Elaine Stritch

Adriaan Fuchs

“The First Broad of the American theater.”

– Nathan Lane

Great Interpreters Goes Broadway! – Program 3: Elaine Stritch
Broadcast on Fine Music Radio on 19 June 2015.

With her gravel-edged belt, a voice like a car shifting gears without the clutch, as People magazine noted in 1988, her charismatic stage presence, tart-tongued quips, and her signature outfit: a long white man’s dress shirt, a black vest, black tights, and nothing resembling pants, Elaine Stritch, or “Stritchie” as Noël Coward referred to her, became a living emblem of show business durability.

Her career, which began in the 1940s, spanned almost 70 years and notably included roles in Coward’s Sail Away, and Stephen Sondheim’s Company, but reached its highpoint in 2001, when in her late 70s, Stritch delivered a Tony Award-winning performance in her one woman show Elaine Stritch At Liberty.

“Equal parts blond bombshell and battle-ax,” Adam Feldman noted, “Stritch sings in a skeleton key that somehow unlocks every song. Her curmudgeonly, whiskey-drenched style explodes with a rare force of character: a tough yet tender blend of honesty, rue and mordant wit.” She was, as NPR’s Scott Simon observed, “her own greatest character.”

In this On And Off The Record podcast, the third installment in the Great Interpreters Goes Broadway! series, Adriaan Fuchs takes a closer look at the life and career of Broadway’s brassiest broad: the one and only, Elaine Stritch.

Podcast Track List

1) “The Ladies Who Lunch” from Company
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

2) “Civilization” from Angel in the Wings
Sketches by Hank Ladd, Ted Luce, Paul Hartman, and Grace Hartman
Music by Bob Hilliard and Carl Sigman

3) “Zip” from Pal Joey
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart

4) “You Took Advantage of Me” from On Your Toes
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart

5) “Who’s Been Sitting In My Chair?” from Goldilocks
Music by Leroy Anderson
Lyrics by Joan Ford, Walter Kerr, and Jean Kerr

6) “Why Do the Wrong People Travel?” from Sail Away
Music and lyrics by Noël Coward

7) “Getting Angry, Baby?” from Act I of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Playwright: Edward Albee

8) “Broadway Baby” from Follies
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

9) “I’m Still Here” from Follies
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

10) “Something Good” from The Sound of Music
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Videos

Extract from Original Cast Album: Company:

“The Ladies Who Lunch” from Company:

“I’m Still Here” from Follies: