158. The Week in Me
More of what I've watched lately including Broadway recommendations!
Hello! A lot of theater recently!
Just in Time (the Bobby Darin Musical)
My dad has adored Bobby D since childhood - his, not mine, but also mine. I spent many a Saturday in our wood-paneled basement learning the obscure tracks, “Standing on the Corner,” maybe a rare utterance of “Look out old Mack, he’s back!” When I learned that Jonathan Groff signed onto a biographic musical, I immediately bought tickets, both hoping to impress my dad and worried that any deviation from the story my dad has read in every biography put to print would lead to his disappointment (I was raised Catholic; fatherly disappointment is a death knell). I didn’t have to worry. At all. The musical shrewdly chose to introduce JONATHAN GROFF to the stage, freeing him to focus not on an parade of mimicked mannerisms or attention to aging himself down for the early years, but on simply delivering a showstopping performance full of gorgeous singing, impassioned dancing, a seat at the drum kit, a xylophone solo, and…a lot of spit. (Groff is FAMOUS for his sputum, and makes a joke at the top of the show about his “wetness” as a performer.)
(My dad did say during the intermission: “He really does spit a lot.” So there’s his take.)
My dad also, because I looked over during every single song, sat there beaming, a light in his eyes largely reserved for my sister Bailey these days, and not to rat my dad out but at the encore…yeah he cried. My 70-year-old retired fireman dad who looks like Bob Hoskins animorphing into Bob DeNiro with a look on his face I’ve never seen in my life until I realized he was crying happy tears, bowled over with joy. (Look at him above, he’s glowing. Aww.) I’d recommend it off of being able to give my dad that dose of joy alone, but there is so much more to extol. The set (hi, Derek!) is a Copa 60’s ice palace, done to perfection in blue and works to immediately set Jonathan Groff on his time-travel journey while sharing with us at the top and bottom how Bobby’s story resonated with him. Gracie Lawrence, playing Connie Francis, had so much chemistry with Groff that I didn’t want to see her go and make way for Sandra Dee. And the twist in Bobby’s family story was so subtly telegraphed that the shades of performance to indicate it it felt like a reward for me, Joe Giancaspro’s daughter who knew this all already. (My dad did say that the scene where all is revealed was likely fictional, as he was unsure that Darin was ever seriously mounting a political run of his own.) And he didn’t even complain about that - just some edification for moi. Go see it. You’ll have a GREAT time, even if you don’t get to take my dad with you.
City of Hope (1991, dir. John Sayles)
Anna was in town for the first time in years and we took a gamble on a random film at The Metrograph. As the title card rolled, we gasped at each consecutive billed name. Angela Bassett! Joe Morton! Chris Cooper! Daddy David Strathairn! Gina Gershon and Kevin Tighe!! (This is a Road House stan account above all things.) And a great, great movie about corruption and futility and how men just need to open UP more. The final shot of David Strathairn’s neurodivergent character stimming on the cold, dark street will haunt me for years. A brave and necessary film, unafraid to get political, thorny, or bleak. Didn’t feel like tragedy porn, just felt like the gambles of life. Highly recommend.
La Belle et La Bete (1946, dir. Jean Cocteau)
Another Metrograph first time watch. To quote Aretha:
A glorious feast. Every dress is a GAG and a half. The practical effects, hands emerging from walls, slow-motion trounces down hallways. My god, this is the perfect movie to have projected onto the wall at your next sexy cocktail party. So poignant despite the insane fur mask that poor man is wearing the whole time.
John Proctor is the Villain
Sobbed. Sobbed. I am so glad I saw this (thank you, Carey!) at this stage of my healing from my sexual trauma and CPTSD diagnosis last year. I wasn’t triggered, as the play evades titillating depictions, verbal or otherwise, of the abuse that occurred for Shelby. Instead, it gently couches educational insight into what grooming can look like, how covert some abuse can be, how victims are gaslit and shamed, and - most richly, for me - what lies the abuse tells the survivor about who they are and what they deserve. The show is funny, vexing, shocking, a bit unrefined to quote Riley in our texts about it, and uses one of my favorite songs of all, all time in first a clever bit of temporal grounding and then in a daggering catharsis in its finale. Those were my tears. I’d love to see this again and if you have the chance, GO. (With me!)
Pirates! The Penzance Musical
David Hyde Pierce sings “I am the very model of a modern major general” and there is a whole entire pirate ship with a rope that a very hot man swings from. Jinkx Monsoon is there. I don’t really know what else I’d need to say here because you should have already said “Oh, shit!” and hopped on Telecharge for a ticket. Thank you Michael Dale for taking me to see my beloved Niles Crane.
The Righteous Gemstones
It’s literally always a good time to watch All That Jazz.
To read:
led a touring walk of the sidewalks of SoHo this weekend, and you can read an abridgement of what was shown here! 
I am so proud of my friend for creating this public museum from the streets of her beloved New York. ❤️ Her passion for urban education is one of the reasons we’re friends - I receive from her constantly about an arena to which I was almost entirely ignorant, and so beyond her sweetness I get to learn and embolden my curiosity.
“Eggs Are Scarce. These People Don’t Miss Them. For some chefs and food writers, the staple has long been a source of disgust.”
From
. I love the structure she chose here.
To act:
Ceasefire Now NJ is organizing a protest for Gaza.
WHEN: May 11, 2025 11:00am - 2pm
WHERE: Louis M. Taglieri Jr. Stadium, Hoboken, NJ
MEET: @10:40 am at Columbus Park Gazebo
While Gazans are murdered and maimed by constant Israeli bombardment, and starved by Israeli siege and blockade preventing any food from entering Gaza, the Israeli American Council (IAC) is hosting a Celebration of Israel in Hoboken, including a flag raising and ceremony.
The Israeli flag and the “independence” of the State of Israel cannot be separated from Israel’s continuous assaults on the Palestinian people, on Gaza, and on the West Bank. The Israeli flag represents genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.
Join with us and the Hoboken Community to protest this callous event, being shamefully held on public school grounds! More than 100 local residents sent emails to the Hoboken Board of Education and the Office of the Superintendent urging them to cancel their approval of the IAC’s use of the public school district’s grounds for this event. The letters were roundly ignored.
Come help us educate the public with informational handouts, detailing Israel’s abuses of the Palestinian people and violations of international law over the past 77 years, most horrifically in the past 18 months of its war on Gaza. Vendors will be selling watermelon slices and donuts to benefit HEAL Palestine.
We want the IAC, the residents of Hoboken and Hudson County, our elected officials, and candidates for public office to understand that there is loud and clear opposition to unconditional support for the State of Israel, on our public school grounds or anywhere else.
This is literally just Simone:
This is literally just Lugosi:
Actually my babies:
Various and sundry:
WINKY.
ME AND WHO:
Love you bitches and please set me up a girl is LONELY,
TG
omg who's cutting onions 😭😭 Thank you so much for those kind words about my walk and love for urban education (and for the adorable descriptions of your dad, I enjoyed reading about his enjoyment so much)
need the joe gideon open heart surgery popcorn bucket yesterday