Four new musical theater-related books were released this month. First is Everything Is Choreography: The Musical Theater of Tommy Tune (Oxford University Press), Kevin Winkler’s overview of the Tony-winning actor-director’s work. It’s the first full-scale book about Tune’s career, which includes the musicals Seesaw, Hollywood/Ukraine, Nine, My One and Only, Grand Hotel, The Will Rogers Follies, and more. Winkler celebrates and takes a critical look at Tune, who moved musicals forward by looking backward and brought contemporary style to a trove of show business antecedents.
Second is The Art of Bob Mackie (Simon & Schuster) by Frank Vlastnik and Laura Ross. It’s the first comprehensive and authorized showcase of costume designer Bob Mackie’s life and work, featuring hundreds of photos and never-before-seen sketches from his personal collection of designs for Cher, Carol Burnett, Bette Midler, Pink, Tina Turner, Elton John, Liza Minnelli, Angela Lansbury, Diana Ross, Beyoncé, RuPaul, and Madonna. Mackie granted full access to his archives and personal memories for this lavish celebration of his work.
Third is West Side Story: The Making of the Steven Spielberg Film (Abrams) by Laurent Bouzereau, featuring never-before-seen unit photography, storyboards, costume and concept designs, and behind-the-scenes photos from Steven Spielberg’s first musical. Bouzereau was embedded with the film’s cast and crew and conducted original interviews with director Spielberg, screenwriter Tony Kushner, choreographer Justin Peck, and the cast of Sharks and Jets, among others, to bring together an oral history that chronicles the years that went into bringing the story back to the screen for a new generation.
Fourth is West Side Story, Gypsy, and the Art of Broadway Orchestration (Routledge) by Paul Laird. Drawing on research of original manuscripts, Laird details the process of orchestrating two iconic musicals. He argues that the orchestration plays a vital role in characterization and plot development. Breaking down how composers Leonard Bernstein and Jules Styne collaborated with orchestrators Sid Ramin, Irwin Kostal, and Robert Ginzler, Laird lets us better understand not only these two classic musicals but also the importance of orchestration in musicals in general.
The Fred Ebb Foundation has announced that the winners of its 2021 Fred Ebb Award for aspiring musical theater songwriters are the team of Isabella Dawis (book and lyrics) and Tidtaya Sinutoke (music). The foundation will present this 17th annual prize, which includes a $60,000 award, in a ceremony at Birdland Jazz Club on January 3. Isabella Dawis is a Filipina-American writer and performer who holds a B.M. in piano from Univ. of Minnesota. Tidtaya Sinutoke is a Thai composer and musician who holds a B.M. from Berklee College and M.F.A. from NYU. Their collaborations include the musicals Half the Sky, the story of an Asian-American woman climbing Mt. Everest, and Sunwatcher, the real-life story of Japanese astronomer Hisako Koyama, who sketched the sun every day for 40 years.
Immediately below is Dawis singing “Outside” from Half the Sky as part of Reclaiming Our Time, an evening of work from Musical Theatre Factory’s People of Color Roundtable at Joe’s Pub on May 20, 2019. Below that is a 2020 music video of “Travel Song” from Sunwatcher, edited by Carol Ho from Koyama’s drawings, performed by Dawis as part of Weston Playhouse’s Songs for Today.
Veteran performer Ira Hawkins has died. Born October 19, 1944, in Los Angeles, Hawkins earned his master’s degree in classical piano from University of Iowa and worked as a junior high school teacher, before he began his career as a vocalist. He sang backup on Ringo Starr’s Top Ten 1974 solo album Goodnight Vienna and Keith Moon’s 1975 solo album Two Sides of the Moon. He also recorded the title song for the soundtrack of Melvin Van Peebles’ 1976 film Just an Old Sweet Song, which you can watch below.
Hawkins made his Broadway debut as an understudy in the 1976 revue Bubbling Brown Sugar. He followed that with the leading role of Hadji opposite Eartha Kitt in the 1978 musical Timbuktu!, a revision of 1953 Tony winner Kismet. Below you can listen to Hawkins and Kitt in the finale, “Sands of Time.” Soon after the show closed, Hawkins launched a long-running nightclub career with his 1979 debut at Les Mouches.
