TOADS - Copacabana

Copacabana, the song, was written in 1978 for Barry Manilow's Even Now album. Though it was loved by all who heard it, the record company didn't know quite what to do with it. Despite hearing from disc jockeys that Copacabana was producing some excitement, the record company decided to release three other songs as singles. The city of Miami then weighed in. Florida disc jockeys, at the request of their listeners, began to play Copacabana straight off the album. Within weeks, the record company was forced to release it as a single. It soared up the charts, and Barry Manilow entered the Guinness Book of World Records for having four songs in the top 40 simultaneously. The single quickly went gold, and contributed to the album going triple platinum. The song earned Mr Manilow his first Grammy Award.

Several years later, Dick Clark approached Copacabana's writers, Barry Manilow, Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman, about adapting the tune into a musical film for television. It was the first time such a project was attempted since Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella. Starring Annette O'Toole, Barry Manilow, Estelle Getty and Joseph Bologna, the movie garnered great ratings and wonderful reviews. It won an Emmy Award.

Shortly thereafter, Caesar's Resorts in Atlantic City contacted the creative team about adapting the film for their show room - the caveat being it had to he less than 75 minutes long. Mr Manilow, Mr Sussman and Mr Feldman proceeded to invent a new form: Vegas review meets Broadway show. It was wildly successful and received glowing reviews.

This prompted British producers to inquire about the possibility of expanding the show' to a full-length, two-act, West End musical= Discarding much of the Atlantic City production, the creators added several more characters and subplots and doubled the size of the score. This production enjoyed a 4-month, pre-London tour starting at the Plymouth Theatre Royal in 1994, ran two seasons on London's West End and toured for more than a year thereafter, and is currently touring professionally once again. The show never made the leap to Broadway. "It was good, but not our vision of it", Manilow said. When CLO's Executive Producer Van Kaplan expressed interest in reworking it, Sussman and Manilow agreed. "We could actually do the show we always wanted to do", said Sussman. Now, says Manilow, "Everybody involved in it understands it." Sussman described the musical's new concept as a love letter to Technicolor musicals of the 1940's. The new American version of the show premiered on June 17, 2000 at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. Following three weeks there, this dynamic musical travelled on to Dallas as part of the Dallas Summer Musicals season, then embarked on a 40-plus week North American National Tour.

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