GRAND HOTEL Book by: Luther Davis Music and Lyrics by: George Forrest and Robert Wright Additonal Music and Lyrics by: Maury Yeston Based on the novel by Vicki Baum, GRAND HOTEL By arrangements with Turner Broadcasting Company, owner of the 1932 motion picture "Grand Hotel" Martin Beck Theatre - 12 November, 1989 (1077 perfs) Revival Donmar Warehouse, London - 29 November, 2004 SYNOPSIS The show is set in a ritzy Berlin hotel in 1928 when Germany is on the brink of Nazism. The main characters whirl through the revolving doors of the hotel. There is Elizaveta Grushinskaya, the ageing Russian ballerina, Felix von Gaigern, the impoverished romantic, German nobleman, Otto Kringelein, a Jewish bookkeeper dying of cancer and blowing his life savings on a few days of high living, and Flämmchen the pregnant typist who is desperate to make it to Hollywood. PEOPLE COME, PEOPLE GO, WAVE OF LIFE OVERFLOWING! COME BEGIN IN OLD BERLIN, YOU’RE IN THE GRAND HOTEL! Come, spend a night or two in the world’s most opulent, extravagant hotel. Perhaps you will find your fortune there, perhaps you will find true love, perhaps all of your dreams will come true … perhaps. . . It is 1928. The world is between wars, the stock market is booming, Berlin is the center of high life, and optimism rules the day. Inspired by Viki Baum’s period novel, book writer/playwright Luther Davis (Kismet, Timbuktu!) collaborated once again with the prolific, distinguished composer-lyricist team Robert Wright and George Forrest (Kismet, Timbucktu!, Magdelena, The Anastasia Affaire). Together, they created a seamless musical that boasts an engaging, non-stop book and a powerful score that is sure to sweep you away with all of the lavishness of the 1920s. The story, performed without an intermission, intertwines a cast of eccentric characters through a series of fateful encounters. Passing through the golden light and dark shadows of The Grand Hotel is the fading, still-beautiful Prima Ballerina; the charming young Baron, out of money, riding on his looks; the ambitious Hollywood hopeful; the mortally ill bookkeeper, meeting society before his grave; the honest, hardworking father-to-be; and the doctor, whose cynical tone foreshadows the looming depression. Grand Hotel richly contrasts comedy, tragedy, glitz, and realism and is sure to captivate both your actors and audiences. STORY The voices of telephone operators ring out in the dark. “Grand Hotel Berlin, at your service.” The telephone operators promise prompt service for The Grand Hotel’s illustrious clients. As the sound grows to a loud din, The Doctor, in a room of his own injects some morphine into his arm to ease the pain caused by wounds he suffered in the First World War. He smiles, knowing today, will be another exciting day, where people come and people go, and people’s lives change, in The Grand Hotel. One by one, people enter the lobby of the hotel. Baron Felix Von Gaigern enters the lobby of the hotel, while being vigorously hounded by a gangster, who
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