The 2014 Broadway University Entrance Exam

While I appreciate that so many people have applied to be part of the incoming class at Broadway University, I’m afraid that you’ll have to take a rigorous entrance exam to prove that you’re worthy.

If you’re accepted, you’ll be able to take Theatrical Management from Mr. Goldstone and Business Management from Miss Marmelstein. Avoid Mr. Cladwell – a terrible man with tenure -- but if you’d like to get down to brass tacks, Miss Turnstiles teaches a course that’s bluntly named “How to Get Asses in the Seats and Feet in the Standing Room Area.” But who’s considered to be the most effective teacher in the entire business department? His name is Mr. Snow.

Enroll in Magic with Mr. Mistoffolees, Costume Design with Miss Celie and Dancing with Mr. Bojangles. You have an excellent choice with History 101, for Miss Liberty towers over everyone, but Mr. Adams is almost as effective; it’s just that he’s obnoxious and disliked by many students. And yet, some pupils say that that they prefer him to the terminally boring Mr. Monotony.

Mrs. S.L. Jacobowsky teaches Jewish-Gentile Relations. Mrs. Sally Adams is an expert in Diplomacy, with Lichtenburg legalities her specialty. There’s a teacher in the Home Economics Department who’s a pushover for gifts, so if you’re smart, you’ll bring presents for Mrs. Rogers. Mr. Livingstone, I presume, will be your first choice for Anthropology. He is every inch a gentleman, and thus an easy marker. However, if you’re really looking for a sure “A,” take Pop Culture with Mr. Clown.

By the time you’re accepted into Broadway University, we hope to have a new dean in place; unfortunately the recently-hired Dean Jones abruptly left after only a month. We DO have a lovely interim dean, so be sure to meet Miss Blendo before her replacement takes over.

Who can resist a celebrity-studded faculty such as this? So in honor of all of them, the test lists 50 lines and lyrics that cite other celebrities. The shows from which they spring come from BOTH Broadway AND off-Broadway and are all chronologically arranged to make the test easier. Answers must arrive by Sunday, Aug. 31 by 11:59 p.m. at pfilichia@aol.com

Oh! I almost forgot! Also on the faculty, albeit on the Chicago campus, is Mr. Cellophane.

1. “You’re the nose on the great Durante.”

2. “Who the hell is Sally Rand?”

3. “I’m Carmen Miranda.”

4. “He may have hair upon his chest, but, sister, so does Lassie.”

5. “Major Bowes? Steinbeck’s prose?”

6. “I sure had to hassle and hustle buying tickets for Rosalind Russell.”

7. “If Ava Gardner played Godiva riding on a mare …”

8. “And Rin-Tin-Tin!”

9. “Tonight on TV’s ‘Late, Late Show,’ you can look at Clara Bow.”

10. “I’ll be more Espanol than Abbe Lane.”

11. “Charles Boyer kissing Hedy. Eddie Cantor, hands-a-clapping. Ruby Keeler tapping.”

12. “Sal Mineo! Take us! Make us all red, white and blue.”

13. “Mary Astor, meet your master.”

14. “Cary Grant would still be a stilt-walker on the beach had he not changed his
name from Archie Leach.”

15. “Myrna Loy is Myrna Loy.”

16. “If you promised that you bring along Yul Brynner, I wouldn’t have dinner with you.”

17. “To start each morning by giving out with a Rudy Vallee squeal.”

18. “I don’t love Sophia; I don’t love Bardot.”

19. “Charles Boyer appears in the dawn to tell me he is free at last to marry me.”

20. “It isn’t Jean Harlow. It isn’t Greta Garbo.”

21. “Lollabrigida could walk through the door and they’d only get frigider.”

22. “He resembles George Harrison of the Beatles.”

23. “You got up early and pulled a Shirley MacLaine.”

24. “Oh, my God -- it’s Tiny Tim.”

25. “Even Rock Hudson lost his heart to Doris Day.”

26. “Fred Astaire came from Omaha, you know!”

27. “Still, as I promised Joanne Woodward, I’ll put in a good word.”

28. “Then something went wrong between Fay Wray and King Kong.”

29. “And Sophie Tucker’d shit, I know.”

30. “Steve McQueen, out! Nureyev in!”

31. “And then it’s time for Miss Bennett. No, Constance; on Tuesday, it’s Joan.”

32. “God, it sounds so Mickey Mouse.”

33. “So Lauren Bacall me!”

34. “Watch Bette Davis walk out on George Brent.”

35. “Vera Ellen, where’d you go?”

36. “You know Rona Barrett. That’s wonderful.”

37. “Your grandma’s peach preserves just made me smack my lips. I flipped for the tickets to see Gladys and the Pips.”

38. “And Steven Spielberg filming my first story.”

39. “Think of John Wayne or Jean Paul Belmondo.”

40. “He’s got more fans than Shirley Temple.”

41. “Look at her with the lungs of Madonna and a taut behind.”

42. “Say you like SEINFELD.”

43. “Just saw Alec Baldwin. Told him you said ‘Hi!’ Just kidding.”

44. “I was subbing with Stan Kenton in this seedy club in Trenton.”

45. “Puccini, Cole Porter, Rossini, OTELLO, Bellini, Wayne Shorter and Elvis Costello.”

46. “That one’s John Lennon there. No, the Dakota.”

47. “Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers packing them in at the Persian Room.”

48. “Just like Frankie Avalon has his favorite Mouseketeer.”

49. “Poker with Al Roker and our friend Lorenzo Lamas.”

50. “Who is the great-grandfather of Christina Ricci.”

         — Peter Filichia