History

Book by Neil Simon
Music by Burt Bacharach
Lyrics by Hal David

The first Reprise! production. Burt Bacharach introduced a contemporary pop sound to Broadway with this 1968 adaptation of Billy Wilder’s classic movie, “The Apartment”, about a junior executive at an insurance company who seeks to climb the corporate ladder by allowing his apartment to be used by his superiors for extra-marital trysts.  “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and the title song became immediate, chart-topping hits. Directed for Reprise! by Stuart Ross, choreographed by Adam Shankman, and starring Jason Alexander, Alan Thicke, Barney Martin, and Jean Smart.

Book by E.Y. Harburg & Fred Saidy
Music by Burton Lane
Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg

A sharp social satire disguised as one of theatre’s most hummable musicals, this 1947 show has become a Broadway legend.  An Irishman travels to the American South to bury a stolen pot of gold near Fort Knox, convinced it will grow into a bigger fortune.  Leprechauns and the politics of bigotry combine into a biting yet hilarious songfest, featuring such songbook standards as “How Are Things in Glocca Morra”, “If This Isn’t Love”, and “Old Devil Moon”.  Directed for Reprise! by Will MacKenzie, choreographed by Janet Watson, and starring Malcolm Gets, Andrea Marcovicci, and Rex Smith.

“A perfect vehicle for the Reprise! series!” (LA Times)

Book & Lyrics by Bertolt Brecht
Music by Kurt Weill

“Mack the Knife” is the big number from this musical, but the entire score is a dark classic unlike most every other show to make its mark on an American stage.  Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill startled the world with their 1928 adaptation of an 18^th-century ballad opera.  Debuting on Broadway in 1933, the singing beggars, gangsters, and prostitutes formed an unlikely chorus line, but their impact has reverberated down the years with at least five New York revivals.  Their social commentary  Directed for Reprise! by Glenn Casale, choreography by Kay Cole, and starring Jonelle Allen, Theodore Bikel, Patrick Cassidy, Carrie Hamilton, and Ken Page.

Book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind
Music by George Gershwin
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin

The first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, “Of TheeI Sing” offers a satirical send-up of American politics circa 1931 about a Presidential candidate who falls in love with asensible girl instead of the beautiful pageant winner his partybosses have selected for him. It’s a Gershwin musical, so of course many of the songs have become standards, such as “Love is Sweeping the Country”, “Who Cares?”, and “Who Could Ask for Anything More”. Directed for Reprise! by Arthur Allan Seidelman, choreographed by Rob Barron, and starring Gregory Harrison, Maureen McGovern, and Jason Graae.“Light on its feet and sharp in its wit!” (LA Times)

Book by Hugh Wheeler
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

A Reprise! “special event” at the Ahmanson Theatre, this dark thriller about a vengeful London barber in 1846 returning from an unjust sentence to settle a score with the Judge who destroyed his life is best known for turning murder and cannibalism into riveting musical theatre.  Sweeney and his daft accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, lead the audience into a world of suspect meat pies, keeping everyone on the edge of their seats, swept along by numbers like “Johanna”, “Nothing’s Gonna Harm You”, and the hilarious “A Little Priest”.  Directed for Reprise! by Calvin Remsberg and starring Kelsey Grammer, Christine Baranski, Davis Gaines, Dale Kristien, Neil Patrick Harris, and Melissa Manchester.

Book by Michael Stewart
Revised by Francine Pascal
Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman

One of the most tuneful of Jerry Herman’s shows, this 1974 musical about the ill-fated romance between director Mack Sennett and silent-film star Mabel Normand dazzled with toe-tapping production numbers.  Directed for Reprise! by Arthur Allan Seidelman, choreographed by Dan Siretta, and starring Douglas Sills, Donna McKechnie, and Jane Krakowski.  Memorable musical highlights included “Time Heals Everything”, “Tap Your Troubles Away”, and a stage full of bathing beauties in “Hundreds of Girls”.  

“Brisk, brash and explosive!” (Variety)

Book by Michael Stewart
Revised by Francine Pascal
Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman

One of the most tuneful of Jerry Herman’s shows, this 1974 musical about the ill-fated romance between director Mack Sennett and silent-film star Mabel Normand dazzled with toe-tapping production numbers.  Directed for Reprise! by Arthur Allan Seidelman, choreographed by Dan Siretta, and starring Douglas Sills, Donna McKechnie, and Jane Krakowski.  Memorable musical highlights included “Time Heals Everything”, “Tap Your Troubles Away”, and a stage full of bathing beauties in “Hundreds of Girls”.  

“Brisk, brash and explosive!” (Variety)

Book and Lyrics by Gerome Ragni & James Rado
Music by Galt MacDermot

A Reprise! “special event” at L.A.’s Wadsworth Theatre, “Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” brought the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s to glorious, often controversial life again.  The loosely-structured plot involved politically active hippies wrestling with Vietnam, drugs, and the sexual revolution to the tuneful, rock beat of now-standards such as “Aquarius”, “Hair”, “Frank Mills”, and “Good Morning Starshine”.  Directed for Reprise! by Arthur Allan Seidelman, choreographed by Travis Payne, and starring an enormous cast led by Steven Weber, Jennifer Leigh Warren, and Marissa Jaret Winokur.

