This Is A REALLY Big Day For Musical Theater, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       Sixty-one years ago,  tonight, girls, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, the curtain went up on Rodgers' And  Hammerstein's "The Sound Of Music."  And things have  never been the same, since.

                                       Imagine,  Catholicism on  Broadway.  That was just one of several  distinctions this show held.   It beat out "Gypsy"  for the "Best Musical" TONY Award, for 1959.   Martin Martin beat out Ethel  Merman in "GYPSY," as "Best Lead Actress In  A Musical."  Laurie Peters, who originated Liesl, has the distinction of being twice nominated in the same category--Best Supporting Actress In A Musical," both  for her  performance as Liesl, and as one of The Children in "The Sound OF Music,' even though two of them,  William Snowden and Joseph Stewart, were boys!!!!!!!!!  Nothing like this has happened, since!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                          Patricia Neway,  as the Mother Abbess, beat everyone that year for the "Best Supporting Actress In A Musical" TONY Award.   I have it on  word from several people  I know old enough to have  seen it,  that,  at  the end of Act  One,  when Neway hit the final  note of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," the chandelier at the Lunt-Fontanne shook every night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                            And, as  a  true Theater Queen, let me identify those stage children.  Left to  right--Laurie Peters (Liesl), Joseph Stewart (Kurt), Kathy Dunn (Louisa), Marilyn Rogers (Brigitta), who, sadly, died several years back, at  the age of 63, but holds the distinction of having been in the Original  Broadway casts of  three Musical Theater Classics--"The Music Man" (1957), as the original Amaryllis, "The Sound Of Music" (1959), and one of the younger daughters in "Fiddler On The Roof" (1964).  She also graced the cover of two of those Playbills--"The Music Man" and "The Sound Of Music."  The boy behind  Marilyn  is William  Snowden,  the original Friedrich.  Followed by  Evanna  Lien,  the  original Gretl.  Not present in  the  picture is  Mary Susan  Locke,  the original Marta.

                                              Happy Birthday, "The Sound Of Music!"  Those hills are still alive!

                            

                                       Now, twenty two years this same night, after "The Sound Of Music" opened, "Merrily We Roll Along" opened at the Alvin Theatre.  What a young cast--Lonny Price, Jim Walton,  Ann Morrison, Manna Allen, MaryRose  Wood, David  Loud,  Donna Marie Eliio/Asbury, Sally Klein, Jason Alexander, David  Loud, Tonya Pinkins,  Liz Callaway--and I am naming all of these from memory,  some  of whom I have crossed paths with from time  to  time.  Oh, and  don't forget Terry Finn and Abigail Pogrebin, all  of  whom can be seen  in  Lonny Price's wonderful documentary film  "Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened," from 2016.

                                          It was my privilege to see this production twice, back in 1981.  As far as singing the  score,  this cast remains the Gold Standard.  Future productions  and  performers  will attempt it,  but none  will  equally this cast vocally,   or,  I doubt,  get the  staging or  text right.

                                         'Merrily' is a show that returns the  love  its  fans give  it.

                                          Next year, it turns 40!!!!!!!!!!!  Something big will have to be planned!