Nine (musical)
Nine | ||
---|---|---|
Book Arthur Kopit | | |
Basis | ||
Productions | 1982 Broadway 1984 US national tour 1996 West End 2003 Broadway revival | |
Awards | 1982 Tony Award for Best Musical 1982 Tony Award for Best Original Score 2003 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical |
Nine is a musical initiated by and with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Arthur Kopit. It is based on the 1963 film 8½.
The show tells the story of
Conceived and written and composed by Yeston as a class project in the
A film adaptation was released in 2009.
Plot
Guido Contini, a famous Italian film director, has turned forty and faces double crises: he has to shoot a film for which he can't write the script, and his wife of twenty years, the film star Luisa del Forno, may be about to leave him if he can't pay more attention to the marriage. As it turns out, it is the same crisis.
Luisa's efforts to talk to him seem to be drowned out by voices in his head: voices of women in his life, speaking through the walls of his memory, insistent, flirtatious, irresistible, potent. Women speaking beyond words (Overture delle Donne). And these are the women Guido has loved, and from whom he has derived the entire vitality of a creative life, now as stalled as his marriage.
In an attempt to find some peace and save the marriage, they go to a spa near Venice (Spa Music), where they are immediately hunted down by the press with intrusive questions about the marriage and—something Guido had not told Luisa about—his imminent film project (Not Since Chaplin).
As Guido struggles to find a story for his film, he becomes increasingly preoccupied—his interior world sometimes becoming indistinguishable from the objective world (Guido's Song). His mistress Carla arrives in Venice, calling him from her lonely hotel room (A Call from the Vatican), his producer Liliane La Fleur, former
Guido's fugitive imagination, clutching at women like straws, eventually plunges through the floor of the present and into his own past where he encounters his mother, bathing a nine-year-old boy—the young Guido himself (Nine). The vision leads him to re-encounter a glorious moment on a beach with Saraghina, the prostitute and outcast to whom he went as a curious child, creeping out of his Catholic boarding school St. Sebastian, to ask her to tell him about love. Her answer, be yourself (Ti Voglio Bene / Be Italian), and the dance she taught him on the sand echoes down to the forty-year-old Guido as a talisman and a terrible reminder of the consequences of that night—punishment by the nuns and rejection by his appalled mother (The Bells of St. Sebastian). Unable to bear the incomprehensible dread of the adults, the little boy runs back to the beach to find nothing but the sand and the wind—an image of the vanishing nature of love, and the cause of Guido Contini's artistry and unanchored peril: a fugitive heart.
Back into the present, Guido is on a beach once more. With him, Claudia Nardi, a film star, muse of his greatest successes, who has flown from Paris because he needs her, but this time she does not want the role. He cannot fathom the rejection. He is enraged. He fails to understand that Claudia loves him, too, but wants him to love her as a woman 'not a spirit'—and he realizes too late that this was the real reason that she came—in order to know, and now she does. He cannot love her that way. She is in some way released to love him for what he is, and never to hope for him again. Wryly she calls him "My charming Casanova!" thereby involuntarily giving Guido the very inspiration he needs and for which has always looked to her. As Claudia lets him go with "Unusual Way", Guido grasps the last straw of all—a desperate, inspired movie—a 'spectacular in the vernacular'—set on "The Grand Canal" and cast with every woman in his life.
The improvised movie is a spectacular collision between his real life and his creative one—a film that is as self-lacerating as it is cruel, during which Carla races onto the set to announce her divorce and her delight that they can be married only to be brutally rejected by Guido in his desperate fixation with the next set-up, and which climaxes with Luisa, appalled and moved by his use of their intimacy—and even her words—as a source for the film, finally detonating with sadness and rage. Guido keeps the cameras rolling, capturing a scene of utter desolation—the women he loves, and Luisa whom he loves above all, littered like smashed porcelain across the frame of his hopelessly beautiful failure of a film. "Cut. Print!"
The film is dead. The cast leaves. They all leave. Carla, with "Simple"—words from the articulate broken heart, Claudia with a letter from Paris to say that she has married, and Luisa in a shattering exit from a marriage that has, as she says, been 'all of me' (Be On Your Own).
