Beyond the four from the film, how many previously heard Kander and Ebb songs are included (I've heard that "I'm One of the Smart Ones," preserved on the album "Liza Minnelli at the Winter Garden," is in the show)?
Are there song credits in the Playbill that list exactly who wrote each song? (Kander and Ebb, or Kander and Miranda, or just Kander, etc.)
I may be way off on this, but I attended the first preview (front mezzanine) and had a different impression about one aspect of the sound problem. I did not think that Annaleigh Ashford's mike needed turning up. Instead, it seemed to me that Ashford's Mrs. Lovett was sometimes unintelligible because of Ashford's imperfect attempt at a cockney accent, and I'm not sure that adjusting her mike will solve this issue. Still, Ashford is so brilliantly inventive her
The following is in the Playbill Spring Preview article about Susan Stroman and "New York, New York."
Don’t worry; the four songs Kander and Ebb wrote for the film—“But the World Goes ‘Round,” “There Goes the Ball Game,” “Happy Endings,” and the iconic title theme—haven’t gone anywhere. But jettisoned is the rest of the film’s soundtrack, a collection of standards by other songwriters. Kander has teamed up with Tony-winning Hamilton and In the Heights writer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda to pen 13 completely new songs for the stage score.
Is this true or is this misinformation? If true, this show would more or less qualify as Miranda's first new Broadway musical (lyrics only, of course) since "Hamilton" and would make it much less of a Kander and Ebb show. But Miranda has already stated that this is very much a Kander and Ebb show, so one has to wonder if Miranda has actually done lyrics for 13 new songs.
I do believe that the Theatre on Film and Tape collection recorded Part One and Part Two of "The Inheritance" at the show's final two performances on Broadway, Wednesday afternoon and evening, March 11, 2020. The shutdown happened the next day, and "The Inheritance" had already been scheduled to close on Sunday, March 15, 2020.
This means that the "Inheritance" videos at TOFT feature (excellent) replacement Tony Goldwyn as Henry Wilcox, rathe
Harvey did a substantial revision of Isobel Lennart's book for the London production, and for this one he has done a significant revision of his first revision. The first half-hour or so features a great deal of non-Lennart dialogue. He's thrown in a few new Yiddishisms. And he's expanded the role of Mrs. Brice to give Jane Lynch more stage time.
I'm fairly sure that the keys for Beanie were determined some time ago. I think it's not so much a question of keys as a question of range. Sheridan Smith, who has succeeded in "Funny Girl," "Legally Blonde," "Little Shop," "Joseph," and playing star singer Cilla Black on TV, is not a powerhouse vocalist. But she has a wider range than Beanie and has no trouble hitting all the notes necessary in her musicals, even if her
Has anyone mentioned that "The Supporting Cast" was written by George Furth, who wrote the books for "Company," "The Act," and "Merrily We Roll Along"? "Merrily" began previews not long after "Supporting Cast" closed. Furth's other Broadway plays include the flops "Precious Sons" and "Getting Away with Murder" (the latter co-authored by Sondheim), and one success, "Twigs."
The 1991 tour of "Bye Bye, Birdie," with Tommy Tune and Ann Reinking, featured an amusing solution to a problem of this nature. Tune's Albert uttered a decidedly misogynistic remark to Reinking's Rose, eliciting something of a groan in the audience. Tune turned to the crowd and said, "Hey, it's 1959 up here!" The audience was amused and the stars resumed the scene. This was pre-planned, not an ad-lib.
How on earth do they expect to start Broadway previews on Nov. 2 when the show has already been deemed a laugh-riot disaster --or worse-- by significant critics?
