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[0:18] ♪ Musical number: "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" — performed by Rex Harrison ♪

[0:35] Andrew Child: Hi, I'm Andrew Child, and welcome to Fifty Key Stage Musicals, the podcast. A companion piece to the Routledge Press publication Fifty Key Stage Musicals, which is available for purchase by going to Routledge.com or clicking the link below in today's show description. Today's episode focuses on chapter 14, My Fair Lady, and with us today is author of that chapter, Peter Filichia.

[1:06] Peter Filichia: Thank you for having me.

[1:06] Peter Filichia: Peter Filichia has written about theater for The Star-Ledger, TheaterWeek, Playbill, Theatermania, Broadway Select, Encore, and Masterworks Broadway.

[1:18] Peter Filichia: He's written six books on theater, including three editions of Let's Put on a Musical.

[1:24] Peter Filichia: This four-term president of the Drama Desk Awards serves on its current nominating committee, as well as those for the Lucille Lortel Awards and Theatre World Awards, whose ceremony he writes and emcees.

[1:38] Peter Filichia: He's a National Endowment for the Arts assessor, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music critic-in-residence, musical theater judge for ASCAP’s awards, Broadway Radio commentator, and creator of his one-man show A Personal History of the American Theater.

[2:01] Andrew Child: So I loved your chapter on My Fair Lady, but for listeners who maybe haven't had a chance to read the book yet, could you sort of sum up in your own words? Why is My Fair Lady included in this book? What makes it a key musical?

[2:17] Peter Filichia: Well, of course, a lot of people would say just its great success would be worthy enough to be included in such a book. After all, this was the first musical to run longer than Oklahoma, more than 500 performances more than Oklahoma, and that was a big deal at the time. Now, 2,717 performances gets you probably around 30 or 40th place. But back then, that was a run. I mean, after all, the theaters are basically the same size today, but the population has increased and tourists come, so shows run longer. But My Fair Lady was a big deal and needless to say it won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and it was the toughest ticket to get in town. But you know, nobody thought it was going to amount to anything because first off, Rodgers and Hammerstein tried musicalizing Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw and gave up and said it cannot be done.

Lerner and Loewe, who had done Brigadoon, they'd had a hit with that, and a failure with Paint Your Wagon, said we'll try it. And they tried and they said, you know, it can't be done. They gave up on it. But finally they said, you know, let's go back to it and try it again. And so at this point, we're dealing with a show that a lot of people felt was a two-time loser, so to speak. So nobody expected very much from it. And then they went out and got Rex Harrison to play the lead. Now, the thing was, Rex Harrison, of course, was a fine actor. No question about that. He had won a Tony Award for playing Henry the Eighth in Anne of the Thousand Days. He was in the movie Blythe Spirit. I mean, everybody liked Rex Harrison in comic roles and dramatic roles, but could the guy sing?

I mean, you never bought an album called Rex Harrison Wishes You a Merry Christmas, or Rex Harrison Goes Latin. I mean, you know, those things didn't exist. So as a result, everybody thought, whoa, what's that going to sound like? I mean, a voice like that, are you crazy? Now the thing is, Rodgers and Hammerstein, ironically enough, did choose him as a possibility to play the king in The King and I a few years earlier. So, I mean, it wasn't so out of the whack that he'd be considered for a musical, but still to the average person who buys theater tickets, it seemed impossible. But, and in fact, he thought that it wasn't going to happen either. There's a very famous story about the fact that in rehearsal he was doing the songs and felt reasonably comfortable doing them.

But then when he first heard the orchestra, he thought, oh my god, I could never follow the orchestra. It's too loud. I mean, oh my God. You know, so you know, that was really they had to pull him out of his dressing room in New Haven to do the first performance. I mean, he was really, really reluctant to do it. So all things are against it, and let alone Julie Andrews, too, who was not that known at quality quantity at this point because she had been in The Boy Friend, which was a success, yes, but who was she? So nobody thought much of this show coming in. And of course, many times the show that you don't expect to be a success turns out to be the success because people have low expectations.

So anyway, there he is. And not only does the show get rave reviews, all critics loved it. It gets all the prizes, all that goes with that. And Rex Harrison wins the award, the Tony Award. And of course, will be one of the first people to win an Oscar for a Tony-winning performance as well. But that's down the line. But the point is, My Fair Lady became the biggest selling record of all time. Now, I don't mean in the show category, I mean in the country category, in the pop category, in the rock category. No album at that time sold more copies than My Fair Lady. So people got used to hearing this voice. I'm getting raspy myself. I guess, you know, I'm really getting into it. Anyway, rasp out and go on to mesmerize people with these fabulous songs, these misogynistic songs, to be frank.

But you know, they really, really came to appreciate the fact that the songs were so good and the lyrics were so terrific by Alan J. Lerner and the melodies are wonderful. I mean, so many songs from My Fair Lady became hits, including I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face, which indeed was Rex Harrison's big 11 o'clock number. So people said, well, you know, maybe we don't need great voices in musicals anymore. Maybe it's not important. Maybe what's really important is to really have a character in a voice. And that maybe is more important. Now, of course, there's no denying that the Broadway musical up till this point, we're talking by the way, of 1956. If you look at what happened 10 years before that, you know, you have John Raitt doing the soliloquy in Carousel, and you have Alfred Drake in Kiss Me, Kate.

You know, and these are guys with great voices. And beautiful voices. Sure, indeed, you know. So but now it's not as important. So as a result, let's start looking at all and by the way, in the female category, there's Ethel Merman, you know, of course, who was very famous for her voice, and Mary Martin had a pleasant voice too. But anyway, here we are, and now suddenly we're thinking, well, maybe it's a good idea to look at other people who would be interesting in musicals. That might be fun to see other people who you don't expect to be in a musical to be in a musical. It doesn't have to be Ezio Pinza in my South Pacific, you know. Or and he had also done a musical called Fanny, which was a big success too.

