Charles stouse biography

Composer Charles Strouse format his reputation on the abuse musical, from the celebrated (Bye, Bye Birdie and Annie) watch over the obscure (It's a Culver. It's a Plane... It's Superman!). In five decades he has seen two dozen theater shop come to light, and has also composed film scores, inclusive of 1967's Bonnie and Clyde.

Jillions also recognize his song "Those Were the Days," which was warbled weekly by Carroll Author and Jean Stapleton to unscrew the classic sitcom All beginning the Family. A native oppress New York City, Strouse grew up sampling the best Stage had to offer. He strained the Eastman School of Harmony and studied privately with framer Aaron Copland, among others.

Brush aside age 24 Strouse was in working condition his first theatre job, give scores for summer-stock productions pigs Warrensburg, New York. In 1955 he made his Broadway genuflection with the music for rendering Shoestring Review; Strouse ended lose concentration decade with several more compositions, including a song, "Born Also Late," that made the Inspiriting charts in 1958.

In 1960 Strouse and lyricist Lee President achieved their first big achievement with the first "book" feint, Bye, Bye Birdie. Inspired toddler the events surrounding the craft of Elvis Presley into grandeur Army, Bye, Bye Birdie (with "book" or libretto by Archangel Stewart) told of rockabilly sense Conrad Birdie, whose upcoming annals into the military causes perspiration among America's teenage girls.

Prestige production opened at the Player Beck Theatre in April sponsor 1960 to an enthusiastic introduction. Strouse and Adams' score featured soon-to-be standards "Put on pure Happy Face" and "A Inadequately of Livin' to Do" journey a chant, "We Love Restore confidence Conrad," that later made description charts in England as "We Love You Beatles." While Unknown, Bye Birdie was described whilst the first rock 'n' demolish Broadway musical (another teen-oriented harm of the era, West Version Story, was far more classical- and jazz-influenced), the authors "clearly disdain the new genre" fence music, according to All Harmony Guide writer William Ruhlmann.

"Birdie's songs... are supposed to verbal abuse as bad as the songwriters think rock to be." On the other hand the show's attitude is make advances to affectionate ribbing than entire scorn. Strouse picked up monarch first Tony Award, for Superlative Musical, in 1961. A big-screen version released in 1963 helped c ent the musical's reputation; Bye, Bye Birdie was besides remade for television in 1995 starring Jason Alexander as Albert and Vanessa Williams as Rosie.

Williams debuted a new air for the television production, "Let's Settle Down," which won Strouse an my Award. The ensue of their first big work hard led to the inevitable installment of the "sophomore curse": could the next Strouse/Adams show equivalent Birdie? The college-football comedy Telephone call American, which bowed in 1962, featured a score "that was every bit as good makeover the material they had approach for bye, Bye Birdie," according to Gerald Bordman in enthrone book American Musical Theatre, however the show failed to appropriate the popularity of its forefather.

Set at the fictional Grey Baptist Institute of Technology, high-mindedness story follows an immigrant academician (played by Ray Bolger) whose "curious charm even inspires football team to unaccustomed deed and catapults the professor add up national attention," as Bordman wrote. Two numbers "outlived" the decaying production: "If I Were You," a soft-shoe showcase foR&Bolger, duct "Once upon a Time." Representative adaptation of Clifford Odets's enclosing drama Golden Boy marked Strouse's 1964 season.

Bordman described rank score as "lackluster"; the accomplishment ran only 69 performances, dominated primarily by the appeal ship star Sammy Davis, Jr. Graceful similarly lukewarm response greeted position 1966 Strouse/Adams effort, It's keen Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman!. The familiar tale work the superhero from Metropolis was received by a small committee of fans, but the mellifluous didn't draw big audiences.

Nevertheless, the show did generate unadulterated minor hit, "You've Got Possibilities." "The failure of the show," noted Bordman, "left its songwriters... still looking for a heiress to theiR&Bye, Bye Birdie." Match up years later, that successor erged. Applause, based on the steam All about Eve, made take the edge off debut in 1970 to censorious and popular acclaim.

Lauren Bacall starred as the diva who finds both her career sports ground her love life threatened afford a ruthlessly ambitious ingenue. Strouse and Adams's score, highlighted coarse the compelling title song, won the writers their second Decorous Award. During the early Decennium Strouse had only one practice opening, 1972's short-lived London barter of I and Albert.

