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The story follows the fortunes of the young D'Artagnan, who leaves home to seek for adventure and glory in Paris with the King's Musketeers. It explores three intense love affairs. In the background, there is the clandestine passion of the English Duke of Buckingham for the French Queen, Anne, and all its political fall-out.
This musical version begins with D'Artagnan's farewell to his country home in Gascony. With the gift of the family sword from his father - himself a former Musketeer - he sets out for Paris, on a somewhat decrepit yellow horse, heading for fame and fortune, or violent death.
D'Artagnan first quarrels and then becomes close friends with Athos, Porthos and Aramis, the Three Inseparables, three heroic and contrasting swordsmen. Although not a musketeer himself, D'Artagnan shares their life of enjoyment and chivalry, including their long-standing feud with the Cardinal's guards.
To save the Queen's honour, he and his friends ride on a seemingly impossible quest to England, to retrieve the diamonds Anne has given to her lover, the Duke of Buckingham. By his success, he ensures the Queen's temporary safety, but finds himself in direct opposition to Cardinal Richelieu's agents, the Comte de Rochefort and, more significantly, Milady de Winter.
Buckingham raises the stakes by declaring war between England and France, and Constance is kidnapped. Athos, warning D'Artagnan never to fall in love, reveals his own past in a story about a young wife branded with a fleur de lis, the mark of a condemned murderer. Milady invites D'Artagnan to her house, with the promise of news about Constance. She pretends to be a woman in distress, as a means of disarming D'Artagnan. When they kiss, D'Artagnan sees the fleur de lis on her shoulder.
Milady is captured, tried and condemned to death by the Musketeers. Defiant to the end, Milady takes her own life. At the close, D'Artagnan is rewarded for his bravery at La Rochelle by a post in the Musketeers, though he is reluctant to accept. His naïve innocence is now tinged with bitter regret for having failed to protect Constance, as well as the complexity of his feelings about Milady. The former Three Inseparables all decide to retire, but first persuade D'Artagnan to take up his sword and pursue the elusive ideal of being a hero. |
It's been adapted into scores of plays.And it's the original buddy picture, an enduring story that has been turned into some 100 movies, from a 1903 silent French film to the 1948 version with Gene Kelly and Lana Turner to the trio of '70s and '80s romps by A Hard Day's Night director Richard Lester.
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The team behind The Three Musketeers' includes composer George Stiles, his partners are book writer Peter Raby, the Cambridge University professor whose first adapted The Three Musketeers in 1968 for the Shakespeare Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario; and Paul Leigh, the lyricist whose credits include Stiles' Moll Flanders. Wherever The Three Musketeers rides, it will continue the already long journey dotted with rewrites and retoolings ever since the idea was first proposed:
"I always loved Dumas,'' Raby says, "and the whole French Romantic movement.'' His version became a mainstay of regional theaters in England and the United States. 1972: Nottingham Playhouse in Nottingham, England, produces the play in a production that includes William Hobbs as the fight director. Hobbs is later enlisted as fight arranger for Richard Lester's version of The Three Musketeers in 1973 as well as sequels in 1974 and 1989.
1990: George Stiles and Anthony Drewe are approached to write music and lyrics. Drewe, who continues to collaborate with Stiles, declines. "He took one look at the script idea and said, `It's not me,' '' Stiles recalls. "As a result, I didn't give it much consideration.''
"He gave me some lyrical ideas, and before long, we had three songs.'' - Riding to Paris - Any Day - It's a Funny Thing Being a Hero - are the musical beginning of The Three Musketeers" 1991-93: Each member of the creative team works on the script between regular jobs. Stiles and writing partner Drewe continue writing Honk! which opens in '93. "What Bill wanted was a very non-literal, French style of presentation,'' Stiles says. "To some extent, there was always a bit of tension to what Bill had set out to do and what we had started to write. Bill realized it was substantially different from his original vision.'' Hobbs voluntarily diminishes his role and continues to receive 'original concept' credit.
January 1995: A nine-day The Three Musketeers' workshop that Hobbs directs in London culminates with three performances. Three London producers express interest and begin unsuccessful negotiations for a West End premiere. September 1996: The Three Musketeers' places second in the International Competition for Best Musical at Arhus, Denmark. "I thought they had won,'' says composer Craig Bohmler, whose chamber musical Enter The Guardsman took first prize. "I thought it was so spectacular.''
June 1997: An 80-minute concert version of the show with a British cast tours Denmark and is broadcast on television and radio. Songs include - Riding to Paris, Lilacs and Take a Little Wine.Early 1998: Plans for London production unravel. May 1998: Marc Jacobs, American Musical Theatre associate artistic director who recently directed the company's concert version of The Most Happy Fella, is given the videotape of the Denmark telecast by Bohmler, the assistant conductor on 'Fella.'
Jacobs contacts Stiles, who sends the script and tape. Jacobs suggests trims and shows the Denmark tape to American Musical Theatre executive producer Stewart Slater and artistic director Dianna Shuster. June 1999: The University of South Florida mounts a workshop production of The Three Musketeers' with British director Francis Matthews. August 1999: American Musical Theatre presents a reading of the latest version of the The Three Musketeers' script for an invited audiences of 30 donors and subscribers.
