The Threepenny Opera
Shows · The Threepenny Opera
The reason for the two engagements noted above is that the initial showing of Marc Blitzstein’s English-language version of the Kurt Weill-Bertold Brecht Die Dreigroschenoper at the Theatre de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel) had to be terminated because of a prior booking. Led by critic Brooks Atkinson, public demand brought it back 15 months after the closing, with cast replacements including Frederic Downs for Leon Li…
- Opened
- 1954
- Performances
- 95
- Type
- Musical
- Era
- Golden Age
Productions6 on Broadway
| 1933 | Empire Theatre Original. April 13, 1933 · Francesco Von Mendelssohn · predates this show | 12 performances |
| 1954 | Theatre de Lys Original. March 10, 1954 · Carmen Capalbo | 95 performances |
| 1966 | Billy Rose Theatre Revival. October 27, 1966 · Michael Meschke | 13 performances |
| 1976 | Vivian Beaumont Theater Revival. May 1, 1976 · Richard Foreman | 307 performances |
| 1989 | Lunt Fontanne Theatre Revival. November 5, 1989 · John Dexter | 65 performances |
| 2006 | Studio 54 Revival. April 20, 2006 · Scott Elliott | 77 performances |
Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. 1 of these predate the show itself and are almost certainly a different work of the same name. Shown, marked, not merged. West End runs are not yet held.
Recordings 6 albums held
Licensing not confirmed
| Rights | Not confirmed We have not been able to confirm the publisher. |
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.
47 passages naming The Threepenny Opera, found by keyword across 178 books. It's where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.
Among the more than 200 actors who played the 22 parts during the show’s run were Carole Cook, Valerie Bettis, and Dolly Haas (Jenny); James Mitchell and Jerry Orbach (Mack); Pert Kelton and Nancy Andrews (Mrs. Peachum); Georgia Brown (Lucy); Edward Asner (Peachum); and Estelle Parsons (Mrs. Coaxer). book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p154
America saw the first musical comedy in 1750 when a traveling company offered the premiere North American showing of The Beggar's Opera (whose most celebrated spinoff was Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera). book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-green-stanley-green-kay-5th-ed-rev-and-updated-by#p21
The reason for the two engagements noted above is that the initial showing of Marc Blitzstein’s English-language version of the Kurt Weill-Bertold Brecht Die Dreigroschenoper at the Theatre de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel) had to be terminated because of a prior booking. book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-green-stanley-green-kay-5th-ed-rev-and-updated-by#p183
At this writing, the return engagement is the second longest running production ever mounted Off Broadway. book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-green-stanley-green-kay-5th-ed-rev-and-updated-by#p183
At the same festival, Marc Blitzstein’s adaptation of The Threepenny Opera premiered, and it was Brooks who created the role of Blitzstein’s Macheath; and during the musical’s marathon Off-Broadway run beginning in the mid-1950s, Atkinson was one of many performers who played Macheath. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p370
There have been a number of film versions of The Beggar’s Opera and The Threepenny Opera. The latter has been adapted as The 3 Penny Opera (1931; Lotte Lenya and Rudolph Forster); The Threepenny Opera (1964; Hildegarde Neff, Curt Jurgens, Sammy Davis, Jr.); and Mack the Knife (1989; Raul Julia and Julia Migenes). book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p618
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