Show Business: 1600: Anatomy of a Turkey

By every billing it was the musical that could not miss. At the top of the credit lines for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue were two of the arts' most potent names: Lyricist Alan Jay Lerner of My Fair Lady and Camelot fame and West Side Story Composer Leonard Bernstein. The show, about the lives and times of 13 early Presidents, was a Bicentennial natural, and the Coca-Cola Co. eagerly footed the $1.2 million cost of bringing a 45-member cast and a 30-piece orchestra together for five weeks of rehearsals in New York and tryouts...

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