Constance Hauman singing “Glitter and Be Gay,” London, 1989. Having received a favorable response to my May 26th post on the troubled history of 1956’s Candide (you can read the column here), fans of the musical asked for more. There were a stack of stories I couldn’t fit in due to space, with one in particular so wild it could easily fill an entire column on its own — and here it is. To get all the details straight, I went directly to the source: international opera soprano

Phil Silvers in his quintessential role as Sgt. Ernie Bilko on television’s “You’ll Never Get Rich” (1955), later “The Phil Silvers Show.” “If you wanna be a top banana, you gotta start at the bottom of the bunch.” So goes Johnny Mercer’s lyric to the title song of the 1951 Broadway musical that opened seventy years ago this fall. Starring Phil Silvers as an over-the-top television star, Top Banana was a big hit and ran for 350 performances. A part of Broadway’s distant past,

Leslie Uggams (photo by Joseph Moran). Yes, it’s June. And, as for most Broadway aficionados, it’s all about singer and actress Leslie Uggams’ battle with Oscar Hammerstein II’s lyrics to a song from Carousel on a certain Fourth of July. This video (which you can see below) has provided countless hours of entertainment over the years. For those unaware, this wonderful and indefatigable performer experienced an actor’s nightmare LIVE on national television while singing her he