#Weston Playhouse

[travelling-my-little-pony]

Songbird Serenade is at the Weston Playhouse.

In Somerset, England.

[lonelyroommp3]

Okay not to be weird but is the fiddler on the roof version you were talking about this one?

https://playbill.com/article/weston-playhouses-fiddler-on-the-roof-starring-david-brummel-and-joanna-glushak-begins-aug-2-in-vt-com-196249

I was in high school in VT at that time and remembered a lot of people talking about it.

YESSSS that's the one... weston playhouse my best friend weston playhouse<3

[writemarcus]

How An Obsession with Josephine Baker Became a Broadway-Bound Musical

According to her producer, Deborah Cox was born to play Josephine, but the recording artist knew she'd have to earn it.

BY MARCUS SCOTT

MAY 06, 2016

It’s a late Thursday afternoon and hours after news broke that Prince had passed away in his home at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, MN, at the age of 57. Like most of the world, Deborah Cox, the critically acclaimed Canadian R&B singer-songwriter and Broadway actress, is devastated. Across social media, Cox expressed that she was both “speechless” and “heartbroken” at the loss of the legendary rock musician, and when asked about it, she reiterates the significance of having theatre-makers revisit the stories of legends, past and present. Cox has grown rather adamant in recent months, especially as she prepares for the “first very first orchestra read-through” of a new musical, Josephine, which premieres at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL through May 29. Cox will play Josephine Baker, the world famous cabaret showgirl and Jazz Age fashion icon, notorious for her salacious gowns and show-stopping dance.

“She transcended race, she transcended gender. These icons, namely Prince, he was so androgynous and transcended sexuality, as well, and so brought so much of what is [considered] ‘taboo’ to his music and back then, Josephine Baker was breaking down barriers and doing the same thing. As a woman, which of is unheard of in her time, to be [that] fearless…it’s an honor to be performing at the Asolo doing this show,” Cox says. “This was a great vision that [producer] Ken [Waissman] had and it’s been a long time in the making and its ready now.”

Known for her opulent mezzo, Cox eventually expanded her horizons beyond the recording studio and made her Broadway debut in 2004 as the leading lady in Elton John-Tim Rice’s afro-pop musical, Aida. The Grammy-nominated singer returned to Broadway in the 2013 revival of Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s Jekyll & Hyde. Now Josephine, a project that has been in development for seven years, is likely bound for Broadway. The story focuses on Baker’s run as the star of Folies Bergère in Paris, her affair with Swedish Crown Prince Gustav VI, and her civil rights activism. With the piece, Cox originates a role for the first time.

“The idea of originating a role, it was so tantalizing, I had no choice. I literally just had my daughter like three months before and got this amazing Roberto Cavalli dress, got this little short wig and flew to New York. I didn’t rest on my laurels as a recording artist. I get it. I have to earn it,” Cox says.

“It started out where I had this idea long ago,” says Waissman, who saw Baker at the Palace Theatre two years before she passed away in 1975. “I read this biography by her [friend and former] manager Stephen Papich. Eventually, I decided to go forward with it as a musical, and then of course putting just the right the creative team together— Ellen Weston and Mark Hampton as the book writers—I put them together, they didn’t even know each other, I thought they would be a great combination. Finding composers took almost three years, really.”

“Then, we started to develop it. It’s harder to develop musicals today because nobody is in the same place long enough,” Waissman says.

Waissman declares Cox was born to play Baker. He knew it the moment she sang one of his favorite show tunes, “Look To The Rainbow” from the 1947 musical Finian’s Rainbow—the show that first inspired Waissman to become a producer at the age of six.

Cox’s career as a recording artist launched while singing backup for Celine Dion. In 1995, after being “discovered” by music mogul Clive Davis, Cox signed to Arista Records. She’s racked up 12 number one hit singles. Cox is set to perform in the U.S. premiere of the musical theatre adaptation of Lawrence Kasdan’s 1992 Oscar-nominated film, The Bodyguard, in the role Whitney Houston originated at the Paper Mill Playhouse. While Cox has met legends like Houston, even recording a duet with the R&B icon, she says her obsession with Baker began with the viewing of The Josephine Baker Story, a 1991 biographical HBO drama film starring Lynn Whitfield. When the show was announced, she said she was terrified because she wanted it so much.

