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[0:00] Rob Schneider: Alan J. Lerner, the man who asked, wouldn't it be loverly, explained that joy was almost like being in love, and provided warmth with If Ever I Would Leave You. He could do anything — anything with composer Frederick Loewe. But what happens when Loewe wants to spend the remaining years of his life in retirement? Where does that leave Alan? It leaves him looking for a project to prove that he still has it, and more importantly, the darkness that pervaded Broadway in the late 1960s. Just maybe — maybe — Alan J. Lerner could tackle something like that. Could he make dark material sing? And he went looking for material, and the material that he found was a novel so scandalous it is still banned today in some countries. Lolita. Yes. A musical. Of Lolita. Who thought this was a good idea? You see, what happened was… well, you're going to have to listen and find out.

[1:15] Rob Schneider: Hi everyone, it's Rob Schneider here. Welcome back to another episode of Broadway Bound, the musicals that never came to Broadway, and if you like this show, please head over to robwschneider.com, click on the tab that says AMTA, make a tax-deductible donation on the show, so that way we can continue on and I can keep buying food. Because I'm hungry.

[1:39] Rob Schneider: Today, we are looking at a musical that is, I'm sorry friends, a walking trigger warning. You look at this show and you think, who thought this was a good idea? Well, turns out the man who gave us such wonderful shows as Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, and Camelot did. And maybe he needed Frederick Loewe to slap some sense into him, because when Alan J. Lerner was left to his own devices, he wasn't really at the top of his particular game. But the whole endeavor didn't start with Alan J. Lerner. No, it started with an author named Vladimir Nabokov in 1955. Nabokov was an author, and like all authors, he loved tackling subjects. Fitzgerald did the Jazz Age, Steinbeck did the Farmlands, and Nabokov did Hebophilia.

Now, unless you are a clinical psychologist or a fan of SVU, you might not have heard the term, so I will define it for you. Basically, it's the term used to describe adults that are sexually interested in prepubescent children, specifically ages 11-14. Realizing that he was never going to write for Highlights Magazine, Nabokov decided to write his own novel, and he called it Lolita.

[2:56] Rob Schneider: Who is Lolita? Lolita is actually 12 years old, and her name is Dolores Hayes, and she is the object of English professor Humbert Humbert's affections. He calls her Lolita because it's the Spanish nickname for Dolores. Humbert loves Dolores in a very unnatural way. Besides calling her a nymphette, he mentions quite frequently that this 12-year-old girl reminds him of his first girlfriend, and therefore he must have her. To do that, he has to get closer to Dolores, so he marries Dolores' mother, Charlotte. Charlotte is an eccentric, blousy woman. Now, Charlotte is standing in the way of Humbert wanting Dolores, so how can he fix that? What if he starts drugging Charlotte so he can have sex with Dolores, whom he's also going to drug, so he can have sex with her without her resistance?

Like any true sociopath, Humbert writes this all down in his diary, which Charlotte discovers, and as Charlotte runs out of the house, she's hit by a car and dies. Now, nothing is standing in the way between Humbert and Dolores, but he has to tell Dolores what happened, and she's away at a summer camp. Because she's fucking 12 years old, he picks her up at camp and tells her that her mom is very sick and they need to go, and they'll share a hotel room on the journey back where he drugs her but doesn't end up sleeping with her. The next day, Dolores admits that she was with a boy at summer camp, and that turns Humbert on and he has sex with her. Then he tells her her mom is dead. They go on the run, and he bribes Dolores in order to have sex with her.

Then he moves them to a small town, enrolls her in an all-girls school, and controls every life, every aspect of it, what to wear, what to see, what to eat. She can't take it and runs out, but then has a change of heart. Let's go on another road trip, she says, and Humbert is ecstatic but realizes something is amiss. He feels like they're being followed, but he can't prove it. Then suddenly, Dolores falls ill and is checked into the hospital, and then she disappears. Apparently, she was checked out by her uncle. What uncle, Humbert says, she doesn't have an uncle. Years go by, and Humbert is destroyed, and then one day he gets a letter from Dolores, now 17, pregnant, married, and broke. He's going to go and seek revenge on her, so, armed with a gun, he visits Dolores, who says that she was abducted and broke free of her captor, a famous playwright that Humbert had befriended many years ago.

Dolores takes the money, and Humbert goes to find Quentin, the playwright that he befriended and who stole Dolores away from him. He's going to exact his revenge on this man. He shoots him dead. Humbert is arrested, and then he dies in prison, not long after Dolores, who died in childbirth.

[6:08] Rob Schneider: In 1955, when this book came out, Eisenhower was in office, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom Wine was the number one song, and I Love Lucy was reigning supreme. How the fuck did this book break through, and why did it mesmerize an entire placid world? I would love if they did an I Love Lucy episode about this, but I digress. What happened was critics both praised it and reviled it. Graham Greene said it was one of the three best books of 1955, while British Customs officers were told to confiscate copies of it coming into the United Kingdom. Nothing spells success like censorship. We all want what we can't have, and it eventually made its way to publication in the United States in 1958, and it was all anyone could talk about.

I remember reading the book in high school and being so repulsed and so disturbed and so angry, but I never once put the book down. To be clear, there is a difference between examining a topic and advocating for it. Saying that it is a compelling novel is a literary observation, not an advocacy for its subject matter. So, Hollywood came calling in 1962, and Stanley Kubrick directed James Mason as Humbert, Shelley Winters as Charlotte, Peter Sellers as Quentin, and 14-year-old Sue Lyon as Lolita, yet the film was very wise in some of its choices to make the story more palatable for audiences. For example, Lolita is 17 years old, which was actually one year above the age of consent in a lot of places in 1962.

Humbert's past obsession with children was eliminated, and Humbert's eventual murder victim, Claire Quilty, was given a much larger role, earning Peter Sellers great acclaim for his portrayal. If you've never seen the film, Peter Sellers is worth it alone. The movie is still hard to wash, especially since its premiere rumors abounded that Lyon was sexually abused by its producer. While Lyon has never acknowledged this rumor, she did state, My destruction as a person dates from that film. Lolita exposed me to temptations no girl of that age should undergo. I defy any pretty girl who has rocketed to stardom at 14 in a sex nymphette role to stay on a level path thereafter. When you read Lolita, it's in your head.

It's not real. It's not flesh and blood. When you watch Lolita, it's on screen. It's not real. It's not flesh and blood. There's a major difference between imagining these people and their actions and seeing them two-dimensional, and then seeing them three-dimensional right in front of you. Audiences can accept things that we're not supposed to tolerate in society. Sweeney Todd, murder, West Side Story, violence, Oliver, cruelty, and child abuse. But this is a different kind of child abuse. This is sexual abuse of a child. Now, plays for some reason can do it, like How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel, because they're adults in that. They're adult actors remembering events. So we give it a pass.

There's a distance that we somehow are able to tolerate. But in front of us, that will be a tough nut to crack, which makes one wonder why anyone thought not only should it go on stage, but these pedophiles should be singing and dancing throughout it. It just gives one an icky feeling, a feeling of this can't be done. And if there was anyone in musical theater who might be able to pull it off, it would actually be Alan J. Lerner.

[9:45] Rob Schneider: Lyricist Alan J. Lerner was daring in the shows he tackled. Look at his track record, 1947's Fantasy Brigadoon, 1948's concept musical Love Life, 1951's rugged Paint Your Wagon, the screenplay to one of the greatest movie musicals ever made, the Best Picture winner in American in Paris, and then another Best Picture winner that he wrote the screenplay and lyrics to, Gigi. And one of his musicals, Camelot, literally became the name to describe an era in history, the Camelot era. None of these shows would work, or should work, but they did. Somehow we were engaged, but none of these musicals could hold a candle to the biggest coup of all time, taking a George Bernard Shaw political, didactic, clinical play and turning it into a musical, and not just any musical, what many consider to be the perfect musical.

My Fair Lady, no one thought Pygmalion could be a musical. Even the geniuses of Rodgers and Hammerstein attempted and walked away after Schwartz and Dietz did the same thing. How does this show sing? It makes no sense. But Alan J. Lerner cracked the code and pushed the envelope. A nobody is the ingenue, a non-singer is the lead. What is this thing? Well, this thing ended up winning every award known to man, Best Musical and Best Picture. And it is still done everywhere. Yes, indeed, My Fair Lady is. Pretty much whatever Lerner and Loewe touched turned to gold, even Camelot in 1960, following a very similar template as My Fair Lady, ended up triumphing over mediocre reviews to become a standard in American musical theater.

If you asked me to lay money down on taking questionable subject matter and making it sing more than Hammerstein, more than Sondheim, LaChiusa, Lipa, and Miranda, I would say Alan J. Lerner. But maybe Alan J. Lerner's success wasn't all his. Could Lerner be brilliant without Loewe? He was going to have to find out, because Loewe retired and decided he no longer wanted to do this anymore. Camelot was pretty stressful, so Loewe opted for the sunshine and charm of Palm Springs, and Alan J. Lerner opted for a few new collaborators. No, not the fourth wife he was on, but a man named Max Jacobson. Who is Max Jacobson? Well, you never heard of him in musical theater? Well, Max was pretty well-known in every industry, from the White House to Hollywood and back again, and maybe you know him by his other name, Dr. Feelgood, the man who gave out methamphetamines like it was candy.

And you can refer to my other podcast, This Was a Thing, to learn all about Dr. Feelgood. So maybe Alan wasn't good without Loewe, or maybe he was so addicted to drugs he couldn't function, but whatever the reason, post-Camelot Lerner went into a deep slide. In 1965, Lerner teamed up with Burden Lane to do On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, a musical about ESP, that's bold, but just sort of sat there. There are a few good songs, but it's a tough set, and even if you love it, you must admit it's not as good as his other works. So Lerner had to make sure his next show was a hit, because not only was his reputation riding on it, but his drug addiction, coupled with another divorce, was pushing on his wallet and his confidence.

What seemed to work for Lerner was taking an actor and putting them front and center in a musical. Rex Harrison, Richard Burton, and now, not a man, oh no, a woman. Well, the incomparable Katharine Hepburn would be Coco Chanel in the

[12:53] Robert W. Schneider: 1969 musical Coco. Yes, Coco of the infamous Could It Be Red. So, friends, I encourage you to watch. This is the only thing of Coco you need to see, by the way. Go YouTube. Like the 1985 Miss Drag Pageant Dallas or Texas. They had this drag pageant and people got to do their talents. And one of the drag queens decides to do Katherine Hepburn's monologue from Coco, where her father is promising her a dress, and the line is, Could it be red? And Katherine Hepburn's line reading is, Could it be red? And this drag queen brilliantly does that. It's also hosted by Lyle Wagner and Ruth Buzzy, for all you Ruth Buzzy fans. I promise you, one day we'll get to clown around, I promise.

[13:43] Robert W. Schneider: OK, so Lerner is floundering artistically. What could he do that would ignite a spark in his life again creatively? Here is what he knew could work. Properties that always didn't seem musical, leading men who were actors more than singers, and romance. But there has to be an edge to it. It was the late 1960s, after all. The gentleness of the 50s and early 60s were gone. Musicals were dark. Think Cabaret. Think Zorba. Movies were more explicit, like Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate. And television was consistently showing in color a youth counterculture that was visceral and bloody. Maybe, just maybe, Lerner was ready to go into the dark place. But where was that dark place? Then, offhandedly, one of Lerner's assistants handed him a novel and said, What about this?

It was Lolita. Lerner knew the movie, but not the novel. In fact, Lerner's collection of papers has the screenplay in its collection, but not the original book, leading some to speculate that Lerner had never even read the book. But no matter, because at age 51 and coming off of a feeling of creative impotence, Lerner felt some connection to this material. I think that the story of Lolita is much more pertinent now than when the film was made. Humbert is such a tragic, flawed, misplaced romantic, lost in post-World War II. There are countless men like him over 40 who find it impossible to wake up in the morning and not blink once or twice at the life facing them.

[15:12] Robert W. Schneider: So off Alan J. Lerner went into the land of what he called My Lolita, drafting an outline in June of 1970 that seemed to be closer to the screenplay than the book, but the overall elements were there. But the first thing Lerner had to do was get the rights to the book, and Nabokov was notoriously selective and was still smarting over the unhappy way his screenplay for the film had developed. So in August of 1970, Lerner had to visit Nabokov in Montreux to secure the rights and explain his vision for the show, one that would closely adhere to Nabokov's original intentions, and Nabokov gave his blessings, saying, Mr. Lerner is most talented and an excellent classicist. If you have to make a musical version of Lolita, he is the one to do it. He is the one to do it. Lerner brought the lyrics to one of his songs to show Nabokov. The song would be called In the Broken Promised Land of Fifteen.

[16:08] Robert W. Schneider: How strange to recollect today in the hurricane's eye of another love, those distant hangs of long ago. It all began one day, one day, when I was twelve and three. I fell in love beside the sea. We strolled, we kissed, we clung, we swore we'd love forevermore. In the broken promised land of fifteen, tears that fell upon the sand still are seen. And the memory of love is all that stays forever, evergreen. In the broken promised land of fifteen. A child was she, a child it is, but who is not till love appears. And love had place beside the sea, an apple from the tree. In the broken promised land of fifteen. Nothing love has ever planned and dreamed. And in spite of all the signs along the road, the end is unforeseen.

In the broken promised land of fifteen. Now far were we from heaven's door when steps were heard. Along the shawl we turned, we gasped. She rose in fright and vanished in the night. And the tide that drifted in, circling me, tried to sweep what might have been out to sea. But the memory of love lives on and on forever, evergreen. In the broken promised land of fifteen.

[18:46] Robert W. Schneider: But Nabokov warned him the reason the book works is because it's all in your head, it's not flesh and blood, and to make a real twelve-year-old girl play the part on stage night after night would be sinful and immoral. Remember, the movie cast older was done in black and white that was devoid of three dimensions. Nevertheless, Lerner was ready to be recharged and challenged. For a composer, he knew Loewe wouldn't be interested, and he was not over the moon with his collaborations with Burden Lane or Andre Previn. So he went searching for someone young, edgy, and someone he could teach a bit about how to craft music for the theatre. And that's how he found John Barry. John Barry was the hot cinema composer of the time.

He was the guy who arranged and performed the iconic James Bond theme, and then From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice on Her Majesty's Secret Service. He won the Oscar for Born Free and again for The Lion in Winter. Then he did Midnight Cowboy and one of my favorite West End musicals, Passion Flower Hotel.

[20:12] Robert W. Schneider: Barry was 38 and excited to collaborate with Alan Jay Lerner and do a big Broadway musical, so he jumped at the chance to bring Lolita to life. Within a month of getting the rights, Norman Twain jumped on to produce the show, and he was best known for European imports and CBS records. They invested the capital of $650,000, or $5.3 million today. And on September 18, 1970, the team gleefully announced they would be bringing Alan Jay Lerner's new musical, now called Lolita, to the Mark Hellinger Theatre on March 30, 1971, opening in a season that would include The Rothschilds, 2x2, Pretty Belle, 70 Girl 70, and two oddities, a Hal Prince's version of The Follies and a revival of that silly little 25 comedy No No Nanette. Good luck to those two. The Hellinger was a good omen because it's where Lerner debuted My Fair Lady on A Clear Day You Can See Forever and Coco. Columbia Records eagerly signed on to produce the cast recording.

