Forgotten Broadway classics: Bloomer Girl February 1, 2008

Obviously influenced by the success of Oklahoma!, this 1944 musical featured two of that show’s stars, Celeste Holm and Joan McCracken, and its choreographer Agnes De Mille, in a show with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg, the team best remembered for The Wizard of Oz.
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The genesis of a Broadway number September 25, 2007

Truman Capote’s novella, House Of Flowers, is the story of Ottilie, a young girl who works in a Haitian bordello under the name of Violet, and how she finds true love. In 1951, Capote recorded this excerpt:

Three years later, Capote wrote the book and lyrics to a Broadway musical of the same name, with music by Harold Arlen. When they started the collaboration, Capote was stuck in Rome with John Huston, rewriting the script for the movie Beat The Devil, and he and Arlen collaborated by mail. At one point, Arlen sent Capote the following recording, with an idea he had for the scene we just heard:

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