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20th CENTURY BROADWAY AND BEYOND: A CHRONOLOGY, 1900-1949 [See also sidebar link above: American theatre at the turn of the century.] February 5, 1900: Broadway audiences on the Madison Sq. Backyard Theatre are scandalized by the play Coralie & Firm, Dressmakers, by which a white man is found in mattress with a black girl. On the identical evening, Sapho, opens at Wallack’s Theatre and causes sufficient stir that the police shut the manufacturing a month later and convey each the present’s producer and the star, Olga Nethersole, to trial. Objections stem from the sexual overtones of actor Hamilton Revelle carrying Nethersole upstairs to an unseen bed room. The manufacturing is permitted to renew on April seventh and has a number of revivals. June, 1900: William Gillette and Arthur Conan Doyle’s play Sherlock Holmes lastly closes, after a well-liked run of 256 performances. Gillette additionally stars because the well-known detective. The play is revived 4 extra instances by 1915, every time with Gillette within the lead. September 6, 1900: The well-known vaudeville comedy group of Joseph Weber and Lew Fields produce a success musical burlesque, Fiddle-dee-dee, which runs for 262 performances at their Weber and Fields’ Broadway Music Corridor. They comply with up with a string of reveals with foolish names, together with Hoity Toity (1901), Twirly Whirly (1902), and Whoop-Dee-Doo (1903) amongst others. September 27, 1900: Oscar Hammerstein, grandfather to the well-known lyricist of the identical title, opens the Theatre Republic on forty second Road between seventh and eighth Avenue. It turns into Minsky’s Burlesque home within the Nineteen Thirties, then a film theatre referred to as the Victory, exhibiting XXX-rated motion pictures within the Seventies. The theatre is renovated within the early Nineties because the New Victory and used for family-oriented theatre productions, reopening in 1995. November and December, 1900: Well-known French actress Sarah Bernhardt excursions, performing 5 productions in repertory on Broadway: Hamlet, Cyrano de Bergerac, La Tosca, La Dame aux Camelias, and L’Aiglon. She performs the title position of Hamlet as a breeches position (a girl dressed as a person), however critics discovered her ill-suited to the position. 1901: The star energy continues to prevail on Broadway, with performers akin to Maude Adams, E. H. Southern, Anna Held, Minnie Maddern Fiske (a.okay.a. Mrs. Fiske), Ada Rehan, Maxine Elliot, Julia Marlowe, and the comedy duo of Weber and Fields, who’s musical burlesque Hoity Toity runs for 259 performances. Reportedly, Broadway has extra respectable theatres presently than every other metropolis on the earth. February 4, 1901: Actress Ethel Barrymore, one of many nice Barrymore household of actors, positive factors stardom on the age of twenty-one in a manufacturing of Clyde Fitch’s comedy, Captain Jinks and the Horse Marines. The Barrymore clan retains star standing within the twenty-first century via actress Drew Barrymore. February 25, 1901: The performing household “The 4 Cohans” strikes from vaudeville to Broadway with the musical, The Governor’s Son, with e-book, music, and lyrics by George M. Cohan. Younger George doesn’t develop into a star in his personal proper till 1904 with Little Johnny Jones. January 1902: The British import musical, Florodora, achieves hit standing with over 500 performances since its Broadway opening on November 10, 1900. A part of the success is attributed to the attractive and flirtatious “Florodora Sextette” the refrain dancers. Featured dancer Evelyn Nesbit goes on to marry millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, who murders architect Stanford White over Nesbit within the “Crime of the Century.” January 13, 1902: Mrs. Patrick Campbell, a revered British actress, made her Broadway debut on the Theatre Republic in a repertoire that included The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, Magda, The Completely satisfied Hypocrite, and Pelleas and Melisande. George Arliss additionally made his debut in these productions. February 27, 1902: Shakepeare’s comedy As You Like It opens and runs for 60 performances at Broadway’s Theatre Republic, a well-liked success. September 11, 1902: Comedy group Weber and Fields open one other smash hit with their musical burlesque Twirly Whirly, which performs for 247 performances on Broadway. November 12, 1902: Revered performer, author, and director Minnie Maddern Fiske directs and takes the title position in Mary of Magdala, a vital and in style success with over 100 performances on the Manhattan Theatre. The manufacturing is revived within the fall of 1903. 1903: Seventy-four year-old actor Joseph Jefferson III, descended from generations of American actors of the identical title, excursions the nation in Dion Boucicault’s play, Rip Van Winkle, based mostly on Washington Irving’s novel. Jefferson passes away in 1905, survived by his son Thomas Jefferson, who performs the title position in Rip Van Winkle on Broadway in 1905. January 20, 1903: A musical model of Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Ozfinds Broadway success, however varies with the later film model. Within the authentic stage musical, Dorothy is accompanied not by Toto, however her pet cow, Imogene. The Wizard of Ozplays almost 300 performances and is revived in 1904 later for an extra 171 performances. February 18, 1903: In Dahomey turns into the primary all-black musical on Broadway, enjoying on the New York Theatre. The musical farce was based mostly on an concept by African American vaudevillians George Walker and Bert Williams, who additionally starred within the manufacturing. The present later travels to England, the place it turns into a novelty hit in London. September 24, 1903: Comedy group Weber and Fields open one other hit of their string of musical extravaganzas on the Weber and Fields’ Broadway Music Corridor. Whoop-Dee-Doo runs for 165 performances. The solid of greater than fifty performers contains Weber and Fields in addition to the hour glass-figured Lillian Russell. October 13, 1903: Victor Herbert’s musical extravaganza Babes in Toyland premieres on Broadway, working 192 performances. On November sixteenth, Herbert makes a second New York premiere with Babette, which runs solely 59 performances. An especially in style composer, Herbert gathers 50 extra Broadway credit (together with revivals) by 1930. October 26, 1903: The New Amsterdam Theatre opens, an Artwork Nouveau jewel on West forty second Road. The primary manufacturing is Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night time’s Dream, with music organized by Victor Herbert. By 1913 it turns into the house of the Ziegfeld Follies. Disney renovates the 1,750 seat theatre to nice acclaim in 1997. November 2, 1903: Solely every week after the opening of the New Amsterdam Theatre, the Lyceum Theatre opens on West forty fifth Road. The ornamental new theatre accommodates roughly 950 patrons and has an uncommon ten-story tower within the rear with carpentry retailers, paint retailers, and wardrobe space in addition to extra dressing rooms. In 1974 it turns into the primary Broadway theatre to be declared a landmark. The structure agency of Herts & Tallant designed each the New Amsterdam and the Lyceum. 1904: Broadway producers need to England and Europe for performs to import, and sure candidates have been few and much between, opening the door for American playwrights. Statistics on the season are at odds. Selection stories the 1904-1905 season noticed openings of 127 performs and musicals whereas the Dramatic Mirror calculates 313, however that features touring productions enjoying Broadway, particular engagements, and check out productions, amongst different particular classes. 1904: Occasions Sq. (previously Lengthy Acre Sq.) is known as in New York Metropolis, after the New York Occasions constructing on forty second and Broadway. September 14, 1904: Standard star and director/producer Minnie Maddern Fiske revives her efficiency in Langdon Mitchell’s play Becky Sharpe, based mostly on the novel Self-importance Truthful by William Makepeace Thackeray. Fiske is blacklisted by the theatre’s producers and ends the 1904 run prematurely, after 116 performances. She revives the play, once more enjoying the lead of Becky, in 1911. October 4, 1904: The New York Metropolis subway opens, permitting viewers members quick access to a night’s leisure. November 17, 1904: Peformer/composer/lyricist George M. Cohan turns into a star when his musical, Little Johnny Jones, premieres. One spotlight of the present is Cohan singing his personal composition, “Give My Regards to Broadway.” He goes on to jot down and carry out in lots of hit Broadway musicals, incomes him the title “ Father of the American Musical.” 1905: Rival producers the Shuberts battled the Theatrical Syndicate over who would personal main theatres within the Broadway district. The Theatrical Syndicate, shaped in 1896 and often known as “The Belief,” was a bunch of six producers with a monopoly on U. S. theatres. April 12, 1905: New York Metropolis’s Hippodrome, a 4,678 seat theatre, opens with a manufacturing referred to as A Yankee Circus on Mars. The Hippodrome accommodates a excessive degree of spectacle and options a big pool space for water ballets, sea battles, and different water spectacles. A manufacturing referred to as The Raiders options “Plunging Horses” that dive into the pool. The water function is eliminated in 1923, when the theatre is renovated as a vaudeville stage. October 23, 1905: Irish-born playwright George Bernard Shaw causes controversy when his play about prostitution, Mrs. Warren’s Career, opens on the Garrick Theatre and performs just one efficiency. Shaw’s different performs in repertory that season on the Garrick embrace How He Lied to Her Husband, The Man of Future, You By no means Can Inform, John Bull’s Different Island, and Candida. His highly-regarded Man and Superman additionally opens in 1905 and runs almost 200 performances. November 6, 1905: James M. Barrie’s stage adaptation of Peter Pan opens on Broadway on the Empire Theatre, starring Maude Adams as Peter, the boy who gained’t develop up. It’s a hit and performs 223 performances in addition to quite a few revivals. November 14, 1905: Theatre impresario David Belasco opens Woman of Golden West at his Belasco Theatre on Broadway. He writes, directs and produces the drama, which is about in a California mining camp. It runs for greater than 200 performances and is produced once more in 1907 and 1908. Belasco rapidly turns into identified for his insistence on sensible manufacturing points. 1906: Provessor George Pierce Baker teaches “47 Workshop” at Harvard College, a playwriting workshop that conjures up burgeoning dramatists and begins the pattern towards the inclusion of theatre lessons within the college curriculum. Baker begins instructing at Yale College in 1925, the place he turns into director of the college theatre. 1906: At a time when immigrants have been steadily flooding into New York Metropolis, Paul Orleneff brings his theatre firm from Moscow to open New York’s first Russian theatre on Manhattan’s Decrease East Facet. January 1, 1906: Author/director/composer/performer George M. Cohan begins the yr off by opening his new manufacturing, Forty-five Minutes from Broadway, at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre. The prolific Cohan serves as author/director/composer/performer for 2 extra Broadway musicals that yr: George Washington, Jr. and The Governor’s Son. He additionally writes music for the play Gallops and writes the comedy Recognition, each of which open on Broadway this yr. Poor vital response to Recognition helps Cohan resolve to pursue solely musical theatre sooner or later. June 25, 1906: Millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, husband of former Florodora dancer Evelyn Nesbit, murders New York architect Stanford White, reportedly for taking Nesbit’s virginity through the run of Florodora. Known as “The Crime of the Century,” it units New York Metropolis’s newspapers into excessive gear. October 5, 1906: William Vaughn Moody’s play The Nice Divide opens at Broadway’s Princess Theatre and turns into a success, enjoying 238 performances. Margaret Anglin and Henry Miller star, and Miller additionally directs and produces. October 17, 1906: Rachel Crothers’ first full-length Broadway play, The Three of Us, opens to wonderful critiques and opening in London a yr later. Crothers turns into a pioneering girl as a industrial playwright, director, performer, and producer of performs about girls. December 4, 1906: George Broadhurst’s play The Man of the Hour opens at Broadway’s Savoy Theatre and turns into a success, working for 479 performances. 1907: Theatre impresario George M. Cohan writes, composes, directs, and stars in two extra new musicals on Broadway: The Honeymooners, which opens June third at Aerial Gardens, and The Speak of New York (a sequel to Forty-five Minutes from Broadway), which opens December third. He additionally revives Little Johnny Jones and George Washington, Jr. On a extra private notice, Cohan marries his second spouse, Agnes Nolan, a refrain lady from Little Johnny Jones, after divorcing performer Ethel Levey, who had as soon as carried out along with his household in vaudeville and musicals. 1907: New York audiences have a neater time attending to and from productions when taxis start working within the metropolis. January 28,1907: After fifty years on the stage, extremely regarded English star Ellen Terry makes her final Broadway look in three performs in repertory: Captain Brasshound’s Conversion, The Good Hope, and Nance Oldfield. She offers solely lectures and readings within the U. S. thereafter. July 8, 1907: Producer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. produces his first Follies on Broadway on the roof of the New York Theatre. The Follies (renamed the Ziegfeld Follies in 1911) proceed virtually yearly till 1931, and sometimes after Ziegfeld’s demise in 1932. Together with his stunning set of hand-picked refrain women, Ziegfeld turns into identified for “Glorifying the American Woman,” or extra exactly, glorifying her physique via glamorous, revealing costumes. August 31, 1907: Billie Burke, the longer term spouse of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., makes a splash reverse John Drew in Michael Morton’s play My Spouse. It runs for 129 performances. October 16, 1907: Theatre impresario David Belasco opens the Stuyvesant Theatre on West forty fourth Road in New York Metropolis, renaming it The Belasco in 1910. One in all its uncommon options is the penthouse he constructed for himself inside the construction. October 21, 1907: Franz Lehár’s operetta, The Merry Widow, opens on the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway after its preliminary success in Europe. It turns into a success and runs for almost a yr, with 416 performances. It stays in style for years to return, typically touring or in revival, and is made right into a film in 1934, starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. 