Today, The Grandma has enjoyed one of the greatest musicals ever showed inBroadway, Chicago.
Chicago is a 1975 American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and book by Ebb and Bob Fosse.
Set in Chicago in the jazz age, the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same title by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, about actual criminals and the crimes on which she reported. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the celebrity criminal.
The original Broadway production opened in 1975 at the 46th Street Theatre and ran for 936 performances, until 1977. Bob Fosse directed and choreographed the original production, and his style is strongly identified with the show.
It debuted in the West End in 1979, where it ran for 600 performances. Chicago was revived on Broadway in 1996, and a year later in the West End.
The 1996 Broadway production holds the record as the longest-running musical revival and the longest-running American musical in Broadway history. It is the second longest-running show ever to run on Broadway, behind only The Phantom of the Opera. Chicago surpassed Cats on November 23, 2014, when it played its 7,486th performance.
The West End revival became the longest-running American musical in West End history. Chicago has been staged in numerous productions around the world, and has toured extensively in the United States and United Kingdom. The 2002 film adaptation of the musical won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The musical Chicago is based on a play of the same name by reporter and playwright Maurine Dallas Watkins, who was assigned to cover the 1924 trials of accused murderers Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner for the Chicago Tribune.
In the early 1920s, Chicago's press and public became riveted by the subject of homicides committed by women. Several high-profile cases arose, which generally involved women killing their lovers or husbands. These cases were tried against a backdrop of changing views of women in the jazz age, and a long string of acquittals by Cook County juries of female murderers (juries at the time were all male, and convicted murderers generally faced death by hanging).
A lore arose that, in Chicago, feminine or attractive women could not be convicted. The Chicago Tribune generally favored the prosecution's case, while still presenting the details of these women's lives. Its rivals at the Hearst papers were more pro-defendant, and employed what were derisively called sob-sisters -women reporters who focused on the plight, attractiveness, redemption, or grace of the female defendants. Regardless of stance, the press covered several of these women as celebrities.
Watkins' sensational columns documenting these trials proved so popular that she wrote a play based on them.
Come on babe, why don't we paint the town? And all that jazz I'm gonna rouge my knees and roll my stockings down And all that jazz Start the car, I know a whoopee spot Where the gin is cold but the piano's hot It's just a noisy hall, where there's a nightly brawl And all that jazz
Today, The Grandma has been reading LesMisérables, a masterpiece written by Victor Hugo, that has become one of the most successful musicals in Broadway.
Les Misérables is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.
Les Misérables has been popularized through numerous adaptations for film, television and the stage, including a musical. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title. However, several alternatives have been used, including The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims, and The Dispossessed.
Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.
Examining the nature of law and grace, the novel elaborates upon the history of France, the architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love.
Les Misérables, colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz, is a sung-through musical and an adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1862 novel of the same name,by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music), Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel (original French lyrics) and Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics).
The original French musical premiered in Paris in 1980 with direction by Robert Hossein. Its English-language adaptation by producer Cameron Mackintosh has been running in London since October 1985, making it the longest-running musical in the West End and the second longest-running musical in the world after the original Off-Broadway run of The Fantasticks.
Set in early 19th-century France, Les Misérables is the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his desire for redemption, released in 1815 after serving nineteen years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a bishop inspires him with a tremendous act of mercy. But a police inspector named Javert refuses to let him escape justice and pursues him for most of the play. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists attempt to overthrow the government at a street barricade in Paris.
Les Misérables was originally released as a French-language concept album, and the first musical-stage adaptation of Les Misérables was presented at the Palais des Sports in 1980.
In 1983, about six months after producer Cameron Mackintosh had opened Cats on Broadway, he received a copy of the French concept album from director Peter Farago. Farago had been impressed by the work and asked Mackintosh to produce an English-language version of the show. Initially reluctant, Mackintosh eventually agreed.
