The run closed May 30, 1954
- Opened
- March 10, 1954
- Closed
- May 30, 1954
- Performances
- 95
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Theatre de Lys
Of the 705 productions we hold that opened in the 1950s and record a performance count, this is the 228th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Other stagings of The Threepenny Opera 1 more that season
| 2006 | Studio 54 Revival · Scott Elliott | 77 perf. |
Who was in it23 named
George Tyne
Paul Dooley
Marcella Markham
Marion Selee
Bernard Bogin
Miles Dickson
Donald Elson
Stan Schneider
Rome Smith
Gloria Sokol
Mildred Cook
12 of these 23 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 11 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
- Carmen Capalbo
- Choreographer
- Aszure Barton
- Producer
- Carmen Capalbo & Stanley Chase
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
- Among the more than 200 actors who played the 22 parts during the show’s run were Carole Cook, Valerie Bettis, and Dolly Haas (Jenny); James Mitchell and Jerry Orbach (Mack); Pert Kelton and Nancy Andrews (Mrs. Peachum); Georgia Brown (Lucy); Edward Asner (Peachum); and Estelle Parsons (Mrs. Coaxer). Broadway Musicals Show By Show Seventh Edition Stanley Green Cary Ginell, p. 154
- America saw the first musical comedy in 1750 when a traveling company offered the premiere North American showing of The Beggar's Opera (whose most celebrated spinoff was Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera). Broadway Musicals Show By Show Green Stanley Green Kay 5th Ed Rev and Updated By, p. 21
- The reason for the two engagements noted above is that the initial showing of Marc Blitzstein’s English-language version of the Kurt Weill-Bertold Brecht Die Dreigroschenoper at the Theatre de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel) had to be terminated because of a prior booking. Broadway Musicals Show By Show Green Stanley Green Kay 5th Ed Rev and Updated By, p. 183
- At this writing, the return engagement is the second longest running production ever mounted Off Broadway. Broadway Musicals Show By Show Green Stanley Green Kay 5th Ed Rev and Updated By, p. 183
- At the same festival, Marc Blitzstein’s adaptation of The Threepenny Opera premiered, and it was Brooks who created the role of Blitzstein’s Macheath; and during the musical’s marathon Off-Broadway run beginning in the mid-1950s, Atkinson was one of many performers who played Macheath. Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 370
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 Threepenny Opera at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.