|
Grand Hotel - The Musical aka At the Grand |
| |
|
PREMIERED |
|
November 1989
1958 (Original release date of At the Grand) |
| |
|
COUNTRY |
|
USA |
| |
|
INFO: AT THE GRAND |
In 1958 a musical version of Grand Hotel, called At the Grand, was premiered on Los Angeles and San Francisco stages. At the Grand was a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston. Based on the 1929 Vicki Baum novel and play, Menschen im Hotel (People in a Hotel) and the subsequent 1932 MGM feature film.
The musical focuses on events taking place over the course of a weekend in an elegant hotel in 1928 Berlin and the intersecting stories of the eccentric guests of the hotel, including a fading prima ballerina; a fatally ill Jewish bookkeeper, who wants to spend his final days living in luxury; a young, handsome, but destitute Baron; a cynical doctor; and a typist dreaming of Hollywood success.
Davis, Wright, and Forrest first adapted Baum's story in 1958 under the title At the Grand, changing the setting from 1928 Berlin to contemporary Rome and transforming the ballerina into an opera singer closely resembling Maria Callas to accommodate Joan Diener, who was scheduled to star under the direction of her husband Albert Marre.
All of them had collaborated on the earlier Kismet and anticipated another success, but Davis ' book strayed too far from the story familiar to fans of the film. When Paul Muni agreed to portray Kringelein, the role was changed and expanded, with the character becoming a lowly hotel employee whose stay in a hotel suite is kept secret from the management. Flaemmchen became a dancing soubrette, Preysing and his dramatic story line were eliminated completely, and two deported American gangsters were added for comic relief.
At the Grand opened to mixed reviews and good business in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but when an unhappy Muni refused to extend his preliminary contract and left the production, producer Edwin Lester decided to cancel the Broadway opening scheduled for September 25, 1958, and everyone moved on to other projects.
|
| |
INFO: AT THE GRAND |
More than three decades later, Davis , Wright, and Forrest decided to dust off their original material and give the show another try and in 1989 the musical was re-opened and turned into a big success.
This time it was placed in the hands of director/choreographer Tommy Tune, who envisioned it as a two-hour, non-stop production comprised of dialogue scenes, musical numbers, and dance routines overlapping and at times competing with each other, thereby capturing the mood of a bustling hotel where something is happening at all times. Seven songs from At the Grand were incorporated into what was now called Grand Hotel, although two were dropped during the Boston tryout.The creative team proved to be too attached to the original material and resisted every change that Tune proposed.
|
| |
SOUNDTRACK
The Grand Parade (Yeston)
Some Have, Some Have Not (Wright/Forrest)
As It Should Be (Wright/Forrest)
At the Grand Hotel (Yeston)/Table With a View (Wright/Forrest)
Maybe My Baby Loves Me (Wright/Forrest)
Fire and Ice (Wright/Forrest)
Twenty Two Years (Yeston)/Villa On a Hill (Wright/Forrest)
I Want To Go To Hollywood (Yeston)
Everybody's Doing It (Yeston)
As It Could Be (Wright/Forrest)
The Crooked Path (Wright/Forrest)
Who Couldn't Dance With You? (Wright/Forrest)
No Encore (Wright/Forrest)
Fire and Ice (Wright/Forrest)
Love Can't Happen (Yeston)
What You Need (Wright/Forrest)
Bonjour Amour (Yeston)
H-A-P-P-Y (Wright/Forrest)
We'll Take A Glass Together (Wright/Forrest)
I Waltz Alone (Wright/Forrest)
H-A-P-P-Y (Reprise)
Roses at the Station (Yeston)
What You Need (Wright/Forrest)
How Can I Tell Her? (Wright/Forrest)
At the Grand Hotel (Reprise)
As It Should Be (Wright/Forrest)
The Grand Parade/Some Have, Some Have Not (Reprise)
The Grand Waltz (Wright/Forrest) |
| |
|
CREDITS |
Producers: Martin Richards, Mary Lee Johnson, Sam Crothers, Sander Jacobs, Paramount Pictures
Director: Tommy Tune
Writer: Luther Davis (based on Vicki Baum's Grand Hotel)
Composers: Robert Wright, George Forrest
|
| |
|
CAST |
|
(in Treatment) |
| |
CYD CHARISSE IN GRAND HOTEL |
Show performed at the Martin Beck Theatre (New York) between November 1989 and January 1992, then at the Gershwin Theatre (New York) between February and April 1992. This musical was Cyd Charisse's Broadway debut.
 
|
| |
SYNOPSIS |
The roaring '20s are still in high gear, and Berlin is the center of high life. Everyone tries to convince fading prima ballerina Elizaveta Grushinskaya that she still can and must dance, especially her confidante and dresser, who would have to come up with a lot of money if the dancer fails to show up for her engagements.
She does not recapture her former glory, but she falls in love with the Baron. Fatally ill Jewish bookkeeper, Otto Kringelein wants to spend his final days living in the lap of luxury, and Baron Felix Von Gaigern, young, good-looking, and destitute, uses charisma to help him secure a room while stiffing a tough gangster pretending to be a chauffeur. Meanwhile, Hermann Preysing, the general manager of a failing textile mill, hears that the merger with a Boston company is off, spelling financial ruin, but tries not to lie to his stockholders. However, he presses his secretary, Flaemmchen, for sex.
She dreams of Hollywood stardom and fears she might be pregnant, but flirts with the Baron. The Baron tries to steal from Elizaveta Grushinskaya in order to pay back the gangster but when instead falls in love with her when she comes into her room. Two African-American entertainers sing at the bar, while assistant concierge Erik, who is about to become a father, tries in vain to get off work so that he can join his wife. Preysing and the Baron get into a fight when the Baron was in his room trying to steal his wallet, but heard the struggles of Flaemmchen and walks into her room to defend her while still holding Preysing's wallet, Preysing sees the Baron holding the wallet and realizes that the Baron was going to steal it.
After a struggle Preysing kills the Baron with the gangster's gun. Preysing is arrested. Grushinskaya's heart is broken when the Baron never shows up at the train station(they were going to run off and get married). Flaemmchen falls in love with Otto Kringelein and he with her. Cynical Doctor Otternschlag, a morphine addict still suffering from World War I wounds, notes Grand Hotel, Berlin. Always the same people come, people go One life ends while another begins one heart breaks while another beats faster one man goes to jail while another goes to Paris always the same.... I'll stay one more day.
|
| |
|
LINKS |
|
|
| |
| |