Mackintosh, in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company, assembled a production team to adapt the French musical for a British audience. After two years in development, the English-language version opened in London on 8 October 1985, by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican Centre, then the London home of the RSC. The success of the West End musical led to a Broadway production.
Today, The Grandma has visited an oldfriend, Barbra Streisand,who lives in NewYork City.
Together, they have enjoyed a great musical in Broadway, Cats, by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the 1939 poetry collection Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats written by T. S. Eliot.
Cats is a sung-through musical composedby Andrew LloydWebber, based on the1939poetry collection Old Possum's Bookof Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot.
It tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make the Jellicle choice by deciding which cat will ascend to the Heaviside layer and come back to a new life.
As of 2022, Cats remains the fourth-longest-running Broadway show and the sixth-longest-running West End show.
Lloyd Webber
began setting Eliot's poems to music in 1977, and the compositions were
first presented as a song cycle in 1980. Producer Cameron Mackintosh
then recruited director Trevor Nunn and choreographer Gillian Lynne to
turn the songs into a complete musical. Cats opened to
positive reviews at the New London Theatre in the West End in 1981 and
then to mixed reviews at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in 1982.
It won numerous awards including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier and Tony Awards.
Despite
its unusual premise that deterred investors initially, the musical
turned out to be an unprecedented commercial success, with a worldwide
gross of US$3.5 billion by 2012.
The London production ran for 21
years and 8,949 performances, while the Broadway production ran for 18
years and 7,485 performances, making Cats the longest-running musical in both theatre districts for a number of years.
Cats has since been revived in the West End twice and on Broadway once. It has also been translated into multiple languages and performed around the world many times.
Cats started the megamusical phenomenon, establishing a global market for musical theatre
and directing the industry's focus to big-budget blockbusters, as well
as family- and tourist-friendly shows. The musical's profound but
polarising influence also reshaped the aesthetic, technology, and
marketing of the medium.
Cats was adapted into a direct-to-video film in 1998, and a feature film directed by Tom Hooper in 2019.
Memory is a show tune composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Trevor Nunn based on poems by T. S. Eliot.
It was written for the 1981 musical Cats,
where it is sung primarily by the character Grizabella as a melancholic
remembrance of her glamorous past and as a plea for acceptance.
Memory is the climax of the musical
and by far its best-known song, having achieved mainstream success
outside of the musical. According to musicologist Jessica Sternfeld,
writing in 2006, it is by some estimations the most successful song ever from a musical.
Memory was named the Best Song Musically and Lyrically at the 1982 Ivor Novello Awards.
Memory, all alone in the moonlight I can dream of the old days Life was beautiful then I remember the time I knew what happiness was Let the memory live again.
Today, The Grandma has visited an old friend, Barbra Streisand,who is celebrating her 80th anniversary in New York City.
Together, they have enjoyed a great musical in Broadway, Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the 1939 poetry collection Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats written by T. S. Eliot.
Cats is a sung-through musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the 1939 poetry collection Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot.
It tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make the Jellicle choice by deciding which cat will ascend to the Heaviside layer and come back to a new life.
As of 2022, Cats remains the fourth-longest-running Broadway show and the sixth-longest-running West End show.
Lloyd Webber began setting Eliot's poems to music in 1977, and the compositions were first presented as a song cycle in 1980. Producer Cameron Mackintosh then recruited director Trevor Nunn and choreographer Gillian Lynne to turn the songs into a complete musical. Cats opened to positive reviews at the New London Theatre in the West End in 1981 and then to mixed reviews at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in 1982.
It won numerous awards including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier and Tony Awards.
Despite its unusual premise that deterred investors initially, the musical turned out to be an unprecedented commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$3.5 billion by 2012.
The London production ran for 21 years and 8,949 performances, while the Broadway production ran for 18 years and 7,485 performances, making Cats the longest-running musical in both theatre districts for a number of years.
Cats has since been revived in the West End twice and on Broadway once. It has also been translated into multiple languages and performed around the world many times.
