The Garrick Gaieties
''Garrick Gaieties'' is a revue with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, the first successful musical by this songwriting team. It debuted in 1925 on Broadway and was the first of three ''Garrick Gaiety'' revues, which were subsequently produced in 1926 and 1930. The show parodied current subjects, such as the New York City Subway system and the Theatre Guild (producer of the show). The ''Garrick Gaieties'' is remembered as "bringing Rodgers and Hart their first major recognition." Their hit song "Manhattan" was introduced in this revue. Productions and history The revue first opened on Broadway at the Garrick Theatre on May 17, 1925, as a 2-performance benefit for the Theatre Guild. The reviews were favorable, and Rodgers and others persuaded the Theatre Guild to continue the production, which re-opened on June 8, 1925 and ran until November 28, for 211 performances.Hyland, William. ''Richard Rodgers'' (1998), Yale University Press, , pp. 29- 33 Several writer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American Musical composition, composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the most well-known American composers of the 20th century, and his compositions had a significant influence on popular music. Rodgers is known for his songwriting partnerships, first with lyricist Lorenz Hart and then with Oscar Hammerstein II. With Hart he wrote musicals throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including ''Pal Joey (musical), Pal Joey'', ''A Connecticut Yankee (musical), A Connecticut Yankee'', ''On Your Toes'' and ''Babes in Arms.'' With Hammerstein he wrote musicals through the 1940s and 1950s, such as ''Oklahoma!'', ''Flower Drum Song'', ''Carousel (musical), Carousel'', ''South Pacific (musical), South Pacific'', ''The King and I'', and ''The Sound of Music''. His collaborations with Hammerstein, in particular, are celebrated for brin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sterling Holloway
Sterling Price Holloway Jr. (January 4, 1905 – November 22, 1992) was an American actor and voice actor who appeared in over 100 films and 40 television shows. He did voice acting for The Walt Disney Company, playing Mr. Stork in ''Dumbo'', Adult Flower in ''Bambi'', the Cheshire Cat in '' Alice in Wonderland'', Kaa in ''The Jungle Book'', Roquefort the Mouse in ''The Aristocats'', and the title character in ''Winnie the Pooh'', among many others. Early life Born in Cedartown, Georgia, Holloway was named after his father, Sterling Price Holloway (1864–1930), who, in turn, was named after a prominent Confederate general, Sterling "Pap" Price. His mother was Rebecca DeHaven Boothby (1879–1963). He had a younger brother named Boothby (1909–1978). The family owned a grocery store in Cedartown, where his father served as mayor in 1912. After graduating from Georgia Military Academy in 1920 at the age of fifteen, he left Georgia for New York City, where he attended the Amer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer from New England who climbed up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, becoming the state's Governor of Massachusetts, 48th governor. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight as a man of decisive action. Coolidge was elected the country's 29th vice president of the United States, vice president the next year, succeeding the presidency upon the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924 United States presidential election, 1924, Coolidge gained a reputation as a small-government Conservatism in the United States, conservative distinguished by a taciturn personality and dry sense of humor, receiving the nickname "Silent Cal". Though his widespread p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Johnny Mercer
John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs. He is best known as a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, but he also composed music, and was a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as songs written by others from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. Mercer's songs were among the most successful hits of the time, including " Moon River", " Days of Wine and Roses", " Autumn Leaves", and "Hooray for Hollywood". He wrote the lyrics to more than 1,500 songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Oscar nominations, and won four Best Original Song Oscars. Early life Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia, where one of his first jobs, aged 10, was sweeping floors at the original 1919 location of Leopold's Ice Cream. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin (born Israel Gershovitz; December 6, 1896 – August 17, 1983) was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the 20th century. With George, he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm", "Embraceable You", " The Man I Love" and " Someone to Watch Over Me". He was also responsible, along with DuBose Heyward, for the libretto to George's opera ''Porgy and Bess''. The success the Gershwin brothers had with their collaborative works has often overshadowed the creative role that Ira played. His mastery of songwriting continued after George's early death in 1937. Ira wrote additional hit songs with composers Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, Harry Warren and Harold Arlen. His critically acclaimed 1959 book ''Lyrics on Several Occasions'', an amalgam of autobiography and annotated anthology, is an important source for studying t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vernon Duke
Vernon Duke ( 16 January 1969) was a Russian-born American composer/songwriter who also wrote under his birth name, Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for "Taking a Chance on Love," with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche (1940), "I Can't Get Started," with lyrics by Ira Gershwin (1936), " April in Paris," with lyrics by E. Y. ("Yip") Harburg (1932), and "What Is There To Say," for the ''Ziegfeld Follies'' of 1934, also with Harburg. He wrote the words and music for " Autumn in New York" (1934) for the revue '' Thumbs Up!'' In his book, ''American Popular Song, The Great Innovators 1900-1950'', composer Alec Wilder praises this song, writing, “The verse may be the most ambitious I’ve ever seen." Duke also collaborated with lyricists Johnny Mercer, Ogden Nash, and Sammy Cahn. Early life Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky (Russian: Владимир Александрович Дукельский) was born in 1903 into a Belarusian noble family in the village of Parfyan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marc Blitzstein
Marcus Samuel Blitzstein (March 2, 1905January 22, 1964), was an American composer, lyricist, and librettist. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical ''The Cradle Will Rock'', directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration. He is known for ''The Cradle Will Rock'' and for his off-Broadway translation/adaptation of ''The Threepenny Opera'' by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. His works also include the opera '' Regina'', an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play ''The Little Foxes''; the Broadway musical ''Juno'', based on Seán O'Casey's play '' Juno and the Paycock''; and ''No for an Answer''. He completed translation/adaptations of Brecht's and Weill's musical play ''Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'' and of Brecht's play ''Mother Courage and Her Children'' with music by Paul Dessau. Blitzstein also composed music for films, such as ''Surf and Seaweed'' (1931) and '' The Spanish Earth'' (1937), and he contributed two songs to th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mountain Greenery
"Mountain Greenery" is a popular song composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart for the musical ''The Garrick Gaieties'' (1926). It was first performed on stage by Sterling Holloway. Lyrics The lyrics display Hart's characteristic use of enjambement and witty and unexpected internal rhymes e.g. 'lover let' and 'coverlet' and 'keener re...' rhymed with 'beanery': Notable recordings *Roger Wolfe Kahn and his Orchestra - recorded on May 27, 1926 for Victor. *Frank Crumit - recorded for Victor on July 29, 1926. *Bing Crosby - ''Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings'' (1956) recorded on June 12, 1956. *Ella Fitzgerald - ''Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook'' (1956) *Patti Page - for her album ''In the Land of Hi-Fi'' (1956). *Mel Tormé (1956) (a top-five hit in the UK) * Barbara Lea - included in the album ''Lea in Love'' (1957). *The Supremes (1966) The Supremes Sing Rodgers & Hart *Tony Bennett (1973) for his album ''The Rodgers & Hart Songs with The Ruby Br ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ruth Tester
Ruth Tester (August 17, 1903 – March 21, 1993) was a singer and dancer in Broadway musicals of the 1920s and 1930s. Biography Tester was born on August 17, 1903. She was married for 59 years to Fredrick Carothers. In her later years, Tester and her husband, Carothers, lived in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. Carothers worked as a sales executive, and predeceased Testor in 1990. Tester sang "Sing Something Simple" in "The Garrick Gaieties" of 1930 at the Guild Theatre in New York City and performed with Rosalind Russell and Imogene Coca. She also sang and danced in the short subject film, "Makers of Melody (1929)", with Allan Gould singing the Rodgers and Hart song "Manhattan", often called, "I'll Take Manhattan". Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart appeared in this short as themselves. Manhattan was Rodgers and Hart's first hit and started them as a team. Tester died at the age of 89 in a nursing home in Weston, Massachusetts on March 21, 1993. Broadway stage credits *''The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rosalind Russell
Catherine Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907November 28, 1976) was an American actress, comedienne, screenwriter, and singer,Obituary ''Variety'', December 1, 1976, p. 79. known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy ''His Girl Friday'' (1940), opposite Cary Grant, as well as for her portrayals of Mame Dennis in ''Auntie Mame'' (1958) and Rose in ''Gypsy'' (1962). A noted comedienne, she won all five Golden Globes for which she was nominated. Russell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1953 for her portrayal of Ruth in the Broadway show ''Wonderful Town'' (a musical based on the film ''My Sister Eileen'', in which she also starred). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times during her career before being awarded a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1973. In addition to her comedic roles, Russell was known for playing dramatic characters, often wealthy, dignified, and stylish women. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Imogene Coca
Imogene Coca (born Emogeane Coca; November 18, 1908 – June 2, 2001) was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on ''Your Show of Shows''. Starting out in vaudeville as a child acrobat, she studied ballet and wished to have a serious career in music and dance, graduating to decades of stage musical revues, cabaret and summer stock. In her 40s, she began a celebrated career as a comedian on television, starring in six series and guest starring on successful television programs from the 1940s to the 1990s. She was nominated for five Emmy Awards for ''Your Show of Shows'', winning Best Actress in 1951 and singled out for a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting in 1953. Coca was also nominated for a Tony Award in 1978 for ''On the Twentieth Century'' and received a sixth Emmy nomination at the age of 80 for an episode of ''Moonlighting''. She possessed a rubbery face capable of the broadest expressions — ''Life'' magazine compared her to Be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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August Wilson Theatre
The August Wilson Theatre (formerly the Guild Theatre, ANTA Theatre, and Virginia Theatre) is a Broadway theatre, Broadway theater at 245 West 52nd Street (Manhattan), 52nd Street in the Theater District, Manhattan, Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1925, the theater was designed by C. Howard Crane and Kenneth Franzheim and was built for the Theatre Guild. It is named for Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson (1945–2005). The August Wilson has approximately 1,225 seats across two levels and is operated by Jujamcyn Theaters. The facade is a New York City designated landmark. The facade is designed as a variation of a 15th-century Tuscan villa, with a stage house to the west and an auditorium to the east. The facade has a stucco surface and openings with quoins, as well as a loggia. The placement of window openings reflected the theater's original interior arrangement. The front of the theater had facilities for the Theatre Guild, inclu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |