The run closed June 3, 1961
- Opened
- December 16, 1960
- Closed
- June 3, 1961
- Performances
- 172
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Neil Simon Theatre
Of the 603 productions we hold that opened in the 1960s and record a performance count, this is the 132nd longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it40 named
Barbara Beck
Mel Davidson
Howard Fischer
H F Green
Lee Green
Penny Ann Green
Lucia Lambert
Al Lanti
Ronald Lee
Jan Leighton
Urylee Leonardos
Bill Linton
Jacqueline Maria
Ray Mason
Wendy Nickerson
Frank Pietri
Bill Richards
Adriane Rogers
Anthony Saverino
John Sharpe
Jeanne Steel
Gerald Teijelo
Don Tomkins
Gene Varrone
Marsha Wagner
Bill Walker
Sandra Roveta
13 of these 40 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 27 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
- Michael Kidd
- Choreographer
- Michael Kidd
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 Awardscategories not held
0 wins from 1 nomination. Which categories is not on this record.
Around this production
Wildcat is a musical with a book by N. Richard Nash, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, and music by Cy Coleman. The original production opened on Broadway in 1960, starring a 49-year-old Lucille Ball in her only Broadway show. The show introduced the song "Hey, Look Me Over", which was subsequently performed as a cover version by several musicians. An original cast album was issued by RCA Victor records (LOC-1060).
Cy Coleman, a versatile composer whose background as a jazz pianist gives his work a distinctive sound, arrived on Broadway in the sixties with Lucille Ball’s Wildcat, then did five shows (Little Me, Sweet Charity, Seesaw, I Love My Wife, On the Twentieth Century ) which were hits or at least had decent runs.
Speaker not recorded. Not Since Carrie Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops Ken Mandelbaum, p. 143- Wildcat (Lucille Ball), Do Re Mi (Phil Silvers), Let It Ride! (George Gobel), Little Me (Sid Caesar), and 110 in the Shade (Robert Horton). Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 829
- Coleman occasionally contributed incidental music to Broadway plays and songs for Off-Broadway revues, and in 1960 his first Broadway musical Wildcat opened with Lucille Ball in Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 880
- The 1960s brought Frank Loesser's unsuccessful musical Greemvillow (i960), starring Anthony Perkins, Ellen McCown, Pert Kelton, and Cecil Kellaway; the Ballets Africains and West Side Story, from the Winter Garden (i960): Lucille Ball in a moderately entertaining musical (and Cy Coleman's Broadway debut), Wildcat (1961… At This Theatre 100 Years of Broadway Shows Stories and Botto Louis Viagas Rober, p. 291
- Lucille Ball made her Broadway debut in Wildcat (12/16/60; 171 performances). Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh provided the score, and N. Richard Nash wrote the book. Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 394
- Jyricists; librettists Jazz-pianist Coleman was first heard on Broadway with an interpolation in John Murray Anderson's Almanac (1953) and instrumental music for the drama Compulsion (1957). His first two Broadway scores, written with lyricist Carolyn Leigh, were the unsuccessful Wildcat (1960) and Little Me (1962). More Opening Nights On Broadway A Critical Quotebook of Compiled By Steven Suski, p. 1091
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 Wildcat at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.