Floroblog

Florodora lives again

2010-08-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

A full year after our staged concert production closed, the Florodora cast from 2009 re-united for a narrated program of highlights at the San Francisco Theater Festival on August 8th, 2010. Cast members enthusiastically reprised their roles and sung a progam including parts of the opening chorus and act one finale, Somebody, Phrenology, Shade of the Palm, Tact, Millionaire, Land of my Home, Tell Me Pretty Maiden (of course) and Queen of the Philippine Islands.

The beautiful "lost" Florodora score played to appreciative San Francisco audiences for and was greeted with applause by the theater festival attendees in the large 396 seat Forum venue. The cast really likes this show and a good time was had by all. Again.

Florodora Lives

2009-08-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

Last night, August 1st, 2009, for the first time in who-knows-how-long, a full cast of performers acted through all of Florodora's scenes and songs and hilarious dialog with Lyric Theatre's great sounding salon orchestra to a very enthusiastic sold-out house. Florodora returned to the stage and radiantly shined.

A year ago I'd have given odds of 10-1 against this ever happening. But it really happened.

San Jose Mercury Three Things To Do Tomorrow

2009-08-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Aug 1st, our Florodora revival was listed in the San Jose Mercury News as one of "Three Things To Do Tomorrow". By the time the issue went to press, we had already sold out our Sunday August 2nd performance!

A Show For Any G&S Group

2009-08-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

The performing edition of Florodora which we have created, with its new vocal score, revised performing edition libretto, midi practice files and band parts would be a perfect fit for the repertoire of any G&S performing group.

Florodora Sold Out

2009-08-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

Our short run of Florodora has sold out! Interest is very high and the buzz around the show is simply amazing.

Down To The Wire

2009-07-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

An intense week for run throughs of Florodora but the result is a great sounding, funny show. The cast has found their characters and the fun, silly character of the Florodora. The orchestra and the new orchestrations sound great and we have been working on lights and other production elements. I've been very very lucky to get such a great cast and orchestra and crew.

People genuinely seem to like Florodora. It is understandable - it was written to be a very popular, appealing, mass-market show with, to mis-quote Anthony Tweedlepunch, "bumps of operetta, music hall and variety that stand out like watermelons". Whats not to like?

Both shows are approaching sold out houses. The buzz is very good. Light the lights! Here comes Florodora.

(I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with myself next week. Oh, yeah, that "day job"...)

T-minus One Week

2009-07-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

Today is the Florodora sitzprobe. Cast meets orchestra for the first time in our production and I daresay in any production of Florodora for a while. The show is sounding and looking wonderful and I know it will be a lot of fun for both the cast and the audience come (gulp) next Saturday at the Mountain View Center.

It's Florodora days once more!

At right is a 1927 advert for Elgin watches. I guess these days my watch does harken me back for Florodora. Almost daily.

Florodora and Baby Doe Tabor

2009-07-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Michael Crozier, our Cyrus Gilfain in Lyric Theatre's upcoming Florodora is also involved with Berkeley Opera's production of Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe. According to this website of "Opera Performances in Old Colorado"
(http://operapronto.home.comcast.net/~operapronto/performances.pt2.html)
Florodora played at the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colorado on Jun 24th 1907.

This was 8 years after Horace Tabor died, but Baby Doe was still alive and, I presume, living at the Matchless Mine. I'm guessing that she was probably too distressed by 1907 to see this production of Florodora, but you never know.....

Florodora is like the Kevin Bacon of musical comedies, with more music history connections than even Cellier's Dorothy.

The Ensemble Sounds GREAT!

2009-07-09T17:26:00.000-07:00

The ensemble sounds GREAT! A lot of dedicated people have really worked very hard to learn the score. It is absolutely marvelous to be able to hear all the vocal lines. Our production will have 21 voices, with a full double sextet as well as the individual lead vocal lines and a 10-piece salon orchestra.

It is amazing! I've only imagined what Florodora might sound like from listening to Midi - which really just can't give the correct vocal effect. I can't wait to hear what it sounds like when it gets put together with our orchestra (sitzprobe, July 25th is the first time cast meets orchestra).

They sang Florodora songs in public!

2009-07-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

Last night during a cabaret at the Cafe Trieste in San Jose, soloist from Lyric Theatre sang two numbers from Florodora - and not the two numbers that most people might imagine! Cara Arellano (who is playing Lady Holyrood) sang the tounge-twisting When I Leave Town and Diane Squires (playing Dolores in our upcoming show) gave a beautiful rendition of Paul Ruben's The Queen of the Philippine Islands. In all probability it is the first time anything from Florodora, especially these two great numbers, got a public airing 'round these parts in a very long time.

The energetic and enthusiastically received program included numbers from Lyric's current and next season.

In other developments, we also found a Welsh Harp to use as a prop in act 2.

