100 Showtunes: The Podcast

No. 45. “Hello, Dolly!”

Winter 1964. You’re seeing the new smash hit musical Hello, Dolly!. The production skips the overture and opens immediately on a chorus on 1880s New Yorkers instructing the audience to call on the local matchmaker before Carol Channing revealing herself as Dolly from behind a newspaper. The briskly paced farce centers on this singular creation, a widow who makes ends meet as a matchmaker (but also has a business card in her pocket offering her services for any occasion that may come up, no matter how niche or bizarre.) Quick-witted and resourceful, Dolly takes her assignment (finding a bride for Horace Vandergelder, an irracable Yonkers shop-owner), and completely subverts it, setting up machinations that will land Horace for herself while leading to love for two of his clerks and a pair of milliners. Channing is so endearing as Dolly that you are completely on her side for all of these schemes, which are set converge at The Harmonia Gardens, a restaurant Dolly frequented with her late husband. The head waiter hears that Dolly will be in attendance and instructs the waitstaff to speed up service, launching a dazzling comedic display of leaps and gags. But all comes to a standstill when Dolly arrives standing atop a grand staircase in a stunning red gown beginning the most spectacular production number you’ve ever seen. (“Hello, Dolly”) Catch up with all the songs to date! [https://www.100showtunes.com/p/the-songs] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.100showtunes.com [https://www.100showtunes.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

No. 43. “My Favorite Things”

Late fall, 1959. Mary Martin is closing out the decade originating a role in a new Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. R&H haven’t really had a hit since The King and I, but you’re hopeful Mary Martin will bring out their best. The curtain rises on a gaggle of nuns in 1930s Austria singing a prelude before realizing one of their postulates, Maria, is missing. Cut to Martin emerging from a tree and singing the title song. Maria is the impish problem-child of the convent, climbing trees, scraping knees, and singing where she isn’t supposed to. The intimidating Mother Abbess calls Maria into her office for a serious discussion about her suitability for monastic life. She’s about to send Maria to serve as a governess for a widower naval captain’s seven children, which will set off musical’s main story (Nun meets Boy and Boy’s seven children, Nun teaches children to sing, Nun marries boy, and singing family runs away from Nazis). In order to get Maria into the right headspace to face her fears and accept this life-altering assignment, Mother Abbess encourages Maria to sing an old song she had once caught Maria singing in the abbey, eventually joining in herself. (“My Favorite Things”) Catch up with all the songs to date! [https://www.100showtunes.com/p/the-songs] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.100showtunes.com [https://www.100showtunes.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

No. 42. “Rose’s Turn”

Summer 1959. You’re attending Gypsy: a musical fable, based on the memoirs of famed burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee. But the show’s driving force is her determined and domineering mother, Rose Havoc, played by Ethel Merman. After one of the most thrilling overtures you’ve ever heard, the curtain rises on a group of adorable kids auditioning for a vaudeville act. Merman barges into the scene, shouting “Sing out, Louise!” as she walks down the aisle carrying a dog. Her daughters—the cloying Baby June and her meek older sister, Louise—are among those auditioning, and Rose will not let anything or anyone curtail their rise to stardom. She finds a patient partner, Herbie, who tries to bring some stability as Rose builds a traveling act for June (who Rose insists is a child even as she enters early adulthood) and some dancing “newsboys” (one of whom is the timid Louise). When June and the newsboys bail on the act, Rose pivots her attention to Louise without much success. When they hit rock bottom (a burlesque house in Wichita), Louise does a strip as a last minute replacement, beginning her transformation into “Gypsy Rose Lee”. As she becomes more successful than she or Rose could have hoped, Louise resents Rose’s continued meddling, and the two have a climactic argument in her star dressing room. Rejected and resentful, Rose ruminates on the sacrifices she made for her daughters and the stardom she always wanted for herself in an epic mad scene of a song. (“Rose’s Turn”). Catch up with all the songs to date! [https://www.100showtunes.com/p/the-songs] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.100showtunes.com [https://www.100showtunes.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

No. 41. “Shall We Dance?”

Spring 1951. You’re at a performance of The King and I, the latest musical from Rodgers & Hammerstein. It features Gertrude Lawrence, one of the theater’s most dynamic stars, leading a Broadway musical for the first time in nearly a decade with a role custom tailored for her. She plays Anna Lenowens, a British woman in 1860s Thailand, then known as Siam, hired by King Mongkut to teach his wives and children. Anna’s fierce independence puts her at odds with the commanding (and charismatic) King. Lawrence enchants the audience with showcase after showcase: the sprightly and inspirational “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” the wistful ode to her deceased husband (“Hello Young Lovers”), the charming production number with the children and wives (“Getting to Know You”), and the frustration-fueled soliloquy (“Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?”). But as charming as Lawrence is, you’re perhaps even more taken in by the striking, though unfamiliar, Yul Brynner as the King. With a shaved head and open shirt, he is controlling, impish, frustrating, and irresistible. His and Anna’s relationship is strictly proper and professional…with a hint of romantic tension. In Act 2, the King hosts a banquet for British ambassadors to prove that Siam is civilized and does not need to become an English protectorate. The plan is successful, and as Anna and the King celebrate in the empty throne room, Anna describes the English manner of courtship. She sings an invitation to dance to an imaginary partner, and is soon lost in reverie. The King demands she teach him the dance, and she takes him by the hands, teaching him a polka. The King points out that the European visitors did not merely hold hands while they danced and places his hands on Anna’s hips—a simple gesture that is somehow more romantically charged than anything you’ve seen onstage before. They swirl around the stage, coming as close to admitting the attraction between them as they dare, and it’s absolutely glorious. (“Shall We Dance?”) Catch up with all the songs to date at 100showtunes.com! [https://www.100showtunes.com/p/the-songs] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.100showtunes.com [https://www.100showtunes.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Playlist IV: Star Turns

You’re now 40 songs into this project, and have learned about influential and iconic shows, songs, and creators. Now we’re going to look at a one of musical theater’s most evergreen tropes: Star Turns Catch up with all the songs to date! [https://www.100showtunes.com/p/the-songs] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.100showtunes.com [https://www.100showtunes.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]