Cast
Name |
Gender |
Vocal |
Age |
Role |
| Fiona MacLaren | female | soprano | 18 – 30 | lead |
| Tommy Albright | male | baritone | 30 – 40 | lead |
| Charlie Dalrymple | male | tenor | 21 – 32 | support |
| Jean MacLaren | female | spoken | 18 – 30 | support |
| Meg Brockie | female | alto | 18 – 30 | support |
| Jeff Douglas | male | spoken | 35 – 55 | support |
| Harry Beaton | male | spoken | 18 – 30 | support |
| Archie Beaton | male | bass | 47 – 65 | cameo |
| Andrew MacLaren | male | baritone | 47 – 65 | support |
| Mr. Lundie | male | spoken | 50 – 75 | cameo |
| Maggie Anderson | female | spoken | 16 – 26 | cameo |
| Jane Ashton | female | spoken | 24 – 33 | cameo |
| Adult Townspeople | Male & Female | Up to 25 | ||
| Youth Townspeople | Male & Female | Up to 10 |
SONGS
- Prelude (Once In The Highlands)
- Brigadoon – All
- Vendors’ Calls – Alll
- Down On MacConnachy Squary – All
- Waitin’ For My Dearie -Foina
- I’ll Go Home With Bonnie Jean – Charlie
- The Heather On The Hill – Tommy
- The Love Of My Life – Meg
- Jeannie’s Packin’ Up – Girls
- Come To Me, Bend To Me – Charlie
- Almost Like Being In Love – Tommy & Fiona
- The Sword Dance (Wedding Dance)
- The Chase – Men
- There But For You Go I – Tommy
- My Mother’s Wedding Day – Meg
- From This Day On – Tommy & Fiona
- Finale (Brigadoon) -All
HISTORY
Brigadoon is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe, first produced in 1947. It tells the story of a mysterious village in Scotland, which appears for only one day every hundred years. Far from being a curse, the enchantment is viewed by the villagers as a blessing. According to their covenant with God, no one from Brigadoon may ever leave the village, or the enchantment will be broken and Brigadoon and all its inhabitants will disappear into the mist forever. Two American tourists, lost in the Highlands, stumble upon the village just as a wedding is about to be celebrated, and their arrival has serious implications for the village’s inhabitants.
The original Broadway production, directed by Robert Lewis and produced by Cheryl Crawford, opened March 13th, 1947. It starred David Brooks as Tommy, Marion Bell as Fiona, Lee Sullivan as Charlie, James Mitchell as Harry, and Pamela Britton as Meg. It ran for 581 performances and shared a Tony Award for Agnes De Mille’s choreography. It also won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, and has had many well-received revivals over the years.
A film version of Brigadoon, directed by Vincente Minnelli, was released by MGM in 1954 with Gene Kelly, Van Johnson and Cyd Charisse in leading roles. Four of the show’s musical numbers (“Come to Me, Bend to Me”, “There But For You Go I”, “From This Day On”, and “The Sword Dance”) were filmed and recorded, but cut prior to the film’s release. The Breen office refused to allow the use of the two songs the Meg Brockie character sang in the stage version (“The Love of My Life” and “My Mother’s Wedding Day”), as the lyrics were considered too risqué for general audiences. With the omission of these songs, the supporting role of Meg Brockie was reduced in the film to scarcely more than a bit part. The minor song “Jeannie’s Packin’ Up” was also omitted. Some of this was done because, after listening to Gene Kelly’s pre-recordings of “There But For You Go I” and “From This Day On”, the makers of the film felt that the results did not show his voice to its best advantage, but some was done because producer Arthur Freed wanted to shape the two-and-a-half hour stage musical into a film that ran 108 minutes.
A 1966 television version, shown as a color special on the ABC television network, made use of a modernized, abbreviated script that accommodated much more of the score than the film version had, yet the entire production ran only ninety minutes (counting commercials). In this production, Tommy and Jeff were participating in an auto race when their car stalled just outside of Brigadoon. This version starred Robert Goulet as Tommy, Peter Falk as Jeff, and Sally Ann Howes as Fiona, with Finlay Currie in one of his last roles as Mr. Lundie, Edward Villella as Harry, and Marlyn Mason as Meg. It won several Emmy awards, while the film version won no Academy Awards. “My Mother’s Wedding Day” was restored to this version, with all its so-called risqué lyrics. The only songs omitted from this version were “Once in the Highlands”, “Jeannie’s Packin’ Up”, and “The Love of My Life”.
Lerner’s story was based on a much older German story by Friedrich Gerstacker about the mythical, German village of Germelshausen that fell under an evil, magic curse. In 1947, memories of the second World War were too fresh to present a German-themed musical on Broadway, so Lerner reimagined the story in Scotland, complete with tartan kilts, bonnie lassies, droning bagpipes, Highland flings and “Heather on the Hill”. Lerner’s name for his imaginary locale was probably based on a well-known Scottish landmark, the Brig o’ Doon (Bridge of Doon), in Alloway, Scotland, in the heart of Robert Burns country. According to Burns’ poem Tam o’Shanter, this 13 century stone bridge is where the legendary Tam o’ Shanter fled on his horse Meg in order to escape from three witches who were chasing him. Other sources suggest that “Brigadoon” was constructed from the Gaelic words: briga which means “strife”, and dùn which means “hill, hill fort, or hill village.” The name may also be a reference to the Celtic Goddess Brigid, as in “Brigid’s Hill.” See also Alloway for another interpretation. In Scots “brig” means “bridge”. It could also be a corrupted Scots-English spelling of “Break of Dawn”, which, given the village’s state of existence, seems to make the most sense.
