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Wartime America and Social Redlining *INCOMPLETE*

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Wartime America and Social Redlining *INCOMPLETE*

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During WWII, African American soldiers faced discrimination despite their service. Promises of housing and benefits were often denied, perpetuating social redlining and maintaining systemic racism in post-war America.

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Colorism in Hollywood: Miranda and Horne *INCOMPLETE*

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Colorism in Hollywood: Miranda and Horne *INCOMPLETE*

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Carmen Miranda and Lena Horne faced colorism in the film industry. While both were celebrated for their talents, they were often cast as stereotypes, limiting their opportunities and reinforcing societal biases about women of color.

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John Hammond Jr.: Champion of Black Artists *INCOMPLETE*

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John Hammond Jr.: Champion of Black Artists *INCOMPLETE*

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John Hammond Jr., a music producer, sought to uplift Black musicians. His efforts in casting Carmen Jones highlighted the lack of access to classical arts education in Black communities, exposing systemic inequities.

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Carmen Jones: Opera Reimagined *INCOMPLETE*

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Carmen Jones: Opera Reimagined *INCOMPLETE*

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Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones (1943) adapted Bizet’s Carmen with an all-Black cast. Despite challenges in casting due to systemic barriers, the production showcased Black talent and brought opera to new audiences, redefining representation in theatre.

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The Harlem Renaissance and the Cotton Club *INCOMPLETE*

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The Harlem Renaissance and the Cotton Club *INCOMPLETE*

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During the Harlem Renaissance, venues like the Cotton Club showcased Black talent while perpetuating racial stereotypes. Owned by Italian mobsters, the club’s décor and policies highlighted the complex interplay of exploitation and celebration in Black artistry.

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The Great Migration’s Influence on Art *INCOMPLETE*

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The Great Migration’s Influence on Art *INCOMPLETE*

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The Great Migration, where millions of Black Americans moved north, brought new cultural expressions to urban centers. This migration inspired artistic movements like the Harlem Renaissance, fostering groundbreaking work in music, theatre, and literature.

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Shuffle Along Breaks Boundaries *INCOMPLETE*

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Shuffle Along Breaks Boundaries *INCOMPLETE*

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In 1921, Shuffle Along became the first Broadway show to integrate Black and white audiences. Created by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, it marked a milestone in representation and set the stage for future African American musical theatre contributions.

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Ethnicity vs. Race in Theatre *INCOMPLETE*

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Ethnicity vs. Race in Theatre *INCOMPLETE*

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The intersection of ethnicity and race in musical theatre raises questions of resource ownership, creative control, and representation. Racism, often rooted in laws, influences who tells the stories and how they are told, reflecting systemic inequalities.

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Redlining’s Impact on African American Communities *INCOMPLETE*

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Redlining’s Impact on African American Communities *INCOMPLETE*

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Redlining, a discriminatory housing practice, segregated neighborhoods and restricted Black homeownership. Originating in the early 20th century, this systemic racism contributed to the racial wealth gap, creating barriers that persist today.

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Cy Coleman and Jerry Herman revived traditional musical comedy while infusing it with modern sensibilities. Their works, spanning from Hello, Dolly! to City of Angels, bridged past and present. Together, they defined an era of neo-traditional Broadway excellence.

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Cy Coleman celebrated folk music and Americana in The Will Rogers Follies (1991). This biographical musical paid tribute to the humorist and entertainer, blending traditional Broadway tunes with a distinctly American flavor. Its nostalgic charm won over audiences.

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Dear World (1964) by Jerry Herman explored themes of anti-capitalism through an absurdist lens. Adapted from The Madwoman of Chaillot, the musical was both whimsical and profound. It showcased Herman’s versatility as a composer and lyricist.

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Jerry Herman: A Trailblazer in Representation

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Jerry Herman: A Trailblazer in Representation

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Jerry Herman was one of the first openly gay composers to survive and thrive despite an HIV diagnosis. His courage and creativity paved the way for greater LGBTQ+ visibility in the arts. His resilience mirrored the strength of his beloved characters.

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Barnum (1980) showcased Cy Coleman’s ability to merge spectacle with storytelling. The musical captured the spirit of P.T. Barnum’s circus, blending traditional Broadway style with circus-inspired elements. Its playful energy delighted audiences.

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In City of Angels (1990), Cy Coleman blended noir storytelling with jazzy musical numbers. The show alternated between a writer’s reality and his fictional screenplay, creating a unique dual narrative. Its innovative approach earned critical acclaim and awards.

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Mame (1966), written for Angela Lansbury, was an immediate hit with no major changes needed before opening. Based on the novel Auntie Mame, the musical celebrated individuality and optimism. Lansbury’s performance solidified the show’s success as a Broadway treasure.

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Look Back at Angela Lansbury in the Original Broadway Production of Mame

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The production opened May 24, 1966, at the Winter Garden Theatre.

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Premiering in 1964, Hello, Dolly! brought joy to a nation grieving JFK’s assassination. Carol Channing’s iconic performance and Louis Armstrong’s hit recording of the title song made it a cultural phenomenon. The musical won ten Tony Awards and became a staple of Broadway tradition.

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One Day of Adventure: The History of Hello, Dolly! — Thornton Wilder

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BY SONJA LOWE Thornton Wilder once wrote that, “Literature has always more resembled a torch race than a furious dispute among heirs:′ The history of Hello, Dolly! is a prime example of this kind of literary relay; a farcical tale about one adventurous day that was written in 1835 and

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Jerry Herman mastered the art of the "caboose," a twist in the last line of a song that recontextualized its meaning. This strategy added emotional depth to his compositions. It became a hallmark of his unforgettable musical storytelling.

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* Jerry Herman was also the 1987 recipient of The Johnny Mercer Award, the SHOF's highest honor

Jerry Herman first burst upon the Broadway scene as the young creator of music and lyrics for Milk and Honey in 1961, a musical which later was nominated for both a Tony and Grammy Award.

Next came the phenomenal Hello Dolly came next in 1964, resulting not only in a Tony Award but also winning the Variety Awards for Best Composer and Best Lyricist. Louis Armstrong's single record of the title song became one of the most successful ever to come out of a Broadway musical, and Carol Channing's original cast album brought Herman a Gold Record and a Grammy.

Jerry Herman was born in New York City on July 10, 1933. As a child, he taught himself the piano and other instruments and most of his formal musical training happened after his proessional career had already begun. After attending the University of Miami where he studied drama, Herman began playing the piano in cocktail lounges and soon began writing a series of small revues. His first successs came in 1958 with a revue called Nightcap.

Following the success of Dolly, Herman was asked to to musicalize the Lawrence and Lee play, "Auntie Mame." The play starred a then-unknown Angela Lansbury whose career would catapult with the help of Herman's score. Mame won another Variety Award for Best Lyricist, another Gold Record and another Grammy for himself.

The show, Dear World, in 1969, won Angela Lansbury her second Tony Award in a Herman musical and made Herman the only composer-lyricist to ever have three productions running simultaneously on Broadway. Mack and Mabel, starring Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters, his own personal favorite score, opened in 1974, followed by The Grand Tour, with Joel Grey in 1978. Herman also contributed songs to Tommy Tune's A Day in Hollywood, in 1980.

La Cage Aux Folles, which opened at New York's Palace Theater in 1983, broke the all-time box office record at the theater and produced an Outer Critics Circle Award and Tony Award for Best Musical. Herman also won a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for Best Score.

In the late-1980's, Jerry's Girls, a revue of Herman's work, began playing on Broadway and in every major American city. Some of the stars who have been spotlighted in this wonderful compilation of Herman's hit music are Carol Channing, Leslie Uggams, Chita Rivera, Dorothy Loudon, Andrea McArdle and Jo Anne Worley.

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Jerry Herman, known for his “Loesser is More” (haha) songwriting strategy, wrote melodies that felt both timeless and fresh. With perfect pitch and no formal training, Herman crafted iconic musicals. His works reflected optimism and the enduring appeal of traditional Broadway.

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Gwen Verdon overcame early health challenges, including leg braces, to become a Broadway icon. Known for her roles in Damn Yankees and Chicago, she brought depth and charisma to Sweet Charity. Verdon’s collaborations with her husband, Bob Fosse, created legendary theatrical moments.

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High-kicking redheaded dancer, choreographer, and actress Gwen Verdon ( b. Culver City, CA, January 13, 1925; d. Woodstock, VT, October 18, 2000), was acknowledged in the 1950s and '60s to be the best dancer on Broadway. Her role as Lola in both stage and screen versions of Damn Yankees ("Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets") is still vividly remembered. She won Tony Awards® for her first four starring roles (in Can-Can 1953, Damn Yankees 1955, New Girl in Town 1957, Redhead 1959), and nominations for the two that followed ( Sweet Charity 1966, Chicago, 1975).

Gwyneth Evelyn Verdon was the second child and only daughter of Gertrude Standring and Joseph Verdon, immigrants to the United States from Britain. Her father worked as an electrician for MGM Studios; her mother, a former vaudevillian in the troupe of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, had her own dance studio in Culver City and was a dyed-in-the-wool stage mother.

As a baby, Gwyneth suffered from rickets, a softening of the bones that often leads to deformity and fractures; she had to wear orthopedic boots and braces on her legs that drew ridicule from her playmates. Her mother, hoping to strengthen the child, took her at the age of three into her own dance classes and eventually enrolled her with Ernest Belcher, the father of Marge Champion, for ballet training. (At one point in their lives, Gwen Verdon, Marge Champion, and Cyd Charisse were all in the same class.) Gwyneth took to the requisite recital performances as a duck to water; at six she was billed as "the fastest little tapper in the world."

She studied every conceivable form of dance: ballet, tap, jazz, ballroom, Balinese, flamenco, even juggling. At the age of eleven she made her film debut as a solo ballerina in The King Steps Out (1936), starring Grace Moore and Franchot Tone. While still at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, she was in a revival of Show Boat. But suddenly, to everyone's shock, she interrupted her promising career at seventeen to elope with James Henaghan, a reporter.

Five years later, Gwen was twenty-two, a mother, and divorced. She decided she needed a job; parking son Jimmy with her parents, she went to work writing gossip and movie reviews for the Hollywood Reporter. On one assignment she ran into choreographer Jack Cole and realized she would be much happier working as his assistant on Broadway ( Magdalena 1948) and dancing again ( Alive and Kicking, Broadway debut 1950).

Disappointed with the results of their New York projects, Verdon and Cole returned to Hollywood. Almost always uncredited, she appeared as a "specialty dancer" in On the Riviera (1951), David and Bathsheba (1951), Meet Me After the Show (1951), Dreamboat (1952), The I Don't Care Girl (1953), and The Farmer Takes a Wife (1953); Jack Cole was the choreographer for all these films. The Mississippi Gambler (1953) boasted Gwen Verdon herself as choreographer, though as a dancer she was once again uncredited. Verdon's main job was coaching the stars on how to move.

She finally got a real chance on Broadway in 1953 when Michael Kidd cast her as the second female lead in Cole Porter's Can-Can (1953). The first lead was an imported French music-hall chanteuse named Lilo. Reviewers of the out-of-town tryouts were blown away by Verdon's performance in a "Garden of Eden Ballet" and although they found Lilo "charming," they found Verdon absolutely sensational. Lilo saw to it that the "Garden of Eden" was cut before opening in New York: "There is something wrong when the star of the show is not the star. . . . I call it The Battle of Verdon."

Offended, Verdon announced her intention to quit the show - maybe even give up dancing altogether. But her "Apache Dance" had not been cut, and an extraordinary mishap at its climax on opening night was of the stuff that makes Broadway legends. Gwen was supposed to seize a knife and plunge it savagely into the breast of her partner. When she reached for the knife, the handle came off in her hand, without even the semblance of a blade. With a quick ad-lib, she pulled the guy to her and kissed him. The audience leapt to its feet and started chanting her name as she hurried to her dressing room for a costume change. A producer rushed backstage to tell her she had stopped the show and had to come back immediately for a curtain call. She did - in her bathrobe. The papers next morning could tell of nothing but Gwen Verdon, and soon she had her first Tony Award®. Can-Can ran for 892 performances, though Verdon left in September 1954. Lilo stayed on for the whole run.

Verdon was back in Hollywood working with Cole when Broadway producers approached her to play Lola, the Devil's Number One Seductress in Damn Yankees, a musical about a baseball fan turned slugger who sells his soul to the Devil so that the Washington Senators can beat the Yankees. Reluctantly, she signed on and found herself working with twenty-eight-year-old choreographer Bob Fosse, taking "direction like I've never had in my life. . . . Bob choreographs down to the second joint of your little finger." From that point on, the lives and careers of dancer and choreographer were inextricably bound together. Though Fosse was married at the time, he became her collaborator, lover, and eventually husband. They were married in 1960, separated in 1971 (Fosse was anything but monogamous), but never divorced.

Opening in May 1955, Damn Yankees was a smash hit, winning seven Tony Awards®. It ran for 1,019 performances and was made into a film, with all the Broadway cast but one (Stephen Douglass was replaced by Tab Hunter).

In Verdon's (and Fosse's) next Broadway musical, New Girl In Town (1957), she played a prostitute returning to her small-town home for a better life. Verdon tied with her co-star Thelma Ritter for the Best Actress Tony® this time. In Redhead (1959), one of her favorite shows, she was Essie Whimple, under threat from Jack The Ripper. The role brought Verdon a Grammy Award® for the cast recording as well as her fourth Tony®.

Now Gwen Verdon took a six-year leave of absence from performing, to have and raise her second child, Nicole Providence Fosse, born in 1963. She returned in 1966 with Neil Simon's Sweet Charity, staged and choreographed by Fosse, earning a Tony® nomination but breaking her winning streak. She served as Fosse's assistant choreographer when the show was filmed with Shirley MacLaine in 1969.

To develop a new vehicle for Verdon, Fosse proposed to the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb that they adapt the play Chicago - the jazz-age story of chorus girl Roxie Hart who shoots her lover and gets off scot-free - as a musical. Just after rehearsals began, the director/choreographer suffered a heart attack. The show was further jinxed when a few weeks after its opening in 1975, A Chorus Line, the runaway hit of the year, came to Broadway. Nonetheless, Gwen Verdon did get her Tony® nomination.

Verdon and Fosse, although now formally estranged, worked together on the musical Dancin' (1978), and Fosse's own thinly-disguised (if at all) film autobiography All That Jazz (1979). More and more, after Chicago Verdon appeared in films ( The Cotton Club 1984, Cocoon 1985, Cocoon: The Return 1988, Alice 1990, Marvin's Room 1996, Walking Across Egypt 1999) and on television ( M*A*S*H, Magnum P.I., Dream On, Homicide), gaining three Emmy® nominations.

In 1987, as Verdon and Fosse were attending the opening of a revival of Sweet Charity in Washington, D.C., Fosse collapsed in her arms outside the theatre. This time the heart attack was fatal. As a memorial in late 1999, Verdon and daughter Nicole joined Ann Reinking (Fosse's live-in companion) to produce Fosse: A Celebration of Song and Dance, showcasing many of his greatest numbers.

Verdon died in her sleep on a visit to her daughter in Vermont. Broadway dimmed its lights at eight o'clock that night. At her funeral, Chita Rivera eloquently distilled the emotions of all friends and fans of Gwen Verdon: "My God, how she danced!"
- LEC

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Gwen Verdon - The Official Masterworks Broadway Site

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High-kicking redheaded dancer, choreographer, and actress Gwen Verdon (b. Culver City, CA, January 13, 1925; d. Woodstock, VT, October 18, 2000), was acknowledged in the 1950s and '60s to be the best dancer on Broadway. Her role as Lola in both stage and screen versions of Damn Yankees ("Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets") is still [...]

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Coleman teamed up with lyricist Dorothy Fields to create Sweet Charity (1964), a musical about taxi dancers in Times Square. Starring Gwen Verdon, the show combined jazz, dance, and heartfelt storytelling. Its success cemented Coleman’s place in Broadway history.

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Hey Big Spender | Sweet Charity (1969) | TUNE

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Little Me (1962) was Cy Coleman’s first Broadway show, known for its humor and innovation. Featuring choreography by Bob Fosse and the comedic genius of Sid Caesar in multiple roles, the show explored themes of liberation and sexuality. Its playful tone challenged norms while embracing tradition.

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Cy Coleman, a child piano prodigy with perfect pitch, began his career in jazz before transitioning to Broadway. His early compositions included jazz standards and theme music for Playboy radio and TV. This neo-Gershwin composer fused traditional melodies with contemporary flair.

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So said the New York Post's esteemed critic, Clive Barnes, in one of his numerous enthusiastic reviews of the musical works of Cy Coleman. And as though to justify such accolades, Coleman's recent accomplishments include winning Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Score in consecutive years for "City of Angels" in 1990 and "The Will Rogers Follies" in 1991.

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The 1960s were marked by the push and pull between progress and tradition, with events like the Vietnam War, the Space Race, and desegregation shaping the cultural landscape. Amid Cold War fears and JFK’s presidency, society longed for stability. This backdrop influenced the return to traditional musical comedy forms.

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Premiering just 20 years after the Holocaust, Cabaret (1966) by Kander and Ebb examined the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany. Its overlap with the Civil Rights Movement emphasized themes of liberation and resistance. The show remains a powerful commentary on prejudice and societal change.

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Fiddler on the Roof: Tradition and Change

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Fiddler on the Roof: Tradition and Change

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Fiddler on the Roof (1964) set records with 3,243 performances, chronicling Tevye's struggles in pre-revolutionary Russia. This landmark musical by Harnick and Bock explored themes of faith, family, and cultural survival. Its enduring success highlights its universal message.

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Tradition, Modernity and Universality: An Exploration of Fiddler on the Roof – Sounds of the Century

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Milk and Honey (1961) portrayed American actors on tour in Israel, capturing the optimism of Jewish cultural revival. The musical celebrated heritage while exploring themes of identity and belonging. Its creation reflected a growing interest in Jewish narratives on stage.

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a memoir

Elana Dykewomon

"Jews have two defining tragedies in the 20th century -- the Holocaust, and the state of Israel."

-- Irena Klepfisz

My mother and grandmother were fans of the Broadway theater. They went to both musicals and serious dramas, and followed the reviews. I lean towards thinking they preferred musicals, but that's because you could buy the original cast recordings and play them at home. For the first time I realize my grandmother had no phonograph. I search my memory of her small apartment for it, but no, it's not there. I do know she favored historical novels and Ellery Queen mysteries, but how could I know if she liked musicals more than dramas, just because she took me to them, in the theater and at the movies, until the day when I was in high school that she bought me tickets for Marat/Sade, saying, "I read the papers, and this seemed right up your alley, so I went down to the box office and got you tickets. A good thing too -- the next day, they were sold out for months. No, you don't have to thank your old grandmother. Just enjoy yourself."

When I was little, eight, nine, ten, my grandmother shlepped me to the movies for Guys and Dolls and The King and I. I thought The King and I was silly at the time, since I couldn't identify with either Anna in her voluminous skirts or Yul Brenner's king. Now I dismiss it as racist, sexist, and contrived. Sexist as Guys and Dolls is, I never outgrew it, sometimes identifying with Frank Sinatra, who played a harried shlub, and sometimes with Marlon Brando, the gambler smitten by love despite his cool. My grandmother and I saw it together at least twice, maybe three times. When I was twelve, she and my mother agreed that it was time to introduce me to the finer things, my first musical.

My first Broadway musical! This was going to be better than being Bas Mitzvahed (which I eventually found a way to wriggle out of) -- this was my initiation into the mysteries of theater, and not just theater, but a way of life that was New York. New York was the essence of living in that historical time, the early 1960s, because it was the generative temple of modern thought and art, and the theater was its inner sanctum, the chamber in which children were transformed into women, and women could be moved to tears.

The play they chose for my rite of passage was Milk and Honey, an enthusiastic Zionist musical about making the desert bloom. Israel is a year older than I am, so it would have been about thirteen years into its troubled life. My father fought in the 1949 war that created the Israeli state, and my mother smuggled arms while working as a researcher for Life magazine in New York. When he got home, they made me, and they gave me a name popular then among Israelis, an Israeli name.

My father had been in the air force in WWII and a minor hand injury on the base kept him from being shipped out to the Pacific theater (they called it a staging area, they rehearsed), where most of his squadron got killed. After the war, when no one could claim anymore that they didn't know what had happened to the Jews, his family, which was extensive, gave a lot of money to the Jewish fighters in Palestine. He was young, he was lucky, he was pretty. His passport stamps were from Canada and somewhere in Eastern Europe, his old photo album had shots of ruined graveyards in Belgrade or Prague, and pictures of other handsome men leaning against the body of a bomber, the way their contemporaries were leaning against spiffed up Chevys and Fords back home, self-satisfied with the mechanical augmentations of their strength, their assumption that they were the heroes of the piece.

He was the pilot of the first plane that ever dropped a bomb on Cairo, and my mother kept the pin from that bomb in her purse for several decades. She said that's what it was, at any rate, although now I am dubious. Hand grenades have pins, but bombs? Regular bombs, loaded with explosives, aren't they just ready to go when you open the hatch and say, goodbye lives below? Some of the nuances of war escape me, though I like to think I get the big picture. What was important to my mother was not whether or not bombs have pins, but that my father fought, not simply against the enemy but to make a homeland for Jews. Not simply against, but for something. And that she had fought for it too, and carried with her the proof.

Anyway you can see from this that I came not only from a theater-believing family, but from Zionists. So the appearance of Milk and Honey on Broadway was fortuitous -- what better way to bring me into the sacred rituals of -- I hesitate to use this phrase, although it seems at the moment exactly appropriate -- "The Great White Way"? Certainly the impulse to drama is not specific to white folks, and it could be argued that the Greeks, whose sense of theatrical production Western culture still emulates, were susceptible to influences from Northern Africa. But what Broadway churned out was the product of mostly immigrants, many of them Jews, trying to recast themselves as American patriots and sentimentalists, with the occasional flourish of WASPy gay male sensibilities -- Cole Porter, for instance. You could tap your feet without swaying your hips, you could lament without betraying an old-world religious outlook. You could be clever, modern, entertaining, and still assimilate.

Milk and Honey -- assimilation? At this distance, I can say yes: assimilation into the American belief that a "wilderness," essentially empty with only a handful of native "savages," was brought into nationhood by "destiny" and a righteous work ethic. Milk and Honey was made to play for American Jews and New Yorkers sympathetic to Jews remaking their image from the downtrodden, easily slaughtered, Orthodox scholars and merchants of history into a contemporary people with bright smiles who looked snappy in their uniforms.

As I tell you this story, I have the uneasy, and growing, sensation that I am betraying my mother. Suppose I had a daughter who talked about my lesbian idealism the same way? They managed to convince themselves that they would be transformed into legendary amazons, those girls who turned their backs on every avenue that might have led them to real power. You know what? They thought if they willed it, they'd be able to fly. My mother believes that Jews who criticize Israel in any fundamental way are historically ignorant and self-hating.

"You don't know what we fought for," she would likely say. And perhaps this is correct. They fought for something that does not now exist. A homeland so secure and righteous that Jews all over the world would be safe -- they could always have a place to go if the holocaust happened again, or even smaller pogroms, and they would always be able to defend that place because of their newfound military competence. This country would embody the principles of socialist democracy, a culture where honest labor was valued and every citizen had an equal voice, an equal chance, a country that flew the joyful flag of justice and peace.

Of course they also fought because of the newsreels, the documentation of concentration camps that played in the movie theaters the summers of 1946 and 47. If your parents, your grandparents, had not left, these heaped skeletons would be your bones. What are you going to do about it, now that you know, now that you really know? They were eager to answer that call.

Everyone knows that owning land is power. "We the People" originally meant we who own property. Having a territory -- boys all over this city kill each other to defend their turf, their place in the world. Lesbians breathe a sigh of relief when they sign their mortgage papers -- no landlord can evict us now. After World War II, formerly German, Polish, Slovakian, Iraqi, Turkish Jews decided it would be best if they had their own base of power, a seat in the UN, a government that could raise armies.

The only trouble was someone was already living there. The rest is history -- and what is history, other than a constant advertising campaign by the side who won? A traumatized people flooded into a place that perhaps their distant ancestors were forced out of, and said, "If we will it, it is no dream. This is the land of milk and honey. We were promised, we've suffered enough, goddamit, and we're not going to be pushed around any more."

Milk and Honey starred Molly Picon. Part of the deal about live theater, live theater in New York, is that you get to see the actual stars in person. Molly Picon was a big Yiddish theater star near the end of her career then, which started in Eastern Europe. I once saw a 1930s film in which she cross-dressed as a boy to travel with her widowed father. But nobody cross-dressed in Milk and Honey. No old vaudeville shtick for them. What was the plot? Who knows? They came, they saw, they made their homes with only minor, sanitized struggles, they dipped their bread in honey and drank milk. The actors danced -- my grandmother watched a fat woman dancing and whispered to me, "She's very light on her feet," which gave me hope that fat people could have redeeming qualities. And they sang, "This is the land of milk and honey, and this lovely land is mine!"

You know that scene in the movie Cabaret, where a group of appealing German children are singing, "The future belongs to me," as the camera pulls back and reveals them to be Nazi youth? Everyone says it's bad, unproductive, button-pushing, to in any way compare what has happened, what is happening, in Israel to Nazi Germany. Basically I agree. At least to the part about how it freezes people in their tracks and shuts down any possible dialogue.

But look, it's time we understood this: ordinary Germans were not any more monstrous than you or I. We know -- we get reports and don't pretend you haven't heard -- of massive brutalities against civilian populations in Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, and the Middle East. The world has been transformed by technology to the point where we cannot honestly say these things are not happening in our backyards, that we can't smell the stench of mass graves being dug this week.

People who are defeated in these wars we try not to notice look for vindication, revenge, reparations at the least. Men mostly, but not only men, although men's reactions define the dramas of vengeance. They look to get back what they had before, and often this gives them the chance to invent a before that is more wishful thinking than reality.

"Mine," say the champions, the youth who fight the good fight to honor their ancestors. "Mine," say the Israelis, convinced the world is still against them (and certainly the Israeli policy makers are doing their best to make their fear a self-fulfilling prophecy). "Mine," say the Palestinians, whose name for the war of 1949 is not Independence but The Disaster. "My land, my future."

New York is a language-based city. No other place in America has newspaper stands on every street. LA is a city of mirrors, Chicago of industry, San Francisco of cool, but New Yorkers talk. They have words for everything. And they have their gorgeous theaters, where congregations gather to affirm their faith.

My grandmother and mother believed in the theater, its process of catharsis and transformation. They wanted to show me both the glory and the substance of what they believed in, what they longed for -- a place in the world. And perhaps I have not betrayed them after all. My true inheritance is the temple of dreams. If I will it, I can inspire, I can take both sides of a tragedy and say: let's make a new play. It is still possible to imagine a dialogue reverberating with centuries of grief in which the actors gradually accept responsibility for the damage they've done and then listen to each other. A satisfying drama in which the curtain comes down on peace.

Go To: Issue 10 or Lodestar Quarterly home page

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a memoir "Jews have two defining tragedies in the 20th century -- the Holocaust, and the state of Israel." -- Irena Klepfisz My mother and grandmother were fans of the Broadway theater. They went to both musicals and serious dramas, and followed the reviews.

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Al Jolson's career highlighted the parallels between Jewish and Black suffering in America. His performances bridged cultural divides, drawing attention to shared struggles. This connection enriched the dialogue on race and identity in American society.

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J.J. Shubert had signed Al Jolson because of Jolson's "overpowering display of energy." Jolson never wanted to leave the stage, especially when he had the audience in the palm of his hand. During his time on stage at the Winter Garden, his favorite phrase was "You ain't heard nothing yet." The conductor in the pit just prayed that they all had the right sheet music for whatever came next. Jolson wowed the audience, but he wowed them not as himself but as Gus, his "signature blackface character."

In 2018, as we look back at the practice of blacking one's face with cork, we have to wonder: Why?

This is an important question, and we are going to spend the rest of this post trying to explain the complex reasons behind Jolson's use of blackface.

In order to understand why Jolson might be using blackface on stage or in the movies, it is best to start at the beginning of the practice. Minstrel tunes were taken from the camp meeting songs of African-American slaves. The foremost white composer who listened to this form of African-American music was Stephen Foster, and we have played clips previously that feature Paul Robeson singing "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Gone Are the Days." In addition, we played a clip from the 1934 movie, King for a Day, in which we get to see Bill "Bojangles" Robinson dance to both tunes in the setting of a minstrel show. The all-black cast in King for a Day corked their faces, which was the tradition when performing in a minstrel show, whether the performer was black or white, with one exception: Bill Robinson.

Many of the minstrel shows portrayed African-Americans in less than a complimentary way, but not all did this. Fred Astaire donned blackface in the 1936 movie, , in order to perform the number "Bojangles of Harlem." The audience may or may not have been aware that Bill Robinson was called the "Mayor of Harlem." They certainly were aware of Mr. Robinson, a vaudeville performer who stunned audiences with his dancing ability. We only know him today, based on his movie appearances. In addition to King for a Day, he appeared opposite Shirley Temple in 1935's The Little Colonel and opposite Lena Horne in 1943's Stormy Weather. The song and dance routine, "Bojangles of Harlem" was Fred Astaire's homage to his icon, Bill Robinson. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

According to film historian Eric Lott: "For the white minstrel man to put on the cultural forms of 'blackness' was to engage in a complex affair of manly mimicry.... To wear or even enjoy blackface was literally, for a time, to become black, to inherit the cool, virility, humility, abandon, or gaité de coeur that were the prime components of white ideologies of black manhood."

According to Wikipedia, "Historians have described Jolson's blackface and singing style as metaphors for Jewish and black suffering throughout history." Historian Michael Alexander noted that the music from the movie, The Jazz Singer, was "an expression of the liturgical music of Jews with the 'imagined music of African Americans' " and that "prayer and jazz become metaphors for Jews and blacks." In fact the playwright who conceived of the story that led to The Jazz Singer, Samson Raphaelson, stated that he had had an epiphany while watching a performance of Robinson Crusoe, Jr. "My god, this isn't a jazz singer, this is a cantor!"

"According to Alexander, Eastern European Jews were uniquely qualified to understand the music, noting how Jolson himself made the comparison of Jewish and African-American suffering in a new land in his film Big Boy: In a blackface portrayal of a former slave, he leads a group of recently freed slaves, played by black actors, in verses of the classic slave spiritual "Go Down Moses". One reviewer of the film expressed how Jolson's blackface added significance to his role: 'When one hears Jolson's jazz songs, one realizes that jazz is the new prayer of the American masses, and Al Jolson is their cantor. The Negro makeup in which he expresses his misery is the appropriate talis [prayer shawl] for such a communal leader.' "

There is one other reason that could have persuaded Jolson to perform in blackface. According to Howard Pollack, in his biography of George Gershwin: "He [Jolson] did much of his most memorable work in blackface, according to one biographer, who argued that the "medium" allowed him to show 'an elan on the Broadway stage no other performer-black or white-would dare exhibit.' "

Later, Pollack described how Gilbert Seldes, an American writer and cultural critic, recalled the impact of Jolson performing "Swanee" in the 1919/1920 time period: "To have heard Al Jolson sing this song is to have had one of the few great experiences which the minor arts are capable of giving..."

Seldes went on: "Five years later I heard Jolson in a second-rate show, before an audience listless or hostile, sing this outdated and forgotten song, and create again, for each of us seated before him, the same image-and saw also the tremendous leap in vitality and happiness which took possession of the audience as he sang it. It was marvelous."

Countless people have described the unrestrained energy that flowed from Jolson to the audience; it was magic. In my personal opinion, I don't see how Jolson could have created this powerful impact without creating Gus. In some strange way, I believe that the audience was in awe of Gus, because they didn't really know Jolson. But there is one more element to this explanation, and it has to do with Jolson's underlying fear and pain from his personal life.

In 1921, getting ready to go give his first performance in another Sigmund Romberg musical, Bombo, Jolson "suffered from stage fright, walking up and down the streets for hours before show time. Out of fear, he lost his voice backstage and begged the stagehands not to raise the curtain. But when the curtains went up, he 'was [still] standing in the wings trembling and sweating.' After being physically shoved onto the stage by his brother Harry, he performed and received an ovation that he would never forget.' "

I think that Jolson always had to deal with fear when facing a live audience and that he only was able to control that fear when he was playing someone else-Gus.

In the next two posts, we will explore the three forms of secular African-American music and the African-American community's reaction to Gus and to Al Jolson.

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Al Jolson and His Signature Character Gus

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J.J. Shubert had signed Al Jolson because of Jolson's "overpowering display of energy." Jolson never wanted to leave the stage, especially when he had the audience in the palm of his hand. During his time on stage at the Winter Garden, his favorite phrase was "You ain't heard nothing yet."

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Broadway often embeds Jewish cultural codes, such as the shofar calls in Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. These elements create a shared experience that welcomes audiences into Jewish traditions. Songs like Winter Green for President also subtly challenge societal prejudices.

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The Original Broadway Cast Of "Of Thee I Sing"

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The Original Broadway Cast Of "Of Thee I Sing"

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The Original Broadway Cast Of "Of Thee I Sing"

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The Cipher Model of Jewish Representation

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The Cipher Model of Jewish Representation

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Jewish characters like Ali Hakim in Oklahoma! reflect the struggle of not fitting into society. This role, originally played by a Yiddish actor, symbolizes the broader experience of Jewish Americans. These characters add depth to narratives about cultural belonging.

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Stuart Hecht noted that Broadway has long been a stage for minority groups to seek acceptance. From The Color Purple to In the Heights, these stories echo Hammerstein's legacy. Jewish creators have often paved the way for broader cultural inclusion in musical theater.

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"It's ridiculous, when you think about it. Why are all these people quiet? Why do they shut up and quietly listen?" says Dame Helen Mirren in the documentary "On Broadway." "But they do. And it's something they've been doing for thousands of years, listening to someone telling a story." Though the same thing could be said about reading the Shabbat Torah portion, Mirren was reflecting on a different strange ritual: live theater.

"On Broadway" is a new documentary on the history of Broadway plays, musicals and the challenges of keeping the great American theater tradition alive. Helmed by Jewish director Oren Jacoby and produced by the same company behind 2018's " RBG," it couldn't have come at a more relevant time. It's been an "unprecedented" year for all of us, very much including Broadway, which abruptly shut its theaters in March of last year because of COVID-19 (the musical "Six" was just hours away from its opening night performance when everyone was told to pack up and go home instead).

Now, after a year and a half of darkness, Broadway has begun a tentative reopening process. "On Broadway" is both a welcome reminder of the particular power of live theater and a reflection on some of the other critical junctures in Broadway history that shed light on how Broadway could reinvent itself in the midst of this year's deluge of change (social, political, medical and more).

I talked to Jacoby, a lifetime theater-goer who has also worked in theater, who told me about how the idea for the film came to him by happenstance at a New Year's Eve party on the Upper West Side. It was there he met the film's executive producer Pat Shoenfeld, the 89-year-old widow of Jerry Shoenfeld - the former chairman of the Shubert Organization, one of the largest theater owners on Broadway. She told Jacoby about the time in the early '70s when "Broadway almost went away," Jacoby told me. "I said to Pat that this would be a great story to tell."

The film brings us back to the Broadway Golden Age of the 1940s and '50s, and describes how Broadway has had to remake itself a handful of times to keep up with the public's evolving tastes in a constant balancing act of art and commerce. In the late '60s and early '70s, major cultural and political shifts suddenly made Broadway seem old-fashioned. "In the early '70s, Broadway was so broke and the neighborhood was so bad that Broadway nearly disappeared," Jacoby said. New York City's tourism rates plummeted, and Broadway attendance was cut in half. "And the shows had become irrelevant to what people really cared about," Jacoby said.

So the theater business reinvented itself, again and again. The documentary describes the many modes of reinvention, from "A Chorus Line" to "The Lion King" to "Hamilton." The film is full of interviews with stars like Viola Davis, Ian McKellen, John Lithgow and Alexandra Billings, and brings us gems like Helen Mirren laughing about how much she loved the Broadway district of the '70s: "It was basically brothels and strip clubs. And I loved it like that. What can I say? I work in the theater! They're my kind of people!"

I enjoyed seeing how many prominent Jewish writers, directors and performers contributed to these changes over the decades. The Golden Age musicals became Hollywood movies and produced popular songs that played on the radio. They were defined by creative teams like Rodgers and Hammerstein - the Jewish, New York-born composer/lyricist duo behind blockbuster Golden Age musicals like "Oklahoma" and "Carousel." This era was also dominated by songwriters like Cole Porter ("Kiss Me Kate") along with Jewish musical theater titans: composer-lyricist brothers George and Ira Gershwin ("An American in Paris," "Porgy and Bess"), Leonard Bernstein ("West Side Story") and Irving Berlin ("Annie Get Your Gun"), who ironically was the songwriter behind the perennial Christmas hit "White Christmas." The celebrated composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim and director Hal Prince created shows like "Company" that brought an entirely new sensibility to the Broadway stage. "On Broadway" brings to light the massive change that Sondheim musicals introduced; they were more complex and sophisticated, more challenging, and their songs illuminated character and moved along the story. (One of the best parts of watching "On Broadway" was the Sondheim YouTube rabbithole it sent me down - you're welcome.)

Watching the film could make any theater-lover's mouth water. I hungrily watched behind the scenes of rehearsals for the Broadway play " The Nap," a British comedy written by Richard Bean and directed by Daniel Sullivan. It shows the uneasiness of early rehearsals, partially due to the financial challenges that face new plays that don't have splashy IP (think anything Disney or "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," the highest grossing straight play on Broadway). And the story of the goofy beginnings of the Andrew Lloyd Webster musical "Cats" is charming and funny, whatever your feelings are about the show.

One of the most interesting stories from the film was the conception of "A Chorus Line," created by Jewish director/choreographer/writer Michael Bennett who later died of AIDS. The musical pioneered the widely-used theater workshop model (when a show is modestly staged before officially premiering as part of its creation process; "Hamilton" began as a workshop, for example). The film then explores the devastation the AIDS crisis wreaked on the theater community, and interviews some of those who felt its effects. "Angels in America," the play by Jewish playwright Tony Kushner, and "Rent," the rock musical written by Jewish writer/composer Jonathan Larson, put the gritty, painful realities of the AIDS crisis front and center. There are parallels to be drawn between the AIDS epidemic and the current COVID-19 pandemic, and it made me wonder, as Broadway begins its recovery from another disease, if we'll eventually see onstage work that reflects the pain of this time. "I did a little research and found that when the plague hit London in the early 1600s, all the theaters were shut down on and off for four years, and it was a very difficult period," Jacoby told me. "And during those four years, Shakespeare wrote many of his greatest plays. 'Macbeth,' 'Antony and Cleopatra' ... Adversity often births creativity."

The film illuminates the ways that financial success and great art are often at odds with each other - several artists interviewed for the film bemoaned that many recent Broadway shows are more circus acts than theater. But the reverse can happen as well. "Fences," written by the great Black American playwright August Wilson, is still one of the most commercially successful straight plays ever, as it introduced new kinds of stories and new audiences to Broadway. "A key storyline for us was to trace how Broadway success over the past five decades has been driven more and more by how much it reflects the diversity of our society," Jacoby told me, "in terms of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity. People realize the theater has got to touch the hearts and the souls of a wide audience in a meaningful way."

The film includes an interview with August Wilson describing how he was inspired to write plays that embodied the spirit of the blues, and then shows a clip of James Earl Jones and Courtney B. Vance performing "Fences." It's during scenes like these that "On Broadway" really shines, reminding me what exceptional onstage performances look like - when you can see an actor breathing, see what he's doing with his hands. It's a reminder that sitting in front of live performers can be its own kind of powerful religious ritual. Live theater is great for the same reason that Avinu Malkeinu hits differently in synagogue than it does livestreamed via Zoom - some things just need to happen in person. But Jacoby was quick to add that the arts aren't just essential for the soul; they're also essential for the economy. "Broadway and important arts institutions are a huge economic engine for a city and a society," Jacoby added. "People think of the arts as something extra, a luxury, but they don't understand that the reverse is really true. You've got to support the arts. That's going to be a big thing driving our comeback after COVID."

When I see my first play since 2020, I'll be saying a Shehechiyanu.
"On Broadway" opens in New York on August 20 and in Los Angeles on August 27, followed by a national rollout.

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A Look Into the (Very Jewish) History of Broadway

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"It's ridiculous, when you think about it. Why are all these people quiet? Why do they shut up and quietly listen?" says Dame Helen Mirren in the documentary "On Broadway." "But they do. And it's something they've been doing for thousands of years, listening to someone telling a story."

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Cantors in Jewish temples perform powerful, resonant songs in expansive spaces, blending spirituality with performance. Leonard Bernstein, proud of his Jewish roots, drew inspiration from these traditions. His music often echoed this heritage, connecting religious and artistic expression.

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What Is A Cantor (Hazzan or Chazan)? | My Jewish Learning

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What is a Cantor? Jewish Syangoue and Religious Leaders. Jewish Prayer

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The Jewish Seder embodies a theatrical element, blending storytelling with symbolic actions. Each food item corresponds to a part of the Exodus narrative, creating a ritual rich in meaning. This performative tradition reflects the intersection of religion and culture.

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The Passover seder (literally, "order") is probably the most celebrated and beloved of Jewish home rituals. Many Jews have cherished memories of past family times spent at a seder. It is believed that the obligation to tell the story of the Exodus was observed by Jews ever since the actual Exodus itself. The scriptural command (Exodus 13:8) to tell the story of the Exodus to our children is interpreted as a positive commandment ().

The Purpose of the Seder

One of the four names for Passover - and sometimes the aspect most emphasized - is Hag ha-Herut (The Holiday of Freedom). Freedom is one of the primary themes of the seder. The seder permits Jews to worship God through prayer, study, and learning by taking part in what is essentially a lesson of Jewish history, literature, and religion. Participation in the seder lets one symbolically and vicariously relive the Exodus.
READ: Must-Know Words and Terms for Passover
There are some essential elements to the seder that underlie the retelling of the Exodus. The three fundamental patterns of the seder are the family, the individual, and the nation. As a home event involving the full family as well as guests, the seder draws together all age groups. It requires the participation of the old and the young. On the individual level, the seder requires every participant to feel as though he or she personally left Egypt. The national pattern of the seder symbolizes the first step toward the final redemption from slavery and the formation of the Jewish nation.

The Haggadah

The script for this central ritual of Passover is the Haggadah (literally, "telling"). It contains questions and answers, stories, show and tell, song, food as reward and symbol, pathos, and suspense. The creation of this script took place over hundreds of years at the beginning of the Common Era. There is evidence that parts of the seder were in a fixed format by the time of the Mishnah (second to third century CE). Midrashim were added and the current traditional version was fixed soon after.
READ: How to Choose a Passover Haggadah
Because every generation has managed to find its own significance in this wonderful teaching tool, there is now a plethora of Haggahs with added stories, songs, games, and pictures, to suit every political, spiritual, and religious point of view. You can now find liberal, mystical, feminist, ecological, children's, and even atheist Haggadahs. In order to tell the story, Jews have created an ingenious work of pedagogy.

The seder takes place following the Passover evening synagogue service on the first two nights of Passover (or just the first night in Israel and among some liberal Jews worldwide). The seder is supposed to take place with everyone in a reclining position. This is because slaves ate hurriedly; the affluent and free were able to recline on cushions. On erev Pesach (Passover eve), rich and poor are indistinguishable and all are free and thus privileged to recline. Many families have the tradition of placing pillows on each chair or at least having the seder leader follow this practice of reclining. It is also customary for the chief celebrant to wear a white robe called a .

The Seder Plate and Its Symbolism

There are a number of symbols that occur throughout the seder, but perhaps the focal point of the whole event is the seder plate. It contains a roasted shankbone, symbolizing the Pesach sacrifice in the Temple, a roasted egg symbolizing either the spring season or mourning (for the destruction of Jerusalem), (bitter herbs) to represent the bitter experience of the Hebrew slaves, (a mixture of apples, nuts, raisins, spices, wine) symbolizing the mortar the Hebrew slaves used to build for the Egyptians, and (parsley, celery, or another green vegetable) symbolizing the green of spring. The table must also have three pieces of , sometimes held in a special pouch.
READ: How to Prepare the Seder Plate
The seder service has a clear order, with each of 14 steps representing a different phase of the seder. Together, they serve to teach the lesson of the Exodus, God's saving the Jewish people from slavery. Much of the seder discussion focuses on God's might and the Divine role in redemption.

Four Cups, Four Questions, Four Sons

There are many instances of the number four throughout the seder: four cups of wine are drunk, four types of sons are discussed, four names for the Passover holiday, four blessings, four types of food on the seder plate. The most well-known example is the , or four questions. These questions, usually recited by the youngest person at the table, are meant to highlight the main differences between this meal and all other meals of the year. They are also a way of keeping young people interested and involved in the events of the seder. They include queries about why we recline, why we dip food, and why we eat certain types of food.

Another special part of the seder is the extra cup of wine left on the table for Elijah. The suspense and excitement engendered by sending a child to open the door for the prophet who will be a harbinger of messianic times is almost electric. The chanting of the song Dayenu ("it would have been enough"), a joyous recognition of God's numerous gifts to us in the course of the Exodus, is another highlight.

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The Passover (Pesach) Seder | My Jewish Learning

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The Passover seder (literally, "order") is probably the most celebrated and beloved of Jewish home rituals. Many Jews have cherished memories of past family times spent at a seder. It is believed that the obligation to tell the story of the Exodus was observed by Jews ever since the actual Exodus itself.

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From 1933 to 1945, the Holocaust claimed the lives of six million Jewish people and nine million total victims. This atrocity underscores the importance of celebrating Jewish culture and resilience. Its legacy is a call to combat hate and preserve heritage.

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Does the Holocaust Play an Outsized Role in Contemporary Jewish Identity? - Jewish Theological Seminary

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I am a Jewish historian—and that is a deliberately ambiguous label. In one reading of that phrase, I am a historian of Jewish people and their experiences. But I am also proudly Jewish myself and as such not neutral about my subjects. Jewish history is personal for me, as is my daily work at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. When I began to work at the Holocaust Museum in 1999, I was wary that I would contribute to what some see as an unhealthy obsession with Jewish victimization.

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Rene Girard’s concept of mimetic desire explains how societal conflicts lead to scapegoating. Jewish communities have historically been targets, unfairly blamed for economic or social challenges. This mechanism reflects broader patterns of projection and societal tension.

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Antisemitism defined: Scapegoating Jewish people - World Jewish Congress

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This trope is often used to falsely malign the Jewish people and paint them as a homogeneous group. The perpetrators of conspiracy myths, on the other hand, are portrayed as the lone hero attempting to unmask the secret powers of evil.

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Jewish stereotypes still exist today, with people believing that jews control the media, especially in Hollywood. These stereotypes are just untrue and yet they persist even tody.

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Too Jewish For Hollywood: As Antisemitism Soars, Hollywood Should Address Its Enduring Hypocrisy In Hyperbolic Caricatures of Jews

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As more Jewish roles are played by non-Jewish actors and become caricatures, Hollywood must face the fact that it’s spreading Antisemitism.

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Stereotypes about Jewish people, such as controlling media or being overly wealthy, stem from societal biases. These ideas, often fueled by anti-Semitic propaganda, have long been used to marginalize Jewish communities. Neo-Nazi narratives like the "liberal media" conspiracy perpetuate these harmful misconceptions.

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Anti-Semitism is experiencing a modern revival in popular media, not only in Canada but worldwide. While Canada, with the fourth largest Jewish population in the world, is not among the nations where anti-Semitism has increased most dramatically, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has nonetheless acknowledged violence against Jewish people as a significant problem in this country [1]. Awareness of media stereotypes and misrepresentations faced by the Jewish community is fundamental in countering this anti-Semitist resurgence with tolerance and acceptance.

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Jewish identity is a complex interplay of ethnicity, religion, and race. While Judaism is a faith, Jewish culture is passed down maternally, blending traditions and community. This multifaceted identity often challenges simplistic labels.

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international relations and national security

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What does it mean to be Jewish in the US? | CNN

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People can be Jewish and secular. They can convert into the faith. At various points in time, the Jewish people have been characterized as a nation, an ethnicity and a race.

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The roles of Jewish women in society and religion often shifted while trying to assimilate into the United States.

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Assimilation in the United States: Nineteenth Century | Jewish Women’s Archive

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Female German Jewish immigrants were uniquely impacted by both their gender and class during the process of their assimilation to American life. They began participating in voluntary social work, which secularized over time, reflecting the women’s increased sense of personal autonomy. Through their work, German Jewish women immigrants preserved Jewish tradition and expanded their roles beyond the home.

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Jewish immigrants often changed their names to blend into American society, a practice that raises questions about identity and assimilation. Leonard Bernstein stood against this trend, keeping his name as a declaration of pride. His choice highlighted the tension between embracing heritage and adapting to a new culture.

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A Jewish American Tale | The Jewish Story | Unpacked

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In 1830, only 4,000 Jewish people lived in the United States, but by 1880, this number had grown to 200,000. This significant increase reflects waves of immigration as Jewish families sought safety and opportunity. Their arrival shaped American culture, especially through contributions in the arts.

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A Century of Immigration, 1820-1924 - From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America | Exhibitions (Library of Congress)

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In the century spanning the years 1820 through 1924, an increasingly steady flow of Jews made their way to America, culminating in a massive surge of immigrants towards the beginning of the twentieth century.

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The 1950s were marked by strict rules governing clothes, behavior, and social norms. Yet, dance provided a unique sense of freedom for many young people, defying the rigidity of the time. As John McKeon reflected, "Dance looked like freedom—the only freedom this kid knew."

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1950s Teenagers Were Taught RULES. They Broke Every One In The 1960s

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The post-war baby boom created a new demographic: the teenager. By 1957, a baby was born every seven seconds in the U.S., ushering in the Baby Boomers. Unlike the Greatest Generation, these teens grew up in an era of consumerism, shaping a culture of rebellion and individuality.

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The concept of ‘the teenager’ is more recent than you think. What gave birth to the teenager? And what teen traits from back then continue to this day?

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From Conventional to Unconventional: A New Broadway Era

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From Conventional to Unconventional: A New Broadway Era

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As the 1960s began, Broadway musicals transitioned from traditional storytelling to experimental forms. Shows like The Fantasticks and Bye Bye Birdie reflected changing tastes, embracing simplicity, satire, and the emerging influence of rock and roll to captivate evolving audiences.

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America's Crossroads: From Squares to Hippies

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America's Crossroads: From Squares to Hippies

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The 1960s marked a cultural shift from the conformity of the 1950s to the rebellion of the hippie movement. This era challenged societal norms, blending influences like Beat poetry, rock music, and civil rights activism, paving the way for a more expressive and diverse cultural landscape.

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On March 8, 1965, two battalions of U.S. Marines landed on beaches of Da Nang, marking the first official engagement of American troops in the Vietnam War. Over the next several years, as the United States escalated its ill-fated involvement in that conflict, hundreds of thousands of Americans joined in mass protests across the country, repulsed and outraged by the terrible bloodshed taking place in Southeast Asia.

Though the anti-war movement had begun on college campuses at the dawn of the 1960 s, more and more people joined in opposition to the war in the latter half of the decade, as television brought images of its atrocities into American homes in a new level of excruciating detail.

The hippie counterculture, which emerged in the late 1960s and grew to include hundreds of thousands of young Americans across the country, reached its height during this period of escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War, and subsided as that conflict drew to a close. But hippies' rejection of mainstream American culture, and their distinctive brand of rebellion-including their long hair and beards, colorful style, psychedelic drug use, love of rock music and eco-conscious lifestyle-left a lasting impact on the nation in the decades to come.

Counterculture Prior to the Vietnam War

In many ways, the hippies of the 1960s descended from an earlier American counterculture: the Beat Generation. This group of young bohemians, most famously including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, made a name for themselves in the 1940s and '50s with their rejection of prevailing social norms, including capitalism, consumerism and materialism.

Centered in bohemian havens like San Francisco and the East Village of New York City, Beats embraced Eastern religions, experimented with drugs and a looser form of sexuality; their followers became known by the diminutive term " beatniks."

"What's significant about [the Beats] is that the movement was very small, it was literary-so it had a claustrophobic quality about it," explains William Rorabaugh, professor of history at the University of Washington and author of American Hippies (2015). "You weren't allowed to be in the group unless you were either a friend of or a poet."

Who Were the Hippies?

As the 1950s gave way to the 1960s, the Beats and beatniks gradually gave way to a new kind of counterculture: the hippies, who actually preferred to call themselves "freaks" or "love children." The hippies were much younger than the beatniks (they could even have been the Beats' children) and had a much different style. They listened to folk and rock music, not jazz; they dressed flamboyantly, in bright colors, where the Beats and beatniks had favored shades of black and grey. Ripped jeans, bell bottoms, tie-dyed clothing and flowers worn in the hair were all big parts of the typical hippie style.

The biggest difference between the hippies and the Beats? " LSD came on the scene," Rorabaugh says. "The hippie counterculture, more than anything else, was about taking LSD. Seeking spiritual perfection through drugs, but particularly through psychedelic drugs."

The vast majority of hippies were young, white, middle-class men and women who felt alienated from mainstream middle-class society and resented the pressure to conform to the "normal" standards of appearance, employment or lifestyle. By wearing their hair long and growing beards (for the men), taking drugs and exploring spirituality outside of the confines of the Judeo-Christian tradition, hippies sought to find more meaning in life-or at least have a good time.

Though the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco and New York City's East Village were famous hippie meccas, the movement thrived all over the country.

In a cover story published in July 1967, during the "Summer of Love," Time magazine reported that the hippie movement was "blooming in every major U.S. city from Boston to Seattle, from Detroit to New Orleans," encompassing some 300,000 people. Many hippies eventually chose to move outside the city, where the cost of living was lower. (Hippies were perennially broke.)

On a growing number of rural communes, hippies joined disaffected political radicals and Vietnam draft dodgers in embracing back-to-the-land living, including free love, organic farming, vegetarianism, holistic medicine and a lot of marijuana use.

Among the various groups that made up the vibrant '60s counterculture in the United States-including the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers, gay rights and women's liberation activists, anarchists and other political radicals-hippies stood out for their relative lack of a distinct political ideology. Hippie politics was more a "politics of no politics," Rorabaugh says. "One of the things hippies said was 'you should do your own thing, you should do whatever you feel like doing.'"

All the same, it's no accident that the path of the hippie movement that emerged in the late '60s traced very closely the trajectory of American involvement in Vietnam. Hippies saw mainstream authority as the origin of all society's ills, which included the war. According to Rorabaugh, hippies joined with political radicals in their support for the civil rights movement and their opposition to the Vietnam War. "Hippies would agree with that, but they would not protest," he points out. "That was the difference-hippies were not protesters."

The most identifiably political hippie group was the Diggers, an anarchist organization formed in 1966 in San Francisco. They were known for passing out free food to the hippies panhandling in Golden Gate Park, and operating a free store (stocked with stolen goods) that would provide clothing for draft dodgers and AWOL soldiers seeking to go incognito. Like the Diggers, the Yippies, or the Youth International Party (YIP) founded in early 1968, also tried to attract hippies to politics, with little success.

In addition to the Summer of Love, that hippie heyday in 1967 when some 100,000 people from around the country converged on Haight-Ashbury, the most famous celebration of hippie counterculture occurred in August 1969 at the Woodstock Music Festival. Advertised as "three days of peace, music and love," Woodstock "brought both political people and counterculture people together," Rorabaugh says. Indeed, somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 people, far more than its organizers originally expected, flocked to upstate New York to hear artists like Joan Baez, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Creedence Clearwater Revival play the music that fueled the hippie movement.

Decline and Lasting Effects of the Hippie Movement

In some ways, the Summer of Love also marked the beginning of the end for the hippie movement, as drugs, homelessness and crime had infested Haight-Ashbury, pushing out many of the neighborhood's original residents. In October 1967, the Diggers held a "Death of the Hippie March" in San Francisco to decry the commercialization of hippie culture. The march ended at the famed Psychedelic Shop, an early hippie hangout that was closing. Marchers buried the shop's signs, marking a symbolic death for the hippie heyday.

On November 15, 1969, several months after Woodstock, growing opposition to the Vietnam War culminated in the largest antiwar demonstration in U.S. history, with as many as half a million people attending a protest in Washington, D.C., in addition to smaller protests around the country. A month later, violence broke out at another hippie gathering, the Altamont Music Festival, leaving five people dead. When combined with other acts of violence, including the gruesome Manson Murders of 1969 and the National Guard shootings of students at Kent State in 1970, Altamont brought the free-wheeling attitudes of the "love generation" crashing down into a more sordid reality.

By the time U.S. participation in the Vietnam War ended in 1973, the media had largely lost interest in the hippie movement, even though many of the hippies' formerly radical style choices (beards, sideburns and long hair on men, for example) had been adopted by mainstream American culture. But the communes, which endured until the mid-'70s and even longer, in some cases, would be the source of many of the hippies' lasting legacies, including pro-environmental attitudes and practices that are still very much in force today.

"Natural food, organic food, eating local, co-op groceries-all of that came out of the communes," Rorabaugh says. "Also a looser style of child-rearing, and more casual attitudes about sex. And solar panels-Northern California hippie communes were the first people to have solar panels in 1970. They did it because they needed some hot water for washing dishes. They were off the grid, and they didn't want anything to do with the utility company."

Though some hippies remained committed to the lifestyle for the long haul, many others assimilated themselves into the mainstream culture they had once despised. Perhaps the most famous of these, Rorabaugh says, was Steve Jobs, founder of Apple.

Jobs, who embraced Buddhism after a trip to India in the early '70s, "conceived of the idea of personal computer as putting computer power in the hands of ordinary people, and taking it away from IBM," as Rorabaugh puts it. "Taking computer power away from giant corporations and giving it to ordinary people"-what could be more anti-establishment than that?

Fact Check

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How the Vietnam War Empowered the Hippie Movement | HISTORY

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The hippie counterculture reached its height during the war's escalation, and subsided as the conflict drew to a close.

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Chita Rivera became a defining figure of the transition from traditional to contemporary musicals. From West Side Story to Bye Bye Birdie, her talent and versatility made her an icon, bridging the golden age of Broadway with its evolving, rock-influenced future.

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How to Succeed in Business Without Really trying has often been criticized for having very surface level female character. Many of the female characters in this show don't have much beyond being secretaries and victims of sexual harassment. There have been a few productions where genders are swapped which brings to light how little thought had been put into writing female characters when this show was written.

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How to succeed in business without being completely offensive

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It’s funny, it’s wacky, and it makes a statement; this spring’s musical, “How to succeed in business without really trying,” takes a South High twist on a dated broadway show. With a live orchestra of over 30 south students, an ever changing set, and catchy songs that’ll get stuck in your head, the performance is…

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How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961): Satirizing Success

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How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961): Satirizing Success

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This musical offered a witty critique of corporate America, following a protagonist’s rise to power through cunning rather than merit. Choreographed by Bob Fosse, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, reflecting the transition from traditional narratives to satirical takes on societal norms.

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Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser
"A sassy, gay, and exhilarating evening... A bland and caustic kidding of the American success story goes on all evening, without ever losing its frosty and lunatic attitude."
- Walter Kerr, Herald Tribune

History

In 1955, when Shepherd Mead's book "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" became a huge success, playwright Willie Gilbert and neurosurgeon Jack Weinstock created a dramatic adaptation. But the play remained unproduced until 1960, when theatrical agent Abe Newborn brought it to the attention of producers, Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin, who thought it could work as a Broadway musical. Feuer and Martin had had a huge success with "Guys and Dolls" in 1950 and asked the authors of that show, bookwriter Abe Burrows and composer/lyricist Frank Loesser, to write the adaptation. Rehearsals began in August, 1961, with Abe Burrows directing and Frank Loesser co-producing.

Robert Morse was cast as Finch, the ambitious window washer, with Charles Nelson Reilly as Bud Frump (the boss's equally ambitious nephew), Bonnie Scott as Rosemary (a secretary with her sites on Finch), and 1930s recording star Rudy Vallee as J.B. Biggley (the stuffy philandering company president). Choreography was credited to both Hugh Lambert and Bob Fosse, although Lambert's contribution was reportedly minimal.

The show opened on October 14, 1961, running for 1,417 performances, winning multiple Tony Awards (including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Director of a Musical, Best Actor in a Musical, Best Supporting Actor in a Musical, and Best Musical Director), a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama - only the fourth awarded to a musical. A London production followed, starring Warren Berlinger and Billy De Wolfe, resulting in a second cast album. A film version was produced by United Artists in 1967 with Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee recreating their Broadway roles.

Awards

Tony Awards: Best Musical, Best Book; Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Drama Critics Circle Award

Short Synopsis

With the help of an instructional guide, J. Pierrepont Finch is determined to succeed in business - without really trying. Encountering a corporate bigwig, a romantically-inclined secretary, a wily competitor, and a sexy ex-cigarette girl with ambitions of her own, the intrepid Finch dodges, parries and plans until victory is his. "How to Succeed..." is a comic masterpiece of satire and song, a loving and laughing tribute to the ambitious window washer in all of us.

Reviews
"The definitive musical about high life in the city... perfect musical comedy construction, swift, sharp, jam-packed with characters and incident and clear-headed as it moves unerringly through an interesting and funny story. Loesser is the perfect man for his end of the show - the songs; for he is a cynic without being tough. He has not put in a note of music or a syllable of lyric that doesn't carry the story along."
- John Chapman, Daily News
"A brilliant musical comedy in which everything works out. In its first performance at the 46th St. Theater Saturday night, its satire, humor, book, music, lyrics, cast, staging, choreography, setting and general gaiety of spirit combined in a smooth, fast pattern of expert showmanship to make the occasion a delightful event."
- Richard Watts, Jr., New York Post
"It stings mischievously and laughs uproariously...It belongs to the blue chips among modern musicals. Let Wall Street and Madison Avenue tremble as the rest of us rejoice. Imagine a combination of Horatio Alger and Machiavelli"
- Howard Taubman, The New York Times
"The most inventive and stylized and altogether infectious new musical in recent recollection...The score by Mr. Loesser is not great by 'pop' standards; it is better than that. All the music has been integrated into the plot, to fit the mood as well as the momentum. His lyrics are generally superb; thoughtful, witty, and often hilarious."
- John McClain, Journal-American

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How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying - Frank Loesser

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Frank Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and music to award winning Broadway musicals, Films and more.

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Teeth is a new musical that explores the consequences of purity culture in very unique way. It raises questions about the violence that comes out of purity culture and how it relies on victim blaming in order to keep teenagers from having sex. This obviously does not work.

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“Teeth” Bites Back Against Purity Culture: On Michael R. Jackson and Anna K. Jacob’s Musical - The Theatre Times

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With 32 thematic sections, more than 150 Regional Managing Editors, covering theatre in 90 countries and regions, and over 60 media partners around the world, we are the largest global theatre portal today. Follow us today!

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The Pressure for Purity: Teenagers and Fear

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The Pressure for Purity: Teenagers and Fear

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The 1950s obsession with purity placed immense pressure on teenagers, particularly regarding sexuality. Media feared the connection between music, sex, and delinquency, reflecting societal anxieties. These cultural tensions shaped the narratives of musicals and popular entertainment.

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Teenagers of the 1950s embraced unique styles like poodle skirts and defied societal rules against jeans. This era saw a clash between traditional values and youthful expression, with materialism on the rise and the commercialization of teen culture becoming a dominant force.

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Bye Bye Birdie (1960): Rock and Roll on Broadway

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Bye Bye Birdie (1960): Rock and Roll on Broadway

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Bye Bye Birdie celebrated the rise of rock and roll and teenage culture. With Chita Rivera in a leading role, the musical brought youthful energy to Broadway. It marked a turning point, showcasing rock music’s influence on American theater and its embrace of unconventional themes.

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Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera sing "Rosie" from Bye Bye Birdie (2017)

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Tin Pan Alley: A New Home in the Brill Building

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Tin Pan Alley: A New Home in the Brill Building

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The Brill Building became the new hub for Tin Pan Alley in the 1950s and 1960s, producing iconic songwriters like Carole King, Neil Diamond, and Phil Spector. This era blended the past with the emerging sounds of rock and roll, shaping the future of American music.

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Located at 1619 Broadway in New York City, the Brill Building was the hub of professionally written rock and roll. As the 1960s equivalent of Tin Pan Alley, it reemphasized a specialized division of labour in which professional songwriters worked closely with producers and artists-and-repertoire personnel to match selected artists with appropriate songs.

The professionalization of rock and roll was anticipated in the late 1950s by the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who wrote and produced their biggest hits with the Coasters and the Drifters. While their successors sometimes filled the roles of producer and writer, the Brill Building professionals tended to focus more narrowly on elevating the craft of songwriting. The flagship company of Brill Building pop music (actually located across the street at 1650 Broadway) was Aldon Music, founded by Al Nevins and Don Kirshner. Brill Building-era songwriting teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, and Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman were to rock and roll what Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and George and Ira Gershwin were to Tin Pan Alley. The difference was that the writers of Brill Building pop understood the teenage idiom and wrote almost exclusively for a youth audience. Teen idols Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka (who teamed with Howard Greenfield), Gene Pitney, and Bobby Darin also had careers composing Brill Building pop. On the other hand, Aldon writer King went on to achieve stardom as a singer-songwriter in the 1970s.

Working in assembly-line fashion in small rooms containing upright pianos, these writers turned out their share of teen drivel-Connie Francis's "Stupid Cupid" (Sedaka and Greenfield) and James Darren's "Her Royal Majesty" (Goffin and King)-but at their best they married the excitement and urgency of rhythm and blues to the brightness of mainstream pop-Goffin and King's "Up on the Roof" for the Drifters and "A Natural Woman" for Aretha Franklin. Nowhere was this union stronger than in the classic hits of the girl groups of the early 1960s: Goffin and King's " Will You Love Me Tomorrow" for the Shirelles and "One Fine Day" for the Chiffons and Mann and Weil's "Uptown" and Pitney's " He's a Rebel" for the Crystals. Producer Phil Spector was perhaps the Brill Building's biggest customer as well as a frequent collaborator. He worked variously with Greenwich and Barry, Goffin and King, and Mann and Weil to cowrite material for the Crystals, the Ronettes, the Dixie Cups, and the Righteous Brothers.

Brill Building professionals often wrote with intelligence and wit but less frequently with substance. As Bob Dylan and the Beatles ushered in an era of artists who wrote more personal and topical material, the Brill Building declined as a force in popular music.

Reebee Garofalo

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The Brill Building: Assembly-Line Pop | Music, Songwriting

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Located at 1619 Broadway in New York City, the Brill Building was the hub of professionally written rock and roll. As the 1960s equivalent of Tin Pan Alley, it reemphasized a specialized division of labour in which professional songwriters worked closely with producers and artists-and-repertoire

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The Fantasticks (1960): Simplicity That Endures

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The Fantasticks (1960): Simplicity That Endures

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The Fantasticks introduced minimalism to the musical stage, using metaphors of sun and moon to explore love and growth. Its stripped-down production became a cultural phenomenon, running for over 17,000 performances and surviving 10 presidencies. Its humor and heart captivated audiences for decades.

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The Fantasticks: The Little Musical That Could

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The first 15,000 shows are the hardest. Just ask Lore Noto. “I look at it this way,” says the irrepressible stoic who has been the producer of The Fantasticks from Day One May 3, 1960 until now. “If The Mousetrap closed in London tonight , we’d still have to run eight more years just to catch up.”

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The Beat Poets: A New Voice for a New Era

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The Beat Poets: A New Voice for a New Era

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The Beat poets of the 1950s and 1960s rejected conformity and embraced existential questions, sexual liberation, and anti-war sentiments. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl exemplified their radical spirit, challenging norms and inspiring a generation to question the status quo.

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In the 1940s and 50s, a new generation of poets rebelled against the conventions of mainstream American life and writing. They became known as the Beat Poets--a name that evokes weariness, down-and-outness, the beat under a piece of music, and beatific spirituality. At first, they organized in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. By the 1950s, poets at the heart of the movement had settled in the Bay Area, especially in neighborhoods near Beat poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti's bookstore, City Lights.

Beat poets sought to write in an authentic, unfettered style. "First thought, best thought" was how central Beat poet Allen Ginsberg described their method of spontaneous writing. Poetically experimental and politically dissident, the Beat poets expanded their consciousnesses through explorations of hallucinogenic drugs, sexual freedom, Eastern religion, and the natural world. They took inspiration from jazz musicians, surrealists, metaphysical poets, visionary poets such as William Blake, and haiku and Zen poetry. In his article "Driving the Beat Road," Jeff Weiss explains, "More than a half-century after their emergence, the Beats still offer up wild style, a sense of freedom and wonder for the natural world almost unrivaled in postwar literature."

