''I Had a Ball'' is a musical with a book by

Jerome Chodorov Jerome Chodorov (August 10, 1911 – September 12, 2004) was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He co-wrote the book with Joseph A. Fields for the original Broadway musical ''Wonderful Town'' starring Rosalind Russell. The musi ...

and music and lyrics by Jack Lawrence and Stan Freeman. It starred

Buddy Hackett Buddy Hackett (born Leonard Hacker; August 31, 1924 – June 30, 2003) was an American actor, comedian and singer. His best remembered roles include Marcellus Washburn in ''The Music Man'' (1962), Benjy Benjamin in ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Wo ...

, and featured

Richard Kiley Richard Paul Kiley (March 31, 1922 – March 5, 1999) was an American stage, film and television actor and singer. He is best known for his distinguished theatrical career in which he twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor In A Musical. Kiley ...

and

Karen Morrow Karen Morrow (born December 15, 1936) is an American singer and actress best known for her work in musical theater. Her honors include an Emmy Award and a Theatre World Award, and an Ovation Award and five Drama-Logue Award nominations. Early ...

Plot overview

Set on the

Coney Island Boardwalk The Riegelmann Boardwalk (also known as the Coney Island Boardwalk) is a boardwalk along the southern shore of the Coney Island peninsula in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Opened in 1923, the boardwalk runs bet ...

, it focuses on matchmaking

grifter A grifter may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Grifters (band), a 1990s American indie rock band * ''The Grifters'' (novel), a 1963 American novel by Jim Thompson * ''The Grifters'' (film), a 1990 American adaptation of the novel * Grifter (ch ...

turned

fortune teller Fortune telling is the practice of prediction, predicting information about a person's life.J. Gordon Melton, Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling ...

Garside, who tries to set up his friend, fellow grifter and recent

parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...

e Stan, with

Wonder Wheel The Wonder Wheel is a eccentric Ferris wheel at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park at Coney Island in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The wheel is located on a plot bounded by West 12th Street to the west, Bowery Street to the north, ...

owner/operator Jeannie. Garside finds his crystal ball is real, as it foretells Stan falling in love with former Coney Island

hawker Hawker or Hawkers may refer to: Places * Hawker, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Hawker, South Australia, a town * Division of Hawker, an Electoral Division in South Australia * Hawker Island, Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarct ...

and man-eater Addie (who's returned to the alley while on the prowl for rich husband number four), and Jeannie falling in love with Brooks, a

loan shark A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...

to whom Garside owes a hundred bucks (even though he only borrowed four). Garside watches the mismatched couples meet while getting dragged off to prison by Officer Millhauser (for running a fortune telling scam) ending the first act. Other characters include Ma Maloney, who heads the Alley Gang: Joe the Muzzler, Osaka Moto, and Gimlet. Act II finds the successful couples returning the day Garside comes back from jail, only for the ball, which Ma has kept safe, to make another prediction. Jeannie celebrates her newfound happiness at a party, singing the title song, only to have it all dashed again when Brooks, who misinterpreted the ball's prediction as referring to a business deal, tells her they're broke; he's even sold the Wonder Wheel on her. Meanwhile, Stan catches Addie cheating on him and leaves her. As Addie is telling Garside about her failed marriage, Brooks shows up to get revenge for the bad business advice, and the two meet and fall in lust. As the newly poor Stan and Jeannie try to make a living on the boardwalk, they wind up chased by Officer Millhauser until he finally handcuffs them together, much to the delight of Garside, as the right couple has finally found each other, once he points out to them who's on "the other half" of their cuffs.

Background

''I Had a Ball'' was similar to earlier projects designed to showcase the talents of a comic, short on plot and overloaded with

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

-like

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

routines and musical numbers. In this case the star was

nightclub A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gener ...

and

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

comic

, appearing for the first time in a structured theatrical production. Steven Suskin called this the "clown show"; "They were about the fellow — almost always a man — at the center.

Ed Wynn Isaiah Edwin Leopold (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966), better known as Ed Wynn, was an American actor and comedian. He was noted for his ''Perfect Fool'' comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a d ...

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 ...

Victor Moore Victor Fred Moore (February 24, 1876 – July 23, 1962) was an American actor of stage and screen, a major Broadway star from the late 1920s through the 1930s. He was also a writer and director, but is best remembered today as a comedian, play ...

or the brothers Marx...""ON THE RECORD: 'I Had a Ball' and Jessica Molaskey's 'Good Day'"
playbill.com, June 1, 2003

Production

The production had a critically and commercially successful run in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

. After an additional stop in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

, the musical opened 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 ...

at the Martin Beck Theatre on December 15, 1964 where it ran for 199 performances."'I Had a Ball'"
playbillvault.com, accessed May 24, 2012 Choreography was by

Onna White Onna White (March 24, 1922 – April 8, 2005) was a Canadian choreographer and dancer, nominated for eight Tony Awards. Early life and career Born in Inverness, Nova Scotia, White began taking dance lessons at the age of twelve, and eventual ...

Lloyd Richards Lloyd George Richards (June 29, 1919 – June 29, 2006) was a Canadian-American theatre director, actor, and dean of the Yale School of Drama from 1979 to 1991, and Yale University professor emeritus. Biography Richards was born in Toron ...