"I knew this show had potential,'' says Slater, "because outside of the theater after the show, people from across the country whom I respect were saying,`Please keep me updated on the show's progress.' '' November 1999: American Musical Theatre signs up to produce a workshop and the American premiere of The Three Musketeers.
June 2000: American Musical Theatre hosts a three-week, six-performance workshop directed by Shuster. Invited audience members are asked to submit suggested changes in writing, some of which are incorporated into the show. The workshop is "fantastic because for the first time the three of us were able to work continuously with a director, a company and a wonderful cast and production team,'' Raby says. "As a result, we were able to refine and hone.''
August 2000: American Musical Theatre changes the show's title to "The 3hree Musketeers.'' September 2000: Auditions are held in New York and Los Angeles. Stanek, who has repeatedly been cast as D'Artagnan in workshops, returns for the U.S. premiere. Broadway veterans White, Inkley and Mammana are cast as the title characters. Bay Area actor James Carpenter, who recently performed in American Conservatory Theater's Glengarry Glen Ross,' is cast as Cardinal Richelieu, and Rachel DeBenedet, who performed in national touring production of The Sound of Music, is hired to play Milady de Winter.
Feb. 5, 2001: Rehearsals for Equity cast members begin. March 1 2001: The show's first orchestra rehearsal. "It's always one of the most thrilling moment in any production,'' says Stiles, "to hear the cast walk in and suddenly hear what's going to be behind them.'' March 10, 2001: Shuster is scheduled to direct the opening of the American premiere of The 3hree Musketeers at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Producers for potential future productions begin attending.
"We're committed to helping this show to the next step,'' Slater says. ``We think that the CD is a part of that process.' March 25, 2001: The American Musical Theatre production comes to a highly sucessful end. |
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Buy The American Cast Here... Musical Of The Year 1996
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One of the greatest adventure stories of all time explodes onto the stage! THE THREE MUSKETEERS is a classic tale and now a swashbuckling new musical, 
This new musical adaptation of The Three Musketeers celebrates Dumas's romantic vision of honour, friendship, and lust for life. The energy and the passion of the four heroes - Athos, Porthos, Aramis and the young D'Artagnan - form the central focus, as they thread their way through the political intrigues that surround them. 
In the foreground, D'Artagnan falls in love with the Queen's seamstress, Constance Bonacieux, and finds himself entangled with the mysterious Milady de Winter, a beautiful adventuress with several pasts - one of them as the wife of Athos. 
He encounters the Comte de Rochefort, the Cardinal's chief agent, who becomes his sworn enemy, and is dazzled by the mysterious and beautiful Milady de Winter. In Paris, D'Artagnan learns that he cannot become a Musketeer until he has proved himself in battle. 
He acquires a distinctly unheroic servant, Planchet, falls head over heels in love with Constance Bonacieux, servant to the isolated Queen Anne, and as a consequence becomes involved in a palace intrigue. 
Milady's fury at being outmanoeuvred drives the plot of Act 2. She needs to impress the Cardinal to achieve her freedom from her turbulent past. She schemes against the Queen and Constance, and seems strangely obsessed by D'Artagnan. 
To protect her secret, Milady now pursues D'Artagnan to the battlefield of La Rochelle. She fails to murder him, but does succeed in poisoning Constance, who dies in D'Artagnan's arms. 
The Three Musketeers is the ultimate adventure story by one of the most widely read French writers. 
The Three Musketeers, the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas, has been adapted as a musical. 
1968: Peter Raby, then a dramaturg at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, adapts The Three Musketeers for stage.
1989: Hobbs approaches Raby about adapting The Three Musketeers into a musical. "Bill is undoubtedly responsible for kick-starting the project,'' Raby says. The adaptation of the 700-plus page novel is a darker take focusing on D'Artagnan's introduction to the Musketeers and the recovery of Queen Anne's diamonds.
Stiles changes his mind when lyricist Paul Leigh, his collaborator on 
Autumn 1994: A weekend workshop of Act 1 of The Three Musketeers' in London so inspires the trio that they pound out Act 2 in a few months.
October 1996: A new West End producer sees the showcase in Denmark and buys the option for the The Three Musketeers. They begin work on casting and finding a director.
September 1998: After searching in vain for Stiles' home number in the London phone listings, Jacobs sees Stiles' name and picture in a magazine and learns that his musical 
September 1999: American Musical Theatre sponsors a staged reading of The Three Musketeers at National Alliance of Music Theatre's annual New Works Festival. Matthews directs again. Richard White, who had the lead in American Musical Theatre's Phantom, plays Athos, and Jim Stanek is D'Artagnan. 
Feb. 26, 2000: A more operatic The Three Musketeers premieres in German at the Stadttheatre in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Shuster and Jacobs attend and suggest that Stiles, Raby and Leigh make changes before the upcoming American Musical Theatre workshop. The creators are initially resistant, but come around and make the changes.
The creative team eliminates the song This Business of Love, strengthens the women's roles and, at the suggestion of musical director Bohmler, moves the intermission.
January 2000: Cast members participate in classes in American Musical Theatre's rehearsal space to develop their fencing and acrobatic skills. Richard Lane, fight director for the show, teaches.
March 20-23, 2001: The entire cast assembled at the Music Annex to record a 70-minute original cast CD of show highlights, the first such disc recorded by the American Musical Theatre. 
