The “My Fair Lady” Project – Part 1

My Fair Lady Cast Album by Al Hirschfield-the album I grew up with!

Overture

The other day a colleague of mine asked me what my favorite Broadway show was. My instantaneous response was My Fair Lady, the Lerner and Loewe musical retelling of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. I was probably listening to the original cast album before I could talk–and indeed, my first conception of a God was the puppetmaster on the album cover. It was not until many years later that I realized that my first diety was a sketch of Shaw himself. British actor “Sexy Rexi” Harrison, and the young and wonderfully pre-Mary Poppins / pre-Maria Von Trapp, Julie Andrews led the Broadway cast and the cast album.

Barb and I have seen major productions of the musical twice. Richard Chamberlain led a less-than-stellar production in Chicago in 1993. In contrast, we enjoyed a more recent Broadway production starring Harry Hadden-Paton, Lauren Ambrose, and Norbert Leo Butz. This production received some notoriety for presenting a post #MeToo attitude to the story of Henry Higgins, a British gent who takes cockney flower girl Liza Doolittle under his wing in 1900s London.

And now I have chosen to make the song list from the original cast album a framework for my next several blog posts. No, don’t worry, I am not going to just be writing about each song–I am not a music critic. But I will use each song title and perhaps a lyric or two as a launching point for whatever it is I want to spiel about on a given day–be it politics, medicine, history, or just plain navel-gazing.

It’s appropriate to start with the Overture. It comes first, it gives a glimpse of what is to come. And with this Overture blog, you now know what I will be up to in the next few weeks.

We will see how this goes. Let me know if you enjoy the concept–one advantage of the new WordPress blog site is that you can leave comments without using Facebook. And look forward to the next post. I don’t yet know what it will be about, but I can predict the title will be “Why Can’t the English?” Stay tuned!

If All The World’s A Stage, What Are Your Theater Memories?

Taking a few days off from the lab the days before Thanksgiving gave us an extended period to work on our first puzzle of the season. From the three I had recently ordered, I chose “Broadway, The Musicals,” a tapestry of tens (hundreds?) of Broadway shows.

The puzzle wasn’t the most difficult we have tackled, and we were able to free up our kitchen table/puzzle space in plenty of time to have the whole family seated at the table Saturday night for 2nd Thanksgiving (akin to 2nd Seder but without the matzah.)

We ended up missing half a dozen pieces, a shortcoming we attribute to Cooper’s nasty habit of gobbling up any piece hanging over the table edge. Even so, we had a pretty good sense of what show or personality each rectangle was demonstrating.

There were lots of musicals we have seen and enjoyed: a handful on Broadway (Phantom, revivals of Hair and Oklahoma!), a few (Wicked, Les Miserables, A Chorus Line, Blue Man Group) downtown or in the city, too many to count at the Marriott Lincolnshire, and even one (42nd Street) at sea. And in the left lower quadrant I got a reminder to order tickets for The Music Man when it opens on Broadway with Hugh Jackman as Professor Harold Hill.

My favorite–the greatest of all American musicals, My Fair Lady— somehow didn’t make the cut, but maybe someday I will find a loverly puzzle of just Liza, ‘enry ‘iggins, and the rest of the gang. No Hamilton either, making our kitchen the only Lin-Manuel Miranda Free Zone in the Chicago metro area.

So do you see any of your favorites in the puzzle? Leave a comment–think of it as a tribute to Steven Sondheim. Are there some obscure shows highlighted that we might not have recognized? And what are your favorite theater memories? Shows you have seen, shows you have performed in your high school or later days, shows you can’t get enough of? Tell me all about it.

Looking forward to reading your comments on the blog or on Facebook. To quote the Bard:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts.
~William Shakespeare

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Menagerie à Trois: Almost As Much Fun As It Sounds

We gotta get out of this place…

…if it’s the last thing we ever do.

The Animals-1965

You all remember Max . Our 90 pound multi-breed will greet you at the door with his Irish Wolf Hound-like smile, a loud but friendly bark, and a demand to be loved. He is Barb’s shadow, though happiest when I am giving him his nightly chin rub. When I do, his swishing tail cools the bedroom like a powerful Casablanca fan. Phoebe, our featherweight kitten, is much less likely to be seen when you stop by to visit, but for Barb and I she is a rolling ball of fluff who loves a good tummy massage and racing us up the staircase. Although Max’s aging joints will love living in a ranch home and Phoebe the speed burner might hate it, the two are our Model U.N. picture of peaceful coexistence.

This Thanksgiving our weekend has been livened up by a visitor primed to end our domestic tranquility. With Laury travelling for the holiday, we have stepped in under the provisions of the “Forever Plan” to baby sit Charlie, Laury’s six year old Havanese puppy. Charlie was Laury’s loving companion through her years in New York City and transition back to Chicago, and is always a welcome visitor in our home.

The American Kennel club describes the Havanese breed as ” a small, sturdy dog of immense charm”. Charlie is indeed small, is indeed sturdy, and does his exuberant best to demonstrate immense charm. He can bounce high off any floor or wall, gobble up cat food faster than Phoebe can come out of hiding, and his playfulness has helped Max remember what it was like to be a doggie adolescent again. Like all dogs, he loves Barb to death and tolerates me as necessary. He comes equipped with little blue pills for us to slather in peanut better and give him nightly (the pills are for behavior, not for the other blue pill type of problem,) as well as a limited supply of Valium. The Valium is to be ingested when he demonstrates too much “Crazy Havanese Time”, but the instructions Laury left were unclear. We are not sure if we are supposed to give Charlie the Valium or take it ourselves. Fortunately, Charlie was on a leash when a magnificent looking coyote trotted across our front yard yesterday; if not, Charlie might have waggled over to say “Hi!” and become an excellent appetizer.

Laury will be picking up her pooch later today, ending our Thanksgiving holiday. But before the weekend closes, let me give thanks. I am blessed with a loving wife and healthy, growing, family. Nothing brings me greater joy. I am thankful for the professional skills and opportunities both Barb and I have that allow us to be of service to our community. I celebrate the roof over our heads, and the fun we will have doing it all over again while building our empty nest home. And I am grateful and proud that I have been able to chronicle it all in these posts, and that so many readers have gotten to know us and say “I didn’t know you could do that!”

In closing, an entertainment note for our local readers. “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”, the big hit for The Animals, was written by the Brill Building songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Their story is a part of the Carole King musical “Beautiful”, which is just coming to town. If you love music, King, or just a good time, you must see this show!

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