Beggar's Holiday

Beggar's Holiday is a

The project originated with black scenic designer Perry Watkins, who envisioned a jazz-driven adaptation of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. Watkins hired John Latouche, who'd written lyrics for the cantata "Ballad for Americans" and "Cabin in the Sky," and teamed him with Ellington, still best known at the time as a band leader.^[1]

Ellington and Latouche updated the play's locale to a modern American city and turned Macheath into what Bowers calls "a pin-stripe-suited mobster, a singing, dancing Bugsy Siegel." The book itself mixed jazz and blues rhythms with more traditional musical theater, including comedy numbers written for Zero Mostel, making his Broadway debut as Peachum.^[1]

The

No Broadway

Beggar's Holiday premiered on Broadway at the Broadway Theatre on December 26, 1946 and closed on March 29, 1947 after 111 performances. Directed by Nicholas Ray, the show starred Alfred Drake as MacHeath, Bernice Parks as Jenny, Jet MacDonald as Polly Peachum, Zero Mostel as Hamilton Peachum, Dorothy Johnson as Mrs. Peachum, Mildred Joanne Smith as Lucy Lockit, Avon Long as Careless Love, Marie Bryant as the Cocoa Girl, Rollin Smith as Chief of Police Lockit, and William Dillard as the Horn.

The show featured orchestrations by Billy Strayhorn, choreography by Valerie Bettis, production design by Oliver Smith, lighting design by Peggy Clark, and costume design by Walter Florell.^[3]

2004 Marin Theatre Company Production

In 2004, Dale Wasserman, one of the musical's producers and the author of Man of La Mancha, teamed with the Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley, California to create a revamped, updated, and radically rewritten version^[4] that toned down much of the original's social criticism and political humor. The substantially rearranged jazz score included hints of funk, blues and rock and roll. Overall, its mood was far lighter and more optimistic than that of the 1946 version. Although Wasserman had hopes of a Broadway staging, to date his plans have not materialized.

2012 Cast Recording

In 2012, French baritone

External links

• Internet Broadway Database listing