Nevertheless, she says this has been the most challenging role she’s taken on in her career.

“I’ve having the best time of my life because I am actually using all of my talents,” Cox says. “I’ve never been in a role where I danced, sang and acted. These dance scenes are completely different than anything I’ve ever done before. I’ve been in Pilates, ballet, gymnastics and African dance just to think and be like a dancer for the last six months. Singing is what comes the most naturally, but being able to use all of these muscles, I feel like a kid again; totally uninhibited. It’s also an emotional boot camp.”

[lordriddler]

If you think Michael in the Bathroom is amazing, it's even more so live, so much emotion is put into it. George says that he's preformed it about 300 times, based on the ones I've seen, he nails it every time.

[larryland]

Magnificent cast, spectacular production of "Peter and the Starcatcher" at Weston Playhouse

Magnificent cast, spectacular production of “Peter and the Starcatcher” at Weston Playhouse

[kaitkerrigan]

Do you live in beautiful Vermont? I’ll be there on May 19th and 20th with my new play. Tickets are just $10. I would LOVE to have some friendly (under 50) faces in the audience... :) 

[monumentraider]

The League of Gentlemen, Live Again by jacquemart Via Flickr: The Playhouse Weston Super Mare

[letthesunshinein]

I got offered a summer job!!!!!! it’s in audience services but it’s at a real regional theatre and I’d get housing and I’m feeling really good about it!!!!!!

[alidaisinthevalli]

Paul Newman was born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Here, he appears with Jeanette Klima in "St. George and the Dragon" in 1936, at The Cleveland Playhouse Children's Theater. The Children's Theater specialized in children's productions featuring child actors. These child actors were known as the "Curtain Pullers". Paul Newman is the most esteemed of The Curtain Pullers Alumni, but other such luminaries are Joel Gray and Jack Weston.

[chiseler]

Rip Torn: A Retrospective

Rip Torn died on July 9th at age 88. That he lived that long is nothing short of miraculous.

In the summer of 1969, Rip Torn was drunkenly screaming through New York’s West Village on his motorcycle when he slammed it into a police cruiser. Torn broke his leg in the accident, but didn’t notice. The next morning he got up, got on a plane, and flew to Paris where he was set to star in Joseph Strick’s film version of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. He shot the entire film all hopped up on painkillers on an untreated busted leg,. And you know what? He still gives a remarkable performance. It wasn’t the only time he worked with broken bones, either.

For over 60 years, Torn carried on in the proud tradition of John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, and Lawrence Tierney as the last of the great Hollywood hellions. In between insane drunken escapades, he was nominated for Emmys and Tonys and Oscars, he established himself as one of America’s most respected character actors, a man with a knack for making even a small role a pivotal one, and he was in Every Movie and TV Show Ever Made. Next time you watch something take a close look at the credits and you’ll see.

Torn’s given name was Elmore Rual Torn, Jr., but was nicknamed Rip as a boy, as was tradition among all the Torn men. He was born and raised and educated in Texas, studying  animal husbandry in college before turning to acting.

The motivation behind the decision was different than most. He hitchhiked to California to break into the movies not because he wanted to be a big star, but because he thought it would be an easy way to raise enough money to buy himself a ranch. Things didn’t work out quite so zip bang as he’d planned, though he did earn small roles on TV and made his feature debut in an uncredited role as a dentist in Elia Kazan’s great and scandalous 1956 film Baby Doll. Kazan hired him again the following year to play another uncredited but extremely important role in the equally great Face in the Crowd.

