THE SATURDAY LIST: Annie by Annie Gettin’ Her Gun

Posted on May 16, 2020 by David Fick
Ethel Merman in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN
Ethel Merman in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN

Annie Get Your Gun is 74 years old today! This grand old dame of musical theatre premiered on this day in 1946 – imagine what it must have been like to hear those classic Irving Berlin songs for the first time. This show undoubtedly has one of the great song stacks of the Golden Age musicals. With a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, the show has been revived and revised many a time, dropping and adding songs from production to production, with a new curate’s egg of a book written by Peter Stone for a high profile revival in the 1990s. Join me today in celebrating some of the great Annies that have tried to get a main with a gun over the years.

Full disclosure: I’ve never seen any of these performances live – so this isn’t a ranked comparison by any means. (Obviously, I have seen the 1950 film and the 1957 telecast.) Rather, it’s a celebration of performances I’ve enjoyed in the way that every musical theatre kid and superfan on a budget has done for decades – by hunting down every little scrap of everything I can.

1. Ethel Merman

Ethel Merman was the first Annie to ‘sparkle like a crystal’ and in many ways, hers remains the definitive reading of the role. She was 38 years old when she originated the role, playing it once again two decades later in a revival. Opinions differ on what that Annie Get Your Gun was like on stage, some shadily referring to the production as “Granny Get Your Gun,” but on record, its a smash. I discovered this album in high school when I was performing in a community theatre production of the show and I played it over and over within an inch of its life. Classic Broadway.

2. Delores Gray

Annie Get Your Gun was Delores Gray’s first big triumph. Headlining the original London production of the show was a breakthrough for her. Of the early Annies on record, she sounds the most like a singer of the period – the 1940s, that is. Her take on the songs is glossy and glamorous, even when she’s drawling her way through “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun.” Listening to her recordings, you understand why the songs were such big hits of the time. Her turn of phrase has more or a pop sensibility than the showtune mannerisms of Merman. Both have their place.

3. Mary Martin

John Raitt and Mary Martin in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN

The second Annie who made a major impact stateside was Mary Martin, who led Annie Get Your Gun on tour. More charming than Merman in the role, the more polished second-act Annie peeks out through backwoods Annie’s eyes early on, something that can be seen in the live 1957 television broadcast based on the show. Martin’s disarming performance earned her a Special Tony Award in 1948 for “Spreading Theatre to the Country While the Originals Perform in New York.” One can see why – she just makes you grin from start to finish.

4. Betty Hutton

Betty Hutton always has to bear the yoke of being the person who replaced Judy Garland in the film version of Annie Get Your Gun. I’d even say that she’s more famous for that episode of show business history than she is for what she did with the role. She tackles both the role and the score with exuberance – but the film is a rather uninspired, sing-at-the-camera kind of affair, the adaptations made to the material not really doing much to illuminate it in a different medium.

5. Andrea McArcle

I have such a soft spot for Andrea McArdle. Maybe it has to do with the connection so many kids make with her when they are presented with the original cast recording of Annie. Whatever the reason, I always light up when she pops up on my playlist. Something that never pops up, of course, is her unrecorded stint as Annie Oakley. She was nineteen when she played the role for the San Bernardino Civic Light Opera, rather closer to the real Annie’s age at the time of the events depicted – however far they depart from reality. When you hear McArdle sing songs from the score at that age, there is something genuine that shines through in her voice. Annie’s naiveté never felt so believable.

6. Suzi Quatro

Poster Art for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN

I wonder what people thought when they first heard the news that rock singer Suzi Quatro would play Annie Get Your Gun in a British revival of the show. How would the singer of “Devil Gate Drive” and “Daytona Demon” manage the classic Berin score? The results are preserved on a cast recording in which Annie Oakley has never sounded earthier, Quatro serving more Hutton than Merman in her vocals. She is more memorable than Hutton though, perhaps because she sounds so distinctive. There’s a catch in her voice that knits together her take on the role.

7. Bernadette Peters

There are those who did not love Bernadette Peters in Annie Get Your Gun. Some cry miscasting. Others just can’t get past the revisions. But there’s no business like show business for differing opinions and personally, I’ve enjoyed every smidgen of footage I’ve seen of Peters in the show. The thing is, I guess the issue of whether you like Peters in the role depends on that for which you’re looking. Annie has never been a role that’s depended on an actor disappearing into the role. It was conceived as a diva role, one where audiences delight in seeing the filter through their favourite musical theatre stars. In the context of big-budget musical theatre, it’s also a role that has to be cast with a name big enough to underwrite the show. That’s pretty much what Peters offers. She’s playful when the show calls for broader moments and gives us the vulnerability that is one of her trademarks. Perhaps that’snot everyone’s cup of tea, but it works for me. It also worked for the Tony Award voters in the 1998/1999 season.

8. Reba McEntire

I guess every age has a Merman and a Martin. In the 1940s, Merman put her stamp on the original production, with Martin following in her footsteps. At the turn of the century, Peters’s more Martinesque take on Annie Get Your Gun was followed by the broader Mermanesque stylings of Reba McEntire – a full circle, perhaps? McEntire’s Annie drew universal acclaim and what might have been stunt casting became the stuff of legend. McEntire’s Annie is so unaffected – a perfect marriage of performer and character. Her singing is easy on the ear and her take on the numbers is an idiosyncratic delight.

Reba McEntire in ANNIE GET YOUR RUN

9. Jane Horrocks

Jane Horrocks had the sun in the morning and the moon at night when she took on the role in a production of Annie Get Your Gun opposite Julian Ovenden will opening at the Young Vic in London. The trimmed book cut Tommy and Winnie completely, reallocating  “I’ll Share It All With You” to Dolly and Charlie. Of Annie’s siblings, only Jessie survived the cut and as is standard in contemporary productions of the show, “I’m an Indian Too” was deleted from the score. Accompanied by four pianos, Horrocks tackled with songs in a more jazzy idiom than her predecessors. In an oddly anachronistic touch, video footage showed Horrocks’s Annie receiving medals from historical figures like Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. The only response one might have to that: but why?

