Q & A: 10/17/05
A: Tring Records' 1996 London/RNT cast recording of A Little Night Music certainly seems to rank as one of the most difficult-to-obtain of recent show CDs. It was never officially released in the U.S., and was available here only as an import at collectors' shops. No doubt copies of the Tring Night Music turn up from time to time on Ebay, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the recording eventually reissued, if only because it stars Judi Dench.
The recording is definitely worth seeking out as a fine second-choice Night Music, after the original Broadway set. That's because, in addition to a good cast, the RNT recording has a couple of unusual items, like the restoration of "My Husband, the Pig," and the combination of the stage and screen versions of "The Glamorous Life."
Q: There was a PBS concert with Barbara Cook that was televised in the 1980s. I thought it was London but it might have been Wolf Trap.....What was the title of the program and when was it televised? Has this program ever been put out on VHS commercially?---Eli Jacobson
A: I believe you're thinking of the early-'80s PBS telecast "An Evening with Barbara Cook," which I believe was taped at Wolf Trap. The hour-long program offered an excellent preservation of Cook's typical concert program of the period. No, it has never been commercially released. Other Cook TV concerts include a '70s "Camera Three" CBS half-hour, a 1996 Melbourne, Australia one-hour concert, and a 2002 PBS "Evening at Pops." And of course there's the DVD of Cook's Mostly Sondheim show.
Q: I was wondering if you knew of any plans to release on DVD the award-winning TV special "Liza with a Z." Recently, it seems that several obscure broadcasts have been released and I would think that this special, whose soundtrack has never gone out of print, would be a natural for release. I'm sure there would be thousands waiting to snatch it up and see the original Fosse choreography as it was meant to be seen. I've never seen any of the show, either in clips or any kind of bootleg VHS, so it's possible, I'm sure, that there are rights issues preventing it. What do you know? And while I'm asking, how about the original "Evening Primrose," which I saw once at the Museum of TV and Radio, but has never been commercially available?---Robb Neale, Corona, CA
A: It was recently announced that "Liza with a Z" will be re-aired for the first time in decades by the cable TV network Showtime this coming spring, and that telecast is expected to be followed by a DVD release. As for "Evening Primrose," a DVD release of that intriguing, underrated Sondheim television musical would surely be welcome.
Q: Recently discussed here were the factors which contribute to the word "flop" in showbiz terms. Since the explanation seemed to go round-and-round somewhat, let's apply it to a recent specific: What about All Shook Up?---Mark Dereng, Wheeling, IL
A: All Shook Up got a number of very good reviews and lasted on Broadway for six months. Still, it must rank as a flop, both for the length of its run and for the fact that the show's investment was not returned. All Shook Up does, however, rank as one of the better flops of recent years, a show that was about as good as a number of hits.
Q: In Annie Get Your Gun, the Peter Stone edition features both the characters of Winnie and Dolly Tate, but the film version and, I believe, the Music Theatre of Lincoln Center edition only feature Dolly Tate. Am I correct in believing that the original production only featured Winnie Tate and her number "Who Do You Love I Hope"?---J.V. Curtis
A: The original 1946 Broadway production of Annie Get Your Gun featured both Winnie and Dolly Tate, but there's an important distinction. In that original, Dolly was Winnie's mother. In Peter Stone's revision for the 1999 Broadway revival, Dolly and Winnie became sisters. Winnie was eliminated in the film and Music Theatre of Lincoln Center versions. In both the '46 Broadway original and the Stone revival, Winnie and boyfriend Tommy Keeler shared two duets, "Who Do You Love I Hope" and "I'll Share It All With You."
Q: Which of the productions of Threepenny Opera you cited {in a recent article}--the de Lys an obvious one--has been recorded? Was Beggar's Holiday ever put to wax?---Chris Van Ness
A: Both the 1954 off-Broadway revival of Threepenny Opera that played the de Lys and the 1976 Lincoln Center revival were recorded. The first is an indispensable disc, available on a Decca Broadway CD. Columbia's Lincoln Center cast recording, featuring a harsher performance, has yet to make it to CD.
The 1989 Broadway revival of Threepenny went unrecorded. That's fairly surprising, considering recording star Sting was the leading man. But then the production was a critical and commercial failure, and its short life cancelled any recording plans.
No commercial recording of the Duke Ellington-John Latouche Beggar's Holiday 1946 was made, but a private demo tape featuring stars Alfred Drake and Avon Long was discovered and released as one side of a Blue Pear LP. The other side features the score of the London musical Bet Your Life.
Q: I just happened to listen to Sweet Charity and Pal Joey yesterday on a long car trip and noticed that Helen Gallagher was in both. I know she was also in No, No, Nanette. What can you tell me about her and her formidable career? And was she considered a Broadway "star" - or a trouper that worked a lot?---Brian Semple
A: After well-received featured work in High Button Shoes, Make a Wish, and Pal Joey winning a featured Tony for the latter, Helen Gallagher became a full-fledged Broadway musical star with Jule Styne's Hazel Flagg in 1953. Because the show wasn't successful and Gallagher did not receive rapturous praise in her leading-lady debut, her career as a star stalled, and she became a replacement The Pajama Game and City Center performer. She was further hindered by her next Broadway starring vehicle, Portofino 1958, considered to be one of the worst flops of its time.
