#1
Posted: 8/29/17 at 11:33pm
I've always wondered what was the first ever Broadway revival...was it Gypsy?
Updated On: 9/4/17 at 11:33 PM
What was the first ever Broadway Revival
#2
Posted: 8/29/17 at 11:40pm
Weren't popular Follies brought back over and over again in 1920/30s?
Caption: Every so often there was a rare moment of perfect balance when I soared above him.
#3
Posted: 8/29/17 at 11:46pm
Gypsy was not the first. Oklahoma and Carousel both predate it by many years.
#4
Posted: 8/29/17 at 11:58pm
From what I can gather, the first Broadway Theatre as we know them now was the Nassau Street Theatre. It's first documented revival was The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar. It was revived in 1750, after it's initial production in 1732.
The Play also hasn't been produced since 1885.
#bringbacktherecruitingofficer
#5
Posted: 8/29/17 at 11:58pm
GYPSY opened on Broadway in 1959. Its first revival was in 1974.
Broadway started revivals as far back as the 1920s. By the 1930s there were already a slew of Broadway revivals.
#6
Posted: 8/29/17 at 11:59pm
Itonlytakesajourney said: "Gypsy was not the first. Oklahoma and Carousel both predate it by many years.
"
I think it was a joke as to how often it's been revived...
#7
Posted: 8/30/17 at 12:04am
non-stop26 said: "Itonlytakesajourney said: "Gypsy was not the first. Oklahoma and Carousel both predate it by many years.
"
I think it was a joke as to how often it's been revived...
It was never the first though, joke or not. Oklahoma was sort of the first "modern musical" revival, I believe.
#8
Posted: 8/30/17 at 12:06am
#9
Posted: 8/30/17 at 12:20am
Itonlytakesajourney said: "non-stop26 said: "Itonlytakesajourney said: "Gypsy was not the first. Oklahoma and Carousel both predate it by many years.
"
I think it was a joke as to how often it's been revived...
It was never the first though, joke or not. Oklahoma was sort of the first "modern musical" revival, I believe.
Show Boat was revived before Oklahoma even opened.
#10
Posted: 8/30/17 at 12:28am
Yes, I believe Show Boat was the first book musical (of any real note anyway) to get a Broadway revival.
#11
Posted: 8/30/17 at 4:11am
Oh, Lordy, kids, ask Sally Durant Plummer or henrikegermann to teach a musical theater history class.
THE BLACK CROOK (usually considered the first American musical) appeared on Broadway in 1866. The first revival was in 1870. The third was the next year, in 1871.
Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. PINAFORE premiered in 1879. It was revived in a second theater even before the first production closed! It was revived on Broadway a total of 9 times in the 40 years between the premiere and the end of WWII in 1918. That's roughly every 4 years.
BABES IN TOYLAND opened in 1903 and was revived again in 1905.
Not musicals, but there used to be multiple revivals of Shakespeare, sometimes the same play in two or more productions at the same time.
IN FACT, before the advent of large scale air conditioning, Broadway theaters were too hot in the summer. It was the custom to run in New York in the cooler months, then tour New England for the summer and return to Broadway in the Fall. Hence the birth of "summer stock".
FOR THE RECORD, I knew the above were oft-revived, but I had to look up the exact years. I don't want to seem like I am showing off.
Updated On: 8/30/17 at 04:11 AM
#12
Posted: 8/30/17 at 7:12pm
More importantly, when will the LAST revival be?
#13
Posted: 9/3/17 at 3:03am
Does Oh, Boy! get credit for being the first successful transfer to London?
Was Jerome Kern really booked on the Lusitania but missed the boat?
Perhaps George Kaufman put it best, parodying a ditty about the Chicago Cubs infield (Tinker to Evers to Chance):
This is the trio of musical fame,
Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.
Better than anyone else you can name,
Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.
Nobody knows what on earth they've been bitten by,
All I can say is I mean to get lit an' buy
Orchestra seats for the next one that's written by
Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.
#14
Posted: 9/3/17 at 8:09am
The importance rant thing to note is that many of these so called "first" revivals were straight up copies of the original; the same designs, the same blocking, and often the same actors. A revival was almost nothing more than another stop on a tour. The first revivals to make a name for reinventing the wheel were "No No Nanette" and "Candide".
#15
Posted: 9/3/17 at 8:49am
GavestonPS said: "Oh, Lordy, kids, ask Sally Durant Plummer or henrikegermann to teach a musical theater history class.
THE BLACK CROOK (usually considered the first American musical) appeared on Broadway in 1866. The first revival was in 1870. The third was the next year, in 1871.
Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. PINAFORE premiered in 1879. It was revived in a second theater even before the first production closed! It was revived on Broadway a total of 9 times in the 40 years between the premiere and the end of WWII in 1918.That's roughly every 4 years.
BABES IN TOYLAND opened in 1903 and was revived again in 1905.
Not musicals, but there used to be multiple revivals of Shakespeare, sometimes the same play in two or more productions at the same time.
IN FACT, before the advent of large scale air conditioning, Broadway theaters were too hot in the summer. It was the custom to run in New York in the cooler months, then tour New England for the summer and return to Broadway in the Fall. Hence the birth of "summer stock".
FOR THE RECORD, I knew the above were oft-revived, but I had to look up the exact years. I don't want to seem like I am showing off."
Not one to ever resist The Call of the Gaveston, I can only think to add that if we are mainly concerned with revivals of now well known shows that most easily conform to our contemporary model of a musical, the first to be revived was, not surprisingly, the very first show that meets that definition.
Show Boat first opened on Broadway in 1927, closed in 1929, and was first revived in 1932, It was revived again in 1946 and 1994.
