Editor’s note: Here’s a new
column for all you students of the Golden Age of Broadway. But even if you
haven’t a clue about show tunes, these Broadway quizzes will entertain.
After all, do you think that Britney and Paris were the first celebs to
stir up gossip?
There’s No Business like…
1. What was the royal screwing Patti Lupone
got from Andrew Lloyd Webber?
2. Which of the following musicals did not
have Jerry Orbach (the late Lenny Briscoe from Law & Order) in the
original Broadway Casts?
a. Chicago
b. Promises, Promises
c. Sweeney Todd
d. Forty-Second Street
3. This star must have washed her brain
right out of her head the day that Alan Lerner and Fritz Loewe came to
play and sing through the partially completed score of their new musical
My Fair Lady. The actress listened politely but was noncommittal. After
her guests left, the star turned to her husband and said, “Those dear
boys have lost their talent.” Who was this fair lady who turned down the
role of Eliza Doolittle?
4. In this early Stephen Sondheim show, an
elderly actor argued nightly with the authors and production team, almost
trying to wrest control from them. One night, after a backstage
argument, the actor fell over dead. Not many tears were shed at his
funeral. On a happier note this short-lived musical gave two formidable
female stars their first opportunity to sing on Broadway. What was the
show, who was the obnoxious, doomed actor, and who were the ladies? Extra
credit: Who wrote the book for the show?
5. Which member of the original Oklahoma!
production team made a notoriously mean spirited remark about gays? What
was said?
6. The actress who began her Broadway
musical career playing the sweet and silly Carrie Pipperidge in Carousel
eventually played Medea in a Creole retelling of the story of Sparta’s
answer to Martha Stewart in a show called Marie Christine. Name the
actress.
7. There was a musical staggering through
its pre-Broadway try-out in Boston. Nothing was going right; no one was
happy and no one liked the show, which dealt with the doomed romance
between an African doctor and an English lady doctor in a fictional
African country. One night, the beleaguered director/composer (and a
prominent one, too) tiptoed into his hotel suite and found his wife (the
musical’s leading lady) in the arms of her sexy leading man. Somehow,
the musical made it to New York where, jinxed, it ran only 32
performances. Star and director were soon divorced. Name the show,
director, and two errant stars.
8. Once upon a time, Ethel Merman was
starring in a hit Broadway show. She had an understudy who was an
ambitious young thing, determined to make her mark in the theatre world.
To that end, Merman’s understudy signed a contract to be in another show
simultaneously, where she wouldn’t have to appear before 10:40 p.m. But
before Broadway the show played New Haven, and the fledgling star had to
travel there each evening, often, it turned out, in heavy snow. Identify
the understudy, her song in her new show, and the Merman hit.
9. The beloved star of an iconic,
incredibly popular musical achieved a reputation for showing up drunk,
changing lines and getting physical with female cast members. These
problems were especially bothersome to the long-suffering casts of the
musical’s revivals. No one dared complain while this star was alive, but
when he died unexpectedly.... Who was he and what was the vehicle?
10. Composer Frank Loesser carried on with
a young featured actress in one of his shows throughout the play’s run.
He finally walked out on his wife and married the girl. Who was she and
what Loesser show was she in?
Answers
1. Our Miss Lupone opened the London
company of Webber’s Sunset Boulevard with a contract to open the New
York production the following year. Patti did not get good reviews and
Lloyd Webber soon became enamored with Glenn Close’s performance in the
L.A. company. So Webber fired Lupone and La Close opened on Broadway.
Patti Lupone felt immensely humiliated and won millions from the fickle
composer/ producer in a law suit.
2. The answer is c. Orbach did not appear
in Sweeney Todd.
3. Mary Martin (who also had turned down
Oklahoma! and Kiss Me, Kate) gave up being a fair lady.
4. The show was Anyone Can Whistle; the
cantankerous actor was Henry Lascoe; Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury sang.
The book was by Arthur Laurents.
5. Agnes De Mille, the brilliant
choreographer of Oklahoma!, Carousel and so many other great musicals,
complained incessantly about the quality of the male dancers she had to
work with when Oklahoma! was put together in 1943, “The army has taken
all the real men and I only have the fairies to work with.” Thanks,
Aggie, we love you too!
6. The Tony Award winning Audra McDonald.
7. The show was Kwamina, the
director/composer was Richard Adler (of Pajama Game and Damn Yankees
fame), the wife was Sally Ann Howes (Our Lady of the Perpetual Brigadoon
Revivals). The male lead was the studly and talented Brock Peters.
8. The young understudy was Elaine Stritch.
She signed on to the famous revival Pal Joey that established the Rodgers
and Hart musical as a masterpiece. Stritch sang the acerbic “Zip.” As
it turned out, the young actress stopped the show every night just before
11 p.m., no doubt thanking God and Irving Berlin that Merman lived up to a
reputation for never canceling a show. Merman was starring in Call Me
Madam.
9. In and out of Fiddler On The Roof, Zero
Mostel could be a very bad boy.
10. She was Jo Sullivan and the show was
Loesser’s megahit The Most Happy Fella. Meanwhile, Frank Loesser’s
first wife Lynn served as executive producer and had a reputation for
being one tough cookie. She was often referred to as “the evil of two
Loessers!”
Kenn
Harris is a NYC theatre and music critic and author of the biography of
opera diva Renata Tebaldi, and The Ultimate Opera Quiz Book. Kenn is both
an opera devotee and big time collector of original cast albums from
Broadway and around the world. And he loves to dish. Contact him at kharris106@nyc.rr.com
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