Posts from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound

The Lost Musicals: Uncovering the Dorothy Loudon flops Part Two: Lolita, My Love

by Diana Bertolini
January 12, 2011

After the disappointment of The Fig Leaves are Falling, Dorothy Loudon got a great part in a new musical with much more promise, but this one didn’t even make it to Broadway, despite being, without question, artistically superior.

The book and lyrics were by one of musical theatre’s heavy hitters, the music was by a successful pop hit composer and the source material was one of the twentieth century’s most acclaimed, controversial, and popular novels. The lyricist 

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The Lost Musicals: Uncovering the Dorothy Loudon Flops Part One: The Fig Leaves are Falling

by Diana Bertolini
December 10, 2010

What happens to a musical unrecorded? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Perhaps, but fortunately not forever in the case of two flop musicals from the late sixties/early seventies that tried to challenge American sexual mores, that also featured the sublime talents of one of the musical theatre’s incomparable divas, before she played Miss Hannighan in Annie and joined the ranks of the great musical stars.

Many of the classic 

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