Singin' in the revival tent.A QUICK GUIDE TO THE BEST MUSIC ON BROADWAY, WHERE EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD--AGAIN You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown This article is about the stage musical. For the 1985 animated television adaptation, see You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (TV special). You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown * Broadway revival cast, with Anthony Rapp, B.D. Wong, and Kristin Chenoweth * RCA See RCA connector and video/TV history. Victor Little Me * Broadway revival cast, with Martin Short and Faith Prince * Varese Sarabande sarabande Stately processional dance in triple metre popular in the French court and throughout Europe in the 17th–18th century. Of Spanish or Mexican origin, it began as a vigorous dance, set to lively music and castanets, for a double line of couples. Annie Get Your Gun * Broadway revival cast, with Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat * Angel It's a comment verging on an indictment of the current state of musical theater that not one of the best new cast recordings from the current Broadway season is from a newly created show. In fact, the most recent of the three that concern us here is already 32 years old. That show is You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, a brightly colored Broadway version of the modest 1967 off-Broadway hit. The cast album, freed from the somewhat dated stuff of the libretto libretto (ləbrĕt`ō) [Ital.,=little book], the text of an opera or an oratorio. Although a play usually emphasizes an integrated plot, a libretto is most often a loose plot connecting a series of episodes. , makes for fun listening. Charlie's nerdy appeal, as portrayed by Rent's Anthony Rapp, is warmly apparent on the recording. The big news is showstopper showstopper - A hardware or (especially) software bug that makes an implementation effectively unusable; one that absolutely has to be fixed before development can go on. Opposite in connotation from its original theatrical use, which refers to something stunningly *good*. Kristin Chenoweth, as added character Sally, who can spit out "No!" faster than a stealth missile, turning "My New Philosophy" into a brilliantly brainless brain·less adj. Unintelligent; stupid. brain  less·ly adv.brain aria. Slightly older but aging hilariously is the book for Little Me, a 1962 Cy Coleman, Carolyn Leigh, and Neil Simon vehicle for TV great Sid Caesar, and the new recording actually tops the original. As Belle Poitrine, succulent-voiced Faith Prince (a Tony winner for 1992's Guys and Dolls) narrates the complex plot to perky perfection, with Martin Short as her swift and manic cohort. This revival is a hands-down winner for laugh-out-loud one-liners, and the score, with tunes like "Here's to Us" and "I've Got Your Number," these days could fill two musicals and then some. Could any mere mortal fill the moccasins of Ethel Merman in one of her greatest roles--sharpshooter Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun? Perhaps not, but possessed of a magical blend of the sweet, tough, vulnerable, and voluptuous, adorable witch Bernadette Peters doesn't need a gun to stake her claim. With swell hunk and fine singer Tom Wopat as her beau, one has to recall the legendary Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza of South Pacific to find comparison to the spine-tingling chemistry of these brilliant stars. Irving Berlin's tunes--"Anything You Can Do," "They Say That Falling in Love Is Wonderful"--are all spiffed up like fleshly flesh·ly adj. flesh·li·er, flesh·li·est 1. Of or relating to the body; corporeal. See Synonyms at bodily. 2. Of, relating to, or inclined to carnality; sensual. 3. polished gems. From the first note of "There's No Business Like Show Business" to the last of the finale, this Annie Get Your Gun is a triumph--a joyful affirmation of why right-thinking people adore musicals. Velez is a freelance music writer living in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . |
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