Single-Song Showstopper: “My New Philosophy”

Posted on April 4, 2012 by David Fick

To purchase the 1999 Broadway Revival Recording of YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN, click on the image above.

The theme for April 2012 at Musical Cyberspace is “Single-Song Showstoppers”, a series of big numbers sung by a featured characters in a show – typically their only solo, although they might sing minor bits and pieces elsewhere – each of which raise the roof.

Today’s single-song showstopper is “My New Philosophy”, one of the new numbers written by Andrew Lippa for You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, a musical comedy by John Gordon and Clark Gesner. The song is sung by Sally Brown, a role created in the Broadway revival of the show for Kristen Chenoweth.

The Setup: Sally is angry: her teacher has given her a D on her homework assignment. “Oh, yeah? That’s what you think!” is what she has to say about it and this becomes the first of several philosophies she inflicts upon the nearby Schroeder, who fervently attempts to explain to her what philosophies really are.

The Song: This song may be one of the best things that Andrew Lippa has ever written. A far more successful arranger and songwriter than show composer, Lippa’s original additions for the score of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown were strictly composed to fit in with the existing score, probably making this the most focused and disciplined work her has ever done. (See his disappointing attempts at creating full scores for his version of The Wild Party and The Addams Family if you have any doubts about this. His lack of discipline prevents both scores from becoming cohesive depictions of the dramatic world that is being created on stage. But I digress.) “My New Philosophy” is a tightly written little number that knocks off the audience’s socks when delivered by a virtuoso diva-in-disguise. That’s what Kristen Chenoweth managed to achieve and she got herself a Tony Award with this number: therein lies the power of the single-song showstopper.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on “My New Philosophy”. Click on the comments link at the end of this post and share them with us!

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Single-Song Showstopper: “Who’s That Woman?”

Posted on April 3, 2012 by David Fick

To purchase the 2011 Broadway Revival Cast Recording of FOLLIES, click on the image above.

The theme for April 2012 at Musical Cyberspace is “Single-Song Showstoppers”, a series of big numbers sung by a featured characters in a show – typically their only solo, although they might sing minor bits and pieces elsewhere – each of which raise the roof.

Today’s single-song showstopper – and most likely not the only one from James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim’s concept musical, Follies, that will rear its head this month – is “Who’s That Woman?” The song is sung by Stella Deems, played in the Broadway productions of the show by Mary McCarty (1971), Carol Woods (2001) and Terri White (2011).

The Setup: At a reunion of past performers of the Weismann Follies, Stella and all of the ex-chorines line up to perform an old number, mirrored by the ghosts of their younger selves.

The Song: When “Who’s That Woman?” starts, it seems like a fun number with a bunch of old broads shaking their hips and then delightfully breaking into a full on hoofing routine. What catapults this number into the extraordinary is when the younger ghosts that represent the women dancing up front appear upstage. Now the concept alone is great, but the execution does make a difference. Michael Bennett’s work on Follies was nothing short of genius. His choreography for what is known as “the mirror number” is thrilling to watch. It builds, section by section, expertly and the spirit within the viewer is similarly enlivened, bit by bit, until there is a well of emotions evoked by the sight of these ladies reliving their memories, the heartbreaking juxtaposition of the performers with their ghosts of their younger selves, the joyous energy with which everyone attacks the number. It’s a complex reaction brought about by complex theatre-making at its best, with Bennett’s choreography drawing everything together. One departs from the original staging at one’s peril, as Kathleen Marshall discovered in the 2001 Broadway revival, in which the number ends up achieving very little other than being a low-key diversion. (To be fair, whoever choreographed the 1990 revival in Los Angeles almost got it right, but pushed the comedy a little hard, disrupting the balance that Bennett achieved perfectly in his staging.)

I’d love to hear your thoughts on “Who’s That Woman?” Click on the comments link at the end of this post and share them with us!

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Single-Song Showstopper: “Expressing Yourself”

Posted on April 2, 2012 by David Fick

To purchase the Original London Cast Recording of BILLY ELLIOT, click on the image above.

The theme for April 2012 at Musical Cyberspace is “Single-Song Showstoppers”, a series of big numbers sung by a featured characters in a show – typically their only solo, although they might sing minor bits and pieces elsewhere – each of which raise the roof.

