Ravinia 2021 - Issue 2

BROADWAY TODAY Andrew Lloyd Webber composed his 11th musical— The Phantom of the Opera (1986)— to lyrics by Charles Hart and a book by Rich- ard Stilgoe and himself. Gaston Leroux’s newspaper serial and, later, novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (1910) tells of the resplendent Pal- ais Garnier opera house in Paris, the unex- plained, often tragic, occurrences within its walls, and the frightening legends of the “opera ghost.” Mesmerizing young soprano Christine Daaé rises to fame after being se- cretly tutored by the masked, disfigured “an- gel of music”—the Phantom of the Opera. Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, the opera’s new patron, recognizes Christine as a childhood friend and falls in love. Obsessed with his beautiful protégée, the Phantom haunts the opera house and kidnaps Christine in order to keep her for himself. Musically, Phantom is closer to opera than musical theater, as there is little spoken dia- logue, and the score features lush writing for the orchestra. The original production was a great success on the London stage at its opening at Her Majesty’s Theatre on Octo- ber 9, 1986. When Webber brought the work to Broadway, it broke box-office records with advance sales of over $18 million and a soon- to-be-resumed, record-breaking run of 13,386 performances at The Majestic Theatre. The historical Newsboys’ Strike of 1899, in which newspaper hawkers in New York City shut down the city’s two largest newspaper publishing companies, provided the storyline for the 2011 musical Newsies by composer AlanMenken with lyrics by Jack Feldman and book by Harvey Fierstein. The Spanish-Amer- ican War of 1898 boosted newspaper sales, prompting publishers to change the pay scale for its lowest-paid workers. Newsboys (and girls), mostly children of immigrants and the poor, sold papers for one penny but now kept only 40% of profits instead of the pre-war 50%. Sales volume allowed the paper sellers to still collect a meager wage. When the four-month war came to an end, newspaper sales dropped to normal levels and all but two publishers returned to the 50% pay rate: Joseph Pulitzer of The Evening World and William Randolph Hearst of the New York Evening Journal . An- gered by the lost income, “newsies” on Long Island staged a strike, later joined by their compatriots in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The publishers reached a compromise with the newsboys after approximately two weeks. In 1992, Walt Disney Pictures produced a film version of this episode in American labor history with songs by Menken and Feldman. The movie Newsies was an utter flop, and the songwriting team earned the dubious honor of Worst Original Song (“High Times, Hard Times”) at the 13th Golden Raspberry Awards. Twenty years later, Disney resurrected News- ies on Broadway as a fully staged musical at the NederlanderTheatre, following a brief try- out at the Paper Mill Playhouse the previous year. This production struck gold: Menken and Feldman won the 2012 Tony Award for Best Original Score and Menken won the 2012 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music. Composer, lyricist, and playwright Jason Robert Brown ’s musical The Last Five Years is a two-person show tracing the failed relation- ship between novelist Jamie Wellerstein and actress Cathy Hiatt. The characters narrate from completely independent perspectives. Jamie tells the story from their first meeting through the divorce, as he relishes his accom- plishments as a writer and succumbs to the temptations that success can bring. Cathy begins at the end of their marriage and rem- inisces backward to their initial encounter, a period accompanied by her struggles to break into the theatrical world, which so far has only resulted in a disappointing opportu- nity in Ohio. Their lives intersect at only one point: on their wedding day. The Last Five Years premiered at Chicago’s Northlight Theatre on May 23, 2001, and opened off-Broadway at the Minetta Theatre on March 2, 2002. The New York production received seven Drama Desk Award nomina- tions in 2002, winning for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Lyrics. A film version star- ring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan pre- miered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. John Carney wrote and directed the Irish ro- mantic film Once (2007), starring Glen Han- sard and Markéta Irglová as two struggling street musicians in Dublin. Hansard and Irglová performed as the real-life folk rock duo The Swell Season, and they wrote all the film’s original music. A vacuum repairman (Hansard as Guy) plays music in a bustling shopping district on Grafton Street, when the Czech flower-seller (Irglová as Girl) stops to listen. Learning of Guy’s mechanical skills, Girl asks him to repair her vacuum. In time, she reveals her own musical interests: she plays piano regularly at a local music store and writes songs. As Guy and Girl begin to co-cre- ate music, their feelings for one another deep- en. In the end, Guy returns to his ex-girlfriend in London but, before doing so, buys a piano for Girl so that she can settle into Dublin when her husband and son arrive from Czechia. Jason Robert Brown Once received two Grammy nominations, for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album and Best Song for Motion Picture, Television and Other Visual Media (2008), and won both an Oscar for Best Original Song (2008) and a Critics’ Choice Award for Best Song (2008) for “Falling Slowly.” Few musical revivals