Broadway Puzzler #102

[Unknown User]

Posted: 11/5/04 at 2:26pm

This musical theatre piece took 68 years before it was produced on Broadway. Some of the composer's other music gained worldwide exposure in a hit film released two years before his work was heard on Broadway in that successful production.

Name the musical and the composer.

Bonus points for the name of the film.

[Mr. TN]

Posted: 11/5/04 at 2:35pm

I was thinking My One and Only but that didn't fit with the movie bit. Hmmm...(ponders)

[WOSQ]

Posted: 11/5/04 at 2:53pm

Treemonisha by Scott Joplin whose music was used in The Sting.

[pab]

Posted: 11/5/04 at 2:59pm

I thought of Treemonisha as well but Scott Joplin wrote that in 1910 and it opened on Broadway in 1975 so that's 65 not 68 years. Also, it only ran for 64 performances so I don't think that that would be called a successful production.

Updated On: 11/5/04 at 02:59 PM

[pab]

Posted: 11/5/04 at 4:50pm

Was it ""Crazy For You" by George Gershwin?

[Unknown User]

Posted: 11/6/04 at 12:27am

WOSQ is correct.

TREEMONISHA was actually being written in 1906-1908 before Joplin arrived in NYC, according to Vera Brodsky Lawrence in her liner notes to the recording. It was never produced in NYC prior to its 1975 production, a critical success despite its 64 performances. Joplin tried to interest backers for TREEMONISHA and his final attempt was in 1915, with an informal audition for invited audience in a rehearsal studio in Harlem. With no money for musicians, the singers were accompanied by Joplin at the piano. Nothing came of that.

TREEMONISHA was first produced in 1972, at Morehouse College, Atlanta, with the Atlanta Symphony. The first full-fledged professional production was done by the Houston Grand Opera in May, 1975. It opened on Broadway later that year.

Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" and other songs were adapted and used by Marvin Hamlisch in his Oscar-winning score for the film, "The Sting, which starred Robert Redford and Paul Newman.