| Steel Pier | |
|---|---|
 Original Broadway Cast album | |
| Music | John Kander |
| Lyrics | Fred Ebb |
| Book | David Thompson |
| Productions | 1997 Broadway 2011 London 2012 Union Theatre |
Steel Pier is a musical written by the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb from the original book by David Thompson.
Directed by Scott Ellis with choreography by Susan Stroman, the musical opened on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on April 24, 1997, and closed on June 28, 1997, running for 76 performances (and 33 previews). It starred Karen Ziemba as Rita Racine, Daniel McDonald as Bill Kelly, Gregory Harrison as Mick Hamilton, Debra Monk as Shelby Stevens, and Kristin Chenoweth, making her Broadway debut, as Precious. David Loud was the music director and created the vocal arrangements.
The show opened to mixed reviews, most praising the performances and score. Ben Brantley, in his review for The New York Times , concluded "Yet despite the flashes of grace and inventiveness in Ms. Stroman's choreography and the modest melodic appeal of the work's songs, Steel Pier is insulated by a fuzzy cover of blandness. For Mr. Kander and Mr. Ebb, devils obviously make better company than angels." [1] The musical was nominated for Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book at the Tony Awards, but it ultimately lost all of these to Titanic .
A new amateur production ran at the Bridewell Theatre, London, in February 2011. [2]
The UK premiere ran at the Union Theater, London, from October 31 to November 24, 2012. This rendition was directed by Paul Taylor-Mills with choreography by Richard Jones and musical direction by Angharad Sanders.
Stunt pilot Bill Kelly lies face down on the 1933 Atlantic City shore, his flight jacket torn. He manages to stand up, looking at a raffle ticket he holds in his hand and then to the sky, and exclaims, "Alright! I understand! I've got three weeks! Three weeks!" before hurrying off.
Aging celebrity Rita Racine, once famously known as 'Lindy's Lovebird' for being the first woman to kiss Lindbergh when he arrived home from France, comes on the stage and waits for her partner so she can enter the dance marathon on the Steel Pier. Bill appears and watches her for a moment, but as soon as she drops her suitcase, he hurries down to help her pick up her things and seizes the moment to talk with her. He asks if she has a partner yet and reluctantly walks away when she says she does. Alone, Rita rejoices the fact that this will be her last marathon and she will finally be able to return home ("Willing to Ride"). After her song, Rita sees that the rest of the contestants are making their way into the ballroom and follows them inside with hopes of finding her partner there.
Inside, emcee Mick Hamilton gets the marathon underway ("Everybody Dance"). The rules: contestants must dance for forty-five minutes every hour, followed by a fifteen-minute break; if they fall, collapse, or for any reason stop dancing, they will be disqualified. Realizing at the last minute that her partner is a no-show, Rita is forced to accept Bill's offer and quickly discovers he has two left feet. He tells Rita about his daredevil stunts at the Trenton Air Show where he crashed his plane but bought the winning raffle ticket for a kiss and a dance from 'Lindy's Lovebird'. In song, he tells her how this is his "Second Chance".
During the first fifteen-minute break, other partners introduce themselves: Shelby Stevens, a former cook in a lumber camp who knows how to get around, and harmonica virtuoso Luke Adams; struggling young newlyweds from Utah, Precious and Happy McGuire; Olympic wrestler Johnny Adel and one-time socialite Dora Foster; and vaudeville brother-and-sister team Bette and Buddy Becker. While the contestants meet one another, Rita sneaks off to Mick, where it is revealed that he and she are secretly married. Their scheme: Mick makes sure she wins, they take the prize money, and move on to the next town. Mick promises her that this marathon will be the last, but as she leaves to get ready for the next hour, he confides in his sidekick, Mr. Walker, that this, too, is a trick and there are many more marathons ahead ("A Powerful Thing").
As time passes, the contestants begin dropping off from exhaustion. Mick tries to bring publicity to the marathon, first showcasing Rita's fame ("Dance With Me/The Last Girl"), then Shelby's vocal talents ("Everybody's Girl"), and finally decides publicize the romance between Bill and Rita and plans a pretend dance floor wedding, insisting that Rita tell Bill in spite of her misgivings. After the "Two Step", Rita goes to tell Bill the plan and finds him on the boardwalk. After joking about Bill's inability to swim ("Wet"), Rita kisses Bill and quickly retreats, realizing that she's falling for him.