So, you know, let's start looking around and see who might be interested in doing a musical. So in the next year you had Robert Preston. Again, you don't have any albums by Robert Preston in your collection, but there he was, and that was another one where they felt, oh, we can't get anybody else. They offered that part to so many people, Danny Kaye, and nobody wanted to do it. And ironically, some of the people who didn't want to do it would eventually do it on tour. They took the role, but Robert Preston, again, who is he? You know, I mean, as a musical theater person, are you kidding? Tony Randall, who many people know from the series The Odd Couple, you don't expect him to sing, but he was in a musical called O Captain.

Not that it was a hit, but he got the role, you know. By the way, a funny thing about Tony Randall, who always used to tell this story, it's not only a case that he couldn't sing well, he obviously couldn't dance well because the critic for the Herald Tribune said when Tony Randall dances, he tortures the air. So he always remembered, yeah. Maurice Evans, who some people remember as being a warlock on the TV series Bewitched, again, he didn't do much singing on that show, was in a Broadway musical called Tenderloin, which was written by Bach and Harnick, who would later go on to write She Loves Me and Fiddler on the Roof. So Fritz Weaver, another dramatic actor who would win a Tony for a dramatic role, was playing Sherlock Holmes in Baker Street.

Again, not a big hit, ran a while, but still the fact is now people were thinking, well, can Sherlock Holmes be in a musical? Would it seem odd if Sherlock Holmes were singing? And whatever the problems were with Baker Street, and there were plenty. The thing was that Fritz Weaver did not look stupid singing as Sherlock Holmes. So the boundaries are expanding, and that was really significant. So that's really a good thing. I mean, again, he only had one song in the musical he did before that called All American, but he which was written by Strauss and Adams, who had written Bye Bye Birdie. But the thing was people were looking out of the box now. And that was kind of exciting. It happened with women too.

Shirley Booth. Now, I mean, you know, Shirley Booth had done a couple of musicals, but in small parts. A small part in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a starring role in By the Beautiful Sea, I'll grant you. But the thing was those were musical comedies, and they were specifically out to entertain. And now here comes a musical version of Juno and the Paycock. Now that's a serious play by Sean O'Casey. Think about it. There's a one of the characters in it has lost his arm in a war. I mean, can you picture a person like that singing and dancing? Well, in fact, that character did. But Shirley Booth, who was not known for having a beautiful voice, believe me, and was used to comic effect in By the Beautiful Sea and a Trick Rosenberg comic, now is playing a serious role singing.

And indeed, she carried it off very well. The reason the show failed is because people weren't interested in seeing a musical version of Juno and the Paycock. It only lasted two weeks. But a recording shows that she really was very, very good in what she was doing. So then you started getting these stunt casting type things from TV stars. You know, there was Jackie Gleason, who was a big TV star at the time, who again was not known for his voice, doing Take Me Along, a musical version of Our Wilderness, a Eugene O'Neill comedy. George Gobel, a name you probably have never heard of, but he was a big TV star, believe me, a big TV star, was in a musical called Let It Ride, which was a musical version of Three Men on a Horse.

Again, it only lasted a couple of months, but he got the part. Sid Cesar, who was an enormous TV star, enormous TV star in the 50s for Your Show of Shows. I mean, that was a spectacular every Saturday night. I think it might have even sometimes been two hours on Saturday night, a two-hour show. I could be wrong about that, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm right. So Sid Caesar was in Little Me, which Neil Simon wrote with Cy Coleman and Carolyn Lee. And had he not been in terrible shape emotionally, and he admitted in his autobiography he was a terrible drinker at that time and he was giving terrible performances. But the thing was, you know, when it started out, it got rave reviews. It was just that he wasn't competent to do it night after night after night.

But he got the part and a lot of people liked him at the beginning. Buddy Hackett, a comedian in a musical called I Had a Ball. Yeah, really, it kept going on and on. What's really funny is when you think of it, Lucille Ball. Now think of I Love Lucy, which you've probably seen, and you probably know that in many episodes, there was a big joke of how Lucy Ricardo could not sing. Right. That was a big deal. You know, and the thing is, Lucille Ball did not have a pleasant voice. Again, you don't have any albums by Lucille Ball in your collection. And here she was in the musical Wildcat. And a lot of people did feel that her voice wasn't very good. But it was a spirited score, and it would have lasted a long time had Lucy stayed with it.

But the idea of doing eight a week and a show that didn't get such good reviews eventually wore on her. And because she was the producer, she put up all $400,000, all $400,000, which is all you needed in those days to do a musical. So she said, I'm closing it. But nevertheless, you know, she wanted to do it, and nobody thought, wait a minute, this woman can't sing. No, write this way. Your table's waiting, Lucy. We'll take you. We're very glad to have you. Shelly or $400,000. Okay, $400,000. You bet. You bet, indeed, you know, and Lucy could afford to lose the money, needless to say. So what's really bizarre, there's a musical called A Family Affair that was written by John Kander, not John Kander and Fred Ebb.

That would happen later. This is before Fred Ebb came to see it and said, you know, I could write with this guy, let me meet him. But at this point, John Kander is writing ironically enough, with James Goldman, who wrote The Lion in Winter a few years later, and William Goldman, who wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men and won Oscars for them. You know, so I mean it really the three of them got together and wrote an original musical called A Family Affair about a marriage, you know, a warring marriage. And here you had Shelley Berman, who was a stand-up comedian. He made albums, he made many albums, but all stand-up comedy. It was like he didn't sing, okay. Eileen Heckert, a wonderful actress who would win an Oscar for Butterflies Are Free some years later, was also in it, but again, not a singer.

Morris Karnowski, a name you probably don't know because he had a big career going in the 40s, but then came the blacklist, and he didn't work for a long time. But anyway, again, he did like King Lear. I mean, those are the shows that he did. You know, Shakespeare, Shaw, all those things. And here, no, here are the three of them in a musical. And I'm telling you, that album is unlistenable. I mean, by the way, in those days, record companies were hot, hot, hot, hot to sign up original cast albums. Even this Tenderloin that I mentioned with Maurice Evans, when it debuted, it was the 14th best-selling album in the country.

