from Chapter One
"Breaking the Drama Line"
You know a dying girl in one cough.
- Frank Loesser
On November 24, 1950, the curtain rose on a new musical called Guys and Dolls. The opening-night audience roared in recognition at the familiar racetrack posthorn call of the first number, "Fugue for Tinhorns" ("I got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere..."). Within five minutes librettist Abe Burrows knew he and composer–lyricist Frank Loesser had a hit. At intermission New York Post reviewer Richard Watts broke critical protocol and shook hands with Burrows, whispering, "Abe, I'm having a wonderful time, and so is Mr. Atkinson." Walter Kerr, who would one day succeed Brooks Atkinson as New York Times drama critic, turned to his wife during the performance they attended and asked, "Am I wrong, or am I seeing the greatest musical ever?" The unanimous rave reviews that followed opening night have been succeeded by over forty years of admiration for Guys and Dolls, and the 1992 hit Broadway revival proves that the show speaks to audiences as much as ever.
Then, as now, only one prize carried enough prestige to honor such a theatrical achievement: the Pulitzer for drama. This was not a hopeless dream, for the Gershwins' Of Thee I Sing (1931) had been the musical theatre's Jackie Robinson, breaking the "drama line" by winning the Pulitzer Prize after a dozen years of straight-play hegemony. More recently, Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (1949) had won the prize. Guys and Dolls seemed, therefore, an odds-on favorite to be the third musical to be so honored, especially in the absence of any strong straight-play competition.
Results: no prize for drama was given that year. The following year the prize was bestowed...upon The Shrike, by Joseph Kramm.
Let's acknowledge at the outset, then, that the Pulitzer Prize is no infallible indicator of quality. While Of Thee I Sing and South Pacific figure prominently in musical theatre history, some may question the choice of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's Fiorello! (1959) as a winner of the prize; the overruled drama jury certainly had questions. At least Loesser and Burrows were vindicated when they won for How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961). Despite its dramatic and musical flaws, Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line (1975) turned out to be Broadway's longest-running show to date (although Cats's "now and forever" ad slogan is becoming chillingly prophetic), so Chorus Line's Pulitzer seems defensible, at least on popular grounds. The Stephen Sondheim–James Lapine collaboration Sunday in the Park with George (1984) counterbalances A Chorus Line, seemingly winning the prize on unpopular, highbrow grounds.
One might argue therefore that selecting musicals for study on the basis of their having been awarded the Pulitzer Prize (in one or two cases, under controversial circumstances) is artificial. However, I find the criterion useful and liberating, for any attempt to choose "the best" musical, or even "the most representative" musical of each decade would be highly debatable, probably immensely personal, and ultimately self-defeating. With Pulitzer Prize winners we have six well-spaced shows (one per decade between the 1930s and the 1980s) stamped with the imprimatur of dramatic quality and representing, to a gratifying extent, a historical cross-section of the Broadway book musical, in terms of creators as well as form and content. Not only are these six interesting individually, but they reveal historical trends and practices when considered in pairs or larger groupings.