I can post the program notes here - they're not that long - I've basically said it all here, but here they are:
I’ll keep it short and sweet, as I kind of loathe “Director’s Notes.” So, let me just say that Li’l Abner has been my favorite musical since I saw the film in 1959. Yes, I know there are better musicals and I love some of them very much. But none of them tickle me like Li’l Abner – I just adore the great book by Panama and Frank, and the score by Gene De Paul and Johnny Mercer is the kind that no one knows how to write anymore.
I have wanted to direct this show for decades, but it’s just never worked out. I’ve recommended the show to several groups and they’ve ended up doing it without me. When it doesn’t work, it’s always the show that’s blamed. Well, no. With a little fine-tuning the show works beautifully. I had an idea how to do it and thanks to a boatload of talented student actors, along with a few pros I brought in (I’ve come back and directed shows for the Academy and always like to mix it up with students and pros), as well as a great design team, I’m finally doing it. This is a leaner Abner – the original Broadway show was huge: a cast of fifty-four and a band of over twenty-five, and the show ran over two-and-a-half hours. We have a smaller cast and the running time is considerably shorter. And I had this idea that the score would work wonderfully with what is basically a jug band, and to that end I had my pal David Siegel do brand new orchestrations for that kind of band.
And so, at long last, I have gotten to do the show. Hope you enjoy the result of this slightly different take on the show as much as we have in putting it together. So, as Mammy Yokum would say: I has spoken!
Bruce Kimmel
