My Little Sondheim!

Okay, I confess -- I have become a fan of the latest incarnation of the My Little Pony TV show, called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. No, I haven't lost my mind. The show's popularity among adult men has taken the show's creators by complete surprise. We're called "bronies," and if you want more background on the topic, here's the famous Wired article about us. It's really very simple -- Lauren Faust, the force behind the show, trashed the saccharine sweetness of older My Little Pony shows and replaced it with sharper humor and the same girl-power sensibility she brought from her work with her husband Craig McCracken on his hit show, The Powerpuff Girls. (Faust also worked as an animator on two wonderful animated feature films, The Iron Giant (directed by Pixar veteran Brad Bird) and a forgotten treat, Cats Don't Dance (directed by Mark Dindal, who went on to direct Disney's hugely funny The Emperor's New Groove).) Faust has managed to make the new My Little Pony show innocent and fun without condescension or over-cuteness. It's more enjoyable than you might imagine, and yes, I cannot believe I am singing the praises of a TV show based on those silly toys from the 80s!

What does this have to do with the video above? Simply that I love semi-obscure references, in this case creating a parody (in the old-style sense) of a song by Stephen Sondheim for one of the episodes of MLP: FiM. The song was adapted by the show's composer, Daniel Ingram. I about fell out of my chair when I saw this! Not since I encountered the first semi-obscure Shakespeare reference in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 have I been so tickled. The song above is derived from "Putting it Together," from Sondheim's Pulitzer Prize winning musical, Sunday in the Park with George (one of my two favorite musicals, along with West Side Story). I love the tribute, and wonder what Mr. Sondheim thinks about all this.



Here's the original song (above) included in this scene from Sunday in the Park with George, featuring Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters. The comments section on YouTube already has quips from bronies who've just discovered this; and yes, that is Brent Spiner in a portion of the scene.



And if you're interested, here's the complete episode of MLP: FiM (above) that contains the parody song. Enjoy! As Rainbow Dash would say, inclusion of Sondheim references instantly makes this show 20% cooler!

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P.S. Bonus video below! There are pony mashups, of course. This is the first thing I ever saw the ponies in, even before I caught up with the episodes of the show. It's a mashup of the trailer for The Dark Knight with images from MLP: FiM. And it ... is ... AWESOME!!!

"Keep it gay! Keep it gay! Keep it gay!"

The story of how outspoken sex columnist Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller adopted a kid has been turned into a musical!

Perhaps reality TV isn’t the right venue for teachable moments that could be easily misconstrued by Savage haters. Like the time 9-year-old DJ, who thought girls were icky, jumped to the conclusion that he must be gay, until Miller showed him a photo of himself, surrounded by girls, on his 10th birthday. “If you liked girls right now,” he said, “that would probably mean you’re gay.”

I love that quote. One of the first things that made me realize that I was different, when I was about seven or eight, was that I actually liked playing with girls.

The Kid Stays in the Picture

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Of Sondheim and A-flat: In the Wings with Elaine Stritch

The irrepressible Elaine Stritch has a few words to say about nearly everything, but mostly about Sondheim and singing.

"No Sondheim song comes easy to me. You depend on Rodgers and Hart for that. Those songs have easy brilliance. Stephen Sondheim gives you complicated brilliance. But once you get him, you got him. He makes you think a little bit. But those hours in a rehearsal room learning a song—those hours are rough. After that, it's a joy. It's like having a baby, it's like with anything that's worthwhile."

I hope I'm still that sharp when I'm her age.

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Sondheim = Shakespeare?

I buy it. The intelligent writing, the surprising rhythms, the music inherent in both writers, the astounding characters and challenging stories and often despairing outcomes. The actor Michael Ball takes a look at Stephen Sondheim and ponders his greatness.

Sondheim has never written typical musicals – the kind made famous in the US in the 1940s and 1950s – he writes about the human condition, with layer upon layer of depth. His is musical theatre – like plays with music – not musical comedy, and there's a big difference. It's also why his legacy is so important: Stephen Sondheim changed the face of the medium.

Will we be performing Sondheim in 500 years? Like Shakespeare, like Mozart, like Bach, I hate to think of a world where we weren't doing so.

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