“Never Be Afraid to Be Legendary”

Nearly a year after it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, the poignant, touching, and heartwarming documentary providing a no-holds-bar look at the life of Broadway legend Elaine Stritch, received its theatrical release in New York this weekend. Look for it in other markets, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington in the coming weeks.

(Click here to read TheCinemaSource.com‘s original review)

In the run-up to the film’s New York opening, Stritch has been making the rounds with the press and at capacity-crowd events around Manhattan. Those appearances have been driving home an underlying theme that plays throughout Chemi Karasawa’s 82-minute flick: this is Stritch approaching her final curtain call. (Stritch turned 89 on February 2).

In the year since Shoot Me debuted at Tribeca, Stritch has moved back to her home state of Michigan opting to be closer to family. It’s clear that her daily struggle with diabetes is taking its toll on one of the most formidable women ever to tread the boards. Stritch has also had more than her fair share of medical speed bumps over the past year, including two different falls and during press appearances last week, and at Thursday night’s red carpet, was being ushered around (clad in fur from head to toe) in a wheelchair.

But even with her frailties on full display as Shoot Me prepared to open large, Stritch is proving that she hasn’t left the stage yet and is taking no prisoners.

In addition to joining Twitter (follower her @ElaineStritch) this week, Stritch made headlines the world over when, appearing on the fourth hour of NBC’s Today Show Wednesday morning, she dropped the f-bomb on live air.

“If you just say things naturally, it’s fine!” Stritch proclaimed as Kathie Lee Gifford gave the legend a food massage. “You know, they just think in fuck.”

And who can argue with that?

More on Elaine Stritch:

Read TheCinemaSource.com’s original review of Shoot Me

Check out BroadwayWorld.com’s red carpet coverage from New York

BroadwayWorld.com In-Depth Interview with Elaine Stritch

Check out the ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME – HD TRAILER:

Original post: ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME Opens in Theaters

It’s a quintessential Stritch-ism. And it’s a fitting opening to Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, a touching and bittersweet cinematic tribute to one of the last remaining Grand Dames of American Theatre, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival this past weekend.

The 82-minute documentary by director Chiemi Karasawa gives us a window into a year in the life of Broadway legend Elaine Stritch.

Stritch traversing her Upper East Side neighborhood clad in her signature look of a man’s oversized white shirt and black tights, coupled sometimes with, shorts, a hat, a vest or a tie – and in colder weather, an enveloping fur coat. (We’re pretty sure she swore off pants during the Eisenhower administration.)

Stritch going to work on the set of 30 Rock and trading barbs with co-stars Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan. Stritch rehearsing her cabaret act with longtime musical director Rob Bowman in a suite at The Carlyle Hotel (“which is someone’s suite while they’re out to lunch,” she quips).

Stritch calming her opening night jitters with a prayer before clambering to the stage of the Café Carlyle.

Interwoven throughout are images and footage and music of a career that has spanned seven decades and has left the charismatic Stritch with a devoted and loyal fan base.

As Stritch reviews dozens of photos assembled in her assistant’s guest room – many of which eventually make their way into a rehearsal room named for Stritch at the Stella Adler Studio where she once studied alongside the likes of Marlon Brando – the Tony and Emmy Award winning reminisces about her many roles and accomplishments.

Showing off a production still in her costume from her Broadway debut in Angel in the Wings, she remembers “I sang ‘Bongo bongo bongo, I don’t wanna leave the Congo. Oh no no no no no’….I turned that [headdress] into a lampshade.” Of her leading role in Noël Coward’s musical Sail Away, she notes that it was the beginning of the “best years” of her career.

She has a memory for every show and a story for just about everyone who’s trod the boards of a Broadway theatre. It’s no wonder she is considered as much a New York institution as the Empire State Building, so much so that she was named a living landmark by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

Actress Cherry Jones sums it up nicely noting that Stritch is a “conduit to a time that really was the golden age of theatre.”

For any casual observer, these moments and memories and snippets might be enough to answer the question: “Who is Elaine Stritch?”