Although he wasn’t making the kind of money he needed to buy that ranch, he was getting enough acting jobs along the way to start taking the whole enterprise a bit more seriously. He moved to New York to study at the Actor’s studio, worked in theater both on and off Broadway, and from the mid-’50s to the mid-60s established himself on TV in everything from Playhouse 90 to Thriller to Route 66 to The Untouchables. After that things took off. There was just something sinister about Torn, those wicked eyes of his, that crooked-toothed leer, the whole rat-like demeanor, that suited him for villainous roles of all kinds. Plus he was a chameleon who could shift his whole look and stature with the simplest change of accent. He would go on to play Judas in King of Kings, countless presidents, doctors, senators, military officers and judges. He played rednecks and gangsters, cowboys and spies and executives. He played Walt Whitman twice, was in a whole bunch of Tennessee William’s plays (on Broadway, TV and film). Yeah, like I said, between the mid-’50s and the present, he was in every damn thing ever made. Trying to summarize his career is pretty much impossible, but there was a stretch there from the mid-60s to the late 70s when he was top billed when he was turning small supporting roles into leads, when he was moving easily between TV, experimental films, and big budget Hollywood jobs, and when he was starting to earn himself a reputation as a wild man.

Looking back on it now, it’s hard to imagine the kind of talent, both in front of and behind the camera, that came together on the 1965 period gambling picture The Cincinnati Kid. It was originally a Sam Peckinpah film with a script by Ring Lardner. Then Peckinpah was fired (surprise!) and Norman Jewison was brought in to direct. He thought the script was too self important and talky, so he brought in Terry Southern. He also gave Hal Ashby his first big break, bringing him in as editor and assistant director. Steve McQueen stars as a hotshot young poker player in ‘30s-era New Orleans. Karl Malden is a former hotshot on the skids. Jack weston is the loud whiny guy. Ann-Margaret is the bad girl, Tuesday Weld is the good girl, and Edward G. Robinson is the old man, the undisputed champ, the stud poker king feared by everyone.

Ah, then there’s Rip Torn. His name’s deep in the credits but the whole film turns around him. He plays the slick and sleazy Southern Gentleman who will stop at nothing to see the Robinson character toppled. See, Robinson beat him at poker once, and for a Southern Gentleman of his stature there’s nothing in the world worse than losing. There’s one scene in particular, Torn’s showpiece here, in which he tries to blackmail the dealer (Malden) into cheating, and though it doesn’t sound like much nobody can muster up the cool menace like Torn. Oooohhh, he’s such a rotten son of a bitch.

Four years later he starred in Moses Ginsberg’s first film, Coming Apart, an experimental number that’s been called “More a Happening than an actual movie,.” Filmed with a single static camera to recreate the feel of a documentary, Torn stars as an unbalanced psychiatrist who torments and confuses his female patients, eventually going completely batty himself. It all takes place in one small room shot by that one unmoving camera. It’s at turns compelling and unbelievably tedious, and if it weren’t for Torn (thank god for that Actor’s Studio improv training) it would be unwatchable.

Around this same time Dennis Hopper cast Torn to be in Easy Rider. Then at what was either a production meeting or a cocktail party in New York (depending on who’s telling the story), Hopper and Torn got into a bit of a ruckus over whether or not all Texans were  rednecks out to kill hippies. A knife was pulled (though Peter Fonda would later claim it was a butter knife, or maybe a fork, or maybe both). Next thing you know, Torn was thrown off the picture, and Hopper cast Jack Nicholson in his place.

About a year later Torn joined the cast of Norman Mailer’s improvisational experiment, Maidstone. Essentially it was a raucous, drunken three-day party out at Grove Press founder Barney Rossett’s Long Island estate around which Mailer tried to film himself as a director trying to shoot a movie. As the story goes, before shooting started each actor was given a card briefly describing his or her character, and that was as close as anyone got to a script. One character, however, was given a card at random informing the holder that his character was in fact a CIA assassin whose job it was to kill Mailer. The card’s recipient was supposed to be kept a secret from everyone in the cast, including Mailer.

Well, according to Rossett there was a little confusion there. Maybe it was the booze, or maybe the card simply wasn’t worded clearly. In any case Torn (naturally) got the card, but instead of thinking his character was supposed to kill Mailer, he somehow got the idea that HE was supposed to kill Mailer. Lucky for Mailer, too, as the confusion resulted in the only scene in the film anyone remembers.

