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Coco (musical)
Encyclopedia
Coco is a musical
with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
and music by André Previn
. It starred Katharine Hepburn
in her only stage musical.
, but Russell had developed acute arthritis
, making it difficult for her to function. That meant another leading lady with star quality needed to be found. Irene Selznick
suggested Katharine Hepburn
, who initially scoffed at the idea of appearing in a musical but agreed to work with former MGM vocal coach Roger Edens
for ten days. Following an audition in Selznick's suite at The Pierre Hotel
, Hepburn felt comfortable enough to mull seriously the proposition, and was further convinced to accept the offer after meeting Chanel.
Lerner had assured the designer his book would cover only the early years of her life and career, and she was distressed when the plan was jettisoned to accommodate the older star. The highly fictionalized book and score underwent massive revisions and were far from complete when Hepburn concluded filming on The Madwoman of Chaillot
, at which time she was scheduled to begin work on the show, and Coco was postponed a season while its creators worked on it.
The six-week rehearsal period finally began in September 1969. Cecil Beaton
's set proved to be a complicated piece of machinery that frequently malfunctioned and was difficult for the cast to maneuver, and the final scene required a troublesome coordination of mirrors, platforms, runways, and flashing lights. Hepburn insisted the theater's thermostat be set at 60 degrees and the exterior doors left open, and most of the cast became ill due to the unusually cold fall weather.
production opened on December 18, 1969 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre
, where it ran for 329 performances. Directed by Michael Benthall
and choreographed by Michael Bennett
, the cast included René Auberjonois
, George Rose
, Michael Allinson
, David Holliday
, Bob Avian
, Jon Cypher
, Suzanne Rogers
, Graciela Daniele
, Ann Reinking
, and Gale Dixon
. Danielle Darrieux
replaced Hepburn eight months into the run, but without the drawing power of a major star the poorly reviewed show closed two months later.
Hepburn was scheduled to star in a West End
production, but when the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
proved to be unavailable she refused to consider other venues and the project was abandoned. She headed the cast of the US national tour, which opened in Cleveland on January 11, 1971, the day after Chanel's death, which the star acknowledged at the final curtain call. She continued with the tour through June, when it ended at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
in Los Angeles
. Although reviews in most cities were mediocre, it played to sold-out houses everywhere. Despite its financial success, executives at Paramount Pictures
, which had financed the original Broadway production - at $900,000, the most expensive show in Broadway history at the time - in exchange for the cast album and film
rights, opted not to transfer Coco to the big screen.
Coco was produced as a staged concert 42nd Street Moon
in San Francisco in April and May 2008, starring Andrea Marcovicci
in the title role. The production played for a total of 16 performances. It was directed by Mark D. Kaufmann and choreographed by Jayne Zaban. Marcovicci revisited the role in September 2010 for the show's first New York revival as part of the York Theatre Company's Musicals in Mufti.
, after fifteen years of retirement, decides to return to the world of haute couture
and reopen her Paris
salon. With her new collection derided by the critics, she faces bankruptcy
until buyers from four major American
department store
s - Saks Fifth Avenue
, Bloomingdale's
, Best & Company, and Ohrbach's
- place orders with her. She becomes involved with the love life of one of her models, and flashbacks utilizing filmed sequences recall her own past romantic flings. Adding humor to the proceedings is a highly stereotypical
rude gay
designer who tries to impede Chanel's success. The finale is a fashion show featuring actual Chanel designs from 1918 to 1959.
Act I
Act II
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...
with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre for both the stage and on film...
and music by André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
. It starred Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
in her only stage musical.
Background
Theatre producer Frederick Brisson originally had optioned Chanel's life for his wife Rosalind RussellRosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame...
, but Russell had developed acute arthritis
Arthritis
Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....
, making it difficult for her to function. That meant another leading lady with star quality needed to be found. Irene Selznick
Irene Mayer Selznick
Irene Mayer Selznick was an American theatrical producer.Born Irene Gladys Mayer in Brooklyn, New York, she was the daughter of future MGM studio mogul, Louis B. Mayer and his first wife, Margaret Shenberg....
suggested Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
, who initially scoffed at the idea of appearing in a musical but agreed to work with former MGM vocal coach Roger Edens
Roger Edens
Roger Edens was a Hollywood composer, arranger and associate producer, and is considered one of the major creative figures in Arthur Freed's musical film production unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the "golden era of Hollywood".-Early career and work with Judy Garland:Edens was born in...
for ten days. Following an audition in Selznick's suite at The Pierre Hotel
The Pierre Hotel
The Pierre is a luxury hotel located at 2 East 61st Street at the intersection of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, facing Central Park. The hotel opened in 1930, and is currently owned by Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces of India...
