Ed Icionsub

The Broadway stage troupe of the hit play, Wicked, celebrated its 1000th performance on March 23, 2006. It has been going strong ever since, with both a Broadway show and a national touring troupe.

Wicked, an open-ended show, has enjoyed capacity crowds for almost every performance and it’s weekly gross  is over a million dollars. It broke the record for the highest weekly box office gross in Broadway history.

Based on the character in The Wizard of Oz, it is set in the days prior to Dorothy’s arrival from Kansas. It’s a great idea brought to life on the stage and deserves it’s long running success.

A friend of mine has an acting part in this movie short. It was put out a few years ago and made news overseas. I think it won an award at the Cannes International Film Festival. She is the operator who takes his call. I think she does great, although i have to admit that I never ever thought of her in this way before.

Found a video tonight of one of my favorite artists, Michelle Wright. She was really big back in the early 90′s, and then she stopped getting gigs in the U. S. for some reason. Thankfully, she was able to tour in Canada and has a very strong fan base in Canada.

I hear she has a new album coming out this week. I hope that WalMart will be carrying her new album – that seems to be the best place locally to buy music these days. A lot of the other record shops have gone out of business and we don’t have many choices left.

We decided to visit the Redbox at McDonald’s and I was happy to find “The Green Zone” was available. It stars Matt Damon and is about the corruption and subterfuge going on with the war in Iraq. It had more than one set of bad guys, which made it a little confusing in the beginning. But after a slow start, I began to figure it out. I even pegged the ending, which I won’t spoil for you here.

We liked the movie overall. I wonder how much truth is behind the story line in this war and the Afghanistan war? Time will tell.

Last night we heard a new singer at a free concert up in Hendersonville. His name is Jimmy Charles. I think he is from Maryland originally but moved here to break into country music. He’s really good – give him a listen if you get the chance.

Came across the handwritten list of songs that Levon Helm used for his concert here in April. I would love to buy this list as a souvenir. I hope someone puts it up on Ebay or auctions it off. I’ll be watching.