Okay, so there aren't that many songs
in the Broadway (or Hollywood)"book"
about DOORS.
So I'm sort of forced to play "Not The Boy Next Door"
from The Boy from Oz.
Publicity for this show
(and the image of Hugh Jackman in leopard prints!!!)
ran on the sides of every NYC bus back in 2003.
That, and Liz Smith (then of the NY Post)
who crushed out loud (and in ink) on Hugh's "potential",
did much for keeping the show alive and
maraca-ing on Broadway.
Stephen Sondheim's Follies
sparked the careers of its "aging" cast members.
Alexis Smith got a Tony for this,
her Broadway debut at the age of 51,
the cover of Time Magazine,
AND lots more leading lady roles because of it.
Also in the cast, and receiving that same "shot in the arm",
Gene Nelson, Yvonne De Carlo, Dorothy Collins,
John McMartin...and in revival/replacement casts,
Kaye Ballard, Carol Burnett, Barbara Cook, Lee Remmick,
Phyllis Newman...et. al.!
Original cast members:
Gene Nelson, Alexis, Dorothy Collins, John, and Yvonne De Carlo.
The wonderful Lotte Lenya,
above in Three Penny Opera
(her breakthrough role of Jenny, back in 1928
and a Tony award for her when she repeated the
performance Off Broadway in 1956)...
She was born in Vienna, moved to Zurich and Berlin
for work, finally settling in America in the mid 1930s.
Below with composer Kurt Weill,
whom she married, divorced and married again.
Lotte began as a soprano,
but as she aged she turned more to a style of spoken singing,
called Sprechstimme, a combo of speech and song.
In the 1960s,
Lotte turned to movies, including
To Russia With Love and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.
She also founded the Kurt Weill Foundation For Music,
to spread appreciation for Kurt's music.
She is buried next to him in Haverstraw, New York.
With Jack Gilford in the original production of
Cabaret, 1966,
the music of Kander and Ebb,
who were evidently inspired in turn by Weill's.
Lotte portrayed Fraulein Schneider to Jack's
Herr Schultz.
Both characters and their songs were unifortunately dropped
from Bob Fosse's movie version.
We'll hear "What Would You Do?"
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