Strike Up the Band
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Strike Up the Band is a musical with a book by Morrie Ryskind, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and music by George Gershwin. During its original 1927 pre-Broadway run, the political satire closed after a Saturday night performance in Philadelphia, fulfilling original librettist's George S. Kaufman's definition of satire as "what closes on Saturday night." The Gershwins revised the story with Ryskind for the 1930 Broadway run; they also removed the song The Man I Love, now a Gershwin standard, from the show. Aside from the title tune, the 1940 Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney musical film Strike Up the Band had no relation to the stage production.
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[edit] Libretto
The original book by Kaufman centered on Horace J. Fletcher, a Babbitt-like cheese tycoon who tries to maintain his monopoly on the American market by convincing the United States government to declare war on Switzerland. In 1930, the Gershwins joined with Ryskind, who softened the political overtones, increased the emphasis on romance, made much of the storyline a dream sequence, and replaced cheese with chocolate.
[edit] Production
Directed by Alexander Leftwich and choreographed by George Hale, the revised production opened on January 14 at the Times Square Theatre and ran for 191 performances. The cast included Dudley Clements and Blanche Ring.
[edit] Score
The Gershwin's first fully-integrated score for a book musical was influenced by the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan [1]. It was performed by the Red Nichols Orchestra, which included Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa, Jimmy Dorsey, and Jack Teagarden.
[edit] Title song
The title song, "Strike Up the Band", was given to the University of California, Los Angeles by the Gershwins in 1936 as "Strike Up the Band for UCLA" and has become one of the school songs.
In 1990, a studio cast recording of the original 1927 score, featuring Rebecca Luker and Don Chastain, was released on the Nonesuch label[2]. The recording also featured songs written especially for the 1930 production.
[edit] 1927 song list
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[edit] 1930 song list
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[edit] References
[edit] External links
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