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Woman of the Year (musical)
Encyclopedia
Woman of the Year is a musical
with a book by Peter Stone
and score by John Kander
and Fred Ebb
.
Based on the Ring Lardner Jr.
-Michael Kanin
screenplay
for the 1942 Katharine Hepburn
-Spencer Tracy
film of the same name
, the musical changes the newspaper reporters of the original to television personality Tess Harding and cartoonist
Sam Craig, who experience difficulty merging their careers with their marriage. The musical ran on Broadway
in 1981 and starred Lauren Bacall
.
, the cast included Lauren Bacall, Harry Guardino
, Marilyn Cooper
, Grace Keagy
, and Roderick Cook
. Raquel Welch
filled in for Bacall during her two-week vacation and later replaced her in the run.Debbie Reynolds
replaced Welch in February 1983. Barbara Eden
played Tess in the 1984 national tour.
Sets were designed by Tony Walton
and costumes were by Theoni V. Aldredge
, and choreography was by Tony Charmoli
. John Canemaker
created an animated
cat that danced and sang with Guardino.
An Argentinian production premiered in 1983 and ran there for three consecutive years, followed by a revival in 1988, both productions with Susana Giménez
playing the lead role. The musical is one of the most successful in Argentinian history.
that she gave denigrating newspaper comic strip
s. The article offended the cartoon
ists who frequent the Ink Pot saloon and inspired syndicated cartoonist Sam Craig to publish a caricature
depicting her as a snob in his strip Katz. Tess is annoyed, but when the handsome and charming Sam shows up at her office, she apologizes and invites him to dinner. At the Ink Pot, she charms Sam and his colleagues by revealing her knowledge about comic art.
Tess and Sam begin a romance, move in together, and finally marry, but their busy careers leave little time for them to spend together, and their big egos pose problems in their marriage. In one of his comics, Katz quips that marriage is a breeze - it's the living together that's so damned hard. Tess is offended, an argument ensues, and Sam announces he no longer can deal with the couple's fraying love life. The time moves forward to the present, and it's time for Tess to accept her award, just as she has lost the man she loves.
Several weeks later, Tess is conflicted about her role as a powerful newswoman versus her role as a wife. She seeks advice from Russian ballet
dancer Alexi Petrikov, whom she helped to defect. He tells her that he is returning to Russia, because the wife he left behind is more important than his career. Tess travels to visit first husband Larry Donovan and his wife Jan to discover why their marriage is a success. She decides to concentrate on her marriage and announces that she is resigning from her show. But Sam tells her that he wants wants her to keep her career; he just wants to be involved in the decisions in their relationship. They decide to work things out.
Act II
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
with a book by Peter Stone
Peter Stone
Peter Hess Stone was an American writer for theater, television and movies.-Life and career:Stone was born in Los Angeles. His mother, Hilda , was a film writer, and his father, John Stone was the writer and producer of many silent films, including Shirley Temple and Charlie Chan movies...
and score by John Kander
John Kander
John Harold Kander is the American composer of a number of musicals as part of the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb.-Life and career:Kander was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Bernice and Harold S. Kander...
and Fred Ebb
Fred Ebb
Fred Ebb was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera....
.
Based on the Ring Lardner Jr.
Ring Lardner Jr.
Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner, Jr. was an American journalist and screenwriter blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...
-Michael Kanin
Michael Kanin
Michael Kanin was an American director, producer, playwright and screenwriter who shared an Academy Award with Ring Lardner Jr. in 1942 for writing the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy film comedy Woman of the Year....
screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
for the 1942 Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
-Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
film of the same name
Woman of the Year
Woman of the Year is a romantic comedy film. The movie is about an emancipated woman, chosen "Woman of the Year", and her colleague-turned-husband and their efforts to negotiate a path to marital bliss....
, the musical changes the newspaper reporters of the original to television personality Tess Harding and cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Sam Craig, who experience difficulty merging their careers with their marriage. The musical ran 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...
in 1981 and starred Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
.
Productions
The Broadway production opened on March 29, 1981 at the Palace Theatre, where it ran for 770 performances and eleven previews. Directed by Robert MooreRobert Moore (director)
Robert Moore was an American stage, film and television director.-Biography:Born in Detroit, Michigan, Moore is best known for his direction of the ground-breaking play The Boys in the Band, his Broadway productions , and his collaborations - three plays and three films - with Neil Simon,...
, the cast included Lauren Bacall, Harry Guardino
Harry Guardino
Harry Guardino was an American actor whose career spanned from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. In 1964, he was cast in a short-lived CBS series entitled The Reporter, a drama about a hard-hitting investigative journalist named Danny Taylor. His principal co-star was Gary Merrill as city...
, Marilyn Cooper
Marilyn Cooper
Marilyn Cooper was an American actress, known primarily for her work on the Broadway stage.-Biography:Born in New York City, Cooper made her Broadway debut in 1956 in the chorus of Mr. Wonderful...
, Grace Keagy
Grace Keagy
Grace Keagy was an American actress, best-known for her work on the stage in character roles. She is best known for her Drama Desk Award nominated performance as "Rosa" in the original 1979 production of Joseph Stein and Alan Jay Lerner's Carmelina.-Career:Keagy was born in Youngstown, Ohio and...
, and Roderick Cook
Roderick Cook
Roderick Cook was an English playwright, writer, theatre director and actor of stage, television and film...
. Raquel Welch
Raquel Welch
Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be...
filled in for Bacall during her two-week vacation and later replaced her in the run.Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
replaced Welch in February 1983. Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for her starring role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early years:...
played Tess in the 1984 national tour.
Sets were designed by Tony Walton
Tony Walton
Tony Walton is an English set and costume designer.Walton was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, United Kingdom. He began his career in 1957 with the stage design for Noel Coward's Broadway production of Conversation Piece. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s he designed for the New...
and costumes were by 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,...
, and choreography was by Tony Charmoli
Tony Charmoli
Tony Charmoli , an American dancer, choreographer, and director, began dancing on Broadway in such shows as "Make Mine Manhattan" but soon began choreographing for television with "Stop the Music" in 1949. Charmoli then choreographed dance sequences for the popular "Your Hit Parade," winning his...
. John Canemaker
John Canemaker
John Cannizzaro Jr. , better known as John Canemaker, is an independent animator, animation historian, author, teacher and lecturer. In 1980, he began teaching and developing the animation program at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts', Kanbar Institute of Film and Television Department...
created an animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
cat that danced and sang with Guardino.
An Argentinian production premiered in 1983 and ran there for three consecutive years, followed by a revival in 1988, both productions with Susana Giménez
Susana Giménez
Susana Giménez, née María Susana Giménez Aubert is an Argentine actress, ex-vedette and television host....
playing the lead role. The musical is one of the most successful in Argentinian history.
Synopsis
Just before Tess Harding, a nationally-known television news personality, comes on stage to receive an award as "Woman of the Year", she reminisces about an on-air editorialEditorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...
that she gave denigrating newspaper comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
s. The article offended the cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
ists who frequent the Ink Pot saloon and inspired syndicated cartoonist Sam Craig to publish a caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
depicting her as a snob in his strip Katz. Tess is annoyed, but when the handsome and charming Sam shows up at her office, she apologizes and invites him to dinner. At the Ink Pot, she charms Sam and his colleagues by revealing her knowledge about comic art.
Tess and Sam begin a romance, move in together, and finally marry, but their busy careers leave little time for them to spend together, and their big egos pose problems in their marriage. In one of his comics, Katz quips that marriage is a breeze - it's the living together that's so damned hard. Tess is offended, an argument ensues, and Sam announces he no longer can deal with the couple's fraying love life. The time moves forward to the present, and it's time for Tess to accept her award, just as she has lost the man she loves.
Several weeks later, Tess is conflicted about her role as a powerful newswoman versus her role as a wife. She seeks advice from Russian ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
dancer Alexi Petrikov, whom she helped to defect. He tells her that he is returning to Russia, because the wife he left behind is more important than his career. Tess travels to visit first husband Larry Donovan and his wife Jan to discover why their marriage is a success. She decides to concentrate on her marriage and announces that she is resigning from her show. But Sam tells her that he wants wants her to keep her career; he just wants to be involved in the decisions in their relationship. They decide to work things out.
Songs
Act I- Woman of the Year
- The Poker Game
- See You in the Funny Papers
- When You're Right, You're Right!
- Shut Up, Gerald
- So What Else Is New?
- One of the Boys
- Table Talk
- The Two of Us
- It Isn't Working
- I Told You So
- Woman of the Year
Act II
- So What Else Is New? (Reprise)
- I Wrote the Book
- Happy in the Morning
- Sometimes a Day Goes By
- The Grass Is Always Greener
- We're Gonna Work It Out
Original Broadway cast
- Tess Harding, a famous TV news personality - Lauren BacallLauren BacallLauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
- Sam Craig, a handsome cartoonist - Harry GuardinoHarry GuardinoHarry Guardino was an American actor whose career spanned from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. In 1964, he was cast in a short-lived CBS series entitled The Reporter, a drama about a hard-hitting investigative journalist named Danny Taylor. His principal co-star was Gary Merrill as city...
- Alexi Petrikov, a Russian ballet dancer - Eivind Harum
- Gerald, Tess's secretary - Roderick CookRoderick CookRoderick Cook was an English playwright, writer, theatre director and actor of stage, television and film...
- Helga, Tess's maid - Grace KeagyGrace KeagyGrace Keagy was an American actress, best-known for her work on the stage in character roles. She is best known for her Drama Desk Award nominated performance as "Rosa" in the original 1979 production of Joseph Stein and Alan Jay Lerner's Carmelina.-Career:Keagy was born in Youngstown, Ohio and...
- Larry Donovan, Tess's first husband - Jamie RossJamie RossJamie Ross is a fictional character on the TV drama Law & Order, created by Rene Balcer and portrayed by Carey Lowell from 1996 to 1998. She also appears in the short-lived Law & Order spin-off Law & Order: Trial By Jury, by which time the character has become a judge.-As series regular:The...
- Jan Donovan, a housewife, Larry's second wife - Marilyn CooperMarilyn CooperMarilyn Cooper was an American actress, known primarily for her work on the Broadway stage.-Biography:Born in New York City, Cooper made her Broadway debut in 1956 in the chorus of Mr. Wonderful...
- Chip Salisbury, a perky newsman - Daren Kelly
- Abbott Canfield, a cartoonist - Larry Raiken
- Maury - Rex EverhartRex EverhartRex Everhart was an American film and musical theatre actor.Everhart appeared in such films as 1978's Superman...
- Ellis McMaster - Rex Hays
- Pinky Peters - Gerry Vichi
Awards and nominations
- Tony AwardTony AwardThe 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...
for Best Musical (nominee) - Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical (winner)
- Tony Award for Best Original Score (winner)
- Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical (Bacall, winner)
- Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Cooper, winner)
- Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (nominee)
- Drama Desk AwardDrama Desk AwardThe 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...
for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical (Cooper, winner)