Broadway Birthday: John Travolta

Posted on February 18, 2021 by boz

Happy Birthday to two-time Oscar nominee John Travolta, born Feb. 18, 1954, in Englewood, N.J. His mother taught high school drama, and most of his five siblings pursued performing careers. By age 12, Travolta was already acting in local troupes. At 16, he dropped out of Dwight Morrow H.S. to make his professional debut in the Off-Broadway play Rain. Soon after, he landed a role in a national touring company of Grease and, within a year, was making his Broadway debut in the musical as Doody, onstage with his sister Ann. His next Broadway role was Misfit in the 1974 Andrews Sisters musical Over Here!, in which he sang the specialty solo “Dream Drummin’.” Below is the original cast at the Tony Awards, with Travolta among the chorus in “Charlie’s Place” (about 4:17).

Travolta left New York to pursue film and TV work in Los Angeles, landing his breakthrough role as Vinnie Barbarino in the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975-79), in which his sister Ellen had a recurring role. With his newfound success, he released a series of pop albums, including John Travolta, Can’t Let Go, and Travolta Fever. He had a Top Ten hit with “Let Her In” from his debut and landed in the Top 40 with “Whenever I’m Away from You” from his third album. Below is Travolta performing “Let Her In” on the April 10, 1976, episode of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.

https://youtu.be/fZFM4Zx2JNU

Travolta won critical acclaim for the 1976 TV film The Boy in the Plastic Bubble and the 1977 feature film Saturday Night Fever (1977), which earned him his first Oscar and Golden Globe nominations and made him an icon of the disco era. Below is the classic “You Should Be Dancing” scene from the film.

The following year, Travolta starred in film adaptation of Grease, this time in the lead role of Danny Zuko. It was an even larger success than Saturday Night Fever, earning Travolta his second Golden Globe nomination and his first Grammy nomination for the soundtrack. The album topped the Billboard 200 chart, while the single “You’re the One That I Want” topped both the U.S. and U.K. charts. The single “Summer Nights” also landed at #5 in the U.S. and #1 in the U.K. Below is the film clip of “You’re the One That I Want” with Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.

Travolta’s career took a downturn in the 1980s with films like the sequel Staying Alive, which earned him a Razzie nomination, but his work with Newton-John on the soundtrack for the 1983 film Two of a Kind produced the Top 10 adult contemporary hit “Take a Chance,” which you can watch below.

He saw a resurgence in the 1990s, after the 1994 crime drama Pulp Fiction, which earned Travolta his second Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, and he focused primarily on nonmusical projects for the next decade, including Get Shorty (Globe win) and Primary Colors (Globe nom). His next musical film was the 2007 adaptation of the Tony-winning Hairspray, which earned Travolta another Globe nod. The soundtrack peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for a Grammy. Below is a film clip of his turn in the song “You Can’t Stop the Beat.”

In the past decade, Travolta has continued to earn critical acclaim for his dramatic work, including Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and reunited with Newton-John on her 2012 holiday album This Christmas. Below is the video for “I Think You Might Like It.”

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Broadway Birthday: Tom Jones

Posted on February 17, 2021 by boz

Me and Tom Jones

Happy Birthday to Tony-nominated writer Tom Jones, born Feb. 17, 1928, in Littlefield, Texas. Jones attended UT Austin, where he met collaborator Harvey Schmidt in the Curtain Club revue Hipsy-Boo, directed by Word Baker. The club produced the first Jones and Schmidt musical, Time Staggers On, which was so well received that the men continued writing, even via mail while in the Army. After their discharges, they both settled in New York, and their songs began showing up in Off-Broadway revues like Ben Bagley’s Shoestring ’57 (1956), Kaleidoscope (1957), and Julius Monk’s Demi-Dozen (1958). You can listen to some of these original recordings on Hidden Treasures, 1951-2001, streaming for free at the Internet Archive.

