Very Warm for May
| Very Warm for May | |
|---|---|
 Original Broadway Cast Recording | |
| Music | Jerome Kern |
| Lyrics | Oscar Hammerstein II |
| Book | Oscar Hammerstein II |
| Productions | 1939Broadway 1985 New York |
Very Warm for Mayis amusicalcomposed byJerome Kern,with a libretto byOscar Hammerstein II.It was the team's final score forBroadway,following their hitsShow Boat,Sweet Adeline,andMusic in the Air.It marked a return to Broadway for Kern, who had spent several years in Hollywood writing music for movies, includingSwing TimeforFred AstaireandGinger Rogers.
Vincente MinnellidirectedVery Warm for May,which opened at theAlvin Theatreon November 17, 1939. It contained such favorite songs as "All the Things You Are","All in Fun ", and" In the Heart of the Dark. "Gerald Bordman, author of the definitive Kern biographyJerome Kern: His Life and Music,hailed the score as one of Kern's finest.
Billboardmagazine saw the show pre-Broadway, and was enthusiastic: "Prophesied this venture will be a season's hit. The ballet corps keeps the audience awake and eager. Choreography is unique and excellent. Its lyrics, in numbers such as 'All the Things You Are' and 'Up in Harlem' will be taken up soon. Scenery and costumes are colorful, bizarre, and original. 'Very Warm for May' is not one show. It's a three-in-one with enough material for a couple more extravaganzas and maybe a crumb or two to spare."[1]
Very Warm for Mayran on Broadway for two months, withJune Allyson,Eve Arden,Grace McDonald,Jack Whiting,andVera-Ellenamong the performers. It closed after 59 performances. It received mixed reviews, with theNew York World-Telegramcalling the show "Gay and delightful" and finding the songs to be "the most charming that Kern and Hammerstein have ever written", while Brooks Atkinson, of theNew York Times,yawned, "Very Warm for Mayis not so hot for November ", andRobert BenchleyofThe New Yorkerpraised the show as "Lovely to the ear and complimentary to the intelligence...unlike most musicals, (it) actually gets better and funnier as it goes on."
Part of the lukewarm response may have been due to a book that was changed at the last minute.Very Warm for Mayopened out of town with a plot that hadLong Islandsociety girl May Graham fleeing threatening gangsters and hiding out with an avant-garde summer stock troupe in Connecticut.Eve Ardenportrayed a dizzy society matron. This first version of the show received rave reviews and played to sold-out houses. ProducerMax Gordonhad been away when the show opened out of town and when he saw it, he hated the gangster subplot and had it removed. However, New Yorkers didn't seem to be as crazy about the summer stock story, having just seenBabes in Armsthe year before.
It was a very competitive season on Broadway. One month afterVery Warm for Mayopened,Cole Porter'sDu Barry Was a Lady,DeSylvaand Henderson'sGeorge White's ScandalsandRodgersandHart'sToo Many Girlsall opened.Very Warm for Mayis a quintessential "lost musical from the 1930s" because of its enduring score by two Broadway legends and its surprisingly quick disappearance from the theatre scene.
In 1984, recordings of the original cast performances from 1939 were discovered and which were assembled to form along playing(LP)albumand thus became the oldestOriginal Broadway Cast Recording.With notes by Gerald Bordman, the album received a Nomination for aGrammyAward in 1985 as Best Cast Show Album. It was subsequently released as a compact disc and later became available oniTunes.The recordings, however, are actually from a promotional radio show and not an attempt to faithfully record the full score. Several songs from the show are missing, and "All the Things You Are" appears four times on the collection.
Very Warm for Maywas transferred (loosely) to the silver screen for theMGMmovieBroadway Rhythm(1944) with only "All the Things You Are" retained from the musical and the plot rewritten yet again. The actor George Murphy plays snippets of songs from the original score while seated at a piano awaiting the arrival of leading lady Ginny Simms.
Stephen Sondheimhas citedVery Warm for Mayas an inspiration for his interest in the musical theater. Sondheim saw the original production at the age of nine.[2]
Hammerstein refused to allow productions ofVery Warm for Mayafter Kern's death. In 1985, however, the Hammerstein and Kern estates finally authorized a performance by a small New York company, followed in 1994 by aCarnegie Hallconcert (with full orchestrations). San Francisco's42nd Street Moontheatre performed it as a staged concert a year later in 1995. In May 2010, 42nd Street Moon produced a fully staged version at the Eureka Theatre, subsequently making it the West Coast premiere.[3]
Songs
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External links
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References
[edit]- ^"Out-of-Town Openings," Billboard, 4 November 1939, 15.
- ^Henry, William A III (1987-12-07)."Master of the Musical; Stephen Sondheim Applies a Relentless".Time.Archived fromthe originalon September 30, 2007.Retrieved2007-03-19.
- ^Hamlin, Jesse (2010-05-06)."Jerome Kern Musical Resurrected After 70 Years".San Francisco Chronicle.Retrieved2010-06-14.