The King of New Broadway
Got quite a few e-mails on my March 22 column, “Who’s in Charge Here?” Faithful readers will recall that the date marked Stephen Sondheim’s 74th birthday, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 56th. While I wrote that either man could have been considered the King of Musical Theater in the ’70s and beyond, I wasn’t so sure that either wears the crown right now; sadder still, I couldn’t find any composer and/or lyricist who did.
“UllMerm” disagreed with me. “No question. Sondheim is still the most original, daring, and brilliant.” Terry Jackson concurred: “Sondheim is still the reigning champ because of his innovations and continuing influence on musical theater. But I’m sure you’ll be inundated with nominations for Stephen Schwartz as the King of Broadway.” Actually, Terry, you were the only one who mentioned Schwartz. Though his work has often been wonderful, he’s never even won a Tony — though that could change come June — and I would think that a King would have at least one of those trophies on his mantle.
Timm Gillette wrote, “I’m one of those snobs that places much more importance on art over commerce, so Mr. Sondheim will always be ‘in charge’ in my mind. But I do take umbrage with your sarcastic question regarding Passion: ‘Tell the truth, how often do you listen to the cast album?’ The answer is, truth to tell, often. Certainly much more than Into the Woods. While the London cast [recording] gets little play, the show still gets double helpings in my CD player with the combination of the OBC and The Trotter Trio’s Passion…in Jazz. One might argue that the show plays better on disc than in the theatre (and its nuances play brilliantly on disc), but of all the Sondheim related DVDs I own — which are all of ’em — Passion by far gets the most viewing as a truly engrossing study in the power of musical drama.”
Joe Frazzetta seconded that emotion: “How often do I listen to the cast album of Passion? A lot. I love this score. It’s my favorite Sondheim show! Also, I think Lloyd Webber’s The Beautiful Game is a terrific score — his best in years, and actually his best since splitting with Rice.”
Fred Aronowitz asked, “Might I put in a word for John Kander and Fred Ebb — if not the Kings of Musical Comedy, maybe the Dukes of York? They started in 1965 and are still working, even if not as successfully as before. The revival of Chicago goes on and on, and Cabaret‘s revival lasted a long time. And who else has had as successful a movie version as [Kander and Ebb did with] Chicago?” Granted, Fred. But Cabaret debuted in 1966 and Chicago in 1975. It’s been 11 years since K&E had a hit — and, at that, a modest one — with Kiss of the Spider Woman. As you alluded, Steel Pier flopped while Over and Over and The Visit never even made it into town. Kings shouldn’t have such problems.
Robert Dreyer wondered, “Shouldn’t Sir Elton get the title of Current King of Broadway? With one blockbuster (The Lion King) and one near-blockbuster (Aida), he sure wins in terms of melodies and dollars brought to Broadway. And I believe he has at least two more musicals under development.” Well, I did give a thought to Elton John. But, at this point in time, I still feel that he’s dabbling on Broadway; composing for the stage is just one of his many activities. Whatever one thinks of Sondheim and Lloyd Webber, they did seem to make musical theater their first priority. That’s kingly.
Michael Dale wrote, “Why not crown a book writer as the King of Musical Theater? If Bombay Dreams is a success, Thomas Meehan will have three hit musicals on Broadway at once, along with continual productions of Annie all over the world. He is the king of well-crafted musical theater books, which we all know are so important and so under-appreciated.” Michael, I’ll be happy to crown Meehan the current King of Books, given his recent renaissance. (What other industry would give a septuagenarian a new lease on life?) But when I’m talking musical theater, I’m thinking of composers and lyricists. As the old saw goes, they’re called musicals, not bookicals.
Others looked forward. Howard Rogut endorsed Jeanine Tesori. Wrote John Petrikovic, “Jason Robert Brown, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens have definitely kept me listening with anticipation in these years. I always look forward to their next shows. None of them may yet be wearing a crown but they do offer us hope.” For Ronni Krasnow, the hope has already been realized: “Stephen is the King and Lynn the Queen. No contest.” William Blakeslee Whyte opined that “Adam Guettel — brilliant, unbelievable, and unreal — is starting to earn the crown right now, especially after the music in The Light in the Piazza, which came after some of the best music I have ever heard in Floyd Collins.”
But no one was as eloquent as Bert Fink in making his case: “Starting with the A’s (the admirably and astonishingly adept Ahrens), I would urge you to continue all the way down the alphabet to the Z’s — as in Zippel, David. This Tony winner has been very busy over the past few years, with a handful of projects that are generating great buzz. One of them, happily, is even called Buzz!! — and note that it sports twice as many exclamation points as even Oklahoma! has. A quick update on the talented Mr. Zippel: There’s The Woman in White, the high-profile new musical (with lyrics by David, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, book by Charlotte Jones, directed by Trevor Nunn, starring Michael Crawford and Maria Friedman) which opens at the Palace Theatre in London in early September. Right now, Maria Friedman is appearing at Café Carlyle, where she is premiering several songs from the score. Then there’s Princesses, which, following a great reception at the NAMT conference last September, David and composer Matthew (Mulan) Wilder and Bill and Cheri Steinkellner of Cheers have continued to polish to a high gloss. On this project David wears several hats — or crowns: he directs, he wrote the lyrics, and he conceived this musical (which resets Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic Victorian rags-to-riches tale A Little Princess inside the world of a trendy, upper-crust, upper-East Side, contemporary rich girls’ school populated by a Benetton bunch of, well, princesses). Princesses just had another hugely successful workshop and industry reading, and will play Goodspeed Opera House’s Norma Terris Theatre in October.
“Then there’s Pamela’s First Musical, for which David has written lyrics to Cy Coleman’s music and Wendy Wasserstein’s book (based on her illustrated children’s book), and the aformentioned Buzz!!, a musical extravaganza written for Las Vegas about the life of Busby Berkeley, told in an appropriately Busby-esque spectacular fashion (book by Larry Gelbart, music by Alan Menken), and N, the story of Emperor Napoleon and his Josephine (book by Gelbart, music by Coleman), and Lysistrata: Sex and the City State, a comedy with songs re-telling Aristophanes’ outrageous variation on the “make love, not war” dictum (adaptation by Gelbart, music by Menken).
The bottom line? He may have gone Hollywood with a few hit movie soundtracks, a couple of Oscar nominations and Golden Globe wins, and some pretty hefty pop songs to his credit (Norwegian singing sensation Sissel has a Billboard chart-climbing album right now with a Zippel song on it), but David Zippel is as much of a torch-bearer as those other terrifically talented artists you mentioned.”
Chris Van Ness, though, went in the other direction: “The reigning king of musical theater was, is, and may well remain for a long time…Oscar Hammerstein II. From operetta libretti to the groundbreaking musicals with Richard Rodgers, Oscar’s importance cannot be underestimated. And in terms of productions, his musicals are still — albeit in revivals and revivals of revivals — earning major royalties today. I’ll bet Steve Sondheim would even agree with my judgment on this one.”
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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@aol.com]
