The Letter

When producer Max Gordon came to John D. Rockefeller about investing in a musical based on Johann Strauss’ relationship with his father, set to Strauss’s most popular melodies with new lyrics, and a book by Moss Hart, he had no idea that Rockefeller would not only say yes, but offer the brand new Center Theatre, […]

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Charles “Chic” Sale was a vaudevillian whose specialty was playing “rural parts’ or what we would call country bumpkins. He was successful enough at it that the Shuberts put him in their annual Passing Show revues, and even Ziegfeld put him into one of his Midnight Frolics. He found fame in 1929 writing The Specialist, […]

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The Cole Porter musical Anything Goes cemented Ethel Merman’s status as a star. While she had made a hit in the Gershwin’s Girl Crazy three seasons before, Anything Goes, filled with a hit laden score that includes “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” and the title tune, showed […]

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