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Maggie Flynn
''Maggie Flynn'' is a 1968 musical with a book by Morton DaCosta and music and lyrics by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss. Based on an idea by John Flaxman, it was inspired by a true story set in the New York Draft Riots of 1863. The title character, an Irish woman providing asylum for orphaned children of refugee slaves, is on the verge of marrying a Union Army colonel. Her vagabond husband Phineas Flynn (who abandoned her to pursue a theatrical career and whom she had presumed was dead) returns to the scene. The cast of characters includes Confederate insurgents, prostitutes and drunks, bigoted socialites, circus performers, and some African-American kids endangered by the draft riots. Production The Broadway production, directed by DaCosta and choreographed by Brian Macdonald, opened on October 23, 1968, at the ANTA Playhouse, where it ran for 82 performances and 6 previews. The cast included Shirley Jones and husband Jack Cassidy, who was nominated for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugo Peretti
Hugo E. Peretti (December 6, 1916 – May 1, 1986) was an American songwriter, trumpeter, and record producer. Born in New York City to an Italian American family, Peretti began his music career as a teenager, playing the trumpet in the Borscht Belt in upstate New York. He graduated to playing with orchestras, then in the 1950s partnered with his cousin Luigi Creatore to form the Hugo & Luigi songwriting team that evolved to producing records. In 1957 they bought into Roulette Records, where they wrote songs for various artists such as Valerie Carr, and produced major hits for Jimmie Rodgers, including "Honeycomb" (Billboard #1), " Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" (Billboard #3), "Oh-Oh, I'm Falling in Love Again", and "Secretly". Two years later, Peretti and Creatore signed a contract with RCA Records, where they produced recordings for pop crooner and NBC television personality Perry Como. They also produced recordings for Sam Cooke and Ray Peterson and wrote English lyrics for t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Macdonald (choreographer)
Brian Ronald Macdonald (May 14, 1928 – November 29, 2014) was a Canadian dancer, choreographer and director of opera, theatre and musical theatre. Early and personal life Brian Macdonald was born in Montreal, Quebec on May 14, 1928. His father Ian was Irish and worked at Dominion Glass Co. as a sales manager while his mother Mabel Lee was Scottish. Macdonald was a child actor for Radio-Canada and studied piano. In 1959 Macdonald's first wife Olivia Wyatt died in an automobile accident. Macdonald became a single father, raising his three-year-old son. Macdonald met his second wife Annette av Paul while the artistic director of the Royal Swedish Ballet. They married in 1964. He died on November 29, 2014 in Stratford, Ontario of bone cancer. Professional career Dancer Macdonald was taking a B.A. in English at McGill University when he began ballet classes with noted teachers Gerald Crevier and Elizabeth Leese. From 1947-1949 he was music critic for the Montreal Herald. M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RCA Victor
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Arista Records, and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, classical, rock, hip hop, afrobeat, electronic, R&B, blues, jazz, and country. Its name is derived from the initials of its defunct parent company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). RCA Records was fully acquired by Bertelsmann in 1987, making it a part of Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and became a part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment after the 2004 merger of BMG and Sony; it was acquired by the latter in 2008, after the dissolution of Sony/BMG and the restructuring of Sony Music. RCA Records is the corporate successor of the Victor Talking Machine Company, founded in 1901, making it the second-oldest record label in American history, af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Her First Roman
''Her First Roman'' is a musical with music, lyrics, and book by Ervin Drake, based on the 1898 George Bernard Shaw play '' Caesar and Cleopatra''. Original production During its out-of-town tryout, the original director Michael Benthall was fired and succeeded by Derek Goldby, and the original choreographer was fired and replaced. Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick were brought in to write new songs and wrote "Ptolemy", "(Kind) Old Gentleman", and "Caesar is Wrong". Goldby cut a lot of Drake's score and replaced whole sections of his libretto with lines from Shaw's play. The show opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on October 20, 1968 and closed after 17 performances. The rest of the crew had set design and costume by Michael Annals, lighting design Martin Aronstein, musical director and dance and incidental music Peter Howard, music orchestrated and vocal arrangements Don Walker, production manager Tom Porter, stage managers George Rondo and Ellen Wittman, and press by Max Eisen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was United States in the Vietnam War, supported by the United States and other anti-communism, anti-communist Free World Military Forces, allies. The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist states by 1975. After the French 1954 Geneva Conference, military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 – following their defeat in the First Indochina War – the Viet Minh to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sound Of Music
''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, '' The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. Set in Austria on the eve of the ''Anschluss'' in 1938, the musical tells the story of Maria, who takes a job as governess to a large family while she decides whether to become a nun. She falls in love with the children, and eventually their widowed father, Captain von Trapp. He is ordered to accept a commission in the German navy, but he opposes the Nazis. He and Maria decide on a plan to flee Austria with the children. Many songs from the musical have become standards, including "Edelweiss", " My Favorite Things", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Do-Re-Mi", and the title song "The Sound of Music". The original Broadway production, starring Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel, opened in 1959 and won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, out of nine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephanie Mills
Stephanie Dorthea Mills (born March 22, 1957) is an American singer and songwriter. She rose to stardom as "Dorothy" in the original seven-time Tony Award winning Broadway run of the musical ''The Wiz'' from 1974 to 1979. The song " Home" from the show later became a Number 1 U.S. R&B hit and her signature song. During the 1980s, she had five Number 1 R&B hits, including " Home", " I Have Learned to Respect the Power of Love", " I Feel Good All Over", " (You're Puttin') A Rush on Me" and " Something in the Way (You Make Me Feel)". She won two Grammy Awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for her song " Never Knew Love Like This Before" in 1981. Her albums '' What Cha Gonna Do with My Lovin'', '' Sweet Sensation'' and ''Stephanie'' went gold or platinum, all through 20th Century Fox Records. Biography Early life and career Born Stephanie Dorthea Mills to Joseph and Christine Mills and raised in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Mills sang gospel music as a child at Brooklyn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giancarlo Esposito
Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito (; born April 26, 1958) is an American actor and director. He is best known for portraying Gus Fring in the AMC crime drama series ''Breaking Bad'', from 2009 to 2011, and in its prequel series ''Better Call Saul'', from 2017 to 2022. For this role, he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and earned three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Esposito's other television roles include Federal Agent Mike Giardello in the NBC police drama series '' Homicide: Life on the Street'' (1998–1999), Sidney Glass / Magic Mirror in the ABC supernatural drama series ''Once Upon a Time'' (2011–2017), Tom Neville in the NBC science-fiction series ''Revolution'' (2012–2014), Dr. Edward Ruskins in the Netflix comedy-drama series ''Dear White People'' (2017–2021), Stan Edgar in the Amazon Prime Video superhero drama series '' The Boys'' (2019–pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irene Cara
Irene Cara Escalera (March 18, 1959 – November 25, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter and actress of Black, Puerto Rican and Cuban descent. Cara rose to prominence for her role as Coco Hernandez in the 1980 musical film '' Fame'', and for recording the film's title song " Fame", which reached 1 in several countries. In 1983, Cara co-wrote and sang the song " Flashdance... What a Feeling" (from the film ''Flashdance''), for which she shared an Academy Award for Best Original Song and won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1984. Before her success with ''Fame'', Cara portrayed the title character Sparkle Williams in the original 1976 musical drama film ''Sparkle''. Early life Cara was born and raised in the Bronx, New York City, the youngest of five children. Her father, Gaspar Cara, a steel factory worker and retired saxophonist, was Puerto Rican, and her mother, Louise Escalera, a movie theater usher, was Cuban. Cara had two sisters and two broth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
