Redhead
Shows · Redhead
Redhead is a musical with music composed by Albert Hague and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, who with her brother, Herbert, along with Sidney Sheldon and David Shaw wrote the book/libretto. Set in London in the 1880s, around the time of Jack the Ripper, the musical is a murder mystery in the setting of a wax museum.
- Opened
- 1959
- Performances
- 452
- Type
- Musical
- Era
- Golden Age
Won the Tony Award for Best Musical, 1959.
Productions1 on Broadway
| 1959 | 46th Street Theatre Original. February 5, 1959 · Bob Fosse | 452 performances · 1 Tony wins |
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 Redhead 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.
38 passages naming Redhead, found by keyword across 178 books. It's where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.
Redhead seems to be the only Tony Award-winning musical no one knows about. It won eight awards, including Best Musical, but today even musical theatre aficionados consider it an also-ran. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p751
Although a London production and a film version by United Artists never materialized, the musical was produced in Mexico City at the Teatro de los Insurgentes on February 11, 1960; titled La Pelirroja, the musical starred Virma Gonzalez and the cast recording was released by RCA Victor (# MKL-1270). One of the delightf… book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p755
The incidental music for the drama was composed by Albert Hague, whose first Broadway musical Plain and Fancy opened in 1955; in 1959 he won the Tony Award for Best Composer for his score for Redhead . book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p885
They also turned out witty, character-driven libretti for Up in Central Park and Redhead (the first murder mystery musical). book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p21
In four more Broadway shows, all with Fosse, Verdon owned Broadway: New Girl in Town (where she proved herself as a very fine dramatic actress), the murder-mystery musical Redhead (where she won her fourth Tony Award in seven years), Sweet Charity (where her over-the-shoulder stance became as famous as the Damn Yankees… book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p84
Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse’s Chicago played the 46th Street, home of their consecutive 1950s hits Damn Yankees, New Girl in Town, and Redhead. book:more-opening-nights-on-broadway-a-critical-quotebook-of-compiled-by-steven-suski#p46
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