Theatre Register

Harry B. Smith

Shows · Harry B. Smith

LyricistBook Writer 1860–1936

Harry Bache Smith (December 28, 1860 – January 1, 1936) was a writer, lyricist and composer. The most prolific of all American stage writers, he is said to have written over 300 librettos and more than 6000 lyrics. Some of his best-known works were librettos for the composers Victor Herbert and Reginald De Koven. He also wrote the book or lyrics for several versions of the Ziegfeld Follies. Smith was born in Buffalo, New York to Josiah Bailey Smith (born 1837) and Elizabeth Bach (born 1838). According to his autobiography First Nights and First Editions (Boston: Little, Brown, 1931), Smith's actual name at birth was Henry Bach Smith. He married twice. His first wife was Lena Reed (born Augus…

Also credited on11 works

Countess Maritza
Follies Of 1907
Oh, I Say!
Robin Hood
Stop! Look! Listen!
Sweethearts
The Canary
The Fortune Teller
The Girl From Utah
Watch Your Step
Ziegfeld Follies

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

  • One of the few transplanted mid-Twenties operettas to retain its original European score, Countess Maritza was the last successful show written by Harry B. Smith. It was also his 115th Broadway production! Originally presented as Grafin Mariza two and a half years earlier in Vienna, the work has a certain kinship with The Merry Widow in t…ebooks/Green, Stanley/Broadway Musicals, Show By Show - Seventh Edition - Stanley Green & Cary Ginell.txt
  • Songs: 6 cut from original production; “To the Land of My Own Romance” (lyric: Harry B. Smith) and “I Might Be Your Once-in-a-While” added.ebooks/Green, Stanley/Broadway Musicals, Show By Show - Seventh Edition - Stanley Green & Cary Ginell.txt
  • A : Harry B. Smith was the most prolific. He had three hundred shows and six thousand songs. But how successful was he? Today his one somewhat-remembered song is “The Sheik of Araby,” typically heard as an instrumental, minus Smith’s lyrics. In most businesses, quantity and quality aren’t synonymous. In his heyday, Smith wasn’t as celebra…ebooks/Hadleigh, Boze/Broadway Babylon - Boze Hadleigh.txt
  • Reviews of Stop! Look! Listen! likewise credited Smith for staying out of the show’s way. “There isn’t a lot to Harry B. Smith’s book, and there doesn’t need to be,” according to one reviewer. “The plot of Harry B. Smith is not important,” wrote another. “It serves as a pretext for the introduction of the specialists and chorus ladies.” 5…ebooks/Magee, Jeffrey/Irving Berlin's American Musical Theater (Broadway Legacies) - Jeffrey Magee.txt
  • When he signed a contract with me to do a score, turning from song writer to composer, he became a little frightened and asked Harry B. Smith who was doing the libretto to write the lyrics. Mr. Smith gave the composer grand advice and encouragement when he said: “Irving Berlin, don’t let anybody ever help you with your lyrics.” 66ebooks/Magee, Jeffrey/Irving Berlin's American Musical Theater (Broadway Legacies) - Jeffrey Magee.txt
  • 31 . Harry B. Smith’s typescript alternately identifies her as “Violette” and “Gaby,” so there appears to have been some notion of pretending she was another character. Harry B. Smith, Stop! Look! Listen! libretto, typescript in NYPL for the Performing Arts, Theater collection, NCOF+.ebooks/Magee, Jeffrey/Irving Berlin's American Musical Theater (Broadway Legacies) - Jeffrey Magee.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.
  • 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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