City Center Encores! has continued its string of "special events" — offerings that do not fit in their regular subscription season of revivals of worthy old musicals — with a stage version of the 1953 movie musical "The Band Wagon." Two of these special events thus far have transferred to Broadway:Gypsy and Cotton Club Parade (under the title After Midnight). With top-flight creators and actors, The Band Wagon seems intended for a similar afterlife.
Back in the '40s and '50s, MGM turned out a series of high-quality musicals that remain enjoyable today, more than a half-century later. Several important examples took existing song catalogues and threaded them into a plot suitable for members of MGM's star roster (such as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland). "The Band Wagon" used the catalogue of composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Howard Dietz. (If Schwartz and Dietz never achieved the Broadway career they well could have, there was a good reason: Dietz maintained a day job throughout his career — as the head publicity man for MGM, with the mascot "Leo the Lion" among his contributions.)
"The Band Wagon" film demonstrates how very talented Schwartz and Dietz were; the songs include "By Myself," "A Shine on Your Shoes," "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan," "New Sun in the Sky" and the stunning "Dancing in the Dark." To these already 20-year-old songs, Schwartz and Dietz added a brand new one: the rousing "That's Entertainment," which served as the hallmark for the "Band Wagon" film and spawned its own franchise of musical anthology movies for MGM.
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The new stage version of The Band Wagon retains the songs — adding plenty more — and basic plot, although Douglas Carter Beane has added several layers of complication to the Betty Comden-Adolph Green screenplay. Beane did a similar job on the current Rodgers and Hammerstein'sCinderella, but his Band Wagon book goes back to 2008 when the musical premiered at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, under the title Dancing in the Dark. Kathleen Marshall (Nice Work if You Can Get It) provides the direction and choreography for this new version, including a nifty tap finale.
