Showbiz Boston

28/12/2024

17/12/2024

Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien dominated late night TV for years. Did you know they were both from the Boston area, Conan from Brookline and Jay from North Andover? Jay had his initial gigs opening for st*****rs in the Combat Zone and Conan of course was the chief of the Harvard Lampoon. And Doug Kenney went from the Harvard Lampoon to the National Lampoon which spawned not only the classic LP "Radio Dinner" but a whole industry that included the "Vacation" movies. Oh, and he wrote Animal House. Martin Mull started his career playing banjo and guitar at Harvard Square's Passim Coffeehouse. "Some of today's biggest comedians like Conan O'Brien, Denis Leary, Amy Poehler, and Lenny Clarke, kick-started their careers in Boston. Despite our seemingly tough exterior, Boston is a city that loves to laugh."

The comedy club scene is no laughing matter in and around Boston, with plenty of options for enjoying standup and improv

13/12/2024

Via Simmons College and Tufts University.

Gregory Maguire — author of the original novel — discusses all things “Wicked,” including his new book in the series hitting shelves soon.

06/12/2024

Mostly this page is focuses on the historical around Boston, but let's take a moment to look at an active filmmaker who's just written a helpful guide to working in the industry today.

"I’m also debuting the “Friendly Filmmaker Companion” in 2025, a special filmmaking production
workbook to help new filmmakers organize and take on all the steps of filmmaking without forgetting certain things that noobs sometimes forget.
Basically, 25 years of filmmaking experience boiled down into one guide book 🙂"

Continuing a series in collaboration with Hollywoot Film Group, meet Boston filmmaker Julia Tutko-Balena.

03/12/2024

Reflecting on the disastrous 1942 Coconut Grove. 492 victims packed into the nightclub for a gala football celebration died as a result of their injuries. Every Bostonian had a story about that night. But, improved fire doors, building regulations, and burn treatments came about in the aftermath. Six Locked Doors is a documentary that tells the story of a tragedy remembered throughout the nation.

02/12/2024

Emerson college grad. Others include Denis Leary, David Cross, Henry Winkler and Jay Leno. Only eight years ago they started offering a comedy major. Jay paid his tuition in cash he earned from opening for st*****rs in the Combat Zone!

The Quotes of Steven Wright:
1 - I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2 - Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.
3 - Half the people you know are below average.
4 - 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5 - 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6 - A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7 - A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8 - If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
9 - All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
10 - The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11 - I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ..... But she left me before we met.
12 - OK, so what's the speed of dark?
13 - How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
14 - If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15 - Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16 - When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
17 - Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
18 - Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
19 - I intend to live forever ... So far, so good.
20 - If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
21 - Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
22 - What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
23 - My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
24 - Why do psychics have to ask you for your name
25 - If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
26 - A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
27 - Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
28 - The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
29 - To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
30 - The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
31 - The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
32 - The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
33 - Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.
34 - If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
35 - If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

25/11/2024

Shot in Falmouth 2021. It's on YouTube like many a made for TV movie.

When a children’s author comes down to the Cape to host one last Christmas dinner with her disagreeable siblings before they sell the family house, she reunites with her childhood sweetheart, a local artist, who helps her find a way to keep the house she loves so dearly. "A Cape Cod Christmas" promises an opportunity to rediscover romance with an ocean view. 🎄🎁🎀🧑‍🎄🎉

This Falmouth favorite sells out every year, so purchase a ticket now to ensure your seat on Saturday, December 7 at 7:00pm in Woods Hole's Redfield Auditorium. Click here for tickets: https://www.goelevent.com/WoodsHoleFilmFest/e/ACapeCodChristmas

22/11/2024

Thanks to Anthony Sammarco and his excellent Lost Boston page, 2017 edition. People are still commenting! Also Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton played there. Dolly did her most recent Boston show steps away at the Wang Theater/Boch Center, c. 2015, maybe. But she showed up at the Colonial Theater for her Hillbilly Christmas show, c. 2019, I think.

"Another of the more colorful institutions in Boston that has become part of "Lost Boston" is the Hillbilly Ranch in Park Square Boston. Some of the biggest names in country music of the mid 20th century appeared there, including Tex Ritter, Dave Dudley, Dick Curless, Patsy Cline, Kenny Roberts and many, many more. Located at 25 Eliot Street in Park Square, there were two bands performing nightly as this was declared to be the "Best Hillbilly music this side of the Ozarks" People enamored of country music patronized the ranch and created a broad spectrum of patrons of all walks of life. [Eliot St. was wiped out by the construction of the Transportation Building and the planning of Park Plaza, a failed city redevelopment plan. The renamed hotel, formerly known as the Statler Hotel, is the only remnant of that plan.]

