It’s all been … a lot. Sometimes life feels in free fall. Other times oddly centered and calm.
A lot of change. Not all bad, nor unexpected. But I miss her.
That kind of brilliant, deep-feeling, vibrant, funny-as-hell force of nature, so unquestionably in your corner? You might know someone like that once in a lifetime, let alone be raised by one.
I’m deeply sad. Every day. But intensely grateful for who she was … and who I am as result.
And hopeful. Always hopeful.
And at peace.
“Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” – Mame Dennis
I love my brilliant, kind, creative friend Gail Porter Lamarche. She shared her wisdom and wit with me and a strangely absent Rob Kates on Legal Marketing Coffee Talk today. We discussed the importance of authenticity, the magic of #music and fabulous parenting, the benefit to firms of marketers who engage the community, how much we love Legal Marketing Association – LMA International, the fabulous learning and connection at LMA21, the power of digital thought leadership, how to coach attorneys to network with intentionality, Norman Love Confections, Theatre Nova, taco Tuesdays, beloved furbabies, and more. And how proud we are of ass-kicking Laura Toledo!
Shout outs to beloved family, friends, and colleagues include Nancy Leyes Myrland, Gina Furia Rubel, Heather Morse-Geller, Lindsay Griffiths, Megan McKeon, Kelly MacKinnon, John Byrne, Ross Fishman, Don Sexton, Nancy Slome, David Ackert, Passle, James Barclay, Tommy Franz, Kevin Iredell, Maggie Stuart Watkins, Adrian T Dayton, and more!
Legal Marketing Coffee Talk is brought to you by: By Aries and Kates Media.
Clockwise from top left: Justin Scott Bays, Roy Sexton, Elizabeth Jaffe, Diane Hill, K Edmonds, John DeMerell, Kristin Clark
Just FOUR more chances to see SING HAPPY! http://www.theatrenova.org … Come hear the music play – through Sunday!
This celebration of the work of Broadway’s famous duo, Kander and Ebb, features a star-studded ensemble of singers, who take the stage with showstoppers from CABARET, CHICAGO, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, and many others. Directed by Diane Hill, with music direction by R. MacKenzie Lewis, SING HAPPY! is not just a musical revue. It’s a show that ultimately weaves a tale of strength and determination, one we can all relate to in these times.
AUDIENCES AND CRITICS ALIKE LOVE SING HAPPY!
From Pulp Magazine: While the show leads off with the encouraging “Sing Happy” from Flora the Red Menace, the show’s best moments are the wistful, introspective, and sad songs. The singers come and go throughout the 70-minute revue with no intermission. The tentative story they tell is one of guarded hope, which seems appropriate to our current situation.
Photo by Sean Carter
Director Diane Hill keeps it simple and the singers respond with performances that grasp the conflicting emotions that are at the heart of Kander and Ebb songs.
Photo by Sean Carter
John DeMerell brings a meditative quality to his rendition of “I Don’t Remember You,” a song about a once-close relationship that now seems lost forever. Justin Scott Bays brings more heat to a plaintive yearning for a lost love in “Sometimes a Day Goes By.” The two voices sing in counterpointed empathy.
Photo by Sean Carter
Perhaps the best-known song in this mood is the comic sad “Mr. Cellophane” from Chicago. Roy Sexton sings the mournful tale of a man who wonders how invisible he seems to be. Kander’s music is a shuffle and Sexton glides across the stage making like a sad, dancing clown.
Kristin Clark brings that wistful quality to “Colored Lights,” another song about what might have been.
Photo by Sean Carter
K Edmonds brings her big voice and expressive face to a rollicking showstopper from Chicago, “When You’re Good to Mama,” a warning to inmates about how things work on the inside.
Photo by Sean Carter
Elizabeth Jaffe has fun with a sassy celebration of a daytime lover in “Arthur in the Afternoon.”
Photo by Sean Carter
Theatre Nova is alive and it wants to stay alive and offer a chance for everyone to come and see fresh, new, exciting plays at a reasonable price. In the music and words of Kander and Ebb, “what good is sitting alone in your room, come hear the music play, life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret.”
“What a fabulous evening of song! The energy level was high and the numbers flowed seamlessly one to another. I especially enjoyed seeing Kristin and her mom sing together. So great to be back to live theatre, and I appreciate the precautions you’re taking to make everyone feel safe.”
Photo by Sean Carter
“The show was yet another reminder of all the fabulous talent we have in our area. Great Performances, wonderful show.”
“Delightful show! Heartfelt and accomplished singers. Enjoyed every song.”
