Songbook (musical)

Last updated

Songbook
Music Monty Norman
LyricsMonty Norman, Julian More
Book Monty Norman, Julian More
Productions1979 London
1979 Wisbech
1981 Broadway
Awards Olivier Award (Best New Musical 1979)
Ivor Novello Award

Songbook (New York title The Moony Shapiro Songbook) is a musical with music by Monty Norman and book and lyrics by Monty Norman and Julian More. The musical tells the improbable life story of a fictional songwriter, born in Liverpool in 1908, who has a colourful career with extraordinary successes and setbacks, loves and losses, and brushes with celebrities and historic events; he dies celebrated.

Contents

It premiered at the Gielgud Theatre in London on 25 July 1979, where it ran for 208 performances.

Synopsis

Through a series of witty pastiches, the musical tells the life story of a fictional songwriter, Mooney Shapiro, born Liverpool 1908, who emigrates to New York's Lower East Side, before finding Broadway and Hollywood success (cue Gershwin and deSylva/Brown/Henderson spoofs), marrying a Swedish film star and writing for early Busby Berkeley film musicals. Mooney flees the Depression for Europe, where he joins the expat Paris scene (cue Piaf spoof) and falls for an English aristocrat, whose sister is a close friend of Hitler (cue Berlin Olympics 1936). Returning to the US, Mooney scores an Andrews Sisters style hit, then returns to write patriotic numbers for Blitz-ed London (cue Cicely Courtneidge & Marlene Dietrich spoofs). After WW2, Mooney is back in the USA writing returning-GI hits (cue Como/Sinatra spoof) and hoe-down, mid-West feelgood Broadway musical before falling foul of McCarthyism. This brings him back to his native Liverpool (1960) where (surprise, surprise) he writes for a new pop group and a new generation (cue Beatles spoof)! The Swinging Sixties come and go, leaving Mooney stranded again, losing wife and lover, a teenage singer, who conquers the charts with an old Shapiro number reworked as a disco hit. Back on top again, the aged Mooney dies, rich in honours, with a parting song 'Nostalgia'. half-celebrating, half-mocking his long songwriting career.[ citation needed ]

Song list

Productions

It premiered at the Gielgud Theatre (then called "Globe Theatre"), in London on 25 July 1979 and ran for 208 performances. [1] [2] The production was directed by Jonathan Lynn with musical staging by Gillian Lynne. On 23 September 1979 the cast performed for one night at the Georgian Angles Theatre, Wisbech, Isle of Ely, relocating from the Gielgud Theatre for the single performance. This event was arranged by cast member and president of the Angles Theatre Anton Rodgers. [3]

The musical opened on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre on 3 May 1981 and closed after the 1 performance and 15 previews.[ citation needed ] Helmed again by Jonathan Lynn with musical staging by George Faison, the musical featured Gary Beach, Jeff Goldblum, Judy Kaye and Timothy Jerome as "Mooney Shapiro".[ citation needed ] All of the cast members played several characters, one of which was their real-life name. The musical received a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical.[ citation needed ]

Reception

Songbook received the Olivier Award for the Best New Musical in 1979. In his review for The New York Times , Frank Rich wrote that "There's the germ of a funny, spiffy satirical revue in The Moony Shapiro Songbook, the forlorn little musical at the Morosco." [4]

Related Research Articles

<i>Oklahoma!</i> Musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein

Oklahoma! is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peggy Cass</span> American actress, comedian, game show panelist, and announcer

Mary Margaret "Peggy" Cass was an American actress, comedian, game show panelist, and announcer.

<i>Aint Misbehavin</i> (musical) 1978 musical revue

Ain't Misbehavin' is a musical revue with a book by Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby Jr., and music by various composers and lyricists as arranged and orchestrated by Luther Henderson. It is named after the song by Fats Waller, "Ain't Misbehavin'".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Papp</span> American producer and director

Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created a year-round producing home to focus on new plays and musicals. Among numerous examples of these were the works of David Rabe, Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Charles Gordone's No Place to Be Somebody, and Papp's production of Michael Bennett's Pulitzer Prize–winning musical A Chorus Line. Papp also founded Shakespeare in the Park, helped to develop other off-Broadway theatres and worked to preserve the historic Broadway Theatre District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Daldry</span> British director

Stephen David Daldry CBE is an English director and producer of film, theatre, and television. He has won three Tony Awards for his work on Broadway and an Olivier Award for his work in the West End. He has received three Academy Awards nominations for Best Director, for the films Billy Elliot (2000), The Hours (2002), and The Reader (2008).

