Popular Broadway Songs [Youtbe Clips]

The Boys in the Band


It's been in previews for a month, and will open at the end of the week. But everyone is talking about the first Broadway production of Mart Crowley's landmark 1968 play The Boys in the Band.

The production is the dream of gay producer Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story) who has assembled a cast of all out gay actors. This was a risky move, as I will explain later if you are unfamiliar with the material, but the word of mouth over the last week has been great. With these stars it's a limited run - just over the summer until million-dollar-an-episode Jim Parsons has to report back for work on The Big Bang Theory.

The Story

The play centers on Michael (Jim Parsons) who is throwing a birthday party for his friend Harold (Zachary Quinto) and six of their friends. There are some unexpected guests - Cowboy (Charlie Carver), a young hustler arrives as a present for Harold, and Michael's straight college buddy, Alan (Brian Hutchison), drops in on this inconvenient evening distraught and needing to talk to Michael privately. This breaks the invisible barrier Michael has put up between his straight and gay friends, and he (and everyone else) grows more drunk and passive-aggressive as the evening goes on - especially Harold who arrives late to his own party with verbal barbs for everyone.


History: Boys

There have been a good number of ground- breaking gay plays - Angels in America, The Normal Heart, Bent, A Beautiful Thing. But there is only one that was the first to pull back the curtain and put contemporary urban gay lives on stage, not as comic relief but as real human beings that love, laugh, and fear. Boys in the Band opened in April 1968 at the 99 seat off-Broadway Theater Four and caused a cultural shock wave.

The time was right, or at least right enough, and influential people flocked to the small theater to see what gay people finally had to say about themselves. Some were shocked. Some realized the humanity that they themselves had denied their gay friends. And some gay men saw themselves and vowed never to return to the self-hating insular world of the underground again. They were determined to live openly and demand respect.

It's hard to pull the influence of the play away from it's times. The title comes from the line in the movie A Star is Born when James Mason tells Judy Garland not to be nervous and just sing like she does after hours when it's just her "and the boys in the band".

During the run of the play Judy Garland died, and days later the Stonewall uprising shocked the city and birthed a community and a movement. And part of what people wanted to move away from was the insular hidden subculture and barely tolerated second-class citizen status that was on display in the Boys in the Band.

Like that other 1968 cultural breakthrough, Hair, Boys didn't seem to age well and most considered the play unproducable. But 50 years is enough distance to remove some of the threat. Lord knows these sometimes feel like dark days, but whatever happens, we are not going back to dinner parties where vent our hate and frustration on our friends.

The boys in this play are trying to survive in a world that tells them they are worthless deviants. They are struggling but the fact that they are stepping up and owning who they are and who they love takes a bravery most of us now can't imagine. I think it's time they were celebrated.


Time has also taken its toll on this landmark. Most of the gay members of the cast died during the AIDS epidemic. Cliff Gorman (Emory) recently passed away, but Laurence Luckinbill (husband of Lucie Arnez) is still around and did the Theater Talk interview listed above.

The Broadway revival opens tomorrow night.

For more information

• Boys In The Band (1970) - Making The Film - Behind the scenes on making the movie with interviews with most of the actors and creatives.
• The Boys in the Band playwright Mart Crowley talks about his play, the movie, and the revival - Erin Moriarty interviews playwright Mart Crowley, whose groundbreaking 1968 play "The Boys in the Band," about a group of gay men attending a birthday party, is now on Broadway in a revival starring Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto.
• Matt Bomer talks about the play and dealing with being naked on stage - Matt Bomer chats about bringing his 13-year-old son to the Tony Awards, and antics with Andrew Rannells during his Broadway show, The Boys in the Band, and he reveals how forgetting to check his props left him naked onstage.
• Fresh Face: Charlie Carver of The Boys in the Band - Charlie Carver (Teen Wolf, I Am Michael, When We Rise) is as cute as they come, but he dedicates his performance to his late father who was also gay and found his way through some of the same issues faced by the characters in the play.

