Theater of the Absurd Ticket Prices

When a Broadway Baby says goodnight,

 it means you've struck out, fella ...

Broadway Beat

by Nels Noodleman

I am delighted to report, folks, that Broadway this year has been nothing less than ELECTRIFYING!   

Then again it might also be that my pacemaker is on the fritz.

Seriously, in all my days as a professional reviewer of the Broadway oeuvre, I have never before witnessed as many groundbreaking, innovative, and expensive as all hell plays as it's been my privilege to be comped to this season. It all began with the hip-hop Hamilton, an especially surprising smash hit since throughout his career Alexander Hamilton was always more known for his karaoke than hip-hop.

Here's a trio of three other great plays you should definitely see provided you know who to have sex with to cop a ticket:

Grease, Exclusively Starring a Cast of Baby Boomers

  

For the first time ever, a cast of 60-somethings and 70-somethings present a musical about a decade most of them hated while looking wholly ridiculous age-wise in the so doing.

Pockmarked and unappealing former Leave It To Beaver actor Jerry Mathers as Danny and solidly over-the-hill Sally Struthers as Sandy lead a marginally talented and highly wrinkled cast of washed-up Boomer TV stars whose limited thespian skills perfectly depict Boomer disdain for the white bread 1950's during which they were incessantly dumped on by their greasy haired older brothers and sisters while impatiently waiting for the Sixties to start so they could smoke dope.

GESCBB, as it's conveniently called, also includes some great new age-appropriate songs including Slumber Nights,  Look at Me, I’m … I Forget, and We Grow (Old) Together. 

At the Miles Lumpkin Theater. Tickets prices start at $450, but they are very big tickets, at least a foot and a half long.

Death of a Clown Man

In another sparkling reinterpretation of a classic theatrical work, every character in Death of a Clown Man is played by a professional clown, each of whom speaks exclusively by honking a clown horn.

Willy Clownman fears that the clown business may be ending due to a worldwide shortage of clown and all other makeup since the advent of Flo from Progressive. Willy’s world becomes even more topsy-turvy when his son Biff Clownman turns his back on the family business in favor of becoming President of the United States.

“Anyone want to buy a used horn?” honks out Willy, painted tears under his eyes growing till they cover his face. If playwright Arthur Miller could return to life for just one day, this theater critic bets he'd love this new take on the old play just as soon as he first gives up trying to find Marilyn Monroe for one last roll in the mezzanine!

At the Helen Haze Theater. Some discount tickets available if you can juggle and you’re quick with seltzer.

Bukowski, the Family Musical!

Love the type of bright happy musicals Rogers and Hammerstein used to deliver to our doorstep in days gone by? Then rush right back to Broadway for a tuneful, toe tappin' two and a half hours of drug addiction, alcoholism, deviant sexual acts, cannibalism, and an unnatural affection for licking the backs of U.S postage stamps such as you've never seen! 

Yes, from Disney comes the happiest new show on Broadway, Bukowski, the Family Musical!

From the very first moment he throws up on stage, Hugh Jackman so thoroughly inhabits the role of lowlife writer Charles Bukowski you can almost smell it!  Actually you can, if you're sitting in the Orchestra seats. The show features eight great new songs including Life in a Shithole, Life is a Shithole, and the rousing showstopper Hello, Shithole!  

At the Moe Monkfish Theatre, which is a shithole but still expensive as shit. With Kristin Chenowith and Jerry Stiller.

Also knocking 'em dead on Broadway these days is Avenue Q with the puppet roles all played by undocumented aliens constantly looking over their shoulders, a musical version of Fight Club with an all Jewish cast and no fighting, and Broadway's longest running smash hit, The Book of Orman.

And that's the latest news from the Great White/Of Color Way. (Yep, I'm trying to get the name changed, folks!)  See you there, assuming you have a buck or two but hopefully a trust fund.

From your very own Broadway Buddy, 

Mr. Nels Noodleman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nels Noodleman is a nationally known and reviled theater critic who occasionally writes for Nouveau Old, Formely Cute on the Broadway stage.   Whenever he's discovered writing on the stage he's usually thrown out of the theater.

Over the course of his checkered but mostly plaid career, Nels has reviewed all of the major Broadway plays of the last half century.  Someday he hopes to see them too.  

Oh, by the way, Nels thinks you're cute.

You're Such a Lovely Audience

Thank you, Everyone! 

Your applause is wonderful!  Let's bring out that terrific cast again ... Meryl .... Meryl .... my sensational co-star, Meryl Klepperstein, take an extra bow!

