Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies (Applause Books) - Softcover

Chapin, Ted

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557836531 ISBN 13: 9781557836533

Publisher: Applause, 2005

Synopsis

In 1971 college student Ted Chapin found himself front row center as a production assistant at the creation of one of the greatest Broadway musicals ÊFolliesÊ. Needing college credit to graduate on time he kept a journal of everything he saw and heard and thus was able to document in unprecedented detail how a musical is actually created. Now more than thirty years later he has fashioned an extraordinary chronicle. ÊFolliesÊ was created by Stephen Sondheim Hal Prince Michael Bennett and James Goldman ä giants in the evolution of the Broadway musical and geniuses at the top of their game. ÊEverything Was PossibleÊ takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride from the uncertainties of casting to drama-filled rehearsals from the care and feeding of one-time movie and television stars to the pressures of a Boston tryout to the exhilaration of opening night on Broadway. Foreword by long-time NY critic Frank Rich.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

In 1971, college student Ted Chapin was in the right place at the right time.
As a production assistant, or gofer, he found himself front row center at the creation of one of the greatest of all Broadway musicals: Follies. And since (as part of a college assignment) he kept a journal of everything he saw and heard, he was able to document–in unprecedented detail–how a musical is actually made.

Now, thirty years later, he has fashioned that eyewitness account into an extraordinary chronicle that sheds new light on a still-evolving art form while vividly capturing an era long gone.
“If there has ever been an account of the creation of a major Broadway production as complete, candid, and apocrypha-free as this one,” writes Frank Rich in the foreword, “I have not found it.”
Everything Was Possible takes the reader on the roller-coaster ride that is the musical-making process, from the uncertainties of casting to drama-filled rehearsals, from the care and feeding of one-time movie stars like Alexis Smith and Yvonne De Carlo to the tension of that first performance, from the pressures of an out-of-town tryout to the exhilaration of opening night on Broadway.
But this was not just any rehearsal process, nor a typical opening night. This was the almost mythical Follies, the work Rich calls “the most elusive of landmark musicals.” Its creators were Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Michael Bennett, and James Goldman–giants in the evolution of the Broadway musical, geniuses at the top of their game.

“Lord knows at least I was there,” goes a Sondheim lyric from Follies. In Everything Was Possible, we all are there–at the birth of a musical that shimmers to this day.

About the Author

Ted Chapin is president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization in New York. His early career in the theatre included production assistant or directorial assistant positions on Broadway productions of The Sunshine Boys, The Rothschilds, The Unknown Soldier and His Wife, and the, Follies.

About this edition

• Publisher: Applause
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1557836531
• ISBN 13: 9781557836533
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 376