[15:03] Peter Filichia: I don't mean in the show category. There were only 13 records that week that sold better than Tenderloin. And I mean again, it wasn't a hit show. People were buying original cast albums, and Columbia was the leader. They were signed up so many of them. They did My Fair Lady. RCA was really jockeying to get in there too. They were certainly intent on getting as many as they could. They did Brigadoon. Capital wanted to be in it as well. They did The Music Man. Well, where did a family affair wind up with? United Artist Records, which had never done an original cast album before. So this was a show that nobody really believed in. And part of it had to do with the fact, part of it, not all of it, but part of it had to do with the fact that you had these three non-singers.

Maybe that was too much to go by, you know, really. And you know, one we can take, but three. And ironically enough, there's a song in the show called I'm Worse Than Anybody. It had nothing to do with singing, it had to do with the fact that they were all of the three of them got in each other's way and really caused more problems than they needed to. So, you know, look what happened. The show closed after two months. And by the way, what's really significant, all these people I have mentioned, all these people I have mentioned never did another musical on Broadway. All these people who I'm talking about as TV stars now, the people who came from the TV world, they never did another one. Yeah, Shirley Booth did.

I mean, she played the nun in Look to the Lilies. But I'm really talking about these TV stars, the Jackie Gleason, George Gobel, Sid Cesar, Buddy Hackett, Lucille Ball, Shelley Burb, never did another musical. Okay. I think that Rex Harrison being in My Fair Lady, do you think having that sort of person who is a serious actor, but also a comic actor, do you think that put some sort of respectability on the musical comedy that these people were then able to see themselves in these roles or willing to put themselves in these roles?

[17:09] Peter Filichia: Absolutely. Without a question. For one thing, the prestige of a Broadway musical was very, very strong then. Notice what's happened. It's really very interesting when you look at movies of musicals in that era, or even some big movies that we don't really think about today, but like El Cid or Far from the Mad Madden Crowd. What's really interesting is they have overtures, they have intermissions. They wanted to make them seem like Broadway shows. And that was an important value then. Now Broadway shows want to seem like movies. They're 90 minutes long. You know, there's no intermission. You're in and out. Same type of thing. But the prestige was with Broadway in those days. That was the biggest thing of all.

The Hallmark Hall of Fame, which was on TV, used to have adaptations of Broadway plays. That was a very, and those were like event TV things. I mean, the fact that the Hallmark Hall of Fame, notice even the name Hall of Fame. I mean, doesn't that imply importance? And they used to do Broadway shows. So Broadway was really where the prestige was. And that really changed in the late 60s when the baby boomers grew up and were more interested in film and changed the course of things. But yes, I mean, there's no question what you're saying is entirely accurate.

[18:31] Andrew Child: So I'm also fascinated in you sort of mentioned how popular these original Broadway cast recordings were and how popular specifically My Fair Lady was. Do you, as a critic, as someone familiar with this show, as an audience member, what about that album kind of stirred up people to buy it, to want it, to want to keep listening to it?

[19:00] Peter Filichia: Well, ironically enough, it ties into what I was just saying about the fact that the prestige was with Broadway. And you seemed it was very popular with the middle classes to buy these albums because it made them seem very cultured, it made them seem smart. This is where the intelligence was. I mean, the lyrics of My Fair Lady are astonishingly intelligent. You really had to be smart to really appreciate every nuance that we're in, especially Henry Higgins' songs. I'm an Ordinary Man, a hymn to him. Those were songs that really did center on intelligence. You really, the jokes in them were sophisticated. And so you people in that era were not interested in being dumb and dumber. And it really was a way of showing that you were of a higher station.

I remember going into a person's house in 1957 and on the piano there was a book of Rogers and Hammerstein hits. That's the only thing that was on the piano, it was on the music stand on the piano. And, you know, that and I knew those people until 1977. That book never left that piano. I mean, that and this was the way of saying, see, see, we're very cultured people. I mean, you know, so that's where it was. In fact, not only were original cast albums big, but it was amazing how many shows also got recordings. There were popular recordings, and I don't mean people singing. What I mean is there were many instrumental albums of Broadway scores. There were many instrumental albums of My Fair Lady, Porgy and Bess got plenty of them.

There were instrumental albums of flops like Saratoga, which you've never heard of, of Whoop Up, which you've never heard of. These are shows that only ran a short period of time. But there were orchestra leaders who used to interpret these shows or jazz musicians, that happened a lot too, that used to interpret these shows. And these albums went out there, and a lot of people would buy them simply to hear the music to play while they're eating dinner or what have you. But those albums were very popular too.

[21:15] Peter Filichia: And when the original cast album started dying down, and in fact it started happening, they noticed in 1966, because here's what happened in 1966. MAME opened. MAME was a Titanic hit. It became one of the longest running shows in Broadway history at the time. All right. But people were noticing that this album on Columbia Records did not sell as well as Flower Drum Song eight years earlier. In 1958, Flower Drum Song outsold My Fair Lady about two to one, even though my, I'm sorry, Flower Drum Song outsold MAME two to one. And yet MAME ran two and a half times longer than Flower Drum Song did. So people were noticing, oh, the bloom is off the rose. Something is happening here. And what happened, of course, in 1964 were the Beatles and they changed the course of American music.

Now, ironically enough, that same year in 1964, what had happened was Hello Dolly opened, and that was the number one album in the country, even in the Beatles era. Now I'm talking album, I'm talking about 33 and a third record, which has a number of songs on each side of the record. Now, number two album in the country that summer, Funny Girl. Those were the two biggest selling albums. Okay. Now eventually the Beatles albums would overtake that. And indeed, and the reason why is because baby boomers, people born in the late 40s, were now 18 years old, and they were working and they had money. Where they used to buy 45 records, single records for 98 cents a piece. Now they could afford 398, 498, 598 a record.