To Spieler's point, however, with two principle casting changes, the !932 Show Boat was very much like the original production.
One of those casting changes was that Paul Robeson, unavailable in 1927, in spite of the fact that Kern and Hammerstein wrote the role for him, played Joe in that first revival.
"Reviewing the 1932 Broadway revival, the critic Brooks Atkinson described Robeson's performance: "Mr. Robeson has a touch of genius. It is not merely his voice, which is one of the richest organs on the stage. It is his understanding that gives 'Old Man River' an epic lift. When he sings...you realize that Jerome Kern's spiritual has reached its final expression.""
Updated On: 9/3/17 at 08:49 AM
#16
Posted: 9/4/17 at 1:27am
Et tu, henrik? Now you'll have the kids running around saying SHOW BOAT was the first show to be revived. Since none of us saw THE BLACK CROOK or the first 9 revivals of PINAFORE, I think either we take the records as we find them (see my post above based on IBDB entries) or we agree the question is unanswerable without a great deal of library research.
None of us knows how much any of those revivals varied from the first production.
BUT WE DO KNOW THAT NO, NO, NANETTE AND CANDIDE WERE NOT THE FIRST REVIVALS TO BE RE-CONCEIVED. (I'm replying to someone else now, henrik.)
Kern & Co.'s ROBERTA was revived and re-conceived (song list greatly changed) for an off-Broadway revival in the mid-1950s, starring Jack Cassidy and Kay Ballard. (The record is available on iTunes and I highly recommend it. It is Kay Ballard at her best.) The same was done with ANYTHING GOES (c. 1960) and BABES IN ARMS (c. late 1950s). But these were off-Broadway revivals.
Despite Merman's legendary hatred of change, the BROADWAY revival of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN was radically revised in 1966. The secondary couple was eliminated entirely, along with their songs, and Berlin added the quodlibet, "Old-Fashioned Wedding" for the main couple--no doubt because of the success of "You're Just in Love" in CALL ME MADAM.
Perhaps there's an expert out there somewhere who could answer the OP's question, but he or she doesn't post here.
Updated On: 9/4/17 at 01:27 AM
#17
Posted: 9/4/17 at 2:53am
Pal Joey was a major one, wasn't it? Not a "stop on a tour," but a true Broadway revival, and it ran significantly longer than the original production.
#18
Posted: 9/4/17 at 7:07am
This thread is giving me LIFE!!!! This is the kind of thing I would expect to see in a Broadway museum if we had one. :/
I was going to say probably HMS Pinafore but the researched history here is soooooo deep. Love it!
#19
Posted: 9/4/17 at 7:43am
GavestonPS said: "Et tu, henrik? Now you'll have the kids running around saying SHOW BOAT was the first show to be revived. Since none of us saw THE BLACK CROOK or the first 9 revivals of PINAFORE, I think either we take the records as we find them (see my post above based on IBDB entries) or we agree the question is unanswerable without a great deal of library research."
No, Gaveston, not me! That wasn't in the least what my post related. I said - and quite carefully - that of the musicals (not operettas) most theatre lovers currently know well and which presently remain in the popular repertoire, Show Boat was likely the first.
Updated On: 9/4/17 at 07:43 AM
#20
Posted: 9/4/17 at 9:22pm
The Other One said: "Pal Joey was a major one, wasn't it? Not a "stop on a tour," but a true Broadway revival, and it ran significantly longer than the original production."
I don't know how major the changes were, but you are right that PAL JOEY succeeded in the early 1950s where it had failed in the early 1940s.
Somebody needs to define "stop on a tour" unless we are using its literal meaning. It's true that shows like WEST SIDE STORY ran for awhile on Broadway, went out on tour and returned to NYC--all the same production. But just because "re-conception" wasn't such a big thing until the rise of the director-choreographer doesn't mean revivals weren't revivals.
#21
Posted: 9/4/17 at 9:39pm
A revival is a revival. Even if it has the exact same cast, the same blocking, same costumes, sets, etc., it's still a revival.
#22
Posted: 9/4/17 at 9:45pm
henrikegerman said: "
No, Gaveston, not me!That wasn't in the least what my post related. I said - and quite carefully - that of the musicals (not operettas)most theatre lovers currently know well and whichpresently remain in the popular repertoire, Show Boat was likelythe first."
You have so carefully defined your terms that your argument applies to not a single show. SHOW BOAT, by the great operetta writer, Oscar Hammerstein III, is more akin to SONG OF THE VAGABONDS than to HELLO DOLLY!
Since when is an operetta not a "musical"? Quick! Somebody run tell POTO!
(THE STUDENT PRINCE, btw, was revived twice within 20 years of its premiere. THE DESERT SONG received a radical makeover for its second revival in 1973. Two--count 'em: TWO--radical re-conceptions of THE MIKADO ran at the same time in 1939; they were titled THE HOT MIKADO and THE SWING MIKADO.)
Operettas may not be musical comedies (though they sometimes are, accidentally), but they are undeniably musical.
And we should keep in mind that while SHOW BOAT contained some of the seeds of the R&H format (there's a doctoral dissertation on the subject in the UCLA library), so did MAY TIME, and revisions to SHOW BOAT have moved the piece ever closer to SOUTH PACIFIC. The original was barely "integrated" in what became the Hammerstein style: it interpolated two popular songs (not by Kern or Hammerstein) from the early 20th century, and a third from a failed show with only minor revisions ("Bill"
for Pete's sake! They were rifling through a drawer and chucking sheet music into the pit!
In brief, THE STUDENT PRINCE and THE MIKADO remain in what you call the popular repertoire. SHOW BOAT in 1927 wasn't the musical we now know.
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