Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town is a musical written by Leonard Bernstein (music), and Betty Comden and Adolph Green (lyrics), and Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov (book). It was originally directed by George Abbott, choreographed by Donald Saddler and produced by Robert Fryer. It debuted on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on February 25, 1953 and ran for 559 performances, closing in July 3, 1954. It was made into a television movie in 1958, starring Rosalind Russell and revived on Broadway in 2003 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, starring Donna Murphy.
In 1953, the original production was nominated for six Tony Awards and won in all six categories (Best Musical, Rosalind Russell for Best Actress, Best Scenic Design, Best Choreographer, Best Conductor and Musical Director, and the Theatre World Award).
The 2003 revival was nominated for six Tony Awards, winning two.
The story is a reworking of the play, My Sister Eileen, following the story of two sisters from Ohio who move to New York City in search of love and fortune. The main characters are Ruth and Eileen sherwood, two sisters from Colombous,Ohio trying to make their way in the big city. the orchestra, situated on highrisers on the back of the stage, plays an exerpt of the music before the beginning, then a group of tourists come on to perform "Christopher Street", the first number, as they tour the historic Christopher Street in downtown manhattan. Eileen(revival role played by Jennifer Westfeild) and Ruth (original role played by Rossiland Russel, revival role played by Donna Murphy) are then introduced,they stop at, literally, the first appartment they find, owned by the unsucessful artist Appopolous, and soon discover why the price seemed so good, in the middle of the night, the nearby subway project reveals its presence through a loud bang every now and then, leading ruth and Eileen to the duet "Ohio" as the sisters wonder aloud; "oh why oh why oh why oh, why did I ever leave Ohio? mabey we should better go home." The next morning, they set out to accomplish their dreams, Ruth to become a journalist for the times and Eileen to be a Broadway star. Ruth and eileen both have always been pretty and attractive at first glance, but, unlike her sister, Ruth seems to scare away men. This realization on her part leads her to mock her unattractiveness through her writing career , leading to the hillarious musical number "100 easy ways to loose a man". Ruth takes her stories to the chief editor of the paper Rob Baker (Gregg Edelman) and, after claiming that she "tries to put a little bit of herself in all her characters, performs "Ruth's Story Vignettes" as Baker reads about the adventerous and out going heroes of Ruth's stories. This leads baker and his associate editors to perform the sullen yet humorous "What a Waste". Meanwhile, Eileen meats the slightle nerdy check-out boy at Walgreens Frank Lippencott, who she takes a liking to . This page will be compleated and revised shortly, so just keep watching (sorry!)
A much lighter piece than Leonard Bernstein's later works, West Side Story and Candide, Betty Comden and Adolph Green's lyrics are paired with Bernstein's music to produce some of the most popular songs of the 1950s.