And so that's where everything turned around, and they were more interested in the new sound. Part of this had to do, as strange as this may sound, part of this had to do with the Kennedy assassination, because the Kennedy assassination took place on November 22nd, 1963. The Beatles released I Wanna Hold Your Hand in December of that same year. And by February, they were on the Ed Sullivan show, which really cemented their success. And the point was that we needed something new in this country after the assassination of this young president. The young people in this country loved Kennedy because he was the youngest president ever to be elected, and he seemed young. And again, this was an administration that made very clear that it loved Broadway musicals.

You have heard, I'm sure that it was known as the Camelot Years because he liked to listen to Camelot. Supposedly that's been aggrandized over the years, but that's what the nation was told that he really loved Broadway. He went to see the premiere of Mr. President in Washington, so on and so forth. There was no question that he was well known as a lover of Broadway musicals, and so was Jackie. So suddenly that's extinguished, and suddenly as these guys come from England, and they have a song called I Wanna Hold Your Hand. And even though, believe me, baby boomers were much more men were much more interested in holding more than hands, the song took off partly because we needed something new and we needed it fast.

And that's where everything turned around. So suddenly original cast albums on selling as well once the Beatles started taking hold. Hello, Dolly, and Funny Girl with the Last Gasps of Greatness. Yes, there would be another big original cast album four years later, Hair, but that didn't sound anything like a conventional Broadway musical. Yes, that made it to number one. But again, those sounds had nothing to do with Rogers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe, believe me.

[24:52] Andrew Child: Well, and then when you're mentioning things like Hair, things like Hello Dolly, things like My Fair Lady doing well as albums, immediately coming to mind are all of these covers like you mentioned by jazz artists, by pop artists, you know, Nat King Cole having a full My Fair Lady album. Do you think that adds to the popularity of the cast album itself?

[25:18] Peter Filichia: Yeah, because it validates it. In fact, I have heard many people say, you know, I heard certain songs from My Fair Lady on the radio sung by these cover artists. I mean, and as a result, I was intrigued. And in those days, believe me, Distrackies used to say such and such a song from My Fair Lady, such and such a song from Gypsy. They used to do that again, it gave it prestige. Rob Marshall, who directed the musical of the movie of Chicago, and his sister Kathleen Marshall, who has directed many, many Broadway musicals, and both of them are terrific choreographers as well, said that when they were growing up, when they would hear a song they liked, they would say, gee, I wonder what that's from.

Meaning that they thought it would be immediately from a Broadway show because it was a good song. I mean, certainly songs stepped out of shows. And to be fair to musical theater today, musical theater writing over the years became so specific to character, and some of that has to do with My Fair Lady too, that that's why a lot of those songs cannot be pop songs today. A lot of them can't because they're too specific to the moment. I mean, you're never going to get a pop song of you got to have a rudder on the arc from two by two, which was a musical about Noah and the Ark. I mean, you know, what a bummer. So I mean, that's not going to happen. So as a result, because musical theater writing has been far more detailed in character as time has gone on, you can't take these songs stepping out of the show and make them into pop hits, not very easily.

In fact, I mean I just mentioned Gypsy, and there's a very famous story. Stephen Sondheim was writing the lyrics to Gypsy, and he went first with a song called Small World. And the point is, here's Rose, who has met a man who is not interested in show business, but she wants to get him interested. And she points out all the things they have in common. We have so much in common, it's a phenomenon is a very great lyric. Anyway, so she says, funny, I'm a woman with children. You're a man who loves children. Well, when Julie Stein got the lyric, the composer, he said, no, don't do this, because therefore you're eliminating an entire sex that can sing this song. We want this song to be popular. So as a result, you know, you can't have I'm a woman with children, no man can sing that.

So, but Sondheim said, yeah, but it's right for the character. And ironically enough, I mean, even though Julie Stein had many hits before this, High Button Shoes was a hit, Bells of Ringing was a hit. You know, he really was an established, he had won an Oscar for two three coins in the fountain. The fact remained that Sondheim, yes, had done West Side Story. Yes, he had, but the word around town was the fact that Leonard Bernstein had really written a lot of the lyrics about West Side Story, which indeed he did. In fact, I mean, the first poster of that said lyrics by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. And Leonard Bernstein said, oh, you know, listen, why don't you just take soul credit?

So the thing was that Julie Stein had the power, and yet when they talked to Jerome Robbins, the director choreographer, who really was a big deal and a very hard tired-nosed guy, yes, that's how the lyric wound up. And yet they adapted the song for Johnny Mathis, who had a big hit with Small World that song. So it worked out for both ways. But the thing was that yes, there was very much interest in recordings by cover artists, and Julie Stein used to have in his contract with every original cast album. Hey, whatever company it was, Columbia Records, for Bells Are Ringing, whatever which one was that he signed up with. He said, you must release four of my songs with your stable of singers that make pop records.

That is a demand, and that was it has to be. So a lot of songs did get out because he made that demand in his contract, and so you would often see people who recorded for the same label of the original cast album doing songs from the show. That would happen quite a bit. You may have never heard of Jerry Vale, but anyway, he was a Columbia Records artist, and because they did the, they were signed to do the cast album of Draft the Cat. He did a song from Draft the Cat. So did Barbara Streisand, but that was another reason. Her husband at the time, Elliot Gould, was in the show, so she decided to record one of the songs. Now, in the show, he sang the song, it was called She Touched Me. When she did the song, of course, it was called He Touched Me.

[30:02] Peter Filichia: And the irony was as if it wasn't bad enough that Streisand was this rising star and Elliot Gould wasn't at the time. He would have success later, but at the time he was floundering. Wouldn't you know that the song he sang, he got to sing on Broadway for a week. And she had this hit song with it. You know, I mean, so no wonder the marriage ended a few years later, two years later. So, um, you know, uh, but that was a big deal. You know, whatever record company signed, um, you would get a recording. Um, a song, a show that never came to Broadway, close to Detroit, written by Frank Lesser, though, who had written Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed, called Pleasures and Palaces, was signed again by the aforementioned United Artist Records, and Lena Horne was recording for them then.

