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| re: CAMELOT the book problem | |
| Posted by: NewtonUK 02:54 pm EDT 08/04/20 | |
| In reply to: CAMELOT - AnObserver 10:55 am EDT 08/04/20 | |
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| When CAMELOT first opened in Toronto, it was over four hours long. Opening night droned on until 12.40 am the next day. Soon after, book writer Alan Jay Lerner was off for three weeks with a bleeding ulcer. He came back, and Moss Hart had a massive heart attack. Hart never returned to the production before its Broadway opening. Lerner took over as director, and Burton was very supportive. They tried to find a director to take over theshow but to no avail. They got the show down to about 3 hours for the Broadway opening. A few months after the opening, when Hart was able to work again, he and Lerner revisisted the show, making various cuts, including two songs: 'Then you may take me to teh fair', and 'Fie on goodness.' So much for 'the show is frozen'. 'Before I gaze at you again' was given to Andrews on the day of teh first of two previews prior to the Broadway opening. |
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| The four-hour myth | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 03:12 pm EDT 08/04/20 | |
| In reply to: re: CAMELOT the book problem - NewtonUK 02:54 pm EDT 08/04/20 | |
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| Despite what Lerner wrote in his memoir, and despite some slightly contradictory reporting even at the time, I'm pretty confident when i say that it was never four hours long. It ran around three-and-a-half hours at the first performance, and that includes the intermission. The list of classic Broadway musicals that ran around three-and-a-half hours at their first performances out of town would include Carousel, The King and I, My Fair Lady and Fiddler on the Roof. (There are myths that the first performance of Carousel ran four or four-and-a-half hours and that the second-act ballet ran something like 50 minutes. Nonsense.) I mention this because three-and-a-half hours was not all that unusual. Show Boat, on the other hand, truly does seem to have run a bit over four hours at its first performance in Washington, D.C. I think part of the reason why the Camelot myth got out there was because the curtain rose significantly late on opening night in Toronto. I'm linking the ovrtur Trivia & History page on the original production. The note at the top discusses this. |
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| Link | Camelot trivia and history |
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