Background Information on the show – Crazy for You
Background Information on the show – Crazy for You
The Broadway production was directed by Mike Ockrent and choreographed by Susan Stroman. After 10 previews, it opened at the Shubert Theatre on February 19, 1992 and ran for 1,622 performances. The cast included Jodi Benson as Polly, Harry Groener as Bobby Child, Bruce Adler as Bela Zangler, John Hillner as Lank Hawkins, Michele Pawk as Irene Roth, Jane Connell as Mother, Beth Leavel as Tess(Leavel also understudied Benson), Ronn Carroll as Everett Baker, and Stephen Temperley and Amelia White as Eugene and Patricia Fodor. The Manhattan Rhythm Kings played cowboys Mingo, Moose, and Sam, singing in their trademark close harmony. In his review in the New York Times, Frank Rich enthused, ?When future historians try to find the exact moment at which Broadway finally rose up to grab the musical back from the British, they just may conclude that the revolution began last night. The shot was fired at the Shubert Theater, where a riotously entertaining show called Crazy for You uncorked the American musical?s classic blend of music, laughter, dancing, sentiment and showmanship with a freshness and confidence rarely seen during the Cats decade . . . Crazy for You scrapes away decades of cabaret and jazz and variety-show interpretations to reclaim the Gershwins? standards, in all their glorious youth, for the dynamism of the stage.?
The West End production, directed by Ockrent, choreographed by Stroman, and starring Ruthie Henshall, Kirby Ward, and Chris Langham, opened at the Prince Edward Theatre on March 3, 1993 and ran for nearly three years.
On October 20, 1999, the PBS series Great Performances broadcast a production directed by Matthew Diamond, who was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Direction of a Variety or Music Program.
Taken from Wikipedia and includes links
Links to Gershwin websites
? The Library of Congress – The Gershwin Legacy
? Classical.Net – George Gershwin
History of Nevada
The first inhabitants of what is now Nevada arrived about 12,000 years ago. They were fishermen, as well as hunters and food gatherers, for the glacial lakes of the ancient Great Basin were then only beginning to recede. Numerous sites of early human habitation have been found, the most famous being Pueblo Grande de Nevada (also known as Lost City). In modern times, four principal Indian groups have inhabited Nevada: Southern Paiute, Northern Paiute, Shoshoni, and Washo.
Probably the first white explorer to enter the state was the Spanish priest Francisco Garces, who apparently penetrated extreme southern Nevada in 1776. The year 1826 saw Peter Skene Ogden of the British Hudson’s Bay Company enter the northeast in a prelude to his later exploration of the Humboldt River; the rival American trapper Jedediah Smith traversed the state in 1826?27. During 1843?44, John C. Fr?mont led the first of his several expeditions into Nevada.
Nevada‘s first permanent white settlement, Mormon Station (later Genoa), was founded in 1850 in what is now western Nevada, a region that became part of Utah Territory the same year. (The southeastern tip of Nevada was assigned to the Territory of New Mexico.) Soon other Mormon settlements were started there and in Las Vegas Valley. The Las Vegas mission failed, but the farming communities to the northwest succeeded, even though friction between Mormons and placer miners in that area caused political unrest. Most of the Mormons in western Nevada departed in 1857, when Salt Lake City was threatened by an invasion of federal troops.
A separate Nevada Territory was established in 1861; only three years later, on 31 October 1864, Nevada achieved statehood, although the present boundaries were not established until 18 January 1867. Two factors accelerated the creation of Nevada: the secession of the southern states, whose congressmen had been blocking the creation of new free states, and the discovery, in 1859, of the Comstock Lode, an immense concentration of silver and gold which attracted thousands of fortune seekers and established the region as a thriving mining center.
Nevada’s development during the rest of the century was determined by the economic fortunes of the Comstock, whose affairs were dominated, first, by the Bank of California (in alliance with the Central Pacific Railroad) and then by the “Bonanza Firm” of John W. Mackay and his partners. The lode’s rich ores were exhausted in the late 1870s, and Nevada slipped into a 20-year depression. A number of efforts were made to revive the economy, one being an attempt to encourage mining by increasing the value of silver. To this end, Nevadans wholeheartedly supported the movement for free silver coinage during the 1890s, and the Silver Party reigned supreme in state politics for most of the decade.
Nevada‘s economy revived following new discoveries of silver at Tonopah and gold at Goldfield early in the 20th century. A second great mining boom ensued, bolstered and extended by major copper discoveries in eastern Nevada. Progressive political ferment in this pre-World War I period added recall, referendum, and initiative amendments to the state constitution and brought about the adoption of women’s suffrage (1914).
The 1920s was a time of subdued economic activity; mining fell off, and not even the celebrated divorce trade, centered in Reno, was able to compensate for its decline. Politically, the decade was conservative and Republican, with millionaire George Wingfield dominating state politics through a so-called bipartisan machine. Nevada went Democratic during the 1930s, when the hard times of the Depression were alleviated by federal public-works projects, most notably the construction of the Hoover (Boulder) Dam, and by state laws aiding the divorce business and legalizing gambling.
Taken from www.city-data.com
Link to 30?s make-up demo on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLgIgI0xbcg
Tutorial on doing fingerwaves
http://www.revampvintage.com/30sfingerwaves.html
