Applause (musical)

Applause is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. The musical is based on the 1950 film All About Eve and the short story on which the movie is based, Mary Orr's "The Wisdom of Eve". The story centers on aging star Margo Channing, who innocently takes a fledgling actress under her wing, unaware that the ruthless Eve is plotting to steal her career and her man.

The musical opened on Broadway on March 30, 1970, running for 896 performances. The production was nominated for ten Tony Awards and ultimately won four: the overall production won the Tony Award for Best Musical, Lauren Bacall won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, and Ron Field won both the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical and the Tony Award for Best Choreography.

Composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Lee Adams (who had previously collaborated on the score to Bye Bye Birdie, among others) wanted to write a musical version of the 1950 movie, All About Eve. However, Twentieth Century Fox, which owned the rights to the movie, refused to grant them the rights to the script or the title. They were, however, able to purchase the stage rights to the short story on which All About Eve had been based, Mary Orr's "The Wisdom of Eve". The resulting musical could not contain any dialogue or characters that had been created for the movie but could use the original material that the movie also used. In April 1969, it was announced that Strouse, Adams, and book writer Sidney Michaels were beginning to work on the show, with Lawrence Kasha and Joseph Kipness producing. In July 1969, movie star Lauren Bacall was cast as aging theater star Margo Channing, the role played by Bette Davis in All About Eve. Bacall greatly identified with the role, explaining, "The Margo Channing of Applause and myself were ideally suited. She was approaching middle age. So was I. She was being forced to face the fact that her career would have to move into another phase as younger women came along to do younger parts. So was I. And she constantly felt that the man she was in love with was going to go off with someone else, someone younger of course, and I, too, had had those feelings".

Bacall, Strouse, Adams, and Kasha came to the conclusion that Michaels' book was insufficient, so Kasha hired Betty Comden and Adolph Green to write a new book. They updated the story so that it was set in the present day (1970) instead of the 1950 setting of All About Eve. Comden and Green also created new characters to replace the characters created specifically for the movie. Addison de Witt, the snide and articulate drama critic played in the film by George Sanders, was replaced by Howard Benedict, producer of the play in which Margo Channing is appearing. Margo's loyal assistant Birdie Coonan, the only character in the film who is suspicious of Eve from the start, was replaced by Duane Fox, Margo's gay hair stylist. Strouse commented that this change also made the show more relevant to the 1970s. (A memorable moment: Margo asks Duane, "Are you going to be her hairdresser too?" Duane's response: "Only when she's laid out!") At a later point, Twentieth Century Fox reversed its original decision and granted the musical's creators full rights to All About Eve's script; however, by that time, the show was so far along in its development that major changes could not be made to the book. However, Strouse and Adams did write a song based on one of the film's most famous lines, "Fasten Your Seat Belts".

The Broadway production opened on March 30, 1970, at the Palace Theatre, and closed on May 27, 1972, after 896 performances and four previews. The closing date has been erroneously reported in some sources as July 27, 1972. Directed and choreographed by Ron Field with orchestrations by Philip J. Lang, the original cast included Lauren Bacall, Len Cariou, Penny Fuller, Bonnie Franklin, Lee Roy Reams, Robert Mandan, Brandon Maggart, Ann Williams, Nat Horne, and Nicholas Dante.

When Bacall's contract was up in 1971, Bacall went on tour with the show. The producers initially decided to cast film legend Rita Hayworth as a replacement for the role of Margo on Broadway. Hayworth was very interested and flew to New York to audition for the role. However, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, Hayworth was suffering from the beginning stages of Alzheimer's disease and could not retain lyrics or dialogue. Anne Baxter, who had portrayed Eve in the original film, replaced Bacall as Margo Channing. When Baxter departed the show in 1972, actress Arlene Dahl replaced her for one month before the show closed.^{[citation needed]}

The musical was later adapted for television, starring Bacall, with Larry Hagman replacing Len Cariou in the role of Bill Sampson. It aired in the United States on CBS on March 15, 1973. It has not been released commercially, but it is available for viewing at the Paley Center for Media (formerly The Museum of Television & Radio) in New York City and Beverly Hills, California.^{[citation needed]}

The musical opened in the West End at Her Majesty's Theatre on November 16, 1972, and ran for 382 performances. Lauren Bacall starred, along with Ken Walsh (Bill Sampson), Angela Richards (Eve Harrington), Eric Flynn (Duane Fox), Basil Hoskins (Howard Benedict), and Sarah Marshall (Karen Richards).