Brigadoon

The story of Brigadoon

While on a hunting trip in the Scottish Highlands, two American tourists, Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas, become lost and discover a village called Brigadoon that does not appear on any map. They soon learn its secret: a minister long ago prayed the town into a magical sleep to protect it from the outside world, so that it wakes for only a single day every hundred years.

Tommy quickly falls in love with a village woman, Fiona MacLaren, and must decide whether to stay in Brigadoon forever or return to his old life in New York, while his cynical friend Jeff resists the town's romantic pull and forms an uneasy connection with the flirtatious Meg Brockie. The story builds toward a wedding between Fiona's sister and her beau Charlie Dalrymple, threatened by a jealous rival determined to expose the village and break its spell.

The music and the makers

Brigadoon was the first major hit for the songwriting team of Alan Jay Lerner, who wrote the book and lyrics, and Frederick Loewe, who composed the music, years before they created My Fair Lady and Camelot. The score draws on Scottish folk idioms filtered through a lush, romantic Broadway sensibility.

Signature songs include the soaring Almost Like Being in Love, the pastoral The Heather on the Hill, and the tender Come to Me, Bend to Me, all of which combine old world melody with contemporary showtune structure. That fusion of folk atmosphere and Broadway romance became a hallmark of Lerner and Loewe's later, more famous work.

Brigadoon on Broadway

Brigadoon opened on Broadway on March 13, 1947, at the Ziegfeld Theatre, starring David Brooks as Tommy and Marion Bell as Fiona, and ran for 581 performances. It won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical and helped establish Lerner and Loewe as a major songwriting team.

A 1954 film adaptation starred Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, and the show has returned to Broadway in later revivals, including a 1980 production. Brigadoon remains notable for treating its fantastical premise with sincerity rather than parody, and for the influential dream ballet choreography originally staged by Agnes de Mille.

Brigadoon: frequently asked questions