Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies

The book is good, but it is the book of two men, a young and an old, who are not the best of collaborators. I think the young man to whom most of the adventures happen would have been more gossipy and excited about things were he not held in place by the distinguished older gentleman Ted Chapin of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization. For example, if you read between the lines, it seems pretty clear that the young Ted was pretty much crushed out on the glamorous Hollywood hasbeen Yvonne de Carlo, who came to New York City in full glamor mode and took Ted out on a series of dates to the Stork Club et al, and that when she left his life she left a big hole in it. But the older Ted sees ruefully that if it was a romance at all, it was pretty one-sided and potentially embarrassing. So the issue is tabled. I loved hearing all about how Sondheim created the score as the show was in tryouts; when it began only perhaps twenty minutes worth of music was finished, and the rest was created under intense pressure on the road in hotel rooms and coffee shops. I liked hearing about Mathilde Pincus, the music copyist, and the book gave me a new word I had never heard before. "She [Pincus] used a flat pen with black ink and wrote on 11" by 14" sheets of opaque paper called deschon, which had the musical staff lines printed in reverse on one side. Writing with ink on the other side allowed for errors to be erased without affecting the staff lines." I guess I had seen 'deschon" but never knew what it was, just like I went to see "Follies" with De Carlo, Smith, Collins, several times, and never really knew how it came to be created. Thank God for Ted Chapin, the young one and the middle-aged man as well.

The immense immediacy of Ted Chapin's "Follies" memoir puts you right in the middle of a chaotic rehearsal period. Alas, the era Chapin remembers is as far gone to us as the era "Follies" intended to evoke. He rarely pauses for breath as he takes us through the thrilling rehearsal period of a musical with cast that mixed young and old and a range of temperaments. The parts where he talks about Yvonne DeCarlo are both fascinating and a little weird.Unintentionally, Chapin puts his finger on what exactly was wrong with "Follies" 33 years ago -- the creators never seemed to have a clear, hit-your-head-with-a-hammer conception of what it all meant. The musical seemed to create itself, and the result baffled as many people as it pleased. The creators even sought out a Harvard undergrad who had written an essay on the show during its Boston tryout. (Read the book to find out who the undergrad was, but rest assured it wasn't Ted Kaczynski.) I was too young to see it, but I really, really wish I was there.The characters of the actors and creative team come through, with the possible exception of Jim Goldman, who seemed to have distanced himself from the cast. Some surprises: Hal Prince gave line readings to the actors, and even stars making a lot of money for the time could routinely make mistakes. Nevertheless, Chapin has a profound sense of decency and understanding, and he never paints any of these people in an overly negative way.Another thing that comes through in Chapin's memoir is his audacious efficiency. Based on this account, Chapin was a dream gofer, coordinating the demands of a script that just kept spinning out of control. I could never have done it. Hats off. While reading the book, I often found myself singing the "Follies" score aloud; it is brilliant, and I'll never understand why critics of the time dismissed Stephen Sondheim's music. Neither, I suspect, did Chapin. For theater buffs, this book will make you yearn to head to your local little theater group and jump right in.

Ted Chapin is well-known figure in the Broadway community, and writes from a vantage point few of us will ever experience. He takes us step-by-step through the trials and tribulations of getting a Broadway musical through the rehearsal process, having obviously kept copious notes throughout. The fact that both Hal Prince and Stephen Sondheim read the manuscript and "...offered helpful corrections and suggestions" adds to the authenticity of the work. He doesn't overly glamorize the people involved, nor is it simply backstage gossip. We are taken through the many steps that are involved in putting up a huge Broadway musical, including helpful details of jobs that many people are not aware of, including music copying, orchestration, set design and construction, lighting, sound, costumes... and the people who try to keep them all together and created the finished masterpiece that is "Follies." I hate to sound trite, but I couldn't put it down!

In 1971 Ted Chapin was a 20-year old college student who found a way to wangle a job as a production assistant (gofer) on FOLLIES and get college credit for it. No doubt, Chapin's family connections helped him a great deal (which he readily admits) and I'm sure that because of it he was treated with far more respect than the average gofer. But connections or not, he was still a kid in love with the theatre. Chapin's youthful enthusiasm and hero worship shine through the book. The part that really melted my heart was when realizes he's the first person to type the lyrics for a new Sondheim song, "I'm Still Here." And you realize that even though today Chapin is powerful and successful, he still takes great pride in having been the first person to type the lyrics for "I'm Still Here."At the time of FOLLIES it was not unusual for shows to go into rehearsal with large sections of the script (the ending, for example) marked, "To Be Written." (Things are not like that today.) There are changes that happen in rehearsals, such as taking away "Losing My Mind" from Alexis Smith and giving it to Dorothy Collins. (It finally worked!) We see the changes that the show makes in its Boston tryout and the differences they make. There are great photos of the stars in the wigs and costumes that didn't work and were discarded. We read about the dramatic changes that happen when "Can That Boy Foxtrot" gets replaced by "I'm Still Here" and "Uptown and Downtown" gets replaced by "Lucy and Jessie." Then there were the trials of Alexis Smith losing her voice and Gene Nelson's son becoming involved in a life-threatening situation on the West Coast. Could the understudies go on? They've had no rehearsal at all! The cast was composed mostly of older people who had difficulty remembering lines and learning dance routines, in addition to being terrified to move on Boris Aronson's severely raked stage.I liked all the detail that Chapin includes in the book, like what the show was like from the orchestra pit, how the lyric sheets were punctuated, visits to the scene and costume workshops, etc. Chapin vividly presents a large cast of characters. I got a kick out of old Ethel Shutta getting off a few zingers at Fifi D'Orsay's expense. Early in rehearsals Yvonne DeCarlo appears to take a shine to young Chapin and he becomes her frequent escort, much to the horror of Hal Prince and Stephen Sondheim. Dorothy Collins supposedly told her to "Keep your hands off that nice young man." We see Alexis Smith working with everything she's got to make the show her own, all the while denying that she's put very much effort into her career. There's a cameo by Angela Lansbury (who was trying out PRETTYBELLE in Boston while FOLLIES was there for its tryout). Lansbury asks DeCarlo after seeing a matinee if this was her first time on stage. DeCarlo later explains it by saying that Angie must have been in a state of shock over her own show's premature closing.FOLLIES went on t

Ted Chapin was the luckiest 20 year old whoever lived. As a "production assistant" (unpaid gofer)for the new Broadway musical "Follies", he had the opportunity and good sense to record the making of one of the greatest musicals of that era. "Everything Was Possible" covers the first rehearsals to the abysmal cast recording to what has happened to the people involved. Starting from pre production on, his narrative never gets stale. He tells of how Hal Prince, Stephen Sondheim and Michael Bennett pulled it all off. It wasn't always fun. They had to deal with a group of aging actors who found negotiating a raked stage dangerous and a lot of their vulnerabilites and insecurities. The book will have significant impact on anyone who saw the show. I did not see it in New York but at the end of its Broadway run it was to go on a national tour starting in Los Angeles. With most of the original cast intact I sat center section at the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles in September, 1972.It was one of the most emotional roller coasters I have been on in the theatre. The tour ended two weeks later and "Follies" has seldom been revived.All musical theatre afficionados will love Chapin's book. Thank you Ted for letting us see those "Beautiful Girls" one more time.