Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber by Block, Geoffrey (good story books to read .TXT) 📕

Show Boat

When Cap’n Andy (Charles Winninger) and wife Parthy Ann (Edna May Oliver) bring their show boat Cotton Blossom into town for a performance, their daughter Magnolia (Norma Terris) meets a handsome professional gambler, Gaylord Ravenal (Howard Marsh). The youngsters fall in love at first sight, although they profess it is “Make Believe.” Magnolia seeks advice on what to do from a black workhand, Joe (Jules Bledsoe), who tells her probably “Ol’ Man River” alone can answer her but that the river “don’t say nothin.’” The show’s leading lady, Julie (Helen Morgan), begins to understand Magnolia’s situation and, recalling an old folk song, tells her how she too “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” of hers. But when Julie is accused of having Negro blood she is forced to leave the boat, taking the leading man with her. Magnolia and Gaylord are pressed into assuming the leads. Soon enough they are telling each other “You Are Love.” They marry and head off. Years pass. At the Chicago World’s Fair they seem amazed not only at the sights but at how their love has grown, and ask, “Why Do I Love You?” But eventually Gaylord’s gambling costs him all his money, so he deserts Magnolia. She applies for a job singing at a nightclub where Julie, now a drunkard, is rehearsing her “Bill” number. Julie recognizes Magnolia and sacrifices what is left of her own career to help Magnolia begin hers. When Cap’n Andy finds his daughter there he persuades her to return to the Cotton Blossom. More years pass. One day an aging Gaylord returns. To his relief he is welcomed by Magnolia.

Sunday in the Park with George

Georges Seurat (Mandy Patinkin) is determined to finish his painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, even if it means his friends and associates will ridicule him and even if in the process he must neglect and lose his mistress, Dot (Bernadette Peters). Years later his American great-grandson, George (Patinkin), is also an artist, hoping to find meaning and purpose working on a multimedia “Chromolume.” He is encouraged by his grandmother, Marie (Peters). Visiting the drearily overdeveloped Grande Jatte after her death, he finds solace in her memory and in notes once scribbled by his great-grandfather.

Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Bitter at his imprisonment and at the world in general, Sweeney Todd (Len Cariou) returns to London and sets up as a barber. But he is no ordinary barber. He slits his customers’ throats and turns their bodies over to his friend, Mrs. Lovett (Angela Lansbury), who bakes them into pies. He even succeeds in murdering the venal judge who sent him to prison, but when he learns he has also inadvertently murdered his long-lost wife his mind snaps completely and he pushes Mrs. Lovett into her own oven. He in turn is murdered by a young boy Mrs. Lovett had befriended.

West Side Story

The story is set among two rival youth gangs in New York City in the 1950s, the longer established Jets, led by Riff, and the Puerto Rican newcomers, the Sharks, led by Bernardo. Riff intends to meet Bernardo at a community dance—neutral territory—and challenge him to a fight for control of the neighborhood. Tony (Larry Kert), a former Jet and Riff’s best friend, meets Maria (Carol Lawrence), Bernardo’s sister, at the dance, and they fall immediately in love. They meet that night on her fire escape, and again the next day at the shop where she works, where they enact a mock wedding ceremony. Tony tries to intervene at the rumble but succeeds only in accidentally permitting Bernardo to kill Riff; in a rage, Tony himself kills Bernardo. Maria manages to forgive him and they decide to run away together. She sends a message to Tony who is in hiding with the Jets, by Bernardo’s girlfriend Anita, but the gang so abuses her that she angrily tells them Maria is dead. Tony, in despair, runs through the streets begging to be killed; he discovers that Maria is alive just as a Shark shoots him. Maria in her grief manages to persuade everyone to let the retaliation stop, giving a hint of hope for reconciliation as the play ends.

DISCOGRAPHY AND FILMOGRAPHY

Selected Original, Revival, Film, and Studio Casts

Anything Goes

Composer and original cast (1934, 1935, and 1947): Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” in New York and London with the composer and members of the original 1934 cast. Ethel Merman, Jack Whiting, The Foursome, Jeanne Aubert, Sidney Howard, Porter (vocals and piano). Smithsonian American Musical Theater Series DPM1–0284 R 007. Contents: “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” (Merman), “All Through the Night” (Whiting), “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” (Aubert), “You’re the Top” (Whiting and Aubert), “Sailor’s Chanty,” “Gypsy in Me” (The Foursome), “You’re the Top,” “Anything Goes,” “Be Like the Bluebird” (Porter), and “Be Like the Bluebird” (Howard). Porter’s rendition of “You’re the Top” (October 26, 1934) was reissued on the compact disc Showstoppers: Historic Victor Recordings BMG 9590–2-R.*

Revival cast (1962): Hal Linden, Eileen Rodgers, Kenneth Mars, Ted Simons (conductor)†. Epic Footlight Series FLS 15100 (S); reissued on Time-Life P 15602 (S), set STL AM02 with Kiss Me, Kate and Can-Can (set title, Cole Porter). Missing: “Where Are the Men?”

Revival cast (1987): Patti LuPone, Howard McGillin, Bill McCutcheon, Edward Strauss (conductor). RCA 7769–4 RC.

Studio cast (1989): Kim Criswell, Cris Groenendaal, Jack Gilford, Frederica von Stade, John McGlinn (conductor). EMI/Angel CDC 7–49848–2.

FILM (Paramount 1936): Cast: Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, Charlie Ruggles, Ida Lupino, and Margaret Dumont. Screenplay by Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse, and Guy Bolton. Produced by Benjamin Glazer. Directed by Lewis Milestone. Songs (from Anything Goes): “Anything Goes” [fragment] (Merman), “I Get a Kick Out of You” (Merman), “There’ll Always Be a Lady Fair” (Crosby and Avalon Boys), “You’re the Top” (Merman and Crosby). [82 minutes]

FILM (Paramount 1956): Cast: Bing Crosby, Donald O’Connor,