A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade No. 13, K. 525, Eine kleine Nachtmusik. The musical includes the popular song "Send In the Clowns".
My Fair Lady is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, so that she may pass as a lady. Despite his cynical nature, Higgins falls in love with her.
The Sound of Music is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Set in Austria on the eve of the Anschluss in 1938, the musical tells the story of Maria, who takes a job as governess to a large family while she decides whether to become a nun. She falls in love with the children, and eventually their widowed father, Captain von Trapp. He is ordered to accept a commission in the German navy, but he opposes the Nazis. He and Maria decide on a plan to flee Austria with the children. Many songs from the musical have become standards, including "Edelweiss", "My Favorite Things", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Do-Re-Mi", and the title song "The Sound of Music".
Hello, Dolly! is a 1964 musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955. The musical follows the story of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder.
Glynis Johns is a British actress, dancer, musician and singer. Born in Pretoria, South Africa, while her parents were on tour, she is best known for creating the role of Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music on Broadway, for which she won a Tony Award, and for playing Winifred Banks in Walt Disney's musical motion picture Mary Poppins.
Nell Carter was an American singer and actress.
Geraldine Sue Page was an American actress. A career which spanned four decades across film, stage, and television, Page was the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and four nominations for the Tony Award.
Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie and loosely based on the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" written by James Whitcomb Riley. The musical includes music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and a book by Thomas Meehan. The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years, setting a record for the Alvin Theatre. It spawned numerous productions in many countries, as well as national tours, and won seven Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical. The musical's songs "Tomorrow" and "It's the Hard Knock Life" are among its most popular musical numbers.
Blithe Spirit is a comic play by Noël Coward. The play concerns the socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his annoying and temperamental first wife, Elvira, after the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles's marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost.
Dame Frances Margaret Anderson,, known professionally as Judith Anderson, was an Australian actress who had a successful career in stage, film and television. A pre-eminent stage actress in her era, she won two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award and was also nominated for a Grammy Award and an Academy Award. She is considered one of the 20th century's greatest classical stage actors.
Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the actions of Medea, a former princess of the kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason; she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by murdering his new wife as well as her own two sons, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.
Elaine Stritch was an American actress, known for her work on Broadway. She made her professional stage debut in 1944 and appeared in numerous stage plays, musicals, feature films and television series. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1995.
Wicked is a musical, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, based on the characters and setting of the classic 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Wizard of Oz. The musical is told from the perspective of, and focuses on, the witches of the Land of Oz; its plot begins before and continues after Dorothy Gale arrives in Oz from Kansas. Wicked tells the story of two unlikely friends, Elphaba and Galinda, whose relationship struggles through their opposing personalities and viewpoints, rivalry over the same love-interest, reactions to the Wizard's corrupt government, and, ultimately, Elphaba's private fall from grace.
Richard Haydn was an English comedy actor. Some of his better known performances include his roles as Professor Oddley in Ball of Fire (1941), Roger in No Time for Love (1943), Thomas Rogers in And Then There Were None (1945), Emperor Franz Joseph in The Emperor Waltz (1948), the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland (1951), Baron Popoff in The Merry Widow (1952), William Brown in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), and Max Detweiler in The Sound of Music (1965).
Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright, professor, and essayist. Among her most popular plays are Eurydice (2003), The Clean House (2004), and In the Next Room (2009). She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and she received a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play. In 2020 she adapted her play Eurydice into the libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera of the same name.
The Book of Mormon is a musical comedy with music, lyrics, and book by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone. First staged in 2011, the play is a satirical examination of the beliefs and practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The musical ultimately endorses the positive power of love and service. Parker and Stone were best known for creating the animated comedy South Park; Lopez had co-written the music for the musical Avenue Q.
Benjamin Schiff Platt is an American actor, singer, and songwriter. He began his acting career in musical theater as a child and appeared in productions of The Sound of Music (2006) and The Book of Mormon (2012–2015), rising to prominence for originating the title role in Broadway coming-of-age musical Dear Evan Hansen (2015–2017). His performance in the latter earned him multiple accolades, including a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award. At 23, Platt became the youngest solo recipient of the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical. Platt reprised the role of Evan Hansen in the 2021 film adaptation of the musical.
Dear Evan Hansen is a musical with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and a book by Steven Levenson.
Rachel Bay Jones is an American actress and singer. She has played the roles of Catherine in the 2013 Broadway revival of Pippin and Evan Hansen's mother, Heidi Hansen, in Dear Evan Hansen. The latter earned her the 2017 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
Myrtle Tannehill Nichols was an American actress on stage and in silent films.
