I Say a Little Prayer Trivia Quiz

Answer: Les Miserables

The specific song being referred to here is "Bring Him Home", from near the middle of the second act. What begins as a quiet prayer eventually reaches an anguished cry, with Jean Valjean pleading to God, "If I die, let me die, let him live".

In the end, Valjean adds to the divine request with a more direct intervention, eventually carrying the wounded Marius away from the barricades and through the Paris sewers to safety.

Answer: The Sound of Music

This scene takes place at the opening of "The Sound of Music". Although Maria (the postulant) apologizes for her absence, the Mother Superior takes it as a sign that she may be more cut out for a life outside the abbey than for the cloister. Soon, she has a new job and a new life as a governess to seven children.

Answer: Miss Saigon

This scene takes place near the end of the musical. Kim, the woman in question, is a Vietnamese refugee living in Thailand who hopes for a better life for her son. By killing herself, she hopes to force her son's father to take the child back home to America.

Answer: Jesus Christ Superstar

"Jesus Christ Superstar" billed itself as a "rock opera", and was one of the first musicals to bring rock music to the Broadway stage (but not THE first..."Hair" beat it by several years). On the original concept album the part of Jesus (including the song "Gethsemane" referred to in the question) was sung by none other than Ian Gillan, the lead singer of Deep Purple!

Answer: The Scarlet Pimpernel

The man praying here is Sir Percy Blakeney, who displays the strength and courage he prayed for in a most unusual way. While Percy maintains the image of a bumbling, foppish English nobleman, in secret he takes on the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

The Pimpernel, together with a group of some of Percy's sympathetic friends, go on to rescue many men who would have otherwise been guillotined.

Answer: The Book of Mormon

The mission assignment to Uganda turns out only to be the first of many shocks for young Elder Price. Who would have thought that people ravaged by AIDS, famine, and murderous warlords have more important things to worry about than conversion to the Mormon religion?

Answer: Big River

The so-called "King" and "Duke" here are not really nobility, but instead con-men who adopt the titles to try and give themselves a veneer of respectability. Their plan is to pass themselves off as the dead man's brothers and walk off with the gold that should have been inherited by his nieces.

Although Huck Finn went along with many of the King and Duke's schemes before, this last plan is a step too far for him, and he eventually decides to steal back the gold to return it to the nieces.

Answer: Fiddler on the Roof

The Jewish religion, and its interaction with the world around it, is a major focus of "Fiddler on the Roof". Tevye, the praying man mentioned in the question, is one of those who must come to terms with this. On a larger scale, Czar Nicholas II is turning a blind eye to the pogroms of his soldiers, which threaten to drive Tevye and his people from their homes. On a much more personal scale, his daughter has fallen in love with a Christian. Tradition and his religion say this should not be allowed, but should tradition be changed?

Answer: Kismet

The theme for the song is taken from Borodin's "In the Steppes of Central Asia", a short piece depicting an encounter between a Russian caravan and the nomads of the title location. The original piece uses different themes for each culture, and the composers of "Kismet" drew on the Asian themes for this song.

In the 1955 film version of "Kismet", this song is placed at the end of the film and instead sung by the poet Hajj. That film is also notable for perhaps being the end of producer Aaron Spelling's acting career. In his memoir "A Prime-Time Life", Spelling credits a miserable three weeks of takes for a single (uncredited) line as being the impetus that drove him from acting to scriptwriting.

Answer: Fame

No fewer than five of the musicals appearing earlier in this quiz ("Les Misérables", "The Sound of Music", "Jesus Christ Superstar", "Fiddler on the Roof", and "Kismet") eventually made their way from the stage to the big screen. "Fame" actually did the reverse, starting as a film in 1980 before becoming first a TV series in 1982 then a musical in 1988.

Although all three versions use the same setting and some of the same themes, many of the plot points and characters differ in each. Mabel Washington (the praying dancer) is one of the characters unique to the musical.