Garland Movie To Become Stage Musical?
Creators of a new stage version of the 1950 M-G-M movie musical “Summer Stock” are hoping an industry audience will “get happy” enough at an August reading of the developing show to give it a wider future. The score will feature songs from the movie plus newly written numbers.
This new adaptation, also called Summer Stock, has book by Sam Scalamoni and Jeffrey Haddow (Chekhov in Yalta) and ten new songs by composer Thomas Tierney (Eleanor, Narnia) and lyricists Tierney and Haddow. Scalamoni directs. Casting will be announced.
The movie starred Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. Garland was a frumpy Connecticut farmer who reluctantly let her sister (Gloria De Haven) and her summer-stock actor pals (including Kelly and Phil Silvers) put on a show in their barn. Garland inevitably became the star of the revue-style extravaganza, singing one of her signature movie-musical hits, “Get Happy,” by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. (The movie score featured songs by a handful of writers including Mack Gordon and Harry Warren and composer-lyricist Saul Chaplin; “Get Happy” was an added specialty, filmed long after principal photography had ended in order to give a troubled Garland time to slim down.)
Four songs from the film remain in this stage adaptation, including “Get Happy.”
