Our year-end 2020 Blog Year in almost all show tune salutes or parodies

 Our year-end 2020 Blog Year in almost all show tune  salutes

January

“The Hollywood Gown” series tried to pick up where it was  interrupted in 2013 - Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt seemed to hold promise for us all 

https://youtu.be/Zp58fA38qdo

Here's our Oscars 2020 including Billy Porter's outfit https://youtu.be/Ya-MDi9yBJY

February

"Jack and MABEL”- “Type Your Troubles Away” -Jen shouts: ”The critics will love it -or else!"

https://youtu.be/RafIinDbF5A

March 

"Another Hundred Patti Fans Got Off Of Their Phones" (let's pray the revisal can be filmed!)

https://youtu.be/biOPO57uQ1M

April 

"MY FAR LADY" - "I've Sewn a Costume for Your Face"

https://youtu.be/x3RXDyle5sA

May and June

7-minute mini-musical - Make 'em Laugh plus Mama Rose, Patti-as-Joanne, Bianca/Lois Lane, Dorothy with Toto back at Home 

 WHEN WE’RE STUCK AT HOME 

https://youtu.be/s7mTdB7C8fg

July and August - 

7-minute video:  Where we were just before Labor Day- planning to re-open, for better or worse, but by a month later, better not.

https://youtu.be/8vp3LQ3x3so

That's Our Containmentt, Cuomo - You're So Vain, Elbow Connection, and more

September 

"TILL THERE IS HUGH" -  

about the Music Man ad and the hopeful spirit  it's come to signify 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6p1lzm6Rdc

October 

On Ben Brantley's end of an era as Times critic:  

I celebrated my two favorite Ben Brantley London Journal reviews:

This was about the London Journal on Imelda Staunton's scorched-earth Rose in GYPSY:

"Some Roses” 

https://youtu.be/L3YPpAOMV_w

And - Emily's (MJ McAleesejergins) Satine cover of Sheree Sano''s 2014 ”The Bodyguard” original - 

"We Got a Chance 4 Some Hottie”

 https://youtu.be/Pqkd0k6quMU

Sheree's original from 2014 still at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf5nhM026tc

November - 

In honor of David Prowse, the distinguished actor who became best known embodying Darth Vader 

“Darth of Your World”

 https://youtu.be/zBgUp7OrFbk 

December

"Have Yourself a Very Distant Christmas”

https://youtu.be/bBNVI5PCmiM

Remembering our family working with Rebecca Luker -

 In the Times obit, it's mentioned that Danny and Rebecca met on the show "Time and Again, " which Skip wrote with Jack Viertel, though they started dating the following year,  (That production must have had something in the air- Howard McGillin met his now-spouse at a reading of the show.). 

Here's Rebecca's audio of  Skip's song "Fairy Tale Life" from that production

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

Rebecca  is also quoted: “I wish I had branched out a little more,” she said cheerily. “Maybe played a bitch or something.”

After she had done "Darling of the Day" at the York, Rebecca had mentioned that, and I wrote what was really a very detailed treatment built around her, and then a fuller story, which Bill Connington, Ellen Schwartz and Skip Kennon really developed directly for her.    We did a reading of the first act in 2008.mainly to see how she felt about the material.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Luker-Led-New-Musical-TANGLED-WEBS-Holds-Reading-20081213

Money  had been there for a workshop, but  it was the usual   manner large-cast theater projects have of losing momentum, as people's schedules don't allow them to  turn down other  work until there's a deal in place.  

Rebecca recorded the lead role for us on our demos with a lot of members of the cast from that reading.

This was one of my favorite moments where she played "against type."

And I'll Seal It With a Kiss - sung by Rebecca Luker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHf2EsIHY7Q

The almost-full recorded score is here 

http://www.ellenschwartzandfriends.com/tangled-webs

Saluting Irish Rep for really stepping up as an example: We offer a pragmatic-for-2020 "Meet Me on Zoom in St Louis".

 An off-B'way parody-tribute: Saluting the Irish Rep with a pragmatic-in-2020 "Meet Me on Zoom in St Louis"

https://youtu.be/bBNVI5PCmiM

"Have a Merry Distant Christmas (and Have it Yourself!)"

Yikes, it's SUCH a sad song in context. Was it really always "Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow?" - wasn't it more cheery like hang some star on some highest bough? Maybe they changed it for 2020! :)  Of course they didn't, but the whole story resonates tougher somehow. 

