Popular Broadway Songs [Youtbe Clips]

Dreamgirls

atlpimpc said:

And I am telling you

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Jennifer Hudson was great in the Dreamgirls movie, and Amber Riley blew people away in London last year. But - there's good, and then there is the force of nature named Jennifer Holliday - the original Effie. Here she is the night she won her Tony award. She is 21 years old, and had never before done a Broadway show.


Is it over the top? Sure. But the character is over the top. And the emotion is so... raw. For 35 years both straights and gays will tell you that when your lover is walking out of your life, your words may be "Ok. Bye." - but this is what is happening on the inside. And that pain is no exaggeration.

Anatomy - The Noise

Big Spender from Sweet Charity by Cy Coleman

The Noise is often the choreographer's domain, but different choreographers have different ways to make your pulse rise. In Oliver!, Onna White used traditional Broadway dance and built the number by creating new sets of characters and situations to layer in.

Bob Fosse takes a different tack. The movements are small - tiny even. The lineup of girls never changes - we see them all in the first shot, and no one new ever comes in. But he is the master at drawing your eye to the right place and making less do more. And nobody knows how to sell sex with humor than Fosse. But the effect is still thrilling.


And happy 60th anniversary to Sweet Charity which opened on Broadway this week in 1968.

Anatomy - The Noise

To Life from Fiddler on the Roof by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick

Jerome Robbins isn't going to just waste The Noise on trivia. Especially in a piece as finely crafted as Fiddler on the Roof. His fun production number is going to be part of the story and rooted in the time and place of a turn-of-the-century Russian shtetl.

Tevye (Topol) has agreed to marry his daughter to the wealthy town butcher Lazar Wolf (Paul Mann). They seal the deal at Lazar's house, then move the celebration to the local tavern where their neighbors celebrate with them.

But here's where the brilliance of Jerome Robbins shows up. The Jewish men are not alone. Lurking in the background are the Russian gentiles, who decide to join in. Although their intentions seem friendly, notice the dominance with which they take over the tavern. They clearly expect their privilege to be respected. Though they graciously ask the Jews to join them, the social hierarchy is plain there is a real threat kept under the surface.


The 1971 film version was choreographed by Tommy Abbott, who was Jerome Robbins's assistant on Broadway. Tommy adapted Robbins concepts and dances for the screen - so we are still essentially seeing Robbins work here.

As a matter of fact, Jerome Robbins has written into his contract that all subsequent productions of Fiddler, or West Side Story must use his choreography. That's why every time you see, say, "The Dance at the Gym" from West Side, it's the same steps - the original ones.

When director Bartlett Sher did the Fiddler revival in 2015 his one stipulation was that he wanted to bring on a new choreographer - Hofesh Shechter from Israel. The Robbins estate agreed, and for the first time we got a new interpretation for these songs from Anatefka.

Here is the cast from that revival performing "To Life" at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It's a distracting location, but take a look at what Shechter has done with the movement - he has folk and Russian dance in his bones, but there is also a contemporary flair.

Anatomy - The Noise

The Bitch of Living from Spring Awakening by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater

The Noise does not always mean ushering in the ensemble dancers to provide some choreographic razzle-dazzle while belting a showtune. In Spring Awakening director Michael Mayer and choreographer Bill T. Jones let their schoolboys vent their sexual frustration in a high-energy rock number.

Anatomy - The Noise

Put On Your Sunday Clothes from Hello, Dolly! by Jerry Herman

For all the emphasis on the work of the choreographer, we can't forget that the singers, orchestra, and arranger can send a number into the stratosphere using the sound alone.

This selection from Hello, Dolly! is the very definition of Noise. But you can see here that even when you take away the superlative work of choreographers Gower Champion (Broadway) or Michael Kidd (movie), the number still rises into the stratosphere.

This is John Wilson conducting the BBC Proms orchestra in their 2011 televised concert celebrating Hollywood. In this rare treat, John has raided the archives of 20th Century Fox and taken Lionel Newman's 1968 arrangements of the song done for the film. If you are a fan of the picture (or the movie Wall-E), this will sound very familiar - right down to the kids chorus used in the movie, which in the concert is performed by the men singing in falsetto.

Your Weekend Musical


Welcome! Here is the whole show - filmed for PBS a year ago. [Note: The video has been removed]

When the show starts, Marvin fills us in on what has already happened: it's 1979 and he has left his wife and son to move in with his handsome male lover. Though, "left" is probably not the best word because Marvin never lets go of anything. So, you see, it's all good because Marvin insists on having a tight-knit family, with everyone revolving around him.

Update Feb 6 - It was just announced today that this production will do a North American Tour next year. More details should come in the fall.

It's a show about neurotic Jews bitching, hurting and healing, finding love and losing it. It's the PBS broadcast of the 2016 revival of William Finn's musical Falsettos with Christian Borle, Stephanie J. Block, Andrew Rannells, and Brandon Uranowitz (all were Tony nominated).

For more information

• Want just a preview? Here is Christian and Andrew in "The Thrill of First Love"
• Previous post on the PBS broadcast
• Previous post with critics reviews of the 2016 revival
• Previous post with memories of the original 1992 production

Favorite Dances

Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing choreographed by Kenny Ortega

In one of the Super Bowl TV commercials on Sunday, two American football players went into the Dirty Dancing "Time of My Life" choreography, which was cute.

But that reminded me of how great that number really is. The movie reaches it's climax with this extended dance sequence by Kenny Ortega. That's pretty extraordinary considering it technically isn't a musical.

The whole number is exciting, but what sends it over the top is that the film's male lead -the late Patrick Swayze - shows off dancing chops that would rival Gene Kelly. (He jumps off the stage down into a crouch, and then rockets up to a triple tour en l'air. I don't think Kelly could have even managed that one.)


Kenny Ortega had a lot to atone for after the horrible dances in Xanadu seven years before. I think he earned his forgiveness here.

Oh, and here is Sunday's commercial.

Frozen

Frozen: The Broadway Musical started preview performances last night. Still waiting for some word-of-mouth to trickle in, though Disney has said that they are still making changes to the opening of the show. (The official opening night is late next month.)

But they are also planning to release some of the new songs, and here is the first - a staged studio version of Elsa big second act song "Monster" performed by Elsa herself, Cassie Levy and the rest of the Broadway Company.

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Last Week for their annual benefit concert, the Actor's Fund celebrated the 15th Anniversary of the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. Remarkably, most of the cast of the 2002 musical reassembled including Sutton Foster, Gavin Creel (currently in his Tony-winning role in Hello, Dolly!), Harriet Harris, Marc Kudisch, Anne Nathan, and Sheryl Lee Ralph. Even most of the chorus was back, including folks like Kate Baldwin (Gavin Creel's love interest back over at Dolly!).

Here are a few highlights.


Millie is, of course, the stage adaption of the 1967 Julie Andrews film musical. The show is a spoof of 1920s musicals and films with their silly plots and Perils of Pauline damsels in distress, all set against the backdrop of 1922 Jazz Age New York where the war was over, the stock market was rising and America was where everyone wanted to be.

Sutton Foster became a Broadway legend in the role. She was originally the understudy, but when the lead had to take some time off to rest her voice she stepped in to the part, and the rest is history.

Here she is leading the cast on the 2002 Tony Awards.


Now, I can't leave you with that number without also showing you Tony Yazbeck's incredible gender-switched recreation of it for the 2016 edition of Broadway Backwards.


(I could watch that all day.)

Composer Harvey Schmidt passed away this week. He, along with his lyric writing partner Tom Jones, have their place in theater history secured by writing the longest running musical to play in New York - The Fantasticks.


The Fantasticks opened in 1960 and played Off-Broadway at the Sullivan Playhouse in Greenwich Village for 42 years, closing in 2002. A 2006 revival played for an additional 11 years.

Schmidt & Jones and The Fantasticks got an extra boost when the unknown Barbra Streisand put two songs from the show on her first record - The Barbra Streisand Album. The LP became one of the top selling records of the year, and has never been out of print. Streisand recorded the songs "Much More" and "Soon It's Gonna Rain". In 1967 for her TV special and album A Happening in Central Park she opened the show with "I Can See It".

The pair's next big musical was on Broadway - 110 in the Shade that ran for a year on Broadway in 1963.

Then they followed that up with the musical I Do! I Do! with Mary Martin and Robert Preston. This is a musical version of the two character play The Fourposter that follows a couple's relationship from their marriage to their old age.


