Above, the "Air Corps scene" from the 1946 revue Call Me Mister. The skit satirized the fancy and adoring reception that returning Army Air Corps pilots would get on their homecoming - as opposed to the lack of ceremony that most regular GI's would …
Above, a photo of the final tableaux of Act One, from the original 1948 production of Kiss Me, Kate. Below, Albert Drake and Patricia Morrison.Below, a cartoon by Jo Metzer from the Philadelphia Inquirer, showing Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne in th…
October 26, 1942: "Getting Ready for All-Soldier Show Opening" was the caption in the Inquirer. Two servicemen/stagehands prepare for Irving Berlin's patriotic show This is the Army at the Mastbaum Theatre.Below, while in town to appear at the openi…
Above, the Mastbaum Theatre during its demolition, 1958. The Mastbaum did not meet its end until two decades after the events we discuss in Episode 71. Still, I thought this image belonged here with the rest of the photos of Lost Philadelphia Theate…
Cartoon by Charles Bell, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on April 5, 1927, showing the "All-Star Company" of Trelawny of the "Wells."Below, photographs of John Drew, Jr., and Peggy Wood, taken during the 1920s.(Both from the online collection…
An image made by the architectural firm of Hoffman-Henon as publicity for the new Erlanger Theatre on 21st and Market.Below, the newspaper ad for the first show ever done at the Erlanger, Jerome Kern's Criss Cross, next to a photo of the …
The Brothers Shubert - Jake, Sam and Lee. (Photos from the Shubert Archives, New York)First, a photo of Lionel Barrymore as a struggling young actor, about the time he first got hired by Sam Shubert in The Brixton Burglary.But since the e…
The actor William Arliss, in a photo from Vanity Fair magazine (left), February 1923, and in 1921 as the Raja of Rukh (right), in The Green Goddess (collection of the City Museum of New York).Below, a newspaper advertisement for the World Premiere o…
The ad in the Philadelphia newspapers for Hitchy-Koo, an Intimate Revue - December 1917. Raymond Hitchcock is shown playing a tuba in a sketch from the show.Here are images of events and people that we talk about in Episode 65, "Holiday Show…
Above, an advertising card for W.C. Fields, early in his career.You might note that this entry has rather less text than we usually share in our blog - but after all, we put so much into the episode itself! (It's the longest one we've ever released,…
Above, the cover for the sheet music for "The Philadelphia Drag," as it was performed by a chorus - including a young Mae West (left) at the Folies Bergere Revue in 1911. And here's the clipping from a Philly newspaper announcing her subsequent book…
In the newspaper advertisement, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer of November 1915, we can see how the movie The Birth of a Nation was marketed to the public. In fact, the PR team for the film used techniques that any theater publicist of …
Above, vacationers stroll along the Atlantic City boardwalk in front of the entrance to the Savoy theater, which was advertising a grand concert in September of 1909. It looks like the weather had turned a bit autumnal and breezy, because …
It's a busy time of year for us, so we don't have a lot of time to make one of our usual extended blog posts! But here are a few photos and newspapers clippings about our interview subject in Episode 60, Penelope Reed:First, an April 1954 article ab…
Above, photo from a promotional brochure of the Theatre of the Living Arts, dating from Fall 1966. Caption: "Pointing the way to good theatre are Southwark Theatre Company campaigners (left to right) Deborah Sussel of Merion, who plays a role in the…
Above, a candid shot of the Philadelphia audience - which I believe is from the opening night of Poor Bitos in February of 1966, at the moment when the lightbulbs flashed in their eyes to momentarily distract them during the set change at the end of…
A photo of Celia Silverman and Jean Goldman, sitting in the seats of the newly-created Theatre of the Living Arts. This was the opening page of an article about the TLA in the Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine on February 28th, 1965. Below, a page from…
Above, an architect's conception of the new permanent building for the Playhouse in the Park in 1958. The old "sheep barn" - which had acted as a summer "little theater" in the 1920s - is in the foreground. In the upper left corner of the imag…
Bernard Havard in his office at the Walnut Street Theatre, looking at a wall of historical theater artifacts and personal memorabilia. He seems to be looking at a copy of a newspaper cartoon from the 1850s, showing Edwin Forrest (in costume as…
Philadelphia Mayor Samuel Davis Wilson being kissed by two women, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new Florsheim shoe store - March 20, 1937. (Image courtesy of Explore PA History)It's nice to find a photo of Mayor Wilson looking happy, because …
Above, Producer Earl Carroll Signs up a local dancer to be in the touring production of his show Earl Carroll Vanities, 1925. Below, the dancer - and Carroll's current girlfriend - Kathryn Ray on the cover of racy publication The National Police Gaz…
Above left: The actors Sara Allgood ("Widow Quin") and J. M. Kerrigan ("Shawn Keogh"), in the Irish Player's 1911 production of The Playboy of the Western World. Above right: a photo published in many American newspapers as word spread about the con…
The two men who were the commanding generals of the The Opera War (as the newspapers loved to call it) between the Metropolitan Opera and the Manhattan Opera/Philadelphia Opera Company - financier Otto Kahn (1867-1934) in his dapper overcoat and bow…
The dancer Maud Allan in her vaudeville performance of "The Vision of Salome" at London's Palace Theatre in 1908. Allan (1873-1956), a Canadian, danced her interpretation of Salome at theaters worldwide - amazingly, she was actually performing tople…
