The Musical of Musicals! The Musical!

The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) is a hilarious satire of musical theatre, in musical form, where one story becomes five delightful musicals, each written in the distinctive style of a different master of the form, from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Stephen Sondheim.

The basic plot: June is an ingenue who can’t pay the rent and is threatened by her evil landlord. Will the handsome leading man come to the rescue?

The variations are: a Rodgers & Hammerstein version, set in Kansas in August, complete with a dream ballet; a Sondheim version, featuring the landlord as a tortured artistic genius who slashes the throats of his tenants in revenge for not appreciating his work; a Jerry Herman version, as a splashy star vehicle; an Andrew Lloyd Webber version, a rock musical with themes borrowed from Puccini; and a Kander & Ebb version, set in a speakeasy in Chicago. This comic valentine to musical theatre was the longest running show in the York Theatre Company’s 35-year history before moving to Off-Broadway.