The run closed December 4, 1926
- Opened
- March 17, 1926
- Closed
- December 4, 1926
- Performances
- 301
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Vanderbilt Theatre
Of the 2,148 productions we hold that opened in the 1920s and record a performance count, this is the 109th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it38 named
Dorothy Barber
Olive Beebe
Walter Bigelow
Dorothy Brown
Arthur C Budd
Evelyn Cavanaugh
Austin Clark
Roy Clements
Gertrude Cole
Eva Condon
Frank Doane
Francis X Donegan
Joel Duroe
A Goodrich
Eve Marie Gray
Jack Kogan
Alice Kosta
Ainsley Lambert
Eddie Leslie
Carol Lynne
William Marshall
Elizabeth Mears
Gypsy Mooney
Jan Moore
Herman Newman
Virginia Otis
Leon Rose
Dorothy Roy
Paul Sabin
Silvia Shawn
Helen Shepard
K Smith Stanley
Evelyn Ruth Urilda
Sanford Wolf
4 of these 38 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 34 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
- John Harwood, John
- Choreographer
- Jack Haskell
- Orchestrations
- Maurice De Packh
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
The show introduced the standard 'The Blue Room,' one of Rodgers and Hart's most beloved songs. With 301 performances, it was one of their biggest early hits.
- “A Star’s First Night” (sketch by Robert MacGunigle; as “The Girl Friend,” the sketch had originally been seen in the 1932 revue Walk a Little Faster ) (The Star: Xenia Bank; The Maid: Florence Bray; The Star’s Friend: Beatrice Lillie) Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 275
- Herbert Fields wrote the libretto to his father’s production of Rodgers and Hart’s The Girl Friend (3/17/ 26; 301 performances), a typical 1920s musical. The title tune was a big hit. Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 187
- Early musicals included The Girl Friend (1926), A Connecticut Yankee (1927), On Your Toes (1936), Babes in Arms (1937), The Boys from Syracuse (1938), and Pal Joey (1940). Rodgers joined with Oscar Hammerstein II in 1943 for Oklahoma!, which the new team followed up with such works as Carousel (1945), South Pacific (19… More Opening Nights On Broadway A Critical Quotebook of Compiled By Steven Suski, p. 1104
- including the sketch “The Girl Friend,” in which she appeared as an unwelcome friend who barges into a leading lady’s dressing room and proceeds to give her unwanted and unhelpful advice) but felt that Clark and McCullough should have been allowed to use their old material because here their sketches were lacking The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 260
- During the national tour of At Home Abroad, Lillie’s famous dressing room sketch “The Girl Friend” by Robert MacGunigle was interpolated. She had earlier performed it in Walk a Little Faster, and as “A Star’s First Night” reprised it for her 1952 revue An Evening with Beatrice Lillie (which featured Reginald Gardiner,… The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 401
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 Girl Friend at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.