Our First Honest-To-Goodness Theater Geek Trivia Contest

Empty TheaterBy Bill Hirschman

So you think you know nearly everything about theater except what will be a guaranteed hit on Broadway next year? On an intermittent random basis, we will run our exclusive no-cheat trivia contest. There are no prizes other than to be able to brag that you aced it. You are on the honor system – you cannot look up the answers on the Internet. Don’t bother; the answers are contained by clicking on this link here.

We’ll also take suggestions for questions for upcoming quizzes and give you credit as the author by emailing us at bill@floridatheateronstage.com.

Curtain up:

What local connection do these actors all share: Denzel Washington, Margo Martindale, Zach Grenier, Denis O’Hare and Judy Kaye?

Which of these plays was not made into a musical for the stage or screen? Teahouse of the August Moon, The Elephant Man, Juno and the Paycock, The Front Page, The Man Who Came To Dinner, You Can’t Take It With You, Our Town. For extra credit, give the name of the show that the others did become.

Theater critic Walter Kerr’s home life was the basis of a novel penned by his wife and then became a television series. Name it.

Name three living Broadway stars who, for all practical purposes, can’t read music. Name the living Broadway composer who can’t notate. And for really extra credit, what noted musical accompanist helped two of them to get by until he died in 2004?

What 2003 Broadway box office flop (but Tony-nominated) tried out at the Coconut Grove Playhouse and whose director later blamed part of the problem on the lack of world-class resources promised by the Playhouse such as a turntable (a claim strongly disputed locally)?

Name the composer and/or lyricist of these relative box office flops: Carmelina, Pipe Dream, 70 Girls 70, Greenwillow, Here’s Love, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and a personal favorite, Celebration (all but 1600 were recorded and that had one song that is often performed out of context)

Name one major straight play written in verse by the following authors: T.S. Eliot, Christopher Fry, a translation by Brian Hooker or Anthony Burgess, Caryl Churchill, Archibald MacLeish

Finally, questions connected to shows opening this month:

When Gwen Verdon had surgery during the original production of Chicago (Broward Center Oct. 9-20), the producers contemplated ending its run. But then they hired a much-younger replacement who had recently become world famous. Who was she?

The play version of Of Mice and Men (Palm Beach Dramaworks Oct. 11-Nov. 10) was based on the novella by John Steinbeck. What Nobel Prize-winning writer penned the play adaptation?

Frederick Knott, playwright of Dial M For Murder (Maltz Jupiter Theatre Oct. 31-Nov. 10) wrote only one other hit play 14 years later. What was it?

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