Thanks, Getty Images, for the best shot of Tommy Tune
circa Seesaw.
Tommy was the highspot of that musical,
especially his dance with balloons on a set of stairs.
Well, it WAS 1973. It worked back then!
The plot?
Young Nebraskan lawyer
meets street-wise NYC dancer,
and shenanigans ensue.
Above, Michelle Lee, Giancarlo Esposito, John Gavin
(who took over for Ken Howard) and Baayork Lee.
Problems out of town led to an SOS sent out to Michael Bennett.
His suggestions: a totally rewritten book
(rescuing it was Neil Simon),
a new leading lady (see below)
a redone set,
a reworked score (Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields had to work late!)
and a new director (you guessed it, Bennett!).
At first, Lainie Kazan was cast in the lead female role,
but after out of town previews,
Michele Lee was thought to look more the part of an
NYC dancer,
and Lainie was jettisoned.
Nine Tony nominations,
including Best Musical...
it won for Best Choreography (Bennett)
and one for Tommy Tune.
Michele would win a Drama Desk Award for
Outstanding Performance.
Two members of the Seesaw team,
Cy and Nei.
Dorothy Fields (below with Cy) wrote the lyrics,
as she did for another Coleman show...Sweet Charity!
She passed away a year after Seesaw opened.
Above, Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr
in Evening Primrose,
a made-for-TV musical written by Stephen Sondheim,
as part of ABC's Stage 67.
Based on a short story by John Collier,
adapted by James Goldman, and the plot?
Very Twilight Zone:
A poet (Tony) tries to take refuge from the world
by hiding out in a department
store after closing.
He meets a community of night people who live in
the store
and falls in love with a beautiful young girl named Ella
who has been hiding there since she was 6.
They fall in love and try to leave the store...
but the last scene shows 2 new mannequins in the store window,
looking very verrrrrry familiar.
Like the Hotel California, I guess
(you can check in any time you want, but....).
Here's where you know Charmian from:
The film version of The Sound Of Music.
She played Liesl,
that 16 going on 17 gal.
Charmian beat out the following list of contenders to play the part:
Lesley Ann Warren Geraldine Chaplin, Kim Darby, Patty Duke
Shelley Fabares, Teri Garr, and Mia Farrow?
Charmian left showbiz very soon after these productions,
marrying a dentist and subsequently opening her own interior design firm.
She passed away in 2016, at the age of 63.
Irma La Douce was born in France,
back in 1956,
with music by Marguerite Monnot
(Piaf’s best friend and favorite songwriter)
and book and lyrics by Alexandre Breffort.
The hooker with the heart of gold,
and the pimp who falls in love with her.
It ran for 4 years on the Paris stage,
before being transported (beamed?) by David Merrick
(The Abominable Showman)
to Broadway.
Irma (the Sweet) was played by Elizabeth Seal,
Clive Revill who would later play Fagin in Oliver!
had several roles...
and as Irma's lover, Keith Michell.
Keith would become a popular "face" when he scored
a recurring role in Murder She Wrote in the 1980s and 90s.
Two of the roles played by Clive:
The judge (above) and the bartender (below).
He also played the show's narrator.
Also in the cast were George S. Irving,
Stuart Damon, Fred Gwynne, and
in the chorus (as an "Usher"), Elliot Gould.
It proved a hit on Broadway,
and Elizabeth scooped a Tony,
besting Julie Andrews in Camelot, Carol Channing in Show Girl
and Nancy Walker in Do Re Mi.
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