1908: Playwright/director/performer Rachel Crothers opens her play Myself-Bettina in Chicago. It was probably the primary play she directed, making her an early pioneer amongst girls administrators in america. 1908: George M. Cohan once more impresses Broadway audiences with quite a few new musicals and performs. Fifty Miles from Boston opens February third; one among Cohan’s well-known songs, “Harrigan” emerges as a favourite and continues to be thought of an American basic. On April twentieth Cohan reunites his household, as soon as a vaudeville efficiency group, to play in his new musical, The Yankee Prince. On October fifth he opens The American Concept, staring Trixie Friganza of vaudeville fame. He additionally finds time to provide and write for Cohan and Harris Minstrels, co-produced by Sam H. Harris, who continues as Cohan’s co-producer for years to return. January 2, 1908: The Merry Widow Burlesque opens at Weber’s Music Corridor, poking enjoyable on the in style operetta. It turns into a success in its personal proper, enjoying 156 performances. June 15, 1908: “Shine on, Harvest Moon” turns into a success track from Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1908, compliments of performer Nora Bayes, who co-wrote the track together with her second husband, Jack Norworth. They recorded the track in 1910, and it has since develop into an American basic. In 1944 Warner Brothers launch a film based mostly on Bayes’ life, entitled Shine on Harvest Moon. August 8, 1908: Novelist/playwrights Sales space Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson group as much as write a Broadway comedy hit, The Man from Residence, which opens on the Astor Theatre and performs almost 500 performances. Tarkington and Wilson proceed to collaborate efficiently over the subsequent a number of a long time, writing ten extra performs collectively. December 23, 1908: Peter Pan star Maude Adams headlines one other hit by James M. Barrie, a comedy referred to as What Each Girl Is aware of. It’s a hit with 198 performances. 1909: Melodramas, which had toured the U.S. and have been in style on the flip of the century, have been dying out presently. Might 3, 1909: Actress Laurette Taylor makes her Broadway debut in The Nice John Ganton, which opens on the Lyric Theatre. Taylor quickly turns into a star, showing on Broadway quite a few instances over almost three a long time. Her final Broadway position is as Amanda Wingfield within the premiere of Tennessee Williams’ Glass Menagerie in 1945. Taylor turned identified for her temper swings and her sturdy persona; reportedly, playwright Noel Coward was impressed to jot down his hit comedy, Hay Fever, after spending a weekend in her residence. October 11, 1909: Theatre creator/performer George M. Cohan premieres a brand new musical referred to as The Man Who Owns Broadway, based mostly on his solely true flop, the 1906 comedy Recognition. He reconfirms that his calling is musical theatre when the manufacturing runs 128 performances on the New York Theatre. His subsequent manufacturing, The Fortune Hunter, helps propel main actor, John Barrymore, to stardom. November 6, 1909: The New Theatre opens on Central Park West at West 62nd Road. Nicknamed the Millionaires’ Theatre due to its wealthy sponsors, the theatre was run by Winthrop Ames and the Shubert brothers. The primary manufacturing was Antony and Cleopatra, starring Shakespearean actors Julia Marlowe and E. H. Sothern. November 22, 1909: 9 year-old actress Helen Hayes makes her Broadway debut in a musical farce referred to as Previous Dutch, which opens on the Herald Sq. Theatre. Her final Broadway position is in a revival of Mary Chase’s hit play Harvey in 1970. The next yr, on the age of seventy, she wins an Academy Award for her supporting position within the film Airport. Dubbed the First Girl of the American Theatre, Hayes’ profession additionally contains radio, tv, and movie. Her checklist of awards is lengthy and contains the primary Tony Award ever granted for Excellent Efficiency by an Actress in 1947 for Completely satisfied Birthday. A Broadway theatre is known as after her in 1955, and when that theatre is demolished, one other is known as for her in 1983. 1910: Married Shakespearean actors Julia Marlowe and E. H. Sothern type the Sothern & Marlowe Repertory, the resident firm of the New Theatre. They carried out ten performs their first yr, and so they produce eight to 13 Shakespeare performs in every repertory season till October of 1913. Marlowe takes the next season off due to sickness, and her husband Sothern excursions alone. All through the course of their careers, Marlowe and Sothern toured Shakepeare and basic performs round america. June 20, 1910: Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1910 opens on the Jardin de Paris on Broadway. The Follies star an African American performer for the primary time: Bert Williams. Williams had already made a reputation for himself on Broadway in all black musicals akin to In Dahomey and Abyssinia, and he had carried out in minstrel reveals along with his associate George Walker, nevertheless it was controversial for an African American to seem on stage with a white solid. Beneath Ziegfeld, Williams turns into one of many highest paid performers on Broadway. Comedy legend Fanny Brice makes her debut within the Follies this yr as properly. Each Williams and Brice are featured stars within the Ziegfeld Follies for years to return. September 19, 1910: George M. Cohan finds he has a success along with his latest creation, the musical Get-Wealthy-Fast Wallingford, which performs greater than 400 performances on the Gaiety Theatre on Broadway. Producers Cohan and Harris ship a number of corporations on tour, and shortly it turns into in style with inventory corporations throughout the nation. October 1, 1910: Belgian symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck’s play, The Blue Hen, opens at Broadway’s New Theatre and transfers to the Majestic Theatre on November eighth, the place it stays till January of 1911. This eye-catching play blends symbolist and realist design types. November 7, 1910: Victor Herbert’s operetta, Naughty Marietta, opens on Broadway and contains the favored track “Ah, Candy Thriller of Life!” Naughty Marietta does properly on the field workplace, working 136 performances. The operetta positive factors renewed fame when Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald star within the 1935 movie model. December 5, 1910: French diva Sarah Bernhardt begins one other of her many farewell excursions, this time produced by her personal Sarah Bernhardt Repertory Firm. They carry out twelve performs on Broadway in rotation on the new Globe Theatre on West forty sixth (later renamed the Lunt-Fontanne) and tour the U.S. 1911: This yr sees a pattern towards longer runs of productions at Broadway theatres. February 27, 1911: Everywoman, a contemporary adaptation of the medieval morality play Everyman, opens on the Herald Sq. Theatre and causes a lot dialogue among the many theatre-going public. The settings of the five-act play embrace Everywoman’s residence, a metropolitan theatre, and New 12 months’s Eve on Broadway. The play loved a long term of 189 performances. March 20, 1911: One in all Broadway’s new spectacular theatres opens: The Winter Backyard on Broadway and West fiftieth Road. Run by producers J. J. and Lee Shubert, the unique design embodies an English backyard, with lattices on the partitions and trellises over the viewers’s heads. One other uncommon function is a runway extending from the stage to the again of the home, bringing performers close to the viewers. The opening evening efficiency options singer Al Jolson. June 19, 1911: Sixty-nine year-old French actress Sarah Bernhardt ends a cross-country tour on Broadway, enjoying solely 4 performances: Jean Marie / Sister Beatrice, L’Aiglon, La Femme X, and La Dame aux Camelias. June 26, 1911: Producer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. produces one other Follies, formally including his title to the title for the primary time: The Ziegfeld Follies of 1911. Yiddish comedienne and torch singer Fanny Brice is again, as is African American performer Bert Williams. Ziegfeld’s well-known chorines are as in style as ever, as is Lillian Lorraine, a featured performer who turned his mistress for quite a few years. September 11, 1911: Feminine impersonator Julian Eltinge stars in The Fascinating Widow at New York’s Liberty Theater. Eltinge is without doubt one of the highest paid actors of the time and has a Broadway theatre named for him in 1912 (a.okay.a. the Empire Theatre). September 18, 1911: George Arliss performs the title position of Disraeli, based mostly on the lifetime of England’s nineteenth century Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. The play turns into a Broadway success, with 280 performances and kudos for Arliss. September 26, 1911: George Broadhurst’s play Purchased and Paid For opens and turns into the hit of the Broadway season on the Playhouse Theatre, working 431 performances. November 20, 1911: Irish playwright John Synge’s Playboy of the Western World premieres on Broadway, produced by the Irish Gamers. Creator Daniel Blum stories, “[T]right here was fairly a disturbance within the gallery when partisan Irishmen confirmed their objections to sure traces by throwing potatoes.” 1912: With a gathering political storm in Europe, Broadway audiences proceed to get pleasure from comedies, musicals, and different gentle entertainments. The commerce newspaper Selection counts 162 Broadway productions within the 1912 – 1913 season, up twenty-two reveals from the 1911 – 1912 season. 1912: Following within the footsteps of the stagehand’s union, created in 1910, The Dramatists Guild kinds, representing labor rights for playwrights throughout america. 1912: After a long time of success and beginning their very own theatre, vaudeville’s comedy duo, Weber and Fields, retire. January 16, 1912: Extremely regarded German director Max Reinhardt brings his manufacturing of Sumurun to Broadway from the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin. It’s carried out in pantomime, in 9 Tableaux. March 12, 1912: The Little Theatre opens on Broadway’s West forty fourth Road. It’s formally renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre in 1983, after the well-known actress. September 11, 1912: Bayard Veiller’s Inside the Regulation opens, bringing stardom to Jane Cowl within the position of Mary Turner. It runs for a profitable 541 performances at Broadway’s Eltinge forty second Road Theatre. September 23, 1912: George M. Cohan presents a modest success in Broadway Jones, by which he stars as Jackson “Broadway” Jones. The manufacturing is mounted on the George M. Cohan Theatre on Broadway and forty third Road, owned by Cohan and co-producer Sam Harris. December 20, 1912: J. Hartley Manners’ comedy, Peg O’ My Coronary heart, premieres at Broadway’s new Cort Theatre, starring Laurette Taylor within the title position of Peg. It turns into one among her most memorable roles, and the manufacturing turns into a success, enjoying greater than 600 performances. Playwright Manners was Taylor’s husband, and his play supplied the longest run of her profession. She went on to play the position in London and likewise starred in a revival of the play in 1921, which ran almost 700 performances. 1913: Theatre journal notes that giant, cavernous theatres with poor acoustics have gotten a factor of the previous. The brand new theatres being constructed present an inclination of changing into extra intimate. Regardless of this remark, the big new Palace Theatre opens in March at forty seventh and Broadway as a vaudeville home, seating over 1,700 folks. The opening invoice stars comic Ed Wynn, and shortly vaudevillians aspire to “play the Palace.” Like many vaudeville homes of the interval, the theatre is transformed right into a film home at mid century, falls into disrepair, and is later restored to its former glory. The grand reopening of the palace is in January of 1966. 1913: Vaudeville attracts main stars, together with French actress Sarah Bernhardt, magician/escape artist Harry Houdini, dance companions Fred and Adele Astaire, and in style singer/dancer Eva Tanguay. Standard musicals of the season embrace Excessive Jinks and Adele. February 10, 1913: Edward Sheldon’s sentimental drama, Romance, opens on Broadway and turns into in style. It stars Doris Keane, who goes on to play the position in London, then once more in a touring manufacturing in america. April 2, 1913: Jessie Bonstelle, one of many few girls to direct on Broadway within the early twentieth century, opens in Elizabeth Jordan’s comedy The Girl from Oklahoma. Bonstelle co-directs, produces, and stars within the manufacturing, which performs on the forty eighth Road Theatre for less than sixteen performances. Might, 1913: The Actors’ Fairness Affiliation (additionally referred to as AEA, or Fairness) is organized in New York Metropolis. The labor union helps negotiate wages and applicable working situations for skilled actors throughout america. Previous to the formation of AEA, producers typically took benefit of actors, offering unsafe working situations and little to no pay for rehearsals or holidays. Might 1, 1913: The Longacre Theatre, seating simply over 1,000 folks, opens on Broadway’s West forty eighth Road. It’s presumably named for Longacre Sq., the previous title of Occasions Sq.. A second Broadway home, The Shubert Theatre on West forty fourth Road, opens on October 2nd, constructed by legendary producers Lee and J. J. Shubert. It’s constructed as a tribute to their brother Sam, who died in 1905 in a practice accident. The extra intimate Sales space Theatre opens that yr on October sixteenth, seating some 670 patrons. All three theatres are designed by architect Henry B. Herts. August 16, 1913: Potash and Perlmutter opens and turns into the longest working present to open for the season, enjoying 441 performances at George M. Cohan’s Theatre. Montague Glass and Charles Klein’s comedy relies on tales from the Saturday Night Publish. September 22, 1913: Theatre impressario George M. Cohan opens a profitable mystery-farce referred to as Seven Keys to Baldpate, which runs for 320 performances. 