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Show Boat
''Show Boat'' is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the ''Cotton Blossom'', a Mississippi River show boat, over 40 years from 1887 to 1927. Its themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love. The musical contributed such classic songs as "Ol' Man River", " Make Believe", and " Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man". The musical was first produced in 1927 by Florenz Ziegfeld. The premiere of ''Show Boat'' on Broadway was an important event in the history of American musical theatre. It "was a radical departure in musical storytelling, marrying spectacle with seriousness", compared with the trivial and unrealistic operettas, light musical comedies and "Follies"-type musical revues that defined Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century. According to ''The Complete Book of Light Opera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as " Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", " A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song Is You", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Long Ago (and Far Away)". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg. A native New Yorker, Kern created dozens of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films in a career that lasted for more than four decades. His musical innovations, such as 4/4 dance rhythms and the employment of syncopation and jazz progressions, built on, rather than rejec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man
"Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, is one of the most famous songs from their classic 1927 musical play ''Show Boat'', adapted from Edna Ferber's 1926 novel. Context The song, written in a blues tempo, is sung in the show by several characters, but is most closely associated with the character Julie, the biracial leading lady of the showboat ''Cotton Blossom''. It is Julie who is first heard singing the song – to Magnolia, the daughter of Cap'n Andy Hawks and his wife Parthenia (Parthy), owners of the showboat. In the musical's plot, the number is supposed to be a song familiar to African-Americans for years, and this provides one of the most dramatic moments in the show. When Queenie, the black cook, comments that it is strange that light-skinned Julie knows the song because only black people sing it, Julie becomes visibly uncomfortable. Later, we learn that this is because Julie is " passing" as white – she and her wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mis'ry's Comin' Aroun
Mis'ry's Comin' Aroun is a once-neglected song from the 1927 musical ''Show Boat'' by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. It was cut from the production during the Washington D.C. tryout on the orders of producer Florenz Ziegfeld, supposedly because it was one of the factors that made the show too long (it ran four-and-a-half hours when it premiered). However, musical theatre historian Miles Kreuger and conductor John McGlinn, also suggest that it was the dark, dramatic tone of the piece that most concerned Ziegfeld. Kern was reportedly so incensed by the deletion of "Mis'ry's Comin' Aroun" that he made it the principal motif of Show Boat's original overture and asked orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett to work sections of it into the background music as well, where it is now played by the orchestra during some of the dialogue scenes involving the mixed race actress Julie La Verne. The song, which runs about five minutes, is an African-American lament of foreboding and impending ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ziegfeld Follies
The ''Ziegfeld Follies'' was a series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934 and 1936. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as ''The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air''. Founding and history Inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris, the Ziegfeld Follies were conceived and mounted by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., reportedly at the suggestion of his then-wife, the stage actress and singer Anna Held. The shows' producers were turn-of-the-twentieth-century producing titans Klaw and Erlanger. The Follies were a series of lavish revues, something between later Broadway shows and the more elaborate high class vaudeville and variety show. The first follies, '' The Follies of 1907'', was produced that year at the ''Jardin de Paris'' roof theatre. During the Follies era, many of the top entertainers, including W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Ann Pennington, Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, Bob H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revues
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news or literature. Similar to the related subforms of operetta and musical theatre, the revue art form brings together music, dance and sketches to create a compelling show. In contrast to these, however, revue does not have an overarching storyline. Rather, a general theme serves as the motto for a loosely-related series of acts that alternate between solo performances and dance ensembles. Owing to high ticket prices, ribald publicity campaigns and the occasional use of prurient material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned more and felt even less restricted by middle-class ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criss Cross (musical)
''Criss Cross'' is a musical comedy in two acts and prologue, with book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Anne Caldwell and music by Jerome Kern. The plot concerns a successful aviator, Christopher Cross (Fred Stone) who manages to help Captain Carleton save Dolly Day from the designing schemes of IIphrahim Benani to rob her of her birthright and a considerable fortune.Mantle, Burns, Editor, "The Best Plays of 1926–1927", Dodd, Mead & Company, pp. 401 The show was produced by Charles Dillingham at the Globe Theatre, and opened October 12, 1926.Mantle, Burns, Editor, "The Best Plays of 1926–1927", Dodd, Mead & Company, p. 400. The cast headlined Fred Stone (Christopher Cross) and Dorothy Stone (Dolly Day) and included Roy Hoyer (Captain Carleton) and Oscar Ragland (IIphrahim Benani). The musical director was Victor Baravalle and the music was orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett and Maurice DePackh. The show was staged by R. H. Burnside and choreographed by Dave Bennett. Scenic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Woollcott
Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943) was an American drama critic and commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio personality. Woollcott was the inspiration for two fictional characters. The first was Sheridan Whiteside, the caustic but charming main character in the play ''The Man Who Came to Dinner'' (1939) by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart,Oscar Levant, '' The Unimportance of Being Oscar'', Pocket Books 1969 (reprint of G.P. Putnam 1968), p. 81. . later made into a film in 1942. The second was the snobbish, vitriolic columnist Waldo Lydecker in the novel Laura, later made into a film in 1944. Woollcott was convinced he was the inspiration for his friend Rex Stout's brilliant, eccentric detective Nero Wolfe, an idea that Stout denied. Early life and education Alexander Humphreys Woollcott was the youngest of five children of William and Frances ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bath, North Carolina
Bath is a town in Beaufort County, North Carolina, United States. Located on the Pamlico River, it developed a trade in naval stores, furs, and tobacco. The population was 249 as of 2010. North Carolina’s first town and port of entry, it was chartered on March 8, 1705. Historically, Bath is often counted as North Carolina's first capital, as it was nominally so designated in 1712, when the Province of North Carolina was separated from the Province of Carolina and granted its own governor, though no permanent government institutions were located there. The capital was officially moved to Edenton in 1722, though the meetings of the General Assembly would still periodically occur in Bath through the eighteenth century. Bath was the site of Cary's Rebellion in 1711, and later served as one of many bases for notorious pirate Blackbeard. Bath waned in population, as its importance as both a port and government center were surpassed by the nearby city of New Bern; its pop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Adams Floating Theatre
The James Adams Floating Theatre was a floating theater founded in 1914 by James Adams and his wife Gertrude, that toured Chesapeake Bay staging theater in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. It was visited in 1925 by Edna Ferber, who boarded the vessel in Bath, North Carolina, while writing the 1926 novel which inspired Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Broadway show ''Show Boat''. After the James and Beulah retired in 1917, the management of the theater was turned over to Charles Hunter and his wife Beulah Adams Hunter (sister of James Adams). In early decades of the 20th century, the showboat, a huge, scow-like wooden craft plying the Chesapeake Bay, called at waterfront towns from the top of the Chesapeake down to the coast of North Carolina. It occasionally ventured as far south as South Carolina and Georgia, but spent most of its time in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. The arrival of the Adams Floating Theater was an exciting time for residents in these isol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appleton-Century-Crofts
Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. was a division of the Meredith Publishing Company. It is a result of the merger of Appleton-Century Company with F.S. Crofts Co. in 1948. Prior to that The Century Company had merged with D. Appleton & Company in 1933. The Century Company and its subsequent incarnations published the '' New Century Dictionary''. Eventually Meredith sold the majority of the company and the Appleton name to Prentice-Hall in 1973. Part of the company became part of Hawthorn Books and New Win Publishing. Timeline * 1948 Appleton-Century Company, founded in 1933, merged with F. S. Crofts Co., founded in 1924, to form Appleton-Century-Crofts. * 1960 Purchased by Meredith Publishing Company * 1969 Meredith trade books division sold to Hawthorn Books * 1973 Appleton textbook division purchased by Prentice Hall; the medical division retains the Appleton name * 1974 New Century division sold to Charles Walther, and was later renamed New Win Publishing * 1998 Prentice Hal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of Short story, short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous Fact-checking, fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue. Overview and history ''The New Yorker'' was founded by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a ''The New York Times, N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news or literature. Similar to the related subforms of operetta and musical theatre, the revue art form brings together music, dance and sketches to create a compelling show. In contrast to these, however, revue does not have an overarching storyline. Rather, a general theme serves as the motto for a loosely-related series of acts that alternate between solo performances and dance ensembles. Owing to high ticket prices, ribald publicity campaigns and the occasional use of prurient material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned more and felt even less restricted by middle-class ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
