A 100-mile drive from New York City, Tamimento, in the Pocono Mountains fringe, was a bachelor’s resort and a summer hotspot for up-and-coming theater people until the mid-20th century. During the first half of each season, the writers assembled a weekly original musical review. In the second half, if they were interested in starting a show with a story — and Mo Huck, the gruff, gruff, cigar-smoking sweetheart who ran the place, thought it was a good idea. —They were free to try.
Among those who tried in the summer of 1958 was Mary Rogers, a young composer whose father’s reputation had preceded her. After all, he was Richard Rogers.It was also in Tamimento Lyricist and author Marshall Bearer, her mentor and tormentor. Together, with the help of Dean Fuller and Jay Thompson, they wrote the musical Once Upon a Mattress. This is a longtime favorite that has grown from a summer occasion to an Off-Broadway and Broadway success starring Carol Burnett. “Mattress” was also an unintentional self-portrait of a young princess displaced from her homeland trying to find her happiness on her own terms.
“Shy: The Surprisingly Candid Memoir of Mary RogersWritten by Rogers (1931-2014) and Jesse Greene, the New York Times’ chief theater critic, the story of this princess has just been published. Over the course of two marriages, three careers, six children, sometimes self-doubt, prevalent sexism at the time, and her overwhelmingly critical parents (not just Richard, but icy perfection). But in this excerpt about the birth of her first (and only) musical hit, You will have great success in other areas as well. —She recalls how victory can sometimes depend solely on grit, feistiness and castoffs from Stephen Sondheim.
marshall found me A lovely 4 bedroom cottage for little money down the hill from Tamimento’s main building and near a rushing river. He even had an upright piano waiting in the living room. And Steve, now from West Side Story, sold me an old car for a dollar. He departed like Joad in early June. I am 27 years old. Children aged 5, 4 and 2 years old. And Peruvian nanny — all of us scratching west thanks to Steve’s itchy faux-fur upholstery.
But my von Trapp-like gaiety in the face of uncertainty quickly fell apart. Everyone was more experienced than me. I felt that everyone was certainly more talented than me. Everyone was certainly relieved.At a Wednesday afternoon meeting to plan next week’s material, when Moe posed the question to us, “Who has the opening number?” If they’re little red chickens, I’m a chicken, crowing quietly Not me. “Who has a comedy song?” more ideas. “Who has a sketch?” Woody Allen always said.
At 22, Woody looked like a 12-year-old, but was an original weirdo who would become famous a decade later. His wife, Harleen, was making extra money typing scripts for the office and was even more geeky, but she was only inadvertently amused. She looked and sounded like olive oil, with reddish hair, freckles and a bad case of adenoids. I practiced my clarinet sitting on a wooden chair on the porch outside, or I practiced sex with her… probably from the manual. He seems to have been better on the clarinet.
We were playing songs for eight hours a day, along with Marshall’s lyrics. These are revue her songs, with titles like “Waiting to Waltz With You,” “Miss Nothing,” and “Hire a Guy You Can Blame,” with no intent to tell a larger story, but to a particular performer. It matched the talent ofFor example, “Miss Nobody” was written for a girl whose name was thin, with its very high teschula Elizabeth Landscould not cross the stage without falling on his face, but was a knockout and had Incredible 4 octave range like Yma Sumac.
The music never overflowed my fingers. The process was like wringing out a slightly damp washcloth. With Marshall’s lyrics erected on a piano desk and precisely divided into barlines as a roadmap, starting with some kind of accompaniment or vamp or series of continuous chords, singing a melody that matches the lyrics, To the accompaniment, then to tune the accompaniment to the melody, until it starts to determine the harmonies, and I get a decent front that pleases me and, more importantly, Marshall, Marshall says that he It hung over my shoulder until I liked it. Then he had me clean it up and move forward a bit while he took a long walk around the golf course to demystify the lyrics of the bridge. Back to me, back to the golf course, back and forth until the song ended.
