1.
Eve Arden
Eve Arden was an American film and television actress, and comedian. She performed in leading and supporting roles over nearly six decades, Arden would go on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Mildred Pierce. Lucille, a milliner, divorced Charles over his gambling, although not Roman Catholic, young Eunice was sent to a Dominican convent school near Modesto, and attended Tamalpais High School, a public high school in Mill Valley until age 16. After leaving school, she joined a theater company. She made her debut under her real name in the backstage musical Song of Love, as a wisecracking, homewrecking showgirl who becomes a rival to the films star. The film was one of Columbia Pictures earliest successes, in 1933, she relocated to New York City, where she appeared in multiple Broadway stage productions in supporting parts. In 1934, she was cast in that years Ziegfeld Follies revue and this was the first role in which she was credited as Eve Arden.
Told to change her name for the show, she looked at her cosmetics and stole my first name from Evening in Paris and the second from Elizabeth Arden. Between 1934 and 1941, she would appear in Broadway productions of Parade, Very Warm for May, Two for the Show, and Lets Face It. Her film career began in earnest in 1937 when she signed a contract with RKO Radio Pictures and her Stage Door portrayal of a fast-talking, witty supporting character gained Arden considerable notice and was to be a template for many of Ardens future roles. In 1938, she appeared in a part in the comedy Having Wonderful Time, starring Ginger Rogers. This was followed by roles in the crime film The Forgotten Woman, and the comedy At the Circus, opposite Groucho Marx, in 1940, she appeared opposite Clark Gable in Comrade X, followed by the drama Manpower, opposite Marlene Dietrich. She appeared in a part in the Red Skelton comedy Whistling in the Dark. In 1946, exhibitors voted her the sixth-most promising star of tomorrow and she became familiar to a new generation of film-goers when she played Principal McGee in both 1978s Grease and 1982s Grease 2.
Arden portrayed the character on radio from 1948 to 1957, in a version of the program from 1952 to 1956. Ardens character clashed with the principal, Osgood Conklin. Except for Chandler, the radio cast of Arden, Richard Crenna, Robert Rockwell, Gloria McMillan. She won a poll by Radio Mirror magazine as the top-ranking comedienne of 1948–1949
2.
Seating capacity
Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats hundreds of thousands of people. The International Fire Code, portions of which have adopted by many jurisdictions, is directed more towards the use of a facility than the construction. It specifies, For areas having fixed seating without dividing arms and it requires that every public venue submit a detailed site plan to the local fire code official, including details of the means of egress, seating capacity, arrangement of the seating. Once safety considerations have been satisfied, determinations of seating capacity turn on the size of the venue. For sports venues, the decision on maximum seating capacity is determined by several factors, chief among these are the primary sports program and the size of the market area.
Seating capacity of venues plays a role in what media they are able to provide, in contracting to permit performers to use a theatre or other performing space, the seating capacity of the performance facility must be disclosed. Seating capacity may influence the kind of contract to be used, the seating capacity must be disclosed to the copyright owner in seeking a license for the copyrighted work to be performed in that venue. Venues that may be leased for private functions such as ballrooms and auditoriums generally advertise their seating capacity, seating capacity is an important consideration in the construction and use of sports venues such as stadiums and arenas. The seating capacity for restaurants is reported as covers, a restaurant that can seat 99 is said to have 99 covers, seating capacity differs from total capacity, which describes the total number of people who can fit in a venue or in a vehicle either sitting or standing. Use of the term public capacity indicates that a venue is allowed to more people than it can actually seat.
Again, the total number of people can refer to either the physical space available or limitations set by law
3.
Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.
He produced the musical Show Boat. He was known as the glorifier of the American girl, Ziegfeld is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. Florenz Edward Ziegfeld Jr. was born on March 21,1867, in Chicago and his mother, who was born in Belgium, was the grandniece of General Count Étienne Maurice Gérard. His father, Florenz Ziegfeld, Sr. was a German immigrant whose father was the mayor of Jever in Friesland, Ziegfeld was baptized in his mothers Roman Catholic church. As a child Ziegfeld witnessed first-hand the Chicago fire of 1871 and his father ran the Chicago Musical College and opened a nightclub, the Trocadero, to obtain business from the 1893 Worlds Fair. To help his fathers nightclub succeed, Ziegfeld hired and managed the strongman, during a trip to Europe, Ziegfeld came across a young Polish-French singer by the name of Anna Held. His promotion of Anna Held in America brought about her rise to national fame. It was Held who first suggested an American imitation of the Parisian Follies to Ziegfeld and her success in a series of his Broadway shows, especially The Parisian Model, was a major reason for his starting a series of lavish revues in 1907.
Much of Helds popularity was due to Ziegfelds creation of publicity stunts, Ziegfelds stage spectaculars, known as the Ziegfeld Follies, began with Follies of 1907, which opened on July 7,1907, and were produced annually until 1931. The Ziegfeld Follies featured the famous Ziegfeld Girls, female dancers who wore elaborate costumes. The Follies featured many performers who, though known from previous work in other theatrical genres, achieved unique financial success. Included among these are Nora Bayes, Fanny Brice, Ruth Etting, Eddie Cantor, Marilyn Miller, Will Rogers, Bert Williams and Ann Pennington. Ziegfeld married Held in 1897, but she divorced him in 1913, Held and Ziegfeld were never formally married, in 1897 they had announced to friends that they were husband and wife, eliminating any questions about their marital status. But by 1912 they had lived long enough to establish a common-law marriage. Held served Ziegfeld with divorce papers on April 14,1912, Held had submitted testimony about Ziegfelds relationship with another woman.
He remained in love with Lorraine for the rest of his life, however and actress Billie Burke were married April 11,1914, after meeting at a party on New Years Eve. They had one child, Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson, the family lived on his estate in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and in Palm Beach, Florida. At a cost of $2.5 million, Ziegfeld built the 1600-seat Ziegfeld Theatre on the west side of Sixth Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets, designed by Joseph Urban and Thomas W. Lamb, the auditorium was egg-shaped with the stage at the narrow end
4.
Broadway (Manhattan)
Broadway /ˈbrɔːdweɪ/ is a road in the U. S. state of New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in New York City, dating to the first New Amsterdam settlement, the name Broadway is the English language literal translation of the Dutch name, Brede weg. Broadway is known widely as the heart of the American theatre industry, Broadway was originally the Wickquasgeck Trail, carved into the brush of Manhattan by its Native American inhabitants. Wickquasgeck means birch-bark country in the Algonquian language and this trail originally snaked through swamps and rocks along the length of Manhattan Island. Upon the arrival of the Dutch, the trail became the main road through the island from Nieuw Amsterdam at the southern tip. The Dutch explorer and entrepreneur David Pietersz. de Vries gives the first mention of it in his journal for the year 1642, the Dutch named the road Heerestraat. Although current street signs are simply labeled as Broadway, in a 1776 map of New York City, in the mid-eighteenth century, part of Broadway in what is now lower Manhattan was known as Great George Street.
An 1897 City Map shows a segment of Broadway as Kingsbridge Road in the vicinity of what is now the George Washington Bridge. In the 18th century, Broadway ended at the town north of Wall Street, where traffic continued up the East Side of the island via Eastern Post Road. The western Bloomingdale Road would be widened and paved during the 19th century, on February 14,1899, the name Broadway was extended to the entire Broadway/Bloomingdale/Boulevard road. Broadway once was a street for its entire length. The present status, in which it runs one-way southbound south of Columbus Circle, on 6 June 1954, Seventh Avenue became southbound and Eighth Avenue became northbound south of Broadway. On 3 June 1962, Broadway became one-way south of Canal Street, with Trinity Place, northbound traffic on Broadway now needs to take Amsterdam Avenue to 73rd Street, make a sharp turn on the very narrow 73rd and right turn on Broadway. Otherwise, and effectively, the traffic on Broadway has been diverted into Amsterdam Avenue.
