Musical Theatre Guild Annoiunces 2014-2015 Season
By: Courtnie Mele Jun. 15, 2014
Musical Theatre Guild, the winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in the theatre, has announced an exciting quintet of shows to celebrate its nineteenth season of Broadway in Concert musicals. The MTG 2014-2015 season includes: SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, TRIUMPH OF LOVE, THE GOLDEN APPLE, GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and ROAD SHOW.
Music by Marvin Hamlisch, Lyrics by Craig Carnelia, Book by John Guare
Based on the screenplay and the novella by Ernest Lehman; Based on the screenplay by Clifford Odets; Based on the MGM/UA film "Got to get in the column!" With a jazzy, driving score by the late Marvin Hamlisch, Sweet Smell of Success is based on the 1957 movie starring Burt Lancaster as a ruthless, all-powerful newspaper columnist named J. J. Hunsecker (so Walter Winchell couldn't sue them), and Tony Curtis as Sidney Falcone - a smarmy, small-time press agent desperate to curry J.J.'s favor. He succeeds, for a while, but that sweet smell comes at a much higher price than he expects. Though this edgy, dark show got seven nominations, including Best Musical, only John Lithgow, for his leading performance as Hunsecker, went home with a 2002 Tony® Award. Gossip, lies, name-dropping, betrayal, backstabbing and murder - typical story about the media.
Music by Jeffrey Stock, Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, Book by James Magruder
Based on the play Le Triomphe de l'Amour by Pierre de Marivaux Spartan princess Léonide loves Agis, who is plotting her assassination. Agis was raised by his uncle Hermocrates and his aunt Hesione. Léonide conspires with her servant Corine, who disguises herself as the male guard Phocion in order to infiltrate Agis' "men-only" palace. When both Agis and Hermacrotes guess Corine's secret, she tells Agis she's Cécile and Hermacrotes she's Aspasie. Adding to the convoluted plot are Hermacrotes' valet Harlequin and gardener Dimas. Okay? Now, forget all those impenetrable names and prepare to just sit back and enjoy the fast-paced hilarity, mistaken identity, confusion, romance and passion of Triumph of Love; a 1997 chamber musical based on a 1732 commedia dell'arte play about Greece in the 5th century, BC. Sunday, November 16, 2014 - 7:00 PM - Moss Theatre at New Roads School, Santa Monica THE GOLDEN APPLE
Music by Jerome Moross, Book and Lyrics by John Treville Latouche
While we're in the neighborhood of ancient Greece, the plot of The Golden Apple is adapted from Homer's 11th Century BC epic poems TheIliad and The Odyssey, but it takes place at the turn of the 20th Century, in Washington State, near Mt. Olympus, in the small town of Angel's Roost. Everyone is thrown into confusion when Menelaus's wife, Helen, runs off with a traveling salesman (in town to judge an apple pie contest) named Paris. Ulysses, just returned from the Spanish-American War, is already restless and goes to retrieve Helen, leaving his wife Penelope for a ten-year adventure. Entirely through-sung, in styles ranging from operetta to calypso to jazz ("Lazy Afternoon"), The Golden Apple was one of the very first musicals to open Off-Broadway. This mash-up of eras, styles and locales transferred to Broadway only a month later and won the 1955 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical. Sunday, February 8, 2015 - 7:00 PM - Moss Theatre at New Roads School, Santa Monica GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES
Music by Jule Styne, Lyrics by Leo Robin, Book by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos
Adapted from the novel by Anita Loos On December 8, 1949, at the Ziegfeld Theatre, Carol Channing made her Broadway debut as Lorelei Lee - "A Little Girl From Little Rock" who came to New York where she found out "...the one you call your 'daddy' ain't your Pa." Gentlemen Prefer Blondes takes place on board the ship taking Lorelei to Paris to perform in a nightclub. But even an ocean liner can barely contain all of the hijinks Lorelei gets into. In the ensuing 65 years Betty Hutton, Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren, Barbara Eden, Morgan Fairchild and Megan Hilty are some of the well-known blonde actresses who have been "wined and dined and ermined." In the 1953 movie version Marilyn Monroe played Lorelei and learned the show's most valuable lesson: "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." And she don't mean rhinestones! Sunday, April 12, 2015 - 7:00 PM - Moss Theatre at New Roads School, Santa Monica ROAD SHOW
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Book by John WeidmanStephen Sondheim began work on a musical based on the book The Legendary Mizners (The true story of Addison and Wilson Mizner's adventures from the beginning of the 20th century during the Alaskan Gold rush to the Florida real estate boom in the 1920s) in 1953. Who would've thought it would take fifty-five years, multiple workshops and productions, long lasting multi-million dollar lawsuits and counter-suits (finally dismissed by the New York Supreme Court), many cut songs and rewrites, adding and removing characters, several different casts and three additional titles (Gold!, Wise Guys and Bounce) before finally, in 2008, at the Public Theatre in New York and under its final title, Road Show, it officially became Sondheim's most recent show. And another five years of letters and phone calls before we could obtain the rights to proudly bring it to you as the final show of our 2014-2015 season! Sunday, June 14, 2015 - 7:00 PM - Moss Theatre at New Roads School, Santa Monica.
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