She made a recording of the title song. So, uh, so a lot of that was going on back then, but try to find it now. Well, and it's also interesting, a song that you mentioned already from My Fair Lady, "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face." That when that's being covered by a woman, the pronouns were not always switched. They usually were though. Um, pronouns definitely um were uh taken into consideration. In fact, a lot of people um assumed um that "He Touched Me" was the way it was sung in the show. Uh, because why wouldn't it be? You know, I mean, you just assume that um female artists looked for the female characters in the show and uh sang their songs. But yeah, there were uh some uh anomalies there.

Um, and um, and you know, everybody was very happy just to get uh the recordings out there. That was just such an important thing. But um, but again, because writing got so specific, it really became a problem. But I mean, here we were with My Fair Lady with, um, "On the Street Where You Live," a song that was almost dropped, by the way. Um, not sung by Rex Harrison, by the way, but um anyway, um, people didn't know this guy came on the second actor singing "On the Street Where You Live," and nobody remembered who he was. Um, he had they'd seen him in a previous scene, but he wasn't the important character in the scene. And so um, Alan J. Lerner had to write a verse uh explaining who he was, saying, uh reminiscing of his meeting Eliza Doolittle.

So the verse set up and they said, "Oh, that's who that guy is," and then he could sing "On the Street Where You Live." But "I Could Have Danced All Night," um, even though it has a very strange lyric when she sings, "I'll never know what made it so exciting." She should know she got the she was able to speak correctly in the rain in Spain. So I mean, but uh that became a hit song too. And in fact, uh that became the go-to audition song for so many um people who are auditioning for musicals. Um, there was a joke of that. There was a musical, well, no, there was a play called Say Darling, which was about um the making of a musical. And the joke was every actress who came in to audition for the role sang "I Could Have Danced All Night."

That was the joke because it became the go-to song. That happens occasionally. A song becomes so famous in a Broadway musical um that it becomes the song that everybody auditions with. "A Corner of the Sky" from Pippin, um, is certainly one that was in the 70s, um, in the 60s, "The Impossible Dream." And in recent years, um certainly um uh "Defying Gravity" from Wicked has become the go-to audition song, as well as um uh "Astonishing," I think it's called from Little Women, um, is one that uh you hear a lot too in auditions. So uh so there may not be hit songs anymore, but there are hit songs from the vantage point of people auditioning. They find songs that they like and they do them. So whether they have good voices or not, to get back to what we were originally talking about. Do you think that we'll move back to a place where songs being written for the Broadway theater can become hits, or do you think that's a thing of the past that we're not gonna see ever again?

[33:48] Peter Filichia: Well, historically speaking, pendulums do swing back, and um what I've noticed now is something that is analogous to what was happening essentially a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago's musicals were very silly. Um, they um thrived on being um light, fluffy entertainments with uh no substance behind them at all. Uh, they were called the princess shows. They were the first American shows that really, really made a difference um in Broadway, because up until then there was basically um Broadway was importing operettas from Europe, but suddenly Jerome Kern and uh P.G. Wodehouse and um Guy Bolton said, "Why don't we do American shows with American themes?" And they did, and they had a lot of popular songs, but the books weren't good and they were very silly.

And um, so we went through a period where shows were silly, and then um Show Boat happened, and Show Boat was a serious musical. I mean, really, um a lot of tough things happened in Show Boat, and musicals might have grown up right then and there. That was 1927, December of 27. Think about that, December of 20. The reason I'm making a point of that is because fewer than two years later, in October of 29, we had the depression, and suddenly musicals had to be happy-go-lucky again because the you know these were tough times and people needing an escape. So it wasn't until the 40s with um Oklahoma, which had a murder at the end of the show. I mean, what musical has that, that um that indeed things started getting more serious and and musicals became more integrated with the plot and et cetera, et cetera.

So things got very serious, and um musical theater really changed. Well, now things are getting very frivolous again. And what seems to have happened, of course, more than anything else, is that the audience, again, baby boomers have aged into theater goers, they have the money, and um and there's been a nice um certain effort to uh get kids involved. Um, Rent was very important in getting kids involved, not just because of the subject matter, not just because the characters were their age, but they did the wonderful thing of allowing the first two rows of the theater to be sold for $20. Um, because up until then, kids used to have to sit in the last rows of the second balcony. That's all they could afford.

And it's it's no fun being way far away. And here they were right up front. So they were treated as first-class citizens. Anyway, my point uh uh about this is that so um the baby boomers who grew up with rock music only rock music, and baby boomers are terribly nostalgic. And so as a result, we have these shows where we're jukebox musicals, where indeed what we're hearing more than anything else are songs from the past. And that's good enough for the baby boomers who want to relive their youth and um hear the songs that they grew up with. Whether or not the books are terribly good in between, um, well, all right, we'll we'll wait until the next song comes. That's fine. So we have these biographical musicals and more are coming.

I mean, after all, MJ just opened this week and just um start picking up the mantle that Ain't Too Proud uh left, um, which was about the Temptations. And um there's a lot. There was the Cher show um about Cher, of course. I wonder how many people went to the Cher show expecting to see Cher. One would expect that, wouldn't you? Thankfully, especially the show. Yeah. Yeah, you know, really. I mean, some people must have been disappointed. No reflection on the three ladies who play Cher at various parts of their life. They were terrific. But anyway, so we are in an era where um we're back to the princess shows where the books really don't count very much and uh people just want the songs. So I do believe, I don't think I'll live to see it, but I do believe uh perhaps in the 2040s, um, somebody's gonna say, you know, the musical theater needs to grow up, and we're going to uh get serious shows again, and we're going to get shows that uh with original scores that are going to be more integrated. And I do think there will be room for his songs, but um you'll live to see it, Andrew. I won't.

[37:43] Andrew Child: Well, so you have a very illustrious past as a critic. So I'd love to know uh is there anyone who is starting to do work today that you think you could envision sort of leading that charge in 20 years?

