| Music: | Arthur Schwartz |
| Lyrics: | Ira Gerswhin |
| Book: | George S. Kaufman & Nunnally Johnson |
The unique teaming of multi Pulitzer prize winner Kaufman (Guys And Dolls, The Man Who Came To Dinner & Of Thee I Sing - awarded Pulitzer), Johnson (Roxie Hart), Pulitzer prize winner Gershwin (Porgy & Bess & Of Thee I Sing - awarded Pulitzer) and composer Schwartz (That's Entertainment & Dancing In The Dark) led to a madcap spoof on relationships and divorce amongst the wealthy. Park Avenue almost predates Company as a musical satire based on relationships. The score features the song Don't Be A Woman If You Can.
This is the European debut of this 'lost' musical.
|
| |
| Park Avenue cast members from the original 1946 Broadway production - courtesy of the Ira & Leonore Gershwin Trust | |
Tickets £21-£27.50 bookable in advance at
Sadler's Wells Box Office, 0870 737 7737.
| Music, Lyrics & Book: | Noel Coward |
| Coward's last fully written musical comedy, written for a Broadway audience,
looks at the brash and bold American, Mimi Paragon, working as a cruise hostess
on a British cruise ship. Mimi, former actress and divorcee explains,
while dealing with passengers, kiddies, phrase books and a younger man,
"It's part of my job to accost anyone who looks the teeniest bit lonely and make
their lives living hell".
The score includes Useful (Useless) Phrases, The Passengers Always Right and the title song. Sail Away has not been seen in London since its original production. Listen to Ian Marshall Fisher, Penny Fuller, Josh Canfield, Anna Lowe and Chris Walker on the 12 June 2008 edition of In Tune on BBC Radio 3 (18.09 till 18.34).
| 
|
 
| |
| Penny Fuller and Henry Luxemburg in Sail Away | |
Book both shows before March 31, 2008 and save £3 (offer is subject to availability and no exchanges).
The 1961 musical that was resurrected on Sunday, Sail Away, was in fact by an Englishman, Noel Coward. But as Ian Marshall Fisher, the creator of Lost Musicals and the show’s director, told the audience, Coward created Sail Away, a frolicsome tale of a May-September romance on a cruise ship, with American audiences in mind.
Mr. Fisher’s production was pretty bare-boned compared to the increasingly gussied-up Encores! presentations, which look more and more like full-dress Broadway try-outs. There was a single piano, a row of chairs and a cast in black tie, holding scripts. But with an easy-going ensemble led by the charming American actress Penny Fuller (in role created by Elaine Stritch) the show flowed sweetly and enjoyably, and it never felt embarrassingly naked.
Several succulently hammy character portraits recalled the stock company of performers that brought such delicious antic grace notes to the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies for RKO. (Remember Eric Blore?) And the raw pleasure the cast members took from these portrayals was always close to the surface.
This Sail Away made me wish that Encores! would reduce the scale of its productions a bit. More modest versions like Mr. Fisher’s allow you to feel directly the performers connecting with their material – and their audience — and the joy and discovery they derive from it. Evidently, this can be achieved even without rabbits.
Ben Brantley (The New York Times theatre critic) New York Times, July 7, 2008,