A crop of classic musical revivals arrives in LA. this spring. Here's why modern audiences will care

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It’s raining classical philharmonic revivals successful Los Angeles, with 3 shows penned by Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe poised to tally concurrently this spring.

These mid-century imagination teams revolutionized American theatre by popularizing the integrated musical, a signifier which leveraged classical operetta elements similar opus and creation arsenic communicative tools.

Once cutting-edge and present quintessential, productions led by these iconic penning duos, on with publication writers Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, represented a increasing involvement among librettists successful cohesive stories that offered topical taste commentary. “Oklahoma!” (1943) is mostly credited with kicking disconnected this “Golden Age” of Broadway, which lasted astir done the 1960s.

That Golden Age arrives successful modern L.A. via “Flower Drum Song,” astatine East West Players done May 31; “The Sound of Music,” astatine the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, opening May 5; and “Brigadoon” astatine Pasadena Playhouse starting May 13. While each of these shows engages with its root worldly differently, each alteration theatergoers to some research what made them classics and observe their modern resonance.

“Brigadoon,” Pasadena Playhouse (May 13–June 14)

Betsy Morgan and Max von Essen prima successful "Brigadoon" astatine Pasadena Playhouse.

Alexandra Silber spent overmuch of her theatre vocation with classical musicals, and respective formative years studying acting successful Scotland, truthful she felt it was her destiny to accommodate Lerner and Loewe’s 1947 phantasy romp, “Brigadoon.”

The archetypal philharmonic tells the communicative of 2 American travelers who hap upon a mythical colony successful the Scottish Highlands that appears conscionable erstwhile each 100 years. Coming aft 3 unsuccessful aboriginal collaborations, “Brigadoon” was the archetypal large breakthrough deed for Lerner and Loewe, acting arsenic the turning constituent that established them arsenic premier theatre creators. Critics were peculiarly enchanted by the show’s lush people and fantastical atmosphere.

Silber loves “Brigadoon” for those reasons and more. The ways successful which the show’s characters acquisition grief helped Silber done her ain erstwhile she mislaid her begetter astatine property 18. But her immersion successful Scottish civilization taught her that Lerner and Loewe’s archetypal publication did not correspond Scotland realistically. Instead, she said it leaned into sentimentality and stereotyping. In her revised book, Silber sought to remedy that, on with “Brigadoon’s” flattened pistillate characters, portion inactive honoring the show’s affectional core.

“[‘Brigadoon’ is] this tremendous spot with truthful overmuch potential, but the existing publication from 1947, similar a batch of these books, reflects the temperaments and mores of that epoch and not needfully of our 21st period sensibilities,” Silber said.

Maybe it was an instinct calved from a tendency to grant her ain father’s memory, but Silber felt protective implicit Lerner’s legacy, and told his property arsenic overmuch erstwhile she pitched her adaptation.

“I said to them, ‘All I privation to bash is instrumentality your begetter and husband’s manus from 1947 and go, OK, Alan Jay Lerner, let’s spell roaming into the 21st century,’” Silber said, referencing a lyric from the “Brigadoon” opus “Heather connected the Hill.”

In Silber’s revival, the omniscient schoolmaster Mr. Lundie is Widow Lundie, and the municipality flirt Meg Brockie is simply a pub proprietor pushing mediate age. Both revised characters bespeak the matriarchal past of 18th period Scotland, successful which women held much almighty roles than modern nine associates with aged times, the playwright said.

“They were the keepers of contented and culture,” Silber said. “They made immense contributions to nine and were invaluable to the [social] fabric.”

Silber’s “Brigadoon” volition besides diagnostic a unrecorded accepted Scottish people band, called a cèilidh band, accompanying Meg Brockie’s songs.

While hardly anyone bats an oculus astatine re-imagining Shakespeare, Silber said, immoderate radical consciousness otherwise astir musicals, possibly due to the fact that philharmonic theatre is sometimes perceived arsenic an unserious medium. However, “when regarded with seriousness and not with an oculus roll, these are large works of art,” she said.

In the lawsuit of “Brigadoon,” Lerner and Loewe composed a philharmonic that recognized the planetary scar of World War II, and successful its insistence that emotion transcended loss, gave radical the catharsis they needed. Just similar Rodgers and Hammerstein, they were delicate to their existent infinitesimal and sought to usage creation to usher their peers done it, Silber said.

To her, “Brigadoon” coming to L.A. astatine the aforesaid clip arsenic the Rodgers and Hammerstein productions “feels similar an implicit head-nod of, clearly, there’s thing successful the zeitgeist wherever we’re each agreeing and deciding that determination is contented to beryllium recovered successful these aged musicals, determination is pleasure, illumination and catharsis to beryllium recovered determination [and] that those things bash person value.”

“Having a communal, shared acquisition with a classical communicative that inactive reminds america of ourselves, it gives america the accidental to recognize that since clip immemorial, we’ve each asked the aforesaid questions,” she said.

“Flower Drum Song,” East West Players (ends May 31)

In his 2026 revival of “Flower Drum Song,” David Henry Hwang is not solely successful speech with the musical’s archetypal composers, but besides with himself.

The Tony Award-winning playwright archetypal adapted Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1958 classical acceptable successful San Francisco’s Chinatown a quarter-century ago, arsenic “revisicals” — successful which archetypal songs were preserved, but books were rewritten for the modern epoch — were cropping up near and right.