Florodora Premiered in S.F. on September 30, 1901

2009-06-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

Florodora premiered in San Francisco on September 30, 1901 in the Columbia Theatre, once at Powell and Ellis streets, destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire (resurrected in 1910 as the home of the A.C.T.). This is much earlier than I had previously thought! The Oct 1st 1901 review of the original S.F. production is online in the Library of Congress archives of the San Francisco Call newspaper (text below):

SAN FRANCISCO is now lined up with the rest of the earth on the "Florodora" question; "Floradora" has come, been seen, and has conquered. Every seat was filled last night at the Columbia to greet the tuneful comedy, and almost as many people forgot they were standing for the two acts and three hours of the bright nonsense that "Florodora" brings to town. Owen Hall, who wrote the book of "The Geisha," has written a vastly smarter one for '"Florodora." achieving an almost Oscar Wilde figure in the satiric society widow, Lady Holyrood. The plot has a little more fiber than is common with its kind, the lines are sufficiently bright, and the book is fitted to catchy, sparkling melodies throughout, for which Mr. Leslie Stewart [sic] is responsible. The mountings are rich and picturesque, and the costumes bright, smart, novel and fresh, and there is a chorus that goes like clockwork, with the aid of an apparently unlimited number of pretty girls and spruce young men. The orchestra, too, is a considerable feature, and under Mr. Pallma's [?] competent baton is very pleasing.

Florodora as everybody knows, is one of the Philippine islands, that has been stolen from a lone, lorn orphan, Dolores, by a respectable British [sic] pirate, Cyrus W. Gilfain by name. Gilfain has also pirated Dolores' lamented papa's recipe for the famous Florodora perfume, by which the bloated monopolist has succeeded in acquiring a millionaireship. His attempt to keep the secret of his odorous crime by trying to marry the orphan, and his amusing adventures among the English aristocracy, form the basis of the story, worked out with a rich and racy humor by Owen Hall, who has had more American millionaires than Astor in London to draw from.

The part of Gilfain is well taken by W. T. Carleton. who makes his appearance here after too long an absence. He looks the planter excellently, sings his songs in a sweet, though not strong voice, and filling all other requirements of the role. The prettiest thing in the play is Miss Grace Dudley, a delicate and dainty little lady who takes the Lady Holyrood part. She dances like a fairy, as the children say and has snap, air, vim enough to supply the crowd. She is everything she should be, this chic and piquant little damsel, pretty as a picture, too, but she can't sing, any more than can Miss Millard, who is the Dolores of the cast. Miss-Millard wears the only tights in the "Florodora" crowd to admiration, and looks just the petulant Tivoli [The S.F. Opera House at the time] cherub we all remember, but she has not yet learned how to sing. Frances Gordon is another pretty maiden, and is charming as Angela Gilfain.

Mr. Bowers, as Frank Abercoed. was very pleasing, and has a smooth and sweet voice that appears in "Under the Palms" to best advantage, Philip Ryley is the comedian, and a beautifully unearthly figure he is as Anthony Tweedlepunch. He is funny in a felicitously original fashion and has a splendid part as Tweedlepuneh. "Tell Me, Pretty Maiden." sung by the double sextet, is probably one of the prettiest numbers ever seen on the local stage, and was encored time and again by the audience, which went away at 11:15 whistling it.

"Florodora" has certainly "arrived.

And on August 1st and 2nd, 2009 it will again!

One could spend hours reading these online newspapers for references to Florodora. There are 3080 search results for Florodora in the newspaper archive just through 1910, though a lot of them are cigar advertisements, and those are only the pages where the word was indexed.

April 9, 1905 - Florodora in San Francisco

2009-06-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

Correction: I had previously written that Florodora found its way to the San Francisco area in 1907. Previously, I had only found early references to a production of Florodora at Idora Park in Oakland, staged there because of the damage to S.F. theaters due to the 1906 quake.

Now I've come across a reference and an advert for Florodora production at the Tivoli Opera House in San Francisco - the major performing arts house at the time - in April 1905. First I found a short reference in Week's Offerings at the Theaters in the San Francisco Call newspaper dated April 23, 1905 in the With the Players and Music Folk section on page 19. The paragraph reads:

The Tivoli is enjoying success with its good production of "Florodora" that, it should be remembered, may now be seen for the first time at popular prices.

You can see the whole newspaper page here, though you have to zoom in the the second column from the right, three paragraphs above the lower right photo to find the text quoted above.Later in the newspaper on page 35, there is the ad, shown above. From this I was able to determine that the show opened in San Francisco on April 9, 1905. But, it also says "Better Than The Original", and I don't know whether that means the original N.Y. or London productions or if it is a reference to an even earlier San Francisco opening of Florodora. The paucity of the review suggests there is an even earlier S.F. production to find.

Top ticket price of 75 cents and the California Beauty Sextet! The review from April 10, 1905 is below.

The Mountain View California-Florodora Connection

2009-06-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

There had to be a Mountain View-Florodora connection, and there is: Delphin Michael Delmas (right).

Who you may ask was Delphin Michael Delmas? He was a farmer, dam builder, district attorney, defense attorney, Regent of the University of California, presidential nominator, who was born in France in 1844 but moved to Santa Clara in 1854. A graduate of Santa Clara, and Yale, he came to own 600 acres in Mountain View near El Camino and Bernardo (before it was Sunnyvale).

The Florodora connection? One of the most prominent attorney's of his day, he was the defense attorney in the "crime of the century" defending Harry K Thaw in the murder of Stanford White in New York. The case was the notorious Florodora Girl Evelyn Nesbit love triangle made famous in the movie and musical Ragtime. (Delphin got Harry acquitted by reason of insanity!)

You can read all about Delphin M, Delmas at the Rengstoff House website.

Oh, well there is another Mountain View connection, though more tenuous: San Francisco native Edna May Wallace who played Lady Holyrood in the original New York production of Florodora is one of the notables buried in the Mountain View Cemetery - in Oakland.

Florodora Casting Is Complete...