LMCT is back this week coming to you live on Wednesday with host Roy Sexton (ME!) and Megan McKeon, Director of Business Development at Clark Hill Law. Megan is Roy’s colleague (LMCT’s 1st co-coworker interview), and she is the immediate past president of the Legal Marketing Association’s Midwest Region.
Megan is a licensed attorney, has nearly two decades of experience in law firm marketing and administration, and she leads the strategic development and implementation of new business and client initiatives among the firm’s experienced business developers.
Megan and Roy’s long-time friendship and experience presenting together at LMA conferences make for a great working relationship and will deliver a candid, free-wheeling, and fun LMCT discussion of trends in the industry, the opportunities and challenges the pandemic presented, and hopes for the future of legal marketing.
Tune in this Wednesday, August 4th, at 3:00 PM ET on …
“Camp is the answer to the problem: how to be a dandy in the age of mass culture.”
“Camp taste turns its back on the good-bad axis of ordinary aesthetic judgment. It doesn’t argue that the good is bad, or the bad is good. What it does is to offer for art (and life) a different—a supplementary—set of standards.”
“The connoisseur of Camp [finds pleasure] in the coarsest, commonest pleasures, in the arts of the masses.”
Some of us old geezers might recall that auteur filmmaker Todd Haynes once directed a biographical film treatment of Karen Carpenter’s life – Superstar – using only Barbie dolls. Either Mattel or Karen’s creepy brother filed a cease and desist, and the film has only seen the light of day in bootleg copies on eBay.
Part of me doesn’t want to write a word as I don’t want to spoil any of the loopy fun for you. How do I net this out? Sublime Richard Payton channels Angela Lansbury‘s TV classic amateur sleuth/crime novelist Jessica Fletcher, now hosting an au courant pandemic “true crime” podcast. Pop singer Britney Spears, the recent subject of a tell-all documentary (#savebritney) appears to have been abducted and possibly murdered.
Spoiler alert, but as the cat is out of the bag via Ringwald‘s promotional materials, local legend Dave Davies is arguably the perfect thespian stand-in for Ms. Spears. He may be worth the price of admission alone. Never ridiculing his character, but fully in on the joke as to how absurd it is that he is playing the “Toxic” songstress, he is an absolute riot, both in TikTok style “found footage” and in podcast interview mode. I dearly hope there is a sequel.
Ringwald’s merry band of usual mischief makers is on hand in supporting roles. Joe Bailey is a gleeful Sherriff Amos Tupper, Fletcher’s dim bulb sidekick whose outsized adoration of Spears leads to a series of comedically nonsensical allegations. Suzan M. Jacokes is understated genius as harried producer Andrew Lark. Joel Mitchell nails Gene Smart, a store clerk whose great tragedy in life is being assigned his least favorite cash register. Nicole Pascaretta channels the sheltered charms of Britney’s baby sis Jamie Lynn. Dyan Bailey commands her moment as a Linda Ellerbee (remember her?) style newscaster. And Donny Riedel and Cory Shorter nicely round out the team as (respectively) hellzapoppin superfan Chris Crocker and louche hairdresser Jeffrey Bean.
The genius of the Ringwald is that they mine every aspect of pop-culture for mash-ups that are as unexpected as they are strangely logical. These are smart people using silly situations to comment on the real life comic tragedy of modern America. Susan Sontag meets Charles Busch meets Carol Burnett.
But back to the Barbie dolls. One of the great pleasures of seeing Ringwald’s evolution in pandemic is the way they are leveraging video production, one of the highlights of their prior stage work. Brandy Joe Plambeck deftly directs (with assistance from Dyan Bailey, Vince Kelley, and Katy Schoetzow) from a jam-packed script by Kelley and Matthew Arrington. Much like last winter’s Have Yourself a Misery Little Christmas, their filmed format has allowed the troupe to step up their production values exponentially. In that context, the lunacy has a beautifully heightened quality. The polish is in nice juxtaposition to the camp.
As for the dolls, when Sheriff Tupper devolves into his multiple theories surrounding Britney Spears’ disappearance, the reenactments are staged using Barbie dolls, playhouse furniture, and assorted other pink plastic accoutrements. It adds a layer of meta-commentary on American materialism and shallow celebrity obsession that is chiefly comic but more than a bit haunting. As another layer, the sequences employ the chilling orchestral version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” from Promising Young Woman’s pitch perfect soundtrack. And if you have been wise enough to check out that essential film, the Barbie doll scenes take on an even more devastating quality.
Back to Payton for a minute. Ultimately, his Jessica Fletcher is the ringmaster of this circus. Payton’s anarchic intelligence is like a wildfire across every scene. He is both eye of the hurricane and instigator. And his impish genius elevates any and all material he touches. I can‘t see him perform enough. Utter brilliance.
And do yourself a favor and stick through the credits. The cast vamps through Britney’s seminal hit “Baby One More Time.” You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Joe Bailey shimmy in a door frame.
The Ringwald’s press release follows, including dates and ticket information.
The Ringwald Theatre is pleased to announce the release of their latest show, Murder, She Podcast: Baby One More Crime. Several Ringwald favorites have come together to (safely) film The Ringwald’s follow-up to their smash Yuletide release, Have Yourself a Misery Little Christmas. As with that show, Ringwald stalwarts Vince Kelley and Matthew Arrington return as writers.
In Murder, She Podcast: Baby One More Crime, bestselling author, amateur sleuth, and trenchoat aficionado Jessica Fletcher is recording her latest podcast with her trusty sidekick and co-host, former Sherrif Amos Tupper, at her side. Today’s topic is the mysterious disappearance of music sensation Britney Spears. Where has the Pop Princess gone? Is it just a disappearance, or is something more sinister at play? As the investigation deepens, you will be asking, “Where’s Britney, bitch?”
Murder, She Podcast: Baby One More Crime was developed prior to the release of the Framing Britney documentary. The Ringwald firmly stands in support of the pop icon, and shares this piece of art with love and affection.
Murder, She Podcast: Baby One More Crime stars Richard Payton as Jessica Fletcher, Joe Bailey as Sherriff Amos Tupper, Suzan M. Jacokes as Andrew Lark, Joel Mitchell as Gene Smart, Nicole Pascaretta as Jamie Lynn Spears, Donny Riedel as Chris Crocker, Cory Shorter as Jeffrey Bean, and a super special secret guest star as Britney. Brandy Joe Plambeck directed with assistance from Dyan Bailey, Vince Kelley, and Katy Schoetzow. All safety precautions were observed during filming.
Tickets for Murder, She Podcast: Baby One More Crime are available at www.theringwald.com at three different giving levels: $20, $50, and $100 and can be purchased Friday, April 16 through Sunday, May 2nd. The performance will be available to stream through May 10th. Once you purchase your ticket, an email will be sent to you which will include links for Murder, She Podcast: Baby One More Crime and a virtual program. The video is hosted on Vimeo. You can watch on your phone/computer/tablet or, if you have the capability, you can stream the production to your smart TV.
The Ringwald opened the doors to their Ferndale location 13 years ago on May 11, 2007 with Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy. Quickly, The Ringwald became a mainstay of Detroit’s theatre community. Past highlights include: Head Over Heels, Clue, Company, Merrily We Roll Along, The Rocky Horror Show, Heathers The Musical, The Legend of Georgia McBride, Mr. Burns: a post-electric play, Angels in America, Into the Woods, A Streetcar Named Desire, August: Osage County, Mercury Fur, The Book of Liz, and Evil Dead: The Musical.
My notes on a wildly uneven show, that ultimately found its footing after a literal amateur hour opening …
Let’s hope next year, we see some return to normalcy, whatever that once was. And we won’t have to play whack-a-mole trying to figure out where and how to watch the various movies and shows being honored.
“at least borat won the night! i call that justice! otherwise, i kept forgetting what exactly i was watching or why….and maya rudolph did remind me of past mavens of the entertainment industry whom i would list here but i ain’t gonna! tina and amy got pretty feisty, did they not? in that opener? i guffawed in spite of myself as i feel feisty as well…they captured the essence of this nonsensically bizarro world.”
Thank you, dear Brenda Meller of Meller Marketing and Social Media P.I.E., for having me on today! We unveiled “C.A.R.” – an acronym I devised about 20 minutes before 🤣 – to help people become #socialmedia superfans. Celebrate. Advocate. Reciprocate. In retrospect, I should add an “E” for “elevate,” because I really do “C.A.R.E.” See what I did there?
In addition we discussed my hair care regimen, the power of silly tshirts, my favorite songs, and the goddesses Deborah Harry and Miley Cyrus.
Find out more about – and purchase! – Brenda’s best selling new book Social Media Piehere.
Shout outs in the show to Susie Sexton, Jay Harrington, Nancy Leyes Myrland, Gina Furia Rubel, Jessica Aries, Renee Branson, Heather Morse-Geller, Susan Ahern, Megan McKeon, Clark Hill Law, Mark Ostach, Kathy Kvasnak, Tina Marie Wohlfield, MiVida Burrus, Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, Ronald McDonald House Charities Ann Arbor, Legal Marketing Association – LMA International, Beth Kennedy, and more!
