In Need of LITTLE ME Info!

[broadwayboy1939]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 1:06pm

Can anyone tell me about the musical LITTLE ME. I tried to google it but found hardly anything. What's the synopsis and characters?! I am particularly interested in the Bauchsbaum brothers.

Thanks! :)

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 1:09pm

Patrick Dennis' LITTLE ME

[Piercemn]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 1:26pm

Based on Patrick Dennis' (Auntie Mame) pseudobiography of Belle Poitrine, the musical has a script by Neil Simon, with a Score by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh.
It's a very funny show, and has terrific character parts, especially for the male lead or leads, which, in the original production were all played by Sid Caesar.

If you look for the second Volume of the Neil Simon collection, the script is in there.
If your public library doesn't have it, they should be able to get it through interlibrary loan. You can also get the novel and the CD. Both recordings, the original and the one with Martin Short are good.

[desiree armfeldt]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 3:36pm

One of my favorite shows. Tells the story of Belle Poitrine, a young trailer-trash type (haha) who meets and falls in love with Noble Eggleston, the richest boy in town. He says he will wait for her once she acquires wealth, status and class (or something along those lines)...so she goes around trying to find these three things meeting a number of funny men, all of whom are played by the same man who played noble. eventually, she becomes very high-class and wealthy and at her "book party", noble shows up, poor, lonely, and homeless. They remember their love and the show ends. It's hilarious!

[wickedfan]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 4:07pm

It's easily one of the funniest musicals ever written. Not to mention one of the most undervalued. It's well respected among the theatre community (hence the two Broadway revivals) but has never really found an audience. Hard to understand why since it plays like such a crowd pleaser. It has a terrific score, some stand outs are: "The Other Side of the Tracks" (which I recommend to any girl belters who don't want to sing Rent or Les Miz), "Goodbye!", "I've Got Your Number", "Real Live Girl", and "To Be a Performer".

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 4:17pm

LITTLE ME - full info, etc.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 4:30pm

Though, in case you get a copy of the book by Patrick Dennis, you should be warned that the novel and the musical don't have all that much in common.

Neil Simon only used the title, the premise of a talentless movie star writing her memoirs and some of the characters of the novel for his libbretto.

[daredevil]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 4:48pm

The two Broadway productions were very different. the first, in 1963, was tailored around the talents of Sid Caesar, well known television comedian from the fifties. He played seven roles throughout the play; Simon's book was there to make the project work. He had, at that time, only one play produced on Broadway, Come Blow Your Horn, and was not considered the major writer of comedy that he was later.
Simon's book for the 1982 (or thereabouts) revival was heavily rewritten, had many more nasty jokes, and for the most part, weakened the musical. In this version, the seven roles played by Caesar were shared by Victor Garber and James Coco. The revival was well directed by the late Robert Drivas, but never really (atleast in my opinion) got off the ground. My sense if that it is this version that is in the published works of Neil Simon, but if you find the volume it is in, you should check to see which version it is.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 5:45pm

I was lucky to have seen the OBC in 1962. Neil Simon's LITTLE ME was the funniest Broadway musical I have ever seen. Sid Caesar was the main reason. His tackling all seven roles was a musical comedy tour de force. The supporting cast was also great as was the score by Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman and the choreography by Bob Fosse. It had the misfortune to open during a long NYC newspaper strike, so the rave reviews it received had to wait until the print media recovered from the strike. Back then there were 7 NY daily newspapers and people paid little attention to any TV reviews that were aired. This was largely the reason it had a run of only 275 performances.It just didn't pick up any momentum once the reviews were published. I can still remember Walter Kerr's closing remark to his review for the NY Herald Tribune: "Sum Total: A blockbuster so genial it looks like a breeze."

Incidentally, "The Buchsbaum Brothers" were a fictitious producing team that were mentioned at the beginning of one of the songs: "The Buchsbaum Brothers proudly present Miss Dimples Schlumpfert and her pooooolice escort!" It makes me laugh to remember the very funny lyrics of the score.

It would take a very talented star to take on the 7 roles. I am not aware of the pool of actors that such a star would come from. I also was not aware that Neil Simon ammended his original script for the revival. Why tamper with such a good original script?

There is a CD of the 1962 score, but it is very expensive on Amazon, since it is out of print. Calling Fynsworth Alley.

Updated On: 6/7/07 at 05:45 PM

Posted: 6/7/07 at 6:03pm

I love the show--and in many ways it led to the more interestign Sweet Charity by much of the same team. It's shocking that the original CD is out of print

(Did Fosse's striptease for Swen Swenson to I Got Your Number really cause as much of an uproar as some say?)

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 6:18pm

Swen Swenson in "I Got Your Number" did a suggestive rather than an actual strip. I don't remember his removing any clothes, for example. But the song was danced in a sexy way. I don't remember any uproar that the number caused. Swenson was a superb dancer and the audience showed its enthusiasm in its applause at the end of the number. What a great night at the theatre was LITTLE ME!

Posted: 6/7/07 at 6:27pm

The Fosse books always refer to it as a striptease--but thanks for clarifying.

The dance number from it I really wish had been included in Fosse was the... I forget the name. RIch Kid's Rag? something--there are hysterical pics of the kids dancing partnered, knock kneed (and Gottfried called it the spiritual precurser to Rich man's Frug).

You can see the cast perform Deep Down Inside from the Ed Sullivan show at bluegobo.com

[wickedfan]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 6:49pm

That's the name, Eric, I think. Rich Kid's Rag. From what I've read, it was very Fosse in the sense that it was minimalist. But in a very characertized way. Knees inward, elbows pointed out, etc. It was sort of Fosse meets Charlie Brown. I think he won a Tony for the show. But I may be wrong.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 7:11pm

Yes, Fosse won a Tony for his choreography for Little Me. Although not quite as character-rich as the Original Broadway Cast Recording, the Original London Cast Recording has quite a bit of extra material not on the Broadway recording:

* The dialogue lead-in for "The Truth"
* "Rich Kids Rag" in its original orchestration
* An exciting key change in the last verse of "Be a Performer"
* The dance music for "Dimples"
* The chorus girls intro of Val du Val for "Boom Boom"
* A faster performance of the title song, with the dialogue section in the middle, capped with Older Belle saying to her younger counterpart, "You tell 'em honey!"
* Much of the dialogue and dance music for "Goodbye"

The orchestra in particular plays like a house on fire throughout, sailing through the Overture at a rapid pace. There are some detriments: Swen Swenson recreated his Broadway role, but performs "I've Got Your Number" at a much slower tempo, robbing it of some energy. The Young Belle really goes the extra mile making herself sound horrible, particularly in "Dimples". She's really out there. There are also some lyric changes here and there from Carolyn Leigh that will startle those who know the Broadway version, but on the whole, the London recording gives you quite a bit of the flavor and humor of the show.

Updated On: 6/7/07 at 07:11 PM

[temms]

Posted: 6/7/07 at 7:26pm

The script is published in volume two of "The Collected Plays Of Neil Simon." Most any library has it, it's in print at just about any big bookstore. At Amazon, you can order a used copy for $5.

Hysterical script - one of my all-time faves. Probably the highest laugh-per-minute rate of just about any musical I've seen.

Neil Simon Anthology