The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals 1442272139, 9781442272132

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The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals

The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals Dan Dietz

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2016 by Rowman & Littlefield All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Dietz, Dan, 1945– Title: The complete book of 1990s Broadway musicals / Dan Dietz. Description: Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016013434 (print) | LCCN 2016014564 (ebook) | ISBN 9781442272132 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442272149 (electronic) Subjects: LCSH: Musicals—New York (State)—New York—20th century   History and criticism. Classification: LCC ML1711.8.N3 D534 2016 (print) | LCC ML1711.8.N3   (ebook) DDC 792.6/45097471—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016013434

™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

To the memory of my beloved mother, Celia, and the happiness of days gone by.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi Alphabetical List of Shows xiii BROADWAY MUSICALS OF THE 1990s   1990 Season   1990–1991 Season   1991–1992 Season   1992–1993 Season   1993–1994 Season   1994–1995 Season   1995–1996 Season   1996–1997 Season   1997–1998 Season   1998–1999 Season   1999 Season

1 17 57 89 123 171 201 239 283 321 365

APPENDIXES    A Chronology (by Season)    B Chronology (by Classification)   C Discography   D Filmography    E Gilbert and Sullivan Operettas   F Other Productions    G Black-Themed Revues and Musicals    H Jewish-Themed Revues and Musicals    I Radio City Music Hall Productions   J Published Scripts   K Theatres

389 393 399 401 403 405 411 413 415 417 419

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viii     THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

Bibliography 427 Index 429 About the Author 467

Acknowledgments

I want to take this opportunity to thank Mike Baskin for his tireless efforts in providing me with advice, reality checks, and research materials. Thank you, Mike, for everything.

ix

Introduction

The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals examines in detail all 203 revues and musicals that opened between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 1999, including comedy and magic revues (some of which contained music) and shows that closed prior to their New York engagements. The productions discussed in this book are: thirty-two book musicals with new music (one, A Christmas Carol, was produced six times during the decade, and so a total of thirty-seven productions of book musicals with new music were presented during the period); twelve book musicals with mostly preexisting music (a few included new songs); two plays with incidental songs and music; thirteen more or less traditional revues; twenty-three personality revues; one dance musical; four magic revues; six revues and musicals that originated Off-Broadway or Off-OffBroadway; thirty-two imports; thirty-five commercial revivals; twenty-two institutional revivals; and sixteen pre-Broadway closings. For a quick rundown of these productions, see “Alphabetical List of Shows”; appendix A, “Chronology (by Season)”; and appendix B, “Chronology (by Classification).” The goal of this book is to provide a convenient reference source that gives both technical information (such as cast and song lists) and commentary (including obscure details that personalize both familiar and forgotten musicals) about the 203 shows produced during the decade. While the 1970s belonged to Stephen Sondheim and his concept musicals and the 1980s was notable as the era of the British (Musical) Invasion of Broadway, the 1990s was a transitional decade. Just one new Sondheim musical (Passion) opened on Broadway, and most of the British imports did poorly at the box office (with the major exception of Miss Saigon, which enjoyed a marathon run). Inasmuch as the decade lacked a standout composer or a specific trend to dominate and identify the Broadway scene, musical theatre was at a crossroads, and unfortunately, most of the signs spelled detour or trouble ahead. These signs were a portent of the New Broadway. In 1994, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast opened to good reviews, fabulous box office, and a long run, and it was followed by the even more popular The Lion King in 1997 (which as of this writing is still running on Broadway). With these two smash hits, Broadway producers discovered the family trade, and as the seasons continued into the new century there were an inordinate number of family-friendly musicals, including the specialized subcategory of teen-friendly musicals and its off-shoot category of teenage-girl-friendly productions, all of which threatened to turn the theatre district into a theme park. Most of these musicals were based on popular source material, and because some were trendy and offered weak scores, their ephemeral qualities indicate they are unlikely candidates for Broadway revival (but in these days, who knows, and maybe a comeback of 2007’s Xanadu is just around the corner). As the theatre seasons continued, another distressing category emerged, the so-called ironic or spoof musicals that winked at musical theatre conventions, and along with the family musicals these shows quickly became part of the new Broadway theme park. This jokey, feel-good genre had been around for decades, including Hooray!! It’s a Glorious Day . . . and All That (Off Broadway, 1966 [the book and lyrics were cowritten by Charles Grodin]) and Smith (Broadway, 1973), and as the new century emerged these shows became institutionalized as part of the typical Broadway season and included The Producers (2001), Urinetown (2001), Spamalot (2005), [title of show] (2006), The Drowsy Chaperone (2007), and Something Rotten! (2015). Sadly, serious musicals aimed at adults generally faltered, and so most ambitious musicals collapsed in the 1990s and in the first years of the new century. As a result, Side Show (in both its original 1997 production xi

xii      INTRODUCTION

and its 2014 Broadway revival), The Scottsboro Boys (2010), Follies (the 2011 Broadway revival), The Last Ship (2014), and The Visit (2015) quickly closed, and the critically acclaimed Grey Gardens (2006) could manage no more than nine months of performances. An exception to this rule was Next to Normal, which played in New York for almost two years. The 1990s also saw the continued decline of book musicals with new music. During the heyday of Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Vincent Youmans, and other giants of the American musical theatre the book show with new music was the mainstay of every Broadway season, but the 1990s saw a precipitous and frightening drop in the number of such offerings. The 1940s offered eighty book musicals with new music and eighteen commercial revivals; the 1950s, seventy-one book musicals with new music and ten commercial revivals; the 1960s, ninety-eight book musicals with new music and just one commercial revival; the 1970s, eighty-four book musicals with new music and thirty-seven commercial revivals; and the 1980s, fifty book musicals with new music and forty commercial revivals. But the 1990s offered just thirty-two book musicals with new music and thirty-five commercial revivals, and so now revivals outnumbered new musicals. And the trend continued: the first decade of the twenty-first century offered less than forty book musicals with new music and over forty commercial revivals. Clearly, producers were more attracted to revivals, which offered tried-and-true familiar material, and so fewer and fewer new musicals premiered on Broadway. In regard to the technical information in this book, each entry includes: name of theatre (and transfers, if applicable); opening and closing dates; number of performances (for consistency, I’ve used the performance numbers reported in Best Plays); the show’s advertising tag (including variations); names of book writers, lyricists, composers, directors, choreographers, musical directors, producers, and scenic, costume, and lighting designers. The names of cast members are included, and each performer’s name is followed by the name of the character portrayed (performers’ names which appear in italics reflect those billed above the show’s title). Also included are the number of acts; for book musicals, the time and locale of the show’s setting; and the titles of musical numbers, by act (each title is followed by the name of the performer, not the character, who introduced the song); if a song is known by a variant title, the alternate one is also given. If a musical is based on source material, such information is cited. The commentary for each musical includes a brief plot summary; brief quotes from the critics; informative trivia; details about London and other major international productions; data about recordings and published scripts; and information about film, television, and home video adaptations. In many cases, the commentary also includes information regarding the show’s gestation and pre-Broadway tryout history. When applicable, Tony Award winners and nominees are listed at the end of each entry (the names of winners are bolded) and the winners of the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize are also cited. Throughout the text, bolded titles refer to productions that are represented with an entry in the book. The book also includes eleven appendixes: chronology by season; chronology by classification; discography; filmography; a list of Gilbert and Sullivan revivals; a chronology of selected productions that included incidental songs or background music (and operas that received their New York premieres during the decade are referenced at the end of this appendix); a list of black revues and musicals; a list of Jewish revues and musicals; a list of productions which played at Radio City Music Hall; a list of published scripts; and a list of theatres where the musicals were presented (including theatres where shows transferred during their runs). The book also includes a bibliography. Virtually all the information in this book is drawn from original source material: programs, souvenir programs, flyers, window cards (posters), recordings, scripts, newspaper advertisements, and contemporary reviews. This book does not include the names of all the individuals associated with a particular production; accordingly, swings, understudies, and technical personnel are generally not referenced.

Alphabetical List of Shows

The following is an alphabetical list of all 203 shows discussed in this book. There are multiple listings for those musicals that were produced more than once during the decade, and those titles are followed by the year of the production (if presented more than once during a calendar year, both month and year are given). For numerical purposes, the three different versions of The Scarlet Pimpernel are counted as one musical, and the two engagements of Peter Pan during the 1998–1999 season are counted as two productions. Abby’s Song 370 Ain’t Broadway Grand 110 Andre Heller’s Wonderhouse 61 Anna Karenina 92 Annie 255 Annie Get Your Gun 347 Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge 11 Aspects of Love 6 Aznavour on Broadway 326 Band in Berlin 350 Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers 60 Beauty and the Beast 154 The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public 159 Big 229 Blood Brothers 114 Bojangles 165 Brigadoon (1991) 62 Brigadoon (1996) 241 Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk 227 Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story 29 Bugs Bunny on Broadway 22 (Buskers and Busker Alley [see Stage Door Charley]) 197 Buttons on Broadway 201 Cabaret 310 Camelot 126 Candide 272 The Capeman 304 Carousel 150 Catskills on Broadway 64 A Change in the Heir 10 Chicago 242

A Christmas Carol (1994) 182 A Christmas Carol (1995) 217 A Christmas Carol (1996) 245 A Christmas Carol (1997) 299 A Christmas Carol (1998) 337 A Christmas Carol (1999) 377 Chronicle of a Death Foretold 202 Cinderella (1993) 132 Cinderella (1995) 216 The Civil War 355 Comedy Tonight 184 Company 203 Crazy for You 70 Cyrano 138 Dame Edna: The Royal Tour 366 Damn Yankees 146 Danny Gans on Broadway (aka Danny Gans the Man of Many Voices on Broadway) 216 Don’t Stop the Carnival 278 Dream 259 Dreams & Nightmares 248 An Evening with Harry Connick Jr. and His Orchestra 37 An Evening with Jerry Herman 321 Falsettos 86 Faust 234 Fiddler on the Roof 33 Five Guys Named Moe 73 The Flying Karamazov Brothers Do the Impossible! 181 The Flying Karamazov Brothers: Sharps, Flats and Accidentals 340 xiii

xiv     ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SHOWS

Fool Moon (1993) 103 Fool Moon (1995) 215 Fool Moon (1998) 335 Footloose 327 Forever Tango 283 Fosse 341 Four Saints in Three Acts 239 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum 225 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 193 The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm 358 The Goodbye Girl 104 A Grand Night for Singing 136 Grease (1994) 162 Grease (1996) 247 Guys and Dolls 74 Gypsy Passion 97 Harmony 316 Hello, Dolly! 207 The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club 78 High Society 312 How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying 189 It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues 356 Jackie Mason: Brand New 24 Jackie Mason: Love Thy Neighbor 219 Jackie Mason: Much Ado about Everything 385 Jackie Mason: Politically Incorrect 153 Jekyll & Hyde 270 Jelly’s Last Jam 84 Jesus Christ Superstar 185 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat 134 Juan Darien 246 Junon and Avos—The Hope 1 Kat and the Kings 365 The King and I 222 King David 276 Kiss Me, Kate 372 Kiss of the Spider Woman 118 The Last Empress (1997) 287 The Last Empress (1998) 322 The Life 267 The Lion King 296 Little Me 329 A Little More Magic 149 A Little Night Music (1990) 17 A Little Night Music (1991) 57 Liza Minnelli: Stepping Out at Radio City 47 Lord of the Dance 252 Mandy Patinkin in Concert 251 Mandy Patinkin in Concert: “Mamaloshen” 325 Man of La Mancha 81 Marie Christine 378

Marlene 353 Martin Guerre 386 The Merry Widow (1995) 192 The Merry Widow (1996) 218 Metro 77 Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and Voice 21 Minnelli on Minnelli 381 Mirette 361 Miss Saigon 43 The Most Happy Fella (1991) 57 The Most Happy Fella (1992) 68 Mule Bone 41 The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber 94 My Fair Lady 141 My Favorite Year 100 Nick & Nora 66 Oba Oba ’90 5 Oba Oba ’93 95 Off-Key 196 Oh, Kay! (1990) 26 Oh, Kay! (1991) 53 Once on This Island 25 Once Upon a Mattress 249 110 in the Shade 89 On the Town 332 Over & Over 362 Paper Moon 166 Parade 337 Passion 156 Patti LuPone on Broadway 206 Penn & Teller: The Refrigerator Tour 42 Peter Pan (1990) 38 Peter Pan (1991) 64 Peter Pan (1998) 336 Peter Pan (1999) 336 Play On! 253 Putting It Together 376 Ragtime 300 The Red Shoes 143 Regina 96 Rent 231 Riverdance (March 1996) 217 Riverdance (October 1996) 240 Riverdance (1997) 289 Riverdance (1998) 324 Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A. 351 Sandra Bernhard: I’m Still Here . . . Damn It! 329 Saturday Night Fever 368 The Scarlet Pimpernel (1997; incorporates 1998 and 1999 versions) 294 The Secret Garden 48 1776 285 She Loves Me 123 Shlemiel the First 168

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SHOWS     xv

Shogun 35 Show Boat 171 Side Show 289 Smokey Joe’s Café 187 The Song of Jacob Zulu 108 The Sound of Music (1990) 3 The Sound of Music (1998) 308 Stage Door Charley (aka Buskers and Busker Alley) 197 State Fair 219 Steel City 344 Steel Pier 264 Street Corner Symphony 299 Street Scene 19 The Student Prince 130 Sunset Boulevard 178 Svengali 54 Swan Lake 324 Swing! 383 Swinging on a Star 209 Tango Argentino 371

Tango Pasion 117 Those Were the Days 31 Three Coins in the Fountain 318 3 from Brooklyn 98 Time and Again 236 Titanic 261 Tommy 112 Tommy Tune Tonite! 102 Triumph of Love 292 Truly Blessed 8 Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth 284 Victor/Victoria 212 Whistle Down the Wind 279 The Will Rogers Follies: A Life in Revue 51 The Wiz 107 The Wizard of Oz (1997) 275 The Wizard of Oz (1998) 315 The Wizard of Oz (1999) 360 Wonderful Town 176 Young Man, Older Woman 185 You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown 345

1990 Season

JUNON AND AVOS—THE HOPE Theatre: City Center Opening Date: January 7, 1990; Closing Date: February 4, 1990 Performances: 48 Book and Lyrics: Andrey Voznesensky; English narrative by Susan Silver and Albert Todd Music: Alexis Ribnikov Direction: Mark Zakharov; Producers: Pierre Cardin by special arrangement with Lencom Theatre and the Theatre Union of the U.S.S.R. (Lucy Jarvis, American Producer); Choreography: Vladimir Vassiliev; Scenery: Oleg Sheintsiss; Costumes: Valentina Komolova; Lighting: “light and special effects by” Mikhail Babenko; Musical Direction: Dimitri Kudriavtsev Cast: Nikolai Karachentsev (Count Nikolai Rezanov), Yelena Shanina (Conchita), Yury Naumkin (The First Conjurer), Gennady Trofimov (The Second Conjurer), Alexander Abdulov (Burning Heretic, Fernando Lopez, Theatrical Narrator), Ludmilla Porgina (Vision of a Woman with an Infant, Spanish Lady), Vladimir Shiryayev (Count Alexey Rumiantsev, The Governor of San Francisco), Vladimir Belouov (Naval Officer), Boris Chunayev (Naval Officer), Vladimir Kuznetsov (Naval Officer), Rady Ovchinnikov (Naval Officer, Interpreter), Villor Kuznetsov (Padre Abella), Irena Alfiorova (Spanish Lady), Tatiana Derbeneva (Spanish Lady), Alexandra Zakharova (Spanish Lady), Tatiana Rudina (Spanish Lady), Ludmilla Artemieva (Spanish Lady), Yury Zelenin (Cochita’s Messenger), Alexander Sado (The Singing Mask); Russian Sailors, Spaniards, Shareholders of the Russian-American Company, Monks, Chimeras, and Others: Vladislav Bykov, Victor Rakov, Alexander Sririn, Nikolai Shusharin, Alexander Karnaushkin, Igor Fokin, Andrey Leonov, Yury Zelenin, Andrey Druzhkin, Gennady Kozlov, Sergey Chonishvilli, Oleg Ruduk, Leonid Luvinsky, Leonid Gromov, and Denis Karasiov; The Choir—Sopranos: Irena Musayelian, Valentina Prokhorova, Zinaida Morozova, Natalia Mishenko; Altos: Irena Kushnarenko, Valeria Zhivova, Lilia Semashko, Yelena Rudnitskaya; Tenor: Vladimir Tursky; and Basses: Alexey Larin, Vladimir Prokhorov, Sergey Stepanchenko; Araks, The Rock Group: Sergey Rudnitsky (Keyboards), Sergey Rizhov (Bass Guitar), Sergey Berezkin (Guitar, Violin, Cello), Anatoly Abromov (Drums), and Vocals by Alexander Sado, Nikolai Parfenyuk, and Pavel Smeian; Brass Section: Yakov Levda and Viktor Denisov; Philip Casnoff (Storyteller) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in 1806 and 1842 in Russia and in San Francisco.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t list musical numbers, but a program insert included the lyrics of six songs from the production: “Song of the Naval Officers,” “Avos,” “Song of the Wild White Rose,” “Angel, Become a Woman,” “Ten Years Have Passed,” and “Alleluia.”

1

2      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

The first lyric work to open on Broadway in the 1990s was the Russian rock opera Junon and Avos: The Hope, which in the spirit of glasnost offered the wish for harmony and friendship between the U.S.S.R. and the United States as seen through the prism of an actual historical event that occurred in the nineteenth century. The musical opened at City Center for a limited engagement of six weeks, and Melanie Kirkpatrick in the Wall Street Journal noted that if the lavish spectacle with its huge cast of sixty had been a commercial production it would have required a year’s run on Broadway to return its investment. The work premiered in Moscow at the Lenkom Theatre in 1981, in Paris two years later at couturier Pierre Cardin’s theatre complex L’Espace Cardin, and then in various European cities, including Amsterdam. The current production was presented in Russian by singers, musicians, and performers from the Moscow Lenin Komsomol Theatre. The program included English lyrics of six songs and a two-page plot synopsis, and the English translation by Susan Silver and Albert Todd was narrated by Philip Casnoff (as the Storyteller), the only American in the cast. Two years earlier, Casnoff had appeared in the Broadway premiere of the Cold War rock opera Chess, in which he played an arrogant American chess player competing in a world championship match against a Russian chess master. The plot of Junon and Avos—The Hope centered on a pair of star-crossed lovers, one Russian and the other Spanish-American. But the Junon and Avos of the musical’s title doesn’t refer to the leading characters and are instead the names of the Russian ships (Junon is one of Jupiter’s moons and aids sailors in navigation, and Avos roughly translates as “hope” or “good luck”). In 1806, the widower Count Rezanov (Nikolai Karachentsev [the program also gave the spelling of his last name as Karachentzov]) pursues his personal vision of pacific overtures when he travels to San Francisco (which was then part of the Spanish colony of California) in the hope of negotiating trade agreements between Russia and the Americas. He meets and falls in love with the Spanish governor’s daughter, the sixteen-yearold Conchita (Yelena Shanina), who is engaged to Fernando (Alexander Abdulov), and she helps Rezanov establish trade negotiations with a group of monks at a nearby mission. When Fernando discovers that Rezanov and Conchita have consummated their affair, he challenges Rezanov to a duel, which the latter wins. The defeated Fernando begs Rezanov to save Conchita’s reputation by marrying her, and once their engagement is announced Rezanov sets sail for Russia in order to receive permission from the czar and the Russian Orthodox Church to marry a Roman Catholic. But on the voyage home he becomes ill and dies, and his only comfort is that he has paved the way for Russia and the Americas to live together in peace and establish trade and other bonds. In the meantime, Conchita refuses to believe rumors of Rezanov’s death, and for decades lives in hope of his return. But in 1842 an English traveler meets with her and confirms that Rezanov died some thirty-five years earlier. At this point, Conchita takes a vow of silence and enters a convent for the rest of her life. Alexis Ribnikov’s score was a hybrid of liturgical music, folk-like Russian songs, and rock music, and the critics noted there were many powerful sequences in the score, including the rousing “Song of the Naval Officers” and the closing sequence “Alleluia,” in which Rezanov and Conchita are mystically reunited 150 years later as the chorus implores the people of the twentieth century to live together in peace because “without peace life’s simply meaningless.” The critics were impressed with Valentina Komolova’s lavish costumes and especially Oleg Sheintsiss’s scenery: the stage was steeply raked with Plexiglas cubes that were lit from beneath, and the mise en scène included laser and smoke effects. Further, the hull of a huge ship dominated the stage as it hovered over the proceedings. Vladimir Vassilliev’s choreography was generally praised. While Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the dances were “mechanical” and resembled “calisthenics,” he conceded that they were nonetheless performed with “robustness.” Stephen Holden in the New York Times reported that for “Song of the Naval Officers” there appeared “tiers of bare-chested sailors” who surged “forward in formation doing a mechanical gymnastic dance” on the raked Plexiglas floor, and with its “exuberance and angular kineticism” the sequence was “splendidly choreographed” and suggested “a Soviet Socialist answer to a Bob Fosse musical.” Susan Elliott in the New York Post reported that a ballroom dance was “intriguingly stylized,” as it employed “stop-action photography” techniques, while another dance sequence was “a study in graceful abstract.” Kirkpatrick said the choreography was “powerful and vigorous,” but noted it was a “tad hokey” when Conchita and Rezanov appeared in Annie Oakley and Wild Bill Hickok–styled costumes and performed a Russian version of an American hoedown. Overall, the critics felt the evening was more pageant than musical play, and in the manner of a rock concert the performers were directed to look straight at the audience as they sang. Despite the program synopsis and the use of a narrator, the reviewers said the action was confusing and difficult to follow, and Holden felt

1990 SEASON     3

the performances were so “rigidly stylized” they allowed little in the way of “emotional spontaneity.” Drew Featherston in New York Newsday said the evening was a “hodgepodge” that was alternately “splendid and exciting” and “overblown and empty.” And many of the critics felt the musical belonged to the era of the late 1960s and early 1970s because it evoked Hair and its pleas for peace and brotherhood. In fact, Kirkpatrick suggested that if Junon and Avos—The Hope wowed ’em in Moscow, then producer Pierre Cardin should consider a Moscow production of Hair because it would probably run for a decade. The Russian cast recording was issued as “Juno” and “Avos” on a two-LP set by Menodnr Records (# C60-18627-008). There are at least three CD releases of the score, one issued by Melodiya and two by Russian Entertainment Records (all three have different artwork covers, and the two by Russian Entertainment Records may be two different releases of the same recording). A television adaptation of the work was filmed in Great Britain and released on videocassette by Mediateka Publishing.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: March 8, 1990; Closing Date: April 22, 1990 Performances: 54 Book: Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Music: Richard Rodgers Based on the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta von Trapp. Direction: James Hammerstein; Producers: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director) in association with James M. Nederlander; Choreography: Joel Bishoff; Scenery and Lighting: Neil Peter Jampolis; Costumes: Suzanne Mess; Musical Direction: Richard Parrinello Cast: Debby Boone (Maria Rainer), Jill Bosworth (Sister Berthe), Michele McBride (Sister Margaretta), Claudia Cummings (The Mother Abbess), Robin Tabachnik (Sister Sophia), Laurence Guittard (Captain Georg von Trapp), David Rae Smith (Franz), Ellen Tovatt (Frau Schmidt), Emily Loesser (Liesl), Richard H. Blake (Friedrich), Kelly Karbacz (Louisa), Ted Huffman (Kurt), Kia Graves (Brigitta), Lauren Gaffney (Marta), Mary Mazzello (Gretl), Marc Heller (Rolf Gruber), Marianne Tatum (Elsa Schraeder), Bridget Ramos (Ursula), Werner Klemperer (Max Detweiler), Louis Perry (Herr Zeller), William Ledbetter (Baron Elberfeld), Barbara Shirvis (Postulant), Glenn Rowen (Admiral von Schreiber); Neighbors, Nuns, Novices, Postulants, and Contestants in the Festival Contest: The New York City Opera Chorus The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Austria during early 1938.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Preludium” (Nuns); “The Sound of Music” (Debby Boone); “Maria” (Claudia Cummings, Michele McBride, Jill Bosworth, Robin Tabachnik); “My Favorite Things” (Debby Boone, Claudia Cummings); “Do-Re-Mi” (Debbie Boone, Emily Loesser, Richard H. Blake, Kelly Karbacz, Ted Huffman, Kia Graves, Lauren Gaffney, Mary Mazzello); “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” (Emily Loesser, Marc Heller); “The Lonely Goatherd” (Debbie Boone, Emily Loesser, Richard H. Blake, Kelly Karbacz, Ted Huffman, Kia Graves, Lauren Gaffney, Mary Mazzello); “How Can Love Survive?” (Marianne Tatum, Werner Klemperer, Laurence Guittard); “The Sound of Music” (reprise) (Debby Boone, Laurence Guittard, Emily Loesser, Richard H. Blake, Kelly Karbacz, Ted Huffman, Kia Graves, Lauren Gaffney, Mary Mazzello); “Grand Waltz” and “Laendler” (Orchestra); “So Long, Farewell” (Emily Loesser, Richard H. Blake, Kelly Karbacz, Ted Huffman, Kia Graves, Lauren Gaffney, Mary Mazzello); “Climb Every Mountain” (Claudia Cummings) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “No Way to Stop It” (Marianne Tatum, Werner Klemperer, Laurence Guittard); “An Ordinary Couple” (Debby Boone, Laurence Guittard); “Processional” (Orchestra, Ensemble); “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” (reprise) (Debby Boone, Emily Loesser); “Do-Re-Mi” (reprise) (Debbie Boone, Laurence Guittard, Emily Loesser, Richard H. Blake, Kelly Karbacz, Ted Huffman, Kia Graves,

4      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

Lauren Gaffney, Mary Mazzello); “Edelweiss” (Laurence Guittard, Debby Boone, Emily Loesser, Richard H. Blake, Kelly Karbacz, Ted Huffman, Kia Graves, Lauren Gaffney, Mary Mazzello); “So Long, Farewell” (reprise) (Debby Boone, Laurence Guittard, Emily Loesser, Richard H. Blake, Kelly Karbacz, Ted Huffman, Kia Graves, Lauren Gaffney, Mary Mazzello); “Climb Every Mountain” (reprise) (Company) The New York City Opera Company’s revival of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s The Sound of Music was the institution’s fifth and final production in its short-lived series of spring seasons devoted to four or five weeks of consecutive performances of a Broadway classic (the others were Brigadoon, South Pacific, The Music Man, and The Pajama Game). For The Sound of Music, City Opera produced the revival in association with James M. Nederlander. There was speculation that after the limited City Opera engagement the revival might transfer to another theatre for an open-end run or go on tour. Despite good reviews, the musical didn’t transfer but eventually toured. This production may well be the last New York revival to replicate the original Broadway version. The 1965 film adaptation had omitted three songs (the cynical numbers “How Can Love Survive?” and “No Way to Stop It” and the bland ballad “An Ordinary Couple”) and added two new ones (the generic “I Have Confidence” and the somewhat lyrically bizarre “Something Good,” both with lyrics and music by Rodgers). When the musical was next revived in New York (see entry for the 1998 production), “An Ordinary Couple” was cut and the two film songs were interpolated, and one suspects future productions will continue to incorporate these changes and might even omit the two sardonic numbers. The simple story centered on the postulant Maria (Debby Boone), who is hired by the widower von Trapp (Laurence Guittard) to be governess for his seven children. She soon discovers her true calling is her love for him and the children, and the “ordinary” couple wed. Upon Hitler’s invasion of Austria, the family manages to escape to Switzerland during a music festival. John Rockwell in the New York Times said the revival was a “delight” that was “freshly cast, elegantly designed and utterly unpatronizing”; Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News found the production “solidly acted” and “beautifully sung”; John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor praised the “handsome” and “admirably performed” revival; and Janice Berman in New York Newsday said the New York State Theatre was “alive with the sound of success.” But David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the evening had “all the texture of an Up with People revue” with a book that “strained credulity” and characters who were “poorly motivated.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post felt the work wasn’t worthy of Rodgers and Hammerstein but said the musical’s fans would find the revival a “pious answer to their prayers” and dissenters might “as well shut up like a Trapp-door.” Rockwell said Debby Boone brought her special “winsomeness and vulnerability” to the role of Maria, Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News found her “delightful,” and Beaufort said she gave a “winning performance.” Stearns said her singing voice had “more depth and character” than her recordings had suggested and her acting projected “a winning mix of guileless radiance and inner conviction.” Barnes said Boone “might have been born” to play Maria, but quickly noted he wasn’t sure that was a compliment. But he admitted she was “cheery” and “perky” and that her voice “admirably” served the music. The musical originally opened at the Lunt Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959, and despite lukewarm reviews (in his notice for the original production, Walter Kerr in the New York Herald Tribune said the show abandoned snowflakes for cornflakes and would most appeal to those “who have always found James M. Barrie pretty rough stuff”), it ran for 1,443 performances. The original cast included Mary Martin (Maria), Theodore Bikel (von Trapp), Patricia Neway (The Mother Abbess), Kurt Kasznar (Max), Marion Marlowe (Elsa), Lauri Peters (Leisl), and Brian Davies (Rolf) (during the run, Jon Voight succeeded the latter). The middling book was predictable and humorless, and it wasn’t helped by a noticeable lack of choreography and production values. But the score more than made up for the evening’s deficiencies and included a batch of eventual standards, including “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Climb Every Mountain,” “Edelweiss,” and the title song. The production was nominated for twelve Tony Awards, and won seven, including Best Musical, Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Martin), Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Neway), Best Score, Best Book, and Best Scenic Design. The Broadway cast album was issued by Columbia Records (LP # KOL-5450 and # KOS-2020), and the CD was released by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy (# SK-60583) and includes two bonus tracks, “The Sound of Music: A Symphonic Picture for Orchestra” by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and “Do-Re-Mi” by

1990 SEASON     5

Mitch Miller and the Sing-Along Chorus and The Kids. The script of the stage production was published in hardback by Random House in 1960, and a paperback edition was released by The Applause Libretto Library in 2010. The lyrics are included in the collection The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. The original London production opened on May 18, 1961, at the Palace Theatre and at 2,385 performances almost doubled the New York run. The 1965 film version produced by Twentieth Century-Fox became one of the most popular musical films ever released (it won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director [for Robert Wise], and starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer). The best-selling soundtrack album was released by RCA Victor Records (LP # LOCD/LSOD-2005). The Sound of Music has been revived in New York three times; prior to the current production and the 1998 revival (see entry), the musical was presented at City Center by the New York City Center Light Opera Company on April 26, 1967, for twenty-three performances with Constance Towers (Maria), Bob Wright (von Trapp), Eleanor Steber (The Mother Abbess), Sandy Duncan (Liesl), Christopher Hewett (Max), and M’el Dowd (Elsa).

OBA OBA ’90

“The Brazilian Extravaganza” Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: March 15, 1990; Closing Date: April 22, 1990 Performances: 45 Direction: “Technical direction” by Mario Ruffa; Producer: Franco Fontana; Choreography: Roberto Abrahao; Scenery and Costumes: Not credited; Lighting: Giancarlo Campora, “Lighting Consultant”; Musical Direction: Wilson Mauro Cast: Sonia Santos, Jaime Santos, Toco Preto, and Paulo Ramos; also, Aderson Cirne, Amilton Lino, Andrea Candida, Bananal, Betho Filho, Branca de Neve, Carlos Leca, Carlos Oliveira, Cesar de Alabama, Claudia Capoeira, Curima, Delma de Oliveira, Edgar Pretinho, Edilson Nery, Edmilson Santos, Edson Escovao, Elaine Garcia, Elisangela Maia, Evelyn Eduardo, Formiguinha, Gerson Galante, Glaucia Ribeiro, Heron DeAngola, Ivon Rosas, Janete Santos, Jorge Rum, Julio Peluchi, Katia Rio, Maguila Meneses, Malaguti, Mara Boeing, Maranhao, Marcelo Boim, Mario Capoeira, Marquinho da Dona Geralda, Marta Jacintho, Mauro Boim, Meia-Noite, Mirna Montenegro, Monica Acioli, Norberto Queiroz, Pe de Cao, Pele, Pena Rodrigues, Renny Flores, Robertinho da Cuica, Rui Lima, Val Ventilador, Velly Bahia, Vivian M. Soares, Wilson Mauro The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t identify the names of the cast members who performed the musical numbers. Act One: “Liberation from Slavery”; “Homage to ‘Chorinho’”; “Samba de Roda-Lambada”; “Homage to ‘Chorinho’” (reprise); “Homage to the Northeast”; “Brazil Capela”; “Homage to the Bossanova and the Seventies”; “Tribute to the ‘Brazilian Bombshell’ Carmen Miranda” Act Two: “Macumba”; “Afro-Brazilian Folk Songs and Dances” (including “Berimbau Medley” and “Capoeira of Angola”); “Maculele” (including “Acrobatic Capoeira”); “Rhythm Beaters”; “Show of Samba Dancers”; “Grand Carnival” The limited-engagement Brazilian import Oba Oba ’90 had earlier played on Broadway as Oba Oba (the name was derived from a popular Brazilian nightclub in Rio de Janeiro and seems to translate as “Oh, boy, oh, boy”) where it opened at the Ambassador Theatre on March 29, 1988, for a limited run of forty-six performances. The dance revue had originally premiered in Brazil in 1984 and then toured such countries as Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, and Israel, and prior to the first New York production the revue had played nine months at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. The critics compared the evening to both a latter-day Folies Bergère and a 1950s New York nightclub revue that might have been seen at the Latin Quarter or the Copacabana. For their reviews of the 1988 production Clive Barnes in the New York Post suggested the work would have

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been “old-fashioned 30 years ago” and Stephen Holden in the New York Times indicated the revue was more in the nature of “a theatricalized MGM-style musical brochure that reinforces stereotypical images” of Brazil as the land of “nonstop carnival.” The revue was a mixture of dances on the order of the samba and the lambada, and the music was of the bossa nova variety and included both popular numbers (such as “Tico Tico” and “The Girl from Ipanema”) and traditional folk songs. Both the 1988 and 1990 editions (as well as the 1992 production [see below]) included a salute to the “Brazilian Bombshell” Carmen Miranda (who was actually from Portugal); “Acrobatic Capoeira,” an energetic display of acrobatic dancing; and the lavish finale “Grand Carnival.” In her review of the current production, Jennifer Dunning in the New York Times said the “somewhat haphazard promotional tour of Brazil” was generally “great fun.” The dancers were “good looking,” the musicians contributed to the evening’s highlights, and the show was certainly the only one on Broadway where audience members got the chance to samba up and down the aisles with the cast members as balloons showered down from the rafters. But there were a few “tasteless moments” and the miking was “nearly unbearable.” The revue’s one “sour note” was a “heavy-handed attempt” to “turn up the heat on an already sexy, sultry show” with such numbers as “Show of Samba Dancers” and “a breast-jiggling solo in toe shoes whose naivete makes it look straight out of a Miss America talent competition.” As Oba Oba ’93, the revue returned to the Marquis Theatre on October 1, 1992, for another limited engagement. Between the 1990 and 1992 engagements, the revue also toured (as Oba Oba ’92).

ASPECTS OF LOVE Theatre: Broadhurst Theatre Opening Date: April 8, 1990; Closing Date: March 2, 1991 Performances: 377 Book and Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber Lyrics: Don Black and Charles Hart Based on the 1955 novel Aspects of Love by David Garnett. Direction: Trevor Nunn; Producer: The Really Useful Theatre Company, Inc.; Choreography: Gillian Lynne; Scenery and Costumes: Maria Bjornson; Lighting: Andrew Bridge; Musical Direction: Paul Bogaev Cast: Ann Crumb (Rose Vibert), Michael Ball (Alex Dillingham), Kevin Colson (George Dillingham), Kathleen Rowe McAllen (Giulietta Trapani), Walter Charles (Marcel Richard), Deanna Du Clos (Jenny Dillingham, Age 12), Danielle Du Clos (Jenny Dillingham, Age 14), Suzanne Briar (Elizabeth), Don Goodspeed (Hugo Le Muenier); At the Café: Actors—Philip Clayton, John Dewar, Marcus Lovett, Kurt Johns; Actresses— Elinore O’Connell, Lisa Vroman, Wysandria Woolsey; Don Goodspeed (Stage Manager), Jane Todd Baird (Assistant Stage Manager), Gregory Mitchell (Waiter), Eric Johnson (Man on Date), Suzanne Briar (His Date); At the Fairground: Eric Johnson (First Barker), Kurt Johns (Second Barker), Don Goodspeed and Philip Clayton (Alex’s Friends), Elinore O’Connell and Lisa Vroman (Their Girlfriends), Jane Todd Baird (Alex’s Date), John Dewar (War Veteran), Suzanne Briar (His Wife), Marcus Lovett and Gregory Mitchell (Local Men), Wysandria Woolsey (Local Woman); In Venice: Kurt Johns (Gondolier), Lisa Vroman (Hotel Cashier), Elinore O’Connell (Nun), John Dewar (Doctor), Eric Johnson (Hotelier), Wysandria Woolsey (Pharmacist), Eric Johnson (Registrar), John Dewar (Assistant Registrar); In Rose’s Dressing Room: Rose’s Friends—Jane Todd Baird, Suzanne Briar, Philip Clayton, John Dewar, Kurt Johns, Eric Johnson, Marcus Lovett, Gregory Mitchell, Elinore O’Connell, Lisa Vroman, Wysandria Woolsey; At the Circus: Clowns— Gregory Mitchell, Marcus Lovett, Philip Clayton, John Dewar; Kurt Johns (Knife Thrower), Wysandria Woolsey (His Assistant); At the Wake: Gregory Mitchell (The Young Peasant) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place between 1947 and 1964 and is set mostly in France and Italy.

Musical Numbers Note: The musical was sung-through, and the list below reflects the major musical sequences. Act One: “Love Changes Everything” (Michael Ball); “Parlez-vous Francais?” (Ann Crumb, Michael Ball, Ensemble); “Seeing Is Believing” (Michael Ball, Ann Crumb); “A Memory of a Happy Moment” (Kevin

1990 SEASON     7

Colson, Kathleen Rowe McAllen); “Chanson d’enfance” (Ann Crumb); “Everybody Loves a Hero” (Eric Johnson, Kurt Johns, Ensemble); “She’d Be Far Better Off with You” (Michael Ball, Kevin Colson, Ann Crumb, Suzanne Briar); “Stop. Wait. Please.” (Kathleen Rowe McAllen, Kevin Colson, Ensemble) Act Two: “Leading Lady” (Walter Charles, Ensemble); “Other Pleasures” (Kevin Colson, Deanna Du Clos, Michael Ball, Ann Crumb); “There Is More to Love” (Kathleen Rowe McAllen, Ann Crumb); “Mermaid Song” (Deanna Du Clos, Michael Ball); “The First Man You Remember” (Kevin Colson, Danielle Du Clos); “The Journey of a Lifetime” (Ensemble); “Falling” (Kevin Colson, Ann Crumb, Michael Ball, Danielle Du Clos); “Hand Me the Wine and the Dice” (Kathleen Rowe McAllen, Ensemble, Ann Crumb, Danielle Du Clos, Michael Ball, Walter Charles, Don Goodspeed); “Anything but Lonely” (Ann Crumb) The London import Aspects of Love was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s first New York musical since his blockbuster The Phantom of the Opera had opened two years earlier. The production premiered in the West End at the Prince of Wales Theatre on April 17, 1989, for a three-year run of 1,325 performances, but the $8 million Broadway version had a disappointing run of less than a year and topped out at 377 showings. All four leads from the London production (Kevin Colson, Michael Ball, Ann Crumb, and Kathleen Rowe McAllen) reprised their roles for the New York edition. The sung-through story was filled with shallow and tiresome people and their somewhat La Ronde–styled love affairs, but the dreary goings-on were less Schnitzler than soap opera. The characters were connected to the Bloomsbury set and to the world of the arts, and the action took place against the chic backgrounds of Paris, the Pyrenees, and Venice, but with some tweaking the plot could have supplied a year’s worth of episodes for a television soaper set in Duluth. The story begins in 1964, when the musical’s nominal hero, Alex Dillingham (Ball), looks back on 1947, a year when love changed everything for him because he met the actress Rose Vibert (Crumb), an event that provides the song cue for the show’s most popular number, “Love Changes Everything.” Under the impression that his painter uncle George Dillingham (Colson) is away from his villa, Alex takes Rose there for a liaison; but George unexpectedly returns, succumbs to Rose’s charms, and soon takes her as his mistress and then his wife. Meanwhile, George has another mistress, the Italian sculptress Giulietta Trapani (McAllen), and when she and Rose meet they become lovers. Later, Giulietta and Alex also become romantically involved. If all these musical beds weren’t enough, Alex later finds himself attracted to George and Rose’s daughter, Jenny, who is now a teenager (Deanna Du Clos and Danielle Du Clos played the girl at the respective ages of twelve and fourteen) and who of course is his cousin. Things become dicey because Jenny is as interested in Alex as he is in her, but at least he has enough sense to realize Jenny is pure jailbait and so both incest and child molestation are happily averted. However, the musical offered a strange and awkward moment when the score’s loveliest song (“The First Man You Remember”) is sung by George to Jenny. But the possibility of another would-be incestuous turn of the plot is sidestepped when it turns out George is really singing the number to the memory of the young Rose and not to Jenny. The critics were mostly cool to the production, but were glad to note that Lloyd Webber was now dealing with people rather than religious figures (Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), larger-than-life politicians (Evita), felines (Cats), trains on roller skates (Starlight Express), and chandeliers (The Phantom of the Opera). But they were tired of his habit of recycling a handful of melodies throughout an evening and offering numerous reprises. They were also unhappy with most of the cast; Colson received the best notices. Linda Winer in New York Newsday said he was “just right” as the “dashing and touching” George, and Jack Kroll in Newsweek noted he “embodies all the aspects of love including mortality” with his voice of “twilight.” But Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News didn’t care for his “repellent smugness” with its attendant “pursing of lips” and “supercilious smiling.” Ball was described as generally bland (Kissel said beyond his “lovely voice” his “boyish face registers little beyond vapidity,” and David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the “handsome” performer had “the depth of a comic-book character”). Crumb was seen as rather shrill (Winer said her voice was “harsh” and her presence “commonplace,” and Frank Rich in the New York Times found her “unconvincing”); and Winer noted that McAllen was “competent” but “not vaguely Italian.” Scenic and costume designer Maria Bjornson also came in for criticism. Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said her “large-scale effects” were “out of all proportion to the story.” Rich noted that her contributions were “oppressive,” and Stearns said the “busy” sets “often go for the cliché” (but Kroll said her work embodied the “intimacy, sensuousness and pathos of the story” and John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor said her “succession of atmospheric stage pictures” was “capped” by “an eye-popping mountain vista”). As for

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Bjornson’s costumes, Rich noted that McAllen’s performance was “handicapped by unflattering” frocks that “announce her Lesbian Tendencies with every pantsuit.” Doug Watt in the New York Daily News said Aspects of Love was a “pot pie” that yearned to be a “soufflé.” The subject matter demanded a score of “delicacy and nuance” by a “latter-day Debussy,” rather than “the heavy hand of a Webber”; the lyrics were “infantile”; and Trevor Nunn’s staging gave Watt the urge “to nod off at intervals.” Kissel groaned over the endless repetitions of “Love Changes Everything” and reported that he tried to count the number of times it was sung, first at 8:08, then at 8:25, and again at 8:37. Moreover, another song (“Seeing Is Believing”) was first sung at about 8:20 and then again at 8:30, and he ruefully wished that the “C” train would come along this often. Joel Siegel on ABCTV7 said “each song sounds as if you’d heard it before and if you haven’t, wait five minutes and you’ll hear it again.” Winer noted that the evening consisted of “an almost laughable amount of action” but the plot was essentially “meaningless” because “nothing really happens.” Rich said the show “generates about as much heated passion as a visit to the bank” and said the action was “in most desperate need of roller skates.” As for the lyrics, he mentioned they seemed “to have been translated from the original Hallmark.” Stearns also pounced on the lyrics and said they reduced “complicated emotions to greeting-card sentiments.” The critics also complained that ordinary and perfunctory dialogue (such as “Would you like a cup of coffee?”) didn’t always work when set to music. Wilson said the ever-changing relationships among the characters gave the effect of “a synopsis of the story rather than the unfolding of a plot,” and like Winer he noted that the action yielded “unintentional comedy.” Further, Winer laughed over such hoary lines as “If I can’t have you, no one will!” and Wilson reported that the stage business in which Alex threatens (and grazes) Rose with a gun played like “high farce” because after the shooting a maid appeared and attacked Alex with a hammer, and although it missed him by “a good six inches” he collapsed on the floor. But for Clive Barnes in the New York Post, the musical was a “breakthrough” for Lloyd Webber. The “sweepingly romantic” evening was the “loveliest of musicals” and “easily the best currently on Broadway.” In fact, New York hadn’t seen “such a joyous or atmospheric opera of love” since Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music had premiered seventeen years earlier. The London cast album was released on a two-LP set by Really Useful Records (# 841-126-1), and the twoCD set was issued by Polydor Records (# 841126). Because the four leading West End players reprised their roles for New York, there was no Broadway cast recording. A British studio cast recording was released by Castle Pulse Records (CD # PLS-609), and Music and Songs from “Phantom of the Opera” and “Aspects of Love” was issued by Fabulous Records (CD # FABCD-260) and includes seven numbers from the score (the performers include Dave Willetts, Stephanie Lawrence, and Paul Jones), including an especially memorable rendition of “The First Man You Remember.” The cast album of a Japanese production was issued by Polydor Records (CD # POC-7423). Kurt Ganzl’s lavish hardcover book The Complete “Aspects of Love” (published in 1990 by Viking Studio Books) includes the complete script, background information (including a chapter on David Garnett and the Bloomsbury circle), both rehearsal and performance photos, and an insert of the musical’s poster. Prior to the British premiere, Roger Moore was cast as George and early posters of the show include his name; however, he withdrew from the production prior to the first preview performance and was succeeded by Colson. Once Colson, Crumb, and Ball left the Broadway production, they were respectively succeeded by John Cullum, Sarah Brightman, and Marcus Lovett.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Aspects of Love); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Kevin Colson); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Kathleen Rowe McAllen); Best Director of a Musical (Trevor Nunn); Best Book (Andrew Lloyd Webber); Best Score (lyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber)

TRULY BLESSED “A Musical Celebration

of

Mahalia Jackson”

Theatre: Longacre Theatre Opening Date: April 22, 1990; Closing Date: May 20, 1990

1990 SEASON     9

Performances: 33 Text: Queen Esther Marrow Lyrics and Music: Queen Esther Marrow (additional lyrics and music by Reginald Royal) Direction: Robert Kalfin; Producers: Howard Hurst, Philip Rose, and Sophie Hurst in association with Frankie Hewitt (Philip Rose and Howard Hurst, Executive Producers); Choreography: Larry Vickers; Scenery and Lighting: Fred Kolo; Costumes: Andrew B. Marlay; Musical Direction: Willard Meeks Cast: Queen Esther Marrow (Mahalia Jackson); Ensemble: Carl Hall, Lynette G. DuPre, Doug Eskew, Gwen Stewart The revue-like musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place from the early part of the twentieth century through 1972 in such locales as New Orleans; Chicago; New York City; Washington, D.C.; the Berkshires; and throughout the United States as well as in the Holy Land.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t identify the names of the cast members who performed the musical numbers. Act One: “I Found the Answer” (lyric and music by Johnny Lange); “St. Louis Blues” (lyric and music by W. C. Handy); “It’s Amazing What God Can Do” (lyric and music by Reginald Royal); Medley: “On the Battlefield for My Lord” and “Glory Hallelujah” (traditional); “He May Not Come When You Want Him” (traditional); “Lord, I’m Determined” (lyric and music by Queen Esther Marrow); “Happy Days Are Here Again” (1930 film Chasing Rainbows; lyric by Jack Yellen, music by Milton Ager); “Precious Lord” (lyric and music by Thomas A. Dorsey); “Jesus Remembers When Others Forget” (lyric by Thomas A. Dorsey, music by Joseph Joubert); “Thank You for the Change in My Life” (lyric and music by Queen Esther Marrow); “Come On, Children, Let’s Sing” (traditional) Act Two: “Even Me” (traditional); Spiritual Medley (all traditional): “Wade in the Water,” “Old Ship of Zion,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (lyric by Julia Ward Howe), “I’ve Been ’Buked,” and “Soon I Will Be Done”; “His (This) Gift to Me” (lyric and music by Reginald Royal); “Move on Up a Little Higher” (lyric and music by Mahalia Jackson); “Rusty Bell” (traditional); “Truly Blessed” (lyric and music by Reginald Royal); “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” (traditional) Truly Blessed was a tribute to gospel singer Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972), and was more in the nature of a one-woman show (with four ensemble singers and four musicians) than a traditional book musical. Jackson’s story was presented in a narrative format as well as through occasional vignettes, and the score consisted of new songs written especially for the production (by Reginald Royal and by Queen Esther Marrow), various songs by other composers, and traditional gospel numbers. The critics complained that the evening skimmed over Jackson’s story and was somewhat sketchy, but they gave the production mild but generally favorable notices. However, the show generated little interest among the public and was gone after one month of performances. Stephen Holden in the New York Times said the evening was more in the nature of “an enlarged cabaret act” that was “four-fifths music and one-fifth connective dialogue,” and the production glossed over the subject’s formative years and personal life and overlooked “significant details” about her. Wayne Robins in New York Newsday noted that Jackson’s life was “simply talked about,” and said the work gave “short shrift” to many aspects of her life; Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal suggested the show was essentially a “gospel concert”; and Clive Barnes in the New York Post warned that the musical was little more than “a simplistic run-through” of Jackson’s life and career with a “paint by numbers biographical structure.” John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor mentioned that the evening consisted of “gospel music and biographical footnotes,” and Don Nelsen in the New York Daily News found the expository dialogue “often tiresome” and noted there were “awkward transitions” (such as a sequence when Jackson “sadly” discusses her brother’s death and “then quickly brightens as she’s off to Chicago”). Some of the dialogue seemed awkward, and one or two critics seriously doubted that Jackson said “He’s dealing with a woman who has the interests of her people at heart” after she had a conversation with Chicago’s Mayor Richard J. Daley. As for Marrow, Holden said she lacked Jackson’s “stupendous power and fervency” but nonetheless projected “a towering dignity and strength and musical intelligence.” Robins found her “formidable,” and Wilson praised her “strong, resonant voice.” Although David Patrick Stearns in USA Today liked her “warm, maternal demeanor and her aristocratic beauty,” he felt she lacked “the spark that sends the music across

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denominational and racial lines,” and Nelsen noted that the evening “unfairly” placed Marrow in Jackson’s shadow. Perhaps Barnes said it best when he noted that Marrow’s “arms are too short to box with Mahalia.” Fred Kolo’s set took its inspiration from a church’s interior, and the images of oversized organ pipes dominated the stage while the ensemble wore choir garments for most of the evening. Earlier during the season, Truly Blessed was presented as Don’t Let This Dream Go at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. During New York previews, the song “Chafalaya’s Rag” was cut. Marrow recorded two songs (“He May Not Come When You Want Him” and “Precious Lord”) for the CD collection Queen Esther Marrow with the Harlem Gospel Singers (released by Open Door Music), and among her other recordings is another song that was heard in Truly Blessed (“Wade in the Water”). In 1985, Sing, Mahalia, Sing!, another musical about Jackson, toured for five months but never risked Broadway. Jennifer Holliday portrayed the title character, and Marrow performed the role at certain performances. Marrow was clearly inspired to go forth with another musical about the singer, and so Truly Blessed was a completely different work about Jackson (although of course the two musicals shared occasional songs, such as the traditional “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”). The book of the earlier musical was by George Faison, and like Truly Blessed the score was a mixture of new songs (by Faison, Richard Smallwood, and Wayne Davis) and traditional gospel numbers.

A CHANGE IN THE HEIR “A New Musical Comedy”

Theatre: Edison Theatre Opening Date: April 29, 1990; Closing Date: May 13, 1990 Performances: 17 Book: George H. Gorham and Dan Sticco Lyrics: George H. Gorham Music: Dan Sticco Direction and Choreography: David H. Bell; Producer: Stewart F. Lane; Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: David Murin; Lighting: Jeff Davis; Musical Direction: Rob Bowman Cast: Brooks Almy (Aunt Julia), Brian Sutherland (Giles), J. K. Simmons (Edwin), David Gunderman (Nicholas), Connie Day (Countess), Mary Stout (Lady Enid), Judy (Judith) Blazer (Prince Conrad), Jeffrey Herbst (Princess Agnes), Jan Neuberger (Martha), Jennifer Smith (Lady Elizabeth) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place “once upon a time, long, long ago, in a castle far, far away.”

Musical Numbers Act One: “Prologue” (Company); “Here I Am” (Judy Blazer); “The Weekend” (Brooks Almy, Connie Day, Jan Neuberger, Mary Stout, J. K. Simmons, Brian Sutherland); “Look at Me” (Jeffrey Herbst, Judy Blazer); “Take a Look at That” (Jeffrey Herbst, Jennifer Smith); “Quintet” (J. K. Simmons, Mary Stout, Jeffrey Herbst, Connie Day, Judy Blazer); “Can’t I?” (Judy Blazer); “When” (Brooks Almy, Jan Neuberger); “A Fairy Tale” (Jeffrey Herbst, Judy Blazer); “An Ordinary Family” (Company) Act Two: “Happily Ever After, After All” (Jeffrey Herbst); “Can’t I?” (reprise) (Judy Blazer); “Duet” (Jeffrey Herbst, Judy Blazer); “Hold That Crown” (Brooks Almy); “By Myself” (Judy Blazer, Company); Finale (Company) A Change in the Heir was both the final musical of the season and the decade’s first book musical with new music. Junon and Avos—The Hope, Oba Oba ’90, and Aspects of Love were imports, The Sound of Music was a revival, and Truly Blessed was a revue-like musical with both new and traditional songs. But as far as critics and audiences were concerned, A Change in the Heir was a nonstarter and so it disappeared after two weeks. Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said the piece was “sophomoric,” and quickly added “high school sophomoric, not college.” Set in medieval times, the jokey plot centered on two rival royal families intent on having their respective progeny, a baby girl and a baby boy, ascend the throne. For reasons known only to the authors, one family

1990 SEASON     11

decides the best way to capture the crown is to raise the baby girl as a boy, and the other family brings up the baby boy as a girl. As a result, the two youngsters (Judy Blazer as Prince Conrad and Jeffrey Herbst as Princess Agnes) believe they are members of the opposite sex, and have no idea of their actual sex. The would-be merry farce was muddled, and Stephen Holden in the New York Times noted that “the conditions by which one or the other might become the monarch are as confusing as they are arbitrary” and the plot became “so convoluted that it’s impossible to figure out what’s going on.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the evening “starts ridiculous and gets sillier,” while David Patrick Stearns in USA Today found the plot “too inane to explain.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News stated the show was “incapable even of attaining the inanity to which it so earnestly aspires,” and Wilson said the plot was “too Byzantine to explain,” was filled with “innumerable improbable events,” and the performers were reduced to “swimming round and round in a moat of ineptitude and implausibility with no hope of escape.” The dialogue was filled with bad puns (“Heir today and gone tomorrow,” “Another twenty years of the reign of error,” and Leo Seligsohn in New York Newsday was almost sure that one character referred to “heir mail”). In one exchange of dialogue, a character said “I had mono that semester,” and in response another one answered “I had her, too.” And Holden noted that Herbst was stuck with the show’s “clunkiest line” of dialogue when he huffed, “No more princess nice guy!” As for the score, the critics frequently brought up Stephen Sondheim’s name, but not in a good way. Holden noted that “whole swatches” of the score echoed Sondheim’s style “with a fidelity that borders on appropriation,” and he said “By Myself” “repeats almost note for note” one of the musical themes of the title song from Merrily We Roll Along. Barnes suggested that with the exception of Into the Woods any show that used the phrase “once upon a time” shouldn’t be trusted; Stearns said the score “so shamelessly apes” Sondheim that it was easy to pick out which numbers were imitations from the scores of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Into the Woods; Seligsohn said the score had “the nervous beat of leftover Sondheim”; and Kissel found the score “a sort of Ding Dong School version” of Into the Woods. As for David H. Bell’s musical staging, Holden termed it “slapdash” and Barnes suggested the “principal function” of Bell’s direction was “traffic-copping” the occasional chases, which were “presumably intended to add the illusion of activity” to the proceedings. Holden mentioned that the musical seemed to take place “in a low-rent district of fairyland where the royal garb resembles patterned bed sheets.” In keeping with the groan-inducing pun-filled evening, the headline of Kissel’s review proclaimed “Warning! ‘Heir’ Quality Alert” and Barnes’s notice stated “To ‘Heir’ Is Human.” Kissel noted that the “indescribably bland” musical could have been produced “by the fraternities at Podunk U. for parents’ weekend” and indicated that the “most interesting” moments during the show took place offstage. First, a fire alarm went off shortly after the first act began, and although the performers tried in vain to be heard above the noise, an impromptu albeit brief intermission was deemed advisable. Then, throughout the second act, the theatre was filled with noises from a recalcitrant air-conditioning ventilator that rustled and whirred from somewhere in the area of the theatre’s ceiling. These interruptions were instances of the “joys of ‘live theatre’” and they provided the “sort of frissons” one could hardly expect to encounter during a typical evening of theatre-going. During previews, “Quintet” was titled “I Tried and I Tried and I Tried,” and the numbers “Exactly the Same as It Was” and “Shut Up and Dance” were cut. The musical had first been produced in Chicago by the New Tuners Theatre in 1988.

ANNIE 2: MISS HANNIGAN’S REVENGE “A New Musical Comedy”

The musical began previews at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, Washington, D.C., on December 22, 1989, officially opened on January 5, 1990, and permanently closed there on January 22. Book: Thomas Meehan Lyrics: Martin Charnin Music: Charles Strouse Based on Harold Gray’s comic strip Little Orphan Annie and the 1977 Broadway musical Annie. Direction: Martin Charnin; Producers: Lewis Allen, Roger Berlind, Martin Heinfling, and Fifth Avenue Productions/Margot Lion Ltd. (R. Tyler Gatchell Jr. and Peter Nuefeld, Executive Producers) (Stuart Thompson and Mutual Benefit Productions, Associate Producers) (produced in association with Stephen Graham

12      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts); Choreography: Danny Daniels; Scenery: David Mitchell; Costumes: Theoni V. Aldredge; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Peter Howard Cast: Sarah Knapp (Rochelle # 372968), Mary-Pat Green (Patsy # 413413), Karen L. Byers (Myrna # 702094), Karen Murphy (Slam # 633145, Aide to Warbucks, Miss Melissa Dabney), Corinne Melancon (Lupe # 202459), Dorothy Loudon (Miss Hannigan # 13131313), Dorothy Stanley (Detention Guard), Fiely Matias (The Asp), Gerry McIntyre (Punjab), Lauren Mitchell (Grace Farrell), Harve Presnell (Oliver Warbucks), Danielle Findley (Anne Warbucks), Beau (Sandy), Laurent Giroux (Felix Frankfurter), Michael Duran (Ticktin, Arnold), Bill Nolte (Nussbaum, Ed, Barney Sullivan, Ford Bond), J. K. Simmons (Deutch, Sergeant Clancy, H. V. Kaltenborn, Albert Einstein), Jane Bodle (Aide to Warbucks), Ellyn Arons (Aide to Warbucks), Marian Seldes (Mrs. Marietta Christmas), Bobby Clark (Peabody, Jenkins), Don Percassi (Eubanks, Hot Dog Vendor), Ronny Graham (Lionel McCoy), Terrence P. Currier (Drake), Michelle O’Steen (Marie); Warbucks’ Staff: Jane Bodle, Michael Duran, Mary-Pat Green, Sarah Knapp, Karen Murphy, and Bill Nolte; Michael Cone (Fiorello H. LaGuardia), T. J. Meyers (Babe Ruth), Oliver Woodall (Lee DeForest), Brian Evaret Chandler (Walter S. Dobbins, Father Pullam, Fletcher, Seaman), Scott Robertson (Maurice); The Beauticians: Karen L. Byers, Bobby Clark, Michael Duran, Sarah Knapp, Corinne Melancon, Karen Murphy, Don Percassi, J. K. Simmons, and Oliver Woodall; The Contestants: Corrine Melancon, Sarah Knapp, Karen Murphy, Mary-Pat Green, Karen L. Byers, Jane Bodle, and Ellyn Arons; P. T. Ashlock (Spit), Juliana Marx (Monica), Michael I. Walker (Mooch), Courtney Earl (Fungo), Mary-Pat Green (Fish Monger), Ellyn Arons (Fish Monger), Karen L. Byers (Apple Seller), Sarah Knapp (Apple Seller), Bobby Clark (Apple Seller); Street People: Jane Bodle, Don Percassi, and Oliver Woodall; Raymond Thorne (Franklin D. Roosevelt), Ellyn Aarons (Eleanor Roosevelt) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City from March to June of 1934.

Musical Numbers Act One: “You Ain’t Seen the Last of Me!” (Dorothy Loudon, Sarah Knapp, Mary-Pat Green, Karen L. Byers, Karen Murphy, Corinne Melancon); “1934” (Harve Presnell, Lauren Mitchell, Laurent Giroux, Michael Duran, Bill Nolte, J. K. Simmons, Jane Bodle, Ellyn Arons, Karen Murphy); “1934” (reprise) (Danielle Findley); “How Could I Ever Say No?” (Dorothy Loudon, Ronny Graham); “The Lady of the House” (Lauren Mitchell, Terrence P. Currier, Jane Bodle, Michael Duran, Mary-Pat Green, Sarah Knapp, Karen Murphy, Bill Nolte); “A Younger Man” (Harve Presnell); “Beautiful” (Scott Robertson, Karen L. Byers, Bobby Clark, Michael Duran, Sarah Knapp, Corinne Melancon, Karen Murphy, Don Percassi, J. K. Simmons, Oliver Woodall); Ronny Graham, Dorothy Loudon); “Beautiful” (reprise) (Dorothy Loudon, Ronny Graham); “The Lady of the House” (reprise) (Lauren Mitchell, Marian Seldes, Corinne Melancon, Sarah Knapp, Karen Murphy, Mary-Pat Green, Karen L. Byers, Jane Bodle, Ellyn Arons); “He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive” (Lauren Mitchell, The New York Yankees); “You! You! You!” (Dorothy Loudon) Act Two: “When You Smile” (Raymond Thorne, Danielle Findley, The People on Wall Street); “Just Let Me Get Away with This One” (Dorothy Loudon); “Coney Island” (Harve Presnell, Lauren Mitchell, Terrence P. Currier); “Coney Island” (reprise) (Harve Presnell, Lauren Mitchell, Danielle Findley, Gerry McIntyre, Fiely Matias, The People at Coney Island); “All I’ve Got Is Me” (Danielle Findley); “Cortez” (the opera spoof’s lyric was by Martin Charnin and the music was by Charles Strouse, but the program attributed the libretto to “Dieter Dorfmunder” and music to “Joseph Nohl”) (Karen Murphy); “A Tenement Lullaby” (Dorothy Loudon); “A Younger Man” (reprise) (Harve Presnell); “I Could Get Used to This” (Dorothy Loudon, Terrence P. Currier, Michael Duran, Stewards); “When You Smile” (reprise) (Harve Presnell, Lauren Mitchell, Danielle Findley, Raymond Thorne, The Warbucks’ Staff, The Guests) Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge was a $7 million sequel to the 1977 blockbuster Annie and was unquestionably the most anticipated musical of the season. And for good reason, because many of the team members from the original Annie were back: Charles Strouse (composer), Martin Charnin (lyricist and director), Thomas Meehan (librettist), David Mitchell (scenic designer), Theoni V. Aldredge (costume designer), Peter Howard (musical direction), Lewis Allen (coproducer), and two cast members, Dorothy Loudon (Miss Hannigan) and Raymond Thorne (FDR). A few other characters from the original musical also returned, in-

1990 SEASON     13

cluding Warbucks’ secretary Grace Farrell (now played by Lauren Mitchell) and butler Drake (here played by Terrence P. Currier), but sadly head housekeeper Mrs. Pugh didn’t make it for the sequel. The very first preview performance on December 22, 1989, at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House revealed a show in serious trouble. It was sour, dispirited, and slow-moving with a running time of some three and a half hours, and it quickly postponed its official opening from December 28 to January 4. Although the extended preview period saw major tweaking of the book and score and the running time was considerably shortened, the official opening was met with critical brickbats. The show played out its Washington run (but during the final week Loudon missed five performances), and then permanently closed without risking Broadway, where the show was scheduled to begin New York previews at the Marquis Theatre on February 5, 1990, with an official opening night of March 1. The original Annie ended on Christmas Day of 1933, and the sequel began a few weeks later in early March 1934. The new musical focused on Miss Hannigan, who has been jailed because of her part in the scam to foist off her ne’er-do-well brother Rooster and his floozy girlfriend Lily St. Regis as Annie’s parents and thus collect a fortune from Warbucks (Harve Presnell). Miss Hannigan breaks out of the slammer with the intention of getting even with both Annie (Danielle Findley) and Warbucks by marrying the millionaire and then dispatching him; once she’s done him in, she’ll do the same with Annie, and then as his widow she can sit back and enjoy spending Warbucks’ fortune. She seeks the aid of her old crony, the ex-con Lionel McCoy (Ronny Graham), whose character was a stand-in of sorts for Rooster. As luck would have it, events seem to play into her hands because the UMA (that is, the United Mothers of America) and its head, Mrs. Marietta Christmas (Marian Seldes), have convinced the courts that Annie shouldn’t be allowed to live with Warbucks unless he marries within ninety days. And like the beauty pageant contest in Of Thee I Sing (1931), in which contestants vie to become the president’s First Lady, a national contest is held to see who will become Mrs. Warbucks. The competition is held at Yankee Stadium, and the winner will be announced live on a radio program. In order to disguise herself, Miss Hannigan undergoes beauty and hair treatments, and thanks to inside information about which questions will be asked of the contestants, Miss Hannigan gets the inside scoop and is primed to win the contest as Southern belle Charlotte O’Hara. There was also much ado about Miss Hannigan’s discovery of a little girl (also played by Danielle Findley) who looks just like Annie and whom Miss Hannigan pays to impersonate the real Annie when the latter is kidnapped. But from an audience member’s perspective, it was almost impossible to distinguish between the real and the phony Annie because both were played in an identically charmless manner and their personalities seemed to come from the same cookie-cutter. As a result, there were a few moments when it appeared the real Annie was aware of Miss Hannigan’s scheme and in a double play was pretending to be the false Annie. Miss Hannigan does indeed win the contest and is poised to become Mrs. Warbucks, but at the last moment she’s foiled, and it is Grace who marries Warbucks at a wedding officiated by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia. The confusing story refused to budge, and the dully plotted book, humorless dialogue and situations, tiresome performances, weak score, and surprisingly vapid choreography conspired to make the sequel doleful and lugubrious. Perhaps the only winner of the evening was scenic designer David Mitchell, who contributed lively décor, including a stunning view of New York Harbor and a tugboat upon which Miss Hannigan and Lionel are rocked back and forth as a huge luxury liner suddenly glides by. The performance of the usually reliable Loudon was out of focus, and she seemed uninterested in the proceedings. She was given just one amusing moment when she’s about to plow her fist into the face of a fellow inmate. A prison matron suddenly comes along, and without missing a beat Loudon’s fist became a bouquet of fluttery fingers as she brightly informed the inmate, “Jungle Red!” (The musical had just one more joke, albeit a politically incorrect one, when a group of male beauticians are asked, “Are we men or are we hairdressers?”) Graham was tired and creaky, Presnell and Mitchell were vapid, and Seldes was stuck in an impossibly written role. As mentioned, the only cast member besides Loudon to return from the original production was Raymond Thorne doing his by now tired FDR shtick. Besides FDR, the musical indulged in more namedropping, and so Fiorello H. LaGuardia (Michael Cone), Felix Frankfurter (Laurent Giroux), Babe Ruth (T. J. Meyers), H. V. Kaltenborn (J. K. Simmons), Albert Einstein (also played by Simmons), and Eleanor Roosevelt (Ellyn Arons) made cameo appearances. The original Annie didn’t include the comic strip’s characters Punjab (Gerry McIntyre) and The Asp (Fiely Matias), but they were in the desultory 1982 film version of Annie and were part of Annie 2, where they were used to scant effect.

14      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin’s disappointing score reflected some of the happier moments of the first Annie: “1934” set the mise en scène in much the way “We’d Like to Thank You” and “A New Deal for Christmas” did in the original; the salute to “Coney Island” was the new version’s variation of “N.Y.C.,” Miss Hannigan’s “I Could Get Used to This” was similar to Annie’s “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here,” and “When You Smile” was a “Tomorrow” wannabe. David Richards in the Washington Post noted that while one took the original Annie to heart, its sequel deserved a paddle. It was “witless and belabored,” the score was “dull,” and the storyline was “preposterous.” Further, Miss Hannigan seemed like “a broken record,” Warbucks was a “dullard,” and Findley’s Annie seemed “to have acquired a bratty side” and was a “nascent whiner.” And it didn’t help that Annie’s “petulance” was accentuated by Findley’s performance. Despite the changes in the book and score and the trimming of some thirty minutes from the running time, Richards was “skeptical” about the show’s chances. (Among the alterations between the first preview and the later performances were the inclusion of the new song “Changes”; an attempt to give Annie more, and Miss Hannigan less, stage time; and a softening of the thornier aspects of the plot, and so now Miss Hannigan doesn’t plan to murder Annie.) Hap Erstein in the Washington Times gave the musical one star and his headline proclaimed, “Spare Us, Please, Any Tomorrows.” He suggested that the “joyless, lethargic mess” was dedicated to Sandy (played by Beau) because the musical was “a dog.” The evening was “dark-toned and often mean-spirited” and lacked a sense of humor, Strouse was “stingy with melody and distressingly derivative,” Charnin’s lyrics had “obvious rhymes and clichéd sentiments,” and Meehan’s meandering book offered “superfluous” characters, “unneeded” dialogue, “period name-dropping,” and “dud” jokes. Further, Charnin’s direction dragged and Danny Daniels’s “few tap routines” gave new meaning to the last word. Erstein noted that Loudon’s Miss Hannigan was “inconsistent and smaller-than-life” and the performer didn’t “register” with the dialogue she’d been saddled with and thus had to “strain” for laughs, Graham looked and acted “too old to muster sufficient energy” for his character, and Mitchell was “stiff.” As for Findley, the critic said she was “far too mechanical,” but he noted she had the “requisite Mermanesque singing voice.” Further, her new song “Changes” was the score’s best number. During previews, one other number was added (“My Daddy,” for Annie) and two (the production number “1934” and Annie’s “All I’ve Got Is Me”) were cut. There were no orphans in the early Washington performances, but a later program included an insert that listed six orphans (played by Courtney Earl, Jennifer Beth Glick, Natalia Harris, Juliana Marx, Lisa Nicole Molina, and Moriah “Shining Dove” Snyder). Paul in Variety said the sequel “disappoints on almost every front” and would require “major retooling” to survive on Broadway. The show was “greatly irritating” with “innocuous” songs, an “inane” script, “perfunctory” dances, and less-than-stellar performances. Loudon appeared “lifeless” in some of her numbers; Presnell’s Warbucks had morphed into a “milquetoast,” although the actor managed to give a “capable” performance; Graham “struggled” with his character; and while Findley was “suitably perky” with “lungs to rival Ethel Merman,” he suggested “stardom won’t be built on numbers such as ‘My Daddy.’” Discussion of an Annie sequel had begun many years before the current debacle, and as early as April 2, 1982, John Corry in the New York Times reported that the musical’s creators hoped that a sequel would go into rehearsal during the spring of 1983, embark on a national tour, and then open on Broadway sometime during the summer. Charnin was quoted as saying the sequel would be an “adventure” and “chase” story, “sort of our Raiders of the Lost Ark. And it will be an extravaganza, taking place in many, many locations.” But he emphasized that the plot would still center on the relationship between Annie and Warbucks, and that Miss Hannigan would resurface. After Annie 2 shuttered in Washington, there were rumors the show would go into redevelopment and eventually open in New York, and another story surfaced that perhaps most of the cast, sets, and costumes could be used for an impromptu Broadway revival of Annie. None of this happened, but a different sequel emerged three years later when after a national tour Annie Warbucks opened Off-Broadway at the Variety Arts Theatre on August 9, 1993, for 200 performances (Annie Warbucks had previously been announced for a Broadway production at the Neil Simon Theatre, where it had been scheduled to open on April 21, 1993, after a series of previews beginning on April 6). Strouse, Meehan, and Charnin were back, and this time Peter Gennaro, who devised the dances for the original production of Annie, choreographed. The cast included Presnell as Warbucks as well as Kathryn Zaremba (Annie), Marguerite MacIntyre (Grace Farrell), Kip Niven (Drake), Donna McKecknie (Mrs. Sheila Kelly), and Harvey Evans (Alvin T. Paterson). And, yes, Raymond

1990 SEASON     15

Thorne was back yet again as FDR. While Miss Hannigan wasn’t part of the show, one can joyously report that Mrs. Pugh (Brooks Almy) made a grand return for the new version. Annie Warbucks received good if not particularly enthusiastic reviews, and many critics felt it looked cramped on the small stage of the Variety Arts Theatre. But John Simon in New York said “you could do a lot worse; you could, for example, see Tommy.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety recalled the sequel’s long gestation period and was glad the show had finally opened in New York because now the musical’s creators could “finally . . . get on with their lives, for which we can all be grateful.” Jan Stuart in New York Newsday reported that the choreography for the little orphan girls forced them “to shake their fannies kooch-dancer-style one time too many” and noted that if a similar chorus of boys had done bumps and grinds “like aspiring Chippendale waiters” the musical would no doubt have been forced to close in previews on indecency charges. The cast album of Annie Warbucks was released on a two-CD set by Broadway Angel Records (# CDQ7243-5-55040-29). Four songs on the recording had previously been heard during the tryout of Annie 2 (“A Younger Man,” “When You Smile,” “Changes,” and “You! You! You!,” the latter rewritten as “Above the Law” for Annie Warbucks). The Annie 2 song “A Tenement Lullaby” was retained for Annie Warbucks but wasn’t included on the cast recording. A two-CD thirtieth-anniversary recording of Annie was released by Time-Life Records (# M19538), which includes seven songs heard in Annie 2 (“1934,” “How Could I Ever Say No?,” “The Lady of the House,” “He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive,” “Coney Island,” “All I’ve Got Is Me,” and “My Daddy”), plus two that may have been performed at some point during the tryout or that had been written for, but not used in, the production (“I Guess Things Happen for the Best” and “Tomorrow Is Now”). Counting the latter two numbers, the Annie Warbucks and anniversary recordings include thirteen songs from the score of Annie 2. It appears six numbers from the sequel weren’t recorded: five of Miss Hannigan’s songs (“You Ain’t Seen the Last of Me!,” “Just Let Me Get Away with This One,” “A Tenement Lullaby,” “I Could Get Used to This,” and “Beautiful,” which was sung by the hairdressers and reprised by Miss Hannigan) and the brief opera parody “Cortez.” In 1997, the original Annie was revived on Broadway in a disappointing production that received poor reviews but managed to run for 238 showings, and in 2012 another Broadway revival played for 487 performances.

1990–1991 Season

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: August 3, 1990; Closing Date: November 7, 1990 Performances: 11 (in repertory) Book: Hugh Wheeler Lyrics and Music: Stephen Sondheim Based on the 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night (screenplay and direction by Ingmar Bergman). Direction: Scott Ellis; Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Choreography: Susan Stroman; Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Lindsay W. Davis; Lighting: Dawn Chiang; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: Susanne Marsee (Mrs. Segstrom), Ron Baker (Mr. Lindquist), Lisa Saffer (Mrs. Nordstrom), Barbara Shirvis (Mrs. Anderson), Michael Rees Davis (Mr. Erlanson, Bertrand), Danielle Ferland (Fredrika Armfeldt), Regina Resnik (Madame Armfeldt), David Comstock (Frid), Kevin Anderson (Henrik Egerman), Beverly Lambert (Anne Egerman), George Lee Andrews (Fredrik Egerman), Susan Terry (Petra), Sally Ann Howes (Desiree Armfeldt), Raven Wilkinson (Malla), Michael Maguire (Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm), Maureen Moore (Countess Charlotte Malcolm), Judith Jarosz (Osa); Serving Gentlemen: Michael Cornell, Ernest Foederer, Kent A. Heacock, Ronald Kelley, Brian Michels, Brian Quirk, Christopher Shepherd, John Henry Thomas The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Sweden at the turn of the twentieth century.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Susanne Marsee, Ron Baker, Lisa Saffer, Barbara Shirvis, Michael Rees Davis); “Night Waltz” (aka “Night Waltz I”) (Company); “Now” (George Lee Andrews); “Later” (Kevin Anderson); “Soon” (Beverly Lambert); “The Glamorous Life” (Danielle Ferland, Sally Ann Howes, Raven Wilkinson, Regina Resnik, Susanne Marsee, Ron Baker, Lisa Saffer, Barbara Shirvis, Michael Rees Davis); “Remember?” (Suzanne Marsee, Ron Baker, Lisa Saffer, Barbara Shirvis, Michael Rees Davis); “You Must Meet My Wife” (Sally Ann Howes, George Lee Andrews); “Liaisons” (Regina Resnik); “In Praise of Women” (Michael Maguire); “Every Day a Little Death” (Maureen Moore, Beverly Lambert); “A Weekend in the Country” (Company) Act Two: “The Sun Won’t Set” (Susanne Marsee, Ron Baker, Lisa Saffer, Barbara Shirvis, Michael Rees Davis); “The Sun Sits Low” (aka “Night Waltz II”) (Lisa Saffer, Michael Rees Davis); “It Would Have Been Wonderful” (George Lee Andrews, Michael Maguire); “Perpetual Anticipation” (Susanne Marsee, Lisa Saffer, Barbara Shirvis); “Send in the Clowns” (Sally Ann Howes); “The Miller’s Son” (Susan Terry); Finale (Company) 17

18      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

The New York City Opera Company’s revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music was the musical’s first major New York production since the original opened on Broadway seventeen years earlier on February 25, 1973, at the Shubert Theatre for 600 performances; it won five Tony Awards (including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Book) and was named the Best Musical of the season by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. City Opera revived the work two more times, in 1991 (see entry) and in 2003, and a commercial Broadway revival opened on December 13, 2009, at the Walter Kerr Theatre for 425 performances. Set in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden, the musical centered on actress Desiree Armfeldt (Sally Ann Howes), who is currently on tour with a play that happens to be booked in her home town where her mother Madame Armfeldt (Regina Resnik) lives on a great country estate. Also living in the town is Desiree’s old flame, lawyer Fredrik Egerman (George Lee Andrews), who has no idea he’s the father of Desiree’s teenage daughter Fredrika (Danielle Ferland). Fredrik is married to Anne (Beverly Lambert), a young woman just five years older than Fredrika, and some eleven months after the marriage the union is still unconsummated (but a lyric asks, “What’s one small shortcoming?”). Desiree and Fredrik are clearly still interested in one another, just as Henrik (Kevin Anderson), Fredrik’s son from his first marriage, is attracted to Anne, who alternately taunts and flirts with him. Desiree’s current amour, the pompous, jealous, and married Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm (Michael Maguire), makes an unexpected visit and is distressed to discover her involvement with Fredrik, and he’s soon followed by his wife, Countess Charlotte (Maureen Moore), who loves her husband and is determined to win him back. On the sidelines are Madame Armfeldt’s butler, Frid (David Comstock), and Anne’s maid, Petra (Susan Terry), both of whom view love less cerebrally than the other characters. Hovering over everyone is Madame Armfeldt herself, and it is she who orchestrates the romantic goings-on by inviting everyone to her country estate for the weekend. Soon the relationships sort themselves out when Henrik runs off with Anne, Fredrik realizes he’s always been in love with Desiree, and Charlotte and Carl-Magnus resume their wary and waspish relationship. Sondheim’s lush waltz-time score (all the songs were in three-quarter time or variations thereof) was dazzling. The three-part “Now,” “Later,” and “Soon” was a brilliant set piece in which Fredrik, Henrik, and Anne addressed their sexual frustrations and hang-ups; “Liaisons” was Madame Armfeldt’s bittersweet look at the past; “You Must Meet My Wife” was a gorgeous conversational duet for Fredrik and Desiree; “Every Day a Little Death” was an introspective moment for Charlotte and Anne that described how daily trivialities overtake and diminish one’s life (and was thematically related to Wordsworth’s comment about the “sad etceteras” of existence); “The Sun Won’t Set” was possibly the most haunting waltz heard on Broadway in decades; the sweeping choral number “A Weekend in the Country” found the guests reacting to Madame Armfeldt’s invitation; “The Miller’s Son” depicted Petra’s direct approach to life and love; and Desiree’s wry “Send in the Clowns” (with its appropriate theatrical imagery) became one of the most popular Broadway songs of its era and remains Sondheim’s most well-known number. John Rockwell in the New York Times generally liked City Opera’s revival and said the production was “intermittently beguiling.” He felt that Sally Ann Howes didn’t capture Desiree’s “fading allure” but nonetheless “did right” by “Send in the Clowns,” and while George Lee Andrews (who had created the role of Frid in the 1973 production and was now Fredrik) didn’t have “much voice” he was an “engaging presence.” But Scott Ellis’s “loose” and “open” direction often caused the “dramatic tension” to “slacken” and the overall flow of the evening lacked “ease and intimacy.” As for Michael Anania’s “painterly” décor, it was inspired by Monet and sometimes suggested “Sunday in the Park with Claude.” Rockwell noted that the choral quintet was annoying with their pompous, “arch,” and “artsy little turns” (see below). The script of the musical was published in hardback by Dodd, Mead & Company in 1973, and again in hardback by Applause Theatre Book Publishers in 1991. The latter edition includes the lyrics of the unused songs “Two Fairy Tales” and “My Husband the Pig” and the cut songs “Silly People” and “Bang!” The script is also included in the hardback collections Great Musicals of the American Musical Theatre, Volume Two (published by the Chilton Book Company in 1976 and edited by Stanley Richards) and Four by Sondheim (published by Applause in 2000). The lyrics for the used, unused, cut, and revised songs are in Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (which includes the unused songs “Numbers” and “Night Waltz III,” both of which seem to have never been recorded). The original Broadway cast recording was released by RCA Columbia (LP # KS-32265), and a later CD issue by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy (# SK-65284) includes the previously unreleased “Night Waltz II”

1990–1991 SEASON     19

(aka “The Sun Sits Low”), which had been recorded during the original cast album session but for reasons of length wasn’t included on the LP release. The CD also includes a bonus track of the rewritten “The Glamorous Life,” which was heard in the film version. The recording of the 2009 Broadway revival was released on a two-CD set by Nonesuch/PS Classics (# 523488-2). The first London production opened at the Adelphi Theatre on April 15, 1975, for 406 performances (the cast album was released by RCA Victor Records LP # LRL1-5090 and later on CD # RCD1-5090). A second London version opened at the Piccadilly Theatre on October 6, 1989, for 144 performances. Other recordings of the score include a 1990 studio cast recording (Jay Records CD # CDTER-1179); a 2000 Barcelona production released by K Industria Cultural, S.L. (CD # KO26CD); and Terry Trotter’s piano recording by Varese Sarabande Records (CD # VSD-5819), which includes both the stage and film versions of “The Glamorous Life.” The 1978 film version was produced by New World and Sacha-Wien Films and released by Roger Corman and New World Pictures. Sondheim wrote new lyrics for “Night Waltz” (as “Love Takes Time”) and “The Glamorous Life” and revised the lyric of “Every Day a Little Death”; the film also includes “Now,” “Later,” “Soon,” “You Must Meet My Wife,” “A Weekend in the Country,” “It Would Have Been Wonderful,” and “Send in the Clowns.” The soundtrack was released by Columbia Records (LP # JS-35333) and the DVD was issued by Hen’s Tooth Video. The current City Opera revival was taped and shown on public television, but there was no home video release of the telecast. A Little Night Music has two annoying flaws, ones that could have been easily corrected during the preproduction and tryout phases of the musical. One was the redundant device of a dumb show that began the musical and in effect played out the plot in shorthand. But its action was oblique, and was no doubt fully grasped only upon a second viewing. The other flaw (which Rockwell also mentioned in his review) was equally annoying and even more distracting because it permeated the entire action of the work. For some reason, the creators used the device of a strolling quintet who wandered in and out of the story and commented upon the action in song. They added nothing to the evening, and in fact intruded upon it because they were almost-but-not-quite characters and thus received more attention from the audience than was warranted. At times they seemed to be singing about themselves, and, if so, why? Strangely enough, they were assigned names and even titles (such as Mrs. Segstrom and Mr. Lindquist), and they came across as too smug and effusive (they would have been more at home in a revival of Song of Norway). Surely Wheeler, Sondheim, and the musical’s original director Harold Prince could have eliminated the quintet and found a means to assign some of their music to the main characters.

STREET SCENE Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: September 7, 1990; Closing Date: September 29, 1990 Performances: 6 (in repertory) Book: Elmer Rice Lyrics: Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice Music: Kurt Weill Based on the 1929 play Street Scene by Elmer Rice. Direction: Jack O’Brien (Jay Lesenger, Stage Director); Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Choreography: Patricia Birch; Scenery: Paul Sylbert; Costumes: Marjorie McCown; Lighting: Gilbert V. Hemsley Jr.; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Children’s Choral Direction: Mildred Hohner; Musical Direction: Chris Nance Cast: Rachel Rosales (Greta Fiorentino), Joyce Castle (Emma Jones), Susanne Marsee (Olga Olsen), Robert Ferrier (Carl Olsen), Lisa Jablow (Neighborhood Woman), Elinor Basescu (Shirley Kaplan), David Rae Smith (Abraham Kaplan), Deborah Williams (Salvation Army Girl), Kathleen Smith (Salvation Army Girl), Eugene Perry (Henry Davis), Keith Cacciola-Morales (Willie Maurrant), Margaret Cusack (Anna Maurrant), Kevin Anderson (Sam Kaplan), Peter Blanchet (Daniel Buchanan), Lila Herbert (Mrs. Buchanan), William Parcher (Frank Maurrant), William Ledbetter (George Jones), Richard Maynard (Steve Sankey), Jonathan Green (Lippo Fiorentino), Jennifer Lane (Mrs. Hildebrand), Robin Tabachnik (Jenny Hildebrand), Alexis Martin (Graduate), Karla Simmons (Graduate), Derek Drever (Charlie Hildebrand), Rachel Samberg (Mary

20      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

Hildebrand), Melissa Martin (Grace Davis), Sheryl Woods (Rose Maurrant), Harlan Foss (Harry Easter), Jeanette Palmer (Mae Jones), John MacInnis (Dick McGann), David Comstock (Vincent Jones), Don Henderson (Doctor Watson, Old Clothes Man), David Frye (Officer Murphy), Ian D. Klapper (Milkman), Allegra Victoria Forste (Joan), Francesca LaGuardia (Myrtle), Louis Perry (Workman), Gregory Moore (Eddie), Kelley Faulkner (Sally), Michael Cole (Joe), Marty Singleton (Strawberry Seller), Rita Metzger (Corn Seller), Don Yule (James Henry), Jonathan Guss (Fred Cullen), Kent A. Heacock (Grocery Boy), Jane Cummins (Music Student), John Henry Thomas (Intern), Glenn Rowen (Furniture Mover), Webster Latimer (Furniture Mover), Lee Bellaver (Nursemaid), Susan Ward (Nursemaid), Michael Putsch (Policeman), Neil Eddinger (Policeman), Harris Davis and Ritz Metzger (Middle-Aged Couple) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place on the stoop and front sidewalk of a New York City tenement during a period of twenty-four hours in June.

Musical Numbers Unless otherwise noted, all lyrics are by Langston Hughes. Act One: “Ain’t It Awful, the Heat?” (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (Rachel Rosales, Joyce Castle, Susanne Marsee, David Rae Smith, Robert Ferrier); “I Got a Marble and a Star” (Eugene Perry); “Get a Load of That” (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (Joyce Castle, Rachel Rosales, Susanne Marsee); “When a Woman Has a Baby” (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (Peter Blanchet, Rachel Rosales, Joyce Castle, Margaret Cusack); “Somehow I Never Could Believe” (Margaret Cusack); “Get a Load of That” (reprise) (Joyce Castle, Rachel Rosales, William Ledbetter, Susanne Marsee); “Ice Cream” (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (Jonathan Green, Joyce Castle, Rachel Rosales, Eugene Perry, Robert Ferrier, Susanne Marsee); “Let Things Be Like They Always Was” (William Parcher); “Wrapped in a Ribbon and Tied in a Bow” (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (Robin Tabachnik, Neighbors); “Lonely House” (Kevin Anderson); “Wouldn’t You Like to Be on Broadway?” (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (Harlan Foss); “What Good Would the Moon Be?” (Sheryl Woods); “Moon-Faced, StarryEyed” (John MacInnis, Jeanette Palmer); “Remember That I Care” (Kevin Anderson, Sheryl Woods) Act Two: “Catch Me If You Can” (aka “Children’s Game”) (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (Children); “There’ll Be Trouble” (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (William Parcher, Margaret Cusack, Sheryl Woods); “A Boy Like You” (Margaret Cusack); “We’ll Go Away Together” (Kevin Anderson, Sheryl Woods); “The Woman Who Lived Up There” (Ensemble); “Lullaby” (lyric by Elmer Rice) (Lee Bellaver, Susan Ward); “I Loved Her, Too” (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (William Parcher, Sheryl Woods, Ensemble); “Don’t Forget the Lilac Bush” (lyric by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice) (Kevin Anderson, Sheryl Woods); “Ain’t It Awful, the Heat?” (reprise) (Rachel Rosales, Joyce Castle, Susanne Marsee, David Rae Smith) The New York City Opera Company’s production of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene was their eighth and final revival of the self-described “dramatic musical,” which was based on Elmer Rice’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name that had opened at the Playhouse Theatre on January 10, 1929, for 601 performances. Rice adapted the musical’s book and with Langston Hughes wrote some of the lyrics, and the musical premiered at the Adelphi Theatre on January 9, 1947, for 148 showings. The story takes place on the stoop and front sidewalk of a New York City tenement during twenty-four hours of a sweltering day and night in June, and depicted both the trivialities and tragedies of the people who live there, including the Maurrant family. The doomed Anna (Margaret Cusack) is unhappily married to the insanely jealous Frank (William Parcher), and their daughter Rose (Sheryl Woods) seems prey to the bitterness and futility of the hardscrabble underside of Manhattan life. Weill’s score and Hughes and Rice’s lyrics perfectly captured both the tragic and mundane worlds of the tenement dwellers. Anna’s aria “Somehow I Never Could Believe” is one of the crown jewels of lyric theatre with its powerful introspective character study, and Frank’s “I Loved Her, Too” is a gripping musical selfanalysis in which he explains but doesn’t justify his murder of Anna. But there were lighter numbers, too, including the gossips and their “Ain’t It Awful, the Heat?” and “Get a Load of That”; the joyous ode to “Ice Cream” on a hot summer’s day; and the scorching jitterbug “Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed” for two of the neighborhood’s hepcats.

1990–1991 SEASON     21

Alan Kozinn in the New York Times said the production was “remarkably fresh” with “consistently strong” singers and a “lively, polished and flexible” performance conducted by Chris Nance. He singled out Margaret Cusack and Sheryl Woods as the “strongest” cast members, and for a later notice in which he reviewed an alternate cast, he noted that Claudia Cummings and Sandra Moon were now Anna and Rose and that the “good” and “consistent” company “brought Weill’s theatre-opera hybrid fully to life.” The cast album of the 1947 production was recorded by Columbia Records (LP # OL-4139) and later issued on CD by CBS Masterworks (# MK-44668); for the album, the role of Frank is sung by Randolph Symonette, who understudied Norman Cordon, the original Frank, and who eventually assumed the role. A 1949 radio broadcast from the Hollywood Bowl was released by Naxos Records (CD # 8-120885) with Polyna Stoska (Anna) and Brian Sullivan (Sam) from the original Broadway production. Both the 1947 and 1949 recordings are abridged, but there are two complete versions that were released on two-CD sets. The English National Opera recording (That’s Entertainment Records # CDTER-2-1185) is based on an ENO revival that opened on October 13, 1989, and the second one on Decca Records (# 433-371-2) was conducted by John Mauceri, who also conducted City Opera’s October 1978 revival. During the tryout of the original production, the song “Italy in Technicolor” was cut, but is included in two collections, Kurt Weill Revisited (Painted Smiles Records CD # PSCD-108) and Lost in Boston II (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5485). As mentioned, the current revival was City Opera’s eighth and final offering of the work. Street Scene was first presented by the company on April 2, 1959 (two performances), and was followed by revivals on September 17, 1959 (two performances), February 13, 1960 (three performances), and April 26, 1963 (three performances), all at City Center; the revivals on February 24, 1966 (six performances), October 28, 1978 (four performances), October 13, 1979 (five performances), and the current production were all presented at the New York State Theatre. The 1979 revival was shown live on public television on October 27, 1979, and a joint production by the Houston Grand Opera, the Theatre im Pfalabau Ludwigshafen, and the Theatre des Westens was released on DVD by Image Entertainment (# ID924-ORADVD). All lyrics, spoken dialogue, and musical score were included in an undated paperback edition published by Chappel & Co.

MICHAEL FEINSTEIN IN CONCERT: PIANO AND VOICE Theatre: John Golden Theatre Opening Date: October 2, 1990; Closing Date: October 27, 1990 Performances: 30 Special Material: Bruce Vilanch Direction: Christopher Chadman; Producer: Ron Delsener; Lighting: David Agress; Musical Direction: Ian Finkel Cast: Michael Feinstein; Musicians: Ian Finkel (Xylophone), David Finck (Bass), Martin Fischer (Drums), Bruce Uchitel (Guitar); at certain performances, Feinstein was joined by Burton Lane. The concert was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. The following alphabetical list reflects those songs mentioned in various newspaper and magazine reviews of the concert. “Anything Can Happen in New York” (1942 film Babes on Broadway; lyric by E. Y. Harburg, music by Burton Lane); “Babes on Broadway” (1942 film Babes on Broadway; lyric by Arthur Freed, music by Burton Lane); “The Best Things in Life Are Free” (Good News, 1927; lyric by B. G. “Buddy” DeSylva and Lew Brown, music by Ray Henderson); “Come Rain or Come Shine” (St. Louis Woman, 1946; lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Harold Arlen); “The Girl Friend of the Whirling Dervish” (1938 film Garden of the Moon; lyric by Al Dubin and Johnny Mercer, music by Harry Warren); “Hooray for Hollywood” (1938 film Hollywood Hotel; lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Richard A. Whiting); “How About You” (1942 film Babes on Broadway; lyric by Arthur Freed, music by Burton Lane); “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” (Right This Way, 1938; lyric by Irving Kahal, music by Sammy Fain); “I Have Dreamed” (The King and I, 1951; lyric

22      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rodgers); “I’ll Be Seeing You” (Right This Way, 1938; lyric by Irving Kahal, music by Sammy Fain); “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” (George White’s Scandals [Fourth Edition], 1922; lyric by B. G. “Buddy” DeSylva and Arthur Francis [Ira Gershwin], music by George Gershwin); “Lazybones” (lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Hoagy Carmichael); “Lover” (1932 film Love Me Tonight; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers); “Make Believe” (Show Boat, 1927; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Jerome Kern); “Manhattan” (Garrick Gaieties [First Edition], 1925; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers); “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” (Jumbo, 1935; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers); “No One Is Alone” (Into the Woods, 1987; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “The Old Music Master” (1943 film True to Life; lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Hoagy Carmichael); “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” (On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, 1965; lyric by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Burton Lane); “Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers” (lyric by R. P. Weston, music by Hermann Darewski); “Swanee” (Capitol Revue [which included the Demi Tasse Revue]; lyric by Irving Caesar, music by George Gershwin); “Wait Till You See Her” (By Jupiter, 1942; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers [although the song was listed in the By Jupiter program for the length of its Broadway run, it appears the number was never performed]). Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and Voice marked the saloon singer and pianist’s third Broadway engagement. He had first appeared in Michael Feinstein in Concert (Lyceum Theater, April 19, 1988; sixty-two performances) and Michael Feinstein in Concert: Isn’t It Romantic (Booth Theatre, October 5, 1988; thirtyeight performances), and then later starred with Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries) in the intimate revue All About Me (Henry Miller’s Theatre, March 18, 2010; twenty performances). The limited engagement was announced as a concert for piano and voice, but Feinstein was joined by a four-man combo and for a few performances by composer Burton Lane (“OK, so I lied a little,” remarked the singer). Stephen Holden in the New York Times said the current concert was an “enormous improvement” over the singer’s previous Broadway appearances. Feinstein had previously seemed insecure and hadn’t conveyed the “warmth” of his nightclub performances, but in the intervening years the entertainer had toured the country and his singing had “grown impressively in range and size” with the “enhanced skills” of a “crooner.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said Feinstein had dropped his “slickness” and brought ”keener intelligence and a richer vocal palette” to his performance, and while he was sometimes “strident” and “overemotional,” even these quibbles were “refreshing” considering “the suave vapidity of Harry Connick, Jr.”; and Bob Harrington in the New York Post found the concert an “absolute delight” and said the evening consolidated “Feinstein’s position as heir to fifty years of great American music.” Patricia O’Haire in the New York Daily News found the singer’s voice “a bit reedy,” and noted his pianoplaying was “sure, note-perfect and unfortunately undistinguished.” She concluded that she’d rather have heard the program in a cabaret setting than a traditional Broadway theatre. Jan Stuart in New York Newsday said the singer’s voice was “a matter of taste” with the “satiny contours of a Johnny Mathis” and the “nervous tremolo of a Parisian chanteuse.” And unlike Connick, Feinstein “quite deliberately” had “nothing new to say” about his material, and while “his public was buying” this style, the approach didn’t have “a very interesting message.” As a result, after some thirty minutes both the performer and the audience seemed locked “into automatic pilot.” But when Burton Lane made an appearance, here was “the real McCoy” (“not that Feinstein is a fake McCoy”), and “the energy generated from their mutual admiration was infectious, and it rightly stopped the show.” Besides the special segment with Burton Lane, the evening also included medleys saluting both Johnny Mercer and Tin Pan Alley. Feinstein recorded two tributes to Lane (vocals by Feinstein and with Lane at the piano), both released by Elecktra Nonesuch (Michael Feinstein Sings the Burton Lane Songbook Volume I, CD # 9-79243-2, and Michael Feinstein Sings the Burton Lane Songbook Volume II, CD # 79285-2).

BUGS BUNNY ON BROADWAY Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Opening Date: October 4, 1990; Closing Date: October 7, 1990 Performances: 5 Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits

1990–1991 SEASON     23

Direction: Production conceived by George Daugherty; Producers: Warner Brothers in association with Industrial F/X Productions, Inc. (George Daugherty, Producer) (Peter H. Russell, Producer for the Nederlander Corporation) (Steven Goldberg, Executive Producer); Scenery: Michael Giaimo; Art Direction: Darrel Van Citters; Lighting: Bob Jared; Musical Direction: George Daugherty The cartoon revue and concert was presented in two acts. Act One: Overture (“Merrie Melodies Main Title Music” aka “Merrily We Roll Along,” music by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher, and Eddie Cantor) (Orchestra); “This Is a Life?” (1955 cartoon; story by Warren Foster; music by Milton [Milt] J. Franklyn) (Voices: Mel Blanc, Arthur Q. Bryan, June Foray); “High Note” (1960 cartoon; music by Milton [Milt] J. Franklyn, after Johann Strauss; sequence includes “The MerryGo-Round Broke Down” by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin); “What’s Up, Doc?” (1950 cartoon; story by Warren Foster; sequence includes “Hooray for Hollywood” from 1937 film Hollywood Hotel, lyric by Johnny Mercer and music by Richard A. Whiting; “What’s the Matter with Father?,” lyric and music by Egbert Van Alstyne and Harry Williams; and “What’s Up Doc?” and “Boys of the Chorus,” lyrics and music by Carl W. Stalling) (Voices: Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan); “Baton Bunny” (1959 cartoon; music by Milton [Milt] J. Franklyn, after Franz Von Suppe); “Jumpin’ Jupiter” (1955 cartoon; music by Carl W. Stalling; sequence includes “Power House” and “Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner,” music by Raymond Scott; and “I Only Have Eyes for You” from 1934 film Dames, lyric by Al Dubin, music by Harry Warren); “The Rabbit of Seville” (1950 cartoon; story by Michael Maltese; music by Carl W. Stalling, after Gioacchino Rossini; sequence includes “Madrid,” lyric and music by L. E. DeFrancesco, J. Danielson, and F. Vimont, and “Merrily We Roll Along,” music by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher, and Eddie Cantor) (Voices: Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan) Act Two: Entr’acte (excerpts from “Long-Haired Hare,” including “Beautiful Galathea Overture” by Franz Von Suppe and “Merrie Melodies Main Title Music” aka “Merrily We Roll Along,” music by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher, and Eddie Cantor) (Orchestra); “A Corny Concerto” (1943 cartoon; music by Carl W. Stalling, after Johann Strauss [including “Tales of the Vienna Woods”] and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky) (New Voices: George Daugherty and Robb Wenner); “Rhapsody Rabbit” (1946 cartoon; music by Carl W. Stalling, after Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1”); “Long-Haired Hare” (1949 cartoon; music by Carl W. Stalling after Richard Wagner, Gaetano Donizetti, Gioacchino Rossini, and Franz Von Suppe, among others; sequence includes “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin; “A Rainy Night in Rio,” 1946 film The Time, the Place and the Girl, lyric by Leo Robin and music by Arthur Schwartz; and “When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba” from the 1930 musical The Third Little Show, lyric and music by Herman Hupfeld) (Voice: Mel Blanc); “What’s Opera, Doc?” (1957 cartoon; music by Milton [Milt] J. Franklyn, after Richard Wagner [including excerpts from The Flying Dutchman, Die Walkure, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung, and Tannhauser]; sequence also includes “Merrily We Roll Along,” music by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher, and Eddie Cantor, and “Return, My Love,” lyric by Michael Maltese and music probably by Milton [Milt] J. Franklyn) (Vocals: Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan); “Merrie Melodies Closing Theme” (aka “Merrily We Roll Along”) (music by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher, and Eddie Cantor) (Voice: Noel Blanc) Bugs Bunny on Broadway was a limited engagement that featured Bugs Bunny and included classical music–oriented cartoons produced by Warner Brothers during the period 1943–1960 (such as “The Rabbit of Seville,” “Rhapsody Rabbit,” “A Corny Concerto,” “Long-Haired Hare,” and “What’s Opera, Doc?”). The cartoons were accompanied by the live onstage forty-piece Warner Brothers Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Daugherty, who conceived the production. Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times said the evening was “neither fish nor fowl” but could easily be titled Hare. He said the “chief joy of the event” was to watch the classic cartoons, and noted that adults could enjoy the “sly digs” at Walt Disney’s 1940 film Fantasia, and adults and kids alike could appreciate the gifts of the creators who gave the cartoons their “anarchic spirit.” October was clearly Warner Brothers Cartoon Month on Broadway because cartoons of Porky Pig and Daffy Duck were presented during the intermission of Jackie Mason: Brand New. The CD of the Broadway cast album of Bugs Bunny on Broadway was released by Warner Brothers Records. The production’s world premiere took place at the San Diego Civic Theatre on June 16, 1990, and along with two sequels of sorts Bugs Bunny at the Symphony (and Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II) have become theatre and concert hall staples.

24      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

The above list of cartoons and musical numbers was compiled from various source materials, including the original cast album.

JACKIE MASON: BRAND NEW Theatre: Neil Simon Theatre Opening Date: October 17, 1990; Closing Date: June 30, 1991 Performances: 216 Monologues: Jackie Mason Direction: Opening sequence directed by David Niles; Producers: Old Friends Group, Inc. (Michael Simoff and Eric P. Ashenberg, Codirectors) (Jyll Rosenfeld, Executive Producer); Scenery and Lighting: Neil Peter Jampolis Cast: Jackie Mason The revue was presented in two acts. Stand-up comedian Jackie Mason returned to Broadway in his one-man revue Jackie Mason: Brand New, and it was as successful as his first such excursion and ran out the season. He had previously appeared in Jackie Mason’s “The World According to Me!,” which had opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on December 22, 1986, and ran for 367 performances. Mason won a special Tony Award for his performance in that production, and he brought it back for a second run the following season when it played for an additional 203 showings. Mason’s other one-man comedy revues were: Jackie Mason: Politically Incorrect (1994), Love Thy Neighbor (1996), Much Ado About Everything (1999), Prune Danish (2002), and Jackie Mason: Freshly Squeezed (2005). With Mike Mortman he cowrote the 1969 comedy A Teaspoon Every Four Hours, in which he also starred; the show closed after one official performance, but not before it played for a then record-breaking ninety-seven previews. In 2003, he starred in (and wrote additional material for) the intimate revue Laughing Room Only with lyrics and music by Doug Katsaros. Mason’s current venture received raves from the critics, and Clive Barnes in the New York Post praised the “brilliant” comic and his “totally new from top to tuchis” humor. But Barnes warned those who might be seated close to the stage: he “practically terrorizes” the front row, takes “a few hostages,” and rakes “them time and time again with machine-gun scorn.” (When Dame Edna later began her series of comic visits to New York, theatergoers underwent similar assaults by the take-no-prisoners-or-possums virago.) Mel Gussow in the New York Times said Brand New was “an exact meeting” between performer and material and noted there was a kind of “universality” in Mason’s “comic assault,” in which everyone, including Mason himself, was cut down to size. The critics were glad that the core of Mason’s comic shtick still dissected the difference between Jews and Gentiles (Wayne Robins in New York Newsday reported that Mason observes that a Gentile will tell you what his sports coat costs, but a Jew tells you what it sells for). Mason also mused that you never run into Jewish coal miners, and he asked if anyone had ever seen a yarmulke with a light attached to it. He also explained that shows require intermissions because Jews must rush to the lobby and discuss their opinions, which are much more important than the production they’re attending. Mason’s monologues also skewered politicians of the New York (David Dinkins, Ed Koch, and Rudy Giuliani), national (Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Dan Quayle), and Middle Eastern (Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon) variety, and he even found time to backhandedly salute Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry (“He’s an honest man because he said he’d get drugs off the street. And he did”). Besides Jews, Gentiles, and politicians, Mason also laughed at blacks, Puerto Ricans, health-food faddists, New Yorkers, and, especially, the French. Gussow noted Mason was “surprisingly virulent” about the latter, Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said he was “oddly vehement” in his “charmless attack,” and Barnes said his “Francophobia here hits new depths” (but Barnes supposed “the French can look after themselves”). Neil Peter Jampolis’s set resembled a huge television newsroom replete with dozens of television monitors, and this led the comic to perform a series of impersonations of Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, and William F. Buckley. And for those who didn’t want to make an intermission trip to the lobby, the television screens showed a series of Looney Tunes cartoons of the Porky Pig and Daffy Duck variety (and with Bugs

1990–1991 SEASON     25

Bunny on Broadway and Brand New, October was quickly shaping up as Broadway’s mini-salute to Warner Brothers’ cartoon characters). Jackie Mason: Brand New had been previously presented at the Public Theatre, first on January 27, 1990, for eighteen performances and then later on May 5, 1990, for an additional twelve showings. The cast recording was released on CD by Sony Broadway.

ONCE ON THIS ISLAND “A New Musical”

Theatre: Booth Theatre Opening Date: October 18, 1990; Closing Date: December 1, 1991 Performances: 469 Book and Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens Music: Stephen Flaherty Based on the 1985 novel My Love, My Love, or The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy. Direction and Choreography: Graciela Daniele (Willie Rosario, Associate Choreographer); Producers: The Shubert Organization, Capital Cities/ABC Inc., Suntory International Corp., and James Walsh in association with Playwrights Horizons; Scenery: Loy Arcenas; Costumes: Judy Deering; Lighting: Allen Lee Hughes; Musical Direction: Steve Marzullo Cast: The Storytellers—Jerry Dixon (Daniel), Andrea Frierson (Erzulie), Sheila Gibbs (Mama Euralie), La Chanze (Ti Moune), Kecia Lewis-Evans (Asaka), Afi McClendon (Little Ti Moune), Gerry McIntyre (Armand), Milton Craig Nealy (Agwe), Nikki Rene (Andrea), Eric Riley (Papa Ge), Ellis E. Williams (Tonton Julian) The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place on an island in the French Antilles.

Musical Numbers “We Dance” (Storytellers); “One Small Girl” (Sheila Gibbs, Ellis E. Williams, Afi McClendon, Storytellers); “Waiting for Life” (La Chanze, Storytellers); “And the Gods Heard Her Prayer” (Kecia Lewis-Evans, Eric Riley, Andrea Frierson); “Rain” (Milton Craig Nealy, Storytellers); “Pray” (La Chanze, Ellis E. Williams, Sheila Gibbs, Guard [performer unknown], Storytellers); “Forever Yours” (La Chanze, Jerry Dixon, Eric Riley); “The Sad Tale of Beauxhommes” (Gerry McIntyre, Storytellers); “Ti Moune” (Sheila Gibbs, Ellis E. Williams, La Chanze); “Mama Will Provide” (Kecia Lewis-Evans, Storytellers); “Waiting for Life” (reprise) (La Chanze); “Some Say” (Storytellers); “The Human Heart” (Andrea Frierson, Storytellers); “Pray” (reprise) (Storytellers); “Some Girls” (Jerry Dixon); “The Ball” (Nikki Rene, Jerry Dixon, La Chanze, Storytellers); “Forever Yours” (reprise) (Eric Riley, La Chanze, Andrea Frierson, Storytellers); “A Part of Us” (Sheila Gibbs, Afi McClendon, Ellis E. Williams, Storytellers); “Why We Tell The Story” (Storytellers) Once on This Island transferred to Broadway after an earlier engagement at Playwrights Horizons. Its slight story dealt with a group of islanders in the French Antilles who pass the time during a storm by acting out a fable about a poor girl who loves a rich man’s son, who scorns her by marrying another. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News reported that in response the jilted girl does the only logical thing: she turns herself into a tree. Kissel said the evening aimed for “folk” but was instead “fake.” The score lacked “depth” with “repetitive” and “mechanical” music and “arch and coy” lyrics, and because there was an “implicit” element of “condescension toward the characters” the performers were “restricted by the pidgin quality of the score.” Although Clive Barnes in the New York Post welcomed the “cheerful” show, he complained about the décor’s “faux naïf look,” the “pseudo-folklorist story,” the “standard-issue Caribbean music,” the “derivative” but “lively” dances, and a staging reminiscent of Katherine Dunham “on a slick night.” He also noted that the score’s “relentlessly pastiche style” was “mercilessly exposed” by the release of the cast album. Jan Stuart in New York Newsday said the “cuddly” and “alternately soporific and soothing” score would make you “want to suck your thumb.” The evening was “lopsided and wimped-out,” but nonetheless offered

26      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

a “simplicity” that brought “a refreshing tropical breeze to blow away the stale spectacles of Andrew Lloyd Webber.” Joel Siegel on WABCTV7 praised the “jewel of a musical” but suggested the jewel was perhaps a bit small for a regular Broadway house; David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the score was “theatrical to the core”; and Jack Kroll in Newsweek liked the “perfect orchid of a musical.” In his review of the earlier Off-Broadway presentation, Frank Rich in the New York Times reported that the show had “the integrity of genuine fairy tales” and he praised the “lush, melodic” music. The show was first presented Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on May 6, 1990, for twenty-four performances, and between the Off-Broadway and Broadway engagements RCA Victor recorded the cast album (CD # 60595-2-RC), which includes two sequences not listed in the Broadway program (“Ti Moune’s Dance” and “When We Are Wed”). The London production opened on September 28, 1994, at the Island Theatre and was recorded by That’s Entertainment Records (CD # CDTER-1224); it too includes the two aforementioned songs as well as “Discovering Daniel.” The Varese Sarabande collections Lost in Boston (the first in the series, and not described as volume one; CD # VSD-5475) and Lost in Boston III (CD # VSD-5563) include two cut songs from the score (the first collection offers “Come Down from the Tree”; and the second “When Daniel Marries,” a number intended for the character Ti Moune and is here sung by cast member La Chanze, who played the role in both the OffBroadway and Broadway productions).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Once on This Island); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (La Chanze); Best Director of a Musical (Graciela Daniele); Best Book (Lynn Ahrens); Best Score (lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, music by Stephen Flaherty); Best Costume Designer (Judy Deering); Best Lighting Designer (Allen Lee Hughes); Best Choreography (Graciela Daniele)

OH, KAY! Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre Opening Date: November 1, 1990; Closing Date: January 5, 1991 Performances: 77 Book: Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse; new book adaptation by James Racheff from a concept by Dan Siretta Lyrics: Ira Gershwin Music: George Gershwin Direction and Choreography: Dan Siretta (Ken Leigh Rogers, Assistant Choreographer); Producers: David Merrick (Natalie Lloyd, Executive Producer; Leo K. Cohen, Associate Producer); Scenery: Kenneth Foy; Costumes: Theoni V. Aldredge; Lighting: Craig Miller; Musical Direction: Tom Fay Cast: Gregg Burge (Billy Lyles), Kyme (Dolly Greene), Stanley Wayne Mathis (Duke), David Preston Sharp (Nick, Sam), Fracaswell Hyman (Joe), Frantz Hall (Waiter, Jake), Kevin Ramsey (Larry Potter), Helmar Augustus Cooper (Shorty), Keith Robert Bennett (B.J.), Frederick J. Boothe (Floyd), Ken Roberson (Zeke), Brian (Stokes) Mitchell (Jimmy Winter), Tamara Tunie Bouquett (Constance DuGrasse), Byron Easley (Chauffer), Angela Teek (Kay Jones), Mark Kenneth Smaltz (Janson), Alexander Barton (Reverend Alphonse DuGrasse); Ensemble: Keith Robert Bennett, Jacqueline Bird, Frederick J. Boothe, Cheryl Burr, Byron Easley, Robert H. Fowler, Karen E. Fraction, Frantz Hall, Garry Q. Lewis, Greta Martin, Sharon Moore, Elise Neal, Ken Roberson, David Preston Sharp, Allyson Tucker, Mona Wyatt The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Harlem during 1926.

Musical Numbers Note: (*) denotes song performed in the original 1926 Broadway production. Act One: “Slap That Bass” (1937 film Shall We Dance) (Gregg Burge, Kyme, Ensemble); “When Our Ship Comes Sailing In” (dropped during rehearsals of the original 1926 Broadway production) (Stanley Wayne

1990–1991 SEASON     27

Mathis, Helmar Augustus Cooper, Male Ensemble); “Dear Little Girl” (*) (Brian Mitchell, Helmar Augustus Cooper); “Maybe” (*) (Brian Mitchell, Angela Teek); “You’ve Got What Gets Me” (1932 film version of Girl Crazy) (Gregg Burge, Kyme); “Do, Do, Do” (*) (Brian Mitchell, Angela Teek); “Clap Yo’ Hands” (*) (Kevin Ramsey, Ensemble) Act Two: “Oh, Kay!” (*) (lyric by Ira Gershwin and Howard Dietz) (Gregg Burge, Angela Teek, Ensemble); “Ask Me Again” (independent song written in the late 1920s or early 1930s) (Brian Mitchell); “Fidgety Feet” (*) (Stanley Wayne Mathis, Ensemble); “Ask Me Again” (reprise) (Brian Mitchell); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (*) (Angela Teek); “Heaven on Earth” (*) (lyric by Ira Gershwin and Howard Dietz) (Kevin Ramsey, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Gregg Burge); “Show Me the Town” (dropped during the tryout of the original 1926 Broadway production, and with a different verse was used in the 1928 Broadway musical Rosalie) and “Sleepless Nights” (origin unknown) (Angela Teek, Gregg Burge, Kyme, Kevin Ramsey, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Ensemble); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (reprise) (Brian Mitchell, Angela Teek) The $3 million revival of George and Ira Gershwin’s hit 1926 musical Oh, Kay! about the heady days of the Prohibition era received mixed reviews and was gone in two months (but it briefly reappeared at the end of the season in a slightly revamped production; see entry). The current adaptation with an all-black cast took place in Harlem, and while the critics enjoyed the Gershwin score and various aspects of the production, some were cool to the performances of the leading players. The lightweight plot dealt with the shenanigans surrounding bootleggers from the recently raided speakeasy Paradise Club who hide their hooch in the supposedly unused Harlem mansion of playboy Jimmy Winter (Brian [Stokes] Mitchell) while the club’s singer, Kay (Angela Teek), pretends to be the absent owner’s wife. When Jimmy unexpectedly returns with his bride, Constance (Tamara Tunie Bouquett), he and Kay realize they’d met years before and soon rekindle their old flame (happily, Jimmy’s marriage to Constance is invalid when it turns out his divorce from his first marriage has yet to be finalized). Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the production provided a “good time” and was “essentially a dance show” embellished with the talents of Gregg Burge, Kyme, Stanley Wayne Mathis, and Kevin Ramsey; in the same newspaper, Douglas Watt found the evening “generally witless” but praised Burge, Ramsey, and Helmar Augustus Cooper for their various dance and comic contributions. Joel Siegel on ABCTV7 noted that the musical played like “a big summer stock hit” and said he was offended by some of the plot’s Amos ’n’ Andy machinations. Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the revival was “taut” and “easygoing” and possessed a “spiffy” look that was “lavish with taste”; Jack Kroll in Newsweek felt much of the humor sank “in the quicksands of vaudevillish humor” but otherwise the musical had “fresh energy” and an “easy, winning style.” William A. Henry III in Time said the plot was “unredeemably corny” with “less than inspired clowning,” but praised Gershwin’s “nonpareil score.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post hailed the “enchanted, delicious evening” with its “nonsensical sense of fun” and its explosion of “timeless energy,” and David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the revival was “a fun, splashy, new production” that recalled the era when musicals were “blissfully devoid of logic.” But Frank Rich in the New York Times said the “deficient” and “pallid” revival was “less redolent of the Cotton Club than of Amos ’n’ Andy” with its “eye-popping gags and stereotypes” and thus was evocative of a “minstrel show” with “hoary jokes.” Dan Siretta’s choreography received wildly divergent reviews. Rich said the “dance routines” clearly showed that “the word routine was coined to describe them,” and Kissel said the group choreography was weak because each sequence achieved “a certain intensity right at the beginning rather than building slowly.” But Henry stated the dancing was “unsurpassed on Broadway,” Stearns praised the “dazzling” choreography, Barnes said Siretta did “wonders” with the period choreography (which included Charlestons and tap dances), and Winer said the production was “ecstatically well danced.” And Kroll delighted in Siretta’s “sizzling brew” of dances, including Stanley Wayne Mathis’s “Fidgety Feet,” which was “a classic of pedal perplexity.” The critics were also divided on the merits of the two leads, Angela Teek and Brian Mitchell. Stearns said Teek projected “an appropriately sassy attitude but little more”; Rich found her “strident of voice and mechanical of gesture” and noted that her rapport with the “robotic” Mitchell was “ice-cold”; and Watt said she “shrilly” performed “Someone to Watch Over Me.” John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor found her “pert and pretty” but noted Siretta had apparently “permitted” her to give “an inappropriately belting interpretation” of “Someone to Watch Over Me” (but the critic noted that the theatre’s sound system may have been responsible for some of the problem). Kroll said Teek couldn’t “fill that star space with her spunky

28      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

charm,” and Winer said she lacked “a powerhouse presence or stage voice” but had a “piquant charm and a pleasant off-hand way with a phrase.” But Barnes said she was a “sprightly” and “perfect and cheeky delight,” and Kissel said she proved herself a “solid comedienne” and “delightfully” sang “Do, Do, Do” (but did “less well” with “Someone to Watch Over Me” because she “sidesteps the direct emotional thrust of the song by embellishing it with mannerisms”). Siegel found her “talented” but was unhappy with her “Someone to Watch Over Me” and suggested that “something’s wrong when you hear a song and think of ten other people you’d rather hear sing it.” As for Mitchell, Kissel said he was an “assured” and “compelling” performer who sang with “great power,” but Watt suggested he lacked “the essential Gershwin lift” to his songs. Barnes found him “elegant”; Beaufort said he was “suave” and made a “strong vocal contribution” to the evening; Kroll said he showed “assurance” as the “uptight, superrich” hero; and Winer said he was “smooth.” Stearns reported that Mitchell had “a combination of looks, voice and presence that suggests he’s a major find” but noted he lacked “the lightness and precision for this kind of comedy.” (Indeed, as his career progressed Mitchell clearly seemed more comfortable with his serious roles in Ragtime and the 2002 Man of La Mancha revival and was clearly less at home as the hammy Fred/Petruchio in the 1999 revival of Kiss Me, Kate.) The original production of Oh, Kay! opened at the Imperial Theatre on November 8, 1926, for 256 performances with Gertrude Lawrence (Kay), Victor Moore (Shorty McGee), and Oscar Shaw (Jimmy). A few months after the musical closed, a return engagement opened at the Century Theatre on January 2, 1928, for sixteen performances with Julia Sanderson, Frank Crumit, and John E. Young. A revised Off-Broadway adaptation opened on April 16, 1960, at the East 74th Street Theatre for eighty-nine performances (Marti Stevens played the title role, and others in the cast were David Daniels, Bernie West, Penny Fuller, Linda Lavin, and Eddie Phillips); the book and some of the lyrics were revised by P. G. Wodehouse (who had cowritten the original book), and the production included a few interpolations from other Gershwin scores. Another revised version was scheduled to open at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on October 5, 1978, with a cast that included Jane Summerhays (Kay), Jack Weston (Shorty), and David-James Carroll (Jimmy; during the course of the tryout, Carroll was succeeded by Jim Weston). This version was put together by many of the production team responsible for the hit 1971 revival of No, No, Nanette, but despite lavish production values and pleasant (and, for “Fidgety Feet,” memorably quirky) choreography, the production closed prior to Broadway. During preproduction, the revised book was by John Guare and then by Muriel Resnik, and by the time of the tryout’s opening it was credited to Thomas Meehan. The current revival was inspired by an all-black version of the musical that had been produced at Goodspeed Opera House (East Haddam, Connecticut) during the 1989–1990 season and had featured Pamela Isaacs and Ron Richardson as Kay and Jimmy. As noted above, the current production played two months on Broadway, and then later in the season briefly returned to Broadway (at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, the would-be home for the ill-fated 1978 production). A silent film version was released by First National Pictures in 1928; directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the cast included Coleen Moore (Kay), Lawrence Gray (Jimmy), Ford Sterling (Shorty), and Alan Hale (Jansen). In 1978, a recording issued as part of the Smithsonian American Musical Theatre Series (released by RCA Special Products LP # DPL1-0310) included original cast performances by Gertrude Lawrence and duo pianists Victor Arden and Phil Ohman as well as solo piano recordings by Gershwin himself. The 1960 Off-Broadway cast album was issued by 20th Fox MasterArts Records (LP # FOX-4003) and was later released by Stet Records (LP # DS-15017). A charming studio cast album with Barbara Ruick, Jack Cassidy, and Alan Case was released by Columbia Records (LP # OS-2550 and # OL-7050) and later issued on CD by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy Records (# SK-60703); and another studio cast recording (Nonesuch Records CD # 79361-2) with Dawn Upshaw, Kurt Ollmann, and Patrick Cassidy (Jack’s son) represents the most complete version of the score. The current revival retained eight of the eleven songs heard in the original 1926 Broadway production: “Dear Little Girl,” “Maybe,” “Do, Do, Do,” “Clap Yo’ Hands,” “Oh, Kay!,” “Fidgety Feet,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and “Heaven on Earth” (unused were “The Woman’s Touch,” “Don’t Ask,” and “Bride and Groom”); one song dropped during rehearsals of the original production (“When Our Ship Comes Sailing In”); one song dropped during the original tryout (“Show Me the Town”); and four interpolations (“Slap That Bass” from the 1937 film musical Shall We Dance; “You’ve Got What Gets Me,” written especially for the 1932 film version of Girl Crazy; “Ask Me Again,” independent song; and “Sleepless Nights,” origin unknown).

1990–1991 SEASON     29

During the current production’s previews, “New York Serenade” (Rosalie, 1928), “Somehow It Seldom Comes True” (origin unknown), and “Where’s the Boy? Where’s the Girl?” (heard as “Where’s the Boy? Here’s the Girl!” from the 1928 Broadway musical Treasure Girl) were cut.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Gregg Burge); Best Choreographer (Dan Siretta)

BUDDY

“The Buddy Holly Story” Theatre: Shubert Theatre Opening Date: November 4, 1990; Closing Date: May 19, 1991 Performances: 225 Book: Alan Janes Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Direction: Rob Bettinson; Producers: Paul Elliott, Laurie Mansfield, and Greg Smith (for International Artists) and David Mirvish (Brian Sewell, Executive Producer) (Contracts International Ltd., Associate Producer); Scenery: Andy Walmsley; Costumes: Bill Butler; Lighting: Graham McLusky; Musical Direction: Paul Jury Cast: Fred Sanders (Hipockets Duncan); Jingle Singers: Jo Lynn Burks, Caren Cole, and Liliane Stilwell; The Hayriders: Melanie Doane, Kevin Fox, Tom Nash, Steve Steiner, and Don Stitt; Philip Anthony (Engineer at KDAV, DJ on WWOL, Ritchie Valens), Paul Hipp (Buddy Holly), Bobby Prochaska (Joe B. Mauldin), Russ Jolly (Jerry Allison); Boppers and Autograph Hunters: Jill Hennessy, Paul McQuillan, and Ken Triwush; Decca Session Musicians: Kevin Fox, Tom Nash, Ken Triwush, and Steve Steiner; David Mucci (Decca Producer, DJ on WCLS, The Big Bopper); Decca Engineers: Paul McQuillan and Don Stitt; Kurt Ziskie (Norman Petty, DJ on KRWP), Jo Lynn Burks (Vi Petty), Ken Triwush (Fourth Cricket, Tommy), Demo Cates (DJ on WDAS, Man at the Apollo), Don Stitt (DJ on KPST, DJ at the Apollo, Clear Lake MC), Melanie Doane (Candy, Peggy Sue); Couples in Woods: Jo Lynn Burks, Caren Cole, Kevin Fox, Jill Hennessy, Liliane Stilwell, and Ken Triwush); Apollo Singers: Sandra Caldwell, Denese Matthews, and Lorraine Scott; Musicians at the Apollo: Demo Cates, Alvin Crawford, Jerome Smith Jr., and James H. Wiggins Jr.; Jerome Smith Jr. (Performer at the Apollo); Jingle Singers on WWOL: Sandra Caldwell, Denese Matthews, and Lorraine Scott; Jill Hennessy (Maria Elena), Steve Steiner (Murray Deutch, Jack Daw), Caren Cole (Shirley), Liliane Stilwell (Maria Elena’s Aunt), Paul McQuillan (English DJ, Dion), Photographers (Members of the Company): The Belmonts: Russ Jolly and Tom Nash; Caren Cole (Mary Lou Sokoloff); The Snowbirds: Jo Lynn Burks, Caren Cole, Melanie Doane, Jill Hennessy, and Lilian Stilwell; Band and Backup Singers at Clear Lake: Members of the Company The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the late 1950s throughout the United States, including New York City and Clear Lake, Iowa.

Musical Numbers The program’s song list didn’t include names of the performers. Act One: “Texas Rose” (lyric and music by Paul Jury); “Flower of My Heart” (lyric and music by Paul Jury); “Ready Teddy” (lyric and music by John Marascolo and Robert Blackwell); “That’s All Right” (lyric and music by Arthur Crudup); “That’ll Be the Day” (lyric and music by Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly, and Norman Petty); “Blue Days, Black Nights” (lyric and music by Ben Hall); “Changing All These Changes” (lyric and music by J. Denny); “Peggy Sue” (lyric and music by Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly, and Norman Petty); “(I’m) Looking for Someone to Love” (lyric and music by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty); “Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues” (lyric and music by Ruth Roberts, Bill Klatz, and Stanley Clayton);

30      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

“Maybe Baby” (lyric and music by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty); “Every Day” (lyric and music by Charles Hardin and Norman Petty); “That’ll Be the Day” (reprise); “Sweet Love” (lyric and music by Paul Jury and Caren Cole); “You Send Me” (lyric and music by Sam Cooke); “Not Fade Away” (lyric and music by Charles Hardin and Norman Petty); “Peggy Sue” (reprise); “Words of Love” (lyric and music by Buddy Holly); “Oh, Boy” (lyric and music by Norman Petty, Sonny West, and Bill Tilghman) Act Two: “Listen to Me” (lyric and music by Charles Hardin and Norman Petty); “Well, All Right” (lyric and music by Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly, Norman Petty, and Joe Mauldin); “It’s So Easy (to Fall in Love)” (lyric and music by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty); “Think It Over” (lyric and music by Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly, and Norman Petty); “True Love Ways” (lyric and music by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty); “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” (lyric and music by Frankie Lymon and Morris Levy); “Chantilly Lace” (lyric and music by Jiles Perry “J.P.” Richardson Jr. aka “The Big Bopper”); “Maybe Baby” (reprise); “Peggy Sue Got Married” (lyric and music by Buddy Holly); “Heartbeat” (lyric and music by Bob Montgomery and Norman Petty); “La Bamba” (traditional song adapted by Ritchie Valens); “Raining in My Heart” (lyric and music by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant); “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” (lyric and music by Paul Anka); “Rave On” (lyric and music by Norman Petty, Bill Tilghman, and Sonny West); “Johnny B. Goode” (lyric and music by Chuck Berry) Although Buddy was one of the biggest hits in West End history, it was a quickly forgotten also-ran in New York. The musical had opened in London on October 12, 1989, at the Victoria Palace Theatre, and when it closed on March 3, 2002, it had chalked up over 5,000 performances. But the Broadway edition, which was the first production to play the Shubert Theatre after the marathon run of A Chorus Line, managed only a six-month run and closed after 225 showings. The New York critics were unimpressed with the clichéd showbusiness story, and while American performer Paul Hipp reprised the title role for Broadway and was praised for his performance, the consensus was that he deserved a better vehicle. Despite the critics’ reports that some audience members felt compelled to jiggle in their seats, dance in the aisles, and scream for more encores, the show didn’t achieve the must-see status of such other pop-singer sagas as Jersey Boys (2005; Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) and Beautiful (2014; Carole King). Maybe Buddy Holly’s name wasn’t all that recognizable or iconic to most theatergoers, and perhaps those who might best appreciate his middle-of-the-road rock-and-roll songs weren’t regular Broadway patrons. The musical received two London cast albums, both released by First Night Records; the original cast recording was issued on CD # QUEUE-1, and a 1995 live stage performance was released on CD # 55. Five years after the long-running production closed, it was revived in London at the Duchess Theatre on August 3, 2007, where it played about eighteen months. The score was also recorded by the original Hamburg cast, and a studio cast album was released in Australia. Buddy Holly (1936–1959) enjoyed a meteoric rise into the world of rock and roll stardom with a string of popular hit songs, but his life and career were cut short. During the winter of 1959, he and a group of singers and musicians toured the Midwest in a series of one-night “Winter Dance Party” concerts. After completing their performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 2, some of the performers boarded a bus for the next engagement in Moorhead, Minnesota, while Holly and singers Ritchie Valens (Philip Anthony) and Jiles Perry “J.P.” Richardson Jr. aka “The Big Bopper” (David Mucci) flew to the next destination in a small chartered plane, which crashed in a snowstorm soon after take-off, killing everyone on board. Although the evening ended with a re-creation of the final Winter Dance Party concert, Frank Rich in the New York Times noted that one had to “slog through” two hours to get there, “much the way contemporary rock audiences must endure interminable warm-up acts before the headliner arrives.” Rich complained that book writer Alan Janes seemed “incapable of writing a scene that is dramatic or funny or revealing of character,” and he groaned over the hoary dialogue: Buddy says he has to play his music “my way”; Ritchie Valens says “I got to get on that plane tonight!”; and The Big Bopper says “Thanks for saving me a seat on that plane!” Rich suggested these howlers brought forth nostalgia for the satiric sketches from The Carol Burnett Show rather than for vintage rock-and-roll. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News suggested if the show had been an “audio-animatronics exhibit” at Disney World, one could praise it for being “uncannily lifelike,” but because the musical appeared “to be written and performed by humans” it wasn’t “lifelike enough.” The show was “mechanical,” the script “unbelievably primitive,” and the evening never went deeper than “an elementary school pageant.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said audiences expecting “a reasonably sophisticated theatre experience” would “cringe at the ineptness” and “lack of resourcefulness” in the show’s writing and direction. The eve-

1990–1991 SEASON     31

ning was nothing more than “a Buddy Holly impersonation show” that was “more lavishly produced” than the typical Elvis Presley impersonation but was still “nearly as cheap.” An unsigned review in New York Newsday (possibly written by Linda Winer) reported that the production was “a simpleminded and synthetic golden oldies theme park for baby boom nostalgists.” And like Rich she pounced on the Script Writing 101 dialogue: someone cautions, “Don’t go in airplanes, Buddy”; when Buddy and the Crickets are mistakenly booked into the Apollo Theatre under the impression they’re a black singing group, such lines as “You cats are outta sight!” and “Slip me some skin, man” were actually spoken; and, anachronistically, Buddy states “I need my space. I have to do my own thing.” Joel Siegel on ABCTV7 said the “incompetent production” had a book that played as if “a talented high school senior had written” it for “a Buddy Holly Day pageant.” The show was a “rock concert” but was “never theatre.” Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News noted that the musical had “almost nothing to offer in the way of an interesting story or truly memorable songs,” but the show’s “beat and fervor” couldn’t be denied, and Hipp was “engaging and skillful.” William A. Henry III in Time praised Hipp’s “dead-on” impersonation, and Clive Barnes in the New York Post found Hipp “unquestionably terrific” and “prodigiously talented.” Barnes admitted the evening was “little more than a rock concert,” and he quickly added, “But what a rock concert!” And Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal found the dialogue “on the level of a high school pageant” but nonetheless praised Hipp’s “good voice” and “limitless energy.” The song “Good Times” was heard in New York previews, and “Sweet Love” was especially written for the Broadway production by cast member Caren Cole and Paul Jury, the production’s musical director (Jury also wrote the lyrics and composed the music for two other songs written for the Broadway presentation, “Texas Rose” and “Flower of My Heart”). Songs added for New York were: “Sweet Time,” “You Send Me,” “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?,” and “Johnny B. Goode”; and “Blue Ridge Mountains,” which had been heard in the London version, was dropped for Broadway. The 1978 biographical film The Buddy Holly Story starred Gary Busey in the title role, and Ritchie Valens’s life was depicted in the 1987 film La Bamba, which starred Lou Diamond Phillips. But so far Hollywood has ignored a screen salute to The Big Bopper.

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Paul Hipp)

THOSE WERE THE DAYS “The New English-Yiddish Musical Revue”

Theatre: Edison Theatre Opening Date: November 7, 1990; Closing Date: February 24, 1991 Performances: 130 Continuity: Zalmen Mlotek and Moishe Rosenfeld Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Additional Material: Ernesto Cecuona, Jacques Offenbach, Miriam Makeba, Frank Loesser, Manos Hadjidakis, Billy Towne, Bruce Adler, Robert Abelson, Mina Bern, and Eleanor Reissa Direction and Choreography: Eleanor Reissa; Producers: Moe Septee and Emanual Azenberg in association with Victor H. Potamkin, Zalmen Mlotek, and Moishe Rosenfeld; Scenery: Uncredited; Costumes: Gail Cooper-Hecht; Lighting: Tom Sturge; Musical Direction: Zalmen Mlotek Cast: Bruce Adler, Eleanor Reissa, Lori Wilner, Robert Abelson, Mina Bern; the program also noted that the evening included a “special guest appearance” by Norman Atkins. The revue was presented in two acts.

Sketches and Musical Numbers Act One: The Shtetl: Overture (“Those Were the Days”) (The Golden Land Orchestra); Prologue: “Lomir loybn” (“Let Us Praise”) and “Sha shtil” (“The Rabbi’s Coming”) (folksong medley) (Company); “Oyfn pripetshik”

32      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

(“At the Fireplace”) (lyric and music by M. Warshavsky) (Bruce Adler); “On a Moonlit Night” (based on a story by I. L. Peretz) (Eleanor Reissa, Lori Wilner); “Ver der ershter vet lakhn” (“Who Will Laugh First?”) (lyric and music by M. Gebirtig) (Eleanor Reissa, Lori Wilner); “Motele” (lyric and music by M. Gebirtig) (Robert Abelson, Eleanor Reissa); “Hudl mitn shtrudl” (“Hudl with the Shtrudl”) (lyric and music by A. Lebedeff) (Bruce Adler); “Kasrilevke restoran” (“A Restaurant in Kasrilevke”) (based on a story by Sholem Aleichem) (Robert Abelson, Bruce Adler, Mina Bern); “Di dinst” (“The Maid”) (folk song) (Eleanor Reissa); “Shalakh-mones” (“Gifts for Purim”) (based on a story by Sholem Aleichem) (Eleanor Reissa, Lori Wilner); “Yosl ber” (lyric by Itzik Manger, music based on a folk melody) (Bruce Adler, Eleanor Reissa, Lori Wilner); “Shabes, shabes, shabes” (“Welcome to the Sabbath”) (lyric by Ben Bonus, music by Ben Yomen) (Mina Bern); “Chelm” (Company); “Litvak/Galitsyaner” (lyric and music by Hymie Jacobson) (Bruce Adler, Eleanor Reissa); “Halevay volt singl geven” (“I Wish I Were Single Again”) (American folk song adapted by W. Youin) (Mina Bern, Robert Abelson); “Shloymele-Malkele” (music by J. Rumshinsky) (Lori Wilner, Bruce Adler); “Mamenyu tayere” (“Dear Mama”) (lyric by Mani Leib, music based on a folk melody) (song from the repertory of Menashe Oppenheim) (Mina Bern, Lori Wilner); “Nokhumke, ayn zun” (“Nochum, My Son”) (folk song) (Robert Abelson, Bruce Adler); “Saposhkelekh” (“The Boots”) (folk song, from research by Michael Alpert) (Eleanor Reissa); “The Wedding” (Company): (1) “Khosn-kale mazl-tov” (“Congratulations to the Bride and Groom”) (folk song); (2) “Di rod” (“The Circle”) (lyric and music by M. Warshavsky); (3) “Der ayznban” (“The Train”) (folk song); (4) “Yoshke fort avek” (“Yoshke’s Going Away”) (folk song); and (5) “Mayn alte heym” (from the “Forbidden Songs” of Soviet Jews as recorded by David Eshet) Act Two: The Music Hall: “Entr’acte” (The Golden Land Orchestra); “Those Were the Days” (lyric and music by Gene Raskin) (Eleanor Reissa, Robert Abelson); “Shpil gitar” (“Play Guitar”) (Lori Wilner); “The Palace of the Czar” (lyric and music by Mel Tolkin) (Bruce Adler); “Di mame” (“The Mother”) (monologue) (Mina Bern); “Yiddish International Radio Hour” (Yiddish lyric by Chana Mlotek) (Company); “Figaro’s Aria” (from The Barber of Seville; music by Gioacchino Rossini, Yiddish lyric by Robert Abelson and Moishe Rosenfeld) (Robert Abelson); “My Yiddishe Mame” (lyric by Jack Yellen, music by Lew Pollack) (Eleanor Reissa); “Hootsata” (based on a song by Fishl Kanapoff) (Bruce Adler); “Bei mir bistu schoen” (Yiddish lyric by Jacob Jacobs, English lyric by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, music by Sholom Secunda) (Eleanor Reissa, Lori Wilner, Bruce Adler); “In an Orem Shtibele” (“In a Poor Little House”) (folk song) (Mina Bern); “A khazndl oyf shabes” (“A Cantor for the Sabbath”) (folk song) (Robert Abelson); “Papirosn” (“Cigarettes”) (lyric and music by Bella Meisel and Herman Yablokoff) (Lori Wilner); “Yosl, Yosl” (lyric by Nellie Casman, music by Samuel Steinberg) (Eleanor Reissa); “Rumania, Rumania” (lyric and music by A. Lebedeff and Sholum Secunda) (Bruce Adler); “Those Were the Days” (reprise) (Company) Like most Yiddish-English revues of the era, Those Were the Days looked at life in the shtetl, and then contrasted the old country with its folk songs and stories to modern life in the big city (in this case, Second Avenue with its music halls as well as Broadway itself) with spoofs of The Barber of Seville and such popular standards as “Bei mir bistu schoen.” Another cliché of Yiddish revues and musicals was a wedding scene, and, sure enough, the first act concluded with an elaborate five-part wedding sequence. Richard F. Shepard in the New York Times praised the “musical mitzvah,” which like “a glass of cold seltzer” brought “sparkle” to the “humdinger of a hum-along.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said he “loved, quite extravagantly,” the revue and its “enormously talented” and “terrific” cast, and noted that the songs were “worth braving the Cossacks to hear.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News liked the “unusually polished evening of nostalgia” and noted that even when the jokes weren’t “fresh” they had the imprint “of the real McCoy” in their delivery and manner. And Renee Kaplan in New York Newsday said the show had the “panache” to work well on Broadway (but a “word to the wise” was in order because despite being advertised as an “English-Yiddish” revue, “it was more accurate to say that one needs some familiarity with Yiddish to get what’s going on”). The cast was highly praised, but Bruce Adler walked away with the most glowing notices; Shepard asked, “What is there that this anchor man can’t do?,” and Barnes said he danced up “a minor hurricane.” Barnes, Kissel, and Kaplan compared him favorably to Danny Kaye, and Kissel said he was at his “funniest” in a “vintage” Kaye-like number (“The Palace of the Czar,” in which he sang, “I went shootin’ with Rasputin/ Ate farina with Czarina”). Zalmen Mlotek and Moishe Rosenfeld had earlier put together two Off-Broadway revues that celebrated Jewish culture, The Golden Land and On Second Avenue. The Golden Land opened on November 11, 1985, at the Second Avenue Theatre for 277 performances with a cast that included Bruce Adler and Neva Small, and

1990–1991 SEASON     33

it was recorded by Golden Land Records, Inc. (LP # GL-001); both The Golden Land and Those Were the Days included the song “Papirosn” (“Cigarettes” aka “Buy Cigarettes”), and Neva Small’s collection My Place in the World (Small Penny Enterprises, LCC CD # NS-2211) includes the number. On Second Avenue opened on October 25, 1987, at the Norman Thomas Theatre for fifty-four performances, and besides Adler the cast included Robert Abelson (who incidentally was an actual cantor), another performer seen in Those Were the Days.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Bruce Adler); Best Director of a Musical (Eleanor Reissa)

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Opening Date: November 18, 1990; Closing Date: June 16, 1991 Performances: 241 Book: Joseph Stein Lyrics: Sheldon Harnick Music: Jerry Bock Based on various short stories by Sholem Aleichem. Direction: Ruth Mitchell (reproduced from the original direction by Jerome Robbins); Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler and PACE Theatrical Group produced in association with C. Itoh & Co., Ltd./Tokyo Broadcasting System Intl., Inc. and also produced in association with A. Deshe (Pashanel) (Aleicia Parker, Associate Producer); Choreography: Sammy Dallas Bayes (reproduced from the original choreography by Jerome Robbins); Scenery: Boris Aronson; Costumes: Based on the original designs by Patricia Zipprodt; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Milton Greene Cast: Topol (aka Chaim Topol) (Tevye), Marcia Lewis (Golde), Sharon Lawrence (Tzeitel), Tia Riebling (Hodel), Jennifer Prescott (Chava), Kathy St. George (Shprintze, Grandma Tzeitel), Judy Dodd (Bielke), Jack Kenny (Motel), Gary Schwartz (Perchik), Ron Bohmer (Fyedka), Mark Zeller (Lazar Wolf), David Masters (Mordcha), Michael J. Farina (Nachum), Ruth Jaroslow (Yente), Jerry Matz (Rabbi), Jerry Jarrett (Avram), Mike O’Carroll (Constable), David Pevsner (Mendel), Stephen Wright (The Fiddler), Jeri Sager (Fruma-Sarah), Panchali Null (Shandel); Bottle Dancers: Kenneth M. Daigle, David Enriquez, Craig Gahnz, Keith Keen; Russian Dancers: Brian Arsenault, Michael Berresse, Brian Henry; Villagers: Brian Arsenault, Michael Berresse, Joanne Borts, Stacey Lynn Brass, Lisa Cartmell, Kenneth M. Daigle, David Enriquez, Craig Gahnz, Brian Henry, Todd Heughens, Keith Keen, Panchali Null, Marty Ross, Jeri Sager, Beth Thompson, Lou Williford The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in the Russian village of Anatevka during 1905, on the eve of the revolutionary period.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Tradition” (Topol, Villagers); “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” (Sharon Lawrence, Tia Riebling, Jennifer Prescott); “If I Were a Rich Man” (Topol); “Sabbath Prayer” (Topol, Marcia Lewis, Villagers); “To Life” (Topol, Mark Zeller, Men); “Miracle of Miracles” (Jack Kenny); “The Dream” (aka “The Tailor, Motel Kamzoil”) (Topol, Marcia Lewis, Kathy St. George, Jeri Sager, Villagers); “Sunrise, Sunset” (Topol, Marcia Lewis, Villagers); “Wedding Dance” (including “Bottle Dance”) (Villagers) Act Two: “Now I Have Everything” (Gary Schwartz, Tia Riebling); “Do You Love Me?” (Topol, Marcia Lewis); “The Rumor” (aka “I Just Heard”) (Ruth Jaroslow, Villagers); “Far from the Home I Love” (Tia Riebling); “Chavaleh” (aka “Chava”) (Topol); “Anatevka” (Villagers); Epilogue (Company) Set in the small prerevolutionary Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905, Fiddler on the Roof is all about change, and its brilliant opening number, “Tradition,” explores that theme, including the personal changes in the well-ordered, Jewish Orthodox life of the poor milkman Tevye (Topol) when one daughter moves away to

34      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

be with her husband and another marries a Gentile. And Tevye must also face frightening political changes: he and his fellow villagers must first endure pogroms, and then are forced to leave their homeland and emigrate to faraway countries, including the United States. And the musical ended on an especially poignant note when one realized that by fleeing Russia and its pogroms many of the villagers were headed toward middle Europe and the impending Holocaust. The revival had been touring for a year, and now it settled into a season’s run in New York with Topol heading the cast as the put-upon Tevye. The actor had appeared in the original 1967 London production of the musical and later in the 1971 film adaptation. Mel Gussow in the New York Times said Topol was an “authoritative” Tevye, and while he wasn’t as “hilarious” as Zero Mostel or as “expressive a musical performer,” he didn’t neglect the character’s “warmth” and “drollness.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News found his British-Jewish accent and his somewhat “nasal” voice “off-putting, but otherwise the performance was warm, humorous, and “deeply touching”; in the same newspaper, Douglas Watt said the actor gave a “well-rounded” and “well-defined” performance, but there wasn’t even “a hint of spontaneity” in his interpretation of the iconic role. And while Clive Barnes in the New York Post found Topol a “total joy,” he mentioned that the performer’s British enunciation was a bit “disconcerting” because the critic felt (“quite unreasonably,” he admitted) that Tevye should sound as if he came from the Lower East Side. Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the “British clip” of Topol’s speech made him seem “outside the comfy conventions” of the other performers, but she noted the actor avoided a purposely “charming” interpretation and instead gave “an unsettling and strangely touching one.” And Joel Siegel on WABCTV7 complained that to American ears Topol’s British accent conveyed “wealth” and “education,” and thus he sounded like Winston Churchill. He suggested Topol soften his accent, which was “the one flaw in this excellent production.” A few critics felt the production looked a little road weary, and Barnes wished that revivals would stop turning back the clock in their drive to emulate earlier productions. He said he’d like to see a Fiddler with a completely new director and set of designers so that the cast members could be “freed from the responsibility of trying to fit into earlier people’s footsteps.” The original production opened on September 22, 1964, at the Imperial Theatre for 3,242 performances with Zero Mostel as Tevye; it won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical as well as nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Besides the current production, the work has been revived on Broadway four other times: on December 28, 1976, at the Winter Garden Theatre for 167 performances with Mostel re-creating his original role; on July 9, 1981, at the New York State Theatre for fifty-three performances (Herschel Bernardi); on February 26, 2004, at the Minskoff Theatre for 781 showings (Alfred Molina); and on December 20, 2015, at the Broadway Theatre (Danny Burstein) (still running as of this writing). The first London production opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre on February 16, 1967, for 2,030 performances, and the dreary and bloated 1971 film version was directed by Norman Jewison and released by United Artists. The script was published in hardback in 1965 by Crown Publishers, and is also one of sixteen scripts included in the 2014 Library of America hardcover collection American Musicals. A fascinating account about the work is The Making of a Musical: “Fiddler on the Roof” by Richard Altman and Mervyn Kaufman (Crown Publishers, 1971), and two other books about the musical are Alisa Solomon’s Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of “Fiddler on the Roof” (Henry Holt & Company, 2013) and Barbara Isenberg’s Tradition! The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of “Fiddler on the Roof,” The World’s Most Beloved Musical (St. Martin’s Press, 2014). The original Broadway cast album was issued by RCA Victor Records (LP # LSO/LOC-1093), and RCA’s CD (# 51430) includes “I Just Heard,” which had been recorded during the 1964 cast album session but hadn’t been included on the LP release because of space limitations. There are numerous recordings of the score, many of which offer cut songs (such as “If I Were a Woman,” “When Messiah Comes,” “Dear Sweet Sewing Machine,” and “A Little Bit of This”) as well as music not recorded for the original cast album (“Wedding Dance” and the Chava sequence).

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (Fiddler on the Roof); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Topol)

1990–1991 SEASON     35

SHOGUN Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: November 20, 1990; Closing Date: January 20, 1991 Performances: 72 Book and Lyrics: John Driver Music: Paul Chihara Based on the 1975 novel Shogun by James Clavell. Direction and Choreography: Michael Smuin (J. Steven White, Assistant Director) (Kirk Peterson, CoChoreographer); Producers: James Clavell, Joseph Harris, and Haruki Kadokawa (Hiroshi Sugawara and Lloyd Phillips, Coproducer); Scenery: Loren Sherman; Costumes: Patricia Zipprodt; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Edward G. Robinson Cast: Philip Casnoff (John Blackthorne), Ron Navarre (Roper), Lee Lobenhofer (Pieterzoon, Captain General Ferriera), Terry Lehmkuhl (Sonk), John Herrera (Father Alvito), Joseph Foronda (Lord Buntaro), Eric Chan (Omi), Tito Abeleda (A Captured Samurai, Ishido’s Head Samurai), Freda Foh Shen (Gyoko), JoAnn M. Hunter (Kiku), Darren Lee (First Samurai Guard, The Courtier of Osaka), Marc Oka (Second Samurai Guard, Catholic Daimyo), Owen Johnston (Third Samurai Guard), Francis Ruivivar (Lord Toranaga), Jenny Woo (Sazuko), Jason Ma (Osagi, Ishido’s General, An Acolyte), June Angela (Lady Mariko), Cholsu Kim (Catholic Daimyo), Kenji Nakao (Catholic Daimyo, Osaka Guard), Alan Muraoka (Lord Ishido), Andrew Pacho (A Ninja, Osaka Guard), Leslie Ishii (Fujiko), Kiki Moritsugu (Chimmoko); Slatterns of the Hovel: Tina Horii, Linda Igarashi, and Chi-En Telemaque; The Red Guards of Osaka Castle: Marc Oka and Alan Ariano; Ninja Attackers: Cheri Nakamura, Andrew Pacho, Darren Lee, Owen Johnston, Tito Abeleda, Jason Ma, Terry Lehmkuhl, Cholsu Kim, and Ron Navarre; Taiko Drummers: Jason Ma, Marc Oka, Leslie Ishii, and Lee Lobenhofer; Dancers: for “Storm Scene”/“Karma”—JoAnn M. Hunter, Kiki Moritsugu, Kathy Wilhelm, Darren Lee, Cholsu Kim, and Andew Pacho; for “Born to Serve”/“Toranaga’s Entrance”—Darren Lee, Marc Oka, Owen Johnston, Tito Abeleda, Cholsu Kim, and Andrew Pacho; for “An Island”Lee Lobenhofer; for “Karma”—Tito Abeleda, Betsy Chang, Deborah Geneviere, Tini Horii, JoAnn M. Hunter, Linda Igarashi, Jason Ma, Kiki Moritsugu, Cheri Nakamura, Kenji Nakao, Chi-En Telemaque, Kathy Wilhelm, and Jenny Woo; for “Fireflies”—JoAnn M. Hunter, Eric Chan, Betsy Chang, Deborah Geneviere, Linda Igarashi, Kiki Moritsugu, Kathy Wilhelm, Jenny Woo, Tito Abeleda, Owen Johnston, Darren Lee, Jason Ma, Marc Oka, and Cholsu Kim; for “Kuroko”/“Fireflies”—Alan Ariano, Tini Horii, Andrew Pacho, Cheri Nakamura, and Ron Navarre; for “Rum Below”—Betsy Chang, Tina Horii, Linda Igarashi, Kiki Moritsugu, Kathy Wilhelm, Jenny Woo, Cholsu Kim, Owen Johnston, Darren Lee, Jason Ma, Marc Oka, and Andrew Pacho; and for “One Candle”—JoAnn M. Hunter and Kiki Moritsugu The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Japan in 1600.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Karma” (Orchestra); “Night of Screams” (Sailor, Philip Casnoff, Ensemble); “This Is Samurai” (Samurai); “How Nice to See You” (Francis Ruivivar, Joseph Foronda, John Herrera, June Angela); “Impossible Eyes” (June Angela, Philip Casnoff); “He Let Me Live” (June Angela); “Honto” (Philip Casnoff); “Assassination” (John Herrera, Lee Lobenhofer); “Shogun” (Hostages); “Royal Blood” (Alan Muraoka, Francis Ruivivar); “An Island” (Francis Ruivivar); “No Word for Love” (June Angela); “Mad Rum Below” and “Escape” (Philip Casnoff, Ensemble); “Karma” (Francis Ruivivar, Ensemble); “Born to Be Together” (June Angelia, Philip Casnoff) Act Two: “Fireflies” (Ensemble, June Angela, Philip Casnoff); “Sail Home” (Philip Casnoff); “Rum Below” (reprise) (Philip Casnoff, Francis Ruivivar, Ensemble); “Pillowing” (Freda Foh Shen, JoAnn M. Hunter, Ladies); “Born to Be Together” (reprise) (June Angela, Philip Casnoff); “No Man” (Philip Casnoff); “ChaNo-Yu” (June Angela, Joseph Foronda); “Absolution” (John Herrera, Jason Ma, Ensemble, June Angela); “Poetry Competition” (Alan Muraoka, Jenny Woo, June Angela); “Death Walk” (Ensemble, Philip Casnoff); “One Candle” (June Angela, Philip Casnoff); “Ninja Raid” (Orchestra); “One Candle” (reprise) (June Angela, Philip Casnoff); “Winter Battle” (Orchestra); “Resolutions” (Francis Ruivivar, Ensemble); “Trio” (Francis Ruivivar, Philip Casnoff, June Angela); Finale (Ensemble)

36      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

Shogun—that is, James Clavell’s Shogun: The Musical—was a bloated and confusing affair with delusions of epic musical-theatre grandeur. In an interview with Margaret Rankin in the Washington Times, director and choreographer Michael Smuin spoke of how he’d spent two years of “intense work” on Shogun because after all “it’s not like putting on Hello, Dolly!, you know.” But the Les Miserables wannabe was simply miserable in a pretentious and confusing production that required a full-page story synopsis in the program and a not-so-very-helpful glossary that took up a third of another page. Even the list of cast members and their characters provided too much information, and so Lord Buntaro is described as “Daimyo of Anjiro Province, married to Lady Mariko” and Lord Toranaga is described as “Overlord of Central Province, second most powerful Daimyo in Japan, member of Council of Regents.” The show was overstuffed with information, and, conversely, it didn’t provide enough. Perhaps the creators should have aimed for a minimalist approach and written a chamber opera. And probably only those who had read Clavell’s one-thousand-plus-page novel or watched NBC’s 1980 twelve-hour mini-series adaptation could keep their daimyos and anjins and shimas straight. The musical included almost three-dozen songs, many of them on such extraneous subjects as fireflies and sex toys, and there were the requisite special effects, including a laser-light storm at sea that resulted in a shipwreck; an earthquake; and scenes shrouded in fog and snow. The creators were quick to share information about how big the show was: a thirty-five member cast, thirty-seven set changes, one hundred forty thousand pounds of scenery, a hundred fifty wigs, and three hundred forty costumes that consisted of some nine thousand yards of fabric (costume designer Patricia Zipprodt reported that her costume budget was $750,000). But for all the frills and furbelows, the essential plot boiled down to the tale of shipwrecked English seaman Blackthorne (Philip Casnoff) who falls in love with the married Lady Mariko (June Angela), and their involvement in the wars between Lord Toranaga (Francis Ruivivar) and his political rivals. The Broadway production was almost three hours in length, about an hour less than the early Washington, D.C., tryout performances. Despite the cuts, the conversion of some songs into dialogue to speed up the action, the elimination of a bland leading man (Peter Karrie) for Casnoff, and all those program notes, critics and audiences still found the musical confusing. With poor reviews and audience apathy, the show managed just two months on Broadway and lost its entire investment, which was reportedly between $6 and $10 million. The production’s strongest assets were Zipprodt’s lavish and colorful costumes and one brief but memorable staging effect that showed a group of soldiers on horseback heading for battle in a snowstorm and moving in slow-motion fashion toward the audience. Frank Rich in the New York Times reported that the plot was “mostly incomprehensible,” the songs were generally unmemorable, and the women’s song about sex toys (“Pillowing”) had such “gleeful prurience” that he longed for the “relatively benign sexism” of “I Enjoy Being a Girl” (from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1958 musical Flower Drum Song). In the same newspaper, David Richards said the musical was “a Gordian knot of confusions,” and despite a nod or two toward “traditional” Japanese theatre, the work was “closer in spirit to the Hollywood that found Grauman’s Chinese Theatre a fitting monument to the East.” As for the cast, Casnoff was “neither strapping nor magnetic enough,” Ruivivar was “a Jolly Green Giant, Eastern variety,” and until Angela placed a knife between her teeth, fought with villains, and thus proceeded to look “foolish,” she had otherwise conveyed “grace and dignity with appealing delicacy.” Stay in Variety said the musical’s huge budget was visible onstage with all its attendant production values, but warned that “everything money can’t buy is missing,” including a “coherent” story, character development, “poignant” music, and a “compelling” reason for audiences “to pay attention.” He noted that Clavell’s novel was “popular,” but the program distributed to the audience was a “page-turner,” too, as “desperate” patrons tried to decipher the plot. And Paul Chihara’s score had “achieved the impossible” by “imitating the age’s greatest imitator, Andrew Lloyd Webber.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek reported that when the musical had played at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, it had “the most problematic book seen in Washington since the national budget,” and for Broadway the “tangled plot” was still there for audiences to “untangle.” William A. Henry III (with Janice C. Simpson) in Time said the book was “flatly written” and there were echoes of Into the Light (“the worst musical of the 1980s”) when beautifully clad chorines explain “the Asian religious concept of karma in lines seemingly lifted from a Southern California bumper sticker (‘Karma is the way you never die’).” John Simon in New York suggested the “shogun wedding” provided a baby that “even after a long gestation seems premature,” and he groaned over the always “ominous presence” of a plot synopsis in a theatre program. Mimi Kramer in the New Yorker noted that Smuin’s dances were “some of the most hilarious” she’d ever seen, and when the evening began with two half-naked men banging drums she exclaimed, “What

1990–1991 SEASON     37

more could you ask?” The show had “lots of flex-foot dancing straight out of The King and I,” there was the “jocund firefly ballet,” and the score offered “tuneless caterwauling in imitation of Andrew Lloyd Webber.” David Patrick Stearn in USA Today said that for the most part the “undercooked” show had “sold its soul to Las Vegas” and the lavish production would give audiences “their money’s worth—in the crassest sense.” He noted that the “delicious” crassness offered a song and dance about karma, and that during the shipwreck sequence a group of water nymphs danced around the vessel “looking like characters from Cats covered in seaweed.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the musical had “no discernible point of view” except to be “visually impressive,” the choreography had “more glitz than substance,” the lyrics were “unfocused,” the score often had “a soft-rock mood” that was “hardly apt for 17th-century Japan,” and, for all its “surface thrills” there was “nothing underneath” the goings-on. In the same newspaper, Douglas Watt said the “hodgepodge” marked time with “flat dialogue” and “gobs of undistinguished songs” (with the exception of one “engaging duet,” which was reprised “as often as ‘Memory’ is in Cats”). Clive Barnes in the New York Post stated the musical was “as unremittingly serious as triviality can ever hope to be.” The book was “unwieldy,” the lyrics “banal,” and the score lacked “inspiration” and for the most part was “fudge. Oriental fudge.” As noted, Peter Karrie was succeeded by Philip Casnoff, but Karrie agreed to remain with the production through the end of its Washington run. In reviewing Karrie’s performance for the Washington Post, Megan Rosenfeld said he was “fine” when he sang and was “pretty good” when fighting, but was “completely at sea when called upon to act” and his “emotional reactions seem to be on a timed delay, about three seconds late.” Hap Erstein in the Washington Star found him “wooden” and said his vocal style was “disconcertingly reminiscent” of the Jean Valjean character in Les Miserables. Songs deleted during the tryout were “Crucified,” “Torment,” and “Never Be Held Captive,” and perhaps all these titles were inadvertent warning signals to the audience. Much was made of five Shinto priests who were flown to New York from Japan a few months before the Broadway premiere to “purify” the Marquis Theatre. But the blessing still didn’t prevent a piece of falling scenery from hitting Casnoff during a late New York preview during his number “Death Walk.” The remainder of the performance was canceled, Casnoff was rushed to a hospital where he was given CAT scans, and two days later he was back on stage. Shogun was lyricist and book writer John Driver’s second failed musical about ancient Japan. He wrote the book, lyrics, and music for the 1974 Off-Broadway musical Ride the Winds, which dealt with a young man who lives during feudal times in the Far East and decides to settle down and live a peaceful life rather than take up the profession of samurai. Because Broadway had already seen a variation of this story in Pippin (1972), it wasn’t interested in yet another saga of a young man trying to find himself during medieval times and so Ride the Winds was blown away after three performances. For her collection June Angela (Original Cast Records CD # OC-6022), the singer includes five songs from Shogun: “No Word for Love,” “Born to Be Together” (a duet with Davis Gaines), “Impossible Eyes” (a duet with Gaines), “Cha-No-Yu” (a duet with Shogun cast member Joseph Foranda), and “One Candle” (a duet with Gaines). Angela had also appeared in the 1970 Broadway musical Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen, and the collection includes two songs from that show (“Lullaby” and “Simple Words”). Peter Karrie recorded two songs from Shogun (“One Candle” and “No Man”) for his collection Theatrically Yours (Fog & Gas Records; unnumbered CD).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (June Angela); Best Costume Designer (Patricia Zipprodt)

AN EVENING WITH HARRY CONNICK JR. AND HIS ORCHESTRA Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Opening Date: November 23, 1990; Closing Date: December 8, 1990 Performances: 13 Direction: Joe Layton; Producers: Ed Micone and Scott Sanders (Ann Marie Wilkins, Executive Producer) and presented by Radio City Music Hall Productions and James L. Nederlander; Scenery: John Falabella; Costumes: Wardrobe by Alexander Julian; Lighting: Marilyn Lowey; Musical Direction: Marc Shaiman

38      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

Cast: Harry Connick Jr.; Musicians: Ben Wolfe, Shannon Powell, Leroy Jones, Jerry Weldon, Lucien Barbarin, Russell Malone, Craig Klein, Mark Mullins, Jeremy Davenport, Roger Ingram, Dan Miller, Ned Goold, Brad Laeli, William Campbell, Dave Schumacher The concert was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers The program didn’t list individual musical numbers. One critic noted that twenty songs were performed, and the following alphabetical list of songs represents those songs referenced in reviews of the concert. “Beyond the Sea” (lyric by Jack Lawrence, music by Charles Trenet); “Buried in Blue” (lyric by Ramsey McLean, music by Harry Connick Jr.); “Danny Boy” (lyric by Frederic Weatherly, music traditional); “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (lyric by Bob Russell, music by Duke Ellington); “Drifting” (lyric and music by Marc Shaiman); “It’s All Right with Me” (Can-Can, 1953; lyric and music by Cole Porter); “It Had to Be You” (lyric by Gus Kahn, music by Isham Jones); “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” (traditional); “Something’s Gotta Give” (1955 film Daddy Long Legs; lyric and music by Johnny Mercer); “When the Saints Go Marching In” (traditional) An Evening with Harry Connick Jr. and His Orchestra was a concert performed by the singer and pianist and his fifteen-piece orchestra. The group had played throughout the country for six months, and the limited New York engagement marked the tour’s conclusion. The reviews were enthusiastic, and one or two verged on hyperbole. According to Stephen Holden in the New York Times, Connick’s “musical adventures” were akin to tracking Orson Welles’s activities when he was a young man, and because Holden considered Connick a “major” talent, his “prospects” were “unlimited.” Further, Connick’s arranger and conductor Marc Shaiman was “becoming the Nelson Riddle of his generation.” David Hinckley in the New York Daily News stated that Connick put “himself up against every great crooner” and emerged “undiminished,” and so “there’s no telling what he’ll work into future compositions.” Stephen Williams in New York Newsday suggested that what Connick did for jazz in the 1990s, Liberace did for classical music in the 1950s, and thus the singer-pianist created “agreeable, accessible, mass-market popular music.” Williams liked his “ingratiating” piano style, but noted he couldn’t sing very well; but all things considered, one could forgive the Las Vegas-styled “show-boat-manship” and the “shameless” way he played the audience. Further, director Joe Layton offered a “themeless” production, but perhaps “overachieving” was the evening’s theme because Connick told the audience that Shaiman was a “genius” and a bass player in the orchestra was the “greatest in the world.” As for his Broadway reception, Connick said he’d “never been happier in my life.” Chip Deffaa in the New York Post said Connick had “a good bit” of star quality, and while he sometimes “overreached” and “the tonal quality of his voice” was “unremarkable,” his “youthful audacity was buoying.” But Connick was “clearly a winner” and knew “how to connect with a live audience.” Marc Shaiman of course later enjoyed a huge Broadway hit as the composer and co-lyricist of Hairspray (2002), which played for 2,642 performances; he performed the same duties for the 2011 musical Catch Me If You Can, which lasted for 166 showings. As for Connick, he wrote the lyrics and music for the 2001 musical Thou Shalt Not, which played for 85 performances, and appeared as the male lead in the Broadway revivals of The Pajama Game (2006; 111 performances) and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (2011; 57 performances). Connick returned to Broadway with Harry Connick Jr. in Concert on Broadway, which opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on July 15, 2010, for 15 performances.

PETER PAN “The Musical”

Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Opening Date: December 13, 1990; Closing Date: January 20, 1991 Performances: 45

1990–1991 SEASON     39

Book: The book of the musical has never been officially credited (some sources incorrectly cite James M. Barrie, who died seventeen years before the musical was produced), but Jerome Robbins is rumored to have been the show’s chief adaptor. Lyrics: Carolyn Leigh Music: Mark “Moose” Charlap Additional Lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green Additional Music: Jule Styne Based on the 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up by James M. Barrie. Direction: Fran Soeder; Producers: A James M. Nederlander and Arthur Rubin Presentation of the Thomas P. McCoy and Keith Stava Production in association with P.P. Investments, Inc., and Jon B. Platt (A McCoyRigby Entertainment Production); Choreography: Marilyn Magness; Scenery: Neverland scenery by James Leonard Joy (non-Neverland scenery not credited); Costumes: Mariann Verheyen; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Kevin Farrell Cast: Cindy Robinson (Wendy Darling, Jane), Britt West (John Darling), Chad Hutchison (Michael Darling), Anne McVey (Liza), Bill Bateman (Nana), Lauren Thompson (Mrs. Darling, Grown-Up Wendy), Stephen Hanan (Mr. Darling, Captain Hook), Cathy Rigby (Peter Pan), Adam Ehrenworth (The Never Bear), Alon Williams (Curly), Janet Kay Higgins (First Twin), Courtney Wyn (Second Twin), Christopher Ayers (Slightly), Julian Brightman (Tootles), Don Potter (Mr. Smee), Calvin Smith (Cecco), Carl Packard (Gentleman Starkey), Barry Ramsey (Noodler, Crocodile), Andy Ferrara (Bill Jukes), Holly Irwin (Tiger Lily); Pirates and Indians: Bill Bateman, Andy Ferrara, Anne McVey, Christian Monte, Carl Packard, Barry Ramsey, Joseph Savant, Calvin Smith, Timothy Talman, David Thome, John Wilkerson The musical was presented in three acts. The action takes place early in the twentieth century in London and in Neverland.

Musical Numbers Note: (*) denotes songs by Leigh and Charlap; (**) denotes songs by Comden, Green, and Styne. Act One: “Tender Shepherd” (*) (Lauren Thompson, Cindy Robinson, Britt West, Chad Hutchison); “I’ve Got to Crow” (*) (Cathy Rigby); “Neverland” (**) (Cathy Rigby); “I’m Flying” (*) (Cathy Rigby, Cindy Robinson, Britt West, Chad Hutchison) Act Two: “Pirate March” (*) (Stephen Hanan, Pirates); “A Princely Scheme” (aka “Hook’s Tango”) (*) (Stephen Hanan, Pirates); “Indians!” (*) (Holly Irwin, Indians); “Wendy” (**) (Cathy Rigby, The Lost Boys); “Tarantella” (Stephen Hanan, Pirates); “I Won’t Grow Up” (*) (Cathy Rigby, Cindy Robinson, The Lost Boys); “Ugg-a-Wugg” (**) (Cathy Rigby, Holly Irwin, Cindy Robinson, The Lost Boys, Indians); “Distant Melody” (**) (Cathy Rigby) Act Three: “Hook’s Waltz” (**) (Stephen Hanan, Pirates); “I’ve Got to Crow” (reprise) (Cathy Rigby, Company); “Tender Shepherd” (reprise) (Cindy Robinson, Britt West, Chad Hutchison); “I Won’t Grow Up” (reprise) (The Darling Family, The Lost Boys); “Neverland” (reprise) (Cathy Rigby) The limited-engagement revival of Peter Pan told the familiar story of Peter Pan (Cathy Rigby), the boy who never grew up and lives in magical Neverland with the Lost Boys. He sometimes secretly visits the Darling Family’s home in London in order to hear Wendy (Cindy Robinson) read stories to her younger brothers, and one night he returns there to retrieve his lost shadow. When he’s discovered by Wendy, he invites her and her brothers to visit Neverland, and with the help of some pixie dust they’re soon flying off to the wondrous land of Indians, fairies, mermaids, strange animals, and a band of pirates led by the nefarious Captain Hook (Stephen Hanan), who underneath his bluff exterior is really just “Mrs. Hook’s baby boy.” But eventually the Darling children realize they must return home and resume the business of growing up. But not Peter Pan, who will remain in Neverland and stay forever young. Mel Gussow in the New York Times said Rigby had “stage presence,” a “pleasant singing voice,” and a “physical capability in flight” that exceeded that of her Broadway predecessors Mary Martin and Sandy Duncan. But otherwise she was “a resolute down-to-earth” Peter and thus it was “a long delay between flights.” She lacked “wonder,” a quality “essential in projecting a Peter Pan in all his fantastical dimensions.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post liked her “no-nonsense athleticism” and noted that she sang “boldly, accurately and with

40      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

a touch of that trace of [Mary Martin’s] charming huskiness.” But he felt her personality was “charmless” and lacked “androgynous grace.” On the other hand, Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said Rigby brought a “fresh and enchanting” spirit to the production; Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal found her interpretation of the role “by far the most athletic” and noted she was a “true tomboy”; and Linda Winer in New York Newsday said she created a “true character” with the “pug quality of the young James Cagney.” Kissel felt Stephen Hanan was an “amusing” Hook, but as Mr. Darling he was “a little too coy, as if he studied how to play fathers in the Paul Lynde School.” Winer said he was “a marvelous hambone in the grand bad-Shakespeare tradition,” and Gussow said Hanan gave Hook “a broad, lip-smacking impersonation” with this “hammiest of Hooks.” But he quickly added this approach “was not necessarily unsuitable” for the role. Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News said Peter Pan “was by no means a great musical,” but its songs lifted the spirit; and when the book didn’t soar, “Peter & Co. do.” Barnes suggested the music brought “a new kind of distinction to the word ‘undistinguished’” but admitted “I’m Flying,” “Neverland,” and “Hook’s Waltz” achieved “a certain pleasingly efficient mediocrity.” Otherwise, those most likely to enjoy the musical were “those who believe in fairies with a very particular fervor.” The musical first opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on October 20, 1954, for 152 performances with Mary Martin (Peter Pan) and Cyril Ritchard (Mr. Darling and Captain Hook). The relatively short run is misleading: the production was a virtual sell-out at every performance and the limited engagement was extended from sixteen to nineteen weeks. And because the show’s producers had signed a contract with NBC to televise the musical during the spring of 1955, the legendary television version was shown live and in color on March 7, just a few days after the Broadway closing. As part of the network’s Producers’ Showcase series, the television adaptation was seen by some sixty-five million television viewers (or about 64,768,048 more than the approximate 231,952 who attended the show on Broadway). A second live production was telecast on January 9, 1956, and this was followed by a third presentation on December 8, 1960. The 1955 and 1956 telecasts exist only in black and white, and the 1960 version remains the only one in color (the latter was re-telecast in 1963, 1966, 1973, 1989, and 1990, and was later released on DVD by GoodTimes Video). Including the current production (which had been touring for a year prior to the New York run), the musical has been revived on Broadway five times. The first starred Sandy Duncan and George Rose and opened on September 6, 1979, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre for 551 performances, and it holds the record as the longest-running Peter Pan in Broadway history. After the current revival, Cathy Rigby appeared in the show three more times, all limited engagements: on November 27, 1991 (Minskoff Theatre, 48 performances); on November 23, 1998 (Marquis Theatre, also 48 performances); and on April 7, 1999 (Gershwin Theatre, 166 performances). The 1999 production was taped and shown on the Arts and Entertainment Network in 2000 and was issued on DVD by Hart Sharp Video. For more information, see entries for the 1991 and 1998 revivals (the latter references the 1999 production). The original 1954 cast album was issued by RCA Victor Records (LP # LOC-1019/LSO-1019E), and the CD was released by RCA/BMG (# 3762-2-RG). In 1997, Jay Records released an album with Cathy Rigby (CD # CDJAY-1280), and other recordings of the score include a 1976 Hong Kong production sung in Cantonese (HMI Records CD # 103) and a 1991 Paris cast album (Carrerre Records CD # 9031-76251-2). On December 4, 2014, the musical was telecast live on NBC with Allison Williams and Christopher Walken. Although this politically corrected version omitted “Ugg-a-Wugg,” Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times noted that “near-naked [Indian] men gyrating like Chippendales dancers weren’t necessarily any more culturally sensitive.” Five songs were added for the telecast: Leigh and Charlap’s “When I Went Home” (which had been cut during the 1954 tryout); “True Blood Brothers” (a new lyric for the offending “Ugg-a-Wugg,” written by Amanda Green, Adolph Green’s daughter); and three songs from two Comden, Green, and Styne shows with new lyrics by Amanda Green, “A Wonderful World without Peter” (originally “Something’s Always Happening on the River” from the 1958 comedy with music Say, Darling) and “Only Pretend” and “Vengeance” (both from the 1960 musical Do Re Mi, where they were respectively heard as “I Know about Love” and “Ambition”).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival (Peter Pan); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Cathy Rigby)

1990–1991 SEASON     41

MULE BONE Theatre: Ethel Barrymore Theatre Opening Date: February 14, 1991; Closing Date: April 14, 1991 Performances: 67 Play: Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston; prologue and epilogue by George Houston Bass Lyrics: Langston Hughes and George Houston Bass Music: Taj Mahal and “Poppa” Charlie Jackson Based on the unpublished short story “The Bone of Contention” by Zora Neale Hurston. Direction: Michael Schultz; Producer: Lincoln Center Theatre (Gregory Mosher, Director; Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer); Choreography: Dianne McIntyre; Scenery: Edward Burbridge; Costumes: Lewis Brown; Lighting: Allen Lee Hughes; Musical Direction: Kester Smith Cast: Joy Lee (Zora, Teets), Eric Ware (Dave Carter), Kenny Neal (Jim), Akosua Busia (Daisy), Sonny Jim Gaines (Deacon Hambo), Clebert Ford (Old Man Brazzle), Paul S. Eckstein (Lum Boger), Reggie Montgomery (Lige Mosely), Pauline Meyer (Robena), Allie Woods Jr. (Joe Lindsay), Donald Griffin (Walter Thomas), Samuel E. Wright (Mayor Joe Clark), Ebony Jo-Ann (Sister Blunt), Pee Wee Love (Senator), Vanessa Williams (Bootsie), Myra Taylor (Mattie Clark), Bron Wright (Luther), Shareen Powlett (Matilda), Robert Earl Jones (Willie Lewis), Mansoor Najeeullah (Tony Taylor), Marilyn Coleman (Sister Taylor), Leonard Jackson (Reverend Simms), T. J. Jones (Jesse, Julius), Theresa Merritt (Katie Pitts), Frances Foster (Sister Lewis), Fanni Green (Sister Thomas), Edwina Lewis (Sister Hambo), Peggy Pettitt (Sister Lindsay), Arthur French (Reverend Singletary) The play with music was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Eatonville, Florida, in early November during the 1920s.

Musical Numbers The program didn’t list musical numbers; the following is taken from the Mule Bone recording. Act One: Opening Theme: “Jubilee” (music by Taj Mahal); “Graveyard Mule” (“Hambone Rhyme”) (lyric by George Houston Bass, music by Taj Mahal); “Me and the Mule” (lyric by Langston Hughes, music by Taj Mahal); “Song for a Banjo Dance” (lyric by Langston Hughes, music by Taj Mahal); “But I Rode Some” (lyric by Langston Hughes, music by Taj Mahal); “Hey Hey Blues” (lyric by Langston Hughes, music by Taj Mahal); “Shake That Thing” (music by “Poppa” Charlie Jackson) (“Shake That Thing” performed in the production by Theresa Merritt) Act Two: “The Intermission Blues” (music by Taj Mahal); “Crossing” (“Lonely Day”) (lyric by Langston Hughes, music by Taj Majal); “Bound No’th Blues” (lyric by Langston Hughes, music by Taj Mahal); Finale (music by Taj Mahal) A few critics suggested the backstory surrounding the creation of Mule Bone was more interesting than the fable-like play itself. Writer Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) and poet Langston Hughes (1902–1967) were part of the Harlem Renaissance and began their collaboration on the play in the early 1930s, but after a fallingout they dissolved their partnership. The comedy was based on Hurston’s unpublished short story “The Bone of Contention,” and although she continued to work on the play it went unproduced for some six decades. The current production marked the work’s first fully staged presentation, and it was reshaped from three to two acts by George Houston Bass, who also wrote a prologue and epilogue. This version was scored by Taj Mahal and included background and dance music as well as a few songs set to poems written by Hughes (in 1988, a reading of the play took place at Lincoln Center, and in November 1989 the work was presented in a staged reading at Brown University’s Rites & Reason Theatre). Set in a small town in Florida during the 1920s, Mule Bone was a lighthearted look at Jim (Kenny Neal) and Dave (Eric Ware), two young men who come to blows (literally, because Jim assaults Dave with a mule bone) over their mutual attraction to Daisy (Akosua Busia), the town flirt. Their altercation goes to court and soon blossoms into comic and almost cosmic proportions when the townsfolk take sides in the matter and even the Baptist and Methodist churches become involved. But all ends well when the two men decide their friendship is worth more than a dalliance with Daisy.

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Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News said the play was “little more than a theatrical curio” and noted “there’s little enough here for a one-acter.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today felt that despite having been “put into stageable shape,” the effort “was barely worth the trouble.” Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said the “pleasant but uneventful” plot had an “overall absence of theatrical tension” and noted the evening offered “a great deal of insult humor.” And Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the “weak plot” and “lack of dramatic momentum” indicated the play had “missed its real time and now feels more like a vivid work of archeology than a universal work of theatre.” Frank Rich in the New York Times said the play could at best be described as “innocuous,” and noted that while Hurston and Hughes may have intended the work to be “funny,” the new production confused “corny affability with folk humor.” He also found the newly written prologue “embarrassing” because it presented Hurston as an onstage character who provides the audience with a “primer” about herself. But John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor hailed the “theatrical event” and said Mule Bone “occupies a unique place in the history of African-American theatre.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post praised it as a “wonderful piece of black theatre.” And Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the second act was “a joyous piece of American comic writing, fresher than many comedies that have been hailed and forgotten” in the sixty years since Mule Bone was written. As for Taj Mahal’s score, Watt said the musical interludes helped but were essentially “padding”; Stearns liked the “infectious blues songs”; Wilson commented that the songs were “mildly appealing but largely incongruous”; Beaufort found the music “appealing” (and noted that Dianne McIntyre’s choreography was “lively”); Barnes said Mahal’s score was “one of the chief glories of the show”; and Rich said the “sweet” score brought the “flaccidly constructed show to a self-defeating halt.” Kissel felt Mahal’s score lacked “the power of the genuine article,” especially in contrast to the authentic and “historic” piece of black music, “Shake That Thing,” with which, he noted, Theresa Merritt brought down the house. Winer said she sang it in an “electrifyingly minimalist” fashion, and Rich singled out the sequence as the evening’s “sole rousing musical interlude.”) Winer suggested the play was perhaps “ethnic” theatre in the nature of “localized Yiddish and Irish plays” that offer “the joy of identification.” She also noted that in an early reading of the play many blacks in the audience “were put off by the negative implications in the heavy dialect and stereotypes” and she warned that “those who are uncomfortable with the racial resonance” of the play’s “broad rural stereotypes” may find the work “less than amiable.” (She also reported that the current production had expunged the N-word from the dialogue and had toned down “macho references” to women.) Kissel mentioned that the play’s “backwoods sensibility” would no doubt cause “yelping on the part of sanctimonious, humorless liberals”; and Jeffrey Sweet in Best Plays suggested, “If white writers had created this piece, they might well have been accused of condescension and stereotyping.” The Mule Bone recording was released by Gramavision and Rhino Records (CD # R2-79432). The script (subtitled “A Comedy of Negro Life”) was first published in paperback in 1991 by Harper Perennial Books, and since then has been issued in other editions.

PENN & TELLER: THE REFRIGERATOR TOUR Theatre: Eugene O’Neill Theatre Opening Date: April 3, 1991; Closing Date: June 30, 1991 Performances: 103 Material: Penn Jillette and Teller Lyrics: Penn Jillette and Teller Music: Gary Stockdale Direction: Robert F. Libbon (“Director of Covert Activities”) and Mike Wills (“Director of Internal Affairs”); Producers: Richard Frankel, Thomas Viertel, and Steven Baruch (Marc Routh, Associate Producer); Scenery: John Lee Beatty; Lighting: Dennis Parichy Cast: Penn Jillette, Teller; Special Guest: Carol Perkins; Musician: Gary Stockdale The magic revue was presented in two acts. Act One: “Amanao ‘Damocles”; “A Card Trick”; “Liftoff to Love/Ripoff of Love” (lyric by Penn Jillette and Teller, music by Gary Stockdale); “Two Modern Fakir Tricks”; “Quotation of the Day”; “Two Houdini Tricks”

1990–1991 SEASON     43

Act Two: “Mofo, The Psychic Gorilla”; “By Buddha, This Duck Is Immortal!”; “Cuffed to a Creep”; “Burnin’ Luv” (lyric and music by Gary Stockdale); “Shadows”; “King of Animal Traps” Penn Jillette and Teller are comic magicians who might best be described as a postmodern Houdini duo. The Refrigerator Tour was their second Broadway visit after appearing in Penn & Teller on December 1, 1987, at the Ritz Theatre for 130 performances (they had previously been seen Off-Broadway at the Westside Arts Theatre/Downstairs on April 18, 1985, for 666 performances). After the current production closed, it transferred to Off-Broadway as Penn & Teller Rot in Hell at the John Houseman Theatre on July 30, 1991, for 203 showings (except for “Amanao ‘Damocles,” which was replaced by “Casey at the Bat,” all the routines in the Broadway production were included). Penn was the tall and gabby one, Teller the almost-always-silent and slightly subversive one, and their unique blend of yin and yang merged into a comic magic show that often sloughed aside the mystique and mystery attendant with so many magic shows. Mel Gussow in the New York Times praised the “matchless team of self-mocking sorcerers,” Joel Siegel on WABCTV7 found them “brilliantly” and “amazingly” funny “Magicians with Attitude,” and John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor hailed the “tour de force.” But there were a few quibbles: Beaufort wondered why there were so many expletives in what was clearly a family show, and Clive Barnes in the New York Post felt the evening would have been more effective in a shorter version. Because this was the era of crashing chandeliers and hovering helicopters in musical theatre, Penn and Teller ensured that their revue began in up-to-date fashion. To this end, a 450-pound refrigerator crashed down on them but somehow didn’t cause any injury (Barnes reported that the “sadistic audience” happily joined in the “callous countdown” to Ground Zero). Later, the trick was reprised, but this time around an anvil crashed onto a live duck, who nonetheless managed to waddle away unharmed (Gussow noted that “one duck equals two quacks”). But some weren’t amused, and Linda Winer in New York Newsday complained that the animal was turned upside down and “humiliated”; further, the duck was last seen being “brusquely” shoved into a bag as it was being taken to . . . a Chinese restaurant. From there, the duo performed card tricks, indulged in fire-eating, ensured that blood suddenly spewed from a rose, and became perhaps-not-so-hapless victims in a park-bench scene where they were handcuffed together. Another trick found Penn arranging Teller’s disembodied head and limbs into various boxes; it was doubtless impressive, but even more so when the scene was reprised and transparent boxes were used, thus making the trick even more mystifying than the first scramble. Another scene found a volunteer from the audience floating in the air while her head reclined on a chair, and the final sequence showed Teller swinging on a trapeze while snatching sandwiches from hostile animal traps placed all over the stage (Barnes found this last “faintly repulsive,” and Beaufort said the sequence bordered on the “Grand Guignolesque”). For this production, the critics noted that more audience members were drawn into the action (and even literally: some were invited on stage to view a “Houdini box” and were admonished to not write on it “with the supplied markers”), and Winer noted that Penn seemed to abuse the audience more and Teller a trifle less. Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said some audience members were “decidedly uncomfortable” with Penn’s “insult humor,” and he noted that the performer “loudly berated” a ticket-holder “for not observing him closely enough” during the duck-and-paper bag trick. Penn and Teller later appeared in a limited engagement at the Beacon Theatre on June 6, 2000, for 8 performances. They were guest narrators for one week late in the run of the Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show, which opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre on November 15, 2000, for 437 performances. And Penn & Teller on Broadway opened at the Marquis Theatre on July 12, 2015, for a limited run of 41 performances.

MISS SAIGON “A Musical”

Theatre: Broadway Theatre Opening Date: April 11, 1991; Closing Date: January 28, 2001 Performances: 4,097 Book: Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg; additional material by Richard Maltby Jr.

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Lyrics: Alain Boublil; English lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr., and Alain Boublil Music: Claude-Michel Schonberg Loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera Madama Butterfly. Direction: Nicholas Hytner (Mitchell Lemsky, Associate Director); Producers: Cameron Mackintosh (Martin McCallum, Associate Producer) (Mitchell Lemsky and Richard Jay-Alexander, Executive Producers); Choreography: Bob Avian; Scenery: John Napier; Costumes: Andreane Neofitou and Suzy Benzinger; Lighting: David Hersey; Musical Direction: Robert Billig Cast: Jonathan Pryce (The Engineer), Lea Salonga (Kim), Kam Cheng (Kim [Saturday matinee performances]), Marina Chapa (Gigi), Sala Iwamatsu (Mimi), Imelda de Los Reyes (Yvette), JoAnn M. Hunter (Yvonne); Bar Girls: Raquel C. Brown, Annette Calud, Mirla Criste, Jade Stice, and Melanie Mariko Tojio; Willy Falk (Chris), Hinton Battle (John); Marines: Paul Dobie, Michael Gruber, Leonard Joseph, Paul Matsumoto, Sean McDermott, Thomas James O’Leary, Gordon Owens, Christopher Pecaro, Matthew Pedersen, Kris Phillips, W. Ellis Porter, Alton F. White, and Bruce Winant; Barmen: Zar Acayan, Alan Ariano, and Jason Ma; Vietnamese Customers: Tony C. Avanti, Eric Chan, Francis J. Cruz, Darren Lee, Ray Santos, and Nephi Jay Wimmer; Barry K. Bernal (Thuy), Liz Callaway (Ellen), Brian R. Baldomero (Tam), Philip Lyle Kong (Tam [Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday evening performances]); Guards: Tony C. Avanti and Francis J. Cruz; Eric Chan (Assistant Commissar); Dragon Acrobats: Darren Lee, Michael Gruber, and Nephi Jay Wimmer; Soldiers: Zar Acayan, Alan Ariano, Jason Ma, Paul Matsumoto, Ray Santos, and Nephi Jay Wimmer; Hustlers: Zar Acayan, Jason Ma, Paul Matsumoto, Ray Santos, and Nephi Jay Wimmer; Francis J. Cruz (Owner of the Moulin Rouge), Thomas James O’Leary (Shultz), Alton F. White (Antoine), Bruce Winant (Reeves), Paul Dobie (Gibbons), Leonard Joseph (Troy), Gordon Owens (Nolen), Matthew Pedersen (Huston), Sean McDermott (Frye); Embassy Workers, Inhabitants of Saigon, Vendors, Citizens of Ho Chi Minh City, Refugees, Conference Delegates, Inhabitants of Bangkok, Bar Girls, Tourists, Marines, Vietnamese Civilians, and Customers of the Moulin Rouge: Played by various members of the company The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the years 1975–1978 in Saigon (later known as Ho Chi Minh City) and Bangkok as well as the United States.

Musical Numbers Act One: “The Heat Is On in Saigon” (Jonathan Pryce, Girls, Marines, Company); “The Movie in My Mind” (Marina Chapa, Lea Salonga, Girls); “The Transaction” (Hinton Battle, Jonathan Pryce, Willy Falk, Company); “Why God Why” (Willy Falk); “Sun and Moon” (Lea Salonga, Willy Falk); “The Telephone” (Hinton Battle, Willy Falk, Jonathan Pryce); “The Ceremony” (Lea Salonga, Willy Falk, Girls); “The Last Night of the World” (Lea Salonga, Willy Falk); “The Morning of the Dragon” (Company, Barry K. Bernal, Jonathan Pryce); “I Still Believe” (Lea Salonga, Liz Callaway); “Back in Town” (Lea Salonga, Jonathan Pryce, Barry K. Bernal); “You Will Not Touch Him” (Lea Salonga, Barry K. Bernal); “If You Want to Die in Bed” (Jonathan Pryce); “I’d Give My Life for You” (Lea Salonga, Company) Act Two: “Bui-Doi” (Hinton Battle, Company); “What a Waste” (Jonathan Pryce, Company); “Please” (Hinton Battle, Lea Salonga); “The Guilt Inside Your Head” (Barry K. Bernal, Lea Salonga, Willy Falk, Hinton Battle, Company); “Sun and Moon” (reprise) (Lea Salonga); “Room 317” (Liz Callaway, Lea Salonga); “Now That I’ve Seen Her” (Liz Callaway); “The Confrontation” (Liz Callaway, Willy Falk, Hinton Battle); “The American Dream” (Jonathan Pryce, Company); “Little God of My Heart” (Lea Salonga, Brian R. Baldomero) The London import Miss Saigon was a variation of Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera Madama Butterfly, which took place during the period of the Vietnam War. The story centered on the doomed love affair of American Marine Chris (Willy Falk) and bar girl Kim (Lea Salonga), who against their wills are parted once Saigon falls to the Communists. Years later, Chris has married, but when he discovers that he fathered Kim’s child Tam he returns to South Vietnam in order to help them. When Kim realizes there’s no chance that both she and Tam can go to the States, she shoots herself in the likelihood that without her Chris will take his motherless child to America. Crawling around the fringes of the story like a poisonous spider was the amoral and elusive Engineer (Jonathan Pryce), a French-Asian pimp and hustler who resents his Eurasian status and attempts to manipulate those around him in order to make his way to the States and his corrupt vision of the American Dream.

1990–1991 SEASON     45

Of all the musicals in the so-called British Invasion of Broadway, Miss Saigon was one of the best. The story was for the most part compelling, the production was lavish (and was perhaps best known for the scene in which a realistic helicopter hovers over the stage to take away some of those seeking refuge in the U.S. Embassy before the fall of Saigon), and the performances of Salonga and Pryce were memorable. Although the score was generally in the style of movie background music and was mostly vapid (“Sun and Moon,” “Now That I’ve Seen Her”) or overwrought (“Why God Why”), there were three superior songs, the strong choral opening “The Heat Is On in Saigon,” the lonely blues of Kim and Chris’s ballad “The Last Night of the World,” and the Engineer’s vampy ragtime-styled “The American Dream.” The musical was too long, and there was far too much stage time devoted to Chris’s wife Ellen (Liz Callaway) and his fellow Marine John (Hinton Battle). Had the time allotted to these characters been eliminated or at least reduced, the story line would have been well served and a grateful audience would have been spared the impossibly written role of Ellen and the overwritten one of John. Further, John’s well-intentioned if preachy “Bui-Doi” was a time-waster in its special pleading for Asian-American orphans (it even included a kind of heavenly choir as well as documentary film footage to support its plea), and (like Rogers’s radio speech about the homeless, which was shoehorned into The Will Rogers Follies) it was essentially extraneous to the main action and provided the second act with a weak opening. There was also an off-putting anti-American slant to the evening with this number and the virulent Ugly American diatribe “The American Dream,” which even included a visual insult to the Statue of Liberty and the American flag. It could be argued that “The American Dream” simply reflected the Engineer’s poisonous contempt for himself and everything around him, but if America is so corrupt, how is it that he, Kim, and other characters want so desperately to live there? The headline of Howard Kissel’s review in the New York Daily News proclaimed, “Viet Numb!” The critic noted that except for its leading performances the musical wasn’t “worthwhile,” the story was “pure melodrama,” the music “staggeringly banal,” and the lyrics “insultingly predictable.” He also suggested that the “Bui-Doi” sequence could be interpreted as “a blatant slap in the audience’s face, rubbing Americans’ noses in guilt over Vietnam,” and noted there was a “hilarious” irony to a show that raised the top ticket price of a Broadway musical to an all-time high but turned out to be “an anti-American, allegedly anti-materialistic musical whose second most impressive visual image [after that helicopter] is a stage-high statue of Ho Chi Minh.” In the same newspaper, Douglas Watt noted that Hinton Battle had been “embarrassingly called upon to narrate, in song, what amounts to a filmed documentary” of “suffering” Asian-American children. He also found the lyrics and the music “obvious,” and mentioned there were “trifling melodies punctuated by downward crashing Andrew Lloyd Webberisms.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said that “for sheer visual thrills” the high-priced tickets were worth “whatever hell you go through getting them.” But the music gave the two leading characters only “vague, cliched responses to the story” and the couplets were “poorly rhymed.” As a result, the score had a “trivializing effect” on the show and was like a production of West Side Story without “Maria” and “Tonight.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “unoriginal” and “almost unquotable” score was in the mode of “the more menacingly romantic mid-century movie scores,” the lyrics ranged from the “plain” and “unvarnished” to the “schmaltzy” to the “grotesquely inept and grossly insensitive.” He noted that the British production had “a certain cynical anti-Americanism” that reportedly had been toned down for New York, but overall the show looked and sounded the same as in London. John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor praised the “expertly calculated piece of theatre.” William A. Henry III in Time liked the “crackling good show” and said it was “vastly more relevant and thought provoking” than the writers’ previous musical Les Miserables. Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said the evening was “an all-out, old-fashioned entertainment put together by pros.” And although Jack Kroll in Newsweek hailed the show’s “professionalism,” he found the story a “threadbare embarrassment.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday stated that Miss Saigon was “an enormously theatrical and effective work that leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.” It played “loose with political history,” and she noted that the “Bui-Doi” sequence was a “shameless device.” As for the score, she reported that certain melodies reminded her of “Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley,” “Little Things Mean a Lot,” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Beautiful Girls” (from Follies). Kissel also reported that you left the theatre singing “Why God Why” because “you knew it when you came in” (it reminded him of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s “There’s a Small Hotel” from the 1936 musical On Your Toes). Henry found the role of Ellen a “thankless” one, but suggested it was “made worse” by Callaway’s “ineptitude.” She was a “fine” singer but “no actress,” and he reported that “at a critics’ preview last week, several

46      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

people laughed out loud at her just when tension should have been mounting.” Frank Rich in the New York Times said Callaway provided a “game portrayal” but induced “audience snickers and giggles in her big Act II solo.” However, Winer noted that Callaway was a “good, sympathetic belter.” Rich said the Broadway version of Miss Saigon was “far sharper” than the original London production and it was “the most exciting of the so-called English musicals.” He too noted that “Bui-Doi” was “sanctimonious” with its “canned plea for homeless Amerasian children,” but praised Battle’s “blistering” delivery, which “overpowered” the “onslaught of clichéd lyrics, film clips and a large backup choir.” Salonga’s performance was “irresistibly moving” and Pryce made the Engineer’s “disingenuousness as electrifying as Miss Salonga’s ingenuousness.” The musical premiered in London at the Drury Lane on September 20, 1989, with Salonga and Pryce in the leading roles. The production played for 4,264 performances, and was later followed by a London revival in 2014. The two principals reprised their roles for the New York edition and won Tony Awards for their portrayals, and the musical became not only the longest-running of the season but also one of the biggest successes in Broadway history with a total of 4,097 showings. The New York version reportedly cost $10 million to produce, a Broadway record; its preopening advance sale was estimated at approximately $37 million, another record; and, in an early example of premium-priced seating, the show’s highest-priced tickets (for front-and-center balcony seats, which provided an ideal view of that helicopter) cost $100 apiece. The musical’s New York opening was preceded by casting controversies. American Equity protested that a white Welchman (Pryce) was cast as a half-Asian, and later the union complained that Philippine-born Lea Salonga was given the role instead of an Asian-American actress. There were further protests that for the London production Pryce wore a certain amount of “yellow face” make-up to convey his character’s halfAsian heritage, but for New York any facial characteristics to denote his Asian background were eliminated, and so perhaps some audience members were a bit confused over his lineage, because for Broadway he clearly appeared to be 100 percent Western. Because of the casting controversy surrounding Pryce’s appearance, the New York production was briefly canceled and the producers took out a newspaper ad to explain their position. The statement noted that Actors’ Equity would not “condone the casting of a Caucasian actor in the role of a Eurasian,” and the musical’s creative team found “this position to be irresponsible, and a disturbing violation of the principles of artistic integrity and freedom.” The producers stated they looked “forward to a time when a calmer, more balanced atmosphere prevails,” and said the London production of the musical continued at the Drury Lane and the Asian Company would appear in a Japanese language production at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo beginning on April 22, 1992. The original London cast album was issued on a two-CD set by Geffen Records (# 9-24271-2), and there are approximately one-dozen different recordings of the score. Because Salonga and Pryce reprised their London roles, there was no Broadway cast album (in fact, the Broadway editions of such British musicals as The Phantom of the Opera, Starlight Express, and Mamma Mia! weren’t recorded). The musical was revived in London at the Prince Edward Theatre on May 21, 2014, for 760 showings, and a live performance was filmed toward the end of its run and is scheduled to be shown in movie theatres during Fall 2016. The revival itself is scheduled to open on Broadway in 2017. The Story of “Miss Saigon” by Edward Behr and Mark Steyn (published in hardback by Arcade Publishing/ Little, Brown and Company in 1991) provides background information on the making of the musical; another related book is The Musical World of Boublil and Schonberg: The Creators of “Les Miserables,” “Miss Saigon,” “Martin Guerre,” and “The Pirate Queen” by Margaret Vermette, published in paperback in 2007 by Applause & Cinema Books.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Miss Saigon); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Jonathan Pryce); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Lea Salonga); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Hinton Battle); Best Director of a Musical (Nicholas Hytner); Best Book (Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schonberg); Best Score (lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and Alain Boublil, music by Claude-Michel Schonberg); Best Scenic Designer (John Napier); Best Lighting Designer (David Hersey); Best Choreographer (Bob Avian)

1990–1991 SEASON     47

LIZA MINNELLI: STEPPING OUT AT RADIO CITY Theatre: Radio City Music Hall Opening Date: April 23, 1991; Closing Date: May 12, 1991 Performances: 15 Special Musical Material: Lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander Direction: Fred Ebb; Producers: Radio City Music Hall Productions (Scott Sanders and Ed Micone, Executive Producers) (Eliot Weisman/Premier Artists Services, Inc., Executive Producer); Choreography: Susan Stroman (Lisa Mordente, Additional Choreography); Scenery: Michael Hotopp; Costumes: Julie Weiss (Liza Minnelli’s first-act costume by Isaac Mizrahi); Lighting: David Agress; Musical Direction: Bill Lavorgna Cast: Liza Minnelli; Friends (The Demon Divas): Mamie Duncan-Gibbs, Sherry Dundish, Roxanne Dundish, Ruth Gottschall, Joanna McHugh, Joanna Noble, Irma Rogers, Jessica Sheridan, Dorothy Stanley, Terri White, Monica Wemitt, Tara Young The concert was presented in two acts. Act One: Liza in Concert Act Two: Liza and Friends

Musical Numbers The program didn’t include individual musical numbers. The following list is taken from the original cast album. Most songs were performed by Liza Minnelli, with occasional vocals by the “Friends” chorus. Overture (music by John Kander) (Orchestra); “Teach Me Tonight” (lyric by Sammy Cahn, music by Gene de Paul); “Old Friends” (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “Live Alone and Like It” (1990 film Dick Tracy; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “Sorry I Asked” (lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); “So What?” (Cabaret, 1966; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); “Sara Lee” (lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); “Some People” (Gypsy, 1959; lyric by Stephen Sondheim, music by Jule Styne); “Seeing Things” (The Happy Time, 1968; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); “Stepping Out” (1991 film Stepping Out; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); “I Wanna Get Into the Act” (lyric by Marshall Barer, music by Mary Rodgers); Men’s Medley: “Stout-Hearted Men” (The New Moon, 1928; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Sigmund Romberg); “It’s Raining Men” (lyric and music by Paul Jabara and P. Shaffer); “Someday My Prince Will Come” (1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; lyric by Larry Morey, music by Frank Churchill); “For Every Man There’s a Woman” (1948 film Casbah; lyric by Leo Robin, music by Harold Arlen); “Slow Hand” (lyric and music by M. Clark and J. Bettis); “Johnny Angel” (lyric by Lyn Duddy, music by Lee Pockriss); “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” (lyric and music by Paul Jabara and B. Roberts); “My Man’s Gone Now” (Porgy and Bess, 1935; lyric by DuBose Heyward, music by George Gershwin); “Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady” (lyric and music by H. Schock); “Makin’ Whoopee!” (Whoopee, 1928; lyric by Gus Kahn, music by Walter Donaldson); “My Man” (as “Mon Homme,” original French lyric by Jacques Charles and Albert Willemetz; English lyric by Channing Pollock, music by Maurice Yvain; the song was included in the 1921 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies); “Boy! What Love Has Done to Me!” (Girl Crazy, 1930; lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by George Gershwin); “Mister Sandman” (lyric and music by Pat Ballard); “Shop Around” (lyric and music by W. Robinson and Barry Gordy); “Hey, Daddy” (lyric and music by B. Ruzicka); “Natural Man” (lyric and music by Sandy Baron and Bobby Hebb) (choreography by Ron Lewis); “I Like ’Em Big and Stupid” (lyric and music by C. Coffey, J. Brown, and Terrence McNally); “Bewitched” (Pal Joey, 1940; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers); “The Man I Love” (cut from Lady, Be Good!, 1924; used in 1927 version of Strike Up the Band, which closed during its pre-Broadway tryout; and considered for but not used in 1928 musical Rosalie; lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by George Gershwin); “Imagine” (lyric and music by John Lennon); “Here I’ll Stay” (Love Life, 1948; lyric by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Kurt Weill) and “(Our) Love Is Here to Stay” (1938 film The Goldwyn Follies; lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by George Gershwin); “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (Annie Get Your Gun, 1946; lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “Stepping Out” (reprise); “Theme from New York, New York (1977 film New York, New York; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander)

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Other songs performed in the concert were: “The Nearness of You” (1938 film Romance in the Dark; lyric by Ned Washington, music by Hoagy Carmichael); “Who Would Have Dreamed?” (Panama Hattie, 1940; lyric and music by Cole Porter); “A Cottage for Sale” (lyric by Larry Conley, music by Willard Robison); “Similar Features” (lyric and music by Melissa Etheridge); “Le Temps” (“There Is a Time”) (original French lyric by J. Davis, English lyric by Herbert Kretzmer, music by Charles Aznavour); “Quiet Love” (lyricist and composer unknown); “What Makes a Man a Man” (probably “What Makes a Man,” lyric and music by Charles Aznavour); “Sailor Boy” (lyricist and composer unknown); “Losing My Mind” (Follies, 1971; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “The World Goes ‘Round” (1977 film New York, New York; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); “All by Myself” (lyric by Eric Carmen, some of the music adapted from a work by Sergei Rachmaninoff and by an earlier song by Carmen); “Hey, Liza, It’s Me” (lyricist and composer unknown); “Not for the Life of Me” (lyricist and composer unknown); “Drum Dance” (composer unknown); “My Buddy” (lyric by Gus Kahn, music by Walter Donaldson); “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag (and Smile, Smile, Smile)” (lyric by George Henry Powell aka George Asaf, music by Felix Powell); “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” (lyric and music by Jack Judge, and also attributed to Henry James “Harry” Williams). The concert also included special tributes to Vincente Minnelli and to Bob Fosse. The concert Liza Minnelli: Stepping Out at Radio City was a two-week limited engagement that starred Minnelli, who was accompanied by a twelve-member female chorus (Friends, or The Demon Divas) and a twenty-six piece orchestra. The concert was in effect a tie-in for the release of Minnelli’s film Stepping Out, which opened the following fall. Stephen Holden in the New York Times said “Seeing Things” (which was included in a sequence that paid tribute to Vincente Minnelli) was the evening’s “most touching moment” in a concert that included “bravura” segments but nonetheless undermined “its own momentum with inappropriate juxtapositions and abrupt changes of pace.” In the same newspaper, David Richards complained that the concert didn’t “seem to know what direction to take and leaves its eager star, covered with bright lights, stabbing bravely in the dark.” A version of the concert was released on DVD by Sony. The soundtrack of the film Stepping Out was released by Milan Records (CD # 73138-35606-2) and includes Kander and Ebb’s title song. A musical version of Stepping Out was produced in London at the Albery Theatre on October 28, 1997, for a four-month run with Liz Robertson; the book was by Richard Harris, the lyrics by Mary Stewart-David, and the music by Denis King, and the cast album was recorded by First Night/Scene Records (CD # 24). Other Broadway concert appearances by Liza Minnelli are Liza (1974), Minnelli on Minnelli (1999), and Liza’s at the Palace (2008). She originated roles in three Broadway musicals, Flora, the Red Menace (1965), The Act (1977), and The Rink (1984), and during the run of Chicago (1975) briefly replaced Gwen Verdon and later performed the title role of Victor/Victoria (1995), which had been originated by Julie Andrews. Minnelli’s first New York stage appearance was in the 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward.

THE SECRET GARDEN Theatre: St. James Theatre Opening Date: April 25, 1991; Closing Date: January 3, 1993 Performances: 706 Book and Lyrics: Marsha Norman Music: Lucy Simon Based on the novel The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (serialized in 1910 and published in book format in 1911). Direction: Susan H. Schulman; Producers: Heidi Landesman, Rick Steiner, Frederic H. Mayerson, Elizabeth Williams, Jujamcyn Theatres, and Dodger Productions (Greg C. Mosher, Senior Associate Producer) (Rhoda Mayerson, Playhouse Square Center, Dorothy and Wendell Cherry, Margo Lion, and 126 Second Ave. Corp., Associate Producers); Choreography: Michael Lichtefeld; Scenery: Heidi Landesman; Costumes: Theoni V. Aldredge; Lighting: Tharon Musser; Musical Direction: Michael Kosarin Cast: Rebecca Luker (Lily), Daisy Eagan (Mary Lennox), Kimberly Mahon (Mary Lennox for Wednesday matinee and Thursday evening performances), Peter Marinos (Fakir), Patricia Phillips (Ayah), Kay Walbye (Rose), Michael De Vries (Captain Albert Lennox), Drew Taylor (Lieutenant Peter Wright), Paul Jackel (Lieutenant Ian Shaw), Peter Samuel (Major Holmes), Rebecca Judd (Claire), Nancy Johnston (Alice, Mrs.

1990–1991 SEASON     49

Winthrop), Mandy Patinkin (Archibald Craven), Robert Westenberg (Doctor Neville Craven), Barbara Rosenblat (Mrs. Medlock), Alison Fraser (Martha), John Cameron Mitchell (Dickon), Tom Toner (Ben), John Babcock (Colin), Teresa De Zarn (Jane), Frank DiPasquale (William), Betsy Friday (Betsy), Alec Timerman (Timothy); Others: All other roles were played by members of the company. The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during 1906 in Colonial India and in North Yorkshire, England.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Opening Dream” (Rebecca Luker, Peter Marinos, Daisy Eagan, Company); “There’s a Girl” (Company); “The House Upon the Hill” (Company); “I Heard Someone Crying” (Daisy Eagan, Mandy Patinkin, Rebecca Luker, Company); “A Fine White Horse” (Alison Fraser); “A Girl in the Valley” (Rebecca Luker, Mandy Patinkin, Dancers); “It’s a Maze” (Tom Toner, Daisy Eagan, John Cameron Mitchell); “Winter’s on the Wing” (John Cameron Mitchell); “Show Me the Key” (Daisy Eagan, John Cameron Mitchell); “A Bit of Earth” (Mandy Patinkin); “Storm I” (Company); “Lily’s Eyes” (Mandy Patinkin, Robert Westenberg); “Storm II” (Daisy Eagan, Company); “Round-Shouldered Man” (John Babcock); “Final Storm” (Company) Act Two: “The Girl I Mean to Be” (Daisy Eagan, Company); “Quartet” (Mandy Patinkin, John Westenberg, Kay Walbye, Rebecca Luker); “Race You to the Top of the Morning” (Mandy Patinkin); “Wick” (John Cameron Mitchell, Daisy Eagan); “Come to My Garden” (Rebecca Luker, John Babcock); “Come Spirit, Come Charm” (Daisy Eagan, Alison Fraser, John Cameron Mitchell, Peter Marinos, Patricia Phillips, Rebecca Luker, Company); “A Bit of Earth” (reprise) (Rebecca Luker, Kay Walbye, Michael De Vries); “Disappear” (Robert Westenberg); “Hold On” (Alison Fraser); “Letter Song” (Daisy Eagan, Alison Fraser); “Where in the World” (Mandy Patinkin); “How Could I Ever Know” (Rebecca Luker, Mandy Patinkin); Finale (Company) The Secret Garden reportedly cost $6.2 million to produce, and while it opened to mixed notices it managed to run for nineteen months. The musical was based on Francis Hodgson Burnett’s 1910 novel about the self-centered and alienated orphan Mary (Daisy Eagan), who is sent to live with her somewhat rigid uncle, the grieving widower Archibald (Mandy Patinkin) at his English countryside estate. On the grounds of the estate Mary discovers a walled-in garden that Archibald has kept locked after his wife Rose (Kay Walbye) died in childbirth, and she also finds out that her uncle has a handicapped son, Colin (John Babcock), who lives hidden in the one-hundred-room mansion. She emerges from her shell and befriends the boy, and when she gains access to the garden, she renews it to its full summer glory in much the way she has renewed Colin and her own life. At its heart, the story was a sweet and simple one about learning to grow up and care about others. But book writer Marsha Norman gussied up the fragile fable-like story with an ambitious, albeit hollow and pretentious, subplot in which the dead, including Mary’s parents Lily (Rebecca Luker) and Albert (Michael De Vries), Rose, and others, are a constant presence as white-swathed phantoms who insinuate themselves into the story (Lily, for example, is represented in about one-third of the musical numbers). A few critics noted that the story seemed filled with more dead than living characters, and it was a mistake to open up the plot and give the adults (those both dead and alive) more stage time than was warranted. The work began with a strange sequence (“Opening Dream”) in which many of the characters took part in a dance of death. As they waltz, a red scarf that symbolizes death is thrown at each dancer, who then drops out of the dance. By the end of the number, only Mary is alive. Unlike the novel and its charming 1949 MGM film adaptation, the musical lost sight of the essential story of lonely children who gradually learn how to grow up. Further, the show missed its one chance for an impressive scenic effect. The titular garden was talked and sung about all evening, but the audience never got the chance to really see and experience it. The MGM adaptation capitalized on the surprise of the garden by filming most of the story in black and white, and then in Oz-like fashion the screen turned into brilliant Technicolor when the gates of the garden opened to reveal the space in its full-flowered beauty. The headline of Douglas Watt’s review in the New York Daily News warned that the musical was a “Lawn Day’s Journey Into Night.” The score was “carefully wrought” but “woefully lacking in profile,” the novel’s themes were “smothered,” Rebecca Luker’s “lovely” soprano was sung “in disembodied tones that create the impression of her lip-synching to her own recorded voice,” and when Mandy Patinkin wasn’t “resorting to falsetto outbursts” he sang his role “sturdily.” In the same newspaper, Howard Kissel said the musical was so “relentlessly genteel” that it “shortchanged” the “vitality” of the novel, and he noted that a 1988

50      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

film version of the book was far more moving. The score aimed for a “folk quality,” which it didn’t sustain, the lyrics were “intelligent if generally unremarkable,” the script shortchanged the character of Mary, and Patinkin made “all too self-conscious use of his beautiful head tones.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post felt that much of the evening’s “dramatic style” chased “precious little musical substance.” With its mixture of ghosts and children, the evening brought to mind both the Canadian musical Anne of Green Gables and Benjamin Britten’s 1954 opera The Turn of the Screw, but unfortunately composer Lucy Simon was “no Britten” and the score “at its most hand-on-heartfelt is never more than dull.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek said the work was most effective when it centered on Burnett’s original story, but the constant presence of the death figures and the expansion of the story to include so many adult characters turned “an enchanting garden into a Broadway hothouse.” He also reported that scenic designer (and coproducer) Heidi Landesman “astonishingly” blew “her chief assignment” by denying the audience to see and experience the garden. Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal noted that with the “theatrical device” of dead characters the creators had “outsmarted themselves” with a musical “about ghosts rather than living people.” Joel Siegel on WABCTV7 praised the score but said the evening never “becomes a fairy tale, the garden is never enchanting, the evening is never magic.” And while David Patrick Stearns in USA Today found the “genuine” work a “splendid” and “intelligent” adaptation and “the most adult new musical of the season,” he nonetheless complained that the “soft-spoken” music prevented the story “from consistently going into the otherworldly terrains it yearns for” and the “unique experience” was never “quite the requiem it promises to be.” Frank Rich in the New York Times said he had trouble locating the show’s “pulse” and decided that the “subtext overwhelms the text” because “one is constantly aware that the authors are thinking hard—too hard.” Simon’s score was sometimes “fetching,” but when it descended “into musical-comedy mode” it fell apart. He also mentioned that Luker was “too talented” a singer for her voice “to be filtered through sonic effects,” and Patinkin’s “trademark gestures” (“the squinting of the eyes, the cranking of the voice up an octave in mid-song”) were “calcifying into shtick.” Patinkin also displayed some of the physical movements he had employed in his recent (and “excruciating”) Broadway concert, and by “excusing himself” from the rest of the company’s effort to use British accents he turned The Secret Garden “into a show about his own contemporary, New York show-biz persona.” But William A. Henry III in Time said The Secret Garden was the season’s “best American musical,” an “elegant,” “entrancing,” “melodic,” and “thought-provoking” one. Jan Stuart in New York Newsday praised the “many-splendored” evening with its “singular identity and integrity,” and said it was “that rare total musical” in which all its elements “mesh with seamless humility.” And John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor said the musical had “irresistible appeal” and the score suited the “unabashedly romantic nature of a tale that can be spontaneously funny along with its poignancy.” The Broadway cast recording was released by Columbia Records (CD # 48817), and the script was published in paperback editions by Theatre Communications Group in 1993 and by Samuel French in 2010. The London production opened at the Aldwych Theatre on February 17, 2001, and ran for about four months. The company included London and Broadway’s Carrie, Linzi Hately (as Martha), and the cast recording was issued by First Night Records (CD # CD-82). The 1995 Australian production was recorded by Polydor Records (CD # 579997). There were two musical versions of The Secret Garden written prior to the current production, both of which were released as studio cast albums. The first, which appears to have never been staged, was issued in 1987 by IBR Classics/Spotlight Series (CD # CDIBR-9010), and later by Varese Sarabande Records (CD # VSD-5451); the book was by Alfred Shaughnessy, the lyrics by Sharon Burgett, Susan Beckwith-Smith, and Diana Matterson, with additional lyrics by Chandler Warren and Will Holt, and music by Sharon Burgett with additional music by Susan Beckwith-Smith. The cast includes Barbara Cook (Martha), Judy Kaye (Mrs. Medlock), John Cullum (Archibald), George Rose (Ben Weatherstaff), Max Showalter (Doctor Craven), and Victoria Coote (Mary), and other singers on the recording include Jan Neuberger, Edward Earle, and Tim Ewing. A second adaptation was staged in Britain in 1987, and a recording of songs from the score was issued in 1993 by Dress Circle (CD # SMDM-1); the book and lyrics are by Diana Morgan and the music by Steven Markwick.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (The Secret Garden); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Daisy Eagan); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Alison Fraser); Best Book (Marsha Norman); Best Score (lyr-

1990–1991 SEASON     51

ics by Marsha Norman, music by Lucy Simon); Best Scenic Designer (Heidi Landesman); Best Costume Designer (Theoni V. Aldredge)

THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES: A LIFE IN REVUE Theatre: Palace Theatre Opening Date: May 1, 1991; Closing Date: September 5, 1993 Performances: 983 Book: Peter Stone Lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green Music: Cy Coleman Direction and Choreography: Tommy Tune (Phillip Oesterman, Associate Director; Jeff Calhoun, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Pierre Cossette, Martin Richards, Sam Crothers, James M. Nederlander, Stewart F. Lane, and Max Weitzenhoffer in association with Japan Satellite Broadcasting, Inc.; Scenery: Tony Walton; Costumes: Willa Kim; Lighting: Jules Fisher; Musical Direction: Eric Stern Cast: Cady Huffman (Ziegfeld’s Favorite), Keith Carradine (Will Rogers), Vince Bruce (Unicyclist, The Roper), Paul Ukena Jr. (Wiley Post), Dick Latessa (Clem Rogers); Will’s Sisters: Roxane Barlow, Maria Calabrese, Colleen Dunn, Dana Moore, Wendy Waring, and Leigh Zimmerman; Dee Hoty (Betty Blake), The Wild West Show Performers: Bonnie Brackney and Tom Brackney with The Madcap Mutts—B.A., Cocoa, Gigi, Rusty, Trixie, and Zee; Betty’s Sisters: Roxane Barlow, Maria Calabrese, Colleen Dunn, Dana Moore, Wendy Waring, and Leigh Zimmerman; Rick Faugno (Will Rogers Jr.), Tammy Minoff (Mary Rogers), Lance Robinson (James Rogers), Gregory Scott Carter (Freddy Rogers); The Will Rogers Wranglers: John Ganun, Troy Britton Johnson, Jerry Mitchell, and Jason Opsahl; The New Ziegfeld Girls: Roxane Barlow, Maria Calabrese, Ganine Derleth, Rebecca Downing, Colleen Dunn, Sally Mae Dunn, Toni Georgiana, Eileen Grace, Luba Gregus, Tonia Lynn, Dana Moore, Aimee Turner, Jillana Urbina, Wendy Waring, Christina Youngman, and Leigh Zimmerman; Gregory Peck (The Voice of Mr. Ziegfeld) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the present at the Palace Theatre.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Let’s Go Flying” (Ensemble); “Will-a-Mania” (Cady Huffman, Company); “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like” (short version) (Keith Carradine); “Give a Man Enough Rope” (Keith Carradine, The Will Rogers Wranglers); “Monologue” (Keith Carradine); “It’s a Boy!” (Dick Latessa, Will’s Sisters); “So Long, Pa” (Keith Carradine); “My Unknown Someone” (Dee Hoty); “Wild West Show” (Ensemble) and “Dog Act” (The Madcap Mutts); “We’re Heading for a Wedding” (Keith Carradine, Dee Hoty); “The Big Time” (Keith Carradine, Dee Hoty, Rick Faugno, Tammy Minoff, Lance Robinson, Gregory Scott Carter); “My Big Mistake” (Dee Hoty); “The Powder Puff Ballet” (“My Big Mistake”) (The New Ziegfeld Girls); “Marry Me Now” and “I Got You” (Keith Carradine, Dee Hoty); “Wedding Finale” (Company) Act Two: Entr’ acte (Orchestra); “Give a Man Enough Rope” (reprise) and “Rope Act” (Keith Carradine, The Will Rogers Wranglers); “Monologue” (Keith Carradine); “Look Around” (Keith Carradine); “(Our) Favorite Son” (Keith Carradine, Chorus); “No Man Left for Me” (Dee Hoty); “Presents for Mrs. Rogers” (Keith Carradine, The Will Rogers Wranglers, The New Ziegfeld Girls); “Radio Speech” (Keith Carradine); “Willa-Mania” (reprise) (Keith Carradine, Dick Latessa); “Without You” (reprise version of “I Got You”) (Dee Hoty); “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like”(reprise; extended version) (Keith Carradine, Company) The Will Rogers Follies was one of the most delightful diversions of the decade. Peter Stone’s minimalist book provided a skeletal outline of Rogers’s life (1879–1935), but with a difference: as the show’s subtitle indicated, the musical was the story of Rogers’s life and career in the style of a Ziegfeld revue (and Ziegfeld himself, or at least his prerecorded voice by Gregory Peck, was there as well to make occasional comments and prod the action along). The evening was an excuse for a series of lavish production numbers devised by Tommy Tune, all set to one of Cy Coleman’s best scores and some of Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s most felicitous lyrics (for Coleman and for the team of Comden and Green, The Will Rogers Follies was the longestrunning show of their careers). And the icing on the cake was the smooth and ingratiating performance by Keith Carradine in the title role.

