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Because nothing noteworthy occurred anywhere in the world through the month of August and the first half of September, the local news in New York City turned its attentions to a few women who have apparently been bothering people in the otherwise calm, decent section of Manhattan known as Times Square.

The post The desnudas of Times Square appeared first on OUPblog.

The seventh of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s stage works, Pipe Dream came along at a particularly vulnerable time in their partnership. After the revolutionary Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945)—with, above all, two of the most remarkable scores ever heard to that point—they disappointed many with Allegro (1947).

The post Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Pipe Dream appeared first on OUPblog.

Whether you think the Tony Awards is the epitome of Broadway talent or just another marketing device, it’s a night where everyone has a front row seat to the creative, the lively, the emotional moments that have made a home on the Great White Way.

The post It’s time to play the (Broadway) music appeared first on OUPblog.

Fifty-nine years ago this month, My Fair Lady made its debut on Broadway to a rapturous critical response. It became the longest-running musical to date, and was a landmark in the genre.

The post The street where she lived: My Fair Lady at 59 appeared first on OUPblog.

This is the first of a three-part series from Dominic McHugh on the correspondence of Alan Jay Lerner. The next installment will appear on Tuesday, 16 December 2014.

One of the joys of editing the correspondence of Alan Jay Lerner has been discovering his letters to and from the major stars with whom he worked. As the lyricist, librettist, and screenwriter of Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, An American in Paris, My Fair Lady, Gigi, Camelot, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, and many more, he worked with the finest performers of his time. In this post, I’ll explore focus on his relationship with two of his stars: Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews.

Rex Harrison’s iconic performance as Henry Higgins was one of the keys to making My Fair Lady the most successful musical of the 1950s. He played the role for over a year in New York, opened the show in London, and went on to appear in the 1964 movie version (currently celebrating its 50^th anniversary). But Fair Lady was Harrison’s first foray into musical theatre, and he found the process terrifying. The following letter was the first I found for my book, and it’s a wonderful insight into the writer-performer relationship. This excerpt shows how Lerner tried to lay Harrison’s fears about some of the initial songs they had written for him to rest:

[…] I was very interested in your comments about “Why Can’t The English,” and want you to know that I feel your reservations, as far as you are concerned, are completely justifiable. As I said in my cable, don’t let it tinge one hair with gray—we are rewriting it completely in a way that will be not only simpatico with you, but with the character of Higgins. I can do no other but agree with you when you are right, but I would fight you like a wounded tiger if I thought you were wrong.

I might add, before closing the matter, that there are certain lyric liberties one can take when they are framed by certain kinds of melodies. There are “song songs” and “character songs.” A “character song,” which is basically free and is accompanied by an emotion or emotions, as is the case in “I’m An Ordinary Man,” must pretty much stay within the bounds of reason. In a “song song,” certain extravagances are not only permissible, but desirable. “Why Can’t The English,” written as it was, was definitely a “song song” and therefore contained a certain amount of satiric extravagance. The minute the same idea is written in a freer way, so that it almost seems like normal conversation set to music, those extravagances would seem definitely out of place. When one reads the lyric of a “song song” over and compares it to the character who is singing it, very often there will seem to be a discrepancy. For example, what business does a young Navy lieutenant have singing a poetic song like “Younger Than Springtime”?

The second paragraph is a particularly wonderful insight into the lyric writer’s mind, explaining how he viewed different kinds of songs. Another wonderful letter related to My Fair Lady shows how Lerner tried to persuade Julie Andrews – future star of the movies Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music – to arrive a little early for rehearsals. She had decided to spend New Year at home with her family in London because she knew she was about to start a long run away from them, but Lerner wanted her to come to New York early in order to rest and take part in publicity opportunities:

[…] I don’t know whether or not you have been aware of the explosive conversations that have been going on lately between Herman Levin and Lou Wilson. I might add that Herman has been doing the conversing and Lou the exploding. What it’s all been about is the matter of your being here on December 27th. I, of course, realize how much you would want to be with your family over New Year’s, but there are a few things involved that I beg you to consider. I am sure you know in advance that our desire to have you here on that date is no capricious whim on our part.

Both Rex and Stanley Holloway are arriving at that time. It is not at all uncommon for the stars of a play to make it their business to be in town a week before rehearsals for the express purpose of using that time for the good of themselves and the play. You are a star now, Julie, and I do think that as a well-meaning observer, as well as an active participant in these proceedings, it would be most impolitic to have them, who are two great and established artists, follow the usual pattern and you not do so. Even though we will not, of course, be working around the clock during that time, much can be accomplished in those few days. We can go over your new songs with you and get the keys set. If you feel it is necessary, you could freshen up your Cockney with Dixon. We could go over a couple of the scenes, which we would all like to hear, mainly for length, before the first reading on stage January 3rd. Besides that, there is that old devil Publicity, which, annoying as it is, is more annoying when it isn’t. It will also give you a chance to make yourself comfortable in your flat, and you will be rested and ready for the official first day of rehearsals January 3rd.

In spite of Lerner’s power of persuasion, Andrews chose to stay in England: as she explained more recently in her memoir Home, she found it a huge wrench to spend time away from her family, and her family life had been difficult. It’s well-known that she then struggled with early rehearsals for Fair Lady, which the director (Moss Hart) had to close down for a weekend while he spent time training for her the role of Eliza, line by line. But she quickly went on to be a star when the show opened in March 1956, and the rest is history.

These two excerpts show how the use of primary sources shed new light on the study of Broadway musicals. They provide a snapshot of the collaborations that are so important to the genre’s success. And in the case of Lerner, they show both his witty and charming personality and his incredible prose facility, something I feel is often overlooked.

In the next blog post, I’ll look at the letters from Lerner to Frederick Loewe, his most beloved composer collaborator, focusing on two letters from the 1950s and two from the 1980s.

