The run closed June 17, 1951
- Opened
- May 14, 1951
- Closed
- June 17, 1951
- Performances
- 40
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Broadhurst Theatre
Of the 705 productions we hold that opened in the 1950s and record a performance count, this is the 344th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it43 named
Lewis Bolyard
Ray Cook
Carol Donn
Franz Fazakas
Jane Fischer
Carl Harms
Urylee Leonardos
Elizabeth Logue
Normand Maxon
Joe Nash
Louis Nye
Sheldon Ossosky
Nehemiah Persoff
Marilyn Ross
Lois Shearer
Laurel Shelby
Franklin T Syme
Richard Temple
Edgar Thompson
Ted Thurston
Norval Tormsen
Tafi Towers
Anthony Tudor
Rowan Tudor
Annaliese Widman
19 of these 43 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 24 are set from the identifier in the cast list, which is a slug of the name — so hyphens and full stops are lost and a few come out wrong. We hold nothing else about them. Nobody here is matched to a character: the cast list records who was in the company and not what they played.
Creative team
- Director
- E. Y. Harburg, Fred Saidy
- Choreographer
- Helen Tamiris
- Producer
- Cheryl Crawford in association with E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy
- Orchestrations
- Ted Royal
A producer is one string on this record, however many people or companies it names. Directors and choreographers are held both as text and as identifiers; where an identifier exists the name links to a page.
Around this production
Perhaps no show ever had a weirder initial idea and story than Chu Chem, which opened and closed in Philadelphia in November 1966.
The lighthearted Make a Wish, with a sprightly score by Hugh Martin, was up next, opening one night before A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The Yip Harburg/Sammy Fain show Flahooley, Barbara Cook’s first Broadway outing, rounded out the theatrical year. Broadway Musicals the 101 Greatest Shows of All Time Bloom Ken 1949 Vlastnik Fra, p. 320
- Irwin Corey, who played the role of a pharmacist (who unwittingly prescribes the poison that the doctor administers to Larry), was later in Flahooley; Barbara Perry appeared in Rumple (and had earlier appeared in If the Shoe Fits); and in 1961 Meredith appeared as Mr. Kicks, the devil himself, in Kicks & Co., which clo… Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 10
- According to William Hawkins in the New York World-Telegram and Sun , the evening was “as relaxing as a tall lemonade in a flirting breeze,” and, in a reference to Flahooley , said the show was for people who liked a “breezy amusement with no axes to grind.” Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 182
- Flahooley, with Barbara Cook, Ernest Truex, Jerome Courtland, Irwin Corey, Yma Sumac, and the Bill Baird Marionettes, managed only 40 performances in 1951 but later attracted a small cult following. At This Theatre 100 Years of Broadway Shows Stories and Botto Louis Viagas Rober, p. 122
- Flahooley (5/14/51; 40 performances) was a rare failure for Harburg. Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 242
- Rodgers and Hammerstein had hoped to procure the talents of the Bil Baird Marionettes for the original Broadway production, but the puppets were still in deep analysis, scarred by their poisonous Flahooley reviews. Broadway Musicals the 101 Greatest Shows of All Time Bloom Ken 1949 Vlastnik Fra, p. 305
Passages naming this production, found by keyword across 178 books. Where it turns up in the literature, not curated notes about it.
What this page does not know
- No photograph of this staging. 48 of 13,459 productions hold one.
- No character names. We can say who was in the company and not who they played.
- No recording is held for Flahooley at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.