Beat poetry emerged from the disillusionment that followed World War II, a period of unimaginable atrocities including the Holocaust and the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. Following the end of the war, the United States and the Soviet Union quickly entered a Cold War, a period of geopolitical hostility that created paranoia and cultural and political repression at home.

By the mid-1950s, the Beats helped to spearhead a cultural vanguard reacting against institutionalized American values, materialism, and conformity. On October 7, 1955, the Beats gave their first major public poetry reading, a seminal event held at Six Gallery in San Francisco. Among the five poets to perform their work was Allen Ginsberg, who first read " Howl," a poem in the tradition of Walt Whitman that Ginsberg described as "an emotional time bomb that would continue exploding... the military-industrial-nationalistic complex."

The collection that follows offers a sampling of work by poets associated with the Beat generation, including Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Michael McClure, and Diane Di Prima, along with essays, audio recordings, and discussions about their work and suggestions for further reading. You can explore more Beat poets here.

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An introduction to the mid-century countercultural poets who helped define a generation.

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Camelot (1960): A Tale of Idealism and Tragedy

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Camelot (1960): A Tale of Idealism and Tragedy

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Camelot encapsulated the era's waning idealism. Despite its initial struggles, Ed Sullivan’s promotion and JFK's admiration elevated its legacy. The musical’s themes of love, betrayal, and the end of an idyllic age resonated with the societal shifts of the 1960s, symbolizing the death of cultural innocence.

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On December 3, 1960 the musical Camelot opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. The musical tells the story of the court of King Arthur and his Queen Guenevere, and of the knights of the round table. The music was composed by Frederick Loewe and the lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. The musical would…

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When The Music Man movie came out, it was pushed hard towards audiences because it  “idealized vision of life in the USA could be easily reproduced and distributed to audiences around the globe.” This was seen as a way to fight against communism. “River City’s entirely white world offered viewers a fantasy of unchallenged white privilege,”

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How a Beloved Musical Became a Cold War Weapon - JSTOR Daily

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The 1962 film The Music Man was seen as so all-American that some hoped it would help win the Cold War by transmitting American values abroad.

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The Music Man (1957): Small-Town Revival

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The Music Man (1957): Small-Town Revival

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Meredith Willson's The Music Man reflected nostalgia for small-town America while addressing contemporary fears of juvenile delinquency. Harold Hill, a con man, reforms through music, echoing the era's belief in moral guidance and community. The musical’s intricate lyrics and heartwarming story captured the hearts of audiences.

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Elvis Presley played a pivotal role in bridging racial divides in music, acting as a "white gateway" to Black music for mainstream America. His impact on teenagers was profound, blending rock and roll with an edgy persona that challenged the era’s puritanical values and sparked cultural shifts. But... what did black artists think of Presley?

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Elvis: What Did Black Artists of the Era Really Think of Presley?

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Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic shows the singer in harmony with artists such as B.B. King and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. But how true is that portrayal?

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The 1950s were a decade of strict societal rules, from clothing to dancing. Yet, amidst the rigidity, dance emerged as a symbol of freedom for teenagers. As John McKeon put it, "Dance looked like freedom. The only freedom this kid knew." This tension between conformity and rebellion defined the era.

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The Life of a 1950s Teenager
Richard Powers

World War II had ended but the world felt far from safe, between the new war in Korea, frightening talk of the Communist menace, and the threat of nuclear war. If there was a national priority in America in the 1950s, it was to create a safe, secure, calm and orderly community in which millions of post-war Americans could start a family.

First phase: marginalization. Sandwiched in between the generations of new postwar families and their boom of babies was a generation of teenagers. Teens were marginalized by the adults, who didn't want to be bothered with the very different values of teenagers. There were a few television shows aimed at young children, nothing for teenagers, and nothing on the radio speaking to teen life. Teenagers felt left out, ignored, disenfranchised.

Then the teens started to hear music about their world - songs about high school sweethearts, wild parties and fast cars, sung by other teens. They were hungry for some recognition of their generation, some validation, and when it came, they embraced it. Momentum started to build as this generation developed their own image and style, combined with the purchasing power of an increasingly influential demographic. The word "teen-ager" was newly coined at this time.

Second phase: condemnation. With the increased teen presence came disapproval, as marginalization and indifference turned into active condemnation of teenagers by parents and local authorities. Teen dances were shut down, rock'n'roll records were banned, and students were expelled for a multitude of rule infractions.

There have always been inter-family conflicts between parents and their adolescent children, but this cultural division was larger. A significant proportion of the adult generation disapproved of the values and lifestyle of the teens, and were doing something about it, including setting new rules, restrictions and prohibitions.

● Boy's hair touching the ears wasn't allowed, punishable by expulsion from school.
● Most girls weren't allowed to wear pants, and boys weren't allowed to wear blue jeans. Even progressive Stanford University prohibited the wearing of jeans in public during the 1950s.
● The new slang bothered most adults. It was part African American, part beatnik and part street gang... an offensive combination in the eyes of the status quo.
● There was alarm about teens dating and "heavy petting." Any talk about sex was taboo and could be punishable.
● Many parents were worried about their daughters adoring black rock musicians, fearing the possibility of racial commingling.
● Hot rods were considered dangerous. All it took was a few fatal accidents and the other 99% of the custom cars and hot rods were considered a menace to public safety.
● Dancing to rock'n'roll music was often banned, with school and teen dances shut down.

John McKeon recalled,

"What I remember most about the 50s were rules. Rules, rules, rules... for everything. Rules about clothes - which clothes you could wear when. Rules about church. Rules about streets. Rules about play.
"The dance rules were different. Dance with girls and hold this hand, but then... you could do whatever you wanted to do! Dance looked like freedom. The only freedom this kid knew."

The older generations were especially worried about "juvenile delinquency." Yes, some teen violence and street gangs did exist,
and those instances were widely publicized in newspapers and magazines. But for most teens, this didn't mean dealing in street drugs or drive-by shootings, but rather using street slang, souping up a hot rod and talking back to parents.

Rock'n'roll music was attacked on all fronts, with records banned and smashed. Radio DJs were ordered not to play certain songs; rock singers (especially Elvis) were condemned; and the career of rock promoter Alan Freed, the man who named the music rock'n'roll, was destroyed by a government investigation.

To quote Michael Ventura, Gary Stewart and Billy Vera, who were there:

For one thing, for us white kids, the real '50s was only the latter half of the decade, because we didn't have rock'n'roll until well into 1955, and in terms of popular culture the decade would hardly be worth mentioning without rock'n'roll. For another, the feel of the time has not only been forgotten but also erased. And there's no way to grasp the subversive force of this now-innocent-sounding music unless you can feel a little of what it meant to be a kid hearing it as it was played for the first time.

It was music that was made for teenagers and scared the hell out of adults; it was taboo-shattering music about-gasp-sex and racial commingling. That's why records were burned, censorship laws were passed, and some lives were ruined. Because this was the devil's music, and it was threatening the status quo.

But you couldn't stop anything this real. It hit you where you lived. It belonged to the kids and only the kids. It set them apart. It gave them something to believe in. Rock'n' roll was their joy. It was their freedom. It is still so today.

On to the dances of the 1950s

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The Life of a 1950s Teenager Richard Powers World War II had ended but the world felt far from safe, between the new war in Korea, frightening talk of the Communist menace, and the threat of nuclear war.

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The Birth of the Teenager: A Cultural Shift

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The Birth of the Teenager: A Cultural Shift

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The 1950s marked the dawn of the "teenager" as a distinct demographic. The post-war baby boom brought an influx of young people who defied traditional norms. Music and movies like Rebel Without a Cause and The Wild Ones reflected their rebellion against societal expectations, creating a fear of juvenile delinquency fueled by the connection of music, sex, and youth.

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The term "teenager" was first introduced to the American public in the 1940s as a moniker coined by advertising executives looking to sell their products to a new audience. The concept of a distinct "youth culture" had begun to develop in the 1920s, but throughout the Great Depression and World War II, young Americans were expected to put aside any frivolous activities or unnecessary spending for the sake of the nation's well-being.

The 1950s were marked by the emergence of a distinct teen culture. Seeking to distance themselves from the culture of their parents, teenagers turned to rock and roll music and youth-oriented television programs and movies-all packaged for them through new marketing strategies targeting their demographic.

Teen culture in the 1950s also marked an important shift in American race relations. Most teenagers during this time attended segregated or near-segregated schools, and interracial interaction was limited. However, rock and roll appealed to teenagers from many backgrounds, and rock concerts often hosted mixed-race audiences. White teenagers embraced the music of African American musicians like Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Chuck Berry, while African American teenagers listened to white rock and rollers, such as Elvis.

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The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.

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West Side Story: A Reflection of Urban America

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West Side Story: A Reflection of Urban America

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By setting West Side Story in New York, Bernstein and his collaborators captured the tensions of urban life. Its themes of love and conflict resonated with contemporary audiences, making it a powerful reflection of 1950s America. The show's innovative approach continues to inspire.

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Stephen Sondheim on how "West Side Story" was almost "East Side Story"

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The suburban boom of the 1950s provided the perfect backdrop for musicals. As families sought leisure activities, shows like South Pacific (1949) and Guys and Dolls (1950) became household staples. This connection highlights how musicals mirrored and influenced societal trends.

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The rise of television brought musicals into American homes, expanding their reach. By 1958, 83.2% of households had TVs, making shows like Annie Get Your Gun (1946) and The Most Happy Fella widely accessible. This era cemented musicals as a cultural mainstay.

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Gypsy delved into the complexities of family and ambition, with Rose's character defying traditional maternal archetypes. The collaboration between Sondheim and Styne resulted in emotionally charged songs that deepened character exploration, setting new benchmarks for musical theater.

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My Fair Lady transformed Shaw's intellectual play into an accessible musical. Lerner's lyrics and Loewe's compositions created a seamless blend of humor and emotion. Its ability to appeal to diverse audiences underscores its enduring legacy.

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West Side Story: The Collaborative Genius

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West Side Story: The Collaborative Genius

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The collaboration of Bernstein, Sondheim, Laurents, and Robbins made West Side Story a masterpiece. Sondheim's lyrics and Robbins' choreography set new standards for the genre. Despite losing to The Music Man at the Tonys, its cultural impact remains unparalleled.

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Bernstein's Candide critiqued political and social norms, blending satire with operetta. Though it flopped commercially, its bold themes and complex score left a lasting impression. It stands as a testament to Bernstein's commitment to pushing artistic boundaries.

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Loesser’s career spanned film, stage, and wartime entertainment. With works like The Most Happy Fella (1956), he pushed vocal boundaries, integrating operatic elements into musicals. His versatility highlighted the genre's capacity for artistic expansion.

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Frank Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and music to award winning Broadway musicals, Films and more.

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Home

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The rise of car culture and suburban living influenced how Americans consumed entertainment. Drive-ins and strip malls became central to leisure, creating a broader audience for musicals. The accessibility of theater and film adaptations further cemented musicals as a cultural cornerstone.

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The History of Drive-In Movie Theaters (and Where They Are Now)

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Do you know the history of the classic movie experience? Some of these once popular venues are still around! Learn more today.

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My Fair Lady: Lerner and Loewe’s Collaboration

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My Fair Lady: Lerner and Loewe’s Collaboration

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The partnership of Lerner and Loewe brought a fresh perspective to musical adaptations. Lerner's Harvard background and Loewe's improvisational skills combined to create My Fair Lady. Their synergy elevated the genre, blending sophisticated storytelling with memorable melodies.

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Music History Monday: My Fair Lady and the Making of a Partnership | Robert Greenberg

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We mark the opening performance on March 15, 1956 – 65 years ago today – of the Broadway musical My Fair Lady at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York City.

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Are Musicals Still for the Middle Class?

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Are Musicals Still for the Middle Class?

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Here's a reddit thread I found discussing how expensive Broadway tickets have become. These days it is more expensive to go see a live show, making it feel as though live theatre is catering more towards upper rather than middle class. This may also be due to the large gap that is once again beginning to form between upper and lower class.

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During the Golden Age, owning records of musicals symbolized cultural sophistication. Productions like The Music Man (1957) reflected traditional values, while works like West Side Story pushed societal boundaries. This duality illustrates the role of musicals in shaping and reflecting American identity.

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College of Arts and Sciences - University of Washington

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When American leaders discuss how immigration has shaped the United States, they never mention musical theater. Perhaps they should.

"There would be no Broadway musicals if America's doors had not been opened wide to immigrants," says David Armstrong, affiliate instructor in the UW School of Drama, who views the rise of the Broadway musical as largely an immigration story. Armstrong shares that history in a new course, The Broadway Musical: How Immigrants, Queers, Jews, and African Americans Created America's Signature Art Form.

Armstrong's lifelong passion for musical theater began when he was just seven years old. His mother, intending to take him and his sister to see the film Dumbo, mistakenly took them to the film musical Gypsy instead, about a stripper. He was mesmerized.

"Fortunately my mother was not uptight, so she didn't make us leave the theater," laughs Armstrong, whose career in theater has included 18 years as executive producer and artistic director of Seattle's 5th Avenue Theater. "I'm interested in all kinds of theater, but I think musical theater is the most impactful because it affects us on all levels - intellectual, physical, and emotional."

Armstrong explains that musical theater got its start following a huge wave of Irish immigration in the late 1800s. Of particular importance was George M. Cohan, whose grandparents were among those Irish immigrants. Cohan was a writer, director, producer, and performer who launched musical theater as a distinct genre in the early 1900s. "This was the era of 'Irish need not apply,'" says Armstrong. "Discrimination against Irish immigrants was rampant. When George M. Cohan stood on stage and sang 'I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,' that was a huge political statement."

Around the same time, Jewish immigrants arrived from Eastern Europe and African Americans moved to New York from the South, further developing the art form. Like the Irish, these groups faced discrimination and had few opportunities for advancement. But the middle- and upper-class audiences that attended theater performances looked down on performing as a profession, leaving that field wide open for the lower classes. For those who had talent, musical theater was a way out of poverty.

That was the case for Irving Berlin, who came to the U.S. from Russia at age five and grew up dancing for pennies on the Lower East Side. With little education and no formal musical training, Berlin became America's songwriter laureate, writing thousands of songs including God Bless America, White Christmas, and Easter Parade, as well as 17 complete scores for Broadway musicals and revues, including Annie Get Your Gun.

Renowned songwriter Cole Porter and other members of the queer community were also among those working at the highest levels of musical theater from the start. "For the queer community, the early 20 th century was a very open period," says Armstrong. "People were not quite openly gay, but almost. They were valued and largely accepted in that world."

Armstrong features all of these musical theater pioneers in his course, weaving in the huge influence of African American writers and performers, and the less visible but significant contribution of women working as songwriters, lighting designers, and choreographers. He then traces the bumpy road of musical theater, which has included periods of great popularity followed by decline and evolution.

The genre's first decline came during the Great Depression, when only the sophisticated elite could afford tickets. The number of productions dropped by half, and shows became more urbane and sophisticated to attract an audience. Hollywood began producing film musicals during this period, broadening the audience. Then in 1943, Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma came to Broadway. It integrated its story, song, and dance more cohesively than any show before, ushering a Golden Age for musicals that would last nearly 30 years.

"All of the classics come from that period," says Armstrong, who explains that before Oklahoma, operettas, revues, and musical comedies were entertaining but very loosely constructed. Oklahoma 's new form and phenomenal success led to other shows built around story and characters. "It was an evolution, but it felt more like a transformation," says Armstrong. "It became a much more impactful art form."

Another shakeup came with the Vietnam War, when a growing cynicism led to shows like Cabaret and Sweeney Todd that featured darker themes and antiheroes. Broadway composers initially chafed at the popularity of rock and roll music, but eventually incorporated rock and other pop styles, a trend that has continued. Today's widely successful Hamilton, featuring hip hop music, has ushered in another Renaissance and introduced a new generation to Broadway.

Most students are familiar with Hamilton, but homework assignments introduce them to shows that came before. Armstrong assigns film versions of selected musicals, often pairing shows from different eras to explore thematic similarities. (Both Gypsy and Hairspray, for example, feature transgressive women who refuse to follow the rules.) He also presents clips in class, and has students attend a UW production and two musicals at the 5 th Avenue Theater during the quarter - the latter at a fraction of the usual price thanks to his connections.

Through this immersion, students discover common themes in musicals. The most ubiquitous is race, from Showboat in the 1920s to West Side Story in the 1950s to Hamilton today. "Over the 120-year history of musical theater, about 37 musicals have dealt with race as principal subject matter," says Armstrong, who spends a full class session exploring the theme.

Toward the end of the quarter, students will dream up their own ideas for a new musical, which they will pitch to a panel of industry professionals, hoping to demonstrate how their story would benefit from this unique form of storytelling. The students are unlikely to come up with the next Hamilton, but Armstrong hopes the class project, and the course, will forever change the way they look at musicals.

"After this class, these students will never see musicals the same way again," says Armstrong. "They will have an appreciation for the form, and see it as an important cultural touchstone. It is our great American art form, and I'm thrilled to share it."

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The Surprising History of Musical Theater

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When American leaders discuss how immigration has shaped the United States, they never mention musical theater. Perhaps they should. "There would be no Broadway musicals if America's doors had not been opened wide to immigrants," says David Armstrong, affiliate instructor in the UW School of Drama, who views the rise of the Broadway musical as largely an immigration story.

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The 1959 musical Gypsy focused on family dynamics and ambition, with songs like "Rose's Turn" pushing the boundaries of character development. Originally conceived as a dream ballet, the song became a medley of the show's themes, showcasing Sondheim's lyrical ingenuity and expanding musical storytelling.

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"Rose's Turn" ~ Patti LuPone (GYPSY꞉ Broadway, 2008)

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The 1950s, marked by fears of communism and nuclear annihilation, also influenced musicals. Productions like Candide (1956) tackled social commentary, though its critique of McCarthyism led to its commercial failure. These works reflect how anxiety shaped artistic expression during the Cold War.

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Racial Anxiety: Musicals Confront Social Change

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Racial Anxiety: Musicals Confront Social Change

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Racial tensions were high in the 1950s, with desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement challenging societal norms. West Side Story (1957) tackled themes of race and prejudice through its portrayal of Puerto Rican and white gang rivalries. By weaving these anxieties into its narrative, the musical offered a poignant commentary on America's struggles with integration and equality.

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Sexual Anxiety: Conservatism and Musical Narratives

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Sexual Anxiety: Conservatism and Musical Narratives

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The Kinsey Reports of the 1950s exposed anxieties around sexuality, with societal norms clinging to ideals of purity and family. Musicals subtly mirrored this tension—while often upholding traditional romance, they occasionally pushed boundaries. Songs like "Baby, It’s Cold Outside" by Frank Loesser exemplified a playful yet controversial approach to evolving gender dynamics.

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Funding a Sexual Revolution: The Kinsey Reports

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The Kinsey scale, which plots human sexuality across a non-binary spectrum, came out of Rockefeller Foundation grant-funded research in the 1940s.

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Nuclear Anxiety: Musicals Amid the Atomic Age

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Nuclear Anxiety: Musicals Amid the Atomic Age

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The 1950s saw a rise in nuclear anxiety, with school drills and over 200 atomic bomb tests in the U.S. This pervasive fear found subtle echoes in musicals, where themes of resilience and escapism gained prominence. Shows like Candide (1956) used satire to critique societal fears, reflecting the underlying tensions of the atomic age.

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On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device at a remote site in Kazakhstan, signaling a new and terrifying phase in the Cold War. By the early 1950s, schools across the United States were training students to dive under their desks and cover their heads. The now-infamous duck-and-cover drills simulated what should be done in case of an atomic attack -and channeled a growing panic over an escalating arms race.

"During this period, the United States is suddenly having to really reckon with the fact that it is not the only nuclear power out there anymore," says Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science and nuclear weapons and professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology. "Now, instead of just seeing the bomb as this asset that we could use or not use...it suddenly is brought to bear that this is something that could be used against us."

The school drills, which were part of President Harry S. Truman 's Federal Civil Defense Administration program, aimed to educate the public about what ordinary people could do to protect themselves-and they were easy to mock. After all, how was ducking and covering really going to protect you from a nuclear bomb detonating your school? But according to Wellerstein, in some scenarios, the drills could have actually helped.

"People look at this and they say, how's my school desk going to protect me against an atomic bomb that goes off right overhead?" says Wellerstein. "The answer is, it isn't. It's going to protect you from an atomic bomb that goes off a little in the distance."

Introducing...Bert the Turtle

In 1951, the FCDA hired Archer Productions, a New York City ad agency, to create a film that could be shown in schools to educate children about how to protect themselves in the case of atomic attack. The resulting film, Duck and Cover, was filmed at a school in Astoria, Queens, and alternated animation with images of students and adults practicing the recommended safety techniques.

As cheery music played, the film's animated hero, Bert the Turtle, is shown dropping to the ground ("DUCK!") and retreating into his shell ("COVER!") after an explosion. An atomic attack, in the film, is presented as one more danger children could learn to protect themselves against, similar to fire, automobile accidents, and even a bad sunburn.

Corbis/Getty Images

In the case of an attack, the film instructs students to make like Bert: duck under tables or desks, or next to walls, and tightly cover the back of their necks and their faces. If they were out and about, and didn't know the nearest safe location, they were told to ask the nearest adult-and to always obey the civil defense workers tasked with ensuring their safety.

'Duck and Cover' Intent: Warn, Not Frighten

Today's viewers may well react negatively to Duck and Cover and its jarringly pleasant, light tone. But in the early '50s, most Americans knew little about what actually happened when an atomic bomb exploded, and the idea was to warn, but not frighten, the school children taking part in the drills.

Historian JoAnne Brown writes of how teachers in Detroit sang songs, told stories and played records while the children were in the "refuge area," while a teacher in Newton, Massachusetts, decorated the school bomb shelter as a "reading den."

"The juxtaposition of that kind of imagery-let's read a book and tell stories-with the horrors of an atomic bomb, this leads a lot of people then and now to say, I don't think this is going to work," says Wellerstein.

Why Duck and Cover Strategies Could Have Worked

By the early 1960s, the U.S.-Soviet arms race had heated up to the point that duck and cover came to look like an even more inadequate response to the nuclear threat. In 1961, the Soviets exploded a 58-megaton bomb dubbed "Czar Bomba," which had a force equivalent to more than 50 million tons of TNT-more than all the explosives used in World War II.

To confront the growing nuclear threat, the focus of U.S. civil defense had moved on to the construction of fallout shelters, which the FCDA (by now renamed the Office of Defense Mobilization) recommended as the next step in protection against a possible nuclear disaster.
READ MORE: Nuclear Fallout Shelters Were Never Going to Work
On the heels of the Sputnik flight in 1957, motivated lawmakers passed the National Defense Education Act, underlining the perceived importance of America's schools in the battle for Cold War supremacy.

But in the early '50s, when duck and cover drills were in use, they might have helped. "Duck and cover was about mitigating a very specific type of threat, which is to say what the Soviet Union had at the time," Wellerstein explains. In the early '50s, the Soviets didn't have many atomic bombs, and those they did have were "basically of the same kind as were used in World War II. Not the most advanced kind, and definitely not the largest kind that they would later get."

Duck and Cover Legacy

Another key criticism of duck and cover focused on the intent behind it: what many people saw as the government's way of sanitizing nuclear weapons and making people complacent and accepting of the new status quo.

In fact, as historian Dee Garrison has argued, students' responses to civil defense drills in schools would later fuel antiwar and antinuclear activism, on the part of both outraged parents and the students themselves.

"People who today talk about doing duck and cover drills talk about being terrified by them," Wellerstein points out. "They talk about them really hammering home that this stuff is real, and... that the world is a really disturbing place."

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How 'Duck-and-Cover' Drills Channeled America's Cold War Anxiety

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On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device at a remote site in Kazakhstan, signaling a new and terrifying phase in the Cold War. By the early 1950s, schools across the United States were training students to dive under their desks and cover their heads.

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West Side Story (1957) reimagined Romeo and Juliet, shifting its focus to gang conflicts in New York. Jerome Robbins' choreography introduced the concept of the "triple threat" performer, combining acting, singing, and dancing. The musical's innovative use of dance expanded its emotional and narrative depth.

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You hear the rhythm of loud finger clicking as the actors appear, followed by quick, insolent interjections of woodwinds and brass. Every snap, flick of the wrist, and audacious step is a declaration of bravado, arrogance, threat, and conflict. Welcome to West Side Story, where the movement tells the tale.

Dance Drives the Narrative

The choreographer-director emerged as an American theater specialty in the work of Jerome Robbins, his protégé Bob Fosse, and other dancer-dramatists who understood the powerful impact of dance on an audience. In West Side Story, Robbins broke with musical theater traditions to portray the unglamorous world of urban gangs with all the gravitas of the classic narratives about the privileged class. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is the inspiration for the tragedy of Tony and Maria. However, Robbins took the simple conventions of the costume ball and the sword fight and transformed them into a glorious melee of jazzy, balletic explosions of dance to grab attention, ratchet up anxiety, and break hearts. A lifted shoulder, an outflung arm, or a stomping foot telegraph intent and action as well as any lyric or line in West Side Story. The choreography is a key reason the brilliant departure from conventional Broadway musicals endures and pops up everywhere from high school stages to Times Square flash mobs.

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Style Equals Substance

Robbins' acute observation and his mastery of ballet informed the style of each leap and gesture in West Side Story. Street gangs and gang warfare -- a very present reality in New York City at the time the show's creators envisioned it -- were rough, suggestive, crude, violent, and possessed of a distinctive swagger. The impoverished disenfranchised "locals," and the even more upstart recent immigrants, identified with a culture that rejected the more gentrified economic classes who rejected them. Every single move in West Side Story reflected that reality.

Ballet gave the choreography grace; jazz and genius gave it personality. Robbins used big, whole-body moves, rapid and abrupt gestures, long leaps that exploded from the cracked asphalt, emphasis on the downbeats of the music to portray young, aggressive, volatile male energy in the Jets and the Sharks. He shaped female character with more sinuous and suggestive action: swishing skirts, flamenco foot-stamping, balletic steps to convey romance, and open arms and chest to reveal heart. The style of West Side Story relies on fiery dynamics, belligerent staccato, syncopation, exaggerated extensions -- particularly high leg lifts -- and the lyrical moves of the lovers and the bereaved. Robbins succeeded so brilliantly in fusing ballet and jazz that his Symphonic Dances, adapted for the New York City Ballet almost verbatim from the WSS choreography, is a staple of the company's repertory.

Walking Into Character

Notice how often the characters in the show start out walking. Those walks - sauntering, swaggering, stealthy - establish the mood and scene and quickly morph into choreography that propels the narrative. Robbins was an exacting and exhausting taskmaster. He exhorted his dancers, all highly trained professionals in the classic arts, to stroll or step across the stage like tough young hoods and segue into the dancing. He rehearsed and reviewed each dance endlessly, running so far over budget when the Broadway show was made into the award-winning movie that he was fired from the film. (A revealing anecdote relates how the blistered and bruised dancers burned their kneepads outside Robbins' office after he finally approved a take of Cool for the film.)

The individual dances edge dialog and acting aside to tell the tale. As Mambo pivots into Cha-Cha at the gym, the fateful dance sequence entwines the destinies of Tony and Maria together far more tightly than Juliet's lament: "My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late!" ever could. Cool is bottled-up dynamite, as the Jets caution each other to contain the rage and hostility that will erupt into bloodshed and continue an ancient feud. Capulets and Montagues have nothing on the Jets and Sharks, and those 20th-century hoodlums' relatable hopes and dreams are wordlessly expressed with the sharp angles and contractions of the bodies on stage.

A World Wild and Bright

Just watch the dances and you "read" the story. The opening sequence - no real dialog at all - sets up the cultural conditions that are the daily reality of two gangs with a blood feud that defies logic but encapsulates an era. In America, the saucy, sexy movement interplay between the Puerto Rican men and women mocks the hostile world they are in, the uninhabitable world they came from, and the powerful seductions that will unite them romantically and tragically as the story unfolds. The dance at the gym is controlled violence, a stand-in for the murderous melee to follow. Tension builds as the dancing becomes more disturbing and intense - the attempted rape sequence was shocking to the audiences in 1957 and remains abundantly recognizable today. There are no wasted steps and no wasted words in West Side Story. Take away the choreography, and you have a concept, an idea, but never the flesh-and-blood unforgettable adventure that struts and frets [its] hour upon the stage - and sweeps up generations of theater-goers in its relentless dance.

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West Side Story Dance Analysis | LoveToKnow

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You hear the rhythm of loud finger clicking as the actors appear, followed by quick, insolent interjections of woodwinds and brass. Every snap, flick of the ...

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My Fair Lady: Expanding the Musical Text

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My Fair Lady: Expanding the Musical Text

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Based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, My Fair Lady (1956) overcame early adaptation struggles to become a sensation. With cerebral elements like speak-singing for Henry Higgins, it challenged traditional musical conventions. Its immense popularity led to fans camping out for tickets—a testament to its cultural impact.

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Guys and Dolls: The Perfect Musical Comedy

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Guys and Dolls: The Perfect Musical Comedy

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Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls was a groundbreaking piece, blending humor with deeper moral questions. Set in the vibrant world of Broadway, it created a unique gangster vernacular and redefined the musical comedy genre. Loesser’s innovative approach made it a quintessential American production.

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Sarah R. Hewitt is Program Operations and Music Manager.

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Origins and Inspirations for Damon Runyon’s Classic Musical Guys and Dolls — Ford’s Theatre

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Following friend (and racketeer) Arnold Rothstein’s murder, Damon Runyon used Rothstein’s trial as inspiration to write stories in a perpetual present tense. Runyon found his home in his fictional Runyonland, a place created from his observations of Broadway’s nightlife. Learn more about the origins of the classic musical Guys and Dolls in this post.

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Leonard Bernstein and the Rise of Off-Broadway

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Leonard Bernstein and the Rise of Off-Broadway

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Bernstein's contributions to theater extended beyond mainstream success with Wonderful Town (1953). His work on The Threepenny Opera (1956) paved the way for the off-Broadway movement, redefining what musical theater could be. This expansion highlighted Bernstein's versatility and vision for the future of American performance art.

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The Era of Expansion: Musicals Thrive in the 1950s

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The Era of Expansion: Musicals Thrive in the 1950s

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The 1950s ushered in the Golden Age of musicals, with iconic productions like Guys and Dolls (1950) and My Fair Lady (1956). These works showcased the cultural dominance of musical theater, considered an essential marker of white middle-class American identity. The booming suburban and consumerist culture provided fertile ground for this artistic growth.

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The Brazen Age of Musicals: A New York Renaissance

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The Brazen Age of Musicals: A New York Renaissance

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The late 1940s marked New York's rise as a cultural epicenter, with the explosion of avant-garde art and literature like Catcher in the Rye. In this fertile environment, musicals like Carousel (1945) and South Pacific (1949) emerged, reflecting the era's creative dynamism. Leonard Bernstein, a key figure, began reshaping the musical landscape as the head of the Philharmonic.

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Living to 101, Berlin witnessed and shaped over a century of musical evolution. From “White Christmas” to Miss Liberty, his songs became cornerstones of American identity. His life and work embody the immigrant’s journey to defining cultural norms.

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Irving Berlin's life was the stuff that Tin Pan Alley dreams were made on. "Irving Berlin has no place in American music; he is American music," legendary composer Jerome Kern once wrote. Yet for his final 25 years, Berlin led a rather reclusive existence, holed up in his townhouse at one of Manhattan's tonier Upper East Side addresses.

The hyper-prolific songsmith died 32 years ago this week in 1989 at age 101. But his American story began when Moses Beilin, a poor cantor without a congregation, his wife Leah and their six children escaped the Russian Empire in 1893. The family, including 4- or 5-year-old son Israel, traveled first by foot and rail for Hamburg, Germany. There, the family endured medical inspections, cheap housing and bad meals until they finally procured steerage class tickets on a steamship to the United States. After passing through Ellis Island, opened just a year earlier, the Beilins made their way to the Lower East Side of New York City. An epidemic of typhus fever and another of cholera had spread through the blighted neighborhood in 1982, and health officials had assumed without much evidence that they had been imported by immigrant Jews. Both epidemics were but one sign of the many challenges residents would face in starting their lives in a new country.

The Beilin family lived in a crowded one-bedroom tenement apartment on Cherry Street. What little natural light came through the windows of the tiny apartment was accompanied by the noisy construction of the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges overhead. During the day, when the children were out at school, Leah Beilin earned a bit of extra money by renting out cots in her living room to night workers who were just coming off their shifts.

Izzy, as he was now called, loved making music. While still a boy, he found jobs as a singing waiter in a seedy tavern called the Pelham Café in Chinatown. In 1907, Izzy co-wrote his first song, with Nick Nicholson. It was a syncopated ditty called "Marie from Sunny Italy." The lyricist credit incorrectly listed him as "I. Berlin," and thereafter was known as "Irving Berlin."

By 1911, he revealed his mastery of the eight-bar form by writing the words and music to "Alexander's Ragtime Band." It was his first hit song.

Berlin never learned to read music and was so clumsy at chord changes on the piano that he could only play in the key of F-sharp. Underneath the keyboard was a special transposing lever that made the key changes for him. When he became more successful, he hired a series of musical secretaries to transcribe the tunes that seemed to leap out of his mind. With this system in place, he wrote the words and music for more than 1,500 songs, many of them etched into our collective consciousness: "White Christmas," "Easter Parade," "God Bless America," "Blue Skies," "Cheek to Cheek," "Always," and the scores for dozens of original Broadway musicals and Hollywood films.

Rabid news coverage of his two marriages may have fueled his seclusion. His first wife, Dorothy Goetz, contracted typhoid fever during their honeymoon in Cuba and died five months later, upon their return to Manhattan. He wrote the song "When I Lost You" right after Dorothy's death that year, and the sheet music sold more than a million copies. When reporters demanded to know if it was autobiographical, Irving refused to answer. Berlin was said to have never gotten over the loss.

His 1926 courtship and marriage to Ellin Mackay, a wealthy flapper and socialite whose Catholic father disapproved of their union, was the stuff of front-page columns and constant paparazzi, before that was even a word. Berlin, always a quiet and reserved man, hated all this attention and did his best to discourage it, despite being a show business icon.

Like many successful creators of popular culture, Berlin's career eventually waned as tastes changed. His arc turned south shortly after his 1946 Broadway hit "Annie Get Your Gun." After "Miss Liberty" flopped in 1950, he went into a deep depression. As his daughter Mary Ellin Barrett recalled, he "was gloomy a lot of the time." His active career hit rock bottom in 1962 with the closing of his short-lived musical "Mr. President." From then on, he insisted on remaining out of the public eye, except for a few video appearances.

READ MORE: How the talented Oscar Levant broke taboos by talking about mental health

In her memoir, Mary Ellin Barrett described her father as becoming a recluse "little by little" during the late 1970s, after many of his friends and associates began dying. The process only accelerated when his grandchildren and great-grandchildren grew up and began pursuing their own lives. At this point, Berlin began using the telephone as his exclusive means of communicating with his younger friends and children each day.

To intrusive strangers, reporters, biographers-and especially show biz hacks seeking to use his songs for their own ends-he seemed gruff, "a disagreeable, out-of-touch old man who said no and guarded the use of his songs, of everything that had to do with him beyond reason," Barrett wrote. After President John F. Kennedy's murder, the Vietnam War and rise of the social protest movement, Berlin admitted his public irrelevance. Indeed, he revealed a deep understanding of how time had passed him by: "It was as if I owned a store and people no longer wanted to buy what I had to sell...Music changed too. The Beatles and other groups reached audiences I couldn't. It was time to close up shop," Berlin said near the end of his life.

READ MORE: George Gershwin's too-short life ended on a blue note

He likely suffered from depression, which attacked him at various points in his life, especially as he got older - a common problem among the aged - in an era before effective antidepressant medications. As Berlin progressed into his 80s and 90s, he developed difficulty walking because of arthritis. According to biographer Lawrence Bergreen, Berlin was taking ever-increasing doses of Nembutal, a barbiturate then commonly overprescribed by doctors, to treat his chronic insomnia. By his final days, he was likely an addict to this medication and several other prescription drugs. He was also concerned about his physical appearance, wrinkles, and the distortions of age, which were especially obvious under the gaze of a television camera.

Once the songwriter of the nation, literally the pulse of the U.S., now Berlin was an old man, staring out the window.

Once the songwriter of the nation, literally, the pulse of the U.S., now Berlin was an old man, staring out the window, as life passed him by.

He died in his sleep on Sept. 22, at age 101, probably of a heart attack, if not a broken heart. The morning after his death, the front page of the New York Times declared that Berlin had "set the tone and the tempo for the tunes America played and sang and danced to for much of the 20th century."

If America could let go of Irving Berlin so easily, what chance do mere mortals have at leaving behind a legacy? In fact, his influence remains embedded in the DNA of our mythic American dream, an encouraging blue sky even on a blue day.

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How Irving Berlin's blue skies turned to blue days

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Irving Berlin has no place in American music; he is American music," legendary composer Jerome Kern once wrote. Yet for his final 25 years, Berlin led a rather reclusive existence.

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Porter often explored complex love stories where passion endured despite human flaws, as seen in Out of This World and Kiss Me, Kate. While some critics found these narratives overly sentimental, they resonated with audiences grappling with postwar changes. His works reflect a longing for resilience in love.

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Irving Berlin and Ellin MacKay: A 62-Year Love Story

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Irving Berlin and Ellin MacKay: A 62-Year Love Story

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Berlin fell deeply in love with Ellin MacKay, eloping with her in 1926 despite religious differences. Their marriage inspired timeless songs like “Always,” a heartfelt tribute to their enduring bond. This personal stability fueled Berlin’s prolific creativity for decades.

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The Ellin and Irving Berlin Sapphire and Diamond Ring

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During their 62-year marriage, legendary songwriter Irving Berlin gave his wife Ellin gifts of exquisite jewels as expressions of their lasting love. Doyle is honored to auction one of these treasured pieces.

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Porter’s Playful Lyrics and Technical Precision

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Porter’s Playful Lyrics and Technical Precision

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Cole Porter’s songs are renowned for their clever wordplay, double entendres, and intricate melodic structures. His refusal to use blues notes set him apart, favoring chromaticism and erudite language. Porter’s works, like Silk Stockings and Can-Can, exemplify his blend of sophistication and humor.

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Inside Cole Porter’s Songwriting Process

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The composer and lyricist was born 125 years ago, on June 9, 1891

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Berlin dominated Hollywood and Broadway with hits like Top Hat and Annie, Get Your Gun. Despite controversies like redface in Annie, his music provided a platform for diverse stories. Berlin’s impact shaped the golden age of American entertainment.

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Annie Get Your Gun: A History - Breaking Character

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Ted Chapin, President and Chief Creative Officer of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, recounts the colorful history of Irving Berlin’s smash musical.

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Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate (1948) marked his return to success, exploring gender roles and relationships through the lens of theater. Inspired by the Kinsey Report, its cheeky themes resonated with postwar audiences. The musical won the first-ever Tony Award for Best Musical.

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Known for his witty, risqué lyrics, Cole Porter embraced themes of complex, tortured love and European sophistication. Despite a horse accident that left him in pain for life, he continued to compose groundbreaking works. Porter’s resilience mirrored the boldness of his musical style.

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J.O. Cole was the richest man in Indiana. His father had been a shoemaker, but J.O.--the initials stood for James Omar--went out to California during the Gold Rush and came back a wealthy man to Indiana, where he multiplied his wealth by way of timber and coal and other enterprises. J.O. married Rachel Henton, and when their daughter, Kate Cole, was born in 1862, nothing could be too good for J.O.'s girl. J.O. gave Kate expensive clothes, expensive tastes, and an expensive education that included music and dance.

J.O. naturally expected his Kate to choose a husband from the ambitious world of high-powered businessmen, someone who could take over his financial empire if and when J.O. ever chose to let go of the reins. But Kate Cole had a mind of her own, and the husband she selected was Sam Porter, said to be a weak and ineffectual, although modestly successful, pharmacist from her hometown of Peru, Indiana. One can only speculate, but one can at least suspect that Kate was too much like her father to want to marry a man of her father's stamp, and instead deliberately chose a husband that she could rule.

J.O. fumed and grumbled, but in the end Kate got her way, and J.O. paid first for the wedding and then for the expensive lifestyle of the wedded couple. And then, on June 9, 1891, in Peru, Indiana, Kate's son, J.O.'s grandson, was born, and they named him Cole Albert Porter.

From the age of six, the little boy studied first violin and then, at age eight, piano, and soon he showed real talent for both. When he decided that he didn't like the violin, he devoted all his energies to the piano, practicing two hours every day. Frequently, his mother Kate would join him at the piano, and together they would make up wicked parodies of the popular songs of the day.

Kate knew that her son had talent, and did everything she could to pave the way for musical fame. Early on, she subsidized the student orchestra at the local music school, making sure that her son, dressed in velvet and lace, was the featured violin soloist. There were rumors that she also took steps to ensure that the local papers gave her son the right reviews. When Cole was ten years old, he began composing music, and his mother paid to have his compositions published and sent copies to family and friends. And when, at age 14, she sent Cole off to the exclusive Worcester Academy in Massachusetts, she decided that people would be more impressed with her son's accomplishments if her son were only twelve instead of fourteen. And so, she made Cole twelve, officially at least, by arranging some small changes in his school records.

When Cole was sent east to boarding school, J.O. was furious. J.O.'s plan was that his grandson would stay in Indiana, learning about the family business empire and preparing to eventually take it over. J.O. was so angry, in fact, that for two years he refused to speak to Kate. But, as always, Kate got her way.

Cole's stay at the Worcester Academy was a successful one. In later years, he remembered one of his instructors there, Dr. Abercrombie, as an important influence. Cole said that Abercrombie taught him about language and meter, and that, in a song, "Words and music must be so inseparably wedded to each other that they are like one." When he graduated from the Academy in 1909, Cole was the class valedictorian.

Next came Yale, and Cole's undergraduate years at Yale were one of the richest periods of his life. He was a huge social success, famous on campus for the songs he was constantly writing and singing. He sang solos with the Yale Glee Club. He wrote football fight songs, some of which continued to be sung long after he left Yale, especially "Bingo Eli Yale" and the "Yale Bulldog Song". And he wrote songs for six full scale musical comedies, produced by the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and by the Yale Dramatic Association. Some of these shows went on tour around the country, and Cole toured with them, reveling in the parties and good fellowship that went with the tours. In all, Cole wrote around 300 songs while he was at Yale. And when he graduated in 1913, his classmates voted him the "most entertaining" member of his class. In his Yale years, Cole made many connections that would be professionally and personally important to him for the rest of his life.

At J.O.'s insistence, Cole then enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he roomed with a young man named Dean Acheson--yes, the Dean Acheson who would become Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953. But Cole had no interest in becoming a lawyer, and his activities continued to be mostly musical. Many of Cole Porter's stories about himself were inventions, but, according to Cole, the Dean of the Law School, Ezra Ripley Thayer, took him aside one day, during Cole's second year at the Law School, and told him, "Don't waste your time--get busy and study music." Whether the advice really came from Thayer or not, Cole took it, and transferred to Harvard's School of Arts and Sciences in 1915, where he studied for a graduate degree in Music. Cole told his mother Kate about the change in career plans, but both of them allowed J.O. to believe that Cole was still earnestly pursuing his Law School degree.

Cole left graduate school in 1916 and moved to New York City, where he lived at the Yale Club. His first show, See America First (1916), lasted for only 15 performances, but the audience was full of prominent socialites, and Cole himself quickly became a familiar figure in social circles in New York.

In July 1917, Cole moved to Paris. The First World War was raging, and Cole invented stories about joining the French Foreign Legion and performing numerous heroic exploits that were duly reported in the press back home and that remained part of Cole's official biography throughout his life. Not a word was true. In fact, Cole was enjoying Paris's fabulous social life, an endless stream of extravagant parties full of international celebrities, members of the minor nobility, cross dressers, artists, and eccentrics, accompanied by alcohol and other drugs, and featuring an assortment of gay and bisexual activity.

Linda Lee Thomas from Louisville, Kentucky, was another prominent socialite in Paris. Divorced from an abusive husband, wealthy, and considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, Linda soon became one of Cole's closest friends. She was older than Cole, and was quite aware of his homosexual preferences and activities. Nevertheless, on December 19, 1919, Cole and Linda were married. Although sex was never a part of their relationship, they truly liked each other, and Linda was deeply dedicated to Cole's career, so, in its own way, their marriage proved a close, successful, and mostly happy one.

Cole and Linda led a glittering social life in Paris, Venice, and the Riviera. Their Paris home had platinum wallpaper and zebra skin chairs. For one extravagant party in Venice they hired 50 gondoliers and a troupe of circus acrobats. For another party, they hired an entire ballet company.

But while his social life was dazzling, Cole's career was moving frustratingly slowly. He studied briefly with the noted French composer Vincent d'Indy. He had a few small successes, contributing songs to such shows as Hitchy-Koo 1919 and the Greenwich Village Follies of 1924. And in 1923 he had a success in Paris with a short ballet called Within the Quota. But Broadway producers had little interest in his work. However, in 1928, Irving Berlin recommended Cole to the producers of a "musicomedy" called Paris, starring Irene Bordoni. Cole wrote five songs for the show, and one of those songs "Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)", became Cole's first big success.

Finally, the Broadway career that had so long escaped him began to be a reality. He followed up on Paris with another "French" show, and a full musical this time, Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929). The show, with a book by Herbert Fields, ran for 257 performances, and included "You've Got That Thing", and "You Do Something To Me". And then, for a London show called Wake Up and Dream (1929), Cole wrote "What Is This Thing Called Love?"

Now living in New York, Cole entered an extraordinarily productive period in which show followed show on Broadway, and hit song followed hit song. The New Yorkers (1930) introduced "Love For Sale". His 1932 musical Gay Divorce starred Fred Astaire, in Astaire's last Broadway role and Astaire's only Broadway appearance without his sister and longtime dancing partner Adele. The show ran for 248 performances, and included "Night And Day" and "After You, Who?"

In 1934, Cole wrote one of his greatest scores for a show with a book by Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse, Howard Lindsey, and Russel Crouse, Anything Goes. The show starred Ethel Merman, William Gaxton, Bettina Hall, and Victor Moore and included "Anything Goes", "I Get A Kick Out Of You", "All Through The Night", "Blow, Gabriel, Blow", and "You're The Top".

Cole wrote the songs for 1935's Jubilee while on a round the world cruise with Moss Hart, who wrote the show's book. This show had a big hit in "Just One Of Those Things" and also introduced a song that became a hit some years later, "Begin The Beguine", said, at 108 measures, to be the longest successful popular song melody ever written.

Around this time, Cole and Linda began to spend much of their time in Hollywood, where Cole's flamboyant lifestyle became, if anything, even more so, with all-male parties by the swimming pool and an assortment of long and short-term gay love affairs.

Meanwhile, in 1936, Cole had another Broadway musical, Red, Hot and Blue!, which starred Ethel Merman, Bob Hope, and Jimmy Durante, and included "It's D'Lovely". Also in 1936, the movie musical Born to Dance featured "I've Got You Under My Skin" and Jimmy Stewart singing "Easy To Love". And a 1937 film, Rosalie, introduced "In The Still Of The Night".

Things could not have been going better for Cole, but tragedy struck. In the summer of 1937, Cole was riding on a bridle path at Long Island's Piping Rock Club. Suddenly his horse slipped. Cole was thrown, and his horse fell on top of him, crushing both his legs and damaging his nervous system. The doctors wanted to amputate both legs, but his mother Kate and his wife Linda refused to allow this, convinced that the loss of his legs would kill him. However, Cole would never recover the full use of his legs, and for the rest of his life he would be in serious pain, suffering chronic osteomyelitis and undergoing more than thirty operations over the next twenty years.

Cole escaped from his physical agony in work. Cole composed the score of his Broadway musical, Leave It to Me!, soon after the accident, ordering his piano raised on blocks so that he could roll up to it in his wheelchair during the brief intervals when he was able to leave his bed. Leave It to Me! had a book by Bella and Sam Spewack, and starred Sophie Tucker, Victor Moore, and William Gaxton. But it is best remembered as the show that made Mary Martin a star, stopping the show with a mock strip tease performed on top of a cabin trunk while singing "My Heart Belongs To Daddy". The show opened on November 9, 1938, and ran for 291 performances. Earlier in 1938 an unsuccessful show called You Never Know had introduced "At Long Last Love".

Cole resumed an astonishingly productive pace. 1939 brought DuBarry Was a Lady, which had a book by B.G. ("Buddy") De Sylva and Herbert Fields, and which starred Bert Lahr and Ethel Merman. The show ran for 408 performances and introduced "Friendship" and the delicious "But In The Morning, No!"

Nevertheless, perhaps because of the excruciating physical and emotional pain he was experiencing, the hit songs and standards began to be rarer in his output. Still, he was back on Broadway again in 1940 with Panama Hattie. Again, De Sylva and Herbert Fields wrote the book, and Merman starred. The show ran for 501 performances. Also in 1940 came the film, Broadway Melody of 1940, for which Cole wrote "I Concentrate On You".

In 1941, he had a Broadway hit with Let's Face It!, with a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, and a cast that included Danny Kaye, Eve Arden, and Nanette Fabray. The show ran 547 performances. Ethel Merman starred again in 1943's Something For The Boys, and for the film Something to Shout About, also in 1943, Cole wrote "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To".

Bobby Clark starred in 1944's unsuccessful Mexican Hayride. He did have a hit with "Don't Fence Me In" in the 1944 film Hollywood Canteen, but the song had actually been written years earlier. For another 1944 show, Seven Lively Arts, Cole wrote "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye".

In 1946, Hollywood released a "biography" of Cole Porter, Night and Day, starring Cary Grant, Alexis Smith, and many others. The film was pure fiction, even by the standards of the biopics of the period, and Cole is said to have been quite content to have it that way. 1946 was also the year of another Broadway musical, Around the World in Eighty Days. Orson Welles wrote the book, directed, and starred in the show, which ran for only 75 performances.

One feels a little awkward describing these years as less than successful. Certainly, most songwriters would have been proud to have Cole's achievements of those years, but for Cole Porter it must have been a frustrating period.

But then he teamed up again with writers Bella and Sam Spewack to create a new musical. It was called Kiss Me Kate. The show was Cole Porter's masterpiece and triumphantly re-established him as one of the greatest of American songwriters. It opened on December 30, 1948, starring Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk, and Harold Lang, and ran on Broadway for 1,077 performances. The amazing score, written while Cole was recovering from his 21st operation after his accident, includes, "Another Op'nin', Another Show", "Why Can't You Behave", "Wunderbar", "So In Love", "We Open In Venice", "Tom, Dick, Or Harry", "I've Come To Wive It Wealthily In Padua", "Were Thine That Special Face", "Too Darn Hot", "Where Is The Life That Late I Led?", "Always True To You (In My Fashion)", "Bianca", and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare". Kiss Me, Kate is constantly, and rightfully, being revived all over the world, and is currently running again on Broadway in a hit revival.

In 1950, he was on Broadway again with Out of This World, which ran for less than six months, although it included "From This Moment On" and the delightful "Nobody's Chasing Me". Then, in 1953, he had a hit with Can-Can. The show had a book by Abe Burrows and introduced "I Love Paris" and "It's All Right With Me". Can-Can ran for 892 performances, and was a career breakthrough for Gwen Verdon, who went on to become a major Broadway star.

