![]() ![]() Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.Īndrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats is a similarly dance-heavy cat musical, also inspired by early 20th century verse. ![]() Actually, I want it to be David Greenspan.Įartha Kitt as the kept housecat Mehitabel in Shinbone Alley, which lasted 49 performances on Broadway in 1957. The especially juicy role of Mehitabel has gone to Carol Channing (on the albums and cartoon) and Eartha Kitt (on Broadway and the resulting cast album) I want to see who would do it now. Gradually I learned the twisting history of these characters and their musical life: the Kleinsinger-Darion concept albums archy and mehitabel and echoes of archy, followed by a short-lived Broadway musical called Shinbone Alley with book by Mel Brooks, an animated version of that, a teleplay, and then assorted attempts by others. STEPHIN MERRITT: I’ve been an admirer of Don Marquis’s cockroach poetry for decades, so when I was out record shopping and saw an album with Carol Channing as his Mehitabel the cat, I snapped it up. For his dream Encores! show, Merritt selected archy and mehitabel, a 1954 musical about Archy, a high-minded cockroach who writes poetry and pines for a bohemian alleycat named Mehitabel.ĬITY CENTER: How did you discover archy and mehitabel? Stephin Merritt is the songwriter and lead singer behind The Magnetic Fields, as well as the author of 101 Two-Letter Words, a remarkable little book of mnemonic poems designed to help one win at Scrabble. In our series My Dream Encores! Show, actors, writers, and directors discuss little-seen Broadway musicals that they’d like to see revived by our Tony-honored Encores! series. ![]()
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