New Line Theatre, "the bad boy of musical theatre," has donated important musical theatre materials to the New York City Library.
New Line produced the 1959 musical theatre oddity
The Nervous Set in 2004, the jazz Beat musical by
Jay Landesman (co-bookwriter, based on his autobiographical novel),
Theodore J. Flicker (co-bookwriter),
Fran Landesman (lyricist), and
Tommy Wolf (composer), which told the true story of the birth of the Beats, including two characters based on Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.
For the 2004 production, New Line commissioned the reconstruction of the show's original materials.
Using just lead sheets (a written-out melody and chord symbols, but no piano part) from the original production -- the show didn't run long enough to need final, cleaned-up scores -- along with composer
Tommy Wolf's personal demo recordings, the commercially released cast album, and two versions of the script, local arranger
Chris Buckley and the New Liners reconstructed the legendary script and score, with its original three-piece jazz combo.
This past year, now that all four of the show's creators have died, the New Liners contacted the New York Public Library's
Billy Rose Theatre Collection about taking and preserving these
Nervous Set materials, and they were delighted to receive them. Now all these materials are in the
Billy Rose Collection, so that anyone can look at them, and so that any future productions will have the original arrangements fully scored for them.
The Nervous Set first opened on March 10, 1959, in a three hundred seat saloon-theatre-club called the Crystal Palace, in the heart of the Gaslight Square entertainment district in St. Louis. New York producer
Robert Lantz saw it and rushed it to Broadway, dumbing it down along the way, and it ran there only 23 performances. The New York critics split on it. There have been only four productions since then, including both Theatre Factory and New Line Theatre here in St. Louis.
ABOUT NEW LINE THEATRE
New Line Theatre is a professional company dedicated to involving the people of the St. Louis region in the exploration and creation of daring, provocative, socially and politically relevant works of musical theatre. New Line was created back in 1991 at the vanguard of a new wave of nonprofit musical theatre just starting to take hold across the country. New Line has given birth to several world premiere musicals over the years and has brought back to life several shows that were not well served by their original New York productions. Altogether, New Line has produced 79 musicals since 1991, and the company has been given its own entry in the
Cambridge Guide to American Theatre and the annual
Theater World. New Line receives funding from the Regional Arts Commission and the Missouri
Arts Council, a state agency.
For other information, visit New Line Theatre's full-service website at
www.newlinetheatre.com. All programs are subject to change.
New Line's season also includes
Zorba, March 2-25;
The Sweet Smell of Success, June 1-24; and
Out on Broadway: The Third Coming, Aug. 3-19.
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