Follies
Encyclopedia
Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
and a book by James Goldman
. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre
, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue
(based on the Ziegfeld Follies
), that played in that theatre between the World Wars. It focuses on two couples, Buddy and Sally Durant Plummer and Benjamin and Phyllis Rogers Stone, who are attending the reunion. Sally and Phyllis were showgirls in the Follies. Both couples are deeply unhappy with their marriages. Buddy, a traveling salesman, is having an affair with a girl on the road; Sally is still as much in love with Ben as she was years ago; and Ben is so self-absorbed that Phyllis feels emotionally abandoned. Several of the former showgirls perform their old numbers, sometimes accompanied by the ghosts of their former selves.
The Broadway
production opened on April 4, 1971, directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett
, and with choreography by Bennett. The musical was nominated for eleven Tony Award
s and won seven. The original production, which ultimately lost money, ran for 522 performances. The piece has enjoyed a number of major revivals, and several of its songs have become standards, including "Broadway Baby", "I'm Still Here", "Too Many Mornings", "Could I Leave You?", and "Losing My Mind
".
(1965), for which he had written the lyrics to Richard Rodgers
's music, Sondheim decided that he would henceforth work only on projects where he could write both the music and lyrics himself. He asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical. Inspired by a New York Times article about a gathering of former showgirls from the Ziegfeld Follies
, they decided upon a story about ex-showgirls.
Originally titled The Girls Upstairs, the musical was originally to be produced by David Merrick
and Leland Hayward in late 1967, but the plans ultimately fell through, and Stewart Ostrow became the producer, with Joseph Hardy to direct. These plans also did not work out, and finally Harold Prince, who had worked previously with Sondheim, became the producer and director. He had agreed to work on The Girls Upstairs if Sondheim would agree to work on Company
; Michael Bennett, the young choreographer of Company, was also brought onto the project. It was Prince who changed the title to Follies; he was "intrigued by the psychology of a reunion of old chorus dancers and loved the play on the word 'follies'".
Sally Durant Plummer, "blond, petite, sweet-faced" and at 49 "still remarkably like the girl she was thirty years ago", a former Weismann girl is the first guest to arrive; her ghostly youthful counterpart moves towards her. Phyllis Rogers Stone, a stylish and elegant woman, even more attractive now, also arrives with her handsome and successful husband, Ben. As their younger counterparts approach them, Phyllis comments to Ben about their past. He feigns disinterest; there is an underlying tension in their relationship. As more guests arrive, Sally’s husband, Buddy, enters. He is a salesman, in his early 50s, appealing and lively, whose smiles cover inner disappointment.
Finally Mr. Weismann enters to greet his guests. Roscoe, the old master of ceremonies, introduces the former showgirls ("Beautiful Girls"). Former Weismann performers at the reunion include Max and Stella Deems, who lost their radio jobs and became store owners in Miami; Solange La Fitte, a coquette, who is still vibrant three decades later; Hattie Walker, who has outlived five younger husbands; Vincent and Vanessa, former dancers who now own an Arthur Murray franchise; Heidi Schiller, for whom Franz Lehár
once wrote a waltz (or was it Oscar Straus
?); and Carlotta Campion, a film star who has embraced life and benefited from every experience.
As the guests reminisce, the stories of Ben, Phyllis, Buddy and Sally unfold. Phyllis and Sally were roommates while in the Follies, and Ben and Buddy were best friends at school in New York. When Sally sees Ben, her former lover, she greets him self-consciously ("Don't Look at Me"). Carlotta is tired of listening to everyone's stories and wants someone to listen to her. Meanwhile, Buddy and Phyllis join their spouses and the foursome reminisces about the old days of their courtship and the theatre, their memories vividly coming to life in the apparitions of their young counterparts ("Waiting For The Girls Upstairs"). Each of the four is shaken at the realization of how life has changed them. Elsewhere, Willy Wheeler (portly, in his sixties) cartwheels for a photographer. Emily and Theodore Whitman, ex-vaudevillians in their seventies, perform an old routine ("The Rain on the Roof"). Solange proves she is still fashionable at 66 ("Ah, Paris!"), and Hattie Walker performs her old showstopping number ("Broadway Baby").
Sally is awed by Ben’s apparently glamorous life, but Ben wonders if he made the right choices and considers how things might have been ("The Road You Didn't Take"). Sally tells Ben how her days have been spent with Buddy, in a "harrowing account of a lonely, middle-aged suburban woman's self-delusions", trying to convince him (and herself) ("In Buddy’s Eyes"). But it is clear that Sally is still in love with Ben – even though she was terribly hurt when Ben chose to marry Phyllis. Sally felt used for his sexual satisfaction. She shakes loose from the memory and begins to dance with Ben, who is touched by the memory of the Sally he once cast aside.
Phyllis interrupts this tender moment and has a biting encounter with Sally. But this confrontation is interrupted by another performance – this time, the ex-chorines line up to perform an old number ("Who's That Woman?"), with disastrous results, as they are mirrored by their younger selves. Afterward, Phyllis and Ben angrily discuss their lives and relationship, which has become numb and emotionless. Sally is bitter and has never been happy with Buddy, although he has always adored her. Carlotta amuses everyone with a tale of how her dramatic solo was cut from the Follies because the audience found it humorous, but somehow the number works when she sings it today ("I'm Still Here").
Ben confides to Sally that his life is empty. She yearns for him to hold her, but young Sally slips between them and the three move together ("Too Many Mornings"). Ben, caught in the passion of memories, kisses Sally as Buddy enters. Buddy is furious, and Ben, startled by the parallel between present and past, tells Sally it was over long ago. He leaves Sally still dreaming of a marriage that will never happen. Buddy angrily fantasizes about the girl he should have married, who would have loved him and made him feel like "a somebody" ("The Right Girl"). Sally tells him that Ben has asked her to marry him. Buddy tells her she must be either crazy or drunk, but he's already supported Sally through rehab clinics and mental hospitals and cannot take any more. Ben drunkenly propositions Carlotta, with whom he once had a fling, but she has a young lover. Heidi Schiller, joined by her younger counterpart, performs "One More Kiss", her aged voice a stark contrast to the sparkling coloratura of her younger self. Phyllis kisses a waiter but confesses to him that she had always wanted a son. She then tells Ben that she cannot return to their loveless marriage. Ben replies by saying that he wants a divorce, and Phyllis assumes the request is due to his love for Sally. Angry and hurt, Phyllis considers whether to grant his request ("Could I Leave You?").
The two couples and their young counterparts argue furiously about how foolish they were when they were young. Suddenly, at the peak of madness and confusion, the couples are engulfed by their follies, which transform the rundown theatre into a fantastical "Loveland", an extravaganza even more grand and opulent than the gaudiest Weismann confection: "the place where lovers are always young and beautiful, and everyone lives only for love". Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy show their "real and emotional lives" in "a sort of group nervous breakdown."
Young Phyllis and Young Ben have hopes for the future ("You're Gonna Love Tomorrow"), as do Young Buddy and Young Sally ("Love Will See Us Through"). Buddy then appears, dressed in "plaid baggy pants, garish jacket and a shiny derby hat", in a vaudeville routine with an imaginary Sally and his old girlfriend Margie ("The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues"). Sally appears next, dressed as a torch singer ("Losing My Mind
"). Phyllis reflects on the two sides of her personality, "juicy" Lucy — the young Phyllis, naive but passionate, and "dressy" Jessie — Phyllis's jaded, well-groomed present self ("The Story of Lucy and Jessie"). Ben begins to offer his devil-may-care philosophy ("Live, Laugh, Love"), but stumbles and anxiously calls to the conductor for the lyrics, as he frantically tries to keep going. Ben becomes frenzied, while the dancing ensemble continues as if nothing was wrong. Amidst a deafening discord, Ben screams at all the figures from his past and collapses as he cries out for Phyllis.
"Loveland" has dissolved back into the reality of the crumbling and half-demolished theatre; dawn is approaching. Buddy escorts the "emotionally devastated" Sally, while Phyllis helps Ben regain his dignity before they leave, all with the promise to work things out later. Their ghostly younger selves finally enter the light. The younger Ben and Buddy softly call to their "girls upstairs", and the Follies end.
≠ Some productions substitute "Ah, But Underneath"
≠≠ Omitted from some productions
Songs cut prior to the Broadway premiere include: "All Things Bright and Beautiful" (used in the prologue), "Can That Boy Foxtrot!" and "Uptown Downtown". The musical numbers "Ah, But Underneath" (replacing "The Story of Lucy and Jessie"), "Country House", "Make the Most of Your Music" (replacing "Live, Laugh, Love"), "Social Dancing" and a new version of "Loveland" have been incorporated into various productions.
Joanne Gordon, Chair and Artistic Director, Theatre, at California State University
(and also Associate Artistic Director of California Repertory Company and a theatre director, who received her Ph.D at UCLA) wrote "Follies is in part an affectionate look at the American musical theater between the two World Wars and provides Sondheim with an opportunity to use the traditional conventions of the genre to reveal the hollowness and falsity of his characters' dreams and illusions. The emotional high generated by the reunion of the Follies girls ultimately give way to anger, disappointment, and a weary resignation to reality." "Follies contains two scores: the Follies pastiche
numbers and the book numbers." Some of the Follies numbers imitate the style of particular composers of the early 20th century: Losing My Mind
is in the style of a George Gershwin
ballad "The Man I Love". Sondheim noted that the song "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" is "another generic pastiche: vaudeville music for chases and low comics, but with a patter lyric...I tried to give it the sardonic knowingness of Lorenz Hart or Frank Loesser."
"Loveland", the final musical sequence, (that "consumed the last half-hour of the original" production) is akin to a 1920s Ziegfeld Follies
sequence, with Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy performing "like comics and torch singers from a Broadway of yore." "Loveland" features a string of vaudeville
-style numbers, reflecting the leading characters' emotional problems, before returning to the theatre for the end of the reunion party. The four characters are "whisked into a dream show in which each acts out his or her own principal 'folly'".
Major changes were made for the original production in London, which attempted to establish a lighter tone and favored a happier ending than the original Broadway production. According to Joanne Gordon, "When 'Follies' opened in London...it had an entirely different, and significantly more optimistic, tone. Goldman's revised book offered some small improvements over the original."
According to Sondheim, the producer Cameron Mackintosh
asked for changes for the 1987 London production. "I was reluctantly happy to comply, my only serious balk being at his request that I cut "The Road You Didn't Take" ... I saw no reason not to try new things, knowing we could always revert to the original (which we eventually did). The net result was four new songs...For reasons which I've forgotten, I rewrote "Loveland" for the London production. There were only four showgirls in this version, and each one carried a shepard's crook with a letter of the alphabet on it."
The musical was written in one act, and the original director, Prince, did not want an intermission, while the co-director, Bennett, wanted two acts. It was originally performed in one act. The 1987 West End, 2005 Barrington Stage Company, the 2001 Broadway revival and Kennedy Center 2011 productions were performed in two acts. However, the August 23, 2011 Broadway preview performance was performed without an intermission. By opening the Broadway revival was performed with the intermission, in two acts.
Follies premiered on Broadway
on April 4, 1971 at the Winter Garden Theatre
. It was directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett
, with choreography by Bennett, scenic design by Boris Aronson
, costumes by Florence Klotz
, and lighting by Tharon Musser
. It starred Alexis Smith
(Phyllis), John McMartin
(Benjamin), Dorothy Collins
(Sally), Gene Nelson
(Buddy), along with several veterans of the Broadway and vaudeville stage. The supporting role of Carlotta was created by Yvonne De Carlo
, and usually is given to a well-known veteran performer who can belt out a song. Other notable performers in the original productions were: Fifi D'Orsay
as Solange LaFitte, Justine Johnston
as Heidi Schiller, Mary McCarty
as Stella Deems, Arnold Moss
as Dimitri Weismann, Ethel Shutta
as Hattie Walker, and Marcie Stringer and Charles Welch as Emily and Theodore Whitman.
The show closed on July 1, 1972 after 522 performances and 12 previews. According to Variety Magazine, the production was a "total financial failure, with a cumulative loss of $792,000." Prince planned to present the musical on the West Coast
and then on a national tour. However, the show did not do well in its Los Angeles engagement and plans for a tour ended.
Frank Rich
, for many years the chief drama critic for The New York Times
, had first garnered attention, while an undergraduate at Harvard University
, with a lengthy essay for the Harvard Crimson
about the show, which he had seen during its pre-Broadway run in Boston. He predicted that the show eventually would achieve recognition as a Broadway classic. Rich later wrote that audiences at the original production were baffled and restless.
For commercial reasons, the cast album was cut from two LP
s to one early in production. Most songs were therefore heavily abridged and several were left entirely unrecorded. According to Craig Zadan
, "It's generally felt that ... Prince made a mistake by giving the recording rights of Follies to Capitol Records, which in order to squeeze the unusually long score onto one disc, mutilated the songs by condensing some and omitting others." Chapin confirms this: "Alas ... final word came from Capitol that they would not go for two records.... [Dick Jones] now had to propose cuts throughout the score in consultation with Steve." "One More Kiss" was omitted from the final release but was restored for CD release. Chapin relates that "there was one song that Dick Jones [producer of the cast album] didn't want to include on the album but which Steve Sondheim most definitely did. The song was "One More Kiss", and the compromise was that if there was time, it would be recorded, even if Jones couldn't promise it would end up on the album. (It did get recorded but didn't make its way onto the album until the CD reissue years later.)"
, St. Louis, Missouri in July 1972 and then transferred to the Shubert Theatre, Century City, California, running from July 22, 1972 through October 1, 1972. It was directed by Prince and starred Dorothy Collins (Sally; replaced by Janet Blair), Alexis Smith (Phyllis), John McMartin (Benjamin; replaced by Edward Winter), Gene Nelson (Buddy), and Yvonne De Carlo (Carlotta) reprising their original roles. The production was the premiere attraction at the newly constructed 1,800-seat theatre, which, ironically, was itself razed thirty years later (in 2002, in order to build a new office building), thus mirroring the Follies plot line upon which the musical is based.
