Bells Are Ringing
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This show takes us back to a time before answering machines and high technology, when a real person answered your ringing telephone for you, if you couldn't do it yourself. Welcome to Susanswerphone, where the lines are blurred between doing a job and eavesdropping. The story and musical numbers are delightful and uplifting. Just in Time, Better Than a Dream, Drop That Name and A Simple Little System keep actors and audiences smiling.
Music By Jule Styne
Lyrics By Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Book/Libretto by: Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Produced by: The Theatre Guild
Choreography by: Jerome Robbins & Bob Fosse
Directed by: Jerome Robbins
Type of Musical: Broadway, Movie
Opened: November 29, 1956
Theatre: Shubert Theatre, (New York)
# of Performances: 924
Licensing Agent: Tams-Witmark
Synopsis
This "Sweetheart of a Musical" opens with eight girls complaining about the doldrums---they're just not getting enough telephone calls. The solution is simple announces an advertisement for Susan answer phone, a telephone answering service. Before the days of answering machines and high technology, the only choice was to hire a service to answer your phone when you weren't home.
This particular answering service is owned and run by Sue, who employs her cousin Ella to answer the phones. Ella has a deplorable tendency to get involved in customers' lives as she takes and delivers their messages. She even falls in love with one of the customers who she has never even met. In It's A Perfect Relationship Ella describes her feelings for Jeff Moss, this unknowing customer. Now, Jeff is a writer who is having trouble getting to work on his next play, and Ella is determined to help him. Whether you call it curiosity or eavesdropping, one thing's for certain, Ella's busybody personality is entertaining!
A subplot involving Sue and Sandor unravels at the same time. Sue falls in love with Sandor, who runs a company called Titanic Records. Conveniently the record company sets up a branch office in Sue's office space. The record company turns out to be a book-making concern, with an ingenious code which Sandor describes to his assistants in It's A Simple Little System. Unknown to anyone, the police are already monitoring Susans phone, suspecting that it's a front for a vice ring. Ella takes on a new identity, goes to Jeff's apartment, and convinces him to rework his new play. In the number Hello, Hello There! she teaches him about friendliness. Jeff invites Ella out for the evening, and a friend teaches her the cha-cha in the sizzling Mu-Cha-Cha dance. Eventually Jeff meets her in Central Park and explains that he has grown to love her. He takes her to a party where Ella sings Drop That Name when she finds herself at a loss for conversation. She doesn't think that she's up to Jeff's social status, and sadly slips away as she sings the great ballad The Party's Over. Jeff still doesn't know who Ella really is.
Meanwhile, Sue and Sandor plan a trip abroad, as he tries to borrow money from her to cover some racing debts. Two other answering service subscribers who Ella has also befriended coincidently meet the despondent Jeff in a nightclub. The songs in the club's floor show are written by one of the subscribers who is a musical dentist. The three men discover that Ella's good deeds have helped them all, but not one of them realizes she is the answering service girl. As the police close in on the bookies from the "record company," the three men set off to find Ella. Just as she decides to run away, she is reunited with Jeff. We have a classic happy ending.
Song List
- Bells Are Ringing
- Mucha-Cha
- It's A Perfect Relationship
- On My Own
- Drop That Name
- It's A Simple Little System
- Is It A Crime
- Salzburg
- Hello Hello There!
- I Met A Girl
- Midas Touch
- Long Before I Knew You
- I'm Goin' Back
- Just In Time
- The Party's Over
- Mu-cha-cha
- Better than a dream
- Do it yourself
Cast List
Sydney Chaplin, Jean Stapleton, Peter Gennaro, Judy Holliday , Eddie Lawrence, Eddie Heim, Dort Clark, George S. Irving, Bernie West & Peter Gennaro
Awards & Nominations
- Movie - 1960 Academy Award Nominations: Best Scoring of a Musical Picture.
- Musical 1957 - winner of 2 Tony Awards
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Added: Sun May 15 2005
Last Modified: Wed Nov 15 2006