We did our best to catalogue musicals that opened in New York for which some sort of recordings are available. November’s list has over 200 openings, and on this week’s Dress Circle (11/2 7:00 p.m.), we’re going to be sampling selections from a dozen of those shows spanning 131 years of Broadway history.
Our earliest musical is the first show written by Victor Herbert, and it came just eight years after he emigrated to the United States with his new wife Theresa Forster. (She came to create the role of Aida at the Metropolitan Opera, and Herbert became the principal cellist.)The work is the long forgotten “Prince Ananias” which was a huge hit at the time, and we have a modern recording of one of the songs from that.Our most recent openings haven’t officially opened yet, but we have songs from those shows.
The male lead, Sam Tutty, has come to New York with a transfer from London entitled “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).The show was a hit in London, so we hope the best for it here. The other show opening this year is one that has been talked about for some time. Kristin Chenoweth and Stephen Schwartz are working together again for “The Queen of Versailles” which is based on a documentary about Jackie and David Siegel and the $100,000,000 home they’re building in Orlando that’s been under construction since 2004.
Once again, we’ve done our best to include songs from familiar and unfamiliar sources.
The titles you may find familiar include “Peter Pan,” “The Prom,” “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Death Becomes her,” and “The Lion King” which has been playing since 1997 and has amassed over 11,000 performances.
The lesser-known works include Barbara Cook’s last Broadway outing, “The Grass Harp,” Harold Rome’s “The Zulu and the Zayda,” and a forgotten Rodgers and Hammerstein work based on Steinbeck’s “Sweet Thursday” entitled “Pipe Dream.”
Join us this Sunday evening for a lovely mix of old and new, familiar and unfamiliar, and some good performances all around wrapped up in another happy hour.
