All That Chat - re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse

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re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse

Posted by:	lordofspeech 11:05 am EST 12/07/13
In reply to:	Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse - AnObserver 10:36 am EST 12/07/13

I don't know where I read this, but I read in some reasonably reliable bio that Mary Martin (and husband-manager Halliday) had this Trapp family story as their personal project, and, though probably very grateful for all their collaboration had done for her, she wanted this project to be hers. And so, she approached Lindsay and Crouse to write the book for what was to have been a juke-box musical with Trapp songs and authentic folk-songs, no show tunes and no Rogers and Hammerstein. When she did, ultimately, approach R & H, it was so that they might write one significant pseudo-folk-song ("Edelweiss"). It soon, then, became clear that they should take on more and more. I would suggest that's why the book is somewhat clunky, trying to keep up with the theatrical savvy and imagination of Hammerstein. (Not that Lindsay and Crouse were slouches, but Hammerstein was in a class by himself for writing seamless, thematically-unified narrative into musical theatre and they were not).

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Thread:	re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse - LegitOnce 11:44 am EST 12/07/13 (1) re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse - simbo 02:45 pm EST 12/07/13 re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse - AnObserver 11:19 am EST 12/07/13 (1) re: Hammerstein vs. Lindsay & Crouse - owk 11:29 am EST 12/07/13

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