All tagged One Touch of Venus

The Cockeyed Optimist: The Broadway Musicals of Mary Martin

The Cockeyed Optimist: The Broadway Musicals of Mary Martin

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

One the most beloved performers of the Broadway musical is the late, great Mary Martin. Mary Martin possessed a lovely, distinctive voice, a coquettish smile, and a persona that evoked optimism and warmth. The actress enjoyed a long career on the Broadway stage that spanned three decades, winning four Tony Awards throughout that time, including one for spreading Annie Get Your Gun to the country while the original production performed in New York. Rivaled only by Ethel Merman as one of Broadway’s most iconic talents, Mary Martin’s legacy lives on in our memories of great musical theatre experiences. Today, we take a look at the Broadway musicals that were brightened by her presence. 

Remembering One Touch of Venus

Remembering One Touch of Venus

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

A musical that we don’t hear much about these days, but one that features a glorious score, is the 1943 classic One Touch of Venus. Based on a story by Thomas Anstey Guthrie, One Touch of Venus loosely draws from the Pygmalion myth with a book by poet Ogden Nash and S.J. Perelman, lyrics by Nash, and music by Kurt Weill (debatably his most accessible and traditional in terms of musical comedy, save perhaps Lady in the Dark). Of the musicals Kurt Weill wrote for Broadway, it would be his longest-running, though arguably his least innovative.