Lifted from All That Chat today...

[ceebeegee]

Stephen Sondheim had a similar experience with Ethel Merman on GYPSY. He wanted to add a verse to "Some People" - he felt that because the song started low and the dialogue that preceded it was on a high pitch, a verse was need to bring it down. He felt the existing cue-in was clumsy & that a new lead-in verse would help the song. But Merman felt it was too angry and refused to learn it.

Sondheim had his agent contact the Dramatists Guild, but she did so in a discreet manner, asking: "If there's an unnamed star who doesn't want to sing a verse, what are the writer's rights?" And the Guild replied, "Let's put it this way - there was a star named Ethel Merman and she was in a show called CALL ME MADAM..."

Well, you know the rest of the story. The Dramatists Guild usually guarantees that a writer will be able to control what goes into the show, but when a mega-star like Merman is involved, things get sticky. So for three years she sang the "Hostess" dummy lyric, and - needless to say - she never did the new verse Sondheim wrote for "Some People."

I--don't care for this. I don't believe in stars--just artists. Check your ego at the stage door.

Comments

[omni-bot.livejournal.com]

That is when you bitch slap a bitch.

[omni-bot.livejournal.com]

in her bitchy ass bitch-face.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Well, if she were anything like me she'd haul off and hit you right back, harder. I'd never let any guy hit me.

But what I would do is call in the understudy. Buh-bye Ethel!

[omni-bot.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't actualy slap someone... I would hire someone to have them off'd

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

It looks like the IRA wants the work (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1433478,00.html).

[defy-gravity99.livejournal.com]

I agree. The writer is where it begins and ends. We are here to give the author's words life. Now, while we may disagree and offer our opinion, just because one is a star or a very famous artist, if you will, does not give one the right to make those kinds of decisions. Besides, isn't that what a director is for?

My mama always said, "Never hit a girl...unless she hits you first."

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Exactly. She also did the same thing to Irving Berlin--he gave her a new lyric for Call Me Madam that she refused to sing, saying the show was frozen (I think it was very early in the run). It just irritates me. Theater is a collaborative art form, and I don't care how big a star you think you are--especially if you're an actor. That's not how the hierarchy works in theater--the actor is very much under the composer, lyricist and director.