Q.1
A nice easy question to get us started ... who wrote the original stage-musical , which was soon adapted into a film that is now re-run on television every Christmas?
  • Lerner & Lewe
  • Rodgers and Hammerstein
  • George & Ira Gershwin
  • Jerome Kern
Q.2
Another landmark musical by the same team broke fresh ground in a number of ways: Which of the following is the ONLY one that is UNTRUE?
  • The show begins not with a conventional chorus 'number', but with one silent character onstage while another character sings a solo from offstage in the wings
  • The show's title consists of the one-word name of a geographical entity followed by an exclamation mark
  • The show ran for over 2,000 performances in its original run
  • The show includes a characterful but daringly suggestive 'number' called Doin' What Comes Naturally
Q.3
What is the connection between the name German Reed and the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas?
  • The German Reed was a new woodwind instrument favoured by Mendelssohn, and which Sullivan, after his studies in Leipzig, introduced into the pit orchestra for the Savoy Operas, one of which includes a joke about players of this instrument. It fell out of fashion and its part is now usually played by the bassoon
  • Mr and Mrs Thomas German Reed ran a family-friendly musical theatre establishment in London through which Gilbert & Sullivan originally came into contact
  • German Reed was going to have been the name of a character in one of the shows, but Gilbert changed it because, although it sounded unlikely enough for a character (and nobody by that real name would be likely to sue him, for instance), he felt that 'German' somehow sounded too 'solid' ~ and 'Reed' too weak ~ in combination
  • German Reed was the name of the set designer for most of the Savoy Operas. There is doubt as to whether this was his real name; he may have taken it up as a nickname (somewhat like 'Mark Twain') after an argument over what material to use for the roof of Rose Maybud's cottage (in Ruddigore) which would look authentic while being less prone to catch fire under the stage lights
Q.4
In terms of English-language entertainment, P G Wodehouse springs to mind principally as the creator of Jeeves (manservant and factotum to Bertie Wooster); but Wodehouse's other writing activities included writing over 250 lyrics for the musical theatre, chiefly in America. With which of these leading composers was he NOT associated at one time or another, so far as we know?
  • Jerome Kern
  • Cole Porter
  • Sigmund Romberg
  • Richard Rodgers
Q.5
Which would you regard as the Odd One Out of this selection of musical theatre shows?
  • Porgy and Bess
  • West Side Story
  • Guys and Dolls
  • Sweeney Todd
Q.6
A lesser-known byway of musical theatre is the Industrial Musical ('brand' shows for internal, in-company consumption by staff only) ~ what one might perhaps refer back to, in the spirit of the medium as a whole, as the 'cheesy face of capitalism', in the sense of somebody caught privately raiding the midnight fridge, their surprised mouth framed by telltale smears of So-&-So's cream cheese! After which intro, you may be fractionally less astonished to consider the following titles of some such spectacles. These were almost all genuine, and no doubt much burnished and appreciated ~ apart from one impostor; which ONE is the fake?
  • The Bathrooms are Coming (American Standard, 1969)
  • Got to Investigate Silicones (General Electric, 1973)
  • You Belong in a Dodge (Dodge, 1969)
  • Our Golden Sun (Sun Products Corp., 1965)
Q.7
Noel Coward was an iconic British entertainer, writer of plays and films and music, with over 300 songs to his credit. One of the songs in the following list has been linked with the wrong show: which one?
  • I'll see you again ('Bitter Sweet', 1929)
  • I wish I wasn't quite such a big girl ('Pacific 1860'; 1946)
  • Some Day I'll Find You ('Hay Fever', 1925)
  • Three Juvenile Delinquents ('Ace of Clubs', 1950)
Q.8
A good tune has a way of coming round again and again ... not only within a number or a show, but into these from outside, deliberately or otherwise: there are many alleged examples of earlier composers' melodic shapes cropping up (for instance) in the scores of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber (such as bearing a striking aural resemblance to the slow movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto). But the other, generally happy, side of this cultural coin is that some whole musicals have been created which tell the story, and/or 'recycle' the music, of earlier classical composers or other musicians. As with many questions in this Quiz, the list that follows is mainly fine but with one mismatch: which is the wrong one?
  • Kismet is based on themes by Borodin
  • Lilac Time is based on the music of Schubert
  • A Song to Remember is based on the life and music of Chopin
  • Fiddler on the Roof traces the life story of Niccolo Paganini, the violin virtuoso
Q.9
It begins to seem as though a musical can be fashioned from, or around, almost anything by those who know how. Which of the following workplaces is NOT (again, so far as we know) the setting for such a show?
  • A cigarette factory
  • A match factory
  • A pyjama factory
  • A furniture factory
Q.10
Classical musicians who may still baulk at listening to 12-tone works by Arnold Schoenberg, may be happier with music by Claude-Michel Schoenberg (no relation) and Alain Boublil ~ probably best-known originally for their adaptation of (English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer). Another of their heavyweight hits was : which of the following (once again) is the rogue UNTRUE item about this show?
  • It is based on an updated version of Puccini's Madam Butterfly, to the time of the Vietnam War
  • A key point in the story involves as near a simulation as possible of a helicopter landing live onstage
  • Depicting, as it does, a time and place of high international tension, it turned out to be very appropriate that this musical opened in September 1989, right between the Tiananmen Square massacre and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe
  • The initial London run extended to over 5,000 performances
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