, England, from 30 April 1985, directed by Howard Lloyd-Lewis, design by Chris Kinman, costumes by Charles Cusick-Smith, lighting by Tim Wratten, musical direction by Simon Lowe, and choreographed by Paul Kerryson. The cast included Mary Millar
(Sally Durant Plummer), Liz Izen (Young Sally), Meg Johnson
(Stella Deems), Les Want (Max Deems), Betty Benfield (Heidi Schiller), Joseph Powell (Roscoe), Chili Bouchier
(Hattie Walker), Shirley Greenwood (Emily Whitman), Bryan Burdon (Theodore Whitman), Monica Dell (Solange LaFitte), Jeannie Harris (Carlotta Campion), Josephine Blake (Phyllis Rogers Stone), Kevin Colson
(Benjamin Stone), Debbie Snook (Young Phyllis), Stephen Hale (Young Ben), Bill Bradley (Buddy Plummer), Paul Burton (Young Buddy), David Scase
(Dimitri Weismann), Lorraine Croft (Young Stella), and Meryl Richardson (Young Heidi).
A staged concert at Avery Fisher Hall
, Lincoln Center, was performed on September 6 and 7, 1985. The concert starred Barbara Cook
(Sally), George Hearn
(Ben), Mandy Patinkin
(Buddy), and Lee Remick
(Phyllis), and featured Carol Burnett
(Carlotta), Betty Comden
(Emily), Adolph Green
(Theodore), Liliane Montevecchi
(Solange LaFitte), Elaine Stritch
(Hattie Walker), Phyllis Newman
(Stella Deems), Jim Walton
(Young Buddy), Howard McGillin
(Young Ben), Liz Callaway
(Young Sally), Daisy Prince (Young Phyllis), Andre Gregory
(Dmitri), Arthur Rubin (Roscoe), and Licia Albanese
(Heidi Schiller). Rich, in his review, noted that "As performed at Avery Fisher Hall, the score emerged as an original whole, in which the 'modern' music and mock vintage tunes constantly comment on each other, much as the script's action unfolds simultaneously in 1971 (the year of the reunion) and 1941 (the year the Follies disbanded)."
Among the reasons the concert was staged was to provide an opportunity to record the entire score. The resulting album was more complete than the original cast album. However, director Herbert Ross
took some liberties in adapting the book and score for the concert format—dance music was changed, songs were given false endings, new dialogue was spoken, reprises were added, and Patinkin was allowed to sing "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" as a solo instead of a trio with two chorus girls. Portions of the concert were seen by audiences worldwide in the televised documentary about the making of the concert, also released on videotape and DVD, of 'Follies' in Concert.
The musical played in the West End
at the Shaftesbury Theatre
on July 21, 1987 and closed on February 4, 1989 after 644 performances. The producer was Cameron Mackintosh
, direction was by Mike Ockrent
, with choreography by Bob Avian
and design by Maria Bjornson
. The cast featured Diana Rigg
(Phyllis), Daniel Massey
(Ben), Julia McKenzie
(Sally), David Healy (Buddy), Lynda Baron
, Leonard Sachs
, Maria Charles
, Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson
. Dolores Gray was praised as Carlotta. During the run, Eartha Kitt
replaced Gray, sparking somewhat of a comeback (she went on to perform her own one woman show at The Shaftesbury Theatre to sell-out houses for three weeks from 18 March 1989 after "Follies" closed). Other cast replacements included Millicent Martin
as Phyllis. Julia McKenzie returned to the production for the final four performances.
The book "was extensively reworked by James Goldman, with Sondheim's cooperation and also given an intermission." The producer Cameron Mackintosh did not like "that there was no change in the characters from beginning to end.... In the London production ... the characters come to understand each other." Sondheim "did not think the London script was as good as the original." However, he thought that it was "wonderful" that, at the end of the first act, "the principal characters recognized their younger selves and were able to acknowledge them throughout the last thirty minutes of the piece." Sondheim wrote four new songs: "Country House" (replacing "The Road You Didn't Take"), "Loveland" (replacing the song of the same title), "Ah, But Underneath" (replacing "The Story of Lucy and Jessie", for the non-dancer Diana Rigg
), and "Make the Most of Your Music" (replacing "Live, Laugh, Love").
Critics who had seen the production in New York (such as Frank Rich
) found it substantially more "upbeat" and lacking in the atmosphere it had originally possessed. According to the Associated Press (AP) reviewer, "A revised version of the Broadway hit "Follies" received a standing ovation from its opening-night audience and raves from British critics, who said the show was worth a 16-year wait." The AP quoted Michael Convey of The Financial Times, who wrote: "'Follies' is a great deal more than a camp love-in for old burlesque buffs and Sondheim aficionados." The New York Times critic wrote: "The initial critics' reviews ranged from unqualified raves to some doubts whether the reworked book of James Goldman is up to the inventiveness of Sondheim's songs. 'A truly fantastic evening,' The Financial Times concluded, while The London Daily News said, 'The musical is inspired,' and The Times described the evening as 'a wonderful idea for a show which has failed to grow into a story.'" He further commented: "In part, the show is a tribute to musical stage history, in which the 57-year-old Mr. Sondheim is steeped, for he first learned song writing at the knee of Oscar Hammerstein II
and became the acknowledged master songwriter who bridged past musical stage romance into the modern musical era of irony and neurosis. Follies is a blend of both, and the new production is rounded out with production numbers celebrating love's simple hope for young lovers, its extravagant fantasies for Ziegfeld aficionados, and its fresh lesson for the graying principals."
This production was also recorded on two CDs and was the first full recording.
Follies was voted ninth in a BBC Radio 2
listener poll
of the UK's "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals."
(MOT) was the first major American opera company to present Follies as part of their main stage repertoire, running from October 21, 1988 through November 6. The MOT production starred Nancy Dussault (Sally), John-Charles Kelly (Buddy), Juliet Prowse (Phyllis) and Ron Raines
(Ben), Edie Adams
(Carlotta), Thelma Lee (Hattie), and Dennis Grimaldi
(Vincent).
A production also ran from March to April 1995 at the Theatre Under the Stars
, Houston, Texas
and in April to May 1995 at the 5th Avenue Theatre
, Seattle with Constance Towers
(Phyllis), Judy Kaye
(Sally), Edie Adams
, Denise Darcel
, Virginia Mayo
and Karen Morrow
(Carlotta). The 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse
production (Millburn, New Jersey
) was directed by Robert Johanson with choreography by Jerry Mitchell
and starred Donna McKechnie
(Sally), Dee Hoty
(Phyllis), Laurence Guittard
(Ben), Tony Roberts
(Buddy), Kaye Ballard
(Hattie ), Eddie Bracken
(Weismann), and Ann Miller
(Carlotta). Phyllis Newman
and Liliane Montevecchi
reprised the roles they played in the Lincoln Center production. "Ah, But Underneath" was substituted for "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" in order to accommodate non-dancer Hoty. This production received a full-length recording on two CDs, including not only the entire score as originally written, but a lengthy appendix of songs cut from the original production in tryouts.
Julianne Boyd
directed a fully staged version of Follies in 2005 by the Barrington Stage Company
(Massachusetts) in June–July 2005. Principal cast included Kim Crosby
(Sally), Leslie Denniston (Phyllis), Jeff McCarthy
(Ben), Lara Teeter
(Buddy), Joy Franz (Solange), Marni Nixon
(Heidi), and Donna McKechnie
(Carlotta). Stephen Sondheim
attended one of the performances.
The Dublin Concert was held in May 1996 at the National Concert Hall. The cast included Lorna Luft
, Millicent Martin
, Mary Millar
and Enda Markey
.
London concert
A concert was held at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
, London, on December 8, 1996, and broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on February 15, 1997. The cast starred Julia McKenzie
(Sally), Donna McKechnie
(Phyllis), Denis Quilley
(Ben) and Ron Moody
(Buddy). This show recreated the original Broadway score.
Sydney concert
Follies was performed in concert at the Sydney Opera House
with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
in February 1998 as the highlight of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
and had three performances. It followed a similar presentation at the 1995 Melbourne Festival of Arts. The show starred Toni Lamond
(Sally), Jill Perryman
, Judi Connelli
, Terence Donovan
, Ron Haddrick
, Todd McKenney
, and Leonie Page.
on April 5, 2001 and closed on July 14, 2001 after 117 performances and 32 previews. This Roundabout Theatre limited engagement had been expected to close on September 30, 2001. Directed by Matthew Warchus
with choreography by Kathleen Marshall
, it starred Blythe Danner
(Phyllis), Judith Ivey
(Sally), Treat Williams
(Buddy), Gregory Harrison
(Benjamin), Marge Champion
, Polly Bergen
(Carlotta), Joan Roberts (the original Laurey from the original Broadway production of Oklahoma!
; later replaced by Marni Nixon
), Larry Raiken (Roscoe) and an assortment of famous names from the past. Former MGM and onetime Broadway star Betty Garrett
, best-known to younger audiences for her television work, played Hattie. It was significantly stripped down (earlier productions had featured extravagant sets and costumes) and was not a success critically.
According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter
, "almost every performance of the show played to a full house, more often than not to standing-room-only. Tickets always were tough to come by. The reason the final curtain came down Saturday was because, being a production by the Roundabout Theatre Company – a subscription-based 'not-for-profit' theater company – it was presented under special Equity terms, with its actors paid a minimal fee. To extend the show, it would have been necessary to negotiate new contracts with the entire company ... because of the Belasco's limited seating, it wasn't deemed financially feasible to do so."
Theatre writer and historian John Kenrick
wrote, "the bad news is that this Follies is a dramatic and conceptual failure. The good news is that it also features some of the most exciting musical moments Broadway has seen in several seasons. Since you don't get those moments from the production, the book or the leads, that leaves the featured ensemble, and in Follies that amounts to a small army. ... Marge Champion and Donald Saddler are endearing as the old hoofers. ... I dare you not to fall in love with Betty Garrett's understated "Broadway Baby" – you just want to pick her up and hug her. Polly Bergen stops everything cold with "I’m Still Here," bringing a rare degree of introspection to a song that is too often a mere belt-fest.... [T]he emotional highpoint comes when Joan Roberts sings 'One More Kiss'."
in a limited engagement. After previews from August 3, 2002, it opened officially on August 6, and closed on August 31, 2002. Paul Kerryson directed, and the cast starred David Durham as Ben, Kathryn Evans
as Sally, Louise Gold
as Phyllis, Julia Goss
as Heidi and Henry Goodman
as Buddy. Variety singer and performer Joan Savage sang "Broadway Baby". This production featured the original Broadway score.
, presented as a staged concert, running from June 15 to June 23, 2002. The production was directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman
, set design by Ray Klausen, lighting design by Tom Ruzika, costumes by Randy Gardell, sound design by Philip G. Allen, choreography by Kay Cole, musical director Gerald Sternbach.
The production starred Bob Gunton
(Ben), Warren Berlinger
(Dimitri Weismann), Patty Duke
(Phyllis), Vikki Carr
(Sally), Harry Groener
(Buddy), Carole Cook
(Hattie), Carol Lawrence (Vanessa), Ken Page (Roscoe), Liz Torres
(Stella), Amanda McBroom
(Solange), Grover Dale
(Vincent), Donna McKechnie
(Carlotta), Carole Swarbrick (Christine), Stella Stevens
(Dee Dee), Mary Jo Catlett
(Emily), Justine Johnston
(Heidi), Jean Louisa Kelly
(Young Sally), Austin Miller
(Young Buddy), Tia Riebling (Young Phyllis), Kevin Earley
(Young Ben), Abby Feldman (Young Stella), Barbara Chiofalo (Young Heidi), Trevor Brackney (Young Vincent), Melissa Driscoll (Young Vanessa), Stephen Reed (Kevin),and Billy Barnes (Theodore). Hal Linden
was originally going to play Ben, but left because he was cast in the Broadway revival of Cabaret
as Herr Schultz. Tom Bosley
was also originally cast as Dimitri Weismann.
's Encores!
"Great American Musicals in Concert" series featured Follies as its 40th production for six performances in February 2007 in a sold out semi-staged concert. The cast starred Donna Murphy
(Phyllis), Victoria Clark
(Sally), Victor Garber
(Ben) and Michael McGrath
(Buddy). Christine Baranski
played Carlotta, and Lucine Amara
sang Heidi. The cast also included Anne Rogers
, Jo Anne Worley
and Philip Bosco
. The director and choreographer was Casey Nicholaw
. This production used the original text and the "Loveland" lyrics performed in the 1987 London production.
as Sally, Jan Maxwell
as Phyllis, Elaine Paige
as Carlotta, Linda Lavin
as Hattie, Ron Raines
as Ben and Danny Burstein
as Buddy. The production was directed by Eric Schaeffer
, with choreography by Warren Carlyle
, costumes by Gregg Barnes
, set by Derek McLane
and lighting by Natasha Katz
. Also featured were Rosalind Elias
as Heidi, Régine as Solange, Susan Watson
as Emily, and Terri White
as Stella. The budget was reported to be $7.3 million. The Kennedy Center production played to 95% capacity.
Reviews of the production were mixed, with Ben Brantley of The New York Times writing, "It wasn't until the second act that I fell in love all over again with Follies". Peter Marks of The Washington Post wrote that the revival "takes an audience halfway to paradise." He praised a "broodingly luminous Jan Maxwell" and Burstein's "hapless onetime stage-door Johnny", as well as "the show's final 20 minutes, when we ascend with the main characters into an ironic vaudeville dreamscape of assorted neuroses - the most intoxicating articulation of the musical's 'Loveland' sequence that I've ever seen." Variety gave a very favorable review: "The lavish and entirely satisfying production includes a full orchestra, eye-popping designs and a 40-person cast headed by Bernadette Peters", saying that Schaeffer directs "in methodical fashion, building progressively to a crescendo exactly as Sondheim does with so many of his stirring melodies. Several show-stopping routines are provided by choreographer Warren Carlyle." Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal noted that "One of the signal achievements of this 'Follies' is that it succeeds in untangling each and every strand of the show's knotty plot... Mr. Schaeffer is clearly unafraid of the darkness of 'Follies', so much so that the first act is bitter enough to sting. Yet he and Warren Carlyle, the choreographer, just as clearly revel in the richness of the knowing pastiche songs with which Mr. Sondheim evokes the popular music of the prerock era."