In August 2008, two lanes from 42nd to 35th Streets were taken out of service and converted to public plazas. Additionally, bike lanes were added on Broadway from 42nd Street down to Union Square, the city decided that the experiment was successful and decided to make the change permanent in February 2010. Additionally, portions of Broadway in the Madison Square and Union Square have been dramatically narrowed, Broadway runs the length of Manhattan Island, roughly parallel to the North River, from Bowling Green at the south to Inwood at the northern tip of the island. South of Columbus Circle, it is a southbound street
5.
United Artists
United Artists is an American film and television entertainment studio. The studio was bought and restructured over the ensuing century. On December 14 of the year, however, MGM acquired the 48% stake of UAMG it did not own. UA was incorporated as a joint venture on February 5,1919, by Pickford, Fairbanks, each held a 20% stake, with the remaining 20% held by lawyer William Gibbs McAdoo. The idea for the venture originated with Fairbanks, Pickford, already Hollywood veterans, the four stars talked of forming their own company to better control their own work. They were spurred on by established Hollywood producers and distributors who were tightening their control over salaries and creative decisions. With the addition of Griffith, planning began, but Hart bowed out before anything was formalized, when he heard about their scheme, Richard A. Rowland, head of Metro Pictures, is said to have observed, The inmates are taking over the asylum. The four partners, with advice from McAdoo, formed their distribution company and its headquarters was established at 729 Seventh Avenue in New York City.
The original terms called for each of the stars to produce five pictures each year, UAs first film was a success. Without selling stock to the public, following the other studios, as a result, production was slow and the company distributed an annual average of five films during its first five years. By 1924 Griffith had dropped out and the company was facing a crisis, veteran producer Joseph Schenck was hired as president. He had been producing pictures for a decade, and he brought commitments for films starring his wife, Norma Talmadge, his sister-in-law, Constance Talmadge, contracts were signed with independent producers, most notably Samuel Goldwyn, and Howard Hughes. In 1933, Schenck organized a new company with Darryl F. Zanuck, called Twentieth Century Pictures, Schenck formed a separate partnership with Pickford and Chaplin to buy and build theaters under the United Artists name. They began international operations, first in Canada and in Mexico, by the end of the 1930s, United Artists was represented in over 40 countries.
When he was denied a share in 1935, Schenck resigned. He set up 20th Century Pictures merger with Fox Film Corporation to form 20th Century Fox, al Lichtman succeeded Schenck as company president. Other independent producers distributed through United Artists in the 1930s including, Walt Disney Productions, Alexander Korda, Hal Roach, David O. Selznick, as the years passed, and the dynamics of the business changed, these producing partners drifted away. Samuel Goldwyn Productions and Disney went to RKO, and Wanger to Universal Pictures, in the late 1930s, UA turned a profit
6.
Cats (musical)
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possums Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh. Cats introduced the song standard Memory, the first performance of Cats was in 1981. Directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne, Cats first opened in the West End in 1981 and it won numerous awards, including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards. The London production ran for years and the Broadway production ran for eighteen years. Actresses Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley became particularly associated with the musical, One actress, Marlene Danielle, performed in the Broadway production for its entire run. As of 2016, Cats is the show in Broadway history. Cats is the sixth-longest-running West End musical and it has been performed around the world many times and has been translated into more than 20 languages. In 1998, Cats was turned into a made-for-television film, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the production of Cats is based on T. S.
Eliots Old Possums Book of Practical Cats, which the composer recalled as having been a childhood favorite. Also, a song entitled The Moments of Happiness was taken from a passage in Eliots Four Quartets. Andrew Lloyd Webber began composing the songs in late 1977 and premiered the compositions at the Sydmonton Festival in 1980, the concert was attended by T. S. Eliots wife, Valerie Eliot and she loved the songs that Webber had composed. She gave her blessing for the songs to be adapted into a stage play. Rehearsals for the musical began in early 1981 at the New London Theatre, an unusual musical in terms of its construction, the overture incorporates a fugue and there are occasions when the music accompanies spoken verse. The show is told through music with virtually no spoken dialogue in between the songs. Dance is a key element in the musical especially during the 10-minute Jellicle Ball dance sequence, the set, consisting of an oversized junk yard, remains the same throughout the show without any scene changes.
