Pipe Dream (musical) - Productions

Productions

Pipe Dream premiered on Broadway on November 30, 1955 at the Shubert Theatre, with Helen Traubel as Fauna, William Johnson as Doc, Judy Tyler as Suzy, George D. Wallace as Mac and Mike Kellin as Hazel. The show had received the largest advance ticket sale in Broadway history to that point, $1.2 million. Some of Steinbeck's ill-feeling was removed on the second night, which he attended and then went backstage to greet the cast. After a celebratory dinner at Sardi's during which the manager sent champagne to his table, he said to his wife Elaine, "Isn't the theatre marvelous?" The author held no grudge; he later told Hammerstein that he accepted that Rodgers and Hammerstein were ultimately responsible for the show and had the right to make changes.

Rodgers and Hammerstein had not permitted group sales, so-called "theatre parties" for their shows. They lifted the ban for Pipe Dream, and pre-sold theatre party sales helped keep the show going, as there were few sales after opening night given the dismal reviews. More than 70 performances were entirely sold to groups. In March 1956, in a final attempt to save the show, Rodgers and Hammerstein revised it somewhat, moving several musical numbers. Traubel missed a number of performances due to illness, and left when her contract expired a few weeks before the show closed in June 1956—she was replaced by Nancy Andrews. Traubel's understudy, Ruth Kobart, played 42 of the show's 245 performances.

Pipe Dream was nominated for nine Tony Awards; it lost for best musical to the only other nominee, Damn Yankees. Alvin Colt was the sole winner, for Best Costume Design. Johnson died of a heart attack within a year of Pipe Dream's closing; Tyler died in an automobile accident during the same timespan. These tragedies convinced Traubel that there was a curse attached to Pipe Dream, and she began carrying good-luck charms when she performed.

The poor reviews of Pipe Dream made a national tour or London run impractical. Subsequent productions have been extremely rare. In 1981, a community theatre production of Pipe Dream was presented by the Conejo Theatre in Thousand Oaks, California. Los Angeles Times critic Dan Sullivan admired the small-scale staging, but called the show "the emptiest musical that two geniuses ever wrote" and said of it, "imagine a song about a bawdyhouse which describes the goings-on there after midnight as 'friendly, foolish and gay'". In 1995 and 2002, 42nd Street Moon presented it as a staged concert. It was presented in March–April 2012 by New York City Center Encores!, also as a staged concert; the cast featureed Will Chase (Doc), Laura Osnes (Suzy), Leslie Uggams (Fauna), and Tom Wopat (Mac). No film version was contemplated in the authors' lifetimes. The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, which licenses the pair's works, proposed a film version with the Muppets. Humans would play Doc and Suzy; Muppets would play the other roles—with Miss Piggy as Fauna.