The Great Musical Theatre Brunch

ave you ever been sitting around with friends and had that conversation that begins “If you could have any person, dead or alive, sit down and chat with you for an hour, who would it be?” Sure you have! Those of us with musical theatre obsessions play this game all of the time. I’m going to take it a step further because I like to imagine what it would be like to hold a Musical Theatre brunch. A brunch you say? Brunch is my favorite meal, so if I am going to host, that’s what it will be. Crepes, quiche, fresh fruit, pastries and mimosas. The rule of the game is that I can only invite ten people to the event and they must be living (without the latter restriction, I could never whittle the list down). Here’s the guest list and why I chose them.

Raining on Your Parade: The Challenges of Funny Girl

Funny Girl is a musical that has yet to be revived on Broadway despite having a superior score by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill and a fairly faithful film version that has an enormous following. The trick to reviving Funny Girl is finding the right actress to play Fanny Brice, the titular character who has to be over the top funny, quietly sentimental, somewhat gawky, and possessing of a powerful, but nuanced voice. Barbra Streisand was a "Rose of sheer perfection" in both the stage and in the film version. So amazing, in fact, that the specter of her indelible characterization looms over any proposed revival, becoming the “freckle on the complexion” of the piece.

Disney’s Dud: The Happiest Millionaire

Walt Disney had a lot of hit films in his career. Indeed, many of the films made in his lifetime ranked in the top-five movies of the year that they were released. After his death, however, many of the films that followed fell into what is considered a mediocre time of the studio where projects seemed either aimless, or did not have that Disney stamp of excellence. The last project that Walt Disney green-lit was the live-action 1967 musical The Happiest Millionaire. It is interesting to think what the final product would have looked like had Disney survived to infuse it with his special brand of magic. Woefully, he did not and the final product is one of the biggest duds the studio has ever churned out. That is not to say that The Happiest Millionaire doesn’t have little bursts of excellence within its overly long original 164 minute running time. 

Revive This Musical: PLEASE!

It’s a big season for Broadway revivals with Spring Awakening having opened and Fiddler on the RoofDames at Sea, and She Loves Me on their way to us in the next few months. Certain shows get revived again and again (Gypsy, anyone?) while others take their sweet time getting back to Broadway. Today’s blog entry is a plea to producers, as I go decade by decade (starting with the 1930s), making the case for the musicals most-deserving of revival in each ten-year span.