Not everyone got it. I once discussed “take-home tunes” – the songs you leave the theatre humming – with Harold Prince, perhaps the most celebrated Broadway director of his generation, the man who staged Evita and Sweeney Todd and Phantom Of The Opera. “Put it this way,” he said. “I was asked to direct Hello, Dolly! They played me this title song, and I said, ‘This is for a scene where a woman who doesn’t go out visits a restaurant?’ They never mentioned directing Hello, Dolly! to me again.”
