On the Town
Shows · On the Town
On the Town is a musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, based on Jerome Robbins' idea for his 1944 ballet Fancy Free, which he had set to Bernstein's music. The musical introduced several popular and classic songs, among them "New York, New York", "Lonely Town", "I Can Cook, Too", and "Some Other Time".
- Opened
- 1944
- Performances
- 463
- Type
- Musical
- Era
- Golden Age
Productions5 on Broadway
| 1944 | Adelphi Theatre Original. December 28, 1944 · George Abbott | 462 performances |
| 1963 | Prince of Wales Theatre Transfer. | |
| 1971 | Imperial Theatre Revival. October 31, 1971 · Ron Field | 73 performances |
| 1998 | Gershwin Theatre Revival. November 19, 1998 · George C. Wolfe | 69 performances |
| 2014 | Lyric Theatre Revival. October 16, 2014 · John Rando | 368 performances |
Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.
Recordings 7 albums held
Licensing 1 entry
| US | 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.
10 passages naming On the Town, found by keyword across 178 books. It's where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.
Broadway audiences were On the Town at the Adelphi Theatre in New York—by today’s standards, an absolutely remarkable achievement. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p247
On the Town was nearly the perfect show for its time and place. New York City experienced a constant flow of soldiers and sailors on leave, and the public knew of Fancy Free’s riotous success. book:historical-dictionary-of-the-broadway-musical-volume-22-william-a-everett-paul-r#p291
Abbott, Robbins, and Nancy Walker of ON THE TOWN [Decem- ber 28, 1944] reunited for this comic dance musical. book:show-tunes-1905-1985-the-songs-shows-and-careers-of-steven-suskin-1st-ed-new-yor#p374
As wit ON THE TOWN, WEST SIDE STORY was centered on ballet; but not for musical comedy purposes. book:show-tunes-1905-1985-the-songs-shows-and-careers-of-steven-suskin-1st-ed-new-yor#p387
Five were Broadway shows: On the Town (1944), JVondeiful Town (1953), Candide (1956), West Side Story (1957), and /600 Pennsylvania Avenue ( 1976). Yet his first success as a composer for the stage was with a jazz-style ballet, Fancy Free (1944), written for choreographer Jerome Robbins and premiered by the Ballet Thea… book:showtime-a-history-of-the-broadway-musical-theatre-larry-stempel#p431
George Abbott, Jerry Robbins, and Nancy Walker of ON THE TOWN [Bernstein: December 28, 1944] reunited for this comical ballet musical about a brewer’s daughter bankrolling the ballet in order to get on her toes. book:show-tunes-the-songs-shows-and-careers-of-broadway-s-suskin-steven-suskin-steven#p234
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