The run closed October 10, 2004
- Opened
- July 22, 2004
- Closed
- October 10, 2004
- Performances
- 92
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Vivian Beaumont Theater
Of the 395 productions we hold that opened in the 2000s and record a performance count, this is the 193rd longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it24 named
Ryan L Ball
John Byner
Bryn Dowling
Rebecca Eichenberger
Meg Gillentine
Pia C Glenn
Tyler Hanes
Francesca Harper
Rod Harrelson
Jessica Howard
Naomi Kakuk
Luke Longacre
David Lowenstein
Michael Siberry
Kathy Voytko
Steve Wilson
Jay Brian Winnick
Chris Kattan
6 of these 24 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 18 are set from the identifier in the cast list, which is a slug of the name — so hyphens and full stops are lost and a few come out wrong. We hold nothing else about them. Nobody here is matched to a character: the cast list records who was in the company and not what they played.
Creative team
- Director
- Susan Stroman
- Choreographer
- Susan Stroman
A producer is one string on this record, however many people or companies it names. Directors and choreographers are held both as text and as identifiers; where an identifier exists the name links to a page.
Around this production
The Frogs is a musical "freely adapted" by Stephen Sondheim and Burt Shevelove from The Frogs, an Ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes. In the musical, Dionysos, despairing of the quality of living dramatists, travels to Hades to bring George Bernard Shaw back from the dead. William Shakespeare competes with Shaw for the title of best playwright, which he wins. Dionysos brings Shakespeare back to the world of the living in the hope that art can save civilization. The musical was originally performed in Yale University's gymnasium's swimming pool in 1974. The show was produced on Broadway in 2004 with the book revised by Nathan Lane and the score expanded by Sondheim. This version was revived…
Xanthias complains about traveling and sings a fifth leap from A to E each time to “the grippe”/“my hip”/“my lip”/“the pip,” provoking Dionysus to...
Speaker not recorded. Sondheim In Our Time and His W Anthony Sheppard Editor Oxford University Press U, p. 412- His latest venture finds Nathan Lane wearing multiple hats, as both star and adaptor of Burt Shevelove’s original book of The Frogs, reuniting him with Producers director Susan Stroman and Forum composer Stephen Sondheim. Broadway Musicals the 101 Greatest Shows of All Time Bloom Ken 1949 Vlastnik Fra, p. 151
- A paperback edition of the script was published in Britain by Frank Music Co. in 1963, and in 1991 Applause Theatre Book Publishers issued both hardback and paperback editions. Both the 1983 and 1991 publications include the lyrics for a number of unused songs. The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals Dan Dietz Paxton Mcnallie 2016 Rowm, p. 243
- Musical Numbers Act One: “Invocation and Instructions to the Audience” (The Frogs, 1974) (Bronson Pinchot) The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals Dan Dietz Paxton Mcnallie 2016 Rowm, p. 393
- When Burt Shevelove directed The Frogs in 1974, he often used Charon’s rowboat in the Yale Pool to coordinate the action using a megaphone. The gymnasium was not well suited for theatrical production. The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia Rick Pender Rowman Littlefield Publishing Lanh, p. 260
- "The show’s best-known number, Shakespeare’s “Fear No More (the Heat o’ the Sun),” was not part of Shevelove’s Yale production. It was composed a year later (1975) in response to a request from the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, giving The Frogs its second staging—this time without a pool." The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia Rick Pender Rowman Littlefield Publishing Lanh, p. 265
Passages naming this production, found by keyword across 178 books. Where it turns up in the literature, not curated notes about it.
What this page does not know
- No photograph of this staging. 48 of 13,459 productions hold one.
- No character names. We can say who was in the company and not who they played.
- No recording is held for The Frogs at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.