Preview '05-'06: Schoolgirls
Burnett's novel concerns seven-year-old Sara Crewe, who is placed in Miss Minchin's boarding school in London so that Sara's father, Captain Crewe, can return to India, where the girl previously lived. Because of her wealth, Sara is treated as a special girl by Miss Minchin, even though Sarah is democratic in her behavior to all. But then Sara's father dies in India, and, to make matters worse, his business partner absconds with her father's money. Sarah is reduced to the role of servant at the school. But her spirit never falters, and she is eventually rescued from her plight.
A Little Princess has been a non-musical play as well as a ballet. Its numerous film versions include a 1939 picture starring Shirley Temple and a 1995 film directed by Alfonso Cuaron. In the summer of 2004, a straightforward musical adaptation of the novel, under the title A Little Princess, had its world premiere at Theatreworks in Palo Alto, California. The book and lyrics were by Brian Crawley Violet, the music by Andrew Lippa off-Broadway's Wild Party. Will Chase Lennon played Captain Crewe. The director was Susan H. Schulman, who directed Broadway's The Secret Garden and last season staged another musicalization of a novel about young ladies, Little Women.
A Little Princess had been announced for Broadway, but unfavorable reviews seem to have halted its progress. And just as Lippa had to contend with a competing Wild Party musical back in 2000, another Little Princess musical was in the works at the same time. But Princesses, the title of the competing show, has a concept that could help sell Burnett's story to contemporary audiences, in which a group of private-school girls stage a dramatization of A Little Princess with the help of one girl's movie-star father.
With a book by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner, music by Matthew Wilder Mulan, and lyrics, direction, and conception by David Zippel City of Angels, The Goodbye Girl, Princesses had its world premiere at Goodspeed's Norma Terris Theatre in November, 2004. The cast included Rex Smith and Jenny Fellner as father and daughter, along with Donna English and Matt Cavenaugh. Here's how the Goodspeed press release described the show: "Like most boarding school girls, these hip teens hate music class, love shopping, and have no interest in putting on a show. Enter America's hottest action hero to direct the school play. All the girls are crazy for him, except for one-his daughter who barely knows him. Will she finally have a real father, or will he head back to Hollywood when he gets a better offer?"
Princesses is currently getting its pre-Broadway run at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre, where Hairspray began its charmed life and where the new musical version of The Wedding Singer will be seen later this season. Retained from the Goodspeed Princesses cast are Fellner as the daughter of the action star, and Donna English, as the music teacher who doubles in the play-within-a-play as headmistress Miss Minchin. New to the cast are Brent Barrett as the action-hero father, and Storm Newton as a younger Hollywood hunk.
This is a big fall for Zippel, what with Princesses, with which the lyricist makes his directorial debut, and the Broadway arrival of Zippel's collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Woman in White.
There can be little doubt that Princesses would like to tap into the enormous audience of young women who have taken Wicked to their hearts. Of course, that audience did not embrace last season's Little Women in sufficient numbers to allow that show to have a run. But Princesses' contemporary framework may help make Burnett's tale more appealing to today's young audiences.
It would also be nice to see Barrett create a role in a new musical on Broadway. Most of his work in recent years has been taking over leads in revivals Chicago, Annie Get Your Gun, the London Kiss Me, Kate. The choreography for Princesses is by Rob Ashford, Tony winner for Thoroughly Modern Millie who recently staged the dances for the London revival of Guys and Dolls.