Original Book by P.G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse
New Book by Timothy Crouse & John Weidman
Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter

A classic 1934 show with more musical hits per square inch than perhaps any score ever written, the madcap storyline plops a motley crew of lovers and gangsters on the same ocean liner and sets sail for comic gold, the plot stopping frequently for such Broadway standards as “You’re the Top”, “I Get a Kick Out of You”, and the title tune, originally belted out by the incomparable Ethel Merman.  Directed for Reprise! by Glenn Casale, choreographed by Dan Mojica, and starring Brent Barrett, Rachel York, Sally Struthers, Jason Graae, and Fred Willard.  

“Star quality is alive and well at the UCLA Freud Playhouse.  One of the season’s prime crowd-pleasers!” (Variety)

Book by James Goldman
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

A Reprise! “special event”, “Follies” has become a legitimate Broadway legend since its brief, original run in 1971.  At a reunion of aging Follies’ girls, the plot centers on two couples whose lives have gone in very different directions since the final curtain came down years ago.  An intense examination of love and loss and often unreachable expectations, the show explodes with numbers like “I’m Still Here”, “Losing My Mind”, and “The Story of Lucy and Jessie” — wonderful pastiches of music of earlier decades.  Directed for Reprise! by Arthur Allan Seidelman, choreographed by Kay Cole, with an all-star cast including Vikki Carr, Patty Duke, Harry Groener, Bob Gunton, Donna McKechnie, Carole Cook, Carol Lawrence, Amanda McBroom, and Ken Page.

Book and Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Music by Cy Coleman

This joyous show based on a 1934 film proved a perfect showcase for the musical comedy talents of Comden and Green and Coleman, an unbeatable combination.  Set on the legendary “Twentieth Century”, a train running “between NY and CHI”, as the lyric goes, it focuses on the passionately-comic, love-hate relationship between a bankrupt theatre producer and the one temperamental actress who can save his career — but happens also to be his vengeful former lover.  Directed for Reprise! by David Lee, choreographed by Kay Cole, it starred Carolee Carmello, Bob Gunton, Mimi Hines, and Dan Butler.  

“Laughs that reverberate in your belly.  Part operetta, part farce, part screwball comedy, and a total delight!” (TheaterMania)

Book by Joe Masteroff
Music by Jerry Bock
Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

A musical Valentine from 1963 often touted as one of Broadway’s most perfect shows, “She Loves Me” captures audiences’ hearts with a plot familiar to moviegoers who know “In the Good Old Summertime” and “You’ve Got Mail”.  Based on the same source material, this romantic-comedy-of-errors tells of two lovers who don’t know they’re lovers, falling in love through their anonymous letters, but despising one another as co-workers in a perfume shop.  All works out as it should, of course, to one of the most delightful scores of all time, including “Will He Like Me?”, “Dear Friend”, “Vanilla Ice Cream”, and the joyous title song.  Directed for Reprise! by Gordon Hunt, choreographed by Dan Mojica, starring Rebecca Luker, Scott Waara, Damon Kirsche, and Kaitlan Hopkins.

“She Loves Me hits a home run…a sweet, well-sung gem of a production!” (TalkinBroadway)

Book by George Furth
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

This ground-breaking show from 1970 radically changed the way many Broadway musicals were told.  Opting for a concept rather than a traditional plot, this look at complex, adult relationships and the fear of commitment unfolds as a series of contemporary vignettes, comical and touching by turns, linked by a celebration of main-character Bobby’s 35th birthday.  Highlights include “The Little Things You Do Together”, “The Ladies Who Lunch”, and the now-ubiquitous “Being Alive”.  Directed for Reprise! by David Lee, choreographed by Kay Cole, and starring Anastasia Barzee, Kevin Chamberlin, Josh Radnor, Sharon Lawrence, Judith Light, Amy Pietz, and Christopher Sieber.

“Company still packs a punch.  With the considerable talent assembled for the Reprise! Production, this musical has no choice but to sing…vibrantly!” (TheaterMania)

Book and Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green

Music by Leonard Bernstein

Inspired by choreographer Jerome Robbins’ idea for his ballet, “Fancy Free” (music by Leonard Bernstein), Betty Comden and Adolph Green supplied an alternately hilarious, romantic, and heartbreaking book for this legendary 1944 Broadway entry.  Three sailors on 24-hour shore leave find three very different romances before they are shipped off to war.  Popular enough to merit (at this count) three Broadway revivals, the musical introduced numerous popular and classic songs, including “New York, New York”, “Lonely Town”, “I Can Cook, Too” (for which Bernstein also wrote the lyrics), and the nostalgic “Some Other Time”.   Directed for Reprise! by Dan Mojica and choreographed by Lee Martino, it featured an Ovation-nominated Harriet Harris in a show-stopping comedy turn.