2009-06-04T15:57:00.000-07:00

I am proud to announce the cast of the Lyric Theatre Discovery Series 2009 revival production of Leslie Stuart's musical theater legend Florodora

Cyrus W. Gilfain.... Michael Crozier
Frank Abercoed..... Nicholas Patton
Capt. Arthur Donegal...... David Powell
Anthony Tweedlepunch.. Mark Blattel
Leandro..... Daniel Zulevic
Dolores..... Diane Squires
Lady Holyrood..... Cara Arellano
Angela Gilfain..... Elinor Gates
Valleda.....

Islanders and English ("Florodora") Girls....

Pat Grennan, Connie Kleinjans, Kathy Kriese, Carol Ann Parker, Rebecca Sacks, Dana Tomasino

Clerks, Islanders and Florodora Boys.....

Mark Baushke, Francis Campana, Mike Ewaska, Gavan Kwan, Bob March, Ed Wei

And the Lyric Theatre Salon Orchestra.....

Violin... Barbara Rumsby
Viola... Goetz Leonhardt
Cello... Madeleine Graham
Bass... Linda Jansen
Flute... Lisa Lawrence
Clarinet... Linda Wilson
Trumpet... Chris Wilhite
Trombone... Jeff Yaeger
Percussion... Justin Horn
Piano... Bruce Herman

Florodora in Summer MVCPA Preview Magazine

2009-06-04T15:42:00.000-07:00

There is an advert for our Discovery production of Florodora in the Summer issue of Preview, the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts magazine:

One Tenor Shy of a Full Perfume Factory

2009-05-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

We are almost fully cast. We are currently one ensemble tenor shy of a full perfume factory. That is to say that we almost have the six clerks, the six English Girls and the 9 named lead characters fully cast. I'll be publishing a cast list shortly.

Sunday in the Park With George Florodora Sighting

2009-05-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. In act two:

George: He denied conventional perspective and conventional space.

Marie: He was unconventional in his liferstyle as well
(ad-libbing again)

So was I! You know I was a Florodora Girl for a short time -- when I left Charleston and before I was married to my first husband --

George (Interrupting her): Marie. Marie!!

Important Dates

2009-05-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

Aside from our usual rehearsal schedule commencing on June 29th, here are dates to keep open:

Saturday May 30 - time TBD Tentative date for our Florodora read through, familiarization session and potluck BBQ at my house. More information very soon.
Saturday July 25 1-4pm (time tentative) Sitzprobe at the Lyric Warehouse.
Friday July 31 - In-venue dress rehearsal at the MVCPA. Call at 6pm. Note that Thursday July 30 is currently scheduled as no rehearsals dark night for the produciton.

Owen Hall, librettist (or, OK, One More Florodora Background Tidbit)

2009-05-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

The standard references in the literature about the Florodora librettist Owen Hall (real name: James Davis, 10 April 1853 - 9 April 1907) are sparse, and on the whole, rather offhand. The pseudonym "Owen Hall" was an ironic nod ('owing all') towards his extensive debts. Another of his pseudonyms was "Payne Nunn." In fact, the was astoundingly prolific during the late Victorian and Edwardian era, and going from the text of our show, quite a good humorist and obviously a well-read literate fellow (as one might expect from a University of London graduate).

As evidence, Neil Midkiff writes of the lyrics in the clerk's sextet in act 1: "In reading a biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the English lexicographer, I was surprised to find a reference to "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" in a quotation from a 1782 letter from Boswell to another friend of Johnson. I had thought those names were invented by Lewis Carroll for _Through the Looking-Glass_, but it turns out that they date back at least to 1725, when an English poet and diarist compared Handel and Bononcini (then in rivalry for superiority in London's musical scene) to these indistinguishable pair of puny rivals from a traditional nursery rhyme."

Well, it has been a while...

2009-05-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

No blog updates in a while, sorry. I've been busy with that pesky day job and logistics surrounding the Florodora performances. This blog will soon start to change direction a little with a director's ramble and more specific information about our revival production.

Crikey Bonza Sheila Gal - Got Any Mates Back In Oz?

2009-03-09T12:22:00.000-07:00

I've just received a pre-press of an article (from Andrew Lamb) for the Summer 2009 edition of On Stage, the quarterly newsletter of Theatre Heritage Australia Inc. The article recounts composer Leslie Stuart's amusing memoir of his Australian "inspiration" for Tell Me Pretty Maiden and a bit more about the original creative conflict surrounding the now famous double sextette from Florodora.

Stuart relates that some of the original blocking of TMPM is his own!

The article is unfortunately only a jpeg scan, but it is legible. You can find the pages here and here.

There will also be a streamed webcast of excerpts of highlights from a 1946 Australian radio broadcast of Stuart's 1911 Musical Comedy Peggy on April 14 from Melbourne FM 96.5 between their time 9pm and 11pm. Victoria, Australia is 18 hours ahead of US PDT which puts the webcast for us Californians unfortunately at (yawn) 4am Tuesday morning April 14. Sigh.

Gotta find me some webcast recording software for Windoze...

Land Of My Home

2009-02-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

The act 2 song Land of my Home appears in the orchestra parts for Florodora, and in two libretti but, oddly enough, not in the standard vocal score for the show. The vocal score contains many alternate numbers written for various versions and revivals of the show, but not this one, though it appeared originally, in a 1920 revival and presuming a date of the orchestra parts, as late as the 1950's.

