All tagged Bob Merrill

Raining on Your Parade: The Challenges of Funny Girl

Funny Girl is a musical that has yet to be revived on Broadway despite having a superior score by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill and a fairly faithful film version that has an enormous following. The trick to reviving Funny Girl is finding the right actress to play Fanny Brice, the titular character who has to be over the top funny, quietly sentimental, somewhat gawky, and possessing of a powerful, but nuanced voice. Barbra Streisand was a "Rose of sheer perfection" in both the stage and in the film version. So amazing, in fact, that the specter of her indelible characterization looms over any proposed revival, becoming the “freckle on the complexion” of the piece.

"I'm the Greatest Star" - a Robbie Rozelle Recommendation

Musical theatre scholars know that the introduction of a character's dreams, wishes, hopes and goals are summed up in the "I Am" song, a character number that appears early in the show as a way of eliciting empathy for the story's catalyst. There are many fine examples of "I Am" songs including "Some People" in Gypsy, "Chief Cook and Bottle Washer" from The Rink, and "Corner of the Sky" from Pippin.