147-710: Florenz Edward Ziegfeld Jr. ( / ˈ z ɪ ɡ f ɛ l d / ; March 21, 1867 – July 22, 1932) was an American Broadway impresario , notable for his series of theatrical revues , the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931), inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat . He was known as the "glorifier of the American girl". Ziegfeld is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame . Florenz Edward Ziegfeld Jr.
294-713: A 1952 remake called Lovely to Look At . Their next film, Swing Time (1936) included the song " The Way You Look Tonight ", which won the Academy Award in 1936 for the best song. Other songs in Swing Time include " A Fine Romance ", " Pick Yourself Up " and " Never Gonna Dance ". The Oxford Companion to the American Musical calls Swing Time "a strong candidate for the best of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals" and says that, although
441-472: A 7:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. "curtain". The afternoon " matinée " performances are at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays and at 3:00 p.m. on Sundays. This makes for an eight-performance week. On this schedule, most shows do not play on Monday and the shows and theatres are said to be "dark" on that day. The actors and the crew in these shows tend to regard Sunday evening through Monday evening as their weekend. The Tony award presentation ceremony
588-839: A Theater Advisory Council, which included Papp. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City , Broadway theaters closed on March 12, 2020, shuttering 16 shows that were playing or were in the process of opening. The Broadway League shutdown was extended first to April, then to May, then June, then September 2020 and January 2021, and later to June 1, 2021. Then-governor Andrew Cuomo announced that most sectors of New York would have their restrictions lifted on May 19, 2021, but he stated that Broadway theatres would not be able to immediately resume performances on this date due to logistical reasons. In May 2021, Cuomo announced that Broadway theaters would be allowed to reopen on September 14, and
735-661: A Tony Award for her performance in Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood in 1986, and Show Boat received Tony nominations in both 1983 and 1995, winning for best revival in 1995 (among numerous other awards and nominations), and won the Laurence Olivier Award for best revival in 2008. In 1986, Big Deal was nominated for the Tony for best musical, among other awards, and Bob Fosse won as best choreographer. In 2000, Swing! , featuring Kern's "I Won't Dance"
882-449: A booming economy and abundant creative talent kept Broadway hopping. To this day, the shows of the 1950s form the core of the musical theatre repertory." Kenrick notes that "the late 1960s marked a time of cultural upheaval. All those changes would prove painful for many, including those behind the scenes, as well as those in the audience." Of the 1970s, Kenrick writes: "Just when it seemed that traditional book musicals were back in style,
1029-663: A cast. There are still, however, performers who are primarily stage actors, spending most of their time "on the boards", and appearing in screen roles only secondarily. As Patrick Healy of The New York Times noted: Broadway once had many homegrown stars who committed to working on a show for a year, as Nathan Lane has for The Addams Family . In 2010, some theater heavyweights like Mr. Lane were not even nominated; instead, several Tony Awards were given for productions that were always intended to be short-timers on Broadway, given that many of their film-star performers had to move on to other commitments. According to Mark Shenton, "One of
1176-434: A challenge to the stage. At first, films were silent and presented only limited competition. By the end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer were presented with synchronized sound, and critics wondered if cinema would replace live theatre altogether. While live vaudeville could not compete with these inexpensive films that featured vaudeville stars and major comedians of the day, other theatres survived. The musicals of
1323-540: A company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia , and opened with The Merchant of Venice and The Anatomist . The company moved to New York in 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida . During the Revolutionary War , theatre was suspended in New York City. But after
1470-432: A cost of $ 2.5 million, Ziegfeld built the 1600-seat Ziegfeld Theatre on the west side of Sixth Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets. Designed by Joseph Urban and Thomas W. Lamb , the auditorium was egg-shaped, with the stage at the narrow end. A huge medieval-style mural, The Joy of Life , covered the walls and ceiling. To finance the construction, Ziegfeld borrowed from William Randolph Hearst , who took control of
1617-565: A discount of 20 to 50%. The TKTS booths are located in Times Square , in Lower Manhattan , and at Lincoln Center . This service is run by Theatre Development Fund . Many Broadway theatres also offer special student rates, same-day "rush" or "lottery" tickets, or standing-room tickets to help ensure that their theatres are as full—and their grosses as high—as possible. According to The Broadway League , total Broadway attendance
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#17327650612031764-906: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until World War I . A few very successful British musicals continued to achieve great success in New York, including Florodora in 1900–01. In the early years of the twentieth century, translations of popular late-nineteenth century continental operettas were joined by the "Princess Theatre" shows of the 1910s, by writers such as P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton , and Harry B. Smith . Victor Herbert , whose work included some intimate musical plays with modern settings as well as his string of famous operettas ( The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906), and Naughty Marietta (1910)). Beginning with The Red Mill , Broadway shows installed electric signs outside
1911-601: A girl from Hoboken, New Jersey (near Kern's childhood home), who becomes a Broadway star. Opening just before the stock market crash, it received rave reviews, but the elaborate, old-fashioned piece was a step back from the innovations in Show Boat , or even the Princess Theatre shows. In January 1929, at the height of the Jazz Age , and with Show Boat still playing on Broadway, Kern made news on both sides of
2058-515: A hundred of Kern's songs had been used in about thirty productions, mostly Broadway adaptations of West End and European shows. Kern contributed two songs to To-Night's the Night (1914), another Rubens musical. It opened in New York and went on to become a hit in London. The best known of Kern's songs from this period is probably " They Didn't Believe Me ", which was a hit in the New York version of
2205-532: A larger theatre. Other productions are first developed through workshops and then out-of-town tryouts before transferring to Broadway. Merrily We Roll Along famously skipped an out-of-town tryout and attempted to do an in-town tryout—actually preview performances —on Broadway before its official opening, with disastrous results. After, or even during, successful runs in Broadway theatres, producers often remount their productions with new casts and crew for
2352-409: A lifelong friendship and collaboration. As a young man, Kern had been an easy companion with great charm and humor, but he became less outgoing in his middle years, sometimes difficult to work with: he once introduced himself to a producer by saying, "I hear you're a son of a bitch. So am I." He rarely collaborated with any one lyricist for long. With Hammerstein, however, he remained on close terms for
2499-526: A more experimental, challenging, and intimate performance than is possible in the larger Broadway theatres. Some Broadway shows, however, such as the musicals Hair , Little Shop of Horrors , Spring Awakening , Next to Normal , Rent , Avenue Q , In the Heights , Fun Home , A Chorus Line , Dear Evan Hansen , and Hamilton , began their runs Off-Broadway and later transferred to Broadway, seeking to replicate their intimate experience in
2646-488: A musical comedy. ... I like the way the action slides casually into the songs. ... I like the deft rhyming of the song that is always sung in the last act by two comedians and a comedienne. And oh, how I do like Jerome Kern's music. And all these things are even more so in Oh, Lady! Lady!! than they were in Oh, Boy! Oh, Lady! Lady!! was the last successful "Princess Theatre show". Kern and Wodehouse disagreed over money, and
