Finian's Rainbow
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Fantasy, reality, Irish folklore and romance are the ingredients which have made FINIAN'S RAINBOW one of the big musical successes.
Music By Burton Lane
Lyrics By E.Y. Harburg
Book/Libretto by: E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy
Produced by: Lee Sabinson & William Katzell
Choreography by: Michael Kidd
Directed by: Bretaigne Windust
Type of Musical: Broadway
Opened: January 10, 1947, Movie (1968)
Theatre: 46th Street Theatre, (New York)
# of Performances: 725
Licensing Agent: Tams-Witmark
Synopsis
Everyone in the world knows that all Americans are millionaires. (Everyone, that is, except Americans.) But only Finian McLonergan, of Glocca Morra, Ireland, knows why.
By a process of mathematics, logic and moonbeams he has found the answer: it is the soil of Fort Knox that makes this so. There's something magical about that soil. It gives to gold phenomenal qualities hitherto unsuspected even by the gold itself. Thus equipped with powers verging on the atomic, the gold in Fort Knox performs a wondrous work. It radiates a powerful influence throughout America, fertilizing the oranges in Florida, activating the assembly lines in Detroit and producing a bumper crop of millionaires.
If this reasoning is false, then why did we rush to dig gold out of the ground in California in 1849, only to bury it in the ground of Fort Knox a century later?
This is the McLonergan theory, and the exciting corollary is all too plain: any man can bury a bit of gold in the ground, near Fort Knox, and become a millionaire.
Finian knows his economics, but he also knows his lovely and spirited daughter, Sharon. He'll never get her to America to try out his theory if he tells her the truth. So he invents a mythical case of arthritis for himself, and fills her full of pity with a story that the only climate to cure it is found in Rainbow Valley, in the State of Missitucky, U.S.A. near Fort Knox.
Getting the gold to launch his project is, for Finian, less a problem. Some of his best acquaintances are gnomes and elves, and the leprechauns whose crock of gold provides the power to make wishes for the mortals of Ireland. So he lies in ambush one night when the moon is high and the cup is flowing, waylays a leprechaun who is busy laying down a blanket of dew, and "borrows" the little fellow's crock.
This is what starts the fun. Finian gets to Rainbow Valley with Sharon and plants the crock. The leprechaun comes in pursuit, uttering dire warnings of misery and destruction. Wishes are made on the crock (it's good for only three wishes in the hands of a mortal) and history veers crazily from its path. The news gets out that gold has been discovered on McLonergan's property. Credit and calico gowns and tractors pour in upon the Valley. Finian's theory comes true. Sharon is about to get that rainbow her father has always promised her, a boy for her heart and pennies for her purse, when the leprechaun's doleful predictions materialize. Not for good, of course, but long enough to give a fillip of what's next to this combination of American, fantasy and folklore 'cross the sea.
And if you don't believe in leprechauns well, considering the state of the world, it must just be that leprechauns find it hard to believe in people.
Song List
- Overture
- This Time of Year
- How Are Things in Glocca Morra?
- Look to the Rainbow
- Look to the Rainbow Dance
- Old Devil Moon
- Something Sort of Grandish
- If This Isn't Love
- Something Sort of Grandish reprise
- Necessity
- That Great Come-and-Get-It-Day
- When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich
- The Begat
- When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love
- Finale
Cast List
Original cast included: Ella Logan, Albert Sharpe, Donald Richards, David Wayne, Anita Alvarez, Robert Pitkin
1968 Movie version starred Fred Astaire, Petula Clark & Tommy Steele.
Awards & Nominations
3 Tony Awards for Orchestra Conductor, Musical Performance and Choreography
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Added: Tue Nov 14 2006
Last Modified: Wed Nov 15 2006