#5: The Princess Theatre Shows

You will usually hear that the Golden Age of the Broadway musical started with Oklahoma! in 1943, although some insist it started with Show Boat in 1927. But Robert Russell Bennett, who did orchestrations for both those shows and everything from No, No, Nanette to My Fair Lady, thought that it should start back with the “lovable little masterpieces of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern.”

He was referring, of course, to the Princess shows, those bright, clever, up-to-date musical comedies written by Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse, and Jerome Kern, and produced by Ray Comstock at the Princess Theatre. Except, if that is your definition of a Princess show, there would only be two of them. So what, exactly, is a Princess show?

In 1914, Ray Comstock needed to turn a profit on the 299-seat Princess Theatre. Bessie Marbury, a talent agent with a talent for setting trends, had the idea of putting on little shows in this tiny theater. The shows would have only two acts (to save on sets), would be contemporary (to save on costumes), would keep the chorus and orchestra small, and would have relatively unknown writers who wouldn’t be too expensive. But Marbury would also invite her society friends to the openings to make the shows essential social events. Her formula worked.

Comstock and Marbury started with a ten-year-old British play. The playwright was also a composer. When it was clear he wasn’t working out for either the music or the adaptation, Marbury brought in Jerome Kern to write the songs and, at Kern’s suggestion, Bolton to write the book*.

At this point, Kern had had songs successfully interpolated into many musical comedies, but had never had his own show. He had the idea that in a musical comedy the book, music, and lyrics should work together to further the story. This had been done before—in operettas, for instance—but in American musical comedies at the time, the songs were pretty much shoved in willy-nilly.

Bolton had worked with Kern once previously, and was interested in Kern’s plan. In Nobody Home, as their new show was called, they were able to try this out a bit, but they hadn’t been left much time to write it and the producers insisted on interpolating songs by five other composers into the show. Under these circumstances, can we really consider this a Princess show? On the other hand, when it opened in 1915, it was a hit.

For the next show, Very Good Eddie, Kern had a free hand in the music but Bolton wasn’t brought in until after a disastrous out-of-town tryout. Opening in 1915, it too became a hit. But more important to the history of American theater, on opening night P.G. Wodehouse, who had written lyrics for Kern ten years earlier, was asked to join the team. He was enthusiastic about their project of integrating songs and book. With that the trio was complete and they were ready to write the first true Princess show.

Except they weren’t. First the three of them helped out on a 1916 operetta at the New Amsterdam, which was a hit. Then they had a disagreement with Comstock: they wouldn’t do the show he wanted, and he wouldn’t accept the show they proposed, so they took theirs, Have a Heart, to Colonel Savage who produced it in 1917 at the Liberty where It was hit. Comstock found other people to write his show at the Princess, where it flopped. He invited the trio back.

Finally Oh, Boy!, a true Princess show written by Bolton, Wodehouse, and Kern, opened at the Princess Theatre in 1917. With each show they had made progress on integrating music and dialog, and although it might not sound like it to modern audiences, it was a revelation at the time. Oh, Boy! was a huge hit, the longest running of the Princess shows.

That was followed, also in 1917, by Leave It to Jane, another hit. But Comstock had to put it on at the Longacre, because Oh, Boy! was still running at the Princess.

During this time the trio were all working separately on many projects, but got together to write a review at the Century and an operetta at the New Amsterdam. But each had a composer in addition to Kern, and neither was a hit.

Finally the trio went back to the Princess in 1918 with Oh, Lady! Lady!! The opening night audience loved it and the reviews were enthusiastic. Dorothy Parker wrote in Vanity Fair: “Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern are my favorite indoor sport.” In the Times, an anonymous critic (George S Kaufman) wrote:

This is the trio of musical fame,

Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern:

Better than anyone else you can name,

Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.

Nobody knows what on earth they’ve been bitten by;

All I can say is I mean to get lit an’ buy

Orchestra seats for the next one that’s written by

Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.

But then the audience stopped coming. It was not a hit. And that was the end of the Princess shows.

Except is wasn’t. Bolton and Wodehouse wrote the book and lyrics for Oh, My Dear! which opened at the Princess later in 1918, but without Kern. It was a modest hit, but it didn’t live up to the Princess standard. Then in 1924 the trio came back together and wrote Sitting Pretty, which Comstock produced at the Fulton. But the magic was gone, it was not a success, and each member of the trio went his own way.

Bolton continued to be in demand as a librettist into the 1930s.

Wodehouse also continued writing for theater into the 1930s but became much better known for his stories and novels, particularly those about Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves.

Only three years later Kern wrote his landmark musical, Show Boat, with Oscar Hammerstein II. This show completed the integration of songs and dialog and set the direction for the future of the American musical. And it all started with an idea he had had twelve years earlier for the tiny Princess Theatre.

*Terminology:

Book: the dialog, the part of a musical that isn’t sung.

Librettist: The person who writes the book.

Libretto: The combined book and lyrics.

Further Reading:

Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern: The Men Who Made Musical Comedy, Lee Davis, 1993, James H. Heineman, Inc. (one of my favorite theater books)

Bring On the Girls!: The Improbable Story of Our Life in Musical Comedy with Pictures to Prove It, P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, 1953, Simon and Schuster (amusing if not precisely truthful)

Audio Recordings (more about these in a future blog post):

Very Good Eddie, DRG Records

Leave It to Jane, AEI

Sitting Pretty, New World Records

Video Recordings:

Nobody Home: Where the Good Songs Go performed a virtual production in 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYrHHJugCKc

Have a Heart: A DVD of the 2016 Ohio Light Opera production is available from the Operetta Foundation, www.OperettaFoundation.org