Mary Rodgers and James Taylor are especially effective at capturing the voices of their characters without falling back too readily on musical theater clichés. The strength of the musical is the diversity of the songwriting, which is meant to reflect the diversity of the working men and women of America. The cast recording of the revised production demonstrates the continued relevance and resonance of Terkel's work as well as the evocative range of the songs by Schwartz and his five well-known collaborators. In 1999, Schwartz set about the task of updating the musical to reflect the changes in the workplace since the show debuted in 1978. But none of them has had more success than Stephen Schwartz, whose musical adaptation of Terkel's Working has been produced around the world for more than 20 years now.
It has been left to other writers to put Terkel's works on the stage, and several have given it a shot, including Arthur Miller (The American Clock) and Jamie Pachino (Race). Despite an accomplished background as both a writer and an actor, Studs Terkel has never been known as a playwright.
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