The problem was finding the vocal line so we could include it in the show. We had the orchestration and the words, but no vocal line and no piano reduction for the song. Neil Midkiff has reconstructed the vocal line and arranged an accompaniment from the orchestrations, using ample instrument doubling as the clues to the tune.

I mentioned this number in an email to Ken Reeves, a musical researcher in England, and he has gone back to an 1899 score in the British Library (logo at right - not a picture of Ken Reeves :-) He was kind enough to call up that old manuscript and copy out the original piano vocal reduction of Land of my Home and mail it to me.

I like Neil's version. Of course I'll leave it up to him what material of the original to adopt, of course, but we'll be able to present this tenor ballad in our concert version of Florodora, probably the first hearing in a very long time.

This Week In Florodora...

2009-02-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

Tucked away in the US Library of Congress and mis-catalogued under the name Floradora, I found this listing for a 30 page book. It has too few pages to be a vocal score and too many for a sheet music song, so I was rather hoping the entry was another source libretto. I applied for a photocopy some weeks ago and it finally arrived on Thursday. It turns out this holding is a book of lyrics which is stamped "Received at the LOC on Dec 11 1899" - just a month after the show's opening in London and a year before it opened in New York. This helps yield some clues into the original order of numbers and lyrics, many of which were probably printed before the musical was finished, as the meter of the poetry in this lyric book doesn't exactly match the rhythms of the music from the vocal score.

One of the mysteries, the number Land of my Home, appears in this book of lyrics. So, contrary to a number of sources, it was at least intended for the original production.

Florodora auditions will be announced shortly. We also have a preliminary calendar very similar to what you might expect for a Discovery show, but with a mandatory orchestra sitzprobe (tentatively Saturday July 25th at 1 pm), a couple orchestra run-thrus in the warehouse, and the dress rehearsal at the venue on July 31st.

I received an e-mail from Ken Reeves, a scholar of stage musicals of the late Victorian and Edwardian period. Ken is currently presenting a series on early musicals at the Westminster Public Reference Library in central London. On 24 March he'll be leading an audience participation presentation of The Shop Girl, the 1894 Gaiety musical. We've struck up a dialog about Florodora.

You can visit Ken's website at www.hobbyist.co.uk/postcards/earlybritishmusicals

Tell all your friends. Florodora is going to be fun!

I Was A Florodora Baby

2009-02-21T15:06:00.000-08:00

In the stage revue Ziegfeld Follies of 1920, "Funny Girl" Fanny Brice sang the song I Was a Florodora Baby in which she croons "...the other five got married for money, and I got married for love". The song was a big pop hit 21 years after Florodora first opened!

That song and legend of the Florodora Girl still remained in popular culture and Brice again sang the number in the Warner Brothers Vitaphone (sound from phonograph records) film My Man in 1928.

Here is an excerpt from the Vitaphone disc featuring Brice singing I Was a Florodora Baby (complete with an affected New Yawk Yiddishe accent and pronounciation). After the song, the sound track continues with some dialog underscored by the orchestration of Tell Me Pretty Maiden from Stuart's Florodora score.

Florodora In Paris

2009-02-05T08:19:00.001-08:00

The successful Florodora opening in Paris noted in the NY Times, January 28, 1903. The encored cakewalk mentioned is undoubtedly Tell Me Pretty Maiden.
(note they misspelled the composer's name and call it an operetta). I wonder if a libretto or score survives in French?

Draft Performing Edition - January 2009

2009-01-25T09:22:00.000-08:00

A draft performing edition of Florodora including the new vocal score, libretto and midi files are available. If you didn't recently receive and email with a link to them and would like to take a look, please send me an email and I'll provide a link to the materials.

1952 Florodora Glasgow Connections

2009-01-25T08:45:00.000-08:00

I've recently acquired a programme for a professional production of Florodora in Glasgow, Scotland in 1952. Old programs give an idea of how the show changed over time and yield insights into why the vocal score and orchestra parts came to be as they are. In the programme I found two surprises:

The Music Director and production manager was Cyril Dawson. The orchestra parts in my colection have two numbers where Mr. Dawson credited as doing the orchestrations

The theater assistant manager was Durward Lely. He was the son of the original D'Oyly Carte tenor Durward Lely Sr. who created the role of Nanki-Poo in The Mikado among many others.

The programme also includes the name of rights holders which also appear in some of the old orchestra parts and, of course, the list of lead actors. The only one I can track down on the intertubes is long-time British actress Hilda Campbell-Russell (right) who played the role of Lady Holyrood on that tour.

There are indications that the parts were used in the early 1950's. While it is tantalizing, one can't know whether they were used for this Florodora tour. Still, finding these connections is so much fun and connects me to the show even more.

Oysters Florodora

2009-01-25T08:32:00.000-08:00

OK, so I know that oysters aren't every body's favorite food, but in the Florodora days they were quite a delicacy. As yet another example of how the show wove its way into popular culture, I ran across this recipe for Oysters Florodora:

MELT three tablespoonfuls of butter in a pan;
add four tablespoonfuls of flour and stir till smooth;
then add one-half teaspoonful of dry mustard,
a half teaspoonful of paprika,
a teaspoon of minced parsley,
two table-spoonfuls of lemon-juice,
two of Worcestershire sauce,
salt and one and
one-half cupfuls of strained oyster liquor

When the sauce is hot and bubbling drop in a pint of oysters, that have been carefully looked over, and cook till they are plump. Serve on hot buttered toast with pimolas on the side.

