Stone and Stine
Created by Larry Gelbart, with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by David Zippel

City of Angels was an ambitious and generally well-received musical/comedy Broadway show, written by Larry Gelbart (of M*A*S*H fame). It focussed on the lives of fictional tough private eye STONE and his creator, young Hollywood writer STINE, who's finding it increasingly difficult to separate his life from his creation.

Stone's your typical hard-guy P.I., down on his luck, his heart on his sleeve and a lot on his mind. When we're introduced to him, he's in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound. And then the action pulls back to reveal Stine at his typewriter, rewriting the scene. Stine's had a string of luck with his novels about Stone, and is now busily adapting one of his novels for the screen.

The action in the play continues to switch back and forth from the black -and-white noirish world of the writers imagination and the full-colour, glaring, glitzy world of a Hollywood studio. Each character has a counterpart in the other reality. It may sound confusing, but evidently it all works.

In fact, the general consensus is that there's some good stuff in here, but it is, after all, a Broadway show. You've been warned...

UNDER OATH

• "There's a miracle on Broadway -- an American musical, with American jazz rhythms, American wisecracks, an original American script."
  (Jack Kroll, Newsweek)
  .
• "...some of the hippest, funnily rhymed lyrics in Broadway musical history."
  (Frederick W. Winship, UPI)

PLAYS

• CITY OF ANGELS
  (1989, New York City)
  Opened: December 11, 1989, Virginia Theatre, New York City
  Written by Larry Gelbart
  Music by Cy Coleman
  Lyrics by David Zippel
  Directed by Michael Blakemore
  Sets by Robin Wagner
  Starring James Naughton as STONE
  and Gregg Edelman as STINE
  Also starring Kay McClelland, Randy Graff, Scott Waara, James Hindman, Rene Auberjonois, Dee Hoty, Rachel York, Shawn Elliot, Alvin Lum, Tom Galantich
  

RECORDINGS

• CITY OF ANGELS: ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING
  Buy this CD
  (1990, Columbia)
  Music by Cy Coleman
  Lyrics by David Zippel
  Book by Larry Gelbart
  Produced by Cy Coleman and Mike Berniker
  Orchestra conducted by Gordon Lowry Harrell
  Featuring the cast from above.