Category:
Theater and Stage
Theater and Stage
Kirby’s Flying Ballet
This is the apparatus that famously caused Mary Martin to fly as Peter Pan.
Wikipedia page for Peter Foy.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 18, 2021 -
Comments (4)
Category: Technology, Theater and Stage, Special Effects, 1950s, 1960s
Le Bellybutton
A forgotten moment in post-HAIR theater.'Nudie' musicals presented nudity onstage in a way that said 'sex is beautiful and natural and fun and there's no need to be afraid of it'. Unlike XXX theatre, Peep shows, and sex clubs, sex in these musicals was always simulated, never real. These musicals validated the sexual revolution happening outside with shows like Hair, Oh! Calcutta!, Stag Movie, Let My People Come, Le Bellybutton.
Article source.
More photos here.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 07, 2020 -
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Category: Regionalism, Sexuality, Theater and Stage, 1970s
250 Times I Saw a Play
Keith Odo Newman, whom the Guardian has described as "a homosexual Austrian psychoanalyst," authored 250 Times I Saw A Play, which was published in 1944. As the title suggests, it describes his experience of watching a play 250 times. The play was Flare Path by Terence Rattigan.
The backstory here is that Newman was Rattigan's doctor. According to TactNYC.org:
When World War II broke out, Rattigan, who was seeing a bizarrely charismatic psychiatrist named Dr. Keith Newman, decided, with the encouragement of his doctor, to enlist with the RAF. Despite the fact that he wasn’t at all mechanically inclined and was a social snob, Rattigan flourished in the egalitarian RAF, mastering the technical requirements and becoming an air gunner wireless operator (like Dusty Miller in Flare Path). It was while he was serving active duty that he wrote Flare Path and its creation seemed to dissolve the writer’s block under which Rattigan was suffering.
For some reason, Rattigan asked Newman to personally direct the performance of the lead actor in the play, Jack Watling, and Newman proceeded to become obsessed with Watling. Which is why, I assume, Newman ended up watching the play 250 times. Rattigan's biographer, Geoffrey Wansell, offers more details:
During rehearsals, which took place at the Apollo, Newman said nothing. 'He just sat there in the stalls, silent', according to Watling. 'But just before the play opened in Oxford, where I was to stay with him in his flat at Number 36 Holywell, he took me to the Lake District for three days of what he called intensive voice training.' The psychiatrist had devised a set of vocal exercises, which he insisted he practised for hours at a time. 'It was unbelievable,' Watling recalled. 'He took over my life completely.'...
At this stage Newman had not made a homosexual pass at Watling. That came later. Newman simply frightened him beyond words. 'I couldn't do anything without asking his permission. I was heterosexual then, and I am now, but Newman pretty much gave me a nervous breakdown. I couldn't cope with him.' Why Newman had this power, or why people submitted to him, Watling is just as unable to explain now as he was then.
At this stage Newman had not made a homosexual pass at Watling. That came later. Newman simply frightened him beyond words. 'I couldn't do anything without asking his permission. I was heterosexual then, and I am now, but Newman pretty much gave me a nervous breakdown. I couldn't cope with him.' Why Newman had this power, or why people submitted to him, Watling is just as unable to explain now as he was then.
After completing his odd book, Newman sent the manuscript to George Bernard Shaw, who wrote back with a few of his thoughts about it. Shaw's comments weren't very complimentary, but Newman nevertheless included a facsimile of them at the front of the book. Shaw wrote:
I don't know what to say about this book. The experience on which it is founded is so extraordinary, that an honest record of it should be preserved. But it would have driven me mad; and I am not sure that the author came out of it without a slight derangement.
Sure enough, Newman was subsequently certified insane and died in a mental institution.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 02, 2020 -
Comments (1)
Category: Theater and Stage, Books, 1940s
Revolt of the Beavers
The more things change, the more they stay the same...Revolt of the Beavers was a children's play put on by the Federal Theater Project by Oscar Saul and Louis Lantz. One critic described the play as "Marxism a la Mother Goose".[1] The show ran at the Adelphi Theatre in New York City from May 20, 1937, to June 19 of that year.[2] Jules Dassin [3] and John Randolph [4] were among the play's cast. The play involved a worker beaver named Oakleaf, who leads a revolt against "The Chief" Beaver who was exploiting the workers. Though the play was a fantasy fable intended for children, it was attacked by the HUAC for promoting Communist ideals.
Wikipedia page (source of quote).
More photos here.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 22, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Anthropomorphism, Politics, Theater and Stage, 1930s
Theater in a Whale
An idea proposed, but never realized, for the Pan-American Exposition held in Buffalo in 1901.
Some info from the Butte Miner - June 26, 1899:
Chicago's great fair had the Ferris wheel and Paris had the Eiffel tower. What will be the chiefest "dominant extraneous feature" of the Pam American exposition, which will be held at Buffalo on the Niagara Frontier in the summer of 1901 is not yet known, but there will be a number of features of special interest…
[An] idea, which was born in the brain of a man of biblical mould, is that of the "Jonah" theatre, and the submitted plan calls for the construction of a mammoth whale: a whale of iron and steel, which is to lie anchored in shallow water near the banks of the exposition. Dainty ferry boats are to play between the shore and the mouth of the simile of the floating Standard Oil company of former days, and those cheerful ones who live to enjoy themselves in strange ways are to be ferried from the shore to the tongue of the floater. There a smooth young man will have his hands crossed with silver and after this transaction the passengers will be at liberty to walk down the whale's tongue to the room where for three days and three nights Jonah sat and mourned the day that he became a Populist.
In that section all will be light and cool and cheerful, and on a stage vaudevillians will kick and sing and cavort and musicians will add to the gaiety of the scene and will make many believe that the ancient stories of Jonah's troubles were much overrated.
[An] idea, which was born in the brain of a man of biblical mould, is that of the "Jonah" theatre, and the submitted plan calls for the construction of a mammoth whale: a whale of iron and steel, which is to lie anchored in shallow water near the banks of the exposition. Dainty ferry boats are to play between the shore and the mouth of the simile of the floating Standard Oil company of former days, and those cheerful ones who live to enjoy themselves in strange ways are to be ferried from the shore to the tongue of the floater. There a smooth young man will have his hands crossed with silver and after this transaction the passengers will be at liberty to walk down the whale's tongue to the room where for three days and three nights Jonah sat and mourned the day that he became a Populist.
In that section all will be light and cool and cheerful, and on a stage vaudevillians will kick and sing and cavort and musicians will add to the gaiety of the scene and will make many believe that the ancient stories of Jonah's troubles were much overrated.
Posted By: Alex - Sat May 09, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Theater and Stage, 1900s
Hamlet, the Rock Musical
Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 03, 2020 -
Comments (0)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Costumes and Masks, Death, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Pranks and Revenge, Theater and Stage, Homages, Pastiches, Tributes and Borrowings, Pop Art, Foreign Customs, Seventeenth Century, Sixteenth Century, Brain Damage, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Big Boot Dance
The performer is. Harry Relph, aka Little Tich. The performance was filmed at the 1900 Paris Exposition.More info: wikipedia
Posted By: Alex - Sun Aug 04, 2019 -
Comments (2)
Category: ShowBiz, Theater and Stage, Vaudeville, Shoes, 1900s
Bathtubs Over Broadway
A new documentary about "industrial musicals" is just hitting selected theaters.The film's homepage.
The book that served as the source.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Nov 27, 2018 -
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Category: Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Theater and Stage, Industry, Factories and Manufacturing, Outsider Art, Surrealism, Twentieth Century
Via Galactica
One of Broadway's biggest flops.
NYT article here.
Wikipedia page here.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Aug 22, 2018 -
Comments (1)
Category: Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Theater and Stage, Science Fiction, 1970s
Effect of Gamma Rays on Marigolds
Paul Zindel's play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1971. It inspired Paul Newman to make a film of the same name the next year.And in 1974 it inspired 13-year-old Danny Kleiner of Philadelphia to wonder what the effect of gamma rays on marigolds would be. So he made that his school science project. He used cobalt radiation to produce the gamma rays. Unfortunately, I don't know what the results of his experiment were.
I haven't read or seen Zindel's play so I don't know if a similar experiment is featured in the book. I'm guessing it must be. I wonder how many high school students were inspired by Zindel's play to do similar experiments?
Danny Kleiner examining his gamma-ray-exposed marigolds
via Temple University Library
Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 14, 2017 -
Comments (4)
Category: Theater and Stage, Experiments, 1970s
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