Survey of Musical Theatre

By Tris10_Brown

  • The U.S. Census reports for the first time that more American live in urban than rural areas

    (Urban being any town with more than 2,500 people)

  • George White's Scandals" features a full score by George Gershwin

  • Rodgers and Hart write the full score for "Poor Little Ritz Girl," but half of their songs are replaced by the producer before opening night without their knowledge.

  • Jerome Kern writes "Look for the Silver Lining" for star Marilyn Miller in Ziegfeld's showcase, "Sally."

  • Vanity Fair writes, “At Last An American Tragedy”: Eugene O’Neill opens his first full-length play, Beyond the Horizon, at the Morosco. Later this year, the play will win the Pulitzer Prize.

  • The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified: America's women have the vote.

  • Warren G. Harding is elected the 29th President of the United States.

  • Al Jolson recorded “Swanee” and toured Sinbad

  • Period: to

    Roaring Twenties

  • The League of Nations is established, but the United States Senate refuses to join, even though it was President Wilson’s idea.

  • NYC went dry

    Volstead made it illegal to transport or sell alcohol.

  • The AF of L declares that Equity has jurisdiction over principal actors in motion pictures.

  • Eugene O’Neill opens The Emperor Jones at the Neighborhood Playhouse to rave reviews.

    The play features Charles Gilpin in the lead. The play will later move to Broadway.

  • Congress passes immigration quotas for the first time, targeted at reducing the amount of “undesirable” immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.

  • The State and Ohio Theaters open, the first theatres in Cleveland’s Playhouse Square district.

  • Fanny Brice introduces "My Man" in the "Follies of 1921."

  • Shuffle Along by Noble Sissel and Eubie Blake, the first musical revue written and performed by African-Americans

    (cast members include Josephine Baker and Florence Mills), opens at the Sixty-Third Street Theatre.

  • The Irish Free State is declared after a five-year fight for independence from Britain.

  • Bessie Coleman becomes the first female African-American pilot.

  • The Sacco-Vanzetti trial begins, trying two Italian-born American anarchists whom many believe to be wrongly accused.

  • The world’s first lie detector is invented

  • Irving Berlin begins his Music Box Revues.

  • Irving Berlin opens his Music Box Theatre on Broadway.

  • O’Neill opens Anna Christie, his second Pulitzer Prize winner, at the Vanderbilt.

  • O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones opens in Norfolk, VA, the first production to play Southern states to have an African-American in the lead.

  • - Congress raises Tariffs to protect the American market, which boosts America’s economy for the 20s but worsens the crisis for struggling European economies like Germany’s, helping allow Adolf Hitler’s rise.

  • Germany suffers massive hyperinflation, with $1 being work 7,000 German marks.

  • The Reader’s Digest is first published.

  • The Teapot Dome scandal dominates the front-page news in the US.

  • George Gershwin and his brother Ira collaborate on the song "(I'll Build a) Stairway to Paradise" for "George White's Scandals."

  • Anne Nichols Abie’s Irish Rose by Anne Nichols opens at the Fulton. Critics hate it, audiences love it. Robert Benchley writes, “People laugh at this every night, which explains why democracy can never be a success.” It will run for 2,327 performances.

  • he Equity Players, a theatre company run by AEA, premieres at the Forty-Eighth Street Theatre with Malvaloca, a Spanish classic.

  • Benito Mussolini marches on Rome with 30,000 men and brings his facist party to power in Italy.

  • The tomb of King Tut is discovered

  • The Charleston dance craze sweeps the nation.

  • In a general meeting, Equity reaffirms its disdain for Sunday performances, despite a bill pending in Albany to legalize them. The bill is defeated later in the year.

  • Frank Gillmore, Executive Secretary and Treasurer, announces that Equity has $110,923 in assets – a good war-chest if a strike comes next year.

  • Eddie Cantor gets his own star vehicle from Ziegfeld, "Kid Boots," about a wisecracking golf caddy.

