Advertising Love for Sale, Again

In the field of musical theater today, sometimes going backward is the best way to go forward.

With the cost of bringing shows to Broadway at an all-time high and the popularity of revivals adding credence to the adage that “they don’t make ‘em like they used to,” works from the heyday of the American musical are becoming more attractive than ever.

Not surprisingly then, a newly uncovered work from the 1930s or 1940s could set producers’ hearts aflutter. And if “The New Yorkers”--a “lost” musical based on the work of New Yorker magazine cartoonist Peter Arno, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and a book by Herbert Fields--fulfills the promise of its pedigree, it could even cause a few cardiacs.

First produced in 1930, the show is coming to Southern California in the early stages of its second life, thanks to two very different musical theater organizations: New York’s Musical Theatre Works and La Mirada’s Musical Theatre West, which is giving the show its West Coast premiere, opening April 26 at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.

Musical Theatre Works, a 13-year-old group dedicated to giving new works their first outings, is one of the most quietly influential organizations in the field today. It launched the lives of such shows as Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” “Ruthless!” and “Sisterella,” and is currently rehearsing Disney’s next musical, “Aida.”

Consequently, when Musical Theatre Works founder and artistic director Tony Stimac likes a show, people listen. And “The New Yorkers” is a show that he not only likes, but has also taken on as his personal project.

“It’s a novelty,” he says, speaking by phone from Chicago. “It’s a new old show. It’s a satire. [Arno’s] cartoons cut to the quick, and Porter and Fields are no slouches in that department either. It is so of the period, but it has an edge, and that’s one of the things that make it not feel like a period piece.”

“The New Yorkers” also boasts more than its share of hit Porter songs, including “Love for Sale,” “Just One of Those Things,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” “Take Me Back to Manhattan,” “I Happen to Like New York” and others.

The resurrection of “The New Yorkers” began in 1994, when the Times Square theater Town Hall asked Musical Theatre Works to come up with a 1930s musical for a readings series. Reconstructions and revivals aren’t Musical Theatre Works’ specialty, but the theater does occasionally take on such projects.

Stimac launched a search for a suitable script, but the plays that he and Musical Theatre Works literary manager Andrew Barrett found were disappointing. Along the way, however, they kept stumbling over references to a work called “The New Yorkers,” although they couldn’t locate a script for it.

Eventually, an eight-month search of the Cole Porter Trust and a number of libraries, ranging from Yale University (Porter’s alma mater) to the Library of Congress, yielded some script fragments. “We’d find a piece here, a piece there, but it was confusing,” Stimac recalls. “They seemed to have nothing to do with each other.”

The puzzle pieces did reveal that there was not one “The New Yorkers” but several. “It was obvious there were three different versions of this show,” Stimac says.

“When it played in Philadelphia, it was [primarily] about the gangsters,” he continues. “Then, in Newark, it was about the lovers. Then in New York, it was a huge sprawling revue, with three orchestras: one in the pit, one onstage and Jimmy Durante had an eight-piece combo that would follow him on- and offstage. There were more than 100 people in the show.

“It was one of the biggest shows of its day. Unfortunately, it opened just as the Depression began. It did run for eight months, but no one had any money and it was a very expensive show.”

Stimac and Barrett’s task, once the research had been completed, was to glean a usable script from the parts that had been uncovered. “Once we got the three versions, it was our job to piece together what we thought the authors intended and something that would work for today’s audience,” he says. “We selected scenes and songs and put them in an order, working from guesses and clues.”

In March 1994, “The New Yorkers” was read at Town Hall and received what Stimac describes as a “sensational reaction.” Encouraged by this response, Stimac gave the script a workshop production at Musical Theatre Works in October of the same year.

“The workshop added choreography, moved a few numbers around and started to arrange the numbers,” says Stimac, who directed the production. “It ran for two weeks and there was a great deal of encouragement to go further.”

It was during the run of the October workshop that Musical Theatre West’s Paul Garman came to New York to see the show. “I realized that Cole Porter took many of the tunes [in “The New Yorkers”] and made them hit singles or put them in other shows,” he says. “All these great songs originated in this musical.”

The next stop for “The New Yorkers” was the Seaside Music Theatre in Daytona Beach, Fla., in July 1995. There, scenery, costumes and orchestrations were added, and a few more changes were made, again with Stimac directing.

Again, Garman flew East to see Stimac’s production. During this trip, he decided that Musical Theatre West would produce the show.

At the same time, Carey Walker of the Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre in Chicago also decided to stage the work. The Chicago version, which Stimac directed, opened last Wednesday and will run until early June.

While “The New Yorkers” isn’t business as usual for Musical Theatre Works, it marks even more of a departure for Musical Theatre West. Born in 1952 as the Whittier Civic Light Opera, the group has been the resident musical company at the La Mirada Theatre since the venue was built in 1977.

Yet it’s only recently begun expanding into new musicals. “This is the first time we’ve done something this major,” says executive director/producer Garman, who began as a child actor and has been with the organization for 30 years.

“The public can’t keep seeing ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ or ‘The Sound of Music’ over and over again,” he continues. “There’s a great need to create and bring before the public something new and different, even if it means taking some risk.”

Three years ago, Musical Theatre West produced its first premiere of a musical, a work called “Hurry Hurry Hollywood.” “It was a monumental experience for us,” Garman says. “Artistically, it was a great success; financially, it wasn’t.”

The theater lost between $250,000 and $300,000 on the production. However, the subscriber base also rose from approximately 6,500 to 8,000 (it has since stabilized at about 7,000), a change that Garman attributes to the production.

More recently, Musical Theatre West launched a series of readings of new scripts. “We’re going to try to do four or five a year to educate our audience to appreciate the creation of new musicals,” Garman says.

The theater is also planning to stage at least one new (or rediscovered) work each year, such as this year’s “The New Yorkers,” which Musical Theatre Works’ Stimac will travel here to see.

“It’s going to be an enlightening experience,” Stimac says. “It will also test the material. We’re hoping that it attracts interest for New York.”

Meanwhile, Musical Theatre West has two other new works planned for next year: a new version of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and a musical biography of Eleanor Roosevelt.

It’s a move that may be a financial risk, but one that Garman feels is necessary to the theater’s growth. “It’s a major step for us,” he says. “It’s a hard sell, but we feel it’s a necessary sell. Our audience is ready to see some new things.”

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“THE NEW YORKERS,” P.S. 122, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada. Dates: April 26 through May 12. Thursdays to Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Prices: $28-$30. Phone: (714) 994-6310.