George London On Broadway – But Without His Partner Mario Lanza
And now, I would like to talk to you about George London. Yes, I am aware that he didn’t sing
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David Monod’s “Vaudeville & The Making Of Modern Entertainment” 1890-1925
David Monod, professor of American social and cultural history, has undertaken a massive challenge in presenting a history of American
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Ivan Caryll & The Heyday Of The Gaiety Musical Comedy
Ivan Caryll was the principal composer and conductor for the heyday of the Gaiety musical comedy who encouraged the development
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“My Song For You”: A Marta Eggerth & Jan Kiepura Exhibition In Vienna
Devotees of classic Hollywood musicals – the sort that are the staple of Turner Classic Movies – will know Hungarian
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CHIN-CHIN, Or A Modern Aladdin Musical Fantasy (1914) With Music By Ivan Caryll
An updated version of the Aladdin story, rewritten to feature the comedians Dave Montgomery and Fred Stone, Chin-Chin cast its
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“Swapping The Canon” To Dismantle Racism & Hetero-Cis-Patriarchy? Proposals For Higher Education In The USA
There’s a lot happening in the world of theater right now, not just because of Corona and the ongoing lockdown
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A Legendary American Burlesque: “Evangeline” (1874), Beautiful Country Girls & A Dancing Heifer
A burlesque of Longfellow’s poem of the same name, the extravaganza Evangeline followed the trials and tribulations of its heroine
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Jeanette MacDonald (1901-1965): Hollywood’s Most Successful Soprano Star Of Celluloid Operetta
After beginning her singing career as a teenager in the chorus of a New York revue, Miss MacDonald (born in
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Broadway Producer Henry W. Savage (1859-1927): “Merry Widow” and “Sari” Were His Greatest Hits
Harvard-educated Henry Wilson Savage was born in New Durham (New Hampshire) on 21 March 1859 and well established as a
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Ethel Jackson (1877-1957): Broadway’s First “Merry Widow”
A descendant of the painter Henry Inman, Miss Jackson was born in New York on 3 February 1877. She studied
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And Here’s Broadway’s First Danilo in “The Merry Widow”: Donald Brian (1877-1948)
Donald Brian was the bright-eyed and boyish star of more than 20 years of Broadway operettas and musicals, among them the
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The First English Language Danilo in “The Merry Widow”: US-Comedian Joseph Coyne (1867-1941)
Joseph Coyne was a light comedy actor-who-sings who moved from silly-ass rôles in his native America to stardom as Britain’s
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A Semi-Staged “Camelot” At The Watermill Theatre
In the United Kingdom restrictions on ‘live’ performance, owing to Covid-19, were lifted with regard to outdoor theatre at the
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A New “Exilmuseum” In Berlin – Will It Include The Entertainment World?
It’s going to happen: Berlin will get an “Exilmuseum,” a museum dedicated to the stories of those who went into
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“The Merry Widow” À La “Mad Men” With Tony Award Winning Conductor Franz Allers & Lisa Della Casa
The aspect that initially drew my attention to this brand new re-release of The Merry Widow in “hi-fidelity stereo” was
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“Eubie Blake: Rags, Rhythm and Race” By Richard Carlin & Ken Bloom
Eubie Blake: Rags, Rhythm and Race arrives as a most welcome and long overdue biography of pianist and composer Eubie
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The World-Premiere Recording Of Walter Jurmann’s “Windy City” (1946)
Because of the required commitment of time, money, and dedication, it is a safe bet, with the exception of the
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The First American Musical: “The Doctor of Alcantara” (1862)
Today I got asked, for the umpteenth time, ‘what was the first American musical?’ Well, all those three qualifications narrow
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Remembering Will Marion Cook, Composer Of “In Dahomey” And The Cakewalk
Will Marion Cook was born inWashington, DC, on 27 January, 1869. The son of a well-off and well-educated family, Cook
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“In Dahomey”: One Of The First American Black Musical Hits
In Dahomey was an early American “Negro musical comedy” (in a prologue and 2 acts), one of the first to be
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Hot Mikados and Swingin’ Pinafores: Stewart F. Lane’s “Black Broadway”
It’s not a new topic, but a brand new book nonetheless: Black Broadway by Stewart F. Lane. According to the
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The First Oscar Hammerstein and New York’s Golden Age of Theater and Music
With such an irresistible title as this, anyone with an interest in early American musical theater would want to read this newly
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Lillian Russell (1860-1922) Revisited: The Amazing Life Of A “Scandalous” Operetta Diva
With all this free time at home right now I’ve started working my way through various DVD boxes I’ve had
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THE NEW MOON: A Romantic musical play by Oscar Hammerstein & Sigmund Romberg
The team responsible for that overwhelming hit of 1926, The Desert Song, mined a similar vein for their next collaboration,
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“Babes In Toyland” In Zwickau-Plauen. Or: Performing Victor Herbert In Germany
The small theater in Zwickau-Plauen (Germany) presented Victor Herbert’s much-loved Babes in Toyland as their Christmas spectacle and gave the
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Composer Jerry Herman Dies At Age 88 In Miami
Some will claim that Hello Dolly, Mame or La Cage aux Folles are among the greatest modern operettas in the
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Francesca Zambello’s Version of “Showboat” At Glimmerglass Festival
Showboats gave the theatre-starved people along the Mississippi from the 1880s into the 1920s what they most wanted: melodrama and
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German Operetta On Broadway And In The West End: 1900 To 1940
Considering that there are not that many new books on operetta in English, one must greet Derek B. Scott’s fresh-off-the-press
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Herbert’s “Babes in Toyland” At Theater Plauen-Zwickau: First German Production
The show title Abenteuer im Spielzeugland might not directly ring a bell. But if you translate it into Babes in
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Kurt Weill’s “Lady in the Dark” Revived At City Center in New York
Gertrude Lawrence’s 1941 megahit, Lady in the Dark, groundbreaking in its day for its then novel use of psychoanalysis in
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“Broadway Sampler: 1915.” Twenty-Five Musicals And Twenty-Six Songs
You might remember the CD series The Broadway Musicals of… created, written and hosted by Scott Siegel. They started, thematically,
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The English Language Adventures of “Im weißen Rössl”
The overwhelming and instant success of Erik Charell’s operetta spectacle Im weißen Rössl at Berlin’s Großes Schauspielhaus (the so-called “Theater
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Dorothy Without Toto. Or: “Der Zauberer von Oz” In Magdeburg
„The most magical adventure of them all …“ That’s how Andrew Lloyd Webber announced ‘his’ Wizard of Oz version at
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It’s Eliza’s Show: A “My Fair Lady” For The 21st Century
It’s Eliza’s show; My Fair Lady for the 21st century opens at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre, 62 years after
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Theatrical Mythology, or The Best Thing About Her Singing Was Her Looks: Blanche Roosevelt
Theatrical mythology has been curiously and undeservedly kind to some folk. Miss Tucker from Ohio went from failure to failure
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Rombergs “Blossom Time”: Deutsche Erstaufführung in Annaberg-Buchholz
Das Dreimäderlhaus von Heinrich Berté, eine Pasticcio-Operette mit Musik von Franz Schubert (1916), war ein Welterfolg. Nicht nur im deutschen
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