Each month, Jason Fortner spotlights one or more musical theatre composers and/or lyricists, offering his own unique perspective on the songwriting legends of musical theatre. Send your comments/questions on this column to happgood@aol.com.

Aficionados of the Broadway musical know that the gestation period is rarely a smooth one, but is instead filled with twists, turns and turmoil. Rarely, if ever, has a musical script and score arrived on opening night in the same form it began, instead it is a culmination of rewrites, recasting and rethinking on the part of the collaborators that mold and shape the show. These trying experiences can be quite exasperating at times, and it was Larry Gelbart who once said “if Hitler is alive, I hope he’s out of town with a musical!”.

Gelbart would know this firsthand, having seen a truckload of songs cut from Stephen Sondheim’s score to A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM. Among these would be “The House of Marcus Lycus” in its extended sung version, “I Do Like You”– a duet for Hysterium and Pseudolus, “There’s Something About A War” – a number for Miles Gloriosus, “Farewell” – a number for Domina, plus several songs for the young lovers, including “The Echo Song” and “Your Eyes Are Blue”. Add to these the early songs “The Gaggle of Geese” and the opening number “Love Is In the Air” (famously replaced by “Comedy Tonight”) and you’ve got a trunk full of tunes that have filled many a Sondheim revue.

Songs come and go in musicals for a variety of reasons. “Being Alive” is the perfect finale number for Bobby in COMPANY, but it probably achieved perfection by first being the songs “Marry Me A Little” and “Happily Ever After”. Elements of both those predecessors survived in the final song.

Sondheim’s score to FOLLIES has a long list of road kill numbers, many of which have lived on in concerts and Sondheim tributes. Among these is “Who Could Be Blue?/ Little White House”, “The Old Piano Roll” , “Pleasant Little Kingdom”, “Can That Boy Foxtrot?” (replaced by “I’m Still Here”) and “All Things Bright and Beautiful”, which provides the music for the (literally) haunting Prologue.

"Who Could be Blue/Little White House" from a Brazilian production of SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM sung in Portuguese by Claudio Botelho & Ester Elias

Kander & Ebb’s CHICAGO also lost a song and gained an Overture, the song being the rejected finale tune “Loopin’ The Loop”. Other CHICAGO songs that never made it to the Broadway opening night include “Ten Percent”, a song for the cut Agent character, and “It”. Their musical CABARET also has had songs come and go, resulting in no two productions using the same song list. “I Don’t Care Much” was cut from the original Broadway production but later added to the 1998 revival, other numbers cut or reworked for the original version were “Roommates”, “Good Time Charlie” and “It’ll All Blow Over”.

David Hyde-Pierce performs "Ten Percent" from CHICAGO at an NYC gala honoring John Kander.

This game of musical chairs has gone on and on for decades. When OKLAHOMA! was running long the powers that be cut several numbers including “When I Go Out Walking With My Baby” and “Boys & Girls Like You And Me”, both of which were eventually used in the stage version of STATE FAIR in 1996. Interestingly, “Boys & Girls Like You and Me” was planned to be included in OKLAHOMA!, then cut, then added to the film MEET ME IN ST LOUIS, then cut, then included in the London stage version of CINDERELLA and then finally made it to Broadway with STATE FAIR.

Liza Minnelli (accompanied by Michael Feinstein) singing "Boys and Girls Like You and Me" on THE TONIGHT SHOW W/ JOHNNY CARSON

Even “perfect” musicals like MY FAIR LADY, GUYS & DOLLS and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF have had significant cuts and changes in their birthing periods. Lerner & Loewe cut several songs from MY FAIR LADY including “Come To The Ball” and “Say A Prayer For Me Tonight”, the latter moved into the film score for GIGI. From Frank Loesser’s GUYS & DOLLS we can see how the lilting waltz “Three Cornered Tune” evolved into the lowbrow opening trio “Fugue For Tinhorns”, while Sky Masterson’s excised solo “Travelin’ Light” perfectly summed up Sky Masterson’s character but also slowed down the action. FIDDLER had a milk-cart load of cuts rewrites, including such gems as “The Butcher’s Song”, “Dear Sweet Sewing Machine”, “Get Thee Out” and “When Messiah Comes”, to name a few. It took a lot of painful previews in Detroit for Bock & Harnick to get their orders for rewrites and revisions, but all of them worked to make the show a smash hit.

The list goes on and on. From Bernstein & Sondheim’s WEST SIDE STORY we can recover such lost tunes as “Like Everybody Else” and “Trip to the Moon”, both songs written for the Jets in early versions of the show. From Cy Coleman & Dorothy Fields’ score to SWEET CHARITY we can find such lost numbers as “Gimme A Raincheck”, “Pink Taffeta Sample Size 10”, “You Wanna Bet” (which was rewritten as the title tune) and “Poor Everybody Else”, which was replaced by “I’m A Brass Band” when Gwen Verdon requested less to sing in Act Two. The latter was pulled from the trunk for the songwriting team’s next show, SEESAW, where Michele Lee was more than happy to belt it out.

Millicent Martin performing "Pink Taffeta Sample Size 10" on the PBS Series SONG BY SONG

Thankfully, theatre historians, concert organizers and record producers such as Bruce Kimmel have labored to keep these lost tunes in the public ear. Kimmel’s LOST IN BOSTON series of four CDS are a terrific way to hear these forgotten gems, and various organizations and series keep the music alive through ongoing concerts, solo albums and bonus tracks on new releases. Another great pair of CDs are YOU CAN’T PUT KETCHUP ON THE MOON and LIFE’S A FUNNY PRESENT, both representing Broadway Flops & Roadkills, as the subtitle suggests. These are out of print but can be found used on Amazon & Ebay, among other sources.

As Broadway continues, we’ll have even more of these lost treasures. From the cut numbers in LESTAT to the excised “There Once was A Pirate”, cut from SPRING AWAKENING, writers of Broadway scores will continue to add, subtract, tinker and fix until they get it right.

And that’s “Just Fine” with me…

Next update to this page: May 2, 2010