Billy Philadelphia had loved the music and persona of Hoagy Carmichael for many years.  As a young man in the mid-1970’s, he had a true “Eureka!” moment when he realized that he could play him onstage (as Hal Holbrook had so wonderfully portrayed Mark Twain.)  He could play the piano and act and sing his songs and speak in his voice and …

Billy chose and arranged the music and laid out how the monologue would tell the story of Hoagy’s life and times through the songs.  He found another writer, Bruce Dettman, to help him with the script and in 1979 they copyrighted their work.

It took Billy eight years to get the rights to all the music and the use of Hoagy’s persona onstage.  In 1987 Hoagy opened at the Zephyr Theatre in San Francisco (now the New Conservatory Theatre Center).  The show garnered good reviews and ran for thirteen weeks.  The cast included a female singer, Ms. Baomi Butts-Bhanji, and three other musicians–trumpet, clarinet/sax and bass.

In 1990, Billy was invited to do a smaller version of the piece–just Billy and a female singer–at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre’s Stackner Cabaret.  This gave Billy his Equity card but he missed those horns.  He wanted to go bigger, not smaller.  

Billy’s efforts to find another regional theater went for naught until 2004, when the show played at the historic Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, Florida.  The show played for 3 weeks–24 shows.  This time, the show got great reviews and a standing ovation at the end of every performance. The producer changed the name of the show to “Hoagy:  The Hoagy Carmichael Musical,”  to distinguish it from all the other “Hoagy” shows out there.  This production was bigger–6-piece band, 2 dancers, a 25 foot revolve and Broadway veteran B.J. Crosby in the singer’s spot. 

Of course, the dream was to bring the show to New York or LA or Chicago.  While there was much interest, there were serious obstacles put in the way by the Carmichael Estate.