Street Scene (opera)
Encyclopedia
Street Scene is a Broadway
musical or, more precisely, an "American opera
" by Kurt Weill
(music), Langston Hughes
(lyrics), and Elmer Rice
(book
). Written in 1946 and premiered in Philadelphia that year, Street Scene is based on the Pulitzer Prize
-winning play of the same name
by Rice.
It was Weill who referred to the piece as an "American opera" (he also called it a "Broadway opera"), intending it as a synthesis of European traditional opera and American musical theater. He received the first Tony Award
for Best Original Score
for his work, after the Broadway premiere in 1947. Yet Street Scene has never been revived on Broadway; it is fairly regularly produced by opera companies. Musically and culturally, even dramatically, the work inhabits the midground between Weill's Threepenny Opera
(1928) and Bernstein's West Side Story
(1957).
The score contains operatic arias and ensembles, some of them, such as Anna Maurrant's "Somehow I Never Could Believe" and Frank Maurrant's "Let Things Be Like They Always Was," with links and references to the style of Giacomo Puccini
. It also has jazz and blues influences, in "I Got a Marble and a Star" and "Lonely House." Some of the more Broadway-style musical numbers are "Wrapped In a Ribbon and Tied In a Bow", "Wouldn't You Like To Be On Broadway?" and "Moon-faced, Starry-eyed," an extended song-and-dance sequence.
Weill sought to create musical theatre that would "integrate drama and music, spoken word, song, and movement." He further wrote:
Weill saw Rice's naturalistic play in 1930 and wanted to adapt it. As he wrote:
In 1936, Weill met Rice in New York and suggested the adaptation, but Rice turned him down. After the successes of Weill's Knickerbocker Holiday
in 1938, Lady in the Dark
in 1940, and One Touch of Venus
in 1943 (and after Weill had composed incidental music
for Rice's Two on an Island in 1939), Weill asked again, and Rice agreed. The two chose Harlem Renaissance
poet Langston Hughes to, as Weill put it, "lift the everyday language of the people into a simple, unsophisticated poetry."
In order to enhance the realism of the new work, the collaborators utilized dialogue scenes, sometimes underscored by music. To create music that would portray the ethnic melting pot of characters described in Rice's book, Weill travelled to neighborhoods in New York, watching children at play and observing New Yorkers. Hughes took Weill to Harlem
nightclubs to hear the newest musical idioms of black American jazz and blues. Hughes wrote, "The resulting song was composed in a national American Negro idiom; but a German, or someone else, could sing it without sounding strange or out of place." Weill and many critics have considered the score to be his masterpiece.
at the Adelphi Theater
on January 9, 1947. It closed on May 17, 1947, after 148 performances, experiencing high running costs. The production was directed by Charles Friedman, with choreography by Anna Sokolow
, and produced by Dwight Deere Wiman
and The Playwrights' Company (Maxwell Anderson
; S.N. Behrman; Elmer Rice
; Robert E. Sherwood
; Sidney Howard
). Scenic and lighting design were by Jo Mielziner
; costume design was by Lucinda Ballard
. The production starred Anne Jeffreys
as Rose Maurrant, Polyna Stoska as Anna Maurrant, Norman Cordon as Frank Maurrant, Brian Sullivan as Sam Kaplan, Hope Emerson
as Emma Jones, Sheila Bond
as Mae Jones, and Danny Daniels
as Dick McGann. Juanita Hall
was a notable replacement. Weill received the first Tony Award for Best Original Score, and Ballard received the 1947 Tony Award
for Best Costume Design, competing with other strong musicals that year, notably Finian's Rainbow
by Burton Lane
and Brigadoon by Frederick Loewe.
A production by the English National Opera
at the London Coliseum Theatre
in 1989 included Catherine Zeta-Jones
as Mae Jones.
The Opera Group, Young Vic, and Watford Palace Theatre gave the first UK production in 20 years in July 2008 http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/21306/street-scene, winning the Evening Standard Award 2008 for Best Musical. Another production was performed in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich on 19 July 2008, with the cast largely drawn from students from Trinity College of Music. In 2011 Street Scene was performed by the Opera/Music Theatre Workshop of Southeastern Louisiana University
and, in German, by the Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding and the Munich Radio Orchestra
, led by Ulf Schirmer
.
The Opera Group presents the first performance in Austria in October 2011, and the Semper Oper in Dresden produced the work to great acclaim earlier in 2011.
on the East Side of Manhattan
on two brutally hot days in 1946. The story focuses on two plotlines: the romance between Rose Maurrant and her neighbor Sam Kaplan; and on the extramarital affair of Rose's mother, Anna, which is eventually discovered by Rose's irritable father, Frank. The show portrays the ordinary romances, squabbles and gossips of the neighbors, as the mounting tensions involving the Maurrant family eventually build into a tragedy of epic proportions.
Daniel Buchanan enters, jittery; he's nervous because his wife is upstairs about to have a baby. He and the women sing of the perils of childbirth in a short Arietta, When A Woman Has A Baby. Just as he runs upstairs to tend to his wife, Mrs. Maurrant's husband Frank comes home. He mentions that he is going on a business trip to New Haven tomorrow, and argues with his wife about Rose not being home yet (She Shouldn't Be Staying Out Nights). Fuming, he storms into the house, just as George Jones returns home from work and chats with the ladies for a while. Anna Maurrant sings an aria about the importance of putting your faith in a brighter tomorrow (Somehow I Never Could Believe). Steve Sankey enters and a tense scene ensues between him and the suspecting women. Almost immediately after he departs, Mrs. Maurrant heads off in the same direction, under the guise of going to look for her son. Mr. Jones, Mr. Olsen, Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Fiorentino sing more about the scandal (Whatcha Think Of That). Mrs. Olsen runs in excited and says that she has just seen Sankey and Mrs. Maurrant standing close together around the back of a local warehouse.
