We return to another collection, compiled by a fellow named Jim Berg, of Broadway musicals numbers performed during the 23 years of The Ed Sullivan Show, the remarkable archive of hit and flop musicals whose original cast performances would likely be otherwise lost.

(As I've noted, I try to post these on the first Sunday of every month.  If you miss any, just do a search for the word "Edstravaganza".)
 
We start with the continuation of a number with Shelly Berman from the flop, A Family Affair.  The show flopped but as I noted before, it was written together by three friends who not only met at summer camp...but at my summer camp, oft-mentioned here, Camp Nebagamon, and they shared an apartment in New York…each later to go on to great fame:  John Kander (Cabaret and Chicago), William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men), and his older brother James Goldman (The Lion in Winter, and Stephen Sondheim's Follies).

(If you want to refresh you memory on the full sequence, you can return to the link here and jump to the end at the 25:15 mark.)
 
Next is The Sound of Music, though not the original cast.  This instead features the second replacement for ‘Maria,’ played by Nancy Dussault (who later starred in the TV series, Too Close for Comfort).  She and the Von Trapp children sing “Do Re Mi.”  None of whom are dressed in anything close to the show’s costumes.
 
Then, we have a full 10-minute scene leading into the rousing song “Deep Down Inside” from Little Me, that starred Sid Caesar, who famously played eight different roles in the show, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Actor in a Musical.
 
And then Georgia Brown, the original ‘Nancy’ in Oliver! Both in the initial London production and then repeating it on Broadway.  She sings “I’d Do Anything” here with the ‘Artful Dodger’ who – if you look closely and have a seriously-impressive eye for faces – you’ll see is played by a very young Davy Jones, who later was one of The Monkees (and who co-starred with Harry Secombe in Pickwick, in its highly-successful pre-Broadway tour).  And that number number is followed by Georgia Brown belting out her famous “As Long as He Needs Me.”  (A couple of additional casting notes:  ‘Fagin’ is played here by Clive Revill, who was the killer in the very last episode of Columbo during its initial run, about an Northern Irish gun-runner.  And the young girl playing ‘Bet,’ who ‘Oliver’ sings to is Alice Playten who had a nice career, but is probably best know to people of her generation for a series of Alka Seltzer ads playing a newlywed wife who can’t cook.) 
 
Note that though there are eight more minutes listed for the video, for whatever reason the screen is blank, so you can stop right here.  But more to come in another video later…

I swear that I came across this video only this morning and totally by accident.  I was searching for something else completely, and this showed up.

A bit of history first.

Back in 1976, legends Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner teamed up to write a musical, 1600 Pennsylvania.  Given that it was from the writer of West Side Story and the writer of My Fair Lady, the show was understandably highly anticipated.  The general premise of the story was the history of the first 100 years of White House as seen through the eyes of the servants.  (Okay, I'm sure you can probably see where this is going -- but it's goes even farther than you likely think...)  The show, however, which also dealt with racial injustice, was a disastrous flop, running for only seven performances. The writers wouldn't allow there to be an original cast album (which may have been pursued because of their pedigree.)  Many years later, though, after Bernstein's death, a concert version of the score was arranged and an album released, called A White House Cantata.

My college roommate at Northwestern, Jim Backstrom, was later working in Philadelphia at the time and went to see the show in its pre-Broadway tryout.  He said that it was so terrible that most of the audience left at the intermission -- however, he stayed to the end, because he wanted to see if the trainwreck could get much worse.

When it played on Broadway, the only person who survived the critics was Patricia Routledge.  She had an acclaimed, 62-year career in musicals both on Broadway and in London, even winning a Tony Award for another flop musical, Darling of the Day.  However, she's probably best known to Americans for her British series Keeping Up Appearances, that on PBS for years.  (As it happens, when on a trip to Toronto, I saw her in yet another pre-Broadway musical that also closed out of town, Say Hello to Harvey," based on the movie Harvey, in which she starred with Donald O'Connor. It wasn't bad -- book, music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse -- but it was a gentle story that didn't cry out to be sung.  But I digress...)

