Baby (musical)

The doctor tells them that in order for Pam and Nick to have a child, their sex life must be by the book, which they eagerly agree to.

Later, at a faculty vs. student softball game, Nick is annoyed that the only topic people seem interested in discussing is children.

Alan and Arlene have someone look at their house so they can sell it and live in a small apartment with just the two of them, meaning they aren't going to have the baby after all.

Lizzie is seated on a park bench and many women approach her, touch her stomach and ask her about her pregnancy, which she finds uncomfortably personal and strange.

"The End of Summer" was written for the Paper Mill Playhouse production, and is now part of the newly revised score available for licensing.

The Broadway production, directed by Richard Maltby, Jr. and choreographed by Wayne Cilento, began previews at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on November 8, 1983, and opened officially on December 4 that same year.

[1] The original cast included Liz Callaway as Lizzie Fields, Beth Fowler as Arlene McNally, Todd Graff as Danny Hooper, Catherine Cox as Pam Sakarian, James Congdon as Alan McNally, and Martin Vidnovic as Nick Sakarian.

Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, presented an updated version of the musical from March 31, 2004 to May 9, 2004.

The cast featured Carolee Carmello (Arlene), Chad Kimball (Danny), LaChanze (Pam), Norm Lewis (Nick), Moeisha McGill (Liz), and Michael Rupert (Alan).

[2] The updated Paper Mill Playhouse script and score were then finalized for a March 2010 production at TrueNorth Cultural Arts in Sheffield Village, Ohio.

[4] The cast was headed by Natalie Green (Lizzie), Shane Joseph Siniscalchi (Danny), Michael Dempsey (Alan), Bernadette Hisey (Arlene), David Robeano (Nick) and Maggie Stahl-Floriano (Pam) under the direction of Fred Sternfeld.

[7] The cast featured Mary Peterson (Arlene), Tayler Thompson (Lizzie), Karene Vocque (Pam), Cole Bryant (Nick), Jason Kell (Alan), and Asante Azevedo (Danny).

Out of the Box Theatrics, New York, presented a modern off Broadway version of the musical featuring Pam and Nick Sakarian (originally heterosexual) as a lesbian couple on December 10, 2019.

The cast featured Alice Ripley (Arlene), Gabrielle McClinton (Nicki),[8] Christina Sajous (Pam), Evan Ruggeiro (Danny), Elizabeth Flemming (Lizzie) and Robert H. Fowler (Alan).

The cast included Patrick Phillips as Danny, Rhonda Burchmore as Pam and Geraldine Morrow as Arlene.

[10] A Brazilian production opened on May 15, 2011,[11] starring Tadeu Aguiar,[12] Sylvia Massari, Olavo Cavalheiro, Sabrina Korgut, Daíra Sabóia, André Dias and Amanda Acosta.

Frank Rich, theatre critic for The New York Times, wrote, "At a time when nearly every Broadway musical, good and bad, aims for the big kill with gargantuan pyrotechnics, here is a modestly scaled entertainment that woos us with such basic commodities as warm feelings, an exuberant cast and a lovely score.

Perfect Baby is not, but it often makes up in buoyancy and charm what it lacks in forceful forward drive... Sybille Pearson has chosen her characters as if she were a pollster in search of a statistical cross-section of modern (and uniformly model) parents.

Worse, this writer... values hit-and-miss one-liners over substance... Miss Pearson is also fond of such plot contrivances as mixed-up lab reports, and, in Act II, the story runs out altogether.

Yet David Shire, the composer, and Richard Maltby Jr., the lyricist, rush to the book's rescue by addressing the show's concerns with both humor and intelligence... To keep up with the varied ages of the characters, Mr. Shire writes with sophistication over a range that embraces rock, jazz and the best of Broadway schmaltz... Mr. Maltby's lyrics are not just smart and funny, but often ingenious."

In achievement, this show is a throwback to the early 1960s - the last era when Broadway regularly produced some casual-spirited musicals that were not instantly categorizable as blockbusters or fiascos.

Those musicals - like, say, Do Re Mi or 110 in the Shade - weren't built for the ages but could brighten a theater season or two: They were ingratiatingly professional, had both lulls and peaks, and inspired you to run to the record store as soon as the original cast album came out.