52      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

Unlike most biographical musicals, which tend to go drearily through the motions of every cliché in Show-Biz-Saga Playwriting 101, including the inevitable moment when the star achieves success only to find It’s Lonely at the Top, The Will Rogers Follies sidestepped them and concentrated on song and dance. Like Coleman’s similar Barnum (which used a circus motif to tell the story of the big-top impresario), the musical was short on action and conflict, but the production numbers, the star performance, and the Technicolordrenched décor and costumes (not to mention an impressive lariat solo by Vince Bruce and a terrific dog act by the Madcap Mutts) added up to one of the most ingratiating Broadway musicals in years. Rogers’s career had many peaks, including appearances in five editions of the Ziegfeld Follies (1916, 1917, 1918, 1922, and 1924), almost sixty film roles (both short and full-length silent movies and talkies), newspaper columns, and a radio show. He specialized on comments regarding the fads and foibles of the day, including politics, but his philosophical homespun observations were wry and often self-effacing rather than meanspirited. He died in 1935 when he and his friend and pilot Wiley Post were killed in a plane crash in Alaska. The musical ended on a touching and elegiac note with the haunting and Whitmanesque “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like,” one of the finest musical sequences of the era. Carradine appeared alone on stage as he sang Rogers’s philosophy of humanism, and as the number built, a montage of black-and-white photographs of ordinary, everyday men and women appeared on a scrim behind him, and soon the collage filled the entire Palace stage as the performer became one with them. It was a throat-catching moment, and Howard Kissel in the New York Post commented that the “melting” number was “accompanied by a visual magic calculated to bring tears to your eyes.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today was also taken with the “riveting” final scene as Rogers walked “into a tunnel of white light to his death.” The score included splendid Ziegfeld Follies-styled production numbers such as “Will-a-Mania,” “Presents for Mrs. Rogers,” and “The Powder Puff Ballet” (aka “My Big Mistake”). “Marry Me Now” and “I Got You” was a delightful two-part sequence for Rogers and his wife Betty, “Give a Man Enough Rope” was a lively quintet, and “No Man Left for Me” was a lowdown torch song for Betty. “The Big Time” was a charming and melodically intriguing showpiece that introduced the Rogers clan and outlined the substrata of show-business success (there’s the big time, the small time, the medium-small time, etc.). The number defined the sound of old-time Broadway with its brassy grandeur and brought to mind such overlooked gems as “Surprise” (Oh Captain!, 1958), “Sez I” (Donnybrook!, 1961), and the title song from Smile (1986). The score’s one disappointment was the preachy “Look Around,” which was added during previews and virtually shoehorned into the evening. The wimpy, folk-like number might have been effective in the ecology revue Mother Earth (1972), but a song about the environment didn’t work in a show like The Will Rogers Follies and no Ziegfeld Follies would have tolerated such blatant special pleading. Another misstep took place during a radio talk by Rogers when the house lights went up and Rogers preached about compassion toward the homeless. Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said the “superserious” plea was “completely at odds with the spirit” of the Ziegfeld Follies, and Frank Rich in the New York Times said the moment was out of the Twilight Zone with its “holier-than-thou tone” and its seeming attempt “to embarrass the present-day audience into examining its own conscience” in preparation for confrontations with “the panhandlers lying in wait on Broadway after the final curtain” (Rich also noted he wouldn’t have been surprised had the ushers taken up a collection for the Will Rogers Hospital). There were a few more-sensitive-than-thou politically correct souls who objected to a production number (“The Wild West Show”) that depicted chorus girls clad in cow outfits, but happily the sequence wasn’t dropped (although photos from the number, which were used in the show’s advertising campaign, were eventually eliminated). And, in what would become a more common complaint as the theatrical seasons passed, some critics were unhappy because the cast didn’t represent a racially diverse group of performers. John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor said the musical was in the “festive tradition—an entertainment to be enjoyed and even treasured.” The book was “funny” and “smartly paced,” the score mingled “themes and periods with easy nonchalance,” and the lyrics were “amusingly attuned to the now and then.” Stearns praised the “breezy, stylish, utterly heavenly” musical with its “sweet” songs, “inventive” choreography, and a playfulness in which Ziegfeld himself transports a scene in Oklahoma to one on the moon because the latter is more “glamorous.” Kissel said the show was “the homegrown musical Broadway has been awaiting a long, long time,” and he noted that “glitzmeister Tune” had “never been more imaginative.” Further, the décor and costumes were sumptuous, Coleman’s score was more “relaxed and engaging than his frenetic” one for City of Angels (1989), and the lyrics were “simple and attractive.” Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News liked the “bountiful and lovely-to-look-at evening”; and Clive Barnes in the New York Post said Tune did “a sizzling job of melding period stylization with sheer energized

1990–1991 SEASON     53

style.” He also praised the “deft and winning” lyrics; Coleman’s “top-drawer” score, which represented the composer’s “best Broadway music in years”; and a dog act “that even a cat could love.” Joel Siegel on WABCTV7 saluted the “great opening, great costumes, [and] real choreography,” and said Tune was “as inventive as ever.” But despite the “terrific” cast and “dazzling” dances, he felt the show had “no focus,” “no drama,” and offered “no reason for all the hoopla and hollering.” Jan Stuart in New York Newsday complained that while the disappointing book never provided more than a “perfunctory understanding” of why Rogers became a phenomenon, it couldn’t “diminish the heady spectacle” of the “giddy, gaudy musical cavalcade.” The score offered “fetching” melodies, and “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like” was “evocative and touching” and one of Coleman’s “best songs ever.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek suggested if Rogers had “been handled with as much punch and theatricality” as Tune’s dance sequences, the musical could have “gone beyond nice and headed straight for great.” The Will Rogers Follies was clearly “the nicest, most agreeable musical on Broadway,” but “the question is, is nice enough?” And if there had ever been a Broadway musical “more riddled with contradictions” than The Will Rogers Follies, Wilson said he wasn’t aware of it. The show was a “goulash” that offered such old-fashioned trimmings as a “hilarious” dog act and a “superb” rope twirler, and yet it had a “bizarre, macabre streak” and seemed “preoccupied with death.” There were indeed “marvelous moments” throughout the evening, but the parts never meshed, and as a result the production reminded him of “a covered-dish supper where everyone brought desserts and no one thought to bring the main course.” Rich stated the work was the “most disjointed musical of this or any other season.” It was at one moment a “drippingly pious testimonial” that was “written in a style known to anyone who does not doze during the presentation of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award on Oscar night,” and then suddenly “school’s out” and the “high-flying” Tune brought forth “blissfully campy” production numbers. Carradine received glowing notices: he gave a “great musical comedy performance” and was a “thoroughly original Broadway presence: sensitive, sensuous, low-key and funny, without an ounce of self-consciousness“ (Stuart); “it’s hard to think of any recent Broadway performer with so much natural charm” (Kissel); “totally appealing” (Kroll); “utterly beguiling” (Rich); “personable” and “easy-going” (Wilson); “charismatic” (Stearns); “winning” (Watt); and “wonderful” (Siegel). During the run, Mac Davis succeeded Carradine. John Simon in New York found Davis “game, personable, competent, and tangy (or twangy),” but noted he just didn’t “light up” the stage like Carradine because “Mr. C. did not just stand in the spotlight, he was a spotlight aimed at all the world.” Later, Larry Gatlin replaced Davis; Cady Huffman was succeeded by Marla Maples; and Dick Latessa was followed by Mickey Rooney. The cast album was released by Columbia Records (CD # CK-48606). The show was taped for Japanese television, and unlike most televised musicals the telecast works well because the Ed Sullivan Show-like nature of the proceedings looked comfortable and natural on the small screen. During New York previews (there was no traditional out-of-town tryout), three songs were cut: “Giddyap, Whoa,” “Once in a While,” and “Just a Coupla Indian Boys.” Note that the second-act reprise version of “I Got You” was titled “Without You.”

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (The Will Rogers Follies); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Keith Carradine); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Dee Hoty); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Cady Huffman); Best Director of a Musical (Tommy Tune); Best Score (lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by Cy Coleman); Best Scenic Designer (Tony Walton); Best Costume Designer (Willa Kim); Best Lighting Designer (Jules Fisher); Best Choreographer (Tommy Tune) New York Drama Critics Circle Award: Best Musical (1990–1991) (The Will Rogers Follies)

OH, KAY!

“The Champagne

of

Broadway Musicals”

The production began previews on April 2, 1991, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre and permanently closed there on April 14, 1991, after sixteen preview performances. Book: Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse; new book adaptation by James Racheff from a concept by Dan Siretta Lyrics: Ira Gershwin

54      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

Music: George Gershwin Direction and Choreography: Dan Siretta (Ken Leigh Rogers, Assistant Choreographer); Producers: David Merrick (Natalie Lloyd, Executive Producer) (Leo K. Cohen, Associate Producer); Scenery: Kenneth Foy; Costumes: Theoni V. Aldredge; Lighting: Craig Miller; Musical Direction: Tom Fay Cast: Gregg Burge (Billy Lyles), Kyme (Dolly Greene), Rae Dawn Chong (Kay Jones), David Preston Sharp (Nick), Ken Roberson (Zeke), Kevin Ramsey (Larry Potter), Helmar Augustus Cooper (Shorty), Keith Robert Bennett (B.J.), Ron Richardson (Jimmy Winter), Natalie Oliver (Constance DuGrasse), Byron Easley (Chauffer), Mark Kenneth Smaltz (Janson), Alexander Barton (Reverend Alphonse DuGrasse); Ensemble: Keith Robert Bennett, Jacquelyn Bird, Frederick J. Boothe, Cheryl Burr, Byron Easley, Robert H. Fowler, Karen E. Fraction, Melissa Haizlip, Frantz Hall, Sara Beth Lane, Garry Q. Lewis, Greta Martin, Sharon Moore, Elise Neal, Ken Roberson, Ken Leigh Rogers, David Preston Sharp, Allyson Tucker The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Harlem during 1926.

Musical Numbers Note: (*) denotes song performed in the original 1926 Broadway production. Act One: “Slap That Bass” (1937 film Shall We Dance) (Gregg Burge, Kyme, Rae Dawn Chong, Ensemble); “When Our Ship Comes Sailing In” (dropped during rehearsals of the original 1926 production) (Gregg Burge, Helmar Augustus Cooper, Male Ensemble); “Dear Little Girl” (*) (Ron Richardson, Helmar Augustus Cooper); “Maybe” (*) (Ron Richardson, Rae Dawn Chong); “You’ve Got What Gets Me” (from the 1932 film version of Girl Crazy) (Gregg Burge, Kyme); “Do, Do, Do” (*) (Ron Richardson, Rae Dawn Chong); “Clap Yo’ Hands” (*) (Kevin Ramsey, Ensemble) Act Two: “Oh, Kay!” (*) (lyric by Ira Gershwin and Howard Dietz) (Gregg Burge, Rae Dawn Chong, Ensemble); “Ask Me Again” (independent song written in the late 1920s or early 1930s) (Ron Richardson); “Fidgety Feet” (*) (Gregg Burge, Ensemble); “Ask Me Again” (reprise) (Ron Richardson); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (*) (Rae Dawn Chong); “Heaven on Earth” (*) (lyric by Ira Gershwin and Howard Dietz) (Kevin Ramsey, Gregg Burge); “Show Me the Town” (dropped during the tryout of the original 1926 production, and with a different verse was used in the 1928 Broadway musical Rosalie) and “Sleepless Nights” (origin unknown) (Rae Dawn Chong, Gregg Burge, Kyme, Kevin Ramsey, Ensemble); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (reprise) (Ron Richardson, Rae Dawn Chong) When the revival of Oh, Kay! shuttered earlier in the season after seventy-seven performances, no one really believed that producer David Merrick would bring it back to Broadway. But that he did, albeit for just two weeks of preview performances before he permanently closed it prior to its official opening. This time around, the musical played at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, and the ads proclaimed, “Oh, Dancing! Oh, Singing! Oh, Wow!” And while the creative team and most of the cast remained in place from the earlier production, three of the principal roles were re-cast when Rae Dawn Chong (Kay), Ron Richardson (Jimmy), and Natalie Oliver (Constance) succeeded Angela Teek, Brian (Stokes) Mitchell, and Tamara Tunie Bouquett. Both the 1990 and 1991 productions had been inspired by the all-black version of the musical, which had played at the Goodspeed Opera House (East Haddam, Connecticut) during the 1989–1990 season and starred Pamela Isaacs and Ron Richardson as Kay and Jimmy. Richardson didn’t reprise his role for the 1990 production but did for the current one. Martin Burden in the New York Post reported that for the first of the musical’s two weeks of performances ticket sales totaled $63,529 out of a potential take of $625,983. For more information about the musical and its 1990 revival, see entry for the earlier production.

SVENGALI The musical opened on April 3, 1991, at the Alley Theatre’s Large Stage in Houston, Texas, and closed there on April 28; it later opened in October 1991 at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, and closed there on November 2, 1991.

1990–1991 SEASON     55

Book: Gregory Boyd Lyrics: John Bettis, Gregory Boyd, and Frank Wildhorn Music: Frank Wildhorn Based on the 1894 novel Trilby by George du Maurier. Direction: Gregory Boyd; Producer: Alley Theatre (Gregory Boyd, Artistic Director); Scenery: Jerome Sirlin; Costumes: V. Jane Suttell; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Douglas Besterman Cast: Chuck Wagner (Svengali), Philip Hoffman (Gecko), Marty Simpson (Mme. Poussin), Sarah Knapp (Mme. Desmoulins, Mme. Durian, Mme. Vinard); Four Ladies: Laurie Galluccio, Gage Tarrant, Monique Maley, and Marty Simpson; Gerald Hiken (Talbot Wynne aka Taffy), Noble Shropshire (Alexander McAllister aka Laird), Gage Tarrant (Model), Linda Eder (Trilby), Dave Clemmons (Billie), Bjorn Johnson (Zou Zou), John Feltch (Fabre, House Detective, Third Impresario), Jeffrey Bean (Gaspardi, An Impresario), Tug Wilson (Herr Menigen, Impresario’s Functionary), Peter Webster (Dodor, House Detective, Doctor); Four Grisettes: Gage Tarrant, Monique Maley, Marty Simpson, and Laurie Galluccio; Jonathan Allore (Waiter, Phillipe), Laurence Ruffo (Poet), Jon Hawkins (Poet); Members of the Company: Artists, Models, Poets, Audience Members, Society People, Backstage Workers, Orchestra Musicians The action takes place in Paris and in a small provincial theatre in 1894, and then in 1899. The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. Svengali was based on George du Maurier’s 1894 gothic-like novel Trilby and depicted the story of the obsessed Svengali (Chuck Wagner) and his determination to dominate and transform the innocent Trilby (Linda Eder) into a famous opera singer. Du Maurier’s novel was of course somewhat similar to The Phantom of the Opera, which was written fifteen years after the publication of Svengali. Ley in Variety said the musical was “overly long, unfocused and repetitious” and was further “tangled up in its own contradictions.” The title character was alternately sly, spirited, and roguish; then diabolic; and finally tragic. As a result, he didn’t “evolve” and instead changed personalities “at the whim” of the “muddled” book. Further, it was “offensive” to present Svengali as “a rather unpleasant Jewish stereotype.” The critic noted the evening had too many ballads, and for one period in the second act four were sung in a row. The score began “with a traditional Broadway sound” that alternated between “showstoppers and synthesized grandstanding,” and some numbers (“If He Never Said Hello” and “I’ll Never Be the One He Wants Me to Be”) were “keepers.” Svengali was one of a series of musicals by Frank Wildhorn that focused on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novels and plays, many of which were dark in tone, including Jekyll & Hyde (Broadway, 1997), The Scarlet Pimpernel (Broadway, 1997), Dracula (Broadway, 2004), The Count of Monte Cristo (2009), and Cyrano de Bergerac (2009). The musical’s world premiere at the Alley Theatre in Houston starred Chuck Wagner and Linda Eder (who was later married to Wildhorn), who reprised their roles when the work was produced in Florida later in the year. Danny de Munk recorded one song (“So Slowly”) from the production on his CD collection Danny, and Eder included two songs (“If He Never Said Hello” and “Vole mon ange”) in her CD collection Storybook (Blue Note Records). George du Maurier was the grandfather of Daphne du Maurier, who wrote the gothic romance Rebecca, which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture; her short story “The Birds” was filmed by Hitchcock in 1963.

1991–1992 Season

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: July 9, 1991; Closing Date: August 10, 1991 Performances: 7 (in repertory) Book: Hugh Wheeler Lyrics and Music: Stephen Sondheim Based on the 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night (screenplay and direction by Ingmar Bergman). Direction: Scott Ellis; Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Choreography: Susan Stroman; Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Lindsay W. Davis; Lighting: Dawn Chiang; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: Susanne Marsee (Mrs. Segstrom), Ron Baker (Mr. Lindquist), Lisa Saffer (Mrs. Nordstrom), Barbara Shirvis (Mrs. Anderson), Peter Blanchet (Mr. Erlanson, Bertrand), Danielle Ferland (Frederika Armfeldt), Elaine Bonazzi (Madame Armfeldt), David Fuller (Frid), Kevin Anderson (Henrik Egerman), Beverly Lambert (Anne Egerman), George Lee Andrews (Fredrik Egerman), Joanna Glushak (Petra), Sally Ann Howes (Desiree Armfeldt), Raven Wilkinson (Malla), Michael Maguire (Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm), Maureen Moore (Charlotte Malcolm), Judith Jarosz (Osa); Serving Gentlemen: Kent A. Heacock, Ronald Kelly, Jeff Kensmoe, Ian D. Klapper, Brian Michels, Brian Quirk, John Henry Thomas, Mike Timoney The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Sweden at the turn of the twentieth century. Stephen Sondheim’s 1973 Broadway musical A Little Night Music had first been revived by the New York City Opera Company a year earlier. The company’s current production retained most of the principals from the 1990 cast, with the major exception of Regina Resnik, who as Madame Armfeldt was succeeded by Elaine Bonazzi. For more information about the work, including a list of musical numbers, see entry for the 1990 production. Alan Kozinn in the New York Times felt that Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd was comfortable in the opera house, but suggested A Little Night Music could claim no better than “operetta status.” But the score had its “charms,” and the “flowing waltzes” gave the musical a sense of character and unity. He noted that for the previous revival Sally Ann Howes had been “assured but superficial,” and reported that she had now “improved” and offered “greater warmth.” He felt Michael Maguire and George Lee Andrews were “more impressive as actors than as singers” but nonetheless “gave firm, reasonably attractive accounts of the music Mr. Sondheim gave them.” As for Elaine Bonazzi, her comic instincts were “unerring,” she delivered her character’s “drolleries” with the required understatement, and “did nicely” with “Liaisons.”

THE MOST HAPPY FELLA Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: September 4, 1991; Closing Date: October 18, 1991 57

58      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

Performances: 10 (in repertory) Book, Lyrics, and Music: Frank Loesser Based on the 1924 play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard. Direction: Arthur Allan Seidelman (David Pfeiffer, Assistant Stage Director) (Jeff Harris, Assistant to Arthur Allan Seidelman); Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Choreography: Dan Siretta; Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Beba Shamash; Lighting: Mark W. Stanley; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Chris Nance Cast: William Ledbetter (Cashier, Postman), Karen Ziemba (Cleo), Joanna Glushak (alternate Cleo), Elizabeth Walsh (Amy aka Rosabella), Michele McBride (alternate Amy aka Rosabella), Jean Barber (Waitress), Joan Mirabella (Waitress), Deidre Sheehan (Waitress), Dean Dufford (Busboy), Michael Langlois (Busboy), Louis Quilico (Tony), John Fiorito (alternate Tony), Elaine Bonazzi (Marie), Susanne Marsee (alternate Marie), Ron Hilley (Max), Lara Teeter (Herman), Brian Quinn (alternate Herman), Gregory Moore (Clem), David Frye (Jake), Jonathan Guss (Al), Burke Moses (Joe aka Joey), John Leslie Wolfe (alternate Joe aka Joey), Arthur Rubin (Giuseppe), Richard Byrne (Pasquale), John Lankston (Ciccio), Peter Blanchet (Doctor), Don Yule (Priest), Alice Roberts (Tessie), Zachary London (Gussie), Jonathan Zwi (Artie); Neighbors: Harris Davis, Michael Langlois, Louis Perry, Phillip Sneed, William Ward, and Edward Zimmerman; Neighbor Ladies: Lee Bellaver, Esperanza Galan, Stephanie Godino, and Rita Metzger; James Russel (Station Attendant); Chorus and Dancers: The New York City Opera Singers and Dancers The musical was presented in three acts. The action takes place in San Francisco and Napa Valley in 1953.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t include a list of the musical numbers heard in this production (some revivals have added previously unused material); the following list reflects the songs heard in the original 1956 Broadway production, and after their titles are the names of the characters who performed them. Act One: Prelude Act One (Orchestra); “Ooh! My Feet!” (Cleo); “I Know How It Is” (Cleo, Rosabella); “Seven Million Crumbs” (Cleo); “The Letter” (Rosabella); “Somebody, Somewhere” (Rosabella); “The Most Happy Fella” (Tony, All the Neighbors); “Standing on the Corner” (Herman, Clem, Jake, Al); “The Letter Theme” (Tony, Marie); “Joey, Joey, Joey” (Joe); “Soon You Gonna Leave Me, Joe” (Tony); “Rosabella” (Tony); “Abbondanza” (Giuseppe, Pasqule, Ciccio); “Sposalizio” (All the Neighbors); “Special Delivery!” (Postman); “Benvenuta” (Giuseppe, Pasquale, Ciccio, Joe); “Don’t Cry” (Joe, Rosabella); Finale Act One Act Two: Prelude Act Two (Orchestra); “Fresno Beauties” (“Cold and Dead”) (The Workers, Rosabella, Joe); “Love and Kindness” (Doctor); “Happy to Make Your Acquaintance” (Rosabella, Tony, Cleo); “I Don’t Like This Dame” (Marie, Cleo); “Big ‘D’” (Cleo, Herman, All the Neighbors); “How Beautiful the Days” (Tony, Rosabella, Marie, Joe); “Young People (Gotta Dance)” (Marie, Tony, All the Young Neighbors); “Warm All Over” (Rosabella); “Old People” (Tony); “I Like Everybody” (Herman, Cleo); “I Know How It Is” (reprise) (Cleo); “I Love Him” (Rosabella); “Like a Woman Loves a Man” (Rosabella); “My Heart Is So Full of You” (Tony, Rosabella); “Hoedown” (Tony, Rosabella, All the Neighbors); “Mama, Mama” (Tony) Act Three: Prelude Act Three (Orchestra); “Abbondanza” (reprise) (Pasquale, Giuseppe, Ciccio); “Goodbye, Darlin’” (Cleo, Herman); “Song of a Summer Night” (Doctor, All the Neighbors); “Please Let Me Tell You” (Rosabella); “Tony’s Thoughts” (Tony); “She’s Gonna Come Home with Me” (Tony, Marie, Cleo); “I Made a Fist” (Herman, Cleo); Finale (Tony, Rosabella, The Whole Napa Valley) The current production of Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella was the fourth of six revivals of the richly melodic work, which was based on Sidney Howard’s 1924 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama They Knew What They Wanted. Coincidentally, the musical’s fifth revival opened later in the season (see entry), and so with two productions of Happy Fella and the hit revival of Guys and Dolls the Broadway season offered a mini-Loesser festival. The story focused on vineyard-owner Tony (Louis Quilico), a lonely middle-aged man who courts by mail a young San Francisco waitress named Amy, whom he christens Rosabella (Elizabeth Walsh). He saw her once in a restaurant, but she never noticed him and assumes from his letters he’s young and handsome because he’s included a photo of his hired hand Joe (Burke Moses). When Amy discovers the truth, she goes ahead

1991–1992 SEASON     59

with the marriage to Tony but goes to bed with Joe on her wedding night. She becomes pregnant by him, but the itinerant Joe takes off for the wide open spaces without ever knowing he fathered a child. When Tony discovers Amy deceived him, he banishes her from his home but soon realizes he loves her and must forgive her because, after all, her mistake was one of the head, not the heart. The nearly sung-through musical premiered at the Imperial Theatre on May 3, 1956, for 678 performances, and the rich score offered a wealth of soaring melody, including Tony and Rosabella’s explosively joyous “My Heart Is So Full of You”; the shimmering choral number “Song of a Summer Night”; Joe’s haunting “Joey, Joey, Joey”; the gorgeous quartet “How Beautiful the Days”; Rosabella’s yearning “Somebody, Somewhere”; Tony’s swirling and exultant “Rosabella”; and the lovely ballads “Don’t Cry” and “Warm All Over.” The story also included an Ado Annie and Will Parker-like subplot that dealt with Rosabella’s waitress-friend Cleo (Karen Ziemba) and vineyard hired hand Herman (Lara Teeter), and the two shared the hoedown “Big ‘D,’” a rambunctious salute to Dallas; Herman and his friends celebrated the joys of “Standing on the Corner,” a virile and easy-going barbershop-styled quartet; and “Ooh, My Feet” was Cleo’s comic lament about her chosen profession. The musical also included a trio of Italian chefs, Arthur Rubin (Giuseppe), Richard Byrne (Pasquale), and John Lankston (Ciccio), who stopped the show with their “Italian” crowd-pleaser “Abbondanza” (Rubin had created the role of Giuseppe in the original Broadway production). In his review of the current revival, Edward Rothstein in the New York Times said the work was “torn between genres and styles” and the result was “a mixture of the appealing and the disappointing, the high and the low, the genuine and the fake, the energetic and the world-weary.” And the score ran from the “Puccinian passion” of “My Heart Is So Full of You” to the groan-inducing “formulaic jesting” of “I Made a Fist.” As for the cast, Elizabeth Welch’s Rosabella came across like “a typical Broadway ingénue” with a “pert and accurate” but characterless soprano and Burke Moses’s Joe was “an amorphous cipher” who seemed to have “walked out of a Calvin Klein advertisement.” But Louis Quilico’s Tony was skillful and touching and his Italian accent was “unaffected and convincing,” and Karen Ziemba’s Cleo had “swagger, grainy brashness and brassy energy.” In reviewing the alternate cast for the same newspaper, James R. Oestreich said Michele McBride was an “attractive” Rosabella and John Fiorito’s Tony “had a certain rustic appeal overall.” For “Joey, Joey, Joey,” John Leslie Wolfe had to compete with the orchestra but otherwise “fared well vocally” and didn’t lapse into “narcissistic caricature,” and Joanna Glushak was a “fetching” Cleo, albeit her speech and singing “tested the sound system to its limits.” The musical’s first revival was presented by the New York City Center Light Opera Company at City Center on February 10, 1959, for sixteen performances (Norman Atkins and Paula Stewart were Tony and Amy), and the company later produced the work at City Center on May 11, 1966, for fifteen performances as part of a seasonal salute to Loesser (Atkins was again Tony, and Barbara Meister was Amy). The musical was revived on Broadway on October 11, 1979, at the Majestic Theatre for fifty-two performances (Giorgio Tozzi and Sharon Daniels) and this production was shown on public television on March 6, 1980. As mentioned, after the current revival the musical was again produced later in the season; and the New York City Opera Company brought back the work on March 7, 2006, for ten showings at the New York State Theatre (Paul Sorvino and Lisa Vroman). There was also a limited-engagement concert version given by Encores! on April 2, 2014, for seven performances (Shuler Hensley and Laura Benanti). The original London production opened at the Coliseum on April 21, 1960, for 288 showings (Inia Te Wiata and Helena Scott). The 1956 cast album was released on three LPs by Columbia Records (# OL-5120-22) and later issued on a two-CD set by Sony Broadway (# S2K-48010). A three-CD studio cast recording was released by Jay Records (# CDJAY3-1306) in 2000 and includes a number of songs written for but not used in the original production, including “I’ll Buy Everybody a Beer,” “Eyes Like a Stranger,” and “House and Garden” (the latter two numbers were reinstated for the 1979 revival). The singers for this recording include Louis Quilico and Karen Ziemba from the current revival, and Richard Muenz from the 1979 revival. The cast album of the London production was released by Angel Records (LP # 35887); the CD was later issued by Sepia Records (# 1154) and includes bonus tracks of eight pop recordings of songs from the score. The collection An Evening with Frank Loesser (DRG Records CD # 5169) includes a first act/first scene sequence with Maxene Andrews as Cleo and unidentified singers who perform “Ooh! My Feet!” as well as the unused songs “How’s about Tonight?,” “House and Garden,” “The Letter” (aka “Love Letter”), and “Wanting to Be Wanted.” The script was published in the October 1958 issue of Theatre Arts magazine, which is also an interesting issue because its cover features a photo of Barry Sullivan in costume from a scene in Leroy Anderson’s 1958

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musical Goldilocks. Sullivan assumed the role after Ben Gazzara dropped out (but not before flyers were distributed with Gazzara’s name), and soon after tryout performances began Sullivan himself left the production and was succeeded by Don Ameche. During the many years when Lucy and Ricky Ricardo lived in New York, they occasionally attended the theatre (and Lucy and Ethel memorably disrupted a performance of the fictitious drama Over the Teacups), and one time Lucy, Ricky, Fred, and Ethel went to a Broadway musical, and that musical was The Most Happy Fella (Desilu Productions was a silent partner in the production’s investment, and selections from the cast album were heard during the episode). Before seeing the show, Fred said he didn’t know anything about the plot, but given the show’s title it was clear the story was about a bachelor.

BARRY MANILOW’S SHOWSTOPPERS Theatre: Paramount Theatre Opening Date: September 25, 1991; Closing Date: September 28, 1991 Performances: 4 Spoken Material: Written by Mitzie Welch, Ken Welch, and Barry Manilow Direction: Kevin Carlisle; Producers: Kevin Carlisle, Ken Welch, Mitzie Welch, and Garry Kief; Scenery: Jim Youmans; Costumes: Phillip Dennis; Lighting: Don Holder; Musical Direction: Kevin Bassinson Cast: Barry Manilow; Singers: Kevin Brakett, Debra Byrd, Donna Cherry, Craig Meyer, Michelle Nicastro The concert was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers The musical selections probably varied from performance to performance, and a specific list of what was heard at each concert is unknown. The following is taken from Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers recording, which was released at the time of the concert presentation. Act One: “Give My Regards to Broadway” (Little Johnny Jones, 1904; lyric and music by George M. Cohan); “Overture of Overtures” (Orchestra): “All I Need Is the Girl” (Gypsy, 1959; lyric by Stephen Sondheim, music by Jule Styne); “Real Live Girl” (Little Me, 1962; lyric by Carolyn Leigh, music by Cy Coleman); “Where or When” (Babes in Arms, 1937; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers); “Look to the Rainbow” (Finian’s Rainbow, 1947; lyric by E. Y. Harburg, music by Burton Lane); “Once in Love with Amy” (Where’s Charley?, 1948; lyric and music by Frank Loesser); “Dancing in the Dark” (The Band Wagon, 1931; lyric by Howard Dietz, music by Arthur Schwartz); “You Can Have the TV” (Notes, 1977; lyric and music by Craig Carnelia); “I’ll Be Seeing You” (Right This Way, 1938; lyric by Irving Kahal, music by Sammy Fain); and “And the World Goes ’Round” (And the World Goes ’Round, 1991; first introduced in the 1977 film New York, New York; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander) Act Two: Medley from Guys and Dolls (1950; lyrics and music by Frank Loesser): “Fugue for Tinhorns” and “Luck Be a Lady”; “Old Friends” (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “The Kid Inside” (Is There Life after High School?, 1982; lyric and music by Craig Carnelia); “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like” (The Will Rogers Follies, 1991; lyric by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by Cy Coleman); “Bring Him Home” (Les Miserables, London, 1985; New York, 1987) (lyric by Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer, music by Jean-Michel Schonberg); “If We Only Have Love” (“Quand on n’on que l’amour”) (Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, 1968; lyric and music by Jacques Brel; English lyric by Mort Shuman and Eric Blau) Stephen Holden in the New York Times said the four-performance, limited-engagement concert was Barry Manilow’s “personalized crash course” in the “history of Broadway songwriting,” and the performer was a “genial, homey master of ceremonies.” But whereas Manilow’s new album Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers included a fifty-piece orchestra, the concert offered only “a small, cheesy” ensemble of synthesizers and a rhythm section. Holden reported the evening’s “funniest moment” was when Donna Cherry impersonated Julie Andrews, Cher, Dolly Parton, and Madonna singing Manilow’s popular song “Copacabana” (lyric by Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman, music by Manilow).

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Holden also mentioned that for the opening night Manilow and the cast performed various songs written or popularized by Manilow, including “Mandy” (lyric and music by Scott English and Richard Kerr), “Read ’Em and Weep” (lyric and music by Jim Steinman), “New York City Rhythm” (lyric and music by Manilow), “I Am Your Child” (lyric and music by Manilow), and “Somewhere in the Night” (lyric by Will Jennings, music by Richard Kerr). The album Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers was released by Arista Records (CD # 07822-18687-2); for “Look to the Rainbow” Manilow was joined by Barbara Cook, and for “Fugue for Tinhorns” the trio was sung by Michael Crawford, Hinton Battle, and Manilow. Manilow’s earlier Broadway appearances were Barry Manilow on Broadway at the Uris (now Gershwin) Theatre on December 21, 1976, for twelve performances and for which he won a special Tony Award, and Barry Manilow at the Gershwin on April 18, 1989, for forty-four performances. Manilow wrote the lyrics and music for the 1970 Off-Broadway musical The Drunkard, which opened at the 13th Street Theatre for fortyeight performances. The spoof was based on the 1844 melodrama and included songs in the public domain as well as new ones by Manilow (the program noted that the action took place in a humble cottage, a sylvan glade, a wooded grove, a rose-covered arbor, and a miserable garret). Manilow, Bruce Sussman, and Jack Feldman wrote Manilow’s hit “Copacabana,” and the three adapted the song into a 1985 television musical of the same name, which aired on CBS; in 1994, a London stage version premiered at the Prince of Wales Theatre for a run of more than two years; and in the early 2000s, a production of Copacabana toured the United States. Manilow also composed the score for the 1997 musical Harmony (book and lyrics by Sussman), which closed during its pre-Broadway tryout. The singer also appeared in Manilow on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on January 29, 2013, for twenty-five performances. The concert was the first production to play at the former Felt Forum, which had now been refurbished and renamed the Paramount Theatre. Holden said the 5,600-seat theatre was “an infinitely more attractive environment than its predecessor” and was “a modern, streamlined affair that offers a cordial if impersonal kind of grandiosity.”

ANDRE HELLER’S WONDERHOUSE Theatre: Broadhurst Theatre Opening Date: October 20, 1991; Closing Date: October 27, 1991 Performances: 9 English Text Adaptation: Mel Howard Music: Incidental music by Andrew Powell Direction: Andre Heller (Ivana De Vert, Assistant Director); Producers: Mel Howard in association with Jean D. Weill (Norman E. Rothstein, Executive Producer); Scenery: Andre Heller (Rideau de Scene designed by Erte); Costumes: Susanne Schmoegner; Lighting: Pluesch; Musical Direction: J. Leonard Oxley Cast: Billy Barty (Igor), Sadie Corre (Olga), Gunilla Wingquist (The Stagehand aka Gunilla Carina Evalena Winniwingquist); The Guests: Rao, Carlo Olds, Macao, Baroness Jeanette Lips Von Lipstrill, Omar Pasha (aka Ernest and Michele with Louis Oliver), Marion and Robert Konyot, Ezio Bedin, Milo and Roger The revue was presented in one act. The action takes place during the present time at the old Wonderhouse Theatre. The import Andre Heller’s Wonderhouse was a variety revue that had first been produced in Vienna, Berlin, and other European cities as Andre Heller’s Wintergarten Variete. It received mostly indifferent reviews in New York, closed after nine performances, and was the season’s shortest-running musical. The variety acts were part of a surprise birthday-party entertainment planned by Igor (Billy Barty) for the seventieth birthday of his wife Olga (Sadie Corre). The entertainers are Olga’s former show-business colleagues and are comprised of shadow artist Rao, clown Carlo Olds, paper sculptor Macao, whistler Baroness Jeanette Lips Von Lipstrill, black light puppeteers Omar Pasha (the overall name for Ernest and Michele, who appeared with their son Louis Oliver), comic dancers Marion and Robert Konyot, comic Ezio Bedin, and magicians Milo and Roger. The critics weren’t quite sure what to make of the unusual evening with its truly quirky company members. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the performers’ specialties (such as whistling, bell ringing, and paper cutting) were “extremely minor” and he suspected the evening was perhaps “too European for

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our tastes.” The overall effect was that of “small potatoes” because the Viennese tradition of variety artists was “too understated” for the “more high-powered entertainment” of Broadway. Mel Gussow in the New York Times found the performers’ talents “very limited” and suggested any one of them “might have been suitable as a warm-up routine for The Ed Sullivan Show.” The evening was a “time warp” where the audience was “trapped in a variety past,” and perhaps “the only wonder is that the show managed to get to Broadway.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the revue was “the real thing” with its “old-time novelty acts,” and if the show caught on she wondered if it would be perceived “as children’s show, as camp or [as] curiosity.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today found the revue “captivating,” but noted it was “difficult to know if audiences will have the patience” for such an “anachronistic, naïve and oddly corny” entertainment. It was certainly the “goofiest” show to open on Broadway in some time, and he described it as “a Fellini-esque Sugar Babies.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the revue was “fantastically good of its kind” with “superb but peculiar acts,” and he noted “the whole weird entertainment [is] suffused with its very special atmosphere, a blend of the gemutlich and the mildly sinister.” Winer reported that after Baroness Jeanette Lips Von Lipstrill whistled “Glow Little Glow Worm” and Jacques Offenbach’s “Barcarolle,” the Baroness yelled “Brava!” for herself, and comic Ezio Bedin imitated the sounds of a car as well as musical instruments in his rendition of “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” Barnes felt the “funniest” part of the evening was when dancers Marion and Robert Konyot presented a “divine adagio act combining deft ineptitude with geriatric verve,” and Stearns said the duo “hilariously fumble every fancy move they try to make.”

BRIGADOON Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: November 7, 1991; Closing Date: November 17, 1991 Performances: 12 Book and Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner Music: Frederick Loewe Direction: Gerald Freedman; Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Choreography: Agnes de Mille (choreography re-created by James Jamieson); Scenery and Costumes: Desmond Heeley; Lighting: Duane Schuler; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: John Leslie Wolfe (Tommy Albright), George Dvorsky (alternate for Tommy Albright), Tony Roberts (Jeff Douglas), Joan Mirabella (Maggie Anderson), William Ledbetter (Archie Beaton), Don Yule (Angus MacGuffie), Joyce Castle (Meg Brockie), Louisa Flaningam (alternate for Meg Brockie), Richard Byrne (Stuart Dalrymple), Gregory Moore (Sandy Dean), Scott Fowler (Harry Beaton), David Rae Smith (Andrew MacLaren), Michele McBride (Fiona MacLaren), Elizabeth Walsh (alternate for Fiona MacLaren), Camille de Ganon (Jean MacLaren), David Eisler (Charlie Dalrymple), Robert Tate (alternate for Charlie Dalrymple), Stephanie Gordino (Fish Monger), Ron Randall (Mr. Lundie); Sword Dancers: Joe Deer and William Ward; Stephen Fox (Bagpiper), Jonathan Guss (Frank), Leslie Farrell (Jane Ashton); The Townsfolk of Brigadoon: The New York City Opera Chorus and Dancers The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Brigadoon (a village in the Scottish Highlands) and in New York City during a recent May.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Once in the Highlands” (Chorus); “Brigadoon” (Chorus); “Down on MacConnachy Square” (Don Yule, William Ledbetter, Richard Byrne, Townsfolk); “Waitin’ for My Dearie” (Michele McBride, Girls); “I’ll Go Home with Bonnie Jean” (David Eisler, Townsfolk); “Dance” (Dancers); “The Heather on the Hill” (John Leslie Wolfe, Michele McBride); “Down on MacConnachy Square” (reprise) (Townsfolk); “The Love of My Life” (Joyce Castle); “Jeannie’s Packin’ Up” (Girls); “Come to Me, Bend to Me” (David Eisler); “Dance” (Camille de Ganon, Dancers); “Almost Like Being in Love” (John Leslie Wolfe, Michele

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McBride); “Wedding Dance” (Camille de Ganon, David Eisler, Dancers); “Sword Dance” (Joe Deer, William Ward) Act Two: “The Chase” (Men of Brigadoon); “There but for You Go I” (John Leslie Wolfe); “My Mother’s Weddin’ Day” (Joyce Castle, Townsfolk); “Funeral Dance” (Joan Mirabella); “From This Day On” (John Leslie Wolfe, Michele McBride); “Brigadoon” (reprise) (Chorus); “Come to Me, Bend to Me” (reprise) (Michele McBride); “The Heather on the Hill” (reprise) (Michele McBride); “I’ll Go Home with Bonnie Jean” (reprise) (David Eisler, Townsfolk); “From This Day On” (reprise) (Michele McBride, John Leslie Wolfe); “Down on MacConnachy Square” (reprise) (Townsfolk); Finale (Company) The New York City Opera Company’s production of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s musical fantasy Brigadoon was the company’s second of three revivals of the ethereal story of a magical Scottish village that comes to life every one hundred years (during each night, a century passes). By not remaining too long in any one century, the townsfolk remain untouched (and thus untainted) by any one period of time. But the magic spell will be broken if any villager steps beyond the prescribed boundaries of the town. Except for Harry Beaton (Scott Fowler), everyone is happy with this arrangement, but Harry finds Brigadoon his personal brig because his love for Jean MacLaren (Camille de Ganon) is unrequited and she plans to wed Charlie Dalrymple (David Eisler). When present-day New Yorkers Tommy Albright (John Leslie Wolfe) and Jeff Douglas (Tony Roberts) stumble upon Brigadoon, the former is immediately attracted to both the village and Fiona MacLaren (Michele McBride), Jean’s sister. For comic relief, Jeff is pursued by town hoyden Meg Brockie (Joyce Castle), who seems to have come to Scotland by way of Oklahoma, where she no doubt had been visiting her cousin Ado Annie. (But don’t waste your time, Meg, because Jeff doesn’t seem all that interested in the opposite sex.) Overwhelmed with rage by the nuptials of Jean and Charlie, Harry plans to destroy Brigadoon by crossing its boundary line, but he’s inadvertently shot and killed by Jeff, who has been hunting in the woods. Tommy and Jeff leave Brigadoon for New York, but a miracle occurs when Tommy returns to Brigadoon: the town awakes from its sleep and Tommy and Fiona are forever united. Edward Rothstein in the New York Times said Brigadoon had its “charms” but often “creaked at the hinges,” and he suggested that “most of the dramatic interest” was provided by Agnes de Mille’s choreography. John Leslie Wolfe sang the role of Tommy “without much life” because the theatre’s amplification system seemed to cut off his voice from his body; Michele McBride’s Fiona “had moments of charm”; Tony Roberts’ Jeff was droll; Joyce Castle’s Meg was “too stagey” and her Scottish accent “migrated, at times, to Sweden and Russia”; and Scott Fowler’s Harry “seemed a petulant rebel without a cause.” When toward the end of the musical Tommy returns to New York and his fiancée, Jane Ashton (Leslie Farrell), he discovers that everything reminds him of Brigadoon and every innocuous comment is the cue for a ghostly reprise (in discussing their marriage plans, Jane mentions she’s seen a house on a hill for sale, which leads to a reprise of “The Heather on the Hill,” and when she says, “Let’s go home,” the comment brings on a reprise of “I’ll Go Home with Bonnie Jean”). Rothstein said the staging of the parade of reprises caused many in the audience “to laugh uncontrollably,” and he was sure “there must be a way to avoid such moments of un-suspended disbelief.” (Perhaps future directors should observe how Vincente Minnelli managed to cleverly and briefly stage the sequence for the 1954 film version.) The musical first opened on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre on March 13, 1947, for 581 performances, and as of this writing has been revived ten times in New York. The first six visits were produced at City Center by the New York City Center Light Opera Company on May 2, 1950 (24 performances); March 27, 1957 (47 performances, which included a brief transfer to Broadway at the Adelphi Theatre); May 30, 1962 (16 performances); January 30, 1963 (15 performances); December 23, 1964 (17 performances); and December 13, 1967 (23 performances). The New York City Opera Company revived the work three times, all at the New York State Theatre; prior to the current production, the musical opened on March 1, 1986 (40 performances), and then was given for 14 performances beginning on November 13, 1996 (see entry for more information). The musical was lavishly and magnificently revived on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre on October 16, 1980, for a disappointing run of 133 performances. The original London production opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on April 14, 1949, and at 685 performances bested the original Broadway run by more than a hundred showings. The cast of the 1954 MGM adaptation included Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse, and there have been two television versions, one produced in the Netherlands and shown there on January 25, 1964, and the other presented by ABC on October 15, 1966.

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The script was published in hardback by Coward-McCann in 1947, a paperback edition was later issued in Great Britain by Chappell & Co., Ltd., and the original Broadway cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (LP # LOC/LSO-1001 and CD # 1001-2-RG). Of all the score’s recordings, the best is the studio cast version released by Columbia Records (LP # CL-1132 and later reissued on # OL-7040; the CD was issued by DRG Records # 19071). Sung by Jack Cassidy, Shirley Jones, Susan Johnson, and Frank Porretta, the album is more complete than the Broadway recording and includes “The Love of My Life,” “Jeannie’s Packin’ Up,” and “The Chase,” all of which went unrecorded at the time of the original Broadway cast album session. Although Brigadoon is an original story not credited to any specific source material, the musical’s basic premise forms the plot of Friedrich Gerstacker’s 1862 short story “Germelshausen.”

PETER PAN “The Musical”

Theatre: Minskoff Theatre Opening Date: November 27, 1991; Closing Date: January 5, 1992 Performances: 48 Book: The book of the musical has never been officially credited (some sources incorrectly cite James M. Barrie, who died seventeen years before the musical was produced), but Jerome Robbins is rumored to have been the show’s chief adaptor. Lyrics: Carolyn Leigh Music: Mark “Moose” Charlap Additional Lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green Additional Music: Jule Styne Based on the 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up by James M. Barrie. Direction: Fran Soeder (production “restaged” by Bill Bateman); Producers: Thomas P. McCoy and Keith Stava in association with P.P. Investments, Inc., and Jon B. Platt; Choreography: Marilyn Magness; Scenery: Michael J. Hotopp and Paul dePass (“Neverland” scenery by James Leonard Joy); Costumes: Mariann Verheyen; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Brian Tidwell Cast: Cindy Robinson (Wendy Darling, Jane), David Burdick (John Darling), Joey Cee (Michael Darling), Anne McVey (Liza), Bill Bateman (Nana), Lauren Thompson (Mrs. Darling, Grown-Up Wendy), J. K. Simmons (Mr. Darling, Captain Hook), Cathy Rigby (Peter Pan), Alon Williams (Curly), Janet Kay Higgins (First Twin), Courtney Wyn (Second Twin), Christopher Ayres (Slightly), Julian Brightman (Tootles), Don Potter (Mr. Smee), Calvin Smith (Cecco), Carl Packard (Gentleman Starkey), Barry Ramsey (Crocodile), Michelle Schumacher (Tiger Lily); Pirates and Indians: Bill Bateman, Andy Ferrara, Anne McVey, Charlie Marcus, Carl Packard, Barry Ramsey, Joseph Savant, Calvin Smith, David Thome, John Wilkerson The musical was presented in three acts. The action takes place early in the twentieth century in London and in Neverland. The current limited engagement of Peter Pan followed a production that had opened on Broadway in 1990. Both versions starred Cathy Rigby in the title role, and she appeared in two more Broadway revivals in 1998 and 1999 (see entry for the 1998 production, which incorporates information about the 1999 revival). For more information about the musical, including a list of musical numbers, see entry for the 1990 production.

CATSKILLS ON BROADWAY Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Opening Date: December 5, 1991; Closing Date: January 3, 1993 Performances: 452 Direction: Production supervised by Larry Arrick; Producers: Kenneth D. Greenblatt, Stephen D. Fish, and 44 Productions (Sandra Greenblatt, Associate Producer); Scenery: Lawrence Miller; Projection Design: Wendall K. Harrington; Lighting: Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Barry Levitt Cast: Freddie Roman, Marilyn Michaels, Mal Z. Lawrence, Dick Capri The revue was presented in one act.

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There were the Jewish jokes (including their most important subgenre, the Jewish mother jokes), the mother-in-law jokes, the my-wife-can’t-cook jokes, the Miami Beach jokes, the fat jokes, the diet jokes, the old-age jokes, and the Early Bird special jokes (and all were on the order of “I had a cholesterol test and it came back 911” and “I went on a water diet, two gallons a day, and my zipper rusted” and “I was mugged in the library and had to whisper ‘help’”). Yes, the Catskills were definitely on Broadway in an evening that transported rapturous audiences to the glory days of Grossinger’s, the Concord, and the Nevele, and the happy occasion ran for over a year. Cast members Freddie Roman, Marilyn Michaels, Mal Z. Lawrence, and Dick Capri even waxed nostalgic about the trip from the city to the resorts, including a stop at the Red Apple Restaurant, which served a special dessert of cubed Jell-o topped with whipped cream, and of course there were all those anti-Semitic highway workers who always worked on the highway (the borscht beltway?) and whose orange rubber cones forced the vacationers into one long lane of traffic. Just the mention of the Red Apple Restaurant, Loew’s Valencia movie palace, and other cultural signposts of the long-ago era of the 1950s and 1960s brought an audible sigh of happy nostalgia from audience members who fondly recalled the rites and rituals of the old days, and especially their annual pilgrimages to the mountain resorts of fresh air, endless food (including memories of those who wrapped a breakfast Danish into a napkin, “for later”), and, most importantly, the stand-up comics and singers who performed for them. The intermission-less evening was hosted by Freddie Roman, and he and each of his three fellow entertainers spent about thirty minutes apiece doing their welcome shtick. At the end of the evening, all four appeared together on stage and indulged in an over-the-top, can-you-top-this barrage of one-upmanship oneliners. This was nirvana, with symbolic knish and cold-glass-seltzer on the side. Actually, Dick Capri was Italian, not Jewish. But his ethnic humor fit right into the proceedings, and he was able to joke about subject matter his fellow comedians wouldn’t touch. So Capri noted that his ancestors had actually attended the Last Supper. The bad news: they weren’t seated at the main table and were relegated to Table Four. The good news: they won the floral centerpiece. He also noted that if there were Jewish soap operas one would be titled All My Children Are Too Busy to Call Me. Jan Stuart in New York Newsday praised the “authentic tribute to the sentimental and vulgar art of Catskills stand-up humor” and said to “forget Chanukah,” because the evening was “a religious experience” that saluted “a vanishing culture.” Mel Gussow in the New York Times said the comedians provided the “spritz of recognition” with their evening of “something familiar, and something entertaining” (accompanied by the background music of Stephen Sondheim’s “Comedy Tonight,” the show began with a photo montage of the old resorts with their celebrities and guests). Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said all the performers were “solid” with “a surefire ability to get laughs,” and noted the show’s title “tells you everything you need to know. No surprises, but a lot of fun.” In the same newspaper, Douglas Watt said the evening brought to mind Those Were the Days because the performers were the embodiment of an entertainment era that had all but vanished. Clive Barnes in the New York Post said when the revue was “good, it’s very, very good” but otherwise was “an object lesson on how mediocre got that way” (he praised Roman and Lawrence, but wasn’t much taken with Capri and Michaels). Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal stated Lawrence was “one of the funniest men alive,” and Joel Siegel on WABCTV7 said the show and its title were “exactly what you get” because some of the jokes had “150 years of experience on their own,” were “not the cutting edge of comedy,” and were “anti-hip.” Marilyn Michaels received mixed reviews. A few critics noted she was so good she didn’t have to introduce the performers she impersonated, and just first names were enough (Eydie, Ethel, Liz, Julie, Barbra, Zsa Zsa, Pearl, Dinah, and Vicki). She even gave an impression of Jackie (Mason), whose comic presence was the spiritual mentor of the evening, and Gussow said her “chef d’oeuvre” was her one-woman mini-version of The Wizard of Oz, which included impersonations of Judy Garland, Bert Lahr, Toto, the witches, and the Munchkins (Gussow noted that one of the latter sounded “suspiciously like Dr. Ruth”). Kissel said the Oz routine was “perfect,” but Stuart found it “miscalculated.” John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor said Michaels was “the star mimic of the occasion,” Watt praised the accuracy of her “vocal mannerisms,” and Gussow said she was “deft” and “daft” and of all the cast members hers was “the most individualized talent.” But Siegel thought she went through her routines “by rote” and Stuart disliked her “embarrassing indulgence.” Michaels was backed by a seven-piece band, and sang such sentimental favorites as “Friedele” and “Momela, Momela.” Catskills on Broadway was later recorded by Dove Audio Records (unnumbered CD) with the members of the original Broadway cast (with the exception of Michaels, who was succeeded by impressionist Louise Duart). A DVD of a performance at Harrah’s Casino Hotel in Atlantic City was released by White Star Video, and it too included Duart instead of Michaels.

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NICK & NORA “A New Musical”

Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: December 8, 1991; Closing Date: December 15, 1991 Performances: 9 Book: Arthur Laurents Lyrics: Richard Maltby Jr. Music: Charles Strouse Based on the characters created by Dashiell Hammett and The Thin Man films produced by MGM. Direction: Arthur Laurents; Producers: Terry Allen Kramer, Charlene and James M. Nederlander, Daryl Roth, and Elizabeth Ireland McCann in association with James Pentecost and Charlies Suisman; Choreography: Tina Paul (Luis Perez, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: Douglas W. Schmidt; Costumes: Theoni V. Aldredge; Lighting: Jules Fisher; Musical Direction: Jack Lee Cast: Riley (Asta), Joanna Gleason (Nora Charles), Barry Bostwick (Nick Charles), Christine Baranski (Tracy Gardner), Thom Sesma (Yukido), Kathy Morath (Mavis), Kristen Wilson (Delli, Waitress), Remak Ramsay (Max Bernheim), Chris Sarandon (Victor Moisa), Jeff Brooks (Spider Malloy), Faith Prince (Lorraine Bixby), Kip Niven (Edward J. Connors), Michael Lombard (Lieutenant Wolfe), Yvette Lawrence (Maria Valdez), Debra Monk (Lily Connors), Hal Robinson (Selznick), John Jellison (Msgr. Flaherty); Mariachi: Tim Connell and Kris Phillips The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Hollywood during 1937.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Is There Anything Better Than Dancing?” (Barry Bostwick, Joanna Gleason, Christine Baranski); “Everybody Wants to Do a Musical” (Christine Baranski); “Not Me” (Remak Ramsay, Faith Prince, Kip Niven); “Swell” (Barry Bostwick, Jeff Brooks, Joanna Gleason, Chris Sarandon); “As Long as You’re Happy” (Barry Bostwick, Joanna Gleason); “People Get Hurt” (Debra Monk); “Men” (Faith Prince, Chris Sarandon, Debra Monk, Christine Baranski); “May the Best Man Win” (Barry Bostwick, Joanna Gleason, Christine Baranski); “Detectiveland” (Company); “Look Who’s Alone Now” (Barry Bostwick) Act Two: “Class” (Chris Sarandon); “Beyond Words” (Joanna Gleason); “A Busy Night at Lorraine’s” (Barry Bostwick, Joanna Gleason, Jeff Brooks, Suspects); “Boom Chicka Boom” (Yvette Lawrence, Tim Connell, Kris Phillips); “Let’s Go Home” (Barry Bostwick, Joanna Gleason) Nick & Nora was one of the most disappointing musicals of the decade, and it crashed after nine weeks of notorious and publicity-filled New York previews and nine official performances. The idea of a clever murder-mystery musical with the beloved Thin Man detectives Nick and Nora Charles sleuthing and dancing away was a felicitous one, but almost every aspect of the musical missed the mark. The lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and the music by Charles Strouse offered some good moments and clever conceits (such as “Detectiveland”) but were generally bland, and the score’s would-be charm number (the opening “Is There Anything Better Than Dancing?”) only proved that Nick and Nora as played by Barry Bostwick and Joanna Gleason were no Fred and Ginger. Arthur Laurents’s direction was mostly listless, Tina Paul’s choreography negligible, Theoni V. Aldredge’s costumes surprisingly uninspired, and except for scenic designer Douglas W. Schmidt’s Technicolor explosion of a Hollywood sunset, the décor was mostly functional and uninteresting. Despite a reported budget of some $5 million, the musical looked undernourished, and Frank Rich in the New York Times noted that a production number that spoofed Carmen Miranda offered one singer who was “backed up by two—count ’em, two—dancers.” The newly created story by Laurents dealt with Nora’s friend and film actress Tracy (Christine Baranski), who asks the detective team to solve the murder of Lorraine (Faith Prince), a secretary at the studio. The crime must be solved and justice served if only because studio politics and the police might shut down Tracy’s latest movie. In a nod to feminists of the 1990s, Nora insists that Nick allow her to solve the mystery by herself, and, in an apparent salute to the 1980s movie Arthur, Nick enjoys drinking too much. And that was

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it. The book’s only real inspiration was to provide three reenactments of the murder from the perspectives of the three major, and culturally diverse, suspects, German movie director Max (Remak Ramsay), Italian gangster Victor (Chris Sarandon), and Mexican dancer Maria (Yvette Lawrence). For these Rashomon moments, Prince captured the spotlight as the thrice-murdered victim. And there were other suspects, too, including movie producer and womanizer Edward (Kip Niven), his stuffy Boston wife Lily (Debra Monk), the Japanese houseboy Yukido (Thom Sesma), and even a suspicious L.A. detective (Michael Lombard) who incessantly tells everyone he meets that his last name is “Wolfe with an e.” As for the cast, Bostwick and Gleason gave desultory and charmless performances. With such clowns as Debra Monk, Christine Baranski, and Faith Prince in the background, one hoped for some amusing secondbanana moments, but only Prince came through. Rich rightly predicted that “we can look forward to hearing a lot more from” Prince, and thanks to her “the liveliest thing in Nick & Nora is a corpse.” And later in the season Prince walked off with the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for the hit revival of Guys and Dolls (as of this writing, she has created two more roles in Broadway musicals, A Catered Affair (2008) and Disaster! (2016). As for Gleason, she too has created just one more musical role, for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005), and Nick & Nora is Bostwick’s most recent Broadway musical to date and also represents the last score Strouse has contributed to the New York stage. Another problem with the show was its time frame. Ostensibly set in 1937, the musical duly namedropped (Jean Harlow, Louella Parsons, Margaret Mitchell) but never seemed truly connected to the period. Nora’s feminist slant was out of place for the era, and the general attitudes and depictions of Tracy and Lorraine were less Thirties than late twentieth century. And would anyone in 1937 have complained that “Everybody Wants to Do a Musical”? Moreover, Carmen Miranda and the South American craze came along later, and so the Latin-American spoof (“Boom Chicka Boom”) would have been more at home in a 1940s Twentieth Century-Fox movie. Curiously, and despite its 1937 setting, a 1940s-styled musical number, and modern-day attitudes, the musical looked and seemed like a 1950s artifact. Joel Siegel on ABCTV7 told his viewers that the musical “isn’t as bad as you’ve heard—it’s worse,” and Asta wasn’t “the only dog on the stage.” The mystery was so “convoluted Ferdinand Magellan couldn’t follow it home,” there were “few real songs” but instead “mostly song fragments,” and despite the large stage of the Marquis Theater the show seemed to be played “on a postage stamp” with usually never more than four performers on view at any given moment. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the mystery was “so contrived” that even if Humphrey Bogart solved it, no one would care. The score was “brittle and slender,” the lyrics “rarely added interest” to the proceedings, the book was “charmless and zestless,” and even Riley in the role of Asta had “none of the canine je ne sais quoi that made you look forward to every entrance of, say, Sandy” (from Annie, Strouse’s other 1930s-era Broadway musical). In the same newspaper, Douglas Watt said the musical was a “colossal waste,” Laurents’s book was so “jerry-built and lifeless” that it was impossible to care about the story, and Bostwick and Gleason gave “the impression of having just met for the first time” and showed “even less interest in one another than Laurents has.” Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said that when Bostwick and Gleason sang “Let’s Go Home,” he “detected a strong sense of identification” among the audience members. The musical was “a ship without a rudder and a crew without a compass,” the plot was “impossible to follow,” and the “the songs, the story, [and] the characters are light years away” from the movie worlds inhabited by Nick and Nora and Fred and Ginger. Linda Winer in New York Newsday noted that the ads for the show proclaimed “A Murder. A Marriage. A Musical,” and she added “No miracles. A mess.” The show was “long, flat, and boring” with a “faceless” score that was “more like bridges to songs than songs themselves,” and Laurents filled the show with “L.A.-bashing,” “man-bashing,” and “L.A.-man-bashing.” Baranski lacked believability as the “glamorous, androgynous star,” and William A. Henry III in Time (whose review headline proclaimed “Bomb over Broadway”) noted the usually delicate and insightful Baranski “stomps about and grinds her jaw like a man in drag.” Henry found the show “a crashing bore” with its “cranky and arbitrary” love story, its “tedious and pointless” mystery, its “ham-handed” comedy, its “clubfooted” dances, and its “at best wanly pleasant music.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the musical didn’t “need work” but instead required “rethinking from the top up to the bottom down.” And if the show had “gone out of town for six months, stayed in previews until the millennium,” and was “polished until the sunshine shone through it,” the evening would still have been a “clinker.” But he praised Strouse’s score (“far better” than what Cy Coleman composed for City of Angels) and said Maltby’s lyrics were clever and apt.

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Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the musical was everything the MGM film series was not: Nick & Nora was “vulgar, ungainly, mean-spirited and witless” and had “astonishing coarseness.” The show had “more seams than a patchwork quilt” and “the Broadway death rattle can be heard in every inane turn of the plot and excuse for song.” The songs were “mostly derivative and instantly forgettable,” the direction and choreography were “stale and dreary,” and Bostwick and Gleason “appear to be sleepwalking through the show.” The headline of Edith Oliver’s New Yorker review was “Obituary,” and she noted “a flop of this dimension” included “forgettable” music, “unmemorable” lyrics, a “drab and witless” book and direction, “undistinguished” sets, and “unbecoming” costumes. Rich suggested the show wasn’t as bad as “they” said, but quickly added, “which is not to say that it is good.” Further, the production team might have “spent a little less time searching for the perfect Asta” and instead should have concentrated on finding “the right Nick and Nora” because if Bostwick and Gleason had what it takes “to ignite a star-centric Broadway musical, that incandescence is kept under a shroud.” He also noted that Laurents’s book was “talky,” and the subplot about Nick and Nora’s marital troubles was “shredded into confusion during revision,” and as a result, Sarandon’s “other man” character was “never coherently identified.” Katherine Ames (with Marc Peyser, Mary Talbot, and Maggie Malone) in Newsweek said that the show “falls flat” and that “with the exception of the stilted choreography, no element is terrible, but the show sits in the stomach like a bland pudding.” Newsweek also provided a detailed account of the musical’s arduous four-year birthing, including the mention of James Pentecost and Charles Suisman, who originated the idea of a musical look at The Thin Man stories in the first place, and playwright A. R. Gurney, who was to write the book. Gurney eventually backed out, as did Pentecost and Suisman, but the latter two were credited as associate producers. The Baltimore tryout was canceled, and the producers opted for a series of New York previews beginning on October 8 with an anticipated opening night of November 10. The premiere was of course postponed by one month until December 8, by which time the musical had given seventy-one previews to over 100,000 customers who had paid full-price for tickets to see a work in progress (Newsweek reported that the musical “changed almost nightly” and an estimated fifty-plus songs were written for the show). As previews dragged on, New York City’s Commissioner of Consumer Affairs became involved in the proceedings because the producers were charging the public for full-priced tickets without advertising that the show was still in previews and not in final shape. During an early reading of the musical, Bostwick, Gleason, and Prince played their eventual Broadway roles; others who were part of the reading were Laurents (Max), Maltby (Spider Malloy), Jane Summerhays (Tracy), Philip Casnoff (Victor), and Jennifer Smith (Maria). Songs presented during the reading that were dropped prior to opening night were: “Max’s Song,” “Quartet in Two Bars,” “You Don’t Take Me Seriously,” “Hollywood,” “People Like Us,” “Cocktails for One,” “Nick and Nora,” “The Road to Guadalajara,” and “Married Life” (“Quartet in Two Bars” was also heard during New York previews, and may have been an early title for the song “Swell”). Other songs dropped during New York previews were “There’s More” and “The Second Time We Met.” During previews, the role of Maria was played by Josie (aka Jossie) de Guzman, who was succeeded by Yvette Lawrence, but, like Prince, de Guzman bounced back later in the season with the revival of Guys and Dolls, in which she played the role of Sarah Brown and won a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. The cast album was recorded by That’s Entertainment Records (CD # CDTER-1191), and includes “Married Life,” which wasn’t part of the opening-night score.

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Score (lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and music by Charles Strouse)

THE MOST HAPPY FELLA Theatre: Booth Theatre Opening Date: February 13, 1992; Closing Date: August 30, 1992 Performances: 244

1991–1992 SEASON     69

Book, Lyrics, and Music: Frank Loesser Based on the 1924 play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard. Direction: Gerald Gutierrez; Producers: The Goodspeed Opera House, Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre, The Shubert Organization, and Japan Satellite Broadcasting/Stagevision (Sue Frost, Producing Associate); Choreography: Liza Gennaro (Ramon Galindo, Assistant to the Choreographer); Scenery: John Lee Beatty; Costumes: Jess Goldstein; Lighting: Craig Miller; Musical Direction: Tim Stella Cast: Tad Ingram (Cashier, Postman, Doctor), Liz Larsen (Cleo), Sophie Hayden (Amy aka Rosabella), Spiro Malas (Tony), Scott Waara (Herman), Bob Freschi (Clem), John Soroka (Jake), Ed Romanoff (Al), Claudia Catania (Marie), Bill Badolato (Max, Priest), Charles Pistone (Joe aka Joey), Mark Litito (Pasquale), Buddy Crutchfield (Ciccio), Bill Nabel (Giuseppe); The Folks of San Francisco and the Napa Valley: John Aller, Anne Allgood, Bill Badolato, Molly Brown, Kyle Craig, Mary Helen Fisher, Bob Freschi, Ramon Galindo, T. Doyle Leverett, Ken Nagy, Gail Pennington, Ed Romanoff, Jane Smulyan, John Soroka, Laura Streets, Thomas Titone, Melanie Vaughan; Tim Stella (Conductor and Pianist), Michael Rafter (Assistant Conductor and Pianist) The musical was presented in three acts. The action takes place in San Francisco and in the Napa Valley during 1927.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t list musical numbers. Frank Loesser’s 1956 musical The Most Happy Fella had been revived earlier in the season in a traditional, full-scale production by the New York City Opera Company (see entry for more information about this revival, a list of musical numbers, and general background about the show). The musical’s second staging of the season was an intimate one booked at the Booth, one of Broadway’s smallest theatres, and instead of a large orchestra (the 1956 production boasted thirty-five musicians in the pit) the revival included just two pianists and a cast of twenty-seven (as opposed to forty-nine in the original). But this version was an authorized one: in the early 1960s and under Loesser’s supervision, the musical was reorchestrated for two pianos by Robert Page, and so theatre companies interested in reviving the work had the option of choosing either traditional or small-scale stagings. In 1991, Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut, produced the first twin-piano version of the work, and the following year the show was presented on Broadway. In 1956, there was speculation about whether The Most Happy Fella was an opera instead of a traditional musical. In those days, many felt it was vitally important to pigeon-hole a hybrid musical that straddled both the worlds of opera and musical comedy, an argument that went back to 1935 with Porgy and Bess (to this day, Gershwin’s work still undergoes the old question of opera vs. musical). But it’s really Loesser himself who should have the final word about The Most Happy Fella: the program notes for the current revival indicate that he called the work “a musical comedy—with a lot of music.” Some questioned the reason for a scaled-down Fella, but now the point seems moot. Clearly, both fullscale and duo-piano productions of the work are viable if they’re done well. But one wouldn’t want a steady diet of intimate versions of musicals that were written big, and, in the name of artistic innovation, intimate stagings could actually become an excuse for producers to save on production costs. For all that, Fella wasn’t followed by modest presentations of other musicals, except for the happily brief trend in which the respective 2005 and 2006 revivals of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Company ditched the traditional orchestra (and even twin pianos) and instead employed the gimmick of having the performers act, sing, dance, and play musical instruments. In his review of the current production, Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said it was a relief to attend a musical without amplification and to be able “to hear every note, even whispered intimacies”; further, the love story itself benefited because it seemed “less contrived on this more personal scale.” John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor noted that the “musical reduction” suited “the intimacy of the Booth Theatre and proves eminently listenable.” David Ansen in Newsweek felt that what was lost in musical “lushness” was “more than compensated for by the intimacy and immediacy of the proceedings.” And Linda Winer in New York Newsday felt the new version was “infinitely more touching than the lumbering, regulation-sized”

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production seen earlier in the season.” Frank Rich in the New York Times said the small-scale version paid off with “a nonstop surge of passion,” but said he missed the “musical colors” of the original orchestrations and noted the twin-pianos now seemed “more out of place” on Broadway than they had at Goodspeed. But right after seeing the current production, he went home and played the original 1956 cast album and suddenly “for the first time” it seemed “a little heavy, a little hollow.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post admitted that the scaled-down orchestra was “kosher” because Loesser approved it, but he still thought “the lack of an orchestra is a serious loss.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said Spiro Malas’s Tony had just the right “ungainly” and “palooka look,” and because Sophie Hayden’s Rosabella wasn’t played as an ingénue she possessed a welcome “toughness” that was “more plausible” for the character. In the same newspaper, Douglas Watt said Malas was “the best Tony” in his experience; and Winer noted that Hayden played Rosabella not as an “ingénue with options” but as a “pleasantly no-nonsense woman” with “just the right combination of awe and suspicion.” The original cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-61294-2).

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (The Most Happy Fella); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Sophie Hayden); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Scott Waara); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Liz Larsen)

CRAZY FOR YOU

“The New GERSHWIN Musical Comedy” Theatre: Shubert Theatre Opening Date: February 19, 1992; Closing Date: January 7, 1996 Performances: 1,622 Book: Ken Ludwig (inspired by material by Guy Bolton and John McGowan) Lyrics: Ira Gershwin Music: George Gershwin Direction: Mike Ockrent (Steven Zweigbaum, Associate Director); Producers: Roger Horchow and Elizabeth Williams (Richard Godwin and Valerie Gordon, Associate Producers); Choreography: Susan Stroman; Scenery: Robin Wagner; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Paul Gallo; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: Beth Leavel (Tess), Stacey Logan (Patsy), Harry Groener (Bobby Child), Bruce Adler (Bela Zangler), Judine Hawkins Richard (Sheila), Paula Leggett (Mitzi), Ida Henry (Susie), Jean Marie (Louise), Penny Ayn Maas (Betsy), Salome Mazard (Margie), Louise Ruck (Vera), Pamela Everett (Elaine), Michele Pawk (Irene Roth), Jane Connell (Mother), Gerry Burkhardt (Perkins, Custus); The Manhattan Rhythm Kings: Brian M. Nalepka (Moose), Tripp Hanson (Mingo), and Hal Shane (Sam); Casey Nicholaw (Junior), Fred Anderson (Pete), Michael Kubala (Jimmy), Ray Roderick (Billy), Jeffrey Lee Broadhurst (Wyatt), Joel Goodness (Harry), Jodi Benson (Polly Baker), Ronn Carroll (Everett Baker), John Hillner (Lank Hawkins), Stephen Temperley (Eugene), Amelia White (Patricia); Ensemble: Fred Anderson, Jeffrey Lee Broadhurst, Gerry Burkhardt, Pamela Everett, Joel Goodness, Tripp Hanson, Ida Henry, Michael Kubala, Paula Leggett, Stacey Logan, Penny Ayn Maas, Jean Marie, Salome Mazard, Brian M. Nalepka, Casey Nicholaw, Judine Hawkins Richard, Ray Roderick, Louise Ruck, Hal Shane The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the 1930s in New York City and Deadrock, Nevada.

Musical Numbers Act One: “K-ra-zy for You” (Treasure Girl, 1928) (Harry Groener); “I Can’t Be Bothered Now” (1937 film A Damsel in Distress) (Harry Groener, Girls); “Bidin’ My Time” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Tripp Hanson, Brian M.

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Nalepka, Hal Shane); “Things Are Looking Up” (1937 film A Damsel in Distress) (Harry Groener); “Could You Use Me?” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Harry Groener, Jodi Benson); “Shall We Dance?” (1937 film Shall We Dance) (Harry Groener, Jodi Benson); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (Oh, Kay!, 1926) (Jodi Benson); “Slap That Bass” (1937 film A Damsel in Distress) (Harry Groener, Brian M. Nalepka, Beth Leavel, Stacey Logan, Company); “Embraceable You” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Jodi Benson, Harry Groener); “Tonight’s the Night” (written for, but not used in, Show Girl [1929]); lyric by Ira Gershwin and Gus Kahn) (Company); “I Got Rhythm” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Jodi Benson, Harry Groener, Company) Act Two: “The Real American Folk Song (Is a Rag)” (Ladies First, 1918) (Tripp Hanson, Brian M. Nalepka, Hal Shane); “What Causes That?” (Treasure Girl, 1928) (Harry Groener, Bruce Adler); “Naughty Baby” (British musical Primrose, 1924) (lyric by Ira Gershwin and Desmond Carter) (Michele Pawk, John Hillner); “Stiff Upper Lip” (1937 film A Damsel in Distress) (Harry Groener, Jodi Benson, Stephen Temperley, Amelia White, Company); “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” (1937 film Shall We Dance) (Harry Groener); “But Not for Me” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Jodi Benson); “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (1937 film A Damsel in Distress) (Harry Groener, Girls); Finale (Company) Like the earlier My One and Only (1983) and the later Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012), Crazy for You was a George and Ira Gershwin catalog musical that wedded many of the team’s songs to a new story line. In this case, the Gershwins’ hit 1930 show Girl Crazy was the inspiration, if only because both musicals centered on an Easterner who goes West and because the new show included five songs from the earlier one (the program for Crazy for You indicated the book was “inspired by material” written by Guy Bolton and John McGowan, the librettists of Girl Crazy). Britisher Mike Ockrent provided the fast-moving and breezy direction of the lavish $7.5 million production, and in tone and sensibility the show was reminiscent of his hit revival of Me and My Girl, another bright and fizzy look at the 1930s. Ken Ludwig’s new and bubbly book for Crazy for You provided just the right amount of, yes, kr-ra-zy glue to hold the show together and showcase a number of glorious Gershwin songs set to dazzling production numbers devised by Susan Stroman, here making her Broadway debut as a choreographer. Ludwig’s fast-moving book included quirky characters, a pile of corny but welcome jokes, a flat-out funny and surprising first-act curtain, and a two-man “impersonation”-cum-drunk scene that was reminiscent of the Marx Brothers at their maddest. (There was also an amusing piece of business performed with impeccable timing that involved a handheld printing press that punctuated the dialogue between two characters, but unfortunately the sequence was dropped soon after the first tryout preview performance.) The story focused on New York City playboy Bobby (Harry Groener) who has no interest in either his family’s banking business or his stuffy fiancée, Irene (Michele Pawk), and would rather be in show business and frolic about with showgirls (in splendid musical comedy fashion, from the interior of his limousine a dozen chorines magically emerge in a pink cloud of frills and feathers and join him in a tap dance to the jaunty and blasé “I Can’t Be Bothered Now”). But business demands that Bobby travel to Deadrock, Nevada, to foreclose on the Gaiety Theatre, whose owner, Everett Baker (Ronn Carroll), is behind in mortgage payments. Once there, it’s love-at-first-sight when Bobby meets Polly (Jodi Benson), and when he discovers she’s Baker’s daughter, he poses as famous theatrical producer Bela Zangler, even down to the impresario’s beard, cane, and Middle-European accent, and announces that he intends to produce a show in Deadrock in order to save the theatre. Irene soon follows Bobby to Deadrock, but this potentially volatile situation resolves itself when she meets local boy Lank (John Hillner), and it’s hate-at-first-sight. The two enter into what promises to be a mutually satisfying sadomasochistic relationship as they go into an apache-styled staging of “Naughty Baby” and engage in put-down dialogue (She: “I didn’t come here to be insulted!” He: “Well, where do you usually go?”). One suspects that the overlooked but delightful “Treat Me Rough” from the original Girl Crazy would have worked well for the Irene and Lank subplot, but the substitution of “Naughty Baby” was nonetheless one of the show’s highlights. Further complications arise when the real Bela Zangler (Bruce Adler) shows up in Deadrock, and as he makes his entrance he faints dead away from heat exhaustion as the first act curtain falls. In the second act, the real (and tipsy) Zangler and the equally tipsy Bobby-as-Zangler “meet” but don’t quite realize what’s going on in their mutual double-vision hangover, but nonetheless they manage to make merry with the delightful duet “What Causes That?” As the put-upon Zangler, Adler gave the best performance of the evening and in cantorial fashion intoned “Bela, Bela, Bela” whenever he had to face an oy vey moment.

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Despite a stack of misunderstandings, Bobby and Polly are reunited at the musical’s end and star in the new show at the Gaiety, albeit in a production more lavish and glamorous than anything ever seen on Broadway. If Adler gave the best performance, it was Stroman who was the star of the evening with her inventive dances. As the critics noted, stage props were her specialty and many of her dance routines incorporated them. As mentioned, the chorines poured out of Bobby’s limo for “I Can’t Be Bothered Now”; for “I Got Rhythm,” the cast members used conveniently-at-hand items (including mining picks, pots and pans, and hub caps) to prove they got rhythm; for “Stiff Upper Lip” (in a tongue-in-cheek nod to the barricade in Les Miserables and the chairs in Grand Hotel) the cast slowly but surely built a mountain of chairs as they sang and danced; and for “Slap That Bass,” the chorus girls became human musical instruments with handheld ropes for strings, which the cowboys then plucked (today, this number would no doubt be considered sexist, and considering that the “cow girl” sequence in the previous year’s The Will Rogers Follies drew criticism, it’s surprising that “Slap That Bass” got a pass from the politically correct police). It was clear from the musical’s first tryout performance at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., that the show was going to be a winner. The audience fairly swooned with delight as they watched an inspired, savvy, and ingeniously produced musical with old-fashioned Broadway know-how. Back then, standing ovations were rare, but for the first preview performance the audience stood, cheered, and whistled. After the debacles of Annie 2, Shogun, and countless other disappointments, here was a show in which Broadway professionalism sparkled like a diamond. Frank Rich in the New York Times got it right in his prediction that Crazy for You marked the “exact moment” when “Broadway finally rose up to grab the musical back from the British” with “a freshness and confidence rarely seen during the Cats decade.” Here was a show “bursting with original talent” that “sassily rethinks the American musical tradition,” and Ludwig’s book was “a model of old-school musical-comedy construction in its insistence on establishing a context, whether narrative, comic or emotional, for every song.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the “firecracker of a show” had a “fizzy” book, “whimsical” décor, and “the choreography of your dreams.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the “scrumptious” musical was “an explosion of joy” and noted that “Slap That Bass” was “the most inventive of a host of exhilarating dance numbers.” In the same newspaper, Douglas Watt liked the “exhilarating” musical with its “marvelously inventive” dances. John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor said the “season’s merriest musical so far” traveled from New York City to Deadrock and back, and “a more enjoyable round trip would be hard to imagine.” Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal enjoyed the “exuberant” evening with its “energetic” and “clever” dances. Jack Kroll in Newsweek said Ludwig took the book of Girl Crazy and “mutated it into something so transcendentally absurd that it becomes pure joy” and that Stroman’s choreography “reclaims the primal energy of the embattled American musical.” And Clive Barnes in the New York Post said Crazy for You will “have audiences crazy for it through a blissfully indefinite future” because it possessed “all the markings and all the air” of “a considerable Broadway hit.” But William A. Henry III in Time was cool to the show. While it was “pleasant” and had “imaginative” choreography, the narrative was “slow,” the jokes “obvious,” the characters “completely undefined,” and the performances “mediocre.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the show “will do for now,” and noted it was a “mixed blessing” with its “creaky” story and “really stupid” jokes. But Stroman’s dances were the evening’s “real life preserver” and she filled the stage “with big, acrobatic, imaginative movement that makes you feel better about the future of gypsies on Broadway again.” The Broadway cast album was released by Broadway Angel Records (CD # CDC-7-54618-2), and a Paper Mill Playhouse (Millburn, New Jersey) revival of the musical was shown on public television on October 20, 1999, with Jim Walton, Stacey Logan, and Bruce Adler reprising his Broadway role. The London production opened on March 3, 1993, at the Prince Edward Theatre for a three-year run with Kirby Ward and Ruthie Henshall in the leads, and the cast recording was released by First Night Records (CD # FN-37); the cast album of a 1997 Japanese production was released by Pony Canyon Records (CD # PCCH00068); and a 1999 Warsaw production at the Teatr Muzyczny Roma was also issued on CD.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Crazy for You); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Harry Groener); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Jodi Benson); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Bruce Adler);

1991–1992 SEASON     73

Best Director of a Musical (Mike Ockrent); Best Book (Ken Ludwig); Best Costume Designer (William Ivey Long); Best Lighting Designer (Paul Gallo); Best Choreographer (Susan Stroman)

FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE “A Musical”

Theatre: Eugene O’Neill Theatre Opening Date: April 8, 1992; Closing Date: May 2, 1993 Performances: 445 Book: Clarke Peters Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits. Direction and Choreography: Charles Augins; Producers: Cameron Mackintosh (Richard Jay-Alexander, Executive Producer); Scenery: Tim Goodchild; Costumes: Noel Howard; Lighting: Andrew Bridge; Musical Direction: Reginald Royal Cast: Jerry Dixon (Nomax), Doug Eskew (Big Moe), Milton Craig Nealy (Four-Eyed Moe), Kevin Ramsey (No Moe), Jeffrey D. Sams (Eat Moe), Glenn Turner (Little Moe) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the present time.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Early in the Morning” (lyric and music by Louis Jordan, Leo Hickman, and Dallas Bartley) (Jerry Dixon); “Five Guys Named Moe” (lyric and music by Larry Wynn and Jerry Bresler) (Kevin Ramsey, Jerry Dixon, Other Moes); “Beware, Brother, Beware” (lyric and music by Morry Lasco, Dick Adams, and Fleecie Moore) (Doug Eskew, Other Moes); “I Like ’Em Fat Like That” (lyric and music by Claude Demetriou and Louis Jordan) (Glenn Turner, Other Moes); “Messy Bessy” (lyric and music by Jon Hendricks) (Kevin Ramsey, with Milton Craig); “Pettin’ and Pokin’” (lyric and music by Lora Lee) (All Moes); “Life Is So Peculiar” (1950 film Mr. Music; lyric by Johnny Burke, music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Jeffrey D. Sams, Craig Nealy, Jerry Dixon, Other Moes); “I Know What I’ve Got” (lyric and music by Sid Robin and Louis Jordan) (Jerry Dixon); “Azure te” (lyric and music by Bill Davis and Don Wolf) (Craig Nealy); “Safe, Sane and Single” (lyric and music by Louis Jordan, Johnny Lange, and Hy Heath) (All Moes, Jerry Dixon); “Push Ka Pi Shi Pie” (lyric and music by Joe Willoughby, Louis Jordan, and Doctor Walt Merrick) (All Moes) Act Two: “Push Ka Pi Shi Pie” (instrumental reprise); “Saturday Night Fish Fry” (lyric and music by Ellis Walsh and Louis Jordan) (All Moes); “What’s the Use of Getting Sober (When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again)” (lyric and music by Busby Meyers) (Jerry Dixon, Doug Eskew); “If I Had Any Sense” (lyric and music by Rose Marie McCoy and Charles Singleton) (Jerry Dixon); “Dad Gum Your Hide Boy” (lyric and music by Browley Guy Jr.) (Kevin Ramsey, Glenn Turner, Jeffrey D. Sams, Other Moes); The Cabaret— “Five Guys Named Moe” (reprise) (All Moes); “Let the Good Times Roll” (lyric and music by Fleecie Moore and Sam Theard) (Kevin Ramsey, Other Moes); “Reet, Petite and Gone” (lyric and music by Spencer Lee and Louis Jordan) (Kevin Ramsey, Other Moes); “Caldonia” (lyric and music by Fleecie Moore) (Doug Eskew, Audience); “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens” (lyric and music by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer) (Kevin Ramsey, Craig Nealy); “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” (lyric and music by Jo Greene) (Jeffrey D. Sams); “Choo, Choo, Ch’Boogie” (lyric and music by Vaughn Horton, Denver Darling, and Milton Gabler) (Craig Nealy, Glenn Turner); and “Look Out, Sister” (lyric and music by Sid Robin and Louis Jordan) (Craig Nealy, Other Moes); Medley—“Hurry Home” (lyric and music by Joseph Meyer, Buddy Bernier, and Robert Emmerich) (All Moes, Jerry Dixon); “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” (1944 film Follow the Boys; lyric and music by Billy Austin and Louis Jordan) (All Moes); “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” (reprise) (All Moes); and “Five Guys Named Moe” (reprise) (All Moes) The London import Five Guys Named Moe was another black composer tribute revue, this time to Louis Jordan (1908–1975). But by this time the pickings were getting thin. Broadway had seen Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1978; Thomas “Fats” Waller), Eubie! (1979; Eubie Blake), and Sophisticated Ladies (1980; Duke Ellington),

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and a tribute to Jordan seemed something of a stretch because his musical output didn’t match the material written and/or popularized by Waller, Blake, and Ellington. In fact, going into the show some audience members probably thought Jordan was Louis Jourdan, the French actor. One suspects the revue-like musical of six performers and seven musicians might have been better served as a downtown cabaret act rather than a full-fledged Broadway production. The evening’s hook was groan inducing. A young man named Nomax (Jerry Dixon) has broken up with his girlfriend and sits at home listening to the radio and feeling sorry for himself. Suddenly, the voices on the radio materialize into five guys named Moe: Big Moe (Doug Eskew), Four-Eyed Moe (Milton Craig Nealy), No Moe (Kevin Ramsey), Eat Moe (Jeffrey D. Sams), and Little Moe (Glenn Turner). The quintet offers advice to Nomax via songs written or popularized by Jordan, and there were also sequences when all the Moes donned drag or wore chicken suits. And all this was punctuated with audience-participation moments, and so sheet music floated down from the ceiling and the audience was asked to sing “Caldonia” with the cast; toward the end of the first act, audience members were invited to conga down the aisles and onto the stage for “Push Ka Pi Shi Pie”; and then, for a thirty-minute intermission, to buy drinks in a special bar and restaurant named MOE’s, which was conveniently located off the theatre lobby. And halfway through the second act, what there was of the thin story line morphed into a special cabaret act, which is probably what the show should have been all along. After the final curtain, the audience was again invited to make purchases at the bar (the program notes explained that “the show may be over, but the party continues at MOE’s”). Frank Rich in the New York Times mentioned that most musicals wanted to make you laugh or think, but Five Guys Named Moe just wanted to sell you a drink. And something was “seriously, discomfortingly wrong” with the “peculiar” revue with its “monotonously cheery” song delivery (except for the ballads, which were sung with “completely expressionless crooning”) and a band “that even Doc Severinsen might find lacking in funk.” Rich mentioned that former Miss Saigon star Jonathan Pryce joined the conga line, and although Rich couldn’t prove it, he suspected that some of the conga-line participants were “not past or present employees” of the revue’s producer Cameron Mackintosh. Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News said the cast couldn’t hide the “vacuity” of the production, and he commented that the applause after each number was “as solid and precisely timed as if it were canned or came from a clique that had been trained during rehearsals, though we know such things aren’t done.” In the same newspaper, Howard Kissel said the evening was “monotonously high-spirited” and noted that Jordan’s songs had “very little range or sophistication” with generally “simple” music and “banal” lyrics. For Linda Winer in New York Newsday, the revue was “a lot like being alone at a party” in which an overall “unrelenting eager-to-please” attitude assaults you into having “a good time, damn it.” And Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the show was an “undemanding entertainment for people demanding to be undemandingly entertained,” there was “more perspiration than inspiration,” and the material was mostly bland. But Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said the revue was “full throttle, all-out jumpin’ and jivin,’” and David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the show’s “fun” was “so contagiously good-natured you just don’t want to leave.” John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor also praised the “holiday treat,” while William A. Henry III in Time liked the “slight, sometimes silly but absolutely joyful experience, larkish and lighthearted and a bit like running around with a lampshade on your head.” The musical was first presented in Britain at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, and it opened in London at the Lyric Theatre on December 14, 1990, for a four-year run. The London cast album was issued by First Night Records (CD # CAST-23), and the Broadway cast album was released by Columbia Records (CD # 52999).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Five Guys Named Moe); Best Book (Clarke Peters)

GUYS AND DOLLS “A Musical Fable

of

Broadway”

Theatre: Martin Beck Theatre Opening Date: April 14, 1992; Closing Date: January 6, 1995

1991–1992 SEASON     75

Performances: 1,144 Book: Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows Lyrics and Music: Frank Loesser; dance music by Mark Hummel Based on various characters in short stories by Damon Runyon, including “Blood Pressure” (1930) and “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown” (1933). Direction: Jerry Zaks; Producers: Dodger Productions, Roger Berlind, Jujamcyn Theatres/TV ASAHI, Kardana Productions, and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (David Strong Warner, Inc., Executive Producer) (Playhouse Square Center and David B. Brode, Associate Producers); Choreography: Christopher Chadman (Linda Haberman, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: Tony Walton; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Paul Gallo; Musical Direction: Edward Strauss Cast: Walter Bobbie (Nicely-Nicely Johnson), J. K. Simmons (Benny Southstreet), Timothy Shew (Rusty Charlie), Josie (aka Jossie) de Guzman (Sarah Brown), John Carpenter (Arvide Abernathy), Eleanor Glockner (Agatha), Leslie Feagan (Calvin), Victoria Clark (Martha), Ernie Sabella (Harry the Horse), Steve Ryan (Lieutenant Brannigan), Nathan Lane (Nathan Detroit), Michael Goz (Angie the Ox, Joey Biltmore), Faith Prince (Miss Adelaide), Peter Gallagher (Sky Masterson), Stan Page (Hot Box MC), Denise Faye (Mimi), Ruth Williamson (General Matilda B. Cartwright), Herschel Sparber (Big Jule), Robert Michael Baker (Drunk), Kenneth Kantor (Waiter); Guys: Gary Chryst, R. F. Daley, Randy Andre Davis, David Elder, Cory English, Mark Esposito, Leslie Feagan, Carlos Lopez, John MacInnis, Scott Wise; Dolls: Tina Marie DeLeone, Denise Faye, JoAnn M. Hunter, Nancy Lemenager, Greta Martin, Pascale Faye-Williams The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City and Havana.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Runyonland” (Company); “Fugue for Tinhorns” (Walter Bobbie, J. K. Simmons, Timothy Shrew); “Follow the Fold” (Josie de Guzman, John Carpenter, The Mission Band); “The Oldest Established” (Nathan Lane, Walter Bobbie, J. K. Simmons, Ensemble); “I’ll Know” (Josie de Guzman, Peter Gallagher); “A Bushel and a Peck” (Faith Prince, The Hot Box Girls); “Adelaide’s Lament” (Faith Prince); “Guys and Dolls” (Walter Bobbie, J. K. Simmons); “Havana” (Ensemble); “If I Were a Bell” (Josie de Guzman); “My Time of Day” (Sky Masterson); “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” (Peter Gallagher, Josie de Guzman) Act Two: “Take Back Your Mink” (Faith Prince, The Hot Box Girls); “Adelaide’s Lament” (reprise) (Faith Prince); “More I Cannot Wish You” (John Carpenter); “The Crapshooters’ Dance” (Ensemble); “Luck Be a Lady” (Peter Gallagher, The Crapshooters); “Sue Me” (Faith Prince, Nathan Lane); “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” (Walter Bobbie, Ensemble); “Marry the Man Today” (Faith Prince, Josie de Guzman); “Guys and Dolls” (reprise) (Company) The lavish and faithful revival of Frank Loesser’s 1950 classic Guys and Dolls marked the season’s third production of a musical by the composer and lyricist (see entries for the two revivals of The Most Happy Fella) and with the Gershwin catalog musical Crazy for You was a welcome example of professional Broadway at its best. These shows of course revived old music and the season itself didn’t offer a memorable new score, but everyone felt that at least old-time Broadway showmanship was back on track after a disastrous run of mostly inept and forgettable musicals (the era provided a few happy exceptions, such as Cy Coleman’s delightful The Will Rogers Follies, but unfortunately shows of the Nick & Nora variety were the norm). For the revival of Guys and Dolls, director Jerry Zaks and choreographer Christopher Chadman created a fast-moving tribute to a nostalgic New York City that never was. The show’s book was always a bit wordy, but Zaks and Chadman sped the action along, and Tony Walton’s décor provided a rainbow-hued Broadway neverland. The four leads were praised, and while Peter Gallagher and Josie de Guzman were adequate, they didn’t quite provide the romantic mood their characters called for. (Nathan) Lane’s (Nathan) Detroit was fine if a bit remote, and, while winning enough, Faith Prince’s Miss Adelaide sometimes seemed to be working at the Hot Box Drag Club. Despite an occasional quibble, the New York critics were delighted with the revival: “a winner, a show that is pure, exuberant entertainment from start to finish” (Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal); a “whirligig of razzmatazz enchantment” (Clive Barnes in the New York Post); “a flawless production” (Douglas Watt in

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the New York Daily News); “a funny, gaudy, dance-happy, meticulously detailed comic book” (Linda Winer in New York Newsday); “the best musical comedy ever” is now even “ better” (Joel Siegel on WABCTV7); “not consistently top-notch, but has enough excellence—and where not that, solid competence—to give you a lasting high” (John Simon in New York); “a revival to treasure” (Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News); “arguably the best American musical” (Jack Kroll in Newsweek); “one of the fun musical comedy experiences of the season, but you sense the show’s need to entertain at any cost overrode any intelligent interpretation of the story” (David Patrick Stearns in USA Today); “the finest blend of memorable tunes, witty and yet in-character lyrics, robust humor, tender romance, streetwise sass and overall style that the American musical theatre has ever produced” (William A. Henry III in Time); and “another Broadway generation will one day find a different, equally exciting way to re-imagine this classic. But in our lifetime? Don’t bet on it” (Frank Rich in the New York Times). Rich found Gallagher “heaven-sent,” and Barnes said he was “strong-voiced.” Wilson said Lane “was born to play” Nathan Detroit, and Kroll liked his “lovable Looney Tunes” performance. Henry praised the “bellvoiced” de Guzman, and Rich said her singing “peals joyously as well as tipsily” in “If I Were a Bell.” And Kroll found Prince an “exploding star,” Beaufort said she was “a musical-comedy comedienne extraordinary,” and Winer said she gave “one of those old-style, over-the-top Broadway performances that declares an actor a very big theatre star.” The original Broadway production opened at the 46th Street (now Richard Rodgers) Theatre on November 24, 1950, for 1,200 performances and won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Direction, Best Choreography, Best Book, and Best Score. The show also won the New York Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical. Besides the current production, the musical has been revived in New York five times. The first three presentations were seen at City Center by the New York City Center Light Opera Company (April 20, 1955, 31 performances; April 28, 1965, 15 performances; and June 8, 1966, 23 performances); in a fascinating bit of casting, the 1955 revival included Walter Matthau (Nathan Detroit) and Helen Gallagher (Miss Adelaide). An all-black revival opened on July 21, 1976, at the Broadway Theatre for 239 showings, and the most recent visit opened on March 1, 2009, at the Nederlander Theatre for 121 performances. The original London production opened on May 28, 1953, at the Coliseum for 555 performances, and the overlong and talky but reasonably faithful film version was released by Samuel Goldwyn in 1955 with Marlon Brando (Sky Masterson), Jean Simmons (Sarah Brown), Frank Sinatra (Nathan Detroit), and Vivian Blaine, who reprised her original Broadway role of Miss Adelaide (she also appeared in the 1966 New York revival and in the original London production). For the film version, Loesser wrote three new songs, “Adelaide,” “(Your Eyes Are the Eyes of a) Woman in Love,” and “Pet Me, Poppa.” There are numerous recordings of the score, but the definitive one is the original Broadway cast album released by Decca Records (LP # DL-8036) and later on CD by Decca Broadway (# 012-159-112-2). For the collection An Evening with Frank Loesser (DRG Records CD # 5169), Loesser sings six numbers from the original production, “Fugue for Tinhorns” (with Milton Delugg and Sue Bennett), “I’ll Know,” “Luck Be a Lady,” “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” and “Sue Me” (the latter in a solo version); one song dropped during the original’s tryout (“Traveling Light”); and one song written for the film version (“Adelaide”). The two-CD studio cast recording by Jay Records (# CDJAY2-1294) includes Emily Loesser (the lyricist and composer’s daughter, here in the role of Sarah Brown), Gregg Edelman (Sky Masterson), Kim Criswell (Miss Adelaide), and Tim Flavin (Nathan Detroit). This recording includes the complete dance music for the “Runyonland,” “Havana,” and “The Crapshooters’ Dance”; the cut song “Traveling Light”; and the three songs written for the film, “(Your Eyes Are the Eyes of) A Woman in Love,” “Pet Me, Poppa,” and “Adelaide.” The script was published in paperback by Doubleday Anchor Books in the 1956 collection From the American Drama: The Modern Theatre Series, Volume Four (edited by Eric Bentley). The script is also included in The “Guys and Dolls” Book, published in paperback by Methuen Books in 1982 (the volume also offers the short story “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown” and articles about both Loesser and the 1982 British National Theatre production). The script is also one of sixteen included in the 2014 hardback collection American Musicals, published by the Library of America. The lyrics for all the used and unused songs written for the musical are included in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser. Incidentally, in the original production Sky and Sarah flew off to Havana for the weekend, but in a bow to later politics, the 1965, 1966, and 1967 revivals found them in San Juan. But for the 1992 and 2009 revivals they were back in Havana.

1991–1992 SEASON     77

During previews of the current revival, Carolyn Mignini played the role of Sarah Brown and was succeeded by Josie de Guzman. The original cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-1317-2).

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (Guys and Dolls), Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Nathan Lane); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Josie de Guzman); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Faith Prince); Best Director of a Musical (Jerry Zaks); Best Scenic Designer (Tony Walton); Best Lighting Designer (Paul Gallo); Best Choreographer (Christopher Chadman)

METRO Theatre: Minskoff Theatre Opening Date: April 16, 1992; Closing Date: April 26, 1992 Performances: 13 Book and Lyrics: Agata Miklaszewska and Maryna Miklaszewska English Book Adaptation: Mary Bracken Phillips and Janusz Jozefowicz English Lyrics Adaptation: Mary Bracken Phillips Music: Janusz Stoklosa Direction and Choreography: Janusz Jozefowicz (Cynthia Onrubia, American Dance Supervisor); Producers: Wiktor Kubiak (Donald C. Farber, Executive Producer); Scenery: Janusz Sosnowski; Costumes: Juliet Polcsa and Marie Anne Chiment; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Janusz Stoklosa Cast: Krzysztof Adamski, Monika Ambroziak, Andrew Appolonow, Jacek Badurek, Alicja Borkowska, Michal Chamara, Pawel Cheda, Mariusz Czajka (Max), Magdalena Depczyk, Jaroslaw Derybowski, Wojciech (Wojtek) Dmochowski, Malgorzata Duda, Katarzyna Galica, Katazyna Gawel, Denisa Geislerova, Edyta Gorniak (Edyta), Robyn Griggs, Lidia Groblewska, Katarzyna Groniec (Anka), Piotr Hajduk, Joanna Jagla, Jaroslaw Janikowski, Robert Janowski (Jan), Janusz Jozefowicz (Philip), Adam Kamien, Violetta Klimczewska (Viola), Grzegorz Kowalczyk, Olek Krupa, Andrzej Kubicki, Katarzyna Lewandowska, Barbara Melzer, Michal Milowicz, Radoslaw Natkanski, Polina Oziernych, Marek Palucki, Beata Pawlik, Iwona Runowska (Iwona), Rohn Seykell, Katarzyna Skarpetowska, Igor Sorine, Janusz Stoklosa, Ewa Szawlowska, Marc Thomas, Ilona Trybula, Beata Urbanska, Karnila Zapytowska The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place “somewhere in Europe” during the present time.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Metro” (Robert Janowski, Company); “My Fairy Tale” (Alicja Borkowska, Denisa Geislerova, and unknown performer who played the role of Basia; danced by Iwona Runowska, Lidia Groblewska, and Violetta Klimczewska); “But Not Me” (Robert Janowski, Company); “Windows” (Katarzyna Groniec; danced by Iwona Runowska); “Bluezwis” (Robert Janowski, Wojciech Dmochowski, Company); “Love Duet I” (Katarzyna Groniec, Robert Janowski); “Tower of Babel” (Company) Act Two: “Benjamin Franklin, in God We Trust” (Robert Janowski, Company); “Uciekali” (A Christmas Carol) (Robert Janowski, Company); “Waiting” (Edyta Gorniak, Katarzyna Groniec, Dancers); “Pieniadze” (Company); “Love Duet II” (Katarzyna Groniec, Robert Janowski); “Dreams Don’t Die” (Katarzyna Groniec) The Polish musical Metro premiered in Warsaw on January 30, 1991, at the Dramatyczny Theatre; it was the first private (that is, commercial and not state-sponsored) theatre production seen in Poland since World War II, and it was the first Polish musical to be presented on Broadway. The $5 million show was well meaning, and one wished the creators and cast well, but unfortunately it was an awkward mix of A Chorus Line and Hair (John Simon in New York said it was “Chess with a little Hair on its chest”), and it lasted less than two weeks in New York.

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The story dealt with two brothers, Philip (Janusz Jozefowicz) and Jan (Robert Janowski), who disagree about the direction of commercial theatre now that it’s no longer state-supported. Philip holds auditions for a new and conventional musical, and those who fail to get roles in the show are led by Jan to create their own musical, which condemns capitalism and which is performed in subway stations. Jan’s street (or more appropriately, underground) theatre is successful, and soon Philip is begging the cast to appear in his theatre. Despite their outward disdain of commercialism, the cast members jump at the chance to play the big time. But not Jan, who holds on to his dreams of independence and noncommercial theatre. The headline of David Ansen’s review in Newsweek proclaimed “A Chorus Lineski,” and he noted the musical tried to have it both ways, with a condemnation of “the new capitalistic spirit” that was nonetheless celebrated “with Trumpian gusto.” Ansen noted that with its “frizzy”-haired hero, a plot “cobbled together” from A Chorus Line, Fame, and the Andy Hardy movies, and a laser show “worthy of Caesar’s Palace,” Metro proved “that kitsch knows no boundaries.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said “the ’60s look of the show, with its bushy hairdos and psychedelic colors” was “an odd mix of A Chorus Line, Hair, and Las Vegas,” and he suggested that Retro would have been a more appropriate title for the evening. Joel Siegel on ABCTV7 said Metro seemed to prove that “it’s 1967 in Poland and this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” and he mentioned that the score sounded like “a sincere soft-rock group like Cosby, Stills, Nash and Ivanovich.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday felt the show was “both painfully familiar and incoherently foreign,” the special effects were “spectacular” but seemed gratuitous, and when she saw “Exit” signs during the subway scenes, she noted “this, we understand.” And Clive Barnes in the New York Post was frank with his assessment that Metro was “not going to set the Hudson on fire” with its “grab-bag of themes and attitudes” and a score that offered “a hefty dollop of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Claude-Michel Schonberg.” Frank Rich in the New York Times asked “What’s the Polish word for fiasco?” The “gloomy and jerky” musical seemed taken from “a faded 10th-generation bootleg videocassette” of the film version of A Chorus Line “with a reel of Hair thrown in by mistake.” The score was “ersatz Hamlisch” and like Winer he too noticed the subway signs that spelled out “the alluring word Exit.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News suggested that with the fall of Communism Eastern Europe now yearned “for the trivial notions of freedom and liberation symbolized by Western rock culture,” and thus the East wanted to join the West “in prolonged adolescence.” He felt that seeing Metro in Warsaw itself “would probably be thrilling in the context of a society rebuilding itself,” and as “a political and cultural statement” the musical was “quite touching” with “nostalgic” and “appealing and pleasant” music. A 1993 live performance in Polish was recorded in Warsaw by Warner Music Records (CD # unknown). During New York previews, “That’s Life” and “Labels” were cut; “Stay with Me” was heard in previews and by the official opening may have been re-titled “Love Duet II.”

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Score (lyrics by Agata and Maryna Miklaszewska and by Mary Bracken Phillips, music by Januez Stoklosa)

THE HIGH ROLLERS SOCIAL AND PLEASURE CLUB Theatre: Helen Hayes Theatre Opening Date: April 21, 1992; Closing Date: May 3, 1992 Performances: 12 Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits. Direction and Choreography: Alan Weeks (Bruce Heath, Associate Director); Producers: Judy Gordon, Dennis Grimaldi, Allen M. Shore, and Martin Markinson (Nicholas Evans, Donald Tick, Mary Ellen Ashley, and Irving Welzer, Associate Producer); Scenery: David Mitchell; Costumes: Theoni V. Aldredge; Lighting: Beverly Emmons; Musical Direction: Allen Toussaint Cast: Keith Robert Bennett (Wonder Boy # 1), Deborah Burrell-Cleveland (Queen), Lawrence Clayton (King), Eugene Fleming (Jester), Michael McElroy (Sorcerer), Vivian Reed (Enchantress), Nikki Rene (Princess),

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Tarik Winston (Wonder Boy # 2), and Allen Toussaint; Band: Allen Toussaint (Conductor, Piano), Carl Maultsby (Associate Conductor), Frank Canino (Bass), Gary Keller (Saxophone), Joel Helleny (Trombone), Steve Johns (Drums), Alvin Pazant (Trumpet), and Bob Rose (Guitar) The revue was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the time of Mardi Gras in New Orleans (“with a side trip to the Bayou”).

Musical Numbers Act One: The Good Times—“Tu Way Pocky Way” (lyric and music by Jo Jones Sr. and Jessie Thomas) (Eugene Fleming); “Open Up” (composer unknown) (Band); “Mr. Mardi Gras” (lyric and music by Allen Toussaint) (Company); “Piano Solo” (probably “Piano Tribute to Professor Longhair”) (composer unknown) (Allen Toussaint); “Chicken Shack Boogie” (lyric and music by Lola Ann Callum and Amos Milburn) (Eugene Fleming, Company); “Lady Marmalade” (lyric and music by Kenny Nolan) (Vivian Reed, Michael McElroy, Company); “Don’t You Feel My Leg” (lyric and music by Danny Barker and Blue Lu Barker) (Deborah Burrell-Cleveland, Lawrence Clayton, Eugene Fleming, Michael McElroy); “You Can Have My Husband (Don’t Mess with My Man)” (lyric and music by Dorothy Labostrie) (Vivian Reed); “Fun Time” (lyric and music by Allen Toussaint) (Keith Robert Bennett, Tarik Winston); Rock Medley: “It Will Stand” (lyric and music by Norman Johnson), “Mother-in-Law” (lyric and music by Allen Toussaint), “Working in a Coal Mine” (lyric and music by Allen Toussaint), “Lipstick Traces on a Cigarette” (lyric and music by Naomi Neville), “Rockin’ Pneumonia” (lyric and music by Huey P. Smith), and “Sittin’ in Ya Ya” (lyric and music by Clarence Lewis, Lee Dorsey, and Morgan Robinson) (Company); “My Feet Can’t (Don’t) Fail Me Now” (lyric and music by The Mad Musicians) (Keith Robert Bennett, Tarik Winston); “Ooh Poo Pa Doo” (lyric and music by Jessie Hill) (Eugene Fleming); “Dance the Night Away with You” (lyric and music by Doc Pomus and Mac Rebennack) and “Such a Night” (lyric and music by Mac Rebennack) (Lawrence Clayton, Deborah Burrell-Cleveland); “All These Things” (lyric and music by Naomi Neville) (Vivian Reed, Michael McElroy); “Mellow Sax” (lyric and music by Roy Montrell) (Nikki Rene, Gary Keller, Company); “Sea Cruise” (lyric and music by Huey P. Smith) (Vivian Reed, Deborah Burrell-Cleveland, Nikki Rene); “Jambalaya” (lyric and music by Hank Williams) (Eugene Fleming, Company) Act Two: More Good Times—“Tu Way Pocky Way” (reprise) (Eugene Fleming); “Bourbon Street Parade” (lyric and music by Paul Barbarin) (Company); “(I Ain’t Gonna Give Nobody None o’ This) Jelly Roll” (lyric and music by Spencer Williams and Clarence Williams) (Keith Robert Bennett, Tarik Winston); “Heebie Jeebie Dance” (aka “Heebie Jeebies”) (music by Boyd Atkin) (Nikki Rene, Deborah Burrell-Cleveland, Vivian Reed); “I Like It Like That” (lyric and music by Chris Kenner) (Eugene Fleming, Company); “Fire (Fiyou) on the Bayou” (lyric and music by Arthur Neville Jr. and Leo Nocentelli) (Company); “Marie Leveau” (lyric and music by Shel Silverstein and Baxter Taylor III) (Vivian Reed); “Walk on Gilded Splinters” (lyric and music by Mac Rebennack) (Company); “Black Widow Spider” (lyric and music by Mac Rebennack) (Lawrence Clayton); “Tell It Like It Is” (lyric and music by Lee Diamond and George Davis) and “You’re the One” (lyric and music by Adolph Smith and Cosmo Matassa) (Deborah Burrell-Cleveland, Lawrence Clayton); “Let the Good Times Roll” (lyric and music by Leonard Lee and Shirley Goodman) (Company); “Challenge Dance” (composer unknown) (Eugene Fleming, Lawrence Clayton, Michael McElroy, Keith Robert Bennett, Tarik Winston); “Mos Scoscious” (lyric and music by Mac Rebennack) (Michael McElroy, Nikki Rene); “We All Need Love” (lyric and music by Allen Toussaint) (Vivian Reed); “Tu Way Pocky Way” (reprise) (Eugene Fleming); “Injuns, Here We Come” (lyric and music by The Wild Magnolias and Wilson Turbinton) (Keith Robert Bennett, Company); “Big Chief Wears a Golden Crown” (lyric and music by Theodore Dollis) (Company); “Jockomo” (lyric and music by James Crawford Jr.) (Company); “Hey, Mama” (lyricist and composer unknown) (Company); “When the Saints Go Marching In” (traditional) (Company) The revue The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club was one of the season’s shortest-running musicals, and how could it have been otherwise? It took place in the unfriendly musical-comedy territory of New Orleans, a location even more doomed and dangerous than Italy when it comes to musical theatre. For High Rollers, Vivian Reed played an enchantress, and later in the decade she tempted fate by again appearing in a News Orleans-centric musical (which like the current revue also dabbled in voodoo), the pretentious Marie Christine. (See below for a partial list of musicals set in New Orleans and other locales in Louisiana.)

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The revue celebrated New Orleans music and its lifestyle and took an excursion to Bayou country, and the score was a mixture of old and new songs (many of the latter were by Allen Toussaint, who was also the show’s conductor). The intimate evening included eight singers and dancers as well as eight musicians. The headlines of the critics’ reviews seemed to say it all: “Comes Up No Dice” (Howard Kissel, New York Daily News), “Totally Craps Out” (David Patrick Stearns, USA Today), “Unholy Rollers” (John Simon, New York), and “There’s a Fly in the Gumbo” (Clive Barnes, New York Post). Mel Gussow in the New York Times gave the revue one of its few positive notices. The show was “lively,” the performers earned “their place in the musical spotlight,” and Reed, Deborah Burrell-Cleveland, and Nikki Rene were “striking” (especially so when they joined forces for “Sea Cruise,” a “bouncing boogie-woogie black version of the Andrews Sisters”). But the evening could have done without the “voodoo mumbo jumbo” talk, and Gussow complained that there was “too much hand waving in what passes for choreography.” John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor found the revue “unflaggingly energetic” and praised the “dazzling footwork.” And Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News suggested that with “tinkering” and toned-down amplification the show had “the making of a socko musical revue,” and he was glad to again see the “electrifying” Reed, who had been so “sensational” in Bubbling Brown Sugar (1976). Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the evening wasn’t “very sociable” and its pleasures were “decidedly limited” (and he noted Alan Weeks’s direction was “of the arms-flying, hands-waving school”). Barnes found the revue “mildly OK” but warned that it included “nightclub New Orleans tourist Creole mish-mash gumbo.” Jan Stuart in New York Newsday said the evening was “tacky, celebratory and utterly a mess” with “trashy” costumes and “bland” décor, and noted that Toussaint “modestly permits himself to be introduced as ‘legendary’” (Gussow reported that when cast member Eugene Fleming introduced Toussaint as “’legendary,’” the critic suspected the “description may have been written by” Toussaint himself). Kissel said he had looked forward to the revue because it marked the return of Reed, who looked and sounded “as stunning as she did in Bubbling Brown Sugar,” but he was disappointed that the music “makes use of precious little of her talent.” Stearns said the evening was “the worst-spent two hours of theatre” he’d experienced since he attended the Off-Broadway musical Return to the Forbidden Planet (1991), and complained that the “superficial, condescending narration is far worse than anything you’ve heard on a Gray Line tour.” He also noted that the voodoo sequence used “enough fake fog to choke viewers sitting close to the stage,” and during the finale “the audience gets dumped with confetti” in an example of when “obnoxiousness attempts to pass for showmanship.” Stuart also groaned over the confetti, and said that on the morning after the revue opened he was “still picking colored flecks of flotsam out of my hair” (and he noted that this “debris” was a “nuisance” and thus the “perfect souvenir” for the revue). Simon said the evening was “misbegotten” and its “closing should be imminent.” But Reed “has it all: the singing, the dancing, the looks, of course,” and he noted “her eyes express absolute assurance about what she has, total come-hitherness for what (or whom) she wants, and utter indifference to everything else, all three rolled resplendently into one.” For the record, here’s a chronological and partial list of the unlucky musicals that took place wholly or partially in New Orleans or throughout Louisiana: Deep River (1926; 32 performances); The Lace Petticoat (1927; 15 performances); Great Day (1929; 36 performances); A Noble Rogue (1929, 9 performances); Great Day in New Orleans (1929; closed during pre-Broadway tryout); Sunny River (1941; the musical was titled New Orleans during its pre-Broadway tryout and despite the name change it still bombed with just 36 showings to its credit); Cocktails at 5 (1942; closed during pre-Broadway tryout); In Gay New Orleans (1947; closed during pre-Broadway tryout); Louisiana Lady (1947; 3 performances; the musical had the dumb luck to be set in New Orleans and to use the sets, costumes, and poster artwork for the aforementioned In Gay New Orleans); Saratoga (1959; 80 performances); Pousse-Café (1966; 3 performances); House of Leather (Off Broadway, 1970; one performance); Prettybelle (1971; closed during pre-Broadway tryout); Doctor Jazz (1975; 5 performances); Saga (Off Broadway, 1979; 12 performances); Storyville (1979; closed prior to Broadway); Daddy Goodness (1979; closed prior to Broadway); Jam (Off Broadway, 1980; 14 performances); Louisiana Summer (Off Broadway, 1982; 16 performances); 1,000 Years of Jazz (1982; closed prior to Broadway); Basin Street (Off Broadway, 1983; 15 performances); Staggerlee (Off Broadway, 1987; 118 performances); A Walk on the Wild Side (Off Broadway, 1988; 20 performances); The Middle of Nowhere (Off Broadway, 1988; 20 performances); Further Mo’ (a 1990 Off-Broadway sequel of sorts to One Mo’ Time!; 174 performances); Whistle Down the Wind (1996; closed during pre-Broadway tryout); Marie Christine (1999; 44 performances); Thou Shalt Not (2001; 85 performances); One Mo’ Time! (2002 Broadway revival; 21 performances); Caroline, or Change (Off

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Broadway, 2003; 106 performances; Broadway, 2004; 136 performances); and Lestat (2006; 39 performances). To be sure, there were the very occasional hits that took place there, but Naughty Marietta (1910), Louisiana Purchase (1940), and the Off-Broadway revue One Mo’ Time! (1979) are the exceptions; on the other hand, nonmusicals set in New Orleans have a better track record (such as A Streetcar Named Desire and Toys in the Attic). Songs dropped during the previews of High Rollers were: “Tribute to Fess” (aka “Thank You, Lord”) (lyric and music by Allen Toussaint), “Didn’t He Ramble” (lyricist and composer unknown), and “Shallow Water” (lyricist and composer unknown).

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Vivian Reed)

MAN OF LA MANCHA Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: April 24, 1992; Closing Date: July 26, 1992 Performances: 108 Book: Dale Wasserman Lyrics: Joe Darion Music: Mitch Leigh Based on the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (the first volume of the novel was published in 1605, and the second in 1615) and the 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote by Dale Wasserman. Direction: Albert Marre (Ted Forlow, Assistant Director); Producers: The Mitch Leigh Company (Manny Kladitis, Executive Producer); Choreography: Not credited; Scenery: Howard Bay; Costumes: Howard Bay and Patton Campbell; Lighting: Gregory Allen Hirsch; Musical Direction: Brian Salesky Cast: Raul Julia (Cervantes, Don Quixote), Sheena Easton (Aldonza, Dulcinea), Tony Martinez (Sancho), Chev (aka Shev) Rodgers (Governor, Pedro), David Wasson (The Padre), Ian Sullivan (Doctor Carrasco), David Holliday (The Innkeeper), Valerie de Pena (Antonia), Marceline Decker (The Housekeeper), Ted Forlow (The Barber), Hechter Ubarry (Paco, Mule), Jean-Paul Richard (Juan, Horse), Luis Perez (Manuel), Gregory Mitchell (Anselmo), Bill Santora (Jose), Chet D’Elia (Jorge, Guard), Tanny McDonald (Maria), Joan Susswein Barber (Fermina, Moorish Dancer), Jon Vandertholen (Captain of the Inquisition), Robin Polseno (Guitarist), David Serva (Guitarist), Darryl Ferrera (Guard) The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place at the end of the sixteenth century in a dungeon in Seville and in the imagination of Cervantes.

Musical Numbers “Man of La Mancha” (“I, Don Quixote”) (Raul Julia, Tony Martinez, Hechter Ubarry, Jean-Paul Richards); “It’s All the Same” (Sheena Easton, Chev Rodgers, Hechter Ubarry, Jean-Paul Richards, Luis Perez, Gregory Mitchell, Bill Santora); “Dulcinea” (Raul Julia; later, Chev Rodgers, Hechter Ubarry, Jean-Paul Richards, Luis Perez, Gregory Mitchell, Bill Santora); “I’m Only Thinking of Him” (David Wasson, Valeria de Pena, Marceline Decker; later, Ian Sullivan); “I Really Like Him” (Tony Martinez); “What Does He Want of Me?” (Sheena Easton); “Little Bird, Little Bird” (Gregory Mitchell with Chev Rodgers, Hechter Ubarry, Jean-Paul Richards, Luis Perez, Bill Santora); “Barber’s Song” (Ted Forlow); “Golden Helmet of Mambrino” (Raul Julia, Tony Martinez, Ted Forlow, Chev Rodgers, Hechter Ubarry, Jean-Paul Richards, Luis Perez, Gregory Mitchell, Bill Santora); “To Each His Dulcinea” (“To Every Man His Dream”) (David Wasson); “The Quest” (“The Impossible Dream”) (Raul Julia); “The Combat” (Raul Julia, Sheena Easton, Tony Martinez, Chev Rodgers, Hechter Ubarry, Jean-Paul Richards, Luis Perez, Gregory Mitchell, Bill Santora); “The Dubbing” (“Knight of the Woeful Countenance”) (David Holliday, Sheena Easton, Tony

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Martinez); “The Abduction” (Sheena Easton, Chev Rodgers, Hechter Ubarry, Jean-Paul Richards, Luis Perez, Gregory Mitchell, Bill Santora); “Moorish Dance” (Ensemble); “Aldonza” (Sheena Easton); “The Knight of the Mirrors” (Raul Julia, Jon Vandertholen, Attendants); “A Little Gossip” (Tony Martinez); “Dulcinea” (reprise) (Sheena Easton); “Man of La Mancha” (reprise) (Raul Julia, Sheena Easton, Tony Martinez); “The Psalm” (David Wasson); “The Quest” (reprise) (Company) Man of La Mancha takes place in a prison where Miguel de Cervantes (Raul Julia) is held because he foreclosed on property owned by the Catholic Church. His fellow prisoners hold a mock trial and charge him with being an “idealist, a bad poet, and an honest man.” For his defense, Cervantes offers to enact a “charade” to plead his case and asks the prisoners to portray various characters in his narrative. The charade is of course Cervantes’s story of Don Quixote and his manservant Sancho (Tony Martinez) and their quixotic adventures of tilting at windmills and fighting dragons. Along the way, they meet a padre (David Wasson), a scholar (Ian Sullivan), an innkeeper (David Holliday), and a harlot (Sheena Easton). Quixote’s innate innocence affects all whom he encounters, and his death leaves them ennobled and hopeful for the future. At the end of the charade, Cervantes is summoned by the Inquisition for trial and he leaves the prison to meet his fate. Mitch Leigh’s score was often flavored with Spanish and flamenco-styled rhythms, and his pulsating music was a mostly perfect fit for the characters and situations. Mostly, because as written, the character of Sancho was out of place: his borscht-belt humor and weak songs reeked of the worst kind of Broadway shtick, and Sancho, along with that windbag Zorba, is one of the most tiresome characters in all musical theatre. Otherwise, “I, Don Quixote” (“Man of La Mancha”), “Golden Helmet of Mambrino,” “Barber’s Song,” and “The Quest” (“The Impossible Dream”) were full-blooded theatre songs, and the latter was one of the biggest hits of its era. Perhaps the shimmering “Dulcinea” was the score’s finest moment, and, with the exception of Sancho’s material, Leigh’s score was a richly textured and unified whole in the manner of a song cycle. Dale Wasserman’s adaptation was first seen on November 9, 1959, as the non-musical I, Don Quixote on the CBS series Dupont Show of the Month with Lee J. Cobb (Cervantes), Colleen Dewhurst (Aldonza), Eli Wallach (Sancho), and Hurd Hatfield (Carrasco). The musical was first produced at the Goodspeed Opera House, East Haddam, Connecticut, during Summer 1965, and most of the cast and creative team transferred to New York when the musical opened at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre on November 22, 1965, for a marathon run of 2,328 performances. The original cast included Richard Kiley (Cervantes), Joan Diener (Aldonza), Irving Jacobson (Sancho), Robert Rounseville (The Padre), Ray Middleton (The Innkeeper), and Jon Cypher (Doctor Carrasco). Cast member Eddie Roll had created the dances for Goodspeed, but for New York the choreography was by Jack Cole. Some later revivals (including the current one) dropped Cole’s name from the credits and didn’t cite a choreographer. Besides the current production, the musical has been revived on Broadway three times: on June 22, 1972, at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre with Kiley for 140 performances; September 15, 1977, at the Palace Theatre with Kiley for 124 performances; and on December 5, 2002, at the Martin Beck (now Al Hirschfeld) Theatre with Brian Stokes Mitchell for 304 performances. The original London production opened at the Piccadilly Theatre on April 24, 1968, for 253 performances with Keith Mitchell and Diener, and the tiresome 1972 film version was released by United Artists; directed by Arthur Hiller, the cast was headed by Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren, and Gino Conforti re-created his original Broadway role of the barber. The script was published in hardback by Random House in 1966, and is also included in the 1976 hardback collection Great Musicals of the American Theatre, Volume Two (published by the Chilton Book Company and edited by Stanley Richards). The original cast album was issued by Kapp Records (LP # KRL-4505), and the CD by Decca Broadway Records (# 012-159-387-2) includes a bonus track of the previously unreleased sequence “The Combat,” which had been recorded at the time of the cast album session. Kiley also recorded a version of the musical for children on Golden Records (LP # 265), and the singers include Gerrianne Raphael, Eddie Roll, and Chev Rodgers, all members of the original Broadway company. The two-LP London cast album (issued by Decca Records # DXSA-7203) includes the complete score and dialogue. The soundtrack was released by United Artists (LP # UAS-9906), and the 2002 revival was recorded by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-64007-2). There have been other recordings of the score, including some of those unfortunate “crossover” versions that seem to include the entire entertainment industry: the “All-Star Cast from Broadway, Hollywood and

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Opera” (released by Columbia Records LP # S-31237) includes Jim Nabors, Marilyn Horne, Jack Gilford, Richard Tucker, Madeline Kahn, and Ron Husmann, but not Minnie Pearl and Liberace; and Sony Classical Records (CD # SK-46436) offers Placido Domingo, Julia Migenes, Mandy Patinkin, Samuel Ramey, Jerry Hadley, and Rosalind Ellis, but Minnie and Liberace were still snubbed. Jay Records released a two-CD set (with a cast that includes Ron Raines, Kim Criswell, and Avery Saltzman) with dialogue, bows, and exit music (as well as a bonus track of a “popular” interpretation of “Little Bird, Little Bird”). The current revival was probably a mistake. The critics were generally dismissive of Raul Julia and Sheena Easton’s performances, and it’s telling that neither remained with the show for the length of its short three-month run; Julia was succeeded by David Holliday and then by Laurence Guittard, and Easton by Joan Susswein-Barber and then by Joan Diener. The critics also complained that the revival was a wearisome carbon copy of all the Manchas that had gone before it. As Aldonza might have pointed out, the staging and decor of all the revivals were all the same. Further, every production seemed to recycle the same cast members, and the show was in need of a completely fresh interpretation that wasn’t bound to the performance style of previous casts and to the look of earlier productions. (Thankfully, the 2002 revival was well cast with La Mancha newcomers and the production offered a completely new scenic concept.) Julia was the first Hispanic actor to play Cervantes/Quixote, but, as noted, the critics weren’t overly impressed with him: Because of his Hispanic background, he was “well-suited” to the role, but he lacked the necessary shading for the character’s madness and his singing voice couldn’t meet the demands of the “aria-like” songs (Mel Gussow in the New York Times); “a slightly underwhelming vocal performance” (Clive Barnes in the New York Post); he was “powerful” and a “wonderful actor” but lacked “the operatic baritone and vocal power of Quixotes past” (Joel Siegel on WABCTV7); “oddly lacking in presence” and without “poignance” (Greg Evans in Variety); he was “terminally cute” and no one could call his singing “beautiful” (John Simon in New York); “good acting is not enough” because when “The Impossible Dream” isn’t sung well “the show is in trouble” (Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal); and his acting was “good,” but he lacked the singing voice necessary to carry the musical (Linda Winer in New York Newsday). But John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor said Julia gave a “striking performance,” and David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said that despite “tentative moments” Julia brought “Shakespearian weight” and a “gleeful sense of madness” to the role, and his death scene was “masterful.” As for Easton, she was a “sweet” and generally convincing Dulcinea but wasn’t Aldonza “by a long moonshot” and instead gave a “Valley Girl impersonation” (Gussow); “an oddly genteel Aldonza” (Barnes); “not an actress” and her “pop-vocalizing” caused problems with the “earthy Aldonza” and “ethereal Dulcinea” (Siegel); “pleasant enough” but “her lack of stage experience and technique shows” (Evans); “handsome” but “is unable to make sarcasm pass for acting ability” (Stearns); “can sing, but that’s about it,” and she looks “like a swinging manicurist at one of your better hair salons” (Simon); “does not fare appreciably better” than Julia (Wilson); and “a stage novice” who “moves well and makes a credible slut” but has a “slow, studied, overly deliberate way” of singing, and “the concept of Scottish spitfire is pretty weird” (Winer). Barnes noted that if you hadn’t seen a previous production of Man of La Mancha “you might wonder what all the fuss was about,” and Stearns suggested that those with an “inner need” to revisit the show would be happy but others “might be better off waiting for a good, summer stock La Mancha.” Evans said the revival treated the musical like a “museum piece,” Siegel said the evening was “tired” and “threadbare,” Stearns said most of the evening was a “tired reenactment” of the original production because the cast included so many La Mancha veterans, and Gussow noted that original director Albert Marre “must know the show by rote, which is how he has staged it.” Winer reported that at his request Wasserman’s program biography was omitted because he’d gone to court to stop Leigh “from producing another carbon-copy” of the work “instead of restaging it with fresh ideas.” She noted that Wasserman “obviously lost” or “gave up” and so the current production was a “museum piece.” (Although his name wasn’t included in the program bio section, Wasserman’s name was still listed on the program’s credit page.) A few critics were somewhat bemused by a slightly surreal moment at some of the critics’ previews and on opening night. For these performances, composer Leigh conducted the orchestra. But as he stood there and conducted, he faced an unseen orchestra. Winer reported that the musicians were behind a black curtain and so Leigh “could have been waving his arms at the back wall while a phonograph record played.” The production was touted as the “twenty-fifth anniversary revival,” but Evans noted the show was twenty-seven years old and thus “a bit young to be lying about its age. Or maybe not.”

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JELLY’S LAST JAM Theatre: Virginia Theatre Opening Date: April 26, 1992; Closing Date: September 5, 1993 Performances: 569 Book: George C. Wolfe Lyrics: Susan Birkenhead Music: Ferdinand Le Menthe “Jelly Roll” Morton; new music by Luther Henderson (see list of musical numbers for specific credits) Direction: George C. Wolfe; Producers: Margo Lion and Pamela Koslow in association with PolyGram Diversified Entertainment (PDE), 126 Second Ave. Corp./Hal Luftig and Alan D. Perry, Rodger Hess, Jujamcyn Theatres/TV Asahi, and Herb Alpert (David Strong Warner, Inc., Executive Producer) (Peggy Hill Rosenkrantz and Dentsu Inc., New York, Associate Producers); Choreography: Hope Clarke; Tap Choreography: Gregory Hines and Ted L. Levy; Scenery: Robin Wagner; Mask and Puppet Designs: Barbara Pollitt; Costumes: Toni-Leslie James; Lighting: Jules Fisher; Musical Direction: Linda Twine Cast: Keith David (Chimney Man); The Hunnies: Mamie Duncan-Gibbs, Stephanie Pope, and Allison M. Williams; The Crowd: Ken Ard, Adrian Bailey, Sherry D. Boone, Brenda Braxton, Mary Bond Davis, Ralph Deaton, Melissa Haizlip, Cee-Cee Harshaw, Ted L. Levy, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Victoria Gabrielle Platt, Gil Pritchett III, and Michelle M. Robinson; Gregory Hines (Jelly Roll Morton), Savion Glover (Young Jelly); The Sisters: Victoria Gabrielle Platt and Sherry D. Boone; The Ancestors: Adrian Bailey, Mary Bond Davis, Ralph Deaton, Ann Duquesnay, and Melissa Haizlip; Mary Bond Davis (Miss Mamie), Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Buddy Bolden), Brenda Braxton (Too-Tight Nora), Gil Pritchett III (Three-Finger Jake), Ann Duquesnay (Gran Mimi), Stanley Wayne Mathis (Jack the Bear), Ken Ard (Foot-in-Yo-Ass Sam), Tonya Pinkins (Anita); The Melrose Brothers: Don Johanson and Gordon Joseph Weiss; Jelly’s Red Hot Peppers: Brian Grice (Drums), Ben Brown (Bass), Steve Bargonetti (Banjo), Virgil Jones (Trumpet), Britt Woodman (Trombone), and Bill Easley (Clarinet) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place on “the eve of Jelly Roll Morton’s death” in The Jungle Inn, “a lowdown club somewhere’s ’tween Heaven ’n’ Hell”; the action also occurs in New Orleans, Chicago, and New York City.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Jelly’s Jam” (music by Jelly Roll Morton) (song originally known as “King Porter Stomp”) (The Hunnies, The Crowd); “In My Day” (music by Jelly Roll Morton) (song originally known as “Wild Man Blues”) (Gregory Hines, The Hunnies); “The Creole Way” (music by Luther Henderson) (Adrian Bailey, Mary Bond Davis, Ralph Deaton, Ann Duquesnay, Melissa Haizlip, Savion Glover); “The Whole World’s Waitin’ to Sing Your Song” (music by Jelly Roll Morton) (song originally known as “My Little Dixie Home”) and “Street Scene” (music by Luther Henderson) (Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, The Street Crowd); “Michigan Water” (traditional blues) (Mary Bond Davis, Ruben Santiago-Hudson); “The Banishment”: (1) “Get Away Boy” (music by Jelly Roll Morton) and (2) “Lonely Boy Blues” (traditional blues) (Ann Duquesnay, Savion Glover, Gregory Hines); “Somethin’ More” (music by Jelly Roll Morton) (song originally known as “Pretty Lil”) (this number also includes music from “The Pool Room”) (Gregory Hines, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Keith David, The Hunnies, The Crowd); “That’s How You Jazz” (composer uncredited) (Gregory Hines, Stanley Wayne Mathis, The Dance Hall Crowd); “The Chicago Stomp (Strut)” (music by Jelly Roll Morton) (song originally known as “Burnin’ the Iceberg”) (Gregory Hines, The Red Hot Peppers, Keith David, The Hunnies, The Chicago Crowd); “Play the Music for Me” (music by Jelly Roll Morton) (song originally known as “Dead Man Blues”) (Tonya Pinkins); “Lovin’ Is a Lowdown Blues” (music by Jelly Roll Morton) (song originally known as “Jungle Blues”) (The Hunnies); “Dr. Jazz” (additional lyric by Susan Birkenhead, music by King Oliver and Walter Melrose) (Gregory Hines, The Crowd) Act Two: “Good Ole New York” (music by Jelly Roll Morton) (song originally known as “Hyena Stomp”) (Keith David, The Hunnies, Gregory Hines, The New York Crowd); “Too Late, Daddy” (music by Luther Henderson) (Gregory Hines, The Harlem Crowd); “That’s the Way We Do Things in New Yawk” (song originally known as “Shreveport Stomp”) (music by Jelly Roll Morton) (Gregory Hines, Don Johanson,

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Gordon Joseph Weiss); “Jelly’s Isolation Dance” (Gregory Hines, Savion Glover); “The Last Chance Blues” (song originally known as “Blue Blood Stomp”) (this number also includes music from “Central Avenue”) (Gregory Hines, Tonya Pinkins); “The Last Rites” (music by Luther Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton): (1) “Pretty Boy” (Ann Duquesnay) and (2) “Creole Boy” (Gregory Hines); Finale (“We Are the Rhythms That Color Your Song”) (Mary Bond Davis, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Gregory Hines, Ann Duquesnay, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Tonya Pinkins, Keith David, Ensemble) In concept, Jelly’s Last Jam was the season’s most ambitious musical, but in execution it sometimes stumbled in a fog of pretentiousness and confusion. In the story, Ferdinand Le Menthe “Jelly Roll” Morton (1891–1941) (Gregory Hines) has come to his last day on Earth. Chimney Man (Keith David), a death figure in the nature of A Christmas Carol’s Ghost of Christmas Past, takes him on a retrospective journey of his life, including a meeting with his younger self (Savion Glover). Jelly Roll is accused of three sins: first, he was a racist because he believed his Creole background made him superior to other blacks; second, he was full of hubris and boasted that he invented jazz; and third, he recklessly used and discarded friends and lovers. And following him around on his journey to the past are three chorines named The Hunnies (Mamie DuncanGibbs, Stephanie Pope, and Allison M. Williams) who serve as a kind of sultry death trio. There was clearly too much baggage in the show, and while it was commendable that the musical attempted to avoid or at least minimize the weary clichés of most show-business biographies, the framework and story weren’t all that compelling and only the flashy musical numbers redeemed the otherwise meandering and somewhat preachy and pretentious evening (the finale even exhorted Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, Bolden, and Bechet to “go forth” with their music). (If a musical about Gershwin ended with the exhortation that Loesser, Bernstein, Sondheim, and Kander “go forth” with their music, it would be laughed off the stage.) But when the musical’s pretensions were set aside, the brilliant dances got underway and allowed Hines and company to tap up a storm. And it was good to see Hines given the opportunity to do what he did best. The critics had complained that his last book musical Comin’ Uptown (1979) had kept his dancing talent under wraps for most of the evening, but here there was no such parsimony. Unfortunately, after the dance explosions, there was always that desultory book to contend with. David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said George C. Wolfe’s “simplistic” book was “a cross between This Is Your Life and a session in a church confessional,” and while the show didn’t “always work,” it was nonetheless “an irresistible celebration of show business,” and Hines was a “genuine star.” Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News noted that Wolfe seemed more interested in Morton’s psyche than his music, and as a result Morton goes to heaven but “we don’t.” He praised Hines’s “marvelous dancing” and “ineffably engaging personality,” but said Susan Birkenhead’s lyrics were “less than adroit” and Wolfe overloaded the show with “emblematic figures” (such as the three Hunnies, “who sashay tiresomely”). Jeremy Gerard in Variety said Wolfe’s book was “conventional at best,” was sometimes “aimless and repetitious,” provided “no emotional payoff,” and during the second act “completely” fell apart. But Hines gave a “nimble, suave yet impassioned performance”; Birkenhead’s lyrics were “bawdy and ironic”; and the first act finale (“Dr. Jazz”) was “sure to be the show’s most talked-about sequence,” an “explosive” and “stunning” dance number in which the black performers appeared in “mock black-face” after a bitter scene in which Jelly Roll has humiliated his onetime friend Jack (Stanley Wayne Mathis) by giving him a bellhop’s red jacket to wear at the opening of Jelly Roll’s new night club. Jack Kroll in Newsweek said Wolfe’s “kaleidoscopic” staging provided “brilliance” to the evening, but the director’s “treatment of race” added a “dubious note” with its “sledge-hammer flattening of the complexities of race in Morton’s life.” William A. Henry III in Time said the evening’s complex themes were “inadequately explored,” the show took too long getting started, ended abruptly, and was “needlessly vulgar,” and if the musical failed “as dramaturgy,” it nonetheless often succeeded as “bouncy entertainment.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday liked the musical’s “scathing sense of style” and “exhilarating performances,” but found the show’s psychology too “pat” and said the “contrived” narrative was in the manner of This Is Your Life. And John Simon in New York said Hines was the “consummate leading man” and the musical itself was an “Everyman set to music, but what makes it startling is that here it is blacks who assess a black antihero.” Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal praised the “electrifying” musical, said Hines was “perhaps the best tap-dancer of our time,” and noted that the “impressive new writer and director” Wolfe was a “discovery.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said that thanks to Wolfe the show was “the most original musical to hit Broadway in years.” And while Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News found the evening “a glorious

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tribute to the musical culture of New Orleans,” he said the subject of “racism of blacks against other blacks is an unlikely undercurrent for a musical” and suggested that perhaps Wolfe raised it “to a level of importance that may not be warranted by the facts.” Frank Rich in the New York Times said the “visionary” Wolfe gave the work “ambitions beyond the imagination of most Broadway musicals,” and while the second act collapsed into “the conventions of showbiz biography,” the first was “sizzling.” He also predicted the “second act” of Wolfe’s career promised “to be a lot more exciting than the second act” of Jelly’s Last Jam. The cast album was recorded by PolyGram Records (CD # 0501). The May 29, 1992, performance was presented live on pay-per-view television by Manhattan Cable TV and was then replayed at midnight. Later during the Broadway run, Ben Vereen played the role of Chimney Man. Prior to the Broadway production, the musical had been produced on February 24, 1991, at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles with Obba Babatunde (Jelly Roll Morton), Keith David (Chimney Man), Tonya Pinkins (Anita), and Freda Payne (Grand Mimi); the cast also included Leilani Jones.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Jelly’s Last Jam); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Gregory Hines); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Keith David); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Tonya Pinkins); Best Director of a Musical (George C. Wolfe); Best Book (George C. Wolfe); Best Score (lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, music by Ferdinand Le Menthe “Jelly Roll” Morton and Luther Henderson); Best Scenic Designer (Robin Wagner); Best Costume Designer (Toni-Leslie James); Best Lighting Designer (Jules Fisher); Best Choreographer (Hope Clarke, Gregory Hines, and Ted L. Levy)

FALSETTOS Theatre: John Golden Theatre Opening Date: April 29, 1992; Closing Date: June 27, 1993 Performances: 487 Book: William Finn and James Lapine Lyrics and Music: William Finn Direction: James Lapine; Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler in association with James and Maureen O’Sullivan Cushing and Masakazu Shibaoka Broadway Pacific (Alecia Parker, Associate Producer); Scenery: Douglas Stein; Costumes: Ann Hould-Ward; Lighting: Frances Aronson; Musical Direction: Scott Frankel Cast: Michael Rupert (Marvin), Stephen Bogardus (Whizzer), Chip Zien (Mendel), Jonathan Kaplan (Jason), Andrew Harrison Leeds (Jason alternate), Barbara Walsh (Trina), Heather Mac Rae (Charlotte), Carolee Carmello (Cordelia) The musical was presented in two acts. The first act takes place in 1979, the second in 1981.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Four Jews in a Room Bitching” (Stephen Bogardus, Michael Rupert, Jonathan Kaplan, Chip Zien); “A Tight-Knit Family” (Michael Rupert, Chip Zien); “Love Is Blind” (Michael Rupert, Jonathan Kaplan, Stephen Bogardus, Chip Zien, Barbara Walsh); “Thrill of First Love” (Michael Rupert, Stephen Bogardus); “Marvin at the Psychiatrist” (“A Three-Part Mini-Opera”) (Jonathan Kaplan, Chip Zien, Stephen Bogardus, Michael Rupert); “My Father’s a Homo” (Jonathan Kaplan); “Everyone Tells Jason to See a Psychiatrist” (Jonathan Kaplan, Michael Rupert, Barbara Walsh, Stephen Bogardus); “This Had Better Come to a Stop” (Michael Rupert, Stephen Bogardus, Jonathan Kaplan, Barbara Walsh, Chip Zien); “I’m Breaking Down” (Barbara Walsh); “Please Come to My House” (Barbara Walsh, Chip Zien, Jonathan Kaplan); “Jason’s Therapy” (Chip Zien, Barbara Walsh, Stephen Bogardus, Michael Rupert, Jonathan Kaplan); “A Marriage Proposal” (Chip Zien, Barbara Walsh, Jonathan Kaplan); “A Tight-Knit Family” (reprise) (Michael

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Rupert, Chip Zien); “Trina’s Song” (Barbara Walsh); “March of the Falsettos” (Chip Zien, Michael Rupert, Jonathan Kaplan, Stephen Bogardus); “Trina’s Song” (reprise) (Barbara Walsh); “The Chess Game” (Michael Rupert, Stephen Bogardus); “Making a Home” (Chip Zien, Jonathan Kaplan, Barbara Walsh, Stephen Bogardus); “The Games I Play” (Stephen Bogardus, Chip Zien, Barbara Walsh, Jonathan Kaplan); “Marvin Hits Trina” (Michael Rupert, Chip Zien, Jonathan Kaplan, Barbara Walsh, Stephen Bogardus); “I Never Wanted to Love You” (Michael Rupert, Chip Zien, Jonathan Kaplan, Barbara Walsh, Stephen Bogardus); “Father to Son” (Michael Rupert, Jonathan Kaplan) Act Two: “Welcome to Falsettoland” (Company); “The Year of the Child” (Company); “Miracle of Judaism” (Company); “Sitting Watching Jason (Play Baseball)” (Company); “A Day in Falsettoland” (Company); “Racquetball: How Was Your Day?” (Company); “The Fight” (Jonathan Kaplan, Michael Rupert, Barbara Walsh, Chip Zien); “Everyone Hates His Parents” (Chip Zien, Jonathan Kaplan, Michael Rupert, Barbara Walsh); “What More Can I Say” (Michael Rupert, Stephen Bogardus); “Something Bad Is Happening” (Heather Mac Rae, Carolee Carmello); “Second Racquetball” (Michael Rupert, Stephen Bogardus); “Holding to the Ground” (Barbara Walsh); “Days Like This I Almost Believe in God” (Company); “Cancelling the Bar Mitzvah” (Jonathan Kaplan, Chip Zien, Barbara Walsh); “Unlikely Lovers” (Michael Rupert, Stephen Bogardus, Heather Mac Rae, Carolee Carmello); “Another Miracle of Judaism” (Jonathan Kaplan); “Something Bad Is Happening” (reprise) (Michael Rupert, Heather Mac Rae); “You Gotta Die Sometime” (Stephen Bogardus); “Jason’s Bar Mitzvah” (Company); “What Would I Do” (Michael Rupert, Stephen Bogardus) William Finn wrote three so-called “Marvin” musicals (named after the leading character in all three works), all one-acters originally produced Off-Off-Broadway and then Off-Broadway: In Trousers (1978), March of the Falsettos (1981), and Falsettoland (1990). Finn wrote the lyrics and music for all three of the virtually sung-through works and also wrote the books of the first two (the latter’s book was by both Finn and James Lapine). The current production of Falsettos wasn’t a new musical, and was instead a new overall title for March of the Falsettos (which was performed in the first act) and Falsettoland (performed in the second). The basic story dealt with Marvin (Michael Rupert), who leaves his wife, Trina (Barbara Walsh), and son, Jason (Jonathan Kaplan), for his lover, Whizzer (Stephen Bogardus). Meanwhile, Marvin’s psychiatrist, Mendel (Chip Zien), marries Trina, Whizzer dies of AIDS, and Marvin tries to reestablish a relationship with Jason. Moreover, the politically correct world of the musical ensured that Marvin and Whizzer’s next-door neighbors are two lesbians, Charlotte (Heather Mac Rae) and Cordelia (Carolee Carmello). The work was commendable in its attempt to depict fresh and timely subject matter, but was weak and disappointing in execution. The general framework straddled the worlds of soap opera and sitcoms, and the characters were depicted in a manner that made them too bright, too self-aware, too articulate, and too “on.” As a result, one never had time to gradually know and discover them because they were forever explaining themselves. Despite the musical’s serious elements, one never felt anything serious was going on because everything remained on the surface. If the score had been strong, the show might have overcome its essential banality, but the music was watery and unmemorable and the lyrics were disappointing. To be sure, the show had its adherents and in the main most of the critics praised it. Falsettos played on Broadway for more than a year and won the Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score. As of this writing, a Broadway revival is scheduled to open at the Walter Kerr Theatre on October 27, 2016. Clive Barnes in the New York Post said that artistically Falsettos “clatters like a set of false teeth in a politically correct ventriloquist’s dummy.” The evening was “thought-provoking in scope” but “musically feeble” with a score of “extravagant” recitative that ran “up and down the block in search of an aria” and the plot was “sticky with sentiment” and not all that far “removed from the realms of the midday soaps.” John Simon in New York found the musical “a triumph of packaging and salesmanship not to be confused with art,” and complained that the musical’s “big lie” was making death “by AIDS look gentle, elegant—something like a nineteenth-century heroine’s wistful expiring of consumption—where we all know that it is grueling and gruesome.” To “prettify” the situation was “an act not of ennoblement but of jejune evasion.” Further, the music and lyrics were “trivial” and “a graffito on the surface of life posturing as insight, beauty, art.” Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News said the musical was “too sweet and sugary by far” and “rings false.” He also noted that the “chattering, clattering score ‘could drive a person crazy,’ to quote a Sondheim lyric.” But Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the season’s best show had been saved for last and she praised the “brave and hilarious, charming, disarming” musical, which was “loaded with honest sentiment and cynicism.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today also said the musical was the season’s “best,” noted that

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not since Leonard Bernstein had anyone “captured American vernacular speech rhythms with such precision as Finn,” and concluded that the evening was “a musical and dramatic landmark.” And while Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal didn’t agree that Falsettos was “a breakthrough musical,” he said it nonetheless told its story in an “original way” and offered a score that was “fresh,” “imaginative,” “hummable,” and with appealing harmonies. Jeremy Gerard in Variety found the musical “exhilarating” and said the comparison of Finn to Stephen Sondheim was “apt” because of the score’s “clipped but natural musical style,” which ranged “widely and effortlessly from ballad to music hall to operetta.” Frank Rich in the New York Times praised the “exhilarating and heartbreaking” musical, which was “far more complex than its simple story might suggest” and said it marked a “perfect end” to the theatre season. In Trousers originally opened Off-Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons’ Mainstage Theatre on December 8, 1978, for eight performances with Chip Zien as Marvin (others in the cast were Alison Fraser and Mary Testa). The musical looked at Marvin’s relationships with a (female) high school sweetheart as well as Miss Goldberg, one of his teachers. The show reopened on February 21, 1979, for an additional twenty-four showings, the cast album was released by Original Cast Records (LP # OC-7915), and the script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 1986. A slightly revised version of the musical opened Off-Off-Broadway at The Second Stage on February 22, 1981, for fifteen performances (Jay O. Sanders was Marvin, and others in the cast were Alaina Reed and Karen Jablons), and another revised version was produced Off-Broadway at the Promenade Theatre on March 26, 1985, for sixteen performances (Tony Cummings played Marvin). March of the Falsettos premiered Off-Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons’ Studio Theatre on April 1, 1981, for forty-two performances, transferred to the company’s Mainstage Theatre on May 20, 1981, for 170 performances, and then transferred again, this time to Off Broadway where it opened at the Westside Arts Theatre’s Cheryl Crawford Theatre on October 13, 1981, for 128 performances, for a total of 340 showings (in preproduction, the musical was known as The Pettiness of Misogyny and Four Jews in a Room Bitching). The musical introduced Whizzer, who was played by Bogardus, and Rupert assumed the role of Marvin while Fraser reprised her original role of Trina from the first production of In Trousers. Zien, who had created the role of Marvin for the first production, was now Mendel, Marvin’s psychiatrist. The cast album was released by DRG Records (LP # SBL-12581), and the script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 1981. March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland were later published together as Falsettos in a paperback edition by Samuel French in 1995. The scripts for all three “Marvin” musicals (In Trousers, March of the Falsettos, and Falsettoland) were published in hardback as The Marvin Songs by the Fireside Theatre in an undated (circa 1991) edition. Falsettoland opened Off-Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on June 28, 1990, and transferred to the Lucille Lortel Theatre the following September 16 for a total run of 215 performances. Rupert, Bogardus, and Zien were in the production, and Faith Prince played Trina. The musical took place a short time after the events depicted in March of the Falsettos. The cast album was released by DRG Records (CD # 12601), and the script was published in the editions noted above. On July 16, 1998, the musical was revived Off-Off-Broadway by the National Asian American Theatre at the Dim Sum Theatre for 29 performances with an AsianAmerican cast. Incidentally, Andre Bishop, the artistic director of Playwrights Horizons, wrote that Falsettoland “doesn’t preach or proselytize,” but one wonders why in one song Finn felt compelled to include a cruel and gratuitous swipe at Nancy Reagan.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Falsettos); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Michael Rupert); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Jonathan Kaplan); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Barbara Walsh); Best Director of a Musical (James Lapine); Best Book (William Finn and James Lapine); Best Score (lyrics and music by William Finn)

1992–1993 Season

110 IN THE SHADE Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: July 18, 1992; Closing Date: November 15, 1992 Performances: 12 (in repertory) Book: N. Richard Nash Lyrics: Tom Jones Music: Harvey Schmidt Based on the 1953 teleplay and 1954 play The Rainmaker by N. Richard Nash. Direction: Scott Ellis; Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Manager); Choreography: Susan Stroman (Norman Kauahi, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Lindsay W. Davis; Lighting: Jeff Davis; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: Robert Mann Kayser (Tommy), Jennifer Paulson Lee and John Scott (Dance Couple), Richard Muenz (File), David Aaron Baker (Jimmy Curry), Walter Charles (Noah Curry), Henderson Forsythe (H. C. Curry), Karen Ziemba (Lizzie Curry), Crista Moore (Snookie Updegraff), Brian Sutherland (Bill Starbuck); Singers and Dancers: The New York City Opera Chorus and Dancers The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in the Western town of Three Point from dawn to midnight during a summer day in 1934.

Musical Numbers Act One: “(Gonna Be) Another Hot Day” (Richard Muenz, Townspeople); “Lizzie’s Comin’ Home” (David Aaron Baker, Walter Charles, Henderson Forsythe); “Love, Don’t Turn Away” (Karen Ziemba); “Overhead” (Townspeople); “Poker Polka” (David Aaron Baker, Walter Charles, Henderson Forsythe, Richard Muenz); “Why Can’t They Leave Me Alone” (Richard Muenz); “Come on Along” (Townspeople); “Rain Song” (Brian Sutherland, Townspeople); “You’re Not Foolin’ Me” (Karen Ziemba, Brian Sutherland); “Cinderella” (Children); “Raunchy” (Karen Ziemba); “A Man and a Woman” (Richard Muenz, Karen Ziemba); “Old Maid” (Karen Ziemba) Act Two: “Come on Along” (reprise) (Townspeople); “Everything Beautiful Happens at Night” (Townspeople); “Shooting Star” (Brian Sutherland); “Melisande” (Brian Sutherland); “Simple Little Things” (Karen Ziemba); “Little Red Hat” (David Aaron Baker, Crista Moore); “Is It Really Me?” (Karen Ziemba, Brian Sutherland); “Wonderful Music” (Brian Sutherland, Richard Muenz, Karen Ziemba); “Rain Song” (reprise) (Company)

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In the fall of 1963, New York City was in the midst of a drought, and water restrictions were in place. Coincidentally, two Broadway productions opened in late October that reflected rain or the lack of it. On October 22, Howard Teichmann’s comedy A Rainy Day in Newark opened for a one-week run, and two days later 110 in the Shade premiered. The musical wasn’t a blockbuster, but it ran out the season for a total of 330 performances and managed to show a small profit. During the 1963–1964 season, the gentle and subdued charms of 110 in the Shade had to compete with brassy hits (such as Hello, Dolly! and Funny Girl) and an array of big-name stars in various plays and musicals (Charles Boyer, Carol Burnett, Richard Burton, Carol Channing, Claudette Colbert, Albert Finney, Alec Guinness, Tammy Grimes, Julie Harris, Steve Lawrence, Beatrice Lillie, Mary Martin, Paul Newman, Robert Preston, Barbra Streisand, and Joanne Woodward). And despite Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones’s memorable score, the show didn’t produce a hit song like “People” or the title number of Dolly! to identify it for potential theatergoers. But the musical has continued to be produced over the decades and is probably more appreciated now than it was in 1963. Its heartfelt story may well be the most touching and dramatic of all the musicals that opened during the 1963–1964 season, and its intelligent and melodic score offers atmospheric songs, character-driven soliloquies, ballads, and choral numbers. N. Richard Nash based his libretto on The Rainmaker, his 1953 television drama and 1954 Broadway adaptation (it was later filmed in 1956). The story takes place from dawn to dusk in a small Western town during a time of drought, and focuses on Lizzie Curry (Karen Ziemba for the current revival), a rather plain young woman in the midst of an emotional drought as she contemplates an empty future as a small-town spinster doomed to keep house for her widowed father and two unmarried brothers. Suddenly the flashy con man Bill Starbuck (Brian Sutherland) struts into both the town and Lizzie’s life; he’s a spiritual cousin not only to The Music Man’s Harold Hill but also to Joe Dynamite, the leading male character in Nash’s libretto for the 1960 musical Wildcat. Joe Dynamite promises oil, Starbuck promises rain. The town’s lonely, divorced, and slightly embittered Sheriff File (Richard Muenz) is somewhat attracted to Lizzie but is too wary to openly show any interest. As the evening progresses, Lizzie must choose between the stalwart and dependable File and the romantic but unreliable Starbuck. The choice is a musical-comedy cliché, but here it was not presented in a facile manner and was instead handled with intelligence and insight, and the “challenge” song for File and Starbuck found each man beckoning Lizzie with his own brand of “Wonderful Music.” The rich score offered a striking opening number for File and the townspeople as they faced “Another Hot Day,” in which minor-key harmonics reflected a kind of Western movie-soundtrack ambience, and the second act began during the cooler twilight with the enchanting lantern-lit “Everything Beautiful Happens at Night,” one of the score’s quintet of lovely ballads (the other four, “Love, Don’t Turn Away,” “Simple Little Things,” “A Man and a Woman,” and “Is It Really Me?,” were solos for Lizzie or duets for her with either File or Starbuck). Starbuck’s revival-like “Rain Song” stirred up the townsfolk with his promise of rain, and his “Melisande” gave Lizzie a more glamorous name as he confusedly told the tale of Melisande, who was courted by King Hamlet of Mexico who sought the golden fleece. Lizzie and Starbuck also shared the angry duet “You’re Not Foolin’ Me,” and the first act curtain fell on Lizzie as she cringed at the prospect of becoming an “Old Maid.” A lighter number was the jaunty “Poker Polka” for File and Lizzie’s father and brothers, and “Raunchy” was a pull-all-the-stops-out fantasy in which Lizzie imagines herself as a worldly and slightly wicked vamp (three years later, Schmidt and Jones offered a similar number for I Do! I Do!’s proper Agnes, who also conjures up a naughty and flirtatious alter-ego in “Flaming Agnes”). The weakest number in the score is “Little Red Hat,” an obvious and smarmy song for one of the brothers and his girlfriend. The musical’s most poorly written character is File, who comes across as something of a stick (he must be cousin to Marie, Tony’s dour spoilsport sister in The Most Happy Fella). Pity the actor who plays the role, because it’s one that causes critics to carp. Musically, File is handed a batch of good songs, but otherwise he’s a fuzzily written cipher, and when the ladies at the picnic excitedly exclaim that “File’s coming! File’s coming!,” one momentarily thinks there must be another character in the show with the same name because surely the sheriff we’ve come to know would never stir up such interest. One hopes that a future revival will reshape the character and make him more interesting, and thus give Lizzie a real choice between two equally fascinating men. However, the other characters are well written, the book is strong, and the score is one of the finest of the 1960s. But the work has never enjoyed the breakthrough production that might solidify its place as one of

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Broadway’s warmest and most touching musicals. The story might benefit from being presented in one act, and “Little Red Hat” should be cut. And while The Rainmaker takes place in the 1920s, the musical seems to occur a decade or two later, and in fact most productions are somewhat vague with the time frame and often the dialogue, lyrics, costumes, and performance styles seem to come from a potpourri of decades. The plot would probably work better in a much earlier time period, around the turn of the twentieth century. It seems unlikely that mid-twentieth-century townspeople would fall for Starbuck’s claim to bring rain, just as they’d question a Harold Hill who sells musical instruments based on a “think” system. But we accept The Music Man because it occurs in 1912, and although we know better we like to think that era was a simpler and more trusting time. Placing 110 in the Shade in an early 1900s setting would possibly add to its charm and give it a somewhat nostalgic fable-like quality. As it stands, Lizzie’s return home after a short visit with distant relatives (“Lizzie’s Coming Home”) is treated as a major event by her family, and hearing the song for the first time the listener might easily assume Lizzie has been away for months instead of two weeks. But it’s not a stretch to assume a train trip would have been more exotic in 1900. Further, a modern woman would have a career and wouldn’t write off her life because she’s single and is expected to stay home and tend to her father and brothers. But Lizzie’s antiquated sensibility would be more understandable had she lived during the early part of the century. Judicious tweaking of the dialogue and some of the songs (especially “Raunchy”), the omission of “Little Red Hat,” and a change in the story’s time frame would give 110 in the Shade a surer sense of time and place and would clarify both the basic plot premise (that a man can cause rain to fall) and the conflicts within the characters. The musical premiered on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on October 24, 1963, for 330 performances and was nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Score. The London production opened at the Palace Theatre on February 8, 1967, and added a title song, which was dropped during the run. The original Broadway cast album was issued by RCA Victor Records (LP # LOC/LSO-1085), and the later CD release (# 1085-2-RG) includes the overture, which had been recorded during the 1963 cast album session but hadn’t been included on the LP. The show’s demo recording includes seven numbers; Living Strings— New from Broadway (RCA Camden Records LP # CAL/CAS-790) offers “Is It Really Me?,” “Another Hot Day,” “Everything Beautiful Happens at Night,” and the cut “Too Many People Alone”; and Opening Night with Ed Ames (RCA Victor Records LP # LPM/LSP-2781) includes the unused “Pretty Is.” Except for two 45 RPM singles on Columbia Records (# DB-8126 [the title song and “Little Red Hat”] and # DB-8131 [“A Man and a Woman” and “Another Hot Day”]), there was no London cast recording. Susan Watson’s lovely collection Earthly Paradise (Nassau Records CD # 96568) is a tribute to Schmidt and Jones and includes “Simple Little Things” and the unused “Sweet River”; The Show Goes On, the 1997 Off-Broadway salute to Schmidt and Jones, includes “Another Hot Day,” “Melisande,” and “Simple Little Things” as well as the unused “I Can Dance,” “Desseau Dance Hall,” and “Flibbertigibbet” and the cut “Come on Along”; the collection Lost in Boston III (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5563) offers the unused “Inside My Head”; and Lost in Boston IV (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5768) includes the unused “Pretty Is” and the cut “Evening Star.” In 1997, a two-CD studio cast recording was released by Jay Records (# CDJAY-2-1282) that includes Karen Ziemba, Richard Muenz, and Walter Charles from the current revival as well as Ron Raines (Starbuck), George Lee Andrews (H.C.), and Kristin Chenoweth (Snookie). Schmidt and Jones also make brief appearances on the recording, which includes the entr’acte, curtain music, exit music, and the cut “Cinderella.” On May 9, 2007, the Roundabout Theatre Company revived the musical at Studio 54 for ninety-four performances with Audra MacDonald (Lizzie), Steve Kazee (Starbuck), Christopher Innvar (File), John Cullum (H.C.), and Bobby Steggert (Jimmy); the production included the cut numbers “Evening Star” and “Cinderella,” and the cast recording was released by PS Classics (CD # 7545). In his review of the current production, Edward Rothstein in the New York Times said the revival was “one of the best attempts at bringing Broadway musical theatre to life that I have seen at the City Opera,” and while the work wasn’t “a greatly neglected classic” it was nonetheless “an entertaining, polished, sometimes touching mixture of dance and song and character.” Karen Ziemba was “vocally lithe and sweet” and was “so simply human” in her depiction of Lizzie that she “bypassed both traditional clichés and contemporary notions of a woman’s proper ambitions.” In the same newspaper, David Richards said the score was one of the “finest” written by Schmidt and Jones and that Nash’s book was “sturdily built” and didn’t “reduce its characters to stereotypes.” He praised

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Ziemba, who sang “splendidly” and, “more significantly,” sang “bravely,” and who acted with “unvarnished honesty and desperate forthrightness.” The production omitted the choral number “Hungry Men”; added a new song (“Why Can’t They Leave Me Alone”); and reinstated two songs cut during the tryout (“Come on Along” and “Cinderella”). “Overhead” may have been a variation of “Another Hot Day,” and “Shootin’ Star” was probably a revised version of “Evening Star,” which had been cut during the original production’s tryout.

ANNA KARENINA Theatre: Circle in the Square Opening Date: August 26, 1992; Closing Date: October 11, 1992 Performances: 46 Book and Lyrics: Peter Kellogg (Nancy Bosco, Dramaturg) Music: Daniel Levine Based on the novel Anna Karenina (aka Anna Karenin) by Leo Tolstoy (published in serial format during 1873–1877 and in book format in 1878). Direction: Theodore Mann; Producer: Circle in the Square Theatre (Theodore Mann, Artistic Director; Robert A. Buckley, Managing Director; and Paul Libin, Consulting Producer); Choreography: Patricia Birch (Jonathan Cerullo, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: James Morgan; Costumes: Carrie Robbins; Lighting: Mary Jo Dondlinger; Musical Direction: Nicholas Archer Cast: Scott Wentworth (Count Alexis Vronsky), Ann Crumb (Anna Karenina), Gregg Edelman (Constantine Levin), David Pursley (Train Conductor, Fyodor, Basso, Levin’s Foreman), Jerry Lanning (Prince Stephen Oblonsky aka Stiva), Melissa Errico (Princess Kitty Scherbatsky), Naz Edwards (Dunyasha, Woman at Party), Gabrielle Barre (Korsunsky, Man at Party, Peasant), Larry Hansen and Ray Wills (Men at the Ball), Larry Hansen (Guard at the Station, Vasily), Amelia Prentice (Masha, Lucia), Erik Houston Saari (Seryozha Karenin), Darcy Pulliam (Annushka), John Cunningham (Nicolai Karenin), Jo Ann Cunningham (Princess Elizabeth Tversky aka Betsey), Ray Wills (Finance Minister, Prince Yashvin) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Russia and Italy during the 1870s.

Musical Numbers Act One: “On a Train” (Ann Crumb, Scott Wentworth, Gregg Edelman, Chorus); “There’s More to Life Than Love” (Jerry Lanning, Ann Crumb); “How Awful” (Melissa Errico); “Would You?” (Gregg Edelman); “In a Room” (Gregg Edelman, Melissa Errico, Ann Crumb, Scott Wentworth); “Waltz” and “Mazurka” (Ann Crumb, Melissa Errico, Scott Wentworth, Jerry Lanning); “Nothing Has Changed” (Ann Crumb); “Lowlands” (David Pursley); “Rumors” (Chorus); “How Many Men?” (Melissa Errico); “We Were Dancing” (Scott Wentworth); “I’m Lost” (Ann Crumb); “Karenin’s List” (John Cunningham); “Waiting for You” (Ann Crumb, Scott Wentworth) Act Two: “This Can’t Go On” (Ann Crumb, Scott Wentworth, John Cunningham); “Peasants’ Idyll” (Chorus); “That Will Serve Her Right” (Gregg Edelman); “Everything’s Fine” (Ann Crumb, Scott Wentworth); “Would You?” (reprise) (Gregg Edelman, Melissa Errico); “Everything’s Fine” (reprise) (Ann Crumb); “Only at Night” (John Cunningham); Finale (Ann Crumb, Chorus) The critics couldn’t resist paraphrasing Tolstoy, and so Mel Gussow in the New York Times wryly noted that “every unhappy musical is unhappy in its own way” (and no musical was “more unfortunate” than Anna Karenina) and Jeremy Gerard in Variety said “all hit musicals are like one another” but “each flop flops in its own way.” The critics were mostly dismissive of the new musical and it was gone in six weeks. Based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel (which in some respects was similar to Gustave Flaubert’s earlier 1856 novel Madame Bovary), the story centered on the doomed title character (Ann Crumb), who is married to Karenin (John Cunningham) but has an affair with Count Vronsky (Scott Wentworth) and runs away with him. Despite the scandal, society accepts Vronsky but ostracizes Anna, and when she realizes she’s lost everything, her son, her marriage, her reputation, and perhaps even Vronsky, she throws herself into the path of an oncoming train.

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John Simon in New York said the “jingle writer’s jaunt through Tolstoy” would “have you gnashing your teeth when not splitting your sides.” The score was “derivative, unmusical, or horrible,” and “especially deadly” was Sondheim’s influence, “which in the wrong hands—as we know full well from Falsettos—can prove like sending in a clown to play Hamlet.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the evening was “an unusually well-costumed soap opera” with songs “so forgettable they’re hardly even music.” The headline of Howard Kissel’s review in the New York Daily News said the musical rated “one czar,” and he noted there was a “relentless two-dimensionality” to the material. Jan Stuart in New York Newsday said the “high-kicking hatchet job” had “drab” direction, an “insipid” score with “generic” show music, and lyrics with “singsongy rhymes [that] ooze like low-grade Oscar Hammerstein” and noted there was no sense of the place or the period. And Gussow said the “travesty” represented “a series of misperceptions and errors in judgment” in which “Barbara Cartland meets Leo Tolstoy, and the band plays on.” But Jerry Talmer in the New York Post said the musical “isn’t at all bad” and was actually “pretty good,” and he noted that Kellogg and Levine captured the “essence” of Tolstoy and “strung it together with wit, color and coherence.” William A. Henry III in Time found the evening an “earnest, intermittently moving but never quite thrilling” work with “blandly generic” lyrics (but he noted the musical offered a “showstopper” in “I’m Lost”). Ann Crumb received generally poor notices. Simon said her Anna had a “hard, rapacious, vulpine quality, a trashiness and hamminess that combine to stifle any possible compassion.” Stearns said she portrayed her role with “lots of overheated sentimentality,” while Gussow indicated she was “a continent away from Anna in temperament, bearing and appearance” and her performance had a “residual coarseness” that began “with her stridency and her forced laughter.” Tallmer noted there was “something straitlaced” and “schoolmarmish” about her interpretation, and Kissel said she was “very actressy” with “mannered” singing, and he found himself “eagerly awaiting” the moment when she threw herself in front of the train. He only wished she had taken along the “whiny” Erik Houston Saari, who played her son, Seryozha (Stuart said the character was a “screeching little Dennisky the Menaceky”). But Henry said Crumb made Anna’s “eruption into passion completely believable” and he noted the actress was “deeply affecting in her final derangement.” Stuart felt she stepped “gamely” through a role in which she was “force-fed a crock of corny dialogue.” Gerard said she and other “good” singers in the cast did what they could “with mediocre material and a story that fights the form.” Jerry Lanning walked away with especially good reviews. Simon said he was “much better as a character man than as a lead” and was “thoroughly credible,” and Kissel said he sang “beautifully” and was “believable and authentically Russian.” Gussow noted that among the performers only Lanning found “the complexity of his character,” and Stuart said the actor brought a “cheery directness” to his role that made “you understand why the man is so universally liked.” Tallmer found Lanning “a richly amusing actor.” After the opening, Walter Charles succeeded John Cunningham, and the song “Peasants’ Idyll” was cut. In 2006, a recording of the score was issued by LML Music Records (CD # LML-CD-217) with Melissa Errico in the title role (for Broadway, she had created the role of Kitty and had understudied Anna) and Gregg Edelman as Levin, the role he played on Broadway. Others on the recording are Brian d’Arcy James (Vronsky), Jeff McCarthy (Karenin), Marc Kudisch (Oblonsky), and Kerry Butler (Kitty). The recording added four sequences (“Snowstorm Scene,” “I Shall Work,” “I Never Dreamed,” and “Seryozha Epilogue”) and omitted five (“Waltz,” “Mazurka,” “Lowlands,” “Rumors,” and “Peasants’ Idyll”). The recording’s “Journey to Moscow” is probably a new title for “On a Train.” Another musical version of the material was titled Anna Karenina and apparently has never been staged. The studio cast album was released in 2003 by LML Music Records (two-CD set # LML-CD-165), the lyrics and music are by Ralph Chicorel, and Lorna Dallas sings the title role. The CD cover proclaims the work is “a new journey into melody and harmony,” and while one disk includes songs and instrumentals from the score, the other is “the complete audio musical.” As Anna Karenina, a 1994 Hungarian “rock szinhaz”/“musicaloperaja” adaptation by Kocsak Tibor and Miklos Tibor was issued on a two-CD set by 3T Magyar Polygram (# 068089-2).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Ann Crumb); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Gregg Edelman); Best Book (Peter Kellogg); Best Score (lyrics by Peter Kellogg, music by Daniel Levine)

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THE MUSIC OF ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER Theatre: Radio City Music Hall Opening Date: September 22, 1992; Closing Date: October 4, 1992 Performances: 14 Lyrics: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber Direction: Arlene Phillips; Producers: Broadway in Concert, Inc., and PACE Theatrical Group, Inc., by arrangement with The Really Useful Group and Superstar Ventures (R. Tyler Gatchell Jr. and Peter Neufeld [Gatchell and Neufeld, Ltd.], Executive Producers); Scenery and Lighting: Marc B. Weiss; Costumes: Frank Krenz, Costume Coordinator; Musical Direction: Paul Bogaev Cast: Michael Crawford, Laurie Beechman, Luann Aronson, Tom Donoghue, Willy Falk, Mark Hardy, Juliet Lambert, Jimmy Lockett, Donna Lee Marshall, Gary Mauer, Cathy Porter, Tami Tappan, Ty Taylor, Elizabeth Ward, Gay Willis The concert was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Jesus Christ Superstar Overture” (Broadway, 1971; West End, 1972) (Orchestra); “Jesus Christ Superstar” (lyric by Tim Rice) (Willy Falk, Company); “Potiphar” (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; London, 1968 [school production]; West End, 1973; New York, 1976 [Off Broadway, Brooklyn Academy of Music]; Broadway, 1982; lyric by Tim Rice) (Donna Lee Marshall, Willy Falk, Mark Hardy, Jimmy Lockett, Ty Taylor); “Close Every Door” (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; lyric by Tim Rice) (Tom Donoghue); “A Pharaoh’s Story” (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; lyric by Tim Rice) (Laurie Beechman); “Starlight Express” (Starlight Express; West End, 1984; Broadway, 1987; lyric by Richard Stilgoe) (Gary Mauer, Jimmy Lockett); “Unexpected Song” (Song & Dance; West End, 1982; Broadway, 1985; lyric by Don Black) (Luann Aronson); “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” (Evita; West End, 1978; New York, 1979; lyric by Tim Rice) (Luann Aronson); “Memory” (Cats; West End, 1981; Broadway, 1982; text by Trevor Nunn after T. S. Eliot, additional lyric by Trevor Nunn) (Laurie Beechman); “Mr. Mistoffelees” (Cats; lyric by T. S. Eliot) (Ty Taylor, Company); “Jellicle Ball” (Cats) (Orchestra); “Amigos Para Siempre” (“Friends for Life”) (song written for the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona; lyric by Don Black) (Gay Willis, Willy Falk); “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” (Jesus Christ Superstar; lyric by Tim Rice) (Cathy Porter); “Everything’s Alright” (Jesus Christ Superstar; lyric by Tim Rice) (Cathy Porter, Gary Mauer, Ty Taylor); “Gethsemane” (Jesus Christ Superstar; lyric by Tim Rice) (Michael Crawford) Act Two: “Evita Suite” (Orchestra); “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” (Evita; lyric by Tim Rice) (Elizabeth Ward); “And the Money Kept Rolling In” (Evita; lyric by Tim Rice) (Michael Crawford, Company); “Pie Jesu” (Requiem, 1985) (Gay Willis, Tami Tippan, Company); “The Phantom of the Opera Overture” (West End, 1986; Broadway, 1988) (Orchestra); “Think of Me” (The Phantom of the Opera; lyric by Charles Hart, additional lyric by Richard Stilgoe and Mike Batt) (Michael Crawford, Juliet Lambert); “All I Ask of You” (The Phantom of the Opera; lyric by Charles Hart, additional lyric by Richard Stilgoe) (Michael Crawford, Cathy Porter); “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” (The Phantom of the Opera; lyric by Charles Hart, additional lyric by Richard Stilgoe) (Juliet Lambert); “Masquerade” (The Phantom of the Opera; lyric by Charles Hart, additional lyric by Richard Stilgoe) (Company); “The Music of the Night” (The Phantom of the Opera; lyric by Charles Hart, lyric by Richard Stilgoe) (Michael Crawford) The limited-engagement concert The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, which with other performers had been touring on and off since 1990, played for two weeks at Radio City Music Hall. The cast included London and Broadway’s original phantom, Michael Crawford; fourteen singers; and a fifty-two-piece orchestra. The evening offered seven numbers from The Phantom of the Opera, five from Jesus Christ Superstar, four from Evita, three from Cats, three from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, one apiece from Starlight Express, Song & Dance, and Requiem, and one song written for the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona. The middle-of-the-road concert wasn’t about to include unfamiliar and esoteric material, and so there weren’t any trunk songs, let alone the melodic holiday song “Christmas Dreams” from the 1974 film

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The Odessa File or numbers from Jeeves (West End, 1975; revised and re-titled By Jeeves, West End, 1996, and Broadway, 2001). Stephen Holden in the New York Times said Lloyd Webber’s “starchy oratorical melodies” were performed by “top-notch” voices and thus “never sounded better.” The composer’s music was “defiantly oldfashioned” and “a throwback to Sigmund Romberg, spiced with Spanish dance rhythms and inflated with a churchy pomposity,” but for all that the company was “outstanding” and gave “bravura” performances. But he concluded that the evening was “an exercise in ceremonial glitz” and had “all the warmth of a guardchanging ritual in front of Buckingham Palace on a frigid winter morning.”

OBA OBA ’93

“The Hit Brazilian Musical Extravaganza” Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: October 1, 1992; Closing Date: November 11, 1992 Performances: 45 Choreography: Roberto Abrahao; Producer: Franco Fontana; Costumes: Nino Cruz, Wardrobe Designer; Musical Direction: Wilson Mauro Cast: Special Guest—Eliana Estevao; Ailto Souza, Ana Careca, Ana Paula dos Reyes, Angela Mara, Arlindo Pipiu, Carlos Leca, Carlos Oliveira, Carlos Silva, Casemiro Raposo, Chico Filho, Claudia Lisboa, Claudio Nascimento, Claudio Sampaio, Claudio Santos, Cobrinha Mansa, Cristiane Moreira, Edgar Aguiar, Edval Boa Morte, Elaine Garcia, Emerson Bernardes, Formiguinha, Gamo, Giovani Ramos, Ilson Helvecio, Iris da Rocha, Jaime Santos, Jones Santana, Jorge Boa Morte, Jorge Rum, Julio Peluchi, Lu Viana, Luciano Ribeirio, Mac, Marcia Labios de Mel, Marco do Repenique, Marquinho da Geralda, Mauricio de Souza, Mercia Alexandre, Messias Bastos, Monica Acioli, Nelaci Costa, Nilton Maravilha, Patricia Dantas, Patricia Moreira, Paulo W. Takase, R. Malaguti, Ray do Pandeiro, Ratinho, Rita de Cassia Nobre, Roberto Silva, Rodman Clayson, Rose Perola, Sergio Rocha, Sete Mola, Sonia Regina Moraes, Toco Preto, Valeria Matos, Wellington Gusmao, Wilson Mauro The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t identify the names of the cast members who performed the musical numbers. Act One: “Origins of Brazil”; “Homage to ‘Chorinho’”; Dance Sequence: (1) “Samba de Roda,” (2) “Lambada,” and (3) “Samba Reggae”; “Homage to the Northeast”; “Brazil Cappella”; “Homage to the Bossa Nova and the Seventies”; “Tribute to Carmen Miranda—The ‘Brazilian Bombshell’” Act Two: “Macumba”; “Afro-Brazilian Folk Songs and Dances—Berimbau Medley”: (a) “Capoeira of Angola”; (b) “Macuele”; and (c) “Acrobatic Capoeira”; “Partido Alto”; “Rhythm Beaters”; “Show of Samba Dancers”; “Grand Carnival” (Some sequences in the revue included the following songs: “Tico Tico,” lyric by Aloysio Oliveira, music by Zequinha Abreau; “Baia” aka “Na baixa do sabateiro,” Portuguese lyric and music by Ary Barroso; “Brazil” aka “Aquarela do Brasil,” lyric and music by Ary Barroso; “Mas que nada,” lyric and music by Jorge Ben; “O tic tac do meu coraçao,” lyric and music by Walfredo Silva and Alcyr Pires Varmelho; and “The Girl from Ipanema,” lyric by Vinicius de Moraes, music by Antonio Carlos Jobim [the popular English lyric was written by Norman Gimbel].) The limited-engagement Brazilian import Oba Oba ’93 had first played on Broadway as Oba Oba, where it opened on March 29, 1988, at the Ambassador Theatre for a limited run of forty-six performances and then returned as Oba Oba ’90 in another limited engagement at the Marquis Theatre on March 15, 1990, for fortyfive performances (for background information on the revue, see entry for this production). Between the 1990 visit and the current production, the revue toured as Oba Oba ’92. The current version was virtually a replica of the previous ones, and included dance exhibitions (such as the samba) and salutes to popular Brazilian music (including the bossa nova) as well as a tribute to the

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Portuguese-born “Brazilian Bombshell,” Carmen Miranda. The evening was the first of the season’s three Latin dance revues, and was followed by Gypsy Passion and Tango Pasion. In his review of the current (and final) New York engagement, Jack Anderson in the New York Times said the “endearingly giddy” and “high-spirited spectacle” offered “virtually nonstop parading and kicking” and was “the kind of show in which everyone is decked out in either finery or next to nothing.” And (like Five Guys Named Moe) the audience was invited to join the cast for dancing in the aisles (during the “Grand Carnival” finale). Anderson noted that the evening’s “most spectacular” dances occurred when the cast offered examples of capoeira, which wedded dance movements with tumbling and martial arts (one dancer even managed to slide across the stage on his head).

REGINA Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: October 9, 1992; Closing Date: October 24, 1992 Performances: 4 (in repertory) Libretto and Music: Marc Blitzstein Based on the 1939 play The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman. Direction: Rosalind Ellis (Beth Greenberg, Assistant Stage Director); Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Scenery: James Leonard Joy; Costumes: Joseph A. Citarella; Lighting: Jeff Davis; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Laurie Anne Hunter Cast: Denise Woods (Addie), Michael Lofton (Cal), Elizabeth Futral (Alexandra Giddens aka Zan), Sheryl Woods (Birdie Hubbard), Ron Baker (Oscar Hubbard), John Daniecki (Leo Hubbard), Leigh Munro (Regina Giddens), Paul Austin Kelly (William Marshall), Andrew Wentzel (Benjamin Hubbard), LeRoy Lehr (Horace Giddens); The New York Opera Company Chorus: Townspeople The opera was presented in three acts. The action takes place in the Giddens’ house in Bowden, Alabama, in the spring of 1900.

Musical Numbers The program didn’t list musical numbers, and because various productions of the opera either add or delete musical sequences, it isn’t clear which specific ones were heard in the current revival. The following list (with most numbers given as best-guess titles) is taken from the libretto and recordings and is offered as a suggestion of the musical sequences heard in a typical production of the opera (following each musical number is the name or names of the characters who perform the numbers). Act One: Prologue—The Veranda: “Want to Join the Angels” (Addie, Cal, Zan, Regina, Chorus); Introduction (Orchestra); “Oh, Cal” (Addie, Birdie); “Now, Mister Marshall” (Regina, Birdie, Marshall, Leo, Ben, Oscar); “The Children Will Drive You” (Oscar, Regina, Birdie, Leo); “Ya Ta Tum” (aka “Big Rich”) (Ben, Oscar, Regina, Birdie); “Regina, We Are Ready” (Oscar, Ben, Regina); “I’ve Asked Before” (Oscar, Ben, Birdie, Regina, Zan, Leo, Addie); “You Are to Say You Miss Him” (Regina, Zan); “You Know, If You Want” (aka “The Best Thing of All”) (Regina, Birdie, Ben, Oscar, Leo); “Zan! Zan!” (Birdie, Zan, Oscar) Act Two: “Oh, Addie” (Regina); “Deedle Doodle” (Leo, Cal, Oscar, Birdie, Regina); “Careful, Papa” (Zan, Horace, Birdie); “The Bottle of Medicine” (Zan, Birdie, Addie, Horace, Ben, Leo); “Well? Well?” (Regina, Horace, Ben); “For Us, Too” (Regina, Zan, Horace, Leo, Ben, Oscar); “Regina Does a Lovely Party” (Chorus); “Evening, Manders” (Horace, Zan, Regina, Birdie, Marshall, Leo, Ben, Oscar); “Night Could Be Time to Sleep” (Addie, Birdie); “There’s Mister Marshall” (Regina, Birdie, Zan, Ben, Leo, Marshall); The Party: (1) “Chinkypin” (character of Jazz; not included in current production); (2) “Blues” (Addie, Birdie); (3) “Waltz” (Regina); and (4) “Gallop” (Party Guests) Act Three: Introduction; “Isn’t This Nice?” (aka “Rain Quartet”) (Birdie, Zan, Addie, Horace); “Miss Birdie” (aka “Lionnet” and “Birdie’s Aria”) (Addie, Birdie); “Addie! Take Zan Away” (Horace, Addie, Regina); “As Long as You Live” (Regina, Zan, Horace, Cal, Leo); “Where Is He?” (Ben, Oscar, Leo, Regina); “You Don’t Yet” (aka “Greedy Girl”) (Regina, Ben); “I’m Smiling, Ben” (Regina, Zan, Ben, Oscar); “What Do You Want to Talk to Me About, Alexandra?” (Regina, Zan); “Certainly, Lord” (Chorus)

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Lillian Hellman’s powerful 1939 melodrama The Little Foxes centered on a mostly viperous family who will do anything for power and money. And Regina Giddens is the most venomous of all: She murders her husband Horace, tries to force her daughter Zan into a loveless marriage with a sleazy cousin, and in order to wrest control of the family money she blackmails her brothers Ben and Oscar. At the end of the play, Regina is rich and powerful but has been abandoned by Zan and is bound in an uneasy alliance with her brothers because they suspect she caused Horace’s death. It’s easy to understand how the over-the-top melodramatics of the story and the larger-than-life character of Regina inspired Marc Blitzstein to adapt the material into his opera Regina, which opened on Broadway on October 31, 1949, at the 46th Street (now Richard Rodgers) Theatre for fifty-six performances. The work received respectful but somewhat cool notices, and many critics felt it didn’t enhance the original play. At least three reviewers used the word “experiment” to define the evening. Because of the short run and indifferent reviews, it was brave of the New York City Opera Company to revive the work just a little more than three years after the Broadway closing. The first revival, which opened at City Center on April 2, 1953, for three performances, restored the opera to three acts (as had been Blitzstein’s intention before producer Cheryl Crawford insisted he compress the action into two) and included heretofore unused music for the party sequence. The company revived the work four more times (three at City Center and one at the New York State Theatre): on October 9, 1953, for two performances; on April 17, 1958, for two performances; on April 19, 1959, for two performances; and the current production, which marked the company’s final revival of the work. There have also been two other New York revivals presented in limited engagements, one Off-Off-Broadway at the Encompass Theatre on October 19, 1978, for twenty-three performances and the other on May 9, 1984, by the Opera Ensemble of New York at the Lillie Blake School Theatre for eight showings. There are two recordings of the score. City Opera’s 1958 revival inspired the first, which was released by Columbia Records on a three-LP boxed set (# 031-260 and # 03S-202) and later on a two-CD set by Sony Masterworks/Broadway/Arkiv Music (# 72912). The cast includes Brenda Lewis (Regina), who had created the role of Birdie for the Broadway production but sang the title character in later revivals, and the conductor is Samuel Krachmalnick, who conducted the original 1956 Broadway production of Candide as well as City Opera’s 1958 and 1959 productions. The most complete recording of the score is the two-CD set issued by London Records (# 433-812-2) which restores the veranda and party sequences; for this album, John Mauceri conducts the Scottish Opera Orchestra and Chorus, and the singers include Katherine Ciesinski (Regina), Samuel Ramey (Horace), and Angelina Reaux (Zan). The LP and CD releases include the libretto of the opera. In an article about the current revival, Jamie James in the New York Times reported that the production would “rely on the reduced text of the [1958] revival, with a few additional cuts,” and director Rosalind Elias said she had “tightened up the piece so that we get right to the theatre part of it” because she believed “that’s the way Blitzstein wanted it.” Edward Rothstein in the New York Times suggested the work would “be strengthened by even more radical cutting” and said the score lacked “memorable melody or a consistent vision about the characters or the plot.” But the evening was “accomplished” and an “entertainment,” Sheryl Woods’ Birdie was “gracious and effective,” and Elizabeth Futral’s Zan was “sure-pitched and attractive.” And while Leigh Munro’s Regina “lacked the sort of edgy viciousness” that Bette Davis had brought to the 1941 film version of The Little Foxes, he supposed she was “partly” hampered because Blitzstein had made her role “musically ambiguous.”

GYPSY PASSION Theatre: Plymouth Theatre Opening Date: November 17, 1992; Closing Date: January 2, 1993 Performances: 54 Text: Tomas Rodriguez-Pantoja Lyrics and Music: Traditional Direction: Staging by Tomas Rodriguez-Pantoja (Carlos Gorbea, Production Supervisor); Producers: For the Government of Andalucia, Spain, Andalucia Productions (also produced by Roy A. Somlyo); Choreography: Gitanos de Jerez (The Gypsies of Jerez); Scenery: David Sumner; Costumes: Mercedes Muniz; Lighting: Tom Sturge; Musical Direction: Manuel Morao

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Cast: First Generation—Manuel Morao, Lorenzo Galvez, Manuel Moneo, Juana la del Pipa; Second Generation—Antonio el Pipa, Sara Baras, Concha Vargas, Juan Antonio Ogalla, Pepe de la Joaquina, Luis Moneo, Antonio Moreno, Carmen de la Jeroma; Third Generation—Manuela Nunez, Mercedes Ruiz, Patricia Valdes, Estefania Aranda The dance revue was presented in two acts. The action takes place in and around Seville and in a gypsy village.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Tonia” (Singer: Manuel Morao); “Villancico” (Company); “Solea” (Singer: Juana la del Pipa; Dancer: Concha Vargas; Guitarists: Manuel Morao, Luis Moneo, Antonio Moreno); “Cantina” (Singer: Pepe da la Joaquina; Dancer: Antonio el Pipa; Guitarists: Manuel Morao, Luis Moneo, Antonio Moreno); “Tangos” (Singer and Dancer: Juana la del Pipa); “Tanguillos” (Singer and Dancer: Juana la Del Pipa; Dancers: Manuela Nunez, Mercedes Ruiz, Patricia Valdes, Estefania Aranda; Guitarists: Manuel Morao, Luis Moneo, Antonio Moreno); “Seguirillas” (Singer: Manuel Moneo; Dancer: Sara Baras; Guitarists: Manuel Morao, Luis Moneo, Antonio Moreno); “Zapateado” (Company); “Taranto” (Singer: Lorenzo Galvez; Dancers: Juan Antonio Ogalla, Carmen de la Jeroma; Guitarist: Manuel Morao); “Bulerias” (Singers: Pepe de la Joaquina, Juana la del Pipa; Dancers: Manuela Nunez, Mercedes Ruiz, Patricia Valdes, Estefania Aranda; Guitarists: Luis Moneo, Antonio Moreno) Act Two: “Alegrias” (Singer: Pepe de la Joaquina; Dancers: Antonio el Pipa, Sara Baras, Juan Antonio Ogalla, Carmen de la Jeroma; Guitarists: Manuel Morao, Luis Moneo, Antonio Moreno); “Alborea” (Company); “El Polo de Tobalo” (Singer: Pepe de la Joaquina; Dancers: Antonio el Pipa, Sara Baras; Guitarists: Manuel Morao, Luis Moneo, Antonio Moreno); “Martinetes” (Singers: Lorenzo Galvez, Manuel Moneo, Pepe de la Joaquina; Dancers: Antonio el Pipa, Sara Baras); Finale: “Bulerias” (Company) Like Flamenco Puro (which opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on October 19, 1986, for forty performances), Gypsy Passion was a flamenco dance revue performed by Spanish dancers, singers, and guitarists, and was the season’s second of three Latin-flavored dance revues (it followed Oba Oba ’93 and preceded Tango Pasion, which opened later in the season). Gypsy Passion had first been produced in New York the previous season when it played at Town Hall beginning on April 22, 1992, for fifteen performances. Paco el Clavero and Antonio Malena appeared in this production but didn’t transfer to Broadway, and Pepe de la Joaquina and Carmen de la Jeroma joined the Broadway edition. The program notes stated that Gypsy Passion was the first production in an ongoing effort to preserve and promote the culture of Andalucia, and the evening’s purpose was “not only to entertain but also to familiarize the public throughout the world with the lifestyle of the gypsies” and to allow viewers to “see that Flamenco has become a common language.” In order to connect the dances, the revue-like musical employed a slender story that dealt with life in the city (in this case, Seville) and in a gypsy village and focused on a pair of lovers who eventually marry. In some ways, the evening was similar to a number of the era’s Jewish revues that contrasted life in the shtetl and the big cities of either New York or Tel Aviv, and these revues also tended to include wedding sequences. Anna Kisselgoff in the New York Times said Gypsy Passion was an “artfully conceived production” that offered entertainers of “ingenuity, charm and dignity,” and she noted the dances weren’t performed in isolation but instead emerged with “dramatic logic” from the “loose narrative.” In the same newspaper, Jennifer Dunning had reviewed the earlier production at Town Hall and she praised the “hard-driving footwork” and “deep-rooted singing and guitar music.” She liked the evening’s “great charm” and “sunny warmth,” and noted it was a show “to lose one’s heart to” because it provided “a sense of family generations” and their everyday life.

3 FROM BROOKLYN Theatre: Helen Hayes Theatre Opening Date: November 19, 1992; Closing Date: December 27, 1992

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Performances: 45 Material: Sal Richards Lyrics: Sandi Merle Music: Steve Michaels Direction: Sal Richards (however, one critic noted that while Richards was cited as director on the program’s “cover sheet,” Jay Harvey was listed as director inside the program); Producers: Michael Frazier, Larry Spellman, and Don Ravella; Scenery: Charles E. McCarry; Costumes: Uncredited; Lighting: Phil Monat; Musical Direction: Steve Michaels Cast: The BQE Dancers (Guy Richards, John Michaels, and Damon Rusignola), Raymond Serra (Cosmo the Cabbie), Adrianne Tolsch, Roslyn Kind, Bobby Alto and Buddy Mantia, Sal Richards The revue was presented in one act. The action takes place on a street in Brooklyn at the present time.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t include musical numbers; the following songs were among those performed in the production, and the list is taken from newspaper reviews and other sources. “I’ve Got to Be Me” (Golden Rainbow, 1968; lyric and music by Walter Marks); “Meadowlark” (The Baker’s Wife, closed during pre-Broadway tryout in 1976; lyric and music by Stephen Schwartz); “People” (Funny Girl, 1964; lyric by Bob Merrill, music by Jule Styne); “Take a Trip” (lyricist and composer unknown); “3 from Brooklyn” (lyric by Sandi Merle, music by Steve Michaels) The one-act revue 3 from Brooklyn featured nine performers and a four-piece band and saluted the borough and its people through the lens of mostly old-hat show-business routines. The title referred to three young male dancers (The BQE Dancers [Guy Richards, John Michaels, and Damon Rusignola]) who impress a Brooklyn cabbie named Cosmo (Raymond Serra), who then takes the audience on a tour of Brooklyn entertainers, including stand-up comedienne Adrianne Tolsch, singer Roslyn Kind, the comic duo of Bobby Alton and Buddy Mantia, and comic and impressionist Sal Richards, who assembled and starred in the show (and whose son Guy was one-third of the BQE Dancers). The critics noted the evening was inspired by the successes of Jackie Mason’s stand-up comedy shows and the Borscht Belt revue Catskills on Broadway, and Clive Barnes in the New York Post mentioned it was now clear that all stand-up comics aspired “to put a Broadway notch in their borscht-belts.” He noted there wasn’t much to the evening’s premise, but the show was “a lot better than you might think” and he said the “terrific” Sal Richards had the audience eating off his pinkie ring. Richards’s delivery of jokes about ItalianAmerican life in Brooklyn was “pizza-perfect,” and one of his more endearing shticks was to ask audience members to request specific impersonations (“Perry Como!” “Frank Sinatra!” they implored), which he then promptly ignored in order to perform the ones he always intended to do (such as Dean Martin and Johnny Cash). Jeremy Gerard in Variety found the evening a “compendium of second- and third-rate lounge material,” and Mel Gussow in the New York Times said the show was “a random series of lounge acts and second bananas” without a real headliner (Richards self-effacingly told the audience, “I know you people have no idea who the hell I am”). Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the material was “extremely variable” and “mostly minor nightclub entertainment” with a cast that must have been “delighted to be working a room without smoke.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News suggested the evening was “a series of lounge acts masquerading as a Broadway show.” The comic duo Bobby Alto and Buddy Mantia offered an Italian version of The Wizard of Oz, which Winer said was “good-natured” and which Gussow found “feeble.” Stand-up comic Adrianne Tolsch talked about her Jewish family life in Brooklyn (Barnes said she was “agreeably wry” but “not quite sharp enough yet for Broadway,” and Winer liked her “sly wit”); Kissel said Serra handled his “lame narration ably,” Winer suggested he gave “a remarkable imitation of a respectable actor who forgot how,” and Barnes said his character was “irritating.” Winer said the “pumped-up” BQE Dancers had an “uneasy eagerness to please,” Kissel found them “energetic,” and Gussow said their street dance was “no better or worse than that given by the average outdoor performers in Times Square.”

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Singer Roslyn Kind came in for the most criticism, perhaps unfairly. She began her set with “People,” which was her sister Barbra Streisand’s signature song, and then segued into “I’ve Got to Be Me.” The critics pounced on this seeming effrontery, saying if she wished to show her individuality as a singer she should have avoided “People” at all costs, and Gerard called the sequence a moment of “barefaced exploitation” and “stunning badness capable of taking your breath away.” But the juxtaposition of Streisand’s “People” and Kind’s declaration “I’ve Got to Be Me” was surely tongue-in-cheek, wasn’t it?

MY FAVORITE YEAR Theatre: Vivian Beaumont Theatre Opening Date: December 10, 1992; Closing Date: January 10, 1993 Performances: 37 Book: Joseph Dougherty Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens Music: Stephen Flaherty Based on the 1982 film My Favorite Year (screenplay by Norman Steinberg and Dennis Palumbo, direction by Richard Benjamin). Direction: Ron Lagomarsino; Producer: Lincoln Center Theatre at the Vivian Beaumont (under the direction of Andre Bishop and Bernard Gersten); Choreography: Thommie Walsh (Robin Black, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Thomas Lynch; Costumes: Patricia Zipprodt; Lighting: Jules Fisher; Musical Direction: Ted Sperling Cast: Evan Pappas (Benjy Stone), Tom Mardirosian (King Kaiser), Josh Mostel (Sy Benson), Lannyl Stephens (K. C. Downing), Andrea Martin (Alice Miller), Ethan Phillips (Herb Lee), Lainie Kazan (Belle Steinberg Carroca), Paul Stolarsky (Leo Silver), Tim Curry (Alan Swann), Thomas Ikeda (Rookie Carroca), Katie Finneran (Tess), David Lipman (Uncle Morty), Mary Stout (Aunt Sadie); Ensemble: Leslie Bell, Maria Calabrese, Kevin Chamberlin, Colleen Dunn, Katie Finneran, James Gerth, Michael Gruber, David Lipman, Roxie Lucas, Nora Mae Lyng, Michael McGrath, Alan Muraoka, Jay Pointdexter, Russell Ricard, Mary Stout, Thomas Titone, Bruce Winant, Christina Youngman The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City during 1954.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Twenty Million People” (Evan Pappas, Company); “Larger Than Life” (Evan Pappas); “The Musketeer Sketch” (Evan Pappas, Josh Mostel, Tom Mardirosian, Andrea Martin, Lannyl Stephens, Paul Stolarsky, Ethan Phillips); “Waldorf Suite” (Evan Pappas); “Rookie in the Ring” (Lainie Kazan); “Manhattan” (Tim Curry, Evan Pappas, Ensemble); “Naked in the Bethesda Fountain” (Josh Mostel, Andrea Martin, Paul Stolarsky, Ethan Phillips, Lannyl Stephens); “The Gospel According to King” (Tom Mardirosian, Tim Curry, Company); “The Musketeer Sketch Rehearsal” (Part I) (Evan Pappas, Tim Curry, Ensemble); “Funny” and “The Duck Joke” (Lannyl Stephens, Andrea Martin); “The Musketeer Sketch Rehearsal” (Part II) (Tom Mardirosian, Tim Curry, Ensemble); “Welcome to Brooklyn” (David Lipman, Thomas Ikeda, Lainie Kazan, Mary Stout, Evan Pappas, Tim Curry, Neighbors); “If the World Were Like the Movies” (Tim Curry) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Exits” (Tim Curry); “Shut Up and Dance” (Lannyl Stephens, Evan Pappas); “Professional and Showbizness Comedy” (Andrea Martin, Tom Mardirosian, Ensemble); “The Lights Come Up” (Tim Curry, Evan Pappas); “Maxford House” (Christina Youngman, Leslie Bell, Maria Calabrese); “The Musketeer Sketch Finale” (Company); “My Favorite Year” (Evan Pappas, Company) The delightful 1982 film My Favorite Year is a nostalgic comedy about the world of live television in New York during the 1950s and centers on The King Kaiser Comedy Cavalcade and its star King Kaiser (both of which were patterned after Your Show of Shows and Sid Caesar). Film star Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole in the film, Tim Curry for the musical) has been signed to appear in a live Cavalcade episode, but there’s a

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problem: the former matinee idol who once starred in fifty-eight swashbucklers is now an over-the hill lush and someone must keep him on a short leash and off the sauce throughout the week of rehearsals and for the live telecast itself. Young script-writer Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker/Evan Pappas) is elected to baby sit, and among the events that occur during his memorable week with Swann is when he takes the actor to Brooklyn for dinner at his mother’s apartment. Mother is Belle Steinberg Carroca (Lainie Kazan in both the film and musical), and she’s beside herself with the honor of hosting Swann in her “humble chapeau.” The film had many charming episodes (including one in a nightclub when Swann dances with an elderly admirer) and its nostalgic atmosphere brought to life the lost world of 1954. O’Toole gave one of his finest performances as the eternally tipsy Swann, and Kazan’s Belle was the funniest Jewish mother in show-business history. Unfortunately, the musical version fell flat. Joseph Dougherty’s book was for the most part tiresome, Stephen Flaherty’s music mostly unmemorable, Lynn Ahrens’s lyrics generally bland, and Thommie Walsh’s choreography uninspired. One of the most dispiriting numbers was the clichéd salute to “Manhattan,” a desperate piece of business that tried but failed to capture the fizzy flavor of Gotham nightlife in 1954. One of the musical’s major problems was that it stumbled in its attempts to capture the mood and atmosphere of the mid-1950s, and only Patricia Zipprodt’s inspired costumes evoked any sense of period and style. The book wisely omitted the film’s gangster subplot, but made two deadly mistakes when it invented a plot line not in the film and expanded a story thread that the film lightly touched upon. In the film, Belle is divorced from Benjy’s (unseen) father and is married to Filipino bantamweight boxer Rookie Carroca, but the musical added the complication of converting Swann into a father figure for Benjy. And while the relationship of Swann and his daughter was briefly dealt with in the film, the musical built up the subplot and provided Swann with two tiresome introspective songs (“If the World Were Like the Movies” and “Exits”). Curry was painfully miscast as Swann: unlike the gaunt O’Toole, whose looks conveyed the rack and ruin of Swann’s hedonistic lifestyle, Curry looked sleek and well-fed, and far too young to play an alcoholic hasbeen who once starred in an endless parade of Hollywood swashbucklers. Although Pappas didn’t make much of an impression, he was no better or worse than Linn-Baker, and most of the supporting players didn’t match their screen counterparts. But at Belle’s memorable Brooklyn dinner party, David Lipman and Mary Stout as Benjy’s Uncle Morty and Aunt Sadie contributed fine comic moments (especially the latter, who wears her wedding dress to the party because after all it’s her best dress and has been worn only once). Happily, Lainie Kazan and Andrea Martin came through with their comic portrayals. The former was a zaftig riot in her reprise of the irrepressible Belle, and she was aided and abetted by Zipprodt’s outrageous costumes and Angela Gari’s truly inspired hair-do, which looked ready for takeoff at Idlewild. And Martin brought fresh comic zest to her role of a television comedy writer. Jeremy Gerard in Variety said My Favorite Year was “no Nick & Nora—but it’s pretty thin, man.” The songs weren’t “memorable” and added up to a kind of “generic wash,” but an “unquestionably accomplished generic wash.” Curry wasn’t right for the role of Swann (“think Kevin Kline, and you know what’s missing”), and Pappas was “all pinchable cheeks and no grit” (“think Matthew Broderick, and you know what’s missing”). Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the evening reminded him “in some important respects of last season’s musical clinker Nick & Nora” and it “comes on in the two flavorless flavors of poor drama and muddled action.” He complained that the music didn’t evoke the era of the mid-1950s and was instead “a Muzak-like paste copy” of the period. For Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal, the musical was a “failure” and a “dud,” and he said Dougherty, Flaherty, and Ahrens had “failed most conspicuously” because they “had no idea how to create a musical that would stand on its own” beyond its film source (but Curry had a “raffish charm” and Pappas was “appealing”). John Simon in New York said Ahrens’s lyrics “will do in a pinch” but “you have to pinch yourself to stay awake for Flaherty’s tunes,” and noted the evening got a “tremendous boost” from Martin and Kazan (the latter reprised her film role with “undiminished brio”); and Thor Eckert Jr. in the Christian Science Monitor praised Martin and Kazan as the musical’s “greatest assets” (the former was a “gifted comedian” and the latter had “one of the great voices on a Broadway stage today” and made “the most of the often thin material”). Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the musical was “so devoid of originality it seem[ed] to disappear” as she watched it. The score was “faceless, unrelentingly vapid, chirpy and derivative,” and the second act was “sentimentalized” in “gooey cliché” as it drew parallels between Benjy and his abandonment by his father and Swann and his abandonment of his daughter. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News found the book “largely leaden” and the score “even more so,” and the musical salute to Manhattan had “all the

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pizzazz of a paean to Sheboygan.” But the cast was “sensational,” and Kazan (“dolled up” in Zipprodt’s costumes of “inspired outlandishness”) belted out one number (“Rookie in the Ring”) “as if it were ‘Rose’s Turn.’” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today felt the book improved upon the film, but found the songs too often “generic” with a “clinker quotient” that was “dangerously high.” However, Curry had elegance and conveyed “a dark sexuality that gives an extra edge to his carousing.” Frank Rich in the New York Times said the evening suffered from a “wayward tone,” suggested that the leads Curry and Pappas were “out of sync,” and found the score “disappointing.” But the supporting performers were “superior,” and Martin brought to mind Imogene Coca. As for Kazan, her “uncompromising excess” was “hard to resist” as she “steamed through” the musical “like a top-heavy ocean liner that has lost its compass.” She also had a “belter’s singing voice” and was given the only songs “with immediate staying power” (“Rookie in the Ring” and “Welcome to Brooklyn”). During previews, the following songs were cut: “Monday,” “Pop! Fizz! Happy!,” “Clarence Duffy,” and “Comedy Cavalcade Theme Song.” A later student production by London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama reinstated “Pop! Fizz! Happy!” The cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-61617-2).

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Tim Curry); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Lainie Kazan); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Andrea Martin)

TOMMY TUNE TONITE! “A Song & Dance Act”

Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Opening Date: December 28, 1992; Closing Date: January 3, 1993 Performances: 10 Direction: Jeff Calhoun; Producers; Pierre Cossette, James M. Nederlander, and William E. Simon (Phillip Oesterman and David Wolfe, Associate Producers); Choreography: “Choreographic contributions by” Charles “Honi” Coles, Trip Hanson, Allan Johnson, Leslie J. Lockery, Ann Reinking, Hal Shane, and Ron Young (most of the choreography was presumably by Tommy Tune and Jeff Calhoun); Scenery: Tony Walton; Costumes: Willa Kim; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Michael Biagi Cast: Tommy Tune, Robert Fowler, Frantz Hall The revue was presented in one act.

Musical Numbers Note: The Broadway program didn’t include titles of musical numbers; the following alphabetical list is representative of some of the numbers performed in the revue and is taken from various sources, including newspaper and reference source material as well as a program from the national tour. “Dancing in the Dark” (The Band Wagon, 1931; lyric by Howard Dietz, music by Arthur Schwartz); “Everything Old Is New Again” (lyric by Carole Bayer Sager, music by Peter Allen); “I’m Building Up to an Awful Letdown” (1936 London musical Rise and Shine; lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Fred Astaire); “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” (1936 film Follow the Fleet; lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “The Old Soft Shoe” (Three to Make Ready, 1946; lyric by Nancy Hamilton, music by Morgan Lewis); “Once in Love with Amy” (Where’s Charley?, 1948; lyric and music by Frank Loesser); “Please Don’t Monkey with Broadway” (1940 film Broadway Melody of 1940; lyric and music by Cole Porter); “Puttin’ on the Ritz” (1930 film Puttin’ on the Ritz; lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “Sam, the Old Accordion Man” (lyric and music by Walter Donaldson); “Shanghai Lil” (1933 film Footlight Parade; lyric by Al Dubin, music by Harry Warren); “Shim Sham Tacet” (traditional); “A Song for Dancing” (Ballroom, 1978; lyric by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, music by William Goldenberg); “Strike Up the Band” (1927 production of Strike Up the Band closed during its pre-Broadway tryout; revised version of the musical opened

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on Broadway in 1930; lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by George Gershwin); “Taking a Chance on Love” (Cabin in the Sky, 1940; lyric by John Latouche and Ted Fetter, music by Vernon Duke); “Tap Your Troubles Away” (Mack & Mabel, 1974; lyric and music by Jerry Herman); “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails” (1935 film Top Hat; lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam” (independent song; lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “You Go to My Head” (lyric by Haven Gillespie, music by J. Fred Coots); “You’re the Top” (Anything Goes, 1934; lyric and music by Cole Porter) Stephen Holden in the New York Times said Tommy Tune Tonite! was “a deluxe cabaret turn” that meandered “pleasantly” along “without going anywhere in particular and without building a big charge of energy.” The evening offered an “engaging” look at Tune’s “terpsichorean bag of tricks,” but vocally it never took off because the dancer was only a “passable” singer. However, Tune breathed “an air of fresh-faced sweetness and enthusiasm that feels genuine,” and as he danced in his diamond-studded shoes he proved that tapping one’s troubles away was more “than just a quaint show-business conceit.” Tune was accompanied by two dancers, Robert Fowler and Frantz Hall, and a twenty-six-piece orchestra. After the limited Broadway engagement, the revue began a national tour.

FOOL MOON Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre Opening Date: February 25, 1993; Closing Date: September 5, 1993 Performances: 207 Material: Bill Irwin and David Shiner Original Lyrics and Music: The Red Clay Ramblers Direction: Bill Irwin and David Shiner; Producers: James B. Freydberg, Kenneth Feld, Jeffrey Ash, and Dori Berinstein (Nancy Harrington, Producing Associate); Scenery: Douglas Stein; Costumes: Bill Kellard; Lighting: Nancy Schertler Cast: David Shiner, Bill Irwin; The Red Clay Ramblers: Clay Buckner (Fiddle, Harmonica), Chris Frank (Piano, Tuba, Accordion, Ukulele), Jack Herrick (Trumpet, Bass, Banjolin, Tin Whistle, Concertina), Tommy Thompson (Banjos), and Rob Ladd (Drums) The revue was presented in two acts.

Sketches and Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t include complete information about individual sketches and musical numbers. The following is a partial (and alphabetical) list of songs heard in the production. “Fire and Sugar” (traditional); “Hiawatha’s Lullaby” (lyric by Joe Young, music by Walter Donaldson); “I Crept into the Crypt and Cried” (lyric and music by Elizabeth Anderson); “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet” (1968 film; music by Nino Rota); “Old Jim Canaan’s” (lyric and music by Reverend Robert Wilkins); “Tea for Two” (No, No, Nanette, 1925; lyric by Irving Caesar, music by Vincent Youmans); “Valley of the Dry Bones” (traditional) For at least one viewer, the antics of comic mimes David Shiner and Bill Irwin were highly resistible, and their New Age Vaudeville routines seemed mostly old-hat. Shiner played the would-be hilarious role of the silent but pushy bully who induces audience members to take part in the proceedings (such as performing a love scene in a silent film) while in contrast Irwin’s meek persona was slightly befuddled and embarrassed (at one point he plays a hapless master of ceremonies whose microphone cord keeps dragging him offstage). But audiences were convulsed with laughter, most of the critics were charmed, the revue played five full months, and was revived in 1995 and 1998. Shiner and Irwin were definitely an acquired taste with their silent comedy routines heavily sprinkled with arch humor. Their shtick was occasionally interrupted with extraneous musical sequences by a bluegrass-styled quintet called the Red Clay Ramblers who performed an assortment of songs written by themselves and others.

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Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News noted that Old Vaudeville was “lusty,” “silly,” and “had no desire to do anything but make you laugh,” but New Vaudeville saw itself as “Art.” And while Shiner and Irwin were “extremely engaging,” their antics were “bloodless.” In the same newspaper, Douglas Watt said the “inventive” mimes “rattled around like lost souls on Broadway” and were backed by a “lively but undistinguished” musical group. He noted that in the old days the 46th Street (now Richard Rodgers) Theatre had been a “grand musical comedy house” that had been the home of such hits as the original production of Guys and Dolls (1950), but now its stage endured such “paltry entertainments” as Fool Moon. John Simon in New York said he had “no stomach” for Irwin and Shiner’s brand of humor. He had once admired Irwin, who was now “all recycling and déjà vu,” and although he’d never seen Shiner before, he felt he’d “seen all his acts before, too, again and again.” As for the Red Clay Ramblers, he had “no sympathetic ear” for their kind of music. But he reported that the audience “lapped it up, hooted, hollered, laughed, and cheered” and turned the theatre “into a jungle of lunatic jollity” in which the “uncontrolled guffaws” seemed somewhat “suspect.” He concluded that Fool Moon would have been more at home in a circus, at a clown festival, on television, or on a street corner, and he didn’t care to see “legitimate theatres colonized by such stuff.” And while David Patrick Stearns in USA Today found the show “immensely entertaining,” he felt its elements “never quite fused into something” that transcended their vaudeville origins, and as a result there wasn’t “much” to the evening. Clive Barnes in the New York Post said Shiner and Irwin were “New-Age clowns and any-age lunatics” but there was “a certain paucity of raw material” and every sketch was “over-elongated and over-inflated.” But Jeremy Gerard in Variety hailed the “delightful enterprise”; Laura Shapiro in Newsweek liked the “hilarious” evening; Ron Jenkins in the Village Voice said the show “suggests an American rebirth of commedia dell’arte”; and Linda Winer in New York Newsday praised the “inspired, helium-weight treasure of a family show” and went so far as to suggest that Shiner and Irwin belonged in the pantheon reserved for Fonteyn and Nureyev, Hepburn and Tracy, and Abbott and Costello. Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said Shiner and Irwin were “a match made in clown heaven”; Edith Oliver in the New Yorker said Irwin was “the master of surprise and the master of my heart” and she hoped he and Shiner would remain on Broadway “now and forever”; and Frank Rich in the New York Times said the team was on the short list of “unbeatable combinations” that included bacon and eggs, bourbon and soda, and Laurel and Hardy. During the previous summer, Shiner and Irwin had appeared together at Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun! Festival, and this teaming resulted in the current production. As noted, Fool Moon was revived twice on Broadway, in 1995 and 1998 (for more information, see entries for those productions).

THE GOODBYE GIRL Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: March 4, 1993; Closing Date: August 15, 1993 Performances: 188 Book: Neil Simon Lyrics: David Zippel Music: Marvin Hamlisch Based on the 1977 film The Goodbye Girl (screenplay by Neil Simon, direction by Herbert Ross). Direction: Michael Kidd; Producers: Office One-Two, Inc., Gladys Nederlander, Stewart F. Lane, James M. Nederlander, Richard Kagan, and Emanuel Azenberg (Kaede Seville, Associate Producer); Choreography: Graciela Daniele (Willie Rosario, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery and Costumes: Santo Loquasto; Lighting: Tharon Musser; Musical Direction: Jack Everly Cast: Tammy Minoff (Lucy), Bernadette Peters (Paula), Scott Wise (Billy), Susann Fletcher (Donna), Cynthia Onrubia (Jenna), Erin Torpey (Cynthia), Lisa Molina (Melanie), Carol Woods (Mrs. Crosby), Martin Short (Elliot), John Christopher Jones (Mark, Ricky Simpson), Darlesia Cearcy (Stage Manager), Larry Sousa (First Man at the Theatre), Mary Ann Lamb (Woman at Theatre), Rick Crom (Second Man at Theatre, TV Stage Manager, Ricky Simpson Announcer), Ruth Gottschall (Mark’s Mother); Cast of Richard III: Barry Bernal, Darlesia Cearcy, Jamie Beth Chandler, Dennis Daniels, Denise Faye, Nancy Hess, Joe Locarro, Rick Manning, Cynthia Onrubia, Linda Talcott, and Scott Wise; Audience at Richard III: Rick Crom, Ruth Gottschall, Sean Grant, Mary Ann Lamb, and Larry Sousa The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City during the present time.

1992–1993 SEASON     105

Musical Numbers Act One: “This Is as Good as It Gets” (Bernadette Peters, Tammy Minoff); “No More” (Bernadette Peters); “A Beat Behind” (Bernadette Peters, Scott Wise, Ensemble); “This Is as Good as It Gets” (reprise) (Tammy Minoff, Lisa Molina, Erin Torpey); “My Rules” and “Elliot Garfield Grant” (Martin Short, Bernadette Peters); “Good News, Bad News” (Martin Short, Bernadette Peters, Tammy Minoff); “Good News, Bad News” (reprise) (Carol Woods); “(Don’t Follow in My) Footsteps” (Bernadette Peters, Tammy Minoff); “How Can I Win?” (Bernadette Peters); “Richard Interred” (Martin Short, Bernadette Peters, Tammy Minoff, Carol Woods, Susann Fletcher, Ensemble) Act Two: “How Can I Win?” (reprise) (Bernadette Peters); “Good News, Bad News” (reprise) (Martin Short); “Too Good to Be Bad” (Bernadette Peters, Susann Fletcher, Cynthia Onrubia); “2 Good 2 B Bad” (Carol Woods); “Who Would’ve Thought?” (Bernadette Peters, Martin Short, Tammy Minoff, Lisa Molina, Erin Torpey); “Paula” (“An Improvised Love Song”) (Martin Short, Bernadette Peters); “Who Would’ve Thought?” (reprise) (Tammy Minoff, Lisa Molina, Erin Torpey); “(I Think) I Can Play This Part” (Martin Short); “Jump for Joy” (Bernadette Peters, Ensemble); “What a Guy” (Bernadette Peters); Finale (Bernadette Peters, Martin Short, Tammy Minoff) The Goodbye Girl was a dreary $7 million flop that managed to run five months on the strength of its advance sale. Neil Simon’s book, which was based on his screenplay for the 1977 film of the same name, was tiresome and predictable, David Zippel and Marvin Hamlisch’s score was uninspired, the choreography was negligible, and the settings by the usually dependable Santo Loquasto were dull and unimaginative and brought to mind the inglorious days of the early 1970s when such Broadway musicals as Two by Two, Ari, and Lysistrata were in fierce competition for Ugliest Décor Award. The story centered on divorced New Yorker and former dancer Paula (Bernadette Peters) who with her twelve-year-old daughter lives in the apartment of her latest boyfriend. Paula is a human doormat for the parade of men in her life, and when her current boyfriend dumps her she discovers he has subleased his apartment to Elliot (Martin Short), an actor from Chicago who has come to New York to appear in an avant-garde Off-Off-Broadway production of Richard III. Elliot arrives to take possession of the apartment, and of course both he and Paula take an immediate dislike to one another; of course they reluctantly agree to share the apartment; and of course they eventually fall in love. The drearily predictable story and plodding score gave critics and audience members plenty of time to pick apart the plot’s details. Would an Off-Off-Broadway production hold casting calls in Chicago? Would a Chicago actor sublease a New York apartment on the strength of getting a role in a limited-run Off-OffBroadway show? Would New York newspapers and television stations and even CNN send their critics to cover an Off-Off-Broadway opening? And just how did Paula’s former boyfriend know that a Chicago actor wanted to sublease an apartment in New York? And perhaps the most important question of all was whether Paula was really serious in her ambition to become a choreographer for public television. Do people get majors in Public Television Choreography? Would a thirty-five-year-old former dancer with a young daughter really waste her time on this kind of fantasy? In fact, Paula’s career ambition brought to mind the character of Gabrielle in Late Nite Comic (1987), whose dream is to dance at the Metropolitan Opera. Singers might aspire to the Met, but dancers? Isn’t the American Ballet Theatre or the New York City Ballet a more likely goal? Further, Bernadette Peters was stuck with another annoying character, because Paula was surely first cousin to Emma, that tiresome and superficial heroine of Song & Dance (1985). Both drift from man to man and never seem to find fulfilling relationships; both have “wacky” career goals, PBS choreographer for Paula, a hat designer for Emma (but, Emma, does anyone still wear a hat?); and both indulge in self-analytic psychobabble: Linda Winer in New York Newsday reported that Paula says, “I’m just finding out who I am, and before we become us, I have to spend time being me!” And if this gem is typical of the palaver Paula spouts, it’s no wonder she can’t hold a man (among Emma’s golden chestnuts: she wants to be “Emma again” and needs to learn to “like myself”). And because Paula and Emma share execrable taste in clothing and hair styles, they must certainly buy their clothes from the same shop and patronize the same hair salon. Martin Short walked away with the show’s best notices, and while he was amiable enough, he wasn’t the Second Coming that the critics proclaimed. William A. Henry III in Time said the musical was “earnest, serviceable yet rarely stirring and almost never believable,” and John Simon in New York found the book “deadweight” with an occasional “odd funny

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line,” the lyrics were “a mix of cleverness and clumsiness,” Hamlisch failed to “manage a single memorable song,” the dances were “sedulous but unrewarding,” and the sets and costumes were “second-rate.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek said the show fought “to keep from expiring from terminal innocuousness and loses” with an “uninspired” score, a dance that found Peters costumed as a helping of French fries, a spoof of Richard Simmons’s exercise show that was “the nadir of bankruptcy,” and a scene in which Short “wows” Peters with impersonations of Bogart and other film stars (which led Kroll to ask, “How many ’90s girls would be wowed by this? Let’s see, one, two . . . no, the second one moved to Cleveland”); and Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the “failure” had an “unfocused, unfunny” book, “bland” lyrics, “forgettable” score, and costumes that made Peters look as if she were “trapped in Barbie’s disco doll gear.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the show was “mechanical” and “a quiet scene where someone experiences a simple human emotion never happens.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice said most of Loquasto’s décor was “shockingly tawdry,” Hamlisch’s music was “cliché-crippled pop sludge,” and Carol Woods (in the highly superfluous role of a landlady) “played overbearingly” as if “her character’s name was Aunt Jemima and she were entranced at the thought” (the show also gave her a de rigueur gospel number, and since 1985’s Grind had also provided her with a dreary gospel song, it’s a wonder she didn’t think she was in a revival of that show). Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the score was “empty” and “dismal,” the title of the opening number (“As Good as It Gets”) was “prophetic,” and Peters was both “miscast” and “mis-costumed.” Frank Rich in the New York Times found the musical “dull” and the score “anonymous,” noted that Peters appeared “in one unflattering outfit after another,” and said the “glum” skyline of Manhattan that hovered over the set was “pockmarked” by what looked “like giant gumdrops in colors no one wants to eat.” Winer said the musical was “another big lifeless imitation of a movie” that was “more slick and professional than My Favorite Year” but was still “mostly a bland, shapeless, paintby-number replica of the movie.” But Ward Morehouse III in the Christian Science Monitor hailed the “sparkling” and “laugh-filled” show, and somehow decided that Neil Simon and Martin Short “may be the most successful writing and acting comedy duo in modern American theatre.” But the critic said Hamlisch’s “catchy but seldom soaring” score was “lackluster” and the evening’s “biggest disappointment.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today actually felt that the musical made you “a bit happier to be alive,” and he heard something in the score that told him that Hamlisch and Zippel “should be forced to write a new musical every year.” The show underwent a grueling tryout during which director Gene Saks was replaced by legendary choreographer Michael Kidd and two songs (“I’m Outta Here” and “Single Mother Blues”) were deleted. The critics were cool to Kidd’s direction, but he no doubt did the best that could have been done with such weak material. One of the major changes in the tryout concerned the Richard III sequence, in which Short played Richard as an over-the-top effeminate homosexual. Gay groups protested, and so Short’s interpretation was changed to that of a male actor portraying a woman who is playing a man (which oddly enough didn’t seem to offend anyone). The Broadway cast album was released by Columbia Records (CD # CK-53761), which omitted “As Good as It Gets.” The London production opened on April 17, 1997, at the Albery Theatre with Gary Wilmot (Elliot), Ann Crumb (Paula), and Shezwae Powell (Mrs. Crosby), and the score consisted of mostly new songs with music by Hamlisch and lyrics by Don Black (“I’ll Take the Sky,” “Body Talk,” “Get a Life,” “Am I Who I Think I Am,” “Are You Who You Think You Are,” “If You Break Their Hearts,” “Do You Want to Be in My Movie,” and “The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be”) and retained two songs from the Broadway version (“Good News, Bad News” and “Elliot Garfield Grant”). The cast album was released by First Night Records (CD # 63). First Night also released a CD (# 44) with four selections from the cast album.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (The Goodbye Girl); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Martin Short); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Bernadette Peters); Best Director of a Musical (Michael Kidd); Best Choreography (Graciela Daniele)

1992–1993 SEASON     107

THE WIZ Theatre: Beacon Theatre Opening Date: March 16, 1993; Closing Date: April 11, 1993 Performances: 28 Book: William F. Brown Lyrics and Music: Charlie Smalls Based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (who also wrote thirteen other Oz novels). Direction and Choreography: George Faison; Producers: Atlanta’s Theatre of the Stars (Christopher B. Manos, Producer) and Robert L. Young and Associates in association with The National Black Arts Festival; Scenery: Randel Wright; Costumes: Jonathan Bixby; Lighting: John McLain; Musical Direction: Timothy Graphenreed Cast: Toni Seawright (Aunt Em, Glinda), Mischief (Toto), Stephanie Mills (Dorothy), Maurice Lautner (Uncle Henry, Lord High), Evelyn Thomas (Tornado); Munchkins: Inaya Jafan Davis, Bobby Daye, Kellie Turner, and Virginia Ann Woodruff; Ebony Jo-Ann (Addaperle); Yellow Brick Road: Christopher Davis, James A. Ervin, Cornell Ivey, and Neil Whitehead; Garry Q. Lewis (Scarecrow); Crows: Evelyn Ebo, Gina Renee Ellis, Roland Hayes, Frederick Moore, April Nixon, John Eric Parker, and Katherine J. Smith; Eugene Fleming (Tinman), H. Clent Bowers (Lion); Kalidahs: Evelyn Ebo, Roland Hayes, Frederick Moore, April Nixon, Katherine J. Smith, Evelyn Thomas, and Rachel Tecora Tucker; Field Mice: Inaya Jafan Davis, Cornell Ivey, John Eric Parker, and Virginia Ann Woodruff; Bobby Daye (Gatekeeper); Andre De Shields (The Wiz), Ella Mitchell (Evillene), Roland Hayes (Soldier Messenger); Winged Monkeys: Cornell Ivey, Christopher Davis, Evelyn Ebo, James A. Ervin, Roland Hayes, Frederick Moore, April Nixon, John Eric Parker, Katherine J. Smith, Rachel Tecora Tucker, and Neil Whitehead; Emerald City Citizens: Christopher Davis, Inaya Jafan Davis, Bobby Daye, Evelyn Ebo, Gina Renee Ellis, James A. Ervin, Roland Hayes, Cornell Ivey, Maurice Lautner, Frederick Moore, April Nixon, John Eric Parker, Katherine J. Smith, Evelyn Thomas, Rachel Tecora Tucker, Kellie Turner, Neil Whitehead, and Virginia Ann Woodruff The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Kansas, Munchkin Land, and Oz.

