Quick! Let’s hop on the trolley and head on down to the World's Fair as we deep dive into the classic ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’. This time around the bend we talk about music-making in the Freed unit and the finesse of Judy Garland’s incredible performance; try and work out just what went wrong with the stage adaptation and analyse how to make a turn of the 20th century show feel fresh in the 21st.
Meet Me in St. Louis (Original Broadway Cast)
SHOW NOTES
If you’ve never heard of Meet Me in St. Louis before then you absolutely must watch the movie starring Judy Garland.
If you are well acquainted, then why not have a gander at the forgotten TV pilot from the 60s, featuring eternal housekeeper Retta Shaw.
Here’s a great book which goes into fantastic detail about Arthur Freed’s process of making these beloved movie musicals.
Frank Sinatra re-popularised ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ with some slight lyric changes. What do you think?
To give the musical its credit, it did have some great choreography. Are you ready to do ‘The Banjo’?
Do you know a musical that has worse lyrics than this show? Let us know on Twitter!
If you want to make any sense of what’s happened between the different iterations of this musical, then you’ll need ‘Tommy’s Crazyman Board’.
We love talking social issues over on Reddit and Meet Me in St. Louis provides with a whole new host of discussion points. Come and join the celebration!
A HEALTHY QUIZ QUESTION
One of the most iconic songs in this musical was inspired by the polio vaccine. What show?