Shubert`s Passing Show.

The
Passing Show
NEWSLETTER
VOLUME 22
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hubert Centennial Edition
2002
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From the Editor:
This issue of The Passing Show, our first since 1999, celebrates, decade by
decade, Shubert‘s first one-hundred years in the entertainment business. It also serves
as a companion piece to The Shuberts Present: One Hundred Years of American Theater,
a book authored by the Shubert Archive staff that has just been published by Harry N.
Abrams Inc. in association with the Shubert Organization. The book contains a chapter
on each of the Shubert Organization‘s current New York playhouses interspersed with
“interlude“ sections on various aspects of Shubert‘s history including the Shubert family, the Shuberts‘ War Efforts, Shubert operetta, Shubert revues, the Shuberts and the
movies, etc. The volume is lavishly illustrated with over 400 photographs, more than
200 in color. Among these are newly commissioned images of Shubert venues taken by
architectural photographer Whitney Cox. This centennial edition of The Passing Show not
only complements that project, but also contains dozens of archival images–reproduced in
color–that never made it into The Shuberts Present.
At this time we would also like to announce a change in the publication schedule
of The Passing Show. The Shubert Archive will no longer publish two issues of the newsletter annually, but will instead publish a single larger issue each year. We hope that this
change will allow us to improve the overall content and look of our publication. Watch
for our next issue during the spring of 2003.
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Many people viewed the start of the 20th century as a new beginning, but perhaps nobody more so than the Shubert brothers. After immigrating to the United States
from middle-Europe and surviving grinding poverty, their future looked promising.
Having succeeded in patching together a small circuit of theatres in the Syracuse area
of upstate New York, they chose the first year of the new century to move to Manhattan
and cast their lot there. Sam Shubert was the driving force behind the new enterprise.
As boys, he and Lee sold newspapers outside the theatres of Syracuse. Their ambition
served them well as they worked their way into the playhouses first selling concessions
and later working in box offices. Sam chose Lee to accompany him to New York City,
while J.J. stayed behind to operate their five theatres upstate. Sam and Lee lost no time in
acquiring the lease to the Herald Square Theatre at Broadway and 35th Street, one block
north of Macy‘s current location. Soon after, they took control of two other playhouses:
the Madison Square Theatre at Broadway and 24th Street and the former San Francisco
Music Hall, which they renamed the Princess, on Broadway and 28th Street.
If the Shuberts were anxious to become more than merely Broadway landlords,
however, they would have to cool their heels for a short time. The lease for the Herald
Square included a clause requiring them to honor all of the existing bookings. Anything
they wanted to produce themselves would have to be shoehorned in between other producers‘ shows. It was at this time that the neophyte producers had their first dealings with
the notorious Theatrical Syndicate. The Syndicate, as it was known, was a booking agency
comprised of a group of producers led by Abe Erlanger and Marc Klaw, and it ruled the
professional theatre scene with an iron grip. Producers who failed to play ball with the
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Syndicate found the best theatres and touring routes closed to them. Although many suffered under their domination, independent producers lived or died by the Syndicate.
Finally in May 1901, the first Shubert-produced play debuted: The Brixton
Burglary featuring Lionel Barrymore, which ran for six weeks and launched the brothers‘
career. The Shuberts followed this in June of the next year with A Chinese Honeymoon, a
bonafide hit at the newest Shubert venue, the Casino Theatre. Another British import, this
musical was rapturously received and ran for a year. Sam and Lee quickly realized that
acquiring playhouses was not enough–they needed shows to keep their theatres filled. To
that end, they began making regular forays to England to scout out productions that might
also succeed in New York.
As the boys from Syracuse continued to expand their theatrical holdings and
their production output, the Syndicate felt increasingly threatened. In 1903, a theatrical
war broke out between the upstart newcomers and the Syndicate. Erlanger informed Sam
and Lee that by breaking a Chicago booking they had violated their agreement with the
Syndicate and would be subject to retaliation. Sam, not at all intimidated, launched a well
thought-out campaign against the establishment. The Shuberts were not the only members
of the theatre community disgusted with the Syndicate‘s high-handed and questionable
practices, so Sam proposed an “Open Door Policy“ for the booking and touring of shows.
Many other independent producers joined the Shubert effort, among them David Belasco,
Harrison Fiske, and his actress-wife, Minnie Maddern Fiske. Newspapers, too, jumped on
the bandwagon and became either pro-Syndicate or pro-Shubert.
To fight the Syndicate on the road, it was necessary to put together their own
circuit, and by 1905, Sam and Lee had leases on theatres as far north as Buffalo, as far
south as New Orleans, and as far west as Milwaukee. They were even building a theatre
in London, England. At this time they also began the practice of producing shows under
(top) Advertising flyer (1902);
(bottom) The Herald Square Theatre
at Broadway and 35th Street,
seen here c. 1895.
(previous page, top) The Shubert
brothers shipboard, from left to right,
J.J., Lee, Sam. The Archive contains
a number of images of the brothers
and other family members, but not
a single photograph shows all three
siblings in the same picture; (bottom)
The Casino Theatre at Broadway and
39th Street was one of Sam Shubert’s
earliest acquisitions upon arriving in
Manhattan. In 1902, it was the sight
of one of the brothers‘ first hits,
A Chinese Honeymoon.
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the banner, “Messrs. Shubert present.“
In the midst of this frenzied expansion, however, with J.J. managing matters
upstate, Lee overseeing the construction of
the new London playhouse, and Sam en route
to Pittsburgh to wrest the Duquesne Theatre
from Syndicate control, disaster struck. The
train that Sam traveled on sideswiped another
transporting dynamite, and the resulting
explosion and fire were catastrophic. Twentytwo passengers, including Sam Shubert, died on
that fateful day in May 1905.
The Shuberts were devastated. Sam had been the driving force behind the family‘s theatre business, and it had been his charm and ambition that had advanced them so
far so fast. His surviving correspondence, which includes notes to him from showgirls as
well as his responses to them, attests to his innate presence and charisma. Lee, who by
most accounts was badly grief-stricken, was unable to return from London in time for the
funeral. Meanwhile J.J. and the rest of the family attended as Sam was interred in a white
marble crypt in a neo-classical mausoleum in Salem Field‘s Cemetery in Brooklyn.
If the theatre community thought Sam‘s death signified the end of the fledgling
Shubert Empire, they were sorely mistaken. Instead, Lee and J.J., who now relocated to
New York City, dedicated themselves to realizing Sam‘s dream. They opened a spate of
Sam S. Shubert Memorial Theatres across the United States and increased their rate of
expansion. Nevertheless, J.J.‘s personality was vastly different than Sam‘s. Whereas his
now-deceased brother had been quiet, creative, and soft-spoken, J.J. was mercurial and
brusque, known for his bad temper and lacerating tongue. There has also been some suggestion that J.J. resented being left in the hinterlands to tend the early theatres. Lee, for
his part, was reserved and stern, yet quite astute.
In 1906, J.J. began what would become common practice for the Shubert boys–
he married in secret. His bride was Catherine Dealy, who would bear him a son, John, two
years later. He was to be the only scion of the Shubert dynasty since J.J. and Catherine‘s
marriage would eventually end in a nasty divorce.
It was also in 1906 that Abe Erlanger escalated his offensive against the Shubert
brothers, and he chose Lee and J.J.‘s proposed tour of Sarah Bernhardt as his first target. The Shuberts had already organized the Society of Independent Managers in direct
opposition to Syndicate authority. So when they announced the U.S. farewell tour of La
Bernhardt, the Syndicate closed all of their affiliated theatres to the famous tragedienne.
Undeterred, the brothers rented a circus tent for Bernhardt to perform in and reaped reams
of press as the tour crisscrossed the country. Most of the publicity portrayed the Syndicate
in an extremely negative light. But ironically, Erlanger joined with the Shuberts the following year to tour a vaudeville circuit called “Advanced Vaudeville.“
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(top, left) Devastation at the scene of
the train accident that killed Sam in
May, 1905; (top, right) J.J. Shubert’s
first wife, Catherine Dealy, and infant
son, John (1908); (bottom) Sheet
music cover for a Shubert musical revue that played at the Casino
Theatre in 1907. Note that the name
of the publishing company, Trebuhs,
which was one of the brothers’
subsidiary businesses, is the word
“Shubert“ spelled backwards.
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Three postcards: (clockwise from
bottom left) Sarah Bernhardt (n.d.);
the Hippodrome (1908); and the New
Theatre (c.1909).
Among one of Lee and J.J.‘s bolder initiatives at this time was their leasing of the
immense New York Hippodrome at 6th Avenue and 43rd Street in 1906. Built and opened
the year before by Coney Island entrepreneurs Fred Thompson and Elmer S. Dundy, the
5,000-seat theatre was designed as a spectacle house. The Shuberts‘ first production in
the venue included an entertainment called Pioneer Days in which a full-scale battle was
reenacted with a tribe of Indians and a mounted cavalry. Another segment, Neptune‘s
Daughter, involved the theatre‘s massive water tank into which showgirls would dive, and
through the use of a diving bell, would seem to disappear mysteriously under the water. The
brothers would continue to lease and manage the playhouse until 1915.
Another of the Shuberts‘ more significant ventures was their participation in the
New Theatre, opened in 1909 at 62nd Street and Central Park West. An “art“ theatre, the
playhouse was to have been America‘s answer to the Moscow Art Theatre or the Comédie
Française, but it was, from the outset, a disaster. The acoustics were awful, and its location
was considered too far north for the theatre trade. Also, with 2300 seats, it was too large
for the serious dramas that it aimed to present.
Lee and J.J.‘s involvement with the New Theatre did have its upside, however.
Their association with such a prestigious project reinforced the idea that the Shubert
brothers were to be taken seriously. In addition, by 1910, they had presented nearly 100
productions, had acquired theatres spanning the length and breadth of the country, and
established themselves as a force to be reckoned with on Broadway. Sam‘s dream of
becoming a key player in the theatre business became a reality by the end of the decade.
Reagan
Fletcher
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Show girls from an unidentified
Shubert revue (1910s).
19101920
The Shubert brothers‘ business hit its stride in its adolescence. During the
1910s, the company experienced a period of steady growth and consolidation. Lee and
J.J. erected two flagship playhouses that soon came to symbolize Shubert: in 1911, the
Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway and 50th St. which was refashioned from the old
American Horse Exchange by architect William Albert Swasey, and, in 1913, architect
Henry Herts‘s beautiful new Sam S. Shubert Theatre which anchored the southern end of
Shubert Alley and also provided a home for the company‘s corporate headquarters.
These two theatres marked the beginning of a building boom that would only
stop with the Depression. The new Booth Theatre occupied the north end of Shubert
Alley and shared a facade with the Shubert. Immediately to the west, the joined-at-the-hip
Broadhurst and Plymouth Theatres went up in 1917. Two years later the Shuberts built the
Morosco and the Bijou on 45th Street. In addition, Lee and J.J. acquired the Longacre at
this time. Their empire on the road was also expanding.
During this decade, the Shuberts perfected the two genres of musical shows
that they became especially known for – revues and operettas. The revue‘s pastiche
format offered chorus girls in outrageous costumes, specialty acts, topical songs, and
satirical sketches spoofing current events, the movies, famous people or even contemporary Broadway dramas. The Passing Show, which Lee and J.J. would produce annually
throughout the teens, was the brothers‘ answer to Ziegfeld‘s Follies.
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Shubert Theatre, NY, NY (1913).
Al Jolson‘s first contract (Feb.
7th, 1911) with the Shuberts, who
engaged the performer to play the
Winter Garden for $325 per week.
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The Shuberts introduced many stars in their revues. Al Jolson debuted on
Broadway with La Belle Paree (1911), the opening production at the Winter Garden. It
was the first of many Shubert productions— The Whirl of Society (1912), Honeymoon
Express (1913), Robinson Crusoe, Jr. (1916) and Sinbad (1918)–that he would headline
at the theatre. The Howard Brothers, Willie and Eugene, were vaudeville comedians with
a penchant for Yiddish humor who starred in several editions of The Passing Show. Lee
Shubert discovered in London a delightful eccentric American ballerina named Marilynn
Miller, whom he put under contract. Miller made her Broadway debut in The Passing
Show of 1914 and then subsequently graced The Passing Show of 1915, Show of Wonders
(1916) and The Passing Show of 1917 before decamping for the enemy, Florenz Ziegfeld.
One of the Shuberts‘ bigger mistakes, in fact, was letting Miller go. Although she had
become the toast of Broadway under their tutelage, the Shuberts refused to raise her
salary. Miller argued that because she was a minor when she had signed her contract,
the document was invalid. Lee and J.J. lost in court, and off Miller went. Also making
their debuts on the legitimate stage in Shubert productions were the Astaires, Fred and
Adele–who appeared in Over the Top (1917) and The Passing Show of 1918.
Lee and J.J. may even be better known for their operettas than their revues.
During the teens, they began their long collaboration with composer Sigmund Romberg
who wrote songs for revues and musicals before creating part of a score for an adaptation of a Viennese operetta, The Blue Paradise (1915) in which Vivienne Segal made her
Broadway debut. The show was a big hit, and Romberg went on to compose the music for
Maytime (1917), an even bigger sensation. Its run at the Shubert Theatre was so successful, in fact, that the brothers opened a second company across the street at the 44th Street
Theatre prior to a national tour. This was actually a gimmick that allowed them to bill the
second company as “direct from Broadway.“ Maytime cemented the Shuberts‘ relationship with Romberg that lasted on and off until My Romance (1948), Romberg‘s and the
Shuberts‘ last operetta. Throughout their active producing years, Lee and J.J. Shubert also
presented revivals and new productions of operettas by Rudolf Friml, Franz Lehar, and
Oscar Straus.
Although musicals were a big draw, Lee Shubert was also interested in presenting quality dramas. As business manager for the New Theatre he helped to present plays
by, among others, Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Shakespeare and Piñero. And it was through his
involvement in this enterprise that he met Winthrop Ames with whom he formed a partnership. Lee built the Booth Theatre for Ames on a site originally intended as a downtown
expansion of the New Theatre. Among the other plays that the Shuberts presented at this
time were Graham Moffat‘s successful Scottish comedy, Bunty Pulls the Strings (1911);
the American premiere of George Bernard Shaw‘s Fanny‘s First Play (1912); and four
plays by playwright/actress Rachel Crothers which she also staged: Ourselves (1913),
A Little Journey (1918), 39 East (1919) and He and She (1920) in which she starred.
Additional playwrights whose work the Shuberts produced included Augustus Thomas,
Eugene Walter and Owen Davis.
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The Great War was only a minor interruption in the theatre business, partly
because the U.S. entered the war so late. Revue sketches touched on the war in Europe and
- eventually - strongly supported the Allies‘ cause. Initially, numbers in Shubert revues
echoed President Wilson and Congress‘s isolationist attitude, so that in the 1915 edition
of the annual revue, The Passing Show, chorus girls sang “It‘s America First.“ By the
show‘s 1917 edition, however, there was no waffling as the hero in the song “Johnny Get
Your Gun“ is urged “to learn to shoot for your Uncle Sammy.“ The Shuberts cooperated
with the government by making pitches in support of the war effort and the sale of liberty
bonds during “Liberty Loan Week.“ Stars like John Barrymore and De Wolf Hopper spoke
from the stage encouraging the audience to buy war bonds. After war was declared, the
Shuberts offered sailors and soldiers half-price tickets at their theatres and also donated
their playhouses for charitable activities on behalf of the war effort.
As the 1910s drew to a close, the Shuberts encountered two major obstacles. In
the fall of 1918, a major outbreak of influenza struck swiftly and widely throughout the
world – causing the most disastrous results where people congregated. Military camps,
for example, were decimated, and eventually all venues where groups gathered, including
theatres, were closed. In October, one Boston house manager wrote Emanuel M. Klein,
who worked in the Shuberts‘ New York business offices, that several members of his family were down with the flu and added, “Well, the shows as you know have been closed a
couple of weeks and will surely be closed a couple more. Salaries stopped with the shows,
apparently, so I have surely gotten into a mess here.“ In December, Fred Astaire wrote J.J.
Shubert and respectfully requested that he and his sister receive full pay for the Christmas
week because business was so good, and because they had lost salary when the influenza
epidemic had shuttered the theatres. Luckily, by Armistice Day, November 11, the theatres
had reopened to business as usual–as disastrous as the epidemic was, it was swift.
The actors‘ strike that began in August 1919, at times, resembled civil war. The
Actors Equity Association was formed in 1913 to unionize actors and negotiate a standard contract with producers. By 1919 performers were frustrated with their inability to
arbitrate contractual disputes so they walked out, shuttering productions in New York,
Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston, among other cities.
