Archive for May 16th, 2025

Obit watch: May 16, 2025.

Friday, May 16th, 2025

Charles Strouse, noted Broadway composer. THR.

Mr. Strouse had more than a dozen Broadway shows to his credit and composed some of the most enduring musical theater numbers of his era: “Put On a Happy Face” and “Kids (What’s the Matter With Kids Today?)” from “Bye Bye Birdie,” which opened in 1960 and featured lyrics by his frequent collaborator Lee Adams; “But Alive” from “Applause” (1970), a musical adaptation of the movie “All About Eve” starring Lauren Bacall, with lyrics by Mr. Adams; and “Tomorrow” and “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” from “Annie” (1977), with lyrics by Martin Charnin.

…

Some of Mr. Strouse’s numbers became so ubiquitous that they seemed revered and reviled by the public in equal measure. Each response in its own way was a badge of honor.
There was the time, for instance, that a stranger accosted Mr. Strouse at a party.
“If I have to hear my daughter sing ‘Tomorrow’ one more time,” he thundered, “I’m going to kill myself — and you!”

…

He wrote scores for films as well, including “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) and “The Night They Raided Minsky’s” (1968. For television, he composed the music for “Those Were the Days,” the opening theme of Norman Lear’s groundbreaking sitcom “All in the Family,” with lyrics by Mr. Adams. (It is Mr. Strouse’s piano playing that is heard on the soundtrack as Archie and Edith Bunker sing the song on camera.)

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Not all of Mr. Strouse’s ventures were successful. “Bring Back Birdie,” a 1981 sequel, closed on Broadway after four performances. Two “Annie” sequels, “Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge” and “Annie Warbucks,” closed out of town before reaching Broadway. The 1991 musical “Nick & Nora,” with a book by Arthur Laurents, lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and a cast featuring Barry Bostwick and Joanna Gleason as Dashiell Hammett’s detectives Nick and Nora Charles, played just nine Broadway performances.

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“When I was a 6-year-old girl, I only based my opinion on people from how they made me feel and how they treated me. When I first met Charles Strouse, I was 100 percent enamored with him,” Danielle Brisebois, who played Molly in the original production, said. “His warm smile and his soulful eyes … He was always encouraging, thoughtful and kind. I had no idea I was in the presence of a legend!”

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“Everybody has flops,” he said. “When I teach, the students say, ‘How can you work three or four years on a show … and it flops? How do you recover from that?’ The only answer is, you’ve done your best, it didn’t work, what’s next?”

Posted in 1970s, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Your loser update: May 16, 2025.

Friday, May 16th, 2025

We’re about 25% of the way through the MLB season, so I thought it was time to do a loser update.

The question is: what teams are worth covering?

The Braves, which started out horribly, are now 22-22, for a .500 average. I don’t think they’re worth considering in the loser update any longer unless there’s a dramatic change.

There are some teams that are below .400 that might be worth consideration:

Baltimore is at 15-27, for a .357 winning percentage.

The Miami Marlins are at 16-26, .381.

Pittsburgh, the first team this season to fire their manager, is at 15-29, .341.

The Chicago White Sox are at 14-30, for a .318 winning percentage. This projects out to 110 losses, which is bad, but not historically bad, and at least better than last year.

And the Colorado Rockies…7-36, .163 winning percentage. This is bad. This is historically bad. This is a projected total of 135 losses. This is the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network publishing an article:

“Are Rockies worse than 2024 White Sox? Breaking down the numbers”.

The 2024 Sox lost 121 games, but didn’t quite nail down the “worst team in the modern era” mark. Could the Rockies accomplish what the Sox didn’t? Hope springs eternal.

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