| The 2012 Broadway University Entrance Exam Answers Congratulations to Fred Abramowitz, Peter Alfano, Anya Toes, Susan Berlin, Jonathan Billig, Brigadude, Seth Christenfeld, Ellen Dweck, Wilbur Fineberg, Laura Frankos, Ingrid Gammerman, John Griffin, Lauren Grimes, Jack Lechner, Paul Mendenhall, Bill Oser, Daryl Orts, Ira Rappaport, Arthur Robinson, Steve Rosenthal, Ron Schroeder, Michael Shayne, Rick Thompson, Jefferson Turner and Ted Zoldan. They’re the ones who scored the highest on The 2012 Broadway University Entrance Exam, in which they were asked to identify lines and lyrics from Broadway musicals, all of which cited authors. No dummies they! Here are the answers. As I noted on Facebook, what I’ve learned is that people don’t much listen to The Wild Party and What Makes Sammy Run? There’s still time! 1. "You reading Heine; I somewhere in China." ("Isn't It a Pity" -- Pardon My English) 2. "You're Inferno's Dante." ("You're the Top" -- Anything Goes) 3. "Dear Beatrice Fairfax, give us the bare facts." ("Nobody Makes a Pass at Me" -- Pins and Needles) 4. “I wear my nicest negligee, and find him reading Plato.” ("What Can You Do With a Man?" -- The Boys from Syracuse) 5. “Will Saroyan ever write a great play?” ("Zip" -- Pal Joey) 6. "According to the Kinsey Report, ev’ry average man you know.” ("Too Darn Hot" -- Kiss Me, Kate) 7. "I’ll be with my diary and that book by Mr. Gideon." ("Bye Bye Baby" -- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) 8. "In bed, I did not read Whittier." ("I Sleep Easier Now" -- Out of This World) 9. “Written by a woman, Harriet Beecher Stow-a." ("The Small House of Uncle Thomas" -- The King and I) 10. “What’s your opinion of women’s clothes, Major Bowes, Steinbeck’s prose?” ("Conga!" -- Wonderful Town) 11. "You want to talk of Keats and Milton." ("I'm an Ordinary Man" – My Fair Lady) 12. "That blend of Paul Bunyan, Saint Pat and Noah Webster you’ve concocted for yourself."
("Piano Lesson" -- The Music Man) 13. SHE: "I have the key to what Jean Paul Sartre meant." HE: "And while you're at it, here's the key to my apartment."
("Art of Conversation" -- The Body Beautiful) 14. "Harry Truman, Truman Capote and Dewey." ("Chop Suey" -- Flower Drum Song) 15. ”My Life will be selfless and pure like Upton Sinclair.” ("On the Side of the Angels" -- Fiorello!) 16. "And it was 'Goodbye, Geoffrey Chaucer; hello, William Morris.'" ("An English Teacher" -- Bye Bye Birdie) 17. ”And legitimate plays on Broadway. Don’t you think Odets is great?" ("Who Knows?” -- I Can Get It for You Wholesale) 18. "And shining through a window full of Arthur Miller plays." ("The Truth" -- Little Me) 19. "He writes his deepest thoughts to me on Swift.” (“I Don’t Know His Name” -- She Loves Me) 20. "Nah, you made it rough, tore up all my stuff, called it lukewarm Somerset Maugham."
("You Help Me" -- What Makes Sammy Run?) 21. "And Emily Bronte doing the twist with Kipling." ("Home, Sweet Heaven" -- High Spirits) 22. "Have you read the latest number of Harper’s Magazine? There’s a story there by Conan Doyle.”
("Holmes and Watson" -- Drat! The Cat!) 23. "She wears it because she reads Eugenia Sheppard." ("Haute Couture" -- Skyscraper) 24. "I'll always be Alice Toklas if you'll be Gertrude Stein." ("Bosom Buddies" -- Mame) 25. "Shakespeare will be shaken and awaken Francis Bacon.” (“Butler in the Abbey" -- Darling of the Day) 26. “Timothy Leary query.” (“Manchester England” – Hair) 27. "Move over, Billy Graham!" ("New Fangled Preacher Man" -- Purlie) 28. "Partly Jane Fonda and partly Jane Austen." ("But Alive" -- Applause) 29. "A matinee, a Pinter play." ("The Ladies Who Lunch" -- Company) 30. “Caesar’s wife says, ‘Julius, today stay home from work.’” (“He Tossed a Coin” – The Rothschilds) 31. “Some like to be profound by reading Proust and Pound." ("Live! Laugh! Love!" -- Follies) 32. "How could you do it? Betcha Dear Abby'd say the same." ("Beauty School Dropout" -- Grease) 33. "But is Hans Christian Andersen ever risqué?" ("Now" -- A Little Night Music) 34. "I read Spinoza every day. Formidable!" ("A Bowler Hat" -- Pacific Overtures) 35. “Storming from the pages of The Bear, the best-selling play by Anton Chekhov, Russia’s top gag-writer.”
("A Night in the Ukraine" -- A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine) 36. “Wise old Ralph Waldo Emerson finds that foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
("So What Else Is New?" -- Woman of the Year) 37. "And Auden read poems and stuff." ("Bobby and Jackie and Jack" -- Merrily We Roll Along) 38. "Margaret Sanger, Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Mead." ("I Want It All" -- Baby) 39. “So we call upon you all to hold your horse’s reins before you solve this Dickens of a crime.”
(“Off to the Races” – The Mystery of Edwin Drood) 40. "Don't balk; be like Faulkner, a mensch just like Benchley." ("The Buddy System" -- City of Angels) 41. “That’s in the Torah. It’s what history shows. In fact, God said to Moses, ‘Moses’…”
(“Everyone Hates His Parents” – Falsettos) 42. "To huevos rancheros to Maya Angelou." ("La Vie Boheme" -- Rent) 43. "It's lunch with the Fitzgeralds, then it's cocktails with Dos Passos." ("Breezin' through Another Day" -- The Wild Party) 44. “Read my name in Winchell’s column.” (“I Wanna Be a Producer” – The Producers) 45. “I never saw myself as a Solomon or Socrates.” ("Wonderful" -- Wicked) 46. "Teach him to cook from Escoffier's book." ("Chimp in a Suit" -- Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) 47. "The fact that in one book is the entire language of our species, which is a favorite term of Nietzche's."
("My Friend, the Dictionary" -- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) 48. “Girls who smoke and read Fanny Hill while I was reading de Toqueville” (“Daddy’s Girl” – Grey Gardens) 49. "He mounted Samuel Beckett; I don't mean it like it sounds." ("It's a Business" -- Curtains) 50. “He sits in a café, like Baldwin in the day.” (“Welcome to Amsterdam” – Passing Strange)
Once again: Tuesday, August 28th at 11:59 p.m. is the deadline. pfilichia@aol.com. — Peter Filichia | 