| Between the Devil | |
|---|---|
 Sheet music cover (cropped) | |
| Music | Arthur Schwartz |
| Lyrics | Howard Dietz |
| Book | Howard Dietz |
| Productions | 1937 Broadway |
Between the Devil is a musical comedy with book and lyrics by Howard Dietz and music by Arthur Schwartz.
| Between the Devil | |
|---|---|
| Sheet music cover (cropped) | |
| Music | Arthur Schwartz |
| Lyrics | Howard Dietz |
| Book | Howard Dietz |
| Productions | 1937 Broadway |
Between the Devil is a musical comedy with book and lyrics by Howard Dietz and music by Arthur Schwartz.
The musical opened in pre-Broadway tryouts in New Haven and Philadelphia in October 1937. The original plot had the leading man, Jack Buchanan, as an Englishman who married two women at the same time. The plot was changed to have Buchanan marry the second wife only because he thought his first wife had died. [1] Produced by Lee Shubert and J. J. Shubert, the Broadway production opened on December 22, 1937, at the Imperial Theatre and closed on March 12, 1938, after 93 performances. The production was staged by Hassard Short, the book was staged by John Hayden, and dances and principals' numbers were staged by Robert Alton. The cast starred Jack Buchanan as Peter Anthony and Pierre Antoine, Evelyn Laye as Natalie Rives, Adele Dixon as Claudette Gilbert, and Charles Walters as Freddie Hill.
The show was only a moderate success but introduced the songs "By Myself" and "Triplets", both of which were used 16 years later in the 1953 film, The Band Wagon , which also starred Buchanan. The song "By Myself" was also covered by Leonard Nimoy 14 years after the movie (and included on his second album Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy ) in 1968. It was also recorded by Polly Bergen in 1958.
Act I
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In The New York Times , reviewer Brooks Atkinson praised the performers, with Buchanan distinguishing himself in the solo 'By Myself', Miss Laye "still retains her ranking as a blonde goddess", and Miss Dixon "stimulating in a more earthly style of conquest". He wrote of the musical: "If it were not for the book, 'Beyond the Devil' would probably look and sound as frisky as it pretends to be. But, oh these bigamists! Oh, these wicked Parisian chanteuses! Oh, these improper situations! Oh!" [2]
High Button Shoes is a 1947 musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn and book by George Abbott and Stephen Longstreet. It was based on the semi-autobiographical 1946 novel The Sisters Liked Them Handsome by Stephen Longstreet. The story concerns the comic entanglements of the Longstreet family with two con men in Atlantic City.
Guy Reginald Bolton was an Anglo-American playwright and writer of musical comedies. Born in England and educated in France and the US, he trained as an architect but turned to writing. Bolton preferred working in collaboration with others, principally the English writers P. G. Wodehouse and Fred Thompson, with whom he wrote 21 and 14 shows respectively, and the American playwright George Middleton, with whom he wrote ten shows. Among his other collaborators in Britain were George Grossmith Jr., Ian Hay and Weston and Lee. In the US, he worked with George and Ira Gershwin, Kalmar and Ruby and Oscar Hammerstein II.
Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist, best remembered for his songwriting collaboration with Arthur Schwartz.
Walter John Buchanan was a Scottish theatre and film actor, singer, dancer, producer and director. He was known for three decades as the embodiment of the debonair man-about-town in the tradition of George Grossmith Jr., and was described by The Times as "the last of the knuts." He is best known in America for his role in the classic Hollywood musical The Band Wagon in 1953.
The Imperial Theatre is a Broadway theater at 249 West 45th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1923, the Imperial Theatre was designed by Herbert J. Krapp and was constructed for the Shubert brothers. It has 1,457 seats across two levels and is operated by The Shubert Organization. The auditorium interior is a New York City designated landmark.
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