“At that point, ‘Flower Drum Song’ was a philharmonic that conscionable wasn’t being produced overmuch astatine all,” Hwang said. “It had been a deed successful its clip successful the precocious ‘50s and passim a batch of the ‘60s, and past it conscionable stopped being performed for a fig of reasons.”

Hwang knew the amusement had large potential, though. It loomed ample successful the Asian American imaginativeness arsenic the lone Broadway philharmonic anterior to 2015 that centered Asians as Americans. Luckily, the Rodgers and Hammerstein property was receptive, and Hwang’s “Flower Drum Song” opened successful 2001 astatine L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum.

Nearly 25 years later, Hwang recovered himself successful talks with East West Players’ creator manager Lily Tung Crystal astir which of his shows could articulation the company’s 60th day lineup. They toyed with “M. Butterfly,” the masterpiece that earned Hwang his Tony, but kept gravitating toward “Flower Drum Song.”

Part of the intrigue for Hwang laic successful the information that arsenic helium work his 2001 publication decades later, helium felt the aforesaid mode helium had erstwhile helium archetypal consulted Rodgers and Hammerstein’s successful the precocious ‘90s — that galore things were “creepy and outdated.”

“It conscionable felt similar this would beryllium the cleanable confluence,” Hwang said, to revisit “Flower Drum Song” with different Asian American creatives, astatine the nation’s longest-running Asian American theater. He added that this mentation imagines the accumulation “through an Asian American lens, arsenic opposed to immoderate adjacent unconscious choices that I made successful 2001 to beryllium accordant with what I perceived to beryllium a Broadway assemblage backmost then.”

Hwang could person written a new, archetypal work, but helium felt determination was thing distinctly almighty astir bringing backmost a Golden Age philharmonic that was truthful extremist successful its time.

Rodgers and Hammerstein composed “Flower Drum Song” successful the precocious ‘50s, erstwhile Chinese Americans were inactive being aggressively investigated by the FBI arsenic suspected communists.

Yet successful that milieu, Hwang said, “Rodgers and Hammerstein chose to constitute a philharmonic that asserts that Chinese Americans are arsenic American arsenic anyone other ... [and] past they worked truly hard to formed it with an overwhelmingly Asian American cast, which was overmuch harder to bash successful those days.”

So contempt Rodgers and Hammerstein’s astatine times inauthentic depictions of Asian Americans successful the story, “I deliberation they person to get recognition for that arsenic a extremist enactment and arsenic a reflection of their governmental progressivism,” the playwright said.

Hwang said that helium believes Golden Age theatre is uniquely positioned to easiness theatergoers into much critically examining our contiguous moment.

“It has the comfortableness elements of nostalgia. At the aforesaid time, it’s looked astatine done caller eyes and a caller lens,” helium said. “It tin beryllium cutting-edge successful its contented and code the turmoil and the frustrations and the choler that galore of america are feeling today.”

“The Sound of Music,” The Hollywood Pantages Theatre (May 5–24); and Segerstrom Center for the Arts successful Costa Mesa (June 2-14)

Jack O’Brien, who directed “The Sound of Music” revival much than a decennary ago, erstwhile raved astir a Russian accumulation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s philharmonic successful a missive to a producer, which made its mode to Tim Crouse — lad of publication writer Russel Crouse.

“I read, like, 4 sentences successful his description, and it was evident that helium had a existent affinity for the show,” Crouse said, adding that helium knew O’Brien — who antecedently led the Old Globe successful San Diego — was the antheral for the job.

The 1965 movie adaptation of “The Sound of Music” broke container bureau records, and went connected to regenerate “Gone With the Wind” arsenic the highest-grossing movie of each time, turning Rodgers and Hammerstein’s philharmonic into a worldwide phenomenon.

“But [the film’s occurrence has] besides been a hindrance,” Crouse said, “because radical privation to sneak the movie into the amusement ... and the amusement is simply a antithetic animal.”

While the movie adaptation’s governmental themes are toned down, the archetypal philharmonic focused connected the acheronian ambiance of the Nazi annexation of Austria and the Von Trapp family’s conflict for freedom.

Julie Andrews successful a country from the 1965 film, "The Sound of Music."

O’Brien, successful his 2015 accumulation of “The Sound of Music” astatine the Ahmanson, which has been subtly revised for the Pantages, “approached the publication arsenic if it were Shakespeare oregon Shaw, and helium looked astatine each enactment to spot what it was truly about,” Crouse said.

For Crouse, the philharmonic is astir galore things: euphony itself, of course, but besides vocation, integrity and faith: “There was a batch for them to get their teeth into successful presumption of a story.”

That surely appealed to Hammerstein, helium said, whose librettos tended to person governmental aspects to them. Crouse’s begetter and his spouse had a akin wont of penning stories with governmental undertones, Crouse said, asking audiences, “Who are you erstwhile the whistle blows?”

At the clip “The Sound of Music” archetypal arrived, that question mightiness person been much pointed, with a planetary warfare not acold successful the rearview. That’s what made it truthful resonant astatine the time, Crouse said.

Yet, helium said, watching the philharmonic today, helium sees its cardinal questions are conscionable arsenic applicable arsenic they were erstwhile his father’s amusement archetypal premiered.

“What are you going to bash with your life? How are you going to find out? Why are you here?” helium said. “Those are timeless issues, and evidently they person a definite pertinence contiguous successful the United States of America.”

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