The team’s break came in 1959, when UT alum Baker asked them to write a one-act for him to direct at Barnard’s summer theater. Jones decided to rework his college show Joy Comes to Deadhorse. Producer Lore Noto saw the production, retitled The Fantasticks, and asked the team to make it a full-length. They did, and it opened May 3, 1960, with Baker as director and Jones in the role of Old Actor. Below is original cast member Jerry Orbach singing “Try to Remember” in the 1985 PBS special The Best of Broadway.

https://youtu.be/GEW1F9kZ-UE

The production proved so popular that it ran from 1960 until 2002, totaling 17,162 performances, the longest run in musical theater history. It won a 1961 Drama Desk Award, 1975 special Obie Award, and 1992 special Tony Award. The show premiered on the West End in 1961, on TV in 1964 (which you can watch below), and on screen in 2000. The Off-Broadway revival opened in 2006 and ran for 4,390 performances, closing in 2017. During 2010, Jones reprised his role of Old Actor in the revival.

The team’s next projects included a musical adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s Anatol (1960) and the original TV revue New York Scrapbook (1961). Then producer David Merrick asked them to work with Richard Nash on adapting his play The Rainmaker. Their musical, 110 in the Shade, opened Oct. 24, 1963, on Broadway, earning four Tony nominations, including score. It debuted on the West End in 1964 and was revived on Broadway in 2007, receiving five Tony nods. Below is 1964 nominee Inga Swenson singing “Simple Little Things” and 2007 nominee Audra McDonald singing “Raunchy.”

The team turned to revising Anatol, retitling it The Game of Love (1965), before director Gower Champion asked them to adapt Jan de Hartog’s The Fourposter for Broadway stars Mary Martin and Robert Preston. The show, I Do! I Do!, opened Dec. 5, 1966, and earned seven Tony nominations, including musical and score. Ed Ames’ recording of “My Cup Runneth Over” was a Top Ten hit and earned Jones and Schmidt a Grammy nomination for Best Song of the Year. Below are Martin and Preston, performing “Nobody’s Perfect” at the 1967 Tony Awards, and Ed Ames singing “My Cup Runneth Over.”

https://youtu.be/Eq0ooP57Muk

With the profits from The Fantasticks and I Do! I Do!, Jones and Schmidt turned an old wedding chapel into a 99-seat theater, which they dubbed Portfolio Studio. Their first production was Celebration (1969), which had a short Broadway run. They followed that with Portfolio Revue (1974), Philemon (1975), and The Bone Room (1975). They won a special Outer Critics Circle Award in 1975 but closed the studio soon after. Philemon was revived in 1991 by York Theater and in 1999 by Music in a Box (which I produced). Below is the 1976 PBS broadcast of Philemon.

The 1980s were a decade of development dysphoria for Jones, with Colette Collage (1983) and Grover’s Corners (1987) experiencing numerous delays. The 1990s were more productive, with the musical Mirette (1996), the revue The Show Goes On (1997), and the book Making Musicals (1998). Jones rounded out the decade with induction into the American Theatre Hall of Fame and a star on the Off-Broadway Walk of Fame, then began the new millennium with the Off-Broadway musical Roadside (2001).

In the past decade, Jones has continued on without Schmidt, who retired just a few years before his death in 2018. Jones paired with composer Joseph Thalken on Harold and Maude (2015) and with composer Andrew Gerle on La Tempesta (2019). Below are the promo reels for the Paper Mill production of the first (with Eric Millegan and Estelle Parsons) and the Japanese premiere of the second.

For a good overview of Jones’ collaboration with Harvey Schmidt, watch the Dramatists Guild’s Legacy Project interview with Jones and Schmidt conducted by fellow Texan musical writer Carol Hall.

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Broadway Legends: Vera-Ellen

Posted on February 16, 2021 by boz

One of the most versatile dancers on stage and screen, Vera-Ellen Rohe was born Feb. 16, 1921, in Norwood, Ohio, where she began dancing at age 9. Four years later, she won the Major Bowes Amateur Hour, which sent her on tour in its All Girls Unit, accompanied by her mother. After the tour, she landed a dancing gig with the Ted Lewis band, a specialty dance spot in Billy Rose’s nightclub, and a place on the Rockettes, who reportedly fired her because she showed too much individuality.

