15 celebrities I've seen in live performance

[vaneramos]

On the way home somebody on the radio mentioned Jack Benny playing violin, and this list came to mind. Most of this cultural exposure is thanks to my parents. More than half these people are dead, and the most recent performance was No. 13 in 1990. No particular order here.

1. Jack Benny (playing violin with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra)
2. Bob Hope (same evening)
3. Maggie Smith (as Lady Macbeth!!!!!)
4. Yule Brynner (as the King of Siam)
5. Vincent Price (as Oscar Wilde in a monologue)
6. Isaac Stern (performing Beethoven's Violin Concerto)
7. Arthur Fiedler
8. Kenny Rogers
9. The Beach Boys
10. Jessye Norman (singing Wagner)
11. Jessica Tandy (as Titania)
12. Hume Cronyn (as Nick Bottom)
13. Buffy Sainte-Marie
14. Michael Rudy (performing Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto)
15. Perry Como

Comments

[butterflyminds.livejournal.com]

I've seen some good plays in the past, and some not so good, the worst being a production of Macbeth which had the audience falling about laughing. Honestly, it was mortifying. Some of the actors I've seen wouldn't be familiar across the Atlantic, and I'd be hard pressed to remember them all, but I have seen:

1. Timothy Dalton in The Taming of the Shrew. Probably 1985/6-ish.
2. Vanessa Redgrave also in The Taming of the Shrew (sexual chemistry and spit flying everywhere - I was in the front row)
3. Jeremy Irons in A Winter's Tale, Stratford, 1985/6. (The stage design was a dream, but the production didn't live up to the backdrop, and Irons' acting was completely over the top.)

Your list is definitely better.

Productions that have stayed in my mind include the above, plus The Threepenny Opera, a brilliant production of Macbeth, and a Scots play called Jamie the Saxt which was absolutely hilarious. One of the last things I saw was Krapp's Last Tape, along with The Tempest, and I think, The Duchess of Malfi. And a very good Chehkov, The Cherry Orchard. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf might have been the very last thing I saw, but I remember too seeing something classical, with a Greek chorus. I haven't been to the theatre in ages. It's time I went back.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

We have a world class Shakespearean festival here, at Stratford, Ontario, about a 90-minute drive away. My parents took me there at least once a year when I was growing up, and that's where I saw Maggie Smith, Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn perform. I didn't really know who they were at the time, but the performances riveted me.

I wouldn't say anyone on my list tops Vanessa Redgrave or Jeremy Irons. I would love to see them.

[fivecats.livejournal.com]

Contrary to popular belief, Jack Benny was actually a fairly good violinist.

(unlike, say, me. i stopped trying to play when the cats fled the room that I would practice in when they saw me enter the room with the violin case)

And Maggie Smith as Lady Macbeth? That must have been incredible!

...

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

She was incredible. I was only a teenager and she was 40-something, so I didn't know who she was, but her performance was incredibly sinister, riveting.

[fr-defenestrato.livejournal.com]

3. Maggie Smith (as Lady Macbeth!!!!!)

I am positively chartreuse.

I just saw Kathleen Turner as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was wonderful, but the poor woman had a coughing fit in Act 3, just before her "recitation" about "our son"... it went on and on and on and the whole audience just wanted to cry for her.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw that performance by Maggie Smith about 30 years ago. I didn't know who she was, but her performance was incredibly sinister, unforgettable.