Productions2 on Broadway
| 1927 | Alvin Theatre Original. November 22, 1927 · Edgar MacGregor | 244 performances |
| 1928 | Shaftesbury Theatre Transfer. November 8, 1928 |
Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.
Licensing not confirmed
| Rights | — We have not been able to confirm the publisher. |
Read from the licensor's own pages and catalogues. Rights move, and an empty row means we have not confirmed a publisher, not that the show cannot be licensed.
In the literature29 passages
what was originally announced as a revival of the Gershwins’ 1927 musical Funny Face. By the time the show opened in New York, however, it had a completely new story, at least four directors, a score with only six of the original 12 songs (augmented by 11 other Gershwin standards), and it was now called My One and Only… book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-green-stanley-green-kay-5th-ed-rev-and-updated-by#p288
Funny Face was the opening attraction of the new Alvin Theater (see Nem SIMON THEATER). Woollcott enthused, “I do not know whether George Gershwin was born into this world to write rhythms for Fred Astaire’s feet or whether Fred Astaire was born into this world to show how the Gershwin music should be danced.” book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p57
It would be fun to hear Funny Face, with all those wonderful Gershwin standards, and well worth it to put up with a few creaks of the book—for these shows, like the classic silent films of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Buster Keaton, are part of our cultural heritage. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p126
Film adaptations such as The Gay Divorcée, On the Town, and Funny Face may be worthy exponents of the film genre, but students of musical theater should know that these films only imp book:enchanted-evenings-the-broadway-musical-from-show-boat-block-geoffrey-oxford-new#p195
Funny Face (1957), with Astaire reprising his original stage role thirty years later, satisfies as a film musical, but with only five songs from the original, “Clap Yo’ Hands” from another show, three interpolated song numbers by Roger Edens and Leonard Gershe, and a new scenario and script, it falls far short as a rel… book:enchanted-evenings-the-broadway-musical-from-show-boat-block-geoffrey-oxford-new#p239
22 November: Funny Face, with a score by George and Ira Gershwin and starring Fred and Adele Astaire, is the first show to play at the Alvin Theater. book:historical-dictionary-of-the-broadway-musical-volume-22-william-a-everett-paul-r#p20
Passages naming this show, found by keyword across 178 books. Where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.