Just after her 18th birthday, Vera-Ellen made her Broadway debut in Very Warm for May. The following year, she appeared as a specialty dancer in Higher and Higher and in the chorus of Panama Hattie. In 1941, she married fellow dancer Robert Hightower, with whom she danced in By Jupiter (1942). Her final Broadway musical was A Connecticut Yankee (1943), where she was spotted by Samuel Goldwyn, who took her to Hollywood to costar with Danny Kaye in Wonder Man (1945) and The Kid from Brooklyn (1946). 

She followed those films with Three Little Girls in Blue (1946) and Carnival in Costa Rica (1947), before being paired with Gene Kelly in Words and Music (1948) and On the Town (1949). In 1949, she also appeared in Love Happy, the Marx Brothers’ final feature. Below are Vera-Ellen and Kelly in “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” from Words and Music and in the title song of On the Town, with Frank Sinatra and Betty Garrett (yellow), Jules Munshin and Ann Miller (red).

https://youtu.be/iaAiKkmjp3c

Vera-Ellen was next paired with Fred Astaire in Three Little Words (1950) and The Belle of New York (1952), becoming only one of six women to partner both Kelly and Astaire on screen. Her other Hollywood musicals in the early 1950s include Happy Go Lovely with David Niven, Call Me Madam with Donald O’Connor, and White Christmas (1954) with Danny Kaye, Bing Crosby, and Rosemary Clooney. Below is Vera-Ellen with Astaire in “Thinking of You” from Three Little Words and with John Brascia in “Abraham” from White Christmas.

After she married her second husband, millionaire Victor Rothschild, Vera-Ellen turned  from film to TV anthology series like Lux Video Theatre and The Ford Television Theatre and to variety programs like The Colgate Variety Hour and Washington Square, in addition to the shows hosted by Ed Sullivan, Perry Como, and Dinah Shore. Below is Vera-Ellen and Louis DaPron on the Feb. 18, 1956, broadcast of Como’s show.

Vera-Ellen’s final film appearance was in the British production Let’s Be Happy (1957) with Tony Martin. In 1963, her three-month-old daughter died, and she withdrew from public life. “I stopped when I was ahead. I don’t need my work anymore, and I don’t need the applause,” she told a reporter. For the next two decades, she spent her retirement in her Hollywood Hills home, dying Aug. 30, 1981, of ovarian cancer.

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Today in Musical History: “Hello, Dolly!”

Posted on February 15, 2021 by boz

On Feb. 15, 1964, Louis Armstrong’s cover of the musical title song “Hello, Dolly!” debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, one month after the show premiered on Broadway, where Carol Channing had introduced the tune. Armstrong’s recording spent 22 weeks on the singles chart, peaking at #1 on May 9, and topped Billboard’s adult contemporary chart for nine weeks, becoming the biggest hit of Armstrong’s half-century career. On Billboard’s year-end chart, the single ranked #3 overall for 1964, just below The Beatles. Below is Armstrong on the Oct. 4, 1964, broadcast of The Ed Sullivan Show.

The song was the lead single from Armstrong’s album Hello, Dolly!, which spent 75 weeks on the Billboard 200 album chart, six of them at #1, beginning June 13, when it dislodged the original Broadway cast recording from the top spot. The cast recording still ended 1964, though, as the top album on Billboard’s year-end chart.

At the 1965 Grammys, composer Jerry Herman picked up the award for Song of the Year, and Armstrong earned the trophy for Best Male Vocal Performance. So popular was Armstrong’s rendition that the Harmonia Gardens scene was restructured for the musical’s 1969 film adaptation, with Armstrong as the bandleader who sang the song to Dolly Levi (Barbra Streisand), which you can watch below.

Lyndon B. Johnson adapted the tune as “Hello, Lyndon!” for his 1964 campaign run, which Carol Channing sang at that year’s Democratic National Convention. In 1984, Channing also appeared on Sesame Street to sing the parody “Hello, Sammy!,” a love song to Jim Henson’s Sammy the Snake muppet, which you can watch below.