Cats started the megamusical phenomenon, establishing a global market for musical theatre and directing the industry's focus to big-budget blockbusters, as well as family- and tourist-friendly shows. The musical's profound but polarising influence also reshaped the aesthetic, technology, and marketing of the medium.
Cats was adapted into a direct-to-video film in 1998, and a feature film directed by Tom Hooper in 2019.
Memory is a show tune composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Trevor Nunn based on poems by T. S. Eliot.
It was written for the 1981 musical Cats, where it is sung primarily by the character Grizabella as a melancholic remembrance of her glamorous past and as a plea for acceptance.
Memory is the climax of the musical and by far its best-known song, having achieved mainstream success outside of the musical. According to musicologist Jessica Sternfeld, writing in 2006, it is by some estimations the most successful song ever from a musical.
Memory was named the Best Song Musically and Lyrically at the 1982 Ivor Novello Awards.
Memory, all alone in the moonlight I can dream of the old days Life was beautiful then I remember the time I knew what happiness was Let the memory live again.
Today, The Grandma has been watching Annie, one of the most popular musicals that was opened on a day like today in 1977.
Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little OrphanAnnie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyricsby MartinCharnin, and book by Thomas Meehan.
The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years, setting a record for the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon Theatre).
It spawned numerous productions in many countries, as well as national tours, and won seven Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical. The musical's songs Tomorrow and It's the Hard Knock Life are among its most popular musical numbers.
Charnin first approached Meehan to write the book of a musical about LittleOrphan Annie in 1972. Meehan researched by re-reading prints of the comic strip, but was unable to find any satisfactory material for a musical other than the characters of Annie, Oliver Warbucks and Sandy, so decided to write his own story.
As all three of Meehan, Charnin and Strouse were from New York and given what he saw as the downbeat mood of the then-current Nixon era and the Vietnam War, Meehan set his story in New York during the similarly downbeat Great Depression.
Meehan saw the character of Annie as a 20th Century American female version of the titular orphan characters created by Charles Dickens in works such as Oliver Twist and David Copperfield with the mystery of Annie's abandonment and unknown parenthood as consistent with a strand of mysteries in Dickens' tales.
Meehan's book was accepted by Charnin and Strouse, but considerable material had to be trimmed out -material which Meehan would later restore for his novelization.
The original Broadway production opened at the Alvin Theatre on April 21, 1977, and starred Andrea McArdle as Annie, Reid Shelton as Daddy Warbucks, Dorothy Loudon as Miss Hannigan, and Sandy Faison as Grace Farrell. Danielle Brisebois was one of the orphans. It was nominated for eleven Tony Awards and won seven, including the Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Book.
Replacements in the title role on Broadway included then-child actors Shelley Bruce, Sarah Jessica Parker, Allison Smith and Alyson Kirk. Replacements in the role of Miss Hannigan included Alice Ghostley, Dolores Wilson, Betty Hutton, Marcia Lewis, and June Havoc. Ann Ungar understudied and played for Dorothy Loudon in the role of Miss Hannigan. She also understudied Alice Ghostley and Dolores Wilson.
The show closed on January 2, 1983, after a total of 2,377 performances, setting a record for the longest running show at the Alvin Theatre, now the Neil Simon Theatre, until it was surpassed by Hairspray in 2009.
Today, The Grandma has been resting at home. Winter has arrived and the weather is cold and windy.
She has decided to stay at the sofa and watch TV. She has chosen Hello, Dolly! the wonderful film with Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthaus, Michael Crawford and Louis Armstrong. This film is based on the musical that opened on Broadway on a day like today in 1964.
Hello, Dolly! is a 1964 musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955. The musical follows the story of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she travels to Yonkers, New York to find a match for the miserly well-known unmarried half-a-millionaireHorace Vandergelder.
