All tagged George Abbott

Remembering Tenderloin

Remembering Tenderloin

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

The Broadway composing team of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick were behind some of Broadway’s most beloved musical scores, having crafted the character-driven showtunes for musicals such as The Apple Tree, She Loves Me, and the most well-known of their masterpieces, Fiddler on the Roof. Even when one of their shows had trouble catching on with audiences and the critics, the score was always a first-rate example of their craftmanship and their ability to capture humanity with melody and whimsical wordplay. This was the case with the 1960 Tenderloin, the follow-up to their Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello!, with which the musical is often compared due to many similarities in theme and style. 

Remembering Call Me Madam

Remembering Call Me Madam

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

An old school musical comedy that was not only a perfect star vehicle for an over-the-top leading lady, but also a fine example of a lost art of comedy filled with melody, romance, and pure joy, was the 1950 Broadway outing Call Me Madam. Starring the indelible Ethel Merman, and brimming with a parade of terrific Irving Berlin tunes, Call Me Madam may have had a corny plot, but it provided a night of carefree, escapist theatergoing. 

Broadway Blip: The Boys from Syracuse

Broadway Blip: The Boys from Syracuse

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

Rodgers and Hart musicals always included a delicious sense of fun and their 1938 comedy The Boys from Syracuse was no exception. Based on William Shakespeare’s 1594 play (his shortest) The Comedy of Errors, The Boys from Syracuse features one of Rodgers and Hart’s most-enduring score with such gems as “Falling in Love with Love,” “Sing for Your Supper,” “This Can’t Be Love” and “What Do You Do with a Man” as standouts. 

Broadway Blip: Pal Joey

Broadway Blip: Pal Joey

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

The composing team of Rodgers and Hart had a reputation for putting together fun and witty musical comedies. Rodgers’ music sparkled with infectious melody while Hart’s lyrics were clever and bursting with wild use of rhyme. It wasn’t until their 1940 collaboration of the musical Pal Joey that the team ventured into edgier territory. Based on John O’Hara’s series of short stories that were published in The New Yorker, Pal Joey is both the crowning achievement of the duo’s partnership and a benchmark in advancement of serious musical theatre storytelling. 

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