Simply Heavenly
Shows · Simply Heavenly
Simply Heavenly is a musical comedy with book and lyrics by Langston Hughes and music by David Martin, based on Hughes' novel Simple Takes A Wife and other Simple stories.
- Opened
- 1957
- Performances
- 62
- Type
- Musical
- Era
- Golden Age
Productions2 on Broadway
| 1957 | Playhouse Theatre Original. August 20, 1957 · Joshua Shelley | 62 performances |
| 1958 | Adelphi Theatre Transfer. May 20, 1958 |
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 | Concord Theatricals Concord Theatricals | 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.
7 passages naming Simply Heavenly, found by keyword across 178 books. It's where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.
Simply Heavenly first opened Off-Broadway on May 21, 1957, at the 85th Street Playhouse for forty-four performances; it transferred to Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre three months later on August 20 for sixty-two performances; and then returned to Off-Broadway on November 8 for sixty-three more performances at the Re… book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p642
Simply Heavenly is perhaps the best black musical ever, a work of immense, unpretentious charm, extremely funny and with a great deal to say as well. book:not-since-carrie-forty-years-of-broadway-musical-flops-ken-mandelbaum#p342
But like The Human Comedy and Simply Heavenly, which also began off-Broadway, The Golden Apple was not a hit on Broadway. book:not-since-carrie-forty-years-of-broadway-musical-flops-ken-mandelbaum#p348
The commercial disappointment of Simply Heavenly did nothing to deter Hylton from promoting more black material. Three years later he had a reasonable run with the all-black King Kong, ‘an all-African jazz musical’ that had never approached New York but been a great 1959 success in South Africa. book:west-end-broadway-the-golden-age-of-the-american-musical-adrian-wright-boydell-b#p156
Simply Heavenly, which has nevertheless enjoyed West End revival and a much more enthusiastic critical reception than it enjoyed in 1958. book:west-end-broadway-the-golden-age-of-the-american-musical-adrian-wright-boydell-b#p158
Anyone familiar with Burra’s luminous paintings of Harlem life such as ‘Savoy Ballroom, Harlem’ (1934) and ‘Harlem Scene’ (1934–5) will know his fascination with the place. One reason to celebrate Simply Heavenly was the lively cast; this included Bertice Reading, who three years before had been a passenger on The Jazz… book:west-end-broadway-the-golden-age-of-the-american-musical-in-london-adrian-wright#p183
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