Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman.
Les Misérables, colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz, is a sung-through musical with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, and a book by Schönberg and Boublil, based on the 1862 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. Set in early 19th-century France, Les Misérables tells the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his desire for redemption. After stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's starving child, Valjean is imprisoned for 19 years and released in 1815. When a bishop inspires him with a tremendous act of mercy, Valjean breaks his parole and starts his life anew and in disguise. He becomes wealthy and adopts an orphan, Cosette. A police inspector named Javert pursues Valjean over the decades in a single-minded quest for "justice". The characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists attempts to overthrow the government at a street barricade in Paris.
Cabaret is an American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Joe Masteroff. It is based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten, which in turn was based on the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.
Mame is a musical with a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. Originally titled My Best Girl, it is based on the 1955 novel Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis and the 1956 Broadway play of the same name by Lawrence and Lee. A period piece set in New York City and spanning the Great Depression and World War II, it focuses on eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis, whose famous motto is "Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death." Her fabulous life with her wealthy friends is interrupted when the young son of her late brother arrives to live with her. They cope with the Depression in a series of adventures.
In American theater, summer stock theater is a theater that presents stage productions only in the summer. The name combines the season with the tradition of staging shows by a resident company, reusing stock scenery and costumes. Summer stock theaters frequently take advantage of seasonal weather by having their productions outdoors, under tents set up temporarily for their use, or in barns.
Sally Ann Howes was an English actress and singer. Her career on screen, stage and television spanned six decades. She is best known for the role of Truly Scrumptious in the 1968 musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In 1963, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical for her performance in Brigadoon.
Marilyn Miller was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, and the combination of these talents endeared her to audiences. On stage, she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. She died suddenly from complications of nasal surgery at age 37.
Carnival is a musical, originally produced by David Merrick on Broadway in 1961, with the book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The musical is based on the 1953 film Lili, which again was based on the short story and treatment titled "The Seven Souls of Clement O'Reilly" by Paul Gallico. The show's title originally used an exclamation point ; it was eventually dropped during the show's run, as director Gower Champion felt it gave the wrong impression, saying, "It's not a blockbuster. It's a gentle show."
Fred Andrew Stone was an American actor. Stone began his career as a performer in circuses and minstrel shows, went on to act in vaudeville, and became a star on Broadway and in feature films, which earned him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Dixiana (1930) is a lavish American pre-Code comedy, musical film directed by Luther Reed and produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The final twenty minutes of the picture were photographed in Technicolor. The film stars Bebe Daniels, Everett Marshall, Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Joseph Cawthorn, Jobyna Howland, Ralf Harolde, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Dorothy Lee. The script was adapted by Luther Reed from a story by Anne Caldwell.
Sally Cecilia Hawkins is an English actress who began her career on stage and then moved into film. She has received several awards including a Golden Globe Award in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and two British Academy Film Awards.
Madge Kennedy was a stage, film and television actress whose career began as a stage actress in 1912 and flourished in motion pictures during the silent film era. In 1921, journalist Heywood Broun described her as "the best farce actress in New York".
Fenella Woolgar is an English film, theatre, television and radio actress. She is known for her roles in films including Bright Young Things, Swallows and Amazons and Victoria and Abdul and for TV shows including Doctor Who, as crime novelist Agatha Christie, Inside Number 9, Call the Midwife and The Buccaneers.
James McIntyre was an American minstrel performer, vaudeville and theatrical actor, and a partner in the famous blackface tramp comedy duo act McIntyre and Heath.
Lisa Brescia is an American musical theatre actress who has performed as lead and understudy in several Broadway shows. Raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she went on to pursue acting and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She taught Acting I and IV at Missouri State University and is now set to be the head of the Musical Theatre department at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.
The Irish Repertory Theatre is an Off-Broadway theatre company founded in 1988.
Robert Edwin Clark, known as Bobby Clark, was an American minstrel, vaudevillian, performer on stage, film, television and the circus. Known for his painted-on eyeglasses, he was part of a comedy team with Paul McCullough for 36 years.
Sally of the Sawdust is a 1925 American silent comedy film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring W. C. Fields. It was based on the 1923 stage musical Poppy. Fields would later star in a second film version, Poppy (1936).
Poppy is a 1936 comedy film starring W. C. Fields and Rochelle Hudson. The film was based on a 1923 stage revue of the same name starring Fields and Madge Kennedy. This was the second film version of the revue featuring Fields, following Sally of the Sawdust in 1925 with Carol Dempster in the title role.
Sam Gold is an American theater director and actor. Having studied at Cornell University and Juilliard School he became known for directing both musicals and plays, on Broadway and Off-Broadway. He has received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Director of a Play, and nominations for four Drama Desk Awards.
