It’s all about addition on this week’s Dress Circle (9/19 7:00 p.m.) as we look at songs added to musicals as they made the transition from stage to screen. For a very long time, we’ve been amazed that a decision was made to turn a stage musical, an often hit stage musical, into a musical film only for the “powers that be” to make the decision to remove, change, and/or add songs, often written by people other than the original composing team. Realizing that a song that had previously appeared on the Broadway stage is not eligible for an Academy Award nomination, it still does seem a strange practice. This week, we’re going to be taking a first look at some of those songs added to a variety of musicals for both the big and small screen. To this end, we’ll hear selections from “A Chorus Line,” “Hello, Dolly!”, “The Sound of Music,” “Godspell,” “Cabaret,” “The Producers,” “Annie,” and “Cats” among others.
We’ll also hear two songs from the 1996 television score for “Bye Bye Birdie.” You’ll probably know the songs. However, you may not know that they weren’t part of the original show (although many of them have been incorporated into these shows now).
