Plus, enjoy these videos of numbers from the final dress rehearsal of “Life is a Cabaret” – click to view. Thanks, Lia, for capturing! You can also view as a continuous playlist here – more videos will be added as available.
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Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital).
Enjoy this video coverage of our upcoming cabaret performance: https://youtu.be/B5HoWBkM3wU – the Canton Chamber sure did a lovely job covering our event. Cabaret producer/director Denise Staffeld is exceptional, isn’t she? As is music director Kevin Robert Ryan – and, yes, you get to hear me sing in this clip. (And, to my animal loving friends, I have nothing to do with that coyote commercial in the middle of this, nor am I particularly thrilled with the guidance it offers toward the end.) Tix for Feb 7 are going fast! Click here.
A live musical fundraiser featuring Broadway tunes. Hosted by Relay for Life in partnership with Women’s Life Society Chapter 827, Chicks for Charity. Enjoy delicious desserts & a Cold Stone Creamery Ice Cream Bar; while bidding on the Silent Auction. Cash Bar will also be available. Join us with residents of Canton, Plymouth and surrounding communities to kick-off the annual fund-raising season. All proceeds and donations will benefit the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life of Canton and Plymouth to attack cancer from every angle. Be entertained at ‘Life is a Cabaret’ while attacking cancer. Relay For Life of Canton and Plymouth is May 19, 2018 in Heritage Park, Canton. Relay for Life is a team fundraising event where team members take turns walking around the pond in Heritage Park. A complementary luncheon for Cancer Survivors is also held during the event. Relay is the signature fundraising event of the American Cancer Society. Reception 6pm-7pm. Performance 7pm-9pm.
Tickets: Online or visit or call the theater 10am-2pm Monday-Friday. 734-394-5300 ext 3. PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE. CALLS WILL BE RETURNED WITHIN 24 HOURS OR WEEKEND CALLS BY END OF DAY MONDAY. All ages must have a ticket. No refunds or exchanges.
Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
I, Tonya is a troubling film … and not for just the obvious reasons. Yes, director Craig Gillespie’s take on the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal does a good job highlighting America’s obsessive and misogynistic need to pit women against one another, regardless the tragic outcomes that may result. Yes, Steve Rogers’ script addresses the notion that competitive ice skating is a sport that often favors artifice over reality, faux-elegance over athleticism. The film nails the tragic economic disparity in this country that can toxify and curdle unfulfilled and unrecognized raw talent into resentment, rage, and unbridled violence.
Yet, it’s the film’s tone that I found most unsettling. There is probably no other way to go than “dark comedy” for an insane and still-somewhat-unresolved story like this: one skater from the “wrong side of the tracks” and one skater with a perceived “princess complex,” surrounded by a band of male idiots who thought it would be a nifty idea to turn the lead-up to the 1994 Winter Olympics (with an eventful stop at Detroit’s Cobo Hall) into a road-show Goodfellas as performed by the cast of Green Acres.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
The cast is beyond reproach. Deserving Golden Globe winner Allison Janney (Spy, Tammy, The Help) dazzles and horrifies as Tonya’s “mommie dearest” LaVona whose intentions may be noble but whose approach to child rearing is two shades to the right of the Marquis de Sade. Sebastian Stan (Captain America: Winter Soldier, Logan Lucky) is perhaps a bit too pretty but nonetheless gives us a hauntingly comic portrayal of an abusive milquetoast in Jeff Gillooly. Ethereally engaging Julianne Nicholson (August: Osage County) is suitably and allegorically icy as Tonya’s coach.
Of course, Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad, Wolf of Wall Street) rocks the title role. Robbie is an absolute firecracker of a performer, and, while exceptional as Harding, I’m not sure we’ve yet seen that one landmark career-making turn from her. I’m certain it’s on the horizon, but I, Tonya in its entirety doesn’t quite rise to the commitment of what Robbie is doing here.
I also admit that, while Robbie gets Harding’s swagger and little-girl-lost qualities just so, she doesn’t quite have the look. I, like most of America, have wearied of Amy Adams, but watching a documentary of Harding following the film, it was clear that Adams is more of a doppelganger for the troubled athlete.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
And that brings me back to the film’s tone: a bit Coen Brothers (Raising Arizona, Fargo), a bit Gus Van Sant (To Die For), and a heaping helping of postmodern cynicism, but not nearly enough heart. The tragic circumstances of Harding’s upbringing are bandied about as cutesy one-liners, and the choreographed sequences of domestic abuse (Harding’s mother and husband both dish out brutal beatings on the poor soul) are almost treated like musical interludes. Even the heartbreaking yet admittedly hilarious lament from Robbie’s Harding that “I get hit every day, but Nancy Kerrigan gets hit once, and the whole world sh*ts!” comes off more like a punchline than an authentic assessment of America’s trivialization of violence toward women.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
Perhaps I am overly sensitive in this moment of “#MeToo/#TimesUp. Perhaps I have seen too often how insidious and destructive the evil-that-men-do can be to the self-esteem and self-worth of women. Perhaps I just thought I, Tonya was trying to have its cake and eat it too -painting Harding as this heartbreaking misunderstood ice queen Icarus while lobbing spitballs at the back of her head, just in case America wasn’t quite ready to forgive her yet.