Headline Image: Old Letters. CC0 via Pixabay 

The post The Lerner Letters: Part 1 – The Stars appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Oxford University Press is saddened to hear of the passing of Broadway legend Elaine Stritch. We’d like to present a brief extract from Eddie Shapiro’s interview with Elaine Stritch in November/December 2008 in Nothing Like a Dame that illustrates her tremendous life and vitality.

“What’s this all about, again?!” came Elaine Stritch’s unmistakable rattle of a voice, part Rosalind Russell, part dry martini, part cheese grater, on the other end of the phone. I was taken aback. After all, we had spoken the day before and the day before that. On the first call, she had told me that she was swamped but really wanted to get this interview out of the way. “Well,” I had offered, “there’s no great rush. I would rather you do this when you feel relaxed than when you are cramming it in.” “Don’t you worry about my disposition,” came the steely reply. “I’ll worry about my disposition.” She hated me, I thought, until the second call, during which she called me “dear” and apologized twice for her schedule. So now, on call number three, when it seemed we were back at square one, I didn’t know what to say. “Well, it’s the interview for my book, Nothing Like a Dame,” I explained. “You asked me to call today.” “And when did you want to do this,” came the deliberate reply. “Well, you asked me about today.” “Today? I can’t possibly do today.” “That’s fine. It’s just that when you called me on Friday, you said you wanted to get it done this weekend.” “I don’t recall saying that to anyone. Gee, Ed, I hate to leave you hanging like this. How about Thanksgiving?” “Thanksgiving Day?” “Yeah, before dinner. You could come for tea.” “That would be fine.” “But I tell you what, give me a call on Wednesday night after 11:00, just to confirm. And I promise I’ll remember.” And that is how I ended up having tea with irascible, cantankerous, outspoken, and utterly charming Elaine Stritch at The Carlyle Hotel on Thanksgiving Day.

Elaine Stritch was born outside of Detroit in 1925. She came to New York to study under Erwin Piscator at The New School, where her classmates included Marlon Brando and Bea Arthur (with whom she’d compete for a Tony Award sixty years later. And win.). She made her musical debut in Angel in the Wings, singing the absurd “Bongo, Bongo, Bongo (I Don’t Want to Leave the Congo)” before her long run as Ethel Merman’s understudy in Call Me Madam. Since Merman never missed a performance, Stritch never went on, and felt safe simultaneously taking a one-scene part in the hit 1952 revival of Pal Joey a block away. “I was close if they needed me,” she says, “which they never did.” When Call Me Madam went out on national tour, though, Stritch, all of twenty-five, was leading the company. Goldilocks followed, before Noel Coward wrote the role of Mimi Paragon in Sail Away just for Stritch. Mimi, like her inspiration, knew her way around an arched eyebrow and a sarcastic bon mot. Not surprisingly, Stritch was a sensation. It nonetheless took almost a decade for her next Broadway musical, but this one was legendary.

Elaine Stritch in her dressing room at the Savoy Theatre, London. 1973. Photo by Allan Warren, via WikiCommons.

As Joanne in Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company, Stritch bellowed the searing eleven o’clock number, “The Ladies Who Lunch.” To this day, it is considered one of the all-time greatest interpretations of any musical theater song. Hal Prince’s acclaimed 1994 revival of Show Boat was another triumph but the best was still to come. In 2001, under the direction of George C. Wolfe, Stritch premiered Elaine Stritch at Liberty, an autobiographical one-woman show in which Stritch gossiped, confessed, kvetched, cajoled, and reveled in a musical tour of her life and career. For At Liberty, she finally took home a Tony Award, before playing the show for years in New York, London, and on tour. In 2010, she successfully, if improbably, succeeded Angela Lansbury in A Little Night Music.

Of all the women in [Nothing Like a Dame], she was the only one I was scared to meet. The phone calls didn’t assuage my fears, nor did the Carlyle’s waiter who, upon hearing I was there to meet Stritch laughingly said, “Good luck!” But I needn’t have worried. Stritch isn’t mean, she’s just blunt to a degree that’s so unusual it’s occasionally unnerving. As Bebe Neuwirth says of her, “She doesn’t know how to lie, on or offstage.” And she doesn’t suffer fools well. But once she trusts, she’s delightful. And warm enough to have extended an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner.

…

In your show, Elaine Stritch: At Liberty, you said that you didn’t know why you wanted to be an actress. But you did choose to pursue acting over anything else. What gave you the instinct that you’d be any good?

I don’t think it’s an instinct, I don’t think that’s the right word. I don’t have an answer to that today.

Calling?

Those are all two-dollar words. I don’t believe in all of that, “calling” and “career.” I wasn’t thinking about . . . I think if I was really dead-honest, I was . . . everybody else was going away to college and I didn’t want to. I don’t know the reason why that was, either. I thought I’d rather learn by experience all of the subjects they were going to teach me in college. That’s a dumb statement. But I didn’t want to go to college. I wanted to be an actress but I still can’t tell you why. I think I’m . . . I don’t think I’m really a happy camper inside and I think it’s an escape for me. I’ve gotten to like myself a lot better as the years go by, but I’m still not hung up on myself.

You have actually said that it’s really hard for you to play yourself. During Elaine Stritch: At Liberty, you said that a vacation would be putting on a costume and playing someone else.

At the time I was doing Elaine Stritch: At Liberty I wasn’t thinking about philosophizing my position and what I would or wouldn’t like to do. This was a tremendously courageous thing for me to do, but it was good. Just like I read a good play—I read a Tennessee Williams play, an Edward Albee play—I read what I wrote and what John Lahr wrote and I liked it. I thought, “This is a good part for me.” That sounds like a joke but it was a good part for me to play. It was the first time I had an opportunity to put myself on the stage. Because I am a really true-blue actress. When I take on a part I play the part. Of course I bring Elaine Stritch to it, that’s why they hire me. But I am interpreting another, I am inside somebody else’s skin. So, you know, acting is . . . I don’t know what it is. I don’t think it’s given enough credit in the arts. I think it’s a real art form, acting. I don’t know. I don’t think a lot of people have the talent—my kind of talent—to be an actress. But there are a lot of good ones out there. I am always so thrilled when I go to the theater and see a performance. I just think that’s the best. There was a marvelous expression in the Times the other day in the review of Australia. They talked about all of the epic qualities of the movie but they said a very simple thing about Nicole Kidman, who I think is a very good actress. They said: “she gave a performance.” And I thought, “what a wonderful notice.” I hope she appreciates it.

I want to go back to your early days, you came to New York for whatever reason you . . .

For whatever reason. Look, it’s not as complicated as all that. I was not going steady with someone. My beau had already gone to New York to become an actor. He was a writer named James Lee. He wrote [the play] Career and he also wrote for television; he was one of the writers on Roots. So what was I gonna do? I didn’t want to go to college. I wasn’t in love. I mean, I loved Jimmy but I wasn’t interested in getting married. I wish it would stop there. I wanted to become an actress. Why? I don’t know. I think you deal with that better than I deal with it. I’d like to be able to answer it better. But I do think that I wasn’t too hung up on myself and I wanted to be everybody else I could think of.

The reason I used the word “instinct” is because I think sometimes people have a desire or gut feeling that isn’t calculated, but they know that something speaks to them.

Something stirring.

Yeah.

I see what you mean. Yes. And I also wanted out of Michigan. I love Michigan but I didn’t want to spend all my life there, I wanted to see the world. Another answer I’ve given to the question, “why did you want to become an actress” is that I wanted higher ceilings. It’s as good an answer as any. I once played a game at a party and we all had to give the best answer for “why did you become an actor.” Mine was, “to get a good table at 21.” Ho ho ho. I think “higher ceilings” would have won at that party but I hadn’t thought of that yet. [The actor] Marti Stevens gave the best answer ever. Actually, the question was, “why did you go on the stage” and Marti Stevens said, “to get out of the audience.” That’s a great answer.

Once you were in New York and at The New School, how did you get work and audition?

I was going to school.

Yes, but you were cast in Loco pretty quickly after school. Did that seem like a fluke to you or were your peers also getting work easily? Did it feel like a struggle?

I don’t know.

Did you have to work for money?

I waited tables at The New School, but I did it not because I needed the money; I did it for the experience.

The human experience?

Yeah.

Did it work?

Yeah. And I did it to show off to Marlon Brando.

Did that work?

Yeah. I was showing that I wasn’t just this rich girl from Michigan. I could be a waitress, too. You see there’s a little Joan Crawford/Mildred Pierce in all of us! It was all of those things. . . . I am very honest about things like that today. Then I wasn’t.

In what ways are you honest now that you were not then?

Well, I wish I could have laughed and told Marlon Brando that I was trying to influence him. But you don’t do that at seventeen. You wait ’til you’re in your eighties ’til you get that kind of honesty. I think I could do a lot of things today that I couldn’t do then as far as being straight- forward and on the level with people. I figured it out that none of us have anything to hide. There’s nothing about me that I couldn’t tell everybody in the world. There really isn’t. And that’s a good way to be. I love the expression “secrets are dangerous.” I really think they are. “Don’t tell anybody, but . . .” is the most boring line in the world. It really is. If you don’t want them to tell anybody, don’t tell them!

In saying secrets are dangerous, do you mean that the truth frees you?

Absolutely. And I think what has transpired without your knowing it is that you kind of, at last, dig yourself.

…

I need a Judy Garland story.

I’d have to look ’em up, Honey.

For people like me, it’s like sitting at my grandmother’s lap and listening to family legend.

I know, I know. Judy Garland, when she came to the opening night party of Sail Away, I made up my mind not to drink at all at that party. There were a lot of famous people there. Before I knew it I saw Judy leaving the Noel Coward suite, and she was going home. I thought, “My God, I haven’t talked to her, she hasn’t told me how she liked the show, and I really want to hear what she thought more than anyone.” They had those see-through elevators at the Savoy Hotel. I ran out to the hall and she was just on the elevator and it was starting to disappear. And before her head got out of view from me, she went, “Elaine, about your fucking timing . . . ” and then she disappeared. It was absolutely brilliant. She knew what she was doing! Her timing was divine! And music to my ears, of course.

Do you have any stories about working with George Abbott on Call Me Madam?

Oh, he was a marvelous director, a wonderful man and an extraordinary human being. I loved him. He did one great thing once with me. When I came down to get notes before opening night, I had a scotch and soda in a coffee mug. Of course I was making it very believable. ’Cause while he was giving the notes I was blowing on the coffee. I was blowing on the scotch. And all of sudden George Abbott said to me, “Can I have a taste of that Elaine? Is that coffee?” And my voice went up two octaves and I said, “Yes.” And he said, “Could I have a taste?” And I said, “Sure.” I’ll tell you what a great guy he was. He took the coffee mug from me and he blew on it and then he took a sip. And then he handed it back to me and said, “Man that’s good coffee.”

Do you have Richard Rodgers stories?

Oh, I loved him. But he didn’t like me. He was an alcoholic, you know, and alcoholics resent other alcoholics. He paid me a great compliment once, though. He said, “I would give her the lead in a show but I just don’t think she could handle it. Because when she does a number, it is so good that I never think she can do it again.” It’s a great compliment but it isn’t very conducive to working.

It is a back-handed compliment.

Well he was a back-handed kind of fellow. He is a hard person to talk about.

