Theatre Register

The Boys from Syracuse, 1938

Shows · The Boys from Syracuse · Alvin Theatre, 1938

We hold no picture of this staging. This one is filed against The Boys from Syracuse and could document any of its runs. None
Original BroadwayNeil Simon Theatre 235 performances

The run closed June 10, 1939

Opened
November 23, 1938
Closed
June 10, 1939
Performances
235
Previews
Theatre
Neil Simon Theatre

Of the 1,388 productions we hold that opened in the 1930s and record a performance count, this is the 85th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.

Other stagings of The Boys from Syracuse 2 more that season

1963 Transfer Transfer
2002 American Airlines Theatre Revival · Scott Ellis 73 perf.

Who was in it59 named

Grace Albert
Micky Alvarez
Dolores Anderson
Carroll Ashburn
Libby Bennett
Ruth Brady
Florine Callahan
Renee Cettel
John Clarke
Stella Clauson
Alice Craig
Betty de Elmo
Buddy Douglas
Clifford Dunstan
Florence Fair
Bee Farnum
Sidney Gordon
Ruth Gormly
Joseph Granville
Joseph Harris
Claire Harvey
Robert Howard
Dan Karry
Laura Kellogg
Bob Lawrence
Lita Lede
Connie Leslie
Tom Lynch
Jack Malis
Owen Martin
Edwin Mills
Vivien Moore
John O Shaughnessy
Harry Peterson
Joseph Scandur
Byron Shores
Mildred Solly
Lee Tannen
Anna Mae Tesslo
Beau Tilden
Heidi Vosseler
Margaret Walsh
Davenie Watson
Armonce Wilkins
James Wilkinson
Claire Wolf
Herbert Wood

12 of these 59 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 47 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.

Characters15 roles recorded

Danny Carroll Dromio of Syracuse
Rudy Tronto Dromio of Ephesus
Stuart Damon Antipholus of Syracuse
Clifford David Antipholus of Ephesus
Karen Morrow Luce
Victoria Sherry Adriana
? Luciana
Cathryn Damon The Courtesan
Marilyn Greenman The Tailor's Apprentice
Stanley Phillips Aegon
Stanley Kurtz The Sorcerer
Joe Wessel The Tailor
John Geister A Sergeant
Peter Binder Duke of Ephesus
Larry Haynes Merchant of Ephesus

Only 512 of 13,459 productions carry role names, and these came out of a wiki table — the names arrived with the table's own cell markup on them and have been stripped back. They are not linked to person records because the identifiers in that table do not resolve to ours.

Creative team

Director
George Abbott
Choreographer
George Balanchine
Producer
George Abbott

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.

Recordings 3 held for the work

None of these is attributed to this staging. They are filed against The Boys from Syracuse, and nothing in the record says which production any of them documents. Closing that join is the point of this catalogue and it is not closed yet.

Around this production

George Abbott reportedly pitched the idea with one sentence: "If it\'s good enough for Shakespeare, it\'s good enough for us."

  • For other musicals based on Shakespeare, see The Boys from Syracuse, page 107. Broadway Musicals Show By Show Seventh Edition Stanley Green Cary Ginell, p. 213
  • Balanchine, George Babes in Arms Boys from Syracuse, The Cabin in the Sky I Married an Angel Louisiana Purchase Merry Widow, The On Your Toes Song of Norway Where’s Charley? Ziegfeld Follies Broadway Musicals Show By Show Seventh Edition Stanley Green Cary Ginell, p. 387
  • In 1997 the three "Encores!" musicals were Sweet-Adeline, the 1929 musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, a mildly interesting antique; Promises, Promises, the 1968 musical by Neil Simon, Burt Bacharach, and Hal David, which fared better with Martin Short and Christine Baranski; and Rodgers and Hart's 1937 tr… At This Theatre 100 Years of Broadway Shows Stories and Botto Louis Viagas Rober, p. 321
  • The Boys from Syracuse was the first musical to be adapted from a play by William Shakespeare. Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 26
  • The Alvin next hosted Rodgers and Hart’s I’d Rather Be Right (11/2/37; 289 performances). GEORGE M. CoHAN made his next-to-last Broadway appearance in this production as Franklin D. Roosevelt, president at the time. The libretto by KAUFMAN AND Harr allowed for some gentle ribbing of the current administration as well a… Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 394

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.
  • Which of the 3 recordings of The Boys from Syracuse document this run, if any.
  • Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.

Something wrong here? Correct a field or report the problem. Every change is recorded in public under the contributor licence.