Popular Broadway Songs [Youtbe Clips]

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Pippin

No one can complain that Andrea Martin didn't earn every bit of her Tony Award. Here she is in the 2013 revival of Pippin.

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In Memoriam

Tommy Rall, RIP

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Tommy Rall, legendary dancer, singer and actor on film and stage, passed away this week. Tommy is most well known for his featured performances in MGM musicals of the 1950s, including Kiss Me Kate, My Sister Eileen, Invitation to the Dance, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Although he never became a star, he was highly admired by everyone who worked with him including Donald O'Conner who once said that Rall was " “one of the greatest dancers living...above Astaire and Kelly”.

Tommy Rall and Ann Miller sing "Why Can't You Behave" from Kiss Me Kate. Not only could Rall act, sing and dance - he does comedy, too. ​

Rall mastered tap dancing as a young boy and only turned to ballet in his early twenties. He mastered that as well, as evidenced by his spectacular turns in Seven Brides and his cameo as The Prince in Barbra Streisand's Swan Lake parody in Funny Girl (1968).

Rall and Bob Fosse from My Sister Eileen. Rall was a favorite dancer for choreographers like Michael Kidd, Gower Champion, Bob Fosse, and Gene Kelly.​

All of this would be quite a career in itself, but when MGM musicals declined at the end of the 1950s he moved to featured roles on Broadway, including Call Me Madam, Milk and Honey, and Juno.

He then took on a new profession - as a tenor with the New England Opera Theatre in Boston and New York City Opera companies.

Rall continued to make occasional film appearances, dancing with Steve Martin in Pennies from Heaven and Mikhail Baryshnikov in the 1987 film Dancers.

Stream some of Tommy's great film performances this week. In Kiss Me Kate he plays Ann Miller's secret love interest and gets multiple numbers, including "Every Tom, Dick or Harry" with Miller, Bob Fosse, and Bobby Van. In Seven Brides he plays Frank (short for Frankincense) - the brother usually in the red shirt.

 

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Angela Lansbury

Happy 95th Birthday Angela Lansbury!

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Angela Lansbury has had one of the most remarkable careers in show business. She is the oldest surviving Academy Award nominee - she earned her first nomination for her first film - Gaslight (1944) - and her second nomination a year later for The Picture of Dorian Gray , for which she also won a Golden Globe Award. She followed with other notable films like National Velvet (1944), and The Harvey Girls (1946). But in the late 40s and through the 50s she seemed to slip into featured roles in B movies.

But she revived her career in the 1960s, first with her third Oscan nomination for The Manchurian Candidate (1962), then in 1966 she became a Broadway sensation in Mame. It was then, when she was over 40, that she really became the star we know today.

Angel Lansbury performs one of her signature songs from Mame on the 1971 Tony Awards. ​

The show I saw her in first was her brilliant Madam Rose in the 1974 revival of Gypsy. She tackled the role differently than anyone before her - this was no longer a musical star vehicle, but a horror show about a mother who both loves her kids and shameless uses them to achieve the career that passed her by. Here is some press footage of her "Rose's Turn" - a mental breakdown set to music.

I next saw her in the late 1980s in Sweeney Todd - now an actress and singer of impeccable comic timing.

Lansbury often tells the story of the day Stephen Sondheim first brought this song into rehearsal and performed it for cast with all the musical accents pounding the dough, throwing around the flour and squashing the bugs. ​

By then she was already a hit on television in Murder, She Wrote. She alternated between theater, film and television. In the 90s she captured the imagination of a new generation of fans as the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast.

In 2018 Miss Lansbury made a surprise appearance at the New York Philharmonic tribute to composer Alan Menken. She sang "Beauty and the Beast" (in the original key!), and reportedly there was not a dry eye in the house. To date, that has been her last public performance - though she has never claimed to be retired.

 

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Sweet Charity

Here's something fun from Broadway Backwards 2019 - an all male version of Bob Fosse's "Big Spender" from Sweet Charity.

