A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away
A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away
A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#1
Posted: 2/20/09 at 10:44amEvem Mr.Strouse in his book told us almost nothing about it.Anyone saw it ? I remember the amazing New York Times add in the Sunday Artes & Leisure section.A lot of previews and closed in the opening night.Who was there ? Who has information about it ?Please help me .
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#2
Posted: 2/20/09 at 1:02pmThere are some decent songs in the show, and the always brilliant Helen Gallagher was in the off-Broadway production before it transfered. If the score is still around it would be great for a MUFTI at the York.
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#2
Posted: 2/20/09 at 1:18pm
I remember seeing a poster for this in Dress Circle, which was very eye-catching and confident; the confidence being presumably unjustified. There are some songs from the score recorded on the Varesse Sarabande Unsung Musicals CDs and I paid a small fortune for one of the playbills.
I too would love to know more about the show if anyone happenned to see it?
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#3
Posted: 2/20/09 at 5:43pmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Broadway_Musical
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#4
Posted: 2/20/09 at 8:22pmI saw it .... and can hardly remember a thing. As I recall, there were some nice melodies, and one song that I thought was terrific - but be damned if I can remember what it was.
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#5
Posted: 2/21/09 at 1:27am
Funny you should ask about this show. I saw the final Wednesday matinee preview performance before opening/closing night. It was Christmas week and I treated myself to a ticket. I walked up to the box office just before curtain that day and got a great seat in the second row center orchestra. Just yesterday I posted in another theatre chatroom the paragraph below in response to the word "yenta".
"For life, whenever I hear the word Yenta I think of my favorite moment of a really dreadful show called A BROADWAY MUSICAL many moons ago. Towards the end of Act One there was a song titled YENTA POWER that dealt with the financial strength of the Jewish matinee ladies in regards to group ticket sales. After the curtain came down I noticed I was sitting a row in front of three authentic yentas and boy were they pissed off. In extremely loud voices they let everyone around them know how offended they were with the little ditty. To be honest intermission was more fun than the actual show".
All in all the poster TimesSquareRegular above sums the musical up best as being a hard show to remember. What I do recall is the first time I heard of the show it was to have starred Helen Gallagher and Julius LaRosa. Instead I saw Gwyda DonHowe and Warren Berlinger in their place. I believe the show was loosely based on a producer's experience of putting on "The Wiz". In this version a black college student is having his first show produced on Broadway by a white couple. It deals with his having to make unwanted concessions and seeing his original vision transformed into something totally different. The book was predictable with no surprises. The music was subpar Strouse. I vaguely recall a corny number involving sneakers. I do remember looking especially forward to seeing Tiger Haynes' one big number in the second act opener titled "The 1934 Hot Chocolate Jazz Babies Revue". I was familar with Haynes great work in "Fade In Fade Out" as Bill BoJangles Robinson to Carol Burnett's Shirley Temple in "You Mustn't Be Discouraged" and sat back in my seat hoping for the best. In "A Broadway Musical" he played a theatre janitor and walked out on stage with a bucket and a mop. What could have been a great number wasn't. The best thing about the song was the title. The melody was disappointing and the staging likewise. Nothing in the show stood out. You felt like you were watching a bad tv situation comedy. The show had an accomplished cast with a young Jackee Harry, Dreamgirl's Loretta Devine and Broadway veterans Ann Francine and Patti Karr. Their talents were wasted here. Some flop shows I've seen I've loved for various reasons. "A Broadway Musical" just shouldn't have been. It should remain a footnote in Strouse's career. It was even worse than another bomb I saw a month before called "Platinum".
A gruesome piece of trivia. The female star of the show Gwyda DonHowe was married in real life to the producer of "A Broadway Musical" Norman Kean. Ten years after the show opened Kean murdered DonHowe, his wife of thirty years, and then turned the gun on himself ending his own life.
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#6
Posted: 2/21/09 at 2:13am
Demitri2, thank you so so much for sharing your recollections of A Broadway Musical. I really enjoyed reading.
I've found this show fascinating for years.
If I remember correctly, in one of the opening scenes of All That Jazz, one can see a huge A BROADWAY MUSICAL billboard in Times Square.
Also, I know Strouse and Adams drew on their experiences with Sammy Davis Jr. in Golden Boy, as well as the producers' experiences with The Wiz...
Smashing New York Times...
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#7
Posted: 2/21/09 at 8:24am
Demitri2:
thank you very much for your wonderful description of what happened when you saw A BROADWAY MUSICAL.It has historic proportions.I hope hear of PLATINUM some day.You have such memoir details that you should (and must) write a book of what you´ve saw on Broadway.Congratulations and thanks again !
Broadway Star Joined: 2/21/06
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#8
Posted: 2/21/09 at 11:21am
Information from IBDB:
http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3910
Featured Actor Joined: 8/17/05
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#9
Posted: 2/21/09 at 11:40am
I also attended the first workshop-performance cycle of A Broadway Musical; it was at a space in Riverside Church. Unlike Demetri, I found many things that impressed me about the work. I thought some of the satire was sharp. The cast also included Alan Weeks, as the narcissistic lyricist, and Larry Marshall, who did the Tiger Haynes song, and then played the big star who wants to do things his own way. At that time the director was an afro-American choreographer whose name escapes me, and I thought the dances were strong. The tone of the show was a little vicious---it did not seem like truly commercial material. But the best moments had an edge and originality to them that I admired. When it moved to Broadway, I was surprised that the director was replaced by Champion, it seemed like a very black oriented show. I saw a preview of the show as directed by Champion---it was horrible, the show had been blanded down, with a few of the edgy parts remaining. Yenta Power was a kind of nasty piece, but I think it was intended as such. I left at intermission. Warren Berlinger had replaced Julius La Rosa, and the cub playwright who sets the musical in motion had also been replaced, but the replacement performers were giving actually the same performance. That was what was really odd.
I think there was a lot of potential in the original version that I saw at Riverside Church, but I think the show was intended as a kind of tell all, not a "happy" piece. I doubted its commercial potential, because of this. I thought it might be at best a tough show, more suited to off Broadway, or maybe to a place like the Public. Again, I thought its potential had been diluted and destroyed by the Broadway version.
Featured Actor Joined: 8/17/05
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#10
Posted: 2/21/09 at 11:43amRereading Demetri's comment re Tiger Haynes, it is my memory that the number with a mop was performed by Larry Marshall in actI. I don't remember Tiger Haynes being in it, however I could be wrong. Anyone care to check?
Broadway Star Joined: 2/21/06
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#11
Posted: 2/21/09 at 7:47pm
I really have trouble understanding why a show runs ONE performance. If you have to close it on Opening Night, why open in the first place?
A week I could understand, but one performance?
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#12
Posted: 2/22/09 at 4:26am
Daredevil, I enjoyed reading your experiences seeing the show before it transfered to Broadway. I did some quick checking and Tiger Haynes was indeed in the cast and played a character named Sylvester Lee. Timmer's wonderful link to IBDB gives a cast list. I don't remember the actor Larry Marshall that you recall doing the "mop" song but he is listed as playing a character named Richie Taylor. The show played over thirty years ago and being both young and bored at the time I'm surprised I remember even the little I do. In fact the "mop" could have been a broom (but I still think it was a mop :). Unless my memory is really clouded, Tiger Hayne's character was an elderly retired ex-vaudevillian now employed as a theatre janitor. In the song, as he's mopping (or sweeping) the stage he relays to the audience his recollection of the good ole days when he was at his peak as a performer. By the end of the song he was joined in "his fantasy" by the black actresses in the cast portraying the 1934 Hot Chocolate Jazz Babies. I can see a 64 year old Haynes cast in the role as opposed to Marshall who's listed as being 33 that year but who knows. Anyone else out there who saw one of the fifteen Broadway performances of this winner and stayed for the second act?
Timmer,
As far as your query about the senseless practice of closing a show after one performance I'd guess there can be numerous reasons but I would think it ultimately boils down to dollars and cents/sense. I imagine if a show is skewered by the critics as was "A Broadway Musical" (per Steven Suskin on a scale of reviews charted as either raves, favorable, mixed, unfavorable and finally a downright pan, "A Broadway Musical" received ONE unfavorable review and FIVE pans) then there's no reason not to close up shop. It seems moreso back then if a show was reviewed as a stinker people would stay away in droves. Another major factor in playing one performance only is how much of a reserve the show has left and whether the producers are willing to dig deeper in their pockets in hopes of the show finding an audience. "Pippin" is an example of a show that was doing poor business and gambled what was left in its reserve to put together an eye catching repetitive tv commercial spot that was so successful that the show ended up running nearly five years. So there are exceptions and variables. I believe a 1971 Barbara Cook musical, "The Grass Harp", had the producers giving a choice to their cast members. After running a low grossing first week they asked the cast to vote on either playing a dubious second week or instead cutting their losses by closing and putting the next week's operating costs towards financing an original cast album recording. Fortunately for us the cast chose the recording and the show ended up closing after seven performances (the fact of having a surviving cast recording is also beneficial to the producers as far as possible future interest and revenues from regional and stock productions). Another interesting incident concerning a show's run was David Merrick's musical production of "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Though the show's stars at the time (Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain) were relatively popular television names and the show had a very healthy box office take in future ticket sales, everyone was shocked when Merrick pulled the plug on the show in previews only days before its opening night premiere. Merrick's excuse for not opening was that the show was SO bad that no audience should be subjected to seeing it. Not a beloved producer, one questions whether his motives were aimed at positive publicity for himself or the possibility that he really didn't want his ego bruised by scathing reviews. Either way we'll never know how long a run this musical curiosity may have had.
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/26/05
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#13
Posted: 2/22/09 at 6:05amA show can also close on opening night if it is not fully capitalized by that opening night.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/03
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#14
Posted: 2/22/09 at 7:57amWhat went on with this show right through to the murder suicide would make one good book.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#15
Posted: 2/22/09 at 10:53am
I agree with Times Square
The only thing I remember was Champion coming out on a bare stage before it started & saying how it was a preview & how they were working on it etc. He was totally in white & on a bare stage he looked ruler thin.
re: A BROADWAY MUSICAL- the show that got away#16
Posted: 2/22/09 at 11:41am
Re-reading this thread - I've just remembered there's a large photograph of the The 1934 Hot Chocolate Jazz Babies Revue in Martin Gottfried's book Broadway Musicals. I don't have the book to hand but I seem to recall him writing about the score in reasonably favourable terms, so it is interesting but perhaps not surprising to hear wider opinions that it is subpar Strouse.
I was hoping it might be another of those flops-with-great-scores that there seemed to be so many of in the late 1970s.
Updated On: 2/22/09 at 11:41 AM
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