George Howells Broadhurst was an Anglo-American theatre owner/manager, director, producer and playwright. His plays were most popular from the late 1890s into the 1920s.
William J. Wilson was a Scottish theatre director, choreographer, stage manager, and stage and film actor active in the United States and the United Kingdom. From 1910-1914 and again from 1925-1927 he worked as a stage director and choreographer for the Shubert family of Broadway producers. He also staged works on London's West End.
The Lyric Theatre was a Broadway theatre built in 1903 in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City. It had two formal entrances: at 213 West 42nd Street and 214-26 West 43rd Street. In 1934, it was converted into a movie theatre which it remained until closing in 1992. In 1996, its interior was demolished and the space was combined with that of the former Apollo Theatre to create the Ford Center, now the new Lyric Theatre. Both the 42nd and 43rd Street facades of the original Lyric were preserved and today form the front and back entrances of the modern Lyric Theatre.
John Thomas O'Donnell, better known by his stage name Hap Ward, was an American comedian, dancer, and actor who was half of the vaudeville comedy duo Ward and Vokes.
The Olympia Theatre, also known as Hammerstein's Olympia and later the Lyric Theatre and the New York Theatre, was a theatre complex built by impresario Oscar Hammerstein I in Longacre Square, New York City, opening in 1895.
Under Two Flags (1867) was a best-selling novel by Ouida. The most famous of her books, it tells the story of an English aristocrat, apparently in disgrace, who disappears and joins a French battalion in Algeria, loosely based on the Foreign Legion.
Alfred Hickman was an English actor. He was married to actress Nance O'Neil. He appeared in 35 films between 1914 and 1931.
Philip Bartholomae was an American playwright, lyricist, screenwriter, and theatre director. He wrote many plays and musicals which were staged on Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s, several of which were adapted into films with screenplays by Bartholomae. His first successful play was Over Night (1911) which was also the first play he adapted into a film in 1915. His best known stage work, Very Good Eddie (1915), was a musical adaptation of Over Night which Bartholomae created in collaboration with Guy Bolton and composer Jerome Kern. It was a Broadway hit when it premiered, and enjoyed long running revivals on Broadway and the West End in the 1970s. That work received several nominations at the 30th Tony Awards and the 1976 Laurence Olivier Awards.
Over Night is a farce in three acts by Philip Bartholomae. The play takes place aboard the S.S. Hendrik Hudson, a steamboat on the Hudson River Day Line, and follows two sets of couples, the "Darlings" and the "Kettles". The work premiered on Broadway in 1911, and it was the first significant success for Bartholomae as a playwright. Bartholomae later adapted his play into a screenplay for the 1915 film of the same name which was directed by James Young and starred Vivian Martin and Sam Hardy. He later adapted this play in collaboration with Guy Bolton into the hit Broadway musical Very Good Eddie (1915) which featured music by Jerome Kern.
When Knighthood Was in Flower is a play in four acts by Paul Kester. It is based on the 1898 novel of the same name by Charles Major. The work premiered on Broadway at the Criterion Theatre on January 14, 1901. It ran for a total of 176 performances; closing in June 1901. The original production was produced by Charles Frohman and used sets by Ernest Albert, Frank E. Gates and Edward A. Morange. The costumes were designed by Mrs. Charles Hone and Harper Pennington. The cast was led by Bruce McRae as Charles Brandon and Julia Marlowe as Mary Tudor among others.
The Climbers is a play in four acts by Clyde Fitch. The play premiered on Broadway at the Bijou Theatre on January 21, 1901. It ran for 163 performances, closing on June 1, 1901. Produced by Amelia Bingham, the production was directed by the playwright. It used scenic designs by Ernest Albert and Joseph A. Physioc. The production starred Bingham as Mrs. Sterling, Frank Worthing as Richard Sterling, Harry Wright as Richard Sterling, Jr., Clara Bloodgood as Miss Godesby, George C. Boniface as Dr. Steinart, Madge Carr Cook as Mrs. Hunter, Minnie Dupree as Clara Hunter, Maude Monroe as Jessica Hunter, Robert Edeson as Edward Warden, Ferdinand Gottschalk as Johnny Trotter, Henry Woodruff as Edward Warden, Thomas F. Fallon as Godesby, and John Flood as Frederick Mason.
