At the time that Scott Ellis, Susan Stroman, and David Thompson conceived the Off-Broadway revue And the World Goes 'Round: The Songs of Kander and Ebb, composer
John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb had had a long, uneven career in the musical theater dating back nearly 30 years, its high points being the successful shows Cabaret (and its film version) and Chicago, as well as the song "Theme from New York, New York," which
Frank Sinatra had turned into a standard after it was used in the film musical. The songwriters had displayed an affinity for writing for female stars, especially
Liza Minnelli, with whom they were closely associated, and for writing pastiche material that sounded like it had been written in the 1920s, '30s, or '40s. But their relative lack of hits at the box office or on the hit parade, and their fitful critical approbation, which never approached that of their contemporary,
Stephen Sondheim, left them relatively unknown, and in early 1991 they were clearly struggling. They hadn't had a show on Broadway since 1984, and their most recent work, The Kiss of the Spider Woman, had collapsed after a controversial tryout. And the World Goes 'Round, which opened on March 18, 1991, and ran longer than all but three of their book musicals up to that time, helped turn things around. An excellent anthology, it plucked the best songs from flop shows like 70, Girls, 70, The Rink, and The Act, and reprised the duo's greatest hits: "Cabaret," "Maybe This Time" and "Money, Money" from the Cabaret film, "All That Jazz" from Chicago, and, of course, from New York, New York, the theme song (rendered in several languages) and the revue's title song. A terrific cast of five, among them Jim Walton and Karen Ziemba, presented the material freshly. The result was a revelation about the quality of
Kander and Ebb's best material, and a turning point in the songwriters' career. In 1993, Kiss of the Spider Woman turned into a Broadway hit, and though their next show, Steel Pier, flopped, Broadway revivals of Cabaret and Chicago made
Kander and Ebb Broadway's hottest writers by the end of the '90s. But this cast album still sums them up best. ~ William Ruhlmann