Miss Gulch Returns!

MISS GULCH RETURNS! is a one-man tour-de-force with book, music, and lyrics by Fred Barton, and has earned rave reviews since its debut in 1984.

Fred is reviving the show on May 16, 2019 at Austin Cabaret Theatre, Austin, Texas.

The show continues to be produced by independent theatre companies around the country. The 1986 album continues to sell and stream after 33 years, and songs from MISS GULCH RETURNS! are regularly performed on three continents. The original show won Fred a Back Stage Bistro Award for Musical Comedy Performance, and a new song he wrote for the 20th Anniversary revival, “I Can Be An Icon Too,” was a Manhattan Association of Cabarets nominee for Best Special Material. Miss Gulch’s song "Pour Me A Man" is now a cabaret standard, recorded and sung on three continents.

The show is Fred Barton’s tribute to the unwillingly single, revealed through Miss Gulch, the classic old-school “spinster” character, as if she fell off the screen and landed in today’s world.

"A show for the ages with a score full of sophisticated comedy numbers that would make Cole Porter proud. The lyrics are so cleverly constructed, the rhyme schemes so elegantly intricate, and the messages so rich and ripe that they make a mockery of most of today's Broadway show scores." – TheaterMania.com

ORIGINAL ALBUM LINER NOTES:

Who is MIss Gulch?

Wrong – she is not Auntie Mame's secretary (that was Agnes Gooch). She is, of course, the dog-snatching, bicycle-riding, spiteful spinster-next-door who had it in for Dorothy's little Toto. Of all Hollywood's ornery old maids, crotchety battle-axes, and crusty curmudgeons, Miss Gulch is the unquestioned queen; she is the ultimate Hollywood stereotype. 

Pity her! Born to higher things, why was she sentenced to serve forever as two-dimensional comic relief? And why should her formidable figure invariably inspire hoots and hilarity? Perhaps today's sophisticates are amused by quaint Hollywood psychology, in which a severe Miss Gulch becomes a terrifying Wicked Witch in the subconscious mind of a pubescent Midwestern teenager. Or is it possible that we prefer the safety of identifying with victimized superstar heroines; that the startling image of the underdog supporting-player's sexually frustrated spinster hits a deep nerve of unsettling self-recognition that can acknowledge only with laughter?

Poor Almira! For fifty years she has intrigued us, but never got to give us her side of story. She has remained misunderstood, underestimated, and unappreciated. And through the decades, frustrated fans have hungered for solutions to the mysteries surrounding the legendary Miss Gulch. Why does she ride that bike? What does she have against neighborhood girls and their little dogs too? What becomes of her after the tornado? Did she have a happy childhood? And most of all – who is the real woman beneath that ferocious facade?

Enter Fred Barton, budding composer-lyricist-author-actor-singer-musician, armed with a penchant for triple entendres, triple rhymes, honky-tonk rhythms, and determined to revive the long-dormant special-material comedy song tradition. In Miss Gulch, he finds the ideal icon for today's disillusioned souls, the perfect symbol of the frustrated aspirations of our age. He furnishes himself with an armful of devastating new songs, a tastefully outrageous black dress, a wig, a hat, a wicker basket, a grand piano, and voila: Miss Gulch Returns! And Mr. Barton does the old girl proud. All her dreams finally come true: long-running New York engagements rife with raves, guest appearances in cities from coast to coast... a cult following of her own... and, of course, the album!

Miss Gulch is back in all the glory Hollywood denied her. She sings (at last!). She plays a mean piano (and what other kind?) She gives us the dirt. She dumps Hollywood and gives the real world a try – and lands a job as well as the next man (and lands the next man, as well). She lays her soul bare, and yours if you dare. So turn on the phone machine, turn Judy's picture to the wall, turn up the volume, and welcome to the wit and wisdom of Miss Gulch – “Entertainess Extraordinaire!”

MISS GULCH RETURNS! is my musical comedy valentine to the romantically disenfranchised. In this vivisection of a stereotype, a contemporary sophisticate trades identities with the infamous curmudgeon, now liberated from her two-dimensional image on the screen. She dismantles her own stereotype in a new, unlikely profession – cabaret entertainer!

"I'm A Bitch" is her theme song – Miss Gulch knows who she is and she loves every minute of it. "Pour Me A Man" is the hit song – something Fats Waller might have written if he were a elderly lady sitting in a bar without a date. She can have every liquid entertainment the bartender knows how to make – except the one she wants the most.

But the big song is "Everyone Worth Taking's Been Taken." Ever been surrounded by happy couples at a party? Or looked at the Wedding Announcements page? How dare people ram their happiness in our faces! If they want to be happy, that's their own private business, but do they have to rub our faces in it? That's the Miss Gulch in all of us – the only romantic stimulation she gets is from a bicycle.

Here are two of my favorite reactions I've gotten from the show. A young, single professional woman came up to me after the show and said, "How did you know what it's like?" "Believe me," I answered, "I know what it's like."

After one performance, a fellow said to me, "I've never seen anyone put on such a ridiculous get-up and become so naked on stage." I’m not sure they got that comment down at NAKED BOYS SINGING.

Fred Barton