All tagged Kelli O'Hara
Yesterday, Roundabout Theatre Company announced that it would be reviving Kiss Me, Kate in February of 2019, starring Tony winner Kelli O’Hara is the role of the shrewish Lily/Kate. Though it is still quite a long way off, I thought it would be fun to speculate on possible Freds/Petruchios who would be fun to see opposite Ms. O’Hara. Here are my thoughts and I’d love to know any ideas you may have as well.
One of the most-popular musicals of the 1950s and one that was subsequently performed by almost every high school and community theatre, and that featured a popular Richard Adler and Jerry Ross score, is The Pajama Game. The story of labor at a Midwestern pajama factory on the verge of union strike (in an effort to get a 7 ½ cent raise) spoke to the average working American. Complicating matters, of course, is a romance that breaks out between the factory’s new superintendent and the head of union grievance committee. In the end, everyone gets what they want.
With the recent closing of the Lincoln Center production of The King and I, I thought it would be an appropriate tribute to this lovely production to look back on this oft-revived musical.
Rodgers and Hammerstein had just enjoyed another major success with the Pulitzer Prize-winning South Pacific and set about the find a new property for musicalization. Margaret Landon's novel Anna and the King of Siam would be their source. Based on a true story, the novel told the story of a British governess brought to the royal palace of the King of Siam to teach his wives and children in the Western philosophies and contemporary thought. The musical followed the complicated professional relationship between the monarch and his new employee (and perhaps friend), and their struggle to find a middle ground where tradition and change could coexist.
The Tony Awards are an important part of the Broadway season, not so much because people need to be rewarded for doing what is already an amazing job, but because the people who wend their way through the challenges, heartbreak and exhaustion of show business deserve a time of the year to celebrate what they do. God knows if the theatre community doesn’t revel in their own achievements, who else is going to? Ring your own bell! Our country is so caught up in the goings on of athletic events that theatre will never be a priority to anyone other than those create it. That’s what makes us special, isn’t it?
