Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber by Geoffrey Block Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Geoffrey Block
No attempt was made either to be comprehensive orto discuss only the very most popular musicals of the era, but the lists of “Long Runs” and “The Forty Longest Running Musicals on Broadway” in the online website will provide useful reference points for measuring and interpreting the degree of popularity these musicals enjoyed. Despite the above disclaimer, a few words should be said about the degree to which popularity governed the present selections.
Ten of the fourteen Broadway musicals receiving top billing here (not including those by Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber) were also among the most popular of their respective decades.
Show Boat
was the third longest running musical of the 1920s,
Anything Goes
and
On Your Toes
ranked second and eighth, respectively, among book shows in the 1930s—the two longest running 1930s shows,
Hellzapoppin
’ and
Pins and Needles
were revues—and in the 1940s and ’50s
Kiss Me, Kate, Carousel, One Touch of Venus, My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, West Side Story
, and
The Most Happy Fella
all fall within the top fifteen longest runs. Eight of these musicals are among the top thirty-eight musicals spanning these four decades; three rank among the top nine book shows. 15
While one measure of a show’s popularity and its even more important correlate, commercial success, is the length of its initial run, the revivability of a show arguably constitutes a more compelling measure of its success. Many musicals, even blockbusters of their day, never manage to regain their hit status and acquire a place in the Broadway repertory despite rigorous marketing or a lustrous star. For example, despite its many merits,
Of Thee I Sing
(1931), the longest running book musical of the 1930s and the recipient of the first Pulitzer Prize for drama, has disappeared as a staged work on Broadway after its disappointing seventy-two performance revival in 1952. Two of the musicals under scrutiny here,
Lady in the Dark
(1941) and
One Touch of Venus
(1943), both enormous hits in their time, still await a fully staged New York revival. The chapter devoted to these last mentioned shows ( chapter 7 ) will offer the view that the absence of
One Touch of Venus
is especially lamentable.
The remaining twelve musicals have resurfaced in at least one popular Broadway, Off-Broadway, or other prominent New York revival from 1980 to the present (if the prestigious New City Center’s
Encores!
counts as a prominent performance, all fourteen shows would be accounted for). 16 By 1960, New York audiences had had the opportunity to see
Show Boat
1,344 times, a total that more than doubled its original run and was surpassed only by five continuously running book musicals in the top forty before 1960 (“The Forty Longest Running Musicals on Broadway 1920–1959” in the online website).
The Cradle Will Rock
, something of a cult musical, admittedly remains an idiosyncratic choice for a selective survey. Nevertheless, this controversialand sometimes alienating show has been revived in New York City no less than four times since its original short but historic runs in 1937 and 1938. Although these
Cradle
revivals may have been generated out of political sympathy, the present study will make a case for the work’s still unacknowledged and unappreciated artistic merits.
If popularity in absolute numbers is the ticket for admittance, what then are
Pal Joey
(1940),
Lady in the Dark
(1941), and
Porgy and Bess
(1935), three shows that were neither in the top forty nor among the top ten or fifteen musicals of their decades, doing in a survey of popular Broadway musicals? To answer this question, it might be helpful to consider a musical’s popularity by the standards of its immediate predecessors. Although it may not have enjoyed a major New York revival in more than sixty years, at 467 performances
Lady in the Dark
would surpass even the longest running book musical of the 1930s,
Of Thee I Sing
. 17
Pal Joey
(374 performances)
Ten of the fourteen Broadway musicals receiving top billing here (not including those by Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber) were also among the most popular of their respective decades.
Show Boat
was the third longest running musical of the 1920s,
Anything Goes
and
On Your Toes
ranked second and eighth, respectively, among book shows in the 1930s—the two longest running 1930s shows,
Hellzapoppin
’ and
Pins and Needles
were revues—and in the 1940s and ’50s
Kiss Me, Kate, Carousel, One Touch of Venus, My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, West Side Story
, and
The Most Happy Fella
all fall within the top fifteen longest runs. Eight of these musicals are among the top thirty-eight musicals spanning these four decades; three rank among the top nine book shows. 15
While one measure of a show’s popularity and its even more important correlate, commercial success, is the length of its initial run, the revivability of a show arguably constitutes a more compelling measure of its success. Many musicals, even blockbusters of their day, never manage to regain their hit status and acquire a place in the Broadway repertory despite rigorous marketing or a lustrous star. For example, despite its many merits,
Of Thee I Sing
(1931), the longest running book musical of the 1930s and the recipient of the first Pulitzer Prize for drama, has disappeared as a staged work on Broadway after its disappointing seventy-two performance revival in 1952. Two of the musicals under scrutiny here,
Lady in the Dark
(1941) and
One Touch of Venus
(1943), both enormous hits in their time, still await a fully staged New York revival. The chapter devoted to these last mentioned shows ( chapter 7 ) will offer the view that the absence of
One Touch of Venus
is especially lamentable.
The remaining twelve musicals have resurfaced in at least one popular Broadway, Off-Broadway, or other prominent New York revival from 1980 to the present (if the prestigious New City Center’s
Encores!
counts as a prominent performance, all fourteen shows would be accounted for). 16 By 1960, New York audiences had had the opportunity to see
Show Boat
1,344 times, a total that more than doubled its original run and was surpassed only by five continuously running book musicals in the top forty before 1960 (“The Forty Longest Running Musicals on Broadway 1920–1959” in the online website).
The Cradle Will Rock
, something of a cult musical, admittedly remains an idiosyncratic choice for a selective survey. Nevertheless, this controversialand sometimes alienating show has been revived in New York City no less than four times since its original short but historic runs in 1937 and 1938. Although these
Cradle
revivals may have been generated out of political sympathy, the present study will make a case for the work’s still unacknowledged and unappreciated artistic merits.
If popularity in absolute numbers is the ticket for admittance, what then are
Pal Joey
(1940),
Lady in the Dark
(1941), and
Porgy and Bess
(1935), three shows that were neither in the top forty nor among the top ten or fifteen musicals of their decades, doing in a survey of popular Broadway musicals? To answer this question, it might be helpful to consider a musical’s popularity by the standards of its immediate predecessors. Although it may not have enjoyed a major New York revival in more than sixty years, at 467 performances
Lady in the Dark
would surpass even the longest running book musical of the 1930s,
Of Thee I Sing
. 17
Pal Joey
(374 performances)
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