Category Archives: Theatre

St. Peter sings, ‘Be Our Guest’

I have a friend. His name is Jerry. Jerry comes over to our house almost every day. Sometimes twice or three times a day. I’d like to thank TNT for bringing him over.

Jerry and I have fun solving crimes and chasing down murderers. Or sometimes we vacation in the Catskills. He has a wealth of funny one-liners and puns that never fail to make me laugh. Sometimes Jerry brings his other friends to play, like: Jack and Ed and Mike and Anita. Other times he brings his daughter ‘Baby’ and we go dancing. Once, he brought his girlfriend the feather duster.

Sadly, ***Jerry|http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001583*** has ***passed away|http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041229/ap_on_en_tv/obit_jerry_orbach***. I feel like someone in my own family has died. What a horrible day.

In tribute, TNT should broadcast all of my favorite Orbachian shows and films. They should have an all day marathon playing, ***Law and Order|http://imdb.com/title/tt0098844/***, ***Beauty and the Beast|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0101414*** and ***Dirty Dancing|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0092890***. I don’t know if it will be enough to make me feel better. You will be missed, Jerry.

ppp|Jerry Orbach|ppp

ppp|Jerry as Lenny Briscoe|ppp

ppp|Jerry as Lumiere|ppp

(feel free to eulogize Jerry in the comments!)

secret memories

You know how a certain smell or a particular song can bring back a wave of memories for you? I know for myself I can’t hear “The Sign” by Ace of Base without thinking of our family trip driving around Switzerland… 🙂

Anyhoo…Last Friday night was a night full of such memory triggers. Peter and I and our cousin Mark went up to ***Gordon|http://www.gordon.edu*** for the Theater Department’s production of “The Secret Garden”. I saw the ad on the Gordon website and was particularly interested because I had JUST started re-reading the book by ***Frances Hodgson-Burnett|http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006440188X/worldwidewood-20***. What a coincidence!

Sitting in the theater brought back a wave of memories…I had first seen this musical on Martha’s Vineyard with my pal Melanie. I must say that the conditions were a little more comfortable this time…cool… and not in an overly sticky town hall auditorium 🙂 Also, there were two little girls sitting next to me who carried on a (tactfully quite) commentary of the show. Melanie, does that sound familiar?

It was nice to be back at Gordon. We ran into a couple professors, Rox, Smith, Brunner. And also a friend, Courtney Pitts. Memories of walking cross campus at night, attending plays and chit chatting afterwards came streaming back. Too bad there weren’t nice Musicals when we were there…

The show itself was wonderful. The music was lovely, and the vocalists handled the interesting and difficult melodies and harmonies smoothly. I loved the costumes and the minimalist set dressing. It was great to see a full theater and I was glad that there were kids next to me. They really got into the show, and were friends with “Colin” and were so excited when he came onstage! Their enthusiasm was so cute.

If you haven’t heard the music from the Secret Garden I highly reccomend it. It is beautiful and haunting and playful all at the same time. And, of course, if you have never read the book you definately should!