Did you think it was personal?

Oh no, he liked me very much. But I made him nervous because I drank. That would make any director or producer—but the funny thing with him was that he drank twice as much as I did.

Did he recognize that?

No, he didn’t at all.

Both Abbott and Rodgers knew that you were drinking . . .

It never bothered George Abbott because I didn’t drink too much. Well, I probably did drink too much, but I was never drunk on the stage in my life.

Was drinking in the theater more commonplace in general?

Absolutely. Everybody had booze in their dressing room. Nobody does anymore. In London, in the theater you have cocktail parties at intermission. It’s a big deal having a little sherry or a little of this or that. But too many people have abused the privilege in this country. All of our great actors were huge drinkers. Tallulah Bankhead, John Barrymore, Bela Lugosi. So many. Lots and lots of people.

The people you mention famously got seriously drunk. That was never you, though.

No, absolutely not. Maybe a couple of times my timing was off because I had three instead of two drinks, but nothing to write home about.

…

Do you read reviews?

Oh yes, I can’t wait. Terrified to read them and thrilled to death when they are good. I haven’t gotten a lot of bad reviews; I’ve gotten a few in my life but nothing that upset me terribly.

There are a lot of actors who . . .

I can’t believe that they don’t read their reviews.

Do you go to the theater today?

Yeah, I go. But I am not going to see The Little Mermaid if that’s what you mean. I like Jane Krakowski, I think she’s good. And I like Kristin Chenoweth. I’m getting very excited about the opening of Pal Joey because my good friend Stockard Channing is in it. The theater is not what it was. It’s the fabulous invalid. It’s having a tough time because of the economy but it will come back. I worry about Maxwell [her nephew, a twenty-nine-year-old actor who just moved to New York]. Nobody who comes here to get into the theater can get an agent. It takes years. You have to go on those cattle calls. This is a tough racket. It really is a tough racket.

…

If performing hadn’t worked out for you, do you have any notion of what you might have been doing?

Supposition is really boring but I’ll give it a shot: Stay home!!

Is there anyone you’ve never worked with who you wish you had?

If I am supposed to, it’ll happen. I reiterate: supposition to me is a long yawn.

I think the word is “boring.”

[Laughs] OK, whatever you think is fair.

Excerpted from Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater by Eddie Shapiro. Shapiro is a freelance writer and theater journalist whose work has appeared in Out Magazine, Instinct, and Backstage West. He is the author of Queens in the Kingdom: The Ultimate Gay and Lesbian Guide to the Disney Theme Parks.

The post In remembrance of Elaine Stritch appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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By Liz Wollman

Awards season bring out everyone’s inner analyst. The moment that nominations are announced, everyone starts trying to figure out what the list of nominees says about the state of whatever medium is being lauded. During the Grammy, Emmy, Academy, and Tony Awards seasons, critics use the nominees to analyze the state of the art, fans align themselves in solidarity behind performers both honored and snubbed, and everyone rushes to hear or see whatever they have missed.

Then, during the awards shows, journalists, bloggers, scholars and fans take to their couches, and break the Internet with rapid-fire opinions about every damn thing on the screen. The next morning, talk centers on who wore what and who said what and who deserved what. People dish in the office and on the phone and on the web. And then, by midweek, no one cares anymore and we’ve all moved on.

While the Tonys (airing this year on Sunday, 8 June at 8 p.m. on CBS) are never watched by as many people as are the Academy Awards, the Emmys, or the Grammys (or even the Country Music Awards, which attracted nearly double the audience of the Tonys in 2013), the same rules apply. This year, Tony talk is particularly fevered because the nominations seem so random. Since late April, journalists, bloggers, and — ahem — scholars have weighed in on what this strange roster says about the sanity of the nominating committee, the implications of the current season for the future of the industry, and, of course, what it means for the State of Commercial Theater in New York.

I’ve seen many of the shows that were nominated this year, along with quite a few that were not, and I can assert — with scholarly authority — that I have absolutely no idea who is going to win anything, or what this year’s nominations say about the State of Commercial Theater in New York or, indeed, on Earth. Don’t believe anyone who claims they do.

Some background: Last year, many nominations went to a relative handful of commercially and critically successful shows like Matilda, Kinky Boots, and Pippin. This year’s list features no clear frontrunners and does not cluster around a handful of top-grossing productions or clear standout performances.

Maybe that is because this year has been comparatively disappointing, at least as far as monster-hit musicals go. The most anticipated spectacles — Rocky, If/Then, and The Bridges of Madison County — failed to connect solidly with critics or audiences. (To be fair, Rocky seems to have connected with people who enjoy watching half-naked guys belt out tunes while punching meat and other half-naked guys. I suppose that counts for something?) As a result, nominations in the Best Musical category went to shows that were reasonably well-received—like Beautiful and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder—if not critically or commercially ecstatic or particularly aesthetically groundbreaking.

The cast of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, nominated for Best Musical, photo by Joan Marcus, via BeautifulonBroadway.com

As for plays, while one was completely shut out (Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses), most have gotten at least a few nods, if not for best play or revival, then for actress, actor, or supporting roles. The biggest surprise to some is the clutch of nominations that went to the Shakespeare’s Globe all-male Twelfth Night, a big hit this past fall. This is particularly big news to people who presume that (a) Broadway audiences are morons, (b) Tony voters are morons, or (c) Shakespeare was a moron.

The other big surprise was the omission of Denzel Washington and Daniel Radcliffe from the Best Leading Actor in a Play category. This might have more to do with the large number of prominent male roles on offer this year than anything else, though New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley gamely suggested recently that Radcliffe and Washington were passed over because they are so very, very good in their roles. Sure, Ben, whatever.

Here’s the thing: While I am sure Radcliffe and Washington were irked by the oversight — along with the producers of If/Then and Rocky and Bridges of Madison County and the rest of the snubbed — the Tonys don’t matter. At least not in the way that people seem to want them to matter.

The awards themselves say nothing, in the long run, about the State of Commercial Theater in New York or, indeed, on Earth. The awards ceremony is meaningful. The actual winning and losing? Not so much. What makes any awards ceremony important is the care and love people put into it. For better or worse, we Americans are world-famous for our commercial entertainment, and in honoring it, we celebrate ourselves.

Tonys are particularly sweet because they give us a break from endless laments about how the theater is dead or dying, too expensive, too inaccessible. For a few weeks in the late spring, we get to celebrate the very fact that Broadway continues to matter at all, regardless of what kind of season it’s been or who walks away with laurels.

So instead of offering a list of predictions, I will tell you what I am hoping to see and celebrate during the festivities on 8 June 2014:

(1)  Audra McDonald

The ludicrously talented McDonald could become the first performer to win six Tonys for acting. Also, since Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill is being considered as a play and not a musical, McDonald could also become the first person to win a Tony in each of the four acting categories (she’s won in the past for Best Actress in a Musical, Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and Best Featured Actress in a Play). This would be great to see, it’s certainly well deserved, and as an added extra, I bet some lucky contractor will be hired to expand her mantelpiece, yet another way that commercial theater boosting the city’s economy! When Audra wins, everybody wins. And if she doesn’t win this year, you can bet she’ll still perform during the broadcast and be typically thrilling, so no one will suffer overmuch one way or the other.

(2) Kelli O’Hara

Like McDonald, O’Hara has been astounding us for quite a while. I would pay to watch her knit a scarf. She even managed to convince me that The Bridges of Madison County — a loathsome novel made into an even more loathsome movie — actually has a right to exist. But unlike McDonald, O’Hara has yet to take home a Tony, which is absolutely unacceptable. O’Hara has been nominated for Best Actress in Musical five times. If she doesn’t win this time around, I can’t promise I won’t fly into an uncontrollable rage and take out my frustration on some poor, unsuspecting soul, probably Robert James Waller.

(3)  Mark Rylance

Rylance is nominated for Best Actor (Richard III) and Best Actor in a Featured Role (Twelfth Night). Both times he won in the past, he recited verses by the Minnesota poet Louis Jenkins in lieu of a formal acceptance speech. The poems are irreverent and sweet and often hilarious, and so is Rylance. I hope we get to hear another. Again, though, if he doesn’t win this time, we’ll all survive.

Samuel Barnett (left) and Liam Brennan (right) appear in the Shakespeare’s Globe productions of Twelfth Night and Richard III, via Shakespeare Broadway.

(4) Actors Who Got the Shaft

Last year, Alan Cumming (Macbeth) and Scarlett Johansson (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) weren’t nominated, but they showed up for the awards ceremony anyway; so did Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane when they were passed over for their work in The Addams Family in 2010. They joked about their respective slights before graciously reading the nominations and handing out trophies. Their grace and aplomb remind us that theater is as often a collaborative art form that depends on trust and sharing as it is a vicious snake-pit of betrayal and recrimination. I hope that Denzel Washington, Daniel Radcliffe, Ian McKellan, and Patrick Stewart all get invited to hand out hardware, and agree to do so, setting aside any ego for the night. Bonus points if Captain Picard and Gandalf appear in their bowler hats, holding hands.

(5)  Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman

If these two men took over the world and repopulated it entirely with their love-children, no one would mind. I hope they hold a fabulous throw-down, judged by the equally awesome and beloved Lin-Manuel Miranda.

In sum: this year’s scattershot nominations make predicting winners tough, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Tony ceremony is going to be on the TV, and I’ll be watching (and snarking, and snacking, and tweeting) with a couple million other people. That strikes me as cause enough for celebration.

Liz Wollman is Assistant Professor of Music at Baruch College in New York City, and author of The Theater Will Rock: A History of the Rock Musical, from Hair to Hedwig and Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City.

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Image credits: Poster for Twelfth Night and Richard III from Shakespeare Broadway. Photo of cast of Beautiful by Joan Marcus, via BeautifulonBroadway.com.

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By Eddie Shapiro

When I began work on my book, I knew I would be fortunate enough to experience a few moments of “Pinch me. This can’t really be happening.” There were, as it turned out, so many that I’d be black and blue if there was actual pinching going on. But of all of those moments, I think the highlight would have to be spending a day at Disneyland with Carol Channing and her late husband, Harry, who were then 90 and 91 respectively.

I had interviewed Carol the day before in front of an adoring audience at the annual Gay Days at Disneyland. But it had been decades since Carol had been in the park and the last time she was, her tour guide was, um, Walt Disney. She had a picture to prove it. Carol, Walt, and Maurice Chevalier on Main Street, USA! I couldn’t exactly beat that, but I did what I could. I mapped out the day with a full compliment of attractions starting gently enough with “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,“ an indoor show at which a robotic Abe recites the Gettysburg address. Carol was moved to tears. “It’s Walt!” she exclaimed. “This whole attraction is his spirit. Exactly who he was.” We emerged just in time to hear the Disneyland Marching Band emphatically playing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” We clapped along before we hopped on “The Disneyland Railroad,” a steam train that circles the park. Carol grabbed my hand as we approached and began singing at full voice, “Put on your Sunday clothes when you feel down and out…” the song from Hello, Dolly! that culminates with the full company boarding a similar train. We sang together as we chugged along. I died.

Mickey Mouse bows to Carol Channing. Photo courtesy of Eddie Shapiro.

