Singer and dancer who won a Tony Award for playing Georg Nowack in the 1993 revival of She Loves Me. He played Robert in the 1995 revival of Company and Michael Wiley in Contact (2000).
Dramatic actor who was a replacement Danny Zuko in Grease in 1978, won a Theatre World Award for his portrayal of Otto in A Doll’s Life (1982), played Sky Masterson in the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls, and sang the title role in the City Center Encores! presentation of Pal Joey in 1995.
Actress and dancer who played Mary-Frances in Something for the Boys (1943) and understudied Ethel Merman in the lead role. Other Broadway credits include multiple roles in the revue Call Me Mister (1946), in which she sang “South America, Take It Away,” a replacement Ella in Bells Are Ringing, and Hattie Walker in the 2001 revival of Follies. She is also known for her work in Hollywood and on television, especially the roles of Irene Lorenzo in All in the Family (1973–1975) and Edna Babish in Laverne and Shirley (1976–1982).
(17 May 1925, Garrick, 211 performances; 10 May 1926, Garrick, 174 performances; 4 June 1930, Garrick, 170 performances.) As the Theatre Guild was building a new theater, its management asked young writers and actors to put on a show to help raise money for tapestries. They billed the company as the “Junior Group of the Theatre Guild.” The show launched a brief series of revues and several important careers. Seven songs for the first edition came from the nearly unknown team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, including “Manhattan,” their first major hit. The cast included Romney Brent, Sterling Holloway, Philip Loeb, Peggy Conway, and June Cochrane, among others. They mostly lampooned personalities associated with the Guild and their recent plays. The single political skit involved President and Mrs. Coolidge having a quiet evening at the White House, where they listen to the radio and try to be in bed by 10. The anonymous reviewer for the New York Times praised the performers and the skits and noted that Lorenz Hart’s lyrics “were mature and intelligently contrived” and Richard Rodgers’s music “tuneful and well adapted to the needs of the entertainment.” After the first edition’s unexpected run of more than six months, The Garrick Gaieties opened with a new version the next May. Several of the cast members, along with Rodgers and Hart, returned. The songwriting team’s major hit in the show was “Mountain Greenery,” but they also created an operetta spoof titled Rose of Arizona. The final edition of The Garrick Gaieties opened four years later, this time with Sterling Holloway, Philip Loeb, Albert Carroll, and Imogene Coca. E. Y. Harburg and Vernon Duke supplied three songs, and Marc Blitzstein wrote an operetta parody that was eventually replaced with Rose of Arizona. The evening’s highlight, which Brooks Atkinson called “one of the best topical satires ever written,” was a spoof of ex–police commissioner Grover Whalen, who returns to his earlier job at Wanamaker’s Department Store and forces the customers to obey traffic laws within the store. Kay Swift and Paul James (her husband, whose real name was James Paul Warburg) created the skit’s music and lyrics.
(Born Arturo Antonio Gaxiola, 1893–1963.) Genre-defining musical comedy star who created numerous memorable characters and worked with some of Broadway’s finest creators. He played Martin/The Yankee in Rodgers and Hart’s A Connecticut Yankee (1927), Peter Forbes in Cole Porter’s Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929), John P. Wintergreen in the Gershwins’ Of Thee I Sing (1931) and its sequel Let ’Em Eat Cake (1933), Billy Crocker in Porter’s Anything Goes (1934), Buckley Joyce Thomas in the same composer’s Leave It to Me! (1938), and Jim Taylor in Irving Berlin’s Louisiana Purchase (1940).
(Born Reginald Armitage, 1898–1954.) British composer of musicals and popular song whose Me and My Girl played on Broadway in 1986, nearly half a century after its London premiere in 1937. He was one of the finest British musical theater composers of his era, but his shows did not transfer to New York, as did those of his contemporary Noel Coward.
(29 November 1932, Ethel Barrymore, 248 performances.) Music and lyrics by Cole Porter, book by Dwight Taylor, staged by Howard Lindsay. Perhaps most famous today as the show that introduced Porter’s “Night and Day,” Gay Divorce (without a definite article) was appreciated more by audiences than critics. It was the first show in which Fred Astaire appeared without his sister, Adele, and his final Broadway role. His costar was Claire Luce, who played Mimi Pratt, a married woman who hopes to get caught in a compromising position. Through a misunderstanding, Astaire (Guy) is the man she is found with, and they fall in love. The score also included “I’ve Got You on My Mind” and the comic songs “What Will Become of Our England” and “I Still Love the Red, White and Blue.” Brooks Atkinson observed in the New York Times that “Mr. Porter’s tunes and lyrics have the proper dash and breeding,” but overall he deemed the show a “flat and mirthless entertainment beneath a highly polished exterior.” The 1934 film version starring Astaire and Ginger Rogers was retitled The Gay Divorcee since a divorce could not be merry according to the mores of the time.
