Lizzdmc Productions LLC

Archive for March, 2005

Jewish composers and lyricists have always dominated Broadway musicals. There’s nothing more appropriate than a celebration of their wonderful contributions, and that’s exactly what the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company’s original tribute From Berlin to Brooks . . . A Musical Journey attempts.
Credited to author and director Peter J. Hill, the show has an unfortunate tone of mockery. Hill’s predictable and unbelievably irreverent Act I slams Broadway greats Irving Berlin, several operetta composers, George and Ira Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Hill’s attempt to keep everything humorous doesn’t work with the many serious, beautiful, or sentimental song selections that come out strained and stupid. A daffy audience-participation attempt to create a silly operetta plot falls with a thud when predetermined song parodies fail to credit Romberg, Friml and Kern’s wonderful and rich melodies.

Rodgers and Hammerstein get short shift when the six-person cast fights to decide if South Pacific, The King and I or The Sound of Music is the best of the team’s shows. Why debate which of this team’s shows are best when most were trendsetters?

The second act leans to contemporary Broadway creators, but the prolific team of Bock and Harnick is represented by just one of many fine shows, Fiddler on the Roof. Jerry Herman’s medley bypasses his less successful but still splendid works. A bland Stephen Sondheim sequence hits only high points while Kander and Ebb’s sequence overemphasizes Chicago. Including the many pop standards used in Leiber and Stoller plus Billy Joel’s revues is a stretch since these songs were not Broadway musical creations. Wouldn’t including the many fine composers skipped over be more appropriate? The show concludes with a Mel Brooks number from The Producers.

The cast doesn’t always do justice to the music. Only Cathy Dresbach and Tony Hodges understand the comic style while Elizabeth Reeves and Jeffry Walker sing best.

The great musical creators deserve a better tribute.

Chris Curcio
Special for The Republic
Mar. 31, 2005 12:00 AM

We would like to announce that an automated script installer called Elefante installer is already available in the web hosting control panel. The installer has been available for a few days and we received several bug reports and fixed a few major bugs, so we changed the version of the installer from beta 0.9 to beta 1.0 (release candidate). We intend to release the final version of Elefante in a couple of weeks. Reports regarding any remaining bugs are welcome.

Elefante installer provides automated installation of over 30 popular PHP scripts grouped in the following categories: Ad Management, Blog, Calendars, Classified Ads, Content Management, Customer Support, Discussion Boards, E-commerce, File Manipulation, Groupware Tools, Image Galleries, Portal Systems, Server Management and Web Hosting Tools. The script installer is available in the Tools section of the web hosting control panel.

We would like to inform you that there will be some interruptions in the work of SupremeServer20 on Monday, February 28, 2005 in the interval between 4:00 AM and 7:00 AM EST.

A new backup disk will be installed on the server during this time and this will lead to short interruptions (from 5 to 10 minutes) in the work of the server. The total downtime for this scheduled maintenance procedure is not expected to exceed 30 minutes.

Please, excuse us for any inconvenience that might be caused by the maintenance procedure.

We would like to inform you that SupremeServer20 maintenance that was scheduled for Monday, February 28, 2005 will be postponed to Wednesday, March 2, 2005 due to technical reasons. The maintenance procedure will cause some interruptions in the work of SupremeServer20 on Wednesday, March 2, 2005 in the interval between 4:00 AM and 7:00 AM EST.

A new backup disk will be installed on the server during this time and this will lead to short interruptions (from 5 to 10 minutes) in the work of the server. The total downtime for this scheduled maintenance procedure is not expected to exceed 30 minutes.

Please, excuse us for any inconveniences that might be caused by the maintenance procedure.

We are glad to inform you that since today a new feature is available in your Control Panel – Free Scripts. This is still a BETA version, which means that it is possible to experience difficulties or problems during the installation of the scripts.

Our developers are currently working in order to release full version of the Free Scripts feature as soon as possible.