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| Author | Topic: Bernadette and The Butcher of Broadway |
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srothrock
Registered User
Registered:
9/7/2003 | posted: 9/7/2003 at 5:21:22 PM ET
I wanted to share with you all a really great play I just saw. It is called Bernadette and The Butcher of Broadway. It is a TOSOS2 producction (www.tosos2.org) and runs on these dates:
Fridays 9/5 9/12 9/19 9pm
Saturdays 9/13 9/20/ 9/27 5pm
Sundays 9/7 9/14 9/21 9pm
It is being put on at The Duplex Cabaret Theatre 61 Christopher Street 2nd floor at 7th ave NY, NY 10014.
Ms. Peters is not in the play but it is great none the less. Here is the description:Lurid Hype and Vicious Headlines! Professional rivalry turns very ugly when a bet between highly influential theatre critics Morgan Rydell and Brian Bradley degenerates into a no holds barred war for control over public opinion. Part homage to a Broadway legend (a.k.a. Ms Peters) and part commen-tary on the power of the gossipy press, no one is spared in this over-the-top satire. There is a $10.00; 2-drink minimum for the show.You can call 1-212-255-5438 for reservations. I have to say that I do have a connection with the show, as my sister in law to be is in the play. But I think this is really good and some of you may enjoy it!
|  moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 9/7/2003 at 6:18:55 PM ET
I'm going tonight! Can't wait!
|  Christine-NYC
Registered User
Registered:
3/23/2002
From:
New York City
Fav. BP Song: With So Little to be Sure Of
Fav. BP Show: Gypsy
Fav. BP Character: Marie (insert last name) lol There's a few
Fav. BP CD: Bernadette Peters Loves Rogers and Hammerstein
| posted: 9/7/2003 at 6:45:23 PM ET
I read about this a while ago, and I keep meaning to get tickets. Maybe I'll go this coming weekend.
I would go even if it had nothing to do with Bernadette. It just sounds like a good show.
<3CMH<3
|  MsPetersFan1
Registered User
Registered:
6/25/2002
From:
Long Island, New York & Boston, | posted: 9/7/2003 at 10:05:36 PM ET
Oh..I really want to see this! I doubt that I could go tho with school.  People who go, tell us how it is!
~* Megan *~
|  UCFGuardgirl
Registered User
Registered:
6/15/2003
From:
New York City | posted: 9/7/2003 at 10:15:43 PM ET
ohhh, is anyone else seriously going? I'll go if someone else is going (I don't know that downtown area of NY really well yet) so PM me if you're planning on making the trek. It sounds like a lot of fun.
***************
Regis: And look at all this hair. My God. That's a lot of hair. Look at this. How does hair get this way?
Bernadette: Um.. it sort of grew out of my head like this.
-- Live with Regis
| moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 9/7/2003 at 11:05:30 PM ET
Well I'm back. It was GREAT! I laughed hysterically the entire time. The whole cast was just great. It definitely is not for the tourists. You have to know the story of Gypsy going to Broadway not to mention the NYC theater scene as well. Several Broadway personalities are either represented or mentioned as well as several witty remarks about the no smoking ban and the practice of Broadway theaters being renamed after corporation.
To those of you who want to go, it is a little adult, located in the cabaret room above a gay bar and you must be 21 to attend. But if all that works for you, then I highly recommend you go.
Lots of great inside jokes and references to all things Bernadette. Although Bernadette's only appearance is a brief portion of her recording of No One is Alone.
Srothrock, who was your sister in the play?
| MsPetersFan1
Registered User
Registered:
6/25/2002
From:
Long Island, New York & Boston, | posted: 9/8/2003 at 3:40:38 PM ET
Ughh you have to be 21! This sucks!!
~* Megan *~
| Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
66.65.48.x | posted: 9/10/2003 at 9:08:31 AM ET
I SAW IT!!! IT WAS SOOOO FUNNY!
It even brings up the fact that she was Tammy Faye Baker in that TV movie of the week!
A definite must see for any hardcore Bernadette Peters fan.
| PTM
Registered User
Registered:
6/26/2003 | posted: 9/11/2003 at 12:33:49 AM ET
OK, since some of us are going to have to experience this vicariously through those of you actually going, you'll have to give a detailed recap when this play closes or a spoiler post if possible.