Y'know, folks, it's great to be back in my home town of New York starring in Broadway's latest smash hit,  Kinky Boobs! You were all fantastic tonight, a truly phenomenal audience! You're such a lovely audience I'd like to take you home with me, I'd love to take you home!

In fact, I will take you home!

I've had 14 buses dispatched directly outside the Helen Hunt Theater to transport all of you to my condo at 87th street.   Ladies, rest assured there are bathrooms on each bus with much shorter wait times than at the Ladies Room here in the Helen Hunt Theater so you won't  all be dancing around like Native Americans preparing for war by the time you get to my home.

We have ordered trays of food from the Plotkin Deli including corned beef, swiss cheese, roast beef, cole slaw, white fish, herring, chopped liver, baklava, cheese cake, and many other delicatessen delicacies guaranteed to give you reflux for the next week. Our Jewish audience members are going to feel like they're at a shiva but with the added bonus that no one's dead.

Now please all file out by section into the buses.  Orchestra seats go first, then the mezzanine, next the balcony, and lastly the abysmal seats slammed against the rear wall of the theater and sorry, folks, but your seats on the bus will be slammed against the rear of the bus as well.

When we get to the condo, feel free to throw your coats on my bed.   Remember that many coats look alike, so when you leave and you're parsing through 600 coats on the bed be careful to take yours and not one of the other audience members or you'll be going through life as a 34 short London Fog from Woodbridge New Jersey when you're actually a 38 long Burberry  from Greenwich Connecticut.  

I want you to feel totally at home in my home. Traipse through each and every room, admire the artwork - especially my paint-by-numbers --- and peruse my photo albums. You'll notice that my first wife was exceedingly hot but about as stable as the lower half of the periodic table, and my second wife had a great ass but the personality of the love child of Martha Stewart and Martha Stewart if Martha Stewart could mate with Martha Stewart. And I know Martha Stewart!

I'm looking forward to meeting all of you and spending quality time.  I want to hear about children, grandchildren, new jobs, retirements, divorces, operations, accidents, and existential angst and/or weltschmerz that may have you close to pondering ending it all. If necessary, I'll hug you through the night after the others have left.

Remember I don't give autographs.   

Why am I inviting an audience into my home after all my years in show business?

Frankly,  this is something I've wanted to do for a long time, but I had to wait for a truly responsive, enthusiastic,  and appreciative  audience --- a lovely audience. Tonight, folks, you were at long last that lovely audience!  

You applauded loud and long for our very marginal show, laughed at even at the stupidest and most unfunny jokes we padded out the script with, and hummed along with the utterly forgettable score.  If every theatrical audience were as naive and undiscriminating as all of you, Kinky Boobs would run forever and I could extend my waning career at least another 4 or 5 years, at which time I'll be the BIG 7-0, Goddamnit!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  Remember to take off your shoes at the door, or I'll never hear the end of it from my third wife!

Hope you like the chopped liver.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How to Secede from America Without Really Thinking

There is a Brotherhood of Dumb!

Broadway Beat
by Nels Noodleman

There's a brand new smash hit musical on Broadway these days,  and it's one with a very unique distinction.  

It is the first ever all-singing all-dancing all-moron Broadway musical in history.  It is:

HOW TO SECEDE FROM AMERICA WITHOUT REALLY THINKING

Starring the greatest assemblage of idiots ever seen in New York City since any two or more people who take Donald Trump seriously, How to Secede tells the story of one J. Pierpont Simp, a young man who believes that President Obama is a Socialist-Communist-Muslim-Gay-Lesbian-Transgendered-Pickup Truck Hating-Agent of Satan Who Collects 15% on Every Booking He Makes for Satan maniac, who is also black.

This tuneful romp follows Ponty as he climbs the corp-hate ladder of an organization known as "The Brotherhood of Dumb," which seeks to secede from the United States because Barack Obama has just been elected President instead of a man whose major presidential credential was faking a middling love of NASCAR.

As Ponty, Broadway newcomer Ralph "Guns & Tats" Ferbish gives a performance that is so stupid he actually manages to drool saliva upward because he doesn't know up from down.   He is joined by Delilah Dimmish as Rosemary, a  woman who refuses to share a nation with anybody who doesn't believe the Constitution was written by Jesus and the Second Amendment given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai but suppressed by the Jews. 

The show starts off with the rousing "How to" ...

This book is all that I need,

How to - how to- secede!

(Wait a minute. Book?) 

and wraps with the showstopper "The Brotherhood of Dumb" ...

There is a brotherhood of Dumb,

Up your ass you stick your thumb!

Oh, aren't you proud to be

Dumb for Eternity

That Great Big Brotherhood of Dumb!

"We're proud to put dumb front and center on Broadway," said producer Perry Block, a man often associated with dumb in his own right, "when it usually exists more naturally in Washington D.C." 

"We feel that in the annals of dumb, How to Secede from America without Really Thinking compares favorably with the actions of some members of Congress who feel it's no big deal to go over the fiscal cliff because, after all, it'a only a ride at Disney World!

Go see How to Secede from America without Really Thinking, folks! 

You'll feel like a Rhodes Scholar. 

From your very own Broadway Buddy, 

Mr. Nels Noodleman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I Was Just Seventeen ...

by Perry Block 

 Yet another in that never-ending series of movies in which a parent and child switch bodies. This one, however, will cost you nothing and is mercifully brief!

As presented in three acts on the New York Stage

 at the Helen Hayes Theatre.
(No truth to the rumor that Helen Hayes actually got up and walked out.) 

Cast of Characters

Perry Block, 61 years old 
Brandon Block, 17 years old

Leona Bushman,  the Hottest Girl in All the Eleventh Grade
Benji
First Teen
Second Teen

ACT I 

It's  morning about 7:30 at Perry Block's residence.   Perry sits in the kitchen at the PC with the television  on.  His 17 year old son Brandon enters the room to grab something to eat and head to school.

Brandon:  Hi, Dad.   Say, you don't usually watch The Today Show in the morning. 

Perry:  No,  I just wanted to get my last minute fix of  Ann Curry before they axe her for not being as smart or attractive as Al Roker.

Brandon:  I see. Anything interesting in the news? 

Perry: There was a bizarre story about some guy addicted to LinkedIn.  Pathetic! 

Brandon: What are they doing for him?

Perry: The doctors are gradually weaning him off LinkedIn and getting him addicted to Facebook and Twitter, like normal people.

Brandon: Hope it helps.  (pause)  Hey, Dad, have you seen this?

Brandon produces from his pocket as jagged oblong stone several inches long.

Perry: That looks oddly like Sara Jessica Parker's profile, only less equine.  Where did you find it?

Brandon: Out back last night.  It was glowing in the darkness.

Perry:  Oh my God!  That could be a cosmic relic left over from the original Big Bang, some 15 billion years ago!  

Brandon:  Really? 

Perry:  Or it might have dropped out of some kid's Happy Meal. 

Brandon:  I picked it up because it  looks like the kind of object that could do magical things. Like cause people to change identities in those movies where parents and kids change places. 

Perry: (laughs)  If only that could be!  Even for a day. 

Brandon:  As they say, careful what you wish for ....

Perry: How many of those stupid movies did they make anyway?

Perry approaches the stone with a growing fascination. 

Brandon: Well, let's see: There's Freaky Friday, Vice Versa, Like Father Like Son, 18 Again, 17 Again, two remakes of Freaky Friday, the similarly themed  Big ... there must be thousands!  

Perry:  What if there were just one more?  (begins singing, if you could call it that)  I was just 17.   You know what I mean.   And the way I looked was way beyond compair-aire!  

As Perry sings (if you could call it that), the stone begins to glow a bright green.  Both Perry and Brandon begin to squirm, make goofy faces, and act weird.  Nothing new for Perry.

Brandon:  Dad, what's happening? I'm feeling faint ... feeling strange ...

Perry: I warned you about the sushi at Miguel's Little Touch of Tijuana!

The lights flicker on and off several times.  When they remain on at last, we witness Brandon with a smirk on his face and Perry looking like someone dropped the world's largest goldfish down his pants.     

Perry is now in Brandon's body (the audience sees Brandon).  Brandon is now in Perry's body (the audience sees Perry.)  I know what you're thinking --- what audience?

Brandon (as Perry):  I feel awful.  I feel neurotic and insecure.  I need therapy.  I need a blankie!   Dad, how do you feel?

Perry (as Brandon):  Ready to rock and roll!  

ACT II

Perry (as Brandon)  walks through the hallways at the high school  looking  giddy as a schoolgirl!  Although he is actually a schoolboy --- that's just an expression.  We're not going to pull a gender swap on you too!

Perry (as Brandon):  Wow!  Look at all these young people!  And I'm  one of them!

