Goodspeed Opera House, the musical theater powerhouse in East Haddam, has announced its 2014 season: Damn Yankees, Fiddler on the Roof and Holiday Inn.
Cool enough, but the details make these choices even cooler.
Damn Yankees is being touted as “The Red Sox version,” its book and lyrics adapted by Joe DiPietro, whose Goodspeed show They All Laughed morphed into the recent Broadway hit Nice Work If You Can Get It. The director is Daniel Goldstein, who did the Goodspeed’s recent Hello, Dolly.
Damn Yankees was first produced in 1955. It was co-written and directed by George Abbott, also the director of the original production of a play being revived by the Westport Country Playhouse this month, Room Service. The plot involves a fan of the poor-playing Washington Senators, who wants to see his team win so much that he brokers a deal with the devil. In a 19994 revival which also heavily rewrote the musical, Victor Garber played the devil, followed in the role (and on tour) by Jerry Lewis.
The Red Sox rewrite has been staged elsewhere, during seasons when the Yankees made the playoffs and the Red Sox didn’t: in 2006 at North Shore Music Theatre in the Boston suburb of Beverly, and in spring of 2012 at the Ongonquit Playhouse in Maine (with Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Carson Kressley as the Devil). It apparently includes a dance number titled “The Red Sucks Ballet.” (2012 marked the real-life Red Sox’s worst season since 1965.)
Surely Goodspeed must have noticed that it was the Red Sox this year who were the all-powerful team at the top of the league and the Yankees who were distant also-rans, and that the Sox have had several other decent years in the past decade. (Is my dramaturgical bias showing?) Suspension of disbelief is often required with musical theater. It’ll be particularly needed April 11 through June 21, when Damn Yankees runs. Of course, the baseball season will open at the midpoint of the show’s run, the Red Sox could conceivably lose their first few dozen games, and perceptions could change. But let’s hope not.
Fiddler on the Roof gets done a lot, but the Goodspeed’s rendition(June 27 through September 7) is immediately noteworthy because Rob Ruggiero is directing it. As his recent Goodspeed productions of Carousel and Showboat have shown, Ruggiero does not shy away from issues of race, class and social unrest which other directors often attempt to sugarcoat. We have every reason to expect a sensitive, realistic version of this classic 1964 musical version of Sholem Aleichem’s short stories about Jewish community ceremony and strife in turn-of-the-20th century Tsarist Russia. Actors who’ve played Tevye the milkman have ranged from Zero Mostel to Topol to Luther Adler to Theo Bikel to Harvey Fierstein to Alfred Molina.
Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, with the composer’s name attached to the title, is how they appear to be referring to this world premiere musical based on a seasonal movie classic.
That’s right, it hasn’t been done before. But didn’t…? No, you’re thinking of White Christmas. Holiday Inn, playing Sept. 19 through November 30, is being adapted for the stage by TV writer/producer Chad Hodge (The Playboy Club; the forthcoming Wayward Pines) and frequent Goodspeed director Gordon Greenberg (whose previous writing (or rewriting) credits for Goodspeed shows include Band Geeks and Pirates!—Gilbert & Sullivan Plunder’d). Irving Berlin’s Holiday is being produced in association with Universal Stage Productions. Well-known songs from the movie version (released in 1942, directed by Mark Sandrich, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire) include, um, “Easter Parade” and “White Christmas.” Also “I’ll Capture Your Heart,” “Lazy,” “”You’re Easy to Dance With,” “Happy Holiday,” “Let’s Start the New Year Off Right,” “”Abraham” (which Crosby performs in the film in blackface), “Be Careful, It’s My Heart,” “I Can’t Tell a Lie,” “Song of Freedom” and “I’ve Got Plenty to Be Thankful For.”
Naturally, subscription deals are already in place for the Goodspeed 2014 season, and range from $81 to $219 for the three shows. Single tickets to individual shows won’t go on sale until February. The theater has yet to announce the new musicals it’ll be workshopping at its Norma Terris venue in Chester. For Goodspeed details, see www.goodspeed.org