| re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 08:37 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:36 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
| In reply to: re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime - BHandshy 04:13 am EDT 08/18/20 | |
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| You may already know this, but perhaps not everyone does: the Pulitzer judges at the time, John Gassner and John Mason Brown, not only didn't choose Fiorello!, they didn't even consider it seriously (or perhaps not at all). Their choice was Toys in the Attic. The Columbia Advisory Board overruled their choice. Someone on the board suggested Fiorello! and that made the Board happy, but it did not make the judges happy. They said nothing at the time but when their choice was overruled again with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? they made a statement and they resigned as the judges. (Actually, their term as judges was over, but they might well have been invited to continue, they were a prestigious pair.) Passing over Lillian Hellman might seem to suggest a political motivation, but Toys in the Attic is the sort play that the Pulizer Advisory Board at that time might have deemed too negative and unpleasant to receive the award. I suspect that members of the Advisory Board found it distasteful. At this time, I think the original description of the award was still in effect: "For the original American play, performed in New York, which shall best represent the educational value and power of the stage in raising the standard of good morals, good taste, and good manners." Oy! Admittedly, they had clearly overlooked some of that with several of the earlier winners, but the particular unpleasantness of Toys might have been a step too far for the Board, even though the critics mostly didn't seem to care and neither did audiences. What productions have you seen of Fiorello!? I don't think it's a great musical, but I'm surprised you find it so bad. As for giving the prize to All the Way Home, it was a weakish season. Still, Gassner and Brown were enthusiastic about it. Btw, even though it won the Pulitzer and the New York Drama Critics Circle award, it never came close to recouping. It almost closed at the end of opening week, and it almost closed several more times. Even the film sale did not bring it close to recouping, and I don't think even royalties from later productions and the two television productions brought it to recoupment, although it may have eventually gotten close. When it closed, it had returned almost none of the investment. Many Pulitzer choices seem, at best, puzzling now, and I think some were puzzling even at the time. Harvey over The Glass Menagerie? |
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