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Harold Arlen

HAROLD ARLEN  (1905 - 1986)

 Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    n/a


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below is a list of Harold Arlen's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

 Bloomer Girl         House Of Flowers         Jamaica         Saratoga         St Louis Woman         Wizard Of Oz, The

Bloomer Girl

Harold Arlen
The daughter of a hoop dress manufacturer has become a convert to the cause of amelia Bloomer and her liberating womens wear. She battles her father who wants things to remain the same. Her fiance is a slave owner and she is an abolitionist - it is the eve of the American Civil War

Notes:
Music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by E Y Harburg; book by Sig Herzig; Fred Saidy

1st Produced:
Shubert Theatre, New York    05 Oct 1944

Company:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
Original cast recording: MCa (MCaD- 10522) 1944

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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House Of Flowers

Harold Arlen
Two neighbouring bordellos battle for customers. Ottilie who works at one of them turns down a rich lord to marry a farm boy Royal. Her Madam wants to keep her working so has Royal kidnapped, sealed in a barrel and thrown in the sea. Luckily he escapes an

Notes:
Book by Truman Capote; Music by Harold Arlen; Lyrics by Truman Capote And Harold Arlen

1st Produced:
alvin Theatre, NY    30 Dec 1954

Company:
-

1st Published:
Random House, NY, 1968   -

Music:
Original cast recording: Columbia 1954

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Jamaica

Harold Arlen
Savannah longs to leave Jamaica and live in New York. an American businessman proposes marriage and it looks like her dream is about to come true - until she realises that she loves Koli a poor local fisherman and that she cannot leave him

Notes:
Music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by E Y Harburg; book by E Y Harburg; Fred Saidy

1st Produced:
Imperial Theatre, New York    31 Oct 1957

Company:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
Original cast recording: RCa (68041) 1957

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Saratoga

Harold Arlen
Clio an illegitimate Creole woman plans revenge on the family that exiled her pregnant mother as the son of the house was the father. She joins forces with Clint Maroon whose family was swindled out of land by a railway tycoon. The plan is for Clio to seduce the tycoon and get him to marry her. However, Clint and Clio fall in love

Notes:
Music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by Johnny Mercer; book by Morton Dacosta. Based on the novel "Saratoga Trunk" by Edna Furber

1st Produced:
Winter Garden Theatre, New York    07 Dec 1959

Company:
-

1st Published:
typescript in PaL, 1959   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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St Louis Woman

Harold Arlen
St Louis 1898. augie a jockey is having a very successful run of wins. He is in love with Della. Della is trying to end an abusive relationship with bar owner Biglow Brown. at the bar augie demonstrates the cakewalk and attracts Della's attention. Lilla is also there - she is Brown's ex-lover and is still very much in love with her. Della and augie plan to get married. Whilst augie is away racing Brown visits Della and beats her up. Lilla has followed him - then augie returns. Lilla shoots Brown but Brown thinks that augie did it and with his dying breath curses him. The curse seems to work augie stops winning races and Della decides to move away convinced that it is all her fault. When augie discovers why she is leaving he determines to win the next race and prove the curse wrong

Notes:
Music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by Johnny Mercer (added later); book by Arna Bontemps; Countee Cullen. (Martin Beck Theater, New York, Mar. 1946)

1st Produced:
Gilpin Players, Karamu Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio    Nov 1933

Company:
-

1st Published:
Black Theater, ed. by Lindsay Patterson, New York: Dodd, 1971   -

Music:
Original cast recording: angel (64662) 1946

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  22 BM, 7 BF, extras

Further Reference:
-

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Wizard Of Oz, The

Harold Arlen
stage musical of an iconic film

Notes:
By L. Frank Baum, with Music And Lyrics by Harold Arlen And E.Y. Harburg

1st Produced:
-    15 Aug 1939

Company:
-

1st Published:
-   Soundtrax-1020

Music:
Revival cast recording: TVT Soundtrax (1020) 1998

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Musical

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Apart from very popular and world touring productions, many performing arts events are largely forgotten about in a matter of months. Traces may remain in various collections, but few collecting agencies, such as libraries, catalogue each flyer or program individually. Hence, unless one knows that an event took place at a certain time in a certain place, tracking down such an event as part of a research project is often a matter of chance. Where research needs to be carried out on high profile and well-documented productions only, this is not a problem. However, both the historian and the analyst will attest that the cultural, political, or sociological context in which a performing arts event takes place is also of major importance, as are the other events that took place in close proximity, either in place or time. A good overview of such productions provides us with a 'social document' that can greatly enhance cultural studies in ways that extend far beyond the narrow confines of theatre history. For instance, data such as this can be used to monitor the health of communities, particularly when used in association with data obtained from other social science disciplines. When one researches a particular playwright one might want to know about all the productions of plays by that author; if one wants to investigate what choices a particular audience had over a period of history and compare this to, say, an ethnic breakdown of the population, one would need to know broadly all the events that took place during that time. If one wanted to do a statistical analysis on the shift in popularity of a genre over one or more generations, it is important to have knowledge of most of the relevant major and minor performance events that took place. In this context, issues of aesthetic quality and the professionalism of a production - which will of course have an impact on such studies - are not the determining factors when deciding to include or exclude events, since all events are the raw material for such research.