The strike pitted members of the Producing Managers‘ Association, including
the Shuberts, Abe Erlanger, George M. Cohan, David Belasco, Harrison Grey Fiske,
George Broadhurst and actors such as E. H. Sothern and David Warfield, against the
majority of performers such as Ed Wynn, Lionel, John and Ethel Barrymore, W.C. Fields,
Van & Schenk, Eddie Cantor, Pearl White, Blanche Ring, and Charles Winninger. Actress
Marie Dressler, who was elected head of the Chorus Equity Association, put it this way:
“The two big combines [the Shuberts and the Syndicate] hate each other, but to fight the
actor they have put their own differences behind them and are working hand in glove.“
For their part other stage unions –the stage hands (I.A.T.S.E.) and the musicians (A.F.M.)
–walked out in support of Equity.
The strikers‘ main goal was to secure from producers formal recognition of
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D
uring this
decade, the Shuberts
perfected the two
genres of musical
shows that they
became especially
known for — revues
and operettas.
Interior of the Winter Garden Theatre,
(c. 1911).
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Equity as the actors‘ union. They also sought concessions regarding salary, limiting the
number of weeks that performers could be required to rehearse without pay, and the issue
of who should bear the cost of each production‘s costumes. The strike ended on September
6, 1919 with the union winning the most important concessions: Equity‘s contract would
be used and Equity would represent the actors, although there would be no closed shop. And
so after the thirty-day strike, the theatres reopened to business as usual. The new decade that
was about to dawn would prove to be the era of the Shuberts‘ greatest success.
Maryann Chach
(clockwise from top left) Christmas card
from Al Jolson (1922); two patriotic costume
designs from wartime revues: Uncle Sam, and
a Service Girl; dress rehearsal ticket (1912);
advertising flyer (1918); window card (1915);
advertising flyer (1916); Winter Garden ticket
(1914); and Marilynn Miller (c. 1916) (center,
left) Musical comedy star Gaby Deslys and
(center, right) sheet music (1912).
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Following on the heels of the First World War, the 1920s have often been viewed
as a decade of resurgence during which the United States experienced both an economic
and a socio-cultural boom. Prosperity enabled more households to own products created by
new technologies, women became an increased presence in both the work place and the voting
booths, and works of art and literature were breaking established conventions.
As for the Shuberts, the twenties found them at the peak of their theatrical
careers. By 1924, they offered the public stock options in their newly incorporated
Shubert Theatre Corporation that consisted of about 94 theatres they either owned or
leased across the nation. In addition, Lee and J.J. were investing in and acquiring prime
theatrical real estate as well, especially in New York City which had long been considered show business‘s center stage. The decade saw the opening of several major Shubert
venues on Broadway including the Ambassador (1921); the Imperial (1923); the Music
Box (which the Shuberts became involved with in 1926); the Golden, the Majestic, and
the Royale (all 1927); and the Barrymore (1928).
On the production side of things, the twenties were filled with “typical“ Shubert
fare-crowd pleasers full of song, dance, spectacle, and charismatic stars. At the beginning
of the decade, Eddie Cantor appeared in several Shubert shows. The ultimately successful
Actors‘ Equity strike that had begun in 1919 had resulted in a pro-union Cantor defecting from Florenz Ziegfeld and his hugely successful Follies for the Shuberts‘ rival camp.
Though Cantor‘s stay with the brothers was comparatively brief, his three years (1920
through 1922) under their auspices saw him in popular shows like The Midnight Rounders
(1920), Broadway Brevities of 1920 in which he appeared with his friend Bert Williams,
and Make It Snappy (1922).
Another Shubert star, Al Jolson, continued to build on the immense popularity that he had enjoyed in the previous decade. His appearance in Bombo (1921) at
the Shubert theatre named after him was one of his biggest successes. Though he left
Broadway for the world of motion pictures in the mid-twenties, he would appear again in
New York under the Shubert banner in the 1930s.
Throughout the decade Shubert-produced operetta set the standard for this type
of musical entertainment. Central to Lee and J.J.‘s success with the genre was their
association with Sigmund Romberg. In 1921 Romberg along with Dorothy
Donnelly adapted a European work based upon the life and
music of Franz Schubert, which they called Blossom
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(previous page) Costume design by
Howard Greer for The Greenwich
Village Follies (1922). Greer began
his career designing for the fashion
world, and during a stint in Europe
began designing costumes for the
theatre. Eventually he went on
to become the chief designer for
Paramount Pictures and had a
long and lucrative career dressing
stars for the movies.
(below top) Sheet music cover
(1922). (below) Advertising flyers
(left to right, 1921, 1926, and 1924).
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Time. The resulting operetta was the biggest hit of its season, and it ran for more than 500
performances. Next the two collaborated on the musicalization of a German novella that
had already been dramatized and, under various titles, successfully staged across Europe
and in the U.S. It told the story of a Prince who, while attending university, falls in love
with a girl of an entirely different class. But when the Shuberts first heard what Romberg
had composed for the new production, they insisted on changes and threatened to drop the
entire project. Romberg, however, kept true to his original vision, and The Student Prince
(1924) filled with memorable music and an unprecedented large male chorus, was his
and Donnelly‘s transformation of the play into a grand spectacle called a triumph. The
show surpassed even Blossom Time in popularity and became the composer‘s greatest
success.
In 1927, Romberg and Donnelly had yet another Shubert success on their hands
with My Maryland, an operetta they based upon the saga of Civil War heroine, Barbara
Frietchie, a Southern girl who chooses to marry her Yankee love despite the complications
that ensue. The show was a great hit, and both leading soprano Evelyn Herbert and the
substantial male chorus won special praise.
The musical revue was another genre that the Shuberts enjoyed much success
with during the decade. The annual editions of The Passing Show that Lee and J.J. had
begun in 1912, continued, though intermittently, up until 1925. In 1921 the first of several
editions of The Greenwich Village Follies opened under the Shubert banner. Originating
off-Broadway in 1919, the first edition was staged by John Murray Anderson as a reflection of the characters and milieu of bohemian Greenwich Village. By the time the production transferred to the Shubert Theatre, it had become nearly as elaborate as one of
Ziegfeld‘s productions, complete with gorgeous sets and glamorous costumes. The 1922
edition featured a show curtain painted by Reginald Marsh that depicted Village artists,
writers, and other well-known personalities. The 1923 edition also included a Marsh curtain along with a lavish James Reynolds production number, but is perhaps most noted
today for featuring a dancer named Martha Graham. She performed in the show‘s “Ballet
Ballads“ number in a style far removed from the stark modernistic movement that would
later be her trademark. The Greenwich Village Follies appeared through 1925 before they
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(left) Artists and Models (1923) Act
I, Scene 9: “Jackie Coogan“ with Etta
Pillard & Ensemble; (right) advertising flyer (1923).
were laid to rest, although the Shuberts did attempt a comeback with a 1928 edition.
Another series of revues gained popularity–and not a little notoriety–thanks to
the (near) nakedness of the girls it put on display. Following roughly in the tradition of
the Parisian Folies Bergère, and Earl Carroll‘s Vanities (1923), which boasted as its main
attraction “The Most Beautiful Girls in the World,“ the Shuberts, offered up Artists and
Models in 1923. As its title implied, the show‘s premise was to show off glamorous girls
wearing as little clothing as possible. Though comedy and music were also a part of the
formula for these shows, the name of the game was seeing just how much nudity you
could get away with under the pretense of “art.“ Artists and Models appeared in several
editions through 1930 and then reappeared one final time in 1943.
Among other Shubert revues of the 1920s that deserve mention was Gay Paree,
produced in two separate editions (1925 and 1926). The show had nothing to do with Paris
but was certainly gay with its scantily clad chorus girls, lavish production numbers and
the comic antics of comedian Chic Sale. With A Night in Paris (1926), A Night in Spain
(1927) and A Night in Venice (1929) the Shuberts showcased up-and-coming talent like
Phil Baker, Sid Silvers, Helen Kane, the Chester Hale Girls and Ted Healy (whose act
featured the future Three Stooges–Moe and Curly Howard and Larry Fine). And soon-to-be
Hollywood legend Busby Berkeley staged the dances for A Night in Venice.
Towards the end of the decade three other notable stars worked with the Shuberts.
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(top) Chorus girls from A Night in
Spain (1927); (bottom) Gay Paree
(1928-29 touring production),
“Mothers of the World“ number.
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In 1928 Ethel Barrymore signed with the brothers, who named a newly built theatre for
her. Under their management, the actress appeared at her playhouse in three shows: The
Kingdom of God (1928), Scarlet Sister Mary (1931), and The School for Scandal (1931).
In 1927, Jeanette MacDonald starred in the first of three Shubert musicals, The Studio
Girl. The show opened at the Shubert Theatre in Newark, but never made it to Broadway.
She followed this with Angela (a.k.a. The Queen‘s Taste) in 1928, and Boom-Boom in
1929. The latter production also featured a young actor named Archie Leach, later known
as Cary Grant, who would go on to appear that year in the Shuberts‘ musical-comedy
adaptation of Johann Strauss‘s Die Fledermaus entitled A Wonderful Night (1929). Both
MacDonald and Leach would shortly depart Broadway for Hollywood where they
achieved their greatest successes.
The 1920s had been a time of great profit and expansion for the Shuberts, but
the stock market crash toward the end of 1929 meant that the decade ahead would be very
uncertain.
Sylvia
Wang
(left): The esteemed Ethel Barrymore,
for whom the Shuberts named a theatre in 1928; (right) Mae West, who
worked with the Shuberts as early as
1911 in their Winter Garden show
Vera Violetta, developed her sexy,
tough-as-nails and risqué persona in
such Broadway shows as Sex (1926),
and Diamond Lil (1928).
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The decade of the 1930s began badly for the Shuberts and most of their compatriots in the arts community. The stock market crash that had occurred at the end of
1929 led to an all-out collapse of the U.S. economy. The entertainment business was hard
hit. The Shuberts filed for bankruptcy, and on October 20, 1931, the Shubert Theatre
Corporation went into receivership; Lee Shubert and the Irving Trust Co. were appointed
receivers. The receivership allowed the brothers to disaffirm disadvantageous leases, and
to peel off a number of unprofitable holdings. Whatever remained after that was set to be
Judith Anderson in Pirandello’s
As You Desire Me (1931).
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sold at a court-appointed public auction. At this same time, the Shuberts created a new
corporate entity called Select Theatre Corporation, which as the sole bidder at the auction
held on April 7, 1933, bought back for $400,000 the stripped-down version of the old
Shubert Corporation (including almost all of Lee and J.J.‘s New York venues). Then they
gave 40% of the 200,000 common shares of the Select Theatres Corporation stock to the
former creditors and bondholders of the Shubert Theatre Corporation—one share for each
$1,000 of indebtedness.
Meanwhile other parts of the Shubert business comprised of corporations that
Lee and J.J. personally owned continued. But here too, financial difficulties set in, and in
order to sustain their enterprises, the brothers applied for loans through the governmentowned Reconstruction Finance Corporation. And so, over the next several years, amidst
the darkest of times, the Shuberts kept their theatres open and continued to employ hundreds of performers, technicians, and designers.
By the mid-1930s audience numbers once again began to rise. Ironically, it was
in this decade that the Shubert revue reached its apex. Shows such as Americana (1932),
Life Begins at 8:40 (1934), At Home Abroad (1935), The Show Is On (1936), The Ziegfeld
Follies 0f 1934 and 1936,and The Straw Hat Revue (1939) were celebrated for their wit,
glamour, and sophistication and for performances by Ethel Waters, Bea Lillie, Bob Hope,
Eleanor Powell, Eve Arden, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Danny Kaye and Imogene
Coca. Behind the scenes, artists like John Murray Anderson, George Balanchine, Agnes
de Mille and Vincent Minnelli made these productions shine. Less glamorous, but even
more successful with audiences were the zany musical comedy concoctions put together
by Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, those “two likeable lads loaded with laughs.“ First with
the immensely popular Hellzapoppin‘ (1938) and then with Streets of Paris (1939), the
duo injected a new vitality and a stream of money into Broadway‘s bloodstream.
Of course, the Shuberts produced other kinds of musicals, too, like The Wonder
Bar (1931), starring a post-Hollywood Al Jolson; Everybody‘s Welcome (1931), which
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Program, the first Shubert edition
of The Ziegfeld Follies on tour in
Toledo, Ohio (December, 1934).
first introduced the song “As
Time Goes By“ to audiences;
Hold Your Horses (1933),
featuring Joe Cook; E.Y.
Harburg, Howard Lindsay,
and Russel Crouse‘s Hooray
for What! (1937) with Ed
Wynn and Vivian Vance;
Howard Dietz and Arthur
Schwartz‘s Between the
Devil (1937); and Cole
Porter‘s You Never Know
(1938). And let‘s not forget
the old Shubert standby, the
operetta. Sigmund Romberg,
Otto Harbach, and Irving
Caesar found success with
Nina Rosa at the start of
the decade (1930-31), while
Rudolf Friml debuted his
final Broadway show, Music
Hath Charms in 1934. Franz
Lehar‘s Frederika (1937)
failed to achieve much of a
run, perhaps because audiences were put off by the
composer‘s supposed Nazi
leanings. Three Waltzes
(1937) with a score that featured melodies by Johann
Strauss, Sr.; Johann Strauss,
Jr.; and Oscar Straus turned
out to be a modest success
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for star Kitty Carlisle.
There were also some noteworthy Shubert-produced comedies and dramas
staged during the decade. Luigi Pirandello‘s As You Desire Me (1931) featured a luminous Judith Anderson, while Tallulah Bankhead scored in George Kelly‘s Reflected
Glory (1936). Other productions included Elmer Harris‘s A Modern Virgin (1931) starring Margaret Sullavan, T.L. Anthony‘s Autumn Crocus (1932), A.E. Thomas‘s No More
Ladies (1934), and J.B. Priestly‘s Laburnum Grove (1935) with Edmund Gwynn.
Mark E. Swartz
Imogene Coca takes aim in The Straw Hat Review (1939).
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Bobby Clarke ogles Gypsy Rose Lee‘s leg in The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936.
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(clockwise from top right) Sheet music (1939) for Olsen and Johnson‘s follow-up to Hellzapoppin‘; advertising flyer for Ayn Rand‘s drama in which the audience served as the jury at a court trial; souvenir program for
the Shubert-produced musical Keep off the Grass (1940) which featured choreography by George Balanchine
and starred Ray Bolger and Jimmy Durante; souvenir program (1936) for the Vincent Minnelli show that featured Bea Lillie and Bert Lahr.
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If the 1930s were a decade of loss and regeneration for the Shuberts, the 1940s
were a time for adjusting expectations and scaling back, at least as far as actual producing was concerned. After all, both Lee and J.J. were now officially senior citizens, and
many in the industry regarded their sensibilities as old-fashioned. Neither one of them,
for example, seemed to appreciate fully the American vernacular book musical that was
becoming increasingly popular and that would reach its zenith during this decade and
the next with the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe. For the
most part, they stuck with their usual mix of revues, operettas, melodramas, and light
comedies, but the total number of shows that bore the Shuberts‘ imprint during the 1940s
was miniscule compared to the brothers‘ pre-Depression output. Noteworthy among these
were, Sons o‘ Fun (1941), Laffing Room Only (1944), New Priorities (1942 and 1943),
Count Me In (1942), Wine, Women and Song (1942), a revival of The Student Prince
(1943), a new edition of The Ziegfeld Follies (1943), Agatha Christie‘s Ten Little
Indians (1944), Dark of the Moon (1945), The Wind Is Ninety (1945), and Sigmund
Romberg‘s My Romance (1948).
As theatre owners, however, the Shuberts continued to exert their influence, and
their playhouses were in constant demand. Some of the best that Broadway had to offer
in this decade opened in Shubert venues: Pal Joey (Barrymore Theatre, 1940); Panama
Hattie (46th St. Theatre, 1940); Angel Street (Golden Theatre, 1941); By Jupiter (Shubert
Theatre, 1942); The Skin of Our Teeth (Plymouth Theatre, 1942); Oklahoma! (St. James
Theatre, 1943); One Touch of Venus (Imperial Theatre, 1943); Carmen Jones (Broadway
Theatre, 1943); I Remember Mama (Music Box Theatre, 1944); Carousel (Majestic
Theatre, 1945); Annie Get Your Gun (Imperial, 1946); Finian‘s Rainbow (46th St., 1947);
High Button Shoes (Century Theatre, 1947); A Streetcar Named Desire (Barrymore,
1947); Anne of the Thousand Days (Shubert, 1948); Where‘s Charley? (St. James, 1948);
Kiss Me, Kate (New Century, 1948); South Pacific (Majestic, 1949); and Lost in the Stars
(Music Box, 1949). And on the road, the brothers dominated as well, not just with theatres
that they owned but also through the Shubert-controlled United Booking Office, which
was responsible for booking shows into dozens of theatres across the United States.
