GENTLEMEN, BE SEATED!

With the passing of Fred Ebb in 2004, one might have assumed that the canon of Kander and Ebb had come to its logical completion, a remarkable trove of treasures that includes such heavy-hitting masterpieces as CABARET and CHICAGO, as well as ZORBA, WOMAN OF THE YEAR, and KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN among many others. John Kander’s thrilling, pulse-pounding show music was always a seamless match with Ebb’s witty, acerbic, sometimes achingly beautiful lyrics. When combined with the very human and often challenging themes they chose for their musicals, the effect was usually dynamic and even dynamite, surely earning them a secure place in musical theater history. Some of us are particular champions of their scores for THE HAPPY TIME and STEEL PIER, while others no doubt promote the likes of THE RINK or THE ACT or 70, GIRLS, 70. (All fans got a little bit of satisfaction from their hit Off-Broadway sampler, AND THE WORLD GOES ROUND.) Their film, television and special events material has yielded numerous numbers to the pop culture songbook, including “My Coloring Book,” and “How Lucky Can You Get”-- while “New York, New York” seared its way into the public consciousness and became the de facto theme song for one of the world’s best loved cities in 1985. One doesn’t think of Liza Minnelli, Chita Rivera, Joel Grey, or Bob Fosse without the material of Kander and Ebb. Digging a bit deeper, the career of Barbra Streisand has significant chapters involving their creations, and even Sinatra covered their tunes. So there would certainly be no shame if 2004 marked the end of the story.

But it didn’t. In fact, their output for the balance of this decade has been rather astonishing (with most of the projects, of course, in the pipeline prior to Ebb’s death), providing more high profile projects than most writing teams create in a whole career. CURTAINS, a loving tribute to show business tales, backstage legends, and whodunits, was a moderate hit, providing a range of terrific comic specialty numbers and touching torch songs, as well as providing David Hyde Pierce a Tony-winning turn as theater-loving police detective. ALL ABOUT US, their adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, has had several regional tryouts with the hope that fine tuning will eventually lead to a fully-working production, and their musical version of Durrenmatt’s THE VISIT has seen productions in Chicago and D.C., giving Chita Rivera yet another amazing role. Ebb’s voice has continued both in the lyrics and in the conceptions of these shows. For the work that remained to be done, long-time partner Kander fleshed out the finishing touches as if he were channeling his collaborator of 40-plus years.

THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS shows that their sense of drama--the power of injustice, and how the media and the system feed on hype for their own sake--is still clearly in full