The MAMA ROSE’S TURN Show at The Ziegfeld Society!

Here’s a few images from the Ziegfeld Society’s dramatization of my book, MAMA ROSE’S TURN! We presented actual songs from the Vaudeville and Burlesque acts Rose Hovick managed that starred her children, Rose Louise Hovick, who became Gypsy Rose Lee, and “Baby June” Hovick, later “Dainty June” Hovick, and finally known as “June Havoc.” Loria Parker was Rose, Merrill Grant was June, Vanessa Altschuler was Louise/Gypsy, Mark York was our playwright and musical director, and I was the Narrator and also played a few other characters. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun working on a project!

Vanessa Altschuler nails the song “The Vamp.”

Loria Parker as Rose teaches Merrill Grant as June a new song, “Won’t You Be My Husband?” The “inappropriate” lyrics to this one temporarily got the act in trouble in the 1920’s!

Loria Parker as Rose Hovick pretending to need “a little hot soup” in one of her favorite scams.

Merrill Grant sings June Havoc’s hit from PAL JOEY, “You Mustn’t Kick It Around”

Merrill Grant (June), Vanessa Altschuler (Louise/Gypsy), Mark York and Me after our MAMA ROSE’S TURN show at The Ziegfeld Society!

Curtain Call! Photo by Jen Lau

The real Gypsy Rose Lee, when she was Louise Hovick, and her sister, Dainty June Hovick, later known as June Havoc, in Vaudeville.

National Asian Artists Project’s “Hello, Dolly!”

Christine Toy Johnson, in white, as “Dolly” with the cast at the Curtain Call.  What a fabulous ensemble cast!

Hello, Dolly! is a show that can be not only enjoyed, but also understood, by just about any cultural or regional group.  It’s the story of a savvy matchmaker who sets her sights on one of her own clients.  She wants him for herself.  Trouble is, she’s already set him up with somebody else…

Everybody who sees it can relate.

Tonight the National Asian Artists project put on an Asian production of Hello, Dolly!, and  what a
performance!   I saw Carol Channing in the 1993 revivial, Barbra Streisand in the movie, Tovah Feldshuh at the Paper Mill Playhouse, all different, yet each in her own way superb, yet I’ve never before seen the show done with as much joy and gusto as it was performed this evening.  Those actors onstage were having a ball!

The show was directed by Lee Roy Reams, and starred Christine Toy Johnson as Dolly, with Carla Ogden, Austin Ku, Raul Aranas, Rebecca Lee Lerman, Karl Josef Co, Sam Tanabe, Alex Chester, and Jaygee Macapugay.  Every single one of them was entertaining us and loving their roles.  What enthusiasm!  The show also featured David Shih as Rudolph Reisenweber, the German owner of the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant, which is the setting of the song “Hello, Dolly!”  David Shih absolutely gloried in playing the part with a hilariously thick German accent.  He got the biggest laughs of the night – and earned them.

There is one other performance of the show – May 6th, 7:30 p.m., The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center.  This is one that I’m hoping will move to a theater and have a run for awhile.

I found out about the production because two friends were involved.  Mark York, founder of The Ziegfeld Society, did the lighting – and put it all together this afternoon in only a few hours, with the show going up tonight!  I’d say that’s a record.  Richard Skipper, who is a Hello, Dolly! historian with a book in the works about the history of the beloved show, was a Producer Associate.   Tonight he was also there as a proud godfather, because his little goddaughter, the one, the only Emily Gu Siegel, was one of the children in the production.  Was a new star born tonight?  Time will tell!

Richard Skipper and his god-daughter