Results tagged “Blogs” from Blogway Baby

Check out this ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE on Playbill written by Seth Rudetsky about Autumn and Bailey (of Legally Blonde the Musical: The Search for Elle Woods fame) and [title of show]!

Or, [title of show] is opening on Broadway tonight peeps!!

Goodness gracious, I fell in love with this show the first time I saw it at the Vineyard Theatre in 2006 (so long ago, goodness). It was so creative, funny, and original, with fantastic talent and heart. Now, I can't believe that it's opening on Broadway. Holy peanut butter. I mean, oh my god.

I feel so happy for everyone involved in [title of show], especially Hunter, Heidi, Jeff, and Michael who accepted my Facebook friend request. =D Just kidding, everyone who has made this show what it is now rox. I couldn't find Susan on FB, so props to her. She rox extra hard. :D

I've read the blog every day for the past forever, which has kept me interested and excited about the show and its future. There's a really cool article here about [title of show]'s evolution through the Webnets... Check it out.

There's also a nice article about the opening on Playbill.com, here. It talks about the show's history, and what the show is "about." And stuffs like that.

So, just wanted to give a shout-out to everyone at [title of show] (=P). Have fun tonight, and congratulations!

Woo. I need to sit down for a second. Calm down, take a few deep breaths. Cool off, if you will. Why? You may ask that. Or not. Whatev. I'll tell you anyway. I just finished watching Acts I and II of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and I was BLOWN AWAY. I mean, OH MY GOD.

This epic mini-series stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion (HOLY MOTHER OF), and Felicia Day. Dr. Horrible is an evil genius, with a PhD in Horribleness. I won't tell you anymore - except that he has a blog and is part of a crazy love triangle with Fillion (GOODNESS GRAYSH) and Day.

Harris is hilariously funny and he makes me smile. He has opened my eyes to a different side of supervillains through his portrayal of Dr. Horrible :D Nathan Fillion is -- Wait. I need to take a second to breathe here. Nathan Fillion is probably one of my most favoritest peoples ever, and I never knew he could sing. Well, he can. Like, really well. Felicia Day is also really good as Penny, playing perfectly the role of the beautiful and big-hearted laundry buddy... =P

Okay. So, you probably guessed already, but Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a musical. Usually I'm very picky about music, but I really enjoyed listening to this! The music was melodic AND epic. I mean, I don't think it gets any better than that. The storyline and script were funny without being too one-notey (word of the day), and the talent (as mentioned above) is astounding. They can all sing, and portray the complex emotions required to pull of this serious drama. Hehe...

Act II was JUST released TODAY, and Act III is coming out this Saturday, July 19, 2008. All of the episodes will come off of the website at midnight on Sunday, so make sure you watch them! However, there was mention in the master plan of a DVD... =O

So, I really think you should watch this TV/Internet/Blog epic musical/epic/comic book. (P.S. about the comic book thing, it's like a comic book but you don' have to read =D) I'm off to work on my evil laugh... and then rewatch Acts I & II!!

From this article in SFGate:

After building a musical reputation playing with a big name like West, Thompson got his big break in 1958 with a record deal from RCA. Signed alongside Esquivel, Billy May, Nelson Riddle and a crop of other musicians destined to be Hollywood stars, Thompson was asked to be the answer to Ray Conniff, on rival label Columbia. There was just one problem.

"Bob hated Ray Conniff," says Spenser Thompson. "My father thought Ray Conniff was a total square. You see, Bob was hip. Bob had soul."

Thrilled just to be playing music, Bob Thompson kept quiet and started making his records. It was the beginning of what was a somewhat badly marketed and mismanaged career. While Esquivel and Mancini easily carved niches in movies and on bachelor-pad record players, Thompson's music went largely misunderstood and underappreciated by RCA.

"Bob will tell you that they just didn't sell," says Spenser, who for years also took the LPs for granted, like an overlooked decoration in the family home. "But a lot of it had to do with Bob not having a management, no agent and no marketing, to direct his career."

Clearly ahead of his time, Bob Thompson brought new sophistication to studio technology, and the right people took note, says Van Dyke Parks, who produced Brian Wilson's classic album "Smile."

"Bob's records always had that snap, crackle and pop," says Parks, who befriended Thompson in 1969. "He was one of the first to create sounds in true stereo, like having a train sound as if it were traveling from your left to your right. This was new to the ear. And it was exciting."

For his final LP, "The Sound of Speed," and in a sort of orchestral punkish act of rebellion, Thompson made an album entirely based on the noises of modern transportation. But it would be many years before the album, filled with jazz harmonies and swing arrangements, would be fully appreciated and understood.

Thompson's most successful music was heard by millions of people every day, even though most of them never knew who he was. From 1961 to 1978, Thompson recorded the scores to more than 3,000 television commercials, from "Get That Great GM Feeling" and "Go-Go Goodyear" to "King Cobra -- Silver!"

(via this post in BoingBoing)

Inquiring minds want to know!

My blogger (andBlogher) friend Elisa told me that Foothill Music Theatre has started rehearsing for their summer production of Brigadoon.

If you're interested to see what they're wearing under their kilts, check it out at http://fmtcurrent.blogspot.com

For more information on Foothill Music Theatre, check out their website at http://foothill.edu/fa/brigadoon

And remember, if it's not Scottish, it's crap!

Here's a neat post for all you lyricists and other wordsmiths out there...from this article in Merriam-Webster Online:

What a lovely bunch of vocabularians (persons who make up new words) you are! Lasterday (refers to any day before today) we squinched (action required to fit something into a space that is slightly too small) a schmiglet (a small unit of measurement) of your awesomtastic (so wonderful the words just meld in your mouth) one-of-a-kind entries into this space in preparation for our Top Ten reveal. With so many chizzy (awesome, super, happening) creations to choose from, we admit to becoming a bit flusterpated (a state of being flustered that's so intense, one's actions and words become bound up) and fahoodled (confused, esp. when trying to think of too many things at once). We craughed (to cry and laugh simultaneously), we troddled (to wander around without knowing of doing so), and finally decided to use the schwack (a large amount) of multiple entries received as the basis for the Top Ten -- this is, let's not forget, all about favoritism.

From the thousands of submissions we received, here, then, are the ten words (not in the dictionary) entered the most often:

Top Ten Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary)

1. ginormous (adj): bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous

2. confuzzled (adj): confused and puzzled at the same time

3. woot (interj): an exclamation of joy or excitement

4. chillax (v): chill out/relax, hang out with friends

5. cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway

6. gription (n): the purchase gained by friction: "My car needs new tires because the old ones have lost their gription."

7. phonecrastinate (v): to put off answering the phone until caller ID displays the incoming name and number

8. slickery (adj): having a surface that is wet and icy

9. snirt (n): snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots that have been plowed

10. lingweenie (n): a person incapable of producing neologisms

(via BoingBoing)

I had the great pleasure of being invited to and attending a special blogger meeting in New York on Sunday. One of the producers of Little Women, Scott Freiman, and Kaliya Hamlin, a blogger who worked on setting up the Little Women cast blog (see myprevious post) invited a group of female and theater bloggers to come and see a matinee of Little Womenand then have a dinner after. Unlike Blogway Baby, most of the blogs represented were not theater-specific blogs. The attending blogs included:

culturekitchen

Elayne Riggs' Reality-Based Journal

tuaw.com

Identity Woman

Blogway Baby

napsterization

Political Gastronamica

MuniWireless.com

Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar?

The reason for the blog meeting was that Scott Freiman was pioneering a blog advertising strategy for Little Women.

Little Women is not an expensive show (relatively speaking) coming in at about $5.6million. It sounds like a lot but compared to the $14 million of a Wicked or a Spamalot, it is cheap. However, that doesn't leave a lot for traditional forms of advertising. So Scott was hoping to build enough blogging buzz over the summer so that when the kids go back to school in September tickets sales wouldn't completely evaporate.

Unfortunately, the 3pm matinee that we saw was the closing show on Broadway. I guess they just couldn't make it work financially. However, the tour starring Maureen McGovern (but notSutton Foster) will start in August and the cast blog will turn into a touring blog. The closing came as a bit of a surprise for everyone (so what else is new!) and some of the touring show had already been cast before they knew the Broadway production was kaput, so some of the Broadway cast is left without jobs. Tough business.

I have never been to a closing show before. The atmosphere was electric. The audience could hardly contain themselves as each cast member entered for the first time. I must say the cast was spectacular. Maureen McGovern sounded amazing, as did Sutton Foster. Sutton Foster was great at Jo March -- you could feel her energy desperately trying to get out from under those long weighty dresses of the times. It was like she was trying hard not to break into a tap number from Thoroughly Modern Millie! But every member of the cast was fab -- every voice was beautiful, really. And at the end, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

After the cast had taken their bows Sutton Foster gave a short speech (Maureen McGovern was already crying her eyes out by this point) thanking everyone involved with the show onstage and behind the scenes. Then she introduced Donny Beck (at least I think that is his name, I had a hard time making it out through Sutton's teary delivery) the House electrician who was retiring in a month and who had spent 46 years in the business with 60 shows. She said what an honor it was for Little Women to be his last show. And then I started crying and I didn't even know this guy.

Then we headed over with Scott Freiman to Angus McIndoe, the restaurant right next door to The St James Theatre where The Producers is playing. Angus McIndoe includes as its investors Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Mel Brooks, Tom Meehan, and Frank McCourt! It was a great evening, talking Little Women and blogs!

Best of luck with the Little Women tour!

In my opinion, every 9-year old girl in America should see this musical...can a tie-in toAmerican Girl be far behind?

This is kinda kewl. The musical Little Women has launched Broadway's first cast blog.

They're inviting 10 mainstream women bloggers and 10 Broadway (male or female) bloggers to a special performance of Little Women, The Musical. If you're interested, drop me some mail.

Little Women the Musical brings alive the timeless American classic by Louisa May Alcott. Semi-autobigraophical in nature, it has inspired generations of people and women in particular to follow their dreams, creative passions and the writing life.

Two months after the show launched, and in keeping with these themes, Little Women's producers took a bold leap in to the emerging blogosphere and launched the first official show and cast blog on Broadway. To celebrate this new writing format and medium for self experssion, the producers are hosting a special event inviting 10 leading women bloggers and and 10 broadway bloggers see the show together and discuss it afterwards (at a no-host blogger dinner).

Here's something for all you Plane Crazy fans out there.

National Geographic has a mini-photograph gallery of theAirbus A380 SuperJumbo plane. This is a picture of the onboard duty-free shop.

The Airbus A380 "SuperJumbo" is the largest civil aircraft ever built. Designed to carry 555 passengers in a three-class arrangement, it has one-third more seating capacity than a Boeing 747. A planned stretched version would carry 656 passengers, and an all-economy-class configuration would be able to carry more than 800 passengers.

(via BoingBoing)

Here's a neat bit of follow-up from my childhood, courtesy of BoingBoing.

Apparently, Dolores Erickson, the cover model on the Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass album Whipped Cream & Other Delights is alive, well, and making impressionist paintings.

She has a really cool site at whippedcreamlady.com for anyone into the '60s, including all her record album covers (she was also on the cover of Guantanameraby the Sandpipers), and a link to the book Hal Lifson's 1966 (subtitled as "A Personal View of the Coolest Year in Pop Culture History"), described by Billboardmagazine (February 5, 2003) as a "mind-boggling collection of visual trivia, from Sno Cones and Goofy Grape drink packets to Sting-Ray bikes and Gumby flexes."

She was gorgeous in her younger years, and still looks great today.

As far as I can tell, the album Whipped Cream & Other Delights was issued en masse to all adults in the '60s. My parents had a copy which they played over and over again, and I remember staring at the album cover, wondering how they got all that whipped cream to stay in place...

UPDATE: Rosie's moved her blog from the somewhat sad sounding sub-domain "onceadored", using an equally lame Blogger template at blogspot.com (with the somewhat daunting tagline: *the unedited rantings of a fat 43 year old menopausal ex -talk show host * -married mother of four- read at your own risk - my spelling sux (add * ocd * adhd * lmnop * suv * dvd * y not me) to the much more impressiverosie.com.

Her traffic is remarkable...586 comments on her latest post! And lots of good Broadway stuff under a separate link.

