Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Second ACT Trouble Behind the Scenes at Broadway's Big Musical Bombs by Steven Suskin BOOKSHELF. As the number of original musicals on Broadway declines, revivals, concerts and cast albums are reinforcing who America’s favorites really are: Richard Rodgers ’23, Oscar Hammerstein II ’16 and Lorenz Hart ’18. An all-star concert version of the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein classic The Sound of Music wowed audiences at The Hollywood Bowl in July, while the 1927 Jerome Kern and Hammerstein landmark Show Boat surprised Londoners in a new in-the-round treatment at Royal Albert Hall in June. And the new Decca Broadway release of the acclaimed Carnegie Hall concert of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific starring Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell climbed to No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Cast Album chart in May following an April release. The music and magic live on in numerous publications commemorating the work of three Columbians who started their careers working on the Varsity Show and other College productions. Here’s a peek at a handful of recent books covering Rodgers’ music and Hammerstein’s and Hart’s lyrics. Rodgers and Hart. A Fine Romance: Hollywood/Broadway by Darcie Denkert is a hefty coffee table book that examines the love-hate relationship between Broadway musicals and their screen adaptations, as well as the newer phenomenon of movies adapted into Broadway musicals. Each chapter explores differences between the mediums through specific adaptation stories, with one chapter devoted to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music , the ultimate example of a successful movie adaptation of a musical (Watson-Guptill, $45). The paperback reprint of My Favorite Things offers a different view of The Sound of Music . Illustrated by Renée Graef, this children’s book presents the beloved song with soft-color depictions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein favorite things, ending with sheet music for the classic song (HarperTrophy, $5.99). My Favorite Things illustrated by Renée Graef. Second Act Trouble: Behind the Scenes at Broadway’s Big Musical Bombs examines the backstage soap operas that plagued some of Broadway’s greatest failures. Author Steven Suskin has compiled first-person accounts of forgotten musical messes from the 1930s to the 1990s, including Rodgers’ I Remember Mama , which ran for 108 performances in 1979, and Rex , which ran for 48 performances in 1976 (Applause, $27.95). In Flower Drum Songs: The Story Of Two Musicals , David H. Lewis offers an intriguing look at Flower Drum Song , a hit when it debuted in 1958 but a box-office failure when revived in 2002 with revised lyrics that attempted to eliminate racial stereotypes. Lewis uses interviews with members of both casts to explore how and why the show changed and explores the value of preserving Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s work (McFarland & Co., $32). Flower Drum Songs: The Story Of Two Musicals by David H. Lewis. Originally published in 1971, Lehman Engel’s Words with Music: Creating the Broadway Musical Libretto quickly became the masterwork dissecting the creation of librettos. This updated and revised version by Howard Kissel includes extensive coverage of the collaborations between Rodgers and Hammerstein and Rodgers and Hart (Applause, $17.95). Finally, two encyclopedic collections of American songs and singers include listings and details about Rodgers, Hammerstein and Hart songs. Philip Furia and Michael Lasser’s America’s Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley offers a comprehensive survey of legendary American songs and how they reflect American life, arranged chronologically and alphabetically within each year from 1910– 77 (Routledge, $29.95). The two-volume set Who Sang What On Broadway, 1866–1996 alphabetically lists every performer who sang a named role on Broadway in that time, ranging from the well-known to the obscure. Compiled by Ruth Benjamin and Arthur Rosenblatt, this compendium includes performers’ biographical data and details of the songs and shows that made them famous — or not (McFarland & Co., $75). Laura Butchy ’04 Arts is CCT ’s former assistant editor as well as a freelance journalist and dramaturge. Second ACT Trouble: Behind the Scenes at Broadway's Big Musical Bombs by Steven Suskin. Second Act Trouble Behind the Scenes at Broadway�s Big Musical Bombs by Steven Suskin. Item: Leo Tolstoy begins his classic novel Anna Karenina with the words "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Item: Schadenfreude is a German term meaning "pleasure taken from someone else�s misfortune." Item: Writer