At the beginning of the decade anxiety over the growing conflict in Europe
had kept audience numbers down and made producers a little skittish. Once war was
declared the Shuberts were quick to rally to the cause. Lee Shubert became chairman of
the Legitimate Theatre Campaign for the Army and Navy Emergency Relief, which raised
money for the families of soldiers who were disabled, missing-in-action or dead. From
May 14 through May 20, 1942, actors made nightly appeals from stages all across the
country on behalf of the Campaign. Another project that the Shuberts supported was the
Stage Door Canteen, which they allowed to be set up in the basement of their 44th Street
Theatre in a space formerly occupied by Justine Johnstone‘s Little Club. Founded by
the American Theatre Wing and the United Service Organizations (U.S.O.), the Canteen
provided food and entertainment to our boys in uniform. John Shubert, too, did his share.
As Chairman and Chief Editor of the U.S.O.‘s Material and Writers Committee, which
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J.J. Shubert visits star Anne Jeffreys
in her dressing room prior to a performance of Sigmund Romberg‘s My
Romance (1948), the last operetta that
the Shubert brothers would produce.
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Postcard (1944).
was being organized to compile volumes of revue sketches, skits, songs, etc. that soldiers
could use to mount their own shows, he obtained the cooperation of producers, writers,
composers, lyricists and others in the theatrical community.
It was probably the war and the situation in Europe that influenced them. Or perhaps it was a simple desire to share their wealth and at the same time honor the memory
of their late brother that inspired them. Whatever the motivation behind their action, Lee
and J.J.‘s establishment of the Sam S. Shubert Foundation in 1945 is evidence of their
philanthropy and concern for the future. This not-for-profit organization began rather
modestly as a way for the brothers to donate part of their profits to charitable entities of
all types and eventually evolved into the largest private funder of performing arts groups
across the United States. The Foundation, in fact, would become the main benefactor of
Lee and J.J.‘s estates including all of their real estate holdings.
With the end of the war, another threat to the stability of the legitimate
theatre business arose – television. Ironically, although the new medium competed
with the stage for viewers, in the end the growth of the television industry in New
York exerted a positive change in the Shuberts‘ holdings and, thus, in the landscape
of American entertainment.
During its infancy, the television industry was centered in New York City, and
the networks – CBS, Dumont, NBC‘s Red Network and Blue Network (later ABC)
– desperately sought out studio space for their programming. The logical solution to their
problem was the legitimate theatres that sat dark for long stretches of time. While Lee
and J.J. Shubert owned outright the majority of their theatres in the city, in many cases
they only leased the land on which the buildings sat. In 1949, the Astor Estate, which
owned the land under all of the Shubert Theatres on 44th and 45th Streets, approached
Lee with a proposition to sell ten playhouses to the television studios – the Shubert,
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L
ee and J.J.‘s
establishment
of the Sam S. Shubert
Foundation in 1945 is
evidence of their
philanthropy and
concern for the
future.
(top) Celeste Holm dances Agnes
deMille‘s choreography in Bloomer
Girl (1944); (bottom) Milton Berle
[center] with Sue Ryan and Jack
McCawley in the “Counter Attack“
sketch in the Shubert-produced
Ziegfeld Follies of 1943.
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Booth, Majestic, Broadhurst, Plymouth, Golden, Royale, St. James, Imperial, and Music
Box. There was even some talk of demolishing the theatres to make way for a Television
City. The Shuberts‘ lease on the land under their buildings ran for a period of 99 years,
so the television people would have to pay dearly to buy the Shuberts out. At this point,
Lee was in his early eighties, an age at which most people in his situation would probably
have opted to take the money and retire. But the Shuberts‘ lease contained an option to
buy the land, and the brothers decided to exercise that option. While the taciturn Lee did
not make his intentions known, it is a safe bet that he and J.J. viewed the theatres as their
legacy. With this decision, the Shubert brothers preserved the legitimate stage and kept
the Broadway district intact.
Mark E. Swartz
Captain John Shubert and his wife Eckie, a member of the U.S. Citizens Service Corps, enjoy drinks at New
York City‘s legendary Stork Club.
(page 25, clockwise from top right) Advertising flyer (1944); advertising flyer (1944); sheet music (1945);
souvenir program for the premiere run of Disney‘s landmark animated film at the Broadway Theatre (1940);
sheet music (1949); sheet music (1949); Anne Jeffreys and Lawrence Brooks in My Romance.
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Lee and Marcella Shubert with
producer John Golden at
the Waldorf (1952).
19501960
As the decade began, the Shuberts, celebrating their 50th anniversary on
Broadway, were primed to face some challenges ahead. The theatre business was
changing, television was threatening, and the brothers were becoming increasingly
old. Furthermore, Lee and J.J. were about to be hit with a major antitrust lawsuit that
would occupy the company‘s attention for almost a decade.
On February 21, 1950, the United States of America brought suit against
Lee and J.J. Shubert; Marcus Heiman; the United Booking Office, Incorporated;
Select Theatres Corporation and the L.A.B. Amusement Corporation on charges that
they had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by creating a monopoly in the theatre
business. At this point, the Shuberts controlled about 20 theatres in New York City
and many more venues on the road. The suit alleged that through the Shuberts‘
involvement with the United Booking Office and their control of their own theatres
across the U.S., they held a stranglehold on booking that prevented independent theatre owners from competing. In 1956 the United States and the defendants entered
into a consent decree. Shubert was ordered to divest some of its holdings (including
the St. James and National Theatres in New York and many venues on the road) and
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restrained from booking any playhouses other than those they already owned. Although
the Shuberts had lost the fight, they garnered support from competitors. In a letter written
in 1950 to the Editor of the Daily News, theatre owner/producer Billy Rose said about
the Shuberts “that in 25 years of doing business with them, they‘ve never pitched me a
curve. Sure, they make the best deals they can, but so do I and so does your wife when
she buys the weekend pot roast.“ Rose went on to point out how Lee and J.J. borrowed
money to keep the theatres open during the Depression and concluded, “when the buckos
in Washington charge that the Shuberts are stifling the theatre, I can‘t help wondering how
much theatre there would be to stifle if it hadn‘t been for Lee and Jake.“
At 5:24PM on Christmas Day in 1953, more misfortune struck the Shubert
Organization when Lee Shubert died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Mt. Sinai Hospital in
New York. Mr. Lee, the oldest brother, was reported to have been 78 years old at the time
but was known to have admitted to friends that he was in his eighties. Present at his bedside were his wife, Marcella Swanson Shubert, his brother J. J., his nephews, John, Milton
and Lawrence, Sr., and his niece Sylvia Golde. With the exception of Mrs. Shubert, all would
shortly be participants in the battle over Lee‘s estate and the control of the company.
Many of Lee‘s obituaries mentioned Lee and his brothers‘ struggle to the top, the
difficulties overcoming the Theatrical Syndicate and their ruthlessness maintaining their
position. But Broadway columnists also fondly eulogized Lee. Ed Sullivan, for example,
mentioned a side of Lee that the public never saw–his generosity and reticence about
broadcasting his many charities. In his “Dream Street“ column, Robert Sylvester recalled
asking Lee what he did on Christmas Day 1952. Lee replied, “My wife and I sat in front
of the fireplace and burned up a half million dollars worth of IOU‘s.“ Others remembered
his largesse towards our servicemen and his support of the Stage Door Canteen.
After Lee‘s death, J.J. continued to run the company assisted by his son
John, but the Messrs. Shubert produced little during
the fifties and were predominantly theatrical landlords
of some of the most prized venues in the city. A split in
the two family factions over Lee‘s estate commanded
the attention of J.J. and John Shubert and the Shubert
lawyers for years to come. In an article in his original
will, dated January 27th 1949, Lee expressed a desire
that his close associate and nephew, Milton Shubert,
take his place in the company. He also named his
brother, J.J., as an Executor and Trustee of his estate.
However, by the time the last codicil to his will was
drafted and signed on May 18, 1953 – six months
before his death – something must have happened to
J.J. and Muriel Shubert (n.d.).
open a breach between the two brothers because J.J.
Shubert was no longer named as Executor and Trustee.
In any case, it is clear that there was no love lost between J.J. and his nephew,
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d Sullivan, for
example, mentioned
a side of Lee that the
public never saw—
his generosity and
reticence about
broadcasting his
many charities.
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(clockwise from top left) A high
school production of The Student
Prince (n.d.); souvenir program
(1959); window card (1956).
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and after Lee‘s death, Milton was eased or pushed out of the company. And when Lee‘s
will was filed for probate on February 19, 1954, Milton and Sylvia Wolf Golde, two
of Lee‘s executors, filed a complaint against Lawrence Shubert Lawrence and William
Klein, the other two executors, demanding an accounting of Lee and J.J.‘s partnership in
order to determine the exact value of Lee‘s estate. The complications that ensued over
the settlement of the estate stretched into the next decade after both John and J.J. Shubert
were dead. In the Fifties, however, J.J. maintained control of the company he helped to
build and fended off any attempts to liquidate its assets, which eventually were inherited
by the Shubert Foundation.
Meanwhile, the Shuberts made a tentative foray into television. At the
dawn of the movie era, the Shuberts had carefully examined scripts of past stage productions looking for a potential gold mine via the sale of movie rights
of stage scripts to Hollywood. The Fifties had them reexamining
their treasures for possible sale to television. The problem was
that the lawyers who drafted many of the production contracts
had not foreseen a future with television. Contracts often granted
the Shuberts limited rights—sometimes, for example, only for
legitimate stage production and movie adaptation, while radio
and all other rights were excluded. Occasionally they did hold
all rights, and some of the plays and/or musical productions
which they were able to promote to television included The Wolf, Waltz King, Count of
Luxemburg, Up Pops The Devil, Kiss Burglar, The Night of January 16th and Wildflower.
The Shuberts also leased out some of their theatres as television studios. For several years
the Dumont Network occupied the Ambassador, although Dumont‘s attempt to establish a national network failed, and the company dissolved in 1955. From 1944 to 1953
the Mutual Broadcasting System rented the Longacre for use as a radio and television
playhouse for WOR. Milton Berle, who became “Mr. Television,“ presented his popular
variety show “live“ from the stage of the Century Theatre
(formerly the Jolson), which the Shuberts‘ had rented to
NBC. Shubert also made an agreement with WPIX in New
York City to broadcast opening nights at their theatres, while
a proposed series called Shubert Alley intended to tell the
stories of the people who crossed Shubert Alley. The latter
project never made it beyond the planning stage.
The Shuberts also continued to profit from their
Century Library operation that rented out the stage rights to
Lawrence Shubert Lawrence,
Sr. and John Shubert at a
several hundred shows that the Shuberts and others had proparty Lee Shubert threw for
duced during the previous half-century. Countless school,
the Lunts (early 1950s).
regional and other amateur groups mounted productions of
old Shubert warhorses such as The Student Prince, and Blossom Time.
As far as Broadway is concerned the Fifties are thought of as the Golden Age of
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the book musical. But the Shuberts did not produce any of the decade‘s major hits—in
fact, the company would not produce another musical until the mid-1970s. Many of
these shows did, however, play in Shubert venues. Among them were: Call Me Madam
(1950), Wish You Were Here (1952), Silk Stockings (1955), The Most Happy Fella
(1956), Jamaica (1957), and Destry Rides Again (1959) –all at the Imperial Theatre;
The King and I (1951), Pajama Game (1954), and Li‘l Abner (1956)–at the St. James;
Top Banana (1951), Wonderful Town (1953), Peter Pan (1954), Ziegfeld Follies (1957),
and West Side Story (1957)–at the Winter Garden; Paint Your Wagon (1951), Can Can
(1953), Bells Are Ringing (1956), and Take Me Along (1959)–at the Shubert; New Faces
of 1952, and The Boy Friend (1954)–at the Royale; Me and Juliet (1953), Fanny (1954)
and The Music Man (1957)–at the Majestic; Mr. Wonderful (1956) and Gypsy (1959)–at
the Broadway; and the Pulitzer prize-winning Fiorello! (1959)–at the Broadhurst.
The Shuberts missed out on one of the biggest musicals, My Fair Lady (1956).
Roger L. Stevens has related that he had just produced Tamburlaine the Great at the
Stratford Festival in Canada and approached John Shubert for a particular Shubert theatre
for a Broadway run. John had agreed. Months went by, and Stevens read that the producers of My Fair Lady had booked the very same theatre for their musical. Stevens called
John Shubert to remind him of their previous agreement, and even though there had been
no formal contract with Stevens, John turned down the My Fair Lady booking to honor his
previous commitment. Unfortunately, Tamburlaine closed after 20 performances.
Pre-Broadway advertising
flyer (1956); Ambassador
Theatre exterior when
it was the home of the
Dumont Television network (early 1950s).
Maryann
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W
ith the
elderly J.J. ailing and
with John still trying
to get his bearings
as a producer, the
Shubert company’s
main focus was
becoming theatrical
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In a period known for anti-establishment risk-taking, things were artistically
uneventful for the Shuberts who produced only one show during the 1960s. Julia, Jake
and Uncle Joe (1961), presented under the aegis of John Shubert, was, in fact, one of a few
shows to bear the Shubert banner since Lee‘s death in 1953, and would be the last until
over a decade later. But although Claudette Colbert starred in this play based on Oriana
Atkinson‘s memoirs about her and her husband‘s adventures in Stalinist Russia, the show
closed after only one performance. With the elderly J.J. ailing and with John still trying
to get his bearings as a producer, the Shubert company‘s main focus was becoming theatrical real estate. And what real estate it was! Shubert venues continued to feature some
of Broadway‘s best and brightest during the sixties including: Cabaret (1966); Cactus
Flower (1965); Camelot (1960); An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May (1960);
Fiddler on the Roof (1964); Funny Girl (1964); Golden Boy (1964); Gypsy (1960); I Can
Get It For You Wholesale (1962); Luv (1964); Mame (1966); The Odd Couple (1965);
Oliver! (1963); Play It Again, Sam (1969); Plaza Suite (1968); The Star- Spangled
Girl(1966); The Subject Was Roses (1966); Tchin-Tchin (1962); and The Unsinkable
Molly Brown (1960).
But in a decade that witnessed, among other things, the growth of the Civil Rights
movement, the invasion of Cuba, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War,
the landing of men on the moon, the Beatles, student protests, the sexual revolution, long
hair, and mini-skirts, the Shuberts, too, would experience turmoil. The family suffered
the loss of both J.J., who died in 1963, and John, who actually predeceased his father the
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(top) Barbra Streisand as Fanny
Brice in Funny Girl (1964); (bottom)
The marquee of the Winter Garden
Theatre where Funny Girl opened on
March 26, 1964.
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year before. John had been traveling to Florida by train when he suffered a major heart
attack and died en route at the age of 53. His funeral was a meticulously planned affair,
staged and directed according to instructions in his will which specified that the stage of
the Majestic Theatre, which was then home to Lerner and Loewe‘s Camelot, be draped in
black cloth and that his coffin be placed center stage. His widow Eckie was to be seated
by its side. Producer Roger Stevens delivered the eulogy.
All in all John Shubert‘s funeral had been a strange affair, but what followed
was stranger still. When it came time to sort out the deceased‘s will, a second Mrs. John
Shubert arrived on the scene seeking to contest Eckie‘s position as sole wife. It was soon
revealed that John had obtained a Mexican divorce from Eckie in order to marry this other
woman who had borne him two children. The courts eventually decided in the first wife‘s
favor and declared the Mexican divorce and subsequent marriage not binding. They did
however grant the two children legitimacy and the right to use the Shubert name.
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Meanwhile J.J. himself, no longer of sound mind or body, was not even informed
of his son‘s passing. He died in December 1963—one decade and one day after the
death of his brother Lee. The company now fell under the command of Lawrence
Shubert Lawrence, Jr., one of Lee and J.J.‘s‘ grandnephews by way of his father,
Lawrence Sr., who was the son of Shubert sister Fanny. With Lawrence at the
helm the company backed away from producing new shows and concentrated on
making their houses available to other producers. By most accounts
Lawrence was not an able manager, and the company‘s fortunes
declined. At decade‘s end it appeared to many in the theatre
community that Shubert‘s days were numbered. But the next
few years would bring big changes, and the business that
Sam, Lee, and J.J. built would reach new heights of prestige
and prosperity.
Sylvia
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(left) Detail from souvenir program
cover (1967); (above) Mrs. “Eckie“
Shubert [seated] surrounded by
friends, left to right, Betty Jacobs
[Mrs. Bernard B. Jacobs], Pat
Schoenfeld [Mrs. Gerald Schoenfeld],
and Shannon Dean at the court settlement of her husband John’s estate.
(opposite page, clockwise from top
left) Ladies in waiting, Camelot
(1960) [photo by Milton H. Greene
and Friedman-Abeles]; program: Alan
Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller,
and Dudley Moore in Beyond the
Fringe (1962); program: Geraldine
Page, Michael Crawford, Donald
Madden, and Lynn Redgrave in
Black Comedy (1967); program:
Chita Rivera and Dick Van Dyke in
Bye Bye Birdie (1961); left to right,
Cedric Hardwicke, Cyril Ritchard,
Patricia Medina, Joseph Cotten, Sam
Levene, Dorothy Stickney, and Jean
Pierre Aumont pose in Shubert Alley
holding tickets in front of window
cards advertising their shows on the
occasion of the Alley’s 50th anniversary during the 1962-63 season
[photo by Friedman-Abeles]; Cyril
Ritchard as Sir in The Roar of the
Greasepaint – The Smell of the
Crowd (1965); and Angela Lansbury
as Helen and Joan Plowright as her
daughter Josephine in A Taste of
Honey (1961).
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(top) Lawrence Shubert Lawrence,
Jr., center, and Walter Matthau, right,
examine the model for
Century City and the new
Shubert Theatre, Los Angeles.
(bottom, left to right) Bernard B.
Jacobs, Mrs. John (Eckie) Shubert
and Gerald Schoenfeld at Shubert
Theatre, Los Angeles, 1972.
(opposite page) Shubert Theatre,
Los Angeles, interior.
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In the seventies, Shubert rose from the ashes like a phoenix and gradually
reversed the steady decline of the previous couple of decades. The two factors that proved
most beneficial to the company were the consolidation of the many separately incorporated Shubert entities into the Shubert Organization in 1973, and the appointment of Gerald
Schoenfeld and Bernard B. Jacobs to the Shubert board as Chairman and President,
respectively.
Change, however, did not come without turmoil. Unhappy with his performance as the company‘s chief executive, the Shubert board removed Lawrence Shubert
Lawrence, Jr. from office. Although Lawrence remained on the board, the executive duties
were now to be divided between Schoenfeld, Jacobs, and Irving Goldman who became
the head of the Shubert Foundation. But the company‘s troubles still were not over.
Goldman, who also held the unpaid position of Cultural Affairs Commissioner of New
York City, became entangled in some impropriety. Among other things he was alleged to
have received kickbacks on painting contracts for Shubert. So in 1975, the board asked
Goldman to resign. With the Lawrence and Goldman situations resolved, the company
could now focus on regrouping and regaining its financial foothold.
When the Messrs. Schoenfeld and Jacobs took the reins of the Shubert
Organization, they had already been working for the company in a legal capacity for
almost two decades. After Schoenfeld graduated New York University Law School in
1949, his first professional position was with the firm of Klein and Weir, attorneys for the
Shubert brothers. William Klein, in fact, had been the Shuberts‘ lawyer since 1900 when
he first met Sam. (Klein was also seriously injured in the same train accident that killed
Sam in 1905.) In the beginning Schoenfeld had no personal contact with either Lee or J.J.
but was eventually assigned to prepare their defense in the antitrust action brought forth
by the U.S. attorney general. Before long he became their chief counsel, and he recruited
Bernard B. Jacobs, a fellow lawyer and longtime friend, to work with him. Once the
board put them in control, they immediately set about returning the company to its former
glory.
The theatre district and surrounding Times Square area had been in physical decline during the 1960s and 1970s. Unattractive and uninviting, the so-called
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“Crossroads of the World“ housed porn shops, massage parlors, and other seedy businesses. Many tourists avoided the area. The theatre business was off, and it was hard to
attract audiences. In 1972, the Shubert Organization tried to bring in new business by
using one of their rivals for audience dollars–television. Pippin became the first production to feature scenes from a Broadway show in an eye-catching television commercial.
The jazzy music and sleek Bob Fosse dance moves that were featured turned out to be a
potent draw. Soon television advertising became de rigueur for Broadway shows trying to
succeed.
Shubert also reached out to audiences beyond New York City by selling tickets
via remote ticket locations. Initially the company worked with Ticketron, which operated nearly 1000 automated box offices in high traffic areas such as department stores
like Macy‘s, shopping malls and office buildings across the country. In 1979 the Shubert
Organization began computerizing all its box-office operations–a practice that revolutionized the whole ticketing business. By 1984, Shubert launched Telecharge, a “call center“
that was linked via computer to all Shubert box offices. Now patrons could order tickets
by phone and reserve the best seats available at the time of their call. What could be
easier!
But Schoenfeld, Jacobs and the Shubert Organization realized that they needed
to do more than make tickets easy to purchase. They had to make Times Square a desirable location – a place where people wanted to go. In a speech, Schoenfeld said: “Being
in the business of the theatre in 1975 means being involved in the environment. And the
environment has two meanings - the interior environment, the amenities of attractive theatres
and appointments [and]…the environment for office employees.…And there is the urban
environment, and the urban environment means zoning and police and sanitation and Fire
Department and obscenity and pornography and street vending and law enforcement and
relations with government officials and public relations and media relations.“
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(left) Michael Bennett (late 1970s);
(right) Bob Fosse, with Melissa
Manchester (left) and Phoebe Snow at
Sardi‘s (1978).
(opposite page) Newspaper clipping
showing Manhattan Plaza (late 1970s).
The Shubert Organization threw itself wholeheartedly into various plans to revitalize Times Square and the urban environment. Schoenfeld was appointed chairman of
the newly formed Mayor‘s Midtown Citizens Committee. Shubert was active as well in
The Broadway Association, a group of businesses operating in the Times Square area. The
company also participated in panels, commissions, and lobbying efforts, etc. to clean up
Times Square, and many inventive proposals were put on the table. Among these was the
creation of a Broadway Mall that called for closing Times Square to traffic and creating
a pedestrian car-free zone. Another idea involved the building of a midtown Convention
Center that would engulf several blocks between Broadway and 6th Avenue and would
cause traffic to be diverted through tunnels constructed through the proposed complex.
Neither of these schemes was realized. But one project supported by Shubert
and other members of the Broadway community did come to fruition and proved to be a
beachhead in reclaiming the theatre district. In 1976 Manhattan Plaza, a high-rise housing
complex on West 43rd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues, was nearing completion.
Mayor Lindsay‘s original intent was to rent the apartments to middle income individuals who would help reclaim a dicey neighborhood. By the time the project was finished,
however, New York City had a new mayor, Abe Beame. In addition, the projected rental
fees for Manhattan Plaza had risen so high that it became impossible to attract tenants
who were willing to pay $400 for a one-bedroom or $500 for a two-bedroom apartment.
One proposed solution involved using federal subsidies to offer lower rents to individuals
in the performing arts. Neighborhood residents complained, asserting that some of the
subsidized apartments should be offered to those residents whom the new project had
displaced. Eventually a compromise was reached that offered those people 15% of the
apartments while another 15% were set aside for senior citizens. The rest of the units were
rented out to performing artists.
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Meanwhile, outside of New York, the Shubert Organization built its first new
playhouse in 44 years: the Shubert Theatre, Los Angeles which opened at Century City on
July 21, 1972, with Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman‘s Follies. Designed by architect Henry George Greene, the theatre seated 1,824 and boasted impressive backstage
facilities, 50-foot high light fixtures formed of Italian blown glass, and many technical
innovations including a simultaneous translation system, a computerized light change
system, a modern electro-acoustical system, and facilities for the handicapped.
The 1970s also once again found Shubert an active producer of shows. While no
longer presenting shows at Sam, Lee and J.J.‘s lightening pace, the new Shuberts–Bernie
and Jerry as they would come to be known by the theatre community–brought to the
stage many outstanding productions including: Liza (1974), starring Liza Minnelli at
the Winter Garden; the Royal Shakespeare Company‘s revival of Sherlock Holmes
(1974); Godspell (1976), which transferred after a long, Off-Broadway
run; Sly Fox (1976); The Gin Game (1977); The Act (1977); Ain‘t
Misbehavin‘(1978); Dancin‘ (1978); and, Richard III (1979) with
Al Pacino.
Bernie and Jerry also enlisted some great talent for their
productions including two of the decade‘s brightest lights, Michael
Bennett and Bob Fosse. In 1975, the Joseph Papp-New York
Shakespeare Festival production of A Chorus Line
transferred from the Public Theater to the Shubert
Theatre and began what would become its recordbreaking run. Not long after this Michael
Bennett, the show‘s director/choreographer/
creator, and Mr. Jacobs developed a close
personal friendship. Jacobs, with the
Shubert Organization behind him, became
extremely supportive of Bennett‘s career
and was involved with most of the director‘s
post-A Chorus Line work. As for Fosse,
Shubert co-produced his all-dancing revue
called Dancin‘. With little or no dialogue
and with music drawn from the popular,
classical and rock-and-roll canon, this box
office hit was Fosse‘s response to the public‘s
heightened interest in dance in the wake of A
Chorus Line.
Finally, it was during this decade
that the Shubert Archive was established. In
1976 Lynn Seidler, then executive director
of the Shubert Foundation, recognized the
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potential historical value of the company‘s business and artistic records that were stored
in Shubert theatres throughout the country. She consulted Professor Brooks McNamara
of New York University‘s Graduate Drama Department. After a careful sampling of the
Shubert material, Seidler and McNamara recommended the establishment of an archive
that would concentrate on the work of Sam, Lee, and J. J. Shubert, the company they
founded, and the history of Broadway and the Shubert Organization. The Shubert board‘s
response was positive. McNamara hired Brigitte Kueppers as archivist and recruited a
group of graduate interns from New York University. Together they set about organizing
and cataloguing the company‘s vast historical past comprised of costume and set designs,
scripts, posters, photographs, programs, clippings, architectural plans, business papers,
contracts, correspondence, and more. From its somewhat chaotic early days, the Shubert
Archive, housed for more than 25 years in the Lyceum Theatre, has evolved into one of
the most unique and valuable specialized research collections in the world.
As the 1970s came to an end, it was with a renewed vigor and sense of accomplishment that a re-born Shubert would face the decade to come.
Maryann Chach
(Clockwise from top left) Shubert
Organization logo; Liza Minnelli
in The Act (1977)[photo by Martha
Swope}; and window card (late
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Historians are already referring to the 1980s as a “go-go“ decade. And, indeed,
at least for the first two-thirds of the decade the acquisitiveness of real-estate magnates
like the Trumps and the Helmsleys was in full-bloom, Wall Street was paved in gold, art
sold for astronomical prices, and too much was never enough. The theatre of the period
also reflected excess and was dominated by spectacle–often imported–often by Andrew
Lloyd Webber. Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of the Opera, and Les Miserables
were the hallmarks of the era.
But extravagance does not come cheap, and production costs continued to mount
steadily through much of the decade. Increasingly, producers, including the Shubert
Organization, joined with other producers and corporate entities in order to mount largescale productions. The days of the independent producer were numbered. Nor did the
stock market crash of 1987 make things any easier. It would put a damper on New York‘s
economy that would reverberate well into the nineties.
Nevertheless, the 1980s were good to the Shubert Organization. If the naming of
Bernard B. Jacobs and Gerald Schoenfeld as Chairman and President of the company in
1973 signified the beginning of a new era, the 1980s found them hitting their stride. The
cleanup of the Times Square theatre district was in its embryonic stage, but progress was
definitely being made. The Lyceum Theatre (home of the Shubert Archive) on 45th Street
between Sixth Avenue and Broadway is a case in point. In 1980 this was considered a
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Lucille Ball poses backstage with
Audrey II from Little Shop of
Horrors, the Shubert Organization’s
first off-Broadway production (1982)
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Left to right, Jennifer Holliday,
Sheryl Lee Ralph and Loretta Devine
in Michael Bennet‘s Dreamgirls
(1981) [photo by Martha Swope].
D
uring the next
few years Shubert
would produce some
of its most successful
and enduring shows.
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dangerous area: two SRO hotels insured
that a steady stream of hookers, drug dealers, and assorted ne‘er-do-wells populated
the street. By 1990, however, the area was
transformed. Four high-rise buildings were
in varying stages of completion. New tenants
included a deluxe hotel and the corporate
offices of Price-Waterhouse.
And throughout this period Shubert
houses continued to be in demand. As the
decade dawned, successful holdovers from
past seasons continued to run in many of
the company‘s venues. These included Ira Levin‘s Deathtrap at the Music Box, Bob
Fosse‘s Dancin‘ at the Broadhurst, Fats Waller‘s Ain‘t Misbehavin‘ at the Longacre,
Neil Simon and Marvin Hamlisch‘s They‘re Playing Our Song at the Imperial, Bernard
Pomerance‘s The Elephant Man at the Booth, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice‘s
Evita at the Broadway, and Michael Bennett‘s A Chorus Line at the Shubert.
During the next few years Shubert would produce some of its most successful
and enduring shows. Peter Shaffer‘s dramatic play Amadeus (1981), which examined the
concept of artistic genius through the lives of Mozart and his contemporary Salieri, won
five Tony Awards and enjoyed a lengthy run. The next season, the Organization imported
from London The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, which became a theatrical
phenomenon. The marathon production, which had to be experienced in two sittings separated by a dinner break, garnered four Tony Awards including Best Play.
Michael Bennett‘s Dreamgirls (1982), the musical story of a pop-music girl
group à la Diana Ross and the Supremes that won six Tony Awards came under the
Shubert aegis as a result of the Organization‘s involvement with A Chorus Line and Mr.
Jacobs‘s friendship with Michael Bennett. When the director began planning Dreamgirls,
he took it to Jacobs who immediately committed the Imperial Theatre to the project.
Bennett‘s cinematic, fluid direction wowed the critics and audiences alike, and the show
launched the career of Bennett discovery Jennifer Holliday.
Later in 1982, Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Cats, the first of the British megamusicals, debuted on Broadway. An adaptation of T.S. Eliot‘s slim book of poetry, Old
Possum‘s Book of Cats, the production was a certified hit even before it premiered here
by dint of its enormous popularity in London. The show‘s set transformed the interior
of the Shuberts‘ venerable Winter Garden Theatre into a junkyard filled with oversized
detritus created to give audiences a feline perspective. And when Grizabella the glamour
cat ascended to the “heavy-side layer“ at the show‘s climax, it seemed as if she would
actually break through the ceiling of the auditorium. Audiences flocked to the show and
continued to do so until it closed in September 2000 after having become the longest-running show in Broadway history (7,485 performances).
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Master Harold…and the Boys (1982) was the first Broadway drama to examine
the issue of apartheid, and was the first of many Shubert productions during this decade
to address weighty social issues. Marsha Norman‘s thought-provoking ‘night, Mother
(1982) starring Kathy Bates took up the topic of suicide, while William M. Hoffman‘s
As Is (1984) told the story of a gay couple battling AIDS. Harvey Fierstein‘s Safe Sex
(1987), an evening of three topical one acts, also addressed the ever-worsening AIDS
crisis. Another apartheid-themed work, Sarafina! (1988) transferred to the Cort Theatre
after a successful Off-Broadway run at Lincoln Center. The show, set in a South African
high school, told the story of Nelson Mandela. Shubert also brought to Broadway Wendy
Wasserstein‘s The Heidi Chronicles (1989), which began life at Playwrights Horizons.
Beginning in the turbulent 1960s, this comedic drama followed the life of a feminist and
her friends over 24 years of societal and personal turmoil. It won both the Tony Award for
Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize.
Another Shubert production that began its life at Playwrights Horizons and went
on to win the Pulitzer Prize was Stephen Sondheim‘s Sunday in the Park with George
(1984). This meditation on the nature of art and the artist‘s role in society was a visual and
sonic tour-de-force. The production also marked the beginning of Shubert‘s association with
writer-director James Lapine, who has been the company‘s creative consultant for several
years.
A musical of a different sort was Bob Fosse‘s Big Deal (1986), based on a littleknown film, Big Deal on Madonna Street. The director chose period music from the
1930s to tell the story of a gang of bumbling robbers. But although the much-anticipated
new production contained some classic Fosse choreography, it was otherwise deemed to
be lackluster and ran only briefly. Sadly, just over a year later, Fosse died of a heart
attack in Washington, D.C. where he was overseeing rehearsals for a revival tour of
Sweet Charity.
Other notable Shubert productions during the decade included several British
imports like Tom Stoppard‘s The Real Thing (1983) starring virtual unknowns Glenn
Close and Jeremy Irons and directed by Mike Nichols, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1987)
starring Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, David Hare‘s The Secret Rapture (1989),
and Peter Shaffer‘s Lettice & Lovage (1990) starring Maggie Smith giving a bravura
comic performance as tour guide Lettice Douffet. In addition, two American adaptations of British hits also tried their luck on this side of the Atlantic. The first, Andrew
Lloyd Webber‘s Song and Dance (1985) was reworked and proved to be a star vehicle
for Bernadette Peters who played a British girl living in New York City. And then there
was Chess (1988) the new musical by Tim Rice, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Benny Andersson.
The show had already proved popular in London and had even generated a chart-topping
song, “One Night in Bangkok,“ but Michael Bennett, the production‘s director, felt that
the staging was flawed and needed to be reconceived. Unfortunately, ill health forced him
to abandon the project, and Trevor Nunn assumed control. Critics and audiences found
the resulting production lacking, and it closed after a brief run.
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This riff on the iconic Les Miserables
logo appeared as an advertisement in
Variety on June 28, 1988.
(clockwise from top left)
Souvenir pinback button (1982);
advertising flyer (1988); advertising
flyer (1990) window card (1984);
playbill for the final performance of
A Chorus Line (1982).
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(top to bottom) An envelope,
invitation to and menu for the
opening night party for Phantom
of the Opera (1988); the company
of Jerome Robbins‘ Broadway
The Shubert Organization also mounted some strong revivals during the eighties.
Among these were Eugene O‘Neill‘s A Moon for the Misbegotten (1984) starring a magnificent Kate Nelligan; A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (renamed simply Joe Egg [1985])
starring Stockard Channing and Jim Dale; Long Day‘s Journey Into Night (1986) with
Jack Lemmon and a virtually unknown Kevin Spacey; George Bernard Shaw‘s Pygmalion
(1987) starring Peter O‘Toole as Higgins and Amanda Plummer as his Eliza; an original
cast revival of the hugely successful revue Ain‘t Misbehavin‘ (1988); and an all-star production of Somerset Maugham‘s The Circle (1989) featuring Rex Harrison, Glynis Johns,
and Stewart Granger. Jerome Robbins‘ Broadway (1989) was a cross between a revival
and a new show. A massive retrospective of Robbins‘s work, the multi-million dollar
musical was a compendium of some of the best numbers ever to appear on the Broadway
stage. But despite winning critical acclaim and six Tony Awards the production failed to turn
a profit.
Shubert would even venture out into Off-Broadway territory during this period.
Little Shop of Horrors (1982), which opened at the Orpheum Theatre in the East Village,
marked the company‘s first major investment in an Off-Broadway show. This Howard
Ashman-Alan Menken musical based on Roger Corman‘s 1960 cult classic film was a
huge popular success that would run for five years and tally 2,209 performances. The
show was so hot, in fact, that celebrities flocked to it (especially during the early part of
its run), and it was made into a motion picture starring Steve Martin.
The Shubert Organization closed out the decade with a bang, producing seven
shows during the 1989-90 season. Aside from the aforementioned The Secret Rapture,
Lettice & Lovage and The Circle there was Aaron Sorkin‘s A Few Good Men (1989).
This military courtroom drama marked the playwright as a talent to watch. The show was
made into a successful film starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, and Sorkin went on
to create the much acclaimed television programs, Sports Night and The West Wing. Jay
Presson Allen‘s Tru (1989) featured Robert Morse giving a tour-de-force performance as
Truman Capote. The production focused on the legendary author‘s life after he fell out of
favor with his society ladies. Morse won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.
And speaking of Tony Awards, Shubert was proud to win both the Best Musical
and Best Drama Tonys that season. City of Angels (1989) found the Organization joining
forces with Jujamcyn Theatres and others for this unusual musical that told the simultaneous story of a screenwriter and the film he created. The show featured a lively cast headed
by Randy Graff and James Naughton. Different in mood, but certainly no less compelling was a dramatic adaptation of John Steinbeck‘s The Grapes of Wrath (1990). Coproduced with Chicago‘s Steppenwolf Company and featuring many of that Company‘s
regulars including Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney, the production took a circuitous route
to Broadway by way of Chicago; La Jolla, California; and, London.
Reagan
Fletcher
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Times Square B.I.D. Annual Report
(1994)
As the 1990s began New York City and its theatre industry were still feeling the
effects of an economic downturn that began in the late 1980s. 1990 saw only thirty new
productions open on Broadway, while the 1991-92 season racked up only 905 playing
weeks, a low-point for the decade. But better times were not far off.
In January 1992 the Times Square Business Improvement District (BID) began
operations. A consortium of private businesses, city agencies, community boards, and
not-for-profit organizations, the BID was established to make Times Square clean, safe
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(left to right) Donna Murphy and Jere
Shea in Stephen Sondheim‘s Passion
(1994) [photo by Joan Marcus];
Jude Law and Cynthia Nixon in
Indiscretions (1995) [photo by Joan
Marcus]; advertising flyer (1999).
Advertising flyer (1996); the cast
and crew of Cats assembled on the
stage of the Winter Garden Theatre to
mark the musical‘s final performance
on September 10, 2000; Iain Glen
and Nicole Kidman in David Hare‘s
The Blue Room (1998) [photo by
Lorenzo Agius]; left to right, Shubert
Organization President Philip J.
Smith, Chairman Gerald Schoenfeld,
and Executive Vice President Robert
E. Wankel attend an Actors Fund
Gala honoring
Mr. Schoenfeld in 1998; and
advertising flyer (2000).
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and friendly. Its annual budget of $6 million is raised by mandatory assessments on
local property owners, and it receives another $1 million in grants and sponsorships.
The organization provides security and sanitation services, homeless outreach in partnership with Project Renewal, and tourism services. It undertakes public improvements
(sidewalk lighting, public art, enhancement of pedestrian walkways, etc.) and promotes
the entire area through maps and publications, press relations, the Internet and various
special events. Shubert has been involved with the BID since its inception with Gerald
Schoenfeld serving on the organization’s Board of Directors.
With the BID in place other pieces of the puzzle on the road to rehabilitating Times Square and the theatre district fell slowly into place. Also in 1992 the 42nd
Street Development Project (a subsidiary of the New York State ESDC) cleared key
sites on 42nd Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue for future development. In
1993 media giant Bertelsmann A.G. moved into its new North American headquarters
at 1540 Broadway while Morgan Stanley purchased 1585 Broadway for its corporate
headquarters. With an influx of new businesses and cleaner streets, crime dropped and
tourism rose. Excitement was in the air and live theatre, which had always been a major
component of the area’s allure, took advantage of the neighborhood’s resurgence. The first
of several newly restored playhouses, the New Victory on 42nd Street, opened in 1995.
Disney’s the New Amsterdam followed in 1997 and the Ford Center for the Performing
Arts in 1998.
The Shubert Organization renovated a few of its venues including the Music Box
Theatre. As for their flagship, the Sam S. Shubert Memorial Theatre, its multi-million dollar restoration was painstaking and thorough. The playhouse’s elaborate murals, decorative panels, and ornate plasterwork now shine anew, while backstage technical areas have
been completely upgraded and modernized. And as the decade drew to a close, plans were
afoot for the construction of a brand-new Off-Broadway theatre on 42nd Street between
Eighth and Ninth Avenues. The first new Shubert venue to be built in New York since
1928 broke ground in 2000 and should be completed in 2002.
As the Times Square area came back to life the number of playing weeks for
Broadway shows also increased, and so did revenues. The 1999-2000 theatrical season
tallied a decade-high 1460 playing weeks and grossed $603 million. Among the Shubert
Organization’s Broadway productions during the 1990s were: Once On This Island (1990),
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The Most Happy Fella (1992), A Streetcar Named Desire (1992), Someone Who’ll Watch
Over Me (1992), Wonderful Tennessee (1993), An Inspector Calls (1994), Passion (1994),
Indiscretions (1995), Skylight (1996), The Judas Kiss (1998), The Blue Room (1998),
Closer (1999), and Amy’s View (1999). In addition, Shubert became more involved in the
world of Off-Broadway where it produced Nixon’s Nixon (1996), Stupid Kids (1998) and
Dirty Blonde (1999), which transferred to Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre in the spring
of 2000.
Meanwhile a Shubert production that opened the previous decade became the
longest-running show in Broadway history during the 1990s. Cats seemed to be living
up to its trademark slogan “Now and Forever“ when it played its 6,138th performance
at the Winter Garden Theatre on June 19, 1997. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani proclaimed the
occasion “Cats Day,“ and a special performance of the show was attended by most of the
musical‘s creative team and many members of the production‘s original cast.
But not all change is positive. In August 1996 Bernard B. Jacobs, longtime
president and co-chief executive officer of the Shubert Organization and the Shubert
Foundation, passed away. Mr. Jacobs began working for J.J. Shubert in 1956 when Mr.
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Schoenfeld brought him in to assist in handling legal affairs. During the last twenty years
of his life he became a guiding force not only for the Shubert Organization but for all of
Broadway as well, and he had a profound influence on many in the theatre community.
He is sorely missed. With his death Philip J. Smith, another longtime Shubert executive, assumed the role of president of the Shubert Organization, while Michael I. Sovern,
former president of Columbia University and member of the Shubert Foundation board,
became president of the Shubert Foundation.
As for the Shubert Foundation, its annual grants to performing arts groups
throughout the United States grew each year throughout the decade. In 1999 it gifted over
$10 million. Meanwhile, the Shubert Archive continued to establish itself as one of the
country‘s most important performing arts research facilities. It acquired major acquisitions
from private individuals, other institutions and the Shubert Organization and has hosted
researchers and academic groups from all over the world. At the decade‘s end Archive
staff was at work on major new projects including a new database system with which to
catalogue its holdings, a website (www.shubertarchive.org) which debuted in 2000, and a
book celebrating Shubert‘s centennial that was published by Abrams in the Fall of 2001.
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At the end of 1999 Brooks McNamara, the first director of the Shubert Archive, retired.
McNamara, a professor in Performance Studies at New York University, helped to establish the Archive in 1976 and was its guiding force throughout its first quarter century of
existence. Maryann Chach who had been archivist since 1987 assumed the title Chief
Archivist/Director in 2000.
And so Sam, Lee and J.J.‘s company embarks on its second century with new
shows in the offing, a new theatre under construction, another having undergone a major
restoration (the Winter Garden), an ever-expanding archive, and a thriving and vital
Shubert Foundation behind it all. In a time of giant-screen motion pictures, high definition television, elaborately realistic video games, and virtual reality entertainments, the
Shubert enterprise remains committed to the live theatrical experience and looks eagerly
ahead to the next one hundred years.
Mark E. Swartz
The newly resplendent Sam S. Shubert Theatre in New York City (2000) [photo by Whitney Cox].
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News from the Archive
Over the last two years, during which time The
Passing Show has been on hiatus, the Shubert Archive staff
worked on several major projects. Aside from the many
hours spent on researching and writing The Shuberts Present:
One Hundred Years of American Theater, we also launched,
for example, an archive website (www.shubertarchive.org).
Designed by the firm Ovendigital, the site employs state-ofthe-art Flash technology to provide an illustrated informational
overview of our collection and of Shubert history. There is also
a section devoted to The Passing Show that includes highlights
of past issues, a complete index of volumes 1-20, and the full
text of the most recent newsletter.
Archive staff has, of course, continued to host
researchers and visiting groups and to process new and existing collections. Highlights of some of the topics researched
here since our last issue of The Passing Show include the
productions, Bless You, Sister; Dodsworth; Dreamgirls; Five
Star Final; Golden Child; Hapgood; Hedda Gabler; The Heidi
Chronicles; Jazz Train; Lady Lady; Land of Smiles; Laughing
Husband; Leader of the Pack; Leave It to Me; Little Shop of
Horrors; Madame Troubador; New Faces of 1956; The Night
Boat; Nobody Home; Oh, Boy; Raisin in the Sun; She‘s a
Good Fellow; Show Boat; Song of the Flame; South Pacific;
Stop, Look Listen; Sweet Bye and Bye; Sunday in the Park With
George; Tales of Hoffman; Very Good Eddie; Whoopie Goldberg
on B‘way; Wonderful Town; Up in Central Park; and Ziegfeld
Follies of 1943.
Other inquiries involved personalities George
Abbott, Fred Allen, John Barrymore, David Belasco, J. Harry
Benrimo, the Dolly Sisters, Eleonora Duse, Arto De Murjian,
Robert DeNiro, Patrick Dennis, Bob Fosse, James Gandolfini,
Janet Gaynor, John Golden, George C. Hazelton, Jerome Kern,
Swoosie Kurtz, Jude Law, Marcus Loew, Everett Marshall,
Arthur Miller, Stephanie Mills, Eugene O‘Neill, Chita Rivera,
Richard Rodgers, Ruth St. Denis, Fred Stone, John Travolta,
Gwen Verdon, Mae West, and Tennessee Williams. Subjects
inquired about include costume designs, ghost lights, musical comedy orchestras, Shubert Alley, Shubert revues, theatre
audiences, theatre dressing rooms, theatre marquees, theatre
postcards, vaudeville, Yiddish Theatre, and the Ambassador
Theatre, the Barrymore, the Belasco, B.F. Keith‘s Bijou, the
Biltmore, the Broadway, the Colonial (Boston), the Gallo,
the Lamb‘s, the Lunt-Fontanne, the Majestic, Minsky‘s, the
Music Box, the Plymouth, the Shubert, the Shubert-Missouri,
the Shubert-New Haven, the Shubert–New Orleans, the Shubert
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(Chicago), and the Winter Garden.
The Archive‘s collection continues to grow through
the generosity of many individuals and institutions. As might be
expected, the closing of the long-running Shubert-produced Cats
meant that a great deal of production-related materials made its
way to us. General Manager Nina Lannan donated a large set
of production blueprints. Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS
allowed us to acquire a wide sampling of various props that had
comprised the set. For its part the Shubert Organization made
sure that we received a set of costumes from the show.
Music Preparation firm Chelsea Music, Inc. gave us a
trunk full of orchestral scores from the Shubert-produced Jerome
Robbins‘ Broadway. Theatre historian William Morrison, whose
book Broadway Theatres: History and Architecture was recently
published by Dover Publications, donated three boxes of historical theatre photographs. An anonymous donor presented us with
a collection of rare historical ephemera, including a poster from
The Belle of New York ca.1900. Several gifts came from within
Shubert as well. Anthony LaMattina of the Finance Department
donated several vintage theatre programs. The Shubert Creative
Projects department gave us props and publicity materials from
recent Broadway productions of Arthur Miller‘s The Ride Down
Mt. Morgan and Claudia Shear‘s Dirty Blonde. Archivist Mark
Swartz donated several boxes of books while former Archive
Director Brooks McNamara donated his entire theatrical library.
Author Jean Claude Baker presented us with a copy of his
book about his mother Josephine Baker, Rob Edelman and
Audrey Kupferberg gave us a copy of their biography of Angela
Lansbury, and Betty Lee donated a copy of her tome on Marie
Dressler. Other recent acquisitions include a collection of theatrical ephemera from the estate of former Shubert employee and
actress Gertrude Ortlieb, and a vintage one-sheet poster for the
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934.
Homepage of the Archive website
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Brooks McNamara,
director of the Shubert Archive
since its inception in 1976, retired from that position at the end of 1999 so that he could
devote more time to private research and study. As most of our regular readers know,
Brooks was the Archive‘s guiding force for over twenty years, and his foresight and hard
work helped to make it one of the leading performing-arts research facilities in New York
City.
But his work at the Archive was only one aspect of a busy and productive (and,
I might add, ongoing) career. As a professor at New York University for thirty years,
Brooks pioneered the study of popular entertainments as an academic discipline, and his
many writings have influenced the current generation of theatre and cultural historians.
He has contributed articles to more than a dozen journals
and to vari-
ous encyclopedias, exhibition catalogues, and antholo-
gies.
In
addition, he has authored eleven books ranging from a
study of
the American Playhouse in the Eighteenth Century
to
an
examination of Public Celebration in New York
City from 1788-1909 to a novel for children that
was eventually made into an off-Broadway
musical. He has also curated exhibitions,
designed stage settings, and consulted for
museums and other cultural institutions.
But as impressive as his
professional
accomplishments
are, perhaps the real measure of
the man is reflected in the fondness
and high regard that his colleagues and
students have for him. Some of these people put their thoughts into words and agreed to
let us share them with our readers as we wish Brooks the best of luck and life in his retirement.
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Brooks McNamara is the reason I am at Shubert.
He was one of my professors at the NYU Department of Performance Studies. He was also one of my dissertation readers and suffered through a few rather esoteric topics with me. During one session, referring to my
prose, he declared “I accuse you of using twenty-cent words.“ He actually said that. He steadily pushed me to
settle on a subject that was practical, useful and, above all, achievable. It is this philosophy that has seen many
a graduate student through the horrors of researching, writing and defending a dissertation.
Brooks occupied the office right next door to The Drama Review where I worked one year. Filled to the brim
with books, papers, files and other academic paraphernalia, it was an oasis of study and sanity in the sometimes
frenetic world of graduate education. That may be the haze of a near twenty-year memory talking, but I don‘t
think so. His was a reassuring presence.
One day about five years after I had finished my coursework, I received a call from Brooks. There was
an entry-level position opening up at The Shubert Foundation. Was I interested? I explained that, though I had
recently left my full-time theatre job in order to concentrate on my dissertation, I was going to be teaching one
day a week at Sarah Lawrence College. He said, “Why don‘t you talk to them anyway?“ I said “No, thanks.“ A
few days later, he called me again. He may have called me a third time. I just remember that I finally scheduled
an interview to pacify him. I walked into the office and the Executive Director, Lynn Seidler, said, “So, I understand I have to hire you.“ Of course, she didn‘t have to, but she did anyway.
I worked at the Foundation for eight years, moving to the Shubert Organization about six years ago to
become Creative Projects Director. It has been, and continues to be, a wonderfully fulfilling place to work.
Coming to the Shubert Foundation was the luckiest break of my life.
The moral of the story is “When you‘re too dense to recognize your golden chances, it‘s nice to have someone there to make sure you seize them.“ Thank you, Brooks.
Dessie Moynihan
Some Random Reminiscences
1. I never got used to Brooks in a beard.
2. I thought the Dissertation Proposal class was going to be easy. It was worse than the defense.
3. If he called you “Sweetie,“ you knew you‘d become a part of his team.
4. I worked very hard on a paper for Brooks on Concert Saloons. He mentioned to me that he liked it. I was very
pleased. However, at that time, all papers from all classes were left in a basket for students to pick up. Someone
else picked mine up. If anyone knows the whereabouts of that paper from about 1985 please let me know. I still
miss not seeing Brooks‘ written comments.
5. When I was writing my dissertation on A History of Theatrical Social Clubs in New York City, I was fortunate
enough to hook up with a member of the Elks who let me BORROW the ORIGINAL nineteenth century handwritten minutes to the New York group‘s meetings. I think Brooks was as astonished and excited as I was by
seeing and holding these books. It was a moment.
6. At my defense, I was six months pregnant with my daughter JulieLauren. The regular crew was there too -Michael Kirby (who I miss horribly even though we were not in very close contact after NYU), Arnold Aronson,
John Frick, Peggy Phelan, and Steve Vaillillo (as an observer). What I remember most was that Brooks did most
of the talking. I, like Steve, practically became an observer at the defense. I passed, of course, and I must say,
Brooks was brilliant.
Thanks again, Brooks! Happy Retirement!
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My favorite Brooks story dates from the very first weeks of my life as a Shubie and new grad student
at NYU. I was walking down the steps from the elevator to the Lyceum lobby whilst he was walking up. He
answered my cheery greeting of “Hello, Brooks!“ by asking, “Aren‘t you originally from Pennsylvania?“ I
answered in the affirmative, and while smiling with glee and rubbing his hands together as if devising a great
master plot he proclaimed, “Well, have I got a dissertation for you!“ He had just gotten off the phone with
a NYC garment manufacturer who had his own personal theatre archive in an empty storeroom. It turned
out to be all the records of the Tamiment Playhouse in Pennsylvania‘s Pocono Mountains, about 60 miles
from where I grew up. The Tamiment Playhouse did, indeed, become the subject of my doctoral dissertation
as well as my book, Every Week, A Broadway Revue, published by Greenwood Press in 1992. The manufacturer, who was a great devotee of both Camp Tamiment and its theatre, had actually hired someone to
begin cleaning and organizing the records, but he soon discovered that this was a job for the professionals.
Someone introduced him to Brooks who, in turn, introduced him to me and the rest, as they say, is history.
As a corollary to this tale, I‘d like to tell another one. When I was preparing the first few chapters of my dissertation for Brooks‘ initial review, I was terrified. I have great respect for his remarkably clear, humorous, and beautifully
penned prose, so I was hesitant to hand him anything that I didn‘t feel was first rate. When he returned those chapters,
he appended the following New Yorker cartoon to the cover sheet. Two gentleman are seated on either side of a desk
in an Editor‘s office. The man behind the desk--clearly the EDITOR--is paging through a manuscript while telling
the hopeful writer, “I like it--it‘s wonderfully editable.“ I still have that same cartoon--a kind and thoughtful gesture
from a wonderful mentor--hanging over my desk as I write these words.
Marti LoMonaco
My association with Brooks came about by sheer happenstance. I was a fairly new graduate student in the
department of Performance Studies with a teaching assistantship to my name and an assignment to a Professor
whom I knew to be a theatre historian. I, however, felt I knew very little about the theatre. Nevertheless, we
were paired up together as professor-and-assistant, and thus began my introduction to one of the more captivating subjects that has occupied Brooks for much of his career; I began to learn about Popular Entertainments. As
part of my duties, Brooks asked that I attend each of his classes in order to ensure that they ran smoothly (which
included the all important task of setting up and operating the ubiquitous slide projector). Soon enough, I began
to realize that this sort of performance had an incredibly vast reach both into the past and throughout the present
areas of quite a wide variety of entertainments. In fact, Brooks had provided me with the most perfect reason to
continue reveling in one of my most guilty pastimes: watching TV. Now I could boldly pronounce to all those
who questioned the hours I spent in front of the tube that I was doing research. Yet not only was I indulging in a
superfluous pleasure, but Brooks had actually succeeded in changing the way I watched. His influences caused
me to make connections that I simply hadn‘t seen before. Later during his Minstrelsy course, I was so impressed
with the discussions that took place I still deem it one of the most intelligent discussions about race that I have
ever witnessed. Though our paths of scholastic interest couldn‘t have been farther apart on the surface (with my
area of research leaning more toward the theoretical and the avant-garde), Brooks has contributed greatly to my
continued interest in things popular, cultural, and visual.
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of Bobst Library, where I served as project director for what became the Tamiment Playhouse Archive.
rooks had actually succeeded in changing the way I watched.
Under Brooks‘ watchful eye, his collection was transferred to NYU‘s Tamiment Library on the 10th floor
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ho was this tweedy bespectacled man and what on earth had he collected on top of this old the-
I have known Brooks since 1993, when I entered the doctoral program at NYU‘s Department of Performance
Studies. In the spring of 1994, I took an American minstrelsy course co-taught by Brooks and Jim Hatch of the
Graduate Center of CUNY, Department of Theatre. Brooks and Jim reveled in the content of the minstrelsy class,
giving us a hands-on application of how to approach difficult performance material with judicious and far-reaching eyes. The course revitalized, for me, the potential of historical material to reveal itself through contemporary,
cultural-studies- and performance-studies-trained eyes, so much so that I went on to construct my dissertation
around the gendered and racialized performances of female impersonators in American blackface minstrelsy.
That summer, Jim and Brooks invited me to co-edit an anthology of new and previously published minstrelsy articles with them. I was thrilled and confused. Why were these eminent scholars bothering with tutoring
me on how to be an editor? I discovered this was one of a long history of examples where Brooks has elevated
a lowly graduate student to colleagueship status. The implications for my career in having co-edited a published
anthology before finishing graduate school have been overwhelmingly positive and I believe Brooks has known
this with other graduate students and knew this (for some inexplicable reason, but I accept it!) about me.
It is Brooks‘s tendency for measured impulse which has influenced me stylistically. His enthusiasm for my
work has always been supported by concrete paths to try; I never have felt abandoned when I have pursued the
areas of study he has encouraged because his perception has invariably been accurate. As a professor of theatre
at Williams College, I try to emulate this example in my everyday encounters with my students. My emulation
of Brooks in and out of the classroom can manifest itself in many ways. Certainly, every time I start up the slide
projector and listen to the exclamations of my students as they are first exposed to provocative artifacts from
19th-century popular entertainment, I am paying homage. The fact that I still don‘t know if the slides should be
upside down or not also reveals that I still could learn from him.
Anna Bean
When I came to New York in the fall of 1981 to start a PhD, the Department of Drama had just changed its
name to the Department of Performance Studies. Richard Schechner was teaching a course called “Sex, Punk
and Performance Art NOW“ in New York (upper case emphasis his). This included live sex shows, punk clubs
that made your eardrums bleed, and a guy billed as a “toilet slave“ who nailed his penis to a board as part of an
audience participation s/m show.
As a first semester would-be sophisticate, I tried to be suitably glib and blasé about all this weird stuff. But
my most radical experience came in a slightly more traditional setting. Who was this tweedy bespectacled man
and what on earth had he collected on top of this old theatre? He smiled with a touch of mischief as if someone
had just told him the most marvelous joke, but he simply couldn‘t repeat it in polite company. He seemed to be
having fun up there, assisted by an intense German woman who looked like she‘d stepped out of Peter Lorre‘s
closet. What was this all about?
On the surface it was an internship that involved wiping scads of old paper, peeling off rusted paper clips
and rotted rubber bands and lavishing upon even triplicate copies of watchmans‘ salary receipts a level of archival care probably denied the Dead Sea Scrolls. But there were moments. I remember one week in which the
W
discoveries included a letter from Shaw, an account of the Shubert‘s new “discovery“ Carmen Miranda‘s arrival
in New York (“I say turkey sandwich and I say money, money, money!“) and a memorable cover letter and “trial“
package of condoms sent to Lee Shubert. But in between chortling over J.J‘s. latest memo about playing musical
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theaters with pieces of worn out carpet, the import and uniqueness of the enterprise dawned on me.
In amongst all those boxes of memos, contracts and brown paper parcels was a picture of American theatre
and the people who made it happen that was more vivid and compelling than any I‘d ever imagined. Brooks
taught me, in those first few days of giving c.p.r to crumbling paper, the value of looking closely at what others
ignored, of not being one more foot soldier in the “greatest achievements“ school of theatre scholarship, and
that, finally, there aren‘t nearly as many trivial performances as there are experts with the need to trivialize. He
made it OK to spend time on what I was really interested in, and showed me that (in his words) it, “might well
be that all forms of performance are serious and complex expressions of a culture‘s most fundamental concerns,
and that all are worthy study...and no apologies needed.“
But most of what Brooks showed me can‘t be summed up in a paragraph ending quote. There was the pithy
dissertation advice on my publicity release style 1st chapter prose: “Write ABOUT Billy Rose, not LIKE him.“
Or that quiet fatherly smile on his face when Whitney serenaded us on the bagpipes one Wednesday afternoon
and how deftly he slotted the concert into the intermission for the Lyceum‘s matinee that day.
As I clumped down the Lyceum stairs past Leonore Ulric and Dudley Diggs‘ portraits, I hummed an Irish
tune that was a hit in 1917. A rework of verse two seems appropriate here:
Right now we‘re all a gathered for a very swell affair,
The lobby of the Lyceum, and look who all is there!
A lady comes right up to me and takes me by the hand,
Says she, “You‘ll never see the likes. It‘s McNamara‘s band!
Steve Nelson
I‘m afraid I don‘t have something transcendental regarding my connection to Brooks, no special story that
would merit as a standout but I can say he was incredibly genial and accommodating in virtually every respect.
He never treated me as a mere office drone. Always affable, always a perfect gentleman. He was far and away
the most popular of dissertation shepherds amongst the faculty. His load of advisees was enormous. I think this
is one of the greatest tributes to his stature as a mentor, guide, scholar, and beloved professor.
Once I brought to his attention the fact that a student who had interrupted her studies (with a rather long
hiatus) was seeking readmission. The student in question was rather odd but she insisted that Brooks would
remember her. He did indeed. After hearing her name his eyes widened and then with a grin that was 40 %
mock and 60 % dismayed incredulity, he said “ Not the one who used to dance around with her arms in the air
in the middle of a lecture?!!“. For an instant I could have sworn Brooks went into a spontaneous imitation...but
no...that would be against character....did he? And I could have sworn I did a double take as I walked away from
his office.
Rumor had it Brooks had a tremendous weakness for those jelly filled, sugar coated “chuckles“. But I could
not swear to this. Brooks is a wonderful, wonderful man.
Dan Sanford
A recollection that stands out from my time working at the Shubert Archive is the experience of writing an
article for the Shubert newsletter--at Brooks‘s urging--of a little known nightclub owned by the Shuberts set atop
the Winter Garden Theatre and known as the “Palais de Danse.“ My love of performance research was surely
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kindled at the Shubert Archive. As I scoured through an assortment of dusty memos and faded press releases, I
remember alighting on a curiously worded contract instructing that only “refined“ ballroom dancing be permitted at the club. Little did I realize then that this would be the start of my dissertation research--on the history of
American exhibition ballroom dance teams. There are many things I wish to thank Brooks for--teaching me the
exacting tools of the historian; helping me to become a better writer; inspiring my inquiry into American popular
entertainments. And, not least, for ultimately helping me find my dissertation--and eventual book--topic. Thank you
Brooks, as always, for your great insights, good humor and ever-wise advice.
Julie Malnig
I‘ve strayed from dramatic endeavors, first by way of law school but for the last 18 years as a Foreign
Service Officer. I‘m a diplomat serving at overseas Embassies much of the time--thus far I‘ve been in Curacao,
Bonn, Hamburg, Kingston, and Ulaanbaatar, and next summer I plan to be in Beirut. When I‘m not overseas,
I‘m working at the Department of State in Washington, D.C. almost 9 years ago I married Satch Reed, a great
guy--now a web designer, and he reminds me of the importance of things “other than governmental.“
Brooks was my dissertation advisor, and he and I delighted in discovering panoramas (just saw another
last year in Montclair, New Jersey, and took in a wonderful exhibit on panoramas in Bonn in 1994). His glee in
having discovered a box of magic lantern slides on a sabbatical to London, his wonder at seeing one of Sally
Sommer‘s circus side show paintings, or his delight in John Towsen’s going off to clown school, let us all know
he was the “It boy“ (with apologies to Clara Bow) for popular entertainment. And it‘s still popular entertainment-low brow, accessible to all, that I find most enjoyable.
Those of us working at the Archive in its earliest, dustiest days--Micky Levy, Bill Ndini, Susan Specter,
Hassan Tehranchian, Ingrid Nyeboe, Reuel Olin, Lenora Champagne, and I--spent days along with Brigitte
Kueppers, the librarian we‘d “stolen“ from NYPL‘s Theatre Collection, sorting through papers, photographs,
playbills, notes, sketches, and theatre ephemera of all sorts. We had enough discipline to know we had to re-wrap
the items in acid-free paper with librarian knots and that we couldn‘t linger long over the materials at hand.
But Brooks had shown us the way there, and when we found a contract with Sarah Bernhardt, an original part
from the score of “The Merry Widow“, or a souvenir ticket from one of J.J‘s journeys through Europe, we‘d all
gather round. We clucked over the discovery, spoke of what other treasures might surface from the mountain of
untouched papers before us, and made mental notes so we could share our finds with Brooks the next time we
saw him.
When several of us got stuck in an elevator trying to get to the archive one late fall day, I‘m sure we wondered whether this all made sense. (The fire department had to rescue us!) When we sent one of our group off to the deli for
another cup of coffee to warm us so we could keep going in the chilly environs a little longer, it had to be the thrill of the hunt
that kept us going.
I remember still talking with Gerald Schoenfeld one day about the archives and all they might contain. He
looked at me as if I were daft, and mumbled something about his perplexity as to why I would so enjoy theatrical esoterica. The answer was clear. Brooks had given me a model, and work at the Players‘ Club, the Theatre
Collection of the Museum of the City of New York, and the Shubert Archive let me enjoy some of what had
long enriched his life. Finding a missing link, being one of the first to touch a long forgotten contract, correctly
identifying the actors in a photograph all made me feel an intimate connection to the past and proud of having
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There was talk of mini-computers in the early years of the Shubert Archive, but none of us had a PC. In fact,
our grad school assignments were still being mimeographed (purple ink—you remember!) in the TDR office.
I‘m guessing archival techniques have advanced incredibly since then, but the love of the objects as doors connecting the past and the future is still what makes an archive a wonderland. Thank you, Brooks, for sharing that
kind of territory with so many of us. My best to Brooks as he enters retirement.
Llewellyn Hedgbeth
What did I learn from my days working with Brooks McNamara as a Shubert Archive Intern, and in his
class? I learned that not all theatre is polished, pristine, well-groomed, and safe. Whether attending papered evenings with Brooks of Shubert productions that closed shortly after opening night (“Turkey on the Hoof“--my oftquoted Brooksism), or reading the remnants of the unwashed--and unwritten--history of popular performances in
his courses, I learned that theatre‘s a dangerous art, often miscalculating what the audience will want and accept.
And often just plain failing. And often better defined by its great failures than its safe successes (and yes, I did
see Censored Scenes from King Kong with Carrie Fisher--and I am the stronger for it now, Brooks, now that the
trauma is past).
I also learned more about the ephemerality of writing history from working in the Shubert Archive, cleaning and sorting and filing and cataloguing the documents in that collection, than I could in twenty years on the
researcher‘s side of the counter. Every academic should have to do it--there is no excuse for not learning to tie
the library knot. So my thanks to you, Brooks. We first met in August of 1979, when I think I horrified you by
taking a night bus from Toronto to Times Square to interview with you for a position in the Shubert Archive,
arriving shortly after my very first near-mugging. I must have been quite the image of the rustic, paranoid young
Canuck! You hired me anyway. I owe you.
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information that could be stored and researched for the future.
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How to say Thank You to Brooks McNamara:
You never know how these things will turn out: on a summery day in September I arrived at the Department
of Drama for my first meeting with my advisor and asked for Dr. McNamara. The department secretary laughed
and said, “Oh, you mean Brooks.“ And it developed from there – Brooks McNamara, my advisor, my professor,
my friend. How lucky can you get? As an associate editor of The Drama Review, I had a little office next to
Brooks and we had the luxury of casual chats and intense discussions, shared junk mail and have you seen this
book? He handed me the flyers for conferences from the Victorian Society and the Popular Culture Association
and suggested I offer them some of my recent term papers – me, a lowly MA candidate! And they were accepted
and because Brooks had confidence in my work, I began to think I might just be able to do it – go for the Ph.D.!
Brooks swept everyone near him into his enthusiasms – the Shubert Archive, the Theatre Library Association,
ASTR – and we all benefited from the experience, our expectations of what theatre research could be expanded
to include every aspect of performance. Early in our relationship, Brooks lent me a book, All Silver And No
Brass by Henry Glassie; an ethnographic study of Irish Christmas mumming, it placed the performance in the
context of the players‘ and their audience‘s lives. This little book changed my perception of the theatrical event
and may have been the greatest gift, among so many ideas and experiences, that Brooks gave to me. Saying thank
you seems inadequate; perhaps the best I can offer is to say I am proud to have been his student and try, in my
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own way, to do good work in the theatre. Good Fortune.
Ginnine Cocuzza
What I admire most in Brooks McNamara is his unwavering enthusiasm, his vision and absolute determination. Without these natural qualities - they hardly can be acquired or learned - there might not be a Shubert
Archive. Convinced of his mission - and I think this is the right word - he faced obstacles and adverse events
as new situations and developments to work with, to overcome, and, in fact, he always found a solution - we
eventually got what we needed. How else can one explain our move from the Longacre Theatre to the Lyceum?
nly Brooks could find an article on popular entertainment 30, 000 feet in the air!
Within two years we occupied two floors and all three of the back-stage lofts. How were we able to recruit, year
after year, the close to one hundred graduate students from the Department of Performance Studies at NYU?
A newsletter came out once a year, although I sometimes did not see what earth shaking or worthwhile news
we had to report to the world. A climate control system was approved and installed so that my nightmares over
deteriorating documents and artwork in New York‘s changing temperature and humidity levels were appeased.
And new materials were discovered and brought in although we had enough work as it was. I am only kidding.
But clearly, my nose was often too much to the ground, busy taking care of the day-to-day business, so I did not
always or immediately see the bigger picture and the end of the tunnel.
An enterprise like this needs a Director and Brooks fulfilled the requirements for this position like few
people would. I’ll never forget with what care and love for times gone by we worked on the reconstruction of
the original look of the Frohman apartment. A vintage photograph guided us in placing the old pieces of furniture and hanging pictures. And after it was all done, how he often sat with well-deserved pride in one of the
comfortable chairs in front of the fireplace discussing past and current shows, teaching history of Broadway and the
American theatre, or advising the students surrounding him. Unfortunately, there is no picture of this - so it is for me
to share this with you, the readers of The Passing Show. And by the way, the name originates from him - which is only
natural. Well done, Brooks, and thank you.
One nightmarish day in December 20 years ago, Brooks McNamara returned the first page of the first draft
of the first chapter of my dissertation. It was festooned with more red ink than I have ever seen in my life. I rewrote, he re-edited, the amount of red ink grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared and the dissertation was
done.
In the past 20 years, I have changed careers, moved twice, and published the dissertation. In all the packing
and re-packing and discarding, I have never managed to throw away that first page. Finally, 3 years ago, I framed
it.
Thanks and Happy Retirement, Brooks
Showgirl: A History of Revue Costumes from 1866 to the present“), Brooks described my writing style as “leaning toward the purple.“ Rather than reverting to purple - violet, lavender, heliotrope, mauve or puce (remember,
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Barbara Cohen-Statyner
Early in our many (many) conferences about my lengthy doctoral dissertation (“Glorifying the American
my field is costume design) - I will just wish Brooks good health in his retirement.
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John Hirsch
When I arrived at the Graduate Drama Department in the spring of 1971 from Columbia‘s Drama School, I
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was unprepared for the shocks and surprises ahead of me. Coming from the staid and traditional environment of
Columbia and being an older student (I was forty-something, a mother of three, and an instructor at one of New
Jersey‘s colleges) was bad enough, but what was ahead was worse.
One of my professors taught his class sitting in a Zen position on thefloor surrounded by adoring twentysomethings. He preached the theatrical gospel according to Artaud, Brook, Grotowski, and Lord-knows-whoelse. Another of the professors taped his every golden word while lecturing with his eyes closed. How‘s that for
rapport with the students? Another didn‘t teach at all. I‘m not sure what we did in that class, but it was freeform
and a waste of time. I had a half page of notes by the end of the semester.
Then, there was Brooks MacNamara, the proverbial port in the storm. Without him and his midwestern good
sense, I doubt that I would have made it through the program. I clung to him and his courses as a drowning
man would cling to an oar. I not only made it through but it was he who suggested the dissertation topic that
has now become my (almost) full-time career. My thanks to him and my good wishes for a long and peaceful
retirement.
Mary Henderson
BROOKS AND HIS FILES
When I first met Brooks 15 years ago I immediately suspected that he had a problem - that he was a clipper!
What made me suspicious was that my first assignment as Brooks‘s graduate assistant was to organize his files.
That is when I discovered that Brooks was scissors happy! He was one of those people who ripped out articles
from magazines at doctor‘s offices and barbershops. One can only imagine how his wife felt as she opened the
Sunday newspaper full of holes. I did not realize the seriousness of his clipping addiction, however, until he
asked me to file an article that he had swiped from an airline magazine. Only Brooks could find an article on
popular entertainment 30, 000 feet in the air!
My initial assignment was further complicated by the fact that Brooks was also a saver. He kept copies of
his student‘s papers, picture postcards sent to him by colleagues, and programs, ticket stubs and brochures. So, I
sorted, regrouped, rearranged, and cross-referenced until his clippings and papers were filed in alphabetical order
from Acrobats to Ziegfeld. Eventually, I came to realize that these files were more for Brooks‘s students than for
Brooks. He always thought about his students first and his teaching methods reflected this. He encouraged his
students to write publishable papers and dissertations and he believed in students giving oral reports to facilitate
conference participation. Through these methods Brooks created a scholarly legacy; many of his students have
indeed published their dissertations in the field of popular entertainment and are teaching today.
Popular entertainment is Brooks‘s passion and because of who he is and the kind of teacher he was, his work
will continue to expand through the careers of his former students. Brooks may have hung-up his scissors but
many of us out there are clipping away thanks to him!
Andrea Stulman-Dennett
I first met Brooks McNamara in the early 1970s when I was a student in the Graduate Theatre Department of
NYU. (This was pre-Performance Studies, when they still taught theatre.) My very first class was with Brooks.
What struck me was his genuine concern and interest in his students. Prior to the start of each class he would
carry on individual conversations with members of the class, asking about what was going on in their lives or
about their families. It wasn‘t perfunctory-he would inevitably remember details from one week to the next and
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over semesters. NYU, at least at that time, was not a particularly warm and fuzzy place; it tended to reflect the
impersonal and unwelcoming side of life in New York City. Brooks, however, made it seem like home-even better. Each week you could be sure of going to a class where you were known, where you could be comfortable and-oh,
yes-where you could learn one heck of a lot about theatre.
For the first few years of my own teaching career, notes I took in Brooks‘ classes served as the backbone of
my theatre history courses.To this day I still use some of his phrases or insights. My favorite remains “Gee whiz
Naturalism,“ used to describe that genre of realistic theatre in which an actor turns on the faucet in a kitchen sink
and real water comes out and we in the audience sit in amazement and say, “gee whiz!“
I think Brooks was an inspired choice to head the Shubert Archive. He has left New York and the American
theatre with a great treasure.
Arnold Aronson
Brooks McNamara once found me a job-a good job. The irony is that I was not even looking for a job at
the time. I was Administrator for the University/Resident Theatre Association in 1986 when Brooks suggested
to Lynn Seidler that I might be a good choice to be her assistant at the Shubert Foundation. I got the job, which
offered an increase in salary over U/RTA, shorter hours, and many free theatre tickets. I spent two rewarding
years at Shubert before I left to write my doctoral dissertation.
And then Brooks, my dissertation advisor, did me another big favor by teaching me how to write. I was in
my mid-30s and thought I already knew quite well how to write. But when I gave Brooks the first three chapters
of what I thought was a beautifully written dissertation, they were returned to me covered with editing marks.
As I read Brooks‘ suggestions, I realized that almost all of them made perfect sense to me and would make my
writing much simpler and clearer. As I wrote the following chapters, I consciously tried to strip my prose of
unnecessary words and phrases. By the time Brooks returned my final chapter, it contained considerably fewer
editing marks. I had learned how to write. I still use this experience as an example when I talk to my Public
Speaking students about clarity and simplicity in their use of language. And I always suggest that they try to
learn now what I didn‘t learn until I was in my mid-30s. After all, they won‘t have the advantage I had-Brooks
McNamara as my dissertation advisor. Thanks, Brooks.
Lori Seward
A better, more giving friend and colleague than Brooks McNamara cannot be imagined. Whenever I‘ve
wanted sage and no nonsense counsel or advice, I‘ve turned to Brooks-for over 30 years now. He has been a
strong and steady foundation in our discipline, while at the same time an innovative and pioneering scholar-the
virtual founder of the serious study of American popular entertainment. At a meeting to discuss the structure
of the three-volume Cambridge History of American Theater, which I co-edited, it was Brooks, who after two
long days of discussion, cut through all the theorizing and contradictory suggestions, recommending simply and
cogently the strategy that we ultimately followed. Thanks for this and numerous other kindnesses and generous
sharings of your knowledge, commonsense, and friendship, Brooks. You and Nan are a great act and we
expect many more turns in the future. You may retire, but you‘ll never diminish your productive scholarship
and writing.
Don Wilmeth
One of the keys to understanding Brooks McNamara‘s great success as the Director of the Shubert Archive
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is his background as a professional designer. He has practiced what he preaches which gives him a particular edge as a
first class scholar.
My happy collaboration with Brooks goes back to the early seventies when we both came to the Tisch
School of the Arts of NYU. Serving in those trenches for over twenty-five years, I learned to respect Brooks as
a teacher, mentor and guide who brought the theatre of the past into glowing life for his students. I know that
my own students of scenic and costume design from NYU have used and will use the Shubert Archive to further
their work and to delight their souls. I know that they too join me in saluting Brooks for making such treasures
of design available ... a very rich gift indeed!
Hickory and I both will miss visiting Brooks in his splendid office atop the Lyceum.
Lloyd Burlingame
Brooks and I go back a long time, even before we met! I went to the University of Iowa where in 1958 I got
than Brooks, and trying to hold my own. I remember him as a serious student-maybe more serious on his side of
the table than I was on mine. The New Orleans years were good to us both. And I got to know Brooks as much
as a theatre designer as an historian. After getting his PhD, Brooks went off to the University of Delaware.
Then, in 1966 all hell broke loose at Tulane. For reasons that I won‘t go into here, the core members of
Tulane‘s theatre department quit, including me. Meanwhile, the Johnny Appleseed of American academic theatre-hard-drinking, jolly, brilliant Robert W. Corrigan had hop-scotched from Tulane to Carnegie-Mellon (maybe
it was Carnegie Tech back then) to NYU. At NYU, RWC sweet-talked University President Jim Hester into starting
a School of the Arts. When Corrigan got wind of Tulane‘s undoing, he invited me to NYU as head of the drama
department. I knew my limitations. Chair of a department? No way. So I suggested that Corrigan recruit Monroe
Lippman, who had headed up the Tulane department for many years. Lippman accepted, making it one of his
conditions to bring in Brooks-the brightest, best young theatre scholar he knew. I felt that in a way Lippman wanted
Brooks to be a “Schechner-antidote,“ an inoculation of responsible scholarship to offset my craziness, my proclivity to
T
Oscar Brockett. Later, Brooks showed up as a student at Tulane, where I was a very young prof, barely older
here‘s no end to the man.
my MA. Brooks also went to school there. We had some of the same teachers, including the not-yet venerable
be a loose cannon (or is it “canon“?). Brooks arrived, and the rest is history.
Well, not quite. Remember, I thought of Brooks as a designer, and when in 1969 I was staging Makbeth
(my misspelled version of Shakespeare‘s Scottish Play), I invited some of the old Tulane gang to join me. Jerry
Rojo designed the main environment. Brooks was already into popular entertainments-worlds fairs, parades,
midways, funhouses, and the like. Brooks proposed to me that he design a ‘Makbeth maze‘-an enclosed zig-zag
through which all the audience passes on their way into the theatre? I loved the idea. The Makbeth Maze was
on the second floor of the Performing Garage. It was a hall of mirrors, replete with images from history and
former productions, an active matrix memory of many Macbeths. Every spectator worked through the Maze
until arriving at a steep staircase which plunged down into the theatre-designed by Rojo to be “cabin‘d, cribb‘d,
and confin‘d,“ as the Bard had it. To this day I think of the Makbeth Maze as a triumph of theatre design, and a
predecessor to a lot of performance art that followed. Bravo Brooks!
Richard Schechner
Whenever a theatrical topic seems sufficiently intriguing to consider it for serious research, I confront a
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dilemma: should I apply for a research grant, start examining airline and train timetables, book hotels, ask my
department for research leave? Or should I just save myself time, forget the applications, schedules, and reservations and simply ask Brooks for the answers? Even when the protestant ethic has prevailed, and I have done the
hard slog and nose-to-the-ground research and then shared my findings with Brooks, he has invariably expanded
my meagre trove with further sources, observations, and shrewd interpretations. Again and again, when knotty
questions have loomed or when cul de sacs appeared the only option, a phone call or letter (or better, a meal) with
Brooks, and answers, suggestions, anecdotes, and viable sources tumble in profusion before me, all wrapped,
as they cascade, in wisdom, humour, and joy in the subject-matter. And Brooks writes great books and delivers
exciting, ground-breaking conference papers. There‘s no end to the man.
I shouldn‘t exempt Nan from these torrents of helpful advice. Perceptive collectors and discriminating
hoarders themselves, their knowledge of world collections, of public and and obscure holdings - and of the
people whose collections and knowledge they‘re revealing - is unmatchable. Their generosity with information,
with genuine concern, and with hospitality is not only legendary, it‘s true. Neither Nan nor Brooks is a linear
thinker moving ponderously and unimaginatively from A to B to C; both have hyperspherical minds which range
in remarkable vectors through problems and bore through apparently-opaque or solid obstacles to retrieve and
guide and advise. Although the Shubert‘s intricate collections are the focus here and although Brooks, Mary Ann,
and Mark have helped me to valuable papers in remote corners of the Archive, Brooks and Nan cast a far wider
net in which New York is only the starting point. They have provided my postgraduate students, my colleagues,
and me with answers and intellectual maps - the scholar‘s equivalent of Long John Silver‘s chart of buried pirate
gold.
Helen and I have formed a deep attachment to Nan and Brooks. They may think that they‘re out of the loop,
rusticating in the wilds of Pennsylvania. But that remoteness won‘t stop our calls for advice, knowledge, or wisdom, nor impair our friendship. I‘m profoundly sad that Brooks is stepping away from the archive he worked
so long and hard to establish as a major, world-renowned, theatre collection, but I‘m gratified to have been given
this opportunity to say thanks to Nan and Brooks for help, advice, colleagueship, companionship, and years of
thoroughly enjoyable and unblemished friendship. I owe.
David Mayer
I first met Brooks McNamara when I interviewed for admission into the graduate program at NYU in 1971.
I noted his shock of light brown hair, his midwestern accent and his corduroy jacket and I thought what a nice
straightforward guy is here representing NYU. I was quite surprised since I had heard NYU was “out there.“
While the latter preconception was true it was also true that Brooks was already busy giving credibility and
validation to studies in the folk, festival, and popular theater/entertainment areas. As my advisor he nurtured my
own interests in these areas.
Scrolling through thirty years of memories one small incident catches my attention. (Possibly because I have
photos “documenting“ the event.) One day in the spring of 1978 while we interns were at work at the archive at
the Lyceum something on the roof caught fire. Several of us reacted to this as “high drama“ and quit the building immediately - I “saving“ Brooks‘s jacket (and satchel, I think) in the sprint for safety. We stood in front of
the theatre watching the smoke curling from the roof, counting heads, and chattering. Where were Brooks and
Brigitte? There! Exiting from the theater, seemingly unperturbed, were the two of them; it may as well have
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damaged musical scores! May the Road rise up to meet you as you embark on your new adventures, Brooks.
Toni McCloskey Gustafson
In September 1979, I attended a meeting for new students in the Graduate Drama Department. Michael
Kirby was an imposing bald man in cowboy boots, and Richard Schechner sat in the lotus position wearing an
old t-shirt. Brooks sat amid them with his tweed jacket and tie, looking like the odd man out. But as I studied in
the department, I soon realized his ideas were as interesting, radical and influential as the other members of the
faculty.
Studying with Brooks expanded my ideas of theatre. Performance didn‘t have to be contained within a
legitimate theatre building - or within a building at all. Under Brook‘s tutelage, I researched musical comedy,
vaudeville, and all sorts of other popular forms.
One of my favorite classes with Brooks was my first - a class in the literature of popular performance. He
wasn‘t content to have us read the scripts on our own. He assembled a group of students to read them aloud in
class. He wanted us to try to experience the performances, even in some approximated way.
I am grateful for his teaching, his advising and editing of my dissertation and especially for the ideas I got
from interacting with him. Thanks, Brooks.
Stephen M. Vallillo
I was nine months pregnant when Brooks McNamara interviewed me for the archivist‘s job over lunch.
I was very excited about the Shubert Archive and had known Brigitte Kueppers, the first archivist, as well as
many of Brooks‘s students who toiled in the archive, learned about historical research through the Shubert Bros.
records, and finished Ph.D.‘s and Master‘s theses (often on topics discovered in the archive) before plunging
ahead in the cruel, cold academic world. As I said I was excited about the archive but I also wanted time off to
spend with my expected baby. Brooks made a tempting offer - he said I could bring the baby to work. I thought
about his offer for maybe ten seconds before saying yes. Emily became a part-time archive baby and I had a
thoroughly engrossing job in a unique and beautiful building, the Lyceum Theatre, that surrounded you with the
sense of history. Thanks, Brooks.
Maryann Chach
I admire Brooks McNamara for many reasons: I taught classes with Brooks at NYU. Students loved him
because he cared for them. We served on many dissertation committees and Brooks always supported the candidates when they needed him. He introduced me to some amazing people like the science fiction novelist Samuel
Delany. A relentless flea market buff, Brooks would find and donate items to the Hatch-Billops Collection. He
found time while writing his books on popular culture (valuable contributions) to read my manuscripts and make
suggestions.
The two of us shared a Scotch/Irish Midwest background, combining caution with risky adventure. “Retired
will be a misnomer for Brooks McNamara. He is an individual for whom the phrase “a scholar and a gentleman“
was created and they never retire.
James V. Hatch
Announcement of the Shubert project generated high interest: an invitation to explore unprobed treasures
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been a drill, so confident did Brooks appear. Later on upstairs we received a crash course in salvaging water
is preternatural calm had a soothing effect that enabled work to carry on, no matter how bleak the
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gone on to become players on the stages of theatre history believing as Brooks condoned that research, information,
learning and profound respect, especially for popular culture. Reality proved no disappointment - foraging in
theatrical attics, opening boxes of historical ephemera, computing the rich resources of the Shuberts who blessedly seemed to have thrown nothing out. Each “find“ was met with Brooks‘s almost child-like enthusiasm,
tempered by an archival pragmatism and ever-present historical sensibility. One of the joys of the first year was
formulating and editing, under Brooks‘ inspired guidance, a newsletter - ever to be known as The Passing Show.
Little did I know at the time that I would one day be curating perhaps the largest private collection of vintage
film posters and photography - applying the principles garnered from the Shubert Archive and greeting each day
with a sense of adventure and discovery so gratefully symbolized by Brooks McNamara.
Over the span of his remarkable career as a teacher and writer, from Tulane to Delaware to NYU, Brooks has
opened the minds of many of us to the varieties of popular performance that he once called “invisible theatre,“
including the neglected art of the public procession. When I picture Brooks now, I think of parades: his great
book on parading traditions and the making of New York City; the procession of archival treasures appearing
like floats in The Passing Show; the lines of graduate students outside his office; the well-peopled march of
meticulously edited dissertations that he directed, never dropping a step. One of the best things about a parade
is its open-endedness - there‘s always the possibility of adding another float or band. In his generosity to his
students and in his amazing productivity as a scholar, Brooks has seen it that way too.
R
Joe Roach
In the fall of 1968 while a student at TISCH majoring in Theatre Design, I signed up for a class in American
Popular Entertainment which Brooks was teaching. I had always been interested in carnivals, circuses, burlesque, and amusement parks (especially roller coasters) and the possibility of taking a class dealing with these
subjects and getting credit for the class was very exciting for me. During the semester, Brooks turned me on to
early postcards of Coney Island and I began to collect them ending up many years later with over 3000 cards!
The class was wonderful and opened up a new and exciting world to me which is still part of my life today. When
I began my career as a college professor, I also began teaching a class in American Popular Entertainment with
much help and guidance from Brooks. Over the years Brooks has been a very important mentor for me, helping
me in publishing articles, guiding me in career choices, and helping me to deal with the politics of academic life.
It‘s still wonderful to run into Brooks on the street and talk about theatre and popular entertainment and enjoy
his unique wit and vast knowledge.
A grateful former student, Harry Lines
Since my graduate student work at the Shubert Archive aged dusty memos have acquired the aura of history
yet to be told. Clogging my nostrils, covering my hands, the residue of years was unmistakably the sediment
knowledge. So we sat with our piles of yellowing paper, many times with opaque single phrases like “That idea
stinks...“ and thought we were the chosen ones: the indexing scribes of the future. This leap of faith from the
page to the stage of history was the fabrication of Brooks. And so great a creation was it that many of us have
and primary data are the keys to scholarship and teaching.
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Carol Martin
How can I encompass my memories of Brooks McNamara in a few hundred words, especially since so many of
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the experiences we have shared have been happy ones, here and abroad. We have always delighted in introducing
one another to our favorite places: Brooks treating me at McSorley‘s saloon and other venerable watering-places,
I taking Brooks to the Boston Antique Photo show or an early circus exhibition at the Museum of Our National
Heritage. As a scene designer and historian of playhouses, Brooks has a vivid sense of place and visibly revels
in the discovery of a long-lost auditorium or derelict music-hall.
Perhaps I was able to observe Brooks most closely when we collaborated on a dramatic version of Henry
Mayhew‘s London Labour and the London Poor. The project was promoted enthusiastically by Cynthia Jenner,
then a play reader for the American Place Theatre, but Brooks and I had had a hard time convincing that theatre‘s
artistic director, the obdurate Wynn Handman, who was eager to relegate our exercise in Victoriana to a dank
space in the basement. We managed eventually to get a preliminary reading, and then, a year later, a fully staged
one, complete with folk singers, at the American Place, but, alas!, a real production was not forthcoming. (In
the q & a with the audience that followed the second reading, one memorable spectator announced, “I hate this
kind of show!“) Through all the aggravations, continual rewrites, and dealings with the uncomprehending and
unsympathetic, Brooks always maintained his equilibrium, never losing his temper or expressing impatience (he
left that to me). His preternatural calm had a soothing effect that enabled work to carry on, no matter how bleak
the prospect.
Eventually, our play did receive a finished production directed by the late Raymond Pentzell at Hillesdale
College in Michigan. This reminds me of another abortive project, an ASTR panel which Brooks, Ray and I
conceived and proposed to preside over at one of the annual conferences. It would deal with an obscure East
European constructivist whose work predicted almost every development in twentieth-century Western theatre.
That he was fictional fuelled the hoax we hoped to spring on our po‘-faced colleagues.
The irreverence is symptomatic. Brooks has never followed academic fashion; rather, he set it in his championing of popular entertainments. His views on theatre have never divorced it from its actual practice, and
the spaces he enjoys are not virtual ones. The populism of what he studies affects his own style: he writes and
speaks in a way that is immediately accessible. He can convey engrossing ideas without recourse to ten-dollar words and abstruse formulations. Best of all, he transmits his enthusiasms to his colleagues and students
undiluted. I look forward to having as much fun with him in the next century as we have had in the nineteenth
and twentieth.
Affectionately, Laurence Senelick
Friendship and collaboration with Brooks McNamara have been among the greatest rewards of my moving to New York in 1960, following four years teaching in Europe. After seeing both classic and modern plays
performed in historic theatres there, I was shocked to discover how little regard we Americans had for such
playhouses. Fortunately, I soon found that Brooks was even more determined than me that these theatres be
chronicled and - where possible - preserved.
More important, in Europe, even small towns that have some connection with a famed performer or
playwright, have theatre-museums. Major cities have major museums and archives. New York had none at
the time.
When South Street Seaport was first trying to save its historic buildings - and find something relevant to
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put in them - Brooks and I worked out a proposal for a New York City Theatre Museum. Planned for a John Street
site, it would even have been near the site of New York‘s first professional playhouse. Brooks devised what was then
an entirely new idea of animated, inter-active exhibits, rather than musty souvenirs in dusty cases. Unfortunately, we
could not raise the huge sums needed. Hal Prince and other theatre-leaders suggested we should try to establish a
museum mid-town. As the Lyceum Theatre was at that time under threat of sale and not landmarked, I helped Daniel
Frohman‘s niece with the Landmark campaign, and proposed that the City University Graduate Theatre Program take
over the then unwanted theatre. James Tilton worked out plans for preserving its Broadway functions, adding a front
elevator from the ground floor up and converting backstage spaces for class and museum-use.
Those plans proved a wake-up call, and the Shuberts rapidly moved to restore the theatre handsomely and engage
Brooks to set up the Shubert Archive. The rest is history - but New York City still does not have a Theatre Museum
worthy of its impressive past.
Getting to know Brooks, I soon discovered our common interest in Panoramas, Fair-Grounds, Circuses, and many
other forms of Popular Entertainment. Brooks has been a pioneer in focusing attention - and encouraging research and
preservation - on these often threatened forms, their rituals, their devices, and their venues.
All my graduate classes received their first archival indoctrination at the Shubert Archive, thanks to Brooks,
Brigitte, Maryann, and the wonderfully helpful staff. Again and again, I have made slides of Shubert Archive designs
and referred to its collections of programs, letters, and scripts for lectures and articles.
Glenn Loney
Brooks McNamara has been a wonderfully positive influence on my life and career. As my advisor in the
Department of Performance Studies at New York University, he saw me through my doctorate work and kept me on
course with enthusiasm and encouragement. I especially appreciated his interdisciplinary approach to learning, and
with his support, my thesis-a history of the magic lantern-spanned various disciplines, including cinema, theater, and
the visual arts. His emphasis on primary-source research and clear writing and his editorial suggestions guaranteed
that my work was publishable. (I still do not understand, though, why he never liked the word “though“ and always
replaced it with “however.“) His guidance also lay a strong foundation for my later work. In fact, I always feel as if
Brooks were looking over my shoulder when I write, making sure that everything is readable.
Brooks deserves much credit for appreciating the value of archives and for establishing the Shubert Archive and
its internship program. One of the highlights of my years as a doctorate student was my own internship there. My
work at the Shubert Archive, in fact, prepared me for my current career as the Archivist for Parsons School of Design
in New York. Observing Brooks, I learned important directorial skills, including how to promote an archives, and by
processing the historical materials, I developed a passion for archival technique. (We should also, of course, not forget
to mention Brigitte Kueppers, the Archivist at the time, who managed the collections and directed the interns with
amazing skill.)
I am grateful for this opportunity to thank Brooks in writing for being such an important guiding force.
X. Ted Barber
Brooks McNamara has been an integral part of my life for nearly twenty years. I first met him in 1982, when I
was working towards my M.A. degree in N.Y.U.‘s Cinema Studies Department. I wasn‘t happy there-the department
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was too narrowly focused for my tastes. Yes, I was interested in film, but I wanted to look at the inter-relationship
between theatre and film, and at cinema‘s place in the larger field of popular culture. I had heard about a professor in NYU‘s Performance Studies Department who had broken new ground in the study of popular entertainment. And that is how I came to enroll in my first class (of many) with Brooks McNamara, a move that would
have a profound influence on my career. After I completed my Master‘s, I transferred into the Ph.D. program at
Performance Studies where Brooks welcomed me with open arms and became my advisor.
Brooks was great to work with. He refused to be pigeon-holed: his interests ran the gamut from Broadway
theatre to minstrelsy, from Shakespearean playhouses to circus acrobats, from early film to music video, and
from parades to country music. His skill as an editor was unsurpassed; his own writing, clear and to the point;
and his enthusiasm for his subject, infectious. He also cared deeply about his students and made himself available to them to give advice, to share materials, or just to chat.
My connection to Brooks did not end when I finished my doctoral studies and graduated from NYU. In 1988,
Brooks and Maryann Chach (with whom I had worked at NYU‘s Bobst Library) hired me as an assistant archivist
at the Shubert Archive. There, over the last twelve years I have been lucky enough to collaborate with Brooks on
many projects including The Passing Show newsletter. Under his direction, the Archive has established itself as a
major research institution. It is, in fact, hard to imagine the Archive without Brooks. Equally important to me, however, is the friendship that I have formed with him. I appreciate the many in-depth conversations we have had, not
only about archive projects, but also about theatre, film, trends in popular culture, our travels, and the current state
of the world. He has shared many memories and has recounted numerous stories from his professional and personal
life-and Brooks is a wonderful storyteller. I will miss those conversations and those stories, but I hope Brooks will
visit from time to time to recount tales of his wonderful adventures as a man of leisure in Buck‘s County. In any
event, I will feel his presence at the Archive for years to come.
Mark E. Swartz
I think of Brooks as the person who made the opening for popular entertainment to be studied seriously and
thereby expanded theatre studies into performance studies. The countless dissertations that he advised are like
the building blocks of this achievement. Brooks is the best dissertation advisor. A wonderful mentor to his students (no wonder they are fiercely loyal to him), he teaches them how to do rigorous primary research and craft
a readable book. I wager that he sets a record in terms of how many of his dissertations have been published. Of
course, first they have to get finished and he knows how to get a project focused and clearly sturctured and how
to be practical so the disseration can be completed. That is no mean feat given that several of the dissertations
Brooks has directed run to more than one volume and even top 500 pages. To this day the Dissertation Proposal
seminar that he created runs just as he designed it. It works! I know, because I inherited this course. And others
are inheriting it from me. They too keep to the structure that Brooks devised.
Through our years together at NYU, Brooks has always been a precious colleague. He continues to support
my work, always offers an encouraging word, and is a great person to turn to for a source or an idea. He is most
generous in sharing his erudition and I am deeply indebted to him.

2002

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
The Passing Show
S H U B E R T
C E N T E N N I
A L
E D I T I O N
B-65
You were the pioneer - the early settler. Under your guidance, a great
archive was created and will be a lasting monument to “the Shuberts“.
With gratitude and appreciation.
Gerald Schoenfeld
Shubert
A
R
C
H
I
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VOLUME 22

NUMBER 2
The Passing Show was the original title
for a number of lavish revues presented by JJ.
Shubert at the Winter Garden Theatre. A rival
to The Ziegfeld Follies, The Passing Show
became a prototype of Shubert glamour, talent
and panache.
Director
Maryann Chach
Archivists
Reagan Fletcher
Mark E. Swartz
Assistant Archivist
Sylvia Wang
Newsletter Editor
Mark E. Swartz
Graphic Design
Andrea Balboni
The Passing Show (ISSN 1061-8112) is the newsletter
of the Shubert Archive, Lyceum Theatre, 149 West 45th
St., New York, NY 10036
Telephone: 212.944.3895 Fax: 212.944.4139
www.shubertarchive.org E-mail (Mark E. Swartz):
[email protected]
Illustration to the left and on front: Lyceum Theatre
façade as depicted on a souvenir card issued by Between
the Acts Cigars, c. 1910s.
No part of this newsletter may be reproduced without
permission of the Shubert Archive.
Please send all correspondence to the Archive at
the above address.
The Shubert Archive is a Project of the Shubert
The Shubert Foundation
234 West 44th Street
New York, New York 10036