10. Patti LuPone

Patti Lupone got lost in Patrick Cassidy’s arms in a 2010 concert staging of Annie Get Your Gun at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. Under the direction of Lonny Price, the presentation of the Fields version of the show was staged to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Annie Oakley’s birth. Also featured in the company was George Hearn in the role of Buffalo Bill Cody. LuPone’s performance and strong notices put paid to the bitchy whispers about whether the esteemed Broadway diva was pushing the envelope age-wise at the age of 61. Merman, one might recall, was 58 when she played the role in the 1966 revival and that was a full-scale production – so why raise such quibbles for what must have been a fabulous concert?, PuPone of course, had sung the role in concert before opposite Peter Gallagher. It’s a treat to hear her belt out the songs like its nobody’s business.

There are many other Annies to celebrate – Barabra Eden, Debbie Reynolds, Kim Criswell, Judy Kaye and Susan Lucci among them. Who’s your favourite?

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THE SATURDAY LIST: So Much “Happiness,” So Much PASSION!

Posted on May 9, 2020 by David Fick

Today is the day in 1994 that Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion began its 280-performance run, still the shortest run of the shows that have won the Tony Award for Best Musical. 26 years after its premiere, it remains the most hotly debated and divisive show among Sondheads, the most devoted of its composer’s fans. Some people cannot handle its intensity; others find its ferocity its greatest pleasure. There are those who find it simply melodramatic; they are countered by people who celebrate it as a searingly honest reflection of the human condition.

And that’s before the topic of what Passion explores is even raised. Is it about love? Does it substitute obsession for love? Does its title refer to romance? Extreme desire? Suffering? Sondheim himself has said that the show is about ‘how the force of somebody’s feeling for you can crack you open and how it is the life force in a deadened world.’ Thus, in actuality, it is about all of these things. When one recognises this, to paraphrase Fosca, in the end, you finally see what is beautiful about it.

In that spirit, let’s take a moment to celebrate this lush musical. Here are my five favourite musical scenes from the show – with an honourable mention to “I Wish I Could Forget You.”

5. “Happiness“

Radiance. If I had to sum up this song in one word, that would be it. Were it just the opening number of Passion, this is all it might be – and it would be enough. But “Happiness” is so much more than a scene-setter, so much more than exposition. “Happiness” gains more power in its appearances as a motif in the show, with musical fragments reappearing at key moments and words in both dialogue and song compelling us to interrogate its sentiments. Sung at first by Giorgio and Clara, its eventual utterance by Fosca near the show’s end is heart-rending.

4. “Garden Sequence“

Passion is full of expertly crafted musical scenes, tiny vignettes that shift from dialogue to song and back again. The “Garden Sequence,” which uses the letters between Giorgio and Clara to enable the scene to comment on itself, is one of my favourites. We see Giorgio toying with words he has shared with Clara as he talks to Fosca, and she sees through him. The love that Giorgio will eventually feel for Fosca is foreshadowed here, with Clara narrating the process as it slowly begins to manifest. The allegory of Passion reveals to us how we are all caught like Giorgio between what the world tells us is light (Clara) or dark (Fosca), an idea perhaps best illustrated in this section of the show. Of course, we’re only protecting our own lightness and darkness onto those we love, so what we discover in the end may be surprising.

3. “Loving You“

What is so incredible about this complex score with its motifs that are so expertly arranged and inverted and manipulated and juxtaposed is how it distils itself into moments of such pure simplicity. It is like a light that shimmers through crystals, dancing about onto some surface and then, when the conditions are just right, projects a rainbow into our lives. “Loving You” is one of those rainbow moments. The show’s detractors are quick to argue that what Fosca articulates is not love, but how many of us haven’t defined ourselves in this way, by a love that isn’t returned, and still called it love? There is a reason that Barbra Streisand was able to massage this song into a relatively conventional romantic pop duet with Patrick Wilson: what it says connects with our universal experience of love, including the lies we tell ourselves about it. Fosca at least has the awareness to realise that what she feels and acts upon is out of her control. How many of us are ready to admit that?

2. “I Read“

“I Read” is as brilliant an introduction to a character as there ever was. It captures Sondheim at his most poetic in a lyric that is as layered and evasive in some moments as it is forthright and literal. Though this song, he makes Fosca, like Rousseau’s Julie who she has just mentioned, a great mystery. Fosca, who is as broken in her soul as she is in her body, somehow becomes someone in whom we see our own selves and our own desires to free ourselves from whatever breaks us. It’s disquieting, masterful theatre-making.

1. “No One Has Ever Loved Me“

Those who wonder what Passion is about might do well to listen to the penultimate song in the show, one of Sondheim’s most beautiful creations as it puts into words what so many of us seek in our lives: ‘Love without reason, love without mercy, love without pride or shame.’ That’s what passion is, not something ‘pretty or safe or easy’. This moment of catharsis is just one of the things makes Passion worth the journey.

Want to share why Passion is special to you? Feel free to head on down to the comments box to share your favourite moments with me.

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THE SATURDAY LIST: Happy Birthday, “Sunday”!

Posted on May 2, 2020 by David Fick
SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE Logo

Does anyone still finish a hat? Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine certainly had when Sunday in the Park with George made its Broadway bow on this day in 1984. The Pulitzer Prize-winning musical is one of the great musicals of that decade, a show written when Sondheim was working his way out of the pits of despair into which Merrily We Roll Along had thrown him. Working in a new creative context with a new collaborator at a time when he must have been questioning his own artistry must certainly have added something to Sunday in the Park with George, which grapples most profoundly with what it means to be both an artist and a human being.

To celebrate this blue, purple, yellow, red anniversary of a green, purple, yellow, red musical theatre gem, here’s my list of the five most graceful, sophisticated and imaginative moments that make the show so special to me.

5. “Sunday”

For sheer beauty, there is little to top “Sunday” in the musical theatre canon. It is the kind of song during which one can hardly breathe. Sondheim sets a single sentence to music that swells and swells until it reaches its climax. And when your breath returns, the tears flow. Forever…

4. “Finishing the Hat”

“Finishing the Hat” captures – as does “Color and Light” earlier in the show – the simultaneous torture and joy of making art. It is such an intimate moment, stripping down the making of art to the instant when artists are at their most powerful and their most vulnerable: the moment of creation. It captures how artists, no matter the medium in which they work, get to a place of connection in which there is an understanding of everything that defines our humanity, ironically by disengaging themselves from the real world and people that surround them. Knowing that George can make a hat ‘where there never was a hat’ makes us understand why he treats Marie the way that he does. It also shows us how she hurts him as much as he hurts her. It sets up the layers of pain that come to light in “We Do Not Belong Together” and lays the foundation for everything that can happen when things come together on a perfect “Sunday.”

Sunday in the Park with George Poster 1984

3. “Putting It Together“

“Putting It Together” is a song that I love as much for its life outside of the show as for what it says inside it. I first heard the Julie Andrews version created for the show that took its name from the song, which shifts the artist’s process to a performer’s. Different words, but the sentiment remains the same – a prime example of how specificity can prompt universality. While it perhaps doesn’t cut close to the bone in as obviously an emotional manner as other songs in the show, it does prompt other questions about what it means to make art today – questions that I think we are facing even now as the world comes to grips with what Covid-19 will mean for the arts in general. That aside, I find this song and the scene that is built around it so rhythmically exciting, a completely thrilling ride to its neatly punctuated conclusion.

2. “Move On“

My experience of this song has been: “The longer you live, the truer it gets.” So much of modern life seems to be about grappling with feeling trapped by a world that doesn’t care whether you exist or not, about getting stuck in a rut, about being unable to connect with something that gives your life meaning. It offers the ultimate life lesson: ‘Anything you do, / Let it come from you.’ This is probably the most fulfilling thing anybody can do – and finding the courage to do this is all (!) it takes.

1. “Children and Art“

I’m sure that I would not be alone in naming this really unassuming song as my favourite in the score of Sunday in the Park with George. I find it phenomenally moving, this simple sentiment expressed through the character of Marie in an almost glancing manner. The effect of placing the painstakingly crafted lyrics within such an expertly constructed piece of music – suited to both the concept that unites the score (the short musical phrases that make up the whole, in the way that the dots come together to form the image in the painting) and the character (whose age is reflected in the lack of long phrases and the placement of the song in the voice) – is pure magic. It is a superb piece of work.

Want to share why Sunday in the Park with George is special to you? Feel free to head on down to the comments box to share your favourite moments with me.

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Spread a Little Happiness with MR CINDERS

Posted on March 29, 2019 by David Fick

Last weekend’s post about my favourite 1920s musicals reminded me about the simply smashing Mr Cinders (1928), prompting me to give the London revival cast album a listen, with the idea of featuring it in this week’s Forgotten Musicals Friday column.

Denis Lawson as Jim and Christina Matthews as Jill in Mr Cinders

The show is a typical 1920s musical comedy, based on Cinderella, but with the genders switched. There are several songs written in the style that The Boy Friend would parody roughly a quarter century later, though this is the real thing rather than a parody like Sandy Wilson’s popular 1950s show. Nonetheless, Mr Cinders plays with the same sense of camp pastiche as The Boy Friend. The show features a score by Vivian Ellis and Richard Myers, with a libretto by Clifford Grey and Greatorex Newman.

My favourite number is, I think, the one that has become most popular outside of the show, “Spread a Little Happiness.” “Tennis” is loads of fun, and the numbers that involve the two nasty brothers, “Blue Blood,” “True to Two” and “Honeymoon for Four,” are all quite witty. The duets for Mr Cinders and Jill are both sweet, although I was more partial to “One-Man Girl” than “I’ve Got You,” which attempts to substitute wit for character and get away with it, but doesn’t quite succeed in my view.

I wasn’t crazy about “On the Amazon,” which sounds like it might have been funny just shy of a century ago, but perhaps hasn’t aged as well as the rest of the score. There are, however, two super ensemble numbers: “On with the Dance” and “The 18th Century Drag.” The latter is one of those trademark musical comedy songs in which a new dance style is introduced — the kind parodied quite recently in “Transylvania Mania” from Young Frankenstein — and it is delightfully complex.

I would really recommend this recording to anyone. Listening to the score made me wonder what the book is like. It can’t be too hopeless, with revivals having been mounted sporadically since the 1980s, so it leaves me wondering why this show isn’t more popular with high schools and community theatres. I think it should be.

Want to add your own thoughts about Mr Cinders? Head to the comment box and share your views! I’d love to hear what you think about this show.

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Monday Meditation: I am Over Being Polite about Homophobia

Posted on March 25, 2019 by David Fick

Seyi Omooba's post on Twitter

Seyi Omooba’s post on Twitter

The controversy surrounding Seyi Omooba’s comments about homosexuality and her casting as Celie in The Color Purple at Leicester’s Curve Theatre and the Birmingham Hippodrome has been big news in theatre communities worldwide the past two weeks or so. The calls for her to be removed from playing this role, one that is resonant with the LGBTQ community, have been heard and it was announced last Thursday that Omooba would no longer be playing the role. Many view this as a suitable punishment, but while it might offer a form of poetic justice, I don’t think it’s enough to constitute any kind of justice that is restorative or true.

Indeed, when the discussions around this situation focus exclusively on the removal of an actress from a role whose experience and values she doesn’t share and whether that’s right or not, I fear that we have missed the point. This situation is bigger than that. This situation is yet another example of prejudice at work in our society.

“But these are her own personal views!” people have written in objection to the reaction against Omooba. I can imagine the same thought running through people’s minds as they read this column. They’ll continue, “This isn’t hate speech. It doesn’t incite anyone to violence. Doesn’t she have the right to her own beliefs?”

Seyi Omooba

Seyi Omooba

Omooba absolutely has the right to her own beliefs. This does not mean, however, that she is free from the consequences that expressing her opinion may bring, especially when what she believes helps to perpetuate a society where LGBTQ people are oppressed.

Furthermore, while Omooba’s statement isn’t a call to genocide, it lays the foundations of the pyramid of hate that leads society to atrocities of that nature. Microaggressions matter. Microaggressions lead to prejudice, discrimination and ultimately violence. And let’s face it: there is nothing indirect, subtle or unintentional about Omooba’s words about homosexuality. She’s past the stage of microaggression. Comments like hers sustain the world in which the murder of Matthew Shepard was possible. In which the assault, strangulation, torture, and burning of David Olyne was possible. In which accusations of witchcraft, imprisonment and the corrective rape of lesbian teenagers in Cameroon is possible. In which transgender people are killed in countries all over the world. In which the criminalisation of homosexuality with sentences like long-term imprisonment and death is possible.

This last description is the law of the land in Nigeria, the country from which Omooba hails.

Removing Omooba from this role doesn’t address the problem of her prejudice or the problems that prejudice like hers creates. I’m at the point in my life where I won’t support the career of people like Seyi Omooba in any way until not only an apology but also clear restitution is made the perpetuation of an oppressive worldview such as this one.

The Color Purple OBCR

The OBCR of THE COLOR PURPLE

Saying you’re sorry isn’t enough – and let’s be clear, we haven’t even seen the most glancing of apologies from Omooba yet. There have been calls for handling Omooba gently, thus acknowledging her potential to change, but it has been reported that she was given the opportunity to retract her statement or to express any change in her views before the action of removing her from this production of The Color Purple was taken. She did neither. At this time, she has demonstrated no potential to change.

My voice might only be a single one, but my resistance is important. I can’t control this woman’s hateful views, but I can control my response to them. Maybe you’ll join me in not purchasing cast recordings on which she is featured and not supporting any production in which she is cast. Maybe you’ll join me in continuing to address her casting with the production companies that cast her. This is bigger than The Color Purple. And maybe, once Omooba has put in some work to help counteract the oppression of LGBTQ people who are trying to live lives free from discrimination, then we can consider shifting our behaviour towards her and those who support her.

Monday Meditations at Musical Cyberspace are is inspired by Shirley MacLaine’s I’m Over All That and Other Confessions. This post responds in particulate to the chapter titled “I’m Over Being Polite to People with Closed Minds.”

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Forgotten Musicals Friday: I REMEMBER MAMA

Posted on November 24, 2017 by David Fick

Carrie Horner, Maureen Silliman, Kristen Vigard, Liv Ullmann, George Hearn, Ian Ziering and Tara Kennedy in I REMEMBER MAMA

Carrie Horner, Maureen Silliman, Kristen Vigard, Liv Ullmann, George Hearn, Ian Ziering and Tara Kennedy in I REMEMBER MAMA

It’s been almost thirty years since the opening of the last musical that Richard Rodgers composed, I Remember Mama. Running for only 108 performances in 1979, this rather sentimental musical featured a book by Thomas Meehan and lyrics by Martin Charnin and Raymond Jessel. Based on an overwhelmingly successful play by John Van Druten, which was produced by Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II in the 1940s, which was in turn based on the Kathryn Forbes’s memoir, Mama’s Bank Account, I Remember Mama tells the tale of a family of Norwegian immigrants living in San Francisco in the early twentieth century.

Chiefly remembered for the (mis-)casting of Liv Ullman in the central role, the original production of I Remember Mama earned itself a spot in Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops. Such was the initial failure of the show that an original cast album was not recorded. It was not until a 1985 studio album was released that the score became available to the general public in the form of a cast recording. All things considered, this was not the ideal swan song for Rodgers after his auspicious career, was it?

Liv Ullmann and George Hearn in I REMEMBER MAMA

Liv Ullmann and George Hearn in I REMEMBER MAMA

When I Remember Mama surfaces in discussions, as it does in musical theatre forums on social media from time to time, nobody who remembers seeing the show says that it was brilliant – and many say it was an unsalvagable disaster. But those who don’t say it was a complete failure say that it was a sweet show that came along thirty years too late. Listening to the recording, it does rather remind me of Meet Me in St Louis with a little bit of Act One and Little Women thrown in for fun, and it certainly is an old-fashioned show. I think its heart is in the right place, and its certainly easier looking back at it as a nostalgic piece of work now than it must have been in 1979.

In its favour, I Remember Mama has some lovely melodies by Rodgers. I’m rather fond of “You Could Not Please Me More,” which seems to achieve what “An Ordinary Couple” from The Sound of Music set out to do. In fact, I think that it is the better song of the two, even if its lyric could take one on more of a journey. “When?” is also lovely, with the music once again outshining the lyric.

Indeed, the lyrics of I Remember Mama are often pedestrian. A good example of this quality is in evidence in “Ev’ry Day (Comes Something Beautiful), a number which aims to list things in the world that are ineffably beautiful. The very idea of the song seems counter-intuitive: how can one describe imagery that can’t be captured in words, in words? And when the score dips into comic numbers, the results are mostly poor. The two songs written for Uncle Chris are clunkers. Actually, the music of “Easy Come, Easy Go” has a pleasing build, and there’s some glee-inducing counterpoint. It’s the lyrics – cliché after cliché – that let it down. But there’s no such defence for the choruses of the song that introduces him: “Uncle Chris” is a most disagreeable song.

Carrie Horner, Kristen Vigard, Liv Ullmann, Maureen Silliman, Tara Kennedy and Ian Ziering in I REMEMBER MAMA

Carrie Horner, Kristen Vigard, Liv Ullmann, Maureen Silliman, Tara Kennedy and Ian Ziering in I REMEMBER MAMA

There are some charming character pieces, including the number that establishes Katrin’s desire to become an author, “A Writer Writes at Night”. The number also helps to establish the relationship between Katrin and her Mama as well as, more importantly, lending some context to the frame story, something that the musical proper could afford to incorporate more often. “Fair Trade,” a second act number that introduces the cameo role of Dame Sybil Fitzgibbons, is great fun, as is its reprise.

When the Toronto Civic Light Opera Company, a community theatre group, produced the Canadian premiere of I Remember Mama in 2006, it was a successful holiday show over that year’s Christmas season. Word is that the company tinkered with the book and score, although there seems to be no record online of what they changed. With a general consensus that the show could have been and should have been better, perhaps this is a show that is a serious candidate for an official, sensitive revision. There are supposed to be many cut songs that might serve as alternative material, and there’s enough source material to use should the book need tweaking. There’s no real reason that this shouldn’t be a reliable seasonal show for families to enjoy.

So what are your memories or thoughts – good or bad – of I Remember Mama? Head on to the comment box and share them with us!

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#ThursdayThoughts: Musical Theatre Revivals

Posted on November 23, 2017 by David Fick

Poster artwork for the Lincoln Center revival of SOUTH PACIFIC

Poster artwork for the Lincoln Center revival of SOUTH PACIFIC

Welcome to the very first #ThursdayThoughts, a new forum for interactive discussion that will take place weekly at Musical Cyberspace from here on out as part of our slow and careful rejuvenation of this site. Each week, we’ll share a quotation about musical theatre that is open for discussion.

Today’s quote is about revivals of musicals on either side of the pond and is taken from Michael Billington’s review of the West End transfer of the Lincoln Center’s production of South Pacific in 2011:

New York has little to teach (London) about resurrecting the Broadway past.

Head on down to the comments and sound off! Although anyone is welcome to share their opinions, please try to treat other readers mindfully and stay on topic as far as possible. Discussions that get out of hand will be moderated.

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The “Happy Birthday, MISS SAIGON” Quiz

Posted on September 20, 2016 by David Fick

Simon Bowman and Lea Salonga in the original production of MISS SAIGON

Simon Bowman and Lea Salonga in the original production of MISS SAIGON

Today in 1989, Miss Saigon had its world premiere in London. Here’s a little quiz to celebrate. I’ve answered the questions in the body of this body, and I’ve love to see yours in the comments! Feel free to copy and paste the questions if you need to.

1. What do you like about this show? Or, if you’re not a fan, what makes it unmemorable for you? I’ve always liked Miss Saigon. I really love the epic feel of it, the sweeping melodrama, the romance at the core of it all. I think it’s all just wonderful. But you have to buy into it at the start – or you never will.

2. Pick your favourite song in the show and tell us why it’s your favourite? “I’d Give My Life for You”. I think the song is simple and direct, a moment where I think you see exactly who Kim is. I think it might be melodramatic and over-the-top in something a little drier, but I think it’s perfect for the kind of musical that Miss Saigon is.

What is your favourite song in Miss Saigon? Easy. “I’d Give My Life for You” is one of the things that really makes Miss Saigon so effective as an emotional experience: it is a beautiful character piece married to a haunting melody. I cannot believe it has not appeared on more favourite lists in this thread

3. What is your favourite lyric? I really like “Sun and Moon”, particularly the line ‘How in the light of one night did we come so far?’ I also really like the verses in “It’s Her or Me”/”Now That I’ve Seen Her”. But see below for more on this….

Jonathan Pryce and Lea Salonga in the original production of MISS SAIGON

Jonathan Pryce and Lea Salonga in the original production of MISS SAIGON

4. Got a number you just can’t stand? Tell us why. Where Miss Saigon falls down for me is in the details. There’s not a number as a whole that I can’t stand, but there are lyrics that just don’t work. My least favourite by a long shot was “What is this bug up my ass? You tell me, I don’t know”. Thankfully, that one’s been replaced in the years since the show’s premiere in London. One of the changes I dislike is the rewritten opening of the chorus for “It’s Her or Me”, which became “Now That I’ve Seen Her”. I understand the thinking behind the change, but the change itself is sloppy and doesn’t match the musical phrases of the song.

5. Who’s your favorite character? Kim. I think it’s a fantastic role.

6. Who is your favourite Miss Saigon-related performer? Lea Salonga.

7. Got a favourite production or cast recording? What makes it so special? Nope. But I reckon that anyone who got to see Lea Salonga in the role got to see something pretty special.

8. What do you think of the show as an adaptation of Madama Butterfly? I think it works and I think it works better. The characters are less one-note than in Madama Butterfly. Kim, as I’ve said, I think is fantastically written. Chris is a huge improvement on Pinkerton, a character that holds little appeal and who deserves no sympathy. And I like the other shifts too – Suzuki’s transformation into Mimi, Goro’s retooling as the Engineer, Prince Yamadori’s now politically motivated Thuy. Also, the building up of the Kate Pinkerton role into Ellen gives the piece an added dimension. And the context given to the piece of the war in Viet-Nam works perfectly. Character, situation and narrative come together really well in this adaptation.

Simon Bowman and Lea Salonga as Chris and Kim in the original production of MISS SAIGON

Simon Bowman and Lea Salonga as Chris and Kim in the original production of MISS SAIGON

9. A film…. What would you like to see if one was made? I’d love to see a film. I think the only way to cast Kim would be to go the same route that the producers went to find Lea Salonga – to look for a complete unknown who has what it takes to hold the film together. In terms of the screenplay, I’d like to see the fall of Saigon restored to it’s chronological place in the action. Without the act divisions, I think the second act material is strong enough to carry a film through to the ending. And I would like to see “The Sacred Bird” restored. And I think a big budget Hollywood epic would be the only way to do. With Miss Saigon, it has to be all or nothing.

So there you go! Scroll down and send us your answers. Happy birthday, Miss Saigon!

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The Saturday List: Lights, Camera, Action! Ten Movie Musicals on the Way to the Silver Screen

Posted on June 4, 2016 by David Fick

Emma Watson as Belle in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Emma Watson as Belle in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Who doesn’t love a great movie musical? OK, there are loads of people who don’t. But I do, and it’s devastating when one doesn’t live up to its potential. On this week’s Saturday List, I’m taking a look at five upcoming movie musicals to which I’m looking forward. Some of these are nowhere near opening day, but here’s hoping!

1. Let’s get Beauty and the Beast out of the way first, mainly because it has a release date that is less than a year away. When this live action remake of the 1991 animated classic was first announced, my first reaction was that Disney should have produced a live television special of their stage adaptation rather than trying, once again, to reinvent the wheel. At that point, I think we all presumed that the new film would be an adaptation of the stage show, but it turned out that this was not to be the case. The new film, with a screenplay by Stephen Chbosky, would incorporate songs by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman from the original film and new songs with lyrics by Tim Rice, who augmented Ashman’s lyrics for the stage show, but none of the material from the stage show itself would be used. Although the teaser trailer was something of a non-starter, we’re all waiting in anticipation to see what the film is like, with its cast led by Emma Watson and Dan Stevens.