Musical Numbers Act One: “The Feeling We Once Had” (Toni Seawright); “Tornado Ballet” (Company); “He’s the Wizard” (Ebony Jo-Ann, Munchkins); “Soon as I Get Home” (Stephanie Mills); “I Was Born on the Day before Yesterday” (Garry Q. Lewis, Crows); “Ease on Down the Road” (Stephanie Mills, Garry Q. Lewis, Yellow Brick Road); “Mean Ole Lion” (H. Clent Bowers); “Kalidah Battle” (Stephanie Mills, Garry Q. Lewis, Eugene Fleming, H. Clent Bowers, Kalidahs, Yellow Brick Road); “Be a Lion” (Stephanie Mills, H. Clent Bowers); “Lion’s Dream” (H. Clent Bowers, Ensemble); “Emerald City Ballet” (aka “Psst”) (lyric by Timothy Graphenreed and George Faison, music by George Faison) (Stephanie Mills, Garry Q. Lewis, Eugene Fleming, H. Clent Bowers, Company); “So You Wanted to Meet the Wizard” (Andre De Shields); “What Would I Do If I Could Feel” (Eugene Fleming) Act Two: “No Bad News” (Ella Mitchell); “Funky Monkeys” (Monkeys); “Everybody Rejoice” (lyric and music by Luther Vandross) (Stephanie Mills, Garry Q. Lewis, Eugene Fleming, H. Clent Bowers, Ensemble); “Who Do You Think You Are?” (Ensemble); “If You Believe in Yourself” (Andre De Shields); “Y’all Got It!” (Andre De Shields); “A Rested Body Is a Rested Mind” (Toni Seawright); “Home” (Stephanie Mills) The limited-engagement revival of The Wiz brought back two of its original leads, Stephanie Mills (Dorothy) and Andre De Shields (The Wiz). The musical had been first seen on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre where it opened on January 5, 1975, and played for 1,672 performances. It won seven Tony Awards (including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Direction, Best Choreography, and Best Costumes), and, in an era when Broadway music was becoming increasingly irrelevant to the general public, the show enjoyed a hit song in “Ease on Down the Road.”

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The Wiz was an updated black version of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and while it never began to match the charm of the 1939 MGM film adaptation and its classic songs by E. Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen, it was nonetheless occasionally amusing in its street-smart attitude. The décor and costumes were colorful and the dances lively (a “Tornado Ballet” was a particular stand-out), but the score was generally disappointing and the book was essentially a one-joke show with its updated vernacular and outlook (the scarecrow asks Dorothy for “spare change”). According to Stephen Holden in the New York Times, the current revival was “a triumph of high-energy funkiness over crude production values,” and the show’s “continuous movement” was “a nonstop whirl of exuberantly choreographed energy.” The now thirty-five-year-old Stephanie Mills gave a “credible and engaging” performance, and Ella Mitchell’s Evillene (the Wicked Witch of the West) was a “mountainous matriarchal bully whose huffy histrionics have a broad comic edge.” The script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 1979 and was included in the 1979 hardback collection Great Rock Musicals (edited by Stanley Richards and published by Stein and Day). The original Broadway cast album was released by Atlantic Records (LP # SD-18137 and CD # 18137). Prior to the current production, the musical had been revived in New York at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on May 24, 1984, for a disappointing run of thirteen showings. Mills reprised her role of Dorothy, and Carl Hall played the title role. On June 18, 2009, the show was presented in concert by Encores! at City Center for a limited engagement of twenty-one performances. The dreary and overblown 1978 film version was released by Universal Pictures, and among its flaws was a misconceived Dorothy (Diana Ross), who is now a school teacher and seems to have arrested development issues. Others in the film were Michael Jackson (Scarecrow), Nipsey Russell (Tinman), Richard Pryor (The Wiz), Lena Horne (Glinda), Theresa Merritt (Aunt Em), and, reprising their roles from the original Broadway production, Ted Ross (Lion) and Mabel King (Evillene). The soundtrack was issued on a two-LP set by MCA Records (# MCA2-1400), and the DVD was released by Universal Studios. The musical was telecast live by NBC on December 3, 2015, with Stephanie Mills as Aunt Em, and others in the cast were Queen Latifah (The Wiz), David Alan Grier (Lion), Mary K. Blige (Evillene), Shanice Williams (Dorothy), and the Cirque du Soleil; the CD was issued by Masterworks Records and the DVD by Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

THE SONG OF JACOB ZULU Theatre: Plymouth Theatre Opening Date: March 24, 1993; Closing Date: May 9, 1993 Performances: 53 Play: Tug Yourgrau Lyrics: Tug Yourgrau and Ladysmith Black Mambazo Music: Ladysmith Black Mambazo Direction: Eric Simonson; Producers: Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Randall Arney, Stephen Eich, Albert Poland, Susan Liederman, and Bette Cerf Hill) in association with Maurice Rosenfeld (A Steppenwolf Theatre Company Production); Scenery: Kevin Rigdon; Costumes: Erin Quigley; Lighting: Robert Christen Cast: Gerry Becker (Marty Frankel), Pat Bowie (Mrs. Zulu, Mrs. Ngobese, Ma Bythelezi, Guerrilla), Robert Breuler (Judge Neville), David Connelly (John Dawkins, Doctor Shaw), Leelai Demoz (Martin Zulu, Zebulun, Guerrilla), K. Todd Freeman (Jacob Zulu), Erika L. Heard (Mrs. Sabelo, Beauty Dlamini, Guerrilla), Danny Johnson (Mr. Vilakazi, Fumani, Guerrilla), Gary DeWitt Marshall (Student, Policeman, Mbongeni, Michael Dube, Guerrilla), Zakes Mokae (Reverend Zulu, Mr. X, Itshe), Daniel Oreskes (Magistrate, Mr. Van Heerden, Mr. Jeppe), Tania Richard (Student, Aunt Miriam, Ruth Dube, Guerrilla), Seth Sibanda (Interpreter, Policeman, Jacob’s Superior), Alan Wilder (Anthony Dent, Lieutenant Malan), Nicholas Cross Wodtke (Michael Jeppe, Lieutenant Kramer), Cedric Young (Uncle Mdishwa, Teacher, Policeman, Percy, Commissar); Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Joseph Shabalala, Jubulani Dubazana, Abednego Mazibuko, Albert Mazibuko, Geophrey Mdletshe, Russel Mthembu, Inos Phungula, Jockey Shabalala, Ben Shabalala The play with music was presented in two acts. The action takes place in South Africa during the middle and late 1980s.

1992–1993 SEASON     109

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. Despite its title and subject matter, The Song of Jacob Zulu wasn’t an import from South Africa. The work had been commissioned by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago, premiered there on April 12, 1992, and was later produced at the Festival of Perth, Perth, Australia, on February 23, 1993. The play was written by Tug Yourgrau, a white who was born in Johannesburg and immigrated to the United States when he was ten years old. According to the program, the story was “a work of fiction inspired by actual events” in South Africa, and these events were used “as a point of departure in creating” a fictional play and fictional characters “to address current social and political issues.” The work included new songs as well as traditional South African songs and hymns. The title character (played by K. Todd Freeman) is a young South African who becomes a terrorist and blows up a shopping mall, killing and injuring some five dozen innocent blacks and whites. The a cappella singing group Ladysmith Black Mambazo served as Greek chorus throughout, and the play was framed as a courtroom drama during the terrorist’s trial, which included flashbacks depicting the events leading up to the massacre at the shopping mall. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the work rationalized terrorism, was “a piece of agitprop, pure and simple,” and at the end of the play the terrorist states his only regret is that he didn’t kill more whites. Kissel said the play’s “simpleminded justification of violence is really too appalling,” and he and other critics noted that the recent bombing of the World Trade Center four weeks earlier on February 26 (which killed six and injured approximately 1,000 others) made them less receptive to the notion of a play that attempted to explain and perhaps sentimentalize and rationalize a brutal terrorist (John Simon in New York wondered “how would the mink-coated white women who jump to their feet to give The Song of Jacob Zulu a standing ovation feel if the play’s hero were a Palestinian who bombed the World Trade Center?”) Simon said the play’s writing never rose above “the journalistic or journeyman level” and noted that “political correctness” was not “the gauge of artistic value.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the play was “clumsy,” “awkwardly structured,” and “dully written,” and Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the story never got “much beyond one-dimensional anti-apartheid speechifying and pretty elementary dramaturgy” and noted that “all the roles are underwritten.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek found the drama “rudimentary and sometimes unclear”; Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said the play was “dramatized in a pedestrian manner”; and Jeremy Gerard in Variety felt the work “flattened this true story into a bloodless, impressionistic montage that lacks narrative thrust.” But Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said the “gripping theatrical experience” presented “a moral complexity that is all too rare in entertainment” and he found the work full of “charged emotions and provocative ideas.” And David Patrick Stearns in USA Today proclaimed that the play “must be seen by any serious theatergoer.” Frank Rich in the New York Times said the evening settled “for an earthbound earnestness that will be most easily embraced by those who don’t mind some boredom in pursuit of a good cause,” but he praised the music, which provided a “stunning” theatricality that the rest of the production was “hard pressed to match.” The Song of Jacob Zulu was “always at its best when intruding least on the unforgettable song of Ladysmith Black Mambazo.” Certainly the critics were more receptive to the music than the play. Kissel praised the score’s “delicate harmonies,” but noted there was “an odd disparity between the radiant gentleness of the music and the bloody act it justifies.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice found the singing “sumptuous” but only once during the entire evening did the music “rise up and take over the drama bodily.” Kroll said the “eloquent” and “elegiac” music added “ironic beauty” to the evening; Barnes found the music “impressive”; and Winer went all out and stated the work offered “the most important—not to mention lovable—score of any musical so far this season.” Some critics noted that The Song of Jacob Zulu brought to mind two other works about apartheid, Alan Paton’s 1948 novel Cry, the Beloved Country (which was adapted in 1949 as the musical Lost in the Stars with book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson and music by Kurt Weill) and the more recent South African import Sarafina!, which opened on Broadway in 1988, and the consensus was that Jacob Zulu fell short when compared to the earlier works. The script was published in 1993 in hardback and paperback editions by Arcade Publishing Company.

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Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Play (The Song of Jacob Zulu); Best Leading Actor in a Play (K. Todd Freeman); Best Featured Actor in a Play (Zakes Mokae); Best Director of a Play (Eric Simonson); Best Score (lyrics by Tug Yourgrau and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, music by Ladysmith Black Mambazo); Best Costume Designer (Erin Quigley)

AIN’T BROADWAY GRAND “A Brand-New 1948 Musical Comedy”

Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Opening Date: April 18, 1993; Closing Date: May 9, 1993 Performances: 25 Book: Thomas Meehan and Lee Adams Lyrics: Lee Adams Music: Mitch Leigh Direction: Scott Harris; Producer: Arthur Rubin (A Tra La La Inc. Production); Choreography: Randy Skinner; Scenery: David Mitchell; Costumes: Suzy Benzinger; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Nicholas Archer Cast: Gerry Vichi (Bobby Clark), Debbie Shapiro Gravitte (Gypsy Rose Lee), Mike Burstyn (Mike Todd), Alix Korey (Harriet Popkin), Bill Nabel (Lou), Mitchell Greenberg (Murray Pearl), David Lipman (Reuben Pelish), Maureen McNamara (Joan Blondell), Gabriel Barre (Marvin Fischbein), Bill Kux (Waldo Klein), Scott Elliott (Wally Farfle), Richard B. Shull (Dexter Leslie), Merwin Goldsmith (Jaeger); Lindy’s Waiters: Bill Corcoran, Jerold Goldstein, and Bill Nabel; Caitlin Carter (Thelma), Patrick Wetzel (Floyd), Luis Perez (Rocco), Scott Fowler (Frankie), Jerold Goldstein (Herbie); Of the People (Part One)—President and His Cabinet: Timothy Albrecht, Bill Corcoran, Scott Elliott, Scott Fowler, Jerold Goldstein, Joe Istre, Rod McCune, Bill Nabel, Luis Perez, Mimi Cichanowicz Quillin, and Patrick Wetzel; Riverside Street Walker: Beverly Britton; Lili: Ginger Prince; Sheryl: Jennifer Frankel; Linda: Mimi Cichanowicz Quillin; Of the People (Part Two)—President and His Cabinet: Leslie Bell, Beverly Britton, Caitlin Carter, Colleen Dunn, Jennifer Frankel, Lauren GolarKosarin, Elizabeth Mills, Ginger Prince, Mimi Cichanowicz Quillin, Carol Denise Smith; Ensemble: Timothy Albrecht, Leslie Bell, Beverly Britton, Caitlin Carter, Bill Corcoran, Colleen Dunn, Scott Elliott, Scott Fowler, Jennifer Frankel, Jerold Goldstein, Lauren Goler-Kosarin, Joe Istre, Rod McCune, Elizabeth Mills, Bill Nabel, Luis Perez, Ginger Prince, Mimi Cichanowicz Quillin, Carol Denise Smith, Patrick Wetzel The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City, Boston, and Burbank during 1948.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Girls Ahoy!” (Gerry Vichi, Debbie Shapiro Gravitte, Ensemble); “Ain’t Broadway Grand” (Mike Burstyn, Alix Korey, Mitchell Greenberg, David Lipman, Ensemble); “Class” (Mike Burstyn, Chorus Girls); “The Theatre, The Theatre” (Gabriel Barre, Bill Kux); “Ain’t Broadway Grand” (reprise) (Mike Burstyn, Alix Korey, Mitchell Greenberg, Richard B. Shull, Bill Kux, Scott Elliott, Ensemble); “Lindy’s” (Merwin Goldsmith, Bill Corcoran, Jerold Goldstein, Bill Nabel, Company); “It’s Time to Go” (Debbie Shapiro Gravitte, Company); “Waiting in the Wings” (Maureen McNamara); “You’re My Star” (Mike Burstyn, Ensemble); “A Big Job” (Of the People [Part One] Cast); “Ain’t Broadway Grand” (reprise) (Company) Act Two: “Ain’t Broadway Grand” (reprise) (Merwin Goldsmith, Bill Corcoran, Jerold Goldstein, Bill Nabel); “They’ll Never Take Us Alive” (Mike Burstyn, Alix Korey, Mitchell Greenberg); “On the Street” (Mike Burstyn); “The Man I Married” (Maureen McNamara, Female Ensemble); “Maybe, Maybe Not” (Debbie Shapiro Gravitte); “Tall Dames and Low Comedy” (Gerry Vichi, Ensemble); “He’s My Guy” (Maureen McNamara); “A Big Job” (reprise) (Of the People [Part Two] Cast); “You’re My Star” (reprise) (Mike Burstyn); “Ain’t Broadway Grand” (reprise) (Company) Ain’t Broadway Grand, which billed itself as “A Brand-New 1948 Musical Comedy,” was a three-week failure that attempted to celebrate the life and times of colorful producer Mike Todd (1909–1958) by focus-

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ing on a completely fictional account of his effort to bring to Broadway a serious political musical called Of the People. The plot centers on Todd’s transformation of the overly arty and pretentious out-of-town bomb Of the People (with its stalwart male president and cabinet) into a lighthearted girlie show that features the low-down comedy antics of a Bobby Clark-styled character as a president surrounded by a cabinet of comely chorines. There was virtually no relationship between Of the People and Todd’s actual 1948 Broadway musical As the Girls Go, an old-fashioned musical comedy that satirized the first female president (Irene Rich) and her girl-chasing First Husband (Bobby Clark). As the Girls Go had never been a “serious” musical, and had always been intended as a comic vehicle for Clark, who had previously starred in four shows produced by Todd, The Streets of Paris (1939), Star and Garter (1942), Mexican Hayride (1944), and The Would-Be Gentleman (1946). As the Girls Go quickly brushed aside any political quips (one critic noted the president wonders if she could win a battleship on a radio quiz program, and that just about took care of the political jokes) and instead concentrated on Clark’s shenanigans, such as a scene in the Rumpus Room of the White House where he gives marching orders to a group of visiting children (“Forward . . . Halt!”); a sequence where he dons drag as a manicurist and hairstylist in order to ferret out a political conspiracy; and a scene in which he makes mincemeat of an elegant White House tea for The Ladies of the Boston Tea Party. There was also one memorable moment when he appeared in a fur coat and was followed by his baggage-toting flunkies who carry scuba-diving equipment, skis, snow shoes, and golf clubs. When asked where he’s going, he replies that he has absolutely no idea. The fictional Of the People played at the Winter Garden Theatre, the home of As the Girls Go. And presumably Of the People is a huge hit. But As the Girls Go, which was capitalized at $340,000 and whose highest-priced seats cost a then-record-breaking $7.20, became the first musical in Broadway history to run longer than a year (420 performances) and still lose money. For Ain’t Broadway Grand, Mike Burstyn played Todd and Gerry Vichi was Bobby Clark. Other characters in the musical were actress Joan Blondell (Maureen McNamara), who was married to Todd during the years 1947–1950, and Gypsy Rose Lee (Debbie Shapiro Gravitte), who starred with Clark in Star and Garter and had earlier appeared in a national tour of Todd’s 1940 World’s Fair revue Gay New Orleans (not to be confused with the book musical In Gay New Orleans, which closed during its 1947 pre-Broadway tryout) as well as in a condensed version of The Streets of Paris when it played at the World’s Fair in 1940. John Simon in New York called the $7 million production a “vanity showcase” for composer Mitch Leigh, whom the program praised as “a modern Renaissance man.” Simon noted that the “inane and insipid” title song (which was performed five times throughout the evening) was “reprised at you till you want to scream the impossible scream,” and Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “catchy but scarcely embraceable” title number returned “throughout the night like radishes on an empty stomach.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the score reminded him of “jingles—catchy but with little genuine emotional substance”—which were “rammed down your throat.” And as the evening went on, the music got louder with a decibel level so high it turned “the show from a musical into a braying contest.” He concluded that “they don’t make ’em like this anymore because most audiences are too sophisticated.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety complained that the musical indulged in virtually “every Jewish stereotype” and the “tedious” evening lacked “a single original or interesting idea.” He mentioned that the musical had been “knocking around for years,” and during all that time it had “merely gone from burlesque to grotesque.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News ruminated that theatrical fame is fleeting, that few in the audience would remember Mike Todd, and those who did would most likely recall that he was one of Elizabeth Taylor’s many husbands (the 1993 Off-Broadway revue Whoop-Dee-Doo! offered the song “Elizabeth,” which praised “Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky”). But for all “the charm or flair” the show managed “to eke out of its subject,” it “might just as well be a musical about Larry Fortensky.” The book was full of “stale gags,” the score was “thin” and “plodding,” and the characters lacked depth. In the same newspaper, Douglas Watt said the book was “negligible,” the score mostly “feeble,” and when the title song turned up for the fifth time (with supertitles, no less) the audience was asked to join in (“half-heartedly”). Linda Winer in New York Newsday found the book “unrelentingly lame” and said Leigh’s score was in the mode of 1940s standards with “torchy ballads, rhumba rhythms and jaunty melodies” that were composed “adroitly” (like a few other critics, she was especially taken with “Lindy’s,” which was performed by a quartet of rude waiters). Mel Gussow in the New York Times said a more appropriate title for the musical was Ain’t Broadway Bland, and he noted that the “listenable and recognizable” songs were “so generic as to be interchangeable in any number of shows.”

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But an unsigned review in Time said that “in its corny, cheerily brainless way, the show is a charmer,” and Ward Morehouse III in the Christian Science Monitor found the evening “a dazzling and nostalgic trip” that was “grand and plenty of fun.” During the run of the Broadway production, the audiocassette of the cast album was sold at the theatre, but the recording was never officially issued on CD (but is available on CD-R format). The title song is included in the CD collection Lost Broadway and More Volume 3 (unnumbered and unnamed company). The musical had originally been produced in regional theatre as Mike when it played at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia for the period March 26–April 24, 1988. The cast included Michael Lembeck (Todd), Robert Morse, Loni Ackerman, and Robert Fitch, and the production was directed by Sue Lawless and choreographed by Tony Stevens. For Philadelphia, only Meehan was credited with the book (for Broadway, both Meehan and lyricist Lee Adams were cited), and songs heard in Mike that weren’t included in Ain’t Broadway Grand were: “You and Me, Mike,” “Not Tonight, Delilah,” “Stay,” and the ominously titled “Close It!”

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Choreography (Randy Skinner)

TOMMY

“A New Musical” Theatre: St. James Theatre Opening Date: April 22, 1993; Closing Date: June 17, 1995 Performances: 900 Book: Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff Lyrics and Music: Pete Townshend; additional lyrics and music by John Entwistle, Keith Moon, and Sonny Boy Williamson Based on the 1969 Decca Records album Tommy. Direction: Des McAnuff; Producers: PACE Theatrical Group and DODGER Productions with Kardana Productions, Inc. (David, Strong, Warner, Inc., and Scott Zelger/Gary Gunas, Executive Producers) (The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Associate Producer); Choreography: Wayne Cilento; Scenery: John Arnone; Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Video: Batwin and Robin Productions, Inc.; Special Effects: Gregory Meeh; Costumes: David C. Woolard; Lighting: Chris Parry; Musical Direction: Joseph Church Cast: Marcia Mitzman (Mrs. Walker), Jonathan Dokuchitz (Captain Walker), Paul Kandel (Uncle Ernie), Bill Buell (Minister, Mr. Simpson), Jody Gelb (Minister’s Wife), Lisa Leguillou (Nurse), Michael McElroy (Officer # 1, Hawker), Timothy Warmen (Officer # 2), Donnie Kehr (Allied Soldier # 1, First Pinball Lad), Michael Arnold (Allied Soldier # 2), Lee Morgan (Lover, Harmonica Player), Carly Jane Steinborn (Tommy, Age 4; Monday and Thursday evenings, Wednesday and Saturday matinees), Crysta Macalush (Tommy, Age 4; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday evenings), Michael Cerveris (Tommy), Tom Flynn (Judge, Kevin’s Father, News Vendor, DJ), Buddy Smith (Tommy, Age 10), Anthony Barrile (Cousin Kevin), Maria Calabrese (Kevin’s Mother); Local Lads and Security Guards: Michael Arnold, Paul Dobie, Christian Hoff, Donnie Kehr, Michael McElroy, and Timothy Warmen; Local Lasses: Maria Calabrese, Tracy Nicole Chapman, Pam Klinger, Lisa Geguillou, Alice Ripley, and Sherie (Rene) Scott; Cheryl Freeman (The Gypsy), Christian Hoff (Second Pinball Lad), Norm Lewis (Specialist), Alice Ripley (Specialist’s Assistant), Sherie (Rene) Scott (Sally Simpson), Pam Klinger (Mrs. Simpson); Ensemble: Michael Arnold, Bill Buell, Maria Calabrese, Tracy Nicole Chapman, Paul Dobie, Tom Flynn, Jody Gelb, Christian Hoff, Donnie Kehr, Pam Klinger, Lisa Leguillou, Norm Lewis, Michael McElroy, Lee Morgan, Alice Ripley, Sherie (Rene) Scott, Timothy Warmen The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Great Britain during the period 1940–1963.

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Musical Numbers Act One: “Overture: 1940” (Company); “Captain Walker” (Michael McElroy, Timothy Warmen); “It’s a Boy” (Lisa Leguillou, Nurses, Marcia Mitzman); “We’ve Won” (Jonathan Dokuchitz, Donnie Kehr, Michael Arnold); “Twenty-One” (Marcia Mitzman, Lee Morgan, Jonathan Dokuchitz); “Amazing Journey” (Michael Cerveris); “Sparks” (Orchestra); “Amazing Journey” (reprise) (Michael Cerveris); “Christmas” (Marcia Mitzman, Jonathan Dokuchitz, Bill Buell, Jody Gelb, Ensemble); “See Me, Feel Me” (Michael Cerveris); “Do You Think It’s Alright” (Marcia Mitzman, Jonathan Dokuchitz); “Fiddle About” (lyric and music by John Entwistle) (Paul Kandel, Ensemble); “See Me, Feel Me” (reprise) (Michael Cerveris); “Cousin Kevin” (lyric and music by John Entwistle) (Anthony Barrile, Ensemble); “Sensation” (Michael Cerveris, Ensemble); “Sparks” (reprise) (Orchestra); “Eyesight to the Blind” (lyric and music by Sonny Boy Williamson) (Michael McElroy, Lee Morgan, Ensemble); “Acid Queen” (Cheryl Freeman); “Pinball Wizard” (Local Lads, Anthony Barrile, Ensemble) Act Two: “Underture (Entr’acte): 1960” (Orchestra); “There’s a Doctor” (Marcia Mitzman, Jonathan Dokuchitz); “Go to the Mirror” (Norm Lewis, Alice Ripley, Marcia Mitzman, Jonathan Dokuchitz); “Listening to You” (Michael Cerveris, Buddy Smith, Carly Jane Steinborn or Crysta Macalush); “Tommy, Can You Hear Me” (Local Lads); “I Believe My Own Eyes” (Marcia Mitzman, Jonathan Dokuchitz); “Smash the Mirror” (Marcia Mitzman); “I’m Free” (Michael Cerveris); “Miracle Cure” (Local Lads); “Sensation” (reprise) (Michael Cerveris, Ensemble); “I’m Free” (reprise) and “Pinball Wizard” (reprise) (Michael Cerveris, Company); “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” (lyric and music by Keith Moon) (Paul Kandel); “Sally Simpson” (Anthony Barrile, Security Guards, Sherie [Rene] Scott, Marcia Mitzman, Jonathan Dokuchitz); “Welcome” (Michael Cerveris, Ensemble); “Sally’s Question” (Sherie [Rene] Scott); “We’re Not Going to Take It” (Michael Cerveris, Ensemble); “See Me, Feel Me” (reprise)/”Listening to You” (reprise)/Finale (Michael Cerveris, Company) Tommy was a highly successful two-LP set concept album released by Decca Records in 1969 that was written, composed, and performed by the group the Who (Roger Daltry, John Entwistle, Keith Moon, and Pete Townshend). The story centered on the title character, a boy who witnesses the murder of his mother’s lover and immediately becomes deaf, mute, and blind. Because his sense of touch remains, he becomes a world champion “pinball wizard,” but not before he undergoes various torments by family members, including sexual molestation by an uncle. In an attempt to communicate with Tommy, his mother smashes a mirror, an action that miraculously cures him. He soon creates his own religion, which draws millions of followers, but his rigid rules lead to the destruction of the church and his power. By the end of the story, he’s virtually in the same state he was at the beginning, and he cries out for communication with someone. All this claptrap was actually taken seriously by many, who apparently were dazed by the message that Lack of Communication Is a Problem. Or perhaps the work was really a subtle satire on such jejune reflections. Or maybe Tommy was intended to satirize the lionization of celebrities. Tommy was first seen in New York on June 7, 1970, in a one-performance concert by the Who at the Metropolitan Opera House, and was next produced in a ballet version presented by Les Grans Ballets Canadiens at City Center (then known as City Center 55th Street Theatre) on May 3, 1972, for thirty-one performances. The production didn’t include a live orchestra and singers, and instead the Decca recording was played over the theatre’s sound system as the dancers performed the ballet, which was choreographed by Fernand Nault. The ballet had been first presented in Canada, and toured the United States in such venues as Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center Opera House before playing its New York limited engagement. In 1975, Ken Russell directed an overwrought and undisciplined film version of Tommy that unaccountably impressed a lot of people; the cast included Roger Daltry, Eric Clapton, Keith Moon, Tina Turner, Elton John, Jack Nicholson, Ann-Margret, and Oliver Reed. As The Who’s Tommy, the work opened in its current incarnation, won five Tony Awards, and ran for 900 performances. Many of the critics gushed, as if the score was the finest they’d ever heard, and they seemed especially impressed with the show’s scenic design, which included the transformation of the venerable St. James Theatre’s interior into a giant pinball machine. As noted, many critics praised the musical: The “brilliant, bloody brilliant!” show was “as taut and timebreaking as the day after tomorrow” (Clive Barnes in the New York Post); “A hugely entertaining show” and

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“for sheer rock ’n’ roll fun, Tommy is hard to beat” (Jeremy Gerard in Variety); “The whole production hurtles forward with visual excitement and emotional clout worthy of the score” (William A. Henry III in Time); “The most exciting, the most inventive musical I’ve seen this year” (Joel Siegel on WABCTV7); “A dazzling array of sights and sounds unlike anything else on Broadway and it may single-handedly revive the reputation of the rock musical” (Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor); “The grand-daddy of rock operas has sprinted to the cutting edge of high-tech theatre” (David Patrick Stearns in USA Today); and “the stunning new stage adaptation” is “the first musical in years to feel completely alive in its own moment” and “no wonder that for two hours it makes the world seem young” (Frank Rich in the New York Times). But some of the reviewers had reservations. Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said Tommy “has entirely conventional things to say about dysfunctional families and child abuse,” and he noted that the evening brought MTV “sensibility” to Broadway (of course, for some the arrival of an MTV “sensibility” to Broadway wasn’t necessarily a step forward for musical theatre). The evening offered “dazzling” moments of “visual images that bombard the audience with the same relentless pace as the incessant musical score,” including the transformation of the theatre “into the inside of a pinball machine.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday reported that at Tommy’s conclusion the audience stood, whooped, and cheered, and she “seldom felt so alone in a theatre in my life.” She said the production “flattened” the original album “into a doggedly literal, very straight, square and joyless psychodrama,” and the presentation had a “party’s-over feeling, definitely very ’90s.” Jim Farber in the New York Daily News mentioned that the “icky new feel-good finale” brought Tommy together with his family, which was “potentially dubious thinking” because the family consisted of “an A-1 sadist, a child molester and two lying murderers.” In the same newspaper, the headline of Howard Kissel’s review proclaimed “Tommy-Ache,” and the critic said the work was “hard to take seriously” with its “primitive” lyrics and “sometimes sweet” but “invariably repetitive” music. And while he noted that visually the evening was “always fun,” he provided a bit of distressing reportage that said volumes about the audience: when a character drank a mug of beer and then “gave forth a gigantic belch,” the audience members “applauded wildly.” In the same newspaper, Douglas Watt said that “aside from the imaginatively designed spectacle itself” he was “nonplussed” and said the score seemed “at best serviceable for the simple story.” John Simon in New York said the musical was “staged to look like a Road Runner cartoon with elephantiasis and megalomania,” and the entire evening was “infantile, attitudinizing, and stultifying.” The audience members “blared back at the stage as loudly as it blared at them” and thus “the event gratifyingly confirms my long-held belief that the audience gets what it deserves.” The production included a new song (“I Believe My Own Eyes”), which Winer found “inconsequential” and Farber felt had “parachuted in from another play.” The original 1969 album Tommy was released by Decca Records on a two-LP set (# DXSW-7205), and the two-CD set was issued by MCA Records (# MCAD-11417); the soundtrack album was also issued on a twoLP set (by Polydor Records # PD-29502); and the two-CD Broadway cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (# 09026-61874-2). The script was included in the hardback collection Great Rock Musicals (published by Stein and Day in 1979 and edited by Stanley Richards). A 1993 edition of the script was published in hardback by Pantheon Books and includes a CD single of “I Believe My Own Eyes.”

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (The Who’s Tommy); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Michael Cerveris); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Paul Kandel); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Marcia Mitzman); Best Director of a Musical (Des McAnuff); Best Book (Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff); Best Score (lyrics and music by Pete Townshend, in a tie with the score for Kiss of the Spider Woman); Best Scenic Designer (John Arnone); Best Costume Designer (David C. Woolard); Best Lighting Designer (Chris Parry); Best Choreographer (Wayne Cilento)

BLOOD BROTHERS “A Musical”

Theatre: Music Box Theatre Opening Date: April 25, 1993; Closing Date: April 30, 1995

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Performances: 839 Book, Lyrics, and Music: Willy Russell Direction: Bill Kenwright and Bob Tomson; Producers: Bill Kenwright (Jon Miller, Associate Producer); Scenery and Costumes: Andy Walmsley; Lighting: Joe Atkins; Musical Direction: Rick Fox Cast: Stephanie Lawrence (Mrs. Johnstone), Warwick Evans (Narrator), Barbara Walsh (Mrs. Lyons), Ivar Brogger (Mr. Lyons), Con O’Neill (Mickey), Mark Michael Hutchinson (Eddie), James Clow (Sammy), Jan Graveson (Linda), Sam Samuelson (Perkins), Regina O’Malley (Donna Marie, Miss Jones), Robin Haynes (Policeman, Teacher), Anne Torsiglieri; Others: Ivar Brogger, Kerry Butler, James Clow, Robin Haynes, Philip Lehl, Regina O’Malley, Sam Samuelson, John Schiappa, Anne Torsiglieri, Douglas Weston The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Liverpool.

Musical Selections Act One: “Marilyn Monroe” (Stephanie Lawrence); “My Child” (Stephanie Lawrence, Barbara Walsh); “Easy Terms” (Stephanie Lawrence); “Shoes upon the Table” (Warwick Evans); “Easy Terms” (reprise) (Stephanie Lawrence); “Kids’ Games” (James Clow, Jan Graveson, Con O’Neill, Ensemble); “Shoes upon the Table” (reprise) (Warwick Evans); “Shoes upon the Table” (second reprise) (Warwick Evans); “Bright New Day” (Prelude) (Stephanie Lawrence); “Long Sunday Afternoon” and “My Friend” (Con O’Neill, Mark Michael Hutchinson); “Bright New Day” (reprise) (Stephanie Lawrence, Company) Act Two: “Marilyn Monroe” (reprise) (Stephanie Lawrence); “Shoes upon the Table” (reprise) (Warwick Evans); “That Guy” (Con O’Neill, Mark Michael Hutchinson); “Shoes upon the Table” (reprise) (Warwick Evans); “I’m Not Saying a Word” (Mark Michael Hutchinson); “Take a Letter, Miss Jones” (Ivar Brogger, Regina O’Malley, Ensemble); “Marilyn Monroe” (reprise) (Stephanie Lawrence); “Light Romance” (Stephanie Lawrence, Warwick Evans); “Madman” (Warwick Evans); “Tell Me It’s Not True” (Stephanie Lawrence, Company) Willy Russell’s hit London musical Blood Brothers opened in New York to generally dismissive reviews, and although the work was flawed, it managed a two-year run on Broadway. The season hosted the generic by-the-numbers flops My Favorite Year, The Goodbye Girl, and Ain’t Broadway Grand; the grandiose hightech spectacle Tommy, with its empty story, vacuous characters, and familiar music; and the hopelessly pretentious Kiss of the Spider Woman. Blood Brothers had its share of structural problems (including its own forays into pretension), but its subject matter was fresh, and its view of the relentlessness of fate and the impossibility of averting one’s destiny struck a responsive chord with many theatergoers. The fable-like story focused on the twins Mickey (Con O’Neill) and Eddie (Mark Michael Hutchinson), who are separated at birth. Their mother, Mrs. Johnstone (Stephanie Lawrence), is a cleaning lady deserted by her husband and left with seven children, and one on the way. But the one turns out to be twin boys, and the wealthy Mrs. Lyons (Barbara Walsh), who is one of Mrs. Johnstone’s employers and who has tried without success to have a child, conspires with her to give up one of the babies. Mrs. Lyons will go through the pretense of pregnancy so that her husband, the child, and the world will never know that the baby is not her birth child. Further, the women agree that each child must never know about the other. Mickey grows up in the hardscrabble world of Liverpool with Mrs. Johnstone, while Eddie enjoys a life of ease as the well-to-do Lyons’ son. But fate steps in, and both boys are destined to become friends, to fall in love with the same girl, and to die together when they argue over her (Mickey shoots Eddie, and the police kill Mickey). The musical carried political and social baggage with its look at recession-swept Britain and that country’s class system, but the story reached far beyond these topics with its view of destiny and the inability of mortals to escape their fate. The boys are doomed from the start, and despite the determination of Mrs. Johnstone and Mrs. Lyons to keep them apart, the tragedy is preordained. The visceral power of the work stemmed from its concept of ancient tragedy, and in order to emphasize its roots with the Greek view of destiny, a one-man Greek chorus (the Narrator, played by Warwick Evans) commented on the action. To be sure, the musical had its weaknesses. The groan-inducing Narrator spoke in rhyme as he ominously spelled out the details of the tragedy, as if the audience was too stupid to understand what was going on. Also, for much of the first half of the musical the actors played their younger selves, and it was tiresome and embarrassing to watch adult performers portray children of seven and then teenagers of fourteen. And certainly

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the score could have been stronger. But there were some solid songs, including “Tell Me It’s Not True” and “Marilyn Monroe.” The latter met with a great deal of derision because some critics couldn’t understand the point of the song, and almost all of them agreed it was reprised far too often and brought to mind the title number of Ain’t Broadway Grand, which was performed a total of five times in that show. In many respects, Blood Brothers was really about the twins’ mother, Mrs. Johnstone (the show’s adult characters seemed to lack first names), and “Marilyn Monroe” was her character-establishing song, which was reprised throughout the evening as she compared the events in her life to that of the actress. She recalls the night she met her husband, when he told her she was “sexier” than Marilyn Monroe; how on her wedding day everyone said she was “lovelier” than Marilyn Monroe; and how her husband later left her for a girl who “looks” like Marilyn Monroe. When she wonders what kind of life Eddie has with his adoptive parents, she hopes “he’ll be OK, not like Marilyn Monroe,” and when Mickey is involved in a holdup and is imprisoned, she reflects that as he waits out his prison term he’s depressed and takes “pills just like Marilyn Monroe.” Upon his release from prison, the neighbors say, “You’d think he was dead/Like Marilyn Monroe.” In the final sequence of the musical (“Tell Me It’s Not True”) with the bodies of her boys at her feet, she wants to believe that what has happened is “just a scene” from “an old movie with Marilyn Monroe.” Although Jeremy Gerard in Variety noted that the evening offered “amateur writing and staging,” “preposterous tale-telling,” and “third-rate Tin Pan Alley songs,” the musical nonetheless had a “weird effect” because despite ingredients that should have added up to “disaster” and a production that was “bad theatre,” he “didn’t regret having spent time with the characters.” Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal praised the “admirable” cast and “pleasant” score, but felt the emphasis on British class divisions might alienate American audiences. Edith Oliver in the New Yorker said the “glum cantata” was a “downer” and found “Marilyn Monroe” a “fatuous” song that was “reprised to the point of insanity.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today admitted that the show had an “aching sincerity,” but noted the three-hour evening felt like ten years. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News found the characters “stereotyped” and the plot “pathetically melodramatic,” and in the same newspaper Douglas Watt admitted the musical had “its moments in both dialogue and song” but overall was “dull as dishwater.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday said Russell’s score offered “plaintive, easy-listening, soft-pop ballads” that had the “modest combination of amiable directness and emotional clarity,” and if the show was “a pretty heavy-handed mess” it was “a likeable heavy-handed mess.” John Simon in New York said the “anemic” show was “musicalized melodrama” with “immature attitudinizing,” and he noted that the Narrator’s “music-less recitatives in didactic doggerel” seemed to have been penned by “a Hallmark-card writer” who had “joined a doomsday cult.” And Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the story was “simplistic” and “ludicrous in character and even tone.” Frank Rich in the New York Times found the score “tuneful” and said the show’s “authentic chips-witheverything spirit” gave the evening an “appealing, pungent atmosphere” with “the rough-hewn proletarian flavor of British dramas of the angry-man era of the late 1950’s and early 60’s.” But the “agitprop” characters only existed “for didactic ends,” and Russell pounded away his “deterministic conviction that nurture always wins out over nature.” The Broadway production featured five British performers in the leading roles, including Lawrence, O’Neill, and Hutchinson, and during the Broadway run they were succeeded by Petula Clark, David Cassidy, and Shaun Cassidy; besides Lawrence and Clark, other performers who played Mrs. Johnstone during the Broadway run were Carole King and Helen Reddy. The musical premiered in Liverpool at the Liverpool Playhouse on January 8, 1983, with Barbara Dickson as Mrs. Johnstone, and the production later opened in London at the Lyric Theatre on April 11 of that year for a run of about six months. But a revival of the musical at the Albery Theatre on July 28, 1988, was a huge success and played over 10,000 performances. The original London cast recording was released by Castle Classics Records (CD # CLACD-270), the 1988 revival (with Kiki Dee) was issued by First Night Records (CD # 17) and then by RCA Victor/BMG Classics, and a 1995 production (with Stephanie Lawrence) was recorded by First Night Records (CD # 49). An “International Recording” of the score was issued by First Night Records in 1995 (CD # 88561-1539-2) with Petula Clark, David Cassidy, and Shaun Cassidy in the leading roles and Willy Russell as the Narrator. There are at least eight other recordings of the score, including the 1989 Tel Aviv cast (HMI Records CD # 109); the 1989 Dutch cast (Red Bullet Records CD # 66-25); the 1992 Japanese cast (Polydor CD # POCP-1250); the 1994 Australian cast (Stetson Records CD # SRCD-25); the 1995 Barcelona cast (Dindi Records CD # 0001); and

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the 1998 Korean cast (CD; name of record company and CD number assignment not identifiable from the recording). The script was originally published by Methuen in a 1986 collection of plays by Willy Russell that includes Educating Rita and Stags & Hens, and there have been at least two separate paperback editions of the script, the first issued by Samuel French in 1985 and the second by Methuen in 2001.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Blood Brothers); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Con O’Neill); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Stephanie Lawrence); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Jan Graveson); Best Director of a Musical (Bill Kenwright and Bob Tomson); Best Book (Willy Russell)

TANGO PASION Theatre: Longacre Theatre Opening Date: April 28, 1993; Closing Date: May 2, 1993 Performances: 5 Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Choreography: Hector Zaraspe (the program also noted that “many of the tango duets in this production are based on the original choreography of the dancers”); Producers: Mel Howard, Donald K. Donald, and Irving Schwartz (Norman Rothstein, Executive Producer); Scenery: Sets based on painting by Ricardo Carpani; Costumes: John Falabella; Lighting: Richard Pilbrow and Dawn Chiang; Musical Direction: Jose Libertella and Luis Stazo Note: (*) denotes performer was a singer in the production; the other cast members were dancers. Cast: Alberto del Solar (*) (Ricardo), Jorge Torres (Pedro Montero), Pilar Alvarez (Lila Quintana), Osvaldo Ciliento (Lucas), Gustavo Russo (Juan Larossa), Veronica Gardella (Senorita Virginia), Alejandra Mantinan (Carmela), Marcelo Bernadaz (Julio Camargo), Luis Castro (Doctor Bertolini), Claudia Mendoza (Senora Rosalinda Bertolini), Armando Orzuza (Carlos Branco), Daniela Arcuri (Senora Dora Bronco), Graciela Garcia (Grisel), Jorge Romano (Romero Brandan), Fernando Jimenez (Rosendo Frias), Judit Aberastain (Angela), Daniel Bouchet (*) (Rodolfo), Yeni Patino (*) (Flora Rosa), Viviana Laguzzi (Zully), Juan Corvalan (The Lieutenant), Gunilla Wingquist (Ludmilla Orlinskaya); The Sexteto Mayor: Jose Libertella (Bandoneon), Luis Stazo (Bandoneon), Mario Abramovich (Violin), Eduardo Walczak (Violin), Oscar Palermo (Piano), Osvaldo Aulicino (Bass); Other Musicians: Tomas Giannini (Bandoneon), Juan Zunini (Keyboards, Synthesizer), Jorge Orlando (Percussion) The dance revue was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Buenos Aires during the present time and during the 1940s.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Mi Buenos Aires querido (lyric and music by Gardel) and “Payadora” (lyric and music by Plaza) (Company); “Cafetin de Buenos Aires” (lyric and music by Mores and Discepolo) (Alberto del Solar); “El internado” (music by Canaro) (Armando Orzuza, Daniela Arcuri); “El moleston” (lyric and music by Jose Libertella and Luis Stazo) (Jorge Romano); “Taquito militar” (music by Mores) (Jorge Romano, Graciela Garcia); “Nostalgias” (lyric and music by Cadicamo and Cabian) (Daniel Bouchet); “Chique” (music by Brignolo) (Luis Castro, Claudia Mendoza); “Uno” (lyric and music by Mores) (Yeni Patino); “La cumparsita” (lyric and music by Rodreguez) and “Recitado” (Alberto del Solar); “Canto” (Daniel Bouchet); “Danza” (Juan Corvalan, Viviana Laguzzi); “Copete” (anonymous) (Fernando Jimenez, Judit Aberastain); “Milonga del 900” (music by Piana) (Gustavo Russo, Fernando Jimenez, Marcelo Bernadez, Osvaldo Aulicino, Armando Orzuza, Juan Corvalan); “La tablada” (music by Canaro) (Osvaldo Aulicino, Graciela Garcia); “Ojos negros” (anonymous) (Gunilla Wingquist, Osvaldo Aulicino, Alberto del Solar); “Hotel Victoria” (music by Latasa) (Yeni Patino, Juan Corvalan, Osvaldo Aulicino, Jorge Romano, Armando Orzuza,

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Gustavo Russo); “El moleston” (reprise) (lyric and music by Jose Libertella and Luis Stazo) (Jorge Romano, Daniela Arcuri); “El firulete” (music by Mores) (Armando Orzuza, Daniela Arcuri, Gustavo Russo, Alejandra Mantinan, Luis Castro, Claudia Mendoza, Juan Corvalan, Viviana Laguzzi); “Ojos negros” (reprise) (Luis Castro, Gunilla Wingquist, Juan Corvalan); “Orgullo criollo” (lyric and music by Decaro and Laurenz) (Gustavo Russo, Alejandra Mantinan); “Preludio a Francini” (lyric and music by Abramovich and Luis Stazo) (Luis Castro, Claudia Mendoza); “El dia que me quieras” (lyric and music by Gardel and Le Pera) (Daniel Bouchet, Yeni Patino); “Milonga de mis amores” (music by Laurenz) (Fernando Jimenez, Judit Aberastain); “Responso” (music by Troilo) (Jorge Romano, Claudia Mendoza); “Re fa si” (music by Delfino) (Company); “Canaro en Paris” (music by Scarpino) and “Orchestra Solo” (The Sexteto Mayor); Finale (Company) Act Two: “Rapsodia de Arrabal” (lyric and music by Jose Libertella) and “Balada para un loco” (lyric and music by Piazzolla and Ferrer) (Alberto del Solar, Jorge Romano, Pilar Alvarez); “Bailonga” (music by Mores) (Company); “Melancolico” (music by Plaza) (Armando Orzuza, Daniela Arcuri, Osvaldo Ciliento, Graciela Garcia); “A media luz” (lyric and music by Donato) (Yeni Patino, Daniel Bouchet, Luis Castro, Gunilla Wingquist, Alejandra Mantinan, Judit Aberastain, Claudia Mendoza, Veronica Gardella); “Seleccion de milongas” (music by Castellanos, Villoldo, and Laurenz) (Juan Corvalan, Gustavo Russo, Fernando Jimenez, Jorge Romano); “Asi se baila el tango” (lyric and music by Marvil) (Alberto del Solar, Daniela Arcuri, Armando Orzuza, Marcelo Bernadaz, Veronica Gardella); “Quejas de bandoneon” (music by Filiberto) (Jorge Romano, Pilar Alvarez); “Celos” (music by Jacobo Gade) (The Sextet Mayor); “Balada para mi vida” (lyric and music by Jose Libertella and Ferrer) (Alberto del Solar, Yeni Patino, Daniel Boucher); “Melancolico Buenos Aires” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Marcelo Bernadaz, Veronica Gardella); “Libert tango” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Graciela Garcia, Viviana Laguzzi, Alejandra Mantinan, Judit Aberastain, Osvaldo Ciliento, Juan Corvalan, Gustavo Russo, Fernando Jimenez); “Verano Porteno” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Juan Corvalan, Jorge Romano); “Fuga y misterio” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Marcelo Bernadaz, Luis Castro, Gustavo Russo, Viviana Laguzzi); “Balada para un loco” (lyric and music by Astor Piazzolla and Ferrer) (Luis Castro, Pilar Alvarez, Gunilla Wingquist, Alberto del Solar); “Adios Nonino” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (The Sexteto Major); “Provocacion”: (1) “Paris Otonal” (music by Jose Libertella); (2) “Rapsodia de Arrabal” (music by Jose Libertella); and (3) “Primivera Portena” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Jorge Romano, Pilar Alvarez, Company); “Onda 9” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Company) The Argentine import Tango Pasion followed Oba Oba ’93 and Gypsy Passion as the season’s third Latinthemed dance revue, and it was clearly inspired by Tango Argentino, which had played on Broadway in 1985 (and returned to New York in 1999; see entry). But Tango Pasion managed just five performances and was the season’s shortest-running musical. Instead of presenting a series of tango variations by different couples, Tango Pasion imposed a slight story line upon the proceedings, which contrasted Argentine dance halls of the 1940s with the present. Anna Kisselgoff in the New York Times felt that “characterization and a tinge of plot” weren’t necessary, and unlike the all-danced Tango Argentino the new revue included “unpersuasive acting” and “over-choreographed stage action.” She also felt it was a mistake to use panels of Richard Carpani’s paintings; his “grotesque expressionism” might have been effective in an art gallery, but on stage the blown-up panels of his work created “an atmosphere of sleaze rather than stylization.” She noted that Tango Pasion and other tango revues adhered to certain clichés (including “the obligatory brothel scene”), but occasionally Tango Pasion offered sequences of “virtuosity” in its ballroom sequences. Broadway Angel Records announced it would record the cast album of the Broadway production, but due to the revue’s short run the recording was canceled. But in 1999 AIS Productions issued a two-CD set of the revue that was taken from live performances when the musical played at the Philharmonic (Cologne), the Theatre des Champs Elysees (Paris), and the Comedy Theatre (Melbourne).

KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN “The Musical”

Theatre: Broadhurst Theatre Opening Date: May 3, 1993; Closing Date: July 1, 1995

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Performances: 906 Book: Terrence McNally Lyrics: Fred Ebb Music: John Kander; dance music by David Krane Based on the 1976 novel Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig. Direction: Harold Prince; Producer: Livent (U.S.) Inc.; Choreography: Vincent Patterson (additional choreography by Rob Marshall); Scenery and Projections: Jerome Sirlin; Costumes: Florence Klotz; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Jeffrey Huard Cast: Brent Carver (Molina), Herndon Lackey (Warden), Anthony Crivello (Valentin), Philip Hernandez (Esteban), Michael McCormick (Marcos), Chita Rivera (Spider Woman, Aurora); Aurora’s Men and Prisoners: Keith McDaniel, Robert Montano, Dan O’Grady, and Raymond Rodriguez; Merle Louise (Molina’s Mother), Kirsti Carnahan (Marta), Colton Green (Escaping Prisoner), John Norman Thomas (Religious Fanatic, Prisoner), Joshua Finkel (Amnesty International Observer, Prisoner Emilio), Gary Schwartz (Prisoner Fuentes), Jerry Christakos (Gabriel, Prisoner), Aurelio Padron (Window Dresser at Montoya’s, Prisoner) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place “sometime in the recent past” in a Latin American country.

Musical Numbers Act One: Prologue (Chita Rivera, Prisoners); “Her Name Is Aurora” (Brent Carver, Chita Rivera, Aurora’s Men, Prisoners); “Over the Wall” (Prisoners); “Bluebloods” (Brent Carver); “Dressing Them Up” and “I Draw the Line” (Brent Carver, Anthony Crivello); “Dear One” (Merle Louise, Kirsti Carnahan, Anthony Crivello, Brent Carver); “Over the Wall II” (Prisoners, Brent Carver, Anthony Crivello); “Where You Are” (Chita Rivera, Aurora’s Men, Prisoners); “Over the Wall III—Marta” (Anthony Crivello, Prisoners); “Come” (Chita Rivera); “I Do Miracles” (Chita Rivera, Kirsti Carnahan); “Gabriel’s Letter” and “My First Woman” (Jerry Christakos, Anthony Crivello); “Morphine Tango” (Orderlies); “You Could Never Shame Me” (Merle Louise); “A Visit” (Chita Rivera, Brent Carver); “She’s a Woman” (Brent Carver); “Gimme Love” (Chita Rivera, Brent Carver, Aurora’s Men) Act Two: “Russian Movie” and “Good Times” (Chita Rivera, Brent Carver, Anthony Crivello); “The Day after That” (Anthony Crivello, Families of the Disappeared); “Mama, It’s Me” (Brent Carver); “Anything for Him” (Chita Rivera, Brent Carver, Anthony Crivello); “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (Chita Rivera); “Over the Wall IV—Lucky Molina” (Herndon Lackey, Prisoners); “Only in the Movies” (Brent Carver, The People in Molina’s Life) Kiss of the Spider Woman was one of the most empty and self-important musicals of the era, but many were impressed by its claim to Art because it was Serious and therefore should be taken Seriously. After all, the two leading characters were prisoners with italicized backgrounds: the gay window-dresser Molina (Brent Carver) is serving a sentence in jail because he molested a little boy, and the straight Valentin (Anthony Crivello) is a Marxist revolutionary. Here was another Odd Couple situation, but this time around they weren’t sharing a New York apartment and instead were playing a surreal game of house in a prison cell in an unidentified Latin American country. But you could be sure that despite their different sexual preferences they would in one way or another end up in bed together. If all this drama wasn’t enough, there were the ghostly characters of Aurora and the Spider Woman (both played by Chita Rivera) to contend with. The former is a nebulous, other-worldly movie star who emerges from star-struck Molina’s memory and comes to life in order to reprise scenes from her schlocky movies, and the Spider Woman, one of Aurora’s characters, hovers about the proceedings as a shadowy figure who promises doom to anyone she kisses. Unfortunately, Aurora and the Spider Woman were burdened with too much symbolic weight, and after a while it was clear their presences were merely an excuse to add some color to the otherwise dark prison scenes. If the film fantasies and their musical numbers had commented on the show’s plot and characters in the manner of the songs in the Loveland sequence in Follies or the Casanova sequence in Nine, the Aurora/Spider Woman scenes would have been germane to the story instead of window dressing. The Spider Woman might have promised kisses, but you really wanted to kiss off both her and Aurora for

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their extraneous intrusions into the story, and it was only Rivera’s give-it-all-you’ve-got show-business pizzazz that made the fantasy sequences bearable. The musical received mostly favorable reviews and won a slew of awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score, but for all that the show lost approximately $6 million and went down in Variety’s annual tabulation of hits and flops as a flop (here the criterion is whether a production did or did not return its capitalization during its Broadway run). Terrence McNally’s book was pretentious and tiresome, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s score was one of their least attractive, and Harold Prince’s direction failed to satisfactorily merge the worlds of the prison and the movies, of reality and fantasy. John Simon in New York said the musical “shortchanges both human dignity under stress and uninhibited Broadway razzmatazz,” but lovers of Prince and Rivera “may not feel cheated by this cell-blockbuster.” He surmised, however, that “the person who’ll get the most out of this is Gerard Alessandrini,” and so “just wait until the next edition of Forbidden Broadway!” Clive Barnes in the New York Post noted that even in its previous version three years earlier (see below), the show was “mediocre,” and now it was still “mediocre.” He “regrettably” noted that the B-movie fantasies suggested “Springtime for Hitler” and La Cage aux Folles, the score was “stubbornly conventional,” and the book didn’t distinguish “clearly” between Aurora and the Spider Woman. Jack Kroll in Newsweek said Brent Carver gave the show’s “strongest” performance but was “undermined” by McNally’s book, and while the evening was “dazzling” the score failed to “mesh the show’s serious and glitzy sides into a coherent whole.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the musical’s “split personality” worked against it, and the music was “awful and tasteless.” Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor found the musical “misbegotten” and “disappointing,” and noted that as presented the harsh prison scenes and the “elaborate” production numbers created a “schizophrenic quality” to the proceedings and that McNally’s book often resorted “to dramatic clichés in its by-the-numbers portrait” of the two leading male characters and the prison officials. And Michael Feingold in the Village Voice said the musical wasn’t his idea of “frivolous fun,” but “presumably there are affluent theatergoers somewhere who like the idea of a loud, splashy, deadly serious musical about homosexuals and political prisoners sharing a cell, learning to cherish each other, while undergoing torture, food poisoning, and all the joys of prison in a military dictatorship.” But Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the production, was “the showiest musical about gays since La Cage aux Folles—only, this time, the cage has iron bars.” The evening may have “shamelessly” lobotomized the political aspects of the story, but it was nonetheless “the only grown-up musical of the season” and “the only new show with a wild heart and fresh eye.” She praised McNally’s “stylish” book and Kander and Ebb’s “accessible gotta-dance score,” and said Rivera had “great style” and looked “ready for Bob Fosse to give her something to dance.” Edith Oliver in the New Yorker reported that she “burst into tears” because of Carver’s “beautiful” performance and McNally’s “distinguished “ script, and found the set design “stunning” and the costumes “vivid.” As for Rivera, she was “a dynamo for a legendary role” and Prince was one “who never loses his magician’s touch.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the “grim but splendid” musical offered Prince’s “most urgent work in years,” Kander and Ebb had “invented a rich variety of Latin-flavored songs,” and Rivera danced “magnificently” and had “the rare presence of a thoroughbred star.” Frank Rich in the New York Times said the evening often pushed into “pretentious overdrive” and turned “the serious business of police-state torture into show-biz kitsch every bit as vacuous as the B-movie clichés parodied in its celluloid fantasies.” But for him the musical’s “uncompromising darkness” was not an “affectation,” and if some of the “literal displays of brutality” came across as “hokum,” at least Prince erred “by trying to be real rather than discreet.” The musical was first produced on May 1, 1990, at the Performing Arts Center at the State University of New York at Purchase, New York, under the aegis of the New Musicals Premiere Season. The cast included John Rubinstein (Molina), Kevin Gray (Valentin), Lauren Mitchell (Spider Woman and Aurora), Barbara Andres (Molina’s Mother), and Harry Goz (Warden), the direction was by Prince, the choreography by Susan Stroman, and the décor by Thomas Lynch. Songs heard in this production but dropped for the later versions were: “Sailor Boy,” “Man Overboard,” “Every Day,” “I Don’t Know,” “Letter from a Friend” (not to be confused with “Gabriel’s Letter”), “Good Clean Fight,” “Cookies,” and “Never You.” (Of the four musicals announced for the Purchase series, only Spider Woman opened; the other three, The Secret Garden, My Favorite Year, and Fanny Hackabout Jones, were canceled, although Garden and Year were later produced on Broadway.) With Rivera, Carver, and Crivello, the musical was produced two years later at the Bluma Appel Theatre at St. Lawrence’s Center for the Arts in Toronto, Canada, on June 8, 1992; the score included two eventually

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deleted songs (“Don’t Even Think About It” and, from the 1990 production, “Cookies”). After the Toronto engagement, the musical transferred to London with the three leads, where it opened on October 20, 1992, at the Shaftesbury Theatre for 390 performances. The song “Over the Wall” was a reworked version of “The Top of the Hill” (Zorba, 1968) and “The Day after That” was a revised version of “Colored Lights” (The Rink, 1984). The London cast album was released by First Night Records (CD # 30), and later during the Broadway run when Vanessa Williams, Howard McGillin, and Brian (Stokes) Mitchell assumed the leading roles, a cast album was issued by Sony Records (CD # 0704). The Austrian cast recording (as Kuss der Spinnenfrau) was issued by Gig/Reverso Records (CD # 660801); two Hungarian cast albums (one featuring Vari Eva in the title role on Pok CD # 1, and the other with Dorigi Barbara on Pok CD # 2) were issued; and the Argentine cast album was released by RCA Victor (CD #30246). Demos (performed by Kander and Ebb) of the cut songs “Man Overboard” and “Never You” are included in the two-CD collection John Kander/Hidden Treasures, 1950–2015 (Harbinger Records # HCD3105).

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Kiss of the Spider Woman); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Brent Carver); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Chita Rivera); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Anthony Crivello); Best Director of a Musical (Harold Prince); Best Book (Terrence McNally); Best Score (lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander, in a tie with the score for Tommy); Best Scenic Designer (Jerome Sirlin); Best Costume Designer (Florence Klotz); Best Lighting Designer (Howell Binkley); Best Choreographer (Vincent Patterson and Rob Marshall)

1993–1994 Season

SHE LOVES ME Theatre: Criterion Center Stage Right Opening Date: June 10, 1993; Closing Date: August 1, 1993 Performances: 61 Theatre: Brooks Atkinson Theatre Re-Opening Date: October 7, 1993; Closing Date: June 19, 1994 Performances: 294 Total Performances: 355 Book: Joe Masteroff Lyrics: Sheldon Harnick Music: Jerry Bock Based on the play Illatszertar (Parfumerie) by Miklos Laszlo. Direction: Scott Ellis; Producers: for the June 1993 production—Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director; for the October 1993 production—James M. Nederlander and Elliot Martin with Herbert Wasserman, Freddy Bienstock, and Roger L. Stevens; Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director); and Nick Scandalios (Associate Producer); Choreography: Rob Marshall; Scenery: Tony Walton; Costumes: David Charles and Jane Greenwood; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical Direction: David Loud Cast: Lee Wilkof (Ladislav Sipos), Brad Kane (Arpad Laszlo), Sally Mayes (Ilona Ritter), Howard McGillin (Steven Kodaly), Boyd Gaines (Georg Nowack), Louis Zorich (Mr. Maraczek), Tina Johnson (First Customer), Kristi Lynes (Second Customer), Trisha M. Gorman (Third Customer), Cynthia Sophiea (Fourth Customer), Laura Waterbury (Fifth Customer), Judy Kuhn (Amalia Balash; June 1993 production), Diane Fratantoni (Amalia Balash; October 1993 production), Nick Corley (Keller), Jonathan Freeman (Headwaiter), Joey McKneely (Busboy); Kristi Lynes and Bill Badolato (Tango Couple); Ensemble: Bill Badolato, Peter Boynton, Nick Corley, Trisha M. Gorman, Tina Johnson, Kristi Lynes, Joey McKneely, Cynthia Sophiea, Laura Waterbury The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Budapest from June to December of 1934.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Good Morning, Good Day” (Brad Kane, Lee Wilkof, Sally Mayes, Howard McGillin, Boyd Gaines); “Sounds While Selling” (Boyd Gaines, Lee Wilkof, Howard McGillin, Three Customers); “Days Gone By” (Louis Zorich); “No More Candy” (Judy Kuhn); “Three Letters” (Boyd Gaines, Judy Kuhn); “Tonight at Eight” (Boyd Gaines); “I Don’t Know His Name” (Judy Kuhn, Sally Mayes); “Perspective” (Lee Wilkof); “Goodbye, Georg” (Clerks, Customers); “Will He Like Me?” (Judy Kuhn); 123

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“Ilona” (Howard McGillin, Lee Wilkof, Brad Kane); “I Resolve” (Sally Mayes); “A Romantic Atmosphere” (Jonathan Freeman, Joey McKneely, Patrons); “Dear Friend” (Judy Kuhn) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Try Me” (Brad Kane); “Where’s My Shoe?” (Judy Kuhn, Boyd Gaines); “Ice Cream” (Judy Kuhn); “She Loves Me” (Boyd Gaines); “A Trip to the Library” (Sally Mayes); “Grand Knowing You” (Howard McGillin); “Twelve Days to Christmas” (Carolers, Shoppers, Clerks); Finale (Judy Kuhn, Boyd Gaines) The revival of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s 1963 musical She Loves Me set the pace for the 1993– 1994 season with a seemingly endless string of revivals and a paucity of new musicals. Of the season’s sixteen musicals (which don’t include the stand-up comedy revue Jackie Mason: Politically Correct and Paper Moon, which folded during its pre-Broadway tryout), there were seven commercial revivals (besides She Loves Me, there were Camelot, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, My Fair Lady, Damn Yankees, Carousel, and Grease), one non-commercial revival (The Student Prince), one musical adapted from a television production (Cinderella), another adapted from a film (Beauty and the Beast), a tribute revue to the songs of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II (A Grand Night for Singing), two imports (the book musical Cyrano and a revival of sorts with A Little More Magic, which included both new and old music), and just three new book musicals. Of these three, two managed twenty performances between them: Jule Styne’s The Red Shoes (which included at least three recycled songs from his earlier musicals) and Carol Hall’s The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public. With a lack of competition from the few new musicals, it’s no wonder Stephen Sondheim’s disappointing Passion garnered generally favorable reviews, walked away with numerous awards, and managed to hang on for 280 performances. For comparison purposes, thirty years earlier the 1963–1964 season had offered twenty-four musicals: thirteen book musicals with new music (The Student Gypsy, or “The Prince of Liederkranz,” Here’s Love, Jennie, 110 in the Shade, The Girl Who Came to Supper, Hello, Dolly!, Foxy, What Makes Sammy Run?, Funny Girl, Anyone Can Whistle, High Spirits, Café Crown, and Fade Out–Fade In); one book musical that contained about 50 percent new music (Tambourines to Glory); one revue-like poetry reading with incidental music (Spoon River Anthology); one personality revue (An Evening with Josephine Baker); one book-musical import (Rugantino); one revue import (Double Dublin); one revue import with incidental music (The Golden Age); one revue import with incidental music in a revised version (Beyond the Fringe ’64); and four noncommercial revivals (The King and I, West Side Story, Porgy and Bess, and My Fair Lady). Moreover, the season offered a number of revues for the 1964 World’s Fair (including To Broadway, with Love; America, Be Seated!; and Wonder World) and three musicals that closed during their pre-Broadway engagements (two book musicals with new music, Cool Off! and Zenda, and the British import Space Is So Startling!, a book musical with new music). Based on Miklos Laszlo’s play Illatszertar (Parfumerie), which in turn was adapted into the charming 1938 MGM film The Shop around the Corner with James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan, She Loves Me is set in prewar Budapest and looks at the lives of a group of employees at a perfumery owned by Maraczek (Louis Zorich). The employees are head clerk Georg (Boyd Gaines), the serious Sipos (Lee Wilkof), the flighty Ilona (Sally Mayes), the ambitious Arpad (Brad Kane), the cad Kodaly (Howard McGillin), and the new salesclerk Amalia (Judy Kuhn, who was succeeded by Diane Fratantoni when the revival later transferred to a larger Broadway theatre). For Georg and Amalia, it’s intense dislike at first sight, and of course they don’t realize their anonymous lonely-hearts correspondence is with one another. After various complications, all ends well when the two unite on a romantic Christmas Eve. Bock and Harnick’s score was their finest, a cornucopia of delicious songs with wry lyrics and lush melodies. The story unfolded in an almost continuous flow of songs (for the original Broadway production, twentyfive separate numbers, almost twice the era’s norm), all of which furthered the plot, delineated character, and created the “romantic atmosphere” extolled in one of the songs. Indeed, one of the score’s highlights is “A Romantic Atmosphere,” which is heard in a café where Georg and Amalia have arranged to meet after many months of correspondence. Despite his efforts, the headwaiter (Jonathan Freeman) must battle a noisy busboy (Joey McKneely), a loud violinist, and unruly customers. Another delightful song was the chorale “Twelve Days to Christmas” in which frenzied last-minute shoppers complain about those perfect planners who have their names printed on their Christmas cards in June and mail their packages in August. The song was particularly effective because the shoppers’ amusing commentary was presented in counterpoint with a touching scene between Georg and Amalia.

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The unusual “Sounds While Selling” presents cleverly juxtaposed fragments of conversation between clerks and customers; “Thank You, Madam” is the clerks’ inevitable closure to each customer transaction; and Sipos’s “Perspective” sums up his five-word philosophy of the workplace (“Do not lose your job”). Ilona’s “A Trip to the Library” depicts her first visit to such an institution, and she’s shocked to note the place has “so many books”; in Harnick’s brilliant lyric, she describes her encounter with an optometrist she met in the library, and although he has eyes only for her, she slapped him when he suggested she couldn’t go wrong with The Way of All Flesh. But she eventually decides she likes his “novel approach.” Another clever lyric by Harnick was Amalia and Ilona’s duet “I Don’t Know His Name.” Amalia is somewhat sheepish because she doesn’t know the name of her correspondent, and Illona emphasizes the importance of knowing a person’s name. But the lyric turns on itself when Ilona realizes she knew the names of all the men in her life, and all were rotters. As a result, she and Amalia conclude the number by asking the question, “What’s in a name?” As for Kodaly, Bock and Harnick gave him two outstanding numbers, the sultry Porteresque beguine “Ilona” and the shuffle-off-to-Buffalo-styled “Grand Knowing You,” a musical kiss-off to the perfumery and his coworkers when he’s fired. In the original Broadway production, Jack Cassidy won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, and “Grand Knowing You” was the first of three ego-driven “cad” songs he introduced in 1960s musicals; the others were “My Fortune Is My Face” (Fade Out–Fade In, 1964) and “The Woman for the Man (Who Has Everything)” (It’s a Bird It’s a Plane It’s SUPERMAN, 1966). The score offered a number of romantic songs, including Maraczek’s lovely waltz “Days Gone By”; Georg’s jubilant title song; and Amalia’s yearning “Will He Like Me?” and “Dear Friend” (not to be confused with Bock and Harnick’s polka “Dear Friend” from their 1960 musical Tenderloin). Amalia also sang the piquant “No More Candy” (in which she sells a cigarette container as a candy box) and the fiery “Where’s My Shoe?” (when she thinks Georg doesn’t believe she’s ill). In the café scene, Georg sang the wry and cautionary “Tango Tragique” (unfortunately, most productions, including the current one, drop the song because of political correctness). The score’s most enduring number is Amalia’s aria “Ice Cream,” in which she sings of her contradictory feelings about Georg. The song was first introduced by Barbara Cook, who created the role of Amalia, and it became her signature song and a staple in her cabaret repertoire. The original production opened on April 23, 1963, at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre for 301 performances, and the cast album was released on a two-LP set by MGM Records (# E/SE-4118-OC-2) and later on CD by Polydor Records (# 831-968-2). The script was published in hardback by Dodd, Mead & Company in 1964, and in 1993 was published in a special hardback edition by the Fireside Theatre. The cast album of the current revival was recorded by Varese Sarabande Records (CD # VSD-5464) after the musical transferred to the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, and for the recording the role of Amalia is sung by Diane Fratantoni. Other recordings of the score include The Music from “She Loves Me” by Danny Davis and His Orchestra and Chorus (MGM Records LP # SE-4134) and Music from the Hit Broadway Show “She Loves Me” by Frank Chacksfield and His Orchestra (Decca Records LP # LK-4591). The deleted songs “Tell Me I Look Nice” and “Christmas Eve” are included in the respective collections Lost in Boston III (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD5563) and A Broadway Christmas (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5517). The first London production opened on April 29, 1964, at the Lyric Theatre for 189 performances. Rita Moreno was Ilona, and the character’s song “I Resolve” was replaced with “Heads I Win” (the cast album was released by EMI Records, LP # CSD-1546, and was later issued on CD by EMI/West End Angel Records # 7243-8-28595-2-9). The current revival was produced in London at the Savoy Theatre on July 12, 1994, and was recorded by First Night Records (CD # 44). “Tango Tragique” was heard without its lyric as a dance number at the café, and this instrumental version is included on the London, but not the Broadway, recording. In 1978, a truncated 105-minute television adaptation was produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation; directed by Michael Simpson, this version starred Gemma Craven (Amalia), Robin Ellis (Georg), David Kernan (Kodaly), and Diane Langton (Ilona), and was later shown on American television. John J. O’Connor in the New York Times noted that the musical was always considered “charming,” but the television version was “sensationally charming” and “just about flawless.” With its “exceptionally good” score and the “attractive” performances of Craven and Ellis, the televised adaptation was “one of the nicest gifts of the season.” She Loves Me was the second musical adaptation of Parfumerie. The first was the 1949 MGM film In the Good Old Summertime, which starred Judy Garland and Van Johnson. The film’s score includes many wellknown numbers (such as “I Don’t Care” and the title song), and a lovely new one (“Merry Christmas,” lyric and music by Janice Torre and Fred Spielman) has become a minor holiday standard.

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In reviewing the current revival, Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the intimate musical was like “a Vermeer in a room full of Rembrandts.” The work commanded “respect and affection for the fineness of its every detail,” and instead of typical “Broadway boisterousness” the show offered a “serene glow.” The “splendid” and “loving” revival evoked a long-ago world where a “shy heroine” could grow “ecstatic over a gift of vanilla ice cream,” and Judy Kuhn’s “unusually appealing” Amalia performed the number with “great soul.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice said She Loves Me was probably “the most charming musical ever written,” but commented that director Scott Ellis’s “shabby-edged production badly needs an extra layer of it.” The book scenes required “depth and a sly tenderness,” the acting needed “more warmth,” and the comic aspects of the show needed “more subtlety and quirkiness.” But when Kuhn sang, “nothing” could “go wrong”; Rob Marshall provided “madcap” choreography for “Twelve Days to Christmas”; Jonathan Freeman made the “stuffy” headwaiter a “multi-chinned cartoon”; and the score was a “gem.” William A. Henry in Time said the “sweet, sly string quartet of a musical” had an “instantly hummable score”; Jan Stuart in New York Newsday noted that Bock and Harnick had “whipped up a puffed pastry of an operetta score, dense with blithe vocal combinations that convey ambiance and character detail with uncommon sophistication”; and David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the musical was “among the least-flashy but most charming shows ever written” and Bock and Harnick’s “operatic” score offered an “Old World charm” that was “far more accomplished” than their songs for Fiddler on the Roof (which opened the year after the Broadway premiere of the original production of She Loves Me). For Edith Oliver in the New Yorker, Boyd Gaines’s delivery of the title song was the evening’s “high point,” Kuhn had a “lovely voice,” Tony Walton’s sets were “appropriate,” and David Charles and Jane Greenwood’s costumes were “elegant.” But the dances and production numbers were “clunky,” and she noted that someone seated near her said they were “amateur night.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post praised the “exquisite” score and the “lovingly and wittily staged” production. He suggested that Walton’s décor was stylish and “almost” edible, and the cast was “near perfection” (Kuhn was “particularly adorable” and Gaines was “exuberant”). Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor liked the “delightful and winning” production, and noted that for “A Romantic Atmosphere” and “Twelve Days to Christmas” Marshall provided “comically knockabout staging.” Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said the score was “near perfect” and the work was “modest, unassuming but altogether captivating.” And Frank Rich in the New York Times said the “exquisite” revival was “a continuously melodic evening of sheer enchantment and complete escape,” and noted that even Bock and Harnick’s songs for Fiorello! (1959) and Fiddler on the Roof lacked “the consistency of tone” that She Loves Me possessed. Roundabout revived She Loves Me on March 17, 2016, at Studio 54 for 133 performances and Scott Ellis again directed. The cast album was relased by Ghostlight Records, and on June 30, 2016, the musical was streamed live.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (She Loves Me); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Boyd Gaines); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Judy Kuhn); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Jonathan Freeman); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Sally Mayes); Best Director of a Musical (Scott Ellis); Best Scenic Designer (Tony Walton); Best Costume Designer (David Charles and Jane Greenwood)

CAMELOT Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Opening Date: June 21, 1993; Closing Date: August 7, 1993 Performances: 56 Book and Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner Music: Frederick Loewe Based on the 1958 novel The Once and Future King by T. H. White. Direction and Choreography: Norbert Joerder; Producers: Music Fair Productions, Inc. (Shelly Gross, Executive Producer); Scenery: “Scenic Production Supervision” by Neil Peter Jampolis; Costumes: “Costume Supervision and Additional Costume Design” by Franne Lee; Lighting: Neil Peter Jampolis; Musical Direction: John Visser

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Cast: Richard Smith (Sir Dinadan), Virl Andrick (Sir Lionel), James Valentine (Merlyn, Pellinore), Robert Goulet (Arthur), Cedric D. Cannon (Sir Sagramore), Jean Mahlmann (Lady Anne), Patricia Kies (Guenevere), Vanessa Shaw (Nimue), Steve Blanchard (Lancelot), Newton R. Gilchrist (Dap), Tucker McCrady (Mordred), Chris Van Strander (Tom of Warwick); Ensemble: Virl Andrick, Steve Asciolla, Greg Brown, Cedric D. Cannon, Ben Starr Coates, William Thomas Evans, Newton R. Gilchrist, Lisa Guignard, Theresa Hudson, Brian Jefferey Hurst, Donald Ives, Ted Keegan, Karen Longwell, Jean Mahlmann, Raymond Sage, Barbara Scanlon, Vanessa Shaw, Richard Smith, Verda Lee Tudor, Kimberly Wells The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Camelot a long time ago.

Musical Numbers Act One: “I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight?” (Robert Goulet); “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood” (Patricia Kies); “Camelot” (Robert Goulet, Patricia Kies); “Camelot” (reprise) (Robert Goulet, Patricia Kies); “Follow Me” (Vanessa Shaw); “Camelot” (reprise) (Robert Goulet, Patricia Kies); “C’est moi” (Steve Blanchard); “The Lusty Month of May” (Patricia Kies, Ensemble); “How to Handle a Woman” (Robert Goulet); “The Jousts” (Robert Goulet, Patricia Kies, Ensemble); “Before I Gaze at You Again” (Patricia Kies) Act Two: “Madrigal” (Court Dancers, Musicians); “If Ever I Would Leave You” (Steve Blanchard); “The Seven Deadly Virtues” (Tucker McCrady); “Fie on Goodness!” (Tucker McCrady, Knights); “What Do the Simple Folk Do?” (Patricia Kies, Robert Goulet); “I Loved You Once in Silence” (Patricia Kies); “Guenevere” (Ensemble); “Camelot” (reprise) (Robert Goulet) The revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1960 musical Camelot was a limited engagement that was part of the production’s national tour (it was the first of the season’s two Lerner and Loewe revivals, and was followed six months later by My Fair Lady in a controversial new staging). Camelot had earlier been revived in 1980 when Richard Burton reprised his original Broadway role of Arthur, and in 1981 when Richard Harris re-created his film portrayal of the King. For the current stand, Robert Goulet, who had created the role of Lancelot in 1960, now played Arthur. The general feeling was that all three revivals were lacking in one way or another. The three Arthurs were about fifteen or twenty years too old for the role, the productions themselves were somewhat threadbare and betrayed their road origins, and the musical’s book was in drastic need of revision. But no one complained about the score. Loewe’s music was rich in melody and Lerner’s lyrics were among his most fanciful and felicitous. Based on T. H. White’s novel The Once and Future King, the story focused on Arthur’s vision of a democratic society presided over by the Knights of the Round Table and his shaky marriage to Guenevere (Patricia Kies) and her love for Lancelot (Steve Blanchard), one of Arthur’s knights. When the private triangle becomes public, a national crisis occurs that brings down Camelot and Arthur, and results in the “sundown” of his dream for a better world. Other characters in the musical were Arthur’s friend Pellinore (James Valentine), Arthur’s mentor Merlyn (also played by Valentine), and Arthur’s evil illegitimate son Mordred (Tucker McCrady). The early scenes of the musical had just the right touches of wit and self-mockery: Arthur’s self-effacing “I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight?”; Guenevere’s decidedly not so simple look at “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood” (in which Lerner’s coldly calculating lyric was set to one of Loewe’s sprightliest musical confections); Lancelot’s ode to self-love in “C’est Moi”; and the delightful tongue-in-cheek title song that hyperbolically promises perfect weather, including a legal limit to the amount of snowfall during a Camelot winter. But soon the musical took wrong turns from which it never recovered. It became deadly serious with Lancelot bringing Sir Lionel back from the dead; Guenevere and Lancelot’s romance wasn’t dramatized and seems to have occurred somewhere backstage; Arthur broods a bit too much about his political vision and the shambles of his relationships with Guenevere and Lancelot; and Mordred comes across as a B-movie villain in Vincent Price overdrive. As the evening plodded on, even the supposedly endearing nicknames for the characters became tiresome: Wart (Arthur), Jenny (Guenevere), Lance (Lancelot), Pelly (Pellinore). The original production opened on December 3, 1960, at the Majestic Theatre for 873 performances, and soon after the New York premiere and the release of the cast album, director Moss Hart restaged the musical, sped up the action, and cut two songs (Guenevere and the three knights’ “Then You May Take Me to the Fair” and the knights’ “Fie on Goodness!”) that were on the cast album. But the inherent book troubles

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remained because the love triangle was unconvincingly written, and the plot still carried too much baggage. And why was silly-twit Pellinore still around? Along with Sancho Panza in Man of La Mancha and the title character of Zorba, he’s one of the most insufferable bores in musical theatre and should have been dumped in Toronto or Boston. But perhaps there wasn’t enough time during the chaotic tryout to untangle all the problems. Although songs, scenes, and characters were eliminated, the production ran into major stumbling blocks when Hart was hospitalized with a heart attack (he died the following year), Lerner was hospitalized for two weeks with a bleeding ulcer (and also had to assume directorial duties during Hart’s illness), and Loewe, who was still recovering from an earlier heart attack, underwent a bout of influenza (according to Lerner’s preface for the published script, the composer was “continually battling against a draining exhaustion” resulting from his earlier heart attack). In the preface, Lerner praised Burton for his professionalism because two weeks before the Broadway opening the actor was given an entirely new second act to learn. As for Julie Andrews, she was given a new song (“Before I Gaze at You Again”) just two days before the first New York performance, and Lerner said he could only “imagine the reaction of a few of our darling ladies of the theatre had they been given a new song” so close to the opening. Given the chaos and the illnesses surrounding the production, it’s no wonder the grueling tryout was the subject of a cover story in Time titled “The Rough Road to Broadway” (the article quoted someone connected with the show who said no doubt everyone associated with the musical would be “replaced” by “hospital orderlies”). As noted, upon his recovery and within a few months of the Broadway premiere, Hart managed to trim the unwieldy show. But he and Lerner and Loewe never quite found a consistent tone for the evening and never managed to clear away much of the musical’s deadwood. The fantasy characters of Merlyn, Nimue, and Morgan Le Fay were given more stage time than was warranted (but Nimue’s ethereal “Follow Me” was surely too fine a song to be cut). And the empty folderol of “The Lusty Month of May” should have been dropped; perhaps its would-be gaiety could have been reworked into a dance-only number (like My Fair Lady, Camelot was stingy with choreography and its biggest dance sequence [sometimes referred to as “The Enchanted Forest Ballet”] was dropped during the tryout). As the musical underwent the cycle of foreign productions, U.S. revivals, and a film adaptation, it became something different in every version. Morgan Le Fay and her song “The Persuasion” managed to survive the entire original Broadway run (but didn’t make the cast album), but she and the song were wisely excised from most future productions (although they were part of the 2008 concert revival at Avery Fisher Hall). “Then You May Take Me to the Fair” and “Fie on Goodness!” popped up in some revivals (and the former was even included in the film version), but you could never be sure if a particular staging would include them or not. Similarly, the inclusion of Lancelot’s “Madrigal” and the production number “The Jousts” (like “The Persuasion,” both remained in the show throughout the original run but weren’t recorded for the cast album) was touch-and-go and might or might not be heard in a particular revival. Incidentally, besides being snubbed for the cast album, “Madrigal” (unlike “The Jousts” and “The Persuasion”) was never even listed in the New York program (and was finally “recognized” when the script was published). There were also two charming instrumental sequences omitted from the New York program, and although only one was listed on the cast album, both are heard on the recording. These are the “The Processional” (sometimes referred to as “The March”) for Guenevere’s entourage during the opening scene and “The Parade” (also referred to as “The March” and sometimes as “The March from Camelot”) for the knights late in the first act (the music for “The Parade” was also used for “The Jousts”). The 1980 and 1981 revivals bookended the story by beginning and ending with the older Arthur reminiscing about the past as he readies for battle, and the late second-act “Guenevere” became the show’s opening number (and was later heard in a reprise version during the latter part of the second act). The current revival was somewhat surprising because it was a bit more traditional in nature. The story wasn’t bookended, and the score included “The Jousts,” “Madrigal,” and “Fie on Goodness!” Of course, Morgan Le Fay and “The Persuasion” were long gone from productions of Camelot, and the revival elected to ignore the otherwise viable “Then You May Take Me to the Fair.” Mel Gussow in the New York Times felt the current revival needed a “tune-up” and “would have benefited from a greater expenditure of imagination.” And while Goulet was a strong Arthur and Blanchard had the voice for Lancelot, the latter gave a “raised-eyebrow performance” that was “so mechanical as to make mockery of the self-mockery” of “C’est moi.” Gussow also wondered how Guinevere could possibly “relinquish her heart to such an oak” who was the “square knight of the round table.” Howard Kissel in the New

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York Daily News said the sets seemed to have been created “more for durability on a long road tour than for creating magic,” and except for Vanessa Shaw’s Nimue, who “hauntingly” sang “Follow Me,” the rest of the cast was “dispiriting”: Goulet acted “un-regal” and sang “offhand” in a manner “more suited to a club act”; Kies seemed to “mainly project an understandable concern for how long she could continue doing these ingénue roles”; Blanchard was “highly mannered”; Valentine was “insufferably hammy”; and McCrady was “all too charmless.” Like all the critics, William A. Henry III in Time praised the “lush” score, but regretfully noted that Goulet was sixty years old “and looking it” and moved as if he were in a back brace. David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the “synthetic-looking” production had décor reminiscent of “tacky greeting cards” and belonged in a theme park. And John Simon in New York found the direction “doddering,” the choreography “geriatric,” and Goulet a “menopausal monarch,” and he suggested that one of the songs should have been “Fie on Goulet, Fie” although he noted that all concerned in the revival “sham a lot.” Jan Stuart in New York Newsday decided that Goulet gave Arthur “a vocal authority heretofore unheard” but noted the singer “barked through the title tune with all the expression of a singing newscaster.” Kies pushed “the fussy Julie Andrews diction a little too much,” and Blanchard’s “blonde surfer profile” made him “more Lancelot de Laguna Beach than de Las Vegas.” Stuart also noted that the evening’s “visual tackiness” was only rivaled by Valentine’s “audience-groveling shtick,” which threatened to turn Camelot into Hamalot. Jeremy Gerard in Variety said Goulet’s voice was “still rich” but “delivered in the style of an era long past,” that Kies was a “summer-stock” Guenevere, and “on a plane of incompetence all its own is the Lancelot of Steven Blanchard, who blunders through the part as if he were one of the Dukes of Camelot.” Otherwise, the show looked “tacky” and the direction was “dreary,” but to be sure Vanessa Shaw offered a “beautifully sung” Nimue. Clive Barnes in the New York Post quoted the title song’s famous line about “one brief shining moment,” but regretfully noted that as far as the revival was concerned “brief it isn’t and shining it ain’t.” Goulet still had a “remarkably mellifluous voice” but his Arthur was “singularly soulless,” and Blanchard gave “the only energized performance of the evening.” Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said the production had a “jerry-built quality” with “lackluster staging” and “less-than-thrilling” supporting performances. Goulet lacked emotion and the “sheer kingliness” required of the role, Kies and Blanchard lacked “charisma,” and Valentine offered nothing but “outlandish hamminess.” But Lerner and Loewe’s “glorious” score saved the production and made the show worth seeing. The cast album of the 1960 production was released by Columbia Records (LP # KOL-5620) in a lavish packaging that included thirteen color photographs that featured Oliver Smith’s sumptuous décor and Tony Duquette and Adrian’s richly elegant costumes (the CD was issued by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy Records # SK-60552). For the album, “Follow Me” isn’t sung by the original Nimue (Marjorie Smith) but by her understudy (Mary Sue Berry, who later in the run succeeded Smith). The script was published in hardback by Random House in 1961, and the production’s souvenir program was the first to use color photographs throughout. As noted above, the two previous Broadway revivals starred Burton and Harris. Like the current production, these revivals toured nationally and the New York runs were limited engagements as part of the road tours. The Burton revival opened on July 8, 1980, at the New York State Theatre for fifty-six performances, and the Harris revival on November 15, 1981, at the Winter Garden Theatre for forty-eight showings. The Harris production was later presented on Home Box Office in 1983 and was released on DVD by Acorn Media (# AMP-8925). The aforementioned 2008 concert was seriously marred by director Lonny Price’s unfortunate staging concepts and poor casting choices (the happy exception was Nathan Gunn’s Lancelot, whom one critic described as “impossibly handsome” and whose “C’est moi” and “If Ever I Would Leave You” were definitive interpretations). The original London production opened at the Drury Lane on August 19, 1964, with Laurence Harvey as Arthur; the cast album was released on LP by EMI Records (# CSD-1559) and CD by Kritzerland Records (# KR-200184), and includes “The Jousts,” which hadn’t been recorded for the original Broadway cast album. The bloated 1967 film version was released by Warner Brothers and directed by Joshua Logan; the screenplay was by Lerner, and the cast included Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, and Franco Nero. The film retained twelve songs (“I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight?,” “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood,” “Camelot,” “C’est moi,” “The Lusty Month of May,” “Then You May Take Me to the Fair,” “How to Handle a Woman,” “If Ever I Would Leave You,” “What Do the Simple Folk Do?,” “Follow Me,” “I Loved You Once in Silence,”

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and “Guenevere”), and “The March” was heard during the overture; the film omitted six numbers (“The Jousts,” “Before I Gaze at You Again,” “Madrigal,” “The Seven Deadly Virtues,” “Fie on Goodness!,” and of course “The Persuasion”). Harris’s performance lacks spontaneity and is far too studied, and the most surprising aspect of the film is that Logan (who always seemed to find ways to work beefcake into a play, musical, or movie) didn’t concoct a scene with a seminude Lancelot (it’s amusing to note that for the Logan-directed film version of Bus Stop, it was Don Murray and not Marilyn Monroe who was given a bubble bath scene). Warner Brothers released both the soundtrack (LP # B/BS-1712) and DVD (# 12238). There are other recordings of Camelot, including a hyperbolically titled “Living Strings” album, which includes “The Quests,” a song cut during the Broadway tryout (RCA Camden Records LP # 657 (and issued on CD as Two Classic Albums from Living Strings: The Living Strings Play All the Music from “Camelot” and The Living Strings Play Music of the Sea) and Percy Faith and His Orchestra’s Music from Lerner & Loewe’s “Camelot” (Columbia Records LP # CL-1570 and CS-8370).

THE STUDENT PRINCE Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: August 17, 1993; Closing Date: August 28, 1993 Performances: 13 Book: Dorothy Donnelly (book adaptation by Hugh Wheeler) Lyrics: Dorothy Donnelly Music: Sigmund Romberg Based on the 1901 play Alt-Heidelberg by Wilhelm Meyer-Forster (which had been adapted from MeyerForster’s 1898 play Karl Heinrich). Direction: Christian Smith (Beth Greenberg, Assistant Stage Director) (original New York City Opera production directed by Jack Hofsiss); Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Choreography: Donald Saddler (choreography restaged by Jessica Redel); Scenery: David Jenkins; Costumes: Patton Campbell; Lighting: Gilbert V. Hemsley Jr.; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Scott Bergeson Cast: Lackeys: Steven Raiford, Louis Perry, Edward Zimmerman, and Ron Hilley; Louis Otey (Doctor Engel; Robert Perry, alternate), David Rae Smith (Count von Mark), Michael Lockley (Secretary), Jonathan Guss (Secretary), Michael Rees Davis (Prince Karl Franz; Michael Hayes, alternate), James Billings (Lutz), Sandra Ruggles (Gretchen), Joseph McKee (Ruder), Gunnar Waldman (Nicholas), Jonathan Green (Toni), William Ledbetter (Hubert), Gordon Gietz (Detlef), Ron Baker (von Asterberg), David Langan (Lucas), Steven Raiford (Freshman), Michele Patzakis (Kathie; Laura Claycomb, alternate), Muriel Costa-Greenspon (Grand Duchess Anastasia), Michele McBride (Princess Margaret), Jeff Mattsey (Captain Tarnitz), Dulce Reyes (Countess Leydon); Girls and Friends of the Huzzars: Madeleine Mines, Paula Hostetter, Jill Bosworth, and Beth Pensiero: Huzzars: James Russell, Michael Lockley, Daniel Shigo, and Richard Pearson; Ensemble: The New York City Opera Chorus and Dancers The musical was presented in three acts. The action takes place during “the golden years” of 1830–1832 in Karlsberg and Heidelberg, Germany.

Musical Numbers Act One: “By Our Bearing So Sedate” (Lackeys); “Golden Days” (Louis Otey, Michael Rees Davis); “Garlands Bright (with Glowing Flowers)” (Sandra Ruggles, Joseph McKee, Girls); “To the Inn We’re Marching” (Gordon Gietz, David Langan, Ron Baker, Students); “Drink! Drink! Drink!” (aka “Drinking Song”) (Gordon Gietz, David Langan, Ron Baker, Students); “Come, Boys, Let’s All Be Gay, Boys” (Michele Patzakis, Gordon Gietz, David Langan, Ron Baker, Students); “Drink! Drink! Drink!” (reprise) and “To the Inn We’re Marching” (reprise) (Gordon Gietz, David Langan, Ron Baker, Students); “Heidelberg, Beloved Vision of My Heart” (Louis Otey, Michael Rees Davis, Joseph McKee, Sandra Ruggles, Girls); “Gaudeamus igitur” (traditional) (Students); “Golden Days” (reprise) (Louis Otey); “Deep in My Heart, Dear” (Michele Patzakis, Michael Rees Davis); “Come, Sir, Will You Join Our Noble Saxon Corps?” (Students); “Overhead the Moon Is Beaming” (aka “Serenade”) (Michael Rees Davis, Students); “When the Spring Wakens Everything” (Company)

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Act Two: “Student Life” (Company); “Golden Days” (reprise) (Michael Rees Davis, Louis Otey); “Thoughts Will Come to Me” (aka “What Memories”) (Michael Rees Davis, Louis Otey); Finale (Michele Patzakis, Michael Rees Davis) Act Three: “Ballet” (Dancers and Orchestra); “Just We Two” (Michele McBride, Jeff Mattsey, Men); “What Memories, Sweet Rose” (Men); Finale (Company) The New York City Opera Company’s revival of Sigmund Romberg’s venerable 1924 operetta The Student Prince in Heidelberg, which soon became known (and was re-titled) as The Student Prince, returned to the company’s repertory for the fifth and final time with the current production. Bernard Holland in the New York Times was glad the revival was presented at “face value” with a “face that has been scrubbed clean and a genuine smile affixed.” The chorus managed “with considerable skill and unalloyed enthusiasm,” and Michael Rees Davis in the title role was “an excellent advertisement for the rightness” of the revival with his “light” and “clear” tenor, which was “a little frail” but was “delivered unaffectedly.” Michele Patzakis’s Kathie had an “attractive presence” and her voice projected a “dark, handsome quality interrupted occasionally by rough patches.” In the same newspaper, Alex Ross reviewed the alternate leads and called the production an “exhumation.” Michael Hayes’s Prince Karl had a “confident and accurate tenor, wooden at times but thoroughly idiomatic,” and Laura Claycomb’s Kathie struggled “with the high notes” and brought a “strangely feckless” quality to the role. The revival cut three songs that had been heard in earlier City Opera productions (“Farmer Jacob Lay Asnoring,” “Let Us Sing a Song,” and “If He Knew”). The operetta premiered on December 2, 1924, at Jolson’s Theatre for 608 performances, and when it closed it was the third longest-running musical in Broadway history. The role of Prince Karl was originated by Howard Marsh, who three years later also created the role of Gaylord Ravenal in the original production of Show Boat. The bittersweet story deals with Prince Karl, who attends school at Heidelberg University for a few months and falls in love with local barmaid Kathie, who works at the Three Golden Apples Inn, a popular student gathering place. But royal duty calls when the prince’s father dies, and Karl must ascend the throne and enter into an arranged marriage with a princess. Romberg’s richly melodic score offered the soaring ballads “Deep in My Heart, Dear” and “Serenade” (aka “Overhead the Moon Is Beaming”), the lilting waltz “Just We Two,” the stirring march “To the Inn We’re Marching,” the carefree “Student Life” (with a surprisingly lighthearted lyric), and perhaps the ultimate Broadway toast to drinking, the rich male chorus “Drinking Song” (aka “Drink! Drink! Drink!”), a number dear to the hearts of Prohibition audiences. And serving as a theme song throughout the evening was the sadly nostalgic “Golden Days.” The work’s first New York revival opened at the Majestic Theatre on January 29, 1931, for 45 performances, and the second on June 8, 1943, at the Broadway Theatre for 153 showings. Prior to the current City Opera production, the company had revived the work four times: on August 29, 1980 (13 performances); August 27, 1981 (6 performances); July 5, 1985 (9 performances); and July 7, 1987 (14 performances). During Summer 1973, two beautifully sung revivals of Romberg’s The Desert Song (1926) and The Student Prince were given full-scale productions; both enjoyed reasonably lengthy national tours and were intended for Broadway, and while the former played the Uris (now Gershwin) Theatre for just two weeks, The Student Prince closed at the conclusion of its scheduled tour and never opened in New York. The original London production opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on February 3, 1926, for ninety-six performances, and there were two film versions by MGM. The 1928 film was a silent version directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and the cast included Ramon Navarro and Norma Shearer. The second, released in 1954 and directed by Richard Thorpe, was colorful, melodic, and had a sweetly romantic old-fashioned charm. Mario Lanza had been scheduled to play the title role, but due to weight problems was replaced by Edmund Purdom (whose singing voice was dubbed by Lanza). Ann Blyth was Kathie, and others in the cast were Louis Calhern, S. Z. “Cuddles” Sakall, Edmund Gwenn, John Williams, Evelyn Varden, Richard Anderson, and Betta St. John (who had created the role of Liat in the original 1949 production of South Pacific). The film included three pleasant new songs, “Summertime in Heidelberg,” “I’ll Walk with God,” and “Beloved” (lyrics by Paul Francis Webster and music by Nicholas Brodszky). Lanza later recorded songs from the film (including the three new ones), and these and other vocals by him were issued on Sepia Records (CD # 1200). The most complete recording of the score was released by That’s Entertainment Records on a two-CD set (# CDTER2-1172).

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The operetta’s source was Wilhelm Meyer-Forster’s 1901 play Alt-Heidelberg, which was first produced in New York as Heidelberg, or When All the World Was Young; it opened at the Princess Theatre on December 15, 1902, and another adaptation (as Old Heidelberg) opened at the Lyric Theatre on October 12, 1903. Romberg’s version of Alt-Heidelberg wasn’t the first lyric adaptation of the material. The opera Eidelberga mia premiered in Genoa, Italy, in 1908 (music by Ubaldo Pacchierotti and libretto by Alberto Colantuoni).

CINDERELLA Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: November 9, 1993; Closing Date: November 21, 1993 Performances: 14 Book: Oscar Hammerstein II (new book adaptation by Steve Allen; book adapted for the stage by Robert Johanson) Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Music: Richard Rodgers Based on the 1697 fairy tale Cinderella by Charles Perrault. Direction and Choreography: Robert Johanson (Paul L. King, Assistant Stage Director; Sharon Halley, CoChoreographer); Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Scenery: Henry Bardon; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Jeff Davis; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Eric Stern Cast: Sally Ann Howes (Fairy Godmother), Ron Baker (Royal Herald), Abigail Mentzer (Little Girl), Nancy Marchand (Cinderella’s Stepmother), Alix Korey (Joy), Jeanette Palmer (Portia), Crista Moore (Cinderella), Andrew Pacho (Dog), Debbi Fuhrman (Cat), Maria Karnilova (Queen), George S. Irving (King), Jonathan Green (Royal Chef), John Lankston (Royal Steward), George Dvorsky (Prince), Stephanie Godino (Youngest Fairy), Shawn Stevens (Tiara Fairy); Ensemble: The New York City Opera Chorus and Dancers The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in a royal kingdom a long time ago.

Musical Numbers Act One: “The Prince Is Giving a Ball” (Ron Baker, Townspeople); “In My Own Little Corner” (Crista Moore); “The Prince Is Giving a Ball” (reprise) (Townspeople); “Your Majesties” (George S. Irving, Maria Karnilova, John Lankston, Jonathan Green, Ensemble); “Loneliness of Evening” (George Dvorsky); “My Best Love” (George S. Irving, George Dvorsky); “Impossible”/“It’s Possible” (Sally Ann Howes, Crista Moore); “The Gavotte” (Company) Act Two: “Ten Minutes Ago” (George Dvorsky, Crista Moore); “Stepsisters’ Lament” (Alix Korey, Jeanette Palmer); “Waltz for a Ball” (Company); “If I Weren’t King” (George S. Irving); “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?” (George Dvorsky, Crista Moore); “When You’re Driving through the Moonlight” (Crista Moore, Nancy Marchand, Alix Korey, Jeanette Palmer); “A Lovely Night” (Crista Moore, Nancy Marchand, Alix Korey, Jeanette Palmer); Finale (Company) The New York City Opera Company’s production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Cinderella marked the work’s New York stage premiere. The team wrote the musical expressly for television, and it was first seen on March 31, 1957, on CBS with a cast that included Julie Andrews (Cinderella), Jon Cypher (Prince), Edith (Edie) Adams (Fairy Godmother), Howard Lindsay (King), Dorothy Stickney (Queen), Ilka Chase (Stepmother), Alice Ghostley (Joy), Kaye Ballard (Portia), Iggie Wolfington (Chef), and Robert Penn (Town Crier). Lindsay and Stickney, who played the King and Queen, were husband and wife in real life, and the current City Opera production also boasted a married couple (George S. Irving and Maria Karnilova) as the King and Queen. A second television adaptation of the musical was produced by CBS on February 22, 1965, with Lesley Ann Warren (Cinderella), Stuart Damon (Prince), Celeste Holm (Fairy Godmother). Walter Pidgeon (King), Ginger Rogers (Queen), Jo Van Fleet (Stepmother), and, in the roles of Cinderella’s stepsisters, Pat Carroll

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(Prunella) and Barbara Ruick (Esmerelda), who in the 1957 version had been named Joy and Portia. For this adaptation, “Loneliness of Evening” (which had been dropped during the tryout of the original production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific and had been titled “Will My Love Come Home to Me?”) was added for the Prince. The 1957 production was telecast in color, but apparently only a black-and-white print remains, and this was issued on DVD by Image Entertainment (# ROG2127DVD). The television soundtrack was released by Columbia Records (LP # OL-5190 and # OS-2005) and on CD by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy (# SK60889). The 1965 telecast was released on DVD in color by Columbia Tristar (# 07320) and later by the Shout! Factory. The soundtrack was issued by Columbia Records (LP # OL-6330 and # OS-2730) and on CD by Sony Broadway (# SK-53538). A third television version was shown by ABC on November 2, 1997; among the cast members were Brandy Norwood (Cinderella), Whitney Houston (Fairy Godmother), Paolo Montalban (Prince), Bernadette Peters (Stepmother), and Victor Garber (King). This version included three interpolations, “Falling in Love with Love” (The Boys from Syracuse, 1938; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers), “There’s Music in You” (a song written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for the 1953 film From Main Street to Broadway), and “The Sweetest Sounds” (No Strings, 1962; lyric and music by Rodgers). For the previous television productions, the stepsisters had been named Joy and Portia, and then Prunella and Esmerelda, and for the 1997 version were known as Minerva and Calliope. The DVD was released by Walt Disney Home Entertainment (# 21516). The first stage adaptation of the work was produced as a pantomime in London at the Coliseum on December 18, 1958, as a showcase for Tommy Steele in the newly created role of Buttons, and along with the songs written for the 1957 version four numbers were added, three from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Me and Juliet (“A Very Special Day,” “Marriage-Type Love,” and “No Other Love”) and a new song with lyric and music by Tommy Steele (“You and Me”). The musical was later revived in London at the Adelphi Theatre on December 22, 1960, for 101 performances. The cast album was released on LP by That’s Entertainment Records (# TER-1045). The musical was later produced in the United States in regional theatre with an adaptation by Don (aka Donn) Driver, including productions at the Cleveland Musicarnival in 1961 and the St. Louis Municipal Opera (in 1961 and 1965). City Opera’s version was based on a new adaptation of Hammerstein’s book by Steve Allen, which in turn was adapted for the stage by Robert Johanson, who directed and choreographed. This adaptation included “Loneliness of Evening,” which had been added for the 1965 television version, and “My Best Girl,” which had been cut during the tryout of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song (1958). Edward Rothstein in the New York Times reviewed City Opera’s current production and noted that Cinderella was a “prime Rodgers-and-Hammerstein heroine” who was “a cockeyed optimist who climbs every mountain until she finds her dream.” Although he found parts of the evening “corny and sluggish” and suggested that at times the direction and book required “a fair amount of indulgence,” he noted that the second act picked up and by the time of the ball the “inventive melodies and dances” had begun “to work their wiles.” He also liked the line when Cinderella tells the prince that “I don’t get out much.” Rothstein found Crista Moore “sweet and winsome and appealingly human” if “occasionally vocally strained,” and Alix Korey and Jeanette Palmer as the two stepsisters were “obnoxious, whining and finally, almost winning.” George Dvorsky’s Prince “looked the part” but gave a “pale” rendition of “Loneliness of Evening.” However, he was “transformed into a viable Broadway-style hero” when he first sees Cinderella. Rothstein was particularly taken with the production’s “unexpected charms,” such as the finale when the Prince wears an “uncomfortable expression” as he’s embraced by his mother-in-law. City Opera revived the musical on November 9, 1995, for twelve performances (see entry for more information), and on November 12, 2004, for thirteen performances. For the latter production, only Hammerstein was credited for the book (Allen and Johanson’s names weren’t cited in the program); Baayork Lee directed and choreographed, and the cast included Sarah Uriarte Berry (Cinderella), Christopher Sieber (Prince), Eartha Kitt (Fairy Godmother), John “Lypsinka” Epperson (Stepmother), Dick Van Patten (King), Renee Taylor (Queen), Lea DeLaria (Joy), and Ana Gasteyer (Portia). This adaptation interpolated Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Boys and Girls Like You and Me,” which had been cut from the tryout of the original production of Oklahoma! (1943), and like many later productions of Cinderella this version included “Loneliness of Evening.” On May 3, 2001, a limited engagement of the musical was produced at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden for sixteen performances. The production was based on the 1997 telecast, and the book’s adaptation

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was credited to Tom Briggs, from the teleplay by Robert L. Freedman. The cast included Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Cinderella), Paolo Montalban (here reprising his role of the Prince from the 1997 television version), Eartha Kitt (as the Fairy Godmother, and who later reprised the role in City Opera’s 2004 revival), and Everett Quinton (Stepmother, whose character was becoming a drag role and was later portrayed by John Epperson in City Opera’s 2004 revival). The production included two of the three interpolated numbers from the 1997 telecast (“The Sweetest Sounds” and “There’s Music in You”) but dropped one (“Falling in Love with Love”). The production also included “Fol-de-Rol” (aka “Godmother’s Song”), which was the introductory part of “Impossible”/“It’s Possible.” Another stage version of Cinderella was produced on Broadway at the Broadway Theatre on March 3, 2013, for 769 performances. The adaptation was by Douglas Carter Beane, with additional lyrics by Beane and David Chase, and the cast included Laura Osnes (Cinderella, here called Ella), Santino Fontano (Prince), and Victoria Clark (Fairy Godmother). This version included two songs that had been interpolated in previous adaptations (“Loneliness of Evening” and “There’s Music in You”) and added “Me, Who Am I” (based on material from Me and Juliet) and “Now’s the Time” (which had been cut from the tryout of the original production of South Pacific). The cast album was released by Ghostlight Records. The lyrics of Cinderella are included in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. In many ways, Rodgers and Hammerstein dominated the 1993–1994 season. Cinderella was followed by the R & H tribute revue It’s a Grand Night for Singing (which included four songs from Cinderella), and then in the spring a magnificent revival of Carousel opened at Lincoln Center.

JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s New Production”

Theatre: Minskoff Theatre Opening Date: November 10, 1993; Closing Date: May 29, 1994 Performances: 231 Lyrics: Tim Rice Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber Based on the biblical story of Joseph as told in the book of Genesis. Direction: Steven Pimlott (Nichola Treherne, Assistant to the Director and Choreographer); Producers: James M. Nederlander and Terry Allen Kramer; Choreography: Anthony Van Laast; Scenery and Costumes: Mark Thompson; Lighting: Andrew Bridge; Musical Direction: Patrick Vaccariello Cast: Michael Damian (Joseph), Kelli Rabke (Narrator), Robert Torti (Pharaoh), Clifford David (Jacob, Potiphar, Guru), Glenn Sneed (Butler), Bill Nolte (Baker), Julie Bond (Mrs. Potiphar); Apache Dancers: Tina Ou and Tim Schultheis; Brothers and Wives—Marc Kudisch (Reuben), Michelle Murlin (Reuben’s Wife), Neal Ben-Ari (Simeon), Mindy Franzese (Simeon’s Wife), Robert Torti (Levi), Jocelyn Vodovoz Cook (Levi’s Wife), Danny Bolero (Issachar), Jacquie Porter (Issachar’s Wife), Timothy Smith (Asher), Lisa Akey (Asher’s Wife), Joseph Savant (Dan), Sarah Miles (Dan’s Wife), Tim Schultheis (Zebulun), Diana Brownstone (Zebulun’s Wife), Glenn Sneed (Gad), Betsy Chang (Gad’s Wife), Ty Taylor (Benjamin), Tina Ou (Benjamin’s Wife), Gerry McIntyre (Judah), Susan Carr George (Judah’s Wife); The Children’s Choirs (which appeared in rotation): The Carolabbe Chorus, La Petite Musicale, Long Island Performing Arts Center Choir, and the William F. Halloran Vocal Ensemble The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Canaan, Egypt, and Goshen during biblical times.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Prologue” (Kelli Rabke); “Any Dream Will Do” (Michael Damian, Children); “Jacob and Sons” and “Joseph’s Coat” (Kelli Rabke, Brothers, Wives, Children, Clifford David, Michael Damian); “Joseph’s Dream” (Kelli Rabke, Michael Damian, Brothers, Female Ensemble); “Poor, Poor, Joseph” (Kelli Rabke, Brothers, Children); “One More Angel in Heaven” (Marc Kudisch, Michelle Murlin,

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Kelli Rabke, Brothers, Wives, Clifford David, Children); “Potiphar” (Kelli Rabke, Ensemble, Julie Bond, Clifford David, Michael Damian); “Close Every Door” (Michael Damian, Children); “Go, Go, Go, Joseph” (Kelli Rabke, Glenn Sneed, Bill Nolte, Ensemble, Michael Damian, Clifford David, Children) Act Two: Entr’acte (Children); “Pharaoh’s Story” (Kelli Rabke, Children); “Poor, Poor, Pharaoh” and “Song of the King” (Kelli Rabke, Glenn Sneed, Robert Torti, Children, Ensemble); “Pharaoh’s Dream Explained” (Michael Damian, Ensemble, Children); “Stone the Crows” (Kelli Rabke, Robert Torti, Children, Michael Damian, Female Ensemble); “Those Canaan Days” (Neal Ben-Ari, Clifford David, Brothers, Tini Ou, Tim Schultheis); “The Brothers Came to Egypt” and “Grovel, Grovel” (Kelli Rabke, Brothers, Michael Damian, Female Ensemble, Children); “Who’s the Thief?” (Michael Damian, Brothers, Female Ensemble, Children); “Benjamin Calypso” (Ty Taylor, Brothers, Female Ensemble, Children); “Joseph All the Time” (Kelli Rabke, Michael Damian, Children, Brothers, Female Ensemble); “Jacob in Egypt” (Kelli Rabke, Clifford David, Children, Ensemble); “Any Dream Will Do” (reprise) (Michael Damian, Kelli Rabke, Ensemble, Clifford David, Children); “Close Every Door” (reprise) (Michael Damian, Children); “Joseph Megamix” (Company) Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat told the familiar biblical story of Joseph (Michael Damian), who incurs the wrath of his eleven brothers when they come to resent how their father Jacob (Clifford David) favors him. The last straw is when Jacob gives Joseph a beautiful multicolored coat, and so clearly the only recourse for such an outrage is for the jealous brothers to sell Joseph down the river into slavery. Ultimately, Joseph returns home, forgives those bad-boy siblings, and everyone lives happily ever after. The musical was full of feel-good nonsense, and its idea of wit was to use such dumbed-down shtick as imposing modern musical forms (rock-and-roll, calypso) on biblical characters, including an Elvis Presley–styled pharaoh who wears blue suede shoes. The musical premiered on March 1, 1968, as a short cantata for school children at St. Paul’s Junior School in London, and its first American production was produced in May 1970 at the College of the Immaculate Conception in Douglastown, Long Island. The piece was eventually expanded into a full-length evening, and its first professional production opened in London at the Albery Theatre in February 1973 and played for 243 performances. Joseph’s first professional New York production opened on December 12, 1976, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Opera House for 23 performances with a cast that included David-James Carroll (Joseph), Cleavon Little (Narrator), and Virginia Martin (Mrs. Potiphar), and returned there on December 13, 1977, for 24 showings (Carroll again played the title role, and Alan Weeks was the Narrator). The musical was later seen Off-Broadway on November 18, 1981, at the Entermedia Theatre for seventy-seven showings with Bill Hutton (Joseph) and Laurie Beechman (Narrator), and then transferred to Broadway at the Royale (now Schoenfeld) Theatre on January 27, 1982, for 670 performances. All these versions were produced on a generally small scale and were somewhat intimate, but the current revival blew the roof off with a gargantuan $5.5 million production that pulled out all the stops in order to turn the musical into a full-fledged carnival. (According to Linda Winer in New York Newsday, Rice “reportedly” wanted “nothing to do” with the “baby-opus”-turned-“epic,” but one assumes he still cashed his royalty checks.) The revival offered a fifty-member children’s chorus (four local groups were employed, and they rotated throughout the run); a gigantic mechanical Sphinx that rolled across the stage while rolling its eyes; a huge mechanical camel and asp; stuffed buzzards and rainbow-colored sheep; a lavish golden chariot; illuminated miniature models that depicted the Seven Wonders of the World (including the Chrysler Building, of course); and a hydraulic lift that raised Joseph high above the audience. And there were flashing lights, smoke effects, and a snowstorm of plastic glitter that fell on the stage from above if not from Above. Jeremy Gerard in Variety suggested the “high-tech package” could easily find its place “in Las Vegas or a convention center auditorium,” and the “generic” staging amounted to “a triumph of traffic control over creative vision.” Thomas M. Disch in the New York Daily News found the “cumulative effect” of the dances “as enlivening as a marathon performance of the hokey-pokey.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the show was “gleefully vulgar” with “enough surreptitious camp and pumped male flesh to appeal to gays,” and other aspects of the musical would appeal to kids, teenagers, soap opera fans, and those tired of Cats. Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “mildly vacuous” evening of “basically characterless noise” was “oddly and undeniably impressive” and the Old Testament “never had it so brassy.” And Ben Brantley in the

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New York Times noted that Kelli Rabke’s Narrator came across “like a professionally charming hostess in an expensive Los Angeles restaurant.” Joel Siegel on WABCTV7 said the evening was “about as intimate and spontaneous as the Soviet Army marching past Stalin on May Day,” Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said the heretofore modest musical had been “completely overwhelmed by glitz, gimmicks and enough Las Vegas costumes to mount a show at the MGM Grand,” and Winer reported that the evening was a “nonstop homage to mindless Americana—a little Romper Room, a lot of Vegas, a little American Bandstand, a lot of Busby Berkeley, and the gay baths.” But Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said the “audience-pleaser” retained “its youthful sunniness and charm even in this overblown production,” and “if you’re looking for family entertainment” during the holiday season Joseph “is the only new show in town.” Soap-opera heartthrob Michael Damian appeared in the title role, and because he was scantily clad throughout the evening the show might well have been titled Joseph and His Amazingly Skimpy White Loincloth, or Joseph the Dreamboat. Gerard said he was “blank, all colorless voice and zero stage presence.” Disch reported that he was “lovable because his smile, surreal and unrelenting, tells you that you must submit to his charm and love him every bit as much as he seems to love himself.” Brantley said his torso was “the most commanding aspect of his stage presence”; and John Simon in New York reported his physique was “copiously displayed,” and if his performance was “less than meets the eye,” it was “perhaps enough for him who eyes the meat.” And we can’t forget the disco-pounding “Joseph Megamix,” which took place after the finale when the entire company appeared in trendy white aerobics outfits and thoughtfully treated the audience to a fifteenminute encore of most of the score. Gerard noted it was “the longest curtain call on record.” Disch said it was “the longest reprise in the history of show business,” and when the audience was “coerced into clapping,” the applause drove Damian and Rabke “into a rapture of self-admiration.” Stearns noted that those who dozed during the show would be rewarded because the megamix reprised all the songs they missed, and Barnes said the sequence was the “final sensory assault” and “an unforgettable study in overkill vulgarity that is grudgingly admirable.” The current production had opened in Los Angeles earlier in the year, and was recorded there by Polydor Records (CD # 314-519-352-2). There are some two-dozen recordings of the score, including the 1982 Broadway revival (Chrysalis Records LP # CHR-1387 and CD # F2-21387), a 1991 West End revival that opened on June 12 at the London Palladium and starred Jason Donovan and Linzi Hateley (Polydor CD # 314-511-130-2), and a 1992 Canadian revival with Donny Osmond (Polydor CD # 314-517-266-2). The latter was later reconceived for a video production that was released on DVD by Universal with Osmond and a video cast that included Richard Attenborough, Joan Collins, and Maria Friedman.

A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING Theatre: Criterion Center Stage Right Opening Date: November 17, 1993; Closing Date: January 2, 1994 Performances: 52 Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Music: Richard Rodgers Direction: Walter Bobbie (Pamela Sousa, Additional Staging); Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) by special arrangement with Gregory Dawson and Steve Paul; Scenery: Tony Walton; Costumes: Martin Pakledinaz; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Fred Wells Cast: Martin Vidnovic, Jason Graae, Victoria Clark, Alyson Reed, Lynne Wintersteller The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Carousel Waltz” (Carousel, 1945)/“So Far” (Allegro, 1947)/“A Grand Night for Singing” (1945 film State Fair) (Company); “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” (Oklahoma!, 1943) (Jason Graae); “Stepsisters’ Lament” (1957 television musical Cinderella) (Lynne Wintersteller, Victoria Clark); “We Kiss in a

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Shadow” (The King and I, 1951) (Martin Vidnovic); “Hello, Young Lovers” (The King and I) (Company); “A Wonderful Guy” (South Pacific, 1949) (Alyson Reed); “I Cain’t Say No” (Oklahoma!) (Victoria Clark); “Maria” (The Sound of Music, 1959) (Jason Graae); “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?” (Cinderella) (Lynne Wintersteller); “Honey Bun” (South Pacific) (Martin Vidnovic, Company); “The Gentleman Is a Dope” (Allegro) (Alyson Reed); “Don’t Marry Me” (Flower Drum Song, 1958) (Martin Vidnovic, Jason Graae, Lynne Wintersteller, Victoria Clark); “Many a New Day” (Oklahoma!) and “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” (South Pacific) (Alyson Reed, Lynne Wintersteller, Victoria Clark); “If I Loved You” (Carousel) (Victoria Clark); “Shall We Dance?” (The King and I) (Lynne Wintersteller, Jason Graae); “That’s the Way It Happens” (Me and Juliet, 1953) (Alyson Reed, Jason Graae); “All at Once You Love Her” (Pipe Dream, 1955) (Martin Vidnovic, Jason Graae); “Some Enchanted Evening” (South Pacific) (Company) Act Two: “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” (Oklahoma!) (Martin Vidnovic); “Wish Them Well” (Allegro) (Company); “The Man I Used to Be” (Pipe Dream) (Victoria Clark, Alyson Reed, Jason Graae); “It Might as Well Be Spring” (State Fair) (Lynne Wintersteller); “Kansas City” (Oklahoma!) (Company); “When the Children Are Asleep” (Carousel); “I Know It Can Happen Again” (Allegro); and the “My Little Girl” sequence from Carousel’s “Soliloquy” (Company); “It’s Me” (Me and Juliet) (Alyson Reed, Jason Graae, Martin Vidnovic); “Love, Look Away” (Flower Drum Song) (Jason Graae); “When You’re Driving Through the Moonlight” and “A Lovely Night” (Cinderella) (Victoria Clark, Martin Vidnovic, Alyson Reed, Jason Graae); “Something Wonderful” (The King and I) (Lynne Wintersteller); “This Nearly Was Mine” (South Pacific) (Martin Vidnovic); “Impossible” (Cinderella) and “I Have Dreamed” (The King and I) (Company) The Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II tribute revue It’s a Grand Night for Singing had first been produced as a cabaret act at Rainbow & Stars on March 2, 1993, for sixty performances, and when the expanded edition moved to Broadway under the aegis of the Roundabout Theatre Company the cast transferred with it (except for Karen Ziemba, who was succeeded by Alyson Reed). Despite good reviews, the show lasted less than seven weeks on Broadway, but later in the season was nominated for two Tony Awards, including Best Musical and (!) Best Book. One suspects the revue might have enjoyed a much longer run had it transferred to a regular Off-Broadway theatre or to another cabaret venue. The evening included standard R & H fare (such as “If I Loved You,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” and “Hello, Young Lovers”) but happily offered lesser known numbers by the team, including “So Far” (Allegro), “That’s the Way It Happens” (Me and Juliet), and “The Man I Used to Be” (Pipe Dream). The production also included four songs from the team’s 1957 television musical Cinderella, which a week earlier had made its New York stage debut in a production by the New York City Opera Company. Jan Stuart in New York Newsday liked the “enchanted chop suey” with its occasional “mix-and-match” that allowed for the introduction of “Many a New Day” to segue into “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.” He also praised Martin Vidnovic’s “virile baritone,” which offered “Honey Bun” with “sexy-sexist charm,” and noted that “as after-dinner mints go,” the show was “perfectly swell.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the revue was a “dessert” that might be a “trifle, but it’s a trifle that includes some of the best musical theatre songs ever written.” And John Simon in New York said the “smile-inducing compilation” included Vidnovic (an “opulent baritone” with “virile yet velvety appeal”) and Lynne Wintersteller (“a perfect longstemmed American-beauty rose, and a rose that can sing”). David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the evening was “enough to restore one’s faith in the future of the revue and the durability of Rodgers and Hammerstein,” and he enjoyed the “completely new spin” given to some of the team’s familiar songs (“Shall We Dance?” became “a comic seduction of a tall woman by a short man” and “Maria” morphed into a serenade by an “exasperated lover”). Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said the revue didn’t possess the “transcendence to overcome the limitations of its genre” and because it lacked any kind of “dramatic contrivance” it became “a simple song recital.” He ruefully regretted “the passing of an era when songs of this caliber debuted regularly on New York stages.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News suggested the revue was the kind “you’d see in the lounge of a cruise ship in the Caribbean,” and while “the effect is pleasurable if not exhilarating” at least “you won’t get seasick.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post praised the “splendiferous” evening; and Marc Peyser in Newsweek liked the “zippy” production, which worked “remarkably well.” Despite a few reservations, Stephen Holden in the New York Times found the show “solidly likeable” with “a few peaks and few depressions” and noted that Victoria Clark brought a “surprising undercurrent of

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shy humor to “If I Loved You.” Jason Graae played a “genially mugging clown and cutup” for most of the show but then became serious for one of the evening’s “most dramatic moments” when he sang a “poignant” version of “Love, Look Away.” Holden felt that Alyson Reed’s performances was “nervous” and “hardedged,” but Barnes found her “bubbly” and Scheck said that she, Vidnovic, and Wintersteller proved they were some of the “most valued (and underutilized) musical performers.” During previews, “Lonely Room” (Oklahoma!) was sung by Vidnovic, who had played Jud and performed the song in the memorable 1979 Broadway revival. Vidnovic had also appeared as Lun Tha in the 1977 Broadway revival of The King and I, which had starred Yul Brynner, and from that production he and the company sang two numbers (“We Kiss in a Shadow” and “I Have Dreamed”) as part of the revue’s finale. The original cast album was released by Varese Sarabande Records (CD # VSD-5516); because of a vocal infection, Vidnovic wasn’t able to sing for the cast album sessions and his songs were performed by Gregg Edelman.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (It’s a Grand Night for Singing); Best Book (Walter Bobbie)

CYRANO “The Musical”

Theatre: Neil Simon Theatre Opening Date: November 23, 1993; Closing Date: March 20, 1994 Performances: 137 Book: Koen van Dijk Lyrics: Koen van Dijk; English lyrics by Peter Reeves; additional lyrics by Sheldon Harnick Music: Ad van Dijk Based on the 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. Direction: Eddy Habbema (Eleanor Fazan, Associate Director); Producers: Joop van Den Ende in association with Peter T. Kulok (Robin De Levita, Executive Producer); Choreography: Not Credited; Scenery: Paul Gallis (Duke Durfee, Associate Set Designer); Costumes: Yan Tax (Marcia K. McDonald, Associate Costume Designer); Lighting: Reinier Tweebeeke (Brian Nason, Associate Lighting Designer); Musical Direction: Constantine Kitsopoulos Cast: Geoffrey Blaisdell (Man, Captain De Castel Jaloux), Paul Schoeffler (Le Bret), Ed Dixon (Ragueneau), Paul Anthony Stewart (Christian), Timothy Nolen (De Guiche), Anne Runolfsson (Roxane), Adam Pelty (Valvert), Joy Hermalyn (Chaperone), Mark Agnes (Montfleury), Bill van Dijk (Cyrano), Jordan Bennett (Cyrano for Wednesday evening and Saturday matinee performances), Elizabeth Acosta (Mother Superior), Michele Ragusa (Novice); Opera Audience, Cadets, Precieuses, Chefs, Waitresses, Nuns: Elizabeth Acosta, Mark Agnes, Carina Andersson, Christopher Eaton Bailey, James Barbour, Geoffrey Blaisdell, Michelle Dawson, Jeff Gardner, Daniel Guzman, Joy Hermalyn, Bjorn Johnson, Peter Lockyer, Stuart Marland, Kerry O’Malley, Adam Pelty, Tom Polum, Michele Ragusa, Sam Scalamoni, Robin Skye, Tami Tappan, Ann Van Cleave, Charles West The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Paris during 1640; then seven months later in Arras; and in Paris seven years later.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Prologue” (Geoffrey Blaisdell, Paul Schoeffler, Ed Dixon, Ensemble); “Opera, Opera” (Ensemble); “Aria” (Mark Agnes, Bill van Dijk, Ensemble); “One Fragment of a Moment” (Paul Anthony Stewart, Anne Runolfsson); “Confrontation” (Ensemble); “The Duel” (Bill van Dijk, Ensemble); “Where’s All This Anger Coming From” (Paul Schoeffler, Bill van Dijk); “Loving Her” (Bill van Dijk, Paul Anthony Stewart); “A Message from Roxane” (Joy Hermalyn, Bill van Dijk); “Ragueneau’s Patisserie” (Ed Dixon,

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Chefs, Waitresses); “Roxane’s Confession” (Anne Runolfsson, Bill van Dijk); “What a Reward” (Timothy Nolen, Paul Schoeffler, Ed Dixon); “Hate Me” (Bill van Dijk); “Courage Makes a Man” (Cadets, Geoffrey Blaisdell); “Cyrano’s Story” (Bill van Dijk, Paul Anthony Stewart); “A Letter for Roxane” (Bill van Dijk, Paul Anthony Stewart); “I Have No Words” (Paul Anthony Stewart); “Two Musketeers” (Bill van Dijk, Paul Anthony Stewart); “An Evening Made for Lovers” (Ensemble); “Balcony Scene” (Anne Runolffson, Paul Anthony Stewart, Bill van Dijk); “Poetry” (Bill Van Dijk, Anne Runolffson); “Moonsong” (Bill van Dijk); “Stay with Me!” (Ensemble) Act Two: “Every Day, Every Night” (Bill van Dijk, Paul Anthony Stewart, Anne Runolffson, Cadets); “A White Sash” (Timothy Nolen, Bill van Dijk, Cadets); “When I Write” (Bill van Dijk); “Two Musketeers” (reprise) (Paul Anthony Stewart, Bill van Dijk); “Rhyming Menu” (Anne Runolffson, Ed Dixon, Ensemble); “Even Then” (Anne Runolffson); “Tell Her Now” (Paul Anthony Stewart, Bill van Dijk); “The Evening” (Bill van Dijk, Cadets); “Even Then” (reprise) (Anne Runolffson, Bill van Dijk); “The Battle” (Ensemble); “Everything You Wrote” (Anne Runolffson); “He Loves to Make Us Laugh” (Nuns, Elizabeth Acosta); “A Visit from De Guiche” (Timothy Nolen, Anne Runolffson, Elizabeth Acosta); “Opera, Opera” (reprise) (Ensemble); “An Old Wound”/“The Letter”/“Moonsong” (reprise) (Bill van Dijk, Anne Runolffson) The 1993–1994 season offered no less than three musicals that in one way or another made use of the beauty and the beast theme, with protagonists who are physically deformed and in love with someone beautiful: Cyrano secretly loves Roxane, the Beast desires the beauteous Belle, and the homely Fosca is a virtual stalker when it comes to her Passion for the handsome soldier Giorgio. And fairy-tale endings weren’t necessarily guaranteed for these odd couples, and so by the finales two are dead, one ill, one unhappy, and only two are on their way to happily-ever-after land. Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac premiered in Paris at the Theatre de la Porte Saint-Martin on December 28, 1897, with Benoit Constant in the title role; the first Broadway production opened at the Garden Theatre on October 3, 1898, with Richard Mansfield. The current musical version is one of at least sixteen lyric adaptations of the work (see below), and all were jinxed in one way or another and never quite found their permanent place in the standard repertoire of opera and musical theatre. The familiar story centered on the ugly Cyrano (Bill van Dijk) and his secret love for the lovely Roxane (Anne Runolffson). The handsome but not particularly bright Christian (Paul Anthony Stewart) also loves Roxane, and so Cyrano helps the young man win her affection by authoring letters that Roxane assumes are written by Christian. Years later Christian dies in battle, and Roxane, ever true to his memory, goes to live in a convent. One day the dying Cyrano is brought there, and although he denies having written the letters that Roxane holds so dear, she comes to realize the truth that Cyrano has always loved her. The current production premiered in Amsterdam in 1992 at the Stadsschouwburg Theatre with Bill van Dijk in the title role. For the lavish Broadway production, which according to the New York Post cost $7 million to mount, van Dijk reprised his role, but critics and audiences weren’t much interested in another musical based on the Rostand play. Twenty years earlier, another adaptation (as Cyrano) couldn’t muster more than six weeks of performances despite a critically acclaimed performance by Christopher Plummer in the title role, and the current version faded after four money-losing months. Variety reported losses approaching $10 million and predicted the musical was “likely to go down as the costliest flop in Broadway history” (during its final week in New York, the production’s take was $122,034 on a potential gross of $471,363). John Simon in New York said Reeves and Harnick’s English lyrics were “seamlessly stultifying,” and hearing the rhyme “Cyrano is tremendous fun/Tremendous fun for every nun” repeated six or eight times was enough “to get thee to” Nunsense “or any other show.” The score was “derivative yet tuneless rock,” and the direction was “no asset,” which made the potentially touching final scene “into something about as dramatic as unfolding an ironing board.” The headline of Howard Kissel’s review in the New York Daily News announced, “Cyrano Takes a Nose Dive,” and the critic reported that the original play had been “eviscerated” with a “turgid” score. While he found the sets “rudimentary,” the costumes were “sumptuously beautiful,” the lighting “breathtakingly painterly and dramatic,” and the direction brisk with an especially “splendid bit of stagecraft” for the secondact battle scene. But overall, the current Cyrano made “the long-forgotten 1973 Broadway musical look masterly.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the production stood “only waist-high to Les Miz” but would probably appeal to “the crowd that goes in for repeated viewings of Les Miserables, to which Cyrano seems to

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be an also-ran.” The headline of Clive Barnes’s review in the New York Post proclaimed, “And the Loser, by a Nose: Cyrano,” and while Barnes found the lyrics “doggerel” and the music “half-okay (well, a quarter),” he praised the “absolutely terrific” performance by Bill van Dijk. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the adaptation was more in the nature of Cliff Notes and “a lavishly illustrated study guide” in which the mostly sung-through evening offered “expositional recitative” that made the work “closer to textbook prose than poetry” and lyrics that were “simply functional and as unquotable as recipes.” Jan Stuart in Newsday found the score “generic” and felt the adaptation never solved the problem of creating a musical that honored its source. And Jeremy Gerard in Variety suggested that “it may pass muster with some of the seasonal tourist trade, but after that, it’s a goner.” But Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal liked the “romance par excellence with lavish scenic effects to beat the band,” “impressive” costumes,” and van Dijk’s “energetic” and “appealing” performance. Although the music was “serviceable at best” and the lyrics didn’t offer “a single surprising rhyme or turn of phrase,” the musical nonetheless did its “best to make” audiences “happy.” As for Ward Morehouse III in the Christian Science Monitor, the musical was “one of the most entertaining shows on Broadway.” The production was “exquisitely designed,” van Dijk was a “worthy successor” to the “great” actors who had previously played the role in musical and nonmusical adaptations, and the score was “tuneful and generally exciting.” As Cyrano de Bergerac, the first musical adaptation of Rostand’s play opened at the Knickerbocker Theatre on September 18, 1899, for twenty-eight performances with a score by Victor Herbert. Next came Walter Damrosch’s operatic adaptation Cyrano, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House for six performances beginning on February 27, 1913 (Pasquale Amato sang the title role). Cyrano de Bergerac (later titled Roxanne during its brief run) closed during its 1932 tryout (book and lyrics by Charles O. Locke, music by Samuel D. Pokrass), but resurfaced during the 1939–1940 season as The White Plume (but like the earlier version underwent a title change, this time to A Vagabond Hero) (the book and lyrics were still by Locke, but this time around Pokrass’s score was supplemented with new songs by Vernon Duke); this version also closed prior to Broadway. Between the two Locke versions, Franco Alfano’s opera Cyrano de Bergerac premiered in 1936 (and was first produced at the Met in 2005 with Placido Domingo). As Cyrano, a new musical version opened at Yale University in 1958 with book and lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and music by David L. Shire; John Cunningham played the title role, and others in the cast were Richard (Dick) Cavett, Carrie Nye McGeoy, Bill Hinnant, Austin Pendleton, and Roscoe (Lee) Browne. In 1963, a children’s version with lyrics and music by Judith Dvorkin opened in North Carolina, and in 1967 and 1973, José Ferrer starred in an adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest that played in summer stock as A Song for Cyrano. Ferrer had earlier appeared in a revival of the play itself at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon, where the current musical version opened) on October 8, 1946, for 195 performances and tied with Fredric March, who starred in Years Ago, for the Tony Award as Best Leading Actor in a Play; Ferrer reprised his role for the 1950 film version and won the Academy Award for Best Actor. On May 13, 1973, another musical version (titled Cyrano) opened at the Palace Theatre for forty-nine performances; the book was based on an adaptation by Anthony Burgess, who also wrote the lyrics, the music was by Michael J. Lewis, and for his performance in the title role Christopher Plummer won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. Some of the English lyrics for the current version were by Peter Reeves, but in 1992 another Reeves (David) wrote the lyrics and music for an Australian version (Cyrano), which seems to have gone unproduced (but recorded), and in 1994 David Reeves was associated with his second Cyrano musical when he composed the score and Hal Shaper wrote the book and lyrics for an Australian version, which was both produced and recorded. There have also been three other operatic versions of the play, Marius Constant’s Cyrano de Bergerac (1959), Enio Tamberg’s Cyrano de Bergerac (1976), and David DiChiera’s Cyrano (2007). (Incidentally, Constant composed the iconic theme music for the television series The Twilight Zone.) The versions by Alfano, Maltby and Shire, Dvorkin, Lewis, Reeves, Reeves and Saper, Constant, Tamberg, and DiChiera have been recorded, and there are two recordings of the current production: a Netherlands cast album with Bill van Dijk (Indisc Records CD # DICD-3797) and a symphonic version (JE Music Records CD # 51193). With book and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and music by Frank Wildhorn, the most recent musical adaptation (as Cyrano de Bergerac) was presented in London in 2007; as of this writing, a concept album of the score is scheduled to be released by Global/Vision/Koch Records.

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Counting the Pokrass and later Pokrass/Duke scores as two versions (albeit with four different titles), and counting the 1992 and 1994 productions in which David Reeves was involved as two versions, there have been at least sixteen musical adaptations of Rostand’s play. During the run of the current production, the song “He Loves to Make Us Laugh” was cut; and Robert Guillaume succeeded van Dijk in the title role for the final two weeks of the engagement.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Cyrano); Best Book (Koen van Dijk); Best Score (lyrics by Koen van Dijk, Peter Reeves, and Sheldon Harnick, music by Ad van Dijk); Best Costume Designer (Yan Tax)

MY FAIR LADY Theatre: Virginia Theatre Opening Date: December 9, 1993; Closing Date: May 1, 1994 Performances: 165 Book and Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner Music: Frederick Loewe Based on the 1912 play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw and the 1938 film of the same name (direction by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard; among others, Shaw was one of the film’s writers and won the Academy Award for the screenplay). Direction: Howard Davies; Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler and Jujamcyn Theatres in association with PACE Theatrical Group, Tokyo Broadcasting System, and Martin Rabbett (Alecia Parker, Associate Producer); Choreography: Donald Saddler; Scenery: “Scenic Design Based on the Original Designs” by Ralph Koltai (the original scenery for the 1956 production was designed by Oliver Smith); Costumes: Patricia Zipprodt; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Jack Lee Cast: Melissa Errico (Eliza Doolittle), Robert Sella (Freddy Eynsford-Hill), Lisa Merrill McCord (Mrs. Enysford-Hill), Paxton Whitehead (Colonel Pickering), Richard Chamberlain (Professor Henry Higgins), James Young (First Bystander, Harry, Professor Zoltan Karpathy), Bruce Moore (Hoxton Man), Bill Ullman (Second Bystander, George); The “Loverly” Quartet: Jeffrey Wilkins, Bruce Moore, Michael Gerhart, and Jamie MacKenzie; Michael J. Farina (Jamie), Glynis Bell (Mrs. Pearce), Jeffrey Wilkins (Butler, Lord Boxington), Julian Holloway (Alfred P. Doolittle); Servants: Michael Gerhart, Marilyn Kay Huelsman, Edwardyne Cowan, Corinne Melancon, and Meg Tolin; Michael Gerhart (Chauffeur), Dolores Sutton (Mrs. Higgins), Marnee Hollis (Lady Boxington), Ron Schwinn (Policeman), Corinne Melancon (Flower Girl), Ben George (Footman), Patti Karr (Queen of Transylvania), Sue Delano (Mrs. Higgins’ Maid); Ensemble: Edwardyne Cowan, Laurie Crochet, Alexander de Jong, Sue Delano, Rebecca Downing, Michael J. Farina, Ben George, Michael Gerhart, Marnee Hollis, Marilyn Kay Huelsman, Patti Karr, Tom Kosis, John Vincent Leggio, Jamie MacKenzie, Lisa Merrill McCord, Corinne Melancon, Bruce Moore, Ron Schwinn, Meg Tolin, Bill Ullman, Jeffrey Wilkins, James Young The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in London during 1912.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Why Can’t the English?” (Richard Chamberlain); “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” (Melissa Errico, Jeffrey Wilkins, Bruce Moore, Michael Gerhart, Jamie MacKenzie); “With a Little Bit of Luck” (Julian Holloway, James Young, Michael J. Farina, Company); “I’m an Ordinary Man” (Richard Chamberlain); “Just You Wait” (Melissa Errico); “The Servants’ Chorus” (“Quit, Professor Higgins”) (Servants); “The Rain in Spain” (Richard Chamberlain, Melissa Errico, Paxton Whitehead); “I Could Have Danced All Night” (Melissa Errico); “Ascot Gavotte” (Company); “On the Street Where You Live” (Robert Sella)

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Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “The Embassy Waltz” (Company); “You Did It” (Richard Chamberlain, Paxton Whitehead, Servants); “Just You Wait” (reprise) (Melissa Errico); “On the Street Where You Live” (reprise) (Robert Sella); “Show Me” (Melissa Errico); “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” (reprise) (Company); “Get Me to the Church on Time” (Julian Holloway, Company); “Hymn to Him” (Richard Chamberlain); “Without You” (Melissa Errico); “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” (Richard Chamberlain) The revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady was in some ways conventional, but its somewhat controversial décor and its one stunning visual effect were decidedly not. In truth, the imaginative décor never went beyond the confines of Higgins’s study, and the one impressive staging moment occurred during the “Ascot Gavotte” sequence, but these were enough to visually distinguish the production from the typical My Fair Lady revival. It was refreshing to see a version of the musical that didn’t slavishly follow the conventions of earlier mountings, just as it was welcome to view the glorious and reimagined revival of Carousel later in the season (and one was even grateful that the 2002 revival of Man of La Mancha used a different design scheme than Howard Bay’s original, which seemed to have been around since Year One). And happily director Howard Davies’s revival of My Fair Lady didn’t make the mistake of the later 2007–2008 national tour (which had been based on a 2001 London revival), which offered contrived anachronistic touches (the buskers cavorted about in Stomp-like fashion) and political correctness (suffragettes marched across the stage between scenes). The current My Fair Lady was also notable for the casting of Richard Chamberlain, who was a decidedly younger Higgins. His performance eschewed the generally reverential approach brought to the character by actors influenced and perhaps even cowed by memories of Rex Harrison’s legendary turn. Chamberlain was his own man, and his Higgins was more romantic than usual. When he left the revival toward the end of the run, he was succeeded by the surprise casting choice of Michael Moriarty, who also brought freshness to the role: he played the character in a boyish and petulant manner, which worked amazingly well. Rumors swirled about that Chamberlain wasn’t pleased with his Eliza, who was played by Melissa Errico, and that he preferred her understudy Meg Tolin, who performed the role a number of times during the tryout when Errico was indisposed. Both performers sang Eliza beautifully, but Tolin brought a special incandescence and an occasional kittenish approach to the role that was more endearing and touching than Errico’s somewhat chilly interpretation. The rumor mill also ran overtime in regard to the strained relationship between Chamberlain and the revival’s coproducers, Barry and Fran Weissler, and the New York Times reported there had been “months of acid squabbling” between the star and the two producers. During the final weeks before Chamberlain left the show, the production had recouped its $3 million investment, but with Chamberlain gone the musical was “now in danger of slipping back into the red.” For Chamberlain’s final week, the show grossed $550,000 (the weekly nut varied between $290,000 and $337,000, depending on the weekly advertising costs), for the week between Chamberlain’s departure and Moriarty’s arrival, Paxton Whitehead stepped in and the receipts dropped to $330,000, and for Moriarty’s first week the receipts plummeted to $263,000. The musical then played just two more weeks before finally closing, and Fran Weissler told the Times that for one of these weeks the receipts would probably top out at around $180,000. As a result, the show’s final weeks no doubt placed the musical in the loss column. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said Chamberlain’s “ever-youthful good looks” might not have been “really right” for the character, but the performer was “debonair” and had “dash, savvy humor and a surprisingly rich singing voice”; David Richards in the New York Times praised his “lively intelligence, sporting sense of good humor and a touch or two of the leprechaun’s mischievousness”; and William A. Henry III in Time said he showed “calculated wit and charm” and looked “terrific.” As for Errico, John Simon in New York said her “entire choppy, charmless performance is a matter of spurts, almost completely bereft of flow,” and Henry noted that she sang “gloriously if unimaginatively” and suggested that “rarely has a plum Broadway role been so ineptly handled.” But Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal praised her “wonderful voice” and said she gave “a truly original and altogether captivating performance.” Julian Holloway followed in his father Stanley’s footsteps in the role of Doolittle, and while Clive Barnes in the New York Post found him “admirably boisterous,” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the actor was “so aware how funny he is, he borders on being cute.” As mentioned, Higgins’s study was decidedly different from the one Harrison inhabited. Jack Kroll in Newsweek said the room had a “mad-scientist atmosphere” with “glub-glubbing machinery” and a “giant

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illuminated phrenological head that’s like a symbol of some Edwardian Big Brother.” Henry said the setting was “fit for a Vincent Price horror flick”; and Michael Feingold in the Village Voice reported that the “gigantic” head’s cranium was “crosshatched in green neon” and on another part of the stage was an “apparatus of bleeping lights and tubes more like Dr. Frankenstein than Professor Higgins.” And Simon noted that when Eliza is schooled by Higgins he seats her “in what is either an old-style dentist’s or new-fangled torture chair.” The Ascot scene came in for some criticism, but it was a sly and amusing visual reference to Al Hirschfeld’s artwork for the original 1956 production, which depicted a heavenly Shaw who looks down from above and pulls the strings of the puppet Higgins, who in turn manipulates Eliza in marionette fashion. In this case, many of the aristocrats attending Ascot in all their chic finery are seen in various groupings as they float high above the stage on swings, and the Magritte-like stage composition winked at the pomposity of these sheep-like attendees who are so reserved they dare not show a flicker of emotion as they watch the race. Richards said the scene was the evening’s “incontestable high point” and was “also an inspired expression of the class distinctions and social snobberies that lurk at the heart of My Fair Lady.” Kroll said “the effect nicely projects the idea of these toplofty toffs who look down on everything,” Wilson liked the “startling but effective stage picture,” and Barnes noted the revival offered “fresh-minted” staging and “startlingly, even radically, different scenery” and unlike the “egregious” and “awful” film version, the current production was “anything but pedestrian.” But Jeremy Gerard in Variety felt the Ascot scene was little more “than an arresting visual gimmick”; Kissel found the sequence “a droll but meaningless sight”; and Feingold noted that the evening’s “five or ten minutes of amusing visual weirdness” didn’t have “much connection to My Fair Lady.” The original Broadway production opened on March 15, 1956, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre for a then record-breaking run of 2,717 performances and starred Harrison, Julie Andrews (Eliza), Stanley Holloway (Doolittle), and Robert Coote (Pickering). Besides the current production, the musical has been presented in New York four times: The New York City Center Light Opera Company twice revived the work at City Center, on June 28, 1964, for 47 performances (Myles Easton and Marni Nixon) and on June 13, 1969, for 22 performances (Fritz Weaver and Inga Swenson, with George Rose as Doolittle). The twentieth anniversary production opened at the St. James Theatre on March 25, 1976, for 377 showings (Ian Richardson, Christine Andreas, with Rose again as Doolittle). And in a revival on August 18, 1982, at the Uris (now Gershwin) Theatre for 119 performances Harrison returned to his original role (Nancy Ringham was Eliza). The first London production opened on April 30, 1958, at the Drury Lane for 2,281 performances with all four of the Broadway leads. For the Warner Brothers’ 1964 film version, Harrison and Holloway reprised their stage roles and Audrey Hepburn was Eliza (her singing voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon). The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Harrison). The script was published in hardback by Coward-McCann in 1956. There are numerous recordings of the score, but the definitive one is the original cast album released by Columbia Records (LP # OL-5090), which has been twice issued on CD (the most recent by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy # SK-89997 includes interviews with Harrison, Andrews, and Lerner and Loewe). Beware of the London cast recording: it was the first stereo version of the score, but the performances are far too studied and lack spontaneity. One particularly interesting cast album is the 1959 Mexico City production Mi bella dama, which includes a young Placido Domingo as one of the quartet that accompanies Eliza in “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” For more information about the musical, Keith Garebian’s The Making of “My Fair Lady” (published by ECW Press in 1993) is recommended, and another solid source is Dominic McHugh’s The Life and Times of “My Fair Lady” (Oxford University Press, 2012).

THE RED SHOES “A New Musical”

Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Opening Date: December 16, 1993; Closing Date: December 19, 1993 Performances: 5 Book: Marsha Norman Lyrics: Marsha Norman and Paul Stryker (pen name for Bob Merrill)

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Music: Jule Styne Based on the 1948 film The Red Shoes (screenplay by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger with additional dialogue by Keith Winter, direction by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger). Direction: Stanley Donen; Producers: Martin Starger in association with MCA/Universal and James M. Nederlander (Jujamcyn/The Broadway Fund, Associate Producer); Choreography: Lar Lubovitch (Ginger Thatcher, Assistant to Lubovitch); Scenery: Heidi Landesman; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Donald Pippin Cast: George de la Pena (Grisha Ljubov), Leslie Browne (Irina Boronskaya), Jon Marshall Sharp (Ivan Boleslavsky), Robert Jensen (Livy, The Priest), Tad Ingram (Sergei Ratov), Charles Goff (Dmitri), Boris Lermontov (Steve Barton), Hugh Panaro (Julian Craster), Pamela Burrell (Lady Ottoline Neston), Margaret Illmann (Victoria Page aka Vicky), Amy Wilder (Victoria Page aka Vicky for Wednesday and Saturday matinees), Lydia Gaston (Miss Hardiman), Laurie Gamache (Miss Lovat), Daniel Wright (Doctor Copelias), Scott Fowler (James in Les Sylphides, Jean Louis), Don Bellamy (James in Les Sylphides and Jean Louis for Wednesday and Saturday matinees), Jamie Chandler-Torns (Marguerite), Jeff Lander (The Angel); The Company of the Ballet Lermontov: Jennifer Alexander, Anita Intrieri, Don Bellamy, Robert Jensen, Mucuy Bolles, Christina Johnson, Jamie Chandler-Torns, Jeff Lander, Geralyn Del Corso, Christina Marie Norrup, Scott Fowler, Oscar Ruge, Antonia Franceschi, Laurie Gamache, Jonathan Riseling, Lydia Gaston, Joan Tsao, Nina Goldman, James Weatherstone, Daniel Wright The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during 1921 and 1922 in London, Paris, and Monte Carlo.

Musical Numbers Act One: Swan Lake (Leslie Browne, Jon Marshall Sharp, George de la Pena, Company); “I Make the Rules” (Steve Barton, George de la Pena); “The Audition” (Margaret Illmann); “Corps de Ballet” (George de la Pena, Company); “When It Happens to You” (Hugh Panaro); “Top of the Sky” (Steve Barton, Margaret Illmann); “Ballet Montage” (Swan Lake, Coppelia, Sleeping Beauty, Les Sylphides, and Swan Lake) (Margaret Illman, Company); “It’s a Fairy Tale” (Steve Barton, Hugh Panaro, George de la Pena, Tad Ingram, Charles Goff); “Be Somewhere” (Hugh Panaro); “The Rag” (George de la Pena, Company); “Am I to Wish Her Love” (Steve Barton, Margaret Illmann) Act Two: “Do Svedanya” (George de la Pena, Tad Ingram, Company); “Come Home” (Steve Barton); “When You Dance for a King” (Steve Barton, Margaret Illmann); “The Ballet of the Red Shoes” (The Girl: Margaret Illmann; The Shoemaker: George de la Pena; The Young Man: Scott Fowler; Dancers) With its dances, color, and romantic conflicts, a musical version of the classic 1948 film The Red Shoes seemed a natural for the stage, but the adaptation floundered after five performances (and fifty-one previews) and lost its $8 million investment. Variety reported that for the musical’s final week of three previews and five regular performances, the box-office take was 48.9 percent. The failure was especially sad because Lar Lubovitch’s choreography was exciting and offered some of the best dances of the decade, Heidi Landesman’s décor was stunning, Catherine Zuber’s costumes were rich and colorful, Margaret Illmann was a lovely heroine, and George de la Pena was an amusing cut-up as a ballet master. Instead of a pre-Broadway tryout, the musical opted for a series of New York previews, which were among the most chaotic in memory. During preproduction, Susan H. Schulman had been slated to direct (she had recently directed The Secret Garden, and in 2005 helmed Little Women), and originally the lyrics were by Barbara Schottenfeld, who had written the books, lyrics, and music for the feminist Off-Broadway musicals I Can’t Keep Running in Place (1981) and Sit Down and Eat Before Our Love Gets Cold (1985). According to John Simon in New York, Schulman and Schottenfeld intended to update The Red Shoes “along feminist lines,” but this concept was soon dropped. Ultimately, Schulman was replaced by legendary film director Stanley Donen, and Marsha Norman and Paul Stryker (a pseudonym for lyricist and composer Bob Merrill) wrote the lyrics. The musical was eventually done in by two opposing views of what the show was about. One camp (represented by Donen and producer Martin Starger) generally wanted the adaptation to follow the film, while others on the production team wanted to rethink the film for contemporary audiences. In a fascinating analysis

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of the musical’s short life, Bruce Weber in the New York Times reported that the show’s creators were poles apart: Donen didn’t approve of Norman and Schulman’s original “secret vision” of the story, a “vision” that Norman “kept trying to perpetuate”; Styne said Norman didn’t “know how to write lyrics”; Norman said the “amateurism” of Starger and Donen “ultimately sunk the show” because “they didn’t know what they were doing”; and Lubovitch said Donen’s “lack of stagecraft was acute.” During previews, the production underwent major casting changes, and Roger Rees, who played one of the leading roles, was succeeded by his understudy Steve Barton (who had created the role of Raoul in the London and New York productions of The Phantom of the Opera), and three supporting players (Timothy Jerome, Rene Ceballos, and Geralyn del Corso) were also replaced. Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor reported that some wags referred to The Red Shoes as The Pink Slips, and Barry Singer in New York noted that “Red Shoes regulars” referred to the show as Jule’s Last Jam. During previews, a number of songs were cut (“Impresario,” “Miss Page,” “Alone in the Light,” “Who Knows Where It Goes,” “Could I Have Tried?”), and the opening night was postponed from December 2 to December 16. The plot concerns young ballerina Victoria Page (Illmann), who is drawn to two strong-willed men who attempt to dominate her, the ballet impresario Lermontov (Barton) and the composer Julian Craster (Hugh Panero). In order to free herself of their domination, Victoria commits suicide. Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal praised Illmann (the “lithe” and “beautiful” performer was an “enchanting” and “exciting presence” who was “exceedingly graceful and charming”), Lubovitch’s choreography (which displayed “an admirable vigor and inventiveness as well as style”), Landesman’s décor (“opulent and evocative”), and Zuber’s costumes (the “sumptuous costumes are an added treat”). But the songs were “uninspired” and the plot often jumped “from one musical number to the next as if someone had pushed a fast-forward button.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the musical was neither a “flop” nor a “smash success,” and while he praised Illmann (“a genuine star performance”), he noted the staging was “prosaic” and the songs didn’t help (although they were “pleasant and melodic”). Michael Feingold in the Village Voice found Lermontov an “implausible” character and Craster “charmless,” and suggested the “sensible course” for the heroine would have been to shoot both of them. Dave Kehr in the New York Daily News said the score seemed “bizarrely at odds” with the material, but noted the choreographic highlight was “The Rag,” an “enthusiastic” dance in which the ballet company members were “spaced out across the stage in a manner that irresistibly” suggested Donen’s “wonderful CinemaScope compositions” for his 1954 film musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And while Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News found the “mechanical” musical a “pallid” imitation of its source, he said Lubovitch’s choreography had a “vitality and verve” that were “absent from the rest of the proceedings,” the title ballet was the “high point” of the production and “a marvelous piece of terpsichorean storytelling,” and Landesman’s décor captured “the romance of the ballet world” and “the elegance of ’20s London beautifully.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post found the music “feebly undernourished” and the book and lyrics “banal and melodramatic,” and noted that the evening’s most successful components were Landesman’s “elaborately tasty scenery” and Lubovitch’s “moderately successful choreography.” And although Scheck felt there was “nothing terribly wrong” with the musical but also “simply nothing wonderful about it,” he nonetheless praised Illmann (“a gorgeous dancer” in a “star-making performance”), Landesman (her décor was “lavish” and “spectacular”), and Lubovitch’s choreography (the show’s “strongest element” and “the best to be seen on Broadway”). Jeremy Gerard in Variety said The Red Shoes joined “the growing roster of recent film-to-tuner flops,” which included Nick & Nora, My Favorite Year, and The Goodbye Girl. But Illmann was a “spectacular” dancer and the title ballet provided a “stunning showcase” for her. And David Richards in the New York Times said the dancing and décor were the highlights of an otherwise “mediocre” evening, and he praised the “The Rag” (a “mock-Charleston”) and the “professional sheen” of the costumes and scenery. (Richards probably attended a critics’ preview, because he referenced the song “The Reason for My Being,” which isn’t listed in the opening night program but might have been an early title for “Am I to Wish Her Love.”) Laura Shapiro with Marc Peyser in Newsweek said the “incoherent mess” was a “muddle” with a “generic and wholly forgettable score” by Styne. But the evening offered “some of the best Broadway dancing in years” and the show’s “real star” was George de la Pena, who played his role with “huge charm and comic verve.” Vincent Canby in the New York Times found the “big, beautiful, aimless” and “grandly opulent” musical a disappointment, but he praised the “pure enchantment” of the ballet and said de la Pena had “comic gusto”

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and Illmann was “a lovely stage figure.” Alan M. Kriegsman in the Washington Post said the show was “a dud in almost every department” with an unmemorable score, “sappy” lyrics, and a script that was “fine” when it followed the film but banal when it departed from its source. He found the choreography a “mishmash of styles” that was “workmanlike at best.” But de la Pena had “ample comic authority,” Illmann gave the musical “true distinction,” and Landesman’s décor captured “some of the period flavor, surreal enchantment and romanticism” of the original film. There was no cast recording, but pirated tapes from various New York performances have made the rounds of theatre-music collectors. Two songs from the musical have been recorded for collections. “Melody from The Red Shoes” is an instrumental heard on the 1991 CD Michael Feinstein Sings the Jule Styne Songbook (with Styne on the piano) (Elektra Nonesuch # 9-79274-2), and the liner notes state the music is from a “theme written a number of years ago” and the lyric was being written by Barbara Schottenfeld. A second number (“When It Happens to You”) is included in the collection Unsung Musicals II (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5564). The music for at least three numbers in the production utilized music Styne had previously written for other musicals: part of the music for “The Ballet of the Red Shoes” borrowed “Scherzo” from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949); “Come Home” reworked “The World Is Beautiful Today” (Hazel Flagg, 1953); and “Am I to Wish Her Love” borrowed the melody of “I, Yes, Me, That’s Who” (Look to the Lilies, 1970). In Show Tunes, Steven Suskin reports that “The Reason for My Being” is taken from “I, Yes, Me, That’s Who” and as mentioned above it may be that “Am I to Wish Her Love” and “The Reason for My Being” is the same number albeit with different titles. The stunning title ballet had a second life when the American Ballet Theatre included it in its repertoire beginning on May 1, 1994, for ten performances at the Metropolitan Opera House (later in the month five additional showings were added). The ballet was performed as it had been seen on Broadway, and included the original decor and costumes. In reviewing the ballet, Anna Kisselgoff in the New York Times said the sequence “was easily the best thing” about the musical, and she praised Kathleen Moore (who brought “dynamic desperation” to her character), Johan Renvall (“brilliant”), and Keith Roberts (who “is danced to exhaustion while trying to save the heroine”). Kisselgoff felt the ballet was short on “motivation” and the music had “more flourish than depth,” but as the “season’s novelty” it was “worth a visit” in order to witness Lubovitch’s “inventive” details and the dancers’ “superb” performances. (Another variation of The Red Shoes is Hot Feet, which opened on Broadway at the Hilton Theatre on April 30, 2006, for 97 performances.)

DAMN YANKEES Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: March 3, 1994; Closing Date: August 6, 1995 Performances: 533 Book: George Abbott and Douglass Wallop; book revisions by Jack O’Brien Lyrics and Music: Richard Adler and Jerry Ross Based on the 1954 novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant by Douglass Wallop. Direction: Jack O’Brien (Will Roberson, Assistant Director); Producers: Mitchell Maxwell, PolyGram Diversified Entertainment, Dan Markley, Kevin McCollum, Victoria Maxwell, Fred H. Krones, Andrea Nasher, The Frankel-Viertel-Baruch Group, Paula Heil Fisher, and Julie Ross in association with Jon B. Platt, Alan J. Schuster, and Peter Breger (Associate Producers: Thomas Hall, Jennifer Manocherian, Jonathan Pilot, Andrea Pines, TDI, Mark Balsam, Meyer Ackerman, Julian Schlossberg, and Workin’ Man Films, Inc.); Choreography: Rob Marshall (Kathleen Marshall, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: Douglas W. Schmidt; Costumes: David C. Woolard; Lighting: David F. Segal; Musical Direction: James Raitt Cast: Linda Stephens (Meg Boyd), Dennis Kelly (Joe Boyd), Victor Garber (Applegate), Susan Mansur (Sister), Jarrod Emick (Joe Hardy), Scott Wise (Rocky), Jeff Blumenkrantz (Smokey), Gregory Jbara (Sohovik), John Ganun (Mickey), Joey Pizzi (Vernon), Scott Robertson (Del), Michael Winther (Ozzie), Cory English (Bubba), Bruce Anthony Davis (Henry), Michael Berresse (Bomber), Dick Latessa (Van Buren), Vicki Lewis (Gloria Thorpe), Paula Leggett Chase (Betty), Nancy Ticotin (Donna), Cynthia Onrubia (Kitty), Amy Ryder (Photographer, Rita), Terrence Currier (Welch), Bebe Neuwirth (Lola) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in the Washington, D.C., area.

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Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Six Months Out of Every Year” (Linda Stephens, Dennis Kelly, Susan Mansur, Vicki Lewis, Husbands, Wives); “Goodbye, Old Girl” (Dennis Kelly, Jarrod Emick); “Blooper Ballet” (The Senators); “Heart” (Dick Latessa, The Senators); “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.” (Vicki Lewis, The Senators); “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.” (reprise) (Vicki Lewis, Jarrod Emick, Ensemble); “A Little Brains, a Little Talent” (Bebe Neuwirth); “A Man Doesn’t Know” (Linda Stephens, Jarrod Emick); “Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)” (Bebe Neuwirth) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Who’s Got the Pain?” (Bebe Neuwirth, The Senators); “The Game” (The Senators); “Near to You” (Linda Stephens, Jarrod Emick, Dennis Kelly); “Those Were the Good Old Days” (Victor Garber); “Two Lost Souls” (Bebe Neuwirth, Victor Garber); “A Man Doesn’t Know” (reprise) (Linda Stephens, Dennis Kelly); “Heart” (reprise) (Company) A theatrical urban legend warned that any show about baseball was damned, but damn if the 1955 hit Damn Yankees lifted that curse with a vengeance with a slam-bang, triple-play, over-the-goal-post-andthrough-the-hoop home run. Based on Douglass Wallop’s 1954 novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, the musical’s book was cowritten by Wallop and George Abbott (who also directed); it was choreographed by Bob Fosse and starred Gwen Verdon as the witch-seductress Lola and Ray Walston as the devil Applegate. The updated Faust story centered on Joe Boyd (Dennis Kelly for the revival) who’d sell his soul to the devil if the Washington Senators could just beat the Yankees, and his wish is granted by the devil himself, the accommodating red-socks-wearing Applegate (Victor Garber) who transforms the middle-aged Boyd into the young and strapping Joe Hardy (Jarrod Emick). Young Joe lifts the Senators out of the doldrums and into a post-season pennant-winning triumph, and, oh, yes, Applegate and Boyd’s standard satanic contract includes the usual escape clause (although Applegate notes this isn’t exactly “a real estate deal”). But Applegate doesn’t want to lose his prey and thus summons Lola (Bebe Neuwirth), a witch from the Middle Ages and once the ugliest woman in Providence, Rhode Island, who is now a sexy blonde vamp. Her job is to lure young Joe away from his wife Meg (Linda Stephens), and she adopts the pose of a Latin spitfire. And when she says “Yi luf choo, Joe,” the clueless Joe replies, “God bless you.” The Senators of course win the pennant, Boyd returns to his old self and to Meg, and Applegate has a mild temper tantrum because a wife has foiled him again (he complains that wives cause him more trouble than the Methodist Church). The story was full of amusing situations, characters, and one-liners (when a baseball-fan autograph-seeker asks Applegate, “Are you anybody?” he replies, “Not a soul”), and Richard Adler and Jerry Ross followed up their previous year’s hit The Pajama Game with another score filled with clever and catchy songs, including the zippy opening “Six Months Out of Every Year”; the ball players’ barbershop quartet “Heart”; the mambo “Who’s Got the Pain?”; the western-styled hoedown “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.”; the strip-tease bolero “Whatever Lola Wants”; the insinuating shuffle “Two Lost Souls”; and the devil’s down-on-one-knee Jolsonesque vaudeville turn “Those Were the Good Old Days,” in which he fondly recalls plagues, medieval tortures, the stock market crash, that glorious morn when Jack the Ripper was born, and in reverse Ted Lewis fashion asks “Was anybody happy?” The musical originally opened at the 46th Street (now Richard Rodgers) Theatre on May 5, 1955, for 1,019 performances, and when it closed, it was the eighth-longest-running book musical in Broadway history. It won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Choreography, Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Verdon), Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Walston), and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Russ Brown, in the role of Van Buren, the team’s manager). The show enjoyed two hit songs “Heart” and “Whatever Lola Wants,” and a faithful 1958 film adaptation by Warner Brothers included most of the original Broadway cast, including Verdon and Walston, and offered “There’s Something about an Empty Chair,” a new song by Adler (tragically, Ross had died at the age of twenty-nine just six months after the musical opened on Broadway). The current production marked the show’s first Broadway revival, and director Jack O’Brien’s imaginative reconstruction was one of the season’s delights. There was never a dull moment in his sleek and fast-moving staging. He reshaped the book and repositioned some of the score to mostly good effect, and allowed for a brand-new dance number (“Blooper Ballet”) created by Rob Marshall, which was one of the season’s choreographic highlights. The time frame wisely remained in the 1950s, and while there were new lines and more irony in the proceedings (we’re told that the great lovers of history are Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, and . . . J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson), the adaptation never descended into a campy depiction of the era.

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Douglas M. Schmidt’s decor cleverly captured the 1950s Fiesta Ware-world of heightened color, but he never condescended to it. The skeletal décor (which sometimes magically emerged from beneath the stage) never looked cheap because the sets always possessed an element of surprise, shape, and color that evoked the era. One of the visual delights was the ballpark itself, a huge cyclorama that enveloped most of the stage and brought the large stadium with its rows of bleachers and lights directly into the action. The first act now ended with Lola’s show-stopper “Whatever Lola Wants,” and Meg and young Joe’s duet “Near to You” (which always came across as somewhat stodgy and overwrought) was now a thrilling trio for them and the older Joe (John Simon in New York said the “emotion-laden” number was “one of the highlights of my musical-going life”). The one misstep was the assignment of Lola and young Joe’s “Two Lost Souls” to Lola and Applegate in order to expand Garber’s role. Simon said the revival “refurbishes” rather than “disfigures” the original, and he hailed Neuwirth as a “mischievous gamine, a concupiscent Kewpie doll, and a terrific comedienne on top of her nimble dancing and frisky singing.” Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal noted that Neuwirth was a “formidable force” who brought “her own brand of vitality” to Lola, but despite his good comic moments, Garber conveyed “an archness and self-involvement that is out of key with the rest of the production.” And Linda Winer in USA Today liked the “enormously appealing, sweet and foolish trifle that wears its age as proudly as a piece of pop art,” and she concluded that Damn Yankees “covers all the bases head on.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety found the revival “immensely appealing” and Neuwirth “sensational.” William A. Henry III in Time said Damn Yankees was “damn good,” but while Garber was “hilariously fey” and evoked his recent television portrayal of Liberace, Neuwirth “utterly lacked magic.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the evening was “fresh and fun”; and, after seeing “all those heavy British pseudo-operas and intricate Sondheim shows,” Michael Musto in the New York Daily News said the revival “comes as a jolt that seems alternately ridiculous and refreshing.” But Jack Kroll in Newsweek said the “friendly show just misses the playoffs.” It was “fun” but Neuwirth was “short-changed” by Marshall’s choreography, and while Garber “starts off as an amusingly suburban Satan” he “starts chewing scenery instead of consuming souls.” Further, the “good Broadway professional” score sounded “like Frank Loesser just short of his top form.” Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said the show didn’t “manage to convey the sentimentality that lies at its heart,” but noted the production was “lavishly staged,” the score was “tuneful” and “wonderful,” and the best work came from the ensemble. David Richards in the New York Times was generally indifferent to the revival. He noted that the evening included high-tech magic tricks in which Applegate’s fingertips morphed into matchsticks and flames erupted from floor of the stage, and he supposed that when performers “fail to ignite the stage” then technology and pyrotechnics have to do it for them. Michael Feingold in the Village Voice was cool to the evening: the direction wasn’t “overly inventive” and what the evening lacked was “in two words, Gwen Verdon.” He noted that in an update of the old-time scantily clad chorus girls, the male ensemble often wore towels and Emick had “a lot to offer the tired businesswoman.” Further, Emick would probably sing better once “the evil effects of his time in Les Miz and Miss Saigon have worn off.” Many of the critics noted that the 106-year-old Abbott attended the opening night and had in fact been actively involved in the revival. Henry reported that Abbott was more than a “ceremonial presence” because he’d been associated with the new production even prior to its pre-Broadway run in San Diego, had attended a series of New York previews, took notes, tinkered with the staging, and debated with the creative team over the jokes and period references. During the revival’s run and its post-Broadway national tour, Jerry Lewis assumed the role of Applegate and proved to be a joyously demented and devilish presence. He could take a perfunctory line of dialogue that wasn’t meant to be funny, just functional (“Did you call the fire department, lady?”) and with a bemused, almost apologetic, and slight New York accent had the audience roaring (“Did you cawl the fiyah depatmint, laydee?”). The revival omitted two songs from the original score (“Not Meg” and “The American League”), but in truth these two numbers were barely heard in the 1955 production because they were cut soon after opening night, weren’t recorded for the cast album, and weren’t included in the published script (which was issued in hardback by Random House in 1956). The 1955 cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (LP # LOC1021), first in a green-cover edition that featured Verdon in a cute baseball costume and then in a red-cover release depicting her in a skimpy seduction outfit. RCA issued the CD (# 3948-2-RG) and the soundtrack (LP # LOC-1047; the latter was released on CD by RCA/BMG # 1047-2-R). A television version of the musical

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was produced by NBC on April 8, 1967, with Lee Remick (Lola), Phil Silvers (Applegate), Jerry Lanning (Joe Hardy), and Ray Middleton (Joe Boyd), and the London production opened at the Coliseum on March 28, 1957, for 258 performances. The revival’s sparkling cast recording was released by Mercury Records (CD # 314-522-396-2). In Variety’s annual tabulation of hits and flops (in which the criterion is whether a production did or did not recoup its capitalization during the Broadway run), the revival went down in the record books as a flop.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (Damn Yankees); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Victor Garber); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Jarrod Emick); Best Choreographer (Rob Marshall)

A LITTLE MORE MAGIC Theatre: Belasco Theatre Opening Date: March 17, 1994; Closing Date: April 10, 1994 Performances: 29 Narration: Diane Lynn Dupuy Guest Celebrity Narration: Ralph Meyers Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits. Conception and Direction: Diane Lynn Dupuy; Producer: Famous People Players; Visual Art Effects: Mary C. Thornton; Lighting: Ken Billington Cast: Keith Albertson, Darlene Arsenault, Gord Billinger, Lesley Brown, Ronnie Brown, Else Buck, Michelle Busby, Sandra Ciccone, Charleen Clarke, Benny D’Onofrio, Jeanine Dupuy, Joanne Dupuy, Paul Edwards, Greg Kozak, Debbie Lim, Thomas O’Donnell, Debbie Rossen, Lisa Tuckwell The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Note: The cast members manipulated life-sized puppets, many of which represented celebrities; when applicable, celebrity names are given in quotation marks. Act One: “A Little More Magic” (music by Doug Riley); “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)” (“Manhattan Transfer”; lyric and music by Jim Croce); “Dur dur d’etre bebe” (music by Jordy); “Dying Swan” (music by Camille Saint-Saens); “Figaro” (music by Tito Gobbi); “Meow Duet” (lyric and music by Maureen Forrester and Mary Lou Fallis); “Aquarium” (music by Camille Saint-Saens); “If a Tree Falls” (music by Bruce Cockburn); Beatles’ Medley (“The Beatles”; recorded music by the Boston Pops); “Take Five” (recorded music by Dave Brubeck); “Sing, Sing, Sing” (lyric and music by Louis Prima; recorded music by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra); “What a Wonderful World” (“Louis Armstrong”; lyric and music by Bob Thiele aka George Douglas and George David Weiss) Act Two: “Two Hearts” (lyric and music by Phil Collins); “Proud Mary” (“Tina Turner”; lyric and music by John Fogarty); “Crocodile Rock” (“Elton John”; lyric and music by Elton John and Bernie Taupin); “Turn Me Round Polka” (lyric and music by k.d. lang); “Bud the Spud” (lyric and music by Stompin’ Tom Connors); “Flight of the Bumble Bee” (music by Rimsky-Korsakov); “Scheherazade” (music by RimskyKorsakov); “A Little More Magic” (reprise); “Jailhouse Rock” (“Elvis Presley”; 1957 film Jailhouse Rock; lyric and music by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller); “The Impossible Dream” (“Liberace”; Man of La Mancha, 1965; lyric by Joe Darion, music by Mitch Leigh) The limited-engagement Canadian import A Little More Magic was performed by the Famous People Players, and an earlier version of the revue had been presented on Broadway as A Little Like Magic, which opened on October 26, 1986, at the Lyceum Theatre for a run of forty-nine performances. The company, which was based in Toronto and was founded by Diane Lynn Dupuy, specialized in “black light” techniques

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in which life-sized florescent puppets and props were manipulated by company members under the illumination of ultraviolet light (the performers wore black robes, hoods, and masks in order to render themselves invisible to the audience). The program for the 1986 version stated the company was registered as a charitable organization but didn’t indicate much beyond that. But in their reviews for that production, a few critics threw some light on the background of the company’s mission: John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor wrote that some of the puppeteers were “developmentally handicapped,” and Linda Winer in USA Today said some were “mentally or physically handicapped.” The evening consisted of prerecorded musical sequences in which an assortment of puppets “performed” against colorful backgrounds, and among the celebrity puppets were The Beatles, Tina Turner, Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, and Liberace. Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times liked the company’s “lively and colorful brand of black magic,” which was “like a session of cartoon videos in 3-D.” Beside celebrities, the evening offered disembodied dancing shoes, flapping birds, cats, mermaids, and even a “porker” who “breaks up into sliced meat.” And while Best Plays indicated the first act concluded with “Louis Armstrong” performing “What a Wonderful World,” Van Gelder noted the first half ended with “The Stripper” (music by David Rose), in which a puppet shed garment after garment, and by the end of the sequence the ultraviolet light left “nothing to see at all.”

CAROUSEL Theatre: Vivian Beaumont Theatre Opening Date: March 24, 1994; Closing Date: January 15, 1995 Performances: 337 Book and Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Music: Richard Rodgers Based on the 1909 play Liliom by Ferenc Molnar (as adapted by Benjamin F. Glazer). Direction: Nicholas Hytner; Producers: Lincoln Center Theatre (under the direction of Andre Bishop and Bernard Gersten) by arrangement with the Royal National Theatre, Cameron Mackintosh, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization; Choreography: Kenneth MacMillan (MacMillan’s choreography staged by Jane Elliott); Scenery and Costumes: Bob Crowley; Lighting: Paul Pyant; Musical Direction: Eric Stern Cast: Audra Ann McDonald (Carrie Pipperidge), Sally Murphy (Julie Jordan), Kate Buddeke (Mrs. Mullin), Michael Hayden (Billy Bigelow), Taye Diggs (Policeman, Cyrus Hamlin), Tony Capone (Policeman, Peter Bentley Jr.), Robert Brueler (David Bascombe), Shirley Verrett (Nettie Fowler), Eddie Korbich (Enoch Snow), Fisher Stevens (Jigger Craigin), Brian d’Arcy James (Captain, Principal, Hudson Livermore), Lauren Ward (Heavenly Friend, Jenny Sanborn), Jeff Weiss (Starkeeper, Doctor Seldon), Sandra Brown (Louise), Jon Marshall Sharp (Fairground Boy), Duane Boutte (Enoch Snow Jr., Orrin Peesley); Other Snow Children: Philipp Lee Carabuena, Cece Cortes, Lovette George, Lyn Nagel, Cindy Robinson, Tiffany Sampson, and Tse-Mach Washington; Stephen Ochoa (Robert Allen), Cindy Robinson (Hannah Bentley), Natascia A. Diaz (Abbie Chase), Alexies Sanchez (Charlie “Chip” Chase), Robert Cary (Jonathan Chase), Rebecca Eichenberger (Virginia Frazer), Devin Richards (Buddy Hamlin), Paula Newsome (Arminy Livermore), Rocker Verastique (William Osgood), Linda Gabler (Susan Peters), Lacey Hornkohl (Myrtle Robinson), Alexia Hess (Ella Sanborn), Keri Lee (Martha Sewell), Endalyn Taylor-Shellman (Liza Sinclair), Lovette George (Penny Sinclair), Jeffrey James (Henry Spears), Michael O’Donnell (Abner Sperry), Glen Harris (Ben Sperry), Dana Stackpole (Sadie Sperry); Louise’s Friends: Robert Cary, Glen Harris, Steven Ochoa, Michael O’Donnell, Alexies Sanchez, and Rocker Verastique The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Maine during the years 1873 and 1888.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Carousel Waltz” (titled “Prologue” in the program) (Company); “You’re A Queer One, Julie Jordan” (Audra Ann McDonald, Sally Murphy); “Mister Snow” (Audra Ann McDonald); “If I Loved You” (Sally Murphy, Michael Hayden); “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” (Shirley Verrett, Company); “Mister Snow” (re-

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prise) (Audra Ann McDonald, The Girls, Eddie Korbich); “When the Children Are Asleep” (Eddie Korbich, Audra Ann McDonald); “Blow High, Blow Low” (Fisher Stevens, Men); “Soliloquy” (Michael Hayden) Act Two: “A Real Nice Clambake” (Company); “Geraniums in the Winder” and “Stonecutters Cut It on Stone” (Eddie Korbich, Fisher Stevens, Men); “What’s the Use of Wond’rin’” (Sally Murphy); “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (Shirley Verrett); “Ballet” (Sandra Brown, Dancers); “If I Loved You” (reprise) (Michael Hayden); “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (reprise) (Company) Carousel is perhaps the masterwork of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s collaborations and of his works was reportedly Rodgers’s favorite. It is the bittersweet story of ne’er-do-well carousel barker Billy Bigelow (Michael Hayden) and millworker Julie Jordan (Sally Murphy) and their doomed marriage when Billy becomes involved in a botched robbery, after which he chooses suicide rather than arrest. Years later, Billy is allowed to return to Earth for one day in order to give hope and courage to his unhappy daughter Louise (Sandra Brown), who is ostracized by the townsfolk because of Billy’s attempted robbery. The revival was an import from London, where it had first been produced at the Royal National Theatre on December 10, 1992, and then in the West End at the Shaftesbury Theatre on September 10, 1993. It was directed by Nicholas Hytner and starred Hayden (for London, Joanna Riding was Julie). Like the season’s Broadway revivals of My Fair Lady and Damn Yankees, the production provided a fresh look at a classic musical, and despite its relatively short run was artistically the most successful of the three and the most satisfying revival of the era. The work was stunningly designed by Bob Crowley and offered a breathtaking opening sequence. Unlike previous productions, which opened at the amusement park and showed the main characters in pantomime while the orchestra played the “Carousel Waltz,” the musical began in the grim factory where the mill girls toil beneath a gargantuan clock that hovers over them and ticks away the minutes until the day’s labors are finally over. When the workday ends, the clock dissolves into a giant moon, and the girls head for the carnival, where the carousel is dazzlingly constructed before their (and the audience’s) eyes. The stage bursts into a riot of colored lights, including a rainbow arc that frames the stage and announces “Mullin’s Carousel.” But there was more visual grandeur to come, including a bench scene like no other. Billy and Julie are seen on a rolling landscape of small dark green hillocks where they walk on irregular footpaths that give little stability and provide a slightly off-center perspective, perhaps foreshadowing their shaky relationship. Overhead is that impossibly large and irresistibly fascinating moon, which is a constant physical embodiment of Billy’s observation that we’re all just “specks of nothin’” who “don’t count at all.” Stage left revealed a white picket fence that disappeared almost into infinity before it abruptly stopped at the door of a Grant Wood–like New England clapboard church, a visual clue that Billy and Julie are headed for the altar despite a wariness that causes them to proclaim, “If I loved you,” instead of “I love you.” And there were further scenic surprises: A skeletal obelisk-like red mill suddenly appears; when the clambake crowd enjoys their cookout, they’re sheltered within the ruins of a large beached fishing boat now turned on its side; and for his “Soliloquy,” Billy stands on a jetty, below which billowing blue material gives the impression of rippling water, while in the distance we see a flashing miniature lighthouse beneath the eternally hovering moon. In the afterlife, stern New England pilgrim-like souls materialize against a gigantic satellite-image photograph of a blue-and-white marbled Earth swathed in sea and clouds. And Louise’s ballet is danced against the haunting wreck of the carousel where Billy and Julie met so long ago. Hayden was criticized for his average singing voice, but his performance was the heart and soul of the production. Here was a sexy and tough but brooding and even vulnerable Billy in full young Marlon Brando mode, and his boyishly handsome looks made it easy to understand why women were attracted to him, from the older and hard-boiled Mrs. Mullins to the naive and tentative Julie. John Lahr in the New Yorker got it exactly right when he noted that “the success of Carousel is rooted in Hayden’s clever connection of violence to self-hatred, which makes Bigelow compelling and redeemable.” One defect of the production was Kenneth MacMillan’s somewhat uninspired choreography (upon his sudden death, his dances were staged by Jane Elliott), which nonetheless won him a posthumous Tony Award for Best Choreography. It was nice to finally see a Carousel free of Agnes de Mille’s overly familiar choreography, and certainly, the new dances that accompanied “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” and “Blow High, Blow Low” were welcome. But unfortunately, MacMillan’s second-act ballet, which centered on Louise was as tiresome as de Mille’s. And like de Mille’s, it seemed to go on forever (one wag noted it was a good excuse to go out and take a cigarette break).

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Curiously, except for the period of the original 1945 production’s tryout, the ballet has never been given a descriptive name. The program for the world premiere in New Haven titled the sequence “Interlude: Billy Makes a Journey/A. The Birth of Billy’s Daughter/B. The Childhood,” and so it appears the dance was extended with perhaps a look at Billy and Julie during the time of Louise’s birth; by the following week when the tryout moved to Boston, the title had been shortened to “Interlude: Billy Makes a Journey/The Childhood,” and any depiction of Louise’s birth had been dropped. The Broadway program as well as the programs for the national tour; the 1949 New York return engagement; the 1950 London production; and the 1954, 1957, 1965, and 1966 New York revivals all refer to the sequence as the “Ballet.” The published script gives the scenario for the dance, but no title is given, and The Rodgers and Hammerstein Fact Book refers to the number as the “Ballet.” Surprisingly, the current revival didn’t even list the dance in the program! If one hadn’t seen the production or heard the London or New York cast albums, one would have assumed it had been dropped (if only). The program also ignored the title of the “Carousel Waltz” and called it the “Prologue.” And for some reason the current production felt compelled to give each member of the singing and dancing chorus a character name, something Hammerstein hadn’t worried about and that seemed excessive on Hytner’s part. The revival omitted one song from the original production, Billy’s defiant “The Highest Judge of All” (a number that was also dropped from the 1956 film version). Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the “mesmerizing” revival “startles and startles and then startles again” with its story of “beguiling beauty, explosive passion and above all, almost unbearable intimacy.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said Hytner’s staging was “astonishing” and “admirable” in his “desire to recreate the power of the original” production. Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “defining” production was “hard-edged, imaginative and exciting”; was “virtually as good” as the pre-Broadway hype suggested; and was, in fact, “probably as good as a Carousel can ever be.” Further, Hytner’s vision “looks wonderful and moves like a dream,” Hayden was “splendid,” and Murphy’s Julie was “unusually touching.” Laura Shapiro with Marc Peyser in Newsweek said Hytner’s “provocative” interpretation was a “revelation” that “peels away swaths of sentimentality to lay bare the rough edges and ready passions of real drama.” Most of the dances were “honest” and “raucous” (but the ballet was “a lot of hyperinflated posturing”), and Crowley’s “spare” and “beautiful” sets had “the intimacy of a folk-art painting.” Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said you might not “hear the best voices in the world,” but you would “probably experience the most dazzling staging” Carousel would ever receive. Hytner’s direction was “stunning,” the décor was “spectacular,” and Hayden brought a “brooding intensity” to Billy. Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the revival was “intensely smart and magnificently reinvented” and the sets were “almost inconceivably beautiful.” And although Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal said the musical was “not to be missed” and Crowley’s scenery was “evocative” and “surrealistic,” he noted that Hayden was an “impressive” actor who lacked the voice for the “Soliloquy.” David Richards in the New York Times said Carousel was “the freshest, most innovative musical on Broadway” and the “most beautiful.” Further, Hytner’s direction darkened the characters “with a denser subtext than usual” with “a heightened dialectic between light and shadow” and “decency and prurience.” As for Crowley’s sets and costumes and Paul Pyant’s lighting, they were more than “picturesque,” they were “art.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today gave the musical three out of four stars and noted that Hytner again proved he was one of “the most imaginative stylists” in the theatre. While the nonmusical scenes were “gripping” and “heart-in-your mouth,” the musical sequences never entered “that transcendent poetic dimension that even a well-sung summer stock production conveys.” William A. Henry III in Time admitted there was “little wrong and much beguilingly right” with Hytner’s direction, but he’d rather see Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, or The Phantom of the Opera again rather than the “longueurs” of Carousel. He felt the book was a “mess” and the show had gone “stale.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice suggested “the mistake of trying to renovate Carousel is no worse” than “the mistake of thinking it a serious work of art in the first place.” For John Simon in New York, Crowley’s décor was “gleamingly stylized” and Pyant’s lighting was “magical,” and while Hytner’s direction was “accomplished,” it was also occasionally “forced.” Further, he wasn’t impressed by most of the principals: Hayden, “a thoroughly competent chorus-boy type with boyish good looks,” offered “passable” acting and “just-possible” singing; Murphy was “adequate” but not “outstanding”; and although McDonald sang well she was “militantly charmless.” Simon questioned the use of multiracial casting in this particular production because it “militates against the meaning of the work.” He explained that if the small New England town was indeed so “liberal and liberating,” then the townsfolk would have treated Billy as no more than “a bit of a rebel without a cause” and would have “diminished” him into “an

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almost totally gratuitous malcontent.” (There was certainly a case to be made that if the townsfolk were so otherwise enlightened, then why did they ostracize innocent Louise, who wasn’t even born when Billy attempted his botched robbery?) The original production opened on April 19, 1945, at the Majestic Theatre for 890 performances with John Raitt (Billy) and Jan Clayton (Julie) in the leading roles. During the run, chorus member Iva Withers assumed the role of Julie, and later Howard Keel played Billy. During one memorable day, Keel played Billy for the matinee and then that evening played Curly in Oklahoma! at the St. James Theatre, which was across the street from the Majestic. The first London production of the musical opened at the Drury Lane on June 7, 1950, for 566 performances with Stephen Douglass and Iva Withers; the 1956 film was released by Twentieth Century-Fox and starred Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones; and an ABC television version was shown on May 7, 1967, with Robert Goulet and Mary Grover. The work has been revived in New York six times. The first was a return engagement that opened at City Center on January 25, 1949, and soon transferred to the Majestic Theatre, the home of the original production (the cast included a number of performers who would appear in the following year’s London production, including Douglass and Withers). The New York City Center Light Opera Company presented the musical three times, on June 2, 1954, for seventy-nine performances with Chris Robinson and Jo Sullivan (Barbara Cook was Carrie Pipperidge); on September 29, 1957, for twenty-seven performances with Keel and Cook (who now played Julie); and on December 15, 1966, for twenty-two performances (Bruce Yarnell and Constance Towers). The musical was also produced by the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center on August 10, 1965, for forty-eight showings (Raitt reprised his original role, and Eileen Christy was Julie). The script was published in hardback by Alfred A. Knopf in 1946, and was included in the hardback collection Six Plays by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which was published by The Modern Library in 1959. There are many recordings of the classic score, but the original cast album released by Decca Records (LP # DL-8003) is probably the best all-around version; the CD was issued by MCA Classics Records (# MCAD-10799) and includes a bonus track of an alternate (and more complete) “Carousel Waltz.” The London edition of the current production was released by First Night Records (CD # CASTCD-40), and the New York cast album was recorded by Broadway Angel Records (CD # CDQ-7243-5-55199-2-4). There was also a 1995 Japanese production of this revival, and two recordings were issued, each one representing a different cast (Toshiba Records CD # TOCT-9104 and # TOCT-9105).

Awards Tony Awards: Best Revival of a Musical (Carousel); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Audra Ann McDonald); Best Director of a Musical (Nicholas Hytner); Best Scenic Designer (Bob Crowley); Best Choreography (Kenneth MacMillan)

JACKIE MASON: POLITICALLY INCORRECT Theatre: John Golden Theatre Opening Date: April 5, 1994; Closing Date: June 4, 1995 Performances: 347 Monologues: Jackie Mason Direction: Jackie Mason; Producer: Jyll Rosenfeld; Scenery and Lighting: Neil Peter Jampolis Cast: Jackie Mason The revue was presented in two acts. With Jackie Mason: Politically Incorrect, the acerbic comedian returned for another successful round of stand-up comedy that followed his hit revues Jackie Mason’s “The World According to Me!” (1986) and Jackie Mason: Brand New (for more information about Mason’s Broadway excursions, see entry for the latter production). Ben Brantley in the New York Times reported that for the first act Mason was “on the defensive” for criticisms he had endured because of his take-no-prisoners humor, which found no single religious, ethnic,

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or political group sacrosanct from his wry observations. As a result, he attacked his attackers and defended his First Amendment rights to free speech, and Brantley saw “genuine rancor” in Mason’s “often uncomfortable exercise in self-justification.” As for the second act, Brantley found it “a mostly uninspired attack on the Clinton Administration.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby announced that “either you’re on Mr. Mason’s wavelength” or “it’s one of the longest nights you’ll ever spend in a theatre,” and Canby was quick to note that the latter summed up his opinion. Had Mason bowed to the gods of political correctness, one suspects he would have received a more enthusiastic response. But Mason clearly struck a chord with his audiences and they kept the show running for over a year. In 2014, a recording of the revue was released on MP3 format by Oglio Records, and the selections include “Fat People,” “Black People,” “Jewish People,” “Italians,” “Homosexuals,” “Newt Gingrich,” “Bill Clinton,” and “O.J. Simpson.”

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Theatre: Palace Theatre (during run, the musical transferred to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre) Opening Date: April 18, 1994; Closing Date: July 29, 2007 Performances: 5,461 Book: Linda Woolverton Lyrics: Howard Ashman and Tim Rice Music: Alan Menken Based on the 1756 fairy tale “The Beauty and the Beast” by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and the 1991 film Beauty and the Beast (screenplay by Linda Woolverton and direction by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise). Direction: Robert Jess Roth; Producer: Walt Disney Productions; Choreography: Matt West; Scenery: Stan Meyer; Illusions: Jim Steinmeyer and John Gaughan; Costumes: Ann Hould-Ward; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Michael Kosarin Cast: Wendy Oliver (Enchantress), Harrison Beal (Young Prince), Terrence Mann (Beast), Susan Egan (Belle), Kenny Raskin (Lefou), Burke Moses (Gaston); Three Silly Girls: Sarah Solie Shannon, Paige Price, and Linda Talcott; Tom Bosley (Maurice), Heath Lamberts (Cogsworth), Gary Beach (Lumiere), Stacey Logan (Babette), Beth Fowler (Mrs. Potts), Brian Press (Chip), Eleanor Glockner (Madame de la Grande Bouche [Wardrobe]), Gordon Stanley (Monsieur D’Arque); David Ogden Stiers (Voice of Prologue Narrator); Townspeople and Enchanted Objects: Joan Barber, Roxane Barlow, Harrison Beal, Michael-Demby Cain, Kate Dowe, David Elder, Merwin Foard, Gregorey Garrison, Jack Hayes, Kim Huber, Elmore James, Rob Lorey, Patrick Loy, Barbara Marineau, Joanne McHugh, Anna McNeely, Bill Nabel, Wendy Oliver, Vince Pesce, Paige Price, Sarah Solie Shannon, Gordon Stanley, Linda Talcott, Wysandria Woolsey The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place a long time ago.

Musical Numbers Note: (*) denotes lyric by Tim Rice (the lyrics for all other songs are by Howard Ashman). Act One: Overture (Orchestra); Prologue (The Enchantress) (Voice of David Ogden Stiers); “Belle” (Susan Egan, Burke Moses, Kenny Raskin, Silly Girls, Townspeople); “No Matter What” (*) (Tom Bosley, Susan Egan); “No Matter What” (*) (reprise) (Tom Bosley); “Me” (*) (Burke Moses, Susan Egan); “Belle” (reprise) (Susan Egan); “Home” (*) (Susan Egan); “Home” (*) (reprise) (Beth Fowler); “Gaston” (Lenny Raskin, Burke Moses, Silly Girls, Tavern People); “Gaston” (reprise) (Burke Moses, Kenny Raskin); “How Long Must This Go On?” (*) (Terrence Mann); “Be Our Guest” (Gary Beach, Beth Fowler, Heath Lamberts, Eleanor Glockner, Brian Press, Stacey Logan, Enchanted Objects); “If I Can’t Love Her” (*) (Terrence Mann) Act Two: Entr’acte and “Wolf Chase” (Orchestra); “Something There” (Susan Egan, Terrence Mann, Gary Beach, Beth Fowler, Heath Lamberts); “Human Again” (Gary Beach, Eleanor Glockner, Heath Lamberts, Beth Fowler, Stacey Logan, Brian Press, Enchanted Objects); “Maison des Lunes” (*) (Burke Moses,

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Kenny Raskin, Gordon Stanley); “Beauty and the Beast” (Beth Fowler); “If I Can’t Love Her” (*) (reprise) (Terrence Mann); “The Mob Song” (Burke Moses, Kenny Raskin, Gordon Stanley, Townspeople); “The Battle” (Company); “Transformation” (*) (Terrence Mann, Susan Egan); “Beauty and the Beast” (reprise) (Company) Disney’s stage adaptation of its charming 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast was the company’s first Broadway venture (the 1979 New York production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was presented by Radio City Music Hall Productions, Inc., and producer Robert F. Jani) and reportedly cost $12 million to mount (insiders estimated the figure of $20 million was more likely). But even if the capitalization was “just” $12 million, the musical was still the most expensive in Broadway history and gave the audience its money’s worth with a lavish and colorful production filled with clever special effects (including a jaw-dropping scene in which the frightening Beast is whisked high above the stage and in full view of the audience is instantly transformed into a prince). But the show’s resounding success opened the floodgates for a spate of live on stage! in person! productions based on Disney and other family-oriented films and Broadway soon became a theme park with a parade of musicals aimed at kids and teenagers. The story centers on an arrogant prince (Terrence Mann) who is cursed by a witch/enchantress and turned into a beast because of his callous attitude toward those who are not beautiful. He must remain a beast until he falls in love with someone who will return his love, and his household staff fervently hopes this will happen because they too were cursed by the witch and were transformed into such objects as teapots and candelabras. When Beast meets the beauty Belle (Susan Egan), the two eventually become attracted to one another, and by evening’s end all curses are off, the household objects have reverted to their former human selves, Beast has morphed into his former princely self, and he and Belle are united in love. Children seemed astounded to see their favorite movie scenes performed by live actors (albeit some of the performers were so heavily costumed and so awash in makeup they looked less like live performers than animated cartoons), as if the live staging of the cartoon heightened the reality of the film. One wondered if the kids then speculated that the film version did a remarkable job of looking like the stage production, and, gee, Mom, maybe someday they’ll make a movie of the stage show! It was good to see a musical clearly aimed for the family trade, but unfortunately, after Beauty it seemed that every other musical was a feel-good family show whose goal was to emulate its film source. Disney followed Beauty with The Lion King, Tarzan (2006), Mary Poppins (2006), The Little Mermaid (2008), Newsies (2012), and Aladdin (2014), and other producers followed suit with stage versions of popular films or stories such as Big (1996), Seussical (2000), A Year with Frog and Toad (2003), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (2005), Shrek (2008), and two holiday visits of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (2006 and 2007). And from there a subgenre of musicals aimed mostly at young girls and teenage girls opened: Jane Eyre (2000), Hairspray (2002), Wicked (2003), Little Women (2005), an Annie revival (2006), The Pirate Queen (2007), Legally Blonde (2007), Xanadu (2007), 13 (2008), Matilda (2013), and Cinderella (2013; the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II version, not the 1950 Disney film). Among the musicals interested in looking at boys’ lives were: Big (1996), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (2001), a 2003 revival of Big River, Tarzan (2006), Billy Elliot (2008), and Newsies (2012). It sometimes seemed that only two types of musicals could succeed on Broadway, children’s musicals and drag musicals (if someone wrote a show combining the two genres it would probably run forever). Sadly, few serious musicals for adults were successful, and so A Catered Affair (2008), The Scottsboro Boys (2010), The Last Ship (2014), and The Visit (2015) quickly floundered; others such as Passion and Grey Gardens (2006) ran for only a few months; and just The Light in the Piazza (2005) and Next to Normal (2009) broke the 500-performance mark. The critics were generally cool to Beauty and the Beast, but audiences made the show one of the era’s biggest hits with a marathon run of 5,461 performances. As of this writing, the musical is the ninth longestrunning musical in Broadway history. William A. Henry III in Time found the musical “sluggish” but admitted that “at its campy, shameless best” it was a combination of “Busby Berkeley movies, Radio City Music Hall spectacles, the Ziegfeld Follies and Fourth of July at Disney World.”Linda Winer in New York Newsday said “welcome to Broadway-land,” which “has become a theme park” with a “gigantic kiddie show,” and she said it was “hard to forgive” the creators for turning “the exuberantly innocent culinary cabaret” number “Be Our Guest” into “a thematically isolated, charmless, hack Busby Berkeley production number.” But John Lahr in the New Yorker said the

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evening offered “a few moments of solid-gold theatrical amazement,” including “Be Our Guest,” which was a “high-camp extravaganza better onstage than on film because its design and its energy parody the theatrical inventions of Erté, Ziegfeld and Busby Berkeley.” Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said Disney had “done a spectacular job of recreating the cinematic experience onstage” but failed to re-create the film’s “magic.” However, the costumes and the literal fireworks for “Be Our Guest” created the “kind of spectacular production number that hasn’t been staged on Broadway since the days of Ziegfeld and Billy Rose,” and so the musical would “undoubtedly become a required stopping point for families visiting New York.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety praised the cast and score but said the evening was “relentlessly two-dimensional” and ultimately felt “bloated, padded, gimmickridden, tacky” and “devoid of imagination.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today reported that the Palace’s lobby was filled with souvenirs for sale, and so the “mere musical” was also a “shopping excursion.” With all the talent and money behind it, Beauty could have been “brilliant” but instead was only “intermittently engaging” because it was “too preoccupied with living up to the movie.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News noted the show had “razzmatazz and old-fashioned showmanship” but lacked “heart,” and Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal speculated that the arrival of the “splashy” musical was “the moment when theme-park glitz and expertise intersected with traditional show business.” John Simon in New York commented that the Disney organization had “wisely abolished the Broadway rule ‘No one under 5 admitted’” but should have been “consistent” by stipulating “No one over 5 admitted.” David Richards in the New York Times said the show was “hardly a triumph of art, but it’ll probably be a whale of a tourist attraction.” And Clive Barnes in the New York Post stated the musical was “for people who know what they like and like what they know.” The original Broadway cast album was released by Walt Disney Records (CD # 60861), and the 1997 London cast album was also issued by the company (CD # WD-608611). Other cast recordings include the 1994 Australian album (with Hugh Jackman as Gaston) issued by Walt Disney Records and BMG (CD # 743-21304522); the 1996 Austrian album by Walt Disney Records/Polydor (CD # 529-512-2); and the 1996 Japanese cast recording by Walt Disney Records (CD # PCCW-00089). Disney on Broadway: “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” “Aida” was published in paperback by Disney in 2002. The London production opened on April 29, 1997, at the Dominion Theatre for a run of almost three years. The musical included one song (“Human Again”) that had been written for the film version but wasn’t used; and during the Broadway run, the song “A Change in Me” (lyric by Tim Rice) was added for Belle. Eight musical sequences from the film version were retained for the stage adaptation: “Prologue,” “Belle,” “Gaston,” “Be Our Guest,” “Something There,” “The Mob Song,” “Transformation,” and the title song.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Beauty and the Beast); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Terrence Mann); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Susan Egan); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Gary Beach); Best Director of a Musical (Robert Jess Roth); Best Book (Linda Woolverton); Best Score (lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, music by Alan Menken); Best Costume Designer (Ann Hould-Ward); Best Lighting Designer (Natasha Katz)

PASSION

“A New Musical” Theatre: Plymouth Theatre Opening Date: May 9, 1994; Closing Date: January 7, 1995 Performances: 280 Book: James Lapine Lyrics and Music: Stephen Sondheim Based on the 1981 film Passione d’amore (screenplay by Ettore Scola and Ruggero Maccari and direction by Ettore Scola), which in turn was based on the 1869 novel Fosca by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti.

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Direction: James Lapine (Jane Comfort, Associate Director); Producers: The Shubert Organization, Capital Cities/ABC, Roger Berlind, and Scott Rudin by arrangement with Lincoln Center Theatre; Scenery: Adrianne Lobel; Costumes: Jane Greenwood; Lighting: Beverly Emmons; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: Marin Mazzie (Clara), Jere Shea (Giorgio), Gregg Edelman (Colonel Ricci), Tom Aldredge (Doctor Tambourri), Francis Ruivivar (Lieutenant Torasso), Marcus Olson (Sergeant Lombardi), William Parry (Lieutenant Barri), Cris Groenendaal (Major Rizzolli), George Dvorsky (Private Augenti), Donna Murphy (Fosca), Linda Balgord (Fosca’s Mother), John Leslie Wolfe (Fosca’s Father), Matthew Porretta (Ludovic), Juliet Lambert (Mistress) The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place in Milan and Parma during 1863.

Musical Numbers Note: The program (and the published script) didn’t include titles of musical numbers. The following list is taken from the original Broadway cast album. “Happiness” (Marin Mazzie, Jere Shea); “First Letter” (Marin Mazzie, Jere Shea); “Second Letter” (Marin Mazzie, Jere Shea); “Third Letter” (Marin Mazzie, Jere Shea, Soldiers); “Fourth Letter” (Marin Mazzie, Jere Shea); “I Read” (Donna Murphy); “Transition” (Jere Shea, Men); “Garden Sequence” (Jere Shea, Marin Mazzie, Donna Murphy); “Transition” (George Dvorsky, Soldier I, Soldier II, Cris Groenendaal, William Parry, Francis Ruivivar); “Trio” (Donna Murphy, Jere Shea, Marin Mazzie); “Transition” (Attendants); “I Wish I Could Forget You” (Donna Murphy, Jere Shea); “Soldiers’ Gossip” (Francis Ruivivar, George Dvorsky, Cris Groenendaal, Unidentified Performer, William Parry); “Flashback” (Gregg Edelman, Donna Murphy, Linda Balgord, John Leslie Wolfe, Matthew Porretta, Juliet Lambert); “Sunrise Letter” (Marin Mazzie, Jere Shea); “Is This What You Call Love?” (Jere Shea); “Soldiers’ Gossip” (Francis Ruivivar, Cris Groenendaal, George Dvorsky, Unidentified Performer, William Parry); “Transition” (Cris Groenendaal); “Forty Days” (Marin Mazzie); “Loving You” (Donna Murphy); “Transition” (Woman, Man); “Soldiers’ Gossip” (Francis Ruivivar, Unidentified Performer, Cris Groenendaal, William Parry, George Dvorsky); “Farewell Letter” (Marin Mazzie, Jere Shea); “No One Has Ever Loved Me” (Jere Shea, Donna Murphy); Finale (William Parry, Cris Groenendaal, Francis Ruivivar, Marin Mazzie, Matthew Porretta, Attendants, Unidentified Performer, George Dvorsky, Soldier I, Jere Shea, Donna Murphy) Stephen Sondheim’s Passion was another of the master’s controversial musicals. Many found it compelling and heart-rending, but others felt it was his most disappointing and least interesting work. The cold chamber musical wore its art on its sleeve, and the abstract and remote production seemed thunderstruck with its self-importance. With one warm and glorious exception, Sondheim’s music was stingy with melody as if full-throated song would dilute the evening’s dubious message that love always finds a way. Far too much of the dry and passionless score was offered in piecemeal fashion with recitative moments, and in opera-program tradition there was no song listing. But the cast recording provided song titles and these were generally parsimonious with their de-personalized descriptions: “First Letter,” “Second Letter,” “Third Letter,” “Fourth Letter,” “Sunrise Letter,” and “Farewell Letter”; five “Transition” sequences; three “Soldiers’ Gossip” sequences; a “Garden Sequence”; a “Trio”; and a “Flashback.” James Lapine’s staging was stiff and lifeless as if he feared that a moment of theatrical spontaneity would belie the solemn intentions of his book, which was one of the dreariest in memory. It was stodgy with humorless and uninteresting characters and it turned on what was simply an unbelievable plot point. Sondheim and Lapine’s previous collaborations had been Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and Into the Woods (1987), and the weak and disappointing second acts of these two musicals were salvaged only by Sondheim’s genius. Passion was presented in one act, and if the other two shows had second-act trouble, the new musical had continuous trouble. The unsatisfying score and book weren’t even relieved by choreography or interesting décor, and the performances were generally bland. Passion was the season’s third and final musical variation of the Beauty and the Beast theme, following Cyrano and the Disney offering. It opened during one of the most dismal seasons on record for new musicals. Only three were presented that offered completely new scores (the others were The Red Shoes and The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, and even the former fudged because a few of its numbers were recycled from

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earlier shows). Despite many indifferent and negative reviews, Passion won a number of Tony Awards but went down in the record books as a financial failure and played for just 280 performances. The story takes place in Milan during 1863 and focuses on the handsome soldier Giorgio (Jere Shea) and his affair with the beautiful and married Clara (Marin Mazzie). In the opening scene they share the score’s only memorable number, the exultant “Happiness,” one of Sondheim’s most ravishing creations. Giorgio is soon transferred to a remote military outpost in Parma, where he meets Fosca (Donna Murphy), the ugly and sickly sister of his commanding officer, Colonel Ricci (Gregg Edelman). Perhaps because of political correctness, a few critics gingerly described Fosca as “plain,” “unattractive,” “homely,” and “physically ill-favored,” but Fosca doesn’t beat about the PC bush and forthrightly describes herself as ugly. With intense desire and frustration, she burns with passion for the attractive Giorgio and goes after him like a house afire even though he shows absolutely no romantic interest in her and pines only for Clara. During previews, Fosca came across as tiresome and ridiculous with her incessant stalking of the poor young man (and her offstage howling caused by the pain of her illness didn’t help either), and audiences tittered at the silliness of it all. With last-minute revisions, Sondheim and Lapine leavened out most of the unwanted snickering, but Fosca remained the pushiest stalker in the history of musical theatre. Murphy did her best (and won a Tony Award for her efforts), but in truth, every time Fosca appeared on stage one inwardly groaned because she was an overblown caricature and not a flesh-and-blood character. The motif of letters permeated the story, and one wanted to dash off one to Fosca and remind her that in this life, one doesn’t necessarily get what one wants, but it would probably have gone over the head of this obsessive drudge. The musical’s thesis in effect promised that loving someone in unlimited and unconditional fashion will guarantee you reciprocal love. The theory might work in a fairy tale, but it collapsed under the weight of the musical’s unrelenting earnestness, and when Giorgio does a 180-degree turn and falls in love with Fosca, his decision is completely unbelievable and dramatically false. His change of heart must have taken place offstage because the book and the songs never clearly delineated what effected his about-face, but even if the book and lyrics had been crystal clear, it still would have been impossible to believe the musical’s message that love can be fulfilled as long as you constantly demand it and hound your victim to death. Jeffrey Sweet in Best Plays chose Passion as one of the season’s ten best works, and although he found the musical “dramatically the most successful” of Sondheim’s musicals since Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, he admitted he didn’t understand Giorgio’s conversion and why he changed from “pity to passion.” And with no understanding of Giorgio’s transition, it was hard to view Fosca “as something appreciably different than a contemporary stalker.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday said Passion was “the most intelligent and ambitious” new musical of the season, but it was still “overripe foolishness” and “an old-time bodice-ripper, a 19th-century Harlequin romance with aspirations.” She noted that in Sunday in the Park with George, the painter is driven to “connect,” but in Passion the characters are “so connected they can be pests.” William A. Henry III in Time said many operas were as “grim” as Passion, which “sets new marks for misery in musical theatre.” And he found its message that “love is unworthy unless it recklessly risks everything” both “adolescent and irresponsible.” Further, the production was so “austere” it provided “little visual pleasure.” (Winer noted that at least Mazzie got to wear “fabulous hoop dresses,” which provided “the only living colors in the show.”) John Simon in New York said the score was a “glutinous mass” that could have been “out-takes from previous” Sondheim musicals, and the work was “even creepier” than Assassins (1991). Simon suggested that Passion was like the “mating dance of a pair of snakes, an image solicited by the show’s logo, in which the title’s second S is reversed so that the two serpentine letters look like facing adders joined at the crotch.” He also noted that Lapine seemed “desperate” to include some choreography, but the stylized business of “officers filing in and out of the mess (the dining room, not the show) with arm movements” befitted “some outlandish military drill.” Edwin Wilson in the Wall Street Journal found Fosca a “leech,” a “demonic creature,” and a “succubus” who wants to “possess” and “devour” Giorgio instead of loving him, and despite all this the young man “still succumbs to her wiles” in this “macabre” romance. Jack Kroll in Newsweek suggested the “ambiguous” and “unsatisfying” musical would be “the most argued-about work of Sondheim’s career,” and he noted Fosca was an “emotional vampire.” The show might have worked had “the musical fabric” been “stronger,” but “the music never flames into a transporting incandescence.” Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said audiences would find the “alienating, stubbornly monochromatic” musical “extremely wearisome.” The actions of the characters weren’t “psychologically

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convincing,” the ending was melodramatic and “ultimately unsatisfying,” the lyrics were “uncharacteristically routine,” the music had “little emotional impact,” and the “heavily stilted” direction alternated between the “beautiful and pretentious.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice found Giorgio’s change of heart “inexplicable” and his “sudden reversal” of desire for a “devouring egomaniac” unfathomable. Feingold also noted the score felt “as though a lid has been clamped on it, out of some odd desire to avoid the feeling for which the show is named.” But Jeremy Gerard in Variety said Passion was “a great, great show” that stood “unchallenged as the most emotionally engaging new musical Broadway has had in years.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post found the work a “breakthrough” that was “exultantly dramatic” and “the most thrilling piece of theatre on Broadway.” And Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News exclaimed that the score was Sondheim’s “most lyrical and economical” and the lyrical and musical “limitations” that Sondheim “seems to have imposed on himself make the expressiveness of the score all the more extraordinary.” David Richards in the New York Times said Passion was the season’s “worthiest” musical, but noted its “ambitions” rather than its “achievements” were what “command admiration.” The evening failed to produce a promised “cathartic conclusion,” and so audiences would not leave Passion “with a clear and exultant sense of things.” Sondheim and Lapine had tried to create an “affirmative” musical but its “aftertaste” was “vaguely sour.” During previews, Tom Aldredge succeeded William Duff-Griffin. The script was published in both hardback and paperback editions by Theatre Communications Group in 1994, and the lyrics are included in Sondheim’s hardback collection Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany. The original cast album was recorded by Angel Records (CD # CDQ-7243-5-55251-23); a 1997 British concert with Michael Ball and Maria Friedman was recorded live by First Night Records (CD # CD-61) and was inspired by the previous year’s West End production at the Queen’s Theatre, where it played for 232 performances with Ball and Friedman; a 2004 Netherlands production was recorded by Universal Records (CD # 986-921-5); and The Trotter Trio’s instrumental Passion . . . in Jazz was released by Varese Sarabande Records (CD # VSD-5556). The stage production was filmed for public television and released on DVD as part of The Stephen Sondheim Collection (issued by Image Entertainment # ID-1753IMDVD). The DVD includes a bonus of an audioonly extended version of “No One Has Ever Loved Me” (a version of the song had been heard in the Broadway production, and the extended version was added for London). The musical was also presented in concert at Avery Fisher Hall beginning on March 30, 2005, for three performances with Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris and was telecast live from Lincoln Center. Passion is Sondheim’s most recent Broadway musical to date, but he bounced back with an ingratiating score for the underrated Wise Guys aka Gold! aka Bounce aka Road Show, which briefly played Off-Broadway under the fourth title in 2008. The ambitious score with expansive sequences such as “I Love This Town” and “Boca Raton” and the torch-like “Isn’t He Something!” was a refreshing change from the longueurs of Passion.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Passion); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Jere Shea); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Donna Murphy); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Tom Aldredge); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Marin Mazzie); Best Director of a Musical (James Lapine); Best Book (James Lapine); Best Score (lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim); Best Costume Designer (Jane Greenwood); Best Lighting Designer (Beverly Emmons)

THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE GOES PUBLIC “A New Musical Comedy”

Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Opening Date: May 10, 1994; Closing Date: May 21, 1994

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Performances: 15 Book: Larry L. King and Peter Masterson Lyrics and Music: Carol Hall Direction: Peter Masterson and Tommy Tune (Phillip Oesterman, Associate Director); Producers: Stevie Phillips and MCA/Universal; Choreography: Jeff Calhoun and Tommy Tune (Niki Harris, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: John Arnone; Costumes: Bob Mackie; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Karl Jurman Cast: Troy Britton Johnson (Showroom Headliner); Showroom Patrons: Gerry Burkhardt, Laurel Lynn Collins, Sally Mae Dunn, Tom Flagg, Joe Hart, Don Johanson, Mark Manley, Mary Frances McCatty, Casey Nicholaw, Louise Ruck, William Ryall, Shaver Tillitt, Jillana Urbina, Richard Vida, and Theara J. Ward; Street Whores: Pamela Everett, Ganine Giorgione, Amy N. Heggins, Lainie Sakakura, and Christina Youngman; Danny Rutigliano (Ralph J. Bostick), Jim David (Comedian, The President’s Hairdresser); Las Vegas Legends: Mary Frances McCatty, Don Johanson, Laurel Lynn Collins, Gerry Burkhardt, Sally Mae Dunn, Theara J. Ward, and William Ryall; Kevin Cooney (I.R.S. Director), David Doty (Schmidt, B. S. Bullehit, The President of the United States), Gina Torres (Terri Clark), Dee Hoty (Mona Stangley), Joe Hart (Whorehouse Client), Scott Holmes (Sam Dallas), Ronn Carroll (Senator A. Harry Hardast), Pamela Everett (Lotta Lovingood); The Working Girls and the Wall Street Wolves: Gerry Burkhardt, Laurel Lynn Collins, Sally Mae Dunn, Pamela Everett, Tom Flagg, Ganine Giorgione, Joe Hart, Amy N. Heggens, Don Johanson, Troy Britton Johnson, Mark Manley, Mary Francis McCatty, Casey Nicholaw, Louise Ruck, Danny Rutigliano, William Ryall, Lainie Sakakura, Shaver Tillitt, Jillana Urbina, Richard Vida, Theara J. Ward, Christina Youngman; Pit Vocalists: Susannah Blinkoff, Nancy LaMott, and Ryan Perry The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the present time in Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., somewhere in Texas, New York City, and Los Angeles.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Let the Devil Take Us” (Las Vegas Legends, Showroom Patrons, Street Whores, Danny Rutigliano); “Nothin’ Like a Picture Show” (Dee Hoty); “I’m Leavin’ Texas” (Dee Hoty, Texans); “It’s Been a While” (Scott Holmes, Dee Hoty); “Workin’ the Street” and “Brand New Start” (Scott Holmes, Dee Hoty, Gina Torres, Kevin Cooney, David Doty, The Working Girls and The Wall Street Wolves) Act Two: “The Smut Song” (aka “Down and Dirty”) (Ronn Carroll); “Call Me” (Dee Hoty, The Girls, The Couch Potatoes); “Change in Me” (Scott Holmes); “Here for the Hearing” (The Ladies, The Senators); “Piece of the Pie” (Dee Hoty, Scott Holmes, The Ladies); “Change in Me” (reprise) (Scott Holmes); “If We Open Our Eyes” (Company) The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public was the sequel to the hit The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and clearly the lessons of the Sequel Curse (with such infamous examples as Of Thee I Sing/Let ’Em Eat Cake, Bye Bye Birdie/Bring Back Birdie, and Annie/Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge) weren’t learned, and so the garishly bedecked and hopelessly befuddled musical was swallowed in a sea of red ink after just fifteen performances. Most of the creators of the original Whorehouse returned, including Universal Pictures and Stevie Phillips as producers (now joined with MCA), book writers Larry L. King and Peter Masterson, lyricist and composer Carol Hall, and codirectors Peter Masterson and Tommy Tune. Tune had choreographed the original Whorehouse, but for the current production he shared the credit with Jeff Calhoun. The original production opened on June 19, 1978, at the 46th Street (now Richard Rodgers) Theatre for 1,576 performances. At the end of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the law closes down the Chicken Ranch whorehouse, and madam Miss Mona and her girls are forced to fend for themselves and find new lives. Miss Mona (here played by Dee Hoty, and the only character held over for the sequel) now lives in Texas where she receives a surprising request from the Federal government. Prostitution is legal in Nevada, and there the owner of a brothel called Stallion Fields has decamped and cheated the IRS out of $26 million in back taxes. Miss Mona is asked to run the brothel in the hope that its future profits will repay the institution’s huge tax debt, and she accepts the proposition and contacts former (and rich) old flame Sam Dallas (Scott Holmes) to help her.

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But Sam realizes that profits from the Stallion Fields will never be enough to cover the lost tax money . . . unless the whorehouse goes public. As a result, shares for the brothel are sold on Wall Street, and soon Miss Mona is running an up-to-theminute smart-sex (and safe-sex) establishment that even includes phone sex at $2.99 per minute. But a senator questions Miss Mona’s qualifications to be licensed on the Stock Exchange and the furor results in a Congressional investigation where Miss Mona makes mincemeat of the senator, becomes a national hero, runs for president, and is elected to another kind of house (White) and becomes a different kind of Madam (President). Had the preposterous story been leavened with wit and satire, it might have worked. But the book was leaden, the leads were generally bland, and the production was overrun with lavish scenic effects (which gave new meaning to the word glitz). The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre turned into a huge casino, replete with a standup comic who served as master of ceremonies; a gargantuan opening number that celebrated the would-be glories of Las Vegas and included impersonations of such Vegas favorites as Elvis, Liza, Liberace, Cher, Diana, Ann-Margret, and Siegfried and Roy (in an amusing touch, one actor portrayed the two magicians); and a finale with projected visual images of America (such as Times Square on V-J Day, DiMaggio, and astronauts on the Moon). And, yes, there was also a salute to the women of America (which included a walk-on by an actress in Eleanor Roosevelt drag). Not to mention a curtain call that found Miss Mona and Sam mounted on a white steed. There were at least two victors in the vainglorious evening. Scott Holmes made an appealing leading man with a virile presence and ingratiating voice, and Hall’s score offered a number of delightful songs, including the ballads “Change in Me” and “It’s Been a While,” the latter a jaunty country-western-styled ballad that would have made the Hit Parade had one existed in 1994. And no discussion of The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public would be complete without mentioning its (and no doubt the theatrical decade’s) most notorious song “Call Me,” a stand-up and hands-on salute to masturbation, which was otherwise known as the phone-sex number. The stage was filled with the male ensemble clad in boxer shorts as they spun about on wheeled chairs while holding their crotches with one hand and their phones with the other. They ogled Miss Mona’s girls (who were encased spread-eagled inside lucite television sets on wheels), and as the guys twirled they whirled the girls in their television sets around the stage while the girls encouraged them to “let your fingers do the walkin’” and the guys boasted in the immortal couplet, “I do it like a beast would” and “I look a lot like Eastwood.” (Well, you really had to be there.) What’s most surprising about “Call Me” is Hall’s music. Here was a driving and ingratiating boogiewoogie big-band-styled beat with sweepingly concerted musical effects that included solos, trios, and ensembles, all of which were occasionally punctuated with counterpoint sequences. The subject matter may have been tawdry, but here was splendid old-time theatre music. Linda Winer in New York Newsday was offended by the show’s “unrelentingly cheesy mentality,” not by its “cheesecake.” The evening offered “complete stupidity,” “laziness,” and a “total lack of style.” As for “Call Me,” she wondered if it was really “Springtime for Hitler” or “a cultural death wish,” and then decided it was “just Vegas on Broadway.” Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker said the musical was “badness on a grand scale,” a “shameless” evening that “was basically a Las Vegas floor show,” and noted that “Call Me” entered the “Dropped Jaw Hall of Fame.” Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said the musical was “Las Vegas in all its garish excess” and had “more neon and sheer wattage than anything else on Broadway.” David Richards in the New York Times said the show “tries very hard to live up to the lower standards of Las Vegas,” but noted Hall’s score included such “spirited” songs as “I’m Leavin’ Texas,” “It’s Been a While,” and “Change in Me.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today stated that for those who feared Broadway was turning into Las Vegas, the current musical made that “nightmare come true.” It was the “most gleefully vulgar show” he could ever remember seeing, but he praised Hall’s “amiable and catchy” score, which was more “sophisticated” than her songs for the original Whorehouse. And he noted that “Call Me” reached a “level of crass outrageousness that Madonna aspires to but rarely achieves.” The headline for Clive Barnes’s review in the New York Post exclaimed “Oh, Brothel! This Is Awful!,” and the critic said the show’s “neon-plated glitz could make the tackiest Las Vegas motel seem a model of taste.” A few of Hall’s songs had “a pleasing country lilt,” but he said “Call Me” was “disgusting enough to give masturbation a bad name.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice noted that John Arnone’s sets were “a monument to American acrylic-and-polyester bad taste,” and mentioned that Hall’s songs were “so buried in the surrounding glitz that I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them turned out to be worth hearing.” Howard Kissel in the New York

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Daily News said the sequel set “new parameters for Broadway vulgarity” and the direction was “astonishingly limp.” And Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the show was the “crummiest junk to litter the district since Ain’t Broadway Grand,” and he found the score “flat” and “imitative,” and the staging and choreography without “a glimmer of wit or originality in evidence.” The night after the opening of The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, a revival of Grease premiered. The direction and choreography were credited to Calhoun, who had of course co-choreographed The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, and the Grease revival was billed as “The Tommy Tune Production.” Grease received generally unenthusiastic notices, but managed a marathon run of 1,503 performances. As of this writing, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public and Grease sadly mark Tune’s most recent Broadway work. He had been scheduled to return to Broadway as the star of Stage Door Charley (aka Buskers and Busker Alley), but the musical closed during its tryout. The original Broadway cast album of The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public was released by Varese Sarabande Records (CD # VSD-5542), and the script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 1999.

