Mammamorphoses Wins TheaterMania’s Combination Musicals Contest

In response to our call for readers to mix various elements of this season’s Broadway shows to come up with wild and crazy hybrids, Reyes had the idea of combining the ABBA musical Mamma Mia! with Mary Zimmerman’s brilliant stage adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The result would be a show “set on a magical Greek island during the upcoming Father-Daughter Festival, [as] a young, ‘pater-less’ girl uncovers one of her mother’s ancient scrolls to find that she has been sired by one of three men. She invites them to the island for a free holiday in hopes of figuring out who her father is. Upon realizing which one is her father, she is so overwhelmed with emotion that she falls in love with her dad…In her grief, the mother calls on the Goddess Athena for vengeance.” Directed by Zimmerman and starring Louise Pitre, the show would have a score “composed entirely of the hits of the well known Greek chorus GAMMA, including ‘Killing Me, Killing You,’ ‘Take a Chance on Crete,’ and their number one hit ‘Incest Queen.'”

Our first runner up is Scott Logsdon’s really, really mean but hilariously funny Bea Arthur: At Liberty, inspired by the fact that Ms. Arthur’s one-woman Broadway show apparently did not do as well with critics or at the box office as the one-woman show of another theatrical grande dame. “Taking a note from Stritch,” Logsdon writes, “Arthur opens with the Irving Berlin anthem ‘My Show Business Does No Business’ and takes the audience (when applicable) on a trip with her, spanning decades. Hear Bea sing such heartfelt songs as ‘Never The Luck,’ ‘Empty Seats in Empty Houses,’ and ‘If I Could’ve Been.’ Listen to her tribute to Elaine Stritch as she sings ‘Anything I Can Do She Can Do Better.’ Her encore, sung as she recalls when her show was ‘the best darn show on Broadway’* (*according to Patty Patterson of Passaic, New Jersey), is a tear jerking rendition of ‘I Remember It Well.’ Thoroughly Maude Bea has
added a special song just for the Tony voters: ‘Hey, Look Me Over.’ The Weisslers are in negotiations to open a national company of Bea Arthur: At Liberty starring Sally Struthers.”

Our second runner-up is Peter Saxe’s Sweet Smell of Urinetown, “a dark and comic musical about power, greed, manipulation, and peeing” that includes such songs as “Laughing All the Way to the Urinal” and “At the Fountain.” Saxe notes that “originally, Sweet Smell of Urinetown was presented without an intermission but, due to the subject matter (and several accidents), one was added.” Finally, our third runner-up–on the basis of its title alone–is Ronni Krasnow’s Thou Shalt Not Go Into the Woods With a Goat.

For their efforts, Reyes, Logsdon, Saxe, and Krasnow have been invited to attend TheaterMania’s Tony Awards viewing party for our Gold Club members, staff, and industry professionals.