Shows · Where’s Charley?
Where’s Charley? was based on Brandon Thomas’s durable 1892 London farce, Charley’s Aunt. The first Broadway book musical with a score by Frank Loesser (he wrote five shows in all), the musical is concerned with the madcap doings that result when Oxford undergraduates Charley Wykeham (Ray Bolger) and Jack Chesney (Byron Palmer) entertain their proper lady friends, Amy Spettigue (Allyn Ann McLerie) and Kitty Verdun (D…
- Opened
- 1948
- Performances
- 792
- Type
- Musical
- Era
- Golden Age
Productions3 on Broadway
| 1948 | St. James Theatre Original. October 11, 1948 · George Abbott | 792 performances |
| 1951 | Broadway Theatre Return-Engagement. January 29, 1951 · George Balanchine | 48 performances |
| 1974 | Circle In The Square Theatre Revival. December 20, 1974 · Theodore Mann | 76 performances |
Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.
35 passages naming Where’s Charley?, found by keyword across 178 books. It's where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.
Balanchine, George Babes in Arms Boys from Syracuse, The Cabin in the Sky I Married an Angel Louisiana Purchase Merry Widow, The On Your Toes Song of Norway Where’s Charley? Ziegfeld Follies book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p387
Bolger, Ray Where’s Charley?, 138 book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-green-stanley-green-kay-5th-ed-rev-and-updated-by#p353
Where’s Charley? originally opened on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on October 11, 1948, and when it closed on September 9, 1950, it had chalked up 792 performances, enjoyed two hit songs (“Once in Love with Amy” and “My Darling, My Darling”), and won a Tony Award for Ray Bolger as Best Leading Actor in a Musical. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p119
The London production opened at the Palace Theatre on February 20, 1958, for 404 performances; Norman Wisdom was Charley, and this time around the dances were created by Hanya Holm. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p122
Loesser had previously offered such examples with “Make a Miracle” from Where’s Charley? (1948). book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p391
McLerie was (once-in-love-with) Amy in Frank Loesser’s hit Where’s Charley? and in 1949 played the title role in Irving Berlin’s Miss Liberty. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p749
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