The production transferred to Broadway at the Marquis Theatre
in a limited engagement starting on August 7, 2011 in previews with the official opening on September 12. The four principal performers reprise their roles, as well as Paige as Carlotta, and the production has an 28-piece orchestra and a 41-person cast. Jayne Houdyshell
as Hattie Walker, Mary Beth Peil
as Solange LaFitte, and Don Correia as Theodore Whitman, join the Broadway cast. A cast album of this production was recorded by PS Classics
in a two-disc album, and is expected to be released in November 2011.
Brantley reviewed the Broadway revival, and wrote "Somewhere along the road from Washington to Broadway, the Kennedy Center production of 'Follies' picked up a pulse. A vigorous heart now beats at the center of this revitalized revival...I am happy to report that since then, Ms. Peters has connected with her inner frump, Mr. Raines has found the brittle skeleton within his solid flesh, and Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Burstein have only improved. Two new additions to the cast, Jayne Houdyshell
and Mary Beth Peil
, are terrific. This production has taken on the glint of crystalline sharpness."
wrote: "From the start, critics have been divided about Follies, passionately pro or con but rarely on the fence... Is it really a great musical, or merely the greatest of all cult musicals?" (Chapin, p. xi) Ted Chapin wrote, "Taken as a whole, the collection of reviews Follies received was as rangy as possible." (Chapin, p. 300) In his New York Times review of the original Broadway production, Clive Barnes
wrote: "...it is stylish, innovative, it has some of the best lyrics I have ever encountered, and above all it is a serious attempt to deal with the musical form." Barnes also called the story shallow and Sondheim's words a joy "...even when his music sends shivers of indifference up your spine."
Walter Kerr
wrote in The New York Times about the original production: "Follies is intermissionless and exhausting, an extravaganza that becomes so tedious... because its extravaganzas have nothing to do with its pebble of a plot." On the other hand, Martin Gottfried
wrote: "'Follies is truly awesome and, if it is not consistently good, it is always great."
Time Magazine wrote about the original Broadway production: "At its worst moments, Follies is mannered and pretentious, overreaching for Significance. At its best moments—and there are many—it is the most imaginative and original new musical that Broadway has seen in years."
Frank Rich, in reviewing the 1985 concert in The New York Times, wrote: "Friday's performance made the case that this Broadway musical... can take its place among our musical theater's very finest achievements." Ben Brantley
, reviewing the 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse production in The New York Times, concluded that it was a "...fine, heartfelt production, which confirms Follies as a landmark musical and a work of art..."
The Time Magazine reviewer wrote of the 2001 Broadway revival: "Even in its more modest incarnation, Follies has, no question, the best score on Broadway." He noted, though, that "I'm sorry the cast was reduced from 52 to 38, the orchestra from 26 players to 14...To appreciate the revival, you must buy into James Goldman's book, which is peddling a panoramically bleak take on marriage." Finally, he wrote:"But Follies never makes fun of the honorable musical tradition to which it belongs. The show and the score have a double vision: simultaneously squinting at the messes people make of their lives and wide-eyed at the lingering grace and lift of the music they want to hear. Sondheim's songs aren't parodies or deconstructions; they are evocations that recognize the power of a love song. In 1971 or 2001, Follies validates the legend that a Broadway show can be an event worth dressing up for."
Brantley, reviewing the 2007 Encores! concert for The New York Times, wrote: "I have never felt the splendid sadness of 'Follies' as acutely as I did watching the emotionally transparent concert production...At almost any moment, to look at the faces of any of the principal performers...is to be aware of people both bewitched and wounded by the contemplation of who they used to be. When they sing, in voices layered with ambivalence and anger and longing, it is clear that it is their past selves whom they are serenading."
, is officially released on November 29, 2011, and also was in pre-sale prior to the store release. PS Classics co-founder Tommy Krasker said on November 28: "We've never had the kind of reaction that we've had for 'Follies'. Not only has it already outsold every other album at our website, but the steady stream of emails from customers has been amazing." This recording includes "extended segments of the show's dialogue." The theatremania.com reviewer wrote that "The result is an album that, more so than any of the other existing recordings, allows listeners to re-experience the heartbreaking collision of past and present that's at the core of the piece."
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
and a book by James Goldman
James Goldman
James Goldman was an American screenwriter and playwright, and the brother of screenwriter and novelist William Goldman.He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up primarily in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb...
. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
(based on the Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
), that played in that theatre between the World Wars. It focuses on two couples, Buddy and Sally Durant Plummer and Benjamin and Phyllis Rogers Stone, who are attending the reunion. Sally and Phyllis were showgirls in the Follies. Both couples are deeply unhappy with their marriages. Buddy, a traveling salesman, is having an affair with a girl on the road; Sally is still as much in love with Ben as she was years ago; and Ben is so self-absorbed that Phyllis feels emotionally abandoned. Several of the former showgirls perform their old numbers, sometimes accompanied by the ghosts of their former selves.
The Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
production opened on April 4, 1971, directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett
Michael Bennett
Michael Bennett was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven....
, and with choreography by Bennett. The musical was nominated for eleven Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
s and won seven. The original production, which ultimately lost money, ran for 522 performances. The piece has enjoyed a number of major revivals, and several of its songs have become standards, including "Broadway Baby", "I'm Still Here", "Too Many Mornings", "Could I Leave You?", and "Losing My Mind
Losing My Mind
"Losing My Mind" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1971 musical Follies for the character of a former showgirl Sally Durant Plummer.-Follies:...
".
Background
After the failure of Do I Hear A Waltz?Do I Hear a Waltz?
Do I Hear a Waltz? is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Richard Rodgers, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It was adapted from Laurents' 1952 play The Time of the Cuckoo, which was the basis for the 1955 film Summertime starring Katharine Hepburn.-Background:Laurents originally...
(1965), for which he had written the lyrics to Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
's music, Sondheim decided that he would henceforth work only on projects where he could write both the music and lyrics himself. He asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical. Inspired by a New York Times article about a gathering of former showgirls from the Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
, they decided upon a story about ex-showgirls.
Originally titled The Girls Upstairs, the musical was originally to be produced by David Merrick
David Merrick
David Merrick was a prolific Tony Award-winning American theatrical producer.-Life and career:Born David Lee Margulois to Jewish parents in St. Louis, Missouri, Merrick graduated from Washington University, then studied law at the Jesuit-run Saint Louis University School of Law...
and Leland Hayward in late 1967, but the plans ultimately fell through, and Stewart Ostrow became the producer, with Joseph Hardy to direct. These plans also did not work out, and finally Harold Prince, who had worked previously with Sondheim, became the producer and director. He had agreed to work on The Girls Upstairs if Sondheim would agree to work on Company
Company (musical)
Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....
; Michael Bennett, the young choreographer of Company, was also brought onto the project. It was Prince who changed the title to Follies; he was "intrigued by the psychology of a reunion of old chorus dancers and loved the play on the word 'follies'".
Plot
On the soon-to-be demolished stage of the Weismann Theatre, a reunion is being held to honor Weismann's "Follies" shows past, and the beautiful chorus girls who once performed there. The once resplendent theatre is now little but planks and scaffolding (Prologue/Overture). As the ghosts of the young showgirls slowly drift through the theatre, a majordomo enters with his entourage of waiters and waitresses. They pass through the spectral showgirls without seeing them.Sally Durant Plummer, "blond, petite, sweet-faced" and at 49 "still remarkably like the girl she was thirty years ago", a former Weismann girl is the first guest to arrive; her ghostly youthful counterpart moves towards her. Phyllis Rogers Stone, a stylish and elegant woman, even more attractive now, also arrives with her handsome and successful husband, Ben. As their younger counterparts approach them, Phyllis comments to Ben about their past. He feigns disinterest; there is an underlying tension in their relationship. As more guests arrive, Sally’s husband, Buddy, enters. He is a salesman, in his early 50s, appealing and lively, whose smiles cover inner disappointment.
Finally Mr. Weismann enters to greet his guests. Roscoe, the old master of ceremonies, introduces the former showgirls ("Beautiful Girls"). Former Weismann performers at the reunion include Max and Stella Deems, who lost their radio jobs and became store owners in Miami; Solange La Fitte, a coquette, who is still vibrant three decades later; Hattie Walker, who has outlived five younger husbands; Vincent and Vanessa, former dancers who now own an Arthur Murray franchise; Heidi Schiller, for whom Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár was an Austrian-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow .-Biography:...
once wrote a waltz (or was it Oscar Straus
Oscar Straus
Oscar Straus may refer to:*Oscar Straus , Viennese composer of operettas*Oscar Straus , United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor from 1906 to 1909...
?); and Carlotta Campion, a film star who has embraced life and benefited from every experience.
As the guests reminisce, the stories of Ben, Phyllis, Buddy and Sally unfold. Phyllis and Sally were roommates while in the Follies, and Ben and Buddy were best friends at school in New York. When Sally sees Ben, her former lover, she greets him self-consciously ("Don't Look at Me"). Carlotta is tired of listening to everyone's stories and wants someone to listen to her. Meanwhile, Buddy and Phyllis join their spouses and the foursome reminisces about the old days of their courtship and the theatre, their memories vividly coming to life in the apparitions of their young counterparts ("Waiting For The Girls Upstairs"). Each of the four is shaken at the realization of how life has changed them. Elsewhere, Willy Wheeler (portly, in his sixties) cartwheels for a photographer. Emily and Theodore Whitman, ex-vaudevillians in their seventies, perform an old routine ("The Rain on the Roof"). Solange proves she is still fashionable at 66 ("Ah, Paris!"), and Hattie Walker performs her old showstopping number ("Broadway Baby").
Sally is awed by Ben’s apparently glamorous life, but Ben wonders if he made the right choices and considers how things might have been ("The Road You Didn't Take"). Sally tells Ben how her days have been spent with Buddy, in a "harrowing account of a lonely, middle-aged suburban woman's self-delusions", trying to convince him (and herself) ("In Buddy’s Eyes"). But it is clear that Sally is still in love with Ben – even though she was terribly hurt when Ben chose to marry Phyllis. Sally felt used for his sexual satisfaction. She shakes loose from the memory and begins to dance with Ben, who is touched by the memory of the Sally he once cast aside.
Phyllis interrupts this tender moment and has a biting encounter with Sally. But this confrontation is interrupted by another performance – this time, the ex-chorines line up to perform an old number ("Who's That Woman?"), with disastrous results, as they are mirrored by their younger selves. Afterward, Phyllis and Ben angrily discuss their lives and relationship, which has become numb and emotionless. Sally is bitter and has never been happy with Buddy, although he has always adored her. Carlotta amuses everyone with a tale of how her dramatic solo was cut from the Follies because the audience found it humorous, but somehow the number works when she sings it today ("I'm Still Here").
Ben confides to Sally that his life is empty. She yearns for him to hold her, but young Sally slips between them and the three move together ("Too Many Mornings"). Ben, caught in the passion of memories, kisses Sally as Buddy enters. Buddy is furious, and Ben, startled by the parallel between present and past, tells Sally it was over long ago. He leaves Sally still dreaming of a marriage that will never happen. Buddy angrily fantasizes about the girl he should have married, who would have loved him and made him feel like "a somebody" ("The Right Girl"). Sally tells him that Ben has asked her to marry him. Buddy tells her she must be either crazy or drunk, but he's already supported Sally through rehab clinics and mental hospitals and cannot take any more. Ben drunkenly propositions Carlotta, with whom he once had a fling, but she has a young lover. Heidi Schiller, joined by her younger counterpart, performs "One More Kiss", her aged voice a stark contrast to the sparkling coloratura of her younger self. Phyllis kisses a waiter but confesses to him that she had always wanted a son. She then tells Ben that she cannot return to their loveless marriage. Ben replies by saying that he wants a divorce, and Phyllis assumes the request is due to his love for Sally. Angry and hurt, Phyllis considers whether to grant his request ("Could I Leave You?").
The two couples and their young counterparts argue furiously about how foolish they were when they were young. Suddenly, at the peak of madness and confusion, the couples are engulfed by their follies, which transform the rundown theatre into a fantastical "Loveland", an extravaganza even more grand and opulent than the gaudiest Weismann confection: "the place where lovers are always young and beautiful, and everyone lives only for love". Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy show their "real and emotional lives" in "a sort of group nervous breakdown."
Young Phyllis and Young Ben have hopes for the future ("You're Gonna Love Tomorrow"), as do Young Buddy and Young Sally ("Love Will See Us Through"). Buddy then appears, dressed in "plaid baggy pants, garish jacket and a shiny derby hat", in a vaudeville routine with an imaginary Sally and his old girlfriend Margie ("The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues"). Sally appears next, dressed as a torch singer ("Losing My Mind
Losing My Mind
"Losing My Mind" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1971 musical Follies for the character of a former showgirl Sally Durant Plummer.-Follies:...
"). Phyllis reflects on the two sides of her personality, "juicy" Lucy — the young Phyllis, naive but passionate, and "dressy" Jessie — Phyllis's jaded, well-groomed present self ("The Story of Lucy and Jessie"). Ben begins to offer his devil-may-care philosophy ("Live, Laugh, Love"), but stumbles and anxiously calls to the conductor for the lyrics, as he frantically tries to keep going. Ben becomes frenzied, while the dancing ensemble continues as if nothing was wrong. Amidst a deafening discord, Ben screams at all the figures from his past and collapses as he cries out for Phyllis.
"Loveland" has dissolved back into the reality of the crumbling and half-demolished theatre; dawn is approaching. Buddy escorts the "emotionally devastated" Sally, while Phyllis helps Ben regain his dignity before they leave, all with the promise to work things out later. Their ghostly younger selves finally enter the light. The younger Ben and Buddy softly call to their "girls upstairs", and the Follies end.
Songs
- "Beautiful Girls" – Roscoe and Company
- "Don't Look at Me" – Sally and Ben
- "Waiting for the Girls Upstairs" – Ben, Sally, Phyllis and Buddy, Young Ben, Young Sally, Young Phyllis and Young Buddy
- "Rain on the Roof" – Emily and Theodore
- "Ah, Paris!" – Solange
- "Broadway Baby" – Hattie
- "The Road You Didn't Take" – Ben
- "Bolero d'Amour" – Danced by Vincent and Vanessa ≠≠
- "In Buddy's Eyes" – Sally
- "Who's That Woman?" – Stella and Company
- "I'm Still Here" – Carlotta
- "Too Many Mornings" – Ben and Sally
- "The Right Girl" – Buddy
- "One More Kiss" – Heidi and Young Heidi
- "Could I Leave You?" – Phyllis
- "Loveland" – Company
- "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow" / "Love Will See Us Through" – Young Ben, Young Sally, Young Phyllis and Young Buddy
- "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" – Buddy
- "Losing My MindLosing My Mind"Losing My Mind" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1971 musical Follies for the character of a former showgirl Sally Durant Plummer.-Follies:...
" – Sally - "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" ≠ – Phyllis
- "Live, Laugh, Love" – Ben
- Finale – Company; varies by production, often a reprise of "Beautiful Girls"
≠ Some productions substitute "Ah, But Underneath"
≠≠ Omitted from some productions
Songs cut prior to the Broadway premiere include: "All Things Bright and Beautiful" (used in the prologue), "Can That Boy Foxtrot!" and "Uptown Downtown". The musical numbers "Ah, But Underneath" (replacing "The Story of Lucy and Jessie"), "Country House", "Make the Most of Your Music" (replacing "Live, Laugh, Love"), "Social Dancing" and a new version of "Loveland" have been incorporated into various productions.
Analysis
Hal Prince said: "Follies examines obsessive behavior, neurosis and self-indulgence more microscopically than anything I know of." Bernadette Peters quoted Sondheim on the character of "Sally": "He said early on that [Sally] is off balance, to put it mildly. He thinks she’s very neurotic, and she is very neurotic, so he said to me, 'Congratulations. She’s crazy.'" Martin Gottfried wrote: "The concept behind 'Follies' is theater nostalgia, representing the rose-colored glasses through which we face the fact of age ... the show is conceived in ghostliness. At its very start, ghosts of Follies showgirls stalk the stage, mythic giants in winged, feathered, black and white opulence. Similarly, ghosts of Twenties shows slip through the evening as the characters try desperately to regain their youth through re-creations of their performances and inane theater sentiments of their past."Joanne Gordon, Chair and Artistic Director, Theatre, at California State University
California State University
The California State University is a public university system in the state of California. It is one of three public higher education systems in the state, the other two being the University of California system and the California Community College system. It is incorporated as The Trustees of the...
(and also Associate Artistic Director of California Repertory Company and a theatre director, who received her Ph.D at UCLA) wrote "Follies is in part an affectionate look at the American musical theater between the two World Wars and provides Sondheim with an opportunity to use the traditional conventions of the genre to reveal the hollowness and falsity of his characters' dreams and illusions. The emotional high generated by the reunion of the Follies girls ultimately give way to anger, disappointment, and a weary resignation to reality." "Follies contains two scores: the Follies pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
numbers and the book numbers." Some of the Follies numbers imitate the style of particular composers of the early 20th century: Losing My Mind
Losing My Mind
"Losing My Mind" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1971 musical Follies for the character of a former showgirl Sally Durant Plummer.-Follies:...
is in the style of a George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
ballad "The Man I Love". Sondheim noted that the song "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" is "another generic pastiche: vaudeville music for chases and low comics, but with a patter lyric...I tried to give it the sardonic knowingness of Lorenz Hart or Frank Loesser."
"Loveland", the final musical sequence, (that "consumed the last half-hour of the original" production) is akin to a 1920s Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
sequence, with Sally, Phyllis, Ben and Buddy performing "like comics and torch singers from a Broadway of yore." "Loveland" features a string of vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
-style numbers, reflecting the leading characters' emotional problems, before returning to the theatre for the end of the reunion party. The four characters are "whisked into a dream show in which each acts out his or her own principal 'folly'".
Versions
Goldman continued to revise the book of the musical right up to his death, which occurred shortly before the 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse production. Sondheim, too, has added and removed songs that he judged to be problematic in various productions. Ted Chapin explains: "Today, Follies is rarely performed twice in exactly the same version. James Goldman's widow made the observation that the show has morphed throughout its entire life...The London production had new songs and dialogue. The Paper Mill Playhouse production used some elements from London but stayed close to the original. The 2001 Roundabout Broadway revival, the first major production following Goldman's death in 1998, was again a combination of previous versions."Major changes were made for the original production in London, which attempted to establish a lighter tone and favored a happier ending than the original Broadway production. According to Joanne Gordon, "When 'Follies' opened in London...it had an entirely different, and significantly more optimistic, tone. Goldman's revised book offered some small improvements over the original."
According to Sondheim, the producer Cameron Mackintosh
Cameron Mackintosh
Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh is a British theatrical producer notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the New York...
asked for changes for the 1987 London production. "I was reluctantly happy to comply, my only serious balk being at his request that I cut "The Road You Didn't Take" ... I saw no reason not to try new things, knowing we could always revert to the original (which we eventually did). The net result was four new songs...For reasons which I've forgotten, I rewrote "Loveland" for the London production. There were only four showgirls in this version, and each one carried a shepard's crook with a letter of the alphabet on it."
The musical was written in one act, and the original director, Prince, did not want an intermission, while the co-director, Bennett, wanted two acts. It was originally performed in one act. The 1987 West End, 2005 Barrington Stage Company, the 2001 Broadway revival and Kennedy Center 2011 productions were performed in two acts. However, the August 23, 2011 Broadway preview performance was performed without an intermission. By opening the Broadway revival was performed with the intermission, in two acts.
1971 Original Broadway
Follies had its pre-Broadway tryout at the Colonial Theatre, Boston, from February 20 through March 20, 1971.Follies premiered on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
on April 4, 1971 at the Winter Garden Theatre
Winter Garden Theatre
The Winter Garden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1634 Broadway in midtown Manhattan.-History:The structure was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1896 to be the American Horse Exchange....
. It was directed by Harold Prince and Michael Bennett
Michael Bennett
Michael Bennett was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven....
, with choreography by Bennett, scenic design by Boris Aronson
Boris Aronson
Boris Aronson was an American scenic designer for Broadway and Yiddish theatre. He won the Tony Award for Scenic Design six times in his career.-Biography:...
, costumes by Florence Klotz
Florence Klotz
Florence Klotz was an American costume designer on Broadway and film.-Biography:Originally named as Kathrina Klotz, she later changed her name to "Florence" and was often nicknamed "Flossie"....
, and lighting by Tharon Musser
Tharon Musser
Tharon Musser was an American lighting designer who worked on more than 150 Broadway productions. She was termed the "Dean of American Lighting Designers" and is considered one of the pioneers in her field....
. It starred Alexis Smith
Alexis Smith
Alexis Smith was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress. She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972.-Life and career:...
(Phyllis), John McMartin
John McMartin
John McMartin is an American actor of stage, film and television.-Early life and career:McMartin was born in Warsaw, Indiana and raised in Minnesota. He attended college in Illinois and New York. He made his off-Broadway debut in Little Mary Sunshine in 1959, playing opposite Eileen Brennan...
(Benjamin), Dorothy Collins
Dorothy Collins
Dorothy Collins was a Canadian/American singer, actress, and recording artist. She was born Marjorie Chandler in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and adopted her stage name in her mid-teens.-Radio and TV:...
(Sally), Gene Nelson
Gene Nelson
Gene Nelson was an American dancer, actor, screenwriter, and director.-Biography:Born Leander Eugene Berg in Astoria, Oregon, he moved to Seattle when he was one year old. He was inspired to become a dancer by watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films when he was a child...
(Buddy), along with several veterans of the Broadway and vaudeville stage. The supporting role of Carlotta was created by Yvonne De Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced ; Anna in Criss Cross ; Sephora the...
, and usually is given to a well-known veteran performer who can belt out a song. Other notable performers in the original productions were: Fifi D'Orsay
Fifi D'Orsay
-Biography:Born Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier in Montreal, Quebec, as a young typist, filled with the desire to become an actress, she went to New York City. There, she found work in The Greenwich Village Follies after an audition in which she sang the song "Yes, We Have No Bananas' in French...
as Solange LaFitte, Justine Johnston
Justine Johnston
Justine Johnston was an American film, television and musical theatre actress.-Summary:She was occasionally mistaken for Justine Johnstone, a similarly named silent film actress, with whom she had no connection. Johnston performed throughout the Mid-Pacific during World War II...
as Heidi Schiller, Mary McCarty
Mary McCarty
Mary McCarty was a County Commissioner in Palm Beach County, Florida from November 1990 until her resignation - announced on January 8, 2009. Along with her husband, Kevin McCarty, she steered bond deals with the county government, the county's Housing Finance Authority, the city of Delray Beach,...
as Stella Deems, Arnold Moss
Arnold Moss
Arnold Moss was an American character actor.His son is songwriter Jeff Moss....
as Dimitri Weismann, Ethel Shutta
Ethel Shutta
Ethel Shutta was an American actress and singer, who came to prominence through her performances on Jack Benny's radio show, her role in the early Eddie Cantor musical Whoopee!, and her Broadway comeback in Follies at the age of 74.By age 7, she was known as "the little girl with the big voice"...
as Hattie Walker, and Marcie Stringer and Charles Welch as Emily and Theodore Whitman.
The show closed on July 1, 1972 after 522 performances and 12 previews. According to Variety Magazine, the production was a "total financial failure, with a cumulative loss of $792,000." Prince planned to present the musical on the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
and then on a national tour. However, the show did not do well in its Los Angeles engagement and plans for a tour ended.
Frank Rich
Frank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
, for many years the chief drama critic for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, had first garnered attention, while an undergraduate at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, with a lengthy essay for the Harvard Crimson
Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson are the athletic teams of Harvard University. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2006, there were 41 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other NCAA Division I college in the country...
about the show, which he had seen during its pre-Broadway run in Boston. He predicted that the show eventually would achieve recognition as a Broadway classic. Rich later wrote that audiences at the original production were baffled and restless.
For commercial reasons, the cast album was cut from two LP
LP record
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
s to one early in production. Most songs were therefore heavily abridged and several were left entirely unrecorded. According to Craig Zadan
Craig Zadan
Craig Zadan is an American executive producer, director, and writer. Zadan is openly gay and is one half of the successful production team Storyline Entertainment with partner Neil Meron since their meeting many years ago in the New York theatrical community.-Early life:Zadan was born in Miami,...
, "It's generally felt that ... Prince made a mistake by giving the recording rights of Follies to Capitol Records, which in order to squeeze the unusually long score onto one disc, mutilated the songs by condensing some and omitting others." Chapin confirms this: "Alas ... final word came from Capitol that they would not go for two records.... [Dick Jones] now had to propose cuts throughout the score in consultation with Steve." "One More Kiss" was omitted from the final release but was restored for CD release. Chapin relates that "there was one song that Dick Jones [producer of the cast album] didn't want to include on the album but which Steve Sondheim most definitely did. The song was "One More Kiss", and the compromise was that if there was time, it would be recorded, even if Jones couldn't promise it would end up on the album. (It did get recorded but didn't make its way onto the album until the CD reissue years later.)"
1972 Los Angeles
The musical was produced at The MunyThe Muny
The Muny, short for The Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis, is an outdoor musical theatre, located in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri...
, St. Louis, Missouri in July 1972 and then transferred to the Shubert Theatre, Century City, California, running from July 22, 1972 through October 1, 1972. It was directed by Prince and starred Dorothy Collins (Sally; replaced by Janet Blair), Alexis Smith (Phyllis), John McMartin (Benjamin; replaced by Edward Winter), Gene Nelson (Buddy), and Yvonne De Carlo (Carlotta) reprising their original roles. The production was the premiere attraction at the newly constructed 1,800-seat theatre, which, ironically, was itself razed thirty years later (in 2002, in order to build a new office building), thus mirroring the Follies plot line upon which the musical is based.
1985 Wythenshawe and Lincoln Center
A full production ran at the Forum Theatre, WythenshaweWythenshawe
Wythenshawe is a district in the south of the city of Manchester, England.Formerly part of the administrative county of Cheshire, in 1931 Wythenshawe was transferred to the City of Manchester, which had begun building a massive housing estate there in the 1920s to resolve the problem of its inner...
, England, from 30 April 1985, directed by Howard Lloyd-Lewis, design by Chris Kinman, costumes by Charles Cusick-Smith, lighting by Tim Wratten, musical direction by Simon Lowe, and choreographed by Paul Kerryson. The cast included Mary Millar
Mary Millar
Mary Millar was a British actress best remembered for her role as Rose in BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. She was born Mary Wetton in Doncaster, Yorkshire...
(Sally Durant Plummer), Liz Izen (Young Sally), Meg Johnson
Meg Johnson
Meg Johnson is an English actress who currently plays the role of Pearl Ladderbanks in ITV's popular soap opera Emmerdale. Prior to joining Emmedale, Johnson was a part of the now-axed UK soap Brookside, playing Brigid McKenna for three years...
(Stella Deems), Les Want (Max Deems), Betty Benfield (Heidi Schiller), Joseph Powell (Roscoe), Chili Bouchier
Chili Bouchier
Chili Bouchier , later known as Dorothy Bouchier, was a British film actress who achieved success during the silent film era, and went on to many screen appearances with the advent of sound films, before progressing to theatre later in her career.She made her first appearance as a child dancer at a...