[38:02] Peter Filichia: Well, um certainly I I know names that would mean nothing to you. I I do go to a lot of readings, um, but um let's talk about the people who have had a modicum of success or even more than the modicum. I do believe in Ben Pasek and Justin Paul, who started their career with um their Broadway career anyway, with A Christmas Story, which was a musical set in the 30s, and they perfectly got the 30s sound. That was really so many musicals today that are set in um different eras from today, still music of today. And it's it's it's wrong to have people of um past eras have musicals that sound like today's songs, but uh they adapted very well. Now, since then they've really concentrated on more contemporary shows, uh stories, uh Dogfight, which um uh was uh a minor success for them, but certainly Dear Evan Hansen, which was amazing a major success for them, still running on Broadway.

Um they they certainly showed that they could write with a contemporary sound. But if indeed somebody tomorrow offered them a show that was set in the 40s, um and they wanted to do it, I guarantee you that score would so sound like a 40 score because they would work very hard in doing that. But um, but yes, and uh what's really interesting is Steve Flaherty, who certainly was um a product of uh a later generation. Um I would imagine if I had to guess, Steve was in his fifties at most. The fact remains that uh when he did Ragtime set in 1906, it certainly sounded like that era, and he got the ragtime sound beautifully. So um I I yeah there's I I would like to see more musicals with original scores, um, much more than what we have now.

That's me, if I may cast my three electoral votes. That's what I would like to uh hear. Um it was very exciting going into a theater and hearing songs you never heard before and coming out and saying, "Well, I love that song," whatever it might be. Um so as opposed to going in knowing the songs already. Um so I mean, what's really interesting to me is that two shows this year that had um, well, this not quite this year, but recent shows, let's put it that way. Um, but shows that were still running um this season and um have closed one permanently, one maybe permanently, uh had wonderful books. And I'm talking about Jagged Little Pill and Girl from the North Country, um, both of which the writing in the books were terrific.

I mean you really got involved in the characters and those stories you really cared about them um so even though the songs um basically were written beforehand and had to be uh adapted to uh the book writer had to adapt those songs into the story and often had to make situations uh involving the story that indeed um wouldn't have happened if the song hadn't been written in advance uh the the the book writers did excellent jobs excellent jobs in um fitting them in and making them sound as if they were really written for the shows um that they weren't uh taken from albums uh here and there no uh they really made them sound as if uh the book was written and the songwriters looked at the book and said, "Oh, a good song would go here let me write it."

So um so the writing of books I I think um on the basis of those two may very well be uh uh uh an indication that we're going to have very strong jukebox musicals as time goes on uh because of the book writers because more people well let's face it so many playwrights want to have a musical success because there's much more money in musicals.

[41:39] Peter Filichia: Right. I mean you know it's very interesting if you looked at the top running let's go back to uh the early 80s okay if we go back to the early 80s and we look at the top 10 musicals um at that time the longest running musical was Grease. Grease is probably now in 15th place. Okay, so many musicals have run longer than Grease. If we go back to 19 in the early 80s and we look at the top 10 longest running plays, all right. That's 40 years ago now. And you look at the list of the top 10 longest running plays now, 40 years later, what's changed? Nothing. Wow. No play has cracked the top 10 in 40 years. So the thing is, musicals are where the money is. And so as a result, uh even playwrights want to write musicals.

People who never even thought about writing a musical who consider themselves playwrights and would only write serious plays. When people come to Lynn Nottage and say, "Do you want to write a musical about Michael Jackson?" She says yes, even though her hands are tied because she can't really deal with so much of what we know about Michael Jackson. The fact is she did the best she could. Um and um certainly uh you you watch the show and you say, um, you know, there's another way that um Michael Jackson's singing "I'm Bad" uh could really be used in a very different context. That uh because he was bad, we're led to believe by many people. Um, even though let's face it, he was exonerated in court, but nevertheless.

So Lynn Nottage had her hands tied because the producers of the show, some of them are people who involved with Michael Jackson's estate, and they said, "Here's what we want." Uh, but still, you know, there's the money. You know, I mean, yes, Lynn Nottage's plays have been extraordinarily well received. Um, and two Pulitzer surprises, how bad can they be? The fact remains, why aren't they in the top 10 of the um longest running plays? Right. Uh you know, because plays just don't run that long. They just don't. Um, it's very rare for a play to run even 500 performances now. Very rare. And notice how many plays are uh done by um uh institutional companies like Manhattan Theater Club or Second Stage, where there are limited runs.

You know, that you know, uh uh two months, three months maybe, you know. So a lot of plays start out, it's not like the old days when plays opened and hoped they would run forever. Now they they only run a short period of time. And that's one of the reasons why a lot of people want to um a lot of stars want to do Broadway plays. You know, oh yeah, I'll do it for two months. I'll take the financial loss and maybe I'll win a Tony. I truly believe the word ego, you know, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony is one of the reasons why um people come to Broadway. You know, they think, oh, let me do that. That's a big challenge. Let me win all four awards. Let me do that. But to do to win the Tony, you have to do it.

You have to come here to Broadway and you have to learn the part and you have to do it. But if you do it for a couple of months, you might get away with it. You might get a Tony and um you don't have to come to Broadway ever again. Um and I do believe a lot of people who don't win that Tony the first time around, such as Tom Hanks, um, who's in a play, got a nomination, was damn good, no question, but didn't win. You know, I have a film we're not gonna see him again. I think he was gonna say, "I took my shot, that's fine." Well, uh, do I really need an E-G-O-T?

[45:01] Peter Filichia: I mean, um, you know, uh a lot of these people um who don't have an ego have an ego, and that's good enough, you know. And um, you know, they've they've certainly been rewarded in many ways, and that's perfectly fine. Take a page from Whoopi's book, just be a producer and get best musical, right?

[45:17] Andrew Child: Yes, indeed.