have enjoyed greater success than composer John Kander , lyricist Fred Ebb, and director/choreographer Bob Fosse’s Chicago . Based on the 1926 play by Maurine Dallas Watkins, a former reporter for the Chicago Tribune , the musical portrays the seamy side of the Roaring Twenties. Wat- kins, drawing from actual cases she covered in Chicago courtrooms, weaves an absorbing tale of murder, sex, show business, life in the Cook County Jail, and “all that jazz.” Chicago opened at the 46th Street Theater on June 3, 1975, and ran for 182 acclaimed per- formances. The original production received 14 Tony nominations for the production team and actors Jerry Orbach, Chita Rivera, and Gwen Verdon. Near equal honors greeted the 1996 revival, which garnered 10 Tony nom- inations. Kander and Ebb jointly created 20 musical shows before Ebb’s death in 2004. New York–born composer and lyricist Ste- phen Schwartz has experienced equal suc- cess on Broadway and in Hollywood. Mu- sical theater dominated early in his career with hits such as Godspell (1971) and Pippin (1972). Schwartz also adapted Studs Terkel’s book Working as a musical (1978) and wrote lyrics for Charles Strouse’s musical Rags (1986). During the ’90s, he provided lyrics for several acclaimed films— Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Enchanted (2007)—and provided music and lyrics for The Prince of Egypt (1998). Earlier in his career, Schwartz adapted Marcel Pagnol and Jean Giono’s 1938 French film La Femme du boulanger ( The Baker’s Wife ) for the stage. Schwartz was not the first musical theater composer interested in the subject; Frank Loesser and his librettist Abe Burrows had secured rights in 1952. Despite announcing Bert Lahr and, later, Zero Mostel, as lead actors, the Loesser and Burrows col- laboration fizzled. Schwartz and playwright Joseph Stein picked up the rights in 1976 and took their musical adaptation of The Baker’s Wife on the road for performances in Los Angeles and Washington, DC. The first-act song “Meadowlark” draws from the tale of the faithful bird who remains with the ador- ing aged king instead of flying off with the Sun God. In the musical, Genevieve must de- cide to stay with her baker husband, Aimable Castagnet, or abandon him for the young and passionate chauffeur, Dominique, which she resolves to do in the end. Religious satire can be perilous in main- stream theater, but The Book of Mormon has seemingly averted most potential dan- ger. Trey Parker , Robert Lopez , and Matt Stone —collaborators on the music, lyrics, and book—took a tongue-in-cheek look at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as Mormonism. The actual Book of Mormon is a foundational sa- cred text containing writings of the ancient prophets, published the year Joseph Smith founded the church (1830). It also accom- panies Mormon missionaries, mostly young men (Elders) and women (Sisters), on their missions throughout the world. The musical follows a group of trepid El- ders into an isolated village in Uganda, where worldly concerns such as brutal warlords, famine, and AIDS overwhelm any local in- terest in religion. Through suffering weak- ness and occasional lapses in faith, the Elders continue to share their positive message. The Book of Mormon opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011, and ran continuously until the Broadway shutdown in March 2020. Plans to resume performances on November 5, 2021, have been announced. Robert James Waller’s best-selling 1992 ro- mantic novella The Bridges of Madison Coun- ty became a widely acclaimed film in 1995. Almost one decade later, composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown teamed with playwright Marsha Norman in adapting the novella for musical theater. Set in the small town of Win- terset, IA—the county seat of Madison Coun- ty (and birthplace of actor John Wayne)—the film centers on an affair between Francesca Johnson, the Italian-born wife of an Iowa farmer, and Robert Kincaid, a National Geo- graphic photojournalist sent to Madison County to document the 19th-century cov- ered bridges. Given its rural setting, Brown introduced elements of folk music into his vocal writing and orchestrations. After tryouts at William- stown Theatre Festival in August 2013, The Bridges of Madison County officially opened on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld The- atre on February 20, 2014. The show received nominations for four Tony Awards (winning for Best Original Score and Best Orchestra- tions), nine Drama Desk Awards (winning for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Orches- trations), and two Outer Critics Circle Awards (winning for Outstanding New Score). Disney’s 1984 animated film The Lion King fea- tured music by pop superstar Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice. Simba, a young lion cub, witnesses the death of his father, King Mufasa. Fearful, he runs away, attempts to forget the past, and hides from his destiny. However, the kingdom disintegrates without him, and Simba discovers the courage to return home. Disney unveiled its musical version of The Lion King —with additional music by Hans Zimmer, Lebo M , Mark Mancina , and Jay Rifkin —at the New Amsterdam Theatre on November 13, 1997. That production received the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1998 and the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. As of April 1, 2021, The Lion King is the highest grossing musical in Broad- way history with $1.68 billion in revenues. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 37