Tom Foolery

Tomfoolery

Music	Tom Lehrer
Lyrics	Tom Lehrer
Book	Cameron Mackintosh
Productions	1980 West End 1981 Off Broadway

Tomfoolery is a musical revue based on lyrics and music that American mathematician, songwriter, and satirist Tom Lehrer first performed in the 1950s and 1960s.

Devised and produced by Cameron Mackintosh, it premiered in London at the Criterion Theatre, directed by Gillian Lynne, on 5 June 1980, where it had a successful run. It subsequently opened on December 14, 1981 off-Broadway at the Top of the Gate in Greenwich Village, New York, where it ran for 120 performances.^[1]^[2] The cast included Jonathan Hadary.^[3] Lehrer himself was brought in as a consultant.

The revue features 28 of Lehrer's satirical songs that were written in the 1950s and 1960s, known for their "witty naughtiness".^[3] Stage directions suggest each actor use their own name and wait onstage in a bar area while the others perform.^[2]

Two cast recordings have been released, one by the original London cast (Robin Ray, Jonathan Adams, Martin Connor and Tricia George),^[4] the other much rarer one by the Canadian cast.

Song list

Act 1

Be Prepared
Poisoning Pigeons In The Park
I Wanna Go Back To Dixie
My Home Town
Pollution
Bright College Days
Fight Fiercely, Harvard
The Elements
The Folk Song Army
In Old Mexico
She’s My Girl
When You Are Old And Gray
Wernher Von Braun
Who’s Next?
I Got It From Agnes
National Brotherhood Week

Act 2

So Long, Mom (A Song For World War III)
The Hunting Song
The Irish Ballad
Smut
New Math
Silent E
George Murphy
Oedipus Rex
I Hold Your Hand In Mine
The Masochism Tango
The Old Dope Peddler
The Vatican Rag
We Will All Go Together When We Go

The following two songs are optional:

Send The Marines
The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz

^[5]

References

↑ Tomfoolery production and plot information www.nodanw.com, accessed December 7, 2008
1 2 Tomfoolery production and show information mtishows.com, accessed December 7, 2008
1 2 Rich, Frank."Tomfoolery, A Revue of Lehrer Lyrics", The New York Times, December 15, 1981
↑ Tomfoolery 1980 Original cast recording listing on amazon.com www.amazon.com, accessed December 7, 2008
↑ Piano Conductor Score, Act 1 and Act 2, Tomfoolery (as published by Music Theatre International

External links

Tom Lehrer

Songs	"The Elements" "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" "Lobachevsky" "The Old Dope Peddler"

Albums	Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953) More of Tom Lehrer (1959)

Live albums	An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer (1959) Revisited (1960) That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Compilations	Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer (1997) The Remains of Tom Lehrer (2000)

Theater	Tom Foolery Letters from Lehrer

Song contributions	That Was the Week That Was A Gathering of Eagles The Electric Company

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