The character named Dimitri Weismann was in early drafts of the show when it was called The Girls Upstairs. And that was the spelling used in playbills and the published script: one S, with a double N at the end. I don't know if that was the character's name from the very beginning, but it was the character's name by three-and-a-half years before rehearsals started. "Beautiful Girls" was a fairly late addition to the score, replacing "Bring on the Girls," which did not include the character's name. (For some reason, they decided to use "Bring on the Girls" rather than "Beautiful Girls" as Roscoe's pre-recorded song in the original opening sequence, used for almost the entire Boston run, sung by Kurt Peterson, but "Beautiful Girls" had replaced it as the song to be used in the show before rehearsals started.) So, yes, the character was not named because of the rhyme.
I'm confused by the pronunciation question. I've been under the impression that Weiß or Weis is pronounced with a soft S, and that's what I hear on German dictionaries online. |
