Lyman Frank Baum was an American author best known for his children's fantasy books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, part of a series. In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum penned 41 other novels, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.
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".
Mary Rodgers was an American composer, screenwriter, and author. She wrote the novel Freaky Friday, which served as the basis of a 1976 film starring Jodie Foster, for which she wrote the screenplay, as well as three other versions. Her best-known musicals were Once Upon a Mattress and The Mad Show, and she contributed songs to Marlo Thomas' successful children's album Free to Be... You and Me.
Martin Charnin was an American lyricist, writer, and theatre director. Charnin's best-known work is as conceiver, director, and lyricist of the musical Annie.
Victor L. Schertzinger was an American composer, film director, film producer, and screenwriter. His films include Paramount on Parade, Something to Sing About (1937) with James Cagney, and the first two "Road" pictures Road to Singapore (1940) and Road to Zanzibar (1941). His two best-known songs are "I Remember You" and "Tangerine", both with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and both featured in Schertzinger's final film, The Fleet's In (1942).
Louis Ferdinand Gottschalk was an American composer and conductor born in St. Louis, Missouri. The son of a Missouri governor, also named Louis, he studied music in Stuttgart, Germany, where his father, a judge, was American consul. Louis Moreau Gottschalk was his great-uncle.
Going Up is a musical comedy in three acts with music by Louis Hirsch and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and James Montgomery. Set in the US city of Lenox, Massachusetts, at the end of World War I, the musical tells the story of a writer turned aviator who wins the hand of the high society girl that he loves by his daring handling of the joystick of a biplane. Popular songs included "Hip Hooray", "If You Look in Her Eyes", "Kiss Me", "Going Up", "Do It for Me", "The Tickle Toe", and "Down! Up! Left! Right!".
Henry Martyn Blossom Jr. was an American writer, playwright, novelist, opera librettist, and lyricist. He first gained wide attention for his second novel, Checkers: A Hard Luck Story (1896), which was successfully adapted by Blossom into a 1903 Broadway play, Checkers. It was Blossom's first stage work and his first critical success in the theatre. The play in turn was adapted by others creatives into two silent films, one in 1913 and the other in 1919, and the play was the basis for the 1920 Broadway musical Honey Girl. Checkers was soon followed by Blossom's first critical success as a lyricist, the comic opera The Yankee Consul (1903), on which he collaborated with fellow Saint Louis resident and composer Alfred G. Robyn. This work was also adapted into a silent film in 1921. He later collaborated with Robyn again; writing the book and lyrics for their 1912 musical All for the Ladies.
Max Marcin was a Polish-born American playwright, novelist, screenwriter, and film director. He wrote for 47 films between 1916 and 1949. He also directed six films between 1931 and 1936. His stage work includes See My Lawyer (1915), directed by Frank M. Stammers; he wrote and/or produced almost 20 plays for Broadway from 1916 to 1938. Marcin wrote for and produced The FBI in Peace and War and created, produced and wrote for the Crime Doctor radio program, which became the basis for a series of ten Crime Doctor films.
Oliver Morosco was an American theatrical producer, director, writer, film producer, and theater owner. He owned the Morosco Photoplay Company. He brought many of his theater actors to the screen. Frank A. Garbutt was in charge of the film business. The company was merged with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players–Lasky Corporation in 1916.
Manuel Joachim Klein was an English-born composer of musical theatre and incidental music who worked primarily in New York City.
The Tik-Tok Man of Oz is a musical play with book and lyrics by L. Frank Baum and music by Louis F. Gottschalk that opened at the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles, California on March 31, 1913. It is loosely inspired by Baum's book Ozma of Oz (1907), incorporates much of the material from Baum's book The Road to Oz (1909), and was the basis for his 1914 novel, Tik-Tok of Oz. It was promoted as "A Companion Play to The Wizard of Oz" and directed by Frank M. Stammers. The play is known from its advertising and published music, but survives only in earlier manuscript.
Frederic Chapin was an American screenwriter and composer. His name was also written as Frederick Chapin. He wrote the scores for several Broadway musicals. In addition he worked writing screenplays during the silent and early sound eras.
Dorothy Agnes Donnelly was an actress, playwright, librettist, producer, and director. After a decade-long acting career that included several notable roles on Broadway, she turned to writing plays, musicals and operettas, including more than a dozen on Broadway including several long-running successes. Her most famous libretto was The Student Prince (1924), in collaboration with composer Sigmund Romberg.
The plays of L. Frank Baum are an aspect of Baum's writing career about which very little is known. While most biographies have noted Baum's work as a playwright, these works have been rarely performed beyond his lifetime, and almost none have been published aside from two scenarios and a first act of three unfinished works in The Musical Fantasies of L. Frank Baum, compiled with an introduction by Alla T. Ford. Aside from his youthful success with The Maid of Arran, his blockbuster eight-year run with The Wizard of Oz, his failure with The Woggle-Bug, and The Tik-Tok Man of Oz as source material for his novel, Tik-Tok of Oz, very little is known about his dramatic output, and mostly from the publications of Michael Patrick Hearn, Susan Ferrara, and Katharine M. Rogers. Hearn identifies 41 different titles in the bibliography of the 2000 edition of The Annotated Wizard of Oz, plus one play without a title, although some of these titles clearly refer to drafts of the same play, such as the early titles of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz.
Adolf Philipp, also known as Adolph Philipp, was a successful Broadway composer, writer, lyricist, director, and performer. He used the pseudonyms Jean Briquet and Paul Hervé as well as his own name.
This is a complete bibliography for American children's writer L. Frank Baum.
Joseph William Herbert was a British-born American director, silent-film actor, singer and dramatist notable for being the first person to play Ko-Ko in America in a pirate production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (1885) before joining D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring companies across America (1885–1890).
George Arthurs was an English songwriter, playwright, composer, author and screenwriter who contributed lyrics to several successful musical comedies such as The Belle of Mayfair (1906), Havana (1908) and Yes, Uncle! (1917), before writing dialogue for such films as The Yellow Mask (1931).
Ratatouille the Musical is an Internet meme and crowdsourced musical based on the 2007 Disney/Pixar film Ratatouille. TikTok user Emily Jacobsen created a short comedic song in tribute to Remy, a rat with a talent for cooking and the main character of the film, in August 2020. This led to another TikTok user, Daniel Mertzlufft, arranging Jacobsen's tribute as if it were a finale to a Disney musical. From there, additional TikTok users continued to add to Mertzlufft's video to envision a full musical, including a playbill, scenic design, choreography, and more songs. In December 2020, Seaview Productions announced a charity benefit concert presentation of the musical. The benefit concert was streamed for 72 hours beginning on January 1, 2021, followed by an encore presentation on January 10, 2021. In total, the production raised $2 million for The Actors Fund and had 350,000 total viewers.
