Start date – Wednesday 2 September 2026
CURTAIN UP!
Songs that originated on stage
This month we’re taking our music from the stage to the spotlight!
Choose a song that originated in theatre — Broadway, the West End, a musical, or any stage production — whether it became famous on stage or later through a famous artist.
Tell us:
What show did it come from?
and as always, why did you choose this song?
From showstoppers to tearjerkers, bring us a song that deserves its moment in the spotlight.
Curtain up!! And let the music begin ….
Sue
‘Memory’ Elaine Paige | Cats The Musical
I saw the South African production of CATS at the State Theatre in Pretoria some years ago. What a splendid production. I remember Robin Van Wyk, a ballet dancer, who was cast as I think Macavity. He was not a singer so was to mime the songs!!
I have chosen a songs from CATS which was one of Alan’s absolute favorites and is very special to me.
I have chosen the Elaine Paige version of “Memories” .
I have chosen this song for a very personal reason and it is not that I regret anything important.
I am at an age when I often look back at my life and all that I have been and what I have become. I am still the same person inside but age has taken so much of my youth. However, it is only in living that I have such precious memories and no regrets.
Liezel
West Side Story – I Feel Pretty
Tonight’s choice is “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story. Both the song and the movie have been favourites of mine since I was very young. With so many awesome songs, choosing one was really hard.
In the original 1961 film, Maria was played by Natalie Wood, while her singing voice was provided by the remarkable Marni Nixon.
I remember watching this classic on my Ouma’s lounge floor, with all the furniture pushed to one side so that we could use the big white wall as our “cinema screen”. We would hire these wonderful old movies on film reels from a special store – long before the days of Blockbuster Video! My Oupa was the best projectionist, making sure that the film didn’t stick and burn (I have no doubt this group knows exactly what I mean). Of course if the inevitable did happen, he had his own “splicing” machine to quickly fix it.
Choosing this song brings back those very happy childhood memories.
Chrisna
Madonna – Don’t Cry For Me Argentina
Evita is a sung-through musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. It covers the early life, rise to power, charity work, controversies and death of the Argentine political leader Eva Perón, the second wife of the Argentine president Juan Perón.
The musical began as a rock opera concept album released in 1976. Its success led to productions in London’s West End in 1978, winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical, and on Broadway a year later, where it was the first British musical to receive the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Madonna sang “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” to star as Eva Perón in the 1996 musical film adaption of Evita.
Wilfred
Robbie Williams – Mack the Knife – Live at the Albert
This one has been on three different stages, and it’s told a different lie on each of them.
It starts in Berlin, 1928. Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill open The Threepenny Opera with a street singer introducing the show’s main character — Macheath or Mack. And the song is essentially a list of the people he has killed. A body found by the river. A missing rich man. A girl with a knife in her chest. Weill set that lyric to the jauntiest, most whistleable tune he could write, deliberately, because Brecht wanted the audience tapping their feet to a murder ballad and feeling slightly sick about it.
Then the fifties happened. Louis Armstrong picked it up in 1956, Bobby Darin took it to number one in 1959, and somewhere over the Atlantic the whole thing got sanded smooth. The knife stayed in the lyrics. Nobody heard it any more. It became a cocktail song.
And then this. 2001, the Royal Albert Hall, Robbie Williams in a dinner jacket with a full big band, grinning his way through it. A pop star doing a Sinatra impression of a song from a communist opera about a serial killer.
It began on a stage, went out into the world, was thoroughly misunderstood for seventy years, and came back to a stage again, and it still absolutely swings.
Listen to the words. Then go ahead and enjoy it anyway.
That was always Brecht’s joke.
Arno
Murray Head – One Night In Bangkok “From CHESS”
Madporra
ANNIE (1982): “Tomorrow”
“Tomorrow” originated on stage as the signature anthem for the hit Broadway musical ANNIE.
Before it became a massive worldwide pop-culture phenomenon through the famous 1982 film adaptation, it was written specifically for the theater by composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Martin Charnin.
The song made its official stage debut during the show’s tryouts at the Goodspeed Opera House in August 1976, before opening on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre in April 1977. It was first sung on stage by actress Andrea McArdle, who originated the role of Annie.
Richard
The Producers – Springtime for Hitler
Mel Brookes needs no introduction (hopefully) suffice to say he is a living legend (born in 1929, he is still going strong).
His production of “The Producers” is an absolute American classic winning 12 Tony awards and running on Broadway for 2502 performances.
