Someone over at World Crossing mentioned that Every Little Step, the documentary about A Chorus Line, specifically about the casting of the revival from a few years back, was available OnDemand, so I just watched it. Oh, so excellent! Every fan of Broadway should watch it.
It was fun seeing Tyce Dorio get smacked down for being too egotistical at the final callbacks, and hearing him prattle on even after the smackdown was just annoying and made me really not like him. If I see him in next week's SYTYCD finale, I will just laugh and laugh at him.
I already knew who was cast as Cassie, so that wasn't suspenseful, but I'd forgotten who was Sheila, and never knew the other cast members, so it was fun to see them go through the audition process.
One of the main reasons I originally wanted to see this was to see casting for Zach (the director), but they didn't show that at all. Mike Berresse was a classmate of mine in h.s., so I was a bit bummed that the only footage I saw of him was when he was reading the part for the Cassie auditions at the final callback, and in the footage of the performance of "One" at the end. Maybe he didn't have to audition, or they just did separate auditions for that role since it is mostly voice work with the only dancing being at the end.
t makes note to watch as a treat if I get more work done
I love
A Chorus Line.
I saw the play in Chicago when I was in high school, but I was a big fan of the OCR for years before then.
My parents were wonderful about taking us into the city for plays--my first musical (not The Nutcracker) was Jesus Christ, Superstar for my tenth b-day. By the time I was in college, I'd seen Victor Garber and Luci Arnez in They're Playing Our Song, Jim Belushi and Peter Noone in Pirates of Penzance, Yul in The King and I, Rex in My Fair Lady, Evita, Music Man, Chorus Line, and a few others I can't remember right now. I've got to start getting back to spending my own money and seeing more shows--in the past 20 years, I've probably only seen four or five shows.
ETA: When you watch the doc, make sure you have kleenex for the Paul audition--the young man who ends up with the role just nails the emotion of his monologue, and leaves everyone at the audition in tears.
When I saw A Chorus Line on Broadway it was like ten years into its run. And it had this weird meta element because Donna McKechie had returned in the role as Cassie (is that right?) echoing the story of the character.
The Pirate King. Noone was a waaaaaaaay too old Frederick.
When I think Pirate King, I think Kevin Kline. Which I why I wasn't thinking of Jim Belushi for that part.
It was the road tour a year or so after the movie with Kline and Rondstadt came out. At the time, Jim Belushi was really only known for being John's brother elsewhere than Chicago, where he had some improv cred at Second City.
To quote World of Kane where I spotted this:
Beautiful and fascinating test footage from director Henri-Georges Clouzot's ('Les Diaboliques', 'Wages of Fear') never-completed psychological thriller 'Inferno' ('L'Enfer'), a study of jealousy tipping into madness.
It's mesmerizing. What a loss that movie wasn't finished. I'd always wondered what happened to Clouzot's career. He wrecked it on this movie where he was given an unlimited budget. It's very Lynch-like.
I finally saw Julie/Julia last night, and it was about what I expected. What was most disappointing to me was how sugar-coated the Julie Powell story was. (I should have expected it since it was Nora Ephron, but I'd forgotten she was involved until I saw the credits.)
What I remember from reading the blog back in 2002 was that by the end of it, Powell was basically a hysterical wreck. In the movie there's one throwaway line about "and I'm getting so fat!" and no attempt to actually show it - in real life, she gained 60 pounds that year and her writing made it clear how difficult that part of the project was for her to deal wth. In real life the money she spent on ingredients was a huge strain on her marriage, and in the movie there's (again) one throwaway line about Paypal. Etc etc etc.
Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci were marvelous as Julia and Paul, though. I could have watched a whole movie just about them.