[21:22] Robert W. Schneider: To direct, they hired temperamental Argentinian director Tito Capobianco, an opera director known for his groundbreaking productions of Don Rodrigo, Julio Cesar, and The Tales of Hoffman at New York City Opera, and the legendary Jack Cole to choreograph. What makes this unique is that from first outline to opening night would be less than a year, which is much, much shorter than most of Lerner's other musicals' construction periods. Maybe he felt the clock racing against him, but he wanted to push forward with gusto. We love gusto. I also love custard. Of course, like today, casting would be essential to the success of this show, and offers went out for those to play Humbert, and whoever played the role had to be of incredible power, magnetism, strength, and if he could sing, that would be nice, too.

It was also important to Lerner that the actor be intrinsically British. Everyone's first choice was Camelot's Richard Burden, but he turned it down, and they eventually went to Jurassic Park's Richard Attenborough, Oliver's Ron Moody, Peter O'Toole, Michael Redgrave, Bruce Forsythe, Eric Porter, Keith Mischel, Trevor Howard, Albert Finney, Peter Sellers, opera singer Peter Glossop, and most intriguing, Sean Connery. All were not interested in playing a singing child molester and passed on the project. Finally, they were able to secure John Neville, a respected Shakespearean actor. Now, you might know him from the film Baron Munchausen, or if you're an X-Files fan, he is the well-manicured man. But prior to that, he was one of England's most respected actors, and was beloved by Burton and Finney and Olivier and all the rest.

[23:02] Robert W. Schneider: For the role of Clare Quilty, Humbert's nemesis and narrator of the piece, whose presence in the movie is more memorable than in the book, mostly due to Peter Sellers' brilliant performance, they looked at the widest gamut imaginable, from David Carradine, George Carlin, whom they called amateur, and children's TV star Soupy Sayles, whom they said had a juvenile approach to comedy, as expected. And the eventual winner of the role would be Leonard Frey, who was pretty devastating in The Boys in the Band, and was currently filming the role of Mottle the Tailor in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof. Here is Frey with the opening number of Lolita.

[23:48] ♪ Musical number: "Going, Going, Gone" — performed by Leonard Frey ♪

[24:44] Robert W. Schneider: That's me.

[24:48] ♪ Musical number: "Going, Going, Gone" — performed by Leonard Frey ♪

[25:39] ♪ Musical number: "Going, Going, Gone" — performed by Leonard Frey ♪

[25:46] Robert W. Schneider: For Charlotte, Lolita's mother played so memorably by Shelley Winters, there was really no other choice than a woman who made her name in flop musicals, but was a star no matter what. Coming fresh off of her appearances on The Gary Moore Show in the ill-fated The Fig Leaves Are Falling was Dorothy Loudon. She's a presence in this season. If there is one thing anyone remembers from Lolita, it's Loudon's rendition of Charlotte's Song to Humbert, a song realizing the beauty around them, even though they are in the most suburban area of the Northeast.

[27:03] ♪ Musical number: "Charlotte's Song to Humbert" — performed by Dorothy Loudon ♪

[28:39] Robert W. Schneider: Also in the cast would be 19-year-old Lorna Luft. But she wouldn't be playing Lolita, but Lolita's best friend, Mona. No, a search would need to happen for the role of Lolita. At first, there were rumors that Las Vegas mainstay Joey Heatherton, who looked nothing like a prepubescent teenager, was looked at, and luckily that idea was tossed out quite soon. Now, this is where it gets even more disgusting. In November of 1971, at the Billy Rose Theater, there was an open call for the role of Lolita, and it was covered by the AP. Here is a short passage from that article, titled, "Even Seats Blush at Lolita Tryouts."

[29:41] Robert W. Schneider: There's wickedness wherever you go, says Verna Harrison's mother. It's just lucky that my daughter only play-acts it. Verna, 14, and her mother, a former vaudevillian nightclub singer, have look-alike brown coats and look-alike flaming red hair. Verna says this tryout was her idea, but mother would be thrilled if she got the part. Steve Whitney, one of Lerner's production assistants, in a pleasant, guidance-counselor voice, oozed charm toward one 15-year-old, Teresa Conforti. I don't think you're right for Lolita, but we might have something else for you. And don't wear makeup next time. I wanted to look sexy, said Conforti. You look sexy anyway. Robin Broder, 13, an acting student making her first try at a job on the wicked stage, gestures with a jean-clad leg to emphasize the distinction between life and art.

I wouldn't like to be Lolita, but I'd still like to play the part. The casting call begins. The likeliest are asked to pirouette, the others thanked politely. Some give one last try at catching attention as they walk away. It's pretty dull, until Verna Harrison takes off her look-alike coat. Fourteen! No kidding. Tight copper blouse, pale face, hair the color of filaments in a turned-on toaster, Verna hands over three leggy snapshots and poses like Venus arising from the sea. But it's no go for Verna either. We've got to have a girl who makes a man forget the moral conventions of society, says Twain, but it's got to be a complete mental situation. If Lolita is 5'5 with a great figure, it would be perfectly moral for Humbert to go after her.

I'd rule out anything that looks normal. Oh my god, what the fuck is going on? Eventually they found their Lolita, 16-year-old Los Angeles resident and a guest star of the Brady Bunch, Annette Farah, who had confided to reporters that before she even got cast, she would get letters from boys saying, Dear Lolita. She also went on to defend the actions of Humbert Humbert by saying, Oh no, there's nothing dirty about what Humbert does. It's not a crime. In the end, Humbert is cured. It's just a love story. It's not that I dig older men, but I can't stand boys my own age, googly-eyed, 16-year-olds that have just discovered girls. I love black hair that curls down around a man's collar. I can't stand fat men, so they must be tall and have big eyes. Eyes are the windows of the soul. I'm not easy to please.

