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12th Tony Awards
The 12th Annual Tony Awards took place at the Waldorf-Astoria Grand Ballroom on April 13, 1958. Bud Collyer was the Master of Ceremonies. For the second year the program was not telecast, due to a strike against WCBS-TV. Zolotow, Sam. ''The New York Times'', "The Music Man Wins Five of 18 Tony Awards", April 14, 1958, p.21"Ceremonies 1958" tonyawards.com, accessed May 28, 2016 The ceremony Presenters: Sydney Chaplin, Greer Garson, Judy Holliday, Celeste Holm, Nancy Kelly, Mary Martin, Elsa Maxwell, Laurence Olivier, Tyrone Power, Martha Scott, , Walter Slezak. Performers were |
Waldorf-Astoria
The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel and condominium residence in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The structure, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, is a 47-story Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultze and Weaver, which was completed in 1931. The building was the world's tallest hotel from 1931 until 1963 when it was surpassed by Moscow's Hotel Ukraina by . An icon of glamour and luxury, the Waldorf Astoria is one of the world's most prestigious and best-known hotels. Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts is a division of Hilton Hotels, and a portfolio of high-end properties around the world operates under the name, including in New York City. Both the exterior and the interior of the Waldorf Astoria are designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as official landmarks. The original Waldorf–Astoria was built in two stages along Fifth Avenue and opened in 1893; it was demolished in 1929 to make way for the construc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Osborne
John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter and actor, known for his prose that criticized established social and political norms. The success of his 1956 play ''Look Back in Anger'' transformed English theatre. Osborne was notorious for his violent language, not only on behalf of the political causes he supported but also against his own family, including his wives and children. Osborne was one of the first writers to address Britain's purpose in the post-imperial age. Early life Osborne was born on 12 December 1929 in London, the son of Thomas Godfrey Osborne, a commercial artist and advertising copywriter of South Welsh ancestry, and Nellie Beatrice Grove, a Cockney barmaid. In 1935 the family moved to the north Surrey suburb of Stoneleigh, near Ewell, in search of a better life, though Osborne would regard it as a cultural desert – a school friend declared subsequently that "he thought ewere a lot of dull, u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oh, Captain!
''Oh, Captain!'' is a musical comedy based on the 1953 film ''The Captain's Paradise'' with music and lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans and the book by Al Morgan and José Ferrer. The basis of the musical was the 1953 film ''The Captain's Paradise'', which had been written by Alec Coppel and Nicholas Phipps. The musical updated the film's Gibraltar and Algiers setting to London and Paris. The production was dismissed by the critics as a "tired businessman's show", but the cast and choreography were much praised. A 5-minute dance sequence between Tony Randall (in the title role) and prima ballerina Alexandra Danilova is called "the best five minutes in the show" by Ken Mandelbaum. Background There was talk of adapting the movie into a musical as early as 1955. Danny Kaye was mentioned as a possible star and Lindsay and Crouse as possible adaptors. Later Bob Merrill was offered the job as composer and David Wayne was mooted as a possible star. Productions ''Oh, Captain!'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Girl In Town
''New Girl in Town'' is a musical with a book by George Abbott and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill based on Eugene O'Neill's 1921 play ''Anna Christie'', about a prostitute who tries to live down her past. ''New Girl'', unlike O'Neill's play, focuses on the jealousy of the character Marthy and on love's ability to conquer all. The musical ends far more hopefully than the play. Background The Broadway production opened on May 4, 1957 at the 46th Street Theatre, where it ran for 431 performances. The show was written as a star vehicle for Gwen Verdon, who had just had a hit with ''Damn Yankees'' and won raves for her portrayal of Anna, a role that showed off her acting, singing and dancing abilities to maximum effect. Composer Bob Merrill was at the beginning of a string of 1960s successes. ''New Girl in Town,'' produced by Frederick Brisson, Robert E. Griffith and Hal Prince, was well received by both critics and audiences. Verdon and co-star Thelma Ritter shared the Tony Awar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jamaica (musical)
''Jamaica'' is a musical with a book by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Harold Arlen. It is set on a small island off the coast of Jamaica, and tells about a simple island community fighting to avoid being overrun by American commercialism. Arlen's music parodies the popular form of Calypso, which was in vogue in the 1950s, largely as a result of the popularity of Harry Belafonte, for whom the musical originally was written. Belafonte withdrew from the production due to illness, and the musical was tailored around the talents of Lena Horne. Harburg was blacklisted in Hollywood at the time of the writing of the musical,Lorenz, Kathleen Phillis"Spotlight on E.Y. "Yip" Harburg". 42ndstmoon.com and the satire is unusually pointed. Many of the topics raised in the songs, including evolution, nuclear energy, and consumerism, remain topical today. Productions The musical opened in Philadelphia. Later, it moved to Broadway, opening at the Imperial Theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Music Man
''The Music Man'' is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naïve Midwestern townsfolk, promising to train the members of the new band. Harold is no musician, however, and plans to skip town without giving any music lessons. Prim librarian and piano teacher Marian sees through him, but when Harold helps her younger brother overcome his lisp and social awkwardness, Marian begins to fall in love with him. He risks being caught to win her heart. In 1957, the show became a hit on Broadway, winning five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and running for 1,375 performances. The cast album won the first Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and spent 245 weeks on the Billboard charts. The show's success led to Broadway and West End revivals, a popular 1962 film adaptation and a 200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Gibson (playwright)
William Gibson (November 13, 1914 – November 25, 2008) was an American playwright and novelist. He won the Tony Award for Best Play for ''The Miracle Worker'' in 1959, which he later adapted for the film version in 1962. Early life and education Gibson graduated from the City College of New York in 1938, and was of Irish, French, German, Dutch and Russian and Greek ancestry. Work as playwright Gibson's Broadway debut had been with ''Two for the Seesaw'' in 1958, a critically acclaimed two-character play which starred Henry Fonda and, in her own Broadway debut, Anne Bancroft. It was directed by Arthur Penn. Gibson published a chronicle of the vicissitudes of rewriting for the sake of this production with a nonfiction book in the following year, ''The Seesaw Log''. His most famous play is ''The Miracle Worker'' (1959), the story of Helen Keller's childhood education, which won him the Tony Award for Best Play after he adapted it from his original 1957 telefilm script. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Two For The Seesaw (play)
''Two for the Seesaw'' is a three-act, two-person play written William Gibson. The play opened on Broadway on January 16, 1958, at the Booth Theatre in New York and ran for 750 performances, closing on October 31, 1959. With the opening cast of Henry Fonda (Jerry Ryan) and Anne Bancroft (Gittel Mosca), the play was directed by Arthur Penn and produced by Fred Coe. A surprise hit, ''Two for the Seesaw'' earned Anne Bancroft, making her Broadway debut, her first Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. The play was adapted into a film of the same name in 1962, directed by Robert Wise and starring Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine, and was later adapted into the musical ''Seesaw'' in 1973. The play marked the Broadway debut of writer William Gibson, who would later collaborate with Penn and Coe on the play and film adaptations of ''The Miracle Worker'', which also featured Bancroft in the lead role. Published in 1959, a year after ''Two for the Seesaw'' opened on Broadw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patricia Moyes
Patricia Pakenham-Walsh, also known as Patricia Moyes (19 January 1923 – 2 August 2000) was a British mystery writer. Her mystery novels feature C.I.D. Inspector Henry Tibbett. One of them, ''Who Saw Her Die'' (''Many Deadly Returns'' in the USA) was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1971. She wrote several juveniles and short stories. Life and work "Penny" Moyes was born in Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ..., Ireland, on 19 January 1923, the daughter of Marion ("Molly") Strachan and Ernest Pakenham-Walsh, who had been in the Indian Civil Service (British India), Indian civil service and was a High Court judge in Madras. She was educated at Overstone Girls' School in Northampton and joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, WAAF in 1939. In 1946 Pete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh (; 23 June 1910 – 3 October 1987) was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play ''Antigone'', an adaptation of Sophocles' classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's Vichy government. His plays are less experimental than those of his contemporaries, having clearly organized plot and eloquent dialogue. One of France's most prolific writers after World War II, much of Anouilh's work deals with themes of maintaining integrity in a world of moral compromise. Life and career Early life Anouilh was born in Cérisole, a small village on the outskirts of Bordeaux, and had Basque ancestry. His father, François Anouilh, was a tailor, and Anouilh maintained that he inherited from him a pride in conscientious craftmanship. He may owe his artistic bent to his mother, Marie-Magdeleine, a violinist who supplemented the family's m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Léocadia
''Léocadia'' (''Time Remembered'') is a play by Jean Anouilh that premiered at the Théâtre de la Michodière in Paris on 2 December 1940. It is one of Anouilh's ''Pièces roses'', together with '' Humulus le muet'' (1932), '' Le Bal des voleurs'' (1938), and ' (1941). For the occasion, Francis Poulenc composed one of his most celebrated songs, " Les Chemins de l'amour", sung by Yvonne Printemps. Plot ''Léocadia'' tells the story of a young prince madly in love with a Romanian opera singer, Léocadia Gardi. The young man only knew her for three days: like Isadora Duncan, she died strangled by her shawl. Inconsolable, he lives in his memory of the young woman. His aunt—the Duchesse d'Andinet d'Andaine—reconstructs the setting and places of those three days like a theater director. Actors play the parts of the butler and servants during those days of happiness. Amanda, a poor milliner and look-alike of the singer, is called upon to seduce the prince, in the hope that life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Ustinov
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov (born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov ; 16 April 192128 March 2004) was a British actor, filmmaker and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. An intellectual and diplomat, he held various academic posts and served as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and president of the World Federalist Movement. Ustinov was the winner of numerous awards during his life, including two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor, Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, and BAFTA Awards for acting, and a Grammy Award for best recording for children, as well as the recipient of governmental honours from, amongst others, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He also displayed a unique cultural versatility which frequently earned him the accolade of a Renaissance man. Miklós Rózsa, composer of the music for ''Quo Vadis'' and of numerous concert works, dedicated his String Quartet No. 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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