After the shoot was over and most everyone had gone home, Mailer and his family are walking back toward the house when they’re stopped by a grinning and quite mad Torn, who is also clutching a small hatchet. The cameras are rolling and you can tell this was something Mailer was not prepared for. Nor was he prepared when Torn goes after his skull with the hatchet. The two wrestle each other to the ground, Mailer bites Torn’s ear, Torn leaves a deep gash in Mailer’s scalp, and Mailer’s wife and children scream in horror until a couple crew members pull Torn off him.

And that, my friends, is entertainment!

(The next morning Rossett found a drunken midget floating in his swimming pool, but that’s another story.)

Then came the motorcycle accident and shooting Tropic of Cancer on a broken leg. As it happens there were two films based on Henry Miller novels filming simultaneously two blocks apart in Paris. Jens Jorgen  Thorsen’s Quiet Days in Clichy starred Paul Valjean, an American dancer who looked an awful lot like Miller, but neither sounded nor acted like him. Torn, meanwhile, looked absolutely nothing like Miller, but somehow by adopting just the slightest hint of a Brooklyn accent (and on all those painkillers) was somehow able to embody him completely. It’s a gritty, funny, poetic film and Torn is great, though to be fair it should be noted that Clichy was dirtier.

Also in 1970, Torn spoke out against the war in Vietnam on a TV show, and a few nights later someone fired a bullet through his window. It was a hell of a year for him.

In ‘73s Darryl Duke film, Payday, Torn gives what he himself would later refer to as his best performance. Or maybe his favorite. In any case he’s really something as Maury Dann, a  womanizing, hard-drinking, bastard son of a bitch of a second-rate country singer. Dann and his band are on tour  through the South as Dann screws and screws over everyone around him, from band members to family, to pretty much every woman he meets. He never quite hit the top, but insists on acting and being treated like he has. Toward the end he even talks his chauffer into taking a murder rap for him, since he has to get to a show. It’s an extremely dark, cynical, and painfully accurate portrait of the country music business of the early ‘70s, and Torn does all his own singing. It makes for a nice counterpoint to Robert Duvall’s quiet, soft-spoken, and sensitive country singer in Tender Mercies from a decade later.

Although again his name is buried deep in the credits of Larry Cohen’s 1977 biopic The Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover the entire film revolves around him. He narrates, after all, and gives another memorable performance as a young man who decides to join the Bureau after his father (another agent) is gunned down by a two-bit hood on the street. After seeing what’s going on in the FBI, though, and after being punished himself for a minor indiscretion, he tries to bring Hoover down a notch or two. In what could have been a hamfisted cartoon, both Cohen and Torn (and star Broderick Crawford near the end of his career) manage a shockingly human portrait.

As a flipside to Torn’s tendency to turn minor supporting roles into leads, there was 1978’s Coma, the medical conspiracy thriller directed by Michael Chrichton based on the Robin Cook novel. Torn was fourth-billed behind Genevieve Bujold, MIchael Douglas, and Richard Widmark. And sure, Torn’s character, Dr. George, is the film’s central villain, the man behind a Boston hospital’s fiendish conspiracy to harvest human organs and sell them on the black market, but he only appears in one scene, and speaks roughly four lines. It’s unclear whether this was the plan from the start, an attempt to turn his character into another Harry Lime or Mabuse,  or if maybe all his other scenes were cut after Torn went after Crichton with a hatchet (we can only hope). In any case he was missed. He might have livened up what was otherwise a pretty godawful picture.

As Torn grew older and a little larger and his hair started getting thinner, two things happened. He began playing more authority figures, which only makes sense I guess. He had that look and sound about him. He also started doing more comedies and genre films. Sometimes he even combined the two, playing Ronald Reagan in ‘82s Airplane II: The Sequel.

In ‘91 he was Bob Diamond, the charming, sleazy, and utterly  ineffective lawyer trying to give Albert Brooks a boost out of Purgatory in Defending Your Life. He was the sinister CEO in the otherwise dreadful Robocop 3. He even began lending his voice to animated features and video games (usually playing a god of some kind).

Then in 1999 Dennis Hopper was a guest on Leno and told a few old Easy Rider stories, including the one about how Torn had pulled a knife on him at a party. Well, Torn, remembering things a bit differently, sued him for defamation.

It’s pretty hilarious if you think about it; these two guys who were both completely out of their heads in the late ‘60s going to court to determine which one of them was behaving badly. I mean, they both had reputations to maintain.

Well, most of the witnesses agreed with Torn that it was Hopper who pulled the knife (except for Peter Fonda, who remembered all kinds of different utensils), and the court ordered Hopper to pay Torn nearly half a million in damages.  It was all kind of silly. I mean, it’s not like the story cost him any work. Hell, trying to literally kill Norman Mailer on camera didn’t even cost him any work. But I guess pride’s a funny thing.

After that he continued to work regularly, as Agent Zed in the Men in Black films, in sit-coms, in made-for-TV films, christ, anything that came along. Every director I’ve ever heard talk about Torn can’t praise him highly enough for his talent and professionalism (except maybe Mailer), though given his admitted temper, it’s also possible they’re just scared of him.  He was nominated for six Emmys for his role on the Larry Sanders Show, and came to be recognized by a whole new generation as the executive Alec Baldwin worships but wants to replace on 30 Rock.

Along the way he set himself the task of repairing any damage his reputation as a hellraiser might have suffered as a result of that Hopper lawsuit. The DUIs started adding up. Or at least getting noticed, in part thanks to the actor’s tendency to swing on the arresting officers. Along with being the president of the Extreme Dodgeball League (who knew it even existed?) it seems he was also an extreme regular at a bar near his Connecticut home.  Every once in awhile the bartender himself would tip off the cops after Torn headed for his car. I’m not sure if that bartender’s still there, but even after being fingered like that Torn remained a regular, though he didn’t always drive. And that in itself might have caused some problems.

After returning home from the bar one night in 2010, Torn found his keys didn’t work in the lock. Seeing no alternative, the 79-year-old was forced to break into his own house. He was probably surprised a few minutes later, just as he got his shoes off and was making himself comfortable,  when the cops arrived and informed him that he wasn’t in his house at all, but had broken into a nearby bank. And the cops were probably surprised to find Torn was carrying a loaded handgun. Yeah, he’s not the only one who’s been there, as I think many of us can attest.

Once it was clarified that it was not Torn’s intention to rob the bank, he was given a two and a half year suspended sentence and three years probation.

The arrest prompted the tightassed, no fun creators of Thirty Rock to kill off his character, but he remained as busy as ever, including an uncredited role as an alien in Men in Black Three.

He once proudly noted that he’s never missed a performance. He’s worked with broken legs, broken arms and ankles, and once while doing a play he passed a kidney stone on opening night. He was a rare, tough old bird, a vanishing breed, and one of my heroes. We won’t see his like again.

by Jim Knipfel

[blackkudos]

Frenchie Davis

Franchell "Frenchie" Davis (born May 7, 1979) is an American Broadway performer and a soul, dance/electronica, and pop singer. She first came to public attention in 2003 as a contestant on the singing competition show American Idol. Davis began performing in Rent on Broadway soon afterward, and was a member of the cast for four years. In 2011 Davis reached the top 8 on the first season of singing competition The Voice.

Early life and career

Davis was born in Washington, DC and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated from Howard University in 2014 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

In the year 2000, she began her performing career in productions of Little Shop of Horrors and Jesus Christ Superstar with the Freilichtspiele Theatre Company in Schwabisch Hall, Germany.

American Idol

Davis was a contestant on the second season of American Idol in 2003, but was disqualified early in the season due to topless photos taken earlier in her career.

According to Davis, she was up-front about her pictures:

"When I first discovered that I had made it to Hollywood and found out I would be competing to get into the top 30 and then later in the top 12, they had given us all this paperwork to fill out, background checks and that whole thing. So when we were doing that I had a discussion with some members of the production staff and I exposed to them a piece of my past; that when I was 19 years old, I took some pictures and that’s not the person I am [anymore]. I wanted to be up-front about it. We talked about it and then nothing happened".

The Idol staff took no action then, but two months later, they decided that Davis's participation would be inappropriate. "They had decided that because American Idol was a family show, that they could not have me on the show because of the pictures I had taken –though they had never seen the pictures," she told EuroWeb. She also added that no one was able to find the pictures in question as the website that featured them had been taken down.