Larry Gelbart has said, "If Hitler�s still alive, I hope he�s out of town, with a musical." The musical may indeed be the toughest theatrical form to get right. It is necessarily a team effort, and the possibility that the gathering of so many creative egos in one arena might result in not a My Fair Lady , but a Breakfast at Tiffany�s , a Dude , or a Kelly haunts producers already concerned with the precarious financing of any such attempt. Not only are not all unhappy families not alike, no behind-the scenes story of a clunker like the ones named above is identical to another. Accounts of these disasters are instructive, frightening, cautionary, and ( pace that happy little German term) damned entertaining reading. Therefore, let us rejoice that Steven Suskin�s eagerly anticipated new book comprising some twenty-five pieces by various writers detailing "what went wrong along the way" (to borrow a phrase from a smash you certainly won�t find in this volume) is finally here. I�ll admit that upon receiving my reviewer�s copy I was momentarily disheartened to discover that Suskin had not written the entire book himself, as I�m a great admirer of his work. Then I waded in and saw that he had chosen wonderful articles and excerpted accounts which we should all be ecstatic to see (or see again; I remember some of them from their first printing in New York magazine) between covers. In the days before the Internet, these from�the-trenches and after-the-fact reports were the closest those of us without gabby friends in the theatre could come to knowing what was really ailing those incoming or about-to-close disasters. As it turns out, Suskin is always vigorously present through his clever introductions, comments, and closing remarks. He also, as a prelude, provides a delicious list he calls "Cast of Characters (and List of Victims)." A typical entry here might be "Ken Howard, a star who isn�t replaced when everybody else is ( Seesaw )," or "Janie Sell, an understudy who doesn�t go on ( Irene )." Every item is, of course, later explained in the text. One of my favorites concerns "Marlyn Mason, a leading lady with too much makeup ( How Now, Dow Jones )," with legendary director George Abbott matter-of-factly telling her " . [Y]our makeup today is lurid. You look like a woman who drinks blood." Oh, Mister Abbott! Suskin has grouped his selections under the headings "When Everything Goes Wrong," "Star Turns," "Material Objection," "Salvage Jobs," "Outside Interference," "Battle Stations," and "The Nadir." Some of the shows which are discussed, prodded, and eviscerated are, as you might expect, The Act, Rex, Nick & Nora , and Subways Are For Sleeping . The professional reporters represented include Cliff Jahr, Chris Chase (remember her as a TV critic in the film All That Jazz , giving Roy Scheider a massive coronary with a catty review?), Harvey Sabinson, and Patricia Bosworth. More personal are the tales told by Richard Adler, the composer/lyricist of Kwamina , whose production ultimately led to the end of his marriage to the show�s female lead, and producer Max Gordon, whose story of Flying Colors (1932) includes an amazingly candid description of his accompanying nervous breakdown. There�s only one account in the book Suskin lets stand uninterrupted, and that�s William Gibson�s somewhat purple piece on his involvement with the libretto of Golden Boy , which starred Sammy Davis, Jr. I wouldn�t have let a passage like ". I said yes, the only way I could envision any white man daring to take pencil to this would be in collaboration with Sammy on every line; doing so would be to educate oneself on a sizeable segment of American life . " pass without some sort of comment or question, even given the tenor of the time (the mid-Sixties) in which the show was mounted. The book is wittily illustrated with reproductions of Playbill covers and credit pages, often with several versions for each show included, mirroring the coming and going of directors and the elimination and recasting of roles. Many of these have been signed by (apparently) still-optimistic cast and crew members. The inclusion of the credit page of Cry For Us All , the flop musical based on the play Hogan�s Goat , gives Suskin the opportunity to supply dryly funny captions like this one: "Note that the actors are billed in six degrees of type, undoubtedly negotiated meticulously. Handwriting analysts can have their own holiday with this page; the monument on the left is the autograph of Joan Diener." And a whopping big John Hancock it is, too! I must confess it also tickled me to see that Hilary Knight�s Playbill cover rendering of Debbie Reynolds in Irene has become, with the passage of time, the spitting image of a footloose and fancy-free Katie Couric. Given that the subject of this book is failure, the book is, paradoxically, quite inspiring. It�s also hysterically funny, what with its assortment of larger-than-life heroes and villains (I give you David Merrick - read this book and decide in what proportion he was both of these � and, in his favor, recall that he did mercifully close Breakfast At Tiffany�s out of town), hangers-on, onlookers, and bystanders. Finally, let it be known that this work is, happily, in no way a duplication of Not Since Carrie , that estimable volume on the same subject by Ken Mandelbaum. Both will sit together very nicely on your bookshelf, and down the road, updated and/or expanded versions of both books will be essential purchases, too. Second Act Trouble was well worth the wait! Second Act Trouble: Behind the Scenes at Broadway's Big Musical Bombs. Like unhappy families, all musical comedy failures are different. Their genesis and demise are fascinating to read about: funny, sad, scary, and horribly human. Steven Suskin's book Second Act Trouble chronicles the life stories of 25 of them, one more interesting than the other. And not only to show queens, but also to anyone concerned with theater-all that behind-the-scenes stuff that reveals how the best-laid plans of mice and men can be swept into oblivion like so many mouse droppings. Putting a musical on Broadway is both a very expensive and a very complex matter. Because it must recoup a usually imposing investment, it must please the great unwashed; but because no creators propose to peddle deliberate piffle rather than a work of artistic quality, it also has to satisfy the discerning connoisseurs and critics. Although it must aim both downward and upward, a house so divided against itself may not be the best recipe for filling houses. A show may have been hopeless to begin with, but purblindly considered viable by some: authors, producers, angels, friends. Or a show may have a strong first act, but irredeemable second. Or it may suffer from so many makers' contradictory intentions that, in the course of profuse rewriting, recasting, redirecting or rechoreographing, it simply disintegrates. In the older days of out-of-town tryouts, it may have received the wrong signals from what we like to believe are less discerning audiences and less expert critics; nowadays, during long New York previews, playing to, alas, no more enlightened audiences, it may generate a four-letter-word-of- mouth response. And much as we dislike to believe it, our own critics may prove imperceptive, leading to undeserved failures, e.g., Mack and Mabel. Or a show may be underfinanced, or a producer of little faith may give up on it. Or something totally unpredictable may go wrong (think Kwamina ), when an author-director may find his spouse and star in bed with the black leading man. But stars can produce a large variety of problems. They can be out of control and unmanageable, as Jerry Lewis was in a new version of Helzapoppin. Or they may be more than willing, but, like Liv Ullmann in I Remember Mama, not good at singing. Or (sundry cases) movie or TV actors who are strangers to the stage. And then there is that most melancholy cause for failure of a show with excellent pedigree, but whose creators, well past their prime, have become horses of a different color: old gray mares. Of this human as well as theatrical problem, Second Act Trouble provides ample examples. Suskin's method is impeccable. A smart anthologist, he reprints the best possible contemporary eyewitness accounts, which he interlards, in different typeface and color, with his own post-mortem supplementary insights. These, whether of historical, critical, or merely gossip value, are always pertinent and sometimes deliciously impertinent. Suskin also supplies appetite-inducing prefatory notes and concluding observations, listing the number of performances, excerpts from reviews and whatever else you might wish to know. Of course, everyone may have a favorite loser that did not make it into the book; mine happens to be Mata Hari, which managed to fail also off- Broadway, revised as Ballad for a Firing Squad. But never mind; there is plenty here to chew on and savor. Matter of Opinion: John Simon on See What I Wanna See and Second Act Trouble. One can appreciate what composer Michael John LaChiusa is trying to do; one can even admire it. Although he can write perfectly good musical- comedy material, as, for instance, in First Lady Suite, he is after something different and daring, the fusing of musical comedy and opera into music drama. Marie Christine was an updated Medea ; Hello Again variations on Schnitzler's Reigen ; See What I Wanna See, which premiered at the Public Theater in 2005 and is now available on CD from Ghostlight Records, a retelling of Ryonosuke