Lippo Fiorentino returns home from work with an armful of ice cream cones for everybody. The two Fiorentino's, the two Olsen's, Mr. Jones and Henry Davis sing a jubilant sextet praising ice cream (Ice Cream Sextet). Maurrant has been watching, and when his wife comes back he questions her about where she's been. She tells him she's been looking for Willie, and Maurrant and Abraham Kaplan argue about parenting, and later economics. Kaplan uses the example of the Hildebrand family who live upstairs, who are run by a struggling single mother who is unable to pay the rent, to illustrate his point. Maurrant and Kaplan's argument almost becomes physical, but the neighbors and Kaplan's granddaughter Shirley hold the two men back. Maurrant sings about how he longs for a return to traditional moral values in Let Things Be Like They Always Was. Immediately after, Jennie Hildebrand and other high-school girls enter the street coming home from their graduation ceremony. The ensemble sings a jubilant celebration number, Wrapped In A Ribbon And Tied In A Bow. Steve Sankey's entrance causes an abrupt end to the celebrations. After the awkward silence of the neighbors forces him to leave, Sam brings Willie Maurrant on in tears. Willie has been fighting with a local kid and Sam stepped in to break it up. Mr. Maurrant leaves to go to the local bar to have a drink, warning that there'll be trouble if Rose isn't home by the time he gets back, whilst Mrs. Maurrant takes Willie upstairs. As soon as they leave, the neighbors all begin gossiping about the Maurrant family. Sam gets passionately upset, chiding the neighbors for gossiping so much behind their backs, and then storms off.
All the neighbors say goodnight and go to bed, except Mr. Jones, who goes to the bar to shoot some pool. Sam returns onstage and sings of his crippling loneliness (Lonely House). Sam goes into the house, then Rose enters with her boss, Harry Easter, who has walked her home. Easter attempts to charm Rose, taking her in his arms and kissing her. He then tries to win her over with a tempting song, promising her that if she were to run away with him he could get her a gig on Broadway (Wouldn't You Like To Be On Broadway?). Rose, however, sticks to her convictions, and sings a Cavatina about how she will always choose true love over showy promises (What Good Would The Moon Be?). Rose sees her father returning home and tells Easter to leave. Maurrant questions her about who she was talking to, and gets angry when she tells him that they had been out dancing. He goes upstairs to bed, furious. Buchanan rushes out of the house and asks Rose to go and phone the doctor, as his wife's baby is about to be born. He heads back upstairs, and as Rose is leaving, she passes young Mae Jones and her suitor, Dick McGann. The two have been out dancing and are flirting, and they sing a fast-paced jitterbug about their infatuation with one another (Moon-faced, Starry-eyed). After they dance on the sidewalk, they passionately run upstairs into the house, after saying a drunken good-night to Rose, who has returned from phoning the doctor.
Mae's brutish elder brother Vincent returns home, and begins harassing Rose. Sam sees him hassling her out of the window, and comes outside to confront him, however Vincent violently lays him out on the sidewalk. Vincent is about to continue his attack when his mother, Mrs. Jones, comes outside to see what the commotion is. He immediately seizes up and innocently goes upstairs at his mother's order. Sam and Rose are left alone, and Sam is embarrassed that he was humiliated by Vincent in front of Rose. Sam laments the terrible strife of living in the slums, but Rose calms him down by reminding him of a poem he once read her (Remember That I Care). Dr. Wilson arrives and goes upstairs to tend to Mrs. Buchanan, and Mr. Maurrant calls Rose and tells her to go to bed. Sam and Rose share a kiss on the sidewalk, and then Rose runs up to bed, just as Henry Davis comes upstairs and starts sweeping the stoop for the night (I Got A Marble And A Star (Reprise)). Rose calls goodnight to Sam from the window and Sam is left alone on the midnight street as the curtain slowly falls to end Act 1.
Mr. Jones drunkenly returns home from the bar and reels into the house. Dr. Wilson leaves the house, telling Buchanan to let his wife get plenty of rest, and Dick McGann and Mae Jones share a much less passionate goodbye in the cold light of day than their energetic exchanges the night before. Willie Maurrant, Charlie and Mary Hildebrand, Henry's daughter Grace, and other local children play an energetic game (Catch Me If You Can), which ends in a large scuffle. Rose calls for them to stop it from the window, whilst Sam comes outside and physically breaks the fight up. The children all disperse. Sam and Rose have a brief conversation, as Rose tells him that she has to go to the funeral of the head of her real estate firm this morning. Shirley comes outside and tells Sam to come in for breakfast, as Rose goes back inside to do the dishes. Buchanan comes outside and tells the Fiorentino's that he has had a little baby girl in the night. Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Maurrant enter, and Mrs. Jones asks her about Mrs. Buchanan, who Mrs. Maurrant has been looking after all night. Mrs. Jones leaves to walk her dog, and Mrs. Maurrant leaves to go to the grocery store. Rose and Mr. Maurrant come out of the house and Rose tries to persuade him to be nicer to her mother. Mrs. Maurrant returns and the three have a family argument about Mr. Maurrant's behaviour. Mrs. Maurrant asks him nonchalantly how long he'll be gone on his business trip for, and Mr. Maurrant accuses her of having an affair, which she denies. He leaves in a rage, and Mrs. Maurrant and Rose lament his behaviour (There'll Be Trouble). Willie comes on and Rose chides him for looking scruffy. Willie and Rose have a verbal disagreement and Rose quickly storms into the house. Mrs. Maurrant tells him that that is no way to talk to his sister, and that she is relying on him to turn into a good man when he is older (A Boy Like You). Willie leaves for school and Mrs. Maurrant goes into the house, as Rose comes out. Shirley Kaplan comes out of the house and asks Rose why she spends so much time with Sam, when he should be concentrating on his work. Shirley leaves for work, and Vincent Jones comes out of the house and starts harassing Rose again, but promptly leaves as Sam comes out of the house. Rose mentions Easter's tempting offer of running away to Sam, and Sam gets upset, saying that she would be better off running away with him, and the two sing of their intention to run away together (We'll Go Away Together). Easter