Well, dear readers, here is a tale as old as time. Five years ago in March of 2020, the world was about to shut down. We closed Doug Haverty’s play In My Mind’s Eye, which I directed, the day before that happened. Group Rep had already announced their new season of which Doug’s play was first up. Second show was supposed to be London Suite, which would eventually be done well over a year later. The third show was very exciting – a Tony Award-winning best musical from an Oscar-winning best picture and there hadn’t been a production of the show in many, many years. I mean a full production – Reprise did it in 2005, but those were not full productions. It was also the fiftieth anniversary of the show’s opening on Broadway in 1970. Yes, the show was Applause, and we were scheduled to open in late May or early June. Doug and I both loved the show and it was one of many shows I’ve directed where everyone told me it was too dated to work. Well, don’t throw down that gauntlet to the likes of me – they did with Li’l Abner – it worked perfectly – they would later do it with 70, Girls, 70 and Drat! The Cat!, both of which were big hits at Group Rep. The only worry was it was a big show with big sets, but I came up with a way to do it that I thought would work well and alleviate those issues. We couldn’t wait to start casting. And then. that season was cancelled in its entirety. For various reasons that I won’t go into, we couldn’t do it when we finally came back and we did 70, Girls, 70 instead. Then when we had the opportunity to do Drat! The Cat! I had to jump on that for reasons you probably remember that had to do with a long ago promise I made to Ira Levin. And that was last year and I could not have been prouder of a production. Then around last June or July Doug and I began talking about Applause again, we both thought the timing for it was right, and we decided it would be the musical for the following season in 2026. We held off for a bit on applying for the rights because the way it now works, once approved you have to pay in advance, never mind that the show is almost a year in the future. In the meantime, out of the blue, a company that does one-night 29-hour stagings of musicals announced they were doing Applause in February of 2026. Did I find that odd? You bet I did, but then I find things like that kind of coincidence very odd. I’ll just leave it at that.

So, Doug applied for the rights, after a few weeks they approved them with one caveat – we were not going to be allowed to announce the show until after this one-night thing on February 15. I found THAT really odd, but not unexpected for reasons I don’t need to elaborate on. I mean, a one-night presentation was certainly not going to impact our full production five months later, and certainly a production happening five months later was not going to impact them one iota. But we had no choice and Doug had to hold off announcing the season two months because of it. When the season was finally announced, we had to say the musical was a mystery show that we could not reveal yet. Anyway, their thing is done and we are finally thrilled to announce Applause – we open in July, begin casting in April, and I could not be more excited to dive into the show, the one which everyone tells me is too dated to work, to do our best to respect the material and to make it work. Here’s the advance poster.

Yesterday was not a bad day. I got about six and a half hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, and then I moseyed on over to the theater for the matinee. I knew in advance that I would either leave right after the pre-show announcement or after the first act. I ended up watching act one, which went very well, and I’m glad I did because some old friends were there who I haven’t seen in close to fifty years now. So, that was fun seeing them again. I then left, stopped at Gelson’s and got a few small things to eat, then came home, ate two small things, then promptly fell asleep for two hours. Then I decided to finally watch the Merrily We Roll Along video from the Broadway production of two years ago. I got through act one (although there are no act breaks in the video). This show failed on Broadway. Of course, everyone bought the cast album and could not understand how such a great score could flop on Broadway. Well, there’s a little thing called – the BOOK. It didn’t fail because of Sondheim and as much as everyone wanted to and still wants to blame Harold Prince, it didn’t fail because of him either.

In every single subsequent production done in major theaters regionally, the Sondheads go and proclaim every single time that THIS time they solved the problems. Well, no, they didn’t solve any of the problems. Production after production, it was the same thing, but audiences still would not take to the show because of – the BOOK. I recorded the York Theater production, which had many changes to both score and book. I didn’t think any of the score changes were necessary, but Sondheim really wanted to record that cast and I said yes instantly. At the theater, it was just piano, keyboard II, and percussion. I wasn’t about to do that, so we used Tunick’s reduced orchestration for twelve players that was done for the Old Globe production. The cast at the York really was very good – Malcolm Gets, Michele Pawk, Anne Marie Bobbie, Adam Grupper – and I thought the recording came out wonderfully, although it was criticized in some quarters for the smaller band. Funnily, this new Broadway thing also had a smaller band and yet no one complained about that in the way they had with us. Always amusing on some level. Once again, everyone said this Maria Friedman-directed production finally solved the show’s problems. They seemed to forget that that exact production had already been done in England AND filmed for movie theaters.

But they had a starry cast on Broadway, including Daniel Radcliffe, who is a big draw thanks to the ever-popular Harry Potter series of movies. For this iteration and video, Ms. Friedman decided she’s a movie director – while it says it was filmed live, I’m not at all sure more than twenty percent of what’s on screen is from a live filming and they admit they filmed all the close-ups and stuff like that separately without an audience. So, not exactly live, since so far it’s almost exclusively close-ups and two-shots, with no geography at all in terms of the set. I also don’t really understand the set, but that’s just me. The overture is no longer the iconic overture we all know – it’s very short now – and she and her cameraman apparently storyboarded every shot in advance. Only the endless close-ups are more like TV than film and suddenly everyone is acting for film. But they want to have their cake and eat it, too, by leaving in all the whooping and hollering from the audience along with the over-the-top laughter in unfunny scenes. I will give them props for however they’ve hidden the mics – apparently, they all have them, but you’d never know it. They also say they recouped the twelve million that the video cost, which I doubt is true. Anyway, I’ll finish it up and have more to say about the why it still doesn’t work and how very little has been solved, although one of the worst things has indeed been removed, thankfully.

After that, I had a little salad and some shrimp cocktail shrimp – the latter was good, the Caesar from Gelson’s was not – lettuce turning brown.

Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, both proofers are doing their second pass of proofing, but it’s a jolly holiday and I mostly want to relax. I have to listen to a demo of a new musical, I’ll eat, I’ll finish watching Merrily and that will be that.

The rest of the week is busy with book stuff, prepping for Saturday’s recording session, and there are several meetings and meals along the way.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, I’ll relax, listen to a demo, eat, finish watching Merrily and then relax some more. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your thoughts on Merrily We Roll Along over the years since it flopped? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to finally announce Applause.