It's sort of like blogging meets Haiku, meets Broadway, meets Flickr.

slept with a guy named kevin
on the red eye
i 2A - he 2B
i worried about snoring
as i am told i do

blake says it sounds
"wike a weal scawry bear"
gentelman kev never mentioned it

i pulled into my house at dawn
all the twerps were up
a stampede at the door
midget rugby

also in attendence
my in laws
melanie and joel
kels red state born again parents
who - much to my suprise
i adore

when kel and i met
she was positive
they would never come around
the gay thing
was not ok with them
never would be

now we can't get rid of em

we have woven ourselves
into a real family
where a left wing looney
has a place
among the right wing righties

after baby bush won
i told them how upset it made me
to know they voted for him
how he did not consider our family
a real family
deserving of the same rights
all her other married kids had
i blah blah blhaed
for a good four minutes

when i was done
melanie said
"mermie is coming over tomorrow
she's bringing a baums cake"
and that was that

sometime after forty
u settle into yourself
there are many ways to be
in this world

I definitely have to check this out when I'm at the Blogher conference in July (and tramping in my old stomping grounds in Palo Alto!).

It's the American Musical Theater San Jose, and they have an impressive season schedule. It's a really aggressive schedule of some of today's best-known musicals. This is what they did in 2004/2005:

CHICAGO
January 11 to 23, 2005

A CHORUS LINE
February 22 to March 6, 2005

LORD OF THE DANCE
March 15 to 20, 2005

TAPESTRY: THE MUSIC OF CAROLE KING
April 12 to April 24, 2005

CATS
May 17 to 22, 2005

MOVIN' OUT
June 14 to 26, 2005

THE PRODUCERS
July 6 to July 25, 2004

RENT
September 21 to 26, 2004

PETER PAN
October 26 to November 7, 2004

I can live without Lord of the Dance, but gosh, Tapestry: The Music of Carole King sounds really cool. From the site:

The Ultimate Theatrical Tribute to the Music of a Generation!

Our production of TAPESTRY: THE MUSIC OF CAROLE KING will be a high energy, dazzling show starring incredible singers and musicians in a two-hour theatrical tribute featuring some of the greatest songs of all time, including I Feel The Earth Move, You've Got a Friend, Natural Woman, Up on the Roof and Locomotion. Carole King's album Tapestry was one of the best selling albums of all time and stayed on the charts for over five years at its release and continues to top charts around the world to this day. You will be astounded at the list of songs Carole King wrote that were performed by some of the top artists from the past four decades including The Shirelles, James Taylor, and even The Beatles. Whether you are a die-hard fan of American Idol or whether you still have a weathered copy of the Carole King LP, Tapestry, you are going to love this show!

And this is what's lined up for 2005:

THE WIZARD OF OZ
September 13 to 25, 2005

LITTLE WOMEN: THE MUSICAL
October 11 to 23, 2005

WEST SIDE STORY
November 1 to 13, 2005

THE LION KING
January 20 to February 26, 2006

GYPSY
March 28 to April 9, 2006

HAIRSPRAY
June 6 to 18, 2006

I'd love to see how they produce this work...

About a month ago I published this post about the musicalLittle Women which told the story of Alison Hubbard and Kim Oler who won the Rogers Award for Little Women, and were then KICKED OFF THE PROJECT when it went to Broadway.

Well, here's a different, more positive spin on the Little Women story.

I got this message from Kaliya Hamlin:

Hey Suzy, I was noticing your Blog about Broadway. Great Material. I am based in California but I have been working with Little Women the Musical to get their Show Blog up and running. We have been live for over a month and the Cast is about to start posting. This may be a first for a broadway show -- cast blogging. The first posts will be up within the next few days. http://littlewomen.typepad.com is the blog address. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions and I would be happy to put you in touch with folks inside the show to talk about this development.

Cast blogging? I LOVE IT! What a great way to get an inside look at the show...but the cast has to be honest. If it's going to be interesting, it's got to be real. Let's hear about those Broadway rats...

Maybe we can get them to do a guest blog on Blogway Baby!

Yikes! I've been struggling with Blogger the last 24 hours, and I think I've finally tussled it to the ground. It looks like Blogger has lost its DNS service, so when I've tried to post to www.blogwaybaby.com it couldn't find the sftp site. I was getting the following message:

005 Unable to connect to SFTP server: java.net.UnknownHostException: www.blogwaybaby.com

I fixed the problem by replacing the post to address from "www.blogwaybaby.com" with the actual IP address, and now I can post again. Sheesh.

