Upcoming Excursions

Today was an eventful day. I worked for 8 1/2 hours; drank a lot of green tea and bought a laser printer (thank God for 50% sales), 1500 pages of blank paper, binders and sheet protectors for my latest project; organizing my vocal scores. My first effort was for the score of 1600 Pennylvania Avenue (from the Philadelphia tryout). Now all I need is a piano… The much-loved (by me) “Duet for One” is a whopping 26 pages long. The Bernstein estate will not permit the original Broadway version of the show to be presented; the Cantata is a concertized revisal which eliminates a great deal of the book with some revision among the musical numbers, dropping the original’s “Rehearse” and reinstating the endless “Monroviad.” (Bernstein was so disappointed with the show as it played in NY in 1976, he refused to allow the cast album to be recorded, can you believe that? ARGGH!). Speaking of which, the Collegiate Chorale is giving the Cantata its New York premiere on March 31 at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center (what a curious name for a venue). I really, really want to go. Baritone Dwayne Croft and soprano Emily Pulley will be singing the roles of the President and First Lady. Anyone else interested? The top tickets are $85, but I plan on aiming a bit lower ($65, 55, 45, 35, 20).

http://collegiatechorale.org/concert_schedule/

Broadway-wise: I’ve got my season ticket to The 39 Steps on February 24th. I will not be lingering in the city that night, since it’s supposed to be Oscar night (oh please, God). Also, I will be attending the March 12th matinee of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Broadhurst. It’s going to be exciting as it will mark the first time I’ve seen James Earl Jones or Phylicia Rashad live in performance. I’m seeing Sunday again as a subscriber on March 9th. But first? Applause this Sunday at the City Center. Hearing how the flu has caused her to miss rehearsal and to lose her singing voice, I hope Christine Ebersole’s health will be much improved by then. This, among all the other festivities is going to make for one hell of an exciting spring season of New York theatre.

PS – My script of August: Osage County arrived in the mail today (along with Auntie Mame, Mister Roberts and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). Huzzah!

An ‘All That Chat’ survey…the Play Edition

1. The first play I ever saw on Broadway was Noises Off! (July 9, 2002)
2. The play I would most like to see would be the original companies of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Death of a Salesman, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Noises Off (NY & London; for Pat Routledge and Dottie Loudon), West Side Waltz, The Glass Menagerie, The Lion in Winter and probably a slew of others…
3. The play I would most like to see again is The Pillowman, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, the revival of Journey’s End. Still running…? AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY!!!!
4. The play I never want to see again is Romeo and Juliet (sorry kids, just don’t care for it; West Side Story on the other hand…)
5. The best performance in a Broadway play by a woman I’ve ever seen is… wow this is tough. I’ve seen Cherry in Doubt, Kathleen in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Frances de la Tour in The History Boys and Judy Kaye in Souvenir; however, I’m going to go with Jayne Houdyshell in Well. (Though the previous divas are all a decimal point away from the title).
6. The best performance in a Broadway play by a man I’ve ever seen is Bill Irwin in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (honorable mentions to Stark Sands in Journey’s End, Zeljko Ivanek in The Pillowman, Brian F. O’Byrne in Doubt).
7. The person I wish they never cast was David Barbour in Virginia Woolf. The person they should have cast was Billy Crudup.
8. My favorite Broadway staging of a play was The Pillowman.
9. The line that always brings a lump to my throat is – “I am, George, I am.”
10. The stupidest line I’ve ever heard is… hm, I’ll fill this in if I can think of something that bad…
11. The first play I had to go back and see twice was the revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
12. The first play I ever walked out of was – I have never walked out of a show.
13. The most under praised and overly deserving play in my opinion is Coram Boy.
14. The most overly praised and under deserving show in my opinion is The History Boys. I mean, I liked it; but, The Lieutenant of Inishmore was a much more satisfying play.
15. The line or monologue you’re most likely to quote in every day life: “Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death!” Auntie Mame.
16. If I could recast any role in a current Broadway play with a performer of the past it would be Uta Hagen as Violet in August: Osage County, Laurette Taylor in Doubt, young Kim Stanley or Barbara Bel Geddes in Proof.
17. If I could recast current actor in a Broadway play that was before their time it would be Cherry Jones in The Little Foxes (with Vicki Clark as Birdie); Margaret Colin in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Harriet Harris in The Desk Set or Come Back, Little Sheba, Mary Louise Parker in Mary, Mary.
18. The show they should never change a word of because it is already perfect is Long Day’s Journey Into Night. They’ve already tampered with Virginia Woolf?
19. The show I’d most like to get my hands on and rewrite is Well.
20. The role I was born to play on Broadway is any acerbic and witty wisecracking sidekick.

