City of Angels is classified as a musical comedy that intertwines two plots. The "real" world is an author attempting to transform his novel into a screenplay. The other world is the fictional world of the film that is set in the film noir genre. The music is written by jazz king Cy Coleman with lyrics and book by David Zippel and Larry Gelbart (the creator of the t.v. series M.A.S.H.) City of Angels opened on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre in 1989 and closed three years later. While on Broadway a Los Angeles theatre company began a 6 month run of the show. West End did a 8 month run of the show in 1993, and an Off-Broadway revival ran in 2006.
Both worlds are set in Hollywood, the City of Angels, in the 1940's and happen simultaneously. The show starts in the "reel" world when Oolie, a loyal secretary, ushers Alaura Kingsley, an attractive and wealthy socialite, into down-on-his-luck private eye Stone's office. Alaura hires him to find her 75 year old husband's daughter, Mallory. Mallory is a beautiful bad girl whose run away. Stone is reluctant to take the case since he doesn't trust Alaura, but is desperate for the money. Later he's beat up by two thugs telling him to drop the Kingsley case. Mallory later shows up in his bed and blackmails him for money to pay off her own blackmail. This eventually leads to Stone being framed for murder. He deals with all of this while his own past and relationship, with lounge singer Bobbi are shown to us through flashbacks , come back to haunt him.
In the "real" world Stine, the novelist, is making drastic changes to his original novel after getting pressure from his producer/director, movie mogul Buddy Fiddler. Stine struggles to balance his job pressures and his novel's integrity while his wife, Gabby, disapproves the whole time. She leaves for a business trip to New York, leaving Stine to fall back into his cheating ways as he begins an affair with Buddy's secretary, Donna. Gabby discovers the affair and leaves Stine. Stine changes the script drastically by removing a racial angel Stone gets frustrated with his counterpart and berates him for his lack of integrity. Stine retaliates by having Stone beat up in the script, then he leaves for New York to have an unsuccessful attempt at a reconciliation with Gabby. Leaving so suddenly upsets Buddy, so when Stine returns he realizes the ending to the film has drastically been rewritten. Stine, with Stone at his side, stands up to Buddy and quit. He's about to be beaten up by thugs when Stone "rewrites" it and allows Stine to win the fight. The show ends with a "Hollywood Ending" with Gabby returning to Stine's side and Stine gaining his self-respect back.
Sorry for so much, but it's really all important. When it comes to the dramaturgical choices there are two huge stands out. The first is the choice to make the "reel" world and the "real" world double cast, with the exception of Stone and Stine. The "reel" world character's are all based of off some "real" world person from Stine's perspective. Sometimes, like in the case of Alaura/Carla or Mallory/Avril, it's easy to see that their lust for power and their use of sexuality to get what they want have influenced their characters. In other's, like Oolie/Donna, it's harder to see that Oolie's "trusted girl friday" mentality is something that Donna has too, since she does everything for Buddy. There's a scene between Donna and Stine in the play where this is brought up. Stine says, "No one ever sees themselves as others write them."
The second is making the "real" world in color, and the "reel" world in black and white. It's mainly to help audiences understand which part of the story they're in, since it's challenging to follow which actor's playing multiple characters. It also lends itself to the film noir, private eye movie feel from the 1940's.
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