Awards - Tonys 2013 - Musicals - Bring It On

BRING IT ON

Synopsis:  (From Wikipedia)

Torrance Shipman anxiously dreams about her first day of senior year. Her boyfriend, Aaron, has left for college, and her cheerleading squad, the Toros, is aiming for a sixth consecutive national title. Team captain, "Big Red", is graduating and Torrance is elected to take her place. Shortly after her election, however, a team member is injured and can no longer compete. Torrance replaces her with Missy Pantone, a gymnast who recently transferred to the school with her brother, Cliff. Torrance and Cliff develop a flirtatious friendship.

After watching the Toros practice, Missy realizes the squad has been copying routines from a rival team that her previous high school competed against. She drives Torrance to Los Angeles, where they watch the East Compton Clovers perform routines that are virtually identical to the Toros'. Isis, the Clovers' team captain, angrily confronts the two. Torrance learns that "Big Red" regularly attended the Clovers' practices to videotape and steal their routines. Isis informs Torrance of her plans to defeat the Toros at the regional and national championships, which the team has never attended due to their economic hardship.

When Torrance tells the Toros about the routines, the team still votes in favor of using the current routine to win; Torrance reluctantly agrees. At the Toros' next home game, Isis and her teammates show up and perform the Toro's routine in front of the whole school, humiliating them. The Toros realize that they have no choice but to learn a different routine. In desperation, they employ a professional choreographer named Sparky Polastri, which was suggested by Torrance's boyfriend, Aaron.

At the Regionals, the team before the Toros performs the exact routine they had been practicing. The Toros have no choice but to perform the very same routine. After the debacle that ensues, Torrance speaks to a competition official and is told the routine was given to several other teams

in California. As the defending champions, the Toros are nevertheless granted their place at Finals, but Torrance is warned that a new routine will be expected.

Torrance, crushed by her failure to lead the team successfully, considers quitting. Cliff encourages and supports her, intensifying their growing attraction. Aaron, however, suggests that she is not leadership material and recommends that she step down from her position. When Cliff sees Torrance and Aaron together, he severs his friendship with Torrance. Although distressed, Torrance's confidence is renewed by Cliff's encouragement and she convinces her unhappy team to create an innovative, new routine instead. She breaks up with Aaron, realizing his infidelity and inability to be supportive, but Cliff still refuses to forgive her.

Meanwhile, the Clovers are initially unable to compete at Nationals due to financial problems. This prompts Torrance to get her dad's company to sponsor the Clovers, but Isis rejects the money and gets her team to Nationals by appealing to a talk show host who grew up in their area. In the finals, the Toros place second, while the Clovers win. However, Torrance and Isis find respect in each other. 

Awards - Tonys 2013 - Musicals - Kinky Boots

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KINKY BOOTS

Synopsis from IMDb

Charles Price may have grown up with his father in the family shoe business, but he never thought that he would take his father's place. Yet, the untimely death of his father places him in that position, only to learn that Price & Sons Shoes is failing. While in despair at his failed attempts to save the business, Charles has a chance encounter with the flamboyant drag queen cabaret singer, Lola. Her complaints about the inadequate footwear for her work combined with one of Charles' ex-employees, Lauren, leads to a suggestion to change the product to create a desperate chance to save the business: make men's fetish footwear. Lola is convinced to be their footwear designer and the transition begins. Now this disparate lot must struggle at this unorthodox idea while dealing both the prejudice of the staff, Lola's discomfort in the small town and the selfish manipulation of Charles' greedy fiancée who cannot see the greater good in Charles' dream. 

Price & Sons, located in Northampton, is a fourth generation owned and operated family business specializing in quality shoes for men. The heir apparent to the company, Charlie Price, is not planning on taking over the company but rather move to London with his fiancée, Nicola Marsden, both who want to get as far away from the company and the close-mindedness of Northampton as possible. Charlie's plans change when Harold Price, Charlie's father and current company president, suddenly dies. In dealing with immediate company issues, Charlie learns that the primary contract on which the company had been working has long expired - something that Harold hid from everyone - meaning that there is no work and little prospect for work with their current line of shoes. Under the circumstances, Charlie feels he has no other option but to lay off several of his employees. Instead, Nicola wants Charlie to sell the business; she even finds a buyer, a property developer who wants to convert the factory into upscale condos. But one of Charlie's employees, a young woman named Lauren who would be one of those laid off, believes Charlie would be taking the easy way out by either of these options and that he is not looking out for the interests of the company's loyal and hard working employees. She suggests he change the business model and create another line of shoes in a niche market. Upon a chance meeting with a relatively large drag queen named Lola, Charlie comes up with the idea of specializing in fashionable women's boots made for the general heft of drag queens. There are many obstacles to converting the business to this new model including meshing fashionable design with the required functionality of the boots, and having a relatively conservative town, business and employees into supporting this change, especially with their target market being "unfamiliar" people such as Lola. With Lola's assistance, these changes are both advanced and hindered. Charlie believes that to make the company truly successful in this new model, he has to show the boots during the Milan fashion season using the target market, drag queens, as the models. Showing in Milan takes money, money which Charlie doesn't have. But more importantly, Charlie has to overcome some internal issues with himself to be successful in this venture.

Memorials Not Just for the Dead, but for the Harm

I just found out that there are two half sized Viet Nam Memorials that travel around the country.  One of them is now in Malden, MA  until June 10th.  Here is a link about it.

http://artery.wbur.org/2013/06/09/vietnam-moving-wall

This is a “miniature” (half sized) of the original Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, D.C. that was designed by Maya Lin.

This is a remarkable monument and deserves to be seen by everyone.  I’m glad to know that there are two copies that travel around giving even more people an opportunity to view it.  It is remarkable because it is based on memorializing the individual soldiers, specifically those who died, rather than honoring some general on a horse or in full regalia.  This monument honors those that deserve to be honored.  And the way that it honors them is most effective.  One cannot help but be struck dumb when in the presence of this memorial.

But I would still like a memorial to do more.  The reason why people are against the war is not just because of the deaths, but of the price of war.  Not the price in American dollars just as not the price in American servicemen.  For every dead serviceman (or servicewoman) there are many more that are harmed in some way – emotionally, financially, etc.  How many dead servicepeople had a bereft spouse?  How many children will no longer have a father or mother?  How many parents saw their child die before their own death?  How many people lost a good friend?  These harms should be considered in the cost of war.

And the cost to the victims (I will not call them the enemy because most of them were not enemies) on the other side?  Such as in the Iraq war.  Over 100,000 died because of our “shock and awe” bombs.  These people were not our enemies.  And of their deaths, how many widows were created?  Or widowers?  Or parents?  Or children?

And what about the social cost of war?  How many people lost their jobs and could no longer afford to provide for their family?  How many people lost their belongings in a devastated society with no means to replace them?  How many people lost all hope for their future?

More than the dead should be memorialized regarding a war.  All of the harm that is caused all of the victims should be memorialized as well.  But where is such a memorial but in the poetry of poets like Walt Whitman and others?

THE TEST THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

The Test That Changed My Life

Feb.  July 7^th = 50.  After applying the principles of interpolation that I had learned in statistics, I figured that the number 50 would probably mean that I would be called up in the first draft lottery in February, 1970, plus or minus three days with a confidence level of 92%.

It was the Fall of 1969 and the fall of my dreams as it was the first year of the military draft lottery.  The need to draft young people to fight in Viet Nam had become so great that the draft boards, in an effort to appear impartial, had randomly picked calendar dates for the year and assigned them sequential numbers.  These dates represented the birth dates of draftees and would let young people know when during the year they could expect their number to be up.  July 7^th, my birthday, was assigned the sequential number 50 and so I figured I would be drafted around the last week in February.

I was going to college in Ohio that Fall and I received word from my local draft board in Jacksonville, Florida to come in for the dreaded draft physical.  I tested the system by submitting a request to have my physical in Ohio since that was where I was attending school and I no longer had any family or other reason to go to Florida.  Their approval gave me a one month’s reprieve for the physical.

I immediately dropped out of school and with no money, I got a ride with a student to Chicago where I had a friend.  I stayed with him while I went to as many draft counseling centers as I could to try to come up with a way to fail my physical.  But I was told that at least 80% of the inductees wanted to fail and unless I had reams of medical reports indicating a long history of a very serious problem, the best way to beat the draft was to flee to Canada.

At the end of my reprieve, I hitchhiked from Chicago to southern Ohio just in time for the physical.  On the selected day, I met a group of other boys assigned the same fate and we traded stories in the bus on our way to the center in Cincinnati.  One boy had been on speed for 14 days straight with minimal sleep hoping that his blood pressure would keep him from being drafted.  Another told of how he would climb on top of his dresser, barefoot, and jump down.  He would do this over and over again hoping that his fallen arches would mean that he couldn’t do the necessary marching and so he would fail.  And I remembered hearing the stories while in Chicago of boys who would get a revolver and literally shoot themselves in their foot.  The bus ride was filled with the nervous laughter of boys describing not only their quiet but also unquiet acts of desperation.

After assembling in the main hall, I was surprised to hear my name called out along with three other names to go into a side room.  I was even more surprised when I saw these other three carrying duffel bags.  And I panicked as I listened to an officer snap the instructions of boarding a bus to go to boot camp in South Carolina.  After telling them that there must have been some mistake as I was there for my physical, not to go to boot camp, they checked their papers and agreed.  By this time, all of the others who were there for their physical had already gone through the first of several exam stations.  So I went to the first station alone, and filled out the form regarding medical history.  While filling out the form, I checked off ear problems, knee problems, and ankle problems – all with no supporting documents.

I then rushed through another station and caught up with the rest so I was last in line.  We went through the motions of turning our head and coughing even though the examiner was already three boys down the line by the time we coughed.  The swiftness of the examiner as we “bent and spread” convinced me of the superficiality of the entire examination process and so I started planning my escape to Canada while in the line waiting for the hearing test.

The hearing test consisted of sitting in a soundproof room with five others, putting on a set of earphones, and then turning a dial to the left if we didn’t hear the tone, and to the right if we did hear the tone.  Of course they knew that everyone would want to claim that they couldn’t hear the tone so they advised/warned us that the different tones were set in such a way that they could determine if a person could consistently not hear a tone or if they were faking it.  Also, anyone who failed the test once was required to take the test a second time which would insure consistency of one’s responses or dire consequences if the tests were inconsistent.

Being the last person in line, I wound up entering the room by myself while the rest of the line had progressed to the next station.  I put the earphones on and although I’ll admit to being rather liberal in my turns to the left, I wasn’t radical.  The day before the exam, I had developed a boil in my right ear but it hadn’t affected my normal hearing very much.  But evidently when the earphones were on, they pressed my ear against this boil so that I honestly couldn’t hear the tones I was supposed to hear.  After looking at my results, and evidently looking at its consistency, and realizing that I was already one station behind everyone else, they indicated I had failed it and didn’t make me take it over again.

Finally, at the last station, an examiner saw that I had checked off ear problems on my medical history and saw that I had royally and gloriously failed the hearing exam.  He then looked in my ear, saw the boil, and evidently didn’t like what he saw.  I was never so glad to hear that I had failed a test as I was that day.  It was enough to make me wish that I believed in a god that I could thank.

That night, my girlfriend and I took the last $18.00 we had together and went out for dinner to celebrate.  We celebrated by setting our wedding date to be February 7^th, 1970.

HELPING MY MOTHER THROUGH HER DYING PROCESS

My mother had been bed-ridden for five years after suffering from heart congestion and five cardiac arrests in one night.  But her mind was sharp and since she was in a great nursing home, our times together were quality times.  Then her systems started to fail her one by one.  After a while, the doctors and nurses said that if my siblings wanted to see her while still alive, they should arrive immediately.  They came and we would all gather around her bed and talk with her and often sing songs.  She could no longer eat or drink and so we took turns putting ice on her lips in hopes of giving her some moisture as she had said she did not want to be hooked up to an IV to prolong the process.  But her mind was still sharp, and she was talking about dying and even looking forward to it. 

