A Gaiety Girl is an English musical comedy in two acts by a team of musical comedy neophytes: Owen Hall (book, on an outline by James T. Tanner), Harry Greenbank (lyrics) and Sidney Jones (music). It opened at Prince of Wales Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes, on 14 October 1893 (later transferring to Daly's Theatre) and ran for 413 performances. The show starred C. Hayden Coffin, Louie Pounds, Decima Moore, and later George Grossmith, Jr. and Scott Russell. Letty Lind later joined the cast. It also had a successful three-month Broadway run, followed by an American tour. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Sidney Jones was a composer most famous for producing the scores for several musical comedies in the last Victorian period. ... Harry Greenbank was an author from the late 19th and early 20th century. ... Owen Hall ((born Dublin, 10 April 1853, died Harrogate, 9 April 1907) was the pen name of 19th and early 20th century theatre critic James Davis when writing for the stage. ... Year 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre in London, England, or sometimes more specifically for shows staged in the large theatres of Londons Theatreland. Along with New Yorks Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre... Owen Hall ((born Dublin, 10 April 1853, died Harrogate, 9 April 1907) was the pen name of 19th and early 20th century theatre critic James Davis when writing for the stage. ... James Tolman Tanner (October 17, 1858 -- June 18, 1915) was an English stage director and dramatist who wrote many of the successful musicals produced by George Edwardes. ... Harry Greenbank was an author from the late 19th and early 20th century. ... Sidney Jones was a composer most famous for producing the scores for several musical comedies in the last Victorian period. ... The Prince of Wales Theatre is a theatre located on Coventry Street, London. ... George Edwardes (d. ... is the 287th day of the year (288th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Dalys Theatre was located in Cranbourn Street, off Leicester Square, London. ... Hayden Coffin in The Geisha Drawing of Coffin in A Country Girl Charles Hayden Coffin (April 22, 1862 – December 8, 1935) was an English actor and singer known for his performances in many famous musicals, particularly those produced by George Edwardes. ... A publicity photo of Louie Pounds that appeared in the Sketch, April 24, 1901, as part of an advertisement for The Emerald Isle. ... Lilian Decima Moore (December 11, 1871 – February 18, 1964) was an English singer and actress, known for her performances in soprano roles with the DOyly Carte Opera Company and in musical comedies. ... George Grossmith, Jr. ... Harry Henry Russell, better known as Scott Russell (25 September 1868 and died on 28 August 1949), was an English singer, actor and theatre manager best known for his performances in the tenor roles with the DOyly Carte Opera Company. ... Letitia Elizabeth Rudge, better known as Letty Lind (December 21, 1861 - August 27, 1923), was an English actress, dancer and acrobat, best known for her work in Burlesque at the Gaiety Theatre, and in musical theatre at Dalys Theatre, in London. ...

Importance in the development of the modern musical

This followed Tanner's and Edwardes's success with In Town (1892), and would lead to a series of musicals produced by Edwardes that would pack the Gaiety Theatre for decades. Although the earliest of these shows have the same sound one expects from Gilbert and Sullivan's operas, Edwardes called them "musical comedies", leading some writers to incorrectly credit him with inventing a form that Harrigan & Hart had established on Broadway a decade earlier. Although Edwardes was not the true inventor of musical comedy, he was the first to elevate these works to international popularity. In Town is a musical comedy written by Adrian Ross and James T. Tanner, with music by F. Osmond Carr and lyrics by Ross. ... The Gaiety Theatre, London was a musical theatre in Londons Strand area. ... W. S. Gilbert Arthur Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian era partnership of librettist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). ...

The plot of A Gaiety Girl was a simple intrigue about a stolen comb and included a few tangled romances. Hall's satirical book included lines which jabbed here and there in the style of an upmarket gossip columnist. The smart society back-chat irritated several people in high places in London who wrote to Edwardes asking for alterations. The public, on the other hand, loved it, even when the Reverend Brierly, a character depicted as a man of doubtful moral rectitude, was demoted, after pressure from Lambeth Palace, to being just plain Dr. Brierly.