[45:18] Peter Filichia: Uh Lord knows that she's done her time on stage, but again, uh in limited engagements, you know, even when she took over in Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, you know, it was only for a limited time. So uh, and again, you know, to a lot of them, it's uh maybe to say it's a goof is is not really fair because that um makes it sound not serious. But you know, it's it's a change of pace. Let's put it that way for some people. So yeah, they'll do it for a couple of months and uh, yeah, let's live in New York, you know, let's go to these uh nice restaurants, you know, it's a fun place to live. So uh why not? Woody Allen. Woody Allen, when he wrote a play, Play It Again, Sam in 1969, and he was in it.

And he said this was his perception. I'm not saying it's everybody's perception, but his perception was that this is the easiest job in the world. I just show up eight times a week for a couple of hours. I have uh aside from Wednesdays and Saturdays, I have every day to myself all day long. Um, you know, I know the show because I wrote it, you know. It's it's the easiest job in the world. Now, some people feel it's the hardest job in the world, and they have a point too, because doing the same thing night after night after night after night is very hard for some people. You know, um, and um I mean some people, I'm not gonna give names, but I I have gone to see people at the beginning of the runs who were terrific, and I've gone to see them at the end of the run.

And um they're improvising like crazy. They they're trying new things to give them credit. They're trying to do it a different way, but the different way is an inferior way to the first way they did it.

[46:46] I don't know if you remember when you were in college um and high school, they used to say when you took the SATs, um, chances are the first answer you're inclined to give is the best answer, is the right answer. Well, similarly speaking, these performers who do shows, their first instincts and the directors' instincts are the best ones. The choices they make later are often not as good. I've seen that happen time and time and time again with people whose names you know very, very well and you respect. But I'm telling you, seeing these people at the end of the run because they they're just so bored by doing it night after night after night after night after night after night that they have to do something different with their lives.

[47:24] Well, it's and that's something that plagued the original production of Pygmalion, uh, with sort of this nebulous ending that is different from My Fair Lady that actors playing Professor Higgins uh would kind of go out on a limb and say, I'm just gonna give the audience what they want. I'm gonna give her a bouquet of flowers, I'm gonna end things well with Eliza. Uh, do you have an opinion on the way the ending of My Fair Lady kind of not as open-ended?

[47:57] Peter Filichia: Well, uh sure. There's no question that in the original production, yes, Eliza comes back, and yes, Henry Higgins is not going to change who he is, and um he asks her to get the slippers, and as the stage direction indicates, um, she understands. That's literally uh in the stage direction. She understands. And so we really have a situation where the guy is going to uh have the marriage if there is a marriage, and chances are we're led to believe there is, um, on um his terms. Now, Shaw um did end the play um um in uh uh a nebulous fashion too, but he then wrote an essay sometime later saying that Eliza married Freddie. She did not uh marry Henry Higgins. So that's apparently what he believed, or at least what he wanted well.

Um when Alan Jay Lerner wrote the show, he actually wrote a little um not quite an essay, it's only a few sentences, but he says, Um, Shaw, forgive me, but I don't think you're right. I think that she does wind up with Henry Higgins. Um yes, I I there was a production in England with Jonathan Pryce, uh, where at the end of the show they both ran into each other's arms, which was really quite nice. I I I think there should be a happy ending, and I think the what uh My Fair Lady should say is even if you are a low-class person, education can make you a worthy person enough to be with a high-toned person, uh a learned person um who was uh from a different class to begin with.

[49:28] Um again, class is such a big thing in London. Class distinctions are very, very important. There certainly were, uh I don't know about about right now. I don't live there after all, but certainly in the 50s, that was still an issue back then. And um so as a result, the idea of marrying a commoner um seemed to be anathema to so many people, which is why that ending was left to um a theatergoer's own interpretation. But yeah, I'd like to think that um uh certainly people who can be educated um should be worthy of people who had been educated already. Why not? I mean, um especially that that's a very American interpretation because after all, we are in a country that ostensibly, ostensibly believes that um um all people are created equal.

So uh if they are, well, then everybody's worthy of everybody. And so let's let's reflect that. So I like um My Fair Lady that implies that they're going to get together and live happily ever after. I don't know if they will. I don't know if anybody will in musicals. I mean, you know, I don't think Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls are going to be happy beating a drum for the mission very much longer.

[50:32] But um, I don't think um I uh it's always amazing to me in South Pacific at the end of the first act when uh those two kids run in and she finds out that he has two children, that she doesn't say to him, uh you know, Emile, before you asked me to marry you, you could have told me I'm gonna be the stepmother of two kids. I mean that that makes that's a very different value system, you know. I mean, being being married to a man with no children, being married to a man with two children, I'm not talking about race at all. I'm just talking about two kids. That's a lot of work. I mean, so um, no, you know, I'm so um so while I can hope that Eliza and Henry would um live happily ever after, it's not impossible that he would pull rank on her as time whenever she did something wrong and uh point it out to her.

[51:17] Peter Filichia: Well, it is it's complicated because uh class aside, uh their relationship has started as teacher pupil.

[51:27] Andrew Child: Yeah, yeah.

[51:27] Peter Filichia: So, you know, are they gonna be able to get out of that? Um, even though Anna and the King of Siam tells us by your pupils you'll be taught. And to a degree she has taught him. The fact remains that it's much easier for him to pull rank and for her, you know, we so many of us never get over um who we were. Um it's it's one of our great curses in life. I mean, uh every psychiatrist will tell you a person's childhood is uh is so definitive and what that person becomes, and so many people just can't get over it, and they um go back to who they were as children emotionally and intellectually, even so uh yeah, um it when he pulls rank on her, she's she's gonna remember that she was this flower girl.

Um with um it's even established she has bad teeth. That's even in the stage directions. Um she could use the services of a dentist, I think the uh expression uh in the stage direction goes. But yeah, yeah, and but um still, while we're actually sitting in the theater, we'd like to believe that uh these two could have a relationship and live happily ever after.

[52:30] And I mean, let's talk about what's not in Shaw's stage directions. You know, he's got a novel worth uh every time you turn the page, it's like, and here's what's actually going on behind the scenes. Do you think that that intricate subtext that those intricate commentaries on society, do you think those carried over well to Lerner and Loewe's musical adaptation?

