One For My Baby
ONE FOR MY BABY is the new Broadway-bound book musical featuring the songs of Harold Arlen, with arrangements and musical supervision by Fred Barton, book by Scott Thompson & Fred Barton, and direction and choreography by Scott Thompson.
Fred heads to London in 2020 as Musical Supervisor-Arranger-Orchestrator of the world premiere. A consortium of London and Broadway producers has been formed to head the production.
The score of “One For My Baby” is compiled from the work of the legendary Harold Arlen, composer of such classic songs as “Stormy Weather,” “Get Happy,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “That Old Black Magic,” and the most famous song of the twentieth century, “Over the Rainbow.”
“Despite Arlen’s vast catalogue of timeless songs, it’s been sixty years since a Harold Arlen musical has been produced on Broadway. We intend to change that,” state Fred and Scott.
ONE FOR MY BABY is a full book musical with film-noir overtones, set in a Post-World-War-II entertainment world of shifting musical, romantic, racial and Mob-related pressures.
The acclaimed Workshop production starred Vivian Reed, Steven Bogardus, Luba Mason, Anastasia Barzee, Damon Kirsche, and Matt Loehr among many others. The full-orchestra Demo recording stars Mary Bond Davis, Carolee Carmello, Anika Noni Rose, Gavin Creel, and Kevin Earley and can be heard on this site.
Some quotes about Harold Arlen:
“He’s the most original of all of us.” - George Gershwin
"He wasn't as well known as some of us, but he was a better songwriter than most of us.” - Irving Berlin
"His songs live. His songs seep into the heart of a people, a nation, of a world and stay there." - Yip Harburg
“I realized he was the greatest new talent in years. Larry Hart thought he was great. Harold had a real valid talent, it is his own, and completely original." - Richard Rodgers
“Ever since I was 18, when I discovered Harold Arlen, he’s my guy.” - Barbra Streisand
“Always courageous, intelligent, and incapable of cliché.” - Truman Capote
““I was always terribly impressed by Mr. Arlen's great genius and very much in awe of him.” - Judy Garland
“Arlen is no thirty-two bar man – the most individual of American show-composers.” - Ira Gershwin
