| I Remember Mama | |
|---|---|
 1985 Studio Recording | |
| Music | Richard Rodgers |
| Lyrics | Martin Charnin Raymond Jessel |
| Book | Thomas Meehan |
| Basis | Memoir by Kathryn Forbes Mama's Bank Account |
| Productions | 1979 Broadway |
I Remember Mama is a musical with a book by Thomas Meehan, lyrics by Martin Charnin and Raymond Jessel, and music by Richard Rodgers. The musical ran on Broadway in 1979.
I Remember Mama originated as a memoir by Kathryn Forbes titled Mama's Bank Account. It was adapted for the stage by John Van Druten as a play, which ran on Broadway from 1944 to 1946. [1] Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were the producers. It was filmed in 1948, and served as the basis for a 1950s television series, titled Mama . Every incarnation basically was the same, a series of heartwarming vignettes centering on a family of Norwegian immigrants living in San Francisco in the early 20th century. At its core is the oldest daughter, Katrin, who yearns to be a published writer and conspires to meet renowned author Dame Sybil Fitzgibbons, a guest at the Fairmont Hotel, for professional advice and guidance. It is through Katrin's eyes the struggles, hopes, and dreams of the Hansens unfold.
The musical adaptation was beset with problems from the beginning. Rodgers and Charnin had composed a full score before the libretto was written, so they ended up having to replace a significant number of songs throughout rehearsals. The original director, Charnin, was replaced by Cy Feuer after tryouts in Philadelphia, with producer Alexander H. Cohen saying "they had to go 'for radical surgery' ". [2] The original choreographer, Graciela Daniele, was replaced by Danny Daniels. [3]
The musical, produced by Alexander H. Cohen and Hildy Parks opened on Broadway on May 31, 1979, at the Majestic Theatre, where it closed on September 2 after 108 performances and 40 previews. Directed by Cy Feuer, the opening cast featured Liv Ullmann, George Hearn, Dolores Wilson, and George S. Irving. The spectacular and clever set was designed by the late David Mitchell (of "Annie" fame).
By 1979, Broadway audiences had become accustomed to edgier musicals such as Sweeney Todd and Evita . Critics found Mama to be old-fashioned and corny, and all were quick to describe the musically disinclined Ullmann as miscast. The New York Times reviewer wrote: "At the end of its much-postponed and choppy progress...this big and expensive musical had buried most of the strengths it possesses under a mass of cliches and a pervading, forced cuteness.... Miss Ullman is unsuited to it." [4]
Show business insiders dubbed the Rodgers' production "I Dismembered Mama." A different musical version starring Celeste Holm played several regional theaters and was better received by audiences and reviewers alike but was prevented from coming to New York.
Advance box office sales, particularly for matinée performances, had been strong enough to keep the show alive in its early weeks, but attendance quickly dropped in numbers dramatic enough to warrant closing. It was Rodgers' last musical.
An original cast album was never recorded, but a studio recording with Hearn and Irving reprising their stage roles and Sally Ann Howes replacing Ullmann was released in 1985.
The first Canadian production of the musical came in 2004. Produced by the Toronto Civic Light Opera Company, the production was designed and directed by Joe Cascone. Starring Caroline Moro-Dalicandro as Mama, David Haines as Papa, Larry Westlake as Uncle Chris and Andrea Strayer as Katrin. This production took a few minor liberties with the script and score (most effectively, adding a reprise of "A Little Bit More" late in Act 2), but was a very big success for the company. The show ran over the Christmas season and garnered rave reviews and tremendous audience reception. Quoted one member of the original Broadway production staff, "The show is a hit at last!" [5]
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Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II. The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals.
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the most well-known American composers of the 20th century, and his compositions had a significant influence on popular music.
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I Remember Mama is a 1948 American drama film directed by George Stevens from a screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen, whose work was adapted from John Van Druten's stage play. Druten, in turn, had based his play on Kathryn Forbes' novel Mama's Bank Account, which was originally published by Harcourt Brace in 1943. The story in all its variant forms recounts the everyday life and economic struggles of a Norwegian immigrant family in San Francisco in the early 20th century. The film stars Irene Dunne as the mother, as well as Barbara Bel Geddes, Oscar Homolka, Ellen Corby and Philip Dorn. Homolka portrays Uncle Chris in the film, a role he had performed earlier in the Broadway production.
Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership between composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and the lyricist Lorenz Hart (1895–1943). They worked together on 28 stage musicals and more than 500 songs from 1919 until Hart's death in 1943.
Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popular Broadway productions in the 1940s and 1950s initiated what is considered the "golden age" of musical theater. Five of their Broadway shows, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music, were outstanding successes, as was the television broadcast of Cinderella (1957). Of the other four shows that the team produced on Broadway during their lifetimes, Flower Drum Song was well-received, and none was an outright flop. Most of their shows have received frequent revivals around the world, both professional and amateur. Among the many accolades their shows garnered were 34 Tony Awards, fifteen Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes and two Grammy Awards.
Chicago is a 1975 American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. Set in Chicago in the jazz age, the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same title by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, about actual criminals and the crimes on which she reported. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal".
Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music by Irving Berlin and a book by Dorothy Fields and her brother Herbert Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley (1860–1926), a sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and her romance with sharpshooter Frank E. Butler (1847–1926).
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The 33rd Annual Tony Awards was broadcast by CBS television on June 3, 1979, from the Shubert Theatre in New York City. The hosts were Jane Alexander, Henry Fonda and Liv Ullmann.
I Remember Mama is a play by John Van Druten based on Kathryn Forbes' novel Mama's Bank Account, loosely based on her childhood. It is a study of family life centered on a Norwegian immigrant family in San Francisco early in the 20th century. The play premiered on Broadway on October 19, 1944 at the Music Box Theatre in New York City, where it ran for 713 performances; it was produced by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The cast included Mady Christians, Oscar Homolka, and Joan Tetzel. Marlon Brando played a minor role, making his Broadway debut as Nels.