Many years ago, my dear friend Gerry Bordman published AMERICAN MUSICAL THEATRE, the nearest thing to a reference book on the subject up to that time, and launched me into my first book BRITISH MUSICAL THEATRE. My title was more apt than his, for I dealt not only with London productions, but with those from all parts of the British Isles. He, alas, dealt only with New York. Richard Norton subsequently provided a splendid three-volume companion to AMT, which is now the basic reference in the field. For New York. But no author or publisher has, to my knowledge, chronicled the mass of musical-theatre activity which went on in America in the 19th and early 20th century. It would be a huge job, but so much more worthwhile than the repeated quasi-histories and multiple musings of much-mused-over musicians that the publishing world largely gives us in the 21st century. And, before anyone says 'Why don't YOU do it?', I would plead that I am in 'the twilight of my life, the evening of my days' and I have done my dash. However ...
I can't stop myself from being interested in the shows which were produced and played in the other states of the USA, and this week e-bay threw up some delicious ephemera ... so here I go!
THE COUNTESS COQUETTE
The hardest working person on this show seems to have been the press rep, or whoever invented the stories surrounding its birth and production.
History and the press papers don't reveal who invented Countess Coquette. It was launched on Terre Haute, Indiana in December 1912, under the management of Arthur Grant Delamater (1871- ?), a doggedly small-time producer from the 1890s (In Greater New York, Beverly of Graustark, Freckles) who preached morality, and the Metropolis Opera Inc syndicate, whose name had headed the bills for the preceding My Cinderella Girl. Mr Delamater's cries of 'clean' would have carried more weight had he paid his bills, and been a little more transparent about his productions. The 'clean' piece he mounted here carried the title of the slightly scandalous play presented in New York by Alla Nazimova. He survived in show-business for over half a century, latterly working for F C Whitney.
Anatol Friedlander, a young composer of light music who would have a longish period as a songwriter and girlie producer, was credited with the music to the eighteen songs and Melville Alexander the lyrics, and the book was said to be taken from the French of Marcel or Marcelle Janvier or Javrière. It was variously advertised as a musical comedy, a musical farce, an opéra-comique, a 'Parisian operetta', 'from the Porte Saint-Martin', 'a musical farce with music' and said equally variously to have had a two-year run in Paris, to have never been seen in New York or Chicago, to be a 'Broadway success', 'a success in the East', to be 'the laughing hit of Europe' (My Cinderella Girl had been advertised as 'the laughing musical sensation of the century'), 'heading to four weeks in Chicago'. Later it was said to have been adapted from the French by one Erika Gulfstrom.
Was it? I suspect not. I really don't believe in Mons or Mlle Janvier. Or Fröken Gulfstream. I think this was someone's attempt to produce another Alma, where do you live?, a seminal and hugely successful 'French' musical comedy by Adolf Philipp. Alma had been presented as being written by Paul Hervé and Jean Briquet. It was, of course, entirely the work of the German Mr Philipp. But the French names added what America saw as spice to the tale. Was this an attempt to follow the same path? I suspect as much.
The genuine critics had no chance against Mr Press Agent's showers of self-contradictory puff paragraphs, with which the papers of Iowa, Kansas, Illinois et al filled their columns. But it didn't work. The piece -- dubbed 'mildly diverting in some spots and tiresome in others -- made it through some three months -- far from Broadway, or even Chicago -- and folded in Ann Arbour, Michigan in April.
THE KISSING GIRL
This show had rather more firepower behind it. Producer Harry Frazee, Liverpudlian librettist Stan Stange at the end of a memorable career including, most recently, the megahit English version of The Chocolate Soldier, while the songwriters were the hugely proven Harry von Tilzer and Vincent Bryan. In retrospect, it was a strange combination. Stange's greatest successes had been with musicals at the substantial 'comic opera' end of the genre, von Tilzer was known as a popular song and dance writer. It could have worked .. but Tilzer had a 0-4 record in the theatre (The Pan American Girl for Al Shean, A Jolly Baron, In New York Town, The Circus Man) ...
For Tilzer see https://ragpiano.com/comps/hvntlzr.shtml
The cast, too, was more than respectable. Amelia Stone, a proven light opera prima donna, Polish leading man Armand Kalisz, Joe C Miron and as a feature a rather remarkable dancer who called herself Mlle Vanity and was said, improbably, to come from Australia.
It seems that chalk and cheese had not mixed effectively. Stange was accused of lifting his libretto from something German, the songs left no trace, and though the players were up rto the mark and Mlle Vanity 'costumed in rouge-et-noir touches off a song 'On the Boulevard' with a Terpischorean speciality that is both acrobatic and graceful: she is much admired', the show was soon in trouble. It was revamped in a 'second edition' in December and closed 15 January.
The most positive outcome of the affair was that Miss Stone and Mr Kalisz got married ... well, it was positive for a while ...