2793-539: A negative COVID-19 test (PCR within 72 hours or antigen within six hours of the performance start time). Beginning November 8, those ages 5–11 also had the option to provide proof of at least one vaccination shot. Effective December 14, in accordance with NYC's vaccination mandate, guests ages 5–11 were required to have at least one vaccination shot until January 29, 2022, where they had to be fully vaccinated. The vaccine mandate lasted until April 30, and attendees were also required to wear face masks until July 1. During
2940-1152: A new age of American playwright with the emergence of Eugene O'Neill , whose plays Beyond the Horizon , Anna Christie , The Hairy Ape , Strange Interlude , and Mourning Becomes Electra proved that there was an audience for serious drama on Broadway, and O'Neill's success paved the way for major dramatists like Elmer Rice , Maxwell Anderson , Robert E. Sherwood , Clifford Odets , Tennessee Williams , and Arthur Miller , as well as writers of comedy like George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart . Classical revivals also proved popular with Broadway theatre-goers, notably John Barrymore in Hamlet and Richard III , John Gielgud in Hamlet , The Importance of Being Earnest and Much Ado About Nothing , Walter Hampden and José Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac , Paul Robeson and Ferrer in Othello , Maurice Evans in Richard II and
3087-411: A posthumous nomination in each of 1945 and 1946. One nomination was in 1945 for Best Original Music Score . Kern was not eligible for any Tony Awards, which were not created until 1947. In 1976, Very Good Eddie was nominated for a Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Revival, and the director and actors received various Tony, Drama Desk and other awards and nominations. Elisabeth Welsh was nominated for
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#17327650612033234-664: A previous lung infection. He had been in Los Angeles only a few days after moving from a New Mexico sanitarium. His death left Burke with substantial debts, driving her toward film acting to settle them. She died on May 14, 1970. He and Burke are interred in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York . Ziegfeld was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame . Ziegfeld appears in a sound prologue to
3381-500: A rate acceptable to the producers, they may continue to run in the expectation that, eventually, they will pay back their initial costs and become profitable. In some borderline situations, producers may ask that royalties be temporarily reduced or waived, or even that performers—with the permission of their unions—take reduced salaries, to prevent a show from closing. Theatre owners, who are not generally profit participants in most productions, may waive or reduce rents, or even lend money to
3528-418: A record for a single-owner sale that stood for over fifty years. Among the books he sold were first or early editions of poems by Robert Burns and Percy Bysshe Shelley , and works by Jonathan Swift , Henry Fielding and Charles Dickens , as well as manuscripts by Alexander Pope , John Keats , Shelley, Lord Byron , Thomas Hardy and others. In 1929 Kern made his first trip to Hollywood to supervise
3675-431: A run of 253 performances. The first theatre piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical, adding dance and original music that helped to tell the story, is considered to be The Black Crook , which premiered in New York on September 12, 1866. The production was five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and
3822-418: A semi-biographical film extravaganza, The Great Ziegfeld , starring William Powell . He was personally chosen for the role by Billie Burke, who felt that while Powell did not physically resemble her late husband, he possessed the right manner. "What I tried to do primarily was to get across the essential spirit of the man", Powell later said, "his love for show business, his exquisite taste, his admiration for
3969-481: A show to keep it running. Some Broadway shows are produced by non-commercial organizations as part of a regular subscription season— Lincoln Center Theatre , Roundabout Theatre Company , Manhattan Theatre Club , and Second Stage Theater are the four non-profit theatre companies that currently have permanent Broadway venues. Some other productions are produced on Broadway with "limited engagement runs" for several reasons, including financial issues, prior engagements of
4116-531: A similar fictionalised parody of Ziegfeld is Victor Feldzieg, producer of Feldzieg's Follies . The Academy Film Archive houses the Florenz Ziegfeld-Billie Burke Collection. The collection consists primarily of home movies. Broadway theatre Broadway theatre , or Broadway , is a theatre genre that consists of the theatrical performances presented in 41 professional theaters , each with 500 or more seats, in
4263-619: A term that can also apply to non-commercial, avant-garde , or productions held outside of traditional theater venues. The Theater District is an internationally prominent tourist attraction in New York City . According to The Broadway League , shows on Broadway sold approximately US$ 1.54 billion worth of tickets in both the 2022-2023 and the 2023–2024 seasons. Both seasons featured theater attendance of approximately 12.3 million each. Most Broadway shows are musicals . Historian Martin Shefter argues that "Broadway musicals, culminating in
4410-581: A time, Kern worked as a rehearsal pianist in Broadway theatres and as a song-plugger for Tin Pan Alley music publishers. While in London, he secured a contract from the American impresario Charles Frohman to provide songs for interpolation in Broadway versions of London shows. He began to provide these additions in 1904 to British scores for An English Daisy , by Seymour Hicks and Walter Slaughter , and Mr. Wix of Wickham , for which he wrote most of
4557-580: A venue for plays under the name Burton's Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847. A riot broke out in 1849 when the lower-class patrons of the Bowery Theatre objected to what they perceived as snobbery by the upper-class audiences at Astor Place: "After the Astor Place Riot of 1849, entertainment in New York City was divided along class lines: opera was chiefly for the upper-middle and upper classes, minstrel shows and melodramas for
Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. - Misplaced Pages Continue
4704-446: Is a staple of stock productions and has been revived numerous times on Broadway and in London. A 1946 revival integrated choreography into the show, in the manner of a Rodgers and Hammerstein production, as did the 1994 Harold Prince – Susan Stroman revival, which was nominated for ten Tony Awards , winning five, including best revival. It was the first musical to enter a major opera company's repertory (New York City Opera, 1954), and
4851-406: Is now regularly revived. Songs from his other shows, however, are still frequently performed and adapted. Many of Kern's songs have been adapted by jazz musicians to become standard tunes . Kern was born in New York City, on Sutton Place , in what was then the city's brewery district. His parents were Henry Kern (1842–1908), a Jewish German immigrant, and Fannie Kern née Kakeles (1852–1907), who
4998-411: Is sold out for months in advance. You can get a seat for Oh, Lady! Lady!! somewhere around the middle of August for just about the price of one on the stock exchange. If you ask me, I will look you fearlessly in the eye and tell you in low, throbbing tones that it has it over any other musical comedy in town. But then Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern are my favorite indoor sport. I like the way they go about
5145-571: Is usually held on a Sunday evening in June to fit this schedule. In recent years, some shows have moved their Tuesday show time an hour earlier to 7:00 pm. The rationale for this move was that since fewer tourists take in shows midweek, Tuesday attendance depends more on local patrons. The earlier curtain makes it possible for suburban patrons to get home by a reasonable hour after the show. Some shows, especially those produced by Disney , change their performance schedules fairly frequently depending on
5292-528: The 1929 film version of Sally , one of the first "all-talking" Technicolor films. The following year, he was there a second time to work on Men of the Sky , released in 1931 without his songs, and a 1930 film version of Sunny . There was a public reaction against the early glut of film musicals after the advent of film sound; Hollywood released more than 100 musical films in 1930, but only 14 in 1931. Warner Bros. bought out Kern's contract, and he returned to
5439-610: The American Theatre Wing , a service organization. While the League and the theatrical unions are sometimes at loggerheads during those periods when new contracts are being negotiated, they also cooperate on many projects and events designed to promote professional theatre in New York. Of the four non-profit theatre companies with Broadway theatres, all four ( Lincoln Center Theater , Manhattan Theatre Club , Roundabout Theatre Company , and Second Stage Theatre ) belong to
5586-652: The Anglican church of St. Mary's in Walton on October 25, 1910. The couple then lived at the Swan when Kern was in England. Kern is believed to have composed music for silent films as early as 1912, but the earliest documented film music which he is known to have written was for a twenty-part serial, Gloria's Romance in 1916. This was one of the first starring vehicles for Billie Burke , for whom Kern had earlier written
5733-692: The Chicago fire of 1871 . His father ran the Chicago Musical College and later opened a nightclub, the Trocadero , to profit from the 1893 World's Fair . To help his father's nightclub succeed, Ziegfeld hired and managed the strongman Eugen Sandow . In London, during a trip to Europe, Ziegfeld met Anna Held , a Polish-French singer of Jewish descent. His promotion of Held in America brought about her meteoric rise to national fame. It
5880-518: The Deanna Durbin Western musical, Can't Help Singing (1944), with lyrics by Harburg, Kern "provided the best original score of Durbin's career, mixing operetta and Broadway sounds in such songs as 'Any Moment Now,' 'Swing Your Partner,' 'More and More,' and the lilting title number." "More and More" was nominated for an Oscar. Kern composed his last film score, Centennial Summer (1946) in which "the songs were as resplendent as
6027-580: The League of Resident Theatres and have contracts with the theatrical unions which are negotiated separately from the other Broadway theatre and producers. ( Disney also negotiates apart from the League, as did Livent before it closed down its operations.) The majority of Broadway theatres are owned or managed by three organizations: the Shubert Organization , a for-profit arm of the non-profit Shubert Foundation, which owns seventeen theatres;
Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. - Misplaced Pages Continue
6174-503: The Nederlander Organization , which controls nine theatres; and ATG Entertainment , which owns seven Broadway houses. Both musicals and straight plays on Broadway often rely on casting well-known performers in leading roles to draw larger audiences or bring in new audience members to the theatre. Actors from film and television are frequently cast for the revivals of Broadway shows or are used to replace actors leaving
6321-520: The Paul Rubens and Sidney Jones musical, The Girl from Utah (1914), for which Kern wrote five songs. Kern's song, with four beats to a bar, departed from the customary waltz -rhythms of European influence and fitted the new American passion for modern dances such as the fox-trot . He was also able to use elements of American styles, such as ragtime, as well as syncopation, in his lively dance tunes. Theatre historian John Kenrick writes that
6468-476: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall , and other light entertainment, tended to ignore plot in favor of emphasizing star actors and actresses, big dance routines, and popular songs. Florenz Ziegfeld produced annual spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was little to tie the various numbers together. Typical of
6615-693: The Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway , in Midtown Manhattan , New York City . Broadway and London 's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world . While the Broadway thoroughfare is eponymous with the district, it is closely identified with Times Square . Only three theaters are located on Broadway itself: Broadway Theatre , Palace Theatre , and Winter Garden Theatre . The rest are located on
6762-908: The Ziegfeld Follies , began with Follies of 1907, which opened on July 7, 1907, and were produced annually until 1931. These extravaganzas , with elaborate costumes and sets, featured beauties chosen personally by Ziegfeld in production numbers choreographed to the works of prominent composers such as Irving Berlin , George Gershwin and Jerome Kern . The Follies featured the famous Ziegfeld girls , female chorus dancers who wore elaborate costumes and performed in synchronization. The Follies featured many performers who, though well known from previous work in other theatrical genres, achieved unique financial success and publicity with Ziegfeld. Included among these are Nora Bayes , Fanny Brice , Ruth Etting , W. C. Fields , Eddie Cantor , Marilyn Miller , Will Rogers , Bert Williams and Ann Pennington . At
6909-803: The stock market crash . In May 1932 he staged a revival of Show Boat that ran for six months—a hit, by Depression standards. That same year, he brought his Follies stars to CBS Radio with The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air . In 1896, Ziegfeld met Anna Held , an actress, in London. Ziegfeld and Held began a common-law marriage in 1897, and she divorced him in 1913, according to her obituary in The New York Times dated August 13, 1918. Held served Ziegfeld with divorce papers on April 14, 1912, and their divorce became final on January 9, 1913. Held had submitted testimony about Ziegfeld's relationship with another woman. The unnamed party in this romantic triangle
7056-409: The 1920s were lighthearted productions such as Sally ; Lady Be Good ; Sunny ; No, No, Nanette ; Harlem ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Their books may have been forgettable, but they produced enduring standards from George Gershwin , Cole Porter , Jerome Kern , Vincent Youmans , and Rodgers and Hart , among others, and Noël Coward , Sigmund Romberg , and Rudolf Friml continued in
7203-425: The 1929 film, Show Boat —a part-talkie based on Edna Ferber 's 1926 novel , not the popular stage adaptation that was still playing on Broadway when the film was released. Universal Pictures originally made Show Boat as a silent, and obtained the rights to the popular Broadway score after the film was shot. The 18-minute prologue is introduced by Ziegfeld and producer Carl Laemmle , and features excerpts from
7350-703: The Air (1932) was another Kern-Hammerstein collaboration and another show-biz plot, best remembered today for " The Song Is You " and " I've Told Ev'ry Little Star ". It was "undoubtedly an operetta", set in the German countryside, but without the Ruritanian trimmings of the operettas of Kern's youth. Roberta (1933) by Kern and Harbach included the songs " Smoke Gets in Your Eyes ", " Let's Begin " and " Yesterdays " and featured, among others, Bob Hope , Fred MacMurray , George Murphy and Sydney Greenstreet all in
7497-465: The Atlantic for reasons wholly unconnected with music. He sold at auction, at New York's Anderson Galleries , the collection of English and American literature that he had been building up for more than a decade. The collection, rich in inscribed first editions and manuscript material of eighteenth and nineteenth century authors, sold for a total of $ 1,729,462.50 (equivalent to $ 30,687,895 in 2023) –
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#17327650612037644-536: The Broadway national tour, which travels to theatres in major cities across the country. Sometimes when a show closes on Broadway, the entire production, with most if not all of the original cast intact, is relaunched as a touring company, hence the name "Broadway national tour". Some shows may even have several touring companies out at a time, whether the show is still running in New York or not, with many companies "sitting down" in other major cities for their own extended runs. For Broadway national tours of top-tier cities,
7791-619: The Broadway orchestra is governed by an agreement with the musicians' union (Local 802, American Federation of Musicians) and The Broadway League. For example, the agreement specifies the minimum size of the orchestra at the Minskoff Theatre to be eighteen, while at the Music Box Theatre it is nine. Most Broadway shows are commercial productions intended to make a profit for the producers and investors ("backers" or "angels"), and therefore have open-ended runs (duration that
