Monday, September 28, 2009
Tim Curry
It just occurred to me while watching clips from Stephen King's IT that Tim Curry would make an excellent Joker in The Musical. It would be a great comeback for him and I have ALWAYS wanted to see him take on some Steinman.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Getting the word out on new musicals…
By Mark Shenton on September 21, 2009 11:37 AM
Regular readers of this column will know how much I love musicals and how much I like to champion them. But so often, unfortunately, they behave like a chronically unfaithful lover, and repeatedly let you down. And eventually, it’s tempting to simply give up hope. Never mind that the West End and Broadway are full of musicals: finding an original one is hard to come by. This year we saw the fast failure of the most original ones to venture our way in ages, when Spring Awakening came to the Novello and quickly went.
Only Sister Act has stayed around, and that - with its pre-existing film source and pastiche score - is merely mediocre, but makes us feel pathetically grateful that it least it’s a new one, even if it deliberately sounds instantly recycled. On Broadway, things have been better this year with the thrilling Next to Normal, but beside it there’s also been Rock of Ages, another dire rock compilation show.
At least the autumn season there sees the start of previews this week for a new musical Memphis, set in the rock ‘n’ roll world but with both an original story (by Joe diPietro) and score (by Bon Jovi’s David Bryan), while next month sees the transfer from off-Broadway of Fela!, that uses the music of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti (no, I haven’t heard of him, either, but his work is apparently a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies) to create what is described as a “provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theater.” That’s at least stretching the template of musical theatre a bit; but otherwise, we’re being thrown back on some safe(r) revivals: Bye Bye Birdie (already in preview), Finian’s Rainbow and Ragtime are all on the schedule imminently.
In London, we may be in the midst of the busiest autumn of new productions of plays that I can remember; but there’s barely a musical, new or old, amongst them. Only the Young Vic is reviving Annie Get Your Gun (of all things), and then Legally Blonde - the Musical arrives in December, to begin a long preview period at the Savoy before opening in mid-January. Otherwise, there’s the odd fringe entry, like the arrival of Christopher Hamilton’s debut musical Over the Threshold from its Edinburgh premiere to Jermyn Street Theatre this week, or the British premiere of Michael John LaChiusa’s First Lady Suite at the Union next week - both, coincidentally, presented under the auspices of Take Note Theatre, a young company dedicated to bringing “lesser known musical works to new audiences as well as encouraging, producing and developing our own shows through to full production.”
It’s youthful initiatives like this where the future may well lie. At least they instinctively recognise one important factor: it’s all very well to workshop shows endlessly (the US model), but the best way to make shows happen is by actually getting them up on their feet and in front of an audience, however small that audience might be (Jermyn Street has 70 seats, the Union around 50).
On the weekend, I saw another option: the revival of the old-fashioned regional try-out route. While regional theatres have all but abandoned doing original musicals as part of their regular output - they are simply too expensive and too risky to programme, so instead tried-and-tested revivals are offered, usually in the panto Christmas slot - I travelled to Ipswich on Saturday to see a new musical version of the 1946 Frank Capra movie It’s a Wonderful Life, being tried out at the New Wolsey Theatre there. I looked up the last (and only) time I’ve been there before I went, and was astonished to discover that it was all of 20 years ago, when Trevor Nunn did a try-out there for the UK premiere he directed of Stephen Schwartz’s The Baker’s Wife in 1989, before bringing it to the West End’s Phoenix Theatre (where it sadly ran for just over a month, and I’m not referring to the running time of the show but the length of the entire run).
This is a delightful, intimate auditorium (seating 400), and Ipswich has an increasing arts profile: the New Wolsey now has Gecko physical theatre company based there as an associate company, and a brand-new dance theatre, the Jerwood DanceHouse, is being built in the town, too, as part of a new residential tower, while the independent Red Rose Chain Film and Theatre Company is soon to have its own, purpose-built waterfront home, the Witchbottle Theatre. The town has also developed its own annual fringe festival (Pulse, which drew an admiring blog](http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/aug/05/edinburgh-fringe-ipswich-pulse-festival) from Andrew Haydon on The Guardian website, which noted that it “serves its local constituency perfectly. It doesn’t get, but nor does it need, much coverage from the national press.”
Nor, frankly, has the Wolsey attracted much national attention of late, but partly thanks to the services of a London theatre PR for It’s a Wonderful Life, many of us have made the trip for It’s A Wonderful Life; Variety’s David Benedict was there on Saturday afternoon along with me, and the Daily Mail’s Patrick Marmion, the Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish, and Sam Marlowe and John Peter for respectively The Times and the Sunday Times, have all been in. Though they’ve already been rewarded with a four-star review in the Daily Mail, it may be a little too early for such detailed scrutiny - though critical reactions are, of course, part of the process of the development of a new musical, I hope that the creators aren’t either lulled into a false sense of security by the positive notice, or sent off track by others that may follow.
There’s something here already, but there’s also serious work still to be done. But it’s encouraging, at least, that the first steps have been taken towards realising this work so confidently and ambitiously; and what’s enabled Ipswich to produce It’s a Wonderful Life (with a cast of 17, plus 7 kids and orchestra of four) is commercial enhancement money from London comedy, television and occasional theatre management Avalon Promotions (who also previously took Jerry Springer - the Opera from BAC to develop at the National in 2003, before then taking it into the West End). I hope Avalon stick with it, but also accept this as only a first draft. Just as Steve Brown’s last, Olivier Award winning musical Spend Spend Spend began its life at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, it could yet end up in the West End, but it needs careful nurturing.
And that’s what British musical theatre needs more of, in every way. Last night I heard some of how much raw talent is on offer, in a showcase evening of new musical writing called Snappy Title, staged at Piccadilly’s Pigalle Club to mark the launch of New Musicals Network, a new networking site for those interested in the creation and promotion of new musical theatre works. The evening showcased the work of some 15 composers or composing teams, most of them as yet unknown, but who include one, Joe Robinson, who is just 17 and another team, Julian Chenery and Matt Gimblett, who have been writing together for nearly as long as long as Joe has been alive!
The best part of last night was that it gave a live outing to songs that exist otherwise mainly as demos, and that’s how songs live: by being sung. (A terrific cast of young West End talent was assembled to give them their best shot, too; though I was shocked by the professional discourtesy of two of them, Jenna Lee James and Jon Boydon, in whispering comments to each other constantly while they waited their turn onstage as Lucy May Barker performed Joe Robinson’s number).
New musicals are clearly still being written, furiously, all over the place, but the challenge is now to translate that into wider distribution and hopefully production. Some composers are still trying the old-fashioned route of producing CD showcases - I’ve just received a beautifully produced one for Gareth Peter’s Bluebird, that features a cast that includes Ramin Karimloo, the current Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera and who will shortly be starring in Lloyd Webber’s follow-up Love Never Dies.
But I’ve also recently come across an even bolder attempt to use the internet to harness a potentially global audience to be interested in a new musical. Andrew Lloyd Webber may be getting his Phantom to twitter ahead of the launch of Love Never Dies, but as Lloyd Webber told me himself last year, the musical genre itself “will continue to change in ways that neither you nor I can see at the moment. In the next year or two - and it sure as hell won’t be me - there will be some kind of musical or entertainment that is evolved on the internet.”
And last week a musical writer Matthew Sweetapple wrote to me to say, “I read, with interest, your piece in which it’s suggested that Andrew Lloyd Webber believes the next big musical will originate on the internet. With this in mind, I wanted to bring the success of our on-line musical story to your attention as it demonstrates perfectly how well suited the internet/downloads etc are for musical story telling. Rockford’s Rock Opera was written by me, with Steve Punt (Now Show etc), it’s now been streamed by over 400,000 people and it’s being used in over 8,000 schools around the world. All though word of mouth on the web. I have loved musicals since I was very young. Crucially, for musical storytellers, the internet now provides an immediate world stage for our work.”
Now he wants to bring it to the theatre; as he wittily says, “Today the world, tomorrow the King’s Head?” Meanwhile, however, you can get a taster of what’s on offer by joining the online community: as Matthew says, “In true internet style, Part One is free so there’s lots to hear right now,” here.
http://blogs.thestage.co.uk/shenton/2009/09/getting-the-word-out-on-new-musicals/
Regular readers of this column will know how much I love musicals and how much I like to champion them. But so often, unfortunately, they behave like a chronically unfaithful lover, and repeatedly let you down. And eventually, it’s tempting to simply give up hope. Never mind that the West End and Broadway are full of musicals: finding an original one is hard to come by. This year we saw the fast failure of the most original ones to venture our way in ages, when Spring Awakening came to the Novello and quickly went.
Only Sister Act has stayed around, and that - with its pre-existing film source and pastiche score - is merely mediocre, but makes us feel pathetically grateful that it least it’s a new one, even if it deliberately sounds instantly recycled. On Broadway, things have been better this year with the thrilling Next to Normal, but beside it there’s also been Rock of Ages, another dire rock compilation show.
At least the autumn season there sees the start of previews this week for a new musical Memphis, set in the rock ‘n’ roll world but with both an original story (by Joe diPietro) and score (by Bon Jovi’s David Bryan), while next month sees the transfer from off-Broadway of Fela!, that uses the music of Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti (no, I haven’t heard of him, either, but his work is apparently a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies) to create what is described as a “provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theater.” That’s at least stretching the template of musical theatre a bit; but otherwise, we’re being thrown back on some safe(r) revivals: Bye Bye Birdie (already in preview), Finian’s Rainbow and Ragtime are all on the schedule imminently.
In London, we may be in the midst of the busiest autumn of new productions of plays that I can remember; but there’s barely a musical, new or old, amongst them. Only the Young Vic is reviving Annie Get Your Gun (of all things), and then Legally Blonde - the Musical arrives in December, to begin a long preview period at the Savoy before opening in mid-January. Otherwise, there’s the odd fringe entry, like the arrival of Christopher Hamilton’s debut musical Over the Threshold from its Edinburgh premiere to Jermyn Street Theatre this week, or the British premiere of Michael John LaChiusa’s First Lady Suite at the Union next week - both, coincidentally, presented under the auspices of Take Note Theatre, a young company dedicated to bringing “lesser known musical works to new audiences as well as encouraging, producing and developing our own shows through to full production.”
It’s youthful initiatives like this where the future may well lie. At least they instinctively recognise one important factor: it’s all very well to workshop shows endlessly (the US model), but the best way to make shows happen is by actually getting them up on their feet and in front of an audience, however small that audience might be (Jermyn Street has 70 seats, the Union around 50).
On the weekend, I saw another option: the revival of the old-fashioned regional try-out route. While regional theatres have all but abandoned doing original musicals as part of their regular output - they are simply too expensive and too risky to programme, so instead tried-and-tested revivals are offered, usually in the panto Christmas slot - I travelled to Ipswich on Saturday to see a new musical version of the 1946 Frank Capra movie It’s a Wonderful Life, being tried out at the New Wolsey Theatre there. I looked up the last (and only) time I’ve been there before I went, and was astonished to discover that it was all of 20 years ago, when Trevor Nunn did a try-out there for the UK premiere he directed of Stephen Schwartz’s The Baker’s Wife in 1989, before bringing it to the West End’s Phoenix Theatre (where it sadly ran for just over a month, and I’m not referring to the running time of the show but the length of the entire run).
This is a delightful, intimate auditorium (seating 400), and Ipswich has an increasing arts profile: the New Wolsey now has Gecko physical theatre company based there as an associate company, and a brand-new dance theatre, the Jerwood DanceHouse, is being built in the town, too, as part of a new residential tower, while the independent Red Rose Chain Film and Theatre Company is soon to have its own, purpose-built waterfront home, the Witchbottle Theatre. The town has also developed its own annual fringe festival (Pulse, which drew an admiring blog](http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/aug/05/edinburgh-fringe-ipswich-pulse-festival) from Andrew Haydon on The Guardian website, which noted that it “serves its local constituency perfectly. It doesn’t get, but nor does it need, much coverage from the national press.”
Nor, frankly, has the Wolsey attracted much national attention of late, but partly thanks to the services of a London theatre PR for It’s a Wonderful Life, many of us have made the trip for It’s A Wonderful Life; Variety’s David Benedict was there on Saturday afternoon along with me, and the Daily Mail’s Patrick Marmion, the Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish, and Sam Marlowe and John Peter for respectively The Times and the Sunday Times, have all been in. Though they’ve already been rewarded with a four-star review in the Daily Mail, it may be a little too early for such detailed scrutiny - though critical reactions are, of course, part of the process of the development of a new musical, I hope that the creators aren’t either lulled into a false sense of security by the positive notice, or sent off track by others that may follow.
There’s something here already, but there’s also serious work still to be done. But it’s encouraging, at least, that the first steps have been taken towards realising this work so confidently and ambitiously; and what’s enabled Ipswich to produce It’s a Wonderful Life (with a cast of 17, plus 7 kids and orchestra of four) is commercial enhancement money from London comedy, television and occasional theatre management Avalon Promotions (who also previously took Jerry Springer - the Opera from BAC to develop at the National in 2003, before then taking it into the West End). I hope Avalon stick with it, but also accept this as only a first draft. Just as Steve Brown’s last, Olivier Award winning musical Spend Spend Spend began its life at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, it could yet end up in the West End, but it needs careful nurturing.
And that’s what British musical theatre needs more of, in every way. Last night I heard some of how much raw talent is on offer, in a showcase evening of new musical writing called Snappy Title, staged at Piccadilly’s Pigalle Club to mark the launch of New Musicals Network, a new networking site for those interested in the creation and promotion of new musical theatre works. The evening showcased the work of some 15 composers or composing teams, most of them as yet unknown, but who include one, Joe Robinson, who is just 17 and another team, Julian Chenery and Matt Gimblett, who have been writing together for nearly as long as long as Joe has been alive!
The best part of last night was that it gave a live outing to songs that exist otherwise mainly as demos, and that’s how songs live: by being sung. (A terrific cast of young West End talent was assembled to give them their best shot, too; though I was shocked by the professional discourtesy of two of them, Jenna Lee James and Jon Boydon, in whispering comments to each other constantly while they waited their turn onstage as Lucy May Barker performed Joe Robinson’s number).
New musicals are clearly still being written, furiously, all over the place, but the challenge is now to translate that into wider distribution and hopefully production. Some composers are still trying the old-fashioned route of producing CD showcases - I’ve just received a beautifully produced one for Gareth Peter’s Bluebird, that features a cast that includes Ramin Karimloo, the current Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera and who will shortly be starring in Lloyd Webber’s follow-up Love Never Dies.
But I’ve also recently come across an even bolder attempt to use the internet to harness a potentially global audience to be interested in a new musical. Andrew Lloyd Webber may be getting his Phantom to twitter ahead of the launch of Love Never Dies, but as Lloyd Webber told me himself last year, the musical genre itself “will continue to change in ways that neither you nor I can see at the moment. In the next year or two - and it sure as hell won’t be me - there will be some kind of musical or entertainment that is evolved on the internet.”
And last week a musical writer Matthew Sweetapple wrote to me to say, “I read, with interest, your piece in which it’s suggested that Andrew Lloyd Webber believes the next big musical will originate on the internet. With this in mind, I wanted to bring the success of our on-line musical story to your attention as it demonstrates perfectly how well suited the internet/downloads etc are for musical story telling. Rockford’s Rock Opera was written by me, with Steve Punt (Now Show etc), it’s now been streamed by over 400,000 people and it’s being used in over 8,000 schools around the world. All though word of mouth on the web. I have loved musicals since I was very young. Crucially, for musical storytellers, the internet now provides an immediate world stage for our work.”
Now he wants to bring it to the theatre; as he wittily says, “Today the world, tomorrow the King’s Head?” Meanwhile, however, you can get a taster of what’s on offer by joining the online community: as Matthew says, “In true internet style, Part One is free so there’s lots to hear right now,” here.
http://blogs.thestage.co.uk/shenton/2009/09/getting-the-word-out-on-new-musicals/
Saturday, September 12, 2009
THE NEW BAT OUT OF EXCESS VIDEO BY ZOLTAR1979
NOW ONLINE @ MY JIM STEINMAN WEBSITE
http://www.freewebs.com/lordsteinman/
I love this guy's work! I'm so lucky to have been part of it.
You gotta check it out if you love Jim's music!
http://www.freewebs.com/lordsteinman/
I love this guy's work! I'm so lucky to have been part of it.
You gotta check it out if you love Jim's music!
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Trailer
I LOVE IT!
I hope they put this in the ads because it's so strange and frightening:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a206/rockfenris2005/batmanthemusical/loveneverdies1.jpg
THE MUSIC SOUNDS AS BRILLIANT AS "EVITA"!