1914: World Warfare I places a damper on Broadway earnings in addition to street excursions. The warfare additionally decreases the variety of productions coming from London to New York or vice versa, placing much more reliance on American playwrights to create new works. With the recognition of silent movie and the lower in excursions, some smaller neighborhood theatres throughout the nation convert to movie homes. 1914: The well-known Apollo Theater, then referred to as Hurtig and Seamon’s New Burlesque Theatre, opened in New York Metropolis’s Harlem. Initially the producers didn’t permit African Individuals within the viewers, a rule that was maintained for twenty years. Renamed the Apollo beneath new administration within the late Twenties, the theatre’s producers turned away from vaudeville and burlesque. Recognized primarily for launching nice musical and dance acts, the Apollo turned a legacy, and the theatre house owners trademarked the phrase “The place stars are born and legends are made.” Well-known singers who’ve carried out there embrace Bessie Smith, Billie Vacation, Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Surprise, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Jackson. Like many theatres of the early twentieth century, it fell into disrepair within the Seventies earlier than being renovated within the Eighties and once more within the twenty first century. 1914: Vaudeville performer Harry Fox introduces the foxtrot to a mass-audience, beginning a dance craze. Although tales of the historical past differ barely, it appears Fox included trotting dance steps, known as Fox’s Trot, to ragtime music whereas performing between motion pictures on the New York Theatre. When a dance contest was launched on the theatre’s roof backyard that summer time, Fox carried out and the foxtrot was born. Ballroom dancers Vernon and Irene Fortress have been well-known for performing the foxtrot and giving it added model. August 19, 1914: Playwright Elmer Rice makes his Broadway debut with On Trial, which performs 365 performances. Rice incorporates the strategy of utilizing flashback sequences, as present in movie. Subsequently, Rice gained a repute as a brand new American playwright of high quality, and his performs have been produced on Broadway with some frequency for years to return. His most well-known performs embrace is his expressionistic drama The Including Machine (1923) and Road Scene, which gained him the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Along with playwriting, Rice directed, produced, and wrote lyrics. December 8, 1914: Irving Berlin, well-known for his ragtime music, premieres his first full-length musical revue, Watch Your Step at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre. That includes in style dance group Vernon and Irene Fortress, it turns into a hit with 175 performances. Different in style musicals in 1914 embrace Chin Chin and The Solely Woman, each enjoying properly over 200 performances. 1915: With a warfare raging in Europe, Broadway captivates audiences with gentle leisure, a strategy to escape the realities at hand. The hit performs of the season embrace a comedy referred to as The Boomerang, which performed over 500 performances, and Truthful and Hotter, a farce that performed greater than 350 performances. Musical hits included The Blue Paradise, with greater than 350 performances. 1915: For a number of years, seasoned stage actors strive their hand at movie, solely to seek out they don’t seem to be suited. A couple of theatrical producers, too, dabble in movie, and the conversion of theatres to movie homes continues. Theatre magazines host articles concerning the artistry of theatre over movie as the controversy rages on. This identical yr Delivery of A Nation is launched, directed by D. W. Griffith. Regardless of racist content material, the complete size movie positive factors press as a ground-breaking masterpiece. 1915: The Little Theatre motion begins as non-commercial, artwork theatres are shaped in New York Metropolis and throughout america. By 1925 some 2,000 artwork theatres exist, together with these beneath. A number of theatres began humbly, however develop into well-known for progressive experimentation that’s missing within the industrial theatre. Typically their inspiration is present in modernist Europe and Russia. 1915: The Provincetown Playhouse is based in Massachusetts, transferring to Greenwich Village in 1916. The Playhouse supplies a coaching floor for brand spanking new American playwrights, actors, administrators, and designers together with Susan Glaspell, Eugene O’Neill, and Robert Edmund Jones. 1915: The Neighborhood Playhouse is based on New York Metropolis’s Decrease East Facet by sisters Alice and Irene Lewisohn. The theatre produces a variety of performs, from historic to fashionable. Their annual Grand Road Follies, a burlesque of the Broadway season, turns into so in style that the productions moved uptown to bigger Broadway theatres from 1927 to 1929. 1915: Performer and pioneer Anita Bush kinds an African American inventory firm, which turns into the Lafayette Gamers, producing critical drama on the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. Her firm has the excellence of being the primary skilled African American firm in america. The Lafayette Gamers supplies a fertile coaching floor for a whole lot of African American artists till it folds through the Despair, in 1932. 1915: The Washington Sq. Gamers, an early artwork theatre, produce their first efficiency in New York on the Bandbox Theatre. This group of amateurs goes on to launch the careers of well-known artists, a number of of whom type the extremely revered Theatre Guild 4 years later. The Washington Sq. Gamers current some thirty performs and one acts in repertory their first full yr (two seasons, spring and fall); many performs are authentic, however these from overseas embrace Anton Chekhov’s A Bear and Maurice Maeterlinck’s Inside. Admission is fifty cents the primary season, however by the second season it’s raised to a greenback to permit the actors to be paid. By 1916 the group positive factors a repute for producing experimental works. 1916: The season on Broadway is entertaining and star-studded, however the hits of the season are lengthy since forgotten. Lengthy working performs included Flip to the Proper and Dishonest Cheaters. Standard musical entertainments embrace Sybil and The Cohan Revue of 1916. 1916: The three hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s demise brings quite a few the Bard’s performs to the stage. Broadway audiences see productions of Macbeth and The Tempest. The well-known British actor, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, seems in King Henry VIII, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Service provider of Venice. 1916: French diva Sarah Bernhardt carried out yet one more farewell tour of america, enjoying in quite a lot of roles from fifteen performs in repertory. Madame Bernhardt had a leg amputated in 1915, however continues to carry out. 1916: Little theatres, additionally referred to as artwork theatres, proceed to experiment and bloom. The Washington Sq. Gamers deliver Anton Chekhov’s The Sea Gull to the stage, introduced in semi-darkness. It’s obtained with a blended response. March 3, 1916: Rachel, by Angelina Weld Grimke, turns into the primary profitable straight play written by an African American, carried out by African Individuals. The three-act play opens on the Myrtilla Miner Regular Faculty in Washington, D.C. and is subsequently produced in 1917, each on the Neighborhood Theatre in New York Metropolis and in Cambridge Massachusetts. Rachel is printed in 1920. Grimke, from a biracial household, was a famous poet who additionally wrote essays, brief tales, and performs. She wrote Rachel to protest the favored but degrading black stereotypes of the time and to protest lynching and discrimination, partly as a response to the epic movie, Delivery of a Nation. 1917: Regardless of World Warfare I and prime ticket costs rising to $2.50, Selection stories 156 Broadway productions (performs and musicals) for the 1917-1918 season. 1917: When the U. S. declares warfare towards Germany, “Father of Broadway” George M. Cohan writes the hit track “Over There.” The track is launched on stage at a Pink Cross profit within the fall, however turns into actually in style when singer and comedienne Nora Bayes data it. By the tip of World Warfare I greater than two million copies of sheet music have been bought. February 20, 1917: Jerome Kern, Man Bolton, and P. G. Wodehouse group as much as create the hit musical Oh Boy!, which premieres on the Princess Theatre, then transfers to the On line casino Theatre, enjoying a mixed whole of 463 performances on Broadway. A second in style musical of the season is Maytime, which performs at 4 totally different theatres to run for almost 500 performances earlier than occurring tour. September 27, 1917: Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre opens subsequent door to the Shubert Theatre. Named for playwright George H. Broadhurst, it opens with a manufacturing of George Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance. On October eleventh the 1,000 seat Plymouth Theatre opens on West forty fifth Road. Architecht Herbert J. Krapp designs each theatres for the Shuberts. October 31, 1917: Playwright Eugene O’Neill has his first one act produced on Broadway when “Within the Zone” opens on the Comedy Theatre, produced by the Washington Sq. Gamers. November 28, 1917: Ballroom dancers Fred and Adele Astaire make their Broadway debut in Over the High, a musical revue at Lew Fields’ forty fourth Road Roof Backyard. December 1917: The Madame Sarah Bernhardt Firm returns to the U.S., enjoying fifteen performs in repertory. That is the final time Bernhardt performs on Broadway, simply shy of her seventy-third birthday. December 25, 1917: Jesse Lynch Williams’ comedy, Why Marry? opens and performs 120 performances on the Astor Theatre. It turns into the primary play picked for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 1918: America is extra optimistic about victory in World Warfare I, and that optimism interprets to excessive attendance in Broadway theatres. Costs maintain climbing, and a few musicals have reached $3.00 for finest seats. 1918: Musical revues have grown in recognition through the years, and this season is not any exception. George M. Cohan and Irving Berlin compose songs for The Cohan Revue of 1918, which opens on New 12 months’s Eve of 1917 and options singer Nora Bayes. The Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 open on June 18th, starring such huge names as Will Rogers, W. C. Fields, and Eddie Cantor. Ziegfeld additionally produces the primary Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic. On July twenty fifth The Passing Present of 1918, produced by the Shubert brothers, opens June twenty fifth, that includes ballroom duo Fred and Adele Astaire, amongst others. 1918: The Society of American Singers produce seventeen operas and operettas on Broadway, together with Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Gondoliers, Endurance, and Iolanthe. January 1918: One other American dance craze is born when Gilda Grey performs the shimmy on the Winter Backyard Theatre. Some accounts say Grey appropriated the dance from singer Sophie Tucker. Comedienne Mae West additionally claims to have launched the shimmy in 1918. March and April, 1918: Russian-born star Alla Nazimova positive factors creative acclaim on Broadway in three performs by Henrik Ibsen: The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, and A Doll’s Home. August 26, 1918: Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon have a run-away hit comedy in Lightnin’, which opens at Broadway’s Gaiety Theatre and performs almost 1,300 performances. Bacon stars as Lightnin’ Invoice Jones, a person who drinks and tells tall tales. It’s the finest and final position of his profession. 1919: The Theatre Guild is shaped from the disbanded Washington Sq. Gamers. They develop into identified for producing essential new American playwrights in addition to European masters. Though their first manufacturing does poorly, the second manufacturing, John Ferguson, is a industrial hit with 354 performances and units the stage for his or her future success. Might 26, 1919: Composer George Gershwin debuts his first full Broadway musical, La, La, Lucille. The manufacturing run is interrupted by the Actors’ Fairness strike in August. June 2, 1919: George White opens his first Scandals revue, which he continued to provide yearly till 1926, and periodically thereafter. Over time George White’s Scandals star Broadway diva Ethel Merman and soon-to-be movie star Alice Faye. The 1919 manufacturing options Ziefgeld dancer Ann Pennington and White himself because the “Dancing Main Man.” June 10, 1919: A Lonely Romeo opens, with composer Richard Rodgers working for the primary time with lyricist Lorenz Hart – a musical theatre duo that lasts some twenty years. The musical performs 215 performances. They collaborate on one other group the next yr for Poor Little Ritz Woman. July 18, 1919: Within the face of an impending strike, the Actors’ Fairness Affiliation, a newly shaped skilled actors union, is acknowledged by the American Federation of Labor (later generally known as the AFL-CIO). On August 7, 1919: A number of main productions shut in New York Metropolis as actors stroll out on strike simply earlier than curtain time. Audiences and managers alike are surprised, regardless of rumors of a strike. Extra performances shut in coming days, and on August twelfth, the newspapers report that the Shuberts are suing Actors’ Fairness for $500,000. By August thirteenth, Chicago productions are closing as properly, with Boston theatres on the point of the identical destiny. By August seventeenth the New York Occasions stories that stagehands and musicians have joined the strike, successfully closing 16 theatres. On September sixth, the newspapers herald the tip of an enormous actor’s strike. A number of productions re-open that evening. Among the many many particulars arbitrated by Actors’ Fairness is a $30 every week pay minimal for refrain members performing in New York Metropolis and $35 for refrain performing out of city. September 13, 1919: The main comedy of the yr, Adam and Eva, by Man Bolton and George Middleton, opens and performs 312 performances. Additionally in style is Sales space Tarkington’s Clarence, which performs 300 performances and stars such well-known actors as Mary Boland, Helen Hayes and Alfred Lunt. October 7, 1919: The musical Apple Blossoms opens at Broadway’s Globe Theatre and turns into a hit with 256 performances. Ballroom dancers Fred and Adele Astaire are within the solid. November 18, 1919: The musical Irene opens and turns into a run away hit on the field workplace with 670 performances. Based mostly on a variation of the Cinderella story, it options an upbeat rating by Harry Tierney and lyrics by Joe McCarthy. The musical launches a number of street excursions and holds the report variety of performances of a musical till Oklahoma! surpasses it within the Nineteen Forties. 