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".
Guys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (1933) and "Blood Pressure", which are two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, such as "Pick the Winner".
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 known for her performances in operettas and musicals.
Cyril Joseph Trimnell-Ritchard, known professionally as Cyril Ritchard, was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin musical production of Peter Pan. In 1945, he played Gabriele Eisenstein in Gay Rosalinda at the Palace theatre in London, a version of Strauss's Die Fledermaus by Erich Wolfgang Korngold in which he appeared with Peter Graves. The show was conducted by Richard Tauber and ran for almost a year.
Dilys Laye was an English actress and singer, best known for her comedy roles, in which she was seen in the West End and on Broadway for more than fifty years, beginning in 1951. Although primarily a stage performer, she broadcast frequently on radio and television, and appeared in films.
The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players.
The Shubert Theatre is a Broadway theater at 225 West 44th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1913, the theater was designed by Henry Beaumont Herts in the Italian Renaissance style and was built for the Shubert brothers. Lee and J. J. Shubert had named the theater in memory of their brother Sam S. Shubert, who died in an accident several years before the theater's opening. It has 1,502 seats across three levels and is operated by The Shubert Organization. The facade and interior are New York City landmarks.
Robert Cuccioli is an American actor and singer. He is best known for originating the lead dual title roles in the musical Jekyll & Hyde, for which he received a Tony Award nomination and won the Joseph Jefferson Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Fany Award for outstanding actor in a musical.
Sugar is a 1972 musical with a book by Peter Stone, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The musical is based on the 1959 film Some Like It Hot, which was adapted by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond from a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan.
The Aviator is a 1929 American Pre-Code Vitaphone comedy film produced and released by Warner Bros. Directed by Roy Del Ruth, the film was based on the play of the same name by James Montgomery and stars Edward Everett Horton and Patsy Ruth Miller. The Aviator is similar to the silent comedy The Hottentot (1922), where a hapless individual has to pretend to be a famous steeplehorse jockey. The Aviator today is considered a lost film.
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.
Miss 1917 is a musical revue with a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, music by Jerome Kern, Victor Herbert and others, and lyrics by Harry B. Smith, Otto Harbach, Henry Blossom and others. Made up of a string of vignettes, the show features songs from such musicals as The Wizard of Oz, Three Twins, Babes in Toyland, Ziegfeld Follies and The Belle of New York.
Marjorie Gordon was an English actress and singer.
Ida Adams, sometimes credited as Ida M. Adams, was an American-born actress and singer who worked chiefly in musical theatre.
Oh, My Dear! was a Broadway musical comedy in two acts with book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, and music by Louis A. Hirsch. The play was produced by William Elliott and F. Ray Comstock and opened under the direction of Robert Milton and Edward Royce at the Princess Theatre on West 39th Street in New York City on November 27, 1918. Oh, My Dear! had a run of 189 performances, with the final curtain falling on May 10, 1919. The musical takes place at Dr. Rockett's Health Farm in the state of New York.
George Wilford Bulkley Byng was an English conductor, composer, music arranger and musical director of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is known for composing music for ballet productions staged at the Alhambra Theatre in London during the Edwardian era, for his theatre compositions, and as a conductor for His Master's Voice (HMV) from World War I up to about 1930. Byng was his stage name.
Arlette is a 1917 operetta in three acts by Austen Hurgon and George Arthurs with lyrics by Adrian Ross and Clifford Grey. Produced by George Grossmith Jr. and Edward Laurillard it was adapted from the French with music by Jane Vieu, Guy Le Feuvre and Ivor Novello. It opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London on 6 September 1917 where it ran for 260 performances. It starred Winifred Barnes, Joseph Coyne and Stanley Lupino.
Going Up is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by Lloyd Ingraham and starring Douglas MacLean, Hallam Cooley and Marjorie Daw. It was based on a 1917 comedy Broadway play The Aviator.
Janet Velie was an American actress who was primarily known for her performances in Broadway musicals. She first came to prominence portraying the title roles in the musicals La La Lucille (1919) and Mary (1920), and then had success in the Ed Wynn music revues The Perfect Fool (1921) and The Grab Bag (1924). In 1925 she created the role of confidence woman Penelope Martin in Irving Berlin's The Cocoanuts; a role she reprised in 1927. She was the sister of actor Jay Velie and sometimes performed in productions with him. In addition to her work in theatre, she also appeared in a few short films.
