FUNNY FACE Score?

Does anyone happen to know what state the full original score to the Gershwins' FUNNY FACE is in?

I know many (if not most) of their shows received full restorations, concert presentations and studio recordings in the late '80s and early '90s, but I've never heard of any such presentations for FUNNY FACE. In fact it's their only major score not to receive a studio recording by the Lenore Gershwin Elektra/Nonesuch series. Seeing that it contains some of the Gershwins' greatest hits, one would think it would have had some sort of restoration done.

The John Wilson Orchestra presented the overture as the opening to the 2012 "Broadway Sound" BBC Prom, but is this the original arrangement or a new version? I believe the studio cast recording of OH, KAY! had to be entirely re-orchestrated because the original charts were lost so perhaps someone did up a new arrangement?



Did money on the Lenore Gershwin funded project simply run out before they got to FUNNY FACE? Are the original orchestrations and arrangements simply lost? Did they just not care to restore it?

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Updated On: 7/28/14 at 05:27 PM

FUNNY FACE is truly one of the great movie musicals of the 50's...THINK PINK with KAY THOMPSON is such a hoot and so classy...one of those movie moments one never forgets...and when AUDREY HEPBURN runs down the steps holding that bright red evening dress with that chiffon shawl cloth which billows up high as she runs PURE MAGIC!

I'd love the movie to be adapted for stage. With Patti LuPone in the Kay Thompson role.

FUNNY FACE is no more "lost" than most of the other Gershwin musicals that have been restored. The reason it was not included in the Roxbury series in the mid 1990s is it's rights-encumbered. The Broadway production of MY ONE AND ONLY in 1983 started out as a revival of FUNNY FACE -- it was completely overhauled with a new script during troubled out-of-town tryouts. But because of the contracts in place, any performance of FUNNY FACE must now be approved by all the stake-holders in the Broadway MY ONE AND ONLY.

Since then, the only production of the original FUNNY FACE of which I'm aware was by San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon in 2000. That production used a full orchestration, possibly a reduction that had been created for licensing in the '30s or '40s (that's only a guess). So a reasonably authentic recreation of the original should be possible.

The arrangement played by John Wilson's Orchestra in that clip is by Don Rose. He orchestrated a set of Gershwin overtures for symphony orchestra in the '70s I think. It's not an accurate rendition of the 1927 Overture.

Caveat: almost all of this info is 2nd hand heresay.

Updated On: 7/30/14 at 07:54 PM

Mr. Nowack, though FUNNY FACE is "lost" and LADY BE GOOD has a studio recording, from what little I've heard of FUNNY FACE, LADY BE GOOD is a lot better, so I am glad that that is the score they are presenting.

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Perhaps that's true about FUNNY FACE vs. LADY BE GOOD. The latter's score is pretty consistently wonderful, even the short ensemble numbers, but that may not be true of the large chunks of material that remains unheard of FUNNY FACE. Nonetheless, it was the score "He Loves & She Loves," "S'Wonderful" and the title song came out of, and it deserves to be heard at least occasionally in its original form.

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"And I trust Rob Fisher"

I admire Rob Fisher enormously for all he's done, for Encores and elsewhere. But it should be reported that two of the Gershwin productions he presided over at Encores, Strike Up the Band and Girl Crazy, were among the most screwed-around-with "restorations" they've done. Songs out of order, assigned to the wrong character, different versions of SUTB shuffled together, and so on. No doubt this was done at the behest of the respective directors (or script adapters), but it shows that even Rob Fisher's participation is no guarantee of musical authenticity. I hope Lady, Be Good! does better.

It would actually be a first chance to show Encores! audiences the real sound and feel of a mid-1920s musical comedy. New Moon was a last gasp of operetta, SUTB was adulterated as noted, No No Nanette was done in the 1971 revision (a wonderful one, I admit), A Connecticut Yankee was done in a mixed version with the 1940s revival... so this could be a brand-new venture for the series, unlike anything they've done before.

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