, who later was the Artistic Director for the

Yale Repertory Theatre Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of Yale School of Drama, in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented stude ...

and a frequent collaborator with playwright

August Wilson August Wilson ( Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays, collectively called ' (or ...

, was signed to direct. Following a clash with producer Joseph Kipness he was replaced by John Allen, although Richards retained official credit in the program. Prior to opening, several songs had to be cut; Hackett's lack of singing ability led to Garside's solo "Lament/I'm An Average Guy" being removed, as well as Hackett's duet with Kiley entitled "Be A Phony." "I'm An All American Boy", a song that Kiley enjoyed and had requested for himself (but which had been written for a different character), was poorly received in Detroit and was removed. In addition to Hackett as Garside, the cast included

as Stan,

as Jeannie, Steve Roland as Brooks, Luba Lisa as Addie,

Rosetta LeNoire Rosetta LeNoire (born Rosetta Olive Burton; August 8, 1911 – March 17, 2002) was an American stage, film, and television actress. She was known to contemporary audiences for her work in television. She had regular roles on such series as ' ...

as Ma Maloney, and

Ted Thurston Ted Thurston (January 9, 1917 – July 23, 1994) was an American actor and singer. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Thurston made his Broadway debut in the short-lived 1951 musical ''Flahooley''. He had better luck with his next show, the Lerner ...

as Officer Millhauser. The Alley Gang was made up of Al Nesor as Gimlet, Jack Wakefield as Joe the Muzzler, and

Conrad Yama Conrad Yama (born Kiyoshi Conrad Hamanaka; October 8, 1919 – March 10, 2010), was an American theatre, film, and television actor. Early life Born and raised in Fresno, California, Hamanaka attended Fresno State after high school, studying s ...

as George Osaka. Morocco, a belly dancer was credited as herself.

Reception

The

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 ...

critics were less enamored with the show than their Detroit counterparts had been, and without a strong directorial hand to keep him under control, Hackett soon began ignoring the script and breaking character to inject his own routines into the proceedings, especially to defend the show from reviews. Despite mixed reviews, positive word-of-mouth, linked with one-night cameos made by several of Hackett's friends (such as

Sammy Davis Jr. Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director. At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the ...

Joey Bishop Joseph Abraham Gottlieb (February 3, 1918 – October 17, 2007), known professionally as Joey Bishop, was an American entertainer who appeared on television as early as 1948 and eventually starred in his own weekly comedy series playing a talk ...

, and

Steve Lawrence Steve Lawrence (born Sidney Liebowitz; July 8, 1935) is an American singer, comedian and actor, best known as a member of a duo with his wife Eydie Gormé, billed as " Steve and Eydie", and for his performance as Maury Sline, the manager and f ...

) during a tunnel of love sequence, caused an increase in the box office. However, competition from heavy-hitters like '' Fiddler on the Roof''; '' Hello, Dolly!'' and '' Funny Girl'', plus Hackett demanding to be released from his contract without a replacement ready, ultimately led to an early closing with losses of $225,000 from a $300,000 investment. Luba Lisa was nominated for the

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and received the 1965

Theatre World Award The Theatre World Award is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or Off-Broadway. It was first awarded for the 1945–1946 theatre se ...

for her performance.

Recordings

The original Broadway Cast Recording was released on the Mercury label in 1965. A reviewer of the recording wrote: "There are a couple of mildly witty numbers, 'Neighborhood,' sung by Rosetta Le Noire, and 'The Affluent Society,' by Kiley and Steve Roland, and the romantic ballad 'Almost' isn't bad. But little of the music is memorable, and some of it is derivative." A compilation, '' I/We Had a Ball'', consisting of jazz versions of songs from the musical was released on

Limelight Records Limelight Records was a jazz record label and subsidiary of Mercury Records started in 1962. The catalogue included music by Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines, Milt Jackson, Gerry Mulligan, and Oscar Peterson. Originally headed by Quincy ...

in 1964. It features sessions led by

Oscar Peterson Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian virtuoso jazz pianist and composer. Considered one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards ...

, Chet Baker, Milt Jackson,

Quincy Jones Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...

, Art Blakey and Dizzy Gillespie.

Songs

Source: guidetomusicaltheatre.com"'I Had a Ball' Synopsis, Cast, Musical Numbers"
guidetomusicaltheatre.com, accessed May 24, 2012 ;Act I *Coney Island, U.S.A. *The Other Half of Me *Red-Blooded American Boy *I Got Everything I Want *Freud *Think Beautiful *Addie's at It Again *Faith *Can It Be Possible? ;Act II *The Neighborhood Song *The Affluent Society *Boys, Boys, Boys *Fickle Finger of Fate *I Had a Ball *Almost *You Deserve Me *You Deserve Me (reprise) *Tunnel of Love Chase

Notes

References

*''Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops'' by Ken Mandelbaum, published by

St. Martin's Press St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, in the Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under si ...

(1991), pages 89–90 ({{ISBN, 0-312-06428-4)

External links

Internet Broadway Database listingInterview with Jack Lawrence
1964 musicals Broadway musicals Songs written by Jack Lawrence (songwriter)