Lost Musicals

Last updated

Lost Musicals is a British musical theatre project established in 1989 by Ian Marshall Fisher. [1] It is dedicated to presenting lost or forgotten musicals by famous American writers, and has been responsible for the first revivals of the lesser-known works of writers such as Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, Alan Jay Lerner, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Harold Arlen and Jerome Kern. [2]

Contents

Approach and philosophy

Ian Marshall Fisher researches, reconstructs and directs each show based upon exactly what the writers had written, with no changes, amendments and no edits to their original work. In an interview with The Stage in 2005, Fisher commented "My original idea was to celebrate the writers in accurately presenting what they had written – and I don't just mean the songwriters but the bookwriters too. That's where my series stands alone. Although other series have sprung up in the last ten years, they don't honour and have a love for the books that I do." [3]

In another interview, Fisher criticised what he reviewed as the recent trivialisation of musicals, saying "Those people who were involved in the Broadway musical wanted to speak to the public. The campery and kitschness is something that's been ladled on to it subsequently." [2]

History

Lost Musicals began in 1989, and its productions have been presented at London's Barbican Centre, the Royal Opera House, Her Majesty's Theatre and the Victoria & Albert Museum. The project's current home is the Sadler's Wells Theatre. Some of the seventy shows presented have included musicals by George S. Kaufman, Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz's The Band Wagon, André Previn and Alan Jay Lerner's Coco, Herbert and Dorothy Fields and Cole Porter's Mexican Hayride , [4] Sammy Fain and E.Y. Harburg's Flahooley, [5] Cole Porter and S. J. Perelman's Aladdin, [6] Kurt Weill and Paul Green's Johnny Johnson, [7] Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's By Jupiter , [8] S. J. Perelman, Ogden Nash and Weill's One Touch of Venus , [9] Herbert Fields, B. G. DeSylva & Cole Porter's Du Barry Was a Lady [10] and Jule Styne, Nunnally Johnson and E Y Harburg's Darling of the Day . [11]

Early years and the Barbican (1989-1998)

Lost Musicals has given concert revivals of musicals that have since become more familiar in stagings by other companies. For instance, in November and December 1991 the company gave a performance of Weill's Love Life at the Victoria & Albert Museum with a cast including David Firth and Louise Gold. [12] [13] This was followed by a major production of the same show by Opera North in 1996. [12] In May 1992, Lost Musicals moved to the Barbican Center's Cinema 1, where By Jupiter was performed by a cast including Myra Sands, Issy Van Randwyck and Louise Gold. [14] Sands and Gold went on to appear in "One Touch of Venus" in August of the same year. [15]

The project's final season at the Barbican took place in 1998, when five productions were offered. Irving Berlin and Moss Hart's revue As Thousands Cheer opened the season with a cast featuring Danielle Carson and Paula Wilcox. This was followed by Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane's first Broadway musical, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever , with Jessica Martin and David Firth. Later in the year, George S. Kaufman's Hollywood Pinafore (based on Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore ) was presented with actors including Ian Lavender, Frank Lazarus and Matt Zimmerman. This was followed by a rare stage performance of Stephen Sondheim's The Frogs, starring James Vaughan. Finally, to mark the Gershwin centenary the company presented Strike Up the Band in the Barbican Concert Hall, with the BBC Concert Orchestra. The cast included Barry Cryer and Sam Kelly. [16]

The West End and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

After this period at the Barbican, in 1999 the project moved to the West End. The first three productions that year took place at the Fortune Theatre. [17] First, in May the company performed Kaufman, Hart, Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right , with a cast that included Kenneth Haigh. Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones's 110 in the Shade was presented in July, with four performances of Burton Lane, Fred Saidy and E. Y. Harburg's Finian's Rainbow in September. On 21 and 28 November, the project moved to Her Majesty's Theatre for Cole Porter and Moss Hart's Jubilee, which featured the BBC Concert Orchestra and was later broadcast on BBC Radio 3. [18]

This was followed in 2000 by a move to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The Kurt Weill centenary was marked in December of that year by a semi-staging of One Touch of Venus, which included a reconstruction of Agnes de Mille's original choreography, which was performed by the Central School of Ballet. The cast included Jessica Martin and Louise Gold, with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. [19]

