The Grass Harp (1971)

Book and Lyrics by Kenward Elmslie
Music by Claire Richardson
(Based on the novel by Truman Capote)

Directed by Greg MacKellan
Musical Director: Brandon Adams
Choreographer for "This One Day": Berle Davis

Playbill Notes

Remembering The Grass Harp by Kenward Elmsile

I remember...

*First meeting Truman Capote in Boston. A play of his, based on his novella, The Grass Harp, was trying out, pre-Broadway. I was with my significant other-Mentor, John Latouche, whose lyrics I idolized. Mr Capote's high-pitched nasal voice and wierdo effeminacy terrified me. He complained vociferously about Cecil Beaton's scenic stunner of a tree, which upstaged the performances and sabotaged his play.

*Suggesting The Grass Harp (Capote's novella, not his play) to Claibe Richardson, as a possible musical (late Sixties).

*We tackled some songs, to see if it was right for us. It was, so we played them for Mr. Capote. He loved what we'd come up with, counselled us to "make it our own," and gave us the go-ahead.

*Kermit Bloomgarten, a prestigious Broadway producer, optioned our musical for Broadway. To raise the huge sum 0f 250,000 (1970: peanuts compared to now), he needed a star.

*Claibe on piano, and I (we shared the vocals) got to audition The Grass Harp for Gwen Verdon, Julie Harris, and Shirley Booth, singly. Delectably responsive, each turned us down.

*Going to Brazil, with Claibe, to nab a star. We tracked down Mary Martin at her isolated frontier finca. She demurred charmingly. Showbiz shrewd, she knew she needed to play both Dollyheart and Babylove to fulfill her fans' expectations.

*Final NYC rehearsals: Amsterdam Roof, where Ziegfeld once put on midnight extravaganzas. A theatre so derelict, its lobby was used as a shooting gallery by itinerant dopers, nonplussed by such hallucinogenic perks as Karen Morrow, singing "The Babylove Show" with her gospel troupe of Pride-'n-Joys.

*The first matinee at the Martin Beck Theatre, Post-NY Times "mixed notice." Small audienced. Inhibited, cowed. Guilt at wasting moolah on a flop? A dire setback from the week of previews, when audience response kept building exponentially.

*The final performance, the seventh. The audience went wild-boffo laughs, showstopper after showstopper, endless bravos and curtain calls. The way to go!

*A recording studio in Cologne, Germany. Claibe and I were early. Our mission: bring back orchestral tracks for an original cast album, a ploy to avoid prohibitive NYC union regulations.

*The cast reunion, in a dinky NYC recording studio. The engineer wasn't used to real voices: Carol Brice, Barbara Cook, Russ Thacker, and Karen Morrow-all accustomed to projecting to the last row of the second balcony. His dials went ballistic. No need for his array of booster gizmos.

*When the album came out. Listeners, including some critics, couldn't figure out why on earth the show had flopped.

*Claibe phoning me about 42nd Street Moon. I sent Greg MacKellan a further revised version-I had (previously) put back whole pages of dialogue, wantonly savaged, and restructured the sequence of scenes a bit for a book-in-hand production at the York Theatre (NYC)-with two songs freshly interlopated: a new one for Judge Coal and one Golden Oldie ("Brazil"), dumped way, way back in Providence. Greg's verdict? If only the Broadway version had had THIS script...a mysterious, unfathomable Showbiz If. From the ashes of closure and the shadows of memory ghosts going back, can it be thirty years (the time flies when you're having fun, Claibe says) - a musical reborn, an old-timer given a fresh start.

-Kenward Elmslie

The Grass Harp

In the world of musical theatre, some unsuccessful shows carry such a celebrated reputation that they become "cult musicals" in spite of their abbreviated lives on Broadway. Many such shows boast elements (usually the score) superior to those of more successful productions, and yet for one reason or another are unable to sustain commercial runs. Near the top of the cult musical "Hall of Fame," next to such legendar flops as Mack & Mabel, The Golden Apple, Juno, and The Baker's Wife, one would surely find Kenward Elmslie and Claibe Richardson's 1971 musicalization of Truman Capote's The Grass Harp.

As Ken Mandelblum notes in his book Not Since Carrie, The Grass Harp has a "ravishing score...one of the best." In New York it also had Barbara Cook, Carol Brice, and Karen Morrow, three of the finest singers the American musical has ever turned out. What went wrong, exactly? Perhaps it was too intimate a show for Broadway which was then celebrating the likes of Follies, Applause and No! No! Nanette! Maybe it had to do with director Ellis Raab (acclaimed for drama but a stranger to musical theatre) who ordered a wholesale butchering of the script.

For whatever reason, The Grass Harp disappeared after a week. The show has managed to have an occasional afterlife, however, thanks in no small part to its outstanding original cast album. This time around, authors Kenward Elmslie and Claibe Richardson have taken another look at their "problem child," and we are delighted to present the results. In 1971 they were lucky to have Broadway's reigning soprano leading lady of the 50's and 60's, Barbara Cook, as their Dollyheart. We are similarly blessed to be able to welcome Broadway's star soprano ingenue of the 60's and 70's, Susan Watson, to our stage. She joins an outstanding local cast in bringing Capote's canny, eccentric, and wistful cast of character's to San Francisco, and, we hope, to your hearts.

-- Greg MacKellan

Plot Summary

The Grass Harp (the title refers to the wind rustling through fields of tall grass) is the intimate story of Dollyheart, a sweet-natured spinster with a secret recipe for an elixir cure, and her demanding sister, Verena, who is determined to exploit the recipe for her own purposes. When tensions rise, Dollyheart leaves her sister's house with their orphaned nephew and black housekeeper to take up residence in a tree house. It isn't long before other outcasts join their extended family, and the deep emotional currents of these shifting relationships lead to an uplifting, compelling reconciliation.

Press Release

SAN FRANCISCO (17 September 1999) -- San Francisco's award-winning "lost musical" company, 42nd Street Moon, presents Tony Award-nominated actress Susan Watson and local cabaret sensation Meg Mackay in a concert version of the 1971 musical The Grass Harp, based on a Truman Capote novella. The show has been specifically revised for this production by the original writing team, and will feature a brand new song.

The Grass Harp is Kenward Elmslie and Claibe Richardson's musical version of Truman Capote's touching and whimsical novella. The third Capote novella to be transformed for the musical stage (after House of Flowers and Breakfast at Tiffany's), The Grass Harp starred Barbara Cookand brought a cast of lovable eccentrics and an atmosphere of homespun innocence to Broadway. Now, nearly thirty years later, Elmslie has revised his book in anticipation of this production, restoring the song "Brazil" and premiering a new song, "The Dark Night of the Soul," which Elmslie and composer Richardson just completed this past July.

Susan Watson, Broadway's "definitive ingenue" during the '60's and early '70's, will reprise her leading role of free spirit Dolly Talbo, a performance she first undertook in a 1978 production in Los Angeles. Watson also created roles in Bye, Bye, Birdie, A Joyful Noise (for which she received a Tony nomination), and the title role in the 1970 revival of No! No! Nanette. One of her first professional performances came when Jerome Robbins selected her for his London production of West Side Story. Soon after she was seen as Luisa in The Fantasticks, when it was an unknown one-act musical seeking backers for an off-Broadway production. She later recreated that role for television's Hallmark Hall of Fame production starring Bert Lahr and Ricardo Montalban. Her recordings include the original cast recordings of Bye, Bye, Birdie, Ben Franklin in Paris, Celebration, and No! No! Nanette as well as 18 Interesting Songs From Unfortunate Musicals, Keep Your Undershirt On, and her own Broadway Celebration.

Joining Watson in the role of fiery revivalist Baby Love will be Meg Mackay, local cabaret artist and a favorite of 42nd Street Moon audiences. Mackay is a veteran of both the long-running San Francisco favorite Beach Blanket Babylon and the national tour of the Tony Award-winning Torch Song Trilogy, and recipient of three Drama-Logue Awards and five Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards. She has performed most recently in the Ethel Merman role in Call Me Madam at 42nd Street Moon, the Julie Andrews role in Putting It Together at TheatreWorks, and in the Carol Channing role in Hello, Dolly! with the Mountain Play. The San Francisco Examiner applauded: "Mackay is simply superb ... she's the kind of artist who buoys an entire ensemble number and can provide invaluable support even when she's silent. When she gets a chance to solo, she brings down the house." In addition, Mackay has released two recordings, So Many People and Legally Blonde.

These two sterling actresses will be joined onstage by Jesse Caldwell, Joel Patterson, Lucinda Hitchcock-Cone, Amy Cole, Steve Patterson, and Ed Simonick; and Lily Katz and Roxanne Myshlewski as two of Babylove's children, the Heavenly Pride-N-Joys.