Musicals that significantly reworked their scores
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores
Broadway Star Joined: 5/9/15
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#1
Posted: 4/16/16 at 1:40pm
Besides Finding Neverland, what are some musicals that significantly reworked their scores before coming to Broadway or during previews?
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#2
Posted: 4/16/16 at 1:43pm
If/Then I noticed changed quite a bit, not ALOT but I definitely noticed.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#3
Posted: 4/16/16 at 2:02pm
Bonnie and Clyde had about 6 new songs vs. the original tryout production in La Jolla.
Updated On: 4/16/16 at 02:02 PM
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/19/05
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#4
Posted: 4/16/16 at 2:04pm
Upcoming Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (hopefully)
Updated On: 4/16/16 at 02:04 PM
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/24/15
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#5
Posted: 4/16/16 at 2:04pm
I believe Wicked reworked its score quite a bit between its San Francisco run and taking the Gershwin.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#6
Posted: 4/16/16 at 3:45pm
ANNIE at the Goodspeed Opera House was so different from the final version you would be shocked.
GRAND HOTEL famously brought in Maury Yeston to re-work the score in Boston.
THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE moved further away from the film songs as the workshop and tryout moved along.
I don't think WICKED really changed that much between SF and Broadway, a scene here or there and a few cast changes but the music was largely as it is now.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#7
Posted: 4/16/16 at 3:56pm
Next to normal.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#8
Posted: 4/16/16 at 4:02pm
sig·nif·i·cant·ly
adverb
1.
in a sufficiently great or important way as to be worthy of attention.
"energy bills have increased significantly this year"
synonyms: notably, remarkably, outstandingly, importantly, crucially, materially, appreciably;
2.
in a way that has a particular meaning.
"significantly, he has refused to give a straight answer to this question"
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#9
Posted: 4/16/16 at 4:46pm
Funny Girl, Hello, Dolly!, The Wild Party, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday In the Park With George, Nick and Nora, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, to name a few.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#10
Posted: 4/16/16 at 4:52pm
Did MERRILY rework its score so much in previews, Sally? (Obviously, it didn't go out of town pre-Broadway.)
Or are you talking about the reworking done before the York production 10 years later? I saw the first and last previews and I don't remember too much alteration. (I did not have a musician's ear, however, and I'll admit the possibility that there were changes I didn't catch.)
***
I heard a backer's CD from the SF WICKED. The only thing that really stood out to me was that "Popular" was performed at twice the speed out West. (It's a lot funnier at the slower tempo.)
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#11
Posted: 4/16/16 at 5:38pm
Really? I wonder how much that changed over the run, because I saw it there and on Broadway but didn't notice a significant tempo change.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#12
Posted: 4/16/16 at 5:59pm
Gaveston, while most of the score was there on the first preview (along with three other songs that were, mercifully cut), the entire score was basically revisited and reworked. The original version of the opening "Merrily We Roll Along" was at least twice as long as it currently is, cut up with several book scenes. There were entire chunks cut. Many of the songs were spliced up throughout longer book scenes, often with longer sections that are no longer in the score. For example, the reprise of "Not a Day Goes By" was originally part of a musical sequence involving the cut "Honey" (Sondheim states that certain songs were cut in rehearsal, but surviving "private" recordings show otherwise). So while most melodies were in the show, lots of lyrics were changes as well as the musical structure of the show. By opening, the score allowed songs to be songs, without lengthy breaks in between sections. I have no idea how the show could have been recorded as it was the first preview as none of the songs seemed to be cohesive!
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#13
Posted: 4/16/16 at 6:12pm
Also, the transitions between scenes were changes into simple "Merrily" reprises - originally they were pop culture references to the years that were rolling back.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#14
Posted: 4/16/16 at 7:02pm
Most of Wildhorns. Many Jule Stynes were. Jimmy Van Huesens Look To The Lillies had a ton of changes.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#15
Posted: 4/16/16 at 7:35pm
Thanks for the history lesson, Sally. That first preview was such a mess in so many ways, I was probably concentrating hard just to follow the reverse plot. (I was also struggling with the concept; it took me awhile to realize Prince was trying to recreate a high school PRODUCTION of a musical.)
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#16
Posted: 4/16/16 at 7:37pm
LizzieCurry said: "Really? I wonder how much that changed over the run, because I saw it there and on Broadway but didn't notice a significant tempo change.
"
Lizzie, I can only go by the recording I heard, which was used for promotional purposes. It belonged to a friend, unfortunately, and he took it back. (FWIW, he liked the fast-tempo "Popular".)