PTM
| Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
66.65.48.x | posted: 9/12/2003 at 11:43:39 AM ET
the play opens on the eve of bernadette's final performance in GYPSY. Brantley from the Times and Riedel from the NY Post (names slightly changed in the play) are having a drink after the show and they make a drunken barroom wager. Riedel challenges Brantley to get the ball rolling on a Broadway Revival of MAME starring Bernadette Peters using just the power of his pen. As soon as Brantley's article hits the stands, the NY theater community goes BEZERK!!
| Christine-NYC
Registered User
Registered:
3/23/2002
From:
New York City
Fav. BP Song: With So Little to be Sure Of
Fav. BP Show: Gypsy
Fav. BP Character: Marie (insert last name) lol There's a few
Fav. BP CD: Bernadette Peters Loves Rogers and Hammerstein
| posted: 9/14/2003 at 1:31:34 AM ET
I saw it tonight. I must say, I haven't laughed that hard in a while.
The funniest part had to be when Reidel was trying desperately to write something mean about Bernadette while feeling guilty about doing so since his boss was making him...and you hear a soft version of Bernadette singing "No One Is Alone." And during certain parts, Reidel sings along to it.
Also, when the Producer and the Broadway new-comer are singing a song from Mame, but it's so obvious that they're lip-sinking and that 2 other people are backstage doing the singing.
I really got a kick out of the spoof on "Theater Talk" since I was actually watching it last night and Michael Reidel was interviewing Arthur Laurents pre-Gypsy.
The character of the assistant was a little too annoying at times; but it was funny.
<3CMH<3
| UCFGuardgirl
Registered User
Registered:
6/15/2003
From:
New York City | posted: 9/14/2003 at 2:22:09 AM ET
ACK! I loved it! SOO Funny.
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SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
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YOUVE BEEN WARNED
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So. Reidel, who works for the EVIL New York Post, and Brantley, who works for the "all sweetness and light" New York Times (like anon said) make a drunken wager in a gay bar over whether or not Brantley can get a revival of MAME going with Bernadette. (As Reidel says, "Gypsy's over. From now on it'll be concert dates and dog shows." ) If Brantley can pull this off, Reidel will never again say another bad word about Bernadette. If Bernadette refuses to star and the show's a bust, Brantley can never again write another NICE thing about Bernadette. On the way out, Reidel hooks up with a good looking gay guy who also happens to be a burgeoning Broadway actor.
So begins 'Bernadette and the Butcher of Broadway.'
Soon, Brantley hooks up with Flo, an over-caffinated Broadway Producer who not only hates Reidel, but is determined to win the Tony. She tricks Bernadette's new, somewhat dim assistant, Tracy, into getting Bernadette to look over the contract for MAME. Bernadette eventually agrees to sign.
Reidel, meanwhile, desperate to keep the production from coming into fruition, convinces the rather dimwitted, untalented gay-bar dancer to audition. Before the audition, Reidel "writes up" the gay bar dancer in the Post, saying that he's the biggest thing to hit Broadway in some time, so that the Producer of MAME will want him for the production. (Reidel's plan is that the gay-bar dancer will suck and end up ruining the production.) Reidel also, in the same article, writes a SCATHING, completely falsified review (he tells the gay-bar dancer something like, "Do me a favor. Say 'Bernadette refuses to rehearse with the cast," and the gay bar dancer repeats the sentence, and Reidel immediately writes, "My SOURCES tell me..." LOL) of Bernadette's rehearsals for MAME.
The gay bar dancer makes it to the audition, and convinces the producer (by seducing her in a rather hilariously bad lip-synched audition) to let him play the part. The producer agrees, and by the beginning of the rehearsal run, the gay bar dancer is gleefully appearing at MAME'S newly refurbished theatre, the Helen Hayes Theatre, to celebrate its re-naming: "The Alberto V05 Shampoo Theatre for the Performing Arts. LOL!
At the re-naming celebration party, Reidel invites the producer and the cast of MAME to appear on his show, THEATRE TALK, certain that Bernadette will either refuse him and make herself look bad, or else she'll get so angry with him she'll throw a tantrum on air and denounce the show entirely.
