It's time to talk about how much we love 1776- Page 2

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 3:17pm

"I have always been bored by this show."

DAME... we didn't want you to find out this way, but... you're Canadian

[tazber]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 3:25pm

I never really thought about how it played to non-Americans until this thread.

Anyone asking about it in this thread is, I assume, a theater person. And for lovers of theater a good show is a good show. So I would recommend it regardless of where you're from.

Aside from how the show plays as a whole the score is amazing.

I agree there isn't one bad song, although I do the same thing as Growl with Mama, Look Sharp when listening to the OBCR.

This may be a stupid question, but has this ever been staged in the U.K.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 3:27pm

One of my all time favorites!! I have it on my DVR and might just have to force my son to watch it with me tonight. When I was young, I use to obsess over this. It is about as close to perfection as a movie musical could possibly be.

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 3:38pm

The play was breathtaking...the movie is about a great a representation of the play as possible on screen, but I am not sure it plays as well ON screen as it does on the theater. I can get choked up thinking about the ending in the theater - with those drums and bells and chimes filling up the theater.

It's hard for me to judge the movie... because I love the play so much - I can't help but appreciate the memories that the film brings to me, especially since so many of the cast members are from the original Broadway cast.

It's an absolute sin that William Daniels did not win the Best Actor Tony that year - you could not be in the best actor category in those days unless your name was above the title..so he took himself out of the running rather than be judged as supporting actor when he was so clearly the lead.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 3:49pm

"Does one have to be American to like it?"

I first became familiar with this show from the 1997 revival CD. I enjoy the score very much and beyond that, I can respect the idealism and principles the show portrays. When I was in Boston in 2006 there was a production on at a local theatre. It was the last performance and, knowing it was probably my only chance to see the show, I dashed to the theatre, bought a ticket and got to my seat just as the show started.

"This may be a stupid question, but has this ever been staged in the U.K."

I've never known one during my lifetime but I do believe there was a West End production in the late 1960s that lasted about three months.

[promisespromises2]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:00pm

This thread cracks me up! I just saw a post on Tumblr a little bit ago saying, "why is everyone talking about 1776 all of a sudden?"

I've never watched it, but now I want to!

[MikeInTheDistrict]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:01pm

There is apparently an original London Cast Recording in existence on LP that has never been released on CD or digital. I've always wanted to hear it:

"English Columbia made the second 1776 cast recording, when the show played London in 1970; while the West End staging featured a superb cast (notably Lewis Fiander's Adams, Ronald Radd's Franklin, David Kernan's Rutledge, and Cheryl Kennedy's Martha) and was rapturously received by critics, audiences may have resented this celebration of colonial victory, and the production lasted only five months. But the London recording, long out of print and unavailable on CD, is very fine; added to the material preserved on the Broadway disc are some dance sections and the "Compliments" reprise of "Yours, Yours, Yours."


Playbill: Ken Mandelbaum's MUSICALS ON DISC: 1776 and Peter Pan Revivals Updated On: 7/2/14 at 04:01 PM

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:02pm

'I agree there isn't one bad song, although I do the same thing as Growl with Mama, Look Sharp when listening to the OBCR.'

Seriously, bitches. The f*ck? And I thought we were friends.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:04pm

(Can I also use this thread to mention how much I love Virginia Vestoff and mention how amazing she would've been as Desiree Armfeldt?)

[MikeInTheDistrict]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:11pm

"Mama, Look Sharp" was the selection they chose for the 1969 Tonys broadcast. I was always bored by it as a kid, but I've grown to appreciate the resonance it must have had with audiences during the Vietnam years. It really is a haunting, achingly beautiful song.

It's difficult for me to imagine how this musical would play to a non-American audience. The show is so intimately linked in my memory with learning about the War of Independence from my impassioned, very patriotic fifth grade elementary school teacher. She brought American history to life. I don't know how that bit of history is treated in other countries, but for Americans, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, et al. are surrounded by an aura of mythical proportions, and the principles that are at the center of the signing of the Declaration of Independence are woven into our country's collective fabric. Seeing these figures and this event brought to life in such a lively, often hilarious and very moving way strikes a chord with an American audience, that I don't think would be the case if you hadn't grown up with that Trumbull painting etched into your mind, and the story of the War of Independence retold to you like a national folklore.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:15pm

I'm another huge lover of this show, which for my money has just about the best libretto ever written for a Broadway musical. The high points of the score for me come in a row-- He Plays the Violin, Cool Cool Considerate Men, and Momma Look Sharp.