But, Karasawa lovingly pushes beyond and what emerges during an emotional roller coaster is an extremely intimate portrait of Stritch – often at her most vulnerable and frail, in spite of a seemingly endless supply of strength.

We see the pain of an actress as she struggles to remember lyrics during rehearsal. We experience her abject fear during a hypoglycemic attack that left her unable to communicate and led to a brief hospital stay. And during a second, extended hospital admission, we share in her triumph of life over death.

In this way, Shoot Me picks up where Stritch’s 2002 one-woman show, Elaine Stritch At Liberty, left off. In At Liberty, for which she received a Tony Award, Stritch was brutally honest and forthcoming about her struggles with alcoholism and maintaining her blood sugar as an insulin-dependent diabetic. Now, through the eyes of the camera, we see the progression of that storyline on screen as Stritch prepared to celebrate her 87th birthday.

“Everybody has their sack of rocks,” observes Stritch, quoting her late husband, actor John Bay, to dismiss her particular set of aches and pains as nothing out of the ordinary. “I’m not old…I like to say I’m getting older,” she tells the camera because we’re all getting older one day at a time.

Through it all, however, Stritch perseveres with a combination of guts and sheer New York will power. She has “the guts of a jailbird,” observed longtime friend and Company director, Hal Prince. But, “the convent girl is there always.”

Indeed, while Elaine Stritch may be a gutsy, salty, brassy, hard-talking broad (I use that term in only the most venerable sense), even after 70 years on stage, Shoot Me shows that she still possesses an innocent vulnerability that actor and director John Turturro likened to being a turtle without its shell.

It’s that vulnerability that has allowed her to connect with countless audiences throughout her storied career as she interpreted works by the likes of Edward Albee, the aforementioned Noël Coward and Stephen Sondheim.

First, D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary on the recording of the cast album for Company gave us Stritch as she fought to lay down the track for her signature number, The Ladies Who Lunch. Then we were given a recording of Elaine Stritch At Liberty as the actress held court during her run at the Old Vic in London.

As Stritch prepares to pack up and leave New York for a “semi-retirement” back in her hometown outside of Detroit, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me now rounds out the Elaine Stritch canon by paying tribute to Elaine Stritch the actress, but also by honoring the Elaine Stritch who will continue to serve as a role model and an inspiration for generations of actors to come.

More about Elaine Stritch:

Playbill Vault archive of Stritch’s Broadway career
Elaine Stritch on IMDB

Full disclosure: The author is a self-described, unabashed Elaine Stritch fanboy. He also contributed to the Indiegogo campaign for Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me.

Synopsis:

What does it mean to be a performing artist – first, last and always? Broadway legend Elaine Stritch can answer that. At 87, Stritch is still here, dominating the stage in her one woman cabaret act, torturing Alec Baldwin on 30 ROCK, giving us her take on aging, her struggle with alcohol and diabetes, and the fear of leaving the follow spot behind. In stolen moments from her corner room at the Carlyle, and on breaks from her tour and work, candid reflections about her life are punctuated with rare archival footage, words from friends (Hal Prince, George C. Wolfe, Nathan Lane, Cherry Jones and John Turturro) and photographs from her personal collection. By turns bold, hilarious and achingly poignant, the journey connects Stritch’s present to her past, and an inspiring portrait of a one-of-a-kind survivor emerges.

Original post: Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me

Elaine Stritch Isn’t Leaving New York Quietly
And we wouldn’t want it any other way

If April hasn’t already been declared “Elaine Stritch Month” in New York, it should be.

After seven decades in New York, Elaine Stritch, one of the last Grand Dames of the Great White Way, announced earlier this year that she was leaving New York and moving closer to her family in her hometown of Birmingham, Michigan. But, it seems Stritch was determined not to leave quietly.

Earlier this month, in one more cabaret act at the Café Carlyle, Elaine Stritch: At the Carlyle… Movin’ Over and Out, the 88-year-old proved she’s still got it. For five nights, Stritch, clad in her signature look – a man’s white shirt and black tights (proving you can have great looking legs at any age) – bounded to the stage.

With her mother’s cane in hand for added support, Stritch was ready to once again wow standing-room only audiences in the tiny venue located in the famed Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side.

For the uninitiated, let’s pause for a moment and review just who Elaine Stritch is and her contribution to the American theatre:

Stritch arrived in New York at age 18 and at 22 made her Broadway debut in the musical review Angel in the Wings. From there she went on to success on stage, screen and television.

Her powerful and gravely voice made its way into classic productions of Pal Joey, On Your Toes, and Noël Coward’s Sail Away. She conquered plays like Bus Stop and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She played a wealthy widow and became the object of desire in the Walter Matthau / Jack Lemmon comedy, Out to Sea. And Stritch made her mark as Colleen Donaghy, the harden, yet hilarious mother to Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy in NBC’s 30 Rock.

But it was her part as Joanne in Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 production of Company that elevated Stritch to iconic status with her performance of The Ladies Who Lunch (let’s propose a toast!) Most recently, she starred alongside Bernadette Peters in the 2009 revival of Sondheim’s epic, A Little Night Music. (Stritch and Peters replaced Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta-Jones, respectively.)

And now back to our regular program…

In a reminiscing nod to her one-woman show, Elaine Stritch At Liberty, which landed her a Tony Award, the legend told stories of her encounters with other entertainment legends (“Judy Garland is the funniest white woman I’ve ever met”). She shared bawdy jokes (“St. Peter looks at Jesus and says, ‘Are ya gonna fuck around or are we gonna play golf?’”). And, with the help of her longtime musical director, Rob Bowman, Stritch showed she can still sing even if her voice lacks some of the power it once had.

There were no ladies who lunch, or any other interpretations of Stephen Sondheim, which turned her into a theatrical icon. Just a powerhouse of the American theatre sitting down to have a conversation with the people who matter most to her: her audience.

But if you thought that the cabaret was the final word before Stritch’s move back to Michigan, you’d be wrong. If you’ll pardon the pun, Stritch has one parting shot.

Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, a documentary directed by Isotope Films founder Chiemi Karasawa, makes its long-anticipated debut at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York tonight.

The “hilarious and achingly poignant” film gives us Stritch’s “take on aging, her struggle with alcohol and diabetes, and the fear of leaving the follow spot behind.”

———-
From the summary on Isotope’s website:

In stolen moments from her corner room at the Carlyle, and on breaks from her tour and work, candid reflections about her life are punctuated with rare archival footage, words from friends (Hal Prince, George C. Wolfe, Nathan Lane, Cherry Jones and John Turturro) and photographs from her personal collection. By turns bold, hilarious and achingly poignant, the journey connects Stritch’s present to her past, and an inspiring portrait of a one-of-a-kind survivor emerges.
———-

In interviews, Karasawa shared that the idea for the intimate portrait of Stritch came from Vartali Salon stylist Piet Sinthuchai. Sinthuchai counts both Stritch and Karasawa as regular clients. After being introduced to Stritch, Karasawa, a long-time producer now turned director began a crazy two year period following Elaine Stritch as she kept up a dizzying schedule that would make men half her age weep.

On Monday, the Tony and Emmy Award winning subject will once again take to the stage, along with Karasawa, and Charles Isherwood of the New York Times for a discussion about the film, her life in the theatre, and industry dish (maybe more Judy Garland stories?). The discussion is part of the Tribeca Talks®: Beyond the Screens: The Artist’s Angle series.

With all of the recent attention on Stritch, you have to think that this isn’t the swan song of an actress past her prime; it’s the next phase in the long and celebrated career of a woman who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quit.”

I’ll drink to that.

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Tickets for the three Tribeca screenings of “Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me,” went fast, but as with all films at Tribeca, there’s no such thing as a sold out house. Those wishing for a chance to see Stritch one more time before she heads off to Michigan, can arrive early and stand by for rush tickets.

More about Elaine Stritch:

Playbill Vault archive of Stritch’s Broadway career
Elaine Stritch on IMDB

Full disclosure: The author is a self-described, unabashed Elaine Stritch fanboy. He also contributed to the Indiegogo campaign for Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me.

Original post: Elaine Stritch Isn’t Leaving New York Quietly… And We Wouldn’t Want it Any Other Way!