The run closed September 27, 1952
- Opened
- November 1, 1951
- Closed
- September 27, 1952
- Performances
- 350
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Winter Garden Theatre
Of the 705 productions we hold that opened in the 1950s and record a performance count, this is the 86th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it54 named
Mary Harmon
Ken Harvey
Bradford Hatton
Claude Heater
Eve Hebert
Betsy Holland
Bill Joyce
B J Keating
Bob Kole
John Laverty
Hal Loman
Douglas Luther
Judy Lynn
George Marci
Rose Marie
Don Mckay
Ted Sport Morgan
Basha Regis
Laurel Shelby
Judy Sinclair
Joy Skylar
Vivian Smith
Walter Stane
Bill Sumner
Thelma Tadlock
Johnny Trama
Ken Urmston
Walter Wahl
Polly Ward
Beverly Weston
Bill Callahan
Jack Carter
Donna Gilmore
Audrey Meadows
Dolores Novins
Danny Scholl
19 of these 54 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 35 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
- Jack Donohue
- Choreographer
- Ron Fletcher
- Producer
- Paula Stone and Mike Sloane
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.
Tony Awards 0 from 1 nomination
| Best Musical | Nominated |
Around this production
Top Banana was Phil Silvers’s show, and the superannuated clown kept the belly laughs going at roller-coaster speed throughout the evening, and then toward the very end of the musical he all but topped himself when he and the company saluted old-time burlesque in the “Top Banana Ballet.” The audience went wild The Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals Dan Dietz Hardcover 2014 Rowman Lit, p. 213
- Silvers won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for Top Banana , and two decades later won the award again when he played the role of Pseudolus in the 1972 revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 214
- Phil Silvers scored at the Winter Garden in a noisy musical, Top Banana (1951), about television, with Silvers impersonating a TV comic said to be inspired by Milton Berle. At This Theatre 100 Years of Broadway Shows Stories and Botto Louis Viagas Rober, p. 65
- Playing the monumental ego Jerry Biffle in Top Banana, he exemplified every tyrannical attribute of a TV variety show mega-star (read Milton Berle), driving the show to a frenzied pitch with his breathless double-talk. Broadway Musicals the 101 Greatest Shows of All Time Bloom Ken 1949 Vlastnik Fra, p. 92
- TOP BANANA was a burlesque musical featuring Phil Silvers, a handful of clowns, and a dog named Ted “Sport”? Morgan (who sang an inspired duet with Silvers). The show, which did not quite make it, was coproduced by Paula Stone (of the Stepping Stones—see RIPPLES [Kern: February 11, 1930]). Show Tunes 1905 1985 the Songs Shows and Careers of Steven Suskin 1st Ed New Yor, p. 574
- TOP BANANA was produced by Paula Stone (see RIPPLES [Kern: February 11, 1930]) and her husband, Mike Sloane. Show Tunes the Songs Shows and Careers of Broadway S Suskin Steven Suskin Steven, p. 421
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 Top Banana at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.