Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook (October 25, 1927 – August 8, 2017) was an American actress and singer who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in the original Broadway musicals '' Plain and Fancy'' (1955), ''Candide'' (1956) and ''The Music Man'' (1957) among others, winning a Tony Award for the last. She continued performing mostly in theatre until the mid-1970s, when she began a second career as a cabaret and concert singer. She also made numerous recordings. During her years as Broadway’s leading ingénue, Cook was lauded for her excellent lyric soprano voice. She was particularly admired for her vocal agility, wide range, warm sound, and emotive interpretations. As she aged her voice took on a darker quality, even in her head voice, that was less prominent in her youth.Howard Goldstein: "Barbara Cook", ''Grove Music Online'' ed. L. Macy (Accessed December 4, 2008)(subscription access) At the time of her death, Cook was widely recognized as one of the "premier interpreters" of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton County and extends into neighboring DeKalb County, Georgia, DeKalb County. With a population of 520,070 (2024 estimate) living within the city limits, Atlanta is the eighth most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast and List of United States cities by population, 36th most populous city in the United States according to the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census. Atlanta is classified as a Globalization and World Cities Research Network#Beta +, Beta + global city and is the principal city of the much larger Atlanta metropolitan area, the core of which includes Cobb County, Georgia, Cobb, Clayton County, Georgia, Clayton and Gwinnett County, Georgia, Gwinnett counties, in addition to Fulton and DeKalb. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Benevolent And Protective Order Of Elks
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE), commonly known as the Elks Lodge or simply The Elks, is an American fraternal order and charitable organization founded in 1868 in New York City. Originally established as a social club for minstrel show performers, it evolved into a nationwide brotherhood dedicated to community service, patriotism, and mutual aid. With over 750,000 members across 1,900+ local lodges, the Elks are known for philanthropic programs supporting veterans, youth scholarships (e.g., the "Hoop Shoot" contest), and disaster relief. The organization upholds four pillars—Charity, Justice, Brotherly Love, and Fidelity—and maintains traditions like the nightly "Hour of Recollection" toast to absent members. Historically exclusive (barring women and minorities until the late 20th century), the BPOE now admits all U.S. citizens over 21 who affirm belief in God. Its headquarters, the Elks National Veterans Memorial in Chicago, commemorates members who serv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Armstrong Circle Theatre
''Armstrong Circle Theatre'' is an American anthology drama television series which ran from June 6, 1950, to June 25, 1957, on NBC, and from October 2, 1957, to August 28, 1963, on CBS. It alternated weekly with '' The United States Steel Hour''. It finished in the Nielsen ratings at number 19 for the 1950–51 season and number 24 for 1951–52. The principal sponsor was Armstrong World Industries. Between July 8 and September 16, 1959, CBS aired reruns of six documentary dramas originally broadcast during the 1958–1959 season as episodes of ''Armstrong Circle Theatre'' under the title ''Armstrong by Request''. ''Armstrong by Request'' aired during ''Armstrong Circle Theatre''′s time slot and also alternated with ''The United States Steel Hour''. Synopsis The program's first season featured episodes that tried "to please every body in a mass audience, using only highly formularized plays. The next season brought a different approach, with more emphasis on characters t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oklahoma (musical)
''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs's 1931 play, '' Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie. The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943. It was a box office hit and ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances, later enjoying award-winning revivals, national tours, foreign productions and an Oscar-winning 1955 film adaptation. It has long been a popular choice for school and community productions. Rodgers and Hammerstein won a special Pulitzer Prize for ''Oklahoma!'' in 1944. This musical, building on the innovations of the earlier ''Show Boat'', epitomized the development ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New York City Center
New York City Center (previously known as the Mecca Temple, City Center of Music and Drama, and the New York City Center 55th Street Theater) is a performing arts center at 131 West 55th Street (Manhattan), 55th Street between Sixth Avenue, Sixth and Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenues in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Developed by the Shriners between 1922 and 1924 as a Masonic bodies, Masonic meeting house, it has operated as a performing arts complex owned by the government of New York City. City Center is a performing home for several major dance companies as well as the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), and it hosts the Encores! musical theater series and the Fall for Dance Festival annually. The facility was designed by Harry P. Knowles and Clinton and Russell in the Moorish Revival architecture, Moorish Revival style and is divided into two parts. The southern section houses a main auditorium, with 2,257 seats across three levels; this auditorium ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flahooley
