Garrick Gaieties

The Garrick Gaieties was an impudent, high-spirited modestly mounted revue created by and featuring young members of the Theatre Guild company to help raise money for tapestries at the Guild’s new Guild Theatre on West 52nd Street. The entertainment, however, served equally as a showcase for the talents of the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, whose score incluted their first hit, “Manhattan.” This was not their first professional show — that was Poor Little Ritz Girl in 1919 — but it did provide the stimulus for a partnership that lasted through 26 Broadway musicals until 1943. Though originally scheduled for only two performances at the Garrick Theatre (then on 35th Street east of Broadway), the revue caught on and had a successful commercial run. Besides the songs, highlights were satirical jibes at the theatre in general and the Theatre Guild in particular whose usually pretentious offerings provided ready targets. A second particular whose usually pretentious offerings provided ready targets. A second edition of the Gaieties opened the following year with almost the same cast, and a Rodgers and Hart score that included “Mountain Greenery” and an operetta burlesque called “The Rose of Arizona.” A third edition, in 1930, was shown at the Guild Theatre (currently named the Virginia). The cast included Sterling Holloway, Edith Meiser, and Philip Loeb, plus newcomers Imogene Coca and Ray Heatherton. A brief return engagement the same year gave Rosalind Russell her first Broadway assignment.

Music

Richard Rodgers

Lyrics

Lorenz Hart