Double-standards controversy

In 2007, revealing pictures of season six American Idol contender Antonella Barba surfaced on the internet, but Barba was kept on the show (though she was voted off shortly afterward). Many drew parallels to Davis's earlier situation. In an interview conducted for The New York Post on Monday, March 5, 2007, Davis said,

"I couldn't help but notice the difference between the manner in which she was dealt with and how I was dealt with.... I think it's fantastic if

Idol

has evolved, and I think it's fantastic she won't have to go through what I went through four years ago … but if the rules have changed, I believe there should be something to make up for the fact that I was humiliated needlessly."

The discrepancy was discussed on talk show The View on March 6, 2007. Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck argued that the difference was that Davis was paid for her pictures whereas Barba was not. Co-host Rosie O'Donnell disagreed, saying, "I think it's racist. I do... I think it's because she's black". American Idol was also accused of racism by Project Islamic H.O.P.E. activist Najee Ali: "obvious that it's a racial bias... when you have a situation where a black contestant is punished and a similar situation happens to a white contestant and there is no punishment and they're allowed to continue on the show."

Post-Idol career

After American Idol, Davis appeared in the Broadway musical Rent in 2003. She sang the solo in the opening song of Act Two, Seasons of Love, and in ensemble roles such as Mrs. Jefferson (Joanne's mom), a woman with bags, a coat vendor, Mrs. Marquez (Mimi's mom) and others. She also occasionally played the part of Joanne. On June 1, 2005, Davis returned to her previous role in the Broadway production of Rent. Davis had previously announced that she would leave Rent in May 2007, but announced her final performance following a mid-April 2007 show. During the weeks leading up to the April 29 performance of Rent's 10-year reunion, Davis appeared in an iTunes Podcast (Rent: The PodCast). She also joined the original cast for a special encore performance.

In 2004, Davis was cast in the role of Effie in a West Coast-touring production of Dreamgirls, which appeared in Sacramento, San Jose, and Seattle, and later went to the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera.

From August 3–19, 2007, Davis starred alongside Miche Braden and JMichael in the role of Mahalia Jackson in the Hartford Stage production of Mahalia: A Gospel Musical, written by Tom Stolz and directed by Jeremy B. Cohen.

In 2008, Davis, along with fellow second-season American Idol participants Ruben Studdard and Trenyce Cobbins, starred in the 30th-anniversary national tour of the musical revue Ain't Misbehavin'. The tour ran until May 2009, and was nominated for a Grammy award in the Best Musical Show Album category.

In the fall of 2010, Frenchie was cast in the role of the Fairy Godmother in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (Enchanted Edition) at the Berkeley Playhouse, the resident theatre company at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts in Berkeley, California.

The Voice

In 2011, Davis competed in the first season of reality competition series The Voice. In the first episode, she performed "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry, advancing to the next round as a member of mentor/judge Christina Aguilera's team of 8.

On the May 10 episode, Frenchie competed in a sing off against Tarralyn Ramsey, both singing "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" by Beyoncé. Frenchie won and made it to the next round.

On the June 7 episode, Frenchie performed "When Love Takes Over" by David Guetta and Kelly Rowland. She was told, "You may very well have the strongest voice in this whole competition."

In the next week, it was announced that Frenchie did not win the fan vote from the previous week's performance, which would have allowed her to move on in the competition. However, Aguilera used her own vote to move Frenchie onto The Voice's Elite 8.

On the June 21 episode, featuring the Showdown of the Elite 8, Davis performed "Like a Prayer" by Madonna.

Frenchie Davis was eliminated during the semi-finals, finishing fifth overall. She did, however, join the other members of the final eight contestants of the show: Javier Colon, Dia Frampton, Vicci Martinez, Beverly McClellan, Casey Weston, Xenia and Nakia on a U.S. tour summer 2011.

Post-Voice career

In December 2012, Frenchie starred in the musical God Doesn't Mean You Get To Live Forever at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York with legendary pastor Dr. James A. Forbes Jr. and Gregory Charles Royal. In 2014 she made her film debut in the comedy film Dumbbells.

