Stage 1940s IV: New Talents
New Talents
The      original cast Playbill for Finian's Rainbow (1947).
In the late 1940s, a number of new creative talents caught on to      what Rodgers and Hammerstein had really accomplished. This resulted in several      outstanding musicals that would remain popular for decades to come.
Finian's Rainbow (1947 - 725  performances) was      the first musical to tackle racism with laughter, proving that the integrated musical      could work as social satire. It told the story of an Irishman who steals the leprechauns'     legendary crock of gold and buries it near Fort Knox, thinking it will grow in such "rich" soil. While the Irishman's daughter falls in love with an American,      an avenging leprechaun is distracted by human love -- and an innocent wish turns a bigoted      Southern congressman into a Negro. David Wayne played     Og the leprechaun, becoming the first performer in a musical to receive the Theatre Wing's     new Antoinette Perry Award, later known as "The Tony." Composer Burton Lane and lyricist E.Y. "Yip" Harburg 's score included "Look to the Rainbow," "That Old Devil Moon," and "How Are      Things in Glocca Morra."
Priscilla Gilette and David Brooks sing "Almost Like Being in Love" on the program cover for the first national tour of Brigadoon.
In a more romantic vein, lyricist/librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe found success with the story      of two men who stumble into a town that magically reappears in the Scottish highlands      for only one day every century. Brigadoon (1947 - 581   performances) was graced with a      ravishing score that included "Almost Like Being In Love" and "There But      For You Go I." Agnes DeMille contributed several ravishing ballets, helping to make Brigadoon became one of the most frequently revived musicals in the international repertoire.
Tin Pan Alley songwriter Frank Loesser was best known for his wartime hit "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." His first Broadway score was for Where s Charley (1948 - 792 performances)), based on  the old British comedy Charley s Aunt. The sweet ballad "My Darling" made it onto the pop      charts, but it was Ray Bolger 's rendition of "Once In Love With Amy" that caused a sensation -- thanks to a happy accident.      One night early in the run, Bolger heard the audience chuckle partway through the song.      It seems a a child had begun to sing along with him. The veteran showman encouraged the      youngster, then got the whole audience to join in. Enchanted, the audience demanded      encores, literally stopping the show. The sing-along became a permanent part of the show,      catapulting Where's Charley to hit status, and giving Bolger his most memorable      stage moment.
By the end of the 1940s, integrated musical plays, both serious and      comic, dominated the Broadway landscape. The greatest composers in American popular      music were all working in this new form.
Composer Kurt Weill and           playwright Maxwell Anderson's Lost in the Stars (1949 - 273 performances)) examined the nightmare of South African apartheid decades before            it became a widely discussed issue.
Irving Berlin 's Miss Liberty (1949 - 308 performances)) had a book by           Pulitzer-winning playwright Robert E. Sherwood,           telling the story of a newspaper reporter trying to identify the woman who posed for            the Statue of Liberty. The score included "Give Me Your Tired" and "Let's Take an Old Fashioned Walk."
Composer Jule Styne and           lyricist Leo Robin turned the popular Anita Loos           1920s novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949- 740    performances)) into a smash hit           musical comedy -- integrated, but with enough lighthearted fun to rate           as a musical comedy. As Lorelei Lee, the gem-hungry flapper with a heart of pure            gold, Carol Channing found stardom, stopping            the show with her wide-eyed renditions of "Little Girl from Little           Rock" and "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend."
The 1940s in London
Few London productions of 1940s drew much attention     outside of Britain, but the West End had its share of homegrown musicals.     Broadway producers felt that most of these shows were "too     British" to appeal to American theatergoers.  Even the perennial     transatlantic favorite Noel Coward was unable     to turn out a hit musical in this decade. After World War II, his Pacific      1860 (London 1946 -129 performances) faired poorly despite a lavish production and the presence of Mary Martin.
London's most popular star during the mid-twentieth century      was Ivor Novello , an actor-songwriter who composed      and starred in a series of hit operettas, despite the fact that he couldn't sing a     note. With striking good looks, a winning stage presence, and a gift for writing lush     melodies, Novello played leading roles and left the singing to everyone around him. To make      this less awkward, he often played characters that accompanied others on piano.
Ivor Novello   makes one of his non-singing appearances in The Dancing Years with Roma Beaumont and Mary Ellis (on the      stairs).