First Teen:  Hi-ya, Brandon!  How are ya?

Second Teen:  Bran, my man!  What's  goin' down?

Third Teen (Benji) :  Bran, over here!  Got somethin' to talk to you about!

Perry (as Brandon): Ah, to be popular again!  (pauses)  What am I saying?  I was never popular.   I was voted "Most Likely to Be Voted Least Likely."

Everywhere, from all sides, Perry (as Brandon) is eating up the attention and acceptance. 

Perry (aside) OMG, look at that one!  Why, she must be The Hottest Girl in All the Eleventh Grade!   And ... and ...  she's coming this way!

Leona: (flirty)  Hi, Brandon ....

Perry (as Brandon):  (clumsily trying to be flirty back)  Hullo!  No, no ....  I mean Helll-OOO!   No, no .... I mean  Hey There, Hi There, Ho There!  (idiotically going into the Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song from the 50's TV show.)

Leona:  Somthing wrong, Brandon? 

Perry (as Brandon):  No, just clearing my throat ...

Leona: Brandon, I wanted to say that being together yesterday was great!  I can't believe we did EVERYTHING!

Perry (as Brandon):  (clueless) Yes, it certainly was great!   Doing EVERYTHING is always so ... (pause)  wait a minute ... what?  

Leona:  I can't believe we did EVERYTHING! 

Perry (as Brandon):  That's right, of course.  We did EVERYTHING.   Umm ... what did we do?

Leona: (giggles) Silly!  You know.  EVERYTHING!  

Perry: (high-pitched) You mean, EVERYTHING  as in EVERYTHING  EVERYTHING???!!!  

Leona: (playful) I was really hoping this afternoon we could ... you know, do some more! 

Perry (as Brandon)  More EVERYTHING?!!  No, no, Brandon can't ... I mean, I can't do any more EVERYTHING today!  Or any day!  I ... umm ... have to be in the synagogue!  

Leona: The synagogue?

Perry (as Brandon): Yes, yes, I'm becoming Orthodox!  Actually, an Orthodox rabbi!  I won't be available for the next six months ...  I mean, six years! 

Leona:  Brandon, are you feeling well?

Perry (as Brandon):  Just swell!  Gotta go!  Coming, Yahweh!

As Perry breaks away from Leona, he stumbles into Benji.

Benji:  Brandon, comin' over to my house later?  We've got another batch of that Great Shit we had last weekend. 

Perry (as Brandon):  (intrigued) Great Shit?

Benji:  Yeah,  remember?  Last week we had to scrape you off the ceiling it was so awesome!

Perry (as Brandon): (flustered) Oh .... that Great Shit!  That awesome! Well, thanks so much, but I've got to cut down on my scraping!  Doctor's orders!

Breaking away from Benji, Perry is buffeted about by the other students in the hallway, finding himself face to face with two kids sitting at a desk in front of a poster that reads "FUTURE TEA BAGGERS OF AMERICA."

Perry (as Brandon):  And you two .... Don't even think about it!

Perry (as Brandon) races out of the school.  

ACT III

Perry (as Brandon) bursts into house.  Finds Brandon (as Perry)  dressed in ill-fitting workout clothing attempting unsuccessfully to touch his toes.

Perry (as Brandon):   Brandon, we've got to switch back!

Brandon (as Perry): I'll say.   Being in this body makes a night in the Bates Motel seem like a weekend at the Four Seasons.

Perry (as Brandon): Well, you shouldn't expect to be able to touch my toes right away.

Brandon (as Perry): Touch your toes?  I can't even wave to your knees!

Perry (as Brandon): (changing tone) You've got some things to answer for, mister! 

Brandon (as Perry):  (surprised) Like what? 

Perry (as Brandon):  Like doing EVERYTHING yesterday afternoon with Leona Bushman, the Hottest Girl in All the Eleventh Grade!

Brandon (as Perry): Doing everything yesterday afternoon with Leona Bushman, the Hottest Girl in All the Eleventh Grade?

Perry (as Brandon):  I didn't do EVERYTHING with ANYBODY until I was twenty-fou ... umm,  umm .... I mean, a little bit older than you,  and it was a considerably worse looking ANYBODY that I did EVERYTHING with and probably a considerably worse EVERYTHING with ANYBODY that I did! 

Brandon (as  Perry):  (calmly)  Dad, we did EVERYTHING on the book report we've been working on together in the library this week. We were going to do more today for extra credit.

Perry (as Brandon): (deflated) Oh.  (picking up intensity again)  But stay away from that kid with the Great Shit so awesome they have to scrape you off the ceiling!

Brandon (as Perry): You mean, Benji?  His mom's dynamite chocolate chip cookies?  Why?

Perry (as Brandon): (deflated) Oh.  (picking up intensity again)  But stay away from ...

Brandon (as Perry):  .... of course I have no intention of signing up for the Future Tea Baggers of America.  

Perry (as Brandon):  Oh. (mildly) Glad we had this little chat. 

Brandon (as Perry):  I've got an idea.  (approaches the stone and begins singing, if you can call it that)  I was just seventeen, you know what I mean ...

The stone begins to glow and in a instance the two are returned to their proper bodies. Each breathes a sigh of relief.

Brandon:  So, glad that's over!  Being 61 was about as much fun as looking 61.   

 Perry: Yeah, well ... hey! (shoots him a look)  Y'know, I didn't like being 17 either.

Brandon: You didn't?

Perry: I didn't particularly enjoy passing up on things I would have enjoyed because I don't want you to enjoy them.  At least, not yet.

Brandon: That didn't make any sense.

Perry:  It did to me.

Brandon:  Know what, Dad?  We ought to get rid of that stone.  Like Harry does with  Voldemort's wand at the end of Harry Potter. 

Perry: Well, let's not be so hasty!  Maybe we could ... umm ... try it again, but instead of with you maybe with one of your friends who's kind of riff raffy?

Brandon:  Nah, I'm going to take it and throw it in the trash dump, Dad.  And then I'm off to the library.

Perry:  Sure.  (a bit sadly)  Say hi to the Hottest Girl in All the Eleventh Grade.

Brandon leaves. Perry gives a peculiar look, gets out the telephone book, and dials.

Perry:  Hi, is this Benji's dad?  Hello, this is Perry, Brandon Block's dad.  Y'know, Brandon's been bragging  about the chocolate chip cookies your wife makes,  and I wondered ...   Oh! She does bake cookies.  Happy to send me some? Scrape me off the ceiling, you say?  Thank you so much.

Perry hangs up. 

Perry:  DAMN!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Impossible Dream

 "My Boy Bill, I will see that he's named ...."
 

He’s explained it all at last.  And who'd ever have guessed?

In an interview appearing in this week’s Newsweek/Parade/High Times Magazine, Former Vice–President Dick Cheney has finally explained the reason for his trademark obnoxious and offensive manner which has rendered him the last person on earth you'd ever want to hang with unless you have a full-blown death wish and hope to be accidentally shot.

“It’s my love of Broadway musical theatre,” Mr. Cheney revealed in the interview. “I always longed to be a song and dance man but my parents said I should do something practical, that I didn’t have the looks for show business. I told them Jason Alexander doesn’t have the right looks either and he sings and dances, but they told me that was years ago, he's so typecast as George Costanza now he can't even get a Rolled Gold Pretzel deal anymore!'”

“So I entered politics,” said Cheney,” but it was torturous for me to sit in meetings discussing NATO alliances and Middle Eastern oil rights when all I could hear over and over in my head was  'My Boy Bill, I will see that he’s named after me .... I will!' ”

"Wait a minute!  Could it be?  What if he ...."

"As Vice-President, I knew we had to invade Iraq the moment I learned Sadam Hussein had made it mandatory that all Iraqis attend at least one performance of Momma Mia!   A brutal monster like that had to be destroyed!"

“The conflicts I had with Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice all stemmed from the horrible things they said about my favorite musical,  Avenue Q,  and the song  It Sucks to Be Me.  Their comments even made several of the puppets in the show cry,” said Mr. Cheney, his voice choked with emotion.

“I’m sorry if I’ve been out of sorts at times,” said Mr. Cheney “but I’m going to be a sweetheart from now on.  You see, I’m finally following my dream and next week I open on Broadway in the revival of Paint Your Wagon! I hope Condi and Colin will come to the opening as my guests, because I’m singing the show stopper They Call the Wind Mariah!  

And I’ll be singing it, America,  just for YOU!

HIT IT, MAESTRO!

Oh way out West, they got a name

For rain and wind and fire,

The rain is Tess, the fire's  Joe

And they call the Wind  ....

MARIAH!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To Sing or Not to Sing

It has always bothered me that I cannot sing.

Carry a tune? I can’t even lift one.

My semester-by-semester  grades in Vocal Music on my junior high report card read like the provocative bra size of a woman whom if I ever met I would most certainly propose to on the spot!

D .... D .... D .... D

My musical disability, however, has never prevented me from singing.  I sing in the shower, in the car, and occasionally just while walking down the street.

Since I sound something like the late actor John Wayne performing scat selections from the Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks, sometimes when I’m traipsing through Philadelphia warbling Stairway to Heaven, people hustle their children across the street as though I were a drooling degenerate instead of merely a menace to the membranes of the inner ear. 

Sadly my musical infirmity has been passed on to my 16 year old son Brandon, whose vocal stylings sound as if they were specially arranged just for him by John McLaughlin of The McLaughlin Group.   Sometimes even I want to tell him to shut the hell up!

But I know how it is; music is in our very souls!

Too bad it isn’t in our diaphragms.

Recently Brandon and I both took in the hottest show on Broadway, The Book of Mormon. Watching the show, I envisioned myself singing and dancing with the cast and earning a thunderous standing ovation as admiring audience members turned their smiling and winking faces towards one another as if to say

 "Wow! An ungainly overage  Jewish star is born!”

Brandon probably had a similar fantasy,  except it most likely also entailed 16-year-old female members of the audience hurling undergarments at him.  In my fantasy, women in my peer group were heaving intimate objects as well --- in this instance, dentures.

Exiting the show, the two of us couldn’t help but perform a duet of the show's signature song.

"I believe ...." I belted out with the same melodious vocal quality I produce after eating clams at Moe's House of Five Day Old Seafood.

"....  that one day I'll have my own planet!" chimed in Brandon, performing in a manner that would inspire many to want to blast him off to that planet far sooner than he'd intended.

Even in a town as jaded as New York, passersby glared.  A mounted policeman's horse reared in panic, throwing the officer into a Starbucks storefront window and just narrowly missing a Starbucks storefront window!

A group of school children wept.

It was apparent Brandon and I were costing musical theater countless fans with every mega off-key note we sang.

“Bran," I said, “Maybe we ought to cut the singing. People are staring at us and not  for the purpose of lining up the affectionate tossing of undergarments!"

"Why, Dad? We're on Broadway in the coolest city in the world.  It's fun!"  

“Yes, but when the people here ….”

“Just don’t give a crap, Dad.  Just enjoy!"

Brandon, of course, was right.  He usually is.

I jumped back into I Believe from The Book of Mormon and scatted it as only the late Duke could!

For all The Big Apple to enjoy. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Book of Orman

Broadway Beat

by Nels Noodleman

It has been called a cross between My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Sound of Music but without the boring slow spots and album filler songs.

“The greatest musical I have ever seen!” New York Times Broadway critic Bentley Benchley has raved. “I laughed, I cried, I totally revamped the portfolio to my 401 (k) plan!” And the score, including the hit song People First, Then Money, Then Things (But Mostly Me!)*, has the nation’s toes tapping like a flamenco dancer on crack!

The show is The Book of Orman, Broadway’s smash hit reverential tribute to renowned financial advisor, author, motivational speaker, and kill joy television host Susan "Suze" Orman by legendary South Park satirists, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

This Broadway beat reporter was privileged to catch up with the show’s two creators for a tangy lunch last week at Olive Garden. The duo told me their boundless admiration for Ms. Orman began several years ago when she denied them an on-air request to add several conservative Republican fourth graders to South Park’s regular ensemble of pint-sized protagonists because they failed to “show her the money!”

“Even Cartman loves Suze!” beamed the oft-beaming Mr. Parker. “We skewer just about every half-assed social trend,  ego-maniacal celebrity, and political debacle on the planet,” added Mr. Stone, “but Suze Orman is sacrosanct. And if you don’t agree, you’re a dick!”

The Book of Orman concerns two Mormon missionaries  who set out to bring faith and hope to poor villagers in Uganda terrorized by a vicious war lord who brutally forces them to remain seated during those portions of religious services when they’re supposed to stand and prohibits them from reading silently while I read aloud!

In two and half hours of groundbreaking theater, with a 15 minute intermission for women in the audience to futilely stand in line for the Ladies Room, the missionaries tunefully learn that it isn’t the message itself that’s liberating, it’s that the message be conveyed by an at best marginally attractive but essentially dumpy looking 60-year-old woman  with an irritating manner of speaking and a dopey blonde Dorothy Hamill haircut.

The Book of Orman has won a record setting 37 Tony Awards including Best Musical Score by a Jewish Gay Man, Best Choreography Involving Feet, and Best Actor in a Musical Who Isn’t Nathan Lane.

