Broadway Musical...
It is no longer a well-kept secret - there are plans well along for a Broadway musical using the songs of Hoagy Carmichael!

Several years ago there was a staged reading of a version of the book (script) and a workshop production of the same idea then called, "The Stardust Road." Much has changed, including the title (it was also called "Hoagy & Bix" for awhile), and the story, and a new book writer, British playwright Peter Nichols (Passion Play, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The National Health, Blue Murder), are presently at work on a new script, currently titled Hoagland.

Instead of simply doing a review, the idea has always been to make use of Carmichael's music in a way that allows those wonderful songs to help tell a story involving meaningful characters. It was earlier thought that the true story of the musical friendship between Hoagy Carmichael and his mentor, the great jazz coronet player, Bix Beiderbecke, was a tale that could be told with the help of Carmichael's music. So, in the winter of 1995, an abridged staged version of the musical, "Hoagy & Bix," complete with New York actors and musicians, was performed on a stage built for the occasion, on the lawn at Hugh Hefner's Los Angeles Playboy mansion (which is, coincidentally, directly across the street from where Carmichael lived for over 20 years!) to an invited audience of 250 people. Malcolm Gets, of NBC's "Caroline in the City" played Hoagy, and Lillias White (who won a Tony Award for her performance in "The Life" on Broadway) and eight others, made up the cast.

It was apparent to almost everyone on the creative staff after the evening at Hefner's that the concept of "Hoagy & Bix" did not complement the Carmichael music well enough to continue with the idea. The concept that we are now working on conceptually straddles shows like "A Chorus Line" and "Ain't Misbehavin'," wherein the musical sequences take their cues from the core idea behind each of the Carmichael tunes chosen, and then use that image to evoke a moment or feeling in each dramatic situation. This allows the music to express itself fully... because we are writing for the music... not for a linear story that the music was not originally written to tell.

The musical will include at least twenty of Hoagy Carmichael's favorite songs, including some of his early jazz tunes like "Riverboat Shuffle" and many of the standards like "Georgia on My Mind," "Stardust" and "Skylark." The concept calls for a full Broadway orchestra, with strings for some of the lush ballads, and yet some of the earlier tunes will have a more traditional jazz feeling. At present there are ten principles in the cast.

Mr. Nichols has recently completed a third draft of the new script. The producer of this musical, Hoagy Carmichael's son, Hoagy B. Carmichael, presently intends to have a staged reading of the completed book after the start of 2003 to test the script out on an audience. Once the show is financed, the plan is to have at least two regional tryout productions. This will give the creative team an opportunity to see the production in front of a paying audience, and make necessary changes away from the glare and high costs of New York before the musical moves to Broadway.

Everyone has very high hopes for this show. It will have some of the world's best known tunes in it (which is what most people want in a musicals... good music), including the most recorded song of this century, Stardust. The creative people working on this musical are all award winning veterans of musical theatre, and the word is that some of the creative ideas for this show are very unusual.