The movies
are famous for sequels. Some are
actually as good as or better than the original, but many are at best
unnecessary and at worst an insult to the original. While there are often revivals, Broadway musicals
are not known for spawning sequels.
There has
been no “West Side Story – The Next Generation”, “Return of the Music Man”,
“Cabaret II – Back to Berlin”, or “Guys and Dolls and a Baby”.
There were
two actual Broadway Musical “sequels” in the early days of the genre.
The 1906
George M. Cohan musical “Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway” had a 1907 sequel
titled “The Talk of New York”.
The first
Pulitzer Prize winning musical, 1931’s “Of Thee I Sing” with book by George S.
Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind and music and lyrics by the Gershwins, begat the
less successful 1933 sequel “Let ‘Em Eat Cake”.
During my
lifetime, which began in the 1950s, there have been, to my knowledge, four
musical sequels with the same characters and similar situations as the
“inspiration” that take place after the story of the original production.
The first is
“Bring Back Birdie”, obviously a sequel to the classic “Bye Bye Birdie”, which
had 31 previews and only 4 performances (the original had 607) back in early
1981 at the Martin Beck Theatre. It
reunited the creative team of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams and librettist
Michael Stewart. Chita Rivera reprised
her role as Rosie, but Albert and Mae Peterson, Dick Van Dyke and Kay Medford
in the original, were played by Donald O’Connor and Maria Karnilova. There was no sign of the McAfee family from
the original, the patriarch of which was played by Paul Lynde.
In the
sequel, 20 years after the end of the original, Albert, now an English teacher,
is offered $20,000 if he can find Conrad Birdie, who has disappeared into
obscurity, and persuade him to perform on a television show. Albert takes a leave of absence and locates Conrad,
now overweight and the mayor of Bent River Junction, AZ.
I was in the
audience for one of the 35 performances.
There was an unsuccessful try at updating the innovative “Telephone
Hour” production number idea using videos.
And Donald O’Connor considered attempting to reprise his “Singing in the
Rain” off the wall back flip during one of his solo numbers, but thought better
of it considering his age. Despite its
short run, Chita Rivera was nominated for a Tony and a Drama Desk Award as Best
Actress in a Musical. The original “Bye
Bye Birdie” was nominated for, and won, many Tonys, including Best Musical,
Best Actor in a Musical, Best Direction, and Best Choreography.
Ken
Mandelbaum writes in his book, “Not Since Carrie, 40 Years of Broadway Flops” –
“’Bring Back Birdie’ may rank as the worst Broadway musical ever to be
created by top-level professionals. The
book was tasteless and ridiculous.”
I met BBB
librettist Michael Steward, who also wrote the books for “Hello Dolly” and
“42nd Street”, when he was a guest lecturer on one of my post-tax season
transatlantic crossings on the QE2 back in the 1980s. I saw the original “Bye Bye Birdie”"
during its Broadway run, but with “Match Game” host Gene Rayburn and not Dick
Van Dyke. I also saw the inferior
Broadway revival of a few years back.
“Annie”,
which first promised Broadway audiences in early 1977 that “The Sun Will Come
Out Tomorrow”, had not one but two attempts at a sequel.
The first was
“Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge”, which opened at the John F Kennedy Center
for the Performing Arts in Washington DC in December 1989 to “universally
disastrous reviews”. Wikepedia reports
that “extensive reworking of the script and score proved futile, and the
project was aborted before reaching Broadway.”
The second
attempt was made in 1993, with a completely different plot and score. “Annie Warbucks” opened off-Broadway at the
Variety Arts Theatre, where it ran for 200 performances. It never made the transition to
Broadway. I did not see either sequel.
The third
Broadway Musical sequel, which did briefly make it to Broadway, was “The Best
Little Whorehouse Goes Public”, which had 28 previews and 16 performances in
the spring of 1994. The original’s
creative team returned for the sequel, including Tommy Tune as co-director and
co-choreographer. It told the tale of
the best little whorehouse in Las Vegas.
Miss Mona,
madam of the original Chicken Ranch, is coaxed out of retirement to take over
the Las Vegas brothel “Stallion Fields”, which has been seized by the
government and is being run by the IRS in hopes of recovering $26 Million in
back taxes. Mona is once again at odds
with a zealous right-wing politician trying to close the “house” down.
The New York
Times review indicated that, while it had all the glitz one expects from Las
Vegas, and even had Siegfried and Roy (portrayed by one actor – half Siegfried
and half Roy), “What is ain’t got is fun”.
Dee Hoty, who
played Miss Mona, was nominated for a 1994 Tony as Best Actress in a
Musical. I also did not see this fiasco.
Number four,
although its source did not originate on Broadway, is Andrew Lloyd Weber’s sequel
to “Phantom of the Opera” titled “Love Never Dies”, but it never did make it to
Broadway (correct me if I am wrong). I
have seen neither show.
While
“Lorelei”, which I did see, opens and ends years after the original “Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes” story takes place, it is not so much a sequel as a revival of
GPB, created to capitalize on the popularity of Carol Channing after “Hello
Dolly”. So, it doesn’t count. In the show Lorelei remembers her earlier
Atlantic crossing while embarking on another after many years of marriage.
“Lorelei”
opened January 27, 1974, at the Palace Theatre and ran 320 performances. It had updated lyrics by Comden and Green and
a new book by Kenny Solms and Gail Parent with a few scenes and songs thrown in
to book-end the original show and score.
In addition to Carol Channing, the show also featured Peter Palmer
(Broadway’s “Little Abner”), Dody Goodman, and Lee Roy Reams, who would many
years later appear again with Carol in one of the revivals of Dolly.
So, there you
have it – Broadway’s experimentation with sequels. Did I miss any?
BFN
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