arrives to walk Rose to the funeral, and the two leave. Sam goes into the house, as Sankey appears. Mrs. Maurrant appears at her window and tells him to come upstairs, as Mr. Maurrant has gone on his business trip and Rose will be at the funeral all morning. As Sankey hurries upstairs he passes Sam coming out of the house, who looks up at the window and sees Mrs. Maurrant pulling the shades shut. Sam sits on the stoop and reads a book, as James Henry, a city-marshall, and Fred Cullen, his assistant, appear. They call Henry Davis up and tell him that they're here to dispossess the Hildebrand family, and that since she has made no arrangements to have the furniture taken away, they'll have to dump it on the sidewalk. Henry goes back into the cellar as the two men enter the house. Mr. Maurrant returns, having changed his mind about the business trip. He sees the shades pulled shut and becomes furious. Sam pleads with him not to enter the house but he pushes him aside and runs upstairs. Mrs. Maurrant is heard screaming, and then two gunshots. Sankey appears at the window in terror, he tries to escape but Maurrant pulls him back inside and shoots him. Panic ensues, as Maurrant exits the house, covered in blood, and points his revolver at the crowd of gatherers in order to make his escape. Policemen, paramedics, concerned neighbors flood the scene. Rose returns from the funeral and sees the concerned crowd. Sam tries to keep her back but she cannot be restrained. The ensemble sings a tragic chorus number about the killing, The Woman Who Lived Up There. Mrs. Maurrant's body is brought out of the house on a stretcher and taken to the hospital and the citizens rush after the ambulance, as Rose, quietly crying in Sam's arms, follows. The curtain slowly falls as the two city-marshalls continue bringing the Hildebrand furniture out onto the sidewalk.
Scene 2: Mid-afternoon, the same day
Two young nursemaids appear at the house and sing about the scandal of the murder that has already spread around the city, as they try to quiet the children they are looking after (Lullaby). As the nursemaids leave, Rose enters, dressed in black. She asks Officer Murphy, the policeman who is still in her apartment, if they have found her father yet, and he tells her that they haven't. Sam enters and tells Rose that he has taken Willie from school round to her aunt's house. Shirley enters and expresses her condolences to Rose, and the two of them go up to Rose's apartment together, as Rose is afraid to go up alone. Sam tells his grandfather that the police are going to make him testify against Maurrant, when two shots are heard in the distance. Buchanan and Olsen run on and tell Sam and Rose (who has run out of the house, alerted by the noise) that the police have found her father hiding in the basement of a house down the street. Two policemen bring on Maurrant, who is covered in blood and dirt. The officers are taking him away when he begs for one minute with his daughter, which they grant him. He and Rose talk about the murder, as the crowd looks on (He Loved Her Too). The officers take Maurrant off, and Rose and Sam are left alone onstage. Rose starts to enter the house when Sam asks what she's going to do. She tells him she'll go away, but when he says that he'll go with her like they discussed that morning, Rose says she has to go off alone. Sam finally confesses to Rose that he is in love with her, and that his life is nothing without her. Rose says that her parents have proved that two people do not belong to be together, and she says goodbye to Sam (Don't Forget The Lilac Bush). Shirley comes out of the house and hands Rose a suitcase full of her things. Rose starts walking off, then returns and swiftly kisses Sam, but he breaks away and goes abruptly into the house. Rose stands looking after him, then picks up her bag and walks off. Mrs. Fiorentino, Mrs. Olsen and Mrs. Jones appear and immediately begin gossiping about Rose and Easter hanging around on the street late last night (Ain't It Awful, The Heat? (Reprise)), as they once again lament the unbearable heat and the curtain slowly falls.
Act II
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...
musical or, more precisely, an "American opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
" by Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
(music), Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
(lyrics), and Elmer Rice
Elmer Rice
Elmer Rice was an American playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1929 play, Street Scene.-Early years:...
(book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
). Written in 1946 and premiered in Philadelphia that year, Street Scene is based on the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning play of the same name
Street Scene (play)
Street Scene is a play by Elmer Rice that opened at the Playhouse Theatre in New York City on January 10, 1929 and ran for a total of 601 performances. The action of this ambitious, groundbreaking play takes place entirely on the front stoop of a New York City brownstone and in the adjacent street...
by Rice.
It was Weill who referred to the piece as an "American opera" (he also called it a "Broadway opera"), intending it as a synthesis of European traditional opera and American musical theater. He received the first Tony Award
Tony Award
The 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 Original Score
Tony Award for Best Original Score
The Tony Award for Best Original Score is the Tony Award given to the composers and lyricists of the best original score written for a musical in that year. The score consists of music and lyrics...
for his work, after the Broadway premiere in 1947. Yet Street Scene has never been revived on Broadway; it is fairly regularly produced by opera companies. Musically and culturally, even dramatically, the work inhabits the midground between Weill's Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
(1928) and Bernstein's West Side Story
West Side Story
West Side Story is an American musical with a script by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreographed by Jerome Robbins...
(1957).
The score contains operatic arias and ensembles, some of them, such as Anna Maurrant's "Somehow I Never Could Believe" and Frank Maurrant's "Let Things Be Like They Always Was," with links and references to the style of Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
. It also has jazz and blues influences, in "I Got a Marble and a Star" and "Lonely House." Some of the more Broadway-style musical numbers are "Wrapped In a Ribbon and Tied In a Bow", "Wouldn't You Like To Be On Broadway?" and "Moon-faced, Starry-eyed," an extended song-and-dance sequence.
