grapery.

Tobias B-plot:

“March of the Falsettos” & “Falsettoland” at Hartford Stage, 1991. (Photo by Jennifer W. Lester) ID in alt text

After a quarter century, let me divulge. Grazie and set designer Ed Wittstein chose to completely open up the vast stage at Hartford to its walls, using no set pieces other than interchangeable cubes—and a bed. The lyrics were scrawled randomly on the entire floor (visible due to the theatre’s arena-like seating), and across the Broadway theatre-sized back wall. To be honest, in shades of black, grey, and white, they largely disappeared, allowing audience members to concentrate wholly on the handful of people singing intimate stories, with no distraction. But at the very end of the show, as Mendel intoned the final lines, a small square suddenly appeared through the drop that masked the rear wall. On it was simply the name “Whizzer.” Then the drop was revealed to be a scrim as the entire back wall dissolved into a ghostly section of the AIDS quilt. A lever was tripped, rather loudly, and the front drop wafted slowly to the floor, fully and clearly revealing the quilt for just a moment before the lights went out, and the show ended. While the quilt at Hartford Stage was not part of the real AIDS quilt, it replicated panels from that extraordinary expression of loss that once covered the National Mall in Washington. Because members of the company had been asked if they had family and friends who they had lost and wished to see included, audience members who worked in theatre quickly discovered they knew people on the Hartford quilt facsimile. While much of the audience was in tears, those who saw the names of those they loved and lost were often overcome.

and there was no mendel there, so they could have just stopped at "my friend", but instead they went right into "falsettoland (reprise)" like on the "falsettoland" cast recording and in 1992settos

and marvin sings "we're a teeny-tiny band"

and he and whizzer both sing "lovers live and die fortissimo"

and marvin sings "this is where we take a stand"

and they finish "welcome to falsettoland" together

sad franklin shepard comp

Musical: The Beautiful Lady

Composer: Elizabeth Swados

> it's good

> it's bad