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    Review: In ‘Dear World,’ Donna Murphy Leads a Righteous March

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    Jerry Herman’s rarely seen 1969 musical is revived in an Encores! production at New York City Center.If the composer-lyricist Jerry Herman loved one thing, it was a brassy dame who bulldozes past all obstacles in her quest for the best possible life for herself. The women at the center of his best-known shows, “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame,” are pathologically positive, speaking directly to our vanities and vulnerabilities — and are celebrated for it.Who better to teach a larger-than-life lesson than a strident diva in a bold headpiece? Such is the case with Countess Aurelia, the protagonist of his 1969 flop, “Dear World,” which New York City Center’s Encores! has revived in a blissed-out concert production that opened on Wednesday.Led by Donna Murphy, and directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes with laissez-faire humor, it presents a smaller, looser, but still effective Herman elixir.Based on a fable-like Jean Giraudoux play, “The Madwoman of Chaillot,” Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s book follows the Countess Aurelia (Murphy), a Parisian eccentric who spends her days al fresco at the Cafe Francis, learning to love all before her “through the bottom of the glass.” When clouds (whimsically rendered by Paul Tate dePoo III as sparse hangings above his bohemian set of chaises, trunks and old clocks) threaten her outdoor seating, she simply wills them away with folksy charisma.But her peace is disturbed when a young official, Julian (Phillip Johnson Richardson), is sent by the President (a swaggering, delectably petulant Brooks Ashmanskas) to blow up the cafe so they can drill into oil recently discovered beneath. With the water supply already affected, Aurelia leads the charge against the bureaucrats, aided by the friendly Sewerman (Christopher Fitzgerald) and her bosom buddies, Gabrielle (Ann Harada) and Constance (Andréa Burns), the Madwomen of Montmartre and of the Flea Market.From left: Andrea Burns, Murphy and Ann Harada in the revival of Jerry Herman’s 1969 musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIt’s easy to see how this fantastical musical could float away from a less confident, cleareyed director. Here, Rhodes (who helmed Herman’s “Mack & Mabel” for Encores! in 2020) emphasizes the kookiness of his well-sketched characters in a spacey way that makes everything feel, if not logical, then natural. His choreography is similarly simple, and works well for the ensemble, save for a vaguely anti-war, ballet-inspired solo performed during the entr’acte by Kody Jauron, who shines in a miming role.The score is by far Herman’s most relaxed; if “Dolly” is a bottle of Champagne and “Mame” a speedball, “World” is a Shirley Temple (Aurelia herself only ever takes one sip of wine a day). It’s perhaps a side effect from having written new material for the film adaptation of “Hello, Dolly!” that same year, with songs tailored for the close-up rather than the chorus line.The new Encores! music director Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s conducting is mostly swooning and enlivens the work, though she often opts for arrangements that warmly dissolve each number into a Parisian haze rather than charge up a triumphant belt. (Campbell, who did extensive research on the score’s many variations, has directed Philip J. Lang’s orchestrations toward a calmer phrasing than the original.) Only the crystal-clear voiced Samantha Williams, as the yearning waitress Nina, is allowed to soar vocally past the end of her stunning “I’ve Never Said I Love You.”But the intoxicating strength of the show’s leading lady still pulsates throughout — even when, as is often the case with these concert stagings, Murphy had her book in hand for the dramatic scenes. (She had to miss the first five days of rehearsal after testing positive for Covid.) Before curtain, the Encores! artistic director Lear deBessonet made the announcement, almost anxiously, but it certainly didn’t alter Murphy’s ability to deliver what she always does: an endlessly reinvigorating voice at once worldly, incredulous, curious and confident.Murphy’s Countess is a dotty, conscientious woman awoken from her comfort and determined to claim it back. If anything, Murphy’s consulting of the script amounted to a more organically astonished character, searching for the best words of affirmation in the face of encroaching danger. She first breaks through that slumber in the frenzied “I Don’t Want to Know,” which Murphy sings with captivating vulnerability.Christopher Fitzgerald, center, leads the ensemble in a tale that pits locals against the “hoards of pretentious, power-hungry, self-serving men consumed by greed.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd Burns nearly steals the second act in her brief solo, “Memory,” a coquettish dream of past flames. She looks dazzling, as does everyone else, in Toni Leslie James’s lovingly fussy, belle epoque-tinged costumes, and Matthew Armentrout’s wigs, the best of which being Murphy’s powder-white hair to match her blanched makeup.Everyone’s a little loopy in “Dear World” (Aurelia feels the touch of her former beau, Constance hears voices, Gabrielle walks around an imaginary dog), but not as mad as the incoming corporate forces. In Sandy Rustin’s concert adaptation, and under Rhodes’ direction, these aren’t the dust-ridden old biddies for which the original script seems to call for — the three of them look radiantly alive, for starters — but headstrong women who rather mean it when they offer to kill the “hoards of pretentious, power-hungry, self-serving men consumed by greed.”Considering our current climate of reactive, out-loud politics, the melodramatic straightforwardness of Lawrence and Lee’s story doesn’t seem as far-out as it once did. Now, as then, Herman’s tuneful, yes-we-can score holds a steady beat for all to march to.Dear WorldThrough Sunday at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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      A Conductor Arrives at Encores! With Jerry Herman’s ‘Dear World’

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      In 1969, the musical theater composer-lyricist Jerry Herman achieved a Broadway milestone. With the opening of “Dear World” — joining his earlier “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame” — he had three shows running at the same time.But the celebration didn’t last long: “Dear World” was a flop.Over-revised because of conflicting artistic visions and commercial pressures, it didn’t have the easier success of Herman’s hits, despite its elegant, French-inflected score and Angela Lansbury’s Tony Award-winning lead performance. Other beloved shows would come later — particularly the pathbreaking “La Cage aux Folles,” which in 1983 brought a gay love duet to Broadway — but as the decades went on, “Dear World” became a curiosity rather than canon.That, of course, is what New York City Center’s Encores! specializes in: brief revivals of Broadway rarities, grandly orchestrated and luxuriously cast. And that is where “Dear World” will return to the stage on Wednesday, as the first production to be conducted by the series’ music director, Mary-Mitchell Campbell.Campbell rehearsing the orchestra for “Dear World.” Her break conducting musicals came when she worked on a benefit concert of “Sweet Charity” with its composer, Cy Coleman.Amir Hamja for The New York Times“The thing to me that is most exciting about all this,” Campbell, 48, said, “is the celebration of the music and the celebration of live musicians making that music, in the way that you do at the symphony.”Campbell was brought up in the classical world, as a piano student bound for the concert hall stage; but she was also attracted to different types of music — especially musical theater. Which is what she was aiming for when she moved to New York after school. Just a few weeks later, a break came when she was brought on for a benefit performance of “Sweet Charity.” She found herself in a room with two legends: Cy Coleman and Gwen Verdon.More on N.Y.C. Theater, Music and Dance This Spring‘The Invisible Project’: The new show by the choreographer Keely Garfield at NYU Skirball is a dance, but it is also informed by her work as an end-of-life and trauma chaplain.Life in Photos: Larry Sultan’s photography, now starring in the play “Pictures From Home” and a gallery show, raise issues of who controls a family’s image.Musical Revivals: Why do the worst characters in musicals get the best tunes? In upcoming revivals, world leaders both real and mythical get an image makeover they may not deserve, our critic writes.Rising Stars: These actors turned playwrights all excavate memories and meaning from their lives in creating these four shows, which arrive in New York in the coming months.Coleman became a mentor of hers, and he wouldn’t be the last Broadway luminary to do so. Others have included Stephen Sondheim, whom Campbell worked with on “Company” in its Tony-winning 2006 revival. For that show, she and the director, John Doyle, took an idiosyncratic, chamber approach to the score in which the singers doubled as instrumentalists — even its lead, Raúl Esparza, who sang “Being Alive” from a piano.Now, she has arrived at Encores!, where her top priority is to lead a production of “City of Angels,” among other plans including a new outing for Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s “Love Life,” which had been scheduled to open in mid-March 2020 until the pandemic shuttered live performances.But first “Dear World,” about an effort to thwart oil-drilling in the Parisian neighborhood of Chaillot, which reunites Campbell and Donna Murphy, who is starring as Countess Aurelia, the role originally played by Lansbury. They had collaborated on Sondheim’s virtual 90th birthday celebration in 2020, “Take Me to the World,” in which Murphy sang “Send in the Clowns,” a performance the two had rehearsed, trickily, over phone and video calls.“We had been circling each other for a long time,” Murphy recalled. “But we got on very well, and I could see that she was an immense talent, who has such grace and humor.”When Murphy heard that Campbell would be the next music director at Encores!, she thought, “What a brilliant choice.” In between filming sessions for the next season of “The Gilded Age,” she has been hard at work on her Countess Aurelia, a role she has long admired. “I’ve been exploring this part, and the time in which the play was written,” she said, referring to Jean Giraudoux’s “The Madwoman of Chaillot,” the musical’s inspiration. “I love research.”Amir Hamja for The New York TimesAmir Hamja for The New York TimesThis Encores! production has required even more research to effectively create a new performance edition of the book and score. In an interview, Campbell discussed that and more about “Dear World.