Stephen Quint and the ZOMBIE MIKADO

BUY VALERIE FRANKEL

This is my wife's new book. Her name is at the top. There are some things about me in this book. Special things - secret things - that you will want to know. Things that you will never learn at Zombie Mikado, no matter how often you keep coming back and hoping. You should buy this book at Amazon. It is also available as an e-book. As far as I know it's in most Barnes and Nobles, at least around here, in the New Arrivals 20%-off pile. If you go to Amazon to learn more about this book you will find that there are other books by Valerie Frankel. Her two memoirs are the best. You will like her other books only if you are... you know, not a man. Or sort of not like a man. You will find some books by Valerie Estelle Frankel, author of the "Harry Potty" series. Not the same person. One book that you will not find by searching for VALERIE FRANKEL at Amazon is this: You didn't actually think that Snooki wrote this? A book? Snooki can't write books! She can write her name inside the cover of one, and draw a little heart, but the actual putting together of sentences required a writer, and Val was not ashamed. It was successful enough for a sequel. And so it has been written; so it shall be done. But I don't know when it is supposed to be unleashed.

Did you know that a Three Stooges movie is being made? Not a biography - a contemporary feature for movie theaters with actors playing the Moe, Larry, and Curly characters; written and directed by the Farrelly brothers (Dumb and Dumber; There's Something About Mary). The story seems to be that the Stooges are determined to save the orphanage in which they were raised - by nuns - and end up going for the big bucks by starring in a TV reality show. SNOOKI IS SIGNED ON FOR A CAMEO IN THIS FILM. Here is Youtube footage of a scene being shot in Atlanta, taken from across the street, with the actors behaving fairly Howard, Fine, and Howard-ish.  

The Stooges raised by nuns! What a concept! That would explain a lot - about Moe particularly. Anyways, this fake Stooges movie thing seems like a lousy idea but I of course CAN NOT WAIT and will absolutely go to a SAG screening before it opens April 4 and the reviews come out.

NYGASP IN MAINE!!!

FINALLY, the State of Maine seems it may have exhausted its lust for Tim Samples and Blue Man Group and is at last paying heed to Mainers' need for VICTORIAN OPERETTA!

Sunday, April 17, 4 pm, we will be bring "THE MIKADO" to Merrill Auditorium, Portland, Maine. Tickets are available at a wide variety of prices. There will be the usual NYGASP full orchestra of people, every one of whom will be playing a real, non-electronic musical instrument! As well as people, NYGASP's production of "THE MIKADO" is full of many other things, including the "company’s signature contemporary references, physical humor and splendid singing...” so you will leave the theater chuckling about all the times we said "Youtube" and "Facebook" and wishing that the fat man could have rolled around the floor just one more time. There are top-notch singers in this cast:     Sarah Caldwell Smith as Yum-Yum,  wacky Daniel Greenwood as Nanki-Poo, me as Ko-Ko, the executioner, Dave Macaluso as Coolie number 2, and the rest.

That's Portland, Maine, Merrill Auditorium, 4 - 7 Sunday. Look forward to quips about your governor.   

We are also performing in New Bedford, Mass on Saturday. "PIRATES OF PENZANCE," featuring all the same STARS OF NYGASP who'll be in "MIKADO."

PROMOTIONAL VIDEO FRENZY!!!!!

Here, for your promotional compilation video-viewing pleasure, are some new NYGASP promotional compilation videos. They are each about four minutes long and I don't recommend watching them all at once.

 

I'm not in this Mikado one; it's Dave Macaluso. NYGASP had a couple performances down south this weekend and I did Ko-Ko for the first time in over a year. A very lovely year. But I liked being back in Titipu.

And finally, "I've Got a Little Twist." This video must be of one of our very first perfomances. We have gotten better.

That is all. Utopia, Limited this Sunday, November 21, 5:00 at Symphony Space.

Mr Steve: Vulcan

NYGASP had its New Year's Eve concert at Symphony Space last night. It was a gala day (cue Groucho). I sang "When I was a lad" from STARSHIP PINAFORE (see posting below). I think I look pretty good considering the transformation, with the help of fellow Isaac Asimov awardee for Artistic Excellence Louis Dall'Ava, took 5 minutes. The shirt was a tent, designed for your average 400 lb Trekkie, and most of it was tucked into my pants, accounting for the illusion of a gigantic ass.

Photo courtesy of Dave Sigafoose! Thanks!

2010 NYGASP City Center Casts

Here, because you won't find it anywhere else, are the principal cast lists for the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' 2010 season at New York City Center:

THE MIKADO

The Mikado – Keith Jurosko

Ko-Ko – David Macaluso

Pooh-Bah – Louis Dall’Ava

Pish-Tush - ? [This reminds me of Boris Karloff's credit in "Frankenstein"]

Nanki-Poo – Cameron Smith

Katisha – Joyce Campana

Yum-Yum – Laurelyn Watson Chase

Peep-Bo – Rebecca O’Sullivan

Pitti-Sing – Melissa Attebury

The Axe Coolie - Lucy Rosenberg, daughter of sabbatical Ko-Ko Stephen Quint

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE

Major-General – Stephen Quint

Pirate King – David Wannen

Samuel – David Macaluso

Frederic – Colm Fitzmaurice

Sgt. of Poice – David Auxier

Mabel – Michele McConnell

Edith – Erika Person

Kate – Amy Helfer

Isabel – Betina Hershey

Ruth – Angela Smith

 H.M.S. PINAFORE

Sir Joseph – Stephen Quint

Captain – Keith Jurosko

Ralph – Colm Fitzmaurice

Boatswain – William Whitefield

Carpenter – Quinto Ott

Deadeye – Louis Dall’Ava

Josephine – Michele McConnell

Hebe – Vicky Devany

Buttercup – Angela Smith

RUDDIGORE

Robin Oakapple – David Macaluso

Richard Dauntless – Dan Greenwood

Despard – Richard Holmes

Old Adam – Ted Bouton

Rose Maybud – Sarah Smith

Mad Margaret – Caitlin Burke

Dame Hannah – Erika Person

Zorah – Jennifer Piacenti

Ruth – Katie Hall

Sir Roderic – David Wannen

The NEW YORK GILBERT AND SULLIVAN PLAYERS' ISAAC ASIMOV AWARD FOR ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE AND EVERYTHING

Right. So the 2009 - 2010 Isaac Asimov Award for Artistic Excellence etc. was presented on Sunday, October 4. Why the award couldn't be given at our annual New Year's Eve concert or one of the City Center performances in January and have it be the much simpler and catchier 2010 Isaac Asimov Award for Artistic Excellence etc., I just don't know. The award is presented as the highlight of one of those free special events for NYGASP contributors. They love these event/shows. They get to eat and drink Sunday afternoon-type stuff (but no Bloody Marys???) and actually interact with the STARS OF NYGASP, and, like most semi-celebrities, we love our fans. Al's favorite part of the program is that he gets to use a microphone. He just loves those things. It has become a tradition at these presentations (because every year Al suddenly announces, over the microphone, that we are going to do it) for each of the past Asimov winners to get up and tell a NYGASP anecdote! At least one or two of us always says how NYGASP is a family, we all really care about and learn from each other, etc. - all absolutely true of course and I am the last to deny it - but that ain't no anecdote.

The only trouble with NYGASP anecdotes is that all the best ones are ALL ABOUT AL. There just isn't anybody in the company who's as interesting as him. And the trouble with the stories being all about Al is that people outside the company don't really know him, and might be a little confused? Appalled? Or just not get it. So this year when Al introduced me and I pried the microphone from his iron grasp I decided to tell a fictitious Al anecdote which nevertheless could seem kind of trueish:
  "I'd like to tell you the story of the drunkest I've ever seen Al."

[At this point Al crossed his arms and legs and sat back in his seat. He's not that much of a drinker and it's impossible to guess what he thought was coming...]

  "We were on tour and were in a crappy bar attached to a crappy motel somewhere down south. We had done a 7:00 Pinafore so it was an early evening and the entire cast was there. Louis talked Al into doing shots with him. Al got staggeringly drunk on Crystal Light and vodka. Quickly became loud and belligerent. Started harassing rednecks - "Hey, we're an opera company! Yankees! From up north! Want to make something of it?" The bartender asked Al to quiet down and stop bullying the murderous types, but Al responded by making us all stand up and sing "Hail Poetry." The bartender closed the bar and threw everyone out. The rednecks were pissed. Al was scared and wouldn't go back to his room. We blamed the whole affair on 2005 - 2006 Isaac Asimov Award for Artistic Excellence etc. winner Louis Dall'Ava, so Al spent the night snoring in Louis' room. When he left at dawn he found that his Ryder truck had been washed by a secret admirer."

The 2009 - 2010 Isaac Asimov Award Winner for Artistic Excellence etc. is . . . 

ANGELA SMITH  

I work with Angie all the time, as she is Buttercup, Ruth, and Katisha, sings with the Quintet, and was my Duchess in "Gondoliers". She is a magnificent colleague and everyone was delighted to see her get her name on the plaque.