Background
In Germany, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Weill had already begun to use American jazz and popular song elements in his operas. After fleeing from Germany in 1933, he worked in Paris, then England, and then, beginning in 1935, in New York. Weill made a study of American popular and stage music and worked to further adapt his music to new American styles in his writing for Broadway, film and radio. He strove to find a new way of creating an American opera that would be both commercially and artistically successful. Weill wrote:- "It's my opinion that we can and will develop a musical-dramatic form in this country (America) but I don't think it will be called 'opera', or that it will grow out of the opera which has become a thing separate from the commercial theater, dependent upon other means than box-office appeal for its continuance. It will develop from and remain a part of the American theater – 'Broadway' theater, if you like. More than anything else, I want to be a part in that development."
Weill sought to create musical theatre that would "integrate drama and music, spoken word, song, and movement." He further wrote:
- "This form of theater has its special attraction for the composer, because it allows him to use a great variety of musical idioms, to write music that is both serious and light, operatic and popular, emotional and sophisticated, orchestral and vocal. Each show of this type has to create its own style, its own texture, its own relationship between words and music, because music becomes a truly integral part of the play – it helps deepen the emotions and clarify the structure.
Weill saw Rice's naturalistic play in 1930 and wanted to adapt it. As he wrote:
- "It was a simple story of everyday life in a big city, a story of love and passion and greed and death. I saw great musical possibilities in its theatrical device – life in a tenement house between one evening and the next afternoon. And it seemed like a great challenge to me to find the inherent poetry in these people and to blend my music with the stark realism of the play."
In 1936, Weill met Rice in New York and suggested the adaptation, but Rice turned him down. After the successes of Weill's Knickerbocker Holiday
Knickerbocker Holiday
Knickerbocker Holiday is a musical written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson ; it was directed by Joshua Logan. Among the songs introduced was the "September Song", now considered a pop standard.- History :...
in 1938, Lady in the Dark
Lady in the Dark
Lady in the Dark is a musical with music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart. It was produced by Sam Harris. The protagonist, Liza Elliott, is the unhappy female editor of a fashion magazine, Allure, who is undergoing psychoanalysis...
in 1940, and One Touch of Venus
One Touch of Venus
One Touch of Venus is a musical with music written by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ogden Nash, and book by S. J. Perelman and Nash, based on the novella The Tinted Venus by Thomas Anstey Guthrie, and very loosely spoofing the Pygmalion myth. The show satirizes contemporary American suburban values,...
in 1943 (and after Weill had composed incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for Rice's Two on an Island in 1939), Weill asked again, and Rice agreed. The two chose Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
poet Langston Hughes to, as Weill put it, "lift the everyday language of the people into a simple, unsophisticated poetry."
In order to enhance the realism of the new work, the collaborators utilized dialogue scenes, sometimes underscored by music. To create music that would portray the ethnic melting pot of characters described in Rice's book, Weill travelled to neighborhoods in New York, watching children at play and observing New Yorkers. Hughes took Weill to Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
nightclubs to hear the newest musical idioms of black American jazz and blues. Hughes wrote, "The resulting song was composed in a national American Negro idiom; but a German, or someone else, could sing it without sounding strange or out of place." Weill and many critics have considered the score to be his masterpiece.
Production history
After a tryout in Philadelphia, revisions were made, and Street Scene opened on 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...
at the Adelphi Theater
Adelphi Theater
The Adelphi Theatre , originally named the Craig Theatre, opened on December 24, 1928. The Adelphi was located at 152 West 54th Street in New York City, with 1,434 seats. The theater was taken over by the Federal Theater Project in 1934 and renamed the Adelphi...
on January 9, 1947. It closed on May 17, 1947, after 148 performances, experiencing high running costs. The production was directed by Charles Friedman, with choreography by Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow
Anna Sokolow was a Jewish American dancer and choreographer.-Training:...
, and produced by Dwight Deere Wiman
Dwight Deere Wiman
Dwight Deere Wiman was an American silent movie actor, playwright and theatrical director. He is best known as a Broadway producer.-Early life & Education:...
and The Playwrights' Company (Maxwell Anderson
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent...
; S.N. Behrman; Elmer Rice
Elmer Rice
Elmer Rice was an American playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1929 play, Street Scene.-Early years:...
; Robert E. Sherwood
Robert E. Sherwood
Robert Emmet Sherwood was an American playwright, editor, and screenwriter.-Biography:Born in New Rochelle, New York, he was a son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the former Rosina Emmet, a well-known illustrator and portrait painter known as Rosina E. Sherwood...
; Sidney Howard
Sidney Howard
Sidney Coe Howard was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925 and a posthumous Academy Award in 1940 for the screenplay for Gone with the Wind.-Early life:...
). Scenic and lighting design were by Jo Mielziner
Jo Mielziner
Joseph "Jo" Mielziner was an American theatrical scenic, and lighting designer born in Paris, France. He is "the most successful set designer of the Golden era of Broadway", and worked on both stage plays and musicals.-Career:He was the son of artist Leo Mielziner, Sr...
; costume design was by Lucinda Ballard
Lucinda Ballard
Lucinda Ballard was an American costume designer who worked primarily in Broadway theatre.Born Lucinda Davis Goldsborough in New Orleans, Louisiana, Ballard studied at the Art Students League in New York City. Her first professional credits was as the scenic and costume designer for a 1937...