PRINCE HUMBUG
A vehicle for the popular musical comedian Frank Lalor, Produced by Samuel E Rork at Boston's Park Theatre 7 September 1908 (tryout at Springfield, Mass 31 August). Book by Mark Elbert Swan. Music by Karl Hoschna. Swan had done well with the farcical A Lucky Dog for Nat Wills in 1906, Hoschna was on the up with his score for Three Twins, and both would go on to fine theatrical careers. Prince Humbug was not one of their highlights. Nor Lalor's. It was judged 'too poor for his talents' and was canned in Oswego 28 November. Lalor salvaged his favourite bits and took them into his next vehicle, The Candy Shop ..
LALOR, Frank [T] (b Washington, DC, 20 August 1869; d New York, 15 October 1932). Comedian Lalor made his first stage appearances as a child in variety and played for a number of years as half of the double act ‘Dunn and Lalor’ before beginning a long and ultimately prominent career in musical comedy in the Wolford Comedians’ collapsible farce comedy Our Strategists (1891, Terence O’Flam). He was first seen on Broadway in the Rays’ farce comedy A Hot Old Time (1897, Jack Treadwell), and more prominently in The Show Girl (1902, Dionysius Fly), as Bliffkins in An English Daisy (1904), and as Shamus O'Scoot in Mr Wix of Wickham (1904). He appeared in Boston and on the road in E E Rice’s remake of Mr Wix as The Merry Shop Girls (1905), played in vaudeville houses in The Athletic Girl (1905, Captain O'Shiver), took the rôle of Bunny Hare in Chicago’s The Filibuster (1905) and again on Broadway when it was re-named The Press Agent (1905), and went on the road in Comin' Thru the Rye (1906, Nott), and Karl Hoschna's early Prince Humbug. In his forties, he played in such pieces as The Candy Shop (1909, Saul Wright) and the The Bachelor Belles (1910, Tom Jones) before making a big success as the comical-satyrical `Donny' Dondidier, in Ivan Caryll's hit musical The Pink Lady(1911, `I Like It!', `Donny Didn't, Donny Did'), a part which he repeated on the London stage (1912). A series of good comic rôles followed this success, as Lalor appeared in the short-lived but admired-by-some Iole (1913, Clarence Guildford), as the philandering professor of Caryll's Papa's Darling (1914, Achille Petipas), in the revusical Gaby Delys vehicle Stop! Look! Listen! (1915, Gideon Gay) and as the chief comic of Marc Connelly's Broadway début show, The Amber Express (1916, Percival Hopkins). He featured alongside Fred Stone and Charlotte Greenwood in the Mormon musical His Little Widows (1917, Abijah Smith), and starred in the Chicago musical Good Night Paul (aka Oh! So Happy 1917, Frank Hudson), but he had to return to London to find himself another real winner. In 1918 he appeared as Prosper Woodhouse (`All Line Up in a Queue') in the long-running West End hit The Lilac Domino, and he remained in London to take part in the quick-flop import Nobody's Boy (1919, Colonel Bunting).Lalor's last shows brought no such hits, whether in America -- The Cameo Girl(1921, Jones), 4 performances of Suzette (1921, Tony), the botched Phi-Phi(Phi-Phi), Luckee Girl (1928, Pontavès), a brief appearance in Busby Berkeley's The Street Singer, Friar Tuck in a 1932 revival of Robin Hood -- or in London, where he played, subordinate to W H Berry, as Oliver J Oosenberry in Szirmai's The Bamboula, and when time came to tally up it was seen that the memorable shows of his career finally totalled few, even though the leading rôles had been many.
I am surprised that any trace remains of another -- much less professional -- Boston musical, The Green Bird. But here it is!
The piece which ended its life as The Green Bird was the baby of a Boston gent by the name of David Kilburn Stevens (b Fichtburg 12 August 1860). Here is what the Boston Globe wrote about him as publicity for his show
The Green Bird was hatched as early as 1903, under the title The King of the Cannibal Islands 'a farce in 2 acts' and played by a group of young folk at Ashmont Hall. It was repeated in 1905, and in 1906 (3 May) Stevens produced a version, book, lyrics and music by himself, with a cast of juveniles at Jordan Hall, Lincoln House.
It came to the professional stage at the Majestic Theater, 29 July 1907 under its new title .. the crux of the plot was that the King was chosen according to the squawks of said bird .. under the management of Mr Adolph E Mayer, a former light opera player who had ventured into management at Point of Pines in 1902. The music was now credited to John Arnold Bennett of California. George Schiller played the old king, Alice Hosmer his komische Alte wife, Fred Lennox the Mr Jones (the parrot can only squawk 'Jones'), Eleanor Kent was the soprano.
The 'musical fancy' was not an unmitigated flop. It was quite acceptable, indeed, as 'summer entertainment', and it was played for five weeks during the undemanding months. Quite why the 'Standard Amusement Co' (whoever they were) then decided to take it on tour on the New England circuit is a mystery. It died in Portsmouth 24 September after a life of less than two months when the Standard gentlemen found they were $550 in the red. Soon after Mr Mayer was declared bankrupt.
Oh, the 'missionaries' widows' were a part of the chorus. Evidently a dancing part.
Stevens ventured again, a little later, with a piece titled Prince Prigio. He was also credited with extra material for other shows. I see him, now an 'editor' in the 1930 census, with his second wife ... and it seems that he died in 1940 or 1941.
More later ...
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