The Madwoman of Central Park West is a semi-autobiographical

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 one-woman 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...

 with a book by Arthur Laurents

Arthur Laurents

Arthur Laurents was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S...

 and Phyllis Newman

Phyllis Newman

Phyllis Newman is an American actress and singer. She was nominated twice for the Drama Desk Award and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.-Early life:...

 and songs by various composers and lyricists. It focuses on the difficulties faced by an older actress who is seeking to balance her career with her life as a wife and mother.

Among those whose songs are included in the production are Peter Allen

Peter Allen

Peter Allen was an Australian songwriter and entertainer. His songs were made popular by many recording artists, including Elkie Brooks, Melissa Manchester and Olivia Newton-John, with one, Arthur's Theme, winning an Academy Award in 1981...

, Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, Jerry Bock

Jerry Bock

Jerrold Lewis "Jerry" Bock was an American musical theater composer. He received the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Sheldon Harnick for their 1959 musical Fiorello! and the Tony Award for Best Composer and Lyricist for the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof with...

, Martin Charnin

Martin Charnin

Martin Charnin is an American lyricist, writer, and theatre director. Charnin's best-known work is as conceiver, director and lyricist of the hit musical Annie....

, Betty Comden

Betty Comden

Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...

, Fred Ebb

Fred Ebb

Fred Ebb was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera....

, Adolph Green

Adolph Green

Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...

, Sheldon Harnick

Sheldon Harnick

Sheldon Harnick is an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof....

, John Kander

John Kander

John Harold Kander is the American composer of a number of musicals as part of the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb.-Life and career:Kander was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Bernice and Harold S. Kander...

, Ed Kleban, Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...

, Joe Raposo

Joe Raposo

Joseph Guilherme Raposo, OIH was a Portuguese-American composer, songwriter, pianist, television writer and lyricist, best known for his work on the children's television series Sesame Street, for which he wrote the theme song, as well as classic songs such as "Bein' Green" and "C is for Cookie"...

, Mary Rodgers

Mary Rodgers

Mary Rodgers is an American composer of musicals and an author of children's books. She is a daughter of composer Richard Rodgers and his wife, Dorothy Rodgers, as is her sister, Linda Rodgers Emory...

, Carole Bayer Sager

Carole Bayer Sager

Carole Bayer Sager is an American lyricist, songwriter, singer, and painter.-Introduction:Born in New York City, Sager graduated from New York University, where she majored in English, dramatic arts and speech...

, and Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

.

Under the title My Mother Was a Fortune-Teller and starring Newman as basically herself, it originally was staged by Laurents at the Hudson Guild Theatre

Hudson Guild

The Hudson Guild is a community-based social services organization rooted in and primarily focused on the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1897 by Dr. John Lovejoy Elliott as a settlement house, with the intention of helping to alleviate the problems of the...

. Slightly revised and with a new title, it transferred to 22 Steps where, after 15 previews, it opened on June 13, 1979 and closed on August 25 after 85 performances.

In his review for New York

New York (magazine)

New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...

, John Simon

John Simon (critic)

John Ivan Simon is an American author and literary, theater, and film critic.-Personal life:Simon was born in Subotica, Bačka, County of Bačka, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later, known as Yugoslavia . He is of Hungarian descent...

 described it as "above all else, embarrassing" and called the writing "uniformly feeble." He thought the interpolated songs were "not great stuff" and added, "[T]hough Miss Newman is a talented musical comedienne, she cannot make them into more than they are." He did praise "a medley of old songs glorifying woman as sex object or domestic drudge - which she renders with delightful satiric brio."

Twelve of the musical numbers were recorded and released by DRG Records.

Production credits:
Scenery Design - Phillip Jung,
Costume Design - Theoni V. Aldredge

Theoni V. Aldredge

Theoni V. Aldredge was a Greek-American stage and screen costume designer.Born Theoni Athanasiou Vachlioti in Thessaloniki in 1922, Aldredge received her training at the American School in Athens. She emigrated to the United States in 1949 and attended the Goodman Theatre at DePaul University,...

,
Lighting Design - Ken Billington

Ken Billington

Ken Billington is an American lighting designer. He began his career in New York City working as an assistant to Tharon Musser....

,
Sound Design - Abe Jacob,
Orchestrations - John Clifton,
Musical Direction - Herbert Kaplan,
Special Orchestrations - Kirk Nurock,
General Manager - Marvin A. Krauss,
Production Stage Manager -= James Pentecost,
Producer's Associate - Amos Abrams,
Directed by - Arthur Laurents

Arthur Laurents

Arthur Laurents was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S...