Miles Kreuger (born March 28, 1934) is the
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pr ...
nominated president and founder of the
Institute of the American Musical. He has been called "the foremost expert on the American musical" and his Institute of the American Musical has been referred to as "a national treasure" and "one of the nation's most important cultural resources."
Life
Kreuger was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
the son of a mink coat manufacturer and fashion illustrator and designer. He saw his first show on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
, a musical biography of
Gilbert and Sullivan called ''Knights of Song'', when he was four years old.
As a child, he became fascinated by film archives and explored those at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
and the
Museum of the City of New York
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...
.
At 16, he attended
Bard College
Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark.
Founded in 1860, ...
where he studied theater and literature and dreamed of becoming a director. For his senior project, he directed a version of
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
’ ''Deirdre''. After graduation, he directed "one or two showcase projects off-Broadway" but was "too shy, too passive" according to composer
Sheldon Harnick
Sheldon Mayer Harnick (born April 30, 1924) is an American lyricist and songwriter best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on musicals such as ''Fiorello!'' and '' Fiddler on the Roof''.
Early life
Sheldon Mayer Harnick was ...
. “To protect himself he started to build a wall between himself and the directorial world.”
As a producer, he brought the mime Etienne-Marcel Decroux to the United States for his American debut. He was director of publicity for ''
My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play '' Pygmalion'', with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons ...
'' co-writer
Alan Jay Lerner. According to Kreuger, in the mid-'50s Lerner cast him as
Freddy Eynsford-Hill but Kreuger "couldn’t sing as well as he read for the part." The role went to
John Michael King and the production ran for six years.
He began his career as a critic in 1959 with a well-received essay on
Cole Porter. Kreuger also worked on a
WBAI
WBAI (99.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic music. ...
radio program about the theater called “Opening Night” and for
Columbia Records impresario
Goddard Lieberson
Goddard Lieberson (April 5, 1911 – May 29, 1977) was the president of Columbia Records from 1956 to 1971, and again from 1973 to 1975. He became president of the Recording Industry Association of America in 1964. He was also a composer, and ...
.
Kreuger produced albums, wrote liner notes, taught at universities and, in 1977, published ''
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 worke ...
: The Story of a Classic American Musical,'' establishing him as an authority on the musical. He was
Grammy nominated for supplying liner notes for ''
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her no ...
on Stage and Screen'' and ''
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 worke ...
''.
In 1989, he recorded an audio commentary for
James Whale
James Whale (22 July 1889 – 29 May 1957) was an English film director, theatre director and actor, who spent the greater part of his career in Hollywood. He is best remembered for several horror films: ''Frankenstein'' (1931), '' The O ...
's 1936 version of ''
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 worke ...
'', which
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...
included in its 2020 DVD and Blu-Ray re-releases of the film, and supplied commentary on the 1929 version.
Kreuger has continued to publish works about the American Musical and has appeared in numerous
documentaries
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...
about the subject, including 2003's ''
Broadway: The Golden Age, by The Legends Who Were There''.
Institute of the American Musical
After moving to Los Angeles where he taught briefly as
USC and
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
, Kreuger founded the
Institute of the American Musical in 1972, a nonprofit organization based in a 17-room house in Los Angeles.
His collecting began while living with his mother and grandmother: "The doorbell rang, and it was Lincoln Storage bringing me box after box after box of recordings filled with
Richard Rodgers' treasures. And that's when I had to take my first apartment."
Among the holdings are donations from composers
Rodgers Rodgers is a patronymic surname of Old English origin derived from the Norman personal name "Roger", with the addition of the genitive suffix "-s" and meaning “son of Roger.” The intrusive “d” in Rodgers is either a Welsh or Scottish ...
,
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook.
Born in Imperial Russ ...
and
Harold Arlen, acting teacher Bobby Lewis and
MGM
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 through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
. The collection also holds the Ray Knight pirated films of classic American musicals on Broadway, "probably the only record of much that made American comedy great." In addition, the collection houses "200,000 photographs from movie musicals dating back to 1914, every Broadway cast album, sheet music and recordings dating back to the 19th century, wax cylinders of popular as well as show music, published and unpublished scripts, playbills, scores, sheet music and posters."
The institute has received
Rockefeller Rockefeller is a German surname, originally given to people from the village of Rockenfeld near Neuwied in the Rhineland and commonly referring to subjects associated with the Rockefeller family. It may refer to:
People with the name Rockefeller f ...
,
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
,
California Arts Council
The California Arts Council is a state agency based in Sacramento, United States. Its eight council members are appointed by the Governor and the state Legislature. The agency's mission is to advance California through arts, culture and creativit ...
, and
California State Library
The California State Library is the state library of the State of California, founded in 1850 by the California State Legislature. The Library collects, preserves, generates and disseminates a wide array of information. Today, it is the central ...
grants but continues to face financial crisis.
Select Publications
* ''The Movie Musical from Vitaphone to 42nd Street, as reported in a great fan magazine''. New York,
Dover Publications
Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, book ...
1975.
* ''Show Boat: The Story of a Classic American Musical''.
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
1977.
* ''Souvenir Programs of Twelve Classic Movies, 1927-1941''. New York, Dover Publications 1977.
* ''The Warner Bros. Musical: (1933–1939)''. Stanford Theatre Foundation 1990.
Testimonial
References
External links
*
Los Angeles Times: Article about 25 year jubilee of the Institute from 1997.Los Angeles Times: Article about Miles KreugerNPR: About the InstituteClassic Film Astronomy: Article about Miles Kreuger and the InstituteWorldCat: Publications by Miles Kreuger
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kreuger, Miles
1934 births
Living people
Writers from New York City