2006: 42nd Street

Artwork by David Occhino

Synopsis

42nd Street is a bold, brassy backstage musical set against the bleakness of the Great Depression. Everyone involved is hungry to be involved with a Broadway hit, but hungrier still just to have a paycheck.
 
Based on the movie of the same name, 42nd Street opens on an audition for director Julian Marsh’s new Broadway show, Pretty Lady. During the audition and rehearsals, we meet chorus girl Peggy Sawyer, a newcomer from Allentown, PA, who gets that big break when the star of Pretty Lady, Dorothy Brock, breaks her ankle during the out of town tryout. As Peggy tries to decide if she is up for the challenge of replacing the leading lady, director Marsh utters the famous line “Sawyer, you’re going out there a youngster. But you’ve got to come back a star.” Peggy does indeed triumph on opening night as the audience welcomes the new star to “naughty, bawdy, gaudy, sporty 42nd Street.”
 
In this musical within a musical, the audience gets to meet all the characters behind the scenes: the writers Maggie Jones and Bert Barry; dance captain Andy Lee; Billy Lawlor, the dancing/singing star; Abner Dillon and Pat Denning, the men in Dorothy’s life; plucky sidekick Anytime Annie; and, of course, the legion of chorus girls tapping their hearts out.
 
The show contains such memorable hits as “We’re in the Money,” “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” “Forty-Second Street,” and the homage to the Great White Way, “Lullaby of Broadway.”

42nd Street Program (pdf file - 1723 KB)

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