<i>Spamalot</i> Musical comedy play by John Du Prez and Eric Idle

Spamalot is a stage musical with score by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, with lyrics and book by Idle. Based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the musical offers a highly irreverent parody of Arthurian legend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Beach</span> American actor (1947–2018)

Gary Beach was an American actor of stage, film and television. His roles included Roger De Bris in both the stage and film productions of The Producers, which won him a Tony Award, and Lumiere in the stage musical version of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monty Norman</span> British composer (1928–2022)

Monty Norman was a British film score composer. A contributor to West End musicals in the 1950s and 1960s, he is best known for composing the "James Bond Theme", first heard in the 1962 film Dr. No. He was an Ivor Novello Award and Olivier Award winner, and a Tony Award nominee.

Judy Kaye is an American singer and actress. She has appeared in stage musicals, plays, and operas. Kaye has been in long runs on Broadway in the musicals The Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime, Mamma Mia!, and Nice Work If You Can Get It.

The Me Nobody Knows is a musical with music by Gary William Friedman and lyrics by Will Holt. It debuted off-Broadway in 1970 and then transferred to Broadway, making it one of the earliest rock musicals to play on Broadway, and the first Broadway hit to give voice to the sentiments of inner-city American youth. It received the Obie Award and the Drama Desk Award for best New Musical, and Five Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical.

Emily Skinner, also known as Emily Scott Skinner, is a Tony-nominated American stage actor and singer. She has played leading roles in such Broadway productions as Prince of Broadway, The Cher Show, Side Show, Jekyll & Hyde, James Joyce's The Dead, The Full Monty, Dinner at Eight, Billy Elliot, as well as the Actor's Fund Broadway concerts of Dreamgirls and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. She has sung on concert stages around the world and on numerous recordings.

Mel Shapiro is an American theatre director and writer, college professor, and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Danieley</span> American actor

Jason D. Danieley is an American actor, singer, concert performer and recording artist. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and was married to fellow performer Marin Mazzie.

Maureen Moore is an American actress. She attended Carnegie Mellon University, majoring in theater and worked at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival.

<i>Home</i> (play)

Home is a play by David Storey. It is set in a mental asylum, although this fact is only revealed gradually as the story progresses. The four primary characters are seemingly benign Harry, highly opinionated Jack, cynical Marjorie, and flirtatious Kathleen. As they interact we come to realize their delusions and pretensions are similar to those of people living in a supposedly normal society.

A song book, or songbook, is a book containing lyrics and notes for songs.

Andréa Burns is an American actress and singer best known for her portrayal of the hairdresser Daniela in Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical In the Heights, as Carmen in Douglas Carter Beane's The Nance, and as Mrs. Spamboni in The Electric Company.

Timothy Jerome is an American stage, film, and television actor.

<i>The Complaisant Lover</i>

The Complaisant Lover is a 1959 comedy play by Graham Greene. Consisting of two acts, each of two scenes, the play revolves around an affair between Mary Rhodes and Clive Root, the book seller friend of her husband, Victor. The play takes place in the Rhodes family home and an Amsterdam guesthouse.

The Devil Wears Prada is a musical based on the novel and film of the same name, with music by Elton John, lyrics by Shaina Taub and a book by Kate Wetherhead.

References

  1. doollee listing
  2. "Ghronology, 1979" guidetomusicaltheatre.com, accessed 19 March 2011
  3. "The Stage" . Retrieved 27 November 2019 via British Newspaper Archive.
  4. Rich, Frank. "Theater:'Moony Shapiro Songbook", The New York Times, 4 May 1981