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Dee Hoty)

GREASE Theatre: Eugene O’Neill Theatre Opening Date: May 11, 1994; Closing Date: January 25, 1998 Performances: 1,503 Book, Lyrics, and Music: Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey Direction and Choreography: Jeff Calhoun (Jerry Mitchell, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler and Jujamcyn Theatres (A Tommy Tune Production) (Alecia Parker, Associate Producer) (presented in association with PACE Theatrical Group and TV Asahi); Scenery: John Amone; Costumes: Willa Kim; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: John McDaniel Cast: Brian Bradley (Vince Fontaine), Marcia Lewis (Miss Lynch), Michelle Blakely (Patty Simcox), Paul Castree (Eugene Florczyk), Heather Stokes (Jan), Megan Mullally (Marty), Rosie O’Donnell (Rizzo), Sam Harris (Doody), Hunter Foster (Roger), Jason Opsahl (Kenickie), Carlos Lopez (Sonny Latierri), Jessica Stone (Frenchy), Susan Wood (Sandy Dumbrowski), Ricky Paull Goldin (Danny Zuko); The Straight A’s: Clay Adkins, Patrick Boyd, and Denis Jones; Dream Mooners: Patrick Boyd and Katy Grenfell; The Heartbeats: Katy Grenfell, Janice Lorraine Holt, and Lorna Shane; Sandra Purpuro (Cha-Cha Di Gregorio), Billy Porter (Teen Angel); Ensemble: Clay Adkins, Melissa Bell, Patrick Boyd, Katy Grenfell, Ned Hannah, Janice Lorraine Holt, Denis Jones, Allison Metcalf, H. Hylan Scott II, Lorna Shane The musical was presented in two acts. The action begins at Rydell High School’s class reunion for the graduates of 1959, and then goes back in time to depict the graduates’ high school years.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Alma Mater” (Marcia Lewis, Company); “We Go Together” (The Pink Ladies, The Burger Palace Boys); “Summer Nights” (Susan Wood, Ricky Paull Goldin, Pink Ladies, The Burger Palace Boys); “Those Magic Changes” (Sam Harris, Company); “Freddy, My Love” (Megan Mullally, The Pink Ladies); “Greased Lightning” (Jason Opsahl, The Burger Palace Boys); “Greased Lightning” (reprise) (Rosie O’Donnell, The Burger Palace Boys); “Rydell Fight Song” (Susan Wood, Michelle Blakely, The Cheerleading Squad); “Mooning” (Hunter Foster, Heather Stokes); “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” (Rosie O’Donnell); “Since I Don’t Have You” (lyric and music by Jackie Taylor, James Beaumont, Janet Vogel, Joseph Rock, Joe VanScharnen, Lennie Martin, and Wally Lester) (Susan Wood); “We Go Together” (reprise) (Company)

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Act Two: “Shakin’ at the High School Hop” (The Straight A’s); “It’s Raining on Prom Night” (Susan Wood, The Straight A’s); “Born to Hand Jive” (Paul Castree, Marcia Lewis, Company); “Beauty School Dropout” (Billy Porter, Jessica Stone, Company); “Alone at a Drive-In Movie” (Ricky Paull Goldin); “Rock ’n’ Roll Party Queen” (Sam Harris, Jason Opsahl); “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” (Rosie O’Donnell); “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” (reprise) (Susan Wood, Rosie O’Donnell); Finale (Company) The program’s title page read Grease, but in case anyone didn’t get it, the cover proclaimed Grease! Live on Stage. Yes, the rock-and-roll spoof of 1950s high school life was back after its original record-breaking 1972–1980 run of 3,388 performances and its hit 1978 film, and the current revival chalked up 1,503 showings (during the run, producers Barry and Fran Weissler brought in a 1996 limited engagement of the revival at City Center for six performances; see entry for more information). A 2007 Broadway revival played for 554 showings, and in 2016 Grease: Live showed up on America’s television screens. Grease was an obvious but affectionate look at high school life in the late 1950s when everyone must make The Choice: either you’re a Pat Boone or an Elvis Presley type (for the musical, it was clear only the latter need apply). Rydell High is the place (its name surely an homage to Bobby), and among the kids are ducktailed, leather-jacketed Danny Zuko (Ricky Paull Goldin) and innocent poodle-skirted Sandy Dumbrowski (Susan Wood), both of whom shared an innocent summer romance. But come September it’s back to school and the relationship is seemingly over. So Sandy reinvents herself as a tough motorcycle babe who spouts four-letter words, wears tight slacks, gold-hooped earrings, and, yes, a leather jacket. So how can there be anything but true love for Danny and Sandy? The show was filled with archetypes: the tough Italian “fast” girl Betty Rizzo (Rosie O’Donnell); the class clown (Hunter Foster), who proudly wears the title of “mooning champ of Rydell High”; the overweight wallflower Cha-Cha Di Gregorio (Sandra Purpuro), who prides herself on being a really great dancer; and the loser “Beauty School Dropout” Frenchy (Jessica Stone), who is accused by heavenly Teen Angel (Billy Porter) of being “a teenage ne’er-do-well.” The songs were in the style of the era’s popular hits, and did their job well: “Summer Nights,” “Freddy, My Love,” “Shakin’ at the High School Hop,” and “All Choked Up” (which was dropped from the current production) might easily have turned up on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. Sandy contemplated the horror of “It’s Raining on Prom Night”; Danny sang the lament of being “Alone at a Drive-In Movie” where he’s reduced to “watchin’ werewolves without you”; and for “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee,” Rizzo suggested she could play it sweet and coy and “lousy with virginity.” In earlier versions, the show was generally presented in a small-scale, laid-back manner, but not in the new “Tommy Tune Production,” which was directed and choreographed by Jeff Calhoun. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said you had to “squint” in order to discern “the bones of the original, a corny, good-natured paean to adolescent randiness.” The current production was more boisterous, and it unsubtly blasted its satiric points home (Michael Feingold in the Village Voice said “Beauty School Dropout” was “laid on with a sledgehammer” because Calhoun seemed “really worried that someone, maybe in Antarctica, wouldn’t get it”). The Vince Fontaine character was expanded, and now he chatted up the audience for a pre-curtain warmup, invited them on stage for a pre-show sock hop, then presided over an intermission hop, and, during the performance itself, invited a really lucky audience member to dance with him on stage to the recording of “Rockin’ Robin” (lyric and music by Bobby Day), one of the revival’s many interpolations of authentic 1950s songs (see below). The Teen Angel was now inspired by Little Richard, and he sported a sculpted beehive that seemed about three-feet high (“Hair by Dairy Queen,” the character noted) and was now accompanied by a chorus of ten angels in similar styles; the mooning was not only sung about but depicted; and even the principal Miss Lynch roamed the theatre’s aisles and scolded patrons for chewing gum (and for this revival, she gamely joined the company for a round of “Born to Hand Jive”). Brantley reported that John Arnone’s design scheme evoked the advertising graphics for MTV and the Nickelodeon Channels. Unfortunately, Douglas W. Schmidt’s nostalgic designs for the original Broadway production weren’t used (his set had been a collage of advertisement posters for the like of hair tonics and blackheads as well as photos from the era, including a huge one of a sulky James Dean looking down on the proceedings from high above center stage).

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David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the evening was like “a floor show at a Star Trek convention.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday said “criticism of this charmless assault may be as irrelevant as reviewing Planet Hollywood or Hard Rock Café or any other tourist trap with phony pop-cachet,” and she noted the production also offered crotch-grabbing and erection gags. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News generally enjoyed the evening but noted the original version was “unpretentious” and thus “true to the low-key period,” but the revival put “everything in overdrive.” Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor said the “nonstop energy level “ was “exhausting rather than exhilarating”; and Clive Barnes in the New York Post reported that the cast “busts a gut in its effort to entertain and deafen,” and the overall production had “a dusty road-company look.” But John Simon in New York said Calhoun had directed and choreographed “with inventiveness and zest,” Willa Kim’s costumes were “totally crazy” (in a good way, to be sure), Howell Binkley’s lighting was “fantabulous,” and Arnone provided “neon-studded, comic-book-come-alive” scenery. Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker said the revival offered “a lot of pleasure” with its “talented” cast and “inventive” production team, and when Billy Porter sang “Beauty School Dropout” by way of Little Richard, he blew “the lid off the joint” and sent “you soaring into high-camp heaven.” As noted, “All Choked Up” wasn’t included in the revival, but a number of rock-and-roll hits were interpolated, with only “Since I Don’t Have You” getting credit in the program’s official list of musical numbers. But in a special program note, a number of other interpolated songs were mentioned, including “Splish Splash” (lyric and music by Bobby Darin and Murray Kaufman); “Bony Maroni” (lyric and music by Larry Williams); and “Little Bitty Pretty One” and “Rockin’ Robin” (both with lyric and music by Bobby Day). Brantley reported that these interpolations were “apparently added to compensate for the loss” of the hit songs written for the film version, the rights of which were owned by Robert Stigwood, who had originally been set as one of the revival’s co-producers. But once he “pulled out” of the show, the movie songs went with him. Grease had first been produced in Chicago in February 1971 at the Kingston Mines Theatre and premiered in New York at Off-Broadway’s Eden Theatre (formerly the Phoenix, the original home of The Golden Apple, and as of this writing, a movie complex) on February 14, 1972; it transferred uptown four months later to the Broadhurst Theatre. Best Plays later reported that the Eden run was Off-Broadway in location only because from its very first New York performance the show was always under a Broadway contract. The musical ran from 1972 to 1980 for 3,388 performances, and after the current revival was seen at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on August 19, 2007, for 554 showings. The 1978 film version released by Paramount Pictures was a rarity, a hit film musical based on a hit Broadway musical. The cast included John Travolta (Danny) and Olivia Newton-John (Sandy) as well as Stockard Channing, Edd Byrnes, Lorenzo Lamas, Eve Arden, Joan Blondell, Sid Caesar, Dody Goodman, and Alice Ghostley; Patricia Birch, who had choreographed the original Broadway production, here created the film’s dances. Four songs were written for the movie: an irresistibly catchy title song (lyric and music by Barry Gibb); the creamy ballad “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and the lively duet “You’re the One That I Want” (both with lyrics and music by John Farrar); and “Sandy” (lyric and music by Louis St. Louis and Scott Simon). The film also managed to be the first in decades to boast three hit songs (the first three noted above), and later stage revivals sometimes interpolated these numbers. In 1982, Birch directed the film’s sequel Grease 2, which was produced by Paramount and starred Maxwell Caulfield, Michele Pfeiffer, Lorna Luft, Tab Hunter, Connie Stevens, and, from the 1978 film, Arden, Caesar, and Goodman. Except for the imaginative and bouncy opening number “Back to School Again,” the film was dreary and charmless. Fox Network produced a live television adaptation on January 31, 2016 (CD released by Republic, DVD by Paramount). The musical’s script was published in hardback by Winter House in 1972, and was also included in the hardback collection Great Rock Musicals, edited by Stanley Richards and published by Stein and Day in 1979. The 1972 original cast album was released by MGM Records (LP # 1SE-34-OC) and the CD was issued by Polydor Records (# 827-548-2); the 1978 soundtrack was released by SRO Records on a two-LP set (# RS-24002; CD # 825-096-2), and the soundtrack of the 1982 sequel was issued by Polydor (CD # 42282-5096-2); the current revival was released by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-62703-2), and when Brooke Shields joined the cast as Rizzo the CD was rereleased with her tracks (# 09026-68179-2). The 2007 Broadway revival was recorded by Sony BMG Music Entertainment/Masterworks Broadway (CD # 88697-16398-2). The first London production opened on June 26, 1973, at the New London Theatre for 236 performances (some sources cite 258), and the cast included Richard Gere as Danny. There was no cast recording, but a

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later 1993 London revival was released by Epic Records (LP # 474632-1; CD by Sony # 474632-2), and a studio cast recording by That’s Entertainment Records (CD # CDTER-1220) includes John Barrowman in the cast. There are almost two-dozen recordings of the score, including a 1978 South African album issued by Music for Pleasure Records (LP # SRSJ-8079); a 1991 Norwegian cast album issued by Polydor Records (CD # 513-367-2); and a 1993 Hungarian cast album released by Polygram Records (CD # 521520-2). As for Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, Grease was their only Broadway musical. Their Island of Lost Co-eds (“A New Jungle Musical”) opened on May 27, 1981, in Chicago at the 11th Street Theatre under the sponsorship of Columbia College Chicago’s Music Center (the team collaborated on the book, and the lyrics and music were by Casey). The musical spoofed Dorothy Lamour South Sea Islands and jungle epics of the late 1930s and early 1940s, and Glenna Syse in the Chicago Sun-Times suggested “if properly honed, there is just a possibility that this musical may have more appeal than did Grease.” She noted the evening was filled to the brim with sarong-clad maidens, an evil queen, a mad scientist, a rampaging gorilla, a menacing volcano, and even an Ann Miller-styled tap dance. Sounds amusing, but unfortunately the show never found its way to New York or to a recording studio.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival (Grease); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Marcia Lewis); Best Choreographer (Jeff Calhoun)

BOJANGLES The musical was presented in what were announced as workshop performances at the Barksdale Theatre in Richmond, Virginia, on July 9, 1993, for a limited run. The musical has never been produced on Broadway. Book: Douglas Jones Lyrics: Sammy Cahn Music: Charles Strouse Direction: John Glenn; Producers: A Barksdale Theatre, Philip Morris USA, and Virginia Power Production; Choreography: Norvell Robinson and Ronald Cadet Bastine; Scenery: Brad Boynton; Costumes: Thomas W. Hammond; Lighting: Jay Ryan; Musical Direction: Ron Barnett Cast: Bob Child (Announcer), Deborah Barnes (Fannie Clay), Dawn Westbrook (Ray Samuels), Ronald Cadet Bastine (Bill Robinson), Joseph Pabst (Morty Forkins), Andrew Brydie or Guy Edward Cousins (Young Bill), Robert Terry Jates Briggs Jr. or JaRod Lorenzo-Booker Hendrick (Eggie Eggleston), David Scales (Captain), Nick Shackelford (Dots Toney), Frederica A. Hoffman (Bedelia Robinson), Michael Whitten (George Primrose), Billy Dye (Eubie Blake), Calvin Grant (George Cooper), Jerome Scott (U.S. Smokey Thompson), Shalimar Hickman-Washington (Lena Chase), Shannon Bramham or Marissa Kessler (Shirley Temple), Mia Leticia Brydie (Elaine Plaines) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place throughout the United States during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

Musical Numbers See below for titles of some of the musical numbers written for Bojangles. Charles Strouse’s musical Bojangles was a biography of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878–1949), the stage and screen performer best remembered for his tap dancing skills. An early version of the production (as the nonmusical Bojangles!) was first presented Off-Off-Broadway at the AMAS Repertory Theatre on December 18, 1976, by N. R. Mitgang; Ira Cirker directed, and the cast included Luther Fontaine and Billie Allen. An advertisement in Variety in July 1979 announced that a production of the musical would be forthcoming, and Cirker was listed as director. Later in the year, a backers’ audition was held on December 17 at the Edison Theatre; the script was still by Mitgang, who was now also credited as director; the lyrics were by Sammy Cahn, the music by Strouse, and the singers for the audition were Ira Hawkins and Juanita

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Fleming. The producer was Tom Mallow, the creative team included Robin Wagner (settings) and Tharon Musser (lighting), and the entire production was capitalized at approximately $1.3 million. In early 1980, Gregory Hines’s name was mentioned for the title role, and Charles “Honi” Coles was engaged as the musical’s tap dance consultant. The New York Times later reported that Ben Vereen and Micki Grant would star in a national tour of the musical scheduled to premiere in Philadelphia during June 1980 for a projected Broadway opening in October. The Times noted that the production would include songs by Jerome Kern, Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields, and J. Fred Coots. Of course, a Broadway production never materialized. Steven Suskin in Show Tunes reported that during the mid-1980s, Samm-Art Williams wrote a new book for the musical (for the current workshop presentation, Douglas Jones was the librettist). In her review of the 1993 workshop, which cost $150,000 to produce, Carole Kass in Variety praised the “remarkable” book and noted that while the script and score were “tightly integrated,” the songs were “merely singable.” However, the musical showed “solid potential for a New York run.” Kass reported that for the production the music was prerecorded, but a live piano and synthesizer were used. Among the songs written for Bojangles were: “Da-Da, Da-Da, Da-Da!,” “A Dancin’ Man,” “Follow the Way of the Lord,” “It Was Worth the Price,” “Makin’ It” (aka “Seeing a Chance and Taking It”), and “The Man Who Invented Ice Cream.” “Da-Da” is included in the collection You’re Never Fully Dressed without a Smile: Jason Graae Sings Charles Strouse (Varese Sarabande Records CD # VSD-5711) and “The Man Who Invented Ice Cream” is included in Charles Sings Strouse (PS Classics Records CD # PS-646).

PAPER MOON “The Musical”

The musical opened on September 8, 1993, at the Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, New Jersey, and closed there on October 24, 1993. Book: Martin Casella Lyrics: Ellen Fitzhugh and Carol Hall Music: Larry Grossman Based on the 1971 novel Addie Pray by Joe David Brown and the 1973 film Paper Moon (screenplay by Alvin Sargent and direction by Peter Bogdanovich). Direction: Matt Casella; Producers: Paper Mill Playhouse (Angelo Del Rossi, Executive Director, and Robert Johanson, Artistic Director) in association with Roger Berlind Enterprises; Choreography: Alan Johnson (Ruth Gottschall, Assistant to the Choreographer); Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Jeffrey Kurland; Lighting: Pat Collins; Musical Direction: Steve Marzullo Cast: Keith Perry (Minister, Carnival Manager), Mary Stout (Minister’s Wife, Pearl Morgan, Carnival Cashier), Kathy Garrick (Mourner, Edna Huff, Lara Jeeter, Sueleen), Ruth Gottschall (Mourner, Marie Cates, Disciple of Sister Sass), Kathryn Kendall (Mourner), Roxie Lucas (Mourner, Waitress, Elvira Stanley, Miss Goodwill), Norrice Raymaker (Mourner, Beezer), Natalie DeLucia (Addie Loggins), Raegan Kotz (Addie Loggins for Thursday matinee and Sunday evening performances), Gregory Harrison (Moses Pray aka Moze), Joe Locarro (Mr. Thompson, Dooley), John Bolton (Mechanic, Station Master, Host, Skeeter), Roy Leake Jr. (Sheriff, Carnival Barker, Floyd, Roadhouse Manager), Christine Ebersole (Miss Trixie Delight), Chandra Wilson (Imogene), Linda Hart (Sister Amelia Sass), John Dossett (Brother Randolph Sass), Rebecca Holt (Disciple of Sister Sass), Monica M. Wemitt (Disciple of Sister Sass, Crippled Woman); Various Characters in Various Towns Along the Way: Brooks Ashmanskas, John Bolton, Kathy Garrick, Ruth Gottschall, Rebecca Holt, Kathryn Kendall, Roy Leake Jr., Joe Locarro, Roxie Lucas, Keith Perry, Norrice Raymaker, Christopher Sieber, Mary Stout, Monica M. Wemitt The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Alabama, Arkansas, and Missouri during 1935 and 1936.

Musical Numbers Unless otherwise noted, all lyrics are by Ellen Fitzhugh. Act One: “A Place Where You Belong” (Ensemble); “Take Her Where She’s Goin’” (lyric by Carol Hall) (Keith Perry, Mary Stout, Gravediggers, Others); “Startin’ from Sweet” (Natalie DeLucia); “The Wida’ Waltz”

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(Gregory Harrison, Ensemble Widows, Mary Stout, Ruth Gottschall, Roxie Lucas, Kathy Garrick); “Pretty Like Your Mama” (Gregory Harrison); “Entrepreneur” (lyric by Carol Hall) (Gregory Harrison, Natalie DeLucia); “Entrepreneur” (reprise) (Gregory Harrison, Natalie DeLucia, Carnival Folks); “I Do What I Can (with What I Got)” (Christine Ebersole, Trixie’s Girls); “Someday, Baby” (lyric by Carol Hall) (Christine Ebersole, Gregory Harrison, Natalie DeLucia, Chandra Wilson, Company); “I Do What I Can (with What I Got)” (reprise) (Christine Ebersole); “Entrepreneur” (reprise) (Natalie DeLucia, Chandra Wilson); “Doin’ Business” (lyric by Carol Hall) (Natalie DeLucia, Chandra Wilson, Gregory Harrison, Christine Ebersole, Roy Leake Jr., Linda Hart, John Dossett, Company) Act Two: “Put Your Hand on the Radio” (Linda Hart, John Dossett, Natalie DeLucia, Company); “Miss Addie Loggins” (lyric by Carol Hall) (Gregory Harrison, Natalie DeLucia, Company); “Alabama Family” (Linda Hart, John Dossett, Company); “Partners” (Gregory Harrison); “I Do What I Can (with What I Got)” (reprise) (Christine Ebersole); “A Place Where You Belong” (reprise) (Linda Hart, John Dossett, Natalie DeLucia, Company); “Ev’rybody Says So” (Natalie DeLucia); “Girls Like Us” (Christine Ebersole); “Put Your Hand on the Radio” (reprise) (Natalie DeLucia, Linda Hart, Company); “Turns Out” (lyric by Carol Hall) (Gregory Harrison, Natalie DeLucia) The 1973 film Paper Moon was one of the finest films of the 1970s, but its musical version was a disappointment and closed prior to its scheduled Broadway opening. The story, set during the Depression, focused on two inimitable con artists, Moses (Moze) Pray (Gregory Harrison) and the ten-year-old Addie Loggins (Natalie DeLucia), who travel the back roads of Alabama, Arkansas, and Missouri hustling up cash by means of various scams. The two are an odd couple: Moze thinks he knows all the tricks of his trade, but he’s more than met his match in little Addie, a bamboozler who can outfox him in the blink of an eye. When the story begins, Addie’s mother has died and Moze has been asked to take the girl to her distant kinfolk, but Addie knows darn well that Moze is her father and is determined that she and he will team up as fellow flimflammers. Their odyssey takes them to small towns where they hope to meet rubes who’ll provide fresh fodder for their schemes, and among those they hook up with are the floozy Miss Trixie Delight (Christine Ebersole), who knows a thing or two about swindles herself, and her teenage maid, Imogene (Chandra Wilson), who absolutely despises her and once tried unsuccessfully to push her out of a hotel window. The musical premiered at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, and closed there after its scheduled engagement from September 8 through October 24, 1993. The show had been set to begin Broadway preview performances on November 16 at the Marquis Theatre for an official opening on December 5, but once the New Jersey tryout closed, coproducer Roger Berlind announced that the $4.5 million production would go back into rehearsals and perhaps open sometime later in the season. He also announced that Christopher Durang had joined the production to retune the show’s book by Martin Casella. The music was by Larry Grossman, some of the lyrics were by Ellen Fitzhugh (Grossman’s lyricist for the 1985 musical Grind) and other lyrics were by Carol Hall (who later in the season was represented on Broadway with her score for The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public). The musical never reached Broadway, but a few years later had sporadic regional theatre productions. In his review of the Paper Mill production, Robert L. Daniels in Variety praised some of the “jaunty” songs and “picturesque” décor, but said the second act stalled with a subplot about evangelical preachers (which wasn’t part of the film’s story). Harrison was “amiable” and sang and moved with “vaudevillian spirit,” DeLucia was a heart-stealer, Ebersole played Trixie with “gilt-edged extravagance,” and Wilson got some of the evening’s biggest laughs. Daniels singled out “Someday, Baby” (the “breezy road song” for Moze, Addie, Trixie, Imogene, and the company provided an “infectious moment”), Trixie’s “I Do What I Can (with What I Got)” (“a knockout turn”), and the finale “Turns Out” (“a neatly resolved closer” for Moze and Addie). In 1996, a revised version played in such venues as the Goodspeed Opera House (East Haddam, Connecticut) and the Walnut Street Theatre (Philadelphia), and then in 1997 at Ford’s Theatre (Washington, D.C.). For Goodspeed and Philadelphia, the cast included Mark Zimmerman (Moze), Lindsay Cummings (and her alternate Joanna Pacitti), and Julie Johnson (Trixie), but for the Washington run, Trixie was played by Nancy Ringham. This time around all the lyrics were by Fitzhugh, and the score had undergone major revisions. Only six songs were retained from the Paper Mill production (“The Wida’ Waltz,” “Pretty Like Your Mama,” “I Do What I Can with What I Got,” “Someday, Baby,” “Doin’ Business,” and “Girls Like Us”); ten were eliminated (“A Place Where You Belong,” “Take Her Where She’s Goin’,” “Startin’ from Sweet,” “Entrepreneur,” “Put

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Your Hand on the Radio,” “Miss Addie Loggins,” “Alabama Family,” “Partners,” “Ev’rybody Says So,” and “Turns Out”); and eight were added (“Another Little Child,” “I Recollect Him,” “Goin’ Along,” “Boy-OhBoy,” “How Many Times,” “Rabbity Stew,” “Who Belongs to Who?,” and “You with Me?”). “Rabbity Stew” had first been heard during the tryout of Grind, where it was one of the Doyle character’s “Irish” songs. For the later Washington run, “Afraid of Nuthin’” and “You’re Home” were added; three of the new songs written for the revised Goodspeed version were cut (“How Many Times,” “Who Belongs to Who?,” and “You with Me?”); and “Ev’rybody Says So,” which had been heard in the Paper Mill production, was reinstated. In his review of the Goodspeed revival, Markland Taylor in Variety said it was “astonishing how rudimentary and embryonic [the musical] appears,” like “an impoverished Annie” that seems “more like a dated revival than a new musical.” In her notice for the Washington production, Lloyd Rose in the Washington Post said the show was “mediocre but winsome until it falls completely apart in the second act” and noted that as an “experience” the musical wasn’t “much worse” than Whistle Down the Wind (which had recently closed in Washington without opening in New York), and “it’s a lot less overbearing.” Nelson Pressley in the Washington Times said the musical was “like the calmer sister” of Annie and he felt it was “hard to get too irritated” because the show was “generally just average rather than actively bad.” “I Do What I Can (with What I Got)” was recorded by Faith Prince for her collection Faith Prince: A Leap of Faith (DRG Records CD # 91460).

SHLEMIEL THE FIRST

“The New Klezmer Musical Comedy!” The musical was presented in a joint world premiere production by the American Repertory Theatre on May 18, 1994, at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and by the American Music Theatre Festival on June 16, 1994, at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The work was scheduled to open later in the season on April 26, 1995, at the Neil Simon Theatre, but was canceled and never played any Broadway performances. Book: Robert Brustein Lyrics: Arnold Weinstein Music: New music and adaptation of traditional music by Hankus Netsky; additional new music by Zalmen Mlotek Based on the 1974 play Shlemiel the First by Isaac Bashevis Singer (which was based on Singer’s Shlemiel short stories). Direction and Choreography: David Gordon; Producers: The American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and the American Music Theatre Festival (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania); Scenery: Robert Israel; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical Direction: Zalmen Mlotek Cast: Rosalie Gerut (Tryna Rytza aka Mrs. Shlemiel), Larry Block (Shlemiel), Marilyn Sokol (Gittel, Sender Shlamazel, Yenta Pesha), Remo Airaldi (Mottel, Moishe Pippik, Chaim Rascal), Vontress Mitchell (Zeinvel Shmeckel), Scott Cunningham (Mendel Shmendrick, Man in House), Benjamin Evett (Dopey Petzel, Zalman Tippish), Charles Levin (Gronam Ox); Ensemble: Bret Bailey, Ricardo Engerman, Anne Gardiner, Wendell Goodrum, Nicholas Leary; Orchestra: The Klezmer Conservatory Band The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in the mythical village of Chelm.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Wake-Up Song” (Rosalie Gerut); “We’re Talking Chelm” (Charles Levin, Marilyn Sokol, Sages); “Yenta’s Blintzes” (Marilyn Sokol); “Beadle with a Dreydl” (Larry Block); “He’s Going to Die” (Benjamin Evett); “Mrs. Schlemiel’s Lament” (Rosalie Gerut); “Geography Song” (“Rumania, Rumania”) (Charles Levin, Rosalie Gerut, Marilyn Sokol, Sages, Larry Block); “My One and Only Schlemiel” (Larry Block, Rosalie Gerut); “Rascal’s Song” (Remo Airaldi) Act Two: “My One and Only Schlemiel” (reprise) (Rosalie Gerut); “Meshugah” (Remo Airaldi, Marilyn Sokol, Larry Block, Rosalie Gerut); “Twos” (Charles Levin, Sages); “The Screen Song” (Larry Block, Rosalie

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Gerut); “Can This Be Hell?” (Larry Block, Rosalie Gerut); “Matters of the Heart” (Marilyn Sokol, Rosalie Gerut, Women); “Wisdom” (Charles Levin, Marilyn Sokol, Remo Airaldi, Sages); “We’re Talking Chelm” (reprise) (Company) Shlemiel the First was jointly presented in a world-premiere production by the American Repertory Theatre on May 18, 1994, at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and by the American Music Theatre Festival on June 16, 1994, at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Immediately following the Philadelphia run (which ended on July 2), the musical was presented at the John Jay Theatre for Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun! Festival, where it played a limited engagement of four performances during the period July 7–July 9. The musical was later scheduled to begin previews at the Neil Simon Theatre on April 21, 1995, with an opening night of April 26, but the production was canceled. The work has been performed in numerous venues, including productions at the Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, California, from May 14 to June 8, 1997, and the Alexander Kasser Theatre at Montclair State University (Montclair, New Jersey) for seven performances during the period January 16–24, 2010. The musical dealt with the quaint, quirky, and mythical village of Chelm and its strange citizens, including the fool Shlemiel, his woebegone wife, and the pompous town council members. The latter send Shlemiel out into the world so he can sing their praises, but Shlemiel loses track of where he’s going and ends up back in Chelm, although he doesn’t realize it. Instead, he believes the village and its people are duplicates of his hometown, and soon has everyone convinced that an alternate Chelm exists. He also has to deal with the philosophic question of Mrs. Shlemiel: if he has marital relations with her, does that mean he’s committed adultery? Markland Taylor in Variety said if the production jettisoned its intermission and was trimmed by ten minutes, the “ingratiatingly happy” musical could be a “highly entertaining” show with a “lusty life” in regional and children’s theatre. The evening was full of “impish folk humor and wisdom” and had a “catchy” score with “toe-tapping klezmer tunes” (he singled out “Geography Song,” which included the traditional “Rumania, Rumania” number), and he said director and choreographer David Gordon had done “a whale of a job.” John Lahr in the New Yorker said the “fresh and elegant” musical busted “its buttons with joy” and had “gorgeous” music and the “finest sets of lyrics I’ve heard in recent years.” The “playfulness” of old-time Broadway musicals had “been replaced by pontificating,” and Shlemiel “dared” the musical stage “to go back to its beginnings and start again.” Further, in the old days the title role could have been played “by any number of funnymen—Bobby Clark, Ed Wynn, Jimmy Durante, or Jack Gilford, to name only a few” (the critic didn’t mention his father, but let’s face it, Bert Lahr would have been a natural for this kind of role!). In his review of the later 1997 production, Julio Martinez in Variety said the musical score was “pure joy” but indicated the show lacked the required “raucous slapstick” inherent in its plot and as a result offered humor “more studied than comedic.” He felt the real star of the evening was the “klezmer-mad instrumental ensemble,” and had the entire production been “infused with the same virtuosity and energy” exhibited by the musicians, Shlemiel the First “would really be something.” One of the Shlemiel productions was privately taped for preservation, and while the DVD wasn’t commercially released, it appears that one or more copies are part of library collections.

1994–1995 Season

SHOW BOAT Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Opening Date: October 2, 1994; Closing Date: January 5, 1997 Performances: 949 Book and Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Music: Jerome Kern Based on the 1926 novel Show Boat by Edna Ferber. Direction: Harold Prince; Producer: Livent (U.S.) Inc.; Choreography: Susan Stroman; Scenery: Eugene Lee; Costumes: Florence Klotz; Lighting: Richard Pilbrow; Jeffrey Huard Cast: Doug LaBrecque (Steve), Gretha Boston (Queenie), David Bryant (Pete, Drunk), Elaine Stritch (Parthy), Ralph Williams (Windy), John McMartin (Cap’t Andy), Dorothy Stanley (Ellie), Joel Blum (Frank), Lonette McKee (Julie), Mark Jacoby (Gaylord Ravenal), Jack Dabdoub (Vallon), Rebecca Luker (Magnolia), Michel Bell (Joe), Bob Walton (Dealer, Jake), David Earl Hart (Jeb), Mike O’Carroll (Backwoodsman, Jim), Larissa Auble (Young Kim), Daniella Greaves (Ethel), Lorraine Foreman (Landlady), Sheila Smith (Mother Superior, Old Lady on the Levee), Michael Scott (Charlie, Radio Announcer), Louise-Marie Mennier (Lottie), Karen Curlee (Dottie), Tammy Amerson (Kim); Ensemble: Van Abrahams, Timothy Albrecht, Derin Altay, Kevin Bagby, Hal Beasley, Timothy Robert Blevins, David Bryant, Joseph Cassidy, Roosevelt Andre Credit, Karen Curlee, Jack Dabdoub, Debbie de Coudreaux, Lorraine Foreman, Jose Garcia, Ron Gibbs, Steve Girardi, Danielle Greaves, Jeff Hairston, Lorna Hampson, Linda Hardwick, Pamela Harley, David Earl Hart, Richard L. Hobson, Michel LaFleche, Karen Lifshey, Kim Lindsay, Jessie Means II, Louise-Marie Mennier, Kiri-Lyn Muir, Panchali Null, Mike O’Carroll, Amy Jo Phillips, Catherine Pollard, Jimmy Rivers, Michael Scott, Jill Slyter, Bob Walton, Laurie Walton, Cheryl Warfield, Jo Ann Hawkins, Dathan B. Williams, Gay Willis, Lonel Woods, Darlene B. Young; Children: Larissa Auble, Kimberly Jean Brown, Jordan Corneal, Imani Parus; Band on the Cotton Blossom: Derin Altay (Cymbals), Bob Walton (Glockenspiel), Paul Gallo (Clarinet), Dan Levine (Trombone), Michael Scott (Bass Drum), Nathan Durham (Tuba), Brian Miller (Flute) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Natchez, Mississippi, and in Chicago during the period 1887–1927.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Cotton Blossom” (Stevedores, Gals, Townspeople); “Cap’n Andy’s Ballyhoo” (John McMartin, Elaine Stritch, The Show Boat Troupe, Stevedores, Gals, Townspeople); “Where’s the Mate for Me?” (Mark Jacoby); “Make Believe” (Mark Jacoby, Rebecca Luker); “Ol’ Man River” (Michel Bell, Stevedores); “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (Lonette McKee, Gretha Boston, Michel Bell, Rebecca Luker, Ensemble); “Till Good Luck Comes My Way” (Mark Jacoby, David Bryant, Joel Blum, Men); “Mis’ry’s Comin’ 171

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Aroun’” (Gretha Boston, Stevedores, Gals); “I Have the Room Above Her” (Mark Jacoby, Rebecca Luker); “Life upon the Wicked Stage” (Dorothy Stanley, Townswomen); “Queenie’s Ballyhoo” (aka “C’mon, Folks”) (Gretha Boston, Stevedores, Gals); “You Are Love” (Mark Jacoby, Rebecca Luker); Act One Finale: “The Wedding Celebration” (Company) Act Two: “Why Do I Love You?” (Elaine Stritch, Company); “Montage I/1889”/“Dandies on Parade” (aka “At the Fair” and “The Sports of Gay Chicago”) (City Folk); “Alma Redemptoris Mater” (aka “Service and Scene Music”) (Choir); “Ol’ Man River” (reprise) (Michel Bell); “Bill” (lyric by P. G. Wodehouse, revised by Oscar Hammerstein II); “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (reprise) (Rebecca Luker); “Goodbye, My Lady Love” (lyric and music by Joseph E. Howard) (Joel Blum, Dorothy Stanley); “After the Ball” (lyric and music by Charles K. Harris) (Rebecca Luker, Ensemble); “Montage II/1900–1921” and ”Ol’ Man River” (reprise) (Michel Bell); “Dance Away the Night” (Rebecca Luker); “Kim’s Charleston” (Tammy Amerson, Elaine Stritch, Company); Act Two Finale (Michel Bell, Company) The 1993–1994 season had been the most dismal in memory, with just three new book musicals with new music (The Red Shoes, Passion, and The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public), and even that number was a stretch because The Red Shoes included at least three songs that had been recycled from earlier musicals. But that season was a cornucopia of riches compared to the current one because now, for the first time since the birth of the American musical, not one new commercial, open-ended-run book musical with new music was presented on Broadway. The current season offered three commercial revivals (Show Boat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying), three noncommercial ones (Wonderful Town, The Merry Widow, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes); a catalog revue (Smokey Joe’s Café); one import (Sunset Boulevard); two novelties (the glorified juggling act The Flying Karamazov Brothers Do the Impossible! and the fourmember variety show Comedy Tonight); and two limited engagements with new songs (A Christmas Carol and Young Man, Older Woman, the latter more in the nature of a nightclub revue with running patter between the songs that served as a narration of sorts). As a result of the season’s poor showing, the Tony Award committee itself did the all but impossible in an attempt to conjure up qualifying and deserving nominees, and so for the categories of Best Book and Best Score it nominated just one show, Sunset Boulevard, and for Best Musical nominated two, Smokey Joe’s Café and Sunset Boulevard. On Tony night, the suspense was unbearable, and undoubtedly many television viewers switched channels in order to avoid the breathtaking excitement. But those glued to their television screens were no doubt surprised surprised to see Sunset walk down the boulevard with Tony Awards for Best Book, Best Score, and Best Musical. As for Best Revival, only How to Succeed and Show Boat were nominated and the latter won. Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1927 classic Show Boat was groundbreaking in its unflinching look at racism, miscegenation, and unhappy marital relationships, and it included complex characters with faults and weaknesses not found in the era’s typical musical-comedy population. The irresponsible gambler Gaylord Ravenal (Mark Jacoby for the revival) deserts his wife Magnolia (Rebecca Luker) and their baby Kim (and leaves Magnolia $200 with a note suggesting she move in with her parents), and the somewhat annoyingly naive Magnolia never seems to learn from her experiences. At the end of the musical, she lacks a backbone, and so despite Ravenal’s callous abandonment of her and their child some three decades earlier, she meekly welcomes him back into the fold. (The musical ends on an ironic note when Ravenal and Magnolia are greeted on the levee by an old lady who tells them that decades ago she attended their wedding and she’s so happy their marriage turned out so well.) Julie (Lonette McKee) is also depicted in situations undreamed of by Irene, Sally, Sunny, Mary, Polly, and other title characters who populated the era’s Cinderella-story musicals. Julie is a mulatto married to a white man who abandons her, and she eventually becomes an alcoholic. The work was also innovative in its depiction of the passing of time. The bittersweet, epic-like story surveyed forty years in the lives of generally unhappy people, and much of the action revolved around the Mississippi show boat Cotton Blossom. Hammerstein’s book provided a somewhat impressionistic view of the characters, a few of whom drift away without neatly orchestrated explanations of their fates. “Ol’ Man River” functions as the musical’s theme song and is often misunderstood by some who narrowly interpret it as a comment about racism. But first and foremost the song is an existential statement about the ravages of

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time. The river eternally and relentlessly flows by, untouched and unconcerned with the joys and sorrows of those who live and die on its waters and shores. For the lavish $8.5 million revival, director Harold Prince restored one song that had been cut from the original’s tryout and interpolated two that had been written by Kern and Hammerstein for other versions of the show, and so the current presentation marked the most complete Show Boat since the musical’s world premiere at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., on November 15, 1927. In 1927, the Washington critics immediately recognized that here was a distinctive musical with a great score, and they noted that the main task for the show’s creators was to trim the work to a manageable length during the course of its pre-Broadway tryout. Harold Phillips in the Washington Star reported that the first performance began at 8:30 PM, and as he left the National after the final curtain he noticed that down the street the clock of the Post Office Building showed 12:50 AM. He wrote that before the show began, Charles Winninger (who played Cap’t Andy) stepped onto the stage and asked the audience to withhold applause for those songs they didn’t like. But the audience not only applauded Winninger, they also applauded “everything else that followed.” As a result, the “public enthusiasms were of little help” to the musical’s creators as to what needed cutting. (For the record, Phillips singled out three “hits in the making,” “Ol’ Man River,” “Make Believe,” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.”) But they worked fast in those days, and for the show’s second performance at the following day’s matinee, eight songs had been dropped: “Mis’ry’s Comin’ Aroun’,” “I Would Like to Play a Lover’s Part,” “Cheer Up,” “My Girl,” “Coal Black Lady,” “Bully Song,” “Hello, My Baby,” and “It’s Gettin’ Hotter in the North.” “Hello, My Baby” (aka “Hello! Ma Baby”) wasn’t by Kern or Hammerstein, but was an interpolation of the popular 1890s song by Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson (the song made an amusing comeback as a vaudeville routine for an alien in Mel Brooks’s 1987 Star Wars spoof Spaceballs). Leonard Hall in the Washington Daily News reported that in his pre-curtain speech Winninger told the audience that for the first public performance Ziegfeld was determined to present “every rehearsed scene.” Hall said “Ol’ Man River” was “one of the thrills of the evening” and “a crasher of the first water,” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” would probably become the score’s hit song. He concluded that “the monster is a pretty show, with life, color and joy” and “all it needs is a lot of beating, cutting and caressing.” John J. Daly in the Washington Post said Show Boat was “the last word in musical production” and “comes near being the unfinished masterpiece of musical plays,” and he noted that when “properly finished, as it will be, it should prove the high mark of showmanship.” He predicted that one song was “destined to become as popular as the Volga Boatman’s Song—a Negro river melody, ‘Ol’ Man River.’” He also mentioned that the opening performance presented a somewhat “loose” story, but “experienced eyes saw in this grand attempt to make a musical play of a novel one of the finest gestures ever made on the American stage.” Despite the expanded score for the current revival, as well as the large cast and Prince’s determination to emphasize the era’s racism, the new production was somewhat disappointing because of its generally bland performances. Mark Jacoby and Rebecca Luker were colorless, and brought almost no intensity and complexity to the complicated roles of Ravenal and Magnolia. Jacoby was far too stodgy and offered little or no dash to Ravenal, and while Luker sang well her performance was too muted. Even the supporting roles were weakly performed, and so Joel Blum and Dorothy Stanley made little impression as Frank and Ellie, two of the Cotton Blossom’s entertainers. And with her acerbic persona, Elaine Stritch should have been a perfect Parthy, but her character was softened and Prince made the disastrous mistake of giving her Gaylord and Magnolia’s ravishing duet “Why Do I Love You?” In the evening’s most preposterous moment, Stritch performed the song as a lullaby to her baby granddaughter Kim. Show Boat has always included two songs not written by Kern and Hammerstein. The lyric and music of “Goodbye, My Lady Love” was by Joseph E. Howard, and Charles K. Harris wrote the lyric and music of “After the Ball,” which had been interpolated into the post-Broadway tour of the long-running 1891 hit A Trip to Chinatown (as mentioned above, the 1927 tryout also included a third interpolation with “Hello, My Baby,” and it appears that “Coal Black Lady” and “Bully Song,” which were dropped after the first tryout performance, were traditional numbers briefly interpolated into the score). Kern had a rather annoying penchant for occasionally using earlier songs written by other composers in order to provide authentic atmosphere and nostalgia to the setting of his musicals, and in his and Hammerstein’s next show Sweet Adeline (1929) his overture consisted of a medley of well-known turn-of-the-century favorites. It would have been far more interesting had Kern written his own variation of nostalgic turn-of-the-century pastiche.

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With a lyric by P. G. Wodehouse, “Bill” had been originally written for Oh Lady! Lady!! (1918) but was cut from the show during its pre-Broadway tryout. The song resurfaced the following year with a new lyric by B. G. (Buddy) DeSylva in Zip Goes a Million, which closed during its pre-Broadway tryout (and this time around, the song’s title referred to paper currency). For Show Boat, Hammerstein slightly revised Wodehouse’s lyric, and both Wodehouse and Hammerstein are officially cited as the song’s lyricists. The current production used one song dropped from the 1927 tryout (“Mis’ry’s Comin’ Aroun’”), one from the 1928 London production (“Dance Away the Night”), and one from the 1936 film (“I Have the Room Above Her”). For background and dance sequences, the revival included music drawn from the following songs: “Hey, Fellah” and “I Might Fall Back on You” (from the original 1927 production); “It’s Gettin’ Hotter in the North” (dropped during the tryout of the original production); “Ah Still Suits Me” (from the 1936 film version); “How’d You Like to Spoon with Me?” (The Earl and the Girl, 1905); and “The Washington Post March” (music by John Philip Sousa). The critics praised the current presentation, although a few had qualifications about some of the performances. Clive Barnes in the New York Post exclaimed that the revival was “by far the most effective” Show Boat he had “ever encountered on stage or screen.” Michael Walsh in Time said the production was “a near perfect staging.” And John Simon in New York said Show Boat was a “dreamboat,” and although the top ticket price of $75 was the “steepest” on Broadway, he decided a $75 top wasn’t “too much for three hours of perfect bliss.” Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker praised the staging and décor, which created “a kind of theatrical CinemaScope” that allowed the action and performers to spread out to the lengths of the stage. But she noted that the evening’s “musical misstep” was giving Stritch “Why Do I Love You?” There was “something creepily narcissistic” about a grandmother telling a new-born baby that she loves it because the baby in turn loves her, and Franklin asked, “Is there a family therapist in the house?” In an oh, please comment Franklin reported that a friend in the audience cried when McKee sang “Bill” because he realized “that was the last he was going to hear from Lonette McKee for the rest of the evening.” Another oh, please observation was Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal writing that Stritch had “the role of a lifetime” in Show Boat. Certainly, Stritch’s truly iconic once-in-a-lifetime role was that of Joanne in Stephen Sondheim’s Company (1970) where she introduced her signature song, “The Ladies Who Lunch.” And she had other great moments on the stage that left her stint in Show Boat trailing in the dust, including her wry “Civilization” for the 1947 revue Angel in the Wings; her blues “I Never Know When” for Goldilocks (1958); and her role of a cruise ship’s weary, seen-it-all social director who hates passengers in Noel Coward’s Sail Away. There she growled out her hostility in such curmudgeonly songs as “Come to Me,” “Useful Phrases,” “You’re a Long, Long Way from America,” “The Little Ones’ ABC,” and, especially, the show-stopping lament “Why Do the Wrong People Travel?” Linda Winer in New York Newsday said if Michel Bell’s “Ol’ Man River” had not been so “sensitive” and “formidable,” his otherwise “spectral omnipresence” (which was so amplified it seemed there was “a microphone down his throat”) would have been “more than a little shameless.” Jacoby seemed “a bit mature” for Ravenal, and McMartin’s Cap’t Andy was “game” but “pretty forced” in his “physical comedy.” As for the sweet ballad “I Have the Room Above Her,” Winer made the curious observation that the song was “surprisingly racy.” Of the cast members, Barnes noted that except for Bell “no one seems much more” than “OK,” and he mentioned that Jacoby was “pallid” and that he and Luker were “only so-so as the juvenile leads (one has to ‘Make Believe’ just a little too much).” Walsh said McMartin was “the surprising hit of the show,” and the production’s “comic highlight” was his one-man reenactment of The Parson’s Bride for the Cotton Blossom audience, but David Richards in the New York Times felt the actor’s blond wig and “flutey” voice brought to mind “a distressing kinship with the nightclub comic Rip Taylor” and that overall McMartin wasn’t “up to the shtick.” Walsh noted that Bell spoiled “Ol’ Man River” with “a needlessly mannered performance,” and although Franklin praised Bell’s “big, deep voice,” she found him “somewhat detached from the action.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety said Luker was “lovely” and had “one of the most beautiful voices anywhere in the theatre today,” and while she was “nicely matched” with Jacoby he felt “the sparks don’t fly.” Simon said McKee’s Julie was “penetratingly sung” and “shatteringly” acted, and Franklin found her the evening’s “most magnetic performer.” The original production of Show Boat opened in New York at the Ziegfeld Theatre on December 27, 1927, for 572 performances, and its first revival was presented at the Casino Theatre on May 19, 1932, for 180 showings. A revised version also played at the Ziegfeld, where it opened on January 5, 1946, for 418 performances

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and included the new song “Nobody Else but Me,” which was the last song ever composed by Kern, who died a few weeks before the revival opened. This production’s two national companies toured for a total of sixteen months, and the second company kicked off its tour with a two-week engagement beginning on September 7, 1948, at City Center. Three interrelated productions (produced by the New York City Opera Company and the New York City Center Light Opera Company) played during 1954 for a total of twenty performances (two engagements in the spring and one in the fall), and the latter company also revived the work at City Center on April 12, 1961, for fourteen showings. The work was next presented by the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center at the New York State Theatre on July 19, 1966, for sixty-four performances, and prior to the current revival the work was produced on Broadway at the Uris Theatre on April 24, 1983, for seventy-three performances (during the run of the 1983 production, the theatre’s name was changed to the Gershwin, the home of the current production). For the 1983 revival, Lonette McKee was Julie, the role she reprised for the current presentation. The first London production opened on May 3, 1928, at the Drury Lane for 350 performances and included one new song, “Dance Away the Night” (a later London revival opened on July 29, 1971, at the Adelphi Theatre for 910 showings). There have been three film versions of the work. The first was a part-silent, part-talkie released in 1929. The faithful and entertaining 1936 Universal film includes Irene Dunne (who had starred in the musical’s post-Broadway tour), Helen Morgan (from the original Broadway cast), and Paul Robeson (who starred in the London production), and offered three new songs, “I Have the Room Above Her,” “Ah Still Suits Me,” and “Gallivantin’ Aroun’.” And the misguided 1951 MGM adaptation compressed the action into an approximate ten-year period and thus completely lost the epic sweep of the story. Both the 1936 and 1951 versions are available on DVD (the former was released by the Warner Brothers Archive Collection and the latter by Warner Home Video # 30000032268). In one sense there are really three-and-a-half film versions of Show Boat because Till the Clouds Roll By, MGM’s 1946 biography of Jerome Kern, included a mini-version of the musical with a sequence of songs performed by Kathryn Grayson (who later starred as Magnolia in the 1951 film adaptation), Tony Martin, Lena Horne, and Virginia O’Brien. The film’s finale offered one of the most grandiose and campy sequences of the era: Dressed in a white tuxedo and standing on a pedestal while flanked by the MGM Orchestra and Chorus, Frank Sinatra sang . . . “Ol’ Man River.” The definitive book about the history of the musical is Miles Kreuger’s Show Boat: The Story of a Classic American Musical, published in hardback by Oxford University Press in 1977. The publisher also issued Who Should Sing “Ol’ Man River”? The Lives of an American Song (2014) and Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical (2015), both by Todd Decker and both published in hardback. The script of the 1928 London production was published in paperback in Great Britain by Chappell & Co. in 1932, and the Broadway script was published in a hardback boxed-set collection by the Library of America in 2014 (which also includes the scripts of fifteen other musicals). The lyrics of all the Show Boat songs written by Hammerstein are included in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. The best and most complete recording of the score is a lavish 1988 three-CD set by EMI Records (# CDS-749108-2); conducted by John McGlinn, the studio cast includes Frederica Von Stade, Jerry Hadley, and Teresa Stratas. The set offers a number of songs deleted from the tryout of the original production as well as songs cut in preproduction, “Dance Away the Night” from the London production, the three new songs for the 1936 film version, and “Nobody Else but Me” from the 1946 revival. There are a few recordings of various songs from the score performed by members of the original Broadway and London companies, and of the numerous recordings of the score, the 1962 studio cast album released by Columbia Records (LP # OL-5820/OS-2220) and by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy (CD # SK-61877) is a particular standout, with Barbara Cook and John Raitt in the leading roles. The cast album of the 1946 revival was recorded by Columbia Records (LP # ML-4058) and the CD was issued by Sony Broadway (# SK-53330, and the cast album of the current revival was released by Quality Records (CD # RSPD-257). Incidentally, the second act of Show Boat has always been problematic. The main characters have aged, and the focus is on Kim, who carries on the family’s show-business tradition and is in fact now a Broadway star (in the original production, Norma Terris played both Magnolia and the adult Kim). In later productions, the roles of Magnolia and the adult Kim were shared by different actresses, and in at least one version the adult Kim was completely eliminated. As noted, the 1951 film version compressed the time of the show’s action into about ten years, and so by the finale Kim was no more than eight or nine years of age.

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The song “It’s Gettin’ Hotter in the North” and its spot in the Twenties’ sequence are emblematic of the musical’s second-act problems. For the first performance of the 1927 tryout, it was heard in the Twenties’ section for Kim (Terris) and the chorus, but once it was cut, Terris performed a series of impersonations of the era’s celebrities. For London, a new song was used for the Twenties sequence (“Dance Away the Night”), for the 1936 film another new song was substituted (“Gallivantin’ Aroun’”), and for the 1946 revival yet another new song was written for the sequence (“Nobody Else but Me”). For the current production, Kim was given a dance number (“Kim’s Charleston”). The current revival opened in Toronto about a year before the New York production premiered, and for this version Robert Morse played the role of Cap’t Andy. For New York he was succeeded by McMartin, but he remained with the Toronto production, which was still running when the Broadway version opened.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (Show Boat); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Mark Jacoby); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (John McMartin); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Rebecca Luker); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Michel Bell); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Joel Blum); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Gretha Boston); Best Director (Harold Prince); Best Costume Design (Florence Klotz); Best Choreography (Susan Stroman)

WONDERFUL TOWN Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: November 8, 1994; Closing Date: November 20, 1994 Performances: 14 Book: Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov Lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green Music: Leonard Bernstein Based on the 1938 collection of short stories My Sister Eileen by Ruth McKenney and the 1940 play of the same title by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov. Direction: Richard Sabellico (Paul L. King, Assistant Stage Director); Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Choreography: Tina Paul (Jennifer Paulson Lee, Assistant); Scenery: Michael Anania (Ron Kadri, Assistant); Costumes: Gail Baldoni (Thom Heyer, Assistant); Lighting: Jeff Davis; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Eric Stern Cast: William Ledbetter (Tour Guide, Associate Editor, Chef, Policeman), Larry Block (Appopolous), Don Yule (Lonigan), Meghan Strange (Helen), Timothy Warmen (Wreck), Amanda Green (Violet), Carlos Lopez (Speedy Valenti), Crista Moore (Eileen Sherwood), Kay McClelland (Ruth Sherwood), Gary Jackson (Fletcher, Rexford, Ruth’s Escort), Mason Roberts (Drunk, Eskimo Pie Man, Second Cadet), Louis Perry (Drunk, Mr. Mallory, Policeman), Richard Muenz (Robert Baker), John Lankston (Associate Editor, Brazilian Ambassador, Solo Policeman), Jeffrey Weber (Danny, Policeman), Marilyn Armstrong (Party Guest), Daniel Shigo (Trent, Waiter), Susan Browning (Mrs. Wade), Don Stephenson (Frank Lippencott), Larry Sousa (Delivery Boy, First Cadet), Stephen Berger (Chick Clark), Ron Hilley (Shore Patrolman, Policeman), Paula Hostetter (Flower Seller), Melissa Maravell (Flower Seller), Beth Pensiero (Customer); Children: Zoe Startz Barton, Simon Behr, Dov Lebowitz-Nowak, Sebastian Perez, Jacqueline Rosenfeld, Rachel Rosenfeld The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in and around Greenwich Village, New York City, during August 1939.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Christopher Street” (William Ledbetter, Tourists, Villagers); “Ohio” (Kay McClelland, Crista Moore); “One Hundred Easy Ways” (Kay McClelland); “What a Waste” (Richard Muenz, Editors); “A Little Bit in Love” (aka “Never Felt This Way Before”) (Crista Moore); “Pass the Foot-

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ball” (Timothy Warmen, Villagers); “Conversation Piece” (aka “Nice People, Nice Talk”) (Crista Moore, Don Stephenson, Kay McClelland, Stephen Berger, Richard Muenz); “A Quiet Girl” (Richard Muenz); “Conga!” (Kay McClelland, Brazilian Cadets) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “My Darlin’ Eileen” (Crista Moore, Policemen); “Swing!” (Kay McClelland, Villagers); “Ohio” (reprise) (Kay McClelland, Crista Moore); “It’s Love” (Richard Muenz, Crista Moore, Paula Hostetter, Melissa Maravell, Beth Pensiero); “Let It Come Down” (Ballet) (Orchestra); “The Wrong Note Rag” (Kay McClelland, Crista Moore, Patrons); “It’s Love” (reprise) (Company) Wonderful Town was based on My Sister Eileen, a series of short stories by Ruth McKenney that had originally appeared in the New Yorker and were later published in book format in 1938. In 1940, the stories were adapted by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov into the Broadway comedy My Sister Eileen, which ran for 864 performances (Shirley Booth was Ruth and Jo Ann Sayers was Eileen). (Four days before the play’s New York premiere, the real-life Eileen and her husband, writer Nathanael West were killed, in an automobile accident.) The film version of the play was released in 1942 (Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair), and the musical adaptation opened in 1953 (Rosalind Russell and Edith [later Edie] Adams). The short stories, the play, and subsequent adaptations of the material center on small-town sisters Ruth and Eileen who move to New York City and become involved in madcap adventures with their colorful Greenwich village neighbors, local drunks, the police on the beat, and even the Brazilian Navy. All the adaptations neatly sidestepped the fact that the real-life Ruth was a Communist who, in Marion Meade’s fascinating Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), is quoted as saying she wanted “to smash up things” (and this from the wacky gal who tells us she was “re-reading Moby-Dick the other day . . . it’s about this whale”?). As for Eileen, she was apparently a “mild” Communist who never actually joined the Party. Edward Rothstein in the New York Times said the “truth” about the revival was probably somewhere between the opinions of those who left during intermission “muttering about how awful it was” and those who “stood and cheered” when lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green appeared during the curtain calls. The revival was “campy and clichéd,” Kay McClelland’s Ruth offered “white-bread consistency,” Crista Moore’s Eileen was “bland,” and while there was “some verve” in Tina Paul’s choreography, the Village Vortex seemed “more like a club for swingers than for swing.” As a result, the “saving virtues” of the evening were the “smart-alecky quickness” of Comden and Green’s lyrics and Eric Stern’s “stylish” conducting of Leonard Bernstein’s score. The current revival omitted the dance “Conquering New York,” “Story Vignettes” (a spoken sequence punctuated by music, which plays like a revue sketch), and “Village Vortex Blues” (aka “Ballet at the Village Vortex”). The latter was replaced by “Let It Come Down,” which had been cut during preproduction in 1953 (for the original Broadway production, the music was reworked for the “Village Vortex” sequence, and the current production seems to have reinstated the complete number as it was originally written during preproduction). Among the cast members of City Opera’s production was Amanda Green, Phyllis Newman and Green’s daughter. The musical had originally opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on February 25, 1953, for 559 performances, and the national tour starred Carol Channing. A faithful television version was produced by CBS (with Russell and Jacquelyn McKeever), and in 1960 the stories were adapted for a CBS television series (with Elaine Stritch and Shirley Bonne), which lasted for just one season. The work has been revived in New York five times, three productions at City Center by the New York City Center Light Opera Company on March 5, 1958, for 15 performances (Nancy Walker and Jo Sullivan); on February 13, 1963, for 16 performances (Kaye Ballard and Jacquelyn McKeever); and on May 17, 1967, for 23 performances (Elaine Stritch and Linda Bennett). Following the current production, the musical was revived on November 23, 2003, at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre for 497 showings (Donna Murphy and Jennifer Westfeldt). The script was published in hardback by Random House in 1953, and is also included in the 1996 hardback collection The New York Musicals of Comden and Green (Applause Books), which also offers the books and lyrics of On the Town (1944) and Bells Are Ringing (1956) but not Subways Are for Sleeping (1961). There are numerous recordings of the delightful score, including the original cast album released by Decca Records (LP # DL-7/9010 and later issued on CD by Decca Broadway Records # 440-014-602-2); the 1958 television soundtrack released by Columbia Records (LP # OL-5360 and # OS-2008 and later issued by Sony Broadway Records CD # SK-48021); the 2003 Broadway revival recorded by DRG Records (# DRG-12999),

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which includes bonus tracks of Comden and Green performing “Ohio,” “It’s Love,” “A Quiet Girl,” and “The Wrong Note Rag”; and a second cast album of the 2003 production (with tracks by Brooke Shields and Jennifer Hope Wills, who succeeded Murphy and Westfeldt) was issued by DRG (# DRG-94776). The original London production opened on February 23, 1955, at the Princes Theatre for 205 performances (Pat Kirkwood and Shani Wallis). Seven songs were recorded by the cast and are included in the collection Americans in London (Encore’s Box Office Production Records CD # ENBO-CD-2/91). The cast album of the 1986 London revival at the Queens Theatre (Maureen Lipton and Emily Morgan) was released by First Night Records (CD # OCRCD-6011). A 1998 studio cast recording (Karen Mason and Rebecca Luker) was issued on a two-CD set by Jay Records (# CDJAY2-1281) and is the most complete version of the work (and includes “Conquering New York” and “Story Vignettes”). A second studio cast was released in 1999 (Kim Criswell and Audra McDonald, and conducted by Simon Rattle) by EMI Records (CD #7243-5-56753-2-3). A concert version of the latter was filmed live at the Philharmonie in Berlin on December 30 and 31, 2002, and was released on DVD by EuroArts (# 2052298). There is also a cast album of a 1961 Los Angeles production (Location Records LP # 1261-368). A different lyric version of the material is Columbia’s 1955 film My Sister Eileen (Betty Garrett and Janet Leigh, with Bob Fosse, Tommy Rall, and Jack Lemmon), which was released on DVD by Columbia (# 07327). The lyrics are by Leo Robin, and the music by Jule Styne. A few weeks before the original production of Wonderful Town went into rehearsal, the show’s lyricist Arnold B. Horwitt and composer Leroy Anderson left the show due to artistic differences with Fields and Chodorov. Comden and Green agreed to write new lyrics, and Bernstein stepped in to compose the music. The Horwitt and Anderson version is the Holy Grail of Broadway Scores, and is reportedly lost (although this assertion seems somewhat unlikely) and one can only hope the “lost” score will one day resurface.

SUNSET BOULEVARD Theatre: Minskoff Theatre Opening Date: November 17, 1994; Closing Date: March 22, 1997 Performances: 977 Book and Lyrics: Don Black and Christopher Hampton Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber Based on the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard (screenplay by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M. Marshman Jr., and direction by Billy Wilder). Direction: Trevor Nunn (Peter Lawrence, Production Supervisor); Producer: The Really Useful Company; Choreography: Bob Avian; Scenery: John Napier (Peter David Gould, Associate Production Design); Costumes: Anthony Powell; Lighting: Andrew Bridge; Musical Direction: Paul Bogaev Cast: Glenn Close (Norma Desmond), Alan Campbell (Joe Gillis), George Hearn (Max von Mayerling), Alice Ripley (Betty Schaefer), Alan Oppenheimer (Cecil B. DeMille), Vincent Tumeo (Artie Green), Sandra Allen (First Harem Girl, Beautician), Bryan Batt (Young Writer, Salesman, DeMille’s Assistant), Susan Dawn Carson (Heather, Second Masseuse), Matthew Dickens (Cliff, Salesman, Young Guard), Colleen Dunn (Third Harem Girl aka Jean, Beautician, Hedy Lamar), Steven Stein-Grainger (Morino, Salesman, Hog Eye), Kim Huber (Lisa, Doctor), Rich Hebert (First Financeman, Film Actor, Salesman), Alicia Irving (Katherine, Psychiatrist), Lada Boder (Second Harem Girl, Beautician), Lauren Kennedy (Mary, First Masseuse), Sal Mistretta (Sheldrake, Police Chief), Mark Morales (John, Salesman, Victor Mature), Rick Podell (Myron, Manfred), Tom Alan Robbins (Second Financeman, Salesman, Party Guest), David Eric (Jonesy, Sammy, Salesman), Rick Sparks (Choreographer, Salesman), Wendy Walter (Joanna, Astrologer) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Los Angeles during 1949 and 1950.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Prologue” (“I Guess It Was Five A.M.”) (Alan Campbell); “Let’s Have Lunch” (Alan Campbell, Ensemble); “Surrender” (Glenn Close); “With One Look” (Glenn Close); “Salome”

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(Glenn Close, Alan Campbell); “The Greatest Star of All” (George Hearn); “Every Movie’s a Circus” (Alan Campbell, Alice Ripley, Vincent Tumeo, Ensemble); “Girl Meets Boy” (Alan Campbell, Alice Ripley); “New Ways to Dream” (Glenn Close); “The Lady’s Paying” (Rick Podell, Glenn Close, Alan Campbell, Bryan Batt, Matthew Dickens, Steven Stein-Grainger, Rich Hebert, Mark Morales, Tom Alan Robbins, David Eric, Rick Sparks); “The Perfect Year” (Glenn Close, Alan Campbell); “This Time Next Year” (Alan Campbell, Alice Ripley, Vincent Tumeo, Ensemble) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Sunset Boulevard” (Alan Campbell); “The Perfect Year” (reprise) (Glenn Close); “As If We Never Said Goodbye” (Glenn Close); “Surrender” (reprise) (Alan Oppenheimer); “Girl Meets Boy” (reprise) (Alice Ripley, Alan Campbell); “Eternal Youth Is Worth a Little Suffering” (Norma’s Consultants); “Too Much in Love to Care” (Alice Ripley, Alan Campbell); “New Ways to Dream” (reprise) (George Hearn); “Sunset Boulevard” (reprise) (Alan Campbell, Alice Ripley); “The Greatest Star of All” (reprise) (George Hearn, Glenn Close); “Surrender” (reprise) (Glenn Close) Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard (aka Sunset Blvd.) was based on Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film, which looked at the dark side of tinsel town in its merciless examination of the rich and delusional silent-screen star Norma Desmond (Glenn Close in the Broadway musical), a has-been who is determined to make her return (don’t say that word comeback, please!) to the movies with Salome. She’s completed the screenplay and expects it to be filmed as written and with her as the star, even though she’s clearly some thirty years too old for the part. By chance she meets down-and-out script writer Joe Gillis (Alan Campbell) and hires him to polish the screenplay for submission to Cecil B. DeMille. Joe is soon living in her mansion and quickly becomes her kept man and reluctant lover. When she descends into madness and shoots him in a jealous rage, the murder and her arrest don’t really affect her because it all seems part of an endless movie playing in her head. Wilder’s film was a masterpiece of black comedy, but Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s book didn’t capture its irony and almost completely lost the film’s baroque sensibility. Lloyd Webber’s score was generally more successful, but it too was somewhat disappointing. The title song was too bombastic, the musical scenes for Joe and script writer Betty Schaefer (Alice Ripley) were rather jejune, and their weak songs (especially “Too Much in Love to Care”) should have been tossed in preproduction. The generic choral numbers, which occasionally included the principals (“Every Movie’s a Circus,” “The Lady’s Paying,” and “Eternal Youth Is Worth a Little Suffering”), were little more than filler material. The second act fell apart when it came to musical inspiration and was little more than a parade of reprises. Of its eleven musical sequences, no less than seven were reprises, and there was also the overwrought title song to contend with, along with the bland “Eternal Youth” and the insipid “Too Much in Love to Care.” It was left to the splendid “As If We Never Said Goodbye” to provide the only musical muscle in the second act. Norma’s songs were quite strong, and among the best of Lloyd Webber’s career. These included “With One Look” (Norma’s description of the time when movies had magic), “New Ways to Dream,” “The Perfect Year” (an insinuating ballad that greets the New Year with heady expectation), and, as noted, the thrilling “As If We Never Said Goodbye” (when Norma briefly returns to her old studio). The performances were generally disappointing. Close’s singing voice was fine but somewhat lacking in color and depth, and she looked too young for the role. But her book scenes were incisive and strong and her characterization might have worked well in a nonmusical adaptation. Campbell and Ripley did what they could with weak material, and only George Hearn (as Max von Mayerling, Norma’s butler and one-time director and husband) was completely at home in both the musical and dramatic contexts. John Napier’s décor matched the style of the film and, like the movie, began with a startling swimming pool scene where the murdered Joe is seen facedown in the water as he tells the story in flashback. For the stage production, a striking visual effect gave the illusion that the audience was the bottom of the pool looking up at Joe floating high above on the water’s surface, and Norma’s mansion was a rococo nightmare that knowingly commented on her decades-long isolation in a world of fantasy and delusion. Sunset Boulevard opened in New York to waves of publicity almost unheard of for the typical musical, and reportedly had the largest advance sale of any show in Broadway history. Lloyd Webber had enjoyed a string of hugely popular, profitable, and long-running successes in London and New York (Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Evita, Cats, Starlight Express, Song & Dance, and The Phantom of the Opera), and Sunset Boulevard seemed poised to join his roster of hits (note that despite its two-year run on Broadway, Starlight Express lost money and Song & Dance managed a run of little more than one year in New York).

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The production premiered in London on July 12, 1993, at the Adelphi Theatre with Patti LuPone and Kevin Anderson in the leading roles, and ran for a total of 1,530 performances. Matt Wolf in Variety said the show never found its tone and Wilder’s vision had “been diluted into something non-threateningly generic.” But he praised LuPone’s “star performance” and said she “thrillingly” met the challenge of the iconic role, because of all the current Broadway performers, she was the only one who was “more quintessentially a creature of the theatre,” with an “element of outsized theatricality” and the sweep of the “grand gesture.” But some critics such as Frank Rich in the New York Times had reservations about her performance. He praised her “powerhouse delivery” of the songs but otherwise felt she was “miscast and unmoving,” and noted she was too young for the role and as a result the age difference between her and Joe seemed to be about five years rather than two or three decades. LuPone’s contract stipulated she would play the role in New York, but Close was chosen for the U.S. premiere in Los Angeles and for the later run on Broadway (the Times reported LuPone’s contract was bought out for a rumored $1 million). For Los Angeles, a new song (“Every Movie’s a Circus”) was added and is included on the L.A. cast recording, which also features Judy Kuhn (as Betty), who was succeeded by Alice Ripley for Broadway. When Close left the L.A. production in order to open the musical in New York, Faye Dunaway was signed to succeed her. But the Times reported that Dunaway was “abruptly dismissed” during rehearsals (apparently because Lloyd Webber was disappointed with her singing voice), and she filed a lawsuit for breach of contract, which was settled out of court. When LuPone left the London production, she was replaced by Betty Buckley, and others who played the role in London were Elaine Paige, Petula Clark, and Rita Moreno. When Close left the New York production, Buckley and Paige succeeded her. The musical was produced on Broadway for an estimated $13 million, and the Times reported that upon its closing had recouped about 80 percent of its initial investment. Linda Winer in New York Newsday said that depending “on one’s gooey-music threshold” and Broadway’s “desperation” for a new musical, the “theme park operetta noir” (“think Phantom of the Silent Cinema”) might be enough because it had Close’s “smashing, daring, high-camp performance” and Napier’s “fabulous” décor. Jack Kroll in Newsweek noted that Wilder’s film was a “black panther” and the musical was a “bejeweled elephant,” and while the show wasn’t a “disaster” it was “ponderous” and “inflated” (but Close had the “sheer courage, plus the aura, the fatal attraction of the real star”). John Simon in New York said the “inventiveness” of Napier’s scenery “truly matched its lavishness,” but Trevor Nunn’s direction was “solid” when it should have been “breathtaking,” the song that took place at Schwab’s was a “cut-rate drugstore number,” and there were “unsatisfactory performances almost across the board.” As for Close, her singing voice trailed in and out “like a weak radio signal,” and where was her “vaunted acting”? And Jeremy Gerard in Variety said Lloyd Webber had “converted a legendary piece of satire into a piece of sentimental kitsch.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the evening “stops just short of being a campy drag show” and noted Close’s performance was “almost out of control” because every “gesture” and “word” were “so stylized” and “so highly colored” there was no “humanity.” He suggested “a little bit of the vulnerability” projected by LuPone could have helped. John Lahr in the New Yorker stated the “well-packaged” show lacked resonance, irony, and ambiguity and had “only the look of resonance, irony, and ambiguity.” Paraphrasing the musical’s leading character, he said, “Musicals are still big, it’s the imaginations that got small.” And Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News wondered why the “sardonic wit” of Wilder’s film was now “verbally obtuse and musically syrupy.” But Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal said Sunset Boulevard was Lloyd Webber’s “masterpiece” and the best musical since Gypsy (!); and Clive Barnes in the New York Post praised the “elegantly chosen performances—all excellent, all well-tuned,” and hailed Close for not being afraid “to mug, camp, scream, do anything necessary to project the image of a Hollywood sacre monster” and yet still convey the “tenderness and subtlety” to make Norma a flesh-and-blood woman. The original London cast album was released on a two-CD set by Polydor Records (# 519-767-2), and with LuPone’s brilliant singing performance it is by far the best recording of the score. The L.A. cast album was issued by Polydor on a two-CD set (# 31452-3505); there was no Broadway album because the L.A. recording was for all purposes the Broadway cast (but the L.A. recording includes Judy Kuhn, who was succeeded by Alice Ripley for New York). Other recordings include the 1995 Canadian cast album with Diahann Carroll (Polydor CD # 529757) and the 1996 German cast album with Helen Schneider (Polydor CD # 531-178-2), both issued on single CDs. There were also special highlight CDs issued with Betty Buckley (Polygram Records CD # DPSM-

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5155) doing four selections: “Surrender,” “With One Look,” “New Ways to Dream,” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye”; Petula Clark (Polydor Records CD # 576433-2) with three selections: “With One Look,” “The Perfect Year,” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye”; Elaine Paige (WEA Records CD # LC-4281) with one selection, “As If We Never Said Goodbye”; and Daniela Ziegler (a 1997 German production; Polydor Records CD # 571-4032) singing three selections: “Nur ein Blick,” “Ein gutes Jahr,” and “Als hatten wir uns nue Goodbye gesagt.” A recording from the 2001–2002 UK tour with Faith Brown and Earl Carpenter was issued by Rugsun Records (CD # 1) with three selections: “Sunset Boulevard,” “The Perfect Year,” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye.” “Sunset Boulevard” from Movie to Musical by George Perry was published in hardback by Henry Holt and Company in 1993; the book includes the complete libretto and lyrics, numerous color photographs, and sections about the original 1950 film (with many period black-and-white photos) and general background information about the musical. The script was also published in paperback by Faber and Faber in 1993. Before the musical Sunset Boulevard there was Boulevard! (which had originally been titled Starring Norma Desmond). It was developed for Gloria Swanson in 1952 with lyrics and music by Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley, and a demo with Swanson was recorded. According to the liner notes of Boulevard! (which was issued on CD by Stage Door Records in 2008), Swanson appeared on The Steve Allen Show on November 10, 1957, and sang a number from the score (“Those Wonderful People”). Boulevard! was never produced, but the two-CD set includes the tracks from the demo album, a live performance of “Those Wonderful People” taken from the telecast, and bonus tracks of early recordings by Swanson from some of her films.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Sunset Boulevard); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Alan Campbell); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Glenn Close); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (George Hearn); Best Director of a Musical (Trevor Nunn); Best Book (Don Black and Christopher Hampton); Best Score (lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber); Best Scenic Designer (John Napier); Best Costume Designer (Anthony Powell); Best Lighting Designer (Andrew Bridge); Best Choreography (Bob Avian)

THE FLYING KARAMAZOV BROTHERS DO THE IMPOSSIBLE! Theatre: Helen Hayes Theatre Opening Date: November 20, 1994; Closing Date: January 1, 1995 Performances: 50 Producers: The Imagination Company, Ltd. (Natasha and Boris Childs), Herb Goldsmith Productions, Inc. (Vladimir Goldsmith, President), and Jujamcyn Theatres (Fyodor Landesman, President); Musical Direction: Doug Wieselman Cast: Paul Magid (Dmitri Karamazov), Howard Jay Patterson (Ivan Karamazov), Michael Preston (Rakitin Karamazov), Sam Williams (Smerdyakov Karamazov); The Kamikaze Ground Crew Orchestra: Steve Bernstein (Trumpet, Slide Trumpet, Percussion), Gina Leishman (Saxophone, Bass Clarinet, Piccolo, Accordion), James Pugliese (Drums, Mallets), Marcus Rojas (Tuba), Doug Wieselman (Musical Director, Saxophone, Clarinet, Guitar, Percussion) The revue was presented in two acts. The Brothers who were not brothers were back, but Vincent Canby in the New York Times philosophized that the revue’s title The Flying Karamazov Brothers Do the Impossible! was a “latent contradiction” because “if they do the impossible, what they are doing, of course, is possible, which means they fail.” And to fully establish the evening’s philosophical credentials, a note in the program for a sequence titled “The Gamble” stated that Howard Jay Patterson (aka Ivan Karamazov aka The Champ) would “not juggle live animals or anything that might prevent the Champ himself from continuing to be a live animal.” (For the record, he juggled a plate of Chinese food, a dead fish, and a Slinky toy.) Stephen Holden in the New York Times suggested the boys might offer less verbal humor and concentrate on the physical. He reported that the evening’s “most transcendent moment” occurred when all four threw

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into the air a dozen tenpins. As they juggled, they began a kind of square dance while they crisscrossed the stage and occasionally threw a pin at one another in a “wild pitch.” But the “flurry” of twelve pins being simultaneously juggled in midair without ever colliding was more than an example of “hard-earned skill and teamwork” and instead evoked “the utopian ideal of a group that has achieved a perfect understanding.” The Brothers first visited Broadway on May 10, 1983, in The Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Ritz Theatre for forty performances; they returned on April 1, 1986, with Juggling and Cheap Theatrics at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre and then at Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre for a total of forty performances, and then in 1998 with The Flying Karamazov Brothers: Sharps, Flats and Accidentals. They also appeared Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre in The Flying Karamazov Brothers: 4Play for one month beginning on February 8, 2010, and returned there on August 9, 2010, for a nine-month run.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL “A New Musical”

Theatre: The Paramount Madison Square Garden Theatre Opening Date: December 1, 1994; Closing Date: January 1, 1995 Performances: 71 Book: Mike Ockrent and Lynn Ahrens Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens Music: Alan Menken; incidental music by Glen Kelly Based on the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Direction: Mike Ockrent (Steven Zweigbaum, Associate Director); Producers: Nickelodeon Family Classics and Madison Square Garden (Dodger Productions, Executive Producer) (Tim Hawkins, Producer); Choreography: Susan Stroman (Chris Peterson, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Tony Walton; Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: Christopher Sieber (Punch and Judy Man, Marley as Young Man, Undertaker), Donna Lee Marshall (Punch and Judy Woman), Robert Ousley (Organ Grinder), Bill Nolte (Grave Digger), Joseph Kolinski (Mr. Smythe), Andy Jobe (Jack Smythe), Lindsay Jobe (Grace Smythe), Walter Charles (Scrooge), Nick Corley (Cratchit); Charity Men: Robert Ousley, Martin Van Treuren, and Walter Willison; Ken McMullen (Old Joe, Mr. Kent), Arlene Pierret (Match Girl); Street Urchins and Children: Matthew F. Byrne, Jacy De Filippo, Justin Bartholemew Kamen, Olivia Oguma, Christopher Mark Petrizzo, and P. J. Smith; Michael Mandell (Sandwich Board Man, Ghost of Christmas Present), Robert Westenberg (Fred), Jason Fuchs (Jonathan), Ken Jennings (Lamplighter, Ghost of Christmas Past), Andrea Frierson Toney (Blind Hag, Scrooge’s Mother), Darcy Pulliam (Mrs. Mops), Jeff Keller (Ghost of Jacob Marley), Michael H. Ingram (Judge), David Gallagher (Scrooge at 8), Mary Elizabeth Albano (Fan at 6), Michael X. Martin (Scrooge’s Father, Undertaker), Ramzi Khalaf (Scrooge at 12), Jacy De Filippo or Olivia Oguma (Fan at 10), Gerry Vichi (Fezziwig), Michael Christopher Moore (Scrooge at 18), Mary Stout (Mrs. Fezziwig), Emily Skinner (Emily), Matthew Mezzacappa (Tiny Tim), Joy Hermalyn (Mrs. Cratchit); The Cratchit Children: Mary Elizabeth Albano, Betsy Chang, David Gallagher, and Sean Thomas Morrissey; Natalie Toro (Sally), Theara J. Ward (Ghost of Christmas Future); Business Men, Ghosts, Gifts, and The People of London: Mary Elizabeth Albano, Joan Barber, Renee Bergeron, Christophe Caballero, Betsy Chang, Candy Cook, Madeleine Doherty, Mark Dovey, Donna Dunmire, Andrea Frierson Toney, David Gallagher, Melissa Haizlip, Joy Hermalyn, Michael H. Ingram, Don Johanson, Eric H. Kaufman, John-Charles Kelly, Ramzi Khalaf, David Lowenstein, Seth Malkin, Donna Lee Marshall, Michael X. Martin, Carol Lee Meadows, Michael Christopher Moore, Sean Thomas Morrissey, Ken McMullen, Karen Murphy, Bill Nolte, Robert Ousley, Tom Pardoe, Gail Pennington, Angela Piccinni, Arlene Pierret, Darcy Pulliam, Josef Reiter, Pamela Remler, Sam Reni, Eric Riley, Rommy Sandhu, Christopher Sieber, Emily Skinner, Erin Stoddard, Mary Stout, Tracy Terstriep, Natalie Toro, Martin Van Treuren, Gerry Vichi, Theara J. Ward, and Walter Willison; Angels: Blessed Sacrament Chorus of Staten Island, P.S. 26 Chorus, Righteousness Unlimited, and William F. Halloran Vocal Ensemble—School 22 The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place in London during 1880 with excursions into the past and future.

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Musical Numbers “The Years Are Passing By” (Bill Nolte); “Jolly, Rich and Fat” (Three Charity Men, The Smythe Family, Businessmen, Wives, Children); “Nothing to Do with Me” (Walter Charles, Nick Corley); “Street Song” (“Nothing to Do with Me”) (The People of London, Walter Charles, Robert Westenberg, Jason Fuchs, Michael Mandell, Ken Jennings, Andrea Frierson Toney, Andy Jobe); “Link by Link” (Jeff Keller, Walter Charles, Ghosts); “The Lights of Long Ago” (Ken Jennings); “God Bless Us, Everyone” (Andrea Frierson Toney, Mary Elizabeth Albano, David Gallagher); “A Place Called Home” (Ramzi Khalaf, Jacy de Filippo or Olivia Oguma, Walter Charles); “Mr. Fezziwig’s Annual Christmas Ball” (Gerry Vichi, Mary Stout, Guests); “A Place Called Home” (reprise) (Emily Skinner, Michael Christopher Moore, Walter Charles); “The Lights of Long Ago” (Part II) (Michael Christopher Moore, Christopher Sieber, Emily Skinner, The People from Scrooge’s Past); “Abundance and Charity” (Michael Mandell, Walter Charles, The Christmas Gifts); “Christmas Together” (Matthew Mezzacappa, The Cratchit Family, Robert Westenberg, Natalie Toro, Walter Charles, The People of London); “Dancing on Your Grave” (Grave Diggers, Theara J. Ward, Monks, Businessmen, Darcy Pulliam, Undertakers, Ken McMullen, Joseph Kolinski, Nick Corley); “Yesterday, Tomorrow and Today” (Walter Charles, Angels, Children of London); “The Years Are Passing By” (reprise) (Jason Fuchs); “Nothing to Do with Me” (reprise) (Walter Charles); “Christmas Together” (reprise) (The People of London); “God Bless Us, Everyone” (reprise) (Company) Madison Square Garden and Nickelodeon Family Classics produced a lavish new version of Charles Dickens’s classic novella A Christmas Carol that played for ten consecutive holiday seasons at the Paramount Madison Square Garden Theatre. The $12 million production (with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens) was directed by Mike Ockrent, choreographed by Susan Stroman, and the respective sets, costumes, and lighting were designed by Tony Walton, William Ivey Long, and the team of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer. Menken and Ahrens’s score was pleasant and likable enough (with one particularly outstanding number, “Christmas Together”), and the musical itself was far more ingratiating than Michel Legrand and Sheldon Harnick’s 1982 musical Penny by Penny (aka Penny by Penny: The Story of Ebenezer Scrooge and A Christmas Carol), which starred Richard Kiley as Scrooge but never chanced Broadway. The Legrand-Harnick version looked skimpy and underpopulated, but the current adaptation boasted a huge cast and offered dazzling Christmas-card décor as well as family-friendly special effects, including a flying sequence or two as well as black light theatre techniques for a ghostly graveyard. Walton’s scenery made good use of the Paramount’s somewhat problematic stage, which was elongated, shallow, and had a low ceiling, all of which resembled the shape of a CinemaScope screen of the 1950s. Walton devised sweeping vistas (such as cozy London shops and streets dressed in holiday finery and topped with lightly falling snow as well as a magnificent graveyard of chilly blacks and dark blues), which he extended beyond each side of the stage and into the auditorium itself. As a result, the stage production could well have been a live action version of a 1950s CinemaScope musical. David Richards in the New York Times praised Long’s “picturesque” costumes and Walton’s décor, both of which ensured that the eye was “courted at every turn,” and he noted that one “major drawing card” of the evening was Menken’s sprightly score. As for Walter Charles, his Scrooge was more of a “benign scoundrel” than a scary figure. He felt that “Broadway’s A Team” was here working “less on inspiration than on assignment” and thus earned only a “B,” but he hoped that for future holiday visits “the show’s heart will grow stronger.” The original cast recording was released by Columbia Records (CD # CK-67048). An adaptation of the musical by Hallmark Entertainment was telecast by NBC on November 28, 2004, with Kelsey Grammer, the teleplay was by Ahrens, the production was directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman, and the choreography was by Dan Siretta. The soundtrack album was issued by Jay Records (CD # CDJAY-1386). For the nine years following the current production, various performers played Scrooge: Terrence Mann (November 20, 1995; eighty-eight performances); Tony Randall (November 22, 1996; ninety performances); Hal Linden and Roddy McDowall in alternating performances (November 18, 1997; ninety-six performances); Roger Daltry (November 27, 1998; sixty-nine performances); Tony Roberts (November 26, 1999; seventy-two performances); Frank Langella (November 30, 2000; sixty-three performances); Tim Curry (November 23,

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2001; approximately seventy performances); F. Murray Abraham (November 29, 2002; approximately seventy performances); and Jim Dale (November 28, 2003; approximately seventy performances). For more information about the 1995–1999 productions, see specific entries. During the years the production played at Madison Square Garden, the venue underwent a series of name changes: The Paramount Madison Square Garden Theatre, The Madison Square Garden Theatre, and The Theatre at Madison Square Garden.

COMEDY TONIGHT Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Opening Date: December 18, 1994; Closing Date: December 25, 1994 Performances: 8 Material: Special material for Dorothy Loudon contributed by Bruce Vilanch Direction: Alexander H. Cohen; Producers: Alexander H. Cohen and Max Cooper (Hildy Parks, Associate Producer); Choreography: Albert Stephenson; Scenery: Ray Klausen; Costumes: Alvin Colt; Lighting: Richard Nelson; Musical Direction: Peter Howard Cast: Joy Behar, Michael Davis, Dorothy Loudon, Mort Sahl The revue was presented in one act. Comedy Tonight was an unconnected evening of four separate thirty-minute routines that in order of appearance featured stand-up comic Joy Behar, juggler Michael Davis (here providing the season’s second juggling act, following the Flying Karamazov Brothers), singer Dorothy Loudon, and political satirist Mort Sahl. Once the intermission-less revue was over, the four entertainers appeared together for the curtain call, and throughout the evening a quartet of musicians occasionally played (and like Catskills on Broadway, the evening’s theme song was Stephen Sondheim’s “Comedy Tonight” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) and of course they accompanied Loudon during her turn. The show had been produced a few months earlier as Three when it played at the Stamford Center for the Arts’ Rich Forum in Stamford, Connecticut, and at that time the evening sported a title song by John Kander and Fred Ebb that they had written especially for the production. When Joy Behar joined the cast for New York, the old title and the title song were of course dropped. Stephen Holden in the New York Times commented that Comedy Tonight was “a variety program with no direction and no center” and lacked “a collective point of view.” But Sahl made some incisive political points, including his definition of liberals and conservatives: the former don’t want you born (but will take care of you from cradle to grave), while the latter want you born (if you promise to die before you collect your first Social Security check). He also mocked a fund-raiser for Bill Clinton by Barbra Streisand that “skewers the pomposity of Hollywood’s liberal elite.” As for Loudon, she exuded “self-importance that exceeds her celebrity to the point of seeming inappropriate.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety liked Behar and Davis best. He noted that for Behar “natural childbirth” means no lipstick, no eye makeup, and just a touch of blush, and Davis was “very funny” when dealing with “antijuggler” helium-filled balloons as well as bowling balls, eggs, and several “large, extremely scary-looking bladed instruments.” Jan Stuart in New York Newsday noted that the four performers hadn’t “the remotest stylistic connection to one another,” but Behar and Davis were a “riot.” Behar reported that back in the Bronx she used to tutor high-school dropouts and occasionally had to correct their English (“That’s whom do you want to murder, not who”); and the “suave and brainy” Davis, who “graciously acknowledged” the Karamazovs, could “platform his stunts to an inevitable, and delirious, conclusion.” But Loudon’s talent was “cheapened” because her patter (“special material” by Bruce Vilanch) was “the equivalent of low-sodium Saltines” or “Loudon Lite,” and while Sahl’s political quips were “never less than on the money” his “introverted leftie humor is a bummer.” Among the songs performed by Loudon were: “Broadway Baby” (Follies, 1971; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “Fifty Percent” (which she introduced in the 1978 musical Ballroom; lyric by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, music by Billy Goldenberg); “Let’s Do It” (Paris, 1928; later used in the March 1929 London and December 1929 New York revue Wake Up and Dream; lyric and music by Cole Porter); “Makin’ Whoopee”

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(Whoopee, 1928; lyric by Gus Kahn, music by Walter Donaldson); and “Play a Simple Melody” (Watch Your Step, 1914; lyric and music by Irving Berlin).

YOUNG MAN, OLDER WOMAN “A Musical Comedy”

Theatre: Beacon Theatre Opening Date: January 10, 1995; Closing Date: February 5, 1995 Performances: 28 Book: Douglas Knyght-Smith and Helen Smith Lyrics and Music: Phil Collins; Donny Hathaway; Pjaye Scott and Douglas Knyght-Smith; Millie Jackson, Pjaye Scott, and Douglas Knyght-Smith; Millie Jackson and Reynaldo Rey; and Millie Jackson and Jolyon Skinner Direction: Millie Jackson; Producer: Millie Jackson Cast: Millie Jackson (Millie), Reynaldo Rey (Reynaldo), Douglas Knyght-Smith (Doctor Lester), Kenneth “Chocolate Thunder” Montague (Connie Vertible), Keisha Jackson (Millie’s Daughter); Ensemble The musical was presented in two acts. In his review of Young Man, Older Woman, Neil Strauss in the New York Times reported that the “ribald soul singer” Millie Jackson “explored nearly every subtle and not-so-subtle innuendo known to Western civilization” in a “burlesque musical” billed as a musical comedy but more in the nature of a “nightclub concert with comedy sketches between songs.” Strauss noted that Jackson “shines as one of soul music’s finest comedians and one of rap’s most explicit matrons.” Among the numbers heard in the show were the title song (lyric and music by Millie Jackson and Jolyon Skinner); “Don’t Wanna B N Luv” and “Living with a Stranger” (lyrics and music by Pjaye Scott and Douglas Knyght-Smith); “Wish It Would Rain Down” (lyric and music by Phil Collins); and “Someday We’ll All Be Free” (lyric and music by Donny Hathaway). The musical had been scheduled to play for one week but was extended for two more. The cast album was released by Ichiban Records (CD # 1159), and Jackson’s recording Young Man, Older Woman (Jive Records CD # 1447-2-J) includes three songs from the show (“Living with a Stranger,” “Taking My Life Back,” and the title number). The DVD was issued by Weird Wreckuds, and its cover proclaimed that the musical had been performed in forty-three cities with an attendance of 446,600 patrons.

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR Theatre: The Paramount Madison Square Garden Theatre Opening Date: January 17, 1995; Closing Date: January 29, 1995 Performances: 16 Lyrics: Tim Rice Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber Direction and Choreography: Tony Christopher (Larry Vickers, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Landmark Entertainment Group, Magic Promotions & Theatricals, and TAP Productions (Forbes Candlish, Executive Producer) (produced in association with Allen Spivak, Larry Magid and The Space Agency, and John Ballard); Scenery: Bill Stabile; Special Effects: Gregg Stephens; Costumes: David Paulin; Lighting: Rick Belzer; Musical Direction: Craig Barna Cast: Ted Neeley (Jesus of Nazareth), Carl Anderson (Judas Iscariot), Syreeta Wright (Mary Magdalene), David Bedella (Caiaphas), Danny Zolli (Annas), Mark Slama (First Priest), Michael Guarnera (Second Priest), Gary Bankston (Third Priest), Lawrence Clayton (Simon), Dennis DeYoung (Pontius Pilate); Tormentors: Carol Bentley, Shannon Falank, and Kristen Young; Mike Eldred (Peter), Douglass Fraser (King Herod), Karen Byers (Maid by the Fire), Mark C. Reis (Soldier by the Fire), Pressley Sutherland (Old Man by the Fire); Soul Sisters: Karen Byers, J. Kathleen Lamb, and Hillary Turk; Apostles, Their Women, The People of Bethany and Jerusalem: Gary Bankston, Carol Bentley, Kevin Bernard, Karen Byers, Phil Dominguez,

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Mike Eldred, Shannon Falank, Robert H. Fowler, Michael Guarnera, Vanessa A. Jones, Eileen Kaden, J. Kathleen Lamb, Mark C. Reis, Mark Slama, Pressley Sutherland, Hillary Turk, Kristen Young The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during a seven-day period in 33 AD in Bethany, Jerusalem, The Garden of Gethsemane, and on Golgotha.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Company); “Heaven on Their Minds” (Carl Anderson); “What’s the Buzz” (Ted Neeley, Syreeta Wright, The Apostles and Their Women); “Strange Thing Mystifying” (Carl Anderson, Ted Neeley, The Apostles and Their Women); “Everything’s Alright” (Syreeta Wright, Carl Anderson, Ted Neeley, The Apostles and Their Women); “This Jesus Must Die” (David Bedella, Danny Zolli, Mark Slama, Michael Guarnera, Gary Bankston, Company); “Hosanna” (David Bedella, Ted Neeley, Company); “Simon Zealotes” (Lawrence Clayton, Company); “Poor Jerusalem” (Ted Neeley); “Pilate’s Dream” (Dennis DeYoung); “The Temple” (Ted Neeley, Merchants, Money Lenders); “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” (Syreeta Wright, Ted Neeley); “Damned for All Time” (Carl Anderson, Danny Zolli, David Bedella, Mark Slama, Michael Guarnera, Gary Bankston) Act Two: “The Last Supper” (Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, The Apostles); “Gethsemane” (Ted Neeley); “The Arrest” (Mike Eldred, Ted Neeley, The Apostles, Reporters, David Bedella, Danny Zolli); “Peter’s Denial” (Karen Byers, Mike Eldred, Mark C. Reis, Pressley Sutherland, Syreeta Wright); “Pilate and Christ” (Dennis DeYoung, Mark C. Reis, Ted Neeley, Company); “King Herod’s Song” (Douglass Fraser); “Could We Start Again, Please” (Syreeta Wright, Mike Eldred, Company); “Judas’ Death” (Carl Anderson, Danny Zolli, David Bedella); “Trial Before Pilate” (Dennis DeYoung, David Bedella, Ted Neeley, Mob); “Superstar” (Carl Anderson, Company); “The Crucifixion” (Ted Neeley, Company); “John 19:41” (Orchestra) Jesus Christ Superstar began as a self-described “rock opera” released by Decca Records on a two-LP set in October 1970, with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (a year earlier, a single release of the title song had been a hit). Following the huge success of the single record and the later LP recording (which reportedly sold over two-and-a-half-million copies by the time the musical premiered on Broadway in 1971), the score was presented in concert venues and so a fully-staged production was almost a given. The album had grandiose orchestrations and choral effects, and no doubt the bombastic pomposity of its presentation made the work seem “important” to many listeners. To be sure, some of the music was effective, and it was clever if not slightly cynical for Rice and Lloyd Webber to write a generic boy-and-girl ballad like “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and have it function as a song for Mary Magdalene to sing about Christ. The music probably seemed operatic to listeners who didn’t know opera, and the lyrics managed to be “relevant,” one of the era’s trendy words. As a result, the characters sang in anachronistic colloquialisms (“Was that just PR?”; “Walk across my swimming pool”; and “You’ll escape in the final reel”), which no doubt many listeners could “relate” to. The current revival played a limited two-week engagement as part of a two-year national tour of 112 cities and featured Ted Neeley (Jesus Christ) and Carl Anderson (Judas) in the roles they played in the 1973 film version. Stephen Holden in the New York Times said Jesus Christ Superstar deserved “much better” than what the current production offered. The “raggedly glitzy bus-and-truck” revival was “decently sung,” but the staging was “sluggish” and the action unfolded “like a series of garish, quasi-religious tableaux with dead spaces between many of the numbers.” When Herod made his appearance he mooned the audience, and his “fringed jump suit, feathers and elbow-length lavender gloves” were typical of the production’s “broadly cartoonish costuming.” The character’s “evil cohorts” reminded Holden of “refugees from the Klingon Empire hybridized with stray felines” from Cats, and the show’s “holier moments” reached for “kitschy solemnity.” The original Broadway presentation opened on October 12, 1971, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre for 720 performances in an overproduced staging by Tom O’Horgan, and the cast included Yvonne Elliman (Mary Magdalene) and Barry Dennen (Pontius Pilate), who had created their roles for the Decca recording. One song was added for Broadway (“Could We Start Again, Please”). The production’s gaudy décor, costumes, and special effects foreshadowed many of the pretentious Euro-pop and Disney (and Disney-inspired) musicals to

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come, but in 1971 Broadway-as-theme park was something new and so one must credit (or blame) O’Horgan for institutionalizing a trend that exists to the present day and that defines what the Broadway musical has become for many, a showcase for dazzling effects and feel-good and familiar material. The script was published by Stein and Day in the 1979 hardback collection Great Rock Musicals (edited by Stanley Green) and is also included in numerous recordings of the score (the original Decca album [LP # DXSA-7206] was released with an oversized softback libretto). The original London production opened on August 9, 1972, at the Palace Theatre for 3,358 performances and featured Paul Nicholas in the title role. The 1973 film version released by Universal was sometimes visually impressive but otherwise tedious; directed by Norman Jewison, the cast included Neeley (Jesus Christ), Anderson (Judas), Joshua Mostel (Herod), and, from the original album and the Broadway production, Elliman and Dennen. Neeley had played two small roles in the 1971 Broadway production and had been one of two understudies for Jeff Fenholt, who played the title role. The first New York revival opened at the Longacre Theatre on November 23, 1977, for 96 performances; following the current production, the musical was revived on April 16, 2000, at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts for 161 showings and then on March 22, 2012, at the Neil Simon Theatre for 116 performances. When the musical first opened on Broadway, much was made of its having been inspired by a record album. Everyone seemed to forget (or didn’t know) that Shinbone Alley (1957) had been based on the 1955 album archy and mehitabel, that Beg, Borrow or Steal (1960) had first been conceived as the 1959 album Clara, and that Off Broadway’s You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1967) had started life as a concept recording in 1966. One concept recording that never made it to Broadway was Gordon Jenkins’s 1946 Manhattan Tower, which was revised and expanded in 1956 (“Married I Can Always Get” emerged as the score’s most popular song).

SMOKEY JOE’S CAFÉ “The Songs

of

Leiber

and

Stoller”

Theatre: Virginia Theatre Opening Date: March 2, 1995; Closing Date: January 16, 2000 Performances: 2,036 Lyrics and Music: Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller Direction: Jerry Zaks (Steven Beckler, Production Supervisor); Producers: Richard Frankel, Thomas Viertel, Steven Baruch, Jujamcyn Theatres/Jack Viertel, Rick Steiner, Frederic H. Mayerson, and Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre/Gordon Davidson (Marc Routh, Rhoda Mayerson, and Thomas Glaser, Associate Producers); Choreography: Joey McKneely; Scenery: Heidi Landesman; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Timothy Hunter; Musical Direction: Louis St. Louis Cast: Ken Ard, Adrian Bailey, Brenda Braxton, Victor Trent Cook, B. J. Crosby, Pattie Darcy Jones, DeLee Lively, Frederick B. Owens, Michael Park; Band: The Night Managers—Louis St. Louis (Musical Director, Piano), David Keyes (Synthesizer), Frank Canino (Bass), Brian Brake (Drums), Drew Zingg (Guitar), Chris Emenizer (Saxphone), Frank Pagano (Percussion) The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Note: Unless otherwise noted, all songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Act One: “Neighborhood” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Ralph Dino, and John Sembello) (Company); “Young Blood” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and Doc Pomus) (Adrian Bailey with Frederick B. Owens, Ken Ard, and Victor Trent Cook); “Falling” (DeLee Lively); “Ruby Baby” (Michael Park with Adrian Bailey, Frederick B. Owens, Ken Ard, and Victor Trent Cook); “Dance with Me” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Louis Lebish, George Treadwell, and Ivy Nathan; at least one source credits Ben E. King as cowriter) (Ken Ard and B. J. Crosby with Adrian Bailey, Frederick B. Owens, and Victor Trent Cook); “Neighborhood” (reprise) (B. J. Crosby, Brenda Braxton, DeLee Lively,

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and Pattie Darcy Jones); “Keep on Rollin’” (Victor Trent Cook, Adrian Bailey, Ken Ard, and Frederick B. Owens); “Searchin’” (Victor Trent Cook with Adrian Bailey, Ken Ard, and Frederick B. Owens); “Kansas City” (B. J. Crosby, Pattie Darcy Jones, and Michael Park); “Trouble” (DeLee Lively and Brenda Braxton); “Love Me” and “Don’t” (Adrian Bailey and Pattie Darcy Jones); “Fools Fall in Love” (B. J. Crosby); “Poison Ivy” (Ken Ard with Adrian Bailey, Frederick B. Owens, and Victor Trent Cook); “Don Juan” (Brenda Braxton); “Shoppin’ for Clothes” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and Kent Harris) (Victor Trent Cook and Frederick B. Owens with Adrian Bailey, Ken Ard, and Michael Park); “I Keep Forgettin’” (Pattie Darcy Jones); “On Broadway” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil) (Adrian Bailey, Frederick B. Owens, Ken Ard, and Victor Trent Cook); “D.W. Washburn” (Victor Trent Cook, Company); “Saved” (B. J. Crosby, Company) Act Two: “(Baby,) That Is Rock & Roll” (Company); “Yakety Yak” (Company); “Charlie Brown” (Company); “Stay a While” (Louis St. Louis and David Keys); “Pearl’s a Singer” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Ralph Dino, and John Sembello) (Pattie Darcy Jones); “Teach Me How to Shimmy” (Michael Park and DeLee Lively with Adrian Bailey and Victor Trent Cook); “You’re the Boss” (Frederick B. Owens and Brenda Braxton); “Smokey Joe’s Café” (Frederick B. Owens and Company); “Loving You” (Ken Ard and Company); “Treat Me Nice” (Victor Trent Cook); “Hound Dog” (B. J. Crosby); “Little Egypt” (Frederick B. Owens with Adrian Bailey, Ken Ard, Michael Park, and Victor Trent Cook); “I’m a Woman” (B. J. Crosby, Brenda Braxton, DeLee Lively, and Pattie Darcy Jones); “There Goes My Baby” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Benjamin Nelson, Lover Patterson, and George Treadwell; at least one source credits Ben E. King as cowriter) (Adrian Bailey with Frederick B. Owens, Ken Ard, Michael Park, and Victor Trent Cook); “Love Potion # 9” (Adrian Bailey with Frederick B. Owens, Ken Ard, Michael Park, and Victor Trent Cook); “Some Cats Know” (Brenda Braxton); “Jailhouse Rock” (Michael Park and Company); “Fools Fall in Love” (reprise) (B. J. Crosby); “Spanish Harlem” (lyric and music by Phil Spector and Jerry Leiber) (Ken Ard and Brenda Braxton); “I (Who Have Nothing)” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Mogol, and Carlo Donida) (Victor Trent Cook); “Neighborhood” (reprise) (Pattie Darcy Jones); “Stand By Me” (lyric and music by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and Ben E. King) (Adrian Bailey and Company); “(Baby,) That Is Rock & Roll” (reprise) (Company) The catalog revue Smokey Joe’s Café was a tribute to the songwriting team of Mike Leiber and Jerry Stoller, who had written numbers for Elvis Presley (“Hound Dog,” “Loving You,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Treat Me Nice”) as well as novelty songs (“Yakety Yak,” “Charlie Brown”). The modest production featured nine singers and seven musicians, and although one is tempted to say it probably would have worked better in a cabaret format at an intimate Off-Broadway venue, that clearly didn’t matter to audiences. As a result, the show played five years on Broadway and when it toured was booked into such venues as the enormous Opera House at the Kennedy Center. The production was all too one-note with clichéd direction and movement, and while it was easily resistible to a few, it clearly pleased the many who turned it into a long-running hit. Some reference books indicate that with 2,036 performances to its credit the show is the longest-running revue in Broadway history. But the 1976 production of Oh! Calcutta! (which opened at the Edison Theatre on September 26, 1976, and closed there on August 6, 1989) would seem to have the edge with its 5,959 showings (Oh! Calcutta! was under a Middle or Limited Broadway contract and played at a small theatre that was nonetheless considered a regular Broadway house). At any rate, no one will ever confuse Oh! Calcutta! and Smokey Joe’s Café with revues on the order of the Ziegfeld Follies, the Music Box Revues, the George White Scandals, The Band Wagon, As Thousands Cheer, and Sugar Babies. Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the revue a “strangely homogenized” tribute of “sanitizing peppiness” in which the “grit” had been “carefully removed” from the songs to ensure their original “appealing ragged edges” were now “stitched into a uniform smoothness.” He also noted the cast members were “simply singing into space without any ostensible reason for being there,” and their “applause-milking” approach to the material evoked the contestants on Star Search. Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the “interminably upbeat nightclub revue” tried to pass itself off as a Broadway musical, and while it had been put together by some of the theatre’s “most accomplished practitioners” it was “junk unworthy of their talents”; and John Simon in New York reported that he sat through the first act “in a state somewhere between amusement and bemusement,” but the second was “unremitting and indigestible” and the “consummately mediocre” evening of forty “homogenized” Leiber and Stoller songs required “fortitude to endure.”

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Linda Winer in New York Newsday thought the revue started slowly, but warned her readers not to leave at intermission because during the second half the show really got going. Richard Corliss in Time liked the “colorful and jaunty” musical, and while the evening threatened to play “like an after dinner revue on a cruise ship,” the “wit” of the music and the “verve” of the cast allowed the show to sail and soar. And although Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News wasn’t sure if the show was “theatre” it was nonetheless “breezy,” “bouncy,” and “a whole lot of fun.” During previews, the following songs were dropped: “Down in Mexico,” “The Slime,” and a sequence that included “Riot in Cell Block #9.” The original cast album was released by Atlantic Records on a two-CD set (# 827765-2), and the final Broadway performance was filmed and later released on DVD by Image Entertainment.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Smokey Joe’s Café); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Victor Trent Cook); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Brenda Braxton); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (B. J. Crosby); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (DeLee Lively); Best Director of a Musical (Jerry Zaks); Best Choreographer (Joey McKneely)

HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre Opening Date: March 23, 1995; Closing Date: July 14, 1996 Performances: 548 Book: Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert Lyrics and Music: Frank Loesser Based on the 1952 book How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying by Shepherd Mead. Direction: Des McAnuff; Producers: Dodger Productions and Kardana Productions, Inc., The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Nederlander Organization (Dodger Productions, Executive Producer) (Whistlin’ Dixie, Associate Producer); Choreography: Wayne Cilento; Scenery: John Arnone; Video Design: Batwin & Robin Productions; Costumes: Susan Hilferty; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Ted Sperling Cast: Walter Cronkite (Voice of the Narrator), Matthew Broderick (J. Pierrepont Finch), Tom Flynn (Milt Gatch, Toynbee), Jay Aubrey Jones (Jenkins), William Ryall (Davis), Jonathan Freeman (Bert Bratt), Martin Moran (Tackaberry), Ronn Carroll (J. B. Biggley), Megan Mullally (Rosemary Pilkington), Victoria Clark (Smitty), Jeff Blumenkrantz (Bud Frump), Kristi Lynes (Miss Krumholtz), Randl Ask (Office Boy, Ovington, TV Announcer), Kevin Bogue (Security Guard), Jack Hayes (Henchman), Jerome Vivona (Henchman), Lillias White (Miss Jones), Gerry Vichi (Twimble, Wally Womper), Luba Mason (Hedy La Rue); Rebecca Holt (Scrubwoman), Carla Renata Williams (Scrubwoman), Nancy Lemenager (Dance Soloist); Wickets and Wickettes: Kevin Bogue, Maria Calabrese, Jack Hayes, Nancy Lemenager, Kristi Lynes, Aiko Nakasone, Jerome Vivona, and Carla Renata Williams; Ensemble: Randl Ask, Kevin Bogue, Maria Calabrese, Tom Flynn, Jack Hayes, Rebecca Holt, Jay Aubrey Jones, Nancy Lemenager, Martin Moran, Aiko Nakasone, William Ryall, Jerome Vivona, and Carla Renata Williams The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during 1961 in New York City.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “How to Succeed” (Matthew Broderick); “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm” (Megan Mullally); “Coffee Break” (Jeff Blumenkrantz, Victoria Clark, Company); “The Company Way” (Gerry Vichi, Matthew Broderick); “The Company Way” (reprise) (Jeff Blumenkrantz, Company); “A Secretary Is Not a Toy” (Jonathan Freeman, Company); “Been a Long Day” (Victoria Clark, Megan Mullally,

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Matthew Broderick); “Been a Long Day” (reprise) (Jeff Blumenkrantz, Ronn Carroll, Luba Mason); “Grand Old Ivy” (Ronn Carroll, Matthew Broderick); “Paris Original” (Megan Mullally, Kristi Lynes, Victoria Clark, Lillias White, Company); “Rosemary” (Matthew Broderick, Megan Mullally); Act One Finale (Matthew Broderick, Megan Mullally, Jeff Blumenkrantz) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “How to Succeed” (reprise) (Victoria Clark, Kristi Lynes, Women); “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm” (reprise) (Megan Mullally); “Love from a Heart of Gold” (Ronn Carroll, Luba Mason); “I Believe in You” (Matthew Broderick, Men); “The Pirate Dance” (Wickets and Wickettes); “I Believe in You” (reprise) (Megan Mullally); “Brotherhood of Man” (Matthew Broderick, Gerry Vichi, Lillias White, Company); Finale (Company) The revival of Frank Loesser’s How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying was a disappointment. With its amusing book, tongue-in-cheek score, and quirky characters, the revival of the 1961 spoof of corporate America should have been foolproof. The book is one of the funniest in the canon of musical theatre with its hilarious depiction of the merry albeit cut-throat adventures of World Wide Wicket Company employee J. Pierrepont Finch, or Ponty (Robert Morse in the original production and Matthew Broderick for the revival). In his relentless climb to the top of the corporate ladder, Finch’s workplace odyssey takes him from lowly mailroom minion to the lofty penthouse as Chairman of the Board, and he stampedes over everyone with his ruthless backstabbing and shameless toadying. His Bible is the self-help book How To, which advises him in the fine art of business survival, including how to avoid petty office friends, how to select whom to lunch with, and, most important of all, how to deal with gorgeous but incompetent private secretaries (it’s imperative to avoid the latter at all costs because the “smaller” her office skills, the “bigger” her protector). And in order to concentrate on his career, Finch is determined to stay single (as he helpfully explains to the predatory Rosemary, an emotional involvement can only lead to becoming involved emotionally). But the current production muffed it with mostly bland casting choices and a desperate attempt to make the musical politically correct for 1995 audiences. And PC is exactly what the musical didn’t need. The universe of the World Wide Wicket Company with its backbiting male executives and its marriage-and-suburbiaobsessed female secretaries captures a specific time and place that when fiddled with completely loses its satiric thrust. And Loesser’s lighthearted and mocking score perfectly matches the tongue-in-cheek book with spoofs of the business world: its conformity (“The Company Way”), its secretaries (“A Secretary Is Not a Toy”), and its most important daily event (“Coffee Break”). Loesser also offered a love song to oneself (“I Believe in You”) and an ironic ode to the “Brotherhood of Man” for characters deeply and sincerely in love with only themselves. As a result, “Cinderella, Darling,” the secretaries’ cynical ode to marriage as the be-all and end-all of their existence, was cut; the executives’ sly “A Secretary Is Not a Toy” (toys of the “erector set” variety) was altered so that the secretaries got “even” with them for their views; and the casting choice of Lillias White was wrong for the role of the corporate director’s secretary because it was impossible to believe that such a stodgy corporation as World Wide Wicket would be so enlightened in its hiring practices. It was also discouraging to see yet another black performer saddled with a gospel number. White was directed to perform “Brotherhood of Man” in heartfelt gospel revival style, an approach that missed the point that the ironic song is not about the brotherhood of man but the love of oneself: World Wide Wicket is the last place on earth where there’s fellowship, harmony, and goodwill to man. It would have been refreshing if White had been cast as the seenit-all Smitty who knows that coffee breaks are the only way to survive another dreary day at the office, and that despite a long day’s journey into the rush hour, it’s never too late to be a matchmaker for a clerk with executive potential and a predatory secretary. John Simon in New York said the revival was a “triumph of packaging over content” and “gimmickry over inspiration.” Broderick didn’t have Morse’s “enchanting, zany airiness” and even when supposedly happy the performer came across “like a sardine about to burst into tears,” and Megan Mullally’s Rosemary was “as appealing as a cuddly toy doggie made of stainless steel.” Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal stated the work was a “grim demonstration of how to fail on Broadway with a maximum of effort” and he noted Broderick was “all wrong for Finch” because the actor’s persona was “too nice a guy, insipid, shy, wry—with no manic hunger.” But the remainder of the reviews were mostly raves: Jack Kroll in Newsweek noted that three decades hadn’t “dimmed the sardonic wit” of the book, and he found Broderick “hilariously insidious.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the revival was “as good as it gets” and that Broderick “owned” (!) the role of Finch.

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Clive Barnes in the New York Post praised the “gloriously tuneful” and “extravagantly witty” musical, but mentioned the décor didn’t “really work” and never “captures the early ’60s spirit it sets its sights on.” Vincent Canby in the New York Times found the show “a triumph of contemporary Broadway know-how,” Des McAnuff’s direction was “classy” and “intelligent,” and Broderick gave “a supremely legitimate performance that also happens to be priceless.” And Linda Winer in New York Newsday said Broderick was a “treat” and it was “hard to imagine a more affectionate, more caring, more unrelentingly inventive revival.” Although Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the evening was “rather heavy-handed” and “occasionally short-circuits,” the production was still “fun” and while Broderick was a “lap dog” and Finch a “terrier,” the performer nonetheless brought “a droll, wry style” to the role. Brad Leithauser’s curious review in Time seemed to suggest he wanted a revisal rather than a revival, and one that should have acknowledged the social changes that had occurred since the premiere of the original Broadway production. For him, it was good that the secretaries now give their bosses a “fine comeuppance” (in “A Secretary Is Not a Toy”), and if blacks were denied access to corporate boardrooms in 1961 “such injustices” were now “symbolically amended” with the casting of Lillias White. He noted that the “nostalgic” revival recalled “a fairer era than the one we lived through.” The original production opened on October 14, 1961, at the 46th Street Theatre (later the Richard Rodgers Theatre, and home to the current revival) for 1,417 performances. The cast included Robert Morse (Finch), Rudy Vallee (Biggley), Bonnie Scott (Rosemary), Charles Nelson Reilly (Frump), Sammy Smith (Twimble and Womper), and Ruth Kobart (Miss Jones). The musical won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical, and seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The original 1961 cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (LP # LOC/LSO-1066) and the later CD issue (# 82876-56051-2) includes bonus tracks of Loesser performing “Organization Man” (an early version of “The Company Way”) and “A Secretary Is Not a Toy.” The release also included the narrator’s comments (by Walter Cronkite) and reprise versions of “Been a Long Day” and “How To,” all of which had been recorded during the 1995 cast album session but weren’t included on that album’s release; contemporary 1961 jazz versions of “I Believe in You” and “Brotherhood of Man”; and interviews with Morse and Reilly. The current 1995 cast album was issued by RCA Victor (CD # 09026-68197-2). For the collection An Evening with Frank Loesser (DRG Records CD # 5169), Loesser performs ten songs from the musical. Besides “Organization Man,” the album includes “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm,” “Coffee Break,” “A Secretary Is Not a Toy,” “Been a Long Day,” “Grand Old Ivy,” “Paris Original,” “Rosemary,” “Love from a Heart of Gold,” and “I Believe in You.” The script was published in paperback by Frank Music Co., London, in 1963, and the lyrics for the used and unused songs are included in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser. The London production opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on March 28, 1963, for 520 performances with Warren Berlinger (Finch) and Billy De Wolfe (Biggley), and the cast album was released by RCA Victor (LP # RD-7564/SF-7564). The 1967 film version released by United Artists includes a number of original cast members, including Morse, Vallee, Smith, and Kobart. Michele Lee had played Rosemary during the Broadway run, and here reprised the role, as did Maureen Arthur, who played Hedy during the Broadway run and national tour. The delightful adaptation sports location shooting in Manhattan along with cartoon-like décor and colors for the interiors. The film retained many key numbers (“How To,” “The Company Way,” “A Secretary Is Not a Toy,” “Been a Long Day,” “Grand Old Ivy,” “Rosemary,” “I Believe in You,” and “Brotherhood of Man”) but deleted others (“Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm,” “Coffee Break,” “Cinderella, Darling,” “Love from a Heart of Gold,” and “Paris Original”). The latter was heard as background music, and “I Believe in You” was reprised as a straight ballad for Rosemary to sing to Finch. “Coffee Break” was filmed but deleted before the movie’s premiere; the lead-in to the song is retained for the final cut, and those who know the number will feel frustrated when the scene abruptly shifts to the next one. The footage for “Coffee Break” hasn’t surfaced and has never been included on any home video release, but the song can be heard on the soundtrack album issued by United Artists Records (LP # UAL-4151 and UAS-5151) and later released on CD by Ryko Records (# RCD-10728). The DVD was issued by MGM Home Entertainment (# 908095). The musical has been revived in New York three times. Prior to the current production, the musical had been presented at City Center by the New York City Center Light Opera Company on April 20, 1966, for twenty-three performances (Len Gochman was Finch, and Billy De Wolfe reprised his Biggley from the London production). The revival was part of the company’s salute to Loesser, which also included stagings of The Most Happy Fella, Where’s Charley?, and Guys and Dolls.

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The most recent revival opened on March 27, 2011, at the Al Hirschfeld (formerly Martin Beck) Theatre for 473 performances. Daniel Radcliffe was Finch, who during the run was succeeded by Darren Criss and Nick Jonas. The production was more in keeping with the sensibility of the early 1960s, and “Cinderella, Darling” was retained. However, Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “charm-free” revival lacked “a sensibility to call its own” and Peter Marks in the Washington Post said Radcliffe’s casting was a “misfire” and he found it painful to watch the performer try to keep up with the Broadway gypsies in “Grand Old Ivy,” which was now an “overcaffeinated” number in which the chorus boys turn the song into an “athletic event” (of course, in the original production the song was a duet for Finch and Biggley). The cast recording was issued by Decca Records (CD # B0015645-02) and includes two tracks of “The Yo Ho Ho” (here called “Pirate Dance”) in short and extended versions. And Broadway Records (CD/EP # BR-CD00212E) released a collection of five numbers, Songs from “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (“How to Succeed,” “The Company Way,” “Rosemary,” “I Believe in You,” and “Brotherhood of Man”), performed by Nick Jonas and other cast members. How to Succeed is probably the only Broadway musical to have inspired a board game. In 1963, Milton Bradley marketed How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, and the artwork on the box’s packaging incorporated the logo of the Broadway production. The object of the game is to work one’s way from window washer to chairman of the board, and players must bluff their way to the top (and if they take a coffee break they risk losing their turn). The game’s directions noted it was “a spoof on big business and an exaggeration of people found in almost every organization.” In Variety’s annual tabulation of hits and flops (in which the criterion is whether a production did or did not recoup its capitalization during its Broadway run), the 1995 revival of How To went down in the record books as a flop.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Matthew Broderick); Best Director of a Musical (Des McAnuff); Best Choreography (Wayne Cilento)

THE MERRY WIDOW Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: March 26, 1995; Closing Date: April 22, 1995 Performances: 7 (in repertory) Book: Victor Leon and Leo Stein (English adaptation by Robert Johanson) Lyrics: Victor Leon and Leo Stein (English adaptation by Albert Evans) Music: Franz Lehar Based on the 1861 play L’attache d’ambassade by Henri Meilhac. Direction: Robert Johanson; Producer: The New York City Opera Company (Christopher Keene, General Director); Choreography: Sharon Halley; Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Mark W. Stanley; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Eric Stern Cast: George S. Irving (Baron Mirko Zeta), Elizabeth Futral (Valencienne), Joseph McKee (Kromov), Beth McVey (Olga), John Lankston (Bogdanovitch), Suzanne Ishee (Sylviane), Robert Creighton (Njegus), Carlo Scibelli (Camille de Rosillon), Jeffrey Lentz (Vicomte Cascada), James Bobick (Raoul de St. Brioche), Jane Thorngren (Hanna aka Mme. Glawari), Michael Hayes (Count Danilo), Jean Barber (Lolo), Stephanie Godino (Dodo), Christiane Farr (Jou-Jou, Young Hanna), Kathy Meyer (Frou-Frou), Debbi Fuhrman (Clo-Clo), Joan Mirabella (Margot), John MacInnis (Young Danilo); Ensemble: The New York City Opera Chorus and Dancers The operetta was presented in three acts. The action takes place in and around Paris during the early 1900s. Franz Lehar’s operetta Die Lustige Witwe premiered in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien on December 30, 1905, with Mizzi Gunther and Louis Treumann in the leading roles of Sonya (Hanna in some productions, including the current one) and Count Danilo. The story centers on the impoverished kingdom of Marsovia

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and the attempts of its politicians to ensure that the fortune of its wealthiest citizen the widow Sonya will remain in the country. To that end, Danilo is sent to Paris to woo Sonya into marriage and thus keep her money in Marsovia. Of course, the two fall in love to the accompaniment of Lehar’s gorgeous score and their romantic happy ending is also a financially happy one for the coffers of the kingdom. Edward Rothstein in the New York Times suggested the new production might make The Merry Widow one of the company’s “perennial favorites.” But he felt “musical comedy and sitcom humor displaced wit,” and noted that Robert Johanson (who adapted the book and directed the revival) “eliminated any tension between propriety and decadence.” As a result, “frivolity” was turned “into television comedy” and respectability into “blandness,” and so lust was “slighted” and the proceedings were just “mildly merry.” Rothstein said Michael Hayes’s Danilo was nicely “boyish” and Jane Thorngren’s Hanna sang “with flexibility and charm” but “almost made the Widow seem an ingénue.” The production interpolated a touch of Jacques Offenbach’s can-can for a scene at Maxim’s and offered two songs from other operettas by Lehar, “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” (“Yours Is My Heart”) from Das Land des Lacheins (The Land of Smiles) (1923, revised 1929) for Danilo and “Meine Lippen, sie kuessen so heiss” (“I’ll Remember”) from Giuditta (1934) for Valencienne and de Rosillon. The operetta has enjoyed almost two-dozen productions in New York; the first, which starred Ethel Jackson and Donald Brian, opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre on October 27, 1907, and played for 426 performances, a remarkable run for the era. City Opera’s current production was its first of two during the decade (see entry for the 1996 production). There have been various film versions of the operetta, the most memorable one directed by Ernst Lubitsch for MGM in 1934 with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier (most of the lyrics were by Lorenz Hart, and additional music was by Richard Rodgers and Herbert Stothart). There are numerous recordings of the score, including the cast album of the 1964 Music Theatre of Lincoln Center production, which starred Patrice Munsel and Bob Wright (RCA Victor Records LP # LOC/LSO1094; the CD was released by Sony Masterworks Broadway # 88697-88567-2). A two-CD set (with libretto) performed in German was issued by Deutsche Grammophon (# 439-911-2) by the Wiener Philharmonic and the Monteverdi Choir (orchestra conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, and with Cheryl Studer and Boje Skovhus in the leading roles).

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES Theatre: Lyceum Theatre Opening Date: April 10, 1995; Closing Date: April 30, 1995 Performances: 24 Book: Anita Loos and Joseph Fields Lyrics: Leo Robin Music: Jule Styne Based on the 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Intimate Diary of a Professional Lady by Anita Loos (previously, the novel had been serialized in Harper’s Bazaar); in 1926, a non-musical stage adaptation by Loos and her husband John Emerson opened on Broadway. Direction: Charles Repole; Producers: National Actors Theatre (Tony Randall, Founder and Artistic Director) in association with Goodspeed Opera House (Michael P. Price, Executive Producer) (Sue Frost, Associate Producer) (John Pike, Goodspeed Artistic Associate) (Manny Kladitis, Executive Producer); Choreography: Michael Lichtefeld; Scenery and Costumes: Eduardo Sicangco; Lighting: Kirk Bookman; Musical Direction: Andrew Wilder Cast: Karen Prunzik (Dorothy Shaw), KT Sullivan (Lorelei Lee), Allen Fitzpatrick (Gus Esmond), Carol Swarbrick (Lady Phyllis Beekman), David Ponting (Sir Francis Beekman), Susan Rush (Mrs. Ella Spofford), George Dvorsky (Henry Spofford), Jamie Ross (Josephus Gage), Dick Decareau (Steward, Mr. Esmond Sr.), Craig Waletzko (Frank, Robert Lemanteur), Ken Nagy (George), Joe Bowerman (Mime), John Hoshko (Louie Lemanteur); Tango Couples: Paula Grider, Joe Bowerman, Lisa Hanna, Ken Nagy, Richard Costa, and Lorinda Santos; Park Casino Trio: Angela Bond, John Hoshko, and Craig Waletzko; Ensemble: Angela Bond, Joe Bowerman, Richard Costa, Paula Grider, Lisa Hanna, Bryan S. Haynes, John Hoshko, Ken Nagy, Wendy Roberts, Lorinda Santos, Craig Waletzko

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The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during 1926 in New York City, aboard the Ile de France, and in Paris.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Opening” (Karen Prunzik, Men); “It’s High Time” (KT Sullivan, Karen Prunzik); “It’s High Time” (reprise) (Company); “Bye, Bye, Baby” (Allen Fitzpatrick, KT Sullivan, Company); “I’m Just a Little Girl from Little Rock” (KT Sullivan); “I’m A’Tingle, I’m A’Glow” (Jamie Ross, KT Sullivan, Karen Prunzik, Susan Rush); “I Love What I’m Doing” (Karen Prunzik, Olympic Men); “Just a Kiss Apart” (George Dvorsky, Karen Prunzik); “It’s Delightful Down in Chile” (David Ponting, KT Sullivan); “Sunshine Montage” (Joe Bowerman, Company); “I’m A’Tingle, I’m A’Glow” (reprise) (Jamie Ross); Finale Act One (KT Sullivan) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Mamie Is Mimi” (Karen Prunzik, Company); “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” (KT Sullivan); “A Ride on a Rainbow” (George Dvorsky, Karen Prunzik, Tango Couples); “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (KT Sullivan, Allen Fitzpatrick); “Homesick” (aka “Homesick Blues”) (Allen Fitzpatrick, KT Sullivan, Karen Prunzik, George Dvorsky, Susan Rush, Jamie Ross); “I Love What I’m Doing” (reprise) (Angela Bond, John Hoshko, Craig Waletzko); “You Say You Care” (Angela Bond, John Hoshko, Craig Waletzko); “Keeping Cool with Coolidge” (Company); Finale Act Two (Company) Tony Randall’s floundering National Actors Theatre hadn’t offered any productions during the 1994–1995 season, and in order to give the company’s subscribers at least one show, Randall brought in a recent Goodspeed Opera House revival of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The score by Jule Styne and Leo Robin remained relatively intact, but the book was slightly revised by an uncredited adaptor. The show was decimated by the critics and lasted just three weeks on Broadway. The story focused on gold-digger and diamonds-in-her-eyes Lorelei Lee (KT Sullivan, and, of course, Carol Channing in the original production) and her more practical girlfriend Dorothy Shaw (Karen Prunzik), who willingly accepts the proposition that romance is actually possible with a guy without a simoleon to his name. But not Lorelei, who combines the traits of a cold and calculating diamond hunter (of the tiara variety) and a dizzy babe in the woods who really, really needs diamonds in order to be truly content. Styne and Robin’s score included two classic songs that summed up Lorelei’s philosophy (“I’m Just a Little Girl from Little Rock” and “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”); smooth ballads (“Bye, Bye, Baby”); spirited choral sequences (“It’s High Time”); the clever laundry-list lament of Americans in Paris who have the “Homesick Blues”; and the insinuating saga of “Mamie Is Mimi,” one of the most ingratiating songs in Styne’s catalog. The musical originally opened on December 8, 1949, at the Ziegfeld Theatre for 740 performances and made an overnight star of Channing (Ward Morehouse in the New York Sun said Channing’s “vacuous stare” and “mincing steps” belied a dame about as “helpless as a fretful boa constrictor,” and Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times said Channing’s Lorelei was a “dazed automaton” the likes of which had never before been seen “in human society”). The lavish production included a number of welcome character actors such as Alice Pearce, George S. Irving, Reta Shaw, Mort Marshall, and Howard Morris, and Agnes de Mille provided lighthearted Twenties-styled dances instead of her usual array of solemn ballets. The current production had originally opened at Goodspeed Opera House (East Haddam, Connecticut) on October 5, 1994. This version omitted three dance numbers (“The Practice Scherzo,” “In the Champ de Mars,” and “Dance” aka “Pas de Deux”) and four songs (“Button Up with Esmond,” “A House on Rittenhouse Square,” “Coquette,” and “Sunshine,” but the music for the latter was retained for the newly created “Sunshine Montage” sequence). One song (“A Ride on a Rainbow”) was interpolated from Styne and Robin’s 1957 NBC television musical Ruggles of Red Gap, where it was introduced by Jane Powell (the soundtrack was issued by Verve LP # 1500 and the CD was released by Stage Records # 9004). (Ruggles is most notable for its song “I’m in Pursuit of Happiness”; with a new lyric by Stephen Sondheim, it was heard two years later as “You’ll Never Get Away from Me” in Gypsy.) The cast album of the current revival of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was recorded by DRG Records (CD # 94762). Vincent Canby in the New York Times found the revival a “major mistake” and an “embarrassing spectacle.” It may have originated in Connecticut, but it looked “as if it spent the last year walking home from Alaska.” Further, the “out of date” musical was guilty of “mindless sexism,” which is “no longer tolerated.”

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For Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal, “A Little Girl from Little Rock” was “a strange, cloudy tale” about “sexual harassment,” and he said the production itself had a “mummified rigidity” and a “summerstock sparseness of look.” John Simon in New York found the production “artless, charmless, and mirthless.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News disliked the “square” and “lifeless” revival and suggested that everything was so “tepid” that Lorelei “might just as well be singing about rhinestones.” And John Lahr in the New Yorker said the “miserable” production “almost achieves the slapdash and giddy awfulness of ‘Springtime for Hitler’” and noted that while “Broadway needs theatre” it didn’t need “dinner theatre.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the “altogether provincial staging” made the score sound like “paste,” and indicated that perhaps the revival had “just enough to make it a prime candidate” for an Encores! concert production (and when Encores! presented the musical seventeen years later, it was a charmer [see below]). But Clive Barnes in the New York Post praised the “stunningly stylish” and “joyously assertive and cheekily amusing” show, and he liked Eduardo Sicangco’s “energetically tasteful designs” and Michael Lichtefeld’s “imaginative” choreography. However, Jeremy Gerard in Variety found the décor a “mixed bag,” and Kissel said the dances were “second-rate.” Barnes noted that KT Sullivan sang “handsomely” and did well “in a manner that suggests Channing while never imitating her.” And while a few critics mentioned they enjoyed Sullivan as a cabaret performer (Michael Feingold in the Village Voice said she was a “superb” cabaret singer and Kissel indicated he “admired” her “enormously” in her cabaret act), the majority found her Lorelei disappointing. Kissel said she was “monochromatic” and lacked “playfulness,” and Canby suggested she was like “Bambi caught in the headlights of a tractor-trailer.” The cast album of the original 1949 production was released by Columbia Records (LP # ML-4290) and issued on CD by Sony Broadway (# SK-48013). Following the original Broadway run, the musical was reborn in the delightful 1953 film version released by Twentieth Century-Fox. It may not have been a faithful adaptation, but the splashy Technicolor-drenched production retained the essential plot and spirit of the original and put Marilyn Monroe on the map as the screen’s once and future sex kitten. And Monroe was particularly impressive because her Lorelei differed from Channing’s but was as equally valid and memorable. Her “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” is probably as iconic as Channing’s, and the song’s staging practically defines the look and style of a typical 1950s film musical production number (note that Marilyn is flanked by a number of chorus boys, including George Chakiris and Larry Kert). The film was directed by Howard Hawks, choreographed by Jack Cole (with uncredited assistance by Gwen Verdon), and scripted by Charles Lederer. Monroe was second-billed after Jane Russell (who played Dorothy), and others in the cast were Charles Coburn (Sir Francis Beekman), Norma Varden (Lady Beekman), Tommy Noonan (Gus Esmond), and Elliott Reid (Malone, a new character created for the film). The adult role of Henry Spofford was reconceived as Henry Spofford III and was memorably played by George “Foghorn” Winslow, who in the time-honored tradition of child performers managed to steal the show, even from Monroe. The film retained three songs from the stage version (“Bye, Bye, Baby,” “A Little Girl from Little Rock,” and “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”) and added two memorable ones (lyrics by Harold Adamson and music by Hoagy Carmichael), the blues “When Love Goes Wrong” for Monroe and Russell and the jaw-dropping “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love?,” a sardonic lament for Russell in a gymnasium and swimming pool where she’s surrounded by dozens of scantily clad muscle men going through their workout routines with one another and showing absolutely not one iota of interest in her. The belated London premiere opened on August 20, 1962, at the Princes Theatre for 223 performances with Dora Bryan (Lorelei), Anne Hart (Dorothy), and early-talkie film favorite Bessie Love (Ella Spofford). The production included a revised version of “Coquette” and a second-act reprise of “Bye, Bye, Baby” (as “You Kill Me” and “Au Revoir, Babies”). The cast recording was released by HMV Records (LP # 1464) and reissued by That’s Entertainment Records (LP # TER-1059). Channing starred in Lorelei, or Gentlemen Still Prefer Blondes, a revised version of the musical that opened on January 27, 1974, at the Palace Theatre for 321 performances with a new book by Kenny Solms and Gail Parent and a few new songs by Styne (with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green). The show’s prologue and epilogue took place in 1944 with Lorelei reminiscing about her conquests of men and her acquisition of jewels in the heady days of the 1920s. The cast included Peter Palmer (Gus Esmond), Tamara Long (Dorothy), Dody Goodman (Ella Spofford), and Lee Roy Reams (Henry Spofford). The new songs included “Looking

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Back,” “I Won’t Let You Get Away,” “Men,” “Miss Lorelei Lee,” and two versions of the title song (one was dropped during the lengthy pre-Broadway tour, and was replaced by the other). Retained from the original production were: “Bye, Bye, Baby,” “A Little Girl from Little Rock,” “I Love What I’m Doing,” “It’s Delightful Down in Chile,” “Keeping Cool with Coolidge,” “Coquette,” “Mamie Is Mimi,” “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” “Homesick Blues,” and “Button Up with Esmond.” During the show’s lengthy pre-Broadway tour, “I’m A’Tingle, I’m A’Glow,” “Just a Kiss Apart,” and “Sunshine” (as “Paris, Paris”) were heard but eventually dropped, along with “A Girl Like I,” a new song. For much of the tour, Joe Layton was the director and choreographer of record, and Ernie Flatt created additional choreography; by the time the show reached New York, Robert Moore was the director and the dances were credited to Flatt. There are two Lorelei cast albums. The national tour was recorded by MGM/Verve Records (LP # MV5097-OC) and includes the eventually deleted first version of “Lorelei” as well as “I’m A’Tingle, I’m A’Glow,” “Just a Kiss Apart,” and “Paris, Paris.” The Broadway cast album (MGM LP # M3G-55) includes the previously released tracks for the touring version as well as ones that were added on the road, including “It’s Delightful Down in Chile” (from the original 1949 production), “Men,” and the second title song. The CD (released by Decca Broadway # B0001407-02) includes all the songs from both LPs as well as both overtures (the first overture includes “A Girl Like I,” which had been dropped at one point during the national tour). Despite the mostly dismal and dismissive reviews for the current production and a few grumbles from the politically correct police, the musical made a major comeback of sorts in a well-received concert production by Encores! that opened on May 9, 2012, at City Center for seven performances. The cast included Megan Hilty (Lorelei) and Rachel York (Dorothy), and the presentation was recorded by Masterworks Broadway (CD # 88725-44451-2), which includes a number of sequences that weren’t recorded for the 1949 cast album, including “In the Champs de Mars” (here, “Park Scene”), “Dance” (for Dorothy and a taxi driver, and here titled “Pas de Deux”), “Coquette,” and “Button Up with Esmond” (the concert seems to have given short shrift to “A House on Rittenhouse Square”). In reviewing the concert for the New York Times, Ben Brantley hailed the “red-blooded” musical, which “pulses with (and makes fun of) the virile confidence that flooded post-World War II America.” Lorelei is a “businesswoman of the first rank,” a “seeming bimbo” who “is more focused and driven than anyone around her” and whose “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” was a “great solo” that became “a realist’s ‘what I believe’ anthem that finds the spirit of steel beneath Lorelei’s flirty glitter.” Brantley reported that when Hilty finished her third encore of the number, “the audience had all but bloodied its hands from clapping.”

OFF-KEY The musical opened on April 1, 1995, at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and closed there without opening on Broadway. Book: Bill C. Davis Lyrics: Bill C. Davis and Richard Adler Music: Richard Adler Direction and Choreography: Marcia Milgrom Dodge; Producer: George Street Playhouse (Gregory S. Hurst, Producing Artistic Director; Diane Claussen, Managing Director); Scenery: Narelle Sissons; Costumes: Gail Brassard; Lighting: Chris Akerlind; Musical Direction: Darren R. Cohen Cast: Christopher Sieber (Austin Quinn), Lannyl Stephens (Donna), Paul Binotto (Ronald), Mana Allen (Ruth), Amanda Naughton (Lauren), Michael Greenwood (Charles), Christy Baron (Diane), Derek Gentry (Lionel), Reathel Bean (Mr. Lester), Robert Vargas (Alex), Marcell Rosenblatt (Mrs. Liebowitz), Frank Raiter (Mr. Garfinkle), M. Elliot Beisner (Officer Pitts) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in a village during the present time.

Musical Numbers Note: The list of musical numbers is presented in performance order, but division of acts and song assignments are unknown.

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“Dear Dad”; “Please Not Me”; “When the Bus Stops”; “Come Tomorrow”; “The Work Song”; “The Pillow Song”; “I Made the Day Shorter”; “I Don’t Wanna Work”; “Citizens’ Assault”; “The Law Is”; “Matthew”; “Listen with Your Heart”; “Never Saw Myself”; “I Did It”; “Ronald Liebowitz, My Hero”; “Lock!”; “You Knew What I Needed”; “I See All of It”; “After”; “The Weather Song”; “I’ll Find Her There”; “How Long Is From Now On?”; “Shadow”; “Don’t Cry Anymore”; “Do You Wear Glasses?”; “I Ask Myself”; “With This Lock”; “Why Should She Be Happy?” Richard Adler’s Off-Key played out its engagement at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but was never produced on Broadway. The story centered on a young fugitive (Christopher Sieber) who seeks shelter in a special retreat for the developmentally disabled, which is located in a small village. There he finds purpose in his life Robert L. Daniels in Variety said there was “a great deal here to admire and cherish” and he praised Adler’s “beautiful” score (and singled out seven songs, “I’ll Find Her There,” “With This Lock,” “The Weather Song,” “Matthew,” “Listen with Your Heart,” “You Knew What I Needed,” and “I Ask Myself”). Daniels especially liked “The Weather Song,” a “witty” number for a patient who explains his passion for collecting weather reports, and Daniels noted that “I Ask Myself” was a “haunting” and “urgent” ballad that “boldly echoes a lovely memory” of Adler’s 1961 Broadway musical Kwamina. Marlene VerPlanck’s collection You Gotta Have Heart: The Songs of Richard Adler (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5804) includes two numbers from Off-Key, “I Ask Myself” and “You Knew What I Needed.” Librettist and co-lyricist Bill C. Davis was the author of the popular drama Mass Appeal (Off Broadway, 1980; Broadway, 1981), which was filmed in 1984.

STAGE DOOR CHARLEY (aka BUSKERS and BUSKER ALLEY) The musical was first advertised as Buskers, but it premiered as Stage Door Charley on April 7, 1995, at the Mccauley Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, and then was titled Buskers during its June 1995 run at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco (but an advertisement in the program referred to the show as Stagedoor Charley). The musical seems to have been briefly re-titled Busker Alley at some point during its fivemonth, eleven-city tour. Toward the end of the tour it reverted to its original title, Buskers; was referred to as Buskers! by one or two theatre columnists; and for New York was advertised as Busker Alley. Other theatres where the musical played were the Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland, in September 1995, and the show’s final booking opened on September 27 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center’s Festival Hall, Tampa, Florida, where it permanently closed on October 8. The musical had been set to begin previews on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on October 19 with a scheduled opening night of November 16. The following credits and song list are taken from the musical’s final tryout engagement in Tampa. Book: A. J. Carothers Lyrics and Music: Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman Based on the 1938 film St. Martin’s Lane (aka The Sidewalks of London) (direction by Tim Whelan and screenplay by various writers, including Bartlett Cormack and Clemence Dane). Direction and Choreography: Jeff Calhoun (Phillip Oesterman, Associate Director) (Chris Smith, Assistant Director) (Jerry Mitchell, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler and Jujamcyn Theatres/TV Asahi in association with PACE Theatrical Group, Inc. (Alecia Parker, Associate Producer) (Martin R. Kaufman, Associate Producer); Scenery: Tony Walton; Costumes: Willa Kim; Lighting: Richard Pilbrow; Musical Direction: John McDaniel Cast: Tommy Tune (Charley Baxter), Phillip Huber (Puppeteer), Bruce Moore (Young Charley); The Buskers: Michael Arnold, Michael Berresse, Jeffrey James, Regi Jennings, Denis Jones, Bruce Moore, Mark Santoro, Abe Sylvia, Richard Vida, and David Warren-Gibson; Ron Kidd (Arthur), Laurie Gamache (Elaine Claire), Drew Eliot (Max Beardsley), Marcia Lewis (Gladys), Taffy (Pickwick [a canine performer]), Brent Barrett (Victor Duchesi), Darcie Roberts (Libby St. Alban), Lee Mark Nelson (Prentiss James), Michael Berresse (Bartender); The Busker Trio: Michael Berresse, Bruce Moore, and Richard Vida; David Warren-Gibson (Claxton), Michael Arnold (Stage Manager); The Huber Marionettes The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during 1938 in London.

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Musical Numbers Act One: “When the Moonlight’s Bright in Brighton” (Tommy Tune); “A Piccadilly Busker” (Tommy Tune); “Busker Alley” (Tommy Tune, The Buskers); “Arthur’s Busk” (Ron Kidd); “Never Trust a Lady” (Tommy Tune, The Buskers); “Hula Love Song” (Marcia Lewis, Taffy); “When Do I Get Mine?” (Darcie Roberts); “Busker Alley” (reprise) (Tommy Tune); “Busker Alley” (second reprise) (Darcie Roberts); “When Do I Get Mine?” (reprise) (Darcie Roberts); “Strays” (The Buskers); “She Has a Way” (Tommy Tune); “He Has a Way” (Darcie Roberts); “Mates” (Ron Kidd, Marcia Lewis); “When the Moonlight’s Bright in Brighton” (reprise) (Tommy Tune, Darcie Roberts, The Buskers); “Crazy Happy Tears” (Tommy Tune, Darcie Roberts, The Buskers); “Never Trust a Lady” (reprise) (Tommy Tune, Darcie Roberts, The Buskers); “Ordinary Couples” (Brent Barrett, Laurie Gamache); “Tap ‘Appy Feet” (Tommy Tune, The Buskers); “Ordinary Couples” (reprise) (The Piccadilly Quartet); “Baby Me” (Darcie Roberts); “Never Trust a Lady” (reprise) (Tommy Tune); “I’ll Find a Way” (Tommy Tune) Act Two: “Ordinary Couples” (reprise) (Brent Barrett, Laurie Gamache, Chorus); “I’m on the Inside” (Darcie Roberts); “Why the Tears” (Darcie Roberts, Tommy Tune, The Buskers); “Tin Whistle Tune” (Tommy Tune); “Charley’s Dream” (Tommy Tune, Darcie Roberts, The Buskers); “Mates” (reprise) (Ron Kidd, Marcia Lewis); “All Around the Town” (Brent Barrett, Darcie Roberts, Lee Mark Nelson); “The World of Beautiful Girls” (Brent Barrett); “All Around the Town” (reprise) (Brent Barrett, Darcie Roberts, Drew Eliot, Lee Mark Nelson); “Tin Whistle Tune” (reprise) (Tommy Tune); “A Million Miles from You” (Tommy Tune, The Charley Marionette); “Charley the Busker” (Tommy Tune); “Busker Alley” (reprise) (Tommy Tune, The Buskers) First advertised as Buskers, the musical underwent a last-minute title change to Stage Door Charley for its world premiere in Louisville, Kentucky, because the producers feared the original title would be meaningless to American audiences (buskers are London street entertainers who perform before and after theatre performances). During the course of the five-month, eleven-city tryout tour, the musical alternated between its original title and Busker Alley and possibly Buskers! at some point. For the aborted New York production, the musical was advertised as Busker Alley. The show had been scheduled to open on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on November 16, 1995, with previews to begin on October 19, but during the musical’s last tryout stop in Tampa, Florida, the star Tommy Tune broke his foot during the October 1 performance. For the remaining week of the Tampa run, director and choreographer Jeff Calhoun appeared on stage before each performance and showed the audience an X-ray of Tune’s broken foot, and then when the performance began Tune acted his role while Calhoun and supporting cast member (and Tune’s understudy) David Warren-Gibson jointly danced it. The New York Times reported that for the curtain call, all three in identical costumes took a bow. But there’s major confusion on one vital point, which may never be resolved and is now perhaps lost to theatrical history. Variety reported that Tune’s cast was chartreuse, but the Times described it as lime-green. There are nuances here that require more specificity. Because Tune couldn’t dance for at least three months, the rumor mill swirled that perhaps another performer would step in for the New York preview period and the early months of the run (although Tommy Steele was mentioned in the press, the producers said he had never been under consideration, and Jeremy Gerard in Variety reported Gregory Hines was interested but couldn’t commit beyond eight weeks). And so Broadway wasn’t in the cards for Busker Alley, and the final Tampa performance on October 8 was its last and the musical lost its $5.9 million investment. The musical was based on the 1938 British film St. Martin’s Lane (also known as The Sidewalks of London), which starred Charles Laughton and Vivien Leigh, and the story centered on humble, unassuming busker Charley (Tune), who meets and falls in love with down-and-out and not-quite-nice Libby (Darcie Roberts) and teaches her the art of busking. But Libby has greater ambitions, and busking isn’t one of them because a grand career on the stage is her goal. She uses Charley, and when opportunity knocks leaves him for greener theatrical pastures. She later feels momentarily sentimental (or perhaps guilty) about Charley and thus secures him a role in a West End production, but Charley realizes the big time isn’t for him. So Libby continues to bask in theatrical glory, and Charley resumes his livelihood in Busker Alley, the place where he belongs.

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The musical was pleasant, but never caught fire. Despite the inherent drama of the story, the book was too mildly written and lacked real conflict, and Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman’s score was enjoyable but unexceptional (with just two memorable numbers, “Strays” and “Busker Alley”). The choreography was lively enough, just not particularly inspired, and Tony Walton’s seemingly clever set soon became irritating. The stage was dominated by a series of lampposts, and one soon realized these were permanent fixtures and would remain on stage throughout the evening no matter where a scene was taking place. The lampposts soon became as annoying as a speck of dust on eyeglasses, and one had the urge to brush them aside because they too often intruded on the action and occasionally constricted the dancing. But the evening’s chief problem was the lack of chemistry between Tune and Roberts. There was an age difference of some thirty years between them, and one never believed their love story, which was unconvincingly written and acted. Chris Jones in Variety noted the book was “chunky” but said the score had some “strong” numbers and the evening possessed a “certain hidden charm.” But Tune hadn’t yet developed his character, and so nuances were lacking in his performance; as a result, he was always “cheerful,” and when he and Libby separated he showed “little sense of loss,” and thus the break provided no “emotional wallop.” And the character of Libby was “a self-serving manipulator” in desperate need of “softening.” Jones also noted the book never delved into why Charley has always avoided women, and when he and Libby actually spend a night together it seemed “silly” that Charley celebrates the moment in a “Memory Ballet” with the chorus boys (the number isn’t listed in later tryout programs, but may have been restaged and re-titled as “Charley’s Dream”). During the course of the tryout, at least five numbers (“Blow Us a Kiss,” “What to Do with ’Er,” “Plain Jane,” “Waiting for Ann,” and “Memory Ballet”) were dropped and Robert Nichols was succeeded by Ron Kidd. The musical had a brief reprieve of sorts, which happily resulted in a commercial recording. As Busker Alley, the work was staged as a benefit for the York Theatre Company on November 13, 2006, at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, and on the following day the cast assembled for the recording, which was released by Jay Records (CD # CDJAY-1400). The performers included Jim Dale (Charley), Jessica Grove (Libby), George S. Irving, Bob Fitch, and, in a cameo role, Glenn Close. The recording includes eighteen songs heard during the final tryout stop in Tampa (“When the Moonlight’s Bright in Brighton,” “Busker Alley,” “Never Trust a Lady,” “Hula Love Song,” “When Do I Get Mine?,” “Strays,” “He Has a Way,” “She Has a Way,” “Mates,” “Crazy Happy Tears,” “Ordinary Couples,” “Baby Me,” “I’m on the Inside,” “Tin Whistle Tune,” “All Around the Town,” “The World of Beautiful Girls,” “A Million Miles from You,” and “Charley the Busker”); two songs that were dropped earlier during the tryout (“Blow Us a Kiss” and “What to Do with ’Er?”); and four songs that may not have been performed during the course of the tryout (“How Long Have I Loved Libby?,” “Where the ’Ell Is ’Ome?,” “Where Are the Faces?,” and “Paddle Your Own Canoe”).

1995–1996 Season

BUTTONS ON BROADWAY “Celebrating His 60th Anniversary

in

Show Business”

Theatre: Ambassador Theatre Opening Date: June 8, 1995; Closing Date: July 16, 1995 Performances: 33 Producer: Don Gregory; Scenery: Nancy Thun; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Bryan Louiselle Cast: Red Buttons The revue was presented in two acts. Comedian Red Buttons (1919–2006) began his career on the Borscht Belt circuit, and after his stint in the Catskills joined Minsky’s burlesque. He then graduated to stage, television, and film work, and the highlight of his career was his appearance in Joshua Logan’s 1957 film Sayonara, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In the late 1940s, he appeared in two Broadway musicals, Barefoot Boy with Cheek (1947; in which he played the role of Shyster Fiscal) and Hold It! (1948). His current one-man show was a career retrospective of sorts with familiar jokes, impersonations, and songs. He said he’d been born in a log cabin on the Lower East Side, and reminisced about the old days and the people he’d known, including the time Walter Winchell went to see Bert Lahr in Waiting for Godot under the impression it was a musical. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Buttons brought “expert timing” to his jokes and had a “style as smooth as synthetic silk.” Buttons paid homage to such still-remembered entertainers as Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson as well as the forgotten Myron Cohen and B. S. Pully, and noted that he was sometimes confused with Red Skelton. He sang a few songs, including “Sam, You Made the Pants Too Long” (lyric and music by Fred Whitehouse, Milton Berle, Sam M. Lewis, and Victor Young). Among the other songs heard during the evening were the title song from Sayonara (lyric and music by Irving Berlin), “My Mammy” (lyric by Joe Young and Sam M. Lewis, music by Walter Donaldson), “My Yiddishe Mama” (lyric by Jack Yellen, music by Jack Yellen and Lew Pollack), and “My Mother’s Eyes” (1929 film Lucky Boy; lyric by L. Wolfe Gilbert, music by Abel Baer). (Brantley noted the evening evoked an era “when good Jewish boys venerated their Yiddishe mamas without apologetic irony.”) Buttons had appeared on the same Ambassador stage five decades earlier in the burlesque revue Wine Women and Song, and so with the current production he was in a sense coming full circle. That revue opened on September 28, 1942, and played for approximately one hundred fifty performances (it was performed sixteen times weekly). Buttons wasn’t in the revue on opening night, and joined the cast sometime during the run (he probably succeeded Pinky Lee).

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CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD Theatre: Plymouth Theatre Opening Date: June 15, 1995; Closing Date: July 16, 1995 Performances: 37 Book: Graciela Daniele and Jim Lewis Lyrics: Bob Telson; additional lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa Music: Bob Telson; additional music by Michael John LaChiusa Based on the 1981 novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Direction and Choreography: Graciela Daniele (Willie Rosario, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Lincoln Center Theatre (Andre Bishop and Bernard Gersten, Directors) by arrangement with INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center; Scenery: Christopher Barreca; Costumes: Toni-Leslie James; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Beverly Emmons; Musical Direction: Steve Sandberg Cast: George de la Pena (Santiago Nasar), Julio Monge (Cristo), Yolande Bavan (Placida), Myra Lucretia Taylor (Victoria), Monica McSwain (Divina), Saundra Santiago (Angela Vicario), Ivonne Coll (Pura Vicario), Luiz Perez (Pablo Vicario), Gregory Mitchell (Pedro Vicario), Alexandre Proia (Bayardo San Roman), Tonya Pinkins (Clotilde), Lisa Leguillou (Flora), Lazaro Perez (Faustino), Norberto Kerner (Xius), Nelson Roberto Landrieu (Colonel Aponte), Jaime Tirelli (Father Amador), Rene M. Ceballos (Margot), Denise Faye (Maria) The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place “in an isolated Latin American town in the past and present.”

Musical Numbers Note: Except for a reference to the song “Lullabye” (with Spanish lyric by Isabel De Sebastian), the program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. Based on Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 1981 novel of the same name, Chronicle of a Death Foretold depicted the events leading up to the “foretold” death of Santiago Nasar (George de la Pena), who rightly or wrongly is accused by Angela (Saundra Santiago) of deflowering her. It seems Angela has married the rich and handsome Bayardo (Alexandre Proia) who on their wedding night discovers his bride is not a virgin and promptly ships her back to her family. Because of the scandal, Angela’s disgraced family must avenge her honor, and when she names Santiago as her lover the chain of events are unstoppable: the family’s code of honor demands that Angela’s twin brothers kill the doomed Santiago. The mostly danced story weaved back and forth in time, and unveiled the inevitable events leading up to Santiago’s murder. The story also touched upon the moral ambiguity of the townspeople, many of whom suspect that Santiago is probably innocent. They all know that Santiago’s murder will take place but not one of them will take a stand and try to prevent it. Jeremy Gerard in Variety said that whatever the one-act, eighty-minute evening was about, “it’s not about plot,” and the work struck him as “a hash of elements that don’t quite come together and sometimes look vaguely ridiculous.” Frank Scheck in the Christian Science Monitor found the evening “heavyhanded” and “boring,” and noted the work had “the air of a project that was begun more out of good intentions than because anyone was convinced it would work.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice said the “misguided” musical offered songs (some by Bob Telson, and others by Michael John LaChiusa) that seemed like “afterthoughts” and choreography that was “mostly second-drawer or lower.” And Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal said the “grave misfire” was a “clumsy, kitschy spectacle” that offered every “Latino musical cliché imaginable” in “an orgy of pseudo-Hispanicism, half Carmen and half Carmen Miranda.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post found the musical “sadly drab,” and said Daniele was “not an unduly talented choreographer.” She was “rather like a tone-deaf person trying to write music,” and her dances were “unoriginal and, worse, inexpressive,” and he recalled that her earlier experiments with dance-drama, such as Tango Apasionado (1987) and Dangerous Games (1989), also lacked “choreographic creativity.” (The former opened Off-Off-Broadway for fifty-six performances, and the latter, which opened on Broadway for four performances, consisted of two one-act musicals, Tango and Orfeo, of which the first was a new version of Tango Apasionado.)

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Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the work was “strongest visually and choreographically,” and Daniele’s contributions were “elegant and sensuous.” However, he noted that despite its being “very artful” and “all very arty,” he was never engaged emotionally. Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the evening was “extremely admirable claptrap,” but praised Daniele’s “spirited” dances. Vincent Canby in the New York Times found the musical “frequently stunning” and said the dances “freely and enthusiastically” evoked flamenco, modern, Caribbean, and Russian folk movements. He noted that the songs weren’t listed in the program (an “affectation” perhaps inspired by Passion, which had been one of the Plymouth’s recent tenants), and so he could only guess the name of one song (which he thought was perhaps titled “Oh, Bayardo”), which brought “direction and depth” to the production. As the unlucky Santiago, George de la Pena walked off with the show’s best reviews (as he had with The Red Shoes). Feingold found him “charmingly breezy”; Lyons said he was “appealing”; Scheck said he proved “the charisma he exhibited” in The Red Shoes “was no fluke”; and Winer praised the “terrific” performer who was “the only good thing” in The Red Shoes. In his review, Gerard reported that some of Telson’s music for Chronicle had been heard in Telson’s 1993 CD Calling You (Warner Brothers Records).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Chronicle of a Death Foretold); Best Book (Graciela Daniele, Jim Lewis, and Michael John LaChiusa); Best Choreographer (Graciela Daniele)

COMPANY

“A Musical Comedy” Theatre: Criterion Center Stage Right Opening Date: October 5, 1995; Closing Date: December 3, 1995 Performances: 68 Book: George Furth Lyrics and Music: Stephen Sondheim Direction: Scott Ellis; Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director; Ellen Richard, General Manager); Choreography: Rob Marshall (Sarah Miles, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: Tony Walton; Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical Direction: David Loud Cast: Boyd Gaines (Robert), Kate Burton (Sarah), Robert Westenberg (Harry), Patricia Ben Peterson (Susan), Jonathan Dokuchitz (Peter), Diana Canova (Jenny), John Hillner (David), Veanne Cox (Amy), Danny Burstein (Paul), Debra Monk (Joanne), Timothy Landfield (Larry), La Chanze (Marta), Charlotte d’Amboise (Kathy), Jane Krakowski (April) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Company” (Boyd Gaines, Company); “The Little Things You Do Together” (Debra Monk, Company); “Sorry-Grateful” (Robert Westenberg, John Hillner, Timothy Landfield); “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” (Jane Krakowski, Charlotte d’Amboise, La Chanze); “Have I Got a Girl for You” (Robert Westenberg, Jonathan Dokuchitz, John Hillner, Danny Burstein, Timothy Landfield); “Someone Is Waiting” (Boyd Gaines); “Another Hundred People” (La Chanze); “Getting Married Today” (Veanne Cox, Danny Burstein, Patricia Ben Peterson, Company); “Marry Me a Little” (Boyd Gaines) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Side by Side by Side” and “What Would We Do without You” (Boyd Gaines, Company); “Poor Baby” (Kate Burton, Patricia Ben Peterson, Diana Canova, Veanne Cox, Debra Monk); “Tick Tock” (Charlotte d’Amboise); “Barcelona” (Boyd Gaines, Jane Krakowski); “The Ladies Who Lunch” (Debra Monk); “Being Alive” (Boyd Gaines); Finale (Company)

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Roundabout Theatre Company’s limited-engagement production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company marked the 1970 musical’s first major New York revival, and the production included “Marry Me a Little,” which had been dropped from the show during its original pre-Broadway tryout. Company examined contemporary relationships in Manhattan, in this case from the perspective of bachelor Robert (otherwise known as Bobby, and played by Boyd Gaines for the revival), his five married-couple friends Sarah and Harry (Kate Burton and Robert Westenberg), Susan and Peter (Patricia Ben Peterson and Jonathan Dokuchitz), Jenny and David (Diana Canova and John Hillner), Amy and Paul (Veanne Cox and Danny Burstein), and Joanne and Larry (Debra Monk and Timothy Landfield), and his three casual girlfriends Marta, Kathy, and April (La Chanze, Charlotte d’Amboise, and Jane Krakowski). The sour and cynical view of commitment (and the lack of it) struck a raw nerve for many, who were also startled by the musical’s nonlinear plot, for which librettist George Furth provided staccato, revue-like glimpses into Bobby’s various relationships. The work was one of the most successful concept musicals, a genre in which plot and character are subjugated to the mood, atmosphere, and viewpoint of the production. A linear storyline with a defined beginning, middle, and end is less important than the overall pattern in which book, lyrics, music, direction, choreography, visual design, and performance style tell an essentially abstract story that avoids a traditional narrative and a clear-cut conclusion. Company depicts restless and discontented New Yorkers seemingly in search of companionship, but in some instances they either inadvertently or purposely reject it, and by the final curtain we don’t really know what Bobby will do or what will become of him. The concept musical presents situations and asks questions for which perhaps there aren’t easy resolutions and answers. Company begins with a surprise birthday party thrown for Bobby by his friends, and at the end of the show they throw another one for him. But he skips the final party, which might have been a surreal extension of the earlier one. Did all the action in between reflect his musings about his relationships? Is the entire show a flashback where he ruminates about his empty life? And what about that strange scene when he visits one couple and witnesses a contentious moment between them? Oddly enough, when he leaves them and they’re alone, they embrace. Was Bobby projecting tension that wasn’t really there? As one character notes toward the end of the show, “You see what you look for, you know.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety found the revival “exhilarating” and said a transfer to a larger Broadway theatre was surely “inevitable,” but of course that never happened. He decided that Scott Ellis’s direction was his “best,” but complained that Rob Marshall’s choreography “more closely resembles calisthenics than dance” and he got “really tired” of watching the performers “thrusting their arms heavenward.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News noted that the revival looked like “it was done by people who had never been” to New York, but the score was still “fresh and exciting”; and Michael Feingold in the Village Voice praised the “brilliantly abrasive and caustic” score but complained that the book gave each couple “a one-joke reality.” John Simon in New York felt most of the cast was a “letdown” (only Veanne Cox was “spellbinding”) and that the direction, choreography, and décor were lacking. But he still recommended the musical because it had “unfaded originality, intelligence, and wit in word and music.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said he’d “rather have the company of Company than dubiously associate with most of the other musicals currently on Broadway” but noted the show left “a rather nasty taste in the mind.” He decided the musical was “more entertaining on a turntable, away from Furth’s twittering dialogue.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek said Company was “still the quintessential” Sondheim show and the composer and lyricist shaped “golden scalpels out of sharp words and scintillating music”; Linda Winer in New York Newsday liked the “smart and witty masterwork”; and Vincent Canby in the New York Times said Sondheim’s “vintage” score was “a superbly smart, cool commentary” on the alienated New Yorkers depicted in the story, but he felt Bobby was an “impossible” role, a “cipher” and a “plot function” at the show’s “center” and one of the musical’s “least vivid, least compelling figures.” John Lahr in the New Yorker said Company was “a watershed event” in the history of musical theatre, and although the ending was “unsatisfactory” (because it seemed to say Bobby has to cut himself off from his friends in order to find love and emotional commitment) the show was still “a triumph, and the hell with it.” Most of the critics discussed Boyd Gaines’s vocal problems, and Winer reported he had “viral laryngitis” and wondered if his “frayed throat [could] possibly heal while he performs eight times a week.” Gerard noted that the singer needed time “to fully recover his voice”; Lahr said he “strains in the higher registers” and “goes flat in the big ballads”; and Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal said Gaines was “still suffering” from vocal problems but nonetheless brought “considerable charm” to his role. But Kissel said Gaines’s

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“much reported vocal problems were nowhere evident,” and noted that while he sang “beautifully” his Bobby offered “only chorus-boy charm.” Barnes said Gaines “seemed splendid” and “far, far better than Dean Jones back in 1970.” Veanne Cox walked away with the best reviews (Margo Jefferson in the New York Times suggested that her readers “most particularly” watch the performer “hurtle” through “Getting Married Today” as she undergoes a “wedding-day panic attack” and wears “her veil and gown like a white shroud”). And while Lyons said Debra Monk’s “The Ladies Who Lunch” was laced with “sadness and generosity” and Gerard reported hers was a “bruising, rafter-raising” interpretation, Simon felt she was “cruelly miscast.” La Chanze sang “Another Hundred People,” and although Canby said she gave a “powerhouse presentation,” Winer said the “major talent” sang the number “with a huge, fixed smile, as if she’s singing ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’ to the rear balcony.” Lahr said her rendition was “all teeth and smiles but no texture,” wondered why she was smiling, and decided it must be “a secret between her and the director” that was “lost on the audience.” The musical first opened on April 26, 1970, at the Alvin (now Neil Simon) Theatre for 705 performances and won six Tony Awards (for Best Musical, Best Director of a Musical, Best Book, Best Lyrics, Best Score, and Best Scenic Designer) and was chosen as the season’s Best Musical by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. The work was first revived Off-Broadway by the York Theatre Company on October 23, 1987, for twenty performances (for this version, “Tick Tock” was titled “Love Dance”), and then at the Harold Clurman Theatre on November 5, 1991, for fourteen showings. After the current production, the work was revived on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on November 29, 2006, for 246 performances and utilized the unfortunate gimmick of ditching the traditional orchestra and having the cast members play musical instruments. The musical was also presented in concert at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall by the New York Philharmonic on April 7, 2011, for four performances with a cast that included Neil Patrick Harris (Bobby), Patti LuPone (Joanne), and Craig Bierko (Peter). The London production opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre on January 18, 1972, for 344 performances with many of the original Broadway cast members, including Larry Kert (who as Bobby had replaced Dean Jones shortly after the opening of the New York production), Elaine Stritch, Beth Howland, Terri Ralston, and Steve Elmore. The original 1970 Broadway cast recording was released by Columbia Records (LP # OS-3550), and the most recent CD edition was issued by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy (# SK-65283) and includes a bonus track of “Being Alive” sung by Larry Kert. The so-called London cast album (CBS Records LP # 70108 and later issued by Sony West End Records CD # SMK-53446) is actually the Broadway cast album for which newly recorded vocal tracks by Kert were substituted for those of Dean Jones. The demo recording of the score includes “Happily Ever After” (which was dropped during the show’s pre-Broadway tryout) and both a regular and a “rock” version of the title song. Columbia released a private promotional recording of the musical (LP # AS-6/XLP-153168) that includes interviews by Lee Jordan with Sondheim, director Harold Prince, and cast members Dean Jones, Elaine Stritch, and Barbara Barrie; the recording also includes selections from the original cast album (the title song as well as “Someone Is Waiting,” “Side by Side by Side,” “Sorry-Grateful,” “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” and “Another Hundred People”). The current revival was recorded by Broadway Angel (CD # 7243-5-55608-2-7) and the 2006 revival by Nonesuch/PS Classics (CD # 108876-2). A 1996 London production was recorded by First Night Records (CD # CASTCD-57); a 2001 German cast recording (unnamed and unnumbered CD) includes eight selections from the musical; and a 2001 Brazilian cast album was issued on CD (# VSCD-0001). Except for the German album, all these recordings include the interpolated “Marry Me a Little.” Company . . . in Jazz (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5673) by the Trotter Trio includes nine songs from the musical. The cut song “Happily Ever After” was included in SONDHEIM: A Musical Tribute where it was sung by Larry Kert (the evening was recorded on a two-LP set by Warner Brothers Records # 2WS-2705 and was later released on a two-CD set by RCA Victor Records # 60515-2-RC), and the unused “Multitudes of Amys” is included in the collection Unsung Sondheim (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5433). The 1981 OffBroadway song-cycle Marry Me a Little (which consisted of mostly obscure Sondheim songs) included “Marry Me a Little” and “Happily Ever After” and was recorded by RCA Victor Records (LP # ABL1-4159; later issued on CD # 7142-2-RG). The recording session for the 1970 cast album was the subject of D A Pennebaker’s documentary film Company, which was issued on DVD by DocuRama (# NVG-9457); the 2006 Broadway revival was shown on public television on February 20, 2008, and was released on DVD by Image Entertainment (# ID448OEKDVD);

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and the 2011 concert was also shown on public television and was also released on DVD by Image Entertainment. The script was published in hardback by Random House in 1970, and was also included in the 1973 hardback collection Ten Great Musicals of the American Theatre, edited by Stanley Green (Chilton Book Company) (although the collection isn’t notated as volume one, there was a second volume in the series). In 1996, Theatre Communications Group published both paperback and hardback editions of the script, which included various additions and revisions for various productions, including the interpolation of “Marry Me a Little”; at least one politically corrected lyric (for “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” “gay” was substituted for “fag”); and in one revised scene Peter makes a pass at Bobby (which the latter chooses to interpret as a joke). The lyrics for both the used and unused songs are included in Sondheim’s hardback collection Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes. George Furth’s book was originally written as an evening of short one-act, non-musical playlets titled Threes, in which Kim Stanley was to star and Anthony Perkins to direct. The project never materialized, and eventually Furth’s script evolved into the book for Company. Furth later reworked one of the unused playlets into his 1971 comedy-drama Twigs (which consisted of four short plays, Emily, Celia, Dorothy, and Ma, and for which Sondheim contributed the song “Hollywood and Vine”).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival (Company); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Veanne Cox)

PATTI LUPONE ON BROADWAY Theatre: Walter Kerr Theatre Opening Date: October 12, 1995; Closing Date: November 25, 1995 Performances: 46 Written Text: Jeffrey Richman Direction: Scott Wittman; Producer: Jujamcyn Theatres; Costumes: Furs by Dennis Basso; Lighting: John Hastings; Musical Direction: Dick Gallagher Cast: Patti LuPone; The Mermen: Byron Motley, Josef Powell, Gene Van Buren, and John West; Musicians: Dick Gallagher (Conductor), Andrew Lippa (Synthesizer), Rodney Jones (Guitar), Steve Bartosik (Drums), Bill Ellison (Bass), Mark Sherman (Percussion), and Tom Christensen (Woodwinds) The concert was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t list musical numbers. The following alphabetical list of songs is taken from newspaper reviews and various sources. All were performed by Patti LuPone, who in some instances was backed up by a singing quartet, The Mermen. “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens” (lyric and music by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer); “Always” (independent song; lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “Anything Goes” (Anything Goes, 1934; lyric and music by Cole Porter); “As If We Never Said Goodbye” (Sunset Boulevard, 1993 [London], 1994 [New York]; lyric by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber); “As Long as He Needs Me” (Oliver!, 1960 [London], 1963 [New York]; lyric and music by Lionel Bart); “Being Alive” (Company, 1970; lyric and music by Stephen Sondheim); “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” (Pal Joey, 1940; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers); “Calling You” (lyric and music by Bob Telson); “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” (Evita, 1978 [London], 1979 [New York]; lyric by Tim Rice, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber); “Get Here” (lyric and music by Brenda Russell); “Heaven” (lyric and music by Julie Gold);“I Dreamed a Dream” (Les Miserables, 1985 [London], 1987 [New York]; lyric by Herbert Kretzmer, music by ClaudeMichel Schonberg); “I Get a Kick Out of You” (Anything Goes, 1934; lyric and music by Cole Porter);

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“I’m a Stranger Here Myself” (One Touch of Venus, 1943; lyric by Ogden Nash, music by Kurt Weill); “It Never Was You” (Knickerbocker Holiday, 1938; lyric by Maxwell Anderson, music by Kurt Weill); “Lonely Heart” (As Thousands Cheer, 1933; lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “Looking for Love on Broadway” (lyric and music by James Taylor); “Meadowlark” (The Baker’s Wife, 1976 [closed prior to Broadway]; lyric and music by Stephen Schwartz); “Moonshine Lullaby” (Annie Get Your Gun, 1946; lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “My Ship” (Lady in the Dark, 1941; lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by Kurt Weill); “Sleepy Man” (The Robber Bridegroom, New York [1975 and 1976]; lyric by Alfred Uhry, music by Robert Waldman); “Surabaya Johnny” (Happy End, 1929; original German lyric by Bertolt Brecht, music by Kurt Weill) Patti LuPone’s limited-engagement concert was her first Broadway appearance since the previous year’s New York opening of Sunset Boulevard. She had created the role of Norma Desmond in 1993 for the world premiere in London, and her contract stipulated she would appear in the subsequent Broadway version. But instead the show’s creators gave the role to Glenn Close, and so LuPone was completely shut out of the U.S. production. She took the matter to court, and although her settlement was reportedly quite generous, the experience must have been painful and humiliating. It was courageous of her to face a Broadway audience head-on in a solo performance. Stephen Holden in the New York Times reported that when LuPone sang “As If We Never Said Goodbye” (from Sunset Boulevard), she was “a proud queen who had been stripped of her crown, returning from exile, her head held high.” He noted that her voice was a “quirky” one that didn’t fit “the conventional models of a Broadway musical performer,” and he complained that she indulged in “tasteless but crowd-pleasing gestures—flinging up of the arms, an exaggerated tossing back of the head.” But these gestures seem de rigueur among the era’s Broadway divas (at least LuPone didn’t seem to indulge in the most annoying of all diva gestures, the self-hug). Holden said LuPone conveyed a “touching bravery” and was truly a “queen in exile waiting for another crown” and “another role of a lifetime.” And her career continued, including an extraordinary performance as Maria Callas when she succeeded Zoe Caldwell in Terrence McNally’s 1995 drama Master Class; two Broadway premieres of dramas by David Mamet, The Old Neighborhood (1997) and The Anarchist (2012); another one-woman show, Matters of the Heart (2000); a popular 2001 revival of the farce Noises Off; the well-received and controversial 2005 revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street; and the 2008 revival of Gypsy, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical; the 2010 musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown; the 2011 concert An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin; Douglas Carter Beane’s 2015 play Shows for Days; and as of this writing, the 2016 Chicago production of the new musical War Paint. Many of the songs heard in the current program are included in LuPone’s 1993 two-CD recording Patti LuPone Live (RCA Masterworks Broadway # 090-2661-7972).

HELLO, DOLLY! Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Opening Date: October 19, 1995; Closing Date: January 28, 1996 Performances: 118 Book: Michael Stewart Lyrics and Music: Jerry Herman Based on the 1955 play The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder, which was a revised version of his 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers (which in turn was based on the 1842 Austrian play Einen jux will er sich machen by Johann Nestroy, which had been based on the 1835 British play A Day Well Spent by John Oxenford). Direction: “Directed and Staged by” Lee Roy Reams (Jerry Herman, Production Supervisor); Choreography: Apparently Lee Roy Reams re-created the original choreography by Gower Champion (Bill Bateman, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Manny Kladitis, Magic Promotions and Theatricals, PACE Theatrical Group, Inc., and Jon B. Platt; Scenery: Oliver Smith (Rosaria Sinisi, Scenic Supervision); Costumes: Jonathan Bixby; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Jack Everly Cast: Carol Channing (Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi), Monica M. Wemitt (Ernestina), James Darrah (Ambrose Kemper), Sharon Moore and Michele Tibbitts (Horse), Jay Garner (Horace Vandergelder), Christine DeVito

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(Ermengarde), Michael DeVries (Cornelius Hackl), Cory English (Barnaby Tucker), Lori Ann Mahl (Minnie Fay), Florence Lacey (Irene Molloy), Elizabeth Green (Mrs. Rose), Steve Pudenz (Rudolph), Julian Brightman (Stanley), Bill Bateman (Judge), Halden Michaels (Court Clerk); Townspeople, Waiters, Others: John Bantay, Desta Barbieri, Bill Bateman, Kimberly Bellmann, Bruce Blanchard, Stephen Bourneuf, Julian Brightman, Holly Cruikshank, Simone Gee, Jason Gillman, Milica Govich, Elizabeth Green, Donald Ives, Dan LoBuono, Jim Madden, Halden Michaels, Sharon Moore, Michael Quinn, Robert Randle, Mitch Rosengarten, Mary Setrakian, Clarence M. Sheridan, Randy Slovacek, Roger Preston Smith, Ashley Stover, Michele Tibbitts The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City and in Yonkers during the 1890s.

Musical Numbers Act One: “I Put My Hand In” (Carol Channing, Company); “It Takes a Woman” (Jay Garner, The Instant Glee Club); “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” (Michael DeVries, Cory English, Carol Channing, James Darrah, Christine DeVito); “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” (reprise) (The People of Yonkers); “Ribbons Down My Back” (Florence Lacey); “Motherhood” (Carol Channing, Jay Garner, Florence Lacey, Lori Ann Mahl, Michael DeVries, Cory English); “Dancing” (Carol Channing, Michael DeVries, Cory English, Lori Ann Mahl, Florence Lacey, Dancers);”Before the Parade Passes By” (Carol Channing, Jay Garner, Company) Act Two: “Elegance” (Florence Lacey, Michael DeVries, Lori Ann Mahl, Cory English); “The Waiters’ Gallop” (Steve Pudenz, Waiters); “Hello, Dolly!” (Carol Channing, Steve Pudenz, Waiters, Cooks); “The Polka Contest” (James Darrah, Christine DeVito, Florence Lacey, Michael DeVries, Lori Ann Mahl, Cory English, Contestants); “It Only Takes a Moment” (Michael DeVries, Florence Lacey, Prisoners, Policemen); “So Long, Dearie” (Carol Channing); “Hello, Dolly!” (reprise) (Carol Channing, Jay Garner); Finale (Company) Jerry Herman’s 1964 musical Hello, Dolly! was here seen in its third (and as of this writing most recent) Broadway revival. The production had been touring, and the current run was a limited New York engagement before the show took off on an international tour to Australia, Japan, and other countries. The farcical story centers on the meddling, take-no-prisoners Dolly Gallagher Levi (Carol Channing) and her tunnel-vision determination to become the wife of Horace Vandergelder, the grumpiest—and richest— man in Yonkers. She achieves her goal, but not before she becomes merrily involved in a number of comic misunderstandings and splashy musical numbers. Jeremy Gerard in Variety said he had heretofore “avoided” the original Broadway production, its various revivals, and the film version. He noted that the current offering looked as if it had been touring since 1835 (the year the musical’s source play had first premiered), and he found the musical’s direction and choreography “mechanical” and “pedestrian,” the décor “skimpy,” and the costumes “hideous” with a “mishmash of styles and colors.” But Channing was “adorable in an extraterrestrial sort of way.” Although Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal found the production “cheesy,” the plot “invisible,” and the score “mediocre,” the “eternal blonde” did “not disappoint.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek said Channing looked “like a human parfait in her red, green and orange outfits” and was “one of those pure theatre animals without whom there would be no theatre at all.” And Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News reported that Channing received three standing ovations, for her first-act entrance, the title song, and the curtain calls, and her “historic presence” allowed audiences to “express their gratitude for a life almost maniacally devoted to the stage.” John Simon in New York said Channing was a “phenomenon,” “a monument, a landmark, an institution,” and she was “as there as Mount Everest.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice found her a “real star, vibrant and funny,” and Linda Winer in New York Newsday praised the “Broadway legend” and noted “the theatre doesn’t have creatures like this anymore, stars with oversized personalities who like to tour, who embody the old grease-paint mythologies.” Vincent Canby in the New York Times said Channing was “as serene and almost disembodied as a Cheshire Cat with a sense of mission” and remained “utterly, almost naively feminine even as she’s rearranging the universe.” A few of the critics noted that Channing gave a curtain speech, and those curtain speeches were indeed one of her beloved trademarks. She probably had a half-dozen or so at hand, and she tailored them for each production and the particular theatre where it was playing. These were like a short but special third act that

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lasted just two or three minutes but sent audiences home on wings. She acknowledged her audiences and made the theatre a true gathering place where the performer, the audience, and even the theatre itself became one, and she gave the illusion that this particular performance was the most special of her career. And here’s one example of her curtain-call chats: after a tryout performance of Lorelei at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., she thanked the audience and said she always enjoyed playing the National. She then ticked off the times she’d appeared at the theatre (in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Wonderful Town, The Vamp, Show Girl, the original tryout of Hello, Dolly!, and Four on a Garden), and as she mentioned the names of the shows, various members of the audience clapped. She suddenly froze, seemed dazed and shocked, pointed toward an audience member, and gasped something to the effect of “Why, I remember you at The Vamp! But now you’re sitting in the sixth row, and back then you were in the twelfth row!” The original production of Hello, Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre on January 16, 1964, for 2,844 performances with Channing in her Tony Award–winning role (the show won a total of ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical), and she was succeeded by Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Bibi Osterwald, Phyllis Diller, and Ethel Merman. Channing reprised her role for the original tour, and others who starred in national touring companies were Eve Arden and Dorothy Lamour; Mary Martin created the role for the 1965 London production. About midway through the Broadway run, producer David Merrick pulled a casting stunt that gave new life to the show when an all-black Hello, Dolly! with Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway opened in 1967, played for two years, and even enjoyed its own cast album. Prior to the current revival, the musical had been previously revived twice on Broadway, on November 6, 1975, at the Minskoff Theatre for 51 performances (Bailey and Billy Daniels) and on March 5, 1978, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre for 147 performances (Channing and Eddie Bracken) The charmless film version was released by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1969 in a bloated and uninspired production starring a miscast Barbra Streisand and featuring two new songs (“Leave Everything to Me” and “Love Is Only Love”). The script was published in hardback by DBS Publications in 1969 with a memorable misprint on both its dust jacket and title page that credits the musical’s source to “Thorton” Wilder. There are numerous recordings of Herman’s melodic, old-fashioned score, but the definitive one is the original Broadway cast album by RCA Victor Records (LP # LOC/LSO-1087, issued on CD by RCA # 82876-514321-2). Shortly after the original Broadway production opened, “Come and Be My Butterfly” was replaced with “The Polka Contest,” and early pressings of the cast album’s LP include a photo of David Burns and the chorus girls in a scene from the “Butterfly” number (the song is referenced on the album but wasn’t included on the recording). Besides the cast album of the Bailey production (released by RCA Victor Records on LP # LSO-1147), Merman recorded a 45 RPM single of two new songs (“World, Take Me Back” and “Love, Look in My Window”) she introduced when she assumed the role in 1970. There are also a number of foreign cast recordings (Brazil, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, and Mexico), and the cast album of the London production with Martin was released by RCA (LP # RD-7768). The current revival was recorded by Varese Sarabande Records (CD # VSD-5557). As of this writing, the musical is scheduled to be revived on Broadway during Spring 2017 with Bette Midler in the title role.

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Revival (Hello, Dolly!)

SWINGING ON A STAR “The Johnny Burke Musical”

Theatre: Music Box Theatre Opening Date: October 22, 1995; Closing Date: January 14, 1996 Performances: 97 Text: Michael Leeds

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Lyrics: Johnny Burke Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits. Direction: Michael Leeds; Producers: Richard Saeder, Mary Burke Kramer, Paul B. Berkowsky, and Angels of the Arts in association with Sally Sears, Corey Goldstein, Howard A. Tullman, and Herbert Goldsmith Productions, Inc. (David A. Rocker and Eleanor Gimon, Associate Producers); Choreography: Kathleen Marshall; Scenery: James Youmans (gowns for the Starlight Supper Club sequence by Oscar de la Renta); Video and Projections: Batwin + Robin Productions, Inc.; Costumes: Judy Dearing; Lighting: Richard Nelson; Musical Direction: Barry Levitt Cast: Michael McGrath, Terry Burrell, Lewis Cleale, Alvaleta Guess, Denise Faye, Kathy Fitzgerald, Eugene Fleming The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: Speakeasy—Chicago: Michael McGrath (Waiter), Terry Burrell (Mame), Lewis Cleale (Reginald), Alvaleta Guess (Cleo), Denise Faye (Jeannie), Kathy Fitzgerald (Flora), Eugene Fleming (Ben)—“You’re Not the Only Oyster in the Stew” (music by Harold Spina) (Alvaleta Guess, Denise Faye, Kathy Fitzgerald); “Chicago Style” (1953 film Road to Bali; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Eugene Fleming, Denise Faye, Kathy Fitzgerald, Michael McGrath); “Ain’t It a Shame about Mame” (1940 film Rhythm on the River; music by James Monaco) (Eugene Fleming, Terry Burrell); “What’s New” (music by Robert Haggart) (Denise Faye); and “Doctor Rhythm” (1938 film Doctor Rhythm; music by James Monaco) (choreographed by Kathleen Marshall and Eugene Fleming) (Alvaleta Guess, Eugene Fleming); Depression—The Bowery: Lewis Cleale (Homeless Man); Street People: Alvaleta Guess, Denise Faye, Eugene Fleming, and Terry Burrell; Michael McGrath (Polish Gentleman), Kathy Fitzgerald (Housewife); The Suitors: Lewis Cleale, Michael McGrath, and Eugene Fleming—“Pennies from Heaven” (1936 film Pennies from Heaven; music by Arthur Johnston) (Lewis Cleale); “When Stanislaus Got Married” (1944 film And the Angels Sing; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Michael McGrath, Alvaleta Guess, Denise Faye, Eugene Fleming, Terry Burrell); “His Rocking Horse Ran Away” (1944 film And the Angels Sing; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Kathy Fitzgerald); and “Annie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (lyric by Johnny Burke and Joe Young, music by Harold Spina) (Lewis Cleale, Michael McGrath, Eugene Fleming); Radio Show—New York City: The Burkettes: Eugene Fleming, Alvaleta Guess, and Terry Burrell; Lewis Cleale (Announcer), Michael McGrath (Buddy), Denise Faye (Betty), Kathy Fitzgerald (Vicky Voyay)—“Annie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (reprise) (Michael McGrath, Denise Faye, Lewis Cleale, Eugene Fleming, Alvaleta Guess, Terry Burrell); “Scatterbrain” (1940 film Scatterbrain; music by Kahn Keene, Carl Bean, and Frankie Masters) (Michael McGrath); “One, Two, Button Your Shoe” (1936 film Pennies from Heaven; music by Arthur Johnston) (Denise Faye, Michael McGrath); “Whoopsie Daisy Day” (music by Johnny Burke) (Lewis Cleale, Eugene Fleming, Alvaleta Guess, Terry Burrell); “What Does It Take to Make You Take to Me?” (music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Kathy Fitzgerald); “Irresistible” (music by Harold Spina) (Lewis Cleale, Kathy Fitzgerald, Eugene Fleming, Alvaleta Guess, Terry Burrell); and “An Apple for the Teacher” (1939 film The Star Maker; music by Arthur Johnston) (Company); USO Show—The Pacific Islands: Michael McGrath (Emcee), Eugene Fleming (Buzz Albright), Kathy Fitzgerald (Miss South Dakota), Denise Faye (Miss North Carolina), Terry Burrell (Miss Rheingold), Alvaleta Guess (Lena George), Lewis Cleale (Eddie)—“Thank Your Lucky Stars and Stripes” (1941 film Playmates; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Michael McGrath, Eugene Fleming); “Personality” (1946 film Road to Utopia; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Kathy Fitzgerald, Denise Faye, Terry Burrell); “There’s Always the Blues” (music by Joe Bushkin) (Alvaleta Guess); “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” (music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Lewis Cleale); “Swinging on a Star” (1944 film Going My Way; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Company); and “Thank Your Lucky Stars and Stripes” (reprise) (Company) Act Two: Ballroom—Hotel Roosevelt, Akron, Ohio: Lewis Cleale (Manager), Denise Faye (Coat Check Girl), Eugene Fleming (Waiter), Terry Burrell (Vocalist), Michael McGrath (Man), Kathy Fitzgerald (Date), Alvaleta Guess (The Woman Alone)—“Don’t Let That Moon Get Away” (1938 film Sing You Sinners; music by James Monaco) (Eugene Fleming); “All You Want to Do Is Dance” (1937 film Double or Nothing; music by Arthur Johnston) and “You Danced with Dynamite” (music by Jimmy Van Heu-

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sen) (Kathy Fitzgerald, Michael McGrath); “Imagination” (music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Terry Burrell, Eugene Fleming, Denise Faye); and “It Could Happen to You” (1944 film And the Angels Sing; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Alvaleta Guess); Road to—Paramount Studios, Hollywood: Lewis Cleale (Bing), Michael McGrath (Bob), Kathy Fitzgerald (Dorothy), Eugene Fleming (Sheik); Girls: Denise Faye and Terry Burrell; Alvaleta Guess (Southern Woman)—“Road to Morocco” (1942 film Road to Morocco; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Lewis Cleale, Michael McGrath); “Apalachicola” (1948 film Road to Rio; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Lewis Cleale, Michael McGrath, Kathy Fitzgerald); “You Don’t Have to Know the Language” (1948 film Road to Rio; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Lewis Cleale, Michael McGrath, Denise Faye, Terry Burrell); “Going My Way” (1944 film Going My Way; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Lewis Cleale); “Shadows on the Swanee” (lyric by Johnny Burke and Joe Young, music by Harold Spina) (Alvaleta Guess, Lewis Cleale, Michael McGrath, Kathy Fitzgerald); “Pakistan” (music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Eugene Fleming, Kathy Fitzgerald, Lewis Cleale, Michael McGrath); and “Road to Morocco” (reprise) (Lewis Cleale, Michael McGrath, Kathy Fitzgerald); Starlight Supper Club—Manhattan, The Present: The Lovers: Denise Faye and Lewis Cleale, Alvaleta Guess and Michael McGrath, Terry Burrell and Eugene Fleming, Kathy Fitzgerald—“But Beautiful” (1948 film Road to Rio; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Terry Burrell); “Like Someone in Love” (1945 film Belle of the Yukon; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Denise Faye); “Moonlight Becomes You” (1942 film Road to Morocco; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Lewis Cleale); “If Love Ain’t There (It Ain’t There)” (music by Johnny Burke) (Michael McGrath); “Sunday, Monday or Always” (1943 film Dixie; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Alvaleta Guess); “Misty” (music by Erroll Garner) (Eugene Fleming); “Here’s That Rainy Day” (Carnival in Flanders, 1953; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (Kathy Fitzgerald); “Pennies from Heaven” (reprise) (Company); “Swinging on a Star” (reprise) (Company) Swinging on a Star was a tribute revue to Johnny Burke, an occasional composer best remembered as a lyricist whose most frequent partner was composer Jimmy Van Heusen. The two contributed a number of memorable ballads and specialty songs for the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope series of Road movies, and their “Swinging on a Star” from the 1944 film Going My Way won the Academy Award for Best Song. Burke also wrote both lyrics and music for the 1961 Broadway musical Donnybrook!, and his overlooked score includes the gorgeous ballad “He Makes Me Feel I’m Lovely,” the wicked comedy song “Sad Was the Day,” and the rousing choral number “Sez I.” The score also offers the yearning “The Day the Snow Is Meltin’” (“is the coldest day of all”), so authentic an Irish air it might have been part of John McCormack’s repertoire. Unfortunately, none of the songs from Donnybrook! were included in Swinging on a Star. Traditional tribute revues (which in some ways were similar to old-fashioned television variety shows with a series of songs and dances) were still very much a part of the Broadway scene, but their heyday was pretty much over: Sophisticated Ladies (Duke Ellington, 1981; 767 performances) and Smokey Joe’s Café (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, 1995; 2,036 performances) were hits, but most had short runs and lost money, including Perfectly Frank (Loesser, 1980; 17 performances), Leader of the Pack (Ellie Greenwich, 1985; 120 performances), Jerry’s Girls (Herman, 1985; 139 performances), Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood (1986; 13 performances); Oh, Coward! (Noel Coward, 1986 Broadway revival; 56 performances), Stardust (Mitchell Parish, 1987; 118 performances), Dream (Johnny Mercer, 1997; 109 performances), An Evening with Jerry Herman (1998; 28 performances), The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm (George and Ira, 1999; seventeen performances), Putting It Together (Stephen Sondheim, 1999; 101 performances), A Class Act (Ed Kleban, 2001; 105 performances), and George Gershwin Alone (2001; 96 performances). But a new kind of tribute revue was beginning to take hold, and it fell into three general categories, the catalog, biographical, and singer/singing-group musicals. The catalog musical drew upon songs from a composer’s songbook and grafted them into a new plot, and three of these had scores by the Gershwins, My One and Only (1983; 767 performances), Crazy for You (1992; 1,622 performances), and Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012; 478 performances), and no doubt the most popular in the genre is Mamma Mia! (2001; 5,758 performances), which incorporated popular songs by ABBA to tell its story. The biographical composer-musical includes Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (1990; 225 performances) and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (2014; as of this writing, still running), and these specifically incorporate songs written by the composer and use them as plot or presentational songs. And such shows as Jersey Boys: The Story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (2005; as of this writing, still running) was an example of a musical that utilized songs popularized but not necessarily written by a singer or singing group.

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Swinging on a Star was top-heavy with too many songs, and it fell into the trap of earlier revues (such as Tintypes and Perfectly Frank, both 1980) and later ones (Dream), all of which were arbitrarily divided into virtually meaningless sequences with songs essentially assigned at random and that could easily have been placed in another sequence. For Star, there were seven sequences (such as a Chicago speakeasy, a scene in the Bowery, another at a USO), and the songs grafted into each weren’t particularly connected to them and could easily have been transposed to another. The evening’s brightest conceit was the Road sequence, which served as a mini-Road movie and incorporated the shticks that made the irreverent Road films so delightful (there were seven Road movies from 1940 to 1962). Perhaps the production should have been conceived as a short and intermission-less revue with an expanded Road spoof as the evening’s final sequence. (Incidentally, the 1984 Off-Off-Broadway musical The Road to Hollywood kidded the Road series, and its cast included Gary Herb, Michael Pace, and Bebe Neuwirth.) Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said Swinging on a Star would have been “better served with candlelight and the occasional tinkle of cocktail glasses” in a cabaret venue like Rainbow & Stars. Michael Feingold in the Village Voice noted that the songs got bogged down in extraneous business, such as a lady getting stood up in a nightclub or a radio starlet losing her false eyelash, but the Road sequence had “some fun to it.” And John Simon in New York said the revue was “the biggest bore on Broadway.” But Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the show gave him an “awfully good” feeling with its ingratiating cast, pleasant dances (however, a dream ballet was “tired”), and old songs given “an invigorating, present-tense vitality.” However, he noted the revue was “essentially the stuff of supper clubs,” and he felt the evening was about thirty minutes too long. Clive Barnes in the New York Post said “you’ll have a ball,” and thought the show “might just be a winner.” He praised the “splendid” cast, and noted that director Michael Leeds had done “a nifty job of packaging” the material. One of the revue’s co-producers was Mary Burke Kramer, Burke’s widow, and the program credited Dorothy Lamour as a “special advisor” for the Road sequence, which incorporated clips from various Road movies. During previews, the songs “Rhythm on the River” (1940 film Rhythm on the River; music by James Monaco) and “Ain’t Got a Dime to My Name” (1942 film The Road to Morocco; music by Jimmy Van Heusen), which had been part of the Road sequence, were dropped. The cast album was recorded by After 9 Records (CD # 21004) and the CD booklet includes the lyrics of many songs heard in the production. The script was published in paperback by Dramatists Play Service in 1996. The revue had first been produced at the George Street Playhouse (New Brunswick, New Jersey) and the Goodspeed Opera House (East Haddam, Connecticut).

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Musical (Swinging on a Star)

VICTOR/VICTORIA Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: October 25, 1995; Closing Date: July 27, 1997 Performances: 734 Book: Blake Edwards Lyrics: Leslie Bricusse Music: Henry Mancini; additional music by Frank Wildhorn; dance and incidental music by David Krane Based on the 1982 film Victor/Victoria (direction and screenplay by Blake Edwards), which in turn had been based on the 1933 film Viktor und Viktoria, directed by Reinhold Schunzel (and which in 1936 was filmed in Great Britain by Victor Saville as First a Girl). Direction: Blake Edwards (Kirsten Sanderson, Assistant Director); Producers: Blake Edwards, Tony Adams, John Scher, Endemol Theatre Productions, Inc., and Polygram Broadway Ventures, Inc. (Edwards-Adams Theatrical, Inc., and Metropolitan Theatrical Entertainment, Inc., Executive Producers; Robin De Levita

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and Jeff Rowland, Coproducers; Joop Van Den Ende, Tina Vanderheyden, TDI, and Ogden Entertainment); Choreography: Rob Marshall (Sarah Miles, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: Robin Wagner; Costumes: Willa Kim; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Ian Fraser Cast: Tony Roberts (Carroll Todd aka Toddy); Les Boys: Michael-Demby Cain, Angelo Fraboni, Darren Lee, Michael O’Donnell, Vince Pesce, Arte Phillips, and Rocker Verastique; Michael Cripe (Richard De Nardo), Adam Heller (Henri Labisse), Casey Nicholaw (Gregor, Juke), Jennifer Smith (Madame Roget, Chambermaid), Julie Andrews (Victoria Grant aka Victor), Christopher Innvar (Choreographer), Cynthia Sophiea (Miss Selmer), Richard B. Schull (Andre Cassell), Devin Richards (Jazz Singer); Jazz Hot Musicians: Michael Demby-Cain, Arte Phillips, and Rocker Verastique; Jazz Hot Ensemble: Roxane Barlow, Caitlin Carter, Pascale Faye, Angelo Fraboni, Amy Heggins, Darren Lee, Aixa M. Rosario Medina, Casey Nicholaw, Michael O’Donnell, Cynthia Onrubia, and Vince Pesce; Rachel York (Norma Cassidy), Michael Nouri (King Marchan), Gregory Jabara (Squash aka Mr. Bernstein); “Louis Says” Ensemble: Roxane Barlow, Michael-Demby Cain, Caitlin Carter, Pascale Faye, Angelo Fraboni, Amy Heggins, Darren Lee, Aixa M. Rosario-Medina, Michael O’Donnell, Cynthia Onrubia, Vince Pesce, Arte Phillips, Devin Richards, Jennifer Smith, Cynthia Sophiea, and Rocker Verastique; Apache Dancers: Angelo Fraboni, Darren Lee, Michael O’Donnell, Vince Pesce, Arte Phillips, and Rocker Verastique; Tara O’Brien (Street Singer); Norma’s Girls: Roxane Barlow, Michael-Demby Cain, Caitlin Carter, Pascale Faye, Angelo Fraboni, Amy Heggins, Darren Lee, Aixa M. Rosario Medina, and Cynthia Onrubia; Ken Land (Sal Andretti), Mark Lotito (Clam), Hillel Gitter (Himself); Ensemble: Roxane Barlow, Michael-Demby Cain, Caitlin Carter, Pascale Faye, Angelo Fraboni, Amy Heggins, Darren Lee, Aixa M. Rosario Medina, Tara O’Brien, Michael O’Donnell, Cynthia Unrubia, Vince Pesce, Arte Phillips, Devin Richards, Jennifer Smith, and Rocker Verastique The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Paris during the 1930s.

Musical Numbers Note: (*) denotes music by Frank Wildhorn; music for all other songs by Henry Mancini; all lyrics by Leslie Bricusse. Act One: “Paris by Night” (Tony Roberts, Les Boys); “If I Were a Man” (Julie Andrews); “Trust Me” (*) (Tony Roberts, Julie Andrews); “Le Jazz Hot” (Julie Andrews, Ensemble); “The Tango” (Julie Andrews, Rachel York); “Paris Makes Me Horny” (Rachel York); “Crazy World” (Julie Andrews) Act Two: “Louis Says” (*) (Julie Andrews, Ensemble); “King’s Dilemma” (Michael Nouri); “Apache” (Boys); “You and Me” (Tony Roberts, Julie Andrews); “Paris by Night” (reprise) (Tara O’Brien); “Almost a Love Song” (Michael Nouri, Julie Andrews); “Chicago, Illinois” (Rachel York, Girls); “Living in the Shadows” (*) (Julie Andrews); “Victor/Victoria” (Julie Andrews, Tony Roberts, Ensemble) Victor/Victoria was an Event because it brought Julie Andrews back to the Broadway stage after thirtyfive years. She had last appeared in Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1960 musical Camelot, and between Camelot and Victor/Victoria she had performed in just one New York musical, the 1993 Off-Broadway limited engagement of Putting It Together, a retrospective revue of Stephen Sondheim’s songs (which in 1999 was produced on Broadway with Carol Burnett). Julie Andrews is a bona fide musical theatre legend who belongs in an exclusive golden circle that includes Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, and Carol Channing, but the new musical wasn’t worthy of her talents. To be sure, there were some good things in Victor/Victoria, but she was the show’s diamond. The musical was based on her hit 1982 film of the same name, a comedy with music that included six songs with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and music by Henry Mancini. Like the movie, the musical was directed and written by Andrews’s husband Blake Edwards, and besides Andrews the film’s cast included Robert Preston (Toddy), James Garner (King), and Lesley Ann Warren (Norma). The $8.5 million stage adaptation had a solid supporting cast with Tony Roberts (Toddy), Michael Nouri (King), and Rachel York (Norma), and was one of the most lavish of the era with dazzling décor by Robin Wagner, colorful costumes by Willa Kim, and pleasant if underrated choreography by Rob Marshall. The book moved briskly along, and its highlight was a merry Marx Brothers–styled mix-up in which the leading cast

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members darted under beds and in and out of hotel doors in madcap confusion. But the score was a let-down and never remotely measured up to the rest of the show. Mancini’s music was less than inspired, and his songs were often frustrating because they seemed on the verge of blossoming into memorable melody but then turned on themselves and wilted into blandness. “Le Jazz Hot” promised to explode into the stratosphere with hot jazz-inflected vamps and struts, but it settled into perfunctory heard-it-all-before musical clichés, and the promising ballad “Crazy World” quickly turned pallid and dreary. But thanks to Andrews’s star power, the musical opened with a $15 million advance sale, and the show managed a run of almost two years. During her vacation, Andrews was spelled by Liza Minnelli, whose fourweek tenure included the new song “Who Can I Tell?” (which temporarily replaced “Crazy World”). And once Andrews left the production, she was succeeded by Raquel Welch. When the musical closed, it reportedly had returned only half its capitalization. The story dealt with down-and-out Victoria Grant (Andrews), who with the help of gay impresario Toddy (Roberts) becomes the toast of Paris as Victor, an entertainer whom everyone believes is a man impersonating a woman. So Victoria is a woman who impersonates a man named Victor who is a female impersonator, and if the sexual confusion got a bit heady, it became even more complicated when straight Chicago gangster King (Nouri) finds himself falling for Victor: for some reason he just can’t explain, King believes Victor is just like a real woman. Among the other characters are King’s girlfriend Norma (York), a bimbo taken to such phrases as “Out of my way, pheasant!,” and King’s seemingly straight bodyguard Squash (Gregory Jabara), who has a secret crush on his employer. Brad Leithauser in Time noted that the most popular play on Broadway was She Still Looks Terrific, a show “getting tremendous word-of-mouth in theatre lobbies all over town,” especially at the Martin Beck (where Carol Burnett cavorted through the farce Moon Over Buffalo), the Lunt-Fontanne (where Carol Channing held court in the current revival of Hello, Dolly!), and now at the Marquis (where Julie Andrews glowed with her “star quality”). Linda Winer in New York Newsday said Andrews was “absolutely her wonderful self.” Vincent Canby in the New York Times said Andrews looked “terrific” (that word again) and sang with a “sweet purity not heard on Broadway” since her days in Camelot. And Jack Kroll in Newsweek said “the fairest of Broadway ladies” has “the purest voice and spirit of our musical theatre.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice said Andrews was “as fresh and gleaming as if she were still 19 and The Boy Friend about to open.” But otherwise the musical was something of a “hopeless mess” and he suggested Andrews and Patti LuPone switch shows every few weeks (LuPone was currently appearing in her concert Patti LuPone on Broadway). Because LuPone wasn’t married to Blake Edwards, LuPone could “indulge in ass-kicking diva behavior that would liven up the somnolent script” of Victor/Victoria, and Andrews could “more securely” sing the first-act standards in LuPone’s concert and relate LuPone’s second-act anecdotes “just as convincingly.” Winer found Edwards’s direction “brightly paced and confident” and “sprinkled with sight gags,” and if the show was “second-rate” and a bit of an “imposter,” it had “enough of the right moves—and the real Julie Andrews—to fake a hit.” Kroll found Bricusse’s lyrics “pathetic” and felt that Mancini’s music lacked “power” and sounded like “warmed-over Jerry Herman.” And John Simon in New York suggested that Victor/Victoria “may be the best unmusical musical you are ever going to see” and then asked, “Is that enough?” Of “Louis Says,” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said he couldn’t recall a “worse musical number, in every respect possible”; Feingold said the evening reached its “nadir” with “Louis Says,” a “stale” song whose subject matter Cole Porter had spoofed forty years earlier in Silk Stockings (the production number “Josephine”); and Canby also used the word “nadir” to describe the song. (During the course of the musical’s run, the number was dropped.) A few critics also objected to a certain preachiness in the script. Simon mentioned that the evening’s “special pleading” seemed to say that within every “macho” man there is either a gay man or a man “susceptible to acting or seeming gay,” Feingold said the evening veered into “political correctness,” Jeremy Gerard in Variety noted that the musical’s “pansexual message” seemed “slightly warmed over,” and Leithauser said there was “something earnestly preachy and smug” in the show’s “pleas for tolerance.” All the lyrics for the musical’s film and stage versions were written by Bricusse. Of the six numbers in the 1982 film (all with music by Mancini), four (“Le Jazz Hot,” “You and Me,” “Chicago, Illinois,” and “Crazy World”) were retained for the stage production and two (“Gay Paree” and “The Shady Dame from Seville”) weren’t used. Mancini had written a number of songs for the stage adaptation, but had died some

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sixteen months before the Broadway premiere. At least six of his new songs were added for Broadway (“Paris by Night,” “If I Were a Man,” “Paris Makes Me Horny,” “King’s Dilemma,” “Almost a Love Song,” and the title number), and the dance numbers “The Tango” and “Apache” were probably composed by David Krane. To supplement the score, Frank Wildhorn composed the music for three songs (“Trust Me,” “Louis Says,” and “Living in the Shadows”). During the run, some programs indicated that one song in the production had both lyric and music by Bricusse, but the song itself wasn’t identified. During the pre-Broadway tryout, the songs “This Is Not Going to Change My Life” and “The Victoria Variations” (aka “I’ve No Idea Where I’m Going”) were cut. The original cast album was released by Phillips Records (CD # 446-919-2), and the Mexico City cast album includes highlights from the score. The soundtrack of the 1982 film was released by GNP Crescendo Records (CD # GNPD-8038), and the DVD of the film was released by the Warner Archive Collection. With the original leads, the stage musical was taped for Japanese television, and this version was released on DVD by Image Entertainment. (At least one source indicates the DVD and Blu-ray versions are from different tapings.) The production met with controversy when the Tony Award nominations were announced for the 1995– 1996 season. Except for one nomination (to Andrews for Best Leading Actress in a Musical), the production was completely shut out, but the Tony Award committee somehow found Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Swinging on a Star worthy of major nominations (Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Choreography nominations for the former and a Best Musical nomination for the latter). Andrews declined to accept her nomination, and the musical’s producers refused to participate in the Tony Award program and would not perform a number from the show for the telecast. In 1984, an earlier and different stage musical adaptation based on Victor/Victoria opened in Greece. Titled Biktop kai Biktopia, the production was recorded by CBS Records (LP # 25956) and includes twelve songs.

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Julie Andrews) (nomination declined)

FOOL MOON Theatre: Ambassador Theatre Opening Date: October 29, 1995; Closing Date: January 7, 1996 Performances: 80 Material: Bill Irwin and David Shiner Original Lyrics and Music: The Red Clay Ramblers Direction: Bill Irwin and David Shiner; Producers: Pachyderm Entertainment (A James B. Freydberg, Kenneth Feld, Jeffrey Ash, and Dori Berinstein Production) (Nancy Harrington, Producing Associate) (Daniel F. Kearns, Associate Producer); Scenery: Douglas Stein; Costumes: Bill Kellard; Lighting: Nancy Schertler Cast: Bill Irwin, David Shiner; The Red Clay Ramblers: Clay Buckner (Fiddle), Chris Frank (Piano, Accordion, Trombone, Ukulele), Jack Herrick (Bass, Trumpet, Mellophone, Banjolin, Tin Whistle), Mark Roberts (Banjo, Flute, Oboe, Tin Whistle, Keyboard), and Rob Ladd (Drums, Ukelele) The revue was presented in two acts. The current presentation of Fool Moon was in effect a return engagement of the popular 1993 production, and mimes Bill Irwin and David Shiner were back as stars, directors, and writers of the virtually wordless revue, which featured skits and mime sequences. The two performers were again backed by The Red Clay Ramblers, a five-man band who played incidental music throughout the evening. Vincent Canby in the New York Times said the show had “the spontaneity of street theatre combined with the discipline of dance,” and both performers were “equipped with his own collection of singular special effects.” Shiner specialized in interaction with the audience, and so he roamed about the theatre, climbed over patrons, and sometimes insisted they join him onstage in a sketch or two (including one in which he portrayed the director of a silent movie and four hapless audience members found themselves playing the film’s

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leading roles). Irwin was seemingly the calmer and less aggressive one, but he too became involved in complicated routines, such as when he portrayed both a friendly Harlequin and a sinister sorcerer, and later when he became enmeshed with what Canby described as a “demonically possessed stand-up microphone and its dangerous coil of extension cord.” Canby praised the “musically sophisticated” Red Clay Ramblers, and noted that whenever words were necessary the musicians provided them. For more information, see entries for the original 1993 production and for the later 1998 return engagement.

DANNY GANS ON BROADWAY/DANNY GANS THE MAN OF MANY VOICES ON BROADWAY Theatre: Neil Simon Theatre Opening Date: November 8, 1995; Closing Date: November 12, 1995 Performances: 6 Direction: Chip Lightman (Production Supervisor); Producer: The Nederlander Organization; Scenery: “Prop Design” by Julie Gans; Lighting: John Featherstone, Fred Irish, and Norm Schwab Cast: Danny Gans; The Band: Pat Caddick (Keyboards, Vocals), Raphael Erardy (Drums, Vocals), Tim Manfredi (Keyboards, Guitar, Vocals) The revue was presented in one act. Impressionist Danny Gans boasted over two-hundred impersonations in his repertoire, including Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Frank Sinatra, and Bruce Springsteen (and he played the role of Dean Martin in the 1992 television mini-series Sinatra). The evening consisted of impressions and jokes by Gans, and occasional musical interludes by a three-man combo. Vincent Canby in the New York Times noted that Gans was “reported to have a busy, lucrative career as one of corporate America’s favorite entertainers” and noted that “he’s the performer I.B.M. calls when it throws a dinner to honor the salesman of the year, month, or week.” Canby said Gans performed “adequate, nonjudgmental” impersonations of George Burns, Michael Jackson, Sammy Davis Jr., Stevie Wonder, and Elvis Presley, and suggested that many of his subjects were entertainers “you might not be dying to hear even in their original incarnations.” Gans made up in “tirelessness” what he lacked in “talent, spontaneity and decisive point of view,” and the combo was a “good, hard-working” one.

CINDERELLA Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: November 9, 1995; Closing Date: November 19, 1995 Performances: 12 Book: Oscar Hammerstein II (new book adaptation by Steve Allen; book adapted for the stage by Robert Johanson) Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Music: Richard Rodgers Based on the 1697 fairy tale Cinderella by Charles Perrault. Direction: Robert Johanson (Paul L. King, Assistant Stage Director); Producer: The New York City Opera Company; Choreography: Robert Johanson (Sharon Halley, Co-Choreographer); Scenery: Henry Bardon; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Jeff Davis; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Rob Fisher Cast: Sally Ann Howes (Fairy Godmother), Stephen Powell (Royal Herald), Elizabeth Dietrich (Little Girl), Jean Stapleton (Cinderella’s Stepmother), Alix Korey (Joy), Jeanette Palmer (Portia), Rebecca Baxter (Cinderella), Andrew Pacho (Dog), Debbi Fuhrman (Cat), Jane Powell (Queen), George S. Irving (King), Joel Sorenson (Royal Chef), John Lankston (Royal Steward), George Dvorsky (Prince), Stephanie Godino (Youngest Fairy), Irina Dvorovenko (Tiara Fairy); Ensemble: The New York City Opera Chorus and Dancers

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The New York City Opera Company’s current revival of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Cinderella marked the company’s second production of the work (for more information about the musical, including its first presentation and a list of musical numbers, see entry for the 1993 revival). In his review of the current production, Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times noted that the book adaptation was “too prone to wisecracks and updated jokes” and mentioned that the staging of “In My Own Little Corner” undermined the “wistful” and “almost unbearably sad” song by having the “sweet-voiced” Rebecca Baxter act out the number with “fantasies of exotic adventures and romance.” But otherwise this was a “charming” production. Tommasini praised Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “tuneful, literate and intimate” score, and mentioned that Rodgers had written “few melodies as waltzingly beautiful” as “Ten Minutes Ago.”

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Theatre: The Madison Square Garden Theatre Opening Date: November 20, 1995; Closing Date: December 31, 1995 Performances: 88 The current production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol was the second of ten annual visits by the musical to The Madison Square Garden Theatre. This time around, Terrence Mann played the role of Scrooge. Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times said the production’s “visual candies” included flying purple ghosts in chains, ghosts descending from smoky fireplaces, tombstones rising against the London skyline, and “the King Kong of turkeys.” Mann made a “stalwart” Scrooge who was perhaps “all too willing to see the ghostly light,” but Ben Vereen in the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present gave the show “a welcome shot of adrenaline.” This production cut “The Years Are Passing By” and “Yesterday, Tomorrow and Today,” and added “You Mean More to Me” and “London Town Carol.” It seems that “Jolly, Rich and Fat” was rewritten (or at least re-titled) as “A Jolly Good Time.” For more information about the musical, see entry for the 1994 production.

RIVERDANCE “The Show”

Theatre: Radio City Music Hall Opening Date: March 13, 1996; Closing Date: March 17, 1996 Performances: 8 Poetry: Theo Dorgan Music: Bill Whelan Direction: John McColgan; Producer: Moya Doherty; Choreography: Michael Flatley, Jean Butler, Colin Dunne, Tara Little, Moscow Folk Ballet Company, Maria Pages, and Tarik Winston; Scenery and Painted Projections: Robert Ballagh; Projections: Chris Slingsby; Costumes: Jen Kelly; Lighting: Rupert Murray; Musical Direction: David Hayes Cast: John Kavanagh (Narrator); Solo Dancers: Jean Butler, Colin Dunne, Maria Pages, Tarik Winston, and Daniel Wooten; Solo Singer: Ivan Thomas; Anunas (Chorale Group); The Riverdance Irish Dance Company; The Moscow Folk Ballet Company The dance revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Note: The following is a list of dances and songs taken from the recording Riverdance: Music from the Show and is representative of the musical sequences performed during the current engagement.

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“Reel Around the Sun”: (1) “Corona” (Slow Air); (2) “The Chronos Reel”; and (3) “Reel Around the Sun”; “The Heart’s Cry”; “The Countess Cathleen”/“Women of the Sidhe”; “Caoineadh Cu Chulainn” (Lament); “Shivna”; “Firedance”; “Slip into Spring”; “Riverdance”; “American Wake” (The Nova Scotia Set); “Lift the Wings”; “Macedonian Morning”; “Marta’s Dance”/“The Russian Dervish”; “Andalucia”; “Home and the Heartland”; “The Harvest” The Irish dance revue Riverdance became a worldwide phenomenon and was even referenced in a few movies, including an Irish dance spoof in the 1998 film Wrongfully Accused (which itself was a spoof of The Fugitive). The current limited-engagement production at Radio City Music Hall marked the revue’s New York debut, and it appropriately included performances on Saint Patrick’s Day. The work had first been presented in a short version at the Eurovision Song Contest at the Point Theatre in Dublin on April 30, 1994, and an expanded version later opened at the Point on February 9, 1995. Return engagements of the revue opened at Radio City Music Hall on October 2, 1996, for 21 performances, on September 25, 1997, for 23 performances, and on September 24, 1998, for 23 performances (see entries), and on March 16, 2000, Riverdance on Broadway opened at the Gershwin Theatre for a run of 605 performances. The production emphasized the world community, and so in addition to the Irish dancers there were black American tap dancers, an American opera singer, a British dancer, an Irish-American dancer, a Spanish dancer, and former members of the Russian Moiseyev Company (here part of the Moscow Folk Ballet Company). Anna Kisselgoff in the New York Times noted the evening was “a mishmash of a variety show” that came across like “an expanded television special.” But the “astonishing speed and rhythms” of the dancers “turned every jig into an extravaganza” and the production offered “incontestable high spots,” including a challenge dance between American tap dancers and Irish step dancers. Among the members of the company were Irish-American Jean Butler (who molded “her aerial steps with balletic grace”) and British-born Colin Dunne (whose dances flowed with “creative vigor”). As for Bill Whelan’s score, Kisselgoff noted it was defined as “World Beat,” but was perhaps “a shade too New Age for the dancing.” But his musical experiments were “right on target” with “dance rhythms” in “accelerated tempos” that “compelled” the dancers to “accent their footwork” into “surprising new types of phrases.” The current production was filmed as Riverdance: Live from Radio City Music Hall on a two-DVD set released by BBC Home Entertainment. Another live performance (as Riverdance: The Show) was taken from Dublin’s Point Theatre and released on DVD by Video Columbia Tristar Home Video, and The Best of Riverdance was released on DVD by Kultur Video. Riverdance: Music from the Show was released on CD by Atlantic/Celtic Heartbeat Records (# 82816-2); the CD booklet includes song lyrics.

THE MERRY WIDOW Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: March 23, 1996; Closing Date: April 19, 1996 Performances: 6 (in repertory) Book: Victor Leon and Leo Stein (English adaptation by Robert Johanson) Lyrics: Victor Leon and Leo Stein (English adaptation by Albert Evans) Music: Franz Lehar Based on the 1861 play L’attache d’ambassade by Henri Meilhac. Direction: Robert Johanson; Producer: The New York City Opera Company; Choreography: Sharon Halley; Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Mark W. Stanley; Choral Direction: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: Alexander Sander Cast: George S. Irving (Baron Mirko Zeta), Patricia Johnson (Valencienne), Joseph McKee (Kromov), Beth McVey (Olga), John Lankston (Bogdanovitch), Suzanne Ishee (Sylviane), Robert Creighton (Njegus), Carlo Scibelli (Camille de Rosillon), Matthew Chellis (Vicomte Cascada), Shon Sims (Raoul de St. Brioche), Jane Thorngren (Hanna aka Mme. Glawari), Michael Hayes (Count Danilo), Jean Barber (Lolo), Stephanie Godino (Dodo), Julie Stahl (Jou-Jou, Young Hanna), Kathy Meyer (Frou-Frou), Debbi Fuhrman (Clo-Clo), Joan Mirabella (Margot), Marty McDonough (Young Danilo); Ensemble: The New York City Opera Chorus and Dancers The operetta was presented in three acts. The action takes place in and around Paris during the early 1900s.

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The New York City Opera Company’s revival of Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow was its second of the decade (for information about the operetta and the previous revival, see entry for the 1995 production). Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times noted that Jane Thorngren offered serious and “touching” moments in the title role, and the ”dashing” Michael Hayes was a “suitably headstrong and cocky” Danilo, whose performance “touched deeper” into the character and revealed his “ambivalence about commitment.” Unfortunately, the rest of the production treated the work as “some hopelessly dated confection” with anachronistic lyrics (“Don’t ask, don’t tell”); obvious stage business (when a roving wife throws herself at Danilo, she strokes his sword and asks, “Is there anything I can do for you?”); a scene in which a male sextet danced “like some intentionally bad, high-kicking Rockettes routine”; and a sequence at Maxim’s in which Hanna “absurdly” joins the follies girls in a can-can. The March 27, 1996, performance was telecast live on public television’s Live from Lincoln Center.

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR Theatre: Booth Theatre Opening Date: March 24, 1996; Closing Date: January 5, 1997 Performances: 225 Monologues: Jackie Mason Producers: Abe Hirschfeld (Jyll Rosenfeld, Executive Producer); Scenery: Neil Peter Jampolis Cast: Jackie Mason The revue was presented in two acts. With Love Thy Neighbor, acerbic stand-up comic Jackie Mason returned for another evening of barbs at the current social and political scenes. Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times warned his readers not to be misled by the show’s artwork (which depicted a winged and cherubic Mason flinging arrows) because the comedian’s humor was of the bile ducts and the spleen, and not the heart. Van Gelder noted that in the “tough grind” of stand-up comedy Mason ranked “among the all-stars” with “roaringly funny” routines. The comic didn’t “fish for titters in the safe waters of political correctness when he could harpoon belly laughs in stormy sociological seas,” and so he skewed everyone, from Colin Powell to Pat Buchanan, from O. J. Simpson to the British royal family, and mocked Internet addicts who get excited because they can make plane reservations from home (Mason had news for them: you can do the same thing on the phone). Mason also lampooned those who pay big bucks for franchise coffee when they can do better at a coffee shop, and wondered why Jesse Jackson’s demands for equality have never led to “a short Jew with eyeglasses” on every basketball team. Love Thy Neighbor marked Mason’s fourth Broadway round of stand-up comedy (for more information, see entry for Jackie Mason: Brand New).

STATE FAIR

“The New Musical”/“The New All-American Musical” Theatre: Music Box Theatre Opening Date: March 27, 1996; Closing Date: June 30, 1996 Performances: 102 Book: Tom Briggs and Louis Mattiou Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Music: Richard Rodgers Based on the 1945 film State Fair (screenplay and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II from an adaptation by Sonya Levien and Paul Green, music by Richard Rodgers, and direction by Walter Lang), which in turn had been based on the 1932 novel State Fair by Phil Strong. Direction: Codirection by James Hammerstein and Randy Skinner; Producers: David Merrick and The Theatre Guild (produced by Philip Langner, Robert Franz, Natalie Lloyd, Matt Garfield, Meredith Blair, Gordon

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Smith, Norma Langworthy, and Sonny Everett) in association with Mark N. Sirangelo and the PGI Entertainment Company; Choreography: Randy Skinner; Scenery: James Leonard Joy; Costumes: Michael Bottari and Ronald Case; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Kay Cameron Cast: John Davidson (Abel Frake), James Patterson (Gus), Kathryn Crosby (Melissa Frake), Ben Wright (Wayne Frake), Charles Goff (Dave Miller, Judge Heppenstahl), Susan Haefner (Eleanor), Andrea McArdle (Margy Frake), Peter Benson (Harry), Michael Lee Scott (Uncle Sam, Roustabout), J. Lee Flynn (Fair Announcer), Kelli Barclay (Midway Cow), Jackie Angelescu (Midway Pig, Violet), Tim Fauvell (The Hoop-La Barker), Donna McKechnie (Emily Arden), Steve Steiner (The Amazing Stralenko, Chief of Police), Tina Johnson (Vivian), Leslie Bell (Jeanne), Jacquiline Rohrbacker (Mrs. Edwin Metcalf), Scott Wise (Pat Gilbert), Darrian C. Ford (Charlie), John Wilkerson (Lem), J. Lee Flynn (Clay), Newton R. Gilchrist (Hank Munson), Scott Willis (Roustabout); The Fairtones: Ian Knauer, James Patterson, Michael Lee Scott, and Scott Willis; Barkers, Vendors, Judges, and Fairgoers: Kelli Barclay, Leslie Bell, Linnea Dakin, Suellen Estey, Tim Fauvell, Amy Gage, Susan Haefner, Tina Johnson, Ian Knauer, James Patterson, Michael Lee Scott, Mary C. Sheehan, Steve Steiner, Scott Willis The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during late August 1946 in Brunswick, Iowa, and at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa.

Musical Numbers Act One: Opening (John Davidson, Kathryn Crosby, Ben Wright); “It Might as Well Be Spring” (Andrea McArdle); “Driving at Night” (John Davidson, Kathryn Crosby, Andrea McArdle, Ben Wright); “Our State Fair” (Ensemble); “That’s for Me” (Ben Wright); “More Than Just a Friend” (John Davidson, John Wilkerson, Newton R. Gilchrist, J. Lee Flynn); “Isn’t It Kinda Fun?” (Scott Wise, Andrea McArdle); “You Never Had It So Good” (Donna McKechnie, Ian Knauer, James Patterson, Michael Lee Scott, Scott Willis); “It Might as Well Be Spring” (Andrea McArdle); “When I Go Out Walking with My Baby” (John Davidson, Kathryn Crosby); “So Far” (Ben Wright, Donna McKecknie); “It’s a Grand Night for Singing” (Company) Act Two: “The Man I Used to Be” (Scott Wise, Tina Johnson, Leslie Bell); “All I Owe Ioway” (John Davidson, Company); “The Man I Used to Be” (reprise) (Scott Wise); “Isn’t It Kinda Fun?” (reprise) (Andrea McArdle); “That’s the Way It Happens” (Donna McKecknie, Ian Knauer, James Patterson, Michael Lee Scott, Scott Willis); “Boys and Girls Like You and Me” (John Davidson, Kathryn Crosby); “The Next Time It Happens” (Andrea McArdle) State Fair was a “new” Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II stage musical that the team had written for the movies in 1945, and it was their only musical written expressly for the big screen. The current production’s book was written by Tom Briggs and Louis Mattiou (but there had been occasional regional theatre musical productions of State Fair going as far back as 1969 when Lucille Kallen wrote the book for a summer-stock adaptation that starred Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Ron Hussman, and Jerry Lanning). The 1945 film had been based on Phil Strong’s 1932 novel, which had been filmed as a nonmusical with Will Rogers in 1933, and following the 1945 version the musical was reworked for the screen in 1962 with additional songs by Rodgers. The simple, understated story looked at the Frakes, a farm family who travel to the Iowa State Fair and its promise of excitement. Abel and Melissa Frake (John Davidson and Kathryn Crosby) are the father and mother of the clan, and both aim to win awards: for Abel, the fair will be a success if his hog Blue Boy wins first prize as best porker, and Melissa’s wish is to pick up ribbons for her mincemeat pie and her special pickles. Their young adult children Margy (Andrea McArdle) and Wayne (Ben Wright) are looking for something quite different, and instead of awards they hope to find romance at the fair because they’re somewhat bored with their hometown sweethearts. At the fair, Margy is attracted to small-town newspaper reporter Pat Gilbert (Scott Wise) whose ambition is to land a position with a big-city paper, and Wayne becomes infatuated with Emily Edwards (Donna McKechnie), a song-and-dance girl who performs on the midway. Clearly, Margy and Wayne are out of their league with these slickers, and when they return home the locals don’t look so bad after all. And with Blue Boy winning the Tony equivalent of Best Leading Hog at the Fair and Melissa bringing home some blue ribbons as well, the musical ends on a happy note for everyone.

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The slight story was negligible but charming, and when Twentieth Century-Fox and Rodgers and Hammerstein teamed up for the film musical in 1945, the production company was clearly aiming for the brass ring with their own variation of MGM’s 1944 hit musical Meet Me in St. Louis, and Rodgers and Hammerstein hoped the film would be a worthy successor to Oklahoma! (1943). The team’s Carousel had opened on Broadway four months before Fox released State Fair, and so with the two stage shows and the current film Rodgers and Hammerstein had cornered the market on musicals of the “Americana” variety. The film’s delightful score included two songs that became standards, Margy’s yearning ballad “It Might as Well Be Spring” (which won the Academy Award for Best Song) and the expansive, full-throated choral number “It’s a Grand Night for Singing.” The score also offered the breezy ballad “That’s for Me” for Emily, which recalled Rodgers during his Hart era, and three other songs rounded out the score, Wayne and Emily’s “Isn’t It Kinda Fun?”; a tongue-in-cheek salute to Iowa for a few of the principals and the chorus (“All I Owe Ioway”); and another expansive choral number that served as the film’s theme song (“Our State Fair”). Hammerstein died in 1960, and so when Fox decided to remake State Fair in the early 1960s, Rodgers wrote both lyrics and music for five new songs (“More Than Just a Friend,” “Willing and Eager,” “Never Say No to a Man,” “This Isn’t Heaven,” and “It’s the Little Things in Texas”). Rodgers had also written the lyrics and music for the stage musical No Strings, which premiered on Broadway on March 15, 1962, the same day as the film’s release. The new adaptation of State Fair (with a screenplay by Richard Breen) relocated the story to Texas, and as a result “All I Owe Ioway” was dropped (but the other songs from the 1945 version were retained, and for the film and the current stage production, a few of the songs were reassigned to different characters). The 1962 remake marked Alice Faye’s brief return to the screen after a seventeen-year absence, and the cast included an especially pleasant performance by Pat Boone and a grating one by Ann-Margret, who seemed to be playing Las Vegas instead of the Texas State Fair. As for Rodgers’s new songs, “More Than Just a Friend” (“Sweet Hog of Mine”) was the score’s nadir, and its obviousness and banality made it one of the most cringe-inducing songs of the era. For the record, here are the names of the story’s main characters, each one followed by the performers who played the roles in the 1945 and 1962 film versions and in the current Broadway adaptation: Abel Frake (Charles Winninger, Tom Ewell, John Davidson), Melissa Frake (Fay Bainter, Alice Faye, Kathryn Crosby), Margy Frake (Jeanne Crain [singing voice, Louanne Hogan], Pamela Tiffin [singing voice, Anita Gordon], Andrea McArdle), Wayne Frake (Dick Haymes, Pat Boone, Ben Wright), Pat Gilbert (character name changed to Jerry Dundee for the 1962 film) (Dana Andrews, Bobby Darin, Scott Wise), and Emily Edwards (character name changed to Emily Arden for the current stage adaptation) (Vivian Blaine, Ann-Margret, Donna McKechnie). The current production had toured for seven months, and many of the critics thought it a bit too roadweary with occasionally broad performances and generally lackluster décor. The show had an undeniable summer-stock air about it, but was reasonably pleasant and offered two particularly memorable performances. Donna McKechnie dazzled as the midway thrush, and was impressive with “You Never Had It So Good” and “That’s the Way It Happens,” and Scott Wise brought a touch of apple cider to the role of the somewhat cynical reporter, and he stood out with “The Man I Used to Be.” Unfortunately, the remaining leads were wanting. John Davidson seemed to be having a good time with his role but was somewhat over-the-top and needed toning down, and while Kathryn Crosby was game she seemed tentative and uncomfortable. Further, both were too mature for their roles, and one critic noted they came across as Margy and Wayne’s grandparents. Ben Wright was amiable if a bit bland as Wayne, and Andrea McArdle’s Margy seemed cold and distant as if she didn’t care for life on the old farm or at the fair. The musical’s reviews were middling, but the show managed to hang on for three months before closing at a loss. Clive Barnes in the New York Post liked the “modestly produced” musical and felt that in many respects the stage adaptation improved on the two film versions. He praised the “outstandingly debonair” Wise, who danced “like a devil,” and he liked McKechnie’s “vamp with a heart of gold,” but felt McArdle and Crosby were “a shade charmless.” Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal said the “jerry-built contraption” felt “like dinner theatre without the dinner,” and with one exception the cast never got beyond “cardboard chirpiness.” But Wise gave “the one real performance”: he could dance, he was “debonair,” and he had “edge,” and Lyons concluded his review by saying “Give this guy a shot at Pal Joey.” John Simon in New York felt the show was “fit only for summer stock in a particularly backward region,” and the show “wallows in mud rather than making it into clover.” He noted that Wise danced “spectacularly,” but felt Davidson was so “hammy” you wondered if the actor was playing Abel or Blue Boy, and McArdle had “the charm of a meat

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cleaver” and “should have retired after Annie, while she was ahead.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety found the “innocuous and empty-headed” production a “summer stock patchwork,” and he noted that the choreography was at best “blandly likable.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the “amiable hokum” was “performed with gusto and with affection for the material,” the dances were “frisky,” and the score offered “a recognizable R & H grandness.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek said the revival was “no break-through musical” but was a “textbook example of how to do an honest, get-your-money’s-worth touring show,” and said the “Gene Kelly-ish” Wise was a “knockout” dancer and McKechnie was “the great show dancer of her generation.” The production retained all six songs from the 1945 film; picked up one from the 1962 remake (“More Than Just a Friend”); and interpolated five numbers from lesser-known Rodgers and Hammerstein stage productions: “So Far” (Allegro, 1947); “That’s the Way It Happens” and “You Never Had It So Good” (Me and Juliet, 1953; the latter had been dropped from Me and Juliet during its preproduction phase); and “The Man I Used to Be” and “The Next Time It Happens” (Pipe Dream, 1955). The score also included a song deleted from Oklahoma! during its pre-Broadway tryout (“Boys and Girls Like You and Me”), and offered another song written for Oklahoma! that had been cut during that show’s preproduction phase (“When I [Ah] Go Out Walking [Walkin’] with My [Mah] Baby”). The song “Driving at Night” was a newly created number that utilized snippets of music from Allegro. The Broadway cast album was released by DRG Records (CD # 94765), and the 1945 and 1962 film versions were released on a two-DVD set by Twentieth Century-Fox. Producer David Merrick was one of the musical’s backers, and State Fair brought to a close a career that began fifty-four years earlier when he brought his first show to Broadway in 1942 (John Patrick’s drama The Willow and I, which played for one month with a cast that included Gregory Peck, Martha Scott, and Barbara O’Neil). When the Tony Award nominations were announced, State Fair (like Victor/Victoria) was essentially shut out, and so Merrick was featured in newspaper ads for State Fair, one of which in memo format announced prior to the upcoming Sunday Tony Award show: “To: Julie Andrews. Dinner—Sunday at 9:00?” Another ad stated, “When the Big Victor is announced, it won’t be Fair,” and the ad pleaded, “‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do—Luke, 23:34.’”

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Scott Wise); Best Score (lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rodgers)

THE KING AND I Theatre: Neil Simon Theatre Opening Date: April 11, 1996; Closing Date: February 22, 1998 Performances: 807 Book and Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II Music: Richard Rodgers Based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. Direction: Christopher Renshaw (Gene O’Donovan, Production Supervisor); Producers: Dodger Productions, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, James M. Nederlander, and Perseus Productions with John Frost and the Adelaide Festival Centre in association with The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization (Dodger Productions, Executive Producer) (Abbey Butler and Melvyn J. Estrin, and Hal Luftig, Associate Producers); Choreography: Jerome Robbins (Robbins’s choreography supervised by Susan Kikuchi) and new choreography and musical staging by Lar Lubovitch; Scenery: Brian Thomson; Costumes: Roger Kirk; Lighting: Nigel Levings; Musical Direction: Michael Rafter Cast: John Curless (Captain Orton), Ryan Hopkins (Louis Leonowens), Donna Murphy (Anna Leonowens), Alan Muraoka (The Interpreter), Randall Duk Kim (The Kralahome), Lou Diamond Phillips (The King of Siam), Jose Llana (Lun Tha), Joohee Choi (Tuptim), Taewon Kim (Lady Thiang), John Chang (Prince Chulalongkorn), Kelly Jordan Bit (Fan Dancer), Lexine Bondoc (Princess Yaowlak), Guy Paul (Sir Edward

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Ramsey); Royal Wives, Slaves, Courtiers, Guards, Priests, English Guests, and Market People: Tito Abeleda, John Bantay, Camille M. Brown, Benjamin Bryant, Meng-Chen Chang, Kam Cheng, Vivien Eng, Lydia Gaston, Margaret Ann Gates, C. Sean Kim, Shawn Ku, Doan Mackenzie, Paolo Montalban, Alan Muraoka, Paul Nakauchi, Tina Ou, Andrew Pacho, Mami Saito, Lainie Sakakura, Carol To, Yolanda Tolentino, Tran T. Thuc Hanh, Yan Ying, Kayoko Yoshioka, Greg Zane; The Royal Children: Kelly Jordan Bit, Lexine Bondoc, Kailip Boonrai, Jacqueline Te Lem, Erik Lin-Greenberg, Kenji Miyata, Brandon Marshall Ngai, Amy W. Tai, Jenna Noelle Ushkowitz, Shelby Rebecca Wong, Jeff G. Yalun The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in and around the King’s Palace in Bangkok, Siam, during 1861.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “I Whistle a Happy Tune” (Donna Murphy, Ryan Hopkins); “Royal Dance before the King” (choreography by Lar Lubovitch) (Company); “My Lord and Master” (Joohee Choi); “Hello, Young Lovers” (Donna Murphy); “March of the Siamese Children” (The Royal Children); “A Puzzlement” (Lou Diamond Phillips); “Getting to Know You” (Donna Murphy, The Royal Wives, The Royal Children); “We Kiss in a Shadow” (Jose Llana, Joohee Choi); “Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?” (Donna Murphy); “Something Wonderful” (Taewon Kim); Finale Act One (Company) Act Two: “Western People Funny” (Taewon Kim, The Royal Wives); “I Have Dreamed” (Jose Llana, Joohee Choi); “Hello, Young Lovers” (reprise) (Donna Murphy); “The Small House of Uncle Thomas” (Ballet) (Eliza: Yan Ying; Simon of Legree: Tito Abeleda; Angel George: Meng-Chen Chang; Little Eva: Tran T. Thuc Hanh; Topsy: Tina Ou; Uncle Thomas: Mami Saito; Dogs: John Bantay, Doan Mackenzie, and Greg Zane; Guards: Andrew Pacho, C. Sean Kim, and Shawn Ku; Propmen: Benjamin Bryant, Paolo Montalban, Alan Muraoka, and Paul Nakauchi; Archers: Camille M. Brown, Vivien Eng, Lainie Sakakura, and Kayoko Yoshioka; Singers: Kam Cheng, Margaret Ann Gates, Carol To, and Yolanda Tolentio); “Song of the King” (Lou Diamond Phillips, Donna Murphy); “Shall We Dance” (Donna Murphy, Lou Diamond Phillips); “Procession of the White Elephant” (choreography by Lar Lubovitch) (Company); “I Whistle a Happy Tune” (reprise) (Donna Murphy); Finale (Company) Earlier in the season, City Opera revived its production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1957 television musical Cinderella, and two weeks before the revival of The King and I New York saw the Broadway premiere of the team’s State Fair, which was based on their 1945 film. Those looking for traditional musical fare were well rewarded with memorable songs from these productions, where even lesser known numbers such as “The Next Time It Happens” and “The Man I Used to Be,” which were interpolated into State Fair via the team’s 1955 Broadway musical Pipe Dream, towered above most of the music heard in the season’s new musicals. The revival of The King and I, which was based on an Australian production, was splendid, and its lavish décor and costumes and its impressive choreography were matched by memorable performances by Donna Murphy and Lou Diamond Phillips. Murphy’s Anna was exquisite, and with her looks and voice it seemed Gertrude Lawrence had been reincarnated, and Phillips was a refreshingly youthful and boyish King. John Simon in New York said the work was now “even lovelier and more lucent,” and although he never thought he’d say it about a musical, The King and I was “the equal of all but the supreme operatic masterpieces.” Donna Murphy gave a “deeply moving” performance, and she entered Anna’s “body and soul” and thus became Anna “inside and out” and reinvented the character’s story “by engaging it, incident by incident” and making it “entirely afresh.” Lou Diamond Phillips made a “noteworthy achievement” by not following in Brynner’s footsteps; his was a “winning” performance that was “forcefully” sung and “bouncily affecting.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said he’d always considered The King and I one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “lesser” works but was now convinced it was their “masterpiece,” and he praised the revival’s “consummate intelligence and craft.” Murphy was “elegance itself,” and Phillips was “marvelous” and “resourceful.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety praised the “first-rate, star-making showmanship” of the production, said Phillips was “a major new star,” and found Murphy “completely terrific.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek said Phillips gave a “brave and attractive” performance, and Murphy was an “outstanding singing actress” who did “splendid justice” to her songs. And Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal said Murphy sang with

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“melodic subtlety and lyrical power,” while Phillips made an “exciting counterpoint as the King and manages to escape the shadow” of Brynner. Moreover, his “relative youth” set up “an electric sexual tension between him and Anna.” But Vincent Canby in the New York Times found the revival a “disappointment” and noted there was a “serious failure” of “theatrical imagination.” He complained that some of the featured players seemed to be performing in a concert version because they’d been directed to face the audience instead of one another, and thus the “presentational style” made for a disconnect between players and audience and stopped “the narrative in its tracks.” But Murphy had a “large, glorious voice” and Phillips gave evidence of his “serious ambitions” as a stage performer; he noted that the two didn’t quite “play together with much warmth and excitement,” but felt that would “come with time.” Michael Feingold in the Village Voice felt that Murphy was at her best during scenes in which she parried with the King, but when she was with the children she seemed “remote.” As for Phillips, he was “too callow and amiably middle-class to convince as anyone’s Lord and Master,” but he was “an asset to the musical stage” with “good looks,” a “strong clear voice,” and “a body to die for.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “resplendent” Murphy was “matchless,” and although Phillips tried “valiantly” he was “helplessly overshadowed by both Murphy and the memory of you-know-who.” The original Broadway production, which opened at the St. James Theatre on March 29, 1951, for 1,246 performances with Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner, won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Leading Actress in a Musical, and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Brynner’s name was listed below the title, and at the time any performer with such billing was considered a featured player). As of this writing, the musical has been revived in New York nine times for over 3,500 performances (and counting, because the most recent revival is still playing) and has chalked up more New York performances than any other Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. The first five productions were limited-engagement institutional revivals, four produced by the New York City Center Light Opera Company at City Center (April 18, 1956, for twenty-three performances with Jan Clayton and Zachary Scott; May 11, 1960, for twenty-four performances with Barbara Cook and Farley Granger; June 12, 1963, for fifteen performances with Eileen Brennan and Manolo Fabregas; and May 28, 1968, for twenty-two performances with Constance Towers and Michael Kermoyan) and one by the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center at the New York State Theatre on July 6, 1964, for forty performances with Rise Stevens and Darren McGavin. The next four productions were commercial revivals. The first two starred Brynner (on May 2, 1977, at the Uris Theatre for 696 performances with Constance Towers, and on January 7, 1985, at the Broadway Theatre for 191 performances with Mary Beth Peil), and following the current production, the musical opened on April 16, 2015, at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre for 499 performances (Kelli O’Hara and Ken Watanabe). The first London production opened at the Drury Lane on October 9, 1953, for 926 performances with Valerie Hobson and Herbert Lom, and other West End revivals in 1973 and 1999 starred Sally Ann Howes and Elaine Paige. The 1956 film version was released by Twentieth Century-Fox with Brynner (who won the Academy Award for Best Actor) and Deborah Kerr, and an animated version was released by Warner Brothers Family Entertainment in 1999. The script was published in hardback by Random House in 1951, and was included in the hardback collection Six Plays by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which was published by The Modern Library in 1959. The used and unused lyrics are included in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. There are numerous recordings of the classic score, including later ones that are more complete than the original cast album (Decca Records LP # DL-7-9008 and MCA CD # MCAD-10049), but the original is the essential one to own. And talk about puzzlements. In his Saturday Review appraisal of Lincoln Center’s 1964 revival, Henry Hewes said Anna is a “smug representative of Western colonialism” and her purported “‘goodness’ now emerges as a hypocritical disguise for intolerance of another country’s traditions and for her ruthless drive to emasculate a man.” He further wrote that Anna “succeeds in destroying” the King. And Jeffrey Sweet in The Best Plays of 1995–1996 stated that Anna’s confrontations with the King provided “resonance” and “irony” for audiences who grew up during the Vietnam era because “there is little doubt that she was conceived as a character representing the same kind of liberal missionary fervor that fueled America’s misguided adventures in southeast Asia.”

1995–1996 SEASON     225

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (The King and I); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Lou Diamond Phillips); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Donna Murphy); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Joohee Choi); Best Director of a Musical (Christopher Renshaw); Best Scenic Designer (Brian Thomson); Best Costume Designer (Roger Kirk); Best Lighting Designer (Nigel Levings)

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM Theatre: St. James Theatre Opening Date: April 18, 1996; Closing Date: January 4, 1998 Performances: 715 Book: Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart Lyrics and Music: Stephen Sondheim Based on the “style and spirit” of the twenty-six surviving plays by the third-century BC Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus, including his comedy Mostellaria. Direction: Jerry Zaks; Producers: Jujamcyn Theatres, Scott Rudin/Paramount Pictures, The Viertel-BaruchFrankel Group, Roger Berlind, and Dodger Productions (Marc Routh, Associate Producer) (Perseus Productions, Associate Producer); Choreography: Rob Marshall (Sarah Miles, Associate Choreographer); Scenery and Costumes: Tony Walton; Lighting: Paul Gallo; Musical Direction: Edward Strauss Cast: Nathan Lane (Prologus, Pseudolus), Brad Aspel (Protean), Cory English (Protean), Ray Roderick (Protean), Jim Stanek (Hero), Jessica Boevers (Philia), Lewis J. Stadlen (Senex), Mary Testa (Domina), Mark Linn-Baker (Hysterium), Ernie Sabella (Lycus), Pamela Everett (Tintinabula), Leigh Zimmerman (Panacea), Susan Misner and Lori Werner (The Geminae), Mary Ann Lamb (Vibrata), Stephanie Pope (Gymnasia), William Duell (Erronius), Cris Groenendaal (Miles Gloriosus) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Rome during a day in spring two hundred years before the Christian era.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Comedy Tonight” (Nathan Lane, Brad Aspel, Cory English, Ray Roderick, Company); “Love, I Hear” (Jim Stanek); “Free” (Nathan Lane, Jim Stanek); “The House of Marcus Lycus” (Ernie Sabella, Nathan Lane, Courtesans); “Lovely” (Jim Stanek, Jessica Boevers); “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” (Lewis J. Stadlen, Nathan Lane, Mark Linn-Baker, Ernie Sabella); “I’m Calm” (Mark Linn-Baker); “Impossible” (Lewis J. Stadlen, Jim Stanek); “Bring Me My Bride” (Cris Groenendaal, Nathan Lane, Courtesans, Brad Aspel, Cory English, Ray Roderick) Act Two: “That Dirty Old Man” (Mary Testa); “That’ll Show Him” (Jessica Boevers); “Lovely” (reprise) (Nathan Lane, Mark Linn-Baker); “Funeral Sequence” (aka “Dirge”) (Cris Groenendall, Nathan Lane, Courtesans, Brad Aspel, Cory English, Ray Roderick); “Comedy Tonight” (reprise) (Company) Perhaps it should be required that a revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum be produced on Broadway at least once every ten years. Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart’s book is arguably the funniest ever written, Stephen Sondheim’s score is his merriest, and the result is comic nirvana. Set in Rome during one day in spring some two hundred years before the Christian era, the work is side-splittingly hilarious with outrageous jokes and overblown cartoon characters. A eunuch is warned, “Don’t you lower your voice to me!”; when two lovers fear happiness will never be theirs, they decide they’ll just have “to learn to be happy without it”; and when someone wonders if a plague is contagious, he’s asked if he’s ever heard of one that wasn’t. The characters include the domineering wife Domina (Mary Testa), the nervous slave Hysterium (Mark Linn-Baker), and the courtesan Vibrata (Mary Ann Lamb) who offers special services to her clients. The madcap plot deals with the hero Hero (Jim Stanek) who falls in love with the virgin Philia (Jessica Boevers) who lives in the bawdy house next door. Philia is being saved for celebrity-warrior Miles Gloriosus (played by Cris Groenendaal, who modestly announces “I am a parade”), but besides Miles Gloriosus to

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worry about, Hero has another problem: his would-be philanderer father Senex (Lewis J. Stadlen) has his eye on Philia. Hero promises to free his slave Pseudolus (Nathan Lane) if the latter can secure Philia for him, but there are complications a-plenty, including an episode in which Hysterium must don Philia drag and impersonate her. The liner notes for the original 1962 Broadway cast album stated that the resolution of the plot was worked out by the authors “on an IBM machine.” The current revival received mixed reviews but managed to run almost two years. Clive Barnes in the New York Post said both Lane and the musical were “great,” and here was “one of those few fantastic evenings on the town which really can send you home feeling like a blithe spirit dancing on air.” Jack Kroll in Newsweek praised the “brilliantly crafted” book and its “cheerful vulgarity,” and noted that Lane “puts you in touch with your inner clown.” Richard Corliss in Time said the production was “a celebration of shtick,” and Vincent Canby in the New York Times liked the “smart, cheeky, buoyant” revival with its plot of “organized chaos that leads to sheer, extremely contagious high spirits” and its star performance by Lane, who was both peerless and triumphant. But Jeremy Gerard in Variety found the revival “ultimately flat and wearying” because the company worked too hard and needed to “ease up a bit,” and he complained that the “barely contained comic anarchy of an earlier era” had now turned into “de rigueur” campiness. Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal said the revival tried “too hard” and was wearisome “with its nonstop shtick, its lapel-grabbing insistence that it’s being very funny, [and] its monotonous mechanical efficiency.” And while Lane hit some of the “necessary notes” for his role, he lacked Mostel’s “wild dementia.” John Simon in New York said one of the “wittiest, sexiest, smartest, and most songful” musicals had “undergone a sea change from high to ebb tide” and the comic muse Thalia had “averted her face from the proceedings.” Further, Lane was “too young, too hyper, too campy,” and “largely unconvincing as the womanizing Pseudolus.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the “unfocused” revival was “disappointing” and Lane came across as a “gagster” with a “weightless” character. The critic noted that the production’s poster didn’t mention Sondheim’s name, and this was “probably sensible marketing” because “there are, after all, people still alive who remember Passion and Assassins.” The musical, which first opened on Broadway at the Alvin (now Neil Simon) Theatre on May 8, 1962, for 964 performances and which holds the record as Sondheim’s longest-running show, won a number of Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Director (George Abbott), Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Zero Mostel [Pseudolus]), and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (David Burns [Senex]). Other members of the original cast were Jack Gilford (Hysterium) and Ruth Kobart (Domina). Prior to the current production, the musical had first been revived on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on March 30, 1972, for 156 performances, and its premature closing was due to Phil Silvers’s illness (the musical had originally been written for Silvers). The revival won Tony Awards for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (for Silvers, who played Pseudolus) and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Larry Blyden [Hysterium]). It included “Echo Song” (which had been written for the original Broadway production but was dropped during the tryout) and the new number “Farewell,” and cut “Pretty Little Picture” and “That’ll Show Him.” The current revival didn’t include “Pretty Little Picture,” “Echo Song,” and “Farewell,” but reinstated “That’ll Show Him.” The original London production opened on October 3, 1963, at the Strand Theatre for 762 performances, and the cast included Frankie Howerd (Pseudolus) and Leon Greene (Miles Gloriosus), and the two later appeared in the same roles for the 1986 revival, which opened on November 14 at the Piccadilly Theatre for 49 performances. The 1966 film version by United Artists was directed by Richard Lester and included Mostel and Gilford from the original cast and Greene from the 1963 British production. The other performers included Phil Silvers (as Marcus Lycus), Michael Crawford (Hero), and Buster Keaton (Erronius). The film is far too frantic and retained just a handful of songs from the original score, but on its own terms is amusing if a bit unsatisfying. The DVD is available in two collections, including one released by Kino Lober Films. The script was published in hardback by Dodd, Mead in 1963, and the publisher included the script in a 1983 paperback collection that also offered Sondheim’s 1973 musical The Frogs. A paperback edition of the script was published in Britain by Frank Music Co. in 1963, and in 1991 Applause Theatre Book Publishers issued both hardback and paperback editions. Both the 1983 and 1991 publications include the lyrics for a number of unused songs. The script is also included in the 2014 Library of America hardback collection American Musicals, which also offers the scripts of fifteen other musicals. All the lyrics written for the musical are included in

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Sondheim’s hardback collection Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2010). A private demo of the score sung and played by Sondheim includes songs dropped in pre-production, rehearsals, and the tryout. The 1962 cast album was recorded by Capitol Records (LP # S/WAO-1717), and later issued on CD by Bay Cities Records (# BCD-3002) and Broadway Angel Records (# ZDM-0777-7-64770-2-2). The cast album for the current revival was released by Angel Records (CD # 7243-8-52223-2-0), and the 1963 London cast recording was issued by His Master’s Voice/EMI Records (LP # CLP-1685), reissued on LP by Stet Records (# DS-15028), and later issued on CD by EMI Records (# 0777-7-89060-2). The soundtrack album was released by United Artists Records (LP # UAS-5144 and # UAL-4144) and later on CD by Ryko Records (# RCD-10727). Other recordings of the score include an extended play album of the Mexico City cast (titled Amor al Reves es Roma); released by CBS Records (# EPC-274), it includes “Comedy Tonight,” “Love, I Hear,” “Lovely,” and “Pretty Little Picture.” An instrumental version by the Trotter Trio (CD # VSD-5707) titled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum . . . in Jazz includes the deleted song “Your Eyes Are Blue.” In a preface to the 1991 edition of the script, co-librettist Larry Gelbart notes that he and Burt Shevelove’s goal had been to create a musical in the “style and spirit” of the twenty-six surviving comedies by the thirdcentury BC Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus. The original working title for the musical was A Roman Comedy, and, believe it or not, one of Plautus’s comedies was titled Mostellaria.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Nathan Lane); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Lewis J. Stadlen); Best Director of a Musical (Jerry Zaks)

BRING IN ’DA NOISE BRING IN ’DA FUNK Theatre: Ambassador Theatre Opening Date: April 25, 1996; Closing Date: January 10, 1999 Performances: 1,130 Book: Reg E. Gaines (Shelby Jiggetts, Dramaturg) Lyrics: Reg E. Gaines and George C. Wolfe Music: Daryl Waters, Zane Mark, and Ann Duquesnay Direction: George C. Wolfe; Producers: The Joseph Papp Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival (George C. Wolfe, Producer; Rosemarie Tichler, Artistic Producer; Laurie Beckelman, Executive Director; and Joey Parnes, Executive Producer) (Wiley Hausam, Associate Producer) by special arrangement with The Shubert Organization; Choreography: Savion Glover; Scenery: Riccardo Hernandez; Projection Design: Batwin + Robin; Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Zane Mark Cast: Savion Glover, Baakari Wilder, Jimmy Tate, Vincent Bingham, Jeffrey Wright, Ann Duquesnay, Jared Crawford, Raymond King, Dule Hill The dance revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: In ’da Beginning: “Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk” (Company); “The Door to Isle Goree” (Jeffrey Wright); and “Slave Ships” (Ann Duquesnay, Savion Glover); Som’thin’ from Nuthin’: “Som’thin’ from Nuthin’” and “The Circle Stomp” (Baakari Wilder, Dule Hill, Jimmy Tate, Vincent Bingham) and “The Pan Handlers” (Jared Crawford, Raymond King); Urbanization: “The Lynching Blues” (Baakari Wilder, Ann Duquesnay, Company); “Chicago Bound” (Savion Glover, Ann Duquesnay, Company); “Shifting Sounds” (Jeffrey Wright); “Industrialization” (Savion Glover, Baakari Wilder, Jimmy Tate, Vincent Bingham, Jared

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Crawford, Raymond King); “The Chicago Riot Rag” (Savion Glover, Baakari Wilder, Jimmy Tate, Vincent Bingham, Jared Crawford); “I Got the Beat” and “Dark Tower” (Ann Duquesnay, Jeffrey Wright, Company); and “The Whirligig Stomp” (Company) Act Two: Where’s the Beat?: Jeffrey Wright (The Voice), Ann Duquesnay (The Chanteuse), Dule Hill (The Kid), Jimmy Tate and Vincent Bingham (Grin and Flash), Baakari Wilder (Uncle Huck-a-Buck), Savion Glover (Lil’ Dahlin)—“Now That’s Tap” (Jimmy Tate, Vincent Bingham); “The Uncle Hucka-Buck Song” (Baakari Wilder, Savion Glover, Company); “Kid Go!” (Dule Hill, Company); “The Lost Beat Swing” (Ann Duquesnay, Company); and “Green, Chaney, Buster, Slyde” (Savion Glover); Street Corner Symphony: “1956—Them Conkheads” (Ann Duquesnay, Company); “1967—Hot Fun” (Ann Duquesnay, Jeffrey Wright, Company); “1977—Blackout” (Savion Glover, Baakari Wilder, Jimmy Tate, Vincent Bingham); and “1987—Gospel/Hip Hop Rant” (Ann Duquesnay, Jeffrey Wright, Savion Glover); Noise/Funk: “Drummin’” (Jared Crawford, Raymond King); “Taxi” (Savion Glover, Jimmy Tate, Baakari Wilder, Vincent Bingham); “Conversations” (Jared Crawford, Raymond King, Savion Glover, Jimmy Tate, Baakari Wilder, Vincent Bingham); “Hittin’” (Savion Glover, Baakari Wilder, Jimmy Tate, Vincent Bingham, Jared Crawford, Raymond King, Jeffrey Wright); “Bring in ’da Noise/Bring in ’da Funk” (reprise) (Company) The dance revue Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk, which transferred uptown from Off Broadway, depicted the black experience in the United States through rap, hip hop, and other forms of dance. The work touched upon slavery and lynchings, indicated that black entertainers of yore sold out to the entertainment industry, and there was a sequence that depicted the difficulty of getting a taxi. The production received mostly enthusiastic reviews, and despite a few reservations about the musical’s structure and part of its message, the show played for almost three years on Broadway. Martha Duffy in Time praised the choreography, noting that the dancers had “demon drive” and that star, choreographer, and co-conceiver Savion Glover “will doubtless go through life being compared to Fred Astaire.” But the show’s revue-like book was “weak,” and only “the feet have it” because “at best” the musical was an “episodic enterprise with little or no connection between the vignettes.” Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal said the evening’s “larger historical narrative is an uninflected litany of victimized innocence,” and he was offended that the great dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was “grotesquely caricatured as a grinning” Uncle Huck-a-Buck who danced with a Shirley Temple puppet. Lyons praised Glover’s talent, but noted the young performer wouldn’t “supersede Robinson or Fred Astaire.” Because Glover was twenty-two years old it was “perhaps natural” that he thought he would, but the “mature” director (and co-conceiver of the revue) George C. Wolfe should not have endorsed “feelings of smug superiority to the past.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News found the work “an enormously exhilarating experience” and said the evening was “at its best when it is pure tap, pure sound.” He noted that when the revue played downtown “da text” was spoken by the “smug” Reg E. Gaines, a “spoken word artist” who had written the revue’s narrative. Kissel was glad to discover that the text had been “happily” abridged and was now spoken by actor Jeffrey Wright, but he regretfully noted that Wright’s “greater expressiveness” exposed “the hollowness of the words.” Jeremy Gerard in Variety said the production was “pure pleasure” and “a joyful, energizing evening,” and he too noted that downtown Gaines’s book was “the weakest part of the show.” But with either Wolfe’s “editorial hand” or Wright’s “more formidable stage presence,” the text now came across as “much less heavyhanded.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Glover “appears more than ever to be today’s answer to Fred Astaire,” and mentioned that when the show played downtown the choreography was “excellent” but the show’s “elements” didn’t “gel” because narrator Gaines “lacked theatrical presence and diction.” But with Wright in the role of the narrator, Gaines’s text was now “at least audible” even though “its labored lyricism” made “delivering it an uphill battle” for the “excellent” actor Wright. The dance revue had originally opened Off-Broadway on November 15, 1995, at The Public’s Newman Theatre for eighty-five performances. The cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-68565-2). An interview by Charlie Rose with Savion Glover and George C. Wolfe was televised on December 9, 1996 (along with two separate interviews with the cast members of Rent and with Jerry Herman), and the three interview sessions were released by the Charlie Rose Studio on a single DVD.

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Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ‘da Funk); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Savion Glover); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Ann Duquesnay); Best Director of a Musical (George C. Wolfe); Best Book (Reg E. Gaines); Best Score (lyrics by Reg E. Gaines and George C. Wolfe, music by Daryl Waters, Zane Mark, and Ann Duquesnay); Best Costume Designer (Paul Tazewell); Best Lighting Designer (Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer); Best Choreographer (Savion Glover)

BIG

“The Musical” Theatre: Shubert Theatre Opening Date: April 28, 1996; Closing Date: October 13, 1996 Performances: 193 Book: John Weidman Lyrics: Richard Maltby Jr. Music: David Shire Based on the 1988 film Big (direction by Penny Marshall, screenplay by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg). Direction: Mike Ockrent (Steven Zweigbaum, Associate Director); Producers: James B. Freydberg, Kenneth Feld, Laurence Mark, and Kenneth D. Greenblatt in association with FAO Schwarz/Fifth Avenue and coproduced by Pachyderm Entertainment and Fuji Television Network, Inc./Kyodo Tokyo, Inc. (Daniel F. Kearns, Associate Producer, and Michelle Leslie, Producing Associate); Choreography: Susan Stroman (Ginger Thatcher, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: Robin Wagner; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Paul Gallo; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: Lizzy Mack (Cynthia Benson), Patrick Levis (Young Josh), Samantha Robyn Lee (Tiffany), Lori Aine Bennett (Maggie), Barbara Walsh (Mrs. Baskin), John Sloman (Mr. Baskin, Derelict, Larry Johnson), Ray Wills (Mr. Kopecki, Panhandler), Brett Tabisel (Billy), Donna Lee Marshall (Mrs. Kopecki, Diane), Clent Bowers (Carnival Man, Barrett), Alex Sanchez (Derek), Zoltar (Himself [Voice of Zoltar: Michel Bell]), Daniel Jenkins (Josh Baskin), Frank Mastrone (Arcade Man, Lipton), Frank Vlastnik (Matchless, Birnbaum), Gene Weygandt (Paul), Crista Moore (Susan), Jon Cypher (MacMillan), Brandon Espinoza (Starfighter), Joan Barber (F.A.O. Sales Executive), Jan Neuberger (Miss Watson), Joyce Chittick (Deathstarette), CJay Hardy (Deathstarette), Jill Matson (Abigail), Spencer Liff (Skatephone), Enrico Rodriguez (Kid with Walkman), Graham Bowen (Skateboard Romeo); Parents, Shoppers, Executives, and Office Staff: Joan Barber, Clent Bowers, Joyce Chittick, CJay Hardy, Donna Lee Marshall, Frank Mastrone, Jill Matson, Jan Neuberger, Alex Sanchez, John Sloman, Frank Vlastnik, Ray Wills; The Big Kids: Lori Aine Bennett, Graham Bowen, Brandon Espinoza, Samantha Robyn Lee, Spencer Liff, Lizzy Mack, and Enrico Rodriguez The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the present time in New Jersey and New York City.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Can’t Wait” (Patrick Levis, Barbara Walsh, Brett Tabisel, Kids, Parents); “Talk to Her” (Brett Tabisel, Patrick Levis); “The Carnival” (Company); “This Isn’t Me” (Daniel Jenkins); “I Want to Go Home” (Daniel Jenkins); “The Time of Your Life” (Kids); “Fun” (John Cypher, Daniel Jenkins, Company); “Dr. Deathstar” (Joyce Chittick, CJay Hardy); “Josh’s Welcome” (Crista Moore, Gene Weygandt, Executives); “Here We Go Again” (Crista Moore); “Stars, Stars, Stars” (Daniel Jenkins, Crista Moore); “Tavern Foxtrot” (Gene Weygandt, Company); “Cross the Line” (Daniel Jenkins, Kids, Company) Act Two: “It’s Time” (Brett Tabisel, Kids); “Stop, Time” (Barbara Walsh); “Happy Birthday, Josh” (Kids); “Dancing All the Time” (Crista Moore); “I Want to Know” (Patrick Levis); “Coffee, Black” (Daniel Jenkins, Jon Cypher, Jan Neuberger, Frank Vlastnik, Clent Bowers, Frank Mastrone, Executives, Staff); “The Real Thing” (Ray Wills, John Sloman, Donna Lee Marshall, Jill Matson); “One Special Man” (Crista

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Moore); “When You’re Big” (Daniel Jenkins); “Skateboard Romance” (Kids); “I Want to Go Home” and “Stars, Stars, Stars” (reprises) (Daniel Jenkins, Crista Moore) For reasons perhaps too frightening to contemplate, the mid-to-late 1980s saw a number of films about either time travel or age reversal (or a combination thereof), movies in which children turned into adults or vice versa. Among these were Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Big (1988), and the Back to the Future franchise of three films released in 1985, 1989, and 1990. I somehow missed them all, and if the musical version of Big was representative of this limited genre of age and time reversals, then I truly count my blessings. Big is the story of twelve-year-old Josh Baskin (Patrick Levis), whose wish to be older is granted when he’s magically transformed into a man in his thirties (Daniel Jenkins). Josh’s body has grown, but his mind and heart are still those of a child, and when he gets a job in a toy company he figures life can’t get any better. There was a subplot or two, including Josh’s romantic involvement with toy company executive Susan (Crista Moore), but ultimately he becomes a boy again when he decides it’s best to live his life as planned, growing up year by year. It was hard to understand the point of the fantasy because there was almost nothing in the way of magic and wonder in the musical’s presentation. Like The Wizard of Oz, the story was both a cautionary one about being careful what you wish for and a gentle lesson about growing up and learning what’s important. But John Weidman’s uninvolving book never found its voice, and the story missed the inherent poignancy about wanting to grow up too fast and eventually realizing that it’s best to be who you are and let time take care of the natural growing process. Further, the romance between Josh and Susan was uncomfortable, because we know Josh is still a child inside, and so his having sex with her came off as somewhat creepy and repugnant, and echoed the somewhat similar romance of Charlie and his special-needs teacher Alice in Charlie and Algernon (1980): the adult Charlie is mentally retarded and despite his temporarily soaring IQ we know he’ll revert to his childlike self, and so his affair with Alice was similarly off-putting and distasteful and seemed unethical if not illegal on her part. (John Simon in New York said Big left him with a “bad aftertaste,” and he wondered how an affair with a grown woman would affect Josh and how Susan would deal with her “jailbait” dalliance. He concluded that he “feared” for both Josh and Susan.) With its superficial feel-good gloss and its built-in recognition factor, Big clearly aimed for the family trade. But it was indifferently plotted and (with the exception of the joyous performance by Jon Cypher as MacMillan, the head of the toy company) blandly acted. Mike Ockrent’s direction was surprisingly ordinary, and the usually reliable Susan Stroman created functional but forgettable dances. Most disappointingly, Richard Maltby Jr., and David Shire provided a dull score that did its job in an uninspired fashion (bring in ’da perfunct, anyone?). A few made the case for two songs (“Stars, Stars, Stars” and “Stop, Time”), but even these were listless. The musical lacked a unifying vision to tell its story, and without a coherent theme and a cohesive score, the enterprise resulted in a by-the-numbers evening that continually pushed applause buttons without ever giving the audience a real reason to cheer. The show’s price tag was $10 million, and despite problems during the pre-Broadway tryout that clearly spelled trouble, the producers brought the show to New York, where it received mostly unenthusiastic reviews and closed after little more than five months at a reported loss of $10.3 million. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said the musical had an “essentially mechanical nature” and few of the songs had any “emotional impact.” He noted that the opening sequence showed a group of preteens dancing “as if they’re auditioning for a Wonder Bread touring company of Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk” and because these kids were already behaving “years older than they are” and acted as “if they’d lost their innocence,” then “what point does the plot have?” Simon noted Weidman’s book was “gagged-up” and Shire’s music was “at best serviceable,” but the “middling” show offered “clever” costumes, “imaginative” lighting, and “gladsome” choreography, and he decided set designer Robin Wagner was “the hero of the venture.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “bemusingly dull” show was “pallid,” and if its creators had “done their best,” it was “not a particularly impressive best.” Ockrent and Stroman “energetically” tried “to whip the musical into shape,” but “dead horses rarely revive with flogging.” He noted that what “really capsizes and sinks the musical is the music,” and that Maltby and Shire’s songs “always seem to emerge as semi-effective, semi-forgettable cabaret numbers.”

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Jeremy Gerard in Variety found the musical “OK,” but it was “a long loaf of Wonder Bread in a season rich with grainier fare.” The show was “mostly pedestrian,” with a “dreary” book, and it had “about as much edge as The Brady Bunch—which wouldn’t matter if it weren’t trying so hard to pretend otherwise.” Further, Maltby and Shire “squandered” the opportunity to depict the characters’ “yearnings” and he noted the team had “yet to produce a completely successful score.” But Vincent Canby in the New York Times liked the “bright, shiny, larger-than-life toy of a show” and said it had “been fabricated with Broadway savvy and verve.” For him, Stroman was “the most conspicuous star” of the evening with choreography that “seems to have its feet planted firmly in midair much of the time.” He also praised Wagner’s décor, which depicted a carnival, the Tavern on the Green, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and the F.A.O. Schwarz store on Fifth Avenue. As for the score, it was “attractive” without “being especially memorable,” and it brought the musical to a “dead halt” with “Stop, Time,” a “nice” song that was out of place in the show. During the tryout, the following songs were cut: “Thirteen,” “Big,” “I’ll Think about It Later,” “Isn’t It Magic?,” “Dish at the Dance,” and “Your Wish Is Granted.” The cast album was released by Universal Records (CD # UD-53009), and the revised script was published in the Spring 1998 issue of Show Music magazine (see below for information about the revised version). Barbara Isenberg’s Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical (published in hardback by Limelight Editions in 1996) is a highly recommended first-hand account of the trials and tribulations of the show (it includes a page-and-a-half list by David Shire of the songs written for the musical, including ones dropped in preproduction, the tryout, and the New York preview period). A year after the musical closed, a revised version toured during the 1997–1998 season. It included ten songs not heard in the Broadway production (“Say Good Morning to Mom,” “Port Authority Shuffle,” “Big Boys,” “Welcome to MacMillan Toys” [including “Welcome to MacMillan Toys—Part 2”], “My Secretary’s in Love,” “Let’s Not Move Too Fast,” “Do You Want to Play Games?,” “Little Susan Lawrence,” “Outta Here!,” and “We’re Gonna Be Fine”) and dropped eleven that had been heard in New York (“Can’t Wait,” “This Isn’t Me,” “I Want to Go Home,” “Dr. Deathstar,” “Josh’s Welcome,” “Here We Go Again,” “Tavern Foxtrot,” “It’s Time,” “Happy Birthday, Josh,” “One Special Man,” and “Skateboard Romance”). For the tour, Ron Holgate played the role of MacMillan.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Crista Moore); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Brett Tabisel); Best Book (John Weidman); Best Score (lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr., and music by David Shire); Best Choreography (Susan Stroman)

RENT Theatre: Nederlander Theatre Opening Date: April 29, 1996; Closing Date: September 8, 2008 Performances: 5,124 Book, Lyrics, and Music: Jonathan Larson; original concept and additional lyrics by Billy Aronson; Lynn M. Thomson, Dramaturg Suggested by the 1896 opera La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini. Direction: Michael Greif; Producers: Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum, Allan S. Gordon, and The New York Theatre Workshop; Choreography: Marlies Yearby; Scenery: Paul Clay; Costumes: Angela Wendt; Lighting: Blake Burba; Musical Direction: Tim Weil Cast: Adam Pascal (Roger Davis), Anthony Rapp (Mark Cohen), Jesse L. Martin (Tom Collins), Taye Diggs (Benjamin Coffin III aka Benny), Fredi Walker (Joanne Jefferson), Wilson Jermaine Heredia (Angel Schunard), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Mimi Marquez), Idina Menzel (Maureen Johnson), Kristen Lee Kelly (Mark’s Mom, Alison, Others), Byron Utley (Christmas Caroler, Mr. Jefferson, Pastor, Others), Gwen Stewart (Mrs. Jefferson, Woman with Bags, Others), Timothy Britten Parker (Gordon, The Man, Mr. Grey,

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Others), Gilles Chiasson (Man with Squeegee, Waiter, Others), Rodney Hicks (Paul, Cop, Others), Aiko Nakasone (Alexi Darling, Roger’s Mom, Others) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the present time in the East Village.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Tune Up” and “Voice Mail # 1” (Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Kristen Lee Kelly, Jesse L. Martin, Taye Diggs); “Rent” (Company); “You Okay Honey?” (Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin); “One Song Glory” (Adam Pascal); “Light My Candle” (Adam Pascal, Daphne Rubin-Vega); “Voice Mail # 2” (Byron Utley, Fredi Walker); “Today 4 U” (Wilson Jermaine Heredia); “You’ll See” (Taye Diggs, Anthony Rapp, Jesse L. Martin, Adam Pascal, Wilson Jermaine Heredia); “Tango: Maureen” (Anthony Rapp, Fredi Walker); “Life Support” (Rodney Hicks, Timothy Britten Parker, Company); “Out Tonight” (Daphne Rubin-Vega); “Another Day” (Adam Pascal, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Company); “Will I?” (Company); “On the Street” (Company); “Santa Fe” (additional lyric by Billy Aronson) (Jesse L. Martin, Company); “We’re Okay” (Fredi Walker); “I’ll Cover You” (Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin); “Christmas Bells” (Company); “Over the Moon” (Idina Menzel); “La Vie Boheme” and “I Should Tell You” (additional lyric for latter song by Billy Aronson) (Company) Act Two: “Seasons of Love” (Company); “Happy New Year” and “Voice Mail # 3” (Daphne Rubin-Vega, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Idina Menzel, Fredi Walker, Jesse L. Martin, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Kristen Lee Kelly, Aiko Nakasone, Taye Diggs); “Take Me or Leave Me” (Idina Menzel, Fredi Walker); “Without You” (Adam Pascal, Daphne Rubin-Vega); “Voice Mail # 4” (Aiko Nakasone); “Contact” (Company); “I’ll Cover You” (reprise) (Jesse L. Martin, Company); “Halloween” (Anthony Rapp); “Goodbye, Love” (Anthony Rapp, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Adam Pascal, Idina Menzel, Fredi Walker, Jesse L. Martin, Taye Diggs); “What You Own” (Byron Utley, Anthony Rapp, Jesse L. Martin, Taye Diggs, Adam Pascal); “Voice Mail # 5” (Aiko Nakasone, Unnamed Performer [as Mrs. Marquez], Byron Utley, Kristen Lee Kelly); “Finale” and “Your Eyes” (Adam Pascal, Company) The hit Pulitzer Prize–winning Rent was loosely based on Puccini’s opera La Boheme, here transposed to the present-day 1990s in the East Village. Jeffrey Sweet in The Best Plays of 1995–1996 didn’t think the musical deserved the Pulitzer Prize (he found A Fair Country, Master Class, New England, and Seven Guitars more worthy), and noted that the musical’s characters were not “particularly engaging” and were “almost constantly angry and depressed with a plentitude of easy disdain for the so-called normal world.” He also mentioned that “in contrast to the heterosexual characters, the show’s gays are all good-hearted and wise.” Although the lyrics were “wildly erratic” and sometimes little more than “rhymed lists” and much of the book consisted of scenes that served “little dramatic purpose,” the music itself was “a river of melody and rhythm.” The smug, self-serving characters and their inward-looking self-centeredness have dated the musical, and when the 2005 film version was released there was a sense that the show was clearly of its era and hadn’t aged well. In his review of the film, Kyle Smith in the New York Post said the only “reason this can of corn carried a genuine note of the tragic is not because of anything in it but because” of the untimely death of its author, Jonathan Larson. He noted that when the white actor Anthony Rapp sang “La Vie Boheme” and wound himself “into some sort of Black Power salute” it was probably enough to make Al Sharpton want to “move to Topeka.” Scott Galupo in the Washington Times said the film had the aura of “staleness” and was “somewhat dated,” and he found the score “bombastic.” But there was no stopping Rent. It was part of the era’s zeitgeist, and like Hair before it, the show attracted an audience that responded to its message, even though its message was vague and undefined and seemed to glorify lack of responsibility. The story takes place in the Village and centers on a number of characters, most either self-absorbed or self-destructive, including the bisexual and HIV-positive Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin), the cross-dresser and HIV-positive Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), the HIV-positive Roger (Adam Pascal), the lesbians Joanne (Fredi Walker) and Maureen (Idina Menzel), and the heroine and heroin-addicted Mimi (Daphne Rubin-Vega). But the events depicted in the musical were nowhere near as touching and dramatic as the story surrounding Larson, the musical’s book writer, lyricist, and composer, who died just hours before the musical’s OffBroadway premiere. Prior to an earlier reading of the musical, the work had been seen in three pre-Broadway

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productions, the first two Off-Off-Broadway and the third Off-Broadway, and all at the New York Theatre Workshop. The first was a “studio production” on October 29, 1994, for eight performances, followed by another production, which gave a preview performance on January 25, 1996, and then opened the next day for a run of twelve performances, and then on February 13 for fifty-six performances. From there, the musical moved to Broadway, where it won every conceivable award and ran for twelve years for a total of 5,124 showings. But Larson was never to know most of this. He died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm on January 25, 1996, the day of the musical’s first preview performance after he had attended the previous evening’s dress rehearsal. His death brought to mind a similar opening when in 1980 director and choreographer Gower Champion died a few hours before the opening night performance of 42nd Street and his death was announced by producer David Merrick at the conclusion of the musical’s curtain calls before a stunned cast and audience. John Simon in New York said Rent was for “the politically correct, the terminally trendy, [and] the believers in everything the media tell them.” Larson’s “verbal and musical echolalia” were “well nigh unendurable” with “endless iteration of simplistic musical phrases, banal but attitudinizing words, and rhyming-dictionary rhymes.” He noted that if one placed Big and Rent side by side, the “inescapable” conclusion would be that old-style and new-style musicals had run their course and “fresh genius” was needed to pave the way for the future of the American musical. But Larson was not that genius. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said Rent, like Hair, was not “musically impressive” and was “full of phoniness.” Further, the evening’s “smugness, implicit downtown, is now, understandably, fullblown.” He noted that the score owed more “to rock than to musical theatre,” and “its best moments are its harmonically rich choral numbers.” Although Clive Barnes in the New York Post found the production “vastly enjoyable,” he felt the ending was a “cop-out” (Mimi survives). And he noted that the show’s “repetitions” and the “general naiveté of the characterizations” were “flaws” downtown and remained “flaws” on Broadway. Jeremy Gerard in Variety said Rent was the “pinnacle” of the season and “the best show in years, if not decades,” and it was his prediction that “pop artists [will] line up to cover the songs from a score that overflows with great numbers.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised the “charming, poignant rock opera” but said the transfer of the musical from a 150-seat downtown theatre to the 1,173-seat Nederlander hadn’t really been thought out. Further, the theatre had been turned into “East Village Land” in much the same way that the Eugene O’Neill Theatre had been turned into “1950s Land” for the recent revival of Grease (Kissel found it “ironic” that Bloomingdale’s was opening a “Rent boutique”). Brantley noted that the second act was “awkward” and included “unfortunate” lyrics, but Larson’s score was “winningly accessible.” Songs heard in the 1994 production that were later cut from the score are: “Cool”/ “Fool,” “Business,” “Female to Female,” “He Says,” “Right Brain,” “Over It,” “Real Estate,” and “Message # 6”; and one song sequence heard during the 1996 Off-Broadway production was also cut (“Door”/“Wall”). The Broadway cast album was released on a two-CD set by Dreamworks Records (# DRMD2-50003), and there are three editions of the script: a hardback published by HarperCollins in 1997; a hardback and paperback collection titled The New American Musical: An Anthology from the End of the Century by Theatre Communications Group in 2003 (which also includes the scripts of Parade, Floyd Collins, and Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party); and the paperback Rent: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Broadway Musical by Applause Theatre and Cinema Books in 2008. The film was released in 2005 by Columbia Pictures with many of the original cast members; the two-CD soundtrack album was issued by Warner Brothers Records (# 49455-2) and the two-DVD set by Sony Home Pictures Entertainment. A film version of the musical’s final Broadway performance (Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway) was released on DVD by Sony Pictures (# 29791). An interview by Charlie Rose with cast members of Rent was televised on December 9, 1996 (along with separate interviews with Savion Glover and George C. Wolfe regarding their dance musical Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk and with Jerry Herman), and the three interview sessions were released by the Charlie Rose Studio on a single DVD set. The original London production opened on May 12, 1998, at the Shaftesbury Theatre and played eighteen months.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Rent); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Adam Pascal); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Daphne Rubin-Vega); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Wilson Jermaine

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Heredia); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Idina Menzel); Best Director of a Musical (Michael Greif); Best Book (Jonathan Larson); Best Score (lyrics and music by Jonathan Larson); Best Lighting Designer (Blake Burba); Best Choreography (Marlies Yearby) New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award: Best Musical (1995–1996) (Rent) Pulitzer Prize: Best Play (1995–1996) (Rent)

FAUST

“A New Musical Comedy” The musical opened on September 19, 1995, at La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre in La Jolla, California, and closed there on October 29; a year later, the musical opened on September 30, 1996, for a limited engagement at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, Illinois. The musical was never produced on Broadway. Book, Lyrics, and Music: Randy Newman Based on the Faust legend (for more information, see below). Direction: Michael Greif; Producer: La Jolla Playhouse (Michael Greif, Artistic Director; Terrence Dwyer, Managing Director); Choreography: Lynne Taylor-Corbett; Scenery: James Youmans; Projections: Alex W. Papalexis; Costumes: Mark Wendland; Lighting: Christopher Akerlind; Musical Direction: Joseph Church Cast: In Heaven—Ken Page (The Lord), Christopher Seiber (Angel Rick), Brian Evers (Angel Charles), Melissa Jones (Angel Girl), Lindsay Marie Sablan (Little Girl Angel aka Kylie), Michael Hune (Little Boy Angel aka Cupid); In Hell—David Garrison (The Devil), Brian Evers (Teddy), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Cinda), Michael Potts (Bodyguard), Andre Carthen (Don), Jonathan Brody (Biff), Erin Hill (Lovetime Ingenue), Henry Aronson (Ludwig), Joshua W. Coleman (Card Player); In South Bend, Indiana—Kurt Deutsch (Henry Faust), Bellamy Young (Margaret), Sherie Rene Scott (Martha), Brian Evers (Speaker, Father Ryan), H. Clent Bowers (Chester Fagan), Jonathan Brody (Irish Cop), Michael Potts (Valentine); Ensemble (in Heaven, Hell, South Bend, Indiana, and Costa Rica): H. Clent Bowers, Jonathan Brody, Andre Carthen, Joshua W. Coleman, Shelley Dickinson, Brian Evers, Melissa Haizlip, Erin Hill, Michael Hune, Melissa Jones, Marissa Perez, Michael Potts, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Erin Ryan, Lindsay Marie Sablan, Christopher Sieber The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place at the beginning of time and during the present, in Heaven, Hell, South Bend, Indiana, and Costa Rica.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Pass on Over” and “Glory Train” (Ken Page, David Garrison, Christopher Seiber, Brian Evers, Melissa Jones, Lindsay Marie Sablan, Michael Hune); “Can’t Keep a Good Man Down” (David Garrison, Devil’s Staff); “Each Perfect Day” (Ken Page); “Best Little Girl” (David Garrison, Angels); “Bless the Children of the World” (Kurt Deutsch, Company); “Little Island” (Christopher Seiber); “Eastertime” (H. Clent Bowers, Company); “March of the Protestants” (Company); “The Man” (Kurt Deutsch, Company); “Lovetime” (David Garrison, Company); “Relax, Enjoy Yourself” (Ken Page, David Garrison, Angelic Kids, Company); “Relax, Enjoy Yourself” (reprise) (Company); “When Love Is in the Air” (Company); “Gainesville” (Bellamy Young); “When Love Is in the Air” (reprise) (Company) Act Two: “How Great Our Lord” (Ken Page, Angels); “Life Has Been Good to Me” (Sherie Rene Scott, David Garrison, Company); “My Hero” (Bellamy Young); “Gainesville” (reprise) (Bellamy Young); “It Was Beautiful” (Ken Page); “Hard Currency” (Sherie Rene Scott, Company); “Feels Like Home” (Bellamy Young, Kurt Deutsch); “Hard Currency” (reprise) (Company); “Bleeding All Over the Place” (David Garrison); “Glory Train” (reprise) (Company); “Sandman’s Coming” (Bellamy Young); “Pass on Over” (reprise) (Ken Page, Bellamy Young, Angels); “Can’t Keep a Good Man Down” (reprise) (Ken Page, David Garrison, Company) Randy Newman’s Faust was, of course, based on the legend of Faust, most famously depicted in Christopher Marlowe’s 1589 play The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1808 play Faust, and Charlies Gounod’s 1859 opera Faust, which incidentally was the first opera to

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be performed at the Metropolitan Opera House when it opened its doors on October 22, 1883. And of course Broadway enjoyed a hit in Damn Yankees (1955), which also used the Faust theme in its story about a fanatic baseball fan who sells his soul to the devil in order to ensure that his favorite team wins (in the words of one of the Brewster sisters in Arsenic and Old Lace) “that old pennant thing.” In the current musical, the Devil (David Garrison) and the Lord (Ken Page) enter into battle for a soul, and so they undertake a computer search for the right candidate, who turns out to be Henry Faust (Kurt Deutsch), a Generation X–type without much in the way of a brain or soul, a self-absorbed college boy who says he doesn’t like to read on his own time and whose goal in life is to get rich and out-Nintendo Nintendo with the creation of the next big must-have computer game. But there’s more here than meets the eye, because the Devil is repentant and wants back into Heaven, and the deal between the Lord (who likes to spend time on the golf course) and the Devil (whose office is adorned with a framed autographed photo of the Rat Pack and who thinks Perry Como is the last word in hip entertainment) is that if Faust loses his soul, the Devil can return to Heaven (as a result, the Lord will gain one soul and lose another). Part of the musical’s joke is that Faust is soulless with no real soul to lose, and he essentially says to the Devil: I get rich. You get my soul. So what’s the catch? The $1.1 million musical premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California, in September 1995, and a year later was given a second production at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. In reviewing the productions in both cities, the critics were mostly generous in their assessments of the show, praised Newman’s score, and suggested that with some alterations the work would have the makings of a Broadway hit. After the Chicago run, the musical surfaced at an Encores! Off-Center concert for one performance on July 1, 2014, in which Newman played the Devil. There have also been two recordings of the score (see below). Jeremy Gerard in Variety thought Faust was “one of the freshest winds to blow the theatre’s way in some time” and “could emerge as the most exciting new musical in years.” But the work was also “something of a mess” and there was work to be done: Michael Greif’s direction and Lynn Taylor-Corbett’s choreography were “uninspired” and lacked “fresh ideas,” and the songs tended to come out of nowhere, and some stopped the show “dead in its tracks.” Michael Phillips in the San Diego Union-Tribune said the musical needed pruning, and the pacing and transitions were “on the pokey side,” and Laurie Winer in the Los Angeles Times praised the “thrilling and stage-worthy” score but noted Newman hadn’t quite mastered the form of musical theatre because the songs were “wedged oddly into the story” or “introduced for ludicrously little reason.” But Paul Hodgins in the Orange County Register said Newman’s grasp of the conventions of musical theatre was “astounding.” However, the three-hour evening needed tightening and some songs (such as “Little Island” and “Life Has Been Good to Me”) were extraneous and needed to be cut. For the 1996 Chicago production, David Mamet was credited as the book’s cowriter, and Broadway Baby Robert (Bob) Fitch joined the cast in the role of Don (Juan). This version dropped three songs from the La Jolla production (“Best Little Girl,” “Little Island,” and “Bleeding All Over the Place”) and added three (“Right Next Door to You,” “Never Good Enough,” and “Happy Ending”). Richard Christiansen in the Chicago Tribune said Newman’s “incredibly rich” score was “gloriously right,” but suggested the “giddily enjoyable” evening suffered from “some excruciating moments of bad taste and bad judgment.” Joel Henning in the Wall Street Journal found the musical “wildly uneven,” while Roy Leonard on WGN Radio/TV said the evening was “a joyous and entertaining experience.” Lewis Lazare in Variety noted that a year later the show’s creators still hadn’t resolved the musical’s “most pressing problems,” and the work’s “charms” had “been considerably cheapened by pumping up the piece rather than cutting and focusing.” Further, the songs weren’t “real theatre music” because they rarely advanced the plot or developed character. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the score was “a shimmering, multi-faceted gem” but the “flashy” and “expensive-looking” staging caused Newman’s “original, subversive charms [to] barely peep through.” He felt that some on the production team seemed “to have consulted a dictionary of recent Broadway commercial successes” of the Tommy and Smokey Joe’s Café variety and as a result the show came across as a “feel-good, disconnected revue.” He concluded that if Faust were to move to Broadway its “perspective needs to be refined” and the show needed to be “further thought through” because as it now stood, the evening seemed “like an unwitting commentary on the banality of crowd-pandering musicals.” A studio cast album released by Reprise Records (CD # 9-45672-2) prior to the first staging includes vocals by Newman, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, and others, and it was later reissued on a two-CD set by Rhino

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(# R2-73785) that contains a number of demo recordings, mostly sung by Newman. These recordings offer songs not heard in either the La Jolla or Chicago productions.

TIME AND AGAIN

The musical opened on May 4, 1996, at the Old Globe Theatre’s Simon Edison Centre for the Performing Arts, San Diego, California, and closed there on June 9. A Broadway production scheduled for the Martin Beck Theatre in the fall of 1996 never materialized, but a revised version of the musical was later presented Off-Broadway (see below). Book: Jack Viertel Lyrics and Music: Walter Edgar Kennon Based on the 1970 novel Time and Again by Jack Finney. Direction: Jack O’Brien; Producer: The Old Globe Theatre; Choreography: Kathleen Marshall; Scenery: John Conklin; Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Special Effects Design: Chic Silber; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical Direction: Tom Helm Cast: Anne Allgood (Opera Singer, Ensemble), Terry Burrell (Teacher, Ensemble), Danny Burstein (Frank, Felix, Ensemble), John Carpenter (Doctor Danziger), Susan Cella (Sandra, Fanny, Ensemble), George Dvorsky (Mr. Carmody, Ensemble), Sean Grant (Ensemble), Marc Heller (Paperboy, Tavern Singer, Ensemble), Nancy Hess (The Dance Teacher, Ensemble), JoAnn M. Hunter (Ensemble), Joseph Kolinski (Trolleyman, Ensemble), Rebecca Luker (Julia Charbonneau), John MacInnis (Danziger’s Father, Ensemble), Howard McGillin (Si aka Simon Morley), Elizabeth Mills (Danziger’s Mother, Ensemble), Jessica Molaskey (Kate Mancuso, Mrs. Carmody), Roxann Parker (Aunt Eva, Ensemble), William Parry (Ruben Prine, Jake Pickering), Luis Perez (Ensemble), Jacquelyn Piro (Hypnotist, Ensemble), KT Sullivan (Joyce, Apple Mary, Ensemble), Andy Umberger (Mr. Harriman, Ensemble), John Leslie Wolfe (Megaphone Man, Ensemble) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City during the years 1982 and 1882.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Quodlibet” (Company); “Einstein’s Proposition” (John Carpenter); “When Mama Met Papa” (John Carpenter); “Monday Morning in the Mirror” (Howard McGillin); “The Training” (Company); “Who Would Have Thought It?” (Howard McGillin, Company); “She Dies” (Howard McGillin); “Fairy-Tale Life” (Rebecca Luker, Howard McGillin, Company); “Carrara Marble” (William Parry, George Dvorsky); “Who Are You Anyway?” (Rebecca Luker, Jessica Molaskey); “The Music of Love” (Marc Heller, Company); “Si’s Soliloquy” (Howard McGillin); “For Those You Love” (Joseph Kolinski, Howard McGillin) Act Two: “You’re Mine” and “Modern Romance” (KT Sullivan, Danny Burstein, Company); “What of Love?” (Rebecca Luker); “Carrara Marble” (reprise) (William Parry, George Dvorsky); “The Chase” (Howard McGillin, Rebecca Luker, Company); “Time and Time Again” (Howard McGillin, Rebecca Luker); “The Right Look” (Jessica Molaskey); “It’s Here” (KT Sullivan, Danny Burstein, Company); “I Know This House” (Rebecca Luker); “Si’s Dilemma” (Howard McGillin); “Time and Time Again” (reprise) (Howard McGillin, Rebecca Luker) Jack Finney’s romantic and suspenseful fantasy Time and Again is one of the finest of the sci-fi genre, but perhaps its convoluted plot (which works well on the printed page) is too complicated to translate into a musical. As a result, the show’s 1996 tryout at the Old Globe Theatre with a cast that included Howard McGillin (Si aka Simon Morley), Rebecca Luker (Julia), John Carpenter (Doctor Danziger), Jessica Molaskey (Kate), George Dvorsky, Danny Burstein, KT Sullivan, and William Parry never reached Broadway despite encouraging reviews that nonetheless indicated the show needed work, especially in regard to its overly detailed first-act exposition. (Variety reported that Jujamcyn Theatre president Rocco Landesman had announced the musical would open at the Martin Beck Theatre during the fall of 1996; when it became clear the musical wouldn’t be ready in time, Landesman said he hoped the show would open during the following spring.) In 2001, a revised version of the musical was presented in New York by the Manhattan

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Theatre Club, but nothing came of the production and as of this writing the work has never been presented on Broadway. The story focuses on Si Morley, who becomes part of a secret government project that involves time travel, including a projected visit to the New York City of 1882. The method for time travel was devised by the elderly Doctor Danziger, who runs the project, and Danziger himself would love to travel to 1882 and witness an early moment in his family history, the time when his mother and father met by chance in a theatre lobby. Si has his own reasons for going to 1882 because his girlfriend, Kate, has a mysterious but only partially readable letter that was mailed in 1882 and concerns an individual who was connected to Grover Cleveland. Si hopes to track down the letter’s background, and when he travels to 1882 he discovers the address of the man who mailed it and moves into the boarding house where the man lives, which is run by Julia Charbonneau, with whom Si eventually falls in love. One of the novel’s charming conceits is that time travel is most likely to be successful if the would-be traveler can find a place that hasn’t changed too much from the desired time destination. As a result, Si spends time at an apartment in the Dakota (which was built in the early 1880s) with windows that front an area of Central Park that hasn’t changed all that much during the ensuing century. Si is soon traveling back and forth between 1882 and 1982, and eventually the seemingly unrelated matters of the first meeting of Danziger’s parents, Kate’s mysterious letter, Cleveland’s presidency, and the suspicious boarder converge. In 1982, Danziger and Si discover that government officials intend to use Danziger’s system of time travel to alter the course of history and to influence the foreign affairs policies of Cleveland’s administration. Danziger and Si privately confer, and Si knows what he has to do. He returns to the past, goes to the theatre where Danziger’s mother and father met, and ensures that they don’t meet. As a result, Danziger was never born and thus the time-travel project never occurred. And Si decides to remain in 1882 with Julia. Julio Martinez in Variety said the “creaky” and “overloaded” plot got in the way of the “adventurous” musical, which had a “thoroughly original and engrossing” score and a “uniformly excellent cast.” Michael Phillips in the San Diego Union-Tribune found the evening an “odd” and “curiously muted affair” with “a surfeit of awkward and vague exposition” and a couple of “blatantly cuttable numbers.” He decided the work had not settled “on the right blend of romance, intrigue, sci-fi, and Si-on-the-fly.” Jeff Smith in the San Diego Reader noted that the evening wasted its first half hour “with a deadening dose of exposition desperate for boffo musical relief,” but eventually the show took off with Walter Edgar Kennon’s “majestic” and “wonderful” score. Smith mentioned that with twenty-two cast members and twenty-one musicians, the production was one of the “most ambitious” ever presented at the Old Globe, and he reported that the musical was scheduled to open on Broadway during the following fall. Laurie Winer in the Los Angeles Times praised the “compelling” and “achingly and beautifully understated score,” one of “unusual beauty, both powerful and unassuming.” Despite second-act problems, the work offered “the tantalizing promise of a great musical.” Otherwise, some of the visual effects were “anemic” when they should have been “magnificent”; the song “Si’s Dilemma” probably made no sense to audience members who hadn’t read the original novel; and “pivotal scenes” in the second act were “badly staged.” The musical was presented in New York by the Manhattan Theatre Club at Stage II at City Center on January 30, 2001, for twenty-four performances with a cast that included Lewis Cleale (Sy), Laura Benanti (Julia), David McCallum (Danziger), Julia Murney (Kate), Christopher Innvar, Lauren Ward, and Joseph Kolinski, who reprised his role of the Trolleyman from the 1996 production. The book was still by Jack Viertel, but James Hart was credited with “additional story material.” Jeffrey Eric Jenkins in Best Plays complained that the “page to stage transition was a bumpy one,” and Charles Isherwood in Variety noted that “the parade of incidents” crowded out “the opportunities for creating distinctive characters” in the “uncomfortably overstuffed” musical. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “pallid” production had a “thin, repetitive score” with a “numbing lack of variety” that suggested “that past and present sensibilities are essentially the same.” The “woodenly directed” evening was “static and passionless” and never managed “to summon any genuine sense of wonder.” The revised version jettisoned twelve songs heard in the original production (“Quodlibet,” “Einstein’s Proposition,” “When Mama Met Papa,” “Monday Morning in the Mirror,” “The Training,” “Fairy-Tale Life,” “Si’s Soliloquy,” “You’re Mine,” “Modern Romance,” “The Chase,” “It’s Here,” and “Si’s Dilemma”), and added five (“Standing in the Middle of the Road,” “At the Theatre,” “The Lady in the Harbor,” “The Marrying Kind,” and “The Fire”). Many of the deleted songs had been performed early in the first act of the original production, and so it seems the new version dropped a good deal of expository material.

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In 1995, Jack Finney wrote From Time to Time, a sequel to Time and Again. Finney also wrote the 1955 science-fiction classic The Body Snatchers, which has been filmed four times (in 1956 and 1978 as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in 1994 as Body Snatchers, and in 2007 as The Invasion). Time and Again is sometimes confused with two similar time-travel stories. Karl Alexander’s 1979 novel Time after Time (which was also filmed with that title in 1979) deals with H. G. Wells and his time machine, and the unfortunate events that occur when Jack the Ripper uses the machine to transport himself to modernday New York City (for the film, San Francisco). The novel was adapted into the musical Time after Time (lyrics by Stephen Cole and music by Jeffrey Saver), which was produced regionally in 2007 and 2012. The recording Time after Time and Dodsworth (Original Cast Records CD # OC-6128 and subtitled “New Songs from New Musicals”) includes eight songs from Time after Time with studio cast members Christian Borle, Judy Blazer, Liz Callaway, and Walter Charles. The 1980 film Somewhere in Time, which was based on Richard Matheson’s 1975 novel Bid Time Return, centers on a young man who becomes fascinated with the photo of a woman who lived in 1912, and through self-hypnosis he travels to the past in order to meet her.

1996–1997 Season

FOUR SAINTS IN THREE ACTS Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: August 1, 1996; Closing Date: August 3, 1996 Performances: 4 Libretto: Gertrude Stein Music: Virgil Thomson Direction and Scenery: Robert Wilson; Producer: The Lincoln Center Festival 96 (John Rockwell, Director); Costumes: Francesco Clemente; Lighting: Jennifer Tipton and Robert Wilson; Musical Direction: Dennis Russell Davies. (For this production, the scenario was by Maurice Grosser and the text was edited for projections by Francis Rizzo.) Cast: John McVeigh (St. Stephen), Nicole Heaston (St. Settlement), Eric Owens (St. Plan), Jill Grove (St. Sarah), Marietta Simpson (Commere), Wilbur Pauley (Compere), J. Ashley Putnam (St. Teresa), Suzanna Guzman (St. Theresa II), Sanford Sylvan (St. Ignatius), Jonita Lattimore (St. Cecilia), Beth Clayton (St. Celestine), Chuck Winkler (St. Lawrence), Gran Wilson (St. Chavez), Brett Scharf (St. Jan), Audrey Vallance (St. Genevieve), Barbie Brandon (St. Anne), Mark Swindler (St. Andrews), Eric Edlund (St. Placide, St. Vincent, St. Eustace), Matthew A. Kreger (St. Absalom, St. Phillip), John M. Phillips (Acrobat); Houston Grand Opera Chorus: Barbie Brandon, Sandra Tye Campbell, Beth Clayton, Kelley Leigh Cooksey, Eric Edlund, Lisa Fjoslien, Jill Grove, Derek W. Henry, Matthew A. Kreger, Kimberly Lane, Jonita Lattimore, Kathleen M. Manley, John McVeigh, Kevin M. Moody, Eric Owens, Bret Scharf, Marc Shreiner, Susan Stone, Mark Swindler, Denise Thorson, Audrey Vallance, Nathan Wright, Chuck Winkler, James Marley Winslow The opera was presented in one act. As Gertrude Stein might have written, the action takes place.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t include a list of individual musical numbers. The following represents Stein’s description of the prelude and the four acts. Prelude: A narrative of prepare for saints. Act One: Avila. St. Teresa half indoors and half out of doors. Act Two: Might it be mountains if it were not Barcelona. Act Three: Barcelona. St. Ignatius and one of two literally. Act Four: The sisters and saints reassembled and reenacting why they went away to stay. Perhaps we should get this straight: Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts was presented in four acts; in the original production, there were twelve named saints and twenty-three unnamed ones; the second act might well have taken place in the mountains if it hadn’t occurred in Barcelona; one saint 239

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is really two because there’s her outdoor half and her indoor half (which includes her male side and female side); and, oh, yes, “when this you see remember me” and don’t forget those “pigeons on the grass alas.” If you accepted the skewed and surreal world of Stein’s libretto, then you were well on your way to enjoying, if not necessarily understanding, the opera. James R. Oestreich in the New York Times praised the Houston Grand Opera revival, which was directed by the edgy and controversial director Robert Wilson. The evening was “a novel and refreshing jolt” that merged Stein and Thomson’s “full-blown modernism” and Wilson’s “postmodernism.” The revival was “diverting at every moment,” was “mesmerizing in its totality,” and was “a treat of a rare sort for New York theatergoers.” As 4 Saints in 3 Acts, “An Opera to Be Sung,” the work was first presented by The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, on February 7, 1934. Later in the month, the production opened at the 44th Street Theatre on February 20, and then a few weeks later at the Empire Theatre on April 2, for a total of forty-eight performances. Stein’s dada-esque libretto and Thomson’s swirling church-like music were presented against a décor of pink-and-lace Valentine-like objects on a stage wrapped in huge cloudlike billows of cellophane. Critics and audiences weren’t quite sure what to make of it all, but the opera was an event and one of the most talked-about musicals of the 1930s. The work was revived in New York at the Broadway Theatre on April 16, 1952, for fifteen performances prior to a European tour, and among the cast members was Leontyne Price (as Saint Cecilia) in her first professional appearance. Thomson conducted the revival, and in his review of the production Robert Sylvester in the New York Daily News reported an opening-night to-do in the orchestra pit and suggested Stein would have approved of the slightly surreal scene. It seems Thomson and some of the musicians were having a “fairly loud discussion” over the fact that some players were on page 43 of the musical score when they should have been on page 41. (Well, it might be page 41 if it were not page 43.) An abridged version of the score was recorded in 1947; Thomson conducted, and the cast included many singers from the original 1934 production. RCA Victor Records (LP # LM-2756) released the album, and for its liner notes Thomson discussed the work’s genesis. He and Stein had agreed that the opera would take place in Spain and would center on a group of saints, specifically Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Ignatius (the two saints never met on Earth, but that didn’t matter). Stein completed the libretto in June 1927, and Thomson finished the score in July 1928. She told him to fashion the libretto any way he liked and to feel free to delete anything he felt didn’t work. But he not only retained all her words, he even set her stage directions to music because “they made such lovely lines for singing.” Thomson noted that the opera was really about just four saints, Saint Teresa and her confidante Saint Settlement, and Saint Ignatius and his aide-de-camp Saint Chavez. Weaving in and out of the action were the Compere and Commere, the master and mistress of ceremonies who were dressed as if about to go out with Fred and Ginger for a night on the town. The opera had nothing to do with blacks, but Thomson said an all-black cast was chosen because of their strong voices and their innate understanding of the libretto’s “multiple meanings” and “obscurities.” A Carnegie Hall presentation of the opera in honor of Thomson’s eighty-fifth birthday took place on November 13, 1981, and was the basis for a two-LP set released by Nonesuch Records (LP # 79035). Both the RCA and Nonesuch releases have been issued on CD, and the latter includes the complete libretto.

RIVERDANCE Theatre: Radio City Music Hall Opening Date: October 2, 1996; Closing Date: October 20, 1996 Performances: 21 Poetry: Theo Dorgan Music: Bill Whelan Direction: John McColgan; Producers: Abhann Productions, Ltd. (Moya Doherty, Producer) (Julian Erskine, Executive Producer); Choreography: Michael Flatley, Jean Butler, Maria Pages, Paula Nic Cionnaith, Colin Dunne, Tarik Winston, Mavis Ascott, and the Moscow Folk Ballet Company; Scenery and Painted Images: Robert Ballagh; Projection Design: Chris Slingsby; Costumes: Jen Kelly; Lighting: Rupert Murray; Musical Direction: Noel Eccles

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Cast: John Cavanagh (Narrator); Solo Dancers: Colin Dunne, Eileen Martin, and Maria Pages; Solo Singers: Katie McMahon and Morgan Crowley; Others: Tarik Winston, Eileen Ivers, Ivan Thomas, Daniel B. Wooten, and Herbin Van Cayseele; The Riverdance Irish Dance Troupe: Sarah Barry, Dearbhail Bates, Natalie Biggs, Lorna Bradley, Martin Brennan, Rachel Byrne, Yzanne Cloonan, Andrea Curley, Jo Ellen Forsyth, Fiona Gallagher, Susan Ginnety, Deirdre Goulding, Paula Goulding, Conor Hayes, Miceal Hopkins, Donnacha Howard, Kellie Hughes, Ciara Kennedy, Sinead Lightley, Eileen Martin, Stephen McAteer, Sorcha McCaul, Kevin McCormack, Jonathan McMorrow, Aoibheann O’Brien, Niamh O’Brien, Cormac O Se, Ursula Quigley, Joan Rafter, Pat Roddy, Sheila Ryan, Anthony Savage, Glenn Simpson, Claire Usher, J. R. Vancheri, Raymond Walls, and Leanda Ward; The Moscow Folk Ballet Company: Svetlana Kossoroukova, Ilia Stretsov, Tatiana Nedostop, Marina Taranda, Iouri Oustiougov, Serguei Iakoubov, Iouri Shishkine, and Olena Krutsenko; The Riverdance Singers: Derek Byrne, Patrick Connolly, Jennifer Curran, Tony Davoren, Maire Lang, Kay Lynch, Lorraine Nolan, and Cathal Synnott; Drummers: Abraham Doron, Vinny Ozborne, Andrew Reilly, and Derek Tallon The dance revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: Introduction; “Reel Around the Sun”: (1) “Corona”; (2) “The Chronos Reel”; and (3) “Reel Around the Sun” (choreography by Michael Flatley); “The Heart’s Cry”; “Women of Ireland: The Countess Cathleen and The Women of the Sidhe” (choreographed by Jean Butler); “Caoineadh Chu Chulainn” (Lament); “Thunderstorm” (choreography by Michael Flatley); “Shivna” (choreographed by the Moscow Folk Ballet Company); “Firedance” (choreographed by Maria Pages); “Slip into Spring: The Harvest”; “Riverdance”: (1) “Cloudsong”; (2) “Dance of the Riverwoman”; (3) “Earthrise”; and (4) “Riverdance”) (choreography by Mavis Ascott, Irish step-dance choreography by Michael Flatley, and female solo choreography by Jean Butler) Act Two: Introduction; “American Wake”—“Nova Scotia Set” and “Lift the Wings” (choreography by Michael Flatley and Paula Nic Cionnaith); Scene: (1) “Heal Their Hearts”—“Freedom”; (2) “Trading Taps” (choreography by Colin Dunne and Tarik Winston); (3) “Morning in Macedonia” (“The Russian Dervish”) (choreographed by the Moscow Folk Ballet Company); (4) “Oscail an Doras” (“Open the Doors”); and (5) “Heartbeat of the World—Andalucia” (choreography by Maria Pages and Colin Dunne); “Home and Heartland” (choreography by Michael Flatley, Colin Dunne, and Jean Butler); “Riverdance International” The limited return engagement of Riverdance was joined later in the season by Lord of the Dance, the first an Irish dance revue and the other more in the nature of an Irish dance musical, and both played at Radio City Music Hall. David Lefkowitz in The Best Plays of 1996–1997 noted that both works were a “crass blend of fine step-dancing, portentous narration, over-amplified Celtic music and endlessly repeated combinations.” For more information about Riverdance, see entry for its first engagement (which played during March 1996).

BRIGADOON Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: November 13, 1996; Closing Date: November 24, 1996 Performances: 14 Book and Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner Music: Frederick Loewe Direction: Christian Smith, Stage Director; Producer: The New York City Opera Company; Choreography: Agnes de Mille (de Mille’s original choreography re-created by Gemze de Lappe and additional choreography by de Lappe); Scenery and Costumes: Desmond Heeley; Lighting: Duane Schuler; Choral Director: Joseph Colaneri; Musical Direction: John McGlinn Cast: Brent Barrett (Tommy Albright), Sean Donnellan (Jeff Douglas), Leslie Browne (Maggie Anderson), William Ledbetter (Archie Beaton), James Bobick (Angus MacGuffie), Judy Kaye (Meg Brockie), Joel Sorenson (Stuart

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Dalrymple), Ron Hilley (Sandy Dean), Robert La Fosse (Harry Beaton), Don Yule (Andrew MacLaren), Rebecca Luker (Fiona MacLaren), Elizabeth Ferrell (Jean MacLaren), George Dyer (Charlie Dalrymple), George Hall (Mr. Lundie); Philipp Verges and William Ward (Sword Dancers); Stephen Frank (Bagpiper), Jon Brent Curry (Frank), Stacy Lee Tilton (Jane Ashton); Ensemble: The New York City Opera Singers and Dancers The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Brigadoon (a village in the Scottish Highlands) and in New York City during a recent May. City Opera’s revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1947 musical Brigadoon was the company’s third presentation of the work, which had first been seen there in 1986 and 1991 (for more information about the musical and a list of musical numbers, see entry for the 1991 production). In his review of the current production for the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini noted the evening’s “main shortcoming” was the “listless singing and staging of the chorus.” But the choreography was “animated and effective,” and the sword dancers headed by Robert La Fosse for the wedding sequence “stopped the show.” Tommasini said the “ruggedly handsome” Brent Barrett (Tommy) “had a tight baritone sound but sang with a clean line”; the “sweet-voiced” Rebecca Luker (Fiona) was “wonderful”; George Dyer (Charlie) brought “a nice Highland tenor lilt” to “Come to Me, Bend to Me”; and Judy Kaye (Meg) was “perky” but “her diction was not always clear.” The production was conducted by John McGlinn, who had also conducted a 1992 recording of the score that featured three of the principals in the current revival (Barrett, Luker, and Kaye). The album was released by Broadway Angel Records (CD # 0777-7-54481-2-2).

CHICAGO Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre (during run, the musical has transferred to the Shubert and Ambassador Theatres) Opening Date: November 14, 1996; Closing Date: (As of this writing, the musical is still running.) Performances: (As of this writing, this musical is still running and has played over 8,200 performances.) Book: Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse; revival’s script adaptation by David Thompson Lyrics: Fred Ebb Music: John Kander Based on the 1926 play Chicago by Maurine Dallas Watkins. Direction: Walter Bobbie; Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler in association with Kardana Productions, Inc. (Alecia Parker, Associate Producer) (presented in association with PACE Theatrical Group/Hart Sharp Entertainment); Choreography: Ann Reinking (choreography “in the style of Bob Fosse”); Scenery: John Lee Beatty; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Rob Fisher Cast: Bebe Neuwirth (Velma Kelly), Ann Reinking (Roxie Hart), Michael Berresse (Fred Casely), Michael Kubala (Sergeant Fogerty), Joel Grey (Amos Hart), Denise Faye (Liz), Mamie Duncan-Gibbs (Annie), Mary Ann Lamb (June), Tina Paul (Hunyak), Caitlin Carter (Mona), Marcia Lewis (Matron “Mama” Morton), James Naughton (Billy Flynn), D. Sabella (Mary Sunshine), Leigh Zimmerman (Go-to-Hell Kitty), Rocker Verastique (Harry), David Warren-Gibson (Aaron), Jim Borstelmann (The Judge), Bruce Anthony Davis (Martin Harrison), John Mineo (Court Clerk) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Chicago, Illinois, during the late 1920s.

Musical Numbers Act One: “All That Jazz” (Bebe Neuwirth, Company); “Funny Honey” (Ann Reinking); “Cell Block Tango” (Bebe Neuwirth, Denise Faye, Mamie Duncan-Gibbs, Mary Ann Lamb, Tina Paul, Caitlin Carter); “When You’re Good to Mama” (Marcia Lewis); “Tap Dance” (Ann Reinking, Joel Grey, Boys); “All I Care About” (James Naughton, Girls); “A Little Bit of Good” (D. Sabella); “We Both Reached for the Gun” (aka “The Press Conference Rag”) (James Naughton, Ann Reinking, D. Sabella, Company); “Roxie” (Ann Reinking, Boys); “I Can’t Do It Alone” (Bebe Neuwirth); “My Own Best Friend” (Ann Reinking, Bebe Neuwirth)

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Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “I Know a Girl” (Bebe Neuwirth); “Me and My Baby” (Ann Reinking, Boys); “Mister Cellophane” (Joel Grey); “When Velma Takes the Stand” (Bebe Neuwirth, Boys); “Razzle Dazzle” (James Naughton, Company); “Class” (Bebe Neuwirth, Marcia Lewis); “Nowadays” (Ann Reinking, Bebe Neuwirth); “Hot Honey Rag” (choreography by Bob Fosse) (Ann Reinking, Bebe Neuwirth); Finale (Company) The revival of Chicago was the season’s blockbuster. As of this writing, it’s both the longest-running revival and the longest-running American musical in Broadway history with over eight thousand performances to its credit (only the 1988 British import The Phantom of the Opera has run longer). The musical was first produced on June 3, 1975, at the 46th Street Theatre for a run of 898 performances with direction and choreography by Bob Fosse and a cast that included Gwen Verdon (Roxie Hart), Chita Rivera (Velma Kelly), Jerry Orbach (Billy Flynn), Mary McCarty (Matron “Mama” Morton), Barney Martin (Amos Hart), and M. O’Haughey (Mary Sunshine). A myth surrounding the original production insists that it was unappreciated, but it played over two years on Broadway, received qualified but enthusiastic reviews, toured nationally for almost two years, was produced in Britain, won ten Tony Award nominations, and returned a profit. But A Chorus Line opened during the same season and became an unstoppable force that trampled every show in sight, and so Chicago and Pacific Overtures were overshadowed by the Michael Bennett musical. Although a few critics in 1975 were alienated by Chicago’s cold and cynical look at corruption in every facet of American life, they agreed the production was the last word in Broadway know-how. Martin Gottfried in the New York Post said the work was the most “dazzling demonstration of the craft of musical theatre as you’re ever going to see on a Broadway stage,” and while Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News felt the work “misses the mark” he nonetheless found time to praise the “corrosive cabaret show,” a “cynical and stylish” and “luridly effective spectacle” with “the sexiest dance routines imaginable.” John Beaufort in the Christian Science Monitor said the musical was “a piece of masterfully crafted showmanship” that was “abrasively alienating,” but noted that perhaps this was “what Mr. Fosse intended.” The strangest critical comment came from Kevin Sanders on WABCTV7, who said there was “nothing really wrong” with the “big, bright, generally better than average Broadway musical,” but it had “no unifying theme,” had no “center,” and was “searching for an idea.” No “unifying theme” and no “center”? In search of “an idea”? If ever a show had these attributes, it was Chicago. Here was a sardonic and cynical work that sneered at everything it touched upon: marriage, show business, the media, and the justice system. Everything is corrupt, nothing is sacred, and fifteen minutes of fame is everyone’s Holy Grail. The show’s attitudes may have been obvious and sophomoric, but the book was a unified and genuinely amusing view of our celebrity culture with its saga of murderers and show-business wannabes Roxie and Velma, their shyster lawyer Billy, the on-the-take-prison-matron-with-vaudeville-connections “Mama” Morton, and the shameless newspaper sob sister Mary Sunshine, who proves that absolutely nothing is what it appears to be. The musical’s moral is that the more immoral, the greater the glory, and the show’s only decent character (the hapless Hunyak) is executed for a murder she didn’t commit. But Roxie and Velma at least temporarily hit it big on the vaudeville circuit and prove that vice is its own sweet reward. John Kander and Fred Ebb’s score was a series of knockout songs choreographed and staged to blockbuster perfection by Fosse, whose seamless direction kept the musical moving at top speed. The production presented the story as a series of vaudeville turns accompanied by Brechtian announcements from various cast members who introduced and commented upon the numbers (we’re told that Roxy and Velma’s “My Own Best Friend” is “a song of unrelenting determination and unmitigated ego”). When a piano glides on stage with Roxie atop, she sings in Helen Morgan-style “Funny Honey,” an insincere salute to her spouse. But the song turns on itself: it begins in the manner of a classic torch song in the tradition of “My Man” and soon morphs into an excoriating damnation of Amos. Billy’s press conference for reporters to meet and interview Roxie is staged as a puppet-and-ventriloquist act, with Roxie the puppet on Billy’s lap as he sings the words that she mouths. And the virtually invisible Amos sings “Mister Cellophane” in the manner of a Ted (“Is everybody happy?”) Lewis, but here nobody is happy. The current revival began as a limited-engagement staged concert for Encores! where it opened at City Center on May 2, 1996, for four performances with Ann Reinking (Roxie), Bebe Neuwirth (Velma), James Naughton (Billy), Joel Grey (Amos), Marcia Lewis (Matron “Mama” Morton), and D. Sabella (Mary Sunshine). Walter Bobbie directed, Reinking choreographed “in the style of Bob Fosse,” William Ivey Long was the “apparel consultant,” Ken Billington designed the lighting, and David Thompson adapted the original book.

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Once the concert was announced for a Broadway production that would emulate the look and style of the Encores! presentation, skeptics doubted a fully staged but minimalist evening would last long in a regular Broadway house at full Broadway prices. But once the revival opened, it was easy to see why the chic barebones production became an immediate hit with its stylishly black Victoria’s Secret–like costumes, essentially skeletal platform-styled scenery, and its orchestra on stage in full view of the audience. Clearly, if you have a unified vision in which every aspect of a production knows exactly where it’s going and if you stage every number as a show-stopper, then you’ve got a musical that will receive unanimous raves, enthusiastic audience response, and a run of two decades (and counting). And why the sea change from 1975 to 1996, especially since the revival wasn’t all that different from the original production? Perhaps because it was the country and not the musical that had changed in twenty-one years, and celebrity trials and scandals had created a more cynical audience clearly ready to accept a skewed look at the nation’s system of values or, more precisely, its lack of values. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “pulse-racing” revival offered “some of the sexiest, most sophisticated dancing seen on Broadway in years,” and if the show’s vision of America was “hell,” its presentation was nonetheless “musical heaven.” Here was a “musical for the ages” in which “every number” (“most of them show-stoppers”) provided an “adrenaline rush” with their show-biz savvy. The revival was “a parade of vital, pulsing talent” and Brantley rightly predicted that audiences would exult “in that parade for many, many performances to come.” Greg Evans in Variety said he was “overwhelmed by the rare synthesis of talent,” which had “conspired to create theatre art.” Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News found the evening “wildly entertaining” and commented that the “important” work was a reminder that musicals “are about songs and performers, not scenery” because when you have “material and performances as dynamic as this, you don’t need chandeliers.” And Richard Zoglin in Time praised the “stunning” revival, noting that “what seemed cynical in 1975 is now au courant” and thus Chicago “hasn’t merely aged well, it has come of age.” Marc Peyser in Newsweek hailed the “smashing” show that “boils over with cynical songs,” “heat-seeking” dances, and a “string of hormonal showstoppers.” Reinking’s choreography stole the show, both she and Neuwirth danced “irresistibly,” and “thanks to Walter Bobbie’s pinpoint direction” each and every “spotlight and bent pinkie” made an impression. Clive Barnes in the New York Post suggested the revival worked better than the original production, and he praised the “terrific” performers. The “tuneful” songs seemed “fresher today,” and he stated that “you’ll have a great time if you think ’20s [1920s] and simple, and forget chandeliers.” But Michael Feingold in the Village Voice was a bit cool to it all. He said the show tried too hard to let you know how “sleazy” the world is, and the evening didn’t “quite have either the giddy elation Fosse could produce or the really sordid lowness he could sink to.” The revival omitted the instrumental sequence “Chicago after Midnight” as well as the dance numbers “R.S.V.P.” and “Keep It Hot.” These last two were replaced by “Hot Honey Rag” (with choreography credited to Fosse), which may have been a new overall title for the “R.S.V.P” and “Keep It Hot” sequences. For the tryout of the 1975 production, David Rounds played the role of Henry Glassman, a sleazy publicity agent who helps Roxie and Velma ride the wave of their notoriety to a booking on the vaudeville circuit. When his role and his song “Ten Percent” were written out of the show, part of his character morphed into Matron “Mama” Morton, who now became a warden with vaudeville connections. Other songs cut in preproduction or during the tryout were “No,” “It,” “Curtain,” “Rose-Colored Glasses,” “Windowpanes of Rose,” “Loopin’ the Loop” (which in 1975 had been heard as the musical’s overture and as part of “Chicago after Midnight”), and the intriguingly titled “Pansy Eyes.” Incidentally, the revival opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, formerly the 46th Street Theatre and the home of the original 1975 Chicago. It was somehow fitting that the new production opened at Fosse and Verdon’s old stomping ground, for the 46th Street Theatre was the original home of three other Fosse and Verdon collaborations, Damn Yankees (1955), New Girl in Town (1957), and Redhead (1959). The script of the 1975 production was published in paperback by Samuel French in 1976. The original 1975 cast album was released by Arista Records (LP # 9005), and was later issued on CD by Bay Cities Records (# BCD-3003) and then by Arista (# 07822-18952-2). There are two orchestral versions of the score. Lee Konitz’s “Chicago” and All That Jazz! (Groove Merchant Records LP # GM-3306) is a big-band jazz interpretation of the score that includes the cut songs “Ten Percent” and “Loopin’ the Loop,” and “Chicago” . . . and All That Jazz (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5798) by the Brad Ellis Little Big Band includes “Loopin’ the Loop.” Forgotten Broadway (unnamed company; LP # T-101) offers a live tryout performance of the cut song “It” by Verdon and Rivera, the collection Lost in Boston (Varese Sarabande Records CD # VSD-5475) includes “Ten Percent”

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(sung by Harry Groener), and the collection Contemporary Broadway Revisited (Painted Smiles Records CD # PSCD-131) includes “Ten Percent” and “Loopin’ the Loop.” The two-CD collection John Kander: Hidden Treasures, 1959–2015 (Harbinger Records # HCD3105) includes three songs from the musical, an early version of “Roxie” (performed by Kander and Ebb) and the cut songs “Windowpanes of Rose” (performed by Kander) and “It” (performed by Kander and Ebb). The cast album of the current revival was released by RCA Victor/BMG Records (CD # 09026-68727-2) and includes the first recording of “I Know a Girl,” which wasn’t recorded for the 1975 album. The first London production opened in 1979 for 600 performances, and the second, which was based on the current revival, opened at the Adelphi Theatre on November 18, 1997, with Ruthie Henshall (Roxie), Ute Lemper (Velma), and Henry Goodman (Billy). It played for approximately five thousand performances (the cast album for the 1997 London revival was released by RCA/BMG Records CD # 09026-63155-2). Other recordings of European productions based on the 1996 revival are the 1997 Austrian company (Reverso/BMG Records CD # 74321-583552) and the 1999 Dutch company (Endemol Records two-CD set # ENCD-99143), both of which were recorded live. The highly entertaining 2002 film version directed and choreographed by Rob Marshall was a clever adaptation that used stage-bound techniques in imaginative and exciting ways. Rather than presenting the songs as vaudeville-styled numbers introduced by various cast members, the musical sequences were staged as visions by the star-struck Roxie (Renee Zellweger) who sees everything through the prism of show business. The film was a huge critical and financial success, was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards, and won six, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Zeta-Jones, who played Velma). Others in the cast were Richard Gere (Billy), Queen Latifah (Matron “Mama” Morton), and John C. Reilly (Amos); the film also included a classy nod to Chita Rivera, who was seen in a very brief cameo role. The film retained “All That Jazz,” “Funny Honey,” “When You’re Good to Mama,” “Cell Block Tango,” “All I Care About,” “We Both Reached for the Gun,” “Roxie,” “I Can’t Do It Alone,” “Mister Cellophane,” “Razzle Dazzle,” and “Nowadays”; omitted “A Little Bit of Good,” “Chicago after Midnight,” “My Own Best Friend,” “I Know a Girl,” “Me and My Baby,” “When Velma Takes the Stand,” “R.S.V.P,” “Keep It Hot,” and “Class”; and added “Hot Honey Rag,” which may be a combination of the “R.S.V.P.” and “Keep It Hot” sequence. “Class” was filmed but cut prior to the movie’s release, but the vocal track is included on the soundtrack album and the outtake itself is an extra on the DVD release. The film included one new song, the vampy “I Move On,” which was sung over the end credits by Roxie and Velma. There have been numerous releases of the CD and DVD, including a “special limited edition” CD (Epic/Sony Music Soundtrax # EK-89059) and a two-DVD set (“The Razzle Dazzle Edition”) by Miramax (# 35001). A soundtrack was also issued in Russian (Epic/Sony Music Soundtrax CD # 511952-2). The screenplay was published in hardback by Newmarket Press in 2003.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical Revival (Chicago); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (James Naughton); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Bebe Neuwirth); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Marcia Lewis); Best Director of a Musical (Walter Bobbie); Best Costume Designer (William Ivey Long); Best Lighting Designer (Ken Billington); Best Choreographer (Ann Reinking)

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Theatre: The Madison Square Garden Theatre Opening Date: November 22, 1996; Closing Date: January 5, 1997 Performances: 90 The current third of ten productions of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at The Madison Square Garden Theatre starred Tony Randall as Scrooge. Peter Marks in the New York Times stated the revival was “different in only one significant aspect: better snow.” In 1995, all the snow seemed to land on the ticketholders seated in Row L, but this year it fell “more enchantingly (and evenly) over the thousands who fill the cavernous theatre.” As for Randall, he made a “suitably crusty” Scrooge.

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According to Best Plays, “Yesterday, Tomorrow and Today” was omitted from the 1995 return engagement. However, the show’s current and following annual visits reinstated the song. For more information about the musical, see entry for the 1994 production.

JUAN DARIEN “A Carnival Mass”

Theatre: Vivian Beaumont Theatre Opening Date: November 24, 1996; Closing Date: January 5, 1997 Performances: 49 Book: Julie Taymor and Elliot Goldenthal Original Lyrics and Music: Elliot Goldenthal The text of the musical was based on Latin excerpts from the Requiem Mass. The work included additional translations into Spanish by Ariel Ashwell and Melia Bensussen (see list of musical numbers for more information). Based on a tale by Horacio Quiroga. Direction: Julie Taymor; Producers: Lincoln Center Theatre (Andre Bishop and Bernard Gersten, Directors, in association with Music-Theatre Group); Choreography: Not credited; Scenery and Costumes: G. W. Mercier and Julie Taymor; Puppetry and Masks: Julie Taymor; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction: Richard Cordova Cast: Company (Plague Victims), Ariel Ashwell (Mother [Dancer], Old Woman), Andrea Frierson Toney (Mother [Vocalist]), Kristofer Batho (Hunter), Bruce Turk (Mr. Bones, Schoolteacher), Company, led by Stephen Kaplin (Shadows), Kristofer Batho, Andrea Kane, and Barbara Pollitt (Juan [Puppet]), Daniel Hodd (Juan [Boy]), Company (Schoolchildren), Kristofer Batho and Andrea Kane (Drunken Couple), Martin Santangelo (Señor Toledo), Company (Circus Tigers), David Toney (Circus Barker, Street Singer), Andrea Kane and Sophia Salguero (Green Dwarf), Sophia Salguero (Marie Posa), Irma-Estel LaGuerre (“The Ballad of Return” Soloist) The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place somewhere in South America.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. The following list of songs in performance order is taken from both the musical’s recording and information in the show’s program (both of which include the text of the musical). “Prologue”; “Agnus Dei” (Chorus); “Lacrymosa” (Chorus, Ariel Ashwell) and “Mr. Bones’ Fanfare” (danced by Bruce Turk); “Jaguar Cub Approach”; “Inter oves” (Andrea Frierson Toney); “Mr. Bones’ Two-Step” (danced by Bruce Turk); “The Hunter’s Entrance” (Kristofer Batho); “Gloria” (Chorus, Andrea Frierson Toney, Ariel Ashwell); “Initiation”; “A Round at Midnight”; “Sanctus” (Andrea Frierson Toney, Ariel Ashwell); “School” (Daniel Hodd); “Uno y uno son dos” (Daniel Hodd); “Recordare” (Andrea Frierson Toney, Ariel Ashwell, Daniel Hodd, Chorus); “Carnaval” (Andrea Kane, Sophia Salguero, David Toney, Martin Santangelo, Chorus); “Lullabye” (lyric by Elliot Goldenthal) (David Toney); “Trance” (English lyric by Horacio Quiroga) (Daniel Hodd, Chorus, Andrea Frierson Toney, Ariel Ashwell); “Dies irae” (David Toney, Chorus); “Lacrymosa II” (Chorus) and “Retribution” (Chorus); “The Ballad of Return” (English lyric by Nilo Cruz) (Irma-Estel LaGuerre); “Ne me perdas” (Daniel Hodd, Andrea Frierson Toney, Ariel Ashwell) The one-act musical Juan Darien (subtitled “A Carnival Mass”) used live actors as well as puppets and masks to tell its sad story of an orphaned jaguar cub who is nurtured by a woman whose baby died in a plague. The cub is soon transformed into the human boy Juan Darien, but a few years later the boy’s adoptive mother dies; once the villagers realize he’s a jaguar in human form, they torture him and his body morphs into a jaguar again. Other jaguars nurse him to health, but before Juan Darien returns with them to the jungle, he visits his mother’s grave and with the blood of his wounds writes his name below hers on the cross above her grave.

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The story was touching, and Julie Taymor’s concept of using a mix of actors, puppets, masks, and surreal décor added to the mysterious fable-like quality of the musical. But the imposition of the text of the Requiem Mass upon the folk tale brought only pretentiousness to the evening, and despite the story’s religious context and inherent symbols, one suspected the production would have been better served with a straightforward, non-liturgical text. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Juan Darien was a “dark, liturgical pageant” and a “cosmic puppet show,” and he thought the work represented an “odd choice” for the re-opening of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre (which had been dark for almost a year) and its subscription audience, who were no doubt more comfortable with “conventional” fare. He decided that the work, which was sometimes “labored” but nonetheless laden with “some very haunting effects,” was “basically a loosely strung necklace of arresting moments.” Taymor offered “inspired shifts of scale and perspective,” and he suggested the audience might “feel exhilaratingly like Alice falling down Wonderland’s rabbit hole.” Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal said Taymor used the stage “as a site of wild, savage, surprising metamorphosis,” but the “slight, trite, and sentimental” work was a “simplistic sketch” with its message of “jaguars good, humans bad” and it became “inflated” with its “pretentious” subtitle (“A Carnival Mass”), which appropriated the Roman Catholic liturgy for “ironic commentary.” Linda Winer in New York Newsday said the “lavish, extremely inventive extravaganza” was “easier to admire than love.” Further, Goldenthal’s score was “basically programmatic pastiche” and she questioned why the piece wasn’t performed in English (and suggested that the mostly Latin and Spanish text was perhaps used for “precious obfuscation”). Greg Evans in Variety said he waited “in vain for a moment” of “wonder” and “awe,” but Juan Darien was “chilly, a tropical musical without humidity,” and like Winer he felt the work was “easier to appreciate than to love.” However, the show was “a luscious display of artistry and craft” with scenes and images that unfolded “with a dreamlike grace.” Although he became accustomed to Taymor’s “visual feast,” he soon looked for “a more emotional” and “visceral connection” to the action, neither of which occurred. But Michael Feingold in the Village Voice said “every moment” of the work was “one of astonishing, exhilarating joy,” and he praised Taymor for her “artistic bravery” and hailed Goldenthal’s “divinely raucous circus-cum-salsa band music.” Juan Darien had first been presented Off-Off-Broadway at St. Clement’s Theatre on March 4, 1988, for twenty-one performances and returned there for an additional eighty showings on December 26, 1989. RCA Victor Records released an album of the score (CD # SK-62845). In 2000, Variety reported that Taymor and Goldenthal were in negotiation with a Brazilian company to produce a film version of the musical that would be made in South America on a $6 million budget. In the same article, Goldenthal noted that his and Taymor’s stage adaptation of Pinocchio “may or may not be done with Disney,” and the article mentioned that a year earlier Tina Landau and Disney had been in discussion about a possible Pinocchio adaptation. Of course, both the projected film version of Juan Darien and stage version of Pinocchio never materialized.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Juan Darien); Best Director of a Musical (Julie Taymor); Best Score (lyrics and music by Elliot Goldenthal); Best Scenic Designer (G. W. Mercier and Julie Taymor); Best Lighting Designer (Donald Holder)

GREASE Theatre: City Center Opening Date: November 29, 1996; Closing Date: December 1, 1996 Performances: 5 Book, Lyrics, and Music: Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey Direction and Choreography: Jeff Calhoun (Jerry Mitchell, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler and Jujamcyn Theatres (A Tommy Tune Production) (Alecia Parker, Associate Producer) (presented in association with PACE Theatrical Group and TV Asahi); Scenery: John Arnone; Costumes: Willa Kim; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: John Samorian

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Cast: Don Most (Vince Fontaine), Sally Struthers (Miss Lynch), Stephen Gnojewski (Sonny), Steve Geyer (Kenickie), Alisa Klein (Frenchy), Roy Chicas (Doody), Tracy Nelson (Betty Rizzo), Cathy Trien (Marty), David Josefsberg (Roger), Farah Alvin (Jan), Adrian Zmed (Danny Zuko), Christopher Youngsman (Eugene Florczyk), Stephanie Seeley (Patty Simcox), Christiane Noll (Sandy Dumbrowksi), Lori Lynch (Cha-Cha Di Gregorio), Lee Truesdale (Teen Angel); The Heartbeats: Denise Boccanfuso, Stefani Rae, and Joelle Letta; The Dream Mooners: Shannon Bailey and Stefani Rae; The Four Straight A’s: Shannon Bailey, Christopher Youngsman, Alan Jenkins, and Daniel Pawlus; Ensemble: Shannon Bailey, Denise Boccanfuso, Ashton Byrum, Scot Fedderly, Alan Jenkins, Michelle Kittrell, Joelle Leta, Daniel Pawlus, Stefani Rae, and Mary Ruvolo The musical was presented in two acts. The action begins at Rydell High School’s class reunion for the graduates of 1959, and then goes back in time to depict the graduates’ high school years. Thanksgiving prayers were answered for those theatergoers who believed that one New York production of Grease wasn’t enough. As a result, producers Barry and Fran Weissler brought in the national touring company of their currently running hit Broadway revival to play during the holiday week for a limited engagement of five performances. That revival had opened on May 11, 1994, and still had another year to run before it closed after a marathon run of 1,503 performances, and so discerning audience members now had the oncein-a-lifetime opportunity to compare nuances between two presentations of the same basic production. An advertisement for the limited engagement joyfully proclaimed, “Now, There’s Enough Grease for Everyone!” During one of the holiday seasons for the original 1972–1980 production, a special window card wished a “Merry Greasemas” to everyone, but the current run didn’t wish everyone a “Happy GreaseGiving” (perhaps the phrase didn’t have quite the right ring to it). For more information about Grease (including a list of musical numbers), see entry for the 1994 production.

DREAMS & NIGHTMARES Theatre: Martin Beck Theatre Opening Date: December 5, 1996; Closing Date: December 29, 1996 Performances: 54 Created by David Copperfield and Adaptation by David Ives Producers: Magicworks Entertainment and PACE Theatrical Group; Visual Artistic Direction: Eiko Ishioka; Additional Lighting: Robert Wierzel; Special Effects: Rene Nadeau; Creative Advisor: Francis Ford Coppola; Magic Consultant: Chris Kenner; Illusion Manager: Tim Merrell Cast: David Copperfield, K. L. Steers, Holly Raye, Wesley Fine The magic revue was presented in one act. With Dreams & Nightmares, magician David Copperfield here made his New York debut after many years of successful national and international engagements. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the performer offered “jaw-dropping illusions with remarkable efficiency,” but there was “a warmed-over, synthetic taste” to the evening that felt like “a lounge act with a runaway budget” and “patter with distinct echoes of the Borscht Belt.” Although the revue lacked a “spontaneous sense of wonder,” Copperfield nonetheless had some “most appealing” moments when he worked the aisles of the theatre and performed “nifty sleight-ofhand tricks with rings and a tissue handkerchief.” Brantley noted that the evening included music by Phil Collins, and the supporting cast consisted of two female assistants (who brought to mind the “automation-ish chorus girls of Las Vegas”) and a little boy who represented Copperfield as a child. Greg Evans in Variety praised Copperfield’s “likeable, self-effacing demeanor,” and mentioned that the evening’s “quieter delights” were those when the master illusionist wandered the theatre’s aisles and chatted up the audience. Here he dispensed with the written narrative (“saccharine stuff” in which the young actor portrayed Copperfield as a boy) and displayed “an easy confidence and rapport with the audience.” The critics noted that the magic tricks included rings taken from audience members that somehow became interlocked (live cameras zoomed in to show that the rings’ circles were unbroken, and the images were projected upon a large onstage screen). An audience member spontaneously drew graffiti on a stage backdrop, and instantly Copperfield produced a sealed envelope that contained the image that had just been drawn. In

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addition, the illusionist either flew high above the stage without any visible wiring or was cut in half with a buzz saw, all of which, for Copperfield, marked just another routine day at the office. Brantley reported that the limited engagement opened with an advance sale of almost $5 million, and that during some weeks the show gave sixteen performances.

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS “The Musical Comedy”

Theatre: Broadhurst Theatre Opening Date: December 19, 1996; Closing Date: May 31, 1997 Performances: 187 Book: Jay Thompson, Marshall Barer, and Dean Fuller Lyrics: Marshall Barer Music: Mary Rodgers Based on the 1835 fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” by Hans Christian Andersen. Direction: Gerald Gutierrez; Producers: Dodger Productions and Joop Van Den Ende (Dodger Management Group, Executive Producer); Choreography: Liza Gennaro; Scenery: John Lee Beatty; Costumes: Jane Greenwood; Lighting: Pat Collins; Musical Direction: Eric Stern Cast: Heath Lamberts (King Sextimus), Mary Lou Rosato (Queen Aggravain), David Aaron Baker (Prince Dauntless), Sarah Jessica Parker (Winnifred), Lewis Cleale (Sir Harry), Jane Krakowski (Lady Larken), David Hibbard (Jester), Tom Alan Robbins (Master Merton), Ann Brown (The Nightingale of Samarkand), Laura Bontrager (The Royal Cellist), Arte Phillips and Pascale Faye (The Royal Ballet), Lawrence Clayton (Minstrel), David Jennings (Player Queen), David Elder (Player Prince), Bob Walton (Player Princess); Other Players: Arte Phillips, Nick Cokas, and Stephen Reed; Knights, Lords, and Ladies Attending the Queen: Nick Cokas, David Elder, David Jennings, Sebastian LaCause, Jason Opsahl, Arte Phillips, Stephen Reed, Bob Walton, Ann Brown, Maria Calabrese, Thursday Farrar, Pascale Faye, Janet Metz, Tina Ou, Aixa M. Rosario Medina, Jennifer Smith The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in and about the castle during Spring 1428.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Many Moons Ago” (Lawrence Clayton, Players); “An Opening for a Princess” (David Aaron Baker, Jane Krakowski, Knights and Ladies); “In a Little While” (Jane Krakowski, Lewis Cleale); “Shy” (Sarah Jessica Parker, Knights); “The Minstrel, the Jester, and I” (Heath Lamberts, Lawrence Clayton, David Hibbard); “Sensitivity” (Mary Lou Rosato); “The Swamps of Home” (Sarah Jessica Parker, David Aaron Baker, Ladies); “Normandy” (Lawrence Clayton, David Hibbard, Heath Lamberts, Jane Krakowski); “The Spanish Panic” (Mary Lou Rosato, Sarah Jessica Parker, David Aaron Baker, Knights and Ladies); “Song of Love” (David Aaron Baker, Sarah Jessica Parker, Knights and Ladies). Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Quiet” (Entire Court); “Goodnight, Sweet Princess” (David Aaron Baker); “Happily Ever After” (Sarah Jessica Parker); “Man to Man Talk” (Heath Lamberts, David Aaron Baker); “Very Soft Shoes” (David Hibbard); “Yesterday I Loved You” (Lewis Cleale, Jane Krakowski); “Lullaby” (Ann Brown); Finale (Company) There was no reason for the revival of the lighthearted spoof Once Upon a Mattress to have failed. The musical is by no means a masterpiece, but it’s an amusing trifle that generally knows where it’s going. Jay Thompson, Marshall Barer, and Dean Fuller’s sly book kids the fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea,” and includes clever conceits: King Sextimus speaks only in “mime” and the interviews of the candidates for Princess are presented in the style of a television quiz show (“Would you repeat the question, please?”). Mary Rodgers’s music is tuneful, Barer’s lyrics delightful, and their songs have a zany tongue-in-cheek air about them, such as “The Swamps of Home,” in which the heroine Winnifred (“Call Me Fred”) recalls the glories of her homeland where there’s beauty in the bog and magic in the mud.

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And there are quirky characters aplenty, of which the daffy Fred is the most memorable, a role tailor-made for a larger-than-life comedienne. The original production catapulted Carol Burnett to fame as she cavorted about with her humorous vocal and physical shticks, and for the show-stopping “Shy,” she commanded the stage with a backup line of chorus-boy knights as she blasted the news to the back balcony and beyond that she’s just a shy, quiet, timid, weak, demure, and frightened girl. But for reasons known only to the gods who hate musical theatre, Sarah Jessica Parker was cast as Fred for the current revival, and her special talents weren’t in sync with the character. Parker was subdued and tentative, and underplayed a role that demanded wild comic abandon with a ballsy and brassy attitude. Perhaps the show really belonged where it began, in an Off-Broadway venue. As ingratiating as Mattress is, time seems to have passed it by and the show is all too clearly from an era when a musical could get by with filler material. The show has far too many extraneous, out-of-nowhere characters, songs, and dances, and the two-act musical might have been more comfortable had it reverted to its original one-act format (see below). A trim thirty-minute, one-act show could have been a winner in an Apple Tree-styled evening with one or two other satiric musicals. The revival received cool reviews but somehow managed to hang on for more than five months. The true stars of the evening were John Lee Beatty and Jane Greenwood, whose respective décor and costumes were both witty and colorful and looked as if they’d stepped out of a lavishly illustrated children’s story book. Donald Lyons in the Wall Street Journal felt the “under-populated and under-imagined” revival was “so relentlessly inept” it could be called Springtime for Chaucer, and Parker was “trapped between pratfalls and glamour and gets neither.” The star missed the “broad, stupid, Lucille Ball-like humor” that “The Swamps of Home” demanded and the production gave her “little chance to charm.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “misbegotten” revival was “weary,” and in a reference to the “rumors of clashes among the show’s creative team,” which “were loud and plentiful during rehearsals and previews,” the cast exuded a sense of “uneasy resignation” as if they weren’t all that happy to be on the stage. As for Parker, she did her “best” but lacked the “special kind of chutzpah required” by the material. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News felt the show was “as fresh, inventive and funny as ever” but regretted that Parker was neither a “natural clown” nor “a belter.” Greg Evans in Variety said Mattress was “grade-B stuffing even under the best of circumstances” but here Gerald Gutierrez’s staging was “oddly constricted” with most of the action confined to just one-third of the stage. Much of the evening’s comedy didn’t generate laughs, and during the pivotal scene when Winnifred tries to fall asleep on a pile of mattresses the “comic timing” of both Parker and Gutierrez missed the mark and lacked both “build-up” and “payoff.” Once Upon a Mattress had first been produced as a one-act musical titled The Princess and the Pea at Camp Tamiment (in Tamiment, Pennsylvania), an adult summer camp in the Poconos. From there, the show was produced Off-Broadway on May 11, 1959, at the Phoenix Theatre for 216 performances; besides Burnett, the original cast members included Jack Gilford (King Sextimus), Joe Bova (Prince Dauntless), Jane White (Queen Aggravain), Allen Case (Sir Harry), and Matt Mattox (The Jester), and the production was directed by George Abbott and choreographed by Joe Layton. On November 11, 1959, the musical transferred to Broadway where it opened at the Alvin (now Neil Simon) Theatre for 244 showings. Because it first opened at the Phoenix, then premiered on Broadway at the Alvin, and later transferred three times, to the Winter Garden, the Cort, and the St. James, the show seems to hold the New York record for having played the most venues within such a short time frame (May 1959–July 1960). The Off-Broadway and Broadway productions played for a total of 460 performances, and for Broadway Gilford and Mattox were succeeded by Will Lee and Jerry Newby, and Burnett was followed by Ann B. Davis during the final weeks of the Broadway run. The song “Yesterday I Loved You” had first been heard in the 1954 summer-stock revue Walk Tall, and during Off-Broadway previews the song “Up and Away” was cut. The cast of the musical’s national tour included Dody Goodman (Winnifred), Buster Keaton (The King), and Harold Lang (The Jester), and later during the tour Imogene Coca and Edward Everett Horton succeeded Goodman and Keaton. Kapp Records released the original Off-Broadway cast album (LP # KLD-7004) and later reissued it (LP # KRS-5507). MCA Classics issued the CD (# MCAD-10768), which included two previously unreleased tracks that were recorded at the time of the original cast album session but weren’t included on the album (“Quiet” and “Lullaby”). The current production was recorded by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-687282) and includes “Quiet,” “Lullaby,” and “Goodnight, Sweet Princess,” a song written for the revival. The script was published in the July 1960 issue of Theatre Arts magazine.

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The musical has been produced on television three times, on June 3, 1964, December 12, 1972, and December 18, 2005, the first two by CBS and the latter by ABC. Burnett appeared in all three showings, the first two as Winnifred and the last as the Queen; for the 1964 and 1972 showings, Gilford and White reprised their original roles (Bova appeared in the 1964 version). The 1964 presentation included one new song (“Under a Spell”), the 1972 adaptation was issued on DVD in the collection Carol + 2: The Original Queens of Comedy (Time Life/WEA), and the 2005 version was released on DVD by Disney/Buena Vista Home Entertainment (# 39254). Other members of the 1964 telecast included Elliott Gould (The Jester), Shani Wallis (Lady Larken), and Bill Hayes (The Minstrel); the 1972 cast included Ken Berry (Prince Dauntless), Bernadette Peters (Lady Larken), Ron Hussman (Sir Harry), Wally Cox (The Jester), and Lyle Waggoner (Sir Studley); and the 2005 cast included Tracey Ullman (Winnifred), Denis O’Hare (Prince Dauntless), Matthew Morrison (Sir Harry), and Tom Smothers (The King). The London production was a quick failure that opened at the Adelphi Theatre on September 20, 1960, for just thirty-one performances; the cast included Jane Connell (Winnifred) and Milo O’Shea (The King), and the production was recorded by HMV Records (LP # CLP-1410) and later rereleased by Stet Records (LP # DS15026).

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Revival (Once Upon a Mattress)

MANDY PATINKIN IN CONCERT “A Benefit Engagement”

Theatre: Lyceum Theatre Opening Date: March 1, 1997; Closing Date: March 22, 1997 Performances: 15 Direction: Eric Cornwell; Producer: Dodger Endemol Theatricals; Musical Direction: Paul Ford Cast: Mandy Patinkin, Paul Ford (Piano) The concert was presented in one act.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. Mandy Patinkin’s limited-engagement concert of fifteen performances was a benefit for a number of causes (Association to Benefit Children, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, National Dance Institute, Peace Now, and Physicians for Human Rights). Greg Evans in Variety reported that Patinkin “wraps all the songs in an emotionally charged melodrama that works” because of his “undeniable vocal talent” and his “unspoken link” to “showbiz tradition.” Among the songs heard at one point or another during the concert’s run were: “And the Band Played On” (lyric by Charles B. Ward, music by John Palmer); “Honey Bun” (South Pacific, 1949; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rodgers); “Once upon a Time” (All American, 1962; lyric by Lee Adams, music by Charles Strouse); “Sam, You Made the Pants Too Long” (lyric by Sam M. Lewis, Milton Berle, and Fred Whitehouse, music by Isham Jones); “School Days” (lyric by Will D. Cobb, music by Gus Edwards); “Trouble” (The Music Man, 1957; lyric and music by Meredith Willson); “When I Grow Too Old Dream” (1935 film The Night Is Young; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Sigmund Romberg); and “The Wrong Note Rag” (Wonderful Town, 1953; lyric by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by Leonard Bernstein). Patinkin’s first solo Broadway concert appearance was Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Dress Casual (Helen Hayes Theatre, July 25, 1989, fifty-six performances). After the current production, he returned in Mandy Patinkin in Concert: “Mamaloshen”; Celebrating Sondhein (Henry Miller Theatre, December 2, 2002, ten performances); and with his Evita costar Patti LuPone was heard in An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin (Ethel Barrymore Theatre, November 21, 2011, fifty-seven performances).

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LORD OF THE DANCE Theatre: Radio City Music Hall Opening Date: March 4, 1997; Closing Date: March 17, 1997 Performances: 12 Conception: Michael Flatley Music: Ronan Hardiman Direction: Arlene Phillips; Producers: Michael Flatley for Unicorn, Ltd., Derek MacKillop for John Reid Enterprises, Ltd., and Harvey Goldsmith; Choreography: Michael Flatley (Marie Duffy-Messenger, Additional Choreography); Scenery: Jonathan Park; Costumes: Sue Blane; Lighting: Patrick Woodroffe; Musical Direction: Ronan Hardiman Cast: Michael Flatley (Lord of the Dance), Bernadette Flynn (Saoirse), Don Dorcha (Daire Nolan), Gillian Norris (Morrighan), Helen Egan (The Little Spirit), Anne Buckley (Erin); Principal Dancers: Bernadette Flynn, Daire Nolan, Gillian Norris; Clan of the Celts, Warlords, Warriors, Girls of Ireland (The Lord of the Dance Troupe): Desmond Bailey, Steven Brunning, Declan Burke, John Carey, Linda Cawte, Donal Conlan, Kerrie Connolly, James Devine, Michael Donellan, Denise Flynn, Mark Gilley, Caroline Greene, Catriona Hale, Fiona Harold, Kathleen Keady, Kellyann Leathem, Dearbhla Lennon, Tony Lundon, Patrick Lundon, Karen McCamphill, Derek Moran, Chelsea Muldoon, Jim Murrihy, Areleen Ni Bhaoill, Cian Nolan, Paul Noonan, Sharon O’Brien, Damien O’Kane, Colleen Roberts, Mary Ann Schade-Lynch, Conor Smith, Dawn Tiernan; The Lord of the Dance Orchestra, including Anne Buckley, Solo Soprano The dance musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Ireland.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Cry of the Celts” (Helen Egan, Michael Flatley, The Clan, Anne Buckley); “Erin the Goddess”; “Celtic Dream” (Bernadette Flynn, Girls); “The Warriors” (Don Dorcha, Warriors); “Gypsy” (Gillian Norris); “Strings of Fire” (Violins); “Breakout” (Bernadette Flynn, Girls); “Warlords: Lord of the Dance” (Warlords, Michael Flatley, The Clan) Act Two: “Dangerous Game” (Helen Egan, Don Dorcha, Warriors); “Hell’s Kitchen” (Michael Flatley, Don Dorcha, Warlords, Warriors); “Fiery Nights”; “The Lament” (Violins); “Siamsa” (The Clan); “She Moves through the Fair” (Anne Buckley); “Stolen Kiss” (Bernadette Flynn, Michael Flatley, Gillian Norris); “Nightmare” (Michael Flatley, Don Dorcha, Warriors); “The Duel” (Michael Flatley, Don Dorcha); “Victory” (Michael Flatley, The Clan); “Planet Ireland” Michael Flatley’s dance musical Lord of the Dance had premiered in Dublin in July 1996, and here was making its American debut at the Radio City Music Hall. Flatley was of course one of the creative team who put Riverdance on the map, but he left the show in 1995 due to what Jennifer Dunning in the New York Times reported was “a dispute involving money and artistic control.” The dance musical told of the battle between darkness and light, Irish-style, with Flatley the good title character and Don Dorcha the evil one known as Daire Nolan or the Dark Lord. Guess who wins. Dunning found the “sadly superficial” evening “an overblown rock-style extravaganza” that had “the unsettling look of a television revue recreated for the stage” with choreography that was “a sprawling stew of Irish reels, step dances and hornpipes.” Some songs were “so bland” that singer Anne Buckley faded in mid-performance, and the female dancers had “the look of junior sales clerks without a future.” But the Dark Lord was “compellingly acted and danced” by the “darkly handsome” Dorcha, and Flatley was “a gifted and unexpectedly likable performer.” After the Radio City premiere, the dance musical began a fifteen-city tour of the United States, and in May 1997 began a tour of Asia. Valerie Gladstone in the Times reported that following its Dublin premiere in July 1996 and through the end of that year, the production had earned $100 million in ticket, video, and CD sales in Ireland, Britain, and Australia. The DVD was issued by Polygram, and Michael Flatley Returns as The Lord of the Dance was released on DVD by Entertainment One. The CD of Lord of the Dance was issued by Philips Records (# 314-533-757-2).

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Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games (no, the show wasn’t a farrago that blended Flatley’s Irish reels with the Argentine tangos of Graciela Daniele’s 1989 Broadway dance musical Dangerous Games) opened on Broadway at the Lyric Theatre on November 10, 2015, for sixty-seven performances. Flatley had announced that upon the closing of the New York production he would retire, and at the conclusion of each performance he briefly danced. The work was a variation of the earlier dance musical, and it too looked at the rivalry between the Lord of the Dance (James Keegan) and the Dark Lord (Tom Cunningham), and this time around the score was by Gerard Fahy. Brian Seibert in the Times noted that good and bad faced off “but they all dance the same way” and “it’s the same thrill over and over.” Because each dance sequence had “the same accelerating shape” and “the same applause-button ending,” there was little about the evening that felt “truly live” and thus “you might as well be watching it on TV.” Seibert reported that when Flatley joined the cast at the end of the evening, he dominated the moment with “a happy, Elvis-in-Vegas swagger.” But Seibert warned that in future productions “something essential will be missing” because “Elvis will have left the building.” (Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games was released on DVD by Universal.)

PLAY ON! Theatre: Brooks Atkinson Theatre Opening Date: March 20, 1997; Closing Date: May 11, 1997 Performances: 61 Book: Cheryl L. West Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Based on William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, or What You Will (written circa 1601). Direction: Sheldon Epps; Producers: Mitchell Maxwell, Eric Nederlander, Thomas Hall, Hal Luftig, Bruce Lucker, Mike Skipper, and Victoria Maxwell in association with Kery Davis and Alan J. Schuster (Leon Memoli, David Levy, Nancy Eichorn, Louis F. Raizin, James L. Simon, and Fred H. Krones, Associate Producers); Choreography: Mercedes Ellington; Scenery: James Leonard Joy; Costumes: Marianna Elliott; Lighting: Jeff Davis; Musical Direction: J. Leonard Oxley Cast: Cheryl Freeman (Vy), Andre De Shields (Jester), Larry Marshall (Sweets), Yvette Cason (Miss Mary), Crystal Allen (CC), Carl Anderson (Duke), Lawrence Hamilton (Rev), Tonya Pinkins (Lady Liv); Denizens of Harlem: Ronald “Cadet” Bastine, Jacquelyn Bird, Wendee Lee Curtis, Byron Easley, Alan H. Green, Frantz G. Hall, Gil P., Lacy Darryl Phillips, Lisa Scialabba, Erika Vaughn, Karen Callaway Williams The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Harlem during the 1940s.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Take the ‘A’ Train” (lyric and music by Billy Strayhorn) (Cheryl Freeman, Ensemble); “Drop Me Off in Harlem” (lyric by Nick Kenny, music by Duke Ellington) (Cheryl Freeman, Denizens of Harlem); “I’ve Got to Be a Rug Cutter” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington) (Andre De Shields, Cheryl Freeman, Cotton Club Dancers); “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington, Irving Mills, Henry Nemo, and John Redmond) (Carl Anderson); “C Jam Blues” (music by Duke Ellington) (Cotton Club Dancers); “Mood Indigo” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington) (Tonya Pinkins); “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (lyric by Bob Russell, music by Duke Ellington) (Cheryl Freeman, Tonya Pinkins); “Don’t You Know I Care” (lyric by Mack David, music by Duke Ellington) (Lawrence Hamilton); “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” (lyric by Irving Mills, music by Duke Ellington) (Andre De Shields, Yvette Cason, Larry Marshall, Lawrence Hamilton); “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good” (lyric by Paul Francis Webster, music by Duke Ellington) (Carl Anderson, Cheryl Freeman); “Hit Me with a Hot Note (and Watch Me Bounce)” (lyric by Don George, music by Duke Ellington) (Cheryl Freeman, Carl Anderson, Duke’s Band); “I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So” (lyric by Mack David, music by Duke Ellington) (Andre De Shields, Cotton Club Dancers); “Everything but You” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington) (Tonya Pinkins, Cheryl Freeman); “(In My) Solitude” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington, Eddie DeLange, and Irving Mills) (Cheryl Freeman, Carl Anderson, Tonya Pinkins, Lawrence Hamilton)

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Act Two: “Black Butterfly” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington) (Lady Liv’s Escorts); “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ but the Blues” (lyric by Don George, music by Duke Ellington) (Tonya Pinkins); “I’m Beginning to See the Light” (lyric and music by Don George, Johnny Hodges, and Duke Ellington) (Lawrence Hamilton, Cotton Club Dancers); “I Got it Bad and That Ain’t Good” (reprise) (Lawrence Hamilton); “I Didn’t Know About You” (lyric by Bob Russell, music by Duke Ellington) (Cheryl Freeman); “Rocks in My Bed” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington) (Larry Marshall, Andre De Shields); “Something to Live For” (lyric by Billy Strayhorn, music by Duke Ellington) (Lawrence Hamilton, Tonya Pinkins); “(I) Love You Madly” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington) (Yvette Cason, Larry Marshall); “Prelude to a Kiss” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington) (Cheryl Freeman, Carl Anderson); “In a Mellow Tone” (lyric by Milt Gable, music by Duke Ellington) (Cheryl Freeman, Carl Anderson, Tonya Pinkins, Lawrence Hamilton, Denizens of Harlem) Play On! is one of four major New York musicals based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and was preceded by Love and Let Love, Your Own Thing, and Music Is. Dueling musical versions of Shakespeare’s comedy opened Off-Broadway during January 1968. Love and Let Love, a traditional adaptation that retained the Elizabethan time period, opened on January 4, 1968, at the Sheridan Square Playhouse for fourteen performances. The book was by John Lollos, the lyrics by Lollos and Don Christopher, and the music by Stanley Jay Gelber, and the cast included Marcia Rodd (Viola), John Cunningham (Orsino), Tony Hendra (Sir Toby Belch), Virginia Vestoff (Olivia), and Michael O’Sullivan (Malvolio). The cast album (LP # X4RS-0371/2) was privately released as Twelfth Night (“Love and Let Love”) and was sold for a short time through its distributor Sam Fox Records. Clive Barnes in the New York Times found the score “bloodless” but singled out O’Sullivan’s “I’ll Smile” and noted that the actor brought to his performance a “seething frenzy only lightly covering otherwise naked ambition” and was “vain to the point of madness.” Later in the month Your Own Thing opened at the Orpheum Theatre on January 13 and ran for 933 performances. The book was by Donald Driver, the lyrics and music by Hal Hester and Danny Apolinar, and the cast included Leland Palmer (Viola), Tom Ligon (here, Orson), Marian Mercer (Olivia), and Russ Thacker (Sebastian). The adaptation was set in New York City during the present time and was filled with “youth”driven dialogue (which was already hopelessly dated with such terms as “freaked out,” “bum trip,” and “it’s my bag”) and a would-be irreverent attitude that utilized slide projections to depict supposedly hilarious juxtapositions of celebrities and politicians with incongruous comments (then-Senator Everett Dirksen was given a real knee-slapper when he says he can’t remember whether Marlowe or Bacon wrote the line “If music be the food of love, play on”). The musical all but worshipped at the altar of 1960s youth culture but of course had no problem mocking religious figures (specifically Christian ones, such as Jesus Christ and the Pope). Martin Gottfried saw through it all and called Your Own Thing “long-winded” and “half-baked,” but most critics and audiences jumped on the bandwagon and made the weak vehicle a hit (incredibly, the show even won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical). The cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (LP # LOC/LSO-1148; CD # 09026-63582-2), and RCA also issued Hal Hester Does His Own Thing: Music from “Your Own Thing” (LP # LPM/LSP-3996). The script was published in paperback by Dell, in an edition that included the text of Twelfth Night, and later the script was included in the 1979 hardback collection Great Rock Musicals (published by Stein and Day and edited by Stanley Richards). The musical was later presented in London, and the film rights were reportedly sold for $500,000 (but a film version never materialized). The score was mostly a collection of groaners (“The Now Generation,” “Hunka-Munka,” and the title number) but there were one or two amiable songs (including “I’m on My Way to the Top”). Marian Mercer (who played Olivia) left the show almost as soon as it opened and before the cast recording was made. As a result, the producers asked Marcia Rodd to take over the role (she had portrayed Viola earlier in the month when Love and Let Love played out its two-week run) and sing the role for the cast album. Music Is opened at the St. James Theatre on December 20, 1976, and ran for just one week. Like Love and Let Love, the adaptation was set during the Elizabethan era. The score was by Richard Adler, the lyrics by Will Holt, the book and direction by George Abbott, and the cast included Catherine Cox (Viola), Sherry Mathis (Olivia), David Holliday (Orsino), Joel Higgins (Sebastian), and Christopher Hewett (Malvolio). Adler and Holt’s winning score was a delight and included the haunting ballad “Should I Speak of Loving You?,” one of the best theatre songs of the era. (It was preserved in the collection Shakespeare on Broadway, released by Varese Sarabande Records [CD # VSD-5622], which also includes two incidental songs composed by Rupert Holmes for a nonmusical version of Twelfth Night produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Delacorte Theatre in 1986.) Unfortunately, a cast album of Music Is wasn’t recorded. Play On! came along some twenty years after Music Is, but perhaps it was too soon for yet another musical version of the material. Here Shakespeare’s comedy is set in the Harlem of the 1940s with an all-black

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cast. Viola is now Vy (Cheryl Freeman), who hopes to make her mark as a songwriter but decides to disguise herself as a man under the theory that men have a better chance in the profession. She soon falls in love with another composer, Duke (formerly Orsino, and played by Carl Anderson), who of course thinks she’s a man, and Duke himself is in love with the disdainful Cotton Club singer Olivia (here, Lady Liv, and played by Tonya Pinkins). The story also included the smug Rev (formerly Malvolio, and played by Lawrence Hamilton), who is also in love with Lady Liv. As in Shakespeare, there were complications galore, but by evening’s end the romantic misunderstandings were sorted out and a happy ending was had by all. For all the hip updating of the material, the musical didn’t make much of an impression. Maybe the kiss of death was the use of mostly standard, well-known songs by Duke Ellington, and forcing them to support plot, character, and atmosphere. Or perhaps the mistake was using his particular music. New York had already enjoyed an Ellington tribute with the long-running Sophisticated Ladies (which opened in 1981 and played for two years), and audiences may have mistaken Play On! for a more-or-less sequel to the earlier revue. Of the twenty-three songs in Play On!, fifteen had been heard during the Broadway run of Sophisticated Ladies, and the evergreen “Sophisticated Lady” was one of the most done-to-death songs of the era (Play On! marked the fifth time since 1975 that the number had been featured in a Broadway show). It would seem that the combination of mixed reviews and familiar material did the show in, and so it lasted just short of two months. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News said he’d “have been content to skip the story and just listen to the talented cast perform Ellington’s irresistible songs”; Greg Evans in Variety suggested the musical had “to work pretty hard to let such an inspired idea slip through the floorboards”; and Clive Barnes in the New York Post found the show “good with reservations” and noted “the missing energy is essentially in the book and concept.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times said there was “heat, energy and talent to spare on the stage,” but the show squandered “its impressive assets by considerably overselling them.” In fact, the evening could have been called Mama, I Want to Scat because the show believed that “more is always more” and so “elegance is almost always sacrificed to steam-roller eagerness.” The musical wanted to create “Harlem as a hip Brigadoon,” but James Leonard Joy’s “kaleidoscopic” décor and Marianna Elliott’s “jelly-bean-bright” costumes often came across as an “unassembled puzzle” and Mercedes Ellington’s choreography was “a jagged collage of overheated jitterbug” movement (she was Duke Ellington’s granddaughter). The musical had first been produced at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California, on September 14, 1996, and included the songs “Jester’s Snake Song” (music by Luther Henderson) and “Perdido” (lyric and music by Juan Tizol, H. J. Lengsfelder, and Ervin Drake), both of which were dropped for New York. “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good” and “Rocks in My Bed” had first been heard in Ellington’s 1941 revue Jump for Joy, which closed during its pre-Broadway tryout. The cast album was released by Varese Sarabande Records (CD # VSD-5837). In 2002, a revival produced by the Pasadena Playhouse/Arizona Theatre Company was taped for showing on public television’s Great Performances. Like the Broadway production, the televised version was directed by Sheldon Epps; the cast included original cast member Yvette Cason (others in the company were Clinton Derricks-Carroll, Richard Allen, and Kevin Ramsey). On April 5, 2001, New York saw yet another musical adaptation of Twelfth Night. What You Will opened Off-Off-Broadway at the Connelly Theatre for a limited engagement of seventeen performances. Written by Andrew Sherman and Rusty Magee, the new version (like Play On!) was set in New York City during World War II (and the action unfolded at the Club Illyria).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Tonya Pinkins); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Andre De Shields); Best Orchestrations (Luther Henderson)

ANNIE

Theatre: Martin Beck Theatre Opening Date: March 26, 1997; Closing Date: October 19, 1997 Performances: 238 Book: Thomas Meehan Lyrics: Martin Charnin

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Music: Charles Strouse Based on the comic strip Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray, which first appeared in the New York Daily News in 1924. Direction: Martin Charnin; Producers: Timothy Childs and Rodger Hess, Jujamcyn Theatres in association with Terri B. Childs and Al Nocciolino (Tamar Climan and Herb Goldsmith, Associate Producers); Choreography: Peter Gennaro; Scenery: Kenneth Foy; Costumes: Theoni V. Aldredge; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Keith Levenson Cast: Brittny Kissinger (Annie), Christiana Anbri (Molly), Cassidy Ladden (Pepper), Mekenzie Rosen-Stone (Duffy), Casey Tuma (July), Lyndsey Watkins (Tessie), Melissa O’Malley (Kate), Nell Carter (Miss Hannigan), Michael E. Gold (Bundles McCloskey, Sergeant Thayer, Sound Effects Man, Honor Guard), Brad Wills (Apple Seller, Fred McCracken, Ickes), Tom Treadwell (Dog Catcher, Fred, Jimmy Johnson, Howe), Sutton Foster (Dog Catcher, Cecille, A Star to Be, Ronnie Boylan), Cindy Lou (Sandy), Drew Taylor (Lieutenant Ward, Hull, Justice Brandeis), Barbara Tirrell (Sophie [The Kettle], Mrs. Pugh, Perkins), Colleen Dunn (Grace Farrell), MichaelJohn McGann (Drake, Bert Healy, Morganthau), Elizabeth Richmond (Mrs. Greer, Bonnie Boylan), Kelley Swaim (Annette, Bonnie Boylan), Conrad John Schuck (Oliver Warbucks), Jim Ryan (Rooster Hannigan), Karen Byers-Blackwell (Lily), Jennifer L. Neuland (Oxydent Hour of Smiles Producer), Bryan Young (Voice of H. V. Kaltenborn), Raymond Thorne (F.D.R.); Hooverville-ites, Warbucks’ Staff, and New Yorkers: Sutton Foster, Michael E. Gold, MichaelJohn McGann, Jennifer L. Neuland, Elizabeth Richmond, Kelley Swaim, Drew Taylor, Barbara Tirrell, Tom Treadwell, Brad Wills The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City and Washington, D.C., from December 11 to December 25, 1933.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Maybe” (Brittny Kissinger); “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” (Brittny Kissinger, Orphans); “It’s the HardKnock Life” (reprise) (Orphans); “Tomorrow” (Brittny Kissinger); “We’d Like to Thank You” (The Hooverites); “Little Girls” (Nell Carter); “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here” (Colleen Dunn, Brittny Kissinger, MichaelJohn McGann, Sutton Foster, Kelley Swaim, Barbara Tirrell, Other Servants); “N.Y.C.” (Conrad John Schuck, Colleen Dunn, Brittny Kissinger, Sutton Foster, New Yorkers); “You Make Me Happy” (Nell Carter, Colleen Dunn); “Easy Street” (Nell Carter, Jim Ryan, Karen Byers-Blackwell); “You Won’t Be an Orphan for Long” (Colleen Dunn, MichaelJohn McGann, Barbara Tirrell, Sutton Foster, Kelley Swaim, Servants, Conrad John Schuck) Act Two: “You’re Never Fully Dressed without a Smile” (MichaelJohn McGann, Elizabeth Richmond, Kelley Swaim, Sutton Foster, The Hour of Smiles Family); “You’re Never Fully Dressed without a Smile” (reprise) (Orphans); “Easy Street” (reprise) (Nell Carter, Jim Ryan, Karen Byers-Blackwell); “Tomorrow” (reprise) (Brittny Kissinger, Raymond Thorne, Conrad John Schuck, The Cabinet); “Something Was Missing” (Conrad John Shuck); “I Don’t Need Anything but You” (Conrad John Schuck, Brittny Kissinger); “Annie” (Colleen Dunn, MichaelJohn McGann, Staff); “Maybe” (reprise) (Brittny Kissinger); “A New Deal for Christmas” (Brittny Kissinger, Conrad John Schuck, Colleen Dunn, Raymond Thorne, Orphans, Staff) The offstage stories surrounding the disappointing revival of Annie were no doubt far more interesting than the show itself. The producers and Macy’s had sponsored a contest to select the little girl who would play the title role for the revival’s pre-Broadway tour and New York production, and eleven-year-old Joanna Pacitti was the winner. She played the role for about three months during the tour, but just weeks before the New York opening was fired and replaced by eight-year-old Brittny Kissinger, one of the show’s understudies. According to an exhaustive and fascinating article in the New York Times by Bruce Weber, Pacitti’s camp (represented by the actress herself as well as her parents, her agent, “at least” three lawyers, and a public relations agent) alleged that the talent hunt was a contest for which Pacitti won the prize, and thus her dismissal broke the “promise” that she would play the role on Broadway. Pacitti appeared on at least five television talk and news shows to discuss her plight, and Weber reported that on Sally Jessy Raphael’s talk show Pacitti announced that her heart was “still broken but it’s starting to heal.” The article also noted that the producers of Annie continued to pay Pacitti for the remainder of her contract, which expired on June 15, some ten weeks after the musical’s New York opening night.

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Then Nell Carter, who was billed above the show’s title and who played Miss Hannigan, got into the act with her own grievances. She discovered that the revival’s producers were using fifteen-year-old footage of a previous Annie production to advertise the show on television, one that featured the white actress Marcia Lewis in the role of Miss Hannigan. And as if to prove that beneath the bright lights of Broadway there beats a cold, uncaring heart, the world soon discovered to its horror that the canine performer Zappa, who played the pivotal role of Sandy in the revival, had been fired and replaced with Cindy Lou. Yes, it seemed there was no mercy on Broadway, and even an innocent pooch wasn’t safe from the pink slip. But Best Plays later reported that Pacitti adopted Zappa and that the two appeared in a regional production of Annie the following summer. The $5.5 million revival told the familiar story of the orphan Annie (Kissinger) and her search for her parents, a search aided by billionaire Oliver Warbucks (Conrad John Schuck, formerly John Schuck) but impeded by the orphanage’s greedy matron Miss Hannigan (Carter). The revival received mixed reviews, and no doubt its six-month run was in many ways attributable to Carter’s star quality and her television popularity. The show included a new song, “You Make Me Happy” (for Carter and Colleen Dunn, who played Grace Farrell, Warbucks’s secretary). Best Plays reported that during the run “We’d Like to Thank You” was dropped from the production, apparently in an attempt to shorten the show and make it more kid-friendly. Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News found the evening “efficient,” but noted the production only “fitfully” captured “the power and spirit of the material.” Greg Evans in Variety felt the evening was an “enjoyable” and “professional re-mounting” of the 1977 hit and said that “You Make Me Happy” took “full advantage of Carter’s belting vocal style.” And Clive Barnes in the New York Post suggested the show “might do best with unaccompanied coach-parties of children from out of town.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Annie took place during the Depression and the revival might well “send you into one.” The “charmless affair” suffered from “a severe energy shortage” and was “like a cake that has been sitting in the back of an ancient icebox too long: it’s frozen stiff and impossible to swallow.” Kissinger brought a “sweet pluckiness” to the title role, but lacked “sparkle”; Peter Gennaro re-created his Tony Award–winning choreography from the original 1977 production, but now his dances seemed “mundane”; Theoni V. Aldredge’s costumes looked “drab” despite her having won the Tony Award for the ones she created in 1977; Kenneth Foy’s décor for the “N.Y.C.” number had “‘road company’ written all over it”; and even Cindy Lou’s Sandy seemed “anesthetized.” Brantley noted that Carter’s Miss Hannigan was “off-base” and the performer didn’t “seem to have her heart in the role,” but when she sang she was “transformed” and was the Carter of her Ain’t Misbehavin’ days. Schuck was an “avuncular” Warbucks (and had played the role during the run of the original production as one of Reid Shelton’s successors), and from the original 1977 cast Raymond Thorne re-created his F.D.R., a role he had reprised for the 1982 film version and for the misbegotten sequel Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge. Annie was first seen at Goodspeed Opera House, East Haddam, Connecticut, on August 10, 1976; Kristen Vigard was the original Annie, but like the current revival there was soon a cast replacement and Andrea McArdle (who played an orphan known as “The Toughest”) was given the title role while Vigard remained as her standby. (The orphans in the Goodspeed production were nameless and were instead identified by their characteristics, e.g., The Toughest, The Littlest, etc.) For Goodspeed, Maggie Task was Miss Hannigan, and songs dropped during this phase of the tryout were “Apples,” “We Got Annie,” “Just Wait,” “That’s the Way It Goes,” “He Doesn’t Know,” “That’s Our Annie,” and “I’ve Never Been So Happy.” The musical later reopened at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre, and of course this production included Dorothy Loudon in her Tony Award–winning role of Miss Hannigan. The score included the lovely ballad “Something Was Missing,” which had earlier been heard as the lowdown Charleston “You Rat, You” (lyric by Lee Adams) in the 1968 film The Night They Raided Minsky’s where it was sung in a speakeasy by Lillian Hayman. The original production opened on April 21, 1977, at the Alvin Theatre for a long run of 2,377 performances and won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Scenic Designer, Best Costume Designer, and Best Choreography, and it also won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical. The original 1977 cast album was released by Columbia Records (LP # PS-34712), and the CD issue (Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy # SK-60723) includes bonus tracks of the cut and/or unused songs “Apples,” “We Got Annie,” “Just Wait,” “That’s the Way It Goes,” “Parents,” and “I’ve Never Been So Happy” as well as

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the first recorded performance of the show’s hit song “Tomorrow.” There have been numerous foreign cast recordings of the score, including the Madrid production, which premiered at the Teatro Principe on September 25, 1981, and was recorded by Bocaccio Records (LP # BS-32137); the album includes the numbers “Mañana,” “Neuva York,” “Huérfanas,” and “Felices Navidades, por fin.” Time-Life released a thirtieth-anniversary recording of the score on a two-CD set that includes many songs written for the musical’s sequels (see below), and in 2008 the Lifetime Channel aired the documentary Life after Tomorrow, which interviewed many of the now grown-up little girls who had played the orphans in various productions of the musical. Thomas Meehan’s Annie: An Old-Fashioned Story was published in hardback by Macmillan in 1980. The first London production opened at the Victoria Palace on May 3, 1978, for 1,485 performances, and for the first few weeks of the run McArdle reprised her title role. The cast album was released by CBS Records (LP # 70160). A later London revival opened on September 30, 1998. Besides the current revival, the musical was produced on Broadway on November 8, 2012, at the Palace Theatre for 487 performances; the cast included Lilla Crawford (Annie) and Kate Finneran (Miss Hannigan), and the score included “You Make Me Happy” (which was written for the current production) and the new song “Why Should I Change a Thing?” The cast album was released by the Shout Factory. Columbia Picture’s charm-free film version was released in 1982; directed by John Huston and choreographed by Arlene Phillips, the unmemorable adaptation stars Aileen Quinn (Annie), Albert Finney (Warbucks), Carol Burnett (Miss Hannigan), Bernadette Peters (Lily), Ann Reinking (Grace), Tim Curry (Rooster), Edward Herrmann (F.D.R.), and, in two roles that were in the comic strip Little Orphan Annie but not the stage musical, Geoffrey Holder (Punjab) and Roger Minami (Asp). The film omitted six songs (“We’d Like to Thank You,” “N.Y.C.,” “You Won’t Be an Orphan for Long,” “Something Was Missing,” “Annie,” and “A New Deal for Christmas”), added four (“Dumb Dog,” “Sandy,” “Let’s Go to the Movies,” and “Sign”), and reinstated “We Got Annie” from the tryout. The soundtrack album was released by Columbia Records (LP # JS-38000), and on CD by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. The DVD was issued by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. An ABC Walt Disney television production was aired on November 7, 1999, and was a vast improvement over the desultory 1982 film. Directed by Rob Marshall, the cast includes Alicia Morton (Annie), Kathy Bates (Miss Hannigan), Victor Garber (Warbucks), Alan Cumming (Rooster), Kristin Chenoweth (Lily), Audra McDonald (Grace), and Andrea McArdle as the Star to Be (surely in McArdle’s future is a revival of Annie, in which she’ll play Miss Hannigan). The soundtrack album was released by Sony Records (CD # SK-89008), and the DVD was issued by Walt Disney Home Video. A radically revised second theatrical film version was released in 2014 by Sony Pictures Entertainment. The story now takes place in present-day New York, eliminates the character of Warbucks, and offers a racially diverse cast that includes Quvenzhane Wallis (Annie), Carmen Diaz (Miss Hannigan), Rose Byrne (Grace), Jamie Foxx, and Bobby Cannavale. The lyrics and music for some songs were retained in altered versions (including “Maybe,” “It’s a Hard Knock Life,” “Tomorrow,” “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here,” “You’re Never Fully Dressed without a Smile,” “Little Girls,” “Easy Street,” and “I Don’t Need Anything but You”), and a few new ones were added to the score (“Moonquake Lake,” “The City’s Yours,” “Opportunity,” and “Who Am I?”) by Sia, Greg Kurstin, and Will Gluck. The Hollywood Reporter called the film a “toxic mess” and noted that most of the songs from the stage score had been “shredded” and thus retained “just a signature line or two” with “desperately hip polyrhythmic sounds, aurally assaultive arrangements and inane new lyrics.” A. O. Scott in the New York Times said the “hacky, borderline-incompetent production” was a “chaotic shambles.” The soundtrack album was released by RCA Victor Records, and the DVD was issued by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. During the 1989–1990 season, the creators of Annie wrote a sequel to the musical titled Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge, which collapsed during its tryout engagement at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House and never opened in New York. However, during Summer 1990 another sequel to Annie opened as Annie Warbucks at the Goodspeed Opera House’s Norma Terris Theatre. In 1992, the production toured and then finally opened Off-Broadway at the Variety Arts Theatre on August 9, 1993, for 200 performances. This version retained five songs from the Washington debacle: “A Younger Man,” “When You Smile,” “Changes,” “You! You! You!” (here rewritten as “Above the Law”), “A Tenement Lullaby,” and perhaps a sixth (“I Got Me” was probably a recycled version of “All I’ve Got Is Me”); except for “A Tenement Lullaby,” these songs were included on the Annie Warbucks cast recording, which was released on a two-CD set by Broadway Angel Records (# CDQ-7243-5-55050-29). The above-referenced Time-Life recording also includes seven songs from

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Annie 2 (“1934,” “Coney Island,” “He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive,” “How Could I Ever Say No?,” “The Lady of the House,” “All I’ve Got Is Me,” and “My Daddy”); for more information, see Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge.

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Revival (Annie)

DREAM Theatre: Royale Theatre Opening Date: April 3, 1997; Closing Date: July 6, 1997 Performances: 109 Lyrics: Johnny Mercer Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits. Direction and Choreography: Wayne Cilento (Tracey Langran and Aiko Nakasone, Assistant Choreographers); Producers: Louise Westergaard, Mark Schwartz, Bob Cuillo, Roger Dean, Obie Bailey, Stephen O’Neil, and Abraham Salaman (Nicole Michele Cuillo, Nancy La Vista, L. Michael Post, and Elisa Sterling, Associate Producers); Scenery: David Mitchell; Costumes: Ann Hould-Ward (Men’s formal wear by Brioni, and furs by Ben Kahn); Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Bryan Louiselle Cast: Brooks Ashmanskas, Todd Bailey, Jonathan Dokuchitz, Angelo Fraboni, Amy Heggins, Jennifer Lamberts, Nancy Lemenager, Charles McGowan, Susan Misner, Jessica Molaskey, Kevyn Morrow, John Pizzarelli, Darcie Roberts, Timothy Edward Smith, Lesley Ann Warren, Margaret Whiting; The John Pizzarelli Trio: John Pizzarelli (Guitar and Banjo), Ray Kennedy (Piano), and Martin Pizzarelli (Bass) The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: Savannah—The Age of Innocence: “Dream” (independent song interpolated into 1955 film Daddy Long Legs; music by Johnny Mercer) (Darcie Roberts, Jessica Molaskey, Nancy Lemenager, Company); “Lazybones” (1933 film Bombshell; music by Hoagy Carmichael) (Amy Heggins, Kevyn Morrow, John Pizzarelli, Company); “On Behalf of the Traveling Salesmen” (independent song originally written as “On Behalf of the Visiting Firemen”; music by Walter Donaldson) (Brooks Ashmanskas, Timothy Edward Smith); “Pardon My Southern Accent” (independent song; music by Matt Malneck) (Lesley Ann Warren); “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” (1938 film Hard to Get; music by Harry Warren) (Charles McGowan, Darcie Roberts); “Have You Got Any Castles, Baby?” (1937 film Varsity Show; music by Richard A. Whiting) (Jonathan Dokuchitz, Lesley Ann Warren, Company); “Goody Goody” (independent song; lyric and music by Matt Malneck and Johnny Mercer) (Lesley Ann Warren, Company); ”Skylark” (independent song; music by Hoagy Carmichael) (Jessica Molaskey); “The Dixieland Band” (independent song; music by Bernie Hanighen) (John Pizzarelli, Company); Magnificent Obsession—The Age of Decadence: “I Had Myself a True Love” and “I Wonder What Became of Me” (1946 musical St. Louis Woman; music by Harold Arlen; the latter song was dropped during the pre-Broadway tryout) (Leslie Ann Warren, Darcie Roberts); “Jamboree Jones Jive” (aka “Jamboree Jones”; independent song; music by Johnny Mercer) (The John Pizzarelli Trio, Company); “Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)” (independent song; music by Rube Bloom) (The John Pizzarelli Trio, Company); “Come Rain or Come Shine” (St. Louis Woman; music by Harold Arlen) (Brooks Ashmanskas); “Out of This World” (1945 film Out of This World; music by Harold Arlen) (Darcie Roberts); “I Remember You” (1942 film The Fleet’s In; music by Victor Schertzinger) (Jessica Molaskey); “Blues in the Night” (1941 film Blues in the Night; music by Harold Arlen) (Lesley Ann Warren); “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” (1943 film The Sky’s the Limit; music by Harold Arlen) (Margaret Whiting); Rainbow Room: “You Were Never Lovelier” (1942 film You Were Never Lovelier; music by Jerome Kern) (John Pizzarelli); “Satin Doll” (independent song; music by Billy

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Strayhorn and Duke Ellington) (Susan Misner, Men); “I’m Old-Fashioned” (You Were Never Lovelier; music by Jerome Kern) (Darcie Roberts, Jonathan Dokuchitz); “Dearly Beloved” (You Were Never Lovelier; music by Jerome Kern) (Jonathan Dokuchitz, Darcie Roberts); “This Time the Dream’s on Me” (Blues in the Night; music by Harold Arlen) (John Pizzarelli, Lesley Ann Warren, Margaret Whiting); “Something’s Gotta Give” (Daddy Long Legs; music by Johnny Mercer) (Jessica Molaskey); “Too Marvelous for Words” (1937 film Ready, Willing and Able; music by Richard A. Whiting) (Charles McGowan, Company) Act Two: Hollywood Canteen: “I Thought about You” (independent song; music by Jimmy Van Heusen) (John Pizzarelli); “And the Angels Sing” (independent song; music by Ziggy Elman) (Orchestra); “The Fleet’s In” (The Fleet’s In; music by Victor Schertzinger) (Men); “G.I. Jive” (independent song; music by Johnny Mercer) (Lesley Ann Warren, Jessica Molaskey, Nancy Lemenager); “I’m Doin’ It for Defense” (aka “The Jeep Song”; 1942 film Star-Spangled Rhythm; music by Harold Arlen) (Darcie Roberts); “Tangerine” (The Fleet’s In; music by Victor Schertzinger) (Brooks Ashmanskas, Company); “Day In-Day Out” (independent song; music by Rube Bloom) (Margaret Whiting); “Jeepers Creepers” (1938 film Going Places; music by Harry Warren) (The John Pizzarelli Trio); “That Old Black Magic” (Star-Spangled Rhythm; music by Harold Arlen) (Lesley Ann Warren); “Laura” (1944 film Laura; heard in film as background music without a lyric; after the film’s release and because of the popularity of the theme song, Mercer wrote lyric for the melody; music by David Raksin) (Jonathan Dokuchitz); “You Go Your Way” (independent song; music by Johnny Mercer) (Company); “My Shining Hour” (The Sky’s the Limit; music by Harold Arlen) (Margaret Whiting, Company); Academy Awards: “Hooray for Hollywood” (Hollywood Hotel, 1937; music by Richard A. Whiting) (Brooks Ashmanskas, Angelo Fraboni, Kevyn Morrow, Timothy Edward Smith); “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive” (1944 film Here Come the Waves; music by Harold Arlen) (Brooks Ashmanskas, Angelo Fraboni, Kevyn Morrow, Timothy Edward Smith, Nancy Lemenager); “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” (1951 film Here Comes the Groom; music by Hoagy Carmichael) (Margaret Whiting, The John Pizzarelli Trio); “Charade” (1963 film Charade; music by Henry Mancini) and “The Days of Wine and Roses” (1962 film The Days of Wine and Roses; music by Henry Mancini) (Jonathan Dokuchitz, Jessica Molaskey, Company); “Moon River” (1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s; music by Henry Mancini) (Lesley Ann Warren); “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” (1945 film The Harvey Girls; music by Harry Warren) (Company) Conceived by Louise Westergaard and Jack Wrangler (for the latter, who was married to cast member Margaret Whiting, the program referenced his autobiography and stated it “will tell you more than you’d ever want to know” about the former porn-film actor) and first produced at the Tennessee Repertory Theatre, Dream was another tribute revue, this time to lyricist and occasional composer Johnny Mercer (1909–1976). Unfortunately, the evening was similar in style to other tributes to lyricists, composers, and song eras, such as Tintypes (1980), Perfectly Frank (1980), and Swinging on a Star, and so a generally artificial and meaningless format was imposed upon the evening with song sections either pompously titled Savannah–The Age of Innocence and Magnificent Obsession–The Age of Decadence or burdened with such ordinary and clichéd titles as Rainbow Room and Hollywood Canteen. As a result, the songs were for the most part arbitrarily assigned to a section: “I’m Old-Fashioned” was heard in the Rainbow Room sequence, but why not in The Age of Innocence?, and “I Remember You” was performed in the Magnificent Obsession sequence when it would have been more natural in the Hollywood Canteen section because the song came from the 1942 film The Fleet’s In where it was sung about a serviceman. Except for the Academy Awards section, which had a certain interior logic because it was devoted to Mercer’s Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated songs, there wasn’t much rhyme or reason to the evening and the random placement of its songs. But even this section lacked consistency because the Oscar-nominated songs “Dearly Beloved” (from the 1942 film You Were Never Lovelier) and “Something’s Gotta Give” (from the 1955 film Daddy Long Legs) were placed in the Rainbow Room sequence rather than in the Academy Awards section. Like so many musical salutes, the revue would probably have been more successful in an intimate nightclub or Off-Broadway venue in a shortened version, and cast members and saloon performers Margaret Whiting, Jessica Molaskey, and the John Pizzarelli Trio only reinforced the evening’s essentially nightclub atmosphere (incidentally, Molaskey and Pizzarelli married the year following the revue’s New York production). Despite its interesting cast and the array of Mercer standards, the show couldn’t overcome mostly negative reviews and lasted just three months.

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Peter Marks in the New York Times said the “grab-bag” revue was “little more than a throwback to those glitzy production numbers on The Carol Burnett Show” and had more in common with “the slightly cheesy salutes to bygone eras and dead or dying celebrities that are the bread and butter of televised award shows.” He noted that Lesley Ann Warren seemed “straitjacketed into a narrowly defined role” but Whiting (whose father, Richard, wrote the music for some of Mercer’s lyrics, including “Too Marvelous for Words” and “Hooray for Hollywood”) brought “emotional context” to the evening and “perhaps another veteran crooner or two” might have “warmed up the proceedings.” John Simon in New York suggested the revue would have been more at home on the road than in New York. And while he praised the “amiable” John Pizzarelli (and his trio) and noted that lighting designer Ken Billington provided “bold scenic effects,” he felt Warren came across “as an over-the-hill hat-check girl with delusions of divadom and modest talents for slinking, undulating, and bluesy singing, in that order.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said Dream was “not altogether a bad show,” but he had reservations about Warren, Whiting, and Pizzarelli (the latter was a “fine” singer and a guitarist with “charm,” but he lacked stage presence). Barnes suggested the true stars of the evening were the talented supporting players and the “brilliant” director and choreographer Wayne Cilento, who “worked wonders” with the material. Simon noted that scenic designer David Mitchell had created “serviceable” scenery on a “no doubt unfriendly budget”; Marks mentioned that for the Academy Awards sequence a pair of “dreadful 25-foot Oscarlook-alike statuettes” were hauled onstage and were noticeably “smeared with fingerprints”; and Greg Evans in Variety commented that the statues would have been “too kitschy even for an Oscar telecast” and that in another sequence a cardboard-cutout train came “straight from community theatre.” During previews, the song “A Woman’s Prerogative” (St. Louis Woman, 1946; music by Harold Arlen) for Warren and Whiting was cut from the Rainbow Room sequence. The hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2009. Note that “I Remember You” and “Tangerine” were from the 1942 film The Fleet’s In. With music by Victor Schertzinger and lyrics by Mercer, this film has one of the best scores ever written for the movies. Besides these two classic ballads, the score includes the popular novelty “Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry”; another novelty, the smooth and creamy “When You Hear the Time Signal”; the comic numbers “If You Build a Better Mousetrap” and “Tomorrow You Belong to Uncle Sammy”; the ballad “(It’s Somebody Else’s Moon Above) Not Mine”; and the rousing title song. And besides the terrific score, the film features Jimmy Dorsey and His Band with singers Helen O’Connell and Bob Eberly; comics Betty Hutton, Cass Daley, Eddie Bracken, and Gil Lamb; a slinky and aloof Dorothy Lamour; and an impossibly young and handsome William Holden. And to top it off, Lorraine and Rognan perform one of the all-time great screen dances in a sidesplitting bit of madness with their merciless, take-no-prisoners spoof of ballroom dancing. Which leads to the question: Why has this almost perfect wartime musical never been released on home video?

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Choreographer (Wayne Cilento)

TITANIC

“A New Musical” Theatre: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre Opening Date: April 23, 1997; Closing Date: March 28, 1999 Performances: 804 Book: Peter Stone Lyrics and Music: Maury Yeston Direction: Richard Jones; Producers: Dodger Endemol Theatricals, Richard S. Pechter, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Dodger Management Group, Executive Producer); Choreography: Lynne Taylor-Corbett; Scenery and Costumes: Stewart Laing; Lighting: Paul Gallo; Musical Direction: Kevin Stites

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Cast: Officers and Crew of R.M.S. Titanic—John Cunningham (Captain E. J. Smith), David Costabile (First Officer William Lightoller), John Bolton (Second Officer Charles Lightoller), Matthew Bennett (Third Officer Herbert J. Pitman), Brian d’Arcy James (Frederick Barrett), Martin Moran (Harold Bride), Allan Corduner (Henry Etches), David Elder (Frederick Fleet), Adam Alexi-Malle (Quartermaster Robert Hichens, Bricoux), Andy Taylor (Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall, Taylor), Ted Sperling (Chief Engineer, Wallace Hartley), Michele Ragusa (Stewardess Robinson), Stephanie Park (Stewardess Hutchinson), Mara Stephens (Bellboy); First-Class Passengers Aboard the R.M.S. Titanic—David Garrison (J. Bruce Ismay), Michael Cerveris (Thomas Andrews), Larry Keith (Isidor Straus), Alma Cuervo (Ida Straus), William Youmans (J. J. Astor), Lisa Datz (Madeline Astor), Joseph Kolinski (Benjamin Guggenheim), Kimberly Hester (Mme. Aubert), Michael Mulheren (John B. Thayer), Robin Irwin (Marion Thayer), Henry Stram (George Widener), Jody Gelb (Eleanor Widener), Becky Ann Baker (Charlotte Cardoza), Andy Taylor (J. H. Rogers), Matthew Bennett (The Major), Mindy Cooper (Edith Corse Evans), and David Elder, Erin Hill, Theresa McCarthy, Charles McAteer, Jennifer Piech, Clarke Thorell; Second-Class Passengers—Don Stephenson (Charles Clarke), Judith Blazer (Caroline Neville), Bill Buell (Edgar Beane), Victoria Clark (Alice Beane), and John Bolton, Mindy Cooper, David Costabile, David Elder; Third-Class Passengers—Jennifer Piech (Kate McGowen), Theresa McCarthy (Kate Murphey), Erin Hill (Kate Mullins), Clarke Thorell (Jim Farrell), and Adam Alexi-Malle, Becky Ann Baker, Matthew Bennett, Mindy Cooper, Alma Cuervo, Lisa Datz, Jody Gelb, Kimberly Hester, Robin Irwin, Larry Keith, Joseph Kolinski, Michael Mulheren, Charles McAteer, Ted Sperling, Mara Stephens, Henry Stram, Andy Taylor, William Youmans; On Shore—Henry Stram (Frank Carlson) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place between April 10 and 15, 1912, mostly aboard the R.M.S. Titanic.

Musical Numbers Act One: Prologue: “In Every Age” (Michael Cerveris); The Launching—“How Did They Build Titanic?” (Brian d’Arcy James); “There She Is” (Brian d’Arcy James, Martin Moran, David Elder); “Loading Inventory” (John Cunningham, Stevedores, Ship’s Personnel); “The Largest Moving Object” (David Garrison, John Cunningham, Michael Cerveris); “I Must Get on That Ship” (Matthew Bennett, Second and Third Class Passengers); “The First Class Roster” (Matthew Bennett, Victoria Clark); and “Goodspeed Titanic” (Company); “Barrett’s Song” (Brian d’Arcy James); “What a Remarkable Age This Is!” (Etches Staff, FirstClass Diners); “To Be a Captain” (David Costabile); “Lady’s Maid” (Jennifer Piech, Theresa McCarthy, Erin Hill, Steerage Passengers); “The Proposal” (Brian d’Arcy James); “The Night Was Alive” (Martin Moran); “Hymn” (Company); “Doing the Latest Rag” (Ted Sperling, Adam Alexi-Malle, Andy Taylor, Company); “I Have Danced” (Bill Buell, Victoria Clark); “No Moon” (David Elder, Company); “Autumn” (Ted Sperling) Act Two: “Wake Up, Wake Up!” (Allan Corduner, Stewards, Company); “Dressed in Your Pyjamas in the Grand Salon” (Company); “The Staircase” (Jennifer Piech, Theresa McCarthy, Erin Hill, Clarke Thorell); “The Blame” (David Garrison, Michael Cerveris, John Cunningham); To the Lifeboats—“Getting in the Lifeboat” (Michael Mulheren, Robin Irwin); “I Must Get on That Ship” (reprise) (David Costabile, John Bolton, Alan Corduner, Mara Stephens, Passengers); “Lady’s Maid” (reprise) (Clarke Thorell); “Canons” (Company); “The Proposal” (reprise) (Brian d’Arcy James); “The Night Was Alive” (reprise) (Martin Moran); and “We’ll Meet Tomorrow” (Brian d’Arcy James, Martin Moran, Don Stephenson, Company); “Still” (Larry Keith, Alma Cuervo); “To Be a Captain” (reprise) (Allan Corduner); “Mr. Andrews’ Vision” (Michael Cerveris); “In Every Age” (reprise) (Company); Finale (Company) Titanic fooled the doomsayers who assumed that any musical adaptation about the ill-fated ship was destined to sink quickly on Broadway, and when stories spread of how the mammoth set malfunctioned during previews the vultures circled the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in anticipation of a Titanic-sized Broadway disaster. But the work wasn’t a jokey affair that made light of the story; instead, it was a serious and contemplative look at the tragedy, and it managed to avoid both grandiose pretentiousness and musical-comedy cut-up moments. But for all its strengths, the musical never quite hit the mark. Peter Stone’s serviceable but scattershot book offered an array of characters, including Thomas Andrews (Michael Cerveris), the hubris-filled architect

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of the ship who descends into madness when he realizes his designs have doomed the Titanic; Alice Beane (Victoria Clark), a (fictitious) celebrity-struck second-class passenger delighted to catch glimpses of the rich and famous in first-class (the actual roster of the Titanic included a second-class passenger named Ethel Beane); and there were three Irish colleens in steerage named Kate, including the spunky Kate McGowen (Jennifer Piech) (the third-class roster included two women named McGowen, Catherine and Anna). They and others had a moment in the limelight with a song or a scene or a line or two but none made much of an impression because the vignette-like book failed to create one or two pivotal characters the audience could care about. Later in 1997, James Cameron’s impressive film version of the catastrophe depicted the physical magnificence of the ship as well as the sinking itself (including a jaw-dropping scene in which the upended ship broke in half). The story of the fictitious passengers Jack and Rose was tiresomely cornball, and the film’s subtext preposterously suggested that the disaster was good for Rose because it enabled her to grow, find her inner feminist, and become beholden to no man. Further, in a laughable moment toward the end of the film, Rose somehow returns to a resplendently reborn Titanic, where the elegantly clad victims of the tragedy simperingly smile, greet, and applaud her (their lives were cut short and their deaths nightmarish, and she gets a standing ovation?). But at least the film provided a through-line to the story and gave viewers an emotional connection that provided an arc for the three-hour-plus epic (in much the way the fictitious Sturges family provided the nucleus of the plot for 1953 film Titanic). But the musical was somewhat chilly with its remote, representational characters, and despite Richard Jones’s well-paced direction, which did a fine job of stage management, the script gave him and the actors little to work with. However, Maury Yeston’s score fared better than the book, and was generally a haunting blend of ominous and bittersweet reflection (“Autumn” and “Still”), of momentary gaiety (“Doing the Latest Rag”), and of sour irony (“The Blame”). For the latter, Andrews, Captain E. J. Smith (John Cunningham), and J. Bruce Ismay (David Garrison, who played the head of the White Star Line, which owned the Titanic), trade accusations over who is responsible for the tragedy. The stage could of course never depict the grandeur of the ship or the physical horror of the sinking, and so perhaps Stewart Laing’s sets should have avoided any specific representations of the ship or the sinking, including one unfortunate depiction of a miniature Titanic sailing on the Atlantic, a visual sequence far too puny and modest to be effective. And the musical’s big effect (its chandelier moment) was a well-publicized scene in which the stage tilted to give the impression of the sinking. Although the sequence was technically impressive, it was far too studied and sedate and didn’t provide much frisson. In some cases, less is more, and perhaps the musical should have shunned the flashy effects and emphasized the understated ones, such as a chilling scene that took place in silence and yet spoke volumes about the seriousness of the disaster when a frightening visual moment brought home to the passengers the reality that the ship was doomed. The firstclass passengers are milling about in the First Class Grand Salon, dismissive about the danger and in denial that the “unsinkable” ship is in trouble. Suddenly, a stationary teacart on wheels starts to roll by itself, and it slowly glides across the stage as if guided by a ghostly hand. The passengers watch in fascinated horror as they realize for the first time that the ship is beginning to upend and start its descent. The simple device of the moving teacart was more impressive than the tilted-ship effect, but otherwise Laing designed a fascinating, somewhat minimalistic set that included a sometimes skewed perspective of the passengers on deck with the air vents and the crow’s nest above them, or passengers teetering above a deep stairwell. Laing also created an impressive visual that depicted the ship’s bridge and three tiers of decks below it. Each deck included portholes of various rooms throughout the vessel, all of which mirrored the ship’s class system and enabled the episodic story to play out with a kaleidoscopic view of what was happening all over the ship at the same moment. The musical received mixed reviews, but won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Scenic Design, and Best Orchestration. The show played for two years, but Michael Riedel in the New York Post reported that when it closed it had lost $6 million of its $10 million capitalization (at one point, Riedel reported that the $10 million musical had actually cost $13 million to open). Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the musical never seemed “to leave port” and failed “to capitalize” on its “two obvious trump cards” of “sentimentality and suspense.” He complained that the work had been “assembled according to a packed roster of themes, musical elements and factual data,” and with the exception of “some full-throated anthemic chorales” Yeston’s score lacked “emotional pull” and often had a “Sweeney Todd-meets-Jaws ominousness.” The headline of Clive Barnes’s review in the New York Post

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proclaimed that “Titanic Takes a Dive,” but the critic was grateful the creators hadn’t placed an exclamation point after the title. Here was a Grand Hotel “floating grandly until it sinks,” and all this was a “downer.” And the “real trouble” with the musical (“the iceberg factor, you might say”) was Yeston’s score, which never reached the “intensity and integrity” of Stephen Sondheim or “even the lyric effusiveness of Andrew Lloyd Webber.” John Simon in New York said he didn’t “blame the authors for not succeeding, only for thinking they could.” Stone’s book tried to focus on a number of characters and achieved “roundness for none,” Yeston’s score was “almost all miss,” and while a few performers stood out, most of the “very talented” cast were (“dare I say it?”) “submerged.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the “tacky”-looking evening should have been “more aptly called Titanic: The Coloring Book.” The story of the ship was “best left to National Geographic,” and what made it “a candidate for mega-flopdom” was Jones and Laing’s failure “to convey atmosphere.” He noted that the decks and salons were “broadly painted drops,” mentioned that the hydraulics made “one room lift,” and then asked, “This cost $10 million?” Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker said the musical managed to be “grave and entertaining, somber and joyful; little by little you realize that you are in the presence of a genuine addition to American musical theatre.” Jones and Laing brought an “operatic atmosphere” to the work that minimized the “flaws” in Yeston’s score (including “The Blame,” which she felt served “no dramatic purpose”). Greg Evans in Variety found the evening “neither disaster nor marvel” and noted it veered “clear of anything particularly memorable.” It was a “spectacle musical without spectacle” with a “pleasantly operatic” score, and ultimately was “an overly developed chamber musical with an amiable score, a visual production at its best when at its simplest, a ship that neither sinks nor ever really sets sail.” Lloyd Rose in the Washington Post noted that Yeston’s score was “filled with melancholy and loss” and was partially successful in capturing “the emotional tone of the music of the period without stooping to stylistic imitation.” She noted it would be “difficult to recapture the atmosphere of a less sophisticated age without being patronizing, but Yeston does,” and the only “drawback to his subtlety and taste” was that the score wasn’t “big enough or rowdy enough to carry the show, which has been conceived as immense.” During previews, the songs “I Give You My Hand” and “Behind Every Fortune” were cut. The original cast album was released by RCA Victor (CD # 90926-68834-2). An Amsterdam tour that played from September 2001 to June 2002 was recorded by Universal Music (CD # 589-452-2), and a 2002 German production was issued by Polydor (CD # 065-550-2-18). The script was published in hardback by Applause Books in 1999. Another musical version of the tragedy is the 1977 Czechoslovakian self-described “rock opera” The Titanic, which comes across as an intriguing and slightly surreal account of the doomed voyage and offers a fascinating and melodic score. The cast album (with libretto, which includes an English translation) is well worth seeking (Supraphon Records LP # 1113-2019), and among the musical numbers are “The Titanic,” “Glory,” “And There’ll Be Another Medal,” “My Thousand Brothers,” “Sweet Is a Night of Love,” “The Titanic Is a Devil,” “Jennie,” “A Simple Deal,” “Haskell’s,” “Cheri,” and, yes, the ominously titled “There’s Frost in the Air,” “Continuously Lower and Downwards,” and “Doom.” The libretto is by Juraj Herz, the lyrics by Zdenek Borovec, and the music by Bohuslav Ondracek.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Titanic); Best Book (Peter Stone); Best Score (lyrics and music by Maury Yeston); Best Orchestrations (Jonathan Tunick); Best Scenic Designer (Stewart Laing)

STEEL PIER “A New Musical”

Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre Opening Date: April 24, 1997; Closing Date: June 28, 1997 Performances: 76 Book: David Thompson

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Lyrics: Fred Ebb Music: John Kander Direction: Scott Ellis; Producers: Roger Berlind (PACE Theatrical Group, Associate Producer); Choreography: Susan Stroman (Chris Peterson, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Tony Walton; Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical Direction: David Loud Cast: Daniel McDonald (Bill Kelly), Karen Ziemba (Rita Racine), Debra Monk (Shelby Stevens), Gregory Harrison (Mick Hamilton), Ronn Carroll (Mr. Walker), Joel Blum (Buddy Becker), Valerie Wright (Bette Becker), Timothy Warmen (Johnny Adel), Alison Bevan (Dora Foster), Jim Newman (Happy McGuire), Kristin Chenoweth (Precious McGuire), Luke Adams (John C. Havens); Mick’s Picks: Mary Illes, Rosa Curry, and Sarah Solie Shannon; Casey Nicholaw (Corky), John MacInnis (Doctor Johnson), Adam Pelty (Preacher); The Flying Dunlaps: Leigh-Anne Wencker, Jack Hayes, JoAnn M. Hunter, Robert Fowler, and John MacInnis; Steel Pier Marathon Couples: Karen Ziemba and Daniel McDonald (Couple # 39), Debra Monk and John C. Havens (Couple # 32), Valerie Wright and Joel Blum (Couple # 17), Kristin Chenoweth and Jim Newman (Couple # 4), Alison Bevan and Timothy Warmen (Couple # 26), JoAnn M. Hunter and Gregory Mitchell (Couple # 46), Dana Lynn Mauro and Andy Blankenbuehler (Couple # 8), Elizabeth Mills and Jack Hayes (Couple # 50), Leigh-Anne Wencker and Robert Fowler (Couple # 68), Ida Gilliams and Adam Pelty (Couple # 71), Sarah Solie Shannon and Casey Nicholaw (Couple # 51), Mary Illes and Brad Bradley (Couple # 54), Rosa Curry and John MacInnis (Couple # 65), Leigh-Ann Wencker and Jack Hayes (Couple # 18), Ida Gilliams and John MacInnis (Couple # 41), Rosa Curry and Robert Fowler (Couple # 11), Elizabeth Mills and Adam Pelty (Couple # 30), Kristin Chenoweth and Gregory Mitchell (Couple # 25), Mary Illes and Casey Nicholaw (Couple # 19), Leigh-Ann Wencker and Brad Bradley (Couple # 14), Ida Gilliams and Robert Fowler (Couple # 40), Sarah Solie Shannon and Brad Bradley (Couple # 55), Rosa Curry and Jack Hayes (Couple # 34), Mary Illes and Timothy Warmen (Couple # 62) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during August 1933.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Prelude” (Orchestra); “Willing to Ride” (Karen Ziemba); “Everybody Dance” (Gregory Harrison, Mary Illes, Rosa Curry, Sarah Solie Shannon, Company); “Second Chance” (Daniel McDonald); “Montage I” (Company); “A Powerful Thing” (Gregory Harrison, Ronn Carroll); “Dance with Me” and “The Last Girl” (Gregory Harrison, Karen Ziemba, Daniel McDonald, Company); “Montage II” (Company) and “The Shag” (Dancers); “Everybody’s Girl” (Debra Monk); “Two Step” (Dancers); “Wet” (Karen Ziemba, Daniel McDonald); “Harmonica Specialty” (John C. Havens); “Lovebird” (Karen Ziemba); “The Sprints” (Gregory Harrison, Ronn Carroll, Daniel McDonald, Company); “Everybody Dance” (reprise) (Gregory Harrison, Company) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Leave the World Behind” (Daniel McDonald, Karen Ziemba, Company); “Montage III” (Company); “Somebody Older” (Debra Monk); “Running in Place” (Karen Ziemba); “Two Little Words” (Kristin Chenoweth, Mary Illes, Rosa Curry, Sarah Solie Shannon, Company); “First You Dream” (Daniel McDonald, Karen Ziemba); “Steel Pier” (Gregory Harrison, Karen Ziemba, Mary Illes, Rosa Curry, Sarah Solie Shannon); “Steel Pier” (reprise) (Company); “Final Dance” (Karen Ziemba, Daniel McDonald, Dancers) John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Steel Pier was one of their most disappointing musicals, and like many shows of the era it never settled on a tone or point of view. Its message was confused, and it never jelled into a coherent story, much less a coherent fantasy. And fantasy is the operative word, because the plot, which takes place at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier in 1933, deals with the unhappily married singer and marathon dancer Rita Racine (Karen Ziemba) who meets mysterious pilot Bill Kelly (Daniel McDonald), who hopes to redeem a raffle ticket he won a few days earlier at an air show and whose prize is a kiss and a dance with her. (By the way, Bill is dead, but Rita doesn’t know this until the final moments of the musical.) As the curtain rises, Bill is first seen crumpled face down on a stage clouded in smoke. His flight jacket is torn, and he’s surrounded by otherworldly dancers clad in white who perform in slow motion various popular dances of the era (the published script describes the dancers as “ethereal”). So the audience knows Bill is a

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ghost about two-and-a-half hours before Rita does. Had the opening sequence been ditched in previews, the show could have offered a certain amount of suspense about Bill and Rita’s relationship, but his death status clearly lets us know that any romance between the two doesn’t have a ghost of a chance. Keeping both Rita and the audience in the dark about Bill’s secret would have provided a surprise ending and could have added a layer of complexity to the plot, somewhat in the manner of a mystery novel or movie in which a surprise denouement forces one to reassess what went on before and how one was misled until the mystery’s final revelation. Rita once had her fifteen minutes of fame as “Lindy’s Lovebird” when she became the first woman Lindbergh kissed when he returned to the States after his historic flight. She’s now secretly married to the oily Mick Hamilton (Gregory Harrison), the underhanded master of ceremonies at the marathon who plans to rig the dance in order to ensure that he and Rita win the jackpot. Mick is still sore because Rita’s previous gig as “Lindy’s Lovebird” at the air show was cut short when one of the stunt planes at the show crashed and killed a pilot. In a late second-act eureka moment, Rita realizes Bill is that pilot and that he’s come briefly to life to give her the courage to leave her loveless marriage and make a better life for herself. Besides the three main characters, the musical included a number of colorful types, including the hardboiled middle-aged dancer Shelby Stevens (Debra Monk), the young and ambitious tough-cookie dancer Precious McGuire (Kristin Chenoweth), and the brother-and-sister act Bette and Buddy Becker (Valerie Wright and Joel Blum). The story included at least three major threads, none of which were touching or convincing. The fantasy element never quite worked because as written Rita was bland and boring, and so why would the revenant waste his time redeeming the raffle ticket’s guarantee of a kiss and a dance? Billy Bigelow had a good reason to return to Earth, but our boy Bill’s purpose seems less than urgent. Further, Rita’s plight isn’t all that tragic, or even interesting. She’s never known the big-time, has been only on the periphery of show business, and just wants to go back to her cottage and live out her life. That’s her business, of course, but it’s not exactly the most compelling dream to give to the heroine of a $7.5 million musical. And the work was burdened with a political subtext far too heavy for its framework. Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret used the Kit Kat Klub as a metaphor to depict the nightmare of Nazi Germany, and the club’s M.C. gladly took the patrons on a joyride to Hell. Following that legendary musical, other shows tried to employ similar themes. But the 1920s Chicago of Chicago was no Berlin, the 1933 Chicago of Grind was no Berlin, and certainly Atlantic City’s Steel Pier of 1933 was no Berlin. Steel Pier’s Mick was selfish and sleazy, but he was no Pied Piper leading the marathoners into a political inferno. Kander and Ebb’s score had its moments, but was mostly vacuous. Some made a case for “First You Dream” and the title number, but the show’s two best songs were Bill’s ingratiating and upbeat ballad “Second Chance” (if a Hit Parade had existed in 1997, “Second Chance” would have been on the top ten) and Shelby’s raucous and off-color “Everybody’s Girl.” Along with Scott Ellis and David Thompson, choreographer Susan Stroman was credited for the idea of the musical, and it’s easy to understand her involvement with the show because it promised to be a dance musical in the expansive style of Michael Bennett’s Ballroom (1978), which offered some of the most brilliant choreography of its era. While Stroman was occasionally inspired (particularly in a colorful sequence that paid homage to the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio), her dances generally lacked wit and excitement. And one number was a complete misfire: for “Running in Place,” Stroman created a solo for Ziemba that expressed the character’s despair. But it was such a laughably excessive display of angst one wondered if it had been intended as a sly parody of 1950s interpretive dancing, which would have been right at home in a Village coffee house circa 1958. The production received mostly negative notices and failed to receive any Tony Awards. As a result, the musical folded after two months. Greg Evans in Variety suggested Steel Pier “might be the musical to beat in what’s shaping up to be an artistically lackluster spring.” Although the first act was “overlong” and “occasionally dragged,” the work offered “charming” performances, some of Kander and Ebb’s “strongest writing in years,” and “vibrant” dances. The evening didn’t “always glide so smoothly, but it had the stamina and heart to win the marathon.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “sugarcoated” and “spectacular but brittle” musical hoped for but didn’t achieve “evocative grandeur.” It lacked drama, was “a good idea gone mediocre,” and offered a “theme” but no story. He noted the “quite surprising” ending was “over-cute” in “Hollywood fashion” and made the “same demand on an audience as Peter Pan when he asks theatregoers to believe in fairies.” Lloyd

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Rose in the Washington Post said Steel Pier couldn’t decide if it was a “feel-good” or “feel-bad” musical, and so it kept “stumbling over its own feet.” Further, the score never connected with the show’s themes (all of which made little sense) and the result was “hollow and aimless.” Stroman could be “bouncily inventive and sometimes near-brilliant,” but her choreography lacked “dramatic sense” and the first-act dances tended to “blur into one another.” And Rose noted that a couple of dances were “downright mistakes”: Ziemba’s solo was a “grotesque dance of anguish,” and another was a “straight version” of the dance number set in Hell that had been spoofed in the 1953 film The Band Wagon. Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker said the creators tried hard for authenticity, and Stroman’s choreography was “a checklist of the thirties’ dance crazes.” The result was a “slick fantasy” with “tired” songs and a “lame” story that reduced the era “to imagery that is already familiar from movies and television.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the musical was “soft at the edges” and never found its “motor.” Because there was “no center of energy to grab onto” and the work was “insulated by a fuzzy cover of blandness,” each number ended in “the equivalent of a sigh instead of a shout,” the music was “tuneful but wispy,” the first act was a “pleasant, polished blur,” and the second “decomposed like a piece of wet tissue paper.” But when Debra Monk launched into “Everybody’s Girl,” the audience went “wild” because she was a “vital” presence. However, David Patrick Stearns in USA Today gave the musical four stars (out of four). Steel Pier was “worth seeing and hearing” because it was “sophisticated” and “sincere,” and its story was “told with glittering showmanship.” Harrison “intriguingly explores the dark side of slick handsomeness,” McDonald was “dashing,” Ziemba was “winning,” and Monk’s “Everybody’s Girl” was “a knockout showstopper.” During previews, the songs “In Here,” “Winning,” and “Lookin’ for Love” were dropped. “First You Dream” was a revised version of “Why Can’t I Speak?” from Zorba (1968). “Nobody’s Fault” was written for Karen Ziemba’s character, but was replaced by “Running in Place”; the earlier song was recorded in 2015 by Ziemba for the two-CD collection John Kander: Hidden Treasures, 1950–2015 (Harbinger Records # HCD3105). The cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-68878-2), and the script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 1998. The sordid world of marathon dancing had been earlier explored in Horace McCoy’s 1935 novel They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, which was later adapted into the popular 1969 film of the same name. Two earlier Broadway dissections of the subject were Isabel Dawn and Boyce de Gaw’s 1933 drama Marathon, which closed after five performances, and June Havoc’s well-regarded but short-running 1963 autobiographical drama Marathon ’33, which starred Julie Harris and played for forty-eight performances.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Steel Pier); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Daniel McDonald); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Karen Ziemba); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Joel Blum); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Debra Monk); Best Director of a Musical (Scott Ellis); Best Book (David Thompson); Best Score (lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander); Best Scenic Designer (Tony Walton); Best Choreographer (Susan Stroman)

THE LIFE

“The New Musical” Theatre: Ethel Barrymore Theatre Opening Date: April 26, 1997; Closing Date: June 7, 1998 Performances: 465 Book: David Newman, Ira Gasman, and Cy Coleman Lyrics: Ira Gasman Music: Cy Coleman Direction: Michael Blakemore; Producers: Roger Berlind, Martin Richards, Cy Coleman, and Sam Crothers (Frank Tarsia, Associate Producer); Choreography: Joey McKneely; Scenery: Robin Wagner; Costumes: Martin Pakledinaz; Lighting: Richard Pilbrow; Musical Direction: Gordon Lowry Harrell

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Cast: Sam Harris (Jojo), Lynn Sterling (Carmen), Sharon Wilkins (Chichi), Katy Grenfell (Frenchie), Judine Richard (Tracy, Street Evangelist), Mark Bove (Bobby, Cop, Monte Hustler), Michael Gregory Gong (Oddjob, Shoeshine, Monte Hustler), Rudy Roberson (Silky, Street Evangelist, Enrique), Mark Anthony Taylor (Slick, Street Evangelist, Shatellia, Monte Hustler), Chuck Cooper (Memphis), Felicia Finley (April), Gordon Joseph Weiss (Snickers), Vernel Bagneris (Lacy), Pamela Isaacs (Queen), Lillias White (Sonja), Kevin Ramsey (Fleetwood), Bellamy Young (Mary), Stephanie Michels (Doll House Dancer), Rich Hebert (Lou); Ensemble: Mark Bove, Felicia Finley, Chris Ghelfi, Michael Gregory Gong, Katy Grenfell, Stephanie Michels, Judine Richard, Rudy Roberson, Lynn Sterling, Mark Anthony Taylor, Sharon Wilkins The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place around 42nd Street “then” (in the late 1970s and early 1980s).

Musical Numbers Act One: “Check It Out!” (Company); “Use What You Got” (Sam Harris, Company); “A Lovely Day to Be Out of Jail” (Pamela Isaacs, Lillias White); “A Piece of the Action” (Kevin Ramsey); “The Oldest Profession” (Lillias White); “Don’t Take Much” (Chuck Cooper); “Go Home” (Pamela Isaacs, Bellamy Young); “You Can’t Get to Heaven” (Pamela Isaacs, Lillias White, Judine Richard, Rudy Roberson, Mark Anthony Taylor); “My Body” (Katy Grenfell, Sharon Wilkins, Judine Richard, Lynn Sterling, Lillias White, Pamela Isaacs, Felicia Finley); “Why Don’t They Leave Us Alone” (Michael Gregory Gong, Mark Bove, Rudy Roberson, Mark Anthony Taylor, Gordon Joseph Weiss, Felicia Finley, Lynn Sterling, Sharon Wilkins, Katy Grenfell, Pamela Isaacs, Lillias White, Judine Richard); “Easy Money” (Rich Hebert, Bellamy Young, Sam Harris, Kevin Ramsey); “He’s No Good” (Rich Hebert, Pamela Isaacs); “I’m Leaving You” (Pamela Isaacs); “The Hookers’ Ball” (Vernel Bagneris, Company) Act Two: “Step Right Up” (Rudy Roberson, Mark Bove, Michael Gregory Gong, Mark Anthony Taylor); “Mr. Greed” (Sam Harris, Mark Bove, Rudy Roberson, Michael Gregory Gong, Mark Anthony Taylor); “My Way or the Highway” (Chuck Cooper, Pamela Isaacs); “People Magazine” (Rich Hebert, Bellamy Young); “We Had a Dream” (Pamela Isaacs); “Use What You Got” (reprise) (Bellamy Young, Rich Hebert, Sam Harris); “‘Someday’ Is for Suckers” (Lillias White, Katy Grenfell, Felicia Finley, Mark Anthony Taylor, Lynn Sterling, Sharon Wilkins); “My Friend” (Pamela Isaacs, Lillias White); “We Gotta Go” (Kevin Ramsey, Pamela Isaacs); “Check It Out!” (reprise) (Company) Cy Coleman’s The Life was a major letdown. It tried to capture the gritty world of midtown Manhattan in the pre-Disney era and perhaps aspired to be an uptown Rent, but as Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News asked, is anyone “nostalgic for 42nd Street when it was a human sewer?” If the musical had settled on a consistent tone and point of view it might have succeeded. A serious, uncompromising look at street life in the city of the late 1970s and early 1980s might have made for a gripping musical drama in the style of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, but Coleman wasn’t the composer for that kind of show. Or perhaps a straightforward tongue-in-cheek spoof of “street” attitudes of the era might have worked. Unfortunately, the long-gestating musical, which had been announced for production many years earlier and had been presented in workshop performances as far back as 1990, was an uneasy blend of The Threepenny Opera, Guys and Dolls, and Coleman’s own Sweet Charity with touches of Aint Supposed to Die a Natural Death and Rent thrown in for good measure. The musical played for a little more than a year, and the New York Post reported it lost $7 million. The evening wavered wildly in tone, and tried to say everything at once. It was perhaps the most plotheavy musical in memory with its depiction of various sleazy characters and their melodramatic, overthe-top stories. The pimps, prostitutes, hustlers, drag queens, porn dealers, and drug addicts (with names like Chichi, Frenchie, Oddjob, Silky, Slick, Memphis, Snickers, Shoeshine, and Shatellia) were endlessly paraded across the stage in a meandering revue-like procession that seemed to crank up a new plot line every ten minutes. There was of course the whore with a heart of gold, in this case Sonja (Lillias White) and her “charm” number “(I’m Getting Too Old for) The Oldest Profession” and who keeps talking about her health and can’t understand why she never feels well (the specter of AIDS was hinted at, but never mentioned outright). Another hooker (Queen, played by Pamela Isaacs) is smitten with drug addict Fleetwood (Kevin Ramsey) despite his habit of taking her hard-earned money to feed his other habit. In the meantime, super-pimp Memphis

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(Chuck Cooper) has bankrolled Queen with bail money, baubles, and a fancy dress to wear at the Hookers’ Ball. (The Hookers’ Ball? Maybe the show was a spoof.) But when Memphis expects Queen to repay him from her nightly earnings, she’s shocked, shocked to discover his financial gifts have strings attached. And when Memphis threatens Queen with a song actually titled “My Way or the Highway,” one again felt the show must have been originally conceived as high-camp spoofery. Another street type is hustler Jojo (Sam Harris), who encounters the angelic-looking Mary (Bellamy Young) at Port Authority. She’s just off the bus from Minnesota and might as well wear a sign around her neck spelling out the word victim. Jojo and Fleetwood immediately target her, but of course it’s Mary who’s the real hustler here, and her delicate beauty masks a hard-boiled little trick who soon becomes a go-go dancer and then takes off for L.A. with the promise of a movie career (albeit an X-rated one). In the musical’s final scene, Memphis stabs Fleetwood to death, Queen shoots and kills Memphis, and Sonja nobly takes the rap for Memphis’s murder by claiming self-defense, thus allowing Queen to escape from “the life.” The performances were earnest enough, if perhaps overly broad, but Sam Harris brought a jagged, nervous edge to his sleazy character (and proved he could have been a first-rate Pal Joey), the kittenish Bellamy Young was strikingly beautiful, and the elegant Pamela Isaacs created a convincing portrait of the conflicted Queen. (Sadly, as of this writing Harris, Young, and Isaacs have never created other Broadway roles.) And while Coleman’s score was decidedly from his second drawer, Harris, Young, Kevin Ramsey, and Rich Hebert were given the show’s best song, the vampy and irresistible quartet “Easy Money.” During rehearsals, the New York Post reported that one theatre “insider” said he was “blown away” by what he saw, and another “insider” said he hadn’t seen anything “as moving” since West Side Story. But once The Life lost the Tony Award for Best Musical to Titanic, Ward Morehouse III in the same newspaper noted the show was “pulling out all the stops in fighting to survive on the Great White Way” and that Liza Minnelli said she’d do “anything and everything” to help the production. She had already been part of the show’s concept album (see below), and Morehouse reported she promised to “visit the show as often as she could to sing after the show’s final curtain” (earlier in the week, she had “amazed” the audience by singing “You Made Me Love You,” one of the signature songs of her mother Judy Garland). Ultimately, the $7 million production played for just over a year, but lost money. It doesn’t seem a likely candidate for revival, but perhaps might work as an Encores!-styled concert production. Jack Kroll in Newsweek said that “of all the new musicals, The Life has the most guts and grit”; Lloyd Rose in the Washington Post praised Ira Gasman’s “sharp” lyrics and Coleman’s “luscious” score; and Richard Zoglin in Time said Coleman’s “vital” and “jazzy” music was his best since Sweet Charity. But Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker found the score “a pastiche of phony funk, fake blues, and overcooked pop.” The “hokey” and “off-putting” evening had an “insulting and cartoonish” book, “hideous” costumes, and a general production design that was “repellently touristy.” Greg Evans in Variety said The Life couldn’t find a tone or a point of view (“a cartoon? a gritty slice of Times Square? a Bob Fosse rip-off?”) and thus wore “its patchwork construction as obviously as its pimps wear wide-brimmed hats.” Although he found the book “hokey” and full of stock characters, Evans liked the cast and the score. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the show’s tone was “as frustratingly variable as this month’s weather” and the book “reeked” of “bottom-drawer, B-movie melodrama” with a plot that “would have seemed creaky even in the Warner Brothers urban crime dramas of the 1930s.” Despite its “irritating lumpiness and misjudgments,” the musical was “alive” with a “definite human pulse,” and Coleman’s score provided “zesty jazz- and vaudeville-inflected tunes.” But he noted that Joey McKneely’s choreography was “secondhand Fosse,” which was “a mistake when the real thing is on display nearby in Chicago.” Vincent Canby in the New York Times said The Life was the “best” and “by far the most entertaining” musical of the season. The production was filled with “prodigious” talent and Coleman had composed his “most driving, big-beat score since Sweet Charity” and “his most varied and melodic work since On the Twentieth Century.” During previews, the song “Was That a Smile?” was dropped. In 1996, a concept album of the score was issued by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-68001-2) with a studio cast that included George Burns, Jennifer Holliday, Jack Jones, Liza Minnelli, Lou Rawls, Bobby Short, and Cy Coleman (the recording includes the deleted “Was That a Smile?,” which was played on the album as a piano solo by Coleman). The Broadway cast album was issued by Sony Records (CD # SK-63312). The musical had previously been presented in a 1990 Off-Off-Broadway showcase production at the Westbeth Theatre Center.

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Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (The Life); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Pamela Isaacs); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Chuck Cooper); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Sam Harris); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Lillias White); Best Director of a Musical (Michael Blakemore); Best Book (David Newman, Ira Gasman, and Cy Coleman); Best Score (lyrics by Ira Gasman, music by Cy Coleman); Best Orchestrations (Don Sebesky and Harold Wheeler); Best Costume Designer (Martin Pakledinaz); Best Lighting Designer (Richard Pilbrow); Best Choreographer (Joey McKneely)

JEKYLL & HYDE Theatre: Plymouth Theatre Opening Date: April 28, 1997; Closing Date: January 7, 2001 Performances: 1,543 Book and Lyrics: Leslie Bricusse Music: Frank Wildhorn Based on the 1886 novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Direction: Robin Phillips; Producers: PACE Theatrical Group and Fox Theatricals in association with Jerry Frankel and Magicworks Entertainment and The Landmark Entertainment Group (Bill Young, Associate Producer) (Gary Gunas and PACE Theatrical Group, Executive Producers); Choreography: Joey Pizzi; Scenery: Robin Phillips with James Noone; Costumes: Ann Curtis; Lighting: Beverly Emmons; Musical Direction: Jason Howland Cast: George Merritt (John Utterson), Barry Ingham (Sir Danvers Carew), Robert Cuccioli (Dr. Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde), Robert Evan (Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde at Wednesday and Saturday matinees), David Chaney (An Old Man, Davie, Manservant, Mr. Bisset, Maitre d’Hotel, Priest at Wedding), David Koch (Mental Patient, Ned, A Tough), Bill E. Dietrich (Mental Patient, Bill, Groom, A Tough, A Newsboy, Choirboy), Donald Grody (Doctor, Lord G, Poole), Frank Mastrone (Attendant, Albert, First Gentleman, Priest), Charles E. Wallace (Attendant, Jack, Under Footman, A Tough, Doorman, Curate), Emily Scott Skinner (Nurse, Alice, Housemaid, Whore, Bridesmaid), Jodi Stevens (Nurse, Bet, Housemaid, A Young Girl, Bridesmaid), Leah Hocking (Kate), Molly Scott Pesce (Molly), Bonnie Schon (Polly, Whore), John Tracy Egan (Mike, Groom), Raymond Jaramillo McLeod (Simon Stride), Michael Ingram (Rupert, Sir Douglas, Policeman, Barrow Boy), Brad Oscar (Archibald Proops, Second Gentleman, Sir Peter, Barrow Boy), Martin Van Truren (Lord Savage, The Spider), Emily Zacharias (Lady Beaconsfield, Guinevere), Geoffrey Blaisdell (General Lord Glossop, Siegfried, Policeman, Barrow Boy), Christiane Noll (Emma Carew), Linda Eder (Lucy, Boy Soprano), Dog (B.J.) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in London during the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Lost in the Darkness” (Robert Cuccioli); “Façade” (Ensemble); “Jekyll’s Plea” (Robert Cuccioli, The Board of Governors); “Façade” (reprise) (Ensemble); “Emma’s Reasons” (Raymond Jaramillo McLeod, Christiane Noll); “Take Me as I Am” (Robert Cuccioli, Christiane Noll); “Letting Go” (Barrie Ingham, Christiane Noll); “Façade” (reprise) (Ensemble); “No One Knows Who I Am” (Linda Eder); “Good ’n’ Evil” (Linda Eder); “This Is the Moment” (Robert Cuccioli); “Alive” (Robert Cuccioli); “His Work, and Nothing More” (Robert Cuccioli, George Merritt, Barrie Ingham, Christiane Noll); “Someone Like You” (Linda Eder); “Alive” (reprise) (Robert Cuccioli, Ensemble) Act Two: “Murder, Murder” (Bill E. Dietrich, Ensemble); “Once Upon a Dream” (Christiane Noll); “Obsession” (Robert Cuccioli); “In His Eyes” (Linda Eder, Christiane Noll); “(It’s a) Dangerous Game” (Robert Cuccioli, Linda Eder); “The Way Back” (Robert Cuccioli); “A New Life” (Linda Eder); “Sympathy, Tenderness” (Robert Cuccioli); “Lost in the Darkness” (reprise) (Robert Cuccioli); “Confrontation” (Robert Cuccioli); “Façade” (reprise) (Ensemble); “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” (Linda Eder)

1996–1997 SEASON     271

Jekyll & Hyde was first produced at the Alley Theatre’s Large Stage in Houston, Texas, for the period May 24–July 1, 1990, with Chuck Wagner in the title roles; others in the cast were Linda Eder (Lucy), Rebecca Spencer (Emma, here called Lisa), and Edmund Lyndeck (Sir Danvers Carew). The musical returned to Houston on January 20, 1995, at the Music Hall and played through February 19 in a coproduction by the Alley Theatre and the Theatre Under the Stars; Robert Cuccioli now played the title roles, Eder was again Lucy, and Christiane Noll was Emma. This run was followed by an engagement at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Washington, for the period February 28–March 19, 1995, and then the musical toured nationally during the 1995–1996 season. Prior to the Broadway production, two concept albums of the score were released (according to Ben Brantley in the New York Times, the two sold a total of 250,000 copies before the New York opening). The musical received mixed reviews and was nominated for four Tony Awards, none of which it won. Michael Reidel in the New York Post reported that despite its run of almost four years the production closed at a loss and had managed to return just 75 percent of its original $7.2 million capitalization. Set in Victorian London, the musical followed Robert Louis Stevenson’s familiar story of Doctor Jekyll, who Tempts Fate and Goes Against Nature when he tries to isolate the elements of good and evil in human beings. Soon things go Horribly Wrong, and the good doctor becomes a madman who embarks on a murderous rampage that would have done Sweeney Todd proud. The two women in the hero-villain’s life mirror his dueling natures, the demure and innocent Emma and the cynical prostitute Lucy (guess which one escapes a Cruel Fate and which one Gets Hers). But the evening’s lesson is a good one: Some things should best be Left Alone because it isn’t wise to tamper with Mother Nature. Brantley said the “leaden, solemnly campy” work was a “plastic monster assembly kit of a musical” that made the score of Sunset Boulevard “sound like Parsifal.” The songs had “a generic inspirational swell” with an “apotheosizing halo of sound” beloved by politicians and athletes, and so already one number (“This Is the Moment”) had been played at the Olympics, the Miss America Pageant, and the 1996 Democratic Convention. Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker noted that one might “laugh” at the musical, but it was nonetheless “a lot less cynical” than Steel Pier and The Life. As a result, half of her “was appalled at the show’s cheesy bombast” while the other half “ate it up.” Brantley said Cuccioli was “nearly unbearable” as Jekyll; he had “the bearing of an animated corpse and the precise but anxious diction of someone to whom English is a second language,” but the moment he turned into Hyde the actor lightened up and seemed to have a “better time” as well as “a much improved singing voice.” And when Cuccioli sang the one-man duet “Confrontation,” in which the opposing natures of Jekyll and Hyde duke it out, the actor “became” the two men, thanks to the judicious tossing of his head, which led to adjustments of his coiffure. Brantley noted this was the musical’s “only original element,” and he wondered if there was a Tony Award category for “best use of a head of hair.” Greg Evans in Variety said the evening soon settled “into a self-serious sameness that pretty much drains the well-known horror tale of whatever guilty pleasures lurk within” and much of the work got “smothered beneath its own gothic sobriety.” The first concept recording was released by RCA Victor Records/BMG Classics (CD # 60416-2-RC) in 1990 with Colm Wilkinson and Linda Eder, and includes nine songs not heard in the Broadway production (“Love Has Come of Age,” “Possessed,” “Transformation,” “Seduction,” “No One Must Ever Know,” “Till You Came into My Life,” “Retribution,” “It’s Over Now,” and “We Still Have Time”; the album’s “Hospital Board” is probably a variation of the later “Jekyll’s Plea”). The second concept album (subtitled “The Gothic Musical Thriller” with the notation that the album was “The Complete Work”) was issued on a two-CD set by Atlantic Records (# 82723-2/4) and includes eighteen songs not heard in New York (“I Need to Know,” “Bitch, Bitch, Bitch,” “The Engagement Party,” “Possessed,” “Lisa Carew,” “Bring on the Men,” “Lucy Meets Jekyll,” “How Can I Continue On?,” “Transformation,” “Lucy Meets Hyde,” “Streak of Madness,” “Sympathy-Tenderness,” “Mass,” “Reflections,” “The World Has Gone Insane,” “The Girls of the Night,” “No One Must Ever Know,” and “The Wedding Reception”; “Board of Governors” was another title for “Jekyll’s Plea” and was also a variation of “Hospital Board”). During the 1990 run, the song “One-Two-Three” was part of the score but wasn’t included on the two concept albums. The Broadway cast album was released by Atlantic Records (CD # 82976) and includes two sequences not listed in the New York program (“How Can I Pursue the Truth” and “First Transformation”). There are numerous foreign recordings of the score, including cast albums from productions in Japan, Spain, Hungary, and Austria. During the Broadway run, David Hasselhoff played the title roles, and a performance was taped for television and eventual DVD release by Image Entertainment.

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As part of a later tour, the musical played for a limited engagement of thirty performances at the Marquis Theatre beginning on April 18, 2013. The cast included Constantine Maroulis (Jekyll and Hyde), Deborah Cox (Lucy), and Teal Wicks (Emma), and the production reinstated “Bring on the Men” and “I Need to Know.” There have been at least eight other musical adaptations of Stevenson’s novel. The 1968 regional musical After You, Mr. Hyde (book by Leonora [aka Lee] Thuna, lyrics by Mel Mandel, and music by Norman Sachs) starred Alfred Drake in the roles of Jekyll and Hyde, and in 1973 the musical was adapted for television by Sherman Yellen as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and included songs from After You, Mr. Hyde as well as new ones by Lionel Bart. The production was filmed in London and telecast by NBC on March 7, 1973, with a cast that included Kirk Douglas in the title roles as well as Susan Hampshire, Michael Redgrave, Donald Pleasence, and Stanley Holloway (Rino in Variety said the presentation offered “dreary tunes” and “straight unrelieved boredom”). In 1990, Sachs and Mandel rewrote After You, Mr. Hyde as Jekyll and Hyde, and the new version was produced at the George Street Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey, with John Cullum in the title roles. In the mid-1980s a German production titled Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (book by Rudiger Rudolph and Clemens Cochius and music by Cochius) appears to have been presented in English (the program’s song list is in English and includes English lyrics for three of the musical’s twenty-eight numbers). In 1989, Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company offered a version of the story (and two songs from the musical, “You’ve Changed” and “Eddie’s Swing,” were recorded for the CD collection The Ridiculous Theatrical Company: The 25th Anniversary, which was released by DRG Records # 6301). On June 25, 1990, a one-hour Off-Off-Broadway version for young people was presented as free summer-theatre entertainment at the Promenade Theatre for forty-five performances; the book and lyrics were by David Krane and Marta Kauffman, the music by Michael Skloff, and the work was set in present-day Cleveland. Another OffOff-Broadway adaptation titled Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with book and lyrics by Brandon Long and music by Roger Butterley played for fourteen performances in 1995, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (book and lyrics by David Levy and Leslie Eberhard, music by Phil Hall) was presented at Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, New Jersey, on November 4, 1998, with Richard White (Jekyll) and Marc Kudisch (Hyde).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Robert Cuccioli); Best Book (Leslie Bricusse); Best Costume Designer (Ann Curtis); Best Lighting Designer (Beverly Emmons)

CANDIDE Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Opening Date: April 29, 1997; Closing Date: July 27, 1997 Performances: 103 Book: Hugh Wheeler Lyrics: Richard Wilbur (additional lyrics by Leonard Bernstein, John Latouche, and Stephen Sondheim; see list of musical numbers for specific credits) Music: Leonard Bernstein Based on the 1759 novel Candide, or Optimism by Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet). Direction: Harold Prince; Producer: Livent (U.S.), Inc.; Choreography: Patricia Birch; Scenery: Clarke Dunham; Costumes: Judith Dolan; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Eric Stern Cast: Jim Dale (Voltaire, Doctor Pangloss, Businessman, Governor, Second Gambler [Police Chief], Sage), Jason Danieley (Candide), Seth Malkin (Huntsman, Lion), Stacey Logan (Paquette), Julie Johnson (Baroness Von Thunder), Mal Z. Lawrence (Baron Von Thunder, Grand Inquisitor, Columbo, Pasha-Prefect), Harolyn Blackwell (Cunegonde), Glenda Balkan (Cunegonde for certain performances), Brent Barrett (Maximilian), Arte Johnson (Hugo, Radu, Don Issachar, Judge Gomez, Father Bernard, Turhan Bey), Andrea Martin (The Old Lady), Paul Harman (Second Bulgarian Soldier), David Girolmo (Heresy Agent), Allen Hidalgo (Governor’s Aide), D’vorah Bailey (Sheep), Nanne Puritz (Sheep); Ensemble: D’vorah Bailey, Mary Kate Boulware, Diana Brownstone, Alvin Crawford, Christopher F. Davis, Sherrita Duran, Deanna Dys, David Girolmo, Paul Harman, Joy Hermalyn, Allen Hidalgo, Wendy Hilliard, Elizabeth Jimenez, Julie Johnson,

1996–1997 SEASON     273

Ken Krugman, Chad Larget, Shannon Lewis, Seth Malkin, Andrew Pacho, Nanne Puritz, Owen Taylor, Eric Van Hoven The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the eighteenth century in Westphalia, Lisbon, Cadiz, Buenos Aires, and sundry places throughout the world.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Life Is Happiness Indeed” (lyric by Stephen Sondheim) (Jim Dale, Jason Danieley, Harolyn Blackwell, Brent Barrett, Stacey Logan); “The Best of All Possible Worlds” (new lyric by Stephen Sondheim) (Jim Dale, Jason Danieley, Harolyn Blackwell, Brent Barrett, Stacey Logan, Ensemble); “Oh, Happy We” (lyric by Richard Wilbur) (Jason Danieley, Harolyn Blackwell); “It Must Be So” (aka “Candide’s Meditation”) (lyric by Richard Wilbur) (Jason Danieley); “Westphalian Chorale” (lyricist unknown) (Ensemble); “Glitter and Be Gay” (lyric by Richard Wilbur) (Harolyn Blackwell); “Auto-da-fe” (aka “What a Day”) (lyric by Richard Wilbur and Stephen Sondheim) (Company); “Candide’s Lament” (aka “This World”) (lyric by Stephen Sondheim) (Jason Danieley); “You Were Dead, You Know” (lyric by John Latouche) (Jason Danieley, Harolyn Blackwell); “I Am Easily Assimilated” (lyric by Leonard Bernstein) (Andrea Martin, Dons, Company); “Quartet Finale” (lyric by Richard Wilbur) (Jason Danieley, Harolyn Blackwell, Jim Dale, Andrea Martin, Company) Act Two: “Ballad of the New World” (lyricist unknown) (Jason Danieley, Ensemble); “My Love” (lyric by John Latouche and Richard Wilbur) (Jim Dale, Brent Barrett); “Alleluia” (lyric by Richard Wilbur) (Ensemble); “Sheep’s Song” (lyric by Stephen Sondheim) (D’vorah Bailey, Nanne Puritz, Seth Malkin, Stacey Logan); “Bon Voyage” (lyric by Richard Wilbur) (Jim Dale, Ensemble); “Quiet” (lyric by Richard Wilbur) (Andrea Martin, Jason Danieley, Stacey Logan); “The Best of All Possible Worlds” (reprise) (Jason Danieley, Stacey Logan, Andrea Martin, D’vorah Bailey, Nanne Puritz); “What’s the Use?” (lyric by Richard Wilbur) (Mal Z. Lawrence, Arte Johnson, Jim Dale, Ensemble); “You Were Dead, You Know” (reprise) (Jason Danieley, Harolyn Blackwell); “Make Our Garden Grow” (lyric by Richard Wilbur) (Company) No doubt those who treasure the score of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide knew there was no real hope for the current revival when they discovered it was essentially based on Harold Prince’s previous stagings of Hugh Wheeler’s book (which had played Off-Broadway in 1973, on Broadway in 1974, and in a reworked version that was produced by the New York City Opera Company in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1989, 2005, and 2008). Unfortunately, Prince and Wheeler’s approach to the musical was a feel-good, Laugh-In-styled affair, a kindergarten Candide. Bernstein’s score is one of the wittiest and most melodic ever written for the theatre, but Prince’s staging refused to let the rich music and clever lyrics speak for themselves, and so he and Wheeler created a sitcom-styled evening of dumbed-down shtick that blunted and diminished Bernstein’s score, Lillian Hellman’s original book, and the wicked satire of Voltaire’s novel. Sure enough, Ben Brantley in the New York Times reported that Prince stuck to the “same sensibility” of his previous stagings of Candide, and thus the “sour” evening was “exhaustingly overstaged” with the director’s “excesses.” Prince’s work on the musical had once been “an act of resuscitation,” but now it was “closer to suffocation” and was “desperately busy and overpackaged” with much in the way of “sophomoric vulgarity.” As a result, the production’s “jokey devices” couldn’t match the “finesse and imagination” of the score, and so the “soaring sentimentality” of “Make Our Garden Grow” was “sabotaged” when “rows of elephantine, greeting-card-ish sunflowers” sprung up, and “Glitter and Be Gay” was staged in a “clever if strained bit of business” that wasn’t “half as clever as the music it is meant to set off.” David Lefkowitz in The Best Plays of 1996–1997 was amazed that the “lamentable mounting” earned a number of Tony Award nominations, and said only Andrea Martin “prevailed” over Prince’s “incoherent staging,” and Howard Kissel in the New York Daily News complained that the score was “ill-served” by Wheeler’s book. Although Clive Barnes in the New York Post praised the “joyful experience” and a few other reviewers liked the revival, the production folded after three months. Candide satirized optimism with its depiction of the picaresque adventures of the innocent Candide (Jason Danieley) who roams the world in search of goodness and finds nothing but misery, deceit, and despair.