1920: Regardless of a post-war recession, Broadway has a number of huge successes, a few of which develop into classics. February 2, 1920: Playwright Eugene O’Neill sees his first full-length tragedy premiere on Broadway: Past the Horizon. The play wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the 1919-1920 season. August 23, 1920: Thriller author Mary Roberts Rinehart and playwright Avery Hopwood open The Bat, a mystery-melodrama a Broadway’s Morosco Theatre. A success, it performs for 2 years, with 867 performances. November 1, 1920: Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones premieres on Broadway, produced by the Provincetown Gamers. Set on an island within the West Indies, it stars Charles S. Gilpin, a pioneering African American actor. The drama has a extremely profitable run of 204 performances, and is revived in 1926, once more with Gilpin within the lead. Famed African American actor Paul Robeson performed the lead within the London and in a 1925 Broadway revival. November 10, 1920: George Bernard Shaw’s play Heartbreak Home premieres on Broadway, produced by the Theatre Guild, and performs for 125 performances. December 21, 1920: Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. produces Sally on Broadway, that includes one among Ziegfeld’s favourite performers, Marilyn Miller. The favored musical runs over 500 performances, thanks not solely to Miller’s star flip but in addition to Ziegfeld’s hand-picked refrain of lavishly costumed stunning younger girls. The memorable rating by Jerome Kern and Victor Herbert contains the hit track, “Search for the Silver Lining.” December 27, 1920: Zona Gale’s dramatization of her finest promoting novel, Miss Lulu Bett, opens at Broadway’s Belmont Theatre and runs almost 200 performances. Gale, a novelist, poet, journalist, and story author, turned the primary girl to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play in 1921. A movie model of the story was launched in 1921. 1921: Selection stories 142 new straight (non-musical) performs opening on Broadway within the 1921-1922 season, although Greatest Performs stories 130. Both approach, the quantity was massive, and although there was considerable high quality on the prime, there have been quite a few flops that closed early. Although one manufacturing charged a prime admission of $5, it closed rapidly. Most costs remained regular, within the $2 – $3 vary for one of the best seats for straight performs. 1921: Sardi’s restaurant opens within the coronary heart of the Broadway theatre district. It strikes to a brand new location in 1927. Adorned with Alex Gard’s hand-drawn caricatures of theatre folks, the restaurant turns into a sizzling spot for opening evening events and pre and put up present meals. Might 23, 1921: Shuffle Alongside, an all-black musical with music by Eubie Blake and lyrics by Noble Sissle, opens on Broadway with hit songs like “I’m Simply Wild about Harry,” and “Love Will Discover a Method.” Sources disagree on the full variety of performances, itemizing both 484 or 504. 
 March 21, 1921: The Shuberts open one other new Broadway theatre, inbuilt a report sixty-six days. The Ritz on West forty eighth supplies a extra intimate home (beneath 1,000) for performs. It’s renamed the Walter Kerr in 1990, for the well-known author and theatre critic. September 1, 1921: The Nationwide Theatre opens on West forty first Road, managed by the Shuberts. It undergoes quite a few transformations and title modifications through the years: the Billy Rose Theatre, the Trafalger Theatre, and the Nederlander Theatre. September 22, 1921: Irving Berlin launches his first of 4 annual Music Field Revues in a theatre constructed particularly for his or her use, The Music Field on West forty fifth Road. The primary Music Field Revue turns into a hit, working 440 performances. Berlin himself performs in addition to writing the e-book, lyrics and music. Producer Sam H. Harris reportedly spent $187,613 on the manufacturing. Different in style revues of 1921 embrace The Ziegfeld Follies, George White’s Scandals, and the Greenwich Village Follies. September 29, 1921: Sigmund Romberg’s operetta Blossom Time, which fictionalizes the life story of composer Franz Schubert, opens on Broadway. It proves profitable, enjoying greater than 500 performances, with 5 revivals staged on Broadway over the subsequent twenty-two years. November 2, 1921: Eugene O’Neill’s[hyperlink] Anna Christie opens at Broadway’s Vanderbilt Theatre, the place it performs for 177 performances. The drama earns O’Neill a second Pulitzer Prize in 1922. February 1922: Irish-born playwright George Bernard Shaw sees three of his productions on Broadway this yr: a revival of Mrs. Warren’s Career, a premiere of Again to Methuselah (produced in three sections), and a revival of Candida, all opening in February and March. February 25, 1922: Producer/director/author Earl Carroll opens the Earl Carroll Theatre on Broadway’s seventh Avenue at West fiftieth. March 1922: Eugene O’Neill experiments with German expressionism in his play The Furry Ape, first on the Provincetown Playhouse in March, then on the Plymouth Theatre in April. Different playwrights quickly comply with in his footsteps, together with Elmer Rice with The Including Machine in 1923 and Sophie Treadwell with Machinal in 1928. Might 23, 1922: Anne Nichols’ comedy, Abie’s Irish Rose, opens in New York Metropolis. Regardless of lower than stellar notices, it runs for greater than 5 years, breaking data with 2,327 performances. October 9, 1922: R. U. R., probably the primary science fiction-based play on Broadway, opens on the Garrick Theatre and performs for 184 performances, produced by the Theatre Guild. It causes a lot dialogue by together with the robots as characters. October 29, 1922: The musical Runnin’ Wild opens on Broadway and popularizes the Charleston dance craze, although the dance is believed to have appeared on Harlem levels as early as 1913. The Broadway manufacturing is profitable, with 228 performances. October 30, 1922: Producer/director Brock Pemberton brings Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Creator to Broadway. The experimental play focuses on characters who enter the theatre in search of their creator, arguing that their characters have by no means been absolutely realized. November 7, 1922: A a lot talked about drama of the season is Rain, tailored by John Colton and Clemence Randolph and based mostly on a narrative by W. Somerset Maugham. It opens at Maxine Elliot’s Theatre on Broadway and performs 256 performances. Rain is revived in 1924 and performs one other 648 performances. Set in a lodge on an island within the South Seas, it tells the story of vacationers caught in an outbreak of cholera. Jeanne Eagles stars in each productions as Miss Sadie Thompson. 1923: Maybe as a result of ticket costs edging to $3.50 for some straight performs, Broadway sees good earnings by mid-season. Conservative teams had begun crying for censorship the earlier season, however based mostly on ticket gross sales, audiences have been pleased with the Broadway fare. January 8, 1923: The Broadway season begins with a go to from Constantin Stanislavsky’s well-known Moscow Artwork Theatre. The repertoire contains such masterworks as Gorky’s The Decrease Depths, Ibsen’s The Enemy of the Individuals, and several other performs by Chekhov, together with Uncle Vanya, Ivanov, The Cherry Orchard, and The Three Sisters. The Moscow Artwork Theatre forges a profound affect on American realism and actor coaching, primarily through Stanislavsky’s improvements. February 10, 1923: Owen Davis’s play, Icebound, opens on Broadway and goes on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It tells the story of a cold-hearted siblings in Maine ready for his or her mom to die, and their shock upon studying her will. February 19, 1923: Philip Barry’s play You and I opens, marking Barry’s Broadway debut. He had been a pupil of George Piece Baker’s 47 Workshop at Harvard, and the play had already gained the Harvard Prize, guaranteeing a Broadway manufacturing. Barry turned a widely known American playwright with such comedian classics as The Philadelphia Story and Vacation. August 7, 1923: Kate McLaurin’s play, Whispering Wires, opens at Broadway’s forty ninth Road Theatre and runs until the next June, totaling 352 performances. A suspenseful detective story, the play was based mostly on a narrative from the Saturday Night Publish. November 1, 1923: One spotlight of the Broadway season is Edmund Rostand’s in style play, Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Walter Hampden within the title position. It opens November 1st and performs 232 performances. November 29, 1923: Well-known Italian actress Eleonora Duse performs in Henrik Ibsen’s The Girl from the Sea, adopted by Ibsen’s Ghosts, as a part of her farewell tour of america. Tragically, she dies of pneumonia in Pittsburg on April 23, 1924. December 25, 1923: The Imperial Theatre turns into the latest theatre inbuilt New York Metropolis by producers Lee and J. J. Shubert. It opens on Christmas day with a now-forgotten musical, Mary Jane McKane, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. December 28, 1923: Set in fifteenth century France, George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan debuts on Broadway, produced by the Theatre Guild. It performs almost 200 performances with Winifred Lenihan within the lead position of Joan of Arc. Different high quality productions from the Theatre Guild this yr embrace Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and Shaw’s The Satan’s Disciple. 1924: The Pulitzer Prize for Drama goes to Hell-Bent Fer Heaven, by Hatcher Hughes. September 2, 1924: The favored musical Rose Marie opens, with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert P. Stothart, and e-book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. Set within the Canadian Rockies, probably the most well-known track is “Indian Love Name,” sung by Marie Ellis as Rose Marie La Flamme and Dennis King as Jim Kenyon. The present achieves hit standing with 557 performances. September 3, 1923: Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings’ drama, What Worth Glory? opens at Broadway’s Plymouth Theatre and runs for a yr. January 16, 1924: Famed German director Max Reinhardt brings his second manufacturing to the U. S.: The Miracle, written by Reinhardt and Karl Vollmoeller. It performs for 175 performances on the Century Theatre. Might 20, 1924: The Grand Road Follies opens and develop into a success from the Neighborhood Playhouse, one of many nation’s “Little Theatres” positioned on Manhattan’s Decrease East Facet. Agnes Morgan was a drive behind this burlesque of the Broadway season, offering e-book and lyrics in addition to performing and directing. The Follies turned an annual custom via the Twenties. February, 1924: Broadway actress Eva Le Gallienne steps ahead to direct for the primary time when the director of Gerhart Hauptmann’s The Assumption of Hannele falls in poor health. Le Gallienne goes on to direct in addition to star in quite a few productions on and off of Broadway, to vital acclaim. October 13, 1924: Actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne have their first huge success enjoying husband and spouse within the Theatre Guild’s manufacturing of The Guardsman, by Ferenc Molnár. It runs 248 performances. Lunt and Fontanne go on to nice stardom and Broadway’s Globe Theatre is renamed Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in 1957. November 11, 1924: The brand new Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway’s West forty fifth Road opens its first manufacturing, a musical referred to as Madame Pompadour. The Beck is exclusive on the time for its Byzantine design, courtesy of San Francisco architect G. Albert Lansburgh. Initially named for the vaudeville mogul who constructed the theatre, it’s renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in 2003, in honor of the well-known theatre cartoonist who had not too long ago handed away. December 1, 1924: Dancers Fred and Adele Astaire star in George and Ira Gershwin’s musical Girl, Be Good! at Broadway’s Liberty Theatre. The tuneful manufacturing featured “Fascinating Rhythm” and performs for 330 performances. December 2, 1924: Sigmund Romberg’s operetta, The Pupil Prince, opens on Broadway. With a story of unrequited love and organized royal marriages, it pleases audiences and performs greater than 600 performances. December 24, 1924: Broadway’s new forty sixth Road Theatre opens its doorways to the general public. Architect Herbert J. Krapp designed a extremely slopped orchestra part so these seated within the again might have a wonderful view. That very same night, B. F. Moss’s Colony Theatre opens as a vaudeville and film palace. After quite a few title modifications, it turns into the Broadway Theatre. With almost 2,000 seats, it’s a well-liked home for stage musicals. 1925: Selection counts a report 178 new performs on Broadway within the 1925-1926 season. January 5, 1925: James Gleason and Richard Taber’s comedy Is Zat So? opens at Broadway’s thirty ninth Road Theatre and turns into a success with 618 performances. June 8, 1925: The Theatre Guild produces The Garrick Gaieties, opening on the Garrick Theatre on Broadway. Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Lorenz Hart group as much as write lots of the songs. September 16, 1925: Englishman Noel Coward makes his Broadway debut as a playwright and performer with The Vortex. By the tip of the yr he has two extra profitable performs opening: Hay Fever and Simple Advantage. He’s in his mid-twenties on the time. September 19, 1925: Already a success in London and Chicago, the musical No, No, Nanette opens at Broadway’s Globe Theatre and runs for greater than 300 performances. Hit songs embrace “Tea for Two” and “I Wish to Be Completely satisfied.” November 24, 1925: Sidney Howard’s play They Knew What They Wished opens, produced by the Theatre Guild. It ran for 192 performances and wins the 1925 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. November 25, 1925: The Forrest Theatre opens on Broadway, named for the nineteenth century classical actor Edwin Forrest. It turns into the Coronet Theatre in 1945, and eventually the Eugene O’Neill in 1959, after the well-known American playwright. The architect, Herbert J. Krapp, sees a second theatre open on Broadway that yr: the Biltmore Theatre. Situated on West forty seventh Road, the theatre was declared unsafe within the Eighties after vandals had lit fires inside. It was restored by the Manhattan Theatre Membership for $35 million and reopened in 2003. December 8, 1925: The Marx Brothers open on Broadway within the musical The Cocoanuts, with e-book by George S. Kaufman and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. Set in and round Cocoanut, Florida, the Marx Brothers run a lodge and break a jewel heist amongst different shenanigans. A hit, it runs for almost a yr and was tailored right into a film, launched in 1929. December 28, 1925: The famed composer/lyricist group of George and Ira Gershwin premiere their new musical, Tip-Toes, on Broadway. February 25, 1926: One other new Broadway theatre designed by Herbert J. Krapp opens: the Mansfield, named for the classical American actor Richard Mansfield. After a number of title modifications and a interval of disuse, it turns into the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in 1960, named for the well-known journalist and theatre critic. April 26, 1926: Mae West’s play, Intercourse, which she wrote beneath the pen title Jane Mast, opens on Broadway. Set in a brothel in Montreal, the play is taken into account scandalous and lewd. After 375 performances, police shut the manufacturing and arrest the solid. West, additionally the play’s star, pays a $500 high-quality and is sentenced to 10 days in jail, however she additionally proves that intercourse sells. March 15, 1926: Irish dramatist Sean O’Casey makes his Broadway debut with the now-classic play, Juno and the Paycock. His second Broadway manufacturing, The Plough and the Stars, premieres the next yr. June 14, 1926: George White’s Scandals contains two hits: composer George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and “The Black Backside,” with music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by B.G. DeSylva and Lew Brown. The Black Backside dance had been beforehand launched to the general public, however this efficiency, danced by Ann Pennington and Tom Patricola, was very fashionable. October 25, 1926: Craig’s Spouse, by George Kelly, opens on Broadway and runs for 360 performances. Kelly wins the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. October 25, 1926: Actress/director/author Eva Le Gallienne opens her Civic Repertory Theatre on New York Metropolis’s West 14th Road. Her objective is to provide creative performs, many from the European masters, at low costs. Le Gallienne directs the primary manufacturing, Saturday Night time, by Jacinto Benavente. Subsequent productions in 1926 embrace The Masterbuilder, The Three Sisters, John Gareil Borkman, La Locandiera, and Twelfth Night time. In 1933 the theatre folds within the midst of the Nice Despair. November 8, 1926: George and Ira Gershwin’s new musical, Oh Kay!, opens at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre and performs for 256 performances. “Somebody to Watch Over Me” turns into a success track from the present. November 29, 1926: Famed actress Ethel Barrymore has a success in W. Somerset Maugham’s play The Fixed Spouse. It runs for almost 300 performances on Broadway. November 30, 1926: The unique musical The Desert Music, set in Morocco, opens at Broadway’s On line casino Theatre and performs for 471 performances. The rating options music by Sigmund Romberg and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. December 30, 1926: Paul Inexperienced’s In Abraham’s Bosom opens in New York. Set in North Carolina in 1885, the Provincetown Playhouse sees a run of 200 performances, and it wins the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 1927: Although sources for the variety of productions typically battle, Daniel Blum stories that 268 productions have been launched this yr, a report for Broadway. The constructing increase of recent theatres continues on Broadway as properly. 1927: 4 new Broadway theatres of notice open: On February twenty fifth architect Herbert J. Krapp celebrates the opening of the 800 seat Masque Theatre on West forty fifth Road. On March twenty eighth Krapp’s Majestic Theatre opens on West forty fourth Road; it’s traded to the Shuberts through the Despair. On September twenty sixth Erlanger’s Theatre opens on Broadway’s West forty fourth Road, designed by Warren & Wetmore, architects. Producer Abraham J. Erlanger sells the theatre to the Shuberts through the Despair, and it’s renamed the St. James Theatre in 1932. The Alvin Theatre on West 52nd is one other Krapp design. Once more, the Shuberts purchase it in 1932, and the Nederlanders purchase it in 1977 and rename it the Neil Simon in 1983, after the well-known American playwright. February 2, 1927: Producer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. opens his new Ziegfeld Theater with the favored musical, Rio Rita. In typical Ziegfeld model, it options a big solid stuffed with stunning girls and turns into very fashionable, working almost 500 performances. Might 19, 1927: The Neighborhood Playhouse’s annual burlesque of Broadway, The Grand Road Follies, opens at their residence theatre on Manhattan’s Decrease East facet, however turns into so in style that it transfers to a theatre within the Broadway district. The next two years it performs at Broadway’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Agnes Morgan, a pioneering theatre girl of the time, directs and writes the e-book and lyrics every year. October 6, 1927: The discharge of the primary “talkie” (speaking image), The Jazz Singer, revolutionizes the favored leisure trade. Over the subsequent a number of years, Broadway producers battle to maintain their viewers numbers excessive, and stage actors strive their luck in movie, with various success. November 3, 1927: The musical A Connecticut Yankee delights Broadway audiences with the premise of a recent citizen of Connecticut discovering himself within the midst of King Arthur’s courtroom in 534 C. E. Music is by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Moss Hart, and e-book by Herbert Fields. The manufacturing runs for 421 performances. November 17, 1927: Legendary German director Max Reinhardt returns to the U.S. along with his firm, performing A Midsummer Night time’s Dream and Jederman (Everyman), a medieval morality play. November 22, 1927: Dance group Fred and Adele Astaire headline the Gershwin’s new musical, Humorous Face, at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre. It runs for 244 performances. December 27, 1927: Present Boat opens on Broadway, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. on the Ziegfeld Theater. Jerome Kern (composer) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyricist and librettist) break new floor for musicals on Broadway by that includes critical themes and songs that ahead the plot and characterization. Well-known songs embrace “Ol’ Man River” and “Can’t Assist Lovin’ Dat Man.” The musical runs 572 performances. Dec 28, 1927: George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s in style comedy, The Royal Household, opens at Broadway’s Selwyn Theatre and entertains audiences for 345 performances. January 30, 1928: The Theatre Guild produces Eugene O’Neill’s Unusual Interlude on the John Golden Theatre. Written in 9 brief acts, performances begins at 5:15 p.m., recesses for dinner, and resumes at 8:30 p.m. O’Neill reintroduces asides and soliloquies into the play—units frequent to basic theatre, however unusual to modern drama of the time. He wins the Pulitzer Prize for his work, and finds in style success with the play as properly; it runs for 426 performances. Different works by O’Neill on Broadway in 1928 embrace Marco Tens of millions, The place the Cross Is Made, and The Dreamy Child. February 21, 1928: The play Maya, by Simon Galtillon opens on Broadway on the Comedy Theatre. Set in a home of prostitution in Marseille, France, the police take into account the play morally offensive and threaten to lock the theatre. The producers choose to shut the manufacturing, and amidst a flurry of press concerning the incident, eleven different performs shut as properly. March 13, 1928: Rudolph Friml’s musical model of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers opens at Broadway’s Lyric Theatre and finds an viewers for 318 performances. April 9, 1928: Mae West makes a splash with two performs she wrote. Set within the Bowery through the Homosexual Nineties (Nineties), West stars as Lil in Diamond Lil. It runs for 176 performances at Broadway’s Royale Theatre. Her subsequent play, Pleasure Man, opens October 1st and doesn’t fare as properly. The police shut the play after the second efficiency for indecent content material. August 14, 1928: The Entrance Web page, a brand new Broadway comedy by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, opens on the Occasions Sq. Theatre and turns into a success, enjoying 276 performances. Set in a press room in Chicago, the fast-paced comedy is launched as a movie in 1931. October 23, 1928: The Marx Brothers star within the hit comedy Animal Crackers, by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, at Broadway’s forty fourth Road Theatre. The play runs for almost 200 performances, and a movie model is launched in 1930. December 4, 1928: Eddie Cantor stars within the musical Whoopee!, which scores a hit at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre, enjoying over 400 performances. A success track from the present is “Makin’ Whoopee,” sung by Cantor. December 20, 1928: The Ethel Barrymore Theatre opens on Broadway’s West forty seventh Road. Constructed by the Shuberts (by architect Herbert J. Krapp) to lure Barrymore beneath their administration, they star her within the opening play: The Kingdom of God, by Gregorio Martinez Sierra. Barrymore’s position as Sister Gracia requires her to play a large span of ages: 19, 29, and 70. The actress is 49 on the time. 1929: Though the early season holds some promise, the inventory market crash and the appearance of talkies each take a heavy toll on theatre attendance. Vaudeville, already in decline, dies out after the October inventory market crash of 1929. Many theaters across the nation shut or convert to cinemas. Musical theatre suffers as properly, and lots of of Broadway’s nice composers, writers, and stars flee to Hollywood. The cross-over from Broadway to Hollywood is demonstrated by the primary movie to win the Academy Award in 1929: The Broadway Melody. January 10, 1929: Playwright Elmer Rice earns respect for his critical drama, Road Scene, which performs at Broadway’s Playhouse Theatre for over 600 performances beneath Rice’s personal course. Set in New York, the play is lauded for its a number of plots, construction thought of uncommon on the time. The play earned Rice the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 1931 a movie model is launched, and in 1947 an operatic model opens with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Langston Hughes. February 19, 1929: Playwright Rachel Crothers scores one other success together with her comedy Let Us Be Homosexual, which opens at Broadway’s Little Theatre and runs for 353 performances. Crothers additionally directs the manufacturing. April 30, 1929: One of many season’s hottest musical revues opens at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre: The Little Present, with music by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Howard Dietz. The solid contains comic Fred Allen, who goes on to fame in radio, and performer Clifton Webb, who goes on to fame on stage and in movie. It runs for 321 performances. June 20, 1929: Trumpeter/performer Louis Armstrong makes his Broadway debut when the all-black solid of Sizzling Goodies strikes from Harlem to the Hudson Theatre. The revue, with music by Thomas “Fat” Waller and Harry Brooks, performs for 219 performances on Broadway and options Armstrong enjoying the track “Ain’t Misbehavin’. Practically 5 a long time later, in 1978, the revue Ain’t Misbehavin’ opens on Broadway, based mostly on the Waller’s music. It turns into a smash hit, with over 1,600 performances. September 11, 1929: Legendary British actor Laurence Olivier makes his Broadway debut on the age of twenty-two in Homicide on the Second Flooring. September 18, 1929: The most well-liked comedy of the Broadway season proves to be Preston Sturges’ Strictly Dishonorable, which opens on the Avon Theatre and runs over 500 performances. Set in a speakeasy, the play speaks to the time: the roaring twenties, that are about to offer strategy to the Nice Despair. Brock Pemberton and Antoinette Perry, for whom the Tony Awards are named, co-direct, with Pemberton producing. December 13, 1929: Regardless of the inventory market crash, creator A. A. Milne, well-known for his Winnie the Pooh books, finds success with Michael and Mary at Broadway’s Charles Hopkins Theatre. The comedy runs for 246 performances. January 14, 1930: The Gershwin’s musical, Strike Up the Band, drums up enterprise for 191 performances on the Occasions Sq. Theatre on Broadway. The title track turns into well-known. February 26, 1930: The Inexperienced Pastures, written and staged by Marc Connelly, opens at Broadway’s Mansfield Theatre, the place it runs for 640 performances. Based mostly on the tales printed in “Ol’ Man Adam an’ His Chillun” by Roark Bradford, the play is about in Louisiana, and based mostly on an African American preacher retelling tales from the Previous Testomony, full with the angels having a barbecue. Connelly wins the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. March 3, 1930: Producer/director George White brings the musical Flying Excessive to the Apollo Theatre on West forty second Road, the place it runs for 355 performances. Performers contains comic Bert Lahr and singer Kate Smith. September 24, 1930: Comedian playwrights Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman group as much as current As soon as in a Lifetime on the Music Field Theatre on Broadway, the place it performs for greater than 400 performances. Kaufman additionally directs. October 14, 1930: Performer Ethel Merman makes her Broadway debut in George & Ira Gershwin’s musical, Woman Loopy. One in all her most well-known songs is “I Bought Rhythm,” which helps her achieve a repute as a “belter.” November 13, 1930: W. A. Drake’s play, Grand Resort, based mostly on Vicki Baum’s German novel, opens at Broadway’s Nationwide Theatre and turns into a giant success, with 459 performances. The story revolves round a bunch of strangers staying in a complicated lodge in Berlin, Germany. December 1, 1930: Susan Glaspell’s drama, Alison’s Home, opens on the Civic Repertory Theatre. Though it solely performs for 41 performances, it’s a vital success and wins the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 1931: The exodus of Broadway expertise to Hollywood turns into more and more obvious, as does the affect of the financial melancholy on theatres throughout the nation. So-called “respectable” theatres of dwell efficiency more and more flip into film homes. The variety of new performs within the season is lowered by twenty % within the 1930-31 season, and a few forty performs that handle to open shut inside two weeks. 