Broadway's Lost Treasures
Broadway's Lost Treasuresdelivers what the title promises: 21 historic performances of great moments in American musical theater televised on the Tony Awards between 1967 and 1986.  (Five were not included when the program was broadcast on PBS in 2003.)  Unlike some other arts, theater has rarely been well-documented, so it's a treat to see these numbers performed by the original artists rather than experience them through audio recordings or tepid movie adaptations.  Sure, sound and picture quality are only adequate, some of the numbers are minimally staged and some appear to be lip-synched, and some of the performances that do have excellent film counterparts (Yul Brynner inThe King and I, Robert Preston inThe Music Man, Joel Grey inCabaret) seem rather lackluster here.  But those are minor drawbacks compared to the chance to see Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera perform "All That Jazz" and "Nowadays" fromChicago, or John Raitt, a stage legend who's woefully underrepresented on film, singingThe Pajama Game's "Hey There."  The most electrifying excerpt is fromEvita, anchored by the powerhouse trio of Patti LuPone, Mandy Patinkin, and Bob Gunton, the most surprising is Julie Andrews singing "Send in the Clowns" (she wasn't in the cast ofA Little Night Music), and the most touching is a 12-year-old Andrea McArdle breaking hearts inAnnie's "Tomorrow."  An indispensable record of a quintessential American art form.--David Horiuchi