From Broadway To 52nd Street
Plain And Fancy opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on January 27, 1955 and ran for 461 performances. Albert Hague & Arnold B. Horwitt composed the music and the show starred Richard Derr, Shirl Conway, Will Able, Gloria Marlowe, Fletcher Rodgers and Barbara Cook. Bea Arthur was an understudy and Carol Lawrence was in the chorus. A favorite jazz tunes came from this musical was Young And Foolish.
The Story: New York City sophisticates Dan King and Ruth Winters travel to Bird-In-Hand in the Amish country of Lancaster County, PA to sell a piece of property to Jacob Yoder, who in turn intends to present it to his daughter Katie and her intended Ezra as a wedding gift. While there, they become involved with local villagers, including Hilda Miller, who mistakes Dan’s kindness for romantic overtures. Ezra’s banished brother Peter returns to claim the hand of his childhood sweetheart, Katie.
Broadway History: Previously, regardless of the size of the venue, a theatre was not considered Off-Broadway if it was within the “Broadway Box” (extending from 40th to 54th Street, and from west of Sixth Avenue to east of 8th Avenue, and including Times Square and 42nd Street. The contractual definition changed this to encompass theatres meeting the standard, which is beneficial to these theatres because of the lower minimum required salary for Actors’ Equity performers at Off-Broadway theatres as compared with the salary requirements of the union for Broadway theatres. Examples of Off-Broadway theatres within the Broadway Box are the Laura Pels Theatre and the Snapple Theater Center..
A number of Off-Broadway musicals have had subsequent runs on Broadway. These have included musicals such as Hair, Godspell, A Chorus Line, Little Shop of Horrors, Rent and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee to name a few. Other productions such as Stomp, Blue Man Group and Altar Boyz have run for several years Off Broadway. The Fantasticks, the longest running musical in theatre history, spent its original 42-year run Off Broadway.
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