The song’s success led to a lawsuit from Mack David, who sued for copyright infringement, because the first four bars of Herman’s melody were the same as those in David’s 1948 song “Sunflower.” As he wrote in his memoirs, Herman had never heard David’s song and wanted a chance to defend himself in court, but he reluctantly agreed to settled before the case went to trial.

Armstrong’s version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001, and the original Broadway cast album followed in 2002. To get a taste of the original version, watch Carol Channing below in the 1979 Royal Variety performance during the London revival of the musical.

https://youtu.be/96MxyIJIACE

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Broadway Birthday: J. Robert Spencer

Posted on February 12, 2021 by boz

Happy Birthday to J. Robert Spencer, born Feb. 12, 1969, in York, Pa., where he attended Central York H.S. His early gigs included voice work for the Japanese anime Amon Saga (1986), Spirit Warrior (1987), The Grave of the Fireflies (1988), and Nightmare Campus (1994). After he graduated cum laude in 1991 from Shenandoah University, Spencer moved to New York City. In 1995, he was cast as the replacement Rum Tum Tugger in the fourth national tour of Cats, and he made his Broadway debut two years later as a swing in Side Show, where he met Jenny-Lynn Suckling, whom he married in 2002.

In the early 2000s, Spencer also appeared in Side Show composer Henry Krieger’s Lucky Duck at La Jolla’s Old Globe (2004) and in the Off-Broadway revivals of Weird Romance (2004) and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (2005) at the York Theatre. Then in 2005, he was cast in his breakthrough role: Nick Massi in the Tony-winning musical Jersey Boys (2005). Below is the original cast performing “Oh What a Night” at the 2007 Tonys.

With his newfound notoriety, Spencer formed the film company 7 Spencer Productions, for which he has produced, written, directed, and acted in independent movies such as Farm Girl in New York (2007) and Heterosexuals (2010). He also starred in the 2008 Boston Pops production of Handel’s Messiah Rocks, under the baton of Keith Lockhart, which was taped for PBS. Below is Spencer singing “He Is Fire” from that concert.

Spencer returned to Broadway in 2009 with the Pulitzer-winning Next to Normal, after joining the show for its out-of-town tryout at Arena Stage. He received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Non-Resident Production for the D.C. show and a Tony Award nomination as Best Actor in a Musical for the Broadway production. Below is Spencer and Aaron Tveit singing “I Am the One.”

After that show, Shenandoah University presented him with an honorary doctorate. Then in 2011, he formed the singing group The Midtown Men: Four Original Stars from Broadway’s Jersey Boys, with whom he has performed more than 700 concerts across the U.S. and abroad in Italy, Canada, Mexico, and China. The group has also produced and recorded several CDs and filmed the PBS concert documentary The Midtown Men: Live in Concert, which you can watch a clip of below.

In the past decade, Spencer has performed in workshops and productions of several new musicals, including The Water Dream (2013) and Bayonets of Angst (2014) at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, winning a NYMF Award for Excellence for Outstanding Individual Performance for the latter, and Because of Winn Dixie (2019) at Goodspeed Musicals. Below is a promotional video for Bayonets of August (featuring Spencer about 1:40 and 2:30).

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Today in Musical History: The Big Broadcast of 1938

Posted on February 11, 2021 by boz

On Feb. 11, 1938, Paramount Pictures released The Big Broadcast of 1938, the third (and last) of its Big Broadcast variety anthologies and the only one in the series that has been released on VHS or DVD. The film marked Bob Hope’s feature debut and the final outing for W.C. Fields in his long-running Paramount studio contract, before he moved to Universal Studios for his last series of films. The film is also notable for debuting Hope’s signature song, the Oscar-winning “Thanks for the Memory,” which you can watch him and Shirley Ross perform below.

