Performance Programs

Sara & Maynard Johnson

Showtunes in the 1700s
Stage Productions

  • Showtunes in the 1700s - Stage Productions

  • Shows – Ballad Operas

    • Beggar’s Opera – 1728 London.  John Rich and John Gay
        • Made Rich gay and Gay rich.
        • Often revived, and performed in America as well.
        • Used well-known tunes with new words. 
        • Handel’s operas killed by Lumps of Pudding
        • Beggar’s Opera Music
          • Thus Gamblers United
          • MacHeath soliloquy
    • David Garrick  - Heart of Oak –1759
    • Shields & O’Keefe – 1790s
        • The Arethusa  (O’Carolan)
    • Poor Soldier – Planxty Connor
    • Alexander Reinagle  - America Commerce and Freedom

       Evolution of a Stage Tune

      • Michael Kelly and George Coleman the Younger
      • ·      Ally Croaker, originally an Irish tune ca 1725
      • ·      The song “Ally Croaker” was inserted into a comedy called The Buck, first performed in Williamsburg in 1771.
      • ·      Unfortunate Miss Bailey and Love Laughs at Locksmiths
        • ·      Opened in Haymarket in1803 and still running in 1824
      • ·      Battle of New Orleans 1815 and Hunters of Kentucky
      • ·      Jackson political song in 1824, 1828, 1832

            Stage dancers

        •   John Durang – Durang’s Hornpipe – stage spikes
        •   Ricketts Hornpipe
        •   James Fishar and his hornpipe
        •   Nancy Dawson
        •   Barberini’s Tambourine
        • Anne Auretti