Dickens updated in Harlem, Singer in a magic shtetl
COMIN' UPTOWN Music by Garry Sherman; Book by Philip Rose and Peter Udell; Lyrics by Peter Udell
Just in time for the holidays, Broadway has a festive new ornament, an all-black musical version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Scrooge is a Harlem slumlord with a goatee and an Afro, Marley's ghost marches through eternity in sneakers, and the three Christmas ghosts are high-stepping disco dancers. Even Dickens' capacious imagination could probably not have envisioned such sequins and flash. Taken on its own good-natured...