Frozen

The Frozen cast has been busy doing some pre-Tony publicity. Here are a couple of numbers they did on television this week.



And here is the number everyone has been dying to see. (I'm surprised Disney is giving this up.)

The Boys in the Band

Fifty years after Mart Crowley's landmark comic drama about a group of gay men in pre-Stonewall New York first made waves, director Joe Mantello vigorously shakes the dust off The Boys in the Band. What might have been another bulletin from the distant queer past is transformed into a scintillating portrait of the self-loathing that festers in ghettoized subcultures, perhaps as much now as then. Starring a high-caliber cast of out gay actors led by Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer and Andrew Rannells, the production is sharpest when the zingers are flying back and forth like missiles, but the anger coursing through the play's veins still scalds. - David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

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As the original 1970 movie ad said, "The Boys in the Band is not a musical", but we still care about it anyway. It is an important part of our theater history. And now, for the first time, it is being presented in a Broadway theater and the producers, director, and cast are all first class and also, by the way, gay. All presented just in time for its 50th Anniversary, which coincided with its Thursday opening night.


The reviews are in and they are mostly positive. (One major exception noted below.)

Through it all, the ensemble filled with out-and-proud actors is uniformly terrific. They deftly hug the curves of the script as it goes from barbed humor to bile-spewing. To his credit Crowley doesn't tie things up with a bow. "Call you tomorrow," says Harold, after the carnage. In other words, boys will be boys. - Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News

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Jim Parsons as the central character, Michael, was singled out by nearly all reviewers, as was Zachary Quinto as birthday boy Harold - though a couple raised an eyebrow when Harold complained about being ugly for the third or fourth time.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, except for Ben Brantley of the New York Times, who found it just OK.

As for the big question - are The Boys still relevant today? Or is it just a historical relic of a time no longer remembered?

All of that feels uncommonly relevant — actually, "relevant" understates the matter. That contrast between actor and performer is at the core of what this fundamentally optimistic production wants to say, what it wants to reveal, which is the great American march — always two steps forward, one step back — toward greater freedoms for more Americans.

Mantello wants his audience to breathe in not just his characters, with their one-liners, quips, power trips and deep sadness, but also to imbue the breathtaking contrast with the self-assured men who now are playing them, luckier men not born when the play was written. That is not to imply condescension on the part of these actors — on the contrary, for you can read the seriousness with which they take their assignments to play men much less famous than themselves — but merely to claim Mantello's clear purpose, as intensified by a design from David Zinn that has one foot in two eras and its cleverly timeless body in the close proximity of such contradictions as intimacy and performance, privacy and display.

It's all a bit meta, I know, but I swear there is no place better than the theater to be overwhelmed by suddenly comprehending the transformations of 50 years in 110 minutes. Gradual change can limit your appreciation. Sometimes you have to see it all unveiled before you at once. - Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

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Looking back 50 years to the original production - probably half the cast was gay, but no one was out. That would have been unthinkable. Even the straight cast members lost jobs and opportunities because of their association with the property. Some took it off their resume. One of the original cast members (Reuben Greene who played the sole African America - Bernard) has completely dropped off the grid and nobody knows where he is.

But today the pictures are coming in from the opening night festivities and look - there are Jim Parsons and Zach Quinto arriving with their husbands. Matt Bomer arrives with his husband, Simon Halls, one of the top PR agents in Los Angeles on one arm and his oldest son (of three kids) on his other. Andrew Rannells hugged his Girls co-stars Lena Dunham and Allison Williams, and Charlie Carver walked in with his straight identical twin brother, Max.

These are top name actors that don't have to hide, don't have to protect their reputation, and are loved with friends and family proudly at their side. The human condition may be the same, but our place in the world has definitely changed. For the better.

Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel

Has this song been running though your head the last couple of days? (If not, it will now.)

Of course, there is a full scale revival of Carousel running now on Broadway and nominated for multiple Tonys next week. In this week's Theater Talk show, New York Times theater critic Jesse Green sits down with stars Joshua Henry and Jesse Mueller and music director Andy Einhorn to explore how Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein used snippets of songs to construct the scene where Billy and Julie fall in love.


The revival cast album is available for pre-order and will be released on July 13. I can't wait!

But Rodgers & Hammerstein were in the news last week for another reason. Harvey Weinstein arrived at his court date clutching a copy of Todd Purdham's best seller, Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution . Let's set Mr. Weinstein aside. Purdham's book has been on many reading lists this spring. Purdham is usually found writing about politics in the pages of Vanity Fair or Politico. (Purdham is married to former Bill Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers.) But, Broadway has always been a passion of his, and his new book brings attention to one of Broadway's most influential duos.


Todd has been making the rounds of the interview shows spreading the gospel of R&H.

• How Rodgers And Hammerstein Revolutionized Broadway - Todd's Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross examines how R&H worked together and the impact of their work.
• There Is Nothin’ Like a Tune - Todd discuses his book on the New York Times Book Review podcast.

Summer

The stars and cast of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical appeared on The Tonight Show this week to perform one of Donna Summer's classics" "MacArthur Park".

[Video link removed]

In other news, Escape to Margaritaville announced that it would close July 1. They will then perform at the National Capital Celebration in Washington DC which will be broadcast live on PBS in the US July 4th.

A Star is Born

Here is the first trailer for the Bradley Cooper / Lady Gaga A Star is Born.

I took topdogs advice and got tickets way in advance for Broadway shows coming to Houston. The prices are much more reasonable. I was able to get tickets to all three of these shows Les Miserables, Phantom of the opera, and The Book of Mormon for around the same price as they wanted just for Hamilton.

The Band's Visit

The Band's Visit opened last fall as a front runner for the Best Musical Tony Award, and according to many predictions it is still there.


But during Tony season it seems to be lost in the noise. Tina Fey has been everywhere promoting Mean Girls and Ethan Slater has been asked on major shows to push Spongebob Squarepants. So where is TBV?

They popped up this week on National Public Radio's Tiny Desk Concert, of all places - the first time the NPR show has featured a Broadway musical. Still, it is a chance to hear this score that may come up a winner this Sunday evening.

Tony Awards


It's Tony Weekend! The Awards are this Sunday night, June 10 at 8pm EST. What a unique year this has been, both on and off he stage. Just for some perspective, last year our Tony host was Kevin Spacey! Needless to say, Spacey will be no where to be seen this Sunday.

This year the hosts will be two recording artists who recently made their Broadway debuts. Josh Groban was nominated for his performance last year in The Great Comet of 1812 and Sara Bareilles took over the lead role last summer in the musical she wrote, Waitress.

Watching

The Tony Awards will be broadcast on CBS in USA. See this page for international broadcasts. You can see red carpet coverage and the show on TonyAwards.com. (They are saying that should work internationally too, if you want to watch live.)

If you don't get to see it I will post the best bits here on Monday. In the meantime, Download a printable ballot so you can make your own choices.

Performances

The list of shows that will be performing has been released, though we don't know what number they will do.

• The Band's Visit
• Carousel
• Frozen
• Mean Girls
• My Fair Lady
• Once on This Island
• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Summer: The Donna Summer Musical

Also, the show will feature a special performance from the 2017 Tony Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen. And late in the broadcast they are promising that Bruce Springsteen will perform a medley of songs from Oklahoma!.

(Just kidding. Bruce will probably sing one of his own songs.)


Predictions

The fun part! It was an odd year. There was good work, but not a lot of it. Let's see how everyone stacks up.

• Best Musical - The Band's Visit is the one entry that is not like the others. The one strike against it is that there are a lot of out-of-town bookers and producers that vote and conventional wisdom is that they vote for the shows they want to tour in their hometown theaters. And all the other shows have pre-sold titles. Love for Spongebob Squarepants seems to grow by the week and Mean Girls has had a massive PR campaign. But I think the unique quality of Band will prevail.
• Best Original Score - David Yazbek (The Band's Visit) should finally get his Tony after nominations for The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
• Best Revival of a Musical - My Fair Lady has size and nostalgia going for it. It also managed to address the traditional misogyny of the story without changing a word or lyric. (Carousel, take note.) However, an upset is not out of the question - there are a lot of Tony voters that respect the reinvention of Once on This Island, even though it isn't a beloved classic like MFL.
• Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical - Ethan Slater from Spongebob Squarepants is my man because he works so damn hard in that role. But this is really a crap shoot. It feels like a three way tie at the moment and a good case can be made for Joshua Henry (Carousel) or Tony Shalhoub (The Band's Visit).
• Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical - Katrina Lenk (The Band's Visit) has been the presumed winner here since the fall. There is a lot of love for what Lauren Ambrose has done with Eliza Doolittle, but I think she will be the runner-up.
• Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical - Norbert Leo Butz (My Fair Lady) is the one I'll go with, but I don't have a high degree of confidence. Grey Henson, the "too gay to function" teenager of Mean Girls, Gavin Lee, the dancing squid of SpongeBob SquarePants and Ari'el Stachel of The Band's Visit are all close. And Norbert already has two Tonys. But this role is the completion of his transformation from leading man (the original Fieryo in Wicked) to character actor.
• Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical - Lindsay Mendez (Carousel), though again, another close category. But Audra MacDonald won her first (of six) Tony awards for this role in 1994.

For more information

• Download a printable Tony Awards Ballot so you can make your own choices and predictions.
• Belt Your Face Off to BroadwayWorld's Tony Awards Playlist! - take a deep dive to Bikini Bottom, chill out to the sounds of Bet Hatikva, strut your stuff with the Plastics, and dance all night with Eliza Doolitle.
• Theater Talk's Annual Tony Predictions Gala - Hear from the actual experts.

BC/EFA: Broadway Bares

Just as a Tony Weekend distraction, the annual Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS benefit Broadway Bares is next week. Choreographers and costume designers are hard at work and dancers are perfecting their stripping technique. Videos should start flowing the following week, but just to hold everyone over here is a number from last year. The 2017 title was "Strip U" - a college theme - and this number was dedicated to Psych Class, where one student faces and conquers his demons.


Welcome to summer and happy Pride month!

Tony Awards


The message of last night's Tony Awards seemed to be that there are only three shows worth seeing on Broadway: The Band's Visit, Harry Potter, and Angels in America. Unless you were an actor of the stature of Glenda Jackson or Laurie Metcalf, you didn't stand a chance of breaking through the lock those shows had on the evening. (Well, one show did mange to shock everyone with a win - Once on This Island - but that was only because none of those other three shows qualified for that particular category.)

The headline has to be The Band's Visit taking 10 Tony Awards, which counts as a sweep in anyone's book. Even Best Actor in a Musical winner Tony Shaloub seemed puzzled backstage noting to the press that he doesn't sing anything in the show by himself. Still, the answer is right there on the statue - it's for best acting - not singing and dancing.

Mean Girls was shut out. Frozen - nada. They went home with nothing. Spongebob manged a win for set design. My Fair Lady got one for costumes and Carousel for choreography. That's about as far as the wealth was spread.


Biggest disappointment: Robert DeNiro and his anti-Trump outburst when he came out to introduce Bruce Springsteen. Really bad form to make it all about him when his job was to introduce his friend. That aside, the worst faux pas of the evening had to be cutting off the author of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Jack Thorpe) when he stepped up to the microphone to say something after the Potter won Best Play.

Best performance: Once on this Island did the best job of showing TV audiences what they are all about, but the performance of the evening had to go to the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and their version of Rent's "Seasons of Love". Wow! Not a dry eye anywhere. It was also a nice bookend because their drama teacher also received recognition - both for her career teaching and producing school theater, as well as sheltering 65 students during the February school shooting.