An ‘All That Chat’ survey…

The Giants have won the Super Bowl!!!!!! That was one hell of a game, I gotta say. I got so into it, my blood pressure skyrocketed and I went buck wild after that last touchdown. Think Mary Louise Wilson’s acceptance speech times ten. And with more explicitly jubilant language.

Anyway… this was a 20 question survey posted on All That Chat for those who wouldn’t be watching the game tonight. Well, since I missed the boat as I was glued to the game, I thought I’d fill it in here and now….

1. The first musical I ever saw on Broadway was Miss Saig0n (March, 15, 2000)
2. The musical I would most like to see would be the original production of any of my favorites: this includes Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Mame, Pacific Overtures, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, She Loves Me, High Spirits, Kismet, Kiss Me Kate, South Pacific, et al, et al, et al.
3. The musical I would most like to see again is The Light in the Piazza and/or Grey Gardens.
4. The musical I never want to see again is Cats.
5. The best performance in a Broadway musical by a woman I’ve ever seen is Victoria Clark in The Light in the Piazza (honorable mentions to Christine Ebersole, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald & Bernadette Peters).
6. The best performance in a Broadway musical by a man I’ve ever seen is Hugh Jackman in The Boy From Oz (what a star turn; what a shit show) and Carousel (wowowow, what a night). Honorable mention to David Hyde Pierce, who made Spamalot more enjoyable than it should have been.
7. The person I wish they never cast was Christine Baranski in Follies.
The person they should have cast was Angela Lansbury (yes I know she’s a bit old for the part, who cares?) or Patti LuPone or someone who could sing it on pitch at least.
8. My favorite Broadway choreography was in the show La Cage Aux Folles
9. The lyric/line that always brings a lump to my throat is – many of Sondheim’s great works “Children and Art,” “Finishing the Hat,” “Sunday,” “Move On,” “Send in the Clowns,” “Liaisons,” “Another Hundred People,” Not a Day Goes By” (I’ve just decided that I’m going to dedicate an entire post to my favorite Stephen Sondheim lyrics), some of Hammerstein’s, some of Guettel’s even, though I know people look down on him as a lyricist…. too many indeed…
10. The stupidest lyric/line I’ve ever heard is “I’m a priest and I cannot love her” – that’s the hook – the cleverly titled “I’m a Priest” from Notre Dame de Paris. There are others, but this one always stands out in my mind as it was just so god-awful.
11. The first musical I had to go back and see twice was The Light in the Piazza (I started my own trend).
12. The first musical I ever walked out of was – I have never walked out of a show.
13. The most under praised and overly deserving show in my opinion is; well it was technically a play with a lot of music, but it fits: Coram Boy.
14. The most overly praised and under deserving show in my opinion is, even though I enjoyed it, Spring Awakening.
15. The song show tune I’m most likely to sing while I’m dancing around at home is”Not on Your Nellie” Darling of the Day or “A Little Priest” (both parts)Sweeney Todd or whatever catches my ear at the moment.
16. If I could recast any role in a current Broadway musical with a performer of the past it would be Barbara Cook fifty years ago as Clara or thirty years ago as Margaret in The Light in the Piazza. Patricia Routledge in a London Piazza. Kaye Ballard, Susan Johnson or Dolores Gray as Carmen in Curtains.
17. If I could recast current actor in a Broadway musical that was before their time it would be Victoria Clark in Darling of the Day and Street Scene, Donna Murphy in Lady in the Dark. Audra McDonald in
18. The show they should never change a word of because it is already perfect is She Loves Me.
19. The show I’d most like to get my hands on and rewrite is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
20. The role I was born to play on Broadway is Georg in She Loves Me (I feel like he’s my musical alter ego) . Not realistically, probably Alice Challice in Darling of the Day (those songs sit right in my comfort zone, isn’t that sad?).