As Janney’s LaVona intones in one of the many “mockumentary” style interviews sprinkled throughout the film, “She [Tonya] skated better when she was enraged.” The film gives us an ugly, bruising, arguably self-indulgent depiction of why Harding should be and was enraged, but it is never quite brave enough to offer her much sympathy or redemption. That may be the saddest crime of all.
Had a great time Saturday, January 14 with these crazy kids celebrating the launch of pal Rebecca Biber’s first book of poetry Technical Solace from Fifth Avenue Press. [Photos by Rebecca Winder here.] Enjoyed playing Johnny Carson to Rebecca for the reading/Q&A at lovely Megan and Peter Blackshear’s exceptional store Bookbound in Ann Arbor. Thanks to a great crowd including Rebecca Winder, Rachel Biber, Barry Cutler, Beth Kennedy, Toby Tieger, Russ Schwartz, Peggy Lee, Steven Wilson, John Mola, and more. You can purchase the book at Bookbound or via Amazon. Click here. Ann Arbor District Library’s Pulp reviews the event here.
[Jaffe’s Vivian Hood pictured]
Thanks, Vivian Hood and Jaffe for the opportunity to pontificate a bit … and in such esteemed company! “The turning of the calendar page to January always offers a chance for new resolutions or goals for the coming year. In this Q&A, Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing at Kerr Russell; Kathryn Holmes Johnson, Director of Marketing and Communications at Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox; and Jacqueline Madarang, Senior Marketing Technology Manager of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, weigh in with their thoughts about the important legal marketing challenges and issues on which they will be focusing.” Read more.
Latest Talk of the Town Whitley County “Old Type Writer” column by my mom Susie Sexton … is actually by me this month: my review of Greatest Showman. Thanks to publisher Jennifer Zartman Romano; proud to support my mom’s longstanding contributions there. ❤️ Excerpt: “This may seem a quaint notion, but sometimes it’s nice to have a movie that is simply affirming and joyous and a celebration of what can be best in the human spirit. That is The Greatest Showman’s raison d’etre. The subject of PT Barnum’s now-controversial life may seem an unlikely vehicle for such a film, but that is indeed what we have with Hugh Jackman’s latest. I absolutely loved this movie.” Click here.
[Musical director Kevin Robert Ryan and Sexton – photo by Denise Staffeld]
Thanks, Jennifer Zartman Romano and Talk of the Town Whitley County, for running this announcement! Whitley County native Roy Sexton is among the cast of “Life is A Cabaret,” a live musical theatre fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. The performance is planned for February 7, 2018, at 7 p.m. in Canton, Michigan at Canton Village Theater. The live musical fundraiser will feature Broadway tunes. The event is hosted by Relay for Life in partnership with Women’s Life Society Chapter 827, Chicks for Charity. Attendees will enjoy delicious desserts from a Cold Stone Creamery ice cream bar while bidding on the silent auction. A cash bar will also be available. All proceeds and donations will benefit the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life of Canton and Plymouth, MI to attack cancer from every angle. Tickets are $22. For ticketing information, click here or call 734-394-5300 ext 3. If there is no answer, leave a message and your call will be returned within 24 hours.
Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
You’re never too old to learn, I suppose. At least that was the lesson I gained today during Seth Rudetsky‘s wonderful master class taught at Farmington Players in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Thanks to the group and specifically to Amy Lauter for organizing the event, which saw local performers go through the exercise of auditioning before Mr. Rudetsky as well as an appreciative audience of approximately 130 people.
Sitting there, starting at noon, all of us guinea pigs lined up in the front row, nervously awaiting Seth’s appearance, not sure what to expect. Would he be more Simon Cowell, all glistening fangs and catty remarks, or Mr. Rogers, full of affirmation and delightful support?
Blessedly, he was more the latter, but not without insightful critique which inspired immediate improvement from all of us performers.
Seth opened the session with a brief overview, along the lines of this YouTube video – practical (and funny!) advice about how to prepare music, how to get ready for an audition, and how to put yourself in the proper head-space to succeed …
Following that intro, Seth began drawing our names from a hat … well, a decorative bowl … and one by one, we marched up on the stage, allowing Seth to a rifle through our prized binders of sheet music and to select a cut or two for us to perform. The age of the performers ranged from 11 to “we’d-rather-not-say,” with an array of songs from Broadway canon, pop, and beyond – Sondheim, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and … er … General Hospital. You had to be there.