HOWEVER... I'll stick my neck out to say that despite the magnificence of most of the score, I find The Lee's of Old Virginia and The Egg to be bona fide clunkers that sound like they were written for a kindergarten pageant. Some of the false rhymes and inane jokes in Piddle Twiddle and Resolve, But Mr Adams and elsewhere make me wish the overall lyric writing were more meticulous and adult to match the glories of the music and the book.

My first season of summer stock was in 1976. I was a woefully inexperienced tech director at the New London Barn Players in NH and like virtually every other theater in the whole 50 states, our musical the week that spanned July 4th simply HAD to be 1776. Sounds totally cheesy until the afternoon of the 4th at 3pm sharp, when all the church bells in the state began to peal at the same time. Out on the back porch of our barn theater were all the gongs and iron bells we had assembled to simulate the liberty bell for the show's finale each night. Banging the hell out of those silly gongs that afternoon was probably the most patriotic I ever felt in my life.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:26pm

Some of the false rhymes and inane jokes in Piddle Twiddle and Resolve, But Mr Adams and elsewhere make me wish the overall lyric writing were more meticulous and adult to match the glories of the music and the book.

Surely you don't mean the glorious rhymes of etiquette, predicate, and Connecticut?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:31pm

I just wait for the new version with the right to bear guns as a song.

[Kad]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:33pm

I unabashedly love "The Lees of Old Virginia."

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:38pm

I seriously am surprised that people skip over Momma Look Sharp when listening to the OCR. It's a stunner of a song. To me, it would be like listening to Pacific Overtures and skipping Pretty Lady.

I also love rhymes in But, Mr. Adams. They're an utter delight!

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:44pm

The first time I saw this was during the bicentennial. The only thing I remember are the chimes. I saw the Broadway revival at the Gershwin and was extremely bored for some reason.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 4:55pm

"I don't know how that bit of history is treated in other countries..."

I have vague memories of, when an infant, seeing TV coverage of what I think must have been the US bicentenial celebrations on TV and asking my parents why the French spoke French, the Germans spoke German and yet the Americans spoke English. It was always thereafter a curiousity to me that the US Declaration of Independence was treated as a minor event in UK history.

I bought the CD of the 1997 1776 around the same time I bought A White House Cantata and found the history they portray and the juxtaposition of both shows fascinating. This prompted within me a desire to read and understand the history more and, whilst the wider reading has altered my perception of events and those people associated with the events, the principle of no taxation without representation remains sound.


Updated On: 7/2/14 at 04:55 PM

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 5:00pm

"Surely you don't mean the glorious rhymes of etiquette, predicate, and Connecticut?"

Those ARE among the glorious ones, no doubt. Then there's this:

I've been presented with a new son by the noble stork
So I am going home to celebrate and pop the cork
With all the Livingstons together back in old New York

(When a character in Merrily We Roll Along writes a similar lyric, he promises he'll rewrite that line!)

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 5:04pm

"I unabashedly love 'The Lees of Old Virginia'."

Me too..I have a hard time not grinning when I hear it...seriouslee!

Updated On: 7/2/14 at 05:04 PM

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 5:04pm

But...it's a very different usage than what's in Merrily. It doesn't really make sense in Merrily...it's an obvious reach for a rhyme. But popping a cork makes complete sense when discussing celebrating the arrival of a child.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 5:21pm

Just got to Mama, Look Sharp in my viewing the movie this afternoon. Devastating.

[Fan123]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 5:30pm

1776 has one of my favourite books for a musical, though the score has never done much for me (perhaps because I read the book and lyrics before hearing the music). I particularly love reading the scene at the end where everybody has finally agreed to split with England, and they're breaking into near-hyterical laughter at (literally?) gallows humour because they're freaking out a little about what they've just done. Whether historically accurate or not, it feels real.

[madbrian]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 5:58pm

1776 belongs in the conversation of the best musicals ever written.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 6:10pm

Well, I do like Molasses to Rum and Cool Cool Considerate Men.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Eric we Canuckleheads don't have a musical of Canadian history ( Confederation! She's da Best!- can u imagine?)

But we DO have VideoCabaret's version of our history which is funny & thrilling and even relatively accurate!
http://www.videocab.com/

[musikman]

Posted: 7/2/14 at 6:49pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqh7usoFRtY

Well I just found this existed and oh how great it is to finally see something "live" with William Daniels.