I hope they put this in the ads because it's so strange and frightening:
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a206/rockfenris2005/batmanthemusical/loveneverdies1.jpg
THE MUSIC SOUNDS AS BRILLIANT AS "EVITA"!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
From the Webmaster
I can now reveal the first image from the opening video for the "Bat Out Of Excess" site ZOLTAR1979 has been working on. He sent me the rough tonight which I thought I was incredible. In all honesty, I was blown away. I don't know how he does it. We can't wait to reveal the full thing.
But here's the image.................................!
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a206/rockfenris2005/batmanthemusical/excess.jpg
Ryan.
But here's the image.................................!
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a206/rockfenris2005/batmanthemusical/excess.jpg
Ryan.
Patricia Sheridan's Breakfast With ... Michael Lee Aday (aka Meat Loaf)
Monday, September 07, 2009
By Patricia Sheridan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Meat Loaf, the man not the meal, made a name for himself as a hard-rocking, larger-than-life musician, but Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday) began his career on stage doing Shakespeare in the Park. Now 61, he is probably best known for his "Bat Out of Hell" operatic rock album trilogy that stayed on the charts for nine years and has sold more than 35 million copies. He stars in the Hallmark Channel's original movie "Citizen Jane" with Ally Sheedy on Saturday at 9 p.m.
So you play a detective in "Citizen Jane." I was wondering, when you were really young were you into true crime stuff since your father was a policeman?
Nah, I wasn't. The only thing I was into was the JFK conspiracy. One of my friends shook [President John F. Kennedy's] hand when he was leaving the airport. It was just all very strange in Dallas what went on.
So you come down on the side that there was a conspiracy?
Oh, absolutely. There was more than [Lee Harvey] Oswald.
Where did the onstage Meat Loaf persona come from, and are you surprised how enduring it has been?
Oh, that just came from me being a big ham, that's all. You know, it's very funny. I saw an interview from June of 1978 on a German TV show, and it makes me laugh.
I was playing such a character, it was unbelievable. I was playing the real Rock character at that point. [Laughs.] It makes me giggle. The problem is some of the people that do it, just keep going with it. They don't give it up. They keep that persona.
You were in a production of "Hair" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and so many more movies and theater performances. Did you see yourself more as an actor?
Oh, I'm an actor. That's how I place it. It's what I do. That's exactly what I am and what I do. You know, other than my band, I don't get musicians. I don't understand. Actors are my friends.
After you wrote your autobiography "To Hell and Back" was there anything you wished you hadn't revealed?
No, there's a lot of stuff I didn't [reveal], a lot of stuff I didn't put in it on purpose, because I wanted to do another book. [Laughs.] I have seen a lot of things. I've been doing this 42 years now, knock on wood. When I went into show business, the first five years I didn't know it's what I was going to do. I was just kinda getting out of, you know, work [laughing]. I wound up doing "Hair." It was just fate. I think you are just meant to do things, and you just have to know when it's in front of you and just accept it and ride the river. Don't fight it.
I read that you turned down three different recording offers right out of the gate.
I did. I had been in L.A. about a week, and I got hooked up with these musicians. They said, "Let's go cut some demos," and I said, "OK." So we went into this studio on Santa Monica Boulevard. We were in there one day and by the end of the week we had three offers.
And you turned them down?
Oh, yeah. I knew that I had no clue.
That didn't go to your head?
I let very few things go to my head, actually. I've been fairly grounded. You know? People probably would have thought it went to my head because I was so driven to prove everybody wrong on "Bat Out of Hell." At the time we were doing "Bat Out of Hell" [in 1977] everybody was saying to me, "Oh, stop working with this guy Jim Steinman, and go to this and do that and go to this band." They said nobody would play these songs. Then we go play them live, and people went crazy. The record company people would come along and say, "Oh, these are only your friends. People don't react like this." I said, "These are not my friends. I don't have any friends." [Laughs.]
You were quoted as saying you never fit in and you are a true outcast. Don't you think your commercial success and the fact that you are starring in a Hallmark Channel original movie has moved you into the mainstream?
Oh, I've always said that about the music business. I have never felt that about the acting side. You know, you never get everything you audition for, which was something I didn't find out because when I was doing theater in New York, everything I auditioned for I got offered. I was really spoiled. So when they first rejected "Bat Out of Hell" I was really annoyed.
Did you run into a bit of a drug problem?
No, never did. I never did. I don't drink. At one point I had a nervous breakdown. That's what happened to me. I don't drink, and people knew I didn't, so when I started to drink, they said you're in trouble. That was a month maybe. It was short-lived. The godfather of my youngest daughter dragged me to a psychiatrist. Basically tied me up and set me in his office. So that worked out. It was fine. It was everything that had happened. The rejection, and then all of a sudden, after the rejection, you know, all the phoniness that comes out of it. "We believed in you the whole time," you know? One minute they are saying, "Get out of my office," and then patting me on the back, saying, "I knew you could do it." That kind of thing. It gets a little wacky. So that's the only time, so I never did have a drug or alcohol problem. The other thing that they say is I'm a diabetic. I am not a diabetic.
Because your dad was an alcoholic, wouldn't that keep you from it?
Yes, he was, and it really does. The other night we had dinner, and I had, like, half a glass of wine. That's my intake. I have such stage fright when we go on stage for shows that I do have a little sip of something before I go on.
You have stage fright, but once you are on you are OK?
Oh, yeah, it's just getting there. So not sleeping on the road, I understand completely. Most of the people I know, when we're on tour, have trouble sleeping. You know, when they were saying Michael Jackson had insomnia, I went "yeah." There have been times when I've said, "Hey, can you get me somebody in here to put me to sleep?" I'm so tired. I mean, it was unusual that somebody actually did it [for Michael Jackson], but to request it, I didn't find that unusual.
Do you have that same trouble when you are acting?
No. Stage is a different thing. That is more like touring. Acting is consuming but in a different way. When you are touring, you don't have 12-hour turn-arounds. You have to go with the flow because we are constantly traveling. That's the hard part of touring. It's really the most difficult. You can't wait to get off the road because you are so exhausted and so spent.
Is it true you were a vegetarian for nearly a decade and then started eating meat again?
Yes, but then I wanted to lose weight, so I went on an all-protein diet. I did lose some on Slim-Fast. I weigh less now than I did in the seventh grade. My knees are bad, and I broke a foot when I was in the eighth grade. If I do anything, the fracture comes back.
Last question: Will there be a "Bat Out of Hell IV"? It's like a franchise.
No, never. It was all about a trilogy and you know because of some of the things that happened. Jimmy wrote me an e-mail and said we need to do another thing, but it won't be called "Bat Out of Hell IV." I said, "Well, whenever you want to do it." I'm in the middle of a record now with a Rob Cavallo, who is like the god of producers at the moment. He's doing an Adam Lambert track, and I'm going over to meet Adam. Adam Lambert [of "American Idol" fame] is the only singer that I've ever thought was amazing. I think there have been great singers, you know, Freddie Mercury, Steven Tyler, you know, a lot of great rock singers. Michael Jackson was one, but Adam Lambert is one I haven't been awestruck with since [Janis] Joplin in the '60s. I don't think anybody actually comprehends how good this guy is. I mean, I downloaded everything he did for "American Idol." I'm like this Adam Lambert groupie.
Patricia Sheridan can be reached at psheridan@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2613.
First published on September 7, 2009 at 12:00 am
http://postgazette.com/pg/09250/996110-129.stm
By Patricia Sheridan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Meat Loaf, the man not the meal, made a name for himself as a hard-rocking, larger-than-life musician, but Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday) began his career on stage doing Shakespeare in the Park. Now 61, he is probably best known for his "Bat Out of Hell" operatic rock album trilogy that stayed on the charts for nine years and has sold more than 35 million copies. He stars in the Hallmark Channel's original movie "Citizen Jane" with Ally Sheedy on Saturday at 9 p.m.
So you play a detective in "Citizen Jane." I was wondering, when you were really young were you into true crime stuff since your father was a policeman?
Nah, I wasn't. The only thing I was into was the JFK conspiracy. One of my friends shook [President John F. Kennedy's] hand when he was leaving the airport. It was just all very strange in Dallas what went on.
So you come down on the side that there was a conspiracy?
Oh, absolutely. There was more than [Lee Harvey] Oswald.
Where did the onstage Meat Loaf persona come from, and are you surprised how enduring it has been?
Oh, that just came from me being a big ham, that's all. You know, it's very funny. I saw an interview from June of 1978 on a German TV show, and it makes me laugh.
I was playing such a character, it was unbelievable. I was playing the real Rock character at that point. [Laughs.] It makes me giggle. The problem is some of the people that do it, just keep going with it. They don't give it up. They keep that persona.
You were in a production of "Hair" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and so many more movies and theater performances. Did you see yourself more as an actor?
Oh, I'm an actor. That's how I place it. It's what I do. That's exactly what I am and what I do. You know, other than my band, I don't get musicians. I don't understand. Actors are my friends.
After you wrote your autobiography "To Hell and Back" was there anything you wished you hadn't revealed?
No, there's a lot of stuff I didn't [reveal], a lot of stuff I didn't put in it on purpose, because I wanted to do another book. [Laughs.] I have seen a lot of things. I've been doing this 42 years now, knock on wood. When I went into show business, the first five years I didn't know it's what I was going to do. I was just kinda getting out of, you know, work [laughing]. I wound up doing "Hair." It was just fate. I think you are just meant to do things, and you just have to know when it's in front of you and just accept it and ride the river. Don't fight it.
I read that you turned down three different recording offers right out of the gate.
I did. I had been in L.A. about a week, and I got hooked up with these musicians. They said, "Let's go cut some demos," and I said, "OK." So we went into this studio on Santa Monica Boulevard. We were in there one day and by the end of the week we had three offers.
And you turned them down?
Oh, yeah. I knew that I had no clue.
That didn't go to your head?
I let very few things go to my head, actually. I've been fairly grounded. You know? People probably would have thought it went to my head because I was so driven to prove everybody wrong on "Bat Out of Hell." At the time we were doing "Bat Out of Hell" [in 1977] everybody was saying to me, "Oh, stop working with this guy Jim Steinman, and go to this and do that and go to this band." They said nobody would play these songs. Then we go play them live, and people went crazy. The record company people would come along and say, "Oh, these are only your friends. People don't react like this." I said, "These are not my friends. I don't have any friends." [Laughs.]
You were quoted as saying you never fit in and you are a true outcast. Don't you think your commercial success and the fact that you are starring in a Hallmark Channel original movie has moved you into the mainstream?
Oh, I've always said that about the music business. I have never felt that about the acting side. You know, you never get everything you audition for, which was something I didn't find out because when I was doing theater in New York, everything I auditioned for I got offered. I was really spoiled. So when they first rejected "Bat Out of Hell" I was really annoyed.
Did you run into a bit of a drug problem?
No, never did. I never did. I don't drink. At one point I had a nervous breakdown. That's what happened to me. I don't drink, and people knew I didn't, so when I started to drink, they said you're in trouble. That was a month maybe. It was short-lived. The godfather of my youngest daughter dragged me to a psychiatrist. Basically tied me up and set me in his office. So that worked out. It was fine. It was everything that had happened. The rejection, and then all of a sudden, after the rejection, you know, all the phoniness that comes out of it. "We believed in you the whole time," you know? One minute they are saying, "Get out of my office," and then patting me on the back, saying, "I knew you could do it." That kind of thing. It gets a little wacky. So that's the only time, so I never did have a drug or alcohol problem. The other thing that they say is I'm a diabetic. I am not a diabetic.
Because your dad was an alcoholic, wouldn't that keep you from it?
Yes, he was, and it really does. The other night we had dinner, and I had, like, half a glass of wine. That's my intake. I have such stage fright when we go on stage for shows that I do have a little sip of something before I go on.
You have stage fright, but once you are on you are OK?
Oh, yeah, it's just getting there. So not sleeping on the road, I understand completely. Most of the people I know, when we're on tour, have trouble sleeping. You know, when they were saying Michael Jackson had insomnia, I went "yeah." There have been times when I've said, "Hey, can you get me somebody in here to put me to sleep?" I'm so tired. I mean, it was unusual that somebody actually did it [for Michael Jackson], but to request it, I didn't find that unusual.
Do you have that same trouble when you are acting?
No. Stage is a different thing. That is more like touring. Acting is consuming but in a different way. When you are touring, you don't have 12-hour turn-arounds. You have to go with the flow because we are constantly traveling. That's the hard part of touring. It's really the most difficult. You can't wait to get off the road because you are so exhausted and so spent.
Is it true you were a vegetarian for nearly a decade and then started eating meat again?
Yes, but then I wanted to lose weight, so I went on an all-protein diet. I did lose some on Slim-Fast. I weigh less now than I did in the seventh grade. My knees are bad, and I broke a foot when I was in the eighth grade. If I do anything, the fracture comes back.
Last question: Will there be a "Bat Out of Hell IV"? It's like a franchise.
No, never. It was all about a trilogy and you know because of some of the things that happened. Jimmy wrote me an e-mail and said we need to do another thing, but it won't be called "Bat Out of Hell IV." I said, "Well, whenever you want to do it." I'm in the middle of a record now with a Rob Cavallo, who is like the god of producers at the moment. He's doing an Adam Lambert track, and I'm going over to meet Adam. Adam Lambert [of "American Idol" fame] is the only singer that I've ever thought was amazing. I think there have been great singers, you know, Freddie Mercury, Steven Tyler, you know, a lot of great rock singers. Michael Jackson was one, but Adam Lambert is one I haven't been awestruck with since [Janis] Joplin in the '60s. I don't think anybody actually comprehends how good this guy is. I mean, I downloaded everything he did for "American Idol." I'm like this Adam Lambert groupie.
Patricia Sheridan can be reached at psheridan@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2613.
First published on September 7, 2009 at 12:00 am
http://postgazette.com/pg/09250/996110-129.stm
Monday, September 7, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Former Charlottetown Festival hit headed back to Broadway stage
DOUG GALLANT
The Guardian
A Canadian rock musical developed at the Charlottetown Festival more than 30 years ago could be headed back to Broadway for the second time.
Kronborg 1582, a musical retelling of William Shakespeare's Hamlet created by composer/lyricist Cliff Jones, has been optioned by a Broadway producer intent on seeing the show remounted.
Jones, who has summered on P.E.I. since Kronborg 1582 was first produced at the festival in 1974, said in an interview Friday that he has been offered a contract and will begin work in the very near future with award-winning director Michael Greif.
Greif is best known for directing the original Broadway productions of RENT, Grey Gardens, Jane Eyre and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.
Kronborg 1582 first appeared on Broadway in 1976.
Renamed Rockabye Hamlet by then, the show Broadway audiences saw was not the show audiences saw in Charlottetown.
"It was a totally different show," Jones said. "Actress Coleen Dewhurst was a big fan. She brought her producers in from New York to see the show. They liked what they saw and I ended up going to New York to work with them.
"When she went to see a preview performance some months later she wouldn't talk to me for six months. She said 'where is all that beautiful music I heard in Canada.' It wasn't there. Gower Champion had turned it into a rock'n'roll show. His inspiration was a performance by (Yes keyboard player) Rick Wakeman at Madison Square Gardens."
Jones had not been keen on the changes but Champion won out.
"Who was I to argue with Gower Champion, a legend of Broadway?"
That version played to packed houses in previews for several weeks but was dealt a fatal blow on the actual opening night by two reviews, one in the New York Times the other in the New York Post. It closed after seven performances. There were several good reviews but the Times and the Post were king then.
"Everybody had thought it was going to be a hit. Producer Martin Richards, who would go on to produce Chicago, told me years later that at intermission on opening night he was offered five times what he paid for his shares in the show and turned the offer down because he thought it was going to be huge.'
The show returned to the stage in Los Angeles in 1981 as Somethin' Rockin' in Denmark.
Significantly revised from the New York production the new version had a very successful run at the Odyssey Theatre, playing for the better part of 18 months.
The Los Angeles version won several major awards.
"I felt somewhat vindicated after that."
Since the completion of that run the show has basically sat in a box in the basement of Jones' Toronto home.
The latest chapter in the Kronborg story began two years ago when Larry Westlake, who'd been involved in a lot of community theatre in the Toronto area, asked Jones if he'd be interested in doing anything because he was going to come into some money and he wanted to do more in the theatre.
When Westlake received his anticipated inheritance he approached Jones again and the idea for a 'workshop' production of Something's Rockin' In Denmark took off.