We rode the Peter Pan ride and the tea cups, we met Mickey Mouse (who literally got on his knees and bowed down to Carol), and we had our own boat on “It’s a Small World.” It was all just as I had planned it until… the unexpected. As we were walking through Fantasyland, Harry kept staring in the direction of the carousel. I hadn’t planned on an attraction as simple as the carousel because, well, it’s a carousel. But I couldn’t help but notice Harry’s interest. “Harry,” I asked, “did you want to ride the carousel?” “I’m lookin’ at it,” came the reply. “Well Harry,” I said, “we’re here! If you want to ride it, let’s ride it.”  We boarded and I went off in search of a nice bench for Carol and Harry. Carol seated herself but Harry was determined to mount a horse. At 91, however, he needed a hand or two, so I put my shoulder under his lower back and hoisted him up there. I then ran around to the other side and manually swung his leg astride the horse.

Harry, Carol Channing’s husband, on the carousel. Photo courtesy of Eddie Shapiro.

He was beaming, positively giddy. And in that moment, I realized that I was getting a major life lesson here. Carol and Harry were frail (he, in fact, passed less than three months later); one misstep could have been hugely consequential. A jostle from someone in the crowd could have been dire. But here they were, not just tasting everything life had to offer, but gobbling it up. If there was life to live, they were going to live it. And I thought to myself, “How does one become lucky enough to age into these people? Is it genetic? Is it a choice? What can I do to insure that when my golden years are upon me, I make them as golden as I can? Because these people have figured it out. They are who I aspire to be.”

When the sun was finally setting, we headed back to the hotel. I left them sitting in the lobby next to the grand piano while I went up to the room to retrieve their luggage. I returned just as the pianist was arriving for his set. He spied Carol and in no time he was gently tinkling the notes of “Hello, Dolly!” Before I knew what was happening, Carol was on her feet, one hand on the piano, the other aloft, belting out “Hello, Dolly!” for anyone who happened to be passing through the lobby of the Grand Californian Hotel at 4:30 in the afternoon. It was something to behold and a moment I will never, ever forget.

For months afterward, Harry would call me, just to say hello. “You don’t know the gift you gave us that day,” he would always end with. “Harry,” I’d always reply, “you don’t know the gift you gave me.”

Author Eddie Shapiro, Carol Channing, and her husband Harry on the tea cup ride at Disneyland. Photo courtesy of Eddie Shapiro.

Eddie Shapiro is the author of Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater. His writing has appeared in publications such as Out Magazine, Instinct, and Backstage West. He is also a producer of Gay Days Disneyland and the author of Queens in the Kingdom: The Ultimate Gay and Lesbian Guide to the Disney Theme Parks. 

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By Stacy Wolf

On Christmas Day, the eagerly-awaited movie musical Les Misérables — “A Musical Phenomenon” the advertisement promises — opens across the United States. If it makes half the splash that its Broadway source did in 1987, we’re in for a long ride. The musical ran for 6680 performances, and won Tony awards for Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score. It closed and then re-opened for another 463-performance run in 2006. It continues to tour the US.

Extensive production gossip on the movie has focused on Anne Hathaway’s brave hair-shaving, braver weight loss of twenty-five pounds, and bravest willingness to sing live during filming. Director Tom Hooper has repeatedly noted the incomparable intimacy achieved by actors singing live on film. Barbra Streisand, at age 25, knew the same thing when she insisted on singing live for the film of Funny Girl in 1968 (she shared the Best Actress Oscar with Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter).

The 60 million people who have seen the stage version of the Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil musical will no doubt compare the movie to their memories of a dark and shadowy stage, the crowd of actors marching in step during the thrilling Act One finale of “One Day More,” the huge rotating barricade littered with fifty bloody bodies of the revolutionary students, and a breathtaking theatrical moment when the evil Javert jumps to his death off the upstage catwalk bridge.

Given Hathaway’s stardom, movie goers might also compare the film’s portrayal of the tragic Fantine with her stage character, played by Patti LuPone, Ruthie Henshall, Lea Salonga, and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Film critic A.O. Scott recently commented on the number of strong women in 2012’s movies. What will Les Miz bring us?

If it’s anything like the stage musical, don’t get excited, fellow feminists. For all of its theatrical heft, musical power, and romantic reputation, Les Miz leaves women in the lurch.

Women in the musical play small and insignificant roles. First, they appear late: Fantine’s first song halfway through Act One is a woman’s first solo, well after the male characters have been introduced and have sung and the story is well on its way.

Second, the three featured female characters — Fantine, Cosette, and Eponine — are delineated from the other minor female characters and ensemble players by their spiritual purity, a narrow female stereotype. Third, the women only exist to set off the complex decisions, ethical struggles, and brave actions of the men. Finally, the women only sing about men (though, according to the Bechdel test that Scott cites, there are more than two women in the show and they do have names: a hopeful sign, perhaps?).

The central story of Les Miz has nothing whatsoever to do with women, but rather follows the battle between Valjean and Javert. Dramaturgically, the women only function to strengthen the men’s characterizations. Fantine’s sole purpose, for example, is to show Valjean’s extraordinary generosity when he agrees to raise her soon-to-be-orphaned daughter, Cosette, as his own. Cosette serves as Marius’s love interest so that he can choose her over a political career. (Unlike the musicals of the 1950s where the individual lovers each signified political differences that the musical eventually resolved through their union, in Les Miz, the lovers are a mere diversion from the real plot, which is “political” and decidedly homoerotic.) And Eponine exists so that she can pine for Marius and die for his cause. During the stage musical’s production process, in fact, codirectors Trevor Nunn and John Caird worked with the composers to eliminate the women characters’ back stories and reduce their stage time.