Come air-time for THEATRE TALK, Bernadette is a no-show. Reidel thinks this is great for him. Flo, the producer, however, is nervous and not amused. Bernadette's assistant then shows up two minutes to air time. When Reidel asks how she got there, the assistant (Tracy) says that she was unceremoniously kicked out of the limo three blocks before the studio. Reidel asks why. Tracys says it's because Bernadette was curled on the floor of her limo, upset and throwing a fit after having read the review. Livid, she refused to go on air with Reidel. Reidel, even more amused by this, asks what Bernadette said exactly, and Tracy replies, "Bernadette said,(now reading from notes written on her hand) " 'I hope you choke to death on your own goddamned bile and die on the air.' "
Reidel is now, of course, laughing and pleased as punch, and he drags the dimwitted, reluctant tracy on air hoping she'll "read from her hand" again and reveal what kind of person "Bernadette really is."
Alas, halfway through the broadcast the whole lot of them get a phone call from Brantley:
Bernadette, overwrought and overworked, overdosed on Vicodin in the limo while going BACK to the studio (to go on the show anyway) and was in the hospital on life support.
So of course, everyone rushes to the hospital. There's a really funny line here, when Reidel, suddenly grief stricken, drops to his knees and cries out, "for the love of god it's JUST THEATRE!!"
Anyway. Brantley and the MAME crew try to convince Reidel that all of this is his fault, and that the only way it can be righted is if Reidel writes a glowing review of not only Bernadette's work in MAME, but all of her work, her whole life, everything. (Of course, this is the Peter Pan equivalent of clapping your hands to keep faries from dying, but it's funny so whatever, and now I digress...)
Now, Reidel, under pressure from both his the manager of the POST (who pays him extreme amounts of money just to trash everyone and everything in theatre) and his heart, which is telling him that what he's done to poor ailing Bernadette is BAD.
(Now comes the part Christine was talking about, with 'No One is Alone.' It is perfectly placed, and so funny. Reidel sits trying to write a scathing review on his laptop as the song plays, and he finds that he can't do it. Finally he caves.)
Meanwhile... Gay-bar dancer goes to Bernadette's home to visit Tracy the assistant, and Tracy reveals to him that Bernadette was never sick at all. ("Bernadette never gets sick, she goes on vacation," Tracy says, as if this has happened before, and of course anyone who knows about the Gypsy crap is laughing uproariously at this.) Tracy goes on to say that Brantley cooked the whole thing up to fell Reidel. Bernadette Peters is actually away at Montauk for the week before previews start.
Elsewhere, now feeling relieved, Reidel calls Bernadette's home to ask if she is all right. Of course, she's not there, but Brantley holds the phone up to someone else's lips so Reidel can hear breathing sounds, and, unable to control his squelched adoration any longer, Reidel explodes, "Ohmygod I LOVE you Bernadette! That thing you do with your voice and your lips and when I saw Sunday in the Park with George... let me tell you... I rediscovered what it meant to LOVE!" (this part is also extremely funny. The whole thing is funny, but some parts really stood out.)
In the end, the play goes on, wins 10 tonys, is a rousing success, and Reidel, fired from his paper for printing an article that included the words, "MAME is fantastic; theatre is a religion and Bernadette Peters is GOD," is broke. He's working at the West Bank Cafe, never to write another scathing review of Bernadette Peters again.
The end. 
***************
Regis: And look at all this hair. My God. That's a lot of hair. Look at this. How does hair get this way?
Bernadette: Um.. it sort of grew out of my head like this.
-- Live with Regis
| Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
195.92.198.x | posted: 9/14/2003 at 3:27:03 AM ET
Does a "Bernadette" ever appear in the play or is she just spoken about?
Also, has Ms Peters seen this play; do people know how she reacted?
| UCFGuardgirl
Registered User
Registered:
6/15/2003
From:
New York City | posted: 9/14/2003 at 7:28:13 PM ET
Nobody plays Bernadette in the play. In all scenes she is absent. The play is about her but we never actually see her; it's quite well conceived, in that way.
As far as I know, Bernadette has not seen it. You can, however, pick up postcards that advertize the show from the bar. Christine and I thought it might be funny if we left some for Patty, Bernadette's assistant, at the stage door one night. I have no idea how Bernadette would react. I'd hope she would laugh. lol.
***************
Regis: And look at all this hair. My God. That's a lot of hair. Look at this. How does hair get this way?
Bernadette: Um.. it sort of grew out of my head like this.
-- Live with Regis
| moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 9/14/2003 at 9:01:20 PM ET
Oooo. I didn't see the postcards. What do they look like? Would it be worth me going back to the theater to get one?
| MsPetersFan1
Registered User
Registered:
6/25/2002
From:
Long Island, New York & Boston, | posted: 9/14/2003 at 10:15:12 PM ET
Anyone have an extra?
~* Megan *~
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