Theatre Register
Irene

Irene

Shows · Irene

By remaining at the Vanderbilt Theatre (then on 48th Street east of 7th Avenue), for one year eight months — and by running 11 performances longer than A Trip to Chinatown — Irene set a Broadway endurance record that it held onto for 18 years. What made it such a hit for its day (at one time it claimed 17 road companies) resulted from what critics hailed as its intelligent book, diverting comedy, brisk pacing, melodi…

Opened
1919
Performances
670
Type
Musical
Era
Early
Music: Harry TierneyLyrics: Joseph McCarthyBook: James Montgomery

Productions3 on Broadway

1919 Vanderbilt Theatre Original. November 18, 1919 · Edward Royce 670 performances
1923 Jolsons 59th Street Theatre Revival. April 2, 1923 · Edward Royce 16 performances
1973 Minskoff Theatre Revival. March 13, 1973 · Gower Champion 594 performances

Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.

Licensing 2 entries

US Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark available
UK Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark 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 literature50 passages

Bobbie Watson in Irene portrayed an actual homosexual character. book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-green-stanley-green-kay-5th-ed-rev-and-updated-by#p290

The first show to play the theater, Irene (3/13/73, 604 performances), seemed to promise a bright future for the new theater. book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p376

Victor Herbert’s Naughty Marietta (1910), Jerome Kern’s so-called Princess Theatre Shows (1915–1918) with books and lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton (especially Very Good Eddie and Leave It to Jane), Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy’s Irene (1919), Sigmund Romberg’s The Student Prince in Heidelberg (1924), Vin… book:enchanted-evenings-the-broadway-musical-from-show-boat-block-geoffrey-oxford-new#p29

Both Irene and No, No, Nanette (670 and 321 performances, respectively, in their inaugural runs) enjoyed popular revivals in the early 1970s (No, No, Nanette in 1971 [861 performances] and Irene in 1973 [604 performances]). book:enchanted-evenings-the-broadway-musical-from-show-boat-block-geoffrey-oxford-new#p611

Irene, a Cinderella story about a shop girl who marries an heir, opens at the Vanderbilt Theater and plays for 675 performances, at the time the longest run in Broadway history. book:historical-dictionary-of-the-broadway-musical-volume-22-william-a-everett-paul-r#p18

"But Irene was first and foremost a misconceived, mediocre show with only one mitigating factor. An important factor, though: Debbie Reynolds—in 1973, in Irene—sold tickets." book:more-opening-nights-on-broadway-a-critical-quotebook-of-compiled-by-steven-suski#p503

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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