Broadway Revisited

(6/2/09): 09-23; June 6, 2009

The nominations for the 2008 Tony Awards.

Gypsy overture-- 1; fades under)

Hi, this is Art Hilgart and this is Broadway Revisited, a weekly exploration of the songs and shows, composers and lyricists, and performers who created the American musical theater.

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The 2008-2009 Broadway season has officially ended, and the Tony Awards will be announced on CBS this Sunday evening. Today we'll preview the awards, with selections from all the nominated shows. We'll begin with the nominees for Best New Musical. There weren't many this season, so most of them were nominated. Two of the four were adaptations from movies, and three were imported from elsewhere. Our first nomine, Shrek, is based on the animated film. Here's Brian D'Arcy James as the title monster.

1. Big Bright Beautiful World 5:41

Along with one for Best New Musical, Shrek got seven other nominations, including one for the score by composer Jeanine Tesori and lyricist David Laindsay-Abaire. We just heard Brian D'Arcy James as Shrek, and he's nominated for Best Actor.

Billy Elliot is an import from London based on the movie about a miner's son who wants to be a ballet dancer. On Broadway, his dancing is more of the Saturday Night Fever variety. Here's a dancing lesson from the show,

2. Born to Boogie 4:21

Billy Elliot received fourteen other nominations, including one for Haydn Gwynne, whom we just heard as Billy's teacher, and another for the score by Elton John and Lee Hall.

Because of the economic collapse, several shows from past seasons have closed early, and given the sudden availability of theaters, two off-Broadway shows moved to Broadway theaters in April, just in time to pick up nominations.

Next to Normal is about a delusional and suicidal woman and her family, including a dead son she believes to be alive-- his imagined presence is one of the characters in the show. This number condenses a number of the woman's encounters with her physician and drug supplier.

3. My Psychopharmacologist and I 3:08

Alice Ripley received a Best Actress nomination for playing the crazy lady in Next to Normal. The music and lyrics of Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey also received a Best New Score nomination.

The final Best New Musical nominee, the other late arrival from off-Broadway, is Rock of Ages. It's mostly a jukebox musical with several heavy metal rock numbers from the 'eighties linked by a thin plot. Here's a sample.

4. I Wanna Rock 1:16

That song, originally recorded by Twisted Sister, is typical of the numbers in the Best Musical nominee, Rock of Ages.

Two new musicals not nominated for Best Musical did receive other nominations. Both were adapted from movies. Dolly Parton's songs for 9 To 5 got a Best Original Score nomination. Here's her own recording of one of the songs that was not new for Broadway.

5. 9 To 5 2:57

That was Dolly Parton with the title song of 9 to 5. She's not in the show, but she wrote that and all the new songs.

Irving Berlin's White Christmas didn't have any new songs, but Larry Blank's orchestrations of the old ones got him a Best Orchestrations nomination, and Randy Skinner was nominated for his choreography. Here's a number from that show.

6. I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm 2:29

That's one of the numbers that got Best Orchestration and Best Choreography nominations for Irving Berlin's White Christmas.

Another new show that began off-Broadway is called Title of Show, in brackets. It's about the creation of a new musical by two unknowns, written by two unknowns, Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, with a cast of them and two actress friends. Here's the opening number.

7. Two Nobodies In New York 2:48

As it happened the two nobodies got their show, Title of Show, on stage, and then on Broadway, where they got a Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical.

Two of this year's Tony winners have already been announced. Composer-lyricist Jerry Herman will receive the Lifetime Achievement award. Here's one of the songs, from one of his many hits, Mame. From the original cast, we'll hear Beatrice Arthur, who was almost 87 when she died last month, and Angela Lansbury.

8. Bosom Buddies 4:06

That was a song from Jerry Herman's Mame. This Sunday he'll receive the Lifetime Achievement Tony. From the original cast, we heard Beatrice Arthur and Angela Lansbury. Lansbury has been nominated for Best Actress in a Play, for her current performance as Madame Arcati, the comic medium in the revival of Noel Coward's ghost story, Blithe Spirit.

Another Tony winner already announced is Phyllis Newman, Broadway actress and widow of lyricist Adolph Green.. She'll get the Isabelle Stevenson Award for her humanitarian contributions to the field of women's health.

And Liza Minelli's concert, Liza's at the Palace, is one of the nominees for Best Special Theatrical Event.

In our preview of this week's Tony Awards we now come to the nominees for Best Revival. Hair is forty years old, but with its concerns about racism, sexism, pollution, drugs, and war, it's still relevant. Here's a song from Hair.

9. What A Piece Of Work Is Man / Three-Five-Zero-Zero 5:31

In that still resonant song, Hair's creators, Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, and James Rado had help from William Shakespeare.

Best Revival nominee Guys and Dolls has been revived several times since it opened almost sixty years ago. From the original 1950 cast, here's Robert Alda with a Frank Loesser love song.

10. My Time of Day 1:54

That was Robert Alda, with a song from Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls.

The next Best Revival nominee is almost seventy years old, but Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey is still fresh. From the 1952 revival, here's Harold Lang, as Joey.

11. What Do I Care For A Dame? 3:08

That was Harold Lang, as Pal Joey.

The fourth Best Revival nominee, West Side Story, has had a makeover. It's directed by Arthur Laurents, who wrote the show's book back in 1957, with the now classic score by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. He's cast the show with all suitably young people, and all the Puerto Ricans are played by Hispanic actors. And they speak and sing mostly in Spanish. Here are two scenes: in the first, Maria is admiring her new dress in a mirror, then we'll hear the scene following the killing of Maria's brother by her lover Tony. Maria is chided by her friend Anita, who was also the girlfriend of the murdered brother.

12. I Feel Pretty / A Boy Like That 5:33

From the new cast recording of the Best Revival nominee, West Side Story, we heard Josefina Scaglione as Maria and Karen Olivo as Anita. Both have received Best Actress nominations.

Stephen Sondheim approved director Arthur Laurents' decision to substitute Spanish for English. He's long been dissatisfied with his English lyrics-- he doesn't think they fit the characters.

Sondheim also had a new show this season, but since its limited run was off-Broadway, it wasn't eligible for a Tony. Road Show, with a book by John Weidman, is about the Mizner brothers, a con man and a celebrated Florida architect. In the 1925 Florida real estate bubble he created the town of Boca Raton, and when the bubble burst, so did Boca Raton. This song from the show is coincidentally topical.

13. Boca Raton 5:53

That song with accidentally topical relevance is from Stephen Sondheim's latest musical, Road Show, which was called Bouce in its earlier stagings in Chicago and Washington. It's not nominated for a Tony, since its limited run was off-Broadway, and it concludes our review of the Broadway season and the 2009 Tony Award nominees.

You can see scenes from some of these shows and hear who are the Tony winners when the prizes are awarded this Sunday evening, on CBS.

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And you can join us again next week for another Broadway Revisited. National distribution is funded by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it's produced with our engineer, Martin Klemm, in the WMUK studios of Western Michigan University. Our website with playlists, program schedules, and stuff is broadwayrevisited.com, and our e-mail address is Art@broadwayrevisited.com. And I'm Art Hilgart.

Total music: 48:45; Estimated talking: 9:00; Intro/outro: :30; Estimated total: 58:15

Promo (15): That's a song from the current production of West Side Story, which has been nominated for the Best Revival Tony Award. We'll hear from all of the nominees this week, in Broadway Revisited's annual preview of the Tony Awards.

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