Sugar (musical)

Sugar
Original cast recording
Music	Jule Styne
Lyrics	Bob Merrill
Book	Peter Stone
Basis	1959 film Some Like It Hot
Productions	1972 Broadway 1992 West End 2012 San Francisco 2011 Denmark

Sugar is a musical with a book by Peter Stone, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. It is based on the film Some Like It Hot, which was adapted by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond from a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan. It premiered on Broadway in 1972 and was staged in the West End twenty years later.

Synopsis

Two unemployed musicians, bass player Jerry and saxophone player Joe, witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago. In order to escape gangster Spats Palazzo and his henchmen, they dress as women and join Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopaters, an all-female band about to leave town for an engagement at a Miami Beach hotel.

Complications arise when Joe, now known as Josephine, falls in love with beautiful band singer Sugar Kane, who has a slight drinking problem that tends to interfere with her ability to choose a romantic partner wisely. More than anything, Sugar wants to marry a millionaire, prompting Joe to disguise himself as the man of her dreams.

Meanwhile, wealthy and elderly Osgood Fielding, Jr. is pursuing Daphne, unaware she really is Jerry in drag. As much as he knows he needs to reveal his true gender to his over-amorous paramour, Jerry is beginning to enjoy all the expensive gifts bestowed upon him on a regular basis.

Total chaos erupts when Spatz and his gang descend upon the hotel and realize who Josephine and Daphne really are.

Productions

Produced by David Merrick and directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, Sugar opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre on April 9, 1972 after 14 previews and closed on June 23, 1973 after 505 performances. The opening night cast included Robert Morse as Jerry/Daphne, Tony Roberts as Joe/Josephine, Elaine Joyce as Sugar Kane, Cyril Ritchard as Osgood Fielding, Jr., Sheila Smith as Sweet Sue, and Steve Condos as Spats Palazzo. Scenic design was by Robin Wagner, costume design by Alvin Colt, and lighting design by Martin Aronstein. Elaine Joyce was replaced by Pamela Blair later in the run.

The West End production, starring Tommy Steele, opened at the Prince Edward Theatre on March 19, 1992 and closed on June 20, 1992. The production reverted to the film's title of Some Like It Hot.^[1]

A 2002-03 United States national tour starred Tony Curtis as Osgood Fielding, Jr. in a revised production.^[2][3][4] Curtis had played Joe in the original film. This national tour wardrobe is on display at the Costume World Broadway Collection in Pompano Beach, Florida.

A new production of the show ran at the Westchester Broadway Theatre in Elmsford, New York April 2010 through July 2010.^[5]

In February/March 2011 Pimlico Opera presented a new production in Great Britain at Send Prison in Surrey. The cast included professional actors and inmates.^[6]

On March 6, 2011, Musical Theatre West in Long Beach, California presented a staged concert version of the show, as part of the Reiner Reading Series with Larry Raben (Forever Plaid), Bets Malone (The Marvelous Wonderettes) and Nick Santa Maria (The Producers (musical)).^[7]

42nd Street Moon presented Sugar as part of its 19th Season, April 4–22, 2012.^[8]

A new production ^{[citation needed]} of the show will premiere in 2011 at Folketeateret, Copenhagen, Denmark. The show opens September 14, starring Danish musical actress Maria Lucia.

Song list

Critical reception

In his review of the Broadway production, Time theatre critic T.E. Kalem thought the musical "has been so thoroughly processed, refined and filtered that it has lost the natural energy that makes a good musical strong and healthy." He added, "If hummable songs are a plus, Jule Styne's songs are hummable, though you may not know quite which homogenized number you are humming. As for Bob Merrill's lyrics, they are the labored products of a man hovering over a rhyming dictionary. Sugar is almost a textbook case of a musical born after its time. It may well enjoy great wads of audience favor. But in the past three years, Company and Follies have altered the critical perspective by providing a musical form that is spare, intelligent, ironic, mature and capable of sustaining three-dimensional characters." He concluded, "This is not to say that the big, old-fashioned musical is irrevocably doomed, but it must have a singular mood, manner and meaning all its own. Otherwise, all that remains, as Sugar indicates, is a sterile display of high-gloss techniques."^[9]

Dyan McBride, director of a 2012 San Francisco production of the musical, noted in an interview that "Written in 1972, Sugar really has one of the last Golden Age of Broadway scores.... You can feel contemporary Broadway starting to come.... This is not a rock 'n' roll score; this is really a jazzy score. But you can start to hear things changing; there's a little bit of lounge, and you can hear some Bob Goulet."^[10]

Awards and nominations

Original Broadway production

References

External links

• Sugar at the Internet Broadway Database
• Sugar synopsis at tamswitmark.com
• "Some Like It Hot Plays Newark's NJPAC, a Stone's Throw From NYC, Feb. 4-9", Playbill.com article with production history, February 4, 2003