Jimmy Shine is a play with music. It was written by Murray Schisgal with music and lyrics by John Sebastian. The plot centers on its title character who is a struggling artist in Greenwich Village during the 1960s. Much of the story follows Jimmy's relationships with various women in his life and how he copes with love, sex, death, and rejection in relation to both himself and his art. [1]
Jimmy Shine opened on Broadway on December 5, 1968, at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, where it closed on April 26, 1969, after 161 performances. The production starred Dustin Hoffman in the title role, with Pamela Payton-Wright as Constance Fry, Susan Sullivan as Elizabeth Evans, Rose Gregorio as Rosie Pitkin, Charles Siebert as Michael Leon, Cleavon Little as Lee Haines, Rue McClanahan as Sally Weber, Barbara Cason as Miss Green, Eli Mintz as Mr. Lepke, Dorothy Emmerson as Rita, Gale Dixon as Millie, and Arnold Wilkerson as Arnold. Hoffman won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance for his role in the production.
A production of the show was staged in 1969 in Chicago, with Jim Jacobs in the title role. Jacobs (later of Grease fame) was nominated for a Jeff Award for his work.
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. Actor Robert De Niro described him as "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human". At a young age Hoffman knew he wanted to study in the arts, and entered into the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music; later he decided to go into acting, for which he trained at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles. His first theatrical performance was 1961's A Cook for Mr. General as Ridzinski. During that time he appeared in several guest roles on television in shows like Naked City and The Defenders. He then starred in the 1966 off-Broadway play Eh? where his performance garnered him both a Theatre World Award and Drama Desk Award.
Mike Nichols was an American film and theater director, producer, actor, and comedian. He was noted for his ability to work across a range of genres and for his aptitude for getting the best out of actors regardless of their experience. Nichols began his career in the 1950s with the comedy improvisational troupe The Compass Players, predecessor of The Second City, in Chicago. He then teamed up with his improv partner, Elaine May, to form the comedy duo Nichols and May. Their live improv act was a hit on Broadway, and the first of their three albums won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot. The work reflects the creators' observations of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the late 1960s, and several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement. The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy. The musical broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of "rock musical", using a racially integrated cast, and inviting the audience onstage for a "Be-In" finale.
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and filmmaker whose career spans more than six decades. He has been nominated for seven Academy Awards and seven Golden Globe Awards, and has won a BAFTA, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Emmy Award. He received the National Medal of Arts in 2005.
The Great White Hope is a 1967 play written by Howard Sackler, later adapted in 1970 for a film of the same name.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a musical comedy with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The story is based on the "coat of many colours" story of Joseph from the Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly; their first collaboration, The Likes of Us, written in 1965, was not performed until 2005.
Werner Klemperer was a German-American actor, stage entertainer, and singer. He was best known for the role of Colonel Wilhelm Klink on the CBS television sitcom Hogan's Heroes, for which he twice won the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards in 1968 and 1969.
Robert Gérard Goulet was an American singer and actor of French-Canadian ancestry. Goulet was born and raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Cast as Sir Lancelot and originating the role in the 1960 Broadway musical Camelot starring opposite established Broadway stars Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, he achieved instant recognition with his performance and interpretation of the song "If Ever I Would Leave You", which became his signature song. His debut in Camelot marked the beginning of a stage, screen, and recording career. A Grammy Award and Tony Award winner, his career spanned almost six decades.
Philip Seymour Hoffman was an American actor, director, and producer. Best known for his distinctive supporting and character roles—typically lowlifes, eccentrics, bullies and misfits—he acted in many films, including leading roles, from the early 1990s until his death in 2014.
Frank A. Langella Jr. is an American stage and film actor. He has won four Tony Awards: two for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance as Richard Nixon in Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon and as André in Florian Zeller's The Father, and two for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performances in Edward Albee's Seascape and Ivan Turgenev's Fortune's Fool. His reprisal of the Nixon role in the film production of Frost/Nixon earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Cleavon Jake Little was an American stage, film, and television actor. He began his career in the late 1960s on the stage. In 1970, he starred in the Broadway production of Purlie, for which he earned both a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award. His first leading television role was that of the irreverent Dr. Jerry Noland on the ABC sitcom Temperatures Rising (1972–1974). While starring in the sitcom, Little appeared in what has become his signature performance, portraying Sheriff Bart in the 1974 Mel Brooks comedy film Blazing Saddles.
Bobby Steggert is a former American actor of theatre, television and film. He currently works in the mental health field.
Carole Augusta Shelley was a British-American actress who made her career in the United States. Her many stage roles included Gwendolyn Pigeon in The Odd Couple, the character of Madame Morrible in the original Broadway cast of the musical Wicked. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in The Elephant Man in 1979.
Jim Jacobs is an American actor, composer, lyricist, and writer for the theatre, long associated with the Chicago theater scene.
The Madwoman of Chaillot is a play, a poetic satire, by French dramatist Jean Giraudoux, written in 1943 and first performed in 1945, after his death. The play is in two acts. The story concerns an eccentric woman who lives in Paris and her struggles against the straitlaced authority figures in her life.
Golden Rainbow was the title of a Broadway musical that opened in 1968. It starred Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé for its entire run until it closed in early 1969.
Rose Gregorio is an American actress. She began her career appearing mostly in theatre in Chicago and New York City during the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1970s she became more active in television and film, appearing mostly in supporting roles.
Dorothy Emmerson is an American actress and singer who was active in the New York City theatre scene during the 1960s and 1970s. She first appeared in the ensembles of the original 1963 Vernon Duke musical Zenda and the 1965 Lincoln Center Revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. She next starred for a couple years in the long running Off-Broadway production The Mad Show at the New Theater. In 1968 she portrayed her first featured role on Broadway, Eileen Higby in the original production of Paul Nassau and Oscar Brand's The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N. This was followed by her portrayal of Rita in the original production of John Sebastian's Jimmy Shine in 1968–1969, where she shared the stage with Dustin Hoffman and Rue McClanahan.
Arnold Wilkerson is an American actor and the creator and owner of the Little Pie Company in Manhattan, New York City. As an actor, he is particularly known for portraying roles in the original productions of the musicals Hair, Jimmy Shine, and Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope.
Zev Buffman was a Broadway producer who served as president and CEO of Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Florida. He produced more than 40 Broadway shows. He partnered with Elizabeth Taylor to present her in her Broadway debut, The Little Foxes. Buffman was also the co-founding general partner of the NBA champion basketball team the Miami Heat.