It was loud noisy, colorful, entertaining, and thrilling.  The City truly does never sleep.
• Meeting Loyal Littles Podcast co-hosts "Chuck and Roxy", aka, Louis and Megan.  They joined us for dinner on Wednesday night, and what nice people they are.  A delightful couple of hours.  In addition to hosting the podcast, he is a Broadway musician and conductor, and she is a Radio City Rockette.

• On the recommendation of our friend Winnie, we stayed at the Hotel Edison on West 47th Street, and mere two blocks from Times Square.  Convenient and within walking distance of a ton of theaters and other attractions such as Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, and St. Patrick's Cathedral.  Thanks for the tip,Winnie!

• The hotel was right across the street from the Richard Rodgers Theater, where "Hamilton" is playing.  On Wednesday afternoon as we walked back to our hotel, Linda notices a guy in costume leaning out of a stage door and shmoozing with the theater security guard.  He was wearing a green period costume, which I recognized as the costume of Alexander Hamilton himself.  I recognized him as Miguel Cervantes the actor whom I know is currently playing the title role in New York, and who played the role when Marilyn and I saw the show in Chicago in 2017.  I went up to him and said so, to which he replied, "well, you need to come in here and see it again!"  After shaking my hand, he cut short the conversation by saying, "I'm due back on stage right now."  It was Wednesday, matinee day!  The guard told me that if wasn't in the middle of a performance, he'd have stayed and chatted endlessly with me.  So THAT was one pretty cool experience!
• New York is expensive, no doubt about it, but you can find bargains.  While strolling the streets in the afternoon, we found a pizza joint the offered "two New York slices and a can of soda" for $3.99!  When we were leaving the theater after "Plaza Suite", it was pouring rain, but standing right outside the door was guy selling umbrellas for five bucks apiece.  Those crappy umbrellas may not survive a gentle breeze, but they got us through the four block walk back to the hotel, and they now sit in each of our cars for emergency situations.
• A shout out to the Brooklyn Chop House, the restaurant across West 46th Street from our hotel.  Just opened in April, we stopped there for a nightcap after "The Music Man" on Tuesday, and we liked it so much that we met Chuck and Roxie there for dinner the following night.  The place was gorgeous, the food was good, and the staff couldn't have been more friendly and accommodating.  There was a reason that they were so nice with us, but that is "the rest of the story" and one that I am not going to put  in this space, at least, not yet.  I'll be happy to share it with you face to face, though, if the occasion arrises.  Regardless, put the Brooklyn Chop House on you list of places to eat next time you go to New York.

• One big step into the 2020's for us....out plane tickets/boarding passes for our return trip home were on our phones.  No paper!
• I mentioned my late friend Bill Montrose earlier.   No one loved and appreciated Broadway and New York more.  Marilyn and I saw "Beautiful" on Broadway with Joann and him back in 2018, and I think of him every time I see a play or a musical.  How I wish he were still with us so I could share the stories of this trip.  You had better believe that a toast was raised to him both nights that we were there.

Okay, I've been rambling, so I am going to wrap this up for now, even though I know that as soon as I hit "Publish" I will think of something else I should have put in here.  I will just conclude with a couple of random photos from the trip for you pleasure (maybe?) and for my own historical record.  These are in no particular order.

Home of the Mets

A Rockette Wannabe?

Giving our regards to Broadway

A final $18 glass of wine!

Two slices and a Coke for $3.99!  Can't be beat!

Peter, the bartender at Bond 45.  A real New York character!

"La Cheeserie" with Roxy and Chuck...and Tony!

Times Square at 11:00 on a Tuesday night in the City That Never Sleeps.

At the bar where Luca Brasi was sent to sleep with the fishes.

Not breakfast, but a Mid-Morning Coffee at Tiffany's.

Rockefeller Center, a visit to the Legos Store, 

and a stop at St. Patrick's....

See you in 2023?

To Two Absent Friends - Ray Liotta and Roger Angell

The Grandstander cannot let the month of May end without acknowledging the passage of two significant people through life's Departure Lounge.

The first is actor Ray Liotta, dead at the too young age of 67.

As Tony Kornheiser notched on his podcast last week, Liotta appeared in one of the greatest American movies ever,  Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" (1990).  In a cast that included Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Paul Sorvino, Liotta was the least among equals of the four leads, but he carried the movie, and was terrific in it as mobster turned informant Henry Hill, who ended up eating "egg noodles and ketchup like a schnook" in the witness protection program.  That movie, and Liotta's performance in it, is one of those that makes up drop the remote when you happen upon it on television, and you watch it until the conclusion.