Comedy writer for radio, television, film, and stage. He won Tony Awards for each of his musical librettos: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and City of Angels (1989). He was also one of the driving forces behind the television series M*A*S*H during its first four seasons (1972–1976).
(17 November 2013, Walter Kerr, 601 performances as of 26 April 2015.) The tale of Monty Navarro (Bryce Pinkham), who murders his family members to become the Earl of Highhurst, is cleverly told with a book and lyrics by Robert L. Freeman and music and lyrics by Steven Lutvak. Jefferson Mays played the entire D’Ysquith family, all of whom meet their “accidental” deaths through Monty’s inventive means. The story is based on Roy Horniman’s 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal, which was also the basis for the 1949 British film Kind Hearts and Coronets starring Alec Guinness. The score is a pastiche of Gilbert and Sullivan, music hall burlesque, and Noel Coward. The New York Times raved about the show’s “streams of memorable melody with fizzily witty turns of phrase.”
(8 December 1949, Ziegfeld, 740 performances.) Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Leo Robin, book by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos, dances and ensembles by Agnes de Mille. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, based on Anita Loos’s novel of the 1920s, will always be remembered as the beginning of Carol Channing’s major stardom with her inimitable rendition of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Channing played Lorelei Lee, the wife of a button manufacturer. She travels to Europe with her friend Dorothy Shaw (Yvonne Adair) and has some romantic flirtations with wealthy men. Her husband Gus (Jack McCauley) hears of her adventures and is ready to leave her, but Lorelei is far too shrewd. She not only wins Gus back but also launches a nightclub act. Dorothy, meanwhile, falls in love with Henry Spofford (Eric Brotherson). The score’s highlights were Lorelei’s two comic songs: “Diamonds” and “A Little Girl from Little Rock.” New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson called Channing’s role “the most fabulous comic creation of this dreary period in history.”
(10 April 1968, Palace, 427 performances.) Music and lyrics by George M. Cohan, book by Michael Stewart and John and Fran Pascal, staged and choreographed by Joe Layton. Joel Grey starred in this tribute to George M. Cohan and, along with Cohan’s great songs, provided much of the show’s appeal. The book was a thin and easily forgotten account of Cohan’s life. This did not matter because, as Clive Barnes wrote in the New York Times, “before you can say they don’t write songs like that anymore, they are singing the next one.” George M! differed from the famous film Yankee Doodle Dandy, telling, for example, about Cohan’s first wife, but the real point of the show was to make production numbers out of “Give My Regards to Broadway,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” “Over There,” “Mary,” and other well-known Cohan songs. Others in the cast included Jerry Dodge as Cohan’s father, Betty Ann Grove as his mother, and Bernadette Peters as his sister Josie.
(2 June 1919, Liberty, 128 performances; 7 June 1920, Globe, 134 performances; 11 July 1921, Liberty, 97 performances; 28 November 1922, Globe, 89 performances; 18 June 1923, Globe/Fulton, 168 performances; 30 June 1924, Apollo, 196 performances; 22 June 1925, Apollo, 171 performances; 14 June 1926, Apollo, 424 performances; 2 July 1928, Apollo, 230 performances; 23 September 1929, Apollo, 161 performances; 14 September 1931, Apollo, 202 performances; 25 December 1935, New Amsterdam, 110 performances; 28 August 1939, Alvin, 120 performances.) George White (born George Weitz) was a dancer who had worked in Ziegfeld Follies, but he launched his own lavish revue in 1919. White first called his shows simply Scandals, finally making the title eponymous in 1921. Such lighthearted fare had become a summertime Broadway favorite, so White usually opened his show in June or July. He offered Ziegfeld stiff competition and lured some stars away from the Follies, including Ann Pennington and W. C. Fields. His shows were especially noted for the dancing and top-notch composers who wrote the scores. George Gershwin, working with various lyricists, provided the songs from 1920 to 1924, when the producer decided that the young composer had become too expensive. Among the hits that Gershwin wrote for White were “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” in 1922 and “Somebody Loves Me” in 1924. His opera Blue Monday Blues opened the second act for one night in 1922, but White decided it was too depressing and cut it. Later scores included music by Ray Henderson to the lyrics of B. G. De Sylva (until 1928) and Lew Brown and Ethel Merman’s famous rendition of “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” in 1931. A regular from 1926 until the end of the series was Willie Howard, an inspired comic who worked with his brother Eugene. Other stars in the Scandals included Helen Morgan, Ray Bolger, Rudy Vallee, Ann Miller, and Ray Middleton. White’s formula included male and female singers, several dancers and comedians, and a large group of chorus girls with spectacular if apparently incomplete costumes. As in Ziegfeld’s shows, sets were memorable.
The most successful edition of George White’s Scandals was that of 1926. The cast featured Ann Pennington, Willie and Eugene Howard, dancer and clown Tom Patricola, singers Harry Richman and Frances Williams, and a chorus led by the comely McCarthy Sisters and Fairbanks Twins. The score by Henderson, De Sylva, and Brown included “The Birth of the Blues” and “The Girl Is You and the Boy Is Me.” Ann Pennington danced the “Black Bottom,” a wild version of the Charleston. Comic numbers included parodies of Irving Berlin’s recent marriage to Ellin Mackay and people who walk the dogs of the rich in New York City.
Pianist and composer whose songs from the 1920s and 1930s, often written in collaboration with his brother Ira Gershwin, helped define both musical comedy and American popular song of the era. In 1918, Al Jolson propelled Gershwin to fame by interpolating “Swanee” (lyrics by Irving Caesar) into his show Sinbad (1918). With his brother, Gershwin created scores for some of the finest performers of the time. They wrote Lady, Be Good! (1924), which featured “Fascinating Rhythm,” for the brother-and-sister team of Fred and Adele Astaire and Oh, Kay! (1926), with “Someone to Watch over Me,” for Gertrude Lawrence. Other shows from the late 1920s include Funny Face (1927, again featuring the Astaires) and Rosalie (1928, cowritten with Sigmund Romberg). The 1930s began with Strike Up the Band and then Girl Crazy, which starred Ginger Rogers and introduced Ethel Merman and featured such famous songs as “I Got Rhythm,” “But Not for Me,” and “Embraceable You.” Of Thee I Sing (1931) was another hit show, this one a political satire. It fared better than its sequel, Let ’Em Eat Cake (1933). The Gershwins challenged Broadway norms by mounting the opera Porgy and Bess in 1935. Gershwin’s musical genius exists on several levels—his incorporation of jazz-inspired rhythms into popular song, his innate gift for creating rhapsodic yet logical melodies, and his consummate ability to integrate aspects of “high” culture with American popular song.
Lyricist who collaborated with his brother George Gershwin on shows that epitomized the musical comedy of the 1920s and 1930s, including Lady, Be Good! (1924), Oh, Kay! (1926), Girl Crazy (1930), and Of Thee I Sing (1931). Of Thee I Sing was the first musical to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Porgy and Bess (1935) was in essence an opera in musical style, but Ira’s lyrics were in the musical theater mold. After the death of his brother George, Ira continued to write for Broadway, collaborating with Kurt Weill on Lady in the Dark (1941) and The Firebrand of Florence (1945) and with Arthur Schwartz on Park Avenue (1946). Gershwin’s lyrics are characterized by their juxtaposition of purposeful poor grammar (“I Got Rhythm” as opposed to “I Have Rhythm”) with sophisticated rhyme schemes and chic textual allusions. His creativity is evident in songs such as “’S Wonderful” with its series of phrases that begin with a distinctive “’s” and “Of Thee I Sing, Baby,” with its collusion of a phrase from a patriotic song with a slang expression.
Located on West 51st Street, the 1,933-seat theater opened as the Uris Theatre in 1972. It was the first legitimate Broadway venue to be built since 1931 and the largest. Its name was changed to the Gershwin Theatre during the 1983 Tony Awards broadcast. Some of the most notable productions to open there include Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Hal Prince’s revival of Show Boat (1994), and Wicked (2003).
(8 April 2015, Neil Simon, 22 performances as of 26 April 2015.) A highly successful film from 1958 with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, Gigi was unsuccessful on Broadway in 1973. The fresh adaptation includes a new book by Heidi Thomas that deemphasizes the title character’s training as a courtesan while retaining the film’s familiar characters. The film’s songs remain, as well as additional tunes that Lerner and Loewe wrote for the 1973 stage show. The most famous presence in the 2015 version is Vanessa Hudgens (of High School Musical fame) as the title character. Victoria Clark plays Mamita, her grandmother, and Dee Hoty appears as Aunt Alicia, Gigi’s teacher on the art of being a kept woman. Directed by Eric Schaeffer, Gigi was described by the New York Times as “squeaky clean” and blessed with “plenty of scrumptious eye candy” with atmospheric sets by Derek McLane and costumes by Catherine Zuber that help bring to life Paris in the belle epoque, though the reviewer found Hudgens wanting as an actress.
(William Schwenk Gilbert, 1836–1911.) British librettist and lyricist whose Savoy operas, collaborations with composer Arthur Sullivan, have appeared on Broadway since the late 19th century. H.M.S. Pinafore (1879) actually received its world premiere in New York because of international copyright law. Other Gilbert and Sullivan works to appear on Broadway include Trial by Jury, The Sorcerer, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe, Princess Ida, The Mikado, Ruddigore, The Yeomen of the Guard, and The Gondoliers. Gilbert and Sullivan’s work had a tremendous influence on Broadway in terms of vocal style (virtuosic soprano writing), effusive marches, comic patter songs, lighthearted waltzes, and various combinations of recitatives, solos, duets, small ensembles, and choral numbers fused together into coherent musical-dramatic scenes. Gilbert was also active as a playwright, director, and literary author.
(14 October 1930, Alvin, 272 performances.) Music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, book by Guy Bolton and John McGowan, produced by Alex A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley. Perhaps the most famous musical comedy with a score by the Gershwins, Girl Crazy featured great songs and several future musical luminaries. Inspired by the trend of vacationing at southwestern dude ranches, the plot involved the removal to Custerville, Arizona, of typical New York musical comedy types: a playboy, a Jewish cab driver, and a bevy of chorus girls. Danny Churchill (Allen Kearns) sets up a New York cabaret in a town that somehow has not seen a woman in 50 years. He falls for the postal worker, Molly Gray (Ginger Rogers), who lives in the next town. The other romantic duo was Kate Fothergill (Ethel Merman) and her husband “Slick” (William Kent). It was Rogers’s second Broadway show and Merman’s first. Both caused a sensation, and Merman became a huge Broadway star. Comic impersonator Willie Howard played the cab driver Gieber Goldfarb. The book, typical of its day, provided the framework of a story on which to hang all of the songs and novelties. The score featured some of the Gershwins’ biggest hits: “But Not for Me,” “Bidin’ My Time,” “Embraceable You,” “Sam and Delilah,” and “I Got Rhythm.” “I Got Rhythm” was praised in the New York Times review as a tune that “induces a veritable frenzy of dancing.” The reviewer called the show “an agreeable diversion which seems destined to find a profitable place among the luxuries of Times Square.” The future stars in the production extended into the orchestra pit and included jazz legends Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Gene Krupa. The show was reworked in 1992 as Crazy for You.
Comic actor who appeared in the revues Keep off the Grass (1940) and Along Fifth Avenue (1949). He also starred in the musical comedies Follow the Girls (1944) and Take Me Along (1959), winning a Tony Award for his performance in the latter.
(Born Joanna Hall, 1950–.) Canadian-born singing character actress whose Broadway credits include Monica in I Love My Wife (1977), the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods (1987), Nora in Nick & Nora (1991), and Muriel in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005). She won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Into the Woods. Gleason brings a multidimensional complexity to the characters she portrays.
(17 May 1971, Cherry Lane, 527 performances on Broadway at three other theaters starting 22 June 1976.) Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, conceived and directed by John-Michael Trebelak. After starting its New York life at the experimental Café La Mama, Godspell moved to the Cherry Lane Theater and later went uptown and became a Broadway show. Along with Jesus Christ Superstar, it represented an era when the theater showed considerable interest in religious topics. Godspell is a modern retelling of the Gospel according to St. Matthew with Jesus and his disciples clothed as clowns. There was a delightful sense of innocence, and Jesus seemed like a regular guy (although he wore a Superman T-shirt), but little blunted the source’s religious message. Many appreciated the work’s theatricality and its young and energetic cast. Reviewing the off-Broadway opening for the New York Times, Clive Barnes admitted his lack of interest in such a show, noting that he found the premise rather “nauseating,” but he praised Schwartz’s music, which he called “eclectic . . . but at its best it provides by far the best part of the entertainment.” He thinks the cast worked “with . . . gung-ho vitality” but complained about their singing and lack of discipline. He concluded by admitting that some will see “freshness and originality” in the work. Barnes was clearly of the wrong generation to appreciate Godspell.
With a long run off Broadway, 527 performances on Broadway, and a continuing lively presence in the repertory, the show clearly had its audience. The creators opted for an episodic treatment of the Gospel of St. Matthew based heavily on teachings and parables and allowing music and staging to play a huge role. The Crucifixion is by far the most dramatic sequence in the show, considerably advanced through Schwartz’s music. The score is a veritable tour through pop musical styles, including the Mae West and 1930s appeal of “Turn Back, O Man,” the gospel sound of “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord,” and the folk sound of “On the Willows” and “By My Side.” The most famous song was “Day by Day,” where Schwartz effectively negotiated the distance between folk and rock through metric changes and shifting accompanimental patterns. The song “Alas for You,” aimed at the Pharisees and false prophets, carried considerable effect. A 264-performance revival opened at Circle in the Square Theatre on 7 November 2011.
