On The Town (musical) - Productions

Productions

Broadway

On the Town premiered on Broadway at the Adelphi Theater on December 28, 1944, directed by George Abbott and with choreography by Jerome Robbins. It closed on February 2, 1946, after 462 performances. The production starred John Battles (Gabey), Cris Alexander (Chip), Nancy Walker (Hildy), Sono Osato (Ivy), Betty Comden (Claire), and Adolph Green (Ozzie). The musical director was Max Goberman.

The first Broadway revival opened at the Imperial Theatre on October 31, 1971, and closed on Jan 1, 1972 after 73 performances. Donna McKechnie, Phyllis Newman, and Bernadette Peters co-starred as Ivy, Claire, and Hildy. The director and choreographer was Ron Field. Peters received a nomination for the 1972 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. In his review for The New York Times, Clive Barnes wrote that "the book and lyrics...have ease and a decent few laughs...The music...has worn less well, too many of the nostalgic ballads sound like sub-Pucini filtered through Glenn Miller...Mr. Field has staged the musical numbers with zest and imagination, but, with respect, he is no great shakes as a choreographer...Where Mr. Field is most successful is in the performances of his six principals, and the women are markedly better than the men. Best of all is Bernadette Peters as the Bronxly nasal taxi driver...Phyllis Newman as Claire also danced and sang with just the right style and gusto. Donna McKechnie made a sweet and talented Ivy Smith."

The second Broadway revival opened on November 19, 1998, and ran for 69 performances. This began as a summer production of the Public Theater; the show made use of its venue, Central Park's Delacorte Theater in beguiling ways that led critics to disparage the subsequent theater-bound Broadway edition as lifeless and bland by comparison. Lea Delaria's performance as Hildy the taxi driver (and especially her all-stops-out rendition of "I Can Cook, Too") won wide praise, with Ben Brantley writing "Working through the saucy double-entendres and scat embellishments of I Can Cook Too, Hildy's mating call of a solo, Ms. DeLaria makes an obliging captive of anyone watching her." That was not, however, on its own enough to extend the show's brief run. Mary Testa was nominated for the 1999 Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical; Lea Delaria was nominated for the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical and won the Theatre World Award.

Although both of the show's Broadway revivals had their admirers, neither was commercially successful.

Other US

An Encores! staged concert was presented at New York City Center from November 19, 2008 through November 23, 2008, as part of a citywide celebration of Leonard Bernstein's 90th birthday. John Rando was the director, Warren Carlyle the choreographer, with a cast that featured Justin Bohon (Chip), Christian Borle (Ozzie), Tony Yazbeck (Gabey), Jessica Lee Goldyn (Ivy), Leslie Kritzer (Hildy Esterhazy), Jennifer Laura Thompson (Claire DeLoone), and Andrea Martin (Madame P. Dilly).

In reviewing this production, Charles Isherwood wrote: "The production is rich in dance ... and winning performances (particularly from Tony Yazbeck as the lovelorn sailor Gabey, and a scenery-devouring Andrea Martin as a nutso-dipso voice teacher), but it's richest of all in music. There are several ballet sequences, instant reprises, jazzy pop songs, classical spoofs and soaring ballads."

London

The first London production of On the Town opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on May 30, 1963, but ran for only 63 performances. It was directed and choreographed by Joe Layton and starred Elliott Gould and Don McKay. The main female roles were taken by two Americans, Carol Arthur and Andrea Jaffe, and an English actress, Gillian Lewis. It was not a propitious time for new musicals in London, given dramatic developments that year in British popular music. A month earlier, Bock and Harnick's She Loves Me had opened on Broadway and ran for some 300 performances, but flopped when it came to London in 1964, not least because people thought the title had something to do with the Beatles.

In 1992, Michael Tilson Thomas led the London Symphony Orchestra and an all-star, crossover cast of opera and theater performers in a semi-staged concert version produced by Deutsche Grammophon and recorded for both CD and video release. Participants included Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson, Tyne Daly, Cleo Laine, David Garrison, Samuel Ramey, and, as both narrators and performers, Comden and Green themselves. The resulting recordings included material cut at various stages of the musical's development. Thomas revived this concert edition of the work in 1996 with the San Francisco Symphony, with many of the same performers.

On The Town is now part of English National Opera's repertoire, most recently running April 20–May 25, 2007, at the London Coliseum, with Caroline O'Connor as Hildy.Choreographer Stephen Mear