1926 Broadway

After the overwhelming success of The Garrick Gaieties in 1925, the Theatre Guild chose to produce another edition the following year. This new production, featuring a host of fresh songs and sketches, was again directed by Philip Loeb, with songs by Rodgers & Hart. Lee Strasberg, who had appeared in the cast of the inaugural edition, served as stage manager. Like its predecessor, this revue skewered various details of life for its New York theatregoing audience. The runaway hit song was “Mountain Greenery,” a jaunty number in which a young couple extols the virtues of a bucolic getaway.

Opening on May 10, 1926, the production ran for 174 performances, closing on October 9. Though reviews were less effusive than those for its predecessor, the 1926 edition of The Garrick Gaieties earned a great deal of commendation in the press. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times dubbed the show “the most intelligent review in town,” and Burns Mantle of the Daily News called it “a lively combination of intelligent humor and pleasing songs.” Frank Vreeland of the New York Telegram praised Rodgers’ “delightfully prattling score,” adding, “he is the most auspicious young composer for musical comedy now in our midst, and should develop into the Irving Berlin of the future.”

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