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Did you plan for “Dear World” to be your first Encores! show?It was intentional to do a score that I was excited about. Encores! has done so many amazing scores over the years, that it’s hard to find something, and this was one that was on my list that had never been produced. I have always loved the score.We spent time restoring “Dear World.” There was a lot of detective work, because there were a lot of different versions, and there’s sorting through all the original orchestrations. But to be able to restore a score and hear it as it was originally intended, to me, is our mission.Tell me more about the different versions of this score. The one from its out-of-town tryout is very different from the Broadway score, and it has since changed even further.It’s very exciting to go back generally and look at these great pieces that were created, and understand, from a newer perspective, how that might’ve happened, how those people might’ve been in the room together, how they were struggling out of town to find the right opening number. We have someone on the staff here at City Center, Josh Clayton, who’s sort of like a score restoration guru.My study of this has led me to believe that Herman’s original intention was to write a smaller piece. But because of “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame” and then adding “Dear World” to the canon and all of them running on Broadway at the same time — I also love, by the way, that all of them celebrate a fantastically strong woman at their center — the process was very fraught for “Dear World.” It went through, perhaps, an internal struggle of what they wanted it to be, and it went through some real trials and tribulations.So what version of the score did you end up with?The most important thing was: Let’s pick the version that supports a 28-piece orchestra. And so, we’ve really centered that in our debates and decisions about the different versions that exist. I think we read maybe 10 different scripts in the process. It’s been an enormous research project that I think not every Encores! production will be.What are the characteristics of Jerry Herman’s sound world?The chord progressions he uses and the way he uses voice leading is really distinctive. What I love about the orchestrations in Jerry Herman’s scores is that you can really hear how the brass are brilliantly used for storytelling; they provide such lush power. And with big string sections — when you hear a Jerry Herman song in its original, full orchestration, you’re, like, That’s a Jerry Herman song.This is not his best-known score, but the melodies are stunning. There’s a beautiful song at the end of the show, “And I Was Beautiful,” which I think is a gem that people don’t necessarily know. And what I love about that song is that it is foreshadowed through the entire score in a way that you don’t normally get. Normally, you have a song, and then you have reprises after it’s been introduced. This is the one song that gets foreshadowed for the entire score in underscoring. So, by the time you get to it, it’s like a warm bath.A lot of people will probably come to this more familiar with “Hello, Dolly!,” “Mame” or “La Cage.” How would you prepare audience members who know Jerry Herman for the hits?It’s quintessential Jerry Herman, but it also has European influence. And it has atonal influence. You can tell he was branching into some other territories. So, I think if you love Jerry Herman, you will love this score, but you will also be surprised by it in a positive way. More

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      At BroadwayCon, Hillary Clinton Celebrates Women in the Theater

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      The former secretary of state moderated a discussion on Friday afternoon about successes and barriers for women working in the theater.“There’s a lot to worry about right now in our country and the world,” Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, told a packed room of about 500 people gathered at the grand ballroom at the Manhattan Center on Friday afternoon. “And I think we need theater and the arts more than ever.”Clinton was speaking at the seventh BroadwayCon — an annual haven for the most passionate theater fans — where she was moderating a panel celebrating women on Broadway. It was the first in-person edition of the three-day event, which continues through Sunday, since 2020. (The 2021 edition was virtual.)The event allows musical theater aficionados — many of them costumed as favorite characters like Elphaba from “Wicked” and Anne Boleyn from “Six” — to meet and take photographs with the stars of their favorite shows.Clinton led an hourlong panel titled “Here’s to the Ladies,” a riff on a Stephen Sondheim lyric from the song “The Ladies Who Lunch” from the musical “Company.” Participants included