Kean (musical)
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Kean (musical)
''Kean'' is a musical with a book by Peter Stone and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest. Using material by Jean-Paul Sartre and Alexandre Dumas, père as its source, it centers on the adventures of Edmund Kean, considered the greatest Shakespearean actor of the early 19th century, focusing primarily mainly on his wild behavior offstage. Trouble ensues as Kean desperately tries to juggle the two women in his life - the Danish Ambassador's wife, Elena, and a young aspiring actress, Anna. After one preview, the Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Jack Cole, opened on November 2, 1961 at the Broadway Theatre, where it ran for 92 performances. The cast included Roderick Cook, Alfred Drake, Larry Fuller, Christopher Hewett, Joan Weldon, and Lee Venora. Drake was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and the show was nominated for Best Conductor and Musical Director. An original cast recording was released by Columbia Records. ...
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Robert Wright (writer)
Robert Craig Wright (September 25, 1914 – July 27, 2005) was an American composer-lyricist for Hollywood and the musical theatre, best known for the Broadway musical and musical film '' Kismet'', for which he and his professional and romantic partner George Forrest adapted themes by Alexander Borodin and added lyrics. ''Kismet'' was one of several Wright and Forrest creations that was commissioned by impresario Edwin Lester for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. ''Song of Norway'', ''Gypsy Lady'', '' Magdalena'', and their adaptation of '' The Great Waltz'' were also commissioned by Lester for the LACLO. The LACLO passed most of these productions to Broadway. Wright was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States. Wright and Forrest had an affinity for adapting classical music themes and adding lyrics to these themes for Hollywood and the Broadway musical stage. Wright said that the music was usually a 50-50 "collaboration" between Wright and Forrest and the composer. W ...
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Roderick Cook
Roderick Cook (9 February 1932 – 17 August 1990) was an English playwright, writer, theatre director and actor of stage, television and film. Cook is known for creating, directing and starring in the musical review '' Oh, Coward!'' and portraying Count Von Strack in the Oscar-winning film ''Amadeus''. Career Cook attended Queens' College, Cambridge, graduating in 1953, and then began his career appearing in plays at London's West End during the 1950s. He made his professional stage debut in 1954 as Feste in ''Twelfth Night''; a production directed by Peter Hall. That same year, he worked under Hall again in the English language premiere of '' Waiting for Godot'' by Samuel Beckett at the Arts Theatre, London. He also starred alongside Maggie Smith in the original 1954 production of ''Listen to the Wind'' at the Oxford Playhouse. Cook worked with Smith again in the original 1957 production of ''Share My Lettuce'' at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. In 1956, Cook worked unde ...
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Musicals By Peter Stone
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals. Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and those of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by the numerous Edwardian musical comedies and the musical theatre w ...
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Broadway Musicals
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Theatre'' as the proper noun in their names (12 others used neither), with many performers and trade groups for live dramatic presentations also using the spelling ''theatre''. or Broadway, are the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats, located in the Theater District and the Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End theatre, West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world. While the thoroughfare is eponymous with the district and its collection of 41 theaters, and it is also closely identified with Times Square, only three of the theaters are located on Broadway itself (nam ...
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1961 Musicals
Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 (Koivulahti air disaster): Douglas DC-3C OH-LCC of Finnish airline Finnair, Aero crashes near Kvevlax (Koivulahti), on approach to Vaasa Airport in Finland, killing all 25 on board, due to pilot error: an investigation finds that the Captain (civil aviation), captain and First officer (civil aviation), first officer were both exhausted for lack of sleep, and had consumed excessive amounts of alcohol at the time of the crash. It remains the deadliest air disaster to occur in the country. * January 5 ** Italian sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti marches into the U.S. Consulate in Rome, and confesses that he was part of the team that forged the Etruscan terracotta warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. ** After the 1960 Turkish coup d'état, 1960 ...
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Internet Broadway Database
The Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It was conceived and created by Karen Hauser in 1996 and is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community. This comprehensive history of Broadway provides records of productions from the beginnings of New York theatre in the 18th century up to today. Details include cast and creative lists for opening night and current day, song lists, awards and other interesting facts about every Broadway production. Other features of IBDB include an extensive archive of photos from past and present Broadway productions, headshots, links to cast recordings on iTunes or Amazon, gross and attendance information. Its mission was to be an interactive, user-friendly, searchable database for League members, journalists, researchers, and Broadway fans. The League recently added Broadway Touring shows t ...
