Carmen Jones
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Carmen Jones was a 1943 Broadway musical, later also performed a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet opera Carmen in an African-American setting. (Bizet's opera was, in turn, based on the 1846 novella by Prosper Mérimée.) The Broadway musical was produced by Billy Rose, using an all-black cast. Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the book (dialogue) and lyrics, but stuck rather closely to Bizet's original music, which was re-orchestrated for a Broadway orchestra by Robert Russell Bennett.
The original Broadway cast were nearly all new to the stage; Kennedy and Muir write that on the first day of rehearsal only one member of the cast had ever been on a stage before.Kennedy and Muir 1998, p.77.
The 1954 film was adapted by Hammerstein and Harry Kleiner. It was directed by Otto Preminger.
The motion picture won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture—Musical and Dandridge was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first African-American so honored. Halle Berry, who played Dandridge in the biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, which included a re-enactment of one of the film's famed scenes, was the first African-American actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film Monster's Ball.
The film has also been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Plot
Parachute maker Carmen Jones makes a play for a soldier named Joe, who is in love with sweet Cindy Lou. Later, Carmen abandons Joe to pursue boxer Husky Miller. Joe then abandons Cindy to pursue Carmen; when she rejects him, he kills her.Original New York cast
- Carmen Jones - Muriel Smith / Muriel Rahn
- Joe - Luther Saxon / Napoleon Reed
- Husky Miller - Glenn Bryant
- Cindy Lou - Carlotta Franzell / Elton J. Warren
- Frankie - June Hawkins
- Remo the Drummer - Cozy Cole
Film cast
- Carmen Jones - Dorothy Dandridge, sung by Marilyn Horne
- Joe - Harry Belafonte, sung by LeVern Hutcherson
- Husky Miller - Joe Adams, sung by Marvin Hayes
- Cindy Lou - Olga James
- Frankie - Pearl Bailey
- Sergeant Brown - Brock Peters
- Carmen's Grandmother - Madame Sul-Te-Wan
Original London cast
1991 at the Old Vic- Carmen Jones - Wilhelmenia Fernandez / Sharon Benson
- Joe - Damon Evans / Michael Austin
- Husky Miller - Gregg Baker
- Cindy Lou - Karen Parks
- Frankie - Carolyn Sebron
- Remo the Drummer - Robin Jones
Notes
References
- Kennedy, Michael Patrick and Muir, John, Musicals, HarperCollins, 1997, updated reprint 1998, ISBN 0-00-472067-9.
External links
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