I would love to see what your answers would be…

Some cast recordings and DVD releases

While I couldn’t care less about the impending CDs of The Little Mermaid or Ring of Fire, DRG is putting out three on March 4 that make me considerably happy.

Happy Hunting1956 OBC. Initially released by RCA Victor, the album has been long out of print and goes for a costly used fee on amazon.com or ebay. It’s the weakest of the post-WWII musicals to feature Merman. However, due to Merman’s audience appeal, she managed to keep the show running for a year, and allowing it to make a profit. Working with the inexperienced song-writers on this less-than-stellar project was the reason she nixed Stephen Sondheim as composer for Gypsy, demanding an established professional (Jule Styne) take the honors. So I guess we can thank Harold Karr and Matt Dubey for indirectly leading to the 1959 musical of musicals being the perfection that it is. “Mutual Admiration Society,” an upbeat mother-daughter charm duet, is the only song that had a life outside of the show (I enjoy the recording made by the late Teresa Brewer).

Annie Get Your Gun1962 studio recording. This one features Doris Day and Robert Goulet in the leading roles. I assume it’s not faithful to the stage orchestrations and it more of a curio than a document of the stage show. This is the first time the CD will be available in the US. This was originally supposed to be released on the Sony Masterworks series in the late 90s/early 00s (which appears all but dead).

Say, Darling1958 OBC. This is more a play-with-music than an actual musical. Loosely inspired by his experiences adapting his novel Seven and a Half Cents into The Pajama Game, Richard Bissell wrote Say, Darling which documented a musical going through its creative and rehearsal periods. The cast features Robert Morse, Vivian Blaine and David Wayne. Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green supplied the score.

It’s good to have DRG keeping up on the neglected scores, especially with the market being anything but stable for lost treasures and curiosities. And while I’m on it, whatever happened to the CD premiere of my beloved guilty pleasure Illya, Darling?

DVD front: The 1961 film Fanny is being released on DVD for the first time on June 17. The film was an adaptation of the 1955 Harold Rome musical (which in itself was based on the Marcel Pagnol film trilogy of the 1930s). Directed by Josh Logan (who also co-wrote and directed the Broadway production) and starring Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and Charles Boyer, the film adaptation eliminated the singing and adapted the musical themes as underscoring. I saw the film before I knew that, but it doesn’t have any impact on how much I enjoyed this Oscar-nominated and underrated classic. (A Best Picture nominee… it was lost in the shuffle of The Hustler, Judgment at Nuremberg and West Side Story). And while I’m on the DVD front, there are going to be DVD premieres of Kismet (and a handful of other musicals in a boxed set and individual) and Light in the Piazza (both from Warners). Criterion is issuing a boxed set of Ernst Lubitsch musicals of the early 1930s (including The Love Parade, Monte Carlo, One Hour With You and The Smiling Lieutenant). There will be restored reissues of The Music Man, Gigi, An American in Paris and The Great Ziegfeld. (the latter two may actually just be an upgrade from those awful cardboard snapcase DVD cases to the plastic keepcase, that is most prominent; I refuse to buy any of the card board ones, part of my OCD). The Member of the Wedding is going to be issued as a part of a Stanley Kramer boxed set, which is irritating because I already own Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night and would prefer to purchase this one separately. There will also be a reissue of Ship of Fools in the set, and one hopes that they present it in its actual original aspect ratio.

