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On The Town (musical)
''On the Town'' is a musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, based on Jerome Robbins' idea for his 1944 ballet ''Fancy Free'', which he had set to Bernstein's music. The musical introduced several popular and classic songs, among them "New York, New York", " Lonely Town", "I Can Cook, Too" (for which Bernstein also wrote the lyric), and "Some Other Time". The story concerns three American sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City during World War II, 1944. Each of the three sailors meets and quickly connects with a woman. ''On the Town'' was first produced on Broadway in 1944 and was made into a film in 1949, although the film replaced all but four of the original Broadway numbers with Hollywood-written substitutes. The show has enjoyed several major revivals. The musical integrates dance into its storytelling: Robbins made several ballets and extended dance sequences for the show, including the "Imaginary Coney Island ...
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Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American conductor to receive international acclaim. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history". Bernstein was the recipient of many honors, including seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, sixteen Grammy Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Kennedy Center Honors, Kennedy Center Honor. As a composer he wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and works for the piano. His best-known work is the Broadway theatre, Broadway musical ''West Side Story'', which continues to be regularly performed worldwide, and has been adapted into two (West Side Story (1961 ...
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American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre (ABT) is a classical ballet company based in New York City. Founded in 1939 by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, it is recognized as one of the world's leading classical ballet companies. Through 2019, it had an annual eight-week season at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center) in the spring and a shorter season at the David H. Koch Theater in the fall; the company tours around the world the rest of the year. The company was scheduled to have a 5-week spring season at the MET preceded by a 2-week season at the Koch Theater beginning in 2020. ABT is the parent company of the American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, and was recognized as "America's National Ballet Company" in 2006 by the United States Congress. History In 1939 Pleasant and Chase committed to the creation of "a large scale company with an eclectic repertory". The pair and a small group from Mordkin Ballet formed Ballet Theatre. Their new company's first performa ...
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Sono Osato
was an American dancer and actress. Early life Osato was born in Omaha, Nebraska. She was the oldest of three children of a Japanese father (Shoji Osato, 1885–1955) and an Irish-French Canadian mother (Frances Fitzpatrick, 1897–1954).The Garden of the Phoenix: The 120th Anniversary of the Japanese Garden in Chicago Fig. 1 The Phoenix Pavilion on the Wooded Island, 1893 (courtesy of The Chicago Public Library, Special Collections) by Robert W. Karr Jr. Published in ''The Journal of the North American Japanese Garden Association'', Issue No. 1, 2013 Her family moved to Chicago in 1925 in order to be closer to Frances' family, and Shoji opened a photography studio there. In 1927, when she was eight, Osato's mother took her and her sister to Europe for two years; while in Monte Carlo, they attended a performance of '' Cléopâtre'' by Sergei Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes company, which inspired Osato to start ballet classes when she returned to Chicago in late 1929. She stu ...
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Nancy Walker
Nancy Walker (born Anna Myrtle Swoyer; May 10, 1922 – March 25, 1992) was an American actress and comedian of stage, screen, and television. She was also a film and television director (lending her talents to ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'', on which she also made several guest appearances). During her five-decade-long career, she may be best remembered for her long-running roles as Mildred on ''McMillan & Wife'' and Ida Morgenstern, who first appeared on several episodes of ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' and later became a prominent recurring character on the spinoff series ''Rhoda''. Early life Walker was born in 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the elder of two daughters of vaudevillian Dewey Barto (né Stewart Steven Swoyer) and Myrtle Flemming Lawler, a dancer. The couple wed in Manhattan in 1919. Walker and her father both stood 4'11" (1.50 m). Her younger sister was Betty Lou Barto. Acting career In 1937, as "Nan Barto", Walker appeared on the NBC radio programs ''Co ...
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Cris Alexander
Cris Alexander (born Allen Smith, January 14, 1920 – March 7, 2012) was an American actor, singer, dancer, designer, and photographer. Early life and education Cris Alexander was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1920. He began using the name Christopher, which he thought more distinguished, in his teens. On the advice of a spiritualist, he removed the "h" and went by Cris from then on. Alexander attended the University of Oklahoma while working as a radio announcer in Oklahoma City. He moved to New York City in 1938 to study at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art. Acting Alexander was cast as Chip, a naive sailor, in the original Broadway cast of Leonard Bernstein's '' On the Town'' in 1944. He performed the song "Come Up to My Place" in a duet with Nancy Walker in the role of Hildy. He returned to Broadway in 1946 in ''Present Laughter'' opposite Clifton Webb. In 1953, Alexander was cast in ''Wonderful Town'', another Bernstein musical, with Rosalind Russell. He played drugst ...
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Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in ''The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films. During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films and was known for his explosive acting style. He was named by the American Film Institute the 17th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema and was the highest-ranked living person on the list. Douglas became an international star for his role as an unscrupulous boxing hero in ''Champion'' (1949), which brought him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. His other early films include ''Out of the Past'' (1947), '' Young Man with a Horn'' (1950), playing opposite Lauren Bacall and Doris Day, '' Ace in the Hole'' (1951), and ''D ...
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John Battles
John Battles (August 10, 1921 – September 22, 2009) was a musical and dramatic theater actor and a native of New York City. Battles's breakout role and career highlight came in 1944 as Gabey in the original Broadway production of the hit musical comedy '' On the Town''. In 1947, he debuted as the lead (Joseph Taylor, Jr.) in Rodgers and Hammerstein's '' Allegro''. He last starred in '' Thirteen Daughters'' in 1961. Early theater experience Battles, born Francis Tuohy in Manhattan and raised in Rutland, Vermont,Playbill, ''Allegro'', October 10, 1947 had his early experience in theater with the Woodstock Players in Woodstock, Vermont, the Germantown Theatre Guild in Philadelphia,Playbill, ''On the Town'', December 28, 1944 and the Irvine Studio for the Theatre in New York, before making his professional debut. His first role on Broadway was as a chorus member in Cole Porter's ''Something for the Boys'', starring Ethel Merman.Playbill, ''On the Town'', December 28, 1944. Playb ...
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Choreography
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who creates choreographies by practising the art of choreography, a process known as choreographing. It most commonly refers to dance choreography. In dance, ''choreography'' may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. Dance choreography is sometimes called ''dance composition''. Aspects of dance choreography include the compositional use of organic unity, rhythmic or non-rhythmic articulation, theme and variation, and repetition. The choreographic process may employ improvisation for the purpose of developing innovative movement ideas. In general, choreography is used to design dances that are intended to be performed as concert dance. The art of choreograph ...
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Adelphi Theatre (New York City)
The Adelphi Theatre (1934–1940 and 1944–1958), originally named the Craig Theatre, opened on December 24, 1928. The Adelphi was located at 152 West 54th Street in Manhattan, with 1,434 seats. Internet Broadway Database''Adelphi Theatre''(Retrieved on November 30, 2007) The theater was taken over by the Federal Theater Project in 1934 and renamed the Adelphi. The theater was renamed the Radiant Center by The Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians in 1940. It was then the Yiddish Arts Theater (1943), and renamed the Adelphi Theater on April 20, 1944, when it was acquired by The Shubert Organization. It became a DuMont Television Network studio, known as the Adelphi Tele-Theatre in the 1950s. The "Classic 39" episodes of ''The Honeymooners'' were filmed in this facility by DuMont using their Electronicam system for broadcast on CBS later during the 1955–56 television season. The theater returned to legitimate use in 1957, was renamed the 54th Street Theater in 1958, and f ...
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Wonderful Town
''Wonderful Town'' is a 1953 musical with book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and music by Leonard Bernstein. The musical tells the story of two sisters who aspire to be a writer and actress respectively, seeking success from their basement apartment in New York City's Greenwich Village. It is based on Fields and Chodorov's 1940 play ''My Sister Eileen'', which in turn originated from autobiographical short stories by Ruth McKenney first published in ''The New Yorker'' in the late 1930s and later published in book form as ''My Sister Eileen''. Only the last two stories in McKenney's book were used, and they were heavily modified. After a pre-Broadway try-out at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia, ''Wonderful Town'' premiered on Broadway in 1953, starring Rosalind Russell in the role of Ruth Sherwood, Edie Adams as Eileen Sherwood, and George Gaynes as Robert Baker. It won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best ...
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Ostinato
In music, an ostinato (; derived from Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces include classical compositions such as Ravel's '' Boléro'' and the ''Carol of the Bells'', and popular songs such as Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's "I Feel Love" (1977), Henry Mancini's theme from ''Peter Gunn'' (1959), The Who's "Baba O'Riley" (1971), and The Verve's " Bitter Sweet Symphony" (1997). Both ''ostinatos'' and ''ostinati'' are accepted English plural forms, the latter reflecting the word's Italian etymology. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in itself. Kamien, Roger (1258). ''Music: An Appreciation'', p. 611. . Strictly speaking, ostinati should have exact repetition, but in common usage, the term covers repetition with variation and development, such as the alteration of an os ...
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by amazon (company), Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 and based in Beverly Hills, California. MGM was formed by Marcus Loew by combining Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Productions, Louis B. Mayer Pictures into one company. It hired a number of well known actors as contract players—its slogan was "more stars than there are in heaven"—and soon became Hollywood's most prestigious film studio, producing popular musical films and winning many Academy Awards. MGM also owned film studios, movie lots, movie theaters and technical production facilities. Its most prosperous era, from 1926 to 1959, was bracketed by two productions of ''Ben-Hur (1959 film), Ben Hur''. After that, it divested itself of the Loews movie theater chain, and, in the 1960s, diversified ...
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