| I'm Solomon | |
|---|---|
| Music | Ernest Gold |
| Lyrics | Anne Croswell |
| Book | Anne Croswell Dan Almagor |
| Basis | original play 'King Solomon and the Cobbler' by Sammy Gronemann American adaptation in collaboration with Zvi Kolitz Special material by David Finkle and Bill Weeden |
| Productions | 1968 |
I'm Solomon is a 1968 musical with music by Ernest Gold, lyrics by Anne Croswell, and book by Crowell and Dan Almagor.[1]
It opend on 23 April 1968 and closed on 27 April after seven performances.
The play was profiled in the William Goldman book The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway. He wrote "The show advertised itself as "A New Musical with a Cast of 60." That's got to tell you something. I mean, when movies have made "a cast of thousands" a cliche, what's "a cast of 60" supposed to do to your pulse? One peek at the program indicated more trouble: the set designer had a box around his name, and when the outstanding billing for a show goes to the set designer, you just know you're in for a bumpy crossing." Goldman estimated the musical lost between $700,000 and $800,000.[2]
Background
The musical was based on a 1938 Israeli play called King Solomon and the Cobbler which had been performed in Palestine and in New York in Yiddish. It was turned into a 1964 folk musical which toured the world.[3]
A new book and score was written for the American production. The book was originally by Erich Segal and Anne Crosswell, although Segal had his name removed from it. The musical was originally called In Someone Else's Sandals.
The original director was Michael Benthall and the composer was Ernest Gold, whose work included the film score for Exodus. [4]
Ken Mandelbaum wrote the show "featured two of the most flop-prone performers of recent musical-theatre history, Carmen Mathews (Courtin' Time, Zenda, The Yearling, Dear World, Ambassador, Copperfield) and Karen Morrow (I Had a Ball, A Joyful Noise, The Selling of the President, The Grass Harp). When the show closed in a week, coproducer Zvi Kolitz told the press that I’m Solomon had been the “victim of the arbitrariness, haughtiness, shallowness, and heartlessness of the television critics.” It lost over $700,000, making it and the then recent Darling of the Day the most expensive musical flops to date."[5]
He added the misical "had a couple of nice songs and an extremely silly book. But what places it firmly in the category of the bizarre was the absurdly overblown production it received... there were enormous sets, large choral numbers, harlots, concubines, and belly dancers, all swamping the slender plot, which might have been the basis for a cute off-Broadway musical."[6]
John Chapman of the New York News called it a "solemn and very colorful spectacle."[7]
Premise
King Solomon and a lookalike peddler change places for the day.
Original cast
- Mary Barnett as F'htar
- Salome Jens as Makedah
- Carmen Mathews as Bathsheba
- Karen Morrow as Na'Ama
- Fred Pinkard as Ranor
- Paul Reed as Ben-Hesed
- Kenneth Scott as Yoel
- Richy Shawn as Solomon/ Yoni
- Barbara Webb as Princess Nofrit
References
- ↑ Playbill from original production accessed 16 June 2013
- ↑ Goldman p 376
- ↑ More opening nights on Broadway : a critical quotebook of the musical theatre, 1965 through 1981. 1997. p. 468.
- ↑ Mandelbaum, Ken (1992). Not since Carrie: forty years of Broadway musical flops. St. Martin's Press. p. 41.
- ↑ Mandelbaum p 42
- ↑ Mandelbaum p 41
- ↑ Chapman, John (24 April 1968). "'I'm Solomon' Solemn Musical". Daily News. p. 93.
External links
- I'm Solomon at the Internet Broadway Database
- I'm Solomon at Playbill
- Review at New York Time (subscription required)