Audra McDonald on set in HELLO AGAIN

Audra McDonald on set in HELLO AGAIN

2. Nobody who knows me will be surprised that I’ve placed Hello Again second: I’m a huge Michael John LaChiusa fan and make no apologies for it. I’m also a huge fan of the play upon which the musical is based, La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler, and its various incarnations such as David Hare’s The Blue Room. So when news arrived about a film version of one of my favourite LaChiusa shows starring Audra McDonald (who will get a new song in the film), Cheyenne Jackson, T.R. Knight, Martha Plimpton, I was in seventh heaven. Directed by Tom Gustafson with a screeplay by Cory Krueckeberg, Hello Again is currently being filmed. Everytime LaChiusa posts something on Facebook or the film updates its Instagram or Twitter account, the excitment builds. I simply cannot wait for this one.

Simon Bowman and Lea Salonga in the original production of MISS SAIGON

Simon Bowman and Lea Salonga in the original production of MISS SAIGON

3. Miss Saigon is a musical I’ve always wanted to see make the jump to the big screen. The popular musical retelling of Madama Butterfly that transfers the action to the fall of Saigon in 1975 is already incredibly cinematic and lends itself to the kind of visual expression that a cinema experience can provide. Back in 2009, I loved hearing industry buzz that ex-United Artists CEO Paula Wagner was gearing up to produce a screen version of Miss Saigon with Lee Daniels at the helm. That film was to be a co-production with Cameron Mackintosh with a 2011 release date. That never happened. Then, in 2012, Les Misérables hit in the big screen. Although both Mackintosh and Daniels hoped that the success of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s first musical theatre classic would spur on a film adaptation of their second, it was not until the closing night of the West End revival earlier this year that Mackintosh indicated that things were on track. In March, it was announched that Danny Boyle might direct the film. All along, it has been said that the film will remain faithful to its source material, although I still wonder what changes we’ll see to the show as we know it. No doubt Ellen will get yet another song to try and solve a moment in the show that has never quite gelled. I know I’ve always thought the fall of Saigon – the infamous helicopter scene – could be shifted to its chronological place because the last half of the piece is strong enough both emotionally and dramatically without it. But we’ll have to wait and see, I guess. It took 32 years for Les Misérables to go from its first production as a Parisian spectacular to the premiere of the film. Miss Saigon opened in London in 1989. 1989 + 32 years = 2021. The clock’s ticking, Mr Mackintosh…

Joshua Park as Pippin the the 2006 Goodspeed Opera House's produciton of PIPPIN

Joshua Park as Pippin the the 2006 Goodspeed Opera House’s produciton of PIPPIN

4. Pippin has been in development since 2003 when Miramax acquired the film rights for the musical penned by Stephen Schwartz, Roger O. Hirson and (the uncredited) Bob Fosse. A decade later, The Weinstein Company – who I guess took the rights along when Bob and Harvey Weinstein broke away from Miramax – named James Ponsoldt as a screenwriter for the project, which was subsequently confirmed as Craig Zadan and Neil Meron’s next project. This was around the time of the much-loved Broadway revival of the show, but things have been pretty quiet since then. Perhaps this team is still struggling to find a way to make this very theatrical musical work in the medium of film. Maybe they should recruit Rob Marshall: Pippin seems like the kind of thing that would suit him and his style of musical film-making, one with a framework that offers a plausible excuse for the stylistic features of the genre. Or… why not take inspiration from the anime-inspired hip-hop version that played Los Angeles in 2008? Animation might be an inspired choice of medium for this adaptation.

IN THE HEIGHTS as it appeared on Broadway

IN THE HEIGHTS as it appeared on Broadway

5. It’s been five long years since Universal withdrew from the production of a film based on Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. Back then Miranda, the show’s original Usnavi, would have been directed by Kenny Ortega, who would have had the opportunity to redeem himself for his tacky work on the High School Musical franchise following the promising work he did in staging the numbers for Newsies. Miranda said that he would try to get another studio interested in making the film, but many – including myself – feared that this stumbling block would be the end of the road for a film adaptation of this show. Last month, The Weinstein Company announced a $15 million production, which would have a new screenwriter working on Marc Klein’s existing treatment of the material. In the wake of the success of Hamilton, Miranda will be involved, but not as Usnavi, as he has aged out of the role.

Honourable Mention

Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle in MY FAIR LADY

Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle in MY FAIR LADY

For all intents and purposes, My Fair Lady is dead in the water. That’s why it’s in last place here, but it did attract enough buzz over its time in development to merit an inclusion  – and given the change in circumstances for In the Heights, why not? There are those who have no desire to see a remake of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s classic musical, believing that the original film is brilliant. While I don’t think a new My Fair Lady film is a necessity, the original film is by no means untouchable. It’s a solid film, and a faithful one, but it’s not perfect. Rex Harrison is fantastic, but…. In any case, new films don’t supplant old ones. Nobody who doesn’t want to watch the remake has to and the old film will always be there for anyone to see whenever they like. The one consistent factor in the saga of bringing a new Eliza Doolittle to the screen: a screenplay by Emma Thompson. At one point, Danny Boyle was on board to direct the remake. I didn’t think it a great loss when he dropped out. Then it was rumoured that Keira Knightly would play Eliza, with Joe Wright, who directed her in the tepid Pride and Prejudice remake and Atonement. Knightly and Wright obviously enjoy working together, but the idea of the two of them and this material seemed to be something of a mismatch and they went on to make Anna Karenina instead. When Knightley backed out, Carey Mulligan’s name was tossed about as an option, with George Clooney and Brad Pitt both being bandied about as potential Higginses. At that point, John Madden also had his eye on the director’s chair. For a while, Sony Pictures tried keep the buzz about the remake going, but Mulligan shattered all hopes of it moving forward in a statement she made at Cannes. Since then, no further information about the project has been forthcoming. Not yet, anyway.

So there you go… My favourite five movie musicals to be. What movie musicals are you anticipating with glee? Head over to the comments section and let’s hear!

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The Saturday List: “Joseph’s Coat” – or a List of Colourful Songs

Posted on April 30, 2016 by David Fick

With Pieter Toerien Productions and the Really Useful Group presenting a South African revival of  Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and that revival having had its first performance yesterday in Johannesburg, where it will run until August before transferring to Cape Town, I thought it might be appropriate to run through the famous list of colours that Tim Rice set to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music to create the first of three Saturday Lists, the following two of which will appear in the next two weeks.