Their next project was a musical version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town that they worked on for 13 years - until the Wilder estate pulled the rights to the show so it was never produced. By then Broadway had changed - it was the age of A Chorus Line and Chicago. And they turned to writing special material for TV and cabaret shows.

Hello, Dolly!

Well, Bette Midler has been gone from Hello, Dolly! for over a month now and finally I see a bit of video of her performance as Dolly. So, naturally I rushed right over to share it all with you. Yes, it is just shot from a shaky camera from someone's seat, but at least it will give you a glimpse of the Divine Miss M in the part. Here she is doing her second act number, "So Long Dearie" opposite David Hyde Pierce as as Horace Vandergelder.

Update: Video link was removed

By the way, Bernadette Peters has been in the role now for weeks and has wowed the critics. Everyone came back to do an updated review. :

Mary Poppins Returns

Disney released a new teaser trailer for their Christmas release Mary Poppins Returns with Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, and Meryl Streep.


I'm a little misty-eyed. Added bonus: Ben Wishaw!

News

In case you haven't noticed, not a single musical has opened on Broadway since December. That is about to change. As of this week just about everything will be in front of audiences in previews, and the first spring opening (Escape to Margaritaville) will happen this Thursday. So, it's going to be a packed three or four weeks as all the new shows become official in time for Tony nominations.

But, that also means that since a lot of shows are in previews I can pass along some word of mouth as to what audiences are liking.

• Angels in America - People are loving this - even those that went in with some trepidation about putting a movie star (Andrew Garfield) in the central role. Mr. Garfield seems to be winning people over. And with the tweaks done by both writer Tony Kushner and director Marianne Elliott several people have told me that the second play (Peristroika) is now even better than the first (Millennium Approaches). Could an extra nude scene for Lee Pace have something to do with that? Still, that is 7 1/2 hours of theater to see both plays. Andrew Garfield told Jimmy Fallon a few weeks ago that it was like binge-watching a Netflix series but live with real people in front of you.
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• Frozen - The Broadway Musical - People are very positive about the show. Even if they find some underwhelming moments they are enjoying the overall evening and are enthusiastic particularly about the two actresses. Looks like this will be another Aladdin-sized hit at least.
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• Carousel - This may be the biggest surprise because a lot of people are disappointed in the revival starring Jessie Mueller (Beautiful, Waitress) and Joshua Henry (Hamilton). Everyone says that it is beautifully sung, but the leads lack chemistry and the dramatic scenes don't have much punch. Still Joshua Henry as Billy and Lindsay Mendez as Julie's best friend Carrie are blowing people away - so there are some possible Tony nominations in there. It is previews, though, and they have a few weeks to try and get it together.
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• Escape to Margaritaville - "Not the worst thing I've ever seen - it knows what it is" said a friend of mine. That sums up what I have heard from several people. If you like Jimmy Buffett or want a fun show with pop songs and some of the best margaritas on Broadway served in the lobby then this would be the show for you. Les Miserables it ain't. Note - the show is giving critics a voucher for unlimited drinks with their ticket. Smart move.

We'll see what the critics say.

Cabaret

Happy Birthday
Liza Minnelli​

What better way to celebrate than to remember her best film.


If there was one thing that should have been obvious to Hollywood by 1971, it was that the age of musicals was over. Camelot, Finian's Rainbow, Half a Sixpence, Song of Norway, Darling Lili, Hello, Dolly, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Sweet Charity - they all lost millions. MGM, Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox all had to sell big portions of their studio properties just to stay in business.

But Cy Fuerer and Martin Baum owned the film rights to the 1967 Broadway musical Cabaret and they thought it would make a great film. Unlike every other musical put on film, this story had grit, sex, and politics - all things that were the hallmarks of the New Hollywood of Easy Rider and Bonnie and Clyde. But every studio turned them down.

So, like the moguls of old they raised the money and produced it themselves. Cy Fuerer fought hard to get Bob Fosse as director, despite the sad returns from his previous musical (Sweet Charity).

Songwriters Kander & Ebb agreed to cuts in the score and providing some new material if the producers would cast Liza Minnelli, for whom they had originally written the show. (Broadway producer Hal Prince didn't think Liza would be convincing as a British girl, so he cast someone else in New York.) The movie solved that by making the character American. Anyway Liza was now a rising star, so the financial people were thrilled to have her. British actor Michael York was signed and Joel Grey was the only member of the original Broadway cast hired.

