Theatre Register

Brian Hooker

Shows · Brian Hooker

LyricistBook Writer 1880–1946 On stage 1928

William Brian Hooker (November 2, 1880 – December 28, 1946) was an American poet, educator, lyricist, and librettist. He was born in New York City, the son of Elizabeth Work and William Augustus Hooker, who was a mining engineer for the New York firm of Hooker and Lawrence. His family was well known in Hartford, Connecticut having descended from Thomas Hooker, a prominent Puritan religious and colonial leader who founded the Colony of Connecticut. Hooker attended Yale College in the class of 1902, where he was a writer, editor and business manager for campus humor magazine The Yale Record. He was an editor of The Yale Record collection Yale Fun (1901). He died in New London, Connecticut, age…

On stage 1 production

1928 The Beaux Stratagem Hampdens Theatre · Revival · directed by Howard Lindsay 8 perf.

Each row is a staging this name appears in the cast list of, read from the production record rather than from the person record. The person record names works instead, and a work cannot say which run somebody was in — that is how Elaine Stritch ends up filed under Show Boat 1927 when she was in the 1994 revival. No row here says what part was played, because no cast list records it.

Also credited on2 works

The Vagabond King
Our Nell

These come off the person record, which names a work and not a production. So we can say this name is attached to the work and we cannot say which staging, or in what capacity. For a composer or a writer that is the whole career we hold; there is no cast list to find them in.

In the literature7 passages

  • Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, as adapted by Brian Hooker (City Center, November 11, 1953, 15 performances)ebooks/Dietz, Dan/Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals, The - Dan Dietz.txt
  • The Vagabond King (lyrics by Brian Hooker, book by Hooker, Russell Janney, and W. H. Post) had an impressive 511 performances in its initial run. The libretto, based on the play If I Were King by Justin McCarthy, related a fictitious tale of the real FrançoisVillon, a fifteenth-century Parisian poet. King Louis XI dubs Villon king for a d…ebooks/Music, The Cambridge Companion To The Musical Cambridge Companions To/Cambridge Companion to the Musical (Cambridge Companions to Music), The - The Cambridge Companion To The Musical Cambridge Companions To Music.txt
  • Music by Rudolf Friml; lyrics by Brian Hooker; book by Brian Hooker, Russell Janney and W. H. Post, based on Justin Huntly McCarthy’s play If I Were King , itself based on the novel by R. H. Russellebooks/Wright, Adrian/West End Broadway_ The Golden Age of the American Musical in London - Adrian Wright.txt
  • century, played Rostand's hero to New York audiences in the fall of 1898. Walter Hampden, using the Brian Hooker version, reached the pinnacle of his career with the play in November 1923, and his production was on view for a long time in Newtheatre-pdfs/A Treasury of the Theatre, v. 2.txt
  • The famous Brian Hooker version of Cyrano de Bergerac was made especially for Walter Hampden. It was instantly acclaimed as the best, and indeed the only entirely satisfactory, English translation for the stage the only one that conveyed the brisk theatricality, wit, and rapturous eloquence of the original French. Hooker preserved the met…theatre-pdfs/A Treasury of the Theatre, v. 2.txt
  • CYRANO DE BERGERAC By Edmond Rostand A NEW VERSION IN ENGLISH VERSE BY BRIAN HOOKERtheatre-pdfs/A Treasury of the Theatre, v. 2.txt

Passages naming this person, found by keyword across 178 books. A keyword match is not a biography, and a common name will pull in the wrong one.

What this page does not know

  • What this person played. No cast list we hold records a character against a performer.
  • Which of the credits above the roles on this record — lyricist, book writer — apply to. The roles sit on the person and never on a credit, so a director who also acted looks the same here as one who did not.

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