[32:04] Robert W. Schneider: The whole thing has an icky feeling to it. A scene is when they did like a concert fundraiser for the show, and the concert fundraiser was done at the Rehearsal Club. If you don't know what the Rehearsal Club is, it was housing for young New York City actresses. So I mean, I cannot think of a less appropriate idea here. But the show was going to go into rehearsals on January 4th, 1971, in New York, and there was a slight problem. Choreographer Jack Cole, he just didn't show up. Didn't show. So he was fired and replaced by Mr. Showmanship, Danny Daniels, who had done Walking Happy. I can't imagine why or how he got the job, but the ship has to keep moving, so good for you, Danny. And it didn't really know where the ship was moving because there was a sense of apology surrounding the show.

How do you root for a pedophile? It was the question on everyone's mind. Initially, Lerner wanted to condemn Humbert for the sick man that he is, but as the show moved from the page to the stage, or imagination to reality, they had to soften him and justify why an audience would spend time with him, which then led to adding comedy and humanizing him. But what's funny or sympathetic about this man who's also a murderer? That is what Nabokov had said early on.

[33:15] Robert W. Schneider: To mitigate the potential queasiness of the audience, Norman Twain, the producer, he seemed to go on an apology tour. It's the best thing Ellen's ever done, including My Fair Lady. Lerner and Barry are gonna be the team of the 70s, as renowned as Lerner and Loewe or as Rodgers and Hammerstein. The show has no controversy, no nudity, no four-letter words, nothing which compromises the taste of Nabokov. The show will be the epitome of tastefulness as far as we're concerned. A nymphet is never flirtatious or aware of her effect. If we made it sensual, we'd be out of business. The moral is that total obsession with anything destroys a person, whether the obsession is a little girl or a philosophy.

Could I be involved with a nymphet? Yeah, I could be, absolutely. There are certain types of girls, little girls, nymphets, that, all else being equal, would turn me on if you met them in a motel by chance. But I haven't fallen yet. I've been playing it pretty straight. My wife prefers it that way.

[34:25] Robert W. Schneider: Each day, as the cast was yelled at by the temperamental Tito and re-choreographed by Danny Daniels, Lerner, as book writer and lyricist, would come in with different pages, different scenes, and different orders on an attempt to make this dark show palatable to audiences without losing its bite. An exhausted cast, minus Lorna Luft, who was fired when her role was cut, spent several rehearsal nights at bars trying to figure out how to help the show, but all they came back with was the same problem. You can't find feeling or comedy in this story. This was all coming to a head as the show was preparing its opening night out of town in Philadelphia on February 15, 1971, at the Schubert Theatre, and it was now called Lolita, My Love.

An ulcer-ridden Alan Jay Lerner watched as what he thought would be his proof to the world, and more to himself, that he still had it. But he watched it flounder on stage in front of an upset and confused audience, many who got up and left before the Act I curtain fell after two hours. Act I was two hours. And then, of course, the reviews, which had the inquirers saying, quote, in its present form, which will doubtlessly be drastically altered before it leaves town, the show is only a ghost of Nabokov's comic masterpiece. And Ernest Shire of the Evening Bulletin, quote, this new musical is that it is a disaster. End quote.

[35:47] Robert W. Schneider: What to do? Remember, this was the days before endless workshops and readings that exposed these problems, so Twain decided to close the musical in Philadelphia after their performance on the 27th, go back to New York to rehearse, then reopen the show in Boston March 15 with an April 13 opening at the Hellinger. At this point, the show had lost more than $650,000. In that time, their time off, they realized one of the major problems with the show was that it worked when it was lyrical and dreamy and it flopped when it was grounded in reality. The more abstract the piece, the better off it was. So Tito was fired or resigned, depending on who you speak to. Danny Daniels was fired or resigned, depending on who you speak to.

And they were replaced by Noel Willman, who did that wonderful big musical, The Lion in Winter, and ensemble member Dan Saretta. Willman also didn't last long and the production was then being directed by Lerner's assistant, Bud Whitney, until they could find someone else. That's a great name, Bud Whitney. Saretta was hired to do a ballet to play a dream ballet figure and the ballet was never choreographed so he just sort of sat in the rehearsals just waiting to do something and then he sort of would be asked to fix things Jack Cole had done or Danny Daniels had done and in fact he was so liked by John Neville, who was playing Humbert, Neville said, listen we can't have any more choreographers, it has to be Dan Saretta, he's the new choreographer if he's not I'm not here, and so they gave Dan Saretta the role of choreographer, which was great because Dan Saretta launched a pretty nice career behind the table, so something good came from all of this.

[37:29] Robert W. Schneider: And also gone, fired, was Farrah with gossip columns saying she was fired because she looked too old for the role. A new round of auditions went out and it was down to two actresses whose names you might recognize. The one who got it was named Denise Nickerson, a 4 foot 9 inch 75 pound 13-year-old girl who had just wrapped production on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as the gum chewing Violet Beauregard and the other it was Sissy Spacek and to work they all went and gone was this clever song called Dante Petrach and Po about the famous authors who also shared Humbert's interests.

