For the sake of the sanity of all who may read these posts, I will refrain from rehashing last night Jose/TCB discusson of THE THREE FACES OF CABARET.
However, it started me thinking about all of these re-writes and revisions of classic musicals. Ther have always been changes and additions to productions that are in rehearsal, or in tryouts. Songs come and go, the same with entire scenes. Even after shows have officially opened (and an OC recording made) songs have been dropped from shows. "Fie on Goodness" from CAMELOT; "Spanglish" from SEESAW; and the self-flagellation version of "Johanna" from SWEENEY TODD all come to mind.
It just doesn't seem like until recent years, there were entire rewrites of shows, with songs replaced by songs from the movie version. It reminds me of Tennessee Williams and his constantly revised plays. Have I just been been ignorant of this practice, say prior to the last twenty years (THE SOUND OF MUSIC)?
DR TCB, musicals for the past century have added and replaced numbers, often as a publicity ploy to lure an audience back ("Bessie Wynn has new number OUR CASTLE IN SPAIN in
Babes In Toyland"), sometimes because the new star wants another number, sometimes the show got simplified for the tour. Besides the BABES reference, I can think of the following:
The 1902
Wizard of Oz regularly gave new numbers to replacements and the two stars Montgomery & Stone regularly replaced numbers. This was a common occurrence for shows at the time:
The Arcadians had a wonderful song "Bring Me A Rose" that never made the stock-amateur rental package.
In 1917, "Peter Pan" was replaced for the tour of
Have A Heart with "Daisy" for the leading lady, who also got a new opening number, "Look In His Eyes." The female comedy lead had at various times the following songs in her Act Two spot: "Come Out of the Kitchen," "It's A Sure Sure Sign," and "Can the Cabaret."
In 1934, after opening on Broadway,
Life Begins at 8:40 lost a comedy number, "Weekend Cruise" featuring Bert Lahr, Earl Oxford, and Frances Williams and "Let's Take A Walk Around The Block" got a second refrain.
Because of fatigue, Gwen Verdon regularly dropped numbers in performance of
Redhead.
In 1965, when the National Company of
Hello Dolly! was in rehearsal, the Act Two Butterfly number on Broadway was replaced with the Polka Contest, which went into the Broadway show with Ginger Rogers taking over for Channing. Merman got new songs when she took over the role.
