Author Archive for Catherine

Stockard Channing Scheduled For Benefit

A star-studded lineup has been announced for The Jewish Alliance for Change’s forthcoming benefit concert, Broadway for a New America: Standing Up for Marriage Equality and a Progressive Agenda for Change, which will play the Peter Norton Symphony Space on March 2. Tony Award winner Jim Dale will host the event, directed by Sara Louise Lazarus with musical direction by Lawrence Yurman.

Among those scheduled to appear are Stockard Channing, Scott Blakeman, Richard Belzer, Tovah Feldshuh, Jonathan Freeman, Mario Frangoulis, Marni Nixon and Seth Rudetsky. Speakers at the event will include Garden State Equality chairman Steven Goldenstein, Rabbis J. Rolando Matalon and Marcelo Bronstein and Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry.

The Jewish Alliance for Change is an organization founded to mobilize the American public to fight for marriage equality and a progressive agenda for change. All proceeds from the evening will go to the Alliance’s continued efforts in support of progressive issues.

The concert will be produced by Kati Meister and Scott Denny.

William Ivey Long Wins TDF/Irene Sharaff Award

It was announced earlier this month that William Ivey Long will receive the TDF/Irene Sharaff “Lifetime Achievement” Award. The TDF Irene Sharaff Awards were founded in 1993 to pay tribute to the art of costume design. Since then, the annual award presentation has become an occasion for the costume design community to come together to honor its own.

Included in the impressive list of more than 50 Broadway shows Mr. Long has designed costumes for are the currently running Pal Joey and the forthcoming 9 to 5. He won Tonys for Grey Gardens, Hairspray, The Producers, Crazy for You and Nine and was Tony-nominated for La Cage aux Folles, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Music Man, Cabaret, Chicago and Lend Me a Tenor.

The awards ceremony will take place on March 27 at the Hudson Theatre. Congratulations, Mr. Long, on this much deserved award.

Let’s Go Back…..

….back to Pal Joey, 1940’s…

These beautiful pictures come from the private collection of broadwayworld.com poster, “allofmylife”. I couldn’t identify each picture, so I numbered them for easy reference in discussions. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. And thank you, allofmylife, for sharing your precious collection with other Pal Joey fans.

“SHARE YOUR PAL JOEY EXPERIENCE”

Click here to visit the “Share Your Pal Joey Experience” page. This page is updated as I receive new pictures and “experiences”. If you would like your pictures and/or text to appear on the page, please e-mail them to  admin at paljoeyblog.com.

Pick Your Favorite “Bewitched”

Here are three dynamite versions of Pal Joey’s “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” performed by three of the greatest female vocalists of our era: Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne and Linda Ronstadt. Which is your favorite of these?

Pal Joey Understudies

As listed in the Playbill, the understudies for Pal Joey are as follows:

For Joey Evans: ERIC SCIOTTO; for Vera Simpson: NICOLE ORTH-PALLAVINCINI; for Gladys Bumps: LISA GAJDA; for Linda English: HAYLEY PODSCHUN; for Mike, Ernest: MARK MORETTINI; for Ludlow Lowell: ANTHONY HOLDS

If you’ve been to a show where the understudy went on for the principal, we’d love to hear about it! Please share your experience by commenting on this thread.

Amazon Wheel

You may have noticed the “Amazon Wheel” on the right sidebar. When a CD, movie, or book is mentioned in this blog or may be of particular interest to readers, it is added to the “wheel” to make it easy for you to visit the Amazon site and purchase the items. Please feel free to “browse”. Let me know if I’ve missed any items, or if there’s something you’d like me to add.

Read the entire post for a brief description of each item.

Stockard Press Alert

Regis and Kelly will be chatting up Stockard Channing tomorrow morning between 9 and 10 EST (that’s Thursday, February 5th).

Lisa Gajda, Gypsy of the Month for February

When Eric Sciotto was announced as Pal Joey’s Gypsy Robe recipient (see archives) it was mentioned that Lisa Gajda had previously won the honor three times. This made me wonder why it was Eric, and not Lisa, who received the honor for Pal Joey. Well, a recent article on Broadwayworld.com (GYPSY OF THE MONTH: Lisa Gajda of ‘Pal Joey’, by Adrienne Onofri) not only answers that question, but makes it clear what a “Pal” Lisa truly is:
“‘Pal Joey’ would have been Gajda’s fourth time receiving the Gypsy Robe - presented on opening night to the ensemble member with the most Broadway credits - but she decided to forgo the honor so it could go to her friend Eric Sciotto, who’d never received it in his previous seven shows. Gajda received the robe for her last two shows, Cry-Baby (which Sciotto was also in) and The Times They Are A-Changin’, as well as for 2003’s Taboo.”

Broadway was not always Gajda’s (pronounced Guy-da) life. When she was around 20, she and a friend took a road trip to California and she ended up staying for several years. She started getting work right away and danced in awards shows quite regularly. At the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, she danced with Paula Abdul to “Vibeology”. She worked on videos, commercials, movies, AND the 1990 and 1991 Academy Awards. But New York is where she really wanted to be, and she moved back in the mid-90’s. Within six months, she was cast in the tour of Tommy, playing the Nurse and other ensemble roles. In the spring of 1995, she made her Broadway debut as a swing in Tommy (see archives).

By the time she auditioned for Pal Joey, Lisa had learned how to make herself into whatever type was needed. “My look is pretty contemporary,” she says, “so I went to the audition with big fake boobs and tried to make myslef look soft.” She obviously did something right!