He spent the next decade alternating between stage and club gigs. His theater work included the 1980 backer’s audition of composer Charles Strouse’s Bojangles, the 1981 Amas Rep production of Luther Henderson’s The Crystal Tree, and the 1983 international tour of Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies with Gregg Burge. You can watch the finale from the Japanese tour stop below.
Hawkins returned to Broadway in 1984, replacing Samuel E. Wright in The Tap Dance Kid, then originated roles in the short-lived musicals Honky Tonk Nights (1986) and Roza (1987), which marked his final Broadway appearance. In 1988, he returned to Off-Broadway in the Rodgers & Hart revue Sing for Your Supper and in 1989 to the clubs, singing with The Duke’s Men.
Hawkins primarily found gig work over the next two decades as a supporting vocalist in Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall (1992), which you can watch below, as well as the MTC II concert of Douglas J. Cohen’s musical The Gig (1994), the Sesame Street album Splish Splash: Bath Time Fun (1995), the cast album of Hank Williams: Lost Highway (2002), and the Encores! concert of 70, Girls, 70 (2006).
His recent work includes the 2008 Off-Broadway revival of Aphra Behn’s play Oroonoko, in which he served as actor and musician, as well as a return to his jazz roots with the 2011 Africa/Brass concert, 2013 Mike Longo album Live from New York, and 2017 Frank Perowsky album An Afternoon in Gowanus, from which you can listen to “Down for the Count” below.
Jonathan Majors, who hosted this past weekend’s Saturday Night Live, joined cast members Cecily Strong and Bowen Yang in a theater-themed sketch. The premise is that Brad and his wife (Mikey Day and Aidy Bryant) have brought their daughter Sally to the Broadway benefit performance The Best on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre, which features musical legends Blythe and Brick (Strong and Majors), who are joined by dance legend Tennyson Barley (Majors) for a song that turns out to be not so family-friendly.
The sketch parodies the performance of Beatrice Arthur and Rock Hudson on her 1980 CBS Special Presentation aptly titled The Beatrice Arthur Special, in which the duo sang “Everybody Today Is Turning On,” written by Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart for the 1977 musical I Love My Wife, which was sung in that Broadway musical by high school buddies (and fellow swingers) Wally (James Naughton) and Alvin (Lenny Baker).
The Off-Broadway revival of the 1983 musical Baby, presented by Out of the Box Theatrics in a limited engagement at Theaterlab through December 12, has received mixed reviews from New York theater critics. The creative team includes Sybille Pearson (book), David Shire (music), Richard Maltby Jr. (lyrics), Ethan Paulini (direction, choreography), Geoffrey Ko (music direction), Emily Marshall (music supervision), Rien Schlecht (production design), Scout Hough (lights), and W. Alan Waters and Dimlywit Productions (sound). The cast includes Julia Murney (Arlene), Johnny Link (Danny), Jamila Sabares-Klemm (Nicki), Liz Flemming (Lizzie), Robert H. Fowler (Alan), and Danielle Summons (Pam), with ensemble members Jorge Donoso, Marisa Kirby, and Jewell Noel.
Danielle Summons, Jamila Sabares-Klemm, Johnny Link, and Liz Flemming. Photo: Jo Chiang.
New York Stage Review (Melissa Rose Bernardo): The bouncy score by Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire is packed with toe-tapping, instantly memorable songs. … Now, thanks to Out of the Box Theatrics’ extremely intimate, heart-on-its-sleeve production, those terrific tunes are stuck in my head once again. Out of the Box first decided to … “bring Baby into the 21st century” in 2019; this revival of the revival continues the company’s rethink of the original. … This Baby is on its way, but still has some growing to do. Too many of the book scenes bring the show to a screeching halt, and are in desperate need of trimming. 4 out of 5 stars.
New York Stage Review (Steven Suskin): The joys of Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire’s score for the 1983 musical Baby are immediately apparent through the first scenes of the revised version. … You might well wonder, then, why Baby has been relegated to the sidelines of musical-comedy memory. The answer becomes apparent soon thereafter, when that old devil “book trouble” overtakes the songwriters. …But let’s give credit to good intentions and express hearty appreciation: This new-generation Baby offers the opportunity to hear a present-day team of good actors sing these delightfully good and exuberantly tuneful songs. 3 out of 5 stars.
