We’re starting a series on this week’s Dress Circle (11/9 7:00 p.m.). (We hope.) with four musicals that were based on literary originals.
Three novels and a play are the basis for this week’s playlist that begins with songs from “The Color Purple” from both the original Broadway cast that featured LaChanze and the revival cast that won Cynthia Erivo a Tony Award.Music and lyrics are by Stephen Bray, Brenda Russell, and Allee Willis.
We’ll change things up quite a bit as we turn to two musical versions of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.”We’re beginning with Richard Adler’s 1958 television production featuring a cast headed by Rise Stevens and including Jeanne Carson, Florence Henderson, and Bill Hayes.
We’ll also sample the Broadway cast of “Little Women” by Jason Howland and Mindi Dickstein which starred Sutton Foster.
Our third source is P.L. Travers’ “Mary Poppins.”Of course, we’re including songs from the film version featuring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke as well as selections from the Broadway stage version which starred Ashley Brown as Mary and Rebecca Luker as Mrs. Banks.The music was used the Sherman brothers’ score as well as a few new songs by the team of George Stiles and Anthony Drew.
Our final show this week is the perennial favorite “Peter Pan.”We’ve got three versions of this musical including the original Mary Martin Broadway cast featuring songs by Moose Charlap and Carolyn Leigh (with additional songs by Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green) and a short song from the Leonard Bernstein version and its Captain Hook performed by Boris Karloff.We’ll finish off our time together with a song from a London version of the material by Piers Chater-Robinson.
We’re already planning part 2, and with the list we’ve compiled, there will no doubt be many episodes to come.