She explained to us that it wasn’t a matter that she didn’t want to eat – but rather that she couldn’t.  She had lost her swallow reflex and she knew that she would probably die by starvation.  She said she had heard of people dying that way and always thought it would be a terrible way to go, but she told us that it wasn’t bad at all.  She was in no pain and she was actually looking forward to dying with us around her.  I was able to relate this part of the story in a Letter to the Editors during the time of Terry Schiavo hoping to convince people that it truly isn’t an onerous way to die.

After the next weekend, my siblings had to return to their jobs and family as there was no indication how much longer my mother would be able to hold on.  Then, around Tuesday of that week, she started to recover.  No one knows how or why, she just recovered.  She was still bed-ridden and she had her ups and downs.  And her ups weren’t as high as before and her downs might have been lower.  But she continued from February to December when her systems started to shut down again.

But this time, she wasn’t talking about it like in February.  Finally, around the middle of the month, I asked her if she didn’t think she was going through the same process a before.  She said she assumed she probably was but then I asked her why she didn’t feel free to talk about it as before.  She explained that she didn’t want to die around the Christmas holidays for fear of it spoiling our holidays.  I was thankful for the opportunity to tell her that I had just listened to a program (on NPR) about people going through the dying process and how for some it is an easy voyage, while for others it is a difficult voyage.  I told her how the difference seemed to be in the concept of “Letting Go”.  The patient needed to feel free to let go.  But I also told her that the relatives also need to learn the concept of letting go.  Often, a person will recognize they are dying and will mention it.  Immediately, the family members will chime in and over-ride her and say that “No, you’re going to make it.  You’re going to overcome this.”  So while a patient wants to talk about going through this dying process, they are often not allowed to.  And so refusing to “let go” on the part of either the patient or the patient’s family may make the voyage even more difficult.

I told her that as far as her family was concerned, we had felt ready to have her die back in February.  If there was anything we felt needed to be done before she died, we had had plenty of time to prepare for it.  So it wouldn’t be something that took us by surprise and set us back. 

The next day, when the nurse came in to dress her, my mother told the nurse “I’m ready to die now”, and she did – two days later.

I was so glad that I could be a positive force in my mother’s dying process.  So many people have so many tragic stories of their loved ones dying.  I feel blessed that my story is such a positive one.

David Kimball

A FUNCTIONAL ARTIST'S LAMENT

I have been in the business of developing computer applications since the beginning of my career.  (And yes, since the beginning of computers since I actually worked at one time on the IBM 705's which were the first generation tube computers.)   When PC's were first coming with database capabilities (DB2), I worked exceedingly hard on a specific program to process many types of budget data and provide management with many data analytic reports.  Then, after a long holiday weekend, I came in and found out that my manager had come in over the weekend and made some tweaks to it mangling it beyond all recognition.  I resisted the urge to get physically violent with him, and instead sulked in my shell for a period of time not to have exceeded 40 days and 40 nights.  After returning to this alien civilization, I consoled myself by writing this poem.

I probably should backtrack just a little here.  People usually think that when I develop an application, it is very left brain oriented and not a creative process.  But it is.  I start with nothing, Then I expose myself to all the angles of the system being modeled.  Then I start to have an idea.  Then I build on that idea until it is something I can actually see (or at least see its output).  Then I tweak it and fine tune it, and mold it, and sculpt it.  Until finally I have something of which I can be proud of.  Because it is something which is designed to be used, like a clock, and not just observed, like a painting, I consider it Functional Art.  

A Functional Artist’s Lament

O pure virgin idea.

Straight from the womb of my mind

Where there was nothing, there was suddenly something.

Springing from the mother of necessity,

In union with beauty and form,

              I conceived you.

Gestated after much labor of love,

You were delivered with all pride and joy,

I, the ultimate Pygmalion, then built you,

I molded you, I sculptured you, I fine-tuned you.

I observed you critically and, performing revisions tediously,

              I fashioned you.

