I decided to also give this thread a bump as a little memory of Ron. He was a regular contributor, and the many stories and knowledge he shared on this thread of musical theatre with his posts was always something to look forward to. He was always recommending and sending stuff to me, which I greatly appreciated.
I listened to this last night and thought of him, as I know he was very fond of it. Cheers, Ron!
Ah, Ron! It's been a couple of years now since his sudden passing. Knowledgeable, endearing man, whom I used to meet now and then up in L.A. He'd have loved the soundtracks that have been released since then. Rest easy, Ron...
I saw DEAR WORLD twice, first when it tried out in Boston, then later in New York. This was the big follow-up musical that Jerry Herman and Angela Lansbury put together after the colossal success of their MAME. Consequently, there was a considerable advance sale. However the actuality turned out mostly heavy-handed, with more than one march number, which detracted from the delicate allegory of the French original play it was based on. Lansbury was wonderful, eccentric and memorable, and the best scene in it was the tea party she had with her fellow Madwomen, of whom Jane Connell, also from the original cast of MAME, stood out. The reviews, though, were mostly lackluster, except to praise Lansbury, who won another Tony, and the show creaked on for a while, chiefly due to its huge advance sale. Fortunately, there was a cast album, later released on CD, which can still be found here and there. (When I first saw this in Boston, it seemed to go on forever, with too many marches, but the show seemed tighter and more coherent in its New York incarnation.)
I've never seen the show (or the film), but the Original Cast recording of DAMN YANKEES has always been a pleasant listen. The big song hit from the show, "Heart," is a particular favorite.
You should at least try to catch up with the movie version, Bob. It is on DVD and, just like it’s predecessor “The Pajama Game”, features almost all of the Original Broadway Cast
Tab Hunter is in there (as Joe Hardy) for marquee appeal. He’s ok in it too.
A few of the show’s original songs didn’t make the transfer to the big screen, but what is left still has Gwen Verdon & Ray Walston at their best.
Gwen & Bob Fosse steal the show with “Who’s Got the Pain?”. Knockout!
The show had a great Broadway revival in the 1990’s and, I saw it twice when it came to London. This time around, Jerry Lewis played Mr Applegate and he was fantastic!
I was there on his last night, and,in the second act, he finished his big number and then proceeded to ad lib and do his own “act” for about half an hour. It was amazing and the audience were going wild.
One of those “Never to be forgotten nights in the theatre.”
You should at least try to catch up with the movie version, Bob. It is on DVD and, just like it’s predecessor “The Pajama Game”, features almost all of the Original Broadway Cast
Tab Hunter is in there (as Joe Hardy) for marquee appeal. He’s ok in it too.
A few of the show’s original songs didn’t make the transfer to the big screen, but what is left still has Gwen Verdon & Ray Walston at their best.
Gwen & Bob Fosse steal the show with “Who’s Got the Pain?”. Knockout!
The show had a great Broadway revival in the 1990’s and, I saw it twice when it came to London. This time around, Jerry Lewis played Mr Applegate and he was fantastic!
I was there on his last night, and,in the second act, he finished his big number and then proceeded to ad lib and do his own “act” for about half an hour. It was amazing and the audience were going wild.
One of those “Never to be forgotten nights in the theatre.”
The great song that was omitted from the film was "The Game". I guess they thought it was a bit risqué for "general" audiences. In it the players lament the fact they have to refrain from sex during the baseball season. The melody still remains during the credits at the beginning of the film. The film soundtrack cd is in stereo. I don't believe the film itself was ever shown in stereo. Creative use of split screen for the opening song, "6 Months out of Every Year ".
'HAMILTON' is due to open in the West End October 2017, with tickets on sale from January. I'm not overly familiar with it, I've heard a few pieces, be interesting to see how it goes in London...
For me, it's rare to not pull out a Stephen Sondheim musical every three or four days.
Right now, the one that's fascinating me most is "Pacific Overtures", about the opening of Japan in the mid 1800's. The final song, "Next!" sends chills up my spine, every time. While the original cast recording is my favorite, I'm also enjoying the revival cast album with BD Wong.
About half of Sondheim's "Bounce" worked for me. Apparently, I'm the only person who even half-likes this show.
And I'm completely in love with the 2009 revival cast of "West Side Story", parts of which are sung in Spanish, which makes perfect sense.
My favorite Sondheim..."Follies". Period.
While they're definitely NOT Sondheim, I'm also grooving on "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" (which completely appropriates the plot of "Kind Hearts and Coronets", methinks), and "The Will Rogers Follies", which returns every few months like a visit from an old friend.
ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY is based partly on the 1930s film and play of the same name. The musical involves the behind-the-scenes relationship between "Lily" (Madeline Kahn), a temperamental actress, and "Oscar" (John Cullum), a bankrupt theater producer. On a luxury train traveling from Chicago to New York in the 1920s, Oscar tries to cajole the glamorous Hollywood star into playing the lead in his new, but not-yet-written drama, and perhaps to rekindle their romance.
The Broadway production opened on February 19, 1978 at the St. James Theatre to mixed reviews. It ran for 11 previews and 449 performances. The show won five Tony Awards, including best score and best book for Cy Coleman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
During World War II, while crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary with 15,000 recruits, the playwright Robert Sherwood had been "deeply moved" and "greatly impressed by the emotion that sight of the Statue of Liberty generated among these soldiers." Upon meeting Irving Berlin in England, he invited him to compose the score to a musical celebrating the Statue, and Berlin suggested Moss Hart become part of the creative team as a co-producer and director.
