Hooray for What! | |
---|---|
Music | Harold Arlen |
Lyrics | E. Y. Harburg |
Book | Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse |
Productions | 1937 Broadway |
Hooray for What! is an anti-war [1] musical with music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by E. Y. Harburg and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. [2] [3] It introduced the song "Down With Love".
The original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on December 1, 1937, and ran for 200 performances. [2] Directors were Vincente Minnelli and Howard Lindsay, and choreographers were Robert Alton and Agnes de Mille (her first Broadway choreography). The cast featured Ed Wynn as Chuckles, Jack Whiting as Breezy Cunningham, Paul Haakon (Principal Dancer), June Clyde as Annabel Lewis (replacing Hannah Williams), [4] Vivian Vance as Stephanie Stephanovich (replacing Kay Thompson), Hugh Martin (Singing Ensemble), Ralph Blane as A Spy, and Meg Mundy (Singing Ensemble). Martin also did the vocal arrangements. Life magazine called it "the funniest show of the year." [5]
42nd Street Moon Theatre Company, San Francisco, California, presented the musical in a staged concert, in November 2004. [1]
It was presented by "The Medicine Show", New York City, in 2008. [6]
In Sprinkle, Indiana, Chuckles, a chemist, accidentally discovers a poisonous gas that could dominate the world. Breezy Cunningham is a weapons manufacturer, and tries to get the formula; when Chuckles refuses, Breezy hires the famous and alluring spy Stephanie Stephanovich to tempt it from Chuckles. Chuckles does not give in to Stephanie's wiles but goes to the League of Nations Peace Conference in Geneva to try to sell his discovery, which has somehow turned into a "love" potion. Meanwhile, Breezy, Stephanie, and their cohorts try to obtain the formula for the poisonous gas.
Note: One song cut from the final production, "I'm Hanging On to You", was later re-written with new lyrics to become "If I Only Had a Brain/a Heart/the Nerve" for a future Arlen-Harburg collaboration, the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz . "Napoleon's a Pastry" provided the title for a song in another Arlen-Harburg musical, 1957's Jamaica where it was sung by Lena Horne. It is a completely different number, however. The original song resurfaced in the 42nd Street Moon production of Hooray for What!
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1933.
Edgar Yipsel Harburg was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow". He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his leftist leanings. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.
Isaiah Edwin Leopold, better known as Ed Wynn, was an American actor and comedian. He began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was known for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor, which continued into the 1960s. His variety show (1949–1950), The Ed Wynn Show, won a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award.
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, who composed over 500 songs, a number of which have become known worldwide. In addition to composing the songs for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow", which won him the Oscar for Best Original Song, he was nominated as composer for 8 other Oscar awards. Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the Great American Songbook. "Over the Rainbow" was voted the 20th century's No. 1 song by the RIAA and the NEA.
Finian's Rainbow is a musical with a book by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Burton Lane, produced by Lee Sabinson. The original 1947 Broadway production ran for 725 performances, while a film version was released in 1968 and several revivals have followed.
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist primarily known for his theatre and film scores. His most popular and successful works include Finian's Rainbow in 1947 and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in 1965.
Lindsay and Crouse was the writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who collaborated famously on a succession of Broadway plays and musicals for 27 years during the mid 20th century. Their first collaboration was the rewriting of the book for the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes in 1935. They continued to co-pen books for Broadway musicals through 1962, including Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music in 1959. They also penned several successful comedies; notably winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1945 for their original play State of the Union. Several of their works were adapted into motion pictures. The team also co-produced the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace by playwright Joseph Kesselring.
"Million Dollar Quartet" is a recording of an impromptu jam session involving Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash made on December 4, 1956, at the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. An article about the session was published in the Memphis Press-Scimitar under the title "Million Dollar Quartet". The recording was first released in Europe in 1981 as The Million Dollar Quartet with 17 tracks. A few years later more tracks were discovered and released as The Complete Million Dollar Session. In 1990, the recordings were released in the United States as Elvis Presley: The Million Dollar Quartet. This session is considered a seminal moment in rock and roll.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book is a 1961 album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, with a studio orchestra conducted and arranged by Billy May. This album marked the only time that Fitzgerald worked with May.
Hannah Williams was an American actress, singer, and comedian and former wife of bandleader Roger Wolfe Kahn and Hall of Fame boxer Jack Dempsey.
Jamaica is a musical with a book by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Harold Arlen. It is set on a small island off the coast of Jamaica, and tells about a simple island community fighting to avoid being overrun by American commercialism.
Darling of the Day is a musical with a book by Nunnally Johnson, lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, and music by Jule Styne. It is based on Arnold Bennett's novel Buried Alive and his play The Great Adventure. Patricia Routledge won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in the 1968 Broadway production.
Nick & Nora is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr., and music by Charles Strouse.
Face the Music is a musical, the first collaboration between Moss Hart (book) and Irving Berlin. Face the Music opened on Broadway in 1932, and has had several subsequent regional and New York stagings. The popular song "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" was introduced in the musical by J. Harold Murray.
"Down with Love" is a popular song with lyrics by E.Y. Harburg and music by Harold Arlen. It was originally written in 1937 for Kay Thompson, but introduced by her replacement, Vivian Vance, who sang it with Jack Whiting and June Clyde in the Broadway musical Hooray for What!. The song was recorded in 1940 by Eddie Condon's Orchestra with vocals by Lee Wiley. The song has been performed by Judy Garland, Bobby Darin, and Blossom Dearie among others, and has become a pop and jazz standard. Barbra Streisand recorded "Down with Love" in 1963 for The Second Barbra Streisand Album, and performed the song live on The Judy Garland Show. Garland's rendition was featured in the 2003 movie Down with Love, with an additional version by Michael Bublé and Holly Palmer.
Super Jam is a live studio recording featuring jazz, pop and traditional standards, many of them film scores, included in the German TV series, Villa Fantastica. The album featured the series' musical director Brian Auger on piano, Pete York on drums, Dick Morrissey on tenor saxophone, Roy Williams on trombone, Harvey Weston on bass guitar, plus the singers Zoot Money and Maria Muldaur.
Gold Diggers of 1937 is a Warner Bros. movie musical directed by Lloyd Bacon with musical numbers created and directed by Busby Berkeley. The film stars Dick Powell and Joan Blondell, who were married at the time, with Glenda Farrell and Victor Moore.
Life Begins at 8:40 is a musical revue with music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and E.Y. Harburg, and sketches by Gershwin, Harburg, David Freedman, H.I. Phillips, Alan Baxter, Henry Clapp Smith, and Frank Gabrielson.
42nd Street Moon is a professional theatre company in San Francisco, California. The company specializes in the preservation and presentation of early and lesser-known works by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Kander and Ebb, Jule Styne and Comden and Green. In recent years, the company has branched out to include more contemporary works that continue the spirit of the classic American Musical.
Jack Whiting was an American actor, singer and dancer whose career ran from the early 1920s through the late 1950s, playing leading men or major supporting figures.