(Hattie Walker), Shirley Greenwood (Emily Whitman), Bryan Burdon (Theodore Whitman), Monica Dell (Solange LaFitte), Jeannie Harris (Carlotta Campion), Josephine Blake (Phyllis Rogers Stone), Kevin Colson
Kevin Colson
Kevin Colson is an Australian stage, film and television actor best known for his portrayal of Sir George Dillingham in the musical Aspects of Love, for which he received a Tony nomination, and his early role as Cliff in the original London production of Cabaret opposite Judi Dench...
(Benjamin Stone), Debbie Snook (Young Phyllis), Stephen Hale (Young Ben), Bill Bradley (Buddy Plummer), Paul Burton (Young Buddy), David Scase
David Scase
David Scase was a British actor.Born at Fulham, London, as the son of a plumber, his first job as in a bicycle factory in the mid 1930s. He joined the Merchant Navy on the outbreak of World War II in 1939, but by the end of the war was working as a BBC sound engineer...
(Dimitri Weismann), Lorraine Croft (Young Stella), and Meryl Richardson (Young Heidi).
A staged concert at Avery Fisher Hall
Avery Fisher Hall
Avery Fisher Hall is a concert hall, in New York City and is part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts complex. It is the home of the New York Philharmonic, with a capacity of 2,738 seats.-History:...
, Lincoln Center, was performed on September 6 and 7, 1985. The concert starred Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...
(Sally), George Hearn
George Hearn
George Hearn is an American actor and singer, primarily in Broadway musical theatre.-Early years:Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Hearn studied philosophy at Southwestern at Memphis, now Rhodes College before he embarked on a career in the theater, training for the stage with actress turned acting...
(Ben), Mandy Patinkin
Mandy Patinkin
Mandel Bruce "Mandy" Patinkin is an award-winning American actor of stage and screen and a tenor vocalist. He is a noted interpreter of the musical works of Stephen Sondheim, and is best-known for his work in musical theatre, originating iconic roles such as Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park...
(Buddy), and Lee Remick
Lee Remick
Lee Ann Remick was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder , Days of Wine and Roses , and The Omen .-Early life:...
(Phyllis), and featured Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett
Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut...
(Carlotta), Betty Comden
Betty Comden
Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...
(Emily), Adolph Green
Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...
(Theodore), Liliane Montevecchi
Liliane Montevecchi
Liliane Montevecchi is a French actress, dancer, and singer.Montevecchi began her career as a prima ballerina in Roland Petit's dance company...
(Solange LaFitte), Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
(Hattie Walker), Phyllis Newman
Phyllis Newman
Phyllis Newman is an American actress and singer. She was nominated twice for the Drama Desk Award and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.-Early life:...
(Stella Deems), Jim Walton
Jim Walton (actor)
Jim Walton is an American actor, most notable for his leading performance in the original production of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along as Franklin Shephard.-Career:...
(Young Buddy), Howard McGillin
Howard McGillin
Howard McGillin is a Tony-nominated stage, screen and television actor, perhaps best-known for being the world's longest running Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera....
(Young Ben), Liz Callaway
Liz Callaway
Liz Callaway is an American actress and singer, famous for providing the singing voices of many female characters in films, such as Anya in Anastasia, Odette in The Swan Princess, and Kiara in The Lion King II:Simba's Pride....
(Young Sally), Daisy Prince (Young Phyllis), Andre Gregory
Andre Gregory
Andre William Gregory is an American theatre director, writer and actor.Gregory studied at Harvard University.During the 1960s and 1970s, Gregory directed a number of avant-garde productions developed through ensemble collaboration, the most famous of which was Alice In Wonderland , based on Lewis...
(Dmitri), Arthur Rubin (Roscoe), and Licia Albanese
Licia Albanese
Licia Albanese is an Italian-born American operatic soprano. Noted especially for her portrayals of the lyric heroines of Verdi and Puccini, Albanese was a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera of New York from 1940 to 1966...
(Heidi Schiller). Rich, in his review, noted that "As performed at Avery Fisher Hall, the score emerged as an original whole, in which the 'modern' music and mock vintage tunes constantly comment on each other, much as the script's action unfolds simultaneously in 1971 (the year of the reunion) and 1941 (the year the Follies disbanded)."
Among the reasons the concert was staged was to provide an opportunity to record the entire score. The resulting album was more complete than the original cast album. However, director Herbert Ross
Herbert Ross
Herbert Ross was an American film director, producer, choreographer and actor.-Early life and career:Born Herbert David Ross in Brooklyn, New York, he made his stage debut as Third Witch with a touring company of Macbeth in 1942...
took some liberties in adapting the book and score for the concert format—dance music was changed, songs were given false endings, new dialogue was spoken, reprises were added, and Patinkin was allowed to sing "The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues" as a solo instead of a trio with two chorus girls. Portions of the concert were seen by audiences worldwide in the televised documentary about the making of the concert, also released on videotape and DVD, of 'Follies' in Concert.
1987 West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
at the Shaftesbury Theatre
Shaftesbury Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End Theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The theatre was designed for the brothers Walter and Frederick Melville by Bertie Crewe and opened on 26 December 1911 with a production of The Three Musketeers, as the New...
on July 21, 1987 and closed on February 4, 1989 after 644 performances. The producer was Cameron Mackintosh
Cameron Mackintosh
Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh is a British theatrical producer notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the New York...
, direction was by Mike Ockrent
Mike Ockrent
Mike Ockrent was a British stage director, well-known both for his Broadway musicals and smaller niche plays. He was educated at Highgate School. Through directing Educating Rita and Follies, he became an established figure in London theatre...
, with choreography by Bob Avian
Bob Avian
Bob Avian is an American choreographer and a theatre producer and director.Born in New York City, Avian's spent his early career dividing his time between dancing in such Broadway shows as West Side Story, Funny Girl, and Henry, Sweet Henry and working as a production assistant on projects like I...
and design by Maria Bjornson
Maria Björnson
Maria Björnson was an acclaimed theatre stage designer, born in Paris to Norwegian and Romanian parents....
. The cast featured Diana Rigg
Diana Rigg
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
(Phyllis), Daniel Massey
Daniel Massey (actor)
Daniel Raymond Massey was an English actor and performer. He is possibly best known for his starring role in the British TV drama The Roads to Freedom, as Daniel, alongside Michael Bryant...
(Ben), Julia McKenzie
Julia McKenzie
Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple...
(Sally), David Healy (Buddy), Lynda Baron
Lynda Baron
Lynda Baron is a BAFTA-nominated English stage, film and television actress, perhaps best known for playing the extremely busty Nurse Gladys Emmanuel, the object of Arkwright's affection, in the BBC comedy series Open All Hours....
, Leonard Sachs
Leonard Sachs
Leonard Sachs was a British actor.-Early life and career:Sachs was born in South Africa in the town of Roodepoort, Transvaal...
, Maria Charles
Maria Charles
Maria Charles is an English actress who carved a niche for herself on television playing clingy Jewish mothers. She appeared in the memorable Play for Today entry, "Bar Mitzvah Boy", and played Maureen Lipman's character's mother in the sitcom Agony...
, Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson
Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson
Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson were a popular English husband-and-wife team of entertainers, during the 1950s and early 1960s.-Early days:They were both successful solo singers before their marriage in 1955...
. Dolores Gray was praised as Carlotta. During the run, Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
replaced Gray, sparking somewhat of a comeback (she went on to perform her own one woman show at The Shaftesbury Theatre to sell-out houses for three weeks from 18 March 1989 after "Follies" closed). Other cast replacements included Millicent Martin
Millicent Martin
Millicent Mary Lillian Martin is an English actress, singer and comedienne.Martin was born in Romford, England. She made her Broadway debut opposite Julie Andrews in The Boy Friend in 1954...
as Phyllis. Julia McKenzie returned to the production for the final four performances.
The book "was extensively reworked by James Goldman, with Sondheim's cooperation and also given an intermission." The producer Cameron Mackintosh did not like "that there was no change in the characters from beginning to end.... In the London production ... the characters come to understand each other." Sondheim "did not think the London script was as good as the original." However, he thought that it was "wonderful" that, at the end of the first act, "the principal characters recognized their younger selves and were able to acknowledge them throughout the last thirty minutes of the piece." Sondheim wrote four new songs: "Country House" (replacing "The Road You Didn't Take"), "Loveland" (replacing the song of the same title), "Ah, But Underneath" (replacing "The Story of Lucy and Jessie", for the non-dancer Diana Rigg
Diana Rigg
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
), and "Make the Most of Your Music" (replacing "Live, Laugh, Love").
Critics who had seen the production in New York (such as Frank Rich
Frank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
) found it substantially more "upbeat" and lacking in the atmosphere it had originally possessed. According to the Associated Press (AP) reviewer, "A revised version of the Broadway hit "Follies" received a standing ovation from its opening-night audience and raves from British critics, who said the show was worth a 16-year wait." The AP quoted Michael Convey of The Financial Times, who wrote: "'Follies' is a great deal more than a camp love-in for old burlesque buffs and Sondheim aficionados." The New York Times critic wrote: "The initial critics' reviews ranged from unqualified raves to some doubts whether the reworked book of James Goldman is up to the inventiveness of Sondheim's songs. 'A truly fantastic evening,' The Financial Times concluded, while The London Daily News said, 'The musical is inspired,' and The Times described the evening as 'a wonderful idea for a show which has failed to grow into a story.'" He further commented: "In part, the show is a tribute to musical stage history, in which the 57-year-old Mr. Sondheim is steeped, for he first learned song writing at the knee of Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
and became the acknowledged master songwriter who bridged past musical stage romance into the modern musical era of irony and neurosis. Follies is a blend of both, and the new production is rounded out with production numbers celebrating love's simple hope for young lovers, its extravagant fantasies for Ziegfeld aficionados, and its fresh lesson for the graying principals."
This production was also recorded on two CDs and was the first full recording.
Follies was voted ninth in a BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
listener poll
Opinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...
of the UK's "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals."
U.S. regional productions
Michigan Opera TheatreMichigan Opera Theatre
Michigan Opera Theatre is Michigan's principal opera company. The company is based in Detroit, where it performs in the Detroit Opera House. Each year it presents an opera and dance season. The company usually presents five operas in their original language with English supertitles and hosts five...
(MOT) was the first major American opera company to present Follies as part of their main stage repertoire, running from October 21, 1988 through November 6. The MOT production starred Nancy Dussault (Sally), John-Charles Kelly (Buddy), Juliet Prowse (Phyllis) and Ron Raines
Ron Raines
Ron Raines is an American actor. He is known for the role of Alan Spaulding on the long-running television soap opera Guiding Light. Raines also performs in musical theatre and in concert with symphony orchestras....
(Ben), Edie Adams
Edie Adams
Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
(Carlotta), Thelma Lee (Hattie), and Dennis Grimaldi
Dennis Grimaldi
Dennis Grimaldi is an American theatrical producer who has worked on Broadway, Off Broadway and on London's West End. His work include Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes and Annie Warbucks....
(Vincent).
A production also ran from March to April 1995 at the Theatre Under the Stars
Theatre Under The Stars (Houston)
Theatre Under the Stars is a year-round, professional, non-profit musical theatre production company. It is located in Houston, Texas, performing mostly at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Theatre Under The Stars’ season generally includes both self-produced shows as well as national...
, Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
and in April to May 1995 at the 5th Avenue Theatre
5th Avenue Theatre
The 5th Avenue Theatre is a landmark theater building located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It has hosted a variety of theatre productions and motion pictures since it opened in 1926. The building and land is owned by the University of Washington and was once part of the original campus...
, Seattle with Constance Towers
Constance Towers
-Early life:Towers was born in Whitefish, Montana, the daughter of Ardath L. and Harry J. Towers. According to her official Web site, a contract from Paramount Pictures was offered to her at age 11 but was declined...
(Phyllis), Judy Kaye
Judy Kaye
Judy Kaye is an American singer and actress. She has appeared in stage musicals, plays, and operas. Kaye has been in long runs on Broadway in the musicals The Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime and Mamma Mia!-Biography:...
(Sally), Edie Adams
Edie Adams
Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
, Denise Darcel
Denise Darcel
Denise Darcel is a retired French actress who made a few films in Hollywood.Born as Denise Billecard in Paris, she was college educated. According to one of her friends who she met in Paris during WWII, she was a passenger in an L-5 Stinson light observation aircraft on VJ Day to see the...
, Virginia Mayo
Virginia Mayo
Virginia Mayo was an American film actress.After a short career in vaudeville, Mayo progressed to films and during the 1940s established herself as a supporting player in such films as The Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat .Mayo remained an A-list actress into the mid-'50s, but then went...
and Karen Morrow
Karen Morrow
Karen Morrow is an American singer – actress best known for her work in musical theater. Her honors include an Emmy Award and a Theatre World Award, and an Ovation Award and five Drama-Logue Award nominations....
(Carlotta). The 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse
Paper Mill Playhouse
Paper Mill Playhouse is a regional theatre with approximately 1200 seats, located in Millburn, New Jersey, less than 25 miles from Manhattan. Due to its location, it can draw from the pool of actors who live in New York City. Its location, as well as its focus on producing large-scale shows, makes...
production (Millburn, New Jersey
Millburn, New Jersey
Millburn is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 20,149.Millburn Township was created as a township by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 20, 1857, from portions of Springfield Township.Millburn also...
) was directed by Robert Johanson with choreography by Jerry Mitchell
Jerry Mitchell
Jerry Mitchell is an American theatre director and choreographer.-Early life and education:Born in Paw Paw, Michigan, Mitchell later moved to St. Louis where he pursued his acting, dancing and directing career in theatre. He graduated from the Fine Arts college at Webster University in St. Louis. ...
and starred Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie is an American musical theater dancer, singer, actress, and choreographer. She is known for her professional and personal relationship with choreographer Michael Bennett, with whom she collaborated on her most noted role, "Cassie" from the musical A Chorus Line, for which she...
(Sally), Dee Hoty
Dee Hoty
Dee Hoty is an American musical theatre actress. Over the course of her career, she has appeared in numerous high-profile Broadway productions and earned multiple Tony nominations for her performances.-Biography:...
(Phyllis), Laurence Guittard
Laurence Guittard
Laurence Guittard is an actor and singer, mostly appearing on the Broadway stage. He made his Broadway debut in Baker Street in 1965. Notable appearances include Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, Curly in the 1979 revival of Oklahoma!, and as Don Quixote in...
(Ben), Tony Roberts
Tony Roberts
Tony Roberts may refer to:*Tony Roberts , American actor*Tony Roberts , British author of the Casca series *Tony Roberts , Welsh football player...
(Buddy), Kaye Ballard
Kaye Ballard
Kaye Ballard is an American musical theatre and television actress, comedienne, and singer.-Life and career:Ballard was born as Catherine Gloria Balotta in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Italian American family, the daughter of Lena and Vincent James Balotta.Ballard established herself as a musical...
(Hattie ), Eddie Bracken
Eddie Bracken
Edward Vincent "Eddie" Bracken was an American actor.-Life and career:Bracken was born in Astoria, New York, the son of Catherine and Joseph L. Bracken. Bracken performed in vaudeville at the age of nine and gained fame with the Broadway musical Too Many Girls in a role he reprised for the 1940...
(Weismann), and Ann Miller
Ann Miller
Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...
(Carlotta). Phyllis Newman
Phyllis Newman
Phyllis Newman is an American actress and singer. She was nominated twice for the Drama Desk Award and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.-Early life:...
and Liliane Montevecchi
Liliane Montevecchi
Liliane Montevecchi is a French actress, dancer, and singer.Montevecchi began her career as a prima ballerina in Roland Petit's dance company...
reprised the roles they played in the Lincoln Center production. "Ah, But Underneath" was substituted for "The Story of Lucy and Jessie" in order to accommodate non-dancer Hoty. This production received a full-length recording on two CDs, including not only the entire score as originally written, but a lengthy appendix of songs cut from the original production in tryouts.
Julianne Boyd
Julianne Boyd
Julianne Boyd is an American theater director.Boyd received a BA in Theater and Education in 1966 from Beaver College in Pennsylvania...
directed a fully staged version of Follies in 2005 by the Barrington Stage Company
Barrington Stage Company
Barrington Stage Company is a regional theatre company in The Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. It was co-founded in 1995 by Artistic Director, Julianne Boyd, and Managing Director, Susan Sperber, in Sheffield, Massachusetts...
(Massachusetts) in June–July 2005. Principal cast included Kim Crosby
Kim Crosby (singer)
Kim Crosby is an American singer and actress, primarily on the stage and in concerts. She was the original Cinderella in the Sondheim-Lapine musical Into the Woods, where she met her now-husband Robert Westenberg. The couple married on June 19, 1991. She currently lives in Springfield, Missouri...
(Sally), Leslie Denniston (Phyllis), Jeff McCarthy
Jeff McCarthy
-Television:He made guest star appearances on television shows such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Ed, Designing Women, Cheers, Freddy's Nightmares, Matlock, and In the Heat of the Night. McCarthy was the voice of the Chuck Jones' creation, Michigan J. Frog, for the WB television network...
(Ben), Lara Teeter
Lara Teeter
Lara Teeter is an American dancer, actor, singer, theatre director and college professor.Born in Guthrie, Oklahoma, Teeter earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Oklahoma City University. He made his Broadway debut in the short-lived 1980 musical Happy New Year, followed by another flop, the...
(Buddy), Joy Franz (Solange), Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon is an American soprano and playback singer for featured actresses in movie musicals. She has also spent much of her career performing in concerts with major symphony orchestras around the world and in operas and musicals throughout the United States.-Biography:Born Margaret Nixon...
(Heidi), and Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie is an American musical theater dancer, singer, actress, and choreographer. She is known for her professional and personal relationship with choreographer Michael Bennett, with whom she collaborated on her most noted role, "Cassie" from the musical A Chorus Line, for which she...
(Carlotta). Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
attended one of the performances.
1996 and 1998 concerts
Dublin concertThe Dublin Concert was held in May 1996 at the National Concert Hall. The cast included Lorna Luft
Lorna Luft
Lorna Luft is an American television, stage, and film actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and Sid Luft, and the half-sister of singer and actress Liza Minnelli.-Biography:...
, Millicent Martin
Millicent Martin
Millicent Mary Lillian Martin is an English actress, singer and comedienne.Martin was born in Romford, England. She made her Broadway debut opposite Julie Andrews in The Boy Friend in 1954...
, Mary Millar
Mary Millar
Mary Millar was a British actress best remembered for her role as Rose in BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. She was born Mary Wetton in Doncaster, Yorkshire...
and Enda Markey
Enda Markey
Enda Markey is an Irish-born Sydney, Australia-based stage and television actor. He made his professional stage debut aged eleven in Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin....
.
London concert
A concert was held at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
, London, on December 8, 1996, and broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on February 15, 1997. The cast starred Julia McKenzie
Julia McKenzie
Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple...
(Sally), Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie is an American musical theater dancer, singer, actress, and choreographer. She is known for her professional and personal relationship with choreographer Michael Bennett, with whom she collaborated on her most noted role, "Cassie" from the musical A Chorus Line, for which she...
(Phyllis), Denis Quilley
Denis Quilley
Denis Clifford Quilley OBE was an English theatre, television and film actor who was long associated with the Royal National Theatre....
(Ben) and Ron Moody
Ron Moody
Ron Moody is an English actor.- Personal life :Moody was born in Tottenham, North London, England, the son of Kate and Bernard Moodnick, a studio executive. His father was of Russian Jewish descent and his mother was a Lithuanian Jew. He is a cousin of director Laurence Moody and actress Clare...
(Buddy). This show recreated the original Broadway score.
Sydney concert
Follies was performed in concert at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
in February 1998 as the highlight of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
The Sydney Mardi Gras is an annual LGBTQI pride parade and festival in Sydney, Australia, and draws in thousands of visitors from around Australia and overseas...
and had three performances. It followed a similar presentation at the 1995 Melbourne Festival of Arts. The show starred Toni Lamond
Toni Lamond
Toni Lamond AM is an Australian cabaret singer, stage actor, dancer and comedienne...
(Sally), Jill Perryman
Jill Perryman
Jill Perryman AM MBE is an Australian stage actress and singer, born in Melbourne. Her parents and her sister were all prominent in Australian theatre. At the age of 19, she joined J.C...
, Judi Connelli
Judi Connelli
Judi Connelli AM is an award-winning singer and actress.She is best known for her career in opera and stage musicals...
, Terence Donovan
Terence Donovan (actor)
Terence Donovan , also known as Terry Donovan, is an English-born Australian actor and the father of fellow actor and entertainer Jason Donovan...
, Ron Haddrick
Ron Haddrick
Ronald Norman Haddrick MBE is an Australian theatre, film and voice actor.-Early life:Haddrick was born in Adelaide, Australia, the only son of Olive May and Alexander Norman Haddrick.-Cricket:...
, Todd McKenney
Todd McKenney
Todd McKenney is an Australian entertainer. He is best known as a judge on Australia's version of Dancing with the Stars.He has won many dancing titles, and has trained in jazz, tap, acrobatics and ballroom dancing...
, and Leonie Page.
2001 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival opened at the Belasco TheatreBelasco Theatre
The Belasco Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 111 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan.-History:Designed by architect George Keister for impresario David Belasco, the interior featured Tiffany lighting and ceiling panels, rich woodwork and expansive murals by American artist...
on April 5, 2001 and closed on July 14, 2001 after 117 performances and 32 previews. This Roundabout Theatre limited engagement had been expected to close on September 30, 2001. Directed by Matthew Warchus
Matthew Warchus
-Life:Warchus studied music and drama at Bristol University. He has directed for the National Youth Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Donmar Warehouse, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal National Theatre, Opera North, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera and in the West...
with choreography by Kathleen Marshall
Kathleen Marshall
Kathleen Marshall is an American choreographer, director, and creative consultant.-Life and career:Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Marshall graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School and Smith College. She worked in the Pittsburgh theatre scene when she was younger, performing with such...
, it starred Blythe Danner
Blythe Danner
Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress. She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.-Early life:...
(Phyllis), Judith Ivey
Judith Ivey
Judith Lee Ivey is an American actress and director.-Personal life:Ivey was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Dorothy Lee , a teacher, and Nathan Aldean Ivey, a college instructor and dean. She spent 1965-1968 in Dowagiac, Michigan, where she attended Union High School through tenth grade...
(Sally), Treat Williams
Treat Williams
Richard Treat Williams is a Screen Actors Guild Award–nominated American actor and children's book author who has appeared on film, stage and television...
(Buddy), Gregory Harrison
Gregory Harrison
Gregory Neale Harrison is an American actor. He is probably best known for his role as Chandler in the 1987 cult favorite North Shore and as Trapper John MacIntyre's young surgeon, Dr. George Alonzo 'Gonzo' Gates, on the CBS series Trapper John, M.D....
(Benjamin), Marge Champion
Marge Champion
Marge Champion is an American dancer, choreographer, and pedagogue. In addition, she also worked in film and appeared in a number of television variety shows.-Early years:...
, Polly Bergen
Polly Bergen
Polly Bergen is an American actress, singer, and entrepreneur.-Career:Bergen appeared in many film roles, most notably in the original Cape Fear opposite Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum...
(Carlotta), Joan Roberts (the original Laurey from the original Broadway production of Oklahoma!
Oklahoma!
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
; later replaced by Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon is an American soprano and playback singer for featured actresses in movie musicals. She has also spent much of her career performing in concerts with major symphony orchestras around the world and in operas and musicals throughout the United States.-Biography:Born Margaret Nixon...
), Larry Raiken (Roscoe) and an assortment of famous names from the past. Former MGM and onetime Broadway star Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett
Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedienne, singer and dancer who originally performed on Broadway before being signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
, best-known to younger audiences for her television work, played Hattie. It was significantly stripped down (earlier productions had featured extravagant sets and costumes) and was not a success critically.
According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
, "almost every performance of the show played to a full house, more often than not to standing-room-only. Tickets always were tough to come by. The reason the final curtain came down Saturday was because, being a production by the Roundabout Theatre Company – a subscription-based 'not-for-profit' theater company – it was presented under special Equity terms, with its actors paid a minimal fee. To extend the show, it would have been necessary to negotiate new contracts with the entire company ... because of the Belasco's limited seating, it wasn't deemed financially feasible to do so."
Theatre writer and historian John Kenrick
John Kenrick (theatre writer)
John Kenrick is an American author, teacher and theatre and film historian. Kenrick is an adjunct teacher of musical theatre history at New York University, Brind School – University of the Arts and The New School, and lectures frequently on the subject elsewhere...
wrote, "the bad news is that this Follies is a dramatic and conceptual failure. The good news is that it also features some of the most exciting musical moments Broadway has seen in several seasons. Since you don't get those moments from the production, the book or the leads, that leaves the featured ensemble, and in Follies that amounts to a small army. ... Marge Champion and Donald Saddler are endearing as the old hoofers. ... I dare you not to fall in love with Betty Garrett's understated "Broadway Baby" – you just want to pick her up and hug her. Polly Bergen stops everything cold with "I’m Still Here," bringing a rare degree of introspection to a song that is too often a mere belt-fest.... [T]he emotional highpoint comes when Joan Roberts sings 'One More Kiss'."
2002 London revival
A production was mounted at London's Royal Festival HallRoyal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
in a limited engagement. After previews from August 3, 2002, it opened officially on August 6, and closed on August 31, 2002. Paul Kerryson directed, and the cast starred David Durham as Ben, Kathryn Evans
Kathryn Evans
Kathryn Evans is a British stage actress. She trained at the Royal Ballet School and Arts Educational.She is best known for taking over the lead role of Eva in Evita. She later appeared in many West End Theatre shows including Anything Goes, Aspects of Love, Mack & Mabel and The Fix.Most recently...
as Sally, Louise Gold
Louise Gold
Louise Gold is an English singer, actress and puppeteer whose career has spanned almost four decades.From 1977, Gold was a puppeteer and voice actress for The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, and she has performed voice and puppet work on various other Muppet films and specials...
as Phyllis, Julia Goss
Julia Goss
Julia Goss , is an English singer and actress best known for her performances in the principal soprano roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company...
as Heidi and Henry Goodman
Henry Goodman
Henry Goodman is a British theatre actor. He trained at RADA in London alongside Jonathan Pryce.In 1988, he played George Green's brother-in-law Cyril in London's Burning. He played character roles in episodes of the popular UK police drama The Bill...
as Buddy. Variety singer and performer Joan Savage sang "Broadway Baby". This production featured the original Broadway score.
2002 Los Angeles
Follies was part of L.A.'s Reprise series, and it was housed at the Wadsworth TheatreWadsworth Theatre
The historic Wadsworth Theatre is a live theatre in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, CA on Wilshire Boulevard and San Vicente Boulevard on the grounds of the West Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs complex. The theatre was built in 1939 and underwent an extensive restoration in 2002...
, presented as a staged concert, running from June 15 to June 23, 2002. The production was directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman
Arthur Allan Seidelman
Arthur Allan Seidelman is an award-winning American television, film, and theatre director and an occasional writer, producer and actor.Born in New York City, he received his BA from Whittier College and an MA in Theatre from UCLA. He subsequently studied with Sanford Meisner, who became a...
, set design by Ray Klausen, lighting design by Tom Ruzika, costumes by Randy Gardell, sound design by Philip G. Allen, choreography by Kay Cole, musical director Gerald Sternbach.
The production starred Bob Gunton
Bob Gunton
Robert Patrick "Bob" Gunton, Jr. is an American actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters, with his best known roles as Warden Samuel Norton in the 1994 prison film The Shawshank Redemption, Chief George Earle in 1993's Demolition Man, and President Juan Peron in the original...