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After wasting much of his youth in the quest for an impossible dream, the disillusioned Candide returns to his homeland with the knowledge that man isn’t noble and that one should aspire only to cultivate one’s garden and try to make the best of one’s life. The original production opened on December 1, 1956, at the Martin Beck (now Al Hirschfeld) Theatre for seventy-three performances. A myth surrounding the original production is that it received poor reviews and went unappreciated. But most of the critics showered the musical with rapturous notices. John Chapman in the New York Daily News hailed the “artistic triumph” and said the work was the best light opera since the 1911 premiere of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. He noted that sixty seconds after conductor Samuel Krachmalnick brought down his baton for the overture “one sensed that here was going to be an evening of uncommon quality.” Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times found the evening a “brilliant musical satire” that was a “triumph of stage arts molded into a symmetrical whole,” and he said nothing in Bernstein’s previous theatre music had the “joyous variety, humor and richness” of this “wonderful” score. He also commented that Oliver Smith’s “fabulous” décor and Irene Sharaff’s “vigorous” costumes made Candide “the most stunning production of the season.” Tom Donnelly in the New York World-Telegram and Sun said the score was not only Bernstein’s best, it was also “one of the most attractive scores anyone has written for the theatre.” Here was “lush, lovely, and electric” music, and when it wasn’t “voluptuous as velvet” it was “as frostily pretty as a diamond bell.” While Robert Coleman in the New York Daily Mirror noted that the musical had its “faults” (which he didn’t specify) it was nonetheless “distinguished” and “towers heads and shoulders above most of the songand-dancers you’ll get this or any other season.” Richard Watts in the New York Post felt the libretto often lacked “bite and pungency” but was still “brilliant” and had “so much in the way of musical excellence, visual beauty, grace of style and boldness of design.” And John McClain in the New York Journal-American said the “ambitious and brilliant” evening offered a bright book by Hellman, delightful music by Bernstein, and scenery that was “imaginative and exciting.” But Walter Kerr in the New York Herald-Tribune was the lone naysayer. Candide was a “really spectacular disaster” and a “great ghostly wreck that sails like a Flying Dutchman across the fogbound stage of the Martin Beck” with a story that was “thumped out with a crushing hand.” Although Kerr felt the lyrics had “no purposeful edge,” he said Bernstein’s music emerged unscathed from “this singularly ill-conceived venture.” A few years after the Broadway premiere, Gerald Weales wrote in his 1962 survey American Drama since World War II that Candide was “not only the most sophisticated product of the American musical stage,” it was “probably the most imaginative American play to reach Broadway since the war.” In 1958, a concert version of the musical toured with original cast members Robert Rounseville (Candide) and Irra Petina (The Old Lady) along with Mary Costa (Cunegonde) and Martyn Green (Pangloss). The adaptation was by Michael Stewart, and Krachmalnick again conducted. On April 30, 1959, the musical was first produced in London at the Saville Theatre for sixty performances; the cast included Denis Quilley (Candide), Costa (Cunegonde), Laurence Naismith (Pangloss), Edith Coates (The Old Lady), Ron Moody (The Governor), and Victor Spinetti (The Marquis), and the book was credited to Hellman, who was “assisted” by Michael Stewart. In 1967, another production briefly toured in an adaptation by Sheldon Patinkin, and on November 10, 1968, a one-night concert engagement with William Lewis and Madeleine Kahn was presented at Philharmonic Hall in an adaptation that combined Hellman, Stewart, and Patinkin’s versions. In 1971, a lavish revival with Frank Porretta and Costa (in her third Candide production) toured for four months but closed prior to Broadway (the adaptation was by Patinkin and the décor by Oliver Smith, who had designed the scenery for the original 1956 premiere). Although Hellman’s book is strong, acerbic, and a fine match for Bernstein’s score, the terms of her will preclude the use of her book for Candide in any staging, but surely somewhere there is a librettist who can create a book in the style of Hellman and Voltaire. But until that happens, it appears that Wheeler’s book will remain the standard acting edition of the musical. Prince and Wheeler’s version first opened on December 11, 1973, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for forty-eight performances, and then opened at the Broadway Theatre on March 5, 1974, for 740 showings (it won four Tony Awards as well as the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical, but despite a run of almost two years it closed in the red). As noted above, this production was reshaped for the New York City Opera Company and played five separate engagements there during the 1980s, and was later revived by the company in 2005 and 2008.

1996–1997 SEASON     275

There are numerous recordings of Candide, but only the 1956 cast album is essential; it was first released by Columbia Records (LP # OL-5180 and # OS-2350) and later on CD by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy Records (# SK-86859). The 1974 revival was recorded by Columbia Records on a two-LP set (# S2X-32923), and the two-CD set was issued by Sony/Masterworks Broadway Records (# 82876-88391-2). The 1982 City Opera production was recorded by New World Records (two-LP set # NW-340/341 and two-CD set # NW340/341/342). A “final revised version, 1989” was conducted by Bernstein and issued by Deutsche Grammophone (two-LP set # 429-734-1 and two-CD set # 429-734-2), and a concert version that directly preceded the 1989 recording was released by Deutsche Grammophone on DVD (# B0006905-09). Another concert version, which was presented at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall on May 5, 2005, was shown on public television’s Great Performances and was later released on DVD by Image Entertainment (# ID2762EMDVD). The current revival was recorded by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-69935-2). Hellman’s script for the 1956 production was published in hardback by Random House in 1957, and Wheeler’s version was published in hardback by Schirmer Books/Macmillan Performing Arts Series in 1976.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical Revival (Candide); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Jim Dale); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Andrea Martin); Best Costume Designer (Judith Dolan)

THE WIZARD OF OZ Theatre: The Madison Square Garden Theatre Opening Date: May 15, 1997; Closing Date: June 8, 1997 Performances: 42 Book: Adaptation by Robert Johanson (this production was based on John Kane’s stage version of the original 1939 screenplay) Lyrics: E. Y. Harburg Music: Harold Arlen; background music by Herbert Stothart Based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (who also wrote thirteen other Oz novels) and the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz (direction by Victor Fleming and screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allen Woolf from an adaptation by Noel Langley). Direction: Robert Johanson; Producers: Madison Square Garden Productions (Tim Hawkins, Producer); Choreography: Jamie (James) Rocco (Donna Drake, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Gregg Barnes (Winkie costumes by A. T. Jones & Sons); Lighting: Tim Hunter; Musical Direction: Jeff Rizzo Cast: Jessica Grove (Dorothy Gale), Plenty (Toto), Judith McCauley (Aunt Em, Glinda), Roger Preston Smith (Uncle Henry, Winkie General), Lara Teeter (Hunk, Scarecrow), Michael Gruber (Hickory, Tin Man), Ken Page (Zeke, Cowardly Lion), Roseanne (Almira Gulch, Wicked Witch of the West), Gerry Vichi (Professor Marvel, The Wizard of Oz), Louis Carry (Mayor of Munchkinland), Wendy Coates (Barrister), Jonas Moscartolo (Barrister), Derrick McGinty (Coroner), Martin Klebba (Nikko); Munchkins, Crows, Apple Trees, Poppies, Citizens of Oz, Flying Monkeys, and Winkies: Vivian B. Bayubay, Maggie Keenan Bolger, Patrick Boyd, Kai Braithwaite, Lindsy Canuel, Casey Colgan, Christine DeVito, Chantele M. Doucette, Peter William Dunn, Danielle Lee Greaves, Gail Cook Howell, Heidi Karol Johnson, Martin Klebba, Benjamin E. Lear, Don Mayo, M. Kathryn Quinlan, Gemini Quintos, D. J. Salisbury, Dana Scarborough, Samantha Sensale, Evan Silverberg, Andrea Szucs, Christopher Trousdale, Wendy Watts The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place in Kansas and in Oz.

Musical Numbers “Over the Rainbow” (Jessica Grove); “The Cyclone”; “Come Out, Come Out” (Judith McCauley, Jessica Grove, Munchkins); “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead!” (Judith McCauley, Louis Carry, Wendy Coates, Jonas Moscartolo, Derrick McGinty, Munchkins); “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” (Jessica Grove,

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Munchkins); “If I Only Had a Brain” (Lara Teeter, Jessica Grove, Crows); “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter); “If I Only Had a Heart” (Michael Gruber, Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Apple Trees); “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (reprise) (Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Michael Gruber); “Lions and Tigers and Bears” (Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Michael Gruber); “If I Only Had the Nerve” and “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (reprise) (Ken Page, Jessica Grove, Michael Gruber, Lara Teeter); “Poppies” and “Optimistic Voices” (Judith McCauley, Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Michael Gruber, Ken Page, Roseanne, Poppies); “Optimistic Voices” (reprise) (Female Chorus); “The Merry Old Land of Oz” (Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Michael Gruber, Ken Page, Guard [unidentified performer], Citizens of Oz); “If I Were King of the Forest” (Ken Page, Jessica Grove, Michael Gruber, Lara Teeter); “March of the Winkies” (Winkies); “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead” (reprise) (Winkies, Jessica Grove, Ken Page, Lara Teeter, Michael Gruber); “Over the Rainbow” (reprise) (Judith McCauley); Finale (Company) The current stage production of MGM’s 1939 film The Wizard of Oz was adapted by Robert Johanson, who based his version on an earlier stage adaptation by John Kane, which had been presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Johanson directed his version for its premiere at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, and he also helmed the current mounting, which was presented at The Madison Square Garden Theatre for three engagements over a three-year period. In his review of the musical, Peter Marks in the New York Times ruefully noted, “If it only had a brain.” There was something “rotten” in Oz because the “boneheaded and downright tacky” adaptation was “an unconditional failure of imagination” in which Munchkin Land resembled “a sorry amusement park ride” and Emerald City looked like a “chartreuse discotheque.” Marks commented that comedienne Roseanne was “wearying” in her roles of Almira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West because she delivered every line “as if she were that Kansas tornado.” But he gave her credit because “at least” she was “in there trying.” And the terrier Plenty, who played Toto, had “it all over any other pooch currently working on the New York stage” (Marks wrote a “confidential” note to Cindy Lou, who played Sandy in the current revival of Annie: “Get with it! Your competition delivers the goods!”). An earlier adaptation by Michel M. Grilikhes had been produced on March 22, 1989, at Radio City Music Hall for thirty-nine performances. Following the current production, the musical returned to The Madison Square Garden Theatre on May 1, 1998, for forty-six performances (Eartha Kitt was Almira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West and Mickey Rooney was Professor Marvel and the Wizard of Oz) and on May 6, 1999, for twenty-two performances (Joanne Worley and Rooney). See separate entries for these productions. The cast recording of the 1998 production was released by TVT Soundtrax (CD # 1020). As for Almira Gulch, she once starred in her very own musical. Fred Barton’s Miss Gulch Returns! (subtitled “The Wicked Musical”) opened Off-Broadway at The Duplex on August 12, 1985, and in Margaret Hamilton-drag Barton told the backstory of the poor misunderstood Miss Gulch, “the dog-snatching, bicycleriding, basket-wielding, spiteful spinster-next-door” who complains that “I’m a Bitch,” her only song in the 1939 film, was cut from the movie in order to make room for Judy Garland’s sappy little song about rainbows and lemon drops. The cast album for the production was released by Gulch Mania Productions (LP # MGR5757), and the liner notes indicate Miss Gulch recorded a number of other albums, including Miss Gulch Sings the Larry Grossman Songbook.

KING DAVID Theatre: New Amsterdam Theatre Opening Date: May 18, 1997; Closing Date: May 23, 1997 Performances: 6 Book and Lyrics: Tim Rice Music: Alan Menken Direction: Mike Ockrent; Producers: Walt Disney Theatrical Productions and Andre Djaoui (Ritza B. Barath, Coproducer); Scenery: Tony Walton; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: David Agress; Musical Direction: Michael Kosarin Cast: Marcus Lovett (David), Alice Ripley (Bathsheba), Daniel James Hodd (Young Solomon), Stephen Bogardus (Joab), Peter Samuel (Samuel), Martin Vidnovic (Saul), Timothy Robert Blevins (Agag), Michael Goz (Jesse), Timothy Shew (Abner), Roger Bart (Jonathan), Judy Kuhn (Michal), Bill Nolte (Goliath), Dylan

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Lovett (Young Absalom), Anthony Galde (Absalom), Peter C. Ermides (Uriah), Kimberly JaJuan (Abishag); Ensemble: Mark Agnes, Joan Barber, Stephanie Bast, Kristen Behrendt, Timothy Robert Blevins, Benjamin Brecher, Timothy Breese, Kirsti Carnahan, Nick Cavarra, Philip A. Chaffin, Michael De Vries, Peter C. Ermides, Hunter Foster, Ray Friedeck, Anthony Galde, Michael Goz, Ellen Hoffman, Kimberly JaJuan, James Javore, Keith Byron Kirk, Ann Kittredge, David Lowenstein, Barbara Marineau, Donna Lee Marshall, Michael X. Martin, Karen Murphy, Bill Nolte, Ilysia Pierce, Ron Sharpe, Timothy Shew, Rachel Ulanet, Andrew Varela, Melanie Vaughan, Sally Wilfert, Laurie Williamson The concert was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Israel approximately one-thousand years before the birth of Christ.

Musical Numbers Act One: (1) Prologue (Marcus Lovett, Alice Ripley, Daniel James Hodd, Stephen Bogardus, Chorus); (2) Samuel—“Israel and Saul” (Stephen Bogardus, Peter Samuel, Martin Vidnovic, Chorus); “Samuel Confronts Saul” (Martin Vidnovic, Peter Samuel, Robert Blevins, Chorus); “Samuel Anoints David” (Stephen Bogardus, Peter Samuel, Michael Goz, Marcus Lovett, Chorus); (3) Saul—“The Enemy Within” (Martin Vidnovic, Chorus); “There Is a View . . .” (Stephen Bogardus, Timothy Shew, Martin Vidnovic, Chorus); “Psalm 8” (Marcus Lovett); “Genius from Bethlehem” (Martin Vidnovic, Marcus Lovett, Timothy Shew, Stephen Bogardus, Roger Bart, Judy Kuhn); (4) Goliath—“The Valley of Elah” (Bill Nolte, Timothy Shew, Stephen Bogardus, Marcus Lovett, Martin Vidnovic, Soldiers); “Goliath of Gath” (Bill Nolte, Marcus Lovett, Stephen Bogardus, Soldiers, Chorus); “Sheer Perfection” (Stephen Bogardus, Martin Vidnovic, Marcus Lovett, Judy Kuhn); (5) Jonathan— “Saul Has Slain His Thousands” (Stephen Bogardus, Chorus); “You Have It All” (Martin Vidnovic, Roger Bart, Marcus Lovett); “Psalm 23” (Martin Vidnovic, Marcus Lovett); “You Have It All” (reprise) and “Sheer Perfection” (reprise) (Roger Bart, Stephen Bogardus, Judy Kuhn, Marcus Lovett); (6) Exile—“Hunted Partridge on the Hill” (Stephen Bogardus, Martin Vidnovic, Judy Kuhn, Marcus Lovett, Men); “The Death of Saul” (Martin Vidnovic, Roger Bart, Peter Samuel, Chorus); “How Are the Mighty Fallen” (Marcus Lovett, Chorus) Act Two: (7) David the King—“This New Jerusalem” (Marcus Lovett, Anthony Galde, Roger Bart, Stephen Bogardus, Chorus); “David & Michal” (Marcus Lovett, Stephen Bogardus, Judy Kuhn); “The Ark Brought to Jerusalem” (Marcus Lovett, Chorus); “Never Again” (Judy Kuhn, Marcus Lovett)”; (8) Bathsheba— “How Wonderful the Peace” (Anthony Galde, Stephen Bogardus, Marcus Lovett, Chorus); “Off Limits” (Alice Ripley, Marcus Lovett, Stephen Bogardus); “Warm Spring Night” (Marcus Lovett); “When in Love” (Alice Ripley); “Uriah’s Fate Sealed” (Marcus Lovett, Stephen Bogardus, Alice Ripley, Chorus); “Atonement” (Marcus Lovett, Martin Vidnovic, Peter Samuel, Alice Ripley, Chorus); (9) Absalom—“The Caravan Moves On” (Stephen Bogardus, Anthony Galde, Marcus Lovett, Martin Vidnovic, Peter Samuel, Men); “Death of Absalom” (Stephen Bogardus, Anthony Galde); “Absalom, My Absalom” (Marcus Lovett); (10) David’s Final Days—“Solomon” (Daniel James Hodd, Stephen Bogardus, Marcus Lovett, Alice Ripley); “David’s Final Hours” (Judy Kuhn, Marcus Lovett, Stephen Bogardus, Alice Ripley, Bill Nolte, Martin Vidnovic, Roger Bart, Peter Samuel, Chorus); “The Long, Long Day” (Marcus Lovett); “The New Jerusalem” (reprise) (Daniel James Hodd, Company) The first preview performance of the concert-styled musical King David was a memorable one, if not for the production itself then certainly for the theatre where it played, because on Thursday, May 15, 1997, the legendary New Amsterdam Theatre rejoined the ranks of Broadway’s legitimate houses for the first time in over sixty years with the first showing of Alan Menken and Tim Rice’s new musical. The last time playgoers had walked through its doors to see a live stage production had been for the final performance of an Othello revival in late January 1937. The New Amsterdam first opened on November 2, 1903, with a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and as noted, the first phase of its life ended thirty-four years later with another play by Shakespeare when Walter Huston starred in Othello, which opened on January 6, 1937, and closed later in the month. Among the musicals that played at the venue were the first American production of The Merry Widow in 1907, Sally (1920), Sunny (1925), Whoopee (1928), The Band Wagon (1931), and Roberta (1933). But the theatre was most famous for the Ziegfeld Follies, where twelve editions of the venerable annual premiered in 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1922, 1923, 1924, and 1925.

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The second phase of the theatre’s life consisted of many decades as a second-run movie house, and then in 1982 the theatre closed its doors to the public and was dark for fifteen years. During this period, Louis Malle’s 1994 film Vanya on 42nd Street (about a group of performers rehearsing a revival of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya) was filmed at the decaying theatre before it underwent its glorious restoration. The New Amsterdam’s third act began when the Disney organization lovingly refurbished the theatre and restored it to its original luster, at a reported cost of $34 million. King David played for a limited engagement of three previews and six regular performances, and from 1997 to this writing three long-running Disneyproduced musicals have played there: The Lion King (1997–2006 [the production transferred to the Minskoff Theatre in 2006, where it’s still running as of this writing]), Mary Poppins (2006–2013; 2,619 performances), and Aladdin (opened 2014, and still running at this time). King David was a well-intentioned retelling of the biblical story of David (Marcus Lovett), who became the second king of Israel approximately one thousand years before the birth of Christ. The evening covered many events, including David’s slaughter of Goliath (Bill Nolte) and David’s affair with Bathsheba (Alice Ripley), but it was too long and clearly needed cutting by about thirty or forty minutes. Although the production was presented in concert format, director Mike Ockrent staged the musical so that the performers interacted with one another, and presumably a revised and shorter version would have included more interaction and characterization and would have relied less on narration. The sung-through work was tiresome with its far too detailed and lengthy plot (the program included a three-page story synopsis), and the generally passive staging and writing didn’t allow audiences to become involved in the proceedings. The disappointing score didn’t help, and while there were a few outstanding numbers (such as “Warm Spring Night”) there were many others that were stultifying (particularly “Saul Has Slain His Thousands,” which endlessly repeated its main lyric phrase). John Simon in New York said the “horrortorio” was a “long-winded, relentless piece of non-music set to dismal doggerel lyrics,” and “never before have such tuneless music and toneless words been reprised so fanatically, as if every banality were a mantra.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that the “sober” and “respectful” show was “packed with enough information for a month of Bible-study classes,” and despite being a “well-sung” and “painstakingly polished” production, the musical was “a Goliath of a yawn.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post reported that the “cantata—or whatever it is—” didn’t reveal “any undue amount of musical invention” and said the “rather static spectacle” appeared to have “been created by a computer on an off day.” He noted that Lincoln Center’s Metropolitan Opera House had first opened its doors with Samuel Barber’s “flop” opera Antony and Cleopatra (1966) and the Kennedy Center’s Opera House had opened with Leonard Bernstein’s “flop” Mass (1971), and so he assumed Disney “wanted to go with tradition” for the reopening of the New Amsterdam. Ward Morehouse III in the New York Post reported that Disney chairman Michael Eisner hoped a fully staged production of King David would open on Broadway within two years, but of course that never happened. Eisner also confirmed that The Lion King would open at the New Amsterdam in the fall of 1997 and that “next year” the Disney production of Aida would premiere (it opened at the Palace Theatre in 2000). The cast album of highlights from the score of King David was recorded live from the May 21, 1997, performance and was released on a single CD by PolyGram and Buena Vista Records (# 60944-7). The New Amsterdam Theatre and Boston’s Colonial Theatre are perhaps the two grandest theatres in the United States, and both are the subjects of two lavish and fascinating books, The New Amsterdam: The Biography of a Broadway Theatre by Mary C. Henderson (Roundtable Press/Hyperion, 1997) and Boston’s Colonial Theatre: Celebrating a Century of Theatrical Vision by Tobie S. Stein (Colonial 2000, Ltd., 2000).

DON’T STOP THE CARNIVAL The musical opened on April 19, 1997, at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, Florida, and permanently closed there at the end of its engagement. Book: Herman Wouk Lyrics and Music: Jimmy Buffett Based on the 1965 novel Don’t Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk. Direction and Choreography: David H. Bell; Producers: The Coconut Grove Playhouse (Arnold Mittelman, Artistic Director) (Todd Alan Price, Associate Producer); Scenery: Dex Edwards; Costumes: Susan E. Mickey; Lighting: Diane Ferry Williams; Musical Direction: Jack Gaughan

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Cast: Michael Rupert (Norman Paperman), Avery Sommers (Sheila), Sandy Edgerton (Iris Tramm), Josh Mostel (Lester Atlas), Susan Dawn Carson (Henny Paperman), LaParee Young (Governor), Roz White (Esme), C. E. Smith (Senator), Christopher Bishop (Mr. Tilson), Tricia Matthews (Mrs. Tilson), Megan McFarland (Amy Ball), Aaron Cimadevilla (Hyppolyte), Charles E. Bullock (Gilbert), Karl E. Atkins (Millard), Barry J. Tarallo (Ted Akers), Louisa Kendrick (Lorna), Brad Musgrove (Church Wagner); Others: Lori Alexander, Leo Alvarez, Roxanne Barlow, Sue Delano, Jason Gillman, Aurelio Hurtado de Mendoza, Salome Mazard, Glenn Douglas Packard, Victor B. Pellegrino, Laine Sakakura, Samuel N. Thiam The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place on the fictitious island of Amerigo in the Caribbean.

Musical Numbers The following is a list of songs in performance order (division of acts and performers unknown). “The Legend of Norman Paperman”; “Calaloo”; “Sheila Says”; “Public Relations”; “Just an Old Truth Teller”; “Smartest Man in New York”; “Starting Life Over”; “All about de Watah” (aka “It’s All about the Water”); “The Key to My Man”; “Kinja Rules”; “A Thousand Steps to Nowhere”; “Champagne Si, Aqua No”; “Goodbye to Public Relations”; “Handiest Frenchman in da Caribbean”; “Hyppolyte’s Habitat” (“Oui mon qui”); “Cutlash Dance”; “Merci Monsieur Lamartine”; “No Romancing”; “Green Flash at Sunset”; “Who Are We Trying to Fool”; “Fot Person Mon” (aka “Fat Person Man”); “Up on the Hill”; “Reactionary Can-Can”; “Separate Ways”; “Carnival Day” and “Jungle Drums”; “Tax Heaven”; “Time to Go Home” Herman Wouk wrote the book for the musical Don’t Stop the Carnival, which was based on his 1965 novel of the same name, and singer and songwriter Jimmy Buffett wrote the lyrics and music. The show’s plot was promising and the score was pleasant, but after the musical’s booking at the Coconut Grove Playhouse it seems to have disappeared. The story dealt with Norman Paperman (Michael Rupert), a Broadway press agent who decides to leave the rat race and manage a hotel on a placid island in the Caribbean. Among the musical’s characters were Henny (Susan Dawn Carson), Norman’s put-upon wife; Lester Atlas (Josh Mostel), a corporate raider; Iris Tramm (Sandy Edgerton), a has-been celebrity; Sheila (Avery Sommers), the island’s local voodoo woman; and Hippolyte (Aaron Cimadevilla), an imposing if not frightening handyman (the liner notes for the show’s recording indicate he possesses “homicidal eccentricity”). There was no cast album, but Jimmy Buffett recorded a CD of songs from the musical (Margaritaville Records # 314-524-485-2), including two that weren’t listed in the program’s song list, “Funeral Dance” and “Domicile.” The latter was a parody of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and dealt with the subject of offshore tax avoidance (Jack Zink in Variety noted that the song was heard during the Miami run). Zink reported that the production was capitalized for about $1.2–$1.5 million, and he noted that during its ten-day preview period the show had been shortened by about twenty minutes. Zink said most of the music in the first act was “limited to rhythm and backbeat,” but then suddenly the score “blasted off” with an array of “well-developed ballads, mature show tunes, jazz interpolations and an inspired parody of a Christmas classic” (“Domicile,” as noted above). Zink felt Wouk’s book was top-heavy with narration and background material, and he suggested that a few characters were extraneous and could be eliminated. Otherwise, the book was “sprinkled with finely crafted comedy and explosive payoffs.”

WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND

The musical’s first preview performance was on December 6, 1996, at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. After six previews, the musical officially opened on December 12 and permanently closed on February 9, 1997, after seventy regular performances. The scheduled Broadway opening for April 17, 1997, at the Martin Beck Theatre was canceled as was another announced opening date of June 15 (which was to have followed a series of preview performances beginning on June 3). Book: Patricia Knop Lyrics: Jim Steinman Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber

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Based on the 1958 novel Whistle Down the Wind by Mary Hayley Bell and the 1961 film of the same name (screenplay by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, direction by Bryan Forbes). Direction: Harold Prince; Producer: The Really Useful Company; Choreography: Joey McKneely; Scenery: Andrew Jackness; Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Costumes: Florence Klotz; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Patrick Vaccariello Cast: Irene Molloy (Swallow), Abbi Hutcherson (Brat), Cameron Bowen (Poor Baby), Candy Buckley (Aunt Dot), Timothy Nolen (Boone), Allen Fitzpatrick (Minister), Chuck Cooper (Edward), David Lloyd Watson (Earl), Timothy Shew (Rod), Mike Hartman (Sheriff Cookridge), Lacey Hornkohl (Candy), Steve Scott Springer (Amos), Davis Gaines (The Man), Ray Walker (Preacher); Townspeople: Adinah Alexander, Johnetta Alston, Dave Clemmons, Chuck Cooper, Georgia Creighton, Allen Fitzpatrick, Emily Rabon Hall, Mike Hartman, Melody Kay, Wayne W. Pretlow, John Sawyer, Timothy Shew, Bob Stillman, Ray Walker, Laurie Williams, Wysandria Woolsey; The Children: Sasha Allen, Alex Bowen, Graham Bowen, Gina DeStefano, Rori Godsey, Scott Irby-Ranniar, Clarence Leggett, David Lloyd Watson, Julia McIlvaine The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in a small Louisiana town just before Christmas 1959.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Vaults of Heaven” (Congregation); “Spider” (Cameron Bowen, Irene Molloy, Abbi Hutcherson); “Gownups Kill Me” (Timothy Nolen, Cameron Bowen, Abbi Hutcherson, Irene Molloy); “Whistle Down the Wind” (Timothy Nolen, Irene Molloy); “The Vow” (Irene Molloy, Abbi Hutcherson, Cameron Bowen); “Safe Haven” (Townspeople); “Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts” (Lacey Hornkohl, Steve Scott Springer); “Safe Haven” (reprise) (Townspeople); “If Only” (Irene Molloy); “Cold” (Townspeople); “When Children Rule the World” (The Children); “When Children Rule the World” (reprise) (The Children); “Annie Christmas” (Davis Gaines, The Children); “No Matter What” (The Children, Irene Molloy); Finale (Timothy Nolen, Candy Buckley, Townspeople, The Children) Act Two: “Safe Haven” (reprise) (Townspeople); “A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” (Steve Scott Springer, Davis Gaines, Timothy Nolen, Irene Molloy); “Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts” (reprise) (Lacey Hornkohl, Steve Scott Springer, Irene Molloy); “Annie Christmas” (reprise) (Davis Gaines); “The Soliloquy” (Davis Gaines); “Wrestle with the Devil” (Ray Walker, Candy Buckley, Congregation); “Nature of the Beast” (Davis Gaines, Irene Molloy); “When Children Rule the World” (reprise) (The Children); “Whistle Down the Wind” (reprise) (Timothy Nolen, Irene Molloy, Abbi Hutcherson, Cameron Bowen, Candy Buckley) Andrew Lloyd Webber’s $10 million musical Whistle Down the Wind was one of the most anticipated of the decade because for the first time Broadway was to premiere a new Lloyd Webber work that hadn’t been previously performed in London or popularized on a concept album. The new musical was booked into the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., for a two-month tryout prior to a spring opening in New York at the Martin Beck Theatre. But once the musical opened in Washington and received mostly dismissive reviews, the New York opening was postponed from April until June and then finally canceled. As of this writing, Lloyd Webber’s Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, Love Never Dies, and Stephen Ward have never been produced on Broadway. (Whistle Down the Wind was a near-sellout in Washington, and Variety reported that during one week its take of $740,073 broke the house record for the National.) Based on Mary Hayley Bell’s 1958 novel Whistle Down the Wind (subtitled “A Modern Fable”) and its 1961 film adaptation of the same name, the musical took place in a backwoods town in Louisiana, instead of in Britain, and focused on unhappy widower Boone (Timothy Nolen), his lonely teenage daughter Swallow (Irene Molloy), his two younger children Poor Baby (Cameron Bowen) and Brat (Abbi Hutcherson), and his repressed sister Dot (Candy Buckley). Swallow and her siblings discover a man hiding in their barn (known as The Man and played by Davis Gaines), and although he’s an escaped convict, the kids and the other neighborhood children shelter him because they believe he’s Christ. But with a criminal on the loose, the townsfolk fear the worst, and although the generally extraneous characters of Dot and two local teenagers (the flighty Candy [Lacey Hornkohl] and Amos [Steve Scott Springer]) seem to be on the verge of discovering the secret and exposing the criminal, this potential plot line was never developed. Lloyd Webber’s score was one of his finest. There were atmospheric numbers that delineated the time and place: a traditional gospel hymn for the churchgoers (“Vaults of Heaven”), a backwater revival tent-meeting replete with snake worshippers (“Wrestle with the Devil”), a choral sequence depicting the insularity of the

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townsfolk (“Safe Haven”), a jubilant and twangy country-western number for the locals at the neighborhood bar (“Cold”), and a rock-and-roll number for the town’s teenagers (“Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts”). Swallow’s “If Only” was a delicate lament for her dead mother and the days of the past, and was one of the composer’s most distinguished creations. It was especially haunting because it was framed by Wendall K. Harrington’s projections, which depicted a decayed and ghostly Southern mansion, a now sorry testament to the days when the family on Swallow’s mother’s side was wealthy; “Nature of the Beast” was The Man’s conflicted look at himself and how others see him; his “story” song to the children “Annie Christmas” was quirky and amusing; and “A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” was an electric quartet that looked at the same subject from different viewpoints (of Swallow, Boone, The Man, and Amos). The lovely title song was especially touching, and the kids’ choral sequence “When Children Rule the World” was charming. Lloyd Webber’s score and Jim Steinman’s lyrics delivered all the right musical moments, but Patricia Knop’s book and Harold Prince’s direction faltered and never went far enough. As a result, whole portions of the show were undeveloped. Boone is clearly exploding inside and Dot is strangely repressed, but the book never quite explained their problems, and as noted above the characters of local teenagers Candy and Amos were on the verge of having more to do with the story than they actually did. Further, the relationship of Swallow and The Man was tentative and never fully developed. Lloyd Rose in the Washington Post said the “dull” musical’s book was “drab” and “stuttering.” The story just “mopes along, starts and stops, introduces plots and then abandons them,” and was “so obvious we’re way out ahead of it and so misleading we can’t follow it.” Steinman and Lloyd Webber’s “differing styles of gothic intensity” might have been “mutually enhancing” but instead canceled each other out: the composer wasn’t as “aggressively, unapologetically tuneful as he can be” and Steinman wrote “clogged-up” lyrics. But Prince, scenic designer Andrew Jackness, and lighting designer Howell Binkley provided “inventive, often startling staging” effects, including the burning of a barn, a town that “seems to appear as magically as Brigadoon,” and an oncoming train “that whizzes right at us.” Nelson Pressley in the Washington Times gave the “turgid” musical one-and-a-half stars and noted that “to wade through this bloated jumble and somehow find a hearth-and-home happy ending demands a profound leap of faith.” Paul Harris in Variety said the work had second-act pacing problems, but otherwise he praised the “subdued” and “muted” look of the musical with its “studies in earth tones” and its “shadow-filled lighting,” lyrics that were “consistently on the money,” and “a pleasing collection” of “excellent” songs. Harris singled out eight (“If Only,” “A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste,” “The Nature of the Beast,” “Safe Haven,” “When Children Rule the World,” “Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts,” “Wrestle with the Devil,” and the title number), and noted that only “Annie Christmas” missed the mark and was the score’s “weakest” song. J. Wynn Rousuck in the Toronto Sun liked the “tuneful” score, but noted the first act was “far less fluid and satisfying than the second.” However, this was a musical “with dirt under its fingernails,” one that “tries to make a case for faith” in a poor community that “God seems to have forgotten.” The show suggested that faith is “often a matter of opening yourself up to” its possibility, “an attitude that is probably also the best way to approach this affecting curiosity of a musical.” Sheridan Morley in the Spectator said the music “perfectly” matched “the mood of Steinman’s acutely and achingly brilliant period lyrics” and the score was “redolent of love and loss, of death and redemption, and one of the most truly heartbreaking” he had ever heard. The work wasn’t the “lush” and “romantic” kind audiences normally associated with Lloyd Webber, but was instead “a nervy, edgy show of infinite courage about the nature of faith, whether instinctive or imposed.” The musical was later revised and opened in London at the Aldwych Theatre on July 1, 1998, for a run of over two years for a total of 1,044 performances, and the cast included Marcus Lovett (The Man) and Lottie Mayor (Swallow). New songs included “I Never Get What I Pray For,” “Home by Now,” “Unsettled Scores,” “Long Overdue for a Miracle,” “Try Not to Be Afraid,” “Off Ramp Exit to Paradise,” and “The Hunt.” For London, Patricia Knop’s book was now credited to Knop, Lloyd Webber, and Gale Edwards, the latter of whom also directed the production. In his review of the London version, Matt Wolfe in Variety said the book was “sketchy and inchoate,” and he noted the score didn’t help with its “faux-Wagnerian sonorities” as well as “ersatz anthems and greaser numbers that seem untethered to anything other than the collaborators’ pasts.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “second-wind version remains a disappointment” with a “curiously flat and oddly unexciting” book, and he felt the show “misfires in every way” except for its performances. In 1998, a studio cast recording of songs from the production was released by Polydor Records (CD # 559-441-2) that included ten numbers heard in Washington and two new ones added for London; the singers included Elaine Paige, Donny Osmond, The Everly Brothers, Meat Loaf, Boy George, Michael Ball,

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and Tom Jones, and for the title song British cast member Lottie Mayor was joined by Lloyd Webber on the piano. A single CD of “When Children Rule the World” by The Red Hill Children was released by Polydor Records (# 579-726-2), and the London cast album was released on a two-CD set by Really Useful Records (# 547-261-2), which includes a booklet with all the lyrics. Among the chorus members of the Washington production of Whistle Down the Wind was singer Georgia Creighton. Although she’s unknown to the general public, hers is a fascinating career that practically defines the history of legendary Broadway musical failures during the first half of the 1960s. She appeared in the original productions of The Conquering Hero (1961), Donnybrook! (1961), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Kelly (1965), and Skyscraper (1965). And with two Whistle musicals on her resume, one assumes she now whistles only at her own risk. And no doubt she avoids Washington’s National Theatre because that venue saw the tryouts of The Conquering Hero, Donnybrook!, and Whistle Down the Wind. Creighton also originated the title role in the children’s musical Mother Goose Go-Go (which played on Broadway during two separate engagements at the Helen Hayes and Edison Theatres during the 1969–1970 season under what was probably either an Off-Broadway or Middle Broadway contract) and in 1966 appeared in the Off-Broadway musical The Penny Friend. She was also one of the nuns in the 1992 film Sister Act, which also includes a number of obscure Broadway performers such as Ruth Kobart, Susan Browning, and Susan Johnson, the latter another refugee from Donnybrook!

1997–1998 Season

FOREVER TANGO Theatre: Walter Kerr Theatre (during run, the dance revue transferred to the Marquis Theatre) Opening Date: June 19, 1997; Closing Date: August 1, 1998 Performances: 453 Direction: Luis Bravo (Carlos Diaz, Assistant Director); Producers: Steven Baruch, Richard Frankel, Thomas Viertel, Marc Routh, Jujamcyn Theatres, and Interamerica, Inc. (Joe Watson, Associate Producer); Choreography: Choreography by the dancers in the Forever Tango company; Scenery: Not credited in program; Costumes: Argemira Affonso; Lighting: Luis Bravo; Musical Direction: Lisandro Adrover Cast: Dancers—Miriam Larici, Diego DiFalco, Luis Castro and Claudia Mendoza, Carlos Gavito and Marcela Duran, Jorge Torres and Karina Piazza, Carlos Vera and Laura Marcarie, Guillermo Merlo and Cecilia Saia, Gabriel Ortega and Sandra Bootz, Pedro Calveyra and Nora Robles, Carolina Zokalski; Singer—Carlos Morel; Musicians—Lisandro Adrover (Bandoneon), Hector Del Curto (Bandoneon), Carlos Niesi (Bandoneon), Victor Lavallen (Bandoneon), Humberto Ridolfi (Violin), Rodion Boshoer (Violin), Oscar Hasbun (Viola), Dino Quarleri (Cello), Silvio Acosta (Bass), Fernando Marzan (Piano), Mario Araolaza (Keyboard) The dance revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Preludio del bandoneon y la noche” (Miriam Larici, Diego DiFalco); Overture (music by Lisandro Adrover) (Orchestra); “El suburbio”; “A los amigos” (music by A. Pontier) (Orchestra); “Derecho viejo” (music by E. Arolas) (Karina Piazza and Jorge Torres); “El dia que me quieras” (lyric and music by Carlos Gardel and A. Lepera) (Carlos Morel); “La mariposa” (music by O. Pugliese) (Laura Marcarie, Carlos Vera); “Comme il faut” (music by E. Arolas) (Sandra Bootz and Gabriel Ortega); “Berretin” (music by P. Laurenz) (Orchestra); “La tablada” (music by F. Canaro) (Claudia Mendoza and Luis Castro); “Milongueando en el ’40” (music by A. Pontier) (Cecilia Saia and Guillermo Merlo); “S.V.P.” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Marcela Duran and Carlos Gavito); “Responso” (music by A. Troilo) (Orchestra); “Azabache” (music by E. M. Fracini) (Company) Act Two: “Tanguera” (music by M. Mores) (Nora Robles and Pedro Calveyra); “A Evaristo Carriego” (music by E. Rovira) (Marcela Duran and Carlos Gavito); “Payadora” (music by J. Plaza) (Orchestra); “Quejas de bandoneon” (music by J. de Dios Filiberto) (Laura Marcarie and Carlos Vera); “Gallo Ciego” (music by A. Bardi) (Karina Piazza and Jorge Torres); “Balada para un loco” (music by Astor Piazzolla and H. Ferrer) (Carlos Morel); “La cumparista” (music by G. M. Rodriguez) (Cecilia Saia and Guillermo Merlo, Karina Piazza and Jorge Torres, Marcela Duran and Carlos Gavito); “Jealousy” (music by Jacob Gade) (Orchestra); “Felicia” (music by E. Saborido) (Claudia Mendoza and Luis Castro); “Adios Nonino” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Orchestra); “Libertango” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Cecilia Saia and Guillermo Merlo); “Romance del bandoneon y la

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noche” (“Tus ojos de cielo”) (music by Luis Androver) (Miriam Larici and Diego DiFalco); Finale: “Lo que vendra” (music by Astor Piazzolla) (Company) The dance revue Forever Tango had previously been produced in Europe, Canada, and other cities in the United States, and the current production marked the first of the revue’s three Broadway engagements over a period of sixteen years. The revue, and the new theatre season, ushered in an international flavor, and the South American dances and songs of Forever Tango were soon followed by the Zulu musical Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth, the Korean opera The Last Empress, and a return engagement of the Irish Riverdance, which also included a touch of Russian dancing by the Moscow Folk Ballet Company. Jennifer Dunning in the New York Times noted the evening had a certain “superficiality” that suggested “a touring show designed to cash in on the international tango craze,” and although the evening was “fastpaced and gaudy,” it lacked the “earthiness” of Tango Argentino. But the revue was popular with the public, and so its original two-month engagement was extended and the production played for more than a year. Dunning said the “hard-dancing comic team” of Claudia Mendoza and Luis Castro were the “most distinctive” of the evening’s performers, and the musical director and bandoneon player Lisandro Adrover was “the unofficial star of the show” with his “hilariously world-weary” air. And when the orchestra played “Jealousy,” one “might be dancing on a star-dappled promenade overlooking the sea in a lush movie musical.” The original Broadway cast recording was released by RCA Victor/BMG Records (CD # 09026-68966-2), and a cast album of another (possibly Los Angeles) production was released on a two-CD set (company and label number unknown). A 2008 revival at Argentina’s Teatro Coliseo Podesta was recorded live and released on both CD and DVD by DPTV Media. Two productions of Forever Tango were later produced on Broadway, on July 24, 2004, at the Shubert Theatre for 114 performances and on July 14, 2013, at the Walter Kerr Theatre for seventy-three performances. Tango Argentino, which ushered in a number of revues and musicals that utilized South American and Spanish dances, opened on October 9, 1985, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre for 198 performances, and its producers soon brought in Flamenco puro on October 19, 1986, for forty performances at the same theatre. Graciela Daniele’s two one-act musicals Tango and Orfeo (under the umbrella title of Dangerous Games) opened on October 19, 1989, at the Nederlander Theatre for four performances with a score by Astor Piazzolla, whose music was also heard in Forever Tango (an earlier version of Daniele’s Tango had been presented OffBroadway in 1987 as Tango Apasionado). The Brazilian import Oba Oba opened on March 29, 1988, at the Ambassador Theatre for forty-six performances, and was followed by Oba Oba ’90 and Oba Oba ’93. Gypsy Passion (a flamenco revue) and Tango Pasion were also produced in the 1990s, along with Daniele’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold (a dance-driven book musical that took place in South America).

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Choreographer (The Forever Tango Dancers)

UMBATHA: THE ZULU MACBETH Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: July 21, 1997; Closing Date: July 27, 1997 Performances: 6 Book, Lyrics, and Music: Welcome Msomi Based on the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare (written circa 1599–1606 and perhaps first staged in 1611). Direction: Welcome Msomi (Thuli Dumakude, Assistant Director); Producers: Lincoln Center Festival 97 (John Rockwell, Festival Director; Carmen Kovens, Producer; Laura Aswad, Associate Producer) (A Johannesburg Civic Theatre Production; Janice Honeyman, Executive and Artistic Director); Choreography: Thuli Dumakude, Mdudzi Zwane, and Mafika Mgwazi; Lighting: France Mavana and Denis Hutchinson (original lighting by Mannie Manim) Cast: Thabani Patrick Tshanini (Mabatha/Macbeth), Dieketseng Mnisi (Ka Madonsela/Lady Macbeth), Lawrence Masondo (Dangane/Duncan), Buyani Shangase (Donebane/Donaldbain), Martin Jwara (Makhiwane, Malcolm), Qond’okwakhe Mngwengwe (Mafudu, Macduff), Qed’umunyu Zungu (Bhagane/Ban-

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quo, Isipoki/Spirit), Shaun Dugen (Folose/Fleance, Isipoki), S’bongile Ngqulunga (Isangoma I), Promise S’thembile Jali (Isangoma II), Mary-Anne Busi Mchunu (Isangoma III), Philile Sibiya (Ka Makhawulana/ Lady Macduff), Skhumbuzo Nsele (Indodana, Sidakwa, King’s Guard, Isipoki), Zam’okhule Ngiba (Hoshweni/Ross, Isipoki), Cyprian Nzama (Linolo/Lennox, Isipoki), Thokozani Makhoba (Angano/Angus, Inceku/King’s Servant, Umbulali III/Murderer), Mdudzi Zwane (Inceku), Pa Vusi Chili (Imbongi/King’s Praise Singer, Isipoki), Thol’ithemba Mthembu (Inyanga, Isipoki), Thokozile Gumede (Isalukazi/Nurse), Philani Radebe (Msimbithi/Messenger), Bulelwa Maqungo (Intombi/Maiden), Gcinile Nkosi (Intombi), Vumisani Ncobeni (Inceku), Xolani Ncobeni (Inceku), Mafika Ngwazi (Igosa/Warrior Captain), Mbongwa Njilo (Umbulali I, Ibutho/Warrior), Bhekisisa Mthembu (Umbalali II, Ibutho); Maidens: Thembelihe Chiliza, Bongiwe Hlophe, Nomthandaze Langa, Lady-Fair Mbgadi, Thandekile Msomi, Ntombifuthi Nzama, Winile Sibuya; Warriors: Bhekumuthi Cele, Magazine Amon Cele, Mazwi Cele, Kufakwakhe Dlamini, France Duna, Zwelibanzi Gansa, Mbokodo Mhlongo, Sipho Mngadi, Bhekuyise Mnyandu, Mkhanyiselwa Mvundla, Xolani Nubane, Alpheus Ngwazi, Nkosibuka Oumbisa; Drummers: William Lembede, Bernard Hlophe, Jacob Makatsanyane, David Msimango, Bong’nkosi Nxumalo Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth was spoken and sung in Zulu (with English supertitles) and used the framework of Shakespeare’s play to mirror the conflicts among warring tribes in South Africa during the nineteenth century. This version utilized dance as well as original and traditional music, and had first been produced in 1970 at the University of Natal Amphitheatre. The musical was presented in London in 1972 and 1973, and both productions played at the Aldwych Theatre. The work was first presented in New York in an Off-Broadway production by the Phe Zulu Company of Africa on April 9, 1979, at the Entermedia Theatre for a limited engagement of forty-one performances. The current production was presented by Johannesburg’s Civic Theatre, and the New York limited engagement was shown as part of Lincoln Center Festival 97 prior to a tour of the United States and Europe. According to Ben Brantley in the New York Times, the work provided “a kick of visceral musical pleasure seldom found in the current crop of Broadway blockbusters.” The evening was “exuberant” and “gleeful” and “less a dark study in psychology than a brisk, almost jaunty narrative that exults in the powers of storytelling.” For Brantley, the chorus singers, the drumming, and the thuds of bare feet on the stage floor created an “orchestral fullness,” and the “glorious” dances were “synchronized yet spontaneous-seeming and infused with a joy of performance.” If all this wasn’t enough, there were moments of “vigorous animation” and quieter ones that “haunt the imagination,” and ultimately the production achieved “mythic grandeur.” The script was published in paperback in 1996 by Skotaville Publishers. A cast album of a 1975 South African production was recorded by EMI/Brigadiers Records (LP # WML-2000) with the following song numbers: “Bayeza Abangoma,” “Wathukuthela,” “Wangishiya U Mabatha,” “Washumlilo,” “Qon Qo Qo,” “Umngcwabo,” “Udumo Lonke Mbathazeli,” “Kwasa Kusile,” “Shayani Izandla,” “Indlu Kamalandela,” “Bhula Wenyanga,” and “Obani Labaya.”

1776 Theatre: Criterion Center Stage Right (during run, the musical transferred to the Gershwin Theatre) Opening Date: August 14, 1997; Closing Date: June 14, 1998 Performances: 333 Book: Peter Stone Lyrics and Music: Sherman Edwards Direction: Scott Ellis; Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director, and Ellen Richard, General Manager); when the production reopened at the Gershwin Theatre, the following were listed as producers: James M. Nederlander, Stewart F. Lane, Rodger Hess, Bill Haber, Robert Halmi Jr., Dodger Endemol Theatricals, and Hallmark Entertainment; a Roundabout Theatre Company Production; Dodger Management Group, Executive Producer; Anita Waxman and Joseph F. Cullman III, Associate Producers; Choreography: Kathleen Marshall; Scenery: Tony Walton; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Brian Nason; Musical Direction: Mark Mitchell Cast: (Note: For the presentation at Criterion Center Stage Right, the names of the entire cast were listed above the musical’s title; for the reopening at the Gershwin Theatre, only the names of Brent Spiner and Pat Hingle appeared above the title.) Members of the Continental Congress—Richard Poe (John Hancock,

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President), Michael X. Martin (Doctor Josiah Bartlett, New Hampshire), Brent Spiner (John Adams, Massachusetts), Tom Aldredge (Stephen Hopkins, Rhode Island), John Herrera (Roger Sherman, Connecticut), Tom Riis Farrell (Lewis Morris, New York), Daniel Marcus (Robert Livingston, New York), Jerry Lanning (Reverend John Witherspoon, New Jersey), Pat Hingle (Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania), Michael Cumpsty (John Dickinson, Pennsylvania), Michael Winther (James Wilson, Pennsylvania), Michael McCormick (Caesar Rodney, Delaware), Bill Nolte (Colonel Thomas McKean, Delaware), Kevin Ligon (George Read, Delaware), Ric Stoneback (Samuel Chase, Maryland), Merwin Foard (Richard Henry Lee, Virginia), Paul Michael Valley (Thomas Jefferson, Virginia), David Lowenstein (Joseph Hewes, North Carolina), Gregg Edelman (Edward Rutledge, South Carolina), Robert Westenberg (Doctor Lyman Hall, Georgia), Guy Paul (Charles Thomson, Congressional Secretary), MacIntyre Dixon (Andrew McNair, Congressional Custodian), Joseph Cassidy (A Leather Apron), Dashiell Eaves (Courier), Linda Emond (Abigail Adams), Lauren Ward (Martha Jefferson), Ben Sheaffer (Painter) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Philadelphia and in “certain reaches of John Adams’ mind” during May, June, and July of 1776.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Sit Down, John” (Brent Spiner, The Congress); “Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve” (Brent Spiner); “Till Then” (Brent Spiner, Linda Emond); “The Lees of Old Virginia” (Merwin Foard, Pat Hingle, Brent Spiner); “But, Mr. Adams” (Brent Spiner, Pat Hingle, Paul Michael Valley, John Herrera, Daniel Marcus); “Yours, Yours, Yours” (Brent Spiner, Linda Emond); “He Plays the Violin” (Lauren Ward, Pat Hingle, Brent Spiner); “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men” (Michael Cumpsty, The Conservatives); “Momma, Look Sharp” (Dashiell Eaves, MacIntyre Dixon, Joseph Cassidy) Act Two: “The Egg” (Pat Hingle, Brent Spiner, Paul Michael Valley); “Molasses to Rum” (Gregg Edelman); “Compliments” (reprise of “Yours, Yours, Yours”) (Linda Emond); “Is Anybody There?” (Brent Spiner) Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of the intimate 1969 musical 1776 played at the company’s small venue Criterion Center Stage Right for 109 showings, suspended performances for two weeks, and then reopened at the cavernous Gershwin Theatre where it ran for six months. For the two engagements, the musical played a total of 333 showings. With lyrics and music by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone, the musical told the familiar story of the Second Continental Congress and its efforts to write and ratify the Declaration of Independence, and its historical characters included John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock. Despite the familiarity of the story and its people, the musical was a fresh and reimagined look at history and was so well written it generated a certain amount of suspense and started to make you wonder about the outcome. Will the Declaration be signed or not? Will the colonies remain under British rule or will they break away? One almost sighed with relief when the musical’s final moments depicted the cast members frozen in a living tableau that re-created Robert Edge Pine and Edward Savage’s painting Congress Voting Independence while before them a scrim materialized that revealed the Declaration itself with the delegates’ signatures in full view. Here was perhaps the most stunning visual coup de theatre of the era. To be sure, the musical was quirky with a determination to find its own narrative and musical styles. In his review of the original production, Martin Gottfried in Women’s Wear Daily noted that the musical began with what amounted to a ten-minute operetta in the style of Mozart (“Sit Down, John”). At other times, the score offered an old-time Broadway razzle-dazzle showstopper (“The Lees of Old Virginia”); a dramatic, introspective song for Adams (“Is Anybody There?”); a smug minuet (“Cool, Cool, Considerate Men”); a blistering comment on the slave trade (“Molasses to Rum”); and a heartbreaking folk-like song about a dying young soldier whose last thoughts are of his mother (“Momma, Look Sharp”). And for long periods there was no music at all because the creators avoided filler material when dialogue was more effective. The musical’s major flaw was the extraneous inclusions of Martha Jefferson and Abigail Adams into the action; their characters added little to the evening, and their songs were vapid (and Martha’s “He Plays the Violin” was obvious and cheap). Some found Edwards’s lyrics a bit disconcerting because he emphasized certain syllables when no such emphasis was necessary, and perhaps Benjamin Franklin was conceived in too twee a fashion and came across as less a statesman and more an avuncular type in the style of Ed Wynn.

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Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised the revival and noted it was “what you want C-Span to be but all too seldom is.” The musical was a “surprisingly (if oddly) skilled seducer” and by the end of the evening “you’re amazed at how quickly, and even pleasurably, the time has gone.” The show did “a miraculously solid job of giving specific, discrete identities” to the delegates, and Brantley noted Stone infused the characters with “far more individuality” than those in his book for Titanic. The original production opened on March 16, 1969, at the 46th Street Theatre for 1,217 performances and won the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical. The work was presented without an intermission, but early in the Broadway run the show was divided into two acts with the first ending after “Momma, Look Sharp.” The script was published in hardback and paperback by Viking Press in 1970, and the original Broadway cast album was released on LP by Columbia Records (# BOS-3310) and CD by Sony Broadway (# SK-48215). For the recording, Benjamin Franklin is sung by Rex Everhart, who early in the run (and during the time of the cast recording session) succeeded the ailing Howard Da Silva, the role’s creator (but Da Silva soon returned to the Broadway production, and in fact reprised his role for the 1972 film version). Another contemporary recording of the score is All the Hits from the Smash Broadway Musical “1776” by the Ray Bloch Singers (Ambassador Records LP # S-98083). The recording of the current revival was recorded by TVT Records (CD # TVT-8150-2). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the London production (advertised as “A New Musical from the Colonies”) didn’t do well and played for just 168 performances. The musical opened on June 16, 1970, at the New Theatre, the cast included David Kernan (as Edward Rutledge), and the cast album was released by EMI/Columbia Records (LP # SCX-6424). The 1972 film version was released by Columbia Pictures; directed by Peter Hunt, who helmed the original Broadway production, the film included original Broadway cast members William Daniels (Adams), Ken Howard (Jefferson), Howard Da Silva (Franklin), Ronald Holgate (Lee), Virginia Vestoff (Abigail Adams), Roy Poole (Hopkins), and David Ford (Hancock); other cast members included Donald Madden (Dickinson), John Cullum (Rutledge), Blythe Danner (Martha Jefferson), Ray Middleton (McKean), Rex Robbins (Sherman), and Stephen Nathan (The Courier). Prior to the film’s release, some twenty-five minutes of footage were cut from the film, including “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men.” For the “Restored Director’s Cut” on DVD (Columbia # 05891), the deleted material was edited into the film in proper sequence. The soundtrack was released by Columbia Records (LP # S-31741), and Da Silva’s performance on the soundtrack also constitutes his “original Broadway cast” performance since he was unable to perform on the original Broadway cast album.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Revival (1776); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Gregg Edelman); Best Director (Scott Ellis)

THE LAST EMPRESS Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: August 15, 1997; Closing Date: August 24, 1997 Performances: 12 Book: Mun Yol Yi; book adaptation by Kwang Lim Kim Lyrics: In Ja Yang Music: Hee Gab Kim; additional music by Peter Casey Based on the 1994 novel The Fox Hunt by Mun Yol Yi. Direction: Ho Jin Yun; Producers: Arts Communications Seoul Company (A-Com) (Young Hwan Kim, Executive Producer) (Sang Ryul Lee, Su Mun Lee, Young il Yang, Woo Jong Lee, Associate Producers); Choreography: Byung Goo Seo; Scenery: Dong Woo Park; Costumes: Hyun Sook Kim; Lighting: Hyung O Choi; Musical Direction: Kolleen Park Cast: Wonjung Kim and Taewon Yi Kim (Queen Min, at alternating performances), Jae Hwan Lee (Taewongun), Hee Sung Yu (King Kojung), Hee Jung Lee (Inoue), Mu Yeol Choi (Itoh Hirobumi), Min Soo Kim (Kye Hun Hong), Sung Ki Kim (Miura Goroh), Hyun Dong Kim (Chillyunggun, Prince), Hak Jun Kim (Japanese

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Merchant), Do Kyung Kim (Japanese Merchant), Ho Jin Kim (Japanese Merchant), Sang Hoe Park (Japanese Merchant), Young Ju Jeong (Park), He Jung Kim (Kim), David De Witt (Weber), Mary Jo Todaro (Sontag), Anne Chun (Young Queen), Tom Schmid (Foreign Envoy), Eric Morgan (Foreign Envoy), Claire Beckman (Foreign Envoy), Samantha Camp (Foreign Envoy); Chorus and Dance Members: So Youn An, Geon Ryeong Bae, Eun Jung Cho, Im Su Choi, Se Hwan Choi, Jeong Ju Doh, Soon Chul Hyun, Young Ju Jeong, Woo Jeong Jeoung, Do Hyeong Kim, Hakjun Kim, Hak Muk Kim, Ho Jin Kim, Hyun Dong Kim, Soo Jin Kim, Young Ju Kim, Young Ok Kim, Min Kyeng Kwak, He Jeong Lee, Jae Gu Lee, Ji Eun Lee, Ji Youn Lee, Kyoung Woo Lee, Sung Ho Lee, Hyo Jung Moon, Sang Hoe Park, Seung Jun Seo, Hyo In Shin, Chan Youn The opera was presented in two acts. The action of the prologue takes place in Hiroshima in 1945, and the remainder of the action takes place in Korea (Chosun) around the turn of the twentieth century.

Musical Numbers Note: The program listed song titles but didn’t identify which performers sang the numbers; for more information, see entry for the 1998 return engagement. Act One: Prologue: “Prelude” and “Japan’s Choice”; “The Day We Greet the New Queen”; “Taewongun’s Regency”; “King and Courtesans”; “Your Highness Is Beautiful”; “Look on Me”; “Market Place”; “Four Japanese Merchants”; “Fight at the Market Place”; “I Am Hong Kye-Hun”; “A Wish for a Prince”; “The Shaman”; “Knock, Knock” and “Song of the Soldiers”; “Grow Big and Strong, Dear Prince”; “You Are the King of Chosun”; “Until the World Needs Me Again”; “Kojung’s Imperial Conference”; “It’s All a Scheme”; “Seven Foreign Envoys”; “Four Japanese”; “Itoh’s Ambition”; “Uprising of the Old Line Units”; “Military Mutiny of 1882”; “Back at the Seat of Power”; “I Miss You, My Dear Queen”; “We Shall Return”; “Wu Chang-Ching and Taewongun”; “Taewongun Is Taken to China”; “Inoue Threatens King Kojong”; “Queen Min’s Return”; “We Shall Rise Again”; “Meeting on Japan’s Chosun Policy” Act Two: “Dancing at the Grand Banquet”; “Come Celebrate Our Reforms”; “Elizabeth I of Chosun”; “Negotiations at the Grand Banquet”; “New Morning Is Dawning in Chosun”; “Isn’t It Strange, Snowflakes Are Falling”; “You Shall Drink Miura’s Wine”; “Tripartite Intervention and the Atami House Conspiracy”; “Isn’t It Strange, Snowflakes Are Falling” (reprise); “Chosun Is Tangun’s Land”; “Miura’s Audience with the King”; “The French Lesson”; “When the Wine Gets Cold”; “Welcome, Ladies”; “Ritual for Murder”; “Prince and Queen”; “Where Was It That We Met?”; “You Are My Destiny”; “Take Away the Darkening Sky”; “Do Not Hurt the Queen”; “The Last of Hong Kye-Hun”; “Queen Min Chased by the Beasts”; “Find the Queen, Kill the Fox”; “How Will I Live Now?”; Epilogue: “Rise, People of Chosun” The opera The Last Empress played for a limited engagement of twelve performances at Lincoln Center’s New York State Theatre. The work had first premiered in Seoul, Korea, and the current production was sung in Korean with English super titles. Set mostly in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Korea (Chosun), the true story centered on the Chosun Kingdom’s last empress, Queen Min. Some regarded her as a visionary leader who brought the “Hermit Kingdom” into the modern era, while others saw her as a dangerous and manipulative monarch who was power hungry. The work depicted the events of her life, including her assassination by the Japanese, who planned her death under the code name “Fox Hunt.” Anita Gates in the New York Times commented that Queen Min was similar to Eva Peron in her journey from humble beginnings to the heights of political power, and like Evita she was a divisive figure who died at a young age. Gates praised the “magnificent” opera, and was impressed with the performances, choreography, scenery, costumes, and lighting. She noted that the décor was so stunning it would remind theatergoers just “how satisfying real splendor can be,” and the final chorus (“Rise, People of Chosun”) was “spectacular” and guaranteed to raise goose bumps. During the twelve performances, Wonjung Kim and Taewon Yi Kim alternated in the title role. The work returned the following summer for another limited run (see entry for this engagement, whose program included the names of the characters for each song sequence as well as new songs and ones with slightly altered titles). The opera was released on both CD and DVD.

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RIVERDANCE Theatre: Radio City Music Hall Opening Date: September 25, 1997; Closing Date: October 12, 1997 Performances: 23 Poetry: Theo Dorgan Lyrics and Music: Bill Whelan Direction: John McColgan; Producers: Radio City Productions in association with Abhann Productions (Moya Doherty, Producer; Julian Erskine, Executive Producer); Choreography: See information below; Scenery and Painted Images: Robert Ballagh; Projections: Chris Slingsby; Costumes: Jen Kelly; Lighting: Rupert Murray; Musical Direction: Noel Eccles Cast: John Kavanagh (Narrator); Solo Dancers: Colin Dunne, Eileen Martin, Maria Pages, Pat Roddy; Solo Singers: Katie MacMahon, Morgan Crowley; Others: Tarik Winston, Eileen Ivers, Ivan Thomas, Toby Harris; The Riverdance Irish Dance Troupe: Caitlin Allen, Sarah Barry, Dearbhail Bates, Natalie Biggs, Lorna Bradley, Martin Brennan, Rachel Byrne, Suzanne Cleary, Yzanne Cloonan, Andrea Curley, Marty Dowds, Jo Ellen Forsyth, Fiona Gallagher, Susan Ginnety, Paula Goulding, Conor Hayes, Miceal Hopkins, Donnacha Howard, Kellie Hughes, Ciara Kennedy, Sorcha McCaul, Kevin McCormack, Jonathan McMorrow, Joe Moriarty, Damien Noone, Aoibheann O’Brien, Niamh O’Brien, Cormac O Se, Ursula Quigley, Joan Rafter, Pat Roddy, Sheila Ryan, Anthony Savage, Claire Usher, J. R. Vancheri, Leanda Ward; The Moscow Folk Ballet Company: Svetlana Kossoroukova, Ilia Streltsov, Tatiana Nedostop, Marina Taranda, Iouri Oustiougov, Serguei Iakoubov, Iouri Shishkine, Olena Krutsenko; The Riverdance Singers: Derek Byrne, Patrick Connolly, Jennifer Curran, Tony Davoren, Maire Lang, Kay Lynch, Lorraine Nolan, Cathal Synnott The dance revue was presented in two acts. The current visit by the Riverdance troupe was a return engagement of a production that first had been presented at Radio City Music Hall in March 1996 and then in October of that year. For background information about the dance revue and its various New York productions, see entry for the March 1996 showing. The current version included the following dances (after titles, the names of the choreographers are credited): “Reel Around the Sun” (Michael Flatley); “Thunderstorm” (Michael Flatley); “Women of Ireland” (Jean Butler); “Shivna” (The Moscow Folk Ballet Company); “Russian Dervish” (The Moscow Folk Ballet Company); “Firedance” (Maria Pages); “American Wake” (Michael Flatley, Paula Nic Cionnaith); “Riverdance” (choreography for Irish step dances by Mavis Ascott; lead female solo choreography by Michael Flatley; other choreography by Jean Butler); “Trading Taps” (Colin Dunne, Tarik Winston); “Oscail an Doras” (Tara Little); “Andalucia” (Maria Pages, Colin Dunne); and “Heartland” (Michael Flatley, Colin Dunne, Jean Butler).

SIDE SHOW Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre Opening Date: October 16, 1997; Closing Date: January 3, 1998 Performances: 91 Book and Lyrics: Bill Russell Music: Henry Krieger Direction and Choreography: Robert Longbottom (Tom Kosis, Associate Choreographer); Producers: Emanuel Azenberg, Joseph Nederlander, Herschel Waxman, Janice McKenna, and Scott Nederlander (Ginger Montel, Associate Producer); Scenery: Robin Wagner; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Brian MacDevitt; Musical Direction: David Chase Cast: Barry Finkel (Reptile Man), Andy Gale (Bearded Lady), Billy Hartung (Roustabout), Emily Hsu (Snake Girl), Alicia Irving (Fortune Teller), Devanand N. Janki (Fakir), Ken Jennings (The Boss), Norm Lewis (Jake), Judy Molloy (Sixth Exhibit), David Masenheimer (Sheik), Jeff McCarthy (Terry Connor), David McDonald (Roustabout), Phillip Officer (Geek), Hugh Panaro (Buddy Foster), Verna Pierce (Dolly Dimples), Alice Ripley (Violet Hilton), Jim T. Ruttman (Roustabout), Emily Skinner (Daisy Hilton), Jenny-Lynn Suckling (Harem Girl), Susan Taylor (Harem Girl), Timothy Warmen (Roustabout), Darlene Wilson (Harem Girl);

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Reporters, Vaudevillians, The Follies Company, Party Guests, Radio Show Singers, The Movie Crew, Hawkers: The Company The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the 1930s.

Musical Numbers Act One: The Midway: “Come Look at the Freaks” (Ken Jennings, Company); “Happy Birthday to You and You” (Company); “I’m Daisy, I’m Violet” (Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley, Jeff McCarthy); “Like Everyone Else” (Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley); “You Deserve a Better Life” (Jeff McCarthy); “Crazy, Deaf and Blind” (Ken Jennings); “The Devil You Know” (Norm Lewis, Side Show Attractions); “More Than We Bargained For” (Jeff McCarthy, Hugh Panaro); “Feelings You’ve Got to Hide” (Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley); “When I’m by Your Side” (Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley); and “Say Goodbye to the Freak Show” (Company); Vaudeville: “Overnight Sensation” (Jeff McCarthy, Reporters); “Leave Me Alone” (Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley); “We Share Everything” (Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley, Vaudevillians); “The Interview” (Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley, Reporters); “Buddy Kissed Me” (Alice Ripley, Emily Skinner); and “Who Will Love Me as I Am?” (Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley) Act Two: The Follies: “Rare Songbirds on Display” (Company); “New Year’s Day” (Jeff McCarthy, Hugh Panaro, Norm Lewis, Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley, Company); and “Private Conversation” (Jeff McCarthy); On the Road: “One Plus One Equals Three” (Hugh Panaro, Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley) and “You Should Be Loved” (Norm Lewis); The Texas Centennial: “Tunnel of Love” (Jeff McCarthy, Hugh Panaro, Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley); “What a Beautiful Day for a Wedding” (Ken Jennings, Roustabouts, Hawkers); “Buddy’s Confession” (Hugh Panaro); “Marry Me, Terry” (Emily Skinner); “I Will Never Leave You” (Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley); and “Come Look at the Freaks” (reprise) (Company) In more ways than one, Side Show was a heartbreaker. The sad and touching story was permeated with melancholy and brought an intensity of emotion seldom encountered in a Broadway musical. It offered the best score, book, direction, and performances of the season, but closed after three months at a loss of $7 million. The virtually sung-through work centered on real-life Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton (Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley), whose fleeting careers in show business culminated in their appearance in the 1932 film Freaks. They eventually drifted into obscurity and ended their days as baggers in a North Carolina grocery store, and died in 1969. The musical also looked at the question of identity, and examined the meaning of relationships, both tenuous ones and those in which people are literally bound together for life. Daisy and Violet yearn for independence and normal lives, but their identities are forever entwined and they’ll never break away from one another in order to pursue their individual dreams. At the close of the musical they accept their fate, and in one of the most powerful theatre songs of the era they face their destiny in the ironic and double-edged yet simple and straightforward “I Will Never Leave You.” Despite many enthusiastic reviews, the work never caught on with the public. Some potential ticket buyers might have wrongly assumed the musical to be a campy look at Siamese twins in which two actresses shuffle about in unison, awkwardly attached to one another with Velcro. Perhaps others found the subject matter of conjoined twins too off-putting and uncomfortable. The musical was an intimate one and looked a bit lost in the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Perhaps the show’s essentially intimate nature belonged in a smaller house, like the Lyceum or the Belasco. A smaller venue also would have given the show the advantage of lower weekly running costs that might have allowed it to run longer and find its audience. But maybe there was never going to be a wide audience for Side Show. It well may be that the musical’s subject matter is an insurmountable problem, and that audiences are simply not interested in such serious fare when lavish feel-good blockbusters are readily available in the Broadway marketplace. Serious musicals certainly have a hard time of it, and even those that play at small houses often collapse after short and unprofitable runs. Two examples are The Scottsboro Boys (2010; forty-nine performances) and The Visit (2015; sixty-one performances), both of which played at the intimate Lyceum Theatre. Bill Russell’s book for Side Show was tightly written, and director Robert Longbottom kept the musical moving at a swift pace. There was no deadwood in Side Show: every song and situation and character were in sync with the show’s central vision. And Henry Krieger’s score was one of the richest of the decade, and except for occasional period pastiche in the vaudeville sequences he opted for what might be termed a classi-

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cal and traditional Broadway style and sound. The cast was exemplary, and Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley gave towering performances. One of the most impressive creative decisions was the adoption of a slightly expressionist approach for the look of the musical. Daisy and Violet were never joined together in the same costume and never walked together in lock step; instead, they stood close together and moved in unison, but their condition was conveyed more symbolically than literally. Further, the carnival freaks were never outfitted in Cats-like costumes and makeup, and, again, everything was suggestive rather than literal. The show utilized simple sets and the overall look was that of smoky light that dominated a world of black, gray, and earth colors. Only for the glamorous Follies scenes did the show burst into showers of Technicolor. Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised the “daring” and “enthralling” production, the “stylish confidence” of Longbottom’s direction, the “winning simplicity” of Russell’s lyrics, the “tidal pull” of Krieger’s score, and the “simply astonishing” performances of Skinner and Ripley, who “set a new standard for crackerjack Broadway teamwork.” Brantley made a point of noting that the musical recitative never seemed “awkward,” and he praised the “lovely musical character motifs” heard throughout the evening. In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby said the “haunting” musical was played with “uncanny precision and immense heart” by Skinner and Ripley, and the story was given “emotional heft” by Krieger’s “bright” and “inventive” score. Canby noted that the “hilarious” and elaborate “We Share Everything” (often referred to as the Cleopatra number) showed Daisy and Violet as mirror-images of Cleopatra who are surrounded by “scantily clad” chorus boys as “generic pharaohs” who bump and grind. The “naughty” lyric slyly suggested the girls shared absolutely everything, and this notion soon returned “like a fatal boomerang” in “I Will Never Leave You.” In all, the musical was shaped by a “sharp, contemporary sensibility” and “not in a long time has a new season begun with such promise.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the “strange, bright and moving musical noir” had “dramatic poignancy and urgency” and provided “a rousing blast-off for the Broadway season.” John Simon in New York said when the show’s “credits and debits” were added up, the result was “not exactly in the black” but was nonetheless “a becoming Oxford gray” with “enough good songs to make the weak ones overlookable,” “splendid” orchestrations, and a cast that brought “panache and poignance” to the evening (he also noted that the Cleopatra number was “genuinely amusing even while also oddly lyrical”). And although Richard Zoglin in Time felt Russell’s book was “short on ideas, guts or much tension,” he praised Skinner and Ripley’s “admirable teamwork,” liked the “brisk, ersatz-vaudeville” numbers, and indicated that the ballad “Who Will Love Me as I Am?” would no doubt “have Whitney Houston on the phone to her agent.” Greg Evans in Variety found the “sad, nicely sung curiosity” a “surprisingly conventional” evening in which the score’s approach was “too calculated in its crowd pleasing,” and the book never gave the two leading characters “something (or someone) to play against.” And Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker said the musical was “a maze of confused intentions” that suffered from “reticence” because of a “dainty reluctance to be seen as exploiting its subject.” In his review of the cast album for the New York Times, Stephen Holden said the “meat-and-potatoes melodies elongated into open-ended arias” that surged “with the same yearning spirit” Krieger had brought to his score for Dreamgirls (1981), and Russell’s lyrics were “direct” and “cliché-free.” He singled out “Like Everyone Else,” “Who Will Love Me as I Am?,” “You Should Be Loved,” and “I Will Never Leave You.” The latter captured “elemental human drives with a blunt, forceful emotion,” and the vaudeville numbers found Krieger “moving confidently beyond his usual compositional turf.” He concluded that Side Show offered “an encouraging musical object lesson in pop-Broadway fusion.” During previews, the songs “They Hardly Know I’m Around,” “She’s Gone,” “Stuck with You,” and “Ready to Play” were cut. The original cast album was released by Sony Classical Records (CD # SK-60258), and the script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 1999. Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley’s collection Duets (Varese Sarabande Records CD # VSD-5958) includes the cut songs “Stuck with You” and “Ready to Play”; their Unsuspecting Hearts (Varese Sarabande CD # 302-066-074-2) includes the cut “She’s Gone”; and their Skinner/ Ripley: Raw at Town Hall (Kritzerland Records CD # KR-20011-0) includes “She’s Gone,” “Who Will Love Me as I Am?,” and “I Will Never Leave You.” Some sixteen years after the production closed, Side Show was revived on Broadway in a radically revised version. It’s understandable that the creators wanted to revisit their musical, and it’s easy to see why they decided to provide audiences with a more literal look (for example, the freaks now wear rubberized masks and full costumes that literalize their conditions). About half the score was new, and the revival’s director, Bill

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Condon, provided additional book material (the new version included a scene or two for Harry Houdini, who was also a character in Ragtime). But audiences still didn’t come, and this time around the production lost $8 million. Clearly, the musical will always be caviar to the general and will never work in a commercial setting. Perhaps the work best belongs in adventurous college and community theatres, small venues with hopefully more receptive audiences. The revival opened at the St. James Theatre on November 17, 2014, and ran for fifty-six performances. For a pre-Broadway production at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre, Peter Marks in the Washington Post said the revival was an “intoxicating experience” that provided “a glorious comeback for an important American musical.” The 2014 cast album was released by Broadway Records (CD # BR-CD01915), and includes thirteen songs from the original production (“Come Look at the Freaks,” “I’m Daisy, I’m Violet,” “Like Everyone Else,” “The Devil You Know,” “Feelings You’ve Got to Hide,” “Say Goodbye to the Side Show [Freak Show],” “The Interview,” “Who Will Love Me as I Am?,” “Leave Me Alone,” “Private Conversation,” “One Plus One Equals Three,” “You Should Be Loved,” and “I Will Never Leave You”) and added about a dozen new ones, including “The (A) Great Wedding Show,” which was a revised version of an unused number titled “Coming Apart at the Seams”; the album also includes a bonus track of the cut title song. Broadway Records also released Side Show: Added Attractions (CD # BR-CD54B-017), which was recorded live at 54 Below on March 9, 2015, with members of the revival’s cast. The songs include numbers cut from the show, ones not recorded for the revival’s cast album, and various ensemble and extended numbers. As of this writing, the musical is scheduled to receive its London premiere for a limited engagement beginning on October 26, 2016, at the Southwark Playhouse in a version based on the revised script and score.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Side Show); Best Leading Actresses in a Musical (joint nominations) (Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner); Best Book (Bill Russell); Best Score (lyrics by Bill Russell, music by Henry Krieger)

TRIUMPH OF LOVE Theatre: Royale Theatre Opening Date: October 23, 1997; Closing Date: January 4, 1998 Performances: 83 Book: James Magruder Lyrics: Susan Birkenhead Music: Jeffrey Stock Based on the 1732 play The Triumph of Love by Pierre de Marivaux. Direction: Michael Mayer; Producers: Margo Lion, Metropolitan Entertainment Group, Jujamcyn Theatres, and PACE Theatrical Group in association with The Baruch-Frankel-Viertel Group and Alex Hitz and Center Stage and Yale Repertory Group (Charles Kelman Productions, Inc., and Marc Routh); Choreography: Doug Varone; Scenery: Heidi Ettinger; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Paul Gallo; Musical Direction: Patrick Brady Cast: Christopher Sieber (Agis), Betty Buckley (Hesione), Kevin Chamberlin (Dimas), Roger Bart (Harlequin), F. Murray Abraham (Hermocrates), Susan Egan (Princess Leonide), Nancy Opel (Corine) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in France during the eighteenth century.

Musical Numbers Act One: “The Day of Days” (Betty Buckley, Roger Bart, Kevin Chamberlin, Christopher Sieber, F. Murray Abraham); “Anything” (Susan Egan); “Classic Clown” (Roger Bart [Note: This song wasn’t listed in the program but was recorded for the cast album]); “The Bond That Can’t Be Broken” (Susan Egan, Chris-

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topher Sieber); “Mr. Right” (Nancy Opel, Roger Bart); “You May Call Me Phocion” (Susan Egan, Betty Buckley); “Mr. Right” (reprise) (Nancy Opel, Kevin Chamberlin); “Emotions” (F. Murray Abraham, Susan Egan); “The Sad and Sordid Saga of Cecile” (Susan Egan, Christopher Sieber, Nancy Opel, Roger Bart, Kevin Chamberlin); “Serenity” (Betty Buckley); “Issue in Question” (Christopher Sieber); “Teach Me Not to Love You” (Company) Act Two: “Have a Little Faith” (Nancy Opel, Susan Egan, Roger Bart, Kevin Chamberlin); “The Tree” (Betty Buckley, F. Murray Abraham); “What Have I Done?” (Susan Egan); “Henchmen Are Forgotten” (Roger Bart, Kevin Chamberlin, Nancy Opel); “Love Won’t Take No for an Answer” (F. Murray Abraham, Betty Buckley, Christopher Sieber); “This Day of Days” (reprise) (Roger Bart, Kevin Chamberlin) Although Triumph of Love was an intimate chamber musical with a cast of seven, an orchestra of eleven, and a unit set, the small show looked lost in even the relatively intimate Royale Theatre. It might have found its niche decades earlier in a small Off-Broadway venue because the show played, looked, and occasionally sounded like an Off Broadway musical circa the late 1950s and early 1960s when small-scale musicals based on classic French, British, and American plays in the public domain were all the rage (such as Fashion, She Shall Have Music, The Fantasticks, Ernest in Love, A Delightful Season, O Marry Me!, All in Love, ’Toinette, The Banker’s Daughter, The Streets of New York, Pimpernel!, and The Amorous Flea). The slight story of disguises, mistaken identities, and misunderstandings set in a topiary garden in eighteenth-century France was arch and precious as well as silly with varsity-show-styled humor. The plot centered on Leonide, the Princess of Sparta (Susan Egan), and her man-hungry servant Corine (Nancy Opel). They disguise themselves as men (and adopt the respective names of Phocion and Troy) in order to infiltrate the well-ordered world of the philosopher Hermocrates (F. Murray Abraham), his unmarried sister and philosopher Hesione (Betty Buckley), and his handsome young nephew, the student Agis (Christopher Sieber), who by birth is the true ruler of Sparta and has been raised to despise Leonide, whom he’s never met. However, Leonide intends to cede the throne to Agis and crown him prince, but not before winning his love. As Phocion, Leonide pretends to woo Hesione, who falls for “him.” But Hermocrates realizes Phocion is a woman, and so Leonide quickly assumes another identity (Aspasie) and tells Hermocrates she’s sought him out for his wisdom (of course, her flattery immediately endears her to him). Before long, Leonide takes on yet another identity (Cecile), a girl supposedly on the run from a forced marriage, and as Cecile she eventually wins the heart of Agis, who still doesn’t know she’s really Leonide. Ultimately, Leonide (as, respectively, Phocion, Aspasie, and Cecile) has won the hearts of Hesione, Hermocrates, and Agis, and Corine has become involved with the randy valet Harlequin (Roger Bart) and the equally randy gardener Dimas (Kevin Chamberlin). But young love triumphs when Agis becomes prince and offers his hand in marriage to Leonide, and Corine, Harlequin, and Dimas enter into a threesome. As for Hermocrates and Hesione, they may have lost Aspasie/Phocion, but perhaps these two professional philosophers have learned a little about life and love. James Magruder’s book was tiresome, and dippy jokes aside there was something chilly and mechanical at the musical’s core that prevented the inherent fizzy effervescence of the would-be farcical plot from coming through and winning over the audience. What should have been a mad jack-in-the-box bit of folderol was presented in by-the-numbers fashion and the evening never captured the necessary streak of classic Marx Brothers-styled tomfoolery. Perhaps a stronger score could have carried the show, but unfortunately Jeffrey Stock’s music and Susan Birkenhead’s lyrics were no more than blandly pleasant (many made a case for “Serenity,” but the song was less than memorable). The true star of the musical was Heidi Ettinger, whose spartan décor was chic and drenched in rich colors. The musical received mixed reviews, the audiences didn’t come, and the show was gone in ten weeks. The New York Post reported the production lost $3.5 million. Ben Brantley in the New York Times was impressed with “Serenity” and he felt this and another song or two proved that Stock and Birkenhead had the talent to capture the “gossamer ambiguity” of Pierre de Marivaux’s original play. But Magruder’s book and Michael Mayer’s direction weren’t “fine-spun” and the musical was “largely propelled by a crude, anything-for-a-laugh avidity” that brought to mind “such vestigial vaudeville shows as Hellzapoppin.” Brantley noted the evening was full of “sophomoric lewdness and broad jokiness,” and so when Corine finds l’amour with Harlequin, she tells the audience she’s ready “for a Harlequin romance.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby noted the evening suggested “the manner of something put together by academics trying desperately to kick up their heels when their shoes are made of cement.” The musical was “jokey instead of witty” and although Stock’s score indicated he’d “studied” Stephen Sondheim, his songs “fade from the memory as you hear them.”

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But Greg Evans in Variety praised the “witty” book and “delightful” score, and while Clive Barnes in the New York Post noted Triumph of Love wasn’t “your common or garden-variety Broadway musical,” the evening nonetheless offered “abundant and luxuriant charms.” And Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker said the work fulfilled “its potential and then some.” She found Stock’s score “remarkable,” Birkenhead’s lyrics “even more remarkable,” and Magruder’s book a “a richly suggestive stew for the characters to splash around in.” She also noted that Mayer’s direction allowed each character to “ripen properly,” Ettinger’s décor had “the cartoony realism of a child’s drawing,” and Paul Gallo’s lighting was “lit in bright, candy colors.” During previews, “If I Cannot Love” was cut. The cast album was released by Jay Records (CD # 1315), and “If I Cannot Love” was included as a bonus track (by Buckley, who had performed it during previews). The script was published in the Spring 1999 issue of Show Music magazine. The musical premiered at Baltimore’s Center Stage on November 21, 1996; Egan and Sieber were in the cast, and others in the company were Robert LuPone (Hermocrates), Mary Beth Peil (Hesione), Denny Dillon (Corine), Kenny Raskin (Harlequin), and Daniel Marcus (Dimas). Songs in this version that were dropped prior to Broadway were “The Mysteries of Criticism,” “Us,” and “Three Great Minds.” After the Baltimore run, the musical opened on January 16, 1997, at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Betty Buckley)

THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL “The New Musical Adventure”

Theatre: Minskoff Theatre (during run, the musical transferred to the Neil Simon Theatre) Opening Date: November 9, 1997; Closing Date: January 2, 2000 Performances: 741 Note: For specific information about the three versions of the musical, which played on Broadway between November 9, 1997, and January 2, 2000, see below. Book and Lyrics: Nan Knighton Music: Frank Wildhorn Based on the 1905 novel The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Orczy (which had first been presented as play that premiered in 1903). Direction: Peter Hunt; Producers: Pierre Cossette, Bill Haber, Hallmark Entertainment, and Ted Forstmann and presented with Kathleen Raitt; Choreography: Adam Pelty; Scenery: Andrew Jackson; Costumes: Jane Greenwood; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Ron Melrose Cast: Marine Jahan (Madame St. Cyr), Tim Shew (St. Cyr), Elizabeth Ward (Marie), Philip Hoffman (Tussaud), James Judy (Dewhurst), Terrence Mann (Chauvelin), Douglas Sills (Percy, The Scarlet Pimpernel), Christine Andreas (Marguerite [and Leontine]), Sandy Rosenberg (Lady Digby), Pamela Burrell (Lady Llewellyn), Gilles Chiasson (Armand St. Just), Ed Dixon (Ozzy), Allen Fitzpatrick (Lord Farleigh), Bill Bowers (Leggett), Adam Pelty (Elton), Ron Sharpe (Hal), William Thomas Evans (Hastings), Dave Clemmons (Ben), R. F. Daley (Neville), David Cromwell (Robespierre, Prince of Wales, Fisherman), Ken Labey (Grappin), Eric Bennyhoff (Coupeau), Jeff Gardner (Mercier), James Dybas (Executioner, Jessup); French Mob, French Soldiers, British Guests, and British Servants: Stephanie Bast, Nick Cavarra, Sutton Foster, Melissa Hart, Lauri Landry, Alison Lory, Don Mayo, Kevyn Morrow, Katie Nutt, Terry Richmond, Craig Rubano, Charles West The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in England and France from May to July of 1794.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Madame Guillotine” (French Chorus); “Believe” (Douglas Sills, Christine Andreas, British Chorus); “Vivez!” (Christine Andreas, Sandy Rosenberg, Pamela Burrell, Douglas Sills, Ensemble); “Prayer” (Doug-

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las Sills); “Into the Fire” (Douglas Sills, Percy’s Men); “Falcon in the Dive” (Terrence Mann); “When I Look at You” (Christine Andreas); “The Scarlet Pimpernel” (Douglas Sills, Christine Andreas, Elizabeth Ward, Gilles Chiasson, Sandy Rosenberg, Pamela Burrell, Servants); “Where’s the Girl?” (Terrence Mann); “When I Look at You” (reprise) (Douglas Sills); “The Creation of Man” (Douglas Sills, David Cromwell, Percy’s Men); “The Riddle” (Terrence Mann, Christine Andreas, Douglas Sills, Ensemble) Act Two: “They Seek Him Here” (Douglas Sills, Sandy Rosenberg, Pamela Burrell, Ensemble); “Only Love” (Christine Andreas); “She Was There” (Douglas Sills); “Storybook” (Christine Andreas, French Chorus); “Where’s the Girl?” (reprise) (Terrence Mann); “Lullaby” (Melissa Hart, Alison Lory);”You Are My Home” (Christine Andreas, Gilles Chiasson, French Prisoners); “Believe” (reprise) (Company) Adventurous theatergoers seeking experimental fare didn’t have to travel downtown for a dose of the avant-garde, because Frank Wildhorn’s latest musical, The Scarlet Pimpernel, provided ongoing experimentation right on Broadway and in a traditional Broadway house. During the course of the musical’s 741 performances, it underwent no less than three versions (which wags wryly christened Pimpernel 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0). The first version opened at the Minskoff Theatre for 373 performances from November 9, 1997, to October 3, 1998, with Douglas Sills (Percy), Christine Andreas (Marguerite), and Terrence Mann (Chauvelin); the second also opened at the Minskoff and ran for 239 showings between November 4, 1998, and May 30, 1999, with Sills, Rachel York (Marguerite), and Rex Smith (Chauvelin); and the third played at the Neil Simon Theatre for 129 performances from September 10, 1999, to January 2, 2000, with Ron Bohmer (Percy), Carolee Carmello (Marguerite), and Marc Kudisch (Chauvelin). The show even sported two cast albums, one of the original 1997 cast and the other an “encore” recording that included Sills, Andreas, Mann, York, and Smith as well as Linda Eder and Peabo Bryson who performed on the musical’s 1992 concept recording. Despite all the tinkering, the musical never quite caught on and lost money. Theatre World reported that of the sixteen major print and television reviews, twelve were unfavorable, two were mixed, and two favorable. The familiar story (perhaps best known for its 1934 film version, which starred Leslie Howard) dealt with the French Revolution and the attempts of English nobleman Percy to rescue French aristocrats from the guillotine. To this end, Percy adopts a foppish manner in order to trick the French police, including the sinister Chauvelin (here Terrence Mann’s role was not unlike Javert, which he had created for the American premiere of Les Miserables). Percy is married to the lovely Marguerite, whom he wrongly suspects of being a French sympathizer, and the musical worked in a triangle of sorts by providing a new backstory in which Marguerite and Chauvelin were once lovers. The musical brought operetta back to Broadway, and with its mixture of political intrigues and impersonations it seemed in some respects like a blend of Rudolf Friml’s The Vagabond King (1925) and Sigmund Romberg’s The Desert Song (1926). Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the book “wooden” and the “pop” score “pulpy,” and noted the evening’s “oddly incomplete feeling” suggested that “everyone involved lost interest somewhere along the way.” He also mentioned that if one wanted “pulse-racing suspense and derring-do,” one “would be better off watching tourists crossing against the light in Times Square.” But Sills was “credible” in his Broadway debut, and Andreas’s “lusty French music hall–style number” (“Storybook”) was the show’s “high point.” As the villain, Mann’s eyelids were “at half mast,” his voice was a “languorous murmur,” and his expression was “glazed” in a “couldn’t-care-less” manner. Brantley wondered if perhaps the “seasoned performer” was “experimenting with the idea of the apathy of evil,” but instead decided Mann was “quite simply bored out of his skull.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby noted that “virtually any three numbers” from the musical could be switched with three from Wildhorn’s concurrently-running Jekyll & Hyde and the switch wouldn’t “disrupt the continuity of either production.” In all, the score didn’t seem “memorable” and the show was “mostly a discreet yawn.” As noted, the musical underwent major changes during its three Broadway versions. Besides the cast changes, there was a new producer and even a new director. For the second go-round, Radio City Entertainment joined the earlier producers, and Robert Longbottom succeeded Peter Hunt as director and Adam Pelty as choreographer. “Storybook” was now the musical’s opening number, the score included five new sequences (“Wedding Dance,” “The Rescue,” “The Gavotte,” “I’ll Forget You,” and “The Duel”), and deleted four (“Believe,” “Vivez!,” “Only Love,” and “Lullaby”). The third version was produced by Radio City Entertainment and Ted Forstmann and omitted a number of reprises. Brantley noted that “in the annals of weight loss on Broadway,” the third version of The Scarlet Pimpernel proved to be a “model dieter.” The new production offered “reduced” scenery and the cast now numbered twenty-nine instead of forty-one (in the same newspaper,

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Robin Pogrebin reported that the orchestra had been reduced by four musicians). As a result, Brantley said the new version had “a bus-and-truck feeling” and despite all the changes the show was still “the same old bottle of pop, all carbonated fizz and syrup.” The musical’s concept album had been released in 1992 by Broadway Angel Records (CD # CDQ-7-543972) with Chuck Wagner (Percy), Linda Eder (Marguerite), Dave Clemmons (Chauvelin), Peabo Bryson (Armand), and, in the chorus, Victoria Clark. The recording includes six numbers not used in the 1997 production (“Home Again,” “Marguerite,” “Now When the Rain Falls,” “I’ll Forget You,” “Our Separate Ways,” and “There Never Was a Time”) and also offers three instrumental sequences (“Marguerite Prelude,” “Scarlet Interlude,” and “The Pimpernel Fanfare”). For the second production, “I’ll Forget You” was reinstated into the score. The 1997 Broadway cast album was recorded by Atlantic Theatre Records (CD # 83079-2), and as noted The Scarlet Pimpernel Encore recording (issued by Atlantic Theatre Records CD # 83265-2) included members of both the 1997 and 1998 casts as well as Eder and Bryson (this recording also includes “I’ll Forget You,” which was on the concept recording and was later added to the 1998 production). As Pimpernel!, an Off-Broadway musical version of the material opened on January 7, 1964, at the Gramercy Arts Theatre for three performances (book and lyrics by William Kaye and music by Mimi Stone) with a cast that included David Daniels (Percy), Leila Martin (Marguerite), William Larsen (Chauvelin), John Cunningham, Dick Latessa, and Stephen Pearlman. Lewis Funke in the New York Times noted the “schizoid” evening was an uneasy mix of romance and farce, and at one point a character even winked at the audience when he was about to perpetuate some dastardly deed. Another adaptation (as Pimpernel) with a book by Kerry Gardner and Liam Sullivan and lyrics by Sullivan was apparently written with Broadway in mind, and Albert Hague was approached to compose the music. But this version never got off the ground. The 1997 version of The Scarlet Pimpernel included an interesting name from long-ago Broadway: Melissa Hart played the role of Helene and also appeared in the ensemble. She created the role of Meredith in the 1970 musical Georgy and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a musical. For the legendary 1966 flop Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which closed during Broadway previews, she was Mary Tyler Moore’s standby in the role of Holly Golightly; she later joined the cast of The Apple Tree where she occasionally played the leading roles of Eve, Princess Barbara, and Ella/Passionella; during the Broadway run of Cabaret she played the role of Sally Bowles; and later starred in the first national tours of Cabaret and Promises, Promises (as Sally Bowles and Fran Kubelik, respectively). Prior to The Scarlet Pimpernel, she joined the cast of Candide during its brief 1997 Broadway revival where she assumed the role of Baroness Von Thunder and was also the standby for The Old Lady.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (The Scarlet Pimpernel); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Douglas Sills); Best Book (Nan Knighton)

THE LION KING “The Broadway Musical”

Theatre: New Amsterdam Theatre (during run, the musical has transferred to the Minskoff Theatre) Opening Date: November 13, 1997; Closing Date: (As of this writing, the musical is still running.) Performances: (As of this writing, the musical is still running and has played over 7,800 performances.) Book: Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi Lyrics: Tim Rice; and others Music: Elton John; and others (See list of musical numbers for specific credits.) Based on the 1994 film The Lion King (direction by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, and screenplay by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton). Direction: Julie Taymor (David Benken, Technical Director); Producer: Walt Disney Theatrical Productions; Choreography: Garth Fagan; Scenery: Richard Hudson; Costumes: Julie Taymor; Mask and Puppet Designs: Julie Taymor and Michael Curry; Lighting: Donald Holder; Musical Direction: Joseph Church

1997–1998 SEASON     297

Cast: Tsidii Le Loka (Rafiki), Samuel E. Wright (Mufasa), Gina Breedlove (Sarabi), Geoff Hoyle (Zazu), John Vickery (Scar), Scott Irby-Ranniar (Young Simba), Kajuana Shuford (Young Nala), Tracy Nicole Chapman (Shenzi), Stanley Wayne Mathis (Banzai), Kevin Cahoon (Ed), Max Casella (Timon), Tom Alan Robbins (Pumbaa), Jason Raize (Simba), Heather Headley (Nala); Singers: Eugene Barry-Hill, Gina Breedlove, Ntomb’khona Dlamini, Sheila Gibbs, Lindiwe Hlengwa, Christopher Jackson, Vanessa A. Jones, Faca Kulu, Ron Kunene, Philip Dorian McAdoo, Sam McKelton, Lebo M, Nandi Morake; Dancers: Camille M. Brown, Iresol Cardona, Mark Allan Davis, Lana Gordon, Timothy Hunter, Michael Joy, Aubrey Lynch II, Karine Plantadit-Bageot, Endalyn Taylor-Shellman, Levensky Smith, Ashi K. Smythe, Christine Yasunaga The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Africa.

Musical Numbers Note: Unless otherwise noted, all lyrics by Tim Rice and all music by Elton John. Act One: “Circle of Life” (Tsidii Le Loka, Ensemble); “The Morning Report” (Geoff Hoyle, Scott Irby-Ranniar, Samuel E. Wright); “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” (Scott Irby-Ranniar, Kajuana Shuford, Geoff Hoyle, Ensemble); “Chow Down” (Tracy Nicole Chapman, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Kevin Cahoon); “They Live in You” (lyric and music by Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, and Lebo M) (Samuel E. Wright, Ensemble); “Be Prepared” (John Vickery, Tracy Nicole Chapman, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Kevin Cahoon, Ensemble); “Be Prepared” (reprise) (John Vickery, Ensemble); “Hakuna Matata” (Max Casella, Tom Alan Robbins, Scott Irby-Ranniar, Jason Raize, Ensemble) Act Two: “One by One” (lyric and music by Lebo M) (Ensemble); “The Madness of King Scar” (John Vickery, Geoff Hoyle, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Tracy Nicole Chapman, Kevin Cahoon, Heather Headley); “Shadowland” (lyric by Mark Mancina and Lebo M, music by Hans Zimmer and Lebo M) (Heather Headley, Tsidii de Loka, Ensemble); “Endless Night” (lyric by Julie Taymor, music by Hans Zimmer, Jay Rifkin, and Lebo M) (Jason Raize, Ensemble); “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” (Max Casella, Tom Alan Robbins, Jason Raize, Heather Headley, Ensemble); “He Lives in You” (lyric and music by Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, and Lebo M) (reprise version of “They Live in You”) (Tsidii de Loka, Jason Raize, Ensemble); “King of Pride Rock” (lyric by Lebo M, music by Hans Zimmer) and reprise of “Circle of Love” (Ensemble); Note: The program also listed three other numbers, “Grassland Chant” and “Lioness Chant” (lyric and music by Lebo M) and “Rafiki’s Chants” (lyric and music by Tsidii Le Loka). Disney’s 1994 animated film The Lion King was a huge success, and its stage adaptation became an unstoppable force that as of this writing is headed toward its twentieth year on Broadway. It’s clearly the most family-friendly hit in Broadway history, and has been an enormous success on tour and in foreign productions. The simple story deals with Simba (Scott Irby-Ranniar), a young lion club who is the son of the lion king Mufasa (Samuel E. Wright) and his rightful heir. Mufasa’s ambitious evil brother Scar (John Vickery) aspires to the throne and murders Mufasa, but declares that Simba is responsible for the lion king’s death. Overcome with guilt, Simba takes to exile in the jungle, but in fairy-tale fashion all ends well when the grown-up Simba (Jason Raize) comes to realize Scar’s true nature. Simba confronts Scar and they battle: Scar Gets His when he falls from a cliff to a waiting pack of hungry hyenas, and Simba fulfills his destiny when he becomes the new lion king. The musical has its faults, but they’re beside the point. The show is a phenomenon that transcends its pesky, nitpicking detractors, and it has undoubtedly delighted every toddler who ever attended a performance. In truth, the wispy story is drawn out over two acts to almost twice the length of the original film, and one suspects the work would be more effective as a one-act musical. And the songs (from a variety of lyricists and composers, including Tim Rice and Elton John) are mostly vapid and lack the theatricality that Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, and Tim Rice brought to their score for Beauty and the Beast. But many have made a case for a few of the numbers (“Circle of Life,” “Hakuna Matata,” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?”). The musical retained the five songs written by Rice and John for the film (“Circle of Life,” “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” “Be Prepared,” “Hakuna Matata,” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?”), and the team wrote three new ones for the stage production (“The Morning Report,” “Chow Down,” and “The Madness of King Scar”). Other lyricists and composers contributed eight more musical sequences (see song list above).

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During the run, “Nant’ Ingonyama” was added to the score (lyric and music by Hans Zimmer and Lebo M) and “The Morning Report” was cut. For most audiences, the book, songs, performances, and choreography weren’t the elements that made the show memorable. Instead, it was the eye-popping visual conception that impressed everyone. Director Julie Taymor contributed the designs for the costumes and with Michael Curry created the mask and puppet designs, Richard Hudson provided the sets, and Donald Holder the atmospheric lighting. And so the evening was a parade of one show-stopping scenic effect after the other. For most of the audience, that was enough, but for others that was the problem. Without a strong book and score, the nonstop visuals were the highlights of the evening and one quickly realized that, beyond the visual effects, the show had remarkably little to offer. However, the musical received mostly glowing reviews (according to Theatre World, of the eighteen major print and television notices, four were mixed and fourteen were favorable). Ben Brantley in the New York Times was impressed by the grandeur of the lengthy opening sequence, a “rich” and “glorious” one that seemed to promise that the wedding of the corporate world of Walt Disney Theatrical Productions and the “maverick artist” Taymor would produce “blissful harmony.” But unfortunately the opening number was the only “honeymoon part” of the evening, and otherwise most of the songs were “unexceptionable.” And when the evening tried “to fulfill its obligations as a traditional Broadway book musical,” it went “slack.” The choreography was “clumsy” (and one dance number still seemed to be “a concept waiting to be worked out”) and the actors were often “hampered” by their mask and puppet effigies. He concluded that “suspense and poignancy” were lacking, but if one accepted the musical as a “visual tapestry” then there was “simply nothing else like it.” John Lahr in the New Yorker felt that the stage production was “far more textured and original than the film” and noted the evening was “a series of truly vivants tableaux.” But for all its inherent “excitement,” the show was “spectacular without being moving” and the evening lost ground with its “traditional” score. Further, the lyrics were “a conventional thesaurus job” and were “simple without bring fresh.” He noted that Taymor lost her way with “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” (“a silly fantasia that takes the story nowhere”), and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” was hampered by “an embarrassing aerial love ballet” that accompanied Garth Fagan’s “earthbound choreography.” Greg Evans in Variety said the musical cost more than $15 million to mount, and every penny of it could be seen in the “stunning physical production.” He praised the “terrific” score, but noted the dance accompanying “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” was “unintentionally campy” and the song “Hakuna Matata” seemed “rushed.” Richard Zoglin in Time enjoyed the “gorgeous, gasp-inducing spectacle,” but noted the story was too dependent on Scar’s “exaggerated villainy” and some of the comedy was “more labored than in the film.” The original Broadway cast album was released by Walt Disney Records (CD # 60802). Disney Presents “The Lion King”: Photographs from the Broadway Musical was published in hardback by Disney in 1998, and Disney on Broadway: “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” “Aida” was published by Disney in paperback in 2002. The London production opened at the Lyceum Theatre on October 19, 1999, and as of this writing is still playing. The Lion King was the first full-scale musical to premiere at the gloriously restored New Amsterdam Theatre (earlier in the year, a limited engagement concert of Menken and Rice’s King David had officially reopened the house to the public). (For more information about the theatre, see King David.)

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (The Lion King); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Samuel E. Wright); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Tsidii Le Loka); Best Director of a Musical (Julie Taymor); Best Book (Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi); Best Score (lyrics and music by Elton John, Tim Rice, Lebo M, Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, Julie Taymor, and Hans Zimmer); Best Orchestrations (Robert Elhai, David Metzger, and Bruce Fowler); Best Scenic Designer (Richard Hudson); Best Costume Designer (Julie Taymor); Best Lighting Designer (Donald Holder); Best Choreographer (Garth Fagan) New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award: Best Musical (1997–1998) (The Lion King)

1997–1998 SEASON     299

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Theatre: The Madison Square Garden Theatre Opening Date: November 18, 1997; Closing Date: January 4, 1998 Performances: 96 This season’s A Christmas Carol was the fourth annual production of Charles Dickens’s traditional Christmas classic at The Madison Square Garden Theatre, and the production continued to follow its own special tradition by featuring a well-known leading man in the role of Scrooge. In fact, for this season both Hal Linden and Roddy McDowall alternated in the role. In his review for the New York Times, Lawrence Van Gelder said the adaptation “may not be all Dickens, but it’s all right.” The evening was often a “soulless spectacle,” but Tony Walton’s sets were “still impressive” and Alan Menken and Lynn Ahrens’s songs were “serviceable if unmemorable.” He noted that McDowall was no Pavarotti, and when it came “to hoisting Tiny Tim on his shoulder,” the actor was no Schwarzenegger. But “as they say in school, he works and plays well with others.” For more information about the musical, see entry for the 1994 production.

STREET CORNER SYMPHONY Theatre: Brooks Atkinson Theatre Opening Date: November 24, 1997; Closing Date: February 1, 1998 Performances: 79 Book: “Conceived” by Marion J. Caffey Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits. Direction: Marion J. Caffey; Producers: Kenneth Waissman and Bryan Bantry (Sharleen Cooper Cohen, Associate Producer); Scenery: Neil Peter Jampolis; Costumes: Jonathan Bixby; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Lon Hoyt Cast: Eugene Fleming (Clarence), Carol Dennis (The Narrator, Mrs. Cynthia), Jose Llana (Jessie-Lee), Catherine Morin (Sukki), C. E. Smith (C.J.), Debra Walton (Debbie), Victor Trent Cook (Chip), Stacy Francis (Susan) The revue was presented in one act. The first part of the revue took place during the 1960s in a neighborhood in Gainesville, Florida, and the second at a “fantasy concert” in the 1970s.

Musical Numbers “Dancing in the Street” (lyric by Marvin Gaye, William Stevenson, and Ivy Jo Hunter) (The Guys); “Dance to the Music” (lyric and music by Sylvester Stewart) (Company); “The Way You Do the Things You Do” (lyric and music by William Robinson and Robert Rogers) (Victor Trent Cook, Eugene Fleming, The Guys); “I Wanna Know Your Name” (lyric and music by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff) (Victor Trent Cook, Company); “My Boyfriend’s Back” (lyric and music by Robert Feldman, Gerald Goldstein, and Richard Gottehrer) (Catherine Morin, Debra Walton, Stacy Francis); “It’s in His Kiss” (“The Shoop Shoop Song”) (lyric and music by Rudy Clark) (Stacy Francis, Catherine Morin, Debra Watson); “Try a Little Tenderness” (lyric and music by Harry Woods, Jimmy Campbell, and Reg Connelly) (Eugene Fleming); “Respect” (lyric and music by Otis Redding) (Carol Dennis, The Girls); “Baby Workout” (lyric and music by Alonzo Tucker and Jackie Wilson) (Jose Llana, Debra Walton, Company); “Dance Chant” (“based on an idea of and inspired by Andre De Shields”) (Company); “Baby Workout” (reprise) (Jose Llana, Debra Walton, Company); “Unchained Melody” (1955 film Unchained; lyric by Hy Zaret, music by Alex North) (C. E. Smith); “Psychedelic Shack” (lyric and music by Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett Strong) (Company); “Cloud Nine” (lyric by Norman J. Whitfield and Barrett Strong) (Company); “I Want to Take You Higher” (lyric and music by Sylvester Stewart) (Company); “Ohio” (lyric and music by Neil Young) (Jose Llana, Company); “Machine Gun” (lyric and music by Jimi Hendrix) (Jose Llana); “American Pie” (lyric and music by Don McLean) (Carol Dennis);

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“Love’s in Need of Love Today” (lyric and music by Stevie Wonder) (Carol Dennis); “Get Ready” (lyric and music by William Robinson Jr.) (Victor Trent Cook, Company); “Want Ads” (lyric and music by J. Perry, B. Perkins, and G. Johnson) (Stacy Francis, Catherine Morin, Debra Walton); “Love Train” (lyric and music by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff) (Eugene Fleming, The Guys); “Oh Girl” (lyric and music by Eugene Record) (Jose Llana, The Guys); “Betcha by Golly Wow” (lyric and music by Thomas Bell and Linda Creed) (Victor Trent Cook, The Guys); “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” (lyric and music by Frederick J. Perren and Kenneth St. Lewis) (The Guys); “Tracks of My Tears” (lyric and music by Marvin Tarplin, Warren Moore, and William Robinson Jr.) (Stacy Francis); “Can I?” (lyric and music by Herman Griffith and Hal Davis) (Victor Trent Cook); “Midnight Train to Georgia” (lyric and music by James D. Weatherly) (Carol Dennis with Eugene Fleming, Jose Llana, and C. E. Smith); “Me and Mrs. Jones” (lyric and music by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, and Cary Gilbert) (The Guys); “Proud Mary” (lyric and music by John Fogerty) (Debra Walton, Catherine Morin, Stacy Francis); “Hold On, I’m Coming” (lyric and music by Isaac Hayes Jr. and David Porter) (C. E. Smith, Eugene Fleming); “Soul Man” (lyric and music by Isaac Hayes Jr. and David Porter) (C. E. Smith, Eugene Fleming); “End of the Road” (lyric and music by Antonio Reid, Daryl Simmons, and Kenneth Edmonds) (Carol Dennis, Company); “Love Train” (reprise) (Company) Who was the intended audience for the revue Street Corner Symphony? Perhaps those discerning souls who consider Smokey Joe’s Café a masterpiece? But Peter Marks in the New York Times noted that if Smokey Joe “is a café” then Street Corner “is a mere takeout counter” that offers “a few watered-down dishes.” The production, which lost its investment of $2.5 million, was a seemingly endless stream of some threedozen songs from the 1960s and 1970s, some familiar and some not-so. The first part of the show offered just the semblance of a book, something to do with a neighborhood in Gainesville, Florida, during the 1960s where teenagers hang out on street corners and sing popular songs of the era. But this “concept” was soon dropped and the second half morphed into a “fantasy concert” that took place in the 1970s. Well, as they say, whatever. After ten weeks of performances, the street corner closed up shop and the neighborhood was no doubt grateful that the kids were off the streets and back to their shop and home ec assignments. Theater World reported that the revue received eleven negative reviews and one mixed. Greg Evans in Variety said the evening was a “sloppily conceived oldies revue,” and David Lefkowitz in Best Plays reported that audiences laughed “in the wrong way” at “the retro costumes” and “sat stonefaced through lengthy versions of ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’ and other tunes more suited to a different demographic” (the song also popped up the following season in Sandra Bernhard’s revue I’m Still Here . . . Damn It!). Marks compared the “underdeveloped showcase” to a “Vegas lounge act” in which only the two-drink minimum was missing. The songs were presented in “witless, roll-’em-out fashion” and soon the cast donned Nehru jackets and peace medallions and one performer actually carried a placard that asked everyone to “Make Love Not War.” All this brought to mind “those square television variety shows” where dancers had “groovy Beatles haircuts and bell bottoms three years after they had ceased being fashionable.” During previews, the revue was presented in two acts. Best Plays indicated that the opening night performance was in two acts, but Theatre World and at least one other source state the premiere was presented in one act. Dropped during previews were: “Try to Remember” (The Fantasticks, 1960; lyric by Tom Jones, music by Harvey Schmidt); “The Way We Were” (1973 film The Way We Were; lyric by Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman, music by Marvin Hamlisch); “Good Old Acapella” (lyric and music by Les Carter and Susan Carter); “My Girl” (lyric and music by William Robinson Jr. and Ronald White); “My Guy” (lyric and music by William Robinson Jr.); “Hot Fun in the Summertime” (lyric and music by Sylvester Stewart); “Grandma’s Hands” (lyric and music by Bill Withers); “(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave” (lyric and music by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Edward Holland Jr.); “Please, Please, Please” (lyric and music by James Brown and Johnny Terry); “A Prayer for C.J.” (based on a “traditional spiritual prayer”); “What’s Going On” (lyric and music by Marvin Gaye, Renaldo Benson, and Alfred Cleveland); “Best of My Love” (lyric and music by Albert McKay and Maurice White); and “Jimmy Mack” (lyricist and composer unknown).

RAGTIME Theatre: Ford Center for the Performing Arts Opening Date: January 18, 1998; Closing Date: January 16, 2000

1997–1998 SEASON     301

Performances: 861 Book: Terrence McNally Lyrics: Lynn Ahrens Music: Stephen Flaherty Based on the 1975 novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow. Direction: Frank Galati; Producers: Livent (U.S.), Inc.; Choreography: Graciela Daniele (Willie Rosario, Assistant Choreographer); Scenery: Eugene Lee; Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Costumes: Santo Loquasto; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: David Loud Cast: Alex Strange (The Little Boy), Mark Jacoby (Father), Marin Mazzie (Mother), Steven Sutcliffe (Mother’s Younger Brother), Conrad McLaren (Grandfather, Foreman), Brian Stokes Mitchell (Coalhouse Walker Jr.), Audra McDonald (Sarah), Tommy Hollis (Booker T. Washington), Peter Friedman (Tateh aka Baron Askenazy), Lea Michele (The Little Girl), Jim Corti (Harry Houdini), Mike O’Carroll (J. P. Morgan, Judge), Larry Daggett (Henry Ford, Policeman, Town Hall Bureaucrat), Judy Kaye (Emma Goldman), Lynnette Perry (Evelyn Nesbit), Kevin Bogue (Stanford White), Colton Green (Harry K. Thaw, Policeman), Rod Campbell (Admiral Peary, Reporter), Duane Martin Foster (Matthew Henson, Black Lawyer, Gang Member), Jeffrey Kuhn (Reporter, Fireman, Clerk), Anne L. Nathan (Brigit, Baron’s Assistant), Anne Kanengeiser (Kathleen, Second Bureaucrat, Welfare Official), Bruce Winant (Doctor, Dirty Old Man, White Lawyer), Vanessa Townsell-Crisp (Sarah’s Friend), Gordon Stanley (Trolley Conductor, Reporter, Charles S. Whitman), David Mucci (Willie Conklin), Joe Locarro (Conductor), Monica L. Richards and Keith LaMelle Thomas (Pas de Deux), Little Coalhouse (role alternated by Michael Redd and Shane Rogers); Ensemble: Shaun Amyot, Darlene Bel Grayson, Kevin Bogue, Sondra M. Bonitto, Jamie Chandler-Torns, Ralph Deaton, Rodrick Dixon, Bernard Dotson, Donna Dunmire, Adam Dyer, Duane Martin Foster, Patty Goble, Colton Green, Elisa Heinsohn, Anne Kanengeiser, Jeffrey Kuhn, Joe Langworth, Joe Locarro, Anne L. Nathan, Panchali Null, Mimi Quillin, Monica L. Richards, Orgena Rose, Gordon Stanley, Angela Teek, Keith LaMelle Thomas, Allyson Tucker, Leon Williams, Bruce Winant The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place mostly in New York City, New Rochelle, Atlantic City, and Lawrence, Massachusetts, during the turn of the twentieth century.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Ragtime” (Company); “Goodbye, My Love” (Marin Mazzie); “Journey On” (Mark Jacoby, Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman); “The Crime of the Century” (Lynnette Perry, Steven Sutcliffe, Ensemble); “What Kind of Woman” (Marin Mazzie); “A Shtetl iz Amerike” (Peter Friedman, Lea Michele, Immigrants); “Success” (Peter Friedman, Mike O’Carroll, Jim Corti, Ensemble); “Gettin’ Ready Rag” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Ensemble); “Henry Ford” (Larry Daggett, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Ensemble); “Nothing Like the City” (Peter Friedman, Marin Mazzie, Alex Strange, Lea Michele); “Your Daddy’s Son” (Audra McDonald); “New Music” (Mark Jacoby, Marin Mazzie, Steven Sutcliffe, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Ensemble); “Wheels of a Dream” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald); “The Night That Goldman Spoke at Union Square” (Steven Sutcliffe, Judy Kaye, Ensemble); “Lawrence, Massachusetts” (Ensemble); “Gliding” (Peter Friedman); “Justice” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Ensemble); “President” (Audra McDonald); “Till We Reach That Day” (Vanessa Townsell-Crisp, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Judy Kaye, Steven Sutcliffe, Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman, Ensemble) Act Two: “Henry Houdini, Master Escapist” (Alex Strange, Jim Corti); “Coalhouse’s Soliloquy” (Brian Stokes Mitchell); “Coalhouse Demands” (Ensemble); “What a Game!” (Mark Jacoby, Alex Strange, Ensemble); “Atlantic City” (Lynnette Perry, Jim Corti); “New Music” (reprise) (Mark Jacoby); “Atlantic City” (Part Two) (Ensemble); “The Crime of the Century” (reprise) (Lynnette Perry); “Henry Houdini, Master Escapist” (reprise) (Jim Corti); “Buffalo Nickel Photoplay, Inc.” (Peter Friedman); “Our Children” (Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman); “Sarah Brown Eyes” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald); “He Wanted to Say” (Judy Kaye, Steven Sutcliffe, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Coalhouse’s Men); “Back to Before” (Marin Mazzie); “Look What You’ve Done” (Tommy Hollis, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Coalhouse’s Men); “Make Them Hear You” (Brian Stokes Mitchell); “Ragtime” (reprise) and “Wheels of a Dream” (reprise) (Company)

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Ragtime was a major disappointment that collapsed under the weight of its narrow political and sociological boundaries, the kind of show that idolized Emma Goldman and damned J. P. Morgan. Based on E. L. Doctorow’s vastly overrated but moderately entertaining 1975 novel of the same name, the story was a kaleidoscopic look at factual and fictional turn-of-the-twentieth-century characters in a United States on the cusp of political, social, and cultural changes. The musical was a well-meaning if pretentious and politically correct cartoon crammed with information and bulging with over-the-top dramatic episodes presented one after the other in breathless Saturdayafternoon-movie-serial fashion. There was never time to reflect upon the events and the fates of the characters because there was always the next big scene or announcement coming up (a baby is buried alive by its mother but is saved at the last minute by a stranger; because of a misunderstanding, a character is fatally shot by police; another becomes a terrorist who plans to kill policemen and blow up New York City; and another goes down with the Lusitania). And it didn’t help that the laughably self-important papier-mâché characters spouted and sang an endless litany of smug, more-sensitive-than-thou notions from Sociology 101. There were four groups of characters: an unnamed WASP family from New Rochelle headed by Father (Mark Jacoby) and Mother (Marin Mazzie); the black piano player Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Brian Stokes Mitchell) and his lover Sarah (Audra McDonald); the Jewish immigrant and widower Tateh (Peter Friedman) and his unnamed little girl; and an array of historical figures from the era, including J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, Evelyn Nesbitt, Booker T. Washington, and, yes, Emma Goldman. In one way or another, the lives of all these people intersect during the Age of Ragtime. The musical insulted the audience with its simplistic, preachy, and condescending approach to serious issues, as if perhaps theatre patrons were either unaware or too stupid to know that racism and sexism are unacceptable. The show further suggested that WASP males are the root of all evil, some because they are scions of industry and therefore automatically despicable capitalists and others because of their general passivity and lack of interest in social concerns. The well-meaning Father is hardly a villain, but as a WASP Male he Gets His when he books passage on the last voyage of the Lusitania, a convenient event that allows Mother to marry Tateh (and Father is clearly a pariah because he’s both a patriot and a businessman, and his company manufactures American flags; fireworks; and red, white, and blue bunting). Mother, on the other hand, is a sensitive soul, a feminist before her time who seeks only to Become Her Own Person and sings one of the score’s most laborious songs (“Back to Before”), which clearly aspired to become the feminist national anthem. The work’s greatest failure was its condescending and confusing depictions of Coalhouse Walker and Sarah, both of whom are clearly meant to be the evening’s heroes. But their actions are despicable, and it was difficult to care about them. Sarah buries alive her unwanted baby boy, and the child is saved only because Mother happens to come upon it, and when Coalhouse is victimized by racists he becomes a terrorist and he and his cohorts set fires all over New York City and later threaten the city with bombs and guns when they take over the Morgan Library. The musical suggested Sarah and Coalhouse’s actions are excusable because they are victims of an uncaring society, but her crime of attempted murder and his of terrorism are just as unacceptable as the ones they themselves object to. Better writing could have made Coalhouse and Sarah more understandable and more sympathetic, and their eventual deaths should have made powerful statements. But the book made it impossible to care about them, and, curiously, the script also depicted them as hopelessly simple and naïve. At the beginning of the musical, why does Coalhouse seem so unaware of racism and why is he so trusting of everyone? The musical’s thesis is that racism is rampant in America, and so as a black man at the turn of the twentieth century wouldn’t Coalhouse have acquired some psychological armor and a tougher skin in order to instinctively protect himself against those who wish him harm? And why would Sarah break through a line of policemen and secret service agents in a futile attempt to bring her and Coalhouse’s grievances to the vice president? Wouldn’t she have figured out that with the recent assassination of President McKinley it might not be wise to approach the vice president by breaking through a barricade of police and running toward him with her arms outstretched and her hands pointed at him while shouting about injustice? Tateh is a poor Jewish immigrant who becomes a street entertainer but soon realizes the new medium of film can be used for social instruction to the masses. So he plans to create a series of movies that depict a racially diverse group of children and their adventures (Our Rascally Racially Diverse Little Gang, one supposes). Although the musical frowns upon wealth, it’s presumably acceptable for Tateh to become a rich film director because he’s an artiste and not a mere money-grubbing capitalist.

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Once Father sinks with the Lusitania, Mother and Tateh are free to marry, and along with Mother’s son, Tateh’s daughter, and Sarah and Coalhouse’s orphaned son, the quintet walk off into the sunrise of an enlightened era. The truly sad aspect of Ragtime is that it wasn’t a parody of politically correct notions and was instead meant to be taken seriously. It had the potential to make an incisive statement about social change but opted to deal with important issues through the prism of a simplistic bleeding-heart sensibility. Although the book was a hopeless hodgepodge of half-baked notions and sketchily written characters, a strong score could have perhaps salvaged the evening. But the songs were generally as tiresome and superficial as the book. There were the familiar over-the-top Euro-pop power numbers that sometimes came across like political-club tirades (“New Music,” “Wheels of a Dream,” “Till We Reach That Day,” “Make Them Hear You”), the wimpy feminist ballad (“Back to Before”), and an extraneous would-be, feel-good song about baseball (“What a Game!”). The story’s most potentially interesting figure was Evelyn Nesbitt (Lynnette Perry), who unfortunately was reduced to virtual walk-on status and whose specialty number (“The Crime of the Century”) completely missed the complexity of one of the most fascinating chapters in American history. Only once did a striking musical number emerge from the cobwebs: the opening title song was stunningly written and staged as it depicted WASPs, blacks, and Jewish and other immigrants singing and dancing in their separate environments but ready to pounce upon one another at the slightest hint of provocation. If Ragtime had sustained the level of the opening song, it might have been a musical to reckon with. The show played on Broadway for two years but lost a good portion of its investment, its national tour was a disappointment, and the London production, which opened at the Piccadilly Theatre on March 19, 2003, ran for three months (reportedly this version was to have been a limited engagement, but one presumes had it been successful would have opted for an open-end run). These ominous signs should have told future producers that perhaps Ragtime isn’t a show that resonates with most audiences. But for some reason the musical was recklessly revived less than ten years after its Broadway closing, and this time around it flopped after just fifty-seven performances and lost its entire $8.5 million investment (the production opened on November 15, 2009, at the Neil Simon Theatre and cut one sequence, “Harry Houdini, Master Escapist”). The musical’s creators and its various producers clearly believe Ragtime is a musical of Big Themes on the level of Show Boat. But the smug and preachy tone of Ragtime will always work against it, and unless radically revised it’s likely to be little more than a well-meaning but seriously flawed theatrical footnote. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “bafflingly static” musical was “utterly resistible” and lacked “chemistry” and “human personality” with characters who were like “Identikit personages.” The musical had “the earnestness of a civics lesson” and was like “an instructional diorama in a pavilion at a world’s fair” that had been “assembled by corporate committee.” Although the evening offered “scant opportunities for energetic dancing” and the score included “a numbing succession of open-throated anthems,” the show was “a spectacular feast for the eyes” and the respective scenic, costume, and lighting designers (Eugene Lee, Santo Loquasto, and Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer) were “all at the top of their form.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby noted that the work was “a long, elaborate, sobersided musical pageant” that lacked an “urgent identity,” and said that soon “a kind of blur” set in. But the opening number was a “knockout” and he suggested that overall the score was better on CD than in performance. However, the score turned into a “nonstop series of personal epiphanies and gallant resolves to plug on,” and one soon became “numb to these hopes, which are expressed without irony.” Canby singled out Lee’s décor, which was “magically fluid” and evoked “the way this country looked (or might have looked in a dream).” Greg Evans in Variety found the musical “a long-winded affair, bloated and more than a little self-important” and far “easier to admire than love.” The story offered “one-note personalities” with little “emotional depth,” and the “ranting” of Emma Goldman and the “righteousness” of Booker T. Washington became “very tiresome.” The “repetitive” second act managed to be “overwrought and dull,” and some of the “character problems lie in the performances,” such as McDonald, who “overplays Sarah’s teary melodrama.” But Richard Zoglin in Time said Ragtime was “a brilliant work of musical storytelling.” John Lahr in the New Yorker hailed the “magnificent” show that told its story “through an eloquent filigree of visual historical detail” and compared it to Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Show Boat (1927) and Noel Coward’s Cavalcade (1931). And Fintan O’Toole in the New York Daily News praised the “thrillingly entertaining spectacle” (but noted the score had “to carry a load of information,” which resulted in “some functional music and murky lyrics”).

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In her review of the 2009 revival, Elisabeth Vincentelli in the New York Post noted that McNally seemed “to have never seen a heartstring he didn’t want to pluck” and that Ahrens’s lyrics were “leaden” and “jejune.” Flaherty’s music was sometimes “derivative” with patches of Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber (“particularly on the several big park-and-bark ballads”), and “Gettin’ Ready Rag” was less “genuine” ragtime” than ragtime as heard through the prism of John Kander. But Flaherty wasn’t afraid “to aim for the grandiose,” and he delivered when it came to the choral sequences. The musical premiered on December 8, 1996, at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts in Toronto, Ontario, and played there for a long run, and a Los Angeles production opened on June 15, 1997. Songs deleted prior to the New York production were “The Show Biz” and “I Have a Feeling.” As Songs from “Ragtime” (BMG/RCA Victor Records # 09026-68629-2), the score was recorded about six months before the Toronto opening and included most of the leading cast members for both the original Toronto and Broadway productions (with the major exception of Camille Saviola, who played Emma Goldman and was succeeded by Judy Kaye for New York). The CD includes the cut song “The Show Biz.” The Broadway cast album was recorded on a two-CD set by BMG/RCA Victor (# 09026-63167-2) and includes a bonus track (“The Ragtime Symphonic Suite”), and “Ragtime”: Themes from the Hit Musical by The Brad Ellis Little Big Band was released by Varese Sarabande (CD # VSD-5880). A 2002 British concert version of the musical was telecast on BBC Four. Ragtime was the first production to open at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, a new venue that combined the interiors of the former Lyric and Apollo Theatres but retained the original façade of the Lyric. With almost two thousand seats, the house was somewhat problematic because like the Uris/Gershwin only big shows were comfortable fits there and they had to sell an inordinate number of seats each week in order to meet their weekly nut. Since the opening of Ragtime, the theatre had undergone three name changes, the Hilton, the Foxwoods, and now in circular fashion has reverted to one of its earliest names, the Lyric. The Lyric is now the permanent New York home of the Cirque du Soleil, and the first production to play there was Paramour, which opened on May 25, 2016.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Ragtime); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Peter Friedman); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Brian Stokes Mitchell); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Marin Mazzie); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Audra McDonald); Best Director of a Musical (Frank Galati); Best Book (Terrence McNally); Best Score (lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, music by Stephen Flaherty); Best Orchestrations (William David Brohn); Best Scenic Designer (Eugene Lee); Best Costume Designer (Santo Loquasto); Best Lighting Designer (Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer); Best Choreographer (Graciela Daniele)

THE CAPEMAN Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: January 29, 1998; Closing Date: March 28, 1998 Performances: 68 Book and Lyrics: Paul Simon and Derek Walcott Music: Paul Simon Direction and Choreography: Mark Morris; Producers: Plenaro Productions, Dan Klores, Brad Grey, Edgar Dobie, and James L. Nederlander in association with Dreamworks Records and King World Productions, Inc. (Stephen Eich, Coproducer); Scenery and Costumes: Bob Crowley; Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Lighting: Natasha Katz; Musical Direction: Oscar Hernandez Cast: Evan Jay Newman (Salvi Agron, age 7), Ednita Nazario (Esmeralda Agron), Ruben Blades (Salvador Agron, ages 36–41), Marc Anthony (Sal Agron, ages 16–20), Julio Monge (Carlos Apache), Raymond Rodriguez (Angel Soto), Ray Rodriguez-Rosa (Frenchy Cordero), Lugo (Babu Charlie Cruz), Renoly Santiago (Tony Hernandez), Philip Hernandez (Reverend Gonzalez), Michelle Rios (Aurea Agron, ages 17–43), Tara Ann Villanueva (Aurea Agron, age 8), Ray De La Paz (Santero), Nestor Sanchez (Lazarus), Sophia Salguero (Bernadette), Natascia A. Diaz (Yolanda), Elan (Cookie), Cass Morgan (Mrs. Young), Luba Mason (Mrs.

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Krzesinski), Sara Ramirez (Wahzinak), John Lathan (First Inmate), John Jellison (Warden), Jose Joaquin Garcia (Luis), Stephen Lee Anderson (Virgil); Doo-Wop Group: Milton Cardona, Ray De La Paz, Myrna Lynn Gomila, Roger Mazzeo, Frank Negron, Yassmin Alers, Kia Joy Goodwin; Children’s Choir: Evan Jay Newman, Sebastian Perez, Khalid Rivera, Amanda A. Vacharat, Tara Ann Villanueva; People at the Asilo, Celebrants, People on New York Street, Inmates, Guards, Immigrants, Guests, Salesclerks: Yassmin Alers, Stephen Lee Anderson, Milton Cardona, Rene Ceballos, Tony Chiroldes, Ray De La Paz, Elan, Jose Joaquin Garcia, Myrna Lynn Gomila, Kia Joy Goodwin, Elise Hernandez, John Jellison, John Lathan, Lugo, Luba Mason, Roger Mazzeo, Claudia Montiel, Marisol Morales, Frank Negron, Evan Jay Newman, Sebastian Perez, Mark Price, Sara Ramirez, Khalid Rivera, Ray Rodriguez-Rosa, Raymond Rodriguez, Ramon Saldana, Claudette Sierra, Amanda A. Vacharat, Tara Ann Villanueva The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the period 1959–1979 in New York City, Puerto Rico, locations throughout New York State, and Arizona.

Musical Numbers Act One: “El Coqui” (Children’s Choir, Ruben Blades); “Born in Puerto Rico” (Ruben Blades, Marc Anthony, Julio Monge, Raymond Rodriguez, Ray Rodriguez-Rosa, Lugo, Renoly Santiago, Philip Hernandez); “In Mayaguez” (Ruben Blades, Ednita Nazario, Nuns, Children); “The Santero” (Nestor Sanchez, Ednita Nazario, Ray De La Paz, Celebrants); “Chimes” (Ednita Nazario); “Satin Summer Nights” (Marc Anthony, Sophia Salguero, Elan, Renoly Santiago, Doo-Wop Group); “Bernadette” (Marc Anthony, Sophia Salguero, Doo-Wop Group); “The Vampires” (Renoly Santiago, Marc Anthony, Julio Monge, Raymond Rodriguez, Ray Rodriguez-Rosa, Lugo, Doo-Wop Group); “Shopliftin’ Clothes” (Marc Anthony, Renoly Santiago, Julio Monge, Raymond Rodriguez, Ray Rodriguez-Rosa, Lugo, Sales Clerks, Doo-Wop Group); “Dance to a Dream” (Julio Monge, Natascia A. Diaz, Sophia Salguero, Marc Anthony); “Quality” (Sophia Salguero, Natascia A. Diaz, Elan, Marc Anthony, Ruben Blades, Doo-Wop Group); “Manhunt” (Ruben Blades, Julio Monge, Marc Anthony, Renoly Santiago, Ensemble); “Can I Forgive Him” (Ednita Nazario, Cass Morgan, Luba Mason); “Adios Hermanos” (Marc Anthony, Ruben Blades, Michelle Rios, Renoly Santiago, Sophia Salguero, Natascia A. Diaz, Ensemble) Act Two: “Jesus es mi Señor” (Congregants, Philip Hernandez, Ednita Nazario, Michelle Rios, Sophia Salguero, Natascia A. Diaz, Nestor Sanchez); “Sunday Afternoon” (Ednita Nazario); “Time Is an Ocean” (Marc Anthony, Ruben Blades, Ednita Nazario); “Wahzinak’s First Letter” (Sara Ramirez); “Killer Wants to Go to College” (John Lathan, John Jellison, Inmates); “Virgil” (Stephen Lee Anderson, John Jellison); “Wahzinak’s Letter” (Duet) (Ruben Blades, Sara Ramirez); “My Only Defense” (Marc Anthony); “Virgil and the Warden” (Stephen Lee Anderson, Ruben Blades, John Jellison); “El Malecon” (Ruben Blades, Evan Jay Newman, Tara Ann Villanueva, Ednita Nazario); “You Fucked Up My Life” (Raymond Rodriguez, Lugo, Marc Anthony, Renoly Santiago, Ray Rodriguez-Rosa, Ruben Blades, Doo-Wop Group); “Lazarus” and “Last Drop of Blood” (Nestor Sanchez, Ruben Blades, Cass Morgan, Ensemble); “Wahzinak’s Last Letter” (Sara Ramirez); “El Coqui” (reprise) (Children’s Choir, Ruben Blades); “Tony Hernandez” (Ruben Blades, Renoly Santiago); “Carlos and Yolanda” (Michelle Rios, Ruben Blades, Julio Monge, Natascia A. Diaz, Ensemble); “Sal’s Last Song” (Ruben Blades, Ednita Nazario); “Esmeralda’s Dream” (Ednita Nazario, Marc Anthony, Doo-Wop Group) Paul Simon’s The Capeman was the musical train wreck of the decade, a debacle of titanic proportions that at sixty-eight performances was the season’s shortest-running commercial musical and its most expensive. The musical lost its entire $11 million investment, and for its time was the costliest flop in Broadway history. The announcement of its closing even made the front pages of the New York Daily News (“Simon Says: Bye-Bye Broadway!”) and the New York Post (“Paul’s $11M Flop”), and at the end of the year the Post gave out its “naughty and nice” awards, with one of the latter going to “the theatre-going public” for turning “its collective back on Paul Simon’s Broadway musical The Capeman, which glorified the 1950s multiple killer.” Simon and his co-lyricist and co-librettist Derek Walcott clearly intended to create a serious and thoughtful musical based on the tabloids from 1959, but unfortunately they stumbled headfirst with their bleeding-heart

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approach to the true story of cold-blooded killer Sal Agron (Marc Anthony), a member of the Puerto Rican street gang called The Vampires, who was known as the Capeman because he wore a black cape with a blood-red lining. No doubt many audience members were turned off by the sympathetic portrait of Agron, and perhaps potential ticket buyers were alienated as well when they heard about Simon’s musical mea culpa. The book and lyrics were unfocused and worked overtime in a futile attempt to “explain” and absolve Agron, who brutally murdered two innocent white teenagers when he mistook them for members of a rival street gang. The musical ignored and diminished the horror of what Agron’s victims suffered (Agron’s fellow Vampires held them down while he repeatedly stabbed them), and the writing and staging attempted to sidestep and neutralize the murders by presenting them in a vague manner on a semi-darkened stage. Vincent Canby in the New York Times said the “crucial scene” occurred “at the back of the stage, where it is so dimly lighted, and so fleetingly mimed, that you can’t be sure what is supposed to be going on,” and John Simon in New York noted this staging was meant to “minimize” the reality of Agron’s crimes. (Further, the cover chosen for the program and album cover was an attempt to soften Agron by using a photograph from his childhood, not the famous one of the handcuffed Agron in police headquarters where he told a reporter, “I feel like killing you, that’s what I feel like” and “I don’t care if I burn; my mother could watch me.”) The real-life Agron alleged that he was arrested for the murders because society was racist, but as Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker stated, “Agron’s guilt wasn’t caused by prejudice—it was caused by Agron.” However, the musical’s politics predictably viewed Agron as a victim undone by the prejudice of a racist society, and preposterously suggested that even the evil nuns back in his Puerto Rican childhood (who spanked him when he wet himself) and his brutal stepfather were part of the fabric that led him astray. John Simon noted that the work was “as much a moral fiasco as an artistic failure,” and so when the Vampires shoplift they’re presented as “fun-loving con artists” while the shopkeepers are portrayed as “grotesque capitalists.” And in the prison scenes, a white guard was of course depicted as a clichéd racist redneck. Franklin noted that the musical wasn’t free “of its prison of stale ideas,” and Paul Simon inadvertently ensured “that The Capeman will hang by its own hand.” John Simon wasn’t surprised that the lyrics and music of Paul Simon and Walcott “seamlessly” blended because “why shouldn’t the overinflated troubadour and the overrated laureate of p.c. mesh serendipitously?” The musical also played up the notion that Agron somehow came to espouse repentance in prison and even found religion along the way, more clichés that went hand in hand with the quaint bleeding-heart notion that criminals are hapless victims of society who miraculously redeem themselves and find God as soon as they step into the slammer. Agron was released from prison after only twenty years of incarceration, but fate stepped in and he died of a heart attack shortly before his forty-third birthday. If the musical’s politics were suspect, so was the musical’s framework, which included sequences that made little dramatic sense. For reasons best known to the authors, Saint Lazarus (Nestor Sanchez) wandered in and out of the proceedings, perhaps as a symbol that Agron too can undergo resurrection and embark on a new life. And midway through the second act the musical went off on a wild tangent when it delved into one Wahzinak (Sara Ramirez), whom Greg Evans in Variety described as “an Indian hippie chick” and a “bellbottomed cliché” who was given “no less than three musical numbers.” Wahzinak is Agron’s prison pen pal, and much was made of Agron’s escape from a correctional facility in order to head off to Arizona and meet her (and Lazarus just happens to be hanging around Arizona, too). The musical was picketed because many felt Paul Simon and Walcott had glorified Agron, but one suspects there would have been no outrage and hard feelings if the writers had created a fictional story instead of one that used as its basis a relatively recent real-life crime, one in which the victims’ families and friends were still alive and had to deal with their losses each and every day. A few critics noted that Carousel, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Jekyll & Hyde had violent leading men, but the critics forgot that Billy Bigelow, Sweeney Todd, and Jekyll/Hyde are fictional characters, that Sweeney and Hyde killed fictional victims, and that the stories took place in the nineteenth century. The Capeman dealt with real events and people, and the two murders were too recent and the memories of them were too raw. The material certainly had the potential to be a stirring musical, but The Capeman wasn’t it. Even if the evening had managed to avoid its parade of clichés, the script was meandering and the staging was insufferably slow and desultory. The characters were underwritten, the evening failed to give the audience anyone to care about, and the various remnants of the plot sputtered along without cohesion and failed to provide a cathartic ending for the audience, let alone the leading character.

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If Paul Simon’s score had been vital and theatrical, the show might have at least worked on a musical level. But many of the songs were the usual pastiche of 1950s popular music and salsa rhythms and were more atmospheric in nature than plot and character driven. John Simon noted that the score carried “monotony to maniacal lengths” and each song was “about as individual as a machine-chopped slice of chorizo.” And David Richards in the Washington Post said the score had “little of the forward rush and psychological immediacy that makes for true theatre songs,” and despite the show’s “combustible subject” the score was “unduly contemplative.” The musical utilized three performers to play Agron: Salvi Agron as a little boy (Evan Jay Newman), Sal Agron as a young man (Anthony), and Salvador Agron as the older Sal (Ruben Blades). Blades’s performance was dreary and monotonous (John Simon said the actor put on “his best Mount Rushmore face and moves as if in cement shoes,” Franklin said he projected “negative charisma,” and Richards found him “stony-faced”), but Anthony was a vital and smoldering presence and his performance suggested Agron was always on the verge of exploding at any given moment. It wasn’t Anthony’s fault that the script and score failed him, and it was Broadway’s loss that he never again appeared in another musical. One would have liked to see his interpretation of such dramatic musical roles as Billy Bigelow and Sweeney Todd. Besides Anthony, the evening’s other star was scenic designer Bob Crowley, who provided dazzling and dizzying visuals with skewed perspectives (a snail’s-eye view from a tenement courtyard of the towers of the buildings topped with a night sky, and, conversely, a bird’s-eye view of prisoners in a recreation room). The musical went through a slow deathwatch of fifty-nine previews, during which the media discussed the flurry of rewriting and the comings-and-goings of creative personnel. Ben Brantley in the New York Times reported that before Mark Morris was hired as director and choreographer, the show had already gone through two other directors (Susana Tubert and Eric Simonson), and although Morris continued as the director and choreographer of record, he was unofficially replaced by director Jerry Zaks (who reportedly reshaped parts of the show and trimmed the evening by thirty minutes) and choreographer Joey McKneely. As work on the show continued, the opening night was delayed by three weeks, from January 8 to January 29. During the preview period, the role of Carmen (played by Claudette Sierra) was eliminated, and the following songs were cut: “Puerto Rican Day Parade,” “Carmen,” “Christmas in the Mountains,” “Trailways Bus,” and “The Mission.” Variety reported that of its tally of seventeen print and television reviews, sixteen were unfavorable and one was mixed. Richards said the musical was “West Side Story on a mega-dose of Valium” and complained that few numbers in the score “actually dramatize the characters’ emotions.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today pronounced the musical a “dud” that was “so stilted” it made The Phantom of the Opera “seem naturalistic.” And while Greg Evans in Variety praised the score, performances, and décor, he noted that the “unfocused” book was “neither here nor there” and the script was unable to “explain its own fascination with the punk, much less convince the audience to care.” Canby said the work was a “failure, but not one whose vulgarity is perversely entertaining”; he noted The Capeman wasn’t “vulgar at all, just inept” (and considering that Morris was the choreographer, Canby noted that The Capeman appeared “to have less dancing than Death of a Salesman”). Brantley said the “sad, benumbed spectacle” might “be unparalleled in its wholesale squandering of illustrious talents.” The “solemn, helplessly confused drone” of a show was “like watching a mortally wounded animal” and “practically nothing that’s said, done and shown on the stage seems to connect with anything else.” Although the music “hooks you at the beginning,” it “never seems to take you anywhere,” and the “flattened” lyrics were “information-crammed stretches of exposition,” “sloganeering pronouncements,” and “fancier phrases” that fell “with a thud.” Brantley and other critics were especially quick to pounce on such a pretentious and empty line as “Time is an ocean of endless tears,” and one suspected “Endless tears are an ocean of time” or “An ocean of time has endless tears” could have been substituted and made just as much sense. In an oh, please moment, Clive Barnes in the New York Post announced that the score was “the best” on Broadway and was “the most bewitching and bewitched Broadway score in years.” But he noted the musical wasn’t “dramatic,” the book was “a series of awkward scenes,” and the ending was anticlimactic. Prior to the Broadway production, Paul Simon’s Songs from “The Capeman” was released by Warner Brothers Records (CD # 9-46814-2), and the singers include Simon as well as Broadway cast members Anthony, Blades, and Nazario. The collection includes two sequences of “Killer Wants to Go to College” as well as “Trailways Bus,” which was cut during previews. The original Broadway cast album was recorded but

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went unreleased for years; it was later issued by Decca Broadway Records as a digital download of two disks on iTunes, and includes “Trailways Bus.” On April 1, 2008, Songs from ‘The Capeman’ was presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theatre in concert format for three performances. The cast included seventeen singers, and the fourteenpiece Spanish Harlem Orchestra was helmed by Oscar Hernandez, who also conducted the original Broadway production. Simon wasn’t part of the regular cast, but made a cameo appearance and sang “Trailways Bus.” Ben Ratliff in the New York Times said some of the songs were “unremarkable exercises” while others were “mysterious and beautiful.” Dan Aquilante in the New York Post praised the “tragic urban opera” and went so far as to state The Capeman could now “take its rightful place in the great American songbook” along with Porgy and Bess and West Side Story, for here was “a classic tragedy, firmly rooted in modern times.” On the other hand, Jim Farber in the New York Daily News said the work was “still a tepid, ponderous and repetitive affair,” and while as a concert the evening had its “moments,” as a show “it only proved the critics got it right the first time.” Another version of the musical was presented at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park on August 14, 2010, for three performances. The concert was directed by Diane Paulus, who said the new presentation was more in the nature of an oratorio with a streamlined book that cut about an hour’s worth of the original libretto; Hernandez was again the musical director, and Natascia A. Diaz, who played Yolanda in the original production, now portrayed Agron’s mother Esmeralda. Brantley suggested the setting of Central Park seemed to work in the show’s favor, and the sounds of New York (sirens, barking dogs, and planes overhead) “melded into a scrappy, percussive counterpoint to Mr. Simon’s summoning of a city that is always an unexpected symphony of fractured calls and responses.” One of Agron’s fellow gang members was Tony Hernandez (Renoly Santiago), who was known as The Umbrella Man due to his affectation of always carrying an umbrella. Theatergoers everywhere can be thankful that Simon and Walcott avoided a sequel about The Umbrella Man.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Score (lyrics by Paul Simon and Derek Walcott, music by Paul Simon); Best Orchestrations (Stanley Silverman); Best Scenic Designer (Bob Crowley)

THE SOUND OF MUSIC Theatre: Martin Beck Theatre Opening Date: March 12, 1998; Closing Date: June 27, 1999 Performances: 540 Book: Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II; additional lyrics by Richard Rodgers Music: Richard Rodgers Based on the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta von Trapp. Direction: Susan H. Schulman; Producers: Hallmark, Steven Baruch, Richard Frankel, Thomas Viertel, and Jujamcyn Theatres in association with The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, Charles Kelman Productions, Simone Genatt Haft, Marc Routh, Jay Binder, and Robert Halmi Jr. (James D. Stern and Pace Theatrical Group, Associate Producers); Choreography: Michael Lichtefeld; Scenery: Heidi Ettinger; Costumes: Catherine Zuber; Lighting: Paul Gallo; Musical Direction: Michael Rafter Cast: Jeanne Lehman (Sister Margaretta), Gina Ferrall (Sister Berthe), Patti Cohenour (The Mother Abbess), Ann Brown (Sister Sophia), Rebecca Luker (Maria Rainer), Michael Siberry (Captain Georg von Trapp), John Curless (Franz), Patricia Conolly (Frau Schmidt), Sara Zelle (Liesl von Trapp), Ryan Hopkins (Friedrich von Trapp), Natalie Hall (Louisa von Trapp), Matthew Ballinger (Kurt von Trapp), Tracy Alison Walsh (Brigitta von Trapp), Andrea Bowen (Marta von Trapp), Ashley Rose Orr (Gretl von Trapp), Dashiell Eaves (Rolf Gruber), Lynn C. Pinto (Ursula), Jan Maxwell (Elsa Schraeder), Fred Applegate (Max Detweiler), Timothy Landfield (Herr Zeller), Gannon McHale (Baron Elberfeld), Martha Hawley (Baroness Elberfeld), Laura Benanti (A New Postulant), Reno Roop (Admiral Van Schreiber); Neighbors and Servants of Captain

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von Trapp, Novices, Postulants, Priests, Clerics, Nazis, and Contestants in the Festival Concert: Anne Allgood, Joan Barber, Laura Benanti, Ann Brown, Patricia Conolly, Gina Ferrall, Natalie Hall, Martha Hawley, Kelly Cae Hogan, Siri Howard, Matt Loney, Patricia Phillips, Lynn C. Pinto, Reno Roop, Kristie Dale Sanders, Ben Sheaffer, Sara Zelle The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Austria during early 1938.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Preludium”: “Dixit Dominus,” “Morning Hymn,” and “Alleluia” (Patti Cohenour, Jeanne Lehman, Gina Ferrall, Ann Brown, Nuns, Novices, Postulants); “The Sound of Music” (Rebecca Luker); “Maria” (Patti Cohenour, Jeanne Lehman, Gina Ferrall, Ann Brown); “I Have Confidence” (lyric by Richard Rodgers) (Rebecca Luker); “Do-Re-Mi” (Rebecca Luker, Sara Zelle, Ryan Hopkins, Natalie Hall, Matthew Ballinger, Tracy Alison Walsh, Andrea Bowen, Ashley Rose Orr); “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” (Dashiell Eaves, Sara Zelle); “My Favorite Things” (Rebecca Luker, Sara Zelle, Ryan Hopkins, Natalie Hall, Matthew Ballinger, Tracy Alison Walsh, Andrea Bowen, Ashley Rose Orr); “How Can Love Survive?” (Fred Applegate, Jan Maxwell); “The Sound of Music” (reprise) (Michael Siberry, Sara Zelle, Ryan Hopkins, Natalie Hall, Matthew Ballinger, Tracy Alison Walsh, Andrea Bowen, Ashley Rose Orr, Rebecca Luker); “Laendler” (dance) (Orchestra with Rebecca Luker, Matthew Ballinger, and Michael Siberry); “So Long, Farewell” (Sara Zelle, Ryan Hopkins, Natalie Hall, Matthew Ballinger, Tracy Alison Walsh, Andrea Bowen, Ashley Rose Orr); “Morning Hymn” (reprise) (Patti Cohenour, Nuns, Novices, Postulants); “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” (Patti Cohenour) Act Two: Opening Act II (Fred Applegate, Sara Zelle, Ryan Hopkins, Natalie Hall, Matthew Ballinger, Tracy Alison Walsh, Andrea Bowen, Ashley Rose Orr); “No Way to Stop It” (Jan Maxwell, Fred Applegate, Michael Siberry); “Something Good” (lyric by Richard Rodgers) (Rebecca Luker, Michael Siberry); “Wedding Processional” and “Canticle” (Patti Cohenour, Nuns, Novices, Postulants); “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” (reprise) (Rebecca Luker, Sara Zelle); “The Lonely Goatherd” (Rebecca Luker, Michael Siberry, Sara Zelle, Ryan Hopkins, Natalie Hall, Matthew Ballinger, Tracy Alison Walsh, Andrea Bowen, Ashley Rose Orr); “Edelweiss” (Michael Siberry, Rebecca Luker, Sara Zelle, Ryan Hopkins, Natalie Hall, Matthew Ballinger, Tracy Alison Walsh, Andrea Bowen, Ashley Rose Orr); “So Long, Farewell” (reprise) (Rebecca Luker, Michael Siberry, Sara Zelle, Ryan Hopkins, Natalie Hall, Matthew Ballinger, Tracy Alison Walsh, Andrea Bowen, Ashley Rose Orr); Finale Ultimo (Patti Cohenour, Nuns, Novices, Postulants) The current production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1959 musical The Sound of Music was the show’s third New York revival. The first was presented in 1967, and the second in 1990 (for more information about the musical, see entry for the latter production). The revival interpolated the two songs written for the 1965 film adaptation, “I Have Confidence” and “Something Good” (both with lyrics and music by Richard Rodgers); retained the cynical songs “How Can Love Survive?” and “No Way to Stop It,” which had been omitted from the film; and deleted “An Ordinary Couple,” which wasn’t used in the film and was replaced by “Something Good.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the evening “the same old cup of treacle” and “a skilled if crude piece of manipulation,” the kind of show that “will always, on some level, work” but on another level “will always nauseate.” Rebecca Luker’s Maria was a “refreshing presence,” Michael Siberry as the Captain seemed “to be doing a Ronald Coleman imitation,” and the performers playing the seven von Trapp children were “appealing and polished without being like sugary automations” despite the “gag quotient” when they jumped up and down on a bed and imitated cuckoo clocks. Brantley noted that Heidi Ettinger’s sets were appropriate enough but “slightly cheesy-looking” because their vistas of the Austrian Alps brought to mind “those trick postcards that give the illusion of three dimensions.” The show curtain itself offered images “of those glass balls you shake” to create snowfall effects, and this visual was an “implicit announcement” that the audience was “about to enter a world of artificial picturesqueness.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby said the cast performed with the “brisk, disciplined musicalcomedy brio that seldom slops over into unbridled sentimentality,” but noted the songs were “heavy on the

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calories and dangerously filling.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post said the production looked “good enough to eat,” and Greg Evans in Variety found the evening “a lovely coda to the golden age of Broadway musicals.” The $6 million musical played fifteen months, but Variety reported it closed without recouping its investment. The revival’s cast album was released by RCA Victor/BMG Records (CD # 09026-63207-2).

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Revival (The Sound of Music)

CABARET Theatre: The Kit Kat Klub in Henry Miller’s Theatre (during run, the musical transferred to Studio 54) Opening Date: March 19, 1998; Closing Date: January 4, 2004 Performances: 2,377 Book: Joe Masteroff Lyrics: Fred Ebb Music: John Kander Based on Christopher Isherwood’s 1935 novella Mr. Norris Changes Trains (published in the United States as The Last of Mr. Norris) and his 1939 novella Goodbye to Berlin; both were later published in the 1945 collection The Berlin Stories (reissued in 1975 as The Berlin of Sally Bowles); the musical was also based upon the stage adaptation of The Berlin Stories, the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John van Druten. Direction: Sam Mendes (Rob Marshall, Codirector); Producer: The Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director; Ellen Richard, General Manager); Choreography: Rob Marshall (Cynthia Onrubia, Associate Choreographer); Scenery and Club Design: Robert Brill; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Peggy Eisenhauer and Mike Baldassari; Musical Direction: Patrick Vaccariello Cast: Alan Cumming (Emcee); The Kit Kat Girls: Christina Pawl (Rosie), Erin Hill (Lulu), Joyce Chittick (Frenchie), Leenya Rideout (Texas), Michele Pawk (Fritzie), Kristin Olness (Helga); The Kit Kat Boys: Michael O’Donnell (Bobby), Brian Duguay (Victor), Bill Szobody (Hans), Fred Rose (Herman); Natasha Richardson (Sally Bowles), John Benjamin Hickey (Clifford Bradshaw), Denis O’Hare (Ernst Ludwig), Fred Rose (Customs Official, Max), Mary Louise Wilson (Fraulein Schneider), Michele Pawk (Fraulein Kost), Bill Szobody (Rudy), Ron Rifkin (Herr Schultz), Joyce Chittick (Gorilla), Alex Bowen (Boy Soprano on recording); The Kit Kat Klub Band: Patrick Vaccariello (Musical Director, Piano), Fred Lassen (Keyboards), Gary Tillman (Drums), Bill Sloat (Bass), Rich Raffio (Trumpet), Christina Pawl (Trumpet), Bill Szobody (Trombone), Denis O’Hare (Clarinet), Michael O’Donnell (Clarinet), Kristin Olness (Clarinet, Tenor Sax), Brian Duguay (Alto and Tenor Sax, Flute), Joyce Chittick (Alto Sax), Erin Hill (Alto Sax, Harp), Leenya Rideout (Violin), Fred Rose (Cello), Michele Pawk (Accordion), Linda Romoff (Trumpet), Vance Avery (Banjo, Accordion) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Berlin during the years 1929 and 1930.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Wilkommen” (Alan Cumming, The Kit Kat Klub Performers); “So What?” (Mary Louise Wilson); “Don’t Tell Mama” (Natasha Richardson, The Kit Kat Girls); “Mein Herr” (Natasha Richardson, The Kit Kat Girls); “Perfectly Marvelous” (Natasha Richardson, John Benjamin Hickey); “Two Ladies” (Alan Cumming, Erin Hill, Michael O’Donnell); “It Couldn’t Please Me More” (aka “The Pineapple Song”) (Mary Louise Wilson, Ron Rifkin); “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” (Alan Cumming); “Maybe This Time” (Natasha Richardson); “Money” (Alan Cumming, The Kit Kat Girls); “Married” (Ron Rifkin, Mary Louise Wilson, Michele Pawk); “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” (reprise) (Michele Pawk, Denis O’Hare, Company) Act Two: Entr’acte (The Kit Kat Klub Band); “Kick Line” (The Kit Kat Klub Performers); “Married” (reprise) (Ron Rifkin); “If You Could See Her” (aka “The Gorilla Song”) (Alan Cumming, Joyce Chittick); “What

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Would You Do?” (Mary Louise Wilson); “I Don’t Care Much” (Alan Cumming); “Cabaret” (Natasha Richardson); Finale (Company) The Roundabout Theatre Company’s current revival of Cabaret was a huge, popular hit, but was nonetheless a disappointment. Sam Mendes’s direction (which was “inspired” by a 1993 version of the musical that he helmed for the Donmar Warehouse in London) was an attempt to provide a more realistic approach to the musical, and so there was more emphasis on the political horrors of Nazi Germany, the Emcee was now clearly gay (and certainly headed for a concentration camp), and Cliff was openly bisexual. Further, the performers at the Kit Kat Klub all but wallowed in kinky sex. But the revival overplayed its hand and was more laughable than edgy because the evening aimed for shock for the sake of shock, and thus the overall effect was that of naughty little children all dressed up in S&M party wear. But the revival’s defects didn’t prevent it from becoming one of the biggest hits of the era. Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised Richardson’s Sally Bowles and said her interpretation “promises to be the performance of the season.” However, he found the “seedier, raunchier and more sinister” revival “entertaining but preachy” because “it wants nothing more than to shock” and thus “winds up seeming more naïve than sophisticated.” Director Mendes and choreographer and codirector Rob Marshall seemed “overeager to capitalize on the anything-goes” spirit of the revival, but there was “nothing seductive” about the denizens of the cabaret and the “experience of Cabaret has to be one of illicit seduction.” The production opened at Henry Miller’s Theatre (the home of the original Broadway productions of Our Town, The Cocktail Party, The Moon Is Blue, The Trip to Bountiful, and Witness for the Prosecution), which was temporarily renamed the Kit Kat Klub and converted into a cabaret-like setting of tables and chairs where ticketholders could buy drinks before the performance and during intermission. The venue was rather small, and in order to sell more seats and realize a substantial profit, the musical eventually moved to the larger Studio 54, where it was still performed in a cabaret-styled setting. (Today, the new Stephen Sondheim Theatre is located on the site of the Henry Miller, where the façade of the older theatre remains.) The revival cut six numbers from the original 1966 Broadway production (“Telephone Song,” “Telephone Dance” aka “Kiss Dance,” “Why Should I Wake Up?,” “The Money Song” [“My father needs money” and sometimes referred to as “Sitting Pretty”], “Fruit Shop Dance,” and “Meeskite”]), omitted a song written for the 1987 Broadway revival (“Don’t Go”), added one song dropped from the original production but used in the 1987 revival (“I Don’t Care Much”), included two songs written for the 1972 film version (“Mein Herr” and a new “money” song, “Money, Money, Money” [“Money Makes the World Go Around”]), and added one song interpolated into the film (“Maybe This Time,” which had been recorded by Liza Minnelli in 1964). The original production opened on November 20, 1966, at the Broadhurst Theatre for 1,165 performances and won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Lyrics and Music (Fred Ebb and John Kander), Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Joel Grey), and Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Peg Murray, who played Fraulein Kost). The framework of the musical was somewhat schizoid. The cabaret scenes were expressionistic and the songs in the club were given in presentational format, while the book scenes were staged literally and the songs were narrative in function. The story deals with the affairs of Sally (Richardson for the current revival) and John Benjamin Hickey (Cliff) and of Fraulein Schneider (Mary Louise Wilson) and Herr Schultz (Ron Rifkin). The secondary plot for Schneider and Schultz never seemed quite germane to the story, although of course in the original production Lotte Lenya brought emotional weight and a historical presence to the evening, and Kander and Ebb gave her two songs in the mode of Kurt Weill (“So What?” and “What Would You Do?”). With a screenplay by Jay Presson Allen, Bob Fosse’s 1972 film version cleared away the extraneous Schneider and Schultz subplot and focused on Sally and Cliff’s affair, but with a difference: they both share a male lover (Max, a character not in the stage musical). The film also added two young (and doomed) Jewish lovers (the characters of Natalia Landauer and Fritz Wendel), who were part of Christopher Isherwood’s original Berlin stories and the 1951 stage adaptation I Am a Camera; their relationship was serious and tragic and contrasted well with the superficial one of Sally, Cliff, and Max. Most importantly, all the songs in the film were presentational rather than narrative and thus were heard in the cabaret, in a beer garden, on the radio, or by someone playing a piano in a boarding house. Besides including the above-mentioned new or interpolated numbers, the film retained eight from the stage production (“Wilkommen,” “Two Ladies,” “If You Could See Her,” “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” “Kick Line,” the title song, and, in brief radio or piano interludes, “Heiraten” [“Married”] and “It Couldn’t Please Me More”). The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Actress (Minnelli), Best Supporting Actor (Grey), and Best Scoring (Ralph Burns).

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The 1987 Broadway revival opened October 22 at the Imperial Theatre for 262 performances and the cast included Grey, who reprised his role of the Emcee and was now billed above the title. The revised book depicted Cliff as a bisexual, and his song “Why Should I Wake Up?” was replaced with “Don’t Go”; the revival also cut “Meeskite,” but added “I Don’t Care Much” for the Emcee (the number was originally performed by Sally during a few New York previews for the 1966 production). After the current production, the Roundabout Theatre Company revived the revival on April 24, 2014, at Studio 54 for 388 performances (Cumming was again the Emcee). The first London production opened on February 28, 1968, at the Palace Theatre for 336 showings, and the cast included Judi Dench (Sally), Kevin Colson (Cliff), Barry Dennen (The Emcee), Lila Kedrova (Fraulein Schneider), and Peter Sallis (Herr Schultz). The script was published in hardback by Random House in 1967, and the revised script for the current production was published in hardback by Newmarket Press in 1999. The Making of “Cabaret” by Keith Garebian was published by Mosaic Press in 1999, and a second edition was republished by Oxford University Press in 2011. Another book about the musical is Stephen Tropiano’s “Cabaret”: Music on Film, published by Limelight in 2011. The original Broadway cast album was released by Columbia Records (LP # KOS-3040 and # KOL-6640) and was issued on CD by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy Records (# SK-60533) with bonus tracks of Kander and Ebb performing “I Don’t Care Much” and the unused songs “Roommates,” “Good Time Charlie,” and “It’ll All Blow Over.” The two-CD collection John Kander: Hidden Treasures, 1950–2015 (Harbinger Records # HCD3105) includes four demos performed by Kander and Ebb, two unused songs (“Guten Abend” and “It’ll All Blow Over”) and two used (“So What?” and the title number). There are almost two-dozen recordings of the score, including cast albums from Great Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, and Mexico. Particularly noteworthy is a two-CD studio cast recording by That’s Entertainment Records (# CDTER2-1210) that includes the “Fruit Shop Dance” and the finale, curtain call, and exit music; and bonus tracks include “Don’t Go,” “I Don’t Care Much,” “Mein Herr,” “Maybe This Time,” and “Money, Money” (which is a combination of both the stage and film “money” songs). The recording’s cast includes Maria Friedman (Sally), Gregg Edelman (here reprising his Cliff from the 1987 Broadway revival), Judi Dench (here Fraulein Schneider), Fred Ebb (Herr Schultz), and Jonathan Pryce (The Emcee). A Los Angeles Harbor College production was released on a two-LP set (Audio Engineering Associates Records LP # AEA-1160-2) and includes the complete “Telephone Song” and “Telephone Dance” sequences as well as the “Fruit Shop Dance.” There were no cast recordings of the 1987 and 2014 revivals, but the cast album of the current one was released by BMG/RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-63173-2).

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical Revival (Cabaret); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Alan Cumming); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Natasha Richardson); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Ron Rifkin); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Mary Louise Wilson); Best Director of a Musical (Sam Mendes with Rob Marshall); Best Orchestrations (Michael Gibson); Best Costume Designer (William Ivey Long); Best Lighting Designer (Peggy Eisenhauer and Michael Baldassari); Best Choreographer (Rob Marshall)

HIGH SOCIETY Theatre: St. James Theatre Opening Date: April 27, 1998; Closing Date: August 30, 1998 Performances: 144 Book: Arthur Kopit Lyrics and Music: Cole Porter; additional lyrics by Susan Birkenhead Based on the 1939 play The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry and the 1956 MGM film High Society (screenplay by John Patrick, lyrics and music by Cole Porter, and direction by Charles Walters). Direction: Christopher Renshaw; Producers: Lauren Mitchell and Robert Gailus, Hal Luftig and Richard Samson, and Dodger Endemol Theatricals in association with Bill Haber (Kevin C. Whitman, Associate

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Producer); Choreography: Lar Lubovitch; Scenery: Loy Arcenas; Costumes: Jane Greenwood; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: Jennifer Smith (Polly), Glenn Turner (Arthur), Barry Finkel (Chester), Kisha Howard (Sunny), Jeff Skowron (Stanley), Betsy Joslyn (Patsy), Dorothy Stanley (Peg), William Ryall (Edmund), Lisa Banes (Margaret Lord), Anna Kendrick (Dinah Lord), Melissa Errico (Tracy Samantha Lord), John McMartin (Uncle Willie), Daniel McDonald (C. K. Dexter Haven), Stephen Bogardus (Mike O’Connor), Randy Graff (Liz Imbrie), Marc Kudisch (George Kittredge), Daniel Gerroll (Seth Lord) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Oyster Bay during “a glorious weekend” in June 1938.

Musical Numbers Note: (*) denotes new lyric by Susan Birkenhead; (**) denotes additional lyric by Susan Birkenhead; and (***) denotes song was originally introduced in 1956 film High Society. Act One: “High Society” (aka “High Society Calypso”) (*) (***) (The Household Staff); “Ridin’ High” (Red Hot and Blue, 1936) (Melissa Errico, The Household Staff); “Throwing a Ball Tonight” (*) (aka “I’m Throwing a Ball Tonight”; Panama Hattie, 1940) (Lisa Banes, Melissa Errico, John McMartin); “Little One” (***) (Daniel McDonald, Anna Kendrick); “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” (***) (Randy Graff, Stephen Bogardus); “I Love Paris” (Can-Can, 1953) (Anna Kendrick, Melissa Errico); “She’s Got That Thing” (*) (originally “You’ve Got That Thing” from Fifty Million Frenchmen, 1929) (John McMartin, Daniel McDonald, Company); “Once Upon a Time” (*) (written for unproduced mid-1930s musical Ever Yours) (Melissa Errico); “True Love” (***) (Daniel McDonald, Melissa Errico) Act Two: “High Society” (reprise) (The Household Staff); “Let’s Misbehave” (**) (first introduced at the Ambassadeurs Café in Paris in 1927 [not introduced in La Revue des Ambassadeurs 1928], and later heard in the preBroadway tryout of Paris, 1928) (Melissa Errico, John McMartin, Company); “I’m Getting Myself Ready for You” (**) (The New Yorkers, 1930) (John McMartin, Randy Graff); “Once Upon a Time” (reprise) (Daniel McDonald); “Just One of Those Things” (Jubilee, 1935) (Daniel McDonald); “Well, Did You Evah!” (*) (DuBarry Was a Lady, 1939; song was also interpolated into the 1956 film High Society) (The Household Staff, Melissa Errico, John McMartin, Randy Graff); “You’re Sensational” (***) (Stephen Bogardus); “Say It with Gin” (The New Yorkers, 1930) (John McMartin); “Ridin’ High” (reprise) (Lisa Banes); “It’s All Right with Me” (Can-Can, 1953) (Melissa Errico); “He’s a Right Guy” (Something for the Boys, 1943) (Randy Graff); “Samantha” (aka “I Love You, Samantha”) (***) (Daniel McDonald); “True Love” (reprise) (Melissa Errico, Daniel McDonald) High Society, based on Philip Barry’s 1939 comedy The Philadelphia Story, dealt with the rich, beautiful, and frosty Tracy Lord (Katherine Hepburn in the original play and its 1940 film version, and Grace Kelly in the 1956 film musical remake High Society) who is involved with a trio of men. On the eve of her wedding to stuffy George Kitteridge (Frank Fenton in the original 1939 Broadway production), Tracy’s former husband C. K. Dexter Haven (Joseph Cotton) shows up with plans to woo her away from George. Meanwhile, reporter Mike Connor (Van Heflin) becomes infatuated with her when he (along with photographer Liz Imbrie, played by Shirley Booth) is sent to the Lord estate to cover the wedding for a national magazine. On the sidelines are Tracy’s mother, her estranged father, her uncle, and her young sister. The events leading up to the wedding ceremony cause Tracy to examine her aloofness and her rigid standards of behavior, and she soon comes to realize that Dexter has always been her true love. The play was successfully filmed by MGM in 1940 with Hepburn, Cary Grant (Dexter), and James Stewart (Mike); George Cukor directed, and Stewart won the Academy Award for Best Actor and Donald Ogden Stewart won for his screenplay. High Society was MGM’s 1956 musical version of the story; it featured a score by Cole Porter and the cast included Grace Kelly (Tracy), Bing Crosby (Dexter), Frank Sinatra (Mike), John Lund (George), and Celeste Holm (Liz). But the adaptation (now set in Newport instead of Philadelphia) came across as a light comedy with music rather than a full-fledged musical. The score was heavy on ballads, there were virtually no character or plot songs, and the film lacked production numbers and dance sequences. Tracy wasn’t given even one solo, and instead shared a duet (“True Love,” the film’s hit song) with Dexter. Louis Armstrong played himself, and his role seemed intended as a narrator of sorts, but the concept was quickly dropped and

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Armstrong came on for two songs, the title number and (with Crosby) “Now You Has Jazz.” The latter and the ballad “Mind If I Make Love to You?” (for Sinatra) were dropped for the current stage version. The film included eight new Porter songs and one interpolation (“Well, Did You Evah!” from Porter’s 1939 Broadway musical DuBarry Was a Lady). Arthur Kopit’s book for the stage musical was bland, the cast members lacked sparkle, and ballads and comedy songs from Porter’s catalog were shoved into the proceedings without much in the way of rhyme or reason. Here was a production at sea, and only Doug Johnson’s poster and program artwork had a point of view, which was otherwise lacking throughout the evening: He invented three rather smug and elegant fat cats in evening dress, and armed with bouquets and champagne glasses they sail away on the True Love, Dexter’s yacht, where he and Tracy had spent their honeymoon. The production was capitalized at $5 million, and according to the New York Post lost its entire investment. Ben Brantley in the New York Times disliked the “rudderless production” in which the would-be sophisticated champagne sippers came across like “sophomores at a beer blast,” and songs that “should bubble with dry effervescence” were more in the nature of “a thick ferment of suds.” McDonald, Bogardus, and Kudisch were “brazenly miscast,” and while Errico looked “heavenly” and her “limpid” soprano shimmered “appealingly,” her “affected” accent was “as plumy as damson preserves,” she worked “far too hard” to project Tracy’s “mischievous, trouble-making side,” and when alcohol transformed her there was little difference “between Tracy drunk and Tracy sober.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby said the musical looked “cheap” and “vulgar” and was “the equivalent of a stage cartoon, something broad, flat and gross.” The characters were “cardboard cutouts” of “mostly upper-crust Barbie dolls,” the choreography was “commonplace,” and the décor and costumes were “unattractive.” Many of the interpolated songs served “no urgent need in the book” and sounded “like elevator music,” and he wondered why “I Love Paris” was sung by Tracy and Dinah when “Begin the Beguine” or “Love for Sale” could easily have been substituted given that Porter’s catalog was “being ransacked so mindlessly.” Canby noted that McMartin’s tipsy Uncle Willie was “the only person on the stage who registers with clarity,” and although the actor delved into his role “with dangerous abandon,” his three songs weren’t all that great and perhaps just one would have been enough. (For McMartin, High Society must have seemed like déjà vu all over again. He had appeared as the narrator in the 1980 flop Happy New Year, another Barry and Porter “collaboration” that had been based on Barry’s 1928 bittersweet comedy Holiday and had also utilized songs from Porter’s catalog. The adaptation was by Burt Shevelove, and the score included “Ridin’ High” and “Once Upon a Time,” both of which were also heard in High Society.) During the tryout, choreographer Christopher d’Amboise was succeeded by Lar Lubovitch (Brantley and Canby reported that by the beginning of New York previews, Des McAnuff and Wayne Cilento had unofficially taken over from Christopher Renshaw and Lubovitch as director and choreographer, although the latter two retained program credit), and costume designer Judith Anne Dolan and lighting designer Christopher Akerlind were replaced by Jane Greenwood and Howell Binkley. Jere Shea (Mike) and Lisbeth Zelle (Dinah) were succeeded by Stephen Bogardus and Anna Kendrick, and while Marc Kudisch remained with the New York production he lost his solo “I Worship You” (cut from Fifty Million Frenchmen, 1929). Two other songs were dropped by opening night, “I Am Loved” (Out of This World, 1950) and “Why Don’t We Try Staying Home?” (cut from Fifty Million Frenchmen, 1929). The original cast album was released by DRG Records (CD # 19011). The soundtrack of the 1956 film was released by Capitol Records (LP # W-750) and on CD by Capitol/EMI Records (# 8140792) in a boxed set that also includes the soundtracks of Pal Joey and Can-Can, and the DVD of the 1956 film was issued by Warner Home Video. A different stage version of High Society had earlier premiered in London on February 25, 1987, at the Victoria Palace Theatre for 420 performances; the adaptation was by Richard Eyre and the cast included Trevor Eve (Dexter), Stephen Rea (Mike), Natasha Richardson (Tracy), Angela Richards (Liz), and Ronald Fraser (Uncle Willie). The program noted the musical was set “in 1948 in New York, Philadelphia, and Busby Berkeley Land,” and like the 1997 production the score included most of the songs from the 1956 film version (here the exception was “Mind If I Make Love to You?”) as well as numerous ones from Porter’s catalog. The cast album was released by Columbia/EMI Records (LP # SCX-6707 and CD # CDP-7-46777-2). Another British musical version of High Society (here subtitled “The Champagne Musical”) was adapted by Carolyn Burns, and a live recording taken from a May 4, 1996, performance at the Lyceum Theatre in Shef-

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field was released by Playback Records (CD # PBHS-CD1). The production retained all the songs from the film as well as other Porter numbers, and the liner notes of the CD state that the album includes two songs “which have never before been recorded, ‘Nobody’s Chasing Me’ and ‘In the Morning, No,’ because they were taken out of the original film.” Of course, neither song had been written for nor cut from High Society: “Nobody’s Chasing Me” is from Porter’s 1950 musical Out of This World and “But in the Morning, No” is from his 1939 musical DuBarry Was a Lady, and both songs had been previously recorded. Most attempts to translate classic MGM musicals to the stage have floundered. Gigi was twice a disaster, in 1973 for a run of 103 performances and then in another adaptation in 2015 that collapsed after eighty-six showings. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers lasted for just five performances in 1982; in 1985, Singin’ in the Rain managed almost a year’s run of 367 showings but received middling reviews and lost money; and Meet Me in St. Louis faltered after 253 performances in 1989. A proposed stage version of Easter Parade never got off the ground, and occasional tours of The Pirate never got beyond the straw-hat circuit. A concert staging of The Band Wagon by Encores! on November 6, 2014, for eight performances seems to be in a holding pattern (adapted by Douglas Carter Beane, the work was first produced as Dancing in the Dark in 2008 at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California). Broadway has seen a few productions of The Wizard of Oz, but these were limited engagements and not open-end runs (see entries for a series of Oz productions that played in New York in 1997, 1998, and 1999). In 2008, Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of An American in Paris premiered at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas, but soon disappeared. However, another version by Craig Lucas opened at the Palace Theatre on April 15, 2015, and seems to have broken the MGM jinx (it also won three Tony Awards, including Best Choreography). For cast member Marc Kudisch, High Society marked the first in a string of April openings for the busy performer, who also appeared in The Wild Party (April 2000), Bells Are Ringing (April 2001), Thoroughly Modern Millie (April 2002), the Broadway production of Assassins (April 2004), 9 to 5 (April 2009), and the nonmusical Hand to God (April 2015). Earlier, he had appeared as a replacement for the role of Gaston in Beauty and the Beast (which had opened in April 1994). Despite her striking looks and beautiful voice, cast member Melissa Errico was unlucky in her Broadway appearances and always seemed to land in flops. Besides High Society, she had prominent roles in Anna Karenina, Amour (2002), and Dracula (2004), and while My Fair Lady seems to have broken even, its short run of five months was disappointing. Errico sang the leading roles in the studio cast recordings of two 1940s musicals, One Touch of Venus (1943) and Sadie Thompson (1944).

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Featured Actor in a Musical (John McMartin); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Anna Kendrick)

THE WIZARD OF OZ Theatre: The Theatre at Madison Square Garden Opening Date: May 1, 1998; Closing Date: May 31, 1998 Performances: 46 Book: Adaptation by Robert Johanson (this production was based on John Kane’s version of the original 1939 screenplay) Lyrics: E. Y. Harburg Music: Harold Arlen; background music by Herbert Stothart Based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (who also wrote thirteen other Oz novels) and the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz (direction by Victor Fleming and screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allen Woolf from an adaptation by Noel Langley). Direction: Robert Johanson; Producers: Madison Square Garden Productions (Tim Hawkins, Producer); Choreography: Jamie (James) Rocco (Donna Drake, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Tim Hunter; Musical Direction: Jeff Rizzo Cast: Jessica Grove (Dorothy Gale), Plenty (Toto), Judith McCauley (Aunt Em, Glinda), Bob Dorian (Uncle Henry, Winkie General), Lara Teeter (Hunk, Scarecrow), Dirk Lumbard (Hickory, Tin Man), Ken Page

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(Zeke, Cowardly Lion), Eartha Kitt (Almira Gulch, The Wicked Witch of the West), Mickey Rooney (Professor Marvel, The Wizard of Oz), Eugene Pidgeon (Mayor of Munchkinland), Steve Babiar (Barrister), Wendy Coates (Barrister), P. J. Terranova (Coroner), Martin Klebba (Nikko); Lollipop Guild: Martin Klebba, Mark Povinelli, Deborah Wilson; Crows: Renee Bonadio, Christine DeVito, Martin Klebba; Crow Voices: D’Ambrose Boyd, Casey Colgan, Daniel Herron, D. J. Salisbury, Russell Warfield; Apple Trees: Casey Colgan, Daniel Herron, D. J. Salisbury; Apple Tree Voices: Gail Cook Howell, Heidi Karol Johnson, Angela Robinson; Munchkins, Poppies, Citizens of Oz, Jitterbugs, Flying Monkeys, and Winkies: Steve Babiar, Renee Bonadio, D’Ambrose Boyd, Bill Brassea, Wendy Coates, Casey Colgan, Christine DeVito, Kassandra Marie Hazard, Kristopher Michael Hazard, Daniel Herron, Gail Cook Howell, Heidi Karol Johnson, Martin Klebba, Shauna Markey, Andrea McCormick, Caroline McMahon, Eugene Pidgeon, Mark Provinelli, Angela Robinson, Mary Ruvolo, D. J. Salisbury, Kristi Sperling, Andrea Szucks, Leslie StumpVanderpool, P. J. Terranova, Russell Warfield, Wendy Watts, Deborah Wilson The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place in Kansas and in Oz.

Musical Numbers Overture (Orchestra); “Over the Rainbow” (Jessica Grove); “The Cyclone”; “Come Out, Come Out” (Judith McCauley, Jessica Grove, Lollipop Guild, Munchkins); “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead!” (Judith McCauley, Eugene Pidgeon, Steve Babiar, Wendy Coates, P. J. Terranova, Munchkins); “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” (Jessica Grove, Munchkins); “If I Only Had a Brain” (Lara Teeter, Jessica Grove, Crows); “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter); “If I Only Had a Heart” (Dirk Lumbard, Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Apple Trees); “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (reprise) (Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Dirk Lumbard); “Lions and Tigers and Bears” (Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Dirk Lumbard); “If I Only Had the Nerve” (Ken Page) and “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (reprise) (Ken Page, Jessica Grove, Dirk Lumbard, Lara Teeter); “Poppies” and “Optimistic Voices” (Judith McCauley, Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Dirk Lumbard, Ken Page, Eartha Kitt, Poppies); “Optimistic Voices” (reprise) (Female Chorus); “The Merry Old Land of Oz” (Jessica Grove, Lara Teeter, Dirk Lumbard, Ken Page, Guard [unidentified performer], Citizens of Oz); “If I Were King of the Forest” (Ken Page, Jessica Grove, Dirk Lumbard, Lara Teeter); “March of the Winkies” (Winkies); “The Jitterbug” (Eartha Kitt, Jessica Grove, Ken Page, Lara Teeter, Dirk Lumbard, Jitterbugs); “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead!” (reprise) (Winkies, Jessica Grove, Ken Page, Lara Teeter, Dirk Lumbard); “Over the Rainbow” (reprise) (Judith McCauley); Finale (Company) The return engagement of The Wizard of Oz was the musical’s second of three visits to The Theatre at Madison Square Garden. This time around, Mickey Rooney played the Wizard and Professor Marvel and Eartha Kitt was the Wicked Witch of the West and Miss Gulch. This production also added “The Jitterbug,” which had been filmed but cut prior to the release of the 1939 film (the song can be heard on later CDs of the soundtrack album and its outtake is included on various DVD editions of the movie). Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times noted that such Madison Square Garden perennials as A Christmas Carol and The Wizard of Oz were the type of family fare in which “familiarity is omnipresent” but “pure enchantment is missing.” He liked the “colorful” scenery and “eye-catching” costumes, and praised the “merrily malign” Kitt and the “irrepressible” Rooney. Otherwise, the show was a “weak copy” of the beloved film, and he noted that although “The Jitterbug” was restored, it perhaps had been “wisely” cut from the original film. The cast album for this production was recorded by TVT Soundtrax (CD # 1020). For more information about the musical, see entries for the 1997 and 1999 productions.

HARMONY The musical opened on October 19, 1997, at La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre in La Jolla, California, and closed there without opening on Broadway. Book and Lyrics: Bruce Sussman

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Music: Barry Manilow Direction: David Warren; Producer: La Jolla Playhouse (Michael Greif, Artistic Director; Terrence Dwyer, Managing Director); Choreography: Charles Moulton; Scenery: Derek McLane; Costumes: Mark Wendland; Lighting: Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Joseph Thalken Cast: Danny Burstein (“Rabbi”), Thom Christopher Warren (Harry), James Clow (Bobby), Mark Chmiel (Lesh), Steven Goldstein (Erich), Patrick Wilson (“Chopin”), Rebecca Luker (Mary), Janet Metz (Ruth), Tom Titone (Rally Leader), Jodi Stevens (Marlene), Scott Robertson (Felix, Einstein, Aaronson), Scott Robinson (Dirk), Casey Nicholaw (Ezra), Jessica Sheridan (Madame), Kurt Zizkie (Standartenfuhrer), Thursday Farrar (Josephine), Trent DeLong (Obersturmfuhrer); Young Women on a Train: Jodi Stevens, Lisa Mayer, Jennifer Morris, Kiersten Van Horne; Ensemble: Trent DeLong, Thursday Farrar, Christiane Farr-Wersinger, Pascale Faye, Sean Grant, Lisa Mayer, Jennifer Morris, Casey Nicholaw, Arte Phillips, Scott Robertson, Scott Robinson, Jessica Sheridan, Jodi Stevens, Tom Titone, Kiersten Van Horne, Kurt Zizkie The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City and Berlin during the period 1927–1933.

Musical Numbers Note: Song assignments are unknown. Act One: Overture; “Harmony”; “There’s Something about That Girl”; “This Is Our Time!”; “Your Son Is Becoming a Singer!”; “Lost in the Shadows”; “In This World”; “How Can I Serve You, Madame?”; “Every Single Day”; “Harmony” (reprise); “Home” Act Two: “Something Like Paradise”; “Follow the Wind”; “Crystal Ball”; “Come to the Fatherland”; “Where You Go”; “We’ve Gone Bananas!”; “Little Men”; “Threnody”; “Stars in the Night” Barry Manilow’s musical Harmony was based on the true story of the singing group the Comedian Harmonists, a German sextet of both Jewish and gentile vocalists who attained worldwide popularity but were forced to disband once the Nazi party rose to power. The cast included Danny Burstein, Patrick Wilson, Rebecca Luker, and Casey Nicholaw. Charles Isherwood in Variety said the “solid show” was “impeccably staged and performed” and he singled out Burstein for “honors” as the sextet member “Rabbi,” who also served as the evening’s narrator. Although Isherwood found Manilow’s score “disappointing,” “watery and generic,” and “fatally bland,” he noted the songs were “pleasant and polished” and praised “Lost in the Shadows” and “Where You Go.” In 2003, the musical was scheduled to play the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia prior to a Broadway opening. According to Michael Reidel in the New York Post, the sets were being loaded into the Forrest when the production was abruptly canceled once it became apparent the musical hadn’t met its projected $7 million capitalization. Once Manilow realized the musical hadn’t been fully financed, he took the matter to court, where the rights to the musical were tied up in arbitration for about a year; ultimately, the rights reverted to Manilow, and he and book writer Bruce Sussman continued to revise the show. A new version played at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta from September 6 to October 6, 2013, and from March 12 to April 13, 2014, the work was seen at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in a joint production by the Center Theatre Group and the Alliance Theatre. In reviewing the Los Angeles run, Bob Verini in Variety praised Manilow’s “graceful, catchy” score, which had a “lightly jazz-influenced style” and a “reasonably period” sound. But the book was “woefully inadequate to the saga’s potential” and he noted that Sussman and director Tony Speciale “must think none of us” had ever heard of Nazi Germany and anti-Semitism because numerous “historical nuggets” were “solemnly intoned on the sidelines.” Sussman’s book also “rudely caricatured” Marlene Dietrich “as an untalented dimwit” (and in his review of the 1997 production, Isherwood noted that Albert Einstein was “caricatured” when he’s seen backstage at Carnegie Hall). The 2014 production dropped six songs from the original version (“There’s Something about That Girl,” “Something Like Paradise,” “Follow the Wind,” “Crystal Ball,” “We’ve Gone Bananas!,” and “Little Men”) and added four (“And What Do You See?,” “The Wedding,” “Hungarian Rhapsody # 20,” and “The List”). Manilow’s 2004 CD collection Manilow Scores: Songs from “Copacabana” and “Harmony” (Concord Records # CCD-2251-2) includes seven songs from Harmony: “Harmony,” “And What Do You See?,” “Every Single Day,” “This Is Our Time!,” “Where You Go,” “In This World,” and “Stars in the Night.” Of these

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songs, “And What Do You See?” had been added to the score after the original 1997 production, and “This Is Our Time!” had been cut. The Comedian Harmonists were also the subject of the Broadway musical Band in Berlin as well as two films, the 1977 made-for-television German documentary The Comedian Harmonists (which seems to have been shown for the first time in the United States in 1991) and the German-Austrian 1997 film Comedian Harmonists (aka The Harmonists). Two other works about Nazi displeasure with popular American music were the disappointing 1993 film Swing Kids (which Leonard Maltin in his Movie Guide annual termed “this year’s Newsies”) and the flat and unimaginative 2000 musical The Rhythm Club, which played in regional theatre but never risked Broadway.

THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN The musical opened on July 7, 1997, at the St. Louis Municipal Theatre, St. Louis, Missouri, and closed there on July 13. Book: Paul Blake and Doris Baizley Lyrics: Sammy Cahn Music: Jule Styne Based on the 1952 novel Coins in the Fountain by John H. Secondari. Direction: Paul Blake; Producer: The St. Louis Municipal Theatre (The Muny) (Paul Blake, Executive Producer); Choreography: Gemze de Lappe and Mike Phillips; Scenery: William Eckart; Costumes: Robert Fletcher; Lighting: Martin Aronstein; Musical Direction: Lynn Crigler Cast: Ray Fournie (Rudolfo), Robert Earl Gleason (Street Vendor, Second Waiter), Michael Kaer Miller (Street Vendor, Young Honeymoon Groom), Rich Pisarkiewicz (Street Vendor, Waiter), Joel Higgins (Fred Shadwell), Leslie Denniston (Frances Bertin aka Bert), Michele Pawk (Ginny), Lara Teeter (Phil), Maureen Brennan (Anita), James Clow (Giorgio), Wayne Salomon (Wayne Arnold); Teen Chorus: Alan Altmansberger, Christopher Arbini, Michael Burton, Anne Chopin, Bernard Cummings, Ginger Davis, Emily Grigaitis, Stephanie Gross, Hunter Hall, Stephanie Hickman, Gregory Jenkins, Kelly Kierath, Shawn Kohrs, Jacob Laws, Miguel Marling, Andy Ondrejcak, Danny Pettit, Miles Petty, Michael Ramey, Michele Ramey, Katie Schaeffer, Abbey Stone, Nichole Thomas, Troy Turnipseed, Julie Venegoni, Jason Yust; Children: Lauren DeLucia, Natalie Hall, Katie Hamm, Jessica Kohut The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Rome during 1954.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “I’ve Heard That Song Before” (1942 film Youth on Parade) (Joel Higgins, Robert Earl Gleason, Michael Kaer Miller, Rich Pisarkiewicz); “I’ve Heard That Song Before” (reprise) (Leslie Denniston); “Five Minutes More” (1946 film Sweetheart of Sigma Chi) (Michele Pawk, Lara Teeter, Joel Higgins, Maureen Brennan); “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” (independent song) (Michele Pawk, Lara Teeter, Joel Higgins, Maureen Brennan); “The Song’s Gotta Come from the Heart” (1947 film It Happened in Brooklyn) (Joel Higgins, Lara Teeter, Michele Pawk, Maureen Brennan); “It’s the Same Old Dream” (1947 film It Happened in Brooklyn) (Maureen Brennan, Michele Pawk, Leslie Denniston, James Clow); “I’ll Walk Alone” (1944 film Follow the Boys) (Leslie Denniston); “Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)” (independent song) (Michele Pawk, Lara Teeter, Joel Higgins, Leslie Denniston, Maureen Brennan); “Put ’Em in a Box” (1948 film Romance on the High Seas) (Maureen Brennan, James Clow); “I Fall in Love Too Easily” (1945 film Anchors Aweigh) (Maureen Brennan, James Clow); “Three Coins in the Fountain” (1954 film Three Coins in the Fountain) (Romans) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry” (1944 musical Glad to See You [closed during pre-Broadway tryout]) (Maureen Brennan, James Clow); “Put ’Em in a Box” (reprise) (James Clow); “The Brooklyn Bridge” (1947 film It Happened in Brooklyn) (Lara Teeter, Michele Pawk); “It’s Magic” (1948 film Romance on the High Seas) (Maureen Brennan); “Time after Time” (1947 film It Happened in Brooklyn) (Joel Higgins, Leslie Denniston); “Three Coins in the Fountain” (reprise) (Company)

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The St. Louis Municipal Theatre’s Three Coins in the Fountain wasn’t based on the 1954 nonmusical film of the same name (although the musical appropriated the film’s Academy Award–winning title song with lyric by Sammy Cahn and music by Jule Styne), and instead the program’s title page indicated the work was based on John H. Secondari’s 1952 novel Coins in the Fountain. But a program note by the musical’s director Paul Blake (who was also the Muny’s Executive Producer) indicated the musical’s book adapted “three love stories” from the novel, “invented some new plot and character twists to strengthen the women’s perspective,” and added additional songs by Cahn and Styne. As a result, the musical wasn’t “the novel or the movie, but we hope it will capture the wisdom of the book, the romance of the movie and the spirit of the [title] song.” The musical was set in Rome during 1954, and most of the characters were Americans involved in the world of show business, including singers Ginny and Anita (Michele Pawk and Maureen Brennan), dancer Phil (Lara Teeter), and nightclub operator Fred (Joel Higgins). The other two main characters were professional photographers, Bert (Leslie Denniston) from Life magazine who wants to go to Korea and take pictures of the war’s aftermath and Italian photographer Giorgio (James Clow). Because all the songs had been borrowed from the songbook of Cahn and Styne, the score was little more than a collection of eleven ballads with two or three novelty songs thrown in. Joe Pollack in Variety said the “patchwork” had a “limp” book and “rote” performances, and the choreography gave Teeter “only limited opportunity” to show off his dancing skills. Pollack commented that legendary scenic designer William Eckart provided a “nice rendition” of the Trevi Fountain, but his depiction of a Roman nightclub (called Club Kansas) had “all the appeal of a cyclone fence.” The musical never attempted Broadway and seems to have disappeared after its summer run in St. Louis.

1998–1999 Season

AN EVENING WITH JERRY HERMAN Theatre: Booth Theatre Opening Date: July 28, 1998; Closing Date: August 23, 1998 Performances: 28 Lyrics and Music: Jerry Herman Direction and Choreography: Lee Roy Reams; Producers: Manny Kladitis and Jon Wilner (produced in association with Magicworks Entertainment and PACE Theatrical Group, Inc.); Scenery: Kenneth Foy; Costumes: Not credited; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Jerry Herman Cast: Jerry Herman, Lee Roy Reams, Florence Lacey, Jered Egan (Bass) The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: Milk and Honey (1961): “Shalom” (Florence Lacey, Lee Roy Reams); Hello, Dolly! (1964): “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” (Lee Roy Reams); “It Only Takes a Moment” (Lee Roy Reams); “Before the Parade Passes By” (Lee Roy Reams); “So Long, Dearie” (Florence Lacey); “Ribbons Down My Back” (Florence Lacey); “Dancing” (Florence Lacey); “Penny in My Pocket” (Lee Roy Reams); “Hello, Dolly!” (Florence Lacey, Lee Roy Reams, Jerry Herman); Mame (1966): “It’s Today” (Lee Roy Reams); “Gooch’s Song” (Jerry Herman); “We Need a Little Christmas” (Florence Lacey, Jerry Herman); “If He Walked into My Life” (Florence Lacey); “Mame” (Florence Lacey, Lee Roy Reams, Jerry Herman) Act Two: Dear World (1969): “I Don’t Want to Know” (Florence Lacey); Mack & Mabel (1974): “Movies Were Movies” (Florence Lacey, Lee Roy Reams, Jerry Herman); “I Won’t Send Roses” (Lee Roy Reams); “Hundreds of Girls” (Jerry Herman); “Time Heals Everything” (Florence Lacey); “Tap Your Troubles Away” (Lee Roy Reams); “Movies Were Movies” (reprise) (Florence Lacey, Lee Roy Reams, Jerry Herman); The Grand Tour (1979): “I Belong Here” (Florence Lacey); “Mrs. S. L. Jacobowsky” (Lee Roy Reams); “I’ll Be Here Tomorrow” (Jerry Herman); La Cage aux Folles (1983): “La Cage aux Folles” (Lee Roy Reams); “Song on the Sand” (Florence Lacey); “I Am What I Am” (Lee Roy Reams); “The Best of Times” (Florence Lacey, Lee Roy Reams, Jerry Herman); Mrs. Santa Claus (1996 television musical): “The Best Christmas of All” (Florence Lacey, Lee Roy Reams) The season was bookended by two composer tributes. An Evening with Jerry Herman opened the season and played for less than a month, and in late April The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm lasted just two weeks. Perhaps there were a few too many evenings with Herman and Gershwin, and the ticket-buying public felt they’d seen or at least heard it all before (and they’d certainly hear it all again). Off-Off-Broadway’s Tune the Grand Up! Words and Music by Jerry Herman had been given for three free performances at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center on December 18, 1978, and Jerry’s Girls 321

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held on for 139 showings when it opened on December 18, 1985, at the St. James Theatre. (And following the current revue, the Off-Broadway tribute Showtune: The Words and Music of Jerry Herman opened at The Theatre at Saint Peter’s Church on February 27, 2003, for fifty-three performances.) As for Gershwin, the Off-Broadway revue Do It Again! opened at the Promenade Theatre on February 8, 1971, for fourteen performances (and the later American Rhapsody: A New Musical Revue opened Off-Broadway at the Triad Theatre on November 10, 2000, for 231 showings). Broadway had also seen two Gershwin catalog musicals, My One and Only (St. James Theatre, May 1, 1983, 767 performances) and Crazy for You (Shubert Theatre, February 19, 1992, 1,622 performances), and would see yet another one (Nice Work If You Can Get It, Imperial Theatre, April 24, 2012, 478 performances). Moreover, the one-man show George Gershwin Alone opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on April 30, 2001, for ninety-six showings. An Evening with Jerry Herman was an intimate tribute with Herman himself reminiscing, singing, and playing the piano, and he was joined by two Herman stalwarts, singers Florence Lacey and Lee Roy Reams. Lacey had appeared as Irene Molloy in the 1978 revival of Hello, Dolly!, and for that production Reams had played Cornelius Hackl (Reams directed the current revue as well as a 1995 Broadway revival of Dolly, in which Lacey again played Molloy). Lacey was also in the original cast of Herman’s 1979 musical The Grand Tour where she introduced “I Belong Here,” which she sang in the current tribute. Peter Marks in the New York Times said the “amiable” evening allowed Herman to “savor” his hits, “mourn” his flops, and memorialize the world of a Broadway that had long disappeared. Herman and Reams’s tuxedos and Lacey’s cocktail dresses would once have “seemed fashionable in the lobbies of the Fontainebleau or Eden Roc in Miami,” and Reams’s choreography was “as out of style as a restaurant that still serves salads of iceberg lettuce.” The revue included familiar Herman songs, all of which were readily available on their original cast albums. But the show offered one obscure number, “Penny in My Pocket,” which had been cut from Hello, Dolly! during its pre-Broadway tryout. The revue had first been seen as a cabaret act presented at Rainbow and Stars in 1989, and then had later been produced at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami.

THE LAST EMPRESS Theatre: New York State Theatre Opening Date: August 4, 1998; Closing Date: August 23, 1998 Performances: 24 Book: Mun Yol Yi; book adaptation by Kwang Lim Kim Lyrics: In Ja Yang; adaptation of lyrics by Ha Yun Jung, Jun Taek Jun, and Hee Hwan Lee Music: Hee Gab Kim; additional music by Peter Casey Based on the 1994 novel The Fox Hunt by Mun Yol Yi. Direction: Ho Jin Yun; Producers: Arts Communications (A-Com), Young Hwan Kim, Executive Producer) (Sang Ryul Lee, Su Mun Lee, Young Il Yang, Mun Yol Yi, Hee Hwan Lee, Woo Jong Lee, Associate Producers); Choreography: Byung Goo Seo and Jin Wook Jung; Scenery: Dong Woo Park; Costumes: Hyun Sook Kim; Lighting: Hyung O’Choi; Musical Direction: Kolleen Park Cast: Wonjung Kim and Taewon Yi Kim (Queen Min, at alternating performances), Sung Hoon Lee (Taewongun), Hee Sung Yu (King Kojung), Hee Yung Lee (Inoue), Young Jae Choi (Itoh Hirobumi), Min Soo Kim (General Kye Hun Hong), Sung Ki Kim (Miura Goroh), Sung Ho Lee (Yuan Shi Kai), Hyun Dong Kim (Jinryonggun), Young Joo Jeong (Court Lady Park), Hyo Jung Moon (Court Lady Kim), Jae Wean Kim and Jung Hoon Woo (Prince, at alternating performances), Peter Marinos (German Envoy), Mary Jo Todaro (Lady Sontag), Paul Taylor (French Envoy), Marci Reid (Lady Underwood), Al Bundonis (Weber, Russian Envoy); Chorus and Dancers: So Youn An, Ji Soo Choi, So Young Choi, Jeong Ju Doh, Eun Kyoung Han, Mi Kyung Jung, Do Hoon Kim, Do Hyeong Kim, Tai Hyun Kim, Ho Jin Kim, Sang Jin Kim, Young Ju Kim, Sun Mi Kim, Hak Muk Kim, Bong Soo Kim, So Yeoun Kim, So Young Kim, Yu Lim Kwak, Ji Eun Lee, Jae Gu Lee, Soo Hyoung Lee, Kyoung Woo Lee, Ji Youn Lee, Sang Ho Park, Yong Park, Sang Ryu, Beom Seok Seo, Eun Kyoung Yoon, Chan Yun The opera was presented in two acts.

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The action of the prologue takes place in Hiroshima in 1945, and the remainder of the action takes place in Korea (Chosun) around the turn of the twentieth century.

Musical Numbers Note: The program listed song titles and the names of the characters who performed the numbers. Act One: Prologue: “Japan Has Chosen” (Miura Goroh, Japanese Assassins); “The Day We Greet the New Queen” (Regent, King, Queen, Company); “Regency of the King’s Father” (Regent, Subjects); “Soft Is the Spring Breeze” (King, Court Ladies); “Your Highness Is So Beautiful” (Court Ladies); “There Is a Star in My Heart” (Queen); “The Examination for State Military Service” (General Hong, Regent, King, Applicants); “A Wish for a Prince” (Queen, King, Regents, Court Ladies, Subjects); “Shaman Rite (for Child Bearing)” (Jinryonggun, Shamans); “Open Up the Door” (Regent, Foreigners); “Song of the Soldiers” (Soldiers, People); “Grow Big and Strong, Dear Prince” (Court Ladies); “You Are the King of Chosun” (Queen, King, Court Ladies); “Until the World Needs Me Again” (Regent); “Kojung’s Imperial Conference” (King, Subjects); “It’s All a Scheme” (Queen); “Seven Foreign Envoys” (Foreign Envoys); “New Army Unit, Old Army Unit” (Soldiers, Japanese Merchants); “Military Mutiny of 1882” (Orchestra); “Back at the Seat of Power” (Regent); “I Miss You, My Dear Queen” (King); “We Shall Return to the Palace” (Queen, King, General Hong); “Regent and Chinese” (Regent, Yuan Shi Kai); “Inoue Threatens King Kojung” (Inoue); “Queen Min’s Return” (Company); “We Shall Rise Again” (Queen, King, General Hong, Company); “Meeting on Japan’s Chosun Policy” (Prime Minister, Miura Goroh, Japanese Cabinet Ministers) Act Two: “Dance of the Grand Banquet” (Orchestra); “Come Celebrate Our Reforms” (Queen, King); “Queen Elizabeth of Chosun” (Wives of Foreign Envoys); “Negotiations at the Grand Banquet” (Inoue, Queen, Foreign Envoys); “The Sun Is Rising in Chosun” (Company); “Isn’t It Strange, Snowflakes Are Falling” (Child); “You Shall Drink the Wine Offered by Miura” (Inoue, Queen); “Triple Intervention and the Atami House Conspiracy” (Queen, King, Russian, French, and German Envoys, Miura Goroh, Assassins); “Isn’t It Strange, Snowflakes Are Falling” (reprise) (Child); “New Era for the Prince” (Royal Tutor, Prince, Queen, King); “Miura’s Audience with the King” (Miura Goroh, Queen, King); “The Situation Has Quickly Been Changed” (Miura Goroh); “The Queen Is Studying French Today” (Sontag); “By the Time This Drink Gets Cold” (Miura Goroh, Assassins); “Welcome” (Wives of the Foreign Envoys, Queen); “Ritual for Fox Hunt” (Orchestra); “The Prince and Queen” (Prince, Queen); “Where Was It That We Met?” (Queen, General Hong); “You Are My Destiny” (General Hong); “Thunder and Lightning” (Prince, Queen); “Light Up My Darkest Night” (Queen); “Do Not Harm the Queen” (Regent, Japanese Military Officer); “The Last of General Hong” (General Hong); “The Queen Is Hunted Down” (Queen Min, Court Lady Park); “Find the Queen, Kill the Fox” (Assassins, Court Ladies); “How Will I Live from Now On?” (Prince); “Rise, People of Chosun” (Queen, Company) The opera The Last Empress had been presented during the previous season for a limited engagement of twelve performances at Lincoln Center’s New York State Theatre, and the current production returned there for twenty-four more showings. The work had first premiered in Seoul, Korea, and the New York visits were sung in Korean with English supertitles. (For more information about the opera, see entry for the earlier production.) The program for the return engagement included an expanded list of translators for the lyrics, and the list of musical numbers included new songs and ones with slightly altered titles. As they had during the previous summer, Wonjung Kim and Taewon Yi Kim alternated in the title role. In her review of the current engagement, Anita Gates in the New York Times praised the “impressive” musical and noted the work was “gorgeous to look at” with “evocative” lighting, “elegant” and “stylized” décor, and “rich” and “colorful” costumes. The leading singers had “strong,” “beautiful,” “powerful,” and “touching” voices, but Gates noted it was “often the chorus numbers that thrill,” including “Rise, People of Chosun,” a number that was “enough to stir people of any nationality.” She indicated the supertitles weren’t always “poetic” and mentioned that one line was translated as “We have modern weapons. Your rusty guns are for the birds.”

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RIVERDANCE Theatre: Radio City Music Hall Opening Date: September 24, 1998; Closing Date: October 11, 1998 Performances: 23 Poetry: Theo Dorgan Lyrics and Music: Bill Whelan Direction: John McColgan; Producers: Radio City Productions in association with Abhann Productions (Moya Doherty, Producer) (Julian Erskine, Executive Producer); Choreography: Michael Flatley, Jean Butler, Maria Pages, Paula Nic Cionnaith, Colin Dunne, Tarik Winston, Mavis Ascott, Tara Little, and the Moscow Folk Ballet Company; Scenery: Robert Ballagh; Projections: Chris Slingsby; Costumes: Jen Kelly (Margaret Crosse, Original Design); Lighting: Rupert Murray; Musical Direction: Eoghan O’Neill Cast: Eileen Martin, Pat Roddy, John Kavanagh (Narrator); Riverdance Irish Dance Troupe: Andrea Curley, Dearbhail Bates, Sarah Barry, Tara Barry, Natalie Biggs, Lorna Bradley, Martin Brennan, Rachel Byrne, Zeph Caissie, Melissa Convery, Marty Dowds, Jo Ellen Forsyth, Susan Ginnety, Paula Goulding, Sinead Green, Gary Healy, Donnacha Howard, Sean Kelliher, Nicola Leonard, Matt Martin, Sorcha McCaul, Jonathan McMorrow, Paula McNelis, Joe Moriarty, Niall Mulligan, Aoibheann O’Brien, Ursula Quigley, Katie Regan, Ann Ryan, Lisa Ryan, Sheila Ryan, Anthony Savage, Anthony Sharkey, Ryan Sheridan, Claire Usher, Leanda Ward; Moscow Folk Ballet Company: Serguei Iakoubov, Svetlana Kossoroukova, Olena Krutsenko, Tatiana Nedostop, Iouri Oustiougov, Iouri Shiskine, Ilia Streltsov, Marina Taranda; Singers: Katie McMahon, Cathal Synnott, Derek Byrne, Derek Collins, Patrick Connolly, Jennifer Curran, Tony Davoren, Joanna Higgins, Maire Lang, Denise O’Cain; Drummers: Abraham Doron, Vinny Ozborne, Darren Smith, David Tilly The dance revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: Introduction; “Reel Around the Sun”: (1) “Corona”; (2) “The Chronos Reel”; and (3) “Reel Around the Sun” (choreography by Michael Flatley); “The Heart’s Cry”; “Women of Ireland”: “The Countess Cathleen” and “Women of the Sidhe” (choreography by Jean Butler); “Caoineadh Chu Chulainn” (Lament); “Thunderstorm” (choreography by Michael Flatley); “Shivna” (choreography by the Moscow Folk Ballet Company); “Firedance” (choreography by Maria Pages and Colin Dunne) (Nuria Brisa, Marta Jimenez Luis, and Arantxa Jurado); “Slip into Spring—The Harvest” (Eileen Ivers, Fiddle); “Riverdance”: (1) Cloudsong”; (2) “The Dance of the Riverwoman”; (3) “Earthrise”; and (4) “Riverdance” (choreography by Mavis Ascott; Irish step dance choreography by Michael Flatley; and lead solo female choreography by Jean Butler) Act Two: Introduction; “American Wake”: (1) “Nova Scotia Set” and “Lift the Wings” (choreography by Michael Flatley; Paula Nic Cionnaith, Set Dance Consultant); “The Harbour of the New World”: (1) “Heal Their Hearts—Freedom” (Charles Gray); (2) “Trading Taps” (Robert Reed, Toby Harris, and A. Russell) (choreography by Colin Dunne and Tarik Winston); (3) “Morning in Macedonia” (“The Russian Dervish,” choreography by the Moscow Folk Ballet Company); (4) “Oscail an Doras” (“Open the Door”) (choreography by Tara Little) (Singer/Soloist: Tony Davoren); and (5) “Heartbeat of the World” (choreography by Maria Pages and Colin Dunne) and “Andalucia” (choreography by Maria Pages) (Nuria Brisa, Marta Jimenez Luis, and Arantxa Jurado); “Home and the Heartland” (choreography by Michael Flatley, Colin Dunne, and Jean Butler) (Eileen Ivers, Fiddle); “Riverdance International” (story by Bill Whelan, Moya Doherty, and John McColgan; lyric and music by Bill Whelan) Like its three predecessors, the return engagement of Riverdance was a limited run that played at Radio City Music Hall (for more information, see entries for the March 1996, October 1996, and September 1997 productions). On March 16, 2000, the dance revue opened as Riverdance on Broadway at the Gershwin Theatre where it played for 605 performances.

SWAN LAKE Theatre: Neil Simon Theatre Opening Date: October 8, 1998; Closing Date: January 23, 1999

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Performances: 124 Music: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky Direction and Choreography: Matthew Bourne; Producers: Adventures in Motion Pictures (Katharine Dore, Producing Director) and Cameron Mackintosh; Scenery and Costumes: Lez Brotherston; Lighting: Rick Fisher; Musical Direction: David Frame Cast: Adam Cooper (The Swan; Will Kemp, alternate), Scott Ambler (The Prince; Ben Wright, alternate), Fiona Chadwick (The Queen; Isabel Mortimer, alternate), Emily Piercy (The Prince’s Girlfriend), Barry Atkinson (The Private Secretary), Andrew Walkinshaw (The Young Prince); Dancers: Detlev Alexander, Jacqueline Anderson, Sarah Barron, Wilson A. Batista, Graham Bowen, Theo Clinkard, Andrew Corbett, Saranne Curtin, Matthew Dalby, Darren Ellis, Vicky Evans, Ramon Flowers, Valentina Formenti, Christopher Freeman, Jeffrey Lane Freeze, Fred Gehrig, Nina Goldman, Gino Grenek, Heather Habens, Ben Harley, Floyd Hendricks, Will Kemp, Hans-Werner Klohe, Martin Lofsnes, Michela Meazza, Sam Meredith, Mark Mitchell, Neil Penlington, Arthur Pita, Colin Ross-Waterson, Ruthlyn Salomons, Tom Searle, Kirsty Tapp, Alan Vincent, Tom Ward, Ewan Wardrop, Ben Wright, William Yong The ballet was presented in two acts. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre on March 4, 1877, and the current version choreographed by Matthew Bourne was a modern-day take on the classic story. The plot dealt with a prince, his domineering mother, and his flighty girlfriend, and focused on a day in the park when he meets a flock of male swans, one of whom is attractively dangerous, or perhaps just dangerously attractive. The new interpretation first opened in London at Sadler’s Wells on November 9, 1995, and has been filmed in two different versions, both released on DVD by Kultur Video (the ballet has also been shown on public television). Although the production received mostly favorable notices, Fintan O’Toole in the New York Daily News said Bourne’s was a “brave and intriguing notion—but a notion is what it remains.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post found Bourne’s “central imagery” for the male swans “by far the most striking aspects of his choreography.” Charles Isherwood in Variety said the “revisionist” and “psychosexual” evening was a “superb achievement” laced “with humor and mounted with style,” and noted that while Bourne refused to state whether the prince is gay, the “shock of recognition” on the prince’s “expressive” face when the swan is “made flesh clears up that question.” And Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “inspired reconception” of the classic ballet may have been “brazen and even vulgar” in its “literal-mindedness” but there was “haunted longing and anguish” at its center. David Lefkowitz in Best Plays warned his readers that Bourne offered no “willowy swanoritas.” The first part of the ballet included a “riotously funny” sequence at a ballet performance that the prince attends with his girlfriend, and if the remainder of the evening had held to this standard the work would have been “vibrant, albeit wordless, musical theatre.” But when the prince goes to a park and falls in love with a male swan it proves both his and the audience’s “undoing” because the latter is subjected to thirty minutes of male dancers “fluttering about without much” in the way of “grace” and “beauty” and who wore “unflattering feathered tutus.” Ultimately, the audience lost both the evening’s “narrative thread” and an “appetite for roast goose,” the “violent” finale was “incomprehensible,” and the coda “ridiculous.”

Awards Tony Award: Best Director of a Musical (Matthew Bourne); Best Orchestrations (David Cullen); Best Costume Design (Lez Brotherston); Best Choreography (Matthew Bourne)

MANDY PATINKIN IN CONCERT: “MAMALOSHEN” Theatre: Belasco Theatre Opening Date: October 13, 1998; Closing Date: November 7, 1998 Performances: 28 Producer: The concert was presented “with” Dodger Endemol Theatricals; Scenery: Eric Renschler; Lighting: Eric Cornwell

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Cast: Mandy Patinkin; Paul Ford (Piano), Eric Stern (Piano), Lawrence Yurman (Piano), Saeka Matsuyama (Violin) The concert was presented in one act.

Musical Numbers “Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen” (“Raisins and Almonds”) (lyric and music by Abraham Goldfaden, Henry Lefkowitch, and Stanley Lionel); “Mayn Mirl” (“Maria”) (West Side Story, 1957; Yiddish lyric by Miriam Kressyn; original English lyric by Stephen Sondheim, music by Leonard Bernstein); “Yome, yome” (traditional); “Belz” (lyric and music by Alexander Olshanetsky and Jacob Jacobs); “Tsen kopikes” (“Ten Kopeks”) (traditional); “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (1964 film Mary Poppins; Yiddish lyric by Moishe Rosenfeld; original English lyric and music by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman); “The Hokey Pokey” (Yiddish lyric by Moishe Rosenfeld; original English lyric and music by Charles Mack, Taft Baker, and Roland LaPrise); “Papirosin” (“Cigarettes”) (lyric and music by Herman Yablokoff); “Motl der Opreyter” (lyric and music by Chaim Towber and H. Solomonson); “Unter dayne vayse Shtern” (“Under Your White Stars”) (lyric and music by Abraham Sutzkever and Abraham Brudno); “Lid fun Titanic” (“Song of the Titanic”) (lyric and music by Joshua Rayzner); “Hey, tsigelekh” (“Hey, Little Goats”) (lyric and music by Mordecai Gebirtig); “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (Yiddish lyric by Henry Sapoznik; original English lyric and music by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer); “God Bless America” (Yiddish lyric by Henry Sapoznik; original English lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “Der alter Tzigayner” (“The Old Gypsy”) (lyric and music by Abraham Ellstein and Jacob Jacobs); “White Christmas” (1942 film Holiday Inn; Yiddish lyric by Moishe Rosenfeld; original English lyric and music by Irving Berlin); “Oyfn Pripetshik” (lyric and music by Mark W. Warshawsky); “American Tune” (Yiddish lyric by Henry Sapoznik; original English lyric and music by Paul Simon) Mandy Patinkin’s limited-engagement concert Mamaloshen (Mother Tongue) was an evening of Yiddish and American songs, all sung in Yiddish, including such stage and film songs as “Maria” (West Side Story) and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (Mary Poppins). Prior to the Broadway presentation, the concert had been presented on July 21, 1998, for thirty-five performances at the Angel Orensanz Foundation and Center for the Arts, which formerly had been a synagogue. Earlier in the year, Patinkin’s song collection Mamaloshen had been released by Nonesuch Records (CD # 79459-2); the album includes two numbers not heard in the Broadway production (“Rabbi Elimeylekh” and “Paper Is White”). In his review of the version heard earlier in the summer at the former synagogue, Stephen Holden in the New York Times reported that the evening looked at both “Old and New Worlds, between Jewish tradition and Jewish assimilation.” Patinkin brought his “characteristic ferocity” to the songs and dramatized “everything in a sharply etched vocabulary of hand gestures that range from the explanatory to the fist-shaking.” Holden also mentioned that the evening’s “corniest moment” was when the singer encouraged audience members to stand up and dance the hokey pokey. For information about Patinkin’s Broadway concert appearances, see Mandy Patinkin in Concert.

AZNAVOUR ON BROADWAY Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: October 20, 1998; Closing Date: November 15, 1998 Performances: 24 Producers: Delsener Slater/SFX Entertainment by special arrangement with Levon Sayan; Wardrobe: Francesco Smalto; Musical Direction: Russell Kassoff Cast: Charles Aznavour The concert was presented in two acts. The program didn’t list individual musical numbers. The limited engagement of Aznavour on Broadway represented the French singer and songwriter’s final Broadway visit. Stephen Holden in the New York Times said the “Gallic everyman” sang with “a directness

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and clarity that transcend language.” His songs belonged to “an unabashedly sentimental European tradition,” and while they were “lushly arranged” (and played by an orchestra of some twenty musicians) they had a certain “cookie-cutter quality.” But even when the numbers went “emotionally overboard,” Aznavour found in them “a kernel of truth” that always located “our common humanity in l’amour.” Aznavour sang in French, English, and Spanish, and among the songs he performed in the concert were: “Yesterday When I Was Young” (lyric and music by Aznavour, English lyric by Herbert Kretzmer), “What Makes a Man” (lyric and music by Aznavour, English lyric by R. Craig), “La Mama” (lyric and music by Aznavour, English lyric by Robert Gall), and “Je bois” (“I Drink”) (lyricist and composer unknown). Aznavour first appeared in New York in concert at Carnegie Hall in 1963. He then sang on Broadway in his one-man show The World of Charles Aznavour (Ambassador Theatre on October 14, 1965, for twentynine performances), and this concert was followed by Charles Aznavour (Music Box Theatre, February 4, 1970, twenty-three performances), Charles Aznavour on Broadway (Minskoff Theatre, October 15, 1974, sixteen performances), Aznavour (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, March 14, 1983, fourteen performances), and the current production.

FOOTLOOSE “A New Musical”

Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre Opening Date: October 22, 1998; Closing Date: July 2, 2000 Performances: 708 Book: Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie Lyrics: Except when noted, all lyrics by Dean Pitchford Music: Except when noted, all music by Tom Snow Based on the 1984 film Footloose (screenplay by Dean Pitchford and direction by Herbert Ross). Direction: Walter Bobbie; Producers: Dodger Endemol Theatricals (Dodger Management Group and Tim Hawkins, Executive Producers) (The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Associate Producer) (produced through special arrangement with The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization); Choreography: A. C. Ciulla; Scenery: John Lee Beatty; Costumes: Toni-Leslie James; Lighting: Ken Billington; Musical Direction: Doug Katsaros Cast: Jeremy Kushnier (Ren McCormack), Catherine Cox (Ethel McCormack), Stephen Lee Anderson (Reverend Shaw Moore), Dee Hoty (Vi Moore), Jennifer Laura Thompson (Ariel Moore), Catherine Campbell (Lulu Warnicker), Adam LeFevre (Wes Warnicker), Donna Lee Marshall (Eleanor Dunbar, Doreen), John Hillner (Coach Dunbar), Stacy Francis (Rusty), Kathy Deitch (Urleen), Rosalind Brown (Wendy Jo), Billy Hartung (Chuck Cranston), Jim Ambler (Lyle), Bryant Carroll (Travis), Nick Sullivan (Cop, Country Fiddler), Robin Baxter (Betty Blast, Irene), Tom Plotkin (Willard Hewitt), John Deyle (Saloon Keeper, Principal Clark), Artie Harris (Cowboy Bob, Jeter), Hunter Foster (Bickle), Paul Castree (Garvin); Ensemble: Billy Angell, Angela Brydon, Paul Castree, Hunter Foster, Kristen Leigh Gorski, Artie Harris, Sean Haythe, Lori Holmes, Daniel Karaty, Katharine Leonard, Mark Myars, JoAnna Ross, Serena Soffer, Ron Todorowski The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place somewhere in the heartland of America during the recent past.

Musical Numbers Note: (*) denotes song was heard in the original 1984 film. Act One: “Footloose” (*) (lyric by Dean Pitchford and Kenny Loggins, music by Kenny Loggins) (Jeremy Kushnier, Company); “On Any Sunday” (lyric by Dean Pitchford, music by Tom Snow) (Stephen Lee Anderson, Company); “The Girl Gets Around” (*) (music by Sammy Hagar) (Billy Hartung, Jennifer Laura Thompson, Bryant Carroll, Jim Ambler); “I Can’t Stand Still” (lyric by Dean Pitchford, music by Tom Snow) (Jeremy Kushnier); “Somebody’s Eyes” (*) (Stacy Francis, Rosalind Brown, Kathy Deitch, Company); “Learning to Be Silent” (Dee Hoty, Catherine Cox); “Holding Out for a Hero” (*) (music by Jim Steinman) (Jennifer Laura Thompson, Stacy Francis, Rosalind Brown, Kathy Deitch); “Somebody’s Eyes”

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(reprise) (Stacy Francis, Rosalind Brown, Kathy Deitch); “Heaven Help Me” (Stephen Lee Anderson); “I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)” (*) (music by Kenny Loggins)/“Heaven Help Me” (reprise)/“On Any Sunday” (reprise) (Jeremy Kushnier, Stephen Lee Anderson, Company) Act Two: “Let’s Make Believe We’re in Love” (Robin Baxter, The Country Kickers); “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” (*) (Stacy Francis, Company); “Can You Find It in Your Heart?” (Dee Hoty); “Mama Says” (Tom Plotkin, The Boys); “Almost Paradise” (*) (music by Eric Carmen) (Jeremy Kushnier, Jennifer Laura Thompson); “Dancing Is Not a Crime” (Jeremy Kushnier, The Boys); “I Confess” (Stephen Lee Anderson); “On Any Sunday” (reprise) (Company); “Can You Find It in Your Heart?” (reprise) (Stephen Lee Anderson); “Footloose” (reprise) (Company) One of the dreariest musicals of the era, Footloose brought to mind the 1956 film Don’t Knock the Rock, in which a rock ’n’ roll star decides to spend some time in his old hometown of Mellonville. But to the horror of the town’s teens, their elders don’t want no rock ’n’ roll music in these here parts! Such repression is not to be borne, but happily all ends well when the bluenoses learn the error of their ways and soon everybody is singing and dancing to the songs of Little Richard, the Treniers, and Bill Haley and the Comets. (At the film’s conclusion, the customary words “The End” were replaced by “Dig It Soon,” and in his review for the New York Times Bosley Crowther replied, “Your own grave, no doubt.”) In the case of Footloose, city-boy Ren McCormack (Jeremy Kushnier) moves to small farm town Bomont and discovers to his horror that the local bluenose minister Reverend Shaw Moore (Stephen Lee Anderson) and the town elders have outlawed dancing and rock music! But faster than you can shake a lamb’s tail or shoo a swallow out of the old barn, Ren convinces everyone that even the Bible approves of dancing, and so everybody in town is soon swaying to the beat. (A similar theme cropped up in the 2005 Broadway musical All Shook Up.) The musical was based on the hit 1984 film of the same name, and included songs heard in the film as well as new ones. No doubt those who loved the film loved the stage show. But for the rest of us, the long evening was a parade of clichéd characters, a tiresome plot, indifferent performances, innocuous songs, and surprisingly uninspired dances. The musical received mostly unfavorable notices but managed to run almost twenty months (the New York Post reported the $6 million show lost its entire capitalization). Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “flavorless marshmallow of a musical” had a “blurry, removed feeling, like a Xerox of a Polaroid.” There had been “worse” Broadway musicals, but he couldn’t “think of one so totally unaffecting.” When a character sang about letting “my mind take a small walk,” Brantley felt it was “the only moment in the show when you fully identify with someone onstage.” Charles Isherwood in Variety found the “dispiritingly bland and juvenile” musical “so relentlessly innocuous it makes Grease look hard-hitting” and the supposedly dangerous boy-hero is “about as menacing as a Mouseketeer.” Further, the musical included a teenage couple, a white boy with a “redneck strut” and a black girl “in hip-hop jeans.” Isherwood commented that the otherwise repressed townsfolk raise “nary an eyebrow” over this romance, and if the “volatile issue of race relations” has been “so easily settled” then why are the citizens so aghast over dancing and rock music? Clive Barnes in the New York Post reported that “the audience I saw it with appeared to enjoy it more than I did,” and Fintan O’Toole in the New York Daily News said at the heart of the musical was “an authentic American myth,” which is “the promise of a peace treaty that will end the culture wars between conservatives and liberals.” During the tryout, Stephen Lee Andrews succeeded Martin Vidnovic in the role of the reverend, and the song “Still Rockin’” was heard during the tryout and New York previews but was eventually replaced with “Let’s Make Believe We’re in Love.” The cast album was released by Q Records (CD # Q-10032), and the London production opened on April 18, 2006, at the Novello Theatre for a six-month run.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Dee Hoty); Best Book (Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie); Best Score (lyrics and music by Tom Snow, Dean Pitchford, Erin Carmen, Sammy Hagar, Kenny Loggins, and Jim Steinman); Best Choreography (A. C. Ciulla)

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I’M STILL HERE . . . DAMN IT! Theatre: Booth Theatre Opening Date: November 5, 1998; Closing Date: January 3, 1999 Performances: 51 Material: Comedy monologues written by Sandra Bernhard Special Lyrics and Music: Sandra Bernhard, Mitchell Kaplan, and Derrick Smit Direction: Marty Callner, Artistic Consultant; Producers: Contemporary Productions (An SFX Entertainment Company) and Arielle Tepper; Scenic Consultant: Paul Holt; Lighting Consultant: Allen Branton; Musical Direction: Mitchell Kaplan Cast: Sandra Bernhard; The Band: Mitchell Kaplan (Keyboards), Denise Fraser (Drums, Percussion), Dan Petty (Guitar), Michael Stanzilis (Bass Guitar), Soumaya Akaaboune (Gembe, Vocals) The comedy revue with music was presented in one act. Sandra Bernhard’s explosive evening of comedy (and occasional music) was a take-no-prisoners diatribe at various foibles and personalities of the day, and the stand-up comic was in her element with edgy humor and oblique references that only the upper echelons of the cognoscenti could possibly recognize. Peter Marks in the New York Times noted that a perfect score of 1600 on Bernhard’s H.A.T. (i.e., Hipness Aptitude Test) meant you understood all about certain downtown clubs, not to mention Manolo Blahnik shoes and singer Ann Wilson. Yes, Bernhard was hipper-than-thou and fresher than tomorrow, and how could you not love her? And besides, anyone who trashed Footloose deserved eternal worship and adoration. Marks said Bernhard’s “breaches of common courtesy” might “set your teeth on edge,” but if you were in the mood for “mouthwatering after-dinner vitriol” then here was the show for you. The evening was like “a trip to the dark side of People magazine” and no one was safe: besides Footloose, others under the dentist’s drill were The Scarlet Pimpernel, Liza, Cher, Tom and Nicole, caller ID, and oh! “the things she says about Mariah Carey!” In the song “On the Runway” (lyric and music by Bernhard, Mitchell Kaplan, and Derrick Smit) she mocked the grief of supermodels who mourn the death of Gianni Versace, and she provided a “devastating impersonation” of Jennifer Jason Leigh “mumbling” the lyric of Cabaret’s title song (for the recent revival of that musical, Leigh was Natasha Richardson’s immediate successor in the role of Sally Bowles). Other songs heard during the production were popular numbers such as “Midnight Train to Georgia” (lyric and music by Jim Weatherly) and “Dream On” (lyric and music by Steven Tyler) as well as original ones, including “God Is Good,” “Nightingale,” and “Walk Tall” (all with lyrics and music by Bernhard and Kaplan) as well as the above-mentioned “On the Runway.” An earlier version of the production (with the same title) had been presented Off-Broadway on November 11, 1997, at the Westbeth Theatre Center for fifty-six performances, and then toured. This version was telecast on HBO in July 1998, the CD was released by TVT Records, and the DVD by Palm Pictures. Bernhard is probably best known to the general public for her appearances on the television series Roseanne and for her blistering performance in Martin Scorsese’s 1983 black comedy The King of Comedy, in which she all but stole the show in a featured role that is one of the finest performances of that decade.

LITTLE ME Theatre: Criterion Center Stage Right Opening Date: November 12, 1998; Closing Date: February 7, 1999 Performances: 101 Book: Neil Simon Lyrics: Carolyn Leigh Music: Cy Coleman Based on the 1961 novel Little Me by Patrick Dennis. Direction and Choreography: Rob Marshall (Cynthia Onrubia, Associate Director and Choreographer); Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director; Ellen Richard, General Manager;

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Julia Levy, Director of Development and Public Affairs); Scenery: David Gallo; Projection Design: Jan Hartley; Costumes: Ann Hould-Ward; Lighting: Brian Ronan; Musical Direction: David Chase Cast: Faith Prince (Belle), Belle’s Boys: Michael Arnold, Jeffrey Hankinson, Ned Hannah, and Denis Jones, Ruth Williamson (Momma, Mrs. Eggleston), Andrea Chamberlain (Ramona), Michael McGrath (Bruce, Bernie Buchsbaum, Bert, German Soldier, Yulnick), Cynthia Onrubia (Cerine, Kitty), Martin Short (Noble Eggleston, Amos Pinchley, Benny Buchsbaum, Val du Val, Fred Poitrine, Otto Schnitzler, Prince Cherney), Michael McEachran (Greensleeves, Sergeant, Movie “King”), Christine Pedi (Maid, Miss Kepplewhite, Christine, Nurse, Secretary, Casino Woman), Michael Park (Lucky), Brooks Ashmanskas (Pinchley Junior, Steward, Assistant Director, Doctor), Kimberly Lyon (Nurse), Peter Benson (Kleeg, Attorney, Maitre D’, Preacher, General, Captain, Victor), Michael Arnold (Newsboy), Jeffrey Hankinson (Newsboy, Second Sailor, Justice), Chain Gang: Michael Arnold, Jeffrey Hankinson, Ned Hannah, and Denis Jones; Boom Boom Girls: Kimberly Lyon, Joanne McHugh, and Cynthia Onrubia; Roxane Barlow (Colette, Roxane), Joanne McHugh (Suzie), Denis Jones (Soldier, Justice), Ned Hannah (First Sailor); Party Guests, Rich Kids, Drifter’s Row Townspeople, Courtroom Dancers, Skylight Roof Patrons, Nurses, Soldiers, Medics, Passengers, Biblical Slaves, Casino Patrons, and Mourners: Company Members The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the present day of 1962 in Southampton, and during the past in Venezuela, Illinois; Chicago; Somewhere in France; On the North Atlantic; Hollywood; Monte Carlo; and A Principality in Middle Europe.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Little Me” (Faith Prince, Michael Arnold, Jeffrey Hankinson, Ned Hannah, and Denis Jones); “The Other Side of the Tracks” (Faith Prince); “The Rich Kids’ Rag” (aka “Birthday Party”) (Rich Kids, Martin Short); “I Love You” (Martin Short, Faith Prince, Company); “The Other Side of the Tracks” (reprise) (Faith Prince); “Deep Down Inside” (Faith Prince, Martin Short, Company); “(To) Be a Performer!” (Martin Short, Michael McGrath, Faith Prince); “Dimples” (Faith Prince, Michael Arnold, Jeffrey Hankinson, Ned Hannah, and Denis Jones); “(Le Grand) Boom-Boom” (Martin Short, Kimberly Lyon, Joanne McHugh, Cynthia Onrubia); “I’ve Got Your Number” (Michael Parks); “Real Live Girl” (Martin Short); “Real Live Girl” (reprise) (Martin Short, Soldiers); Act One Finale (Faith Prince) Act Two: “I Love Sinking You” (Faith Prince, Martin Short, Company); “Poor Little Hollywood Star” (Faith Prince); “Goodbye” (aka “Farewell” and “The Prince’s Farewell”) (Martin Short, Michael McGrath, Company); “Here’s to Us” (Faith Prince, Company) In the beginning there was Patrick Dennis’s delicious 1961 novel Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of That Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television Belle Poitrine as Told to Patrick Dennis, a merry send-up of tell-all, as-told-to autobiographies by tinsel-town actresses (the book is dedicated to such luminaries as Arlene, Bette, Brigitte, Ingrid, Marilyn, Olivia, Sophie, Tallulah, Yvonne, Zsa Zsa, “and those whose life stories will follow”). The fictitious Belle (born Bessie Schlumpfert) is a talent-free actress (whose cinematic epics include Papaya Paradise, Tarzan’s Other Wife, Sawdust Circe, Viva Tequila!, and The Broadway Barcarole of 1930) who claws her way up the ladder of mediocrity in her search for “wealth, culture and social position.” The book includes dozens of hilarious photographs taken by Cris Alexander that depict Belle’s life and times. Alexander had appeared in the original Broadway productions of On the Town, Wonderful Town, and Auntie Mame, and about one hundred Broadway performers of the era took part in the photo sessions (the book’s acknowledgment page thanks those who appeared in the photos “between matinee and evening performances and even sacrificed that time most sacred to the members of Equity—Sunday morning”). The book’s “cast” includes Jeri Archer as Belle (Archer had appeared in the 1945 Broadway musical Billion Dollar Baby), and others in Belle’s life are portrayed by Alice Pearce and Kaye Ballard (and there’s even a “guest appearance” by Rosalind Russell). The book begins with Belle’s childhood days in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Venezuela, Illinois, where, as a sign of respect, her mother was the only woman in town called “madam.” The saga concludes many decades later in present-day 1960 when the “frankly forty” Belle finds God in Southampton.

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After years of ups and downs in the world of show business, Belle recalls the triumphant opening of her 1931 musical comedy film version of “Nat” Hawthorne’s immortal classic novel The Scarlet Letter, now updated to life on a modern-day college campus called Allstate where coed Hester proudly wears the red-letter “A” on the sweater of her cheer-leader outfit. The four-hour epic begins at eight o’clock on New Year’s Eve in a movie palace on Times Square, and when the film is over Belle reports that it was greeted with dead silence by the audience, who obviously were so touched they were unable to applaud. But when Belle leaves the theatre at midnight and steps onto the sidewalk, all hell breaks loose as the “wildly cheering populace of New York” erupts in applause, shouts, whistles, horns, and confetti. Belle knows that she has finally “arrived.” But something not so funny happened to Belle on her way to Broadway, where her musical opened on November 17, 1962, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre for 257 performances. With a book by Neil Simon, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, music by Cy Coleman, choreography by Bob Fosse, and a clutch of good reviews, the show should have enjoyed a long and profitable run. But the musical was now a star vehicle for Sid Caesar, who played the roles of seven men in Belle’s life (Noble Eggleston, Mr. Pinchley, Val du Val, Fred Poitrine, Otto Schnitzler, Prince Cherney, and Noble Junior). With the focus shifted to Caesar’s characters, Belle was relegated to a supporting role in her own story (for the original Broadway production, Virginia Martin played Belle and her daughter “Baby,” and Nancy Andrews was the older Belle). Certainly the conceit of giving Caesar a batch of multiple roles provided continuity and a certain unifying element to the picaresque story, but unfortunately the musical concentrated too much on Caesar and not enough on old-time Hollywood and Belle’s ruthless ambition. So despite the good reviews, a catchy score that received radio play in various cover versions, and Caesar’s name to draw in the crowds, the show stumbled badly and was gone by the end of the season (even the poorly received Mr. President ran longer). Coleman and Leigh’s score is one of the era’s best, a brassy collection of old-fashioned show tunes that includes the sensuous male strip-tease “I’ve Got Your Number” for one of Belle’s lovers; the tongue-in-cheek ballad “I Love You,” in which richer-than-thou Noble Eggleston informs Belle that he loves her as much as he’s able, considering she’s “riffraff”; the hijinks of “The Prince’s Farewell,” in which the dying Prince Cherney comfortingly assures his subjects that one day they’ll all meet again (and they solemnly respond, “We hope it isn’t soon”); the sly spoof “Boom-Boom,” a look at Maurice Chevalier-styled music-hall antics; the alternately wistful and driving “The Other Side of the Tracks,” Belle’s “wanting” song; the witty “The Truth,” in which the older Belle hawks her autobiography; the triumphant toast “Here’s to Us,” for the older Belle; the touching and plaintive air “Poor Little Hollywood Star,” in which Belle learns, like all those other stars in the Hollywood firmament, that It’s Lonely at the Top; the “I-Am-My-Own-Best-Friend” tradition of the title song for the two Belles; and the sweetly ingratiating ballad “Real Live Girl” for the doughboys at the front (a few critics suggested it was a kinder and gentler “There’s Nothing Like a Dame”). The musical was revived on Broadway in a revised version by Simon on January 21, 1982, at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre for thirty-six performances. Two actors (Victor Garber and James Coco) divvied up Caesar’s seven roles (Garber was Noble Eggleston, Val du Val, Fred Poitrine, and Noble Junior, and Coco played Mr. Pinchley, Otto Schnitzler, Prince Cherney, and two new roles created for the revival, Mr. Worst and the drag role of Flo Eggleston). The scenes revolving around Belle’s vaudeville career were cut, including the songs “Be a Performer!” and “Dimples” (these two numbers were virtually a two-song shorthand for the plot of Fosse’s later 1975 musical Chicago), Belle’s Hollywood years were skimmed over, and her songs “Poor Little Hollywood Star” and “The Truth” were dropped (two songs were added for the revival, “Don’t Ask a Lady” for Belle and “I Wanna Be Yours” for Belle and Mr. Worst). With Belle shunted aside with even less to do than in the original production, and with the misconceived notion of dividing Caesar’s roles between two actors, the pallid revival received poor notices and was gone in less than five weeks. Except for “The Truth,” the current revival reinstated the numbers dropped from the 1982 production; the first act’s “I Love You” was reprised in the second as “I Love Sinking You”; and the two songs added for 1982 weren’t included. Here Martin Short played six of Caesar’s seven roles (Noble Eggleston, Mr. Pinchley, Val du Val, Fred Poitrine, Otto Schnitzler, and Prince Cherney, while Young Noble was dropped) and he also portrayed Benny (Bennie) Buchsbaum (Mort Marshall originated the role in the 1962 production, and for the 1982 revival the character was eliminated). The critics were cool to the revival but loved Short, and he walked away with the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Short was “a life force surrounded by dead air,” and despite the “dreary” production he was “enough to justify the ticket price.” Otherwise, the

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“frisky” and “melodious” score was “somehow transformed from likable airiness into something leaden,” the dances were “perfunctory pastiche” that brought to mind the choreography of 1960s television variety shows, and even Faith Prince was “sorely misused.” She was “unflatteringly” costumed and bewigged, and often seemed “ill at ease and even slightly embarrassed.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby said the musical had always been “patchy” and was in fact “a revue masquerading as a book show.” But Short “took flight” throughout while the “potentially delicious” Prince remained “earthbound.” Charles Isherwood in Variety said the evening offered “plenty of fun,” but was nonetheless “a little aimless.” And while Short was a “delirious delight” who was “clearly having a high old time,” the “terrifically talented” Prince was “given almost nothing to act” and looked “uncomfortable, something one never hoped to see from such a winning stage talent.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post suggested Little Me was always “more of a performance with music than a musical,” and so here was “a B-plus musical in an A-minus staging, enshrining an A-plus performance” by the “quintessential” clown Short, who moved “subtly” but carried “a big shtick.” But this was not “our adored Prince’s finest hour” and she seemed “strangely subdued, possibly unhappy in the unusually ugly, even unfunny” costumes. Barnes noted that after her “spirited opening,” she appeared to “abdicate.” The 1962 Broadway cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (LP # LOC/LSO-1078; later issued on CD # 09026-61482-2), and the 1962 script was published in hardback by Random House in 1979 in The Collected Plays of Neil Simon Vol. II. There was no recording of the 1982 revival, but Kaye Ballard’s collection The Ladies Who Wrote the Lyrics (Painted Smiles LP # PS-1334 and CD # PSCD-143) includes the two new numbers, “Don’t Ask a Lady” (as “Don’t Ask the Lady What the Lady Did Before”) and “I Wanna Be Yours.” The cast album of the current production was issued by Varese Sarabande Records (CD # VSD-6011), and Prince recorded “The Other Side of the Tracks” for her collection Faith Prince: A Leap of Faith (DRG Records CD # 91460). The original London production opened at the Cambridge Theatre on November 18, 1964, with Bruce Forsyth, Eileen Gourlay (like Virginia Martin, who created the role of Hedy La Rue in the 1961 Broadway production of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, Gourlay had played Hedy for the London edition of How To . . .), and Swen Swenson, who reprised his show-stopping “I’ve Got Your Number.” The London cast album was released by Pye Records (LP # NPL-18107 and # NSPL-83023), and later reissued by World Records (LP # T-789 and # ST-789) and PRT Records (LP # FBLP-8077); the CD was released by DRG Records (# 131110). In many respects, the London cast recording is superior to the original Broadway cast album (and offers “The Rich Kids’ Rag,” which wasn’t included on the Broadway recording). A late 1960s proposed film version never got off the ground. A two-page advertisement in the November 13, 1968, issue of Variety announced that “You’ll love mad-cap, man-made, much-married, money-mad, mini-minded, maxi-mated, mink-mantled and mainly musical Little Me!” The projected Avco Embassy film was to be produced by Joseph E. Levine, directed by Joe Layton, and written by Larry Gelbart, with filming set to begin in October 1969 as an “in Color . . . Major Road Show Attraction.” At one point, Carol Channing and Goldie Hawn were mentioned for the two Belles.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (Little Me); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Martin Short); Best Orchestrations (Harold Wheeler); Best Choreography (Rob Marshall)

ON THE TOWN Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Opening Date: November 19, 1998; Closing Date: January 17, 1999 Performances: 65 Book and Lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green Music: Leonard Bernstein Direction: George C. Wolfe; Producers: The Joseph Papp Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival (George C. Wolfe, Producer; Rosemarie Tichler, Artistic Producer; Mark Litvin, Managing Director) (Wi-

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ley Hausam, Associate Producer); Choreography: Keith Young; Scenery: Adrianne Lobel; Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting: Paul Gallo; Musical Direction: Kevin Stites Cast: Gregory Emanuel Rahming (Workman, Miss Turnstiles Announcer), Quartet: Tom Aulino, Christopher F. Davis, Blake Hammond, and John Jellison, Robert Montano (Ozzie), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Chip), Perry Laylon Ojeda (Gabey), Linda Mugleston (Flossie), Chandra Wilson (Flossie’s Friend), John Jellison (Subway Bill Poster, Rajah Bimmy), Mannequins: Dottie Earle, Jennifer Frankel, Amy Heggins, and Judine Richard, Nora Cole (Miss Turnstiles Announcer, Diana Dream, Dolores Dolores), Tai Jimenez (Ivy Smith), Christopher F. Davis (Policeman), Blake Hammond (Mr. S. Uperman, Master of Ceremonies), Lea DeLaria (Hildy Esterhazy), Tom Aulino (Waldo Figment), Sarah Knowlton (Claire De Loone), Stephen Campanella and Judine Richard (Primitive Man and Woman), Kristine Bendul and Darren Gibson (Pas de Deux Dancers), Mary Testa (Little Old Lady, Madame Maude P. Dilly), Nora Cole, Linda Mugleston, and Chandra Wilson (Women of Carnegie Hall), Jonathan Freeman (Pitkin W. Bridgework), Annie Golden (Lucy Schmeeler), Diamond Eddie’s Girls: Kristine Bendul, Jennifer Frankel, Amy Heggins, Keenah Reid, and Judine Richard, New Sailors in Town: Brad Aspel, Stephen Campanella, and Christopher F. Davis; Dance Ensemble: Brad Aspel, Tom Aulino, Kristine Bendul, Stephen Campanella, R. J. Durrell, Dottie Earle, Jennifer Frankel, Edgard Gallardo, Darren Gibson, Amy Heggins, John Jellison, Darren Lee, Keenah Reid, and Judine Richard; The People of New York: Tom Aulino, Blake Hammond, John Jellison, Linda Mugleston, Gregory Emanuel Rahming, and Chandra Wilson The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New York City during twenty-four hours on a June day in 1944.

Musical Numbers Act One: “I Feel Like I’m Not Out of Bed Yet” (Gregory Emanuel Rahming, Tom Aulino, Christopher F. Davis, Blake Hammond, John Jellison); “New York, New York” (Robert Montano, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Perry Laylon Ojeda, Company); “Gabey’s Coming” (Robert Montano, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Perry Laylon Ojeda, Dottie Earle, Jennifer Frankel, Amy Heggins, Judine Richard); “Presentation of Miss Turnstiles” (includes sequence “She’s a Home-Loving Girl”) (Nora Cole, Gregory Emanuel Rahming, Tai Jimenez, Dancers); “Come Up to My Place” (Lea DeLaria, Jesse Tyler Ferguson); “(I Get) Carried Away” (Sarah Knowlton, Robert Montano, Stephen Campanella, Judine Richard); “Lonely Town” (Perry Laylon Ojeda, Dancers); “Carnegie Hall Pavane” (aka “Do-Do-Re-Do”) (Tai Jimenez, Mary Testa, Nora Cole, Linda Mugleston, Chandra Wilson); “Lucky to Be Me” (Perry Laylon Ojeda, Chorus); “I Understand” (aka “Pitkin’s Song”) (Jonathan Freeman); “I Can Cook, Too” (lyric by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green) (Lea DeLaria); “Times Square Ballet” (Company) Act Two: “So Long, Baby” (Kristine Bendul, Jennifer Frankel, Amy Heggins, Keenah Reid, Judine Richard); “I Wish I Was Dead” (aka “I’m Blue”) (Nora Cole); “I Wish I Was Dead” (aka “I’m Blue”) (reprise) (Nora Cole); “Ya (You) Got Me” (Lea DeLaria, Sarah Knowlton, Robert Montano, Jesse Tyler Ferguson); “I Understand” (aka “Pitkin’s Song”) (reprise) (Jonathan Freeman, Annie Golden); “Subway Ride” (Perry Laylon Ojeda, The People of New York); “The Imaginary Coney Island” (aka “Gabey in the Playground of the Rich” and “The Dream Coney Island Ballet”; includes sequences “The Great Lover Displays Himself” and “Pas de Deux”) (Perry Laylon Ojeda, Tai Jimenez, Dance Ensemble); “Some Other Time” (Sarah Knowlton, Lea DeLaria, Robert Montano, Jesse Tyler Ferguson); “The Real Coney Island” (John Jellison); “I Feel Like I’m Not Out of Bed Yet” (reprise) (Gregory Emanuel Rahming); “New York, New York” (reprise) (Company) On the Town was inspired by the ballet Fancy Free, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House on April 18, 1944, with choreography by Jerome Robbins and music by Leonard Bernstein. They worked fast in those days, and eight months later, on December 28, the musical comedy version of the ballet opened on Broadway at the Adelphi Theatre and ran for 463 performances. Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the book and lyrics, and also starred in the respective roles of Claire De Loone and Ozzie. The story takes place in New York during a twenty-four-hour period in which three sailors on shore leave prowl about the town in search of romantic adventure (one lyric notes that “there’s just one thing that’s important in Manhattan / When you have just one day”). Although he’d really prefer sight-seeing, Chip (Jesse Tyler Ferguson in the current revival) becomes entangled with man-eating taxi-driver Hildy Esterhazy (Lea

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DeLaria); Ozzie (Robert Montano) hooks up with wacky anthropologist Claire De Loone (Sarah Knowlton); and Gabey (Perry Laylon Ojeda) falls in love with a photograph of Miss (Subway) Turnstiles of the Month Ivy Smith (Tai Jimenez), who is “beautiful” and “brilliant” (in other words, “a typical New Yorker”). Much of the evening was devoted to Gabey, his pals, and their gals in search of the elusive Ivy, whom they finally track down in Coney Island. By dawn, the three couples must part, and the unspoken background of the war hovers over the proceedings. But they all hope they’ll meet again “Some Other Time,” a lovely, understated ballad performed near the end of the musical. The score offers two soaring ballads for Gabey, the blues “Lonely Town” and the joyous “Lucky to Be Me”; amusing comedy songs for Hildy (“Come Up to My Place” and “I Can Cook, Too”); a mock-operetta spoof for Claire and Ozzie (“I Get Carried Away”); and a parody of nightclub songs (“I’m Blue” aka “I Wish I Was Dead”). The musical’s most celebrated number is “New York, New York” (“it’s a helluva town”), in which the gobs salute the city and its promise of adventure and romance. Bernstein also created sinuously bluesy and swinging dance music; one depicted an evening in Times Square (“Times Square Ballet”), another a subway ride to Coney Island, and two dances that contrasted an imaginary and a real Coney Island, the former a playground of the rich (the script describes a “dreamy void of blue” in which sophisticated men and “unattainable” women dance “easily and coldly”) and the latter a “gaudy honky-tonk sort of place.” Although the musical was a long-running hit in 1944, all its revivals have failed, and even the show’s original national tour met with indifferent business and closed prematurely. An Off-Broadway revival at the Carnegie Hall Playhouse opened on January 15, 1959, for just seventy performances; the belated London premiere (with a cast that included Elliott Gould as Ozzie) opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on May 30, 1963, for fifty-three performances; the first Broadway revival opened at the Imperial Theatre on October 31, 1971, and played for seventy-three performances; the current production played for sixty-five showings; and the most recent revival (which opened on October 16, 2014, at the Lyric Theatre) managed a run of 368 performances but reportedly lost most of its $8.5 million investment. The current revival had first been presented by the Public Theatre in Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre on August 1, 1997, for twenty-five performances, but artistic disagreements put the revival on hold for over a year. The Delacorte production was directed by George C. Wolfe and choreographed by Eliot Feld, and for Broadway the latter was succeeded by Keith Young (who was unofficially succeeded by Joey McKneely during Broadway previews). Michael Reidel in the New York Post reported that once Eliot left the production, Christopher d’Amboise was briefly considered as a replacement but soon he and Wolfe “split” because of “artistic differences.” With the major exceptions of Jose Llana (Gabey), Sophia Salguero (Ivy Smith), and Kate Suber (Claire De Loone), who were succeeded by Perry Laylon Ojeda, Tai Jimenez, and Sarah Knowlton, most of the Delacorte principals appeared in the Broadway version. The critics gave mixed reviews to the Broadway production, the audiences didn’t show up (Reidel reported that during some weeks the show lost $200,000, and one member of the company noted that for some performances there were only 400 audience members in the cavernous Gershwin Theatre, which seats over 1,900), and the musical lost almost $7 million after its brief two-month run. The production was at its best when Lea DeLaria, Mary Testa, Annie Golden, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson cut loose with their comic shtick, but the romantic leads were pallid. The choreography wasn’t as disappointing as some of the critics reported, but it lacked the electric edge one expected, and one of the production’s highlights was Adrianne Lobel’s striking décor, which utilized the look of nostalgic old-time postcards to depict a New York City never land. Clive Barnes in the New York Post stated that On the Town was “surely never” as “agelessly good” as Fancy Free, and although the revival’s cast members were “absolutely impeccable” and DeLaria “should become a star,” the show hadn’t “really stood the unforgiving test of time.” He suggested the score “sounds better” on CD than in the theatre, and he praised Bernstein’s “dazzling” music and Comden and Green’s “apt, witty and delightful” lyrics. Nancy Franklin in the New Yorker felt the musical was always “hard to love,” said the performances were uneven, and noted the choreography was “weak.” But DeLaria was the hit of the evening, and “her every move announces the arrival of a phenomenon.” John Simon in New York enjoyed the revival, and found the score “as fresh half a century later as butter in the churn.” DeLaria was “a small, round, humanoid dynamo, with a voice to shatter glass and a personality to fray nerves,” and Mary Testa was “the daffiest of Dillys” who “could make a barrelful of monkeys seem as subdued as a fish tank.” Charles Isherwood in Variety found the evening “overeffusive and flat-footed” and noted the special irony that when the dance-driven show began to dance “it just about drops dead.” The dances were “underwhelming at best and enervating at worst” and they interrupted the “momentum” brought to the production by the

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“energetic” cast. He noted DeLaria was “a ball of fire,” and in a battle with a steamroller he’d bet on DeLaria. Isherwood also mentioned that the Public Theatre’s “trademark multiracial casting” became “a little preposterous when you note that all of the couples strolling romantically though Central Park in 1944 are of mixed racial makeup.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times felt the “strangely somnolent” evening exuded “an aura of exertion” rather than “effervescence,” but he was happy to note that DeLaria and Testa were “two rousing human alarm clocks” and the former was clearly “born for the musical comedy stage.” Otherwise, the choreography wasn’t “sharply focused” and the romantic leads were often “blankly passive.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby praised the “mysteriously bewitching” musical with its “richly complex and romantic” music and “gloriously bright, witty and off-the-wall” book and lyrics, and in the transfer of the work from Central Park to Broadway, Wolfe had “worked a miracle” and found the “essence” of the material. The production was “exhilarating,” Testa was “splendid,” and DeLaria had the “implacable presence of the young Ethel Merman.” Decca Records released a semi-original 1944 cast album (first issued on a 78 RPM set, and then later on LP # DL-8030) that was a combination of original cast members (Comden, Green, and Nancy Walker) and Mary Martin (who sang Gabey’s songs!); the LP was paired with selections from the 1946 musical Lute Song, which starred Martin. The London cast album was released on LP by CBS Records (# SAPG-60005) and on CD by Sony/Masterworks Broadway/Arkiv (# 500728). A studio cast album by Stet Records (LP # DS-150129) included many songs written for the film version (see below). A 1993 concert production was released by Deutsche Grammophon (CD # 437-516-2) in the unfortunate era of “crossover” recordings (in this case, every singer in the world from opera legends Samuel Ramey and Evelyn Lear to Broadway Baby David Garrison to jazz song-stylist Cleo Laine to actress Tyne Daly). A complete two-CD 1996 studio cast album issued by Jay Records (# CDJAY2-1231) includes the generally forgotten and ignored “I Understand” (aka “Pitkin’s Song”), and the 2014 revival was released on a two-CD set by PS Classics (# PS-1525). The unused “Ain’t Got No Tears Left” is included in the collection Leonard Bernstein’s New York (Nonesuch Records CD # 79400-2). There were no recordings of the 1959, 1971, and 1998 revivals. The best recording of the score is a 1960 release by Columbia Records (LP # OL-5540/# OS-2028 and later issued on CD # SK-60538 by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy), which was conducted by Bernstein and includes original 1944 cast members Comden, Green, Walker, and Cris Alexander as well as studio cast performers John Reardon and Michael Kermoyan. The script was published in hardback in 1997 as part of the collection The New York Musicals of Comden and Green (Applause Books), which includes the scripts of Wonderful Town (1953) and Bells Are Ringing (1956) but sadly ignores Subways Are for Sleeping (1961). The script was also published in 2014 by the Library of America in the hardback collection American Musicals, which includes the libretti of fifteen other shows. Carol J. Oja’s Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War (Oxford University Press, 2014) provides information about the musical’s background. The 1949 film version by MGM is notable for its lively cast, which includes Gene Kelly (Gabey), Frank Sinatra (Chip), Jules Munshin (Ozzie), Vera-Ellen (Ivy), Ann Miller (Claire), Betty Garrett (Hildy), and, reprising her Broadway role, Alice Pearce as that “girl of mystery” Lucy Schmeeler. In a major departure from sound-stage-bound filming, some scenes were filmed in New York, and the real and studio New York locations blend well together and look like a Technicolor dream. Unfortunately, only three songs were retained from the stage production (“New York, New York,” “Come Up to My Place,” and, surprisingly, “I Feel Like I’m Not Out of Bed Yet”) along with some of Bernstein’s dance music. Comden and Green supplied lyrics for a new score composed by Roger Edens, and while the new songs are pleasant enough they’re not particularly distinguished; the soundtrack album was released by Show Biz Records (LP # 5603).

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Mary Testa)

FOOL MOON Theatre: Brooks Atkinson Theatre Opening Date: November 22, 1998; Closing Date: January 3, 1999

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Performances: 49 Material: Bill Irwin and David Shiner Original Lyrics and Music: The Red Clay Ramblers Direction: Bill Irwin and David Shiner; Producers: James B. Freydberg, Jeffrey Ash, Dori Bernstein, and CTM Productions (Nancy Harrington, Producing Associate) (Sammi Rose Cannold, Associate Producer); Scenery: Douglas Stein; Costumes: Bill Kellard; Lighting: Nancy Schertler Cast: Bill Irwin, David Shiner, The Red Clay Ramblers (Clay Buckner, Chris Frank, Jack Herrick, Mark Roberts, and Rob Ladd) The revue was presented in two acts. The current limited engagement of Fool Moon marked the revue’s third Broadway visit in five years (for more information, see entries for the 1993 and 1995 presentations). Mimes Bill Irwin and David Shiner were back as the stars, directors, and writers of the virtually wordless revue that featured skits and pantomime sequences. The two performers were again joined by The Red Clay Ramblers, a five-man band who played incidental music throughout the evening. Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that the humor found “poetry in life’s most basic frustrations,” and said Shiner’s “hatchet-man hostility” and Irwin’s “gentle bewilderment” worked well together and provided a formula that defused “the potential for both the sticky whimsy and mean-spiritedness often associated with mime.” Brantley praised a number of the evening’s skits (Shiner trying to find a seat in the theatre, Shiner directing a silent movie in which four hapless audience members portray the film’s actors, Irwin becoming entangled in the cord of a microphone), all of which had been seen in earlier productions of the revue.

PETER PAN (1998 and 1999) “A Musical Production

of the

Play

by

Sir James Barrie”

Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: November 23, 1998; Closing Date: January 3, 1999 Performances: 48 Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Re-Opening Date: April 7, 1999; Closing Date: August 29, 1999 Performances: 166 Total Performances during Season: 214 Book: The book of the musical has never been officially credited (some sources incorrectly cite James M. Barrie, who died seventeen years before the musical was produced), but Jerome Robbins is rumored to have been the show’s chief adaptor. Lyrics: Carolyn Leigh Music: Mark “Moose” Charlap Additional Lyrics: Betty Comden and Adolph Green Additional Music: Jule Styne Based on the 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up by James M. Barrie. Direction: Glenn Casale; Producers: McCoy Rigby Entertainment, The Nederlander Organization, and La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts in association with Albert Nocciolino, Larry Payton, and J. Lynn Singleton; Choreography: Patti Colombo (John Charron, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: John Iacovelli; Costumes: Shigeru Yaji; Lighting: Martin Aronstein; Musical Direction: Craig Barna Cast: Barbara McCulloh (Mrs. Darling, Grown-Up Wendy), Elisa Sagardia (Wendy Darling), Chase Kniffen (John Darling), Drake English (Michael Darling), Dana Solimando (Liza, Tiger Lily), Buck Mason (Nana), Paul Schoeffler (Mr. Darling, Captain Hook), Cathy Rigby (Peter Pan), Alon Williams (Curly), Janet Higgins (First Twin), Doreen Chila (Second Twin), Scott Bridges (Slightly), Aileen Quinn (Tootles, Jane), Michael Nostrand (Mr. Smee), Tony Spinosa (Cecco), Sam Zeller (Gentleman Starkey), Randy Davis (Noodler), Buck Mason (Bill Jukes, Crocodile); Pirates and Indians: Kim Arnett, Randy Davis, Jeffrey Elsass, Casey Miles Good, Buck Mason, Brian Shepard, Roger Preston Smith, Tony Spinosa, Sam Zeller The musical was presented in three acts. The action takes place early in the twentieth century in London and in Neverland.

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The current production of Peter Pan starred Cathy Rigby, who had previously appeared in the 1990 and 1991 Broadway revivals of the musical. This season’s revival opened at the Marquis Theatre in November for a total of forty-eight performances, and then in April returned for an additional 166 performances at the Gershwin Theatre, for a total of 214 showings. There were two major cast changes for the April engagement: Barry Cavanagh played the role of John Darling, and Hally McGehean the roles of Tootles and Jane (note that for the November production the roles of Tootles and Jane were performed by Aileen Quinn, who played the title role of Annie in the 1982 film version). Peter Marks in the New York Times found the revival “more than passing fair.” Rigby may have lacked the “ebullient presence” of a Mary Martin or a Sandy Duncan, but was “truly captivating in midair” when she “dive-bombed as if she were a one-woman fighter squadron” and who was “as taut as the Blue Angels’ sky-high figure-eights.” He noted that Patti Colombo’s choreography turned ”Ugg-a-Wugg” into a “first-rate show-stopper” that featured the Indians and Lost Boys in a Stomp-styled dance sequence; that “Mysterious Lady” was cut (as it had been from all the Rigby revivals); and that the Lost Boys were “way too old for boys” and one looked “in need of a shave.” For more information, including a list of musical numbers, see entry for the 1990 production; for particulars about the 1991 revival, see entry for that production.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Theatre: The Theatre at Madison Square Garden Opening Date: November 27, 1998; Closing Date: December 27, 1998 Performances: 69 The return engagement of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol marked the musical’s fifth of ten visits to The Theatre at Madison Square Garden. For the current production, Roger Daltry played Scrooge. Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times noted that as a singer Daltry wouldn’t “obliterate memories of Caruso,” but as an actor he was “most admirable when most misanthropic.” The critic mentioned that the show was always more spectacle than musical, and the visuals seemed “more appropriate to Halloween than Christmas,” including the number “Link by Link,” which was “a comic neon night of the living dead.” For more information about the musical, see entry for the 1994 production.

PARADE

“A True Story. A Love Story. A Musical.” Theatre: Vivian Beaumont Theatre Opening Date: December 17, 1998; Closing Date: February 28, 1999 Performances: 85 Book: Alfred Uhry Lyrics and Music: Jason Robert Brown Direction: Harold Prince (Brad Rouse, Assistant); Producers: Lincoln Center Theatre (Andre Bishop and Bernard Gersten, Directors) in association with Livent (U.S.) Inc. (Ira Weitzman, Musical Theatre Associate Producer); Choreography: Patricia Birch (Rob Ashford, Assistant); Scenery: Riccardo Hernandez; Costumes: Judith Dolan; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Eric Stern Cast: Jeff Edgerton (Young Soldier, Fiddlin’ John), Don Stephenson (Aide, Mr. Peavy), Melanie Vaughn (Assistant), Don Chastain (Old Soldier, Judge Roan), Carolee Carmello (Irene Frank), Brent Carver (Leo Frank), Herndon Lackey (Hugh Dorsey), John Hickok (Governor Slaton), Anne Torsiglieri (Sally Slaton), Kirk McDonald (Frankie Epps), Christy Carlson Romano (Mary Phagan), Brooke Sunny Moriber (Iola Stover), Rufus Bonds Jr. (Jim Conley), Peter Samuel (J. N. Starnes), Tad Ingram (Officer Ivey), Ray Aranha (Newt Lee), Randy Redd (Prison Guard), Jessica Molaskey (Mrs. Phagan), Robin Syke (Lizzie Phagan), J. B. Adams (Floyd MacDaniel, Luther Rosser), Evan Pappas (Britt Craig), John Leslie Wolfe (Tom Watson), Angela Lockett (Angela), J. C. Montgomery (Riley), Adinah Alexander (Nurse), Abbi Hutcherson (Monteen), Emily Klein

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(Essie); Ensemble: Adinah Alexander, Duane Boutte, Diana Brownstone, Thursday Farrar, Will Gartshore, Abbi Hutcherson, Tad Ingram, Emily Klein, Angela Lockett, Megan McGinnis, J. C. Montgomery, Brooke Sunny Moriber, Randy Redd, Joel Robertson, Peter Samuel, Robin Skye, Don Stephenson, Bill Szobody, Anne Torsiglieri, Melanie Vaughn, Wysandra Woolsey The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Atlanta during the period 1913–1915.

Musical Numbers Act One: Prologue: “The Old Red Hills of Home” (Jeff Edgerton, Don Chastain, Ensemble); Anthem: “The Dream of Atlanta” (Ensemble); “How Can I Call This Home?” (Brent Carver, Ensemble); “The Picture Show” (Kirk McDonald, Christy Carlson Romano); “Leo at Work”/“What Am I Waiting For?” (Brent Carver, Carolee Carmello); Interrogation: “I Am Trying to Remember . . .” (Ray Aranha, Jessica Molaskey); “Big News!” (Evan Pappas); “There Is a Fountain”/“It Don’t Make Sense” (sequence incorporates “There Is a Fountain,” a traditional hymn written in 1772 with words by Samuel Cooper and music by Lowell Mason) (Kirk McDonald, Ensemble); “Watson’s Lullaby” (John Leslie Wolfe); “Somethin’ Ain’t Right” (Herndon Lackey); “Real Big News” (Evan Pappas, Reporters, Ensemble); “You Don’t Know This Man” (Carolee Carmello); Finale Act One—The Trial: Part One—“It Is Time Now” (Jeff Edgerton, John Leslie Wolfe, Ensemble); Part Two—“Twenty Miles from Marietta” (Herndon Lackey); Part Three—“Frankie’s Testimony” (Kirk McDonald, Christy Carlson Romano, John Leslie Wolfe, Ensemble); Part Four—“The Factory Girls”/“Come Up to My Office” (Brooke Sunny Moriber, Emily Klein, Abbi Hutcherson, Brent Carver); Part Five—“Newt Lee’s Testimony” (Ray Aranha, Ensemble); Part Six—“My Child Will Forgive Me” (Jessica Molaskey); Part Seven—“That’s What He Said” (Rufus Bonds Jr., Ensemble); Part Eight—Leo’s Statement (“It’s Hard to Speak My Heart”) (Brent Carver); Part Nine—“Closing Statements” and “Verdict” (Ensemble) Act Two: “It Goes On and On” (Evan Pappas); “A Rumblin’ and a Rollin’” (J. C. Montgomery, Angela Lockett, Ray Aranha, Rufus Bonds Jr.); “Do It Alone” (Carolee Carmello); “Pretty Music” (John Hickok); “Letter to the Governor” (Don Chastain); “This Is Not Over Yet” (Brent Carver, Carolee Carmello, Factory Girls, Ray Aranha); Blues: “Feel the Rain Fall” (Rufus Bonds Jr. Ensemble); “Where Will You Stand When the Flood Comes?” (John Leslie Wolfe, Herndon Lackey, Ensemble); “All the Wasted Time” (Brent Carver, Carolee Carmello); Finale (Ensemble) Parade could be classified as one of those civics-lesson musicals produced by Lincoln Center (either downstairs at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre or upstairs at the Vivian Beaumont), such as Marie Christine (Beaumont, 1999; forty-four performances), A Man of No Importance (Newhouse, 2002; ninety-three performances), and Dessa Rose (Newhouse, 2005; eighty performances). And certainly the subject matter of the commercially produced Ragtime would comfortably fit into the series, and in fact that musical’s producer Livent (U.S.) Inc. was a coproducer of Parade. All these shows had a social agenda that dealt directly or indirectly with prejudices against blacks, Jews, women, or gays (and sometimes a combination thereof), and most were indifferently received by the critics and the public. Although none of Lincoln Center’s productions enjoyed extended runs or commercial Broadway transfers, all were recorded and thus provide an instructive time capsule of the subject matter presented on the stages of the era’s more progressive institutional theatres. In fact, Lincoln Center’s choices brought to mind the almost endless stream of protest/social-issue musicals produced at the Public Theatre during Joseph Papp’s tenure (and sometimes it seemed most of these musicals were written by Elizabeth Swados, who in many respects was the Public’s house composer). Among such musicals (by Swados and others) presented at the Public were: Hair (1967), Stomp (1969), Sambo (1969), Mod Donna (1970), Blood (1971), More Than You Deserve (1973), Apple Pie (1976), On-the Lock-In (1977), Runaways (1978), I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road (1978), Sancocho (1979), Dispatches (1979), Under Fire (1980), and Lullabye and Goodnight (1982). Too often musicals with political agendas suffer from weak scores and preachy books peppered with special pleading, but Parade was the exception. The true story took place during the period 1913–1915, and dealt with Atlanta factory manager Leo Frank (Brent Carver), a Jewish man unjustly arrested on trumped-up charges and convicted for the rape and murder of teenager Mary Phagan (Christy Carlson Romano). Frank’s

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death sentence was commuted and he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but he was kidnapped from jail by a mob who lynched him. During Frank’s incarceration, his wife, Lucille (Carolee Carmello), worked tirelessly on his behalf to promote his innocence, but ultimately her efforts came to naught. But the musical’s tagline wasn’t misleading: the work was both a true story and a love story, and throughout the evening the couple’s relationship was touchingly depicted and perhaps reached its apex in a slightly dreamlike, almost slow-motion picnic lunch when they share a moment of solitude and happiness that almost seems to take place beyond the boundaries of time and space. Alfred Uhry provided a strong book and Jason Robert Brown a solid, full-blooded theatre score that used songs to tell the story, explore character, and provide atmosphere. If the show had a fault, it was the somewhat watery depiction of Frank, who was drawn in too mild-mannered a fashion. Despite the pathos and ultimate horror of what happened to him, he was sometimes on the sidelines of his own story, and even James McMullan’s striking poster artwork for the musical perhaps inadvertently mirrored this problem when it showed Frank alone as he looks out a window and watches a Confederate Memorial Day Parade, a parade passing him by in more ways than one. The musical would have been far more effective had Frank been presented as a strong fighter beaten down by the prejudices of his era, a modern hero caught up in a tragedy of Greek proportion where blind fate shows absolutely no mercy for the innocent. The musical may have been factually honest in its portrait of a cool and aloof Leo Frank, but for dramatic purposes a fighting Frank might have been more heart-rending and his murder would have been all the more horrific in the light of a man who is determined to prove his innocence but is ground down by the indifferent gods. Despite its faults, the work was by far one of the most ambitious and most artistically successful musicals of the era, but mixed reviews and general audience apathy doomed the show to a two-month run and a loss reported by Variety at slightly more than $5 million. But a few months after its closing, the production won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical, was nominated for nine Tony Awards, and won two (Uhry for Best Book and Brown for Best Score). Brown’s score was immensely impressive. It wove folk songs, hymns, gospel music, marches, lullabies, blues, ballads, and cakewalks into its fabric, and moreover offered stunning set pieces that exemplify how exciting musical theatre can be when music is used to stretch the boundaries of storytelling. For instance, the trial, which closes the first act, is comprised of nine separate musical sequences that take the audience through all the stages of the trial, including the prosecutor’s statement (“Twenty Miles from Marietta”), testimony from the victim’s mother (“My Child Will Forgive Me”), Frank’s statement to the court (“It’s Hard to Speak My Heart . . .”), and finally the closing statements and the verdict. The musical also offered two take-home tunes, the haunting folk ballad “The Old Red Hills of Home” and the ballroom dance number “Pretty Music.” The trial sequence also included a darkly surreal moment: the factory girls have been coached to lie about Frank’s behavior, and once they’ve taken the stand and accuse him of various indiscretions, Frank’s imagination catapults him into a musical nightmare (“Come Up to My Office”), a frightening fantasy in which he imagines he actually was the evil and licentious man the girls have described. The musical also provided wry moments for Britt Craig (Evan Pappas) and other reporters covering the trial, and these numbers (“Big News!,” “Real Big News,” and “It Goes On and On”) brought to mind Adam Guettel’s equally impressive “Is That Remarkable?” for the reporters covering another actual news event of the era in Floyd Collins (Off Broadway, 1996). David Patrick Stearns in USA Today praised the “remarkable” musical with a score that offered a rich “emotional palette” and a cast filled with “special electricity.” Director Harold Prince did his “best work,” and with “blazing theatricality” he used Riccardo Hernandez’s set designs to fill out crowd scenes “with eerie-looking cardboard cutouts” (the jury was also composed of these cutouts). John Simon in New York said the musical was “about as dark as a subject can get,” and what could have been a “millstone” was a “milestone.” The story was handled with “intelligence” and “skill,” was “graced with exceptional production values,” and Prince and choreographer Patricia Birch “fused speech and song, movement and dance, incisive detail and all-encompassing panorama into as compact a whole as is dramatically possible.” Fintan O’Toole in the New York Daily News said the work was a “masterly fusion of seriousness and entertainment,” and while there was “no outstanding show-stopping number,” Brown had nonetheless created “consistently smart” lyrics and a score that offered “a vividly dramatic tapestry of sound.”

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But Charles Isherwood in Variety said the work was “less than accomplished.” While the score was “rich in subtle and appealing melodies,” the overall production left the viewer with a “sour aftertaste” that made it the “feel-bad musical of the year.” Despite Brown’s appealing music, Don Sebesky’s brilliant orchestrations, and Eric Stern’s lyrical conducting, it was “hard to take unalloyed pleasure in a score that so thoroughly depicts human mendacity, stupidity, opportunism and cruelty.” The work also lacked “nuanced drama” because of its assertion that it was “morally better to be Jewish than Southern,” and so all the Southerners were depicted as bigots (Frank sings that all of them “belong in zoos”). Donald Lyons in the New York Post said the work rose above “simplistic agitprop” and worked best and had “real power” in its delineation of the Franks’ marriage “under nightmarish distress.” He also noted the musical was “formulaic and shallow” in its portrait of the South and its portrait of Atlanta as “a hotbed of meanness,” and commented that Prince “lays it on with a bullying grandiosity reminiscent of the hollow Ragtime.” He praised Carmello, who “beautifully” captured Lucille’s dilemma, and said Carver’s performance was “the best male achievement in a musical since Michael Hayden in Carousel.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times felt that Frank was portrayed as no more than a “flat and bleeding saint in a religious mural,” and with the exception of Carmello’s “stirringly heartfelt” performance, all the actors in the musical were likewise “claustrophobically trapped in that mural.” Further, Brown’s score kept the audience “at an intellectual remove” and soon the evening devolved into the “common fodder for socially sensitive television movies of the week.” It was only toward the end of the musical in a scene between Frank and Lucille that included the song “All the Wasted Time” that suddenly you were “given emotional entry to a show that has determinedly kept you outside of it.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby stated the musical had “no life,” and the social and political aspects of the story were presented in the manner of “checking off the information for items listed in a curriculum vitae.” Further, most of the characters “could have been ordered from a catalogue,” the décor was “adequate,” and while the score contained some “pleasing melodies” the lyrics were “banal.” Canby concluded by asking, “What was Mr. Prince thinking of in allowing Parade to be produced in this condition?” The original cast album was released by RCA Victor as a Lincoln Center Theatre Recording (CD # 0902663378-2). The first London performance of the musical was given on September 14, 2007, at the Donmar Warehouse in a production directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford, who had been the assistant choreographer for the Broadway edition. The London production was slightly revised, and the cast recording was issued on a two-CD set that includes all the dialogue (First Night Records CD # CASTCD-99); the set also includes a DVD of interviews with Brown, Uhry, Ashford, and others. The script was first published in the Summer 2000 issue of Show Music magazine, and then by Theatre Communications Group in the 2003 hardback and paperback collection The New American Musical: An Anthology from the End of the Century, which also includes the scripts of Rent, Floyd Collins, and Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party. The musical had first been announced as I Love a Parade, a title happily discarded because it might have led audiences to assume the work was a lighthearted musical revue. Two film dramatizations of the Leo Frank story are the 1937 film They Won’t Forget, in which Edward Norris was Robert Hale (Frank) and Lana Turner was Mary Clay (Phagan) and the 1988 NBC mini-series The Murder of Mary Phagan (Peter Gallagher was Frank and Wendy J. Cooke was Mary). In 1986, Leo Frank was given a posthumous pardon by the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Parade); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Brent Carver); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Carolee Carmello); Best Direction (Harold Prince); Best Book (Alfred Uhry); Best Score (Jason Robert Brown); Best Orchestrations (Don Sebesky); Best Scenic Design (Riccardo Hernandez); Best Choreography (Patricia Birch) New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award: Best Musical (1998–1999) (Parade)

THE FLYING KARAMAZOV BROTHERS: SHARPS, FLATS AND ACCIDENTALS Theatre: Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center Opening Date: December 18, 1998; Closing Date: January 3, 1999

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Performances: 18 Sketches and Routine Writers, Directors, and Cast Members: The Flying Karamazov Brothers—Paul Magid (Dmitri), Howard Jay Patterson (Ivan), Michael Preston (Rakitin), and Tim Furst (Fyodor) Music: Douglas Wieselman Producers: Interpresario and Anne Geenen Productions, Inc., in association with Alice Tully Hall; Choreography: Doug Ellkins; Dance Costumes: Susan Hilferty; Lighting: David Hutson The revue was presented in two acts. No doubt some outraged audience members asserted they had been misled and victimized, and thus demanded their money back when to their horror they discovered the Brothers weren’t really brothers and there was absolutely not one moment of flying during the entire evening. But for everyone else, madness was the order of the day, with sharps, flats, accidentals, and otherwise iconoclastic behavior from these very bad nonbrothers who dared call themselves siblings. These New Age and possibly old-hat clowns juggled everything, and while doing so cracked bad jokes (the Latin word moo-sick means cow disease), played the xylophone, and danced, perhaps in homage to the recent Swan Lake. Audience members in the know paid homage by offering sacrificial lambs for juggling, and Anita Gates in the New York Times reported that Brother Ivan (Howard Jay Patterson) juggled such offerings (in this case, an octopus, a metal rack, and a white container that allegedly contained a chicken-and-rice dinner). Ivan was up to the task: success meant a standing ovation, and failure meant a pie in the face. (One suspects most in the audience would have preferred failure.) Gates also reported that at one point the Brothers performed “a very funny ballet of swan, bunny-rabbit and Cossack movements,” which they performed con brio (Spanish for scouring pads), and after the dance they noted, “Aliens made us do that.” Later, Dmitri (Paul Magid) said he felt “bad,” but Ivan cheerfully responded, “That’s what the holidays are all about.” Gates noted that children in the audience seemed to enjoy the evening’s “well-developed sense of the absurd,” but a few jokes (“one hopes”) went over the heads of “even sophisticated New York children,” including the news that Roman Polanski now lives in France “near a junior high school” and another one about Pee-wee Herman. The production was apparently under an Off-Off-Broadway contract, but because the Brothers were in many ways Broadway stalwarts and their subversive comedy demanded recognition or else, their current visit is included in this book. The boys first visited Broadway on May 10, 1983, at the Ritz Theatre in The Flying Karamazov Brothers for forty performances; they returned on April Fool’s Day 1986 with Juggling and Cheap Theatrics at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre and then transferred downstairs to the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre for a total of forty performances. They then played at the Helen Hayes Theatre in The Flying Karamazov Brothers Do the Impossible! After their current visit, they appeared Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre in The Flying Karamazov Brothers: 4Play for one month beginning on February 8, 2010, and returned there on August 9, 2010, for a nine-month run. For the Impossible! run, the fourth brother Smerdyakov was performed by Sam Williams, but for the current production Smerd was absent and Tim Furst played Brother Fyodor.

FOSSE

“A Celebration

in

Song

and

Dance”

Theatre: Broadhurst Theatre Opening Date: January 14, 1999; Closing Date: August 25, 2001 Performances: 1,092 Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Direction: Richard Maltby Jr. (Ann Reinking, Codirector); Producer: Livent (U.S.) Inc.; Choreography: Bob Fosse (Choreography re-created by Chet Walker; Ann Reinking, Co-choreographer); Scenery and Costumes: Santo Loquasto; Lighting: Andrew Bridge; Musical Direction: Patrick S. Brady Cast: Julio Agustin, Brad Anderson, Andy Blankenbuehler, Bill Burns, Marc Calamia, Holly Cruikshank, Eugene Fleming, Lisa Gajda, Kim Morgan Greene, Scott Jovovich, Christopher R. Kirby, Dede LaBarre, Mary Ann Lamb, Susan Lamontagne, Jane Lanier, Deborah Leamy, Shannon Lewis, Mary MacLeod,

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Dana Moore, Brad Musgrove, Sean Palmer, Elizabeth Parkinson, Michael Paternostro, Valarie Pettiford, Rachelle Rak, Josh Rhodes, Desmond Richardson, Lainie Sakakura, Alex Sanchez, Sergio Trujillo, J. Kathleen Watkins, Scott Wise The dance revue was presented in three acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: Prologue: (1) “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” (George White’s Scandals of 1931, lyric by Lew Brown, music by Ray Henderson; later in Fosse’s 1986 musical Big Deal) (Valarie Pettiford); (2) “Fosse’s World” (sequence staged by Ann Reinking): “Calypso” (music by G. Harrell), “Snake in the Grass” (1974 film The Little Prince; lyric by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe), and “dance elements” and “signature Fosse styles” (which appeared in various musicals choreographed by Fosse) (Brad Musgrove, Jane Lanier, Company); and (3) “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” (1926 song; lyric by Mort Dixon, music by Ray Henderson; later in Fosse’s 1972 television special Liza with a “Z”) (Valarie Pettiford, Julio Agustin, Andy Blankenbuehler, Marc Calamia, Holly Cruikshank, Lisa Gajda, Scott Jovovich, Dede LaBarre, Mary Ann Lamb, Shannon Lewis, Mary MacLeod, Dana Moore, Elizabeth Parkinson, Michael Paternostro, Rachelle Rak, Desmond Richardson, Lainie Sakakura, Sergio Trujillo); Part One: (1) “From the Edge” (Dancin’, 1978) (music by G. Harrell) (Brad Anderson, Christopher R. Kirby, Alex Sanchez); (2) “Percussion 4” (Dancin’, 1978) (music by G. Harrell) (Desmond Richardson); (3) “Big Spender” (Sweet Charity, 1966; lyric by Dorothy Fields, music by Cy Coleman) (Valarie Pettiford, Jane Lanier, Kim Morgan Greene, Dede LaBarre, Mary Ann Lamb, Shannon Lewis, Mary MacLeod, Dana Moore, Elizabeth Parkinson, Rachelle Rak); and (4) “Crunchy Granola Suite” (Dancin’, 1978; lyric and music by Neil Diamond) (Julio Agustin, Marc Calami, Holly Cruikshank, Lisa Gajda, Scott Jovovich, Christopher R. Kirby, Dede LaBarre, Mary Ann Lamb, Shannon Lewis, Mary MacLeod, Elizabeth Parkinson, Michael Paternostro, Desmond Richardson, Lainie Sakakura, Alex Sanchez; Singers: Brad Anderson and Eugene Fleming); Part Two: (1) Transition: “Hooray for Hollywood” (1937 film Hollywood Hotel, lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Richard A. Whiting); (2)”From This Moment On” (cut from 1950 musical Out of This World and interpolated into 1953 film version of Kiss Me, Kate; lyric and music by Cole Porter) (Mary Ann Lamb, evenings; Lainie Sakakura, matinees; Andy Blankenbuehler); (3) “Alley Dance” (“Got No Room for Mr. Gloom,” 1955 film My Sister Eileen; lyric by Leo Robin, music by Jule Styne) (Scott Wise, evenings; Brad Musgrove, matinees; Scott Jovovich); (4) Transition: “Dance elements inspired” by Redhead, 1959 (music of “Walking the Cat” by Patrick S. Brady) (Julio Agustin, Holly Cruikshank, Dede LaBarre, Rachelle Rak, Desmond Richardson, Lainie Sakakura); and (5) “I Wanna Be a Dancin’ Man” (1952 film Belle of New York, lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Harry Warren; later in Dancin’, 1978) (Eugene Fleming, Valarie Pettiford, Jane Lanier, Scott Wise, Brad Anderson, Andy Blankenbuehler, Marc Calamia, Lisa Gajda, Kim Morgan Greene, Christopher R. Kirby, Mary Ann Lamb, Shannon Lewis, Mary MacLeod, Dana Moore, Brad Musgrove, Elizabeth Parkinson, Alex Sanchez, Sergio Trujillo) Act Two: Part Three: (1) “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal Mo.” (Damn Yankees, 1955; lyric and music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross) (Julio Agustin, Brad Anderson, Andy Blankenbuehler, Marc Calamia, Eugene Fleming, Christopher R. Kirby, Alex Sanchez, Sergio Trujillo, Michael Paternostro, Scott Wise; Pitcher: Alex Sanchez; Batters: Brad Anderson and Scott Wise; Bunter: Julio Agustin); (2) Transition: Dance elements inspired by New Girl in Town, 1957) (Alex Sanchez); (3) “Nightclubs—The Dance Team of Bob Fosse and Mary Ann Niles”: “Dancing in the Dark” (The Band Wagon, 1931; lyric by Howard Dietz, music by Arthur Schwartz); (4) “I Love a Piano” (Stop! Look! Listen!, 1915; lyric and music by Irving Berlin; sequence inspired by Fosse/Niles or Fosse appearances on various television shows during the period 1949–1956; staged by Ann Reinking) (Scott Wise, Elizabeth Parkinson, Scott Jovovich, Lainie Sakakura, Andy Blankenbuehler, Jane Lanier, Michael Paternoster, Alex Sanchez, Julio Agustin, Brad Anderson, Marc Calamia, Holly Cruikshank, Dede LaBarre, Mary Ann Lamb, Mary MacLeod, Sergio Trujillo; Singers: Shannon Lewis and Rachelle Rak); (5) “Steam Heat” (The Pajama Game, 1954; lyric and music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross) (Jane Lanier, Michael Paternoster, Alex Sanchez); (6) “I Gotcha” (1972 television special Liza with a “Z”; lyric and music by Joseph Arrington Jr., aka Joe Tex) (Shannon Lewis, Brad Musgrove, Christopher R. Kirby); (7) “The Rich Man’s Frug”—Part One: “The Aloof”; Part Two: “The Heavyweight”; and Part Three: “The Big Finish” (Sweet Charity, 1966; music by Cy Coleman) (Lisa Gajda, Brad Musgrove, and Andy Blankenbuehler with Julio Agustin, Brad Anderson, Marc Calamia, Holly Cruikshank,

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Scott Jovovich, Christopher R. Kirby, Dede LaBarre, Shannon Lewis, Mary MacLeod, Rachelle Rak, Lainie Sakakura, Sergio Trujillo); (8) Transition: “Silky Thoughts” (music by Patrick S. Brady); (9) “Cool Hand Luke” (dance for 1968 television special; music by Lalo Schifrin) (Elizabeth Parkinson, Desmond Richardson, Christopher R. Kirby); (10) Transition: “Big Noise from Winnetka” (lyric by Bob Crosby and Gil Rodin, music by Ray Bauduc and Bob Haggart; later in Dancin’, 1978); (11) “Dancin’ Dan” (sequence includes “Me and My Shadow,” lyric by Billy Rose and Al Jolson, music by Dave Dreyer; later in Big Deal, 1986) (Eugene Fleming, Kim Morgan Greene, Dana Moore); and (12) “Nowadays” (Chicago, 1975; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander) and “The Hot Honey Rag” (Chicago, 1996 revival; music by John Kander) (Valarie Pettiford, Jane Lanier) Act Three: Part Four: (1) “Glory” (Pippin, 1972; lyric and music by Stephen Schwartz) (Christopher R. Kirby, Julio Agustin, Brad Anderson, Andy Blankenbuehler, Marc Calamia, Scott Jovovich, Mary Ann Lamb, Brad Musgrove, Elizabeth Parkinson, Michael Paternostro, Lainie Sakakura, Alex Sanchez; Singer: Eugene Fleming); (2) “Manson Trio” (Pippin, 1972; music by Stephen Schwartz) (Eugene Fleming, Dede LaBarre, Mary MacLeod); (3) “Mein Herr” (1972 film Cabaret; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander) (Valarie Pettiford, Holly Cruikshank, Lisa Gajda, Kim Morgan Greene, Shannon Lewis, Dana Moore, Rachelle Rak); (4) “Take Off with Us”—Three Pas de Deux (1979 film All That Jazz; lyric by Frederick K. aka Fred Tobias, music by Stanley R. Lebowsky) (Marc Calamia and Lainie Sakakura, Mary Ann Lamb and Elizabeth Parkinson, Brad Musgrove and Desmond Richardson); (5) “Razzle Dazzle” (Chicago, 1975; lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander) (Scott Wise, Kim Morgan Greene, Dana Moore); (6) “Who’s Sorry Now?” (lyric by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, music by Ted Snyder; used in 1979 film All That Jazz) (Holly Cruikshank, Lisa Gajda, Dede LaBarre, Mary Ann Lamb, Shannon Lewis, Mary MacLeod, Elizabeth Parkinson, Rachelle Rak, Lainie Sakakura); (7) “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” (lyric by Billy Higgins, music by W. Benton Overstreet; used in 1979 film All That Jazz) (Jane Lanier, Kim Morgan Greene, Dana Moore); (8) “Mr. Bojangles” (Dancin’, 1978; lyric and music by Jerry Jeff Walker) (Singer: Andy Blankenbuehler; Dancers: Mr. Bojangles—Sergio Trujillo and The Spirit—Desmond Richardson); and (9) “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” (reprise) (Valarie Pettiford); Part Five: “Sing, Sing, Sing” (lyric and music by Louis Prima; used in Dancin’, 1978; includes “Christopher Columbus” sequence, lyric by Andy Razaf and music by Leon Barry) (Company; Drums: Perry Cavari; Bass: Mike Hall; Trombone Solo: James Pugh; Dancers: Holly Cruikshank, Christopher R. Kirby, Desmond Richardson; Trumpet Solo: Glenn Drews; Dancer: Elizabeth Parkinson; Clarinet Solo: Walt Weiskoph; Dancers: Valarie Pettiford, Jane Lanier, Mary MacLeod, Dana Moore, Kim Morgan Greene, Mary Ann Lamb, Rachelle Rak, Julio Agustin, Brad Anderson, Marc Calamia, Christopher R. Kirby, Alex Sanchez, Sergio Trujillo, Michael Paternoster; Piano Solo: Jonathan Werking; Dancers: Scott Wise, Eugene Fleming) Both Jerome Robbins’ Broadway (1989) and Fosse were tribute revues to the two masters of Broadway dance. But unlike the Robbins show, which focused on about a dozen sequences from his musicals and presented them in carefully organized reconstructions, Fosse sometimes stumbled with its diffuse and scattershot approach that conveyed far too much detail but conversely ignored many of his shows. The evening was enjoyable enough, but an if-only sense hovered over the proceedings. If only it had followed the pattern of the Robbins revue and had concentrated on specific dances from specific shows. If only it hadn’t glossed over or completely ignored a number of Fosse’s musicals. If only it hadn’t come across as someone’s master’s thesis that felt compelled to touch upon every aspect of Fosse’s career with more factual details than most audience members would ever want to know. If only the evening had followed a chronological timeline or some kind of internal logic in the order of its presentation. There were annoying bridges between some dance sequences, and the program noted these bridges offered “dance elements” that were “inspired” from Fosse’s “signature styles.” These annoyingly misleading transitions were often snippets of movement that vaporized almost as soon as they began, and were bewildering and unsatisfying. A “transition” claimed it contained “dance elements inspired” by Fosse’s 1957 musical New Girl in Town (incorrectly identified in the program as a 1958 show), but one wondered just what had been fleetingly presented on the stage. The music for the “element” wasn’t by New Girl’s composer Bob Merrill, and so one didn’t know what to make of it. There was a similar “dance element” supposedly “inspired” by the 1959 musical Redhead, and if you blinked you missed it. The program never explained how the sequence could possibly be from Redhead because the music was “Walking the Cat” by Fosse’s conductor Patrick S. Brady, and the score for Redhead was by Albert Hague. The “dance element” sections should have been

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dumped, and instead of a perfunctory mention and glimpse of Redhead the complete “Pickpocket Tango” or “The Uncle Sam Rag” or “Erbie Fitch’s Twitch” should have been performed. The program’s song list was particularly wearisome. It referenced a wealth of detailed information that was virtually impossible to follow in the darkness of the theatre and that took up almost four full program pages. One couldn’t possibly read and absorb the program’s detailed listing of what was happening on the stage and still watch the action. And so during intermission you looked at the program and wondered how you could have possibly missed the material from New Girl in Town and Redhead. It was wonderful to revisit “Steam Heat” (The Pajama Game), “Big Spender” and “The Rich Man’s Frug” (Sweet Charity), and “Sing, Sing, Sing” (Dancin’), but did we need quite so many dances from the latter? There were seven in all, and sometimes Fosse threatened to morph into a revival of Dancin’. (And the most unwelcome of all the Dancin’ sequences was the lugubrious and reverential “Mr. Bojangles,” a number that oozed with amorphous backstory and tremulous bathos.) And just where were all those dances from Redhead, the most dance-driven book musical of the 1950s? And New Girl in Town? And The Conquering Hero? And How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying? And Pleasures and Palaces? Surely some of the dances from these shows could have been reconstructed, and if they were completely lost the program should have owned up to it. The program provided a wealth of information (such as those “dance elements” that were originally seen on such 1950s television variety shows as The Colgate Comedy Hour), and so a clarification about any lost dances would have been instructive. (And “Erbie Fitch’s Twitch” isn’t lost, because Gwen Verdon’s performance of the show-stopper was televised during the original run of Redhead and is readily available for viewing, and apparently How to’s “Coffee Break” is still with us. So why couldn’t these numbers have been included in the revue?) Ben Brantley in the New York Times found Fosse “oddly unaffecting” with a “clinical” approach that lacked “identifying narrative or standard chronology” and performances that were “weirdly mechanical” if technically correct. In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby noted that recent Broadway choreography was often “nondescript” (as in Footloose) or “solemnly obligatory” and “instructive” (Ragtime), and so it was good to see the “terrifically entertaining” and “rich, bewitching” tribute to Fosse. Charles Isherwood in Variety noted that Fosse’s “artistry is lovingly re-created and impeccably executed,” but he felt there was a “certain overkill” with the revue’s “slavish need to include a virtual encyclopedia” of Fosse’s work. And he noted that with so many selections from Dancin’ “a feeling of superabundance” set in, and he could have done without the “particularly extraneous” and “unavoidably maudlin” inclusion of “Mr. Bojangles.” The cast album was released by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09029-63379-2), and the DVD (taken from a live performance late during the Broadway run, which featured Ann Reinking and Ben Vereen) was released by Image Entertainment (# ID1527WNDVD) and in 2002 was shown on the public television series Great Performances. The London production opened on February 8, 2000, at the Prince of Wales Theatre for almost a full year’s run.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Musical (Fosse); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Desmond Richardson); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Scott Wise); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Valarie Pettiford); Best Direction of a Musical (Richard Maltby Jr.); Best Costume Design (Santo Loquasto); Best Lighting Design (Andrew Bridge)

STEEL CITY Theatre: Radio City Music Hall Opening Date: January 26, 1999; Closing Date: January 30, 1999 Performances: 7 Lyrics and Music: Tim Finn Direction and Choreography: Dein Perry; Producers: Garry Van Egmond (for Theatres and Concerts International); Scenery: Brian Thomson; Costumes: Michael Wilkinson; Lighting: Trudy Dalgleish; Musical Direction: Unknown

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Cast: Dein Perry, Paul Davis, Nathan Sheens, Lee McDonald, Grant Turner, Sheldon Perry, Brian Burke, Dan Clemente, Steven Grace, Andrew Harrison, Nigel Long, Sean Mulligan, Shane Preston, Glen Rhule, Dean Street, Aaron Sweetman, Melissa Gibson, Brooke Henderson, Leah Howard, Rebecca Jeffs, Rachel Schmaltz, Ann Tsirigotis The dance revue was presented in one act.

Musical Numbers “Steel City”; “Ovaerture”; “Truss Dance”; “Spirit Level”; “Old Car”; “Drop Out” (lyric and music by Tim Finn and Marie Azcona); “Walking”; “Smoko Duet”; “Rock and Roll Girl”; “Absail”; “Forklifts”; “Where I Live” (lyric and music by Tim Finn and Mike Chunn); “New Car”; “Road Trip”; “Finale”; “Glide” The Australian import Steel City was a one-act dance musical created by Dein Perry, who had also devised the popular Tap Dogs. The limited engagement consisted of twenty-one dancers (including Perry) and a four-man rock band, and it opened at Radio City Music Hall for the first stop on a national tour of forty American and Canadian cities. Jennifer Dunning in the New York Times reported that the décor consisted of steel and metal: steel stairways and grids, cars and trucks, and even a steel-mesh front curtain. The dancers’ taps hit these items, and provided steel-like sounds that meshed with the band music. Dunning noted there was a slight story of sorts, which dealt with men who work in what she surmised was either a large factory or a high-tech garage, who find time for surreptitious visits with their girlfriends, and then after work head off for dancing at a local rock club. But Dunning said she waited in vain for “the whole thing to turn into a lavish television ad for upscale jeans or bargain car tires.” Otherwise, the “synchronized tappers” occasionally and “excitingly” formed smaller ranks “like skaters’ whirling group combinations.” Mark Woods in Variety reviewed the January 3, 1998, world premiere of the work, which opened at Sydney’s Casino Star City Showroom. He noted that the seventy-five-minute evening was “an overwhelmingly male piece” and was a “bigger, brassier and noisier spectacle” than Tap Dogs. One highlight was a “most engaging” and “animated tap duet” between Melissa Gibson and Perry, but he mentioned that while the “thunderously loud rock music” provided “punch” it sometimes threatened to “overpower” the sounds of the tapping. The Australian cast album was released on CD by Sony/Columbia Records, and a CD single was issued that included two versions of the title song and “Raise,” a number that doesn’t seem to have been in the New York production but may have been included in the original Australian version. A DVD of a 1999 Australian production was also released. Perry’s earlier Tap Dogs opened Off-Broadway on March 16, 1997, at the Union Square Theatre for 182 performances. Perry choreographed and danced in the production, and was one of the coproducers, and the New York visit followed the show’s Sydney premiere and North American tour. In reviewing the work for the New York Times, Peter Marks reported that the cast of all-male dancers in the “Australian beefcake tapa-thon” preened and strutted “with the vanity of body-builders,” and he noted that two dancers stripped to the waist “for no other reason than to flash their glistening pecs.” All this led him to wonder if a Tap Dogs workout video was around the corner.

YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN “The Broadway Musical”

Theatre: Ambassador Theatre Opening Date: February 4, 1999; Closing Date: June 13, 1999 Performances: 150 Book, Lyrics, and Music: Clark Gesner (the book was originally credited to John Gordon, a nom de plume for Gesner); additional material by Andrew Lippa Based on the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. Direction: Michael Mayer; Producers: Michael Leavitt, Fox Theatricals, Jerry Frankel, Arthur Whitelaw, and Gene Persson (produced in association with Larry Payton); Choreography: Jerry Mitchell; Scenery: David Gallo; Costumes: Michael Krass; Lighting: Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Kimberly Grigsby

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Cast: Kristin Chenoweth (Sally), Stanley Wayne Mathis (Schroeder), B. D. Wong (Linus), Roger Bart (Snoopy), Ilana Levine (Lucy), Anthony Rapp (Charlie Brown) The musical was presented in two acts. The musical takes place during “an average day in the life of Charlie Brown.”

Musical Numbers Act One: “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” (additional material for this song by Andrew Lippa) (Company); “Schroeder” (Ilana Levine, Stanley Wayne Mathis); “Snoopy” (Roger Bart); “My Blanket and Me” (B. D. Wong); “The Kite” (Anthony Rapp); “The Doctor Is In” (Ilana Levine, Anthony Rapp); “Beethoven Day” (lyric and music by Andrew Lippa) (Stanley Wayne Mathis, Company); “Rabbit Chasing” (Kristin Chenoweth, Roger Bart); “Book Report” (Anthony Rapp, Ilana Levine, B. D. Wong, Stanley Wayne Mathis) Act Two: “The Red Baron” (Roger Bart); “My New Philosophy” (lyric and music by Andrew Lippa) (Kristin Chenoweth, Stanley Wayne Mathis); “T.E.A.M. (The Baseball Game)” (Anthony Rapp, Company); “Glee Club Rehearsal” (Company); “Little Known Facts” (Ilana Levine, B. D. Wong, Anthony Rapp); “Suppertime” (Roger Bart); “Happiness” (Company) As the comma-challenged You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, the revue-like musical originally opened Off-Broadway on March 7, 1967, at Theatre 80 St. Marks for a marathon run of 1,597 performances. Because of the show’s small cast and orchestra and modest scenery, it quickly became a staple in community, college, and high school theatre. But the adaptation of the popular comic strip was tiresome in its overly cute and twee manner and its out-of-the-mouths-of-babes-and-beagle wisdom. It was obvious and predictable, and only once did the material take off, when Snoopy went into a one-pooch vaudeville routine celebrating the highlight of a dog’s day in “Suppertime.” This show-stopper was truly inspired and made the rest of the production look routine. The show was first revived on Broadway on June 1, 1971, at the John Golden Theatre for thirty-two performances, and received generally good reviews (Leonard Propst on WNBC4TV found it “amusing in a mild way” and “charming and well done,” but felt the “peanut-sized show” worked better in a “peanutsized theatre”). The current revival also received mostly favorable reviews, but it never quite caught on and closed after four months (but won Tony Awards for two of its players). The revised production included additional book material by Andrew Lippa, who also contributed two new songs (“Beethoven Day” and “My New Philosophy”), and the character of Patty was eliminated and the new one of Sally was added. Theatre World reported that seventeen of the original production’s forty-two sketch-like sequences were cut and twenty-one new ones were added. Fintan O’Toole in the New York Daily News found the show “more two-dimensional than the comic strip,” and although Charles Isherwood in Variety said the musical was “still a mere trifle,” he praised Kristin Chenoweth, who was a “daffy, delirious delight” in the new role of Sally and gave “the illusion of being a kid acting like an adult” while most of the cast members were “clearly adults acting like kids, a more heavyhanded effect.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the “mild-mannered” and “sticky evening of skits” seemed “sadly shrunken” in a Broadway theatre and there was “an uncomfortable feeling of dead air” about the production. Anthony Rapp wasn’t “a Charlie Brown that anyone except possibly some New Age cultist could identify with, and there is a hole where the show’s emphatic center should be.” But Chenoweth was “terrifically appealing,” a “star-in-the-making” whose “glow” gave “real Broadway magic” to the otherwise disappointing revival. In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby praised the “gentle, wise, very cheering entertainment,” noted that Rapp seemed “bewildered” by a role that wasn’t “especially rewarding,” said Chenoweth was “magical,” and found Roger Bart’s Snoopy an “explosively comic joy.” Canby mentioned that “Happiness” was a “sweet song that teeters dangerously on twee,” while his colleague Brantley complained that the song was “pure syrup.” There are numerous recordings of the score. A concept album was released by MGM Records on its Leo the Lion Records/King Leo Series (LP # LE-900) in 1966, a year before the original Off-Broadway production opened; the album’s cast includes Orson Bean (Charlie Brown), Clark Gesner (Linus), Barbara Minkus (Lucy),

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and Bill Hinnant (Snoopy). There were two recordings of the original 1967 production, both released by MGM. The first (LP # SIE-9-OC) was recorded live from an early performance at the Theatre 80 St. Marks, and the second (LP # SIE-9OC-X) in a studio. An NBC television version on Hallmark Hall of Fame was shown on February 9, 1973, with Wendell Burton in the title role and Hinnant from the concept album and from the 1967 Off-Broadway cast; the soundtrack was issued by Atlantic Records (LP # SD-7252), and it marks the fourth recording in which Hinnant sings the role of Snoopy. A later cartoon version of the musical was telecast by CBS on November 6, 1985, and was released on DVD by Warner Home Video. A studio cast album of the score was released by Pickwick Records (LP # PC-3069 and # SPC-3069), and the current revival was recorded by RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-63384-2). The script was published in hardback by Random House in 1968, and the London production opened on February 1, 1968, at the Fortune Theatre for 116 performances. During preproduction or rehearsals of the original Off-Broadway production, two songs (“Queen Lucy” and “Peanuts Potpourri”) were dropped and replaced by “Glee Club Rehearsal.” There was a later musical about Snoopy, not by Clark Gesner. With lyrics by Hal Hackady and music by Larry Grossman, it premiered in San Francisco as Snoopy!!! in 1975 with Don Potter in the title role (Potter had earlier played Snoopy in the 1968 London production of Gesner’s musical). As Snoopy, the musical opened Off-Broadway at the Lamb’s Theatre on December 20, 1982, for 152 showings with David Garrison. The San Francisco production was recorded on LP and CD by DRG Records (both # 6103), and a 1983 London production was issued by Polydor Records (CD # 820247). The musical was also telecast as an animated special by CBS in 1988.

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Roger Bart); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Kristin Chenoweth); Best Direction of a Musical (Michael Mayer)

ANNIE GET YOUR GUN Theatre: Marquis Theatre Opening Date: March 4, 1999; Closing Date: September 1, 2001 Performances: 1,046 Book: Herbert and Dorothy Fields (revised by Peter Stone) Lyrics and Music: Irving Berlin Direction: Graciela Daniele (Peter Lawrence, Production Supervisor); Producers: Barry and Fran Weissler in association with Kardana, Michael Watt, Irving Welzer, and Hal Luftig (Alecia Parker and Judith Ann Abrams, Associate Producers); Choreography: Graciela Daniele and Jeff Calhoun (Patti D’Beck, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Tony Walton; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Beverly Emmons; Musical Direction: Marvin Laird Cast: Tom Wopat (Frank Butler), Ron Holgate (Buffalo Bill aka Colonel William F. Cody), Valerie Wright (Dolly Tate), Andrew Palermo (Tommy Keeler), Nicole Ruth Snelson (Winnie Tate), Kevin Bailey (Mac, Running Deer, Messenger), Peter Marx (Charlie Davenport), Ronn Carroll (Foster Wilson, Pawnee Bill aka Major Gordon Lillie), Gregory Zaragoza (Chief Sitting Bull), Bernadette Peters (Annie Oakley), Cassidy Ladden (Jessie Oakley), Mia Walker (Nellie Oakley), Trevor McQueen Eaton (Little Jake), Carlos Lopez (Eagle Feather), Brad Bradley (Dining Car Waiter), Patrick Wetzel (Sleeping Car Porter), Marvin Laird (Band Leader), Julia Fowler (Mrs. Schyler Adams), Jenny-Lynn Suckling (Sylvia Potter-Porter); Ensemble: Shaun Amyot, Kevin Bailey, Brad Bradley, Randy Donaldson, Madeleine Ehlert, Julia Fowler, Kisha Howard, Adrienne Hurd, Keri Lee, Carlos Lopez, Desiree Parkman, Eric Sciotto, Kelli Bond Severson, Timothy Edward Smith, Jenny-Lynn Suckling, David Villella, Patrick Wetzel The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the mid-1880s in various locales throughout the United States (including Cincinnati, Minneapolis, and New York City) and Europe.

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Musical Numbers Act One: “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (Tom Wopat, Company); “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” (Bernadette Peters, Cassidy Ladden, Mia Walker, Trevor McQueen Eaton, Ronn Carroll); “The Girl That I Marry” (Tom Wopat, Bernadette Peters); “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun” (Bernadette Peters); “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (reprise) (Tom Wopat, Ron Holgate, Peter Marx, Bernadette Peters); “I’ll Share It All with You” (Andrew Palermo, Nicole Ruth Snelson, Cassidy Ladden, Company); “Moonshine Lullaby” (Bernadette Peters, Cassidy Ladden, Mia Walker, Trevor McQueen Eaton, Ensemble Trio); “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (reprise) (Bernadette Peters); “They Say It’s Wonderful” (Bernadette Peters, Tom Wopat); “My Defenses Are Down” (Tom Wopat, Young Men); “The Trick” (Bernadette Peters, Company); “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun” (reprise) (Bernadette Peters) Act Two: “The European Tour” (Bernadette Peters, Company); “I Got Lost in His Arms” (Bernadette Peters); “Who Do You Love? I Hope” (Andrew Palermo, Nicole Ruth Snelson, Company); “I Got the Sun in the Morning” (Bernadette Peters, Company); “An Old-Fashioned Wedding” (Bernadette Peters, Tom Wopat); “The Girl That I Marry” (reprise) (Tom Wopat); “Anything You Can Do” (Bernadette Peters, Tom Wopat); “They Say It’s Wonderful” (reprise) (Bernadette Peters, Tom Wopat, Company); Finale (Company) The revival of Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun was for the most part a disappointment. The story depicted the professional rivalry between sharp-shooters Annie Oakley (Bernadette Peters, in the role created by Ethel Merman for the original 1946 production) and Frank Butler (Tom Wopat in the role originated by Ray Middleton), but their slightly cool relationship heats up when Annie realizes you can’t get a man with a gun. Peters never seemed natural, or comfortable, in the book scenes, and her Annie often came across as a backwoods Betty Boop with arrested development. Happily, her annoying hillbilly drawl vanished almost every time she sang, and she did well in such numbers as “I Got Lost in His Arms.” Otherwise, she and the role weren’t a good fit, and she even looked slightly ridiculous in her cowboy hat and Wild West trappings. She was noticeably more at ease in her later scenes, such as the one in a New York hotel ballroom where she wore an evening gown and belted “I Got the Sun in the Morning” in splendid fashion. The stalwart Wopat was an effective Frank, and although some critics took umbrage with the campy staging for “My Defenses Are Down,” in which he and chorus-boy cowpokes conjured up the image of a straight guy on a gay dude ranch, the sequence clearly winked at the audience and was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Peter Stone’s book was a politically correct take on the original, and so the Indians weren’t depicted as caricatures (although an argument could be made that all the characters in Herbert and Dorothy Fields’ original book were purposely depicted as caricatures of one sort or another). As a result, Annie’s “I’m an Indian, Too,” was cut from the revival even though the number actually celebrates cultural diversity! Annie has been made an honorary member of the Sioux Tribe, and so she and the Indians go into the song and its accompanying tribal dance as part of her initiation into the Sioux community (during the celebration, Annie gets carried away and the song morphs into a list song of Indian names she’s either heard in the past or, in the excitement of the moment, has made up on the spot). Further, the comic characters Tommy and Winnie (two extraneous roles that were wisely eliminated from both the 1950 film version and the 1966 Broadway revival, which starred Merman) were retained, but with a twist: as originally conceived, both were white, but Stone made Tommy half-Indian, and thus the plot now included a mixed-race romance, a trendy gimmick that saddled the already frail book with social issues far beyond its ability to handle. The “Western” musicals Whoopee (1928) and Paint Your Wagon (1951) deal with interracial romance (a white woman and a half-Indian man for the former, and a white woman and a Mexican man for the latter), and so perhaps Stone was just following tradition. There was also an unfortunate but thankfully brief moment of condescension when a line of dialogue (Annie’s comment that “Indians are real fine folks”) seemed to talk down to the audience members as if they were either bigots in need of enlightenment or else too stupid to know that racism is unacceptable and were thus in need of a mini-civics lesson. Moreover, the character of the heretofore good-natured Dolly Tate (Valerie Wright) was turned into an outand-out bigot, something unfair to the character and unnecessary to the musical. Stone’s book also made the mistake of presenting the musical in a big-top setting as a show-within-ashow in which the story of Annie and Frank’s relationship is played out as part of a wild west show. The device added nothing to the evening, and after the opening sequence was all but dropped, and so the entire prelude was confusing as well as a time-waster. Stone also placed “There’s No Business Like Show Business” in the opening sequence for Frank and the company to sing, and as a result the song lost its special zing when a

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reprise version (which originally was the spot where the song was performed for the first time in the musical) was presented by Frank and other show-biz folk as a call to Annie to join the exciting world of show business. The revival included the glorious two-part “An Old-Fashioned Wedding,” which Berlin had written for the 1966 revival, and dropped “I’m a Bad, Bad Man” and “Colonel Buffalo Bill,” the former perhaps cut to appease the politically correct police. During the run, Susan Lucci and Cheryl Ladd succeeded Peters, and when Reba McEntire assumed the role she received rave reviews. There was brief talk about a television adaptation of the revival with McEntire in the lead, but unfortunately nothing came of it. The musical received generally favorable reviews, with a noticeable thumbs-down by Ben Brantley in the New York Times. But the musical managed to run some two-and-a-half years on Broadway, and eleven months after its opening Michael Reidel in the New York Post reported the show had returned its full capitalization of $6.5 million. Donald Lyons in the New York Post said Peters and Wopat were “the very definition of glorious Broadway entertainment,” and Vincent Canby in the New York Times praised the “engaging and welcome theatrical event” with the “exquisite” Peters and the “excellent” Wopat. Charles Isherwood in Variety noted the “flatfooted” book had an “identity crisis” that forced Peters to swoon over a man in one scene, support the rights of Indians in the next, then become a feminist, and finally swoon all over again in order to keep her man. She often seemed “distinctly unenthused” and her accent was “sometimes incomprehensible,” but when she sang she “wisely abandoned” her drawl and brought “honest emotion and theatrical intelligence” to her numbers. Brantley said the evening was a “tawdry take” on the famous musical, and he disliked the “vulgar, catchall” choreography and the “lurid” sets and costumes. He noted that the overall effect was that “of a late show in Las Vegas or Atlantic City performed by a worn-out cast that is more than ready to go home,” and the basic story was presented “with both hard-pushing shrillness and a weary lack of conviction” that “seems both to pander to and patronize the audience.” As for Peters, Brantley found her “misdirected and miscast.” Her “twangy” accent brought to mind “the inbred yokels of Erskine Caldwell” and her “molasses-slow delivery” allowed the audience to “anticipate” her “threadbare punch lines long before she reaches them.” But Peters provided the revival’s “only genuine pleasures,” and these were when she sang. As for Wopat, he had a “pleasant” singing voice and an “effortless, low-key presence” that allowed him to emerge as the only “unscarred” member of the company. The show originally premiered in New York on May 16, 1946, at the Imperial Theatre for a run of 1,147 performances. The first New York revival opened on February 19, 1958, at City Center for fifteen performances with Betty Jane Watson (Annie), David Atkinson (Frank), and, from the original production, Harry Bellaver as Sitting Bull. The New York City Center Light Opera Company didn’t have an Annie lined up for this revival until the very last minute (the company seems to have been in negotiations with Martha Raye), and the programs contained a notation that the performer was “to be announced” (and so Watson, who had been signed as the understudy for the actress who would play Annie, was given the leading role). The next revival opened on May 31, 1966, for forty-seven performances in a limited engagement at the New York State Theatre under the aegis of the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center and its short-lived (1964– 1969) series of nine summer musicals. Merman reprised her Annie, Bruce Yarnell was Frank, and Bellaver was once again Sitting Bull. Of the series’ nine musicals, only Annie Get Your Gun had a pre-Lincoln Center tryout, during which two new Berlin songs were introduced, “An Old-Fashioned Wedding” and “Who Needs the Birds and Bees?” (the latter was dropped prior to Broadway). After the run, the musical briefly toured and then returned to New York for another limited engagement where it opened on September 21, 1966, at the Broadway Theatre for an additional seventy-seven performances. The original London production opened on June 7, 1947, at the Coliseum for 1,304 showings, a run even longer than the Broadway version. Dolores Gray scored a personal success as Annie, and Bill Johnson was Frank. The lively 1950 MGM film version starred Betty Hutton (who replaced Judy Garland soon after filming began) and Howard Keel. The DVD was issued by Warner Brothers Video (# 65438) and includes four outtakes: the new (and eventually cut) song “Let’s Go West Again” (with Hutton); “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” and “I’m an Indian, Too” (Garland); and “Colonel Buffalo Bill” (Frank Morgan and Geraldine Wall). (Morgan died soon after production began and was replaced by Louis Calhern.) Besides Garland’s dismissal and Morgan’s death, Keel broke his leg soon after filming began. For all the turmoil surrounding the production (which Hutton described as the unhappiest experience of her career, but, hey, it landed her on the cover of Time, is probably her best-known film role, and was a critical, audience, and financial hit), the film is still colorful and entertaining. There were two television productions of the musical, both telecast by NBC. The first was seen on November 27, 1957, with Mary Martin (who had toured with the musical in the late 1940s) and John Raitt; the

350      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS

second was shown on March 19, 1967, and was based on the Lincoln Center production and included Merman and the Broadway company (unfortunately, no tape of the telecast is known to exist and is presumed lost). The script was published twice in paperback, first by Emile Littler/Chappell & Co. Ltd. (London) in 1952, and later in 1967 by the Irving Berlin Music Corporation (the script of the latter is based on the 1966 production). The lyrics for all the used and unused songs are included in the hardcover collection The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin. There are a number of recordings of the classic score, but the 1946 cast album is still the best (Decca Records LP #DL-8001; later released on CD by Decca Broadway Records # 012-159-243-2 with various bonus tracks). The Lincoln Center revival was also recorded, and is worth seeking out for the terrific “An OldFashioned Wedding” (RCA Victor Records LP # LOC/LSO-1124; the CD was issued by RCA # 1124-2-RC and includes a previously unreleased extended version of “An Old-Fashioned Wedding”). The most complete recording of the score is a studio cast album released by EMI Records (CD # CDC-7-54206-2); conducted by John McGlinn and with Kim Criswell and Thomas Hampson in the leading roles, the album includes “I’ll Share It All with You,” “Who Do You Love? I Hope,” and “An Old-Fashioned Wedding” as well as the major dance music heard in the 1946 production (“Ballyhoo,” “Wild Horse Ceremonial Dance,” and “Adoption Dance”). The unused song “Take It in Your Stride” is included in the collection Lost in Boston (Varese Sarabande CD # VSD-5475). The current revival was recorded by Broadway Angel Records (CD # 7243-5-56812-2-5).

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (Annie Get Your Gun); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Tom Wopat); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Bernadette Peters)

BAND IN BERLIN “A New Musical”

Theatre: Helen Hayes Theatre Opening Date: March 7, 1999; Closing Date: March 21, 1999 Performances: 16 Book: Susan Feldman Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Direction: Patricia Birch and Susan Feldman (Jonathan Stuart Cerullo, Assistant Director and Choreographer); Producers: Robert V. Straus, Jeffrey Ash, Randall L. Wreghitt, and Gayle Francis in association with Marcia Roberts and DLT Entertainment/ZDF Enterprises by special arrangement with Arts at St. Ann’s and the American Music Theatre Festival (Marsha Dubrow, Gilford/Freeley, Kathleen O’Grady, Geoffrey Shearing, and Joseph S. Steinberg, Associate Producers); Choreography: Patricia Birch; Scenery: Douglas W. Schmidt; Media Design: Richard Law; Filmmakers: Anthony Chase and Eric Rodine; Puppet Design: Stephen Kaplin; Costumes: Jonathan Bixby and Gregory Gale; Lighting: Kirk Bookman; Musical Direction: Wilbur Pauley Cast: Herbert Rubens (Roman Cycowski on film and voice over), Mark Bleeke (First Tenor [Ari Leshnikoff]), Timothy Leigh Evans (Second Tenor [Erich Collin]), Hugo Munday (Lyric Baritone [Harry Frommermann]), Peter Becker (Baritone [Roman Cycowski]), Wilbur Pauley (Bass [Robert Biberti]), Robert Wolinsky (Pianist [Erwin Bootz]) The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place in “memories of Germany” during the period 1927–1935.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t credit individual performers for the musical numbers. Overture: “Schlaf mein Liebling” (“Good Night, Sweetheart”) (lyric and music by Ray Noble, Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly, and Fritz Lohner aka Beda); Prologue: “Ein neuer Fruhling wird in die Heimat kom-

1998–1999 SEASON     351

men” (“A New Spring Will Come to the Homeland”) (lyric and music by Willy Engelberger, Fritz Rotter, and Will Meisel); The Beginning: “Schone Isabella aus (von) Kastilien” (“Dearest Isabella from Castille”) (lyric and music by Erwin Bootz and Gerd Karlick; English lyric by Wilbur Pauley); “My Little Green Cactus” (“Mein kleine gruner Kaktus”) (lyric and music by Dorian aka Bert Reisfeld and Horda aka Rolf Marbot); and “Quand il pleut”/“Stormy Weather” (Cotton Club Parade, 1933 [twenty-second edition]; lyric by Ted Koehler, music by Harold Arlen); The Rise: “Wochend und Sonnenschien” (“Happy Days Are Here Again”) (1930 film Chasing Rainbows; lyric by Milton Ager, music by Jack Yellen; German lyric by Charles Amberg); “Veronika, der Lenz ist da” (“The Spring Is Here”) (lyric and music by Walter Jurmann and Fritz Rotter; English lyric by Wilbur Pauley); “Die Dorfmusik” (“Village Music”) (lyric and music by Fryberg, von Donop, and Kirsten); and “Tea for Two” (No, No, Nanette, 1925; lyric by Irving Caesar, music by Vincent Youmans); World Tour: “Wie waer’s mal mit Lissabon?” (“What’s Happening in Lisbon?”) (lyric and music by Werner Bochmann and Erwin Lehnow); “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” (lyric by Irving Mills, music by Duke Ellington); “Creole Love Call” (lyric and music by Duke Ellington); and “Overture to The Barber of Seville,” 1816) (music by Giaccomo Rossini); The Homeland Tour: “Night and Day”/“Nuit et jour” (Gay Divorce, 1932; lyric and music by Cole Porter; French lyric by Emila Renaud); “Ein neuer Fruhling wird in die Heimat kommen” (reprise); “Eine kleine Fruhlingsweise” (“A Little Spring Melody”) (lyric by Langsfelder, music by Anton Dvorak); and “Der Onkel Bumba aus Columba tanzi nur Rumba” (“Uncle Bumba from Columba Dances the Rhumba”) (The Third Little Show, 1931; originally titled “When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on His Tuba” aka “When Yuba Plays the Tuba,” lyric and music by Herman Hupfield; German lyric by A. Robinson and Fritz Rotter); Swansong Tour: “Whistle While You Work” (1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; lyric by Larry Morey, music by Frank Churchill); “Die Liebe kommt Die Liebe geht” (“Love Comes, Love Goes”) (lyric by Ernst Marischka, music by Fritz Kreisler; English lyric by Wilbur Pauley); “Baby” (“Baby, Wo ist mein Baby”) (lyric by Walter Mehring, music by Friedrich Hollaender aka Frederick Hollander); and “Der alte Cowboy” (“The Old Cowboy” aka “The Last Round-Up”) (Ziegfeld Follies of 1933–1934, 1933; lyric and music by Billy Hill; German lyric by Walter); Epilogue: “Auf Wiederseh’n, My Dear” (lyric and music by Al Hoffmann, Al Goodheart, Ed Nelson, Milton Ager, and Charles Amberg; English lyric by Wilbur Pauley) Like Barry Manilow’s Harmony, Band in Berlin was based on the true story of the German singing group the Comedian Harmonists, a sextet of both Jewish and gentile vocalists who were popular during the late 1920s and early 1930s but were forced to disband once the Nazis came into power. Peter Marks in the New York Times found the “engagingly sung” but “dramatically inert” and “monotonous” evening a “docu-cabaret,” which included slide projections and reenactments of newsreels (one of the leading actors was seen only on film as he provided documentary-styled narration). Marks soon felt “like a heavy-lidded motorist struggling against the effects of highway hypnosis” because the characters were like “singing shadows.” The script failed to depict the “turmoil” and the “unique predicament” the group must have experienced during the era, and without such insight they were “just Deutsche Beach Boys” and the evening evolved into the kind of “alpine show” seen in The Sound of Music where the Comedian Harmonists could have been the entertainers who “went on just before the Trapp family.” Fintan O’Toole in the New York Daily News found the show “entertaining” and “thought-provoking,” but complained that the work stayed “small and safe, not just artistically, but morally” and should have been “much more.” Charles Isherwood in Variety praised the “handsome harmonizing” but noted the evening wasn’t “really a musical” and “not really a play”; and Donald Lyons in the New York Post found the mix of the “actual” and the “faux” on the “irritating” side. For information about Manilow’s earlier musical about the Comedian Harmonists as well as two films about the group, see Harmony.

ROLLIN’ ON THE T.O.B.A. “A Tribute

to the

Last Days

of

Black Vaudeville”

Theatre: The Kit Kat Klub at Henry Miller’s Theatre Opening Date: March 24, 1999; Closing Date: April 4, 1999 Performances: 14

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“Conception”: Ronald “Smokey” Stevens and Jaye Stewart, and featuring excerpts from the Simple stories by Langston Hughes Sketches, Lyrics, and Music: See list of sketches and musical numbers for specific credits; additional material by David Alan Bunn. Direction and Choreography: Ronald “Smokey” Stevens and Leslie Dockery; Producers: John Grimaldi, Ashton Springer, and Frenchmen Productions, Inc. (Martin Shugrue and Carriene Nevin, Associate Producers); Scenery: Larry W. Brown; Costumes: Michele Reisch; Lighting: Jon Kusner; Musical Direction: David Alan Bunn Cast: Ronald “Smokey” Stevens (Stevens), Rudy Robertson (Stewart), Sandra Reaves-Phillips (Bertha Mae Little) The revue was presented in two acts. The action takes place in 1931 on the T.O.B.A. circuit.

Sketches and Musical Numbers Act One: Overture: “Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A.” (lyric and music by Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Sandra ReavesPhillips, Chapman Roberts, Benny Key, and David Alan Bunn) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson, Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “Toast to Harlem” (by Langston Hughes) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson); “Bill Robinson Walk” (by J. Fred Coots and Benny Davis) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens); “Evolution” (sketch by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles) and “Ugly Chile (You’re Some Pretty Doll)” (lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Clarence Williams) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson); “Travelin’ Blues” (lyric and music by Ronald “Smokey” Stevens and Sandra Reaves-Phillips) (Sandra ReavesPhillips); “Lincoln West” (sketch by Gwendolyn Brooks) and “The Liar” (“Staggerlee”) (sketch by Terrence Cooper) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens and Rudy Robertson); “Saturday Night Fish Fry” (lyric and music by Ellis Walsh and Louis Jordan) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens and Rudy Robertson); “St. Louis Blues” (lyric and music by W. C. Handy) (Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “The Poker Game” (sketch by Bert Williams) (sequence includes “Black and Tan Fantasy,” music by Duke Ellington) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens); “Nobody” (lyric and music by Bert Williams) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens); “Huggin’ and Chalkin’” (lyric and music by Kermit Goell and Clancey Hayes) (Rudy Robertson); “Sexy Blues” (lyric and music by Sandra Reaves-Phillips, Chapman Roberts, and Ronald “Smokey” Stevens) and “You’ve Taken My Blues and Gone” (by Langston Hughes) (Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “The Car Crash” and “Broken Dialogue” (sketches by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson); “Conversationalization” (sketch by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson); “Let the Good Times Roll” (by Sam Theard and Fleecie Moore) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson, and Sandra Reaves-Phillips) Act Two: Entr’acte: Piano Interlude (David Alan Bunn); “New Orleans Hot Scop Blues” (music by Clarence Williams) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens); “The Chess Game” (sequence includes “Funeral March of the Marionettes,” music by Charles Guonod) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson); “Take Me as I Am” (lyric and music by Sandra Reaves-Phillips) (Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “One Hour Mama” (lyric and music by Porter Grainger) (Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “Million Dollar Secret” (lyric and music by Helen Humes and Jules Bihari) (Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “Freddie and Flo” (sketch by Butterbeans and Suzie) (Sandra Reaves-Phillips, Rudy Robertson); “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (lyric and music by Eddie Green) (Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “Take Me as I Am” (reprise) (Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “Simple on Integration” (by Langston Hughes) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson); “Soul Food” (by Langston Hughes) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson, Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “Banquet in Honor” (by Langston Hughes) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson); “I’m Still Here” (by Langston Hughes) and “Trouble in Mind” (by Richard M. Jones) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson, Sandra Reaves-Phillips); “Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A.” (reprise) (Ronald “Smokey” Stevens, Rudy Robertson, Sandra Reaves-Phillips) The revue Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A. was a look at the world of black vaudeville when black entertainers toured under the auspices of the Theatre Owners Booking Association, a group that exploited the performers (the latter referred to the acronym as “Tough on Black Asses”). The revue was a collection of songs, sketches, and readings (the latter from Langston Hughes’s Simple stories), and it originated Off-Broadway on July 23, 1998, at the AMAS Musical Theatre where it played for sixteen performances. From there, it was seen at the

1998–1999 SEASON     353

Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn during the fall, then opened Off-Broadway at the 47th Street Theatre on January 28, 1999, for forty-five showings, and finally on Broadway at the Kit Kat Klub at Henry Miller’s Theatre for a run of less than two weeks. If the original vaudeville performers had trouble with booking agents, white theatre owners, and the segregation laws of the 1920s and 1930s, the current production had its own contractual problems when it inadvertently became enmeshed in a private legal dispute. It turned out that the Henry Miller Theatre had subleased the venue for the revival of Cabaret, where the space became known as the Kit Kat Klub. Articles by David Rohde and Jesse McKinley in the New York Times explained that the legal entanglements between the owner of the Henry Miller and the club’s lessee concerned their disagreement about post-Cabaret bookings at the venue. The theatre owner wanted the club evicted from the premises so that the space could be converted into a full-fledged operating theatre (in 2010, the venue reopened as the Stephen Sondheim Theatre), and stated that T.O.B.A. had been booked by the lessee without the owner’s permission (the owner obtained a temporary restraining order to prevent future bookings by the club, and the Manhattan Supreme Court agreed that the lease required the owner’s permission prior to the booking of any production). Because of the disagreement, the revue was caught in the middle, but later the State Supreme Court in Manhattan lifted an order that had delayed the opening of T.O.B.A., and so the Broadway premiere finally took place. But for all the trouble, T.O.B.A. played for just fourteen performances at the club. The revue’s subject matter may have been overly familiar to theatergoers who had seen the hit OffBroadway revue One Mo’ Time!, which had opened at the Village Gate Downtown on October 22, 1979, and played for 1,372 performances. That revue covered the same territory in its depiction of a typical vaudeville performance on the T.O.B.A. circuit along with a slight backstage story about the performers. (The 1978 musical The Last Minstrel Show, which closed during its pre-Broadway tryout, also touched upon a variation of the theme with its look at a black touring company of minstrels.) In his review of the production at the 47th Street Theatre, Lawrence Van Gelder in the Times said the evening was an “affectionate homage” that included songs, vaudeville routines, and “just enough connective narrative to evoke the loneliness and hardship of the road and of black life in segregated America.” The material was “sometimes uneven” but the “multitalented” cast had “zest and panache” and delivered “a fair share of treats.”

MARLENE

“The New Musical Play” Theatre: Cort Theatre Opening Date: April 11, 1999; Closing Date: May 2, 1999 Performances: 25 Book: Pam Gems Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Direction: Sean Mathias (Thierry Harcourt, Assistant Director); Producers: Ric Wanetik and Frederic B. Vogel (Alice Chebba Walsh, Mary Ellen Ashley, Anne L. Bernstein, Kimberly Vaughn, Richard Samson, Jennifer Lee, and Herb Goldsmith Productions, Associate Producers); Scenery: John Arnone; Costumes: David C. Woolard (Dietrich’s concert gown was originally designed by Jean Louis and was here recreated by Terry Parsons); Lighting: Mark Jonathan; Musical Direction: Kevin Amos Cast: Mary Diveny (Mutti), Margaret Whitton (Vivian), Sian Phillips (Marlene Dietrich), Edward Hibbert (Newreader Voiceover) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Paris in 1969.

Musical Numbers Note: All songs performed by Sian Phillips. Act One: “You Do Something to Me” (Fifty Million Frenchmen, 1929; lyric and music by Cole Porter); “Look Me Over Closely” (lyric and music by Terry Gilkyson); “Illusions” (1948 film A Foreign Affair; lyric and music by Frederick Hollander); “Jonny” (1933 film The Song of Songs; lyric and music by Frederick

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Hollander; English lyric by Edward Heyman); “Lola” (aka “Lola-Lola” and “Naughty Lola”) (1930 film The Blue Angel; lyric by R. Leibman, music by Frederick Hollander; English lyric by Sam [Sammy and Samuel M.] Lerner); “I Wish You Love” (lyric and music by Charles Louis Trenet; English lyric by Albert Askew Beach) Act Two: “Mein Blondes Baby” (lyric and music by Peter Kreuder and Fritz Rotter); “Warum” (lyric by Walter Reisch and A. Robinson, music by Robert Stolz); “The Laziest Girl (Gal) in Town” (written as an independent song by Cole Porter in 1927, the number was later performed by Dietrich in the 1950 film Stage Fright); “The Boys in the Backroom” (aka “See What the Boys in the Backroom Will Have”) (1939 film Destry Rides Again; lyric by Frank Loesser, music by Frederick Hollander); “Lili Marlene” (lyric by Hans Leip, music by Norbert Schultze; English lyric by John Turner and Tommy Conner [some sources give latter’s name as Tommie Connoer]); “Honeysuckle Rose” (lyric by Andy Razaf, music by Thomas “Fats” Waller); “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” (lyric and music by Pete Seeger); “La vie en rose” (lyric and music by Louiguy aka Louis Guglielmi and Edith Piaf); “Falling in Love Again” (1930 film The Blue Angel; lyric by Sam [Sammy and Samuel M.] Lerner, music by Frederick Hollander) Pam Gems’s Marlene was for all purposes a one-woman show in which Sian Phillips played the legendary singer and actress Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992). The musical took place both on stage and off at one of Dietrich’s concert performances in Paris in 1969. There were two supporting actresses, her mute dresser Mutti (Mary Diveny) and playwright and occasional companion Vivian (Margaret Whitton). The London production of Marlene opened at the Lyric Theatre in April 1997 with Phillips, and two years later the New York version opened to mostly unfavorable reviews and lasted just three weeks. One suspects it would have been more successful as a short cabaret performance or as a one-act evening in an intimate Off-Broadway house. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said Gems’s play focused on that “tiringly familiar type,” the “suffering sacred monster,” and he noted that recent New York offerings had perhaps concentrated too much on the “theatre of dead celebrities” (such as Full Gallop [Diana Vreeland], Master Class [Maria Callas], and Jackie [Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis]). Marlene was “thuddingly true” to its genre and was unfortunately “mechanical throughout” and “surprisingly unmoving” with its “dutiful, checklist perfunctoriness.” The evening lacked the necessary “layered” and “exquisitely mannered irony” that was the essence of Dietrich, and although Phillips retained her “dignity” and generally resisted “playing for camp,” the performance was more “impersonation” than “interpretation.” Fintan O’Toole in the New York Daily News lamented that a “great star” was “saddled with a bum script”; Donald Lyons in the New York Post noted that Phillips was “having fun” with Dietrich’s lisps and tics and was therefore “richly enjoyable”; and Charles Isherwood in Variety found the show “staggeringly inept, often incoherent and always dull” (when Matt Wolf reviewed the original London production for Variety, he reported that the evening was an “embarrassing panegyric”). Gems’s 1978 play Piaf (which opened on Broadway in 1981) included a character named “Marlene” (played by Jean Smart) who makes a cameo appearance, and Frank Rich in the New York Times noted that Gems failed to “illuminate” Dietrich’s relationship with Edith Piaf. Douglas Watt in the New York Daily News said Dietrich offered “career advice” to Piaf and then “quickly” disappeared. Howard Kissel in Women’s Wear Daily said the portrayal was “so inept” he had no idea who the character was until she said “Hawwy Twuman”; and Clive Barnes in the New York Post said Smart was performing an “impossible” role and “should be sued by Marlene Dietrich.” It is duly noted that for the published script of Piaf (issued in paperback by Samuel French in 1983) the character of Dietrich is completely eliminated and “Josephine” (as in Baker) is substituted. Marlene’s walk-on in Piaf got her the starring role in Marlene, but poor Josephine had to settle for her brief appearance in Marlene without benefit of her own bio-play by Gems. The cast album of Marlene was released by Relativity/First Night Records (CD # 1791-2), and the script was published in paperback, first in Britain by Oberon Books, in 1998, and then in the United States by Theatre Communications Group in 1999. Dietrich herself appeared on Broadway just two times, both in one-woman limited-engagement concerts. Her Broadway debut took place at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on October 9, 1967, for forty-eight performances, and she returned to New York on October 3, 1968, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre for sixty-seven more showings.

1998–1999 SEASON     355

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Sian Phillips); Best Book (Pam Gems)

THE CIVIL WAR “Our Story

in

Song”

Theatre: St. James Theatre Opening Date: April 22, 1999; Closing Date: June 13, 1999 Performances: 61 Text: Frank Wildhorn, Gregory Boyd, and Jack Murphy Lyrics: Jack Murphy Music: Frank Wildhorn Direction: Jerry Zaks (BT McNicholl, Associate Director; Bonnie Panson, Production Supervisor); Producers: Pierre Cossette, PACE Theatrical Group/SFX Entertainment, and Bomurwil Productions, Kathleen Raitt, and Jujamcyn Theatres (Gary Gunas, Executive Producer) (I. W. Marks and Michael Skipper, Associate Producer); Choreography: Luis Perez; Scenery: Douglas W. Schmidt; Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Paul Gallo; Musical Direction: Jeff Lams Cast: Union Army—Michael Lanning (Captain Emmett Lochran), Rod Weber (Sergeant Patrick Anderson), Royal Reed (Sergeant Byron Richardson), Gilles Chiasson (Corporal William McEwen), Ron Sharpe (Private Conrad Bock), Bart Shatto (Private Elmore Hotchkiss), John Sawyer (Private Nathaniel Taylor); Confederate Army—Gene Miller (Captain Billy Pierce), Dave Clemmons (Sergeant Virgil Franklin), Mike Eldred (Corporal John Beauregard), David M. Lutken (Corporal Henry Stewart), Anthony Galde (Private Darius Barksdale), Jim Price (Private Cyrus Stevens), Matt Bogart (Private Sam Taylor); Others: Keith Byron Kirk (Frederick Douglass), Michel Bell (Clayton Toler), Cheryl Freeman (Bessie Toler), Lawrence Clayton (Benjamin Reynolds), Wayne W. Pretlow (Exter Thomas), Capathia Jenkins (Harriet Jackson), Cassandra White (Liza Hughes), Leo Burmester (Autolycus Fell), Dave Clemmons (Auctioneer’s Assistant), Irene Molloy (Sarah McEwen), Hope Harris (Violet, Nurse), Beth Leavel (Mabel, Mrs. Bixby), David M. Lutken (Voice of President Lincoln); Pit Singers: David Michael Felty, Hope Harris, Monique Midgette, Raun Ruffin The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the era of the Civil War.

Musical Numbers Act One: “A House Divided” (Citizens); “Freedom’s Child” (Keith Byron Kirk, Abolitionists); “By the Sword” and “Sons of Dixie” (The Armies); “Tell My Father” (Matt Bogart); “The Peculiar Institution” (The Enslaved); “If Prayin’ Were Horses” (Michel Bell, Cheryl Freeman); “Greenback” (Leo Burmester, Beth Leavel, Hope Harris); “Missing You (My Bill)” (Irene Molloy); “Judgment Day” (Gene Miller, Michael Lanning, Matt Bogart, The Armies); “Father, How Long?” (Michel Bell); “Someday” (Capathia Jenkins, Cheryl Freeman, Others); “I’ll Never Pass This Way Again” (David M. Lutken); “How Many Devils?” (The Armies) Act Two: “Virginia” (Gene Miller); “Candle in the Window” (Capathia Jenkins); “Oh! Be Joyful” (Leo Burmester, Royal Reed, Ron Sharpe, Bart Shatto); “The Hospital” (Beth Leavel, Hope Harris, Union Soldiers, Bart Shatto); “If Prayin’ Were Horses” (reprise) (Michel Bell, Cheryl Freeman); “River Jordan” (Lawrence Clayton); “Sarah” (Gilles Chiasson); “The Honor of Your Name” (Irene Molloy); “Greenback” (reprise) (Leo Burmester, Hope Harris); “Northbound Train” (Michael Lanning); “Last Waltz for Dixie” (Gene Miller, Confederate Soldiers); “The Glory” (Michael Lanning, Keith Byron Kirk, Lawrence Clayton, Company) With The Civil War, Frank Wildhorn was still back in the nineteenth century, which, like the eighteenth, was clearly dear to his heart. His previous three musicals had been set during these periods, The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1794 and Jekyll & Hyde and Svengali both during the latter part of the nineteenth century. But with

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his current musical he avoided gothic stories and florid romances and instead grappled with a tragic historical event. However, in 2004 he was back in nineteenth-century gothic territory with Dracula. His Wonderland (2011) was a contemporary take on Lewis B. Carroll’s 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and his most recent Broadway musical Bonnie & Clyde (2011) took place in the 1930s. The Civil War was a concert-styled musical that looked at the war from the perspective of Union and Confederate soldiers and their families, slaves, and historical figures. The work was earnest enough, but it disappointed the critics who felt it was too generic and offered little in the way of fresh insight. Dismissive reviews relegated the show to a two-month run, and Variety reported that the entire $8 million capitalization was lost. Ben Brantley in the New York Times stated that the evening “improbably drains the drama from what is still the most fraught and painful chapter in American history.” Its score was a “bland current of generic pop” and its “overall effect” was “a jukebox stocked entirely with B-side selections,” which provided a “melodic blur that brings to mind an easy-listening radio station.” The musical offered “not one moment of insight or originality” and lacked the kind of “humanizing detail” that would allow the characters to “grab our hearts.” Charles Isherwood in Variety said The Civil War was Wildhorn’s “most stupefying creation to date,” and its “easy pieties and bombastic tone” managed “to thoroughly trivialize a sizable chunk of American history” by turning the tragic and complex conflict “into a live-action version of an easy-listening concept album.” The result was a song cycle “in full battle dress” with “generic” soldiers and slaves, the latter of whom were “essentially historical cartoons.” Here was American history “shrink-wrapped as homily and sentiment, not flesh and blood and feeling.” The musical premiered on September 8, 1998, at the Large Stage of Houston’s Alley Theatre where it was directed by Nick Corley, who was succeeded by Jerry Zaks for New York. The Houston cast included Linda Eder, who didn’t appear in the New York production. During the Broadway run, the song “Five Boys” was added, and among the numbers cut during the tryout and Broadway previews were “Brother, My Brother,” “An Angel’s Lullaby,” “The Day the Sun Stood Still,” “You Picked the Wrong Day, Mister,” and “Find Me.” Prior to production, a concept recording was released by Atlantic Records (CD # 83090-2) as The Civil War: The Nashville Sessions, with a studio cast that included Linda Eder, Deana Carter, Trisha Yearwood, and Charlie Daniels. A later two-CD set was released as The Civil War: The Complete Work (Atlantic Records # 83091-2), and the studio cast included Eder, Patti LaBelle, and Betty Buckley (the only Broadway cast members featured on this recording are Michel Bell and Cheryl Freeman, who share the duet “If Prayin’ Were Horses,” and Michael Lanning, who performs the eventually deleted “Brother, My Brother,” and its reprise version, which he had performed during the Houston tryout). A concert version of the score was eventually presented on public television.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (The Civil War); Best Score (lyrics by Jack Murphy, music by Frank Wildhorn)

IT AIN’T NOTHING BUT THE BLUES “A New Musical”

Theatre: Vivian Beaumont Theatre (during run, the revue transferred to the Ambassador Theatre) Opening Date: April 26, 1999; Closing Date: January 9, 2000 Performances: 276 Text: “Mississippi” Charles Bevel, Lita Gaithers, Randal Myler, Ron Taylor, and Dan Wheetman (“based on an original idea” by Ron Taylor) Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Direction: Randal Myler; Producers: Eric Krebs, Jonathan Reinis, Lawrence Horowitz, Anita Waxman, Elizabeth Williams, CTM Productions, and Anne Squadron in association with Lincoln Center (A Crossroads Theatre Company, San Diego Repertory Theatre, and Alabama Shakespeare Theater Production) (Ron Taylor, Producing Associate) (Electric Factory Concerts, Adam and David Friedson, Richard Martini, Mar-

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cia Roberts, and Murray Schwartz, Associate Producers); Movement: Donald McKayle; Scenery: Robin Sanford Roberts; Costumes: Enid Turnbull, “Wardrobe Supervisor and Costume Stylist”; Lighting: Don Darnutzer; Musical Direction: Dan Wheetman Cast: “Mississippi” Charles Bevel, Gretha Boston, Carter Calvert, Eloise Laws, Gregory Porter, Ron Taylor, Dan Wheetman The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Odun De” (traditional) (Company); “Niwah Wechi” (traditional) (Eloise Laws, Company); “Blood Done Signed My Name” (traditional) (Ron Taylor, Gretha Boston); “Raise Them Up Higher” (traditional) (“Mississippi” Charles Bevel); “Danger Blues” (traditional) (Eloise Laws); “Black Woman” (traditional) (Gregory Porter); “I’m Gonna Do What the Spirit Says Do” (traditional) (Gretha Boston); “I’ve Been Living with the Blues” (lyric and music by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee) (Company); “Blues Man” (lyric and music by Z. Z. Arzelle Hill) (Ron Taylor); “My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains” (traditional) (Carter Calvert); “‘T’ for Texas” (lyric and music by Jimmie Rogers) (Dan Wheetman); “Who Broke the Lock?” (traditional) (Gregory Porter, “Mississippi” Charles Bevel); “My Man Rocks Me” (traditional) (Eloise Laws); “St. Louis Blues” (lyric and music by W. C. Handy) (Gretha Boston); “Now I’m Gonna Be Bad” (lyric and music by Dan Wheetman) (Carter Calvert); “Walking Blues” (lyric and music by Robert L. Johnson) (“Mississippi” Charles Bevel); “Come On in My Kitchen” (lyric and music by Robert L. Johnson) (Gregory Porter); “Cross Road Blues” (lyric by Robert L. Johnson) (“Mississippi” Charles Bevel); “I Know I’ve Been Changed” (traditional) (Gretha Boston); “Child of the Most High King” (traditional) (Ron Taylor, Men); “Children, Your Line Is Dragging” (traditional) (Gregory Porter); “Catch on Fire” (traditional) (Company) Act Two: “Let the Good Times Roll” (lyric and music by Sam Theard and Fleecie Moore) (Ron Taylor); “Sweet Home Chicago” (lyric and music by Robert L. Johnson) (Gregory Porter, “Mississippi” Charles Bevel); “Wang Dang Doodle” (lyric and music by Willie Dixon) (Gretha Boston, Carter Calvert, Eloise Laws); “Someone Else Is Steppin’ In” (lyric and music by Denise LaSalle) (Eloise Laws); “Please Don’t Stop Him” (lyric and music by Herb J. Lance and John Wallace) (Gretha Boston); “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” (lyric and music by Willie Dixon) (Ron Taylor); “Crawlin’ King Snake” (lyric and music by John Lee Hooker) (Gregory Porter); “Mind Your Own Business” (lyric and music by Hank Williams Sr.) (Dan Wheetman); “Walking after Midnight” (lyric and music by Don Hect and Alan Block) (Carter Calvert); “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” (lyric and music by Don Gibson) (“Mississippi” Charles Bevel); “The Thrill Is Gone” (lyric and music by Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell) (Ron Taylor); “I Put a Spell on You” (lyric and music by Jay Hawkins) (Eloise Laws); “Fever” (lyric and music by John Davenport and Eddie Cooley) (Carter Calvert); “Candy Man” (traditional) (Dan Wheetman); “Good Night, Irene” (lyric and music by Huddie Ledbetter and John A. Lomax) (“Mississippi” Charles Bevel, Dan Wheetman); “Strange Fruit” (lyric and music by Lewis Allan) (Gretha Boston); “Someday We’ll All Be Free” (lyric and music by Donny Hathaway and Edward Howard) (“Mississippi” Charles Bevel, Gregory Porter); “Members Only” (lyric and music by Larry Addison) (Company); “Let the Good Times Roll” (reprise) (Company) It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues had first been produced in March 1995 at the Denver Center of Performing Arts. Jackie Campbell in Variety found it “static” and noted that “dressing up the blues for a history lesson is like taking a shower in a bathrobe,” but Sandra Dillard-Rosen in the Denver Post exclaimed that the show “lifts you up, lays you out and leaves you screaming for more.” The New York premiere at Off Broadway’s New Victory Theatre on March 17, 1999, played for sixteen performances, and with the premature closing of Parade, Lincoln Center rushed the revue onto its main stage for a run of four months, and from there the show transferred to the Ambassador theatre for an additional four months. The musical received mostly enthusiastic reviews and a clutch of Tony Award nominations, but its relatively short run isn’t all that surprising. Possibly potential ticket-buyers thought they’d seen it all before (in fact, one photo of cast members Gretha Boston and Ron Taylor looked like they were channeling Nell Carter and Ken Page in a scene from Ain’t Misbehavin’). The revue’s title announced it was about the “blues,” and New Yorkers had attended two years of performances of Black and Blue and out-of-towners had seen Evolution of the Blues and 1,000 Years of Jazz in regional theatre, and so a song cycle of blues numbers probably

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sounded like a rehash of earlier shows and thus didn’t result in a box-office stampede and a marathon run (in fact, two of the revue’s songs, “St. Louis Woman” and “Let the Good Times Roll,” had been heard on Broadway a month earlier when the black revue Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A. opened). There had been an inordinate number of revues devoted to black music, and the marketplace could confer hit status on just so many. And because Blues was a modest evening (seven cast members and a six-piece band), it was perhaps too small for the Beaumont and should have been presented in a smaller venue where its attractions would have been more inviting. Despite its title, the show in some respects lacked a clear and defining through line, unlike Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Eubie!, which celebrated the respective song catalogs of Thomas “Fats” Waller and Eubie Blake. Further, there was no evidence of a star-making breakthrough performance such as what Nell Carter brought to Ain’t Misbehavin’, and missing were the trappings of other more lavish revues that offered expansive sets, costumes, dances, and production values in the manner of Bubbling Brown Sugar, Sophisticated Ladies, and Black and Blue. In his review of the show at the New Victory, Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times praised the “musical feast” and its “potent blend of visual eloquence and historical sweep”; Donald Lyons in the New York Post liked the revue’s “emotional energy and communal electricity”; and Charles Isherwood in Variety noted the evening was “a sort of Blues 101” with “music you’ll want to hear again as soon as you leave the theatre.” But John Simon in New York wasn’t impressed and said the first three words of the show’s title summed up his feelings. He said favorable comparisons to the “wonderful” Ain’t Misbehavin’ were “absurd,” and noted that throughout the evening some white members of the audience clapped “like crazy,” “whooped” in the manner of “unhinged cranes,” and shouted out “’Oh, yeah!’ to prove” they “possessed soul.” The Broadway cast recording was released by MCA Records (CD # 088-112-150-2), and the script was published in paperback by Samuel French in 2002. On August 20, 2000, the revue opened Off-Off-Broadway at the B.B. King Blues Club in a revised one-act version that played for a total of thirty-seven performances.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Ron Taylor); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Gretha Boston); Best Book (Charles Bevel, Lita Gaithers, Randal Myler, Ron Taylor, and Dan Wheetman)

THE GERSHWINS’ FASCINATING RHYTHM “A New Musical”

Theatre: Longacre Theatre Opening Date: April 25, 1999; Closing Date: May 9, 1999 Performances: 17 Conception: Mark Lamos and Mel Marvin (Deena Rosenberg, Source Material) Lyrics: Ira Gershwin Music: George Gershwin Direction: Mark Lamos (Bill Fennelly, Associate Director); Producers: Music Makers, Inc., Columbia Artists Theatricals, Inc., and Manny Kladitis (Magicworks/SFX Entertainment and Jerry Frankel, Associate Producers); Choreography: David Marques (Richard Montoya, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Michael Yeargan; Costumes: Paul Tazewell; Lighting: Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: Cynthia Kortman Cast: Michael Berresse, Darius de Haas, Chris Ghelfi, Tim Hunter, Adriane Lenox, Karen Lifshey, Jill Nicklaus, Orfeh, Sara Ramirez, Patrick Wilson The revue was presented in one act.

Musical Numbers “Fascinating Rhythm” (Lady, Be Good!, 1924) (Company); “I’ve Got a Crush on You” (cut during tryout of Treasure Girl, 1928; later used in the 1930 Broadway version of Strike Up the Band) (Sara Ramirez, Mi-

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chael Berresse); “Oh, Lady Be Good!” (Lady, Be Good!, 1924) (Darius de Haas); “High Hat” (Funny Face, 1927) (Patrick Wilson, Sara Ramirez); “Clap Yo’ Hands” (Oh, Kay!, 1926) (Orfeh, Company); “My Cousin in Milwaukee”/“The Lorelei” (Pardon My English, 1933) (Adriane Lenox, Orfeh); “The Man I Love” (cut during tryout of Lady, Be Good!, 1924; heard as “The Girl I Love” in the 1927 version of Strike Up the Band , which closed prior to Broadway; and was later intended for the 1928 musical Rosalie, but wasn’t used)/“Soon” (1930 Broadway version of Strike Up the Band) (Sara Ramirez, Patrick Wilson); “Love Is Here to Stay” (aka “Our Love Is Here to Stay”) (1938 film The Goldwyn Follies) (Jill Nicklaus, Michael Berresse); “Little Jazz Bird” (Lady, Be Good!, 1924) (Darius de Haas); “Isn’t It a Pity?” (Pardon My English, 1933) (Sara Ramirez, Karen Lifshey); “I Love to Rhyme” (1938 film The Goldwyn Follies)/“Blah, Blah, Blah” (1931 film Delicious)/“I Got Rhythm” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Michael Berresse, Company); “Embraceable You” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Patrick Wilson, Chris Ghelfi, Tim Hunter, Karen Lifshey, Jill Nicklaus); “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (1937 film Shall We Dance) (Darius de Haas, Orfeh); “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (1937 film A Damsel in Distress) (Adriane Lenox); “But Not for Me” (Girl Crazy, 1930) (Patrick Wilson); “Just Another Rhumba” (written for, but not used in,1938 film The Goldwyn Follies) (Sara Ramirez, Michael Berresse); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (Oh, Kay!, 1926) (Darius de Haas, Karen Lifshey, Orfeh, Sara Ramirez, Patrick Wilson); “The Half of It, Dearie, Blues” (aka “I’ve Got the YouDon’t-Know-the-Half-of-It-Dearie Blues”) (Lady, Be Good!, 1924) (Adriane Lenox); “How Long Has This Been Going On?” (cut during tryout of Funny Face, 1927) (Patrick Wilson); “Home Blues” (aka “Home”) (the refrain was based on a theme from George Gershwin’s tone poem “An American in Paris,” which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1928; the song was first introduced in the 1929 musical Show Girl) (Sara Ramirez, Patrick Wilson); “Who Cares?” (Of Thee I Sing, 1931) (Michael Berresse, Company); “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” (1937 film Shall We Dance) (Company); “Hang on to Me” (Lady, Be Good!, 1924) (Company) The tribute revue The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm was a fast flop that received a number of derisive reviews. The evening was a collection of standards by George and Ira Gershwin that were presented in no particular order, and so there wasn’t a chronological or thematic viewpoint to hold the show together. As a result, the revue was more in the nature of a dispirited television variety show half-heartedly devoted to Gershwin songs. Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted the evening seemed more interested in making some kind of bizarre fashion statement because the “lackluster” and “unfortunate” show was memorable not so much for how the cast treated the Gershwin material as for “the way they wear the new material.” The evening was “obsessed with getting the actors in and out of clothes,” and if Gershwin evoked “dusk in Gramercy Park” to Woody Allen, the revue brought to mind an “afternoon at the mall.” One cast member was clad in a yellow hat and shoes and a purple jacket, another wore a “silver skintight bodysuit with a pink fake-fur collar,” and an ensemble were dressed in black suits with exaggerated pinstripes that looked “like lane dividers on major highways.” And the set was “unappealing,” too. Charles Isherwood in Variety said the revue was fascinating only if “you’re the kind that ogles car accidents,” noted it could have been titled Smokey George and Ira’s Café, and said even in this “weak” musical season the show didn’t stand a chance. The decor might “charitably” be called “minimalist” (and “uncharitably” it looked “cheesy”) and the “generally vulgar costumes” were “a compendium of the glittery, the stretchy, the shiny and the clingy” (and he noted that “some of the performers should not be sporting the clingy”). He reported that the “lesbian staging” of “Isn’t It a Pity?” had caused a “mild stir,” and “Who Cares?” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” contained some “homoerotic and homopolitical elements.” But it wasn’t the “novelty” of these interpretations that was offensive; instead, it was the “overall lack of elegance and artistry” that made the revue such a “pity.” John Simon in New York said the “abomination” offered “derivative” choreography, cast members who ranged from “foul to forgettable,” “cut-rate” décor, and costumes that brought to mind “spaghetti with ice cream.” He noted that Peggy Eisenhauer’s lighting “valiantly” attempted “to thread things together, but hose with more darning than stocking aren’t worth a damn.” Donald Lyons in the New York Post suggested the revue’s “goal” was to “dumb down the Gershwins and render them accessible to patrons of MTV.” And Fintan O’Toole in the New York Daily News felt the revue’s creators didn’t trust the material and thus were compelled to underline or shout out every emotion. During previews, “An American in Paris” (danced by Michael Berresse and Jill Nicklaus) and “Kickin’ the Clouds Away” (Tell Me More, 1925; sung by the entire company) were cut.

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THE WIZARD OF OZ Theatre: The Theatre at Madison Square Garden Opening Date: May 6, 1999; Closing Date: May 16, 1999 Performances: 22 Book: Adaptation by Robert Johanson (this production was based on John Kane’s version of the original 1939 screenplay) Lyrics: E. Y. Harburg Music: Harold Arlen; background music by Herbert Stothart Based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (who also wrote thirteen other Oz novels) and the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz (direction by Victor Fleming and screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allen Woolf from an adaptation by Noel Langley). Direction: Robert Johanson (Ron Gibbs, Assistant Director); Producers: Radio City Entertainment and the Dime Savings Bank; Choreography: Jamie (James) Rocco (Donna Drake, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Michael Anania; Costumes: Gregg Barnes; Lighting: Steve Cochrane; Musical Direction: Jeff Rizzo Cast: Jessica Grove (Dorothy Gale), Plenty (Toto), Judith McCauley (Aunt Em, Glinda), Tom Urich (Uncle Henry, Winkie General), Casey Colgan (Hunk, Scarecrow), Dirk Lumbard (Hickory, Tin Man), Francis Ruivivar (Zeke, Cowardly Lion), JoAnne Worley (Almira Gulch, The Wicked Witch of the West), Mickey Rooney (Professor Marvel, The Wizard of Oz), Eugene Pidgeon (Mayor of Munchkinland), Wendy Coates (Barrister), Wendy Watts (Barrister), Bill Rolon (Coroner), Martin Klebba (Nikko); Lollipop Guild: Ethan Crough, Martin Klebba, David Steinberg; Crows: Shauna Markey, Mary Ruvolo, Martin Klebba; Crow Voices: Lenny Daniel, Trent Armand Kendall, Danny Vaccaro; Apple Trees: Lenny Daniel, Bill Rolon, Danny Vaccaro; Apple Tree Voices: Karen Babcock, Gail Cook Howell, Christi Moore; Munchkins, Poppies, Citizens of Oz, Jitterbugs, Flying Monkeys, Winkies: Karen Babcock, Steve Babiar, Bill Brassea, Alvin Brown, Wendy Coates, Ethan Crough, Lenny Daniel, Gail Cook Howell, Trent Armand Kendall, Martin Klebba, Cindy Marchionda, Shauna Markey, Caroline McMahon, Christi Moore, Eugene Pidgeon, Allison Queal, Bill Rolon, Mary Ruvolo, David Steinberg, Danny Vaccaro, Wendy Watts, Deborah Y. Wilson The musical was presented in one act. The action takes place in Kansas and in Oz.

Musical Numbers Overture (Orchestra); “Over the Rainbow” (Jessica Grove); “The Cyclone”; “Come Out, Come Out” (Judith McCauley, Jessica Grove, Lollipop Guild, Munchkins); “Ding, Dong! The Witch Is Dead!” (Judith McCauley, Eugene Pidgeon, Wendy Coates, Wendy Watts, Bill Rolon, Munchkins); “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” (Jessica Grove, Munchkins); “If I Only Had a Brain” (Casey Colgan, Jessica Grove, Crows); “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (Jessica Grove, Casey Colgan); “If I Only Had a Heart” (Dirk Lumbard, Jessica Grove, Casey Colgan, Apple Trees); “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (reprise) (Jessica Grove, Casey Colgan, Dirk Lumbard); “Lions and Tigers and Bears” (Jessica Grove, Casey Colgan, Dirk Lumbard); “If I Only Had the Nerve” (Francis Ruivivar) and “We’re Off to See the Wizard” (reprise) (Francis Ruivivar, Jessica Grove, Dirk Lumbard, Casey Colgan); “Poppies” and “Optimistic Voices” (Judith McCauley, Jessica Grove, Casey Colgan, Dirk Lumbard, Francis Ruivivar, JoAnne Worley, Poppies); “Optimistic Voices” (reprise) (Female Chorus); “The Merry Old Land of Oz” (Jessica Grove, Casey Colgan, Dirk Lumbard, Francis Ruivivar, Guard [unidentified performer], Citizens of Oz); “If I Were King of the Forest” (Francis Ruivivar, Jessica Grove, Dirk Lumbard, Casey Colgan); “March of the Winkies” (Winkies); “The Jitterbug” (JoAnne Worley, Jessica Grove, Francis Ruivivar, Casey Colgan, Dirk Lumbard, Jitterbugs); “Ding, Dong! The Witch Is Dead!” (reprise) (Winkies, Jessica Grove, Francis Ruivivar, Casey Colgan, Dirk Lumbard); “Over the Rainbow” (reprise) (Judith McCauley); Finale (Company) The return engagement of The Wizard of Oz marked the musical’s third and final visit to The Theatre at Madison Square Garden over a three-year period. Mickey Rooney had played the title role (and Professor Marvel) during the second engagement, and returned for the final one, and this time around JoAnne Worley was The Wicked Witch of the West and Almira Gulch. And for the third year in a row, the terrier Plenty returned

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in his most famous role of Toto, but due to an egregious oversight by the Tony Award committee he wasn’t even nominated for his legendary performance. Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times noted that the work offered “literature’s most beloved twister,” but as seen in the current presentation it was “an ill wind that blows no good.” But Rooney was still eager “to put on a show,” Worley brought a “broad, occasionally self-deprecating comedy to her villainy,” and Plenty “never seems to miss a cue and proves to be an audience favorite.”

MIRETTE The musical had previously been presented as a work-in-progress at Goodspeed Opera House’s Norma Terris Theatre (Chester, Connecticut) for the period August 1–August 25, 1996, and the current production opened at the Goodspeed Opera House (East Haddam, Connecticut) on July 1, 1998. Book: Elizabeth Diggs Lyrics: Tom Jones Music: Harvey Schmidt Based on the 1992 novel Mirette on the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully. Direction: Andre Ernotte; Producer: Goodspeed Opera House (Michael P. Price, Executive Director); Choreography: Janet Watson; Scenery: Neil Patel; Costumes: Suzy Benzinger; Lighting: Timothy Hunter; Musical Direction: Michael O’Flaherty Cast: Jason Wooten (Tabac), Marsha Bagwell (Mme. Rouspenskaya), Paul Blankenship (Clouk), Leslie Ann Hendricks (Claire), Amanda Watkins (Gaby), Steve Pudenz (Camembert), Cassandra Kubinski (Mirette), Anne Allgood (Mme. Gateau), James J. Mellon (Bellini), Michael Hayward-Jones (Max); Others: September Bigelow, Bob Freschi, Timothy Charles Johnson, Carrie Wilshusen The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Paris during the 1890s.

Musical Numbers Note: Names of singers given, when known. Act One: “Sitting on the Edge” (The Artistes); “Madam Gateau’s Colorful Hotel” (The Artistes, Cassandra Kubinski, Anne Allgood); “Maybe” (Cassandra Kubinski); “Someone in the Mirror” (James J. Mellon); “Irkutsk” (Marsha Bagwell); “Practicing” (The Artistes); “Learning Who You Are” (James J. Mellon, Cassandra Kubinski); “Juggling”; “The Show Goes On”; “Keep Feet upon the Ground” (Anne Allgood); “Learning Who You Are” (reprise) (Cassandra Kubinski); “Clouk and Claire” (Paul Blankenship, Leslie Ann Hendricks); “If You Choose to Walk upon the Wire” (James J. Mellon, The Artistes); “She Isn’t You” (Anne Allgood, James J. Mellon) Act Two: “The Great God Pan”; “The Great Bellini” (Michael Hayward-Jones, The Artistes); “Sometimes You Just Need Someone” (Cassandra Kubinski, James J. Mellon); “Madame Gateau’s Desolate Hotel” (The Artistes, Cassandra Kubinski, Anne Allgood, James J. Mellon); “All of a Sudden”; Finale Based on the novel Mirette on the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully, the musical centered on the title character (played by Cassandra Kubinski), a ten-year-old who lives in the Paris of the 1890s and dreams of becoming a tightrope walker. She’s trained by Bellini (James J. Mellon), who lives in her mother’s boarding house with other artistes such as opera singers, clowns, jugglers, and tumblers. Bellini was once a high-wire walker who suddenly became afraid of heights, and of course through his tutelage Mirette learns the art of the tightrope and also helps Bellini regain his nerve. Markland Taylor in Variety found the musical “passé, clichéd and coy” with an undramatic book, a “not unmelodic” score that was nonetheless unmemorable, and “patchy-looking” décor and costumes. Taylor felt Kubinski had “something of the mechanical doll about her,” and ultimately it was “difficult to care” about Mirette and Bellini’s dilemmas. Peter Marks in the New York Times felt the “expansion and embellishment” of the “delightful” source material was “too burdensome an exercise for so slender a narrative,” and when Mirette finally walks the

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tightrope the audience had essentially sat “through an entire symphony” when only a “simple drumroll” was necessary. Taylor had noted that the opening sequence was “perversely self-destructive,” and Marks mentioned it was “flat-footed” and “amateurishly staged.” Further, when Bellini becomes irritated with Mirette and berates her, his actions would surely have found him evicted from a normal guest house (but, after all, this was “musical theatreland”). Marks also commented that Bellini was an unlikely mentor for the “impressionable” Mirette because his “menacing manner” made him a likely “candidate for special scrutiny by the neighborhood watch committee.” For the Chester run, Kelly Mady played the title role and Steve Barton was Bellini. The song “I Like It Here” was dropped for the later East Haddam run. Beginning on December 16, 2005, the musical was presented for five performances in a concert staging by the York Theatre Company at the Theatre at St. Peter’s Church as part of the company’s Musicals in Mufti series. The cast included Susan Cella, Robert Cuccioli, and Ed Dixon. The Schmidt and Jones tribute revue The Show Goes On (which opened at the Theatre at St. Peter’s Church on December 17, 1997, for eighty-eight performances) took its title from one of the songs in the Mirette score, and the number can be heard on the revue’s cast album (DRG Records CD # 19008).

OVER & OVER Note: The musical played at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, January 6–February 21, 1999, with the official opening night designated as February 3. As of this writing, the musical has never been produced on Broadway. Book: Joseph Stein Lyrics: Fred Ebb Music: John Kander Based on the 1942 play The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder. Direction: Eric D. Schaeffer (Gloria Dugan, Assistant Director); Producer: Signature Theatre (Eric D. Schaeffer, Artistic Director; Paul Gamble, Managing Director); Choreography: Bob Avian; Scenery: Lou Stancari; Costumes: Anne Kennedy; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Jim Laev Cast: Dorothy Loudon (Lulu Shriner), Mario Cantone (Bob Corleone), David Garrison (George Antrobus), Linda Emond (Maggie Antrobus), Megan Lawrence (Gladys Antrobus), Jim Newman (Henry Antrobus), Sherie (Rene) Scott (Sabina), Larry Weidner (Telegram Boy), Leroy Kline (Woolly Mammoth), Richard Pelzman (Woolly Mammoth), Lawrence Redmond (Socrates), Hugh Nees (Homer), Thomas Adrian Simpson (Moses), Bruce Nelson (Jesus), Leon Fischer (Announcer), Beulah Watson (Elsa Fitt), Sharon Wilkins (Fortune Teller); Dancing Gauchos: Karl Christian and Marc Oka; Ensemble: Erika Lynn Rupu, Jennifer Swiderski, Johanna Gerry, Karl Christian, Kenneth J. Ewing Jr., Daniel Felton, Jason Gilbert, Marc Oka, R. Scott Thompson The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in New Jersey throughout the ages.

Musical Numbers Act One: Prologue (David Garrison, Linda Emond, Jim Newman, Megan Lawrence, Company); “Eat the Ice Cream” (Sherie Scott); “Sabina!” (Linda Emond); “He Always Comes Home to Me” (Linda Emond); “Telegram # 1” (Larry Weidner); “We’re Home” (Megan Lawrence, Jim Newman); “The Wheel” (David Garrison); “Someday, Pasadena” (Sherie Scott, Men); “A Whole Lot of Lovin’” (Wise Men); “Abou Ben Adhem” (Megan Lawrence); “Numbers” (Jim Newman); “The Library” (Linda Emond); Finale (Company) Act Two: “Rain” (Sharon Wilkins); “As You Are” (David Garrison, Linda Emond); “Beauty Contest” (Bathing Beauties); “(In) This Life” (Beulah Watson, Bathing Beauties); “A Whole Lot of Lovin’” (reprise) (Wise Men); “You Owe It to Yourself” (Sherie Scott); “Nice People” (Jim Newman); “The Promise” (Linda Emond); “The Promise” (reprise) (David Garrison); “Rain” (reprise) (Sharon Wilkins); “Military Man” (Dorothy Loudon, Mario Cantone, Soldiers); “Lullaby” (Megan Lawrence, Linda Emond, Sherie Scott); “Telegram # 2” (Larry Weidner); “Home” (Linda Emond, Sherie Scott); “Nice People” (reprise) (Jim New-

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man); “The Skin of Our Teeth” (David Garrison); “Antrobus Waltz” (David Garrison, Linda Emond); “At the Rialto” (Sherie Scott) Someone made the disastrous mistake of presenting Over & Over to the public when the show was clearly in need of another round of private workshops. Whether it was hubris or simple misjudgment, the decision to book the musical into a regular theatre and to charge full-priced tickets was unfair to the creators, the cast, and the paying audience. John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical was based on Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1942 fantasy The Skin of Our Teeth, a play that was a sensation in its time but holds up poorly today as a pretentious bit of artifice with delusions of intellectual grandeur. Even with a cast that included such pros as Alfred Drake and Elizabeth Ashley, the 1975 Broadway revival was painful to watch and collapsed after seven performances, and in his review of a 1998 New York revival, Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the play “exceedingly precious” and “much less resilient” than its characters (who, after all, have survived the Ice Age). The plot centers on a New Jersey family who have been around for centuries. Father George Antrobus (David Garrison) is the inventor of both the wheel and the alphabet, mother Maggie (Linda Emond) keeps the home fires burning, and their two grown children Gladys (Megan Lawrence) and Henry (Jim Newman) are, respectively, innocuous and dangerous. All of them are stand-ins for the Family of Mankind, and despite war, pestilence, flood, and basic human stupidity, they always manage to get by with the skin of their teeth in order to sally forth toward another tomorrow. Along for the multi-millennial ride is the vampy family maid Sabina (Sherie [Rene] Scott), who is both wise-cracking narrator and would-be seducer of the virtuous George. And there’s also the occasional pet dinosaur and mammoth around the house. The musical went off in three divergent directions. First was the story of the Antrobus clan, which was presented in dull and solemn fashion with little in the way of genuine humor, wit, and insight. And sonny-boy Henry, a Junior Fascist intent on spoiling Mankind’s party, seemed to be auditioning for a future production of Cabaret, where he can sing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” His diatribe “Nice People” was possibly the most tiresome theatre song of the era, and was certainly the most embarrassingly staged one. Like the legendary “Milaria Rubra” from Swing (1980), which dealt with the itchy discomfort of a rare skin disease, “Nice People” was so inept it later made you wonder if perhaps you’d imagined it. Had one really seen Henry petulantly sing and stomp about the stage in khaki shorts and Army boots while he spewed out his grievances against the world? The musical’s secondary plot line (which wasn’t part of Wilder’s play) derailed almost as soon as it began. It had something to do with a stage manager (who also seems to be a radio announcer) named Lulu Shriner (Dorothy Loudon) and her staff, including Bob Corleone (Mario Cantone), both of whom may be presenting a musical version of The Skin of Our Teeth. At the same time, they also seem to be show-business wannabes looking for their big break. (But maybe not . . . maybe not at all.) Their scenes were a shambles, and it was difficult to figure out just what Loudon, Cantone, and their cohorts were up to. In an out-of-nowhere scene, Loudon, Cantone, and a soldier-boy chorus line materialized for a production number called “Military Man,” which didn’t have much to do with anything. In fact, the song was from Kander and Ebb’s trunk and wasn’t even written for Over & Over. It had been heard twenty-three years earlier in the Kander and Ebb tribute revue 2 by 5, which opened Off-Broadway on October 19, 1976, at the Village Gate Downstairs for fifty-seven performances where it was sung by D’Jamin Bartlett, Kay Cummings, Danny Fortus, Shirley Lemmon, and Scott Stevenson. To be sure, during the run of Over & Over the Loudon-Cantone scenes were shortened, clarified, or otherwise tinkered with, and Loudon’s character of Lulu was eliminated. But as the musical played out its run and officially opened one month after its first performance, Loudon was soon cavorting about as the “B.V.M.” (The Blessed Virgin Mary) and a beauty queen whose sash reads “Miss Titanic,” an unfortunate allusion for a floundering musical. Charles Isherwood in Variety reported that midway through one number Loudon cracked to the audience that she was “too good for this show,” and he noted she had “the ruthless instincts of a hard-boiled veteran” who knew “when to desert a sinking ship.” Loudon also played the role of Elsa Fitt, which in early performances had been portrayed by Beulah Watkins, and Cantone took on other roles as well, including the Telegram Boy (previously played by Larry Weidner). (By opening night, both Watkins and Weidner were no longer in the show.) The third musical within Over & Over was Sherie (Rene) Scott herself, a one-woman wonder who seemed to be in an entirely different show and who brought sparkle and theatrical gold to the dross around her. Here was a pro who was clearly enjoying herself and reveling in an old-time performance of hoopla and razzmatazz,

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and she winked and strutted and belted in the grand tradition of an Ethel Merman and a Carol Channing. Her Sabina is looking for a show-business break, and her splendid “Someday, Pasadena” defined her drive and ambition and was the best musical moment in the score. (Come to think of it, Scott saved another musical just a year later: her knowing performance was the only reason to see the otherwise solemn and joyless Aida.) Lloyd Rose in the Washington Post said Over & Over “comes apart, scattering into seemingly unrelated components,” and she noted there was “very little energy” in what was “a collection of unrelated bits, many of them clever, a few of them lovely, some of them just bewildering.” Ultimately, the “fuzzy” musical was a “mess” and the book never properly set up the songs and thus the numbers were “thrown” at the audience and tended “to cancel one another out.” Isherwood found the evening “baffling, disjointed and sadly misbegotten” as it veered from “tongue-in-cheek silliness” to “leaden sentiment.” The musical became “a Cliff Notes version” of Wilder’s play, the dialogue was a collection of song cues, and the score was mostly “standard issue show tunes or derivative rehashes of previous styles.” The musical was a complete sell-out before its first performance, and much was made of Bebe Neuwirth’s departure from the production during rehearsals (she was succeeded by Sherie Scott). In a later interview with Jesse McKinley in the New York Times, Neuwirth said there had been no “blow-up” in regard to her departure and she was “insulted” that “someone” had made her out to be a “terror” and had indicated that “professional actors” were “temperamental babies.” She had left the production because of a “mutual” decision that was “in the interest of everyone involved,” and noted that she “adored” Kander and Ebb and thought they’d written a “beautiful” score. But when asked her opinion of the musical’s director, she said she had “no comment.” As All about Us, a revised version of Over & Over opened on April 14, 2007, at the Westport Country Playhouse (Westport, Connecticut) with a cast that included Shuler Hensley (George), Yvette Freeman (Maggie), Eartha Kitt (Esmeralda), and Cady Huffman (Sabina). It unaccountably retained the score’s least attractive song (“Nice People”), omitted its best one (“Someday, Pasadena”), and added five (“Warm,” “When Poppa Comes Home,” “Save the Human Race,” “A Discussion,” and “World Peace”). The headline of Frank Rizzo’s review in Variety exclaimed “‘All’ Is Not Enough,” and the critic noted the “long” evening “misses its musical spurs, not to mention its center.” In her collection Men I’ve Had (Sh-K-Boom Records CD # 2000-2), Sherie Rene Scott includes one song from the score (“This Life”), and Brent Barrett’s collection The Kander and Ebb Album (Varese Sarabande Records CD # VSD-6044) includes “The Skin of Our Teeth.” Kander’s two-CD set John Kander: Hidden Treasures, 1950–2015 (Harbinger Records CD # HCD3105) includes five songs from the score, “The Wheel,” “He Always Comes Home to Me” (an original cast performance by Linda Emond, who introduced the song in Over & Over and who is here accompanied by Kander), “Nice People” (Jim Newman, in another original cast performance), “Military Man,” and “The Skin of Our Teeth”; the show’s original musical director Jim Laev is the accompanist for “The Wheel,” “Nice People,” and “Military Man.” Some two years before the premiere of Over & Over, a workshop of the musical directed by Jerry Zaks included cast members James Naughton (George Antrobus), Debra Monk (Maggie Antrobus), and Bernadette Peters (Sabina). The cast of a later workshop included David Garrison (in his eventual role of Antrobus), Monk (returning as Maggie), and Michele Pawk (Sabina). An earlier (and unproduced) musical version of The Skin of Our Teeth was composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Two songs from this score (“Here Comes the Sun” and “Spring Will Come Again”) were included in the Off-Broadway Bernstein tribute revue By Bernstein, which opened on November 23, 1975, at the Westside Theatre for seventeen performances, and a third song (“Up, Up, Up”) was part of Phyllis Newman’s one-woman show The Madwoman of Central Park West, which opened on June 13, 1979, at the 22 Steps Theatre for eighty-five performances and is included on the show’s cast album (DRG Records CD #CDSL-5212).

1999 Season

KAT AND THE KINGS Theatre: Cort Theatre Opening Date: August 19, 1999; Closing Date: January 2, 2000 Performances: 157 Book and Lyrics: David Kramer Music: Taliep Petersen Direction: David Kramer; Producers: Harriet Newman Leve and Judith and Dave Rosenbauer in association with Richard Frankel, Marc Routh, Willette Klausner, Kardana-Swinsky Productions, David Kramer, Taliep Petersen, and Renaye Kramer and by special arrangement with Paul Elliott, Nick Salmon, and Lee Menzies (Patrick Molony, Associate Producer); Choreography: Jody J. Abrahams and Loukmaan Adams; Scenery and Costumes: Saul Radomsky; Lighting: Howard Harrison; Musical Direction: Jeff Lams Cast: Terry Hector (Kat Diamond), Kim Louis (Lucy Dixon), Jody J. Abrahams (Young Kat Diamond), Loukmaan Adams (Bingo), Junaid Booysen (Ballie), Alistair Izobell (Magoo) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Cape Town and Durban, South Africa, during the present time and in 1957 and 1959.

Musical Numbers Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “Memory” (Kim Louis, The Kings); “American Thing” (Terry Hector, Company); “Lucky Day” (Jody J. Abrahams, Terry Hector); “Mavis” (Terry Hector, Loukmaan Adams, Jody J. Abrahams, Junaid Booysen, Alistair Izobell); “Boetie Guitar” (Terry Hector, The Kings); “Cavalla Kings” (Kim Louis, The Kings); “If Your Shoes Don’t Shine” (Terry Hector); “Dress to Kill” (Kim Louis, The Kings); “Shine” (Kim Louis, The Kings); “The Tafelberg Hotel” (Kim Louis, The Kings); “Lonely Girl” (Loukmaan Adams, Alistair Izobell, Terry Hector, Jody J. Abrahams, Junaid Booysen); “Josephine” (Junaid Booysen, The Kings); “Wild Time” (Company) Act Two: “Happy to Be Nineteen” (Company); “Lonely Girl” (reprise) (Loukmaan Adams, The Kings); “Oo Wee Bay Bee” (Jody J. Abrahams, The Kings); “Only If You Have a Dream” (Kim Louis, Alistair Izobell); “The Last Thing You Need” (Jody J. Abrahams, Loukmann Adams, Alistair Izobell, Junaid Booysen); “Stupid Boy” (Terry Hector); The Claridges Hotel Medley: “Cavalla Kings” (reprise) (The Kings); “The Singing Sensation” (Jody J. Abrahams, Kim Louis, The Kings); “The Bell Hop” (Loukmaan Adams, The Kings); “Blind Date” (Alistair Izobell); “Lonely Girl” (reprise) (Kim Louis, The Kings); “The Invisible Dog” (Loukmaan Adams, The Kings); “Hey Baby” (J. Jody Abrahams, The Kings); “Cavalla Kings” (reprise) (Kim Louis, The Kings); “Skeleton Dance” (The Kings); “Lagunya” (Loukmaan Adams, Junaid Booysen, J. Jody Abrahams, Alistair Izobell); and “Lucky Day” (reprise) (J. Jody Abraham, Kings); Finale: “The Singing Sensation” (reprise) (J. Jody Abrahams, The Kings); “Hey Baby” (reprise) (Alistair Izobell, The Kings); “We

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Were Rocking” (Terry Hector, Company); “Lagunya” (reprise) (Loukmaan Adams, Company); and “Wild Time” (reprise) (Company) Those who avoided Kat and the Kings might be excused for thinking it was a tribute revue to some singing group they’d never heard of. Such revues saluted individual singers, singing groups, and pop lyricists and composers, and had all but saturated the Off-Broadway market and were now gradually finding a stronghold on Broadway where at least one such “tribute” seemed to open every season in either revue or book musical formats. Many of these evenings were gushingly congratulatory, and one or two were embarrassingly selfserving. But the import Kat and the Kings was a book musical with new lyrics and music, and it told the story of the fictitious South African singing group The Cavalla Kings and their lead singer Kat Diamond (the young Kat was played by Jody J. Abrahams, and the older by Terry Hector). Part of the musical was set in the present day where the older Kat, who now shines shoes for a living, reminisces about his and the group’s struggle to make it big in the show business world of the mid-to-late 1950s in segregated South Africa. The musical was inspired by the similar story of South African singer Salie Daniels, who performed the role of the older Kat in the Cape Town and London productions and who died the month before the New York opening (all the performers in the musical were from South Africa, many had appeared in the Cape Town and London productions of the show, and Terry Hector was a last-minute replacement for Salie Daniels). With six cast members and seven musicians, the musical was modest by current Broadway standards, but mixed reviews relegated it to a run of less than five months. Too often the story took on the baggage of a typical show-business saga, and at best the score was mildly pleasant if ordinary with its share of ersatz late-1950s pop styles, most of which were performed presentationally (including a re-creation of the group’s appearance at the Claridges Hotel, a sequence that contained eleven separate numbers). There were also a few plot songs, and Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted these were “clunky” and brought to mind “the syrupy ballads found in current movies about scorned misfits beating the odds to become sports champions.” What really did the show in was its lack of resolve in dealing with how segregation and apartheid policies brought down the entertainers, and the book all but glossed over apartheid as just another stumbling block on the road to show-business glory. And like a similar story depicted in Band in Berlin (and Harmony), politics won the day and stopped the music. Brantley said the cast’s “exuberant energy” was often wasted on “formulaic cartoonishness,” and he noted the score sometimes evoked “the blandly mimetic tradition of nostalgia trips like Grease” and the story brought to mind hoary “rise-and-fall show business plots.” Charles Isherwood in Variety praised the “delightfully buoyant” performers, but felt nothing could “disguise the faults of this eager-to-please but rather deflatingly inconsequential show.” He noted that a “generally too-sophomoric spirit” hurt the evening more than its “lack of attention to the politically charged environment.” Isherwood also pointed out the one moment in the musical that was emotionally charged but otherwise went undeveloped, a scene when the young Kat looks at both his older self and the dismal future ahead and says, “I can’t believe this is what happens to me.” The musical was first presented in South Africa during September 1995 at the Dock Road Theatre in Cape Town. The first British production opened in November 1997 at London’s Tricycle Theatre and then transferred to the West End’s Vaudeville Theatre on March 23, 1998. The cast album was recorded from a live performance at London’s Vaudeville Theatre and was released by First Night Records (CD # CASTCD-67).

DAME EDNA: THE ROYAL TOUR “The Show That Listens”

Theatre: Booth Theatre Opening Date: October 17, 1999; Closing Date: July 2, 2000 Performances: 297 Material, Lyrics, and Music: Barry Humphries; additional material by Ian Davidson Direction: Barry Humphries; Producers: Leonard Soloway, Chase Mishkin, Steven M. Levy, and Jonathan Reinis (Skylight Productions, Adam Friedson, David Friedson, Allen Spivak/Larry Magid, and Richard Martini); Scenery: Kenneth Foy; Costumes: Stephen Adnitt; Lighting: Jason Kantrowitz

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Cast: Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage [“Australia’s First Lady”]), Phil Reno (“The Fingers on the Keyboards”), Roxane Barlow (“The Gorgeous Ednaette # 1”), Tamlyn Brooke Shusterman (“An Equally Gorgeous Ednaette # 2”) The revue was presented in two acts. The program for Dame Edna: The Royal Tour noted there would be a fifteen-minute “pause for reflection” between the two acts, and the audience was comfortingly assured that the “lovely program contains no marsupial products.” (The “lovely” and marsupial-free program also noted that Dame Edna is the Founder and Governor of “Friends of the Prostate,” the creator of the “World Prostate Olympics,” and in her spare time poses for photographs with refugees.) Otherwise, all bets were off because star Barry Humphries’s alter ego, Dame Edna, held, possessed, owned, commanded, and commandeered the stage with her take-no-prisoners-or-possums approach to life. The hopelessly middle-class Dame Edna is impossibly and insufferably smug and self-righteous, and, after all, it isn’t her fault if the rest of us are beneath her. The world is her stage, her audiences are possums, and she’s the kind of person who is good enough and honest enough to tell the ticket-holders that she’d never pay good money to see them. As for those poor creatures high up in the balcony, she acknowledged them with “Hello, paupers!” And when they answered her, she asked the audience downstairs to “listen to their wistful cries.” Dame Edna’s violently violet hair took the concept of bouffant into realms light-years beyond Jacqueline Kennedy’s wildest imagination, and the Dame lovingly referred to her trademark curlicued, rhinestonestudded, and oversized glasses as “face furniture.” She talked about her late husband, Sir Norman, and his prostate problems, and her dear mother, who now lives in a “maximum-security twilight home for the bewildered.” She also noted that her unmarried daughter, Valmai, raises pit bulls and lives with a woman who was once a Czechoslovakian tennis player, and her equally unmarried son, Kenny, is a window dresser and dress designer who just never seems to find “Miss Right.” (Vincent Canby in the New York Times reported that Kenny designed his mother’s costumes, including one that seemed constructed “of aluminum foil and fake rabbit fur dyed pink.”) Her Dameness was sure to let you know that she always gave of herself and cared about others, and in Hallmark fashion, she noted there are “no strangers in this world, just friends you haven’t met yet.” But sometimes Dame Edna’s inner-angel never quite emerged. She bantered with audience members and occasionally insisted they join her onstage where they were highly encouraged to eat a full dinner thoughtfully provided by the management. They haplessly and publicly supped while the audience looked on and listened, and the Dame queried them about their private lives. One time a possum foolishly confided that she’d spent a lot of money on home furnishings. Dame Edna looked her up and down, and then remarked that such expenses were quite all right because the woman clearly had “saved a lot of money on clothes.” During the evening, Dame Edna was occasionally joined by her backup group, The Gorgeous Ednaettes, and for her musical accompaniment Phil Reno’s fingers ran riot on the keyboards. Among the songs heard during the evening were: “Friends of Kenny,” “Call Me Old-Fashioned,” “I’m Thinking of Myself This Christmas,” and “Look at Me (When I’m Talking to You).” (These four numbers were released on a four-track CD issued by Tamarin Records.) Other songs heard in the production were “It’s Edna Time” and “Come On, Possums, Wave Your Gladiola.” Ben Brantley in the New York Times praised the “miraculously fresh” humor, but even when the jokes were feeble they counted “for far less than the overwhelming presence of the narcissistic creature making them.” Charles Isherwood in Variety cheered the “savagely funny” entertainment by the “nice middle-class hausfrau with the instincts of a shark” who was a “caring friend who couldn’t care less” and a “self-centered celebrity who makes a career of humility and selflessness.” Canby told his readers to “sit back and let the magnificent Dame take charge.” And Donald Lyons in the New York Post hailed the “funniest and cleverest show in town” and noted that because the evening was short on plot, the star felt it was “ideal” for “befuddled seniors.” Dame Edna made her New York debut in Barry Humphries’s one-man show Housewife! Superstar!, which opened Off-Broadway on October 19, 1977, at Theatre Four for thirty-four performances. After The Royal Tour, the Dame returned to Broadway in Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance!, which opened on November 21, 2004, at the Music Box Theatre for 163 performances, and with Michael Feinstein appeared in All About Me, which opened on March 18, 2010, at Henry Miller’s Theatre for twenty showings. Humphries created the role of Mr. Sowerberry in the original 1960 London production of Oliver!, and can be heard on the show’s cast album as part of the trio who sings “That’s Your Funeral.” He wasn’t part

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of the show’s lengthy pre-Broadway tour, but joined the company for the 1963 New York premiere where he again played the role of Sowerberry (“That’s Your Funeral” was heard in the Broadway production but wasn’t recorded for its cast album).

Award Tony Award: Special Theatrical Event (Dame Edna: The Royal Tour)

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER “The Musical”

Theatre: Minskoff Theatre Opening Date: October 21, 1999; Closing Date: December 31, 2000 Performances: 502 Book: Nan Knighton in collaboration with Arlene Phillips, Paul Nicholas, and Robert Stigwood Lyrics and Music: Songs mostly by The Bee Gees (Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb); see list of musical numbers for specific credits Based on the 1977 Paramount/RSO film Saturday Night Fever (direction by John Badham and screenplay by Norman Wexler); the film itself was based on the 1976 New York magazine article “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” by Nik Cohn. Direction and Choreography: Arlene Phillips (Tony Edge, Assistant Director; Karen Bruce, Associate Choreographer; Arthur Siccardi, Production Supervisor); Producers: Robert Stigwood (Manny Kladitis and David Rocksavage, Associate Producers) (Patrick Bywalski, Executive Producer); Scenery: Robin Wagner; Costumes: Andy Edwards (Suzy Benzinger, “Broadway Costumes”); Lighting: Andrew Bridge; Musical Direction: Martyn Axe Cast: James Carpinello (Tony Manero), Paige Price (Stephanie Mangano), Orfeh (Annette), Paul Castree (Bobby C), Sean Palmer (Joey), Andy Blankenbuehler (Double J), Richard H. Blake (Gus), Bryan Batt (Monty), Casey Nicholaw (Frank Manero), Suzanne Costallos (Flo Manero, Lucille), Jerry Tellier (Frank Junior), Frank Mastrone (Fusco, Al), David Coburn (Jay Langhart, Becker), Andre Ward (Chester), Michael Balderrama (Cesar), Chris Ghelfi (Vinnie), Danial Jerod Brown (Sal), Brian J. Marcum (Dino), Rick Spaans (Lou), Miles Alden (Dom), Ottavio (Roberto), Drisco Fernandez (Antonio), David Robertson (Ike), Karine Plantadit-Bageot (Shirley), Natalie Willes (Maria), Jeanine Meyers (Connie), Angela Pupello (Doreen), Aliane Baquerot (Linda Manero, Patti), Rebecca Sherman (Gina), Paula Wise (Sophia), Shannon Beach (Donna), Deanna Dys (Rosalie), Jennifer Newman (Lola), Danielle Jolie (Inez), Stacey Martin (Lorelle), Kristoffer Cusick (Kenny), Karl duHoffmann (Nick), Roger Lee Israel (Rocker), Anne Nicole Biancofiore (Natalie), Marcia Urani (Ann Marie), Gina Philistine (Angela) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Brooklyn and Manhattan during 1976 “or whenever you were 19.”

Musical Numbers Act One: “Stayin’ Alive” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (James Carpinello, Company); “Boogie Shoes” (lyric and music by Harry Casey and Richard Finch) (James Carpinello, The Faces); “Disco Inferno” (lyric and music by Leroy Green and Ron Kersey) (Bryan Batt, Company); “Night Fever” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (James Carpinello, Company); “Disco Duck” (lyric and music by Rick Dees) (Bryan Batt); “More Than a Woman” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (James Carpinello, Paige Price); “If I Can’t Have You” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (Orfeh); “It’s My Neighborhood” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (Company); “You Should Be Dancing” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (James Carpinello, Company) Act Two: “Jive Talkin’” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (James Carpinello, Orfeh, The Faces, Company); “First and Last” (lyric and music by Robin, Barry, and Maurice Gibb) and “Tragedy”

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(lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (Paul Castree); “What Kind of Fool” (lyric and music by Barry Gibb and Albhy Galuten) (Paige Price); “Nights on Broadway” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (Orfeh, Paige Price, Company); The Dance Competition: (1) “Night Fever” (reprise) (Company); (2) “Open Sesame” (lyric and music by R. Bell and Kool and the Gang) (Andre Ward, Karine Plantadit-Bageot); (3) “More Than a Woman” (reprise) (James Carpinello, Paige Price); and (4) “Salsation” (music by David Shire) (Michael Balderrama, Natalie Willes); “Immortality” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (James Carpinello); “How Deep Is Your Love” (lyric and music by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb) (James Carpinello, Paige Price); Note: The production also included the following music: “A Fifth of Beethoven” (music by Walter Murphy), “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (music by Richard Strauss), and “Night on Disco Mountain” (music by David Shire). The 1977 film Saturday Night Fever was a phenomenon that took on a life of its own as one of the defining movies of its time. It was more than just a contemporary box-office blockbuster (which earned some $240 million on a $3.5 million capitalization), and it quickly emerged as a movie that defined the attitude, look, and music of its era, in much the way Rebel without a Cause shaped for future generations the world of 1950s values and its troubled teenagers. Saturday Night Fever was one of those unstoppable forces virtually impervious to criticism, and almost everyone in the universe saw the movie, heard its songs, bought the soundtrack album, and loved the message of its Cinderella story, which assured audiences that an unimportant paintstore clerk by day can become the neighborhood’s disco king on the Saturday night dance floor. It had been decades since a musical film introduced a number of hit songs, and the Bee Gees’ score for Saturday Night Fever was one of the most popular since the advent of the talkies with at least five major hits (“Night Fever,” “How Deep Is Your Love,” “More Than a Woman,” “Stayin’ Alive,” and “If I Can’t Have You”). The film instantly catapulted John Travolta into superstardom and film immortality, and its iconic image of Travolta on the disco dance floor is burned in moviegoers’ minds along with those in which Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara raises her fist to the yellow sky and vows to reclaim her life, Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr make love on a sandy beach while the tide washes over them in a frenzy of white foam, and Marilyn Monroe stands above a subway grating and cools off on a hot New York night while the rush of a train below causes her white dress to billow up in the breeze. For the movie, the songs were heard presentationally as numbers for the disco scenes and weren’t sung by the characters for narrative purposes. But the stage version used some of the film’s songs (and added others) for the book scenes, and thus sometimes the numbers felt shoehorned into the story for plot purposes. Although the film was gritty and peppered with street language, the stage version toned down the dialogue but still retained the essential story line, including a fatal leap from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The musical also followed the 1940s musical mantra of jukebox Saturday night, here of course transposed to disco Saturday night, and the Brooklyn-boy Cinderella gets to go to the ball (the local club called 2001 Odyssey) and find happiness. The libretto never went beyond its by-the-numbers adaptation and didn’t capture the strut and swagger of the film, and for a potentially dance-driven show the choreography was at best average. In the Travolta role, newcomer James Carpinello made his Broadway debut and promptly met with criticism for what many critics deemed a tentative characterization, but perhaps this was early-performance jitters on the actor’s part. A few weeks after the opening, he seemed comfortable in the role and brought a certain smoldering intensity to the frustrated kid on the block who wants more out of life than selling paint to ornery customers. Ben Brantley in the New York Times said that instead of offering nostalgia of the “wet, warm, embracing kind,” the musical presented the “freeze-dried variety.” The adaptors hadn’t reconceived the movie for the stage, and as a result the story was presented in “mechanical” fashion. Further, the performers wore “those unfortunate head mikes” that brought to mind “a karaoke bar frequented by college students who could still use a few more beers to loosen up.” He also noted that the disco choreography lacked freshness because the steps and the music had been “quickly appropriated by exercise teachers” and were now reminiscent of what you could see on a workout video. But . . . Brantley told his readers that the stage adaptation of Footloose was “so clunky” it made the Broadway version of Saturday Night Fever seem like My Fair Lady. Charles Isherwood in Variety mentioned that with the millennium just around the corner, the use of the song “Disco Duck” in a Broadway musical was a sure sign of the apocalypse. The “mindless, heartless, and tasteless” evening was “manufactured from equal parts polyester, celluloid and greed,” and Arlene Phillips’s choreography offered “standard disco clichés” that morphed into “various aerobic permutations” that seemed to go on “forever” and were then immediately repeated ten minutes later. Donald Lyons in the New York

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Post commented that the stage production “jettisons everything exciting in the movie and lovingly preserves everything mediocre” and thus “an invigorating movie has been turned into a lugubrious downer.” He also noted that Phillips had “forgotten, if she ever knew, what disco was” and the final dance contest was “anticlimactic.” The stage adaptation first opened in Britain at the London Palladium on May 5, 1998, for a run of twentytwo months. While there was no Broadway cast recording, the London cast album was released by Polydor Records (CD # 557-932-2). The New York run was disappointing, and while it played for just over five hundred performances it clearly didn’t recoup its initial capitalization despite varying press reports that it opened with an advance sale of between $14 and $20 million. Seven months after the opening, Michael Riedel in the New York Post reported that for at least four weeks the show ran well below its weekly break-even cost of $535,000 (and one week the receipts fell to $492,000), and he assumed the musical would recoup just a fraction of its $10 million investment if it closed before the end of the year. He also noted the show was “much reviled within the theatre industry” and was completely shut out of any Tony Award nominations. But it is frequently revived in various world capitals and has enjoyed extended tours in many countries.

ABBY’S SONG

Theatre: City Center Opening Date: November 14, 1999; Closing Date: November 28, 1999 Performances: 19 Book and Lyrics: Mary Pat Kelly Music: Elliot Willensky Direction and Choreography: Randy Skinner; Producers: Spirit Lake Productions, Mickey Kelly, Susan Kelly Panian, and Michael Kelly; Scenery: Bill Clarke; Costumes: David C. Woolard; Lighting: Nancy Schertler; Musical Direction: Stephen Bates Cast: Paul Sorvino (Mentor), David A. Tay (Danny), Judy Malloy (Judith), Jacquiline Rohrbacker (Bertha), Monica L. Patton (Leah), Sebastian Sozzi (Ethan), Maggie Panian (Becky), Courtney Leigh (Susannah), Ally Hilfiger (Lilly), John Wilkerson (John), Daniel Elborne (Josh), Michael-Leon Wooley (Bennie), Jackie Angelescu (Abby), John Paul Almon (Ruben) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Whispering Pines, Montana, during the present time.

Musical Numbers Act One: “An Ordinary Town” (Paul Sorvino); “Woman’s Work” (Judy Malloy, Monica L. Patton, Jacquiline Rohrbacker, Maggie Panian, Ally Hilfiger, Courtney Leigh); “Fly a Rainbow” (Jackie Angelescu); “Fly a Rainbow” (reprise) (Jackie Angelescu, David A. Tay); “More Than Ever” (John Wilkerson, Judy Malloy); “The Wolf Song” (Michael-Leon Wooley, John Wilkerson, Daniel Elborne, Sebastian Sozzi); “I Am Home” (John Paul Almon, Monica L. Patton); “Another Girl Who’s Just Like Me” (Jackie Angelescu, Maggie Panian, Ally Hilfiger, Courtney Leigh, Judy Malloy, Monica L. Patton); “There’s a Price” (Jacquiline Rohrbacker, Judy Malloy); “You Just Gotta Be You” (David A. Tay, Jackie Angelescu); “She Left without a Word” (Judy Malloy) Act Two: “A Little Girl in the Night” (Jackie Angelescu, Ensemble); “Beyond” (Men, Boys); “I Did It” (Jackie Angelescu); “An Angel Has a Message” (David A. Tay, Jackie Angelescu); “A Mother’s Heart” (Judy Malloy, Monica L. Patton, Jacquiline Rohrbacker); “Pass the Wine” (Men, Boys); “The Revelation” (David A. Tay, Jackie Angelescu, Men, Boys); “How Do You Follow a Star” (Jackie Angelescu, Sebastian Sozzi); “Who Is This Child” (Jackie Angelescu, John Wilkerson); “Abby’s Song” (Ensemble); “Fly a Rainbow” (reprise) (Jackie Angelescu, Ensemble); “One Small Voice” (Ensemble) Abby’s Song was inspired by the Christmas story, and its limited engagement at City Center ushered in the holiday season and was an appropriate musical for the younger set. The musical’s flyer indicated that the plot dealt with Abby (Jackie Angelescu), “a delightful, lovable girl who wants to ‘fly a rainbow,’ while everybody else is telling her to keep her feet on the ground.” More specifically, the story was set in present-

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day Montana and was a retelling of the first Christmas, albeit with a slight feminist slant. Abby is tired of “woman’s work” and wants to be a shepherd in the mountains like men and boys but is thwarted by the view that a shepherd’s life isn’t for females. But she goes off to the mountains anyway, and soon encounters both an angel and a young couple in need of shelter. Told that there’s no room at the inn, Abby takes the couple to a barn. Laurel Graeber in the New York Times noted the show was “as wholesome as it sounds” and mentioned that Randy Skinner’s choreography was “in the old Broadway style” and showed that even angels can tap dance.

TANGO ARGENTINO Theatre: Gershwin Theatre Opening Date: November 17, 1999; Closing Date: January 9, 2000 Performances: 63 Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Direction: Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli; Producers: DG Productions (Daniel Grinbank, Fernando Moya, and Carlos Rivadella, Executive Producers) (Phil Ernst, Associate Producer); Choreography: “Choreographic Conception” by Claudio Segovia and individual choreography by the dancers; Scenery, Costumes, and Lighting: All “conceived” by Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli; Musical Direction: Osvaldo Berlingieri, Julio Oscar Pane, and Roberto Pansera Cast: Nelida and Nelson, Hector and Elsa Maria Mayoral, Carlos and Ines Borquez, Norma and Luis Pereyra, Carlos Copello and Alicia Monti, Robert Herrera and Lorena Yacono, Guillermina Quiroga, Vanina Bilios, Antonio Cervila Jr., Johana Copes; Guest Artists: Juan Carlos Lopes, Maria Nieves, Pablo Veron; Singers: Raul Lavie, Maria Grana, Jovita Luna, Alba Solis; Musicians: Piano—Osvaldo Berlingieri, Christian Zarate; Bandoneon—Roberto Pansera, Horacio Romo; Bandoneon, Percussion, Flute—Oscar Gonzalez; Violin—Pablo Agri, Pablo Aznarez, Raul Di Renzo, Gustavo Roberto Mule, Walter Sebastian Prusac, Leonardo Suarez Paz; Violincello—Dino Carlos Quarleri; Contrabass—Enrique Guerra The dance revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Quejas de bandoneon” (music by J. De Dios Filiberto) (Orchestra); “El Apache Argentino” (music by M. Aroztegui and A. Mathon) (Antonio Cervila Jr., Pablo Veron, Luis Pereyra, Juan Carlos Lopes, Carlos Borquez, Carlos Copello); “El portenito” (music by A. Villaldo aka A. Villoldo) (Guillermina Quiroga, Norma Pereyra, Alicia Monti, Johana Copes, Ines Borquez); “El esquinazo” (music by A. Villaldo) (Pablo Veron, Guillermina Quiroga); “La punalada” (music by P. Castellanos and E. C. Flores) and “El choclo” (music by A. Villaldo and E. S. Descepolo) (Orchestra); “La cumparista” (music by G. M. Rodriguez) (Pablo Veron, Guillermina Quiroga); “Mi noche triste” (lyric and music by S. Castriotta and P. Contursi) (Singer: Raul Lavie); “El entrerriano” (music by R. Mendizabal) (Norma and Luis Pereyra); “De mi barrio” (lyric and music by R. Goyeneche) (Singer: Jovita Luna); “Chique” (Juan Carlos and Johana Lopes; Bandoneones: Roberto Pansera, Horacio Romo, Ruben Gonzalez, Alejandro Zarate); “Milonguita” (music by E. Delfino and S. Linning), “Divina” (music by J. Mora and J. De la Calle), “Melenita de oro” (music by E. Delfino and S. Linning), and “Re-Fa-Si” (music by E. Delfino) (Vanina Bilous, Nelida and Nelson, Antonio Cervila Jr., Elsa Maria Mayoral, Norma and Luis Pereyra, Ines and Carlos Borquez, Alicia Monti, Guillermina Quiroga, Johana Copes, Hector Mayoral, Pablo Veron, Carlos Copello); “Nostalgias” (music by J. C. Cobain and E. Cadicamo) (Orchestra); “La Yumba” (music by O. Pugliese) (Ines and Carlos Borquez); “Cautivo” (Singer: Maria Grana); “Recuerdo” (music by O. Pugliese) (Carlos Copello, Alicia Monti); “Canaro en Paris” (music by A. Scarpino and J. Caldarella) (Orchestra); “Nocturna” (music by J. Plaza) (Norma and Luis Pereyra, Ines and Carlos Borquez, Carlos Copello and Alicia Monti, Antonio Cervila Jr., and Johana Copes, Roberto Herrera and Lorena Yacono) Act Two: “Milongueando en el ’40” (music by Armando Pontier) (Roberto Herrera, Lorena Yacono); “Uno” (lyric and music by E. S. Discepolo and M. Mores) and “La ultima curda” (Singer: Alba Solis); “Milonguero

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viejo” (Hector and Elsa Maria Mayoral); “Celos” (music by Gade) (Nelida and Nelson); “Naranjo en flor” (lyric and music by H. Y. V. Esposito) (Singer: Raul Lavie); “Tanguera” (music by M. Mores) (Pablo Veron, Guillermina Quiroga); “La mariposa” (Orchestra); “Patetico” (Juan Carlos Copes, Maria Nieves); “Cancion desesperada” (Singer: Maria Grana); “Verano porteno” (music by Astor Piazzola) (Vanina Bilous, Antonio Cervila Jr.); “Balada para mi muerte” (music by H. Ferrer and Astor Piazzola) (Orchestra); “Danzarin” (music by J. Plaza) and “Quejas de bandoneon” (music by J. De Dios Filiberto) (Juan Carlos Copes and Maria Nieves, Nelida and Nelson, Hector and Elsa Maria Mayoral, Pablo Veron and Guillermina Quiroga, Antonio Cervila Jr., Ines Borquez, and Juan Carlos Copes, Norma and Luis Pereyra, Carlos Copello and Alicia Monti, Roberto Herrera and Lorena Yacona) The dance revue Tango Argentino had premiered in New York on June 25, 1985, for a one-week limited engagement at City Center for seven performances. On October 9 of that year, the production opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre for an extended run of 198 performances and received three Tony Award nominations, for Best Musical, Best Direction, and Best Choreography. The current engagement was the show’s first Broadway visit in almost fifteen years, and in many respects the original production could take credit for inspiring a series of Spanish- and Latin-American-styled dance revues that were produced in New York throughout the era, including Flamenco Puro, the Oba Oba series, Gypsy Passion, and Tango Pasion, as well as the Latin-themed dance-driven musicals Dangerous Games and Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Like the earlier production, the current engagement included dancers, singers, and musicians, and if the show had a fault it was a certain lack of variety. Despite the various tango variations and the frequent orchestral and song interludes, the work became slightly monotonous and would have been stronger had it been part of an evening that included other styles of dance. But no one complained about the dancers, all of whom were experts in the tango. Peter Marks in the New York Times said the revue did “terrifically well” in its presentation of the “enduring vitality and intensity” of the tango, and if there was a certain “repetitive” quality to the evening it nonetheless passed “in a comfortable haze.” But there was an occasional “Lawrence Welk feel” to the production, and when the singers “poured out their souls in song after tormented song” they crossed the line “into kitsch.” However, Marks noted the “overheated songs and the cool, liquid dances” were perhaps a deliberate attempt to present the “two distinct chambers of the Argentine heart.” Charles Isherwood in Variety found the revue “sexy and satisfying” with its “dazzling” dancers, and he was glad to note that with Tango Argentino and the upcoming Broadway openings of Swing! and Contact (which had opened Off-Broadway in the fall and would reopen later in the season for a Broadway run) the theatre season was “rediscovering the pleasure and power of dance.” Tango Argentino had first been presented in Europe during 1983 and 1984. It premiered in Paris at the Festival d’Automne, and then played at the Biennale of Venice, in various Italian cities, at the Vienna Festival, and in Germany. Prior to the 1985 Broadway production, the revue had toured the United States, and following the New York run the show continued touring throughout the country.

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Revival (Tango Argentino)

KISS ME, KATE Theatre: Martin Beck Theatre Opening Date: November 18, 1999; Closing Date: December 30, 2001 Performances: 881 Book: Sam and Bella Spewack Lyrics and Music: Cole Porter Based on the play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (written circa 1594). Direction: Michael Blakemore (Steven Zweigbaum, Production Supervisor); Producers: Roger Berlind and Roger Horchow (Richard Godwin and Edwin W. Schloss, Associate Producers); Choreography: Kathleen

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Marshall (Rob Ashford, Associate Choreographer); Scenery: Robin Wagner; Costumes: Martin Pakledinaz; Lighting: Peter Kaczorowski; Musical Direction: Paul Gemignani Cast: Adriane Lenox (Hattie), Stanley Wayne Mathis (Paul), Eric Michael Gillett (Ralph), Amy Spanger (Lois Lane, Bianca), Michael Berresse (Bill Calhoun, Lucentio), Marin Mazzie (Lilli Vanessi, Katharine aka Kate), Brian Stokes Mitchell (Fred Graham, Petruchio), John Horton (Harry Trevor, Baptista), Robert Ousley (Pops), Jerome Vivona (Cab Driver, Nathaniel), Lee Wilkof (First Man), Michael Mulheren (Second Man), Ron Holgate (Harrison Howell), Kevin Neil McCready (Gremio), Darren Lee (Hortensio), Vince Pesce (Gregory), Blake Hammond (Philip), Michael X. Martin (Haberdasher); Ensemble: Eric Michael Gillett, Patty Goble, Blake Hammond, JoAnn M. Hunter, Nancy Lemenager, Darren Lee, Michael X. Martin, Kevin Neil McCready, Carol Lee Meadows, Elizabeth Mills, Linda Mugleston, Robert Ousley, Vince Pesce, Cynthia Sophiea, Jerome Vivona The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place in Baltimore, Maryland, during June 1948.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” (Adriane Lenox, Company); “Why Can’t You Behave?” (Amy Spanger, Michael Berresse); “Wunderbar” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Marin Mazzie); “So in Love” (Marin Mazzie); “We Open in Venice” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Marin Mazzie, Amy Spanger, Michael Berresse); “Tom, Dick or Harry” (Amy Spanger, Michael Berresse, Kevin Neil McCready, Darren Lee); “I’ve Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Men); “I Hate Men” (Marin Mazzie); “Were Thine That Special Face” (Brian Stokes Mitchell); “Cantiamo d’Amour” (aka “I Sing of Love”) (Ensemble); “Kiss Me, Kate” (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Marin Mazzie, Ensemble) Act Two: “Too Darn Hot” (Stanley Wayne Mathis, Ensemble); “Where Is the Life That Late I Led?” (Brian Stokes Mitchell); “Always True to You in My Fashion” (Amy Spanger); “From This Moment On” (Ron Holgate, Marin Mazzie); “Bianca” (Michael Berresse, Ensemble); “So in Love” (reprise) (Brian Stokes Mitchell); “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” (Lee Wilkof, Michael Mulheren); “Pavane” (Amy Spanger, Michael Berresse, Ensemble); “I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple” (Marin Mazzie); “Kiss Me, Kate” (reprise) (Company) Of the classic musicals that opened during Broadway’s Golden Age, Burton Lane and E. Y. Harburg’s Finian’s Rainbow and Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate were probably the most overlooked during the following decades. After Kate’s original 1948 production, there was one brief return engagement in 1952 and two limited engagements in 1956 and 1965 by the New York City Center Light Opera Company. So the current full-fledged Broadway revival was highly anticipated, received favorable reviews, won a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, chalked up a two-year run, and according to Michael Riedel in the New York Post closed with a $1 million profit. But the production never quite lived up to one’s expectations. The evening dragged on too long and needed judicious trimming and faster pacing by director Michael Blakemore. An uncredited John Guare reportedly provided book revisions, but unfortunately the expansion of the Harrison Howell role was a misfire. The character had previously functioned as a slight but necessary plot device, but his now larger role (which included the interpolation of “From This Moment On”) only prolonged the already lengthy evening. And while Kathleen Marshall’s choreography allowed the impressive dancer Michael Berresse to show off some stunning turns, her dances were generally serviceable but uninspired. Unfortunately, the opening song “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” was a portent of the long evening ahead because it was strangely staged as a protracted, dumb-show-like sequence and would have been more effective had it been cut in half. In Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie, the revival had two leads who were somewhat miscast. Both seemed rather uncomfortable in their book scenes and lacked the over-the-top comic skills required of their hammy roles. Mitchell is essentially of the stalwart leading-man variety and seems most at home in serious roles, and Kate forced him to push too hard for comic effect (happily, he bounced back three years later in the 2002 revival of Man of La Mancha). Mazzie fared a bit better than Mitchell, but she too didn’t seem natural in her farcical scenes. Ultimately, Mitchell and Mazzie’s singing performances on the cast album were more enjoyable than their overall stage performances.

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In general, the musical followed the original book by Sam and Bella Spewack, which was inspired by both Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and the reported backstage bickering of Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, the married couple who appeared together in a 1942 Broadway revival of Shrew. Kiss Me, Kate depicts a similar couple, Fred Graham (Mitchell) and his ex-wife, Lilli Vanessi (Mazzie), who are respectively appearing as Petruchio and Kate at Ford’s Theatre in Baltimore during the pre-Broadway tryout of Kiss Me, Kate, a musical adaptation of Shrew, and their backstage battles mirror the onstage antics of Shakespeare’s characters. Ben Brantley in the New York Times noted that Thanksgiving turkey was around the corner, but for Kate it was “ham that’s being served, without apology, and with lots of relish” in the “mouthwatering” revival. He noted that Ragtime and Parade were “solemnly preachy” and The Lion King and Saturday Night Fever were “robotic” and pointed to the time when “human actors will be unnecessary.” But Kate showed there was still a place for “sophisticated, grown-up fun” on Broadway, and Mazzie gave a “delicious” performance and Mitchell was “a bona fide musical matinee idol with a sly sense of humor.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby said the “grandly entertaining” show was “one of the rare perfect achievements of the American musical theatre” and noted Mitchell and Mazzie had “energy and good humor in abundance” (but he complained that the show’s colors looked drained and said Padua “suggests Pittsburgh before the air was cleaned up”). Charles Isherwood in Variety mentioned that the “bantamweight” plot sparred with a “heavyweight” score that was sung with the “celestial voices” of Mitchell and Mazzie. Otherwise, he had just a few quibbles: the opening sequence was “slow,” the interpolation of “From This Moment On” as a comic duet for Howell and Lilli “simply didn’t work,” and Robin Wagner’s décor was just “serviceable.” The original production opened at the New Century Theatre on December 30, 1948, for 1,077 performances with a cast that included Alfred Drake (Fred), Patricia Morison (Lilli), Lisa Kirk (Lois Lane/Bianca), and Harold Lang (Bill Calhoun/Lucentio). As one stop on its post-Broadway tour, the musical opened on January 8, 1952, for a limited run at the Broadway Theatre, a run cut short due to indifferent reviews (Best Plays reported the version was “dreadfully shabby”) and uninterested audiences (the original production had closed just five months earlier, and ticket-buyers weren’t clamoring for a chance to revisit the show quite so soon). As a result, the tour played just eight performances before taking to the road again; the cast included Robert Wright (Fred), Holly Harris (Lilli), Marilyn Day (Lois), and Frank Derbas (Bill). The first City Center revival opened on May 9, 1956, for twenty-three performances with David Atkinson (Fred), Kitty Carlisle (Lilli), Barbara Ruick (Lois), Richard France (Bill), and, in a minor role, Bobby Short, the future celebrated saloon singer. The second opened on May 12, 1965; it too played for twenty-three showings and the cast included Robert (now Bob) Wright, Morison in a reprise of her original Broadway role, Nancy Ames (Lois), and Kelly Brown (Bill). Besides Morison, two others from the original Kate company returned: choreographer Hanya Holm brushed up her dances for the revival and conductor Pembroke Davenport was back at the rostrum. The first London production opened at the Coliseum on March 8, 1951, for 501 showings with Bill Johnson (Fred), Morison, Julie Wilson (Lois), Walter Long (Bill), Adelaide Hall (Hattie), and Archie Savage (Paul). The 1953 MGM film adaptation (released in 3-D!) was a mixed blessing. The leading roles were solid: Howard Keel was a virile Fred, Ann Miller an energetic Lois, and Bianca’s trio of suitors were no less than Bob Fosse (Hortensio), Bobby Van (Gremio), and Tommy Rall (Lucentio). Even Kathryn Grayson (Lilli) was splendid; this was her finest screen performance, and she never looked more chic and beautiful. Given the censorship rules of the era, one understands the necessity for the laundered lyrics (in his review of the original Broadway production, Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times noted that Porter’s lyrics would shock even the editorial staff of the Police Gazette). But the meandering screenplay was often tiresome, and early in the film there was some strange business involving a songwriter named “Cole Porter” (played by Ron Randell). The film interpolated “From This Moment On,” which had been cut during the tryout of Porter’s 1950 Broadway musical Out of This World, and of course it was this song that was also added to the current revival. The DVD was issued by Warner Brothers Home Video (# 65088). There have been four television versions of the musical. On November 20, 1958, NBC’s Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation starred Drake and Morison, Julie Wilson (in a reprise of her Lois from the London production), and Bill Hayes (Bill Calhoun); also from the original Broadway mounting were Lorenzo Fuller (Paul), and other cast members included Harvey Lembeck (First Gunman), Jack Klugman (Second Gunman), Lee Cass (Gremio), Eve Jessye (Hattie), and Lee Richardson (Ralph). Franz Allers conducted, George Schaefer directed, and Ernest Flatt choreographed. The 1958 color telecast inspired a stereo recording of the score (released by Capitol Records LP # TAO/STAO-1267), and the new album reunited the original four Broadway leads as well

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as Fuller and Davenport. The color print of the telecast appears to be lost, but a black-and-white copy was released on DVD by Video Artists International (# 4535). A second version was shown by the BBC on April 20, 1964, with Howard Keel and Patricia Morison, and a third adaptation was produced by ABC on March 25, 1968, for the Armstrong Circle Theatre. Directed by Paul Bogart and choreographed by Lee (Becker) Theodore (and with costumes by Alvin Colt), the leads were Robert Goulet (Fred), Carol Lawrence (Lilli), Jessica Walter (Lois), and Michael Callen (Bill), and others in the cast included Jules Munshin, Marty Ingels, Russell Nype, Tony Hendra, and David Doyle. The soundtrack was released by Columbia Records (LP # CSS-645). (See below for information concerning the fourth television version.) (In the early 1950s, a radio adaptation of the musical was heard on The Railroad Hour, and Gordon MacRae and Patrice Munsel were the leads.) In 1953, the script was published in hardback by Alfred A. Knopf; was later published in the January 1955 issue of Theatre Arts magazine; and was included in the collection American Musicals published by the Library of America in 2014, which offers the scripts of fifteen other musicals. The lyrics for all the used and unused songs are included in the hardback collection The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter. There are numerous recordings of the score, some more complete than the original Broadway cast album, but no matter: the only one you really want is the indispensable 1948 original cast recording (Columbia Records LP # ML-4140; issued on CD by Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy Records # SK-60536). Two recordings of special interest are studio cast albums, both released in two-CD sets (EMI Records # 7-54033-2 and Jay Records # CDJAY2-1296). The former includes the dance music of “Rose Dance” (part of the “Tom, Dick or Harry” sequence), “Tarantella” (part of the “I Sing of Love” sequence), and “Pavane” as well as six unused songs (“It Was Great Fun the First Time,” “A Woman’s Career,” “We Shall Never Be Younger,” “I’m Afraid, Sweetheart, I Love You,” “If Ever Married I’m,” and “What Does Your Servant Dream About?”). The latter recording includes “Rose Dance,” “Tarantella,” and “Pavane” as well as the overtures to three Porter musicals, Jubilee (1935), Out of This World (1950), and Can-Can (1953). The cast album of the current production was recorded by DRG Records (CD # 12988) but doesn’t include the interpolated “From This Moment On,” reportedly because the Porter estate didn’t want a nonKate song included on the recording (if it was deemed undesirable for the number to appear on the album in performance order with the Kate songs, then why wasn’t it offered as a bonus track or a hidden track?). The London production of the current revival opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre on October 30, 2001, with Brent Barrett and Marin Mazzie in the leads (the latter was succeeded by Rachel York). During the run, a live performance with Barrett and York was filmed and shown on television (and for the United States was presented on Great Performances). The telecast was later released on DVD by Image Entertainment (# ID0180WNDVD); the cast includes Michael Berresse in a reprise of his New York role, and the DVD includes “From This Moment On.” To sum up Patricia Morison’s appearances in Kiss Me, Kate, she appeared in the original 1948 Broadway production; the original 1951 London production; the 1958 NBC television adaptation; the 1964 BBC television adaptation; and the 1965 City Center revival. She also recorded her role three times, for the original cast and London cast albums and for the 1958 Capitol recording. As for the “forgotten” Finian’s Rainbow, it too received a belated full-fledged Broadway revival when it opened (and quickly closed) at the St. James Theatre on October 29, 2009, for ninety-two performances. Like Kate, it had been earlier revived by the New York City Center Light Opera Company (for three limited engagements in 1955, 1960, and 1967, and the 1960 production briefly transferred to Broadway as a commercial revival for a disappointing run of twelve performances).

Awards Tony Awards and Nominations: Best Revival (Kiss Me, Kate); Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Brian Stokes Mitchell); Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Marin Mazzie); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Michael Berresse); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Michael Mulheren); Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Lee Wilkof); Best Direction (Michael Blakemore); Best Orchestrations (Don Sebesky); Best Scenic Design (Robin Wagner); Best Costume Design (Martin Pakledinaz); Best Lighting Design (Peter Kaczorowski); Best Choreography (Kathleen Marshall)

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PUTTING IT TOGETHER “A Musical Review”

Theatre: Ethel Barrymore Theatre Opening Date: November 21, 1999; Closing Date: February 20, 2000 Performance: 101 Lyrics and Music: Stephen Sondheim Direction: Eric D. Schaeffer (Jody Moccia, Associate Director); Producers: Cameron Mackintosh in association with the Mark Taper Forum (Gordon Davidson, Artistic Director) (David Caddick and Martin McCallum, Executive Producer); Choreography: Bob Avian (Jodi Moccia, Associate Choreographer); Scenery and Costumes: Bob Crowley (Carol Burnett’s costumes designed by Bob Mackie); Projections: Wendall K. Harrington; Lighting: Howard Harrison; Musical Direction: Paul Raiman Cast: Carol Burnett (The Wife), George Hearn (The Husband), John Barrowman (The Younger Man), Ruthie Henshall (The Younger Woman), Bronson Pinchot (The Observer), Kathie Lee Gifford (The Wife, at certain performances) The revue was presented in two acts. The action takes place during the present time, probably in New York City.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Invocation and Instructions to the Audience” (The Frogs, 1974) (Bronson Pinchot); “Putting It Together” (Sunday in the Park with George, 1984) (Company); “Rich and Happy” (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981) (Company); “Do I (You) Hear a Waltz?” (Do I Hear a Waltz?, 1965; music by Richard Rodgers) (Carol Burnett, George Hearn); “Merrily We Roll Along” (Part One) (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981) (Bronson Pinchot); “Lovely” (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1962) (Company); “Hello, Little Girl” (Into the Woods, 1987) (George Hearn, Ruthie Henshall); “My Husband the Pig” (dropped during rehearsals of A Little Night Music, 1973) (Carol Burnett); “Every Day a Little Death” (A Little Night Music, 1973) (Carol Burnett, Ruthie Henshall); “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1962) (Bronson Pinchot); “Have I Got a Girl for You” (Company, 1970) (John Barrowman, George Hearn); “Pretty Women” (Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 1979) (John Barrowman, George Hearn); “Sooner or Later” (1990 film Dick Tracy) (Ruthie Henshall); “Bang!” (dropped during rehearsals of A Little Night Music, 1973) (John Barrowman, Bronson Pinchot, Ruthie Henshall); “Country House” (1987 London production of Follies) (Carol Burnett, George Hearn); “Unworthy of Your Love” (Assassins, Off-Broadway; 1990) (John Barrowman, Ruthie Henshall); “Merrily We Roll Along” (Part Two) (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981) (Bronson Pinchot); “Could I Leave You?” (Follies, 1971) (Carol Burnett); “Rich and Happy” (reprise) (Company) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “Back in Business” (1990 film Dick Tracy) (Company); “It’s Hot Up Here” (Sunday in the Park with George, 1984) (Company); “The Ladies Who Lunch” (Company, 1970) (Carol Burnett); “The Road You Didn’t Take” (Follies, 1971) (George Hearn); “Live Alone and Like It” (1990 film Dick Tracy) (John Barrowman); “More” (1990 film Dick Tracy) (Ruthie Henshall); “There’s Always a Woman” (cut during tryout of Anyone Can Whistle, 1964) (Carol Burnett, Ruthie Henshall); “Buddy’s Blues” (aka “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues”) (Follies, 1971) (Bronson Pinchot); “Good Thing Going” (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981) (George Hearn); “Marry Me a Little” (cut during tryout of Company, 1970, but reinstated for many later productions) (John Barrowman); “(Not) Getting Married Today” (Company, 1970) (Ruthie Henshall); “Merrily We Roll Along” (Part Three) (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981) (Company); “Being Alive” (Company, 1970) (Company); “Like It Was” (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981) (Carol Burnett); Finale: “Old Friends” (Merrily We Roll Along, 1981) (Company) The Stephen Sondheim revue Putting It Together (subtitled “A Musical Review”) was a bewildering exercise in which many of the master’s classic songs were removed from their original contexts and thrown together in a smorgasbord held together by a loose-fitting structure (one hesitates to use the word plot) that took place at a cocktail party and dealt with nameless modern Manhattan types, such as “The Wife” and “The Husband.” (There was also a character archly named “The Observer,” who occasionally took part in the

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proceedings and indulged in the annoying habit of providing the audience with one-word comments on the action, such as “Revenge” and “Seduction.”) The songs used in the production had been written by Sondheim for musicals where they supported specific plot and character situations, and so one wondered why anyone would want to remove them from their original source material and force them into a different context. (Imagine creating a show in which the plot structure centers on a folksy backyard barbeque in which characters called “The Neighbor’s Wife” and “The Other Neighbor’s Husband” sing “People Will Say We’re in Love,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Dites-moi,” and other well-known songs from the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II catalog.) Putting It Together followed the grim pattern of a similar Sondheim evening that had been produced OffBroadway in 1980. Marry Me a Little was a collection of mostly unfamiliar Sondheim songs that utilized the precious notion of presenting them in a “story” context about two lonely New York singles looking for love. This particular use of Sondheim songs was wrongheaded then, and was just as wrongheaded now. Happily, the most successful Sondheim tribute Side by Side by Sondheim (London, 1976; New York, 1977) didn’t create a story line and instead presented the songs in straightforward concert fashion (but like Putting It Together, Side by Side unfortunately employed a tiresome narrator). Putting It Together had first been produced on January 27, 1992, at the Old Fire Station in Oxford, England, and as Sondheim Putting It Together the New York premiere opened Off-Broadway on April 1, 1993, at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage 1 for a limited engagement of fifty-nine performances with Julie Andrews (in her first New York theatre appearance since the premiere of Camelot in 1960), Stephen Collins, Christopher Durang, Michael Rupert, and Rachel York. This production was recorded on a two-CD set by RCA Victor Records (# 09026-61729-2), and while the current Broadway version wasn’t recorded it was filmed and shown on cable television (and was issued on DVD by Image Entertainment # ID-3629-WRDVD). The Broadway production received mostly unfavorable notices (Theatre World tallied up nine negative, five mixed, and two favorable reviews). Ben Brantley in the New York Times said the revue was “perversely determined to make something lite of the dark bard of the American musical,” and indeed there was extraneous shtick (Carol Burnett supposedly got lost on her way to the theatre due to wrong directions given her by Kathie Lee Gifford, who performed her role at certain performances; and for some reason Bronson Pinchot, who played the Narrator, was at one point dressed as an usher as he roamed the aisles of the theatre). As a result, Sondheim was “oddly absent” throughout an “amiable, jokey evening in which audiences get cozy with people who show up in People.” Donald Lyons in the New York Post said the revue wanted “to be acid and apple pie at the same time” and was “an uneasy blend of Sondheim and Las Vegas glitz.” Charles Isherwood in Variety noted there “is inevitably much lost when portions” of Sondheim’s musicals are “mixed and matched as they are here,” and said there were too many songs presented as “conversations overheard at a party that are merely the tips of emotional icebergs” not shared with the audience. During previews, “Come Play Wiz Me” (Anyone Can Whistle) was cut. Songs heard in the 1993 OffBroadway production that weren’t used in the current version were: “I’m Calm” and “Impossible” (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum); “Sorry-Grateful” and “You (I) Could Drive a Person Crazy” (Company); “Ah, but Underneath” (1987 London production of Follies); “Night Waltzes” and “The Miller’s Son” (A Little Night Music); “Sweet Polly Plunkett” (Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street); and “Gun Song” (Assassins). At one point or another during the Off-Broadway run, “What Would We Do without You?” (Company) and “A Little Priest” (Sweeney Todd) were performed, and they are included on the cast album.

Awards Tony Award Nomination: Best Leading Actor in a Musical (George Hearn)

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Theatre: The Theatre at Madison Square Garden Opening Date: November 26, 1999; Closing Date: December 30, 1999 Performances: 72

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The annual musical version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol was the sixth of ten productions presented at The Theatre at Madison Square Garden every holiday season. For the current production, Radio City Music Hall was a coproducer of the show (in conjunction with American Express and Dodger Endemol Theatricals). This time around, Tony Roberts was Scrooge, and Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times said Roberts had the “physical presence and convincing irascibility” for the Scrooge of the musical’s early scenes. And once Scrooge underwent a sea change, Roberts made “the most of the opportunities to draw laughs.” This version of A Christmas Carol might not be “pure Dickens, but like the reformed Scrooge, it has its heart in the right place.” For more information about the musical, see entry for the 1994 production.

MARIE CHRISTINE “A New Musical”

Theatre: Vivian Beaumont Theatre Opening Date: December 2, 1999; Closing Date: January 9, 2000 Performances: 44 Book, Lyrics, and Music: Michael John LaChiusa Loosely based on the play Medea by Euripides (first performed in 431 BC). Direction and Choreography: Graciela Daniele (Willie Rosario, Associate Choreographer); Producer: Lincoln Center Theatre (Andre Bishop and Bernard Gersten, Directors); Scenery: Christopher Barreca; Costumes: Toni-Leslie James; Lighting: Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; Musical Direction: David Evans Cast: Jennifer Leigh Warren (Prisoner # 1), Andrea Frierson-Toney (Prisoner # 2), Mary Bond Davis (Prisoner # 3), Audra McDonald (Marie Christine L’Adrese), Sherry Boone (Marie Christine L’Adrese at Wednesday and Saturday matinees), Vivian Reed (Marie Christine’s Mother), Donna Dunmire (Serpent, Helena), Anthony Crivello (Dante Keyes), Lovette George (Celeste), Rosena M. Hill (Ozelia), Keith Lee Grant (Jean L’Adrese), Darius de Haas (Paris L’Adrese), Kimberly JaJuan (Lisette), Andre Garner (Joachim, Monsieur Archambeau), Jim Weaver (Osmond, Monsieur St. Vinson), Joy Lynn Matthews (Beatrice); Children: Powers Pleasant, Zachary Thornton, and Joshua Walter; Mary Testa (Magdalena), Janet Metz (Petal, Olivia Parker), Kim Huber (Duchess, Grace Parker), Shawn Elliott (Gates), Peter Samuel (Bartender, Esau Parker), Michael Babin (Bar Patron), Michael McCormick (Leary), Mark Lotito (McMahon), David Pleasant (Chaka); Ensemble: Franz C. Alderfer, Ana Maria Andricain, Michael Babin, Brent Black, Donna Dunmire, Andre Garner, Lovette George, Rosena M. Hill, Kim Huber, Mark Lotito, Joy Lynn Matthews, Michael McCormick, Janet Metz, Monique Midgette, Peter Samuel, Jim Weaver The musical was presented in two acts. The action moves back and forth in time during the period 1894–1899 in New Orleans and Chicago.

Musical Numbers Act One: “Before the Morning” (Jennifer Leigh Warren, Andrea Frierson-Toney, Mary Bond Davis, Ensemble); “Mamzell’ Marie” (Company); “Ton grandpere est le soleil” (Vivian Reed); “Beautiful” (Audra McDonald); “Way Back to Paradise” (Audra McDonald, Kimberly JaJuan); “Storm” (Anthony Crivello); “To Find a Lover” (Audra McDonald, Company); “Nothing Beats Chicago”/“Ocean Is Different”/“Danced with a Girl” (Anthony Crivello); “Tou mi mi” (Kimberly JaJuan); “Miracles and Mysteries” (Vivian Reed, Jennifer Leigh Warren, Andrea Frierson-Toney, Mary Bond Davis); “I Don’t Hear the Ocean” (Anthony Crivello, Audra McDonald); “Bird Inside the House” (Maids, Valets); “All Eyes Look Upon You” (Keith Lee Grant); “A Month Ago” (Maids); “Danced with a Girl” (reprise) (Anthony Crivello); “We’re Gonna Go to Chicago” (Anthony Crivello, Audra McDonald); “Dansez Calinda” (Kimberly JaJuan); “I Will Give” (Audra McDonald, Jennifer Leigh Warren, Andrea Frierson-Toney, Mary Bond Davis); Finale (Darius de Hass, Company) Act Two: Opening/“I Will Love You” (Jennifer Leigh Warren, Andrea Frierson-Toney, Mary Bond Davis, Anthony Crivello, Audra McDonald); “Cincinnati” (Mary Testa, Janet Metz, Kim Huber); “You’re Looking

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at the Man” (Michael McCormick, Mark Lotito, Anthony Crivello, Company); “The Scorpion” (Anthony Crivello, Audra McDonald); “Lover Bring Me Summer” (Janet Metz, Kim Huber); “Tell Me” (Audra McDonald); “Paradise Is Burning Down” (Mary Testa); “Prison in a Prison” (Audra McDonald, Jennifer Leigh Warren, Andrea Frierson-Toney, Mary Bond Davis, Donna Dunmire, Anthony Crivello); “Better & Best” (Michael McCormick, Mark Lotito); “Good Looking Woman” (Shawn Elliott, Michael McCormick, Mark Lotito); “No Turning Back” (Darius de Hass, Vivian Reed, Keith Lee Grant, Kimberly JaJuan); “Beautiful” (reprise) (Audra McDonald); “A Lovely Wedding” (Mary Testa); “I Will Love You” (reprise) (Audra McDonald); “Your Name” (Anthony Crivello); Finale (Jennifer Leigh Warren, Andrea Frierson-Toney, Mary Bond Davis) Although Michael John LaChiusa’s ambitious Marie Christine was one of the most anticipated musicals of the season, it was a flawed retelling of the Medea myth. Theatre World reported nine negative, four mixed, and two favorable notices, and with mostly critical indifference and audience apathy the musical was unable to sustain a run and closed after just forty-four performances. LaChiusa set the story during the latter part of the nineteenth century in New Orleans and Chicago, and focused on the patrician Marie Christine L’Adrese (Audra McDonald), the daughter of a wealthy Creole family whose obsessive love for a superficial man destroys the lives of those around her. The musical begins in a Chicago prison in 1899 the night before Marie Christine’s execution for murder. During her final hours, she’s questioned by three female prisoners who serve as a Greek chorus and bring to mind the Three Fates and the three witches in Macbeth (not to mention the prisoners who question and confront Cervantes as he awaits trial in Man of La Mancha), a conceit perhaps a bit precious but that served the structure of the story well enough as it weaved back and forth in time and allowed Marie Christine to relive the incidents that lead up to her execution. As Marie Christine tells her story, it’s clear she’s learned nothing from her horrific acts and her use of voodoo to kill those who get in her way or offend her. She’s committed six murders but the musical blames her troubles on sexism and racism instead of her immature and out-of-control passions and her single-minded willingness to obliterate those around her. She is less a tragic figure than a nineteenth-century Rhoda, the little girl in The Bad Seed who murders with impunity, including a fellow classmate who won the all-important grade-school penmanship medal that Rhoda truly believes should have been hers. The events leading up to Marie Christine’s execution began years earlier when she fell in love with the white Dante Keyes (Anthony Crivello), a romance forbidden within the limits of the strict racial politics of New Orleans society and Creole culture. At a wedding engagement party for one of her brothers, she and the brothers argue over her involvement with Dante, and the disagreement quickly erupts into a fracas that leads her to stab one brother to death. She and Dante flee to various Northern cities and remain unmarried although they now have two sons. They eventually wind up in Chicago where Dante becomes the protégé of powerful political boss Charles Gates (Shawn Elliott), and his political ambitions lead him to abandon Marie Christine and enter into a politically advantageous marriage with Gates’s daughter Helena (Donna Dunmire). But Dante insists on having custody of the children, causing a custody battle from hell that eventually results in four deaths, including Marie Christine’s. When Dante demands that she give him the children, Marie Christine pretends to go along with his request and even offers a family heirloom necklace to Helena as a peace offering and wedding gift. However, Marie Christine’s voodoo powers ensure that the jewels of the necklace burn through Helena’s skin and poison her, and so the musical’s second wedding-related party sequence comes to a gory end when Helena dies in agony. Dante confronts Marie Christine with Helena’s murder, and to his further horror discovers she has drowned their two children in order to get even with him. The musical used the era’s prejudices to “explain” Marie Christine, but no amount of apologizing could turn her into a sympathetic and innocent victim who is supposedly done in by the twin evils of racism and sexism. It wasn’t as though Marie Christine had no choice but to murder six innocent people (her brother, her two sons, her maid, and Helena, as well as another murder-by-voodoo when we hear how once in New York City she used two innocent daughters as the catalysts who inadvertently caused the death of their father, a man to whom Dante owed enormous gambling debts). The work never captured the pity and terror of classic tragedy, and despite the West Indies-inspired voodoo folderol imposed upon the musical, there was never the feeling that Marie Christine was a pawn of the gods who is inexorably swept along by blind and brutal destiny. In fact, she seemed less driven by the fates and more by the ancient “Hell hath no fury” axiom. Moreover, the pretentious and tiresome prison scenes

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had portentous gloom written all over them and conjured up wistful memories of jollier Chicago prison cells where merry murderesses in Little Me (1962) and Chicago (1975) self-righteously justified their actions. As a result, we were never moved by Marie Christine’s story and her monstrous deeds came across as an all-toofamiliar mother-murders-own-child! three-minute segment on cable news. Another problem with the musical was its depiction of Dante. Here’s a man whose alleged attractiveness is so great that a woman becomes overwhelmed with jealousy when he dumps her for another and who is so driven to revenge that she kills her own children. But as written there was little in Dante’s character to suggest he had the kind of irresistible sexual and romantic allure to sweep a woman off her feet and drive her (literally) mad. In fact, Keyes came across as a shallow and insincere boor, and Marie Christine seemed well rid of him. Some critics unfairly pounced on Crivello for lacking charisma, but the actor did all he could with his undeveloped and pallid character. Had the virtually sung-through score been strong, the weak plotting and characterizations could have been forgiven. Unfortunately the music was little more than serviceable, but some made a case for Marie Christine’s groan-inducing feminist diatribe “Way Back to Paradise,” which suggested that all men are unworthy and deserve to be told lies and which praised a supposedly better world where women didn’t “need” husbands, had their “own way,” and were guided by their mothers. The title of John Simon’s review in New York perhaps said it all: Marie Christine was a “Mythdemeanor.” It was an “unholy mess,” Graciela Daniele’s production was “untidy and confusing,” and some of the action (which related directly to Greek myth) was “too opaque for the uninitiated.” The lyrics were “serviceable,” but the music was “thwartingly dissonant” and “chaotic” and when a real melody turned up it was “simplistic and has-beenish.” Charles Isherwood in Variety said the “misfire” was a “fatally dispassionate” musical with “artless” storytelling and helmed with an “enervating lack of focus” by director Daniele. Further, the “minimal” dialogue was “stiff” and the songs lacked “emotional texture.” David Patrick Stearns in USA Today said the show’s pace was “often leaden,” and the cast members provided “more brick walls than insights,” including McDonald, who “never really shows you” her character’s “inner transitions,” including “her willingness to marry beneath her station.” Richard Zoglin in Time felt the musical worked better “as an intellectual exercise than a moving theatrical experience,” and said Daniele’s “rather dry production” allowed for too abrupt a transition from the New Orleans to Chicago locale and Dante’s “transformation” from “itinerant seaman” to “rising machine politician” wasn’t “adequately explained.” Further, would such an “ambitious” political candidate in the world of late-nineteenth-century Chicago “find it advantageous to claim two mixed-race kids as his own”? Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the musical “solemn” and “sometimes somnolent” with a “baldly didactic quality” that evoked the era’s “socially oppressive climate.” There was a “melodramatic clunkiness” reminiscent of “B-movies about bad women” and even McDonald’s “magic” couldn’t “transform the tedium of much that surrounds her.” Most of the second act was “a bit of a sleeping pill,” and as a “compelling and complete production” the show felt “oddly unfinished” and lacked “full emotional engagement.” Further, the score “rarely” achieved “much momentum or intensity on its own” and he wondered if perhaps the evening would have been more viable as a “musical monologue.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby suggested the work had “the manner of a project of more theoretical than actual interest” and the music and lyrics “never successfully embrace the primal narrative” and instead “rather dutifully announce and describe feelings and events that are beyond the artist’s ability to evoke directly.” Clive Barnes in the New York Post noted that Jonathan Tunick’s “masterfully subtle” orchestrations “couldn’t breathe” life into the “turgid” score. But McDonald gave a “shattering” performance, Daniele’s staging was “inventive and imaginative,” and Christopher Barreca’s décor perhaps made “the best use ever of the Beaumont stage.” Fintan O’Toole in the New York Daily News found the work “stark” and “severe” but “successful,” and praised LaChiusa for his “brilliant reworking” of the Medea myth, in which there was “a fiercely uncompromising fusion of story and song.” Although he noted the book didn’t illustrate the title character’s change “from unhappy lover to implacable avenger,” LaChiusa’s “unblinking vision is so compellingly clear that it will not easily be dislodged from the mind.” During the run, McDonald played evening performances and Sherry Boone the matinees, and thus Boone sang the title role for 25 percent of all the New York showings. The critics don’t seem to have reviewed her, but for the record she played Marie Christine as an ingratiatingly lovable and playful kitten, and this mask made for a stunning contrast when her inherent evil emerged. During previews, the following songs were dropped: “The Map of Your Heart,” “The Adventure Never Ends,” and “Old Dante.”

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The cast album was recorded by BMG Classics/RCA Victor Records (CD # 09026-63593-2). In her collection Way Back to Paradise (Nonesuch Records CD # 79482-2), McDonald includes one song from the musical (“Way Back to Paradise”). LaChiusa had the rare distinction of seeing two of his musicals premiere on Broadway during the same season, the first time this had occurred since Galt MacDermot’s epic flops Dude, or The Highway Life and Via Galactica opened during the 1972–1973 season for a total of twenty-three performances. But perhaps this is an unfair comparison, and so let’s evoke the 1963–1964 season when two musicals by Jule Styne opened within two months of one another, Funny Girl and Fade Out–Fade In (the latter may have flopped, but at least it lasted almost three hundred performances, offered a number of pleasant songs, and left behind a fondly remembered comic performance by Carol Burnett). Three months after Marie Christine closed, LaChiusa’s adaptation of Joseph Moncure March’s poem The Wild Party premiered. Although it was occasionally cluttered and confused, its book was more structurally sound than the one for Marie Christine and its score and performances more winning. But like Marie Christine it too was a failure and it closed after sixty-eight performances (and it didn’t help that earlier in the same season another musical version of March’s poem, with book, lyrics, and music by Andrew Lippa, opened Off-Broadway). Twentieth-century Broadway musicals were bookended with two book shows by Sousa and LaChiusa. John Philip Sousa’s Chris and the Wonderful Lamp (with book and lyrics by Glen MacDonough) opened on January 1, 1900, at Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre for fifty-eight performances and Marie Christine was the century’s final book musical. Oddly enough, Chris and Marie Christine shared both title characters with similar names and the theme of magic: Marie Christine uses voodoo to kill some of her enemies, and, according to the New York Times, Chris “makes use of [a magic lamp] in the manner of one who never misses a chance.” The Times also reported that Chris included “a startling and beautiful divertissement” in which an “electrical dance” was presented “on a darkened stage in which the use of incandescent lights in the costume of dancing women is carried further than ever before.”

