At one point in time, Man of La Mancha was a very popular musical that was produced with frequency and with great reverence. Based on the book Don Quixote by Cervantes, the tale of the knight errant who travels an ugly and bleak world and refuses to see anything but optimism and beauty has been an inspiration to many. Man of La Mancha also includes a score that features one of theatre's most-beloved anthems of hope, "The Impossible Dream".
We love to celebrate the classic Broadway scores! We revel in a joyously wonderful flop score! There is, however, one area of the Broadway musical that we seldom address: the musicals that were neither calamitous flops, but neither were they runaway hits. They were around for maybe a season and change (250-500 performances), maybe made some money or came close to breaking even (in a day where that was possible). I refer to these as the “also rans” of Broadway. Today’s blog is a celebration of the scores from these middling musicals that have much to recommend in the way of great music.
A musical that is rarely performed anymore, but one that was once a theatregoer favorite, is Frank Loesser’s Where’s Charley? The musical is based on the once-popular farce Charley’s Aunt written in 1892 by playwright Brandon Thomas. This comedy of errors includes cross dressing and wildly ridiculous situations of a performer playing two characters.
It seems to me that we have some exciting cast recordings to look forward to in the coming weeks (and months), and I thought I’d spend today musing over the ones that I am particularly poised to listen to. A few of these scores are already available for digital download, but since I am one of those people who like to have the CD in hand (or LP), I hold out for the tangible version.
