All tagged Richard Maltby Jr.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black created a heartfelt, funny, touching and palpably heartbreaking musical when they wrote Tell Me On A Sunday. Written as a one-woman show for British actress-singer Marti Webb, Tell Me On A Sunday was presented at the Sydmonton Festival in 1979. Telling the story of an English woman who has just moved to the United States, the musical follows her as she navigates her new home (first NYC, then Los Angeles) and explores the possibilities of love and career, writing letters to her mother back in England detailing her experiences. This is the basic premise for the first act of a musical that would come to London’s West End in 1982 under the title Song & Dance.
Movies have long been the inspiration for Broadway musicals. It is easy to say that this is a recent trend, but that simply is not so. Just as there have been many musicals that have taken their inspiration from plays, books, and historical events, there have been musicals that draw from cinema (from the 50’s on, anyway). In the 1990s, the trend toward adapting films for the musical stage seemed to gain even more traction, and by the turn of the century, everywhere you looked on Broadway you could find movies reimagined for the stage.
I started out writing this piece, intending to explore all styles of musical revues, the "best of" the genre. I soon realized that, if I didn't apply certain parameters, I'd be writing until the end of time. So, I set some rules: the musical revues that I would discuss had to have original music, not an assemblage of showtunes such as in And the World Goes 'Round, or be composed of radio hits a la Smokey Joe's Café. Both are fine revues, but I decided I wanted to concentrate on the pieces that were written, from conception, as original revues. Here are some of my favorites to listen to and read about.
We all know the classic Broadway musical titles: Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, Hello, Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof, Annie and the dozens of others that show up in regional theatres, high schools, community theatres and even make their way back to Broadway from time to time. However, there are easily hundereds of Broadway musicals that were deemed unsuccessful and have, for the most part, been forgotten by the theatergoing community despite the fact that they have much to recommend.
