GavestonPS said: "Jarethan said: "
I think the Mame producer's casting choices post Lansbury (Jane Morgan!! -- anyone even remember her??) were the reason it did not get a second wind the way Hello Dolly did. Business did improve with Ann Miller, but too little too late. The best part about her performance -- I didn't even know who she was when I saw it just before it closed -- was that they added a Tap solo during Thats How Young I Feel, which I always thought was the weak spot in the show, and brought down the house...."
Jarethan, Ann Miller was famous for that tap solo (100 taps from SL to SR) and inserted it intoevery show she did. I saw it when I worked with her on PANAMA HATTIE in South Florida, the beginning of a tour that went to Papermill and then to the Kenley Circuit.
Business on Broadway with Ann was capacity or nearly so and MAME didn't just dwindle to a closing as your post seems to imply. Rather, Ann was hit on the head when a sandbag fell from the flies and had to leave the show. It quickly closed without her, though it ranked very high among long runs in its day.
Ann never got tired of telling the story. LOL.
I don't know why the revival with Angela in the early 1980s didn't run longer. I had done the show with her a few years earlier--again in South Florida--and she was thrilling in an excellent production that I believe was basically the same version that later came to NYC. It was a slow era for Broadway in general.
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As for the voice she used in THE KING AND I, she only played two weeks while Yul was on vacation, IIRC. No Finale computer program and key changes still had to be orchestrated by hand in those days. It would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to put the songs in new keys, so maybe she used the voice she had to use to sing in Constance Tower's keys. (I loved Angela as Anna--and as everybody else--and had no problem with her singing ever. I'm just trying to explain why she may have made the choices she did.)
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FWIW, I love Janis Paige on THE PAJAMA GAME OCR. I love the recordings from the old days when actors-who-sing didn't all sound alike. I didn't see her "Mame", so no comment on that.
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I agree that SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY is a film that should have been a hit. Screenplay by Hugh Wheeler, BTW. I wish I could see it again. It would make a great musical, but CABARET and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC already covered the same ground. Yes, Hal Prince was involved in every film or show mentioned in this paragraph.
(ETA I don't refer to celebrities by their first names alone unless I have met them personallyand have been invited to address them by first name. It just so happens that this thread refers to a lot of stars I worked with in the 1970s.)"
First of all, I am jealous; but, since I was an attendee rather than an active participant, that's life.
We disagree a little on the closing of Mame. I actually saw Ann Miller twice, right after she took over and got great reviews (coincidentally, I was working as a summertime host (I sat people) at the restaurant La Fonda Del Sol in the Time Life Building, which is where they had her opening night party; I was 18 and it was a very exciting night, so I got my seat the next day). I also saw it late in the run...it was at the Broadway at that point, and there were a lot of empty seats, maybe 2/3 filled. Of course, it was winter (pre-Christmas, which was dead in those years, other than the one or two real sellouts). It was also on two-fers for her entire engagement, so the grosses were diluted. (I have a ridiculous mind / memory for numbers, and the first time I saw Mame remains my favorite musical performance ever).
Re TKAI, I guess I really like Lansbury's chest voice, and couldn't get used to the higher pitch, which came across as 'pushing' too hard to me. It definitely detracted from my enjoyment. I should also point out that the prior I saw her was Gypsy, which I saw a lot of times for the short duration of the run, and still consider to be my favorite single performance in a musical, so expectations were really high.
Finally, my opinion re the short run of the revival... (1) there was no advanced notice (it came 'from nowhere' because they had to cancel the Phillie engagement early); (2) summer was pretty deadly back then (I remember that shows used to close around Memorial Day rather than Labor Day, because business was down in the summer; (3) The Uris was too damned big (pretty much a white elephant until Wicked) and had a LOT of seats to sell; (4) some of the criticism derided it as being a little too Summer Stock, e.g., the sets were pretty cheesy); and (5) Audiences were not as willing to pay Broadway prices for a musical revival. No! No! Nannette was a super-exception in 1971; very few theatergoers had even seen the show on Broadway... so it was practically a new show). (I would cite several shows to make my point: In 1975 Gypsy was scheduled for 10 weeks, and extended to 15, not doing nearly as well in those additional 5 weeks; Ethel Merman moved Annie Get You Gun to the Broadway in 1966, after a five week engagement the NY State Theatre, and couldn't fill the Broadway for even a short-time. Carol Channing's revival of Dolly at the Lunt Fontanne in 1979 was on TKTS for the entire engagement and did not extend beyond its planned (I think 13 week) engagement...there were also plenty of empty seats throughout the run). I often wonder whether the flop of the 1978 (I think) revival is a big factor in its not being revived in 40 years? I know some posters on this board say it is not politically correct or some such; IMO that is bologna. I suspect the real reason is finding a Mame who can be the hit that Lansbury was (or almost).
, and while I never got to see Janis on stage, I did get to meet her at a Ginger Rogers book signing years ago. She had always been one of my favorite TV guest stars ("Eight is Enough", "All in the Family"
