The Music of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz

Cover of published "So Do I" sheet music.

One primary goal of reviving Baum and Gottschalk's vintage stage musical The Tik-Tok Man of Oz was to give audience members the chance to hear all the surviving musical numbers in performance. Fourteen songs for the show with lyrics by L. Frank Baum and music by Louis F. Gottschalk survive. One instrumental piece by Gottschalk survives. Three songs written for the show with lyrics by Oliver Morosco and music by Victor Schertzinger survive. One song written by Victor Schertzinger survives. These nineteen numbers were all part of the performance on August 9, 2014.

Two of the commercially released selections of Gottschalk music from The Tik-Tok Man of Oz were performed as well. The main "Selection" served as the Overture. The "Lanciers" served as the Entr'acte.

At least twelve musical numbers from the original 1913-14 production are not known to survive. Gottschalk's music for "A Storm at Sea" is one that's gone. To fill this hole, "A Roman Holiday" by Gottschalk from his unproduced score for Julius Sees Her! was substituted, modified by musical director Joseph Grienenberger to fit the action of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz Prelude.

Polychrome, Shaggy, Betsy, Ozma, and Hank listen to Tik-Tok sing "The Clockwork Man."

No finale survives for either Act One or Act Two. For the Act One finale, lyrics by L. Frank Baum in the earliest existing script for the show, a version from 1909, were slightly modified by Eric Shanower to fit a combination of music from "Ask the Flowers to Tell You" and "The Army of Oogaboo." For the Act Two finale, the chorus of "The Magnet of Love" was reprised by the entire company.

Cover of published "Ask the Flowers to Tell You" sheet music.

Beyond the fourteen surviving songs with lyrics by Baum, many other Baum lyrics survive in the 1909 version of the script. With one exception these do not have music and it's unclear whether any of them were used in the original 1913-14 production. They were not performed in this production. The one exception is "Fight for Oogaboo" with lyrics by Baum that clearly fit Gottschalk's music for "The Army of Oogaboo." Although "Fight for Oogaboo" was performed in the original production, it was not performed in this.

Two known interpolations to the original production—"Forgotten" with lyrics attributed to Flora Wulschner and music by Eugene Cowles, and "One, Two, Three, It's All Over Now," lyricist and composer unknown—were not included in this performance.

All the surviving Tik-Tok Man of Oz music was never included in a single performance of the original production. Songs came and went during its ten month run. But this production fit all the surviving songs into one performance. Over the course of the original production, songs were assigned to different characters. Our production generally assigned each song to the character or characters that primarily sang it in the original. Parts sung by a chorus in the original production were generally sung by principal characters in this.

Baum's lyrics for Tik-Tok's verse in "Folly!" are racially insensitive. Eric Shanower revised them for this production to eliminate mention of an African native eating a missionary.

Listed here are the musical numbers performed in Clockwork Productions's The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. Joseph Grienenberger was the musical director and played keyboard for the performance. Unless otherwise noted, Grienenberger—working from piano/vocal sheet music—orchestrated the music for Michael Fowler (trumpet), Fred Allee (drums and percussion), and Rafael Estrada (double bass).

The Tik-Tok Man of Oz Musical Numbers 

OVERTURE (Gottschalk, arranged for orchestra by J. Bodewalt Lampe) 

Prelude 

“A STORM AT SEA” (Gottschalk, arranged by Joseph Grienenberger from manuscript) – Dance of WAVES and STORM-AT-SEA BETSY 

Act One 

“AN APPLE’S THE CAUSE OF IT ALL” (Baum/Gottschalk) – SHAGGY MAN

“THE MAGNET OF LOVE” (Baum/Gottschalk) – BETSY 

“OH MY BOW” with Dance (Baum/Gottschalk) – POLYCHROME; Dance of POLYCHROME and RAINBOW GIRLS 

“I WANT TO BE SOMEBODY’S GIRLIE” (Schertzinger) - POLYCHROME

“THE CLOCKWORK MAN” (Baum/Gottschalk) – TIK-TOK with BETSY, SHAGGY, OZMA, and POLYCHROME

“THE ARMY OF OOGABOO” (Baum/Gottschalk) – QUEEN ANN and PRIVATE FILES; Dance of ARMY OF OOGABOO

“THERE'S A MATE IN THIS BIG WORLD FOR YOU” (Morosco/Schertzinger) – OZMA

“ASK THE FLOWERS TO TELL YOU” (Baum/Gottschalk) – OZMA and FILES; Pas de deux 

“DEAR OLD HANK” (Baum/Gottschalk) – BETSY 

“FINALE” (Baum/Gottschalk) – POLYCHROME, FILES, ANN, TIK-TOK, SHAGGY, BETSY, and OZMA; Dance of FIELD FLOWERS 

Act Two 

ENTR'ACTE (Gottschalk) 

“IMPS MARCH” (Gottschalk) – Dance of IMPS 

“WORK, LADS, WORK” (Baum/Gottschalk) – RUGGEDO and IMPS

“WHEN IN TROUBLE COME TO PAPA” (Baum/Gottschalk) – RUGGEDO and POLYCHROME 

“RAINBOW BRIDE” (Baum/Gottschalk) – POLYCHROME with RUGGEDO, ANN, SHAGGY, BETSY, and TIK-TOK

Cover of published "My Wonderful Dream Girl" sheet music.

“MY WONDERFUL DREAM GIRL” (Morosco/Schertzinger) – FILES

“FOLLY!” (Baum/Gottschalk) – TIK-TOK, BETSY, and SHAGGY; Dance of ENSEMBLE

“OH, TAKE ME” (Morosco/Schertzinger) – OZMA and FILES

“JUST FOR FUN” (Baum/Gottschalk) – OZMA and FILES; Dance of ROSES

Dance Music of “OH MY BOW” (Gottschalk) 

“SO DO I” (Baum/Gottschalk) – TIK-TOK and RUGGEDO with BETSY 

“WALTZ SCREAM” (Baum/Gottschalk) – ANN and SHAGGY; Dance of ENSEMBLE 

“THE MAGNET OF LOVE” Chorus Reprise (Baum/Gottschalk) – COMPANY

Finale of Act Two, with Betsy, Polychrome, Imps, Ann, Ugly Man, Ozma, Files, and Royal Gardener.

For complete cast information see this previous blog post.

Photos copyright © Freddy Fogarty 2014. All rights reserved. Used with permission.