Q & A: 7/22/05
A: Lynn Duddy contributed words and music to several Broadway revues, including Tickets Please 1950, with Paul and Grace Hartman, Jack Albertson, and Larry Kert. Together, Duddy and Bresler collaborated on at least one Broadway musical. It was called Spotlight, starred Gene Barry, and closed during its out-of-town tryout in 1978. The music was by Bresler, the lyrics by Duddy, and the book by Richard Seff. The flyer for the Washington, D.C. engagement describes the plot thusly: "Spotlight centers around Jack Beaumont, a song-and-dance man who became a Hollywood superstar during the golden age of movie musicals, but at the same time lost touch with his two children. His career is ending. Theirs are beginning." Barry's supporting cast included Lenora Nemetz, David Carroll then David-James Carroll, D'Jamin Bartlett, Polly Rowles, and Marc Jordan.
Q: In the late 1980s there was a Japanese TV broadcast of 42nd Street with some of the original cast preserving the original Broadway production. With the current conversion of so many Broadway musicals onto DVD, will they ever be releasing this 42nd Street so we can enjoy a clear production without the Japanese subtitles and inferior quality found on bootleg copies?---Mike Canestraro
A: A touring American production of 42nd Street was telecast live from Tokyo in August, 1986. The company included original cast members Lee Roy Reams and Carole Cook. From other versions came Jamie Ross, Elizabeth Allen, and Clare Leach in other leading roles.
I would love to see this on home video, but I rather doubt it will happen. As was the case with the Will Rogers Follies Broadway videotape that was also shown in Japan, I don't believe that the contracts for these telecasts involved commercial release or U.S. telecast. If I'm correct about that, it would mean that, in order for a commercial release to happen, negotiations would have to ensue with the many parties involved in the productions, and that would, no doubt, prove costly.
Then too, I'm not sure those involved with 42nd Street rights would want the tape released, as the recent Broadway revival made significant changes to the material, including the addition of a couple of songs. But the Japan 42nd Street tape stands as a fine document of the original, and has no doubt been used as a reference by many who have staged productions of the show around the world.
Q: What ever happened to the Emmy Award presentation of the original cast of Ain't Misbehavin' ? I have not seen this production in years. Will it ever be released on DVD, or simply rebroadcast? I thought that it would reemerge after Nell Carter's passing, yet there is no sign of this occurring.---Cedric, Fredericksburg, VA
A: Featuring the entire original Broadway cast, the TV production of Ain't Misbehavin' was first aired on NBC in 1983. I'm not sure if there was a commercial release of the tape, although I could swear I held a VHS copy of it in my hand at the video store that used to be on the corner of Broadway and West 49th Street.
In later years, the Ain't Misbehavin' videotape showed up on Showtime. But I know of no telecast or release since then. It's one of a number of TV tapes from the period that certainly merit commercial consideration.
Q: After seeing The New Moon at Encores!, it seems a pity that we no longer get any operettas on Broadway. The last one that I can recall seeing is The Pirates of Penzance. Do you think that a full production of The New Moon or any other operetta could be successful on Broadway today?---Rick Schwabish
A: I would love to think so. But I just don't believe there would be a big enough audience for a New Moon or similar operetta on Broadway these days, even in reinvented form. As far as the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire goes, there could still be the possibility of a reinvention of one of those works, along the lines of The Black Mikado or The Hot Mikado. But even something like that would be a long shot these days. In New York City, the best place for grand-scale operetta remains New York City Opera, which still occasionally mounts a Gilbert and Sullivan piece, even if they no longer seem to be doing the New Moons and Desert Songss they once staged.
Q: Did or did not Eleanor Parker ever perform as Vera in Pal Joey at Circle in the Square? I know she quit, I know she and Edward Villela did not open in the show, but I saw both of them in previews. On a message board, someone claimed she never went on at all due to cold feet.---Maria Ciaccia
A: In the 1976 Broadway revival of Pal Joey at Circle in the Square, original leads Eleanor Parker and Edward Villella both appeared in early preview performances; a live audio tape exists that preserves their performances. Parker and Villella were both gone from the show by the time it opened, their roles taken on opening night and thereafter by Joan Copeland and Christopher Chadman.
Q: I have a question for you and hope you can answer it. It has to do with the term "flop" used in describing musicals or plays. There is a discussion going on over on the Broadway.com board around the definition of the term "flop." I always assumed a flop musical or play was one that was critically lambasted and closed in shame i.e., Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, or critically praised but closed within months of opening anyway, due to audience disinterest. Other posters tell me I am wrong and the following is the correct definition of a flop musical: "Any musical that does not make back its initial investment is considered a flop. A flop is a monetary term only when describing musicals."
I disagree, as there are many shows that have opened, run for awhile to audience favor a couple of years or the duration of a limited run and closed without making back the initial investment money i.e. The Life, Footloose, etc. So, are they to be considered flops?---Helen
A: I believe "flop" is a broad term that can be defined in a number of ways. For the purposes of my book Not Since Carrie: 40 Years of Broadway Musical Flops, I defined a flop as a musical that ran under 250 performances and did not return its investment. A show like The Roar of the Greasepaint---The Smell of the Crowd managed, thanks to a pre-Broadway tour, to make back its investment in under 250 performances.