(25 December 1917, Liberty, 351 performances.) Music by Louis A. Hirsch, lyrics by Otto Harbach, book by Harbach and James Montgomery. Based on Montgomery’s play The Aviator, Going Up was a comedy with excellent stage effects that ran for 10 months. Frank Craven played Robert Street, an author who has written a book about flying but has actually never been in an airplane. In order to marry his ladylove, Grace Douglas (Edith Day), he needs to win an air race against the French pilot whom Grace’s father would like to see her marry. Robert somehow wins the race, even after his flying instructor is too drunk to give him lessons. The sets included Robert flying an actual biplane among the clouds on stage. The anonymous critic for the New York Times reported that the audience “appeared to enjoy the play from start to finish” and appreciated the efforts of most of the cast and the numbers “Going Up,” “I Want a Determined Boy,” and “Tickle Toe.”
(20 October 1964, Majestic, 569 performances.) Music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, book by Clifford Odets and William Gibson. An adaptation of Odets’s 1938 play of the same name, Golden Boy was a snapshot of an ambitious young boxer memorably played by Sammy Davis Jr. The play’s protagonist was Italian, but by 1964, young boxers were often African American, and Davis was an appealing lead. Odets had begun the adaptation of his play but died in 1963, leaving William Gibson to finish the task. Howard Taubman, writing in the New York Times, found Gibson’s work marked by “conscience and taste” as “the swift, keen-edged lines about the Negro condition have bite and integrity.” Taubman was less convinced about the boxer’s romance with a white girl played by Paula Wayne. Davis, known as a nightclub performer, made his mark as a singer, actor, and dancer. Taubman praised Davis’s ability to “convey the pride that flames inside an intense heart.” Although the score left little mark outside of the show, Taubman was simply blown away by the production number “Don’t Forget 137th Street,” which graphically portrays the problems in Harlem. He also praised “No More,” which begins as Davis’s defiant soliloquy on his bitterness over lost love but becomes an “irresistible” choral and dance number.
(1 November 1921, Globe, 347 performances.) Music by Jerome Kern, lyrics and book by Anne Caldwell, produced by Charles Dillingham. Yet another show following the success of Irene and Sally that tells the story of a poor girl who makes good, Good Morning Dearie combined a good Kern score with lavish Dillingham production values and lasted 10 months. Rose-Marie (Louise Groody), a shop assistant, is the object of affection for the wealthy Billy Van Cortlandt (Oscar Shaw), even though he is engaged to someone else. The skeleton in Rose-Marie’s closet is her former boyfriend Chesty Costello (Harland Dixon), just out of prison and eager to continue his life of crime. The show included a great deal of dancing, especially from Groody and Dixon, and Kern’s score boasted fine songs, but only “Ka-lu-a” found lasting fame, although the “Blue Danube Blues” was popular at the time. The anonymous New York Times critic noted the “baffling likeness” between Good Morning Dearie and Sally, especially in the “atmosphere and trimmings.”
(6 September 1927, 46th Street, 557 performances.) Music by Ray Henderson, lyrics and book by Laurence Schwab and B. G. De Sylva. In a plot reminiscent of Leave It to Jane, Good News! also mined academia and football for a mirthful evening and sustained one of the longest runs of the 1920s. At Tait College, Tom Marlowe (John Price Jones), the football star, does not have sufficient understanding to pass his astronomy exam, which he must do to play in the big game on Saturday. Connie Lane (May Lawlor) tutors him, and he passes the test. Eventually, of course, she wins his heart as well. Good News! included the requisite silliness and dancing, and the score rendered no fewer than five standards: the title song, “The Varsity Drag,” “The Best Things in Life Are Free,” “Lucky in Love,” and “Just Imagine.” Brooks Atkinson gave the show considerable appreciation in the New York Times, noting that “co-education in America was considerably bucked up at the Forty-sixth Street Theatre last evening.” He noted that famed Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne advised the writers on the locker-room scene, helping the football elements in the production to “have the ring of gridiron authenticity.”
Gordon, famous as the head of Columbia Pictures, was producer for such Broadway shows as The Cat and the Fiddle (1931), Roberta (1933), and The Great Waltz (1934). Famous for his lavish productions, he often invested in other shows.
Singer with a warm baritone voice who created the role of Lancelot Du Lac in Camelot (1960). He won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Jacques Bonnard in The Happy Time (1968). He played Arthur (not Lancelot) in the 1993 revival of Camelot and was a replacement Georges in the 2004 revival of La Cage aux Folles.
(12 November 1989, Beck, 1,017 performances.) Music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest with additional music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, book by Luther Davis, directed and choreographed by Tommy Tune. Based on the novel of the same name by Vicki Baum that was made into a movie by MGM in 1932, Grand Hotel earned its two-and-a-half-year run on the strength of Tune’s brilliant staging. Virtually no other aspect of the production could be called a critical success, but Tony Walton’s stunning two-story set brilliantly portrayed the glamour of a first-class hotel in late 1920s Berlin. Tune kept much of the cast onstage all of the time and in constant motion. The main characters include the ballerina at the end of her career (Liliane Montevecchi), a larcenous aristocrat (David Carroll), Otto Kringelein, a Jew dying from an unnamed disease who dances a Charleston near the end of the show (Michael Jeter), and Flaemmchen (Jane Krakowski), a secretary who thinks her amorous talents might lead to Hollywood stardom.
(14 February 1972, Eden, 3,388 performances.) Music, lyrics, and book by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Appearing at a time when nostalgia for the 1950s was reaching a peak, Grease was meticulously fashioned to capitalize on the trend and rode it to a record-setting run after starting in Chicago and then off-Broadway. The setting is a high school class reunion for 1959 graduates who relive their earlier days at Rydell High. Danny Zuko (Barry Bostwick) is one of the cool boys with slicked-back hair. He falls for Sandy Dumbrowski (Carole Demas), but she is at first uninterested in changing her prim look for him. In the end, she does—a victory for conformity and a defeat for individuality. The show has enjoyed widespread popularity and remains in the repertory. As has often been the case in the past 30 or so years with shows pitched at an unsophisticated audience, some critics did not appreciate it. Clive Barnes of the New York Times, for example, called it “a parody of one of those old Elvis Presley campus movies” and inviting those who care for such shows to see it. He dismissed the 1950s-style music “as the loud and raucous noise of its time” but thought that many would enjoy the show’s “facetious tastelessness.” The 1978 film version starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.
(22 September 1934, Center, 298 performances.) Music by Johann Strauss, father and son; lyrics by Desmond Carter; book by Moss Hart adapted from German and English sources by several authors; staging, lighting, and mechanical effects by Hassard Short; dances and ballets arranged by Albertina Rasch; produced by Max Gordon. The sumptuously mounted operetta told a fictional story about two Viennese composers, father and son, both named Johann Strauss. H. Reeves-Smith played the senior Strauss, who would not allow his orchestra to play his son’s waltzes. Through the machinations of Countess Olga (Marie Burke), the father gets detained one evening, and the younger Strauss (Guy Robertson) triumphs. Among the show’s visual highlights was when the orchestra pit left its normal position and rode across the stage, later dividing itself into sets of steps.
Librettist and lyricist who collaborated with Betty Comden on musicals such as On the Town (1944), Billion Dollar Baby (1945), Wonderful Town (1953), Bells Are Ringing (1956), Applause (1970), On the Twentieth Century (1978), and The Will Rogers Follies (1991). The pair worked together exclusively for more than 50 years, creating words for composers such as Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, and Cy Coleman. They formed a theater troupe in the 1930s, the Revuers, and were active as performers. Hence, they created words from a performer’s perspective. Their focus was on sparkling musical comedy, and their lyrics possess energy, appeal, immediacy, and charm.
(Born Elizabeth Keno, 1920–1969.) Hollywood child actor who created the role of Billie Smith in Babes in Arms (1937). She played Rhoda Gibson in the musical comedy Walk with Music (1940) and appeared in the revue Let Freedom Sing (1942) before creating the role of Georgia Motley in Billion Dollar Baby (1945).
(15 July 1919, Greenwich Village, 232 performances; 30 August 1920, Greenwich Village, 192 performances; 31 August 1921, Shubert, 167 performances; 12 September 1922, Shubert, 209 performances; 20 September 1923, Winter Garden, 140 performances; 16 September 1924, Shubert, 127 performances; 24 December 1925, 46th Street, 180 performances; 9 April 1928, Winter Garden, 158 performances.) After Florenz Ziegfeld and others demonstrated the possibilities of annual revues, there were, of course, imitators. John Murray Anderson, a ballroom dancer who had put on variety shows at a restaurant, established Greenwich Village Nights, but the name soon became Greenwich Village Follies. Ziegfeld was furious about the name change, and Anderson’s series became serious competition. The first two editions opened at a small theater but proved sufficiently popular to move uptown. The Greenwich Village Follies did not introduce a number of popular songs, and, given the names of its lyricists and composers, Anderson clearly invested his money elsewhere. Only a handful of major songwriters worked on the series. Cole Porter wrote the music for the 1924 edition, but it was a major disappointment; the score, however, did include “I’m in Love Again,” which became a hit decades later. The Greenwich Village Follies were most famous for their comedy routines and spectacles. For several years, the most significant comedy team to appear was Savoy and Brennan. Bert Savoy worked in drag, often talking to his imaginary partner Margie or working among the revue’s chorus girls and spoofing the proceedings. This particular series had a reputation for providing more intellectual entertainment than its competitors, for it included a fair amount of classical music and ballet. For example, Martha Graham was the main dancer in “The Garden of Kama” (1923). Like some other annual revues, the Greenwich Village Follies included nudity, especially later in its history when the Shuberts became more involved with the series’ production decisions.
