{"id":3691,"date":"2011-09-30T21:42:36","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T01:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/?p=3691"},"modified":"2011-12-03T14:45:27","modified_gmt":"2011-12-03T19:45:27","slug":"a-look-at-purlie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/?p=3691","title":{"rendered":"A Look at “Purlie”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Purlie<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>a musical adaptation of\u00a0Ossie Davis’ 1964 comedy Purlie Victorious,\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0about a\u00a0charismatic and enterprising black preacher who goes head to head with a bigoted plantation owner. The show, with a highly entertaining score<\/a> by Gary Geld and Peter Udell, opened at the Broadway Theatre in 1970 and ran for 688 performances, winning two Tonys including one for star\u00a0Cleavon Little. It was revived in 1972, for 14 performances and was ultimately\u00a0taped for TV<\/a> in 1981 with several members of the original\u00a0company, which also included The Jeffersons’ <\/em>star\u00a0Sherman Hemsley. Starring in the TV version was Robert Guillaume, who replaced Little in the Broadway company and was making a name for himself as Benson.\u00a0(The following\u00a0clips are from said TV version).<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Purlie\u00a0<\/em>opens differently than most musical\u00a0comedies: the\u00a0curtain rises on what appears to be a solemn funeral. Kicking off the show was Linda Hopkins, the\u00a0choir soloist, who leads the\u00a0congregation in the rousing “Walk Him Up the Stairs,” which stars as a solemn gospel hymn and quickly evolves into\u00a0a high-octane showstopper:<\/p>\n

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Melba Moore, who had made a splash as Dionne in the original Broadway\u00a0cast of Hair, <\/em>walked home with the Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical as Lutiebelle, Purlie’s love interest. Moore is a vocal powerhouse whose pyrotechnics and stage presence made her the toast of the 1969-70 Broadway season. Here she is strutting her way through the show’s title song:<\/p>\n

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The title song went over so well out of town that the\u00a0creators decided that Moore needed another song. They quickly came up with a showstopper like none other. Starting out plaintive and quiet, “I Got Love” takes off into the stratosphere once Moore sings the word “love.” What followed were vocal pyrotechnics of the highest order and Ms. Moore brought the show to a halt with this powerhouse tour de force (plus encore):<\/p>\n

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Purlie,\u00a0a musical adaptation of\u00a0Ossie Davis’ 1964 comedy Purlie Victorious,\u00a0is\u00a0about a\u00a0charismatic and enterprising black preacher who goes head to head with a bigoted plantation owner. The show, with a highly entertaining score by Gary Geld and Peter Udell, opened at the Broadway Theatre in 1970 and ran for 688 performances, winning two Tonys including one for … Continue reading A Look at “Purlie”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1220,1223,2332,1222,1221,2331,1219],"class_list":["post-3691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gary-geld","tag-linda-hopkins","tag-melba-moore","tag-ossie-davis","tag-philip-udell","tag-purlie","tag-robert-guillaume"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3691"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3795,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3691\/revisions\/3795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}