"It's A Helluva Town!"

Happy belated Christmas! Well, two days after Christmas--better late than never, I always say.

So I thought I'd post about a show I don't think I've ever posted about before due to my prior lack of knowledge of it; the musical On The Town, music written by Leonard Bernstein ( and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, based off of the 1944 ballet Fancy Free by Jerome Robbins. (A lot of  shows take place in New York City; I've mentioned that once, I think.)

The show follows three sailors--Gabey, Chip, and Ozzie--that have just landed in New York City in 1934 for a 24-hour shore leave, where they are allowed to go and do whatever as long as they return back to the ship by the end of  24 hours (in this show, by 6 AM). One of the sailors, Ozzie wants to find a date (possibly several) while Gabey is looking for a girl that reminds him of his 7th grade girlfriend. Gabey spots a poster of Ivy Smith, "Miss Turnstiles" for the month of June, and decides that he is going to find her and take her on a date.

The entire show is then revolved around the three guys searching the city for Ivy Smith while being chased by the police, an old woman, the boss of a cab company (Uperman), a science professor (Waldo Figment), an engaged judge (Judge Pitkin) and an ill roommate (Lucy Schmeeler).  

The guys also pick up people to accompany them on their travels--Gabey finds Ivy Smith but her manager, Madame Dilly, is trying to keep them apart; Chip runs into Hildy, a female cab driver who want to bring Chip back to her apartment; and Ozzie accidentally stumbles to the Modern Museum of Science, where he meets and is attracted to Claire, an engaged and aspiring anthropologist (they accidentally knock over a dinosaur built out of bones and by professor Figment).

In the end, the group of people that had been chasing the men find them and the three girls in Coney Island, where Ivy is performing and accidentally tears her already skimpy outfit, causing an "indecent exposure" and the chasers demanding all of them to be arrested. Claire asks Pitkin to bail them out and asks him if he had ever done "an indiscretion before", which he negatively responds but then emits a sneeze similar to Lucy Schmeeler--guilty, he decides to release the men just in time to make it back to their ship.

The show first premiered on Broadway in 1944, shortly followed by a film adaptation in 1949 and a West End premiere in 1963. The musical was then revived for Broadway twice, in 1971 and 1998, before it opened in the English National Opera in 2007 followed by an opening at the Encores! Concert the year after. Currently, it is back on Broadway since September of this year, starring Tony Yazbeck (Gabey), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Chip) and Clyde Ames (Ozzie).

I am currently doing research on the soundtrack of this show (as well as another musical and a play that I was involved in before winter break), so here is a video of the song "New York, New York" (the song sung by the sailors when they leave the ship) where they sing on location in modern-day New York City! [Fun fact; Jay Armstrong Johnson was in my hometown running a workshop in the summer! Alas, I did not see him, but I know of a lot of other people who did.]