Li'l Abner (musical)

Li'l Abner
1956 Original Cast Recording
Music	Gene De Paul
Lyrics	Johnny Mercer
Book	Norman Panama Melvin Frank
Basis	Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner
Productions	1956 Broadway

Li'l Abner is a musical with a book by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, music by Gene De Paul, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Based on the comic strip Li'l Abner by Al Capp, the show is, on the surface, a broad spoof of hillbillies, but it is also a pointed satire on other topics, ranging from American politics and incompetence in the United States federal government to propriety and gender roles.

After several other writers and composers considered musicalizing the comic strip, Al Capp finally made a deal in 1955 with the eventual creators for a musical to be financed by Paramount Pictures, which wanted to follow the stage version with a film musical. The Broadway production opened on November 15, 1956 and ran for a moderately successful 693 performances. The score and Michael Kidd's choreography received critical praise, but some critics felt that the book's adaptation lost the spirit of the comic strip. Kidd and Edie Adams, as Daisy Mae, won Tony Awards, while newcomer Peter Palmer, in the title role, won a Theatre World Award. Paramount released a film version with the same title in 1959, with most of the Broadway cast reprising their roles.

A musical version of the popular comic strip Li'l Abner was first planned in 1946, with the book to be written by the comic strip's author, Al Capp.Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were named as potential producers, though reports did not state whether they intended to write the score. However, this version never materialized, and over the next several years, various authors and composers sought to musicalize Li'l Abner, including writers Arnold Horwitt and Josh Logan. In 1953, Arthur Schwartz and Alan Jay Lerner obtained the rights to the show from Al Capp; the three were to co-produce the show, with Schwartz writing the music and Lerner writing the book and lyrics for an opening during the 1954–55 season. The familiar comic strip characters were to be retained but Li'l Abner and his longtime sweetheart Daisy Mae would not yet be married in the musical. Hollywood star Van Johnson expressed interest in the title role, saying he would dye his hair black to match the comic strip character; he had not appeared on Broadway since the 1940 production of Pal Joey. The Schwartz–Lerner version also fell through, but by the next year Lerner and composer Burton Lane planned to write the musical. Herman Levin would serve as producer, and rehearsals were scheduled to begin in November 1954. However, later that year, Levin announced a musical version of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, by Lerner and Loewe. Although work was supposed to continue on the Lane–Lerner Li'l Abner, this version never appeared, and My Fair Lady, Lerner and Loewe's adaptation of Pygmalion, opened in 1956, becoming the hit musical of the decade.