Happy 50th Anniversary to HALF A SIXPENCE on Broadway

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 4/25/15 at 3:19am

It opened on Broadway 50 years ago today! I'll be honest I don't listen to the cast album much but I've enjoyed it when I have.

Did anyone see it? Have any fond memories to share?

I don't know what number this is but there are sooooo many production shots of it!

This is another show where the rehearsal shots are more exciting than the in performance ones.

I love the way this shot is done through the mirror. So different!

I never knew Charlotte Rae was in this show!

 

Updated On: 4/25/15 at 03:19 AM

[Fantod]

Posted: 4/25/15 at 4:11am

I haven't listened to the score yet, but I'm glad you figured out how to include multiple images in your posts, Mr. Nowack.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 4/25/15 at 4:24am

It's all part of the lovely new BWW interface! (Thanks again Rob!)

It makes these threads SO much easier.

[lotiloti]

Posted: 4/25/15 at 6:56am

It's actually 52 years old. Opened in the West End,  March 21st 1963. Wonderful score. Enjoyed film version too. Hope we see it on blu ray soon.

[Finch]

Posted: 4/25/15 at 2:39pm

The song you questioned is " If the rain's got to fall".  Big production number .  As the company is circling, Tommy Steele's skimmer fall off and another cast member picks it up and shoots it across the stage, back to Steele.  it  looks like an accident, but this number appears in The American Dance Machine video (That's pre DVD for the younger readers!) I remember my initial reaction to this after seeing the show in its original NY run, and then seeing the video many years later.  So, the "accident" was Oona White's creation.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 4/25/15 at 8:08pm

"The song you questioned is " If the rain's got to fall".  Big production number ."

 Ah that makes sense with the umbrellas!

[goldenboy]

Posted: 4/26/15 at 9:35pm

Saw this when I was ten and I loved it! Onna White's brilliant and lively dances live in my head. Maybe Charlotte Raye was visiting. She wasn' t in the production.  Grover Dale played Tommy Steele's co worker.  Joel Grey was the understudy.  Tony Tanner took over when Steele left. Love the cast recording but it wasn't a great film for some reason.

[JayG 2]

Posted: 4/27/15 at 8:46am

One of my favorites. Stellar performance by Tommy Tune. All charm and charisma. The show was beautifully choreographed, sumptuously designed, and wonderfully melodic - and it had tremendous heart. Lost track of the number of times I saw this one from Broadhurst Theater's  standing room. At Tony time I was rooting for Sixpence over the juggernaut Fiddler, but, in the end, all it ended up with were its nine (or whatever) nominations. All well deserved. It was a delight from start to finish. Movie does it no justice. In fact, I  escaped the film halfway through it. But the Broadway show -with Tommy Steele - was musical comedy heaven.

 

[JayG 2]

Posted: 4/27/15 at 8:53am

Trivia: Word Baker was the original director and fired out of town and replaced by Gene Saks.  I'm not sure if Onna White was the original choreographer.  However, her choreography was a MAJOR part of the show's success.

Thanks for posting the pics.

[jayinchelsea]

Posted: 4/27/15 at 9:09am

A wonderful show, especially for the performing and dancing of Tommy Steele and the always wonderful Grover Dale, who had been so smashing several seasons before in Noel Coward's SAIL AWAY with Elaine Stritch. Sadly, the film was overdone, the small charming moments blown up and destroyed, and Mr. Steele's stage charm pretty much disintegrated under the camera lens (see FINIAN'S RAINBOW and THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE to see what I mean). Yet another good candidate for Encores.

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 4/27/15 at 9:40am

I was a kid...I think this was the first show I saw many many times. Loved loved loved it. Tommy Steele, Grover Dale.. and company were amazing.

Still smile at the Broadhurst theater whenever I walk by thinking of this all these years later.. (and yes standing room often for me too..$3 if I remember..we would basically do the dance numbers standing there with the cast) Such fun..

I think I grew to LOVE Broadway with this show...still have the record, sheet music, a number of autographs..including a special one from Tommy Steele when I pointed out to him that we had the same birthday (date not year..LOL).

 

[goldenboy]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 8:27pm

I liked Tommy Steele in Happiest Millionaire and Finian's Rainbow films and of course on stage in Half a Sixpence. Sixpence was charming.

The movie Half a Sixpence was just...odd. Big. Clunky. Bad dances by Gillian Lynne. They should have kept Onna White.

Onna White who choreographed the hell out of Music Man and Bye Bye Birdie Films. She also did Oliver but thats my least favorite of the three.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 8:33pm

I'm so glad to hear so many happy memories of the show!