BYE BYE BIRDIE

Book by Michael Stewart
Music by Charles Strouse
Lyrics by Lee Adams
Staged and choreographed by Gower Champion
Cast:
Dick Van Dyke [Albert Peterson]
Chita Rivera [Rose Grant]
Paul Lynde[Harry MacAfee]
Kay Medford [Mae Peterson]
Dick Gautier [Conrad Birdie]
Michael J. Pollard [Hugo Peabody]
Charles Nelson Reilly [Mr. Henkel]

MUSICAL NUMBERS
* Overture
* An English Teacher
* The Telephone Hour
* How Lovely To Be a Woman
* Put On a Happy Face
* Normal American Boy
* One Boy
* Honestly Sincere
* Hymn For a Sunday Evening
* One Last Kiss
* What Did I Ever See In Him?
* A Lot of Livin' To Do
* Kids
* Baby Talk To Me
* Kids (Reprise)
* Spanish Rose
* Rosie

Opening on April 14, 1960 at the Martin Beck Theatre, Bye Bye Birdie was the ultimate teen musical of its generation. Chita played Rose Alvarez, the girlfriend and secretary of Albert Peterson, played by Dick Van Dyke.

Albert is the manager of an Elvis-like recording star, named Conrad Birdie. As the play begins, Birdie is about to be inducted into the army and Rose is in the process of dumping Albert, who has not fulfilled his promise to give up show business to become an English teacher. Seeing his future going up in smoke, Albert swears that his will give up Almaelou Music as soon as he earns enough money to pay back his debts.

Encouraged by this renewed promise, Rosie devises a plan. A member of one of Birdie’s fan clubs will be selected, at random, to receive his one last kiss before he departs for the army. Albert will write a song for the occasion called "One Last Kiss," which the rock star will sing, live, on television’s "Ed Sullivan Show."

Naturally, Rosie’s scheme does not unfold without complications. The lucky girl chosen to receive Birdie’s farewell kiss is Kim McAfee of Sweet Apple, Ohio. Not only does she have a jealous boyfriend, Hugo, and a high-strung father (played by Paul Lynde), but a visit by Conrad Birdie is more than the little town of Sweet Apple can bear. Havoc ensues. Add to Rosie’s woes, Albert’s domineering and manipulative mother, Mae, (played by Broadway’s eternally beleaguered mother, Kay Medford) who disapproves of Rosie and wants Albert to remain loyal to Almaelou Music. Albert, it seems, is too much of a Momma’s boy to stand up to her.

The image of teenagers on telephones in a large grid of boxes used for “The Telephone Hour” number became a much-imitated icon of the era.

As act one comes to a close, events have conspired to make the Ed Sullivan appearance a comic disaster. Rosie is fed up and walks out.

Act two belongs to Chita. As the curtain rises, Rosie is ready to pack out, and wonders, “What Did I Ever See In Him?” She declares that from now on, she will live her own life and live it to the fullest. Mae, Conrad, and Albert arrive as Rosie is leaving. Albert begs her to stay, but this time Rosie holds her ground. Finally, faced with Rosie’s departure, Albert tells his mother that he loves Rosie and can’t live without her. He abandons Mae and Conrad to go look for the woman he loves.

Rosie finds her way to Maude's Roadside Retreat where she introduces herself as “Spanish Rose.” Albert telephones her, “Baby, Talk To Me,” but she hangs up on him. Indulging her new wild woman persona, she tries to crash a Shriner's meeting. Maude throws her out, but Rosie, determined to live her life on the edge, sneaks back into the meeting, where her presence inspires events to escalate into something rather wilder than she had bargained for, providing Chita with an opportunity to make Broadway history by dancing Gower Champion’s “Shriner's Ballet.” Rosie barely escapes with her virtue, and meets Kim’s boyfriend, Hugo, who tells her that Kim and Conrad have run away to the ice house. Rosie heads back into Maude's to telephone Albert and is swept off by the Shriners. Albert and Mae show up, searching for Rosie. Albert again stands up to Mama telling her to go home. She leaves and a crowd of parents arrive demanding to know where their children are. Albert puts them off, but Rosie unwittingly tells them where to find Kim and Conrad.

The whole town converges at the ice house, where Kim flings herself happily into Hugo's arms; Conrad is arrested; and Albert tells Rosie to pack their things so they can leave to get married the next day. Mae still disapproves, but Rosie's happiness can’t be squelched.

Albert disguises Conrad in Mae’s clothes and hustles him off to the train station, where Conrad presents him with a blank contract. Kims’ father arrives and demands to know where Conrad is; Albert tells him that Conrad's affairs are no longer of any interest to him and rips up the contract. Kim’s mother tells her husband to let matters go, and informs him that Hugo has proposed to Kim, who has accepted, giving the weary Dad a new worry. Mae and Conrad leave for New York, without Albert.

Rosie arrives with the luggage, only to find that the train is gone. Albert produces a pair of tickets to Pumpkin Falls, Iowa, where he has accepted a job as an English teacher, and caps Rosie’s happiness with a wedding ring, telling her that she has the most beautiful name on earth - “Rosie.”