Like a debutante, I presented you to the world.

In setting you up on a pedestal for all to behold your graces,

              I adored you.

Alas, my virtuous creation has been prostituted.

Others, with ignoble needs,

Have used it for their own short-sighted means.

They have perverted its original intentions.

One transfigures the appearance so its character is obliterated.

Another mutilates the function so its original intent becomes unknowable.

Another transmorgrifies its cleverness so its efficiency is hopelessly lost.

Another alters the grace so its style has become pedestrian.

Another suppresses the versatility making its flexibility an irremediable mess.

And yet another degenerates its flair rendering it mediocre at best.

And on and on it goes.

After multiple perverted encounters of this worst kind,

Others look at this pitiable creature,

Wag their unknowing heads,

And shun this post-beauteous creation

              As if it were a homeless derelict

              With open festering sores.

And so I take my once beloved

And place it mournfully on a darkened shelf,

Where it will be used – nevermore.

David Kimball

THE PRINCESS AND THE KITTEN

Once upon a time, there was a Little Princess.  She would play around the house all day with her toys, and watch movies on the TV, and had lots of fun – all by herself.  But sometimes she wished she had a playmate.  So one day, in order to have a playmate, she got a little fuzzy black and white kitten.  She loved this little kitten and would spend hours a day playing with the kitten.

One day, while she was watching TV, she saw a television show where someone had trained cats to do many tricks.  On cat would walk on top of a rolling barrel.  One cat would actually walk a tightrope.  And one cat would jump through a hoop of fire.  But the trick that caught the attention of the Little Princess was one small, tiny cat, perhaps a kitten, who would roll over at the trainer’s command.  He would move his hand in a circle, and the kitten would roll over.

The Princess thought this was a neat trick and so she made up her mind that she was going to have her own little kitten roll over at her command.  So she picked up the kitten from where it was sleeping on its warm, soft bed, and the Little Princess carried it into the middle of the living room floor.  She rolled her hand around in a circle just like the trainer on TV had done but the kitten just looked at her.  Then the Little Princess tried telling the kitten to roll over, but the kitten just leaned against the Little Princess’ leg.  She tried over and over again to move her hand, and to tell the kitten to roll over.  Then the Little Princess ever grabbed hold of the kitten and pushed it down onto its side and then tried to roll the kitten over.  But the kitten just stood back up, looked at the Little Princess, and shook itself. 

The Little Princess was getting frustrated.  It only wanted the kitten to do something simple, but it wouldn’t do it.  The more she tried to get the kitten to roll over, the more the kitten just looked at her.  She was getting more and more frustrated until she almost could feel her wanting to shove and push the kitten for not doing what she wanted.  So the Little Princess decided she had better stop pushing the kitten.  So the Little Princess had learned long ago that the best thing she could do when she felt frustrated like this was to make herself a peanut butter sandwich.  So she went out to the kitchen, got the bread out, spread on piece with the peanut butter.  Then, realizing that no one was watching her, she put a generous amount of jelly of the other slice of bread.  Then she picked up to sandwich and enjoyed her peanut butter sandwich so much.

She was feeling better until she came back into the living room where the kitten had curled into a big furry ball.  The Little Princess and petted the kitten and started feeling frustrated that the kitten hadn’t learned to roll over.  Just then, the little kitten rolled over.  The eyes of the Little Princess got very wide.  Then the little kitten rolled over again.  Then the kitten looked into the eyes of the Little Princess.

Then the Little Princess realized what the kitten was trying to tell her.  The kitten was teaching her that she should never “expect” certain behavior.  We are only frustrated when we have expectations which are not met.  If we never had expectations, we would never be frustrated and we wouldn’t have to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  It’s okay to have hopes because if our hopes don’t work out, we can deal with that.  But when we expect others to meet up with our expectations, we are only making ourselves vulnerable to feeling frustrated.  The Little Princess kept repeating to herself, “No expectations – no frustrations” over and over again.  The Little Princess promised herself that she would put this maxim to use with her Daddy the next time she was frustrated with him.