Enchanted Evenings : The Broadway Musical From 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber

This new second edition of Enchanted Evenings offers theater lovers an illuminating behind-the-scenes tour of some of America's best loved, most admired, and most enduring musicals. Readers will find such all-time favorites as Show Boat, Carousel, Kiss Me, Kate, Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Phantom of the Opera. Geoffrey Block provides a documentary history of each of the musicals, showing how each work took shape and revealing, at the same time, how the American musical evolved from the 1920s to today, both on stage and on screen. The book's particular focus is on the music, offering a wealth of detail about how librettist, lyricist, composer, and director work together to shape the piece. Block also includes trenchant social commentary and lively backstage anecdotes. Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Kurt Weill, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Frank Loesser, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and other luminaries emerge as hardworking craftsmen under enormous pressure to sell tickets without compromising their dramatic vision. The second edition includes a greatly expanded chapter on Sondheim, a new chapter on Lloyd Webber, and two new chapters on the film adaptations of the main musicals featured in the text (including such hard to find films as the original 1936 version of Anything Goes and the 1959 film adaptation of Porgy and Bess). Packed with information, including a complete discography and plot synopses and song-by-song scenic outlines for each of the fourteen shows, Enchanted Evenings is an essential reference as well as a riveting history. "A solid and fascinating work that should become a model of how to investigate and report on the evolution of a musical. Block's research is persuasive and his writing vivid. . . Indispensable for anyone who cares to know more about Broadway musicals than Playbill can provide." —Steven Bach, The Los Angeles Times Book Review The classic musicals of Broadway can provide us with truly enchanted evenings. But while many of us can hum the music and even recount the plots from memory, we are often much less knowledgeable about how these great shows were put together. What was the inspiration for Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, or Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel? Why is Maria's impassioned final speech in West Side Story spoken, rather than sung? Now, in Enchanted Evenings, Geoffrey Block offers theater lovers an illuminating behind-the-scenes tour of some of the best-loved, most admired, and most enduring musicals of Broadway's Golden Era. The book's particular focus is on the music, offering a wealth of detail about how librettist, lyricist, composer, and director work together to shape the piece. Drawing on manuscript material such as musical sketches, autograph manuscripts, pre-production librettos, and lyric drafts, Block reveals the winding route the works took to get to their final form. Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Kurt Weill, Frank Loesser, Leonard Bernstein, Sondheim, and other luminaries emerge as hardworking craftsmen under enormous pressure to sell tickets without compromising their dramatic vision and integrity. Packed with information, including a complete discography, plot synopses, and song-by-song scenic outlines for each of the fourteen shows, Enchanted Evenings is an essential reference as well as a riveting history. Introduction : setting the stage Act I : Before Rodgers and Hammerstein. Show boat : in the beginning ; Anything goes : songs ten, book three ; Porgy and Bess : Broadway opera ; On your toes and Pal Joey : dance gets into the act and "sweet water from a foul well" ; The cradle will rock : a labor musical for art's sake ; Lady in the dark and One touch of Venus : the Broadway stranger and his American dreams ; Stage vs. screen (1) : before Rodgers and Hammerstein Act II : the Broadway musical after Oklahoma!. Carousel: the invasion of the integrated musical ; Kiss me, Kate : the taming of Cole Porter ; Guys and dolls and the most happy fella : the greater Loesser ; My fair lady : from Pygmalion to Cinderella ; West side story : the very model of a major musical ; Stage vs. screen (2) : after Oklahoma! Epilogue : the age of Sondheim and Lloyd Webber. Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street and Sunday in the park with George : happily ever after West side story with Sondheim ; The Phantom of the opera : the reigning champion of Broadway synopses. This second edition offers theater lovers an illuminating behind-the-scenes tour of some of America's best musicals. Geoffrey Block provides a documentary history of each of the eighteen musicals he discusses. He reveals how the American musical evolved from the 1920s to today, both on stage and on screen, and how librettist, lyricist, composer, and director work together to shape pieces.--[book cover]