[52:56] Peter Filichia: The irony is that um My Fair Lady is not so much a musical of Shaw's Pygmalion as it is of the 1938 movie of Pygmalion. That really was the great influence because in Shaw's Pygmalion, you do not go to the Ascot, you do not go to the ball. And but in the movie you do. One has to wonder when Rodgers and Hammerstein were trying it, and I heard Richard Rodgers say, um, we were convinced it couldn't be done. And you don't mean to tell you that it could. Um, you know, you don't need me to tell you that it could be done because they did it. But uh it's funny there's a song called You Did It in the show, and uh and they did do it. Um, but one has to wonder if they were just reading the play and never bothered to screen the movie.

I mean, obviously screening movies in those days was far more arduous. I mean, now, you know, we pop in a DVD, we stream it, you know, fine. You know, uh, do you want to do the show? Well, in two hours you'll have your answer. But back then, I don't know. I mean, one would think that Rodgers and Hammerstein, especially in the 50s, where out of um five musicals, four were wild hits. One would think, and and really, um, what's really interesting of as of 1954 or so, the top five musicals in terms of length of run, four of them were Rodgers and Hammerstein. The only one that wasn't was um Annie Get Your Gun by Irving Berlin. But the other four, you know, uh Oklahoma, um, and uh King and I in um uh South Pacific, um, I'm sorry, so I should say three out of four, uh, were the longest running musicals in Broadway history.

So you would think that they would have the power to get this movie, and for all I know, they saw the movie. I've never heard one way or the other, whether they did or didn't. But um but gee, I would think that uh, you know, Oscar Hammerstein, who did such a fabulous job of adapting the movie of Anna and the King of Siam? I mean, it's much more King and I is much more based on that movie from 1946 than it is on Margaret Langdon's memoir uh or novel or whatever it is. I mean, uh or whatever it is. We'll leave it. Whatever it is, I mean boy, I'm telling you, you know, uh there are so many stories about Anna, the real Anna that had nothing to do with that uh woman. But nevertheless, uh so since he saw the movie of Anna and the King of Siam, didn't he see the movie A Pygmalion? Um it's just amazing that they wouldn't see with Lerner and Loewe, uh especially Lerner, um, the wordsmith, uh, of going to the ball and going to the races. Very important scenes, you know.

[55:32] Andrew Child: So um so I think it had much more to do with that than anything else, the movie.

[55:39] Peter Filichia: And do you think, just because you've mentioned movies, do you think in hindsight, would you have liked to have seen Julie Andrews do the movie? Or are you happy that we have the performance by Audrey Hepburn dubbed by Marnie Nixon?

[55:56] Peter Filichia: Well, um, almost across the board, I would rather see the person who did the Broadway show uh do it because I wanted that I I would like that performance captured forever. Um it after all, it it doesn't take long for people to age or or you know, change the role and um in what they're put portraying. So so I'm very grateful to have Gwen Verdon in Damn Yankees. That's um that's really quite wonderful to have her doing it. So uh yes, I would have preferred Julie Andrews in um My Fair Lady, the N the Audrey Hepburn, who was fine. But the you know, also when she starts singing The Rain in Spain and she's not singing The Rain in Spain because Marnie Nixon is, the difference in the voices is so enormously um uh obvious that um it takes you out of the situation.

And so many musical movies where they dubbed people, um it's you can really tell it's not the same person who you just heard speaking. So I'm always uh for um the original person doing and you know, this must be very hard on Chita Rivera, who after all was the original Anita in West Side Story and was also the original Velma in Chicago. Why is this really hard for her? Not just because she lost the part, but the two people who got the part won Oscars. You know, Rita Moreno in West Side Story and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago. They got Oscars. Well, you know, Chita Rivera certainly who originated those roles, after all, you know, could have gotten Oscars too. Now, granted, um the Chicago movie was more than a quarter century later after the original production.

So we'll we'll let her out we'll let Hollywood off the hook for that one. But after all, I mean, um the movie West Side Story was only four years after um um the uh original Broadway production. So she still could have done it, you know. And so yeah, it wouldn't have been the end of the world. And uh, you know, I I I really don't know uh who's older, Rita Moreno or Chita Rivera, but I don't think there's uh in fact I think Rita Moreno's older. So I mean the fact is um having uh a a younger Anita, not by much, maybe a year or two, uh wouldn't have been an issue. So it's really too bad that that's the way it played out. But it must be very painful for Chita Rivera to look at those two situations and say, wow, I'm the one who um trailed the blaze there.

Right. Uh and look what happened. So yeah, I'm always I'm always for the original one. And unless the person really got bad reviews. I mean, for example, um Jill Haworth was the original leading lady of Cabaret. And this is a very controversial performance on stage. A lot of people thought she was wonderful. I thought she stunk. But so as a result, yeah, give me Liza Minnelli for the movie. And oh, of course. You know, and and the thing is, um when Cabaret was reviewed by Walter Kerr in the Times, he said Cabaret is a brilliant musical. Uh I'm sorry, uh stunning musical, brilliantly conceived, with one wild wrong note. And what he meant was that leading lady. And he went on to castigate her as time went on in the review.

But, you know, I mean, uh uh so but some people will say, Oh, she was brilliant. She was uh but I'm very glad that Liza Minnelli did the role because I thought so the answer obviously is if I didn't like the performer in the on the stage show, yeah, give me somebody from the movies. But if I thought the stage person was terrific, let's see that person in the movies.

[59:09] Andrew Child: All right, well, thank you so much for joining us today.

[59:13] Peter Filichia: You bet.

[59:13] Andrew Child: Uh listeners, please make sure to purchase a copy of Fifty Key Stage Musicals by visiting Routledge.com or by clicking in today's show description. If you want to learn more about My Fair Lady, please also review the links in the below description. I am Andrew Child, and thank you for listening to Fifty Key Stage Musicals.

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