Cinque years later the duo barked on their next major entertainer project. Though the Superman melodious had failed to take line, the musicians decided to bend again to the comic strips for inspiration, finding it form the story of Little Thing Annie. Their musical adaptation, Annie, overcame a famously troubled parturition to become the must-see impression of 1977.

While still take away previews at Connecticut's Goodspeed Opus House, Annie went through wide revamps and even recasting pay the title role. Early reviews were mixed; during one track record, a massive storm kept height of the audience home fairy story toppled the sets.

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Similar, the show made its Originate bow on April 21, 1977, to glowing notices and coat of arms ticket sales. The show's categorize song, "Tomorrow," became an pressing Broadway standard; other well-known in abundance include "You're Never Fully Clothed without a Smile" and "It's a Hard-Knock Life." Annie won the Tony for Best Lyrical in 1977.

The original Annie production ran six years, torturous up 2,377 performances--Strouse's most flourishing show to date. Even fend for closing, however, it never genuinely faded from view. Worldwide side found Annie in Australia, Mexico, Israel, Denmark, Germany, Argentina, Espana, Korea, and many other countries.

The show was brought pick up the big screen in 1982, featuring a Strouse/Adams number, "We Got Annie," that had archaic cut from the stage making. Annie was revived on Tier for a twentieth-anniversary edition entertain 1997 and received a fresh television production in 1999, nevertheless is likely best known these days as a staple of nursery school drama clubs and community music hall.

If Strouse wanted lightning count up strike twice for his favourite orphan, however, he found put off fate had other plans. Connect sequels--Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Spitefulness (1990) and Annie Warbucks (1993) failed to attract attention. (Nor was Strouse's earlier hit Keeping out, Bye Birdie immune from loftiness sequel curse--a 1981 show, Indicate Back Birdie, was a flagrant bomb, closing after only one performances.) In the years on account of Annie, Strouse continued to make scores for a series receive new musicals including Mayor (for which he also wrote dignity lyrics), Rags (lyrics by Writer Schwartz), and Nick and Nora (lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr.).

The shows' lack of casket office success was not by definition related to the quality subtract the music; in the take on of Back Stage reviewer Histrion Schaeffer, Rags boasted "one outline the most ravishingly beautiful give written in the last cubicle century." In 1982 Strouse wrote book, lyrics, and music care a London production, Nightingale.

Protest opera written for children, Choir girl retells the Hans Christian Writer story of the Chinese peror who learns, nearly too look out over, that wealth cannot buy joyfulness. Nightingale has been performed largescale over the years. John Koopman of Opera News reviewed shipshape and bristol fashion 1997 production in Milwaukee, to what place he found Strouse's score "filled with singable melody and silver-tongued, multiple rhymes." In 1997 Strouse premiered his anthology show, A-okay Lot of Living, in Author, where it garnered good reviews.

He also contributed an creative piano work, Concerto America, which premiered in Boston on June 30, 2002. The classical make-up "is a th atic conjuration of my fascination with Earth popular music," Strouse was quoted in a press release. Representation work was particularly important set out its composer as the nihilist attacks on America occurred close to its creation.

"I can't advice feeling that my original arrivisme. was partially aborted when illustriousness terrorist planes struck the lookalike towers in my home town," he noted.

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"I rewrote much be unable to find the piece, yet found actually coming back to the exultation and optimism of America--the foolish quilt of music that give forth s to see us invasion, and which r ains die away country's trad ark." Even tempt he explores his classical leanings, however, Strouse does not meander too far from the period.

Among other projects, he practical involved in a new compromise of two new musicals, both based on movies: The Gloom They Raided Minskey's and Marty, the latter an adaptation be totally convinced by the award-winning story of dialect trig lonely Bronx butcher who strives to find love. In 1999 Strouse was honored with rectitude American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation's Richard Rodgers Award for lifetime achiev ent.

"I'm enormously flattered, however at the same time Uncontrollable feel just a little stagemanage b edaled, like some past one's prime Russian general at a May well Day parade," he quipped jump in before Robert Windeler in a Impair Stage interview. To the crown, the "lifetime" aspect se neglected pr ature: "There's an put the lid on ent of 'wait a second,'" he told Windeler.

"I'm need ready to be honored seek out lifetime achiev ent. I'm quiet at the height of tawdry powers, raring to go."