Quite possibly the darkest of all musicals to grace the Broadway stage, but also a musical that is overflowing with hope and courage, Kiss of the Spider Woman opened on Broadway in 1993 and went on to win the Tony Award for Best Musical. The amazing part of this show's journey is rewinding a few years and examining its genesis and uphill climb to reach Broadway. If ever there was a "Little Engine That Could", Kiss of the Spider Woman overcame many odds to reach the Great White Way.
All tagged Terrence McNally
Broadway Stars and Their Not-So-Successful TV Past
With the Tony Awards just around the corner and that shaping up to be a ho-hum night (thanks to forgone conclusions of a Hamilton sweep), no exciting new musicals on the immediate horizon (the Cats revival excites me like a case of distemper) and, just in general, no inspiring theatre news to get me riled up, I turned to one of my other favorite hobbies: TV Theme Songs (yes, I wrote a book on the subject). I like to go to Youtube.com and watch the opening sequences and clips of shows from days gone by. The other night, while doing this, I found so many Broadway performers in short-run sitcoms, stinkaroos that didn’t last for very long. Some of these shows were awful, but some of them were actually quite good. Here is a sampler of some of your Broadway favorites in sitcoms that just didn’t fly.
"Colored Lights" - The Rink - The Deeper Connection
Kander and Ebb are best known for their brassy showtunes, set distinctly to ignite some Fosse-esque, bump and grind dance number, complete with a racy lyric or two. "Wilkommen," "Cabaret," "All that Jazz," "The Cell Block Tango," "When You're Good to Momma," "Nowadays," "Where You Are," and "Gimme Love" are perfect examples of what I am talking about. What we forget is that there is also a quieter, more organic side to the duo's music that established a deeper connection with character development and emotional understanding. I am speaking of the Kander and Ebb who wrote "The Happy Time," "Life Is," "Chief Cook and Bottle Washer," "Say Yes," "It Couldn't Please Me More" and "All the Children in a Row." I think we have a tendency to forget that Kander and Ebb were capable of something far richer than the bawdy and the brash.