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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/theater/...24fad67&ei=5070

We don't need to forget to mention this great musical theater lady. Even before she and Adolph Green met Leonard Bernstein, they discovered and developed Judy Holliday--that would have been enough for me to be grateful to them forever--for 'The Revuers' at the Village Vanguard. Later, with Jule Styne, all of them triumphed together again in 'Bells are Ringing'.

This Thanksgiving had an unusually large number of major losses in the Arts, I thought.

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Truly a magnificent career and I think it is safe to say we won't see the likes of it again.
No doubt. But it's nice to see family trying to carry on the tradition carrying on the tradition, though.

Some years back, Shakespeare in the Park revived the wonderful show "On the Town." As I waited on line for tickets there was a stir as Comden and Green walked by, apparently on their way to a rehearsal. Then that evening, just before the performance began, they were spotted again (I heard later they attended every single performance) and the audience gave them a long, spontaneous, and heartfelt standing ovation. It was a love fest the whole evening, the best sort of New York audience, with lots and lots of laughter and applause all along. I'll never forget how at the hilarious "I Wish I Was Dead" sequence the usher in my section--who must have seen the show ten times already--was laughing so hard he had to sit down in the aisle. (I myself was weeping with laughter.) And during the romantic "Lucky to Be Me," as couples strolled about the stage arm in arm, the back of the stage swung open to reveal the real Central Park as backdrop, miraculously illuminated that night by a huge full moon hanging in the sky above.

As we wandered back to the Upper West Side, my friend spoke of how even in "Singin' in the Rain," a Hollywood movie about Hollywood, the zany wit, affectionate irreverence, the speed and sophistication--it's New York through and through. And we noted how their version of New York wasn't a dream at all--there it was all around us, it just took Comden and Green to make us see it. God bless them. It seems like a miracle that artists like that can come into the world from time to time to banish the loneliness and sadness, and make me utterly, completely happy--right now, right here.

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I missed the Delacorte run of On the Town, but I caught it at the somewhat less magical Gershwin theater a few months afterwards. Ms. Comden was on line at the box office when I was. I also saw her with Mr. Green and the show's cast at an evening hosted by Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Triangle. And then the serendipitous spottings here and there around the Upper West Side.

She exuded a very appealing warmth, and it seems that facet of her spirit found its way into her work.

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I missed the Delacorte run of On the Town, but I caught it at the somewhat less magical Gershwin theater a few months afterwards. Ms. Comden was on line at the box office when I was. I also saw her with Mr. Green and the show's cast at an evening hosted by Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Triangle. And then the serendipitous spottings here and there around the Upper West Side.

She exuded a very appealing warmth, and it seems that facet of her spirit found its way into her work.

And this very appealing warmth is audible on the abridged cast album of On the Town made about 1960 with mostly the original cast. Although her voice is a bit on the thin side, I love Comden's versions of Carried Away and the lovely, bittersweet Some Other Time. She gets to the heart of the songs like no later interpreter I've heard. She must have been quite a performer too!

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And this very appealing warmth is audible on the abridged cast album of On the Town made about 1960 with mostly the original cast. Although her voice is a bit on the thin side, I love Comden's versions of Carried Away and the lovely, bittersweet Some Other Time. She gets to the heart of the songs like no later interpreter I've heard. She must have been quite a performer too!

Isn't that the album that also includes Nancy Walker doing 'I Can Cook Too?' I was crazy about that album and somehow lost it in a move or something. But now you bring it up, I also remember the sound of 'Carried Away.' And there's that hilarious 'Do Do Re Do', which surely must be a take-off of Mme. Renee Longy, who was teaching solfege at Juilliard since time immemorial. I had her too, and it was sometimes like a penitentiary, but she was great, carrying on the old French tradition that few Americans were still doing. How could any New York lover not love 'On the Town'? I think the same production people are talking about here was shown on PBS about 1993, and I remember Comden and Green on one of the broadcasts, having to do a little pledge work for Channel 13, of course. It was around the same time as that TV production of 'Gypsy,' which I found so disappointing by contrast. Anyway, this was a concert version that I saw, and it was fresh as ever.

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