So take a peek...

Here's a wonderful project that I worked on a few months back.  Take a peek...give a listen.




Give the gift of POETRY to your VALENTINE.

POETIC LICENSE: 100 Poems/100 Performers

Hear 100 great artists recite their favorite poems on this award winning three-disc CD.

Artists include: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jason Alexander, James Barbour, Cynthia Nixon, Patti LuPone, Kate Mulgrew, Tyne Daly, Michael York, Florence Henderson, Richard Thomas, Kathleen Turner, Joanna Gleason, Chris Sarandon, Barry Humphries, Christine Baranski, Judith Light, and more!!!

ORDER TODAY AT

GPRrecords.com

Amazon.com

itunes

"When I was an undergraduate, an English professor said, in passing, a poem a day keeps the doctor away. He meant, I assume, that being regularly exposed to the best that has been thought and written is a universal medicine. This collection helps bring poetry off the page and back into the ear, where it belongs, and hearing it read with such skill is a constant revelation. I have not found myself ever, for instance, since I was forced to in college, deciding to sit down and read Tennyson or Milton, but hearing them read has made me realize what I've been missing. This is the best of the best, read by the best of the best. I plan on listening to this CD every day on my commute and saving a bundle on my mental health bills."

 --Tom Lutz s books include Doing Nothing, A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America, Crying: A Natural and Cultural History of Tears; American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History

Concert and Newsletter

We'll be announcing a new concert on Monday with the newsletter going out on Tuesday morning so please keep your eyes peeled.  

If you haven't signed up for updates you can do so by clicking

HERE

and simply entering your email address. 

Newsletters are sent out frequently and 

we're going to start some fun new interactive things in 2011.  

Also don't forget that the Holiday Concert site is up and we're expanding it to include Valentine's Day, New Year's, Fourth Of July etc.  Lots of stuff happening so sign up for those updates!

A Great Man

So this is a short story about a wonderful actor with whom I had the pleasure of working in 1992.  God that makes me feel old.


Jay Garner passed away a few days ago and left a hole in the entertainment world, specifically the Broadway world.

JAY

I had the delight to work with Jay on the National Tour of The Secret Garden.  It was my first "BIG" show and with it came some of amazing stories and amazing friendships that have lasted for what seems a lifetime.  (After all isn't that what friendship is supposed to do).

Jay played Ben the Gardner.  His list of credits was longer than I could possibly imagine and at the time I was simply overwhelmed by the people I was working with on this show.  Just a short list of some of the cast members:

Roger Bart
Doulas Sills
Anne Runolffson
and an up and comer...
Audra McDonald

And the list goes on and on.  At that point of course no one had any idea where we would be in terms of our career...that's not completely true.  All of us..every single one of us knew that Audra was special.  There was something about her that just simply let us know that she was going to rise to high heights.

At any rate, Jay Garner, was an integral part of that tour and he made me laugh each and every day.  I'm going to relate a story that I've told a few times.  It's one of those insider stories that I still share to this day and makes me smile every time I tell it.

One night after the show we all headed back to our hotel, I can't remember which city it was in except for the fact that Anne had ordered a mixed green salad and was given Iceberg lettuce only and I remember sitting there at the table as we discussed the pros and cons of Iceberg lettuce.  It was funny at that time, road humor can sometimes be very insular.

After our post show treat we all passed through the lobby to find Roger Bart and Jay sitting there laughing their asses off.  The story that follows goes something like this.

After the show Jay and Roger walked back to the Hotel and Jay retired to his room.  A few minutes later Roger got a phone call from a panic stricken Jay saying that he thought he was having a heart attack as he was short of breath and felt constrictions across his chest.  Needless to say Roger rushed to Jay's room knocked on the door.

I can imagine Roger talking through the door to Jay on the inside... "Jay you OK?  Jay!?"  How did he feels? How was the shortness of breath?  How was the constriction of his chest?

Jay, who was not a small man, opened the door.  He stood there wearing a white tee shirt in full health holding his mic belt in his hand. The mic belt (for those of you non theatre folk) Velcro's tightly around the chest and has a pouch on it to hold the microphone which is used during the show.

As dry as a dry martini Jay said "Forgot to take them mic belt off."

I told ya road humor was very insular but through all of that Jay taught me not to take the world too seriously.  His dry sense of humor was unparalleled except for maybe Roger (which is why I think they got along so well).  Maybe it was because it was my first big show, maybe it was because I spent every day of that year of my life with these people that the memories are so ingrained within me.  Maybe it's because these were and continue to be very special people.

For whatever reason I'm grateful to have shared that time of my life with them.  I'm proud of their successes.  And I'm a better person for having known Jay Garner.  He keeps me smiling even though he's gone.

the iPad

So I've been jonesing for an iPad.  But like all things technical as soon as I were to get one it would become obsolete and if not obsolete the newer version would have cooler stuff.

I've had this discussion with my buddy Mitch from time to time about how long to wait before one buys a piece of technology.  The old one was was do I wait for the iPhone to become available on Verizon or do I just jump into like a lemming and get the current version.

I of course, jumped in and 6 months later it's now available on Verizon.

So now...do I wait for the forward facing camera on the new iPad (rumored of course) or do I just get the damn thing and be done with it?  Procrastination was never my thing.  I'm a "just do it" kind of guy when it comes to making choices such as this but for some reason I've been hesitating.

And of course now I'm looking at all the rumors (not a big rumor guy myself) but the word on the street is that the iPad2 is just around the corner.  There are just so many things I could do with it from personal to professional.  Not to mention it's super coolio!

What I do love is my Apple TV.  Not only is it totally cool too, but I can watch the screeners of all the nominated movies through iTunes in my living room bypassing the DVD player.  What a stellar idea and it's "green."  So thanks to all the studios that agreed to that option.

As a side note.  A great marketing idea for Apple...not that they need it.  Have a commercial shot from the stage of a Broadway theatre in technical rehearsal.  Lights out on stage and in the house. Then have each person on the creative and technical teams power up their laptops.  It happened one night during TALE tech.  The house was a sea of glowing white apples.  It was one of the coolest images I'd seen in a while.

To iPad or not to iPad?