Celebrating birthday week of "Carolina in the Morning" writer Gus Kahn

 Celebrating the birthday week of "Carolina in the Morning" writer Gus Kahn -

From 2012 -"Nothing Makes me Gladder Than To Be an All-That-Chatter in the Morning"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iahkfqVVUD4

Looking forward to MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG movie release -"All The Good Seats Are Going" -Sondheim parody

 Costs keep going up as overall profitability of Broadway for the investors looks less likely, and yet there's big money if a show has stars and the potential for screen and streaming.

Perfect example of star power and screen and streaming potential at work: the upcoming screen version of the smash big-name revival of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG

"All The Good Seats Are Going" - parody of "Good Thing Going"

https://youtu.be/iOnaRa7u4io

As we look forward to the MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG movie release, recalling how the Broadway revival of the legendary 1981 disaster MERRILY was one of the hottest Broadway tickets ever, not just the hottest Sondheim ticket.

"Starry Starry Show" - PARODY - The high price of (the show) "Art" on Broadway

With the affordability crisis being such a part of life (and the mayor race) in New York City, and meanwhile a three-actor Broadway play like "Art" having grossed $1.7-million last week, it felt like an appropriate time for this parody-tribute.

"Starry Starry Show" - 

PARODY - The high price of (the show) "Art" on Broadway

https://youtu.be/dKl25SQROCo

Here's "Comey, Make Believe" - Parody of "Only Make Believe" from SHOWBOAT

  Here's "Comey, Make Believe" - Parody of "Only Make Believe" from SHOWBOAT

POLITICS LOOKBACK TO WHEN PRES. TRUMP ACTUALLY CALLED JIM COMEY A "SHOWBOAT"

This is the YouTube link.

https://youtu.be/C7z6qHMAZBo

With announcement of DREAMGIRLS 2026 - YouTube Parody of "Hard To Say Goodbye, My Love"

 Considering the worldwide talent search promised by the new DREAMGIRLS - 

Do they really intend to do a revival without some really really big names in this mid-2020's star-crazy box office climate?

YOUTUBE PARODY - 2020's FANS REACT:

“It Takes Stars to Make Us Buy, My Love”
Tune of “Hard to Say Goodbye, My Love” from DREAMGIRLS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSV0h8S4Puc

Show Tune Parodies as a NYC summer ends: The $2-billion Waldorf Astoria renovation and Police use of facial recognition

 Some new parody YouTubes about goings-on in New York: 

Here's our YouTube for The Waldorf Astoria's $2-billion renovation/reimagining.  (As they say, a billion here, a billion there, soon you're talking real money!) 

"Everything Glows" parody to "Anything Goes"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALmjVTq1ODM

And with police intrusiveness on people's minds - Maybe a show tune parody can make the iffy use of facial recognition techniques more palatable to the public?

"You're Getting Busted By Your Face" - Parody of "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face"

 https://youtu.be/GR3XzrbKxjs

The link for new (mainly theater-related) parody lyric book - 6th in my "21st Century Oldies" series

 Here's the Amazon link for my new (mainly theater-related) parody lyric book - the 6th book in my 21st Century Oldies parody lyric series

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FLPRB2Z7?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

21st Century Oldies, The First Quarter Century: What A One-Percent World!

Sing-along parody lyrics by Fred Landau, 21st century events sung to the tune of musical favorites.

Topics and 21st century events included:
SKYROCKETING COST OF ENTERTAINMENT
CLIMATE AND GLOBAL WARMING
ECONOMIC CRASH & BAILOUT OF 2008
PANDEMIC & SOCIAL DISTANCING
POLITICAL TURNING POINT: THE 2016 ELECTION
APPENDIX: A COLLECTION OF BEATLES PARODIES

ABOUT FRED LANDAU’S PARODIES:

Fred’s parodies in the New York Times reader comments section caused Broadway legend Lin-Manuel Miranda to tweet: “Freddie the NYTimes commenter is a local treasure.”  The New York Times reprinted Lin-Manuel Miranda's tweet - bottom of this article https://archive.nytimes.com/artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/service-advisory-artsbeat-is-finished/index.html

Fred’s Sondheim, Sesame Street and Katy Perry parodies have also been written about in articles for The Village Voice by Michael Musto.  

https://www.villagevoice.com/hilarious-gay-spoof-of-im-still-here/ 

and  https://www.villagevoice.com/katy-perry-brought-sex-to-sesame-street/ 

Financial Times critic Brendan Lemon covered Fred’s parody of A Little Night Music on his site and said “A Little Site Music: Brilliant.”  

http://www.lemonwade.com/2009/11/25/a-little-site-music-brilliant/

Comedy great Mark Evanier called him “master parody-writer Fred Landau” https://www.newsfromme.com/2011/10/25/todays-video-link-545/ 

when writing about Fred’s YouTube videos. Fred's  YouTube parody work was also excerpted on Jeanne Moos reports on CNN (AC360, Situation Room).

Fred’s tribute to the new Sondheim Theatre (“Losing My Sign”) was included in the NYU Patell & Waterman History of New York course materials. Economics Prof. David Albrecht, who reports on economics in pop culture, named Fred’s AIG spoofs #2 and #9 in his Top Ten Bailout Parodies rundown.

FRED’S OTHER WORK

Fred’s work from the musical ACROSS STATE LINES got him a Finalist slot (top six of over 100 entries) in the Fred Ebb Award competition for musical theater writing. He received two Midtown International Theater Festival Award nominations for the book/lyrics and production of I NEVER MISS A LARRY KRAMER MUSICAL (which ran at NYC's Roy Arias Theater); the show's leading lady Jennifer Pace won the Best Actress award in a field of 25 shows.

He wrote the book for the musical THE LAST STARFIGHTER (Second Story Repertory summer 2018; Cleveland’s Blank Canvas Theatre Dec. 2022; debuted at New York's Storm Theatre; also NYMF - Theater at St. Clements); as well as the book and score for THE HAPPIEST OF TIMES (Triangle Theater, workshops BMI, ASCAP, Circle Rep).

In praising Fred’s work on THE HAPPIEST OF TIMES at ASCAP, critic/historian Martin Gottfried said the work “was defined by the invention of its creators. It sounded like itself and like nothing else...They invented their own language for musical theater and it had nothing to do with anything else that I’ve seen, really, in terms of musical theater.” Peter Filichia in Theater Week said “a stunning piece of writing by librettist-composer-lyricist Fred Landau.”

Fred graduated from Harvard Law School & has Masters degrees from Brooklyn College and NYU Law School. Other musical theater projects include VIVA MAX! - co-author of a musical based on Jim Lehrer's novel: and FAMILY MUSIC - co-writer (with Marian Wiener) of this musical about the effect of the Afghanistan War on a Long Island family in the ever-changing music business.  Fred also wrote SING ALONG WITH RICK, a novelization of the show FAMILY MUSIC, also available on Amazon.