Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella Background cont'd
CINDERELLA was written for the unique parameters of event television (in this case, a 90-minute program with six commercial breaks), so the action, songs and dances were meticulously crafted to fit into half a dozen separate acts. "It takes a year to write a Broadway show, "Hammerstein told Time Magazine, adding, "It took me seven months to write the book and lyrics for CINDERELLA."
A working script was completed just in time for the start of rehearsals on February 21, 1957. The director for CINDERELLA was Ralph Nelson, already an old hand in this young field; the previous year he had won an Emmy directing REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT. The dance sequences were staged by Jonathan Lucas, who had, in earlier seasons, choreographed for THE MILTON BERLE SHOW. In the music department: Rodgers’ old friend Robert Russell Bennett orchestrated CINDERELLA, and CBS’ Alfredo Antonini was hired to conduct. Richard Lewine was on board officially as well, serving as producer while the sets and costumes were from Broadway’s husband and wife team of William and Jean Eckart, with lighting by Robert Barry.
It was Julie Andrews’ commitment to MY FAIR LADY (she still managed to do eight shows a week there during most of the CINDERELLA rehearsal process) that kept CINDERELLA in New York, and it was her talent that set the standard for the Broadway-caliber company surrounding her: Ilka Chase as the Stepmother; Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley as the Stepsisters, Edie Adams as the Fairy Godmother and a handsome unknown, Jon Cypher, as the Prince. To play the King and Queen, a pair of Broadway royalty: the husband and wife team of Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney.
With CINDERELLA, R&H braced themselves for the strange world of television by pretending they were still on familiar ground. "You know," Rodgers told the Saturday Review, "we’re doing it as much like a stage show as possible." In Time Magazine, Hammerstein reflected, "TV's easier than theater because it’s very intimate, very fluid. You have dissolves, quick cuts and no exit problems. Being ignorant of the medium," he added, "I wrote this show on the assumption we could do anything and nothing has been refused me yet."
From the mammoth studios of the CBS headquarters on West 57 Street, where rehearsals began, the CINDERELLA company moved to its actual broadcast studio in early March. CBS Color Studio 72 at Broadway and 81st Street was, at the time, the smallest color studio in the CBS empire, but the best option in New York. For three weeks leading up to the March 31 broadcast, it was a scene of frantic activity—a combination of MY FAVORITE YEAR and A NIGHT AT THE OPERA.
Packed into the cramped, 4,200-foot space were 56 performers, 33 musicians, and 80 stagehands and TV crew. Providing a hair-raising obstacle course at all times were four giant RCA color cameras, racks loaded with up to 100 costumes, over half a dozen huge set pieces, and loads of props (some of them rigged with special effects). The actors were instructed to maneuver with caution, and the musicians were sequestered in a tiny room that required a specially-devised echo chamber to overcome the suppressed acoustics. Every inch counted: even Cinderella’s live mice got too big during rehearsals and had to be replaced by broadcast night.
Added to the frenzy was pressure: CBS had a lot riding on this one, including prestige (a competitive desire to surpass the high mark set by NBC with PETER PAN) and money (over $370,000 was spent on CINDERELLA—more than double the sum usually spent on a TV production at that time). Taking no chances, the network rolled out the largest PR and marketing campaign America had ever seen, ensuring that every newspaper; magazine, radio and TV outlet in the country knew about CINDERELLA. In addition to CBS, the two proud sponsors of CINDERELLA—Pepsi-Cola and Shulton, makers of Old Spice—undertook lavish promotions of their own. In a final, pre-broadcast flourish, Pepsi printed up 5 million comic books based on CINDERELLA, and shipped them out with 6-packs of soda.
