Strike Up the Band (musical)

Libretto

The original book by George S. Kaufman centered on Horace J. Fletcher, a Babbitt-like cheese tycoon who tries to maintain his monopoly on the American market by convincing the United States government to declare war on Switzerland. The story ended darkly.

The 1930 plot by Ryskind, softened the political overtones, increased the emphasis on romance and added a happy ending. It relegated the war plot to a dream sequence. The incident that incites war concerned chocolate instead of cheese.

Act 1

Workers at the Horace J. Fletcher American Cheese Company sing their daily vocal exercises ("Fletcher's American Cheese Choral Society") to start the day and greet The foreman Timothy Harper, manager C. Edgar Sloan, and owner Horace J. Fletcher. Fletcher is pleased with the President signing a new bill imposing a fifty percent tariff on imported cheese. Mrs. Draper arrives to ask Fletcher to do charitable work with her in order to get close to him. Her daughter Anne goes to meet Timothy, though her mother disapproves of the relationship ("17 and 21"). Fletcher receives news that someplace called "Switzerland" has sent a telegram protesting the tariff. Fletcher tells Sloane to send a messenger to the hotel of Colonel Holmes, the President's adviser. Mr. Fletcher's daughter Joan enters and wants him to handle James Townsend, a reporter who wrote an article calling her a snob. After she leaves, Townsend arrives to interview Fletcher about Switzerland's response to the tariff.

Production

During its original 1927 pre-Broadway tryouts, the political satire closed in Philadelphia, fulfilling original librettist's George S. Kaufman's definition of satire as "what closes on Saturday night." The original is heavily influenced by Gilbert and Sullivan.

The Gershwins revised the story with Ryskind for the 1930 Broadway run; they also removed the song The Man I Love, now a Gershwin standard, from the show. They added a dozen new songs and rewrote the lyrics or even changed the melodies of many of the 1927 songs. The new score is less Gilbert-and-Sullivan and more swing-influenced. Directed by Alexander Leftwich and choreographed by George Hale, the revised production opened on Broadway at the Times Square Theatre on January 14, 1930 and closed on June 28, 1930 after a moderately successful run of 191 performances. The cast included Dudley Clements and Blanche Ring.

Score

The Gershwins' first fully integrated score for a book musical was influenced by the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. The pit band was the Red Nichols Orchestra, which included Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa, Jimmy Dorsey, and Jack Teagarden.

The overture is often performed alone as a concert work.

The title song, "Strike Up the Band", was given to the University of California, Los Angeles by the Gershwins in 1936 as "Strike Up the Band for UCLA" and has become one of the school songs.

In 1990, a studio cast recording of the original 1927 score (and some of the 1930 songs), featuring Rebecca Luker, Brent Barrett, Beth Fowler and Don Chastain, was released on the Nonesuch label. At the same time, the 1930 version was recorded with the same cast but not released. This recording was finally released in 2011 by PS Classics.

Arrangements

Music from Strike Up the Band has frequently been re-arranged for performance by different types of musical ensembles.

Don Rose, using Gershwin's original score and notes, augmented the orchestration of the overture to facilitate a performance by a full symphony orchestra (which features more players than a traditional pit orchestra). This version is the one commonly performed by symphony orchestras.

Luther Henderson and Sammy Nestico created arrangement for Brass ensemble. Désiré Dondeyne made an arrangement for wind Orchestra, Warren Barker for Concert band. Martin Caron, member of Duo Caron did a transcription for formation four pianists-eight hands. Also note Gerry Mulligan, Mark Hayes (Choir arrangement) and Carl Strommen (Arrangement for wind instruments).