Hello, Dolly! first debuted at the Fisher Theater in Detroit on November 18, 1963, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion and produced by David Merrick, and moved to Broadway in 1964, winning 10 Tony Awards,including Best Musical. This set a record which the play held for 37 years.
The show album Hello, Dolly! An Original Cast Recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. The album reached number one on the Billboard album chart on June 6, 1964, and was replaced the next week by LouisArmstrong's album Hello, Dolly! Louis Armstrong also was featured in the film version of the show, performing a small part of the song Hello, Dolly!.
The show has become one of the most enduring musical theater hits, with four Broadway revivals and international success. It was also made into the 1969 film Hello Dolly! which won three Academy Awards, and was nominated in four other categories.
The plot of Hello, Dolly! originated in the 1835 English play A Day Well Spent by John Oxenford, which Johann Nestroy adapted into the farce Einen Jux will er sich machen, He Will Go on a Spree or He'll Have Himself a Good Time.
Carol Channing in Hello Dolly!
Thornton Wilder adapted Nestroy's play into his 1938 farcical play The Merchant of Yonkers. That play was a flop, so he revised it and retitled it as The Matchmaker in 1955, expanding the role of Dolly, played by Ruth Gordon.
The Matchmaker became a hit and was much revived and made into a 1958 film starring Shirley Booth. However, the 1891 musical A Trip to Chinatown also features a meddlesome widow who strives to bring romance to several couples and to herself in a big city restaurant.
The role of Dolly Gallagher Levi was originally written for Ethel Merman but she turned it down, as did Mary Martin -although both eventually played it. Merrick then auditioned Nancy Walker, but he hired Carol Channing who created her signature role in Dolly. Director Gower Champion was not the producer's first choice, but Hal Prince and others turned it down, among them Jerome Robbins and Joe Layton.
Hello, Dolly! had rocky tryouts in Detroit, Michigan and Washington, D.C. After receiving the reviews, the creators made major changes to the script and score, including the addition of the song Before the Parade Passes By.
The show was originally entitled Dolly, A Damned Exasperating Woman, then Call on Dolly, but Merrick changed it upon hearing Louis Armstrong's version of Hello, Dolly!. The show became one of the most iconic Broadway shows of the latter half of the 1960s, running for 2,844 performances, and was the longest-running musical in Broadway history for a time.
The musical, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion and produced by David Merrick, opened on January 16, 1964, at the St. James Theatre and closed on December 27, 1970, after 2,844 performances.
Carol Channing starred as Dolly, with a supporting cast that included David Burns as Horace, Charles Nelson Reilly as Cornelius, Eileen Brennan as Irene, Jerry Dodge as Barnaby, Sondra Lee as Minnie Fay, Alice Playten as Ermengarde, and Igors Gavon as Ambrose.
Although facing
competition from Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand, Hello, Dolly! swept
the Tony Awards that year, winning awards in ten categories -out of
eleven nominations- that tied the musical with the previous record
keeper South Pacific record that remained unbroken for 37 years until
The Producers won twelve Tonys in 2001.
Carol Channing in Hello Dolly!
After Channing left the show, Merrick employed prominent actresses to play Dolly,including Ginger Rogers, who started on August 9, 1965; Martha Raye, starting on February 27, 1967; Betty Grable, from June 12, 1967 to November 5, 1967; Pearl Bailey in an all-black version starting on November 12, 1967; Phyllis Diller, as of December 26, 1969; and Ethel Merman after having turned down the lead at the show's inception from March 28, 1970 to December 27, 1970. Two songs cut prior to the opening -typical belt style songs World, Take Me Back and Love, Look in My Window- were restored for Merman's run. Thelma Carpenter played Dolly at all matinees during the Pearl Bailey production and subbed more than a hundred times, at one point playing all performances for seven straight weeks.
Bibi Osterwald was the standby for Dolly in the original Broadway production, subbing for all the stars, including Bailey, despite the fact that Osterwald was a blue-eyed blonde. Bailey received a Special Tony Award in 1968.
