The Mad Show

Performer: Original Off-Broadway Cast/Original Soundtrack
Producer: Ivor David Balding; David Rubinson; Ivor David Balding; Dan O'Leary (Reissue)
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: Composer: Mary Rodgers. Lyricist: Stephen Sondheim. Personnel: Jo Anne Worley, Linda Lavin, Dick Libertini, MacIntyre Dixon (vocals); Danny Epstein (percussion). Liner Note Authors: Terri Castillo Chapin; Mary Rodgers. Photographer: Bert Andrews. The Mad Show, an Off-Broadway musical comedy revue, had a successful run of 871 performances after opening on January 9, 1966. The show, featuring a cast of five including future Broadway star Linda Lavin and future TV stars Jo Anne Worley (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) and Dick Libertini, was produced under the imprimatur of Mad magazine and shared that publication's satiric sense of humor and orientation toward restless teenagers. Mary Rodgers composed the music, and she was joined by lyricists Marshall Barer, Larry Siegal, and Steven Vinaver, while Siegal and Stan Hart wrote the sketches. (A certain "Esteban Ria Nido," later revealed to be Stephen Sondheim, contributed lyrics to the parody of "The Girl From Ipanema" called "The Boy From ....") The cast album contains plenty of the sketch material along with the songs, as the cast sends up the liberal mores of the mid-'60s along with consumerism, television, and other targets, including the self-serious folk-rock singer/songwriters of the day ("Well It Ain't"). Throughout, the tone of the humor has a dismissive air of adolescent dissatisfaction with just about everything having to do with parents and the adult world in general, which means that, even though some of the specific material dated after the '60s, much of it remains current from one generation to another. ~ William Ruhlmann

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