This reporter was privileged to see The Book of Orman when it opened, and I believe it is the greatest American theatrical experience since Our American Cousin, which I was also privileged to see when it opened. It sets an extremely high bar for the upcoming Side by Side by Stewart, Stephen Sondheim's musical tribute to the infectious and irrepressible spirit and personality of Martha Stewart.

In the words of the great Suze Orman, I’m telling you this is one marvelous show, girlfriend!  If you miss it, you’re a dick!

From your very own  Broadway Buddy,

Mr. Nels Noodleman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*The actual song from The Book of Mormon  is You and Me (But Mostly Me!) 

Aquaman: Pull Out The Plug

Broadway Beat

 by Nels Noodleman  

It’s been quite an amazing spring on Broadway, folks!

South Park iconoclasts Trey Parker and Matt Stone have scored the season’s biggest hit with a musical called The Book of Mormon, and the much bally-hooed Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark continues to languish with multiple creative changes, reviews worse than your Aunt Matilda's breath, and a price tag that refers to the National Debt as “Squirt.”

Famed Broadway impresario and notary public Perry Block leaned back in his chair and smiled. “When my new musical opens,” he told me on the QT, “we’ll run them all out of town …. or at least into the lobby where they can enjoy an orange drink and a 35 minute wait for the Ladies Room!" 

That new musical is Aquaman: Pull Out the Plug, based on the superhero comic book Mr. Block used to get beaten up regularly for reading in grade school.

“My musical will shatter the myth that Aquaman is the superhero so boring you’d rather spend an evening with Alan Greenspan,” Mr. Block told this reporter. “Let’s say the late Jacques Yves Cousteau had become deranged and sought to destroy the entire universe! Who else you gonna call in? True, we’ve slightly beefed up Aquaman's powers for his Broadway debut. In addition to talking to fish, he can now also talk to vegetables, such as some parsley!”

I asked about the intriguing new villain the play refers to as "the brilliant but demonically fiendish" Dr. Moriarty.

“Yeah, we snaked him from the Sherlock Holmes books and movies,” readily offered the sly Mr. Block, "since the most exciting villain in the original Aquaman comic books was a mackerel.  Frankly we're also considering swapping out AquaLad for Dr. Watson since they're so busy retooling the franchise with Robert Downy Jr. they'd hardly notice that  Holmes’ sidekick suddenly spends the better part of his time gill breathing at the bottom of the Thames.”

Mr. Block is no stranger to Broadway audiences. In recent years he has produced such classics as Jesus Christ Superstar performed entirely by Hassidic Jews; Enter Slapping, a musical based on the life of Three Stooges centerman Larry Fine; and last season’s musical comedy smash Once, Twice, Three Times A Lady starring Newt Gingrich.

“We have a wonderful musical score with music and lyrics written by the legendary Rogers and Hammerhead (Ouch, folks!)," Mr. Block beamed.  "Among the ‘sure to be a hit’ numbers are If I were a Fishman, the haunting ballad High Tide, Low Tide, and the rousing show-stopper Hello Dolphins!”

“What about safety problems such as those that have plagued the production of Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark?” I queried Mr. Block. “We have had very, very few such issues,” he informed me. “Two or three actors experienced cramps on one occasion they went into rehearsal less than 45 minutes after eating, and our lead actor briefly came down with a very mild case of wrinkly fingertips.”

“I’m thrilled to be able to present a dynamic hard-swimming, singing and tap-dancing Aquaman to a new generation of fans,” Mr. Block enthused as he graciously excused himself and headed out to a 6 or 7 martini lunch at Sardi’s.

Having been around the Great White Way ever since it was called the Pretty Good White Way, this Broadway vet thinks Aquaman: Pull Out the Plug will make one great big SPLASH at the Box Office!  

Break a Fin, Aquaman!

After all, folks, what other superhero can all at once command an army of sharks, swim faster than Michael Phelps, and taste absolutely scrumptious in a butter sauce?

From your very own Broadway Buddy,


Mr. Nels Noodleman

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The Happiest Mixed Marriage in Show Business

                   

By Courtesy of Parade Magazine

Rose “Ma” Nishtanah turns from the stove, having tossed the last sprig of dill into her bubbling and internationally famous Matzoh Ball Soup.

“You know,” she says, “he’s never eaten so much as a spoonful of it, and yet I still love the guy anyway!”

