all of the above

There are three possible reasons why I truly enjoyed Krisha Newport's performance in "Cactus Flower" at Theatre Knoxville Downtown. a) she's a friend of mine; b) she's remarkably talented; or c) she has the best part in the play. My wife and I were part of today's matinée audience.

Krisha plays the spinster nurse who just may bloom like the cactus on her desk. That same character was portrayed on Broadway by Lauren Bacall and in the movie by Ingrid Bergman. Those are some heavy-duty actresses. They try to trick you into thinking that the story is about a pretty young girl (Oscar winner Goldie Hawn in the movie, Brenda Vaccaro on Broadway) depressed over her affair with a dentist. In reality, the nurse is the linchpin on whom the whole plot turns.

I found a scene from the movie on YouTube. It seems a little sluggish compared to the play, which is a quick-witted farce. It has enough of a plot twist to keep you guessing how the romantic partnerships will work out. Krisha's character, Stephanie, could end up with the writer, the actor, the diplomat or the dentist. Her red wig put me in mind of another great comedic actress, Carol Burnett.

Pat and Morgan Fitch are in the cast as the rich patient and the struggling actor. In real life, they once invited me over to see their pet turtles. After another actress dropped out, Pat offered to play two parts. A different wig and costume transformed her into the actor's girlfriend. In a compliment to her technique, I didn't realize that the second character was also her until the curtain call.

"Cactus Flower" runs for two more weekends. The News Sentinel had a nice write up about the show the week before it opened. Theatre Knoxville is housed in a little space across the street from Regas Restaurant that I had overlooked until now. I'll be back for Krisha's next show.

just a Broadway baby

The Tony Awards are a week from tonight. I thought they had already passed until I saw a listing for them in the "What to Watch" column in Entertainment Weekly.

In my entire life I've only seen two shows on Broadway and one of them shouldn't count. My high school prom date and I went to see a legitimate play called "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" It wasn't very funny and there was no sign of Colin Mochrie or Ryan Stiles. My first Broadway experience came when my parents gave me a pair of tickets to "Beatlemania" for my birthday. I had asked for the tickets because of the constant commercials on New York television. It's more of a concert than a play. Worse yet, I bought the original cast album.

At a recent family reunion, I met a precocious relative who has already seen about twenty-five shows on Broadway. He reads Broadway.com and Playbill.com and The New York Times for theater reviews. Oh yeah, he's only eleven years old. Nothing I could write here would do him justice. Instead please enjoy a nine minute podcast interview with him. Like me, you can listen to him in slack-jawed amazement.

habit forming

In his homily this morning, Fr. Michael Woods quoted from Terry Mattingly's syndicated religion column, which was in yesterday's News Sentinel. It's not yet available online, but should turn up on Mattingly's site soon.

The headline of the column says it all: "Catholics, evangelicals see sins in different light." A survey by Ellison Research says that 100 percent of evangelical Protestants believe adultery is sinful but only 82 percent of Catholics agree. Similarly more evangelicals than Catholics believed racism (96% to 79%), premarital sex (92% to 47%), and abortion (94% to 74%) were sins. Naturally one must wonder which Catholics were polled. If you asked only the people I know, Catholics would have scored much higher.

The survey defined Catholics as someone who attends Mass at least once a month or more. Evangelicals were defined as Protestants who believed in statements such as "the Bible is the written word of God and is totally accurate in all that it teaches." I'm fine with the way the pollsters identified evangelicals but not so sure about the way they chose their Catholics.

Let's say that a survey respondent went to the minimum one Mass a month. That's 12 Masses and 40 misses per year or a 23% attendance record. A "passing grade" of 70% would require a churchgoer to show up at least 3 times a month. I think they would have gotten a more accurate idea of Catholic opinions if they had asked respondents to say whether or not they believed in Church doctrine like transubstantiation and the Immaculate Conception, etc.

I once won a small prize for knowing my Catholicism. My wife and I were at a performance of "Late Nite Catechism" in Los Angeles. "Sister" asked if any of us knew the meaning of the Immaculate Conception. I told the class audience that we celebrate the conception of Mary, not Jesus, on December 8. The conception of Jesus is marked by the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25. Both dates are nine months before the celebrations of the respective births. I got a little plastic statue of Mary. Thanks Sister!

buy 'em before you can buy 'em

Not that you needed one but here's yet another reason to attend tonight's Einstein Simplified comedy improv show at Patrick Sullivan's in the Old City. Street team members from the Tennessee Theatre will be on hand to distribute invitations for you to buy pre-sale tickets to "An Evening with Colin Mochrie & Brad Sherwood." Their two man improv show was originally scheduled for October. The date has been changed to Sunday, December 2. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10:00 a.m, unless you have the pre-sale invitation password. The pre-sale tickets will be sold Thursday but only through the Tennessee Theatre website. If you can wait until Friday, you can save some money on service charges by buying your tickets in person at the box office. The show description on the Colin & Brad website gives a good reason to buy seats near the stage:

The show is all about audience participation. Everything in the show is based on audience suggestions and many audience members are brought up on stage to be part of the craziness. The entire evening is completely improvised, and best of all, the show is never the same twice.

never too late to have beautiful skin

Thanks to Frank Strovel for pointing out that Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood are bringing their two man improv show to the Tennessee Theatre on Sunday, October 21. Colin was a regular and Brad was a frequent guest star on the great show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

I am curious how the cities were chosen for the Colin & Brad tour. Did they look for college towns? Or is there a chance that they picked Knoxville because our local improv group is usually at the top of the worldwide Improvisation Top 50?

Speaking of local improv, the footage of Einstein Simplified that I mentioned a week ago was supposed to be on TV at 11:30 tonight and subsequent Mondays. Some unexpected production delays kept it from airing last week. If the Victoria Principal infomercial that's on right now is any indication, there must have been more unforeseen delays. At least now I know whatever happened to Jules Asner.

this old Wodehouse

Shawn Green hit a foul ball into the Dreamseats just before his walk-off home run Monday night. I had flipped over to ESPN in time to see the end of the game between the Mets and the Cardinals. Unfortunately, tonight's game didn't end as well.

The Dreamseats are luxurious leather recliners near the foul poles. A brief video on their website shows the seats in use and concludes with an address in Hauppauge. They may sell them from New York, but every Dreamseat is manufactured in Tennessee.

The reference to Hauppauge made me think of an old song from a musical that mentions several places we would pass on the way to Grandma's house. I thought that Hauppauge might have been one of the villages in the lyrics. But as it turns out, the song goes: "let's build a little bungalow in Quogue, in Yaphank or in Hicksville or Patchogue."

neat, sweet, petite

The dark chocolate bandwagon recently picked up some Snickers for the ride. Milky Way has had a great dark chocolate bar for a long time. I finally tried a Snickers Dark Mini at Sam's Club the other day. If I were a NASCAR fan, I might have already known about these.



It was pretty good but my favorite "mass market" dark chocolate is still M&Ms. Snickers, Milky Way, M&Ms and CocoaVia, the "healthy chocolate," are all made by the same company. When I first heard "The Addams Family" theme in the M&Ms Dark Chocolate commercial, I was very much amused.

Hearing the familiar music made me think about the upcoming Addams Family musical. Perhaps to avoid a situation similar to what happened when the TV version debuted the same year as "The Munsters," the Addams musical won't make it to Broadway until two years after the "Young Frankenstein" musical. Frederick, Igor, Inga and the rest hit the Great White Way this fall.

animal adventures

Posters around Market Square promote several upcoming shows at the spectacular Tennessee Theatre. The one that caught my eye proudly announced "Jungle Jack Hanna." As you can see, it shows the famous zookeeper with an elephant.



What kind of stage show should Jack Hanna do? Song and dance? Scholarly lecture? Magic tricks? A circus act? Wouldn't it be false advertising if the elephant doesn't take the stage with him? Until today, I had no idea that Jack is originally from Knoxville. Maybe that's why he's coming to town on Monday night.