  • British comedienne Beatrice Lillie makes her Broadway debut in "Charlot's Revue."

  • - President Harding dies of a stroke, and Vice President Calvin Coolidge is sworn in

  • Kemal Attaturk founds moden-day Turkey.

  • The trial of Richard Leopold and Nathan Loeb takes place after they murder a young boy in an attempt to prove their intellectual superiority and to pull of “the perfect murder”.

  • Will Rogers becomes the first actor to have been placed in nomination for President of the United States

  • George Gershwin writes "Rhapsody in Blue."

  • Vladimir Lenin dies at the age of 53.

  • The First Winter Olympic games take place in Chamonix and Haute-Savoie, France.

  • Adolf Hitler is jailed after his Beer Hall Putsch coup fails in Germany

  • J. Edgar Hoover is appointed the fifth director of the Bureau of Investigation, eventually becoming the first Director of the F.B.I.

  • O’Neill’s play All God’s Chillun Got Wings opens at the Provincetown Playhouse starring Paul Robeson.

    The story of a love between a black man and a white woman garners controversy and great reviews.

  • With no signed agreement between Equity and the PMA, the theatres of those producers who have not agreed to Equity Shop, seven all together, are shut down.

    An agreement is reached: 80% of cast members in legitimate houses must be Equity – the rest must still pay dues. Bonding provisions are achieved, holding in escrow a two-week salary guarantee to cover every Equity member in a company.

  • Charlie Chaplin’s silent comedy The Gold Rush premieres.

  • 40,000 Ku Klux Klansmen march on Washington, D.C

  • The Great Race of Mercy takes place, relaying diphtheria antitoxin by dog sled across Alaska to Nome to combat an epidemic.

  • Broadway’s Rivoli and Rialto are the world’s first air-conditioned theatres.

  • Impresario Earl Carroll begins his "Vanities," a series of risqué revues.

  • "Lady, Be Good!" is the first full musical comedy produced by the Gershwins and stars the dancing team sensation of siblings Fred and Adele Astaire.

  • Walter Winchell begins his Broadway column in the Evening Graphic.

  • The Marx Brothers star in their first Broadway musical comedy, "The Cocoanuts," written for them by Irving Berlin and comic playwright George S. Kaufman.

  • "Manhattan" by Rodgers and Hart is showcased in "The Garrick Gaieties" and turns the duo into an overnight sensation.

  • "No, No, Nanette," already a smash hit in Chicago and London, sets Broadway's toes a-tapping with "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy.

  • Equity moves into its new home at 45 West 47th Street.

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby

  • Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf from his prison cell.

  • Hirohito becomes the Emperor of Japan

  • Harry Houdini dies after a punch to the stomach ruptures his appendix and causes peritonitis

  • Route 66 is established in the United States.

  • Robert Goodard fires off his first liquid-fueled rocket.

  • A.A. Milne publishes “Winnie-the-Pooh”.

  • Oscar Hammerstein II and Sigmund Romberg score a huge success with their Moroccan operetta, "The Desert Song."

  • The new songwriting team of DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson strikes it big with "Black Bottom" in "George White's Scandals."

  • "Someone to Watch Over Me" sung by Gertrude Lawrence in "Oh, Kay!" becomes a standard.

  • Paul Green wins the Pulitzer Prize for his play In Abraham's Bosom.

  • Oh, Kay! by the Gershwins opens at the Imperial, including the song “Someone To Watch Over Me.”

  • Babe Ruth sets a 60-home run record for the season, a record that would stand for 70 years.

  • The first talkie, “The Jazz Singer” is released.

    Opens with Al Jolson in the lead role and revolutionizes the movie industry.

  • Charles Lindbergh completes the first solo transatlantic flight in “The Spirit of St. Louis”.

  • The BBC is founded.

  • The Sacco-Vanzetti trial ends after multiple appeals, with the two anarchists executed for murder.

