Hollywood Pinafore
Encyclopedia
Hollywood Pinafore, or The Lad Who Loved a Salary is a musical comedy
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 in two acts by George S. Kaufman
George S. Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...

, with music by Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

, based on Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

's H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...

. It opened on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 at the Alvin Theatre on May 31, 1945, and closed on July 14, 1945 after 52 performances. It was directed by Kaufman himself and starred Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth was an American actress.Primarily a theatre actress, Booth's Broadway career began in 1925. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she received a Tony Award in 1950...

, Victor Moore
Victor Moore
Victor Frederick Moore was an American actor of stage and screen, as well as a comedian, writer, and director.-Personal life:...

, George Rasely
George Rasely
George Rasely was an American tenor who had an active career in operas, concerts, and musicals during the first half of the 20th century. He was also a frequent performer on American radio during 1920s through the 1940s. He won the National Music League singing competition in 1927 and the Walter W...

, and William Glaxton. The adaptation transplants the maritime satire of the original Pinafore to a satire of the glamorous world of 1940s Hollywood film making, but Sullivan's score is retained with minor adaptations.

According to Howard Teichmann's 1972 biography George S. Kaufman: An Intimate Portrait, Kaufman had the inspiration for Hollywood Pinafore during a poker game with his friend Charles Lederer
Charles Lederer
Charles Lederer was a prolific and well-connected American film writer and director of the 30s to the 60s, from a prominent theatrical family with close ties to the Hearst dynasty.-Early life:...

. While Lederer was arranging his cards, he idly sang a few bars of "When I Was a Lad" from Pinafore while ad-libbing a new lyric: "Oh, he nodded his head / and he never said 'no' / and now he's the head of the studio." Kaufman insisted on paying Lederer a token fee for the idea of transplanting Pinafores setting to a Hollywood studio.

Although Kaufman's lyrics are witty, the book is static for a musical. However, it has been revived a number of times in recent years, including a 1998 "Lost Musicals" staged concert production at the Barbican Centre
Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the City of London, England, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory...

 in London.

Synopsis

Starlet Brenda Blossom, pining for a lowly writer, Ralph, is promised in marriage by her father (a director looking to advance his own career) to the studio head, Joseph Porter. If she marries Ralph, she'll be tossed out of Hollywood and forced to make a living on the stage. Fortunately, everything turns out for the best when it is discovered that a mix-up in Louhedda Hopsons' gossip column was responsible for Ralph's fall from grace. In reality, it was Ralph who was meant to head the studio instead of Porter.

Roles

  • Joseph W. Porter, head of Pinafore Pictures
  • Mike Corcoran, a director
  • Ralph Rackstraw, a writer
  • Dick Live-Eye, an agent
  • Brenda Blossom, a star
  • Louhedda Hopsons, a columnist (a combination of the names of Louella Parsons
    Louella Parsons
    Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...

     and Hedda Hopper
    Hedda Hopper
    Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...

    )
  • Bob Beckett, a press agent
  • Miss Liebe, Mr. Porter's secretary
  • Miss Gloria Mundi
  • Miss Beverly Wilshire
  • Little Miss Peggy
  • Doorman
  • Secretaries, Guard, Actors, Actresses, Assistant Directors, Cameramen, Technicians, etc. Singers and Dancers

Musical numbers

Act I
  • Simple Movie Folk - Miss Gloria Mundi, Miss Beverly Wilshire, Little Miss Peggy, Girls, Ensemble
  • Little Butter-Up - Louhedda Hobson
  • An Agent's Lot Is Not a Happy One - Dick Live-Eye
  • A Maiden Often Seen - Ralph Rackstraw, Miss Beverly Wilshire, Ensemble
  • I'm a Big Director at Pinafore - Mike Corcoran, Ensemble
  • Here on the Lot - Brenda Blossom
  • Joe Porter's Car is Seen - Male Chorus, Ensemble
  • I Am the Monarch of the Joint - Joseph W. Porter, Miss Liebe, Ensemble
  • When I Was a Lad - Joseph W. Porter, Ensemble
  • A Writer Fills the Lowest Niche - Bob Beckett, Ralph Rackstraw, Guard, Ensemble
  • Never Mind the Why and Wherefore - Dick Live-Eye, Ensemble
  • Refrain, Audacious Scribe/Proud Lady, Have Your Way - Ralph Rackstraw, Brenda Blossom, Miss Liebe, Ensemble
  • Can I Survive This Overbearing? (Finale Act 1) - Dick Live-Eye, Brenda Blossom, Miss Liebe, Ralph Rackstraw, Bob Beckett, Ensemble


ACT II
  • Fair Moon - Mike Corcoran
  • I Am the Monarch of the Joint (reprise) - Joseph W. Porter, Miss Liebe, Ensemble
  • Ballet Interlude: Success Story - Chief Maid, Other Little Maids, Talent Scout, Her True Love, Two More Boys, Armand, the Movie Hero, Director, Studio Assistants
  • Hollywood's a Funny Place - Louhedda Hobson, Joseph W. Porter
  • To Go Upon the Stage - Brenda Blossom
  • He Is a Movie Man - Joseph W. Porter, Dick Live-Eye, Ensemble
  • The Merry Maiden and the Jerk - Dick Live-Eye, Joseph W. Porter
  • Carefully on Tiptoe Stealing (music brazenly taken from The Pirates of Penzance
    The Pirates of Penzance
    The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...

    ) - Brenda Blossom, Ralph Rackstraw, Dick Live-Eye, Mike Corcoran, Ensemble
  • Pretty Daughter of Mine - Mike Corcoran, Ralph Rackstraw, Miss Liebe, Joseph W. Porter, Dick Live-Eye, Ensemble
  • Farewell, My Own - Ralph Rackstraw, Brenda Blossom, Miss Liebe, Joseph W. Porter, Louhedda Hobson, Bob Beckett, Ensemble
  • This Town I Now Must Shake - Louhedda Hobson, Ensemble
  • Finale Act 2 - Entire Company


External links

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