Equally important for this stage production was the amazing sceneography, designed by Royal Shakespeare Company veteran John Napier. The musical’s Act Two climax, when two giant towers, weighing three tons and driven by computer, glide, merge, and interlock to form a stage-filling structure on which the bodies of dead rebel students lay signals how Les Miz sceneographically values men and their world. In his review of the Broadway production, Frank Rich in the New York Times described how “in a dazzling transition, the towers tilt to form an enormous barricade.” The male characters interact with the set from this barricade to the tower to the tavern. Valjean carries the wounded Marius through the sewers of Paris, evoked by fog and dim grey lighting, and even the villain Javert kills himself by jumping off a high bridge upstage, a moment that invariably elicits gasps from the audience when the actor disappears below the stage floor.

The musical’s principal women, on the other hand, are excluded from the impressive, visually engaging scenes. Each female character’s song is staged with her alone, almost as if in concert, apart from the story, performing in a single pool of light. Now there’s nothing wrong with an actor being onstage in a single spotlight: that’s what stars are made of. But according to the visual codes that tell an audience what’s important here, the women are shut out. Fantine sings both of her two songs in Act One alone, one before she succumbs to prostitution and the other — her big death song — on a cot; Cosette’s key number is staged in front of the gates of her house.

Eponine does a bit better: her showstopping “On My Own” begins with the actor walking on a slowly revolving platform, but by the second verse, the turntable stops and she stands still for the number’s climax.

Eponine does get one opportunity to interact with the musical’s remarkable scenery — in her death scene. Although her involvement with the students’ rebellion is not because she is political, but because she wants to be on the barricade to be near Marius, she gets caught in the crossfire. Marius takes her into his arms, soothing her and kissing her gently, and they sing, “A Little Fall of Rain,” leaning against by the barricade, and she dies. The message is clear in this touching moment: the women only get to be on Les Miz’s big set when they die.

In front of the barricade in Les Misérables (opened on Broadway in 1987), Eponine (Frances Ruffelle) dies in the arms of Marius (Michael Bell), her love for him still unrequited.  Enjolras (David Burt) stands by. Photograph by Michael Le Poer Trench © Cameron Mackintosh Ltd. Used with permission.

This account of women’s sad situation in Les Miz relies on the languages of the stage. It may be that the film adaptation will give women more to do. Or maybe the tools of film will alter the architecture of this musical. Or maybe Hathaway — thin, bald, and singing “live” — will deliver a performance that will vindicate the women in Les Miz.

Stacy Wolf is Professor in the Program in Theater and the Director of the Princeton Atelier in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. She is the author of A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical, Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical, and co-editor of the forthcoming paperback release of The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical.

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By Robin S. Rosenberg

I recently saw a preview for the musical Spider-Man: Turn Out the Dark. It’s not really a musical; it’s a spectacle. It succeeds as a spectacle, fails as a musical, and hangs itself as a Spider-Man origin story. It’s easier to find good things to say about the spectacle aspect, so I’ll start by reviewing that aspect of the play.

Spider-Man: The Spectacle

Director/writer Julie Taymor and co-writer Glen Berger wanted to create a spectacle-something that was more than a musical. They succeeded. The sets were a wonder to behold (especially in the first half of the show). Aerialists, dressed as Spider-Man, the Green Goblin, and Arachne, flew about the stage and balcony, allowing viewers to feel a part of the production. In fact, because of the numerous injuries suffered by actors during rehearsals and previews, when the aerialists flew overhead it made me wonder-what if their cables broke and they fell on the audience? (And wouldn’t that be analogous to what New York’s pedestrians would wonder if an actual Spidey and actual Green Goblin were duking it out in the skies above Manhattan, without the cables?)

Even as a spectacle, though, the pacing of it didn’t work for me. Most of the spectacular elements were in the first half of the show, so when the effects and wow elements were fewer (and repeating) in the second half, it was a let down. During the last hour of the play, I kept looking at my watch. If you see the play and leave at intermission, you’ll see the best parts. Grade for spectacle (especially the first half): A.

Spider-Man: The Musical

In a good musical, the songs move the story forward. Unfortunately, the music in this play didn’t do this very effectively. The actors often spoke a “recap” of the gist of the song in order to transition to the next scene or to move the story along. (If you see this play, bring along some tissues or napkins to stuff into your ears: some songs were so loud that I had to cover my ears with my hands; I didn’t enjoy those.)

As you may know, the songs were written by Bono and The Edge, and it showed. The songs didn’t have the structure or feel of a “Broadway musical,” which is okay in theory, but not in this execution. Sad to say, none of the songs were memorable – they didn’t have a great “hook” as do many Broadway songs or even U2 songs. Plus the feel of the music didn’t match up with Spider-Man’s character or story. Grade for music: B- (I’m being generous here, taking effort into consideration in my grade)

Spider-Man: The Origin Story

I’ve read (or seen) almost every Spider-Man origin story there is because I’m writing a book on origin stories that includes a chapter on Spider-Man’s origins. I was looking forward to this musical to see how it compared with previous origin stories of the Webbed Wonder. I was disappointed. There isn’t a whole lot of character development here, and there isn’t much more of a plot; what plot there is focuses too much on Mary Jane and not enough on Peter. Even though Peter/Spider-Man is a comic book character, his story is rich in the human drama of shouldering the burden of

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Earlier this week, Jerry Bock (perhaps best known for Fiddler on the Roof) passed away, the day after he was honored with Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild. Below, Philip Lambert remembers the great composer.