Novello got away with this arrangement in show after show, cheered on by      a hoards of female fans who had no idea their idol was a homosexual. With a mixture of      affection and envy, longtime friend (and competitor) Noel Coward said that "the two      loveliest things in the British theatre are Ivor's profile and my mind." Novello's      almost continuous string of musical hits included 
Glamorous Night (1935 - 243 performances)
Careless Rapture (1936 - 297 performances)  wags dubbed            this one "Careless Rupture"
Crest of the Wave (1937 - 203 performances)
The Dancing Years (1939 - 967 performances)  this one was           nicknamed "The Dancing Queers"
Perchance To Dream (1945 - 1,022 performances)
King's Rhapsody (1949 - 839 performances)
Gay's The Word (1951 - 504 performances)
None of Novello's shows (which often contained enough gooey sentiment to choke      a drainpipe) were ever produced on Broadway, so even his most popular songs      ("Shine Through My Dreams," "Waltz of My Heart") were rarely heard      outside of Britain. And that's a pity, because his gift for polished, romantic melody      placed him somewhere between Coward and Franz Lehar. Novello's dominance of the London stage      continued until his sudden death at age 58, when he was starring in King's Rhapsody.     Thousands lined the streets on the day of his funeral, which was broadcast     live over British radio to a mourning nation.
The longest running West End book musical from this period was Me and My Girl (1937 London - 1,646 performances), the story of a poor London cockney      who inherits a nobleman's title and fortune. The Noel Gay score included the catchy "Lambeth Walk," and Brits packed the theatre through most of World War II.      British comedian Lupino Lane triumphed in the lead and starred in several revivals.      But American producers felt Me and My Girl was "too British" for      Broadway. In 1985, London welcomed a heavily revised version starring Robert Lindsay. After a rip-roaring triumph in London (where it ran for years), Me and My Girl finally traveled to New York in 1986, where it racked up   a healthy 1,420 performances. It seems even thick-headed Yanks can   eventually catch on to a bit of alright.
South Pacific
Mary Martin and Metropolitan Opera star Ezio Pinza on the original cast     Playbill for South Pacific.
As the 1940s ended, New York was the undisputed center of the theatrical      world,  and Broadway's last musical hit of the decade was one of the biggest ever.      Working with co-librettist and director Josh Logan ,   Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote a musical based on two stories from James Michener's Tales      of the South Pacific. Set on a tropical island occupied by American     forces during World War II, it told of military nurse Nellie Forbush falling in love with      French planter Emile de Becque, and of upper-crust Lieutenant Cable giving his heart to a Polynesian girl.     Romance forces these two "decent" Americans to confront the bigotry they were   taught at home. Set amid the life and death tensions of wartime, it was a world away from the      whacky musical comedy librettos that had reigned on Broadway at the start of   the decade.
With powerhouse stars Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin , a well crafted script, and a score that      included "Some Enchanted Evening," "Younger Than Springtime," "Bali Hai," and "I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy," South      Pacific (1949 - 1,925 performances) proved to be a critical   and commercial sensation, creating an unprecedented demand for      tickets. Some critics (to be specific, the idiotic ones) have suggested that     aspects of the book seem dated today, but the show's score and genuine      sentiment still work.
South Pacific was unusual in many ways. There was almost no dance,     two equally important love stories, and the dramatic tension was not provided by     any single antagonist (a.k.a. - a "bad guy") or "silly misunderstanding." Both love stories were u against "carefully taught" racial prejudices. These      reflex hatreds drive key characters to push away from the people they love. In the case      of a young Lieutenant and his native girl, the results are tragic, but Nellie and Emile      are finally reunited.
South Pacific confirmed Rodgers and Hammerstein's command of the      genre. Along with worshipful reviews, it won the Tony for Best Musical and became the      second musical to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Tony awards also went to     the authors, as well as Pinza, Martin and other company members. Rodgers & Hammerstein's knack for creating      innovative and entertaining hits came to be called "The RH Factor," and it      would keep them on top through the next decade.
The Shuberts: A Matter of Trust
South Pacific triggered a surprising, radical change in the "business we call show." Tickets were in such demand that theatre owners Lee and J.J. Shubert got greedy. They arranged for ticket brokers   to charge theatergoers up to ten      times the legal box office value of eight dollars, with the Shuberts   pocketing most of      the price increase. They even made top politicians pay these inflated      prices, which proved to be a foolish mistake. Congress launched a long overdue investigation of     Broadway business practices, accusing the Shuberts of functioning as an illegal trust.
The Shuberts used high powered lawyers to draw out the struggle for      several years, but after a series of court battles, the Federal government   won its case. The Shuberts were forced to give up their lucrative control of   theatre bookings and ticket sales, and to sell off a large number of their theatres all across the USA. Although the      brothers remained powerful, their stranglehold on the commercial theatre was broken.
The 1940s had seen vast changes in the musical theatre, both as an art      form and as a business. World War II had re-energized the American economy, and many      great musicals appeared in the 1940s, particularly after Oklahoma (1943) redefined      the genre. But as theatre rents, union minimums and advertising costs kept climbing, it     became harder for shows to turn a profit. So even as the American musical enjoyed what      many have called its "golden age," the number of Broadway productions continued      (with occasional exceptions) a gradual but inexorable decline.
This decline was easy to overlook in the decade that followed.      After all, in the 1950s, the Broadway musical was one of the most popular genres       in all of show business.