1931: The Group Theatre is based by Harold Clurman, Lee Stasberg, and Cheryl Crawford. The Group sought to type their very own model of the Moscow Artwork Theatre, based mostly on Constantin Stanislavsky’s theories. This left-wing, non-commercial theater launches the profession of playwright Clifford Odets, who makes historical past with the play Ready for Lefty in 1935. Legendary actor/instructor Stella Adler was a founding Group Member. After infighting brought about The Group’s dissolution on the finish of the last decade, Group members went on to illustrious careers, akin to Strasberg’s management on the Actor’s Studio in New York. Different legends embrace Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, and John Garfield. January 27, 1931: Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence star in Coward’s comedy, Non-public Lives, on the Occasions Sq. Theatre. The favored comedy runs 256 performances. June 3, 1931: Fred Astaire and his sister Adele carry out collectively for the final time in a Broadway revue, The Band Wagon. It performs for 260 performances on the New Amsterdam Theatre. August 27, 1931: The brand new Earl Carroll Theatre opens on Broadway’s seventh Avenue at West fiftieth. That is the final massive Broadway theatre to be constructed till 1972. The unique Earl Carroll theatre was inbuilt 1922 by producer/director Earl Carroll. In 1930 he purchased the constructing subsequent door, demolished the unique theatre, and rebuilt a bigger theatre beneath the identical title. It housed motion pictures and dwell leisure, however struggled financially through the years beneath a number of house owners. The constructing was razed in 1990. October 26, 1931: Eugene O’Neill’s[hyperlink] trilogy, Mourning Turns into Electra debuts on Broadway on the Guild Theatre and runs for 150 performances. O’Neill tailored Aeschylus’ historic Greek trilogy of performs, The Oresteia, and adjusted the setting to New England, after the Civil Warfare. The three performs in O’Neill’s trilogy are referred to as Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted. Surroundings and costumes are designed by the progressive Robert Edmond Jones. November 16, 1931: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne star in Phillip Barry’s in style comedy, Reunion in Vienna, which performs at Broadway’s Martin Beck Theatre for 264 performances. December 26, 1931: Of Thee I Sing, a satirical political musical, opens at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre. The favored musical runs 441 performances at a time when Broadway is in a significant monetary droop. It turns into the primary musical to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1932. Cited within the award are e-book writers George S. Kaufman and Morrie Riskind, in addition to lyricist Ira Gershwin, although composer George Gershwin is omitted. 1932: Within the face of the Despair and the rising recognition of speaking photos, chapter looms for a lot of theatre house owners and producers. A number of theatres are bought, transformed to film homes, or just closed. Historian Gerald Bordman stories that by the 1932-1933 season, the variety of new performs opening had dropped to “someplace between 109 and 124, relying on who counted what.” Admissions costs dropped as properly, in an try and maintain folks coming. Most producers relied on comedy to spice up the spirits of the general public. Of the dramas being produced, many had a leftist perspective. 1932: The 1932-1933 Pulitzer Prize for Drama goes to Maxwell Anderson for Each Your Homes. Might 19, 1932: Producer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. revives Present Boat on Broadway, with Paul Robeson singing “Previous Man River” within the position of Joe. Contemplating the financial melancholy, it does good enterprise with 180 performances. On July twenty second, Ziegfeld dies in Hollywood; after a lifetime of manufacturing lavish spectacles, he leaves his widow, actress Billie Burke, a number of million {dollars} in debt. October 22, 1932: George Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s comedy, Dinner at Eight, opens at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre and turns into one of many greatest successes of the season, with 232 performances. Kaufman additionally directs the manufacturing. November 29, 1932: Cole Porter’s musical, Homosexual Divorce, opens at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre, then transfers to the Shubert Theatre, the place it runs for a complete of 248 performances. One of the vital well-known songs from the present, “Night time and Day,” is now a basic. Fred Astaire stars as Man Holden, a task he performs within the 1934 film model (spelled Homosexual Divorcee) as properly. December 27, 1932: Radio Metropolis Music Corridor opens on sixth Avenue in New York Metropolis. The theatre seats roughly 5,880. Although the theatre turned in style for film premieres, it additionally homes dwell leisure, together with the annual Christmas Spectacular with the Radio Metropolis Rockettes. January 24, 1933: Noel Coward’s subtle comedy, Design for Dwelling, opens on the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway with Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt, and Coward himself, who additionally directs. The manufacturing runs for 135 performances. February 15, 1933: James Hagan’s comedy One Sunday Afternoon opens at Broadway’s Little Theatre and enjoys one of many longest runs of the season, with 322 performances. September 30, 1933: A brand new revue, As 1000’s Cheer, opens at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre, combining the music and lyrics of Irving Berlin with the sketch comedy of playwright Moss Hart. Starring are Ethel Waters, Marilyn Miller, Clifton Webb, and Helen Broderick. The revue finds success, with 400 performances. October 2, 1933: Entertainer George M. Cohan stars in Eugene O’Neill’s comedy, Ah, Wilderness! on the Guild Theatre. It enjoys a profitable run of almost 300 performances. October 21, 1933: The inventive group of the award successful musical Of Thee I Sing discover a flop within the sequel, Let ‘em Eat Cake. The scary imaginative and prescient of a fascist America runs solely 89 performances. November 18, 1933: Roberta opens at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre, with music by Jerome Kern and e-book and lyrics by Otto Harbach. The solid contains comic Bob Hope, and probably the most well-known track from the manufacturing turns into “Smoke Will get in Your Eyes.” The success of the stage musical triggers a 1935 movie model, staring Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. December 4, 1933: Jack Kirkland’s drama, Tobacco Street, based mostly on the novel by Erskine Caldwell, premieres on Broadway and performs for an astounding 3,182 performances, breaking Broadway data to that date. Set on a farm in rural Georgia, it tells the story of Jeeter Lester and his household as they eek out a residing as sharecroppers through the Despair. 1934: Theatres are working extra productions by overseas authors, an indication that many American writers have left for extra profitable alternatives in Hollywood. January 4, 1934: Billie Burke, widow of producer Florenz Ziegfled, Jr., grants permission for a brand new Ziegfeld Follies, the primary Follies since his demise in 1932. The manufacturing, which runs for six months, options comedienne Fanny Brice and introduces Eve Arden, who goes on to a radio, tv, stage and movie profession. September 26, 1934: Set in a hospital, Males in White performs at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre for 351 performances. Playwright Sidney Kingsley wins the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for the drama. September 29, 1934: Comedian playwrights George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart open their comedy, Merrily We Roll Alongside, at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre, the place it performs for 155 performances. November 20, 1934: Lillian Hellman’s drama, Kids’s Hour, opens on Broadway at Maxine Elliott’s Theatre, the place it turns into the hit of the season, enjoying for 691 performances. Hellman tackles the problem of a pupil at a lady’s faculty accusing her academics of an “unnatural” (lesbian) relationship. Scenic design is by Aline Bernstein, one of many few girls scenic designers of the time. November 21, 1934: Cole Porter’s upbeat musical, Something Goes, opens at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre, then transfers to play for a complete of 420 performances. Ethel Merman stars as Reno Sweeney, bringing the viewers such basic songs as “You are the High” and “I Get a Kick out of You.” 1935: The variety of productions on Broadway is down, however the high quality improves total, sparking hope for the Nice White Method because it struggles to rebound from the Despair. January 5, 1935: The Group Theatre produces Clifford Odets’ one-act, Ready for Lefty, on the Civic Repertory on 14th Road in Manhattan. Set at a Taxi Union Committee assembly, it ends with the well-known line, “STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE!!!” – a name that stirred to viewers chant alongside defiantly. The play strikes to Broadway’s Longacre Theatre on March twenty sixth, the place it performs for 144 performances; it returns in September for twenty-four extra performances. January 7, 1935: Zoe Akin’s play, The Previous Maid, based mostly on a novel by Edith Wharton, opens at Broadway’s Empire Theatre. It runs for greater than 300 performances and wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. February 19, 1935: The Group Theatre produces Clifford Odets’ drama, Awake and Sing!, at Broadway’s Beleasco Theatre, the place it runs for 184 performances, returning for twenty-four extra performances that September. The play tells the story of a lower-middle class Jewish household within the Bronx and their struggles. August 27, 1935: After legislative pre-empting, the Federal Theatre Mission (FTP) was formally launched as a part of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). So as to fight unemployment, the FTP finally employed artists and technicians in 40 states, creating the closest factor the U.S. has ever needed to a nationwide theatre. Beneath Hallie Flanagan’s management, the FTP produced Dwelling Newspapers (performs based mostly on factual tales), dramas, musicals, youngsters’s performs, and puppet reveals. In 1939 the U.S. Congress pulled funding from the theatre, accusing of them of being leftist and linking them to communist sympathizers. (See Tim Robbins’ film The Cradle Will Rock [1999] for an account authorities censorship of the FTP musical by the identical title.) September 25, 1935: Maxwell Anderson’s tragedy Winterset opens at Broadway’s Martin Beck Theatre, the place it performs for almost 300 performances. The critics laud reward not solely on the playwright, however on Jo Mielziner for his spectacular scenic design. Anderson wins the primary New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest American Play. October 10, 1935: Porgy and Bess opens on the Alvin Theater on Broadway. George Gershwin composed the music to this folks opera based mostly on a novel (and later a play) by Dubose Heyward. Set within the Nineteen Thirties on “Catfish Row” within the south, the story is of a poor crippled man, Porgy, and is love for Bess amidst the hardship of their lives. Well-known songs embrace “Summertime,” “I Bought Lots O’ Nuttin’,” and “It Ain’t Essentially So.” The manufacturing was pretty profitable, with over 100 performances, however turned extra well-known after a 1942 revival. Porgy and Bess additionally discovered success in Europe. October 12, 1935: composer/lyricist Cole Porter finds success with Jubilee, which performs for 169 performances and options his well-known track “Start the Beguine.” October 24, 1935: Harlem Renaissance author Langston Hughes’ play Mulatto opens on Broadway, addressing the id disaster of a mulatto boy residing within the south. It’s profitable run of 373 performances units a report variety of performances for a straight play by an African American playwright. Actress Rose McClendon earns optimistic critiques as Cora Lewis. November 16, 1935: Richard Rodgers’ and Lorenz Hart’s musical, Jumbo, premieres at Broadway’s jumbo-sized Hippodrome Theatre, the place it performs for 233 performances. Effectively-known songs embrace “My Romance” and “Little Woman Blue.” December 26, 1935: Actress Helen Hayes has nice success with Laurence Housman’s drama Victoria Regina, which performs on the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway for 203 performances and returns in August of 1936 for 314 performances. January 30, 1936: The Winter Backyard Theatre as soon as once more hosts the Ziegfeld Follies, starring such well-known names as comedienne Fanny Brice, comic Bob Hope, and unique dancer Josephine Baker. The manufacturing runs till Might ninth, then resumes September 14th via December nineteenth, giving it a complete run of 227 performances for the yr. The return engagement options burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee. March 24, 1936: The Theatre Guild has a success with Robert Sherwood’s Idiots Delight, which performs for 300 performances at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre. The play wins the 1936 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and likewise is listed because the runner-up for the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award as Greatest American Play. Husband and spouse actors Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt head the solid. April 4, 1936: Orson Welles directs the Federal Theater Mission’s Negro Unit in a manufacturing of Macbeth set in Haiti, dubbed “Voodoo Macbeth,” on the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. 1000’s are turned away on the door in what proves to be the FTP’s first huge success. April 11, 1936: On Your Toes, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, opens at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre and strikes to the Majestic to finish a 315 efficiency run. The musical stars Ray Bolger and options choreography by ballet grasp George Balanchine. “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” turns into a widely known dance quantity. December 14, 1936: Playwriting group George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart open their new comedy, You Can’t Take It with You, which turns into a success at Broadway’s Sales space Theatre, then transfers to Imperial Theatre for a complete run of almost two years and 838 performances. Telling the story of a wacky, dysfunctional middle-class household, it strikes a chord with audiences. In 1937 it wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. December 26, 1936: Clare Boothe Luce’s comedy The Girls opens and turns into a success, working 657 performances at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Set in New York and Reno, the chatty play tells a narrative of divorce, gossip, and back-biting. 1937: The variety of straight performs opening on Broadway drops beneath 100 and stays there. Revivals appear in style, together with classics akin to Shakespeare’s Richard II and Julius Caesar, Shaw’s Candida, and Ibsen’s A Doll’s Home. 1937: The period is ripe for political satire, and three such productions discover success on Broadway: I’d Quite Be Proper, Pins and Needles, and the ill-fated FTP manufacturing The Cradle Will Rock, which formally closes earlier than it opens. January 9, 1937: Maxwell Anderson’s play, Excessive Tor, opens on the Martin Beck Theatre and runs for 171 performances. It stars famed actors Peggy Ashcroft and Meredith Burgess and proves to be in style with the New York critics. Anderson is honored along with his second consecutive New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for the manufacturing. July 11, 1937: Composer and conductor George Gershwin dies unexpectedly of a mind tumor a couple of months shy of his thirty ninth birthday. Gershwin’s Broadway profession started in 1918, when he wrote extra music for Women First. His first full rating in a musical premiered on Broadway in La, La, Lucille a yr later. For a lot of his profession he teamed up along with his brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin. Collectively they wrote music and lyrics for such well-known musicals as Girl Be Good (1924), Humorous Face (1927), Strike Up the Band (1930), Of Thee I Sing (1931), and Porgy and Bess (1935). In 1983 Broadway’s Uris Theatre, on West 51st Road, is renamed the George Gershwin Theatre in his honor. November 4, 1937: The Group Theatre produces Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy on the Belaco Theatre on Broadway, the place it runs for 250 performances. The drama about an aspiring violinist who has an opportunity to develop into a boxer, is directed by Harold Clurman, the Group Theatre’s co-founder. A movie model starring William Holden is launched in 1939, and a musical model opens in 1964. November 11, 1937: An oddity opens on Broadway: a musical revue referred to as Pins and Needles, produced by Labor Stage Inc. The solid are all member of the Worldwide Women’ ‘Garment Staff’ Union. New York audiences flock to the manufacturing, which runs for 1,108 performances. The musical helps set up songwriter Harold Rome in his profession. November 23, 1937: John Steinbeck’s masterpiece, Of Mice and Males, opens at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre, the place it performs for 207 performances. Steinbeck tailored his personal novel to create the play, which was directed by George S. Kaufman. The play earns wonderful critiques in addition to the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award as Greatest American Play. 1938: The variety of performs opening on Broadway in 1938-1939 continues to drop, tallying from 65 to 68, relying on who’s counting. Each the New York Occasions and Selection exclude the performs of the Federal Theatre Mission of their counts. February 4, 1938: Thornton Wilder’s Our City opens at Broadway’s Henry Miller’s Theatre and transfers to the Morosco for a complete of 336 performances. Our City, directed and produced by Jed Harris, challenges conventions of Broadway performs by having no set and using a narrator to introduce the characters and setting. A preferred and important success, the play earns the 1938 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. September 22, 1938: Billed as “The Screamlined Revue,” Hellzapoppin delights audiences with comedy from vaudevillians Ole Olsen and Stylish Johnson, working a formidable 1,404 performances at three consecutive theatres on Broadway. October 15, 1938: Robert Sherwood’s historic drama, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, opens at Broadway’s Plymouth Theatre, the place it runs for greater than a yr and wins the Sherwood the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. November 23, 1938: Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Moss Hart adapt Shakespeares’s The Comedy of Errors to create a brand new musical: The Boys from Syracuse. It runs for 235 performances at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre. December 1, 1938: The musical Nice Girl is a flop however offers dancer Jerome Robbins his Broadway debut, with choreography by George Balanchine. Robbins goes on to nice fame as an progressive director/choreographer on Broadway. 1939: The New York World’s Truthful in Flushing pulls audiences away from Manhattan and ends in a lack of ticket gross sales on Broadway. Selection and the New York Occasions depend between sixty and sixty-two straight performs opening within the 1939-1940 season. February 15, 1939: Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes premieres at Broadway’s Nationwide Theatre and performs for a yr, strengthening Hellman’s repute as a playwright. Tallulah Bankhead heads the solid as Regina in one of the vital memorable roles of her profession. March 28, 1939: Philip Barry’s The Philadelphia Story opens at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre and is a hit with 417 performances. Katherine Hepburn performs the lead, Tracy Samantha Lord, a task she reprises within the film model in 1940. October 16, 1939: George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart make audiences giggle with The Man Who Got here to Dinner at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre. The comedy pokes enjoyable at Alexander Woollcott, a distinguished New York critic, and performs almost two years, for 739 performances. October 25, 1939: William Saroyan’s drama, The Time of Your Life, opens at Broadway’s Sales space Theatre, produced by the Theatre Guild. Saroyan’s Broadway debut wins the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Drama in addition to the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. The play has an episodic plot, centering round an eclectic mixture of patrons at a seedy waterfront bar in San Francisco. November 8, 1939: Howard Lindsay’s and Russel Crouse’s play, Life With Father, based mostly on the e-book by Clarence Day, opens at Broadway’s Empire Theatre and transfers to 2 different theatres earlier than finishing its seven and a half yr, record-breaking run of three,224 performances. Playwright Howard Lindsay additionally heads the solid, enjoying the daddy. December 6, 1939: Cole Porter’s musical, Du Barry Was a Girl, opens at Broadway’s forty sixth Road Theatre and transfers to the Royale Theatre for a complete run of 408 performances. The solid contains such stars as Bert Lahr, Ethel Merman, and Betty Grable. “Effectively, Did You Evah!” turns into a widely known track from the present. 1940: With World Warfare II raging on, the variety of performs opening on Broadway continues to fall; Selection counts forty-eight, the New York Occasions forty-nine. 1940: The American Negro Theatre (ANT) is based in Harlem to assist practice African American artists for the stage. Well-known actors who got here via ANT embrace Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, and Ossie Davis. April 29, 1940: Robert Sherwood’s drama, There Shall Be No Night time, opens on the Alvin Theatre for 115 performances, with a return engagement of 66 performances. It wins Sherwood the 1941 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Alfred Lunt each directs and stars reverse his spouse, Lynn Fontanne. October 10, 1940: Ice-skating film star Sonja Henie produces a extremely in style ice present at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor, referred to as It Occurs on Ice. October 25, 1940: The musical fantasy Cabin within the Sky opens with an all-black solid at Broadway’s Martin Beck Theatre. Well-known names related to the manufacturing embrace choreographer George Balanchine, performer Katherine Dunham (in her Broadway debut) and her dance troupe, and performer Ethel Waters within the lead position of Petunia Jackson. After 156 performances on Broadway, the corporate goes on a nationwide tour. A 1943 movie model stars Ethel Waters and Lena Horne, and contains trumpeter Louis Armstrong. October 30, 1940: Singer Ethel Merman takes the lead in Cole Porter’s musical, Panama Hattie, which opens at Broadway’s forty sixth Road Theatre and runs for simply over 500 performances. November 26, 1940: Emlyn Williams’ drama, The Corn is Inexperienced, opens on the Nationwide Theatre on Broadway, then transfers to the Royale to finish a run of 477 performances. Set in a small village in Wales, the manufacturing options Ethel Barrymore in among the best roles of her profession. December 25, 1940: Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Moss Hart group as much as open the musical Pal Joey on Broadway. Set in Chicago within the late Nineteen Thirties, it options performer Gene Kelly within the lead of Joey Evans; songs embrace “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.” 1941: With america at warfare, Broadway gives a plethora of escapist comedies and thrillers. With few top quality dramas, no Pulitzer Prize is obtainable this season. January 10, 1941: Joseph Kesselring’s comedy, Arsenic and Previous Lace, opens at Broadway’s Fulton Theatre, performs for almost two years, then transfers to the Hudson Theatre for a complete of 1,444 performances. The story about two outdated girls who poison lonely outdated males is made into a movie in 1944, starring Cary Grant. January 23, 1941: The musical Girl within the Darkish, written by Moss Hart, with music by Kurt Weill, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin, opens at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre and performs greater than a yr. Performer Gertrude Lawrence heads the solid, with comic Danny Kaye in a supporting position. Ginger Rogers stars within the 1944 movie model. April 1, 1941: Lillian Hellman’s drama, Watch on the Rhine, premieres at Broadway’s Martin Beck Theatre, the place it runs for 378 performances. Hellman wins the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest American Play. November 5, 1941: British playwright and performer Noel Coward opens his comedy Blithe Spirit at Broadway’s Morosco Theatre. After transferring to the Sales space Theatre, it performs a complete of 657 performances. December 12, 1941: Set in London within the Eighties, Patrick Hamilton’s thriller, Angel Road, opens on Broadway and performs for 1,295 performances. Vincent Worth, identified later for his horror movies, performs the vicious husband. The British title for this play is Gaslight. 1942: A collection of vaudeville-style reveals are in style on Broadway, together with Priorities of 1942, Preserve ‘Em Laughing, High-Notchers, Snicker, City, Snicker! and Present Time. June 3, 1942: Richard Rodgers’ and Lorenz Hart’s musical, By Jupiter, opens at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre and turns into the most important musical hit of the season, with 427 performances. June 24, 1942: The musical revue Star and Garter entertains audiences at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre. That includes burlesque star and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, it packs in audiences for greater than 600 performances. July 4, 1942: Author/composer/lyricist Irving Berlin’s musical revue, This Is the Military, opens on Independence Day, with the producer listed as Uncle Sam. He creates the revue to entertain the troops and takes it on tour. Berlin additionally performs within the manufacturing, which options the well-known songs “This Is the Military” and “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up within the Morning.” November 5, 1942: “Father of Broadway” George M. Cohan dies. November 18, 1942: Thorton Wilder’s comedy, The Pores and skin of Our Tooth, opens at Broadway’s Plymouth Theatre, the place it stays for 359 performances. Tallulah Bankhead, Florence Eldridge, and Fredric March star. Wilder is awarded the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. December 30, 1942: Joseph Discipline’s comedy about wartime Washington, D.C., The Doughgirls, opens to enthusiastic audiences at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre, the place it performs for 671 performances. 1943: Wartime prosperity brings the viewers again to Broadway. A number of productions develop into smash hits. January 29, 1943: Sidney S. Kingsley’s The Patriots opens at Broadway’s Nationwide Theatre and performs for 173 performances. A vital success, it wins the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest American Play. March 31, 1943: The primary collaboration of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist/e-book author Oscar Hammerstein II strikes gold. The musical Oklahoma! opens and turns into a triumph, enjoying for 5 years and a pair of,212 performances. The unique solid contains Alfred Drake and Joan Roberts enjoying the romantic leads, Curley and Laurey. Agnes De Mille’s choreography proves to be a stand-out part of the manufacturing, significantly the dream ballet. After its preliminary success on Broadway, the progressive musical goes on to profitable street excursions and turns into a success in London as properly. October 7, 1943: Although overshadowed by Oklahoma!, Kurt Weill, S. J. Perelman and Ogden Nash premiere their musical, One Contact of Venus, on Broadway, the place it performs for 567 performances. Mary Martin stars. October 19, 1943: African-American performer Paul Robeson performs Othello on Broadway, a task that traditionally had been carried out by white actors in blackface. Critics are impressed, and the manufacturing runs for almost 300 performances. Margaret Webster directs and likewise performs Emilia to José Ferrer’s Iago. November 20, 1943: Moss Hart writes and directs a play with music, Winged Victory, on Broadway. Starring precise servicemen and produced by america Air Drive, the manufacturing retains audiences coming for 212 performances. December 2, 1943: Oscar Hammerstein II opens Carmen Jones, set to the music of Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen. Set in Nineteen Forties Chicago, it options an all-black solid. The movie model is launched a decade later, in 1954, starring Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte within the lead roles. December 8, 1943: John Van Druten’s romantic comedy The Voice of the Turtle, opens on Broadway and proves to be a smash hit, working for 5 years and 1,557 performances. 