In 2017, Davis starred as Henri in The View UpStairs - an off-Broadway musical about the UpStairs Lounge arson attack that killed 50 patrons of a gay bar in New Orleans. She was also a winner of the Jose Esteban Munoz Award from CLAGS: the Center for LGBTQ Studies (formerly known as Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies) at The Graduate Center, CUNY. The award is given to an LGBTQ Activist who promotes Queer Studies outside of academia.

Recording career

Frenchie is a featured artist in the Tony Moran single "You Are" that was released December 1, 2009, and peaked at number 5 on the Billboard hot clubplay chart. "You Are" was the debut single from Moran's album Mix Magic Music.

On September 4, 2012, Davis released her debut solo single, "Love's Got A Hold On Me". The song peaked at #12 on the Billboard Dance Chart. The song was billed as the first single from an upcoming solo album, Just Frenchie, but the album was not released.

Personal life

Davis possesses a vocal range of Lyric Mezzo-Soprano.

In 2012, Davis came out as bisexual. She continues to be a strong and outspoken advocate for the Bisexual community, LGBTQ Youth and for LGBTQ People of Colour.

In 2013 she was the featured performer at the National LGBTQ Task Force's 25th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change in Atlanta GA where she explained that she had come out for all of the young LGBT people. "It's so wonderful to see all the young people here. You all are the reason that I chose to be out. Because it is important that you see people in the public eye who are not ashamed of who they are. It is ok to be true to you."

In 2014 Davis created a stir when she spoke out bluntly in response to the verdict in the Shooting of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn where the jury deadlocked on the charge of first-degree murder, saying "As an LGBT woman of color, I am having an extremely difficult time grasping WHY Matthew Shephard’s life is so much more valuable than Trayvon’s or Jordan’s????!?!?! Help me understand, y’all! Help me understand".

In popular culture

Davis was impersonated by guest host Queen Latifah on the March 8, 2003, episode of sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live; Davis was lampooned for her nude photo scandal, brash attitude and melismatic singing style.

Awards and Recognitions

In June 2017, Davis received the José Esteban Muñoz award from CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies - an award that is given to individuals who promote Queer Studies in their work or activism. She shared the award alongside Nathan Lee Graham and Wilson Cruz.

[travelling-my-little-pony]

Here is Twilight Sparkle at the Playhouse Theatre in Weston-Super-Mare, in Somerset, England. We went there to see Brian Blessed give a talk (and ham it up in a very entertaining manner) all about his life and career. It was excellent.

Here is Brian Blessed in a lousy photo I took, right at the end as he waved goodbye:

And here is a second photo I took of him, possibly the worst photo ever taken. I’m almost proud of this, it is so bad (although I do find some appeal in it as an abstract):

And here is a photo of Twilight Sparkle with the ticket and flyer:

[meanstreetspodcasts]

"It's smooth - so smooth! It's slick - so slick! It's the smooth, smooth, slick, slick shave you get with M-O-L-L-É!"

Presenting "the best in mystery and detective fiction," The Mollé Mystery Theatre premiered on radio on September 7, 1943. Like Suspense, the Mystery Theatre presented dramas designed to deliver thrills and chills pulled from the best authors of the genre and stocked with some of the best actors working in radio. But where Suspense raided the movie studios of Hollywood for its special guest stars, the Mystery Theatre rounded out its casts with the talented men and women working in New York radio. In a departure, the master of ceremonies wasn't a sinister storyteller in the vein of The Whistler, The Mysterious Traveler, or the Man in Black from Suspense. The weekly tales were introduced by "Geoffrey Barnes," billed as a criminologist and master of crime. For most of the run, Barnes was played by the talented New York actor Bernard Lenrow. Lenrow was no stranger to the world of radio mysteries. Listeners could hear him elsewhere on the dial as Captain Logan in Casey, Crime Photographer, as Inspector Lestrade in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and as Commissioner Weston in The Shadow. 

