By the Beautiful Sea

Productions1 on Broadway

1954

Majestic Theatre Original. April 8, 1954 · Marshall Jamison

270 performances

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

Recordings 1 album held

Licensing 1 entry

US

Music Theatre International By the Beautiful Sea 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.

19 passages naming By the Beautiful Sea, found by keyword across 178 books. It's where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.

Miss Booth, who scored an impressive hit, was seen two years later in By the Beautiful Sea, another Arthur Schwartz-Dorothy Fields musical that was also set in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p147

Perhaps By the Beautiful Sea had two strikes against it. It was set in Coney Island, and part of the plot centered on a hot-air balloon ride. Both the locale and the use of a hot-air balloon almost always seem to doom musicals. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p376

By the Beautiful Sea had offered a visit to the sand-and-sea world of Coney Island, and despite generally middling reviews it managed to run 270 performances on the strengths of its star-powered leading lady Shirley Booth, Arthur Schwartz’s sunny score, and Jo Mielziner’s lavish décor that re-created a never-never-land… book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p547

By the Beautiful Sea, The Girl in Pink Tights, Fade Out-Fade In, and Golden Rainbow may have lost money, but they had generally long runs because of their stars, scores (or an occasional song), choreography, or production values. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p690

Nonetheless, the show, about a ne’er-do-well, was not upbeat enough for Broadway audiences. The songwriting team, who brought out the best in each other, collaborated on their next show, By the Beautiful Sea (4/8/54; 268 performances). This time Herbert joined Dorothy on the script, but the results were weak. book:broadway-its-history-people-and-places-an-encyclopedia-bloom-ken-1949-2nd-ed-new#p190

Trying to come up with a more successful Shirley Booth vehicle than A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN [April 19, 1951], Dorothy and Herb Fields fashioned a second turn-of-the-century Brooklyn vehicle for their star. book:show-tunes-the-songs-shows-and-careers-of-broadway-s-suskin-steven-suskin-steven#p173