One of Fosse's key collaborators was British cinematographer Geoffery Unsworth (2001: A Space Odyssey, Superman). Take a look at the preview below and see what Unsworth can do with film that is not possible with digital cameras.




Pre-production was tough. Jay Presson Allen was hired to write the screenplay, but Fosse wanted the metaphor of the tawdry Kit Kat Club to be moved from the background to the foreground and had no patience for secondary characters that didn't fit the theme. He eventually gave up on Allen and instead called Hugh Wheeler (Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd) to come over and restructure the screenplay uncredited.

The film was shot completely in West Germany. Fosse said it was for authenticity, but it was also to keep the producers at bay. When Sally's costumes arrived he hated them all, so Liza Minnelli and Fosse's wife Gwen Verdon scoured second-hand shops in Berlin for the pieces Minnelli wears in the film.


They created a new genre: the New Hollywood Musical. The film doesn't rely on a singing chorus (though they are there in one scene) or characters breaking in to song. If you don't like musicals, you can forget that it is a musical - all the singing takes place on stage. And Fosse is so deft at cutting between the stage and real life that one comments on the other.

Cabaret is probably the most game changing film in the musical genre since The Wizard of Oz. (No, the irony of mother and daughter carrying these two bookend films isn't lost here.)

1973 was Bob Fosse's year. He won the Oscar for directing Cabaret, the Tony for directing Pippin, and the Emmy for directing Liza with a Z.

And Liza took home awards for two of those projects as well. Everyone saw her as the new musical star for the 1970s. Even Streisand was threatened and got Kander & Ebb and Jay Presson Allen on the phone to write her new musical Funny Lady.

In hindsight, we can see that it didn't quite work out that way. The truth was, the 1970's didn't really need a film musical superstar - they just weren't making that many of them. And when they did, John Travolta and Olivia Newton John would do in a pinch. Liza had a career, though not the one she really deserved.

But she still shocks us with those green fingernails and "divine decadence" every time we watch her big movie.

Escape to Margaritaville


It's practically spring and Broadway is back with it's first new musical of 2018!

Escape to Margaritaville is the Jimmy Buffett version of Mama Mia - a story about island tourists built around Buffett's laid-back easy country-meets-Caribbean songs. The conundrum with this show has always been why set a blue-collar island holiday tuner down in sophisticated mid-town Manhattan. Aren't you just begging for a pie in the face from every snooty theater critic?


That's kind of what is coming out in the papers tonight. Margaritaville was always aiming low. The mixed reviews recognize that and appreciate how well it hits its own low expectations.

It just wants to be fun and provide a vehicle for people to enjoy the genuinely formidable Buffett catalog of beach and sea songs, ditties of love and ennui, optimism and regret, hopping between the genres of country, folk and reggae, songs that have come to epitomize the experience of leaving Cincinnati for a week and heading to a tropical island, only to spend most of your time at a bar full of other people from Ohio.

If you can swallow the premise (and good luck with that), you'll find some lines that land... You will find some comedic and counterintuitive arrangements and placements of the Buffett songs, especially the title number, which is the best moment in the show. You will note great similarities with "Mamma Mia!" — only everyone is older and they drink more.

But you also will find genuine heart and — most important of all — you will be at the rare Broadway show that is genuinely interested in what Middle America enjoys and uses that empathy to prod it to be just a tad more progressive and personally ambitious. There should be such a show, flawed, formulaic and out of place as it may be, in the world's premiere marketplace for musical entertainments, and thus "Margaritaville" has a value that many will miss. - Chicago Tribune

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But for many of the critics, this is taking the lowest form of musical theater - the jukebox show - and then stalling out with a sub-par story and songs. The New York Times lamented the direction this is going.