In 2001, Fisher presented a fund-raising gala at the Royal Opera House called A Lost Musicals Occasion, which featured appearances by Gold, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Liza Pulman and Jessica Martin. [20] This was followed later that year by two performances of Porter's Du Barry Was a Lady at Her Majesty's Theatre, with accompaniment by the BBC Concert Orchestra. The cast included Gold, Lauren Ward, James Vaughan and Desmond Barrit. The production was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 27 December 2001. [21] The 2001 season also included three fund-raising performances of Cole Porter's Let's Face It in New York at the New York Historical Society in September, [22] while the short 2002 season consisted of two performances of Porter's Fifty Million Frenchmen at the Royal Opera House, with a cast including Laura Michelle Kelly, Dilys Laye and Alan Cox. [23]

Later years

Some of the revivals have been UK premieres or first revivals of the shows. For instance, in 2005 the company gave the stage premiere of Evening Primrose , a little-known 1967 television musical by Stephen Sondheim, with a cast including Betsy Blair and Gary Raymond. [24] The same year saw the company's second production of Fanny, starring Liza Pulman and James Smilie, and Porter's Silk Stockings. [25]

In 2010 Lost Musicals presented the first complete revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's second Broadway musical, The Day Before Spring , following on from the rediscovery of the full vocal score. It was the first time all the music had been heard since 1946. [26]

Overview

Many of the shows have been broadcast by BBC Radio 3. Casting of the shows has often involved veteran performers with experience appearing in classic Broadway shows. For instance, the 2008 Lost Musicals production of Sail Away starred Penny Fuller, whose Broadway credits include Richard Rodgers's Rex, Applause opposite Lauren Bacall and a replacement Sally Bowles in the original Broadway Cabaret. Some of the two thousand actors who have taken part in the performances have included, in addition to those named above, James Corden, [12] Daniel Massey, Sara Kestelman, Anne Reid, Joanna Riding, Andrew Lincoln, John Savident, Henry Goodman, David de Keyser, Anna Francolini, Christopher Benjamin, David Pittu and members of London's Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company.

In 1999 Lost Musicals was recognised by the British Charity Commissioners as an educational charitable trust, titled The Lost Musicals Charitable Trust. The project's educational output has been varied: for instance, in 2011 Princeton University invited Fisher to present a talk about the project to students and staff at Princeton. [27]

Productions

Related Research Articles

<i>My Fair Lady</i> Stage musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe

My Fair Lady is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story, based on the 1938 film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, 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 and difficulty understanding women, Higgins grows attached to her.

<i>Les Misérables</i> (musical) Musical based on Victor Hugos novel of the same name

Les Misérables, colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz, is a sung-through musical with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, and a book by Schönberg and Boublil, based on the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. The original French musical premiered in Paris in 1980 with direction by Robert Hossein. Its English-language adaptation, with lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, produced by Cameron Mackintosh, has been running in London since October 1985, making it the longest-running musical in the West End and the second longest-running musical in the world after the original Off-Broadway run of The Fantasticks.

<i>Anything Goes</i> 1934 musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter

Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, revised considerably by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London. Billy Crocker is a stowaway in love with heiress Hope Harcourt, who is engaged to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. Nightclub singer Reno Sweeney and Public Enemy Number 13, "Moonface" Martin, aid Billy in his quest to win Hope. Songs introduced that later became pop and jazz standards are "Anything Goes", "You're the Top", "All Through the Night", and "I Get a Kick Out of You".

A cast recording is a recording of a stage musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording or OCR, as the name implies, features the voices of the show's original cast. A cast recording featuring the first cast to perform a musical in a particular venue is known, for example, as an "original Broadway cast recording" (OBCR) or an "original London cast recording" (OLCR).

<i>Gay Divorce</i> 1932 musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter

Gay Divorce is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and book by Dwight Taylor, adapted by Kenneth Webb and Samuel Hoffenstein. It was Fred Astaire's last Broadway show and featured the hit song "Night and Day" in which Astaire danced with co-star Claire Luce.