MORE Japanese operetta; the Scottish play (badly)

Tomorrow night, Friday April 3, NYGASP will be doing "Mikado" at the Community Theatre at Mayo Center for Performing Arts, Morristown, NJ. This will be my last NYGASP Ko-Ko for, well, indefinitely. I am listening for your involuntary "Thank God!"

In other urgent news, last night I went to the New York debut of Edinburgh's REALLY TERRIBLE ORCHESTRA. It was pretty good. I went with PETER HIRSCH. As we were walking up 43rd to Town Hall we heard BAGPIPES, which never ever sound any good however well they're played. I guess these were played OK but it still sounded like the worst possible oboe-playing combined with screaming cats. It was from kilted guys standing outside Town Hall. Because the RTO is from Edinburgh.

PETER HIRSCH as Hoppy the French Horn Frog in the "Teach Your Retarded Child What A Brass Instrument Is!" video (VHS only).

It was a good-sized audience, with some empty sections. Quite a few people followed them over from Scotland. The orchestra was 45 - 50 white people, all dressed nicely and sometimes a bit eccentrically, but not at all uniformly. The principal cellist was a bald woman. The flutes were a beaky-faced middle-aged woman, a girl with fabulous knockers, and an old bald coot with wild bushy eyebrows. An ancient crone was one of the percussionists. There were two euphoniums, one played by a woman who was either blind, deaf, or probably dyslexic. She had a girl sitting beside her the entire time conducting her, counting out loud, and pointing at her music. Everyone in the orchestra was a character. They very obviously enjoyed themselves all the way through. It's the thing I love most about community theater productions. Their performance stinks but you never get tired of watching the individuals.

The music they chose was frequently kind of a drag. They did stuff that was SUPPOSED to be funny. They had a real Scottish Major-General sing a not particularly ingenious rewritten Major-General song, there was a pointless Sound of Music singalong, a Scottish thing with solo bagpipes, some original pieces composed for the RTO - a brief African-ish tone poem and an arrangement of "Over the Rainbow" for musical saw. Along the more entertaining lines for which I had hoped they also gave a miserable performance of "Pizzicato Polka" in which no one could get their attacks together, a couple of noisy marches, and the last 4 minutes of 1812 Overture, because the first 10 are much too difficult. We were given paper bags to inflate and explode for the canon cues.

There was also a lot of talk, mostly pretty amusing, from the conductor and the famous and prolific author Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, 44 Scotland Street, Isabel Dalhousie), who is a founding member and first euphoniumist (I've got him on the list).

You should have seen the orchestra's faces when we gave them a standing ovation! They were thrilled to death.

"Why, he's my little ol' dream boat"

Just trying to perk things up around here with this particularly enticing photo of Shemp. Click on the "WALL OF SHEMP" webpage and see actual items OWNED BY SHEMP!!!

LINWOODMANIA!

 

Pretty sisters Janet and Susie Quint and manly nephews Marty and Victor Quint with LINWOOD JAMES at the 2007 Central Maine Egg Festival, Pittsfield, Maine. Click on the photo if anyone's cut off.

 

                                                                                                                                                                 Vic, Linwood, and Marty.

Does ALAN HILL Rule, Or What?

Yet another ALAN HILL SHOCKER!!! The famous NYGASP performer, widely known as the "World's Oldest Chorus Boy," has done it again. In his never ending battle against status quo complacency, the feisty grandfather has stunned the operetta world by beginning the lengthy, painful acquisition of extensive tattoos, starting with his head!

Alan's admirers have long smiled and nodded indulgently at the garish "EXITS" and "ONLY" tattoos on his left and right buttocks and wondered what was next. For the twenty years I've known him ALAN HILL has spoken wistfully about various kinds of minor cosmetic surgery, but as the years have passed the surgery in question has become increasingly major and distasteful. Instead of "correcting" his body issues Alan has embraced them, decorated them, made them unmissable.

But this tattooing of the head has impressed even me and Eva, long time believers that ALAN HILL can do no wrong. Or he could do wrong if he felt like it, but it's just not worth it at his age. I always thought, though, that if he got his head tattooed it would be with Japanese features, so he would never again have to put on that God damn Mikado makeup. With his new look he'll have to wear more makeup than ever. BUT YOU'LL KNOW, gentle Zombie Mikado readers (your average daily visits are now below 16, thank you so much), what perversity lies below that Jap, or pirate, or sailor makeup, and maybe you'll never look at a later-middle-aged, sweet, gentle, dirty old man again the same way.

I won't even mention about the piercings!

ALAN HILL . . .