SYNOPSIS

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Book by Larry Gelbart | Music by Cy Coleman | Lyrics by David Zippel

 

In the late 1940s, Stine, a bookish writer of detective stories, struggles to adapt his crime novel into a workable screenplay. As Stine tries to maintain some integrity in the backstabbing world of Hollywood, his protagonist, a hardboiled private eye named Stone, fights for survival in a city full of criminals and opportunists. The musical explores two parallel storylines with a clever design choice: Stine’s world is in full color, while Stone’s appears in black and white. With wit, humor, and a fantastic Cy Coleman score, City of Angels captures the snappy dialogue of a Raymond Chandler novel and the glitzy showmanship of classic Hollywood; the result is a crowd-pleasing musical unlike any other.

 

City of Angels was the winner of Six 1990 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Book, and Score.