Tag: Bradley Whitford

A Couple Of Guys Go To Broadway

Helaine and Stef left Saturday morning. The ‘Stalker Tour’ is on the move with Rick Springfield concerts in Boston and Laconia, NH. They’ve taken “Clicky,” my Canon Digital Rebel camera, with them.

That left Saturday as a pretty hollow day for me. Luckily, I knew someone else who was being ‘abandoned.’ Matt Scott’s wife and daughter were leaving town for Mississippi.

He and I decided to head to New York City and see a show.

If you carry a fishing pole, people just assume you’re a fisherman. If you go to a Broadway show… a Broadway musical… a Sondhein musical… they assume you’re gay! I know this because virtually everyone who heard we were going either commented or asked.

All I could think of was the time I went to the theater and stood in line behind a guy wearing a t-shirt which said, “I can’t even think straight!”

Just as there are black Republicans, there are straight guys who enjoy the theater.

Since Matt was dropping his wife and daughter at LaGuardia Airport, I took the train to the city. I would walk crosstown and we’d meet outside the theater.

Taking the train from New Haven is very easy. Unfortunately, it’s also quite a long trip. Union Station to Grand Central Terminal is around 1:45&#185. I brought the NY Times, a photo magazine and my $30 camcorder.

I didn’t have “Clicky,” but I did want to try and make a short video essay. It was supposed to be about the day in general. Unfortunately, I didn’t budget properly and my video ran out as I approached the theater!

My New York City travelogue video is at the bottom of this entry. It was entirely shot on the $30 camcorder and edited using Windows Movie Maker (included on every Windows XP or Vista computer). The music is “Look Busy” by Kevin MacLeod.

Yesterday’s show was Steven Sondheim’s Company. This is a revival of the 1970 musical about Bobby (Ra&#250l Esperza), a bachelor, the three single women in his life and his five married couple friends.

What made this musical more interesting was how it was cast. There was no orchestra pit because the actors were also playing instruments on-stage!

This must have been a casting nightmare. Finding good actors is one thing. Finding good musicians is another. But finding people who can sing, dance and act (often simultaneously) really limits your choices. I, for instance, would be 0 for 3!

With all this going, the cast was dynamite. I especially enjoyed Ra&#250l Esperza, (Bobby) who reminds me of Bradley Whitford (Studio 60, West Wing) and Angel Desai (Marta).

The show is funny, but often poignant and sad, as it traces Bobby’s life from his 35th to 36 th birthday. Being a grown-up bachelor has its good and bad points. Being single doesn’t remove you from emotional tumult.

I’d recommend going to see it, but as I type this, they are nearly an hour into Company’s last Broadway performance. Luckily, yesterday’s matin

Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip

Wow – I like this show a lot.

Here’s the funny part. I never would have seen it had it not been for Helaine, who set the DVR for herself. Last week it was just there. This week too.

I’ve told a few friends this is West Wing II. Maybe that’s unfair, because it’s obviously not a show about the White House, but a TV show.

The sensibilities are the same as West Wing. The edgy look, underlit and high contrast, matches West Wing too. Maybe that’s because, though the show is performed by an ensemble cast, all their words come from Aaron Sorkin, also responsible for West Wing.

You won’t immediately know the name of every significant cast member, but the faces are familiar. The biggest names are Bradley Whitford (West Wing), Matthew Perry (Friends) and Amanda Peet (gorgeous).

The premise is simple: a behind the scenes look at a weekly sketch comedy show, not unlike Saturday Night Live&#185. There’s conflict with the network, the public, the cast. Conflict is good for television.

It’s possible I like this show for different reasons than you. I think Studio 60 is showing us a part of television that’s in the midst of disappearing – high budget, mass market, common experience TV.

I like that kind of television. I will mourn its loss.

Can Studio 60, the show within the show, exist when broadcasting has given way to niche-casting? Can a show that hires a symphonic orchestra and chorus get renewed as budgets tighten and audiences shrink?

Even Saturday Night Live, the last of its kind, has been forced to cut back this season. At least four of last year’s cast members were dropped to save cash.

I love television. I love these complex pieces of programming that come together, touched by dozens of hands. There’s an excitement when the control room sits a dozen or more tightly wound souls, concentrating deeply enough to discern each of the 29.97 individual frames that flash by every second.

It’s what I grew up watching. It was attractive enough to sucker me as an employee.

TV is becoming more of an individual effort. TV programs are more narrowly aimed. In some cases TV programs have eliminated he TV station entirely. They are laser like as they look for their specific, targeted audience.

I grew up in an era when each network was a fire hose and everyone got wet!

There are no more Ed Sullivans, no more Walter Cronkites, no more Studio 60s. It’s quite possible there will be no more Geoff Fox’s – air talent who amass as many individual impressions as I have over twenty two years in one market.

This crunch over viewers and costs has been enabled by new technologies. which replace people. I suppose it’s inevitable, even if it’s a shame.

A single TV show as a universal experience will never happen again. That’s why we need to celebrate the glory that is Studio 60, today.

&#185 – Though there are parallels, this can’t be Saturday Night Live. In fact, Studio 60 acknowledges SNL as another network show.