| Here's Where I Belong | |
|---|---|
 1968 Playbill | |
| Music | Robert Waldman |
| Lyrics | Alfred Uhry |
| Book | Alex Gordon Terrence McNally |
| Basis | John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden |
| Productions | 1968 Broadway |
Here's Where I Belong is a musical with a book by Alex Gordon [lower-alpha 1] and Terrence McNally, lyrics by Alfred Uhry, and music by Robert Waldman. The musical closed after one performance on Broadway.
Based on John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden , the allegorical tale centers on the Trasks and the Hamiltons, two families drawn to the rich farmlands of Salinas, California, in the early 20th century. While Steinbeck traced the two clans through three generations, the musical limits the action to the period between 1915 and 1917 and focuses primarily on the Cain and Abel aspects of the work.
McNally asked that his name be removed from the credits prior to opening night. [1] The official opening on Broadway was postponed from February 20, 1968, to March 2, 1968, to allow time for rewrites to the book. [2]
The musical premiered on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre on March 3, 1968, and closed after one performance and twenty previews. [1] Directed by Michael Kahn and choreographed by Tony Mordente, the cast included Paul Rogers as Adam Trask, Walter McGinn as Caleb Trask, Ken Kercheval as Aron Trask, James Coco as Lee, Graciela Daniele as Faith, and Heather MacRae as Abra Bacon. The scenery was by Ming Cho Lee, costumes by Ruth Morley, and lighting by Jules Fisher. [3]
The play was picketed by the newly formed Oriental Actors of America, a group of Asian American stage actors, as a protest against the practice of casting white actors in yellowface makeup to portray East Asian characters (usually Chinese or Japanese). The role of "Lee", the Trask family's Chinese cook, had been assigned to white actor (and future Academy Award nominee) James Coco. Variety would mention the picketing in its review of the failed musical and note, "On the basis of the show, they had a point." [4]
In his The New York Times review, Clive Barnes questioned whether the book (East of Eden) could be a viable musical as it was "too serious", but praised the sets by Ming Cho Lee and wrote that Paul Rogers had a "strong singing voice" and was dignified. [3]
The circumstances of play's production were covered in the William Goldman book The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway . [5] Goldman wrote the musical "needed the notices. They didn't get them. Some of the pans were cruel. I don't know why. The show wanted to move you, it never insulted, and it had several musical moments — "Good Boy," "Waking Up the Sun" — that were as fine as anything heard on Broadway all season." [6] The production only lasted one night and lost $604,000 which Goldman called "the most expensive one night stand in Broadway history." [7]
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East of Eden is a novel by American author and Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, published in September 1952. Many regard the work as Steinbeck's most ambitious novel, and Steinbeck himself considered it his magnum opus. Steinbeck said of East of Eden: "It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years," and later said: "I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this." Steinbeck originally addressed the novel to his young sons, Thom and John. Steinbeck wanted to describe the Salinas Valley for them in detail: the sights, sounds, smells and colors.
Terrence McNally was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," McNally was the recipient of five Tony Awards. He won the Tony Award for Best Play for Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime, and received the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, and he also received the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest recognition of artistic merit in the United States. His other accolades included an Emmy Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, four Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Obie Awards, and three Hull-Warriner Awards.
James Emil Coco was an American stage and screen actor. He was the recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Cable ACE Award and three Obie Awards, as well as nominations for a Tony Award, an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Coco is remembered for his supporting roles in the films Man of La Mancha (1972), Murder by Death (1976) and Only When I Laugh (1981).
Plaza Suite is a comedy play by Neil Simon.
John Ernst Steinbeck IV was an American journalist and author. He was the second child of the Nobel Prize-winning author John Ernst Steinbeck. In 1965, he was drafted into the United States Army and served in Vietnam. He worked as a journalist for Armed Forces Radio and TV, and as a war correspondent for the United States Department of Defense.
Ming Cho Lee was a Chinese-American theatrical set designer and professor at the Yale School of Drama.
The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N is a musical with lyrics and music by Oscar Brand and Paul Nassau. The musical book by Benjamin Bernard Zavin is based on Leo Rosten's stories of the fictional character Hyman Kaplan.
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Darling of the Day is a musical with a book by Nunnally Johnson, lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, and music by Jule Styne. It is based on Arnold Bennett's novel Buried Alive and his play The Great Adventure. Patricia Routledge won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in the 1968 Broadway production.
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Robert Waldman is an American composer, musical arranger, and orchestrator. Waldman has collaborated with Alfred Uhry twice, on Here's Where I Belong, the disastrous 1968 adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden that closed on opening night, and the considerably more successful The Robber Bridegroom, which was produced on Broadway in both 1975 and 1976, enjoyed a year-long US national tour, and has become a staple of regional theatres. It garnered Waldman a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Music.
Clive Alexander Barnes was an English writer and critic. From 1965 to 1977, he was the dance and theater critic for The New York Times, and, from 1978 until his death, the New York Post. Barnes had significant influence in reviewing new Broadway productions and evaluating the international dancers who often perform in New York City.
The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway is an account of the 1967–1968 season on and off-Broadway by American novelist and screenwriter William Goldman. It originally was published in 1969 and is considered one of the better books ever written on American theater. In The New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt called the book “Very nearly perfect...It is a loose-limbed, gossipy, insider, savvy, nuts-and-bolts report on the annual search for the winning numbers that is now big-time American commercial theatre.”
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Something Different is a 1967 comedy play by Carl Reiner. Reiner directed the original production which starred Bob Dishy.
Mike Downstairs is a 1968 American play. It was poorly reviewed and had a short run on its Broadway debut despite starring Dane Clark.
A Minor Adjustment is a 1967 play. It was written by Eric Nicol, a Canadian humorist. The play was originally titled Like Father, Like Fun and realised to audiences in 1966 in Vancouver.
In Circles is an off-Broadway musical. The words were selected from the writings of Gertrude Stein, arranged and set to music by Al Carmines. It was first seen in the Judson Poets Theatre based at Judson Memorial Church on October 13, 1967. It transferred to the Cherry Lane Theatre and opened there on November 5, 1967. It subsequently transferred to the Gramercy Arts Theatre where it continued on June 25, 1968.
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