Have There Been Many Two-Person Broadway Musicals Before GUTENBERG?

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This time, the reader question was: Have there been many Broadway musicals starring only two actors, before Gutenberg! The Musical!?

Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad are currently starring in the comedic tour de force, Gutenberg! The Musical! at the James Earl Jones Theatre. The production is a special kind of reunion, since Rannells and Gad previously took Broadway by storm with their uproarious camaraderie in the original cast of the 2011 smash hit, The Book of Mormon.

But while The Book of Mormon found Rannells and Gad surrounded by actors playing fellow young mormons, citizens of Uganda, and more, Gutenberg! finds the duo alone on stage, portraying impassioned yet naive musical theatre writers of a new show about Johannes Gutenberg, innovator of the printing press. (This show may not adhere to history very accurately… but you have to see it to believe it!) Gutenberg! was originally seen off-broadway in 2006, after a 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival run.

While Rannells and Gad are not the first to star in a two-person musical on Broadway, it is definitely a rare occurrence. Two-person musicals are far more common off-Broadway, where shows like The Last 5 Years, John & Jen, Murder for Two, Daddy Long Legs, Marry Me A Little, and many more have premiered.

The most well-known two person musical to play Broadway is likely I Do! I Do! In 1966, beloved musical theatre stars Mary Martin and Robert Preston took the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers) by storm as a married couple over the course of several decades of life. Martin and Preston stuck with the Gower Champion-helmed show through all 560 performances on Broadway. (Carol Lawrence and Gordon MacRae eventually took over as alternates, playing matinees.)

I Do! I Do! has a score by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, and was the team’s longest running show on Broadway. Of course, it wasn’t their longest running show overall—that would be The Fantasticks! which played off-Broadway. I Do! I Do!, based on the play The Fourposter, had modest production values and was definitely an outlier in a mid-1960s Broadway scene dominated by the likes of large cast shows including Funny Girl, Fiddler on the Roof, and Hello, Dolly!

An interesting but less well-known two-person musical to play Broadway was Billy Bishop Goes To War. Technically billed as a “play with music”, Billy Bishop, which premiered on Broadway in 1980, features more than 15 songs. The Canadian musical about a World War I fighter pilot had a short run at the Morosco, but is one of the most frequently produced shows in Canada. (Among its regional productions in America was a 1991 American Stage Company production starring Jonathan Larson and Roger Bart.) 

A more recent musical with a two-person cast was The Story of My Life, which played the Booth Theatre in 2009, starring Will Chase and Malcolm Gets. Like I Do! I Do!, The Story of My Life followed two characters over the course of several decades. Chase and Gets portrayed childhood best friends Thomas and Alvin who grow together and apart, framed by Thomas trying to deliver Alvin’s eulogy after he passes. The emotional musical by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill closed after 19 previews and 5 performances but has a rich life in licensing and school productions.

Two other recent entires on Broadway don’t quite fit into the “two-person musical” box in the same way, but might be counted. They are Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill. Hedwig originally premiered off-Broadway in 1998, and made an acclaimed Broadway bow in 2014 starring Neil Patrick Harris in the title role. While the show is sometimes said to have two roles, Hedwig and Yitzhak, the four members of the on-stage band are all also technically characters as well. (In Gutenberg!, the band also has distinct characters.) Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill is often classified as a play rather than a musical, and in fact this was the case in 2014, when the show received a Broadway production starring Audra McDonald. Featuring two actors, Lady Day, which explores the life of Billie Holiday, might be considered a play with music because of its format, although it does contain over 10 songs.

In a decent amount of two hander musicals, the two actors on stage portray a variety of roles. Gutenberg! presents a unique version of this. Rannells and Gad mainly portray musical theatre writers Bud and Doug, but they do transform into other characters—however, these characters are within the musical that Bud and Doug are writing. So, the audience at the James Earl Jones Theatre always knows that they are watching Bud and Doug’s performances in the other roles—not watching Rannells and Gad in actual portrayals.

While not book musicals in the world of Gutenberg! or I Do! I Do!, several two-person musical revues have played Broadway. One of the most beloved was A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Comden and Green were the longest running musical theatre writing team in history. In addition to penning shows including On The Town, Wonderful Town, Peter Pan, Hallelujah, Baby!, Applause, On The Twentieth Century, Singin’ in the Rain, and The Will Rogers Follies, Comden and Green were also cabaret performers and personalities themselves. The two started out performing their own material and continued to do so intermittently throughout their long careers. In 1958, the beloved duo made first an off-Broadway house, and then Broadway’s Golden Theatre, feel like a living room party, when they brought A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green to the stage. Performing material from their stage shows, movies, and cabarets, Comden and Green received massive acclaim including the Obie Award for Best Musical. The duo show returned to Broadway in 1977, updated to include material the team had written in the two decades since the original premiered.

Other two-person musical revues include At The Drop of Another Hat, Good Evening, and A Kurt Weill Cabaret. At The Drop of Another Hat was a 1966 sequel to the 1959 show, At The Drop of a Hat. Both shows were comedic revues consisting of original songs by the popular British duo of Donald Swann and Michael Flanders as well as amusing monologues. Technically the earlier show featured three actors, as it had Luba Langdon portraying “The girl with the hat”, when it played Broadway. At The Drop of Another Hat starred only Flanders and Swann, and played the Booth Theatre in 1966. Flanders was a wheelchair user, and Swann almost always remained seated at the piano. They also traveled the world with their beloved revues, which have been released as audio recordings.

Good Evening was a 1973 Broadway smash billed as a “comedy with music” that was written by and starred Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. The show received a Special Tony Award in 1974.

Like Gutenberg!, Hedwig, Lady Day, and A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green, A Kurt Weill Cabaret began its life off-Broadway before opening on the Great White Way. And also like with the majority of these shows, a significant amount of time passed in between the show’s off-Broadway and Broadway debuts. A Kurt Weill Cabaret started its life in 1963 at One Sheridan Square. The revue, featuring the work of the composer of shows including The Threepenny Opera, Lady in the Dark, and Happy End, opened on Broadway in 1979. In a unique scenario, A Kurt Weill Cabaret played Broadway’s now-demolished Bijou Theatre at the same time as the long-running Mummenschanz, alternating performance times. The revue’s two performers on Broadway were Martha Schlamme (who had originated her role off-Broadway 16 years earlier) and Alvin Epstein, who would star in 3 Penny Opera on Broadway a decade later.

A two-person musical is an impressive feat for the actors involved. It is thrilling to see what can be accomplished in a two hander on Broadway!