Doris Day Icon

  Doris and Me

Morning Melodies presents ‘Doris and Me’, Janet Seidel’s Doris Day tribute show. In her long film career Doris Day made 39 movies, 18 of which were musicals. Yet it is as a singer that she is most remembered. She recorded 650 songs. It is from this huge repertoire that Janet Seidel, one of Australia’s most accomplished song stylists, has devised a one-woman cabaret celebrating the life and songs of Doris Day. Playing the piano, Janet intersperses the song brackets with snippets of the trials and tribulations of the star’s life. Janet has often been vocally compared to Doris Day and her show, funny and poignant at times, is presented with superb arrangements featuring accomplished double bass player, David Seidel - Janet’s brother. Some of the wonderful songs featured in the show include; Somebody Loves Me, Sentimental Journey, Secret Love, I’ll String Along with You, My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time, I’ve Got the Sun, Embraceable You, It’s Magic, Canadian Capers, Too Marvellous for Words, I know That You Know, Crazy Rhythm, Tea for Two, The Very Thought of You and The Way You Look Tonight.

Que Sera Sera: A Tribute to Doris Day

Cabaret Singer to Debut “Tribute to Doris Day” in Seattle Broadway Singer/Actress Yolanda “Yoly” Tolentino, best known for her role as Lady Thiang in the Broadway production of “The King and I” opposite Lou Diamond Phillips, brings her one-woman cabaret “Que Sera Sera: A Tribute to Doris Day” to Seattle, Washington. The versatile singer (jazz, R&B, opera, musical theatre and pop) sings selections made popular by legendary actress Doris Day from the Great American Songbook. Ms. Tolentino is the winner of the 2003 San Francisco Cabaret Competition and has presented “Que Sera Sera” in New York and Los Angeles. Appearing at Cabaret de Paris at Crepe de Paris

 Que Sera, Sera  Kristina de Sacramento and Anda Flamenco

You’ll be wishing Doris Day never uttered the title phrase by the end of this show, because the performers repeat it constantly. But this “flamenco dance comedy” does offer many funny moments between its energetic tangos and alegrias, performed by a competent, if still developing, cast. Musicians Greg Wolfe, Dave Elrod, and Trevor May ably keep the beat while singer Maria Elena “La Cordobesa” inspires the dancers’ passions. Most memorable is de Sacramento’s perfectly timed duet with a flamenco skirt that seems to have a mind of its own. “You can be replaced!” she warns the recalcitrant costume. Thu 10:00 p.m. Old Arizona. –Caroline Palmer City Pages performing arts aug 2002     

Hedda             Austin Chronicle 06-13-03 By Robi Polgar

In the dirigo group production Hedda, director Laura Somers reimagines Henrik Ibsen’s classic as a perverse and sometimes brilliant Doris Day / Rock Hudson flick, coupling late 1950s zip — party dresses and sweater vests, manhattans and vodka martinis, breezy entrances and exits — with a forbidden sexuality that ratchets the tensions of Ibsen’s play to a whole new level.  

QUE SERA, by Claudette Williams (Thorablot/Vertical Management Group).

 Williams’s 97 Fringe hit about Doris Day receives a full-length remount By  

 The Doris Day Collection” by Robert Shaffron,  

A very funny play is “The Doris Day Collection” by Robert Shaffron, about two men in a Southern California cafe, enjoying a conversation about the pantheon of gay film icons and arguing over who co-starred with Doris Day in which pictures. Hank (Stephen Hope) is the expert in this area — he happens to be editor of the newsletter of the Doris Day Movement. He also has a fiendish plan.”I have everything Doris,” he boasts. “I have the most complete collection of Doris Day memorabilia in the world. My collection lacks only one thing.”"What’s that?” asks his friend Stone (Gregg Moore).”Doris herself!” Hank answersAs you may already have guessed, this plan goes awry almost immediately.By the way, you’ll know you’re in the West Village when the audience bursts spontaneously into “Que Sera Sera” along with the between-set music.  

Karen Oberlin Secret Love — The Music of Doris Day On Miranda Music

Album: Secret Love: The Music of Doris Day
Artist: Karen Oberlin
Genre: Jazz
Karen Oberlin has expressed her admiration of Doris Day in two different settings. Oberlin portrayed the ’40s/’50s star in her New York play, Secret Love: A Tribute to the True Doris Day, and she provides a studio tribute to her on her second album, Secret Love: The Music of Doris Day. Oberlin is a suitable person for a Day tribute because, like Day, she knows how to be sweetly vulnerable — however, she is far from a clone and never goes out of her way to emulate the singer’s phrasing on this 2002 release. Day was essentially a jazz-influenced traditional pop singer; Oberlin is a jazz-influenced traditional pop singer, but she is also a jazz singer and a cabaret singer. And on Secret Love, Oberlin does all of those things equally well. Embracing songs that Day performed in the ’40s and ’50s, Oberlin salutes her on her own terms — and those terms can involve jazz, traditional pop, or cabaret (depending on what she feels is appropriate). Oberlin doesn’t let you forget that she is her own person; her individuality comes through whether she is turning her attention to “It’s Magic,” “Little Girl Blue,” or “Sentimental Journey” (one of the major hits that Day sang with Les Brown’s orchestra in the ’40s). At times, Oberlin acknowledges Day’s more cutesy side; her performance of “I’d Rather Be With You,” for example, becomes too cute and precious for its own good. But Oberlin, much to her credit, often reminds you that Day was quite capable of depth and substance — Day recorded her share of fluff, but when she had first-rate material to work with, she had no problem excelling. Secret Love isn’t perfect, but all things considered, it is a thoughtful, interesting, and well-rounded tribute to the pop icon. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:08 pm

