About the work
City of Angels is a musical by Cy Coleman (music) and David Zippel (lyrics) with a book by Larry Gelbart, premiered on Broadway in 1989. This witty homage to 1940s film noir won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
Plot
The musical tells two parallel stories: in 1940s Hollywood, the writer Stine tries to turn his crime novel into a screenplay while an unscrupulous producer mangles his work. In parallel we see the fictional film-noir plot itself—with the private detective Stone, femmes fatales, and intrigue. The "real" world (in colour) and the "film" world (in black and white) interweave artfully until the character confronts his author.
Cultural significance
City of Angels charms through Cy Coleman's jazz-soaked big-band score and Larry Gelbart's brilliantly double-layered book. The artful interweaving of reality and fiction, of colour and black-and-white, made the work one of the most original musicals of its time. It is regarded as a high point of Coleman's output and one of musical theatre's most sophisticated homages to cinema.