Lilla Crawford & Sunny in "Annie". Photo by Joan Marcus.

The bitch is back.

OK, technically speaking “Sandy” in Annie is a boy dog but…you get the point. And with a spanking new Broadway revival — which opened last night to solid and at times glowing reviews — the tail wagging charmer and the belting moppet are back to incite more girlish sighs and cynical eye rolls.  I mean, has there ever been a musical more beloved and simultaneously maligned (as everything horrible about relentlessly cheery, vocal chord popping musical theater) than this show? And yet…and yet the songs are damn solid — “Easy Street” is a truly dynamite number — and undeniably a part of our cultural fabric.

Who hasn’t sung “Tomorrow”–either in earnest or in jest? I’ll admit it, there are cassette tapes that exist of an eleven year old me belting out my boy soprano version in my bedroom. These recordings will remain under lock and key until 25 years after my death so don’t bother looking for them…and instead check out these amazing renditions:

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Barbra Streisand. Image via Google.

I was raised on Barbra Streisand albums.

I mean, not literally on a crib made out of them (imagine being an infant and seeing that “Guilty” cover every day) but on a constant sonic bed of “The Way We Were” and “Evergreen” and “Second Hand Rose” playing in the house. My mother, who couldn’t carry a tune in a Vuitton roll-aboard, played Babs albums and warbled along to them round the clock.

So, besides making me gay, this resulted in me feeling an enormous, almost primal affection for Streisand. Starting tonight, she returns to her home town of Brooklyn for a series of concerts at the new Barclays Center. I, not having a trust fund, will not be attending but it got me thinking: although she quickly left Broadway after her first two shows, never to return again, she will always be associated with the Great White Way thanks to her devotion to the showtune songbook.

Let’s sit back and watch/listen to a few rare Streisand Broadway moments including a very early interview, a live stage performance and an album outtake…

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Annie Funke & Jake Gyllenhaal in "If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet". Photo by Joan Marcus.

You’ve heard of friends with benefits? Well, this is a post with benefits so pucker up and get ready for this week’s theater news round-up…

• Part theater geek garage sale and part outdoor fan convention, the annual Broadway Flea Market and Grand Auction takes over Shubert Alley & Times Square this Sunday from 10am – 7pm. In addition to the popular autograph table (this year featuring the likes of Cheyenne Jackson, Bebe Neuwirth, Steve Kazee, Bernadette Peters, Jeremy Jordan and more), the marquee event is an auction of priceless memorabilia and events including lunch with Angela Lansbury…with all proceeds going to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Start bidding now!

• Still jonesing for a big ticket reward? The Drama League is sponsoring an online auction of their own with some amazing items including tickets to see If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet including a VIP backstage photo with star Jake Gyllenhaal. Just keep your hands to yourself when you get that picture taken with my boyfriend.

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  David Schwimmer in "Detroit". Photo by Jeremy Daniel.

  There are lots of benefits (ouch, that transition gave me whiplash) to seeing shows beyond Broadway. Check out the glowing reviews for two big, starry Off-Broadway openings this week. First, David Schwimmer and Amy Ryan headline “the superb” new play about downward mobility Detroit at Playwrights Horizons. Then the transcript-based, wrongly accused prisoners docudrama The Exonerated, returns in a revival that “still has the power to unsettle” with its rotating cast including Stockard Channing and Brian Dennehy.

• Broadway Cares isn’t done yet; they’ve got a benefit — that’s like butter — planned for October 12 titled Hello Gorgeous: A Salute to the Streisand Songbook. Performers scheduled to belt their tuches off include Lorna Luft (Grease 2 again!), Ann Hampton Callaway, Daisy Eagan (The Secret Garden), Nick Adams (Priscilla: Queen of the Desert) and Jim Caruso (“Cast Party” at Birdland).

• The New York Times is reporting that Scarlett Johansson will slip out of her superhero leather and into a slip when she returns to Broadway as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof this winter. Her equally fetching, though perhaps not in a slip, co-stars will be Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson himself Benjamin Walker, Ciaran Hinds and Debra Monk.

• Finally, start planning your Christmas Day trip to movie theaters now because the big budget adaption of Les Miserables has been moved back two weeks to December 25. Not sure if it will be goodies or coal in your stocking? After the jump, check out a juicy behind-the-scenes preview that made the rounds yesterday. Color me very, very impressed with how some of the singing, recorded live on the set, sounds…

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Sutton Foster in "Anything Goes". Photo by Joan Marcus.

“Belting (or vocal belting) is a specific technique of singing by which a singer produces a loud sound in the upper middle of the pitch range.” Wikipedia

Sure, that’s the technical definition. But theater types know belting as that spine tingling, vocal chord busting, earsplitting, sometimes heartbreaking sound that makes grown men weep and every little girl wish she were Annie. Love it or hate it, belting is the sound of modern Broadway and the holy miracle that creates diva worshippers as devoted as any Delphic priestess. (Personally, I’m a mix man but that’s for another day…)

Need a little belt booster shot? Watch this hysterical/awe-inspiring video compilation of some of the best belters ever, followed by some choice quotes from the diva’s themselves about their voices…

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