I’m still waiting for DVDs of The Magnificent Ambersons, The Enchanted Cottage, Love With the Proper Stranger, The African Queen, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Wings. Also, it’s time that someone reissued Rebecca, Notorious, Spellbound (previous Criterions, long since deleted) and MGM should get Wuthering Heights w. Olivier and Merle Oberon back into circulation.

"Not Since Carrie"

If you like musicals, and are intrigued by the failures, then this is the book for you. Ken Mandelbaum is detailed and concise in recounting the failures of Broadway musicals through the years. I’ve read it several times over the years; it’s engaging, never boring and quite funny to hear some of the anecdotes and some of the horrifying decisions made by creative teams.

By the way, where has Ken Mandelbaum gone? He stopped writing his column almost two years ago and no one seems to have heard anything from him since. I hope he’s well and off updating this book so we can get the last twenty years of disasters documented.

Outstanding songs from flop shows, Part 2

SarahB gave me a little iota of hell (teensy) for leaving out Prettybelle in my last post. I apologize to those diehard fans by placing that show at the top of tonight’s list…which will include two selections from said score.

“You Never Looked Better”/”When I’m Drunk, I’m Beautiful” – Prettybelle (Jule Styne-Bob Merrill; 1971; closed in Boston) A schizophrenic southern belle with a drinking problem, an now-deceased abusive husband and a penchant for whoring herself out to minorities. And would you believe, Jerry Herman didn’t write it! The show was problematic from the beginning, namely the the source material. “You Never Looked Better” was actually cut while the show was out of town; but when they recorded the album (some ten years later) they reinstated this gem Angela Lansbury sings after her husband dies. There’s a chance it’ll be sung at my funeral. However, the most glorious moment of the show is the eleven o’clock number “When I’m Drunk, I’m Beautiful.” The title says it all, but you need to hear the lead-in, the clever lyrics and the glorious bridge (which is actually quite Hermanesque). A no-holds barred paean to the magic of alcohol, Lansbury sends this one out of the ballpark; a cultist’s delight.

“So Much You Loved Me” – Rex (Richard Rodgers-Sheldon Harnick; 1976; Lunt-Fontanne – 48 performances). You’d think Henry VIII would make for great singing; but, alas it didn’t. The score is decent, especially whenever Penny Fuller opens her mouth. This ballad, sung by Anne Boleyn to Henry at the end of their relationship, has marvelous lyrics and a gorgeous melodic progression in the A-section from Mr. Rodgers. A gem of a song. (Sarah Brightman recorded this song, the only one from the score to have life outside of it. But, c’mon, who the hell wants to hear that?) (The melody is also used in “From Afar”: Henry’s soliloquized, yet secretive admiration for his daughter Elizabeth).

“Why Do the Wrong People Travel?” – Sail Away (Noel Coward; Broadhurst – 167 performances). Truth be told, I actually judge this from the original London cast recording of the score, which I really prefer to the Broadway album. Most specifically because it doesn’t censor the funniest joke in this song. Elaine Stritch starred as a “world-weary” cruise hostess finding romance onboard ship in a role written specifically for her by Noel Coward. Well, this was originally going to be an operetta with Stritch as the comic support; but, out of town the show was overhauled with the original leads fired, their parts cut out entirely and Stritch made the star (she would be above-the-title in London). The show was dismissed as decidedly old-fashioned by critics and had relatively brief runs in NY and London (where it played 262 performances, after an even worse critical reception). The song is a sardonic showcase in the eleven o’clock spot for Stritchie (hmm, “The Ladies Who Lunch” anyone?) in which she lists her grievances about the tourists she encounters. It’s pretty riotous and Stritch (naturally) still brought down the house when she reprised it in At Liberty.