Even with success, there was another problem. My abandoned Wellesley education taught me the basics of formal manuscript writing, but my dad trained me by ear, but not by eye. I kept getting it wrong, calling it a 4th when I meant a 5th and vice versa. This made the orchestration sound upside down. I could imagine the guys saying, ‘Get a bunch of Dick Rogers daughters who can’t even make a lead sheet’.
In fact, the orchestra men, who were kept like circus animals in tents apart from us, were the most jolly people in Tamimento. They weren’t as competitive as the writers. They just sat there with a big tub filled with ice and beer. You threw in your 25 cents and had a great time. Especially Trumpeter.
Elsewhere in Tamimento I felt patronized. Marshall preemptively said, “Mary Rogers, daughter of Dorothy? Between that and the chord symbols, that was enough to get me drunk.”
Anyway, pills.
“What is it drinking?” Marshall asked when he saw me swallowing.
“Valium,” I said to him.
“barium!he cried. “why barium?“
“I asked the doctor to help me write something.”
“And he gave you barium?said Marshall. “Here. Try this.”
He handed me a small sequin with green and white spots.
bingo! He wrote two songs in one day, and he felt happier than ever, whether it was because of Dexamir or because of the song. It completely freed me. The inhibitions I had about playing in front of Marshall, feeling and expressing my creativity suddenly disappeared.
The story of me and Pills, and more dramatically, of Marshall and Pills, can wait later. What matters now is that for several years Marshall had harbored the idea of turning Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Princess and the Pea into a musical burlesque for his friend Nancy Walker. One Nancy liked the idea, but was too big a star to play Summer Slam in Tamiment. Did I like the idea? he asked.
As it happened, I did, and it didn’t matter if I didn’t like it. In Tamiment, even Marshall did what he was told. Moe said this “pea musical” could be written on the condition that his nine main players play major roles. 9 big roles? Moe hired them at a premium, he said, and he wanted his money’s worth.
A deal was made and Moe scheduled the show for August 16th and 17th.
To save time, before a word, or at least a note, was written, the show was custom-cast with a Moe Hack plan in front of the horse. Yvonne OrsonMoe, on the other hand, was too old to be a princess at 31. was considered too expensive, but wanted to know what we were going to do for Evelyn Russell, who was the principal player. OK, OK, we cast Evelyn as the Queen. An obnoxious and intimidating woman we just made up who is overly fond of her son Prince and never stops talking. And to seal the deal, we cut her one big number, even though Princess was the title character (along with Pee). We had planned to have her sing her ‘Shy’ but this is a revue her song that didn’t work out early in the summer. It was a tough, sticky song and Yvonne didn’t sing a single note, so that was fine. she was a dancer
Comedian Lenny Maxwell And Shrub will be Prince Dauntless, a sad sack who wants to marry but his mother won’t let him. His singing ability was limited, so we only wrote him silly songs that any idiot could sing. We created the Wizard part for a creepy guy who had a reason to know behind the scenes. He was actually doing witch things to me in bed. On the other hand, Milt-Kamen was considered by Moe and Milt to be the most important of the major players due to his age (37 years old) and achievements (having worked with Sid Caesar), but he Weaknesses: He could not sing in key and could not memorize lines. invented the mute king, which acts as a counterpoint to Marshall brilliantly figured out how to rhyme even when the lyrics are silent.
Thus, writing the show backwards from the laundry list of constraints, one role at a time: a dance specialty for a talented male dancer who played a clown, a real ballad for a top singer. , and even a pantomime role for Marshall’s Lover. , beautifully moved Ian, but well, fill in the blanks.
Soon all personnel issues were resolved, except what to do with Elizabeth Lands. Remember the gorgeous but clumsy Yma Sumac type? with choreographer Joe Leighton Director Jack Sydow, according to Marshall’s story, began teaching all the women in the court who intended to conceive how to walk with their hands under their breasts, their tummies out, and leaning almost diagonally back. Liz kept flipping over. Pigeon toe? Knockney? We never discovered what exactly, but she was a moving transgression. I yelled out an insane modal tune in a high-pitched voice.
Don’t try to find out how musical theater sausages are made.
