A New Musical
Book by Thomas
Edward West Lyrics by
Alison Hubbard
Music by
Kim Oler
Based on the play by
Sir Arthur Wing Pinero
(1921)
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Welcome to The Enchanted Cottage, where a bitter, disfigured soldier turns able and a lonely, ugly woman turns beautiful. This heartfelt musical soars with the power of romance and beauty in a post-World War I time where despair is redeemed by the transformative power of love.
For information and tickets, please visit Spirit of Broadway's website at www.spiritofbroadway.org About the musical: The Enchanted Cottage is a new musical based on the 1921 play by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, which debuted in London and then opened on Broadway in 1923 at the Ritz Theater, now the Walter Kerr. This production featured a young Katharine Cornell as Laura and Clara ("Auntie Em") Blandick. The play was filmed in 1924 with Richard Barthelmess and May McAvoy but, unfortunately, all prints of the film have vanished like so many other silent films. Most people know the 1945 RKO film, which starred Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire as Oliver and Laura. Through repeated showings on Turner Classic Movies and AMC, the film now has a devoted "cult" following. Our musical version is based not on the 1945 film but on the original play by Pinero. The play was one of the first British dramas to deal directly with the devastation of World War I, the cause of the death of almost seven percent of the male population of England (one in eight soldiers serving in the Western Front was killed). For information on Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, click here. The Enchanted Cottage received the
2003 Jerry Bock Award and the 2002 BMI Jerry Harrington Award, and was featured
in the 2002 NAMT Festival of New Musicals in New York, starring Michael Hayden
and Emily Skinner.
The song “Tennis” was the subject of a discussion by Maury Yeston in
the latest Dramatists Guild Quarterly Magazine, an issue on the Art of Lyric
Writing. It will be featured in the New York Musical Theatre Festival in
September 2004. More recently, The Enchanted Cottage was presented as a staged reading on February 28, 2006 at the York Theatre Company in New York. Prior to that, The Enchanted Cottage was selected as one of the Broadway USA Director's Choice musicals by the National Musical Theatre Network, and was presented as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival in September of 2004. A revised version was presented as a Broadway USA performance at Queens College in December of 2004. For more information about The Enchanted Cottage, please click on the links at left. Contact InformationIf you are interested in producing The Enchanted Cottage, you may obtain a copy of the script and demo CD through: Ms. Sarah Douglas (Agent for Kim Oler and
Alison Hubbard) or Ms. Patricia McLaughlin (Agent for Thomas Edward
West) Or click here to contact the authors.
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Copyright © 2008 Thomas Edward West, Alison Hubbard and Kim Oler
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