(8 March 1960, Alvin, 95 performances.) Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, book by Lesser Samuels and Loesser, directed by George Roy Hill, choreography by Joe Layton. A major disappointment from the creator of Guys and Dolls, Greenwillow was a fantasy about a town in rural America. Based on B. J. Chute’s novel of the same name, it ran for only three months. Anthony Perkins played Gideon Briggs, the eldest son of a family whose patriarch cannot seem to stay at home with his family and who returns home sporadically to father another child before his wanderlust carries him off again. Gideon is reluctant to court Dorrie Whitbred (Ellen McCown), but love wins out. Brooks Atkinson gave it a good review in the New York Times, calling the book “ideal” and the music “warm and varied.” Among the better songs were “Summertime Love,” “Never Will I Marry,” “Walking Away Whistling,” and “The Sermon,” the latter a fine comic number.
Legendary actor, singer, and dancer who created the roles of the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret (1966), George M. Cohan in George M! (1968), Goodtime Charley (1975), The Grand Tour (1979), and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in Wicked (2003). His appearance as the formally attired Master of Ceremonies is one of the iconic images of the musical theater. He re-created the Master of Ceremonies in the 1987 revival of Cabaret and played Amos Hart in the long-running revival of Chicago (1996). He won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for Cabaret and the 1997 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical for Chicago. Film appearances include the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret (1972) and a cameo in Dancer in the Dark (2000).
(2 November 2006, Walter Kerr, 307 performances.) Music by Scott Frankel, lyrics by Michael Korie, book by Doug Wright. Christine Ebersole played the dual role of the older “Little” Edie Beale and the younger Edith Bouvier Beale in the musical version of the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, the title of which refers to the 28-room mansion in East Hampton in which Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter “Little” Edie (aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis) were filmed living in squalor. Act 1 takes place in 1941, when the estate and its inhabitants were at their glory, while the prologue and act 2 are set in 1973, when the documentary was filmed. Mary Louise Wilson played Edith in the segments set in 1973. The score featured 1940s pastiches, such as “Will You,” and haunting numbers based on scenes from the documentary, including “The Revolutionary Costume for Today,” “The Cake I Had,” and “Around the World.”
A comparatively quiet individual when compared to his mentor George Abbott or his producing partner Harold Prince, Griffith was involved with the production of important Broadway musicals of the 1950s, including The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), West Side Story (1957), and Fiorello! (1958) and helped shape the stylized flavor of the decade’s musicals. Much of Griffith’s approach came from his prior experience as a stage manager.
Actress who played the title role in Meredith Willson’s The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1960), for which she won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She also triumphed as Elvira, the dead wife, in High Spirits (1964) and as Dorothy Brock in 42nd Street (1980). Grimes is known for her strong sense of comic timing, effervescent stage presence, and raspy character voice.
Actor, singer, and dancer who played Will Parker in the 1979 revival of Oklahoma!, created Munkustrap in Cats (1982), and was a replacement George in Sunday in the Park with George before triumphing as Billy Child in Crazy for You (1992), where he sang the music of George Gershwin. In 2006, he played King Arthur in Monty Python’s Spamalot. Groener is also known for his work on television, particularly his portrayal of Mayor Wilkins in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Won 2005 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations for his debut Broadway musical, The Light in the Piazza. He also wrote the show’s lyrics. A third-generation Broadway composer, Guettel is the grandson of Richard Rodgers and the son of Mary Rodgers. His musical language is more advanced than that of the typical Broadway sound, and his expansive melodies (the focus of his scores) are often accompanied by a more active arpeggiated rhythmic underpinning.
(24 November 1950, 46th Street, 1,200 performances.) Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, directed by George S. Kaufman, dances and musical numbers staged by Michael Kidd, produced by Cy Feuer and Ernest H. Martin. One of Broadway’s enduring masterpieces, Guys and Dolls is a love poem to the colorful residents of midtown Manhattan and a fully integrated evening of entertainment. Based on the memorable and distinctive short stories of Damon Runyon, especially “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown,” Guys and Dolls brought together distinguished creators with solid, comic characters who helped make “New Yawk” rhyme with “tomahawk.” Writing in the New York Times, Brooks Atkinson praised Kaufman, who he asserted was “never . . . in better form in the director’s box.” Michael Kidd’s choreography included both comic ballets and riotous send-ups of cheesy nightclub routines in numbers such as “Bushel and a Peck” and “Take Back Your Mink.” Atkinson remarked that Loesser’s songs “have the same affectionate appreciation of the material as the book” and praised the technical side of the show as well, noting that it “is a work of art.” Sam Levene played Nathan Detroit, proprietor of “the oldest established, permanent, floating crap game in New York.” He has been engaged for 14 years to Miss Adelaide, star of a nightclub act, played with zany intensity by Vivian Blaine, who reprised her role in the film. In an effort to raise cash, Nathan bets the stylish gambler Sky Masterson (Robert Alda) that he cannot take a worker from the Save-A-Soul Mission, Sarah Brown (Isobel Bigley), to Havana on a date. Sky wins the bet. Especially memorable supporting characters include Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Stubby Kaye) and an older mission worker, Arvide Abernathy (Pat Rooney Sr.). The show ends with a double wedding for Sky and Sarah and Nathan and Miss Adelaide.
