Goin' Hollywood

Book & Lyrics by Stephen Cole

Music by David Krane

Have you ever wished you were born in a different time? Alice Chandler did. Alice and the 21st Century do not get along, but could she ever have dreamed that she and her reluctant suitor, Garson Stein, would go to lunch at a restaurant in Grand Central Station called the Super Chief Dining Car and wind up hurtling out west to Hollywood and back in time to 1949? What do you when you get your wish? When you and your writing partner get signed by MGM to write a movie musical? But wishes have price-tags and every time has its challenges. Alice and Garson, smack in the golden age of movie musicals, meet L. B. Mayer, find that the studio system is crumbling around them, anti-Semitism is all around, that the blacklist is hitting their closest allies and that Ann Miller is not as big a star as they thought! A big splashy musical with a heart as big as MGM.

UK REVIEW by Stephen Gilcrist: BROADWAY AT ITS BEST!

I spent a delightful afternoon at the Kings Head Theatre in Islington for the UK premiere of ‘Goin’ Hollywood’ a musical by Stephen Cole ( book and lyrics) and David Krane. This US writing team have crossed the pond to deliver a terrific piece of work in a concert version but excellently directed by JoAnn M Hunter.

The show premiered in the US in Dallas at Shane Peterman’s (pictured with Martyn and I) WaterTower Theatre.

This show uses a framing device which young present day Comden and Green style musical theatre collaborators (Alex Chandler and Garson Stein )are time travelled back to 1948 Hollywood and find everything is far from the dream factory which we look back on with nostalgia. Studio bosses (particularly LB Mayor) exploit their staff, writers and creative souls are reported to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, there are suspensions and sackings, and lives are torn asunder as the studio system is about to implode with the coming of television. And of course insidious antisemitism means Jews in the business need to anglicize their names.

You may think that this is a sort of musical King Lear. Not at all. To write a musical which deals with serious themes but in a way that is literate, witty musically accessible is no small feat.

And Cole and Krane have succeeded in spades. There is a cast of eleven led by the truly impressive Miriam-Teak Lee (an Olivier winner for ‘& Juliet and an alumnus of ‘Hamilton’’) and Zack Sorrow a really energizing actor from Chicago as Chandler and Stein.

The book and lyrics are fast, smart, sassy, literate and clever while Krane’s score ( in which he led the three piece band from the keys) is 40’s jazz influenced, sometimes complex but always worth listening to. This is Broadway at its best.

The audience was made up a lot of theatre folk who gave the show an ovation . This shows needs a full production. It has charm, wit, musicality whilst painting a raw picture of the movie business of an earlier era.