PAL JOEY
Word is that the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s 1940 musical comedy, Pal Joey, will be revived on Broadway in a limited engagement in December this year. Christian Hoff will star in the titular role, with Stockard Channing as Vera Simpson and Martha Plimpton as Gladys Bumps.
Sounds cool. I am wondering, though, whether significant changes in staging will get rid of the “follies” numbers staged as part of the nightclub in the original, which mainly served as a chorus feature. I bring this up because a similar thing took place in the 1998 revival of Little Me, which tightened the show by focusing it inward and eliminating or editing long “production numbers” that didn’t do anything for the show.
In all seriousness, though, being a score archivist and employee of Lavine and Co, it’ll be nice to have a computerized, typeset version of Pal Joey now that it’s being reorchestrated.
Great; it’s official now! I knew that the idea was on hold for a while; I’m very happy to see that it’s a definite go! I think it’s very relevant to revive older shows to let new generations experience them.
Terrible casting.
Another good stack of my audition songs lost to a half-assed Broadway revival.
*sigh*
About time Hoff left Jersey Boys.
I agree with this. I love the “book” songs and hate the diegetic numbers.
In keeping with other shows that ditched diegetic numbers, maybe some other lesser (or better) known songs by the composing team will be interpolated in in their place to better serve the story. Who knows?
No! I hate when composers do that, and Rodgers and Hammerstein are especially notorious for that. For the 1997 Wonderful World of Disney Cinderella, they interjected a song from No Strings and “Falling In Love with Love” from The Boys from Syracuse. I’m not a big fan of Hammerstein’s lyrics, but if you have a score that has lyrics that are mostly from Hammerstein, don’t put in a song where Rodgers did the lyrics – he writes great music, but lyrics… not so much. And you certainly don’t put in a song with lyrics by Hart, who dabbled in cynicism when writing his lyrics, while Hammerstein practically injects his lyrics with insulin.
I thought she was great in The West Wing. I watched all 7 seasons in 2 and a half weeks.