The run closed January 7, 1928
- Opened
- November 30, 1926
- Closed
- January 7, 1928
- Performances
- 471
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Casino Theatre
Of the 2,148 productions we hold that opened in the 1920s and record a performance count, this is the 33rd longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Other stagings of The Desert Song 2 more that season
| 1946 | City Center Revival · Sterling Halloway | 45 perf. |
| 1973 | Uris Theatre Revival · Henry Butler | 15 perf. |
Who was in it114 named
Tatiana Amazar
Florence Baker
Albert Baron
Helen Bourne
Nellie Breen
Nat Broffman
Marion Case
Rachel May Clark
Edna Coates
Albert Coiner
Morton Croswell
Glen Dale
John Daly
Charles Davis
Bobbe Decker
Betty Defest
Jack Edwards
William Ehlers
Vance Elliott
Edmund Elton
Lyle Evans
B Flack
Grace Fleming
Peter Flomp
Beatrice Fox
William D Galpen
Nathan Goodman
Blanche Granby
Alan H Green
John Hammond
Eileen Hargraves
E A Harker
Betty Holmes
Kathlyn Huss
Margaret Irving
Jack Kiernan
Armand King
Gladys Lake
Elmira Lane
Dorothy Lee
John Lister
Betty Lomax
Ethel Lorraine
June Lovewell
Maude Lydiate
Robey Lyle
Mildred Mann
Charles Mantia
Gertrude Mckinley
Earle Mitchell
Charles Morgan
Gertrude Napp
Z Norman
Patricia O Connell
Valerie Petrie
Cornelius Pichler
Elmer Pichler
Clementine Rigeau
Victor Rosales
Rowena Scott
Winifred Seale
Helen Shepard
Morris Siegel
Philip Snyder
Jack Spiegel
George St John
John Stanley
Hilda Steiner
Miriam Stockton
Audree van Lieu
Bernice Walder
Harold Westcott
Almajane Wilday
Raymond Winfield
Ethel Allen
Amy Atkinson
William Bailey
Barbara Carrington
Martin Croswell
Manuel Diamond
Geneva Duker
Jere Evans
Elsie Eyre
Muriel Greel
Martin Griffith
Thelma Halliday
Mary Harrison
Sophie Howard
Milton Karmoil
Leon Kartavy
Kay Karyll
Leroy Kent
Margaret Levert
Doris Maye
Mary Middlemass
Lucille Middleton
Beverly Miller
Ivice Perrinne
Earl Plommer
Mary Schippell
Harold Stanton
Eleanor Swayne
Gwen Tremble
Frank Vonne
Allen Waterous
Helen Whitney
Ethel Louise Wright
7 of these 114 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 107 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
- Arthur Hurley
- Choreographer
- Bobby Connolly
- Producer
- Laurence Schwab & Frank Mandel
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
"There is your pistol-and here is my heart ..." - [Red Shadow]
Speaker not recorded. Showtime A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre Larry Stempel, p. 221- Possibly the decade’s most enduring operetta, The Desert Song marked Sigmund Romberg’s first association with librettists-lyricists Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II (Romberg and Hammerstein would do four other musicals together). Broadway Musicals Show By Show Seventh Edition Stanley Green Cary Ginell, p. 63
- Celebrated for his lush scores for operettas in exotic locales (The Desert Song, The New Moon), Sigmund Romberg joined with lyricist Dorothy Fields to recapture the vintage Currier and Ives charms found up in New York’s Central Park in the 1870s. Broadway Musicals Show By Show Seventh Edition Stanley Green Cary Ginell, p. 126
- This was still another variation on the outlaw-in-disguise theme of such previous offerings as Naughty Marietta and The Desert Song. Broadway Musicals Show By Show Green Stanley Green Kay 5th Ed Rev and Updated By, p. 79
- Robert Halliday, who played the father of a girl whom Jamie jilted in Ireland, was the hero in two classic musicals by Sigmund Romberg in the 1920s. He created the role of the Red Shadow in the original 1926 production of The Desert Song (and introduced “One Alone,” “The Riff Song,” and the title song), Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 242
- In September 1973 the Uris presented a revival of the operetta The Desert Song, but its 1920s appeal was lost on 1970s audiences. It closed after 15 performances. At This Theatre 100 Years of Broadway Shows Stories and Botto Louis Viagas Rober, p. 340
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 The Desert Song at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.