All tagged George Rose
What do you do when Charles Dickins begins writing a murder mystery story, but never finishes it? You turn it into a musical, of course, and let the audience vote at each performance to decide which character they want to be the culprit. That is exactly what Rupert Holmes did when wrote the musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The musical, sometimes abbreviated to simply “Drood,” is an interactive experience for audiences, making it Broadway’s most original whodunit.
With the end of 2015 almost upon us and the reassuring possibilities of 2016 ready to work their magic, I started thinking about musicals that place on December 31st as the world counts down to a new year. There are not many musicals that fit this distinction and the only one that instantly comes to mind is the notorious flop of 1983 called Dance a Little Closer, apparently so disastrous that it was nicknamed “Close a Little Faster.” As is the case with most hyperbolic statements, Dance a Little Closer wasn’t all awful. In fact, the score with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner has much to recommend and is, even at times, quite delightful.
