Doesn't mean she's not doing it on Broadway, but it could be that she was available for a reading and they want a bigger name for Broadway. Who knows. (The show might not even make it to Broadway, despite announcing its intentions.)
She had one of the lead roles in the Encores' production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Pipe Dream, their biggest financial flop, but a show from which some very good songs could be excavated.
Leslie played Fauna, the owner of the local bordello, who was mother-figure to her girls and to the "bums" who hung out on Cannery Row. I thought she was fine in a fairly difficult role.
I had the opportunity to see "Hallelujah, Baby" so many years ago, but at the last minute it didn't happen. Such a disappointment for me. She needs to be on Broadway again. In any role. Now!
Tennis Fan said: ""I adore Leslie Uggams," Tennis Fan chimed in.
Pipe Dream contains the song The Next Time It Happens. Christiane Noll ends her CD A Broadway Love Story with it. Smashing!"
Yes, "The Next Time It Happens" is a fine duet. "Everybody Has a Home But Me" is another pretty song if you can handle sentiment in your songs. The traditional major love song, "All At Once You Love Her" leaves me flat. With all the tributes to R & H, you would think that people would have picked through the unsuccessful and mostly unknown shows to pick out a few songs worthy of a general audience.
There's a song called "Sweet Thursday" that Leslie sings. If not the prettiest melody Rodgers ever wrote, it may be the catchiest. It's called a "cakewalk" and it's also featured in the overture and finale and curtain call. Dictionary definition doesn't help much.
stage dance developed from walking steps and figures typically involving a high prance with backward tilt
If you picture the dance and movement people around the world instinctively do when “New York, New York” plays, you’ve got a crude rudimentary cake walk. Strut, kick, strut, kick.
It started in the black community as a ragtime era dance mocking the way snooty white people preened and walked, but grew into a larger more grandiose style. It was subsumed into musical theatre as the musical pullback and strut that now more commonly signifies the transition into a song’s kick line finale.
If I have my dance history sorta right, it was popularized by Vernon and Irene Castle, played here by Fred and Ginger (doing what I think was their version of a Cake Walk). If not, then at least it's a nice clip of Astaire and Rogers.