the actresses Vanessa Williams (who stars as the first lady in “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive”), Julie White (who plays the White House chief of staff in “POTUS”), Donna Murphy (the veteran stage actress who has recently appeared in the television series “The Gilded Age” and “Inventing Anna”) and LaChanze (“Trouble in Mind”).Clinton, a noted theater fan, recently saw “POTUS” and said she was “looking forward to seeing a lot more shows in the weeks to come.” Michael Loccisano/Getty ImagesThere was a burst of applause and a 20-second standing ovation after Clinton entered the room, taking a seat in a plush white chair backed by a glowing, Hollywood-style BroadwayCon sign. Clinton, a noted theater fan, said she had attended performances of “Plaza Suite” and “POTUS” in the past week, and that she was “looking forward to seeing a lot more shows in the weeks to come.” (She received a round of applause at “POTUS” on Wednesday night after the scene in which Lilli Cooper, who plays a White House reporter, reviews the accomplishments of the first lady, played by Williams, and asks, “Why aren’t you president?”)Then Clinton had LaChanze and Williams discuss their work with the nonprofit Black Theater United; the group, formed over six months of Zoom meetings during the pandemic, aims to combat racism in the theater community.“There’s so much you can be proud of,” Clinton told them, “with the changes and awareness and consciousness and most effectively in actually hiring and retaining and recruiting more diversity.”The discussion then turned to the women’s experiences of motherhood, including balancing life and work. White extended the conversation beyond the stage, noting that women who have careers have to sort out child care, relying on family when none is available. “It’s an ongoing problem,” she said, joking that she thought one of the two nursing mothers in “POTUS” — one of whom appears onstage — “actually pumped during her audition.”White and Williams also discussed what it was like to work with a mostly female creative team for “POTUS,” which was written by Selina Fillinger and directed by Susan Stroman.From left, LaChanze, Murphy, Clinton, Williams and Julie White spoke about inclusion, motherhood and more during their panel on Friday.Michael Loccisano/Getty Images“It’s a sense of ease — you walk into a room and there’s all females,” Williams said. “You can relax, and be funny, and ask questions, and probe, and know that there is no judgment because you’re a woman.”White added: “There was no right or wrong. There was none of that subtle patriarchy that’s always kind of there, like, ‘Get it right, lady’ — in other words, what my vision is” of what’s right.Clinton spoke to her own experience as an up-and-coming lawyer navigating the workaholic environment of Washington, sharing a story of an older male lawyer telling her to leave her door closed when she went out to dinner so everyone would think she was still working.“I said, ‘But don’t they eat?’” she said. “He said, ‘No, no, you don’t understand, it’s all perception. When you get back from dinner, walk around the office and loudly announce to people, “What are you all doing? Anything I can do to help?” Even if you’ve been at dinner for two hours, they’ll think you’re back. They think you never left.’”“My God,” Clinton said to applause. “That is exhausting — just get your work done, and then go home!”White noted that she had become more comfortable advocating for herself as she’d progressed in her career. When she was young, she said, “You’re always looking at the director like, ‘I hope he likes me,’” she said. “Then you grow up and evolve and you become more interested in what you want to tell.”She said she had become notorious for not taking notes from directors “because the power is in me, the creation is in me,” adding, “I’ve become really irritating now!”Clinton concluded the event by asking each of the women what they hadn’t yet done that they wanted to do.“Besides the show where you and I solve crimes?” White asked. “I want to play the president of the United States.”“Well, I can give you lots of notes on that,” Clinton said.“You know I won’t take them!” White responded to applause.Elexa Bancroft, a 35-year-old artist from Atlanta, attended the panel on a break from selling her mixed-media art at the marketplace downstairs. “I needed that female empowerment in my life so badly,” she said. “Being a young female entrepreneur myself and trying to get my art out into the world and seeing how far those women have come in their jobs, it’s really inspiring.”Other events set for the weekend include “When Broadway Was Black: Celebrating the Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way”; a presentation by the author and cultural historian Caseen Gaines on Saturday afternoon that celebrates the centennial of the 1921 musical comedy “Shuffle Along,” one of the first successful all-Black Broadway musicals; and “Dreaming the Queer Future: TGNC Representation and Playwrights in the American Theater,” a discussion on Sunday morning that includes the Tony-nominated actress L Morgan Lee of “A Strange Loop” and the playwright Roger Q. Mason and focuses on trans and gender nonconforming representation in theater.“It definitely feels more inclusive this year,” Bancroft said. More