Somewhat controversial (being of German Jewish descent he gets away with it). He also saw action at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 (with Errol and I). So is not a stranger to the horrors of war – he just deals with it in a different way.Mel Brookes needs no introduction (hopefully) suffice to say he is a living legend (born in 1929, he is still going strong).
His production of “The Producers” is an absolute American classic winning 12 Tony awards and running on Broadway for 2502 performances.
Somewhat controversial (being of German Jewish descent he gets away with it). He also saw action at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 (with Errol and I). So is not a stranger to the horrors of war – he just deals with it in a different way.
Zosia
Our Pros perform a show-stopping routine to Cabaret in Musicals Week ✨ BBC Strictly 2021
The broadway show”Cabaret” hit the stage 1966. It was originally written by John Kander and set in Berlin in the 1930’s.
The movie starred Lisa Minelli and Joel Grey. The score was written by Joe Masteroff. The music I have selected is performed by the Pros( the professional dances from Strictly come dancing)
Errol
Riverdance The Final
My introduction to the rabbit hole of home theatre happened at a lunch I was invited to in the mid 1990’s. The man had bought one of those large old TVs like in in the pic below, that came in a massive enclosure, that almost certainly required some alterations at your home.
But what really hooked me was what we watched on it – the DVD Riverdance. I was gobsmacked by the sheer visual spectacle.
Not long after, I was in London and saw the original cast perform Riverdance, and the again some years later in Edinburgh. It still gives me goosies and brings tears to my eyes. Frisson I tell you!
Tonight, I’ve chose the finale from Riverdance. It was written by composer Bill Wheelan for the stage production, and includes a mix of traditional Irish reels, powerful orchestral swells, and rhythmic percussion.
It features a powerful blend of traditional instruments like the fiddle, uilleann pipes, and accordion, with a modern rhythm section, brass, full choral and vocal backing that amplifies the gobsmacking emotional peak of the stage performance.
Sorry that the video quality is not better, but that’s the best I could find. Better on the big sound, and I have the DVD…
Deborah
George Hearn – I am What I Am – 1984 Tony awards
Geraldine
Kramer/Petersen | District Six The Musical | Klop Klop (Live Performance) 1987
I was born in Woodstock/District Six in 1951 and up to age of 3years I played with my little friends in a mixed society. I love the language known as afrikaaps (also as Kaaps) which I spoke there and today it is spoken by over 3 million South Africans – mostly in Cape Town.
The apartheid regime declared District Six a “whites-only” area under the Group Areas Act on February 11, 1966. Over 60,000 residents were forcibly displaced from their homes, and bulldozers demolished the buildings, leaving a scar of empty land that remains largely undeveloped today.
Playwright David Kramer and composer Taliep Petersen collaborated to write District Six: The Musical to preserve the memory, culture, and music of the displaced community. It premiered in April 1987 at Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre, running for over 550 performances before touring internationally as a powerful act of cultural resistance and remembrance.
I am an admirer of Kramer/Petersen’s work and have seen most of their musicals. I absolutely love the vibrant songs and the “riel” dancing.
We attended the District Six show with friends in the old Transvaal – as we left the teatre my friend said: that is now really propaganda. My reply was – nee dit is nie – dit is geskiedenis.
I become emotional whenever I hear the music and listen to our people speaking Kaaps.
The lead is sung by Terry Smith, today one of Cape Town’s legends.
Karen
Nicole Scherzinger – Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera as a stage production trace a fascinating journey from novel to musical phenomenon.🎭
Gaston Leroux’s novel (1909–1910) was first published as a French serial, blending mystery, romance, and gothic horror set in the Paris Opera House.
The story inspired several film adaptations throughout the early 20th century — notably the 1925 silent film starring Lon Chaney, which shaped the Phantom’s iconic mask and underground lair imagery.
In the early 1980s, Andrew Lloyd Webber sought a romantic musical vehicle and rediscovered Leroux’s tale.Collaborating with producer Cameron Mackintosh, lyricist Charles Hart, and librettist Richard Stilgoe, Webber developed the score a fusion of classical opera and modern musical theatre.
The musical premiered at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London, on 9 October 1986, directed by Harold Prince and starring Michael Crawford (Phantom) and Sarah Brightman (Christine).
The Broadway production opened in 1988, becoming the longest‑running show in Broadway history.Its success led to numerous international productions, translations, and touring companies, solidifying its place as a cornerstone of modern musical theatre.