(29 April 1968, Biltmore, 1,742 performances.) Music by Galt MacDermot, lyrics and book by Gerome Ragni and James Rado, staged by Tom O’Horgan. One of the most controversial shows in Broadway history, Hair was the first successful show in the genre that has become known, somewhat inaccurately, as a rock musical. It began life in a version by Ragni and Rado that was produced at Ellen Stewart’s La Mama Experimental Theatre Club. Joseph Papp then agreed to an eight-week run at the Public Theater for which MacDermott wrote the show’s first score. Hair moved to the Cheetah discothèque for 45 performances and finally started its Broadway run at the Biltmore Theater in an expanded and altered version, with 13 new songs and under O’Horgan’s expert direction. In the loose plot, Claude (Rado) tries to decide whether he should burn his draft card while living in a hippie commune led by Berger (Ragni). Claude eventually decides to fight in Vietnam, where he is killed, and his friends mourn his death. The show delivered a “safe” portrayal of counterculture, allowing the audience to experience it only for an evening. In addition to the well-publicized (but poorly lit) nude scene, the show directly approached controversial topics such as homosexuality, drugs, the sexual revolution, poverty, and race relations. Profanity infused the book and lyrics. O’Horgan’s production was innovative and at times chaotic, with cast members moving freely throughout the auditorium and among the onstage rock band. At one point, cast members disguised as policemen burst into the back of the theater and announced they were raiding the show. Solo singers used handheld microphones, giving the show an atypical visual look and linking it to the realm of the rock concert. Clive Barnes, writing in the New York Times, correctly identified MacDermot’s score as “pop-rock” with “the authentic voice of today.” He found the new director, O’Horgan, nearly miraculous but also warned followers of Governor Ronald Reagan that they would not like the show. His conclusion was delicious: “Incidentally, the cast washes. It also has a delightful sense of self-mockery.”
MacDermot’s score became one of the most famous and memorable ever to be heard on Broadway. While the composer employed the simple chord progressions associated with rock of the mid-1960s (certainly different than those of more traditional musicals) and rock’s instruments, amplification, and beat, he also used musical theater’s typical verse-refrain form, and his melodic sense was far closer to Broadway (or at least the pop world) than to true rock music. Five songs from the show became top 40 hits—“Aquarius,” “Hair,” “Easy to Be Hard,” “Good Morning Sunshine,” and “Let the Sunshine In”—and “Aquarius” became one of the defining songs of the era. A highly acclaimed revival supervised by MacDermot and Rado opened in 2009.
(15 August 2002, Neil Simon, 2,642 performances.) Music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman, book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan. Based on the 1988 film, Hairspray is the story of Tracy Turnblad (Marissa Jaret Winokur), a short, plump, white teenager with a huge hairdo in 1962 who dreams of appearing on a local television dance program, the Corny Collins Show. She achieves her goal and sets out to racially integrate the show, beginning on Mother-Daughter Day. Tracy’s mother (cross-dressed Harvey Fierstein) is reluctant to appear on the broadcast because of her larger-than-average size but joins her daughter in the spectacular high-energy finale, “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” during which the Corny Collins Show becomes officially and irreversibly integrated on live television. The musical dealt with aspects of diversity in terms of both race and body type. The vibrant score evoked the styles of early 1960s rock and roll. Hairspray won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Actor (Fierstein), Best Actress (Winokur), and Best Featured Actor (Dick Latessa as Wilbur Turnblad).
Comic actor with a slightly gruff voice who appeared in the 1925 and 1926 versions of the revue Gay Paree and the musical comedies Follow Thru (1929), Free for All (1931), and Take a Chance (1932) before creating his most famous role, the Tin Man in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. He returned to Broadway for the musical comedy Higher and Higher (1940) and the revue Inside U.S.A. (1948).
(25 April 1965, Broadhurst, 512 performances.) Music and lyrics by David Heneker, book by Beverly Cross, staged by Gene Saks, choreography by Onna White. A successful show in London’s West End, Half a Sixpence transferred to Broadway, where it played for more than 16 months. Tommy Steele, a teenage heartthrob in England, was Arthur Kipps, a character from the H. G. Wells novel Kipps, the work on which the show was based. The plot, which takes place in the seaside town of Folkestone in 1900, is a familiar tale of a poor shop assistant who becomes wealthy and then gets engaged to a girl of high social status. Howard Taubman, writing for the New York Times, dubbed it a sentimental show, sure to please some but likely to give others “a touch of indigestion.” He enjoyed its “unabashed commitment to sweetness and light” and found Steele to be an appealing lead. Taubman especially liked the dancing in such numbers as “Money to Burn,” “If the Rain’s Got to Fall,” “The Old Military Canal,” and “The Party’s on the House.”
