Do Re Mi (1960)

Music by Jule Styne
Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Book by Garson Kanin based on his novella

Directed by Dyan McBride
Musical Direction by Dave Dobrusky
Choreography by Jayne Zaban

Press Release

42nd Street Moon, voted "Best Way to See Musicals in San Francisco" by SF Weekly, presents a concert production of Do Re Mi, a raucous satire about dirty doings in the music industry. This delightful romp, created by Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, is filled with Guys and Dolls - style raffish characters, and features beautiful songs such as the legendary hit "Make Someone Happy." Do Re Mi will be directed by Dyan McBride, with musical direction by Dave Dobrusky and choreography by Jayne Zaban.

In Do Re Mi, adapted by Garson Kanin from his own novella, a would-be bigshot named Hubie Cram convinces three retired slot-machine mobsters to muscle in on the jukebox racket. Although his plan does not succeed exactly as he'd planned, Hubie does succeed in turning a waitress into a singing star. Starring popular actor Phil Silvers as Hubie and Nancy Walker as his long-suffering wife, Kay, the show brought unanimously favorable reviews at its opening in 1960, produced by David Merrick. The New York Daily News called it "a great big razzle-dazzle of a musical," and the New York Post found it "fast, professional, tuneful, funny, and delightful... loaded with talent." The Herald-Tribune crowed, "It's fun - silly fun, loud fun, fast fun, old-fashioned fun, inconsequential fun, grand fun!" The show faced stiff competition from Camelot, How to Succeed, Carnival, and Bye Bye Birdie, among others, and closed early after a run of just over a year. In 1999, New York's Encores! series dusted it off, and it was a rousing success in a concert production with Nathan Lane, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Randy Graff.

Do Re Mi's big hit, "Make Someone Happy," found its way onto the charts and became a standard despite the show's abbreviated run. Other songs from the score include the big show-stopper "It's Legitimate," the comic tour de force "Adventure," and "I Know About Love," "Cry Like the Wind," "Fireworks," "What's New At the Zoo?," and "The Late Late Show."

42nd Street Moon's production will star Bob Greene (42nd Street Moon's Fiorello!) as Hubie, with Lisa Peers (a veteran of 42nd Street Moon performances, including Let's Face It, Out of This World, and Girl Crazy) as his wife, Kay. They will be joined by Patrick Leveque (Moon's The Cat and the Fiddle, American Musical Theatre of San Jose's Victor/Victoria) as John Henry Wheeler, a recording executive, who falls for waitress-turned torch singer Tilda Mullen (Jessica Jackson, seen in Crowded Fire's A Murder of Crows).  Richard Pardini (Beach Blanket Babylon, and Moon's Fiorello!) and Christian Cagigal (Moon's Funny Face, Babes in Arms, and Let's Face It) play two of Hubie's ex-con cohorts, "Brains" Berman and "Skin" Demopoulos. Steven Patterson, from Moon's Fiorello!, The Grass Harp, and many others, plays "head" racketeer Fatso O'Rear. Also in the cast are Joe Duffy, Molly Bell, Ka-ling Cheung, Randel Hart, Mike Earley, and Dan Meagher.

Patterned after New York's late, lamented New Amsterdam Theatre Company, 42nd Street Moon is one of the first of the increasingly popular "musical revival companies," and has presented concert versions of more than forty musicals since its founding in 1993. After Ian Marshall Fisher's "Discover the Lost Musicals" series in London, 42nd Street Moon is the next oldest of the six existing companies worldwide devoted to the preservation and performance of classic musical theater. In addition to producing these forgotten musicals, 42nd Street Moon has also created the Lost Musicals Recording Series. The first CD, a recording of Cole Porter's Something for the Boys, is currently on store shelves. The company next plans to record its December production of Cole Porter's Leave It To Me!, for which it received an NEA grant.