The Only Girl (musical)

Last updated

The Only Girl is a "musical farce in three acts" with music by Victor Herbert and a book and lyrics by Henry Blossom. [1] The musical is based on the 1912 play Our Wives by Frank Mandel and Helen Kraft. It opened on Broadway at the 39th Street Theatre on November 2, 1914. [2] During its Broadway run it transferred to the Lyric Theatre where it closed on June 5, 1915, after 240 performances. [1] The Broadway production starred Wilda Bennett as the composer Ruth Wilson; Thurston Hall as her librettist Alan Kimbrough; Adele Rowland as the soubrette Patricia La Montrose, a.k.a "Patsy"; Ernest Torrence as the painter Andrew McMurray, a.k.a "Bunkie"; Vivian Wessell as Bunkie's wife; and Jed Prouty as the lawyer Fresh; Josephine Whittell as Margaret Ayer, Fresh's wife. [1]

The London production opened at the Apollo Theatre in the West End on September 25, 1915, and ran for 107 performances.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical theatre</span> Stage work that combines songs, music, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance

Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.

<i>Fiddler on the Roof</i> 1964 musical

Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia in or around 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters and other tales by Sholem Aleichem. The story centers on Tevye, a milkman in the village of Anatevka, who attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon his family's lives. He must cope with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters who wish to marry for love; their choices of husbands are successively less palatable for Tevye. An edict of the tsar eventually evicts the Jews from their village.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Abbott</span> American writer and director (1887–1995)

George Francis Abbott was an American theatre producer, director, playwright, screenwriter, film director and producer whose career spanned eight decades. He received numerous honors including six Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1982. the National Medal of Arts in 1990. and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

<i>No, No, Nanette</i> Musical by Otto Harbach and Vincent Youmans

No, No, Nanette is a musical with a book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel based on Mandel's 1919 Broadway play My Lady Friends; lyrics by Irving Caesar and Harbach; and music by Vincent Youmans. The farcical story centers on three couples who find themselves together at a cottage in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the midst of a blackmail scheme focusing on a fun-loving Manhattan heiress who has run off, leaving an unhappy fiancé. Its songs include the well-known "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy".

<i>Me and My Girl</i> Musical premiered in 1937

Me and My Girl is a musical with music by Noel Gay and its original book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose. The story, set in the late 1930s, tells of an unapologetically unrefined Cockney gentleman named Bill Snibson, who learns that he is the 14th heir to the Earl of Hareford. The action is set in Hampshire, and in Mayfair and Lambeth in London.

<i>Girl Crazy</i> 1930 musical by George and Ira Gershwin

Girl Crazy is a 1930 musical by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book by Guy Bolton and John McGowan. Ethel Merman made her stage debut in the first production and co-lead Ginger Rogers became an overnight star. Rich in song, it follows the story of Danny Churchill who has been sent to fictional Custerville, Arizona, to manage his family's ranch. His father wants him there to focus on matters more serious than alcohol and women but Danny turns the place into a dude ranch, importing showgirls from Broadway and hiring Kate Forthergill as entertainer. Visitors come from both coasts and Danny falls in love with the local postmistress, Molly Gray.

<i>Gay Divorce</i> 1932 musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter

Gay Divorce is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and book by Dwight Taylor, adapted by Kenneth Webb and Samuel Hoffenstein. It was Fred Astaire's last Broadway show and featured the hit song "Night and Day" in which Astaire danced with co-star Claire Luce.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sutton Foster</span> American actress (born 1975)

Sutton Lenore Foster is an American actress. She is known for her work on the Broadway stage, for which she has won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical twice, in 2002 for her role as Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, and in 2011 for her performance as Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, a role which she reprised in 2021 for a production in London and for which she received a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Her other Broadway credits include Grease, Little Women, The Drowsy Chaperone, Young Frankenstein, Shrek the Musical, Violet, The Music Man, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Once Upon a Mattress. On television, Foster played the lead role in the short-lived ABC Family comedy-drama Bunheads from 2012 to 2013. From 2015 to 2021, she starred in the TV Land comedy-drama Younger.

<i>Oh, Kay!</i> Musical

Oh, Kay! is a musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. It is based on the play La Présidente by Maurice Hennequin and Pierre Veber. The plot revolves around the adventures of the Duke of Durham and his sister, Lady Kay, English bootleggers in Prohibition Era America. Kay finds herself falling in love with a man who seems unavailable. The show is remembered for its enduring song, "Someone to Watch Over Me".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian Ross</span>

Arthur Reed Ropes, better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the most important lyricist of the British stage during a career that spanned five decades. At a time when few shows had long runs, nineteen of his West End shows ran for over 400 performances.

<i>Oh, Boy!</i> (musical) Musical

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.

<i>Pal Joey</i> (musical) 1940 Rodgers & Hart musical, atypically featuring an antihero as its protagonist

Pal Joey is a 1940 musical with a book by John O'Hara and music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The musical is based on a character and situations O'Hara created in a series of short stories published in The New Yorker, which he later published in novel form. The title character, Joey Evans, is a manipulative small-time nightclub performer whose ambitions lead him into an affair with the wealthy, middle-aged and married Vera Simpson. It includes two songs that have become standards: "I Could Write a Book" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered".

<i>Very Good Eddie</i> Musical composed by Jerome Kern

Very Good Eddie is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Philip Bartholomae, music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics by Schuyler Greene, with additional lyrics by Elsie Janis, Herbert Reynolds, Harry B. Smith, John E. Hazzard, Ring Lardner and Jerome Kern, and additional music by Henry Kailimai. The story was based on the farce Over Night by Bartholomae. The farcical plot concerns three couples and a sex-crazed voice teacher who board a Hudson River Day Line boat in Poughkeepsie, New York. Chaos ensues when two of the couples cross paths and accidentally trade partners. The vaudeville-style adventure continues at a hotel, where guests pop in and out of rooms while an inebriated desk clerk tries to sort through the madness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rida Johnson Young</span> American dramatist

Rida Johnson Young was an American playwright, songwriter and librettist. Young wrote over 30 plays and musicals and approximately 500 songs. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. Some of her better-known lyrics include "Mother Machree" from the 1910 show Barry of Ballymore, "Italian Street Song", "I'm Falling in Love with Someone" and "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" from Naughty Marietta, and "Will You Remember?" from Maytime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casino Theatre (New York City)</span> Former theatre in Manhattan, New York

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.

<i>Mexican Hayride</i> (musical) 1944 musical

Mexican Hayride is a musical with a book by Herbert Fields and Dorothy Fields and music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The show opened on Broadway in 1944.

<i>Glory Days</i> (musical) 2008 musical by Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner

Glory Days is a musical with music and lyrics by Nick Blaemire and a book by James Gardiner about four high school friends reuniting a year after graduation. The musical opened at the Signature Theatre in 2008 and was then produced on Broadway in 2008 but closed after one regular performance. Since 2008, it has had over 50 productions mounted around the world.

Madame Aphrodite is a musical with a book by Tad Mosel and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. It is based on Mosel's play of the same name that was broadcast on television in 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Austen Hurgon</span> Actor, singer, and theatre director (1867–1942)

Austen Hurgon was an actor, singer, theatre director and librettist for several successful Edwardian musical comedies of the 1900s and 1910s.

The Velvet Lady is a "musical comedy in three acts" with music by Victor Herbert and a book and lyrics by Henry Blossom. Blossom's book is an adaptation of Fred Jackson's 1915 play A Full House. It was the final collaboration between Herbert and Blossom; premiering on Broadway just a month before Blossom's death. The musical opened at Broadway's New Amsterdam Theatre on February 3, 1919. It closed at that theatre in June 1919 after 136 performances. The production starred Fay Marbe as Vera Venon, a.k.a "The Velvet Lady", Ernest Torrence as Parks, Marie Flynn as Ottilie Howell, Ray Raymond as George Howell, Georgia O'Ramey as Susie, Minerva Coverdale as Bubbles, Alfred Gerrard as Ned Pembroke, and Jed Prouty as Nicholas King.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Dan Dietz (2021). "The Only Girl". The Complete Book of 1910s Broadway Musicals. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 291–292. ISBN   9781538150283.
  2. William A. Everett, Paul R. Laird (2015). "The Only Girl". Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical. pp. 260–261.