Seriously:  All the very best. and break legs to "Meet Me In St. Louis"

And- 

Since it's still relevant:  This came to mind only because of Robert Cuccioli off-Bway at Irish Rep last month. Nothing political meant, of course.

.

THIS IS WHAT JOE MEANT - goal of uniting all sides - this is more an homage/parody.

https://youtu.be/D0YLT0ON0MM

To honor a move FROM what we've had which was an intentional real life Jekyll and Hyde

 

Remembering actor David Prowse, who became best known embodying Darth Vader

 A quick "Darth of Your World" - the parody asks: Will we ever get to see Darth Vader in "Disney's Star Wars" onstage?

https://youtu.be/zBgUp7OrFbk

R.I.P. David Prowse, the distinguished actor who became best known embodying Darth Vader

If you've started looking for musical material for the holiday season'

For the Rockefeller Center "scrawny Christmas tree" controversy.  Is it really worse than any earlier trees before they were decorated, or is it just hitting us as sad because it's 2020. 

'THE TREE'S LOOKING SAD' - Feliz Navidad PARODY-

https://youtu.be/f1CvD2Wh5V0

WE'LL UPDATE THE VIDEO BEFORE CHRISTMAS TO TAKE IN TREE AND OWL UPDATES.  

(Note:The "speaker's nightmare"cartoon at.0:31 in the video is stock material from shutterstock. com)

If you've started looking for musical material for the holiday season's performances:

"In the Season We Love" - music and lyrics by Fred Landau 

A happy shopper and grumpy shopper come to terms over NYC at Christmas time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oyosuNj1jE

A sincere power ballad ANOTHER CHRISTMAS for after Christmas, wishing Christmas would ve back again

Music and lyrics by Fred Landau

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfenKQ7sj1E

And because it's so topical for holiday traveling, here's FLY ME IN THE NUDE about the full-body airline scanners

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn3AcCmPL00

Yingele Rock - same-gender  marriage parody of Jingle Bell Rock - Hannukah 

https://youtu.be/W_eP-Q7aSgw

From 10 Christmases ago - This was an oldie: a Susan Boyle Christmas album parody - 10 years ago today

Glee / Susan Boyle parody - Do You Hear What I Hear spoof [counterpoint thx to "Autotune"] 

https://youtu.be/hLus365HxBw

 

Our videos about trying to find socially distant versions of musicals, laughing because if you don't laugh you might despair

 These were about trying to find socially distant versions of musicals, laughing because if you don't laugh you might despair. 

"MY FAR LADY"  The flower girl is given a mask sewn from flowers at a moment when she's tired of staying in.

"I've Sewn a Costume for Your Face"

https://youtu.be/x3RXDyle5sA

A 7-minute mini-musical - where we were in May

WHEN I'M STUCK AT HOME

https://youtu.be/s7mTdB7C8fg

Parody-song musical, as MJ plays a performer and her daughter making masks while not being able to perform during quarantine and dreaming about the roles she'd love to play- Make 'Em Masks, then Rose (Gypsy), Joanne (updated Company),Bianca/Lois Lane (Kiss Me Kate), and still "Home" a while longer (Dorothy)

If you know the Neil Young song "Gonna take a Lotta Love"

"It's Gonna Take a Lotta Gloves"

 https://youtu.be/P92NrXCxMBw

Where we were in September/October - planning to re-open, but better not.

https://youtu.be/8vp3LQ3x3so

Parodies That's Entertainment-MJ, You're So Vain-Carla, Rainbow Connection -KJ, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together-Carla, Don't Sleep in the Subway-MJ, Your Smiling Face-KJ.

"TILL THERE IS HUGH" -  

about the Music Man ad and the hopeful spirit it's come to signify

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6p1lzm6Rdc

Asking the musical question: Doesn't 6 feet apart beat 6 feet under?

"With My Friend Killing Time"

https://youtu.be/zpXdp6iS40w

(This one not a parody - music and lyric by Fred Landau)

On Ben Brantley's end of an era as Times critic: I celebrated my favorite feature, Ben Brantley London Journal :

On Ben Brantley's end of an era as Times critic: I celebrated my favorite Ben Brantley London Journal reviews:

This was about the London Journal on Imelda Staunton's scorched-earth Rose in GYPSY:

"Some Roses have passed the torch, Got the flame yeah but not the scorch" - https://youtu.be/L3YPpAOMV_w

Music Man Parody update - "Till There Is Hugh" - also some videos I did with Sheree Sano reflecting (to me, anyway) a need for change this Election Day

 Parody update - "Till There Is Hugh"

"TILL THERE IS HUGH" - parody lyric by Fred Landau about the Music Man ad - for social distance era.