By Philip Lambert

After an apprenticeship in early television, and at Camp Tamiment, a summer camp for adults, in the early 1950s, Bock made his Broadway debut with three songs in a revue, Catch a Star! (1955). At that time he wrote mostly with Larry Holofcener, whom he had met at the University of Wisconsin. Bock and Holofcener also teamed with George David Weiss to create a star vehicle for Sammy Davis, Jr., Mr. Wonderful in 1956. But when Bock began working with Sheldon Harnick in 1957 – they were introduced by a mutual friend, Jack Cassidy – his music began truly to blossom and sparkle. Bock and Harnick wrote hundreds of songs of infinite variety in support of disparate stories and characters. Feeding off each other’s formidable talents, the partnership thrived until an array of forces sent them their separate ways in the early 1970s. After that Bock mostly wrote his own lyrics for other new shows, including a very successful series of musicals for young audiences between 2000 and 2007, and music for a feature film (Sidney Lumet’s A Stranger Among Us, 1992). He also worked on personal, private songwriting projects during the last four decades, yielding autobiographical song cycles (Album Leaves, Trading Places) and thematic collections (Noblesse O’ Blues, Three/Four All).

Jerry Bock was the master of what Lehman Engel called the “musical costume.” He could dress up a song in any style, from the nineteenth-century parlor song (for Tenderloin) to the jazz shouter (in The Apple Tree). He would immerse himself in the style and culture of the story he was helping to tell and then transport the audience there with musical references and flavorings. In She Loves Me he took us to Hungary, in The Rothschilds to the power centers of eighteenth-century Europe. In his most successful show, Fiddler on the Roof, he drew from his own background and heritage to evoke a turn-of-the-century Russian shtetl. Of that experience, he said in 2008, “I simply could not stop the brood of melodies and harmonies that waited to be born.”

There was, in other words, no single Jerry Bock “style.” His style was simply an acute sensitivity to the dramatic requirements of the project at hand. He and Harnick would work tirelessly on each of their scores searching for perfect dramatic support, during development, rehearsals, and pre-Broadway tours, usually producing two or three times the number of songs a

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By Philip Lambert

They never had the marquee allure of Rodgers and Hammerstein. They didn’t enjoy the longevity of their contemporaries Kander and Ebb, who wrote songs for shows like Cabaret and Chicago for almost forty-two years. But they are one of Broadway’s most critically acclaimed and commercially successful songwriting teams, and on November 1, 2010, composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick will be honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Dramatists Guild, at a ceremony in New York.

It may be difficult for Bock and Harnick to find room for the new statuettes on their mantels, which are already crowded with Tony Awards (for Fiorello! in 1960 and Fiddler on the Roof in 1965), a Pulitzer Prize (Fiorello!), New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards (Fiorello! and Fiddler), and a Grammy (She Loves Me, 1963), among other honors. But the new award has the extra appeal of recognizing all of their work, not only the prize-winners but also their other Broadway shows – The Body Beautiful (1958), Tenderloin (1960), The Apple Tree (1966), and The Rothschilds (1970) – as well as the shows they wrote with other partners before they met in 1956 (such as Bock’s score for Sammy Davis, Jr.’s Broadway debut, Mr. Wonderful, in 1956), and the work they have done since they went their separate ways in 1970 (including Harnick’s lyrical contributions to Richard Rodgers’s penultimate musical, Rex, in 1976). They have taken their rightful places in the Broadway pantheon.

What were the secrets of their success? Indeed, what are the requirements for any successful songwriting team? Personal compatibility is a plus, of course, but not essential, as Gilbert and Sullivan proved. It’s a matter of debate whether George and Ira Gershwin wrote great songs together because of, or in spite of, their familial bond. And then there are the examples of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim, avoiding the issue entirely by writing both music and lyrics. But Bock and Harnick were, and still are, close friends. Their personalities complement each other, from opposite ends of a dispositional spectrum. As Harnick, the self-described pessimist, said in 1971, “Between us, we help bring the other either down to earth, or up to earth.” And it surely helped that each partner was well-schooled in the task of the other. Bock has always had a flair for verse and has served as his own lyricist on many occasions (including a very successful series of musicals for young audiences in 2000–07). Harnick is a classically trained violinist who has written both music and lyrics at various times throughout his career (for instance, the early revue numbers “Boston Beguine” [1952] and “Merry Little Minuet” [1953], and the more recent full-scale musical Dragons [1973–2006], for which he wrote book, music, and lyrics).

Most importantly, and most elusively, Bock and Harnick mastered the art of collaboration, of being productive members of complex creative teams. Working with book writers such as Joseph Stein and Joe Masteroff, and with directors such as Jerome Robbins, Harold Prince, George Abbott, and Mike Nichols, they learned to listen, to adapt, to evolve. They became experts in reading and shaping audience reactions, in knowing where and how music can enhance drama. They learned that a song is only as good as its dramatic context, that their best efforts in the studio might fall short on the stage and need to be replaced by something entirely new. They have estimated that they wrote two or three songs for every one that eventua

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This time around, Lauren and Michelle deal with drama! They talk with the Toy Box Theatre Company, learn about politics in musical theater, and go behind-the-scenes on the set of Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson. ALSO: You have a chance to win* free tickets to Woyzeck or a copy of Danton’s Death, Leonce and Lena, and Woyzeck by Georg Büchner!

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*To enter to win free tickets or a copy of Georg Büchner’s theatrical works, send an email to [email protected] with the subject line “Toy Box” by 5pm ET on October 26. Two tickets will be awarded at random to the October 31, 3pm showing of Woyzeck (at the Choicirciati Cultural Center in New York City). Admission includes a champagne toast and talkback with the cast and crew. A second lucky entrant will win a copy of the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Danton’s Death, Leonce and Lena, and Woyzeck.

Featured in this Podcast:

TOY BOX THEATRE COMPANY

(About this Production of Woyzeck)

Thanks to Jonathan Barsness, Ryan Colwell, David Michael Holmes, Sarah Hankins, Elisabeth Motley, James Sparber, and Colonna Sonora

Norm Hirschy, Associate Editor for Theater & Music

James Lovensheimer

Assistant Professor in Music, History and Literature at Vanterbilt University

Author of South Pacific, Paradise Rewritten

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