Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber Block, Geoffrey (large ebook reader .txt) đź“–
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ENCHANTED EVENINGS
ENCHANTED
EVENINGS
The Broadway Musical from
Show Boat to Sondheim
and Lloyd Webber
SECOND EDITION
Geoffrey Block
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Block, Geoffrey Holden, 1948–
Enchanted evenings: the Broadway musical from Show Boat
to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber / Geoffrey Block.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-538400-0 (pbk.)
1. Musicals—New York (State)—New York—History and criticism. I. Title.
ML1711.8.N3B56 2009
782.1′4097471—dc22 2009003980
Visit the companion website at: www.oup.com/us/enchantedevenings
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
First Edition
To the beloved memory of
JOHN EASTBURN BOSWELL (“JEB”), 1947–1994
Best friend, best man,
Godfather to Jessamyn and (in spirit) to Eliza
Second Edition
To the memory of my beloved parents
RUTH BLOCK (1913–2007) AND
STANLEY BLOCK (1906–2008)
Devoted wife and husband to each other, in-laws to Jacqueline,
and grandparents to Jessamyn and Eliza
CONTENTS
Preface to the First Edition
A New Preface
Acknowledgments
Using the Enchanted Evenings Website www.oup.com/us/enchantedevenings
Overture
1. Introduction: Setting the Stage
Act I: Before Rodgers and Hammerstein
2. Show Boat: In the Beginning
3. Anything Goes: Songs Ten, Book Three
4. Porgy and Bess: Broadway Opera
5. On Your Toes and Pal Joey: Dance Gets into the Act and “Sweet Water from a Foul Well”
6. The Cradle Will Rock: A Labor Musical for Art’s Sake
7. Lady in the Dark and One Touch of Venus: The Broadway Stranger and His American Dreams
8. Stage versus Screen (1): Before Rodgers and Hammerstein
Act II: The Broadway Musical after Oklahoma!
9. Carousel: The Invasion of the Integrated Musical
10. Kiss Me, Kate: The Taming of Cole Porter
11. Guys and Dolls and The Most Happy Fella: The Greater Loesser
12. My Fair Lady: From Pygmalion to Cinderella
13. West Side Story: The Very Model of a Major Musical
14. Stage versus Screen (2): After Oklahoma!
Epilogue: The Age of Sondheim and Lloyd Webber
15. Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Sunday in the Park with George: Happily Ever After West Side Story with Sondheim
16. The Phantom of the Opera: The Reigning Champion of Broadway
Selected Bibliography
Index
Available online at www.oup.com/us/enchantedevenings
Synopses
Discography and Filmography: Selected Original, Revival, Film, and Studio Casts
Appendix A: Sources, Published Librettos, and Vocal Scores
Appendix B: Long Runs: Decade by Decade 1920s–2000s
Appendix C: The Forty Longest-Running Musicals on Broadway
1920–1959 and 1920–2008
Appendix D: Show Boat: 1927–1994
Broadway 1927
Principal Changes in Selected Stage Productions and Films (1928–1994)
Manuscript Sources for Ravenal’s Entrance and Meeting with Magnolia
Appendix E: Anything Goes: 1934, 1962, and 1987
Broadway 1934
Off-Broadway Revival 1962
Vivian Beaumont Revival 1987
Appendix F: Porgy and Bess: Songs, Arias, and Themes (1935)
Appendix G: On Your Toes: Broadway 1936 and Broadway Revival 1983
Appendix H: Pal Joey: Broadway 1940 and Broadway Revival 1952
Appendix I: The Cradle Will Rock (1937)
Appendix J: Lady in the Dark (1941)
Appendix K: One Touch of Venus (1943)
Appendix L: Carousel (1945)
Appendix M: Kiss Me, Kate (1948)
Spewack Libretto Draft (May 28, 1948)
Appendix N: Guys and Dolls (1950)
Appendix O: The Most Happy Fella (1956)
Appendix P: My Fair Lady (1956)
Appendix Q: West Side Story (1957)
Libretto Drafts 1 (January 1956) and 2 (Spring 1956)
Appendix R: Follies: Broadway 1971 and London Revival 1987
Broadway 1971
London Revival 1987
Appendix S: Sweeney Todd (1979)
Thematic Reminiscences in Sweeney Todd Final Sequence Beginning with “City of Fire!”
Appendix T: Sunday in the Park with George (1984)
Appendix U: The Phantom of the Opera (1988)
Outline of The Phantom of the Opera, Act I, Scenes 5 and 6
Outline of The Phantom of the Opera, Act II, Scene 7
Notes
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
In many ways the preparation of this book brings me back to my childhood, where Rodgers and Hammerstein as well as Bach and Beethoven were frequent and compatible visitors. I cannot remember a time when my father, a professional jazz violinist and part-time lawyer (before he metamorphosed into a full-time attorney and part-time classical violinist), was not playing Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” on the piano, invariably in the key of E . Like many Americans in the 1950s, our family record library included the heavy shellac 78 R.P.M. boxed album of South Pacific with Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza and the lighter 33 R.P.M. cast album of Carousel with Jan Clayton and John Raitt. A major event was the arrival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! and South Pacific in their newly released film versions. Keeping in tune with Rodgers and Hammerstein mania, I played every note and memorized many words of the songs contained in The Rodgers and Hammerstein Song Book and read Hammerstein’s librettos in the (then) readily obtainable Modern Library edition of Six Plays by Rodgers & Hammerstein.1
My family was one of the eighteen million to purchase the cast album of My Fair Lady, and my sister quickly mastered the dialect and memorized the lyrics for all the roles. With the dawn of the stereo era in the late 1950s, we purchased The Music Man to test out our new portable KLH record player.2 My parents, transplanted New Yorkers who settled near San Francisco, would see the traveling versions of Broadway shows, and by the early 1960s they began to take their offspring along.
Musicals created before the era of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe were less known. Only
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