In 1600 Pennsylvania, she played every U.S. First Lady from Abigail Adams through Lucy Webb Hayes.  And she had a number that, despite the musical's terrible reception, stopping the show on opening night, "Duet for One."

It was another of her songs, though, which is the point here.

In 1987, there was a tribute production in London, An Evening with Alan Jay Lerner.  And for that event, Patricia Routledge appeared and performed this other song, for which there is a  video -- that is what I came across.  I knew the song, so the moment I saw it on YouTube, it floored me for its timing.  Because its title is far too meaningful this week, which is obviously the reason it couldn't help but leap out.  That title?  "Take Care of This House."

Yes, really.

Sometimes, it turns out, happily, that one's lifelong obscure and arguably haywire appreciation of Broadway musicals and their history isn't merely a frivolous use of time...

The song begins --

​​Take care of this house
Keep it from harm
If bandits break in
Sound the alarm
 
Care for this house
Shine it by hand
And keep it so clean
The glow can be seen
All over the land
 
Be careful at night
Check all the doors
If someone makes off with a dream
The dream will be yours

Here's the video and Patricia Routledge's performance of the song.

I'll post the full lyrics below.

​​Take care of this house
Keep it from harm
If bandits break in
Sound the alarm
 
Care for this house
Shine it by hand
And keep it so clean
The glow can be seen
All over the land
 
Be careful at night
Check all the doors
If someone makes off with a dream
The dream will be yours
 
Take care of this house
Be always on call
For this house
Is the hope of us all
 
Take care of this house
Keep it from harm
If bandits break in
Sound the alarm
 
Care for this house
Shine it by hand
And keep it so clean
The glow can be seen
All over the land
 
Be careful at night
Check all the doors
If someone makes off with a dream
The dream will be yours
 
Take care of this house
Be always on call
Care for this house
It's the hope of us all

Once again, we have quite a treat.  While this doesn’t come from the time of the original production in 1945, but nine years later, it’s nonetheless the two original stars – John Raitt and Jan Clayton – recreating with costumes and sets the full, 12-minute number of “If I Loved You.”   It includes all the dialogue, the lead-in of “You’re a Queer One, Julie Jordan” and the ‘interlude” number that connects the two solos, all of which was left off the cast album.  It comes from a 1954 TV special General Foods 25th Anniversary Show: A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein.
​

Here is another excerpt from the aforementioned series described as “Broadway, I Love You,” but instead (I believe ) is a  spin-off  of that local WCBS show which became a Sunday afternoon series on CBS called “The American Musical Theatre” thar ran for three years in the mid-1960s.  Episodes seem to focus on the writers of musicals, though a few seem to expand beyond that. Most of the experts focus on the writers of musicals discussing and performing their work, while some include interviews with the host Earl Wrightson, who won an Emmy.  Unfortunately, most of the excerpts are brief, but it’s a joy having them, whatever the length, rather than not.  They’re real treasures, all done is a small studio with an audience that is only around 50 people. 
 
This features features lyricist Sheldon Harnick and composer Jerry Bock discussing and singing about how their writing “Fiddler on the Roof” developed.  And happily, this excerpt longer than many, at 14 minutes.  It’s all very interesting and helped by the fact that they’re both very good singers.  They not only sing well-known numbers from the show, but also a few verses of what was intended to be the opening song, “We Haven’t Missed a Sabbath Yet,” but cut from the show.  However, wanting to keep something about the Sabbath in the show, they developed themes from that into “Sabbath Prayer,” and their rendition of the number is gorgeous – helped by a superb studio orchestra.
​

Originally, I was going to post this because it’s Julie Andrews early in her career, appearing on The Garry Moore Show (which is likely where she met and became friends with Carol Burnett.)  It’s in 1961, when she was about 25 and had just starred in Camelot.  I liked the video because she sings one of my favorite Jerome Kern-Johnny Mercer songs, “I’m Old-Fashioned” – and just is sublime. 
 
