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Can-Can (musical)
''Can-Can'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, and a book by Abe Burrows. The story concerns the showgirls of the Montmartre dance halls during the 1890s. The original Broadway production ran for over two years beginning in 1953, and the 1954 West End production was also a success. Gwen Verdon, in only her second Broadway role, and choreographer Michael Kidd won Tony Awards and were praised, but both the score and book received tepid reviews, and revivals generally have not fared well. Production history After the pre-Broadway tryout at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia in March 1953, ''Can-Can'' premiered on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on May 7, 1953, and closed on June 25, 1955 after 892 performances. The original production, which Burrows also directed, starred Lilo as La Mome, Hans Conried as Boris, Peter Cookson as the judge, Gwen Verdon as Claudine, Dania Krupska, Phil Leeds, Dee Dee Wood, and Erik Rhodes as Hilaire. Michael Kidd was the choreograp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in film. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, Porter defied his grandfather's wishes for him to practice law and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn to musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics as well as the music for his songs. After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 1930s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, ''Kiss Me, Kate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dee Dee Wood
Dee Dee Wood (born Audrey Donella on June 7, 1927 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American choreographer. She is best known for her work on musical films of the 1960s and 1970s. Biography Most of her well-known work was in collaboration with Marc Breaux, both in films and for television. Wood and Breaux were married in 1955 and were later divorced.Barnes, Mike"'Mary Poppins' Choreographer Marc Breaux Dies at 89" ''Hollywood Reporter'', November 22, 2013 In 1964-1970, Wood and Breaux were the choreographers for the weekly musical revue "The Hollywood Palace." She also worked in collaboration with the songwriting duo the Sherman Brothers. She serves as one of the judges for the Emmy Awards (choreography). Wood appeared on Broadway in '' Can-Can'' in 1953 as a performer, and worked as an Assistant to Michael Kidd on ''L'il Abner'' (1956) and ''Destry Rides Again'' (1959) and was the choreographer (with Breaux) for '' Do Re Mi'' (1960). She currently lives in Cave Creek, Arizona. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Muny
The St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre (commonly known as The Muny) is an amphitheater located in St. Louis, Missouri. The theatre seats 11,000 people with about 1,500 free seats in the last nine rows that are available on a first come, first served basis. The Muny seasons run every year from mid-June to mid-August. It is run by a nonprofit organization. The current president and chief executive is Kwofe Coleman. The current artistic director and executive producer is Mike Isaacson. History In 1914, Luther Ely Smith began staging pageant-masques on Art Hill in Forest Park. In 1916, a grassy area between two oak trees on the present site of The Muny was chosen for a production of '' As You Like It'' produced by Margaret Anglin and starring Sydney Greenstreet with a local cast of "1,000 St. Louis folk dancers and folk singers" in connection with the tercentenary of Shakespeare's death. The audience sat in portable chairs on a gravel floor. Soon after, the Convention Board of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Rich
Frank Hart Rich Jr. (born 1949) is an American essayist and liberal op-ed columnist, who held various positions within ''The New York Times'' from 1980 to 2011. He has also produced television series and documentaries for HBO. Rich is currently writer-at-large for '' New York'' magazine, where he writes essays on politics and culture and engages in regular dialogues on news of the week for the "Daily Intelligencer". He served as executive producer of the long-running HBO comedy series ''Veep'', having joined the show at its outset in 2011, and of the HBO drama series '' Succession''. Early life Born on June 2, 1949, Rich grew up in Washington, D.C. His mother, Helene Fisher (née Aaronson), a schoolteacher and artist, was from a Russian Jewish family that originally settled in Brooklyn, New York, but moved to Washington after the stock market crash of 1929. His father, Frank Hart Rich, a businessman, was from a German Jewish family long-settled in Washington. He attended publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zizi Jeanmaire
Renée Marcelle "Zizi" Jeanmaire (29 April 192417 July 2020) was a French ballet dancer, actress and singer. She became famous in the 1950s after playing the title role in the ballet ''Carmen'', produced in London in 1949, and went on to appear in several Hollywood films and Paris revues. She was the wife of dancer and choreographer Roland Petit, who created ballets and revues for her. Career Jeanmaire was born in Paris to Olga Renée (''née'' Brunus) and Marcel Jeanmaire. She later wrote in her autobiography: "When I was little my mother called me 'mon Jésus' which transformed into 'mon Zizi'." She met her future husband and long-time collaborator Roland Petit at the Paris Opera Ballet when they were both aged nine. She danced in 1944 in the ''Soirées de la danse'' at the Theater Sarah Bernhardt. She became a ballerina of the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo in 1946, and danced during the last season of Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in London in 1947. From 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roland Petit
Roland Petit (13 January 192410 July 2011) was a French ballet company director, choreographer and dancer. He trained at the Paris Opera Ballet school, and became well known for his creative ballets. Life and work The son of shoe designer Rose Repetto, Petit was born in Villemomble, near Paris. He trained at the Paris Opéra Ballet school under Gustave Ricaux and Serge Lifar and began to dance with the corps de ballet in 1940. He founded the Ballets des Champs-Élysées in 1945 and the Ballets de Paris in 1948, at Théâtre Marigny, with Zizi Jeanmaire as star dancer. Petit collaborated with Constant Lambert (''Ballabile'' - 1950), Henri Dutilleux (''Le Loup'' - 1953), Serge Gainsbourg, Yves Saint-Laurent and César Baldaccini and participated in several French and American films. He returned to the Paris Opéra in 1965 to mount a production of ''Notre Dame de Paris'' (with music by Maurice Jarre). He continued to direct ballets for the largest theatres of France, Italy, Germ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minskoff Theatre
The Minskoff Theatre is a Broadway theater on the third floor of the One Astor Plaza office building in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1973, it is operated by the Nederlander Organization and is named after Sam Minskoff and Sons, the building's developers. There are approximately 1,710 seats in the auditorium, spread across an orchestra level and a balcony. Over the years it has served as host to musicals, dance companies, and concerts. The Minskoff was designed by Kahn and Jacobs, who designed One Astor Plaza. It was one of the first theaters constructed under the Special Theater District amendment of 1967. The theater's main entrances are from a passageway connecting 44th and 45th Streets, in the middle of a city block between Broadway to the east and Eighth Avenue to the west. There are escalators leading from the ground floor to the lobby, where further escalators lead to the auditorium. One Astor Plaza's eastern section is directly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warren Mitchell
Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was a British actor. He was a BAFTA TV Award winner and twice a Laurence Olivier Award winner. In the 1950s, Mitchell appeared on the radio programmes ''Educating Archie'' and ''Hancock's Half Hour''. He also performed minor roles in several films. In the 1960s, he rose to prominence in the role of bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom ''Till Death Us Do Part'' (1965–75), created by Johnny Speight, which won him a Best TV Actor BAFTA in 1967. He reprised the role in the television sequels '' Till Death...'' ( ATV, 1981) and ''In Sickness and in Health'' (BBC, 1985–92), and in the films ''Till Death Us Do Part'' (1969) and ''The Alf Garnett Saga'' (1972). His other film appearances include ''Three Crooked Men'' (1958), ''Carry On Cleo'' (1964), '' The Spy Who Came In from the Cold'' (1965), ''The Assassination Bureau'' (1969) and ''Norman Loves Rose'' (1982). He held both B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gillian Lynne
Dame Gillian Barbara Lynne (née Pyrke; 20 February 1926 – 1 July 2018) was an English ballerina, dancer, choreographer, actress, and theatre-television director, noted for her theatre choreography associated with two of the longest-running shows in Broadway history, ''Cats'' and ''The Phantom of the Opera''. At age 87, she was made a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2014 New Year Honours List. The New London Theatre, where the original West End production of ''Cats'' played, was officially renamed the Gillian Lynne Theatre in 2018. This made Lynne the first non-royal woman to have a West End theatre named after her. Early life and education Gillian Barbara Pyrke was born in Bromley, Kent, and was a precocious dance talent from an early age, teaming with her childhood friend Beryl Grey while still at school, and dancing to blot out the tragedy of the violent death of her mother on 8 July 1939 in Coventry (as a result of a car crash along wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Marks
Alfred Edward Marks OBE (born Alfred Edward Touchinsky; 28 January 19211 July 1996) was a British actor and comedian. In his 60-year career, he played dramatic and comedy roles in numerous television programmes, stage shows and films. His self-titled television sketch show ran from 1956 to 1961. Biography Marks was born as Alfred Edward Touchinsky in Holborn, London, to Polish Jewish parents.Obituary '''' He left Bell Lane School at 14 and started in entertainment at the Windmill Theatre. He then served in the RAF as a [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Hockridge
Edmund James Arthur Hockridge (9 August 1919 – 15 March 2009) was a Canadian baritone and actor who had an active performance career in musicals, operas, concerts, plays and on radio. According to his obituary in ''The Guardian'', his life could have provided the storyline for one of the musicals he starred in. Career Edmund Hockridge grew up on a farm in the Vancouver area of British Columbia. His mother was a pianist and his father and three brothers - all older than he was - loved to sing. When Edmund was 17, a Vancouver music club organised an audition with New York Metropolitan Opera star John Charles Thomas, who encouraged him to look to music as a career. Going overseas during World War II with the Royal Canadian Air Force led to Hockridge being "loaned" to the BBC, in a unit supplying news and entertainment to the troops in Europe, working with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Canadian Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force led by Robert Farnon. Hockridge lear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
