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About the play –
This comic musical murder mystery opened in 2007 at Broadway’s Hirshfield theatre after a world premiere opening at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. The initial work on the play was the product of Peter Stone, who died in 2003 leaving the play unfinished. Rupert Holmes picked up the pen and rewrote the book, but then Fred Ebb died before all elements of the musical were complete. Despite these setbacks, the producer transferred the musical to Broadway following its LA premiere where it received 8 Tony Award nominations including a win for its star, David Hyde Pierce.
In this final work by Kander and Ebb, the story begins in 1959 backstage at Boston’s Colonial Theatre. A new musical (Robbin’ Hood of the Old West) with Broadway aspirations is struggling due to a talent-less leading lady. When this luckless star dies during her opening night curtain call, Lieutenant Frank Cioffi arrives to conduct an investigation. The detective is soon caught up in both romance and production; he’s as interested in a hit show as a solution to the murder. He is, as the show’s producer Carmen Bernstein observes, “truly one of those Show People who understand why the show must go on.”
About the production –
For Director Roger DeLaurier, the joy of this production stems from the opportunity to work with the last classy show from a “classic musical theatre era.” In the score, Kander and Ebb offer audiences their mastery of this form with “some truly charming and top notch ballads.” This work is a clever whodunit composed of wit and intelligence and born of experienced craftsmanship.
Since this play blends both the on and off stage worlds, DeLaurier delights in how an audience can explore the opportunities to see “behind the wings” and into the life of a company. And he and his design team have paid particular attention to the distinctions of those worlds. He also sees this work as an especial celebration of the great talents of our resident acting company and the opportunity to showcase some popular guest artists.
About the authors –
John Kander (composer) was born March 18, 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri. For over five decades he teamed with lyricist Fred Ebb (April 8, 1933 - September 11, 2004) to form the longest-running music-and-lyrics partnership in Broadway musical history. They have been described as the Rodgers and Hart/Hammerstein of the second half of the twentieth century. Together they have created dozens of works including Cabaret, Chicago, and Kiss of the Spider Woman. Washington Post critic David Richards observed that "Kander and Ebb combine razzmatazz with a political conscience, and make brazen spirits seem a kind of moral courage." They won Oscars, Tonys and Emmys for their various collaborations and their scores offer clever, gutsy music with penetrating lyrics on politically charged and challenging topics. And they've written for musical performers such as Lauren Bacall, Joel Grey, Gwen Verdon, Frank Sinatra, Robert Goulet, Chita Rivera, and Barbra Streisand. In 1998, they received Kennedy Center Honors for their canon.
John Kander began his career in 1956 as the pianist for The Amazing Adele during its pre-Broadway run and soon found himself doing dance arrangements for Gypsy and Irma la Douce. His Broadway debut as composer came in 1962 with the flop A Family Affair. But on that production, he met the young director Harold (Hal) Prince and later that year the talented Fred Ebb who had been writing for the satirical television show, That Was the Week That Was. "We came to each other fresh from our failures," Ebb recalled. "Our neuroses complemented each other. It was a case of instant communication and instant songs."
Their score for the unproduced Golden Gate intrigued Prince and he hired them for Flora, The Red Menace, a satire on 1930s radicals and Greenwich Village bohemianism. Their next collaboration with Prince (1966) was Cabaret, a major critical and box office success with a Broadway run of 1,166 performances and the year’s Tony Award for Best Musical. Kander and Ebb's writing for films includes the title song for New York, New York, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Minnelli and Robert De Niro; it became their biggest hit since Cabaret, replacing Leonard Bernstein's song with the same title as the unofficial theme song for New York City. Harold Prince sums up the talent of Kander and Ebb nicely: "They write Broadway -- in the best sense."
Rupert Holmes (born February 24, 1947) is an American British author of plays, novels and stories best known for his number one pop hit “The Piña Colada Song", his Tony Award winning musical Drood (originally The Mystery of Edwin Drood) and his reworking of the late Peter Stone’s book for Curtains. |