. The production starred Anne Jeffreys
Anne Jeffreys
Anne Jeffreys is an American actress and singer.- Career :Born Anne Carmichael in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Jeffreys entered the entertainment field at a young age; her initial training was in voice , but she decided as a teenager to sign with the John Robert Powers agency as a junior model.Her...
as Rose Maurrant, Polyna Stoska as Anna Maurrant, Norman Cordon as Frank Maurrant, Brian Sullivan as Sam Kaplan, Hope Emerson
Hope Emerson
-Early life:Emerson was born in Hawarden, Iowa. Following her graduation from West High School in Des Moines in 1916, she moved to New York City where she performed in vaudeville.-Career:...
as Emma Jones, Sheila Bond
Sheila Bond
Sheila Bond is an American actress, best known for her 1953 Tony Award-winning performance as "Fay Fromkin" in the Broadway musical Wish You Were Here.-Selected appearances:* 1947: Street Scene...
as Mae Jones, and Danny Daniels
Danny Daniels
Danny Daniels is an American choreographer, tap dancer, and teacher.Daniels was a featured dancer in several 1940s Broadway musicals, including Billion Dollar Baby, Street Scene, and Kiss Me, Kate; although he continued performing during the 1950s and after, including a tour with the Agnes de Mille...
as Dick McGann. Juanita Hall
Juanita Hall
Juanita Hall was an American musical theatre and film actress. She is remembered for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific as Bloody Mary and Flower Drum Song as Auntie Liang.-Biography:Born in Keyport, New Jersey, Hall received...
was a notable replacement. Weill received the first Tony Award for Best Original Score, and Ballard received the 1947 Tony Award
Tony Award
The 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 Costume Design, competing with other strong musicals that year, notably Finian's Rainbow
Finian's Rainbow
Finian's Rainbow is a musical with a book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Burton Lane. The 1947 Broadway production ran for 725 performances. Several revivals and a 1968 film version followed. A Broadway revival ran from October 8, 2009 until January 17, 2010...
by Burton Lane
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
and Brigadoon by Frederick Loewe.
A production by the English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
at the London Coliseum Theatre
Coliseum Theatre
The London Coliseum is an opera house and major performing venue on St. Martin's Lane, central London. It is one of London's largest and best equipped theatres and opened in 1904, designed by theatrical architect Frank Matcham , for impresario Oswald Stoll...
in 1989 included Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones, CBE, is a British actress. She began her career on stage at an early age. After starring in a number of United Kingdom and United States television films and small roles in films, she came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as the 1998 action film The Mask of...
as Mae Jones.
The Opera Group, Young Vic, and Watford Palace Theatre gave the first UK production in 20 years in July 2008 http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/21306/street-scene, winning the Evening Standard Award 2008 for Best Musical. Another production was performed in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich on 19 July 2008, with the cast largely drawn from students from Trinity College of Music. In 2011 Street Scene was performed by the Opera/Music Theatre Workshop of Southeastern Louisiana University
Southeastern Louisiana University
Southeastern Louisiana University is a state-funded public university in Hammond, Louisiana, United States. It was founded in 1925 by Linus A. Sims, the principal of Hammond High School, as Hammond Junior College, located in a wing of the high school building. Sims succeeded in getting the campus...
and, in German, by the Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding and the Munich Radio Orchestra
Munich Radio Orchestra
The Munich Radio Orchestra is a German symphony orchestra based in Munich. It is one of the two orchestras affiliated with the Bavarian Radio , the other being the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra....
, led by Ulf Schirmer
Ulf Schirmer
Ulf Schirmer is a German conductor. He studied at the Bremen Conservatory, and also at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with György Ligeti, Christoph von Dohnányi and Horst Stein....
.
The Opera Group presents the first performance in Austria in October 2011, and the Semper Oper in Dresden produced the work to great acclaim earlier in 2011.
Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, 9 January 1947 (Conductor Conducting Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble... : Maurice Abravanel Maurice Abravanel Maurice Abravanel was aSwiss-American Jewish conductor of classical music. He is remembered as the conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra for over 30 years.-Life:... ) |
|---|---|---|
| The Maurrant family | ||
| Frank Maurrant, a violent, disagreeable brute | bass-baritone Bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende... |
Norman Cordon |
| Anna Maurrant, his warm wife | dramatic soprano Dramatic soprano A dramatic soprano is an operatic soprano with a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over, or cut through, a full orchestra. Thicker vocal folds in dramatic voices usually mean less agility than lighter voices but a sustained, fuller sound. Usually this voice has a lower tessitura than... |
Polyna Stoska |
| Rose Maurrant, their teenage daughter | lyric soprano Lyric soprano A lyric soprano is a type of operatic soprano that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre which can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura than a soubrette and usually plays ingenues and other sympathetic characters in opera. Lyric sopranos have... |
Anne Jeffreys Anne Jeffreys Anne Jeffreys is an American actress and singer.- Career :Born Anne Carmichael in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Jeffreys entered the entertainment field at a young age; her initial training was in voice , but she decided as a teenager to sign with the John Robert Powers agency as a junior model.Her... |
| Willie Maurrant, their mischievous little boy | child, non singing | Peter Griffith Peter Griffith Peter Atwill Griffith was an American film actor.-Life and career:Griffith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Hilda and Ben E. Griffith. He had two sisters, Jennifer and Jessica Griffith. Griffith was a veteran in the U.S. Army serving in the Korean War... |
| The Jones family | ||