A Gaiety Girl's success confirmed Edwardes on the path he was taking. He immediately set Hall, Jones and Greenbank to work on their next show, An Artist's Model. A Gaiety Girl led to some fourteen copies (including The Shop Girl, The Circus Girl, and A Runaway Girl), which were very successful in England for the next two decades, and were widely imitated by other producers and playwriting teams. An Artists Model is a two-act musical by Owen Hall, with lyrics by Harry Greenbank and music by Sidney Jones, with additional songs by Joseph and Mary Watson, Paul Lincke, Frederick Ross and Henry Hamilton and directed by [[James T. Tanner]. It opened at Dalys Theatre in... The Shop Girl was a musical comedy in two acts (described by the author as a musical farce) written in 1894 by H. J. W. Dam, with Lyrics by H. J. W. Dam and Adrian Ross, and music by Ivan Caryll and additional numbers by Lionel Monckton and Adrian Ross. ... The Circus Girl is a musical comedy in two acts by James T. Tanner and Walter Apllant (Palings), with lyrics by Harry Greenbank and Adrian Ross, music by Ivan Caryll, and additional music by Lionel Monckton. ... A Runaway Girl is a musical comedy written in the late 19th century. ...

The Gaiety Girls

The show's popularity depended, in part, on the beautiful "Gaiety Girls" chorus appearing onstage in bathing attire and in the latest fashions. According to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Sunday, 23 December 1894, p.9a), "The piece is a mixture of pretty girls, English humor, singing, dancing and bathing machines and dresses of the English fashion. The dancing is a special feature of the performance, English burlesques giving much more attention to that feature of their attractiveness than the American entertainments of the same grade do." The Gaiety Girls were fashionable, elegant young ladies, unlike the corseted actresses from the burlesques. Many of the best-known London couturiers designed costumes for stage productions by the 1990s. The illustrated periodicals were eager to publish photographs of the actresses in the latest stage hits, and so the theatre became an excellent way for clothiers to publicise their latest fashions.^[1]

Gaiety girls were polite, well-behaved young women, who were much sought after by the "stage door johnnies" of the 1890s--some of them becoming popular actresses or marrying into society and even the nobility. They became a popular attraction and a symbol of ideal womanhood. Alan Hyman, an expert on burlesque theatre who penned the 1972 book The Gaiety Years, wrote: Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

At the old Gaiety in the Strand the chorus was becoming a matrimonial agency for girls with ambitions to marry into the peerage and began in the nineties when Connie Gilchrist, a star of the Old Gaiety, married the Earl of Orkney and then in 1901, the Marquess of Headfort married Rosie Boote, who had charmed London the previous year when she sang Maisie in The Messenger Boy. After Connie Gilchrist and Rosie Boote had started the fashion a score of the Guv'nor's budding stars left him to marry peers or men of title while other Gaiety Girls settled for a banker or a stockbroker. The Guv’nor finding this was playing ducks and drakes with his theatrical plans had a 'nuptial clause' inserted in every contract.... Debutantes were competing with the other girls to get into the Gaiety chorus while upper-class youths were joining the ranks of the chorus boys.^[2]

Stage Door Johnnies waiting after A Gaiety Girl

Edmond FitzMaurice (1867-1951) was the 7th modern Earl of Orkney. ... Geoffrey Thomas Taylour, who lived from 1878 to 1943, was the fourth holder of the title Marquess of Headfort, an Irish peerage. ... The Messenger Boy is a musical comedy in two acts by James T. Tanner and Alfred Murray, lyrics by Adrian Ross and Percy Greenbank, with music by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton, with additional numbers by Paul Rubens. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

Roles and original London cast

• Charles Goldfield - C. Hayden Coffin
• Major Barclay - Fred Kaye
• Bobbie Rivers - W. Louis Bradfield
• Harry Fitzwarren - Leedham Bantock
• Romney Farquhar - Lawrance D'Orsey
• Sir Lewis Gray - Eric Lewis
• Lance - Gilbert Porteous
• Auguste - Fitz Rimma
• Dr. Montague Brierly - Harry Monkhouse
• Rose Brierly - Decima Moore
• Lady Edytha Aldwyn - Kate Cutler
• Miss Gladys Stourton - Marie Studholme
• Hon. Daisy Ormsbury - Louie Pounds
• Lady Grey - E. Phelps
• Alma Somerset - Maud Hobson
• Cissy Verner - Blanche Massey
• Haidee Walton - Ethel Selwick
• Ethel Hawthorne - Violet Robinson
• Mina - Juliette Nesville
• Lady Virginia Forest - Lottie Venne

Musical numbers

ACT I - The Cavalry Barracks at Winbridge.

• No. 1 - Opening Chorus - "When a masculine stranger goes by, array'd in a uniform smart..."
• No. 2 - Chorus & Song - Sir Lewis - "O sing a welcome fair to Mr. Justice Grey." & "I'm a judge..."
• No. 3 - Song - Goldfield - "Beneath the skies of summer sweet I linger where two pathways meet..."
• No. 4 - Chorus & Concerted Piece - "Here come the ladies who dazzle Society..."
• No. 5 - Song - Lady Virginia & Chorus - "I am favourably known as a high-class chaperone..."
• No. 6 - Concerted Piece, with Girls & Major - "To the barracks we have come..."
• No. 7 - Duett - Dr. Brierly & Rose - "Oh, my daughter, there's a creature known as man..."
• No. 8 - Trio - Lady Virginia, Sir Lewis & Dr. Brierly - "When once I get hold of a good-looking He..."
• No. 9 - Song - Dr. Brierly - "Little Jimmy was a scholar and his aptitude was such..." (five verses)
• No. 10 - Waltz
• No. 11 - Song - Goldfield - "Oh, we take him from the city or the plough..." (four verses)
• No. 12 - Finale Act I - "To my judicial mind there's not a doubt..."

ACT II - On the Riviera.

• No. 13 - Introduction and Opening Chorus - "Here on sunlit sands daintily we figure..."
• No. 14 - Concerted piece - "That ladies cannot bathe, if so they please, without encount'ring creatures such as these..."
• No. 15 - Trio - Rivers, Fitzwarren & Goldfield - "Buck up, buck up, old chappie!..."
• No. 16 - Song - Mina - "When your pride has had a tumble, and you've set your cap too high..."
• No. 17 - Trio - Sir Lewis, Dr. Brierly & Lady Virginia - "When in town you're safely landed, and the doctor far away..."
• No. 18 - Duet - Rivers & Rose - "Unlucky the morn on which I was born the youngest of several brothers..."
• No. 19 - Trio - Lady Edytha, Gladys & another - "We're awfully anxious to join in the fun..."
• No. 20 - Carnival Chorus - "Let folly reign supreme today, for carnival is holding sway..."
• No. 21 - Song - Rivers & Chorus - "Mesdames, messieurs, je suis Pierrot. (I'm nothing of the sort, you know...) "
• No. 22 - Song - Goldfield - "Sunshine above, and sunshine in my heart! Laughter and love hold carnival today..."
• No. 23 - Finale Act II - "I find it's really better far to keep my pranks for Bench and Bar..."

Notes

References

• Article about marriage between Gaiety Girls and noblemen

External links

• Midis, lyrics and cast list
• Profile of Owen, with a description of the preparation of A Gaiety Girl.
• Info from the comprehensive musicals 101 site
• www.gabrielleray.150m.com/ArchiveTextG/GaietyGirlNY1894.html Photographs and reviews of the New York production
• Information about London productions that opened in 1893