Do Do That Voo Doo: Porter's Fifty Million Frenchmen Gets NYC Revival With 1929 Libretto | Playbill

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News Do Do That Voo Doo: Porter's Fifty Million Frenchmen Gets NYC Revival With 1929 Libretto Cole Porter's 1929 musical, Fifty Million Frenchmen, packed with such choice songs as "You've Got That Thing," "You Don't Know Paree," "You Do Something to Me" and "I Worship You," will be heard in a Manhattan concert by London-based Lost Musicals.

The non-profit troupe specializing in "neglected musicals by America's finest theatre writers" will present four performances of the show (6:30 PM Sept. 17, 24 and 29, and Oct. 8) at the French Institute's Florence Gould Hall.

The musical comedy, which has a book by Herbert Fields, has been presented in concert form in the U.S. in recent years.

This concert is billed as "the first-ever revival of the show using the classic Herbert Fields script." Ian Marshall Fisher directs.

Echoing the fizzy, optimistic Jazz Age that spawned it, "Fifty Million Frenchmen follows a group of well-to-do Americans unleashed in Paris and looking for excitement," according to Lost Musicals.

A studio recording of the show was released in 1991 and is cherished by fans as the most complete recording of the score to date. Evans Haile conducted. Kim Criswell, Karen Ziemba, Howard McGillin, Kay McClelland, Susan Powell, Jason Graae, Peggy Cass and others are heard on it. Casting for the Lost Musicals concerts will be announced shortly.

The original Broadway version of Fifty Million Frenchmen has not been seen in New York City since its 1929 run at the Lyceum Theatre, according to Lost Musicals. There have been modified concert presentations of it, however — Musicals Tonight! staged a piano and voice concert version in 2001, and included cut songs.

Florence Gould Hall is at 55 E. 59th Street, between Park and Madison. Tickets are $40 and $60 and are available by calling Ticketmaster at (212) 307-4100 or online at www.ticketmaster.com.

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For 17 years, Ian Marshall Fisher and Lost Musicals in London have specialized in presented neglected American-penned musicals in London's Royal Opera House, Barbican Center and Sadler's Wells. The performances are regularly broadcast on the BBC.

The mission is to present the material, especially "the book," as it was originally written.

 
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