The run closed May 8, 1915
- Opened
- December 8, 1914
- Closed
- May 8, 1915
- Performances
- 175
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- New Amsterdam Theatre
Of the 961 productions we hold that opened in the 1910s and record a performance count, this is the 131st longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it73 named
Mrs Vernon Castle
John Q Adams
Earl Amos
M G Avery
Dorothy Banks
Helen Barnes
C T Beanie
Julia Beaubien
Leila Benton
Olive Birt
James Black
Christyne Bowers
Sam Burbank
Mabel Callahan
Irving J Carpenter
Barbara Clark
Marie Dana
Ethel Davies
Rose Davies
Gwendoline Debraw
Libbian Diamond
Richard Dicksinson
Marcelle Earl
Harry A Ellis
Sallie Fisher
Joseph Hadley
William Halligan
Flo Hart
Ethel Hobart
Herbert Hoey
Jessie Holbrook
W M Holbrook
Maud Homer
May Homer
Rokey Johnson
Charles L Kelley
Esther Lee
Harriet Leidy
Rose Leslie
Gus Minton
Dorothy Morosco
Phyllis Munday
Billie Norton
Violet Pardue
Alleyne Pickard
Nancy Poole
Fred Rockwell
Myrtle Ross
Natalie Saymore
Virginia Shelby
Annette Simonet
Trixie Smith
Terry Starwer
Paula Sterling
Edna Stillwell
Charles Swan
Violet Sydney
Dama Sykes
Ethel Sykes
Gladys Sykes
Peggy Trevor
Marie Walsh
Bunny Wendell
10 of these 73 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 63 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
- R. H. Burnside
- Producer
- Charles Dillingham
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 day after its opening, Watch Your Step opened with IRviNG BEr- LIN’S jazzy score and pointed the way to the future of the American musical theater. Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 260
- In 1911, at the age of 23, Irving Berlin had the entire country ragtime crazy with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” Three years later, he wrote his first Broadway score (out of a total of 21) which was the first to feature ragtime. Broadway Musicals Show By Show Green Stanley Green Kay 5th Ed Rev and Updated By, p. 44
- There was also a curious interpolation from the Irving Berlin songbook, as the revue included “Office Hours,” which was the opening number from his 1914 Broadway musical Watch Your Step . Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 641
- Berlin saw his first full Broadway score presented. The show was Watch Your Step and presented the song “Play a Simple Melody.” Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 88
- In songs that ranged throughout his career, most famously “Play a Simple Melody” from Watch Your Step (1914), “You’re Just in Love” from Call Me Madam (1950), and his final hurrah as a composer, “An Old-Fashioned Wedding” from the 1966 revival of Annie Get Your Gun Enchanted Evenings the Broadway Musical From Show Boat Block Geoffrey Oxford New, p. 292
- A follow-up to WATCH YOUR STEP [December 8, 1914], not quite as successful but with a more satisfying score—including Berlin’s jaunty I Love a Piano. Show Tunes the Songs Shows and Careers of Broadway S Suskin Steven Suskin Steven, p. 71
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 Watch Your Step at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.