[38:39] ♪ Musical number: "Dante's Song" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[41:21] Robert W. Schneider: One thing that wasn't touched, as it was working so well and fit the stylization of the show they were all striving for, was Lolita and Humbert's race across the states, a dance piece that melded music, dance, dialogue, and song all together. The montage was called How Far Is It To The Next Town.

[41:41] ♪ Musical number: "How Far Is It To The Next Town" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[43:17] Robert W. Schneider: Let me, let me, if you have enough. Tell me, tell me, tell me.

[43:42] Unknown speaker: What? I don't want you to be mad at me anymore. And I'm glad you love me so much.

[43:49] Unknown speaker: Am I hallucinating again? What has happened to you? I don't want to stay here anymore. I want to go away. Can we? Any place. Let's head for Arizona. Elphinstone.

[44:01] Unknown speaker: I want to see the Indian dance. Marvellous. From there we can head south into Mexico.

[44:05] Unknown speaker: Can I pick out all the places we stop at along the way?

[44:08] Unknown speaker: My darling, my darling, you can pick out where we go, where we stay, what we eat, what we drink, what we do.

[44:13] Unknown speaker: And I want to go tonight. What about the play?

[44:17] Unknown speaker: They can get somebody else tonight. Can we? How far is it to the next town?

[44:38] ♪ Musical number: "How Far Is It To The Next Town" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[45:55] Robert W. Schneider: At the nightly night motel, there's no better place to buy and sell. And no better place for any pal to call your gal.

[46:01] Unknown speaker: Have you got a double room that's free for my tiny little girl and me?

[46:12] Unknown speaker: Hello. Ah, good evening, sir. This is the Eureka County Police.

[46:27] Unknown speaker: This afternoon, did you happen to come into the state via the Waterville Bridge?

[46:31] Unknown speaker: The Waterville Bridge? Why, yes, we did. Oh, that's very funny, sir, because we don't have a Waterville Bridge.

[46:36] Unknown speaker: Will you be around the motel later this evening? Yes.

[46:39] Unknown speaker: Thank you very much, sir.

[46:46] Unknown speaker: What? What did that man want? What man? The man in that red car across the street.

[46:52] Unknown speaker: Oh, him. What was it now? He wanted to know if I had a map. He lost his way, I guess.

[46:57] Unknown speaker: I see. And he could tell at a glance that of all the people on the street, including two truck drivers and a gas station not ten yards away, you would have the widest geographical knowledge?

[47:05] Unknown speaker: That's right, Dad. Well, next stop, Pulaski, Kentucky. Where?

[47:10] Unknown speaker: How far is it to the next town? Oh, we'll find out.

[47:16] Unknown speaker: How far is it to the next town? The Bluefields, we'll find out.

[47:22] Unknown speaker: A town without any whispering chorus, or bending shadows that fall before us.

[47:29] Unknown speaker: A town where people are few and modest, where we can dawdle for star and broadly.

[47:35] Unknown speaker: How far is it to the next town? Where no one can find us.

[47:41] Unknown speaker: How far is it to the next town? There's someone behind us.

[47:47] Unknown speaker: To go and disrupt and hold the county, but don't get mad as the people I see.

[47:58] Unknown speaker: Welcome to the Hushabye Hotel, there's no better place to barge.

[48:02] Unknown speaker: Hands up, ain't no better place for any, any, let alone to go to hell.

[48:19] Unknown speaker: Hello? Good evening, sir, this is Sergeant Sayers.

[48:22] Unknown speaker: I beg your pardon? Sergeant Sayers. V-A-S-S, what do you think you said?

[48:27] Unknown speaker: Nothing. Were you laughing at me? No. Damn northerners, laughing and laughing.

[48:32] Unknown speaker: What's the purpose of your visit, sir? Well, I... Never mind, I'm coming over.

[48:44] Unknown speaker: Where the devil were you? What's the matter?

[48:47] Unknown speaker: The matter is when the red Mercedes went down that street not ten minutes ago.

[48:50] Unknown speaker: What about it? If I'm not mistaken, that car in Eureka was also a red Mercedes.

[48:54] Unknown speaker: There's a lot of them, I guess. Look, though, I don't know if you're lying or not, or if you're insane or not, but that red car has been following us across three states.

[49:01] Unknown speaker: Maybe it's a cop. A cop? Why?

[49:05] Unknown speaker: I don't know. What did you do? I mean, besides taking me across the state line...

[49:09] Unknown speaker: What? How long are we staying here? Five minutes.

[49:12] Unknown speaker: Okay. Next stop, Rachel, Arkansas, then Trump, Red, Oklahoma, and Gladio, New Mexico.

[49:19] Unknown speaker: Then Elphinstone, Arizona. When did you think of that itinerary?

[49:23] Unknown speaker: It just came to me.

[49:48] Unknown speaker: We did it on the mirror

[49:50] Unknown speaker: Before we get to the next round

[49:53] Unknown speaker: We'll call you on Morillo

[49:56] Unknown speaker: Before we get to the next round

[49:59] Unknown speaker: We'll borrow material

[50:19] Unknown speaker: Where were you this time? I ran into a girl I know

[50:22] Unknown speaker: In Elphinstone, Arizona? The sun never sets on that little empire of friends of yours, does it?