I can't say I was blown away by Blogger's customer service. After going through their blogs and seeing no service outage warnings, I sent a Help message and got the following automated message 10 hours later:

Hi there,

Thanks for contacting Blogger Support. Since we cannot always respond personally to every message we get, we encourage you to check Blogger Help, where you can find answers to many common questions. Here are some of the top articles which could help you out:

CHANGES ARE NOT APPEARING ON THE BLOG
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=639

A BLOG IS MISSING FROM YOUR DASHBOARD
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=656

HOW TO WORK WITH BLOGGER'S COMMENTS
http://help.blogger.com/bin/topic.py?topic=23

HOW TO HANDLE PROBLEMS WITH INVITATIONS
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=642

HELP WITH HTML OR CSS CODE
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1116

If you don't see what you need in these articles, you can use the search form in the upper right corner of any Blogger Help page. Be sure also to check our Status page and our Known Issues page. These cover many known bugs and current operational problems.

BLOGGER STATUS
http://status.blogger.com/

KNOWN ISSUES
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=791

If your question or problem is not addressed anywhere in our documentation, please simply reply to this message and let us know. We will help you out as soon as we can. Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,
Blogger Support

Geez guys, D it up, K?

This seems like the ultimate Broadway fan site. Nicely designed too! Here's a quick taste:

I was 24 years old the first time it happened to me and I'm not talking about sex, but about something much more exciting.

Since I remember I always loved musicals. It began with the old Astaire-Rodgers movies that I saw on television at the matinees and then, later, I saw the likes of THE SOUND OF MUSIC and HELLO, DOLLY! at the cinema. But I had to wait until I was 24 to see a musical live on stage.

By that time I was already completely in love with the cast albums and I was always dreaming of musicals, even imagining me in them. The truth is, that kind of music really touched me and had the power to make me feel happy. Living in a country like Portugal, with no musicals at all, wasn't easy for me. When would I be able to see one on stage? But the cast albums filled my days with dreams and kept my love alive.

There's a good Plane Crazy discussion thread on MetaFilter. I'm heading over to weigh in on the discussion.

From MetaFilter:

I should probably state for the record that it is likely Ms. Conn is using this 1960's music style ironically, applying it as both a commentary on the era and the world as it was then. I'm sure she'll hear about this post and comment in some way or another (and likely already has).

The problem is, a lot of these "short-cut" aesthetic styles that came out of mass entertainment always do an amazing disservice to the eras they portray, since they cut out a lot of humanity for the ease of using some tried and true "phrases" to lock the "setting" and move on.

Here's the topline on my philosophy: I have two daughters, and I want them to fully achieve their potential. I don't understand a world that would deny them that opportunity, and I don't understand cultures that hold down the potential of 50% of the population.

Why did I choose to base a musical about feminism in the 1960s? Well, in a way, it was an easy choice since the '60s were the decade where the modern feminist movement came to life. As well, the spirit of optimism of the 1960s is important to the hopeful message of Plane Crazy. The 1960s represented an era that embraced change, and had great hope for the future.

So, in fact, I am using the decade as a dramatic device to reinforce the message of the show.

Now, a moment on the message of the show.

Today, the term "Feminist" has become loaded with a lot of negative baggage. Feminism is sometimes typecast as a dour, man-hating, bankrupt philosophy. This makes me very sad.

So I call my philosophy "Fun Feminism".

Fun Feminism embraces the innate female traits of love, joy, and sexuality. Some of us like men. Some of us want to have children. Most of us like sex...but don't tell us what we do or don't want, don't tell us how to think or how to act. If I want to be a Mommy...that's cool. If I want to be a corporate ladder climber...that's cool. If I want to be a musical theater writer...that's cool too (but who would want to do anything that silly!)

Fun Feminism is about choosing who you want to be and what you want to do, and not having your limits set by anyone else -- or by society.

It's no coincidence that by the end of Plane Crazy, one character becomes a mommy, one character becomes a feminist organizer, and one character decides to go and beat the ad men at their own game.

Finally, while I appreciate the seriousness of these issues (which are important to me), I also want to be entertained when I go to the theater.

I'm a huge fan of Tom Lehrer who always managed to wonderfully combine the serious with the silly. I've been heavily influenced by Tom Lehrer, and I believe that you can teach people more when you entertain them, when you engage them, when you make them laugh and when you get them singing!

On the Q107 morning show with John Derringer and Maureen Holloway this morning, they began a discussion string with the fact that Britney Spears has announced that she's pregnant. Much blather followed, spattered with the words "skank" and "bloated". Whatever. Then, Maureen mentioned that the news of Britney's pregnancy was broken on Britney Spears' own blog. So then my ears pricked up.

Maureen then began talking about other celebrities who have blogs, such as Rosie O'Donnell (who appeared on Blogway Baby a couple of weeks ago), and Dave Barry. And then Maureen said:

"Why do they feel the need to communicate with people in this manner...I have no desire to have a blog or a Web site..."

Ouch. MAUREEN! You're breaking my heart!

First of all...if you could see how many hits Blogway Baby gets from the search term "Maureen Holloway" from a single article I posted in February (Blogway Baby | What's With the Big Glasses) you'd realize that YOU SHOULD HAVE A BLOG.

Come on Maureen: Jump in, the water's fine.

Meanwhile, MSN Spaces is ON FIRE...here's the next big aggregated community. Can dating be far behind? Apparently, 4.5 million people have signed up for the free feature in less than five months. There's an article in Ad Age today (sorry: Requires registration) that reviews the implications behind the fact that Volvo has taken a major sponsorship deal with MSN Spaces. Here is the article if you don't feel like signing up:

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Microsoft Corp. has signed Volvo Cars of North America as the sponsor of its recently launched blogging tool for the masses, MSN Spaces, according to the company. More than a million people a month signed up for the new blog-creating tool.

Pushed live as a Beta test in December, the MSN Spaces concept, which provides anyone with an easy way to start a personal Web log, has proven wildly popular. MSN said 4.5 million people -- or more than a million a month since testing began -- signed up to use the free feature.

WEB LOGS
MSN Spaces are Web pages with which users can quickly create a Web log, or blog, of personal writings, photographs, lists of favorite music and other personal tidbits. Users can choose to make their blogs available to the public or to keep them private -- accessible only to people they designate.

The new online venue of user-created content and advertising is one of several MSN has introduced recently as part of its reinvigorated branded-entertainment efforts.

"As the Web becomes more personal, what is the right way for the advertiser to integrate itself into an increasingly personal experience?" asked Gayle Troberman, MSN's director of branded entertainment and experiences team. "Once a user chooses to go to a branded experience -- the advertiser is not just creating an impression, they are creating an advocate."

VOLVO ADS
Volvo is advertising on the home page of Spaces and through text links with graphics at the top of users' personal spaces.

MSN has also introduced two new ad products through MSN Messenger, Microsoft's proprietary instant-messaging system. One, called theme packs, offers advertiser-branded characters, backgrounds, photos and audio messages that users can incorporate into their instant messaging. Advertisers include Coca-Cola Co.'s Sprite brand and Adidas.

For example, a user can choose the Sprite-obsessed animated spokescharacter Miles Thirst from Sprite's Web site to greet friends on Messenger. The Adidas theme packs, available in eight countries, will promote the new Adidas 1 shoe. Adidas ads will also be integrated into customers' MSN Messenger game plays.

VIDEO-MESSAGING ADS
Messenger is also debuting an audio-video instant-messaging service for which advertising is available. This product, for users who have a PC camera, will present an ad in the seven to 10 seconds it takes for one Messenger user to reach another. "Instead of an hour glass, we show a full-motion video ad," Ms. Troberman said. No advertisers have signed on to the audio Messenger service yet.

Some 155 million users log on to MSN Messenger service each month, according to the company. Messenger and Spaces appeal to an audience of 25- to 39-year-olds who are more Internet-savvy and more affluent than the norm, Ms. Troberman said.

I don't know about banner ads creating "advocates", but it's always exciting when mainline advertisers start adopting new media channels.

Well, now I know exactly where I'm going to be July 30th...I'll be in Santa Clara at the BlogHer Conference. WHAT A GREAT IDEA...a conference on female bloggers. I love it.

As you might or might not know, I have been consumed the last few weeks with first proposing, then actually planning to launch a new organization and its first conference.