Sweet Charity 1966 was a partial comeback, giving her a good supporting role and the chance to understudy and replace star Gwen Verdon. After that, it was back to appearing in flops Cry for Us All and replacing a fine Gooch in Mame, until a major comeback, in the hit revival of No, No, Nanette 1971, for which she won a second Tony. Since then, Gallagher's musical career has included the unsuccessful off-Broadway vehicle Tallulah. I also saw her make an excellent stock appearance in Neil Simon's The Gingerbread Lady. A highly talented survivor, Gallagher supplemented her stage work with a TV success on the soap opera "Ryan's Hope."
Q: I see that Frank Wildhorn's latest musical was about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, with Jarrod Emick and Lauren Kennedy playing those characters. Wasn't there another musical about the same couple in recent years?---Harry K.
A: Yes. The recent London flop Beautiful and Damned was also about Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Like many a London musical flop, the 2004 show played the Shaftesbury Theatre, with a book by Kit Hesketh Harvey and a score by Les Reed and Roger Cook. The leads were Michael Praed, Helen Anker, David Burt, and Susannah Fellows.
Q: A friend says that the Broadway musical Sarava had an LP cast album release. Is this true? How come I've never come across it?---Ed Bennett
A: The label Roadshow Records had the cast album rights for the 1979 Mitch Leigh/N. Richard Nash Broadway musical Sarava. Although the show lasted five months and even moved from one theatre Mark Hellinger to another Broadway, no cast album was made.
But Roadshow Records did release a twelve-inch "disco"-style single of two numbers, the title song and "You Do," and this is probably the LP your friend is thinking of. On the label, no solo artists are billed, but it does state that the recordings were "produced under the direction of Mitch Leigh."
Q: Aside from a couple of concert versions, has Chess had a staged production in New York City since the original? And what do you think the show's chances of success would be in a Broadway revival, which the Shuberts are said to be interested in doing?---Martin Moore
A: In 1992, Chess had a strange but intriguing, small-scale restaging at the Master Theatre, formerly the home of Equity Library Theatre. It was presented by a company that called itself The Artists' Perspective, an organization that seems to have quickly disappeared. Like every new staging of Chess, it featured a substantial revision of the original material, including opening with "Merano" and giving "Someone Else's Story" to Svetlana. The leads in a cast of fourteen were Kathleen Rowe McAllen, J. Mark McVey, Ray Walker, Patrick Jude, Jan Horvath, and Bob Frisch.
While I'm among the many who admire the score of Chess, I suspect that concert stagings like the one offered two years ago by the Actors Fund are the best bet for Chess. I'm dubious about the prospects of a full-scale New York revival, as the local critics have tended to be very divided about the piece, and the show has remained a cult item that would not automatically be a big attraction.
Q: I am a big fan of the score of Sunset Boulevard. Could you tell me how many foreign-language recordings there are of the show?---Ellen Morris
A: Unlike most Andrew Lloyd Webber shows, Sunset Boulevard didn't travel the world extensively. Alas, there is only one full-length foreign-language cast recording, the German cast CD starring Helen Schneider and Uwe Kroger. Schneider also recorded a pop single of "Ein Gutes Jahr," featuring "The Perfect Year" in German and English versions.
The only other recording to note here is the CD made of Daniela Ziegler, who replaced Schneider in the German Sunset. Like Betty Buckley, Petula Clark, Linda Balgord, and Faith Brown, Ziegler got her own mini-CD of selections from the show, including, in German of course, "With One Look," "The Perfect Year," and "As If We Never Said Goodbye."
Q: I recently listened to the CD of Romance/Romance and found it to be delightful. What are your recollections of the show?---Martin Raines
A: Romance/Romance premiered in late 1987 at off-off-Broadway's Actor's Outlet Theater, then transferred to Broadway's Helen Hayes Theater in the spring of 1988, with three of its four original cast members; Scott Bakula took over the role created by Dennis Parlato who was in Broadway's short-lived Chess at the time of the Romance transfer.
Romance/Romance received generally good reviews, although it was fortunate in being re-reviewed in The New York Times by the same third-string critic who had reviewed it favorably off-Broadway; when first-string Times critic Frank Rich reviewed the Broadway production on the radio, his comments were negative. Romance/Romance received five Tony nominations including Best Musical, and lasted 297 performances.
Romance/Romance was actually two musicals in one, both adaptations written by Barry Harman and performed by the same four actors. The first, The Little Comedy, from a story by Arthur Schnitzler, was set in turn-of-the-century Vienna, and concerned two bored aristocrats in search of romance who masquerade as poor bourgeois. In the second half, Summer Share, based on a play by Jules Renard, two present-day couples share a house in the Hamptons. The wife of one and the husband of the other ponder an affair, but decide to remain faithful to their spouses.
With music by Keith Herrman and lyrics by Harman, the score is pleasant, unpretentious, and professional work. But I would say that leads Alison Fraser and Bakula contributed enormously to the charms of a show that were real but slender. In a staging based on the Broadway original, Romance/Romance was later seen in an A&E cable TV production, but with John Herrera and Susan Moniz in the Bakula-Fraser roles.