1776

[edjames]

The Musical ‘1776’ Will Return to Broadway in 2021

 

A revival of the musical comedy “1776” will come to Broadway in the spring of 2021, the Roundabout Theater Company said Monday.

 

The revival, directed by Diane Paulus, will begin next May at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., where Ms. Paulus is the artistic director. It will then be presented at several other theaters around the country, including in July 2020 at the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles, before arriving at Broadway’s American Airlines Theater. The musical will be a coproduction of the A.R.T. and the Roundabout, both of which are nonprofits.

 

Ms. Paulus won a Tony Award for her direction of “Pippin,” and is currently represented on Broadway with “Waitress.” She is also directing an Alanis Morissette jukebox musical, “Jagged Little Pill,” that is scheduled to open on Broadway in December.

 

The musical “1776” is about the Continental Congress and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The show, featuring songs by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone, first ran on Broadway from 1969 to 1972; a previous Roundabout revival ran on Broadway from 1997 to 1998. The Encores! program at City Center presented a brief run of “1776” in 2016.

[bostonman]

Musical comedy? I mean, it's a musical, and it does have a lot of comedy in it - but it's not what I'd call a "musical comedy."

[+ beethoven]

If it's a Broadway musical, and it's not an opera or an operetta or an oratorio, it's a musical comedy. Even if there aren't any jokes!Report

[bostonman]

If it's a Broadway musical, and it's not an opera or an operetta or an oratorio, it's a musical comedy. Even if there aren't any jokes!Report

 

I disagree. The term "musical comedy" isn't current in the biz anymore (and I'm in the biz). It now only generally refers to an older style of classic musical, or a show specifically written in that nostalgic format (like 42nd Street of The Drowsy Chaperone etc). Generally they're simply called musicals now. The subtitle on the original 1776 logo is "a new musical" - not "a new musical comedy."

 

It would kind of be like calling a cellphone a "telephone" or calling movies "the pictures." Not that the terms don't have some validity in of themselves, but the language is dated.

 

Shows like George M! and Two By Two, which premiered in the same period as 1776, might still be properly referred to as "musical comedies" given their style. But 1776 didn't play in that same kind of "traditional" style. Man Of La Mancha, a few years earlier, deliberately called itself "a musical play." I'm not sure that its bookwriter, Dale Wasserman (who conceived the piece as a play before it was developed into a musical) would have wanted it called a musical comedy.

 

In any case, as I said. the term is really now only used for a certain style of musical, not as a general term for the whole genre.

[LaffingBear]

Regardless of terminology... I'll be watching for it.

 

One of my all time favorites. One of the first musicals I ever saw - I vaguely remember it was a school outing.

 

And, although it wasnt a big success, one of the few movie adaptations that Hollywood didn't screw up by recasting all the leads. Per TCM, Nixon got Jack Warner to cut Cool Cool Considerate Men from the theatrical release; I enjoyed seeing that number in restorations.

 

[side note... still fondly remember the St. Elsewhere episode when William Daniels visits Philadelphia, recalls he was "obnoxious and disliked" when attending medical school, and bursts into song declaring "its hot as Hell in Philadelphia!"]

 

I've been to very few revivals or returns. Les Mis is only play I remember seeing twice. 1776 will join that list.

[+ beethoven]

Thanks for the clarification, Bostonman. Of course, you are right. Your first sentence says it all,

"Isn't current in the business anymore." I'M not current, either! (Which I discover every night, when I watch "Jeopardy.") I'm still living in the days of R&H, and I'm sure that most of these young

'uns today have no idea of who R&H were.

[+ WilliamM]

Thanks for the clarification, Bostonman. Of course, you are right. Your first sentence says it all,

"Isn't current in the business anymore." I'M not current, either! (Which I discover every night, when I watch "Jeopardy.") I'm still living in the days of R&H, and I'm sure that most of these young

'uns today have no idea of who R&H were.

 

"Gypsy" is a serious musical with quite a bit of comedy as well. "Tootsie" is mostly Comedy, with a message.