Biggest surprise: Definitely Once on this Island winning for Best Revival. It was one of those situations where all the attention was going to the big budget Carousel and My Fair Lady, but when you asked people individually they would often say "... but I hope Once on This Island could win". Well the little show made it big after all - and be sure and watch the performance they did (below). They blew the roof off the place. Alex Newell owned Radio City and defied all those nominators who left him out of the Best Featured Actor category.


Winners
Links to videos of their acceptance speeches are provided if I could find them.

• Best Musical - The Band's Visit
• Best Leading Actress in a Musical - Katrina Lenk, The Band's Visit
• Best Leading Actor in a Musical - Tony Shalhoub, The Band's Visit
• Best Revival of a Musical - Once on This Island
• Best Choreography - Justin Peck, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel
• Best Direction of a Musical - David Cromer, The Band's Visit
• Best Featured Actress in a Musical - Lindsay Mendez, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel
• Best Lighting Design of a Musical - Tyler Micoleau, The Band's Visit
• Best Orchestrations - Jamshied Sharifi, The Band's Visit
• Best Book - Itamar Moses, The Band's Visit
• Best Score - David Yazbek, The Band's Visit
• Best Featured Actor in a Musical - Ari'el Stachel, The Band's Visit
• Best Scenic Design of a Musical - David Zinn, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical
• Best Costume Design of a Musical - Catherine Zuber, My Fair Lady

Performances from Shows

• My Fair Lady - Rain in Spain / Danced All Night / Get Me to the Church
• Mean Girls - Where Do You Belong?
• Frozen - First Time In Forever / Let It Go
• Carousel - Blow High, Blow Low
• The Band's Visit - Omar Sharif
• Spongebob Squarepants - (I'm Not A) Loser
• Once On This Island -We Dance / Mama Will Provide
• Summer: The Donna Summer Musical - Last Dance

Special Performances

• Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Students sing "Seasons of Love" from Rent
• Dear Evan Hanson Perform During In Memoriam
• Josh Groban And Sara Bareilles Poke Fun At Broadway With "8 Times A Week" to the tune of Sia's "Chandelier"
• Lifetime Achievement Medley for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Chita Rivera by Josh Groban And Sara Bareilles

Summer of Sondheim

I grew up around musicals and ballet. I remember being taken to the movies to see The Pajama Game with Doris Day and Flower Drum Song long before I started school. We had all the original cast albums from shows of the 50s and early 60s around the house. Then I was just at the right age to really discover movies when Sound of Music and My Fair Lady came out.

But it wasn't until 1970 that I saw my first real Broadway show - Company - and it was written by someone I didn't really know: Stephen Sondheim. Little did I know I had arrived just in time to see Sondheim revolutionize the musical play - much like his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein, did a generation earlier.


Sondheim is in my bones, having watched the man deliver one masterpiece after another. The time has come to speak of all things Sondheim, which I think I will sprinkle in over the summer.

So, I'd like to propose a toast - everybody rise!


The Ladies Who Lunch from Company

Elaine talks about the song being Sondheim's three act play - actually it is five acts. If you only know the song in passing you might remember it being about rich ladies rushing around doing a lot of not all that much. But it's really much more specific than that. the character, JoAnne is skwering the lives of three kinds of women: Socialites, the over-educated and under-employed, and suburban housewives. Then, she turns the venom on herself.

The verses break down like this:

1. The Ladies Who Lunch - women with nothing better to do than plan brunches and pick out hats.
2. The Girls Who Stay Smart - women running from class to a play to a concert trying to stay in touch.
3. The Girls Who Play Wife - women chauffeuring the kids, following the rules.
4. The Girls Who Just Watch - i.e., JoAnne herself - commenting, criticizing from the sidelines always with a drink in her hand and a good one-liner.
5. The Girls on the Go - In summary, JoAnne realizes that they are all in the same boat.

This is what a good theater lyric writer does - he or she gives the actor something to play; a story arc that leaves them at a different spot than they began. JoAnne starts out taking easy pot shots at other women, then comes to the realization that she isn't any better off herself. That's a pretty profound and devastating angle for a character that has just been a smartmouth up to this point in the play.

Here's to Mr. Sondheim, indeed.

Your Weekend Musical


HBO's Six by Sondheim doentary pulls a lot of his thoughts and career experience into one 90 minute film. So, here it is in full. What could be better than hearing how Sondheim grew into his role in the theater from his own point of view?

And, in addition, you get some rare performances of his songs by original artists, such as Ethel Merman, Larry Kert, and Dean Jones. As a bonus there is a reinvention of "Opening Doors" from Merrily We Roll Along performed by Jeremy Jordan, Darren Criss, and America Ferrera.


Stephen Sondheim has probably explained himself more than any other living composer. There are lots of interviews over the years - many you can find on YouTube. He has written two volumes on his work: Finishing the Hat about the first half of his career, up to Merrily We Roll Along in 1981. Then a follow-up Look, I Made a Hat picking up with his collaborations with James Lapine and going up to the present.

Carousel

The new album for Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel is out on streaming services like Apple, Google, and Amazon. (The CD will be available on July 7.) Here are two sample cuts, with links to others below.


Here is a playlist of the whole album.

BC/EFA: Broadway Bares


Looks like another hot time was had by all (and $1.8 million raised for a good cause, of course). This year's theme was Game Night, and all the numbers were built around various games - board games, video games, even TV game shows.

Speaking of which, the cast of The Boys in the Band were featured in a game show where after every incorrect answer Charlie Carver had to remove an article of clothing. Finally Zach Quinto had the honors of tearing off Charlie's underwear leaving him naked. That would be worth the price of admission in my book.




Update! A new video has been released. This is based on the Oija Board game.

Bandstand


Last year director-choreographer Andy Blakenbueler won a Tony Award for his dances in Bandstand - the story of returning World War II veterans forming a band and fighting through the traumas that followed them home. The show stars Corey Cott (Newsies) and Laura Osnes (Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella).

Before they closed last fall, the producers had the foresight to have two performances filmed. Fathom is the first to bring the show to the public. Hopefully streaming services like Broadway HD won't be far behind.


If you are in the US you can go to the Fathom Website and find a showing near you and get tickets.


But wait! There's more!

Fathom has more showings coming up.

• West Side Story - Have you ever seen the classic musical in all its widescreen and stereophonic glory with an audience? This Sunday and Wednesday there will be special showings (June 24 & 27).
• Newsies - There will be an encore showing of the filmed stage production on July 26 & 28.
• South Pacific - A special 60th Anniversary presentation of the Joshua Logan film on August 26 & 29.

Saturday Night

Summer of Sondheim

]​

When Stephen Sondheim sent Company to Broadway in 1970 he was just one step above being a has-been. He had a modest hit in 1962 with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Then a string of disappointments. He was respected as a lyric writer for West Side Story and Gypsy - though even there his collaboration with Richard Rodgers writing lyrics for Do I Hear a Waltz in the late 60s flopped. He was fighting to be taken seriously.

But that's not how he began. He began as the boy wonder. In 1952 he was fresh out of college with a portfolio of songs. (Oscar Hammerstein gave him several practice assignments turning books and movies into musicals.) Through Oscar he was mingling with the likes of Harold Arlen, Burton Lane, and Fredrick Lowe. When screenwriter Julius Epstein wanted to turn his play Front Porch in Flatbush into a musical he heard Sondheim's material and liked the sophisticated sound. Lemuel Ayers agreed to produce and it was set to open on Broadway in 1955 as Saturday Night. It was all like something out of a movie. Sondheim was about to become one of the youngest new Broadway composers.

(Link was taken off of YouTube)
Laura Benanti sings "So Many People" from Saturday Night for the Sondheim 80th Birthday Celebration. People who think that Sondheim can't write a straight forward love ballad need to know that this is where he started.[/SIZE[/CENTER]

Then producer Lew Ayers died. His widow tried to raise the rest of the money for the show, but it just couldn't be done. What had been a sure thing vanished and Stephen Sondheim was just one more songwriter trying to get a break.

But Saturday Night wasn't forgotten. It's songs became staples of cabaret singers in the 1970s and in 1998 it was finally mounted Off Broadway and a cast album recorded.

The title song was re-purposed as the opening number in the 1970s Off Broadway revue Marry Me a Little written by and starring playwright Craig Lucas (Prelude to a Kiss, The Light in the Piazza). The show was crafted together from songs Sondheim wrote that were cut from his shows. (Or in this case, never opened.)​

But in 1955 Stephen Sondheim was cast back into the pool with his struggling friends Mary Rodgers, Fred Ebb & John Kander, Joseph Stein & Sheldon Harnick - all of them fighting for their big break.

Judy Garland


Yes, we are a little late - it was two weeks ago. But, still the lady deserves her recognition.


Here is a video of every appearance of Judy on film spanning about 35 years. How many do you remember? I bet there are songs in here you've never seen before.

West Side Story


Last Sunday night I saw the film West Side Story at a local cinema. Man, that movie packs a wallop on the big screen. (Many US theaters are doing a final showing tonight.) The dances and dramatic tension really explode and impact you in a different way than in your living room. I told my bf about how when I was in high school the movie appeared for the first time on network television - it was a big special event. The next day, that's all anyone could talk about. And that was about 15 years after the movie was made. It really hasn't diminished much.


Stephen Sondheim was still nursing his wounds from the collapse of Saturday Night when Leonard Bernstein approached him about doing the lyrics for West Side Story. He hesitated because he didn't want to be branded as a lyric writer. At the encouragement of Oscar Hammerstein, he took the job. But he wasn't wrong - he would spend the next 15 years being seen as a lyricist with delusions of musical grandeur.

West Side was a grand experiment to try to integrate dance into dramatic storytelling the way Oklahoma! integrated the music and songs. There would be no stopping for a dance - it would be part of the scenes and the plot.

Stephen strained against Bernstein's preference for flowery romantic language. "Tonight, tonight, the world is full of light with suns and moons all over the place!" is the kind of poetic turn of phrase that Sondheim would never have written apart from Bernstein.

But his skill is evident in numbers like "America" - which uses quadruple rhymes to sustain verse after verse of the same argument. For example:

Girls: Life can be bright in America
Boys: If you can fight in America
Girls: Life is all right in America
Boys: If you're all white in America

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The song has emotional and philosophical weight because Sondheim gives each side a legitimate argument. Life is indeed hard and unfair in America - but it wasn't so great in Puerto Rico either.


Not that everything is a lyrical masterpiece. Sondheim felt so constrained writing words for inarticulate teenagers, that when he got the chance to do a light happy song in a dress shop, he let loose with inner rhymes and sophisticated phrases. Once the show was on its feet his good friend lyric writer Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me) pointed out that "it's alarming how charming I feel" is awfully articulate for an barely-English speaking young girl. She sounded like she would not be unwelcome in Noel Coward's living room.

Sondheim agreed and changed the lyric. But Bernstein and Jerome Robbins insisted the original lyric stay in. He was outvoted and every time the song plays he hears his "mistake".

For more information

See this previous post on West Side Story's 60th Anniversary, and this post on the writing of the show itself.

@ Topdog But his skill is evident in numbers like "America" - which uses quadruple rhymes to sustain verse after verse of the same argument. For example:

Quote:
Girls: Life can be bright in America
Boys: If you can fight in America
Girls: Life is all right in America
Boys: If you're all white in America
The song has emotional and philosophical weight because Sondheim gives each side a legitimate argument. Life is indeed hard and unfair in America - but it wasn't so great in Puerto Rico either.



This passage got lodged in my memory the first time I heard it.

Puerto Rico
My heart's devotion
Let it sink back in the ocean

Always the hurricanes blowing
Always the population growing

And the money owing
And the sunlight streaming
And the natives steaming