Majority Rules and Your Own Monday Headlines

 

Courtesy Etsy.

Today's Notable Opening Night is Feb. 16, 1959, when A Majority of One opened at the Shubert. Because of time, today is just going to be a capsule summaries kind of day.

Notable Feb. 16 openings include:
The Ponder Heart, which opened in 1956 at the Music Box. Una Merkel won the Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play with this Eudora Welty adaptation. It's the story of an especially generous heir, played by David Wayne, who had been on a role prior to this short-lived show. Wayne's resume within the last nine years included the OBCs of Finian's Rainbow, Mister Roberts, and The Teahouse of the August Moon.

A Majority of One, which opened in 1959 at the Shubert before closing on June 25, 1960, at the Ethel Barrymore. Speaking of yellowface ... Gertrude Berg and Sir Cedric Hardwicke starred in this play (and Rosalind Russell and Alec Guinness in the film adaptation) about the friendship and romance that blooms between a Jewish woman and Japanese man who try their darndest to put World War II behind them.

Foxy, which opened in 1964 at the now-demolished Ziegfeld. Bert Lahr won the Tony for Best Lead Actor in a Musical for this David Merrick-produced, short-lived, take on Volpone. A prospector and a con man (Larry Blyden) seek to keep Foxy's so-called friends (Robert H. Harris, Gerald Hiken, and Edward Greenhalgh) from claiming his gold. There was also romance with a young pair (John Davidson and Julienne Marie) and a young-ish pair (Blyden and Cathryn Damon). Ian McLellan Hunter and Ring Lardner, Jr.'s book was matched with a score by Robert Emmett Dolan and Johnny Mercer.

Courtesy YouTube.

Baker Street, which opened in 1965 at the Broadway, where it spent eight-and-a-half months before a final two-week run at what is now the Al Hirschfeld. Sherlock Holmes (Fritz Weaver) sang in this lavishly-produced Alexander H. Cohen musical opposite Watson (Peter Sallis), Irene Adler (Inga Swenson), and Moriarty (Martin Gabel). The score was by Marian Grudeff and Raymond Jessel, with interpolations from Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. I'm particularly fond of Irene's second act song.

Courtesy YouTube.

Philadelphia, Here I Come!, which opened in 1966 at the now-demolished original Helen Hayes before closing that November at what is now the Gerald Schoenfeld. Brian Friel made his Broadway debut with this play about the last hours before an Irishman (Patrick Bedford as his outward self, Donal Donnelly as his inward self) leaves the country. It went zero for five at the Tonys, losing for Marat/Sade's production and direction, and Hal Holbrook's performance in Mark Twain Tonight! As it happens, David Merrick produced three out of the four Best Play nominees that year: Philadelphia, Marat/Sade, and Inadmissible Evidence. Talk about covering the bases!

The School for Wives, which opened in 1971 at the Lyceum. This wasn't a long-running production of Molière's comedy about a failed groomer (Brian Bedford, who won the Tony) and two young lovers (Joan van Ark, who lost the Tony, and David Dukes), but it's the most recent one to have happened on Broadway.

American Buffalo, which opened in 1977 at the Ethel Barrymore before closing on June 11, 1977, at the Belasco. Again, not a long-runner, but notable for marking David Mamet's Broadway debut. IMDB: "Long-repressed feelings of bitterness and betrayal explode when three inner-city losers (on Broadway, it was Robert Duvall, Kenneth McMillan, and John Savage) plot the robbery of a valuable coin in a seedy second-hand junk shop." Subsequent revivals have had Duvall's role, "Teach," played by Al Pacino, John Leguizamo, and most recently, Sam Rockwell. The last two Broadway runs also saw star casting for the other roles, with McMillan's part going to Cedric the Entertainer, then Laurence Fishburne, and Savage's part going to Haley Joel Osment, then Darren Criss.

Shirley Valentine, which opened in 1989 at the Booth. Pauline Collins won the Tony for Best Lead Actress in a Play for this one-woman Willy Russell show, previously a West End hit. A lonely housewife comes out of her shell while vacationing in Greece.

Courtesy YouTube.

For Thursday, you have a choice. Should my essay be on Picnic, On the Twentieth Century, or Crazy For You?