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Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the Graphophone#Commercialization, American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Laboratory and Bureau#Commercialization of phonograph patents, Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records International, CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records. Artists who have recorded for Columbia include AC/DC, Adele, Aerosmith, Julie And ...
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Cast Album
A cast recording is a recording of a stage musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording or OCR, as the name implies, features the voices of the show's original cast. A cast recording featuring the first cast to perform a musical in a particular venue is known, for example, as an "original Broadway cast recording" (OBCR) or an "original London cast recording" (OLCR). Cast recordings are (usually) studio recordings rather than live recordings. The recorded song lyrics and orchestrations are nonetheless identical (or very similar) to those of the songs as performed in the theatre. Like any studio performance, the recording is an idealized rendering, more glossily perfect than any live performance could be, and without audible audience reaction. Nevertheless, the listener who has attended the live show expects it to be an accurate souvenir of the experience. History The British were the ...
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Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in Midtown Manhattan. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theatre. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. The awards were founded by theatre producer and director Brock Pemberton and are named after Antoinette "Tony" Perry, an actress, producer and theatre director who was co-founder and secretary of the American Theatre Wing. The trophy consists of a spinnable medallion, with faces portraying an adaptation of the comedy and tragedy masks, mounted on a black base with a pewter swivel. The rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in the off ...
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Lee Venora
Lee Venora (born February 16, 1932) is an American operatic soprano and musical theater actress. She was highly active with the New York City Opera between 1957 and 1967 and a regular performer at the San Francisco Opera between 1961 and 1966. She also appeared in a few Broadway musicals, Lincoln Center revivals, and national tours of musicals during her career. Composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein was an admirer of her voice, and she performed with him and the New York Philharmonic on a number of occasions during the late 1950s and early 1960s. She also sang with the orchestra on a couple of recordings and appears on a few musical recordings as well. Biography Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, as Elena Sinaguglia, Venora studied singing at the Hartt School of Music. She made her first appearance at the New York City Opera (NYCO) on April 6, 1958, as The Girl in the first professional production of Mark Bucci's ''Tale for a Deaf Ear'' with Patricia Neway as Laura Gates, William ...
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Joan Weldon
Joan Weldon (born Joan Louise Welton; August 5, 1930 – February 11, 2021) was an American actress and singer in film, television, and theatre. Early years Weldon was born in San Francisco, California in 1930. Her grandmother, Olio Cornell, raised her there after she "was left motherless at five." Weldon's great-grandfather was an actor on stage and in vaudeville. She attended Galileo High School, and was inducted into their Hall of Merit in 2019. Stage Weldon began her career singing in the San Francisco Grand Opera Company chorus. She also sang with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. On Broadway, she appeared in ''Kean''. She sang at the opening of the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center in 1964. After working in film and television, she resumed her career as a singer in road company productions including ''The Music Man'' and ''Oklahoma!'' Weldon retired in 1980. Radio In 1953, Weldon appeared as the soprano soloist on a broadcast of ''The Standard Hour'' on NBC rad ...
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Christopher Hewett
Christopher George Hewett (5 April 1921 – 3 August 2001) was an English actor and theatre director best known for his role as Lynn Aloysius Belvedere on the ABC sitcom ''Mr. Belvedere''. Career Hewett was born in Worthing, Sussex to Christopher Fitzsimon Hewett (an army officer and a descendant of Daniel O'Connell), and his wife Eleanor Joyce Watts (an actress whose professional name was Rhoda Cleighton). He was educated at Beaumont College and at Wimbledon College, and at aged 7, made his acting debut in Dublin stage production of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. At age 16 Hewett joined the Royal Air Force, leaving in 1940. Hewett then joined the Oxford Repertory Company and made his West End theatre debut in 1943. He later appeared on Broadway in the musicals ''My Fair Lady'', '' First Impressions'', '' The Unsinkable Molly Brown'', ''Music Is'' and ''Kean'' and in the plays ''Sleuth'' and '' The Affair'', among others, and directed the 1960 Broadway revue ''From A to Z'' ...
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