APRIL UPDATE - 2022

Where did that month go?

On April 7th, the cast of Season Two of “The Gilded Age” assembled for a virtual read-through of episodes 4 and 5. Many interesting plot turns lie ahead.

I had weekly rehearsals with Nancy Winston for our Evening of Victorian Parlor Songs scheduled for The Coffee House at the Salmagundi Club on May 5th.

At the Tenebrae Service on Maundy Thursday, I did some readings for Marble Collegiate Church’s Music Director, my old friend, Kenneth Dake. It’s become a regular event depending on what I’m working on and where.

I was approached through this very website by Charles Kirsch, whose podcast interviews with theatre professionals now number over 100, and can be found as Broadway Babble on cbroadwaypodcast.podbean.com. The interview by zoom on April 20th was a delight: he’s very adept at drawing out people to talk about themselves, their careers, and the people they’ve worked with along the way. In our industry that may seem easy, but his interest and knowledge belies his 14 years, and I reckon that encourages his subjects to open up more than they might to jaded interviewers. His talk, for instance, with survivors of the original cast of “Applause” was fascinating and revealing, especially when it seemed that events backstage had intriguing parallels with the story of “All About Eve” on which the musical was based. Strongly recommended.

MARCH UPDATE - 2022

“Somersett” sadly did not win an Audie, but it was good for it to be nominated.

HBO/WarnerMedia already gave the go-ahead for a Second Season of “The Gilded Age” on February 14th. On the same day, March 21st, as the last episode of Season One aired, there was a virtual table-read of the first three episodes of Season Two. Shooting is due to start at the end of April.

Simon gladly accepted an offer to appear in episode 602 of “The Good Fight” (which stars his “employer” on “The Gilded Age”, Christine Baranski) as Judge Carl Gattis, for CBS/Paramount Plus, and because of a block-wide power cut in Brooklyn, came back to the studio another day to finish. Ironically, the “Gilded Age” episode that streamed that week was about Mr. Edison and his remarkable lightbulb.

At Radio Waves Studio, by chance in the building on 27th Street in Manhattan where Edison’s rival Nicola Tesla had a laboratory, he recorded some roles, including one in French, and the credits, for “Jules Verne – From the Earth to the Moon” by Eve Wolf, directed by Donald Sanders, a joint Anglo-French podcast for the Ensemble for the Romantic Century, (ERC).

February Update - 2022

The Gilded Age continues on HBO Max. Simon plays the most proper of proper butlers, Bannister.

Of Epsiode 4, Alice Burton wrote in The Vulture, a section of New York Magazine:

“Bannister touring the Russells’ mansion is exactly what I wanted from the series.

Can Bannister come back and tell the Russells’ staff everything they’re doing wrong and why? Because if that were the rest of the series, I would avidly watch every minute of it.”

Simon also gave talks to The Dutch Treat Club (Feb 1st), The Coffee House at the Salmagundi (Feb 9th), and The Players (Feb 18th) about the making of "The Gilded Age” in the time of Covid. (Possible title: Putting the EPIC into EPidemIC.)

“Somersett” was nominated as one of five finalists for a 2022 Audie by the Audio Publishers Association in the History/Biography category.