I have a few things going on with theater right now. I'm doing a trio of benefit concerts for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America at the Hackensack Cultural Arts Center next Thursday through Saturday, February 11 through 13. Tickets are available online or at the door. It should be a fun night. I'll be singing from Amour and Next to Normal. More pressing is the official start of the rehearsal period for the next show I'm music directing. We had the perfect group of students to do Once Upon a Mattress. It's really exciting, too, as we have a brand new director and choreographer joining us this season.
Once Upon a Mattress is a comedy retelling of "The Princess and Pea" with an incredible jazz score by Mary Rodgers, daughter of Richard Rodgers of Rodgers & Hammerstein fame. In this version, the famous princess is the 13th to try to win the prince's hand in marriage. The Queen does not want her son to marry and conjures up incredibly unfair tests to prove the young women traveling from far and wide are not really princesses.
The original production was a literal "let's put on a show" moment with Mary Rodgers, Marshall Barer (lyricist, librettist), and Jay Thompson (librettist) throwing together a one act musical in a week while vacationing in the Poconos. The show was seen by a producer who wanted to bring it to Broadway, so the team expanded the show, added on another co-writer (Dean Fuller), and opened off-Broadway.
On the way to NYC, they found a wonderful Princess Winnifred in an upstart comedienne named Carol Burnett. The show was tailored to her skills and range, which is clear when you hear the full score and read the Princess' style of patter comedy. Jane White played the Queen, Jack Gilford played the King (and was replaced by Will Lee, aka Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, for the Broadway transfer). The show ran for over 400 performances switching between four different Broadway theaters. When the show went on to tour for seven months, seemingly everyone from Imogene Coca to Buster Keaton played some of the dates.
Once Upon a Mattress' history gets even more interesting. Carol Burnett has played various roles in heavily modified versions of the show for television. After she became a hit with her own show, Mattress was reduced to a 1964 TV movie where she sang all the Winnifred songs and most of the other characters were eliminated or smashed into terrible, nonsensical composites.
Burnett would return to the role again in 1972 for another televised version, this one more accurate to the original show. Bernadette Peters stepped in as Lady Larken, a pregnant lady in waiting who tries to flee the kingdom when she realizes the Queen does not want Winnifred to pass the princess test.
In 2005, Burnett would star in the Disney adaptation of Once Upon a Mattress, featuring Tracy Ullman as Winnifred and Denis O'Hare as Prince Dauntless. Zoey Deschanel and Matthew Morrision took on Lady Larken and Sir Harry, her fiance. Burnett played the Queen, who also acted as narrator. No, it doesn't make sense, but Burnett was amazing and played well against Ullman.
There was also a successful Broadway revival in 1997 starring Sarah Jessica Parker as Winnifred (right before Sex and the City came to be). Jane Krakowski stole the show as Lady Larken, as she would, since she always steals whatever show she's in.
For my humble little HS production, I'm using a combination of new and old techniques while working on this show. When I first began music directing, I would always digitize the score through Finale or some other notation software. I could get a better idea of what the show would sound like, set tempos and dynamic changes, and have very precise practice recordings for my cast and creative team to work with.
Let's take "Opening for a Princess" as an example. This is the first big cast number in Mattress and sets up the conflict of the show. No one may marry until Prince Dauntless finds his bride, and no one who tries to marry Prince Dauntless can pass the test set out by the Queen. The "bird" referenced in the song is a literal bird, a plucked pheasant given out as a consolation prize to the failed suitors.
Here's the original Broadway cast recording to give you an idea.
In the licensed score, there are five distinct vocal parts in this song: Prince Dauntless, Lady Larken, two Ladies in Waiting, and the ensemble. I always include featured singers in my high school production, so I split it up further and have seven vocal parts.
When I digitize the score, I give each separate character/character group their own vocal line. This way, when I export everything into audio files, I can customize which vocal parts go to which students. If someone wants to practice their ensemble parts without having the notes played for them, they'll sing along with a file like this.
[audio wav="http://www.sketchydetails.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/03.Opening-For-a-Princess-No_Ensemble.wav"][/audio]
I break up the entire score like this so the students have no excuse not to practice at home. It also helps to have the exact arrangements set for the choreographer, so if cuts need to be made, I can figure it out and start passing out corrections to the orchestra immediately.
The newer stuff is all different techniques and ideas I picked up in the past year. It's been a great period for learning more about the work I do and how others approach the same jobs. Some of it will work right away, some of it I'll have to adapt for my students, and some of it will fall flat and be tossed out quickly. That's part of the process.