  • Buster Keaton’s comedy The General premieres.

  • The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is formed.

    On June 23, movie producers announce their intention to slash the salaries of all non-contract players. Contract players will be “asked” to take a reduction in pay. In July, Equity Magazine urges film actors to organize under the Union: “The film actors and actresses know they need Equity now.”

  • Police raid three plays, The Virgin Man, The Captive, and Mae West’s Sex.

    Equity protests the arrests of the actors, stating, “The actor is not responsible for the content of the play…” Later in the year, Governor Al Smith signs the Wales Theatrical Padlock Bill, giving local authorities the power to close shows they deem obscene.

  • Rodgers and Hart bring Mark Twain to the musical stage with "A Connecticut Yankee"; songs include "Thou Swell."

  • "Show Boat," a collaboration among Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Florenz Ziegfeld, docks at the Ziegfeld Theatre.

    Its complex narrative and racial themes make it a groundbreaking show; songs include "Bill" and "Ol' Man River."

  • Sliced Bread is invented, along with bubble gum.

  • Steamboat Willie premieres, marking the first appearance of Mickey Mouse.

  • Penicillin is discovered.

  • The Kellogg-Briand Pact is signed by 15 nations, including the U.S., outlawing war

  • Herbert Hoover is elected President of the United States

  • "Animal Crackers" opens, starring the Marx Brothers. During the day, they film the motion picture THE COCOANUTS in Astoria, Queens.

  • To protest his snide reviews, the Shuberts ban Walter Winchell from their theatres.

  • Because of the high occurrence of actors being asked to direct, Equity extends a measure of protection to directors, although it does not plan on creating a directors union or a closed shop.

  • "The New Moon," an 18th-century romantic operetta, is one of the last successful operettas: songs include "Lover Come Back to Me."

  • Eddie Cantor sings "Makin' Whoopee" in "Whoopee!".

  • Ethel Barrymore opens the theatre named after her in The Kingdom of God.

    Later, the Ethel Barrymore Theatre will later be called only The Barrymore after a dispute between Ms. Barrymore and the Shuberts.

  • British Equity, patterned after AEA, has its first meeting.

  • After American actress Alden Gay is barred from a British production, Equity places limitations upon the membership of foreign actors.

  • Variety headline: “Talkers Hot After Legit Talent.”

    The movies become more and more of a problem, not only in their popularity and cheap prices, but their talent drain.

  • The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur opens at the Times Square Theatre.

  • Machinal by Sophie Treadwell opens at the Plymouth.

  • The car radio is invented.

  • Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennet fly over the South Pole.

  • The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre occurs, with the deaths of seven members of the Moran Irish gang in Chicago.

  • On September 20th, the London Stock Exchange crashes.

  • Harlem jazz moves downtown, as Louis Armstrong plays "Ain't Misbehavin'" in the revue "Hot Chocolates."

  • June Moon by George S. Kaufman and Ring Lardner opens at the Broadhurst.

  • Alfred Harding publishes The Revolt of the Actors, a chronicle of the 1919 strike and Equity history through 1929.

  • , the U.S. Stock Market crashes, signaling the end of the Roaring ‘20s and the beginning of the Great Depression.

  • New York receives Anti-Depression therapy in the form of Fifty Million Frenchmen by Cole Porter opening tonight at the Lyric, featuring the song “You Do Something To Me.”

  • The Pathe Sound Studio at Park Avenue and 134th Street in New York City burns down. The fire is put out in one hour, but ten people are killed, including four members of Chorus Equity.

  • The Gershwins' "Strike up the Band" is the first musical to open the 1930s; a previous version closed in Philadelphia in 1927.

  • Ethel Merman creates a sensation singing "I Got Rhythm" in her Broadway debut, "Girl Crazy."

  • The exodus of Broadway talent to Hollywood begins in earnest: Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, and the Marx Brothers go to L.A.

  • Broadway Melody is the first musical to win an Academy Award.