, Hepburn felt comfortable enough to mull seriously the proposition, and was further convinced to accept the offer after meeting Chanel.
Lerner had assured the designer his book would cover only the early years of her life and career, and she was distressed when the plan was jettisoned to accommodate the older star. The highly fictionalized book and score underwent massive revisions and were far from complete when Hepburn concluded filming on The Madwoman of Chaillot
The Madwoman of Chaillot (film)
The Madwoman of Chaillot is a 1969 American satirical comedy-drama film made by Commonwealth United Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. It was directed by Bryan Forbes and produced by Ely A. Landau with Anthony B. Unger as associate producer...
, at which time she was scheduled to begin work on the show, and Coco was postponed a season while its creators worked on it.
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...
's set proved to be a complicated piece of machinery that frequently malfunctioned and was difficult for the cast to maneuver, and the final scene required a troublesome coordination of mirrors, platforms, runways, and flashing lights. Hepburn insisted the theater's thermostat be set at 60 degrees and the exterior doors left open, and most of the cast became ill due to the unusually cold fall weather.
Production
After 40 previews, the BroadwayBroadway 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...
production opened on December 18, 1969 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre
Mark Hellinger Theatre
The Mark Hellinger Theatre is a generally used name of a former legitimate Broadway theater, located at 237 West 51st Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City. Since 1991, it has been known as the Times Square Church...
, where it ran for 329 performances. Directed by Michael Benthall
Michael Benthall
Michael Pickersgill Benthall was an English theatre director.As an undergraduate at Oxford University, Michael Benthall met Robert Helpmann, who had been fulfilling an invitation to dance at there...
and choreographed by Michael Bennett
Michael Bennett
Michael Bennett was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven....
, the cast included René Auberjonois
Rene Auberjonois
René Murat Auberjonois is an American actor, known for portraying Father Mulcahy in the movie version of M*A*S*H and for creating a number of characters in long-running television series, including Clayton Endicott III on Benson , Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Chef Louis in The Little...
, George Rose
George Rose (actor)
\...
, Michael Allinson
Michael Allinson
Michael Allinson was an English stage and film actor.-Biography:...
, David Holliday
David Holliday
David Holliday was an American broadway actor and voice actor.Holliday's longest-running role on Broadway was that of Richard Kiley's alternate as Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, being Don Quixote in matinees and Dr Carrasco in the evening performances, from 1965 to 1971...
, Bob Avian
Bob Avian
Bob Avian is an American choreographer and a theatre producer and director.Born in New York City, Avian's spent his early career dividing his time between dancing in such Broadway shows as West Side Story, Funny Girl, and Henry, Sweet Henry and working as a production assistant on projects like I...
, Jon Cypher
Jon Cypher
-Biography:Born in New York City, Cypher graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in 1949 and Brooklyn College in 1953. He made his television debut as the Prince in the original 1957 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella opposite Julie Andrews in the title role...
, Suzanne Rogers
Suzanne Rogers
Suzanne Rogers is an Emmy Award winning longtime American actress with credits in both Television and Film. Miss Rogers's stage name was inspired by Ginger Rogers, who she cites as a personal inspiration for joining the entertainment industry...
, Graciela Daniele
Graciela Daniele
Graciela Daniele is an Argentine-American dancer, choreographer, and theatre director.-Biography:Born at Buenos Aires, Daniele began her dance training at the age of seven at Teatro Colón, Argentina's equivalent of Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre...
, Ann Reinking
Ann Reinking
Ann Reinking is an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She has worked extensively in musical theatre, both as a dancer and choreographer, as well as appearing in film.-Biography:...
, and Gale Dixon
Gale Dixon
Gale Dixon is an American actress and singer who had a brief but active career in theatre, television, and film from the late 1960s through the mid 1970s. She made her Broadway debut in 1966 as Francine in Robert Fisher and Arthur Marx's The Impossible Years...