The organization is called BlogHer. The BlogHer Conference '05 has been set for July 30th, 2005 at the Tech Mart in Santa Clara, CA.

And I think it's going to kick ass!

We've got our site and registration up and running as of 2PM this afternoon, so please check out:http://www.blogher.org

In true bloggy fashion we have started blog threads on the agenda and specific sessions we're planning...and we're looking for feedback. We don't plan to finalize the agenda until May 1st to give us time to incorporate the feedback we get. So, comment away.

Well, there's been a flurry of Plane Crazy activity since we launched the site. This is my favorite post. Here's a priceless extract:

Many reading this blog are old enough to remember When Stews Were Sexy and the World Was Sexist, which is the subtitle of an off-Broadway play about life as a stewardess in the 1960s.

Visit the show's brand new website and let the opening song play for a while. Then check out the show synopsis.

I've stumbled across a blog called Theatre Blog (via Technorati tag: Broadway) that is a bookmarking-style site on breaking theater stories.

There's one particularly interesting post on Broadway: The Golden Age, By The Legends Who Were There, a fantastic movie by Rick McKay. Theatre Blog doesn't use permalinks, and the article is behind an ass-y registration barrier at The Age, but I've got a copy of this movie and it's AMAZING...

The film is the winner of 15 Film Festival Awards, and it is regarded as the most important, ambitious, and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Rick McKay filmed over 100 of the greatest stars ever to work on Broadway or in Hollywood. Rick learned that great films can be restored, fine literature can be kept in print -- but historic Broadway performances of the past are the most endangered. They leave only memories that, while some are vivid, are more difficult to preserve. In their own words, and not a moment too soon -- Broadway: The Golden Age tells the stories of our theatrical legends. How they came to New York, and how they created this legendary century in American theater. This is the largest cast of legends ever in one film, and they include:

Edie Adams
Bea Arthur
Elizabeth Ashley
Alec Baldwin
Kaye Ballard
Betsy Blair
Tom Bosley
Marlon Brando
Carol Burnett
Kitty Carlisle Hart
Carol Channing
Betty Comden
Barbara Cook
Carole Cook
Hume Cronyn
Arlene Dahl
Charles Durning
Fred Ebb
Nanette Fabray
Cy Feuer
Betty Garrett
Ben Gazzara
Robert Goulet
Farley Granger
Adolph Green
Tammy Grimes
Uta Hagen
Julie Harris
Rosemary Harris
June Havoc
Jerry Herman
Mimi Hines
Al Hirschfeld
Celeste Holm
Sally Ann Howes
Kim Hunter
Jeremy Irons
Anne Jackson
Derek Jacobi
Lainie Kazan
John Kenley
Joan Kobin
Miles Kreuger
Martin Landau
Frank Langella
Angela Lansbury
Arthur Laurents
Carol Lawrence
Michele Lee
Hal Linden
Shirley MacLaine
Karl Malden
Rick McKay
Donna McKechnie
Ann Miller
Liliane Montevecchi
Patricia Morison
Robert Morse
James Naughton
Patricia Neal
Phyllis Newman
Nicholas Brothers (Harold and Fayard)
Jerry Orbach
Janis Paige
Don Pippin
Jane Powell
Hal Prince
John Raitt
Rex Reed
Elliott Reid
Charles Nelson Reilly
Diana Rigg
Chita Rivera
Tony Roberts
Mary Rodgers
Gena Rowlands
Eva Marie Saint
Marian Seldes
Vincent Sherman
Stephen Sondheim
Maureen Stapleton
Kim Stanley
Elaine Stritch
Laurette Taylor
Tommy Tune
Leslie Uggams
Betsy von Furstenberg
Eli Wallach
Fay Wray
Gretchen Wyler

From the article quoted by Theatre Blog:

There's been countless films made about Broadway in the '30s, '40s and '50s -- the thrill of the spotlights, the greasepaint, the roar of the crowds, all of that. But as obvious an idea for a film as it may seem, a documentary has never been made about Broadway. Until now.

US Broadway lover and filmmaker Rick McKay has spent six years interviewing more than 140 Broadway stars, ranging from Carol Channing to Shirley Maclaine, Farley Granger and Uta Hagen. Some of them have since died, making the final product, Broadway: The Golden Age, By The Legends Who Were There, all the more important.