1944: Greater than sixty new dramas and comedies open on Broadway. Theatres are packed, and producers benefit from the state of affairs by elevating costs; prime tickets to a play might value from $4.20 to $4.80 . April 8, 1944: The musical Comply with the Women premieres on Broadway, and audiences do certainly comply with, for 888 performances. June 27, 1944: Standard thriller author Agatha Christie is a success on Broadway together with her play Ten Little Indians. It performs for 426 performances. August 20, 1944: Philip Yordan’s drama, Anna Lucasta, opens on Broadway after a earlier manufacturing on the American Negro Theatre in Harlem. The all-black solid contains Alice Childress (later well-known as a playwright) and Canada Lee. The Broadway model has humor added and a brand new completely happy ending tacked on; it pleases audiences for 957 performances on the Mansfield Theatre. August 21, 1944: The musical operetta Music of Norway, based mostly on the life and music of Edvard Grieg, opens on Broadway and succeeds with 860 performances. October 19, 1944: John Van Druten’s I Bear in mind Mama premiers at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre, the place it performs for 713 performances. Marlon Brando makes his Broadway debut as Nels. The 1948 movie model stars Irene Dunne as Mama. November 1, 1944: Mary Chase’s in style comedy, Harvey, opens at Broadway’s forty eighth Road Theatre. The story a few man and his invisible good friend, a 6-foot-tall rabbit, captures the general public’s creativeness, enjoying 1,775 performances and incomes Chase the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A Oscar-winning movie model is launched in 1950, starring Jimmy Stewart. November 23, 1944: Playwright Arthur Miller has his Broadway debut with The Man Who Had All of the Luck, nevertheless Miller proves himself unfortunate when the manufacturing closes after 4 performances. December 28, 1944: On the City opens at Broadway’s Adelphi Theatre, marking the Broadway debut of composer Leonard Bernstein, writers and performers Betty Comden and Adolph Inexperienced, and choreographer Jerome Robbins. The musical relies on Robbin’s American ballet, “Fancy Free,” by which three sailors go to New York Metropolis on shore depart. Songs embrace “New York, New York (It is a Helluva City).” 1945: Regardless of a top quality season with wonderful ticket gross sales the yr earlier than, the variety of performs opening on Broadway drops by twenty % in 1945-1946. March 31, 1945: Thirty-four yr outdated Tennessee Williams makes his Broadway debut as a playwright with The Glass Menagerie. The story of a dysfunctional southern household turns into a success, working for 563 performances. Margo Jones and Eddie Dowling co-direct, with Dowling additionally enjoying the position of Tom. Laurette Taylor performs Amanda in her last Broadway position. The play wins the 1944-1945 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest American Play. April 19, 1945: Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II premiere their musical, Carousel, on Broadway. Based mostly on Ferenc Molnar’s play Lilliom, it presents a haunting, sobering tone. Well-known songs embrace “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over,” “If I Cherished You,” and “You’ll By no means Stroll Alone.” The musical wins the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest Musical, a brand new award class. November 14, 1945: Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse’s comedy, State of the Union, set within the early years of the brand new U.S. authorities, opens on the Hudson Theatre on Broadway, the place it performs for 765 performances. Lindsay and Crouse win the 1946 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play. February 4, 1946: Garson Kanin’s comedy, Born Yesterday, premieres at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre, the place, it performs almost three years, for 1,642 performances. Set in Washington, D.C. in 1945, the play revolves round a crass nouveau-riche man and his “dumb blonde” girlfriend. Paul Douglas and Judy Holliday star, and Holliday reprises her position within the Oscar-winning movie model in 1950. Might 6, 1946: Britain’s Previous Vic Firm excursions to Broadway in a restricted engagement. Stars of the stage embrace Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, and Margaret Leighton. Might 16, 1946: Composer/lyricist Irving Berlin’s musical, Annie Get Your Gun, opens on the Imperial Theatre and stars Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley. Well-known songs embrace “There’s No Enterprise Like Present Enterprise,” and “Something You Can Do (I Can Do Higher).” The hit manufacturing closes in 1949 after 1,147 performances. November 6, 1946: The newly shaped American Repertory Theatre, based by Cheryl Crawford, Eva Le Gallienne, and Margaret Webster, opens their first season in New York Metropolis with King Henry VIII. November 20, 1946: Playwright Lillian Hellman’s drama, One other A part of the Forest, opens at Broadway’s Fulton Theatre. She directs the manufacturing herself, and it performs for 182 performances. Patricia Neal stars as Regina Hubbard and wins 1947 Tony and Theatre World Awards for her efficiency. 1947: The American Theatre Wing holds the primary Antoinette Perry Awards (Tony Awards) ceremony on the Waldorf Astoria Resort. 1947: Margo Jones founds Theatre ’47 in Dallas, Texas. It begins a pattern within the improvement of U.S. regional theatres: skilled theatres with nonprofit standing. January 10, 1947: The luck of the Irish is with the brand new musical Finian’s Rainbow when it opens at Broadway’s forty sixth Road Theatre. The musical fantasy wins three Tony Awards: Michael Kidd for Greatest Choreography, David Wayne for Greatest Featured Actor in a Musical, and Milton Rosenstock for Conductor and Musical Director. The manufacturing runs for 725 performances and options stand-out songs “How Are Issues in Glocca Morra” and “Look to the Rainbow.” January 29, 1947: Arthur Miller’s post-war tragedy, All My Sons, opens at Broadway’s Coronet Theatre, the place it performs for 328 performances. All My Sons wins two Tony Awards, Greatest Play and Greatest Path (Elia Kazan), in addition to the 1946-47 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest American Play. March 13, 1947: Composer Fredrick Loewe and lyricist/e-book author Alan Jay Lerner open their musical, Brigadoon, at Broadway’s Ziegfeld Theatre, the place it turns into their first huge success, working 581 performances. Agnes De Mille earns a Tony Award for her choreography and the manufacturing wins the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest Musical. A memorable track is “Nearly Like Being in Love.” October 9, 1947: The musical Excessive Button Sneakers opens on Broadway and performs 727 peformances. Jerome Robbins wins a Tony Award for Greatest Choreography in 1948. October 10, 1947: Anticipation runs excessive for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s subsequent musical, Allegro, nevertheless it receives blended critiques and runs solely 315 performances, far fewer than their first two hits, Oklahoma! and Carousel. December 3, 1947: Tennessee Williams’ drama, A Streetcar Named Need, opens on Broadway on the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, the place it turns into a vital and in style success for 855 performances. The manufacturing stars Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, Jessica Tandy as Blanche DuBois, and Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski. Williams wins the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Drama in addition to the 1947-1948 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest American Play. 1948: On this season of top of the range, the Tony Awards broaden the quantity and kinds of awards. Three girls tie for performing awards (dramatic): Judith Anderson for Medea, Katherine Cornell for Antony and Cleopatra, and Jessica Tandy for A Streetcar Named Need. Likewise three males win as finest actor (dramatic): Henry Fonda for Mister Roberts, Paul Kelly for Command Resolution, and Basil Rathbone for The Heiress. 1948: “First Girl of American Theatre” Helen Hayes wins the Theatre Arts Journal High Stage Efficiency of the Previous Quarter-Century Quotation for her efficiency in Victoria Regina, which she performed on Broadway in three productions from 1935 to 1938. February 18, 1948: Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan’s wartime comedy, Mister Roberts, premieres at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre, the place it turns into a success for 1,157 performances. Starring Henry Fonda as Lieutenant Roberts, the play revolves round life on a navy cargo ship. Heggen additionally wrote the best-selling novel on which it was based mostly, and Logan directs the manufacturing. Mister Roberts wins 5 Tony Awards, together with Greatest Play. Henry Fonda repeats his position within the Oscar-winning movie model, launched in 1955. December 30, 1948: Cole Porter’s musical, Kiss Me, Kate, debuts on Broadway on the New Century Theater and runs for 1,077 performances. Based mostly on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, it pokes enjoyable at life on stage and backstage; songs embrace “So in Love,” “Too Darn Sizzling,” and “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.” October 6, 1948: Tennessee Williams’ drama, Summer time and Smoke, opens on Broadway, produced and staged by Margo Jones. It runs for 102 performances on the Music Field Theatre; Jo Mielziner wins a Tony Award for his scenic design. October 11, 1948: The musical comedy, The place’s Charley?, based mostly on Brandon Thomas’ farce, Charlie’s Aunt, opens at Broadway’s St James Theatre and performs for 792 performances. Comic Ray Bolger retains audiences laughing, dressed because the aged Aunt, and wins a Tony Award for his efficiency. December 27, 1948: French playwright Jean Giraudoux’s comedy, The Madwoman of Chaillot, opens on Broadway and performs for 368 performances. 1949: The post-war financial system has manufacturing costs hovering, a pattern that continued from the earlier season. The variety of performs opening drops thirty %, and ticket costs for a straight play climb to $6 prime as producers attempt to keep within the black. January 22, 1949: The Mark Hellinger Theatre opens on Broadway and West 51st Road. Initially constructed by Warner Bros. as a film palace in 1928, the theatre serves as each a film theatre and dwell theatre venue from 1934 to 1948, when it’s bought. It serves solely as a respectable Broadway theatre from 1949 to 1989, at which level it’s bought once more and turns into the Occasions Sq. Church. February 10, 1949: Arthur Miller’s nice American tragedy, Dying of a Salesman, premieres at Broadway’s Morosco Theatre, starring Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman. It sweeps six Tony Awards, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and likewise wins the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest American Play. April 7, 1949: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s new musical, South Pacific, units new data for advance ticket gross sales and performs 1,925 performances on Broadway. Based mostly on the novel Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener, the musical addresses problems with racism and tolerance. Directed and co-written by Joshua Logan, it wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in addition to the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Greatest Musical. South Pacific sweeps the Tony Awards, oddly sufficient successful one award in 1949 for scenic designer Jo Mielziner and 9 extra in 1950, together with Greatest Musical. Well-known songs embrace “There’s Nothing Like a Dame,” “Some Enchanted Night,” and “Bali Ha’i.” October 30, 1949: Composer Kurt Weill and dramatist/lyricist Maxwell Anderson’s musical tragedy, Misplaced within the Stars, opens at Broadway’s Music Field Theatre. The haunting musical presents an examination of racial strife in South Africa. It performs for 273 performances. December 8, 1949: Jule Styne’s musical comedy, Gents Favor Blondes, opens at Broadway’s Ziegfeld Theatre for 740 performances. Carol Channing delights audiences in her memorable portrayal of Lorelei Lee, singing “Diamonds Are a Woman’s Greatest Pal.” Marilyn Monroe shines within the movie model in 1953. –compiled by Anne Fliotsos, Copyright 2010 Sources and additional readings: Atkinson, Brooks. Broadway. New York: MacMillan, 1970. Blum, Daniel. A Pictorial Historical past of the American Theatre. New York: Greenberg, 1950. Bordman, Gerald. American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama. 3 vols. New York: Oxford College Press, 1994-1996. Botto, Louis. At This Theatre: An Casual Historical past of New York’s Professional Theatres. New York: Dodd Mead & Co., 1984. Clurman, Harold. The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre and the Thirties. New Ed. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1983. Collins, David. George M. Cohan in America’s Theater. www.members.tripod.com/davecol8/index.htm. Henderson, Mary C. Theater in America. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986. Kenrick, John. Historical past of Stage Musicals. Musicals101.com. League of American Theatres and Producers, Inc. Web Broadway Database. www.imdb.com. PBS Web site. Broadway: The American Musical. Http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/. Schwartz, Bonnie Nelson. Voices from the Federal Theatre. Madison, WI: College of Wisconsin Press, 2003. [A DVD documentary is included with the book.]

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