A Guest Blog by the  Student Scholars of the Florida State University Honors Experience Program Under the supervision of Dr. Arianne Johnson Quinn:

This research blog was crafted by a group of seven undergraduate students at Florida State University who have been enrolled in my Honors Program Musical Theatre course entitled “Staging Identity and Difference in the American Musical.” Each of these students was assigned a small section of original research, employing resources from the vast digital collections of the NYPL for the Performing Arts, under the guidance of Doug Reside, Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division.

The goals for this project were simple: to support undergraduate student research and allow them to develop the necessary skills to perform independent original research on musical theatre using digital archival sources, and to work collaboratively as they begin taking steps towards publication and further research. This was a joyful, creative process as students from vastly different academic majors discovered unknown works of musical theatre and began to construct historical narratives in a collaborative setting. We are grateful to Doug Reside for his commitment to education, research, and skillful guidance. We are also grateful to the NYPL for the Performing Arts for making this research project possible.

These individual blog contributions center on the history, creation, reception and cultural context of Baker Street (1965), with a book by Jerome Coopersmith, music and lyrics by Marian Grudeff, Raymond Jesse and additional music by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock. This exploration is particularly timely given the recent passing of legendary producer and director Harold Prince (1928-1965), who was such a luminary presence in the world of musical theatre. Known for his creative input on such works as Cabaret (1966), and his collaborations with Stephen Sondheim including Company (1970) and Sweeney Todd (1979), Prince’s career reflects the shift in the form of the Broadway musical from the 1960s to the present. Baker Street is a curious show, in part because of its mixture of visual devices like puppetry and its retelling of the Sherlock Holmes story.

Although it closed after only 311 performances, the history of this work is an important note in Prince’s career because it reflects the curious mixture of genre and style on the 1960s Broadway stage. Perhaps it is a response to other shows with British themes that graced the stages of Broadway in this period, including Lionel Bart’s ever-popular Oliver! (1960) and Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse’s works which included Stop the World—I Want to Get Off (1962) and The Roar of the Greasepaint—The Smell of the Crowd (1965). As we see in the following sections, this show not only reflected the theatrical styles of the 1960s, but also demonstrates the curious place that the Broadway musical occupied in American life in the 1960s.

Below are links to PDFs of the students' work, click through each one to read.

• Theatre major Laura Swygert writes about the cultural context of civil and political unrest that formed the backdrop for this work.
• Mathematics major Abigail Dean examines the work’s production history.
• Psychology major Trystan Loustau explores the unique characters and narratives that make up this show, each of which reflect both the source material and the imaginations of the creators.
• Psychology major Anna Stanley builds on this as she discusses the musical styles that underlay this work that gave it its memorable soundworld.
• International Affairs major Alyssa Sharp discusses the critical reception of Baker Street including its mixed reviews and the response of a slightly bewildered public.
• Creative Writing major Lee Beaudrot recreates the narratives of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic stories and their influence on the book for Baker Street.
• Finally, Theatre major John Brannigan invites us to look closer at the technical elements of this production, situating the aesthetic within that of other works of the period.