Produced for Paramount by Harlan Thompson, the creative team included Mitchell Leisen (direction), Walter DeLeon, Ken Englund, and Francis Martin (screenplay, from an adaptation by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse of an original story by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan), Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger (songs), Boris Morros (music direction), LeRoy Printz (choreography) Harry Fischbeck (cinematography), Chandler House and Ed Warren (editing), Hans Dreier and Ernst Fegté (art direction), A.E. Freudeman (set decoration), Edith Head (costumes), Gordon Jennings (special effects), and Gene Merritt, Don Johnson, and Charles Althouse (sound). 

Leon Schlesinger, producer of the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, directed the animated sequence that accompanied the instrumental song “This Little Ripple Had Rhythm,” conducted by Shep Fields, which you can watch below.

The cast included W.C. Fields (T.F. Bellows, S.B. Bellows), Martha Raye (Martha Bellows), Dorothy Lamour (Dorothy Wyndham), Shirley Ross (Cleo Fielding), Ben Blue (Mike), Bob Hope (Buzz Fielding), Grace Bradley (Grace Fielding), Leif Erikson (Bob Hayes), Lynne Overman (Scoop McPhail), Rufe Davis (Turnkey), Dorothy Howe (Joan Fielding), Lionel Pape (Englishman Lord Droopy), Russel Hicks (Capt. Stafford), and Patricia Wilder (Honey Chile), with specialty numbers performed by Kirsten Flagstad, Tito Guízar, and Shep Fields.

Fields, Ross and Hope

Most of the action takes place aboard T.F.’s new ocean liner, the S.S. Gigantic, which is in a “Race of the Ages” with its rival, the S.S. Colossal. Fields plays the conniving ship owner and his “nearly identical” brother S.B., whom T.F. had booked on the Colossal in hopes that his dimwitted sibling would sabotage that ship. Instead, S.B. shows up on the Gigantic, as does his unlucky daughter Martha, rescued from the shipwreck of her yacht, Hesperus V. Meanwhile, radio emcee Buzz Fielding introduces a series of musical acts for the pleasure of Gigantic’s passengers and his radio listeners, while juggling his fiancée Dorothy and three ex-wives who’ve come aboard.

In addition to “Thanks for the Memory” and “This Little Ripple Had Rhythm,” Rainger and Robin contributed the songs “Don’t Tell a Secret to a Rose” (sung by Tito Guízar), “You Took the Words Right out of My Heart” (sung by Dorothy Lamour), “The Waltz Lives On” (sung by Shirley Ross), and “Mama, That Moon Is Here Again” (sung by Martha Raye), which you can watch below. Incongruously amid these new songs, soprano Kirsten Flagstad offered “Brunnhilde’s Battle Cry,” from Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, conducted by Wilfrid Pelletier.

Reviews were mixed for the film’s initial release. New York Times critic Frank S. Nugent wrote, “The hodgepodge revue being offered at the Paramount is all loose ends and tatters, not too good at its best and downright bad at its worst.” The Senior Scholastic described it as “a big cast with plenty of big names, but a big disappointment, except for W.C. Fields.” While the National Board of Review’s magazine found it to be “an amusing and lavish production” with good songs and excellent dancing. The film was nominated for AFI’s 2006 Greatest Movie Musicals list, while “Thanks for the Memory” was ranked #63 on AFI’s 2004 100 Years …100 Songs list.

Despite reviews, the public took to the pairing of Hope and Ross so well that the couple were teamed again in Thanks for the Memory (1939), where they sang “Two Sleepy People” by Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser, and for a third time in Some Like It Hot (1939), retitled Rhythm Romance, where they sang “The Lady’s in Love with You” by Burton Lane and Frank Loesser. Below is the pair singing “Two Sleepy People.”

https://youtu.be/25U-V-rCb0o

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2021 Oscar Best Song Shortlist

Posted on February 10, 2021 by boz

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the shortlists for nine of its Oscar categories, including best song. In most categories, specialists in the specific field take a preliminary vote to create shortlists for consideration. After this intermediate stage, they vote again to narrow the contenders to the final five nominations for voting by the full academy membership. This year’s Oscar winners will be announced April 25 during a live broadcast from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. 

The short list for best song includes the Golden Globe nominees “Fight for You” (D’Mile, H.E.R., Tiara Thomas) from Judas and the Black Messiah, “lo Sì (Seen)” (Niccolò Agliardi, Laura Pausini, Diane Warren) from The Life Ahead, “Speak Now” (Sam Ashworth, Leslie Odom Jr.) from One Night in Miami, and “Hear My Voice” (Celeste & Daniel Pemberton) from The Trial of the Chicago 7. Below are Laurie Pausini singing “lo Sì (Seen)” and Leslie Odom Jr. singing “Speak Now.”

Rounding out the list are the background songs “Turntables” (Janelle Monáe, Nate Wonder, George A. Peters II) from All In: The Fight for Democracy, “See What You’ve Done” (Mary J. Blige, et al.) from Belly of the Beast, “Never Break” (John Legend, et al.) from Giving Voice, “Loyal Brave True” (Harry Gregson-Williams, et al.) from Mulan, “Free” (Diane Warren) from The One and Only Ivan, “Show Me Your Soul” (Robert Glasper, Muhammad Ayers) from Mr Soul!, and “Green” (Abraham Marder) from Sound of Metal. Below are Christina Aguilera singing “Loyal Brave True” and Charlie Puth singing “Free.”

The diegetic song contenders include “Wuhan Flu” (Sacha Baron Cohen, et al.) sung by Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, “Húsavík” (Atli Örvarsson, et al.) sung by Will Ferrell and My Marianne in Eurovision Song Contest, “Make It Work” (John Legend) sung by Forest Whitaker and Anika Noni Rose in Jingle Jangle, and “Rain Song” (Emile Mosseri, Han Ye-ri) sung by Han Ye-ri in Minari. Below are the songs “Húsavík” and “Make It Work.”

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Broadway Legends: Jimmy Durante

Posted on February 10, 2021 by boz

Few performers have had as much success in as many media as Jimmy Durante, whose 50-year career spanned from vaudeville to TV. Born in New York’s Lower East Side on Feb. 10, 1893, Durante began working at age 6 in his father’s barbershop and left school after the eighth grade to help support his family full-time. By 17, he was accompanying singing waiters at a Coney Island saloon. Five years later, he was leading a five-piece band in a Harlem cabaret, where he met collaborator Eddie Jackson.

Durante made his first recording in 1918, playing piano with the Original New Orleans Jazz Band, and in 1923, he and Jackson opened Club Durant, where they met Lou Clayton. The three men developed a comedy act and, by 1927, were headlining the vaudeville bill at New York’s Palace Theatre. Two years later, the team made their Broadway debut in George & Ira Gershwin’s Show Girl for Florenz Ziegfeld (with Durante as Snozzle) and made their film debut in Roadhouse Nights, which you can watch below.

After the trio returned to Broadway in Cole Porter’s The New Yorkers (1930), Durante received a solo film contract, so Clayton and Jackson became his managers. MGM featured Durante in dozens of movies, but they couldn’t find an appropriate vehicle for him, so he was back on Broadway in the 1933 Henderson-Brown revue Strike Me Pink. Two years later, Durante had his biggest stage success with Rodgers & Hart’s Jumbo for Billy Rose. His next musical was Cole Porter’s Red, Hot and Blue. Below is a silent home movie of the original 1936 production of that musical with Durante, Bob Hope, and Ethel Merman.

The early 1940s were a professional and personal low for Durante, who saw the deaths of his father, sister, and wife Jeanne in rapid succession. Then in 1943, he was teamed with Garry Moore to fill a vacated NBC radio slot, which revived his career. To honor his wife, Durante signed off each broadcast with “Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.” With the show’s success, Durante was back at MGM in films such as Two Girls and a Sailor (1944). Below is Durante singing his signature song, “Inka Dinka Doo,” under the baton of Harry James, in that film.

His subsequent MGM musicals include the Oscar-nominated Music for Millions (1944), Two Sisters from Boston (1946), It Happened in Brooklyn with Frank Sinatra (1947), and the Esther Williams vehicles This Time for Keeps (1947) and On an Island with You (1948). Below his Durante singing his Top 40 chart hit “Umbriago” in Music for Millions.

In 1950, Durante made his TV debut as co-host of Four Star Revue, which evolved into All Star Revue, then The Colgate Comedy Hour, receiving a 1952 Emmy nomination and a 1953 Emmy award as best comedian. From 1954 to 1956, he hosted his own half-hour TV variety show, and he ended the decade with two stars (one for film, one for radio) on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He began the 1960s with the film adaptation of Jumbo (1962), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. Below is Durante with Stephen Boyd, Doris Day, and Martha Raye in “Sawdust and Spangles and Dreams” in that film.

He spent the rest of the 1960s recording a series of albums, including September Song (1963), whose “Young at Heart” was featured in the 1991 film City Slickers, and Jimmy Durante’s Way of Life (1964), whose “As Time Goes By” and “Make Someone Happy” are featured in the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle. He also starred in two TV specials: the 1966 Alice Through the Looking Glass as Humpty Dumpty and the 1969 Frosty the Snowman as Narrator, which you can watch below. After a series of strokes, he died Jan. 29, 1980. In his eulogy, Bob Hope noted, “Success can be measured by the friends one has. And believe me, Jimmy Durante was the most successful man I know.”

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Broadway Birthdays: Henry Krieger

Posted on February 9, 2021 by boz

Happy Birthday to Grammy-winning composer Henry Krieger, born Feb. 9, 1945, in New York City. Growing up in Westchester Co., he attended Scarborough Day School. After a short college career, including studies at American University and Columbia University, he began composing for Off-Off-Broadway, where he met writer Tom Eyen. Their first show was The Dirtiest Musical in Town, a 1975 revision of Eyen’s 1970 revue The Dirtiest Show in Town. Nell Carter’s performance, particularly the showstopper “Can’t You See?,” inspired the duo to write a musical about black backup singers. 

Originally called One Night Only, the show was renamed Project #9 when Joseph Papp workshopped it. A year later, it caught the eye of Michael Bennett, who workshopped it as Big Dreams, with Jennifer Holliday as Carter’s replacement. After more workshops, rewrites, and roadblocks, Dreamgirls opened Dec. 20, 1981, at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre. It received 13 Tony nominations (including score), winning six awards. Holliday’s performance of “And I Am Telling You” topped Billboard’s R&B chart and earned her a Grammy award. The cast album also earned a Grammy for Krieger and Eyen. The show saw a short Broadway revival in 1987 and made its West End premiere in 2016, earning five Olivier nods. Below is Holliday at the 1982 Tonys.

Krieger returned to Broadway with the musical The Tap Dance Kid, which had lyrics by Robert Lorick and a book by Charles Blackwell, based on Louise Fitzhugh’s novel Nobody’s Family Is Going to Change. The show opened Dec. 21, 1982, at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre and received six Tony nominations, winning two. Its cast album also earned Krieger and Lorick a Grammy nomination. Below is Alfonso Ribeiro, Hinton Battle, and The Tap Dance Kid company in “Fabulous Feet” at the 1983 Tonys.

More than a decade later, Krieger was back on Broadway with the musical Side Show, lyrics and book by Bill Russell. The show opened Oct. 16, 1997, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre and received four Tony nominations, including score. The show had a short Broadway revival in 2014. Krieger’s subsequent work with Russell includes the original musical Everything’s Ducky (2000), later renamed Lucky Duck, and Kept (2002), based on the novel Camille. Below are Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley in “I Will Never Leave You” at the 1998 Tonys.

The film version of Dreamgirls was released Dec. 15, 2006. It received eight Oscar nominations, including for three of its four original songs: “Listen,” “Love You I Do,” and “Patience.” The soundtrack topped the Billboard 200, R&B/Hip-Hop, and Soundtrack album charts and garnered numerous nominations, including a BAFTA nod for best film music, a Golden Globe nod for best original song (“Listen”), and Grammy nods for best soundtrack and song (“Love You I Do”), winning for the latter. Below is Jennifer Hudson, Beyoncé, and Anika Noni Rose performing a medley of “Love You I Do,” “Listen,” and “Patience” at the 2007 Oscars.