Akutagawa's Rashomon and other stories. The fusing of East and West—the twain that according to Kipling never shall meet—may be a bit puzzling to those who have not seen the show, but is worth meeting halfway. Each of the musical's two acts is prefaced by a brief Japanese story. In the first, a married woman stabs her lover to death during a last coupling; in the second, a lover postcoitally strangles his mistress. In these, the music is very Oriental-sounding. After that, we get a triangle involving a rich husband, his variety-artist young wife, and a thief who has sex with the woman and may be the cause of the man's death. There is also the janitor of the New York cinema where Rashomon, the film, is playing, and who, on his nocturnal return home through Central Park, stumbles on the husband's body. This somehow leads to another Central Park story, about a priest who has lost his faith and his atheistic aunt who eventually regains it. To make a mock of religion, the priest posts notices in the park heralding Christ's second coming, rising from the lake at a specific time. We are shown how this affects a failed young actress, a CPA who has become a hermit in the park, the media and the populace. And finally the priest and his aunt. Though somewhat convoluted, the schema allows for some affecting songs, well orchestrated by Bruce Coughlin and exemplarily delivered by Marc Kudisch, Aaron Lohr, Idina Menzel, Henry Stram and Mary Testa. How to describe this music in simple terms? This is not a CD for everybody. But if you are curious about what may well be the future of the American musical at the hands of LaChiusa, Adam Guettel and a few others, this may open a window well worth looking through. Second Act Trouble: Behind the Scenes at Broadway's Big Musical Bombs By Steven Suskin Applause Books Now Available. Like unhappy families, all musical comedy failures are different. Their genesis and demise are fascinating to read about: funny, sad, scary, and horribly human. Steven Suskin's book Second Act Trouble chronicles the life stories of 25 of them, one more interesting than the other. And not only to show queens, but also to anyone concerned with theater—all that behind-the-scenes stuff that reveals how the best-laid plans of mice and men can be swept into oblivion like so many mouse droppings. Putting a musical on Broadway is both a very expensive and a very complex matter. Because it must recoup a usually imposing investment, it must please the great unwashed; but because no creators propose to peddle deliberate piffle rather than a work of artistic quality, it also has to satisfy the discerning connoisseurs and critics. Although it must aim both downward and upward, a house so divided against itself may not be the best recipe for filling houses. A show may have been hopeless to begin with, but purblindly considered viable by some: authors, producers, angels, friends. Or a show may have a strong first act, but irredeemable second. Or it may suffer from so many makers' contradictory intentions that, in the course of profuse rewriting, recasting, redirecting or rechoreographing, it simply disintegrates. In the older days of out-of-town tryouts, it may have received the wrong signals from what we like to believe are less discerning audiences and less expert critics; nowadays, during long New York previews, playing to, alas, no more enlightened audiences, it may generate a four-letter-word-of- mouth response. And much as we dislike to believe it, our own critics may prove imperceptive, leading to undeserved failures, e.g., Mack and Mabel. Or a show may be underfinanced, or a producer of little faith may give up on it. Or something totally unpredictable may go wrong think Kwamina , when an author-director may find his spouse and star in bed with the black leading man. But stars can produce a large variety of problems. They can be out of control and unmanageable, as Jerry Lewis was in a new version of Helzapoppin. Or they may be more than willing, but, like Liv Ullmann in I Remember Mama, not good at singing. Or sundry cases movie or TV actors who are strangers to the stage. And then there is that most melancholy cause for failure of a show with excellent pedigree, but whose creators, well past their prime, have become horses of a different color: old gray mares. Of this human as well as theatrical problem, Second Act Trouble provides ample examples. Suskin's method is impeccable. A smart anthologist, he reprints the best possible contemporary eyewitness accounts, which he interlards, in different typeface and color, with his own post-mortem supplementary insights. These, whether of historical, critical, or merely gossip value, are always pertinent and sometimes deliciously impertinent. Suskin also supplies appetite-inducing prefatory notes and concluding observations, listing the number of performances, excerpts from reviews and whatever else you might wish to know. Of course, everyone may have a favorite loser that did not make it into the book; mine happens to be Mata Hari, which managed to fail also off- Broadway, revised as Ballad for a Firing Squad. But never mind; there is plenty here to chew on and savor. The Act – Database. The Act is a musical with a book by George Furth, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander. It was written to showcase the talents of Kander and Ebb favorite Liza Minnelli, who portrayed Michelle Craig, a fading film star attempting a comeback as a Las Vegas singer. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1977. Production. Originally titled, Shine It On , The Act played out-of-town tryouts for 15 weeks in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. [1] The musical opened on Broadway on October 29, 1977, at the Majestic Theatre, where it ran for 233 performances and six previews. [2] Directed by Martin Scorsese, choreographed by Ron Lewis, with costumes by Halston, the cast included Barry Nelson, Mark Goddard and Wayne Cilento. [3] The New York Times reported that “director Gower Champion quietly came in to doctor the show during its final month in Los Angeles.” [1] The New York Times reviewer wrote that “ The Act is precisely what its name implies: It is an act, and a splendid one. On the other hand, it is a little less than its pretensions imply. Theatrical though it is as a performance, it is indifferent musical theater.” [4] Another New York Times writer noted that “If there’s a point ‘The Act’ underscores most, it’s that Miss Minnelli on Broadway has incomparable star power.” [1] With an all-time ticket-price high of $25 for Saturday night orchestra seats, The Act had $2 million in advance sales, [1] then the highest in Broadway history. But the production was doomed from the start, with its star in erratic behavior and frequently missed performances, more than 10% of the entire run. During out-of-town tryouts, Gower Champion was called to help with the staging (but took no directorial credit). [1] Additionally, the original costumes were replaced. [1] With the additional costs and with refund demands running high, it was impossible for the show to recoup its costs. [5] For her role, Liza Minnelli won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Cast and Characters. Michelle Craig – Majestic Theatre Dan Connors – Barry Nelson Molly Connors – Gayle Crofoot Lenny Kanter – Christopher Barrett Charley Price – Mark Goddard Arthur/One of the Boys – Roger Minami Nat Schrieber – Arnold Soboloff Dance Alternate – Claudia Asbury Dance Alternate – Brad Witsger One of the Boys – Wayne Cliento One of the Boys – Michael Leeds One of the Boys – Albert Stephenson One of the Girls – Carol Estey One of the Girls – Laurie Dawn Skinner. Musical Numbers. “Shine It On” – Michelle Craig and Chorus “It’s the Strangest Thing” – Michelle Craig “Bobo’s” – Michelle Craig and Dancers “Turning” – Michelle Craig “Little Do They Know” – Boys and Girls “Arthur in the Afternoon” – Michelle Craig and Arthur “Hollywood, California” – Michelle Craig and Dancers “The Money Tree” – Michelle Craig. “City Lights” – Michelle Craig and Chorus “There When I Need Him” – Michelle Craig “Hot Enough for You?” – Michelle Craig and Dancers “Little Do They Know” (Reprise) – Boys and Girls “My Own Space” – Michelle Craig “Walking Papers” – Michelle Craig. Awards and Nominations. Original Broadway Production. Year Award Category Nominee Result 1978 Tony Award Best Original Score Kander and Ebb Nominated Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical Barry Nelson Nominated Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical Liza Minnelli Won Best Choreography Ron Lewis Nominated Best Costume Design Halston Nominated Best Lighting Design Tharon Musser Nominated. References. Jahr, Cliff. “In ‘The Act,’ The Drama Backstage Is Not An Act: Behind the Scenes Of ‘The Act'”, The New York Times , October 23, 1977, p.D1. Retrieved July 4, 2016 The Act Playbill . Retrieved July 4, 2016 Furth, George, Kander, John, and Ebb, Fred.“Script, ‘The Act'” The act: a musical play (1987), Samuel French, Inc., ISBN 0-573-68155-4, pp.3-4 Eder, Richard. “Liza Minnelli’s ‘Act’ Is Fine as Cabaret” The New York Times (abstract), October 31, 1977, p.39 Suskin, Steven. Second Act Trouble: Behind the Scenes at Broadway’s Big Musical Bombs (2006), pp. 19-27, Hal Leonard Publishing, ISBN 1-55783-631-0. Links. The Act at the Internet Broadway Database. The Act. the act, the act broadway, the act liza minnelli, fred ebb, john kander, martin scorsese, halston, barry nelson, mark goddard, wayne cilento, liza minnelli, gayle crofoot.