Theatre Mania (Hayley Levitt): Out of the Box Theatrics, true to its name, has given an inventive update to … Baby, a sweet musical about three couples maneuvering the trials of pregnancy. It seems like a timeless enough premise to endure at least a few decades of cultural evolution. And yet, despite its best intentions, not even a well-placed edit or a creative restaging can free Baby from the amber in which it is frozen. … Paulini attempts to have these couples push a few more boundaries, but with their narratives rather firmly set, most of these changes barely make a dent.
Theater critics have given primarily negative reviews to the new Off-Broadway musical Turtle on a Fencepost, presented by Max Brod in a limited engagment at Theater 555. The creative team includes Prisoner #11RO731 (aka Hank Morris) (book), Austin Nuckols (music), Lily Dwoskin (lyrics), Gabriel Barre (direction), Kenny Ingram (choreography), Aaron Gandy (music direction), Steve Orich (orchestrations, arrangements), Walt Spangler (sets), Vanessa Leuck (costumes, make-up), Yael Lubetzky (lights), Twi McCallum and Rachel Kolb (sound), Stefania Bulbarelle (projections), and Bobbie Zlotnik (hair & wigs). The cast includes Garth Kravits (Hank Morris) with Janet Aldrich, David Aron Damane, Joanna Glushak, Erik Gratton, Kate Loprest, Josh Marin, Joel Newsome, Robbie Serrano, and Richard E. Waits. Below is a short preview of the show.
DC Metro (Deb Miller): In the new musical comedy/vanity project A Turtle on a Fence Post by Prisoner #11RO731 (aka political consultant and broker Hank Morris), the writer continues … a fictionalized rehashing of the narrative of his imprisonment. … It’s all told with a sardonic tone and a stylistic array of 22 original songs, with appealing music … and redundant lyrics. … Despite the best efforts of the cast and team, the only take-aways from this self-serving blame game are that political divisiveness is stuck in a never-ending cycle of revenge that stymies any progress we could be making. … It’s a lesson that Prisoner #11RO731 still hasn’t learned.
New York Stage Review (David Finkle): Unhappily behind bars, Morris decided to relieve his despair by preparing a musical about the painful episode in his life and tapping composer Austin Nuckols and lyricist Lily Dwoskin to supply the score. To give the very hard-luck story a slightly lighter framework, he’s set it in a Manhattan comedy club. … While uncorking many a ba-da-bing gag to keep the comedy-club atmosphere jiving, he nevertheless packs so much outrage in that he streeeeetches his taletelling to two acts. … Convincing as Turtle on a Fence Post is regarding its political history, it’s still one side of the Morris-Cuomo story. 3 out of 5 stars.
Theater Mania (Zachary Stewart): Morris is slightly less sympathetic than Sweeney Todd, and that’s without committing murder — unless you count the book musical as a victim. … This vainest of vanity projects at least gets a top-notch production from director Gabriel Barre, whose wizardry keeps this two-and-a-half-hour monstrosity from feeling like a life sentence. … The Prince of Darkness himself shows up … to remind us that he too will have a second act — and the good Democrats in the audience will probably vote for him. … Unintentionally, A Turtle on a Fence Post asks us how much longer we will tolerate this behavior.
New York theater critics have given mixed reviews to the Off-Broadway revival of the 1990 musical Assassins, with a score by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, which will continue its limited emgagement at Classic Stage Company through January 29. The creative team includes JohnDoyle (direction, sets), Ann Hould-Ward (costumes), Jane Cox and Tess James (lights), Matt Stine and Sam Kusnetz (sound), Steve Channon (projections), Charles G. Lapointe (wigs), and Greg Jarrett (orchestrations, music direction).The cast includes Adam Chanler-Berat (John Hinckley Jr.), Eddie Cooper (Proprietor), Tavi Gevinson (Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme), Andy Grotelueschen (Samuel Byck), Judy Kuhn (Sara Jane Moore), Steven Pasquale (John Wilkes Booth), Ethan Slater (Lee Harvey Oswald / Balladeer), Will Swenson (Charles Guiteau), Wesley Taylor (Giuseppe Zangara), and Brandon Uranowitz (Leon Czolgosz) with ensemble members Brad Giovanine, Bianca Horn, Whit K. Lee, Rob Morrison, and Katrina Yaukey.
