Cabin in the Sky

In 2016 Encores produced a concert of Cabin in the Sky. Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Jack Viertel tried to cut the condescending material from Root's original book. Critics remained unimpressed with the "religious fable" despite the jazzy score. The show is best remembered for the starry 1943 film. The film is enjoyable but only kept three songs from the stage show.

Clips:
Ethel Waters singing the hit song "Taking a Chance on Love."
Lena Horne singing "Ain't It The Truth" in a bath tub. The scene was cut by the censors.
Highlights from the Encores concert starring LaChanze, Chuck Cooper and Norm Lewis.

Porgy and Bess

When Porgy and Bess returned to Broadway in 2011 it caused controversy. Director/adapter Diane Paulus had overseen multiple revisions to the libretto. Stephen Sondheim wrote the New York Times to express his disapproval.

"She fails to recognize that Porgy, Bess, Crown, Sportin’ Life and the rest are archetypes and intended to be larger than life and that filling in “realistic” details is likely to reduce them to line drawings.... let it not be called “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” nor even “The Gershwin-Heyward Porgy and Bess.” Advertise it honestly as “Diane Paulus’s Porgy and Bess.” And the hell with the real one."

In Paulus's defense the work had already undergone major revisions within the Gershwin's lifetime. Any producer seeing the "real one" has many versions to choose from. The three act opera from 1935, the two act musical from 1942, the two act opera from 1952, and various attempts to dial up or down the characters dialects. None of these versions diminish the power or importance of the work... though I wouldn't recommend doing it with an all white cast like they tried in Switzerland.

Here's Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis performing a medley at the 2012 Tony Awards.

In Dahomey

The full plot includes farcial hijinx with a silver casket, three barrels of whiskey and a thwarted execution.

George Walker and Bert Williams formed a vaudeville act in 1893 and toured the United States for over a decade. In 1902 they teamed up with composers Cecil Mack and Will Marion Cook to craft their act into the musical comedy In Dahomey. The show moved to Broadway in 1903. After 53 performances in New York the show toured the U.S. and London. It has been billed as "the first African-American-written musical to play a New York legit theatre.”

I've read several conflicting summaries of the plot. It was primarily a satire of colonialism that allowed Walker and Williams to play the con man/straight man pairing from their vaudeville routines. The show allowed the audience to pick a winning couple in a cakewalk dance and gave Williams his trademark song "The Jonah Man." Walker used the partnerships he made to found "an organization for African-American professional entertainers in 1908."

Ambassador

The works of Henry James have been successfully adapted into plays, films and operas. Ambassador is, to my knowledge, the only attempt at musical comedy. James's 1903 novel, The Ambassadors, focuses on Lambert, a middle aged American, seeking his fiancees wayward son in France. He learns that the lad is having a passionate affair with a married older woman and has no plans to return. The revelation shakes the protagonist to his core causing him to rethink his life and his identity. His struggle is interesting but internal.

The musical focused on the romance between Lambert and the married French woman. This generic treatment ignored much of what made the novel work. The show opened on Broadway, despite bad reviews in London, and closed swiftly.