Word: written
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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While Stoppard's play could probably not have been written before Beckett come along, it is every bit a peer for Waiting for Godot. The comic and tragic elements, brilliant in themselves, are ingeniously balanced and woven into the Hamlet framework. The dialogue flows like nothing I've heard in a long time, and Stoppard uses the English language with more precision than any other playwright around...
...because they are "on the road" with a Broadway show. They have just read the first editions of the next day's papers, and they have found that Kevin Kelly (drama critic of the Globe) and Eliot Norton (of the Record American) do not like the show they have written. These men sitting around a littered coffee table know that if--when their work opens in New York a month later--Clive Barnes (of the New York Times) does not like their show, they are in big trouble. Their show will close, their artistic reputations will suffer, and the play...
...NOVEMBER just such a show opened at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. The show, Dear World, had all the earmarks of a hit: a hot star (Angela Lansbury); a composer-lyricist who had never written for a flop (Jerry Herman, whose previous efforts included Hello Dolly and Mame); and a successful librettist team (Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, authors of Mame and Inherit the Wind). Dear World's five-week tryout engagement here was a virtual sellout before the opening night...
...each new scene is written, it is passed on to the actors, who must learn their new lines in about 24 hours. As the new lines are learned, the scenes are put into rehearsal during the day. Meanwhile, the actors play the old show at night, knowing that what they are performing will be out of the show as soon as the new material is ready...
Sometimes, however, a show's future looks sufficiently ominous for the producer to close it before its official opening. One of the most legendary examples is David Merrick's musical Breakfast at Tiffany's. That one changed its title as well as directors and writers on the road. Originally written by screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, the musical's book was turned over to Abe Burrows and, eventually, Edward Albee. After six hellish weeks in Boston and Philadelphia Tiffany's played four previews in New York before Merrick closed it at a personal loss...