(Born Adalade Louise Hall, 1901–1993.) After appearing as Jazz Jasmine in Shuffle Along (1921) and other African American musicals, Hall achieved tremendous success starring in the revue Blackbirds of 1928. She spent most of her long career in London but returned to Broadway in 1957 to create the part of Grandma Obeah in Jamaica (1957).
(26 April 1967, Martin Beck, 293 performances.) Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, book by Arthur Laurents, directed by Burt Shevelove. Based on an original story, Hallelujah, Baby! capitalized on the delightful stage presence of Leslie Uggams, who won a Tony Award for her performance. Laurents’s book traced an African American couple and the woman’s white lover from the 1920s through the 1960s; however, the principals never age. Georgina (Uggams) leaves home when she learns that her fiancé, Clem (Robert Hooks), has lost their house in a crap game. She becomes a nightclub singer in the 1920s, is destitute during the Great Depression, and reemerges as a nightclub singer during World War II, becoming a star by the 1950s. Resentful of her success with white audiences, Clem loses interest in Georgina, but as the plot reaches the 1960s, there is a satisfying close. Walter Kerr, writing for the New York Times, was unimpressed by the show. He found it politically naive and unsure of its audience, like a “course in Civics One when everyone in the world has already got to Civics Six.” He adored Uggams, however, and said that she proceeds through the evening with a “secretive smile.” He also liked the score and specifically mentioned the songs “Talking to Yourself,” “Another Day,” and “Not Mine.” In his score, Styne effectively imitated the music of the various decades, thus assisting the audience in keeping up with the plot’s temporal shifts.
Scottish-born baritone who starred as the romantic freedom-fighting hero in the operettas The Desert Song (1926) and The New Moon (1928), both with scores by Sigmund Romberg. He married his costar from The New Moon, Evelyn Herbert, and the couple starred in the short-lived operetta Princess Charming (1930). Halliday also played the lead role in Rudolf Friml’s Music Hath Charms (1934). His combination of good looks and a beautiful voice made him one of the most famous and most respected male operetta stars.
Composer for stage and screen whose Broadway credits include the Tony Award–winning A Chorus Line (1975), They’re Playing Our Song (1979), Smile (1986), The Goodbye Girl (1993), and Sweet Smell of Success (2002). His music is characterized by easily memorable melodies and a strong sense of craftsmanship. He is one of a handful of people to have won all four major American performing arts awards: Tony, Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy.
Producer who frequently collaborated with composer Rudolf Friml and librettist/lyricist Otto Harbach. Their shows included The Firefly (1912), High Jinks (1913), Katinka (1915), You’re in Love (1917), and several others before they created the landmark operetta Rose Marie (1924). Hammerstein also produced Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Sweet Adeline (1929) and Friml’s Luana (1930). His father, Oscar Hammerstein, was a theatrical impresario, and his nephew was the famed wordsmith Oscar Hammerstein II.
Impresario Oscar Hammerstein owned and managed several theaters in New York, including the Harlem Opera House and the Manhattan Opera House. He was passionate about opera, founded the Manhattan Opera Company, and was a significant figure in the development of Times Square as a theatrical center. He is sometimes referred to as Oscar Hammerstein I.
One of Broadway’s most important lyricists and librettists, Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein came from a family of theatrical managers and producers. His father, William, managed the Victoria Theatre; his uncle, Arthur Hammerstein, was a producer; and his grandfather, Oscar Hammerstein, was a leading impresario and founded the Manhattan Opera Company. He collaborated with veteran wordsmith Otto Harbach on the lyrics and libretto for Wildflower (1923, music by Herbert Stothart and Vincent Youmans), Rose Marie (1924, music by Rudolf Friml), and The Desert Song (1926, music by Sigmund Romberg). He created Broadway history in 1927 by writing lyrics for the seminal Show Boat to music by Jerome Kern. He maintained his ties with operetta, creating the words for the last great operetta of the 1920s, The New Moon (music by Romberg). After spending a great part of the 1930s in Hollywood, Hammerstein returned to Broadway in the early 1940s and began a new collaboration with Richard Rodgers. The legendary partnership resulted in nine musicals, beginning with Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945) and ending with The Sound of Music (1959). In 1943, he refashioned Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen as Carmen Jones by transferring the opera’s setting to America and making its characters African Americans.
Hammerstein, through his treatment of words, helped create the so-called musical play, where the story line and characterization are as important as the music. His lyrics possess immediate appeal through their simplicity and directness. His use of local color in phrases such as “I’m as corny as Kansas in August” (from South Pacific’s “Wonderful Guy”) or his clever employment of dialect in songs such as “I Cain’t Say No” (from Oklahoma!) or “Dat’s Love” (Carmen’s “Habanera” as it appears in Carmen Jones) set him apart from his contemporaries.
Choreographer and performer who won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Gladys in The Pajama Game (1954). She choreographed Flower Drum Song (1958), Bravo Giovanni (1962), She Loves Me (1963), and Funny Girl (1964).
(18 January 1968, Broadway, 286 performances.) Music by John Kander; lyrics by Fred Ebb; book by N. Richard Nash; directed, filmed, and choreographed by Gower Champion; produced by David Merrick. Based on the book by Robert L. Fontaine and the play by Samuel Taylor, The Happy Time ran for less than nine months, even with David Merrick’s substantial publicity campaign. Michael (Mike) Rupert played Bibi Bonnard, a French Canadian coming of age in an unusual family. The show was known for its innovation in dramaturgy; Robert Goulet played a photographer whose memories carry the plot, and Champion included film clips in his staging. The show’s hit song was “The Life of the Party,” sung by David Wayne, the actor who played Bibi’s father.
(Born Otto Hauerbach, 1873–1963.) Librettist and lyricist who was critical in the serious treatment of words and story in the Broadway musical. After working on nine musicals with Karl Hoschna, Harbach (then working as Hauerbach) began a successful collaboration with composer Rudolf Friml that included The Firefly (1912), High Jinks (1913), Katinka (1915), The Little Whopper (1919, the first show written under the abridged surname Harbach), and, with Oscar Hammerstein II, Rose Marie (1924). He worked with Vincent Youmans on Wildflower (1923) and No, No, Nanette; Jerome Kern on Sunny (1925), The Cat and the Fiddle (1931), and Roberta (1933); and Sigmund Romberg on The Desert Song (1926), Nina Rosa (1930), and Forbidden Melody (1948). He served as a mentor to Hammerstein, impressing on the young wordsmith the importance of integrating music and drama into an inseparable whole.
(Edgar Yip Harburg, 1898–1981.) Lyricist who worked with many composers, most notably Harold Arlen. His style of writing, which stemmed from Russian and Yiddish influences, is characterized by onomatopoeia, ingenuity of rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and comic neologisms. Harburg’s lyrics span a variety of topics, including civil rights, feminism, and pacifism, and demonstrate an extraordinary gift for creating satire and fantasy. Among his most important shows are Hooray for What! (1937, music by Arlen), about an inventor who creates a new laughing gas to end all wars; Bloomer Girl (1944); Finian’s Rainbow (1947); Flahooley (1951, music by Sammy Fain); and Jamaica (1957).
Dancer and singer who won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Curtis Taylor Jr. in Dreamgirls (1981). Other credits include Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope (1972), Pippin (1972, replacement Leading Player), The Pajama Game (1973 revival), and The Wiz (1975, replacement Tinman).
Lyricist best known for his collaborations with Jerry Bock, including The Body Beautiful (1958), Fiorello! (1959), Tenderloin (1960), She Loves Me (1963), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), The Apple Tree (1966), and The Rothschilds (1970). He also was lyricist for Richard Rodgers’s Rex (1976) and also created the book for The Apple Tree. His lyrics are characterized by their subtle humor and clever wordplay. A classically trained violinist, Harnick has also composed songs for several Broadway shows: New Faces of 1952, Two’s Company (1952), Baker Street (1965), and The Madwoman of Central Park West (1979).
Actor, playwright, and composer who formed a legendary stage partnership with actor Tony Hart of Harrigan and Hart. After the team broke up in 1885, Harrigan continued his career as a producer and actor. George M. Cohan’s song “Harrigan” was a tribute to this theatrical pioneer.
Performing team consisting of Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart. The duo was extremely popular during the 1870s and early 1880s; audiences were distraught when the two men went their separate ways in 1885. Harrigan and Hart were best known for their Mulligan Guard characters, immortalized in The Mulligan Guards’ Ball (1873). The plots of their shows often involved the Irish in New York City and their relationships with other ethnic populations, especially African Americans. The ill-fated Broadway musical Harrigan and Hart (1985), which starred Harry Groener as Harrigan and Mark Hamill as Hart, was based on the life of the important team.
Stage and screen actress who starred in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965) and who won a Tony Award for her performance in The Apple Tree (1966).
Actor, singer, magician, writer, and host who was a replacement Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret (2003), created the dual role of the Balladeer and Lee Harvey Oswald in Assassins (2004), and won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2014). He has hosted the television broadcasts of the Tony Awards, the Emmy Awards, and the Academy Awards and starred in two television series: Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989–1993) and How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014).
An extraordinarily active producer who worked on many shows as George M. Cohan’s partner as early as Little Johnny Jones (1904) and later collaborated with Irving Berlin on the Music Box Revues during the 1920s. Harris helped produce Animal Crackers (1928), Of Thee I Sing (1931), As Thousands Cheer (1933), and Lady in the Dark (1941).
Stage actor who immortalized Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1956), a performance for which he won a Tony Award. (Harrison won the 1949 Tony for Best Actor [Dramatic] for Anne of the Thousand Days.) He reprised Higgins in the 1964 film version and again in the 1981 Broadway revival.
(“Larry,” 1895–1943.) Lyricist who collaborated with composer Richard Rodgers from 1918, when they first met, until Hart’s death in 1943. Rodgers and Hart helped define the musical comedy of the 1920s and 1930s. Hart had a difficult and unhappy personal life and turned increasingly to alcohol in his later years. His lyrics can exist on their own as masterpieces and display a brilliance for rhyme scheme, an evocative use of language and metaphor, and overt sexual references, as in “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” from Pal Joey (1940). Many of his lyrics depict love not as a happy thing but rather as a malady.
Librettist for As Thousands Cheer (1933), Lady in the Dark (1941), and other musicals who later became a director for such musicals as Miss Liberty (1949), My Fair Lady (1956), and Camelot (1960). Hart was known for his literate, elegant productions with fine casts.
(Born Anthony J. Cannon, 1855–1891.) Actor, singer, and comedian who was part of the team Harrigan and Hart. Since he was shorter and of a slighter build than his partner, Edward Harrigan, Hart often played the female roles in the team’s sketches.
Recipient of the first Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 1948 for Angel in the Wings (1947), a revue in which he played several roles.
The Hollywood publicist and agent was also active as a Broadway producer. Credits include South Pacific (1949), Call Me Madam (1950), and Wish You Were Here (1952). In 1959, he simultaneously coproduced Gypsy and The Sound of Music, and he produced his last Broadway musical, Irving Berlin’s Mr. President, in 1962.
Trinidad-born singing actress who created the role of Nala in The Lion King (1997) and won a Tony Award for the title role in Aida (2000). She is also known as a rhythm-and-blues recording artist.
Baritone with a commanding stage presence whose credits include the title role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979, replacement on Broadway and subsequent video release), Papa in I Remember Mama (1979), Albin in La Cage aux Folles (1984, a role for which he won a Tony Award), Max in Sunset Boulevard (1994), and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (replacement) in Wicked (2003).
(22 April 2014, Belasco, 369 performances as of 26 April 2015.) Beginning off-Broadway in 2008 and featuring John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig, the rock musical centers on the fictional autobiography of Hedwig, a gay East German man who survives a botched sex change operation and has a career as a stage performer. Much of the action occurs in a club setting, with Hedwig speaking directly to the audience. Mitchell created the libretto for the show, and Stephen Trask composed the music and lyrics. The score is rooted in the style of 1970s glam rock, rhythm and blues, and punk; notable songs include “Tear Me Down,” the philosophical “The Origin of Love,” the identity-forming “Wig in a Box,” “Wicked Little Town,” and Hedwig’s breakdown song, “Hedwig’s Lament”/“Exquisite Corpse.” Mitchell also starred in the 2001 film version. After numerous productions around the world, the musical made it to Broadway in 2014 with Neil Patrick Harris wowing audiences in the lead role. Harris won a Tony Award for his performance, and the show itself won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. Ben Brantley, in his New York Times review, raved about the “taboo-flouting tale of life of the margins.”