Today’s single-song showstopper is “Expressing Yourself”, from Billy Elliot, a musical play with book and lyrics by Lee Hall and music by Elton John. The song is sung by Billy’s best friend Michael Caffrey, who was played variously by Ryan Longbottom, Ashley Luke Lloyd, Brad Kavanagh, David Bologna and Frank Dolceby in the original West End and Broadway productions.

The Setup: Michael Caffery is a different sort of boy. Like Billy, but in a different way. In this scene, Billy comes to ask Michael’s advice about whether he should go to the audition for the Royal Ballet School and finds his friend dressing up in women’s clothing. And what does Michael have to say about it? That there’s no shame in expressing yourself – even when you find yourself in the midst of a restrictive, inhibited working class community.

The Song: “Expressing Yourself” is loads of fun. I think perhaps what drew me to it was its complete irreverence. How many other musicals can you name where a little boy celebrates the virtues of dressing up in women’s clothing? There’s no baggage here. It’s infectious. You end up with a wide silly grin on your face as the number builds and builds into a fantasy where the two boys are surrounded by over-sized tapping dresses. All right, the tapping dresses might be a bit much, but the number is still great.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on “Expressing Yourself”. Click on the comments link at the end of this post and share them with us!

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Single-Song Showstopper: “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat”

Posted on April 1, 2012 by David Fick

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of GUYS AND DOLLS, click on the image above.

The theme for April 2012 at Musical Cyberspace is “Single-Song Showstoppers”, a series of big numbers sung by a featured characters in a show – typically their only solo, although they might sing minor bits and pieces elsewhere – each of which raise the roof.

The first single-song showstopper for the month is “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat”, from Guys and Dolls, a musical comedy with book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows and music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. The song is sung by Nicely-Nicely Johnson, who has been played in various productions by Stubbey Kaye (1950), Ken Page (1976), Walter Bobbie (1992) and Tituss Burgess (2009).

The Setup: Nicely-Nicely sings at other points in the show: he sings a part in the opening trio (“Fugue for Tinhorns”) and even has a duet that happens to be the show’s title tune. However, nothing defines his character like this moment, late in the show, in which Nicely-Nicely delivers his testimony at the Mission’s prayer meeting, spinning a yarn about a dream that showed him the error of his ways and urged him to repent.

The Song: “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” is instantly memorable. In 1950, it was a number that epitomised the big Broadway-style showtune, with Stubby Kaye (who also played the role in the film) selling the song all the way. 1976 was the year in which Guys and Dolls was produced on Broadway with an all African American cast. Ken Page sang the song, which was flavoured with gospel overtones that suited the style of that particular revival, which offered new arrangements for many of the songs. When the 1992 revival played Broadway, the number (performed by Walter Bobbie) did not seem to have the same effect it had achieved in previous productions. Some attributed this to Bobbie’s performance, but let’s face it – sometimes what stopped a show in 1950 is run-of-the-mill forty years later. The creative team responded by creating a new ending with a nod to both the 1976 revival’s gospel flavour and to the composer’s own How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying by having General Cartwright break out with a top note as the chorus continued singing underneath. This has become my favourite arrangement of the song. The most recent revival tried to top this with a flat-out gospel ending and gimmicky projections – and failed miserably. Titus Burgess’s vocal stylings – impressive as they might have been towards the end of the number – and the new additions for General Cartwright betrayed the characters and the mileau of the show. The number played more like something out of a cheap revue rather than a first class production of a classic Broadway musical. Such a pity.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat”. Click on the comments link at the end of this post and share them with us!

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A Chain of Musicals: INTO THE WOODS

Posted on January 18, 2012 by David Fick
AINTO THE WOODS

To purchase the DVD of the Original Broadway Cast performing INTO THE WOODS, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, then you might like Into the Woods.

Two musicals. Two farces. Two huge puzzles that respectively come together to form a satisfying picture in the end. That’s what A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Into the Woods have in common, along with scores by Stephen Sondheim. Into the Woods was Sondheim’s second show with James Lapine and it is probably his most accessible thanks to the assortment of popular fairy tale characters that appear throughout the show.

Into the Woods is the story of a Baker and his Wife who desperately wish have a child. To get one, they cut a deal with the Witch next door (who wishes to be young and beautiful again). She will lift the curse of infertility she placed on the Baker’s family (a punishment for the theft of her special beans by the Baker’s father) in return for the ingredients of a special potion: a cow as white as milk (the “pet” of Jack of beanstalk fame), a slipper as pure as gold (soon to be worn by Cinderella), a cape as red as blood (belonging to a Little Red Riding Hood) and some hair as yellow as corn (ostensibly that which is growing out of Rapunzel’s head – although there’s a catch here). Of course, all of those things are obtained and everyone’s stories continue through to the traditional happy endings, although that’s only Act I. In Act II, the consequences that everyone has to pay for their previous actions come home to roost and the woods becomes a place to be survived rather than merely encountered. “It Takes Two”, “Giants in the Sky”, “I Know Things Now”, “No-one is Alone” and the absolutely astounding “Your Fault” are all highlights in a score that offers many gems.

Into the Woods is musical that takes fairy tales and puts something of a Woody Allen spin on them as they quest their way through the woods with all the trappings of farce we saw in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: a number of puns, many sexual; a non-stop flurry of entrances and exits; mistaken identity in the shape of a very Mysterious Man; and so on. We are fortunate to have recordings of as yet unmatched original Broadway cast in a performance of the original production and a recent recording of a site specific revival in Regent’s Park in London, the cast of which takes second place. Trailing behind are self-conscious performances of the original, panto-influenced London production and the lamentably cast Broadway revival from 2002. Of course, the current buzz about the show deals mainly with the upcoming film version which is to be directed by Rob Marshall, who directed the fantastic Chicago before bombing with his film adaptation of Nine. Let’s hope he resists his trademark movie musical concept, in which musical numbers are largely in the heads of the characters rather than a heightened extension of their natural expression for this one.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Into the Woods. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

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A Chain of Musicals: A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM

Posted on January 17, 2012 by David Fick
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Kiss Me, Kate, then you might like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Both A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Kiss Me, Kate are spins on the classics. While Cole Porter, Samuel Spewack and Bella Spewack has reworked Shakespeare for audiences of the 1940s, Stephen Sondheim, Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart retooled the ancient Roman farces of Plautus for audiences of the 1960s, without bowing to the popular trends of the time. So while there is no rock music, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum ends up being a musical comedy that transcends the ages and continues to delight audiences today, even as many musicals that were more culturally “on the money”, as it were, have slipped into the age of memory. (I mean, is anyone really interested in seeing a revival of Your Own Thing for any reason other than an academic interest in musical theatre? It’s not a piece that is going to work well for audiences today and it too is based on one on a classic, if not classical, play.)

At the heart of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a slave who wants to be free: Pseudolus. To win his freedom, he resolves to unite his young master, Hero, with the object of his affection, Philia, who happens to be a courtesan at the house of ill repute next door. Of course, so many things stand in the way of Pseudolus: his status; Hero’s parents, Senex and Domina; his anxious co-worker, Hysterium; and a contract that Philia’s owner, Marcus Lycus, has to sell her to the famed soldier, Miles Gloriosus. The action is non-stop and only the brilliant score offers time for any respite as songs like “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid”, “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid”, “Lovely” and “Bring Me My Bride” offer commentary and insights on all of proceedings presented under the guise of “Comedy Tonight”.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a classic farce: puns abound, as do slamming doors accompanying timely exits and entrances, mistaken identity and social satire. One of Stephen Sondheim’s most accessible shows, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum won the Tony Award for Best Musical, was filmed (lamentably, the film is less funny that it should be and jettisons a fair deal of the score), and has had revivals in 1972 and 1996. Pseudolus has become one of the great male roles in musical theatre, and every actor that has plated the part on Broadway to date has won a Tony Award for his efforts. It’s great fun all around and, in some ways, the perfect Sondheim musical for those who aren’t fans of his later work.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

Posted in Burt Shevelove, Cole Porter, Larry Gelbart, Stephen Sondheim | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Chain of Musicals: KISS ME, KATE

Posted on January 16, 2012 by David Fick
KISS ME KATE

To purchase the filming of the revival of KISS ME, KATE on DVD, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Guys and Dolls, then you might like Kiss Me, Kate.