Among Krieger’s other stage work is: the 1988 pop opera Dangerous Music (with Eyen) at the Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theatre, which starred with Laurie Beechman, Shaun Cassidy, Donna Murphy, and Jodi Benson; the 1998 puppet operetta Love’s Fowl (with Susan J. Vitucci) at New York Theatre Workshop; songs for the 2006 revue Hats! (with Susan Birkenhead) at New Denver Civic Theatre; the 2008 family show Up in the Air (with Russell) at the Kennedy Center; and the 2008 musical Romantic Poetry (with John Patrick Shanley) at Manhattan Theatre Club’s City Center Stage I.

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Broadway Birthday: Sherie Rene Scott

Posted on February 8, 2021 by boz

Happy Birthday to triple Tony nominee Sherie Rene Scott, born Feb. 8, 1967, in Kentucky. When she was 4, her family moved to Kansas, where she graduated from Topeka West High School. From a young age, Scott was active in Topeka theater, including the title role in the 1978 Washburn University staging of A Day In the Death of Joe Egg when she was 11. When she was 15, Scott attended a summer acting program in New York, moving to the city three years later to attend the Neighborhood Playhouse School. One of her first jobs after graduating was the 1990 tour of Teenage Mutual Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells. Below is a clip of Scott in that show, singing “April’s Ballad.”

In 1993, she made her Broadway debut in Tommy, followed by replacement roles in Grease (1995) and Rent (1997), where she met frequent costar Norbert Leo Butz. In 1998, she landed her breakthrough role of Amneris in the world premiere of Elaborate Lives: The Legend of Aida, retitled Aida by the time it opened on Broadway in 2000. For that show, Scott earned the Clarence Derwent Award for most promising female actor, while her single “A Step Too Far” from the concept album peaked at #15 on Billboard’s adult contemporary chart. Below are Scott with Aida costars Adam Pascal and Heather Headley singing that song on the Apr. 20, 2000, episode of The View.

In 2000, Scott and husband Kurt Deutsch founded the record label Sh-K-Boom, which released her solo album Men I’ve Had. She then made her Off-Broadway debut in 2002 with The Last Five Years, opposite Butz, earning her first Drama Desk nomination. (She had a cameo in the 2014 film adaptation.) Below is Scott singing “Goodbye Until Tomorrow” on the May 30, 2002, episode of The Rosie O’Donnell Show, accompanied by composer Jason Robert Brown.

In summer 2002, she and Butz costarred in two workshop presentations of Next to Normal, and in fall 2002, Scott returned Off-Broadway in the title role of the musical Debbie Does Dallas. In 2004, Scott and her husband founded a second label, Ghostlight Records, winning a 2006 Drama Desk Award “for dedication to the preservation of musical theatre through cast recordings.” In 2005, Scott reunited with Butz for the musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, earning Tony and Drama Desk nominations. Below is Scott singing her entrance song, “Here I Am,” from the original Broadway production.

In 2005, Scott recorded the concept album of Bright Lights, Big City, and in 2006, she starred in the Off-Broadway revival of the play Landscape of the Body, earning Obie and Lucille Lortel awards. She returned to Broadway as Ursula in the 2007 stage adaptation of The Little Mermaid, followed in 2010 by Everyday Rapture, which she cowrote with Dick Scanlan, whom she had met when he worked on the liner notes for her 2002 solo album. She received her second and third Tony nominations (as well as Drama Desk and  Lortel nods) for her book and her performance. Below is Scott with Lindsay Mendez and Betsy Wolfe singing the show’s finale, “Up the Ladder to the Roof,” at the 2010 Tony Awards.

In the past decade, Scott’s musical work has included the 2010 Broadway premiere of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Drama Desk nomination), the 2012 show Piece of Meat (which she cowrote with Todd Almond), the 2015 Off-Broadway musical Whorl Inside a Loop (which she cowrote with Scanlan), and the 2019 cabaret Twohander (working with Almond, Scanlan, and Butz). Below is Scott singing “Lovesick” from Women on the Verge.

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