P.S. Today’s chat inspired this blog post from Brenda as well. “Have you noticed that when you’re commenting in a live stream on LinkedIn, your photo is a gray avatar? It may be one of two items in your privacy settings. Here’s how to fix it.”
“Hair care investigator” Mark Ostach, my beloved Leadership Detroit 30 classmate
Rob Kates and I had a fabulous chat today with my fellow Michiganders Heather and Jay Harrington, founders of Harrington Communications and Life and Whim.
These two are authentic, accessible, iconic marketers AND human beings. We discussed the need for a consistent (and empathetic) drumbeat of thought leadership, how good and responsive design is key to powerful communications, the energizing nexus of art and commerce, the therapeutic benefits of writing, and how taking a helpful and conversational approach to social media is key to growth.
Mentions during the show include Tom Nixon, Susan Ahern, Susie Sexton, Don Lee, Nikki Bagdady Horn, Stephanie Preston, Clark Hill Law, Kerr Russell, Trott Law, Jem and the Holograms, Thanos, Tom Hanks, “Gretchen Warner,” Infinity Gauntlet, Legal Marketing Association, Traverse City, baseball, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, art, dogs, unsupervised second graders, Mad Men, and more. Enjoy!
Join me and guests Heather and Jay Harrington, founders of Harrington Communications, as we discuss the importance of thought leadership and PR in legal marketing, marrying smart design with good content, and what it took to start their own agency that has turned top professional services firms into titans of industry.
Jay and Heather also have fascinating interests that include Heather’s spectacular art career – Life and Whim – and Jay’s books and publications. We are looking forward to picking the brains of this outstanding duo, and we know it’s a conversation you won’t want to miss.
Roy Sexton ’95 has been appointed as treasurer of the 2021 Legal Marketing Association – LMA International (LMA) Board of Directors. LMA represents thousands of legal marketing and business development professionals in 48 U.S. states and 24 countries.
“Being on the LMA Board of Directors is the apex of one’s volunteer leadership within the Legal Marketing Association and is significant in advancing the legal marketing profession as a whole,” LMA Executive Director Danielle Holland said in a news release.
Sexton, director of marketing at Clark Hill Law, has nearly 20 years of experience in marketing, communications, business development and strategic planning.
He has been heavily involved in the LMA as a regional and international leader and has served on numerous nonprofit boards and committees including the Ronald McDonald House Charities Ann Arbor, Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, Royal Starr Arts Institute, EncoreMichigan.com.
“I am honored to serve on the 2021 LMA Board of Directors, and I look forward to the opportunity to help guide the association’s important work,” Sexton said in the release. “LMA will continue to provide outstanding programming and opportunities for professional development and networking to our members and advocate for our profession, locally, regionally and internationally.”
While at Wabash College, Sexton majored in English and theater and was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha and involved with the Wabash Theater, the Bachelor and Student Senate.
Sexton’s LMA appointment became effective January 1, 2021.
Our Clark Hill marketing and business development team has been on quite the journey over the last couple of years. It has been a great growth opportunity and one of the more enriching work experiences of my life. Out of the blue, REDSTARKIM LIMITED Managing Director Kim Tasso wrote about our work, based on a webinar we did six months ago! A lovely surprise!
Grateful for our exceptional and supportive leader Susan Ahern and for wonderful and inventive colleagues Megan McKeon , Guinevere Lehman Anderson , Emilie Strozier McCarthy , Shayna McCloskey , Tommy Franz , Dani Carter , Alexandra France , Gloria Pak , Elizabeth C. Jeffries , Stacey Marie , Maureen Denney , Keith Hobbs , Katelynn Schwalm , Alé Simmons , Amy Oldiges , Kimberly Reisman , Leslie Smithson.
From the blog entry’s intro: “In September, the international senior marketing and business development team at Clark Hill presented a webinar for the Professional Marketing Forum. The topic was ‘Clark Hill redesigns its marketing and BD team’. The work to re-imagine its marketing and business development (M&BD) team won Clark Hill the Best Marketing Initiative Award at the 2020 Managing Partners’ Forum Management Excellence Awards.”
SAVE THE DATE! February 11, 12:05 pm ET. Brenda Meller of Meller Marketing and I return to thunderdome! We will discuss what it means to be a superfan and how that can benefit your networking, branding, and marketing efforts. Celebrate, advocate, reciprocate.
Reel Roy Reviews 