Coming This Weekend: High Spirits!

I've spent years hoping that Encores! would bring back the Noel Coward musical High Spirits (based on Blithe Spirit), but it looks like Musicals in Mufti got the jump on the City Center revivalists—and I'll take it.

The production, to be performed this weekend, features Carol Kane as well as ... I'm a fan of both the British and United States cast albums (and I was weaned on Petula Clark's cover of the song "You'd Better Love Me," which was the B-side of "Downtown"), so I'm really looking forward to finding out how the show plays, even in the scaled-down version I can expect from Musicals in Mufti. [UPDATE June 12, 2009 It looks like the production is now sold out.]

Here's Lena Horne covering "You'd Better Love Me."



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SOUNDIES: A MUSICAL HISTORY. Before Scopitones there were Soundies, short films from the 1940s featuring musical numbers. They were played on film jukeboxes in bars, restaurants, and other places where one might want to pass some idle hours. Louis Armstrong, Doris Day, Lena Horne, Spike Jones, Big Joe Turner, and Fats Waller were among the performers seen in Soundies.

Soundies: A Musical History is a Michael Feinstein-hosted documentary about Soundies that will air on PBS during its March 2007 pledge drive.

It's scheduled for WNET Thursday night, March 8, from 8-10 pm.

Here is a trailer for the special.



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Here's a Louis Armstrong soundie featuring Velma Middleton.



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Here's Rufe Davis with "Mama Don't Allow No Music."



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Here's the late Yvonne DeCarlo torching "The Lamp of Memory."



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