The cast of Assassins.
New York Times (Laura Collins-Hughes): Even with a powerhouse cast, this stripped down, off-balance production … never does find a way to make the audience feel the stakes of its characters’ actions. That’s true whether we view the assassins purely as historical figures or also as metaphors for an aggressive strain of lethal discontent. … Assassins has been faulted since its premiere three decades ago for a supposed failure to make its disparate parts cohere. It’s also proved many times that they can, yet Doyle’s staging never manages to harness that cumulative power. Faithful though it is to the show’s sung and spoken text, it’s missing some vital connective tissue.
Observer (David Cote): Assassins is the looking glass that theater folk periodically dust off to show us how much we’ve declined. John Doyle even ends his timid, visually bland revival at Classic Stage Company with … a thudding flourish that indicates the elderly British director doesn’t trust his audience. … It’s the last of a series of obvious or poorly reasoned choices that leech tension and shock from this evergreen material, despite a strong cast. … Doyle recoils from razzmatazz and messy emotions, opting for a cerebral sangfroid with the appearance (but not the reality) of depth.
Theatrely (Joey Sims): We are left with a revival that captures Assassins’ smarts and musical brilliance, but ultimately, still lacks a certain something. It needs a bit of mayhem. A touch of chaos. More than a hint, perhaps, of madness. … This production does have a lot else going for it. Greg Jarrett’s orchestration and musical direction is masterful. Every number sounds incredible. … The standout, though, is Will Swenson, an oft-underrated comedic performer whose maniacal take on Charles Guiteau grabs a firm hold of the show whenever he’s on stage. … We get a thrilling hint of a production that could have been, one that built insanity, pure insanity, into its very theatrical form.
Time Out (Adam Feldman): Doyle has the ammo to get the job done — a star-spangled cast of musical theater pros — but not the aim. As scattershot as this production sometimes seems, however, it hits enough targets to draw blood. … Doyle’s constitutional aversion to showmanship and comedy sometimes get in the way of this operation. At times, the blocking literally blocks key moments; more often, it muddles them. … The most discomfiting thing about watching Assassins now is the extent to which the isolated mindsets whose dots the musical connects through 120 years of U.S. history have cohered into movements since the show was written. 4 out of 5 stars.
Variety (Marilyn Stasio): Doyle’s electrifying staging … is a revival to die for — figuratively, of course. … Between the musical’s powerful content and Doyle’s inventive presentation, Assassins is still a killer show. Doyle is a past master of ensemble showpieces, and this musical plays right to his strengths. The lineup here includes some of our most versatile performers, from Steven Pasquale as a fiery John Wilkes Booth to Ethan Slater as the twitchiest Lee Harvey Oswald imaginable. But plucking out any more players seems unfair to the flawless teamwork.
Company resumes its Broadway previews this week after a 20-month hiatus. There were just nine performances before New York’s theaters went dark last year due to the pandemic. Now the cast celebrates their return with a Tiny Desk performance filmed for NPR at the Civilian Hotel. The show, written in 1970 by Stephen Sondheim (score) and George Furth (book), was reconceived in 2018 by director Marianne Elliot. That acclaimed London production will finally open at Broadway’s Jacobs Theatre on December 9.
The concert cast includes Katrina Lenk, Matt Doyle, Christopher Fitzgerald, Christopher Sieber, Jennifer Simard, Terence Archie, Etai Benson, Bobby Conte, Nikki Renée Daniels, Claybourne Elder, Greg Hildreth, Anisha Nagarajan, Manu Narayan, and Rashidra Scott. The band includes Joel Fram (music direction), Paul Staroba (piano), Michael Blanco (bass), and Rich Rosenzweig (drums).
The set list includes “Company” (entire cast), “Someone Is Waiting” (Lenk), “Another Hundred People” (Conte), and “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” (Conte, Elder, and Narayan).
Today, the Walt Disney Company is celebrating Disney+ Day, marking the second anniversary of their streaming service’s debut, by releasing new content across the service’s brands, including Olaf Presents, an original series of short cartoons from Walt Disney Animation Studios that features the Frozen snowman retelling classic Disney tales. The idea came from a scene in Frozen II where Olaf gives the Northuldra tribe a humourous recap of the first film, as well as his post-credits recounting of the second film to the giant Marshmallow and miniature Snowgies. Josh Gad returns to voice Olaf, with veteran Disney animator Hyrum Osmond directing and Jennifer Newfield producing the scripts written by Jennifer Lee.
Film critics have given generally positive reviews to Tick, Tick … Boom!, an adaptation of the autobiographical musical by Rent creator Jonathan Larson about a young theater composer who’s waiting tables at a New York City diner in 1990 while writing what he hopes will be the next great American musical. The film marks the feature directorial debut of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who played Jon in the 2014 Encores! Off-Center concert revival. The creative team also includes Steven Levenson (screenplay), Alice Brooks (cinematography), Andrew Weisblum (editing), Alex Di Gerlando (production design), Deborah Wheatley (art direction), and Ryan Heffington (choreography). The cast stars Andrew Garfield (Jon), Vanessa Hudgens (Karessa), Alexandra Shipp (Susan), Robin de Jesús (Michael), Joshua Henry (Roger), Judith Light (Rosa Stevens), and Bradley Whitford (Stephen Sondheim), with Joanna Adler (Molly), and Noah Robbins (Simon).
The Guardian (Peter Bradshaw): Lin-Manuel Miranda gives us an unashamed sugar rush of showbiz rapture and showbiz solemnity in this heartfelt tribute to Broadway talent Jonathan Larson. … Garfield is good at portraying the needy, borderline-desperate world of the theatrical writer: always charming, always on, always looking for creative inspiration, always on the verge of exhaustion, and now trying to absorb the new possibility of disillusion. … This is not a movie which gives its hero a happy ending: there is no opening night for Larson, just a belief that the unending slog will one day be worth it. 4 out of 5 stars.
The Hollywood Reporter (Justin Lowe): Miranda’s approach to Tick, Tick … Boom! lacks a similar sense of immediacy, as if he’s regarding the musical through a haze of nostalgia, seeking to persuade viewers to fall under the creative spell that clearly still lingers for him. It’s not an entirely convincing tactic, although hard-core musical theater fans are likely to find it fairly irresistible. … Miranda handles his directorial role (and a brief cameo) with assured professionalism, foregrounding the characters with fluid camera movement and precise editorial pacing, but it’s a somewhat sterile style, more akin to a concert film than an immersive narrative feature.
The Independent (Clarisse Loughrey): Theatre kids are always a little insufferable. … Still, Tick, Tick… Boom! saves itself from the navel-gazing brink by having both Larson’s writing, and Miranda’s staging of that writing, repeatedly acknowledge the narcissistic insularity of the Broadway world. … The film, as one might expect, is enthusiastically self-referential when it comes to Broadway tradition. Not only is composer Stephen Sondheim (Bradley Whitford with a withering look) treated practically as a living god, but Miranda never throws away his shot (get it?) when there’s a musical reference to be made — to the old, to the new, to his own work. 4 out of 5 stars.
IndieWire (Steve Greene): While framing the action around a recreation (of sorts) of Larson’s original presentation, this Tick Tick Boom uses the freedom of a different medium to cut back and forth into the events that inspired those songs and stories. … The film’s final breakthrough moment of inspiration … points to a film that, even at its highest points, seems to be fighting half of itself. Perhaps that’s why a cherished work from a beloved writer took decades to make it to the screen in the first place. Either way, it’s a reminder of how well Tick Tick Boom works with the pure basics: a man with something to say and a microphone to help him do it. Grade: B-
iNews (Francesca Steele): The show has been structured in two interweaving parts — a literal stage and a more traditional film narrative. … Theatre Jonathan cuts periodically to “real-life” Manhattan Jonathan. … There is sometimes a tad too much meta musical self-referencing: Larson is in dialogue with his younger self and the theatre crowd; Miranda is in dialogue with his younger self and Larson. Occasionally I wondered who was actually speaking to the cinema audience, as the plot got lost in structural conceits. Still, Miranda has made something kinetic and intimate with material not easily adapted for the screen. It is a fan’s tribute, yes, but quite a clever one. 4 stars.