Polish-born Ziegfeld Follies star and common-law wife of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. Held’s personal exuberance, risqué songs, and attractive legs made her an audience favorite. She appeared in various revues and musical comedies in the first decade of the century and played Claire LaTour in Follow Me (1916), a show for which she also contributed lyrics. During World War I, she toured France, raising money for the war effort and entertaining troops, and also appeared in vaudeville. Songs for which she created both music and words were featured in the revue Tintypes (1980).
(16 January 1964, St. James, 2,844 performances.) Music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, book by Michael Stewart, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, produced by David Merrick. For a short time the longest-running musical in Broadway history, Hello, Dolly! was a delightful show that combined a strong story, fine score, effective staging, and Carol Channing’s unforgettable star presence. Stewart adapted the show from Thornton Wilder’s play The Matchmaker, which, as Howard Taubman wrote in the New York Times, “vibrated with unheard melodies and unseen dances.” Dolly Levi was one of the more outrageous creations ever to appear on Broadway, and Channing played her magnificently in decades of tours and revivals. As the widow Dolly confesses in her first song, “I Put My Hand in There,” she “meddles,” providing any service that might be required, from social introductions to instruction in almost anything. She has agreed to introduce Yonkers’s wealthiest citizen, Horace Vandergelder (David Burns), to potential wives; he does not know that she is really saving him for herself. In act 2, everyone meets at the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant, where Dolly, although she has not been there in years, is still a legend. Her attention-grabbing arrival at the top of a grand staircase prompts a lavish production number based on the popular title tune. Dolly is also trying to help Vandergelder’s niece marry against her uncle’s will, and when he spies his niece on the dance floor, a riot ensues, and everyone ends up in court. Dolly softens the judge’s heart and makes sure Vandergelder receives full blame for everything—her final ammunition in her ultimate plan to make him marry her. Although Taubman took some exception to segments that pandered excessively to popular taste, he pronounced Hello, Dolly! “a musical shot through with enchantment.”
Herman’s score included a number of fine tunes, most of them effectively integrated with the plot but others that function more in the vein of 1930s musical comedy. In addition to the title song, the production number “Before the Parade Passes By” is worthy of the parade that it accompanies and includes some effective harmonic surprises. The show’s long run was partly a function of producer David Merrick’s heady showmanship. When Channing left the Broadway Company for a national tour, he hired a succession of stars, including Ginger Rogers, Ethel Merman, and Pearl Bailey, to play the crafty matchmaker. Barbra Streisand starred in the 1969 film version.
(22 September 1938, 46th Street, 1,404 performances.) Songs by several writers, book author unattributed. An uproarious revue of mostly low comedy and vaudeville skits, Hellzapoppin was the longest-running musical in the history of Broadway when it closed. The show’s main instigators were Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, two vaudeville comedians. Writing in the New York Times, Brooks Atkinson asserted that they found their cast by choosing every third person who walked by on a street corner, discovered their material in an attic where they “swept out all the gags in sight,” and then went to an ammunition store to buy blank cartridges to shoot when a joke was told. He also noted that the show “ought to show a higher trace of talent” but admitted that he enjoyed parts of it.
Actress best known for her work on television, particularly as Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch (1969–1974), who began her career in musical theater. She made her Broadway debut as The New Girl in Wish You Were Here (1952) with a one-line role, created the title character in Fanny (1954), and played Mary Morgan in The Girl Who Came to Dinner (1963).
(Born Raymond Brost, 1896–1970.) Composer who collaborated with lyricists B. G. De Sylva and Lew Brown on the 1925 and 1926 editions of George White’s Scandals and 11 musical comedies, including the sports-themed trilogy Good News! (1927), Hold Everything! (1928), and Flying High (1930).
The legendary actress appeared in one Broadway musical, Coco (1969), in which she played the title role of fashion designer Coco Chanel and captivated audiences with her solo number “Always Mademoiselle.”
Soprano known for creating lead roles in operettas from the 1920s and 1930s, including Princess Flavia (1925), My Maryland (1926), The New Moon (1928), and Melody (1933), all with scores by Sigmund Romberg. She married her costar from The New Moon, Robert Halliday, and the couple costarred in Princess Charming (1930). Herbert’s final appearance on Broadway was in the 1934 revival of Bitter Sweet. Herbert possessed a fine and agile voice capable of singing the technically challenging music Romberg wrote specifically for her, and, coupled with her physical beauty, she epitomized the operetta soprano of the era.
