The Musical of Musicals – The Musical!

Back by popular demand!

The Musical of Musicals – The Musical is a musical about…musicals. In a comic satire of musical theatre genres, one story becomes five musicals, each in the distinctive style of a different master of the form, from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Stephen Sondheim. It has music by Eric Rockwell, lyrics by Joanne Bogart, and book by Rockwell and Bogart.

June, an ingenue who can’t pay the rent, is threatened by her evil landlord. Will the handsome leading man come to her rescue? In an evening of variations on a theme, this basic plot is musicalized the way Rodgers and Hammerstein might have envisioned it, taking place in Kansas in August, complete with a Dream Ballet. The story is then done in the style of Stephen Sondheim, featuring the landlord as a tortured, aristic genius who slashes the throats of his tenants in revenge because they don’t appreciate his art. When presented in the style of Jerry Herman, the story becomes a splashy star vehicle, while the Andrew Lloyd Webber version is a rock musical, with borrowed themes from Puccini. The story is re-told one last time in the style of Kander and Ebb, set in a speakeasy in Chicago.