*The total playing time of this demo is 90 minutes, representing 3/4s of the show. Several songs are integrated into the scenes.
We recommend listening to the tracks with ear buds or with good speakers.*
We recommend listening to the tracks with ear buds or with good speakers.*
ACT ONE
1. GOIN' HOLLYWOOD OPENING SEQUENCE - Garson & Alice, Company
1. GOIN' HOLLYWOOD OPENING SEQUENCE - Garson & Alice, Company
A magical vocal quartet beckons us into a world where creative desire creates reality as Garson, a musical theatre composer, asks us if we've ever longed to live in another time. Alice, his collaborator and sometimes lover, rushes in to Grand Central Station to meet him for her celebratory birthday lunch on the Super Chief dining car restaurant, a new hot spot, recreated on a track at the station. Upon learning that the show option they were counting on is not moving forward, Alice blows out the candles on her birthday cake while making an impassioned wish that if they could go back in time to the Golden Age of Hollywood, 1949, they would flourish. The lights magically change, and incredibly, the dining car is actually moving, and they are amazed to find that her wish was granted. The waiter, now transformed into a train conductor, presents them with round trip tickets good only for one year. They arrive at Union Station, Hollywood, where their song, GOIN' HOLLYWOOD, is a big production number where 'everyone knows their song!'.
2. TAP IT OUT - A.J., Garson, Alice, The Writers, Nancy, and Company
Alice and Garson meet A.J. Engerman, head writer at MGM, who is intrigued enough to hire them.
They meet the quirky team of writers, and Nancy, an ardently socialist MGM mail girl who takes a shine to Garson, and they are clued in to how things work at MGM.
They meet the quirky team of writers, and Nancy, an ardently socialist MGM mail girl who takes a shine to Garson, and they are clued in to how things work at MGM.
3. PUNCHLINES and LEAD-INS - Nancy, Garson, Alice,
Nancy clues in Garson and Alice that if they want to break out of the 'punchlines and lead-ins' anonymity and get LB's attention they should write something edgy and dangerous - a song about the Hollywood Blacklist then in full swing and threatening the lives of everyone at the Studio.
4. NAMING NAMES - Alice & The Wonderlads
Wangling an invitation to one of Gene Kelly's parties, Alice and Garson compose a tour-de-force song to show off their talents to the Hollywood elite, 'Naming Names', a satire about the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and the Communist scare, which was building at that time. With a stylistic nod to the great Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers, this number is a huge success, but also quite incendiary.
5. ALICE'S SONG & LOVE DROVE AWAY- Alice & Garson
At the top of the world, literally, at the Hollywood sign, Garson & Alice celebrate the success of their subversively satirical song about the Hollywood Blacklist, ‘Naming Names’, which they had just performed at Gene Kelly’s star studded party. Garson sings of his love to Alice, and we learn his feelings truly do run deep in ‘Alice’s Song’. Alice reveals a troubled story from her past for the first time to Garson, revealing why she can't reciprocate his love.
6. TOO SMART- A.J.
A.J. congratulates Alice & Garson for their brilliant work, but says they are 'too smart' for Hollywood and should never write this kind of song again in this dangerous political climate. We learn that he had been a Communist in the 30's and worries that he will be found out.
7. IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE - Finale Act One- A.J., Garson, Alice, and Company
Alice and Garson have a great meeting with L.B. Mayer, who has been told of their success at Gene Kelly's party. He advises them not to write subversive songs like that again, but at the same time gives them an option to write 'The Sewing Girl', which will star a tap-dancing Ann Miller playing Betsy Ross. A.J. is to direct, a huge promotion for him, but he must sign a pledge that he has never been a Communist. Alice convinces him to do it, but at the shoot, he is served with papers to appear before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and his career is now destroyed. Garson, at the Act One curtain, 'What have we done, Alice?'
ACT TWO
8. COUNTING THE DAYS- Garson
8. COUNTING THE DAYS- Garson
When Garson learns that LB Mayer liked 'THE SEWING GIRL' after a private screening, he's thrilled to be in 1949 for the first time and while he had been 'counting the days' before their return back to the present, he now feels that their place truly is at classic MGM and his and Alice's careers are bound to skyrocket now!
9. YOUR NAME ON THE DOOR - A. J.
After being named as a Communist and fired, A. J. sees his name being scraped off the door of his office and sings a sad and soulful song about his destroyed life and the hell that he's going through.
10. THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM - Alice
Alice, having been promoted to be the first female supervisor of the writers' pool by LB Mayer after AJ was fired because of the Hollywood Blacklist, is thrilled to be 'the only woman in the room', but her illusion of power is shattered by the sexual discrimination she is up against in 1949, a lifetime before #metoo.
11. NANCY'S SONG - Nancy
Nancy, the far left leaning mail girl, smitten, tries to forcefully convince Garson that only she has his best interests at heart and that Alice is not at all the one for him.
12. GOWER GULCH - Vera and the Wonderlads
As a result of the failure of 'The Sewing Girl', Garson is loaned out to Republic Pictures in 'Gower Gulch', so named for the many Westerns that were filmed on Gower Street. He writes a song for B-movie star, Vera Hruba Ralson, the skating champion from Czechoslovakia featuring Alice's 'Wonderlads', but without Alice, who has been promoted to AJ's old job at MGM it's a disaster. It's not going well for either of them.
13. GOOD COMPANY - Alice, Garson, A.J., and Company
Alice convinces Garson, A.J. and the writers that they can fix 'The Sewing Girl' just like Comden and Green did in The Bandwagon (which hadn't been written yet). They brainstorm, get excited about it, and figure out what to do.
14. EVERYBODY DREAMS - LB Mayer and Company
It's the fabled MGM luncheon celebrating 25 years which Alice talked Garson into going to although they now know that LB has found that they don't have a past and think they are Communists. Alice couldn't resist seeing all the stars one last time before they dash for the train in time for the trip back to 2023.
15. THANK YOU - Garson
When Garson finds out that AJ has committed suicide as a result of the Blacklist,
his fury emboldens him to interrupt the fabled MGM 25th Anniversary luncheon with a diatribe
full of impassioned revelations.
his fury emboldens him to interrupt the fabled MGM 25th Anniversary luncheon with a diatribe
full of impassioned revelations.
16. ANY TIME, FINALE and CURTAIN CALL - Garson & Alice and Company
LB Mayer has had Alice and Garson investigated to find they have no past and thinks they are Commie spies. Their ticket back to the present, good for a year, is now up and they hot foot it just in time to take the time traveling Super Chief car back to Grand Central Station. They realize that their true destiny is here and now and are soul-mates rather than lovers. They both are divinely inspired to begin the next chapter of their lives by writing a new musical about what they've just experienced and learned.
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Arriving At LA's Union Station 1948