The Great American Revue: - New York Public Library

The Great American Revue:
How Florenz Ziegfeld, George White and Their Rivals Remade Broadway
April 19 - July 27, 2012
VINCENT ASTOR GALLERY THE SHELBY CULLOM DAVIS MUSEUM
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
DOROTHY AND LEWIS B. CULLMAN CENTER

3
What are
Revues?
In our fantasies, fed by nostalgia and Hollywood, they
are concoctions of songs, dance, elaborate costumes and
semi-nudity. To devotees of the American Songbook, they
were the laboratories in which Berlin, Rodgers & Hart,
Schwartz, Gorney, Harburg, Rome, and many others
learned to ply their craft. To historians, they are editorial
cartoons, preserving contemporary responses to Suffrage,
Prohibition, World War I, and the other topical, political
and cultural concerns of their day.
Revues are too often defined by what they were not –
musicals or vaudeville. They appeared on Broadway but
were not musical comedies or operettas, since those
genres were written to character around plots. They
respected the specialties of performers, but were not
vaudeville, since the selection and order of acts were
curated, provided with a consistent vision determined by
a producer or director. Although there were many single
shot revues, the exhibit focuses on Broadway revues with
multiple, annual editions.
“The Follies Salad,” which opened the Ziegfeld Follies of 1920. Photograph by White Studio.

4
Why did Revues become
so popular in the early
20 th century?
Revues responded to a confluence of 3 urban and 3 cultural influences:
Top: Promotional photograph of George White (far left) and male
cast members of the Scandals of 1926.
❖
❖
❖
❖
❖
❖
A swell of general interest in political and cultural news, fed by
New York’s 13 daily papers
Extension of the Times Square/Broadway performance calendar
to include summer productions, thanks to improvements in air
conditioning and elevators
Vaudeville’s success at marketing to specific audiences led revue
producers to focus on “summer widowers,” businessmen whose
families left the city for summer
Popularity of imitations as a performance specialty, especially as
practiced in vaudeville and roof garden shows
Radical changes in social and theatrical dance, each in turn was
integrated into revues
The new phenomenon of frequent Broadway runs for African
American musical comedies. Although plot dependent (and
therefore not included in the exhibition), they introduced revues to
the songwriters and arrangers of syncopation, blues and jazz.
Bottom: “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” as introduced in
Americana, 1932. Photograph by White Studio.
Right: Designs for the “Lampland” scenery by Mark Lawson in the
1917 Hippodrome production, Everything. R. H. Burnside Collection.
Revue series were linked and named for their “impresarios,” who
could be producer, director and/or theater manager. A revue could be
developed by a settlement house project such as The Neighborhood
Playhouse, The Theatre Guild production collective, or the International
Ladies’ Garment Makers’ Union. But the great majority of shows were
commercial ventures. Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., J. J. and Lee Shubert and
the Hippodrome’s R. H. Burnside were full time producer/directors,
managing multiple musicals as well as the revues series.

5
Developing these shows was a complex balancing act.
The producers/directors/impresarios juggled the relative
importance of topical scripts, songs, dance, design, and
performer specialties. Some came from these fields –
Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan, Elsie Janis, Grand Street’s
Agnes Morgan, and Earl Carroll were all songwriters, while
George White was a noted dancer and dance director.
H. Burnside maintained a large studio of male and female
set and costume designers for the Hippodrome shows and
the revues and musical comedies that he produced at other
theaters. Comics often provided their own specialties,
interpolating songs or monologues, giving (small print)
credit to Blanche Merrill or Alex Rogers for Fanny Brice
and Bert Williams acts, respectively.
That balancing act meant that revues had a huge impact
on the American performance industries since each
edition could feature multiple designers, directors and
writers for songs and comedy routines. Ziegfeld relied on
Joseph Urban and set and concept designer, but the John
Murray Anderson revues showcased 6 – 8 artists each,
including many of the women designers of the 1920s. R.
What did the revue audience see and hear on stage? What
entertained them and made them laugh? Through scores,
prompt scripts and lyric sheets, posters, photographs,
production notes, and spectacular original designs for sets,
costumes, logos and billboards, the gallery audience can
experience the grandeur and humor of the Great American
Revues, 1907 – 1938.

6
The revues series (chronologically by first edition)
Group i: who has the power?
Hammerstein Roof Garden shows
(1902 – 1908)
Focus: Imitation as a performance specialty
Ziegfeld Follies (1907-1925, 1927,
1931, 1934, 1936, 1943, 1957)
Focus: Establishing the structure of revues
by bringing illustrators’ images to life
Passing Shows
(Shubert Brothers, 1912 – 1924)
Focus: Integrating dance specialities with
real life references to Suffrage, local politics,
and biblical epics
Hippodrome revues (1912 – 1920)
Focus: Developing a house image with
multiple designers
Ziegfeld Frolics and Midnight
Frolics (1915 – 1916, 1918-1921, 1929)
Focus: Audience participation in small
revues in roof gardens
The Dolly Sisters in their tandem dance specialty in the
Ziegfeld Follies of 1915. Photograph by White Studio.

7
Group ii: balancing the elements
Hitchy-Koo (1917-1922)
Focus: The European model of revues as star
vehicles for comics
Music Box Revue (1921 – 1924)
Focus: Irving Berlin and the songwriter’s
revue and importance of the national tours
Elsie Janis & Her Gang (1919, 1922)
& Elsie Janis Puzzles of 1925
Focus: Smaller format revues for and by
World War I veterans
Grand Street Follies
(Neighborhood Playhouse, 1920s)
Focus: Self-referential return to imitation
and parodies
Trixie Friganza in the Passing Show of 1912.
George White’s Scandals
(1919-1926, 1928, 1931, 1936, 1939)
& Music Hall Varieties (1932)
Focus: Intimate through fabulous – Scale as
theme in dance, music and design
Garrick Gaieties
(Theatre Guild, 1925, 1926, 1930)
Focus: Finding a balance for imitators’/
songwriters’ revue
Cohan’s Revue (1916, 1918)
aka George M. Cohan Revue
Focus: Rise of songwriters as major factor in
topical revues
Century Theater revues
(Ziegfeld and Dillingham’s Century Girl,
1916, Miss 1917, Century Revue, 1920-
1921, and Century Midnight Revue, 1920)
Focus: Social and ballroom dance in revues
Greenwich Village Follies
(1919-1925, 1928), aka John Murray
Anderson’s GVF
Focus: Production value by multiple
designers as defining theme
Design by Mark Lawson for Elsie Janis and Her Gang,
1922. R. H. Burnside Collection.

8
Group iii:
the body as
performance
Artists & Models
(Shubert Brothers, 1923 – 1925, 1927,
1930, 1943)
Focus: Establishment of series identity
through graphics, scripts, etc.
Earl Carroll’s Vanities (1923 –
1926, 1928, 1930—1932, 1940)
& Sketchbooks (1929, 1935)
Focus: Survival of the tableau vivant
Group iv:
political
satires
Americana, As Thousands Cheer, Life
Begins at 8:40, and Pins & Needles.
Focus: The changing role of modern dance
and ballet in revues
Top Left: Promotional palette design for the Artists &
Models series.
Top Center: Letitia Ide and José Limón in the “Heat
Wave” sequence in As Thousands Cheer. Photograph by
Vandamm Studio.
Top Right: Dancers as Cocktails in the Passing Show
of 1919.
Above: Photograph of “The Birth of the Blues” sequence in the George White Scandals of 1926, used as the centerfold
of G. Maillard Kesslere’s Art Impressions souvenir brochure.

9
Three political-cultural topics were so entrenched in the period that they
were featured in every contemporary revue series.
❖
The popularity of the Russian ballet made specific ballets and
dancers show up in most of the revue series from 1910 – 1926, with
frequent parodies of Scheherazade and pun-filled characters based
on Pavlova, Mordkin and Nijinsky.
❖
In the World War I era, revues began to address their public’s
concerns with benefit events for refugees before America entered
the War and continues through Elsie Janis’ work with veterans
and the Bonus Army in the 1920s. In the seasons between, revues
presented patriotic pageantry and comedy about taxes and rationing,
and listed performer and writers’ military ranks in their programs.
❖
Prohibition was feared as a threat to New York’s entertainment/
tourism industries and detested by Broadway script and song
writers. From Raymond Hitchcock’s Hitchy-Koo monologue a few
weeks before enactment to the annual variations of “Three Mile”
jokes, they played to their audience’s knowledge of ways around the
Amendment’s provisions.
Revues provided visibility to generations of performers, designers,
directors, choreographers, writers, and songwriters who went on to redefine
Broadway, films, television, and popular entertainments. The
form has never disappeared. Hollywood adopted the form to usher in
the sound era, with each surviving studio presenting its own all-singing
revue. Many of the Broadway series continued or resumed into the 1940s.
Revues led by comics such as Bert Lahr proved popular into the 1950s on
Broadway. Since the 1960s, Off-Broadway and night club revues flourish
in the pattern of the Grand Street Follies and Garrick Gaities, celebrating
song writing and social satire.