7938-738: The COVID-19 shutdown, the Shubert Organization, the Nederlander Organization, and Jujamcyn had pledged to increase racial and cultural diversity in their theaters, including naming at least one theater for a Black theatrical personality. The August Wilson Theatre , owned by Jujamcyn, had been renamed after Black playwright August Wilson in 2005. The Shuberts announced in March 2022 that the Cort Theatre , which
8085-517: The Cakewalk (1898), and the highly successful In Dahomey (1902). Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 1900s made up of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley involving composers such as Gus Edwards , John Walter Bratton , and George M. Cohan ( Little Johnny Jones (1904), 45 Minutes From Broadway (1906), and George Washington Jr. (1906)). Still, New York runs continued to be relatively short, with
8232-456: The Erlanger syndicate. During this time, the play Lightnin' by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon became the first Broadway show to reach 700 performances. From then, it would go on to become the first show to reach 1,000 performances. Lightnin' was the longest-running Broadway show until being overtaken in performance totals by Abie's Irish Rose in 1925. The motion picture mounted
8379-742: The Lark"), the last having a distinctly operetta-like character. Kern and his wife, Eva, often vacationed on their yacht Show Boat . He collected rare books and enjoyed betting on horses. At the time of Kern's death, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was filming a fictionalized version of his life, Till the Clouds Roll By , which was released in 1946 starring Robert Walker as Kern. In the film, Kern's songs are sung by Judy Garland , Kathryn Grayson , June Allyson , Lena Horne , Dinah Shore , Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury , among others, and Gower Champion and Cyd Charisse appear as dancers. Many of
8526-457: The League confirmed that performances would begin to resume in the fall season. Springsteen on Broadway became the first full-length show to resume performances, opening on June 26, 2021, to 1,721 vaccinated patrons at the St. James Theatre . Pass Over then had its first preview on August 4, and opened on August 22, 2021, becoming the first new play to open. Hadestown and Waitress were
8673-700: The London hit Theodore & Co (1916; most of the songs are by the young Ivor Novello ) and to revues like the Ziegfeld Follies . The most notable of his scores were those for a series of shows written for the Princess Theatre , a small (299-seat) house built by Ray Comstock . Theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury asked Kern and librettist Guy Bolton to create a series of intimate and low-budget, yet smart, musicals. The "Princess Theatre shows" were unique on Broadway not only for their small size, but their clever, coherent plots, integrated scores and naturalistic acting, which presented "a sharp contrast to
8820-604: The Opera at the Majestic Theatre became the longest-running Broadway musical, with 7,486 performances, overtaking Cats . The Phantom of the Opera closed on Broadway on April 16, 2023, soon after celebrating its 35th anniversary, after a total of 13,981 performances. Attending a Broadway show is a common tourist activity in New York. The TKTS booths sell same-day tickets (and in certain cases, next-day matinee tickets) for many Broadway and Off-Broadway shows at
8967-535: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy". Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham . These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from
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#17327650612039114-492: The authors and also in numerous unlicensed productions). They were imitated in New York by American productions such as Reginald Dekoven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896), along with operas, ballets, and other British and European hits. Charles H. Hoyt 's A Trip to Chinatown (1891) became Broadway's long-run champion when it surpassed Adonis and its 603 total performances in 1893, holding
9261-444: The award for Outstanding Cinematography ( Gerald Finnerman ). Ziegfeld appears as a character in a number of films: In the Broadway musical Crazy For You (1992), the character Bela Zangler is a fictionalised version of Ziegeld, having his own "Zangler's Follies" and his character being driven by a love for the young folly Tess despite being married, much like Ziegfeld's own affair with Lillian Lorraine . In The Drowsy Chaperone ,
9408-437: The beauty of women. He was financially impractical but aesthetically impeccable—a genius in his chosen field." Nominated for seven Academy Awards , The Great Ziegfeld received Oscars for Best Picture , Best Actress ( Luise Rainer as Anna Held), and Best Dance Direction (Seymour Felix), for the astonishingly opulent production number, " A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody "—one of the most famous musical sequences ever filmed. It
9555-435: The beginning of the nineteenth century, the area that now comprises the Theater District was owned by a handful of families and comprised a few farms. In 1836, Mayor Cornelius Lawrence opened 42nd Street and invited Manhattanites to "enjoy the pure clean air." Close to 60 years later, theatrical entrepreneur Oscar Hammerstein I built the iconic Victoria Theater on West 42nd Street. Broadway's first "long-run" musical
9702-476: The biggest changes to the commercial theatrical landscape—on both sides of the Atlantic—over the past decade or so is that sightings of big star names turning out to do plays has [sic] gone up; but the runs they are prepared to commit to has gone down. Time was that a producer would require a minimum commitment from his star of six months, and perhaps a year; now, the 13-week run is the norm." The minimum size of
9849-550: The bill was not passed. The Save the Theatres campaign then turned their efforts to supporting the establishment of the Theater District as a registered historic district . In December 1983, Save the Theatres prepared "The Broadway Theater District, a Preservation Development and Management Plan", and demanded that each theater in the district receive landmark designation. Mayor Ed Koch ultimately reacted by creating
9996-469: The biographical elements are fictionalized. In the fall of 1945, Kern returned to New York City to oversee auditions for a new revival of Show Boat , and began to work on the score for what would become the musical Annie Get Your Gun , to be produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein. On November 5, 1945, at 60 years of age, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while walking at the corner of Park Avenue and 57th Street. Identifiable only by his ASCAP card, Kern
10143-528: The commission, Kern oversaw an arrangement by Charles Miller and Emil Gerstenberger of numbers from the show into the orchestral work Scenario for Orchestra: Themes from Show Boat , premiered in 1941 by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Rodziński. Kern's last Broadway show in the 1920s was Sweet Adeline (1929), with a libretto by Hammerstein. It was a period piece, set in the Gay 90s, about
10290-552: The composer decided to move on to other projects. Kern's importance to the partnership was illustrated by the fate of the last musical of the series, Oh, My Dear! (1918), to which he contributed only one song: "Go, Little Boat". The rest of the show was composed by Louis Hirsch and ran for 189 performances: "Despite a respectable run, everyone realized there was little point in continuing the series without Kern." The 1920s were an extremely productive period in American musical theatre, and Kern created at least one show every year for
10437-532: The day, dismissed it as "American inanity," though both Kern and Hammerstein were strong and knowledgeable Anglophiles. Kern's last Broadway show (other than revivals) was Very Warm for May (1939), another show-biz story and another disappointment, although the score included the Kern and Hammerstein classic " All The Things You Are ". In 1935, when musical films had become popular once again, thanks to Busby Berkeley , Kern returned to Hollywood, where he composed
10584-422: The decade ended with critics and audiences giving mixed signals." Ken Bloom observed that "The 1960s and 1970s saw a worsening of the area [Times Square] and a drop in the number of legitimate shows produced on Broadway." By way of comparison, in the 1950 to 1951 season (May to May) 94 productions opened on Broadway; in the 1969 to 1970 season (June to May) there were 59 productions (fifteen were revivals). In