"We talked about it further and decided to move ahead," Jones said. "Then, quite unexpectedly and accidentally, producer Barbara Whitman who had produced Spelling Bee on Broadway and Legally Blonde, expressed an interest in my Hamlet musical! So the Toronto producer and I 'upped the ante', so to speak, and decided to produce a much glorified concert version."
Jones and his partner produced three performances of the show - once again called Something's Rockin In Denmark - at the prestigious Jane Mallett Theatre in late July with a band of four and a cast of eighteen.
"It played to packed houses and got roaring, standing ovations, not common in Toronto. I've never been hugged so much in my life, half from people I knew, half from people I didn't know."
Whitman saw two of those three performances.
Less than two weeks later Jones got the call that could send the show back to Broadway.
"I practically went through the ceiling."
Jones said he's older and wiser now and should the show proceed to Broadway he won't allow things to be radically changed the way they were the first time.
"It will look a lot like the show did when it first played Charlottetown. There were some things in the New York show that I did like and I will look at using them, but it will look a lot like the original."
Jones believes he owes a lot of his success to the place where it all began, Confederation Centre, and to the Charlottetown Festival.
"I love this place. My wife and I so look forward to coming back here every summer. I have a very strong emotional attachment to the centre. There is, as they say, a lot of my blood on these walls."
Jones clearly recalls getting the call from Jack McAndrew in Charlottetown that started it all.
McAndrew had heard an early version of the show Jones created for CBC Radio's The Entertainers starring Cal Dodd as Hamlet and P.E.I.'s Nancy White as Ophelia.
"So I get this call just after New Year in 1974 from Jack. He said, 'it's Jack McAndrew at the Charlottetown Festival and we want to do your show."
Jones came to Charlottetown and working with then festival artistic director Alan Lund, music director John Fenwick, and Fen Watkin, who did a number of the original charts, transformed a radio piece into a dramatic, full-fledged stage production.
Through that production he had the opportunity to work with several future stars, including Tony Award-winner Brent Carver, Rory Dodd, who would go on to work with Meatloaf and Beverly D'Angelo, who would go on to make her name in film, starring in Hair and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. She would also go on to marry Al Pacino.
The festival has also produced a number of other Jones musicals over the years, Love In The Back Seat, The Rowdyman, Babies and Alexandra: The Last Empress.
As for the future, Jones is not taking anything for granted.
"Who knows what will happen? Showbiz is not a predictable business. But no matter what happens from this point on, I am totally indebted to Charlottetown, the support of all my friends here on P.E.I. and the great Charlottetown Festival for providing me with what has become 'the thrilling ride of a lifetime'."
16/08/08
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=162819&sc=98
The Guardian
A Canadian rock musical developed at the Charlottetown Festival more than 30 years ago could be headed back to Broadway for the second time.
Kronborg 1582, a musical retelling of William Shakespeare's Hamlet created by composer/lyricist Cliff Jones, has been optioned by a Broadway producer intent on seeing the show remounted.
Jones, who has summered on P.E.I. since Kronborg 1582 was first produced at the festival in 1974, said in an interview Friday that he has been offered a contract and will begin work in the very near future with award-winning director Michael Greif.
Greif is best known for directing the original Broadway productions of RENT, Grey Gardens, Jane Eyre and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.
Kronborg 1582 first appeared on Broadway in 1976.
Renamed Rockabye Hamlet by then, the show Broadway audiences saw was not the show audiences saw in Charlottetown.
"It was a totally different show," Jones said. "Actress Coleen Dewhurst was a big fan. She brought her producers in from New York to see the show. They liked what they saw and I ended up going to New York to work with them.
"When she went to see a preview performance some months later she wouldn't talk to me for six months. She said 'where is all that beautiful music I heard in Canada.' It wasn't there. Gower Champion had turned it into a rock'n'roll show. His inspiration was a performance by (Yes keyboard player) Rick Wakeman at Madison Square Gardens."
Jones had not been keen on the changes but Champion won out.
"Who was I to argue with Gower Champion, a legend of Broadway?"
That version played to packed houses in previews for several weeks but was dealt a fatal blow on the actual opening night by two reviews, one in the New York Times the other in the New York Post. It closed after seven performances. There were several good reviews but the Times and the Post were king then.
"Everybody had thought it was going to be a hit. Producer Martin Richards, who would go on to produce Chicago, told me years later that at intermission on opening night he was offered five times what he paid for his shares in the show and turned the offer down because he thought it was going to be huge.'
The show returned to the stage in Los Angeles in 1981 as Somethin' Rockin' in Denmark.
Significantly revised from the New York production the new version had a very successful run at the Odyssey Theatre, playing for the better part of 18 months.
The Los Angeles version won several major awards.
"I felt somewhat vindicated after that."
Since the completion of that run the show has basically sat in a box in the basement of Jones' Toronto home.
The latest chapter in the Kronborg story began two years ago when Larry Westlake, who'd been involved in a lot of community theatre in the Toronto area, asked Jones if he'd be interested in doing anything because he was going to come into some money and he wanted to do more in the theatre.
When Westlake received his anticipated inheritance he approached Jones again and the idea for a 'workshop' production of Something's Rockin' In Denmark took off.
"We talked about it further and decided to move ahead," Jones said. "Then, quite unexpectedly and accidentally, producer Barbara Whitman who had produced Spelling Bee on Broadway and Legally Blonde, expressed an interest in my Hamlet musical! So the Toronto producer and I 'upped the ante', so to speak, and decided to produce a much glorified concert version."
Jones and his partner produced three performances of the show - once again called Something's Rockin In Denmark - at the prestigious Jane Mallett Theatre in late July with a band of four and a cast of eighteen.
