In my current obsession with Miss Saigon...

[ceebeegee]

...on the official website they have teaching materials, for teachers to use with their students in conjunction with viewing a performance of the show. Uh, what? This does not seem appropriate for students to see! I mean, hello, Kim's a bargirl/prostitute, they raffle off women, the Engineer pimps out women openly in several scenes, he says "I got them paying more for just another whore," Chris says "the meat is cheap in Saigon," the Marines talk about getting drunk and laid and there are some pretty skimpy costumes. Not exactly kiddie-friendly! It's difficult to tell the intended age level of the teaching materials--there's a word jumple and a wordsearch on one page, which seems to indicate grade-school level.

Something I don't get--how is the Engineer half-French? He says his father was "a tattoo artist in Haiphong."

I found a site that's devoted to the fall of Saigon--fascinating archive of articles and materials. I can't even imagine how crazy that last scene on top of the Embassy must've been. God, I wish I could've seen this on the stage! [Steve Stark from Waiting for Guffman]