Q & A: 1/30/06
A: Yes. I believe that Broderick did at least one reading or workshop as Leo Frank for what became the 1998 Lincoln Center Theater musical Parade. Broderick's involvement was during the period when Parade was still scheduled to be a Livent/Garth Drabinsky production. The drawing of Leo Frank in the show's logo actually looks somewhat like Broderick, perhaps more than it looks like Brent Carver, who wound up playing the role.
Q: In the publicity for the new TV Once Upon a Mattress, Carol Burnett has been saying that she would like her next TV musical project to be built around the music of famous composers. Didn't Burnett do something similar to this on stage some years back?---Ed Bennett
A: Yes. In 1993, Carol Burnett made her return to stage musicals at California's Long Beach Civic Light Opera in a show called From the Top! Billed as "three intimate musical comedies," From the Top was conceived and written by Burnett's pals Ken and Mitzie Welch and co-starred Ken Berry, Gary Beach, John McCook, Wanda Richert-Preston, and Annie McGreevey. Glenn Casale was the director, John McDaniel the musical director.
In a manner similar to sketches Burnett had done on her TV series, each of the three one-act musicals was built around the work of a celebrated songwriter. "My Walking Stick" featured the songs of Irving Berlin. "One Night in Marrakech" had songs by Cole Porter. And "That Simpson Woman," in which Burnett played Wallis Simpson, used the lyrics of Ira Gershwin.
Q: Just finished your column on "Recent Broadway Nights" and had a question: It seems John Doyle is taking his actor/musician approach to Company and other shows to be staged in the near future. Any ideas on how you think that approach will translate to other shows?---John W. Griffin
A: The writer is referring to the director of the current Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, which has the entire cast of ten doubling as orchestral players. It's no secret that Doyle has employed this same technique on a number of previous shows in England. Indeed, he has admitted that he first employed this technique for a production that lacked the funds to hire a separate orchestra.
Doyle is currently planning a similar actors-as-musicians staging for Company in the U.S. and Mack and Mabel in England. My first thought is that, while I quite like the way this technique plays out in the current New York Sweeney, I would not want to see the notion recycled for too many other productions. But I do think it could work well with Company, a show in which cast members, while playing separate characters, function throughout as an ensemble.
Q: I saw a show called Spend! Spend! Spend! in London several years ago and loved it, especially the performances of the actresses who played the same character, Viv, as young and older versions. I was fortunate to buy a CD of the show at the theater but have never found it in any stores or online. Now I'm in need of a new CD and don't know where to turn. Any ideas? Do you think the show will ever come to the US?---David Leonard
A: The cast recording of the 1999 West End musical Spend! Spend! Spend! features one of the more interesting British musical scores of the last decade. For some unknown reason, the CD was sold only at the theatre and never officially released to stores, although it may have turned up in some shops closer to the time of release. The CD is indeed obscure, and your best bet for finding another copy might be Ebay or similar venues.
The subject matter of Spend! Spend! Spend! --the true story of Viv Nicholson, whose winning a fortune in the lottery led to tragedy-was quite well known to English audiences. But the story wouldn't mean as much to U.S. audiences, and that might limit the show's potential on these shores.
Q: Recently finished watching the 1968 film version of Half a Sixpence starring Tommy Steele, who in the late '60s turned out three high-profile film musicals: Sixpence, The Happiest Millionaire, and Finian's Rainbow, and then... nothing. While his talent was certainly apparent, I'm still left with the feeling that we Yanks might have considered him a tad too British, maybe too Cockney, or could there have been other possible factors that caused his U.S. film career to come to an abrupt halt?---Mark Dereng
A: It's true: Popular British entertainer Tommy Steele, who recently appeared on the London stage in Scrooge, made three big musical pictures back-to-back, then no more. But it should be noted that, during his early career as a top British pop singer, he starred in several English films that don't seem to have had a life in the U.S.
Then too, Steele may not have been the easiest performer to cast in movies. Half a Sixpence was, of course, a screen version of Steele's stage musical that had been a hit in the West End and on Broadway. But Steele may have been considered one of those performers whose broad performing style and big, toothy grin were better suited to the stage than to the screen. Or it may simply have been the case that Steele's sudden popularity in Hollywood films had run its course.
Q: I know that Howard Da Silva does not sing the role of Ben Franklin on the cast album of 1776 because it was recorded during his period of illness and absence from the show Rex Everhart sings in his place. Can you name other cast recordings on which original cast members do not appear, for various reasons?---Steven Moore
A: There are quite a few such instances. One that comes immediately to mind is the lack of leading lady Teresa Stratas on the Rags cast album, with Julia Migenes taking her place. On the Carmelina cast album, Paul Sorvino sings in place of cast member Cesare Siepi. Promenade was recorded with the little-known Sandra Schaeffer singing in place of Madeline Kahn. Schaeffer was the fourth lady, after Kahn, Pamela Hall, and Marie Santell, to play Kahn's role.
Speaking of Howard Da Silva, he's partly absent on the original cast recordings of Oklahoma! While Da Silva did get to record the duet "Pore Jud Is Daid" with Alfred Drake, Da Silva's big solo, "Lonely Room," was taken by Drake on the original recordings.
