ABSTRACT
This essay seeks to rehabilitate the reputations of three Broadway musicals that were not commercial successes and are usually only examined to identify the reasons for their failure. All three were created by acclaimed Broadway artists of the ‘Golden Age’. Miss Liberty (1949) was led by the creative team of Irving Berlin, Robert Sherwood, Moss Hart and Jerome Robbins. Ben Franklin in Paris (1964) was staged by Michael Kidd, featured Jerry Herman interpolations and starred Robert Preston. Dear World (1969) was adapted by Robert E. Lee, Jerome Lawrence and Jerry Herman, from the famous Jean Giraudoux Madwoman of Chaillot, for star Angela Lansbury. In all cases, the shows acted as important pivots or stepping stones in the artists’ development. For Miss Liberty, this history reveals the considerable extent of its success, including of its songs. The discussion also analyses the shift, furthered through these neglected works, in the connotations of Paris from a bazaar of pleasure or bonhomie to a locus associated with the struggle for human liberty. Thereby they foreshadow later, successful works: The Phantom of the Opera and, especially, Les Misérables.