Daydreams

Musical Direction by Ted Firth CATHERINE DUPUIS  In New York, Catherine appeared in Daydreams, an innovative show about Doris Day. The sold-out show was covered by the New Yorker, The Daily News and The New YorkPost.She created and continues to perform a one-woman show based on Native American issues and her Mohawk/Ojibwa ancestry  

Definitely Doris By Leo P. Carusone and Patty Carver Directed by Leo P. Carusone At the 57 Theatre Stuart Streeet, Boston, Through November Reviewed by G.L. Horton

“Definitely Doris” is the inaugural show at the new 57 Theatre, formerly a mid-sized cinema house within the 57 Hotel. Producers Jerry Goehring and Robert Mellor deserve a vote of thanks from the community for presenting Boston with this comfortable new facility at the edge of the downtown theatre district. “Definitely Doris”, written and arranged by Leo P. Carusone and Patty Carver , is a review made up of songs recorded by Day, snippets from her fan mail, bits from her biography, and some of the commercials she made in the fifties for products she endorsed. Before I saw the show I asked myself, “why”? But the answer to that was sitting two seats over, smiling happily and singing along with every number. I was astonished to discover that I could have sung along, too. Most of “Definitely Doris”’s featured songs, from “Jeepers Creepers” to “A Guy Is a Guy” are lodged in my memory, every note and word. This is all the more remarkable because to the best of my recollection I never deliberately listened to any of them. (No, I didn’t reject Tin Pan Alley for Rock and Roll. I was a snob as a kid: the records I bought with my allowance were classical) The typical Doris Day novelty number, the kind with simple –one might almost say simple-minded– lyrics, mostly about the kind of love that goes together with marriage like a horse and carriage, and expects to live happily ever after; set to a catchy tune — this kind of song was in the air, and inescapable. The tunes and lyrics were easy enough to be memorized after a couple of hearings, whistled at work, sung in the shower or on the schoolbus traveling to the Game. Hearing them again brings back what seems from the distance of today a simpler, easier time. Those who remember that time fondly, or those younger people who imagine that their lives would have been better had they been born a generation or two earlier, are going to find “Definitely Doris” a fun night out. Boston’s fabled designers Helen Pond and Herbert Senn have provided “Doris” with a sweet little gazebo to hold the on stage combo, flanked by two of the circa 1910 white clapboard houses that say “stable Midwestern small town”, the kind of place that represents home sweet home to the constituency of Bob Dole. The combo’s good, especially Michael Leonard on woodwinds, and the five vocalists who perform the 42 songs are assured professionals: Robert Amirante, Nancy Carroll, Michael Iannucci , and cute as a button Kathy St. George . I found it problematic that their singing styles were at odds with what I think of as the Day style. Not that the performers are deliberately camping it up — maybe they should? –but that their interpretations are sometimes mannered to the point of unconscious parody. I think that Doris Day won so many hearts because she had the ability to sing silly songs and play stereotypical roles “straight”, with purity of intention and tone; while at the same time there was in her performances a sense of untapped reserves, of a real and complex human being behind them. The Hallmark Card of conventional sentiment expressed in conventional terms aspired to the dignity of poetry through the artistry of the packaging. The program for “Definitely Doris” also contains a card that you can fill out and send in to join the International Doris Day Society, which, “in addition to promoting the music, movies and career of Doris Day, works closely with Ms. Day on her commitment to animals through the Doris Day Animal League

 Doris in a Dustbowl

“The marvelous 1989 Doris in a Dustbowl, however, is lucid in its woebegone insanity. Pink net dress, white suit—oh, yes, Doris Day and Rock Hudson. But no—hiccuping and gasping rhythmically, Goode and Burritt come to realize they’re not movie stars in a ’50s dreamland after all. He blows white dust on her; she drops an apronful on him. He brings in a little diorama, by James Morris, of a lonesome house on an arid plain. The big kiss never comes. Oklahoma, they admit, is not what they expected.

A Letter to True

Writer Betsy Sherman writes about the new documentary by cult favorite Bruce Weber” featured at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts on October 14, 2004 Bruce Weber’s movies are like the bubble bath of documentaries. Viewers are invited to luxuriate in the director’s rich selection of images and beautifully chosen soundtrack music. When they leave the theater, they feel all tingly A Letter to True” is entertaining, and ultimately moving, in the same vein as “Chop Suey.” But since Weber takes as one of his challenges to address the impact of September 11th, it has a more sober, though not necessarily somber, feel than the earlier film. Among its hero figures are movie stars, surfers, a farm matron, Haitian immigrants in Miami, Weber’s dogs, and every other dog in the world. The film’s uniting voice-over narration is Weber’s letter to True, his youngest golden retriever. Weber apologizes for going off on assignment so often, reminisces about people and dogs, and reflects on how fellow New Yorkers and the world at large have changed since 9/11. As we bask in the movie’s signature image, the dogs frolicking on the beach in front of Weber’s summer house, the cloudless voice of Doris Day sings a song from which we can pick out words to live by. In the preamble to the more familiar verses of “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” the words that resonate are “we’re not here to stay, we’re on a short ho-li-day.” Day is not only one of Weber’s favorite singers: as he points out to True, she’s the lady who divorced one of her husbands because he requested that only five dogs be allowed in their bed at one time, instead of Doris’s customary coterie of ten. Movies Artful Facts