Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: Seth Christenfeld (tabula-rasa@verizon.net) 03:42 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - WaymanWong 03:30 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| It seems weird to include Larson on this list considering that he almost certainly would have written more shows had he not, y'know, died. Sherman Edwards, I have read, either worked on or contemplated working on a musical set in ancient Egypt, but I can't find a citation on that now. Charlie Smalls reportedly spent years working on a musical version of H.G. Welles' short story "The Man Who Could Work Miracles," but I don't think anything has ever surfaced from it. And Roger Miller, of course, wasn't a musical theatre songwriter, and wrote very little at all in the few years between Big River and his premature death in 1992. Seth, knower of things |
|
| reply to this message |
| The Edwards Egypt musical | |
| Posted by: Ann 09:41 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Seth Christenfeld 03:42 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| I asked Keith Edwards about it and he said his father passed away before completing the musical, then he (Keith) and his wife finished it, but it hasn't been produced. He may comment further. From Keith's bio: “Ramses—There’s No Room in My Tomb!”—a musical comedy started by his father, Sherman Edwards (1776) and completed by Edwards (music and lyrics) and his wife Elizabeth (book and lyrics) about the great Ramses II during the final year of his life and the worries over his successor, ensuring his legacy and preparing for the afterlife." |
|
| reply to this message |
| re: The Edwards Egypt musical | |
| Posted by: TheOtherOne 07:41 am EDT 07/06/17 | |
| In reply to: The Edwards Egypt musical - Ann 09:41 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| I hope the Edwards Egypt musical sees the light of day at some point. I had not realized Sherman Edwards had composed so many, and such diverse, hit pop records. Broken-Hearted Melody and Johnny Get Angry(!) with lyricist Hal David, and Wonderful Wonderful and See You In September with others are among the most successful. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 03:54 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Seth Christenfeld 03:42 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| Larson may not have written shows that were produced on Broadway had he lived and if "Rent" didn't become a hit. A lot of attention for this show was because it unfortunately turned into a tribute to him, and as a result most of its flaws were overlooked. I think with time having gone by and a flop film and a not particularly long-running revival, this isn't a particularly controversial statement. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| Rent wasn't a hit because Larson died | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 06:09 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:00 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - PlayWiz 03:54 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| I do not think it's at all fair to say Rent became a bit because of Larson's untimely death. Maybe if it had a respectable run for 1 season... but this is one of the longest running shows in broadway history. It ran because it hit the right nerve at the right time with the right audiences. Sweeney Todd swept the Tonys too, it ran a fraction of the time as Rent. Same with The Producers even. Maybe some critics were kinder than they would have been... but I also think you could say that in a time that was generally a dry period for original new musicals on Broadway and Larson being a young writer doing his first show on Broadway (and ever really), that critics would have been kinder to the show than they might have for that reason. And it's not like we're talking about a show that is garbage... it has a brilliant, passionate, modern and infectious score, relatable and fresh character (and cast) we hadn't seen in Broadway musicals, and a very moving and emotionally engaging story. These things are a recipe for a hit when you mix in the right timing especially. This is why the show was a hit. It was the right show at the right time. But even if it were garbage (which I feel strongly it is not, despite not being the *best* written of the great musicals by a long shot), much worse garbage has been popular. For my money, Rent with all it's flaws is VASTLY better than Wicked, as an example. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: Ann 04:27 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - PlayWiz 03:54 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| Of course, had he lived, he would likely have done some work on the show after/during the Off-Broadway production and he may have fixed the flaws. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 04:33 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Ann 04:27 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| But the director pretty much froze the work and refused to do another further work on it, as if Ethel "Miss Birdseye" Merman had frozen fooded it. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Last Edit: Ann 05:05 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| Posted by: Ann 05:04 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - PlayWiz 04:33 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| Do you mean after Larson died? I thought Greif has said the show was unfinished and it would have been different had Larson lived longer. And Larson said, "All shows open being a little unfinished; that’s why they have previews, to suss out what works and what doesn’t." | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:08 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Ann 05:04 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| True... but we have to also accept that many of the things critics at the time, or in retrospect, find to be flaws and problems may not be what Larson saw as problems or things he would have changed. Remember, he only died like 2.5 months before Rent started previews, which means little over a month before it went into rehearsals for the Broadway transfer... I think it's safer to assume that they opened largely the same show they would have had he not died too soon to keep making revisions. I do believe he was smart and talented enough that in previews he would have seen some things to revise and done so for the betterment of the final product... but he did see it many many times in front of an audience just a couple months before this, and was surely making the revisions he thought he wanted based on that experience, and Greif surely got them or had access to the ones that were written out before Larson died or after. I'm sure somewhere the details of all of this are researched and documented... I'm surprised there isn't a Rent documentary actually. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: Ann 06:26 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Chazwaza 06:08 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| I thought there was a documentary - it's included with the film version, I think. I don't think we can assume anything about what it would have been - but there are many possibilities. Wasn't the workshop version up for only a few weeks, and weren't a lot of changes made between that version and 1996? I don't see why it's not likely/very possible more changes would have been made. Seems before shows got super computer/technically driven, more changes were made. I don't know what the general thought is on flaws, but, for me, there's only one glaring one. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:49 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Ann 06:26 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| What's the one glaring one for you?! | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: Ann 07:14 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Chazwaza 06:49 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| Mimi's resurrection. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 12:59 pm EDT 07/06/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Ann 07:14 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| Same. But I might be more ok with it if I didn't hate the way it's done and the dialogue during it. It's hard to reconcile because I LOVE the "No Day But Today / Without You" reprise round that Mimi's resurrection inspires. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 07:04 pm EDT 07/06/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Chazwaza 12:59 pm EDT 07/06/17 | |
|
|
|
| I just finished rereading Sarah Schulman's book STAGE STRUCK, which many, I'm sure, know is her escorting take on RENT, both for its use of her novel PEOPLE IN TROUBLE and for its heteronormalizing of the AIDS epidemic. I always thought it was a cheat and disrespectful to queer people and to BOHEME to resurrect Mimi (particularly as it seems to be at the expense of Angel, who is a bit of the Musette character--"bury your gays," as the saying is). I know Schulman's book is controversial, but I was persuaded by its largest points this time. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: JohnPopa 03:52 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Seth Christenfeld 03:42 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| I remember the same thing about Edwards doing something related to ancient Egypt, I feel like it must have been in one of the introductions to one of the songbooks from the show, only because I can't think of anything else I would have read that would have talked about it. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: dlevy 03:49 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - Seth Christenfeld 03:42 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| Is the question of whether the winners wrote more shows, wrote more shows that went on to Broadway, or wrote more shows that won Best Musical? Because there are different answers to all three, particularly with some of the more recent winners like MEMPHIS (has written more shows, none have come to Broadway yet) and ONCE (has not written more shows, to my knowledge)... And then there's Rupert Holmes, who hasn't written the score for a musical since DROOD, but has written books (and additional lyrics), not to mention straight plays. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: Seth Christenfeld (tabula-rasa@verizon.net) 04:19 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - dlevy 03:49 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| Rupert Holmes has, in fact, written/cowritten two musical scores since Drood--an adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray (Patti LuPone recorded "My Son" years ago--although the show remains unproduced, there was a reading of it in NYC in 2002 or thereabouts) and The Nutty Professor (Marvin Hamlisch's music, but Holmes wrote the lyrics). (He also began work at one point on a musical titled Swing, which he abandoned and eventually recycled into a terrific novel of the same name, which included a CD with several pieces of music that figured into the plot--one of which, oddly enough, was based on a cut song from Drood.) In the case of Once, the primary writers didn't even really contribute to the stage version--the only completely new song, "Abandoned in Bandon," was written by other writers, and while there were songs by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová that were in the musical but not in the film, they were taken from their pop work and not newly written. Seth, knower of more things |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 04:08 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - dlevy 03:49 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| In the case of the 4 examples I listed, I meant to specify composer-lyricists of Best Musicals who never wrote another show. Thanks to posts by Seth, Alan and JohnPopa, I'm finding out about projects I've never heard of. And were never produced. (By the way, Smalls, Miller and Larson also won the Tony for Best Score; there wasn't such a Tony in Edwards' season.) |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: bearcat 04:10 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - WaymanWong 04:08 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| Promises, Promises | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: bearcat 04:21 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - bearcat 04:10 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| interesting that 1776 and Promises Promises were written by songwriters for whom these were their only Bway shows (and don't you think PP was the expected winner for the best musical Tony 1776 received) (I know Bacharach has noted he was finished with Bway because of his lack of control over the material) |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 04:37 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - bearcat 04:21 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| I think Bacharach also didn't like the idea that the performance, being live, could change slightly from show to show, unlike a recording where it was captured to his specifications. It's kind of sad and bewildering in a way that he couldn't really enjoy having a smash hit on Broadway. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders | |
| Posted by: dlevy 04:07 pm EDT 07/06/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Tony-winning Best Musicals: One-hit wonders - PlayWiz 04:37 pm EDT 07/05/17 | |
|
|
|
| Of course, Bacharach's Some Lovers (written with Steven Sater) could take him off this list. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
Time to render: 0.102982 seconds.