Something for the Boys | |
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Music | Cole Porter |
Lyrics | Cole Porter |
Book | Herbert Fields Dorothy Fields |
Productions | 1943 Broadway 1944 WestEnd 1944 film |
Something for the Boys is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and a book by Herbert Fields and Dorothy Fields. Produced by Mike Todd, the show opened on Broadway in 1943 and starred Ethel Merman in her fifth Cole Porter musical. [1]
Out of town tryouts began on December 18, 1942 at the Shubert Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts. [2]
The musical opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on January 7, 1943 and closed on January 8, 1944 after 422 performances. It starred Ethel Merman (Blossom Hart), Bill Johnson (Rocky Fulton), Betty Garrett (Mary-Frances), Paula Laurence (Chiquita Hart), and Allen Jenkins (Harry Hart). The director was Hassard Short, choreographer Jack Cole, costumes were by Billy Livingston and the set design was by Howard Bay. [2] A national tour starred Joan Blondell who would go on to marry producer Mike Todd.
The musical premiered in the West End at the Coliseum Theatre on March 30, 1944 [3] and closed on May 20, 1944. It starred Evelyn Dall (Blossom), Daphne Barker (Chiquita), Bobby Wright (Harry), Leigh Stafford (Rocky) and Jack Billings (Laddie). [2]
The most recent production of the show was by Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana in May 2013 on the Rodeheaver Auditorium stage. Director Michael Yocum was able to find almost all of the original orchestrations making this one of the first productions in decades to feature the original score. [4]
Three cousins inherit a Texas ranch that is next to a military base. Blossom Hart is a worker in the war department, Chiquita Hart is a night club dancer/singer, and Harry Hart is a carnival pitchman. Although none of the cousins know each other, they join together to convert the ranch into a boarding house for soldiers' wives. However, Lieutenant Colonel Grubbs thinks the activities at the house are suspicious and he tries to close it down. Meanwhile, Blossom and Rocky Fulton, a bandleader in the Army band, begin a romance, much to the displeasure of his fiance, Melanie.
In 1985, the Original Cast Recording was released on the AEI Records label derived from long lost transcriptions made for shortwave radio transmission. [2]
A version of the title song was recorded by Ethel Merman for her Ethel Merman Disco Album in 1979.
PS Classics released a complete recording in December 2018, using the original orchestrations. The cast included Elizabeth Stanley (Blossom Hart), Danny Burstein (Harry Hart), Andréa Burns (Chiquita Hart), Edward Hibbert, Sara Jean Ford, and Philip Chaffin (Rocky Fulton). [5]
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Life Magazine wrote that the musical was "gay and glittering" and that "from start to finish the show belongs to the exuberant Ethel Merman". [6]
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in film.
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known for her distinctive, powerful voice, as well as her leading roles in musical theater, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." She performed on Broadway in Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, Gypsy, and Hello, Dolly!
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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).
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Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedian, singer and dancer. She originally performed on Broadway, and was then signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She appeared in several musical films, then returned to Broadway and made guest appearances on several television series.
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William Gaxton was an American star of vaudeville, film, and theatre. Gaxton was president of The Lambs Club from 1936 to 1939, 1952 to 1953, and 1957 to 1961. He and Victor Moore became a popular theatre team in the 1930s and 1940s; they also appeared in a film together.
Pal Joey is a 1940 musical with a book by John O'Hara and music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The musical is based on a character and situations O'Hara created in a series of short stories published in The New Yorker, which he later published in novel form. The title character, Joey Evans, is a manipulative small-time nightclub performer whose ambitions lead him into an affair with the wealthy, middle-aged and married Vera Simpson. It includes two songs that have become standards: "I Could Write a Book" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered".
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A studio recording is any recording made in a studio, as opposed to a live recording, which is usually made in a concert venue or a theatre, with an audience attending the performance.
Klea Blackhurst is an American actress. She is best known for Everything the Traffic Will Allow, her tribute to Ethel Merman that debuted in New York in 2001. Among many accolades, this production earned her the inaugural Special Achievement Award from Time Out New York magazine. The recording of Everything the Traffic Will Allow was named one of the top ten show albums of 2002 by Talkin' Broadway.com.
Ted Royal [Dewar] was an American orchestrator, conductor and composer for Broadway theatre. He was most active in the 1940s and 1950s, being associated with the very successful original productions of Lerner and Loewe's Brigadoon and Paint Your Wagon. Together with George Bassman he orchestrated Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls. The dean of musical orchestrators, Robert Russell Bennett, remembered Royal as "one of Broadway's very special arrangers."
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Something for the Boys is a 1944 musical comedy film directed by Lewis Seiler. It stars Carmen Miranda, with Michael O'Shea, Vivian Blaine, Phil Silvers, Sheila Ryan and Perry Como.
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