Somehow I Never Could Believe” – Street Scene (Kurt Weill-Langston Hughes; 1947; Adelphi – 148 performances). Elmer Rice‘s tragedy became the basis for this ambitious “American opera” with some glorious results. Combining legitimate opera with musical comedy (more of the former than the latter), there are a great many aural wonders (“Ain’t it Awful the Heat,” “Lonely House,” “Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed”), but it is this daring seven minute aria that captivated me on the first listen. Weill and Hughes took the traditional character am/want song and used it to tell us the history of the character of ill-fated Anna Maurrant. She sings of her hopes and dreams of her childhood and of how she watched those dreams die trapped in a loveless marriage in the tenements of NYC; a display of her loneliness and eventual optimism that things will be better. The song requires a dramatic soprano – basically something only the truly proficient in opera should attempt. A powerhouse of a showstopper. It would be nice if City Opera could get Victoria Clark for the role of Anna. Perhaps keep it in the Lincoln Center family and cast Kelli O’Hara and Aaron Lazar in the roles of the young lovers.

“All the Things You Are” – Very Warm for May (Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II; 1939; Alvin – 59 performances). The most beautiful song ever written. Well, if not, it’s certainly one of them. If you get the chance, you should hear the original orchestration for this number for a baritone and coloratura. Spellbinding is the word. There is a recording of the original cast from a radio broadcast, as well as a recreation on John McGlinn’s Broadway Showstoppers CD with Rebecca Luker.

“Children of the Wind,”/”Blame it on the Summer Night”/”Rags” – Rags (Charles Strouse-Stephen Schwartz; 1986; Mark Hellinger – 4 performances). Teresa Stratas was Rebecca, the heroine in this musical about a Jewish immigrant discovering injustice and fighting political corruption on the lower East Side of Manhattan. Consider it a sort of ‘post-Fiddler’ attempt at the immigrant experience in America. The show had little advance and poor notices and folded quickly. But it has a stunner of a score. The first song is a powerhouse aria in which Rebecca dreams of a home for herself and her son. The second is a delicious bluesy number with a scintillating orchestration and a seductive lyric in which Rebecca realizes she’s falling in love. The third is an angry indictment of the social stratifications of the time delivered by the ill-fated Bella, played by Judy Kuhn (who received a Tony nomination). The original cast album, recorded in 1991, features Julia Migenes in the place of Stratas.

Outstanding songs from flop shows

Let it be known, I love my flops. I have been fascinated by them for years, ever since my interest in Broadway musicals became deeply profound in late 2000, early 2001 and I decided I wanted every recording ever made. That was the year I first sampled Sondheim; Bernstein (aside from West Side Story) and I heard my first genuine flop score: Candide. This fascination continued to grow until I wanted to hear every possible score out there. I never realized that I would hear some of the songs on this list, but I have been fortunately blessed to know them.

Here are a few of my favorite flop numbers, perhaps the first in a series of blogs, perhaps not. We’ll see. Order is random; just as they come to me.

“One More Walk Around the Garden” – Carmelina (Burton Lane-Alan Jay Lerner; 1979; St. James: 17 performances) An adaptation of the popular Gina Lollobrigida film, Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (one woman; her daughter; the three former WWII GI’s who could be the father – elements conspicuously present in Mamma Mia) features this hauntingly simplistic and poignantly nostalgic trio for the three soldiers as they reminisce. Achingly beautiful.

“Sur Le Quais” – Lolita, My Love (John Barry- Alan Jay Lerner; 1971; closed closed out of town in Boston) Dorothy Loudon‘s performance as Charlotte Haze is perhaps the greatest thing this ill-fated adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov‘s extraordinary novel has to offer. In looking at the material as an example of creating an adaptation, it works well; the pederasty is just plain uncomfortable to stomach when dramatized, especially in a musical. Loudon stopped the show with this Gallic-flavored romp with Humbert midway through the first act.

Duet for One (The First Lady of the Land)” – 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (Leonard Bernstein- Alan Jay Lerner; 1976; Mark Hellinger: 7 performances) A musical covering race relations and the first one hundred years of the White House. Lofty ambitions basically did the show in the from beginning. With a libretto that plays more like a musical revue than a book show; and two actors (Ken Howard and the divine Patricia Routledge) serving as each President and First Lady, the show’s strength is in its performers and its score. There is not enough time in a 2 1/2 hour musical to possibly cover all the ground that I’m sure the creative team hoped to. The show never completely gelled; much was changed and revised and the show was a critical and financial disaster in NY, lasting a week; and Bernstein refused to allow the original cast album to be made, which is unfortunate. In this act two showstopper, one of the most daunting and brilliantly conceived in a flop or hit, Routledge switches between the characters of Julia Grant and Lucy Hayes at the inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes. For almost nine minutes; we get the history of the election, the end of the era of Reconstruction and racial commentary thrown in among the barbed insults the character hurl at one another. She’s a schizophrenic marvel as she created two clearly delineated characters while utilizing a chest resonance for one and a coloratura soprano for the other. Genius.

“Glitter and Be Gay” – Candide (Leonard Bernstein-Richard Wilbur, John LaTouche, & Dorothy Parker; 1956; Martin Beck: 73 performances). Sure, it’s gone on to glory in opera repertories and numerous revivals around the world – and its overture is a popular favorite among classical orchestras. But Candide was a pretty hefty flop in 1956, dividing critics (still does) and just not pulling in the business. Barbara Cook, that legend divine, received one of the most difficult piece for sopranos in the musical theatre canon (hell, and opera) with this demanding coloratura soprano aria. Not only are you expected to hit high Eb’s above C, you must also be witty, satiric and hilarious. Eight times a week. It goes without saying that Cook’s rendition is definitive.

“It’s Enough to Make a Lady Fall in Love”/”Let’s See What Happens”/”Not on Your Nellie” – Darling of the Day (Jules Styne-E.Y. Harburg; 1968; George Abbott: 32 performances). See my yesterday’s post.

“He Had Refinement” – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Arthur Schwartz-Dorothy Fields; 1951; Alvin: 267 performances). Speculation as to the failure of this problematic yet endearing musical of the Betty Smith novel (brilliant bildungsroman I might add; yes I was an English major) was due to the rearrangement in structure, with the novel’s protagonist Francie taking a back seat to the parents (this included her absence from the entire first act as well). Also Shirley Booth, who received top billing for her part as Cissy, a secondary character, seemed to have thrown off the balance of the show because she walked away with it in her pocket. The force that is Booth displayed her requisite earthy charm, gracious down-to-earth humor and effortless star quality throughout the evening. The most memorable of these moments was her loving recollection of her “first Harry” in laugh out loud hilarious “He Had Refinement.” (An honorable mention here to the glorious yet underrated act one finale, the soaring “I’ll Buy You a Star”).

“And I Was Beautiful” – Dear World (Jerry Herman; 1969; Mark Hellinger: 132 performances). There is much to enjoy in Herman’s score: the showstopping “I Don’t Want to Know,” the intricate trio “The Tea Party,” “Kiss Her Now” and “I’ve Never Said I Love You” could all fit the bill here, but for me it is this devastating ballad about the loss of love – and the effects time has on said loss – sung by a resplendent Angela Lansbury as the Madwoman of Chaillot.

“Sez I/If It Isn’t Everything” – Donnybrook! (Johnny Burke; 1961; 46th Street: 68 performances) The musical version of the highly popular The Quiet Man didn’t fare well on Broadway, but possesses a delightful score, with performances from Art Lund, Joan Fagan, Eddie Foy Jr and the ever reliable Susan Johnson. Ellen Roe Danaher (Mary Kate in the film), played by Fagan, sings this spirited Celtic jig, one of the liveliest numbers to ever open a musical, in which she explains to her family her philosophies on love – and how she hasn’t found the right man. Think of it as a fiery, belty Irish cousin to Brigadoon’s “Waitin’ for My Dearie” and Oklahoma!’s “Many a New Day.”

“A Time for Singing” – A Time for Singing (John Morris-Gerald Freedman; 1966; Broadway: 41 performances). Tessie O’Shea leads this exuberant title song here; a musical adaptation of How Green Was My Valley that has a woefully unknown gem of a score. Nothing but sheer joy emanates from this song. Encores!, come on!

“Please Hello” – Pacific Overtures. (Stephen Sondheim; 1976; Winter Garden: 193 performances). Only Sondheim could write a showstopper that effectively told the history of Western imperialism in Japan in the 19th century. He cleverly uses a musical style from each country represented to characterize the national diplomacy (Sousa march for the US, Gilbert and Sullivan patter for England, can-can for France, etc.). It’s a nine minute history lesson that works wonders.

If I could, I would post each song on here, but I don’t think that’s possible.

On this day in 1968…

Darling of the Day opened at the George Abbott Theatre in New York City. The musical by Jule Styne and Yip Harburg was based on the Arnold Bennett novel Buried Alive, a decidedly Anglophilic romp in which a nobleman artist assumes the identity of his deceased manservant “to get out of the world alive.” In doing so, he also takes up the deceased’s correspondence with a widow from Putney, named Alice Challice. Anyway, a convoluted farce ensues where he paints under his pseudonym and is found out by snobbish art dealers. This leads to a courtroom climax that brings about a conclusion with a decidedly Gilbert & Sullivan-esque flair.
The show’s creative process was less than happy. Darling of the Day went through various directors (4), choreographers (2), book writers (5) and titles (2) and the show opening in NY without a credited librettist (a death knell for a musical; Nunnally Johnson insisted his name be taken off the show). The revolving door also included Peter Wood, S.N. Behrman, Albert Marre, Stephen Vinaver (who was hired and fired twice) and Peter Gennaro among others. In spite of the mess created by such a tumultuous tryout period, the show managed to allow the effervescent Patricia Routledge to shine in the role of the spirited widow. The cast album is a marvel for the strength of Styne’s music and the cleverness of Harburg’s lyrics, with Routledge getting the best of the material. Every one of her numbers in the show is worth hearing: “It’s Enough to Make a Lady Fall in Love,” “A Gentleman’s Gentleman,” the devastatingly beautiful waltz “Let’s See What Happens,” a lost gem of a ballad “That Extra Something Special,” and her rousing piece d’resistance, her eleven o’clocker “Not on Your Nellie.”
Routledge stole the show from the non-singing Vincent Price and won the show’s general acclaim. Darling couldn’t withstand the initial critical drubbing it received and shuttered after 32 performances. The show would (fortunately for all) record a cast album; Routledge would win the Tony award for Best Actress in a Musical, tying with Leslie Uggams who appeared in Jule Styne’s hit-flop/flop-hit Hallelujah, Baby! (Talk about book trouble).

As per Walter Kerr: [Routledge gives] “the most spectacular, most scrumptious, most embraceable musical comedy debut since Beatrice Lillie and Gertrude Lawrence came to this country … I understand there are some insane people going around this town saying that they didn’t care all that much for Darling of the Day. I’d stay away from them if I were you. I warn you: if you don’t catch her act now, you’ll someday want to kill yourself.”

Talk about a notice.

The original cast album is now woefully out of print, though it was issued on CD by RCA Victor in the late 1990s. There are copies available used on amazon and also through Arkiv Music (a CD-R with reproductions of original liner notes). The show plays on record as a hit, as many flops scores do. (I forgot to mention that Ralph Burns was the orchestrator). There is also a rare recording of the opening night performance, muddied and poor quality, but you’d never believe the show was a disaster from the way the audience responds, particularly to Routledge. (Her ovation for “Not on Your Nellie” went on so long, she had to plead with the audience to let the show continue).

And now, my new favorite flop is 40 years old. It’s not often revived; though there were recent attempts at revisions, including the version presented at Musicals in Mufti a few year’s back (featuring Rebecca Luker). If we’re lucky, Encores! will present this delightful obscurity as part of their series starring Victoria Clark as Alice.

Of course, an ideal season would also include the long forgotten A Time for Singing and Donnybrook! (How about it, Encores?)