Theatre Register
Golden Boy (1964 original Broadway cast)

Golden Boy

Shows · Golden Boy

For his first offering as a Broadway producer, Hillard Elkins hit upon the idea that by changing the leading character in Clifford Odets’ 1937 drama Golden Boy from an Italian-American boxer named Joe Bonaparte to a Negro American boxer named Joe Wellington, the result would be a musical play of substance and significance. Odets himself agreed to write the libretto but his death during the show’s early stages created…

Opened
1964
Performances
569
Type
Musical
Era
Golden Age
Music: Charles StrouseLyrics: Lee AdamsBook: Clifford Odets, William Gibson

Productions4 on Broadway

1937 Belasco Theatre Original. November 4, 1937 · Harold Clurman · predates this show 250 performances
1952 Anta Playhouse Revival. March 12, 1952 · predates this show 55 performances
1964 Majestic Theatre Revival. October 20, 1964 · Arthur Penn 569 performances
2012 Belasco Theatre Revival. December 6, 2012 · Bartlett Sher 53 performances

Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. 2 of these predate the show itself and are almost certainly a different work of the same name. Shown, marked, not merged. West End runs are not yet held.

Licensing 1 entry

US Concord Theatricals Concord Theatricals available

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 literature36 passages

the most successful of all, Golden Boy (11/4/37; 248 performances). book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p220

Golden Boy (10/20/64; 569 performances) was a powerful drama by Clifford Odets. It wasn’t an obvious choice for musical comedy, but producer Hillard Elkins convinced the team to take it on. book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p528

The 1964 musicals continuing into the new year consisted of Dolly!, Funny Girl, and—from the fall season—Fiddler, as well as ultimate failures Oh, What a Lovely War, Golden Boy, Ben Franklin in Paris, Bajour, and I Had a Ball. book:more-opening-nights-on-broadway-a-critical-quotebook-of-compiled-by-steven-suski#p39

Golden Boy (1964), A Time for Singing (1966), Im Solomon (1968)—had been less than overwhelming. book:more-opening-nights-on-broadway-a-critical-quotebook-of-compiled-by-steven-suski#p783

His next efforts, though—the Ray Bolger vehicle All American (1962) and the Sammy Davis vehicle Golden Boy (1964)—were unsuccessful. book:more-opening-nights-on-broadway-a-critical-quotebook-of-compiled-by-steven-suski#p1108

Golden Boy (1964), A Time for Singing (1966), I’m Solomon (1968)—had been less than overwhelming. book:more-opening-nights-on-broadway-steven-suskin#p782

Passages naming this show, found by keyword across 178 books. Where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.

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