The run closed October 12, 1957
- Opened
- August 20, 1957
- Closed
- October 12, 1957
- Performances
- 62
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Playhouse Theatre
Of the 705 productions we hold that opened in the 1950s and record a performance count, this is the 281st longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
This is a New York theatre. The address is Manhattan and the former names are Broadway names, but the record is filed as West End and its coordinates, architect and history were taken from the London theatre of the same name. Every one of these names exists on both streets. Reported to broadway-data as issue #97.
Other stagings of Simply Heavenly 1 more that season
| 1958 | Adelphi Theatre Transfer |
Who was in it16 named
Josephine Woods
15 of these 16 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 1 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
- Joshua Shelley
- Producer
- Vincent Carow and Abel Enklewitz
- Orchestrations
- David Martin
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
But Simply Heavenly is perhaps the best black musical ever, a work of immense, unpretentious charm, extremely funny and with a great deal to say as well.
Simply Heavenly (transfer from Off Broadway; book musical) Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 868
- Simply Heavenly first opened Off-Broadway on May 21, 1957, at the 85th Street Playhouse for forty-four performances; it transferred to Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre three months later on August 20 for sixty-two performances; and then returned to Off-Broadway on November 8 for sixty-three more performances at the Re… Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 642
- Simply Heavenly is perhaps the best black musical ever, a work of immense, unpretentious charm, extremely funny and with a great deal to say as well. Not Since Carrie Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops Ken Mandelbaum, p. 342
- But like The Human Comedy and Simply Heavenly, which also began off-Broadway, The Golden Apple was not a hit on Broadway. Not Since Carrie Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops Ken Mandelbaum, p. 348
- The commercial disappointment of Simply Heavenly did nothing to deter Hylton from promoting more black material. Three years later he had a reasonable run with the all-black King Kong, ‘an all-African jazz musical’ that had never approached New York but been a great 1959 success in South Africa. West End Broadway the Golden Age of the American Musical Adrian Wright Boydell B, p. 156
- Simply Heavenly, which has nevertheless enjoyed West End revival and a much more enthusiastic critical reception than it enjoyed in 1958. West End Broadway the Golden Age of the American Musical Adrian Wright Boydell B, p. 158
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 Simply Heavenly at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.