Liotta's 120 acting credits in IMDb stretch back to 1980 and include afternoon sap operas, TV series, and TV movies, as well as feature films.  One of his interesting credits is the role of Sacha in a short lived TV series version of "Casablanca" in 1983 that ran for all of five episodes.  (That show starred David Soul as Rick, Hector Elizondo as Capt. Renaut, and Scatman Crothers as Sam, for you trivia buffs out there.)  He also played Shoeless Joe Jackson in 1989's "Field of Dreams".

I last saw Ray Liotta playing - what else? - a mobster in last year's Sopranos prequel "The Many Saints of Newark" and he might have been the best part of that movie.

He was a working actor to the very end.  He died in the Dominican Republic while fuming a movie on location.  A video tribute to Liotta from ABC News can be seen HERE.

********

Less surprising was the news of the death of writer Roger Angell at the age of 101.

Angell was primarily and New York City based writer for the New Yorker  magazine where he would, two or three times a year, contribute lengthy essays on the subject of baseball.   In 1972, a collection of those essays was published in book form.  The book was "The Summer Game".  It became a best seller, and Angell's fan base spread far beyond the readership of the  New Yorker from that point forward.   Other books followed, as did his inclusion in Ken Burns' "Baseball" documentary.  One of his more highly regraded essays documented the mystifying fall of Pirates pitcher Steve Blass.  In 2014, he was honored by the Baseball of Fame with its prestigious Spink Award for excellence in baseball writing.

Angell was of the "baseball-is-played-on-an-emerald-chessboard" school of writing, and sometimes you could get lost in the schmaltzy nature of that, but he was smart, witty, and, as was noted in just about every obit, lyrical when writing about the game.

RIP Ray Liotta and Roger Angell.

"Ain't Too Proud, The Life and Times of The Temptations"

 

The 2021-22 Broadway in Pittsburgh season came to a close last week with "Ain't Too Proud", the musical based upon the story of and the music of the Temptations.   It is a show that I have wanted to see ever since it opened on Broadway.  Marilyn and I even talked about traveling to New York to see it.  Alas, that was never to be, but the show finally arrived in Pittsburgh, and I finally got to see it.

I'll be brief....It is the music and that dance moves of The Temptations.  THE TEMPTATIONS!!!!!  Four Stars from The Grandstander.

How great it was to be back in the theater and seeing live performances once again.  Here is The Grandstander's Final Scorecard for the 2021-22 season.

1. Hamilton
2. Ain't Too Proud
3. To Kill A Mockingbird
4. Summer, The Donna Summer Musical
5. Pretty Woman
6. Oklahoma
7. The Band's Visit

I feel bad that To Kill A Mockingbird sits at #3 on the list.  As a straight play and not a musical, it really should be judged on a separate scale.  However, since the entire series is more a musical series/experience, The Temps get a slight, very slight, edge over Atticus Finch.

The subscription has been renewed for the 2022-23 season, and we look forward to seven more magical nights at the Benedum Center in the year ahead.

And how can I wrote about The Temptations without showing one of their legendary performances.   So get ready and watch it RIGHT HERE.

"Downton Abbey: A New Era"

 

When the smash hit British soap opera/TV series "Downton Abbey" came to the end of its run on Public Television in 2016, fans of the series agreed that it was perfect way to wrap up the series.  Loose ends were tied up, happy endings abounded, and there was the promise of good things the future for all the characters involved.  Everyone, including the producers and the actors, said "That's it.  No more 'Downton Abbey'."

Of course, we know what happened,  A "Downton Abbey" movie was released in 2019, and fans of the series flocked to it and loved it, including Mr. and Mrs. Grandstander.  Surely, however, that would be it.  Surely there would be no further need to make yet another Downton Abbey movie.  Surely, the producers and actors will have moved on and want no further part in such an obvious money grab.

Well, nothing speaks louder in Hollywood than money, and a new movie, "Downton Abbey: A New Era" was released yesterday.  And in a feat of utter disgust for this shameless and obvious greed, The Grandstander looked Julian Fellows right in the eye and proclaimed:

Yep, there we were, at the McCandless Cinemark on Opening Day, and loving every soapy, stiff-upper-lipped moment of it.

This one takes place at the dawn of the 1930's and after the joyful wedding of Tom Branson, the movie splits in to dual plot lines.  

Plot #1:  Lady Violet, played with the usual gusto by Maggie Smith, has inherited a gorgeous seaside villa in the south of France.  Who has bequeathed this to her and, more importantly and mysteriously, why has it been bequeathed to her?  Half of the family heads off the France to check into this whole thing, while we also see unfolding....