(Ben), Warren Berlinger
Warren Berlinger
Warren Berlinger is an American character actor, with both Broadway runs and over a thousand television appearances to his credit.-Personal life:...
(Dimitri Weismann), Patty Duke
Patty Duke
Anna Marie "Patty" Duke is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely...
(Phyllis), Vikki Carr
Vikki Carr
Vikki Carr is an American singer and humanitarian from El Paso, Texas. She has performed in a variety of music genres, including jazz, pop and country, but has enjoyed her greatest success singing in Spanish.-Career:After taking the stage name 'Vikki Carr', she signed with Liberty Records in 1962...
(Sally), Harry Groener
Harry Groener
Harry Groener is a German-born American actor and dancer, perhaps best known for playing Mayor Wilkins in Buffy the Vampire Slayer .-Early life:...
(Buddy), Carole Cook
Carole Cook
Carole Cook is an American actress. She has appeared in many theatrical productions, in films and on television.Born as Mildred Frances Cook, she was a protege of Lucille Ball. Ball gave her the stage name of "Carole", after her friend Carole Lombard because, Ball reportedly told Cook, "you have...
(Hattie), Carol Lawrence (Vanessa), Ken Page (Roscoe), Liz Torres
Liz Torres
Elizabeth "Liz" Torres is an actress, singer, and comedienne of Puerto Rican descent.-Early years:Torres was born in the Bronx borough of New York City where her parents had settled after moving from Puerto Rico. There she received her primary and secondary education...
(Stella), Amanda McBroom
Amanda McBroom
Amanda McBroom is an American singer, songwriter and cabaret performer. One of the songs she has written is "The Rose", which Bette Midler sang in the film of the same name...
(Solange), Grover Dale
Grover Dale
Grover Dale is an American actor, dancer, choreographer and theatre director.-Early years:Dale was born Grover Robert Aitken in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Ronal Rittenhouse Aitken, a restaurateur, and Emma Bertha Ammon...
(Vincent), Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie
Donna McKechnie is an American musical theater dancer, singer, actress, and choreographer. She is known for her professional and personal relationship with choreographer Michael Bennett, with whom she collaborated on her most noted role, "Cassie" from the musical A Chorus Line, for which she...
(Carlotta), Carole Swarbrick (Christine), Stella Stevens
Stella Stevens
Stella Stevens Stella Stevens Stella Stevens (born October 1, 1938 is an American film, television and stage actress, who began her acting career in 1959 and starred in such popular films as The Nutty Professor, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Silencers, The Ballad of Cable Hogue and The...
(Dee Dee), Mary Jo Catlett
Mary Jo Catlett
-Life & career:Catlett was born in Denver, Colorado, the daughter of Cornelia M. and Robert J. Catlett. She is best-known for her role as housekeeper Pearl Gallagher on Diff'rent Strokes....
(Emily), Justine Johnston
Justine Johnston
Justine Johnston was an American film, television and musical theatre actress.-Summary:She was occasionally mistaken for Justine Johnstone, a similarly named silent film actress, with whom she had no connection. Johnston performed throughout the Mid-Pacific during World War II...
(Heidi), Jean Louisa Kelly
Jean Louisa Kelly
Jean Louisa Kelly is an American actress and singer. She is perhaps best known for her long-running role as Kim Warner on the television sitcom Yes, Dear.-Career:...
(Young Sally), Austin Miller
Austin Miller
Austin Miller is an American actor, dancer, and singer, known for television and stage performances. He played the part of Hawk in the soap opera Days of our Lives, performed as the lead in the Hairspray musical in both a national tour and a Las Vegas production, and in 2007 was a second place...
(Young Buddy), Tia Riebling (Young Phyllis), Kevin Earley
Kevin Earley
Kevin Earley is an American stage, film, and television actor.Kevin Earley was trained at the Webster Conservatory in St. Louis, Missouri where he earned his B.F.A...
(Young Ben), Abby Feldman (Young Stella), Barbara Chiofalo (Young Heidi), Trevor Brackney (Young Vincent), Melissa Driscoll (Young Vanessa), Stephen Reed (Kevin),and Billy Barnes (Theodore). Hal Linden
Hal Linden
Hal Linden is an American stage and television actor and television director, best known for his role in the television comedy series Barney Miller and as presenter on the ABC educational series Animals, Animals, Animals....
was originally going to play Ben, but left because he was cast in the Broadway revival of Cabaret
Cabaret (musical)
Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....
as Herr Schultz. Tom Bosley
Tom Bosley
Thomas Edward "Tom" Bosley was an American actor. Bosley is best known for portraying Howard Cunningham on the long-running ABC sitcom Happy Days. He also was featured in recurring roles on Murder, She Wrote, and Father Dowling Mysteries...
was also originally cast as Dimitri Weismann.
2007 New York City Center Encores!
New York City CenterNew York City Center
New York City Center is a 2,750-seat Moorish Revival theater located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is one block south of Carnegie Hall...
's Encores!
Encores!
Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert is a program that has been presented by New York City Center since 1994. Encores! is dedicated to performing the full score of musicals that rarely are heard in New York City...
"Great American Musicals in Concert" series featured Follies as its 40th production for six performances in February 2007 in a sold out semi-staged concert. The cast starred Donna Murphy
Donna Murphy
Donna Murphy is an American stage, film, television actress and singer.Murphy has won two Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical for her roles in Passion as Fosca and in The King and I as Anna Leonowens...
(Phyllis), Victoria Clark
Victoria Clark
Victoria Clark is an American musical theatre singer and actress. Clark has performed in many Broadway musicals and in other theatre, film and television work, and her soprano voice can be heard on numerous cast albums and several animated films...
(Sally), Victor Garber
Victor Garber
Victor Joseph Garber is a Canadian film, stage and television actor and singer. Garber is known for playing Jesus in Godspell, Jack Bristow in the television series Alias, Max in Lend Me a Tenor, and Thomas Andrews in James Cameron's Titanic.-Early life:Born in London, Ontario, Canada, Garber is...
(Ben) and Michael McGrath
Michael McGrath (actor)
Michael McGrath is an American stage actor. He is best known for his role as Patsy in Spamalot, for which he received a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. He has been an ensemble member and understudy for many shows, including My Favorite Year, Swinging on a Star and...
(Buddy). Christine Baranski
Christine Baranski
Christine Jane Baranski is an American stage and screen actress, and is perhaps best known for her Emmy Award winning portrayal as "Maryanne Thorpe" in the sitcom Cybill, and her Emmy nominated portrayal of "Diane Lockhart" in The Good Wife...
played Carlotta, and Lucine Amara
Lucine Amara
Lucine Amara is an American soprano who was largely based at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.-Biography:Amara was born Lucine Armaganian in Hartford, Connecticut, of Armenian heritage, before moving to San Francisco where she was raised.She studied at the San Francisco's Community Music School...
sang Heidi. The cast also included Anne Rogers
Anne Rogers
Anne Rogers is a retired English actress, dancer and singer.-Career:Anne Rogers began her career onstage at the age of 15. She was in the original London production of The Boy Friend, playing the female lead of Polly Browne for nearly four years...
, Jo Anne Worley
Jo Anne Worley
Jo Anne Worley is an American actress. Her work covers television, films, theater, game shows, talk shows, commercials, and cartoons. She is best known for her work on the comedy-variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.-Biography:...
and Philip Bosco
Philip Bosco
-Personal life:Bosco was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Margaret Raymond , a policewoman, and Philip Lupo Bosco, a carnival worker. Bosco went to high school at St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City. He attended the Catholic University of Washington, D.C. Bosco married Nancy...
. The director and choreographer was Casey Nicholaw
Casey Nicholaw
Casey Nicholaw is an American theatre director, choreographer and performer. He has been nominated for Tony Awards for directing and choreographing The Drowsy Chaperone , for choreographing Monty Python's Spamalot , and choreographing The Book of Mormon , as well as winning for his co-direction...
. This production used the original text and the "Loveland" lyrics performed in the 1987 London production.
2011 Kennedy Center and Broadway
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presented a fully staged production at the Eisenhower Theatre, which started previews on May 7, 2011, with an official opening on May 21, and closed on June 19, 2011. The cast starred Bernadette PetersBernadette Peters
Bernadette Peters is an American actress, singer and children's book author from Ozone Park, Queens, New York. Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades, she has starred in musical theatre, films and television, as well as performing in solo concerts and recordings...
as Sally, Jan Maxwell
Jan Maxwell
Jan Maxwell is an American stage and television actress. She is a four-time Tony Award nominee.-Biography:She is the daughter of former First District Judge Ralph B. Maxwell and Elizabeth Maxwell, a lawyer for the EPA. She attended West Fargo High School, West Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead...
as Phyllis, Elaine Paige
Elaine Paige
Elaine Paige OBE is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London, Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16...
as Carlotta, Linda Lavin
Linda Lavin
Linda Lavin is an American singer and actress. She is best known for playing the title character in the sitcom Alice and for her Broadway performances.After acting as a child, Lavin joined the Compass Players in the late 1950s...
as Hattie, Ron Raines
Ron Raines
Ron Raines is an American actor. He is known for the role of Alan Spaulding on the long-running television soap opera Guiding Light. Raines also performs in musical theatre and in concert with symphony orchestras....
as Ben and Danny Burstein
Danny Burstein
Danny Burstein is a versatile American actor who is known for his work in theater, film and television. He won the 2008 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical and was nominated for the 2008 Drama Desk Award and 2008 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical...
as Buddy. The production was directed by Eric Schaeffer
Eric D. Schaeffer
Eric D. Schaeffer is a theater director and producer based in Arlington, Virginia.He is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Signature Theatre., and is well known nationally for his re-invention of large American musicals for small black box venues...
, with choreography by Warren Carlyle
Warren Carlyle
Warren Carlyle is a director and choreographer who was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England. He received Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Choreography and Outstanding Director of a Musical for Finian's Rainbow.-Biography:...
, costumes by Gregg Barnes
Gregg Barnes
Gregg Barnes is an American costume designer for stage and film. Barnes won the Tony Award for Best Costume Design, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design and the Outer Critics Circle Award for his work on the 2006 production of The Drowsy Chaperone.-Career:Barnes grew up in the San...
, set by Derek McLane
Derek McLane
Derek McLane is an American set designer for theatre, opera, and musical theatre). He graduated with a BA from Harvard College and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama....
and lighting by Natasha Katz
Natasha Katz
Natasha Katz is a lighting designer for the theatre, dance, and opera. She was educated at Oberlin College and did an internship with Roger Morgan....
. Also featured were Rosalind Elias
Rosalind Elias
Rosalind Elias is an American mezzo-soprano, a rich-voiced singer of fine musicianship who enjoyed a long and distinguished career at the Metropolitan Opera.-Life and career:...
as Heidi, Régine as Solange, Susan Watson
Susan Watson
Susan Watson is an American actress and singer best known for her roles in musical theatre.Watson's first professional role was Velma in the original West End production of West Side Story in 1958. She created the role of Luisa in The Fantasticks and then played Kim on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie,...
as Emily, and Terri White
Terri White
Terri White is an American singer and actress, raised in Palo Alto, California.-Career:She has appeared in Ain't Misbehavin, Barnum, Welcome to the Club and Bubbling Brown Sugar. White has also performed frequently with Liza Minnelli...
as Stella. The budget was reported to be $7.3 million. The Kennedy Center production played to 95% capacity.
Reviews of the production were mixed, with Ben Brantley of The New York Times writing, "It wasn't until the second act that I fell in love all over again with Follies". Peter Marks of The Washington Post wrote that the revival "takes an audience halfway to paradise." He praised a "broodingly luminous Jan Maxwell" and Burstein's "hapless onetime stage-door Johnny", as well as "the show's final 20 minutes, when we ascend with the main characters into an ironic vaudeville dreamscape of assorted neuroses - the most intoxicating articulation of the musical's 'Loveland' sequence that I've ever seen." Variety gave a very favorable review: "The lavish and entirely satisfying production includes a full orchestra, eye-popping designs and a 40-person cast headed by Bernadette Peters", saying that Schaeffer directs "in methodical fashion, building progressively to a crescendo exactly as Sondheim does with so many of his stirring melodies. Several show-stopping routines are provided by choreographer Warren Carlyle." Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal noted that "One of the signal achievements of this 'Follies' is that it succeeds in untangling each and every strand of the show's knotty plot... Mr. Schaeffer is clearly unafraid of the darkness of 'Follies', so much so that the first act is bitter enough to sting. Yet he and Warren Carlyle, the choreographer, just as clearly revel in the richness of the knowing pastiche songs with which Mr. Sondheim evokes the popular music of the prerock era."
The production transferred to Broadway at the Marquis Theatre
Marquis Theatre
The Marquis Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 1535 Broadway in midtown-Manhattan.Situated on the third floor of the Marriott Marquis Hotel, the 1611-seat venue was designed by developer/architect John C. Portman, Jr...
in a limited engagement starting on August 7, 2011 in previews with the official opening on September 12. The four principal performers reprise their roles, as well as Paige as Carlotta, and the production has an 28-piece orchestra and a 41-person cast. Jayne Houdyshell
Jayne Houdyshell
Jayne Houdyshell is a Tony Award–nominated American theater actress.-Life and career:Raised in Topeka, Kansas, she is the youngest of four daughters born to Galen "Buzz" Houdyshell and Louella Taylor...
as Hattie Walker, Mary Beth Peil
Mary Beth Peil
Mary Beth Peil is an American actress and singer.-Early life:Born in Davenport, Iowa in 1940, Peil trained as an opera singer at Northwestern University under Lotte Lehmann. There she became a member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority...
as Solange LaFitte, and Don Correia as Theodore Whitman, join the Broadway cast. A cast album of this production was recorded by PS Classics
PS Classics
PS Classics is a record label that specializes in musical theatre and standard vocals. Founded in 2000 by Grammy-nominated freelance producer Tommy Krasker and singer/actor Philip Chaffin, their releases have been critically acclaimed for their meticulous sonic detail and high-quality packaging and...
in a two-disc album, and is expected to be released in November 2011.
Brantley reviewed the Broadway revival, and wrote "Somewhere along the road from Washington to Broadway, the Kennedy Center production of 'Follies' picked up a pulse. A vigorous heart now beats at the center of this revitalized revival...I am happy to report that since then, Ms. Peters has connected with her inner frump, Mr. Raines has found the brittle skeleton within his solid flesh, and Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Burstein have only improved. Two new additions to the cast, Jayne Houdyshell
Jayne Houdyshell
Jayne Houdyshell is a Tony Award–nominated American theater actress.-Life and career:Raised in Topeka, Kansas, she is the youngest of four daughters born to Galen "Buzz" Houdyshell and Louella Taylor...
and Mary Beth Peil
Mary Beth Peil
Mary Beth Peil is an American actress and singer.-Early life:Born in Davenport, Iowa in 1940, Peil trained as an opera singer at Northwestern University under Lotte Lehmann. There she became a member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority...
, are terrific. This production has taken on the glint of crystalline sharpness."
Critical response
In the foreword to "Everything Was Possible", Frank RichFrank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
wrote: "From the start, critics have been divided about Follies, passionately pro or con but rarely on the fence... Is it really a great musical, or merely the greatest of all cult musicals?" (Chapin, p. xi) Ted Chapin wrote, "Taken as a whole, the collection of reviews Follies received was as rangy as possible." (Chapin, p. 300) In his New York Times review of the original Broadway production, Clive Barnes
Clive Barnes (critic)
Clive Alexander Barnes, CBE was a British-born American writer and critic. From 1965 to 1977 he was the dance and theater critic for the New York Times, the most powerful position he had held, since its theater critics' reviews historically have had great influence on the success or failure of...
wrote: "...it is stylish, innovative, it has some of the best lyrics I have ever encountered, and above all it is a serious attempt to deal with the musical form." Barnes also called the story shallow and Sondheim's words a joy "...even when his music sends shivers of indifference up your spine."
Walter Kerr
Walter Kerr
For the RN admiral see Lord Walter KerrWalter Francis Kerr was an American writer and Broadway theater critic. He also was the writer, lyricist, and/or director of several Broadway plays and musicals.-Biography:...
wrote in The New York Times about the original production: "Follies is intermissionless and exhausting, an extravaganza that becomes so tedious... because its extravaganzas have nothing to do with its pebble of a plot." On the other hand, Martin Gottfried
Martin Gottfried
-Early career:Gottfried is a 1959 graduate of Columbia College in New York City, and attended Columbia Law School for three semesters, next spending one year with U.S. Army Military Intelligence...
wrote: "'Follies is truly awesome and, if it is not consistently good, it is always great."
Time Magazine wrote about the original Broadway production: "At its worst moments, Follies is mannered and pretentious, overreaching for Significance. At its best moments—and there are many—it is the most imaginative and original new musical that Broadway has seen in years."
Frank Rich, in reviewing the 1985 concert in The New York Times, wrote: "Friday's performance made the case that this Broadway musical... can take its place among our musical theater's very finest achievements." Ben Brantley
Ben Brantley
Benjamin D. "Ben" Brantley is an American journalist and the chief theater critic of The New York Times.-Life and career:...
, reviewing the 1998 Paper Mill Playhouse production in The New York Times, concluded that it was a "...fine, heartfelt production, which confirms Follies as a landmark musical and a work of art..."
The Time Magazine reviewer wrote of the 2001 Broadway revival: "Even in its more modest incarnation, Follies has, no question, the best score on Broadway." He noted, though, that "I'm sorry the cast was reduced from 52 to 38, the orchestra from 26 players to 14...To appreciate the revival, you must buy into James Goldman's book, which is peddling a panoramically bleak take on marriage." Finally, he wrote:"But Follies never makes fun of the honorable musical tradition to which it belongs. The show and the score have a double vision: simultaneously squinting at the messes people make of their lives and wide-eyed at the lingering grace and lift of the music they want to hear. Sondheim's songs aren't parodies or deconstructions; they are evocations that recognize the power of a love song. In 1971 or 2001, Follies validates the legend that a Broadway show can be an event worth dressing up for."
Brantley, reviewing the 2007 Encores! concert for The New York Times, wrote: "I have never felt the splendid sadness of 'Follies' as acutely as I did watching the emotionally transparent concert production...At almost any moment, to look at the faces of any of the principal performers...is to be aware of people both bewitched and wounded by the contemplation of who they used to be. When they sing, in voices layered with ambivalence and anger and longing, it is clear that it is their past selves whom they are serenading."
Recordings
There have been five recordings of Follies released: the original 1971 Broadway cast album; Follies in Concert, Avery Fisher Hall (1985); the original London production (1987); and the Paper Mill Playhouse (1998). The cast recording of the 2011 Broadway revival, by PS ClassicsPS Classics
PS Classics is a record label that specializes in musical theatre and standard vocals. Founded in 2000 by Grammy-nominated freelance producer Tommy Krasker and singer/actor Philip Chaffin, their releases have been critically acclaimed for their meticulous sonic detail and high-quality packaging and...
, is officially released on November 29, 2011, and also was in pre-sale prior to the store release. PS Classics co-founder Tommy Krasker said on November 28: "We've never had the kind of reaction that we've had for 'Follies'. Not only has it already outsold every other album at our website, but the steady stream of emails from customers has been amazing." This recording includes "extended segments of the show's dialogue." The theatremania.com reviewer wrote that "The result is an album that, more so than any of the other existing recordings, allows listeners to re-experience the heartbreaking collision of past and present that's at the core of the piece."
Original Broadway production
| Year | Award ceremony | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Drama Desk Award Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category... |
Outstanding Choreography Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography -1970s:* 1970: Ron Field – Applause** No nominees* 1971: Michael Bennett – Follies and Donald Saddler – No, No, Nanette** No nominees* 1972: Patricia Birch – Grease and Jean Erdman – Two Gentlemen of Verona... |
Michael Bennett Michael Bennett Michael Bennett was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven.... |
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| Outstanding Lyrics Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics is an annual award presented by the Drama Desk, a committee of New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors... |
Stephen Sondheim Stephen Sondheim Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award... |
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| Outstanding Music Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music is an annual award presented by the Drama Desk, a committee comprising New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors... |
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| Outstanding Costume Design Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee of New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors... |
Florence Klotz Florence Klotz Florence Klotz was an American costume designer on Broadway and film.-Biography:Originally named as Kathrina Klotz, she later changed her name to "Florence" and was often nicknamed "Flossie".... |
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| Outstanding Set Design Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee composed of New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors... |
Boris Aronson Boris Aronson Boris Aronson was an American scenic designer for Broadway and Yiddish theatre. He won the Tony Award for Scenic Design six times in his career.-Biography:... |
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| Outstanding Performance Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category... |
Alexis Smith Alexis Smith Alexis Smith was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress. She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972.-Life and career:... |
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| Outstanding Director Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director This is a list of winners of the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director introduced in 1955 to honour directors of plays and directors of musicals. From 1968, multiple awards were presented for each season... |
Harold Prince and Michael Bennett Michael Bennett Michael Bennett was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven.... |
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| New York Drama Critics' Circle New York Drama Critics' Circle The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley... |
Best Musical | |||
| Tony Award Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway... |
Best Musical Tony Award for Best Musical This is a list of winners and nominations for the Tony Award for Best Musical, first awarded in 1949. This award is presented to the producers of the musical.-1940s:* 1949: Kiss Me, Kate – Music and lyrics by Cole Porter, book by Samuel and Bella Spewack... |
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| Best Book of a Musical Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical The Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical is awarded to librettists of the spoken, non-sung dialogue, and storyline of a musical play. Eligibility is restricted to works with original narrative framework; plotless revues and revivals are ineligible... |
James Goldman James Goldman James Goldman was an American screenwriter and playwright, and the brother of screenwriter and novelist William Goldman.He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up primarily in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb... |
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| Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical | Alexis Smith Alexis Smith Alexis Smith was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress. She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972.-Life and career:... |
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| Dorothy Collins Dorothy Collins Dorothy Collins was a Canadian/American singer, actress, and recording artist. She was born Marjorie Chandler in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and adopted her stage name in her mid-teens.-Radio and TV:... |
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| Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical This is a list of the winners and nominations of Tony Award for the Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical. The award has been presented since 1947... |
Gene Nelson Gene Nelson Gene Nelson was an American dancer, actor, screenwriter, and director.-Biography:Born Leander Eugene Berg in Astoria, Oregon, he moved to Seattle when he was one year old. He was inspired to become a dancer by watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films when he was a child... |
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| Best Original Score Tony Award for Best Original Score The Tony Award for Best Original Score is the Tony Award given to the composers and lyricists of the best original score written for a musical in that year. The score consists of music and lyrics... |
Stephen Sondheim Stephen Sondheim Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award... |
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| Best Direction of a Musical Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical This is a list of winners and nominations for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical. Prior to 1960, category for direction included plays and musicals.-1950s:Note: this category was for both dramatic and musical productions... |
Harold Prince and Michael Bennett Michael Bennett Michael Bennett was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven.... |
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| Best Choreography Tony Award for Best Choreography -1940s:* 1947: Agnes de Mille – Brigadoon / Michael Kidd – Finian's Rainbow* 1948: Jerome Robbins – High Button Shoes* 1949: Gower Champion – Lend An Ear-1950s:* 1950: Helen Tamiris – Touch and Go* 1951: Michael Kidd – Guys and Dolls... |
Michael Bennett Michael Bennett Michael Bennett was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven.... |
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| Best Scenic Design | Boris Aronson Boris Aronson Boris Aronson was an American scenic designer for Broadway and Yiddish theatre. He won the Tony Award for Scenic Design six times in his career.-Biography:... |
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| Best Costume Design Tony Award for Best Costume Design These are the winners and nominees for the Tony Award for Best Costume Design. The award was first presented in 1947 and included both plays and musicals... |
Florence Klotz Florence Klotz Florence Klotz was an American costume designer on Broadway and film.-Biography:Originally named as Kathrina Klotz, she later changed her name to "Florence" and was often nicknamed "Flossie".... |
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| Best Lighting Design Tony Award for Best Lighting Design This is a list of the winners of the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a play or musical, first presented in 1970. In 2005 the category was divided with each genre represented separately.-1970s:* 1970: Jo Mielziner – Child's Play... |
Tharon Musser Tharon Musser Tharon Musser was an American lighting designer who worked on more than 150 Broadway productions. She was termed the "Dean of American Lighting Designers" and is considered one of the pioneers in her field.... |
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Original London production
| Year | Award ceremony | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Laurence Olivier Award | Musical of the Year | ||
| Actress of the Year in a Musical | Julia McKenzie Julia McKenzie Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple... |
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2001 Broadway revival
| Year | Award ceremony | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Drama Desk Award Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category... |
Outstanding Revival of a Musical Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical was first awarded at the 1994 Drama Desk Awards.-1990s:* 1994: She Loves Me** Carousel** Damn Yankees** My Fair Lady* 1996: The King and I** I Do! I Do!... |
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| Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical was first awarded in the 1974-1975 Drama Desk Awards and has subsequently been awarded every year. In the 1993-1994 Drama Desk Awards the award was given under the name of Outstanding Supporting Actress - Musical... |
Polly Bergen Polly Bergen Polly Bergen is an American actress, singer, and entrepreneur.-Career:Bergen appeared in many film roles, most notably in the original Cape Fear opposite Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum... |
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| Outstanding Orchestrations Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee of New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors... |
Jonathan Tunick Jonathan Tunick Jonathan Tunick is an American orchestrator, musical director, and composer, one of twelve people to have won all four major American show business awards: the Tony, Oscar, Emmy and Grammy. He has also worked with all of the other eleven people. His principal instrument is the clarinet... |
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| Tony Award Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway... |
Best Revival of a Musical Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical The Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical has been awarded since 1994. Before that time, both plays and musicals were considered together for the Tony Award for Best Revival.... |
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| Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical | Blythe Danner Blythe Danner Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress. She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.-Early life:... |
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| Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical This is a list of the winners and nominations of the Tony Award for the Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical. The award, introduced in 1950, was previously named as Best Performance by a Featured or Supporting Actress in a Musical until 1976.... |
Polly Bergen Polly Bergen Polly Bergen is an American actress, singer, and entrepreneur.-Career:Bergen appeared in many film roles, most notably in the original Cape Fear opposite Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum... |
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| Best Costume Design Tony Award for Best Costume Design These are the winners and nominees for the Tony Award for Best Costume Design. The award was first presented in 1947 and included both plays and musicals... |
Theoni V. Aldredge Theoni V. Aldredge Theoni V. Aldredge was a Greek-American stage and screen costume designer.Born Theoni Athanasiou Vachlioti in Thessaloniki in 1922, Aldredge received her training at the American School in Athens. She emigrated to the United States in 1949 and attended the Goodman Theatre at DePaul University,... |
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| Best Orchestrations Tony Award for Best Orchestrations -1990s:1997*Jonathan Tunick – Titanic**Michael Gibson - Steel Pier**Luther Henderson - Play On!**Don Sebesky and Harold Wheeler - The Life1998*William David Brohn – Ragtime**Robert Elhai, David Metzger and Bruce Fowler - The Lion King... |
Jonathan Tunick Jonathan Tunick Jonathan Tunick is an American orchestrator, musical director, and composer, one of twelve people to have won all four major American show business awards: the Tony, Oscar, Emmy and Grammy. He has also worked with all of the other eleven people. His principal instrument is the clarinet... |
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Further reading
- Prince, Harold (1974). Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-six Years in the Theatre. Dodd, Mead. ISBN 978-0-396-07019-1
- Ilson, Carol (2004). Harold Prince: A Director's Journey, Limelight Editions. ISBN 978-0-87910-296-8
- Mandelbaum, Ken (1990). A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett. St. Martins Press. ISBN 978-0-312-04280-6