Remembering that she didn't get the chance to tell Bill of Mick's plan, Rita gets frightened as Mick brings Bill on stage to make the announcement himself on the nightly radio broadcast, but Bill proposes anyway, unprompted by either. In celebration, Mick has Rita sing her signature tune ("Lovebird") as the scene flashes back to her act at the Trenton Air Show where Bill first saw her. The scene shifts back to the Steel Pier where, in order to knock out some of the competition, Mick announces that it's time to run "The Sprints". Rita falls, but Bill somehow manages to stop and rewind time so that she won't be disqualified before his 'time is up'. On her second chance, she doesn't fall and the marathon continues.
As the publicity stunt wedding approaches, Rita is drawn even closer to Bill. During a fifteen-minute nap, she dreams of him taking her on an unworldly airplane ride ("Leave the World Behind"). Once she wakes, it is discovered that Happy has dropped out of the contest, tired of the marathon lifestyle and hoping to go back to Utah with Precious. Precious, however, has other grander plans for herself and switches partners to remain in the contest in hopes that she will have a chance for some limelight. Shelby, although much older than Happy, realizes that she's fallen in love with him and offers to go home with him in Precious' place ("Somebody Older"), but he declines, knowing that it would never work.
On the night of the phoney wedding night, Mick takes Rita up to the roof to show her the lines of people flocking to buy tickets. Suspecting her growing feeling for Bill, Mick insists that she get him to drop out as soon as the wedding's over, and leaves. As Rita consoles herself that this marathon-business will all be over shortly, Precious comes looking for Mick and confesses to Rita that she had had an affair with him in hopes of having some showcase time in the marathon. Rita's world is quickly falling apart ("Running in Place").
At the circus-like, cellophane-themed wedding, Mick features Precious in the ceremony as the personification of Fralinger's salt water taffy in return for her personal favors ("Two Little Words"). For the titillation of the crowd, Rita and Bill are given their fifteen-minute break in a honeymoon tent on the dance floor, one Rita knows can be ripped away at any moment. When she wishes that she and Bill could just escape, Bill offers to take her away in his plane, telling her that anything can happen if you believe in your dreams ("First You Dream"). But as he explains to Rita that his three weeks are finally up, the tent is ripped away and the hurt and confused Rita runs from the dance floor, leaving an even more hurt Bill.
Mick tries to force Rita back on to the dance floor to finish the marathon with another partner, but she is determined to go home. Mick informs her that he sold the house a long time ago. As she packs to leave, Mick furiously reminds her of everything he has done for her ("Steel Pier"). He grabs the Air Show raffle ticket Bill had given her out of her hand and wonders why she would still be thinking about how her act at Trenton had failed after some 'hot-dog pilot' got himself killed in a crash. Suddenly everything comes clear to Rita as she realizes that she had been dancing and falling in love with a man who was only with her on three weeks of borrowed time. As she realizes what a loveless trap her life with Mick has been, the world around her fades away and Bill appears ("Steel Pier (reprise)"). He says he's just a guy who wanted a second chance, but he could no longer stay - he only had three weeks, but she has a lifetime. He asks her at last for the dance he won in the raffle, and once the transient moment ends, he urges to take a chance on life ("Final Dance"). Exhausted, Rita picks up her suitcase and, with a triumphant sense of hope and determination, leaves the marathon behind forever.
Some critics identified "Everybody Dance", "Lovebird", and "Steel Pier" among the outstanding musical numbers. [3]
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| Character | Original Broadway Cast [4] | Original London Cast [5] |
|---|---|---|
| Rita Racine | Karen Ziemba | Sarah Galbraith |
| Bill Kelly | Daniel McDonald | Jay Rincon |
| Mick Hamilton | Gregory Harrison | Ian Knauer |
| Mr. Walker | Ronn Carroll | Ian Kirton |
| Shelby Stevens | Debra Monk | Aimie Atkinson |
| Precious McGuire | Kristin Chenoweth | Lisa-Anne Wood |
| Happy McGuire | Jim Newman | Rob Lines |
| Johnny Adel | Timothy Warmen | Brett Shiels |
| Buddy Becker | Joel Blum | Samuel Parker |
| Bette Becker | Valerie Wright | Clare Louise Connolly |
| Dora Foster | Alison Bevan | Amy Anzel |
| Luke Adams | John C. Havens | Ben Beard |
The Original Broadway cast recording was released by RCA Victor Broadway on July 29, 1997. [6]
Steel Pier was nominated for eleven Tony Awards but won none. This tied Chicago , also written by Kander and Ebb, for most Tony nominations without a win. Another Kander-Ebb musical, The Scottsboro Boys , was nominated for twelve Tony Awards but won none, besting Steel Pier and Chicago by one.
Kristin Chenoweth won a Theatre World Award (which honors notable New York theatre debuts) for her performance. [7]
Kander and Ebb were a highly successful American songwriting team consisting of composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb. Known primarily for their stage musicals, which include Cabaret and Chicago, Kander and Ebb also scored several movies, including Martin Scorsese's New York, New York. Their most famous song is the theme song of that movie. Recorded by many artists, "New York, New York" became a signature song for Frank Sinatra. The team also became associated with two actresses, Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera, for whom they wrote a considerable amount of material for the stage, concerts and television.
John Harold Kander is an American composer, known largely for his work in the musical theater. As part of the songwriting team Kander and Ebb, Kander wrote the scores for 15 musicals, including Cabaret (1966) and Chicago (1975), both of which were later adapted into acclaimed films. He and Ebb also wrote the standard "New York, New York".
Fred Ebb was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera.
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 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".
Cabaret is a musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Joe Masteroff. It is based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten, which in turn was based on the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.
Flora the Red Menace is a musical with a book by George Abbott and Robert Russell, music by John Kander, and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The original 1965 production starred Liza Minnelli in the title role in her Broadway debut, for which she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. This was the first collaboration between Kander and Ebb, who later wrote Broadway and Hollywood hits such as Cabaret and Chicago.
Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Anderson, professionally known as Chita Rivera, is an American actress, singer and dancer who originated roles in Broadway musicals including Anita in West Side Story, Velma Kelly in Chicago, and the title role in Kiss of the Spider Woman. She is a ten-time Tony Award nominee and a three-time Tony Award recipient, including one for Lifetime Achievement. She is the first Latina and the first Latino American to receive a Kennedy Center Honor and is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her autobiography, Chita: A Memoir, was published in 2023.
Kristin Dawn Chenoweth is an American actress and singer, with credits in musical theatre, film, and television. In 1999, she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Broadway. In 2003, Chenoweth received a second Tony Award nomination for originating the role of Glinda in the musical Wicked. Her television roles include Annabeth Schott in NBC's The West Wing and Olive Snook on the ABC comedy drama Pushing Daisies, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2009. She also starred in the ABC TV series GCB in 2012, played Lavinia in Trial & Error in 2018, and played the characters Mildred Layton and Miss Codwell in the Apple TV+ musical comedy Schmigadoon! in 2021 and 2023, respectively.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
Michael Gibson was a musician, trombonist and orchestrator, nominated twice for the American Theatre Wing's Tony Award for Best Orchestrations. He won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations for My One and Only in 1983.
Karen Ziemba is an American actress, singer and dancer, best known for her work in musical theatre. In 2000, she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance in Contact.
Lovette George was an actress and singer in Broadway, off-Broadway and regional productions.
David Thompson is an American writer, playwright, and producer. His notable theater productions include Chicago, The Scottsboro Boys, The Prince of Broadway, and New York, New York.
And the World Goes 'Round is a musical revue showcasing the songs of John Kander and Fred Ebb. The revue takes its title from a tune the songwriting team wrote for Liza Minnelli to sing in the film New York, New York.
The Visit is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander.
A Family Affair is a musical with a book by James Goldman and William Goldman, lyrics by James Goldman and John Kander, and music by Kander. This was Kander's first show and his only one written without Fred Ebb in Ebb's lifetime.
The Happy Time is a musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by N. Richard Nash loosely based on a 1950 hit Broadway play, The Happy Time by Samuel A. Taylor, which was in turn based on stories by Robert Fontaine. The story had also been made into a 1952 film version.
The Scottsboro Boys is a musical with a book by David Thompson, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. Based on the Scottsboro Boys trial, the musical is one of the last collaborations between Kander and Ebb prior to the latter's death. The musical has the framework of a minstrel show, altered to "create a musical social critique" with a company that, except for one, consists "entirely of African-American performers".
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.
Catherine Charlebois is an American Broadway actress originally from Andover, Massachusetts. She is best known for her portrayal of Nessarose Thropp in the musical Wicked. She currently resides in Virginia.
Kander and Ebb's score evokes popular dance styles of the 1930s; 'Somebody Dance,' 'Lovebird,' and 'Steel Pier' are among the outstanding musical numbers.
