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1951 Broadway theater playbill for where's Charley Image 1 of 3

Where’s Charley?

Shows · Where’s Charley?

Where’s Charley? was based on Brandon Thomas’s durable 1892 London farce, Charley’s Aunt. The first Broadway book musical with a score by Frank Loesser (he wrote five shows in all), the musical is concerned with the madcap doings that result when Oxford undergraduates Charley Wykeham (Ray Bolger) and Jack Chesney (Byron Palmer) entertain their proper lady friends, Amy Spettigue (Allyn Ann McLerie) and Kitty Verdun (D…

Opened
1948
Performances
792
Type
Musical
Era
Golden Age
Music: Frank LoesserLyrics: Frank LoesserBook: George Abbott

Licensing 1 entry

US Music Theatre International Where's Charley? matched on title alone — a lead, not a confirmed licensor

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 literature35 passages

Balanchine, George Babes in Arms Boys from Syracuse, The Cabin in the Sky I Married an Angel Louisiana Purchase Merry Widow, The On Your Toes Song of Norway Where’s Charley? Ziegfeld Follies book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p387

Bolger, Ray Where’s Charley?, 138 book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-green-stanley-green-kay-5th-ed-rev-and-updated-by#p353

Where’s Charley? originally opened on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on October 11, 1948, and when it closed on September 9, 1950, it had chalked up 792 performances, enjoyed two hit songs (“Once in Love with Amy” and “My Darling, My Darling”), and won a Tony Award for Ray Bolger as Best Leading Actor in a Musical. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p119

The London production opened at the Palace Theatre on February 20, 1958, for 404 performances; Norman Wisdom was Charley, and this time around the dances were created by Hanya Holm. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p122

Loesser had previously offered such examples with “Make a Miracle” from Where’s Charley? (1948). book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p391

McLerie was (once-in-love-with) Amy in Frank Loesser’s hit Where’s Charley? and in 1949 played the title role in Irving Berlin’s Miss Liberty. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p749

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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