10731-538: The decade, and popularized the song " Look for the Silver Lining " (which had been written for an earlier show), performed by the rising star Marilyn Miller . It also had a long run in London in 1921, produced by George Grossmith Jr. Kern's next shows were Good Morning, Dearie (1921, with Caldwell) which ran for 347 performances; followed in 1922 by a West End success, The Cabaret Girl in collaboration with Grossmith and Wodehouse; another modest success by
10878-434: The early stages of their careers. Kern's Three Sisters (1934), was his last West End show, with a libretto by Hammerstein. The musical, depicting horse-racing, the circus, and class distinctions, was a failure, running for only two months. Its song " I Won't Dance " was used in the film Roberta . Some British critics objected to American writers essaying a British story; James Agate , doyen of London theatre critics of
11025-679: The effort. At Papp's behest, in July 1982, a bill was introduced in the 97th Congress , entitled "H.R.6885, A bill to designate the Broadway/Times Square Theatre District in the City of New York as a national historic site". The legislation would have provided certain U.S. government resources and assistance to help the city preserve the district. Faced with strong opposition and lobbying by Mayor Ed Koch's Administration and corporate Manhattan development interests,
11172-404: The employment of syncopation and jazz progressions, built on, rather than rejected, earlier musical theatre tradition. He and his collaborators also employed his melodies to further the action or develop characterization to a greater extent than in the other musicals of his day, creating the model for later musicals. Although dozens of Kern's musicals and musical films were hits, only Show Boat
11319-473: The entire Broadway production is transplanted almost entirely intact and may run for many months (or years) at each stop. For example, the first U.S. tour of The Phantom of the Opera required 26 53-foot-long (16.1 m) semi-trailers to transport all its sets, equipment, and costumes, and it took almost 10 days to properly unload all those trucks and install everything into a theater. Jerome Kern Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945)
11466-418: The entire decade. His first show of 1920 was The Night Boat , with book and lyrics by Anne Caldwell , which ran for more than 300 performances in New York and for three seasons on tour. Later in the same year, Kern wrote the score for Sally , with a book by Bolton and lyrics by Otto Harbach . This show, staged by Florenz Ziegfeld, ran for 570 performances, one of the longest runs of any Broadway show in
11613-456: The everyday life of New York's lower classes and represented a significant step forward from vaudeville and burlesque, towards a more literate form. They starred high-quality professional singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal , and Fay Templeton ), instead of the amateurs, often sex workers, who had starred in earlier musical forms. As transportation improved, poverty in New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night,
11760-416: The first musicals to resume performances on September 2, 2021. The 74th Tony Awards were also postponed; the Tony nominations were announced on October 15, 2020, and took place on September 26, 2021. On July 30, 2021, it was announced that all Broadway theaters required attendees to provide proof of full COVID-19 vaccination . The rule applied to guests ages 12+. Those under age 12 were required to provide
11907-471: The first to introduce Kern's songs to the London stage. In 1909 during one of his stays in England, Kern took a boat trip on the River Thames with some friends, and when the boat stopped at Walton-on-Thames , they went to an inn called the Swan for a drink. Kern was much taken with the proprietor's daughter, Eva Leale (1891–1959), who was working behind the bar. He wooed her, and they were married at
12054-481: The first. With Hammerstein, he wrote songs for the film versions of his recent Broadway shows Music in the Air (1934), which starred Gloria Swanson in a rare singing role, and Sweet Adeline (1935). With Dorothy Fields , he composed the new music for I Dream Too Much (1935), a musical melodrama about the opera world, starring the Metropolitan Opera diva Lily Pons . Kern and Fields interspersed
12201-454: The large-scale Ruritanian operettas then in vogue" or the star-studded revues and extravaganzas of producers like Florenz Ziegfeld . Earlier musical comedy had often been thinly plotted, gaudy pieces, marked by the insertion of songs into their scores with little regard to the plot. But Kern and Bolton followed the examples of Gilbert and Sullivan and French opéra bouffe in integrating song and story. "These shows built and polished
12348-495: The last phase of his theatrical composing career, Kern continued to work with his previous collaborators but also met Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach, with whom Kern wrote his most lasting, memorable, and well-known works. The most successful of these are as follows: In addition to revivals of his most popular shows, Kern's music has been posthumously featured in a variety of revues, musicals and concerts on and off Broadway. Among
12495-422: The leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr. , Guy Bolton , P. G. Wodehouse , Otto Harbach , Oscar Hammerstein II , Dorothy Fields , Johnny Mercer , Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg . A native New Yorker , Kern created dozens of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films in a career that lasted for more than four decades. His musical innovations, such as 4/4 dance rhythms and
12642-474: The long run of Oh Boy! An anonymous admirer wrote a verse in their praise that begins: This is the trio of musical fame, Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern. Better than anyone else you can name Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern. In February 1918, Dorothy Parker wrote in Vanity Fair : Well, Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern have done it again. Every time these three gather together, the Princess Theatre
12789-557: The middle-class, variety shows in concert saloons for men of the working class and the slumming middle-class." The plays of William Shakespeare were frequently performed on the Broadway stage during the period, most notably by American actor Edwin Booth who was internationally known for his performance as Hamlet . Booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865 (with
12936-424: The mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within the limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization." The shows featured modern American settings and simple scene changes to suit
13083-423: The more than 700 songs by Kern are such classics as " They Didn't Believe Me " (1914), " Look for the Silver Lining " (1920), " Ol' Man River ", " Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man ", " Make Believe ", " You Are Love " and " Bill " (all from Show Boat , 1927), " The Song Is You " (1932), " Smoke Gets in Your Eyes ", " Yesterdays " and " Let's Begin " (all from Roberta , 1933), " I Won't Dance " (1935), " A Fine Romance " and
13230-541: The most notable such shows from this period: From 1912 to 1924, the more-experienced Kern began to work on dramatically concerned shows, including incidental music for plays, and, for the first time since his college show Uncle Tom's Cabin , he wrote musicals as the sole composer. His regular lyricist collaborators for his more than 30 shows during this period were Bolton, Wodehouse, Caldwell, Harry B. Smith and Howard Dietz . Some of his most notable shows during this very productive period were as follows: During
13377-420: The next sixteen years. However, smaller vaudeville and variety houses proliferated, and Off-Broadway was well established by the end of the nineteenth century. A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans in a Broadway theatre (inspired largely by the routines of the minstrel shows ), followed by the ragtime -tinged Clorindy: The Origin of
13524-502: The number of potential patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits and improved production values. As in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women. Gilbert and Sullivan 's family-friendly comic opera hits, beginning with H.M.S. Pinafore in 1878, were imported to New York (by
13671-632: The numbered cross streets, extending from the Nederlander Theatre one block south of Times Square on West 41st Street, north along either side of Broadway to 53rd Street , and Vivian Beaumont Theater , at Lincoln Center on West 65th Street. While exceptions exist, the term "Broadway theatre" is used predominantly to describe venues with seating capacities of at least 500 people. Smaller theaters in New York City are referred to as off-Broadway , regardless of location, while very small venues with fewer than 100 seats are called off-off-Broadway ,
