It's a BIZNESS!

 Crazy For You,

the "New" Gershwin musical,

opened in 1992

and won the Best Musical Tony...

not quite an original musical, but not a true revival of

Girl Crazy either.

Yup, that's one of the original stars below,

Ginger Rogers,

making her Broadway debut in 1930.

Also debuting in Girl Crazy...Ethel Merman. 

 The Cowboy Trio above

is not from the Broadway production,

but they sho do give you an insight, right?

Below, and duded up,

The Manhattan Rhythm Kings

who played the cowboys in the 1992 edition;

  Brian Nelapka, Tripp Hanson, and Hal Shane were featured as 

 Mingo, Moose, and Sam.

 Harry Groener, Jodi Benson, Beth Leavel, and Bruce Adler starred.

Choreography by Susan Stroman,

costumes by William Ivey Long,

and they both won Tonys for their efforts. 

 If you're a 2 On The Aisle listener,

you know how much I love Curtains,

with music by Kander and Ebb (and Rupert Holmes,

who added his take when Fred Ebb passed away

mid writing process).

David Hyde Pierce, Debra Monk, Jill Paice, Daniel McDonald,

and Karen Ziemba starred. 

 We'll hear "It's A Business" with Debra,

ravishing in red.

Plus "Coffee Shop Nights" with David...

and the opening number "What Kind Of Man?"

with the company, including Karen Ziemba!

 Inkeeping (Inn Keeping?)

with our theme of Takin' Care of Business",

we'll hear 2 renditions of 

"There's No Business Like Show Business":
One from the original Annie Get Your Gun musical

done in 1946

with Ethel Merman (over 1,100 performances!)

and another from the 1999 revival (Best Tony Revival winner that year)

with Bernadette Peters.

Above Tom Wopat who played the part of Frank Butler

in the remake,

and there's Bernadette (his Miss Annie)

below. 

Ethel's "Doin' What Comes Naturally" above,

and takin' off the safety with Ray Middleton, below.

 And one more Broadway Bizness musical,

The Producers,

Best Musical of 2001;

soooo good (or at least sooo popular), it went on to be a movie musical.

That's Nathan Lane on the left above,

with Susan Stroman (director/choreographer),

Matthew Broderick,

and Mel Brooks...composer/lyricist.

Susan's husband, Mike Ockrent, was slated to direct,

but passed away in the middle of production planning,
so Susan took up the reins.

It broke records for Tony Award wins (12!)

and ran for over 2,500 performances. 

 Mel first approached Jerry Herman to write the music

for the show,

but he demurred, saying that Mel should write it himself.

No easy feat for a guy who could NOT read (or write) music,

but I guess with a little help from our friends,

nothing is impossible.

Below, a very dramatic moment with Gary Beach (center)

as Roger De Bris,

and all in black on the right is

Roger Bart as Carmen Ghia.

(Mr. Bart would later star as Dr. Frankenstein 

in Mel's Young Frankenstein).