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Two On The Aisle
''Two on the Aisle'' is a musical revue with a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne. The project marked Comden and Green's return to Broadway following their successful reign at MGM (where they penned the classic ''Singin' in the Rain'' and ''The Band Wagon'', among others) and their first teaming with composer Styne. An evening of comedy routines and splashy musical numbers with Las Vegas-type showgirls, it was developed specifically to showcase the talents of Bert Lahr. After one preview, the show, directed by Abe Burrows, and choreographed by Ron Fletcher, opened on July 19, 1951 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, where it ran for 276 performances. The marquee is shown briefly at 37 min 46 seconds into the movie, Pat and Mike. In addition to Lahr, the cast included Dolores Gray and Stanley Prager. Lahr and Gray disliked each other, with the trouble starting in New Haven. The lead spot (number 3 in the show) for the first star was given to Lahr, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jule Styne
Jule Styne (; born Julius Kerwin Stein; December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was an English-American songwriter and composer best known for a series of Broadway musicals, including several famous frequently-revived shows that also became successful films: ''Gypsy,'' '' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,'' and '' Funny Girl.'' Early life Styne was born to a Jewish family in London, England. His parents, Anna Kertman and Isadore Stein, were emigrants from Ukraine, the Russian Empire, and ran a small grocery. Even before his family left Britain, he did impressions on the stage of well-known singers, including Harry Lauder, who saw him perform and advised him to take up the piano. At the age of eight, he moved with his family to Chicago, where he began taking piano lessons. He proved to be a prodigy and performed with the Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit Symphonies before he was ten years old. Career Before Styne attended Chicago Musical College, he had already attracted the attention o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abe Burrows
Abe Burrows (born Abram Solman Borowitz; December 18, 1910 – May 17, 1985) was an American humorist, author, and director for radio and the stage. He won a Tony Award and was selected for two Pulitzer Prizes, only one of which was awarded. Early years Born Abram Solman Borowitz in New York City, Burrows graduated from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and later attended both City College and New York University. He began working as a runner on Wall Street while at NYU, and he also worked in an accounting firm. After he met Frank Galen in 1938, the two wrote and sold jokes to an impressionist who appeared on Rudy Vallée's radio program. Career Radio His radio career gained strength when he collaborated with Ed Gardner, the writer and star of radio's legendary ''Duffy's Tavern''. The two created the successful series after Gardner's character, Archie, premiered on ''This Is New York'', an earlier radio program. Burrows was made the show's head writer in 1941, and he credited ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musicals By Betty Comden And Adolph Green
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 work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1951 Musicals
Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United Kingdom announces abandonment of the Tanganyika groundnut scheme for the cultivation of peanuts in the Tanganyika Territory, with the writing off of £36.5M debt. * January 15 – In a court in West Germany, Ilse Koch, The "Witch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment. * January 20 – Winter of Terror: Avalanches in the Alps kill 240 and bury 45,000 for a time, in Switzerland, Austria and Italy. * January 21 – Mount Lamington in Papua New Guinea erupts catastrophically, killing nearly 3,000 people and causing great devastation in Oro Province. * January 25 – Dutch author Anne de Vries releases the first volume of his children's novel ''Journey Through the Night'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lahr
John Henry Lahr (born July 12, 1941) is an American theater critic and writer. From 1992 to 2013, he was a staff writer and the senior drama critic at ''The New Yorker''. He has written more than twenty books related to theater. Lahr has been called "one of the greatest biographers writing today". Early life Lahr was born in Los Angeles, California to a Jewish family. He is the son of Mildred "Millie" Schroeder, a Ziegfeld girl, and Bert Lahr, an actor and comedian most famous for portraying the Cowardly Lion in ''The Wizard of Oz (1939 film), The Wizard of Oz''. When his father left movies for the stage, the family moved from their home in Coldwater Canyon to Manhattan. Until his father was on the cover of ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine when Lahr was in grade school, he did not know what his father did for a living. Lahr wrote:On stage, Dad was sensational; in private he was sensationally taciturn: a brooding absent presence, to be encountered mostly in his bedroom chair at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. In 1937, anticipating Nazi Germany, Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the U.K. and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group. The U.S. Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG (Universal Music Group). Label name The name dates back to a portable phonograph, gramophone called the "Decca Dulcephone" patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel and Sons. The name "Decca" was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the w ... [...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] |
Stanley Prager
Stanley Prager (January 8, 1917 – January 18, 1972) was an American actor and a television and theatre director. Life and career Born in New York City, Prager began his career as the stage manager for the Broadway production ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' in 1942. He spent the remainder of the decade acting in mostly B-movies, with occasional roles in better films such as ''A Bell for Adano'', ''Gun Crazy'', ''In the Meantime, Darling'', and ''A Foreign Affair''. After his name appeared on the Hollywood blacklist, Prager returned to Broadway as a performer in ''Two on the Aisle'', '' Two's Company'', ''Room Service'', and ''The Pajama Game''. He switched gears and began directing with Neil Simon's ''Come Blow Your Horn'' in 1961. Additional theatre directing credits include ''Bravo Giovanni'', ''Minnie's Boys'', '' Don't Drink the Water'', and ''70, Girls, 70''. Prager's television directing credits include ''The Love Song of Barney Kempinski'' for ''ABC Stage 67'', ''Car 54, Wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolores Gray
Dolores Gray (born Sylvia Dolores Finkelstein; June 7, 1924 – June 26, 2002) was an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical twice, winning once. Early life She was born as Sylvia Dolores Finkelstein (but known by Sylvia Dolores Vernon growing up) to Barbara Marguerite Gray (born Marguerite Gray) and Harry Vernon Finkelstein. Both her mother and father were vaudeville actors, which is how they met. Gray's parents divorced when she was a young child. She had an older brother, Richard Gray (born Richard Vernon), who also had a career in Hollywood. While attending Polytechnic High School she was in the Girls' Glee Club. She was discovered by Rudy Vallee, who gave her a guest spot on his nationwide radio show. Career Her career commenced as a cabaret artist in restaurants and supper clubs in San Francisco, and in Reno, Nevada.''Who's Who in the Theatre'' (1981) Gale, ''Gale Biography In Context'' In 1945 she appea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pat And Mike
''Pat and Mike'' is a 1952 American romantic comedy film starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. The movie was written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, and directed by George Cukor. Cukor directed '' The Philadelphia Story'' (1940) with Hepburn, and Cukor, Gordon and Kanin teamed with Hepburn and Tracy again for ''Adam's Rib'' (1949). Gordon and Kanin were nominated for the 1952 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. for their work on ''Pat and Mike.'' (They had been similarly honored for ''Adam's Rib''.) Hepburn was nominated in the Best Actress category at the 10th Golden Globe Awards, while Ray was nominated for "New Star of the Year". Plot Pat Pemberton (Katharine Hepburn) is a brilliant athlete who loses her confidence whenever her charming but overbearing fiancé Collier (William Ching) is around. Women's golf and tennis championships are within her reach; however, she gets flustered by his presence at the contests. He wants her to give up her goal and marry h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bert Lahr
Irving Lahrheim (August 13, 1895 – December 4, 1967), known professionally as Bert Lahr, was an American actor. He was best known for his role as the Cowardly Lion, as well as his counterpart Kansas farmworker "Zeke", in the MGM adaptation of '' The Wizard of Oz'' (1939). He was well known for his quick-witted humor and his work in burlesque and vaudeville and on Broadway. Early life, family and education Lahr was born as Irving Lahrheim on August 13, 1895, at First Avenue and 81st Street, in the Yorkville section of Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. He was the son of Augusta (1871–1932) and Jacob Lahrheim (1870–1947), an upholsterer. His parents were German-Jewish immigrants. He attended P.S. 77 and Morris High School, although he left school at age 15. Lahr later served in the U.S. Navy during World War I as a seaman second class. Stage career Lahr began performing in minor parts on vaudeville stages at age 14. He quit school at age 15 to join a juvenile ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