P.S. Pimolas are olives stuffed with pimentos.

The Royal Aquarium

2009-01-14T20:49:00.000-08:00

In Florodora, the comic character Professor Tweedlepunch repeatedly introduces himself as being a Phrenologist "from the Royal Aquarium, London". Originally we had thought that this was a simple humorous non sequitur. Why in the world would a phrenologist be from an aquarium? So, we had originally thought it was like saying you were a snowplow driver from Tahiti.

BUT, it turns out that the Royal Aquarium was an actual place in Victorian London, designed as an aquarium in 1876, but never (almost) used as such. Originally having tanks and an elaborate system of pipes and many other multi-purpose rooms, almost immediately it ran into operating difficulties, but did once manage to display a dead whale.

By the 1890s, the Aquarium had acquired a risqué reputation, with unaccompanied ladies promenading through the hall in search of male companionship. It contained a legit theater which was mostly used as a music hall and for circus and other exotic entertainments. A natural place for a dubious sham phrenologist-cum-detective to claim to hail from, isn't it?

There are two other interesting Savoy Opera connections: The Royal Aquarium included a theater, the aptly named Aquarium Theatre. It had an unusually large Grand Organ whose installation and construction in 1877 was supervised by none other than Arthur Sullivan. In its opening year, one of the plays produced was an adaptation of Great Expectations by W. S. Gilbert.

Still in existence when Florodora was written in 1899, The Royal Aquarium was demolished in 1903, though the Aquarium Theatre stood until 1907. It is immortalized in Florodora. You can read all about it on Wikipedia.

Florodora Girl as The Ideal

2009-01-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

The image and allure of the Florodora Girl replaced the Gibson Girl as the feminine ideal in the early years of the 20th century. Here is an illustration by Hamilton King of a Florodora Girl (1902) which was distributed by Turkish Trophies Cigarettes:

Hamilton King would soon draw the famous Coca-Cola Girl (left) advertising image, and in June 1920 King drew this gorgeous Theatre Magazine cover portrait of Marion Davies (right), who was later the producer and star of the 1930 movie The Florodora Girl (see below).

To this day, the Society of Illustrators annually awards their Hamilton King award for excellence.

And Happy New Year

2009-01-01T01:32:00.000-08:00

Best wishes for a healthy and music-filled 2009, everybody.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T11:46:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to one and all. I hope everyone is enjoying a happy and safe holiday. I hope Santa was good to all you good boys and girls out there. Among the battery operated toys and wrapping paper I received a few great musical prezzies:

Vocal score of a concert version of Edward German's Merrie England
Vocal score of a concert version of Montague Phillips operetta The Rebel Maid (1921)
A bound library vocal score of The Gondoliers to replace my very used Schirmer copy
The 2-CD set of the Bognor Regis (UK) Music Society's June 2008 concert of Sidney Jones' 1898 operetta/musical comedy A Greek Slave (wow!)
A DVD of the BBC docu-drama on the life of the Edwardian music hall queen Marie Lloyd

Florodora Production Details

2008-12-18T22:23:00.000-08:00

The details have been finally worked out and I can tell you that Florodora will be presented August 1st and 2nd 2009 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts downtown on Castro Street in the SecondStage theater space. I will be stage directing and Neil Midkiff will be Music Director. As a celebration of reaching the 10th Discovery show, Florodora will be presented with a new orchestration accompanied by the Lyric Theatre Salon Orchestra.

We are working on a Discovery performing edition, with a new modern vocal score and orchestra parts based on the original score and parts with matching midi files. We are working hard to get the performing materials finished so we can cast Florodora as early as possible - and especially so cast members can start to learn the music well in advance.

We'll begin rehearsals approx June 29th with a full week of music rehearsals. Because of the addition of the orchestra, we've scheduled the luxury of an extra full week of rehearsals AND there will also bean in-venue dress rehearsal on the evening of Friday July 31st - as well as orchestra rehearsals and a sitzprobe in the Lyric warehouse.

Florodora will be a lot of fun and, naturally, the Greatest Show Ever.

Audition dates and other details soon. Watch this space!

Florodora Book Is Really Funny

2008-12-11T10:49:00.000-08:00

Neil Midkiff and I have been editing a performing edition of the Florodora libretto. The dialog is very, very funny and chocked full of jokes and good puns. We are mergeing the best from two similar sources, a printed libretto from an English revival (date unknown) and somewhat Americanized version which seems a bit earlier.

Most of the English characters are funny, led forcefully by the Lady Holyrood character who has some of the best jokes involving marriage and other social commentary.

Librettist Owen Hall (James Davis) really did a good job with this one!

What Became of the Florodora BOYS?

2008-12-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping a lot of people will want to be able to boast of joining the famous theatrical ranks Florodora Girls and Florodora Boys.

Speaking of Florodora Boys, this scene from a very early comedy-variety talkie in 1929 speculated of the fate of the original 6 Florodora Boys - the actors who played The Clerks who are the love interests for the Florodora Girls. The original actresses all left the show and married millionaires. But what ever happened to the boys???

"The Show of Shows" features early comedy films stars Heine Conklin, Lupino Lane, Bert Roach, Ben Turpin, and Lloyd Hamilton as Messrs Sims, Pym, Apfelbaum, Haskell, Grogan and Scott. There's an amusing but longish introduction to get past. The number - a take-off on Tell me Pretty Maiden - begins about a minute-and-a-half into the clip. Note the Florodora Girl line cakewalk blocking strongly resembles the entrance step in the clip from the Florodora Girl movie (see previous posting).

(In real life, one of the Florodora boys in an early revival was Milton Berle. He did quite well).

Vamping Until Sunday...

2008-12-09T11:08:00.000-08:00

I hope to get the greenlight from the Lyric PTBs at Sunday's BoD meeting and then share all the exciting details. Any and all moral support for the BoD meeting gleefully accepted. The Board needs to vote on the budget, venue and artistic staff. I promise, then, that all will be revealed.

In the meantime, work is being done on the score and the libretto. The plan is to have a brand new much improved Florodora vocal score and matching midi files in people's hands as early as possible.

It all sounds bright and fun and will be a hoot to perform.

The Florodora Cocktail V2

2008-12-09T11:05:00.000-08:00

I tried a Florodora Cocktail during Thanksgiving. It is a summer-y sort of punch drink, at least the basic version. The "imperial" version with cognac might pack a little more, oh, whats the word, punch.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T16:56:00.000-08:00

I hope everybody has a wonderful, restful and happy Thanksgiving.

The Name "Florodora"

2008-11-26T16:37:00.000-08:00

Legend has it that the name of the show, the word"Florodora", was cooked up with the help of the J. Grossmith & Son London firm of perfumers.

It is supposed to be "love the smell of flowers" not "Adore flora". But it has been often misspelled "Floradora" ever since. (Floradora is the brand name of a design of Royal Doulton dishware, among other things).

Unlike G&S Operettas, it has no subtitle, although "The Queen of the Philippine Islands" is often cited. The score merely says "A Musical Comedy".

Vamping Until Ready...

2008-11-20T15:48:00.000-08:00

I'm waiting on final paperwork for the venue and action from the GSSSJ Board to announce specifics about the Florodora Discovery production.

I'd like people to keep August 1st and 2nd, 2009 clear.

In the meantime, I'll keep vamping - posting Florodora Fun Facts as I learn them.

The Florodora Girl (1930) Movie

2008-11-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

In this 1930 movie, Daisy Dell (played by Marion Davies) is the last of the famous Florodora Girls not to be married. Daisy is awkward and shy until she meets and falls in love with Jack Vibart (Lawrence Gray). Jack falls for Daisy but his Mother persuades Daisy to stay away so that the wealthy family won't be disgraced. In this final reel (shot in two-tone Technicolor) Jack follows Daisy out onto the stage during a performance to propose marriage.

This clip shows the re-creation of the famous Act 2 sextette Tell Me Pretty Maiden, the only number from Florodora in the movie. The choreography shown is very close to genuine. The stage at New York's Casino Theater was quite shallow, which accounts for the straight lines and limited movement of the ensemble. Costumes are more Hollywood than the modest originals. The chorus number actually has a less famous second verse, which is not sung in the film, in which the girls quiz the boys. The verse will be included in our Discovery staging.

Marion Davies life story was very close to the life of a Florodora Girl, having been whisked out of the Ziegfeld Follies by William Randolph Hurst, who footed the bill for a number of her films (she's listed as Producer of The Florodora Girl).

The New York production of Florodora originally had a chorister named Daisy Green (not Dell) though its not clear whether she was the last to be whisked off the stage by a rich suitor. The cast list includes a character named "Daisy Chain" as one of the six English Girls.

Thanks to Neil Midkiff for a copy of the film.

The First Cast Recording

2008-11-14T08:36:00.000-08:00

In September and October of 1900, the two-year-old Gramophone Company of London invited cast members from Florodora to make recordings of the songs that they were singing every night in the show. The world's first ever "original cast recording" was created in four sessions, comprising 14 seven-inch disks (the longer playing - by about a minute - higher fidelity 10-inch 78 rpm hadn't yet been invented).

It was a big gamble. The primitive recording technology of the day better captured louder, and often less accomplished, singers. The Florodora cast members persevered, giving themselves a place in history and giving us an important record of the style of performance in the original production.

In Lady Holyrood's solo numbers, actress Ada Reeve practically recites many of her numbers music hall style. Some of this clipped delivery might be exaggerated so that the words came through on the recording, but contemporary accounts and reviews also tell us of her comic melodrama style. Now we can hear it. Indeed in the vocal score the notes in the vocal line of the number are represented in all sixteenth notes - and now we know why.

Florodora's composer, Leslie Stuart, happened to be filling in as conductor at the Lyric Theatre during this time and joined in on the recording sessions as accompanist on a day of these recordings. We can safely assume those numbers are delivered in a manner that the composer approved of! Paul Rubens, lyricist, also accompanies the recordings. (Rubens soon became a noted composer/lyricist of many West End hit musicals).

Eleven of these original Florodora recordings were released on a modern CD by Pearl records in 1993 and though now discontinued, new and used copies can still be found on the Internet. The recordings are understandably low fidelity, but give us another connection to the Florodora Days.

Happy 109th Birthday, Florodora

2008-11-11T16:59:00.000-08:00

Florodora opened exactly 109 years ago today, November 11th, 1899 at the Lyric Theatre in London where it originally ran for 455 performances!

The Florodora Cocktail

2008-11-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

I've gotta try this one after a long day of scanning:

60 ml London dry gin
15 ml fresh lime juice
15 ml Chambord liqueur (or BOLS Raspberry, Framboise, etc)
Ginger ale

For a Florodora "Imperial Style" replace the Gin with Cognac. Yum.

Shake well with 4 to 5 ice cubes in a chilled cocktail shaker, then pour unstrained into a Collins glass and top off with the cold ginger ale. Lime Wedge garnish.

I'll take two!

Florodora In Joyce and Woodhouse

2008-11-09T18:18:00.000-08:00

Florodora shows up in the oddest places...

The tenor song in Florodora, In the Shade of the Palm, is artfully mis-quoted all through the Sirens chapter of Joyce's Ulysses. In Florodora, the heroic tenor Frank Abercoed tells his beloved Dolores that he'll return if she but waits patiently for him. Get it?

In The Adventures of Sally by P.G. Wodehouse takes a swipe at all of the actresses who ever claimed to be a Florodora Girl:

Sally was disappointed, but it was such a beautiful morning, and New York was so wonderful after the dull voyage in the liner that she was not going to allow herself to be depressed without good reason. After all, she could go on to Detroit tomorrow. It was nice to have something to which she could look forward.

"Oh, is Elsa in the company?" she said.

"Sure. And very good too, I hear." Mrs. Meecher kept abreast of theatrical gossip. She was an ex-member of the profession herself, having been in the first production of "Florodora," though, unlike everybody else, not one of the original Sextette. "Mr. Faucitt was down to see a rehearsal, and he said Miss Doland was fine. And he's not easy to please, as you know."

Scanning Old Parts

2008-11-02T17:04:00.000-08:00

Scanning, scanning, scanning.

The Florodora vocal score is scanned and now I'm scanning the orchestra parts. Some of the orchestra parts are quite old and fragile and have a lot of edge damage from years of quick page turns and many repaired tears fixed with - now yellowing - tape. The binding on the covers is quite old and the deteriorating tape on rips and replaced adjacent pages is sticking together. And as with all old ephemera, the acid in the paper is causing some foxing and ink is fading a bit, but this isn't an issue - yet.

All this, you can imagine, makes the scanning (even more) tedious. So far, the 14 numbers comprising the cello parts of Act 1 need the most TLC. They are the top of the list for re-entering in a modern notation program.

But - happy news - most of the orchestra parts are VERY readable and still could be used out of the box. In fact, some of the pages never seem to have been used (well not, say within the last 50+ years). The second act was most recently re-copied very meticulously by hand for all of the parts on very good paper.

At one time there must have been at least 14 full sets of Florodora in circulation - these parts are marked "Set 'N'", and I have a couple of books marked "Set 'H'". Some have "1952" written on the cover.

Even if we can't do the Discovery with full orchestra, I will feel good having preserved Florodora. Too many of these old shows have lost their orchestrations over the years.

Random Coincidences

2008-10-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

Random coincidences will occur, especially in the incestuous world of theater. There are going to be many surrounding a show as big as Florodora, but here are two that strike me as particularly fun factoids :

In the original N.Y. production of Florodora Lady Holyrood was played by the actress/singer Edna Wallace Hopper (right). Edna was the estranged wife of actor William DeWolf Hopper - who played Ravenne in Erminie. Edna was a San Francisco native and from all accounts led a rather colorful life.
The original London production of Florodora premiered at the Lyric Theatre which some of you might recall was built from the proceeds from Dorothy, a previous Discovery production. Just as Dorothy far outran The Mikado, Florodora far outran The Rose of Persia.

I like to find out about the people who starred in and created the shows as it gives me a better feeling of connection to the material.

Considerably More 'Go'

2008-10-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

In 1906, Florodora composer Leslie Stuart (right) was asked in an interview about being judged against the example of Gilbert and Sullivan. He said, "We living composers either imitate - unpardonable sin - or do not imitate - which is worse".

Florodora - having premiered in the same city and the same month as The Rose of Persia - would naturally be compared to Savoy Operas. Tom B. Davis, a Florodora producer, commented: "In some respects it may be said to resemble a Savoy Opera, but with all due respect to those really, in many cases beautiful creations, Florodora has considerably more 'go' than they have, whilst about its music, it has that peculiar charm that Stuart seems to have made so peculiarly his own".

By the time he composed Florodora 36-year-old Stuart (real name, Thomas Barrett) was already an established composer of popular song and contributor to musical comedies. In the British Empire he was famous as composer of the song Soldiers of the Queen (or King, depending...) and a large number of once popular but now entirely regrettable music hall "coon" songs.

Well aware that he lived and composed in the long shadow of a master, a portrait of Sullivan hung above the reed organ on which Stuart composed. His own compositions were more in the style of popular music and more 20th century rhythmic invention, utilizing more counterpoint, syncopation, layering, and an abundance of dotted meters in, on average, brighter, brisker tempi. In the biography "Leslie Stuart - The Man Who Composed Florodora" Andrew Lamb writes:

Altogether, Leslie Stuart was surely more adventurous than Sullivan in the way he set out to create effects, even if those effects did not always succeed in the way that Sullivan's painstaking settings of his lyricists words did.

Why Florodora?

2008-10-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

Florodora was the world's first international mega-musical. As time went on it became a showbiz legend - the first musical theater legend. Almost 30 years before Showboat, before Oklahoma!, before Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera there was Florodora, which showed what could happen when a stage musical permeates popular culture. Liken it to how Pinafore electrified the world of operetta twenty years earlier.

There was Florodora soap, clasps, hats, cigars and, of course, perfume. The Gibson Girl was replaced by the Florodora Girl. Every major town in the English speaking world saw a production or tour. The world's first ever cast recording was of, you guessed it, Florodora.

Florodora opened in London in 1899 and ran for nearly 3 years and was almost immediately revived. The next year saw an even longer run on Broadway in New York City. Florodora circled the globe to every major city. It opened in Seattle in 1901 and eventually in the Bay Area in 1907. It achieved the financial success and lasting fame that every major musical was measured against for decades.

"They are goddesses, the first of their class to immortalize the chorus girl," one critic stated in fulsome tribute to the damsels.

The much hyped celebrities of Florodora, The Six Florodora Girls, became international celebrities and for no rational reason, were whisked off the stage by rich bachelors at an astounding rate. During the two year run of the show in London and New York, hundreds of women were replaced in the role, and even more claimed to have been.

In San Francisco, ballet audiences were given the chance to vote on which choristers would become the Florodora Girls! In reality, as you can see, they weren't "chorus girls" as we know them, but very well coiffed, stylish and modestly costumed English ladies.

Whether or not you'll think that Florodora is the greatest show ever composed, its music was known and played for years. Celebrities kept Florodora on their bios for their entire lives - Milton Berle kept it on his resume (as a youth he was a Florodora Boy), Gypsy Rose Lee's mother claimed to have been a Florodora Girl, In My Man (1928) Fannie Brice sang "I Was a Florodora Baby,". The lives of the "original six" were chronicled until their deaths. Harry Truman played selections on the piano while in the White House. There was a feature movie in 1930, The Florodora Girl, and reference to the show appeared in literature and advertising for decades. Evelyn Nesbitt, the notorious femme fatale of Ragtime fame, was a chorister in the show (though it is unclear whether she was ever actually one of THE Six).

And we get to perform it, see it and hear it next summer!

Where Things Stand

2008-10-23T14:20:00.000-07:00

We have applied for a venue and dates for the show and as soon as they are confirmed, they'll be posted here. I think the venue will prove exciting, convenient and commodious. It is a little different from the spaces where we've performed Discovery shows before. Tantalized? Stay tuned.

Ann Byler and I are getting together to look over the orchestrations and work out other issues concerning having the orchestra join in on the fun. The pars are old, but many of them are quite readable and serviceable - in fact it looks as though some have never been used. how much we re-create will depend on staffing, speaking of which...

Ann Byler is also the head of the Production Staffing committee. Lyric needs to select the production staff for Florodora. Soon.

I've got two unedited librettos of the Florodora in electronic format. As with most shows we look at for Discovery, Florodora has undergone many changes in the last 109 years. I feel particularly lucky to have found a libretto which corresponds to the numbers and their order in the band parts, although we are missing the vocal line to a couple of songs and the re-written Act 2 finale (it is a restatement of a previous song as say, Pirates, so shouldn't be too hard to re-construct). Thankfully, Act 1 is virtually identical in every way and every source.

I'm on a global hunt (via e-mail) for those missing numbers and will post progress. Those numbers are a particularly tantalizing riddle - we have the lyrics and the orchestral accompaniment, just not the vocal lines! We don't know when they were added to the show. In the end the sheet music may be found, the tunes may be (mostly) reconstructible from the orchestration, or the numbers may have to be cut.

In my search thus far, I've contacted musicologists, orchestrators and operetta lovers worldwide. They all wish us luck and can't wait to see and hear the finished result.

Welcome to Floroblog!

2008-10-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

I've decided to create a blog for the upcoming Discovery show Florodora to help Discoverites understand, participate and comment on the process of creating our Discovery 2009 production. I hope that by opening the ongoing process of reviving a Discovery show, the Lyric Theatre community will get more involved and excited. Until now, the process of revival has been somewhat opaque - naturally since a relatively small (but intense) production team has worked on the performing editions and the various issues surrounding the show revivals.

I'd like to change that and rev-up enthusiasm and interest by both opening up the process and, when appropriate, asking for help from other volunteers. For some of the tasks, individual or small group effort will be the most appropriate, and for others the participation and enthusiasm of others will be encouraged.

Florodora is a smashing show (much more about it later) and will be a lot of fun. As our 10th Discovery (could it have been that many already?) many know that I have the fool idea of presenting Florodora with orchestra, extending the Lyric community of performers involved in Discovery to our fine orchestra, and serving up to the audience - as a one-off - with the color and delight of the orchestral music of a staged version.

I don't expect all too many of you will be interested in the academic research involved in digging up the up scarce source materials - but I hope some might and there's always work to do there. I don't expect solving the puzzles of the various production aspects will appeal to everyone, either - but some might be interested in helping and there's always work to do there solving problems both practical and process to streamline and present an even greater show.

It doesn't stretch the imagination that staging a Discovery with an orchestra - dozens of more people - will involve more work and require more volunteer dedication and perseverance. I KNOW we can build on - and improve upon - the experience of Merrie England, Rose of Persia, The Maid of the Mountains, Robin Hood, Dorothy, The Arcadians, The Serenade, The Quaker Girl, Erminie and now, Florodora. Gosh, what a list!

So please subscribe to the blog to see posts all about Florodora - the revival and the production process - announcements, and the occasional appeal for volunteers and, if you can, reply with constructive ideas and comments. Thanks.