| Emma Jones, a gossipy neighbor | mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above... |
Hope Emerson Hope Emerson -Early life:Emerson was born in Hawarden, Iowa. Following her graduation from West High School in Des Moines in 1916, she moved to New York City where she performed in vaudeville.-Career:... |
| George Jones, her alcoholic husband | baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or... |
David E. Thomas |
| Mae Jones, their promiscuous teenage daughter | mezzo-soprano | Sheila Bond Sheila Bond Sheila Bond is an American actress, best known for her 1953 Tony Award-winning performance as "Fay Fromkin" in the Broadway musical Wish You Were Here.-Selected appearances:* 1947: Street Scene... |
| Vincent Jones, her brutish elder brother, a cab driver | speaking role | Robert Pierson |
| The Olsen family | ||
| Olga Olsen, a Swedish neighbor | contralto | Ellen Repp |
| Carl Olsen, her husband | bass | Wilson Smith |
| Visitors To The House | ||
| Dick McGann, a romantic interest of Mae Jones | baritone | Danny Daniels Danny Daniels Danny Daniels is an American choreographer, tap dancer, and teacher.Daniels was a featured dancer in several 1940s Broadway musicals, including Billion Dollar Baby, Street Scene, and Kiss Me, Kate; although he continued performing during the 1950s and after, including a tour with the Agnes de Mille... |
| Harry Easter, Rose Maurrant's sleazy boss | baritone | Don Saxon |
| Steve Sankey, a milkman, supposedly having an affair with Anna Maurrant | speaking role | Lauren Gilbert |
| Nursemaid #1, a young nursemaid | lyric alto Alto Alto is a musical term, derived from the Latin word altus, meaning "high" in Italian, that has several possible interpretations.When designating instruments, "alto" frequently refers to a member of an instrumental family that has the second highest range, below that of the treble or soprano. Hence,... |
Peggy Turnley |
| Nursemaid #2, another young nursemaid | contralto | Ellen Carleen |
| Dr. John Wilson, the doctor for Daniel Buchanan's pregnant wife | speaking role | Edwin G. O'Connor |
| Officer Harry Murphy, a policeman | speaking role | Norman Thomson |
| James Henry, City Marshall | speaking role | Randolphe Symonette |
| Fred Cullen, his assistant | speaking role | Paul Lily |
| Ambulance Driver, an ambulance driver | speaking role | |
| The Kaplan family | ||
| Abraham Kaplan, a radically-opinioned elderly Jewish man | baritone | Irving Kaufman Irving Kaufman (singer) Irving Kaufman born Isidore Kaufman Syracuse, New York was a prolific early twentieth century singer, recording artist and Vaudeville performer... |
| Sam Kaplan, his meek teenage grandson, in love with Rose Maurrant | tenor | Brian Sullivan |
| Shirley Kaplan, his elder sister, a school teacher | speaking role | Norma Chambers |
| The Fiorentino family | ||
| Greta Fiorentino, a German neighbor | coloratura soprano | Helen Arden |
| Lippo Fiorentino, her feisty Italian husband | tenor | Sydney Rainer |
| The Hildebrand family | ||
| Laura Hildebrand, a struggling single mother | speaking role | Elen Lane |
| Jennie Hildebrand, her teenage daughter | mezzo-soprano | Beverly Janis |
| Charlie Hildebrand, her little boy | child | Bennett Burrill |
| Mary Hildebrand, her little girl | child | Juliana Gallagher |
| Other Residents | ||
| Daniel Buchanan, a nervous neighbor | tenor | Remo Lota |
| Henry Davis, the janitor | baritone | Creighton Thompson |
| Grace Davis, his little girl | child | Helen Ferguson |
Summary
The play takes place on the doorstep of a tenementTenement
A tenement is, in most English-speaking areas, a substandard multi-family dwelling, usually old, occupied by the poor.-History:Originally the term tenement referred to tenancy and therefore to any rented accommodation...
on the East Side of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
on two brutally hot days in 1946. The story focuses on two plotlines: the romance between Rose Maurrant and her neighbor Sam Kaplan; and on the extramarital affair of Rose's mother, Anna, which is eventually discovered by Rose's irritable father, Frank. The show portrays the ordinary romances, squabbles and gossips of the neighbors, as the mounting tensions involving the Maurrant family eventually build into a tragedy of epic proportions.
Act 1
As the curtain rises, we are introduced to some of the residents of the apartment block where the action takes place. Emma Jones and Greta Fiorentino lament the incredible heatwave that is gripping New York (Ain't It Awful, The Heat?). They are joined by another neighbor Olga Olsen, who tells of the stress of dealing with her newborn baby and her husband Carl, and an old man, Abraham Kaplan, who sings of the murders and scandals in the press, whilst joining in with the opening number. Henry Davis, the janitor, enters from the basement and sings of his ambitions to greater things (I Got A Marble And A Star). Young Willie Maurrant enters and calls for his mother, who enters at the window and throws him a dime to buy a soda. The three women (Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Fiorentino and Mrs. Olsen) persuade Mrs. Maurrant to come downstairs and be sociable, and as she descends, they gossip about the rumour that Mrs. Maurrant and Steve Sankey, the milkman, have been having an affair (Get A Load Of That). Mrs. Maurrant comes down to chat and Mrs. Olsen goes back down to her cellar apartment to tend to her baby. Sam Kaplan comes out of the house and asks after Mrs. Maurrant's daughter, Rose, but she hasn't got back from work yet. He leaves to go to the library.Daniel Buchanan enters, jittery; he's nervous because his wife is upstairs about to have a baby. He and the women sing of the perils of childbirth in a short Arietta, When A Woman Has A Baby. Just as he runs upstairs to tend to his wife, Mrs. Maurrant's husband Frank comes home. He mentions that he is going on a business trip to New Haven tomorrow, and argues with his wife about Rose not being home yet (She Shouldn't Be Staying Out Nights). Fuming, he storms into the house, just as George Jones returns home from work and chats with the ladies for a while. Anna Maurrant sings an aria about the importance of putting your faith in a brighter tomorrow (Somehow I Never Could Believe). Steve Sankey enters and a tense scene ensues between him and the suspecting women. Almost immediately after he departs, Mrs. Maurrant heads off in the same direction, under the guise of going to look for her son. Mr. Jones, Mr. Olsen, Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Fiorentino sing more about the scandal (Whatcha Think Of That). Mrs. Olsen runs in excited and says that she has just seen Sankey and Mrs. Maurrant standing close together around the back of a local warehouse.