Credits &
Acknowledgments
Public Programs
Wednesdays at 6:00 p.m.
The Great American Revue: How Florenz Ziegfeld, George
White and their Rivals Remade Broadway is a project
of The New York Public Library for the Performing
Arts: Jacqueline Z. Davis, Barbara G. and Lawrence A.
Fleischman Executive Director; and curated by Barbara
Cohen-Stratyner, Judy R. and Alfred A. Rosenberg
Curator of Exhibitions, The New York Public Library for
the Performing Arts, and Karen Nickeson, Curator, Billy
Rose Theatre Division, with the collaboration of many LPA
staff members. It was developed and installed by installed
by The Library’s Performing Arts Museum staff: Barbara
Cohen-Stratyner, Judy R. and Alfred A. Rosenberg Curator
of Exhibitions; Caitlin Mack, designer; and installers Rene
Ronda and Herbert Ruiz; Michael Diekmann, Manager of
Media Playback and Interactive Design.
Panels developed by Gary Flannery with Cheryl Raymond,
Manager of Public Programs; Film programming by John
Calhoun, Reserve Film & Video Collection.
Artifacts and media from the Research Divisions of The
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Additional
material from the Gary Flannery Collection. Our thanks
to Jane Lahr and Lyn DelliQuadri for their support of this
project. We thank the staff for their support and assistance
on this exhibition and the ongoing preservation of artifacts
from the revues.
We are grateful to the volunteers and interns who have
contributed to this project: Mana Allen, Claire Barco,
Daphne Delacruz, Susan Donahue, Victoria Flexner,
Kristin Holzer, Stephanie Liff, Clementine Martinez,
Allison Mikulewich, Hannah Orlove, Daniel Pecoraro,
Christina Ramos, Lauren Reinhalter, Samantha Shaffer,
Sarah Shears, Emma Winter Zeig, and Christine Zhu.
Programs take place in the Bruno Walter Auditorium. Admission is free
and on a first come, first served basis. For Sunday afternoon programs,
please enter by 111 Amsterdam Avenue just south of 65 th Street; doors
open 30 minutes prior to the program. For further information about
programs, call 212.642.0142.
May 2
Great American Revue composers like Gershwin, Berlin, Porter,
Rodgers, and De Sylva, Brown & Henderson changed music in
America and around the world by setting new standards for Broadway
and Hollywood scores. Take a musical journey with cabaret artist
Steve Ross through 4 decades of songs brought to you by the Great
American Revues. Featuring: Peter Mintun, Stephen Cole, and Nicholas
Wuehrmann & the Grads.
June 13
Dance in the American Revue, like the Roaring Twenties themselves,
was buoyant, frantic, and full of ingenuity, creating trends that exist to
this day. While the Castles and the Astaires brought the art form to
domestic parlors, ballrooms were full of Flappers invited to “Charleston”
their way to happiness! Join our hosts, legendary dancers Marge
Champion and Gary Flannery for an energetic evening with costumed
Ziegfeld re-creations and demonstrations of the Era’s dance crazes by
Jerry Mitchell and the Broadway Bares Company.
June 20
The pioneers of the Great American Revue forever changed musical
theater and film, and began revolutions in popular culture around the
world. How did they do it? Ziegfeld, White, Carroll, Berlin, Dillingham,
Rose, Todd, and the Shuberts are just some of the names to be discussed
and honored by our renowned panel. Hosted by Bob Kimball, with Ken
Bloom, Joe Franklin, and Laurence Maslon.

Hollywood's Rave Revues
Tuesdays at 2:30 p.m.
A series of early sound films and short subjects focusing on the revues
of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., George White and others, programmed by John
Calhoun of the Reserve Film and Video Collection. All Vitaphone shorts
thanks to Ron Hutchinson of The Vitaphone Project.
April 24
George White's 1935 Scandals (1935)
Directed by George White, 84 min.
with George White, Alice Faye, James
Dunn, Eleanor Powell
screening with
Faint Heart (1928)
Produced by the Vitaphone
Corporation, 20 min.
with Bert Lahr
May 1
Glorifying the American Girl (1929)
Directed by Millard Webb, 95 min.
with Mary Eaton, Eddie Cantor, Helen
Morgan, Rudy Vallee
screening with
My Bag o’ Trix (1929)
Produced by the Vitaphone
Corporation, 10 min.
with Trixie Friganza
The Song Plugger (1930)
Produced by the Vitaphone
Corporation, 10 min.
with Joe Frisco
May 8
On With the Show! (1929)
Directed by Alan Crosland, 104 min.
with Arthur Lake, Betty Compson, Joe
E. Brown, Ethel Waters
screening with
Good Morning, Eve! (1934)
Produced by the Vitaphone
Corporation, 20 min.
with Leon Errol, June MacCloy
May 15
King of Jazz (1930)
Directed by John Murray Anderson,
98 min.
with Paul Whiteman, John Boles,
Laura La Plante, The Rhythm Boys
screening with
Going Places (1930)
Produced by the Vitaphone
Corporation, 10 min.
with Al Shaw, Sam Lee
May 22
Flying High (1931)
Directed by Charles Reisner, 80 min.
with Bert Lahr, Charlotte Greenwood,
Pat O’Brien.
screening with
The Gigolo Racket (1931)
Produced by the Vitaphone
Corporation, 20 min.
with Helen Morgan
May 29
Murder at the Vanities (1934)
Directed by Mitchell Leisen, 89 min.
with Carl Brisson, Jack Oakie, Victor
McLaglen, Kitty Carlisle.
screening with
Metro Movietone Revue (1929)
Produced by the Vitaphone
Corporation, 20 min.
with Harry Rose
Sisters G in the King of Jazz.

Support for this exhibition has been generously provided by Community
Funds, Inc. - LuEsther T. Mertz Advised Fund, Susan Brown Barry,
Angela Lansbury, and Mr. and Mrs. Harry E. Gould, Jr.
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts gratefully
acknowledges the leadership support of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman.
Additional support for exhibitions has been provided by Judy R. and
Alfred A. Rosenberg and the Miriam and Harold Steinberg Foundation.
Dance rehearsal for the George White Scandals. Photograph by Vandamm Studio.
www.nypl.org/lpa