The Girl from Kays
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
musical comedy
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
with music by Ivan Caryll
Ivan Caryll
Félix Marie Henri Tilkin , better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language...
, Paul Rubens
Paul Rubens (composer)
Paul Alfred Rubens was an English songwriter and librettist who wrote some of the most popular Edwardian musical comedies of the early twentieth century. He contributed to the success of dozens of musicals....
, Wilhelm Meyer Lutz
Meyer Lutz
Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born English composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and burlesques of well-known works....
and Edward Jones, book by Cecil Cook and lyrics by Adrian Ross
Adrian Ross
For the NFL player see Adrian Ross Arthur Reed Ropes , better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
and Claude Aveling. The farcical story concerns a misguided kiss.
The musical was produced by George Edwardes
George Edwardes
George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond....
at the Apollo Theatre
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. Designed by architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfield, and the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street, its doors opened on 21 February 1901 with the American...
in London, opening on 15 November 1902 and moving to the Comedy Theatre on 14 December 1903 to finish its run of 432 performances. Gabrielle Ray
Gabrielle Ray
Gabrielle Ray , was an English stage actress, dancer and singer, best known for her roles in Edwardian musical comedies....
took over from Letty Lind
Letty Lind
Letitia Elizabeth Rudge, better known as Letty Lind , was an English actress, dancer and acrobat, best known for her work in burlesque at the Gaiety Theatre, and in musical theatre at Daly's Theatre, in London....
in the show near the end of its original run. Florence Young replaced Ethel Irving in the title role, and Kitty Gordon also appeared in the musical. Despite its long run, the production lost money, which had to be recouped in provincial tours.
The Girl from Kays had a successful New York run of 223 performances at the Herald Square Theatre, beginning 3 November 1903, and successful Australian runs. Elsie Ferguson
Elsie Ferguson
Elsie Louise Ferguson was an American stage and film actress.-Early life:Born in New York City, Elsie Ferguson was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Benson Ferguson, a successful attorney...
starred in New York. It was later revised as The Belle of Bond Street.
The character Max Hoggenheimer was selected by the South African cartoonist Daniël Cornelis Boonzaier
Daniël Cornelis Boonzaier
Daniël Cornelis Boonzaier , was a South African cartoonist. Boonzaier received his first education at Carnarvon and later joined the local magistrate's office...
to symbolise the avaricious and oppressive Randlord
Randlord
Randlord is a term used to denote the entrepreneurs who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries in South Africa in its pioneer phase from the 1870s up to World War I....
and mining capitalism, and frequently featured in Boonzaier's work.
Roles and original cast
- Norah Chalmers - Kate CutlerKate CutlerKate Ellen Louisa Cutler was an English singer and actress, known in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as an ingénue in musical comedies, and later as a character actress in comic and dramatic plays...
- Ellen (Her Maid) - Letty Lind
- Mrs. Chalmers - Marie Illington
- Nancy Lowley, Mary Methuen, Cora Paget, Mabel Macdonald and Hilda French (Assistants at Kay's) - Ella Snyder, Kitty Gordon, Georgie Read, Nellie Souray and Marie Billing
- Rhoda Leslie, Ella Wyly, Maud Racine, Gertrude Hildesley, Olive Whitney and Joan Mayen (Norah's Bridesmaids) - Delia Beresford, Vashti Earle, Evelyn Corry, Rosie Chadwick, Edith Neville and Irene Allen
- Jane - Kitty Ashmead
- Winnie Harborough (The Girl from Kay's) - Ethel Irving
- Harry Gordon - W. Louis Bradfield
- The Hon. Percy Fitzthistle - Aubrey Fitzgerald
- Theodore Quench, K.C. - W. Cheeseman
- Mr. Chalmers - E. W. Garden
- Joseph (Hall Porter at Flacton Hotel) - William Wyes
- Archie Pembridge - J. Thompson
- Frank (Waiter at Savoy RestaurantSavoy HotelThe Savoy Hotel is a hotel located on the Strand, in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the hotel opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by...
) - Ernest Lambart - Pepper (Page Boy of Flacton Hotel) - Master Bottomley
- Scavvin (Proprietor of Flacton Hotel) - E. Fence
- Max Hoggenheimer - Willie EdouinWillie EdouinWillie Edouin was an English comedian, actor, dancer, singer, writer, director and theatre manager.After performing as a child in England, Australia and elsewhere, Edouin moved to America, where he joined Lydia Thompson's burlesque troupe, performing with this company both in the U.S. and Britain...
Musical numbers
Act I - Chalmers' Flat- No. 1 - Opening Chorus of Bridesmaids, with Norah - "We're the bright and bridal bevy who have recently attended..."
- No. 2 - Song - Norah and Bridesmaids - "As I came up the aisle, supported by dear father..."
- No. 3 - Scene - Norah and Chorus - "We've come for you ladies, no pretty bridesmaid is allowed to be absent by stealth..."
- No. 4 - Song - Winnie - "When a girl of commonsense wants to make a competence..."
- No. 5 - Song - Harry - "Oh, when a young man takes a wife, his bachelor chrysalis shedding..."
- No. 6 - Finale Act I - "Now we see the carriage stand before the door ... it will take the wedded couple to the station..."
ACT II - Grand Hotel, Flacton-on-Sea
- No. 7 - Opening Chorus - "Sunday at Flacton-on-Sea, isn't it jolly in summer? Who isn't happy to be here..."
- No. 8 - Duet - Norah & Harry - "We're married, I cannot deny ... Then what are we going to do?..."
- No. 9 - Song - Mary & Chorus - "We are good little girls, very worldly and wise, and we can teach you just a few things..."
- No. 10 - Song - Winnie & Chorus - "If you'd like to know the ways of the customers at Kay's..."
- No. 11 - Song - Ellen & Chorus of Bridesmaids - "Oh, the fine folk with their marriages too fussy always are..."
- No. 12 - Song - Norah - "I dreamed my husband's love was pure as snow, Papa! ..."
- No. 13 - Coon SongCoon songCoon songs were a genre of music popular in the United States and around the English-speaking world from 1880 to 1920, that presented a racist and stereotyped image of blacks.-Rise and fall from popularity:...
- Nancy - "Sambo was a coffee colour'd coon ..." *** (see note below.) - No. 14 - Song - Harry - "Women are extraordinary beings! Upon my word, I don't know what to think! ..."
- No. 15 - Finale Act II - "He has gone his ways with a girl from Kay's, but why should you weep, and why sigh? ..."
ACT III - The Savoy Restaurant
- No. 16 - Act III Introduction
- No. 17 - Duet - Winnie and Harry - "Wife and I have had a quarrel, she believes me far from moral..."
- No. 18 - Song - Mary, with Chorus - "When love stands at the heart's door of a maiden..."
- No. 19 - Song - Harry, with Chorus - "Supposing things look black in town, and you feel rather blue..."
- No. 20 - Song - Winnie & Chorus - "It's very nice to be a dame of high degree, with blood and reputation beautifully blue..."
- No. 21 - Finale - "She'll marry Hoggenheimer of Park Lane..."
Additional numbers
- No. 22 - Song - Percy - "When I gaze in this glass my reflections go back to the time when I was a boy..."
- No. 23 - Song - Harry - "There was a little builder once to build a house began..."
- No. 24 - Quartet - Nancy, Ellen, Fitzthistle, & Frank - "I want to give a birthday party here..."