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#17
Posted: 4/16/16 at 8:53pm
"Little Me" originally had a very popular Broadway sound, with slow string laden ballads and two steps. When revived in the nineties, the score was rearranged to resemble Cy Coleman's jazzier later material, with the two-step bounce "Little Me" in particular reimagined as a hard swinging big band number.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#18
Posted: 4/16/16 at 9:49pm
Funny you should start by mentioning Finding Neverland, since both of the U.S. musical adaptations of Peter Pan opened on Broadway with their scores substantially changed from what had originally been written.
The 1950 adaptation, starring Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff, opened as a play with music -- five songs and extensive incidental music and underscoring by Leonard Bernstein. Although it had long been known that the show's music had suffered cuts, not until 2000 did archivists go back to Bernstein's original materials and find he had written a full-fledged musical. Most of the songs had evidently been cut due to the vocal limitations of the cast. The original version has since been staged several times and a studio recording has been made.
Conversely, the 1954 Mary Martin version was conceived by director Jerome Robbins as a play with music and opened out-of-town in LA with songs by Moose Charlap and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh. Robbins decided to turn the show into a full musical but was dissatisfied with Charlap and Leigh's work and brought in Jule Styne and Comden & Green for additional songs. The score as we now know it is about 60/40% Charlap/Styne. For example, in the first act, Neverland is by Styne/Comden&Green while I'm Flying is by Charlap/Leigh. It's hard to imagine the show without either.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#19
Posted: 4/16/16 at 11:07pm
Helen Miller /Eve Merriman's Inner City. Numbers came and went replaced by others. It was a shame like Follies it should have been a 2 LP album and RCA only did 1. 50 musical numbers were reduced to 29. . What a lost opportunity although lasting only 79 performances , we should be glad for what we actually got.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#21
Posted: 4/17/16 at 4:44am
Two scores by Robert Wright and George Forrest changed drastically over the years.
Grand Hotel began life in 1958 as At the Grand and played tryouts in LA and San Francisco, with an original score by Wright and Forrest. It made major changes to the source material, changing the setting from Berlin to Rome and the leading lady from a prima ballerina to an opera diva reminiscent of Maria Callas. Plans for Broadway were canceled after mixed reviews and Paul Muni's decision to leave. He had been playing Kringelein, who in this version was a hotel employee secretly living in a suite in the hotel.
In the late 1980's Wright and Forrest decided to revisit the show and rewrote it closer to the original story. When Tommy Tune agreed to direct, he convinced W&R to agree to drop roughly half their songs and replace them with new ones by Maury Yeston.
In 1967 Wright and Forrest created a musical version of the play and film Anastasia, using the melodies of Rachmaninoff in the same way they had adapted the music of Borodin for Kismet and Grieg for Song of Norway. Titled Anya, it was a lavish production starring Constance Towers as the Anastasia/Anna Anderson character, Lillian Gish as The Dowager Empress, opera star Irra Petina, Michael Kermoyan, George S. Irving and John Michael King. Directed by George Abbot and choreographed by Hanya Holm, it was a huge production and even bigger flop, closing after 16 performances. It was the last show to play the old Ziegfeld Theatre. The cast album makes it sound like a darkly overblown operetta and I love it.
Over the years, however, Wright and Forrest kept working on the material, making substantial changes, eventually turning it into basically a chamber piece with a small orchestra and and handful of characters. In its various incarnations, the show was called I, Anastasia; Anastasia: The Musical; The Anastasia Game; and more. Bay Cities made a studio recording of The Anastasia Affair, which I think was the final version.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#22
Posted: 4/17/16 at 4:04pm
Annie 2
In a vain attempt to salvage it after being savaged by critics in Washington, they threw away a ton of songs but it was like standing on the Titanic deck after the last lifeboat had left .You had a "sinking" feeling all hope was lost. When it morphed into Annie Warbucks, they had it right. Instead of reviving Annie ad nauseum, they should have brought this version to Broadway.
Musicals that significantly reworked their scores#24
Posted: 4/17/16 at 6:23pm
Sally Durant Plummer said: "Funny Girl, Hello, Dolly!, The Wild Party, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday In the Park With George, Nick and Nora, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, to name a few.
"
I'm wondering which 'Wild Party ' you're reffering to? I heard in Lippa's a song that was originaly Idina's was given to Julia Murney (Raise the Roof), and that the tone of some of the songs were changed, but don't know specifics... has anyone seen the show in previews and know of other changes?
Videos
