42nd St. Moon Blog

After lots of hints, and the world's longest reveal, I can finally announce the finalized, set-in-stone 2006/2007 42nd St. Moon season, complete with a last-minute surprise addition. Here's the word from Greg:

Well, the new season is finally set and approved. Phew! And, in fact, there were last-minute rearrangements and changes. Getting 2006-07 set has been a cliffhanger for us, as well as the audiences! They aren't always this complicated. The new, complete season dates are:

LI’L ABNER
(1956, Johnny Mercer, Gene de Paul)
JULY 20th THRU AUGUST 6th

PARDON MY ENGLISH
(1933, George & Ira Gershwin, Book Adaptation by David Ives)
OCTOBER 19th THRU NOVEMBER 5th

FLORA THE RED MENACE
(1965, John Kander, Fred Ebb, Book by David Thompson)
NOVEMBER 16th THRU DECEMBER 10th

ZORBA
(1968, John Kander, Fred Ebb, Joseph Stein)
MARCH 15th THRU APRIL 1st, 2007

GAY DIVORCE
(1932, Cole Porter, Dwight Taylor)
APRIL 12th APRIL 29TH, 2007

The surprise, of course, is Gay Divorce. We had been hoping to revive one of our most popular shows ever, Cole Porter and Moss Hart's Jubilee, but once again plans for a guest star performer became complicated, so we are holding off on our Jubilee revival, and instead doing Gay Divorce -- the Fred Astaire vehicle that features "Night and Day" and "After You, Who?" among its many wonderful songs. By the way, when Hollywood filmed Gay Divorce as a Fred and Ginger vehicle, the censors insisted the title be changed to The Gay Divorcée -- because the did not want to promote the idea that a divorce could be happy!

Woo hoo! I've never seen any of these shows, although I can't believe that's true, given that Li'l Abner, Flora and Zorba are all more on the modern side of things. Actually, that'll be the fun side of things, because I'm quite positive I've heard multiple songs from each show, but never seen them in context.

So there you have it. The season has landed!