I Had A Ball
''I Had a Ball'' is a musical with a book by Jerome Chodorov and music and lyrics by Jack Lawrence and Stan Freeman. It starred Buddy Hackett, and featured Richard Kiley and Karen Morrow. Plot overview Set on the Coney Island Boardwalk, it focuses on matchmaking grifter turned fortune teller Garside, who tries to set up his friend, fellow grifter and recent parolee Stan, with Wonder Wheel owner/operator Jeannie. Garside finds his crystal ball is real, as it foretells Stan falling in love with former Coney Island hawker and man-eater Addie (who's returned to the alley while on the prowl for rich husband number four), and Jeannie falling in love with Brooks, a loan shark to whom Garside owes a hundred bucks (even though he only borrowed four). Garside watches the mismatched couples meet while getting dragged off to prison by Officer Millhauser (for running a fortune telling scam) ending the first act. Other characters include Ma Maloney, who heads the Alley Gang: Joe the Muzzler, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Jack Lawrence (songwriter)
Jack Lawrence (born Jacob Louis Schwartz, April 7, 1912 – March 16, 2009) was an American songwriter. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975. Life and career Jack Lawrence was born in Brooklyn, New York to an Orthodox Jewish family of modest means as the third of four sons. His parents Barney (Beryl) Schwartz and Fanny (Fruma) Goldman Schwartz were first cousins who had run away from their home in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine to go to America in 1904. Lawrence wrote songs while still a child, but because of parental pressure after he graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, he enrolled in the First Institute of Podiatry, where he received a D.P.M. degree in 1932. The same year, his first song was published and he immediately decided to make a career of songwriting rather than podiatry. That song, "Play, Fiddle, Play", won international fame and he became a member of ASCAP that year at age 20. In the early 1940s, Lawrence and several fellow hitmakers forme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Nightclub
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs generally restrict access to people in terms of age, attire, personal belongings, and inappropriate behaviors. Nightclubs typically have dress codes to prohibit people wearing informal, indecent, offensive, or gang-related attire from entering. Unlike other entertainment venues, nightclubs are more likely to use bouncers to screen prospective patrons for entry. The busiest nights for a nightclub are Friday and Saturday nights. Most nightclubs cater to a particular music genre or sound for branding effects. Some nightclubs may offer food and beverages (including alcoholic beverages). History Early history In the United States, New York increasingly became the national capital for tourism and entertainment. Grand hotels were built for upsca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Luba Lisa
Luba Lisa Gootnick (March 10, 1941 – December 15, 1972) was an American actress, singer and television presenter. She received a Tony Award nomination and won a Theatre World Award for her performance in the 1964 musical ''I Had a Ball''. Personal life Luba Lisa Gootnick was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Jewish parents Esther (née Diamant 1908–1999) and Louis Gootnick (1910–2005), a former New York City police officer. Her brother is Dr. David Gootnick. Theatre Her Broadway credits include ''Carnival'' as Princess Olga in 1961, and ''I Can Get It for You Wholesale'' in 1962 with a cast that included Barbra Streisand. In 1964 she starred in a Broadway revival of ''West Side Story'' as Anita. The show closed after 31 performances. Luba received rave reviews for her role as the floozy Addie in the musical ''I Had a Ball'' in which she sang the song called 'Addie's at it Again'. The song was added into the show by the producers before the show opened on Broadw ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
August Wilson
August Wilson ( Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called ' (or ''The Century Cycle'')'','' which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. Plays in the series include ''Fences'' (1987) and ''The Piano Lesson'' (1990), both of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as ''Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'' (1984) and ''Joe Turner's Come and Gone'' (1988). In 2006, Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. His works delve into the African-American experience as well as examinations of the human condition. Other themes range from the systemic and historical exploitation of African Americans, as well as race relations, identity, migration, and racial discrimination. Viola Davis said that Wilson's writing "captures our humor, our vulnera ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write" is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston: :''Epigram XLIX — On Playwright'' :PLAYWRIGHT me reads, and still my verses damns, :He says I want the tongue of epigrams ; :I have no salt, no bawdry he doth mea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Yale Repertory Theatre
Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of Yale School of Drama, in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented students. In the process it has become one of the first distinguished regional theatres. Located at the edge of Yale's main downtown campus, it occupies the former Calvary Baptist Church. History As head of Yale Repertory Theatre ("the Rep") from 1966 to 1979, Robert Brustein brought professional actors to Yale each year to form a repertory company and nurtured notable new authors including Christopher Durang. Some successful works were transferred to commercial theaters. Michael Feingold was the first literary manager. The dean of Yale School of Drama is the artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theatre, with Lloyd Richards (who most notably nurtured the career of August Wilson) serving in this capacity 1979–1991, Stan Wojewodski, Jr. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Lloyd Richards
Lloyd George Richards (June 29, 1919 – June 29, 2006) was a Canadian-American theatre director, actor, and dean of the Yale School of Drama from 1979 to 1991, and Yale University professor emeritus. Biography Richards was born in Toronto, Ontario, but was in Detroit, Michigan. His father, a Jamaican carpenter turned auto-industry worker, died when Richards was nine years old. Soon after, his mother lost her eyesight, he and his brother Allan kept the family together. He later went on to study law at Wayne State University where instead he found his way in theatrical arts after a brief break during World War II while serving in the U.S. Army Air Force. Among Richards' accomplishments are his staging the original production of Lorraine Hansberry's ''A Raisin in the Sun'', debuting on Broadway to standing ovations on 11 March 1959, and in 1984 he introduced August Wilson to Broadway in ''Ma Rainey's Black Bottom''. As head of the National Playwrights Conference at the Eu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Onna White
Onna White (March 24, 1922 – April 8, 2005) was a Canadian choreographer and dancer, nominated for eight Tony Awards. Early life and career Born in Inverness, Nova Scotia, White began taking dance lessons at the age of twelve, and eventually her studies took her to the San Francisco Ballet, where she danced in the first full-length U.S. production of ''The Nutcracker''. Her first Broadway performance was in ''Finian's Rainbow'' in 1947. Her next assignment was ''Guys and Dolls'', in which she both performed and assisted the choreographer, Michael Kidd, beginning an association that lasted through various productions until, in 1956, she choreographed her first Broadway show, ''Carmen Jones''. Personal life She married actor Larry Douglas in 1948; they divorced in 1959. They had two children: Jeanne and Stuart. She choreographed both the stage version and screen versions of ''The Music Man'' (1962), ''1776'' (1972) and ''Mame'' (1974). In 1964, Douglas married Susan Luckey, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Martin Beck Theatre
The Al Hirschfeld Theatre, originally the Martin Beck Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 302 West 45th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1924, it was designed by G. Albert Lansburgh in a Moorish and Byzantine style and was constructed for vaudevillian Martin Beck. It has 1,404 seats across two levels and is operated by Jujamcyn Theaters. Both the facade and the interior are New York City landmarks. The Al Hirschfeld's auditorium and stage house share a design for their facade. There is a double-height arcade with cast-stone columns at the base of the theater. The eastern section of the arcade contains the auditorium entrance, the center section includes a staircase with emergency exits, and the western section leads to the stage house. Red brick is used for the upper stories of the facade. Albert Herter, a muralist who frequently collaborated with Lansburgh, oversaw much of the interior design. A square ticket lobby is directly insid ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since 1854, the city has been coextensive with Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the Delaware Valley, the nation's seventh-largest and one of world's largest metropolitan regions, with 6.245 million residents . The city's population at the 2020 census was 1,603,797, and over 56 million people live within of Philadelphia. Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Quaker. The city served as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony during the British colonial era and went on to play a historic and vital role as the central meeting place for the nation's founding fathers whose plans and actions in Philadelphia ultimately inspired the American Revolution and the nation's inde ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 census, making it the 27th-most populous city in the United States. The metropolitan area, known as Metro Detroit, is home to 4.3 million people, making it the second-largest in the Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area, and the 14th-largest in the United States. Regarded as a major cultural center, Detroit is known for its contributions to music, art, architecture and design, in addition to its historical automotive background. ''Time'' named Detroit as one of the fifty World's Greatest Places of 2022 to explore. Detroit is a major port on the Detroit River, one of the four major straits that connect the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The City of Detroit anchors the second-largest regional economy in t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Victor Moore
Victor Fred Moore (February 24, 1876 – July 23, 1962) was an American actor of stage and screen, a major Broadway star from the late 1920s through the 1930s. He was also a writer and director, but is best remembered today as a comedian, playing timid, mild-mannered roles. Today's audiences know him as the star of a Christmas-themed movie that has become a perennial: '' It Happened on 5th Avenue'' (1947). Moore plays a vagrant who occupies a millionaire's mansion—without the millionaire's knowledge—while the owner is vacationing. Career Victor Moore appeared in 21 Broadway shows and more than 50 films. His first appearance on Broadway was in ''Rosemary'' (1896). He also appeared in George M. Cohan's ''Forty-five Minutes from Broadway'', which opened January 1, 1906, and its sequel, ''The Talk of New York'' (1907). He went on to star in shows such as '' Oh, Kay!'' (1926) as Shorty McGee, ''Hold Everything!'' (1928) as Nosey Bartlett, Gershwin's ''Of Thee I Sing'' (1931) as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |