Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber Block, Geoffrey (large ebook reader .txt) 📖

Scene 9. Dr. Specialist’s Office: Dr. Specialist (Frank Marvel) lies in order to obtain his coveted research grants controlled by Mr. Mister. Ella Hammer (Blanche Collins) tells the press how her brother, Joe Hammer (“Joe Worker”), gets “gypped” and abused by a corrupt system.

Scene 10. Night Court: Larry Foreman refuses to be bought by Mr. Mister, the boilermakers agree to join the steel workers, and a union chorus reprises “The Cradle Will Rock.”

Guys and Dolls

Nathan Detroit (Sam Levene), who runs the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York, is hard up for money, a special problem since the biggest plunger of all, Sky Masterson (Robert Alda), is in town, ready to play. When Sky boasts that he can have any woman he wants, Nathan sees his chance. He wagers that Sky cannot win any woman Nathan points to. Sky takes the bet. At that moment, Sister Sarah (Isabel Bigley) of the Salvation Army comes marching by, and Nathan points to her. When Sky wins big at dice he forces the losers to attend a Salvation Army rally in order to help his pursuit of Sarah, whom he earlier had lured to Havana. In the end she converts him to her ways. Meanwhile Nathan agrees to wed Adelaide (Vivian Blaine), a nightclub singer with whom he has had a fourteen-year courtship.

Kiss Me, Kate

While cast members of a revival of The Taming of the Shrew celebrate “Another Op’nin,’ Another Show,” the show’s stars, Fred Graham (Alfred Drake) and Lilli Vanessi (Patricia Morison), celebrate the first anniversary of their divorce. They take time from their bickering to recall they had once sung “Wunderbar” in a long-forgotten operetta. Lilli receives a bouquet from Fred, leading her to believe he still loves her, and she confesses she is still “So in Love” with him, but when she learns the flowers are meant for someone else she determines to be revenged. Fred’s problems are compounded when another member of the company, Bill Calhoun (Harold Lang), signs Fred’s name to a gambling debt. Opening night is peppered by warfare between Fred and Lilli, and by demands by two comic hoods for payment of the debt. Fred convinces the hoods that they must force Lilli to perform. Bill’s promiscuous girl, Lois (Lisa Kirk), helps him try to reform by promising she will be “Always True to You in My Fashion,” and the hoods eventually leave when the debt proves no longer valid on a technicality. They decide it might be more profitable to “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.” In the course of the evening, Fred and Lilli recognize they still do love each other.

Lady in the Dark

Liza Elliott (Gertrude Lawrence), a successful but greatly troubled fashion editor of a prestigious fashion magazine, reluctantly consults the psychiatrist, Dr. Brooks (Donald Randolph). In two sessions she relates musical dreams of a glamour girl (the Glamour Dream) and marriage (the Wedding Dream) that contrast markedly with the state of her waking life. In her dreams Liza is the toast of the town; in real life she dresses in dreary clothing and protects her emotional vulnerabilities in a dispassionate affair with a married man, Kendall Nesbitt (Bert Lytell). Her waking world unravels still further when Nesbitt offers to leave his wife and marry Liza. In her third dream, the Circus Dream, Liza goes on trial for her indecisiveness.

The people close to Liza appear metaphorically in her dreams. In the Circus Dream, Nesbitt is the first witness for the prosecution, her nemesis Charley Johnson (MacDonald Carey) is the prosecuting attorney, the movie star Randy Curtis (Victor Mature) serves as the attorney in her defense, and the magazine’s photographer Russell Paxton (Danny Kaye) appears as the Ringmaster. In a final session Dr. Brooks helps Liza understand the childhood trauma behind her fear of her femininity and success. As her repression vanishes, she is finally able to complete the song “My Ship,” which has haunted her throughout the play. Having achieved this understanding as well as her feminine identity, Liza realizes that she really loves Johnson.

The Most Happy Fella

Rosabella (Jo Sullivan) comes to the Napa Valley expecting to marry a handsome young man who has sent her his picture and proposed by mail. She is certain that she has at last found “Somebody, Somewhere” to really love her. But she soon discovers the handsome man, Joe (Art Lund), is merely a hired hand, and that the man who proposed is actually an aging Italian vintner, Tony (Robert Weede). He had sent her Joe’s picture, fearing one of himself would have disheartened her. He believes that she will quickly become reconciled and make him “The Most Happy Fella” in all of the valley. The shock, however, drives Rosabella into Joe’s arms. Eventually she realizes that Tony is an honorable, loving man. Bit by bit, she and Tony admit that they are “Happy to Make Your Acquaintance.” When he offers to accept not only her but the baby she is now pregnant with, she comes to love him.

My Fair Lady

Coming from a performance at Covent Garden, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) meets a fellow scholar, Colonel Pickering (Robert Coote), and a somewhat raucous Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Julie Andrews). Higgins casually mentions to Pickering that given a little time he could turn a flower girl into a lady, so when Eliza appears later at his residence asking him to make good on his boast, Higgins accepts Pickering’s wager on the affair. It is a long, hard struggle, but by the time Eliza can properly enunciate “The Rain in Spain” and Higgins takes her to Ascot, her pronunciation is perfect—even if her conversation is not. Later she is successfully passed off as a lady at a ball, and she is so pleased that she confesses, “I Could Have Danced All Night.” At one point Higgins must bribe Eliza’s father, Alfred P. Doolittle (Stanley Holloway), to stay