Good News (musical)

1927 musical

Good News is a musical with a book by Laurence Schwab and B. G. DeSylva, lyrics by DeSylva and Lew Brown, and music by Ray Henderson. The story is set in the Roaring Twenties at Tait College, where football star Tom Marlowe falls in love with studious Connie Lane, who is tutoring him so he can pass astronomy and be eligible to play in the big game. The show opened on Broadway in 1927, the same year as Show Boat, but though its plot was decidedly old fashioned in comparison to Show Boat and its daring storyline, it was also a hit. Good News spawned two films, one in 1930, starring Bessie Love and one in 1947 starring June Allyson; an unsuccessful 1974 Broadway revival, and a 1993 updated production by Music Theatre of Wichita, which created a largely new libretto and made changes to the score. It proved to be DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson's biggest hit out of a string of topical musicals.

The original Broadway production, directed by Edgar MacGregor and choreographed by Bobby Connolly, opened on September 6, 1927 at The 46th Street Theatre, where it ran for 557 performances, which was a very successful run, as few Broadway shows had reached 500 performances since 1919's Irene. The cast included John Price Jones as Tom Marlowe, Mary Lawlor as Connie Lane, Gus Shy as Bobby Randall, Inez Courtney as Babe O'Day, and Zelma O'Neal as Flo. Donald Oenslager designed the production's sets. To emphasize the collegiate atmosphere, ushers wore jerseys, and George Olsen's band (featured as the "College Band") reached the orchestra pit by running down the aisles as they shouted college cheers. University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne received credit for "Advice in Football Technique". The musical was set in what was then the present day, the Roaring Twenties, and, according to musical theatre historian Gerald Bordman, it was clearly a reflection of that era: "The decade's jazzy sounds, its assertive, explosive beat, its sophomoric high jinks were joyously mirrored " John Payne was cast as the football coach, and Alice Faye was cast as the (now female) astronomy professor, who was renamed Professor Charlotte Kenyon. The book was rewritten to create a romance between their characters, reducing the impact of the college student characters who had made the 1927 version popular. Because Rigby had already produced No, No, Nanette, a revival set in the 1920s, he moved the setting of Good News to the Depression era Thirties. After a try out in Boston, a nationwide tour for almost a year, and 51 previews, a lavish production opened on Broadway on December 23, 1974 at the St. James Theatre where, having failed to charm the critics as its predecessor had, it ran for only 16 regular performances. Saddler was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography.

In 1993, Mark Madama and Wayne Bryan (who had played the role of Bobby Randall in the 1974 production) revised the book and score for Music Theatre of Wichita. They retained some of the plot elements and score additions from the 1974 production, including the romance between the (female) astronomy professor and football coach, but they returned the story to the 1920s, added back more of the 1927 score, and recentered the book so its main focus was the college students. A studio cast recording of this adaptation was released in 1995, performed by many members of the 1993 cast, but with Wayne Bryan returning to the role of Bobby.

MGM released two film versions, the first in 1930 with Bessie Love and Cliff Edwards and the second in 1947 with June Allyson and Peter Lawford. The Railroad Hour broadcast a 45 minute condensed version as its first episode on October 4, 1948.

The original 1927 Broadway production met with positive reviews. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times pronounced it "a ripping good show", with an authentically collegiate atmosphere, stating, "For once a musical play based upon undergraduate life and a football game has some resemblance to the disorderly, rhymeless scheme of things in American institutions of learning". He deemed it "a constantly fast entertainment with furious dancing, catchy tunes excellent singing, and genuine excitement." The 1974 production opened to mostly negative reviews. Some critics had begun to consider Rigby's revivals formulaic; Clive Barnes of The New York Times derisively pronounced Good News, and shows like it, "prefabricated nostalgia", and Martin Gottfried of the New York Post deemed it "a joyless, mechanical reproduction". The book was harshly criticized; Barnes pronounced it "a terrible book" with "jokes obvious enough to give banana skins a bad name", and Time referred to it as an "ancient flapdoodle of a plot". Critics also questioned the practice of interpolating songs from other shows. Walter Kerr opined that preserving the original score was vital to the character of a revival, stating, "the only reason for remounting vehicles that have half vanished is to get beyond all that is dated into the specific textures of the scores that haven't there's no point for enduring banality in a book if all you're going to get in return is a random rummage through an attic that produces a perhaps bountiful but essentially characterless heap". Critics differed on what they considered the show's good points to be. In the Daily News, Douglas Watt declared, "the dancing is the best part of the show" but deemed the vocal arrangements "too busy". Gottfried, however, said the show was "stolen by the vocal arranger", whom he credited with "dazzling harmonizations and stylings". Marti Rolph, in the role of Connie Lane, received particular praise from critics. Watt declared, "The only really good singing voice among the principals belongs to Marti Rolph".