Giant is a musical

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...

 based on the 1952 Edna Ferber

Edna Ferber

Edna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big , Show Boat , and Giant .-Early years:Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,...

 novel of the same name, with music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa

Michael John LaChiusa

Michael John LaChiusa is an American musical theatre and opera composer, lyricist, and librettist. He is best known for complex, musically challenging shows such as Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party, and See What I Wanna See...

 and book by Sybille Pearson

Sybille Pearson

Sybille Pearson is a playwright, musical theatre lyricist and librettist.-Biography:Pearson was a graduate student in the creative writing program at the City College of New York in 1980, when her play, the two-person comedy-drama Sally and Marsha was chosen to be produced at the Playwrights...

. The musical premiered at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia in 2009. The story follows a ranch family in Texas over 30 years, and the effect of the oil boom.

Production history and background

Edna Ferber's great-niece, Julie Gilbert, had approached LaChiusa about five years ago to write a musical based on the novel Giant. LaChiusa and Pearson initially thought it impossible to stage as a musical. The novel covers decades, and has a large number of characters, with a massive backdrop in wide-open, early 20th-century Texas. "Pearson said she and LaChiusa decided to use the novel, rather than the movie, as the basis for their adaptation because 'the movie, in its own greatness, changes some of the plot.' " The Signature Theatre commissioned LaChiusa to write the musical as the first installment in its American Musical Voices Project.

Jonathan Butterell

Jonathan Butterell

Jonathan Butterell is a choreographer and director, primarily for the stage. He has worked in the West End, on Broadway, and Off-Broadway.-Biography:...

 directed the world premiere production in Signature's MAX theatre, where it ran from April 28 through May 31, 2009. The ranch family was played by Lewis Cleale

Lewis Cleale

Lewis Cleale is an American theatre actor and singer. He is originally from Houlton, Maine.A graduate of the University of Miami's Frost School of Music and of the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre, Cleale's big break came when he was cast in a European tour of Oklahoma!, in which he was noticed by...

 (Bick) and Betsy Morgan (Leslie), Ashley Robinson was Jett, the young ranch hand who finds oil, with Judy Blazer as Luz, Bick's older sister and John Dossett

John Dossett

John Dossett is an American actor and singer.-Early life and education:Dossett attended Mount Pleasant High School in Wilmington, Delaware from 1972 through 1976, where he was an announcer for the school's radio station, WMPH, and appeared in student theater productions.-Career:Dossett made his...

 as Uncle Bawley, Marisa Echeverria as Juana, the Mexican wife, Jordan Nichols as Bick's son Jordy Jr, and Andres Quintero as Angel, son of Mexican American laborers.

The show closely follows the novel, rejecting the many plot changes that were made for the classic 1956 film of the same name starring Rock Hudson

Rock Hudson

Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...

 and James Dean

James Dean

James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...

.

The music displays various musical styles from Mexican folk to country to rock 'n' roll, jazz and mariachi.

A reading of the musical was held in New York on January 10, 2011 with Kate Baldwin

Kate Baldwin

-Biography:Born in Evanston, Illinois, Baldwin graduated from the theatre program at Northwestern University in 1997.-Career:Kate Baldwin made her Broadway debut in The Full Monty in 2000, followed by appearances in Thoroughly Modern Millie and Wonderful Town...

, Michael Esper, Steven Pasquale

Steven Pasquale

Steven Pasquale is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Sean Garrity in the critically acclaimed series Rescue Me. He made his debut on the HBO series Six Feet Under, playing a love interest for David. He also starred in the film Aliens vs...

 and Tom Wopat

Tom Wopat

Tom Wopat is an American actor and singer. He first achieved fame as Luke Duke in the long-running 1979 television series The Dukes of Hazzard, along with John Schneider. He also played Jeff, one of Cybill Shepherd's ex-husbands in the TV series Cybill.-Life and career:Wopat was born in Lodi,...

 and directed by Michael Greif

Michael Greif

Michael Greif is a stage director and producer, born in Brooklyn, New York. He has received three Tony Award nominations and won the Obie Award....

. The Dallas Theater Center

Dallas Theater Center

The Dallas Theater Center is a major regional theater in Dallas, Texas . It produces classic, contemporary and new plays. The theater was based in the Kalita Humphreys Theater, a building designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, from 1959 to 2009...

, in a co-production with the Public Theater

Public Theater

The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as The Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers. It is headquartered at 425 Lafayette Street in the former Astor Library in the East Village...

, plans on presenting the musical in the Winter 2012 season, with direction again by Greif.

Synopsis

In Texas in 1922, Jordan "Bick" Benedict, a rich cattleman, marries Leslie, from Virginia. Bick is focused on working the family ranch, Reatta, but exhibits bigotry against Mexicans. This racism is seen in his older sister, Luz, who is against outsiders. Jett Rink is a handyman but discovers oil; he is infatuated with Leslie. A neighbor and Bick's reclusive uncle, Uncle Bawley, tells the tale of the legend of the coyote. Bick ends the relationship with a girlfriend, Vashti.

As they age over the years, Leslie feels rejected by Bick and realizes that they do not really know each other. Leslie and Bick's son marries a Mexican woman as Leslie tries to help the downtrodden Mexican American workers and Bick comes to accept his son's choice.

Songs

Act 1

• "Aurelia Dolores"
• "Did Spring Come to Texas?"
• "Lost in Her Woods"
• "Your Texas"
• "No Time for Surprises"
• "Private Property" - Jett Rink
• "Lost"
• "Elsie Mae" - Jett Rink
• "He Wanted a Girl" - Vashti
• "Hen Party"
• "Heartbreak Country"
• "Ruega por Nosotros"
• "Coyote/Look Back/Look Ahead" - Uncle Bawley
• "Act One Finale"

Act 2

• "Our Mornings/That Thing"
• "Topsy-Turvy,"
• "When to Bluff/One Day"
• "My Texas"
• "A Stranger"
• "Lady L"
• "Act Two Finale"

Act 3

• "Jump" - Angel
• "There is a Child,"
• "Un Beso, Beso!"
• "A Place in the World/Look Ahead (Reprise)"
• "Midnight Blues" - Vashti
• The Dog is Gonna Bark" - Jett
• "Juana's Prayer"
• "Aurelia Dolores" (reprise)
• "Act Three Finale"

Responses

The show has received mostly positive reviews, hedged by concerns over its length (3 hours, 45 minutes) and the nontraditional use of three acts.

Peter Marks of the Washington Post wrote: "...the composer, Michael John LaChiusa, has written for this world premiere some of the lithest, most dramatically compelling music of his career. And that his collaborator, librettist Sybille Pearson, brings to the stage some potent Lone Star State characters...At its epic length, it becomes an advanced-placement sort of musical -- more for the ardent enthusiast than the casual entertainment-seeker."

The Variety Magazine reviewer noted that the "inventive score is filled with pleasant melodies that hark to the old West, along with more soaring operatic pieces." However, he felt that "the show is humorless and sometimes incoherent. There are choppy, unconnected scenes, especially in the dark and leaden third act. Meanwhile, pivotal highlights such as a principal character's life-changing oil gusher are presented in retrospect, robbing the story of needed spark and surely confusing anyone unfamiliar with the Ferber yarn."

External links

• "Michael John LaChiusa Is Messing With Texas" Interview, April 2009, tcg.org