Happy New Year (musical)

History

Porter successfully had transformed Barry's The Philadelphia Story into the musical film High Society, so Shevelove pored through the composer's catalogue in search of tunes that would fit Holiday's plot. When the show previewed at the Stratford Festival in Canada, the score consisted of lesser-known Porter songs, and Shevelove decided to eliminate most of them in favor of music more familiar to audiences. He also opted to replace much of Barry's original repartee with songs that suited neither the characters nor the situations, and replaced the gaps with a narrator whose purpose was to explain what was missing from the plot, a device that ultimately proved to be clumsy and confusing.

Synopsis

The Narrator introduces the Seton family, who in December 1933 live in a five story townhouse on Fifth Avenue in New York City. He relates their story.

Successful Wall Street lawyer Johnny Case has become engaged to Julia Seton. Julia and her sister Linda celebrate the engagement ("At Long Last Love"). However, Johnny has decided to abandon his well-paid career and instead live a life of pleasure, using Julia's money. Julia's banker father Edward is very upset and her willful sister Linda is fascinated. Johnny begins to realize that he loves the unconventional Linda, and they become a couple, disregarding the "old money and values" of others for a life together.

Song list

† from Red, Hot and Blue **from "Out of This World," one of Porter's late-career flops, an adaptation of "Amphitryon."

Productions

The Broadway production opened at the Morosco Theatre on April 27, 1980 and closed on May 10, 1980, after 17 performances and 27 previews. Directed by Shevelove and choreographed by Donald Saddler, the cast include Michael Scott as Johnny, Kimberly Farr as Julia, William Roerick as Edward, and Leslie Denniston as Linda, with John McMartin as the narrator and Richard Bekins and Lara Teeter and Tim Flavin in supporting roles.

Response

Mel Gussow (The New York Times) wrote that the musical "turns out to be a musical bouquet of gentle charm and piquancy." He noted that the tryout at the Stratford (Ontario) Festival during the summer of 1979 "seemed like a good idea gone awry." Since that time, more than half the songs were replaced, the enitire cast was replaced, and there was "considerable rewriting."

John Simon (The New York Magazine) called the musical a "hodgepodge" and advised: "Avoid...like the ho-hum bag of tricks it is, the other new (?) musical, Happy New Year."

Denniston won the Theatre World Award for her performance, and Pierre Balmain was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Costume Design and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design.