The creative team of this production is headed by Paul Warwick Griffin, who will direct, with musical supervision by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder and musical direction by Louis Zurnamer. Choreography will be by Duane Alexander. Earl Gregory stars as Joseph, with Bianca le Grange as the Narrator and Jonathan Roxmouth as the Pharaoh.

Earl Gregory as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Earl Gregory as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Here’s a list of songs from musicals featuring the colours of “Joseph’s Coat” as per the song’s lyrics. Sometimes, the reference is to the colour itself, but at other times it’s a name or a fruit – or something else completely!

Red

Our first song is “Red and Black” from Les Misérables. This song, with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyrics by Alain Boublil (French) and Herbert Kretzmer (English), is sung at the ABC Café during a political meeting between a group of students preparing for the revolution they are sure will follow once General Lamarque is dead. Red symbolises both ‘the blood of angry men’ and ‘a world about to dawn’ in this song.

Yellow

Next up is “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” from The Wizard of Oz. Harold Arlen and E.Y. “Yip” Harburg’s short number is a prelude to “You’re Off to See the Wizard” and is heard when the Munchkins send Dorothy off to the Emerald City. There are several real-life yellow brick roads, two of which may have inspired Oz author L. Frank Baum. One is at a military academy in New York, and the other is near Holland, Michigan.

Green

“Green Finch and Linnet Bird”, by Stephen Sondheim, comes from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. This song introduces the character of Johanna, who is kept in seeming captivity by Judge Turpin. “If I cannot fly,” the girl wishes, “let me sing.” European greenfinches are beloved songbirds, commonly bred as pets in Malta, while the common linnet is declining in numbers and is protected as a priority species in the UK.

Brown

Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s “Sarah Brown Eyes” from Ragtime gives the character mentioned in the song’s title an unexpected appearance in the second act of the show. With Sarah having died at the end of the first act, her beloved, Coalhouse Walker Jr, recalls their first meeting. It’s a tender moment before the musical kicks back into high gear, with Coalhouse planning to blow up J.P. Morgan’s library.

Brian Stokes Mitchell as Coalhouse Walker Jr and Audra McDonald as Sarah in Ragtime (Photo credit: Catherine Ashmore)
Brian Stokes Mitchell as Coalhouse Walker Jr and Audra McDonald as Sarah in Ragtime (Photo credit: Catherine Ashmore)

Scarlet

Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton wrote a title number for The Scarlet Pimpernel, a patter song for Percy Blakeney, Marguerite St Just, Marie, Armand St Just, Lady Digby, Lady Llewellyn and the servants. In the song, they all debate the identity of this eighteenth-century superhero who saved innocents from facing the guillotine during the French Revolution.

Black

In, Hair, James Rado, Gerome Ragni and Galt MacDermot wrote a song for three white women of the tribe to express their love for “Black Boys”. The response? Three African-American women of the tribe explain their love for “White Boys.” While this was an exuberant deconstruction of miscegenation, which had been legally dismantled in the year of the show’s premiere, Hair tackled other issues about race with a more serious intent.

Ochre

Ochre has me stumped. I can’t think of a musical theatre song that mentions this colour in its title.

Peach

No, No Nanette first hit stages in 1924, opening on Broadway and in the West End the year later. Three film adaptations followed, but it was a revival in 1971 that set in stone the legacy of this show and its score, which was penned by Irving Caesar, Otto Harbach and Vincent Youmans. At the top of the second act, Nanette goes to Atlantic City and quickly becomes the most popular girl in town, the “Peach on the Beach.”

Mara Davi as Nanette in No, No, Nanette (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
Mara Davi as Nanette in No, No, Nanette (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)

Ruby

Some people might consider listing Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s “Ruby Baby” a cheat. But this song comes from one of my favourite revues, Smokey Joe’s Café, and I prefer it to any of the other options. (There aren’t that many.) This song about a girl called Ruby who doesn’t return the singer’s affections has been recorded by, amongst others, The Drifters, The Beach Boys, Bobby Darin, and Michael Park with the original Broadway cast.

Olive

In Kismet‘s “The Olive Tree,” Robert Wright and George Forrest asked, using the music of Alexander Borodin, ‘Why be content with an olive when you could have the tree? / Why be content to be nothing, when there’s nothing you couldn’t be?’ Who would have thought that such profound thoughts could be set to the third-act trio from Prince Igor? They also told us, ‘If you have heard and do not heed / There is a word for what you are / … Fool!’

Violet

I’m glad to include a song by Jeanine Tesori on this list. This one is called “Promise Me Violet” and it has lyrics by Brian Crawley. The situation is this: Monty asks Violet, who is on her way to Tulsa, to meet him when she returns to Fort Smith, where he says he’ll be waiting for her. It’s so seductive. I’d probably succumb. On the other hand, Violet promises no such thing before the bus pulls away. Rats…

Fawn

Fawn is another colour that has me stumped. I thought I might find something in The Yearling, but it was not to be…

Steve Sanders as Jody Baxter in The Yearling (Photo credit: Friedman-Abeles)
Steve Sanders as Jody Baxter in The Yearling (Photo credit: Friedman-Abeles)

Lilac

Lilac and nostalgia go hand in hand when it comes to musical theatre, it seems. Whether you listen to Lilac Time or Nunsense, chances are that things are going to turn sentimental. That said, my choice of song is Ivor Novello’s parlour duet from Perchance to Dream, “We’ll Gather Lilacs.” Of course, the best reference to lilac comes from Bea Arthur, quoting Tallulah Bankhead: ‘There’s a touch of homosexual in all of us.  It’s not the cock.  And it’s not the twat.  It’s the eyes, don’t you know, and sometimes, the smell of lilac.’

Gold

“Gold” from Once is soul music. One of the couple of songs not written by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová for the show’s score, “Gold” was composed by Fergus O’Farrell. In this song, which closes the first act of the show and is reprised later in a stunning a cappella arrangement, Guy sings about loving a woman and, for the first time, it’s a song all about Girl and not the ex-girlfriend for whom he has been pining throughout the show until that point.

