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Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song Is You", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Long Ago ". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg.
Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of nearly 50 musical comedies and operettas. Harbach collaborated as lyricist or librettist with many of the leading Broadway composers of the early 20th century, including Jerome Kern, Louis Hirsch, Herbert Stothart, Vincent Youmans, George Gershwin, and Sigmund Romberg. Harbach believed that music, lyrics, and story should be closely connected, and, as Oscar Hammerstein II's mentor, he encouraged Hammerstein to write musicals in this manner. Harbach is considered one of the first great Broadway lyricists, and he helped raise the status of the lyricist in an age more concerned with music, spectacle, and stars. Some of his more famous lyrics are "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Indian Love Call" and "Cuddle up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine".
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.
Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, revised considerably by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London. Billy Crocker is a stowaway in love with heiress Hope Harcourt, who is engaged to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. Nightclub singer Reno Sweeney and Public Enemy Number 13, "Moonface" Martin, aid Billy in his quest to win Hope. Songs introduced that later became pop and jazz standards are "Anything Goes", "You're the Top", "All Through the Night", and "I Get a Kick Out of You".
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.
Evelyn Laye was an English actress and singer.
The Piccadilly Theatre is a West End theatre located at the junction of Denman Street and Sherwood Street, near Piccadilly Circus, in the City of Westminster, London. It opened in 1928.
Little Mary Sunshine is a musical that parodies old-fashioned operettas and musicals. The book, music, and lyrics are by Rick Besoyan. The original Off-Broadway production premiered November 18, 1959 at the Orpheum Theatre in New York City's East Village. Staying in the neighborhood, it moved to the Player's Theatre on June 21, 1961, then, finally, to the Cherry Lane Theatre on March 21, 1962. Closing was Sept. 2, 1962. Combined run was 1,143 performances. It was seen briefly in a West End production in 1962 and has become a popular show for amateur and semi-professional groups in the United States and elsewhere.
The Princess Theatre was a joint venture between the Shubert Brothers, producer Ray Comstock, theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury and actor-director Holbrook Blinn. Built on a narrow slice of land located at 104–106 West 39th Street, just off Sixth Avenue in New York City, and seating just 299 people, it was one of the smallest Broadway theatres when it opened in early 1913. The architect was William A. Swasey, who designed the Winter Garden Theatre two years earlier.
Very Good Eddie is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Philip Bartholomae, music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics by Schuyler Greene, with additional lyrics by Elsie Janis, Herbert Reynolds, Harry B. Smith, John E. Hazzard, Ring Lardner and Jerome Kern, and additional music by Henry Kailimai. The story was based on the farce Over Night by Bartholomae. The farcical plot concerns three couples and a sex-crazed voice teacher who board a Hudson River Day Line boat in Poughkeepsie, New York. Chaos ensues when two of the couples cross paths and accidentally trade partners. The vaudeville-style adventure continues at a hotel, where guests pop in and out of rooms while an inebriated desk clerk tries to sort through the madness.
Sunny is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and a libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach. The plot involves Sunny, the star of a circus act, who falls for a rich playboy but comes in conflict with his snooty family. This show was the follow-up to the 1920 hit musical Sally, both starring Marilyn Miller in the title roles, and it was Kern's first musical together with Hammerstein. Sunny also became a hit, with its original Broadway production in 1925 running for 517 performances. The London production starred Binnie Hale.
"Remind Me" is a 1940 song composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics written by Dorothy Fields.
Princess Charming is an operetta with music composed by Albert Szirmai. The English libretto by Arthur Wimperis and Lauri Wylie is based on the Hungarian libretto by Franz Martos. The operetta is set in the Palace of the Elyrian Embassy in the fictional European country of Novia and the Sigman Castle adjoining the Royal Palace. The story concerns a young princess who accepts a proposal of marriage from the elderly king of a neighboring country as protection against an uprising by her own subjects. Captain Torrelli, a military officer sent by the king, fears imminent danger to the princess and marries her himself. The officer then escorts her to his king for an annulment, but the couple fall in love and elope.
Michael Elder Rourke, who assumed the pen name Herbert Reynolds in 1913, was an Irish-American lyricist. Reynolds wrote the lyrics to Jerome Kern's first big hit, "They Didn't Believe Me", interpolated into the 1914 American version of The Girl from Utah, produced by Charles Frohman. The show had a successful run of 140 performances at the Knickerbocker Theatre, opening on August 14, 1914. Frohman had hired the young Kern to write five new songs for the score together with Reynolds to strengthen what he felt was a weak first act. Julia Sanderson and Donald Brian starred in the production.
The Cabaret Girl is a musical comedy in three acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by George Grossmith, Jr. and P. G. Wodehouse. It was produced by Grossmith and J. A. E. Malone at the Winter Garden Theatre in London's West End in September 1922 and featured Dorothy Dickson, Grossmith, Geoffrey Gwyther, and Norman Griffin in the leading roles.
Oh, Lady! Lady!! is a musical with music by Jerome Kern, a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse and lyrics by Wodehouse. It was written for the Princess Theatre on Broadway, where it played in 1918 and ran for 219 performances. The story concerns an engaged young man, Bill, whose ex-fiancée arrives unexpectedly on his wedding day. Bill works to convince his old flame that he was not worthy to marry her, but his clumsy efforts do not make him look good to his new fiancée, whose mother already dislikes Bill. A couple of crooks cause further complications.
Three Sisters is a musical written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern (music). It concerns the romantic lives of three sisters.
The English comic singer, monologist and actor Stanley Holloway (1890–1982), started his performing career in 1910. He starred in English seaside towns such as Clacton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze, primarily in concert party and variety shows. The first of these, The White Coons Show, was soon followed by the more prestigious Nicely, Thanks! in 1913. From here, he went on to co-star in The Co-Optimists, a variety show which brought him to wider audience attention. After the First World War, he returned to London and found success in the West End musicals at the Winter Garden Theatre, including Kissing Time (1919), followed in 1920 by A Night Out. The Co-Optimists continued until 1927, and he then appeared in Hit the Deck, a comic musical which appeared both in London and on Broadway. Reporting for The Manchester Guardian, the theatre critic Ivor Brown praised Holloway for a singing style "which coaxes the ear rather than clubbing the head."
The Beauty Spot was a 1909 musical comedy in two acts that played for 137 performances at the Herald Square Theatre in New York with music by Reginald De Koven, a book by Joseph W. Herbert and additional lyrics by Terry Sullivan. The musical provided early appearances for the actresses Lillian Worth and Evelyn Laye.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Hischak, Thomas S. (2013). The Jerome Kern encyclopedia. p. 16-17. ISBN 978-0-8108-9168-5. OCLC 843881819.
- ↑ Somerville, Matthew. "Blue Eyes", Theatricalia.com. Retrieved 6 October 2022
- 1 2 Suskin, Steven (2010). Show Tunes : the songs, shows, and careers of Broadway's major composers. Oxford University Press. p. 31-32. ISBN 978-0-19-974209-7. OCLC 709594423.
- ↑ Seeley, Robert; Bunnett, Rex; Rust, Brian (1989). London musical shows on record, 1889-1989 : A hundred years of London's musical theatre. General Gramophon Publications. p. 28. ISBN 0-902470-30-2. OCLC 21369470.