The book and score for MISS LIBERTY were completed in May 1949 and a cast of fifty-five began rehearsals. The score includes the song "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor", a musical setting of Emma Lazarus's sonnet "The New Colossus" (1883), which was placed at the base of the monument in 1903. The musical opened in Philadelphia on June 13 and, despite mostly negative reviews, the four-week-long run was a sellout, resulting in a profit of $175,000. With an advance sale of $500,000, the Broadway production opened at the Imperial Theatre on July 15, 1949 and closed on April 8, 1950, following 308 performances.
Despite the poor reviews, many of its songs become popular hits at the time, and 98 singles and three albums of the show's tunes were released. The original cast album was first released on a 10-inch LP. The CD re-issue came in 1991.
The musical IRMA LA DOUCE premiered in Paris at the Théâtre Gramont on November 12, 1956, where it ran for four years. It was produced in the West End at the Lyric Theatre, opening on July 17, 1958, running for 1,512 performances, for three years. The West End production was directed by Peter Brook with choreography by John Heawood, and starred Keith Michell as Nestor, Elizabeth Seal as Irma, and Clive Revill.
The musical's least successful run came on Broadway, when it opened at the Plymouth Theatre (now the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre) on September 29, 1960, moved to the Alvin Theatre on October 30, 1961, and closed on December 31, 1961, after 524 performances. The production was directed by Peter Brook with choreography by Onna White. Repeating their roles from the London production were Michell, Seal, and Revill. Stuart Damon and Fred Gwynne also were featured. The musical nevertheless received seven Tony nominations, with Elizabeth Seal winning for Best Actress.
A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN was originally a semi-autobiographical 1943 novel written by Betty Smith. The story focuses on an impoverished but aspirational adolescent girl and her family living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, during the first two decades of the 20th century. The book was adapted for a 1945 film that marked the feature film directorial debut of Elia Kazan. Peggy Ann Garner received the Academy Juvenile Award for her performance as "Francie Nolan", the young girl at the center of the coming-of-age story. Other stars were Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Lloyd Nolan.
The book was adapted into a Broadway musical in 1951, with a book by George Abbott and Betty Smith, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and music by Arthur Schwartz. When Shirley Booth was cast as "Aunt Cissy," a secondary character in the novel, the prominence of this role was expanded and tailored to Booth's comedic talents, diminishing the relative importance of other characters, in particular young Francie, through whose eyes the plot of the novel unfolds.
The show only ran 267 performances. Frank Rizzo, in Variety, opined that "The musical’s failure was largely blamed on a script too tailored to accommodate the comic talents of Shirley Booth, in what was essentially a supporting role. But the show ... made other missteps. The arrival of the book’s most appealing character — young Francie Nolan [played by Nomi Mitty] — was unnecessarily delayed, and an elaborate nightmare Halloween ballet in the second act, depicting the final descent of her goodhearted but alcoholic father Johnny Nolan, was a mistake."
Nevertheless, the show had some good songs, including the plaintive "Growing Pains" sung by Francie's father (played by Johnny Johnston).
This 1991 studio cast version of KISMET is another of those recordings where opera stars attempt musical theater. But this one is better than most, thanks to the all-American cast of Samuel Ramey (bass), Julia Migenes (soprano), Jerry Hadley (tenor), and Ruth Ann Swenson (soprano). Here, the latter two sing one of the most famous songs from the score.
When CANDIDE opened on Broadway on December 1, 1956, the Leonard Bernstein-Richard Wilbur-scored musical quickly proved to be a box office disaster, a fate blamed on Lillian Hellman's confusing and contrived book. The production ran only two months for a total of 73 performances. The show's original cast album has fared better, because as Didier C. Deutsch said: "freed from the circuitous roundabouts of the story line, the score emerged as a shining example of Broadway craftsmanship at its most magical."
Nevertheless, despite the recording's long life in the marketplace, it never yielded a hit song. For what it's worth, the show's final song is my favorite, as it looks forward to better Bernstein duets in WEST SIDE STORY like "One Hand, One Heart" and "Somewhere."
Frank Loesser spent six years writing the book, music, and lyrics for THE MOST HAPPY FELLA, a musical based on the 1924 play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard. The story is about a romance between an older man, grape farmer "Tony Esposito" (Robert Weede), and a younger woman, waitress "Amy", whom Tony calls "Rosabella" (Jo Sullivan).
The show opened on May 3, 1956 at the Imperial Theatre, transferred to The Broadway Theatre on October 21, 1957 and closed on December 14, 1957 after 676 performances. The show received great reviews from the critics, but had the misfortune to open just 7 weeks after MY FAIR LADY. Although THE MOST HAPPY FELLA was nominated for six Tony Awards, it lost all of them to either MY FAIR LADY or LI'L ABNER.
THE MOST HAPPY FELLA has the distinction of being the first Broadway musical to be recorded virtually complete, dialogue and all, with its original cast. Columbia Records released a three-LP set of the show, as well as a single LP highlights album. The show produced a number of hit songs, perhaps the best-known being "Standing On the Corner."