In Pal Joey, Gajda is one of the two ladies who dance with Joey (Matthew Risch) in the opening ballet, and she is the lilac in the comic Act 1 song “The Flower Garden of My Heart.” And although she understudies for Martha Plimpton (Gladys Bumps), she isn’t yearning for speaking parts. “I’m a real dancer. It’s not very interesting to me to pursue doing roles. I grew up loving to dance, so that doesn’t mean that I wanted to act and sing.” And her sage advice for other gypsies? “If you’re dancing in the chorus, don’t spend you entire life waiting to do something else, because it’s an honor and a great gift to dance in the chorus.”

Click here to read Broadwayworld.com’s article.

“Gal Pals” Out On The Town

I came across this New York Times article and had to share with my Pal Joey pals. It’s always nice to see a cast having fun outside the theater.

A Night Out With | Martha Plimpton
Old Hand, New Hands
By MERVYN ROTHSTEIN
Published: January 30, 2009

A HALF-HOUR after finishing her night’s work in “Pal Joey,” Martha Plimpton walked into the Grill at the Players, a private club across from Gramercy Park.

With her were four “Pal Joey” colleagues — Lisa Gajda, Kathryn Mowat Murphy, Abbey O’Brien and Krista Saab — the female dancers from the Roundabout Theater Company revival of the 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical, in which Ms. Plimpton is starring at Studio 54.

Ms. Plimpton planned a session of poker — a game some of the dancers had never played, but which she was eager to teach. “We’ve gone out quite a few times,” she said of the group. “We call each other the Tribe. They’re my protectors and guides.”

Ms. Plimpton, 38, has received two Tony nominations — as best featured actress in “The Coast of Utopia” in 2007 and “Top Girls” last year. This season the critics have been more than kind to her portrayal of Gladys Bumps, a singing and dancing floozy with a grudge. She has also been taking some days off and flying to the West Coast to film a comedy pilot for Showtime — “The End of Steve,” with Matthew Perry of “Friends” as an egomaniacal television talk show host and Ms. Plimpton as his producer.

The Players, founded in 1888 by Edwin Booth and Mark Twain, among others, has long catered to what it calls “members of the dramatic profession.” The Grill’s wall is crowded with portraits of the likes of Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Ms. Plimpton pointed to a picture of the actor John Carradine. “That’s my grandfather up there,” she said. “That’s pretty cool, huh?” (Her parents are the actor Keith Carradine and the actress Shelley Plimpton.)

“The club’s history is special to me,” Ms. Plimpton added later.

Behind The Scenes at Pal Joey - with Jenny Fellner

Broadway.com’s latest “Behind The Scenes” is Backstage at Pal Joey with Jenny Fellner. Go backstage with Jenny and see dressing rooms, costumes, furniture hanging from the ceiling, and you may see a few familiar faces along the way. Jenny is delightful in this entertaining video tour.

Click here to watch broadway.com’s “Behind The Scenes” with Jenny Fellner.

WNYC Leonard Lopate Show — Stockard & Martha (Jan. 23)

Click on the play arrow to listen.

Today Show–Stockard (Jan. 27)

In case you missed it - here’s Stockard Channing on the Today Show, Tuesday, January 27. Enjoy!

Stockard Channing - Twice on Tuesday

Stockard Channing fans, set your DVRs! You’ll get a double-shot of the The Stockard on Tuesday, January 27th.
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First up is the Today show on NBC. The show runs from 7am to 11am, and the line-up reads “John Grisham,Tom Coliccio, going to school online, Stockard Channing”, so better tape the entire show to be safe.
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Then on Tuesday evening:

Stockard Channing narrates a film of breathtaking beauty, The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies, premiering Tuesday, January 27 at 8pm ET/PT on PBS. Click here to watch a 2 minute preview.

Christian Hoff Update

Sounds like Christian Hoff has been a busy man. He has just completed recording the audio book Don’t Look Twice by New York Times and International best-selling author Andrew Gross. Gross, author of The Blue Zone , has co-authored six best-selling crime-thrillers with James Patterson. Don’t Look Twice is not set for release until early March, but you can pre-order your audio book by clicking on the “Don’t Look Twice” book in the From Amazon section in the right sidebar.

Of course Hoff is no stranger to audio books. Entertainment Weekly called him a “Master Mimic” in 2007 when he beat out Jim Dale (of Harry Potter audio book and Broadway fame) to claim his World Record for an unprecedented 241 character voices in an audio book. That book — Tell Me How You Love the Picture: A Hollywood Life — by Hollywood Producer Edward S. Feldman and Tom Barton, afforded Christian the opportunity to voice such notables as Harrison Ford, John Wayne, Eddie Murphy and Jack Lemmon. Also it was a finalist as Foreword Magazine’s 2008 Audiobook of The Year.

The audio book is available on amazon.com, and can be accessed by clicking on the “Tell Me How You Love the Picture” cover in the From Amazon section in the right sidebar.

Click here to watch the “Tell Me How You Love The Picture” video tour of NY locations.

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In case you missed it the first time around, ABC will re-run the Ugly Betty episode “Betty Suarez Land” on January 29th. Be sure and set your Tivo - you don’t want to miss Christian as DA Blackman in a rather “compromising position”! And don’t forget, Christian revealed in his exclusive Pal Joey blog interview that “they have left it open for DA Blackman to return using his powers of persuasion!”