The show received rave reviews, with praise for Carol Channing and particularly Gower Champion. The original production became the longest-running musical and third longest-running show in Broadway history up to that time, surpassing My Fair Lady and then being surpassed in turn by Fiddler on the Roof. The Broadway production of Hello Dolly! grossed $27 million. Hello, Dolly! and Fiddler remained the longest-running Broadway record holders for nearly ten years until Grease surpassed them.
The RCA Victor cast recording of the original Broadway production was released in 1964. It was the number-one album on the Billboard pop albums chart for seven weeks and the top album of the year on the Year-End chart. In 1965, a recording of the original London production was released. In 1967, RCA Victor released a recording of the all-black Broadway replacement cast, featuring Pearl Bailey, who also starred in the unrecorded 1975 revival. The movie soundtrack was released in 1969. On November 15, 1994, the 1994 revival cast recording was released.
The 2017 Broadway Revival cast recording was released on May 12, 2017, featuring the songs now sung by Bette Midler, David Hyde Pierce, Kate Baldwin, and Gavin Creel.
Yasmina Bean is a happy woman today. She's going to Broadway to watch Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats with her family but this is not the best of the day. She has a premium seat in the theatre because she has been invited by Brad Pitt, an old Grandma's friend who met some years ago in Las Vegas when she was a part of the Ocean's group. The Grandma knew that Yasmine was very interested in meeting Brad and she has phoned him to ask for an appointment in the theatre with the young Bean.
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh. The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as the Jellicle choice and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. Cats introduced the song standard Memory. The first performance of Cats was in 1981.
Yasmine Bean inside the theatre
Directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne, Cats first opened in the West End in 1981 and then with the same creative team on Broadway in 1982. It won numerous awards, including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards.
The London production ran for 21 years and the Broadway production ran for 18 years, both setting new records. Actresses Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley became particularly associated with the musical. One actress, Marlene Danielle, performed in the Broadway production for its entire run (from 1982 until 2000).
As of 2016, Cats is the fourth-longest-running show in Broadway history, and was the longest running Broadway show in history from 1997 until 2006 when it was surpassed by The Phantom of the Opera. Cats is the sixth-longest-running West Endmusical. It has been performed around the world many times and has been translated into more than 20 languages. In 1998, Cats was turned into a made-for-television film.
Memory. All alone in the moonlight I can smile happy your days (I can dream of the old days),
life was beautiful then I remember the time I knew what happiness was. Let the memory live again.
In a few days, Tina is going to travel to New York City. It's not the first time that Tina visits this big city. She has been many times in a place which is considerated the capital of the world.
Now, Tina is preparing her agenda for these days meanwhile she's remembering the first time she visited the city that never sleeps. It was in 1982 and she travelled to NYC to watch a theatre performance, Cats, first aired in October, 8. Cats first opened in the West End, in the New London Theatre, in May 11, 1981 and the following year the show was represented in Broadway.
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S.Eliot, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh. The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as the Jellicle choice and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. Cats introduced the song standard Memory.
Directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne. It won numerous awards, including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards. The London production ran for twenty-one years and the Broadway production ran for eighteen years, both setting new records. Actresses Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley became particularly associated with the musical. One actress, Marlene Danielle, performed in the Broadway production for its entire run, from 1982 until 2000.
As of 2016, Cats is the fourth-longest-running show in Broadway history, and was the longest running Broadway show in history from 1987 to 2006 when it was surpassed by The Phantom of the Opera. Cats is the fourth-longest-running West End musical. It has been performed around the world many times and has been translated into more than 20 languages. In 1998, Cats was turned into a made-for-television film.
Memory, all alone in the moonlight. I can dream of the old days. Life was beautiful then. I remember the time I knew what happiness was. Let the memory live again.
%20&%20The%20Grandma%20(I).jpg)
%20&%20The%20Grandma%20(I).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
