Questioning Songs in Stage Musicals (Part 5) Quiz

Answer: Cinderella

"Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?" is the duet from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" where Cinderella and the Prince each wonder whether they love the other person for who they truly are, or because love itself is making them seem more wonderful than they are. It appears in multiple versions of "Cinderella", including the 1957 TV musical, the 1965 television version, and the 2013 Broadway revival.

"Do I love you because you're beautiful?
Or are you beautiful because I love you?
Am I making believe I see in you
A girl too lovely to be really true?..."

Answer: The Wild Party

"How Did We Come to This?" is the closing song from Andrew Lippa's off-Broadway musical "The Wild Party" (2000), based on Joseph Moncure March's 1928 narrative poem of the same name. Queenie and Burrs throw a wild Prohibition-era party where gin, cocaine, and uninhibited behavior upend everything into chaos, sexual jealousy, and violence. Queenie sings of the heartbreak, lamenting the aftermath of the party's tragic conclusion.

"Time goes by
Plans grow stale
People die
And parties fail
How did we come to this?..."

Answer: Tootsie

"What's Gonna Happen?" comes early in Act I of "Tootsie", right after struggling actor Michael Dorsey arrives at his apartment where his 40th birthday party is thrown for him. He agrees to help his friend Sandy with her audition. Sung by Sandy, the song expresses her panic about all the things she fears will happen at her audition. Words and music by David Yazbek:

"I know what's gonna happen
I'll try to go to bed
With fear of failure flapping
Like a fruit bat in my head
I'll sleep for half an hour
The clock will ring at six
I'll wake up in the shower with a stomach full of bricks..."

Answer: Carousel

In the legendary Rodgers and Hammerstein's canon, "What's the Use of Wond'rin'" is one of their most quietly powerful songs, coming from their 1945 musical "Carousel". The female lead character, Julie Jordan, sings this song midway through Act II, after she has endured a troubled marriage to the charming but volatile carousel barker Billy Bigelow, the male lead. Billy was killed during an attempted robbery in which he was trying to provide for his family. The song is in defense of her love for Billy, somewhat justifying, or accepting, the pain he caused her.

"But what's the use of wond'rin'
If the ending will be sad?
He's your feller and you love him,
There's nothing more to say."

Answer: Sweet Charity

"Where Am I Going?" is a ballad from Act II in the 1966 Broadway musical "Sweet Charity", performed by the title character, Charity Hope Valentine. She's at a low point, having quit her job as a taxi dancer (professional dance partners hired by patrons to dance with them on a pay-per-dance basis) and she is searching for meaning and direction in her life.

"Where am I going?
And what will I find?
What's in this grab bag
That I call my mind?..."
Music by Cy Coleman, Lyrics by Dorothy Fields

Answer: The Producers

Just like in the Mel Brooks film (he also wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway stage adaptation), the characters Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom have hatched a money-making plan to put on a colossal failure of a musical so that they would profit by keeping the investors' money. But despite the shockingly offensive "Springtime For Hitler" show piece, the musical winds up being a smash hit, but they won't profit because they sold off their royalties. So, the song "Where Did We Go Right" is a funny twist on the lament "Where did we go wrong?"
"We searched Broadway on and off
For singers with a cough
We had tryouts and auditions by the score
And to trip the light fantastic
We picked dancers who were spastic
If anyone jeted, we jeted them out the door!
They shouted hooray
For that sausage on display
Where did we go right?"

Answer: The Addams Family

Like "The Wild Party", Andrew Lippa is also the creator of "The Addams Family" from which the song "Where did We Go Wrong?" comes. In this comedic duet, Gomez and Morticia lament that their daughter Wednesday is becoming "perky, bubbly, and optimistic" - and how can their once macabre little one fall into normalcy and fall for a normal boy named Lucas from Ohio? Ironically, this is one of the favorite songs from the original Broadway cast recording, but some productions cut the number because they feared it made Gomez and Morticia too unsympathetic.

Answer: Hair

With music by Galt MacDermot and lyrics and book by Gerome Ragni and James Rado, "Hair" remains one of the most moving musicals in Broadway history, and "Where Do I Go?" is the climactic song by protagonist Claude who struggles with the decision of whether to report to call and enter the Vietnam War.

"Where do I go? Follow the river...
Where do I go? Follow the gulls...
Where is the something? Where is the someone?
That tells me why I live and die?"

What happens next is one of the most emotionally wrenching scenes in musical theatre history and depicted perfectly in the movie adaptation by the great film director Milos Forman.

Answer: Big Deal

"Big Deal" was a short-lived Broadway musical in 1986, creator Bob Fosse's adaptation of the Italian film "Big Deal on Madonna Street". "Big Deal" didn't have an original score; instead it had pre-existing pop and jazz standards from the 1920s through the 1940s. "Who's Your Little Who-zis?" was written by Ben Bernie, Walter Hirsch, and Al Goering, and became a popular hit in 1931. It's peppy and flirtatious as the narrator teases a young woman he's talking to:

"Who's your little who-zis
Ah, your little turtle dove
Who's your little who-zis
Who do you love?"

Answer: The Yearling

Featuring music by Michael Leonard and lyrics by Herbert Martin, "The Yearling" was also a short-lived Broadway musical back in 1965. As one might have assumed from the title, this musical is indeed an adaptation of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' classic Pulitzer Prize-winning 1938 story about a young boy named Jody Baxter who adopts an orphaned fawn in rural Florida. The narrator sings "Why Did I Choose You?" looking back her relationship, wondering, questioning what first attracted her partner:

"Why did I choose you?
What did I see in you?
I saw the heart you hide so well
I saw a quiet man who had a gentle way
A way that caught me in its glowing spell"

Then the song concludes with a reassuring conviction of having made the right choice:
"If I had to choose again,
I would still choose you..."