Broadway

The Girl Friend

Musical comedy in two acts by Herbert Fields, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart, and music by Richard Rodgers.

First performed at the Apollo Theatre, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 8–13 March 1926. Transferred to Broadway’s Vanderbilt Theatre, 17 March–4 December 1926. 301 performances. Entire production under the personal supervision of Lew Fields. Musical numbers and dances arranged and staged by Jack Haskell. Musical direction by Ernest Cutting. Settings by P. Dodd Ackerman. Costumes by John N. Booth Jr., Hugh Willoughby Jones & Grace Carson. Electrical effects by New York Calcium Light Co.

The Cast

Eva Puck (1892-1979) and Sammy White (1894-1960), the stars of The Girl Friend, were well-known by Broadway audiences. Eva had been on the vaudeville stage as a youth as part of an act, with her brother Harry, called Puck and Puck. At the same time, Sammy White, was half of an act called Clayton and White. By the early 1920s, they became Puck and White, and the two married. In 1923 Eva starred in The Greenwich Follies, and the following year, she and White were in The Melody Man. An accomplished actress, singer and dancer, she made the transition from vaudeville to musicals with ease. In the years that followed, she would create more roles on Broadway, notably that of Effie in Showboat (1927).

Of the supporting cast, Frank Doane (d.1943) and Eva Condon (1880-1956) were the most experienced. Frank Doane was a regular in plays and musicals on Broadway, making his stage debut in the late 1890s. Appearances in musicals included Oh! Oh! Delphine (1912), The Girl Behind the Gun (1918), The Chiffon Girl (1924) and Sunny (1925). He was often cast as colonels or father figures.

Photos by White Studio, New York. New York Public Library, New York.

The Scenes

Act 1

Scene 1—Backyard of the Silver Dairy. Long Island.

Scene 2—Railroad Station at Maple Villa. Long Island.

Scene 3—Entrance Hall of Blue Grass Inn. London Island. (One week later.)

Scene 4—On the road.

Scene 5—Before the Spencer estate at Ardsley-on-Hudson. (Next morning.)

Act 2

Before the Spencer estate at Ardsley-on-Hudson. (Two weeks later.)

Sheet music cover for ‘The Girl Friend’

The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Sheet music cover for ‘The Blue Room’

The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

The Songs

The Reviews

“The Girl Friend” is captivating

Eva Puck Delights in Musical Play of Pleasant Tunes, With Meritorious Chorus

It is a generally captivating musical comedy that last night opened at the Vanderbilt Theatre under the happy name of “The Girl Friend”. Pleasant tunes, a satisfactory number of comical moments, a chorus of genuine merit, and above all the circumstance that it serves to restore Eva Puck to Manhattan’s theatrical attractions, combined to provide a diverting evening for its first night audience.

Miss Puck, of course, is anything but a stranger to all save the professional discoveries of the town. For years, from those distant days when child entertainers were not only not shouted down, but were even encouraged and applauded, Miss Puck—for a long time of the Pucks, Harry and Eva—has covered the lengthy vaudeville trails of the land, with now and again a brief foray into Broadway’s musical field. She seemed last night to be in the very first rank of musical comedy comediennes. Comely, tuneful, agile, with a pleasantly weird mannerism that suggested in turn Gertrude Lawrence, Edna Leedom and Adele Astaire, she was in herself sufficient to make a considerable attraction of “The Girl Friend”.

Capable assistance, however, has been provided. Thus, Sam White is the human hero, a role that enables him not only to be moderately funny but to unlimber his legs in his familiar dance specialty, and John Hindley, Evelyn Cavanaugh, June Cochrane and Francis X. Donegan are allowed to portray the inevitable  juveniles lovers of musical comedies, with songs of appropriate sentiment and cynicism. Frank Doane, to be sure, is a crochety yet loveable old man, and Dorothy Barber dances revealingly.

The lyrics and music are by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, the same young men who have merited and attracted attention with their work in last year’s “Garrick Gaieties” and the current “Dearest Enemy”. For “The Girl Friend” they have supplied a number of very agreeable tunes that contain, probably, what is known as a song hit or two and adroit and well-fashioned rhymes.

It was Miss Puck, as indicated, who prevailed upon most of last night’s audience to feel no regret that it had not decided to spend the evening with its books. The statement, of course, is made with reference only to the principals. For the chorus—not an inconsiderable item in musical comedy, surely—is as handsome and energetic and capable a collection of young men and women as the season’s musical ensembles have brought with them. They dance and gamboled with high abandon and intelligence and so no small part of the credit for their achievement is probably due Jack Haskell, who directed their manoeuvres.

Miss Puck, a first-rate chorus, diverting songs and a collection of generally capable principals is what the theatregoer may expect to find among the assets of “The Girl Friend”. It should be more than enough, the musical comedy situation being what it is.

From The New York Times, 18 March 1926, p.26

The Female Chorus in Kitty’s Kisses. Photo by White Studio, New York. New York Public Library, New York.

Kitty’s Kisses

Musical comedy in two acts by Philip Bartholomae & Otto Harbach, based on the 1912 play Little Miss Brown by Philip Bartholomae, with lyrics by Gus Kahn, and music by Con Conrad. Produced by William A. Brady and first performed at Shubert Theatre, Newark, New York, 26 April–1 May 1926. Transferred to the Playhouse Theatre, New York, 6 May–2 October 1926. 170 performances. Directed by John Cromwell. Choreography by Bobby Connolly. Scenery by Livingston Platt. Costumes by Milgrim & Brooks Costume Company. Musical direction by John McManus.

The Cast

The Scenes

Act 1, Scene 1—A Railway Siding

Scene 2—Lobby of the Hotel Wendel

Scene 3—Corridor of Hotel

Scene 4—The Bridal Suite

Act 2, Scene 1—Bridal Suite

Scene 2—Corridor of Hotel

Scene 3—The Hotel Garden

The Songs

* Songs cut during tryout.

The Reviews

The musical, billed as ‘The Bright New Summer Musical Delight’, attracted favourable notices. Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times (7 May 1925) described it as embodying ‘the frantic swirl of Summer hotel life’, going on to say, ‘As soon as the first curtain goes up the chorus begins dancing ecstatically between the railroad tracks; and from then on it glides, pops, swoops, careens and Charlestons through hotel corridors, lobbies, bedrooms and gardens indiscriminately.’ He found the music unremarkable and the songs ‘serviceable’, noting that ‘As the tunes vary familiar patterns, so the lyrics put together the old love-banalities according to the old rhyme schemes.’ He picked out only one song for comment, the title song ‘Kitty’s Kisses’ (sung by the two leads, Dorothy Dilley and John Boles). Similarly, “Ibee”, writing for Variety (12 May 1925), observed:

The strength of “Kitty’s Kisses” is in its numbers. There are several melodious tunes, and though a smash song was not indicated, Con Conrad has done well. It is the second production for Gus Kahn, whose lyrics counted too, here and there.