I can vaguely remember it in 1979, but urban renewal finally took the Hillbilly Ranch in a fire in 1980 and another chapter in Boston's rich musical and performing history was closed. A fellow New England country music entertainer and very talented song writer, John Lincoln Wright, memorialized the event with a decidedly twangy song, "They Tore Down the Hillbilly Ranch."

Seen in the distance is the Steinert Building, a touch of politeness on the fringe of the homespun ballads of the Hillbilly Ranch." [The Steinert Building, a piano showroom until quite recently, faced the Common. You can Google Steinert Hall for an interesting story!]

18/11/2024

Just bought this on EBay.

An ad from back in the day when the WBCN listener line was Google -- before there was Google.

04/11/2024

Quincy Jones arrived in Boston at age 18 to attend Berklee College of Music, then Schillinger School. He's received honorary degrees from Harvard and Berklee. He spoke to the graduating class of Harvard 1997, where he has a chair named after him. This article from Harvard's daily newspaper describes that occasion.

"W e were walking through the Square," says Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr., of friend and Class Day speaker Quincy

02/11/2024

Showbiz Beverly, next town up from Salem on the train line. The Cabot Theater is worth a trip, featuring big name acts, local acts, kids shows and some choice movies. Within the last year we've seen The Shawshank Redemption and Shaun of the Dead. Check out

31/10/2024

Thanks to Lost Boston for this Jazz Boston post.
Boppin’ in Boston
Carmine Ugo Mariano was an American jazz saxophonist who with his saxophone combined bebop and cool jazz styles. Popularly known as Charlie Mariano, he was raised in Hyde Park. Massachusetts, the son of Giovanni and Maria Di Geronimo Mariano who had immigrated from Fallo, in the Abruzzo area of Italy.
Educated in the Boston Public Schools and graduated from Hyde Park High School he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, serving in World War II. After his discharge he After his service in the Army, Mariano attended what was then known as Schillinger House of Music, now Berklee College of Music, and served on the faculty at Berklee from 1965 to 1971.
“In 1949, Mariano became a key figure in Nat Pierce's band and recorded his first two sides as a leader on the local Motif label, showcasing his modern style, and although he gained some attention among jazz critics, Charlie was still relatively unknown outside of Boston.” Working with local Boston groups, he went on to lead his own Boston All Stars ensemble in 1953. During this time Jazz was King in Boston and he joined others in performing at Storyville, the Hi-Hat, the Stables, the Savoy Café, the Wig Wam, Wally's, the Down Beat and the Melody Lounge. He was Influenced by Charlie Parker, and Mariano was quick to establish his own style and sound.
Mariano’s music style evolved and became part of the American jazz scene. In the early 1950s he paired with the then trumpeter Quincy Jones and also worked with Stan Kenton's gargantuan and idiomatically wide-ranging orchestra. His involvement with the innovative and inspirational composer Charles Mingus, he recorded the evocative 1963 albums Black Saint and Sinner Lady, and Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus. His album Boppin’ in Boston, which was from 1947 to 1953 and all of which were recorded in Boston, included Joe Gordon, Sonny Truitt, Herb Pomeroy, Dick Twardzik and Jaki Byard.
One of Charlie Marino’s signature songs was I’m Old Fashioned
I am not such a clever one
About the latest fads
I admit I was never one
Adored by local lads
Not that I ever try to be a saint
I'm the type that they classify as quaint
I'm old fashioned
I love the moonlight
I love the old fashioned things
The sound of rain
Upon a window pane
The starry song that April sings
This year's fancies
Are passing fancies
But sighing sighs holding hands
These my heart understands
I know I'm old fashioned
But I don't mind it
That's how I want to be
As long as you agree
To stay old fashioned with me
I'm old fashioned
But I don't mind it
That's how I want to be
As long as you agree
To stay old fashioned with me
Oh won't you stay old fashioned with me
Oh please stay old fashioned with me.

28/10/2024

RIP Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. Grateful Dead expert and constant concert goer Eli Polonsky helpfully lists all Phil's Boston area appearances; many attended by him. Phil played here just last summer.

Eli posted Saturday:
Very saddened about the confirmed passing of the original founding and only ever bassist, and sometimes singer and songwriter, for The Grateful Dead Phil Lesh this morning at 84.

A student of avant-garde classical music, Phil's unique bass playing was innovative, unconventional, groundbreaking and mindblowing. I'm very glad I had many chances to hear him live over 50 years, listed below.

Linked below is the second to last time I saw him, the whole show with his group Phil Lesh & Friends at the Levitate Festival in Marshfield, MA on July 9, 2022.

The last time I saw him was on July 21, 2023 at the Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston, though I can't find professional quality videos of that one. That show got off to a great start, but was cut short in the second set by a lightning storm downpour.

Phil wrote few original songs that he performed with the Dead, "Unbroken Chain" (music by Lesh, lyrics by Bobby Petersen).
The studio version is on the Dead's 1974 album "From The Mars Hotel", but it wasn't performed live by The Grateful Dead until 21 years later on March 19, 1995, less than four months before the Grateful Dead proper ended one month before the passing of Jerry Garcia. Phil continued to perform it with all groups he was with since then.

"Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be there" - from Box Of Rain, music and vocal by Phil Lesh, lyrics by Robert Hunter.

With The Grateful Dead:
04/02/73 Boston Garden (w/New Riders)
07/27/73 "Sound Check", Watkins Glen, NY (w/Allman Bros. & The Band)
07/28/73 "Summer Jam", Watkins Glen, NY (w/Allman Bros. & The Band).
11/30/73 Boston Music Hall
12/01/73 Boston Music Hall
06/28/74 Boston Garden
06/12/76 Boston Music Hall
05/07/77 Boston Garden
05/14/78 Providence Civic Center
11/13/78 Boston Music Hall
11/14/78 Boston Music Hall
01/18/79 Providence Civic Center
05/12/79 Alumni Stadium, U. Mass Amherst (with Patti Smith and Roy Ayers' Ubiquity)
10/27/79 Cape Cod Coliseum, So. Yarmouth, MA
11/04/79 Providence Civic Center
05/12/80 Boston Garden
09/04/80 Providence Civic Center
09/06/80 State Fairgrounds, Lewiston, ME (w/Levon Helm's Cate Bros. and Roy Buchanan)
03/12/81 Boston Garden
05/13/81 Providence Civic Center
04/15/82 Providence Civic Center
04/17/82 Hartford Civic Center
04/18/82 Hartford Civic Center
09/18/82 Boston Garden
04/20/83 Providence Civic Center
06/18/83 S**C, Saratoga NY
10/20/83 Centrum, Worcester, MA
10/21/83 Centrum, Worcester, MA
06/24/84 S**C, Saratoga NY
10/08/84 Centrum, Worcester MA
10/09/84 Centrum, Worcester MA
04/02/87 Centrum, Worcester, MA
09/09/87 Providence Civic Center
04/09/88 Centrum, Worcester MA
07/02/88 Plains Speedway, Oxford, ME (with Little Feat)
07/02/89 Sullivan Stadium, Foxboro, MA (with Los Lobos)
03/19/90 Hartford Civic Center
09/25/91 Boston Garden
03/27/93 Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY
03/28/93 Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY
03/29/93 Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY
09/24/93 Boston Garden
09/25/93 Boston Garden
09/26/93 Boston Garden
09/28/93 Boston Garden
09/29/93 Boston Garden
09/30/93 Boston Garden
07/13/94 Highgate, VT (with Yussou N'Dour)
09/27/94 Boston Garden
09/28/94 Boston Garden
09/29/94 Boston Garden
10/01/94 Boston Garden
10/02/94 Boston Garden
10/03/94 Boston Garden
06/15/95 Highgate, VT (with Bob Dylan opening)

With "The Other Ones":
11/18/02 Fleet Center, Boston (w/Robert Hunter)
11/19/02 Fleet Center, Boston (w/Robert Hunter)

With "The Dead":
06/15/03 Bonnaroo Music Festival, Manchester, TN
06/21/03 The Meadows, Hartford, CT (w/Steve Winwood)
06/22/03 Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA (w/Steve Winwood)
08/10/03 "Joan's" Beach Amphitheater, Wantagh, NY
06/12/04 Bonnaroo Music Festival, Manchester, TN
07/31/04 Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA
08/01/04 S**C, Saratoga, NY
08/03/04 The Meadows, Hartford, CT
04/18/09 DCU Center, Worcester, MA
04/19/09 DCU Center, Worcester, MA
04/26/09 XL Center, Hartford, CT

With "Furthur":
02/18/10 Verizon Wireless Arena, Manchester, NH
06/30/10 LeLacheur Park, Lowell, MA
07/30/10 Gathering Of The Vibes, Bridgeport, CT
11/19/10 DCU Center, Worcester, MA
03/04/11 Orpheum, Boston
03/05/11 Orpheum, Boston
07/21/11 Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA
07/22/11 Gathering Of The Vibes, Bridgeport, CT
04/05/12 Wang Theatre, Boston
04/06/12 Wang Theatre, Boston
07/05/12 McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket, RI
07/17/13 BoA Pavilion, Boston
07/18/13 BoA Pavilion, Boston

"Bobby & Phil" (Bob Weir/Phil Lesh Duo):
03/06/18 Boch Center, Boston, MA (w/Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams)

With "Phil Lesh & Friends":
11/06/99 State University, State College, PA (w/Bob Dylan)
11/13/99 Continental Arena, E. Rutherford, NJ (w/Bob Dylan)
11/14/99 Centrum, Worcester, MA (w/Bob Dylan)
04/08/00 Orpheum, Boston
04/09/00 Orpheum, Boston
04/10/00 Orpheum, Boston
04/11/00 Orpheum, Boston
07/22/00 Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA (w/Bob Dylan)
10/01/00 Memorial Auditorium, Burlington, VT
10/04/00 Orpheum, Boston
10/05/00 Orpheum, Boston
10/06/00 Orpheum, Boston
10/07/00 Orpheum, Boston
04/30/01 Roseland Ballroom, New York City, NY
07/20/01 Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA (Ratdog opened)
07/21/01 The Meadows, Hartford, CT (Ratdog opened)
11/23/01 Orpheum, Boston
07/05/02 Gathering Of The Vibes, Mariaville, NY
07/06/02 Gathering Of The Vibes, Mariaville, NY
07/13/02 Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA (w/Robert Hunter, Mickey Hart's Bembe Orisha)
09/01/02 Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO (Willie Nelson opened)
11/23/03 Orpheum, Boston
11/24/03 Orpheum, Boston
11/25/03 Orpheum, Boston
12/01/05 Agganis Arena, Boston University
02/22/06 Lupo's At The Strand, Providence, RI
10/09/07 Orpheum, Boston
06/21/08 Bank Of America Pavilion, Boston (w/Levon Helm Band)
08/02/08 Gathering Of The Vibes, Bridgeport, CT
07/20/12 Gathering Of The Vibes, Bridgeport, CT
07/26/13 Gathering Of The Vibes, Bridgeport, CT
07/27/13 Gathering Of The Vibes, Bridgeport, CT
10/31/15 Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY
07/09/22 Levitate Music Festival, Marshfield, MA
07/21/23 Leader Bank Pavilion, Boston, MA

"May the four winds blow you safely home" - R.I.P. Phil

18/09/2024

A descendant of an accused witch in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials Hysteria! (There are thousands.)

Congratulations to actress Jean Smart for winning the "Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series" Emmy award last night for her role on the television show "Hacks"!

Did you know that Smart has a deeply rooted connection to Beverly? It was at Hale Farm in 2018 during the filming of the ancestry program, "Who do you think you are?" that the actress found out that she was descended from Dorcas Hoar, a Beverly woman born in 1635 and later accused of being a witch. Hoar was working for Reverend John Hale at the time who was heavily involved in the witch trials himself.

"I found out that my eight-times-great-grandmother on the maternal side was convicted of witchcraft in Salem in 1692. I had no idea," Smart recently told IMDb in an interview. "Nobody in the family knew this, and it was a very moving experience to find out."

Funny enough, the story of Smart's family lineage made it into the Emmy winning show "Hacks" during one of the episodes!

12/09/2024

Many notable entertainers have stopped by for an evening of music, Bill Murray and Taylor Dane for a couple.

This 77-year-old family-run South End venue is the best of Boston's best.

07/09/2024

The fondly remembered 600 seat Paris Cinema, 1964-1994, opposite the Prudential Center was the right size to screen the artsy films of the early seventies. Many memorable movies premiered here, including every Woody Allen movie. At one time it was owned by the same company that owned the equally artsy Orson Welles Cinema. Lovers of The Graduate should scout out the article linked in the comments. This website is invaluable to those who are interested in any movie theater, past or present, anywhere in the U.S. Just enter the name of the theater and "Cinema Treasures." https://www.cinematreasures.org/theaters/6422

Page for lovers of Boston showbiz from vaudeville to punk to movies and books set in Boston. Tours!