Happyland, Or, The King of Elysia is a comic opera in two acts with music by Reginald De Koven and a libretto by Frederic Ranken.
The Bijou Theatre was a former Broadway theater in New York City that opened in 1878 as Theatre Brighton and was demolished in 1915. It also served as an opera house and silent movie venue throughout its history. Located at 1239 Broadway between 30th and 31st Streets, had been converted from a drinking and gambling establishment into a theatre for variety, and opened August 26, 1878, with Jerry Thomas as proprietor. The house had many changes and names until John A. McCaull, a Baltimore lawyer, and Charles E. Ford took charge of it. Considerable money was spent and when they reopened the house on March 31, 1880, as the Bijou Opera-house, it looked like a modern and well-regulated theatre. In 1881 and 1882, Lillian Russell appeared in three different operettas.
Benjamin Stannard Mears, also known as Ben Mears, Ben S. Mears, and Stannard Mears, was an American stage actor, vaudeville performer, and playwright. He is best known for the 1918 play Seventeen; an adaptation of Booth Tarkington's 1916 novel of the same name which he co-wrote with Hugh Stanislaus Stange.
The Floor Walkers was a road musical that was created as a starring vehicle for the comedy duo of Hap Ward and Harry Vokes to feature their signature roles of the tramps Lord Percy Harden and Lord Harold Poorly ; characters the duo had previously portrayed in the earlier musicals A Run On the Bank (1895) and The Governors (1898). The Floor Walkers had no attributed author for its book or lyrics, but the music for the production was created by composer Herbert Dillea who also served as the musical's music director. The most well known song from the show was "Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder"; which was the only song to have an attributed lyricist, Arthur Gillespie. This song was for a time a popular standard and was recorded multiple times by singer Harry Macdonough and cornetist Jules Levy for records made for the Victor Talking Machine Company and Columbia Records from 1902 through 1905, and later was recorded by Wayne King in 1947.
Elizabeth Williams was an American stage actress and theater impresario who was actively performing during the first half of the 20th century. She was part of the first generation of black actresses in the dramatic repertory on the American stage, and is believed to be one of the first African-American women to establish her own stock theatre company, the Oriental Empire Stock Company, in 1902. She later was an active member of the Lafayette Stock Company in Harlem. In addition to her work in stage plays, she also performed in Broadway musicals.
Carl Sauerman was a Swedish-born actor of the stage and screen. He began his career as a leading stage actor in Berlin before moving to New York City in 1908 to become a member of the German-language theatre company at the Irving Place Theatre. He is best remembered for creating the role of Professor Friedrich Bhaer in the original production of Marian de Forest's Little Women; an immensely popular stage adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel of the same that played on Broadway and toured the United States in 1912–1913. In addition to starring in plays on Broadway, he was a silent film actor.
John J. McNally was an American playwright, journalist, and drama critic. As a playwright he is best known for penning the books for many Broadway musicals staged between the years 1895–1909. Many of these were crafted for the Rogers Brothers, or were created in collaboration with the songwriting team of Jean Schwartz and William Jerome. He was a longtime drama critic and editor for various Boston newspapers.
The King's Carnival is a musical burlesque in two acts with music by A. Baldwin Sloane and both book and lyrics by Sydney Rosenfeld. The musical also included one hit song by the songwriting team of Jean Schwartz and William Jerome, "When Mr. Shakespeare Comes to Town". The musical was a parody of several Broadway shows that dealt with royalty and courtly drama, including targeted spoofs of Paul Kester's When Knighthood Was in Flower, Clyde Fitch's The Climbers, Paul M. Potter's Under Two Flags, and Lorimer Stoddard's In the Palace of the King.
