'Sing Muse' Gains Mixed Reviews; Segal to Write Broadway Musical

Erich W. Segal '58, Teaching Fellow in general Education, has recently returned from New York where his off-Broadway musical comedy "Sing Muse," received mixed reviews and is readying plans for a full-scale Broadway production.

Segal, who collaborated with Joseph I. Raposo '58 on the 1958 Hasty Pudding show, was again Raposo's partner a writing "Sing Muse," which played for five weeks at the Van Dam Theater.

In his review of the musical, Howard Taubman of the New York Times said, Mr. Segal can turn out sparkling lines, all of conceit and interesting rhymes.... Through Mr. Segal and Mr. Raposo he new Harvard generation may move into Broadway as authoritatively as its predecessors swarmed into Washington." The New Yorker called the show "a refreshing musical comedy" with its beater critic Edith Oliver adding. "What found irresistible was the music--sometimes like early, what-the-hell Dodgers, sometimes like early happy-go-lucky Loesser, sometimes like a parody of later inspirational Rodgers."

The predecessor to "Sing Muse" was a musical revue "Voulez-Vous," which played at the Pi Eta Theater in Cambridge in 1960. Despite its short run, "Sing Muse" has brought Segal several offers from Broadway producers for his next play, a musical comedy. After completing work next winter on doctoral thesis, "Theories of Comedy the Renaissance," Segal plans to devote himself to another production.

Commuting weekly between New York and Cambridge during the production, Segal never missed teaching to Humanities 2 sections. At the same time he started work on a television play to be produced in the coming months, set in Boston and about an academic and an actress.

In an article in the Jan. 13 issue of the New York World Telegram, Segal, who runs 12 miles a day to keep in shape, was described as a "tireless 24-year-old budding young playwright, who would rather win the Boston Marathon than write the next 'My Fair Lady.' Well almost."

Commuting weekly between New York and Cambridge during the production, Segal never missed teaching to Humanities 2 sections. At the same time he started work on a television play to be produced in the coming months, set in Boston and about an academic and an actress.

In an article in the Jan. 13 issue of the New York World Telegram, Segal, who runs 12 miles a day to keep in shape, was described as a "tireless 24-year-old budding young playwright, who would rather win the Boston Marathon than write the next 'My Fair Lady.' Well almost."