<i>One Touch of Venus</i> American satirical musical

One Touch of Venus is a 1943 musical with music written by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ogden Nash, and book by S. J. Perelman and Nash, based on the 1885 novella The Tinted Venus by Thomas Anstey Guthrie, and very loosely spoofing the Pygmalion myth. The show satirizes contemporary American suburban values, artistic fads and romantic and sexual mores. Weill had been in America for eight years by the time he wrote this musical, and his music, though retaining his early haunting power, had evolved into a very different Broadway style.

<i>Du Barry Was a Lady</i> 1939 Broadway musical

Du Barry Was a Lady is a Broadway musical, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, and the book by Herbert Fields and Buddy DeSylva. The musical starred Bert Lahr, Ethel Merman and Betty Grable, and the song "Friendship" was one of the highlights. The musical was made into a 1943 Technicolor film Du Barry Was a Lady, starring Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Gene Kelly and Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra.

Graham John Bickley is an English actor and singer. He is best known for playing the role of Joey Boswell in Bread from 1989 until 1991, taking over from Peter Howitt, who played him from 1986 until 1989.

Sarah Travis is a British orchestrator and musical supervisor for theatre and film. She received the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations for the 2005 revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

John Doyle is a Scottish stage director of musicals and plays, as well as operas. He served as artistic director at several regional theatres in the United Kingdom, where he staged more than 200 professional productions during his career spanning over 40 years.

Encores! is a Tony-honored concert series dedicated to reviving American musicals, usually with their original orchestrations. Presented by New York City Center since 1994, Encores! has revived shows by Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Hart, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim, among many others. Encores! was the brainchild of Judith Daykin, who launched the series shortly after becoming Executive Director of City Center in 1992. Besides initiating Encores!, Daykin is credited for turning City Center from a rental hall into a presenting organization. The series has spawned nineteen cast recordings and numerous Broadway transfers, including Kander and Ebb's Chicago, which is now the second longest-running musical in Broadway history. Videotapes of many Encores! productions are collected at the Billy Rose Theater Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The series was led by artistic director Jack Viertel from 2001 to 2020; in October 2019, City Center announced that Lear deBessonet will take over as artistic director beginning with the 2021 Encores! season.

Melissa Errico is an American actress, singer, recording artist and writer. She is known for her Broadway musical roles such as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and the title role in One Touch of Venus, as well as her recordings of musical theater classics, including albums of songs by Stephen Sondheim and Michel Legrand. In recent years she has become a contributing writer to The New York Times and served on the National Endowment for the Arts.

<i>By Jupiter</i> 1942 musical

By Jupiter is a musical with a book by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. The musical is based on the play The Warrior's Husband by Julian F. Thompson, set in the land of the Amazons. By Jupiter premiered on Broadway in 1942 and starred Ray Bolger, and was the last musical written by Rodgers and Hart; when Hart’s erratic behavior was often the cause of friction between him and Rodgers and led to a breakup of their partnership the following year before his death. Rodgers then began collaborating with Oscar Hammerstein II.

<i>Flahooley</i>

Flahooley is a musical with a book by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Sammy Fain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brent Barrett</span> American actor and tenor

Brent Barrett is an American actor and tenor who is mostly known for his work within American theatre. Barrett has performed in musicals and in concerts with theatres, symphony orchestras, opera houses, and concert halls internationally. He starred in the original production of Maltby and Shire's hit Off-Broadway musical Closer Than Ever in 1989 and the 2001 West End revival of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate. He has also appeared sporadically on television and in films.

David Loud is an American music supervisor, music director, conductor, vocal and dance arranger, pianist and actor. He is best known for his collaborations with and interpretations of the music of both Kander and Ebb and Stephen Sondheim.

42nd Street Moon is a professional theatre company in San Francisco, California. The company specializes in the preservation and presentation of early and lesser-known works by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Kander and Ebb, Jule Styne and Comden and Green. In recent years, the company has branched out to include more contemporary works that continue the spirit of the classic American Musical.

Lauren Ward is an American singer and actress. She has appeared in Broadway, Off-Broadway and West End musicals and plays. Ward originated the role of Miss Honey in the original Stratford-Upon-Avon, West End, and Broadway productions of the musical Matilda, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance.

