Marriage a la Carte is a three-act Broadway musical comedy composed and written by C. M. S. McLellan and scored by Ivan Caryll. The play was staged by Austen Hurgon with musical direction provided by J. Sebastian Hiller and Carl H. Engel. Marriage a la Carte opened on January 2, 1911 at the Casino Theatre and had a run of 64 performances. [1] [2]
The play starred newcomer Emmy Wehlen and was set in England. The plot revolves around Mrs. Ponsonby de Coutts Wragge, recently engaged to Lord Mirables, and her former husbands (Ponsonby de Coutts Wragge and Napoleon Pettingill) who reappear in her life after a long absence. [3]
The New York Times, January 3, 1911:
Marriage a la Carte has charm, distinction, humor, pretty music, pretty girls and clever comedians. What more could one want from a musical comedy? And that is what Marriage a la Carte is, a real musical comedy. [4]
Theatre Magazine, March, 1911:
“The title of the new musical comedy, "Marriage a la Carte," by C. M. S. McClellan, has in itself no meaning that we can discover, and there is nothing in the play itself to elucidate its meaning. The title is as silly and dull as the action which seeks in vain to unfold itself on the stage." The critic went on to comment on Wehlen's New York debut, ”A new face and a new force comes to us for the first time in the person of Miss Emmy Wehlen, trained in Germany mainly on the Munich stage, and for a year or so past active on the London stage. She is a blonde, blue-eyed person, with considerable grace and intelligence, who sings and dances well, and has charms that are distinctly individual and consequently new to us. Her best song is "Silly Cock-a-Doodle-Doo," which she dances with Dick (Mr. C. Morton Horne)." [5]
Lillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.
Sandra Kay Duncan is an American actress, comedian, dancer and singer. She is known for her performances in the Broadway revival of Peter Pan and in the sitcom The Hogan Family. Duncan has been nominated for three Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.
Howard da Silva was an American actor, director and musical performer on stage, film, television and radio. He was cast in dozens of productions on the New York stage, appeared in more than two dozen television programs, and acted in more than fifty feature films. Adept at both drama and musicals on the stage, he originated the role of Jud Fry in the original 1943 run of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!, and also portrayed the prosecuting attorney in the 1957 stage production of Compulsion. Da Silva was nominated for a 1960 Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his work in Fiorello!, a musical about New York City mayor LaGuardia. In 1961, da Silva directed Purlie Victorious, by Ossie Davis.
David Burns was an American Broadway theatre and motion picture actor and singer.
The Al Hirschfeld Theatre, originally the Martin Beck Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 302 West 45th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1924, it was designed by G. Albert Lansburgh in a Moorish and Byzantine style and was constructed for vaudevillian Martin Beck. It has 1,404 seats across two levels and is operated by Jujamcyn Theaters. Both the facade and the interior are New York City landmarks.
The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, originally the Globe Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 205 West 46th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1910, the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre was designed by Carrère and Hastings in the Beaux-Arts style for Charles Dillingham. The theater is named after theatrical couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne; its original name was inspired by that of the Globe Theatre, London's Shakespearean playhouse. The current configuration of the interior, dating to 1958, has about 1,519 seats across two levels and is operated by the Nederlander Organization. The facade is a New York City landmark.
The Lena Horne Theatre is a Broadway theater at 256 West 47th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1926, it was designed by Herbert J. Krapp in a Spanish Revival style and was constructed for Irwin Chanin. It has 1,069 seats across two levels and is operated by the Nederlander Organization. Both the facade and the auditorium interior are New York City landmarks.
Oh, Boy! is a musical in two acts, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. The story concerns befuddled George, who elopes with Lou Ellen, the daughter of Judge Carter. He must win over her parents and his Quaker aunt. His dapper polo champion friend Jim is in love with madcap actress Jackie, but George must hide her while she extricates herself from a scrape with a bumbling constable whom she punched at a party raid.
Edward Solomon was an English composer, conductor, orchestrator and pianist. He died at age 39 by which time he had written dozens of works produced for the stage, including several for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, including The Nautch Girl (1891). Early in his career, he was a frequent collaborator of Henry Pottinger Stephens. He had a bigamous marriage with Lillian Russell in the 1880s.
George M! is a Broadway musical based on the life of George M. Cohan, the biggest Broadway star of his day who was known as "The Man Who Owned Broadway." The book for the musical was written by Michael Stewart, John Pascal, and Francine Pascal. Music and lyrics were by George M. Cohan himself, with revisions for the musical by Cohan's daughter, Mary Cohan.
Veanne Cox is an Emmy and Tony-nominated American stage and screen actress and former ballet dancer.
Erminie is a comic opera in two acts composed by Edward Jakobowski with a libretto by Claxson Bellamy and Harry Paulton, based loosely on Charles Selby's 1834 English translation of the French melodrama, Robert Macaire. The piece first played in Birmingham, England, and then in London in 1885, and enjoyed unusual international success that endured into the twentieth century.
Percy Anderson was an English stage designer and painter, best known for his work for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's company at His Majesty’s Theatre and Edwardian musical comedies.
The Casino Theatre was a Broadway theatre located at 1404 Broadway and West 39th Street in New York City. Built in 1882, it was a leading presenter of mostly musicals and operettas until it closed in 1930.
Emily "Emmy" Wehlen (1887–1977) was a German-born Edwardian musical comedy and silent film actress who vanished from the public eye while in her early thirties.
C. Morton Horne (1885–1916) was an Irish writer and musical comedy performer who lost his life on a battlefield in France during the First World War.
Charles Morton Stewart McLellan (1865–1916) was a London-based American playwright and composer who often wrote under the pseudonym Hugh Morton. McLellan is probably best remembered for the musical The Belle of New York and drama Leah Kleschna.
David Ray Campbell is an American television writer, theater producer, and former comedy manager. With his partner, Jim Jinkins, Campbell helped create the Nickelodeon animated television series Doug, which launched the Nicktoons brand. He is also the co-founder of Jumbo Pictures and Cartoon Pizza, and is currently developing the Broadway musical, Holy Fire!
Edgar McPhail Smith was an American writer and lyricist for musicals in the early decades of the 20th century. He contributed to some 150 Broadway musicals. Weber and Fields starred in many of his works.
Frederick Thomas Thorne, stage name Eric Thorne, was an English singer and actor in musical theatre and comic opera.