THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (LA JOLLA TRYOUT CAST)
https://www.sendspace.com/file/rsxy9r
(Not Real Cover)
1. THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE - Millie, Miss Dorothy, Ching Ho, Bun Foo
2. THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE - Millie, Ching, Bun Foo, Ensemble
3. STUMBLING Millie - Miss Dorothy
4. THE SPEED TEST - Trevor Graydon, Millie, Miss Flannery, Ensemble
5. ONE MANHATTAN, STRAIGHT UP - Jimmy, Millie, Miss Dorothy, Ensemble
6. YOU CAN COUNT ON ME Jimmy, Millie
7. THEN WHAT, BABY - Muzzy
8. JIMMY - Millie
9. FORGET ABOUT THE BOY - Millie, Miss Flannery, Female Ensemble
10. I’M FALLING IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE - Trevor Graydon, Miss Dorothy
11. SAY THAT - Jimmy
12. MUQIN - Mrs. Meers, Bun Foo, Ching Ho
13. JAZZ BABY - Muzzy
14. GIMME GIMME - Millie
Musical Credits
There’ll Be Some Changes Made
by Billy Higgins and W. Boston Overstreet *
Thoroughly Modern Millie
Music by James Van Heusen, Lyrics by Sammy Cahn *
Stumbling by Zez Confrey *
One Manhattan, Straight Up
Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan
You Can Count On Me
Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan
The Speed Test (My Eyes Are Fully Open To My Awful Situation) Music by Arthur Sullivan, Lyrics by W. S. Gilbert *
Then What, Baby? Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan
Jimmy by Jay Thompson * †
Forget About The Boy
Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan
Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life / I’m Falling In Love With Someone
Music by Victor Herbert, Lyrics by Rida Johnson Young
Say That Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan
Muquin by Sam Lewis, Joe Young and Walter Donaldson * †
Jazz Baby by M. K. Jerome and Blanche Merrill
Gimme Gimme Music by Jeanine Tesori Lyrics by Dick Scanlan
*Additional Lyrics by Dick Scanlon
† Additional Music by Jeanine Tesori
La Jolla Playhouse presents the World Premiere of
Thoroughly Modern Millie
Book by Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan
New Music by Jeanine Tesori
New Lyrics by Dick Scanlan
Inspired by Richard Morris’ Original Story and Screenplay
Directed by Michael Mayer
Choreography by Rob Ashford
Music Direction by Michael Rafter
Orchestrations Ralph Burns
Associate Music Director Lawrence Goldberg
Vocal Arrangements and Incidental Music Jeanine Tesori
Dance Music Arrangements David Krane
Associate Choreographer Becky Timms
Set Design David Gallo
Costume Design Robert Perdziola
Lighting Design Donald Holder
Sound Design Otts Munderloh
Production Stage Manager Bonnie L. Becker
Assistant Stage Manager J. Philip Bassett
Casting Jim Carnahan
The Cast (in order of appearance)
Millie Dillmount - Sutton Foster
Miss Dorothy Brown - Sarah Uriarte Berry
Ching Ho - Stephen Sable
Bun Foo - Francis Jue
Jimmy Smith - Jim Stanek
Mrs. Meers - Pat Carroll
Taxi Driver - Randi Ask
Miss Flannery - Anne L. Nathan
Trevor Graydon - Marc Kudisch
Muzzy - Tonya Pinkins
Dorothy Parker - Julie Connors
Maitre D’ - Yusef Miller
Anniversary Couple - Chane’t Johnson, Randi Ask
Ladies’ Lounge Attendant - Zina Camblin
Moderns: Randi Ask, Kate Baldwin, Joshua Bergasse, Zina Camblin, Julie Connors, David Eggers, Nicole Foret, Matthew Gasper, Gregg Goodbrod, Susan Haefner, Chane’t Johnson, Matt Lashey, Michael Malone, Yusef Miller, Anne L. Nathan, Tina Ou, Noah Racey, Megan Sikora, Leigh-Anne Wencker.
THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE:
RED, WHITE AND BLUE
By Dick Scanlan
If I were to make a list of the areas in which America excels, from the sublime to the ridiculous - political freedom to fast food - musical theatre would top the sublime column. Not only did we invent musicals, we have re-framed and re-created them to suit the needs of the times in which they are being presented from Oklahoma! to A Chorus Line, Show Boat to Rent.
Imagine my excitement, then, at the prospect of adapting Thoroughly Modern Millie, a 1967 movie with music, into a bona fide stage musical,. After all, the title character is in a quest for self-reinvention, leaving the farm on which she was raised and heading to New York City to become the person she’s always wanted to be. The same drive to find a better life is at the core of what the settlers were doing when they landed at Plymouth Rock. Millie’s clothes may be more fabulous than the Puritan look, but her desires are the desires on which this country was founded, and on which it still thrives. To explore those desires in a musical comedy is the perfect fusion of form and theme: 100 % American.
That’s not to be confused with Americans e.g. apple pie and baseball. In researching Millie, I was surprised to discover how hard-edged the 1920s were, particularly in Manhattan. Imagine living in a stop-action film, where every day the buildings around you grew taller as construction boomed all over town, the famed New York skyline constantly changing in those pre-Empire State Building days. Neon was new, and suddenly the Great White Way exploded in rainbow colours, like Dorothy leaving black-and-white Kansas for Technicolor Oz.
The unparalleled economic prosperity, not to mention job opportunities available for the first time to women, made for disposable dollars pouring out of wallets and purses and into nightclubs, speakeasies and cabarets. Even the wristwatch was a recent phenomenon, so everyone was in a hurry, as if their easy access to checking time made them realize what a precious commodity time is. They may have been dancing the Charleston, but they were dancing as fast as they could. The sepia-toned nostalgia with which the 1920s are often portrayed bears little resemblance to the tick-tocking, fast-talking, head-spinning years that F Scott Fitzgerald termed “The Jazz Age.”
Throughout the development of Millie, “thoroughly modern” has been my buzz phrase: it’s essential to me that the show earns its title. Hence its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, a regional theatre with a reputation for theatricality and innovation. A more commercial venue might have applied pressure on me to play it safe, and the ‘20s were anything but safe.
That isn’t to say that Millie doesn’t have an element of sweetness. But sweet can mean a gooey ice cream sundae topped with Redi-Whip and a maraschino cherry, or it can mean Veuve Cliquot champagne - sweet, yes, but bubbly, dry and served in celebration!
That’s my Millie, as sophisticated as the Big Apple. She’s part pilgrim, part Dorothy Parker. Whether you yearn to play city mouse or country mouse, it’s hard for any American not to identify with Millie’s creed that everyone has the right to go out into the world and make a life for themselves. And that’s something to sing and dance about. -— Dick Scanlan
Review: San Diego Union-Tribune October 24, 2000
"Thoroughly Modern Millie," which premiered Sunday at La Jolla Playhouse, celebrates old-school American musical comedy with new- school polish. Singing, dancing fools and the steno pool still tap right out at you.
But in the show's comedic high point, writer Dick Scanlan creates a breathless, world-of-business rewrite of Gilbert and Sullivan patter: "Unless you can convince me you've improved the floor-wax batter, we will take our business elsewhere, so I hope you'll solve the matter."
The 1967 Ross Hunter movie tried to spoof movie musicals, though its lead feet and forced smiles meant even Julie Andrews couldn't make the bubble float. This is one movie that hasn't been sitting around in the vaults waiting to take to the stage: A spoof of a spoof?
But the stage "Millie" does float on a strong current of smart, shared inspiration. First credits go to writer-lyricist Scanlan, a real find for musical theater, and to Sutton Foster, who plays the high-voltage Millie. Scanlan's book is knowing, but has none of the brittle, insistent humor that sank the movie. He's retained four songs, and some of Richard Morris' original screenplay, including the Chinese thugs and their white slaver subplot cleverly reinvented for a multicultural age.
Scanlan, composer Jeanine Tesori and the gifted director Michael Mayer give a warmly postmod spin to the material, infusing it with a madcap vitality that pulls you right in: "No, No, Nanette" turned "Yes, Yes, Millie."
As the titular heroine, young Foster tears into the part with earthy gusto. She's got toughness and charm, and singing seven of the eight songs in the first act, she shows a rangy voice that won't quit. Add a perfect stage smile, a confident stride, and you've got a performer making the most of a big, brash role with Broadway potential.
"Millie" has nothing much on its mind, but its couple of core ideas do play. All roads lead to New York right there on David Gallo's hand-drawn front curtain and in his art-deco Salute to Manhattan set. There's also that liberation-vs.-love conflict, wonderfully presented in Mayer's yin-yang staging and Tesori's spliced-together arrangements of jazzy "moderns" tunes ("Thoroughly Modern" or "Forget About the Boy") with romantic ballads (the lovelorn "Jimmy" or kitsch romance of "I'm Falling in Love With Someone.")
Act I takes a while to get cooking. A production number at Ma Bell's speakeasy feels conventional, the kind of dance cut that needs more edge. And the first change of tone to the nefarious scheme of slave trader Mrs. Meers (veteran Pat Carroll, nicely understated) is a real clunker. Carroll builds her character slowly, peaking in a vaudevillian give-and-take with the Muzzy of Tonya Pinkins.
When the show gets hot, it stays there. As in "Speed Test." Millie takes dictation from the stalwart, square-jawed Trevor Graydon (Marc Kudisch, terrific), then types said letter in under two minutes. Scanlan's new words to "My eyes are fully open to my awful situation," the G&S patter song from "Ruddigore," get noted, repeated, typed, tapped, accelerated.
Kudisch is just as good in his Nelson Eddy mode, falling in love with Miss Dorothy (Sarah Uriarte Berry) to the strains of the "Indian Love Call" from Victor Herbert's 1935 "Naughty Marietta." The scene is way beyond camp, yet, like so much else in the show, has a crazy rightness. Not to put too fine a point upon the matter, but Kudisch's Trevor comes to represent the operetta hero who can't lighten up for musical comedy; he wears his serious suits -- bright blue and geeky green, then John Barleycorn brown -- with Boy Scout seriousness.
Berry's Miss Dorothy gets the Jeanette McDonald naivete and soaring vocal lines right, and as Millie's love Jimmy, Jim Stanek quickly rises above the Roaring '20s "lingo du jour" with which he begins.
Other strong turns come from Anne L. Nathan as the humorless steno supervisor Miss Flannery, and Pinkins as the warmhearted diva Muzzy in a blues number first off, and a tongue-in-cheek scat song with a male backup quartet dressed as an instrumental combo.
Tesori's new songs are utterly of a piece with the songs she inherited from the movie, with the period music and with the show's devil-may-care spirit. Her earlier, darker musical "Violet" showed she can write convincingly in gospel, blues and rock idioms. Here, except for the rising, blues-tinged "Gimme, Gimme" (beautiful phrased by Foster), Tesori's work is self-effacing, not the place to hear a distinctive compositional voice. If anything, the signature sound comes from Ralph Burns' just right orchestrations, banjos and all.
Scanlan, Tesori, the versatile Mayer and company have remade a musical in the spirit choreographer Mark Morris brought to his version of "The Nutcracker" as "The Hard Nut." They frame the piece with irony to expose its race and gender politics, yet treat the beloved source with knowing affection and sweet exuberance.
You'd have to be half-dead not to enjoy this show. It's got the sophistication and lack of pretense that mark an earlier era of musical theater. Yet in its energy, it feels a lot like today.
Premiere production: October 10th - December 10th, 2000 at the La Jolla Playhouse (Mandell Weiss Theatre), California.
