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THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS A new musical with music by ERIC ROCKWELL: Lyrics by JOANNE BOGART Presented by NML Productions, Melanie Herman, The York Theatre Company and Martian Entertainment lin association with Louise Bluver Decor Ben Stones Choreography Steven Harris Musical Director Dean Austin Director Julian Woolford York Theatre, Citicorp Center, NYC - July 2004 (256 perfs ), reopened Dodger Stages, Stage Five, closed November 2005. (318 perfs) SOUND Theatre, London - 31 March - 22 April, 2006 Original London Cast • Geoffrey Abbott • Joanna Ampil • Susannah Fellows • Ian McLarnon SYNOPSIS This is a show, not simply for fans of musicals, but those who chuckle at a quotation and shriek at a paraphrase. In five sketches, a simple plot ("I can't pay the rent"; "You must pay the rent"; "I'll pay the rent") is dramatised in a patchwork of snippets from the shows of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Jerry Herman, Kander and Ebb, Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber, with mood and milieu suited to the songwriter. Sondheim's landlord is a frustrated artist who makes throat-slashing gestures with a palette knife; Herman's an easy-going type who forgets about the rent when he discovers mascara. Then there is the story of two lovers in a through-sung Lloyd Webber show lamenting, "We never talk any more." In the story someone called Bill, Big Willy or (think Cabaret) Villy, saves the heroine from a demanding landlord called Jutter, Jitter or (think Oklahoma!) Jidder. on slithers Phantom Jitter in his porcelain halfmask promising to forgive the girl's rent arrears if she will sing songs that "sound a weeny like something by Puccini". In stalks the same actor's Jitter, Sweeney Todd-style, to scowl, promise murder and tell us that "hemlock is easy but too Socratesy". In between you will recognise references to Evita and Chicago, Aspects of Love and The Sound of Music, Starlight Express and the dream-sequence in Oklahoma! — or will you?

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