“In a Class Beyond
Compare”
Kendrick, Chapter 7
American Ascendance (1914-1919)
World War I
Harrigan and Hart,George M. Cohan and Victor
Herbert laid the groundwork, but the
assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914
which led to World War I “opened the way for
the international ascendance of American
musical comedy.” (134)
Strong anti-German feeling led to a fallout in
the popularity of German and Viennese
operettas
Anti-German feelings in
England
In 1917 with anti-German
sentiment running high, King
George V changed the family
name from Saxe-CoburgGotha (popularly known as
Brunswick or Hanover) to
Windsor, and he relinquished
all German titles and family
connections.
Sarajevo, June 1914
Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and Sophie by a Serbian nationalist.
Ferdinand was a political ally of Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm. Alliances in
Europe brought the entire continent into war. US entered the war late after
failed attempts to remain neutral.
Chin Chin (1914, 295 performances)
As an escape from the
news of the war, American
theatregoers flocked to the
theatre. One of the early hits
of the period was CHIN CHIN.
The score was by Belgian Ivan
Caryll, the story was
about two magical servants
servants of Aladdin’s lamp
and starred the popular team
of Charles Montgomery and
Fred Stone.
3 deaths affected the theatre of the era
Producer Charles
Frohman died on
the Lusitania in
1915.
Producer George Edwardes
also died in 1915
Vaudevillian David Montgomery, one of the
stars of CHIN CHIN died in 1917 leaving his
partner Fred Stone to carry on solo.
NY Times, April 29, 1917
Montgomery and Stone
As the Scarecrow and Tin Man
in The Wizard of Oz (1903)
Jerome Kern
(1885-1945)
Like others, Kern got his start as a
Tin Pan Alley song plugger and then
as a rehearsal pianist.
The Girl from Utah (1914)
The American musical found a
new creative direction thanks to
a native New Yorker who got his
start amending the scores of
imported British musicals. Since
British high society rarely arrived
at a theatre before intermission,
London musicals of the early
1900s often saved their best
material for the second act and
filled the first half of the evening
with fluff. These shows had to be
revised for New York audiences,
who tended to arrive for the first
curtain and leave at intermission
if the first act was not up to
snuff.
When Charles Frohman brought over the British
hit The Girl From Utah (1914), the plot (an
American girl flees to London rather than
become a rich Mormon's latest wife) proved
amusing, but the score needed work. So
Frohman hired composer Jerome Kern and
veteran lyricist Herbert Reynolds to write five
new numbers…
Kern and Reynolds had added uncredited
songs to previous imports. This time they
demanded and got full program credit.
Their ballad "They Didn't Believe Me" marked a
turning point in the development of popular
music. When Julia Sanderson and Donald Brian
introduced the song, they became one of the
most popular stage duo's of their time.
The Princess Theatre musicals
From 1914 to 1919,
KERN composed 19
complete Broadway
scores. Of these, 7
were produced for
the 299-seat
Princess Theatre,
most with lyricist
Guy Bolton.
Originally built for a serious repertory of drama, the
Princess began to produce small musicals after
1915…
In 1915, Kern was booked on
the Lusitania but overslept
Very Good Eddie (1915)
involved two honeymooning
couples who get involved in
some misunderstandings
while taking a cruise on a
Hudson River steamboat.
Because of the Princess
Theatre's size, the production
aimed for a naturalistic and
seemingly informal style.
It became a trend-setter
From Gerald Bordman’s AMERICAN MUSICAL
THEATRE: A CHRONICLE…
“Very Good Eddie formed the mold out of
which poured a half century of American
Musical Comedy.”
Cecil Smith, Musical Comedy in America
(New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1950)
(Goodspeed Opera House revival
Playbill.com Aug 2003)
“With little or no space
separating the players from
the audience, Very Good
Eddie depended upon the
ease and credibility of the
acting and characterization.
Scarcely any previous musical
comedy had been favored
with a plot and dialogue so
coherent, so nearly related to
those of well-written nonmusical plays.” (p. 212)
P.G. Wodehouse
(1881-1975)
Guy Bolton
(1884-1979)
Have a Heart (1917) The story of a second honeymoon that nearly wrecks a
marriage only lasted two months.
Oh Boy! (1917) - While his wife is away, a well-intentioned newlywed lets a
college girl avoid arrest by hiding out in his house. Then his wife comes home –
crisis! With a score that included "Till the Clouds Roll By," this became the
longest running Princess Theatre musical, one of the first American hits of its
time to enjoy a successful run in London.
Leave It To Jane (1917) - With Oh Boy! still running at the Princess, the team
opened this show at the larger Longacre Theatre. A college president's daughter
woos a rival school's star quarterback and loses her heart to him in the process.
Oh, Lady! Lady! (1918) - A young man tries to convince an ex-girlfriend he was
unworthy of her, and only succeeds in looking ridiculous to his new fiancé.
Oh, My Dear! (1918) - A group of eccentric New Yorkers leave town to check into
a health farm. With Kern otherwise occupied, the music was provided by Louis
Hirsch. Despite a respectable run, everyone realized there was little point in
continuing the series without Kern.