"It played to packed houses and got roaring, standing ovations, not common in Toronto. I've never been hugged so much in my life, half from people I knew, half from people I didn't know."
Whitman saw two of those three performances.
Less than two weeks later Jones got the call that could send the show back to Broadway.
"I practically went through the ceiling."
Jones said he's older and wiser now and should the show proceed to Broadway he won't allow things to be radically changed the way they were the first time.
"It will look a lot like the show did when it first played Charlottetown. There were some things in the New York show that I did like and I will look at using them, but it will look a lot like the original."
Jones believes he owes a lot of his success to the place where it all began, Confederation Centre, and to the Charlottetown Festival.
"I love this place. My wife and I so look forward to coming back here every summer. I have a very strong emotional attachment to the centre. There is, as they say, a lot of my blood on these walls."
Jones clearly recalls getting the call from Jack McAndrew in Charlottetown that started it all.
McAndrew had heard an early version of the show Jones created for CBC Radio's The Entertainers starring Cal Dodd as Hamlet and P.E.I.'s Nancy White as Ophelia.
"So I get this call just after New Year in 1974 from Jack. He said, 'it's Jack McAndrew at the Charlottetown Festival and we want to do your show."
Jones came to Charlottetown and working with then festival artistic director Alan Lund, music director John Fenwick, and Fen Watkin, who did a number of the original charts, transformed a radio piece into a dramatic, full-fledged stage production.
Through that production he had the opportunity to work with several future stars, including Tony Award-winner Brent Carver, Rory Dodd, who would go on to work with Meatloaf and Beverly D'Angelo, who would go on to make her name in film, starring in Hair and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. She would also go on to marry Al Pacino.
The festival has also produced a number of other Jones musicals over the years, Love In The Back Seat, The Rowdyman, Babies and Alexandra: The Last Empress.
As for the future, Jones is not taking anything for granted.
"Who knows what will happen? Showbiz is not a predictable business. But no matter what happens from this point on, I am totally indebted to Charlottetown, the support of all my friends here on P.E.I. and the great Charlottetown Festival for providing me with what has become 'the thrilling ride of a lifetime'."
16/08/08
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=162819&sc=98
Friday, September 4, 2009
All a' Twitter over Phantom sequel tickets
Tickets for Love Never Dies, the musical sequel to Phantom Of The Opera, will go on sale - finally! - on October 8.
That's the message I'm hearing in various Twitter cyber-stations. Indeed, I have it on the highest authority (from the Phantom himself) that he will begin making announcements on Twitter from Monday and later there'll be pronouncements from the bowels of the Paris Opera on Facebook and loads of other social internet sites.
I can tell you that performances will begin at London's Adelphi Theatre in March.
Rehearsals will begin early in January, although those who follow this column will know that Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyricist Glenn Slater, director Jack O'Brien, designer Bob Crowley, choreographer Jerry Mitchell, lighting designer Paule Constable and other members of the creative team have been working on and off for a year on the show.
This week they were locked away at the Adelphi, as Crowley and his operatives worked on a series of illusions and special effects.
The composer told me that he wanted technical problems sorted out now, rather than early next year. 'I don't want to get to the eve of the first preview and find we're being held up by some illusion,' he said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1211097/BAZ-BAMIGBOYE-Ruperts-taste-secrets-lies.html
That's the message I'm hearing in various Twitter cyber-stations. Indeed, I have it on the highest authority (from the Phantom himself) that he will begin making announcements on Twitter from Monday and later there'll be pronouncements from the bowels of the Paris Opera on Facebook and loads of other social internet sites.
I can tell you that performances will begin at London's Adelphi Theatre in March.
Rehearsals will begin early in January, although those who follow this column will know that Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyricist Glenn Slater, director Jack O'Brien, designer Bob Crowley, choreographer Jerry Mitchell, lighting designer Paule Constable and other members of the creative team have been working on and off for a year on the show.
This week they were locked away at the Adelphi, as Crowley and his operatives worked on a series of illusions and special effects.
The composer told me that he wanted technical problems sorted out now, rather than early next year. 'I don't want to get to the eve of the first preview and find we're being held up by some illusion,' he said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1211097/BAZ-BAMIGBOYE-Ruperts-taste-secrets-lies.html
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Bits and pieces
* A friend of mine is a musician who works in the West End and I was talking to him about the music from the "Phantom of the Opera" sequel which I very much want to hear. He says it sounds brilliant and answered a couple of my questions. "Move into the darkness" is one of the songs.
* The Italian genius who designed the music video for "Dark entwined with darkness", the Scaramouche song, is working on a new opening video for my "Bat out of Excess" Jim Steinman website which will be ready in a few weeks time. He tells me he checks the "Batman" site every day. I'm so grateful that my efforts have not been in vain...unlike my musical...
* There has been an almost complete lack of interest and professionalism where the readings for my musical "Don Claude Devious" with Adam are concerned. I can not explain how depressed and disappointed that has made me because I may have to cancel my venue and dates after weeks of negotiations! I'm sooo angry at the moment.
- Ryan
* The Italian genius who designed the music video for "Dark entwined with darkness", the Scaramouche song, is working on a new opening video for my "Bat out of Excess" Jim Steinman website which will be ready in a few weeks time. He tells me he checks the "Batman" site every day. I'm so grateful that my efforts have not been in vain...unlike my musical...
* There has been an almost complete lack of interest and professionalism where the readings for my musical "Don Claude Devious" with Adam are concerned. I can not explain how depressed and disappointed that has made me because I may have to cancel my venue and dates after weeks of negotiations! I'm sooo angry at the moment.
- Ryan
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