music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by David Zippel, book by Larry Gelbart.
Time period: 1940s // Approx. largest cast size: 28 // Age group: High school.
A smart and stylish film noir musical, Tony Award winner CITY OF ANGELS captures the gritty sights and sounds of Hollywood’s classic detective movies, all set to a brilliant, bluesy jazz score. In the late 1940s, Stine, a bookish writer of detective stories, struggles to adapt his crime novel into a workable screenplay. As Stine tries to maintain some integrity in the backstabbing world of Hollywood, his protagonist, a hardboiled private eye named Stone, fights for survival in a city full of criminals and opportunists. In a brilliant design choice, the stories are told on a split stage: Stine’s world is in full color, while Stone’s appears in black and white. With wit, humor, and a fantastic Cy Coleman score, CITY OF ANGELS captures the snappy dialogue of a Raymond Chandler novel and the glitzy showmanship of classic Hollywood; the result is a crowd-pleasing musical unlike any other.