I did not define "flop" as a show that failed to return its investment, because there would have been far too many titles to include. Indeed, celebrated shows like Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods failed to return their investment in their initial Broadway runs.
However, some sources, like Variety, tend to define "flop" just that way: as a show that failed to return its investment. And yes, by that standard, many distinguished shows were flops. I choose to draw a line between financial flops and artistic flops. Many shows that failed to return their investment were strong shows.
But your definition of "flop" --as a show that closed quickly and in shame like Whorehouse Goes Public or Dance of the Vampires or closed because of audience apathy like Little Women-- is equally acceptable.
Q: What ever happened video wise to the I think HBO production of Plaza Suite with Jerry Orbach and Lee Grant? Sure would be great to have for the Orbach performance.---Larry Schiff
A: Like any number of other early-'80s HBO or Showtime TV productions of plays and musicals i.e. Gemini, The Robber Bridegroom, The Rainmaker, Wait Until Dark, Something's Afoot, Barefoot in the Park, HBO's Plaza Suite survives in the collections of those who taped it, but has never been otherwise released. Plaza Suite is noteworthy because, in addition to Orbach, it preserves Grant in the roles she took on the show's national tour. Grant also appears in the Plaza Suite film, in the third segment only; in the HBO production, as in the theatre, she does all three acts.
Q: Many years back, I seem to remember seeing Mary Martin live in something called Three to Make Music. Does this ring a bell, and is there a recording?---Harold Adler
A: During the 1958-1959 season, Mary Martin toured the country in two alternating programs, Music with Mary Martin and Magic with Mary Martin. The latter was the matinee show, aimed at young audiences, and included "Three to Make Music," a piece about audiences and their relationship to an orchestra, written by Richard Rodgers' daughters, Linda R. Melnick music and Mary Rodgers lyrics and script. Martin would soon be starring in their father's The Sound of Music on Broadway.
Dancer-clown Dirk Sanders appeared with the star in both programs. Magic with Mary Martin also included a solo adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, fashioned by Mary Rodgers; a medley of songs from Disney films; and a segment devoted to Peter Pan.
The evening shows, Music with Mary Martin, also featured guitarist Luiz Bonfa as well as dixieland and jazz groups, and included songs from Martin's career as well as many new to her.
On Easter Sunday, 1959, Martin performed one-hour versions of both shows live on NBC-TV. An RCA-Victor LP features songs from Cinderella on the first side, then "Three to Make Music" on the second. Dirk Sanders is the only other soloist on the recording.
Q: Who were the replacements for Diana Rigg, Julia McKenzie, and Dolores Gray in the London production of Follies?---Martin Ross
A: Diana Rigg was replaced by Millicent Martin, Dolores Gray by Eartha Kitt. I believe that Julia McKenzie remained as Sally for the entire run. When Martin joined the cast, McKenzie was reunited with her old Side by Side by Sondheim pal and co-star.
Other replacements in the 1987 London Follies included Hope Jackman Oliver!'s original Mrs. Corney for Margaret Courtenay; Meg Johnson London Chicago revival's original Mama Morton for Lynda Baron; Eileen Page for Adele Leigh; and Harold Kasket for Leonard Sachs.
Q: What can you tell me about the show How to Be a Jewish Mother, and was it a musical or not?---Ed Bennett
A: How to Be a Jewish Mother was a revue-like semi-musical, based on a popular, humorous book by Dan Greenburg. The show played New York's Hudson Theatre then a Broadway house in late 1967, lasting twenty-one performances. The cast consisted of comedian-actor Godfrey Cambridge and Yiddish theatre veteran and Milk and Honey co-star Molly Picon, the latter a natural for the subject matter.
How to Be a Jewish Mother had five songs, written by the talented team of Michael Leonard music and Herbert Martin lyrics. Two years earlier, they had composed the attractive songs for the Broadway musical flop The Yearling.
Q: I see that Guys and Dolls is being revived in London. How many times has that musical been done there previously?---Carol S.
A: That's a tricky question. The first London production, in 1953 at the Coliseum, ran 555 performances and featured Vivian Blaine, Sam Levene, Stubby Kaye, Johnny Silver, and Tom Pedi from Broadway, along with Jerry Wayne Sky and Lizbeth Webb Sarah.
Things get trickier because of the many incarnations of the celebrated National Theatre production, directed by Richard Eyre, that had its premiere at the Olivier in 1982. The original leads were Bob Hoskins, Julia McKenzie, Ian Charleson, Julie Covington, and David Healy. During the run, Hoskins was replaced by Trevor Peacock, McKenzie by Imelda Staunton Vera Drake, Charleson by Paul Jones, and Covington by Fiona Hendley.
In 1985, the National Theatre production re-opened, this time in the West End, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, with Lulu, Norman Rossington, Clarke Peters, Betsy Brantley, and David Healy.
In 1996, the National Theatre production was revived at the Olivier. Clarke Peters was again Sky, Imelda Staunton was again Adelaide, with Henry Goodman as Nathan, Joanna Riding as Sarah, and Clive Rowe as Nicely-Nicely.
When the new production of Guys and Dolls opened at the Piccadilly Theatre this spring, it was only nine years since London last saw a musical it can't seem to get enough of.