Land and Sea: Two Musical Revivals

The Clyde Fitch Report: When revivals materialize, the question is often whether everything old can be made new again. Two musicals struck up the band this week by taking different approaches to this question, with varying degrees of success.

The story on The Rothschilds — though never confirmed, to my knowledge, by either lyricist Sheldon Harnick or composer Jerry Bock — is that during the run-up to the 1970 opening on Broadway, the songwriting team clashed over how director Derek Goldby was handling the material. Harnick was anti-, Bock pro- (and Michael Kidd replaced Goldby), causing the rift that left them never collaborating happily ever after.