But if you’re not drunk or a Parrothead, as Mr. Buffett’s fans are called, you’re in trouble. Mr. Buffett’s denatured country-calypso ditties and horndog smarm seem awfully lowbrow, even in a Broadway environment debased for decades by singing cats and candlesticks. It’s quite a comedown in the sing-to-me-of-romance department from “Shall We Dance?” to “Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw).” - Jesse Green, NY Times

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Ouch! Ultimately I think Buffett is looking at this as a longer term investment. This is certainly a long-shot for the Tonys, but if it can run for a few months he will have a property that can both tour and have permanent productions in his resorts and on cruise ships. All with a "Direct from Broadway" tag on the posters. Good luck with that, Mr. Buffet. Now I need a nice fruity drink.

A Chorus Line


Broadway actor and dancer Sammy Williams passed away today at the age of 69.


A Chorus Line was a revolutionary show - probably the biggest game-changer on Broadway until Hamilton. Both the style and content were dazzling, and Michael Bennet's work in putting it together deserved every award it got.

But for ten minutes deep in the second half of the show, Sammy Williams stepped forward while everyone else left the stage, and held the audience in the palm of his hand by just telling his character's story of being a gay teenager who's parents discovered that he was earning a living doing drag shows. By the time he finished, both he and the audience were in tears.


The story wasn't his - it was was Nicholas Dante's who got a writing credit on Chorus Line for letting them use it. And Sammy had never really been asked to act before. I first saw him was in Applause with Lauren Bacall where Sammy led a raucous dance routine in a gay bar. Even just as a chorus dancer he stood out.

But Michael Bennett got that performance out of him, and Sammy went on to win a Tony, an Obie and several other awards that year for his work. After A Chorus Line he got some work, but nothing came close to what he did in that show. He left show business and became a florist in Los Angeles - well known for his work on the flowered floats of the annual Rose Bowl Parade.

I was lucky enough to see Sammy twice in ACL. Ten years later I got to step in to his shoes and play that part myself. I was honored to be able to contribute something to the role of Paul, but it was Sammy's heart that grounded that show in reality.

He was humble, kind, sweet and will be missed by the many people he touched.

For more information:

• Jason Tam auditioning for Paul in the 2008 revival of A Chorus Line - This is from the doentary Every Little Step about casting the new production of ACL. (We also get to see a bit of Sammy in there as well.) Now that the part of Paul is so familiar it is hard for actors to surprise the audiences with it. The producers saw many good actors for the part, then Jason Tam came in. Next to Sammy, this is the best rendition of the material I have seen - and it is only an audition! He has the room in tears. Needless to say he got the part and has gone on to many other shows after. In two weeks he will play Peter in the NBC live concert of Jesus Christ Superstar.
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• Sammy doing Paul's Monologue - this is horrible video, but it is Sammy and the original cast in an actual performance.

Picture me squealing like a 12-year-old girl listening to a new single from One Direction (or whoever 12-year-old girls listen to these days).

As part of Lin Manuel Miranda's "Hamil-Drops" series, this week he has released a duet with him and Ben Platt doing a medley of songs from Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen. One of the things that makes this possible is that the two shows share the same musical director: Alex Lacamoire (you can see him both conducting and playing keyboards during the video).


The single is dedicated to and raises money for the kids that will be joining the March for our Lives in Washington DC next week - so if you like it buy it on Apple, Amazon, Google or wherever you get your music.

Happy Birthday!



Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber is 70 today and there are birthday wishes being posted from around the world.


Stephen Sondheim is 88 today - and still working on a new show based on the movies of Luis Buñuel. There was a workshop last year and hopefully a full staging somewhere this year.

Here is the finale from the celebration of Sondheim's 80th birthday at Carnegie Hall - "Sunday" from Sunday in the Park With George. It begins with the full cast from the concert singing. But as the song develops, all the casts of all the shows then running on Broadway come down the aisles to join them in an emotional tribute to the great work this man has written for the theater.


FYI - On a totally separate topic, Frozen - The Broadway Musical opens tonight in New York.

Can hardly believe it has been eight years. Here’s part of the spectacular British version of his 80th B-day celebration:

trencherman said:

... Here’s part of the spectacular British version of his 80th B-day celebration:

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Oh, yeah! "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" from Sondheim's first Broadway score (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) has always knocked me out. This little ribald vaudeville turn seems so simple, yet it builds and builds and every time they finish, the audience screams for more. I guess its no surprise to see it work here with Frankie Howard and Simon Russell Beale - but the whole thing works just as well at your local dinner theater or high school production. It is that carefully crafted.

Great choice and hats off to Mr. Sondheim.