Kronborg: 1582

Kronborg: 1582 (other titles: Rockabye Hamlet, Something's Rockin' in Denmark, Hamlet - The Musical). Rock musical by Cliff Jones after Shakespeare's Hamlet. Commissioned by the CBC, Kronborg: 1582 was premiered 1 Dec 1973 on CBC radio's 'The Entertainers' with Cal Dodd as Hamlet and Nancy White as Ophelia. It was staged at the Charlottetown Festival in 1974 and 1975, and toured eastern Canada in 1975, with Brent Carver as Hamlet and Beverly D'Angelo as Ophelia. Renamed Rockabye Hamlet and substantially revised by Jones under the direction of the producer Gower Champion, it opened 17 Feb 1976 at the Minskoff Theater on Broadway and closed after only seven performances. Though the Broadway cast was largely from the US, D'Angelo retained her role as Ophelia. A recording of songs from Rockabye Hamlet was released on the Rising label (RILP 103). The musical was subsequently revised by Jones as Somethin' Rockin' in Denmark and produced successfully in 1981 at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles, where it had an extended run. In 2003, the show was revived for a tour of schools in Canada.

Bibliography

MacDonald, Dawn. 'Squeaky clean on Broadway,' Canadian Magazine, 7 Feb 1976

Martin, Robert. "Jones bloodied by Broadway, but unbowed," Globe and Mail, 27 Feb 1976

Cohen, Susan, and Gault, John. 'The kid who didn't conquer Broadway,' Maclean's, 8 Mar 1976

Links to Other Sites
Rockabye Hamlet
About a radio documentary that chronicles the preparation for the Broadway debut of Cliff Jones’s musical “Rockabye Hamlet.”

BABIES
The website for Cliff Jones’s musical BABIES, described as “A Chorus Line” in a hospital nursery. Features audio clips of songs from the show.

'A gibing spirit': imitation, adaptation and parody
A brief article about the Canadian fascination with "revisionist" versions of Shakespeare's plays. From the website "Internet Shakespeare Editions" at the University of Victoria.