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50th Show Biz YearIersReturnsBy JACK GAVERNEW YORK (UPI) —Composer Richard Rodgers discovered a critic in his own family in his 50th year of an incredible career in the theater.The culprit is grandson Adam Guettel, aged 4.“It was on July I,”' Rodgers recalled in an interview. “The family was being driven in a limousine to Jones Beach on Long Island for the opening of Guy Lombardo'srevival of my “The Sound ofMusic.”“It was a very hot night. We were traveling at a peak traffic hour. We inched along. About halfway there Adam piped up, T don’t think it’s going to be worth it.”; :“The Sound of Music,” of course, was one of the biggest hits of the nine shows Rodgers wrote with the late Oscar Hammers te in, a record-setter as a movie and the most successful of the many Lombardo revivals at Jones Beach.Adam should have \ a much more comfort able time of it if he at ten d s th e prem iere of his grandfather's latest musical, “Two by Two.” The date is Oct. 29* when the weather will be cool, and the place is the Imperial Theater in the heart of ther“Two by Tw0was Rodgers’ 37th ^Broadway score. He composed 25 for shows written withlyricist,J Lorenz came the nine mersteinlt;own lyrics for “No Strings^laf-ter| Hammerstein’s: death.1 then teamed with Stephen Sondheim“It has been five and-a-half years f since the^ premiere, of 4 Waltz’,• Rodgers;: commented. That’s the longest hiatus I’vecreating a new si nee 1 Ha rt . and I those years in the early 1930’s in Hollywood, writing for the movies. . K^5SS-;i . -1 would prefer npt to be that1-: inactive as a composer, but I have to be really excited about an-iidea for a show- to commit;;. myself to doing one. Ideas have flowed ^across ;my desk during recent;: years, — S some ^ of theitmeme some lyrics he had written for a possible musical version of Clifford Odets’ play, ‘The Flowering Peach.’“That idea appealed to me, and after several months the project began to take shape. We have a libretto by Peter Stone, who did the current hit, ‘1776 and Joe Layton, who has staged other shows of mine, is the director,” ,“Two by Two’5 deals with the trials of the Biblical Noah and his family in building the Ark and surviving the great flood. Danny Kaye; who has not been i n a Broad w ay m usical si nee 19 41, ha sc ome back from man y years in films and television to“Danny is the first and on 1 y one I thought of for the* part, Rodgers said. “His acting and capacity to bring com passion to arole made him a natural for the cliaracter.••Awould|be about 14 songs in the show, which has the unusualfas pecfor ai musical, gof 5never•••)p os e r s aid, ‘ ‘ whi eh, I s up pose, i s orie:M;;tfeshow. Actually, I would describe it as a musical pi ay rather than :si mply as a musical \'■“There will be some dancing as it fits into the proceedings. I wriuld like to stress that all ofare good singer jers began His profession al^ career at 18 when he and the slightly older Hart contributed half of the scorehe is marking it witha rievv -piBTwo^S/vhich starsDanriy-i Kaye*;.ibelow]winbedgers’ 37thBroadwayscore. He began hiscareer ati 18 when he ^and Lorenz Hartdid part of the scorefor ‘‘PoorLittle Ritz Girl.”; ; lUPI photo)was; broken in i925 when | the-1Garrick Gaieties” put them ini:; .moreajsk of^:r“Tv;:x%reviv-•jlt; ILittle Ritz Girl,” which had its premiere: on July 27^ 1920.-f^3; : They H nex con tributed two songs : to a : non-musical,-0came ashows with Hart; the two did the scores of three London shows th a t were not duplicated here. There were ■ successful Broadway revivals of-their§“AJon-necticut Yankee•acuse” anti k‘tfy .Jupiten*’.;^^^ Besides the nine shows written with Hammersteini f the'S two functioned for several. years 5 asi by others ^Rodgers hasi been his ; own producer in :recent years. He doesn’t need to raise outsideyoung Martin Charnin showed , spell for the pair that finally Toes” ; and “Pal Jo^y^ andproduction
Newspaper Details
Pacific Stars and Stripes
Tokyo, Tôkyô, JP
Tue, Sep 08, 1970
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Cheryl R.
TX, USA 10 Jan 2020
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