13818-518: The only one of his shows that is regularly performed today." The score is, arguably, Kern's greatest and includes the well-known songs " Ol' Man River " and " Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man " as well as " Make Believe ", " You Are Love ", "Life Upon the Wicked Stage", "Why Do I Love You", all with lyrics by Hammerstein, and " Bill ", originally written for Oh, Lady! Lady! , with lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse. The show ran for 572 performances on Broadway and
13965-611: The only time he set a pre-written lyric, and his only hit song not written as part of a musical. Originally a hit for Tony Martin and later for Noël Coward , the song was used in the film Lady Be Good (1941) and won Kern another Oscar for best song. Kern's second and last symphonic work was his ' Mark Twain Suite (1942). In his last Hollywood musicals, Kern worked with several new and distinguished partners. With Johnny Mercer for You Were Never Lovelier (1942), he contributed "a set of memorable songs to entertain audiences until
14112-461: The opera numbers with their songs, including "the swinging 'I Got Love,' the lullaby 'The Jockey on the Carousel,' and the entrancing title song." Also with Fields, he wrote two new songs, " I Won't Dance " and "Lovely to Look At", for the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film version of Roberta (1935), which was a hit. The show also included the song " I'll Be Hard to Handle ". This was given
14259-556: The performers, or temporary availability of a theatre between the end of one production and the beginning of another. However, some shows with planned limited engagement runs may, after critical acclaim or box office success, extend their engagements or convert to open-ended runs. This was the case with 2007's August: Osage County , 2009's God of Carnage , 2012's Newsies , and 2022's Take Me Out . Historically, musicals on Broadway tend to have longer runs than "straight" (i.e., non-musical) plays. On January 9, 2006, The Phantom of
14406-496: The piece to give it its full epic grandeur. According to the theatre historian John Kenrick: "After the opening night audience filed out of the Ziegfeld Theatre in near silence, Ziegfeld thought his worst fears had been confirmed. He was pleasantly surprised when the next morning brought ecstatic reviews and long lines at the box office. In fact, Show Boat proved to be the most lasting accomplishment of Ziegfeld's career –
14553-468: The plays of George Bernard Shaw , and Katharine Cornell in such plays as Romeo and Juliet , Antony and Cleopatra , and Candida . In 1930, Theatre Guild 's production of Roar, China! was Broadway's first play with a majority Asian cast. As World War II approached, a dozen Broadway dramas addressed the rise of Nazism in Europe and the issue of American non-intervention. The most successful
14700-461: The plot came to its inevitable conclusion". The film starred Astaire and Rita Hayworth and included the song " I'm Old Fashioned ". Kern's next collaboration was with Ira Gershwin on Cover Girl starring Hayworth and Gene Kelly (1944) for which Kern composed "Sure Thing","Put Me to the Test," "Make Way for Tomorrow" (lyric by E. Y. Harburg ), and the hit ballad " Long Ago (and Far Away) ". For
14847-423: The production plays), meaning that the length of their presentation is not set beforehand, but depends on critical response, word of mouth, and the effectiveness of the show's advertising, all of which determine ticket sales. Investing in a commercial production carries a varied degree of financial risk. Shows need not make a profit immediately; should they make their "nut" (weekly operating expenses), or lose money at
14994-645: The productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein , became enormously influential forms of American popular culture " and contributed to making New York City the cultural capital of the world . New York City's first significant theatre was established in the mid-18th century, around 1750, when actor-managers Walter Murray and Thomas Kean established a resident theatre company at the Theatre on Nassau Street in Lower Manhattan , which held about 280 people. They presented William Shakespeare 's plays and ballad operas such as The Beggar's Opera . In 1752, William Hallam sent
15141-502: The rediscovery of the 1927 score with Robert Russell Bennett 's original orchestrations led to a large-scale EMI recording in 1987 and several opera-house productions. In 1941, the conductor Artur Rodziński wished to commission a symphonic suite from the score, but Kern considered himself a songwriter and not a symphonist. He never orchestrated his own scores, leaving that to musical assistants, principally Frank Saddler (until 1921) and Robert Russell Bennett (from 1923). In response to
15288-590: The rest of his life. Not long after his divorce from Held, Ziegfeld married actress Billie Burke on April 11, 1914. They had met at a New Year's Eve party. They had one child, Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson (1916–2008). The family lived on his estate in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York , and in Palm Beach, Florida . Ziegfeld died in Hollywood, California on July 22, 1932, from pleurisy , related to
15435-582: The rest of his life. Their first show, written together with Harbach, was Sunny , which featured the song " Who (Stole My Heart Away)? " Marilyn Miller played the title role, as she had in Sally . The show ran for 517 performances on Broadway, and the following year ran for 363 performances in the West End, starring Binnie Hale and Jack Buchanan . Because of the strong success of Sally and Sunny and consistent good results with his other shows, Ziegfeld
15582-531: The run ending just a few months before Booth's brother John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln ), and would later revive the role at his own Booth's Theatre (which was managed for a time by his brother Junius Brutus Booth Jr. ). Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving , Tommaso Salvini , Fanny Davenport , and Charles Fechter . Theatre in New York moved from Downtown gradually to Midtown Manhattan , beginning around 1850, seeking less expensive real estate. At
15729-612: The same team, The Beauty Prize (1923); and a Broadway flop, The Bunch and Judy , remembered, if at all, as the first time Kern and Fred Astaire worked together. Stepping Stones (1923, with Caldwell) was a success, and in 1924 the Princess Theatre team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern reunited to write Sitting Pretty , but it did not recapture the popularity of the earlier collaborations. Its relative failure may have been partly due to Kern's growing aversion to having individual songs from his shows performed out of context on radio, in cabaret, or on record, although his chief objection
15876-536: The school's first musical, a minstrel show , in 1901, and for an amateur musical adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin put on at the Newark Yacht Club in January 1902. Kern left high school before graduation in the spring of his senior year in 1902. In response, Kern's father insisted that his son work with him in business, instead of composing. Kern, however, failed miserably in one of his earliest tasks: he
16023-537: The scores to a dozen more films, although he also continued working on Broadway productions. He settled permanently in Hollywood in 1937. After suffering a heart attack in 1939, he was told by his doctors to concentrate on film scores, a less stressful task, as Hollywood songwriters were not as deeply involved with the production of their works as Broadway songwriters. This second phase of Kern's Hollywood career had considerably greater artistic and commercial success than
16170-409: The screenplay is contrived, it "left plenty of room for dance and all of it was superb. ... Although the movie is remembered as one of the great dance musicals, it also boasts one of the best film scores of the 1930s." For the 1936 film version of Show Boat , Kern and Hammerstein wrote three new songs, including "I Have The Room Above Her" and "Ah Still Suits Me". High, Wide, and Handsome (1937)
16317-473: The season. This is done in order to maximize access to their target audience. Most Broadway producers and theatre owners are members of The Broadway League (formerly "The League of American Theatres and Producers"), a trade organization that promotes Broadway theatre as a whole, negotiates contracts with the various theatrical unions and agreements with the guilds, and co-administers the Tony Awards with