Lippo Fiorentino returns home from work with an armful of ice cream cones for everybody. The two Fiorentino's, the two Olsen's, Mr. Jones and Henry Davis sing a jubilant sextet praising ice cream (Ice Cream Sextet). Maurrant has been watching, and when his wife comes back he questions her about where she's been. She tells him she's been looking for Willie, and Maurrant and Abraham Kaplan argue about parenting, and later economics. Kaplan uses the example of the Hildebrand family who live upstairs, who are run by a struggling single mother who is unable to pay the rent, to illustrate his point. Maurrant and Kaplan's argument almost becomes physical, but the neighbors and Kaplan's granddaughter Shirley hold the two men back. Maurrant sings about how he longs for a return to traditional moral values in Let Things Be Like They Always Was. Immediately after, Jennie Hildebrand and other high-school girls enter the street coming home from their graduation ceremony. The ensemble sings a jubilant celebration number, Wrapped In A Ribbon And Tied In A Bow. Steve Sankey's entrance causes an abrupt end to the celebrations. After the awkward silence of the neighbors forces him to leave, Sam brings Willie Maurrant on in tears. Willie has been fighting with a local kid and Sam stepped in to break it up. Mr. Maurrant leaves to go to the local bar to have a drink, warning that there'll be trouble if Rose isn't home by the time he gets back, whilst Mrs. Maurrant takes Willie upstairs. As soon as they leave, the neighbors all begin gossiping about the Maurrant family. Sam gets passionately upset, chiding the neighbors for gossiping so much behind their backs, and then storms off.
All the neighbors say goodnight and go to bed, except Mr. Jones, who goes to the bar to shoot some pool. Sam returns onstage and sings of his crippling loneliness (Lonely House). Sam goes into the house, then Rose enters with her boss, Harry Easter, who has walked her home. Easter attempts to charm Rose, taking her in his arms and kissing her. He then tries to win her over with a tempting song, promising her that if she were to run away with him he could get her a gig on Broadway (Wouldn't You Like To Be On Broadway?). Rose, however, sticks to her convictions, and sings a Cavatina about how she will always choose true love over showy promises (What Good Would The Moon Be?). Rose sees her father returning home and tells Easter to leave. Maurrant questions her about who she was talking to, and gets angry when she tells him that they had been out dancing. He goes upstairs to bed, furious. Buchanan rushes out of the house and asks Rose to go and phone the doctor, as his wife's baby is about to be born. He heads back upstairs, and as Rose is leaving, she passes young Mae Jones and her suitor, Dick McGann. The two have been out dancing and are flirting, and they sing a fast-paced jitterbug about their infatuation with one another (Moon-faced, Starry-eyed). After they dance on the sidewalk, they passionately run upstairs into the house, after saying a drunken good-night to Rose, who has returned from phoning the doctor.
Mae's brutish elder brother Vincent returns home, and begins harassing Rose. Sam sees him hassling her out of the window, and comes outside to confront him, however Vincent violently lays him out on the sidewalk. Vincent is about to continue his attack when his mother, Mrs. Jones, comes outside to see what the commotion is. He immediately seizes up and innocently goes upstairs at his mother's order. Sam and Rose are left alone, and Sam is embarrassed that he was humiliated by Vincent in front of Rose. Sam laments the terrible strife of living in the slums, but Rose calms him down by reminding him of a poem he once read her (Remember That I Care). Dr. Wilson arrives and goes upstairs to tend to Mrs. Buchanan, and Mr. Maurrant calls Rose and tells her to go to bed. Sam and Rose share a kiss on the sidewalk, and then Rose runs up to bed, just as Henry Davis comes upstairs and starts sweeping the stoop for the night (I Got A Marble And A Star (Reprise)). Rose calls goodnight to Sam from the window and Sam is left alone on the midnight street as the curtain slowly falls to end Act 1.
Act 2
Scene 1: Daybreak, the next morningMr. Jones drunkenly returns home from the bar and reels into the house. Dr. Wilson leaves the house, telling Buchanan to let his wife get plenty of rest, and Dick McGann and Mae Jones share a much less passionate goodbye in the cold light of day than their energetic exchanges the night before. Willie Maurrant, Charlie and Mary Hildebrand, Henry's daughter Grace, and other local children play an energetic game (Catch Me If You Can), which ends in a large scuffle. Rose calls for them to stop it from the window, whilst Sam comes outside and physically breaks the fight up. The children all disperse. Sam and Rose have a brief conversation, as Rose tells him that she has to go to the funeral of the head of her real estate firm this morning. Shirley comes outside and tells Sam to come in for breakfast, as Rose goes back inside to do the dishes. Buchanan comes outside and tells the Fiorentino's that he has had a little baby girl in the night. Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Maurrant enter, and Mrs. Jones asks her about Mrs. Buchanan, who Mrs. Maurrant has been looking after all night. Mrs. Jones leaves to walk her dog, and Mrs. Maurrant leaves to go to the grocery store. Rose and Mr. Maurrant come out of the house and Rose tries to persuade him to be nicer to her mother. Mrs. Maurrant returns and the three have a family argument about Mr. Maurrant's behaviour. Mrs. Maurrant asks him nonchalantly how long he'll be gone on his business trip for, and Mr. Maurrant accuses her of having an affair, which she denies. He leaves in a rage, and Mrs. Maurrant and Rose lament his behaviour (There'll Be Trouble). Willie comes on and Rose chides him for looking scruffy. Willie and Rose have a verbal disagreement and Rose quickly storms into the house. Mrs. Maurrant tells him that that is no way to talk to his sister, and that she is relying on him to turn into a good man when he is older (A Boy Like You). Willie leaves for school and Mrs. Maurrant goes into the house, as Rose comes out. Shirley Kaplan comes out of the house and asks Rose why she spends so much time with Sam, when he should be concentrating on his work. Shirley leaves for work, and Vincent Jones comes out of the house and starts harassing Rose again, but promptly leaves as Sam comes out of the house. Rose mentions Easter's tempting offer of running away to Sam, and Sam gets upset, saying that she would be better off running away with him, and the two sing of their intention to run away together (We'll Go Away Together). Easter arrives to walk Rose to the funeral, and the two leave. Sam goes into the house, as Sankey appears. Mrs. Maurrant appears at her window and tells him to come upstairs, as Mr. Maurrant has gone on his business trip and Rose will be at the funeral all morning. As Sankey hurries upstairs he passes Sam coming out of the house, who looks up at the window and sees Mrs. Maurrant pulling the shades shut. Sam sits on the stoop and reads a book, as James Henry, a city-marshall, and Fred Cullen, his assistant, appear. They call Henry Davis up and tell him that they're here to dispossess the Hildebrand family, and that since she has made no arrangements to have the furniture taken away, they'll have to dump it on the sidewalk. Henry goes back into the cellar as the two men enter the house. Mr. Maurrant returns, having changed his mind about the business trip. He sees the shades pulled shut and becomes furious. Sam pleads with him not to enter the house but he pushes him aside and runs upstairs. Mrs. Maurrant is heard screaming, and then two gunshots. Sankey appears at the window in terror, he tries to escape but Maurrant pulls him back inside and shoots him. Panic ensues, as Maurrant exits the house, covered in blood, and points his revolver at the crowd of gatherers in order to make his escape. Policemen, paramedics, concerned neighbors flood the scene. Rose returns from the funeral and sees the concerned crowd. Sam tries to keep her back but she cannot be restrained. The ensemble sings a tragic chorus number about the killing, The Woman Who Lived Up There. Mrs. Maurrant's body is brought out of the house on a stretcher and taken to the hospital and the citizens rush after the ambulance, as Rose, quietly crying in Sam's arms, follows. The curtain slowly falls as the two city-marshalls continue bringing the Hildebrand furniture out onto the sidewalk.
Scene 2: Mid-afternoon, the same day
Two young nursemaids appear at the house and sing about the scandal of the murder that has already spread around the city, as they try to quiet the children they are looking after (Lullaby). As the nursemaids leave, Rose enters, dressed in black. She asks Officer Murphy, the policeman who is still in her apartment, if they have found her father yet, and he tells her that they haven't. Sam enters and tells Rose that he has taken Willie from school round to her aunt's house. Shirley enters and expresses her condolences to Rose, and the two of them go up to Rose's apartment together, as Rose is afraid to go up alone. Sam tells his grandfather that the police are going to make him testify against Maurrant, when two shots are heard in the distance. Buchanan and Olsen run on and tell Sam and Rose (who has run out of the house, alerted by the noise) that the police have found her father hiding in the basement of a house down the street. Two policemen bring on Maurrant, who is covered in blood and dirt. The officers are taking him away when he begs for one minute with his daughter, which they grant him. He and Rose talk about the murder, as the crowd looks on (He Loved Her Too). The officers take Maurrant off, and Rose and Sam are left alone onstage. Rose starts to enter the house when Sam asks what she's going to do. She tells him she'll go away, but when he says that he'll go with her like they discussed that morning, Rose says she has to go off alone. Sam finally confesses to Rose that he is in love with her, and that his life is nothing without her. Rose says that her parents have proved that two people do not belong to be together, and she says goodbye to Sam (Don't Forget The Lilac Bush). Shirley comes out of the house and hands Rose a suitcase full of her things. Rose starts walking off, then returns and swiftly kisses Sam, but he breaks away and goes abruptly into the house. Rose stands looking after him, then picks up her bag and walks off. Mrs. Fiorentino, Mrs. Olsen and Mrs. Jones appear and immediately begin gossiping about Rose and Easter hanging around on the street late last night (Ain't It Awful, The Heat? (Reprise)), as they once again lament the unbearable heat and the curtain slowly falls.
Songs
Act I- "Ain't It Awful, The Heat?" - Greta Fiorentino, Emma Jones, Olga and Carl Olsen, Abraham Kaplan
- "I Got A Marble And A Star" - Henry Davis
- "Get A Load Of That" - Emma Jones, Greta Fiorentino, Olga Olsen
- "When A Woman Has A Baby" - Daniel Buchanan, Greta Fiorentino, Emma Jones, Anna Maurrant
- "She Shouldn't Be Staying Out Nights" - Frank and Anna Maurrant, Greta Fiorentino
- "Somehow I Never Could Believe" - Anna Maurrant
- "Whatcha Think Of That?" - Emma and George Jones, Carl Olsen, Greta Fiorentino
- "Ice Cream Sextet" - Lippo and Greta Fiorentino, Carl and Olga Olsen, George Jones, Henry Davis
- "Let Things Be Like They Always Was" - Frank Maurrant
- "Wrapped In A Ribbon And Tied In A Bow" - Jennie Hildebrand, Ensemble
- "Lonely House" - Sam Kaplan
- "Wouldn't You Like To Be On Broadway?" - Harry Easter
- "What Good Would The Moon Be?" - Rose Maurrant
- "Moon-faced, Starry-eyed" - Dick McGann, Mae Jones
- "Remember That I Care" - Sam Kaplan, Rose Maurrant
- "I Got A Marble And A Star (Reprise)" - Henry Davis
Act II
- "Catch Me If You Can" - Charlie and Mary Hildebrand, Willie Maurrant, Grace Davis, Children
- "There'll Be Trouble" - Frank, Rose and Anna Maurrant
- "A Boy Like You" - Anna Maurrant
- "We'll Go Away Together" - Rose Maurrant, Sam Kaplan
- "The Woman Who Lived Up There" - Ensemble
- "Lullaby" - Nursemaid #1, Nursemaid #2
- "I Loved Her, Too" - Frank and Rose Maurrant, Ensemble
- "Don't Forget The Lilac Bush" - Sam Kaplan, Rose Maurrant
- "Ain't It Awful, The Heat? (Reprise)" - Greta Fiorentino, Emma Jones, Olga Olsen, Abraham Kaplan
External links
- Essay by Jenna Gagliardo, Erienne Poole and Beth Stewart
- Profile of the work at the NODA website
- Review of the 1990 New York City Opera production
- Review of 2002 production
- Profile of the show at the Musical Heaven website