Wed, Oct 20, 1999
Bobby Child, scion of a New York banking family (and also a talented song-and-dance man), is sent by his mother to foreclose the Gaiety Theatre in Deadrock, Nevada. Once there, however, he falls in love with the daughter of the theatre's owner, and becomes involved in a scheme to save the day by putting on a magnificent show.
Wed, Dec 1, 1999
This film presents highlights of a concert given on 28 September 1998 at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Some of the ladies offer songs with which they have been closely associated over the years, while others explore the road not taken. There are also a couple of stunts: Rosie O'Donnell sneaks onto the stage and begins singing "Liza With a Z," only to be interrupted by Liza Minnelli, for whom the song was written. Later, the child actress Anna Kendrick sings "Life Upon the Wicked Stage," backed up by a chorus of cynical, strung-out Kit-Kat Girls from the 1990's revival of "Cabaret." Their fate, apparently, is what young Miss Kendrick can look forward to should she remain in her chosen profession!
Wed, Jan 19, 2000
This is a filmed record of the original production of this collection of one-act operas set in New York's Central Park, the first being Wendy Wasserstein's "Festival of Regrets," with music by Deborah Drattell, followed by "Strawberry Fields," with libretto by A. R. Gurney and music by Michael Torke. The finale, "The Food of Love," boasts a score by Robert Beaser and libretto by Terrence McNally, the man responsible, as it turns out, for the whole idea of using a shared Central Park setting, thus providing the show's one obvious unifying element. On one level, after all, these are three autonomous works, sharing neither music, plot nor characters. It is perhaps telling, however, that one crucial cast member is carried over from the opening "Festival..." to "Strawberry Fields." All three works are clearly connected thematically. What's more, their order of appearance is just as clearly premeditated. Each one deals, in increasingly intense fashion, with the alienation, the failure, sometimes willful, to communicate or connect, which, while not unique to the urban milieu, is certainly one of the latter's more distinctive, if less fortunate, features.