At the kitchen table, Eustace “Pa” Rumpumpumpum smiles. “I know she and some of the children love it, but frankly it can’t hold spit to my delicious Safeway Cream of Mayonnaise soup!”

It’s like that a lot in the home of show business’ happiest mixed marriage, that of the iconic Ma Nishtanah and Pa Rumpumpumpum. Married for almost 35 years, the two of them keep their relationship flowering despite differences that’d make Sarah Palin and film maker Michael Moore seem like bunkmates!

Pa explains as he gives me a tour of the elaborate wood and metal working shop in the basement of their home.

“It’s the respect we have for each other’s traditions,” he says, “that keeps us going strong. She doesn’t bug me when I’m watching NASCAR, and I don’t bother her when she’s busy looking at Jon Stewart or some other Jewish-dominated mainstream media crap!”

This idyllic relationship didn’t happen overnight.

Eustace Rumpumpum (as he was then known; he added the third ‘pum’ later when he was able to afford it) came out of a dirt-poor Arkansas town so poor it didn’t even have dirt to score a number of gospel based hits, including “Jesus Loves Me, But I Just Wanna Be Friends, ” ”Amazing Nancy Grace,” and the cross-over album that forever associated him with the holidays “A Glenn Beck Christmas.”

Subsequently acquiring the nickname Pa for no discernable reason whatsoever, Eustace’s shaky first marriage to cocktail waitress/roller derby queen/ Associate Professor of Russian Literature at the University of Southern California Tammy Lynette Hairnette ended tragically when he audited her course on Tolstoy and still managed to flunk.

Rose Nishtanah's journey to fame began when her parents fled the Russian shtetl of Anapaquin to escape marauding bands of Cossacks which chased them all the way to 57th street before deciding to give up and sail back home. With a talent for song and dance, Rose became the toast of Broadway performing with her sisters as “Ma and the Joongs,” earning herself a nickname that would forever ensure her tons of free press every Passover.

Like Pa, Ma suffered a failed first marriage to the charming Irwin “Buddy” Berenson, a dapper Broadway ne’er do well who wore a pencil thin mustache because he had gambled away all the hairs in a regular size one. Smitten hard, Rose stood by Buddy as he systematically went through her Fortune, her Time, and her entire collection of National Geographics before dying penniless and mustache-less at age 43.

Both unlucky in love, Ma and Pa met each other on the set of the old “Hollywood Palace” TV program.

“I never realized how attractive a Jewess could be,” says Pa, “before she’d yet fallen under the sway of the Devil’s dominion.” For her part, Rose adds “I’d hadn’t ever dated a man who wasn’t a doctor, lawyer, or someone who’d inherited his father’s auto parts store.”

Within a week, the two were married and disowned by both sets of parents. Nonetheless, both credit their personal happiness as sparking the separate phenomenal success each has since enjoyed in motion pictures, television, concerts, Hadassah fundraisers, and “I Love the Second Amendment” bake sales.

Rejoining Ma in the kitchen, the couple affectionately speak about their large family of six children, three of which are Jewish and three of which are Southern Gentile What's-a-Who-Sis.

“I have three wonderful children,” kvells Ma, “and three more too.” 

“I dearly love all my children," Pa adds, "the Jewish ones almost as much as the real ones.”

With both still highly active in show business, we asked Ma and Pa what performers they each personally enjoy today.

“That Mel Gibson,” says Ma, “he’s quite an exciting action hero, and still such a dreamboat!”

“And I have always loved Ms. Barbra Streisand,” chimes in Pa. “She was so very affecting in Yentl.”

For a moment, each stares at the other.

Suddenly a steaming hot plate of Matzoh Ball Soup comes sailing on a direct course toward the venerable country star’s ever greasy head. It narrowly misses his pompadour and splatters off the wall behind the kitchen table. Pa swiftly sends his half-opened Budweiser in the direction of the sink, missing Ma but scoring a frothy hit on a nearby jar of herring.

All at once both of them break out laughing hysterically.

Sometimes our differences,” Ma Nishtanah and Pa Rumpumpumpum --- two halves of the happiest mixed marriage in show business --- say almost in unison, “are less than they seem.”

That should be true for us all.

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Not a Member of the Tribe? 

    Ma Nishtahah  -  name for the traditional "Four Questions" asked every Passover by the youngest child at the Seder. The questions ask "Why is this Night different from all other nights?" and go on to confound and perplex from there.

    kvell - to express delight and pride.  I know, I know --- doesn't happen much with you and me.