This video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6p1lzm6Rdc

Thanks to Sheree Sano for vocal and putting the video together!

Also, these were some of the parody and tribute recordings Sheree and I have done together that reflect these last four years for better or worse, with the Donald attitudes taking hold.

What a One-Percent World - with Sec. Mnuchin

Tune of:  What a Wonderful World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzMi9umls0g

Chatting Is a Show’s Best Friend

Tune of:  Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUa5GGeLdH8

PCs, Apps and Tweets - a good thing:  

Cher spoke her mind on the net and was a Broadway character in The Cher Show.

Tune of:  Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves

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

Sur-charge - The new development, that money is all you need to be a VIP

Tune of: Sir Duke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCl_-xMJE6w

On the political end - we reprise our FALL 2010 “Chrysanthemum Tea Party Overtures,” with a vocal and music production  created by Sheree  reflecting the Tea Party politics of that mid-term election year– 

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taiPOElxQdc

At 2:32 here - I got to duet with Sheree on non-parody song “Finale to Family Music”  (co-written by Marian Weiner &Fred Landau) - from a summer 2017 reading on location at a music venue in Mineola, Long Island.

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

For the Jewish holidays

 

"I Will Survive" parody lyric by Fred Landau - "I'll be Inscribed":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxTuhLayowQ
sungby  Jan Horvath

"Put Your Pain In the Hands of a Jew" - music by Skip Kennon, lyric by Fred Landau
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlzpDsd_q-k
sung by Neal Mayer.
Skip and I write this to submit for a show that had been described as "jokes used as Jewish novocaine" - the show dropped that concept, but recording this was a kick, looking back!

A parody update as re-opening is in full swing, for better or maybe better not. Let's hope.

 A parody update as re-opening is in full swing, for better or maybe better not.  Let's hope. 

The one-minute opening from the 7-minute Labor Day sequel (coming soon) to our "When I''m Stuck at Home" from May, which is still here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7mTdB7C8fg

 That's Entertainment parody -The world's in a stage, a stage where the money fights containment

https://youtu.be/S5fKULcm9Ig  with sing-along lyrics on the screen

A version with some photos is at 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuSeE_KIcVc&feature=yo

 

And here's the closing number.

 "Your Smiling Face" parody - Whenever I see you touch your face, I have to cry and yell- because I love you, yes I do. 

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

 Also Labor Day today is also my father Nat Landau's 100th birthday and there were fun Broadway friends Bill Parry (who starred in the premiere of our Last Starfighter musical) and Maureen Silliman (who starred in our Actors Temple TRU presentation of Viva Max) there by Skype doing a fun birthday hello.  (Mom and Dad used to get on the Florida bus every year and haul their theater loving cookies to Coconut Grove because Maureen Silliman did a show at Coconut Grove.  Dad recalled Mom got so worried when Maureen was playing Marcia Lewis' part in Rags before Paper Mill that Maureen had put on 50 of more  pounds since she last saw Maureen.  Such relief when Mom saw the padded suit hanging in Maureen's dressing room.  )

 For people who know our family, Sept. 7th  is Nat Landau's 100th birthday.  We've been spreading out the wishes he's been getting over yesterday and today. A year ago, this had been planned for a party at (we hoped) their local Casita, but actually, there were people able to be there virtually who might not have been able to be at a real in-person party had that happened. Bill Parry & Maureen Silliman were at the Miami party today by remote (is it skype or skype-style video?) from NYC.  https://youtu.be/7c8mnxhJn5E

I won't publicly post any of the personal reminiscences online, so many wonderful thoughts from friends and from cousins of four generations, but I'll only post only the musical ones.

The Piaf forever stamp was 2012, and even then we were worried about how snail-like even "snail mail" was

 The Piaf forever stamp was 2012, and even then in that election year we were worried about how snail-like even "snail mail" was. The snail makes a guest appearance at 0:30 and this is believed to be the post office snail's first (and maybe only?) appearance in a La Môme parody video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5Z6iz4jPsw

Thank you to the amazing Jan Horvath for the vocal here. 

Also: This is from the bill and call log from a Miami lawyer for a Landau family estate and elder care matter who I hired August 10 2020 with a $15,000 retainer.

Theater connection: Look at August 14 - why is a lawyer for a Landau family matter talking to Jen Tepper, who is a Broadway producer who at the time I had a Human Rights issue with, and with whom this antitrust issue 

http://fred-and-the-economy.blogspot.com/2022/02/to-robyn-goodman-and-producers-of-other.html 

is going on since 2010. And for more than a half hour, and the lawyer writes that Jen gives him a "Better understanding."

Looking back ten years ago this week- one of the most successful replacement casts ever!

Looking back ten years ago this week-  one of the most successful replacement casts ever! 

It's 10 years this week since one of the best reviewed and most surprisingly well-realized replacement pairs to follow a premium success: when Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch took over in the revival of "A Little Night Music." This was a tribute, the "overheard" negotiating with Stritch's agent - who was reported in the press to have been asking for extras that didn't exist ány more, even though Stritch really openly wanted to do the show. With real love for Ms. Stritch, a low-tech take on one of those silly hypothetical lists of supposed demands for things that hadn't existed in years - and she had said she was never going to turn the show down anyway.

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

And this was A LITTLE SITE MUSIC - celebrating the first Sondheim show to go premium in 2009.

Act 1 - Accountess Charlotte / Anne / Madame Alarmfeldt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2mMKTJhdMc

Act 2- Disarray / Petra / Frederika checking the box office

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iVjlnbTx1g

he July 4th parody update - John and Abigail Adams Family/1776 cross-over and Moulin Rouge's Firework

"Firework, Moulin Rouge version" Parody-Tribute video 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNGZJrX81zc

[still just one Firework; they had to cut corners somewhere] 

John and Abigail Adams Family Theme ("1776" references are intentional)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bUcJKIYFyw
Happy 4th of July!

Here in the new epicenter and put up a re-edit of the Socially Distant Era Dorothy "Home" parody - 

Dorothy stays home except for walking Toto of course.  

(For budget reasons, and maybe flexible casting just a bit, Toto is played here by MJ's cat instead of shlepping our corgi over to her)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1d0U_WFNes

This is a different take/cover of the parody written for Sheree Sano to sing in the Richard Skipper #StayHome series

The full 7-min WHEN I'M STUCK AT HOME though slightly adjusted is still at 

https://youtu.be/s7mTdB7C8fg

Thanks and please pass any of the links around if you cam think of anyone who might enjoy them.  

Freddie

More socially distant theater to help Broadway come back

Here's the video from the "Kiss me Kate" re-revisal -  MJ plays "Bianca/Lois Lane," manning the desk for high-net-worth patients at the Upper East Side ER, putting VIP patients at ease that the treatment shortage did not need to apply to them. 

"Always Here for You When We Need to Ration". https://youtu.be/Jk7noSqYlYQ

Though laughing and singing alone don't make a problem go away, they can maybe put us in a better frame of mind to try to face the problem. "Make 'Em Masks"  https://youtu.be/yKTZsYYoXUA

Because we're seeing sometimes the only way to not give up is to laugh, or burst into song - on social distancing

Because sometimes the only way to not give up is to laugh, or burst into song.  It doesn't make the problem go away, but it can help you face it better after you laugh or sing. 

And it may not even be in questionable taste if it's educational.  :)

This was brought on by the NYToday and Theater columns in the Times and the words in the real song as sung by Nicolette Larson - "need relating, not solitude."

"It's Gonna Take a Lotta Gloves"

 https://youtu.be/P92NrXCxMBw

(Parody of "Lotta Love" - the real song is the 1970s top 10 classic written by Neil Young)

(this link added to YouTube April 21 2020)  
Imagining pitching a "My Fair Lady" for the commercial needs of a new era. For inclusion, Higgins is nice to Eliza from scene 1, so it's over in 15 minutes, allowing for 20 performances a day, since there can only be30 in the audience. This would be "MY FAR LADY" 

The flower girl is given a mask sewn from flowers at a moment when she's tired of staying in.

"I've Sewn a Costume for Your Face" https://youtu.be/x3RXDyle5sA

Also:  A new video of this song from the show "Across State Lines" - Everyone in the video guaranteed observing the six-feet-apart rule

Asking the musical question: Doesn't 6 feet apart beat 6 feet under?

"With My Friend Killing Time"

https://youtu.be/zpXdp6iS40w

(music and lyric by Fred Landau)

Some non-parody theater song demos, since it's tough to record new stuff right now in social distancing time

Some non-parody original theater songs, since it's tough to record new stuff right now in social distancing time

From the musical ACROSS STATE LINES  (performed previously as The Octagon Circle Show)

- music and lyrics by Fred Landau - these were my demos

Two buddies are  KILLING TIME  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAQlmXZ5fas
- could actually be done staying six feet apart - https://youtu.be/zpXdp6iS40w