<i>Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill</i>

Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill is a musical revue with a book by Gene Lerner, music by Kurt Weill, and lyrics by various songwriting partners Weill worked with over his career. The plot follows Weill's life as he begins his career in Germany writing the music for controversial musicals, through his journey fleeing Nazi persecution, immigrating to the United States, and becoming successful on Broadway. Songs featured include those Weill collaborated on with Maxwell Anderson, Marc Blitzstein, Bertolt Brecht, Jacques Deval, Michael Feingold, Ira Gershwin, Paul Green, Langston Hughes, Alan Jay Lerner, Ogden Nash, George Tabori and Arnold Weinstein.

Mark Warman is a British conductor, musical director, composer, orchestrator, and educator. He has worked in London's West End on musical productions, orchestrated and conducted albums, and TV and film scores.

References

  1. ↑ "Previn & Porter Shows 'Found' by Lost Musicals - - News - Whatsonstage.com". Archived from the original on 2011-01-22. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
  2. 1 2 "Rescuing 'lost musicals'". TheGuardian.com . 28 June 2005.
  3. ↑ Shenton, Mark. "Revival of the fittest – Lost Musicals / Ian Marshall Fisher", The Stage, May 16, 2005. Retrieved August 8, 2022
  4. ↑ "London's Lost Musicals Season to Feature the Band Wagon, Coco and Mexican Hayride - Playbill.com". Archived from the original on 2012-10-21. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
  5. ↑ "Team".
  6. ↑ "Sadler's Wells Theatre - Lost Musicals 2012 - Lost Musicals 2012". Archived from the original on 2012-08-20. Retrieved 2013-01-03.
  7. ↑ "Lost Musicals - Johnny Johnson [Kurt Weill] - from www.classicalsource.com". Archived from the original on 2014-02-01. Retrieved 2013-01-03.
  8. ↑ "By Jupiter (Lost Musicals Concert, 1992)".
  9. ↑ "One Touch of Venus (Lost Musicals Concert, 1992)".
  10. ↑ "Du Barry Was a Lady (Lost Musicals Concert, 1993)".
  11. ↑ "Lost Musicals - Darling of the Day - from www.classicalsource.com". Archived from the original on 2014-02-01. Retrieved 2013-01-03.
  12. 1 2 3 "Love Life (Lost Musicals Concert, 1991)".
  13. ↑ "Love_Life". Archived from the original on 2012-06-07. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  14. ↑ "By_Jupiter". Archived from the original on 2013-07-19. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  15. ↑ "One_Touch_of_Venus_1992". Archived from the original on 2013-07-19. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  16. ↑ "The Lost Musicals 1998". Archived from the original on 2012-03-10. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  17. ↑ http://www.whatsonstage.com/news/theatre/london/E1705434363/Lost+Musicals+Kicks+Off+Sunday,+9+May.html%5B%5D
  18. ↑ "Lost American Musicals Brought to West End - - News - Whatsonstage.com". Archived from the original on 2012-10-15. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  19. ↑ "Classical: Weill punctures the American Dream". TheGuardian.com . 13 December 2000.
  20. ↑ http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=207&story=E882992883195%5B%5D
  21. ↑ "Du Barry Was a Lady 2001". Archived from the original on 2013-07-19. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  22. ↑ Weber, Bruce (19 September 2001). "THEATER REVIEW; Roundelay of Infidelity in a Cole Porter Revival". The New York Times.
  23. ↑ http://www.whatsonstage.com/news/theatre/london/E8821025686187/Lost+Musicals+Premieres+Cole+Porter's+Frenchmen.html%5B%5D
  24. ↑ "Evening Primrose (Sondheim, 2005)".
  25. ↑ http://www.whatsonstage.com/news/theatre/london/E8821108559962/Lost+Musicals+Premieres+Porter+%26+Sondheim+Works.html%5B%5D
  26. ↑ Darvell, Michael (20 June 2010). "Lost Musicals: Lerner & Loewe's The Day Before Spring" . Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  27. ↑ "Ian Marshall Fisher - Lewis Center for the Arts". Archived from the original on 2014-02-02. Retrieved 2013-01-03.
  28. ↑ List taken from programmes.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.