Everything The Traffic Will Allow - A New York Experience!

Wow! What an experience. Managing Director Lauren Hewitt and I have spent the past week in New York at a Marketing and Development conference for nerdy art administrators (it was more fun than it sounds) and it has been quite a time. There wasn’t been a lot of time for shows, but Lauren and I did get a chance to see our favorite “Madam,” Klea Blackhurst, at the Snapple Theater doing Everything the Traffic Will Allow: the Songs and Sass of Ethel Merman and I’m here to tell you, she blew the doors off the joint! 

First off, we came to NY just in time for some of the worst weather they’ve seen in years, it was cold, rainy, and the wind… oh the wind…  I lost two umbrellas in two days!  Anyway, the point is, as cold and rainy as it was, there was nothing but sunshine coming from that stage. 

The Snapple Theater is a tiny shoebox; in fact, it’s the home of the Fantasticks.  This turned out to be a good thing, because the sound went out just before the show started and Klea had to perform the entire evening un mic’d .  For most performers this would be disaster!  “What no mic?  I can’t go on. They won’t be able to hear me!  How will I hit those Webber high notes?  Nope, can’t be done, send everyone home.”

Not Klea.

Strode on the stage without a care in the world and launched into her first number. 

OH MY GOD, what an absolute delight! 

Just like our own shows, nothing but purity of voice and clarity of emotion.  Don’t worry Mama Rose—I mean Ethel—she sang out!

I’m not going to review the show song by song, I want all of you to be surprised when you come see her April 21 thru April 25.  But I did get a chance to talk to Klea after the show and she had a little message for all of you!

So come check it out for yourself.  Klea Blackhurst returns to the Eureka Theater for a one-week direct from broadway engagement of Everything the Traffic Will Allow: the Songs and Sass of Ethel Merman.  April 21-25, all shows start at 8pm, except Sunday April 25 starts at 3pm. Click here for tickets, or call (415) 255-8207.

Ira Gershwin Facts: A Star Is Born

The Gershwins knew talent.

In 1916, George had met a young man looking for a song for his and his sister’s vaudeville act.  Though they did not work together at the time, they vowed they would.  In 1922, they got their first chance with For Goodness Sake.  George and Ira aided the production with two songs, and Ira helped with lyrics to a third.  The show starred the young man and his sister, Fred and Adele Astaire.  The Astaires would later star in the Gershwin’s first Broadway show Lady, Be Good! and their smash Funny Face.

In 1926, they gave Gertrude Lawrence her first Broadway book musical, with Oh, Kay!

Then in 1930, a young Ethel Merman was whisked away to the Gershwin’s apartment at 33 Riverside Drive to audition for their newest musical, Girl Crazy.  After her audition, George offered to play a few songs from Girl Crazy.

Gershwin mistook Merman’s quiet contemplation of the songs as disapproval.  After playing “I Got Rhythm,” George replied to Merman’s silence, "If there’s anything about these songs you don’t like, Miss Merman, I’ll be happy to make changes."

The fog lifted, the magnitude of Merman’s situation hit her, and she replied, "They will do very nicely, Mr. Gershwin." Though Merman’s response was made out of frightened intimidation given her current situation, her almost blasé response helped fashion her reputation as the sassy belter for which we would come to know her.

These were stars that both George and Ira helped usher into the hearts of the American public. However, much later in life Ira would become a mentor to another young singer.  In July 1977, at age 20, Michael Feinstein became Ira’s assistant for six years.  Since that mentorship, Feinstein has become one of the greatest interpreters of the Gershwin’s work and a staunch advocate to preserving the Great American Songbook.

Ira Gershwin met and made his share of stars.  To see our biggest star of the year, Tony Award Winner and Broadway legend Donna McKechnie, come to 42nd Street Moon’s Nice Work If You Can Get It: An Ira Gershwin Salon, this Thursday, January 28, 2010 at the Alcazar Theater.  For tickets click here, or call (415) 255-8207.

