Our Sunday Just-Oncers!

Gwyneth Verdon was 34, and fresh from her roles in

Damn Yankees and New Girl In Town

 when she starred in 

Redhead,

which would bring her a 3rd Tony Award 

for Best Actress in a Musical.

The show was originally written for Beatrice Lillie!

When it landed in Gwen's lap,

she insisted that Bob Fosse both direct and choreograph the production,

and of course whatever Gwen wants, Gwen gets, right?

 

The show also starred Richard Kiley (below)

and Leonard Stone.

We'll hear "Just Once" on Sunday.

And we have air!

Robert Lindsay and Emma Thompson in the 

1985 revival (thank you, Stephen Fry)

of that Noel Gay chestnut,

Me And My Girl.

When the show transferred to Broadway from the West End,

Emma decided not to travel with show.

"If I had to do one more chorus of Lambeth Walk..."

A playbill from the show,

starting off with "read English at Cambridge",

and goes on to list Emma's

"Assaulted Nuts" adventures.

Ah, if they only knew THEN what Emma's future 

(roasted, shelled, and raw) held!

Tomorrow we'll hear "Once You Lose Your Heart",

Emma-style.

The Pajama Game (1955)

brings us 

"Once A Year Day"

with Carol Haney as Gladys

(above center).

Three Tonys for the original production:

one for Carol, another for Bob Fosse who did "featured" choreography,

and a third for Best Musical.

The original cast included John Raitt, Eddie Foy Jr., Stanley Prager,

Janis Paige and Carol...

but as you can see on the poster above

and the pic below,

Pat Marshall and Helen Gallagher were some of the many replacements.

Including a young Shirley MacLaine who filled in

when Carol injured an ankle.

Cinderella Story: A director in the audience who immediately

signed Shirley to a contract with Paramount Pictures!

The show ran for a 18 months. 

(Guess they went thru a lot of pjs.)

Where's Charley?(1948)

was the first musical Frank Loesser did on his "own"...

words AND music. 

Prior to this, Frank had written lyrics for the music of

Hoagy Carmichael, Jule Styne, Burton Lane, Arthur Schwartz,

and a bunch more.

This show, based on the play Charley's Aunt,

brought its star, Ray Bolger, a Tony for Best Actor.

Ray made "Once In Love With Amy" 

a show-stopper at every performance,

complete with an audience sing-along.

He went on to star in the 1952 movie as well. 

Bolger named the first season of his TV variety show,

"Where's Raymond?"

Julie Andrews was 25 when she took on the role

of Queen Guenevere in Camelot.

Her Lancelot was 

27 year old Robert Goulet. 

She "loved him once in silence",

but hey, somebody musta been listening!

Below at the recording session for Camelot's cast album:

Julie with Frederick Loewe, 

of Lerner &...:)

Julie was nominated for a Tony,

but it was Richard Burton who took home

one of the four awards the show received.

Another winner was Adrian and Tony Duquette

for Costumer Design.

Critics found the score "pure magic",

but the book (by lyricist Alan Jay Lerner)

 "murky, talky, and dense".

On a happier note,

a 2008 revival was broadcast on PBS with a stellar cast:

Marin Mazzie, Gabriel Byrne, 

Christoper Lloyd, Christopher Sieber,

Fran Drescher, and Stacey Keach! :)

Winks and Minx!

 

Donna Murphy,

of Corona, Queens, 

grew up on Long Island 

(where she asked, at the age of 3, for voice lessons...and got 'em!),

and who dropped out of NYU when she scooped the part of 

a back up singer in They're Playing My Song,

making her Broadway debut at the age of 20.

 Along with Broadway (off and on) roles,

Donna has done soaps (Another World),

movies and television appearances.

Above, in one of her 2 Tony Award winning performances,

as Anna in The King And I, the 1996 revival.

(No, that's not a Herb Alpert whipped-cream cover,

that's a dress.)

 ...and as Ruth Sherwood (on the right) in 

Wonderful Town (at Encores! in 2000, on Broadway in 2003).

Jessica Westfeldt played her "sister Eileen."

Above, Donna as Lotte Lenya in LoveMusik (2007).

"She cuts through the glamour while managing somehow to 

hold onto it,

and the sleight of hand takes your breath away."

...and as Bubbie/Raisel

in The People In The Picture (2011).

"In Donna Murphy, the creators have a shimmering star

who can play a tender, doting grandma and yet evoke Lombard, 

that irresistible mix of winks and minx …

...and an almost unrecognizable in 

Stephen Sondheim's Passion,

as Fosca,

another role that brought Donna a 

Tony for Best Actress in a Musical (1995).

We'll hear "Loving You" this Sunday (3/31/19).

As Fosca with her leading man,

Jere Shea.

Passion brought Sondheim and cohort James Lapine

another Best Musical Award.

Below, Donna with Bernadette Peters.

Donna recently replaced Bette Midler

in Hello, Dolly!

Love the way Klea Blackhurst

calls herself a Mermanologist!

She's a Salt Lake City gal,

who's done tributes to Ethel, Vernon Duke, Jule Styne,

Jerry Herman, and Hoagy Carmichael. 

Show-wise,

she's performed off and on Broadway, at the Royal Albert Hall in London,

Carnegie Hall,

in regional theatre, and cabaret.

Klea with Hayley Mills in Party Face

at City Center just last year.

Klea received a

  Special Achievement Award from

 Time Out New York

for her Merman tribute,

"Everything the Traffic Will Allow" (2002).

Below, Klea as The Merm in

  Call Me Madam

done in San Francisco.

Other productions Klea has graced:

Oil City Symphony, Radio Gals, Anything Goes,

and Red, Hot, and Blue.

 

And here's the real thing:

Ethel Merman above in Anything Goes...

with William Gaxton,

and below with the perpetrator of that musical,

Cole Porter.

...and in Call Me Madam.

With the clothes.

With the baubles.

And with Vera Ellen in the 1953 film version.

 

...and with the original "Madam",

Pearl Mesta,

the inspiration for that Irving Berlin musical.

A Washington socialite, U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg,

active in the National Women's Party and an

early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.

A gutsy dame...right up Ethel's alley! 

And Ethel supposedly had no idea who Pearl was

til maybe the second run-thru!

Playlist for Sunday, March 31, 2019: Maybe Auntie Em just needed Calgon

Does anyone else IN THE WORLD have giant trees looming 80 ft. above their house, trees that are probably like 250 years old, half dead? Trees that in the middle of the night, with the west "trade" winds howling, fill you with dread and dreams of crashing roofs, splintering shingles, and, in general, death? No? Well, come onna my house (my housa come on), cuz I do. Some of you may know that in wind storms gone by, I have lost a kitchen roof. So my next thought is, do I lose these trees, and the back of my house in consequence?

 No, this is not one of my trees.

Things aren't THAT bad.

BUT to take down those trees would mean Bad Landscaping. A horrid view. I mean, it ain't La Belle Vue now, but it would look positively naked without my withering ash and limb-challenged maple. I've grown attached. Even if they haven't. Soooo...new plan. They get "haircuts", a trim, a buzz cut, a divestment of all branches dead or dormant, yet remain IN the ground. I'm hoping that does it. Fewer nightmares.

No nightmares in this week's playlist either! Lots of money-related songs (still raising the dough for Jazz 90.1...have you donated? Nudge nudge, wink wink:)), some traditional Bali Ha'i's and Goldstones, a couple of cheesey themes, plus a dash of The Merm. Like Calgon, Broadway "takes me away" from the mundane (dead trees) and the stressful (dead trees). Broadway, do your stuff!

Big Spender (Ensemble, Sweet Charity)
Bloody Mary (Sailor Ensemble, South Pacific)
Dites-Moi (Barbara Luna, Michael de Leon, Ensemble, South Pacific)
Bali Ha'i (Juanita Hall, South Pacific)
Money, Money (Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Cabaret)
How The Money Changes Hands (Company, Tenderloin)
Easy Money (Bellamy Young, Sam Harris, The Life)
We're In The Money (Karen Prunczik, Wanda Richert, Ginny King, 42nd Street)
Make It Another Old Fashioned (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The Traffic Will
      Allow)
Blow Gabriel Blow (Klea Blackhurst, Everything The Traffic Will Allow)
Make It Another Old Fashioned (Ethel Merman, Panama Hattie)
Losing My Mind (Marin Mazzie)
Loving You (Donna Murphy, Passion)
Not A Day Goes By (Bernadette Peters, The Essential Sondheim)
Little Lamb (Laura Benanti, Gypsy)
You Gotta Get A Gimmick (Alison Fraser, Lenora Nemetz, Marilyn Caskey,
      Gypsy)
Mr. Goldstone, I Love You (Ethel Merman, Gypsy)
Don't Laugh (Victoria Clark, Hot Spot)
Miss What's Her Name (Debbie Gravitte, Miss Spectacular)
You Can Always Count On Me (Randy Graff, City Of Angels)
Once Upon A Time (Ray Bolger, Eileen Herlie, All-American)
Once You Lose Your Heart (Emma Thompson, Me & My Girl)
Just For Once (Gwen Verdon, Richard Kiley, Leonard Stone, Redhead)
Once-A-Year-Day (John Raitt, Janis Paige, Company, The Pajama Game)
Once In Love With Amy (Ray Bolger, Where's Charley?)
I Loved You Once In Silence (Julie Andrews, Camelot)
Comes Once In A Life Time (Carol Lawrence, Sydney Chaplin, Subways Are
      For Sleeping)
I'm A Brass Band (Gwen Verdon, Sweet Charity)
Rich Man's Frug (Instrumental, Sweet Charity)
The Rhythm Of Life (Arnold Soboloff, Company, Sweet Charity)

And then he wrote...

How do you start to talk about Sweeney?

Based on a Christoper Bond play, which was based on a 

Victorian penny dreadful,

Sondheim and director Hal Prince transformed it with music and staging;

"It was essentially charming over there [in the UK], 

because they don't take Sweeney Todd seriously. 

Our production was larger in scope. 

Hal Prince gave it an epic sense, 

a sense that this was a man of some size instead of just a nut case. The music helps to give it that dimension."

Over 80% of the show is music,

pie-baking songs juxtaposed with "Epiphany"-raised razors. 

Angela Lansbury was picked as Mrs. Lovett,

hoping that she would lend some comic relief to the tragic tale,

but she needed convincing.

"Your show isn't called Nellie Lovett,

it's called Sweeney Todd.

And I'm the second banana."

But when Sondheim described her character as 

"music hall", which she'd grown up in,

Lansbury agreed to play the part.

Above, Angela with Ken Jennings as Toby

("Not While I'm Around")

and below with Stephen and Len Cariou on opening night.

In the recording studio with Len and Victor Garber

(who we'll hear sing "Johanna").

The original production won 8 of the 9 Tonys it was nominated for,

including awards for Angela, Len, Hal for direction,

Stephen for his score,

and Best Musical (1979).

And so many reincarnations...

above Michael Cerveris and Patti Lupone

in the 2005 revival (with tubas, et. al.),

and Emma Thompson (below) flailing her rolling pin

in a concert production done in 2014.

The movie version makes me cringe,

tho it DOES feature the wonderful Alan Rickman (above)

as Judge Turpin.

Below, more Alan with Johnny (really?) Depp

and his hair.

In 1984, it was time for 

Sunday In The Park With George.

This was the show that brought Sondheim "back to life" in a way;

he'd flopped mightily with 

Merrily We Roll Along in 1981,

and almost left musical theatre altogether.

James Lapine (and Art) to the rescue!

Above, Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette in the starring roles.

Sondheim and Lapine were visiting the Art Institute of Chicago, 

and there was that Georges Seurat painting. 

Lapine said that one figure was left out of the work...the artist himself. Supposedly that was enough to spark Sondheim's show synapses, 

and the idea for the musical was born.

 While it wouldn't have the success of a Sweeney or a Company,

Sunday would go on to win a 

Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Above, Jake Gyllenhaal in the 2017 Broadway revival,

which received excellent reviews. 

This is ALSO the show that 

lost the 1984 Best Musical Award to

La Cage Aux Folles,

when Jerry Herman (in his acceptance speech for Cage)

said, "the simple, hummable tune" is still alive on Broadway.

Ouch!

Although Herman has since denied that he meant it as a 

Sondheim slur,

the whole debacle emphasized the 2 schools of musical theatre thought:

Feel Good or Feel.

For He's A Jolly Good Fellow...

  Celebrating the man who's been called 

"possibly the great lyricist ever"...

Stephen Sondheim, born March 22, 1930.

Stephen grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan,

and later (when his parents divorced)

in Doylestown, PA.

Oscar Hammerstein lived "right down the road" in Doylestown,

and that connection, and later mentorship,

helped put the young Sondheim on a musical theatre path.

I'll stop talking like Wikipedia soon.

He attended Williams College in Mass.,

and studied with Robert Barrow:

" ... everybody hated him because he was very dry, 

and I thought he was wonderful because he was very dry. 

And Barrow made me realize that all my romantic views of art were nonsense. 

I had always thought an angel came down and sat on your shoulder 

and whispered in your ear 'dah-dah-dah-DUM.' 

Never occurred to me that art was something worked out. 

And suddenly it was skies opening up."

 Sondheim began as a lyricist,

working with Leonard Bernstein on West Side Story (1957)

with Jule Styne on Gypsy (1959),

and Richard Rodgers on Do I Hear A Waltz?(1965).

But in 1962, Sondheim began writing both words and music for

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.

 Above, John Carradine, Jack Gilford, David Burns and Zero Mostel. 

The show won 6 Tonys (including Best Musical),

but the score wasn't well received, 

and Sondheim's music got nary a nom! 

 What a buncha mugs!

From the movie of Forum (1966):

Zero, Buster Keaton, Phil Silvers, and Jack. 

Nathan Lane starred in the 1996 revival,

and won himself a Tony playing Pseudolus.

Above, with Brad Aspel, Cory English,

and Ray Roderick. 

  Anyone Can Whistle (1964)

brought Angela Lansbury to the musical stage,

well...at least 9 times!

Below Arthur Laurents (who wrote the book) and Sondheim

in the midst of recording the cast album.

Back in "the day",

even Broadway flops got cast albums 

(thank the theatre gods!).

 Along with Angela, Lee Remick and Harry Guardino

starred. 

The show's message was called

"trite and its absurdist style difficult to comprehend."

But we DID get the title song,

"Everybody Says Don't",

and "There Won't Be Trumpets"

out of it! 

 Lee played Nurse Hapgood...

here looking much less "nursie".

 Much better luck with Company!

1970, directed by Hal Prince 

(a collaboration that would last til 1981)...

Stephen actually wanted Follies produced before Company,

but Hal talked him into an order change.

Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Lyrics,

Best Direction, and Best Scenic Design.

 The show was based on 11 one-act plays

written by George Furth for Kim Stanley to star in.

Stephen and Hal agreed that it would be a good basis for a 

concept musical,

with short vignettes focused on marriage and the 

main character's inability to commit.

Above, Larry Kert as Robert

(Larry replaced Dean Jones when he dropped out of the show).

 In the recording studio

(which made for a fascinating documentary by

D.A. Pennebaker),

Stephen with Steve Elmore and Beth Howland,

probably between takes of 

"Getting Married Today".

 Elaine Stritch as Joanne

and Dean Jones, the original Robert.

 Above, the 2011 New York Philharmonic production of Company,

directed by Lonny Price,

and whatta cast!

Neil Patrick Harris, Steven Colbert, Patti LuPone, Christina Hendricks,

John Cryer, etc.

 And sometimes, casts play their own accompaniment!

 And sometimes they gender-swap!

Running in London right now,

Robert as played by Rosalie Craig

and Patti LuPone as Joanne.

 More birthday party pics

(and cake)

tomorrow,

I promise!