As big a triumph for Cole Porter as Guys and Dolls was for Frank Loesser, Kiss Me, Kate is another of the great musical comedies. Like Guys and Dolls, which would follow it to Broadway two years later, the show features a score that has nary a weak link as hit song follows hit song as witty repartee flies back on forth between the characters in the book. And of course, Kiss Me, Kate sports two gangsters who could be residents of Runyonland popping into the theatre where Kiss Me Kate’s show-within-a-show is being rehearsed.

The basic plot of Kiss Me, Kate is one which deals with the love affairs of a company of players who are staging some kind of adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. (That the nature of this adaptation is never quite clarified is one of the idiosyncrasies of the show, as is the showstopping number performed by the two gangsters late in Act II. The MGM film version managed to sort that last one out, one of the things that the film got right amidst a slew of missteps.) So we have Frederick Graham, playing Petruchio, romancing and taming his old flame and ex-wife, Lilli Vanessi, who is playing Katherine. Good-time girl, Lois Lane, who plays Bianca, is having trouble with her gambling actor boyfriend, Bill Calhoun, and is also having trouble committing to just him. Bill’s gambling debts bring to the theatre two gangsters who are trying to collect a debt against which Bill has signed Frederick’s name. In true musical comedy style, everything gets well and truly tangled up before unraveling for a happy ending by the time of the final curtain. The score includes highlights such as “So in Love”, “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”, “Tom, Dick or Harry”, “Where is the Life that Late I Led?” and “I Hate Men”.

Kiss Me, Kate holds the honour of being the musical to win a Tony Award presented for Best Musical. A comeback for Cole Porter, who had not been able to replicate his success in the 1920s and 1930s in the decade that followed and was considered to be past his prime, Kiss Me, Kate was – like Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun, a musical comedy that was aware of conventions of the musical play that had been waiting in the wings of musical theatre for many years and which became standard almost overnight after the opening of Oklahoma!, and which used them to reinvent the type of musical comedy that had been en vogue on Broadway in previous years. Cole Porter’s legacy as a songwriter is untouchable, but it is this show that endures (along with Anything Goes), reminding us that he could be a top-drawer theatremaker too.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Kiss Me, Kate. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

Posted in Bella Spewack, Cole Porter, Frank Loesser, Irving Berlin, Samuel Spewack | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Chain of Musicals: GUYS AND DOLLS

Posted on January 15, 2012 by David Fick
GUYS AND DOLLS

To purchase the complete JAY/TER studio cast recording of GUYS AND DOLLS, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, then you might like Guys and Dolls.

The robust musical comedy style of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a key feature in what is commonly called – and rightly so, I think – a perfect example of this particular form of musical theatre. And, along with Lorelei and Elle, this show gives us another iconic blonde: the long-suffering showgirl fiancé, Adelaide.

Based on Damon Runyon’s now classic short stories, Guys and Dolls features a marvelous Frank Loesser score embedded in a witty book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. The show tells the story of Sarah, a chaste missionary dreaming of love, who is the subject of a bet between Nathan Detriot, who needs $1000 to pay for a venue for his floating crap game, and Sky Masterson, who is a high-flying gambler who is known for taking on unusual bets. Also thrown into the mix is Miss Adelaide, who has been engaged to Nathan for 14 years and is dying to get married. Highlights from the score that help this delightful tale unravel include “I’ll Know”, “Adelaide’s Lament”, “Luck be a Lady”, “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat” and “If I Were a Bell”.

Guys and Dolls is a great show. Of the three musicals that my high school mounted in my time there, it was the only one that I was in – as the Hotbox MC and a dancer in the Havana sequence. Later on, I choreographed another high school’s production and once again enjoyed being around this show’s great score, which contains a number of Broadway standards and not a bum note to be seen. It’s certainly a show I would like to revisit sometime in the future. The other thing that is really great about Guys and Dolls is its book and the way that it brilliantly crafts not only the four leading characters, but also the supporting characters that make the world of “Runyonland” come to life so vividly on stage. Besides two cherished original productions on either side of the Atlantic, the show has been adapted for the silver screen, been re-conceived as for an all African-American cast in 1976 (with some fantastic new arrangements), and received fantastic revivals in the West End and on Broadway in 1982 and 1992 respectively. In 2009, the show returned to Broadway and bombed. It’s often said that Guys and Dolls is impossible to mess up, but here the show was sunk by a director whose concept destroyed the very fibre of the show’s being and whose cast, although great in other roles in other media, probably shouldn’t have been playing these roles on that stage at that point in their careers.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Guys and Dolls. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

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A Chain of Musicals: GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES

Posted on January 14, 2012 by David Fick
GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES

To purchase the film version of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES on DVD, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Legally Blonde, then you might like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Legally Blonde and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes are two musical comedies about two iconic blondes. Just as Elle Woods is represents a certain aspect of womanhood in the last quarter century, so did Lorelei Lee in the era in which she was introduced to the world.

With Joseph Fields and Anita Loos working on the book and Leo Robin and Jule Styne working on the score, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes ended up being a popular musical of the late 1940s. Set in the 1920s, the show tells the story of Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw’s journey on an ocean liner bound for France. After a number of romantic onboard hijinks involving a missing tiara, a fiancé back home, a couple of socialites and a team of olympic sportsmen, everyone arrives in Paris where, with two detectives thrown into the mix, more hijinks ensue. This being a musical comedy written in the 1940s, everything leads up to a great big happy ending with all the intrigues unraveled and everyone paired off with the right partner. Highlights include “A Little Girl From Little Rock”, “I Love What I’m Doing” and “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is not my favourite musical comedy, even of its era, but that’s not the point of this month’s column. Certainly, dear reader, you may enjoy it; after all, that’s what we’re doing here. I’ve never been a big Carol Channing fan myself, so recordings of her takes on the songs don’t do it for me and its really only the film version (which features additional songs by Hoagy Carmichael & Harold Adamson, one of which is featured in the clip below), with Marilyn Monroe, that springs to life for me. That said, I think the show is a solid one and is worth a listen or a look, should you have the opportunity. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes has been back to Broadway twice, first in the form of a “revisal” entitled Lorelei (broader and crasser than the original with a too-old Carol Channing once again playing the lead role) and then in a transfer of a Goodspeed Opera House production (which lasted a mere 8 performances with KT Sullivan as Lorelei). Perhaps there’s some life in the old girl yet: just please don’t revive it with Channing once again in this second decade of the twenty-first century. Maybe a production will come along yet that pushes this show up in my esteem.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

Posted in Anita Loos, Joseph Fields, Jule Styne, Leo Robin | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Chain of Musicals: LEGALLY BLONDE

Posted on January 13, 2012 by David Fick
LEGALLY BLONDE

To purchase the Original London Cast Recording of LEGALLY BLONDE, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Hairspray, then you might like Legally Blonde.

While the most obvious common feature of Hairspray and Legally Blonde is their poppy scores, the two shows are also both (more or less) great coming-of-age stories with everything revolving around two super young women characters. Both shows are also all too easy to write off as being pop trash cotton candy musicals, but both offer more than what the eye might first perceive.

Legally Blonde, adapted by Heather Hach, Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin from the hit film of the same name, tells the tale of Elle Woods, blonde extrodinaire. Dumped in favour of a serious career by her boyfriend, Warner, who is off to Harvard, Elle launches a plan to get him back by following him to law school to prove just how much she has to offer. Warner doesn’t change his ming, but Elle finds a new direction for her own life at Harvard as she faces the immense challenges of becoming a lawyer who exhibits both sense and style. Highlights include “Serious”, “So Much Better”, “Omigod You Guys”, “Blood in the Water” and “Take it Like a Man”.

Legally Blonde was Laurence O’Keefe’s follow-up piece to Bat Boy and brings to life the promise shown in that earlier musical. Where Bat Boy is almost smothered by its own cleverness and by all of the ideas that float around in its score, Legally Blonde is tight and focused with an emotional core that prevents it from being simply a bit of silliness and allows the show to come together in a way that Bat Boy never quite does. The show is high-energy, has a memorable score in the way that a good old-fashioned nouveau musical comedy should and manages to blend dance into the proceedings in an era when many musicals forget what an important element of storytelling dance can be in musicals. (In that respect, Jerry Mitchell’s choreography for the original production never feels bland or generic in the way that Rob Ashford’s dance has in the recent revivals of Promises, Promises and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.) The show was screened on MTV during its original Broadway run. While no plans for a DVD release have surfaced as yet, wouldn’t it be great to be able to pick up this show on Amazon for your own personal collection? Ah well, a boy can dream.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Legally Blonde. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

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