Irish-born and German-trained musician who made his Broadway debut as a composer with Prince Ananias (1894). Herbert came to New York in 1886, when his wife, singer Therese Förster, joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera and Herbert was engaged to play cello in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Herbert was a versatile musician, achieving celebrity as a cellist, conductor, and composer. Many of his most enduring musical theater works, most of which were operettas, were written for specific singers. The Serenade (1897), The Fortune Teller (1898), and The Singing Girl (1899) all featured roles tailored for soprano Alice Nielsen. He wrote Mlle. Modiste (1905) for Fritzi Scheff, Naughty Marietta (1910) for Emma Trentini, and Sweethearts (1913) for Christie MacDonald. Other famous scores include Babes in Toyland (1903), It Happened in Nordland (1904), The Red Mill (1906), The Lady of the Slipper (1912), The Only Girl (1914), The Princess Pat (1915), The Century Girl (1916), The Velvet Lady (1919), Orange Blossoms (1922), and The Dream Girl (1924). Herbert’s musical theater works are noted for their transparency of textures, virtuosic vocal writing, and general effervescence.
(3 October 1963, Shubert, 334 performances.) Music, lyrics, and book by Meredith Willson, dances and musical numbers staged by Michael Kidd. Based on the classic film Miracle on 34th Street (screenplay by George Seaton, based on the novel by Valentine Davies), Here’s Love was a safe, professional musical that showed little in the way of art but ran for about 10 months. Laurence Naismith played Kris Kringle, and Valerie Lee was the little girl whose belief he earns. Her mother, Doris Walker (Janis Paige), also becomes a believer and ends up loving Fred Gaily (Craig Stevens), Kris’s lawyer in his mental competency trial. The popularity of the movie helped the show. Howard Taubman reviewed the show for the New York Times, qualifying his praise for the family musical. He thought that the songs “seem machine-tooled” and that the dances were “reliably colorful and bouncy.” Critics expected more from the creator of The Music Man.
Composer and lyricist whose songs were featured in the revue From A to Z (1960) and who wrote music and lyrics for the musical comedy Milk and Honey (1961) before achieving lasting fame with Hello, Dolly! (1964), a star vehicle for Carol Channing. This was followed by another show with a strong female lead, Mame (1966), which starred Angela Lansbury in the title role and also featured Bea Arthur as her best friend, Vera. Other musicals include Dear World (1969, again starring Lansbury), Mack & Mabel (1974), The Grand Tour (1979), La Cage aux Folles (1983), and Jerry’s Girls (1985). His songs were featured on Broadway in A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine (1980), An Evening with Jerry Herman (1998), and Barbara Cook’s Broadway (2004). Herman won Tony Awards for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles. His large-scale songs are filled with an exuberant vivacity that captures the colorful personalities of the characters who sing them, while his ballads offer intimate expressions of their singer’s emotional state at a specific point in the show.
(9 October 1947, New Century, 727 performances.) Music and lyrics by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, book by Stephen Longstreet, production directed by George Abbott, dances and staging by Jerome Robbins. Based on Longstreet’s somewhat autobiographical novel The Sisters Liked Them Handsome, High Button Shoes was a comic romp that ran for almost two years. Its star was the inspired clown Phil Silvers, who plays a con man, Harrison Floy, who returns to his hometown of New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1913 to bilk the unsuspecting citizens in a fraudulent land deal with his assistant, Mr. Pontdue (Joey Faye). The show’s most famous moment was Robbins’s madcap “Mack Sennett Ballet,” inspired by the Keystone Kops routines from silent films. In this sequence, the good citizens of New Brunswick chase Floy and Pontdue until everyone finally falls into a hopeless jumble. Brooks Atkinson, reviewing the show for the New York Times, calls it “very happy” and “workaday,” noting that the creators have “ignored progress in the arts” but offer “excellent family entertainment.” The score’s two most famous songs are “Papa, Won’t You Dance with Me?,” a polka, and “I Still Get Jealous,” an old-time soft-shoe number.
(10 December 1913, Lyric, 213 performances.) Music by Rudolf Friml, book and lyrics by Otto Harbach, produced by Arthur Hammerstein. The self-proclaimed “musical farce,” set in a French spa, revolves around the effects of a perfume with opiate qualities. Among the score’s highlights were the comic number “Something Seems a Tingle-ingle-ingling” and the grand waltz “Love’s Own Kiss.”
(7 April 1964, Alvin, 375 performances.) Music, lyrics, and book by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray, staged by Noel Coward. Based on Coward’s comedy Blithe Spirit, High Spirits was a vehicle for Beatrice Lillie, one of Broadway’s best female comics in the middle decades of the 20th century. Lillie played Madame Arcati, an eccentric medium. Charles Condomine (Edward Woodward) is happily married to his second wife, but to everyone’s consternation, Madame Arcati brings his first wife, Elvira (Tammy Grimes), back from the dead. High Spirits had a few fine songs, such as “If I Gave You,” but did not include a major hit, a factor that probably hurt its ability to compete with other major musicals of the time, such as Hello, Dolly! and Funny Girl.
Dancer who appeared in the jukebox musicals Eubie! (1978), based on the music of Eubie Blake; Sophisticated Ladies (1981), which featured the music of Duke Ellington; and Jelly’s Last Jam (1992), in which he played Jelly Roll Morton and for which he created the tap routines and won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
(25 April 1927, Belasco, 352 performances.) Music by Vincent Youmans, lyrics by Leo Robin and Clifford Grey, book by Herbert Fields. Based on Hubert Osborne’s play Shore Leave, the musical comedy Hit the Deck concerned Bilge (Charles King), a typical sailor who wants a girl in every port. His girl in Newport, Loulou (Louise Groody), owns a coffeehouse frequented by sailors. She falls in love with Bilge, but he will not marry her. Loulou uses her considerable fortune to follow him all over the world, including China, until he decides she is the one. Bilge gets cold feet again when he discovers that she is wealthy, but she wins him in the end by promising to give her fortune to their eldest child. The show included the era’s typically large men’s and women’s choruses, and its two most famous songs were “Hallelujah” and “Sometimes I’m Happy.”
Dancer, choreographer, director, and composer famous for her portrayal of Salome and her impersonations of various actors and dancers. The “Hoffman Glide,” a social dance, was named after her. Hoffman was also a composer, writing the score for The Man from Now (1906) and songs for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1907.
(10 October 1928, Broadhurst, 413 performances.) Songs by Lew Brown, B. G. De Sylva, and Ray Henderson; book by De Sylva and John McGowan; produced by Alex A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley. The musical comedy that helped make Bert Lahr a star and that included the song “You’re the Cream in My Coffee,” Hold Everything! was a sports-themed show (like Good News!), this time about a welterweight contender, “Sonny Jim” Brooks (Jack Whiting), who has problems with his girlfriend when the boxer refuses to fight for charity. Famous comics in the cast included Victor Moore, Nina Olivette, and Lahr, whose routines included knocking himself out with a punch. Brooks Atkinson, writing in the New York Times, disliked the “annoyingly ubiquitous” book that made little use of Moore but praises most of the cast and found “the dancing of ‘Hold Everything!’ more entertaining than the book and chorus.” The score also included “Genealogy,” “Footwork,” and “Don’t Hold Everything.”
(Born Judy Tuvim, 1921–1965.) Actress known for her comic timing who began her theatrical career in 1938 as part of “The Revuers,” a nightclub act that also included Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Comden and Green, with composer Jule Styne, created Bells Are Ringing (1956) especially for her. Holliday won a Tony Award for her portrayal of telephone operator Ella Peterson and also achieved notable fame in Hollywood.
Character actress who created Ado Annie Carnes in Oklahoma! (1943) and Evalina in Bloomer Girl (1944). In 1967, she took over the title role in the original production of Mame. She is also known for her work on film and television and won an Academy Award for Gentlemen’s Agreement (1947).
