Word: grind
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...stayed on the grind though, according to former UC vice president Michael R. Blickstead ’05, and continued giving his whole life to the UC despite his personal reservations...
...modern musical, barely lasted a week. Some call for presold songs, performed in low-key review style, but Leader of the Pack is struggling. And some contend the musical should reach for the opposite extreme, dealing with urgent social issues while rivaling Las Vegas in luxury, but the ambitious Grind has suffered a loss in advance sales since opening...
There is nothing wrong with most current musicals, however, that could not be solved by some intelligent storytelling. Grind and Leader of the Pack, for example, each offer rousing songs, appealing players and a wellspring of goodwill. What neither offers is common sense in constructing a narrative. Leader draws its name from an early 1960s rock hit, one of dozens written by Ellie Greenwich, mostly with her then husband Jeff Barry. The book, concocted by a committee that clearly never arrived at any binding resolutions, seems unable to settle on whether it should showcase those mostly upbeat anthems or chronicle...
...Grind means to weep for the hard times of 1933, encompassing everything from segregation and the Depression to the woes of a refugee Irish terrorist. The terrorist sings not one but two songs about how he blew up a train on which, unknown to him, his wife and son were passengers; this is by no means the unlikeliest coincidence in which he is involved. An aging comedian whose sight is failing wanders into a backdrop (he has also somehow lost his sense of direction) and, fearing the loss of his job, shoots himself. Apparently neither he nor anyone else...
...Grind's director, Harold Prince, perhaps the foremost present-day mounter of book musicals, has said that he plans to take an informal sabbatical to ponder ways of coping with the pitfalls now facing the form. The first, simple step is one that he ought to remember from the days when he staged such shows as Cabaret and Sweeney Todd: have something worth saying and tell it in the most direct and honest way. --By William A. Henry...