(photo: Fred Astaire, George, Ira)

The Klea Chronicles: An Interview with Klea Blackhurst in Three Parts (Part 1)

(Photo: Klea Blackhurst)

Klea Blackhurst, the Star of 42nd Street Moon’s production of Call Me Madam, sat down with me yesterday for a great conversation about Moon, Merman, and much merriment. The next three blogs will include excerpts from that chat and next week you’ll be able to view the entire interview on YouTube.

PART I

You and 42nd Street Moon have a similar take on your work, can you tell us how you feel your work is similar to Moon’s and tell us about your experiences with working with Moon?

I love it… You know, what I do - as a solo artist - [is] seek out the rare the obscure. The stuff... you want to bring back, and show people “look how fabulous this is!”

That’s what 42nd Street Moon is; they’re the same thing on a much bigger scale with a much broader mission statement and it gives me a chance to go be somewhere and work with a great group of people. Cause I do a lot of stuff by myself.

But here, you’re in a show with other people dedicated to the same sort of goals. And wanting to show that stuff off. It’s fabulous. I couldn’t be happier, I’m really happy to be back.

And you are back in Call Me Madam playing Sally Adams, a role originated by Ethel Merman. Your first role with Moon in Red Hot and Blue was also originated by Merman. What other Merman shows have you been in?

I have done Anything Goes, twice. I did it at the Shubert in New Haven and then and also the Cape Play House. That’s another Cole Porter.

(Klea Blackhurst singing "Blow Gabriel Blow" from Anything Goes, introduced by Rosie O'Donnell)

Red Hot and Blue was really fun to do here [at Moon], because that script really hadn’t had a scrubbing in a long time. Like, Anything Goes was revamped for Patti Lupone, so that script is a little more modern… up to date… other songs interpolated into it.

[Red Hot and Blue] is very silly. I thought it was just as much fun as Anything Goes. I loved it. And it certainly… you could see this really big gap between the musicals of the 30's of Ethel Merman and Call me Madam, which is 1950… I feel like musicals have really grown up. [Call Me Madam] is just that much clearer, and cleaner.

But I loved Red Hot and Blue. I thought it was fun.  It was a lot of run around and going “Have you seen Bob?” and “What are we going to do?”

I think I must have said those two lines 600 times. So, that’s a pretty good day at the office, when that all you need to deliver is fun.

You also have a much acclaimed one-woman show of Ethel Merman music and stories entitled Everything the Traffic Will Allow: The Songs and Sass of Ethel Merman. What draws you to Merman?

I’m a belter, my voice… it’s the alto with a little bit of the extra… We just love to project. And if that’s the kind of voice you have – you know there are two types of women in this world, there is a Laurey and then there’s an Ado Annie [characters from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma]. They’re both in the show, but you gotta be one or the other. And there’s a Miss Sarah and a Miss Adelaide [characters from Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls] and you want to be one or the other, I’m just that other.

Merman is kind of the great… she’s just it, you know? If you have that kind of voice and you love musical comedy, eventually… as a kid, you’re going to end up knowing about her and loving her.

I didn’t realize how geeky I was, and how much more I knew than the average kid in Salt Lake City. I think she’s really fun to hear stories about.

She was so singular in her approach to life that she makes for a good story. And from a historian’s point of view – cause I kind of think of myself as a musical theatre historian who performs rather than writes. I write my own show, but I don’t write books, I perform what I find – from that point of view, she’s fascinating.

She comes right at the beginning... working with the Gershwins; and then you can go right through the rest of the 20th century.

You can go from 1930 to 1984 and find her working or connecting with everybody important in theatre from Cole Porter to Jerry Herman to Stephen Sondheim to Jule Style to the directors she worked with, to the designers she worked with, and on and on…It's just a unique place and career that she had.

It's just fun to study. I think she’s great.

She’s been very good to me. I try to be very good to her, but she has been, her career has been really good, my exploration has been really great for me. And I really love her.

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Check back early next week for more from Klea about Call Me Madam, Luxembourg, and a certain small, stringed instrument.

Do you have any questions for Klea? Leave them in the comments section and I’ll make sure to ask her!

Call Me Madam begins previews Wednesday September 23 and opens September 26 at the Eureka Theatre. For more information click here, or call us at (415) 255 - 8207.