The Telegraph (Robbie Collin): This film adaptation … brilliantly expands Larson’s solo piece into an explosively entertaining vérité rock opera. … Tick, Tick…Boom! has also been crafted with a particular audience in mind. … Yet the luvvie indulgence levels remain impressively low throughout, as Miranda and Levenson keep finding ways to both revel in and deconstruct the story’s inherently theatrical pleasures in uniquely cinematic ways. … If Miranda’s tendency towards showmanship can leave Tick, Tick…Boom! feeling a little insistent in places, it also means the film shares its hero’s jet-propelled determination to do his own thing.
USA Today (Brian Truitt): BOOM! is a moving and joyous exploration of creativity. … Andrew Garfield turns in an amazing, multi-faceted performance as Larson’s semi-fictional avatar in the kind of colorful, fantastical but still realistic New York City landscape that only a musical-theater guru like Miranda could carve out. … BOOM! finds a creative way to ground the more wondrous aspects of musical theater while still keeping its signature wonder. … BOOM! is an entertaining, heart-filling work that showcases two musical geniuses, putting a new spotlight on Larson’s musical legacy and giving Miranda another endeavor to gift us with his unparalleled artistry. 3-1/2 out of 4 stars.
Variety (Peter Debruge): Most audiences don’t care to watch writers struggling for recognition, and the blessing of Tick, Tick… Boom! isn’t that he finds it, but that we observe Jonathan incrementally identifying his priorities and acknowledging the sources he’d draw from in Rent. … What’s refreshing about the debuting director’s approach is that it feels relatively egoless. His style is playful and energetic, often intercutting between multiple threads within a given song or scene, but it doesn’t feel as if Miranda is calling attention to himself so much as trying to open up the show — to give it the wings Jonathan sings about in the final number.
The Wrap (Todd Gilchrist): Even with a dazzling, urgent performance by Andrew Garfield at its center, tick, tick…Boom! needs a more critical or at least more self-aware eye to recreate the kind of scruffy profundity and insight that it must have possessed as a response to decades of bloated Broadway pageantry. … On a level of sheer cinematic flourish, Miranda’s adaptation is a triumph; he really harnesses Larson’s songs for the screen and gives them tremendous life. … tick, tick…Boom! is an auspicious accomplishment, engaging and energetic and affecting, and another reminder that Lin-Manuel Miranda is one of the few artists who’s actually accomplished enough to earn the unfettered luxury of spending all day creating.
Four new musical theater-related books were released this month. First is Everything Is Choreography: The Musical Theater of Tommy Tune (Oxford University Press), Kevin Winkler’s overview of the Tony-winning actor-director’s work. It’s the first full-scale book about Tune’s career, which includes the musicals Seesaw, Hollywood/Ukraine, Nine, My One and Only, Grand Hotel, The Will Rogers Follies, and more. Winkler celebrates and takes a critical look at Tune, who moved musicals forward by looking backward and brought contemporary style to a trove of show business antecedents.
Second is The Art of Bob Mackie (Simon & Schuster) by Frank Vlastnik and Laura Ross. It’s the first comprehensive and authorized showcase of costume designer Bob Mackie’s life and work, featuring hundreds of photos and never-before-seen sketches from his personal collection of designs for Cher, Carol Burnett, Bette Midler, Pink, Tina Turner, Elton John, Liza Minnelli, Angela Lansbury, Diana Ross, Beyoncé, RuPaul, and Madonna. Mackie granted full access to his archives and personal memories for this lavish celebration of his work.
Third is West Side Story: The Making of the Steven Spielberg Film (Abrams) by Laurent Bouzereau, featuring never-before-seen unit photography, storyboards, costume and concept designs, and behind-the-scenes photos from Steven Spielberg’s first musical. Bouzereau was embedded with the film’s cast and crew and conducted original interviews with director Spielberg, screenwriter Tony Kushner, choreographer Justin Peck, and the cast of Sharks and Jets, among others, to bring together an oral history that chronicles the years that went into bringing the story back to the screen for a new generation.
Fourth is West Side Story, Gypsy, and the Art of Broadway Orchestration (Routledge) by Paul Laird. Drawing on research of original manuscripts, Laird details the process of orchestrating two iconic musicals. He argues that the orchestration plays a vital role in characterization and plot development. Breaking down how composers Leonard Bernstein and Jules Styne collaborated with orchestrators Sid Ramin, Irwin Kostal, and Robert Ginzler, Laird lets us better understand not only these two classic musicals but also the importance of orchestration in musicals in general.