(I sat there nervously for hours wondering if my name was even in the bowl at all, but, finally, next to last, my name was called. I futilely tried to step directly on the stage from the front row – who needs stairs? At which time, I did this awkward army crawl/roll center stage. Yup, I know how to make an entrance. Sigh.)
Seth took his time with all of us, stopping at key points in our songs and offering us direction on how to improve our delivery: “be in the moment,” “what are you thinking about there,” “why hold that note and what are you conveying emotionally if you do so,” “plant yourself,” “take a position of strength,” “there are no songs that shouldn’t be used in auditions, but you have to find the song that features you and your talent best.” Pretty great life advice, let alone fabulous guidance for an exceptional audition.
I sang Pajama Game‘s “Hey There,” after fumbling disastrously with my own notebook, like a nervous junior high school kid. I blushed when Seth said he really likes my old-school songs (all raided from my mom’s exceptional sheet music collection). And I was a dutiful student, taking his advice on a song that I had sung so often it had become akin to “Jingle Bells” or “Happy Birthday” in my head … musical wallpaper. I was struck by how different the final performance was that resulted – thanks, Seth!!
Thanks to “Legally Blonde the Musical” pal Amy Poirier for grabbing that quick clip from this afternoon, and enjoy the following video, taken by my cousin Alexandra Poor, of my performance of the song in Spotlight Players’ 2009 production of “The Pajama Game” …
Seth said I may be a little too old to sing “Real Live Girl” or “Corner of the Sky” any more … phooey, and I would have been very curious for his reaction to my take on Tom Lehrer’s “Masochism Tango” from Tomfoolery. Maybe next time!
Thank you, Seth! I may never make it to Broadway, but I feel like Rudetsky brought a little bit of Broadway to the future of my local performing.
But me being weird ol’ me,the highlight of the afternoon for me was this … Seth encouraged all of us to sing as if we were serenading a beloved rescue pet – sing every song thinking of an animal we love, bringing out all the authentic, vibrant colors of that pure emotion. He also let us know that Roberta Flack dedicated “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” to her cat! I like that song so much better now! Seth is an active Facebooker and sprinkles his promotional efforts with many, many posts to help our animal friends. Be sure to check out and follow his Facebook page, and if he comes to a town near you, go to his live show, sign up for his class, and thank him for all his generous and gracious work.
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Tomfoolery
Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view.
Second performance of Tomfoolery was a hit! What a fun night – with a record attendance for us li’l Penny Seats!
Thanks to everyone who attended (and anyone I missed):
Roxane Raffin Chan and Kevin Chan, Magda Gulvezan and Dan Johnson, Sam Gordon, Linda Hemphill, Angie Choe and Sean, Jeff Weisserman, Barbie Amann Weisserman, Bob Hotchkiss, Beth Kennedy, Nick Oliverio, Meredith Brandt, Alex and Cristina Rogers, Davi Napoleon, Jason Gilbert, Trista Selene Kreutzer-Whalen, Roxanne Kring and Joe Diederich, Kyle Lawson, Sean Murphy, Rachel Green Murphy, the Biber family, and Ryan Lawson.
Get your tickets, kids, for 10/16 or 10/23 – they are almost all gone … and that’s no “tomfoolery” – http://pennyseats.org/box-office/
AND, thanks to the Farmington Players and Amy Becker Lauter for including me among Seth Rudetsky’s “students” for their upcoming master class with him on November 2 from noon to 3 pm.
Should be fun! I’m honored to be a part of this. He might kick me out of class – you don’t want to miss that!! Here’s the event description (tickets available here) …
The Farmington Players Barn (Photo by Don Sexton)
You may know Seth Rudetsky from his Sirius/XM Satellite Radio show “Seth’s Big Fat Broadway” or his viral “deconstruction” videos on YouTube where he breaks down the elements of classic musical theater songs and singers. Now our local performers and patrons have the opportunity to participate in a Master Class Workshop.
A varied and talented group of local performers have been selected to Sing for Seth – and for you! They will each get personal attention and will receive advice on how to improve their audition and overall performance skills.
Registration is still open to be an audience member for only $25! You will learn from the advice Seth provides to the singers – and get to experience some of the area’s finest performers.
Taylor Alfano
Tony Battle
Rachel Biber
Gary Castaneda
Joshua Coates
Katie Dodd
Elizabeth Heffron
Joel Hunter
Grace Knoche
Maryanna Lauter
Amy Malaney
Marc Meyers
Roy Sexton (ME!)
Nina White
Jason Wilhoite
The event begins with an informative lecture from Seth, continues with each of the Master Class Students’ performances and ends with a Q&A – so come prepared with a question.
This is a once in a life time opportunity so register today!
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Tomfoolery
Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view.
Reel Roy Reviews 