#robert lupone

This sounds very mean, but this man looks like the Walmart brand version of Devon Sawa.

Paul: So much stress for politeness' sake.

Paul: That in, let's say, 12 hours all three of you are gonna be kaput. Okay? Anna: What? Paul: You bet that you'll be alive tomorrow at 9 o'clock and we bet that you'll be dead. Okay?

Peter: They don't want to bet. Paul: Well it's not an option. There has to be a bet.

[turns toward camera, breaks fourth wall, addressing the audience] Paul: I mean, what do you think? You think they stand a chance? Well, you're on their side, aren't you? Who are you betting on, hmm? Peter: But, wait, what kind of bet is this? If they're dead, they can't live up to their side, and if they win, they can't live either.

What I love most about this fourth wall break is that it’s clearly done to show the audience that Paul is in control here. It’s his game.

Anna: Why don't you just kill us? Peter: [smiling] You shouldn't forget the importance of entertainment.

[breaking the fourth wall, addressing the audience] Paul: I mean, do you think it’s enough? I mean, you want a real ending, right, with plausible plot development? Don’t you?

Paul: You have to admit, Ann... I'm being very generous here. You can prove to your pussy husband how much you love him.

ESE: 97/100

Gossip Girl (2007-2012)

Since everyone is buzzing about what happened with the cancelled 2016 concert reading of “The Prince of Egypt”, I wanted to reflect on Nefertiti…the musical that coulda, woudla, and shoulda been a smash, but wasn’t.

The show featured Andrea Marcovicci as the titular queen and Robert LuPone, fresh off of his success in A CHORUS LINE as the pharaoh Akhenaten. The composers, Christopher Gore and David Spangler were fairly unknown at the time and remain so today, with the only other relevant credit among them being the lyricist’s earlier collaboration on VIA GALACTICA. I quite enjoy the album, it’s no great groundbreaker but based on the tagline “a musical romance” I don’t think that’s what they were going for. The score is helped tremendously by the excellent orchestrations, which give off a MAN OF LA MANCHA feel. 

The premise is strong enough, “In 1364 BCE A headstrong Egyptian woman — Nefertiti sacrifices the relationship she has with Horemhab, a young general she loves to marry the Pharaoh Akhenaten. Together, the three form an unlikely alliance which enabled the royal couple to lead an artistic, spiritual and cultural revolution that for 17 years changed a society locked in orthodoxy. 

Guided by her strong sense of duty and her kindness towards the Egyptian people, they work to change the old customs and build a new world until natural disasters and sinister political forces threaten to topple their new paradise and erase them from history.”

“Nefertiti” goes back to when Christopher Gore (Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of “Fame”) was a struggling writer in New York. He began writing a play about the Pharaoh Akhenaten, which he always viewed as a musical (going so far as writing lyrics for it). 

He met composer David Spangler and shared his work, and soon they began collaborating on it. It was called “Brothers” at the time and concerned Pharaoh siblings.

The piece had a workshop production at La Mama Theatre in New York in 1976 and got the attention of Broadway producer Sherwin Goldman and director Jack O'Brien. After some intensive work sessions, the new musical had a new name: Nefertiti. When the show opened in Chicago there were members of a Black arts organization picketed the theatre, demanding a more diverse cast, as Jane White and Michael Smartt were the only non-white main cast members. 

Even though Tony award-winning playwright Joe Masteroff was brought in to rewrite the book, the producers pulled the plug. They cancelled the scheduled November 1977 opening at the Minskoff.

A cast album was recorded, helping give the show a cult status. The musical has been reworked several times in hopes of it finally opening and being a smash on Broadway, but alas to no avail.  Still, Nefertiti surely was what critic Ken Mandelbaum has termed a “don't” musical. You’ve heard of the “why?” musical. For instance: why turn the Meet Me in St. Louis movie into a musical when it already is one, and a perfect one at that? Nefertiti is a “don’t musical” It has very long, consonant heavy names, and the plot was very disjunctive at best; I can see why there are so many plays about Cleopatra, the names of those around her are easier on the Western tongue and have a clear linear plot.

SVU Guest Star - Robert LuPone in

"Painless" [5x22]

"Beautiful Fame" [14x11]

Here is my combined remembrance of three public figures who passed away yesterday.

Remembering Robert LuPone 1946-2022

James Gandolfini and Lupone on The Sopranos

Theater and TV actor Robert LuPone has died at 76. Hi best role was as Dr. Bruce Cusamano on The Sopranos. Between 1999 and 2007, he appeared as the neighbor and family doctor of the Soprano Family. This has already been a sad year for Sopranos fans after the passing of cast members Peter Bogdanovich, Bruce MacVittie, and Tony Sirico. In addition to The Sopranos, LuPone appeared in The Doors and the pilot episode of A Gifted Man directed by Jonathan Demme.

The link above is the obit from CNN.

Remembering Ralph Eggleston 1965-2022

Eggleston with some animation cells

Pixar animator Ralph Eggleston has died at 56. He was the art director on Toy Story, story creator of Monsters, Inc., production designer on WALL·E, lighting director on Up, and production designer on Inside Out amongst many other Pixar productions. He won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short for For the Birds, which he wrote, directed and voiced.

The link above is the obit from Hollywood Reporter.

Remembering Mikhail Gobachev 1931-2022

Gorbachev in a 1998 Pizza Hut ad

Former President of the Soviet Union (back when it was the Soviet Union) Mikhail Gorbachev has died at 91.

Beyond politics, he appeared quite a bit within pop culture: As a puppet on Spitting Image (and the Spitting Image music video for Genesis’s “Land of Confusion”), animated on The Simpsons, appearing in TV commercials (including Pizza Hut) and actors playing him in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and Rocky IV (which was basically an 80 music video propaganda about the Cold War). On SNL he was played by Phil Hartman numerous times.