Loesser’s songs help propel the plot forward and provide delicious details about personalities and motivations. The “Fugue for Tinhorns,” a contrapuntal tour de force, emerges out of the chaos of Kidd’s opening ballet that introduces Broadway’s underworld. Nathan, Nicely-Nicely, and Benny Southstreet praise their profession in “The Oldest Established Permanent Floating Crap Game in New York,” and Nicely-Nicely leads the revival-style song “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” near the end of act 2. Loesser uses musical style to distinguish between the pairs of lovers. Miss Adelaide and Nathan are the comic characters, and their music appropriately defines them. “Adelaide’s Lament” and the duet “Sue Me” are highlights of the score, as is the more lyrical music of Miss Sarah and Sky, including “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” one of Loesser’s most enduring ballads, and Sky’s “My Time of Day.” The title song concerns the battle between the sexes from the male point of view and exudes the same gentle humor that pervades the show. The 1950 film starred Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, and the 1992 Broadway revival starred Peter Gallagher, Josie de Guzman, Nathan Lane, and Faith Prince. Jerry Zaks won the 1992 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for the revival. The show returned to Broadway in 2009 in a production starring Craig Bierko, Lauren Graham, Oliver Platt, and Katie Jennings Grant.
(21 May 1959, Broadway, 702 performances.) Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Arthur Laurents, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, presented by David Merrick and Leland Hayward. Remembered as the last great vehicle created expressly for Ethel Merman, Gypsy was also a notable work in the development of the Broadway musical, as it included a close integration of plot and music, a powerful score, and a realistic feel made possible by Robbins’s intense direction. Based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the show begins with June and Louise as children, already being driven to stage success by the ultimate stage-door mother, Rose (Merman). The children literally grow up during the number “Let Me Entertain You,” becoming young adults played by Lane Bradbury (June) and Sandra Church (Louise). They hope that their mother will marry and lay down roots, but the endless tour continues. Rose finds a boyfriend in Herbie (Jack Klugman), who becomes the act’s agent. June has left by this point, running off to marry Tulsa (Paul Wallace), a boy in the act. (Gypsy Rose Lee’s real-life sister was the actress June Havoc.) As vaudeville fades from the scene, Rose finds her act booked into a burlesque house. She offers her innocent daughter Louise as a demure young stripper, an act that horrifies Herbie and finally drives him away. Louise receives hilarious advice from older strippers about her need for a gimmick but decides that her youth and ladylike demeanor are gimmick enough. She strips and talks her way to the top of burlesque, playing Minsky’s in New York. Rose cannot stay out of Louise’s life, however, and she finally admits in the memorable “Rose’s Turn” that her ambition was more for herself than her daughters. The show ends as Rose and Louise reach a new understanding, but of exactly what kind is left open to interpretation.
Gypsy was in the mold of an old-time musical comedy and paid tribute to America’s show business past, one of Robbins’s obsessions. But it was also a musical play, with book, score, and dance coming together to tell a story that is advanced and illuminated by the music. Gypsy relies on the box-office draw of a huge star in the role of Rose. In the original production, Ethel Merman was omnipresent; Brooks Atkinson, writing in the New York Times, praised her extravagantly, writing that “her personal magnetism electrifies the whole theatre.” Merman’s power also extended to aspects of the production. Sondheim had been slated to write the score (music and lyrics) himself, but Merman was unwilling to star in a show with music by an unknown writer, so Styne replaced Sondheim as the composer. Styne wrote effective songs of many types, from the delightful innocence of “Little Lamb,” the gentle humor of “If Momma Was Married,” and the optimism of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” to such brassy numbers for Merman as “Some People” and “I Had a Dream.” The title phrase of the latter became the score’s main leitmotif, occurring throughout the show as a unifying device. Rose’s dramatic soliloquy “Rose’s Turn” has become one of the classic one-woman scenes of the Broadway musical. Recent revelations have suggested that Sondheim played a major role in the music for the number. One of the most dramatic interpretations of the song was that of Angela Lansbury in the 1973 London production. Many leading actresses have played the iconic role of Rose, including Rosalind Russell in the 1962 film version, Bette Midler in the 1993 television version, Bernadette Peters in the 2003 Broadway revival, and Patti LuPone in the 2008 Broadway revival, for which she won a Tony Award.