All tagged John Latouche

Remembering Cabin in the Sky

Remembering Cabin in the Sky

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

Musicals about the black experience were not unheard of in the early years of the Golden Age of Broadway, despite a society that didn’t exactly embrace black culture. Shows like Porgy & Bess (1935), Carmen Jones (1943), St. Louis Woman (1946) and Lost in the Stars (1949) told compelling stories about this underrepresented faction of the population. What was harder to come by were musicals about black characters that delved into the world of fantasy and folklore. There was, however, the 1940 musical Cabin in the Sky which gave us both a serious story about people of color that also delved into their cultural heritage and folklore while employing a touch of fantasy. 

Encores! - Cabin in the Sky

Encores! - Cabin in the Sky

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

In recent weeks I have made the argument on this blog for revisiting older and perhaps forgotten musicals. There is still gold to be mined from these wonders of yesteryear and that is why I was so excited, after years of reading about them, to finally witness my first staged concert of a forgotten musical at New York City Center’s Encores! series. As a theatre historian who has just moved to the Big Apple, there is no better way to experience the 1940 musical Cabin in the Sky, a most deserving choice of their attention. Vernon Duke's and John Latouche's vibrant, jazz-infused score lives and breathes again reminding us that, just because a musical has been gone for half-a-century (and change), that it need not be forgotten.