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Tag Archives: Irving Berlin
Cheek to Cheek Review Roundup
New York critics have given generally positive reviews to the new Off-Broadway revue Cheek to Cheek: Irving Berlin in Hollywood, playing a limited engagement at the York Theatre Company’s temporary home (Theatre at St. Jean’s) through Jan. 2, 2022. The … Continue reading
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
Posted in History
Tagged Americana, Anything Goes, As Thousands Cheer, Cole Porter, Ethel Merman, Ethel Waters, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, George Abbott, George Gershwin, Hellzapoppin, Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, John Houseman, Kaufman & Hart, Knickerbocker Holiday, Kurt Weill, Marc Blitzstein, Marilyn Miller, Maxwell Anderson, Of Thee I Sing, Olsen & Johnson, Orson Welles, Otto Harbach, Pal Joey, Pins and Needles, Roberta, Rodgers & Hart, Schwartz & Dietz, The Band Wagon, The Cradle Will Rock, The Threepenny Opera, Victor Moore, Vivienne Segal, Walter Huston, William Gaxton, Yip Harburg
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History of Musicals: Hollywood Beckons
Short sound films were a popular novelty in nickelodeons at the turn of the 20th century. One of the most successful systems was Cameraphone, created in 1907 by James A. Whitman. In the fourth floor studios above Daly’s Theatre, not … Continue reading
Posted in History
Tagged 42nd Street, Arthur Freed, Astaire & Rogers, Babes in Arms, Busby Berkeley, Irving Berlin, Jeanette MacDonald, Jerome Kern, Love Me Tonight, Rodgers & Hart, Shirley Temple, Snow White, The Broadway Melody, The Great Ziegfeld, The Jazz Singer, The Little Colonel, The Singing Fool, The Wizard of Oz, Top Hat
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History of Musicals: First Golden Age
It’s been noted that the form of modern musical theater came from operetta, but its soul came from the music hall. This union of body and soul took place during the first two decades of the 20th century, beginning with … Continue reading
Posted in History
Tagged Andy Razaf, Eubie Blake, Fats Waller, George Gershwin, George M. Cohan, Guy Bolton, Harry B. Smith, Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Little Johnny Jones, Noble Sissle, Oscar Hammerstein, Otto Harbach, P.G. Wodehouse, Princess Theatre, Rida Johnson Young, Rodgers & Hart, Show Boat, Shuffle Along, Very Good Eddie, Ziegfeld Follies
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Essential Film Musicals: Meet Me in St. Louis
After working as an uncredited associate producer on The Wizard of Oz, Arthur Freed was given charge of his own unit at MGM. His first effort was the film adaptation of Rodgers and Hart’s stage musical Babes in Arms (1939), … Continue reading
Essential Film Musicals: The Wizard of Oz
After Disney’s Snow White showed that children’s stories could be profitable, MGM bought the rights to L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, about the adventures of Kansas farm girl Dorothy and her dog Toto in the … Continue reading
Essential Film Musicals: Top Hat
“When Hollywood revived musical films three years ago, dancing was monopolized by director Busby Berkeley,” Newsweek magazine noted in its 1935 review of Top Hat. “Thanks more to Fred Astaire than any other single influence, the character of musicomedy in … Continue reading
Posted in History
Tagged Astaire & Rogers, Dorothy Fields, Hermes Pan, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Pinocchio, Swing Time, Top Hat
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Essential Musicals: Oklahoma!
I called Show Boat the most influential American musical, but historian Thomas Hischak argues, “Not only is Oklahoma! the most important of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, it is also the single most influential work in the American musical theater.” … Continue reading
Call Me Madam: Album Reviews
Just in time for the 2012 election season, Sony’s Masterworks Broadway is offering the first digital release of the 1950 political satire Call Me Madam, which has been out of print since 1956, except for a brief LP pressing in … Continue reading
Summer Reading List
If you’re like me, you spent most of June catching up with this past season’s New York productions of musicals. Over a frenzied Memorial Day holiday in New York, I saw six shows in four days! As New York (and … Continue reading