| The Day Before Spring | |
|---|---|
 Original Broadway Playbill | |
| Music | Frederick Loewe |
| Lyrics | Alan Jay Lerner |
| Book | Alan Jay Lerner |
| Productions | 1945 Broadway |
The Day Before Spring is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe.
The 1945 touring production closed in Chicago after three days due to a crippling coal strike. [1] The show then opened at the Shubert Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts on October 30, 1945, with the Billboard Magazine critic writing "Lerner and Loewe look like potential supermen." [2]
The musical opened on Broadway on November 22, 1945 at the National Theatre, and closed on April 13, 1946 after 167 performances. Directed by Edward Padula and choreographed by Antony Tudor, the cast included Lucille Benson, John Archer, Bert Freed, Irene Manning, William Johnson and Patricia Marshall.
On Feb. 21, 1961, Los Angeles Times reported that Arthur Freed, producer of "Gigi", would produce a film version for MGM starring Debbie Reynolds, despite the play and any of its songs "having never caught on." The project never materialized.
The show was performed in July 2007 by the York Theatre Company in New York City as part of their Mufti Theatre series. The York staged concert starred Hunter Bell, Amanda Watkins, Richard Todd Adams, Edward Watts and Tia Speros. [3] The restoration of the show was undertaken by musical supervisors Aaron Gandy, Mark York and director David Glenn Armstrong and included material that had been missing since the show closed on Broadway in 1946. A treasure trove of material was bought by the Library of Congress in 1999 which supplied some missing pieces to the score. [4]
In 2010 the Lost Musicals project (The Lost Musicals Charitable Trust 1069268) presented The Day Before Spring at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Ian Marshall Fisher, director, Chris Walker, Music Director. Cast included: Madeline Worrall, David Habin, Harry Landis, Kaisa Hammarlund, Henry Luxemburg. This, the UK premiere of the show, included songs rediscovered by scholar Dominic McHugh. [5] [6]
The plot concerns a married woman who, at a college reunion, meets the man with whom she almost eloped ten years before. Romantically stirred by a novel he has written about her, she considers leaving her husband and reuniting with her former flame.
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Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, and later Burton Lane, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre both for the stage and on film. Lerner won three Tony Awards and three Academy Awards, among other honors.
My Fair Lady is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story 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.
Frederick Loewe was an Austrian-American composer. He collaborated with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on a series of Broadway musicals, including Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, and Camelot, all of which were made into films, as well as the original film musical Gigi (1958), which was first transferred to the stage in 1973.
Brigadoon is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, and music by Frederick Loewe. The song "Almost Like Being in Love", from the musical, has become a standard. It features two American tourists who stumble upon Brigadoon, a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years. Tommy, one of the tourists, falls in love with Fiona, a young woman from Brigadoon.
Li'l Abner is a 1956 musical with a book by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, music by Gene De Paul, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Based on the comic strip Li'l Abner by Al Capp, the show is, on the surface, a broad spoof of hillbillies, but it is also a pointed satire on other topics, ranging from American politics and incompetence in the United States federal government to propriety and gender roles.
Camelot is a musical with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics and a book by Alan Jay Lerner. It is based on the legend of King Arthur as adapted from the 1958 novel The Once and Future King by T. H. White.
Lerner and Loewe refers to the partnership between lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe. Spanning three decades and nine musicals from 1942 to 1960 and again from 1970 to 1972, the pair are known for being behind the creation of critical on stage successes such as My Fair Lady, Brigadoon, and Camelot along with the musical film Gigi.
Charles Strouse is an American composer and lyricist best known for writing the music to such Broadway musicals as Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie.
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a musical with music by Burton Lane and a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner based loosely on Berkeley Square, written in 1926 by John L. Balderston. It concerns a woman who has ESP and has been reincarnated. The musical received three Tony Award nominations.
Coco was a 1969 Broadway musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by André Previn, inspired by the life of Coco Chanel. It starred Katharine Hepburn in her only stage musical.
What's Up? is a musical notable as the first Broadway stage collaboration by Lerner and Loewe, with book by Arthur Pierson and Alan Jay Lerner, lyrics by Lerner, and music by Frederick Loewe.
Liz Robertson is an English actress and singer and the widow of playwright and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. She is especially well known for her performances as Madame Giry, having played the role in the original cast of Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre, in The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre and in The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall.
Gigi is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. It is based on the 1944 novella Gigi by Colette and 1958 hit musical film of the same name. The story concerns Gigi, a free-spirited teenaged girl living in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. She is being groomed as a courtesan in her family's tradition. Before she is deemed ready for her social debut, she encounters the bon vivant bachelor Gaston Lachaille, whom she captivates as she is transformed into a charmingly poised young lady.
Edward Padula was an American theatre producer, stage manager, and occasional director and writer.
A Broadway Musical is a musical with a book by William F. Brown, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. The Broadway production closed after 14 previews and only one performance on December 21, 1978.
Hunter Houston Bell is an American writer and theatre actor.
The Great Songs from "My Fair Lady" and Other Broadway Hits is the fifteenth studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams and was released in September 1964 by Columbia Records, one month before the premiere of the film version of My Fair Lady starring Audrey Hepburn.
Lost Musicals is a British musical theatre project established in 1989 by Ian Marshall Fisher. 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.
Marion Lee Bell was an American singer and musical theatre performer best known for her role in the Broadway musical Brigadoon.
Pretty Woman is a musical with music and lyrics by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, and a book by Garry Marshall and J. F. Lawton. The musical is based on the 1990 film of the same name written by Lawton and directed by Marshall. It centers on the relationship that develops between Vivian Ward, a free spirited Hollywood prostitute, and Edward Lewis, a wealthy businessman who hires her for a week to be his escort for several business and social functions.
