Broadway Comes to Santa Barbra

It’s a delight that Broadway comes to our little town every year and we get to go to The Granada — the most beautiful theater on the Central Coast — and enjoy New York’s finest musicals. It’s a night when we Barbarians can show off our sophistication and really dress up: We can put on our top hats and tails — or a fancy beret and a stylish sweater — or, in my case, a clean baseball cap and a collared shirt (un-ironed of course).

Last season brought us Anastasia and The Book of Mormon. And next season will bring us Pretty Woman and Come From Away. But, according to rumors that I made up, there’s even more music from musicals coming our way — in order to commemorate the upcoming 40th Anniversary of Barbra Streisand’s The Broadway Album, the work will be remastered and reissued. The following quotations are the non-actual comments said by made-up people I heard on the street in my head reacting to those rumors:

“Who’s Barbara Streisand? And why does she spell her name wrong?”

“I don’t get it. She does a Broadway album but she doesn’t sing the songs she sang on Broadway. Where’s ‘People’? I love ‘People’.” “What exactly is Broadway anyway?”

“Who’s Steven Sondheim? I mean ‘Stephen.’ What is it with theater people misspelling their names? I mean theatre people.”

“Streisand was in that movie Funny Girl, right? That was back when movies were on reels, right? Just how long has this woman had a career?”

““Bit by bit, putting it together / Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art…” In this song — “Putting It Together” — is she talking collage here, or … what exactly? I bet Steven/Stephen wrote this one — I can tell because it has so many words. Took me a half-hour to scroll it on my phone.”

“The woman lives in Malibu — another New Yorker who left her Brooklyn birthplace and never visits. Just like the Dodgers.”

“Gotta say the song selection on this album is pretty bad — how can she not sing something from Wicked, Rent, or Phantom? Sure, the album was recorded 40 years ago, but still — not even one song from Hamilton?”

“’Send in the Clowns.’ What in the world does this song even mean? It seems to be saying that our relationships are coming apart so farcically that we need to have equally absurd witnesses — so we send in the clowns. Actually, that makes perfect sense. After all, we elect Congress.”

“Is ‘Broadway’ really still a thing?”

“’Pretty women’ and ‘The ladies who lunch’ — are these the same people? ‘Barbra’ puts them in the same song but they’re from two different shows. So I’m confused — are we rooting for these people or are we mocking them?”

“The idea of an ‘album’ is passé. These songs should be re-released as an ‘album-equivalent unit.’ Because people don’t listen to albums anymore — they listen to playlists.”

“’Barbra’ sings two songs from West Side Story — which is based on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet — which is based on Arthur Brookes’s English poem — which is based on Matteo Bandello’s Italian tale. Can’t these people come up with something original?”

“I love ‘People.’ Why didn’t she sing ‘People’ on the album?”

“You know what? She can spell her name any way she wants. And she can sing anything she wants. This woman has a voice!”

She certainly does. And if she ever performs at The Granada, I’m definitely going see her — I’d even iron my shirt for her.

And I bet she’d actually come if we promised to change our name to Santa Barbra.