Irra Petina is replaced on the cast recording of Song of Norway by Kitty Carlisle, just as the original stage singers of Annie Get Your Gun's "Who Do You Love, I Hope?" are replaced on the cast recording by studio vocalists. Her contract with RCA meant that Abbe Lane was unable to record Columbia's Oh Captain! cast album, and she was replaced by Eileen Rodgers.
Of course, there are the well-known situations with the cast albums of Call Me Madam and the '52 revival of Pal Joey. In the first case, star Ethel Merman's contract with Decca meant that she couldn't sing on RCA's cast album, so RCA recorded the production with Dinah Shore, and Merman made her own recording of the score, without her Broadway company and orchestra, for Decca. In the case of Pal Joey, the '52 Broadway stars Harold Lang and Vivienne Segal had already made a studio recording of the score for Columbia, so they were not permitted to sing on Capitol's cast album, with Dick Beavers and Jane Froman used in their places.
In recent years, Norm Lewis, a replacement for Chris Innvar, got to record the New Brain cast album; Joan Jett did not record with the rest of the cast of the Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show; Jacquey Maltby sings in place of Donna Murphy on the Song of Singapore recording; and Brent Barrett recorded Grand Hotel after the death of original leading man David Carroll. Recorded about a year into the show's run, the cast album of The Tap Dance Kid features replacements Jimmy Tate and Gail Nelson in place of originals Alfonso Ribeiro and Hattie Winston. Although Judy Kuhn opened the Broadway revival of She Loves Me at the Roundabout, it was not recorded until it transferred to the Brooks Atkinson, by which time Kuhn had been replaced by Diane Fratantoni.
No doubt readers will be able to supply other such instances.
Q: Why does the Angel Records 1988 recording of Show Boat take up three CDs? Does it really have that much more material than other recordings of the show?---Martin Ramsey
A: Yes. The Angel Show Boat, conducted by John McGlinn, lasts three hours and forty minutes. It preserves the complete score as heard on opening night on Broadway in 1927. It also includes three major numbers cut on the road, along with all of the underscoring, which means that extensive dialogue scenes are included if they're underscored. Then there's an hour-long appendix which includes early versions of several numbers; longer versions of scenes shortened on the road; unused songs; and songs written for the 1928 London production, the 1936 film, and the 1946 Broadway revival.
Q: I'm told that the cast recording of Sandhog is the rarest of all cast albums. Would you agree?---Howard Adler
A: Presented for a run of forty-eight performances by New York's Phoenix Theatre in 1954, Sandhog was a dramatic musical about the men who built the Brooklyn Bridge. The music was by Earl Robinson, the lyrics and book by Waldo Salt, based on a story by Theodore Dreiser. The cast included Jack Cassidy, Betty Oakes, Alice Chostley, David Brooks, Eliot Feld, and Michael Kermoyan.
No cast album was made of Sandhog. The very rare LP to which you refer consists of Robinson singing and playing the score, with Salt narrating the story. Even though it's not a cast album, that Vanguard LP has long been a treasured collectors' item.
Q: I've seen references to Bette Midler's performing in a musical called Salvation in both books and TV documentaries. Why isn't she on the Salvation cast album?---John Rosa
A: Because Midler was a replacement in Salvation, rather than an original cast member, she is not on the original off-Broadway cast recording. Beginning in the fall of 1969, Salvation played 239 performances at the Jan Hus Playhouse. It's one of those ironies that the Capitol/Broadway Angel cast album of Salvation would be infinitely more desirable had it been recorded later in the run, when Midler was in the company.
Q: Would you happen to know who played the leads in the Toronto company of Miss Saigon, at least when it opened? So sorry, I just can't find my program.---Harry T.
A: When Miss Saigon opened at Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre, the leads were Kevin Gray, Ma-Anne Dionisio, H.E. Greer, Rufus Bonds, Jr., Charles Azulay, and Melissa Thomson. Cornilla Luna alternated with Dionisio in the role of Kim.
Q: According to the cast recording, Keith Michell and Joan Diener starred in the London production of Man of La Mancha. But I recently came across a biographical note that said that Richard Kiley had recreated his Broadway role in La Mancha in London. Did Kiley replace Michell?---Thomas Edward
A: Actually, the situation is more unusual. Michell and Diener starred in the first London production of La Mancha, which opened at the Piccadilly Theatre in April, 1968 and played 253 performances. This is the production that was recorded. The following spring, the Piccadilly became available again, and brought in to fill the vacancy was a new production of La Mancha with Kiley. Co-stars Bernard Spear and Olive Gilbert repeated their roles from the first London production. Kiley's leading lady in this second London mounting was Ruth Silvestre, and James Gelb staged the production, following the original Albert Marre staging.
While the Michell-Diener London version followed the New York production in having no intermission, an intermission was inserted for Kiley's London stand.
Q: How long did the London musical about Marilyn Monroe run, and was it recorded?---Roger
A: With Stephanie Lawrence giving a dazzling performance in the title role, Marilyn played at the Adelphi Theatre in London from March 17 to July 30, 1983. It is unfortunate that the show went unrecorded, as some of the score music by Mort Garson, lyrics by Jacques Wilson was interesting, and the show as a whole was vastly superior to Broadway's Marilyn: An American Fable, which played the Minskoff Theatre later the same year.