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From: Margaret Harrison
To: Nora Fox , Vocalist <vocalist>
Subject: Re: WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND!again
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

Nora Fox wrote:

> Okay folks - this is my 2nd post on this. I must say, I think this is only
> the 2nd question I have ever asked on this list & have supported many of you
> and replied privately. I know some of you have seen the musical because I
> saw you criticize it terribly on the list. I do not have time to go to the
> library for the referrence book and I went to 2 of the web sites someone
> suggested & info not very helpful & I could not get the others.

Nora, you probably didn't get an answer, because folks know little about this show.

As I recall, the show never opened on Broadway. It had its world premiere in Washington
DC, on its way to Broadway, with lots of pre-opening hoopla but got horrible reviews. I
think the production team decided to "postpone indefinitely" opening the show on Broadway
or anywhere else. But I suppose that didn't stop them from publishing the music (they had
to salvage some of the investment, after all!).

I didn't go see it when it came to Washington, not being an Andrew Lloyd Webber fan. I
have a very vague recollection of the story from reading about it in the newspaper, but I
don't want to risk writing about it, as this was several years ago (I don't even remember
which year). I do remember the plot involved children and that it was set in the American
South, which was a change from the source material of a setting in England. I believe the
source was a 1960's movie of the same title in which the child actress Hayley Mills had
starred. (search the internet movie database for more info about the movie at
http://www.imdb.com - and maybe it's available for you to view on video) But please don't
be mad at me if my memory is wrong about any of the above!!!

One way I can thing of to find out more about the show would be to search the on-line
archives of The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com). In addition to a review,
I remember there being at least one major articles published prior to the show's opening.
The search of the archives is free, but they will charge you to download articles older
than 2 weeks.

You could also try and see if there's an archive at The Washington Times (which is a
newspaper I don't read, so I can't vouch for what you will or won't find there or how hard
it will be -- I don't read it because it's owned by the Reverend Moon):
http://www.washtimes.com/

PS, I know you're frustrated with not getting answers you'd like as fast as you like, but
a good attitude toward this list is that when you get no reply it means that the people
who have read your message don't have the answers, as we're not shy about sharing the
information we do have. But stop a minute, and imagine what it was like for those of us
who went to college before the invention of the Internet! We actually had to go outdoors
in cold weather (like today in Washington!) and go to the college library and be satisfied
with what we found there. Sometimes books we wanted were already checked out, and we had
to wait a week or two for their return! And people like me, who like to leave things
until the absolute last minute, often had to suffer the consequences, which forced us to
plan ahead and/or make do with what we did have available.

Peggy Harrison

--
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh-at-ix.netcom.com