[50:26] Unknown speaker: Are you calling me a liar? No, not yet. Her name, please? Betty Parker

[50:30] Unknown speaker: You first met where? At Bairdfleet

[50:32] Unknown speaker: Perfect. Your old school friends, Volume 2

[50:35] Unknown speaker: Paddington Joan, Pierce Pamela, but no Parker Betty. What say you to that?

[50:39] Unknown speaker: She enrolled just before we left

[50:41] Unknown speaker: I see. And what did the two old friends do today?

[50:43] Unknown speaker: The two old friends went to a drug store

[50:45] Unknown speaker: In quest of? Cookies!

[50:47] Unknown speaker: Careful, we can check that

[50:48] Unknown speaker: Go to hell!

[50:49] Unknown speaker: Charming

[50:50] Unknown speaker: Add a thermometer, I don't feel good

[50:52] Unknown speaker: You'll feel better when we get across the border

[50:54] Unknown speaker: I won't embarrass you by asking you to produce the thermometer

[50:57] Unknown speaker: Here, keep it. You'll be needing it soon enough

[51:00] Unknown speaker: I'm going to sleep for a few hours

[51:02] Unknown speaker: If you're in a hurry to get to Mexico, go without me

[51:05] Unknown speaker: Without you?

[51:16] Unknown speaker: The war is in, and we'll take the bar

[51:20] Unknown speaker: The war is now, and still now

[51:23] Unknown speaker: The war is in, and we'll take the bar

[51:26] Unknown speaker: The war is now, and through the real now

[51:29] Unknown speaker: The war is rich, and we'll take the bar

[51:33] Robert W. Schneider: Maybe, just maybe, with a different tone, different lead, different leadership, *Lolita My Love* would land on Broadway, battered, but brilliant. March 23, 1971, Boston's Schubert Theatre, *Lolita My Love* opened again, and once again, the reviews were not overly enthusiastic. The Boston Globe said, quote, "I'm afraid it's going to be a case of better never than late," and in the most devastating of reviews, the exact thing Lerner struggled so long to avoid simply said, quote, "It needs style and taste and depth, and these are things which Alan J. Lerner's idea of theatre evidently can no longer offer." End quote. The writing was on the wall, and after nine performances on March 27, Norman Twain closed *Lolita My Love* in Boston and relinquished the Hellinger, saying the show would come in at some point.

The show's total gross in Boston? $15,000. *Lolita* ended up losing about the equivalent of $7 million in today's world. Nabokov, who hadn't seen the show but knew it was bad, said, quote, "If they're going to do it someday, they're going to do it, so I had better be around when they do it, not only to criticize the thing, but also to explain that I have nothing to do with it. Both girls, the one they fired and the one who replaced her, were awful, little bosomy girls, the wrong type altogether." Yet Alan J. Lerner was not done yet. He realized that the show needed to go further, and once it did, it would succeed. He would succeed. That summer, he locked himself away and began exploring a new structure, one in which Humbert's psychiatrist would be present from the beginning, like actually in the book, questioning and probing Humbert, allowing the show to be a memory play which gives a distance and this character can help push back on Humbert's version of events.

Lerner felt so confident that he flew to London and tried to persuade Rex Harrison and Hayley Mills to join the show, now being called *Light of My Life*, but they declined. Had *Lolita* come in, it would have been competing against *Follies*, *Grease*, *Ain't Supposed to Die*, *A Natural Death*, and a show that is far and away better than all of those shows I just mentioned because it won Best Musical, *Two Gentlemen of Verona*. Summer is summer. I am like the summer, wondering where to go. My gut is saying that it probably would have received a Best Musical nomination. Lerner and Barry would probably lose to Sondheim for *Follies*, but I am sure Dorothy Loudon would have easily won her first Tony Award beating out Linda Hopkins for *Inner City*.

That's how incredible Dorothy Loudon's performance was. In both Boston and Philadelphia, they did comment cards for the audience to say like what did you like and what didn't you like, and just about every card said, "Can that lady come back in the second act? We don't care if she's dead." Things never really got better for Alan J. Lerner, as *Lolita* was the first of five flops he would write between *Lolita* and his death in 1986. There would be a poorly received stage adaptation of *Gigi*, there was *1600 Pennsylvania Avenue* with Leonard Bernstein, *Carmelina* with Burton Lane, and *Dance a Little Closer* with Charles Strauss, which the press dubbed *Close a Little Faster*. There was a faint interest in adopting *Major Barbara* with Julie Stein, but that got passed over.

I'm just curious, what would Julie Stein's *Major Barbara* sound like? I got a tambourine, I'm beggin' for money on the streets. Saxophone, saxophone, saxophone. Ethel Merman as *Major Barbara*. Oh, religion is a trap. Others then tried to put the story of *Lolita* on stage. Edward Albee did a straight version with Donald Sutherland in 12 performances in 1981. Jeremy Irons starred in a 1997 movie that really could not find a distributor besides Showtime's television. And composer John Harbison abandoned his idea of doing an opera of *Lolita* in 2005 because no one wanted to see the material. That was his feeling, to see the material live and in person. And so *Lolita, My Love* disappeared. In 1987, a recording made in Boston appeared, and that sort of made the rounds with aficionados.

