Dig out the mini-skirts and the blazers, The Nanny Broadway musical is almost here
We are buzzing with anticipation thinking about a Broadway-style reproduction of insatiably catchy The Nanny theme song.
Aux Features The Nanny
New York’s Broadway stages are opening up just in time for The Nanny musical. Fran Drescher told The View this morning that The Nanny Broadway musical is “almost ready to launch.” Where the new chapter will take Fran Fine is still under wraps, but we are buzzing with anticipation thinking about a Broadway style reproduction of insatiably catchy The Nanny theme song.
Sadly, Drescher will not reprise her role as the titular nanny, telling The View that she “really can’t sing.” She says that whoever they bring on as Fran will need to be “the next Barbara Streisand.”
When the plans for the Broadway production were first announced early last year, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend‘s Rachel Bloom and Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger were set to write the music. Bloom, Schlesinger, and Jack Dolgen won an Emmy in 2019 for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for their work together on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. However, Schlesinger died in April of 2020 due of complications due to COVID-19 at the age of 52. Bloom is set to continue her work for the musical.
Drescher created and wrote The Nanny alongside her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson in 1993. The two have teamed up once again for the musical production. The original sitcom follows Fran Fine, a Jewish-American fashionista from Queens, who—down on her luck—begins nannying the children of a widowed British Broadway producer. Much of Fran’s character and life was based on Drescher upbringing in Flushing Queens.
The Nanny has retained its popularity over the last thirty years, with streaming services bringing in a younger audience. The continued appeal of the series not only lies in Fran’s fashion and humor, but also in the early positive representations of the LGBT community in sitcom television—which Drescher discusses on The View.
“In The Nanny, over the years that we were doing the show, I wanted to integrate gay storylines without making comments about the person’s orientation,” Drescher says. She continues on to say she sought representation that “made sense” for the show and the characters.
In a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar, she says the longevity of the show also lies in its ageless narrative combined with a ‘90s time capsule feel.
“[The series was] an anomaly unto itself. It’s laugh-out-loud funny. The sexual tension is off the scale. It’s a Cinderella fantasy. The clothes are just like a beautiful, incredible fashion show every single week,” Drescher said. “It’s got that kind of double entendre where you can watch it with the family, and everybody of every different age will enjoy it in their own way. And yet, it’s got kind of like edgy, gay humor. It never lost its cool.”
Agreed.
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Anyone else just get a nosebleed, or…?
, or.
On a similar note, I wanna share this great song written by Amanda Green about Fran’s life.
Why are all Broadway musicals now born from the idea of “Wouldn’t it be funny if we made _____ into a musical?”
Because, just like with movies, producers believe recognizable IP means less chance of failure. People already like it in one medium so we can get them to pay for it in another.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if we made this Edna Ferber book into a musical?” — Jerome Kern, 1926.
Actually it was Oscar Hammerstein’s idea 😉 But yeah, while I think it has become pretty cynical and ridiculous (especially when often these “… the Musical” are now instigated by corporations), ever since musicals started using more coherent and dramatic books they’ve almost always been adaptations of some sort—for a myriad reasons. It just used to be that it would make more sense to adapt plays and books than movies and TV shows (there is a point too that until the 1970s it was much rarer to just slap on “the musical” to a title—Promises, Promises wasn’t The Apartment The Musical, Oklahoma! wasn’t Green Grow the Lilacs, the musical, the already mentioned Show Boat was still Show Boat but didn’t have to point out to people that it was a musical…)
Still, I mean this sounds pretty terrible to me, but what do I know. I really don’t get the love for the series either. It seems more like similar projects like Happy Days the Musical that toured with some success but that’s it.
I do get tired of the whole _______, but with songs schtick, but I’ve got to admit that The Nanny (a super campy comedy/romance that includes a Broadway money man as a main character) seems like one of the best possible properties for the format.
I do get tired of the whole _______, but with songs schtick, but I’ve got to admit that The Nanny (a super campy comedy/romance that includes a Broadway money man as a main character) seems like one of the best possible properties for the format.I thought the exact same thing about “Hairspray,” which feels like it was made to be a Broadway Musical but John Waters just hadn’t made the right connections yet or something. The plot is driven by the lead being in a dance show, has an endearing story, memorable characters, and plenty of Queer camp baked into it. It was just made for Broadway and I think the score speaks for itself.
Why are all Broadway musicals now born from the idea of “Wouldn’t it be funny if we made _____ into a musical?”It’s the flipside of where it was back in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Back then, film (especially “talkie” film) was still somewhat new, and musicals and plays were the cheaper “surer thing” to bet on. So we ended up with movies based on popular, often long-running and critially-acclaimed Broadway productions. And now TV and The Movies are intertwined, so it makes sense that both of those formats would inform the stage, which comparatively-speaking is much much less accessible to the general public. I think it’s just a matter of where the media currents flow at any given time.
Upcoming promo pic for HBO Max. ❤️
Always liked Fran Drescher. She does her own thing and knows how to set up and land a joke. I wish Indebted had been just a little better suited for her shtick, there were plenty of chuckles but it never quite came together.Hold up, Rachel Bloom is writing the songs? Instant must-see. I truly believe she is the most talented person in comedy today, and maybe in a long time.
Daniel S. Davis or no deal:
My favorite The Nanny anecdote (well, my only one since I never watched the show even though I had a mild crush on Fran Drescher after seeing her in Doctor Detroit) is that Daniel S. Davis said that he received letters from people imploring him to teach Charles Shaughnessy how to do a proper English accent.Davis is from Arkansas, while Shaughnessy is from London and is both a baron and an Etonian.