Rex (musical)
| Rex | |
|---|---|
| Music | Richard Rodgers |
| Lyrics | Sheldon Harnick |
| Book | Sherman Yellen |
| Productions | 1976 Broadway 2010 Toronto |
Rex is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and libretto by Sherman Yellen, based on the life of King Henry VIII. The original production starred Nicol Williamson.
Following tryout engagements in Delaware, Washington and Boston, it opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on April 25, 1976 and closed June 5, 1976, after 14 previews and 49 regular performances. During tryouts, Harold Prince took over as director (uncredited), with the original director Edwin Sherin remaining. It is remembered for being a rare instance of a Richard Rodgers flop, and for being one of the early Broadway appearances of actress Glenn Close, her first in a musical. Until the Canadian premiere of Rex in 2010, this show was the only Richard Rodgers work since the 1940s not available for performance from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization. Clive Barnes, reviewing for The New York Times, wrote that it was "one of the most interminable musicals in years."
Andrew Lloyd Webber persuaded his then-wife, Sarah Brightman to record the ballad "Away From You", the only song from the musical that has been separately released.
Years after the show closed, and after Rodgers's death, Sheldon Harnick and Sherman Yellen reworked the musical, attempting to make its lead character more sympathetic, presenting it in a concert performance as part of the York Theatre's "Musicals In Mufti" series starring Melissa Errico and Patrick Page in 2000. It also had a one-night performance at Stages!, the Chicago Festival of New Musicals in 2007.
The first fully staged production of the revised version took place in February, 2010 in Toronto, Canada.
Rex had its Canadian premiere in February 2010, in a newly revised version by Sheldon Harnick and Sherman Yellen, presented at the Fairview Library Theatre in Toronto. Much of the score and script was heavily revised by Messrs. Harnick and Yellen for this production.
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