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Audra McDonald); Best Book (Michael John LaChiusa); Best Score (lyrics and music by Michael John LaChiusa); Best Orchestrations (JonathanTunick); Best Lighting Design (Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer)

MINNELLI ON MINNELLI “Songs

from the

Movies

of

Vincente Minnelli”

Theatre: Palace Theatre Opening Date: December 8, 1999; Closing Date: January 2, 2000 Performances: 19 Special Material: Fred Ebb Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Direction: Fred Ebb; Producers: Radio City Entertainment, LM Concerts, Scott Nederlander, and Stewart F. Lane (Gary Labriola and Edward J. Micone Jr., Executive Producers); Choreography: John DeLuca; Scenery: John Arnone; Projections: Batwin + Robin; Film Sequence Preparation: Jack Haley Jr.; Costumes: Bob Mackie; Lighting: Howell Binkley; Musical Direction: Bill LaVorgna Cast: Liza Minnelli; Dancers and Singers: Jeffrey Broadhurst, Stephen Campanella, Billy Hartung, Sebastian LaCause, Jim Newman, Alex Timerman The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Note: The program didn’t include a list of musical numbers. The following is taken from the cast album and represents a partial sampling of what was heard during the concert (all numbers were performed by Liza Minnelli or with Minnelli and the Ensemble).

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Act One: Overture (Orchestra); “If I Had You” (1945 film The Clock; lyric and music by Ted Shapiro, Jimmy Campbell, and Reg Connelly); Love Medley: (1) “Taking a Chance on Love” (Cabin in the Sky, 1940; film version, 1943; lyric by John Latouche and Ted Fetter, music by Vernon Duke); (2) “Love” (1946 film Ziegfeld Follies; lyric and music by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane); and (3) “Limehouse Blues” (first introduced in the 1921 London revue A to Z and then in the 1924 Broadway revue Andre Charlot’s Revue of 1924; 1946 film Ziegfeld Follies; lyric by Douglas Furber, music by Philip Braham; at least one source attributes the lyric to Ronald Jeans); Meet Me in St. Louis Medley (1944 film): (1) “Meet Me in St. Louis” (lyric by Andrew B. Sterling, music by Kerry Mills; the lyric was revised for the film version by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane); (2) “Under the Bamboo Tree” (lyric by Bob Cole, music by J. Rosamund Johnson; at least one source attributes the lyric and music to Bob Cole; the lyric was revised for the film version by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine); (3) “The Boy Next Door” (lyric and music by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane); (4) “Skip to My Lou” (traditional; the lyric was revised for the film version by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane); and (5) “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (lyric and music by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane); The Band Wagon Medley (1953 film; lyrics by Howard Dietz, music by Arthur Schwartz): (1) “That’s Entertainment” (written especially for the film); (2) “I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plan” (1929 revue The Little Show); (3) “Triplets” (Between the Devil, 1937; for more information about the song, see below); (4) “Dancing in the Dark” (The Band Wagon, 1931); and (5) “A Shine on Your Shoes” (Flying Colors, 1932) Act Two: “I Got Rhythm” (Girl Crazy, 1930; 1951 film An American in Paris; lyric by Ira Gershwin, music by George Gershwin); “Baubles, Bangles and Beads” (Kismet, 1953; film version, 1955; lyric and music by Robert Wright and George Forrest; music based on themes from Alexander Borodin); “The Night They Invented Champagne” (1958 film Gigi; lyric by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe); “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore” (1958 film Gigi; lyric by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe, with additional lyric by Fred Ebb); “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have?” (On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, 1965; film version, 1970; lyric by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Burton Lane); “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” (1958 film Gigi; lyric by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe); “The Trolley Song” (1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis; lyric and music by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane; sequence included audio track of Judy Garland and chorus performing the song); “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” (Leave It to Me!, 1938; lyric and music by Cole Porter); “I Thank You” (lyric by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander) The concert Minnelli on Minnelli was a limited-engagement tribute by Liza Minnelli to her late father Vincente Minnelli, and it was fashioned around songs performed in films that he directed. The evening was directed by Fred Ebb, who wrote the special material; Ebb also wrote an additional lyric for “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore”; and Ebb and John Kander contributed a new song, the closing number “I Thank You,” which may be an alternate title of the song “If It Wasn’t for You (There Wouldn’t Be Me).” Liza Minnelli was backed by six male singers and dancers and a twenty-one-piece orchestra. Ben Brantley in the New York Times found the first act “shaky” and “even painful,” and he felt Minnelli seemed to be saying, “I’m dying up here.” Her legendary mother had “perfected the art of show business as support therapy,” and when during the second act her daughter sang a new lyric for “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore” and announced it was “sweet” to eat what you want and not care if someone says you’re fat, Brantley noted the “central premise” of “theatre as therapy” was that “things are better dealt with out in the open.” And during the second half of the evening, the performer looked and sounded as if she were “at home again,” and so the evening became “perversely compelling” and its top ticket price of $125 was “for the spectacle of raw emotion, not professional polish.” In the same newspaper, Vincent Canby said Minnelli’s “need to please is real and the talent unstoppable,” and noted that when your “roots” are your mother Judy Garland and your father Vincente Minnelli, “you don’t stay at home” and instead “you go to the Palace and sing your heart out.” The cast album was recorded live and taken from the December 27 and 28, 1999, performances and was released by Broadway Angel Records (CD # 7243-5-24905-2-3). For more information about Liza Minnelli’s Broadway appearances, see entry for Liza Minnelli: Stepping Out at Radio City. Minnelli on Minnelli included Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz’s “Triplets,” a merry bit of madness about three babies who hate one another. The song has a long history, which began when it was first introduced during the pre-Broadway tryout of Flying Colors in 1932 where it was sung by Clifton Webb, Patsy Kelly, and Imogene Coca. It was cut during the tryout, but resurfaced during the pre-Broadway engagement of the 1935 revue At Home Abroad (as a solo for Beatrice Lillie) and was again cut prior to New York. The song finally made it to Broadway two years later when Between the Devil opened; it was introduced by The Tune

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Twisters (Andy Love, Jack Lathrop, and Bob Wacker) who during the show’s tryout were known as The Savoy Club Boys. For Vincente Minnelli’s 1953 film The Band Wagon, the song was performed by Fred Astaire, Jack Buchanan, and Nanette Fabray.

SWING!

Theatre: St. James Theatre Opening Date: December 9, 1999; Closing Date: January 14, 2001 Performances: 461 Lyrics and Music: See list of musical numbers for specific credits Direction and Choreography: Lynne Taylor-Corbett (Jerry Zaks, Production Supervisor) (Ryan Francois, Associate Choreographer and Lindy Specialist) (Scott Fowler and Rod McCune, Associate Choreographers); Producers: Marc Routh, Richard Frankel, Steven Baruch, Tom Viertel, Lorie Cowen Levy/Stanley Shopkorn, Jujamcyn Theatres in association with BB Promotion, Dede Harris/Jeslo Productions, Libby Adler Mages/Mari Glick, James D. Stern/Douglas L. Meyer, and PACE Theatrical Group/SFX Entertainment (TV Asahi/Hankyu, MARS Theatrical Productions, Judith Marinoff, and Gary Perlman); Scenery: Thomas Lynch; Costumes: William Ivey Long; Lighting: Kenneth Posner; Musical Direction: Jonathan Smith Cast: Ann Hampton Callaway, Everett Bradley, Laura Benanti, Laureen Baldovi, Kristine Bendul, Carol Bentley, Caitlin Carter, Geralyn Del Corso, Desiree Duarte, Beverly Durand, Erin East, Scott Fowler, Ryan Francois, Kevin Michael Gaudin, Edgar Godineaux, Aldrin Gonzalez, Janine LaManna, Rod McCune, J. C. Montgomery, Arte Phillips, Robert Royston, Carlos Sierra-Lopez, Jenny Thomas, Keith Lamelle Thomas, Maria Torres; Casey MacGill and The Gotham City Gates; Michael Gruber The revue was presented in two acts.

Musical Numbers Act One: “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” (lyric by Irving Mills, music by Duke Ellington) (Casey MacGill and The Gotham City Gates); “Air Mail Special” (lyric and music by Benny Goodman, James R. Mundy, and Charlies Christian)/“Jersey Bounce” (lyric by Buddy Feyhe, music by Bobby Plater, Tiny Bradshaw, Eddie Johnson, and Duke Ellington)/“Opus One” (lyric and music by Don George, J. Hodges, and Harry James) (Company); “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” (music by William “Count” Basie) (choreography by Ryan Francois and Jenny Thomas) (Ryan Francois, Jenny Thomas, Company); “Bounce Me Brother (with a Solid Four)” (1941 film Buck Privates; lyric and music by Don Raye and Hughie Prince) (Ann Hampton Callaway, Company; Trumpet: Douglas Oberhamer); “Two and Four” (lyric and music by Ann Hampton Callaway) (Laura Benanti, Casey MacGill and The Gotham City Gates); “Hit Me with a Hot Note (and Watch Me Bounce)” (lyric by Don George, music by Duke Ellington) (Laura Benanti, Casey MacGill and The Gotham City Gates); “Rhythm” (music by Casey MacGill) (Casey MacGill, Michael Gruber, Company); “Throw That Girl Around” (lyric and music by Everett Bradley, Ilene Reid, and Michael Heitzman)/”Show Me What You’ve Got” (lyric and music by Everett Bradley and Jonathan Smith) (Everett Bradley; West Coast Swing Couple: Beverly Durand and Aldrin Gonzalez; Latin Swing Couple: Carlos Sierra-Lopez and Maria Torres; Company); “Bli-Blip” (1941 revue Jump for Joy [closed during pre-Broadway tryout]; lyric by Sid Kuller, music by Duke Ellington) (Ann Hampton Callaway, Everett Bradley); “Billy-A-Dick” (lyric by Paul Francis Webster, music by Hoagy Carmichael; additional lyric by Sean Martin Hingston) (Michael Gruber, Company); “Harlem Nocturne” (music by Earle H. Hagen and Dick Rogers) (Caitlin Carter, Conrad Korsch); “Kitchen Mechanics’ Night Out” (lyric and music by Casey MacGill, Jonathan Smith, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, and Paul Kelly) (Casey MacGill, Ryan Francois, Jenny Thomas, Company); “Shout It and Feel It” (lyric and music by William “Count” Basie) (choreography by Ryan Francois and Jenny Thomas) (Ryan Francois, Jenny Thomas); “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (of Company ‘B’”) (1941 film Buck Privates; lyric and music by Don Raye and Hughie Prince) (Everett Bradley, Keith Lamelle Thomas, Edgar Godineaux; Trumpet: Douglas Oberhamer; Woodwinds: Lance Bryant and Matt Hong); The USO—“G.I. Jive” (lyric and music by Johnny Mercer) (Laura Benanti, Geralyn Del Corso, and Caitlin Carter); “A String of Pearls” (lyric by Eddie DeLange, music by Jerry Gray)/“I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo” (1942 film Orchestra Wives; lyric by Mack Gordon, music by Harry Warren)/“Candy” (lyric by Mack David, Joan Whitney, music by Alex C. Kramer) (Laura Benanti with Aldrin Gonzalez,

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Keith Lamelle Thomas, Michael Gruber, Company); “I’m Gonna Love You Tonight” (lyric and music by Casey MacGill and Jack Murphy; additional lyric by Lynn Taylor-Corbett) (Laura Benanti, Michael Gruber, Company; “I’ll Be Seeing You” (Right This Way, 1938; lyric by Irving Kahal, music by Sammy Fain) (Ann Hampton Callaway, Scott Fowler, Carol Bentley, Company); “In the Mood” (lyric and music by Joe Garland) and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” (lyric by Lew Brown and Charles Tobias, music by Sam H. Stept) (Company) Act Two: Entr’acte/“Swing, Brother, Swing” (lyric and music by Walter Bishop, Lewis Raymond, and Clarence Williams) (choreography by Scott Fowler) (Scott Fowler, Ann Hampton Callaway, Laura Benanti, Everett Bradley, Michael Gruber, Casey MacGill, Company); “Caravan” (lyric by Irving Mills, music by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol) (The Gotham City Gates); “Dancers in Love” (music by Duke Ellington) (Geralyn Del Corso, Keith Lamelle Thomas); “Cry Me a River” (lyric and music by Arthur Hamilton) (Laura Benanti, Steve Armour); “Blues in the Night” (1941 film Blues in the Night; lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Harold Arlen) (Ann Hampton Callaway, Caitlin Carter, Edgar Godineaux); “Take Me Back to Tulsa”/“Stay a Little Longer” (lyric and music by James Robert Wills and Tommy Duncan) (Everett Bradley, Michael Gruber, Casey MacGill, Company); “Boogie Woogie Country” (lyric and music by Jack Murphy and Jonathan Smith) (choreography by Robert Royston and Laureen Baldova) (Robert Royston, Laureen Baldova, Company); “All of Me” (lyric by Seymour Simons, music by Gerald Marks)/“I Won’t Dance” (1935 film Roberta; lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Jerome Kern; additional lyric by Ann Hampton Callaway) (Everett Bradley, Ann Hampton Callaway); “Bill’s Bounce” (music by Bill Elliott) (Adrin Gonzalez, Scott Fowler, Beverly Durand, and Carol Bentley); “Stompin’ at the Savoy” (lyric by Andy Razaf, music by Benny Goodman, Edgar M. Sampson, and Chick Webb; additional lyric by Ann Hampton Callaway) (Ann Hampton Callaway); Finale: “Swing, Brother, Swing” (reprise)/“Sing, Sing, Sing” (lyric and music by Louis Prima)/“It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” (reprise) (lindy choreography by Ryan Francois) (Company); Note: The program also mentioned that the revue included “additional musical quotations” from “It Had to Be You” (lyric by Gus Kahn, music by Isham Jones) and “The Jumpin’ Jive” (aka “Hep! Hep!”) (lyric and music by Cab Calloway, Frank Froeba, and Jack Palmer). Swing! was a mildly pleasant and well-meaning revue that celebrated swing music and dance, but it lacked Broadway electricity: there was no stand-out performer who could dazzle the audience, dominate the evening, and serve as the evening’s guide, and while the choreography was diverting enough it was generic and its dance sequences couldn’t touch similar numbers from other shows (nothing in the revue matched Patricia Birch’s memorable 1940s jitterbug for Over Here! when Ann Reinking and John Mineo’s joyous encapsulation of ’40s dance styles choreographically summed up the entire era in three minutes). Swing! was far too much like a television variety special from the 1960s or, perhaps even worse, like an evening of ersatz nostalgia presented on public television during one of those pledge periods. The revue wanted to affectionately salute swing music of the late 1930s and early 1940s, and the second half of the first act was devoted to the re-creation of songs and dances that might have been performed at a World War II canteen. The score included a great deal of authentic big-band songs, but curiously offered almost one-dozen new numbers as well. And it was anyone’s guess what the mid-1950s hit “Cry Me a River” was doing in the show. The revue might have been interesting had it included some swing esoterica, such as the generally forgotten but insinuating big-band songs of the “Swinging at the Séance” and “Celery Stalks at Midnight” variety. But these were ignored for tried-and-true swing standards, which were quickly wearing out their Broadway welcome. A glance at the program revealed that numbers such as “Sing, Sing, Sing” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” were the order of the evening, and one wondered if any other songs were more overdone than these two (well, maybe “Sophisticated Lady”). “Sing, Sing, Sing” had been featured to glorious effect in Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ and had in fact been reproduced in Fosse earlier in the year; two months prior to Swing!’s premiere, the song had been featured in Susan Stroman’s Off-Broadway dance musical Contact (which transferred to Broadway a few months later); and a few seasons earlier it had been part of A Little More Magic. Two years prior to the premiere of Swing!, “It Don’t Mean a Thing” had been heard in Play On! and earlier in the year had been featured in Band in Berlin. The song had also been included in the revues Bubbling Brown Sugar and Sophisticated Ladies, and in fact five songs in Swing! had been featured in Sophisticated Ladies, two had been heard in Bubbling Brown Sugar, and two in Play On!

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Ben Brantley in the New York Times cautioned that it was more and more difficult to “distinguish between the tourist-luring themed restaurants and the tourist-luring themed shows” that were popping up all over the Times Square area. So many shows were “smooth, synthetic puddings,” and Swing! joined the crowd with its “slick, bland blur” in which even a wartime canteen emerged as “some squeaky-clean, confectionary limbo.” Brantley noted that singer Ann Hampton Callaway’s rendition of “Blues in the Night” was “her finest contribution” to the evening. But her “70’s-styled layered haircut and tailored pantsuits” transformed her into “a most unswinging presence” and she suggested a “no-nonsense career mom” with “amazing” vocal talent. But Charles Isherwood in Variety praised the “bouncy” and “exuberant” revue, which was a “pleasing and polished tribute” to the big-band era. Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s choreography added “an athleticism born of the aerobic era” to “the signature movements of swing dancing,” but he noted her “aggressively gymnastic choreography may not be to all tastes.” During previews, the following numbers were cut: “I Wish I Were in Love Again” (Babes in Arms, 1937; lyric by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers); “Flyin’ Home” (music by Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton); “American Patrol” (music by F. W. Meacham); “Sharp as a Tack” (1942 film Star-Spangled Rhythm; lyric by Johnny Mercer, music by Harold Arlen); and “As Time Goes By” (Everybody’s Welcome, 1931; lyric and music by Herman Hupfield). The cast album was released by Sony Records (CD # 89122). Swing! isn’t to be confused with Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman’s surreal 1980 musical Swing, which closed during its pre-Broadway tryout. Swing was an ambitious look at the swing era and told its story from the perspective of a single hallucinatory dance that takes place throughout the United States during one night from 1937 to 1945 and includes the same band singers and musicians as well as the same attendees (because one night captures the entire era, a zoot suiter leaves the stage and moments later returns in Army uniform). The impressive score includes creamy Forties-styled ballads (“Dream Time”), a Glenn Miller-inspired novelty (“Michigan Bound”), a Sinatra “House-I-Live-In” salute (“Home”), and a Betty Hutton moment (“A Girl Can Go Wacky”), but by the end of the evening the swing era has vanished and jazz-club sounds have taken over (“If You Can’t Trot, Don’t Get Hot”). A third musical titled Swing was by Elizabeth Swados, and it opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in late 1987.

Awards Tony Award Nominations: Best Musical (Swing!); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Laura Benanti); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Ann Hampton Callaway); Best Direction (Lynne Taylor-Corbett); Best Orchestrations (Harold Wheeler); Best Choreography (Lynne Taylor-Corbett)

MUCH ADO ABOUT EVERYTHING Theatre: John Golden Theatre Opening Date: December 30, 1999; Closing Date: July 30, 2000 Performances: 183 Material: Jackie Mason Direction: Jackie Mason; Producers: Jyll Rosenfeld and Fred Krohn (also produced by Raoul Lionel Felder, Esq., and Jon Stoll) (Howard Weiss and Henry Handler, and Jam Theatricals); Lighting: Stan Crocker Cast: Jackie Mason The revue was presented in two acts. Jackie Mason’s perhaps aptly titled end-of-the-century revue Much Ado about Everything also closed out the decade, and it marked the acerbic comedian’s fifth Broadway evening of stand-up comedy since 1986 (for more information, see Jackie Mason: Brand New). Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times said Jackie Mason was a “lustrously polished stand-up comic” who was “convulsing audiences” in his “irreverent new one-jester show.” Mason looked aghast at the “puritan streak in American life” and made sure his “brand of open intolerance” included, among others,

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Jews, gentiles, Puerto Ricans, blacks, Greeks, and Poles. Mason also laughed at pretentiousness, such as those patrons who applaud chefs who chop fish in Japanese restaurants, and puzzled over the popularity of Siegfried and Roy, Riverdance, and the musical Titanic, where “everyone sang and danced while three thousand people drowned.” And he wryly noted “how overjoyed the world might have been had the newspaper been invented after the computer.” The cast recording was released by Oglio Records, and audio excerpts from the revue are available for download on MP3 Music.

MARTIN GUERRE The musical opened on September 29, 1999, at the Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota, played engagements in Detroit, Michigan, Washington, D.C. (The Kennedy Center Opera House for the period December 23, 1999–January 16, 2000), Seattle, Washington, and its final booking opened on February 16, 2000, at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, California, where it permanently closed on April 8, 2000. Book: Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg Lyrics: Alain Boublil and Stephen Clark Music: Claude-Michel Schonberg Based on the sixteenth-century case and later trial concerning the impersonation of Martin Guerre. Direction: Conall Morrison (Mitchell Lemsky, Associate Director); Producers: Cameron Mackintosh in association with The Guthrie Theatre (Martin McCallum and David Caddick, Executive Producers); Choreography: David Bolger; Scenery: John Napier; Costumes: Andreane Neofitou; Lighting: Howard Harrison; Musical Direction: Kevin Stites Cast: Hugh Panaro (Martin Guerre), Stephen R. Buntrock (Arnaud du Thil), Erin Dilly (Bertrande de Rols), Jose Llana (Guillaume), John Leslie Wolfe (Pierre Guerre), Kathy Taylor (Madame de Rols), John Herrera (Father Dominic), Michael Arnold (Benoit), Alvin Crawford (Andre), Angela Lockett (Catherine); Villagers of Artigat: D.C. Anderson (Judge Coras, Simon), Amy Bodnar (Jeanne), Pierce Peter Brandt (Paul), Susan Dawn Carson (Mathilde, Rose), Adam Dyer (Galoche), Hunter Foster (Victor), Chris Lamontagne (Baptiste), Jodie Langel (Angeline), Megan Osterhaus (Blanche), Sean Jeremy Palmer (Emile), Joe Paparella (Lubin), Sophia Salguero (Marie), Bill Szobody (Gaspard) The musical was presented in two acts. The action takes place mostly in the French village of Artigat during the period 1557–1564.

Musical Numbers Act One: Prologue (Stephen R. Buntrock, Hugh Panaro); “Without You as a Friend” (Stephen R. Buntrock, Hugh Panaro); “Your Wedding Day” (Company); “The Coming Storm” (Company); “The Exorcism” (Company); “Someone I Could Trust” (Hugh Panaro, Erin Dilly); “I’m Martin Guerre” (Hugh Panaro); “Live with Somebody You Love” (Hugh Panaro, Stephen R. Buntrock); “Back in Artigat” (Jose Llana, Hunter Foster, Erin Dilly, John Leslie Wolfe, John Herrera, Kathy Taylor); “The Conversion” (Angela Lockett, Alvin Crawford, Erin Dilly, Protestants); “God’s Anger” (Company); “How Many Tears” (Erin Dilly); “Dear Louison” (Michael Arnold, Stephen R. Buntrock); “Welcome to the Land” (Company); “The Confession” (Erin Dilly, Stephen R. Buntrock); “The Seasons Turn” (Company); “Don’t” (Erin Dilly, Stephen R. Buntrock); “All the Years” (Stephen R. Buntrock, Erin Dilly); “The Holy Fight” (Alvin Crawford, Angela Lockett, Protestants); “The Feast” (Company); “The Revelation” (Company); “Are We Alone?” (Erin Dilly, Stephen R. Buntrock, Jose Llana, Company) Act Two: Entr’acte (Orchestra); “If You Still Love Me” (Stephen R. Buntrock, Hugh Panaro); “The Courtroom” (Company); “Who?” (Michael Arnold, D.C. Anderson, Company); “I’m Martin Guerre” (reprise) (Company); “All That I Love” (Erin Dilly, Stephen R. Buntrock, D.C. Anderson); “The Imposter Is Here” (Company); “The Final Witness” (Company); “The Verdict” (D.C. Anderson); “Justice Will Be Done” (Jose Llana, Company); “Benoit’s Lament” (Michael Arnold); “Why?” (Stephen R. Buntrock, Erin Dilly, Hugh Panaro); “You Will Be Mine” (Jose Llana, Stephen R. Buntrock, Hugh Panaro, Erin Dilly); “How Many Tears” (reprise) (Erin Dilly, Stephen R. Buntrock); “Live with Somebody You Love” (reprise) (Hugh Panaro, Erin Dilly, Company)

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Had there been a Tony category for Most Tweaked Musical of the 1990s, Martin Guerre and The Scarlet Pimpernel would probably have tied for the award. Martin Guerre first opened in London on July 10, 1996, at the Prince Edward Theatre with a book by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg and original French text by Boublil, music by Schonberg, lyrics by Edward Hardy, and additional lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and Boublil. Within weeks of the opening, the musical underwent radical revision and Stephen Clark joined the creative team as another of the show’s lyricists; the new adaptation officially opened on November 11, 1996, and the total run for both versions tallied 675 performances. A third version of the musical began a U.K. tour on December 9, 1998, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, and it was this version that toured the United States from September 1999 to April 2000 (for the third version, the lyricists of record were Boublil and Clark). The $7 million production had been scheduled to open on Broadway after the tour’s final booking in Los Angeles, but instead closed there without risking New York. Michael Riedel in the New York Post reported that producer Cameron Mackintosh canceled the Broadway opening due to lack of a suitable theatre, and Mackintosh said he hoped “to remount the show at some future date when the right New York theatre becomes available.” As of this writing, the right theatre still appears to be unavailable, and Broadway continues to hold its collective breath in the hope that an acceptable venue will soon be found. The dreary and confusing musical was set in sixteenth-century France during the tumultuous period when Protestantism had started to gain a foothold in the traditionally Roman Catholic country. Most of the story takes place in the village of Artigat, where the title character (Hugh Panaro) and his wife Bertrande (Erin Dilly) live together in a loveless and unconsummated marriage. The villagers have taken undue interest in this matter, and they blame Guerre’s inability or disinterest to sire a child as the cause for threatening storms that will destroy their crops. The local priest decides Guerre is possessed and beats him in order to exorcise the devil. Guerre understandably leaves both Argitat and Bertrande, and seven years later has become a soldier in the religious wars, where he meets and becomes fast friends with fellow-soldier Arnaud du Thil (Stephen R. Buntrock), to whom he confides the details of his past life. When it seems that Guerre is killed in battle, Arnaud travels to Artigat where he discovers Bertrande is now blamed for the local drought and is under pressure to marry local villager Guillaume (Jose Llana), who has always desired Bertrande and was jealous of Guerre. Arnaud pretends to be Guerre, and although Guerre has been away for only seven years, everyone but Bertrande believes him. Bertrande and Arnaud fall in love and live together as man and wife, and she confides to him that she’s secretly converted to Protestantism. We then discover Guerre didn’t die in the war, and while it’s never clear why he’d want to return to Artigat, he does so and immediately discovers that Arnaud is now on trial for his impersonation (it seems the literal village idiot has accused Arnaud of the deception). Everyone’s in a stir about the trial, and to make matters worse, the villagers are embroiled in religious politics and soon the town is afire. Trust me when I tell you the story ends sadly (Guillaume stabs Arnaud to death) and ambiguously. I was never quite sure about Guerre and Bertrande’s future, but perhaps the authors purposely left the ending unclear. However, the musical’s overall message seemed clear enough: during the finale, everyone sang “Live with Somebody You Love,” which brought to mind the messages of popular songs from the 1960s, such as “If We Only Have Love” and “What the World Needs Now (Is Love, Sweet Love.”) The story itself may have been based on historical fact, but as drama it was claptrap, and with muddy motivations and the tortuous twists and turns of the plot it was impossible to care about the events and characters and take them seriously. Had the score been strong, some of the book’s deficiencies might have been overlooked, but unfortunately the virtually sung-through evening offered little in the way of memorable music. Lloyd Rose in the Washington Post said the musical was “theatrically inert” and “cluttered,” and while the score was “heroically melodic” it was similar to the book because it lacked “dramatic focus and narrative line” and resulted in “sounding pretty but flabby.” Rose also questioned why the villagers seemed so interested in Guerre’s virility, and noted that Guerre and Arnaud’s song “Without You as a Friend” made her wonder if Guerre was perhaps “dealing with what today we call gender issues.” Chris Jones in Variety said the new version was a “vast improvement” over the underwhelming 1996 production, but it nonetheless lacked “emotional wallop.” The musical’s issues and themes were “maddeningly obscure” and the “potentially dramatic” trial in the second act wasn’t “viscerally engaging.” Jones also said the work’s “overtly anti-Catholic sentiments” needed to be toned down, and he mentioned that the “mincing” Guillaume was portrayed as “the kind of irredeemably nasty Catholic that used to show up in 19th-century melodrama.”

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First Night and Dreamworks Records released the original 1996 London cast album (CD # 59), and First Night issued the 1999 West Yorkshire Playhouse cast recording (CD # 0044-50215-2). The 1999 Madrid cast album was issued by Zensor Records (CD # 321). Hugh Panaro created the title role for the American production of Martin Guerre, which unfortunately was another short-running musical on the talented performer’s resume. Despite his boyish good looks and strong singing voice, his bad luck continued with the out-of-town closing of Martin Guerre, which followed the five-performance run of The Red Shoes and the disappointing three-month run of Side Show. He also created the title role of Lestat in 2006, a five-week flame-out and one of three disastrous musicals about vampires that opened on Broadway during the early years of the new century.

Appendix A: Chronology (by Season)

The following is a seasonal chronology of the 203 productions discussed in this book. Musicals that closed during their pre-Broadway engagements are marked with an asterisk (*) and are listed alphabetically at the end of the season in which they were produced.

1990

Junon and Avos—The Hope The Sound of Music (1990) Oba Oba ’90 Aspects of Love Truly Blessed A Change in the Heir (*) Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge

1990–1991

A Little Night Music (1990) Street Scene Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and Voice Bugs Bunny on Broadway Jackie Mason: Brand New Once on This Island Oh, Kay! (1990) Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story Those Were the Days Fiddler on the Roof Shogun An Evening with Harry Connick Jr. and His Orchestra Peter Pan (1990) Mule Bone Penn & Teller: The Refrigerator Tour Miss Saigon Liza Minnelli: Stepping Out at Radio City The Secret Garden The Will Rogers Follies Oh, Kay! (1991) (*) Svengali

1991–1992

A Little Night Music (1991) The Most Happy Fella (1991) Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers Andre Heller’s Wonderhouse Brigadoon (1991) Peter Pan (1991) Catskills on Broadway Nick & Nora The Most Happy Fella (1992) Crazy for You Five Guys Named Moe Guys and Dolls Metro The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club Man of La Mancha Jelly’s Last Jam Falsettos

1992–1993

110 in the Shade Anna Karenina The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber Oba Oba ’93 Regina Gypsy Passion 3 from Brooklyn My Favorite Year Tommy Tune Tonite! Fool Moon (1993) The Goodbye Girl The Wiz 389

390      APPENDIX A

The Song of Jacob Zulu Ain’t Broadway Grand Tommy Blood Brothers Tango Pasion Kiss of the Spider Woman

1993–1994

She Loves Me Camelot The Student Prince Cinderella (1993) Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat A Grand Night for Singing Cyrano My Fair Lady The Red Shoes Damn Yankees A Little More Magic Carousel Jackie Mason: Politically Incorrect Beauty and the Beast Passion The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public Grease (1994) (*) Bojangles (*) Paper Moon (*) Shlemiel the First

1994–1995

Show Boat Wonderful Town Sunset Boulevard The Flying Karamazov Brothers Do the Impossible! A Christmas Carol (1994) Comedy Tonight Young Man, Older Woman Jesus Christ Superstar Smokey Joe’s Café How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying The Merry Widow (1995) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (*) Off-Key (*) Stage Door Charley (aka Buskers and Busker Alley)

1995–1996

Buttons on Broadway Chronicle of a Death Foretold Company

Patti LuPone on Broadway Hello, Dolly! Swinging on a Star Victor/Victoria Fool Moon (1995) Danny Gans on Broadway (aka Danny Gans the Man of Many Voices on Broadway) Cinderella (1995) A Christmas Carol (1995) Riverdance (March 1996) The Merry Widow (1996) Jackie Mason: Love Thy Neighbor State Fair The King and I A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk Big Rent (*) Faust (*) Time and Again

1996–1997

Four Saints in Three Acts Riverdance (October 1996) Brigadoon (1996) Chicago A Christmas Carol (1996) Juan Darien Grease (1996) Dreams & Nightmares Once Upon a Mattress Mandy Patinkin in Concert Lord of the Dance Play On! Annie Dream Titanic Steel Pier The Life Jekyll & Hyde Candide The Wizard of Oz (1997) King David (*) Don’t Stop the Carnival (*) Whistle Down the Wind

1997–1998

Forever Tango Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth 1776 The Last Empress (1997)

CHRONOLOGY (BY SEASON)     391

Riverdance (1997) Side Show Triumph of Love The Scarlet Pimpernel The Lion King A Christmas Carol (1997) Street Corner Symphony Ragtime The Capeman The Sound of Music (1998) Cabaret High Society The Wizard of Oz (1998) (*) Harmony (*) Three Coins in the Fountain

1998–1999

An Evening with Jerry Herman The Last Empress (1998) Riverdance (1998) Swan Lake Mandy Patinkin in Concert: “Mamaloshen” Aznavour on Broadway Footloose Sandra Bernhard: I’m Still Here . . . Damn It! Little Me On the Town Fool Moon (1998) Peter Pan (1998) A Christmas Carol (1998) Parade

The Flying Karamazov Brothers: Sharps, Flats and Accidentals Fosse Steel City You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown Annie Get Your Gun Band in Berlin Rollin on the T.O.B.A. Peter Pan (1999) Marlene The Civil War It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm The Wizard of Oz (*) Mirette (*) Over & Over

1999

Kat and the Kings Dame Edna: The Royal Tour Saturday Night Fever Abby’s Song Tango Argentino Kiss Me, Kate Putting It Together A Christmas Carol (1996) Marie Christine Minnelli on Minnelli Swing! Jackie Mason: Much Ado about Everything (*) Martin Guerre

Appendix B: Chronology (by Classification)

Each one of the 203 productions discussed in this book is listed chronologically within its specific classification. For more information about a show, see its specific entry. Some productions were revived more than once during the decade, and their titles are followed by the year in which they were produced (if produced more than once during a calendar year, both month and year are given). I’ve placed each production into the category I believe best defines it, but some shows fall into gray areas and technically could be classified under two or more categories. I’ve tried to classify each musical under its most “logical” category; for example, the 1994 Carousel is a revival, but the production was based on the work’s successful London revival and so I’ve opted to include the work as an import, albeit an import that is also a revival.

BOOK MUSICALS WITH NEW MUSIC (32 [37; see note directly below]) The following book musicals offered new lyrics and music (a few of these productions, such as The Civil War, Young Man, Older Woman, and King David were revue- or concert-like in nature). A Christmas Carol was presented annually, and while it’s counted once as a book musical with new music, its annual presentations are also listed here, and as a result there are thirty-seven entries in this section, with the caveat that thirtytwo entries represent book musicals with new music. A Change in the Heir Once on This Island Shogun The Secret Garden The Will Rogers Follies Nick & Nora Anna Karenina My Favorite Year The Goodbye Girl Ain’t Broadway Grand Kiss of the Spider Woman The Red Shoes Passion The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public A Christmas Carol (1994)

393

394      APPENDIX B

Young Man, Older Woman Chronicle of a Death Foretold A Christmas Carol (1995) Big A Christmas Carol (1996) Titanic Steel Pier The Life Jekyll & Hyde King David Side Show Triumph of Love The Scarlet Pimpernel A Christmas Carol (1997) Ragtime The Capeman A Christmas Carol (1998) Parade The Civil War Abby’s Song A Christmas Carol (1999) Marie Christine

BOOK MUSICALS THAT INCLUDE PREEXISTING MUSIC (12) The scores of the following musicals are mostly a combination of both preexisting and new music. Saturday Night Fever would have normally fallen into this category, but the stage production originated in Great Britain, and so its status as an import trumps its classification as a book show with mostly preexisting music. On the other hand, while a stage adaptation of High Society was first produced in Britain, the Broadway production was a new adaptation not based on the British version and thus isn’t considered an import. Truly Blessed Crazy for You Jelly’s Last Jam Tommy Beauty and the Beast Victor/Victoria State Fair Play On! The Lion King High Society Footloose Band in Berlin

PLAYS WITH INCIDENTAL SONGS (2) The productions in this category are plays that include songs and incidental music. Mule Bone The Song of Jacob Zulu

CHRONOLOGY (BY CLASSIFICATION)     395

REVUES (13) The productions in this category are more or less in the nature of traditional revues, six of which are composer/lyricist tributes. Those Were the Days Catskills on Broadway The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber 3 from Brooklyn A Grand Night for Singing (Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II) Comedy Tonight Smokey Joe’s Café (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller) Swinging on a Star (Johnny Burke) Dream (Johnny Mercer) Street Corner Symphony The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm Swing!

PERSONALITY REVUES (23) Personality revues are more in the nature of concert-like appearances by well-known performers. These revues sometimes include other entertainers, but it’s clear each production was designed to showcase the special skills and talent of a specific headliner. Because Bugs Bunny is the famous cartoon entertainer, I’ve opted to include his show in this category. As for An Evening with Jerry Herman, it would typically have fallen under the classification of a revue, but because Herman himself appeared in the production I’ve included the show in the category of a personality revue. Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and Voice Bugs Bunny on Broadway Jackie Mason: Brand New An Evening with Harry Connick Jr. and His Orchestra Liza Minnelli: Stepping Out at Radio City Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers Tommy Tune Tonite! Fool Moon (1993; Bill Irwin and David Shiner) Jackie Mason: Politically Incorrect (Red) Buttons on Broadway Patti LuPone on Broadway Fool Moon (1995; Bill Irwin and David Shiner) Danny Gans on Broadway (aka Danny Gans the Man of Many Voices on Broadway) Jackie Mason: Love Thy Neighbor Mandy Patinkin in Concert An Evening with Jerry Herman Mandy Patinkin in Concert: “Mamaloshen” (Charles) Aznavour on Broadway Sandra Bernhard: I’m Still Here . . . Damn It! Fool Moon (1998; Bill Irwin and David Shiner) Dame Edna: The Royal Tour (Barry Humphries) (Liza) Minnelli on Minnelli Jackie Mason: Much Ado about Everything

396      APPENDIX B

DANCE MUSICALS AND REVUES (1) Fosse

MAGIC REVUES (4) The following are magic and sleight-of-hand revues. A Little More Magic is an import, and is therefore included in that category, but with the caveat that it’s also a magic revue. Penn & Teller: The Refrigerator Tour The Flying Karamazov Brothers Do the Impossible! Dreams & Nightmares The Flying Karamazov Brothers: Sharps, Flats and Accidentals

REVUES AND MUSICALS THAT ORIGINATED OFF- OR OFF-OFF-BROADWAY (6) The 1992 British revue Putting It Together had been produced Off-Broadway in 1993, but the 1999 Broadway production wasn’t a direct transfer from an Off-Broadway production and as a result is included in the import section of this appendix. Falsettos Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk Rent Juan Darien Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A. It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues

IMPORTS (32) Junon and Avos—The Hope (book musical with new music) Oba Oba ’90 (dance revue) Aspects of Love (book musical with new music) Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (book musical with mostly preexisting music) Miss Saigon (book musical with new music) Andre Heller’s Wonderhouse (revue) Five Guys Named Moe (revue-like musical with preexisting music) Metro (book musical with new music) Oba Oba ’93 (dance revue) Gypsy Passion (dance revue) Blood Brothers (book musical with new music) Tango Pasion (dance revue) Cyrano (book musical with new music) A Little More Magic (magic revue) Carousel (revival) Sunset Boulevard (book musical with new music) Riverdance (March 1996) (dance revue) Riverdance (October 1996) (dance revue) Lord of the Dance (dance musical) Forever Tango (dance revue) Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth (book musical with new music)

CHRONOLOGY (BY CLASSIFICATION)     397

The Last Empress (1997) (opera) Riverdance (1997) (dance revue) The Last Empress (1998) (opera) Riverdance (1998) (dance revue) Swan Lake (dance musical) Steel City (dance musical) Marlene (book musical with preexisting songs) Kat and the Kings (book musical with new music) Saturday Night Fever (book musical with mostly preexisting music) Tango Argentino (dance revue) Putting It Together (revue)

COMMERCIAL REVIVALS (35) Oh, Kay! (1990) Fiddler on the Roof Peter Pan (1990) Oh, Kay! (1991) Peter Pan (1991) The Most Happy Fella (1992) Guys and Dolls Man of La Mancha The Wiz Camelot Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat My Fair Lady Damn Yankees Grease (1994) Show Boat Jesus Christ Superstar How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying Hello, Dolly! The King and I A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Chicago Grease (1996) Once upon a Mattress Annie Candide The Wizard of Oz (1997) The Sound of Music (1998) The Wizard of Oz (1998) On the Town Peter Pan (1998) You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown Annie Get Your Gun

INSTITUTIONAL REVIVALS (22) The Sound of Music (1990) A Little Night Music (1990) Street Scene

398      APPENDIX B

A Little Night Music (1991) The Most Happy Fella (1991) Brigadoon (1991) 110 in the Shade Regina She Loves Me (transfer to Broadway was a commercial revival) The Student Prince Cinderella (1993) Wonderful Town The Merry Widow (1995) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Company Cinderella (1995) The Merry Widow (1996) Four Saints in Three Acts Brigadoon (1996) 1776 (transfer to Broadway was a commercial revival) Cabaret Little Me

PRE-BROADWAY CLOSINGS (16) With the exception of Three Coins in the Fountain (which used preexisting music), all the productions in this category are book musicals with new music. Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge Svengali Bojangles Paper Moon Shlemiel the First Off-Key Stage Door Charley (aka Buskers and Busker Alley) Faust Time and Again Don’t Stop the Carnival Whistle Down the Wind Harmony Three Coins in the Fountain Mirette Over & Over Martin Guerre

Appendix C: Discography

The criterion for inclusion on this list is that the recordings were on sale to the public at one time or another. The list represents recordings of the musicals discussed in this book, including cast and studio cast recordings as well as songs that appear in collections. Musicals that opened during the decade (such as The Will Rogers Follies and Side Show) are of course represented by cast albums; City Opera revivals (including A Little Night Music and Brigadoon) weren’t newly recorded for their productions, but other recordings are available; and while the complete scores of such shows as Over & Over and The Red Shoes weren’t recorded, a few songs were included on various collections. For information about the recordings for the shows listed below, see specific entries.

Ain’t Broadway Grand Anna Karenina Annie Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge Annie Get Your Gun Aspects of Love Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public Beauty and the Beast Big Blood Brothers Bojangles Brigadoon Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story Bugs Bunny on Broadway Busker Alley (see Stage Door Charley aka Buskers) Cabaret Camelot Candide The Capeman Carousel Catskills on Broadway Chicago A Christmas Carol Chronicle of a Death Foretold Cinderella The Civil War

Company Crazy for You Cyrano Dame Edna: The Royal Tour Damn Yankees Don’t Stop the Carnival Dream Falsettos (recorded as March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland) Faust Fiddler on the Roof Five Guys Named Moe Footloose Forever Tango Fosse Four Saints in Three Acts A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Gentlemen Prefer Blondes The Goodbye Girl A Grand Night for Singing Grease Guys and Dolls Harmony Hello, Dolly! High Society How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues Jackie Mason: Brand New 399

400      APPENDIX C

Jackie Mason: Politically Incorrect Jackie Mason: Much Ado about Everything Jekyll & Hyde Jelly’s Last Jam Jesus Christ Superstar Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Juan Darien Junon and Avos—The Hope Kat and the Kings The King and I King David Kiss Me, Kate Kiss of the Spider Woman The Last Empress The Life The Lion King Little Me A Little Night Music Lord of the Dance Mandy Patinkin in Concert: “Mamaloshen” Man of La Mancha Marie Christine Marlene Martin Guerre The Merry Widow Metro Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and Voice Minnelli on Minnelli Miss Saigon The Most Happy Fella Mule Bone My Fair Lady My Favorite Year Nick & Nora Off-Key Oh, Kay! Once on This Island Once Upon a Mattress 110 in the Shade On the Town Over & Over Parade Passion Patti LuPone on Broadway

Peter Pan Play On! Putting It Together Ragtime The Red Shoes Regina Rent Riverdance Sandra Bernhard: I’m Still Here . . . Damn It! Saturday Night Fever The Scarlet Pimpernel The Secret Garden 1776 She Loves Me Shogun Show Boat Side Show Smokey Joe’s Cafe The Sound of Music Stage Door Charley (recorded as Busker Alley) State Fair Steel City Steel Pier Street Scene The Student Prince Sunset Boulevard Svengali Swing! Swinging on a Star Tango Pasion Titanic Tommy Triumph of Love Truly Blessed Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth Victor/Victoria Whistle Down the Wind The Will Rogers Follies The Wiz The Wizard of Oz Wonderful Town Young Man, Older Woman You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Appendix D: Filmography

The following alphabetical list represents film, television, and home video versions of musicals discussed in this book (to be sure, some film versions of stage musicals were released in earlier decades well before the musicals were revived on Broadway during the 1990s). A few musicals that opened during the decade were based on musical films (such as Beauty and the Beast and High Society), and these sources are included in the filmography.

Annie Annie Get Your Gun Beauty and the Beast Brigadoon Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk (interviews) Cabaret Camelot Candide Carousel Catskills on Broadway Chicago A Christmas Carol Cinderella The Civil War Company Crazy for You Damn Yankees Fiddler on the Roof Footloose Forever Tango Fosse A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Grease Guys and Dolls Hello, Dolly! High Society How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying Jekyll & Hyde Jelly’s Last Jam Jesus Christ Superstar

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Junon and Avos—The Hope The King and I Kiss Me, Kate The Last Empress The Lion King A Little Night Music Liza Minnelli: Stepping Out at Radio City Lord of the Dance Man of La Mancha The Merry Widow Miss Saigon The Most Happy Fella My Fair Lady Oh, Kay! Once Upon a Mattress On the Town Passion Peter Pan Play On! Putting It Together Rent (also interviews) Riverdance Sandra Bernhard: I’m Still Here . . . Damn It! Saturday Night Fever 1776 She Loves Me Shlemiel the First Show Boat Smokey Joe’s Cafe The Sound of Music 401

402      APPENDIX D

State Fair Steel City The Student Prince Swan Lake Tango Argentino Tommy Victor/Victoria

The Will Rogers Follies The Wiz The Wizard of Oz Wonderful Town Young Man, Older Woman You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Appendix E: Gilbert and Sullivan Operettas

The following is a chronological list of operettas by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan that were revived in New York during the period January 1, 1990–December 31, 1999. After each title, the opening date, number of performances, name of theatre, and name of producer are given. Sadly, musical tastes were changing and there were no longer audiences all that interested in the classic works by Gilbert and Sullivan. Of the team’s fourteen major operettas, the 1940s saw nine of them produced for a total of thirty-one engagements; the 1950s, nine operettas for nineteen engagements; the 1960s, nine operettas for fifty-two engagements; and for the 1970s, four operettas for fifteen engagements. But both the 1980s and 1990s offered just two operettas for six engagements. The Mikado, or The Town of Titipu (October 20, 1990, five performances; New York State Theatre, The New York City Opera Company) The Mikado (September 12, 1993, seven performances; New York State Theatre, The New York City Opera Company) The Mikado (September 23, 1995, four performances; New York State Theatre, The New York City Opera Company) The Mikado (March 3, 1996, four performances; New York State Theatre, The New York City Opera Company) H.M.S. Pinafore, or The Lass That Loved a Sailor (September 20, 1996, nine performances; New York State Theatre, The New York City Opera Company) The Mikado (March 8, 1997, six performances; New York State Theatre, The New York City Opera Company)

403

Appendix F: Other Productions

The following selected productions that played on Broadway during the 1990s included songs, dances, or background music.

1990 Accomplice By Rupert Holmes (Richard Rodgers Theatre, April 26, 1990, 52 performances) The production included incidental music by Rupert Holmes.

1991–1992 Moscow Circus (Gershwin Theatre, November 6, 1991, 31 performances) Best Plays reported that the evening of circus acts was “adapted to theatrical presentation rather than the customary ring”; the book and direction were by Bob Bejan, the music by Bobby Previte, and the choreography by Pavel Briun.

The Crucible By Arthur Miller (Belasco Theatre, December 10, 1991, 32 performances) For the revival, John Kander was the musical director and the “supervision” of incidental music was by David Loud.

Private Lives By Noel Coward (Broadhurst Theatre, February 20, 1992, 37 performances) For the revival, Michael Smuin created tango choreography.

405

406      APPENDIX F

The Love Suicides of Sonezaki By Monzaemon Chikamatsu (City Center, March 10, 1992, 7 performances) Presented by Bunraku, The National Puppet Theatre of Japan, the limited engagement was given in Japanese with English commentary. The puppet play (with hayashi music by Temekichi Mochizuku) was according to Best Plays based on a factual incident that occurred in Osaka during 1703 and is known as “a Japanese Romeo and Juliet.”

1992–1993 Saint Joan By George Bernard Shaw (Lyceum Theatre, January 31, 1993, 64 performances) For the revival, Stanley Silverman composed incidental music.

Three Men on a Horse By John Cecil Holm and George Abbott (Lyceum Theatre, April 13, 1993, 40 performances) John Kander was the revival’s musical director, and Jerry Mitchell created the fight choreography.

Yabuhara Kengyo By Hisashi Inoue (City Center, March 4, 1933, 3 performances) Yabuhara Kengyo (The Great Doctor Yabuhara) was presented in Japanese; the music was by Seiichiro Uno and the choreography by Shunju Hanawaka.

Face Value By David Henry Hwang (Cort Theatre) Face Value played a series of eight previews at the Cort Theatre for the period March 9–March 14, 1993, before permanently closing prior to its scheduled Broadway opening. The play dealt with the casting for a new Broadway musical titled The Real Manchu; Jerry Zaks directed, the lyrics and music were by David Henry Hwang, dance music was by Mark Hummel, and musical staging was by Christopher Chadman.

1993–1994 In the Summer House By Jane Bowles (Vivian Beaumont Theatre, August 1, 1993, for 24 performances) Philip Glass composed incidental music for the revival.

Timon of Athens By William Shakespeare (Lyceum Theatre, November 4, 1993, 37 performances) For the revival, music by Duke Ellington was adapted by Stanley Silverman, and the choreography was by George Faison.

OTHER PRODUCTIONS     407

Abe Lincoln in Illinois By Robert E. Sherwood (Vivian Beaumont Theatre, November 29, 1993, for 40 performances) Robert Waldman composed incidental music for the revival.

The Government Inspector By Nikolai Gogol (Lyceum Theatre, January 6, 1994, 37 performances) Stanley Silverman composed incidental music for the revival.

Picnic By William Inge (Criterion Center Stage Right, April 21, 1994, 45 performances) Susan Stroman choreographed the musical interludes and dances for the revival, which included incidental music by Louis Rosen.

Broken Glass By Arthur Miller (Booth Theatre, April 24, 1994, 73 performances) William Bolcom composed incidental music for the production.

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice By Jim Cartwright (Neil Simon Theatre, May 1, 1994, 9 performances) The British import, which was filmed in 1998, dealt with a young woman whose singing voice perfectly mimics such singers as Shirley Bassey, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, and Barbra Streisand.

1994–1995 What’s Wrong with This Picture? By Donald Margulies (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, December 8, 1994, 13 performances) Mel Marvin composed incidental music for the comedy, which featured Faith Prince and Jerry Stiller.

Love! Valour! Compassion! By Terrence McNally (Walter Kerr Theatre, February 14, 1995, 249 performances) The cast included Nathan Lane and Stephen Bogardus, and the choreography was created by John Carrafa.

Uncle Vanya By Anton Chekhov (Circle in the Square, February 24, 1995, 29 performances) The play was adapted by Jean-Claude van Itallie and the incidental music was composed by Stanley Silverman.

408      APPENDIX F

Mama I Want to Sing Part 2 Book and lyrics by Vy Higginsen and Ken Wydro and music by Wesley Naylor (The Paramount Madison Square Garden Theatre, March 7, 1995, 8 performances). For whatever reason, the revival wasn’t referenced in Best Plays and Theatre World, doesn’t appear in the International Broadway Database, and wasn’t reviewed by the New York Times. The production may have been under an Off-Off-Broadway contract, or perhaps was under a special booking at the Paramount. Mama I Want to Sing originally opened Off-Off-Broadway at the AMAS Repertory Theatre on December 3, 1980, for thirteen performances, and on March 23, 1983, was presented at the Heckscher Theatre for approximately two thousand four hundred showings (sometimes in conjunction with other productions); the musical was recorded by Reach Records (LP # MWS-50000), and a 1995 London production was released by EMI Records (CD # 7243-8-33925-2-0). A novelization of the story for young people was published in paperback by Scholastic Trade in 1992. A film version was released in 2012 (the CD was issued by Releve Records and the DVD by Twentieth Century-Fox). On March 25, 1990, Mama I Want to Sing—Part II: The Story Continues opened at the Heckscher Theatre (number of performances unknown); the cast album was issued by Reach Records (CD # RRCD-00005) and an American touring production in Japan was recorded live (CD # TOCP-6884). A second sequel titled Born to Sing! (Mama 3) was presented at The Madison Square Garden Theatre in March 1996 under what Best Plays classified as an Off-Off-Broadway production, and then on August 8, 1996, Born to Sing was produced OffBroadway at the Union Square Theatre for 133 showings.

The Heiress By Ruth and Augustus Goetz (Cort Theatre, March 30, 1995, 341 performances) Robert Waldman composed the music for the revival.

On the Waterfront By Budd Schulberg with Stan Silverman (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, May 1, 1995, 8 performances) David Amram composed the incidental music for the play; a CD of the music was released by Varese Sarabande Records (# VSD-5638). (For the 1954 film version, the background music was composed by Leonard Bernstein.)

1995–1996 The School for Scandal By Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Lyceum Theatre, November 19, 1995, 33 performances) Robert Waldman composed incidental music for the revival.

Paul Robeson By Phillip Hayes Dean (Longacre Theatre, December 20, 1995, 11 performances) The revival of the play with music included songs that Robeson had performed and popularized during his career. The choreography was by Dianne McIntyre.

Getting Away with Murder By Stephen Sondheim and George Furth (Broadhurst Theatre, March 17, 1996, 17 performances) Although the script was by Sondheim and Furth and the cast included John Rubenstein, Christine Ebersole, and Terrance Mann, the production didn’t include any music. But it sure was a delicious old-time

OTHER PRODUCTIONS     409

thriller, and a vastly underrated one at that, with flashy performances, quirky characters, witty dialogue, and a suitably moody decor, and a fantastic poster. During the tryout, the play was titled The Doctor Is Out.

1996–1997 The Last Night of Ballyhoo By Alfred Uhry (Helen Hayes Theatre, February 27, 1997, 557 performances) The drama took place during December 1939 and focused on a family living in Atlanta at the time of the world premiere of the film Gone with the Wind. Robert Waldman composed incidental music for the production.

1997–1998 Proposals By Neil Simon (Broadhurst Theatre, November 6, 1997, 76 performances) The comedy included incidental music by Stephen Flaherty.

Ivanov By Anton Chekhov (Vivian Beaumont Theatre, November 20, 1997, 51 performances) The play was adapted by David Hare, and incidental music was composed by Robert Waldman.

Ah, Wilderness! By Eugene O’Neill (Vivian Beaumont Theatre, March 18, 1998, 54 performances) Stanley Silverman composed incidental music for the revival.

1998–1999 Side Man By Warren Leight (Off Broadway, Criterion Center Stage Right, June 25, 1998; transferred to Broadway at the John Golden Theatre on November 8, 1998, 458 total performances) The memory play about a man recalling his youth with his jazz-musician father included a number of standard songs such as “It Never Entered My Mind” (Higher and Higher 1940; lyric by Lorenz Hart and music by Richard Rodgers). A CD of the music was released by BMG/RCA Victor Records (# 09026-63444-2).

Twelfth Night By William Shakespeare (Vivian Beaumont Theatre, July 16, 1998, 53 performances) The revival included incidental songs and music composed by Jeanine Tesori and the choreography was by Joey McKneely. The music was recorded by Resmiradda Records (CD # RES-8036), and the production was shown on public television’s Live from Lincoln Center series.

410      APPENDIX F

More to Love By Rob Bartlett (Eugene O’Neill Theatre, October 15, 1998, 4 performances) The comedy included incidental songs by Rob Bartlett.

Christmas from the Heart Book by Kenny Rogers and Kelly Junkermann Rogers and lyrics and music by Kenny Rogers, Warren Hartman, and Steve Glassmeyer as well as lyrics and music by other lyricists and composers (Beacon Theatre, November 24, 1998, 47 performances) The score for the limited-engagement holiday show also included “White Christmas” (1942 film Holiday Inn, lyric and music by Irving Berlin).

Ring Round the Moon By Jean Anouilh (Belasco Theatre, April 28, 1999, 70 performances) The play was adapted by Christopher Fry, and the revival included background music Francis Poulenc had composed for the original 1950 Broadway production. The choreography was by Kathleen Marshall.

1999 Voices in the Dark By John Pielmeier (Longacre Theatre, August 12, 1999, 68 performances) The incidental music for the mystery was composed by Robert Waldman. Note: During the decade, the following operas had their New York premieres (all are discussed in my 2010 reference book Off Broadway Musicals, 1910–2007: Casts, Credits, Songs, Critical Reception and Performance Data of More Than 1,800 Shows): John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer (1991), John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles (1991), Philip Glass’s The Voyage (1992), Ezra Laderman’s Marilyn (1993), Hugo Weisgall’s Esther (1993), Stewart Wallace’s Harvey Milk (1995), Daniel Catan’s Rappaccini’s Daughter (La Hija de Rappaccini) (1997), Tan Dun’s Marco Polo (1997), Tobias Picker’s Emmeline (1998), Jack Beeson’s Sorry, Wrong Number (1999), Central Park (1999; three one-act operas: Deborah Drattell’s The Festival of Regrets, Michael Torke’s Strawberry Fields, and Robert Beaser’s The Food of Love), and William Mayer’s A Death in the Family (1999).

Appendix G: Black-Themed Revues and Musicals

The following is an alphabetical list of black revues and musicals that focus on black stories, characters, subject matter, and performers, including musicals that aren’t necessarily considered as traditional black musicals but that deal with black themes, stories, and characters. This list includes revivals that opened during the decade. Bojangles Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk The Civil War Five Guys Named Moe Four Saints in Three Acts The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues Jelly’s Last Jam Kat and the Kings The Life The Lion King Marie Christine Mule Bone

Oh, Kay! (1990 and 1991) Once on This Island Play On! Ragtime Rent Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A. Show Boat The Song of Jacob Zulu Street Corner Symphony Truly Blessed Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth The Wiz Young Man, Older Woman

411

Appendix H: Jewish-Themed Revues and Musicals

The following is an alphabetical list of revues and musicals discussed in this book that have Jewish themes, plots, characters, and subject matter. Band in Berlin Cabaret Catskills on Broadway Fiddler on the Roof Harmony King David

Mandy Patinkin in Concert: “Mamaloshen” Parade Ragtime Shlemiel the First Those Were the Days

413

Appendix I: Radio City Music Hall Productions

The following productions were presented at Radio City Music Hall during the decade. Independent productions that played at the venue (such as Riverdance) are included in the seasonal entries for this book.

1990 (During the 1989–1990 season, the Takarazuka revue opened on October 25, 1989, for six performances and the Christmas Spectacular opened on November 10, 1989, for 188 performances.) Easter Extravaganza (April 11, 1990, for 26 performances): The production was directed and choreographed by Scott Salmon, and was conducted by Donald Pippin. The cast included Wayne Cilento and the Rockettes, and the evening included songs with lyrics by Hal Hackady and music by Larry Grossman.

1990–1991 Christmas Spectacular (November 9, 1990, for 181 performances): The production was directed by Scott Salmon, who also created some of the choreography; the musical director was Donald Pippin. The revue included the new songs “They Can’t Start Christmas without Us” (lyric by Fred Tobias and music by Stanley Lebowsky) and “Christmas in New York” (lyric and music by Billy Butt) as well as “We Need a Little Christmas” (Mame, 1966; lyric and music by Jerry Herman).

1991–1992 Christmas Spectacular (November 15, 1991, for 176 performances): The production was directed and choreographed by Scott Salmon, and the musical direction was by Donald Pippin. Easter Show (April 10, 1992, for 24 performances): The musical direction was by Donald Pippin; the production included “Think About That,” “I Know,” “How About Me,” and “Friends” (lyrics by Hal Hackady, music by Larry Grossman); “Put a Little Spring in Your Step” (lyric and music by Jeffrey Ernstoff); and two songs by Jerry Herman, “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” (Hello, Dolly!, 1964) and the title song from La Cage aux Folles (1983).

1992–1993 Radio City Christmas Spectacular (November 13, 1992, for 179 performances): This production marked the sixtieth anniversary of Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas revue, and included “Sing a Little Song of 415

416      APPENDIX I

Christmas” (lyric by Carolyn Leigh, music by Donald Pippin) and “What Do You Want for Christmas?” (lyric by Hal Hackady, music by Larry Grossman). Easter Show (April 2, 1993, for 28 performances)

1993–1994 Jesus Was His Name (June 2, 1993, for 18 performances): The production was conceived by Robert Hossein, adapted by Alain Decaux, and first presented in Paris during October 1991 at the Palais des Sports; Best Plays reported that the work depicted the life of Christ and was presented on a 70 mm wide screen in which live actors spoke the dialogue in sync with the actors on the screen. Radio City Christmas Spectacular (November 12, 1993, for 183 performances) Radio City Easter Show (March 27, 1994, for 25 performances)

1994–1995 Radio City Christmas Spectacular (November 11, 1994, for 193 performances): The production included “Santa’s Gonna Rock and Roll” and “I Can’t Wait Till Christmas Day” (lyrics by Bill Russell and music by Henry Krieger) Radio City Easter Show (April 8, 1995, for 24 performances)

1995–1996 Radio City Christmas Spectacular (November 8, 1995, for 189 performances) Radio City Spring Spectacular (April 6, 1996, for 27 performances)

1996–1997 Radio City Christmas Spectacular (November 7, 1996, for 195 performances) Radio City Spring Spectacular (March 18, 1997, for 18 performances)

1997–1998 Radio City Christmas Spectacular (November 7, 1997, for 196 performances)

1998–1999 Radio City Christmas Spectacular (November 6, 1998, for 202 performances)

1999 Radio City Christmas Spectacular (November 4, 1999, for 210 performances A Christmas Carol (November 26, 1999, for 72 performances): For more information about this production, see seasonal entry (note that the musical played at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden).

Appendix J: Published Scripts

The following is an alphabetical list of musicals discussed in this book whose scripts were published and officially on sale to the public at one time or another (the list also includes revivals that were produced during the decade). For more information about a particular script, see specific entry (this appendix doesn’t include unpublished scripts).

Annie Get Your Gun Aspects of Love The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public Big Blood Brothers Brigadoon Cabaret Camelot Candide Carousel Chicago Company Damn Yankees Falsettos (March of the Falsettos was published in a separate edition; was also published in an edition with Falsettoland as Falsettos; and was also published in an edition titled The Marvin Songs, which includes the scripts of In Trousers and Falsettoland) Fiddler on the Roof Four Saints in Three Acts A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Grease Guys and Dolls Hello, Dolly! How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues Jesus Christ Superstar The King and I Kiss Me, Kate Little Me

A Little Night Music Man of La Mancha Marlene The Merry Widow The Most Happy Fella Mule Bone My Fair Lady Once Upon a Mattress On the Town Parade Passion Regina Rent The Secret Garden 1776 She Loves Me Show Boat Side Show The Song of Jacob Zulu The Sound of Music Steel Pier Street Scene Sunset Boulevard Swinging on a Star Titanic Tommy Triumph of Love Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth The Wiz Wonderful Town You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown 417

Appendix K: Theatres

For the productions discussed in this book, the theatres where they played are listed in alphabetical order. Following each theatre’s name is a chronological list of the shows that played there during the decade (for those shows that had more than one production during the decade, the entry is identified by year; if a production was presented twice during a calendar year, both month and year are given). Some productions transferred to other theatres, and these entries are so noted (as “transfer”). For those shows that transferred twice, the entries are noted as “second transfer.”

ALICE TULLY HALL The Flying Karamazov Brothers: Sharps, Flats and Accidentals

AMBASSADOR THEATRE Buttons on Broadway Fool Moon (1995) Bring in ’da Noise Bring in ’da Funk You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues (transfer) Chicago (second transfer)

BEACON THEATRE The Wiz Young Man, Older Woman

BELASCO THEATRE A Little More Magic Mandy Patinkin in Concert: “Mamaloshen”

BOOTH THEATRE Once on This Island The Most Happy Fella (1992) 419

420      APPENDIX K

Jackie Mason: Love Thy Neighbor An Evening with Jerry Herman Sandra Bernhard: I’m Still Here . . . Damn It! Dame Edna: The Royal Tour

BROADHURST THEATRE Aspects of Love Andre Heller’s Wonderhouse Kiss of the Spider Woman Once Upon a Mattress Fosse

BROADWAY THEATRE Miss Saigon

BROOKS ATKINSON THEATRE She Loves Me (transfer) Play On! Street Corner Symphony Fool Moon (1998)

CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE Anna Karenina

CITY CENTER Junon and Avos—The Hope Grease (1996) Abby’s Song

CORT THEATRE Marlene Kat and the Kings

CRITERION CENTER STAGE RIGHT She Loves Me A Grand Night for Singing Company 1776 Little Me

THEATRES     421

EDISON THEATRE A Change in the Heir Those Were the Days

ETHEL BARRYMORE THEATRE Mule Bone The Life Putting It Together

EUGENE O’NEILL THEATRE Penn & Teller: The Refrigerator Tour Five Guys Named Moe Grease (1994)

FORD CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS Ragtime

GERSHWIN THEATRE Bugs Bunny on Broadway Fiddler on the Roof Tommy Tune Tonite! Camelot The Red Shoes Show Boat Candide 1776 On the Town Tango Argentino Peter Pan (1999)

HELEN HAYES THEATRE The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club 3 from Brooklyn The Flying Karamazov Brothers Do the Impossible! Band in Berlin

HENRY MILLER’S THEATRE Cabaret (during run, theater temporarily named The Kit Kat Klub) Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A. (during run, theatre temporarily named The Kit Kat Klub)

422      APPENDIX K

JOHN GOLDEN THEATRE Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and Voice Falsettos Jackie Mason: Politically Incorrect Jackie Mason: Much Ado about Everything

LONGACRE THEATRE Truly Blessed Tango Pasion The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm

LUNT-FONTANNE THEATRE An Evening with Harry Connick Jr. and His Orchestra Peter Pan (1990) Oh, Kay! (1991) Catskills on Broadway Ain’t Broadway Grand The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public Comedy Tonight Hello, Dolly! Titanic Beauty and the Beast (transfer)

LYCEUM THEATRE Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Mandy Patinkin in Concert

MARQUIS THEATRE Oba Oba ’90 Shogun Nick & Nora Man of La Mancha Oba Oba ’93 The Goodbye Girl Damn Yankees Victor/Victoria The Capeman Forever Tango (transfer) Aznavour on Broadway Peter Pan (1998) Annie Get Your Gun

MARTIN BECK THEATRE Guys and Dolls Dreams & Nightmares

THEATRES     423

Annie The Sound of Music (1998) Kiss Me, Kate

MINSKOFF THEATRE Peter Pan (1991) Metro Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Sunset Boulevard The Scarlet Pimpernel Saturday Night Fever The Lion King (transfer)

MUSIC BOX THEATRE Blood Brothers Swinging on a Star State Fair

NEDERLANDER THEATRE Rent

NEIL SIMON THEATRE Jackie Mason: Brand New Cyrano Danny Gans on Broadway (aka Danny Gans the Man of Many Voices on Broadway) The King and I The Scarlet Pimpernel (transfer) Swan Lake

NEW AMSTERDAM THEATRE King David The Lion King

NEW YORK STATE THEATRE The Sound of Music (1990) A Little Night Music (1990) Street Scene A Little Night Music (1991) The Most Happy Fella (1991) Brigadoon (1991) 110 in the Shade Regina The Student Prince

424      APPENDIX K

Cinderella (1993) Wonderful Town The Merry Widow (1995) Cinderella (1995) The Merry Widow (1996) Four Saints in Three Acts Brigadoon (1996) Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth The Last Empress (1997) The Last Empress (1998)

PALACE THEATRE The Will Rogers Follies: A Life in Revue Beauty and the Beast Minnelli on Minnelli

PARAMOUNT THEATRE (later THE PARAMOUNT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN THEATRE, THE MADISON SQUARE GARDEN THEATRE, AND THE THEATRE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN) Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers (Paramount Theatre) A Christmas Carol (1994; The Paramount Madison Square Garden Theatre) Jesus Christ Superstar (The Paramount Madison Square Garden Theatre) A Christmas Carol (1995; The Madison Square Garden Theatre) A Christmas Carol (1996; The Madison Square Garden Theatre) The Wizard of Oz (1997; The Madison Square Garden Theatre) A Christmas Carol (1997; The Madison Square Garden Theatre) The Wizard of Oz (1998; The Theatre at Madison Square Garden) A Christmas Carol (1998; The Theatre at Madison Square Garden) The Wizard of Oz (1999; The Theatre at Madison Square Garden) A Christmas Carol (1999; The Theatre at Madison Square Garden)

PLYMOUTH THEATRE Gypsy Passion The Song of Jacob Zulu Passion Chronicle of a Death Foretold Jekyll & Hyde

RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL Liza Minnelli: Stepping Out at Radio City The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber Riverdance (March 1996) Riverdance (October 1996) Lord of the Dance Riverdance 1997) Riverdance (1998) Steel City

THEATRES     425

RICHARD RODGERS THEATRE Oh, Kay! (1990) Fool Moon (1993) How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying Chicago Steel Pier Side Show Footloose

ROYALE THEATRE Dream Triumph of Love

ST. JAMES THEATRE The Secret Garden Tommy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum High Society The Civil War Swing!

SHUBERT THEATRE Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story Crazy for You Big Chicago (first transfer)

STUDIO 54 Cabaret (transfer)

VIRGINIA THEATRE Jelly’s Last Jam My Fair Lady Smokey Joe’s Cafe

VIVIAN BEAUMONT THEATRE My Favorite Year Carousel Juan Darien Parade It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues Marie Christine

426      APPENDIX K

WALTER KERR THEATRE Patti LuPone on Broadway Forever Tango

Bibliography

For the productions discussed in this book, I used source materials such as programs, souvenir programs, flyers, window cards (posters), scripts, and recordings. In addition, many reference books were helpful in providing both information and reality checks, and these are listed below. Best Plays. As of this writing, the most recent edition of the venerable series is The Best Plays Theatre Yearbook of 2007–2008, edited by Jeffrey Eric Jenkins. New York: Limelight Editions, 2009. Day, Barry (ed.). Noel Coward: The Complete Lyrics. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1998. Fordin, Hugh. The Movies’ Greatest Musicals: Produced in Hollywood USA by The Freed Unit. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1975. Green, Stanley (ed.). Rodgers and Hammerstein Fact Book: A Record of Their Works Together and with Other Collaborators. New York: The Lynn Farnol Group, 1980. Hirschhorn, Clive. The Hollywood Musical: Every Hollywood Musical from 1927 to the Present Day. New York: Crown Publishing, Inc., 1981. Kimball, Robert (ed.). The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983. Kimball, Robert, and Steve Nelson (eds.). The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Kimball, Robert (ed.). The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993. Kimball, Robert, and Linda Emmet (eds.). The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001. Kimball, Robert, Barry Day, Miles Kreuger, and Eric Davis (eds.). The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Norton, Richard C. A Chronology of American Musical Theatre (3 volumes). New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Sondheim, Stephen. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Sondheim, Stephen. Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981–2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Suskin, Steven. Show Tunes: The Songs, Shows and Careers of Broadway’s Major Composers (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Theatre World. As of this writing, the most recent edition of this important annual is Theatre World, Volume 69, 2012– 2013, edited by Ben Hodges and Scott Denny. Milwaukee, WI: Theatre World Media, 2015. Note: Many of the brief newspaper and magazine quotes in this book come from the annual series New York Theatre Critics’ Reviews (published through the calendar year 1996). Each volume includes the complete reviews of all plays and musicals that opened during a calendar year (later volumes include Off-Broadway and regional productions as well as occasional magazine reviews). Each review includes name of critic, publication, headline of review, and date of review.

427

Index

A. T. Jones & Sons, 275 Abbott, George, 146, 148, 250, 254 Abby’s Song, 370–71 ABC, 25, 157 Abdulov, Alexander, 1 Abeleda, Tito, 35 Abelson, Robert, 31, 33 Abhann Productions (Ltd.), 240, 289, 324 Abraham, F. Murray, 184, 292 Abrahams, Jody J., 365 Abrahao, Roberto, 5, 95 Abrams, Judith Ann, 347 Ackerman, Loni, 112 Ackerman, Meyer, 146 The Act, 48 Adams, Edith, 132, 177 Adams, Lee, 110 Adams, Loukmaan, 365 Adams, Tony, 212 Adamski, Krzysztof, 77 Adamson, Harold, 195 Adelaide Festival Centre, 222 Adler, Bruce, 31–32, 70–72 Adler, Richard, 146, 196, 254 Adnitt, Stephen, 366 Adrian, 129 Adrover, Lisandro, 283–84 Adventures in Motion Pictures, 325 Affonso, Argemira, 283 After You, Mr. Hyde, 272 Agress, David, 21, 47, 276 Agustin, Julio, 341 Ahmanson Theatre, 69, 187 Ahrens, Lynn, 25, 100, 182, 299, 301, 304 Ain’t Broadway Grand, 110–12 Airaldi, Remo, 168 Akaaboune, Soumaya, 329 Akerlind, Christopher (Chris), 196, 234 Alabama Shakespeare Theater Production, 356 Albertson, Keith, 149 Aldredge, Theoni V., 12, 26, 48, 54, 66, 78, 256–57 Aldredge, Tom, 157, 286

Aleichem, Sholem, 33 Alexander, Cris, 330 Alexander, Detlev, 325 Alexander, Karl, 238 Alfano, Franco, 140 Allen, Billie, 165 Allen, Crystal, 253 Allen, Jay Presson, 311 Allen, Lewis, 11 Allen, Mana, 196 Allen, Richard, 255 Allen, Sandra, 178 Allen, Steve, 133, 216 Allen, Woody, 216 Allers, Franz, 374 Allers, Roger, 296 Alley Theatre, 55 Allgood, Anne, 236, 361 Almy, Brooks, 10, 15 Alpert, Herb, 84 Altman, Richard, 34 Alto, Bobby, 99 Alvarez, Pilar, 117 Amato, Pasquale, 140 Ambler, Scott, 325 Ambroziak, Monika, 77 An American in Paris, 315 American Music Theatre Festival, 168, 350 American Repertory Theatre, 168 American Rhapsody, 322 Ames, Katherine, 68 Amos, Kevin, 353 Anania, Michael, 10, 17–18, 57–58, 89, 166, 176, 192, 218, 275, 315, 360 Anbri, Christiana, 256 Andalucia Productions, 97 Andersen, Hans Christian, 249 Anderson, Brad, 341 Anderson, Carl, 185, 187, 253 Anderson, Jack, 96 Anderson, Jacqueline, 325 Anderson, Kevin, 180 429

430      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Anderson, Leroy, 59, 178 Anderson, Stephen Lee, 327 Andreas, Christine, 143, 294–95 Andre Heller’s Wonderhouse, 61–62 Andres, Barbara, 120 Andrews, George Lee, 17–18, 57 Andrews, Julie, 5, 60, 127–28, 132, 143, 213–15, 377 Andrews, Maxene, 59 Andrews, Nancy, 331 Andrick, Virl, 127 Angela, June, 35–37 Angelescu, Jackie, 370 Angel in the Wings, 174 Angels of the Arts, 210 Anna Karenina, 92–93 Annie, 15, 255–59 Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge, 11–15, 258 Annie Get Your Gun, 347–50 Annie Warbucks, 14–15, 258–59 Ann-Margret, 113, 161, 221 Ansen, David, 69, 78 Anthony, Marc, 304 Anthony, Philip, 30 Apolinar, Danny, 254 The Apple Tree, 296 Appolonow, Andrew, 77 Aquilante, Dan, 308 Arcenas, Loy, 25, 313 Archer, Jeri, 330 Archer, Nicholas, 92, 110 Ard, Ken, 84, 187 Arden, Eve, 209 Arlen, Harold, 275, 315, 360 Armstrong, Louis, 150, 313–14 Arney, Randall, 108 Arnold, Michael, 197, 330, 386 Arnone, John, 112, 114, 160–64, 189, 247, 353, 381 Aronson, Billy, 231 Aronson, Boris, 33 Aronson, Frances, 86 Aronson, Luann, 94 Aronstein, Martin, 318, 336 Arouet, François-Marie, 272 Arrick, Larry, 64 Arsenault, Darlene, 149 Arthur, Maureen, 191 Arts at St. Ann’s, 350 Arts Communications, 322 Arts Communications Seoul Company, 287 Ascott, Mavis, 240, 324 Ash, Jeffrey, 103, 215, 336, 350 Ashenberg, Eric P., 24 Ashford, Rob, 337, 373 Ashley, Mary Ellen, 78, 353 Ashman, Howard, 154 Ashmanskas, Brooks, 259 Ashwell, Ariel, 246 Aspects of Love, 6–8 Aspel, Brad, 225 Asquith, Anthony, 141

Astaire, Fred, 383 As the Girls Go, 111 Aswad, Laura, 284 At Home Abroad, 382 Atkins, Joe, 115 Atkins, Norman, 31, 59 Atkinson, Brooks, 194, 274, 374 Atkinson, David, 349, 374 Atlanta’s Theatre of the Stars, 107 Attenborough, Richard, 136 Augins, Charles, 73 Aulino, Tom, 333 Avian, Bob, 44, 178, 362, 376 Axe, Martyn, 368 Azenberg, Emanuel, 31, 104, 289 Aznavour, Charles, 326–27 Aznavour on Broadway, 326–27 Babatunde, Obba, 86 Babenko, Mikhail, 1 Badham, John, 368 Badurek, Jacek, 77 Bagwell, Marsha, 361 Bailey, Adrian, 84, 187 Bailey, Kevin, 347 Bailey, Obie, 259 Bailey, Pearl, 209 Bailey, Todd, 259 Baizley, Doris, 318 Baker, David Aaron, 89, 249 Baker, Josephine, 354 Baker, Ron, 17, 57, 96, 132 Baldassari, Mike, 310 Baldoni, Gail, 176 Baldovi, Laureen, 383 Balkan, Glenda, 272 Ball, Michael, 6–7, 281 Ballagh, Robert, 217, 240, 289, 324 Ballard, John, 185 Ballard, Kaye, 132, 177, 330, 332 Balsam, Mark, 146 Bananal, 5 Band in Berlin, 350–51 The Band Wagon, 315, 383 Bankston, Gary, 185 Bantry, Bryan, 299 Baranski, Christine, 66–67 Baras, Sara, 98 Barath, Ritza B., 276 Barbara, Dorigi, 121 Barbarin, Lucien, 38 Barber, Jean, 58 Bardon, Henry, 132, 216 Barer, Marshall, 249 Barksdale Theatre, 165 Barlow, Roxane, 51, 367 Barna, Craig, 185, 336 Barnes, Clive, 4–6, 8–11, 24–25, 27–28, 31–32, 34, 37, 39–40, 42–43, 45, 50, 52–53, 62, 65, 67, 70, 72, 74–76, 78, 80, 83, 85, 87, 99, 101, 106, 109, 111, 113, 120,

INDEX     431 126, 129, 135–38, 140, 142–43, 145, 152, 156, 159, 161, 164, 174, 180, 191, 195, 202, 204–5, 212, 214, 221, 224, 226, 230, 233, 244, 254–55, 257, 261, 263– 64, 266, 273, 278, 281, 291, 294, 307, 310, 325, 328, 332, 334, 354, 380 Barnes, Deborah, 165 Barnes, Gregg, 132, 192, 216, 218, 275, 289, 315, 360 Barnett, Ron, 165 Barnum, 52 Baron, Christy, 196 Barre, Gabrielle, 92 Barreca, Christopher, 202, 378 Barrett, Brent, 241–42, 272, 375 Barrie, Barbara, 205 Barrie, James M., 39, 64, 336 Barrowman, John, 165, 376 Barry, Marion, 24 Barry, Philip, 312 Barry, Sarah, 324 Barry, Tara, 324 Barry Manilow’s Showstoppers, 60–61 Bart, Lionel, 272 Bart, Roger, 292, 346–47 Barton, Fred, 276 Barton, Steve, 144, 362 Barty, Billy, 61 Baruch, Steven, 42, 187, 283, 308, 383 Baruch-Frankel-Viertel Group, 292 Basescu, Elinor, 19 Bass, George Houston, 41 Bassinson, Kevin, 60 Basso, Dennis, 206 Bastine, Ronald Cadet, 165 Bateman, Bill, 39, 64, 207 Bates, Dearbhail, 324 Bates, Kathy, 258 Bates, Stephen, 370 Batho, Kristofer, 246 Batt, Bryan, 178, 368 Battle, Hinton, 44, 46, 61 Batwin and Robin Productions, Inc., 112, 189, 210, 227, 381 Baum, L. Frank, 107, 275, 315, 360 Bavan, Yolande, 202 Baxter, Rebecca, 216–17 Bay, Howard, 81 Bayes, Sammy Dallas, 33 BB Promotion, 383 Beal, Harrison, 154 Bean, Orson, 346 Bean, Reathel, 196 Beane, Douglas Carter, 134, 315 Beatty, John Lee, 42, 69, 242, 249–50, 327 Beaufort, John, 4, 7, 9, 27–28, 42–43, 45, 50, 52, 65, 69, 72, 74, 80, 83, 150, 243 Beaumont, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de, 154 Beautiful, 30 Beauty and the Beast, 154–56 Beckelman, Laurie, 227 Becker, Gerry, 108

Becker, Peter, 350 Beckler, Steven, 187 Beckwith-Smith, Susan, 50 Bedella, David, 185 Beechman, Laurie, 94, 135 Bee Gees, 368 Beg, Borrow or Steal, 187 Behar, Joy, 184 Behr, Edward, 46 Bell, David H., 10–11, 278 Bell, Mary Hayley, 280 Bell, Michel, 174, 356 Bellaver, Harry, 349 Belouov, Vladimir, 1 Belzer, Rick, 185 Benanti, Laura, 59, 237, 383 Bendul, Kristine, 383 Benjamin, Richard, 100 Benken, David, 296 Bennett, Keith Robert, 54, 78 Bennett, Linda, 177 Bennett, Lorie Aine, 229 Bennett, Matthew, 262 Bennett, Michael, 266 Benson, Peter, 220 Bensussen, Melia, 246 Bentley, Carol, 383 Benzinger, Suzy, 44, 110, 361, 368 Bergeson, Scott, 130 Bergman, Ingmar, 17, 57 Berinstein, Dori, 103, 215 Berkowsky, Paul B., 210 Berlin, Irving, 347 Berlind, Roger, 11, 75, 157, 166–67, 225, 265, 267, 372 Berlinger, Warren, 191 Berlingieri, Osvaldo, 371 Berman, Janice, 4 Bern, Mina, 31 Bernadaz, Marcelo, 117 Bernal, Barry K., 44 Bernhard, Sandra, 329 Bernstein, Anne L., 353 Bernstein, Dori, 336 Bernstein, Leonard, 176, 272–74, 332, 364 Bernstein, Steve, 181 Berresse, Michael, 197, 242, 358, 373 Berry, Ken, 251 Berry, Mary Sue, 129 Berry, Sarah Uriarte, 133 Besterman, Douglas, 55 Best Foot Forward, 48 The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, 159–62 Bettinson, Rob, 29 Bettis, John, 55 Between the Devil, 383 Bevel, “Mississippi” Charles, 356–57 Biagi, Michael, 102 Bienstock, Freddy, 123 Bierko, Craig, 205 Big, 229–31

432      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Biggs, Natalie, 324 Billig, Robert, 44 Billinger, Gord, 149 Billington, Ken, 12, 33, 77, 110, 144, 149, 201, 207, 242, 245, 256, 259, 261, 272, 321, 327 Binder, Jay, 308 Bingham, Vincent, 227 Binkley, Howell, 55, 119, 162, 164, 189, 247, 280–81, 313, 337, 362, 381 Binotto, Paul, 196 Birch, Patricia, 19, 92, 164, 272, 337, 339, 350, 384 Birkenhead, Susan, 292, 312 Bishoff, Joel, 3 Bishop, Andre, 88, 100, 150, 202, 246, 337, 378 Bixby, Jonathan, 107, 207, 299, 350 Bjornson, Maria, 6–8 Black, Don, 6, 178, 181 Black, Robin, 100 Blackwell, Harolyn, 272 Blades, Ruben, 304, 307 Blaine, Vivian, 76 Blair, Janet, 177 Blair, Meredith, 219 Blaisdell, Geoffrey, 138 Blake, Paul, 318–19 Blake, Richard H., 368 Blakely, Michelle, 162 Blakemore, Michael, 267, 372, 375 Blanchard, Steve, 127–29 Blanchet, Peter, 57 Blane, Sue, 252 Blankenbuehler, Andy, 341, 368 Blankenship, Paul, 361 Blazer, Judy, 10 Bleeke, Mark, 350 Blige, Mary K., 108 Blitzstein, Marc, 96 Block, Larry, 168, 176 Blondell, Joan, 111 Blood Brothers, 114–17 Blum, Joel, 171, 173, 265 Blumenkrantz, Jeff, 146 Blyden, Larry, 226 Blyth, Ann, 131 Bobbie, Walter, 75, 136, 242, 245, 327 Bobick, James, 241 Bock, Jerry, 33, 123 Boevers, Jessica, 225 Bogaev, Paul, 6, 94, 178 Bogardus, Stephen, 86, 88, 276, 313–14 Bogart, Paul, 375 Bogdanovich, Peter, 166 Bohmer, Ron, 295 Bojangles, 165–66 Bolger, David, 386 Bolton, Guy, 26, 53, 70 Bolton, John, 262 Bomurwil Productions, 355 Bonazzi, Elaine, 57

Bond, Julie, 134 Bonne, Shirley, 177 Bookman, Kirk, 193, 350 Boone, Debby, 3–4 Boone, Pat, 221 Boone, Sherry (D.), 84, 378, 380 Booth, Shirley, 313 Bootz, Erwin, 350 Booysen, Junaid, 365 Borkowska, Alicja, 77 Borovec, Zdenek, 264 Borquez, Carlos and Ines, 371 Bosco, Nancy, 92 Bosley, Tom, 154 Boston, Gretha, 171, 176, 357 Bostwick, Barry, 66–68 Bosworth, Jill, 3 Bottari, Michael, 220 Boublil, Alain, 43–44, 386 Boulevard!, 181 Bourne, Matthew, 325 Bova, Joe, 250–51 Bove, Mark, 268 Bowen, Cameron, 280 Bowie, Pat, 108 Bowman, Rob, 10 Boyd, Gregory, 55, 355 Boy George, 281 Boynton, Brad, 165 Bracken, Eddie, 209, 261 Brackett, Charles, 178 Bradley, Brian, 162 Bradley, Everett, 383 Brady, Patrick (S.), 292, 341 Brakett, Kevin, 60 Brando, Marlon, 76 Brantley, Ben, 135–36, 140, 153–54, 163, 188, 192, 196, 201, 212, 228, 233, 235, 237, 244, 247–50, 255, 257, 263, 267, 269, 271, 273, 278, 285, 287, 291, 293, 295– 96, 298, 303, 307–9, 311, 314, 325, 328, 331–32, 335–36, 340, 344, 346, 349, 354, 356, 359, 363, 366–67, 369, 374, 377, 380, 382, 385 Branton, Allen, 329 Brassard, Gail, 196 Bravo, Luis, 283 Braxton, Brenda, 84, 187 Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 296 Breedlove, Gina, 297 Breger, Peter, 146 Brennan, Eileen, 224 Brennan, Maureen, 318 Breuler, Robert, 108 Brian, Donald, 193 Briar, Suzanne, 6 Bricusse, Leslie, 140, 212, 214, 270 Bridge, Andrew, 6, 73, 134, 178, 341, 344, 368 Brigadoon, 62–64, 241–42 Briggs, Robert Terry Jates, Jr., 165 Briggs, Tom, 134, 219

INDEX     433 Brightman, Sarah, 8 Brill, Robert, 310 Bring in ‘da Noise Bring in ‘da Funk, 227–29 Brioni, 259 Broadhurst, Jeffrey, 381 Broadway Fund, 144 Broadway in Concert, Inc., 94 Brode, David B., 75 Broderick, Matthew, 189–92 Brogger, Ivar, 115 Brohn, William David, 304 Brotherston, Lez, 325 Brown, Ann, 308 Brown, Faith, 181 Brown, Jason Robert, 337, 340 Brown, Joe David, 166 Brown, Larry W., 352 Brown, Lesley, 149 Brown, Lewis, 41 Brown, Raquel C., 44 Brown, Ronnie, 149 Brown, William F., 107 Browne, Leslie, 144, 241 Browning, Susan, 282 Bruce, Karen, 368 Bruce, Vince, 51 Brueler, Robert, 150 Brustein, Robert, 168 Bryan, Dora, 195 Bryant, David, 171 Brydie, Andrew, 165 Brynner, Yul, 224 Bryson, Peabo, 295–96 Buchanan, Jack, 383 Buck, Else, 149 Buckley, Anne, 252 Buckley, Betty, 180, 292–93, 356 Buckley, Candy, 280 Buckley, Robert A., 92 Buckner, Clay, 103, 215, 336 Buddeke, Kate, 150 Buddy, 29–31 Buell, Bill, 112 Buffett, Jimmy, 278 Bugs Bunny on Broadway, 22–24 Bunn, David Alan, 352 Buntrock, Stephen R., 386 Burba, Blake, 231 Burbridge, Edward, 41 Burden, Martin, 54 Burdick, David, 64 Burge, Gregg, 26, 54 Burgess, Anthony, 140 Burgett, Sharon, 50 Burke, Brian, 345 Burke, Johnny, 209–12 Burkhardt, Gerry, 160 Burks, Jo Lynn, 29 Burnett, Carol, 250–51, 258, 376

Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 48 Burns, Bill, 341 Burns, Carolyn, 314 Burns, David, 226 Burns, George, 216, 269 Burns, Ralph, 311 Burrell, Terry, 210, 236 Burrell-Cleveland, Deborah, 78, 80 Burrows, Abe, 75, 189 Burstein, Danny, 236, 317 Burstyn, Mike, 110 Burton, Kate, 203 Burton, Richard, 127–28 Busby, Michelle, 149 Busey, Gary, 31 Busia, Akosua, 41 Buskers/Busker Alley, 197–99 Butler, Abbey, 222 Butler, Bill, 29 Butler, Jean, 217, 240, 324 Butterley, Roger, 272 Buttons, Red, 201 Buttons on Broadway, 201 Byers, Karen L., 12 Byrd, Debra, 60 Byrne, Rose, 258 Bywalski, Patrick, 368 C. Itoh & Co., Ltd., 33 Cabaret, 310–12 Caddick, David, 376, 386 Caddick, Pat, 216 Caesar, Sid, 164, 331 Caffey, Marion J., 299 Cahn, Sammy, 165, 318 Cain, Michael-Demby, 213 Calabrese, Maria, 51 Calamia, Mark, 341 Caldwell, Zoe, 207 Calhern, Louis, 131, 349 Calhoun, Jeff, 51, 102, 160, 162, 197–98, 247, 347 Callaway, Ann Hampton, 383, 385 Callaway, Liz, 44–46 Callner, Marty, 329 Calloway, Cab, 209 Calvert, Carter, 357 Camelot, 126–30 Cameron, James, 263 Cameron, Kay, 220 Campanella, Stephen, 381 Campbell, Alan, 178–79 Campbell, Catherine, 327 Campbell, Jackie, 357 Campbell, Patton, 81, 130 Campora, Giancarlo, 5 Canby, Vincent, 145–46, 154, 181, 191, 194–95, 203–4, 208, 214–16, 224, 226, 231, 269, 291, 293, 295, 303, 306, 309–10, 314, 332, 335, 340, 344, 346, 367, 374, 380, 382

434      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Candida, Andrea, 5 Candide, 272–75 Candlish, Forbes, 185 Cannavale, Bobby, 258 Cannold, Sammi Rose, 336 Cannon, Cedric D., 127 Canova, Diana, 203 Cantone, Mario, 362 The Capeman, 304–8 Capital Cities, 25, 157 Capone, Tony, 150 Capri, Dick, 64–65 Cardin, Pierre, 1–2 Careca, Ana, 95 Carlisle, Kevin, 60 Carlisle, Kitty, 374 Carmello, Carolee, 86, 295, 337, 340 Carmichael, Hoagy, 195 Carothers, A. J., 197 Carousel, 150–53 Carpani, Ricardo, 117–18 Carpenter, Earl, 181 Carpenter, John, 75, 236 Carpinello, James, 368–69 Carradine, Keith, 51, 53 Carroll, David-James, 135 Carroll, Diahann, 180 Carroll, Ronn, 189, 265, 347 Carson, Susan Dawn, 279 Carter, Caitlin, 383 Carter, Nell, 256–57 Carver, Brent, 119–21, 337, 340 Casale, Glenn, 336 Case, Allen, 250 Case, Ronald, 220 Casella, Martin, 166 Casella, Matt, 166 Casey, Peter, 287, 322 Casey, Warren, 162, 165, 247 Casnoff, Philip, 2, 35–37 Cason, Yvette, 253, 255 Cassidy, David, 116 Cassidy, Jack, 125 Cassidy, Shaun, 116 Castle, Joyce, 19, 62–63 Castree, Paul, 162, 368 Castro, Luis, 117, 283–84 A Catered Affair, 67 Cates, Marie, 166 Catskills on Broadway, 64–65 Caulfield, Maxwell, 164 Cavanagh, Barry, 337 Cavanagh, John, 241 Cecuona, Ernesto, 31 Cee, Joey, 64 Cella, Susan, 236, 362 Center Stage, 292 Center Theatre Group, 69, 187 Cerullo, Jonathan (Stuart), 92, 350

Cervantes, Miguel de, 81 Cerveris, Michael, 159, 262 Chadman, Christopher, 21, 75 Chadwick, Fiona, 325 Chakiris, George, 195 Chamara, Michal, 77 Chamberlain, Andrea, 330 Chamberlain, Richard, 141–42 Chamberlin, Kevin, 292 Champion, Gower, 207, 233 Chan, Eric, 35 Chaney, David, 270 A Change in the Heir, 10–11 Channing, Carol, 177, 194–95, 207–9 Channing, Stockard, 164 Chapa, Marina, 44 Chapman, John, 274 Chapman, Tracy Nicole, 297 Charisse, Cyd, 63 Charlap, Mark “Moose,” 39, 64, 336 Charles, David, 123, 126 Charles, Walter, 6, 89, 93, 182–83 Charles Kelman Productions, 292, 308 Charnin, Martin, 11, 14, 255–56 Charron, John, 336 Chase, Anthony, 350 Chase, David, 134, 289, 330 Chase, Ilka, 132 Chastain, Don, 337 Cheda, Pawel, 77 Cheng, Kam, 44 Chenoweth, Kristin, 91, 258, 265, 346–47 Cher, 60 Cherry, Donna, 60 Cherry, Dorothy and Wendell, 48 Chevalier, Maurice, 193 Chiang, Dawn, 17, 57, 117 Chiasson, Gilles, 355 Chicago, 48, 242–45 Chicas, Roy, 248 Chicorel, Ralph, 93 Chihara, Paul, 35, 36 Child, Bob, 165 Childs, Boris and Natasha, 181 Childs, Terri B., 256 Childs, Timothy, 256 Chiment, Marie Anne, 77 Chittick, Joyce, 310 Chmiel, Mark, 317 Chodorov, Jerome, 176 Choi, Hyung O, 287, 322 Choi, Joohee, 222 Choi, Mu Yeol, 287 Choi, Young Jae, 322 Chong, Rae Dawn, 54 Christen, Robert, 108 Christiansen, Richard, 235 A Christmas Carol, 182–84, 217, 245–46, 299, 337, 377–78

INDEX     435 Christopher, Don, 254 Christopher, Tony, 185 Christy, Eileen, 153 Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 202–3 Church, Joseph, 112, 234, 296 Ciccone, Sandra, 149 Ciesinski, Katherine, 97 Cilento, Wayne, 112, 114, 189, 259, 261, 314 Ciliento, Osvaldo, 117 Cinderella, 132–34, 216–17 Circle in the Square, 92 Cirker, Ira, 165 Cirne, Aderson, 5 Citarella, Joseph A., 96 Ciulla, A. C., 327 The Civil War, 355–56 Clapton, Eric, 113 Clark, Bobby, 111 Clark, Petula, 116, 180 Clark, Stephen, 386 Clark, Victoria, 75, 134, 136–38, 263, 296 Clarke, Bill, 370 Clarke, Hope, 84 Claussen, Diane, 196 Clavell, James, 35 Clay, Paul, 231 Claycomb, Laura, 131 Clayton, Jan, 153, 224 Clayton, Lawrence, 78 Cleale, Lewis, 210, 237, 249 Clemente, Dan, 345 Clemente, Francesco, 239 Clemmons, Dave, 296 Climan, Tamar, 256 Close, Glenn, 178–81, 199, 207 Clow, James, 115, 317–18 Coates, Edith, 274 Coburn, Charles, 195 Coca, Imogene, 250, 382 Cochius, Clemens, 272 Cochrane, Steve, 360 Coco, James, 331 Coconut Grove Playhouse, 278 Cohen, Alexander H., 184 Cohen, Darren R., 196 Cohen, Leo K., 26, 54 Cohen, Myron, 201 Cohen, Sharleen Cooper, 299 Cohenour, Patti, 308 Cohn, Nik, 368 Colaneri, Joseph, 19, 58, 62, 89, 96, 130, 132, 176, 192, 216, 218, 241 Colantuoni, Alberto, 132 Cole, Caren, 29, 31 Cole, Jack, 195 Cole, Stephen, 238 Coleman, Cy, 51, 53, 267–69, 329 Coleman, Robert, 274 Coles, Charles “Honi,” 102, 166

Colgan, Casey, 360 Coll, Ivonne, 202 Collins, Joan, 136 Collins, Laurel Lynn, 160 Collins, Pat, 166, 249 Collins, Phil, 185, 248 Collins, Stephen, 377 Colombo, Patti, 336–37 Colson, Kevin, 6–7, 312 Colt, Alvin, 184, 375 Columbia Artists Theatricals, Inc., 358 Comden, Betty, 39, 53, 64, 176–78, 195, 332, 336, 364 Comedian Harmonists, 317–18, 351 Comedy Tonight, 184–85 Comfort, Jane, 157 Company, 174, 203–6 Comstock, David, 17 Condon, Bill, 291–92 Conforti, Gino, 82 Conklin, John, 236 Connelly, David, 108 Connick, Harry, Jr., 37–38 Conolly, Patricia, 308 Constant, Marius, 140 Contemporary Productions, 329 Contracts International Ltd., 29 Cook, Barbara, 50, 61, 125, 153, 224 Cook, Victor Trent, 187, 299 Cooper, Adam, 325 Cooper, Chuck, 270, 280 Cooper, Helmar Augustus, 26, 54 Cooper, Max, 184 Cooper-Hecht, Gail, 31 Coote, Robert, 143 Coote, Victoria, 50 Coots, J. Fred, 166 Copacabana, 61 Copperfield, David, 248 Coppola, Francis Ford, 248 Cordon, Norman, 21 Cordova, Richard, 246 Corduner, Allan, 262 Corley, Nick, 356 Corliss, Richard, 189, 226 Cormack, Bartlett, 197 Corman, Roger, 19 Cornwell, Eric, 251, 325 Corre, Sadie, 61 Corry, John, 14 Cosby, Bill, 216 Cossette, Pierre, 51, 102, 294, 355 Costa, Mary, 274 Costabile, David, 262 Costa-Greenspon, Muriel, 130 Cotton, Joseph, 313 The Count of Monte Cristo, 55 Cousins, Guy Edward, 165 Cox, Catherine, 254, 327 Cox, Deborah, 272

436      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Cox, Veanne, 203–5 Craig, Milton, 25 Craven, Gemma, 125 Crawford, Cheryl, 97 Crawford, Jared, 227 Crawford, Lilla, 258 Crawford, Michael, 61, 94, 226 Crazy for You, 70–73, 322 Creighton, Georgia, 282 Creighton, Robert, 192, 218 Crigler, Lynn, 318 Criss, Darren, 192 Criswell, Kim, 76, 178 Crivello, Anthony, 119, 121, 378 Crocker, Stan, 385 Cronkite, Walter, 189 Crosby, B. J., 187 Crosby, Bing, 313 Crosby, Kathryn, 220–21 Crosse, Margaret, 324 Crossroads Theatre, 356 Crothers, Sam, 51, 267 Crouse, Russel, 3, 308 Crowley, Bob, 150–53, 304, 307, 376 Crowley, Morgan, 241, 289 Crowther, Bosley, 328 Cruikshank, Holly, 341 Crumb, Ann, 6–7, 92–93 Cruz, Nino, 95 CTM Productions, 336, 356 Cuccioli, Robert, 270–71, 362 Cuillo, Bob, 259 Cuillo, Nicole Michele, 259 Cukor, George, 313 Cullman, Joseph F. III, 285 Cullum, John, 8, 50, 272 Cumming, Alan, 258, 310, 312 Cummings, Claudia, 3, 21 Cummings, Lindsay, 167 Cunningham, John, 92, 140, 254, 262 Cunningham, Scott, 168 Cunningham, Tom, 253 Curless, John, 222, 308 Curley, Andrea, 324 Curry, Michael, 296, 298 Curry, Tim, 100–102, 183–84, 258 Curtis, Ann, 270 Cusack, Margaret, 19, 21 Cushing, James and Maureen O’Sullivan, 86 Cycowski, Roman, 350 Cypher, Jon, 132, 229–30 Cyrano, 138–41 Cyrano de Bergerac, 55 Czajka, Mariusz, 77 Dale, Jim, 184, 199, 272 Daley, Cass, 261 Dalgleish, Trudy, 344 Dallas, Lorna, 93

Daltry, Roger, 113, 337 Daly, John J., 173 d’Amboise, Christopher, 314, 334 Dame Edna: The Royal Tour, 366–68 Damian, Michael, 134, 136 Damn Yankees, 146–49, 235 Damon, Stuart, 132 Dancing in the Dark, 315 Dane, Clemence, 197 Dangerous Games, 202, 284 Daniecki, John, 96 Daniele, Graciela, 25, 104, 202, 284, 301, 347, 378, 380 Danieley, Jason, 272 Daniels, Billy, 209 Daniels, Danny, 12, 14 Daniels, David, 296 Daniels, Robert L., 167, 197 Daniels, Salie, 366 Daniels, Sharon, 59 Daniels, William, 287 Danner, Blythe, 287 Danny Gans (The Man of Many Voices) on Broadway, 216 Darin, Bobby, 221 Darion, Joe, 81 Darnutzer, Don, 357 Darrah, James, 207 Da Silva, Howard, 286–87 Daugherty, George, 23 Davenport, Pembroke, 374 David, Clifford, 134 David, Keith, 84, 86 David, Strong, Warner, Inc., 112 Davidson, Gordon, 187, 376 Davidson, Ian, 366 Davidson, John, 220–21 David Strong Warner, Inc., 75, 84 Davies, Dennis Russell, 239 Davies, Howard, 141 Davis, Ann B., 250 Davis, Bette, 97 Davis, Bill C., 196–97 Davis, Christopher F., 333 Davis, Inaya Jafan, 107 Davis, Jeff, 10, 89, 96, 132, 176, 216, 253 Davis, Kery, 253 Davis, Lindsay W., 17, 57, 89 Davis, Mac, 53 Davis, Mary Bond, 378 Davis, Michael, 184 Davis, Michael Rees, 17, 130–31 Davis, Paul, 345 Davis, Sammy, Jr., 216 Dawn, Isabel, 267 Dawson, Gregory, 136 Day, Bobby, 163–64 Day, Connie, 10 Daye, Bobby, 107 D’Beck, Patti, 347 Dean, Roger, 259

INDEX     437 Dearing, Judy, 210 Decker, Todd, 175 Dee, Kiki, 116 Deep River, 80 Deering, Judy, 25 Deffaa, Chip, 38 de Gaw, Boyce, 267 de Guzman, Josie, 68, 75–76 de Haas, Darius, 358 de la Pena, George, 144–46, 202–3 de Lappe, Gemze, 241, 318 de la Renta, Oscar, 210 DeLaria, Lea, 334–35 Del Corso, Geralyn, 383 De Levita, Robin, 138, 212 de Los Reyes, Imelda, 44 Del Rossi, Angelo, 166 Delsener, Ron, 21 del Solar, Alberto, 117 DeLuca, John, 381 DeLucia, Natalie, 166–67 de Marivaux, Pierre, 292 De Mille, Agnes, 62, 151, 194, 241 Demoz, Leelai, 108 de Munk, Danny, 55 Dench, Judi, 312 Dennen, Barry, 186–87, 312 Dennis, Carol, 299 Dennis, Patrick, 329 Dennis, Phillip, 60 Denniston, Leslie, 318 Dentsu Inc., 84 dePass, Paul, 64 de Pena, Valerie, 81 Derricks-Carroll, Clinton, 255 Deshe, A., 33 De Shields, Andre, 107, 253 Desilu Productions, Inc., 60 DeSylva, B. G. (Buddy), 174 Deutsch, Kurt, 234 De Vert, Ivana, 61 DeVito, Christine, 207 DeVries, Michael, 48, 208 De Wolfe, Billy, 191 DG Productions, 371 Diaz, Cameron, 258 Diaz, Carlos, 283 Diaz, Natascia, 308 DiChiera, David, 140 Dickens, Charles, 182, 217, 245, 299 Dickson, Barbara, 116 Diener, Joan, 82 Dietrich, Bill E., 270 Dietrich, Elizabeth, 216 Dietrich, Marlene, 317, 353–55 Dietz, Howard, 382 DiFalco, Diego, 283 Diggs, Elizabeth, 361 Diggs, Taye, 150, 231

Dillard-Rosen, Sandra, 357 Diller, Phyllis, 209 Dillon, Denny, 294 Dilly, Erin, 386 Dime Savings Bank, 360 Dirksen, Everett, 254 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, 67 Disch, Thomas M., 135 Diveny, Mary, 353 Dixon, Ed, 138, 362 Dixon, Jerry, 25, 73 Djaoui, Andre, 276 DLT Entertainment, 350 Doane, Melanie, 29 Dobie, Edgar, 304 Dockery, Leslie, 352 Doctorow, E. L., 301 Dodd, Judy, 33 Dodge, Marcia Milgrom, 196 Dodger Endemol Theatricals, 251, 261, 285, 312, 325, 327 Dodger Management Group, 249, 261, 285, 327 Dodger Productions, 48, 75, 112, 182, 189, 222, 225, 249 Doherty, Moya, 217, 240, 289, 324 Do It Again!, 322 Dokuchitz, Jonathan, 112, 203, 259 Dolan, Judith, 272, 275, 337 Domingo, Placido, 140, 143 Donald, Donald K., 117 Dondlinger, Mary Jo, 92 Donen, Stanley, 144–45 Donnellan, Sean, 241 Donnelly, Dorothy, 130 Donnelly, Tom, 274 Donnybrook!, 282 Donoghue, Tom, 94 Don’t Knock the Rock, 328 Don’t Stop the Carnival, 278–79 Dore, Katharine, 325 Dorgan, Theo, 217, 240, 289, 324 Dorian, Bob, 315 Dorsey, Jimmy, 261 dos Reyes, Ana Paula, 95 Dougherty, Joseph, 100 Douglas, Kirk, 272 Douglass, Stephen, 153 Dracula, 55 Drake, Alfred, 272, 374 Drake, Donna, 275, 315, 360 Dream, 259–61 Dreams & Nightmares, 248–49 Dreamworks Records, 304 Driver, Don, 133 Driver, Donald, 254 Driver, John, 35, 37 The Drunkard, 61 Duart, Louise, 65 Dubrow, Marsha, 350 Du Clos, Danielle, 6 Du Clos, Deanna, 6

438      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Duff-Griffin, William, 159 Duffy, Martha, 228 Duffy-Messenger, Marie, 252 Dugan, Gloria, 362 Dugen, Shaun, 285 Dumakude, Thuli, 284 du Maurier, Daphne, 55 du Maurier, George, 55 Dunaway, Faye, 180 Duncan, Sandy, 40 Duncan-Gibbs, Mamie, 47, 84, 242 Dundish, Roxanne, 47 Dundish, Sherry, 47 Dunham, Clarke, 272 Dunmire, Donna, 378 Dunn, Colleen, 51, 256–57 Dunn, Sally Mae, 160 Dunne, Colin, 217, 240–41, 289, 324 Dunne, Irene, 175 Dunning, Jennifer, 6, 98, 252, 284, 345 DuPre, Lynette G., 9 Dupuy, Diane Lynn, 149 Duquesnay, Ann, 227, 229 Duquette, Tony, 129 Duran, Marcela, 283 Durang, Christopher, 167, 377 Durfee, Duke, 138 Dvorkin, Judith, 140 Dvorsky, George, 62, 132–33, 193, 236 Dwyer, Terrence, 234, 317 Dyer, George, 242 Eagan, Daisy, 48, 50 Easter Parade, 315 Easton, Myles, 143 Easton, Sheena, 81, 83 Ebb, Fred, 47, 119–21, 242–43, 265, 310–12, 362, 381 Eberhard, Leslie, 272 Eberly, Bob, 261 Ebersole, Christine, 167 Eccles, Noel, 240, 289 Eckart, William, 318–19 Eckert, Thor, Jr., 101 Eckstein, Paul S., 41 Edelman, Gregg, 76, 92, 138, 157, 312 Edens, Roger, 335 Eder, Linda, 55, 271, 295–96, 356 Edge, Tony, 368 Edgerton, Jeff, 337 Edgerton, Sandy, 279 Edwards, Andy, 368 Edwards, Blake, 212, 214 Edwards, Dex, 278 Edwards, Naz, 92 Edwards, Sherman, 285 Edwards-Adams Theatrical, Inc., 212 Egan, Helen, 252 Egan, Jered, 321 Egan, Susan, 154, 292 Eich, Stephen, 108, 304

Eichorn, Nancy, 253 Einstein, Albert, 317 Eisenhauer, Peggy, 64, 102, 160, 182, 213, 227, 229, 299, 301, 310, 358–59, 378 el Clavero, Paco, 98 Elder, David, 262 Electric Factory, 356 Elias, Rosalind, 97 Elliman, Yvonne, 186–87 Ellington, Duke, 255 Ellington, Mercedes, 253 Elliott, Jane, 150–51 Elliott, Marianna, 253, 255 Elliott, Paul, 29, 365 Elliott, Susan, 2 Ellis, Robin, 125 Ellis, Rosalind, 96 Ellis, Scott, 17–18, 57, 89, 123, 126, 203–4, 265, 285 Ellkins, Doug, 341 Elmore, Stephen, 205 el Pipa, Antonio, 98 Emerson, Ida, 173 Emerson, John, 193 Emick, Jarrod, 146, 148–49 Emmons, Beverly, 78, 157, 202, 270, 347 Emond, Linda, 286, 362, 364 Endemol Theatre Productions, Inc., 212 English, Cory, 225 English, Drake, 336 Entwistle, John, 112 Epperson, John, 134 Epps, Sheldon, 253, 255 Erardy, Raphael, 216 Ernotte, Andre, 361 Ernst, Phil, 371 Errico, Melissa, 92, 141–42, 313–15 Erskine, Julian, 240, 289, 324 Erstein, Hap, 14, 37 Erte, 61 Eskew, Doug, 9, 73 Estevao, Eliana, 95 Estrin, Melvyn J., 222 Ettinger, Heidi, 292–93, 308–9 Euripedes, 378 Eva, Vari, 121 Evan, Robert, 270 Evans, Albert, 218 Evans, David, 378 Evans, Greg, 83, 244, 247–48, 250, 255, 257, 264, 266, 269, 271, 291, 294, 298, 300, 303, 307, 310 Evans, Nicholas, 78 Evans, Timothy Leigh, 350 Evans, Warwick, 115 Eve, Trevor, 314 An Evening with Harry Connick Jr. and His Orchestra, 37–38 An Evening with Jerry Herman, 321–22 Everett, Sonny, 220 Everhart, Rex, 287 Everly, Jack, 104, 207

INDEX     439 Evers, Brian, 234 Evett, Benjamin, 168 Eyre, Richard, 314 Fabray, Nanette, 383 Fabregas, Manolo, 224 Fagan, Garth, 296 Fahy, Gerard, 253 Faison, George, 107 Falabella, John, 37, 117 Falk, Willy, 44, 94 Falsettoland, 87–88 Falsettos, 86–88 Famous People Players, 149 Fancy Free, 333 FAO Schwartz/Fifth Avenue, 229 Farber, Donald C., 77 Farber, Jim, 114, 308 Farrell, Kevin, 39 Farrell, Tom Riis, 286 Faust, 234–36 Fay, Tom, 26, 54 Faye, Alice, 221 Faye, Denise, 210, 242 Fazan, Eleanor, 138 Feagan, Leslie, 75 Featherston, Drew, 3 Featherstone, John, 216 Feingold, Michael, 106, 109, 120, 126, 143, 145, 148, 152, 159, 161, 163, 195, 202–4, 208, 212, 214, 224, 244, 247 Feinstein, Michael, 21–22 Feld, Kenneth, 103, 215, 229 Felder, Raoul Lionel, Esq., 385 Feldman, Jack, 60–61 Feldman, Susan, 350 Fenholt, Jeff, 187 Fennelly, Bill, 358 Fenton, Frank, 313 Ferber, Edna, 171 Ferguson, Jesse Tyler, 333 Ferland, Danielle, 17, 57 Ferrall, Gina, 308 Ferrer, José, 140 Ferrier, Robert, 19 Fiddler on the Roof, 33–34 Fields, Dorothy, 166, 347 Fields, Herbert, 347 Fields, Joseph, 176, 193 Fifth Avenue Productions, 11 Finck, David, 21 Findley, Danielle, 12, 14 Fine, Wesley, 248 Finian’s Rainbow, 375 Finkel, Barry, 289, 313 Finkel, Ian, 21 Finn, Tim, 344 Finn, William, 86–88 Finneran, Kate, 258 Finney, Albert, 258 Finney, Jack, 236, 238

Fiorito, John, 58–59 Fischer, Martin, 21 Fish, Stephen D., 64 Fisher, Jules, 51, 53, 66, 84, 100, 102, 160, 182, 202, 213, 227, 229, 299, 301, 378 Fisher, Paula Heil, 146 Fisher, Rick, 325 Fisher, Rob, 216, 242 Fitch, Bob, 199, 235 Fitch, Robert, 112 Fitzgerald, Kathy, 210 Fitzhugh, Ellen, 167 Fitzpatrick, Allen, 193, 280 Five Guys Named Moe, 73–74 Flagg, Tom, 160 Flaherty, Stephen, 25, 100–101, 301, 304 Flamenco puro, 284 Flaningam, Louisa, 62 Flatley, Michael, 217, 240, 252–53, 324 Flatt, Ernest, 196, 374 Flavin, Tim, 76 The Fleet’s In, 261 Fleming, Eugene, 78, 210, 299, 341 Fleming, Juanita, 165 Fleming, Victor, 275, 315, 360 Fletcher, Robert, 318 Fletcher, Susann, 104 Flora, the Red Menace, 48 Flying Colors, 382 The Flying Karamazov Brothers: Sharps, Flats and Accidentals, 340–41 The Flying Karamazov Brothers Do the Impossible!, 181–82 Flynn, Bernadette, 252 Flynn, Tom, 189 Fontaine, Luther, 165 Fontana, Franco, 5, 95 Fontanne, Lynn, 374 Fontano, Santino, 134 Fool Moon, 103–4, 215–16, 335–36 Footloose, 327–28 Forbes, Bryan, 280 Ford, Clebert, 41 Ford, Paul, 251, 326 Forever Tango, 283–84 Forlow, Ted, 81 Foronda, Joseph, 35 Forstmann, Ted, 294 Forsyth, Bruce, 332 Forsythe, Henderson, 89 44 Productions, 64 Fosse, 341–44 Fosse, Bob, 178, 242–44, 311, 341–44, 374 Fournie, Ray, 318 Four Saints in Three Acts, 239–40 Fowler, Beth, 154 Fowler, Robert, 102 Fowler, Scott, 62–63, 383 Fox, Kevin, 29 Fox, Rick, 115

440      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Fox Theatricals, 270, 345 Foxx, Jamie, 258 Foy, Kenneth, 26, 54, 256–57, 321, 366 Fraboni, Angelo, 213, 259 Frame, David, 325 Francis, Gayle, 350 Francis, Stacy, 299 Francois, Ryan, 383 Frank, Chris, 103, 215, 336 Frank, Leo, 338–40 Frankel, Jerry, 270, 345, 358 Frankel, Richard, 42, 187, 283, 308, 365, 383 Frankel, Scott, 86 Frankel-Viertel-Baruch Group, 146 Franklin, Nancy, 161, 164, 174, 264, 267, 269, 271, 291, 294, 306–7, 334 Franz, Robert, 219 Fraser, Denise, 329 Fraser, Ian, 213 Fraser, Ronald, 314 Fratantoni, Diane, 123 Frazier, Michael, 99 Freedman, Gerald, 62 Freedman, Robert L., 134 Freeman, Cheryl, 253, 356 Freeman, Jonathan, 123, 126, 189 Freeman, K. Todd, 108 Freeman, Yvette, 364 Frenchmen Productions, Inc., 352 Freschi, Bob, 69 Freydberg, James B., 103, 215, 229, 336 Friedman, Maria, 136, 312 Friedman, Peter, 301 Friedson, Adam, 356, 366 Friedson, David, 356, 366 Friends and Enemies of Modern Music, 240 Frierson(-Toney), Andrea, 25, 246, 378 Frost, John, 222 Frost, Sue, 69, 193 Ftizhugh, Ellen, 166 Fuji Television Network, Inc., 229 Fuller, David, 57 Fuller, Dean, 249 Funke, Lewis, 296 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 225–27 Furst, Tim, 341 Furth, George, 203, 206 Futral, Elizabeth, 96–97, 192 Gailus, Robert, 312 Gaines, Boyd, 123, 126, 203–4 Gaines, Reg E., 227–28 Gaines, Sonny Jim, 41 Gaithers, Lita, 356 Gajda, Lisa, 341 Galati, Frank, 301 Gale, Andy, 289 Gale, Gregory, 350

Galindo, Ramon, 69 Gallagher, Dick, 206 Gallagher, Helen, 76 Gallagher, Peter, 75–76 Gallis, Paul, 138 Gallo, David, 330, 345 Gallo, Paul, 70, 75, 225, 229, 261, 292, 308, 333, 355 Galluccio, Laurie, 55 Galupo, Scott, 232 Galvez, Lorenzo, 98 Gamble, Paul, 362 Gans, Danny, 216 Gans, Julie, 216 Garber, Victor, 133, 146, 148, 258, 331 Garcia Marquez, Gabriel, 202 Gardella, Veronica, 117 Gardiner, John Eliot, 193 Gardner, Kerry, 296 Garfield, Matt, 219 Gari, Angela, 101 Garland, Judy, 125, 349, 382 Garner, James, 213 Garner, Jay, 207 Garrett, Betty, 178, 335 Garrick, Kathy, 166 Garrison, David, 234, 263, 347, 362, 364 Gasman, Ira, 267, 269 Gatchell, R. Tyler, Jr., 11, 94 Gatchell and Neufeld, Ltd., 94 Gates, Anita, 288, 323, 341 Gatlin, Larry, 53 Gaughan, Jack, 278 Gaughan, John, 154 Gavito, Carlos, 283 Gay New Orleans, 111 Geenen, Anne, 341 Gelb, Jody, 112 Gelbart, Larry, 225, 227 Gelber, Stanley Jay, 254 Gemignani, Paul, 17, 57, 62, 70, 89, 157, 182, 229, 313, 373 Gems, Pam, 353–54 Gennaro, Liza, 69, 249 Gennaro, Peter, 14, 256–57 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 193–96 Gentry, Derek, 196 George Gershwin Alone, 322 George Street Playhouse, 196 Gerard, Jeremy, 15, 68, 80, 85, 88, 92, 99–101, 104, 106, 109, 111, 113–14, 116, 120, 129, 135–37, 140, 143, 145, 148, 152, 156, 159, 162, 174, 180, 184, 188, 190, 195, 198, 202, 204–5, 208, 214, 222, 226, 228, 231, 233, 235 Gere, Richard, 164, 245 Gershwin, George, 26–28, 54, 70, 321–22, 358–59 Gershwin, Ira, 26, 53, 70, 358–59 The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm, 358–59 Gerstacker, Friedrich, 64 Gersten, Bernard, 41, 100, 150, 202, 246, 337, 378 Gerut, Rosalie, 168

INDEX     441 Gesner, Clark, 345–46 Geyer, Steve, 248 Ghelfi, Chris, 358 Giaimo, Michael, 23 Gibb brothers, 368 Gibbs, Ron, 360 Gibbs, Sheila, 25 Gibson, Melissa, 345 Gifford, Jack, 250 Gifford, Kathie Lee, 376 Gigi, 315 Gilbert, W. S., 403 Gilbert, Willie, 189 Gilford, Jack, 226, 251 Gilford/Freeley, 350 Gillett, Eric Michael, 373 Gimon, Eleanor, 210 Girl Crazy, 71 Gitanos de Jeres, 97 Gladstone, Valerie, 252 Glaser, Thomas, 187 Glazer, Benjamin F., 150 Gleason, Joanna, 66–68 Gleason, Robert Earl, 318 Glenn, John, 165 Glick, Mari, 383 Glockner, Eleanor, 75 Glover, Savion, 84, 227–29 Gluck, Will, 258 Glushak, Joanna, 58–59 Gnojewski, Stephen, 248 Gochman, Len, 191 Godwin, Richard, 70, 372 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 234 Goff, Charles, 144, 220 Goldberg, Steven, 23 The Golden Land, 32–33 Goldenthal, Elliot, 246–47 Goldilocks, 60, 174 Goldin, Ricky Paull, 162 Goldsmith, Harvey, 252 Goldsmith, Herb, 256, 353 Goldsmith, Vladimir, 181 Goldstein, Corey, 210 Goldstein, Jess, 69 Goldstein, Steven, 317 Gong, Michael Gregory, 268 The Goodbye Girl, 104–6 Goodchild, Tim, 73 Goodman, Dody, 195, 250 Goodman, Henry, 245 Goodspeed Opera House, 69, 193, 361 Gorbea, Carlos, 97 Gordon, Allan S., 231 Gordon, David, 168 Gordon, John, 345 Gordon, Judy, 78 Gordon, Valerie, 70 Gorham, George H., 10

Gottfried, Martin, 243, 254, 286 Gottschall, Ruth, 47, 166 Gould, Elliott, 251, 334 Gould, Peter David, 178 Goulet, Robert, 127–29, 153, 375 Gounod, Charles, 234 Gourlay, Eileen, 332 Goz, Harry, 120 Goz, Michael, 276 Graae, Jason, 136, 138 Grable, Betty, 209 Graeber, Laurel, 371 Graham, Ronny, 12, 14 Graham, Stephen, 11 Grammer, Kelsey, 183 A Grand Night for Singing, 136–38 Granger, Farley, 224 Grant, Cary, 313 Grant, Micki, 166 Grant, Sean, 236 Graphenreed, Timothy, 107 Graveson, Jan, 115 Gravitte, Debbie Shapiro, 110 Gray, Harold, 11, 256 Gray, Kevin, 120 Gray, Lawrence, 28 Grayson, Kathryn, 175, 374 Grease, 162–65, 247–48 Great Day, 80 Green, Adolph, 39, 51, 53, 64, 176–78, 195, 332, 336, 364 Green, Amanda, 40, 176–77 Green, Martyn, 274 Green, Mary-Pat, 12 Green, Paul, 219 Greenberg, Beth, 96, 130 Greenberg, Mitchell, 110 Greenblatt, Kenneth D., 64, 229 Greenblatt, Sandra, 64 Greene, Leon, 226 Greene, Milton, 33 Greenwood, Jane, 123, 126, 157, 249–50, 294, 313 Greenwood, Michael, 196 Gregory, Don, 201 Greif, Michael, 231, 234–35, 317 Grenfell, Katy, 268 Grey, Brad, 304 Grey, Joel, 242, 311 Grier, David Alan, 108 Grigsby, Kimberly, 345 Grilikhes, Michel M., 276 Grimaldi, Dennis, 78 Grimaldi, John, 352 Grinbank, Daniel, 371 Grody, Donald, 270 Groenendaal, Cris, 157, 225 Groener, Harry, 70 Gross, Shelly, 126 Grosser, Maurice, 239 Grossman, Larry, 166, 347

442      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Grove, Jessica, 199, 275, 315, 360 Grove, Jill, 239 Grover, Mary, 153 Gruber, Michael, 275 Guare, John, 373 Guarnera, Michael, 185 Guerre, Martin, 386–88 Guess, Alvaleta, 210 Guittard, Laurence, 3 Gunas, Gary, 112, 270, 355 Gunderman, David, 10 Gunn, Nathan, 129 Gunther, Mizzi, 192 Gurney, A. R., 68 Gussow, Mel, 24, 34, 39, 43, 62, 65, 80, 83, 92–93, 99, 111, 128 Guthrie Theatre, 386 Gutierrez, Gerald, 69, 249–50 Guy, Rosa, 25 Guys and Dolls, 67, 74–77 Guzman, Suzanna, 239 Gwenn, Edmund, 131 Gypsy Passion, 97–98 Habbema, Eddy, 138 Haber, Bill, 285, 294, 312 Haberman, Linda, 75 Hackady, Hal, 347 Hadjidakis, Manos, 31 Haefner, Susan, 220 Haft, Simone Genatt, 308 Haimes, 203 Haimes, Todd, 123, 136, 285, 310, 329 Hale, Alan, 28 Haley, Jack, Jr., 381 Hall, Alice Tully, 341 Hall, Carl, 9, 108 Hall, Carol, 160–61, 166 Hall, Frantz, 26, 102 Hall, Leonard, 173 Hall, Phil, 272 Hall, Thomas, 146, 253 Hall, Willis, 280 Halley, Sharon, 132, 192, 216, 218 Hallmark (Entertainment), 285, 294, 308 Halmi, Robert, Jr., 285, 308 Hamilton, Lawrence, 253 Hamlisch, Marvin, 104, 106 Hammerstein, James, 3, 219 Hammerstein, Oscar II, 3, 132, 136, 150, 171, 216–17, 219, 221–22, 308 Hammett, Dashiell, 66 Hammond, Blake, 333 Hammond, Thomas W., 165 Hampshire, Susan, 272 Hampton, Christopher, 178, 181 Hanan, Stephen, 39–40 Handler, Henry, 385 Hankinson, Jeffrey, 330

Hankyu, 383 Hannah, Ned, 330 Hanson, Trip, 102 Happy New Year, 314 Harburg, E. Y., 275, 315, 360 Harcourt, Thierry, 353 Hardiman, Ronan, 252 Hardy, Edward, 387 Hardy, Mark, 94 Harmony, 61, 316–18 Harnick, Sheldon, 33, 123, 138 Harrell, Gordon Lowry, 267 Harrington, Bob, 22 Harrington, Nancy, 103, 215, 336 Harrington, Wendall K., 64, 112, 182, 203, 236, 265, 280– 81, 301, 304, 355, 376 Harris, Charles K., 173 Harris, Dede, 383 Harris, Holly, 374 Harris, Jeff, 58 Harris, Joseph, 35 Harris, Neil Patrick, 205 Harris, Niki, 160 Harris, Paul, 281 Harris, Richard, 48, 129 Harris, Sam, 162, 268–69 Harris, Scott, 110 Harrison, Greogry, 167, 265, 267 Harrison, Howard, 365, 376, 386 Harrison, Rex, 143 Hart, Anne, 195 Hart, Charles, 6 Hart, Joe, 160 Hart, Lorenz, 193 Hart, Melissa, 296 Hart, Moss, 127–28 Hartley, Jan, 330 Hart Sharp Entertainment, 242 Hartung, Billy, 289, 381 Harvey, Jay, 99 Harvey, Laurence, 129 Hasselhoff, David, 271 Hastings, John, 206 Hately, Linzi, 50 Hathaway, Donny, 185 Hausam, Wiley, 227, 332–33 Havoc, June, 267 Hawkins, Ira, 165 Hawkins, Tim, 182, 275, 315, 327 Hawks, Howard, 195 Hayden, Michael, 150–52 Hayden, Sophie, 69–70 Hayes, Bill, 251 Hayes, David, 217 Hayes, Michael, 131, 192–93, 218–19 Headley, Heather, 297 Heard, Erika L., 108 Hearn, George, 178–79, 181, 376 Heaston, Nicole, 239

INDEX     443 Heath, Bruce, 78 Hector, Terry, 365 Heeley, Desmond, 62, 241 Heflin, Van, 313 Heggins, Amy, 259 Heinfling, Martin, 11 Heller, Andre, 61–62 Heller, Marc, 236 Hellman, Lillian, 96, 274 Hello, Dolly!, 207–9 Helm, Tom, 236 Hemsley, Gilbert V., Jr., 19, 130 Henderson, Luther, 255 Henderson, Mary C., 278 Hendrick, JaRod Lorenzo-Booker, 165 Hendricks, Leslie Ann, 361 Henley, Don, 236 Henning, Joel, 235 Henry, Ida, 70 Henry, William A. III, 27, 31, 36, 45–46, 50, 67, 72, 74, 76, 85, 93, 105, 114, 126, 129, 142–43, 148, 152, 155, 158 Henshall, Ruthie, 72, 245, 376 Hensley, Shuler, 59, 364 Hepburn, Audrey, 143 Hepburn, Katharine, 313 Herb, Gary, 212 Herbert, Victor, 140 Herbert (Herb) Goldsmith Productions, 181, 210, 353 Herbst, Jeffrey, 10 Heredia, Wilson Jermaine, 231, 233–34 Hermalyn, Joy, 138 Herman, Jerry, 207, 321–22 Hernandez, Oscar, 304, 308 Hernandez, Philip, 119 Hernandez, Riccardo, 227, 337, 339 Herrera, John, 35, 286, 386 Herrick, Jack, 103, 215, 336 Herrmann, Edward, 258 Hersey, David, 44 Herz, Juraj, 264 Hess, Rodger, 84, 256, 285 Hester, Hal, 254 Hewes, Henry, 224 Hewett, Christopher, 254 Hewitt, Frankie, 9 Heyer, Thom, 176 Hibbard, David, 249 Hibbert, Edward, 353 Hickok, John, 337 Higgins, Joel, 254, 318 The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club, 78–81 High Society, 312–15 Hilferty, Susan, 189, 341 Hill, Bette Cerf, 108 Hill, Dule, 227 Hill, Erin, 310 Hiller, Arthur, 82 Hilley, Ron, 130, 242 Hillner, John, 203

Hilty, Megan, 196 Hinckley, David, 38 Hines, Gregory, 84–86, 166, 198 Hingle, Pat, 285 Hinnant, Bill, 347 Hipp, Paul, 29–31 Hirsch, Gregory Allen, 81 Hirschfeld, Abe, 219 Hirschfeld, Al, 143 Hitchcock, Alfred, 55 Hitz, Alex, 292 Hobson, Valerie, 224 Hodd, Daniel (James), 246, 276 Hodgins, Paul, 235 Hoffman, Philip, 55, 294 Hofsiss, Jack, 130 Hohner, Mildred, 19 Holden, Stephen, 2–3, 6, 9, 11, 22, 38, 48, 60–61, 95, 108, 137–38, 181–82, 184, 186, 207, 291, 326–27 Holden, William, 261 Holder, Donald (Don), 60, 246, 296, 298 Holder, Geoffrey, 258 Holgate, Ron, 347 Holiday, 314 Holland, Bernard, 131 Holliday, David, 81, 254 Holliday, Jennifer, 269 Hollis, Tommy, 301 Holloway, Julian, 142 Holloway, Stanley, 143, 272 Holly, Buddy, 29–31 Holm, Celeste, 132, 313 Holm, Hanya, 374 Holmes, Rupert, 254 Holmes, Scott, 160–61 Holt, Paul, 329 Holt, Will, 50, 254 Honeyman, Janice, 284 Hopkins, Ryan, 222 Horchow, Roger, 70, 372 Horne, Lena, 108, 175 Horowitz, Lawrence, 356 Horton, Edward Everett, 250 Horton, John, 373 Horwitt, Arnold B., 178 Hotopp, Michael (J.), 47, 64 Hoty, Dee, 160, 327 Hould-Ward, Ann, 86, 154, 156, 259, 330 Houston, Whitney, 133 Howard, Joseph E., 173 Howard, Ken, 287 Howard, Kisha, 313 Howard, Leslie, 141, 295 Howard, Mel, 61, 117 Howard, Noel, 73 Howard, Peter, 12, 184 Howard, Sidney, 58, 69 Howerd, Frankie, 226 Howes, Sally Ann, 17–18, 57, 132, 216, 224

444      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Howland, Beth, 205 Howland, Jason, 270 How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, 189–92 Hoyle, Geoff, 297 Hoyt, Lon, 299 Hsu, Emily, 289 Huard, Jeffrey, 119, 171 Huber, Phillip, 197 Hudson, Richard, 296, 298 Huffman, Cady, 51, 364 Hughes, Allen Lee, 25, 41 Hughes, Dickson, 181 Hughes, Langston, 19, 41, 352 Hummel, Mark, 75 Humphries, Barry, 21, 24, 366–68 Hune, Michael, 234 Hunt, Peter, 287, 294 Hunter, JoAnn M., 44 Hunter, Laurie Anne, 96 Hunter, Tab, 164 Hunter, Tim, 275, 315, 358 Hunter, Timothy, 187, 361 Hurst, Gregory S., 196 Hurst, Howard, 9 Hurst, Sophie, 9 Hurston, Zora Neale, 41–42 Hussman, Ron, 220 Huston, John, 258 Huston, Walter, 277 Hutcherson, Abbi, 280 Hutchinson, Denis, 284 Hutchinson, Mark Michael, 115 Hutchison, Chad, 39 Hutson, David, 341 Hutton, Betty, 261, 349 Hutton, Bill, 135 Hyman, Fracaswell, 26 Hytner, Nicholas, 44, 150, 152–53 Iacovelli, John, 336 Illman, Margaret, 144, 146 Imagination Company, Ltd., 181 I’m Still Here...Damn It!, 329 Industrial F/X Productions, Inc., 23 In Gay New Orleans, 111 Ingham, Barry, 270 Ingram, Tad, 69, 144 INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center, 202 Interamerica, Inc., 283 International Artists, 29 Interpresario, 341 In the Good Old Summertime, 125 In Trousers, 87–88 Irby-Ranniar, Scott, 297 Irish, Fred, 216 Irving, Alicia, 289 Irving, George S., 132, 192, 194, 199, 216, 218 Irwin, Bill, 103–4, 215–16, 336

Isaacs, Pamela, 28, 269 Isenberg, Barbara, 34 Ishee, Suzanne, 192, 218 Isherwood, Charles, 317, 325, 332, 334–35, 344, 346, 349, 354, 356, 358–59, 363, 366–67, 369, 372, 374, 377, 380, 385 Isherwood, Christopher, 310–11, 328, 340 Ishioka, Eiko, 248 Island of the Lost Co-eds, 165 Israel, Robert, 168 It Ain’t Nothing But the Blues, 356–58 Ivers, Eileen, 241 Ives, David, 248 Iwamatsu, Sala, 44 Izobell, Alistair, 365 Jablow, Lisa, 19 Jackie Mason: Brand New, 24–25 Jackie Mason: Politically Incorrect, 153–54 Jackness, Andrew, 280–81 Jackson, Andrew, 294 Jackson, Ethel, 193 Jackson, Keisha, 185 Jackson, Michael, 108, 216 Jackson, Millie, 185 Jackson, “Poppa” Charlie, 41 Jacobs, Jim, 162, 165, 247 Jacoby, Mark, 171, 174, 301 Jahan, Marine, 294 James, Brian d’Arcy, 262 James, Jamie, 97 James, Jeffrey, 197 James, Toni-Leslie, 84, 202, 327, 378 Jamieson, James, 62 Jampolis, Neil Peter, 3, 24, 126, 153, 219, 299 Jam Theatricals, 385 Janes, Alan, 29–30 Janki, Devanand N., 289 Japan Satellite Broadcasting, Inc., 51, 69 Jared, Bob, 23 Jarvis, Lucy, 1 Jay-Alexander, Richard, 44, 73 Jbara, Gregory, 146 Jefferson, Margo, 205 Jekyll & Hyde, 55, 270–72 Jellison, John, 333 Jelly’s Last Jam, 84–86 Jenkins, Daniel, 229 Jenkins, David, 130 Jenkins, Gordon, 187 Jenkins, Jeffrey Eric, 237 Jenkins, Ron, 104 Jennings, Ken, 289 Jennings, Regi, 197 Jensen, Robert, 144 Jerry’s Girls, 321–22 Jersey Boys, 30 Jeslo Productions, 383 Jesus Christ Superstar, 185–87

INDEX     445 Jewison, Norman, 34, 187 Jiggetts, Shelby, 227 Jillette, Penn, 42–43 Jimenez, Tai, 333 Jobe, Andy, 182 Jobe, Lindsay, 182 Joerder, Norbert, 126 Johannesburg Civic Theatre, 284 Johanson, Don, 160 Johanson, Robert, 132–33, 166, 192–93, 216, 218, 275–76, 315, 360 John, Elton, 113, 235, 296 John Reid Enterprises, Ltd., 252 Johnson, Alan, 166 Johnson, Allan, 102 Johnson, Bill, 374 Johnson, Danny, 108 Johnson, Doug, 314 Johnson, Julie, 167, 272 Johnson, Patricia, 218 Johnson, Susan, 282 Johnson, Tina, 123 Johnson, Troy Britton, 160 Johnson, Van, 63, 125 Jolson, Al, 201 Jonas, Nick, 192 Jonathan, Mark, 353 Jones, Chris, 199, 387 Jones, Dean, 205 Jones, Denis, 197, 330 Jones, Douglas, 165–66 Jones, Jack, 269 Jones, Jay Aubrey, 189 Jones, Leilani, 86 Jones, Leroy, 38 Jones, Melissa, 234 Jones, Pattie Darcy, 187 Jones, Richard, 261 Jones, Shirley, 153 Jones, Tom, 89, 281–82, 361 Jordan, Lee, 205 Jordan, Louis, 73–74 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, 134–36 Joseph Papp Public Theatre, 227, 332 Joslyn, Betsy, 313 Joy, James Leonard, 39, 64, 96, 220, 253, 255 Jozefowicz, Janusz, 77 Juan Darien, 246–47 Judy, James, 294 Jujamcyn Theatres, 48, 75, 84, 141, 144, 162, 181, 187, 197, 206, 225, 247, 256, 283, 292, 308, 355, 383 Julia, Raul, 81, 83 Julian, Alexander, 37 Jun, Jun Taek, 322 Jung, Ha Yun, 322 Jung, Jin Wook, 322 Junon and Avos—The Hope, 1–3 Jurman, Karl, 160

Jury, Paul, 29, 31 Jwara, Martin, 284 Kaczorowski, Peter, 123, 168, 203, 236, 265, 373 Kadokawa, Haruki, 35 Kadri, Ron, 176 Kaer, Michael, 318 Kagan, Richard, 104 Kahn, Ben, 259 Kahn, Madeline, 274 Kalfin, Robert, 9 Kallen, Lucille, 220 Kandel, Paul, 112 Kander, John, 47, 119–21, 242–43, 265, 310–11, 362 Kane, Andrea, 246 Kane, Brad, 123 Kane, John, 275, 315, 360 Kantrowitz, Jason, 366 Kaplan, Jonathan, 86 Kaplan, Mitchell, 329 Kaplan, Renee, 32 Kaplin, Stephen, 246, 350 Karachentsev, Nikolai, 1 Kardana Productions, 75, 112, 189, 242, 347 Kardana-Swinsky Productions, 365 Karnilova, Maria, 132 Karrie, Peter, 36 Kass, Carole, 166 Kassoff, Russell, 326 Kat and the Kings, 365–66 Katsaros, Doug, 327 Katz, Natasha, 35, 39, 64, 136, 141, 154, 220, 294, 304 Kauahi, Norman, 89 Kauffman, Marta, 272 Kaufman, Martin R., 197 Kaufman, Mervyn, 34 Kavanagh, John, 217, 289, 324 Kaye, Judy, 50, 241–42 Kaye, William, 296 Kayser, Robert Mann, 89 Kazan, Lainie, 100–102 Kearns, Daniel F., 215, 229 Keaton, Buster, 226, 250 Kedrova, Lila, 312 Keegan, James, 253 Keel, Howard, 153, 349, 374–75 Keene, Christopher, 3, 17, 19, 57–58, 62, 89, 96, 130, 132, 176, 192 Kehr, Dave, 145 Kellard, Bill, 103, 215, 336 Kellogg, Peter, 92 Kelly, Dennis, 146 Kelly, Gene, 63, 335 Kelly, Glen, 182 Kelly, Grace, 313 Kelly, Jen, 217, 240, 289, 324 Kelly, Mary Pat, 370 Kelly, Michael, 370 Kelly, Mickey, 370

446      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Kelly, Patsy, 382 Kelly, Paul Austin, 96 Kelman, Charles, 292, 308 Kendall, Kathryn, 166 Kennedy, Anne, 362 Kennedy Center, 12, 75, 112, 189, 222, 261, 327 Kenner, Chris, 248 Kennon, Walter Edgar, 236–37 Kenny, Jack, 33 Kenwright, Bill, 115 Kermoyan, Michael, 224, 335 Kern, Jerome, 166, 171, 175 Kernan, David, 125 Kerr, Deborah, 224 Kerr, Walter, 4, 274 Kert, Larry, 195, 205 Kidd, Michael, 104 Kief, Garry, 60 Kies, Patricia, 127, 129 Kikuchi, Susan, 222 Kiley, Richard, 82 Kim, Hee Gab, 287, 322 Kim, Hyun Sook, 287, 322 Kim, Kwang Lim, 287, 322 Kim, Min Soo, 322 Kim, Randall Duk, 222 Kim, Sung Ki, 287, 322 Kim, Taewon Yi, 287, 322 Kim, Willa, 51, 53, 102, 162, 164, 197, 213, 247 Kim, Wonjung, 287, 322 Kim, Young Hwan, 287, 322 Kind, Roslyn, 99–100 King, Denis, 48 King, Larry L., 160 King, Paul L., 132, 176, 216 King, Raymond, 227 The King and I, 222–25 King David, 276–78 King World Productions, Inc., 304 Kirk, Roger, 222, 225 Kirkpatrick, Melanie, 2–3 Kirkwood, Pat, 178 Kissel, Howard, 2, 4, 7–8, 11, 24–25, 27–28, 30, 32, 34, 37, 40, 42, 45, 49–50, 52, 61–62, 65, 67, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 85–86, 93, 99, 101–2, 104, 106, 109, 111, 114, 116, 126, 128–29, 137, 139, 142–43, 145, 152, 156, 159, 161– 62, 164, 180, 189, 191, 195, 203–5, 208, 212, 222–23, 226, 228, 230, 233, 244, 250, 255, 257, 268, 273, 354 Kisselgoff, Anna, 98, 118, 146, 218 Kissinger, Brittny, 256 Kiss Me, Kate, 372–75 Kiss of the Spider Woman, 118–21 Kitsopoulos, Constantine, 138 Kitt, Eartha, 133–34, 276, 316, 364 Kladitis, Manny, 81, 193, 207, 321, 358, 368 Klausen, Ray, 184 Klausner, Willette, 365 Klein, Alisa, 248 Klein, Craig, 38

Klores, Dan, 304 Klotz, Florence, 119, 121, 171, 176, 280 Knapp, Sarah, 12, 55 Kniffen, Chase, 336 Knighton, Nan, 294, 368 Knop, Patricia, 279, 281 Knyght-Smith, Douglas, 185 Kobart, Ruth, 191, 226, 282 Koch, David, 270 Kolinski, Joseph, 182, 237 Kolo, Fred, 9–10 Koltai, Ralph, 141 Komolova, Valentina, 1–2 Kopit, Arthur, 312, 314 Korey, Alix, 110, 132–33, 216 Kortman, Cynthia, 358 Kosarin, Michael, 48, 154, 276 Kosis, Tom, 289 Koslow, Pamela, 84 Kotz, Raegan, 166 Kovens, Carmen, 284 Kozinn, Alan, 21, 57 Krachmalnick, Samuel, 274 Krakowski, Jane, 203, 249 Kramer, David, 365 Kramer, Mary Burke, 210, 212 Kramer, Mimi, 36 Kramer, Renaye, 365 Kramer, Terry Allen, 66, 134 Krane, David, 119, 212, 272 Krass, Michael, 345 Krebs, Eric, 356 Krenz, Frank, 94 Kretzmer, Herbert, 387 Kreuger, Miles, 175 Krieger, Henry, 289, 291 Kriegsman, Alan M., 146 Krohn, Fred, 385 Kroll, Jack, 7, 26–28, 50, 53, 72, 76, 85, 106, 109, 120, 142– 43, 148, 158, 180, 190, 204, 208, 214, 222–23, 226, 269 Krones, Fred H., 146, 253 Kubala, Michael, 242 Kubiak, Wiktor, 77 Kubinski, Cassandra, 361 Kudisch, Marc, 272, 295, 313–15 Kudriavtsev, Dimitri, 1 Kuhn, Judy, 123, 126, 180 Kulok, Peter T., 138 Kurland, Jeffrey, 166 Kurstin, Greg, 258 Kushnier, Jeremy, 327 Kusner, Jon, 352 Kyme, 26, 54 Kyodo Tokuo Inc., 229 LaBelle, Patti, 356 LaBrecque, Doug, 171 Labriola, Gary, 381 LaCause, Sebastian, 381

INDEX     447 Lacey, Florence, 321–22 La Chanze, 25 LaChiusa, Michael John, 202, 378, 380–81 Lackey, Herndon, 119, 337 Ladd, Cheryl, 349 Ladd, Rob, 103, 215, 336 Ladden, Cassidy, 256 Ladysmith Black Mombazo, 108–9 Laev, Jim, 362 Lagomarsino, Ron, 100 Lahr, Bert, 201 Lahr, John, 151, 155–56, 169, 195, 204–5, 298, 303 Laing, Stewart, 261, 263–64 Laird, Marvin, 347 La Jolla Playhouse, 234, 317 Lamb, Gil, 261 Lamb, Mary Ann, 242 Lambert, Juliet, 94 Lamberts, Heath, 249 Lamberts, Jennifer, 259 La Mirada Theatre, 336 Lamos, Mark, 358 Lamour, Dorothy, 209, 212, 261 Lams, Jeff, 355, 365 Landau, Tina, 247 Landesman, Fran, 145–46 Landesman, Fyodor, 181 Landesman, Heidi, 48, 50–51, 144, 187 Landesman, Rocco, 236 Landmark Entertainment Group, 185, 270 Landon, Margaret, 222 Lane, Burton, 21–22 Lane, Nathan, 75–76, 225–27 Lane, Stewart F., 10, 51, 104, 285, 381 Lang, Harold, 250 Lang, Walter, 219 Langella, Frank, 183 Langley, Noel, 275, 315, 360 Langner, Philip, 219 Langran, Tracey, 259 Langton, Diane, 125 Langworthy, Norma, 220 Lankston, John, 192, 218 Lanning, Jerry, 92–93, 149, 220 Lanning, Michael, 355 Lanza, Mario, 131 Lapine, James, 86, 88, 156–57, 159 Larici, Miriam, 283 Larsen, Liz, 69 Larsen, William, 296 Larson, Jonathan, 231–34 The Last Empress, 287–88, 322–23 The Last Minstrel Show, 353 Laszlo, Miklos, 123 Latessa, Dick, 51 Lathrop, Jack, 383 Latifah, Queen, 108, 245 Latouche, John, 272 Laughton, Charles, 198

Laurents, Arthur, 66–68 Lautner, Maurice, 107 La Vista, Nancy, 259 LaVorgna, Bill, 47, 381 Law, Richard, 350 Lawless, Sue, 112 Lawrence, Carol, 375 Lawrence, Gertrude, 28, 224 Lawrence, Mal Z., 64–65, 272 Lawrence, Megan, 362 Lawrence, Peter, 178, 347 Lawrence, Sharon, 36 Lawrence, Stephanie, 115–16 Laws, Eloise, 357 Layton, Joe, 37–38, 196, 250 Lazare, Lewis, 235 Leavel, Beth, 70 Leavitt, Michael, 345 Leca, Carlos, 95 Ledbetter, William, 58, 62, 176, 241 Lederer, Charles, 195 Lee, Baayork, 133 Lee, Darren, 213 Lee, Eugene, 171, 301 Lee, Franne, 126 Lee, Gypsy Rose, 111 Lee, Hee Hwan, 322 Lee, Hee Jung, 287 Lee, Hee Yung, 322 Lee, Jack, 66, 141 Lee, Jae Hwan, 287 Lee, Jennifer, 353 Lee, Jennifer Paulson, 89, 176 Lee, Joy, 41 Lee, Michele, 191 Lee, Pinky, 201 Lee, Samantha Robyn, 229 Lee, Sang Ryul, 287, 322 Lee, Su Mun, 287, 322 Lee, Sung Hoon, 322 Lee, Will, 250 Lee, Woo Jong, 287, 322 Leeds, Andrew Harrison, 86 Leeds, Michael, 209–10, 212 LeFevre, Adam, 327 Lefkowitz, David, 241, 273, 300, 325 Leggett, Paula, 70 Leguillou, Lisa, 112 Lehar, Franz, 193, 218 Lehman, Jeanne, 308 Lehmkuhl, Terry, 35 Leiber, Jerry, 187 Leigh, Carolyn, 39, 64, 329, 336 Leigh, Courtney, 370 Leigh, Janet, 178 Leigh, Jennifer Jason, 329 Leigh, Mitch, 81, 110–11 Leigh, Vivien, 198 Leishman, Gina, 181

448      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Leithauser, Brad, 191, 214 Lembeck, Michael, 112 Lemenager, Nancy, 259 Lemmon, Jack, 178 Lemper, Ute, 245 Lemsky, Mitchell, 44, 386 Lencom Theatre, 1 Lenox, Adriane, 358, 373 Lenya, Lotte, 311 Leon, Victor, 192, 218 Leonard, Roy, 235 Lerner, Alan Jay, 62, 126, 128–29, 141, 241 LeRoy, Mervyn, 28 Lesenger, Jay, 19 Leslie, Michelle, 229 Lestat, 81, 388 Lester, Richard, 226 Leve, Harriet Newman, 365 Levenson, Keith, 256 Levien, Sonya, 219 Levin, Charles, 168 Levine, Daniel, 92 Levine, Ilana, 346 Levings, Nigel, 222 Levis, Patrick, 229 Levitt, Barry, 64, 210 Levy, David, 253, 272 Levy, Julia, 330 Levy, Lorie Cowen, 383 Levy, Steven M., 366 Levy, Ted L., 84 Lewis, Brenda, 97 Lewis, Jerry, 148 Lewis, Jim, 202 Lewis, Marcia, 33, 162, 242, 257 Lewis, Michael J., 140 Lewis, Norm, 289 Lewis, William, 274 Lewis-Evans, Kecia, 25 Ley, 55 Libbon, Robert F., 42 Liberace, 150, 161 Libertella, Jose, 117 Libin, Paul, 92 Lichtefeld, Michael, 48, 193, 195, 308 Liederman, Susan, 108 The Life, 267–70 Lifshey, Karen, 358 Lightman, Chip, 216 Ligon, Tom, 254 Lillie, Beatrice, 382 Lincoln Center, 41, 69, 100, 150, 157, 202, 246, 337, 356, 378 Lincoln Center Festival 96, 239 Lincoln Center Festival 97, 284 Linden, Hal, 183, 299 Lindsay, Howard, 3, 132, 308 Lino, Amilton, 5 Lion, Margo, 48, 84, 292

The Lion King, 278, 296–98 Lipman, David, 110 Lippa, Andrew, 345–46, 381 Lipton, Maureen, 178 Little, Cleavon, 135 Little, Tara, 217, 324 Little Me, 329–32 A Little More Magic, 149–50 A Little Night Music, 17–19, 57 Litvin, Mark, 332 Lively, DeLee, 187 Livent (U.S.) Inc., 119, 171, 272, 301, 337, 341 Liza, 48 Liza Minnelli: Stepping Out at Radio City, 47–48 Liza’s at the Palace, 48 Llana, Jose, 222, 299, 386 Lloyd, Natalie, 26, 54, 219 Lloyd Webber, Andrew, 6, 8, 94–95, 134, 178, 180–81, 185, 279–82 LM Concerts, 381 Lobel, Adrianne, 157, 333 Lobenhofer, Lee, 35 Lockery, Leslie J., 102 Lockett, Jimmy, 94 Lockley, Michael, 130 Loesser, Emily, 76 Loesser, Frank, 31, 58, 69–70, 75, 189, 191 Loewe, Frederick, 62, 126, 128, 141, 241 Lofton, Michael, 96 Logan, Ella, 130 Logan, Joshua, 129, 201 Logan, Stacey, 70, 72 Loka, Tsidii Le, 297 Lollos, John, 254 Lom, Herbert, 224 Long, Brandon, 272 Long, Tamara, 195 Long, William Ivey, 70, 73, 75, 182–83, 187, 203, 229, 242, 265, 276, 285, 310, 347, 355, 383 Longbottom, Robert, 289 Loos, Anita, 193 Lopez, Carlos, 176 Loquasto, Santo, 104, 106, 301, 341 Lord of the Dance, 252–53 Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games, 253 Lorelei, or Gentlement Still Prefer Blondes, 195 Loren, Sophia, 82 Lost in the Stars, 109 Loud, David, 123, 203, 265, 301 Loudon, Dorothy, 12, 14, 184, 257, 362–63 Louis, Jean, 353 Louis, Kim, 365 Louiselle, Bryan, 201, 259 Louisiana Lady, 80 Louisiana Purchase, 81 Love, Andy, 383 Love, Bessie, 195 Love and Let Love, 254 Love Thy Neighbor, 219

INDEX     449 Lovett, Marcus, 8, 276 Lowey, Marilyn, 37 Lubitsch, Ernest, 193 Lubovitch, Lars, 144–46, 222, 313 Lucas, Craig, 315 Lucas, Roxie, 166 Lucci, Susan, 349 Lucker, Bruce, 253 Ludlam, Charles, 272 Ludwig, Ken, 70, 72, 315 Luftig, Hal, 84, 222, 253, 312, 347 Lugo, 304 Luker, Rebecca, 48–49, 171, 178, 236, 308–9, 317 Lumbard, Dirk, 315, 360 Lund, John, 313 Lunt, Alfred, 374 LuPone, Patti, 159, 180, 205–7, 251 LuPone, Robert, 294 Lynch, Thomas, 100, 120, 383 Lyndeck, Edmund, 271 Lynes, Kristi, 123 Lynne, Gillian, 6 Lyons, Donald, 174, 180, 190, 195, 202–4, 208, 221, 223– 24, 226, 228, 247, 250, 340, 349, 351, 354, 358–59, 367, 369–70, 377 M, Lebo, 298 Macao, 61 Maccari, Ruggero, 156 MacDermot, Galt, 381 MacDevitt, Brian, 289 MacDonald, Jeanette, 193 Mack, Lizzy, 229 Mackie, Bob, 160, 381 MacKillop, Derek, 252 Mackintosh, Cameron, 44, 73, 150, 325, 376, 386–87 MacMahon, Katie, 289 MacMillan, Kenneth, 150–51, 153 MacRae, Gordon, 153, 375 MacRae, Heather, 86 Madison Square Garden (Productions), 182, 275, 315 Madonna, 60 The Madwoman of Central Park West, 364 Mady, Kelly, 362 Magee, Rusty, 255 Mages, Libby Adler, 383 Magic Promotions and Theatricals, 185, 207 Magicworks Entertainment, 248, 270, 321, 358 Magid, Larry, 185, 366 Magid, Paul, 181, 341 Magness, Marilyn, 39, 64 Magruder, James, 292 Maguire, Michael, 57 Mahlmann, Jean, 127 Mahon, Kimberly, 48 Makeba, Miriam, 31 Malas, Spiro, 69–70 Malena, Antonio, 98 Maley, Monique, 55

Malkin, Seth, 272 Malle, Louis, 278 Mallow, Tom, 166 Malloy, Judy, 370 Malone, Russell, 38 Maltby, Richard, Jr., 43–44, 66, 229–31, 341 Maltin, Leonard, 318 Mamet, David, 235 Mancini, Henry, 212, 214 Mandel, Mel, 272 Mandy Patinkin in Concert, 251 Mandy Patinkin in Concert: “Mamaloshen,” 325–26 Manfredi, Tim, 216 Manhattan Tower, 187 Manilow, Barry, 60–61, 317 Manim, Mannie, 284 Manley, Mark, 160 Mann, Terrence, 154, 183, 217, 294–95 Mann, Theodore, 92 Manocherian, Jennifer, 146 Man of La Mancha, 81–83 Manos, Christopher B., 107 Mansfield, Laurie, 29 Mansur, Susan, 146 Mantia, Buddy, 99 Mantinan, Alejandra, 117 Maples, Marla, 53 Mara, Angela, 95 March, Joseph Moncure, 381 Marchand, Nancy, 132 March of the Falsettos, 87–88 Marcus, Daniel, 286, 294 Mardirosian, Tom, 100 Margot Lion, Ltd., 11 Marie, Jean, 70 Marie Christine, 79–80, 378–81 Marinoff, Judith, 383 Marinos, Peter, 48 Mark, Laurence, 229 Mark, Zane, 227 Markinson, Martin, 78 Markley, Dan, 146 Marks, I. W., 355 Marks, Peter, 192, 245, 261, 276, 292, 300, 322, 329, 337, 345, 351, 361–62, 372 Mark Taper Forum, 376 Marlay, Andrew B., 9 Marlene, 353–55 Marlowe, Christopher, 234 Maroulis, Constantine, 272 Marques, David, 358 Marre, Albert, 81, 83 Marrow, Queen Esther, 9–10 Marry Me a Little, 377 Marsee, Susanne, 17, 19, 57 Marsh, Howard, 131 Marshall, Donna Lee, 182, 327 Marshall, Kathleen, 146, 210, 236, 285, 372–73 Marshall, Larry, 253

450      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Marshall, Mort, 194, 331 Marshall, Penny, 229 Marshall, Rob, 119, 123, 126, 146, 203–4, 213, 225, 245, 258, 310–11, 329 Marshman, D. M., Jr., 178 MARS Theatrical Productions, 383 Martin, Andrea, 100–102, 272–73 Martin, Barney, 243 Martin, Eileen, 241, 289, 324 Martin, Elliot, 123 Martin, Jesse L., 231 Martin, Leila, 296 Martin, Mary, 4, 40, 209, 349 Martin, Michael X., 286 Martin, Tony, 175 Martin, Virginia, 135, 331 Martinez, Julio, 169, 237 Martinez, Tony, 81 Martin Guerre, 386–88 Martini, Richard, 356, 366 Marvin, Mel, 358 Marx, Peter, 347 Marzullo, Steve, 25, 166 Masakazu Shibaoka Broadway Pacific, 86 Mason, Buck, 336 Mason, Jackie, 24–25, 65, 153–54, 219, 385–86 Mason, Karen, 178 Masondo, Lawrence, 284 Mass Appeal, 197 Masteroff, Joe, 123, 310 Masterson, Peter, 160 Matheson, Richard, 238 Mathias, Sean, 353 Mathis, Sherry, 254 Mathis, Stanley Wayne, 26–27, 85, 346, 373 Matias, Fiely, 12 Matsuyama, Saeka, 326 Matterson, Diana, 50 Matthau, Walter, 76 Mattiou, Louis, 219 Mattox, Matt, 250 Mauceri, John, 21 Mauro, Wilson, 5, 95 Mavana, France, 284 Maxwell, Mitchell, 146, 253 Maxwell, Victoria, 146, 253 Mayer, Michael, 292, 345 Mayerson, Frederic H., 48, 187 Mayerson, Rhoda, 48, 187 Mayes, Sally, 123 Mayor, Lottie, 282 Mayoral, Elsa Maria and Hector, 371 Mazzie, Marin, 157–58, 301, 373–75 MCA, 144, 160 McAllen, Kathleen Rowe, 6–8 McAnuff, Des, 112, 114, 189, 191, 314 McArdle, Andrea, 220–22, 257–58 McBride, Michele, 3, 58–59, 62–63 McCallum, David, 237

McCallum, Martin, 44, 376, 386 McCann, Elizabeth Ireland, 66 McCarry, Charles E., 99 McCarty, Mary, 243 McCauley, Judith, 275, 315, 360 McClain, John, 274 McClelland, Kay, 176–77 McClendon, Afi, 25 McColgan, John, 217, 240, 289, 324 McCollum, Kevin, 146, 231 McCord, Lisa Merrill, 141 McCormick, Michael, 119 McCown, Marjorie, 19 McCoy, Horace, 267 McCoy, Thomas P., 39, 64 McCoy Rigby Entertainment, 39, 336 McCrady, Tucker, 129 McCulloh, Barbara, 336 McCully, Emily Arnold, 361 McCune, Rod, 383 McDaniel, John, 162, 197 McDaniel, Keith, 119 McDonald, Audra (Ann), 150, 152–53, 178, 301, 304, 378, 380 McDonald, Daniel, 265, 267, 313–14 McDonald, Kathy, 258 McDonald, Lee, 345 McDonald, Marcia K., 138 McDowall, Roddy, 183, 299 McElroy, Michael, 78, 112 McEntire, Reba, 349 McGavin, Darren, 224 McGehean, Hally, 337 McGillin, Howard, 121, 123, 236 McGlinn, John, 241 McGowan, Charles, 259 McGowan, John, 70 McGrath, Michael, 210, 330 McHugh, Jimmy, 166 McHugh, Joanna, 47 McIntyre, Dianne, 41–42 McIntyre, Gerry, 25 McKayle, Donald, 357 McKechnie, Donna, 220–21 McKee, Joseph, 192, 218 McKee, Lonette, 172, 174–75 McKeever, Jacquelyn, 177 McKenna, Janice, 289 McKenney, Eileen, 177 McKenney, Ruth, 176–77 McKinley, Jesse, 353, 364 McKneely, Joey, 187, 267, 269, 280, 307, 334 McLain, John, 107 McLane, Derek, 317 McLaren, Conrad, 301 McLusky, Graham, 29 McMahon, Katie, 241 McMartin, John, 171, 174, 313 McMullan, James, 339

INDEX     451 McNally, Terrence, 119–21, 301, 304 McNamara, Maureen, 110 McNicholl, BT, 355 McSwain, Monica, 202 McVeigh, John, 239 McVey, Anne, 39, 64 McVey, Beth, 192, 218 Mead, Shepherd, 189 Meade, Marion, 177 Meat Loaf, 281 Mecchi, Irene, 296 Meeh, Gregory, 112 Meehan, Thomas, 11, 14, 110, 255, 258 Meeks, Willard, 9 Meet Me in St. Louis, 315 Meilhac, Henri, 192, 218 Meister, Barbara, 59 Melancon, Corinne, 12 Mellon, James J., 361 Melrose, Ron, 294 Memoli, Leon, 253 Mendes, Sam, 310–11 Mendoza, Claudia, 283–84 Menken, Alan, 154, 182, 276, 299 Mentzer, Abigail, 132 Menzel, Idina, 231 Menzies, Lee, 365 Mercer, Johnny, 259–61 Mercer, Marian, 254 Mercier, G. W., 246 Merle, Sandi, 99 Merman, Ethel, 209, 349–50 Merrell, Tim, 248 Merrick, David, 26, 54, 209, 219, 222, 233 Merrill, Bob, 143 Merritt, George, 270 Merritt, Theresa, 42 The Merry Widow, 192–93, 218–19 Mess, Suzanne, 3 Metro, 77–78 Metropolitan Entertainment Group, 292 Metropolitan Theatrical Entertainment, Inc., 212 Metz, Janet, 317 Meyer, Craig, 60 Meyer, Douglas L., 383 Meyer, Stan, 154 Meyer-Forster, Wilhelm, 130 Meyers, Ralph, 149 Mgwazi, Mafika, 284 Michael Feinstein in Concert: Piano and Voice, 21–22 Michaels, John, 99 Michaels, Marilyn, 64–65 Michaels, Steve, 99 Mickey, Susan E., 278 Micone, Edward (Ed) J., Jr., 37, 47, 381 Middleton, Ray, 82, 149, 287 Mignini, Carolyn, 77 Mike, 112 Miklszewska, Agata, 77

Miklszewska, Maryna, 77 Miles, Sarah, 203, 213, 225 Miller, Ann, 335, 374 Miller, Craig, 26, 54, 69 Miller, Gene, 355 Miller, Jon, 115 Miller, Lawrence, 64 Mills, Stephanie, 107–8 Minami, Roger, 258 Mineo, John, 384 Minkoff, Rob, 296 Minkus, Barbara, 346 Minnelli, Liza, 47–48, 161, 214, 269, 311, 381–83 Minnelli, Vincente, 48, 63, 381–83 Minnelli on Minnelli, 48, 381–83 Minoff, Tammy, 104 Mirabella, Joan, 58, 62 Miranda, Carmen, 6, 96 Mirette, 361–62 Mirvish, David, 29 Mischief, 107 Mishkin, Chase, 366 Miss Gulch Returns!, 276 Miss Saigon, 43–46 Mitchell, Brian Stokes, 26–28, 121, 301, 373–75 Mitchell, David, 12–13, 78, 110, 259, 261 Mitchell, Ella, 107–8 Mitchell, Jerry, 162, 197, 247, 345 Mitchell, John Cameron, 49 Mitchell, Keith, 82 Mitchell, Lauren, 120, 312 Mitchell, Mark, 285 Mitchell, Ruth, 33 Mitchell, Vontress, 168 Mitch Leigh Company, 81 Mitgang, N. R., 165 Mittelman, Arnold, 278 Mitzman, Marcia, 112 Mizrahi, Isaac, 47 Mlotek, Zalmen, 31–32, 168 Mngwengwe, Qond’okwakhe, 284 Mnisi, Dieketseng, 284 Moccia, Jody, 376 Molaskey, Jessica, 236, 260 Molina, Lisa, 104 Molloy, Irene, 280 Molnar, Ferenc, 150 Molony, Patrick, 365 Monat, Phil, 99 Moneo, Manuel, 98 Monge, Julio, 202, 304 Monk, Debra, 205, 265, 267, 364 Monroe, Marilyn, 195 Montague, Kenneth “Chocolate Thunder,” 185 Montalban, Paolo, 133–34 Montana, Robert, 119 Montano, Robert, 333 Montel, Ginger, 289 Montgomery, Reggie, 41

452      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Montoya, Richard, 358 Moody, Ron, 274 Moon, Keith, 112–13 Moon, Sandra, 21 Moore, Bruce, 141, 197 Moore, Colleen, 28 Moore, Crista, 132–33, 176–77, 229 Moore, Kathleen, 146 Moore, Robert, 196 Moore, Roger, 8 Moore, Sharon, 207 Moore, Victor, 28 Moran, Martin, 189, 262 Morao, Manuel, 97–98 Morath, Kathy, 66 Mordente, Lisa, 47 Morehouse, Ward, 194 Morehouse, Ward III, 106, 112, 140, 269, 278 Moreno, Rita, 180 Morgan, Emily, 178 Morgan, Frank, 349 Morgan, Helen, 175 Morgan, James, 92 Moriarty, Michael, 142 Morin, Catherine, 299 Morison, Patricia, 374–75 Morley, Sheridan, 281 Morris, Howard, 194 Morris, Mark, 304 Morrison, Conall, 386 Morse, Robert, 112, 176, 191 Morton, Alicia, 258 Morton, Jelly Roll, 84–86 Moscow Folk Ballet Company, 217, 240, 324 Moses, Burke, 58–59, 154 Mosher, Greg C., 48 Mosher, Gregory, 41 Most, Don, 248 Mostel, Josh, 100, 279 Mostel, Joshua, 187 Mostel, Zero, 34, 226 The Most Happy Fella, 57–60, 68–70 Motley, Byron, 206 Moulton, Charles, 317 Moya, Fernando, 371 Msomi, Welcome, 284 Mucci, David, 30 Much Ado About Everything, 385–86 Muenz, Richard, 59, 89 Mule Bone, 41–42 Mullally, Megan, 162, 189–90 Munday, Hugo, 350 Muniz, Mercedes, 97 Munro, Leigh, 96–97 Munsel, Patrice, 375 Munshin, Jules, 335 Muraoka, Alan, 222 Murin, David, 10 Murphy, Donna, 157–59, 177, 222–25

Murphy, Jack, 355 Murphy, Karen, 12 Murphy, Sally, 150, 152 Murray, Peg, 311 Murray, Rupert, 217, 240, 289, 324 Music Fair Productions, Inc., 126 Music Is, 254 Music Makers, Inc., 358 The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, 94–95 Music-Theatre Group, 246 Musser, Tharon, 48, 104, 166 Musto, Michael, 148 Mutual Benefit Productions, 11 My Fair Lady, 141–43 My Favorite Year, 100–102 Myler, Randal, 356 My One and Only, 322 Nabel, Bill, 110 Nadeau, Rene, 248 Naismith, Laurence, 274 Nakasone, Aiko, 259 Nance, Chris, 19, 21, 58 Napier, John, 44, 178–79, 181, 386 Nash, N. Richard, 89 Nash, Tom, 29 Nasher, Andrea, 146 Nason, Brian, 138, 285 National Actors Theatre, 193 National Black Arts Festival, 107 Naughton, Amanda, 196 Naughton, James, 242, 245, 364 Naughty Marietta, 81 Nault, Fernand, 113 Naumkin, Yury, 1 Navarre, Ron, 35 Navarro, Ramon, 131 Nazario, Ednita, 304 Neal, Kenny, 41 Nealy, Milton Craig, 73 Nederlander, Eric, 253 Nederlander, Gladys, 104 Nederlander, James L., 37, 304 Nederlander, James M., 3, 39, 51, 66, 102, 104, 123, 134, 144, 222, 285 Nederlander, Joseph, 289 Nederlander, Scott, 289, 381 Nederlander Corporation, 23 Nederlander Organization, 189, 216, 336 Neeley, Ted, 185, 187 Nelida, 371 Nelsen, Don, 9 Nelson, Barry, 371 Nelson, Ozzie and Harriet, 220 Nelson, Richard, 184, 210 Nelson, Tracy, 248 Neofitou, Andreane, 44, 386 Nero, Franco, 129 Nestroy, Johann, 207

INDEX     453 Netsky, Hankus, 168 Neufeld, Peter, 11, 94 Neuwirth, Bebe, 146, 148, 212, 242, 244–45, 364 Nevin, Carriene, 352 Neway, Patricia, 4 Newby, Jerry, 250 Newman, David, 267 Newman, Evan Jay, 304 Newman, Jim, 362, 381 Newman, Phyllis, 364 Newman, Randy, 234–35 Newton-John, Olivia, 164 New York City Opera Company, 3, 17, 19, 57–58, 62, 89, 96, 130, 132, 176, 192, 216, 218, 241 New York Shakespeare Festival, 227, 332 New York Theatre Workshop, 231 Nicastro, Michelle, 60 Nic Cionnaith, Paula, 240, 324 Nice Work If You Can Get It, 322 Nicholas, Paul, 187, 368 Nicholson, Jack, 113 Nickelodeon Family Classics, 182 Nicklaus, Jill, 358 Nick & Nora, 66–68 Niles, David, 24 Nixon, Marni, 143 Noble, Joanna, 47 Nocciolino, Albert (Al), 256, 336 Nolan, Daire, 252 Nolen, Timothy, 138, 280 Noll, Christiane, 248, 270–71 Nolte, Bill, 134, 182, 276, 286 Noonan, Tommy, 195 Noone, James, 270 Norman, Marsha, 48, 50, 143, 145 Norris, Gillian, 252 Norwood, Brandy, 133 Nouri, Michael, 213 Nunn, Trevor, 6, 8, 178, 180 Oba Oba ‘90, 5–6 Oba Oba ‘93, 95–96 O’Brien, Jack, 19, 146–47, 236 O’Brien, Virginia, 175 Ockrent, Mike, 70, 182, 229–30, 276 O’Connell, Helen, 261 O’Connor, John J., 125 O’Donnell, Michael, 213, 310 O’Donnell, Rosie, 162 O’Donovan, Gene, 222 Oesterman, Phillip (Phil), 51, 102, 160, 197 Oestreich, James R., 59, 240 Offenbach, Jacques, 31, 193 Office One-Two, Inc., 104 Off-Key, 196–97 O’Flaherty, Michael, 361 Ogalla, Juan Antonio, 98 Ogden Entertainment, 213 O’Grady, Katherine, 350

Oh, Kay!, 26–29, 53–54 O’Haire, Patricia, 22 O’Hara, Kelli, 224 O’Haughey, M., 243 Oh Lady! Lady!!, 174 O’Horgan, Tom, 186–87 Ojeda, Perry Laylon, 333 Old Friends Group, Inc., 24 Old Globe Theatre, 236 Olds, Carlo, 61 Oliveira, Carlos, 95 Oliver!, 367–68 Oliver, Edith, 68, 104, 116, 120, 126 Oliver, Wendy, 154 Olness, Kristin, 310 Olson, Marcus, 157 O’Malley, Melissa, 256 Once on This Island, 25–26 Once Upon a Mattress, 249–51 Ondracek, Bohuslav, 264 110 in the Shade, 89–92 O’Neil, Stephen, 259 O’Neill, Con, 115 O’Neill, Eoghan, 324 One Mo’ Time!, 80–81, 353 126 Second Ave. Corp., 48, 84 Onrubia, Cynthia, 77, 104, 310, 329 On Second Avenue, 32–33 On the Town, 332–35 Opel, Nancy, 292 Oppenheimer, Alan, 178 Orbach, Jerry, 243 Orczy, Emma, 294 Orezzoli, Hector, 371 Orfeh, 358, 368 Osmond, Donny, 136, 281 Osnes, Laura, 134 Osterwald, Bibi, 209 O’Sullivan, Michael, 254 Otey, Louis, 130 O’Toole, Fintan, 303, 325, 328, 339, 346, 351, 354, 380 O’Toole, Peter, 82, 100–101 Ou, Tina, 134 Ousley, Robert, 182 Over Here!, 384 Over & Over, 362–64 Owens, Eric, 239 Owens, Frederick B., 187 Oxenford, John, 207 Oxley, J. Leonard, 61, 253 P. P. Investments, Inc., 39, 64 Pabst, Joseph, 165 Pacchierotti, Ubaldo, 132 Pace, Michael, 212 PACE Theatrical Group, 33, 94, 112, 141, 162, 197, 207, 242, 247–48, 265, 270, 292, 308, 321, 355, 383 Pacho, Andrew, 132, 216 Pachyderm Entertainment, 215, 229

454      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Pacitti, Joanna, 167, 256–57 Page, Ken, 234, 275, 315 Pages, Maria, 217, 240–41, 289, 324 Paige, Elaine, 180, 224, 281 Paint Your Wagon, 348 Pakledinaz, Martin (Marty), 136, 267, 373, 375 Palermo, Andrew, 347 Palmer, Jeanette, 132–33, 216 Palmer, Joey, 368 Palmer, Leland, 254 Palmer, Peter, 195 Palumbo, Dennis, 100 Panaro, Hugh, 144, 386, 388 Pane, Julio Oscar, 371 Panian, Maggie, 370 Panien, Susan Kelly, 370 Pansera, Roberto, 371 Panson, Bonnie, 355 Papalexis, Alex W., 234 Paper Mill Playhouse, 166 Paper Moon, 166–68 Papp, Joseph, 332, 338 Pappas, Evan, 100–101 Parade, 337–40 Paramount Pictures, 225 Parcher, William, 19 Parent, Gail, 195 Parichy, Dennis, 42 Park, Dong Woo, 287, 322 Park, Jonathan, 252 Park, Kolleen, 287, 322 Parker, Alecia, 33, 86, 141, 162, 197, 242, 247, 347 Parker, Sarah Jessica, 249–50 Parks, Hildy, 184 Parnes, Joey, 227 Parrinello, Richard, 3 Parry, Chris, 112, 114 Parry, William, 157 Parsons, Terry, 353 Parton, Dolly, 60 Pascal, Adam, 231 Pashanel, 33 Passion, 156–59 Patel, Neil, 361 Patinkin, Mandy, 49–50, 251, 325–26 Patinkin, Sheldon, 274 Paton, Alan, 109 Patrick, John, 312 Patterson, Howard Jay, 181, 341 Patterson, James, 220 Patterson, Vincent, 119 Patti LuPone on Broadway, 206–7 Patton, Monica L., 370 Patzakis, Michele, 130–31 Paul, 14 Paul, Steve, 136 Paul, Tina, 66, 176–77 Pauley, Wilbur, 239, 350 Paulin, David, 185

Paulus, Diane, 308 Pawk, Michele, 310, 318, 364 Pawl, Christina, 310 Payne, Freda, 86 Payton, Larry, 336, 345 Pearce, Alice, 194, 330, 335 Pechter, Richard S., 261 Peck, Gregory, 51 Peil, Mary Beth, 224, 294 Pelty, Adam, 138, 294 Pennebaker, D. A., 205 Penn & Teller: The Refrigerator Tour, 42–43 Penny by Penny, 183 Pentecost, James, 66, 68 Pereyra, Luis and Norma, 371 Perez, Luis, 66, 202, 355 Perkins, Anthony, 206 Perkins, Carol, 42 Perlman, Gary, 383 Perrault, Charles, 132, 216 Perry, Alan D., 84 Perry, Dein, 344–45 Perry, George, 181 Perry, Keith, 166 Perry, Louis, 130 Perry, Robert, 130 Perry, Sheldon, 345 Perseus Productions, 222, 225 Persson, Gene, 345 Pesce, Vince, 213 Peter Pan, 38–40, 64, 336–37 Peters, Bernadette, 104, 106, 133, 251, 258, 347–50, 364 Peters, Clarke, 73 Petersen, Taliep, 365 Peterson, Chris, 182, 265 Peterson, Kirk, 35 Peterson, Patricia Ben, 203 Petina, Irra, 274 Petty, Dan, 329 Peyser, Marc, 137, 145, 152, 244 Pfeiffer, David, 58 Pfeiffer, Michelle, 164 PGI Entertainment Company, 220 Philip Morris USA, 165 Phillips, Arlene, 94, 252, 258, 368–70 Phillips, Arte, 213 Phillips, Ethan, 100 Phillips, Harold, 173 Phillips, Lloyd, 35 Phillips, Lou Diamond, 31, 222–24 Phillips, Mary Bracken, 77 Phillips, Michael, 235, 237 Phillips, Mike, 318 Phillips, Patricia, 48 Phillips, Robin, 270 Phillips, Sian, 353–54 Phillips, Stevie, 160 Piaf, 354 Piazza, Karina, 283

INDEX     455 Piazzolla, Astor, 118 Pidgeon, Walter, 132 Piech, Jennifer, 263 Pike, John, 193 Pilbrow, Richard, 117, 171, 197, 267 Pilot, Jonathan, 146 Pimlott, Steven, 134 Pimpernel!, 296 Pinchot, Bronson, 376 Pines, Andrea, 146 Pinkins, Tonya, 86, 253 Pipa, Juana la del, 98 Pipiu, Arlindo, 95 Pippin, Donald, 144 The Pirate, 315 Pisarkiewicz, Rich, 318 Pitchford, Dean, 327 Pizzarelli, John, 260–61 Pizzi, Joey, 270 Platt, Jon B., 39, 64, 146, 207 Plautus, Titus Maccius, 225, 227 Playhouse Square Center, 48, 75 Play On!, 253–55 Playwrights Horizons, 25 Pleasence, Donald, 272 Plenaro Productions, 304 Plenty, 275–76, 315, 360 Pluesch, 61 Plummer, Christopher, 5, 140 Poe, Richard, 285 Pogrebin, Robin, 296 Poland, Albert, 108 Polcsa, Juliet, 77 Pollack, Joe, 319 Pollitt, Barbara, 84, 246 Polygram Broadway Ventures, Inc., 212 PolyGram Diversified Entertainment, 84, 146 Ponting, David, 193 Pope, Stephanie, 84 Porgina, Ludmilla, 1 Porretta, Frank, 274 Porter, Billy, 164 Porter, Cole, 312, 372 Porter, Gregory, 357 Posner, Kenneth, 317, 345, 383 Post, L. Michael, 259 Post, Wiley, 52 Potamkin, Victor H., 31 Potter, Don, 347 Powell, Andrew, 61 Powell, Anthony, 178 Powell, Jane, 194, 216 Powell, Josef, 206 Powell, Michael, 144 Powell, Shannon, 38 Powell, Stephen, 216 Power, Virginia, 165 Premier Artists Services, Inc., 47 Prescott, Jennifer, 33

Presley, Elvis, 150, 161, 188, 216 Presnell, Harve, 12, 14 Pressburger, Emeric, 144 Pressley, Nelson, 168, 281 Preston, Michael, 181, 341 Preston, Robert, 213 Preto, Toco, 5 Price, Leontyne, 240 Price, Lonny, 129 Price, Michael P., 193, 361 Price, Paige, 154, 368 Price, Todd Alan, 278 Prince, Faith, 66–67, 75–77, 88, 168, 330, 332 Prince, Harold, 119–20, 171, 173, 176, 205, 272–73, 280– 81, 337, 339–40 Probst, Leonard, 346 Prunzik, Karen, 193 Pryce, Jonathan, 44, 46, 74, 312 Pryor, Richard, 108 Puccini, Giacomo, 44, 231 Pudenz, Steve, 361 Pugliese, James, 181 Puig, Manuel, 119 Pully, B. S., 201 Purdom, Edmund, 131 Pursley, David, 92 Putnam, J. Ashley, 239 Putting It Together, 213, 376–77 Pyant, Paul, 150, 152 Quigley, Erin, 108 Quilico, Louis, 58–59 Quilley, Denis, 274 Quinn, Aileen, 258, 337 Quinton, Everett, 134 Quiroga, Horacio, 246 Rabbett, Martin, 141 Rabke, Kelli, 134, 136 Racheff, James, 26 Radcliffe, Daniel, 192 Radio City Entertainment, 360, 381 Radio City Music Hall, 37, 47 Radio City Productions, 289, 324 Radomsky, Saul, 365 Rafter, Michael, 222, 308 Ragtime, 300–304 Rahming, Gregory Emanuel, 333 Raiford, Steven, 130 Raiman, Paul, 376 A Rainy Day in Newark, 90 Raitt, Bonnie, 235 Raitt, James, 146 Raitt, John, 153, 349 Raitt, Kathleen, 294, 355 Raize, Jason, 297 Raizin, Louis F., 253 Rall, Tommy, 178, 374 Ralston, Terri, 205

456      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Ramey, Samuel, 97 Ramos, Paulo, 5 Ramsay, Remak, 66 Ramsey, Kevin, 26, 54, 73, 255 Randall, Tony, 183, 193, 245 Rankin, Margaret, 36 Rao, 61 Rapp, Anthony, 231–32, 346 Raskin, Kenny, 154, 294 Ratliff, Ben, 308 Ravella, Don, 99 Raye, Holly, 248 Raye, Martha, 209, 349 Raymaker, Norrice, 166 Rea, Stephen, 314 Really Useful Company, 6, 178, 280 Really Useful Group, 94 Reams, Lee Roy, 195, 207, 321–22 Reaux, Angelina, 97 Reaves-Phillips, Sandra, 352 Rebecca, 55 Red Clay Ramblers, 103–4, 215–16, 336 Redel, Jessica, 130 Redgrave, Michael, 272 Redgrave, Vanessa, 129 The Red Shoes, 143–46, 388 Reed, Alyson, 136, 138 Reed, Oliver, 113 Reed, Royal, 355 Reed, Vivian, 78, 80, 378 Rees, Roger, 145 Reeves, David, 140 Reeves, Peter, 138, 140 Regina, 96–97 Reid, Elliott, 195 Reilly, Charles Nelson, 191 Reilly, John C., 245 Reinis, Jonathan, 356, 366 Reinking, Ann, 102, 242, 244–45, 258, 341, 344, 384 Reisch, Michele, 352 Reissa, Eleanor, 31 Remick, Lee, 149 Rene, Nikki, 78, 80 Reno, Phil, 367 Renschler, Eric, 325 Renshaw, Christopher, 222, 312 Rent, 231–34 Renvall, Johan, 146 Repole, Charles, 193 Resnik, Regina, 17 Rey, Reynaldo, 185 The Rhythm Club, 318 Ribnikove, Alexis, 1 Rice, Elmer, 19 Rice, Tim, 134–35, 154, 185, 276, 296 Rich, Frank, 7–8, 26–27, 30, 36, 42, 46, 50, 52–53, 66–68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 86, 88, 102, 104, 106, 109, 114, 116, 120, 126, 180, 354 Rich, Irene, 111 Richard, Ellen, 203, 285, 310, 329

Richard, Judine (Hawkins), 70, 268 Richards, Angela, 314 Richards, David, 14, 36, 48, 91–92, 142–43, 145, 148, 152, 156, 159, 161, 174, 183, 307 Richards, Guy, 99 Richards, Martin, 51, 267 Richards, Sal, 99 Richardson, Ian, 143 Richardson, Jiles Perry, 30 Richardson, Natasha, 310–12, 314 Richardson, Ron, 28 Richman, Jeffrey, 206 Rideout, Leenya, 310 Ride the Winds, 37 Riding, Joanna, 151 Riebling, Tia, 33 Riedel, Michael, 263, 271, 317, 334, 349, 370, 373, 387 Rifkin, Ron, 310, 312 Rigby, Cathy, 39, 64, 336–37 Rigdon, Kevin, 108 Riley, 66–67 Ringham, Nancy, 167 The Rink, 48 Rino, 272 Ripley, Alice, 178–79, 276, 289, 291 Ritchard, Cyril, 40 Rivadella, Carlos, 371 Rivera, Chita, 119–21, 243, 245 Riverdance, 217–18, 240–41, 289, 324 Rizzo, Francis, 239 Rizzo, Jeff, 275, 315, 360 The Road to Hollywood, 212 Robbins, Carrie, 92 Robbins, Jerome, 33, 39, 64, 222, 336 Robbins, Tom Alan, 249 Roberson, Ken, 54 Roberson, Rudy, 268 Roberson, Will, 146 Robert L. Young and Associates, 107 Roberts, Darcie, 197–99 Roberts, Jonathan, 296 Roberts, Keith, 146 Roberts, Marcia, 350, 356–57 Roberts, Mark, 215, 336 Roberts, Robin Sanford, 357 Roberts, Tony, 62–63, 183, 213, 378 Robertson, Liz, 48 Robertson, Rudy, 352 Robeson, Paul, 175 Robin, Leo, 178, 193–94 Robins, Wayne, 9, 24 Robinson, Bill “Bojangles,” 165–66, 228 Robinson, Chris, 153 Robinson, Cindy, 39, 64 Robinson, Edward G., 35 Robinson, Norvell, 165 Rocco, Jamie (James), 275, 315, 360 Rocker, David A., 210 Rocksavage, David, 368 Rockwell, John, 4, 18–19, 239, 284

INDEX     457 Rodd, Marcia, 254 Roddy, Pat, 289, 324 Roderick, Ray, 225 Rodgers, Chev, 81 Rodgers, Mary, 249 Rodgers, Richard, 3, 132, 136, 150, 193, 216–17, 219, 221–22, 308 Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, 150, 222, 308, 327 Rodine, Eric, 350 Rodriguez, Raymond, 304 Rodriguez-Pantoja, Tomas, 97 Rodriguez-Rosa, Ray, 304 Roger Berlind Enterprises, 166 Rogers, Ginger, 132, 209 Rogers, Irma, 47 Rogers, Ken Leigh, 26, 54 Rogers, Will, 51–53, 220 Rohde, David, 353 Rohrbacker, Jacquiline, 370 Rollin’ on the T.O.B.A., 351–53 Roman, Freddie, 64–65 Romanoff, Ed, 69 Romberg, Sigmund, 130 Ronan, Brian, 330 Ronstadt, Linda, 235–36 Rooney, Mickey, 53, 276, 316, 360–61 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 161 Rosales, Rachel, 19 Rosario, Willie, 25, 104, 202, 301, 378 Rosato, Mary Lou, 249 Rose, George, 40, 50, 143 Rose, Lloyd, 168, 264, 266–67, 269, 281, 364, 387 Rose, Philip, 9 Roseanne, 275–76 Rosenbauer, Dave and Judith, 365 Rosenberg, Deena, 358 Rosenfeld, Jyll, 24, 153, 219, 385 Rosenfeld, Maurice, 108 Rosenfeld, Megan, 35 Rosenfeld, Moishe, 31–32 Rosenkrantz, Peggy Hill, 84 Rosen-Stone, Mekenzie, 256 Ross, Alex, 131 Ross, Diana, 108 Ross, Gary, 229 Ross, Herbert, 104, 327 Ross, Jamie, 193 Ross, Jerry, 146–47 Ross, Julie, 146 Rostand, Edmond, 138 Roth, Daryl, 66 Roth, Robert Jess, 154 Rothstein, Edward, 59, 63, 91, 97, 133, 177, 193 Rothstein, Norman (E.), 61, 117 Roundabout Theatre Company, 123, 136, 203, 285, 310, 329 Rounds, David, 244 Rounseville, Robert, 274 Rouse, Brad, 337 Rousuck, J. Wynn, 281

Routh, Marc, 42, 187, 225, 283, 292, 308, 365, 383 Rowland, Jeff, 213 Royal, Reginald, 9, 73 Royal National Theatre, 150 Rubens, Herbert, 350 Rubin, Arthur, 39, 110 Rubinstein, John, 120 Rubin-Vega, Daphne, 231, 234 Rudin, Scott, 157, 225 Rudolph, Rudiger, 272 Ruffa, Mario, 5 Ruivivar, Francis, 157, 360 Runolfsson, Anne, 138 Runyon, Damon, 75 Rupert, Michael, 86, 88, 279, 377 Rush, Susan, 193 Rusignola, Damon, 99 Russell, Bill, 289 Russell, Jane, 195 Russell, Ken, 113 Russell, Peter H., 23 Russell, Rosalind, 177, 330 Russell, Willy, 115 Russo, Gustavo, 117 Ryall, William, 189, 313 Ryan, Jay, 165 Ryerson, Florence, 275, 315, 360 Saari, Erik Houston, 93 Sabella, D., 243 Sabellico, Richard, 176 Sablan, Lindsay Marie, 234 Sachs, Norman, 272 Saddler, Donald, 130, 141 Saeder, Richard, 210 Saffer, Lisa, 17, 57 Sagardia, Elisa, 336 Sahl, Mort, 184 Sail Away, 174 St. George, Kathy, 33 St. John, Betta, 131 St. Louis, Louis, 187 St. Louis Municipal Theatre, 318 Sakall, S. Z. “Cuddles,” 131 Saks, Gene, 106 Salaman, Abraham, 259 Salesky, Brian, 81 Sallis, Peter, 312 Salmon, Nick, 365 Salonga, Lea, 44, 46 Samorian, John, 247 Sams, Jeffrey D., 73 Samson, Richard, 312, 353 Samuel, Peter, 276 Sandberg, Steve, 202 Sander, Alexander, 218 Sanders, Fred, 29 Sanders, Jay O., 88 Sanders, Kevin, 243 Sanders, Scott, 37, 47

458      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Sanderson, Kirsten, 212 San Diego Repertory Theatre, 356 Santiago, Saundra, 202 Santos, Jaime, 5 Santos, Sonia, 5 Sarafina!, 109 Sargent, Alvin, 166 Saturday Night Fever, 368–70 Saver, Jeffrey, 238 Saville, Victor, 212 Savoy Club Boys, 383 Sawyer, John, 355 Sayan, Levon, 326 Scandalios, nick, 123 The Scarlet Pimpernel, 55, 294–96 Schaefer, George, 374 Schaeffer, Eric D., 362, 376 Scheck, Frank, 109, 114, 120, 126, 129, 136–37, 145, 148, 152, 156, 158–59, 161, 164, 202–3 Scher, John, 212 Schertler, Nancy, 103, 215, 336, 370 Schertzinger, Victor, 261 Schloss, Edwin H., 372 Schlossberg, Julian, 146 Schmidt, Douglas W., 66, 146, 148, 163, 350, 355 Schmidt, Harvey, 89, 361 Schmoegner, Susanne, 61 Schneider, Helen, 180 Schoeffler, Paul, 138, 336 Schonberg, Claude-Michel, 43–44, 386 Schottenfeld, Barbara, 144, 146 Schuck, Conrad John, 256–57 Schuler, Duane, 62, 241 Schulman, Susan H., 48, 144–45, 308 Schultz, Michael, 41 Schulz, Charles M., 345 Schunzel, Reinhold, 212 Schuster, Alan J., 146, 253 Schwab, Norm, 216 Schwartz, Arthur, 382 Schwartz, Irving, 117 Schwartz, Mark, 259 Schwartz, Murray, 357 Scibelli, Carlo, 192, 218 Scola, Ettore, 156 Scott, A. O., 258 Scott, Helena, 59 Scott, John, 89 Scott, Pjaye, 185 Scott, Sherie (Rene), 362–64 Scott, Zachary, 224 Sears, Sally, 210 Seawright, Toni, 107 Sebesky, Don, 340, 375 Secondari, John H., 318 The Secret Garden, 48–51 Segal, David F., 146 Segovia, Claudio, 371 Seiber, Christopher, 234

Seibert, Brian, 253 Seidelman, Arthur A., 58, 183 Seligsohn, Leo, 11 Sella, Robert, 141 Sellers, Jeffrey, 231 Seo, Byung Goo, 287, 322 Septee, Moe, 31 Serra, Raymond, 99 Sesma, Thom, 66 Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 315 1776, 285–87 Seville, Kaede, 104 Sewell, Brian, 29 SFX Entertainment, 326, 329, 355, 358, 383 Shaiman, Marc, 37–38 Shakespeare, William, 253, 284, 372 Shamash, Beba, 58 Shane, Hal, 102 Shangase, Bunyani, 284 Shanina, Yelena, 1 Shannon, Sarah Solie, 154 Shaper, Hal, 140 Shapiro, Laura, 104, 145, 152 Sharp, David Preston, 26, 54 Sharp, Jon Marshall, 144 Sharpe, Ron, 355 Shatto, Bart, 355 Shaughnessy, Alfred, 50 Shaw, George Bernard, 141 Shaw, Reta, 194 Shaw, Vanessa, 127, 129 Shea, Jere, 157 Shearer, Norma, 131 Shearing, Geoffrey, 350 Sheehan, Deidre, 58 Sheens, Nathan, 345 Sheintsiss, Oleg, 1–2 She Loves Me, 123–26 Shepard, Richard F., 32 Sherman, Andrew, 255 Sherman, Loren, 35 Sherman, Richard M., 197 Sherman, Robert B., 197 Shevelove, Burt, 225, 227 Shew, Tim, 294 Shew, Timothy, 75 Shields, Brooke, 164, 178 Shinbone Alley, 187 Shiner, David, 103–4, 215, 336 Shire, David, 229–31 Shirvis, Barbara, 17, 57 Shiryayev, Vladimir, 1 Shlemiel the First, 168–69 Shogun, 35–37 The Shop around the Corner, 124 Shopkorn, Stanley, 383 Shore, Allen M., 78 Short, Bobby, 269 Short, Martin, 104–6, 330, 332

INDEX     459 Showalter, Max, 50 Show Boat, 171–76 The Show Goes On, 362 Showtune: The Words and Music of Jerry Herman, 322 Shubert Organization, 25, 69, 157, 227 Shuford, Kajuana, 297 Shugrue, Martin, 352 Shusterman, Tamlyn Brooke, 367 Sia, 258 Siberry, Michael, 308–9 Sicangco, Eduardo, 193, 195 Siccardi, Arthur, 368 Side by Side by Sondheim, 377 Side Show, 289–92, 388 Sieber, Christopher, 182, 196, 292 Siegel, Joel, 8, 26–27, 31, 34, 43, 50, 53, 65, 67, 76, 78, 83, 114, 136 Siegfried and Roy, 161, 386 Sigler, Jamie-Lynn, 134 Signature Theatre, 362 Silber, Chic, 236 Sills, Douglas, 294–95 Silver, Susan, 1 Silvers, Phil, 149, 226 Simmons, J. K., 10, 64, 75 Simmons, Jean, 76 Simmons, Richard, 106 Simoff, Michael, 24 Simon, James L., 253 Simon, John, 15, 36, 53, 76–77, 80, 83, 85, 87, 93, 101, 104–6, 109, 111, 114, 120, 129, 136–37, 139, 142–44, 148, 152–53, 156, 158, 164, 174, 180, 188, 190, 195, 204, 208, 212, 214, 221–23, 226, 230, 233, 261, 264, 278, 291, 306–7, 334, 339, 358–59, 380 Simon, Lucy, 48, 50 Simon, Neil, 104, 106, 329 Simon, Paul, 304–7 Simon, William E., 102 Simonson, Eric, 108, 307 Simpson, Janice C., 36 Simpson, Marietta, 239 Simpson, Marty, 55 Simpson, Michael, 125 Sinatra, Frank, 76, 175, 216, 313, 335 Sing, Mahalia, Sing!, 10 Singer, Barry, 145 Singer, Isaac Bashevis, 168 Singin’ in the Rain, 315 Singleton, J. Lynn, 336 Sinisi, Rosaria, 207 Sirangelo, Mark N., 220 Siretta, Dan, 26–27, 53–54, 58, 183 Sirlin, Jerome, 55, 119 Sissons, Narelle, 196 Sister Act, 282 Skelton, Red, 201 Skinner, Emily, 289, 291 Skinner, Jolyon, 185 Skinner, Randy, 110, 219–20, 370–71

The Skin of Our Teeth, 362–64 Skipper, Michael, 355 Skipper, Mike, 253 Skloff, Michael, 272 Skovhus, Boje, 193 Skowron, Jeff, 313 Skylight Productions, 366 Slama, Mark, 185 Slater, Delsener, 326 Slingsby, Chris, 217, 240, 289, 324 Sloman, John, 229 Small, Neva, 32–33 Smalls, Charlie, 107 Smalto, Francesco, 326 Smit, Derrick, 329 Smith, C. E., 279, 299 Smith, Chris, 197 Smith, Christian, 130, 241 Smith, David Rae, 3, 19, 130 Smith, Gordon, 219–20 Smith, Greg, 29 Smith, Helen, 185 Smith, Jeff, 237 Smith, Jennifer, 313 Smith, Jonathan, 383 Smith, Kester, 41 Smith, Kyle, 232 Smith, Oliver, 129, 141, 207, 274 Smith, Rex, 295 Smith, Richard, 127 Smith, Roger Preston, 275 Smith, Sammy, 191 Smokey Joe’s Café, 187–89 Smothers, Tom, 251 Smuin, Michael, 35–36 Sneed, Glenn, 134 Snelson, Nicole Ruth, 347 Snoopy!!!, 347 Snow, Tom, 327 Soeder, Fran, 39, 64 Sokol, Marilyn, 168 Solimando, Dana, 336 Solms, Kenny, 195 Solomon, Alisa, 34 Soloway, Leonard, 366 Somlyo, Roy A., 97 Sommers, Avery, 279 Sondheim, Stephen, 17, 19, 57, 103, 156, 158–59, 194, 203–5, 225, 272, 376 The Song of Jacob Zulu, 108–10 Soo, Min, 287 Sorenson, Joel, 241 Soroka, John, 69 Sorvino, Paul, 59, 370 Sosnowski, Janusz, 77 The Sound of Music, 3–5, 308–10 Sousa, John Philip, 174, 381 Sousa, Pamela, 136 Souza, Ailto, 95

460      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Sozzi, Sebastian, 370 Space Agency, 185 Spanger, Amy, 373 Speciale, Tony, 317 Spellman, Larry, 99 Spencer, Rebecca, 271 Sperling, Ted, 100, 189 Spewack, Bella and Sam, 372, 374 Spielberg, Anne, 229 Spielman, Fred, 125 Spiner, Brent, 285–86 Spinetti, Victor, 274 Spirit Lake Productions, 370 Spivak, Allen, 185, 366 Springer, Ashton, 352 Springsteen, Bruce, 216 Squadron, Anne, 356 Stabile, Bill, 185 Stadlen, Lewis J., 225 Stage Door Charley, 197–99 Stagevision, 69 Stancari, Lou, 362 Stanek, Jim, 225 Stanley, Alessandra, 40 Stanley, Dorothy, 12, 171, 173, 313 Stanley, Kim, 206 Stanley, Mark W., 58, 192, 218 Stanzilis, Michael, 329 Stapleton, Jean, 216 Stapley, Richard, 181 Starger, Martin, 144–45 State Fair, 219–22 Stava, Keith, 39, 64 Stay, 36–37 Stazo, Luis, 117 Stearns, David Patrick, 4, 7–9, 11, 22, 26–28, 30–31, 37, 42, 45, 50, 52–53, 62, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 83, 85, 87–88, 93, 102, 104, 106, 109, 111, 114, 116, 120, 126, 129, 135, 137, 139–40, 142, 145, 148, 152, 156, 161, 164, 180, 264, 267, 307, 339, 380 Steel City, 344–45 Steele, Tommy, 133, 198 Steel Pier, 264–67 Steers, K. L., 248 Stein, Douglas, 86, 103, 215, 336 Stein, Gertrude, 239–40 Stein, Joseph, 33, 362 Stein, Leo, 192, 218 Stein, Tobie S., 278 Steinberg, Joseph S., 350 Steinberg, Norman, 100 Steiner, Rick, 48, 187 Steiner, Steve, 29 Steinman, Jim, 279, 281 Steinmeyer, Jim, 154 Stella, Tim, 69 Stephens, Gregg, 185 Stephens, Lannyl, 100, 196 Stephens, Linda, 146 Stephenson, Albert, 184

Stephenson, Don, 337 Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 108 Stepping Out, 48 Sterling, Elisa, 259 Sterling, Lynn, 268 Stern, Eric, 51, 132, 150, 176–77, 192, 249, 272, 326, 337, 340 Stern, James D., 308, 383 Stevens, Marti, 28 Stevens, Rise, 224 Stevens, Roger L., 123 Stevens, Ronald “Smokey,” 352 Stevens, Tony, 112 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 270 Stewart, David Ogden, 313 Stewart, Gwen, 9 Stewart, James, 124, 313 Stewart, Jaye, 352 Stewart, Michael, 207, 274 Stewart, Paula, 59 Stewart, Paul Anthony, 138 Stewart-David, Mary, 48 Steyn, Mark, 46 Sticco, Dan, 10 Stigwood, Robert, 164, 368 Stilwell, Liliane, 29 Stites, Kevin, 261, 333, 386 Stock, Jeffrey, 292–93 Stockdale, Gary, 42 Stokes, Heather, 162 Stoklosa, Janusz, 77 Stolarsky, Paul, 100 Stoll, Jon, 385 Stoller, Mike, 187 Stone, Jessica, 162 Stone, Mimi, 296 Stone, Peter, 51, 261, 264, 285, 347–48 Stothart, Herbert, 193, 275, 315, 360 Stout, Mary, 10, 166 Strange, Alex, 301 Strange, Meghan, 176 Straus, Robert V., 350 Strauss, Edward, 75, 225 Strauss, Neil, 185 Street Corner Symphony, 299–300 Street Scene, 19–21 Streisand, Barbra, 184, 209 Stritch, Elaine, 171, 173–74, 177, 205 Stroman, Susan, 17, 47, 57, 70–73, 89, 120, 171, 176, 182, 229–31, 265–67 Strong, Phil, 219 Strouse, Charles, 11, 14, 66–67, 165, 256 Struthers, Sally, 248 Stryker, Paul, 143 Stuart, Jan, 15, 22, 25–26, 50, 53, 65, 80, 93, 126, 129, 137, 140, 184 The Student Prince, 130–32 Studer, Cheryl, 193 Sturge, Tom, 31, 97 Styne, Jule, 39, 64, 144–46, 178, 193–95, 318, 336, 381

INDEX     461 Sugawara, Hiroshi, 35 Suisman, Charles, 66, 68 Sullivan, Arthur, 403 Sullivan, Barry, 59–60 Sullivan, Ian, 81 Sullivan, Jo, 153, 177 Sullivan, KT, 193, 195, 236 Sullivan, Liam, 296 Sullivan, Margaret, 124 Sumner, David, 97 Sunny River, 80 Sunset Boulevard, 178–81 Suntory International Corp., 25 Superstar Ventures, 94 Suskin, Steven, 146, 166 Sussman, Bruce, 60–61, 316–17 Sutcliffe, Steven, 301 Sutherland, Brian, 10, 89 Suttell, V. Jane, 55 Svengali, 54–55 Swados, Elizabeth, 338, 385 Swan Lake, 324–25 Swanson, Gloria, 181 Swarbrick, Carol, 193 Sweet, Jeffrey, 42, 158, 224, 232 Sweet Adeline, 173 Swenson, Inga, 143 Swenson, Swen, 332 Swerling, Jo, 75 Swing, 385 Swing!, 383–85 Swinging on a Star, 209–12 Swing Kids, 318 Sylbert, Paul, 19 Sylvester, Robert, 240 Syse, Glenna, 165 Tabachnik, Robin, 3 Tabisel, Brett, 229 Taj Mahal, 41–42 Talmer, Jerry, 93 Tamberg, Enio, 140 Tango Apasionado, 202, 284 Tango Argentino, 284, 371–72 Tango Pasion, 117–18 Tap Dogs, 345 TAP Productions, 185 Tarchetti, Iginio Ugo, 156 Tarrant, Gage, 55 Tarsia, Frank, 267 Task, Maggie, 257 Tate, Jimmy, 227 Tax, Yan, 138 Tay, David A., 370 Taylor, Drew, 48 Taylor, Elizabeth, 111 Taylor, James, 235 Taylor, Kathy, 386 Taylor, Markland, 168–69, 361–62 Taylor, Myra Lucretia, 202

Taylor, Ron, 356–57 Taylor-Corbett, Lynne, 234–35, 261, 383, 385 Taymor, Julie, 246–47, 296, 298 Tazewell, Paul, 227, 333, 358 Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich, 325 TDI, 146, 213 Teek, Angela, 26–28 Teeter, Lara, 275, 315, 318 Teller, 42–43 Telson, Bob, 202 Tepper, Arielle, 329 Terris, Norma, 175–76 Testa, Mary, 225, 334–35 Te Wiata, Inia, 59 Thacker, Russ, 254 Thalken, Joseph, 317 Thatcher, Ginger, 144, 229 Theatre Guild, 219 Theatres and Concerts International, 344 Theatre Union of the U.S.S.R., 1 Theodore, Lee Becker, 375 The Thin Man, 66 Thomas, Evelyn, 107 Thomas, Ivan, 217 Thomason, Lynn M., 231 Thompson, David, 242, 264 Thompson, Jay, 249 Thompson, Jennifer Laura, 327 Thompson, Lauren, 39, 64 Thompson, Mark, 134 Thompson, Stuart, 11 Thompson, Tommy, 103 Thomson, Brian, 222, 225, 344 Thomson, Virgil, 239–40 Thorne, Raymond, 12–15, 257 Thorngren, Jane, 193, 218–19 Thornton, Mary C., 149 Those Were the Days, 31–33 Three Coins in the Fountain, 318–19 3 from Brooklyn, 98–100 Thun, Nancy, 201 Thuna, Lee, 272 Tibbitts, Michele, 207 Tibor, Kocsak, 93 Tibor, Miklos, 93 Tichler, Rosemarie, 227, 332 Tick, Donald, 78 Tidwell, Brian, 64 Till the Clouds Roll By, 175 Time and Again, 236–38 Timerman, Alex, 381 Tipton, Jennifer, 239 Titanic, 261–64 The Titanic, 264 Todd, Albert, 1 Todd, Michael, 110–12 Tokyo Broadcasting System, 33, 141 Tolin, Meg, 142 Tolsch, Adrianne, 99 Tolstoy, Leo, 92

462      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Tommasini, Anthony, 217, 219, 242 Tommy, 112–14 Tommy Tune Tonite!, 102–3 Tomson, Bob, 115 Topol, 33–34 Torpey, Erin, 104 Torre, Janice, 125 Torres, Jorge, 117, 283 Torsiglieri, Anne, 337 Torti, Robert, 134 Toussaint, Allen, 78–80 Tovatt, Ellen, 3 Towers, Constance, 5, 153, 224 Towne, Billy, 31 Townshend, Pete, 112, 114 Tozzi, Giorgio, 59 Tra La La Inc., 110 Trapp, Maria Augusta von, 3, 308 Travolta, John, 164, 369 Treherne, Nichola, 134 Treumann, Louis, 192 Trien, Cathy, 248 Triumph of Love, 292–94 Trofimov, Gennady, 1 Trousdale, Gary, 154 Truly Blessed, 8–10 Tshanini, Thabani Patrick, 284 Tubert, Susana, 307 Tucker, Sophie, 201 Tullman, Howard A., 210 Tuma, Casey, 256 Tumeo, Vincent, 178 Tune, Tommy, 51, 53, 102–3, 160, 162, 197–99, 247 Tune the Grand Up! Words and Music by Jerry Herman, 321 Tune Twisters, 383 Tunick, Jonathan, 264 Turk, Bruce, 246 Turnbull, Enid, 357 Turner, Glenn, 73, 313 Turner, Grant, 345 Turner, Kellie, 107 Turner, Tina, 113, 150 TV Asahi, 75, 84, 162, 197, 247, 383 Tweebeeke, Reinier, 138 Twelfth Night, 254–55 Twigs, 206 Twine, Linda, 84 Uchitel, Bruce, 21 Uhry, Alfred, 337, 340, 385 Ukena, Paul, Jr., 51 Ullman, Bill, 141 Ullman, Tracey, 251 Umbatha: The Zulu Macbeth, 284–85 Unicorn, Ltd., 252 Universal, 144, 160 Urich, Tom, 360 Vaccariello, Patrick, 134, 280, 310 Valens, Ritchie, 30–31

Valentine, James, 127, 129 Vallee, Rudy, 191 Van, Bobby, 374 Van Buren, Gene, 206 Van Citters, Darrel, 23 Van Den Ende, Joop, 138, 213, 249 Vanderheyden, Tina, 213 Van Dijk, Ad, 138 Van Dijk, Bill, 138, 140 Van Dijk, Koen, 138 Van Druten, John, 310 Van Egmond, Garry, 344 Van Gelder, Lawrence, 23, 150, 217, 219, 299, 316, 337, 353, 358, 361, 378, 385–86 Van Heusen, Jimmy, 211 Van Laast, Anthony, 134 Van Patten, Dick, 133 Varden, Norma, 195 Vargas, Concha, 98 Varone, Doug, 292 Vassiliev, Vladimir, 1–2 Vaughn, Kimberly, 353 Vaughn, Melanie, 337 Vera-Ellen, 335 Verastique, Rocker, 213 Verdon, Gwen, 147–48, 195, 243, 344 Vereen, Ben, 86, 166, 344 Verheyen, Mariann, 39, 64 Verini, Bob, 317 Verrett, Shirley, 150 Vichi, Gerry, 110, 275 Vickers, Larry, 9, 185 Vickery, John, 297 Victor/Victoria, 48, 212–15 Vidnovic, Martin, 136–38, 276, 328 Viertel, Jack, 187, 236 Viertel, Thomas, 42, 187, 283, 308 Viertel, Tom, 383 Viertel-Baruch-Frankel Group, 225 Vigard, Kristen, 257 Vilanch, Bruce, 21, 184 Vincentelli, Elisabeth, 304 Visser, John, 126 Vogel, Frederic B., 353 Voltaire, 272 Voznesensky, Andrey, 1 Vroman, Lisa, 59 Waara, Scott, 69–70 Wacker, Bob, 383 Wagner, Chuck, 55, 271, 296 Wagner, Robin, 70, 84, 166, 213, 229, 231, 267, 289, 368, 373 Waissman, Kenneth, 299 Walbye, Kay, 48 Walcott, Derek, 304–6 Waldman, Robert, 385 Walken, Christopher, 40 Walker, Chet, 341 Walker, Fredi, 231 Walker, Nancy, 177

INDEX     463 Walkinshaw, Andrew, 325 Wallis, Quvenzhane, 258 Wallis, Shani, 178, 251 Wallop, Douglass, 146 Walmsley, Andy, 29, 115 Walsh, Alice Chebba, 353 Walsh, Barbara, 86, 115, 229 Walsh, Elizabeth, 58 Walsh, James, 25 Walsh, Michael, 174 Walsh, Thommie, 100 Walston, Ray, 147 Walt Disney (Theatrical) Productions, 154, 276, 278, 296 Walters, Charles, 312 Walton, Debra, 299 Walton, Jim, 72 Walton, Tony, 51, 75, 77, 102, 123, 126, 136, 182–83, 197, 199, 203, 225, 265, 276, 285, 347 Wanetik, Ric, 353 Ward, Elizabeth, 294 Ward, Kirby, 72 Ward, Lauren, 286 Ware, Eric, 41 Warmen, Timothy, 112, 176, 265 Warner Brothers, 23 Warren, Chandler, 50 Warren, David, 317 Warren, Jennifer Leigh, 378 Warren, Lesley Ann, 132, 213, 261 Warren, Thom Christopher, 317 Warren-Gibson, David, 198 Wasserman, Dale, 81, 83 Wasserman, Herbert, 123 Wasson, David, 81 Watanabe, Ken, 224 Waterhouse, Keith, 280 Waters, Daryl, 227 Watkins, Amanda, 361 Watkins, Beulah, 363 Watkins, Lyndsey, 256 Watkins, Maurine Dallas, 242 Watson, Betty Jane, 349 Watson, David Lloyd, 280 Watson, Janet, 361 Watson, Joe, 283 Watson, Susan, 91 Watt, Douglas, 4, 8, 27–28, 31, 33, 37, 40, 42, 45, 49, 52, 65, 67, 70, 72, 74–76, 80, 85, 87, 104, 111, 114, 116, 243 Watt, Michael, 347 Watts, Richard, 274 Waxman, Anita, 285, 356 Waxman, Herschel, 289 Weales, Gerald, 274 Weaver, Fritz, 143 Webb, Clifton, 382 Weber, Bruce, 145, 256 Weber, Rod, 355 Weeks, Alan, 78, 80, 135 Weidman, John, 229 Weidner, Larry, 362–63 Weil, Tim, 231

Weill, Jean D., 61 Weill, Kurt, 19 Weinstein, Arnold, 168 Weinstock, Jack, 189 Weisman, Eliot, 47 Weiss, Howard, 385 Weiss, Julie, 47 Weiss, Marc B., 94 Weissler, Barry and Fran, 33, 86, 141–42, 162, 197, 242, 247, 347 Weitzenhoffer, Max, 51 Weitzman, Ira, 337 Welch, Elizabeth, 58–59 Welch, Ken, 60 Welch, Mitzie, 60 Welch, Raquel, 214 Weldon, Jerry, 38 Wells, Fred, 136 Welzer, Irving, 78, 347 Wemitt, Monica M., 207 Wendland, Mark, 234, 317 Wendt, Angela, 231 Wentworth, Scott, 92 West, Britt, 39 West, Cheryl L., 253 West, John, 206 West, Matt, 154 West, Nathanael, 177 Westbrook, Dawn, 165 Westenberg, Robert, 203 Westergaard, Louise, 259 Westfeldt, Jennifer, 177 Wexler, Norman, 368 What You Will, 255 Wheeler, Hugh, 17, 57, 130, 272–73 Wheetman, Dan, 356–57 Whelan, Bill, 217, 240, 289, 324 Whelan, Tim, 197 Whistle Down the Wind, 80, 279–82 Whistlin’ Dixie, 189 White, J. Steven, 35 White, Jane, 250–51 White, Lillias, 190–91, 268, 270 White, Richard, 272 White, Roz, 279 White, T. H., 126 Whitehead, Paxton, 141–42 Whitelaw, Arthur, 345 Whiting, Margaret, 260–61 Whitman, Kevin C., 312 Whitton, Margaret, 353 The Who, 113 Whoopee, 348 Wicks, Emma, 272 Wierzel, Robert, 248 Wieselman, Doug, 181, 341 Wilbur, Richard, 272 Wilder, Andrew, 193 Wilder, Baakari, 227 Wilder, Billy, 178 Wilder, Thornton, 207, 362

464      THE COMPLETE BOOK OF 1990s BROADWAY MUSICALS Wildhorn, Frank, 55, 140, 212, 215, 270, 294, 355–56 The Wild Party, 381 Wilkins, Ann Marie, 37 Wilkins, Sharon, 268 Wilkinson, Michael, 344 Wilkof, Lee, 123 Willensky, Elliot, 370 Williams, Allison (M.), 40, 84 Williams, Deborah, 19 Williams, Diane Ferry, 278 Williams, Elizabeth, 48, 70, 356 Williams, John, 131 Williams, Ralph, 171 Williams, Sam, 181, 341 Williams, Samm-Art, 166 Williams, Shanice, 108 Williams, Stephen, 38 Williams, Vanessa, 121 Williamson, Ruth, 330 Williamson, Sonny Boy, 112 The Will Rogers Follies, 45 The Will Rogers Follies: A Life in Revue, 51–53 Wills, Jennifer Hope, 178 Wills, Mike, 42 Wills, Ray, 229 Wilner, Jon, 321 Wilner, Lori, 31 Wilson, Chandra, 167 Wilson, Edwin, 7–10, 31, 40, 42–43, 45, 50, 52–53, 65, 67, 69, 72, 74–76, 83, 85, 88, 101, 104, 109, 114, 116, 126, 136, 140, 142–43, 145, 148, 152, 158, 354 Wilson, Kristen, 66 Wilson, Patrick, 317 Wilson, Robert, 239–40 Winchell, Walter, 201 Winer, Linda, 7–8, 27–28, 31, 34, 40, 42–43, 45–46, 62, 67, 69–70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 83, 85, 87, 99, 101, 104–6, 109, 111, 114, 116, 120, 135–36, 148, 150, 152, 155, 158, 161, 164, 174, 180, 189, 191, 195, 203–5, 208, 214, 235, 237, 247 Wine Women and Song, 201 Wingquist, Gunilla, 61 Winninger, Charles, 173 Winslow, George “Foghorn,” 195 Winston, Tarik, 79, 217, 240–41, 289, 324 Winter, Keith, 144 Wintersteller, Lynne, 136–37 Wise, Kirk, 154 Wise, Robert, 5 Wise, Scott, 104, 146, 221–22 Withers, Iva, 153 Wittman, Scott, 206 The Wiz, 107–8 The Wizard of Oz, 275–76, 315–16, 360–61 Wodehouse, P. G., 26, 53, 174 Wolf, Matt, 180, 354 Wolfe, Ben, 38 Wolfe, David, 102 Wolfe, George C., 84–86, 227–29, 332, 334–35 Wolfe, John Leslie, 58–59, 62–63, 386 Wolfe, Matt, 281

Wolinsky, Robert, 350 Wonder, Stevie, 216 Wonderful Town, 176–78 Wong, B. D., 346 Wood, Susan, 162 Woodroffe, Patrick, 252 Woods, Carol, 104, 106 Woods, Denise, 96 Woods, Mark, 345 Woods, Sheryl, 21, 96–97 Woolard, David C., 112, 146, 353, 370 Woolf, Edgar Allen, 275, 315, 360 Woolverton, Linda, 154, 296 Wooten, Daniel, 217 Wooten, Jason, 361 Wopat, Tom, 347–49 Workin’ Man Films, Inc., 146 Worley, Jo Anne (Joanne), 276, 360–61 Wouk, Herman, 278 Wrangler, Jack, 260 Wreghitt, Randall L., 350 Wright, Ben, 220–21 Wright, Bob, 5, 374 Wright, Jeffrey, 227–28 Wright, Randel, 107 Wright, Robert, 374 Wright, Samuel E., 297 Wright, Syreeta, 185 Wright, Valerie, 265, 347 Yaji, Shigeru, 336 Yale Repertory Group, 292 Yang, In Ja, 287, 322 Yang, Young il, 287, 322 Yarnell, Bruce, 153, 349 Yearby, Marlies, 231 Yeargan, Michael, 358 Yeston, Maury, 261, 263–64 Yi, Mun Yol, 287, 322 York, Rachel, 196, 213, 295, 375, 377 Youmans, James (Jim), 60, 210, 234 Young, Bellamy, 269 Young, Bill, 270 Young, James, 141 Young, Keith, 333 Young, LaParee, 279 Young, Ron, 102 Young Man, Older Woman, 185 You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, 187, 345–47 Yourgrau, Tug, 108 Your Own Thing, 254 Yu, Hee Sung, 287, 322 Yule, Don, 62, 176 Yun, Ho Jin, 287, 322 Yurman, Lawrence, 326 Zakharov, Mark, 1 Zaks, Jerry, 75, 77, 187, 225, 307, 355, 364, 383 Zaraspe, Hector, 117 Zaremba, Kathryn, 14

INDEX     465 ZDF Enterprises, 350 Zelger, Scott, 112 Zellweger, Renee, 245 Zeta-Jones, Catherine, 245 Ziegfeld Follies, 52 Ziegler, Daniela, 181 Ziemba, Karen, 58–59, 89, 91, 265–67 Zien, Chip, 86, 88 Zimmer, Hans, 298 Zimmerman, Edward, 130 Zimmerman, Mark, 167

Zink, Jack, 279 Zippel, David, 104 Zipprodt, Patricia, 33, 35–37, 100–102, 141 Zmed, Adrian, 248 Zoglin, Richard, 244, 269, 291, 298, 303, 380 Zolli, Danny, 185 Zorich, Louis, 123 Zuber, Catherine, 144–45, 168, 236, 292, 308 Zungu, Qed’umunyu, 284 Zwane, Mdudzi, 284 Zweigbaum, Steven, 70, 182, 229, 372

About the Author

Dan Dietz was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the University of Virginia, and the subject of his graduate thesis was the poetry of Hart Crane. He taught English and the history of modern drama at Western Carolina University, and then later served with the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Education Department. He is the author of Off-Broadway Musicals, 1910–2007: Casts, Credits, Songs, Critical Reception and Performance Data of More Than 1,800 Shows (2010), which was selected as one of the outstanding reference sources of 2011 by the American Library Association. He is also the author of The Complete Book of 1940s Broadway Musicals (2015), The Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals (2014), The Complete Book of 1960s Broadway Musicals (2014), The Complete Book of 1970s Broadway Musicals (2015), and The Complete Book of 1980s Broadway Musicals (2016), all published by Rowman & Littlefield.

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