December 27, 2006

Jennifer Holliday: Not Going

Filed under: 2cents,Broadway,Links,Music,News — offoffbway @ 3:36 pm

Another Jennifer tidbit – Greg Braxton of The Los Angeles Times (reprinted in the Kansas City Star) interviews Ms. Holliday, who says:

Instead of being swept up in the hoopla over the new film adaptation of “Dreamgirls,” Holliday is being swept aside.
“Why is it necessary for them to wipe out my existence in order for them to have their success? It’s scary that they can be so cruel.” [said Holliday]

Well, I don’t think they thought about you at all, actually. Which may not be nice, but when studios produce a $75 million dollar movie, they usually aren’t that concerned with being nice. I don’t think the movie will do any damage to Holliday’s legacy, although admittedly future generations may see Hudson’s version as ‘definitive’, which it isn’t. Then again, this show business, and actors, especially stage actors, always get shafted (see also: Kathleen Chalfant not getting to play her role in Wit for just one glaring example).
As much as we do feel that Holliday is a little over the top in her criticism, this seemed unnecessary:

After weeks of suffering privately with the constant “Dreamgirls” onslaught — particularly the raves surrounding the other Jennifer — she said the final crushing blow came the night before her Ars Nova stint when she watched Hudson on “Entertainment Tonight” as Holliday’s version of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from the original cast recording played during the segment.

“When I saw that, I just gave up,” she said. “I thought, ‘This is a hopeless situation. I am being canceled out as an artist.’ ”

Memo to Dreamgirls the movie’s producers: play the new version of the song. If not that’s just mean.

Kansas City Star | 12/25/2006 | It’s no ‘Dream’ for Jennifer Holliday

The original is better

Filed under: Links,Music,Video — offoffbway @ 3:26 pm

With the Dreamgirls movie opening this week, and everyone going gaga for Jennifer Hudson who plays Effie, we thought we’d show you a clip of the original Effie, Jennifer Holliday, as she blows the roof off of the 1982 Tony Awards with “I’m Telling You I’m Not Going.”
You also get to see the late, great Tony Randall, who was the host that year.

YouTube – ’82 Tonys–Dreamgirls “And I’m Telling You”

December 20, 2006

New ‘Flavor’ful Sites

Filed under: Links — offoffbway @ 10:34 pm

Flavorpill
Flavorpill now has multiple sites in its ‘network’, focusing on Art, Music, Fashion, World News, and Books, with this review of a new book about thirtysomethings in New York, including one who works at the Village Voice (now that’s specific). FP started a looong time ago, it’s nice to see them grow and become more important.
BTW Flavorpill folk: need a theater site? (Hint, hint.)

December 8, 2006

Review: ‘The Scarlett O’Hara Complex’

Filed under: Last Chance,Listings,Reviews — offoffbway @ 11:55 am

The Scarlett O’Hara Complex
Review by Caroline M. Sun
Scarlett O'Hara Complex

The Scarlett O’Hara Complex is a southern-fried comedy about a group of close-knit, middle-aged women who suspect “murder” when one of them catches her husband in a compromising position. A cross between Nancy Drew and The Golden Girls, these chatty, catty amateur sleuths set about trying to discover and thwart the plot of their wounded friend. In the process, the looming shadow of gentility cast over southern women by the movie Gone with the Wind is juxtaposed against the real-life violence of southern belles like Blanche Taylor Moore and Lorena Bobbitt.
(more…)