Paul Sills' Story Theatre is a play with music, adapted from fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

s collected by the Brothers Grimm

Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...

.

It opened 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...

 at the Ambassador Theatre

Ambassador Theatre (New York)

The Ambassador Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 219 West 49th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.Designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp for the Shuberts, the structure is unusual in that it is situated diagonally on its site to fit the maximum number of...

 on October 26, 1970 and closed on July 3, 1971, after 243 performances and 14 previews. Directed by Paul Sills

Paul Sills

Paul Sills was a director and improvisation teacher, and the original director of Chicago's The Second City.-Biography:...

, it featured Paul Sand

Paul Sand

Paul Sand is an American comedic actor.-Background:Sand was born Paul Sanchez in Santa Monica, California, the son of Sonia Borodiansky, a writer, and Ernest Rivera Sanchez, an aerospace tool designer. His father was Mexican and his mother of Russian descent.-Career:At the age of 11, he started at...

, Valerie Harper

Valerie Harper

Valerie Harper is an American actress, known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on the 1970s television show The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and for her starring roles on the sitcoms Rhoda and Valerie.-Early life and career:Harper was born at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, Rockland County,...

, Richard Schaal

Richard Schaal

Richard Schaal is an American television actor.He was married to actress Valerie Harper from 1964 to 1978. His daughter is actress Wendy Schaal by his first marriage to Lois née Treacy....

, Peter Bonerz

Peter Bonerz

Peter Bonerz is an American actor and director who is best known as the character Dr. Jerry Robinson on The Bob Newhart Show....

, Melinda Dillon

Melinda Dillon

Melinda Rose Dillon is an American actress, perhaps best known for her roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the holiday classic A Christmas Story.-Early life and career:...

, Richard Libertini

Richard Libertini

Richard Libertini is an American stage, film and television actor known for playing numerous character roles and his ability to speak in numerous accents....

 and Hamilton Camp

Hamilton Camp

Hamilton Camp was an English-American singer, songwriter, actor and voice actor.-Early life:Camp was born in London, England, and was evacuated during World War II to the United States as a child with his mother and sister. He became a child actor in films and onstage...

. 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...

 joined the cast as a replacement.

Sills adapted techniques from his mother’s (Viola Spolin

Viola Spolin

Viola Spolin was an important innovator of the American theater in the 20th century. She created directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life...

) books and teachings, which evolved into The Second City

The Second City

The Second City is a improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...

 and eventually into Story Theatre. Transformation, mime, and dance are the basis of the "Story Theatre" method. Story Theatre improvises plays from stories, myths, folk tales, and legends.

The Story Theatre on Broadway was composed of 8 actors with a rock-folk band, "The True Brethren", enacting fairy tale stories. The stories included "The Bremen Town Musicians

Town Musicians of Bremen

The Town Musicians of Bremen is a folktale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Despite the title of the fairy tale, the characters never actually arrive in Bremen...

," "The Little Peasant

The Little Peasant

The Little Peasant is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales, number 61.It is Aarne-Thompson type 1535, The Rich Peasant and the Poor Peasant, and includes an episode of type 1737, Trading Places with the Trickster in a Sack...

," "The Robber Bridegroom

The Robber Bridegroom

For other uses, see The Robber Bridegroom The Robber Bridegroom is a 1942 novella by Eudora Welty.The story, inspired by and loosely based on the Grimm fairy tale The Robber Bridegroom, is a Southern folk tale set in Mississippi. At the opening of the novella, the legendary Mike Fink meets...

," "The Master Thief," "The Fisherman and His Wife

The Fisherman and His Wife

The Fisherman and His Wife is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale no. 19. It is Aarne-Thompson type 555, the fisherman and his wife. Its theme was used in The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, a 1835 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin. Mrs Ramsey reads the story to James, her son in...

," "Two Crows," "The Golden Goose," "Henny Penny

Henny Penny

Henny Penny, also known as Chicken Licken or Chicken Little, is a fable in the form of a cumulative tale about a chicken who believes the world is coming to an end...

," and "Venus and the Cat". Each cast member portrayed the various characters in each story; for example, Paul Sand was the Robber Bridegroom, Turkey Lurkey, Cowherd and Rich Peasant, and the Simpleton.

Musical numbers featured "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" and "Dear Landlord" by Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, "Here Comes The Sun" by George Harrison

George Harrison

George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

. Additional music was by "The True Brethren" (Camp, Falicoff, Grinage, Pickford).

Awards and nominations

• 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 Play (Produced by Zev Bufman) (nominee)
• Best Featured Actor in a Play--Paul Sand (winner)
• Best Lighting Design--H. R. Poindexter (winner)

• 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 Performance--Paul Sand (winner)
• Outstanding Director--Adapted and Directed by Paul Sills (winner)

External links

• Paul Sills' Story Theatre at the ibdb
• Paul Sills Reflects on Story Theatre, Interview by Laurie Ann Gruhn