Tag Archives: The Threepenny Opera

Broadway Legends: Bea Arthur

Tony-winning performer Bea Arthur was born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922, in Brooklyn and raised in Cambridge, Md. After graduating from the Linden Hall boarding school in Lititz, Pa., she studied at Blackstone College but soon left to enlist … Continue reading

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Today in Musical History: The Threepenny Opera

On March 10, 1954, Marc Blitzstein’s adaptation of The Threepenny Opera opened at New York’s Theatre de Lys (now Lucille Lortel). Its unprecedented success helped to launch the Off-Broadway movement. The musical’s journey began in 1927, with Elizabeth Hauptmann’s translation … Continue reading

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History of Musicals: Broadway Goes Bust

Broadway’s Roaring Twenties came to a roaring close with the rise of Hollywood’s “talkies” and the fall of the stock market. The subsequent exodus of talent posed a serious challenge for stage musicals. In 1929, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern … Continue reading

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Essential Musicals: The Fantasticks

As the size (and cost) of Broadway productions began to grow in the 1950s, several theater-makers left Times Square and settled in Greenwich Village, fashioning intimate playhouses out of bars, brownstones, and abandoned cinemas. By 1954, the Off-Broadway movement had … Continue reading

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