Theatre Register

Edwin Denby

Shows · Edwin Denby

Choreographer 1903–1983

Edwin Orr Denby (February 4, 1903 – July 12, 1983) was an American writer of dance criticism, poetry, and fiction, but is perhaps now best known for his work with Orson Welles in translating and adapting the 1851 French comedy The Italian Straw Hat to the American stage in 1936 in the form of the farce Horse Eats Hat.

Also credited on1 work

Knickerbocker Holiday

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 literature8 passages

  • The critic Edwin Denby singled out “Lonely Town Pas de Deux,” marveling over the choreography as “fresh, neat, direct and sincere.” Denby also emphasized how a simple, well-placed gesture could have magical results. “I admired particularly the end of the ‘Lonely Town’ number,” Denby wrote, “and the way the singer’s one nod completes a dan…ebooks/Oja, Carol J_/Bernstein Meets Broadway_ Collaborative Art in a Time of War (Broadway Legacies) - Carol J. Oja.txt
  • From start to finish, “Ya Got Me” has an infectious sense of swing, trading on what the dance critic Edwin Denby obliquely dubbed “monkeyshines,” which he called “the most striking moment of all” in the many details that he admired in the show’s choreography. 61 He was probably referring to the clowning around that accompanied “Ya Got Me.…ebooks/Oja, Carol J_/Bernstein Meets Broadway_ Collaborative Art in a Time of War (Broadway Legacies) - Carol J. Oja.txt
  • 4 . Edwin Denby , “The American Ballet,” The Kenyon Review 10, no. 4 (Autumn 1948): 638.ebooks/Oja, Carol J_/Bernstein Meets Broadway_ Collaborative Art in a Time of War (Broadway Legacies) - Carol J. Oja.txt
  • 49 . Edwin Denby, “Fancy Free,” New York Herald Tribune , April 19, 1944. Reprinted in Edwin Denby: Dance Writings , ed. Robert Cornfield and William Mackay (London: Dance Books, 1986), 218.ebooks/Oja, Carol J_/Bernstein Meets Broadway_ Collaborative Art in a Time of War (Broadway Legacies) - Carol J. Oja.txt
  • 9 . Edwin Denby, “Dancing in Shows,” New York Herald Tribune , January 21, 1945; reprinted in Edwin Denby: Dance Writings , ed. Robert Cornfield and William Mackay (London: Dance Books, 1986) .ebooks/Oja, Carol J_/Bernstein Meets Broadway_ Collaborative Art in a Time of War (Broadway Legacies) - Carol J. Oja.txt
  • 129 . Edwin Denby, “Dancing in Shows,” New York Herald Tribune , January 21, 1945; reprinted in Edwin Denby: Dance Writings , edited by Robert Cornfield and William Mackay (London: Dance Books, 1986) .ebooks/Oja, Carol J_/Bernstein Meets Broadway_ Collaborative Art in a Time of War (Broadway Legacies) - Carol J. Oja.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.
  • Any staging. This name appears in no production cast list we hold — 1,877 of 7,139 people are in that position, most of them writers, composers and designers rather than performers.
  • Any portrait. 1,626 of 7,139 people have one, so this is the usual case rather than the exception.
  • Which of the credits above the roles on this record — choreographer — 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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