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vinyl LP front cover detail
cover design by Auerbach
detail photo by Styrous®
On September 30, 1954, Julie Andrews made her first Broadway appearance in The Boy Friend and a legend was born.
vinyl LP front cover
cover design by Auerbach
photo by Styrous®
The Boy Friend is a musical by Sandy Wilson.
The original 1954 London production ran for 2,078
performances, making it briefly the third-longest running musical in
West End or Broadway history (after Chu Chin Chow and Oklahoma!) until these were all surpassed by Salad Days. Who would've known?
The show opened on Broadway at the Royale Theatre
on the 30th of September in 1954 and closed on the 26th of November in
1955 after 485 performances. For the Broadway opening, veteran
orchestrator Ted Royal and jazzman Charles L. Cooke contributed 1920s-style arrangements.
vinyl LP front cover detail
cover design by Auerbach
detail photo by Styrous®
A revival directed by Gus Schirmer opened on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre on the 14th of April in 1970, and ran for 111 performances. Starring was Judy Carne of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In fame.
Set in the carefree world of the French Riviera in the Roaring Twenties (link to plot below), it is a comic pastiche of 1920s shows (in particular early Rodgers and Hart musicals such as The Girl Friend).
Orchestrator Ted Royal would go on to work on Brigadoon and Paint Your Wagon, by Lerner and Loewe, and Guys and Dolls by Frank Loesser. Robert Russell Bennett, remembered Royal as "one of Broadway's very special arrangers."
Charles L. Cooke was an American jazz bandleader and arranger. He worked as an arranger for Radio City Music Hall and RKO, working there into the 1940s. On Broadway, he had a number of important orchestration credits, including The Hot Mikado (1939) and the first U.S. production of The Boy Friend in collaboration with Ted Royal in 1954. A proponent of ragtime, he also worked frequently with Eubie Blake.
For her Broadway debut, Andrews received the Theatre World Award. My Fair Lady
producers saw her in The Boy Friend, prompting them to cast her in the lead in
that production, which led to her wider fame on Broadway and beyond in
the following years.
The Boy Friend images
Tracklist:
Side 1:
A1 Overture
A2 Perfect Young Ladies
A3 The Boy Friend
A4 Fancy Forgetting
A5 Won't You Charleston With Me?
A6 I Could Be Happy With You
A7 Sur La Plage
A2 Perfect Young Ladies
A3 The Boy Friend
A4 Fancy Forgetting
A5 Won't You Charleston With Me?
A6 I Could Be Happy With You
A7 Sur La Plage
Side 2:
B1 A Room In Bloomsbury
B2 The You Don't Want To Play With Me Blues
B3 Safety In Numbers
B4 The Riviera
B5 It's Never Too Late To Fall In Love
B6 Carnival Tango
B7 Poor Little Pierette
B8 Finale
Credits:
Design – Auerbach*
Directed By – Vida Hope
Liner Notes – Bill Zeitung
Lyrics By, Music By, Written-By – Sandy Wilson (2)
Orchestra – Paul McGrane And His Bearcats
Orchestrated By – Charles L. Cooke, Ted Royal
Performer – Ann Wakefield, Anton Coppala, Bob Scheerer, Dilys Lay, Eric Berry (3), Geoffrey Hibbert, John Hewer, Julie Andrews, Ruth Altman
Notes:
"MONAURAL" on bottom of labels.
Small "RE" on lower left cover.
Feuer And Martin* – The Boy Friend - A New Musical Comedy Of The 1920's (An Original Cast Recording)
Label: RCA Victor – LOC-1018
Format: Vinyl, LP, Mono
Country: US
Released: 1954
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Musical
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