Chita rehearses with Dick Van Dyke and Gower Champion

 

 

Chita and Dick Van Dyke dancing. The image would serve as the inspiration for Al Hirschfeld's
cartoon of the show.

 

Bye Bye Birdie Trivia

On June 12, 1960, the cast appeared on Ed Sullivan's 12th anniversary program to perform the complete scene, with dialogue, that led up to "Hymn for a Sunday Evening," the tribute to the Ed Sullivan Show.

Music By Charles Strouse:
Charles Strouse (Music) has written the music for Bye Bye Birdie (Tony Award), All American, Golden Boy, A Broadway Musical, Applause (Tony Award), Charlie and Algernon (Tony nomination), Annie (Tony Award), Mayor, Dance a Little Closer, Rags (Tony nomination), Nick & Nora (Tony nomination) and Annie Warbucks. In films: Bonnie and Clyde, The Night They Raided Minsky's and All Dogs Go To Heaven are among his scores. He founded and heads the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop and has been elected to the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. Mr. Strouse is married to choreographer Barbara Siman and has four children: Benjamin, Nicholas, Victoria and William.

 

David Cuthbert o the Times-Picayne in New Orleans asked Chita to reminisce about Bye Bye Birdie at the time of Le Petit Theatre's July 2003 production:

Copyright 2003 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)

July 14, 2003 Monday

SECTION: LIVING; Backstage; Pg. 1

HEADLINE: Chita Rivera remembers;
Original 'Bye Bye Birdie' star considers show 'one of the joys of my life'

BYLINE: David Cuthbert

BODY:
Two-time Tony Award winner Chita Rivera is starring in the acclaimed revival of "Nine" on Broadway. But her memories of "Bye Bye Birdie," the smash musical that opened 43 years ago, are as vivid as if the curtain dropped yesterday.

"I have nothing but good memories of 'Birdie,' " Rivera said by phone from New York, where the two-time Tony Award winner is starring in the acclaimed revival of "Nine" on Broadway.

"The part of Rose was written specifically for me; it was the first show I did after playing Anita in 'West Side Story.' But none of us -- Dick, Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly -- were that well-known. That show made stars out of people -- Dick Van Dyke, who in my opinion was the perfect leading man. Working with him -- listening to him, singing with him, watching him dance, dancing with him -- was one of the joys of my life.

"Paul Lynde, who played the father, had something like 13 lines and the song 'Kids.' But he started ad-libbing and kept us all laughing and the book writer, Michael Stewart, kept expanding his role.

"I had never experienced the kind of laughter in the theater that 'Birdie' had. I remember being in my dressing room and hearing the laughter. I had never done a show that had an audience so involved and happy. There are still things I remember about 'Birdie' that make me smile: Conrad singing and the mayor's wife collapsing and her legs falling open and the mayor trying to close them; Paul being so fussy and funny; Kay Medford as Dick's possessive mother, again, so funny."

Rivera's only regret about "Birdie" seems to be the manner in which some directors have tried to modernize it.

"The people who try and change 'Birdie' tend to mess it up. You can't put break-dancing and rap in there. It's anchored in a particular time and place," she said.

"And in my opinion, the original ending that (director) Gower Champion gave it is inspired. The musical theater that I came from always ended the same way: After all these big numbers, the whole cast comes downstage and sings whatever was supposed to be the show's hit song in this big, overblown fashion.

"What Gower did to end 'Birdie' was to have two people, Albert and Rose -- Dick and myself -- singing this very simple, very sweet song called 'Rosie' and just walking into the sunset. It couldn't have been more effective or more beautiful."

Rivera said she "made friends in that show that lasted all my life" and one was Ed Kresley, who played Henry, one of the teenagers. She already knew him from the cast of "West Side Story." Rivera calls him "the sweetest, most talented guy who knows as much about 'Birdie' as anyone. He's staged it himself a number of times, including the tour Tommy Tune did with the show."

Coincidentally, Kresley is in town working at Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre. While here, he's been conducting musical theater dance classes, which some of the "Birdie" cast took.

"Chita is probably my oldest friend in the business," Kresley said. "When I first joined the show, it was called 'The Day They Took the Birdie Away' and we rehearsed in an old vaudeville house, waaaaay downtown. Gower loved to rehearse in a theater and because he'd done so many musicals in Hollywood, he liked the idea of a show that never stopped, no stage waits, a show on wheels."

Kresley eventually became the show's dance captain and assistant stage manager.

"Nobody knew what we had with 'Birdie,' " Kresley said. "It was a real sleeper. But the same thing happened with us that happened to 'Gypsy'; when we had our run-through for all the other casts of shows in town to see, they roared and our eyes just popped out. We were in a hit! Who knew?

"We took it out of town and changed very few things. I remember one thing, though, at one point we had the mother ship herself to Albert in a UPS crate. That went out. And Paul Lynde's part got bigger. I think Michael Stewart had told him that even though he had a small role, he'd 'take care of him.' Well, it was easy to do, because the audience loved Paul. And he wound up playing that character for the rest of his life."

"Birdie" also made Gower Champion a star director and when he went on to his next project, he took not only featured "Birdie" players Charles Nelson Reilly, Jerry Dodge and several singer-dancers, but Ed Kresley as his assistant. That project was "Hello, Dolly!"