. Danielle Darrieux
Danielle Darrieux
Danielle Yvonne Marie Antoinette Darrieux is a French actress and singer, who has appeared in more than 110 films since 1931. She is one of France's great movie stars and her eight-decade career is among the longest in film history....
replaced Hepburn eight months into the run, but without the drawing power of a major star the poorly reviewed show closed two months later.
Hepburn was scheduled to star in a West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
production, but when the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
proved to be unavailable she refused to consider other venues and the project was abandoned. She headed the cast of the US national tour, which opened in Cleveland on January 11, 1971, the day after Chanel's death, which the star acknowledged at the final curtain call. She continued with the tour through June, when it ended at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is one of the halls in the Los Angeles Music Center . The Music Center's other halls include the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, and Walt Disney Concert Hall.The Pavilion has 3,197 seats spread over four tiers, with chandeliers, wide curving stairways and rich décor...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Although reviews in most cities were mediocre, it played to sold-out houses everywhere. Despite its financial success, executives at Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, which had financed the original Broadway production - at $900,000, the most expensive show in Broadway history at the time - in exchange for the cast album and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
rights, opted not to transfer Coco to the big screen.
Coco was produced as a staged concert 42nd Street Moon
42nd Street Moon
42nd Street Moon is a professional theatre company in San Francisco, California. The company specializes in the preservation and presentation of early and lesser-known works by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern,...
in San Francisco in April and May 2008, starring Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Louisa Marcovicci is an American actress and singer.- Biography :Marcovicci was born in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Helen , a singer, and Eugen Marcovicci, a physician and internist of Romanian descent. In her teens, she decided that she wanted to be a singer, but instead...
in the title role. The production played for a total of 16 performances. It was directed by Mark D. Kaufmann and choreographed by Jayne Zaban. Marcovicci revisited the role in September 2010 for the show's first New York revival as part of the York Theatre Company's Musicals in Mufti.
Plot summary
Set between early autumn of 1953 and late spring of 1954, fashion designer Coco ChanelCoco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist thought, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the founder of one of the most famous fashion brands, Chanel...
, after fifteen years of retirement, decides to return to the world of haute couture
Haute couture
Haute couture refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses,...
and reopen her Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
salon. With her new collection derided by the critics, she faces bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
until buyers from four major American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
s - Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue is a luxury American specialty store owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises , a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the high-end specialty store market in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, i.e. 'the 3 B's' Bergdorf, Barneys, Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor...
, Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's
Bloomingdale's is an American department store owned by Macy's, Inc. .Bloomingdale's started in 1861 when brothers Joseph and Lyman G. Bloomingdale started selling hoop-skirts in their Ladies Notions' Shop on Manhattan's Lower East Side...
, Best & Company, and Ohrbach's
Ohrbach's
Ohrbach's was a moderate-priced department store with a merchandising focus primarily on apparel and accessories. From its modest start in 1923 until the chain's demise in 1987, Ohrbach's expanded dramatically after World War II, and opened numerous branch locations in the metro areas of New York,...
- place orders with her. She becomes involved with the love life of one of her models, and flashbacks utilizing filmed sequences recall her own past romantic flings. Adding humor to the proceedings is a highly stereotypical
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
rude gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
designer who tries to impede Chanel's success. The finale is a fashion show featuring actual Chanel designs from 1918 to 1959.
Song list
Act I
- But That's the Way You Are
- The World Belongs to the Young
- Let's Go Home
- Mademoiselle Cliche de Paris
- On the Corner of the Rue Cambon
- The Money Rings Out Like Freedom
- A Brand New Dress
- A Woman Is How She Loves
- Gabrielle
- Coco
- The Preparation
Act II
- Fiasco
- When Your Lover Says Goodbye
- Coco (Reprise)
- Ohrbach's, Bloomingdale's, Best & Saks
- Always Mademoisielle
Awards and nominations
- Tony AwardTony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Musical (nominee) - Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical (Hepburn, nominee)
- Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Auberjonois, winner; Rose, nominee)
- Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Cecil Beaton, winner)
- Tony Award for Best Choreography (nominee)
- Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (nominee)
- Theatre World AwardTheatre World AwardThe Theatre World Award, first awarded for the 1945-46 season, is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or off-Broadway.-History:...
(Holliday, winner)