Good morning, all! Around 10 pm last night Joshie called me and changed my plans for today: I was going to go to City Center and begin the work on WHERE'S CHARLEY?, but he will be stuck at his apartment waiting for the moving cartons to arrive. So, tomorrow I will go to City Center, and today I will go to NYPL.
In 1998, when the Kennedy Center did their one attempt at a series like Encores!, WHERE'S CHARLEY? was the final show (August, 1998, as I recall). I spent about 3 months at the Loesser office putting the orchestra parts of the show into full score and found many many errors. We believed that the DC production would provide us with a set of corrected masters for future productions, but tight schedules, inexperienced interns, etc. can wreak havoc with good intentions.
So, for twelve years, the Loesser office has had a full score for WHERE'S CHARLEY? in my hand, with all problems and copy errors marked. This is the score that Encores! is working from, and I'm acting as consultant and aid in getting a lot of the corrections into the parts they are using. I'm hoping this production will lead to a recording as well as a new rental edition of the show.
BK, Ethel Waters had three songs in AS THOUSANDS CHEER: "Suppertine," "Harlem On My Mind," and "Heat Wave." Perhaps Miss Allen could do one of the others?
I once found in a used LP store a recorsing of some community theatre production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC from Denver (?) or some city in the west. The orchestra wasn't bad but the cast has delusions of adequacy. I don't know where the LP is now, but it was truly bizarre.