Homosexuality has a considerable kinship with the Broadway musical. Many fans of Broadway are gay, and many leading practitioners of musical theater, including but certainly not limited to Ethel Merman, Julie Andrews, Liza Minnelli, and Bernadette Peters, are gay icons. Significant Broadway creators and performers have been gay, including Lorenz Hart, Cole Porter, Noel Coward, the team of George Forrest and Robert Wright, Harvey Fierstein, William Finn, and Stephen Sondheim. Homosexual themes and characters in Broadway musicals range from clichéd incarnations to real people facing challenging life situations. Broadway’s first openly gay character was Sebastian Baye in Coco (1969); Rene Auberjonois, who played him, received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his performance. Shows either that have major characters who are homosexual or in which homosexuality is a significant feature of the plot include Hair (1968), Your Own Thing (1968), A Chorus Line (1975), La Cage aux Folles (1983), Falsettos (1992), Kiss of the Spider Woman—The Musical (1993), Victor/Victoria (1995), Rent (1996), The Producers (2001), Avenue Q (2003), The Boy from Oz (2003), and Monty Python’s Spamalot (2005), in which Lancelot (of Arthurian legend) is gay.
(Born Lester Townes Hope, 1903–2003.) Famed screen actor, comedian, and entertainer who appeared on Broadway in the 1930s in Ballyhoo of 1932, Roberta (1933), Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, and Red, Hot and Blue! (1936).
(Born Lena Mary Calhoun Horne, 1917–2010.) African American popular singer who worked with many leading jazz musicians and appeared in several MGM film musicals. On Broadway, she played Savannah in the calypso-inspired musical Jamaica (1957).
Bohemian-born and Viennese-trained composer who collaborated with Otto Harbach on Three Twins (1910) and an American adaptation of Madame Sherry (1910) called The Fascinating Widow (1911), which was a vehicle for female impersonator Julian Eltinge.
(14 October 1961, 46th Street, 1,416 performances.) Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, based on Shepherd Mead’s book of the same name; adapted by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert; directed by Burrows; musical staging by Bob Fosse; presented by Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin. A satirical look at American business, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying follows Finch (Robert Morse) on his run up the corporate ladder. With Mead’s book as his guide, Finch quickly gets himself into the mailroom at World Wide Wickets by coyly playing up his “relationship” with the president, J. B. Biggley (Rudy Vallee), with whom he just collided in the hall. In the mailroom, he meets Biggley’s nephew Frump (Charles Nelson Reilly), who threatens to derail Finch’s rise. Finch suggests Frump as the new head of the mailroom to replace a retiree and goes on to a better position himself. On his first day at the company, Finch meets secretary Rosemary Pilkington (Bonnie Scott), who becomes his girl. Finch’s secretary is Hedy La Rue (Virginia Martin), whom he thinks is Biggley’s mistress. This knowledge—and leading the boss to believe that he is a fellow Groundhog from “Grand Old Ivy”—gets Finch named advertising director. He needs a worthwhile idea and produces a television show starring Hedy. She is a disaster, and the chairman of the board comes to clean house. Biggley retires, and the chairman appoints Finch to replace him. In the last scene, Finch washes windows at the White House in hopes of another promotion.
Howard Taubman, writing in the New York Times, showed boundless enthusiasm for the show, claiming that it “belongs to the blue chips among modern musicals.” He noted that Burrows “has directed brilliantly” and that Loesser “has written lyrics with an edge and tunes with a grin.” Although Loesser’s songs contributed greatly to the show’s success, few became famous outside of its context. Numbers such as “A Secretary Is Not a Toy” and “I Believe in You,” the latter sung by Finch to himself in the washroom mirror, however, were brilliant fun and made Loesser’s final Broadway score notable. Many of the creators of Guys and Dolls returned for How to Succeed. While How to Succeed actually ran longer in its initial production, its predecessor has enjoyed a greater legacy. Morse reprised his role for the 1967 film version (with a slightly altered plot). Matthew Broderick starred in the 1995 Broadway revival, and the 2011 revival starred Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame, followed by two pop stars in succession: Darren Criss and Nick Jonas.
Dialect comedian who worked in vaudeville with his brother Eugene. The duo also appeared in revues, including editions of The Passing Show and George White’s Scandals as well as The Show Is On (1937).
English-born soprano who was a replacement for Eliza Doolittle in the original production of My Fair Lady, played Fiona MacLaren in the 1963 revival of Brigadoon, and created the roles of Kit Sargent in What Makes Sammy Run? (1964) and Aunt Julia Morkan in James Joyce’s The Dead (2000). She is perhaps best known for playing Truly Scrumptuous opposite Dick van Dyke in the 1968 film musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Prolific librettist and lyricist whose credits include the record-breaking farce A Trip to Chinatown (1891). In 1896, he adopted his comedy A Parlor Match as a vehicle for Anna Held.