John Bush Our Musicals, Ourselves is the first full-scale Jones Our Musicals, social history of the American musical the- atre from the imported Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas of the late nineteenth century Ourselves to such recent musicals as The Producers and Urinetown. While many aficionados of “Our Musicals, Ourselves excavates cultural in- O the Broadway musical associate the genre ment formation from dozens of shows, first-run and revivals, A SociAl HiStory of tHe AmericAn muSicAl tHeAtre only with diversionary shows like The Music Depart serious and frivolous, over the course of the twentieth A u John Bush Jones Mgleasn o ourt Mmyu Fsiaciarl sL faodry t,h Jeoihr ns oBcuiaslh r Jeolenveasn scine-. hotography ctoernictuarly .l eJnons,e es,n ianbtelerps ruetsi ntog tsheees eth sehmow ws iththr onuegwh ae yheiss-. Soc r Hore mis eitnatperheostreicda ilnly h, ocwo nthteemy epnograagrye , pdoirleitcitclys niversity P Mplyo raes vimehpiocrletas notfl ytr hanes tieeanct hpeles aussu rteo bseuet aths esomc inalo td osicmu-- iAl M With a foreword by Sheldon Harnick a ndJo cnueltsu roer.g anizes the book chronologi- Courtesy Brandeis U macirteeiz—netnsa sst hoifan tad hinveaitdlipou natol.”s ,t ealsl muse wmhboe rws eo fw ae rceo manmd uwnhitoy ,w aes HiStor us ctatohmagellei ynbt,h eetesga rikd nsioninmzgien islngoas rm oloyfe f tt lhhBibeerme otrawetdideew nsm atiiynue stsoihhcr doaclewesr,ns —tatoun fdkrrye oe emtxpo- JoHn BuSH JoneS is a retired Professor —From the Foreword by Sheldon Harnick y i the present—that demonstrate numerous of Theater Arts at Brandeis university. He has o links between what played on Broadway f c written theater criticism for numerous jour- and what played on newspapers’ front pages t nals and newspapers, including the Boston H a across our nation. He reviews the produc- “An excellent overview of the American musical, its his- Phoenix, the Kansas City Star, the Boston e tions, lyrics, staging, and casts from the Herald, and the New England Theater Jour- tory, its significance and its influence, told in a most A l lesser-known early musicals (the “gunboat” m s nal. He has directed dozens of musicals in entertaining way. A truly admirable work.” musicals of the Teddy Roosevelt era and the e professional, community, and university r , “Cinderella shows” and “leisure time musi- theaters. —Joseph Stein, playwright, Fiddler on the Roof ic O cals” of the 1920s) and continues his analysis A with better-known shows including Show- n boat, Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma, South Pa- u m cific, West Side Story, Cabaret, Hair, Com- u pany, and A Chorus Line. S r i While most examinations of the Ameri- c s can musical focus on specific shows or em- A l phasize the development of the musical as e t an art form, Jones’s book studies musicals as H l a way of illuminating broader, ever-chang- e A v ing social and cultural themes of the times. t With six appendixes detailing the long-run- r e e ning diversionary musicals and a foreword by Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist of Fiddler on s the Roof, Jones’s comprehensive social his- tory will appeal to both students and fans of Broadway. ISBN 1–58465–311–6 Brandeis university Press Published by University Press of New England front cover: Members of the original cast of Hanover and London Oklahoma! used by Permission of The Rodgers and Brandeis / Hammerstein organization. www.upne.com uPne 432 pp @440 ppi= 1 in. Our Musicals, Ourselves Our Musicals, Ourselves A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MUSICAL THEATRE U U U John Bush Jones Brandeis University Press Waltham, Massachusetts Published by University Press of New England Hanover and London brandeis university press Published by University Press of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon NH 03766 Branwdewiws.Uupnnivee.rcsoitmyPress Published by © 2003 by Brandeis University Press All rights reserved UniversityPressof New England, One Court St., Lebanon,NH 03766 First Brandeis/University Prewssw owf .Nupenwe .Ecnomgland paperback edition 2004 isbn for the paperback edition: 978–0–87451–904–4 � 2003 by BrandeisUniversityPress Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 First Brandeis/UniversityPressof New England paperbackedition 2004 University Press of New England is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper usePdr iinn ttehdisi nbotohke mUeneittse tdheSitra mtesinoimf Aumme rreicqauire5me4nt f3or r2ecycled paper. libraryofcongresscataloging-in-publicationdata Jones,JohnBush. Ourmusicals,ourselves:asocialhistoryoftheAmericanmusical theater/JohnBushJones. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferences(p. )andindex. isbn1–58465–311–6(cl.:alk.paper) isbn0–87451–904–7(pa.:alk.paper) 1.Musicals—UnitedStates—Historyandcriticism.2.Musical theater—UnitedStates—Socialaspects.I.Title. ml1711.j652003 782.1'4'0973—dc21 2003000240 Everyeffortwasmadetocontactthecurrentcopyrightholdersoftheworkscitedinthisvolume. Anymistakesoroversightswillbecorrectedinfutureeditions. “AllKindsofPeople”byRichardRodgersandOscarHammersteinII Copyright�1955byRichardRodgersandOscarHammersteinII CopyrightRenewed WILLIAMSONMUSICownerofpublicationandalliedrightsthroughouttheWorld. InternationalCopyrightSecuredAllRightsReservedUsedbyPermission “America”fromWestSideStorybyLeonardBernstein&StephenSondheim �AmbersonHoldingsLLC&StephenSondheim.Renewed.ByPermissionoftheLeonard BernsteinMusicPublishingCompanyLLC. (listcontinuesonp.384) To my son, Carson Jones, who, like me, saw his first musicals at age five with his father, and who (like his dad) has never lost his love of them. U U U Contents Foreword by Sheldon Harnick ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1.Patriotism, Xenophobia, and World War I 12 2.The Musicals of the Roaring Twenties 52 3.Coping with Depression 79 4.World War II and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Years 123 5.From Isolationism to Idealism in the Cold War Years 161 6.Black and Jewish Musicals since the 1960s 202 7.Issue-Driven Musicals of the Turbulent Years 235 8.Fragmented Society, Fragmented Musicals 269 9.“A Recycled Culture,” Nostalgia, and Spectacle 305 10.New Voices, New Perspectives 331 appendixes Appendix A. Broadway Musical Production, 1919–1929 360 Appendix B. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1929–1938 362 Appendix C. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1939–1945 364 Appendix D. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1946–1960 366 Appendix E. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1960–1969 369 Appendix F. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1969–1979 371 Appendix G. Long-RunningDiversionaryMusicals, 1979–2000 372 Sources Cited 375 Index 391 Foreword Sheldon Harnick I am part of a generation of theatre writers whose sensibilities were shaped by the Great Depression and World War II. With those experiences in our backgrounds, it was natural for us to want to address serious issues in our work. We enthusiastically followed the footsteps of writers who hadcreated such issue-driven musicals as Show Boat, Pins and Needles, OfTheeISing, Lost in the Stars, and South Pacific. Although much of my own work dealt with romantic or comedic subjects, musicals like Fiorello, Tenderloin, The Rothschilds, A Wonderful Life, and Dragons did not shy away from voicing serious social and political concerns. Yet we realized that whatever serious statements we wanted to makehad to be presented in the most entertaining way possible. Had we written a commandment for the creators of Broadway musicals, it would have been “Enlighten if thou canst, but entertain thou must.” For me, E.Y. Harburg and Burton Lane’s Finian’s Rainbow, with its witty, elegant lyrics andwon- derful music, represented the best that “serious” musical theatre had to offer. It proved that a trenchant story line need not hamper entertainment value. Indeed, Fiddler on the Roof, the most serious of my musicals, has also been the most successful. WhenIbeganwritingforthemusicaltheatre,Ifirmlybelievedthatwhat I chose to put onstage had the potential of changing people’s lives. I wrote from the belief that plays and musicals can foster in their audiences a feelingofsharedcommunity,therebycombatingpersonalisolationandfear. Intheatricalsettings,peoplebecomereceptive,andimportantlessonsabout life can be genially imparted from the stage. Given the ever-increasing complexity of today’s world, we wonderabout our nation’s place in the global community. We need to know ourselves better in order to better understand where we “fit” in the geography of the twenty-first century. More than ever, we need to examine our attitudesand beliefsandlookhonestlyatourselvesasindividualsandascitizensofagreat nation. To do this, we must understand how we’ve developed as a people and as a country in the past one hundred years. One of the most diverting