And Brett Barrett, the wonderful singer, covered the song in *The Broken Promised Land* of *Fifteen* and *Tell Me, Tell Me* on his Alan Jay Lerner album, which is wonderful if you get the chance to listen to it. It seemed *Lolita* would be one of those shows that would stay buried and hidden and tucked away in the papers of Alan Jay Lerner. But what's tricky is that people like New York Times theater critic Frank Rich and Ken Mandelbaum in his wonderful book *Not Since Carrie* both said that the score was brilliant and wonderful, and that the show was actually much better than people viewed it to be. It was just dealing with really tricky subject matter. So it kind of became this thing that everyone had always wondered about.

Everybody wanted to know what exactly was going on in this particular show. Is it as ludicrous as it sounds? But then these are two wonderful, brilliant theater historians saying, no, it's kind of amazing. So, but the issue was maybe we were never just going to see this show again. Well, it returned. It did return. In 2019, as part of the York Theater's Musicals in Mufti series, and it was directed by Emily Maltby and Robert Sella, starred as Humbert, and Caitlin Cohn, a college graduate, she played Lolita. And to ensure that we were not supposed to sympathize with Humbert, the show now had a non-singing female psychiatrist who questioned Humbert. So you could justify that his recollections were all fantastical and musical.

Also very smart to cast it as a woman who can represent the voice of Lolita that's not really being represented in this particular show. This version that was crafted by Eric Higginson is a version that he used from all the different versions that were out there. And there are tons of different versions out there. Trying to make this piece as cohesive as possible. And I saw it at the York. I'm usually not a prude about things. And I know theater is supposed to make you uncomfortable. I just, I could not, for any good reason, understand why this show was being brought back. Abuse, no matter how it's presented, it's not funny. And the material is not strong enough, in my opinion, for us to look the other way.

But I will say it's good that the York did it in 2019, because after 2020, I do not think we're seeing this show anymore. I cannot even imagine the outcry. Can you imagine if they tried to do this show now, how angry people would be and how upset people would be? Everything would just be canceled immediately. And who knows? Listen, you know, a lot of people say that art is supposed to make you uncomfortable. Not all art has to be safe. And I will say that after watching *Lolita*, there were some vigorous discussions between audience members, and maybe that's the point of art. What I will applaud Alan Jay Lerner for is his desire to push the envelope. There are a lot of writers who play it safe, and they risk very little.

And that's not Lerner. If Lerner were alive today, who knows what he would write, but a musical that challenges society's conventions would be greatly appreciated. Today, we pretty much think that every dark musical was the product of Stephen Sondheim, but way before Sondheim, there was Alan Jay Lerner saying, "Let's rise to the challenge. Let's break some conventions." *Lolita*, like *Mac and Mabel*, or *Merrily We Roll Along*, or *Allegro*, will always be one of those shows that you just can't fix because the subject matter, which is the story, is just not theatrical in a way that people want to see. Out of them all, the shows that I just mentioned, this is the most troublesome, but on one hand, maybe the most daring and the most innovative.

I always come back to the wonderful Layman Engle, who had this idea that all great musicals have six elements in common. And if one of these elements is missing, then the show is not as good as you're hoping. The six elements were feeling, subplot, comedy, romance, music, and lyrics and particularization. And we will say it once again, Engle said feeling was the first thing. How do you feel for this man? How do you allow this to occur? There's a line that some audiences will not cross. And it looks like *Lolita, My Love* was behind that particular line. Now, if Alan Jay Lerner was the most daring, Cy Coleman was probably the most resourceful. Cy Coleman created a show called *Home Again, Home Again*, which closed out of town, and instead of abandoning it, Cy Coleman wrote another musical called *13 Days to Broadway* about a musical closing out of town.

Very meta. We'll talk more about that show next week, but to sort of cleanse our palate a little bit, maybe this show could have succeeded if they had the right actor in the lead role. To give you an example of that, here is the wonderful Jim Walton from *Merrily We Roll Along* in one of my Broadway-bound concerts at 54 Below with some ideas on who else could have sung the title song. Take it away, Jim Walton.

[1:02:24] Jim Walton: Hey Lolita, why are you coming home with a thing? Don't hit a poison weed. This could go on all night. I don't want to jump on the chorus. I was going to finish the chorus. So tough, my widow. Wait up. Hair in my arms, I'll shelter and feed you. Will everyone here kindly step to the rear and let a winner lead the way?

[1:03:05] Robert W. Schneider: Here's where we separate. Hi, friends. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of *Broadway Bound: The Musicals That Never Came to Broadway*. Just a reminder that it takes a lot of research and assistance to get these episodes produced, and any financial assistance is always appreciated. If you like what we are doing, please head over to robwschneider.com, that's R-O-B-W-S-C-H-N-E-I-D-E-R.com, click the tab that says AMTA, that stands for the American Musical Theatre Archives, and make a tax-deductible donation to keep shows like this one on the air. Oh my gosh, I sound so much like PBS right now. I'm so sorry. And sadly, I can't even send you a tote bag, but I can wave energetically if I see you on the street.

And isn't that worth the price of a donation alone? Actually, donate to PBS. That way, they can send you a tote bag. You can put it over your head so nobody sees me waving at you if you're really ashamed and embarrassed of my vociferous energy. Once again, robwschneider.com. Click AMTA, make a tax-deductible donation, and I will be forever grateful.

[1:04:17] Jim Walton: Oh, will everyone here kindly step to the rear?