The Producers love affair with Gershwin

[Iesha]

Posted: 6/20/15 at 10:08pm

Can we stop using Gershwin songs for new musicals.

• Crazy for You (1992), a revised version of Girl Crazy, written and compiled without the participation of either George or Ira Gershwin.


• Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012), a musical with a score by George and Ira Gershwin


• An American in Paris, a new musical on Broadway (2015

It just seems that every new musical is using them. Isn't there another song catalogue  that we can use instead of this one. Is there no musical song writer today that can write the music you want or need? I just think its laziness.

 

I do believe these are great timeless songs. But we could so have an original song musical instead.

Updated On: 6/20/15 at 10:08 PM

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 6/20/15 at 10:13pm

So three musicals in the last 23 years now equals "every new musical"? I guess I must have dreamed up the multitude of others shows that have opened on Broadway since 1992.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/20/15 at 10:58pm

In case you missed it, there have been a ton of new musicals this year

In addition, as per the poster AEA, 3 shows in 20 plus years does not make every new musical. The premise of your thread is seriously flawed & you may want to rethink the entire premise.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 6/20/15 at 11:21pm

I don't have a problem with Gershwin jukebox musicals but I do wish they'd dig deeper and find some lesser known gems. Some of the best songs in Nice Work if You Can Get It and An American in Paris were already used in Crazy For You/Girl Crazy. It pulls me out of the story a little bit but I did appreciate the new orchestrations in An American in Paris which made "But Not For Me" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me" seem new in spite of my familiarity with them from Crazy For You.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 6/20/15 at 11:42pm

My question is always why they never try merely fitting an updated book to the existing scores. Every Gershwin score has a few hits in it so why do you have to also interpolate hits from every other show? 

I think that kind of approach would make for a much more interesting musical voyage than the same hits over and over. Plus it would allow you to think "hmm how interesting that this song I know so well was originally performed with this context" rather than just "oh that again."

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 6/20/15 at 11:54pm

"My question is always why they never try merely fitting an updated book to the existing scores."

Isn't that more or less exactly what Crazy for You (a revisal of Girl Crazy) and Nice Work If You Can Get It (a revisal of Oh, Kay) are, Mr. Nowack?

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 6/21/15 at 12:16am

"Isn't that more or less exactly what Crazy for You (a revisal of Girl Crazy) and Nice Work If You Can Get It (a revisal of Oh, Kay) are, Mr. Nowack?"

While the plots are similar and based on those of the earlier shows the scores include a ton of interpolations, tossing out huge chunks of the original scores. My point was if the stories are fine why not use the songs written for them?

(MY ONE AND ONLY was the first of those revisals, though it departed most drastically to where it became unintelligible as a reworking of FUNNY FACE)

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 6/21/15 at 12:43am

Well the movie always had Gershwin songs, but I agree with you. The songs are just being abused by producers now and they really need to come up with new stuff

[Iesha]

Posted: 6/21/15 at 1:33am

 

Some people need to learn that EVERY movie. Was a really huge exaggeration. It just meant its been happening a lot.

 

Philly So true I agree American in Paris the movie had it and thats okay, But they could have hired new composers to write different and equally unique songs

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 6/21/15 at 1:56am

Some think that the great and rich number of American "standards" were the result of an historical, once in a century, confluence of Jewish composers, many of whom were escaping poverty or political persecution in Europe and Russia, into a small area of Manhattan. The composers for the stage and film musicals include about everyone except Cole Porter. Rodgers, Hart, Hammerstein, Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Schwartz and Dietz, Harold Arlen, Lerner and Lowe, Kurt Weill, Victor Young, Cy Coleman, Comden and Green, Frank Loesser, Jerry Herman, Kander and Ebb, Bernstein, Sondheim, Charles Strouse, Yip Harburg, Sigmund Romberg and a few more I'm sure.

Not all of these composers were escaping Europe, but many were. The fact that we're not getting great Broadway musical scores might be that the great Jewish composers that followed mostly did not write for theater or films.

Those that did include Bacharach and David, Anthony Newley, Marvin Hamlisch, Charles Strouse. Those that didn't are Paul Simon, Carole King, Carole Bayer Sayer, Neil Diamond, Sammy Cahn, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Barry Manilow, Laura Nyro, Bob Dylan, Alan and Marilyn Bergman and I think quite a few more.

You might disagree that all of these were great. Although the later composers did not themselves flee Europe, a lot of their parents and grandparents surely did.

Hitler and Stalin left us at least one rich legacy.

Of course, Jews did not dominate every area of American culture.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=airplane!+great+jewish+sports&qpvt=Airplane!+great+jewish+sports&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=D738FA74ADEE06D973C8D738FA74ADEE06D973C8

 

Updated On: 6/21/15 at 01:56 AM

[sctrojan65]

Posted: 6/21/15 at 2:13am

3 musicals in almost 25 years….constitutes a lot?

Understandably "every musical" was indeed an exaggeration.  But so is saying that it's been happening "a lot."

And when you think on it, you also have The King and I taking best revival twice, in less than 20 years too?  And only a few years after South Pacific was done.  

Too much Rodgers and Hammerstein, as well?

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/21/15 at 1:11pm

AAIP is basically a hybrid jukebox musical - songs from the movie and some not.

[theatreguy]

Posted: 6/21/15 at 1:16pm

The Gershwin heirs have been very aggressive in their efforts to generate new revenue. That's the main reason why there have been more "new" Gershwin musicals and "musical theater" versions of Porgy and Bess as opposed to shows using the catalogues of, for example, Cole Porter or Irving Berlin.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 6/21/15 at 3:52pm

Mr. Nowack, I agree about the interpolations, but weren't interpolations very common in non-original productions of shows from the 20s and 30s even during the 20s and 30s?

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 6/21/15 at 7:37pm

"Mr. Nowack, I agree about the interpolations, but weren't interpolations very common in non-original productions of shows from the 20s and 30s even during the 20s and 30s?"

I think you're right about that. I just think it would be more interesting to hear the original scores, especially since there's a big "the original is sacred" mentality nowadays that wasn't really around back then. 

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 6/22/15 at 6:37am

^Exactly.  That's the mentality I'm calling into question.

If we recall that there's a tradition of interpolation (in the sense of reworking of scores and libretti) that goes back to the Golden Age of musicals, and even before - if it was good enough for Verdi, it should be good enough for anyone! - perhaps we might be less mechanical in our purism.

A related example:

A great many are fine with peppering stage revivals with first rate songs composed for film adaptations: i.e.,  "Maybe This Time," "Something Good." the movie version of "The Glamorous Life."  

It's a very small step from that to taking a great song written for an original movie musical and putting it in a revival or revisal of a different musical by the same composer, i.e. "Things Are Looking Up" in "Crazy for You."

Bottom line:

There's nothing wrong with change if it is done with taste and purpose.

Plus it has the added value of giving people who love to k'vetch for the sake of the k'vetch something to k'vetch about.

Updated On: 6/22/15 at 06:37 AM

[mc1227]

Posted: 6/22/15 at 7:01am

I see nothing wrong with using these songs in new shows as often as possible. They are timeless classics that people love.  New generations will be able to appreciate them.  I will never forget my daughter's comment  at Nice Work during "Someone To Watch Over Me".  She said, "oh, that's the song from that movie, Mr. Hollland's Opus".   I said, "no, that's Gershwin".  She has since come to appreciate the music and recently saw AAIP primarily for the Gerswhin music.