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Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, and later Burton Lane, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre both for the stage and on film. Lerner won three Tony Awards and three Academy Awards, among other honors.
My Fair Lady is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story, based on the 1938 film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, so that she may pass as a lady. Despite his cynical nature and difficulty understanding women, Higgins grows attached to her.
The Threepenny Opera is a 1928 German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much, if any, contribution Hauptmann might have made to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author.
Brigadoon is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, and music by Frederick Loewe. The song "Almost Like Being in Love", from the musical, has become a standard. It features two American tourists who stumble upon Brigadoon, a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every 100 years. Tommy, one of the tourists, falls in love with Fiona, a young woman from Brigadoon.
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse, and actress, long based in the United States. In the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her first husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language cinema, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a jaded aristocrat in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). She also played the murderous and sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love (1963).
Lost in the Stars is a musical with book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson and music by Kurt Weill, based on the novel Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) by Alan Paton. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1949; it was the composer's last work for the stage before he died the following year.
Camelot is a musical with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics and a book by Alan Jay Lerner. It is based on the legend of King Arthur as adapted from the 1958 novel The Once and Future King by T. H. White.
High Button Shoes is a 1947 musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn and book by George Abbott and Stephen Longstreet. It was based on the semi-autobiographical 1946 novel The Sisters Liked Them Handsome by Stephen Longstreet. The story concerns the comic entanglements of the Longstreet family with two con men in Atlantic City.
Nanette Fabray was an American actress, singer and dancer. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and became a musical-theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, acclaimed for her role in High Button Shoes (1947) and winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life. In the mid-1950s, she served as Sid Caesar's comic partner on Caesar's Hour, for which she won three Emmy Awards, and appeared with Fred Astaire in the film musical The Band Wagon. From 1979 to 1984, she played Katherine Romano, the mother of lead character Ann Romano, on the TV series One Day at a Time. She also appeared as the mother of Christine Armstrong in the television series Coach.
One Touch of Venus is a 1943 musical with music written by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ogden Nash, and book by S. J. Perelman and Nash, based on the 1885 novella The Tinted Venus by Thomas Anstey Guthrie, and very loosely spoofing the Pygmalion myth. The show satirizes contemporary American suburban values, artistic fads and romantic and sexual mores. Weill had been in America for eight years by the time he wrote this musical, and his music, though retaining his early haunting power, had evolved into a very different Broadway style.
John Francis Mauceri is an American conductor, producer, educator and writer. Since making his professional conducting debut almost half a century ago, he has appeared with most of the world's great orchestras, guest-conducted at the premiere opera houses, produced and musically supervised Tony and Olivier Award-winning Broadway musicals, and served as university faculty and administrator. Through his varied career, he has taken the lead in the preservation and performance of many genres of music and supervised and conducted important premieres by composers as diverse as Debussy, Stockhausen, Korngold, Hindemith, Bernstein, Sibelius, Ives, Elfman and Shore. He is also a leading performer of music banned by the Third Reich and especially music of Hollywood's émigré composers.
Encores! is a Tony-honored concert series dedicated to reviving American musicals, usually with their original orchestrations. Presented by New York City Center since 1994, Encores! has revived shows by Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Hart, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim, among many others. Encores! was the brainchild of Judith Daykin, who launched the series shortly after becoming Executive Director of City Center in 1992. Besides initiating Encores!, Daykin is credited for turning City Center from a rental hall into a presenting organization. The series has spawned nineteen cast recordings and numerous Broadway transfers, including Kander and Ebb's Chicago, which is now the second longest-running musical in Broadway history. Videotapes of many Encores! productions are collected at the Billy Rose Theater Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The series was led by artistic director Jack Viertel from 2001 to 2020; in October 2019, City Center announced that Lear deBessonet will take over as artistic director beginning with the 2021 Encores! season.
Liz Robertson is an English actress and singer and the widow of playwright and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. She is especially well known for her performances as Madame Giry, having played the role in the original cast of Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre, in The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre and in The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall.
Gigi is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. It is based on the 1944 novella Gigi by Colette and 1958 hit musical film of the same name. The story concerns Gigi, a free-spirited teenaged girl living in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. She is being groomed as a courtesan in her family's tradition. Before she is deemed ready for her social debut, she encounters the bon vivant bachelor Gaston Lachaille, whom she captivates as she is transformed into a charmingly poised young lady.
LoveMusik is a musical written by Alfred Uhry, using a selection of music by Kurt Weill. The story explores the romance and lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, based on Speak Low : The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, edited and translated by Lys Symonette and Kim H. Kowalke. Harold Prince had read Speak Low and suggested the idea for a musical to Uhry. Uhry and Prince worked on LoveMusik for four years to develop it into a stage work. The story spans over 25 years, from the first meeting of Lenya and Weill as struggling young artists, to their popularity in Europe and America, to Weill's death from a heart attack at age 50.
Brent Barrett is an American actor and tenor who is mostly known for his work within American theatre. Barrett has performed in musicals and in concerts with theatres, symphony orchestras, opera houses, and concert halls internationally. He starred in the original production of Maltby and Shire's hit Off-Broadway musical Closer Than Ever in 1989 and the 2001 West End revival of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate. He has also appeared sporadically on television and in films.
Richard Muenz is an American actor and baritone who is mostly known for his work within American theatre. Muenz has frequently performed in musicals and in concerts. He has also periodically acted on television.
Lost Musicals is a British musical theatre project established in 1989 by Ian Marshall Fisher. It is dedicated to presenting lost or forgotten musicals by famous American writers, and has been responsible for the first revivals of the lesser-known works of writers such as Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, Alan Jay Lerner, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Harold Arlen and Jerome Kern.
Marion Lee Bell was an American singer and musical theatre performer best known for her role in the Broadway musical Brigadoon.
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill is a musical revue with a book by Gene Lerner, music by Kurt Weill, and lyrics by various songwriting partners Weill worked with over his career. The plot follows Weill's life as he begins his career in Germany writing the music for controversial musicals, through his journey fleeing Nazi persecution, immigrating to the United States, and becoming successful on Broadway. Songs featured include those Weill collaborated on with Maxwell Anderson, Marc Blitzstein, Bertolt Brecht, Jacques Deval, Michael Feingold, Ira Gershwin, Paul Green, Langston Hughes, Alan Jay Lerner, Ogden Nash, George Tabori and Arnold Weinstein.
References
- ↑ Willard, Charles (June 10, 1990). "A New Life For 1948's Love Life The Kurt Weill-Alan Jay Lerner Musical". Philadelphia Media Network. philly.com. Archived from the original on July 17, 2015. Retrieved 16 July 2015.
- ↑ "Love Life".
- ↑ "2024 – 2025 Season".
- ↑ Playbill 1949 Bio Cast Listaccessed 06/21/2024