Lloyd Webbers eclecticism is very strong here, musical genres range from classical to pop, music hall, rock, Cats premiered in the West End at the New London Theatre on May 11,1981. There was trouble initially as Judi Dench, cast in the role of Grizabella and she was replaced by Elaine Paige. It played a total of 8,949 performances in London and it held the record as Londons longest running musical until 8 October 2006, when it was surpassed by Les Misérables. The show made its debut on Broadway on 7 October 1982, on 19 June 1997, Cats became the longest-running musical in Broadway history with 6,138 performances
7.
Warner Bros.
Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Albert, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase.
By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F.
Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
8.
Theater (structure)
A theater, theatre or playhouse, is a structure where theatrical works or plays are performed, or other performances such as musical concerts may be produced. While a theater is not required for performance, a theater serves to define the performance and audience spaces, the facility is traditionally organized to provide support areas for performers, the technical crew and the audience members. There are as many types of theaters as there are types of performance, theaters may be built specifically for a certain types of productions, they may serve for more general performance needs or they may be adapted or converted for use as a theater. They may range from open-air amphitheaters to ornate, cathedral-like structures to simple, some theaters may have a fixed acting area, while some theaters, such as black box theaters, may not, allowing the director and designers to construct an acting area suitable for the production. The most important of these areas is the acting space generally known as the stage, in some theaters, specifically proscenium theaters, arena theaters and amphitheaters, this area is permanent part of the structure.
In a blackbox theater the area is undefined so that each theater may adapt specifically to a production. In addition to these spaces, there may be offstage spaces as well. These include wings on either side of a stage where props, sets. A Prompters box may be found backstage, in an amphitheater, an area behind the stage may be designated for such uses while a blackbox theater may have spaces outside of the actual theater designated for such uses. Often a theater will incorporate other spaces intended for the performers, a booth facing the stage may be incorporated into the house where lighting and sound personnel may view the show and run their respective instruments. Other rooms in the building may be used for dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, spaces for constructing sets and costumes, as well as storage. There are usually two main entrances, one at the front, used by the audience, that leads into the back of the audience, the second is called the stage door, and it is accessible from backstage.
This is the means by which the cast and crew enter and exit the theater and this term can be used to refer to going to a lot of shows or living in a big theater city, such as New York or Chicago. All theaters provide a space for an audience, the audience is usually separated from the performers by the proscenium arch. In proscenium theaters and amphitheaters, the arch, like the stage, is a permanent feature of the structure. This area is known as the auditorium or the house, the word parterre is sometimes used to refer to a particular subset of this area. In North American usage this is usually the rear seating block beneath the gallery whereas in Britain it can mean either the area in front near the orchestra pit, the term can refer to the side stalls in some usages. Derived from the gardening term parterre, the usage refers to the pattern of both the seats of an auditorium and of the planted beds seen in garden construction
9.
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is considered both an American icon and a gay icon, Minnelli is the daughter of film actress and singer Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli. She began her career as a teenager in New York City as a theatre actress. Minnelli regularly performed with her famous mother, including a 1964 joint engagement at the London Palladium and in Garlands own CBS television series The Judy Garland Show. In 1965 she made her Broadway debut in the musical Flora the Red Menace and was awarded the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and her other film roles have included Golden Globe Award nominated performances in Lucky Lady, New York, New York and Arthur. She has successfully returned to the Broadway stage on a number of occasions, from the late 1970s onwards, Minnellis work has predominantly focused on concert tours and nightclub performances. She gave highly regarded performances at Carnegie Hall in 1979 and 1987, in the late 1980s she toured alongside Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.
in Frank, Liza & Sammy, The Ultimate Event. Minnelli was born on March 12,1946 in Hollywood, California, to Vincente Minnelli and she attended New York Citys High School of Performing Arts and Chadwick School. Her first performing experience on film was at age three where she appeared in the scene of the musical In the Good Old Summertime. The film stars Garland and Van Johnson, Minnelli has a half-sister and half-brother, from Garlands marriage to Sid Luft. She has another half-sister, Christiane Nina Minnelli, from her fathers second marriage, Minnellis godparents were Kay Thompson and Ira Gershwin. Her parents named her after Ira Gershwins song Liza, during 1961, Minnelli was an apprentice at the Cape Cod Melody Tent, Massachusetts. She appeared in the chorus of Flower Drum Song and played the part of Muriel in Take Me Along, Minnelli began performing professionally at age 17, in 1963, in an Off-Broadway revival of the musical Best Foot Forward, for which she received the Theatre World Award.
The next year, her mother invited Liza to perform with her in concert at the London Palladium, both concerts were recorded and released as an album. She attended Scarsdale High School for one year, starring in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank which went to Israel on tour and she turned to Broadway at 19, and won her first Tony Award as a leading actress for Flora the Red Menace. It was the first time she worked with the musical duo John Kander, Minnelli began as a nightclub singer as an adolescent, making her professional nightclub debut at the age of 19 at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D. C. That same year she began appearing in clubs and on stage in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami. Her success as a performer led to her recording several albums for Capitol Records
10.
Peter Pan (1954 musical)
Peter Pan is a musical adaptation of J. M. Barries 1904 play Peter Pan and Barries own novelization of it, Peter and Wendy. The music is mostly by Mark Moose Charlap, with music by Jule Styne. The original 1954 Broadway production, starring Mary Martin as Peter and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook and it was followed by NBC telecasts of it in 1955,1956, and 1960 with the same stars, plus several rebroadcasts of the 1960 telecast. In 2014, the musical was broadcast on NBC featuring several new numbers, the show has enjoyed several revivals onstage. Several productions of Peter Pan were staged early in the 20th century, starting in London in 1904, starring Nina Boucicault as Peter and on Broadway in 1905, starring Maude Adams. Producer Edwin Lester and director of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, in this ending, Peter returns after many years to take Wendy back to Never Never Land for spring cleaning. He finds that he has been away so long that Wendy is now an adult, despondent at first, he is delighted when Wendys daughter Jane offers to be his new mother, and instead takes her with him.
The musical premiered at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco on July 19,1954, the initial four-week run was followed by an eight-week engagement in Los Angeles. The show opened on Broadway on October 20,1954 at the Winter Garden Theatre for a limited run of 152 performances. The busy 1954 Broadway season included The Boy Friend, Silk Stockings, the revised score and Tony Award-winning performances by Martin and Cyril Ritchard made the musical a critical success, and tickets sold out throughout the Broadway run. The show closed on February 26,1955 to prepare for the television broadcast, a Broadway cast album was made of the songs, and it is still in print today. In 1954, Fred Coe, production manager for NBC in New York, began producing Producers Showcase, one aim of the series was to broadcast expensive color spectaculars to promote the new color television system developed by NBCs parent company RCA. On March 7,1955, NBC presented Peter Pan live as part of Producers Showcase as the first full-length Broadway production on color TV, the show attracted a then-record audience of 65-million viewers, the highest ever up to that time for a single television program.
Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard had already won Tony Awards for their stage performances and it was so well received that the musical was restaged live for television on January 9,1956. Both of these broadcasts were produced live and in color, Peter Pan was restaged on December 8,1960, this time in a 100-minute version rather than 90 minutes, and with a slightly different cast because the original children had outgrown their roles. Producers Showcase had long gone off the air, so the 1960 production was intended as a stand alone special instead of an episode of an anthology series. Act II was split into two acts, for a total of five instead of three, to allow for more commercial breaks. This version was videotaped in color at NBCs Brooklyn studio, Martin was starring in Broadways The Sound of Music at the time
11.
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was a French vedette and entertainer, whose career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adoptive country of France. During her early career she was renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline the lavish revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. She was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who dubbed her the Black Pearl, the Bronze Venus. Born in St. Louis, she renounced her U. S. citizenship, Baker was the first person of African descent to become a world-famous entertainer and to star in a major motion picture, the 1934 Marc Allégret film Zouzou. Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement, in 1968 she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr. s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children and she was known for aiding the French Resistance during World War II.