Chocolate

“Chocolate Soldier”, from The Chocolate Soldier, an operetta by Oscar Straus, Rudolf Bernauer and Leopold Jacobson, takes us back to yesteryear. This little charm song plays on the joke that Bumerli, who has arrived in Nadina’s bedroom, uses his ammunition pouch to carry chocolates, which renders his revolver useless. The operetta was based on Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw, who famously despised this adaptation of his play.

Mauve

When I read through the list of colours I would tackle, I thought mauve would stump me. It has. Anyone know a show tune with “mauve” in the title?

Edith Bradford as Mascha in The Chocolate Soldier
Edith Bradford as Mascha in The Chocolate Soldier

Cream

There’s only one defendable choice here: “Ice Cream” from Joe Masteroff, Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock’s She Loves Me, which is currently enjoying a revival on Broadway and racked up eight Tony Award nominations this past week. At this point in the story, Georg has just visited Amalia, who is ill, and given her a gift of vanilla ice cream. Amalia tries to write a letter to a pen pal with whom she trades romantic letters, who is – unbeknownst to her – also Georg. Instead, she finds herself thinking of Georg, whose kindness towards her represents a clear shift in their real-life relationship.

Crimson

Get ready for your third dose of operetta. Blame crimson, which offers only one option: “The Colonel of the Crimson Hussars” from Sybill by Victor Jacobi, Ferenc Martos and Miksa Bródy. The English-language version, in which the titular singer lost an ‘l’, featured lyrics by Harry Graham. The number is performed by Sybil, the object of Russian officer Petrov’s affections, and a chorus of officers that she, at this point, likes better. Guess what’s different by the time the curtain falls.

Silver

“Look for the Silver Lining” by Jerome Kern and B.G. DeSylva was written for the Zip, Goes a Million, which flopped, and reused in Sally, which didn’t. In the show, the song is sung by Blair Farquar, the son of a millionaire to ‘Sally of the Alley’, a dishwasher in need of some cheering. She cheers up considerably, becoming a star of the Ziegfeld Follies and the wife of an heir to a fortune.

Rose

There is a story told by Stephen Sondheim that Jerome Robbins’s first reaction to “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” was to wonder whether the audiences of Gypsy would be left wondering, “Everything’s coming up Rose’s what?” That story alone is worth the inclusion of the Rose to end all Roses in this list and might leave you rosy-cheeked as you think about the song that Jule Styne wrote with Sondheim to close the first act of the show. Look, I know that this pick is something of a cheat, but did you really want me to pick something dreadful like “Spanish Rose” from Bye Bye Birdie?

Angela Lansbury as Rose in Gypsy
Angela Lansbury as Rose in Gypsy

Azure

I can think of plenty of “blue” songs – but nothing that references azure. But why?!!

Lemon

Lemon, it seems, is another colour the musical theatre songbook politely sidesteps. For a form that happily sings about ice cream, ribbons and dreams about angels, it’s odd that citrus never quite makes the cut.

Russet

Russet, like several of the more autumnal shades in Joseph’s coat, never quite makes the leap from fabric swatch to show tune. I wonder why.

Grey

“Entering Grey Gardens” is not a typically jolly showtune, but it captures the atmosphere of the Grey Gardens estate perfectly. Juxtaposing sung lyrics by the ensemble, who comment on ‘the musty smell of feline fur’ and ‘the vermin in the furniture,’ as Big Edie and Little Edie go about their daily rituals and routines, it’s both creepy and incredibly sad. Grey Gardens is such an underrated musical, so it’s great to have an excuse to reference it!

Betty Buckley as Big Edie and Rachel York as Little Edie in Grey Gardens
Betty Buckley as Big Edie and Rachel York as Little Edie in Grey Gardens

Purple

There’s an obvious choice here, and that is the title song from The Colour Purple. In this song, purple becomes a symbol of divine attention, representing the idea that noticing beauty is, in itself, a spiritual act. To ignore the colour purple in a field, the song suggests, is to overlook God’s presence in our everyday lives. Colour here is not about status or excess, but about seeing and receiving grace.

White

“White Christmas,” from the stage adaptation of the eponymous 1954 musical film of the same name, is more than just a seasonal standard. This song represents a shared wish for home comforts and uncomplicated joy. When you really tune into the song’s spirit, it feels less like nostalgia and more like a ritual, an annual pause in which we willingly step into a world filled with hope, harmony and a very particular kind of festive magic.

Pink

“Think Pink!” (from the film musical adaptation of Funny Face) is pure and unapologetic fabulousness. The song treats colour as attitude, turning a simple shade into a manifesto of confidence, excess and high-fashion fantasy. Amid this list dominated by showtunes from the stage, this glamorous detour into movie-musical territory feels worthwhile, reminding us that sometimes colour exists purely to dazzle, delight and be fabulous for its own sake.

Orange

“An Orange Grove in California,” by Irving Berlin, treats colour as atmosphere rather than a punchline. Appearing in the third edition of Irving Berlin’s Music Box Revue during the 1920s, the song conjures a sunlit California as a place of ease and possibility. Its gentle imagery proved influential beyond the stage, inspiring Arthur Dove’s 1927 painting Orange Grove in California. Here, orange becomes not spectacle but mood, a soft wash of warmth and promise.

Blue

Last, but not least, “Blue Skies,” composed by Irving Berlin in 1926 as a last-minute addition to the musical Betsy by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, quickly outshone the show that introduced it. Though Betsy ran for just 39 performances, audiences on opening night famously demanded 24 encores of the song from Belle Baker. Set in a minor key that gently shades its optimism, “Blue Skies” captures the musical theatre’s enduring ability to find hope even when certainty wavers. Its final impression is unmistakably affirmative: a promise that brightness can emerge, almost defiantly, from within the blue.

Belle Baker as the title character of BETSY, with Borrah Minevitch
Belle Baker as the title character of Betsy, with Borrah Minevitch

So… what do you think of the list? Which songs would you have picked for these colours? Any suggestions for the ones that stumped us? Head on to the comments section below and let us know!

Tickets for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat can be booked through Computicket.

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