However, it was when she finishes, and host Garry Moore comes on stage that convinced me to post this without question.  They don’t even perform anything together, though.  Just sit and chat on stools for a few minutes, that’s all.  But what they talk about --- what a find!  I don’t want to give any of the specifics away, but I’ll just say they do a quaint little comedy-bit talking about how Hollywood casts movies of Broadway shows.  And whatever you’re thinking, this transcends that.  Most especially remembering that this is 1961.  There’s a few moments you almost want to sit up and go, “Yipes!”

Here is the third compilation of Broadway musical performances on The Ed Sullivan Show.  As I noted, the Sunday night staple for 23 years is arguably the most valuable archivist in pop culture was keeping a record of Broadway musicals, with performances by the original casts in full costume, often re-recreating full scenes, that would otherwise be lost to history.  As I’ve noted, these videos were collected and edited together by a fellow named Jim Berg.

I'm going to try to post these on the first Sunday of every month.  If you miss any, just do a search for the word "Edstravaganza".
 
Since these videos cut off at random points, we start today with the conclusion – and bulk -- of the most famous song from Do Re Mi -- “Make Someone Happy,” performed by a young Nancy Dussault, who later went on to star as the mother on the TV series Too Close for Comfort.  She’s accompanied by the musical’s composer Jule Styne at the piano. (You may recall that this is the song played at the very end of Sleepless in Seattle, in Jimmy Durante’s recording.)

It's followed by Lucille Ball singing the opening number – and breakout hit – from the musical Wildcat! (Fun background story that Stanley Green wrote in his book, The World of Musical Comedy:  when songwriters Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman were trying to figure out what to do for the opening number, they were stuck.  Because this was Lucille Ball’s big Broadway debut.  And so, what do you give her for her very first song??  Completely stumped, Leigh finally asked, “Cy, If you didn’t care at all, if it wasn’t the opening number, and it wasn’t for Lucille Ball making her stage debut, and it was just as simple song for the scene and character, what would you write?”  Coleman, thought and then said he’d write something corny and simple, and then riffed a few random bars of music.  Two days later, Leigh – who wrote most of the lyrics for the musical Peter Pan -- called him up, reminded him of that light-hearted music and said, “As long as we’re making jokes, how’s this for a lyric?”  And read him the first four lines of “Hey, Look Me Over.”)
 
We then have Richard Burton and Julie Andrews in full costume performing the scene and title song from Camelot.  Another fun background story:  when Camelot opened, the reviews were mixed and the box-office mediocre.  It was at this point that, as Alan Jay Lerner writes in his memoirs, the miracle occurred.  Ed Sullivan offered a full-hour to Lerner & Loewe for a tribute show on the occasion of My Fair Lady’s fifth anniversary.  That allowed them to, of course, use Julie Andrews for both shows – but they also made the decision to focus less time on the anniversary show and more on the struggling new musical than they would have otherwise, and took almost 20 minutes to perform highlights from Camelot.  The next morning, there were lines around its theater’s box-office.  And the show ran for 873 performances, over two years.

Next are two, little-known, unsuccessful musicals – still one of the great values of the Sullivan show because they, especially, would otherwise be completely lost.  The first is the tale of 1904 Vienna, “The Gay Life,” which ran for 113 performances.  The segment includes a lovely ballad sung here by Barbara Cook (best known as the original ‘Marian the Librarian.’), along with an elaborate and pretty funny production number and scene.
 
Which brings us to A Family Affair – a flop (only 65 performances), but with a fascinating story behind it, on several levels.  It was written by three friends who met at summer camp, and then shared an apartment in New York City.  But the story gets more fun from there.  Most notably because the three summer camp friends at the start of their renowned careers were John Kander (who, of course, later wrote Cabaret and Chicago), William Goldman (who won Oscars for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men), and his older brother James Goldman (who won an Oscar for adapting his Broadway play The Lion in Winter, and was nominated for a Tony Award for the book of Stephen Sondheim's Follies.  But it's also especially fascinating – at least to me… -- because of a point of personal privilege:  the summer camp they met at was mine!  The oft-mentioned here Camp Nebagamon.  As for the performance on the Sullivan show, we have a number sung by Shelly Berman.  (Like all these compilations, it cuts off randomly at the very end, but at least we get four minutes of the number.  It finishes on the next compilation.)