After the war, she was awarded the Croix de guerre by the French military, Josephine Baker was born as Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, was adopted in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1886 by Richard and Elvira McDonald, Josephine Bakers estate identifies vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson as her natural father despite evidence to the contrary. Bakers foster son Jean-Claude Baker wrote a biography on her that was published in 1993 titled Josephine, Jean-Claude Baker did an exhaustive amount of research into the life of Josephine Baker, including the identity of her biological father. In the book, he discusses at length the circumstances surrounding Josephine Bakers birth, Carrie McDonald and Eddie Carson had a song-and-dance act, when Josephine was about a year old they began to carry her onstage occasionally during their finale. She was further exposed to business at an early age because her childhood neighborhood was home to many vaudeville theaters that doubled as movie houses.
These venues included the Jazzland, Booker T. Washington, the incident was immortalized that year by songwriter Bill Dooley, in a song called Frankie Killed Allen, which was revamped as the American classic blues ballad Frankie and Johnny. Josephine was always poorly dressed and hungry as a child, and she had little formal education, and attended Lincoln Elementary School only through the fifth grade. Josephines mother married a kind but perpetually unemployed man, Arthur Martin, with whom she had a son and she took in laundry to wash to make ends meet, and at eight years old, Josephine began working as a live-in domestic for white families in St. Louis. One woman abused her, burning Josephines hands when the girl put too much soap in the laundry. At 13, Josephine worked as a waitress at the Old Chauffeurs Club at 3133 Pine Street. She lived as a child in the slums of St. Louis, sleeping in cardboard shelters, scavenging for food in garbage cans. It was at the Old Chauffeurs Club where Josephine met Willie Wells, the marriage lasted less than a year and she left Wells to join a black vaudeville group
12.
Wonderful Town
Wonderful Town is a 1953 musical with book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the musical tells the story of two sisters who aspire to be a writer and actress respectively, seeking success from their basement apartment in New York Citys Greenwich Village. Only the last two stories in McKenneys book were used, and they were heavily modified and it is a lighter piece than Bernsteins works, West Side Story and Candide, but none of the songs have become as popular. Act I During the summer of 1935 in Greenwich Village, New York, when the tourists have departed, the witty Ruth Sherwood arrives in Greenwich Village with Eileen, her younger sister. The two have just arrived from Columbus, determined to forge a life in New York City as a writer, soon they are living in a basement apartment, recently vacated by Violet, loaned by the landlord, Mr. Appopolous. Their apartment building is shaken frequently by dynamite from the construction of a subway underneath them as well as Violets returning customers, the sisters are soon stricken with homesickness for Ohio.
The next morning and Eileen set out to try their hand at Conquering New York, only to find defeat and humiliation. Eileen, at least, has gotten food from a food samples man, as well as Mr. Valenti, but has met Frank Lippencott, Ruth talks her way into the offices of a short story magazine, where she meets Bob Baker. Undaunted, Ruth leaves three stories with Bob in the hope that he read them. Bob arrives at the apartment, looking for Ruth, and Eileen invites him over for dinner as well, the phone rings, and it is Chick Clark, a newspaper editor, whom Eileen met in an elevator, wanting to see Eileen. Eileen happily agrees to him in their apartment, much to Ruths hesitation. Wreck describes his lucky history as a student at Trenton Tech, Eileen has invited Frank Lippencott, Bob Baker, and Chick Clark, a slimy newspaper scribe whom she has met with the object of furthering Ruths career, over for potluck supper. Unaware of each others feelings, both find themselves attracted to Bob. Soon, all five of them are seated around the apartment trying to fill the awkward silence.
Meanwhile, Helen deals with her overbearing and exaggerated mother and Bob talk over the quality of her stories, and he advises her to write about what she knows rather than flights of fancy. Both say several wrong things, and he tells her off. He soon regrets it as Ruth rushes inside in tears, while all this is happening, anxious to be alone with Eileen, Chick Clark creates a bogus assignment for Ruth. He sends her off to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to interview a group of Brazilian navy cadets and she quickly realizes that their sole interest is to learn and dance the Conga
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