16464-501: The small theatre. The team's first Princess Theatre show was an adaptation of Paul Rubens' 1905 London show, Mr. Popple (of Ippleton) , called Nobody Home (1915). The piece ran for 135 performances and was a modest financial success. However, it did little to fulfill the new team's mission to innovate, except that Kern's song, "The Magic Melody", was the first Broadway showtune with a basic jazz progression. Kern and Bolton next created an original piece, Very Good Eddie , which
16611-478: The song "Mind the Paint", with lyrics by A. W. Pinero . The film is now considered lost , but Kern's music survives. Another score for the silent movies, Jubilo , followed in 1919. Kern was one of the founding members of ASCAP . Kern's first complete score was Broadway's The Red Petticoat (1912), one of the first musical-comedy Westerns. The libretto was by Rida Johnson Young . By World War I , more than
16758-520: The song put Kern in great demand on Broadway and established a pattern for musical comedy love songs that lasted through the 1960s. In May 1915, Kern was due to sail with Charles Frohman from New York to London on board the RMS Lusitania , but Kern missed the boat, having overslept after staying up late playing poker. Frohman died in the sinking of the ship. Kern composed 16 Broadway scores between 1915 and 1920 and also contributed songs to
16905-720: The songs. In 1905, Kern contributed the song "How'd you like to spoon with me?" to Ivan Caryll 's hit musical The Earl and the Girl when the show transferred to Chicago and New York in 1905. He also contributed to the New York production of The Catch of the Season (1905), The Little Cherub (1906) and The Orchid (1907), among other shows. From 1905 on, he spent long periods of time in London, contributing songs to West End shows like The Beauty of Bath (1906; with lyricist P. G. Wodehouse ) and making valuable contacts, including George Grossmith Jr. and Seymour Hicks, who were
17052-470: The stage for 657 performances. Chinatown itself was surpassed by the musical Irene (1919) in 1921 as the longest-running Broadway musical, and even earlier, in March 1920, by Lightnin' (1918) as the longest-running Broadway show. In 1896, theatre owners Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger formed the Theatrical Syndicate , which controlled almost every legitimate theatre in the U.S. for
17199-815: The stage production performed by cast members Jules Bledsoe , Tess Gardella , Helen Morgan and the Broadway chorus. Two subsequent adaptations of Show Boat , in 1936 and 1951 , were based on the stage musical. Technicolor screen versions of three of Ziegfeld's stage musicals were produced in the early sound film era. RKO Pictures had its first hit with its lavish presentation of Rio Rita (1929), starring Bebe Daniels and John Boles . Marilyn Miller reprised one of her greatest stage successes in Sally (1929). Eddie Cantor reprised his popular Broadway role in Whoopee! (1930), which Ziegfeld himself produced with Samuel Goldwyn . In 1936 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released
17346-515: The stage. He collaborated with Harbach on the Broadway musical The Cat and the Fiddle (1931), about a composer and an opera singer, featuring the songs " She Didn't Say Yes " and "The Night Was Made for Love". It ran for 395 performances, a remarkable success for the Depression years, and transferred to London the following year. It was filmed in 1934 with Jeanette MacDonald . Music in
17493-547: The story and characters were mediocre. ... Oscar Hammerstein, Leo Robin , and E. Y. Harburg contributed lyrics for Kern's lovely music, resulting in the soulful ballad 'All Through the Day,' the rustic 'Cinderella Sue,' the cheerful 'Up With the Lark,' and the torchy 'In Love in Vain.'" "All Through the Day" was another Oscar nominee. The music of Kern's last two films is notable in the way it developed from his earlier work. Some of it
17640-572: The task of writing the score for Annie Get Your Gun to the veteran Broadway composer Irving Berlin . Kern is interred at Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester County, New York . His daughter, Elizabeth "Betty" Jane Kern (1918–1996) married Artie Shaw in 1942 and later Jack Cummings . Kern's wife eventually remarried, to a singer named George Byron. Jerome Kern was nominated eight times for an Academy Award, and won twice. Seven nominations were for Best Original Song ; these included
17787-747: The theater after Ziegfeld's death. The Ziegfeld Theatre opened in February 1927 with Ziegfeld's production of Rio Rita , which ran for nearly 500 performances. This was followed by Show Boat , a great hit with a run of 572 performances. This musical, which concerned racial discrimination in the South during the late nineteenth century, was a collaboration between Ziegfeld, Urban, and composer Jerome Kern . The musical has been revived four times on Broadway, winning multiple Tony Awards . The score features several classics such as " Ol' Man River " and " Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man ". Ziegfeld lost much of his money in
17934-534: The theatres. Since colored bulbs burned out too quickly, white lights were used, and Broadway was nicknamed "The Great White Way". In August 1919, the Actors' Equity Association demanded a standard contract for all professional productions. After a strike shut down all the theatres, the producers were forced to agree. By the 1920s, the Shubert Brothers had risen to take over the majority of the theatres from
18081-481: The theatrical producer and director who established The Public Theater , led the "Save the Theatres" campaign. It was a not-for-profit group supported by the Actors Equity union to save the theater buildings in the neighborhood from demolition by monied Manhattan development interests. Papp provided resources, recruited a publicist and celebrated actors, and provided audio, lighting, and technical crews for
18228-461: The time, the average age of theatergoers was 40.4; nearly two-thirds of the audience were women; and 29% identified as a racial minority. The classification of theatres is governed by language in Actors' Equity Association contracts. To be eligible for a Tony, a production must be in a house with 500 seats or more and in the Theater District, which are the criteria that define Broadway theatre. Off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway shows often provide
18375-568: The twenties, there were 70–80 theaters, but by 1969, there were 36 left. During this time, many Broadway productions struggled due to low attendance rates, which resulted in perceived mediocrity among such plays. For this reason, the Theatre Development Fund was created with the purpose of assisting productions with high cultural value that likely would struggle without subsidization, by offering tickets to those plays to consumers at reduced prices. In early 1982, Joe Papp ,
18522-568: The vein of Victor Herbert. Live theatre has survived the invention of cinema. Leaving these comparatively frivolous entertainments behind and taking the drama a step forward, Show Boat premiered on December 27, 1927, at the Ziegfeld Theatre . It represented a complete integration of book and score, with dramatic themes, as told through the music, dialogue, setting, and movement, woven together more seamlessly than in previous musicals. It ran for 572 performances. The 1920s also spawned
18669-692: The war's end, theatre resumed in 1798, when the 2,000-seat Park Theatre was built on Chatham Street on present-day Park Row . A second major theatre, Bowery Theatre , opened in 1826, followed by others. By the 1840s, P.T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in Lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblo's Garden opened and soon became one of New York's premier nightspots. The 3,000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmo's Opera House opened and presented opera for only four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as
18816-571: Was Lillian Hellman 's Watch on the Rhine , which opened in April 1941. After the lean years of the Great Depression , Broadway theatre had entered a golden age with the blockbuster hit Oklahoma! , in 1943, which ran for 2,212 performances. According to John Kenrick 's writings on Broadway musicals, "Every season saw new stage musicals send songs to the top of the charts. Public demand,
18963-539: Was 14.77 million in 2018–2019, compared to 13.79 million in 2017–2018. The average age of the Broadway audience in the 2017–18 theater season was 40, the lowest it had been in nearly two decades. By 2018, about 20% of Broadway tickets were sold to international visitors, although many visitors reported not being able to use their tickets. In 2022–2023, the first full season since the COVID-19 pandemic, Broadway theaters sold 12.3 million tickets, of which 35% were to local residents and 17% to international visitors. At
19110-485: Was Held who first suggested an American imitation of the Parisian Folies Bergère to Ziegfeld. Her success in a series of his Broadway shows, especially A Parisian Model (1906), was a major reason for his starting a series of lavish revues in 1907. Much of Held's popularity was due to Ziegfeld's creation of publicity stunts and rumors fed to the American press. Ziegfeld's stage spectaculars, known as
19257-432: Was MGM's most expensive production since Ben-Hur (1925), and it made back twice its cost. Released by MGM ten years later, Ziegfeld Follies (1946) was an all-star revue that includes Powell in a cameo role as Ziegfeld. A 1978 NBC - television film , Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women , stars Paul Shenar as Ziegfeld. Directed by Buzz Kulik , the three-hour biopic was nominated for seven Emmy Awards and received
19404-591: Was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857. In 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square , and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square . Theatres arrived in the Times Square area in the early 1900s, and the Broadway theatres consolidated there after a large number were built around the square in the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" The Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York records with
19551-633: Was a surprise hit, running for 341 performances, with additional touring productions that went on into the 1918-19 season. The British humorist, lyricist and librettist P. G. Wodehouse joined the Princess team in 1917, adding his skill as a lyricist to the succeeding shows. Oh, Boy! (1917) ran for an extraordinary 463 performances. Other shows written for the theatre were Have a Heart (1917), Leave It to Jane (1917) and Oh, Lady! Lady!! (1918). The first opened at another theatre before Very Good Eddie closed. The second played elsewhere during
19698-626: Was also a success in London. Although Ferber's novel was filmed unsuccessfully as a part-talkie in 1929 (using some songs from the Kern score), the musical itself was filmed twice, in 1936 , and, with Technicolor , in 1951 . In 1989, a stage version of the musical was presented on television for the first time, in a production from the Paper Mill Playhouse telecast by PBS on Great Performances . While most Kern musicals have largely been forgotten, except for their songs, Show Boat remains well-remembered and frequently seen. It
19845-538: Was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as " Ol' Man River ", " Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man ", " A Fine Romance ", " Smoke Gets in Your Eyes ", " The Song Is You ", " All the Things You Are ", " The Way You Look Tonight " and " Long Ago (and Far Away) ". He collaborated with many of
19992-579: Was an American Jew of Bohemian parentage. At the time of Kern's birth, his father ran a livery stable ; later he became a successful merchant. Kern grew up on East 56th Street in Manhattan , where he attended public schools. He showed an early aptitude for music and was taught to play the piano and organ by his mother, a professional player and teacher. In 1897, the family moved to Newark, New Jersey , where Kern attended Newark High School (which became Barringer High School in 1907). He wrote songs for
20139-522: Was born on March 21, 1867, in Chicago , Illinois. His mother, Rosalie ( née de Hez), who was born in Belgium , was the grandniece of General Count Étienne Maurice Gérard . His father, Florenz Edward Ziegfeld, was a German immigrant whose father was the mayor of Jever in Friesland . Ziegfeld was baptized in his mother's Roman Catholic church. His father was Lutheran . As a child Ziegfeld witnessed
20286-477: Was initially taken to the indigent ward at City Hospital, later being transferred to Doctors Hospital in Manhattan. Hammerstein was at his side when Kern's breathing stopped. Hammerstein hummed or sang the song "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star" from Music in the Air (a personal favorite of the composer's) into Kern's ear. Receiving no response, Hammerstein realized Kern had died. Rodgers and Hammerstein then assigned
20433-681: Was intentionally similar in plot and style to Show Boat , but it was a box-office failure. Kern songs were also used in the Cary Grant film, When You're in Love (1937), and the first Abbott and Costello feature, One Night in the Tropics (1940). In 1940, Hammerstein wrote the lyric " The Last Time I Saw Paris ", in homage to the French capital, recently occupied by the Germans. Kern set it,
20580-596: Was named after Kern by his Dixieland bandleader father. Note: All shows listed are musical comedies for which Kern was the sole composer unless otherwise specified. During his first phase of work (1904–1911), Kern wrote songs for 22 Broadway productions, including songs interpolated into British musicals or featured in revues (sometimes writing lyrics as well as music), and he occasionally co-wrote musicals with one or two other composers. During visits to London beginning in 1905, he also composed songs that were first performed in several London shows. The following are some of
20727-669: Was nominated for the Tony for Best Musical, among others. In 2002, Elaine Stritch at Liberty , featuring Kern's "All in Fun", won the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. In 2004, Never Gonna Dance received two Tony nominations. Kern was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame posthumously, in 1970. In 1985, the U.S. Post Office issued a postage stamp (Scott #2110, 22¢), with an illustration of Kern holding sheet music. The Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia
20874-445: Was showgirl Lillian Lorraine , an entertainer of limited talent but charismatic stage presence and beauty whom Ziegfeld discovered in 1907 when she was a 15-year-old performer in a Shubert production. Ziegfeld spent years promoting her career, transforming her into one of the most popular attractions in his Follies and establishing her in an apartment two floors above the residence he shared with Held. He remained in love with Lorraine for
21021-745: Was supposed to purchase two pianos for the store, but instead he ordered 200. His father relented, and later in 1902, Kern became a student at the New York College of Music , studying the piano under Alexander Lambert and Paolo Gallico, and harmony under Dr. Austin Pierce. His first published composition, a piano piece, At the Casino , appeared in the same year. Between 1903 and 1905, he continued his musical training under private tutors in Heidelberg , Germany, returning to New York via London. For
21168-458: Was to jazz interpretations of his songs. He called himself a "musical clothier – nothing more or less," and said, "I write music to both the situations and the lyrics in plays." When Sitting Pretty was produced, he forbade any broadcasting or recording of individual numbers from the show, which limited their chance to gain popularity. 1925 was a major turning point in Kern's career when he met Oscar Hammerstein II , with whom he would entertain
21315-407: Was too advanced for the film companies; Kern's biographer, Stephen Banfield , refers to "tonal experimentation ... outlandish enharmonics" that the studios insisted on cutting. At the same time, in some ways his music came full circle: having in his youth helped to end the reigns of the waltz and operetta, he now composed three of his finest waltzes ("Can't Help Singing", "Californ-i-ay" and "Up With
21462-720: Was under renovation at the time, would be renamed after actor James Earl Jones . In June 2022, the Nederlanders announced that the Brooks Atkinson Theatre would be renamed after Lena Horne , The James Earl Jones Theatre was rededicated in September 2022, while the Lena Horne Theatre was rededicated that November. Although there are some exceptions, shows with open-ended runs generally have evening performances Tuesday through Saturday, with
21609-406: Was willing to gamble on Kern's next project in 1927. Kern had been impressed by Edna Ferber 's novel Show Boat and wished to present a musical stage version. He persuaded Hammerstein to adapt it and Ziegfeld to produce it. The story, dealing with racism, marital strife and alcoholism, was unheard of in the escapist world of musical comedy. Despite his doubts, Ziegfeld spared no expense in staging
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