GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADWAY : Still Hoping for Some Enchanted Evening in Camelot

It’s no secret that there has been a creative and financial crisis in the musical theater. So last Monday, when the Tony nominations for best musical appeared, I was surprised that there even was a category this year. Simply put, there is hardly anything new to sing. Many say it was the worst season in history for the Broadway musical.

For me, it was the worst season I’ve ever had as a collector of cast albums. There was not one new album worth buying. It was so bad this season that there may not have been one new album recorded.

Even in what was considered a “lousy” season in the past, there were always collectible LPs. In 1967-68, there were many forgettable flops with collectable albums: “Darling of the Day,” “The Happy Time,” “Golden Rainbow” and the classic “How Now, Dow Jones.”

Tony winner “Darling of the Day,” starring Vincent Price and Patricia Routledge, was recorded and I, the demented collector, grabbed the only copy in my local record shop. Well, I figured that a score by E.Y. (Yip) Harburg (“Finian’s Rainbow”) and Jule Styne (“Gypsy”) couldn’t be all bad. (I figured right. It was only three-fourths bad.)

Some musical theater nuts enjoy the flop shows and know their throwaway tunes by heart. The rest of us know that this is obsessive. Loving “Some Enchanted Evening” or the ubiquitous “Send in the Clowns” is one thing. But it’s another to know Cole Porter’s “Cherry Pies Ought to Be You” verbatim. Or to be able to differentiate the songs “Call Me Savage” (Carol Burnett’s “Fade Out, Fade In”) from the same composer’s “Witches’ Brew” (Leslie Uggams’ “Hallelujah, Baby!”). The point is, Jule Styne’s tunes are identical--you can’t differentiate.

The retirement of Edwin Lester in 1976 as head of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera brought on a decline in that organization. And a recent Music Center tribute to him by the stars of his shows singing the great show songs of the past brought home the sad state of affairs in most musicals today.

For someone who grew up with memories of Civic Light Opera shows and who was nourished by a succession of musicals (Joel Grey in “Cabaret” and Mary Martin and Robert Preston in “I Do! I Do!”), the dearth of new hits presents a shocking situation. How will I get my musical fix?

I mean, I can very nearly chart my life by the musical theater. The first show I remember seeing was “Brigadoon.” It seemed magical that people would sing and that a town could disappear and then come back--all because of love. In my innocent (pre-John Kennedy assassination) years, I could relate to “Camelot.”

I grew up with “Cabaret” and enjoyed the high jinks of “Hair.” In my early 20s, I discovered the sophistication of “Company.” Then there was “A Chorus Line,” which reinvigorated me after some dull, post-college years, and a minor production of “South Pacific” had the effect of giving me the idea to take a trip to Tahiti. Much more recently, there was Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along,” in which the loss of ideals is mourned. Many of mine have disappeared too. It’s called growing up.

But one thing that I refuse to outgrow is my appetite for a story told with song and dance. The are still so many areas and styles to explore; Who would have thought that a George Seurat painting would have inspired a musical? Or Eva Peron? In England, Benny Andersson, Tim Rice and Bjoern Ulvaeus have put together an album of songs for a potential musical called “Chess,” based on the board game, of all things (see Faces, Page 66, and Record Rack item, Page 57). One of their songs already is a hit on the charts: “One Night in Bangkok.”

If Broadway seems to be having trouble with musical theater, I don’t think it’s because audiences have grown tired of the form. Hit shows continue to sell out, despite high prices. Movie musicals remain popular, too. (In the last couple of years, “Flashdance” and “Footloose” together have sold more than $174 million worth of tickets in the U.S.--an amount that rivals the $227 million worth of tickets sold for all the plays and musicals on Broadway in the 1983-84 season.)

The point is, the audience for musical entertainment is there. But here, on the verge of the Tony Awards show, musical theater is in a bind of creativity versus risky economics. Can things get worse? They have and they can and they will.

. . . But I’m stuck like a dope

With a thing called hope . . .