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Camelot (musical)

Camelot is a musical with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics and a book by Alan Jay Lerner. It is based on the legend of King Arthur as adapted from the 1958 novel The Once and Future King by T. H. White.

Camelot

Frederick Loewe

Alan Jay Lerner

The Once and Future King
by T. H. White

October 1, 1960: O'Keefe Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

1960 Broadway
1963 U.S. tour
1964 West End
1980 Broadway revival
1981 Broadway revival
1982 West End
1984 Australian tour
1993 Broadway revival
2007 U.S. tour
2008 New York Philharmonic Concert
2023 Broadway revival

The original 1960 production, directed by Moss Hart with orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett and Philip J. Lang, ran on Broadway for 873 performances, winning four Tony Awards. It starred Richard Burton as Arthur, Julie Andrews as Guenevere, and Robert Goulet as Lancelot.


It spawned several notable productions including four Broadway revivals and a 1967 film adaptation. The 2023 Broadway revival features a revised book by Aaron Sorkin.


The musical has become associated with the Presidency of John F. Kennedy, which is sometimes called the "Camelot Era", because of an interview with Jackie Kennedy in which she compared her husband's presidency to King Arthur's reign, specifically mentioning his fondness for the musical and particularly the title song's closing lyrics, which end Camelot.[1]

played Arthur in a 1967 production for the Dallas (TX) Summer Musicals. He was joined by Gaylea Byrne as Guenevere, Nolan Van Way as Lancelot, Alan Johnson as Mordred, Roderick Cook as Pellinore, and William LeMassena as Merlyn and Sagramore. The production ran August 7–20 at DSM's iconic 1925 Music Hall at Fair Park.

David Carradine

again played Arthur in a West End revival at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, London, from November 23, 1982 to February 5, 1983 with Fiona Fullerton, William Squire and Robert Meadmore.

Richard Harris

An 18-month U.S. tour, starring as Arthur, Rachel York (no relation) as Guenevere, and James Barbour as Lancelot, began on January 9, 2007 and ended in April 2008. Alan Jay Lerner's son, Michael Lerner, contributed changes to the libretto, and Glenn Casale directed.[31] From June 27–30, 2007, the tour played at Toronto's Hummingbird Centre, where the musical had premiered in 1960.[32][33] While the 2007 Michael York tour was performing across the U.S., Candlewood International ran a separate, largely non-equity national tour that played to cities not visited by the union tour. The Morgan le Fay character was removed, as it had been in all previous productions since 1964. Jeff Buchsbaum directed and Paula Sloan choreographed a cast headed by Robert Brown as Arthur, Matthew Posner as Lancelot, Mollie Vogt-Welch as Guenevere, Gregory Van Acker as Sir Sagramore, Geoff Lutz as Mordred, and Heather Faith Stricker as Lady Catherine.

Michael York

From May 7 to May 10, 2008, the presented five semi-staged concerts of Camelot directed by Lonny Price and produced by Thomas Z. Shepard and starring Gabriel Byrne as King Arthur, Marin Mazzie as Guenevere, and Nathan Gunn as Lancelot. It featured Christopher Lloyd as Pellinore, Stacy Keach as Merlyn, Marc Kudisch as Lionel, Bobby Steggert as Mordred, Will Swenson as Sagramore, Christopher Sieber as Dinadan, Fran Drescher as Morgan le Fay and Rishi Mutalik as Tom of Warwick. The May 8 performance was broadcast nationally on Live from Lincoln Center on PBS.[34]

New York Philharmonic

Camelot was produced in San Francisco at in July 2013.[35]

San Francisco Playhouse

In May 2014, there was a concert at the starring Brian Stokes Mitchell as King Arthur, Laura Michelle Kelly as Guenevere and Josh Grisetti as Mordred.[36]

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The 2018 production at set box office records for the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC.[37]

Sidney Harman Hall

In March 2019, there was a gala production of Camelot starring Lin-Manuel Miranda as Arthur, Solea Pfeiffer as Guenevere, Jordan Donica as Lancelot, Ethan Slater as Mordred, Danny Burstein as Pellinore, Dakin Matthews as Merlyn, and Ruthie Ann Miles as Nimue.[38]

Lincoln Center Theater

A semi-staged concert performance of the musical ran at the , Newbury from 17 August to the 5th of September 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the concerts were held outdoors in the theatre's gardens and the audience were seated at socially distanced tables. It was directed by The Watermill Theatre's Artistic Director Paul Hart. The cast included real life married couple Michael Jibson & Caroline Sheen as Arthur and Guenevere, Marc Antolin as Lancelot and Peter Dukes as Mordred.

Watermill Theatre

There have been 2 concerts at the West End venue. The first was in October 2018, starring David Thaxton as Arthur, Savannah Stevenson as Guenevere, Charles Rice as Lancelot, and Clive Carter as Merlyn and King Pellinore.[39] The second was in February 2022 starring Ramin Karimloo as Arthur, Bradley Jaden as Lancelot, and Lucy St. Louis as Guenevere.[40]

London Palladium

Critical response[edit]

The New York critics' reviews of the original production were mixed to positive.[12] A 1993 review in The New York Times commented that the musical "has grown in stature over the years, primarily because of its superb score ... [which] combined a lyrical simplicity with a lush romanticism, beautifully captured in numbers like 'I Loved You Once in Silence' and 'If Ever I Would Leave You.' These ballads sung by Guenevere and Lancelot are among the most memorable in the Lerner-Loewe catalogue. King Arthur supplies the wit, with songs like 'I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight.'"[14] A 2003 review noted, "this musically rich, legend-based classic evokes enough swashbuckling spectacle to keep one smiling. And for lovers of dime-store romance, Camelot has it all — a beautiful English princess swept off her feet by a shy, but passionate bachelor king; an ardent French knight, torn between devotion to his liege and an uncontrollable hunger, reciprocated, to be sure, for the king's tempestuous wife.... Camelot features a score rich in English country-tune charm by Mr. Lerner. [sic: Loewe wrote the music] Its lyrics, by Mr. Loewe [sic: Lerner wrote the lyrics], never fail to dazzle with their virtuosity and wit."[41] However, "Jay Lerner's murky book... has helped sink many a revival of the musical.... It's a good story, but Lerner's book is talky and dense, filled with pontificating soliloquies that would have been more powerfully contained in song. Moreover, while the entire show rushes towards a bloody climax... when it finally arrives, it is merely sketched upon in one song, 'Guenevere.' ...The score, though, is pure magic."[42]

Lerner, Alan Jay. The Street Where I Live (1978). W. W. Norton & Company,  0-393-07532-X

ISBN

Kantor, Michael and . Broadway: The American Musical (2004). Bluefinch Press, New York, ISBN 978-0-8212-2905-7

Maslon, Laurence

at the Internet Broadway Database

​Camelot​

Summary, production, and licensing information at Tams-Witmark

from MusicalTheatreAudition.net

Camelot Audition Advice and Show Information

Background of the show and commentary by Judy Harris

Archived 2015-04-20 at the Wayback Machine

Study Guide, Bard College

theatrehistory.com

Information about the show

Information about recordings, Cast Albumdb.com

New York Public Library Blog about Camelot