Bye Bye Birdie Musical Lyrics

The musical’s idea came in the wake of the news that Elvis Presley taken into the army (1957), and he gives his last concert before it, during which shall present a kiss to some girl. They copied the idea and called a hero as Conway Twitty. He possessed completely all the movements and behavior of Elvis. Even in the face of one of the black-and-white photos here, you can see for yourself – he looks like this rock-and-roll legend. Creators got a nasty surprise – it turned out that in real life, such singer as Conway Twitty existed (there was no Google that time, so it was impossible to quickly determine the existence of information in the world). He was trying to sue them for unauthorized use of his name and the creators fast changed the character’s name to Conrad Birdie.

Broadway was staged in 1960 (it took 3 years to do the musical) in the Theatre of Martin Beck, then it moved to the Shubert Theatre. Show gave 607 plays. Gower Champion was the director & choreographer. E. Padula was the producer, P. Clark – illuminator, M. White was responsible for the costumes. The actors were: C. N. Reilly, D. V. Dyke, K. Medford, C. Rivera, S. Watson, D. Gautier, G. Wyler, P. Lynde & G. Rayburn.

After closing in 1961, the musical was produced in Los Angeles in the Philharmonic Theatre. West End saw production in the same year. There were such actors: P. Marshall, A. Baddeley, M. Wilde, C. Rivera. Slightly less successful, but it paid-off the production – 268 shows.

Resurrection of the show have been for significant times – first in 1981 on Broadway, then in 1990 during the US tour, then in 2004 in The New York City, then in 2008 in Kennedy Center. 2009 was marked again by the fact that the production came to Broadway. It held there for 2 seasons, in 2010 with the casting: M. Doyle, J. Stamos, A. Trimm, G. Gershon, R. Costello, B. Irwin, N. G. Funk & J. Houdyshell.
Release date: 1960
Last Update:January, 13th 2016