|
Michael Stewart (playwright)
Michael Stewart (August 1, 1924 – September 20, 1987) was an American playwright and dramatist, librettist, lyricist, screenwriter and novelist. Life and career Born Myron Stuart Rubin in Manhattan, Stewart attended Queens College, and graduated from the Yale School of Drama with a Master of Fine Arts in 1953.Gerard, Jeremy"Michael Stewart Is Dead 63; Author of Broadway Musicals"''The New York Times'', September 21, 1987, Section B, p.16 His early work was writing sketches for the revues ''The Shoestring Revue'' (1955), ''The Littlest Revue'' (1956), and ''Shoestring '57'' (1956, Barbizon-Plaza, New York). He then joined the staff writers of Sid Caesar's television program, ''Caesar's Hour''. He met Charles Strouse and Lee Adams in 1954, and several years after collaborated with them and Gower Champion on the 1960 Broadway musical ''Bye Bye Birdie''. He worked again with Champion and Jerry Herman, with their musical ''Hello, Dolly!'' opening on Broadway in 1964. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write" is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston: :''Epigram XLIX — On Playwright'' :PLAYWRIGHT me reads, and still my verses damns, :He says I want the tongue of epigrams ; :I have no salt, no bawdry he doth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Award For Best Author
The Tony Award for Best Author is a now retired category once presented to playwrights, authors and Libretto, librettists of Theatre, theatrical play (theatre), plays and musical theatre, musicals. Only nine awards were presented from 1947 to 1965, and it is often grouped with the category Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, Best Book of a Musical. Winners and nominees 1940s 1960s See also * Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical * Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical External links Tony Awards Official siteTony Awards at Internet Broadway database ListingTony Awards at broadwayworld.com {{Tony Awards Tony Awards Awards established in 1947 1947 establishments in the United States 1965 disestablishments in the United States ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Play (theatre)
A play is a work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between characters and intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. The writer of a play is called a playwright. Plays are performed at a variety of levels, from London's West End and Broadway in New York City – which are the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world – to regional theatre, to community theatre, as well as university or school productions. A stage play is a play performed and written to be performed on stage rather than broadcast or made into a movie. Stage plays are those performed on any stage before an audience. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference as to whether their plays were performed or read. The term "play" can refer to both the written texts of playwrights and to their complete theatrical performance. Comedy Comedies are plays which are designed to be humorous. Comedies are often fill ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ceremony in Midtown Manhattan. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theatre. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. The awards were founded by theatre producer and director Brock Pemberton and are named after Antoinette "Tony" Perry, an actress, producer and theatre director who was co-founder and secretary of the American Theatre Wing. The trophy consists of a spinnable medallion, with faces portraying an adaptation of the comedy and tragedy masks, mounted on a black base with a pewter swivel. The rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in th ... [...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 attent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Herman
Gerald Sheldon Herman (July 10, 1931December 26, 2019) was an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway theatre. One of the most commercially successful Broadway songwriters of his time, Herman was the composer and lyricist for a number of hit musicals, starting in the 1960s, that were characterized by an upbeat and optimistic outlook and what Herman called "the simple, hummable showtune". His shows include '' Hello, Dolly!'' (1964), at one time the longest-running musical in Broadway history, which also produced the hit title song for Louis Armstrong; '' Mame'' (1966), a vehicle for Angela Lansbury; and '' La Cage aux Folles'' (1984), the first hit Broadway musical about a gay couple. In 2009, Herman received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. He was a recipient of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors. Early life Herman was born in Manhattan and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, the only child of musically inclined, middle-class Jew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway Theatre
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 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 (namely the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gower Champion
Gower Carlyle Champion (June 22, 1919 – August 25, 1980) was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer. Early years Champion was born on June 22, 1919, in Geneva, Illinois, as the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Carlisle. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from Fairfax High School. He studied dance from an early age and, at the age of fifteen, toured nightclubs with friend Jeanne Tyler billed as "Gower and Jeanne, America's Youngest Dance Team". In 1939, "Gower and Jeanne" danced to the music of Larry Clinton and his Orchestra in a Warner Brothers & Vitaphone film short-subject, "The Dipsy Doodler" (released in 1940). Career During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Champion worked on Broadway as a solo dancer and choreographer. After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, Champion met Marjorie Belcher, who became his new partner, and the two were married in 1947. In the early 1950s, Marge and Gower Champio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee Adams
Lee Richard Adams (born August 14, 1924) is an American lyricist best known for his musical theatre collaboration with Charles Strouse. Biography Born in Mansfield, Ohio, Adams is the son of Dr. Leopold Adams, originally of Stamford, Connecticut and Florence Ellis (originally Elishack) Adams, originally of Racine, Wisconsin. His family is Jewish. He is a graduate of Mansfield Senior High School. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio State University and a Master's from Columbia University. While attending Ohio State University he was a brother of the Nu chapter of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. He worked as a journalist for newspaper and magazines. He met Charles Strouse in 1949 and they initially wrote for summer-time revues. Adams won Tony Awards in 1961 for ''Bye Bye Birdie'', the first Broadway musical he wrote with Strouse, and in 1970 for ''Applause'' and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1965 for '' Golden Boy''. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Strouse
Charles Strouse (born June 7, 1928) is an American composer and lyricist best known for writing the music to such Broadway musicals as ''Bye Bye Birdie'', ''Applause'', and '' Annie''. Life and career Strouse was born in New York City, to Jewish parents, Ethel (née Newman) and Ira Strouse, who worked in the tobacco business. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, he studied under Arthur Berger, David Diamond, Aaron Copland and Nadia Boulanger."Charles Strouse" masterworksbroadway.com, retrieved December 11, 2017 Strouse's first Broadway was '' |
Caesar's Hour
''Caesar's Hour'' is a live, hour-long American sketch-comedy television program that aired on NBC from 1954 until 1957. The program starred, among others, Sid Caesar, Nanette Fabray, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Janet Blair, and Milt Kamen, and featured a number of cameo roles by famous entertainers such as Joan Crawford and Peggy Lee. Widely considered a continuation of Caesar's earlier programs, the '' Admiral Broadway Revue'' and ''Your Show of Shows'', ''Caesar's Hour'' included most of the same writers and actors, with the notable addition of Larry Gelbart (who went on to co-create the ''M*A*S*H'' TV series with Gene Reynolds) in the latter show. Nanette Fabray replaced Imogene Coca, who opted to star in her own TV series in 1954, '' The Imogene Coca Show''. ''Caesar's Hour'' expanded on the format of ''Your Show of Shows'' with many sketches running a half-hour or more, including musical parodies such as "There's No Business" and "Towers Trot", and genre parodies such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor, comedian and writer. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950–1954), which was a 90-minute weekly show watched by 60 million people and its successor, '' Caesar's Hour'' (1954–1957), both of which influenced later generations of comedians. ''Your Show of Shows'' and its cast received seven Emmy nominations between the years 1953 and 1954 and tallied two wins. He also acted in films; he played Coach Calhoun in '' Grease'' (1978) and its sequel ''Grease 2'' (1982) and appeared in the films ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' (1963), ''Silent Movie'' (1976), ''History of the World, Part I'' (1981), ''Cannonball Run II'' (1984), and ''Vegas Vacation'' (1997). Caesar was considered a "sketch comic" and actor, as opposed to a stand-up comedian. He also relied more on body language, accents, and facial c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Play (theatre)")