''Flahooley'' is a musical with a book by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Sammy Fain. Synopsis and background The allegorical tale is set in fictional Capsulanti, USA, site of the headquarters for B.G. Bigelow, Incorporated, the largest toy corporation in the world. Puppet designer Sylvester has created laughing doll Flahooley and is about to unveil it as the company's big Christmas release to the board of directors. The meeting is interrupted by an Arabian delegation. Their country has run out of oil, the magic lamp upon which they rely is broken, and they hope someone can repair it so genie Abou Ben Atom, who keeps things running smoothly, will reappear and help them in their time of need. Bigelow, enamored with Princess Najla, agrees and assigns Sylvester to the project. Sylvester's hopes of success are crushed when a rival company produces their own doll at a lower price. By rubbing the lamp with Flahooley's hand, he summons the genie, and, hop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Variety (magazine)
''Variety'' is an American trade magazine owned by Penske Media Corporation. It was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933, ''Daily Variety'' was launched, based in Los Angeles, to cover the film industry, motion-picture industry. ''Variety'' website features entertainment news, reviews, box office results, plus a credits database, production charts and film calendar. History Founding ''Variety'' has been published since December 16, 1905, when it was launched by Sime Silverman as a weekly periodical covering theater and vaudeville, with its headquarters in New York City. Silverman had been fired by ''The Morning Telegraph'' in 1905 for panning an act which had taken out an advert for $50. He subsequently decided to start his own publication that, he said, would "not be influenced by advertising." With a loan of $1,500 from his father-in-law, he launched ''Variety'' as publisher and editor. In additi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ernie Byfield
Ernest Lessing Byfield (November 3, 1889 – 10 February 1950) was an American hotelier and restaurateur from the 1930s through the 1950s in Chicago, Illinois. Byfield operated the Hotel Sherman Co., including the Ambassador East and West, the Sherman House Hotel, the Fort Dearborn and the Drake hotels and The Pump Room and College Inn restaurants. Biography Byfield was born to a Jewish family in Chicago on November 3, 1889.Chicago Jewish History: "Ernest Byfield: The Pump Room and The Pageant" by William Roth September 2006 His father, Joseph, the son of innkeepers in Hungary, immigrated to Chicago in 1867 as a teen and changed the family name from Beifeld to Byfield. His father worked for Marshall Field & Company and then went into busines ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oscar Straus (composer)
Oscar Nathan Straus (6 March 1870 – 11 January 1954) was a Viennese composer of operettas, film scores, and songs. He also wrote about 500 cabaret songs, chamber music, and orchestral and choral works. His original name was actually Strauss, but for professional purposes he deliberately omitted the final 's'. He wished not to be associated with the musical Strauss family of Vienna. However, he did follow the advice of Johann Strauss II in 1898 about abandoning the prospective lure of writing waltzes for the more lucrative business of writing for the theatre. The son of a Jewish family, he studied music in Berlin under Max Bruch, and became an orchestral conductor, working at the Überbrettl cabaret. He went back to Vienna and began writing operettas, becoming a serious rival to Franz Lehár. When Lehár's popular '' The Merry Widow'' premiered in 1905, Straus was said to have remarked "Das kann ich auch!" (I can also do that!). In 1939, after the Anschluss, he fled to Paris, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rodgers And Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their musical theater writing partnership has been called the greatest of the 20th century. Their popular Broadway productions in the 1940s and 1950s initiated what is considered the "golden age" of musical theater. Gordon, John Steele''Oklahoma!''. Retrieved June 13, 2010 Five of their Broadway shows, ''Oklahoma!'', '' Carousel'', '' South Pacific'', '' The King and I'' and ''The Sound of Music'', were outstanding successes, as was the television broadcast of ''Cinderella'' (1957). Of the other four shows the pair produced on Broadway during their lifetimes, '' Flower Drum Song'' was well-received, and none was a critical or commercial flop. Most of their shows have received frequent revivals around the world, both professional and amateur. Among the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs and dances. Vaudeville became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, while changing over time. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and films. A vaudeville performer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, largest, and average area per state and territory, smallest county by area in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located almost entirely on Manhattan Island near the southern tip of the state, Manhattan constitutes the center of the Northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the New York metropolitan area. Manhattan serves as New York City's Economy of New York City, economic and Government of New York City, administrative center and has been described as the cultural, financial, Media in New York City, media, and show business, entertainment capital of the world. Present-day Manhattan was originally part of Lenape territory. European settlement began with the establishment of a trading post by Dutch colonization of the Americas, D ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |