From the ArchivesRevisit Leslie Uggams in the Tony-Winning Hallelujah, Baby!Featuring a book by Arthur Laurents and music by Jule Styne, the Tony-winning musical opened on Broadway April 26, 1967.
By
Adam Hetrick
April 26, 2019
The Tony-winning Broadway musical Hallelujah, Baby!, which made a star out of a young Leslie Uggams, officially opened on Broadway April 26, 1967, at the Martin Beck Theatre. The musical, which traced one ageless woman's journey through the African-American struggle for equality, won the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Hallelujah, Baby! features a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Burt Shevelove directed the Broadway original that ran for 293 performances.
On the 40th anniversary of the opening of the original production, we paged through our old Playbills and found this piece about the show that changed the canon.
To mark the 80th birthday of composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim in 2010, Playbill.com asked Broadway songwriters to do the impossible—pick their favorite songs by the master.