Flashback Friday: CHARLOTTE SWEET

Once upon a time, there was a sweet little musical called Charlotte Sweet. With libretto by Michael Colby and music by Gerald Jay Markoe, the NY Times said that the show, “mixes the adorable and the strange, and it is delectable.” And it was.

It originally opened in the spring of 1982 at the ATA/Chernuchin Theatre where it had a brief run. The show reopened in the summer at the Westside Arts (now just the Westside) Theater.

The cast included the charming Christopher Seppe, who had just come off of a run as The Boy in The Fantastics, Polly Pen who would go on to write the musicals Christina Alberta's Father and Bed and Sofa and Mara Beckerman in the title role, who was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for this performance alongside Betty Buckley (for Cats) and Ellen Greene (for Little Shop of Horrors) - not bad!

The show itself was a looney, but oh-so-clever story of a music hall troupe whose members each had unique vocal abilities. And the talents of the creative team of Colby and Markoe  were on full display.  I saw this show at a fairly young age, but it set the bar rather high for the rest of my theater-going career.

If ever there was a show ripe for revival, it’s Charlotte Sweet!

You can read the original NY Times review: HERE

 
Info on the performance rights are: HERE

 

Flashback Friday: SCRAMBLED FEET

Before there was Forbidden Broadway...there was Scrambled Feet.

Scrambled Feet  was an Off-Broadway musical parody of Broadway and the theater business.  Opening in June of 1979 (thanks Lortel Archive!) at the Top of the Gate on Bleecker Street, this hilarious musical revue ran for almost two years for a total of 831 performances.  It was written by John Driver and Jeffery Haddow, who also stared in the show along with Roger Neil and Evalyn Baron (and a duck named Hermione) who made up the original cast.  Baron was replaced during the run by a then unknown Faith Prince!

Unlike Forbidden Broadway, Scramble Feet wasn't parodies of then-running shows, but more general parodies of theatrical conventions like matinee ladies ("Theatre-party Ladies"), falling in love with cast mates ("Love in the Wings"), London imports ("British") and performing with animals ("Have You Ever Been On Stage?" - this is where the duck came in).  "Advice to the Producers" was the big, knock 'em dead number towards the end that really took the show to another level.

Scrambled Feet was the kind of sweet, small show that we don't really see any longer.

There are some tracks on You Tube: