Tootsie is David Yazbek's 5th Broadway musical,
with 10 Tony Award nominations this past spring.
It won only 2...one for Best Book (Robert Horn)
and one for Santino Fontana (above as Dorothy Michaels).
Based of course on the 1982 movie with Dustin Hoffman,
which had a book by
Larry (MASH, City Of Angels, Forum) Gelbart.
Not quite as successful as David's last show
(The Band's Visit...Best Musical of 2018),
but still drawing decent crowds.
Above, 4 of Tootsie's leads:
Santino, Sarah Stiles, Reg Rogers, and Julie Halston.
Santino, Sarah Stiles, Reg Rogers, and Julie Halston.
Lilli Cooper as Julie Nichols.
Lilli previously appeared in SpongeBob SquarePants,
Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812,
and she is the daughter of actor Chuck Cooper
who appeared in Cy Coleman's The Life.
Above, John Behlmann (who plays Max Van Horn),
Sarah Stiles (Sandy Lester)
and Santino.
(Either John is of Lurch-like proportions or
our other 2 leads are verrrrrry short! :))
Marilyn Stasio of Variety:
"Director Scott Ellis leaves nothing and no one unscathed in staging this satire of a Broadway-bound musical called Juliet’s Nurse...
That’s the mixed blessing of Yazbek’s score:
the lyrics are so smart, the music can’t always catch up with them."
And now to reach back to a couple of
Rodgers and Hammerstein bagels...
Pipe Dream, done in 1955, had the shortest run of any of their shows
with 246 performances.
It was based on John Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday,
and initially, the producers (Cy Feurer and Ernest Martin)
attempted to get Frank Loesser to do the music.
So R&H were surprisingly their 2nd choice!
The plot presented a sticky wicket:
A marine biologist falls in love with a prostitute.
But R&H didn't want that mentioned tooooo much, so they had to tweak.
They also hoped to cast Henry Fonda as
said biologist,
but despite months of voice lessons,
Fonda was still found wanting.
Then they tried to get Julie Andrews for the (not really a) prostitute role,
but oops! A show called My Fair Lady grabbed her attention.
(Good call, JA!)
Are we tallying all the speed bumps?
In 2012, Encores! did a production of Pipe Dream,
and recorded a live performance.
It featured (above) Stephen Wallem, Will Chase, Tom Wopat,
Laura Osnes, and (below) Leslie Uggams.
Laura and Will,
with nautical maps and a cake.
Romance is in the...frosting!
The first R&H show NOT to be a blockbuster, however,
was Allegro.
Produced in 1947, it was that writing team's 4th collaboration,
after Oklahoma, Carousel, and State Fair (written for the screen),
and their first original musical
(not based on a previously written book or play).
It starred John Battles (On The Town)
and Roberta Jonay,
and was directed and choreographed by Agnes de Mille
(as in "I've been through dah mill!")
(Sorry, couldn't resist a City of Angels reference!).
A cast of 100 and the biggest advance ticket sale at the time!
The original cast album was only 30 minutes long,
leaving out a LOT of songs.
Stephen Sondheim was a young (17 year old)
intern working the show and he got to witness it all.
"What was interesting was I watched a lot of
very knowledgeable people put on a flop.
And by flop, it was a show that didn't
work the way it was intended,
and it didn't work partly because
it was a
highly experimental show."
One critic called it
"as pretentious as artificial jewelry, and just as valuable."
It lasted 1 season.
James Michener, the author of Tales Of The South Pacific
who R&H worked with subsequently,
said that the two men were so angry about the debacle of Allegro
that "they could have written a musical about the telephone book"
and it would have worked!
Above a pic of a contemporary London production.
The plot: Young small-town doctor
finds success with the "help" of an ambitious wife,
and trades integrity for fame. Maybe.
No spoilers here,
but it IS R&H's Broadway, not Sondheim's.
Come 2008,
the full score was finally recorded
with Laura Benanti, Norbert Leo Butz,
Liz Callaway, Judy Kuhn,
and (below) Nathan Gunn and Audra McDonald.
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