I wish someone would the revive the 1986 musical Smile, which had a book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and a score by Marvin Hamlisch. The show was based on the 1975 movie of the same name written by Jerry Belson and while that all sounds like a nice package, the Broadway production had a pretty short run — 11 previews and 48 performances.
I never saw it but I know a few folks who did and they thought it deserved more success than it had. Apparently, it might have run longer but it ran into money problems, owing in part to a pretty large cast. That's probably one reason it hasn't been revived much — too many actors to pay…a fate that has befallen a number of shows. For the same reason, Li'l Abner is rarely revived in any situation where the cast has to be paid.
But a number of the songs in Smile have endured. Here's one that turns up in a lot of cabaret acts, sung here by Lilla Crawford. It's usually sung by women over the age of twenty but it has a special poignancy when performed by someone the age Ms. Crawford was in this video…