1955 brought Silk Stockings, which ran for more than a year. Cole then wrote the songs for the 1956 film High Society, which starred Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and Frank Sinatra. He also wrote the songs for the 1957 George Cukor film Les Girls, starring Gene Kelley and Mitzi Gaynor.

However, through all this, both his health had been steadily deteriorating. In 1958, Cole's right leg was amputated. To make things worse, this came at a time when he could not have been more emotionally vulnerable, following the deaths of both his mother Kate and, in 1954, his wife Linda. For the remaining years of his life, Cole, who had always been the center of a glamorous social whirl, was depressed and a recluse. He traveled between his nine-room suite in New York's Waldorf Towers and his 350 acre estate in the Berkshires and his California home. He no longer wrote songs, and rarely saw anyone except his very closest friends. When ASCAP presented a "Salute to Cole Porter" at the Metropolitan Opera House, Cole was one of the few important songwriters or celebrities who was not present. Although a lavish party was thrown for his 70th birthday, he did not attend it.

Cole Porter died on October 15, 1964 in Santa Monica, California after kidney surgery. Cole Porter produced a rich and fascinating body of work, characterized by wit and sophistication, with an underlying strain of restless melancholy and loneliness.

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“God Bless America”: A National Treasure

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“God Bless America”: A National Treasure

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Originally written during WWI, “God Bless America” was revisited in 1938 as a heartfelt patriotic anthem. The song earned Berlin the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, cementing its place as a cultural touchstone. Its enduring popularity highlights Berlin's knack for uniting Americans through music.

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Ethel Waters: A Trailblazing Voice in American Music

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Ethel Waters: A Trailblazing Voice in American Music

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Ethel Waters broke barriers as the first African American performer to receive equal billing with white artists on Broadway, thanks to her role in Irving Berlin's As Thousands Cheer. Her powerful rendition of “Suppertime,” a song about the horrors of lynching, highlighted her ability to convey profound emotion through music. Waters not only reshaped racial dynamics in entertainment but also set a precedent for using art as a platform for social change.

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Berlin’s Musical Response to The Great Depression

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Berlin’s Musical Response to The Great Depression

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Berlin addressed the struggles of the Great Depression in musicals like Face the Music and As Thousands Cheer. The latter, featuring Ethel Waters singing “Suppertime,” broke racial barriers by giving an African American performer equal billing. These works demonstrated Berlin’s commitment to reflecting social issues through art.

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"Alexander's Ragtime Band": The King of Tin Pan Alley

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"Alexander's Ragtime Band": The King of Tin Pan Alley

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Berlin's "Alexander’s Ragtime Band" (1911) brought ragtime to mainstream America, blending traditional melodies with a modern, accessible twist. Critics saw it as "whitewashed," but its success made Berlin a household name. His populist approach reshaped American music during the early 20th century.

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One of the greatest successes in the annals of American popular music and the song that made Berlin famous all over the world. According to Berlin, who was quoted in a 1914 article in Theatre Magazine, "the melody came to me right out of the air. I wrote the whole thing in eighteen minutes surrounded on all sides by roaring pianos and roaring vaudeville actors." Berlin told the story of how "Alexander" was written to his friend Rennold Wolf, who recounted it for an article titled "The Boy Who Revived Ragtime," which he contributed to the Green Book Magazine (August 1913).

As Wolf described it, "the greater portion of the song was written in ten minutes, and in the offices of the music publishing firm, Waterson, Berlin and Snyder (then known as Ted Snyder Co., Inc.), while five or six pianos and as many vocalists were making bedlam with songs of the day." Wolf continued: Berlin was not impressed by it when the melody first came to him. In fact, after playing it over a few times on the piano, he did not take the trouble to note the melody on paper. He might never have completed the song had it not been for a trip to Palm Beach, Florida, which months later he arranged to take with Jean Schwartz and Jack M. Welch. Just before train time he went to his offices to look over his manuscripts, in order to leave the best of them for publication during his absence. Among his papers he found a memorandum referring to "Alexander," and after considerable reflection he recalled its strains. Largely for the lack of anything better with which to kill time, he sat at the piano and completed the song.

The exact date of the trip to Palm Beach is unknown, but it almost certainly occurred during the winter of 1911. It is possible that the first public performance of "Alexander" took place in mid-April, possibly on April 15, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, when comedian Otis Harlan interpolated a whistled version of it into a performance of Hell, a segment of a three-part entertainment that later was presented in New York beginning April 27, 1911, at the Folies Bergere dinner theatre. According to Berlin scholar Charles Hamm, "Alexander" was probably given its first public performance by Emma Carus on April 17, 1911, when she began a week's engagement as headliner of the Big Easter Vaudeville Carnival at Chicago's American Music Hall. A week later she performed it in New York, and subsequently in other cities. Many of the original sheet music covers state that it was "successfully intruduced [sic] by Emma Carus." Other vaudevillians quickly included the song in their acts. Among them were Neil McKinley (who may have been the second to sing it in New York), Eddie Miller, Adele Oswald, and Helen Vincent.

Miss Vincent's photograph appears on some of the early sheet music covers of the song, as do photographs of, among others, Carl Cook, Belle Dixon, Mae Maxfield, and a woman billed simply as "Priscilla." The next important date in the song's early history is May 28, 1911, when Berlin and Harry Williams offered it in the Friars Frolic of 1911 at New York's New Amsterdam Theatre and during a subsequent two-week tour of eastern American cities that culminated with a return presentation at the New Amsterdam on June 8, 1911.

As Berlin recalled his Friars rendition with Williams, for New York Daily News writer Danton Walker (July 29, 1938), "We sang, did a little dance and went off with a cartwheel." Four days after the Friars tour ended, "Alexander" was offered at the Columbia Theatre, New York, as part of the burlesque entertainment The Merry Whirl, where it was sung by James C. Morton and Frank F. Moore. The Merry Whirl ran until mid-August and then toured. Throughout the summer and fall and beyond, "Alexander" became an increasingly huge sensation. The great ragtime pianist and theatre composer Eubie Blake told Robert Kimball in the late 1960s that "I helped make it popular in Atlantic City that summer when I played at the Boat House. Sophie Tucker brought Izzy - we called him that then - into the place and he thanked me for plugging his song." Finally, on September 11, 1911, Berlin, elevated to a kind of stardom by the fame of "Alexander," began a week as a vaudevillian at Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre in New York, where, of course, he included "Alexander."

Another important measure of the song's success was that Berlin's publisher ended its life as the Ted Snyder Co., for which Berlin was employed as a staff composer, and replaced it in January 1912 with the newly formed Waterson-Berlin-Snyder Company. Many recordings spread and enhanced the fame of this song. The renowned comedy singing team of baritone Arthur Collins and tenor Byron Harlan (Victor, Columbia, Indestructible, Edison, Amberol, U.S. Everlasting, and Zonophone) had a huge success that occupied the top spot on the popular charts for ten weeks. Other notable early recordings were by Billy Murray (Edison and Edison-Amberol), Prince's Orchestra (Columbia), and the Victor Military Band (Victor). Over the years several other artists had successful recordings of the song, including Bessie Smith; the Boswell Sisters; Louis Armstrong; Bing Crosby and Connee Boswell (a number-one hit in 1938); Ray Noble; and Crosby and Al Jolson.

It is not correct, as many have written, that Jolson was chiefly responsible for the song's fame; nor is it true that "Alexander" was first published as an instrumental (an instrumental was not published until September 6, 1911).On screen, Alice Faye sang it in Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), and it was sung by Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, and Johnnie Ray in There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). Over the years Berlin was often asked about the song. In 1938 he submitted the following to the publicity department of Twentieth Century - Fox to coincide with the release of the film Alexander's Ragtime Band: "I originally wrote the melody in 1910 as an instrumental number. By that I mean it was not intended to be a song with words, but it was to be my first instrumental piece. At that time there were many so-called ragtime instrumentals for the piano and "Alexander" was to be my first of that type. No one liked it in that form so I set a lyric to it. It then lay on the shelf for some time as everyone thought the chorus was too long and the range too large for the ordinary voice. However, Emma Carus liked the song and introduced it in Chicago. It was a big hit for her and before long many other vaudeville acts were singing it. Before the song became very popular, I sang it as the close of a songwriter's act that was one of the features in the Friars Frolic of 1911. The number created quite a lot of talk in that performance and it wasn't long after then that it was a big hit both in America and abroad. When it reached its height, I was booked for a week at Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre on the strength of the popularity of 'Alexander's Ragtime Band.' "

"I took my first trip abroad in 1912 and was delighted to hear it whistled by a newsboy as I stepped off the train at the station in London. I soon realized how big a hit 'Alexander' was in England. Within a year or so it became an international song hit and was translated in almost every known language. It has been credited for being the first ragtime song, but that is not true. There were many ragtime songs before 'Alexander's Ragtime Band.' The construction of the chorus was new at that time, and it was the key song for many ragtime songs to follow, among which were 'Everybody's Doing It' and 'Ragtime Violin.' While it was popular the first year and a half it sold about two million copies, and I would say it sold possibly 500,000 more copies since then."

On June 19, 1947, Berlin wrote the following to theatre critic Ward Morehouse for a book on which Morehouse was working at the time: "I checked with Jesse Lasky and here are the facts regarding the 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' story in connection with the Folies Bergere: . . [Sam Harris] and Jesse Lasky built what is now the Fulton Theatre, and, incidentally, it was the first theatre cabaret in America. They had engaged Ethel Levey to come over from England for this show. Jesse Lasky asked me to write a song for her. I wrote a song called "I Beg Your Pardon Dear Old Broadway." Levey had been away from America for many years, and this was a special number to fit that situation. (By the way, it was a very bad song and never got anywhere, although Levey sang it beautifully.) I came to a rehearsal to hear Levey sing 'I Beg Your Pardon Dear Old Broadway.' Jesse told me they needed a spot-in-one for Levey and asked if I had a song that might be suitable. I said I had a new song and sang 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' for him. He said, 'This is a good song, but certainly not for Ethel Levey who's a contralto and needs a song that can be sung much slower.'

So "Alexander's Band" was not sung by Levey but instead was whistled by Oatis Harland [sic], the comedian of the show, for one performance. It was taken out of the show after the opening night of Folies Bergere. Later it was sung for the first time by Emma Carus in Chicago. This is particularly interesting because after the Folies Bergere flopped and Ethel Levey had returned to England, the song became a tremendous success and 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' finally got to Levey in London. She sang it there and caused a sensation with it, singing it very slowly. Several years later, she played a return engagement in America at the Palace Theatre and sang 'Alexander' in her act. I remember how upset I was at her rendition of it. The audience, of course, did not agree with me. She was a riot. Lasky just told me over the telephone that he likes to refer to himself as the man who turned down 'Alexander's Ragtime Band.' He added that had he been smart enough to choose it for Ethel Levey, the Folies Bergere might have been a big success . I doubt it very much. . . ."

Excerpt(s) from The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin edited by Robert Kimball and Linda Emmet, copyright © 2001 by The Estate of Irving Berlin, Robert Kimball, and Linda Emmet. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing. Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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Irving Berlin - Irving Berlin - Alexanders Ragtime Band - Behind the Song

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One of the greatest successes in the annals of American popular music and the song that made Berlin famous all over the world. According to Berlin, who was quoted in a 1914 article in Theatre Magazine, "the melody came to me right out of the air.

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In 1912, Berlin married Dorothy Gets, but tragedy struck when she died suddenly on their honeymoon. Heartbroken, Berlin channeled his grief into "When I Lost You," his first hit ballad, selling a million copies. This song reflects Berlin's talent for turning personal sorrow into universal emotion.

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The Love Story of Irving and Dorothy Goetz Berlin - Forest Lawn

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White Christmas and Happy Holidays are two of the most popular holiday songs of all time. Both were written by iconic composer Irving Berlin, who is widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. Indeed his music is at the foundation of the “Great American Songbook.” While…

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The Love Story of Irving and Dorothy Goetz Berlin

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During WWI, Berlin wrote the humorous and relatable song “Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” capturing soldiers' sentiments. The song’s success brought military life to Broadway, blending humor with wartime patriotism. Berlin’s ability to turn everyday struggles into timeless music solidified his popularity.

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Irving Berlin - 'Oh, How I Hate to get up in the Morning'

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Irving Berlin could only play in the black keys, so he had a custom piano called "The Buick" that let him shift keys with a lever. This innovation allowed Berlin to compose across genres despite his lack of formal music training.

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Irving Berlin — Irving Berlin - The Songwriter’s Craft behind Broadway and Hollywood classics

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Explore Irving Berlin’s songwriting craft and his musical development through lyrics, melody, chords and musical talent. Written by NYU arts professor Laurence Maslon.

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Born in Russia as Israel Balin, Irving Berlin immigrated to the U.S., where he started as a paperboy and street singer. Despite struggling with English, he became one of America's most beloved songwriters, mastering simplicity in lyrics like "How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?" Berlin’s journey from poverty to music royalty showcases the transformative power of resilience and creativity.

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With a life that spanned more than 100 years and a catalogue that boasted over 1,000 songs, Irving Berlin epitomized Jerome Kern's famous maxim that "Irving Berlin has no place in American music - he is American music."

Irving Berlin was born Israel Beilin on May 11, 1888. One of eight children, his exact place of birth is unknown, although his family had been living in Tolochin, Byelorussia, when they immigrated to New York in 1893. When his father died, Berlin, just turned 13, took to the streets in various odd jobs, working as a busker singing for pennies, then as a singing waiter in a Chinatown Cafe. In 1907 he published his first song, " Marie from Sunny Italy," and by 1911 he had his first major international hit " Alexander's Ragtime Band."

Over the next five decades, Irving Berlin produced an outpouring of ballads, dance numbers, novelty tunes and love songs that defined American popular song for much of the century. A sampling of just some of the Irving Berlin standards includes " How Deep Is The Ocean," " Blue Skies," " White Christmas," " Always," " Anything You Can Do," " There's No Business Like Show Business," " Cheek To Cheek," " Puttin' On The Ritz," " A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody," " Heat Wave," " Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning," " Easter Parade" and " Let's Face The Music And Dance." In a class by itself is his beloved paean to his beloved country, " God Bless America."

He was equally at home writing for Broadway and Hollywood. He wrote seventeen complete scores for Broadway musicals and revues, and contributed material to six more. Among the shows featuring all-Berlin scores were The Cocoanuts, As Thousands Cheer, Louisiana Purchase, This Is The Army, Miss Liberty, Mr. President, Call Me Madam and the phenomenally successful Annie Get Your Gun. Recent musicals culled from his screen work include Irving Berlin's White Christmas (Broadway, across the USA, Canada and Great Britain), and winner of the 2013 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical.

Among the Hollywood movie musical classics with scores by Irving Berlin are Top Hat, Follow The Fleet, On The Avenue, Alexander's Ragtime Band, Holiday Inn, Blue Skies, Easter Parade, White Christmas and There's No Business Like Show Business.

His songs have provided memorable moments in dozens of other films as wide apart in space and time as The Jazz Singer (1927), (1991) and(1997) to The Simpsons (2006), Spider Man 3 (2007) and Downton Abbey (2011). Among his many awards are a special Tony Award (1963) and the Academy Award for Best Song of the Year for "White Christmas" in 1942.

An intuitive business man, Irving Berlin was a co-founder of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), founder of his own music publishing company, and with producer Sam Harris, builder of his own Broadway theatre, The Music Box. An unabashed patriot, his love for - and generosity to - his country is legendary, exemplified by his establishing The God Bless America Fund, which receives all income from his patriotic songs and distributes it to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

His actions were acknowledged with such accolades as the Army's Medal of Merit from President Truman in 1945; a Congressional Gold Medal for " God Bless America" and other patriotic songs from President Eisenhower in 1954; and the Freedom Medal from President Ford in 1977. In 2002, the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, named the Army Entertainment Division (AED) World Headquarters "The Irving Berlin Center" in his honor. Also that year he was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp.

Irving Berlin's centennial in 1988 was celebrated worldwide, culminating in an all-star tribute at Carnegie Hall benefitting the Hall and ASCAP, subsequently an Emmy Award winning special on CBS, and featuring such varied luminaries of the musical world as Frank Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern, Natalie Cole and Willie Nelson.

On September 22, 1989, at the age of 101, Irving Berlin died in his sleep in his town house in New York City. A widower since his wife of 62 years, the former Ellin Mackay, had died the previous year at the age of 85, Berlin was survived by three daughters and their families at the time of his death.

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Irving Berlin - Irving Berlin - Concise Biography - The Greatest American Composer and Songwriter

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Irving Berlin was born May 11th 1888 and lived in New York. Over five decades Berlin produced an outpouring of ballads, dance numbers, novelty tunes and love songs that defined American popular song for much of the century. Irving Berlin wrote music for Broadway Musical Theatre and Hollywood Movies

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On The Town's Reflection of the Sexual Revolution

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On The Town's Reflection of the Sexual Revolution

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The 1940s set the stage for the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and On The Town was ahead of its time in reflecting this cultural shift. Through songs and performances, the musical depicted the evolving roles of women, particularly in their sexuality and autonomy. The show’s lighthearted yet bold themes resonated with audiences during its original run.