Each week, Barnes introduced stories from writers like Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Richard Connell, and even an up-and-coming writer named Ray Bradbury. The casts included stalwart radio players like Berry Kroeger, Martin Gabel, June Havoc, Frank Lovejoy, Elspeth Eric, Bud "Superman" Collyer, and Richard Widmark, only a few years away from his breakout Oscar-nominated film debut in Kiss of Death.

The series picked up Mollé ("Mo-lay") Brushless Shaving Cream as a sponsor (and acquired one of radio's best jingles delivered by announcer Dan Seymour), but many of the episodes of the show that survive today come from the Armed Forces Radio Service. The AFRS stripped the show of its commercials and aired it as part of its Mystery Playhouse wheel series. Servicemen and women could tune into the Mystery Playhouse and hear installments of the Mystery Theatre alongside adventures of Mr. and Mrs. North and The Thin Man. Peter Lorre served as the host for those broadcasts, opening the series with a tongue in cheek greeting of "Hello, creeps!"

Back on Episode 131, we heard an episode of the The Mollé Mystery Theatre - a radio adaptation of L.G. Blochman's "Red Wine." On Episode 303 - our birthday salute to Cornell Woolrich - we heard an adaptation of Woolrich’s “The Bride Wore Black.” Here are a few more episodes to enjoy on the anniversary of the series premiere:

"Murder in the City Hall" - In this story from Raymond Chandler, political pressure and scandal plague a cop as he tries to nab the killer of a judicial candidate. (Originally aired on April 5, 1946) 

"Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" - Peter Lorre hosts this one from the AFRS Mystery Playhouse - the story of the hunt for Jack the Ripper in 1945 Chicago.

"A Crime to Fit the Punishment" - In between flights as the Man of Steel, Bud Collyer plays an antique dealer and amateur detective in this mystery.

[dartmoorsfinest]

Joh’s ‘Bit Much’ tour has been EXTENDED into early 2020!!

Good news everyone! Josh’s barely a week into his new tour, Bit Much and it’s already been extended with plenty of new dates for early next year!

Here are the dates and venues below: 

25/1 Glasgow, Kings Theatre

26/1 Aberdeen, Music Hall

3/2 Lowestoft, Marina Theatre

15/2 Blackpool, Grand Theatre

16/2 Milton Keynes, MK Theatre

27/2 Stockport, The Plaza

29/2 Hayes, Beck Theatre

8/3 Swindon, Wyvern Theatre

22/3 Bromley, Churchill Theatre

26/3 Chester, Storyhouse

28/3 Torquay, Princess Theatre

29/3 Woking, New Victoria Theatre

31/3 Telford, Oakengates Theatre

2/4 Weston-Super-Mare, The Playhouse

3/4 Malvern, Forum Theatre

17/4 Watford, Colosseum

18/4 Yarm, Princess Alexandra Auditorium

20/4 Bath, The Forum

23/4 Dunstable, Grove Theatre

24/4 Yeovil, Octagon

29/4 Swansea, Grand Theatre

30/4 Cardiff, St David’s Hall

13/5 Doncaster, CAST

14/5 Crewe, Lyceum Theatre

16/5 Halifax, The Victoria Theatre

17/5 Wrexham, William Aston Hall

20/5 King’s Lynn, Corn Exchange

27/5 Liverpool, Philarmonic

28/5 Lincoln, Engine Shed

30/5 Eastbourne, Congress Theatre

31/5 Edinburgh, Playhouse

[larryland]

Weston Playhouse Mourns the Passing of Founding Director Malcolm Ewen

Weston Playhouse Mourns the Passing of Founding Director Malcolm Ewen

Malcolm Ewen was a founding director of the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company in Vermont where he returned every summer for over 30 years. In Chicago, Ewen was a longtime stage manager with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which had made him a member of the ensemble in February of this year. He passed away on May 20 after a long battle with cancer – a great loss to both of his theatre communities.…

[bakerstreetbabe]

A Doll's House Part 2 Weston

A Doll’s House Part 2 Weston

 A Doll’s House Part 2  is playing at the Walker Farm Theatre at the Weston Playhouse through August 26. This sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was a hit on Broadway and is being performed throughout the country this summer. The issues that the original play raised which are further explored in this sequel by Lucas Hnath are absorbing and entertaining. Bob and I  have been talking about…