Sugar Babies is a musicalrevue conceived by Ralph G. Allen and Harry Rigby, with music by Jimmy McHugh, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and Al Dubin and various others. The show is a tribute to the old burlesque era. (The show's name is taken from one of many shows on the old Mutual Burlesque wheel of the Roaring Twenties.) First produced in 1979 on Broadway and running nearly three years, the revue attracted warm notices and was given subsequent touring productions.
The revue subsequently had a short-lived National tour which starred Carol Channing and Robert Morse, from August through November 1980.[1][2] The 1982 Bus and Truck Tour starred Eddie Bracken and Jaye P. Morgan (who was succeeded by Mimi Hines).[3] The 2nd National Tour, in 1984 and 1985, reunited Rooney and Miller.[4][5]
A revival of the show, "Sugar Babies 2", which would have starred Jerry Lewis, Chita Rivera and Rip Taylor, was planned for the fall of 1991, but ultimately did not happen. [6]
Concept
Norman Abbott, nephew of famed straight man Bud Abbott, inherited his uncle's "treasure trove of burlesque material, including written gags, props, music, and posters." Inspired, the younger Abbott and his wife had an idea:
Norman and his wife conceived of a modern Broadway musical combining all the elements of burlesque. He then came to the conclusion that the only person alive who could pull this off as a headliner was Mickey Rooney. - Richard Lertzman and William J. Birnes, in "The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney"[7]
After two weeks of rehearsals, however, Rooney clashed with Abbott, who was directing the show. Rooney, who insisted on taking a hand in staging the comedy scenes himself, told Abbott, "This isn't going to work out." Abbott was fired as director, and although he didn't have a contract, he sued producer Harry Rigby and received a six-figure settlement.[7]
(Ralph G. Allen) visited theaters around the country, sitting with elderly comics and taking down their routines. He amassed a collection of some 5,000 comedy sketches. He considered writing a book, but Dr. Allen realized it would be much more fun to put on a show. He wrote a revue, based on the sketches, which was performed at the University of Tennessee. Some time later, Dr. Allen gave a talk in New York at a conference on early-20th-century popular entertainment. As part of his lecture, he read the script of his revue. Afterward, he was approached by a member of the audience, Mr. Rigby, a producer.[8]
In 1977, at a "scholarly four‐day conference[9][10][11][12] to study the History of American Popular Entertainment" at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Ralph G. Allen, a theater professor and historian fascinated with burlesque, presented a lecture, from a prior College of Fellows of the American Theatre[13] Address, with pieces of a revue he wrote, that borrowed material from long-forgotten burlesque routines, "At My Mother's Knee (and Other Low Joints)".[14][15] Rigby was in the audience and approached Allen about the material, and together they wrote the book for the show. Sugar Babies debuted two years later.
The show consists of old burlesque blackout gags and sketches, interspersed with song and dance numbers, and vaudeville specialty acts. Typical of the risqué jokes was this one in the "Broken Arms Hotel" sketch:
DESK CLERK (on the telephone): Broken Arms Hotel... What's that? You say you got a leak in the bathtub?... Well, go ahead! You paid for the room!
The Sugar Babies score contains standards such as "Don't Blame Me" and "I Feel a Song Comin' On", and newly created musical numbers, including "The Sugar Baby Bounce".[16]
The show had burlesque "tropes" such as the swing number, the sister act, the fan dance, the vaudeville dog act. "It was all fast and funny and it ended with a patriotic number...with the entire company in red, white, and blue with a flag background and Miller as the Statue of Liberty."[17]
Time wrote that the show is a "happy send-off to burlesque", and "Rarely has so much energy been packed into so small a package. Rooney dances, he sings, he mugs, he dresses in drag."[19]
^American Society for Theatre Research; Theatre Library Association (1979). American Popular Entertainment: Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on the History of American Popular Entertainment. Greenwood Press. ISBN978-0-313-21072-3. The Conference on the History of American Popular Entertainment (better known by its acronym, CHAPE), held at Lincoln Center in New York on November 17-20, 1977, was the first of its kind in the United States… It opened with an immense two-hour environmental 'happening,' live acts… and an audiovisual pastiche of concurrently performed activities… black and white Minstrel Shows, Burlesque Shows, Vaudeville, Ragtime, Ethnic Theatre, Tent Repertoire Shows, Circus, Wild West Shows, Medicine Shows, Dance, and other entertainments–a potpourri of the various topics covered in the Conference itself… This published version of the Conference events constitutes a unique history of such popular entertainments. Through the scholarly inquiries by academicians and through performances and reminiscences by members of the entertainment profession, it helps to re-create our cultural heritage by presenting an overview of popular entertainment and by sorting out the individual forms of the genre.