The series died after Kern
left the team
As Kern once told an interviewer, "I'm trying
to apply modern art to light music as
Debussy and those men have done to more
serious work."
Kern would continue
to enrich the musical
stage and screen for
decades.
Irving Berlin (1888-1989)
“Alexander’s Ragtime Band”
Introduced in a vaudeville act in 1911, this
song became the fastest-selling sheet music
in the United States.
Berlin was hailed as “the King of ragtime,” a
form that had been “invented” in the late
1800s.
Watch Your Step (1914)
Charles Dillingham
hired Berlin to write
the complete score
of a new musical for
Vern and Irene Castle.
“I Love a Piano”
Written for Stop!
Look! Listen!,
Dillingham and
Berlin’s follow-up
(1915)
Scandals, Vanities and such…
Ziegfeld added designer Joseph Urban (18721933) to his production team in 1915.
He stayed with
The Follies thru
1931.
Berlin wrote “A Pretty Girl” which became
the Follies anthem in 1919.
Eddie Cantor (1892-1964)
One of the
biggest stars of
THE FOLLIES
during the
Prohibition
years.
Shuberts continued to produce revues in
competition with Ziegfeld.
La Belle Paree (1911) at the Winter Garden
The show introduced Al Jolson to Broadway.
Success of La Belle Paree inspired “The Passing Show”
which ran most years from 1912-1924 at the Winter
Garden whenever a Jolson production was
not playing there.
Earl Carroll (1893-1948)
Vanities and
Sketchbooks were
produced annually
from 1923-1940
and included naked
chorus girls.
Vanities stars included…
Milton Berle
Sophie Tucker
George White’s Scandals
George White (1890-1939) was a
former Ziegfeld dancer who left
over artistic differences.
His Scandals featured “better
music and choreography” (147)
For several seasons, the Scandals
outran the Follies. (148)
Early editions featured songs by
George Gershwin.
Henderson, DeSylva and
Brown
Ann Pennington
W.C. Fields
Two performers “lured away” from Ziegfeld by George White.
“Talent is what the public wants.” (148)
The Greenwich Village Follies (1919-27)
U.S. entered the war in 1917
Entertainers joined the war
effort…
…OVER THERE by George
M. Cohan was written to
raise money for war bonds.
…Al Jolson sung SISTER
SUSIE’S SEWING SHIRTS
FOR SOLDIERS.
Shubert’s Passing
Show (1917) introduced
a new
song during the run.
Irving Berlin was drafted
He composed and produced
the all-soldier revue Yip Yip
Yaphank (1917) to raise
funds for the Army
Emergency Relief Fund
during World War I, and did
the same with This Is The
Army (1942), which raised
over nine million dollars
during World War II.
The Armistice was signed in 1918 and Berlin
never reached the European front.
Because of England’s greater (and earlier)
involvement in the war, English
theatre during the war years
was strongly American.
Still,a British musical Chu Chin
Chow (1916) would become
the first musical to run for
six years. The American
production ran 208 performances.
A 1934 film starred Anna May Wong.
Chu
Chin
Chow
The Maid of the
Mountains (1917)
Starring soprano
Jose Collins, the
show ran four
years in London
but just over a
month in New
York.
After the war, a flu pandemic
reached the U.S.
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919
killed more people than World War I
(WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40
million people. It has been cited as the
most devastating epidemic in recorded
world history. More people died of
influenza in a single year than in fouryears of the Black Death Bubonic Plague
from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish
Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 19181919 was a global disaster.
Actors Strike of 1919
Actor's Equity Association demanded better
working conditions for its members. This union had
formed years earlier in response to abusive
treatment by the Shuberts and other producers. It
was common practice for producers to make
actors pay for their own costumes, to rehearse
them for weeks without pay, and to fire them
without notice. Equity waited until after the war to
press its demands. When producers ended months
of half-hearted negotiations by refusing to
recognize the union, Equity president Francis
Wilson called the first-ever strike in the history of
the American theatre in August 1919.
Actors on 45th Street - 1919
Actor-producer George M. Cohan had
always treated performers well. Taking the
strike as a personal insult, he led a
spirited effort to quash Equity. Most
actors felt Cohan had forgotten what it
was like to be a struggling performer, and
his vehemence cost him many
admirers. Tempers ran high, and the
contention was sometimes violent.
Producers tried to put together non-union
casts to keep shows running. Then the
stagehands union agreed to honor the
strike, shutting down almost every
professional production in the US.
Coming barely a year after
the flu epidemic, the strike
hit producers like a one-two
punch. Faced with crippling
losses, producers were
forced to recognize Actors
Equity and accept its
demands. An embittered
Cohan never accepted
Equity's existence…
America’s mood
America wasn’t
interested in bad
feelings. Repelled by
the horrors of war, the
US refused to take part
in the new League of
Nations. Politicians
pursued isolationist
policies, vowing that
America would never
again let its sons die in
“foreign wars.”
A new mood in America
A new mood pervaded
every aspect of American
life, embodied in a new
native-born music called
“jazz.” After some
reluctance, Broadway
songwriters soon
embraced the sound and
created “THE golden age
of musical theatre.”
Enter the
“World’s
Greatest
Entertainer”