theaterboy®

Spent the morning ...

... at WETA, where the yakking in the green room before today's Around Town taping was largely centered around the new Bond film and the new movie version of Dreamgirls. Yes, the one with (shudder) Eddie Murphy.  Tim Gordon and Joe Barber say it's great, that a screening full of critics applauded it.

Me, I'm reserving judgment.  I've heard other people say Jennifer Hudson aces the part of Effie White. I've even heard people say she makes the role her own.

But have those people watched this?

I'm no knee-jerk, revival-hatin', adaptation-loathing it-was-better-the-first-time queen, I swear, no matter what the Rorschach folk say.

But I do think Hudson's got some serious livin' up to do.  And no matter how good she is, she's not doing it live on stage night after night.  I never saw the original Dreamgirls, as it happens.  But man, if I'd been in that theater, I'd have been throwing chairs from the sheer f*ckin' thrill of being in the same room with all that noise.

Damn, that's a well-built song. And a hell of a performance.

Tboy and Wee Jane on "Nine Parts of Desire"

St. Vivian extends (again?)

If you haven't seen Theater Alliance's world-premiere production of 3/4 of a Mass for St. Vivian, get thee hence.

Phoebe Rusch's astonishingly accomplished play (she's 17, we hate her), plus Paul-Douglas Michnewicz's exquisitely sensitive production, equals one fine bit of theatermaking. And it's been extended to Sept. 10.

The run may extend again to the 17th, Tboy hears. For the moment, though, there's no guarantee of that, so go see it now.

Update: Yup, Tboy got an e-mail about an hour after he first posted this: They've extended again, to Sept. 17.  So check out the Around Town crew's conversation about St. Vivian below -- or download it directly over here at the WETA site.

Tboy is agog.

One of the guys who performs (sometimes) with Dr. H's dance company also turns out to be into popping, and he's pretty good.  Tboy stumbled across this today, though, and he's watched it like three times now. The guy in the red is amaaaaazing.