Guido is alone. "I Can't Make This Movie" ascends into the scream of "Guido out in space with no direction,' and he contemplates suicide. But, as the gun is at his head, there is a final life-saving interruption—from his nine-year-old self (Getting Tall), in which the young Guido points out it is time to move on. To grow up. And Guido surrenders the gun. As the women return in a reprise of the Overture (Reprises), but this time to let him go, only one is absent: Luisa. Guido feels the aching void left by the only woman he will ever love. In the 2003 Broadway production, as the boy led the women off into his own future to the strains of "Be Italian", Luisa steps into the room on the final note, and Guido turned toward her—this time ready to listen.
Productions
Workshop
Originally conceived as a male/female cast, many of the changes into a mostly all women cast were created in a workshop that rehearsed in the upstairs theatre at the New Amsterdam Theatre in the Fall of 1981. For their participation, the workshop cast was given a small percentage of the show for a limited amount of time. Kathi Moss was the only cast member of the original Broadway cast that did not participate in the workshop (Pat Ast played the role of Saraghina in the workshop).
Original Broadway production
After nineteen previews, the
National tour
The original plans were for the Broadway show to continue even as the National tour commenced. However the new producers (
- 1984 "Nine" – The National tour – Sergio Franchi starring as Guido Contini (although not a complete list, the following references were found):
- Washington, DC – Kennedy Center Opera House – April 4, 1984 through April 21, 1984[9]
- Miami Beach, FL – Miami Beach Theater of Performing Arts – May 4, 1984 through May 17, 1984[10]
- Los Angeles – Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Music Center - May 23, 1984 through June 1, 1984[11]
- Dallas, TX – Majestic Theater – June 5, 1984 through June 17, 1984[12]
- San Diego, CA - Fox Theater - July 2, 1984 through July 7, 1984[8]
- Seattle, WA - 5th Avenue Theater - July 10, 1984 through July 15, 1984[13]
- San Francisco, CA - Week of August 24, 1984[4]
London productions
On June 7, 1992, the largest production of Nine to date was presented in concert in
On December 12, 1996, a small-scale production directed by
Broadway revival
In 2003, the Roundabout Theatre Company produced a Broadway revival with director Leveaux and choreographer Butterell. It opened on April 10, 2003, at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, where it ran for 283 performances and 23 previews and won two Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical. The cast included Antonio Banderas as Guido, Mary Stuart Masterson as Luisa, Chita Rivera as Liliane (all receiving Tony Award nominations), Jane Krakowski as Carla (winning the Tony), Laura Benanti as Claudia, and Mary Beth Peil as Guido's mother. Replacements later in the run included John Stamos as Guido, Eartha Kitt as Liliane, Rebecca Luker as Claudia, and Marni Nixon as Guido's mother. Yeston replaced a waltz dance from the original Folies Bergere number with a showstopping Tango Duet for Banderas and Rivera, a revival cast recording was released by PS Classics. Jenna Elfman was hired and advertised to join the cast as Carla at the same time that Stamos and Kitt were joining the production. A few days before the opening it was announced she needed more rehearsal time and that her understudy Sara Gettelfinger would take over temporarily.[16] Elfman never did join the company and Gettelfinger played the rest of the run.
International productions
The European premiere of Nine opened in Sweden, at the Oscarsteatern, Stockholm, September 23, 1983, with Ernst-Hugo Järegård (Guido), Siw Malmkvist (Luisa), Viveka Anderberg (Claudia), Suzanne Brenning (Carla), Anna Sundqvist (Saraghina), Berit Carlberg (Liliane La Fleur), Helena Fernell (Stephanie), Maj Lindström (Guido's Mother), Moa Myrén (Lady of the Spa), Ewa Roos (Mama Maddalena), Lena Nordin[17](Maria). Other cast members included Monica Janner, Marit Selfjord, Berit Bogg, Ragnhild Sjögren, Solgärd Kjellgren, Ann-Christine Bengtsson, Siw Marie Andersson, Anna Maria Söderström, Susanne Sahlberg, Vivian Burman, Hanne Kirkerud, Susie Sulocki, Annika Persson, Charlotte Assarsson, Anna-Lena Engström, and Kim Sulocki (Guido as a child).
The Australian premiere of Nine was staged in
The Argentinian premiere of Nine (1998) won several ACE Awards including Mejor Musical. Performers included Juan Darthes (as Guido), Elena Roger, Ligia Piro, Luz Kerz, Sandra Ballesteros and Mirta Wons.
The musical premiered in Germany at the Theater des Westens in 1999 in Berlin.[18]
The musical played in Malmö, Sweden at Malmö Opera in 2002 with Jan Kyhle (Guido), Marie Richardson (Luisa), Sharon Dyall (Claudia), Petra Nielsen (Carla), Marianne Mörck (Sarraghina), Lill Lindfors (Liliane La Fleur), Annica Edstam (Stephanie), Victoria Kahn (Gudio's Mother).
A Dutch production of Nine opened in an open-air theatre in Amersfoort in June 2005. Directed by Julia Bless, the production starred René van Zinnicq Bergmann, Frédèrique Sluyterman van Loo, Marleen van der Loo, Kirsten Cools, Tine Joustra, Veronique Sodano, Aafke van der Meij and Donna Vrijhof. The Dutch translation was by Theo Nijland.
The original Japanese production premiered in Tokyo in 2005 with Tetsuya Bessho as Guido Contini and Mizuki Ōura as Liliane La Fleur. In 2021 the Umeda Arts 2021 production in Tokyo and Osaka Nine won Japan's Yomiuri Theatre Award for Best Musical, Best Leading Actor: Yu Shirota, and Best Director: Shuntaro Fujita.
The musical premiered in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the fall of 2010 with Ernesto Concepción (Guido), Sara Jarque (Luisa), Wanda Sais (Carla), Marian Pabón (Lilliane Le Fleur), Tita Guerrero (Lina Darling), Michelle Brava (Claudia), Aidita Encarnación (Saraghina), Yezmín Luzzed (Stephanie), and Hilda Ramos (Mamma).[19] The production was directed by Miguel Rosa who previously directed the Puerto Rico premiere of Rent in 2009.
The Phoenix Theatre in Arizona revived Nine in the spring of 2011, starring Craig Laurie (Guido), Patti Davis Suarez (Mother), Jeannie Shubitz (Luisa), Kim Manning (Liliane), Jenny Hintze (Claudia), and Johanna Carlisle (Saraghina).[20]
The musical premiered in Manila, the Philippines, in September 2012, produced by Atlantis Productions. Jett Pangan (Guido) alongside an all-star cast of women, scenic design by Tony Award-winning David Gallo and costume design by Robin Tomas.[21]
The musical premiered in the
The Greek production opened in Pantheon Theatre in Athens in November 2015, starring Vassilis Charalampopoulos as Guido, Helena Paparizou as Saraghina.[22]
The musical premiered in
A Spanish production premiered on June 7, 2018, at the Teatro Amaya in Madrid, with a cast formed by Alvaro Puertas (Guido), Roko (Luisa), Patrizia Ruiz (Claudia), Chanel Terrero (Carla), Marcela Paoli (Liliane Le Fleur), Idaira Fernández (Saraghina), Chus Herranz (Stephanie), and Angels Jiménez (Guido's Mother).[25]
Musical numbers
|
|
- Maury Yeston added a new number, "Now is the Moment", for Sergio Franchi.
- The 2003 revival eliminated "The Germans at the Spa".
Background
Fellini had entitled his film 8½ in recognition of his prior body of work, which included six full-length films, two short films, and one film that he co-directed. Yeston's title for the musical adaptation adds another half-credit to Fellini's output and refers to Guido's age during his first hallucination sequence. Yeston called the musical Nine, explaining that if you add music to 8½, "it's like half a number more."[27]
Casting
Character | 1982 Broadway | 1984 National tour | 1992 London | 1996 Donmar Warehouse | 2003 Broadway |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Guido Contini | Raul Julia | Sergio Franchi | Jonathan Pryce | Larry Lamb | Antonio Banderas |
Luisa Contini | Karen Akers | Diane M. Hurley | Ann Crumb | Susannah Fellows | Mary Stuart Masterson |
Carla Albanese | Anita Morris | Karla Tamburrelli | Becky Norman | Clare Burt | Jane Krakowski |
Liliane La Fleur | Liliane Montevecchi | Jacqueline Doughet | Liliane Montevecchi | Sara Kestelman | Chita Rivera |
Claudia Nardi | Shelly Burch | Lauren Mitchell | Elizabeth Sastre | Eleanor David | Laura Benanti |
Guido's Mother | Taina Elg | Leigh Beery | Fiona O'Neill Eileen Page |
Dilys Laye | Mary Beth Peil |
Young Guido | Cameron Johann | Danny Barak | Danny Mertsoy | Ian Covington | William Ullrich |
Saraghina | Kathi Moss | Camille Saviola | Ellen O'Grady | Jenny Galloway | Myra Lucretia Taylor |
Stephanie Necrophorus | Stephanie Cotsirilos | Kathryn Skatula | Anita Dobson | Ria Jones | Saundra Santiago |
Our Lady of the Spa | Kate Dezina | O'Hara Parker | Sarah Payne | Kiran Hocking | Deidre Goodwin |
Lina Darling | Laura Kenyon | Chikae Ishikawa | Nadia Strahan | Norma Atallah | Nell Campbell |
Mama Maddelena | Camille Saviola | Holly Lipton Nash | Meg Johnson | — | |
Diana | Cynthia Meryl | Margareta Arvidsson | — | Tessa Pritchard | Rachel deBenedet |
Juliette | — | Rona Figueroa | |||
Maria | Jeanie Bowers | Candace Rogers | — | Sarah Parish | Sara Gettelfinger |
Annabella | Nancy McCall | — | Kristin Marks | ||
Olga von Hesse | Dee Etta Rowe | Lou Ann Miles | — | Susie Dumbreck | Linda Mugleston |
Renata | Rita Rehn | Pegg Winter | — | Emma Dears | Elena Shaddow |
Sofia | — | Kathy Voytko | |||
Francesca | Kim Criswell | Barbara Walsh | — | ||
Giulietta | Louise Edelken | — | |||
Gretchen von Krupf | Lulu Downs | Mary Stout | — | ||
Heidi von Sturm | Linda Kerns | Mary Chesterman | — | ||
Ilsa von Hesse | Alaina Warren Zachary | Melody Jones | — | ||
A Venetian Gondolier | Colleen Dodson | Philip Maranges | — | ||
Young Guido's Schoolmate | Evans Allen Jadrien Steele Patrick Wilcox |
Jason Dinter Jonathan H. Florman |
— |
Awards and nominations
Original Broadway production
Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
1982 | Tony Award
|
Best Musical | Won | |
Best Book of a Musical | Arthur Kopit | Nominated | ||
Best Original Score | Maury Yeston | Won | ||
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical
|
Raul Julia | Nominated | ||
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical
|
Karen Akers | Nominated | ||
Liliane Montevecchi | Won | |||
Anita Morris | Nominated | |||
Best Direction of a Musical | Tommy Tune | Won | ||
Best Choreography | Thommie Walsh | Nominated | ||
Best Scenic Design | Lawrence Miller | Nominated | ||
Best Costume Design | William Ivey Long | Won | ||
Best Lighting Design | Marcia Madeira | Nominated | ||
Drama Desk Award | Outstanding Musical | Won | ||
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Shelly Burch | Nominated | ||
Liliane Montevecchi | Won | |||
Anita Morris | ||||
Outstanding Director of a Musical | Tommy Tune | Won | ||
Outstanding Lyrics | Maury Yeston | Won | ||
Outstanding Music | Won | |||
Outstanding Costume Design | William Ivey Long | Won | ||
Outstanding Lighting Design | Marcia Madeira | Won | ||
Theatre World Award | Karen Akers | Won | ||
1983 | Grammy Award
|
Best Musical Show Album
|
Nine | Nominated |
Original London production
Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
1996 | Laurence Olivier Award
|
Best New Musical | Nominated |
2003 Broadway revival
Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
2003 | Tony Award
|
Best Revival of a Musical | Won | |
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical
|
Antonio Banderas | Nominated | ||
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical
|
Jane Krakowski | Won | ||
Mary Stuart Masterson | Nominated | |||
Chita Rivera | Nominated | |||
Best Direction of a Musical | David Leveaux | Nominated | ||
Best Lighting Design | Brian MacDevitt | Nominated | ||
Best Orchestrations | Jonathan Tunick | Nominated | ||
Drama Desk Award | Outstanding Revival | Won | ||
Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Antonio Banderas | Won | ||
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical | Mary Stuart Masterson | Nominated | ||
Chita Rivera | Nominated | |||
Jane Krakowski | Won | |||
Outstanding Director of a Musical | David Leveaux | Nominated | ||
Theatre World Award | Antonio Banderas | Won | ||
Mary Stuart Masterson | Won | |||
2004 | Grammy Award
|
Best Musical Show Album
|
Nine
|
Nominated |
Film adaptation
On April 12, 2007, Among other cast changes in the film version, the character of Mama Maddelena does not appear, and Claudia's surname was changed from Nardi to Jenssen. The script makes Guido 50 (Day-Lewis's actual age), not 40 as in the stage original. The film's final coda is more hopeful and optimistic than the stage version. In addition, director Marshall cut most of the original production's score, with only "Overture delle Donne", "Guido's Song", "A Call from the Vatican", "Folies Bergeres", "Be Italian", "My Husband Makes Movies", "Unusual Way", and an extended version of "I Can't Make This Movie" making it into the final edit of the film. Composer Maury Yeston wrote three new songs for the movie including "Cinema Italiano", "Guarda la Luna" to replace the title song, and "Take It All" in place of "Be On Your Own", as well as the instrumental concluding the film. The film is co-produced by Marshall's own production company Lucamar Productions. The film was released in the US on December 18, 2009, in New York and Los Angeles and opened for wide release on December 25, 2009.
References
- ^ Arnold, Christine. "Franchi: Italian to the 'Nine.'" (May 21, 1984). Los Angeles Times
- Baton Rouge, LA
- ^ "'On Your Toes' Cancelled." (April 26, 1984). Los Angeles Times
- ^ Baton Rouge, LA
- Washington, DC
- ISBN 0823076369
- ^ Arnold, Christine. (May 21, 1984). "Franchi: Italian to the 'Nine'." Los Angeles Times
- ^ a b Harper, Hillard. (July 14, 1984). "'Nine' in S.D. / Fox [theater] Tests Voices of Play's Cast." Los Angeles Times
- Washington, DC
- Miami Beach, FL
- ^ Drake, Sylvia. (May 26, 1984). "An Italian-Style 'Nine' Makes Points of its Own." Los Angeles Times
- ^ "Dallas / Theater / 'Nine' at Dallas Majestic June 5–17." (June, 1984) Texas Monthly, (Ennis Publishing; Austin, TX)
- Seattle, WA
- ^ Domar Warehouse production Archived 2009-11-24 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Library Services - Information Services - University of Kent". Retrieved on 4 February 2017.
- ^ Hernandez, Ernio."Report: Jenna Elfman Replaced by Sara Gettelfinger in 'Nine'" playbill.com, October 10, 2003
- ^ operasolisterna (29 October 2016). "Lena Nordin – Kungliga Teaterns Solister". Retrieved 2019-02-12.
- ^ "Nine — Musicallexikon". www.musicallexikon.eu. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
- ^ "Ernesto Javier Concepción entre las mujeres de su vida". Primera Hora (in Spanish). 2010-10-28. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
- ^ "Nine at Phoenix Theatre 2011". www.abouttheartists.com. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
- ^ "Nine". Atlantis Productions Inc. Archived from the original on 2 July 2012.
- ^ Vasileiadis, George (2015-11-28). "Lights, camera, Helena! Paparizou stars in musical "Nine"". wiwibloggs. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
- ^ Carvalho, Eduardo. "Novo musical de Charles Möeller e Claudio Botelho, 'Nine' estreia 21 de maio, no Teatro Porto Seguro, em São Paulo" Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 4 February 2017.
- ^ Carvalho, Eduardo. "Nine - Um Musical Felliniano (2015)". Retrieved on 4 February 2017.
- ^ dice, Haly. "NINE EL MUSICAL en el Teatro Amaya". Madrid Es Teatro (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-02-08.
- ^ Q&A with Yeston in Broadway.com
- ^ a b Kalfatovic, Mary. "Maury Yeston", Contemporary Musicians (ed. Luann Brennan). Vol. 22, Gale Group, Inc., 1998
- ^ Cline, Sara (2014-06-10). "REVIEW: Musical 'Nine' offers comic delight in Mansfield". The Enterprise. Retrieved 2019-07-13.
- ^ Nine synopsis and cast on Apple Movie Trailers