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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 widely known for a series of Broadway theatre, Broadway musical theatre, musicals, including several famous frequently-revived shows that also became successful films: ''Gypsy (1962 film), Gypsy,'' ''Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (musical), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,'' and ''Funny Girl (musical), 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 (then part of 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 Child prodigy, prodigy and performed with the Chicago, St. Louis, Missou ... [...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 writer, composer, humorist, director for radio and the stage, and librettist for Broadway musicals. His versatile career in radio, Broadway, and television spanned many decades. He is best known for co-writing the book to the award-winning musicals '' Guys and Dolls'' and '' How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying''. Early years Born Abram Solman Borowitz in New York City, Burrows graduated from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and later attended City College and New York University. While at NYU, he began working as a runner on Wall Street. Eventually he quit college and devoted himself full time to Wall Street where he remained five years in a variety of clerical jobs. Throughout most of the 1930s, Burrows struggled to earn a living. He worked in an accounting firm, sold maple syrup, and took a job in his father's wallpaper-and-paint business. His entry into the entertainme ... [...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 light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and the works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical com ... [...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), many of the extant or closed Broadway venues use or used the spelling ''Theatre'' as the proper noun in their names. Many performers and trade groups for live dramatic presentations also use the spelling ''theatre''. or Broadway, is a theatre genre that consists of the theatrical performances presented in 41 professional theaters, each with 500 or more seats, in the Theater District and 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 Broadway thoroughfare is eponymous with the district, it is closely identified with Times Square. Only three theaters are located on Broadway itself: the Broadway Theatre, Palace Theatre, and Winter Garden Theatre. The rest are ... [...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 11 – In the U.S., a top secret report is delivered to U.S. President Truman by his National Security Resources Board, urging Truman to expand the Korean War by launching "a global offensive against communism" with sustained bombing of Red China and diplomatic moves to establish "moral justification" for a U.S. nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The report will not not be declassified until 1978. * January 15 – In a criminal court in West Germany, Ilse Koch, The "Witch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to li ... [...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''. 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 when Lahr was in grade school, he did not know what he 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 his desk, turned away from us, with his blue Sulk ... [...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 after his acquisition of a gramophone manufacturer, The Decca Gramophone Company. It set up an American subsidiary under the Decca name, which became an independent company just before the Second World War. The American spin-off became a subsidiary of MCA Inc. in 1962. Known for its technical innovations, the British parent company grew to become the second most successful recording company in Britain and celebrated fifty years of existence in 1979, shortly before being sold to PolyGram. Both Decca and its former subsidiary were subsequently acquired by Universal Music. Decca and its American spin-off both built up strong catalogues of popular music. In their first two decades their artists included Gertrude Lawrence, George Formby, Jack Hylton and Vera Lynn in Britain and Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, the Andrews Sisters and the Mills Brothers in the US. Later performers in their popular ... [...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, without audible audience reaction. History The British were the first to create cast recordings, and they were also the first to create original London cast recordings of shows that had already opened on Broadway, but had not been recorde ... [...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. Career Prager was born in New York City. He spent three years at Johns Hopkins University before working in summer stock and on Broadway theatre, Broadway, where he appeared in ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' and ''The Eve of St. Mark''. He appeared in the The Eve of St. Mark, film version of ''Eve of St. Mark'' and 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''. He told an interviewer in 1969 that as an actor he appeared in “all the parts that Phil Silvers wouldn't play.” Prager returned to Broadway and won critical praise in 1951 for his performance in the Comden and Green revue, ''Two on the Aisle''. He played Faker Englund in a 1953 revival of ''Room Service (play), Room Service'', and in 1954 he was Prez in ''The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolores Gray
Dolores Gray (June 7, 1924 – June 26, 2002) was an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, Best Lead Actress in a Musical twice, winning once. Early life 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 who also had a career in Hollywood. While attending John H. Francis Polytechnic High School, 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 California and in Reno, Nevada.''Who's Who in the Theatre'' (1981) Gale, ''Gale Biography In Context'' In Los Angeles in 1941 she appeared at the Pirate’s Den and Hollywood Playhouse. Later that year San Francisco engagements included one at Stairway to the Stars. Gray re ... [...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 (film), 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 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, Best Actress category at the 10th Golden Globe Awards, while Ray was nominated for "New Star of the Year". Plot Pat Pemberton is a brilliant athlete who loses her confidence whenever her charming but overbearing fiancé, Collier, is around. Women's golf and tennis championships are within her reach; however, she gets flustered by his p ... [...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 stage and screen actor and comedian. He was best known for his role as the Cowardly Lion, as well as his counterpart Kansas farmworker "Zeke", in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adaptation of ''The Wizard of Oz'' (1939). He was well known for his quick-witted humor and his work in American burlesque, burlesque and vaudeville and on Broadway theatre, 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, Manhattan, Yorkville section of Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. He was the son of Jacob Lahrheim (1870–1947), an upholsterer, and Augusta Bessen (1871–1932), daughter of Mildred Bessen (1844–1911) and Edward H Bessen (1841–1902). His parents were History of the Jews in Germany, German-Jewish immigrants. He attended P.S. 77 and Morris High School, although he left school ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
