White Christmas Performed by The Kings Academy Players

Although it’s been years since I watched 1954’s Silver Screen version of White Christmas starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye when the last musical number concluded and we put our hands together in stunned appreciation for the High School company that just performed it for Debra and I, in my mind it could have rivaled any production stage or screen.  Maybe that’s overstating things a bit after all it was a High School production. But Ladies and Gentlemen what a production!

If these young adults many of them anyway aren’t headed for Julliard then for the Broadway stage knock me down with a feather. When you look at the Broadway like Playbill and then peruse the pictured actors and bios they look like kids. Yet up on the stage they become transformed into 20 something and when they open their mouths they become adult performers and in a flash of lightning you’re whisked away to the Great White Way in the exquisitely designed Page Family Center for Performing Arts. 

The story a simple one Bob Wallace and Phil Davis ex Army vets team up with sister act Betty and Judy Haynes put on a Christmas show in rural Vermont in a failing Country Inn run by their ex General Henry Waverly. With a little romance mixed in, the cast performs music by the legendary Irving Berlin with voices this side of heaven. This troupe featured junior Kyle Martin in Bing Crosby’s role filling the crooner’s delivery with a mellifluous voice that filled every inch of negative space and with his sidekick Graham Popadic a senior with equally rousing melodic chords in the Danny Kaye portrayal as the devil may care playboy suddenly struck by Cupid’s arrow by dancer and singer Gracie O’Connor in the Vera Ellen role. And rounding out the love interest duo is senior Jessica Turley as Betty Haynes who was instantly equally smitten to Kyle Martin. Gracie and Jessica both with earthbound Angelic voices complimented each other like no duo in recent memory.  These Haynes sisters together, apart and as a trio with Kate Higgins also a senior and a quartet with the boys nearly flattened me with each note. A surprising addition was the diminutive sophomore Sara Meldrim playing the General’s granddaughter belting out “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep” took the audience by surprise in terms of it’s strength and melodic timbre.  Some of the best and lesser known masterfully crafted Berlin musical compositions are here including “Blue Skies”, “Sisters”, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” and of course “White Christmas”. However what made the whole evening astonishing was how the production blended the music with the pageantry of dance and costume. We will look forward to the King’s Academy’s next production which is slated for late January, Peter and the Star Catcher. 

The choreography alone is worthy of Broadway.  The dancers had our pupils widened with each scene. The tap dance numbers were syncopated with precision and the costuming was visually stunning. And leading this production is a Tony nominated director with the moniker of David Snyder without whom despite these gifted players this spectacular show could not have been elevated to this level of success.

The Kings Academy players are the crème de al crème and with White Christmas not only did they set the mood for the season but these teenagers made us hearken back to a period in this Country to a simpler time and for two hours had us riveted to our seats until it was time for us to bolt from our winged chairs and applaud them for this phantasmagorical Christmas delight. 

    

Frank Sinatra

Our star for this Christmas season is also our Birthday boy Frank Sinatra. Born on December 12, 1915 Ol’ Blue Eyes would’ve been 102 this year. He passed however in 1998 at the age of 82 too soon by most accounts but let’s dig a little deeper into this American icon and see if we can come up with some factoids that you might not be aware of shall we? Although he was widely known for his active support of JFK in his election bid in 1960 it was his ardent support for the state of Israel that had him switch to the Republican Party in the 1970’s.  

His longtime friend Bing Crosby said a voice like Sinatra comes along once in a lifetime but why did it have to come along in mine! Bing Crosby was indeed a humble man and had a tremendous career of his own both on screen and in the recording studio but his story is for another time. Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hoboken New Jersey to Northern Italian immigrants Natalina Della Garaventa and Saverio Antonio Martino Sinatra a boxer, fireman and bar owner. It was that same friend that spurred Sinatra as a teenager to become a singer watching and listening to Bing Crosby. Sinatra began his career performing in glee clubs and later in local nightclubs. When the radio found his voice as he was later dubbed “The Voice” it was with the bandleader Harry James he made his first recording “All or Nothing at All” in 1940. He later joined the Tommy Dorsey orchestra and after one chart topper after another in 2 years he struck out on his own. Dorsey fought tooth and nail to hold on to his star attraction and it was rumored not until Frank’s mafia ties threatened the bandleader did he allow him out of his contract. 

Oddly enough Frank was turned down for the military because of a ruptured eardrum and it was during these years that the Bobby Soxers would swoon over his baritone voice and brand him with names like “The Voice”, “Ol’ Blue Eyes” and later “Chairman of the Board” He even made his film debut in 1943 with “Reveille With Beverly” and “Higher and Higher”. After the war though musical tastes began to change and it was during this period that Sinatra’s career flagged badly and he lost his recording contract. He even considered suicide and with damaged vocal chords his fate as a singer seemed all but sealed but Providence would intercede. In 1953 with the help of the love of his life (not hers) wife Ava Gardner harangued movie mogul Harry Cohn into giving the part of Maggio to Frank in his epic “From Here to Eternity” and when Cohn relented Frank’s performance won him the Academy Award for best Actor in a Supporting Role. Magically his acting and singing career was revived and to some he would rise to even greater heights. 

He struck a deal with Capitol Records and with his mature sound and jazzier delivery his renaissance was complete. In fact in 1955 another Academy Award Nomination would be his with “The Man With the Golden Arm” about a heroin addicted card dealer and then in 1962 he would achieve critical acclaim with “The Manchurian Candidate.” By the end of the decade and the British Invasion Sinatra had to endure yet another musical drought and as he ended his association with Capitol he bought his own record label Reprise. 

By the mid-60’s though Frank was back on top yet a 3rd time this time he had company and it was a formidable group. And as most of us know it was later to be known as The Rat Pack. At its core were Frank, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. Their success especially in Las Vegas was legendary.  Even Jim Morrison of the Doors was to give Sinatra his due when he said, “No one can touch him.” 

They made some movies together some memorable “Oceans Eleven” and some forgettable like “Four for Texas”.  In 1966 he would have maybe his biggest commercial success with his recording of “Strangers in the Night” winning a Grammy and soon after a duet with daughter Nancy (My Nancy With the Laughing Face) in “Something Stupid” and in 1967 recording Paul Anka’s “My Way”.  

Sinatra’s personal life would take too much space to cover here but suffice it to say Frank married 4 times Nancy Barbato in 1939 who he sired 3 children with, in 1951 to Ava Gardner and in 1966 to Mia Farrow. The latter two were short lived but it was wife number 4, Barbara Marx (Ex-wife of Zeppo Marx) that Frank would have the most enduring marriage of 20 years until his death in 1998.  As a side note 2013 Mia Farrow said that Sinatra was the love of her life in an interview with Vanity Fair and also claim that her only biological son Ronan was Sinatra’s child. 

In 1987 Kitty Kelly published an unauthorized biography of Sinatra while he was still alive. It was mostly negative and highlighted his mob ties and his philandering and his overall despicable character. A hit piece if there ever was one but his career and impact was just too great and it turned out to be merely a flesh wound on a remarkable life and career.   Frank died of a heart attack on May 14, 1998 in Cedars-Sinai in California. At Yankee Stadium after every victory they play his hit “New York, New York”.