Hello, Dolly!

Hello, Dolly! is a big brassy star vehicle with a hit title song. The libretto is based on a play by Thornton Wilder which lifted generously from French and Austrian farces. Though Dolly is a matchmaker the story isn't necessarily a romance.

Dolly, Horace and Irene have each survived a spouse and settled into unfulfilling lives. Dolly decides to let her memories go and "rejoin the human race." She learns to like herself again and teaches the others to do the same.

Check out Richard Skipper's collection of testimonials on the many, many divas who've played Dolly Gallagher Levi.

Mame

Why does Patrick Dennis turn on his lovable Auntie Mame?
Why does the open minded Mame immediately reject Patrick's fiance?
If Mame and Patrick had been so close, why do they never discuss his late parents?
Why is Mame's late husband so quickly forgotten?
What happened to Patrick at boarding school that made him feel ashamed of his upbringing?

Many things are left unsaid in Mame. This was true of the original novel and play as well. The Mame/Patrick relationship takes a backseat to Mame's episodic adventures and those of her friends Vera and Gooch.

Mame was a huge success on Broadway running 1508 performances over 4 years. Sadly the movie was a miscast bore and a 1983 revival ran little over a month. Hello Dolly and La Cage Aux Folles have had successful revivals but Mame's magic seems harder to replicate. The star must be a triple threat who can balance comedy, class and pathos. She must also overcome the dated, creaky book.

Tilda Swinton has proposed a new film based on the novel. This may revive interest in the musical. Till then we'll always have the fantastic original cast recording.

Ben Franklin in Paris

More experiments with digital tools. Still not confident drawing with a mouse.

Musical Historian Ethan Mordden praised Michael's book but dismissed the Michael's and Herman score. The New York Times review snubbed the book as well. Robert Preston received mixed reviews for his funny, but very contemporary, Franklin.

Mr. Preston's rapier way with a wisecrack is very much of our time and our theater. When he has to read lines that are as relevant to Ben Franklin as a missile with a nuclear warhead, he gives them so much contemporary snap that the spirit of '76 is instantly dispelled... Not even Mr. Preston's superb salesmanship can con one into thinking that there is magic in this musical's pitch.  ~ Howard Taubman. New York Times. 1964.

The Grand Tour

If Jerry Herman’s best score is that to Mame, his greatest hit is Hello, Dolly! And the cult favorites are Dear World and Mack & Mabel. So The Grand Tour is his unappreciated title. ~ Ethan Mordden – One More Kiss: The Broadway Musical in the 1970's.

With vaudevillian elements rubbing shoulders with the unpleasant spectacle of summary arrests and executions, at times you feel you’re only a few goosesteps away from the bad taste of that spoof Producers musical, Springtime for Hitler. Still, amid a generally pleasing score, there’s one stirring stand-out number of survivors’ defiance, I’ll Be Here Tomorrow, which is up there with “I Am What I Am”, that famous anthem from Herman’s later, greater La Cage Aux Folles. ~ Dominic Cavendish - The Telegraph. 2015.

While the original play Jakobowsky and the Colonel had the two leads evenly matched the musical adaptation was designed as a star vehicle. Joel Gray's Jakobowsky carried the show while Ron Holgate's Colonel was made into a supporting buffoon. Their conflicting worldviews and eventual truce were under served by this shift. The show closed after 61 performances. Jerry Herman added songs to the Marx Brothers pastiche A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine but would not write another full Broadway score till his Tony winning La Cage Aux Folles in 1983.

Milk and Honey

Jerry Herman's first Broadway musical laid some interesting groundwork. The operating first couple struck some critics as dull. The most unconventional thing about them is the fact they don't end up together. Molly Picon's supporting comic reads as a sort of proto-Dolly Levi. In Jerry's later hits the big lady/life force would take center stage.

If Milk and Honey didn't come along for you, do you think you would have written your other shows?
JH: I don't think it would have happened as quickly as it happened. Milk and Honey certainly gave me that push, that start. Being nominated for a Tony Award [in 1962, in the category of Best Composer, a category now known as Best Score], I'll never forget the night my name was called out with [Frank Loesser] and Richard Rodgers…to hear my name called out with those guys just put me away. I was still this boy from Jersey City. I hadn't changed. It was an extraordinary adventure, filled with love.
Playbill Interview - 2011

Mack and Mabel

As with Fanny Brice, Gypsy Rose Lee and Maria Von Trapp, Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand have been preserved for future generations in a historically dubious musical. Legends say Mack and Mabel's glorious score was undercut by a gloomy book. There's a little more to it.

Mack and Mabel tells two competing stories. Mabel’s playing the tragic romance. She gets the best songs but most of her character growth happens off stage. Mack’s telling the story of his movie career. He gets 4-5 songs about his movies that start to sound alike. When people say glorious score they're right, but they're usually thinking more Time Heals Everything and less Hit 'Em On the Head.

There’s a large supporting cast with nothing to do because the book was cut to shreds during the out-of-town tryout. Gower Champion thought the key to the show were the re-enactments of Mack Sennet’s films but what’s lasted is Jerry Herman’s score. 

Mrs. Santa Claus

I'm Mrs. Santa Claus, the invisible wife.
And Mrs. Santa Claus needs a change in her life.

I saw this special when it first aired, then promptly forgot it. Something recently reminded me of its existence and the earworm title song popped back into my head. Terrance Mann's campy villain makes an impression as well.

"The CBS movie, billed as the first original musical for television since Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''Cinderella'' in 1957, turns out to be, of all things, a feisty feminist and unionist tract set in 1910." ~ New York Times.

Jerry's Big Ladies!

“Mame is also the most basic of sixties titles, in a form invented in this decade, which I call the Big Lady Show. This is a star vehicle that doesn’t wait for you to be enthralled by the star: it vigorously informs you that the star is enthralling - in writing and direction that make her almost absurdly conspicuous." ~ Ethan Mordden.

Mame and Hello Dolly were big successes that featured a wide range of stars, though both suffered from miscast film versions. Dear World's source material defied adaptation to the formula and suffered despite a fantastic lead performance.

La Cage Aux Folles

While some criticize La Cage for being too safe, many agree that safety made it a breakout Tony Award winning hit and opened the door for many GLBTQA shows to follow.

Tony Awards 1984 performance. (George Hearn)
Tony Awards 2005 performance. (Gary Beach)
Tony Awards 2010 performance. (Douglas Hodge)
Background Reading.
Royalties.