Helen Gallagher is an actress who came very close to being one of Broadway musicals’ biggest stars, on a par with Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, or Gwen Verdon. Always one of the standout supporting players in such musicals as High Button Shoes, Make A Wish, and Pal Joey, for which she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. It was inevitable that she would ultimately land a starring role in a Broadway musical that would launch her career into the stratosphere where it belonged. That vehicle, for all intents and purposes, should have been the 1953 musical Hazel Flagg wherein Gallagher played the title character.
Remembering King of Hearts
When I was in college in the 1990s, my favorite course was The History of the American Musical Theatre. The stories, the evolution of the form, the music, the musicals themselves all played into the interests I had been cultivating for years, listening to cast albums and reading librettos checked out of the local library. I adored this class so much, in fact, that I took it four times, once as a for-credit class within my major, and three other times as an independent study. With each round, the professor catered my experience so that I would hopefully learn something new and not just repeat old material. On round three, he chose musical theatre flops to be my focus. As the class explored musical theatre by the decade, I would study the flops of the same period, often going to the college library and finding old theatre reviews bound in these enormous binders. When we started on the 1970s, this is when I happened upon a show I hadn’t heard of, a charming piece of musical theatre that, although imperfect in so many ways, had little bursts of brilliance. That musical was King of Hearts.
Remembering The Happy Time
The composing team of Kander and Ebb are typically first remembered as the creators of the edgy, flashy, razzle-dazzle music of such shows as Cabaret and Chicago. It would be wrong, however, to think that this was all that they were capable of. In fact, the team’s work often tended towards a reflective, gentler style of musical comedy found in such shows as Zorba and The Rink. One show that really seemed to embrace this subtler, character-driven approach to storytelling was 1968’s The Happy Time.
More or Loesser: 15 Great Songs by Frank Loesser
When I sat down to write a “Top 15” list of Frank Loesser songs, the composer-lyricist behind such Broadway musical hits as Guys & Dolls, The Most Happy Fella, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, I soon realized that narrowing it down to the fifteen best would be a futile task. Loesser was such a master of melody, character development, and found wonderful places for heart in the most comedic of places. So, instead of boiling it down, I just picked 15 songs by Frank Loesser to create a playlist that I hope beyond hope that you will enjoy as much as I reveled in putting it together. More or Loesser, every single one of these is a gem.