Plot #2:  A movie production company wants to use Downton Abbey for location shooting of a motion picture.  It is hard to say who is more horrified at the prospect of a bunch of grubby actors traipsing all over the estate and stealing the silverware, the stuffy Earl, his mother the Dowager, or the even snobbier servants. However, the studio is offering a lot of money for the use of the estate, and the Granthams actually need the money to fix the roof of the old castle.  Lady Mary stays behind to supervise the whole thing and finds herself smack in the middle of a dilemma lifted straight out of "Singin' In The Rain" with Mary playing the Debbie Reynolds part. No singing or dancing, of course.  Oh, and the filming of this movie-within-the-movie ends with a completely contrived "Hey, kids, let's put on a show" type of finale, but what the hell,  it's all a jolly good time.

No spoilers, but a dose of sadness comes with this iteration of the Downton Abbey Saga, but it is sadness that is overlaid with optimism as well.  

Plus, Lady Mary, played by the lovely Michelle Dockery, has made a 180 degree turn since this story began.  She started off as a spoiled, bitchy, brat, and has become a more than competent, compassionate, and selfless person.  She will obviously become the Grantham who will lead the family into the future as the middle part of the twentieth century approaches, and she won't need a man to help her do it, either.

I only wish that Lady Rose, as played by Lily James, was still a part of this tale, but - sigh - you can't have everything.

The Grandstander just can't help himself:  Four Stars for this one!

As far as the next Downton Abbey movie is concerned, it surely has to be centered around Edward VIII, Wallis Warefield Simpson, and that nasty bit of business surrounding the abdication, don't you think?

the 2022 Pirates, 40 Games In

Well, actually, the Pirates are only 37 games into the season, but a round number like 40 looks better in the headline, so, close enough for government work, as the saying goes.

The Pirates are not quite a quarter of the way into the season (23%), and they sit at 16-21, five games under .500, in third place in the NL Central, and on pace for a recored of 68-94.  That is a marginal improvement over last year's terrible club, but still nothing to celebrate.  Consider the following team stats:

.224 BA - 24th in MLB

.641 OPS - 26th in MLB

4.68 ERA - 27th in MLB

$66.2 million payroll - 28th in MLB

That last figure speaks volumes, but I'm not an economist, so I'll let you all draw your own conclusions.  Besides, the rankings in the three previous categories are depressing enough.

On any given night, you can count on getting reasonably major league quality offense from only three players:  Ke'Bryan Hayes (.286, 9 RBI), Ben Gamel (.270, 3 HR, 15 RBI), and Daniel Vogelbach (.252, 6 HR, 14 RBI).  Brian Reynolds, the best player on the team last year and a guy who received MVP votes in 2021, is off to a miserable start at the plate, hitting .214 with 4 HR and 6 RBI., but you have to assume (hope?) that he will snap out of that.  After those four guys, though, the lineup is filled with guys hitting in the low .200's, and even below that.  Why, for example, is Yoshi Tsutsugo and his .167 BA still starting regularly, or, for that matter, why is he still on the team?

As for pitching, well, super prospect Mitch Keller, who seemed to be facing a shit-or-get-off-the-pot season is currently 1-5 with a 6.37 ERA, and he has been bumped to the bullpen.  He seems to be another super big pitching prospect for the Bucs who is just not going to pan out.  The best starting pitcher - and the Pirates did not have a starter win a game until the season was well over a month old - is journeyman Jose Quintana, 1-1, 2.94, and .194 BAA.  Given his status as an experienced veteran, if he keeps this up, he will surely be flipped at the trade deadline for, you guessed it, "prospects".  

There has been one element of this Pirate team that has proven to be both exciting and good - the back end of the bullpen, which consists of Chris Stratton (2-1, 5.40), Will Crowe (2-2, 2.74), and, especially, David Bednar (below).  Bednar is 0-0 with an ERA of 0.90, 27 K's in 20 IP, opponents are batting .132 against him, and he has eight saves in eight opportunities.  If the Bucs manage to have a lead after seven or eight innings, these guys, and Bednar especially, will hold it for them.  He is a sure fire All-Star at this point in the season.

I can only hope that as the season progresses, Ben Cherrington will begin to sprinkle in some of these young prospects that we have been hearing so much about for the last few years in real games on the major league level and start weeding out the guys who are placeholders.   I mean,  let us see Oneil Cruz and Roansy Contreras soon.  Throw us a bone to gnaw on as the team marches on, struggling to avoid another 100 loss season.