And the Curtain Rises

And the Curtain Rises is a new musical Joseph Thalken (composer), Mark Campbell (lyrics) and Michael Slade (book) and presented as part of Signature Theatre’s American Musical Voices Project.

This backstager tells the trials and the tribulations that resulted in the 1860s show The Black Crook, often considered the first musical comedy. In the plot, a stranded French ballet troupe combines efforts with a problematic melodrama at Broadway’s Niblo Gardens to create theatrical history.

The show, in its current incarnation, is a charmer with terrific performances, a handsome staging, and a great second act. Inevitably, given the subject, the material straddles a line between hoary and classic, between predictable and inevitable. For example, in the dramatis personae the usual theatrical suspects are on display—beleaguered manager, uncompromising author, imperious ballet mistress, aging leading lady, comic relief couple, and dog. On the other hand, this makes sense because The Black Crook is where these archetypes may well have started.

The very tuneful score was composed by Joseph Thalken, who also maintains a notable career as one of the top music directors in cabaret. So it’s not surprising that the score contains at least two songs that cabaret singers will want immediately: “Stay,” a terrific ballad of yearning, and the title song describing all that goes in to putting on a show.

Michael Miyazaki
Cabaret Scenes
March 31, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org