It started as a modestly short program for television, but McKay found it hard to sell the idea. “When I brought it to PBS, they said, 'No one's interested in old people; you've got to put young people in the cast'," he explains.

"About two days later, Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse's wife, died, and her last interview was in my film. And I thought, 'It's becoming a responsibility for me to do these interviews, because these people who are older will never get a chance to tell their story again'. I was in the right place right time."

From BoingBoing:

Todd Lappin has finished installing his 707 jet panel in his house. It looks incredible! Here's a link to his great Flickr site.

My 707 has come a long way since I first found it at an aircraft scrapyard in Tucson. Here's a daylight view, shortly after I stripped off the paint. The illumination comes from rope lights mounted on the structurally-cool back side. (Next time you rest your head against a window-seat wall to snooze, this is basically what lies underneath.)

I did an earlier post on this fixture in the middle of March. I love it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's a great example of modernist architecture...both the plane and the resultant fixture. But mostly, it feeds into my plane fetish and obsession with the Jet Age, amply demonstrated by my musical Plane Crazy, and my Pucci stewardess uniform collection.

Mermaniac, "A Show Tunes Weblog", has an excellent blogroll which has been divided into the signs of the zodiac...although it mysteriously omits Blogway Baby...what's up? BTW, I'm a Cancer...

"Best Original Musical?" I hear you ask. Well, let me explain. For about 20 years, the Academy has had this category on the books -- but not enough movies to activate it. Here's the rub: To be eligible, the movies must be original musicals for the screen, soChicago, fabulous though it may be, doesn't qualify because it's from the stage. And in order to activate the category, there must be five qualifying musicals in a given year. And qualifying is tricky. The film must have five original songs integral to the story, written by the same songwriters. And then there's the Oscar-qualifying run in a commercial theater. It can't be on tape either: The Academy is very fussy about that. If it's digital, it has to come from a server. Not that even a pro could tell, but the Academy really hates tape.

And this year there were five qualifying movies. They're back! Show-tune lovers were about to have their moment in the sun!

Then the Academy killed the category anyway. Bastards! Write your congressman! The Academy is discriminatory!

Discriminatory? Yes -- but perhaps not in the way you might think. This is where I have to get into some history.

Remember me not liking musicals? Well, I produced one. How I ended up producingOpen House is still somewhat of a mystery to me. A musical about real estate, no less. It had to happen, I suppose -- I mean, finding a home is something to sing about. And setting a Realtor's patter to music, well, that was just a matter of time.

Let me tell you a little about the film's director. Dan Mirvish is the guy who, years ago, got mad at Sundance because they rejected his film. So he started his own festival: Slamdance. If you're into indie film, you know that's where the real discoveries show up. Anyway, the point is that Dan's something of a force of nature: Lots of people end up doing him favors, and after a year or two of "volunteering" you wake up one morning asking how you got there. Like me, sitting in the Magic Johnson Theatre in Los Angeles at noon, watching our Oscar-qualifying run playing for an audience of one elderly retiree and a bored gangbanger. How, indeed, did I get here?

42nd Street Moon Blogis a GREAT musical theater blog, with a Blogway Baby-style fanatical devotion to Broadway. It's published by a theater company focused on "Classic Broadway in Concert", based in San Francisco. I wish I'd known about these guys when I lived in Palo Alto!

42nd Street Moon, based in San Francisco, is one of only four theatre groups in the nation whose mission is to present concert performances of classic Broadway musicals of the 1920s through the 1970s. Since 1993, the organization has mounted five productions every year, and serves a loyal constituency who participate with both regular audience attendance and a solid base of contributed income.

42nd Street Moon contributes to the preservation and evolution of American musical theatre by presenting these classic Broadway shows as "staged concert performances." In staged concerts, actors hold scripts in-hand throughout the performance. There are no sets or elaborate costumes. We do not present our work through digitally engineered sound systems. The material itself is the star. This format allows our audience to hear the work with remarkable clarity, and to use their imaginations. We allow our audience to participate in the here and now, the very essence of LIVE theatre.

Cool post on BoingBoing today about a house reno which includes a lighting fixture made from a section of a 707 WhisperJet. WOW...a must have for my next house...