Very Warm for May

Infobox Musical
name= Very Warm for May
subtitle=


caption=
music= Jerome Kern
lyrics= Oscar Hammerstein II
book= Oscar Hammerstein II
basis=
productions= 1939 Broadway
awards=

"Very Warm for May" opened at the Alvin Theatre on November 17, 1939. It was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II and was the team's final score for Broadway, following their hits "Show Boat," "Sweet Adeline", and "Music in the Air". It marked a return to Broadway for Kern, who had spent several years in Hollywood writing music for movies, including "Swing Time" for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Vincente Minnelli directed "Very Warm for May", which contained such favorite songs as "All the Things You Are", "All in Fun", and "In the Heart of the Dark." Gerald Bordman, author of the definitive Kern biography "Jerome Kern: His Life and Music", hailed the score as one of Kern's finest.

"Very Warm for May" ran on Broadway for two months, with June Allyson, Eve Arden, and Vera-Ellen among the performers. It closed after 59 performances. It received mixed reviews, with the "New York World-Telegram" calling the show "Gay and delightful" and finding the songs to be "the most charming that Kern and Hammerstein have ever written", while the "New York Times" yawned, "Very Warm for May" is not so hot for November", and Robert Benchley of "The New Yorker" praised the show as "Lovely to the ear and complimentary to the intelligence...unlike most musicals, (it) actually gets better and funnier as it goes on."

Part of the lukewarm response may have been due to a book that was changed at the last minute. "Very Warm for May" opened out of town with a plot that had Long Island society girl May Graham fleeing threatening gangsters and hiding out with an avant-garde summer stock troupe in Connecticut. Eve Arden portrayed a dizzy society matron. This first version of the show received rave reviews and played to sold-out houses.

Producer Max Gordon had been away when the show opened out of town and when he saw it, he hated the gangster subplot and had it removed. However, New Yorkers didn't seem to be as crazy about the summer stock story, having just seen "Babes in Arms" the year before.

It was a very competitive season on Broadway. One month after "Very Warm for May" opened, Cole Porter's "Du Barry Was a Lady", DeSylva and Henderson's "George White's Scandals" and Rodgers and Hart's "Too Many Girls" all opened. "Very Warm for May" is a quintessential "lost musical from the 1930s" because of its enduring score by two Broadway legends and its surprisingly quick disappearance from the theatre scene.

In 1984, recordings of the original cast performances from 1939 were discovered and which were assembled to form a long playing (LP) album and thus became the oldest Original Broadway Cast Recording. With notes by Gerald Bordman, the album received a Nomination for a Grammy Award in 1985 as Best Cast Show Album. It was subsequently released as a compact disc and later became available on iTunes. The recordings, however, are actually from a promotional radio show and not an attempt to faithfully record the full score. Several songs from the show are missing, and "All the Things You Are" appears four times on the collection.

"Very Warm for May" was transferred (loosely) to the silver screen for the MGM movie "Broadway Rhythm" (1944) with only "All the Things You Are" retained from the musical and the plot rewritten yet again. The actor George Murphy plays snippets of songs from the original score while seated at a piano awaiting the arrival of leading lady Ginny Simms.

Stephen Sondheim has cited "Very Warm for May" as an inspiration for his interest in the musical theater. Sondheim saw the original production at the age of ninecite news|last = Henry|first = William A, III|url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966141,00.html |title = Master of the Musical; Stephen Sondheim Applies a Relentless|publisher = Time|date = 1987-12-07|accessdate = 2007-03-19] .

ongs

;Act I
* In Other Words, Seventeen - May Graham and William Graham
* All the Things You Are - Ogdon Quiler, Liz Spofford, Carroll and Charles
* Heaven in My Arms - Johnny Graham, Liz Spofford and Carroll
* In Other Words, Seventeen (Reprise) - Winnie Spofford;Act II
* That Lucky Fellow - Raymond Sibley
* L'Histoire de Madame de la Tour - Carroll, Miss Wasserman, Jane and Andre
* That Lucky Lady - May Graham
* In the Heart of the Dark - Carroll and Carroll
* Swing Low, Sweet Chariot - Matty Malneck's Orchestra
* All the Things You Are (Reprise) - Matty Malneck's Orchestra
* In the Heart of the Dark (Reprise) - Liz Spofford
* The Deer and the Park Avenue Lady - Andre and Miss Hyde
* All in Fun - Liz Spofford and Johnny Graham
* All the Things You Are (Reprise) - Kenny
* All in Fun (Reprise) - Kenny and Johnny Graham

External links

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References