Percy Greenbank was an English lyricist and librettist, best known for his contribution of lyrics to a number of successful Edwardian musical comedies in the early years of the 20th century. His older brother, the dramatist Harry Greenbank, had a brilliant career in the 1890s that was cut short by his death at the age of 33. Percy picked up where his brother had left off, writing lyrics for some of the most popular musicals from 1900 through World War I and even afterwards.
Greenbank in 1905
Cover of Vocal Score
Sheet music from The Boy
Edwardian musical comedy was a form of British musical theatre that extended beyond the reign of King Edward VII in both directions, beginning in the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following the First World War.
The Geisha was a popular Edwardian musical comedy
George Edwardes
Phyllis Dare in The Arcadians
Souvenir program cover, 1900