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Ann Reinking, RIP


Ann at the height of her powers in Dancin'! on Broadway in 1978.
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There are very few Broadway performers that become stars based on their dancing alone. Ann was a good, but not great, actor and singer - but she was a spectacular dancer. Her body seemed to be able to do anything, and she gained fame before she ever created an original character in a musical. She was able to draw your attention even when she was in the chorus. And in the chorus of Pippin she got the attention of director-choreographer Bob Fosse and started a relationship that would change her life.

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After Pippin she stopped the show Over There! with her jitterbug. She got the lead opposite Joel Grey in Goodtime Charley, but it flopped. She replaced Donna McKechnie in A Chorus Line, and then Gwen Verdon in Chicago. By then, she and Fosse were done romantically, but professionally they would be linked forever, starting with her role in All That Jazz (1979).

Ann's best film role was in All That Jazz in which Bob Fosse essentially cast her to play herself. He still made her audition, though.​

Ten years after Bob died she choreographed (and starred in) a short production of Chicago for Encores in New York. It was so successful it moved to Broadway in 1996, and was still playing when New York theaters closed in March. She and Gwen Verdon teamed up to choreograph and direct a revue of material based on Bob's work called Fosse in 1999, and won a Tony Award.

Ann continued to carry on the Fosse legacy, teaching seminars and master classes around the country up to this year.

Ann teaching last year in New York.​

 

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In Memorium

Rebecca Luker, RIP


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Another Broadway light has dimmed - though this one was expected. Rebecca Luker had been suffering from ALS for several years. Rebecca was a classic leading lady with a glittering soprano voice.

She made her Broadway debut as Sarah Brightman's understudy in the original Phantom of the Opera, a role she later took over when Brightman left the cast.

Rebecca revisits her roots singing "All I Ask" from Phantom with the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra in 2012​

In the 1990s she took on classic soprano ingenue roles in revivals of Show Boat, The Sound of Music and The Music Man. In the 2000s she replaced leads in Nine, Cinderella, and Fun Home.

Rebecca was married to fellow Broadway star Danny Burstein (Fiddler on the Roof, Moulin Rouge).​

 

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Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone has a great holiday season. Here is a little bit from the 2012 musical A Christmas Story, with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (who would go on to write Dear Evan Hansen and The Greatest Showman). This is their appearance on the Tony Awards, with an introduction by Neil Patrick Harris and the dog Sandy from Annie.

[Video taken down]

 

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Baryshnikov on Broadway​

Here is a large section of Mikhail Baryshnikov's 1980 television special. He is joined by Liza Minnelli with a special appearance by Nell Carter. While the high-concept 1970s studio special style hasn't aged well, the talent and material is timeless. And there is something captivating about seeing Baryshnikov scale his dancing down to the level of Broadway jazz, tap and even a soft shoe. Also, this is the only television special I have ever seen where the star can out dance the chorus boys.

Highlights are Nell Carter's "Honeysuckle Rose" from Ain't Misbehavin', Liza's "Music That Makes Me Dance" from Funny Girl, and Misha's Oklahoma!, Guys & Dolls, and A Chorus Line sequences.

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Avenue Q

The cast of Avenue Q reunited to remind us that everything (including COVID) is only “For Now”.

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Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella

This Friday the 1997 made-for-TV version of Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella comes to Disney+ streaming service. The project was originally offered to Whitney Houston to play the lead, but after a few years delay, Houston felt she was too old for the role, and instead signed on as a producer and to play the Fairy Godmother. Whitney wanted the role to go to a bright new talent, and the producers chose Brandy and surrounded them with a group of multi-cultural Broadway veterans.

The incomparable Whitney Houston dazzles in her magical mentoring role.​

Last week some of the cast got together with Entertainment Weekly to reminisce about the production and what it meant at the time and how it still affects their lives are careers.

If you want more, take a look at Behind The Ears: The History & Legacy of CINDERELLA Starring Brandy & Whitney Houston for a full behind-the-scenes retrospective on the musical itself (originally written for and starring Julie Andrews in 1959) up to the Brandy version.

 

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The King & I

It's almost Valentine's day! Here is a beautiful classic Broadway love song reinterpreted by Tony winner, Gavin Creel (Hair, Mary Poppins, The Book of Mormon, She Loves Me) - "Something Wonderful" from The King & I.

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Kismet

Julie Andrews knocks us over so often with her performances that we can forget how glorious her voice is. Here she sings "This Is My Beloved" from Kismet live during her late 1970s tour of Japan.

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Also, I just found the 1995 90 minute doentary on the making of the Broadway show Victor / Victoria, if you want to see more of Julie. Of course, this was what became her final singing performance before she tragically lost her voice.

 

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Rodgers & Hammerstein

Tomorrow is the official release of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Goes Pop album. Here is a cut and a video - Ariana DeBose singing “Shall We Dance?” From The King & I.

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Sunday in the Park with George

Happy Birthday Stephen Sondheim​

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Well, for Broadway fans. Stephen turned 91 this week - he is vaccinated and made it through 2020 so, that's some good news.

Unfortunately, the bad news this week was that the revival of Sunday in the Park with George with Jake Gyllenhaal and Analeigh Ashford that was supposed to transfer from Broadway to London later this year has been cancelled - for the usual reasons. Hopefully they will be "putting it together" (inside Sondheim joke) soon. Here are Jake and Analeigh in the studio recording the cast album. You can hear the full song here.

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Rodgers & Hammerstein

Another video has been released from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Goes Pop album. Our favorite bisexual Broadway boy, Andy Meintus, does a smooth romantic club version of “Some Enchanted Evening”.

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Jesus Christ Superstar

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has released the professionally shot version of the 2012 arena tour the show did - the one I call "Jonathon Larson's Jesus Christ Superstar" - it's very downtown. Tim Minchin (composer of the musical Matilda) is amazing as Judas, spice girl Melanie C is Mary and Ben Foster plays Jesus.

Note: This was limited availability and it is now down.

 

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Broadway Returns

Broadway came back for an afternoon on Saturday at the St James theater in New York for one performance of a new play by Paul Rudnick titled Playbills. It was a one-man show and starred Nathan Lane. Also on the bill was tap dancer extraordinaire, Savion Glover who pretty much covered the history of tap in 40 minutes.

Here is an excerpt from Nathan Lane. You can read the full text of the play here on the New York Theater web site.

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My Fair Lady

Netflix has just added Jack Warner’s 1964 film of My Fair Lady for April (at least in the US). The film won the Oscar for Best Picture, Actor (Rex Harrison) and costumes. And if you have only seen it on TV or DVD, now is the time drink in the color and beauty of the 2014 50th Anniversary restoration.

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Here is one of the special features from the Blu Ray disk narrated by Audrey Hepburn, on the history of the musical - from its beginnings as George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion to the Broadway show (with interviews and clips of Julie Andrews) to the making of the Warner Brothers movie.

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Follies at 50​

Stephen Sondheim's musical Follies opened on Broadway 50 years ago this week. Here is a bit of film of the original production. The show takes place on an old Broadway theater in the process of being torn down, were old friends and lovers meet for one last reunion. At this point near the end of the show, it explodes into a Zigfeld Follies style pastiche on Boris Aronson's spare-no-expense set - the "Loveland" sequence.

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For more information

• Wish you could have seen the original production? Here a fan has lovingly pieced together bits of film from rehearsals, performances, backstage views and still photographs with recordings done off the sound board to give you a glimpse of the entire show.
• FOLLIES at 50: A panel with the cast and creative team of the original Broadway production.
• Follies in Concert - The 1985 doentary of how the Lincoln Center concert version of the show was put together and recorded.

 

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Candide

As if anyone needs a reminder as to why Kristin Chenoweth is a national treasure - "Glitter and Be Gay" by Leonard Bernstein from Candide.

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