Every Week, A Broadway Revue: The Tamiment Playhouse, 1921-1960 (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies) [Hardcover]

Martha Schmoyer LoMonaco (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0313279969 | ISBN-13: 978-0313279966 | Publication Date: March 1992

Actors Danny Kaye, Bea Arthur, Imogene Coca, Barbara Cook, Dorothy Loudon and Carol Burnett, directors Max Liebman, Herb Ross, and Joe Layton, choreographer Jerome Robbins, composers Sylvia Fine, Jonathan Tunick and Mary Rodgers and writers Woody Allen and Neil Simon are a small sampling of the major entertainment figures nurtured at Camp Tamiment, an adult summer camp that operated a playhouse in Pennsylvania's Pocono mountains. The Tamiment Playhouse became the pre-eminent workshop and a major creative outlet for theatre, dance, film and television of the mid-20th century. Under Liebman, a staff of 60 would write, rehearse and perform a new fully-staged musical revue each week. Much of this original material found its way to the professional stage, nighclub acts, film and television,k including two complete shows, "The Straw hat Revue" and "Once Upon a Mattress", which were transferred to Broadway. Television's famed "Your Show of Shows" was a Tamiment spin-off, created by Leibman's summer company. In this social history peppered with anecdotes from oral histories and interviews of the "graduates of Tamiment" and archival materials including original skits and lyrics, author Martha LoMonaco documents and illuminates a significant era and arena of AMerican entertainment only obliquely touched upon in a few autobiographies and general works. She explains how the Tamiment Playhouse was a unique development derived from such diverse influences as the burgeoning resort industry, the American socialist movement, the Yiddish theatre, the American musical theatre, and popular entertainment genres like revue and burlesque comedy, all of which came together to produce this "proving ground" for Broadway. Placing this study in the context of theatre history, she focuses on the period when the Playhouse was at its most creative under Leibman and its continued theatrical innovations to its demise in 1960. This work would be valuable supplementary reading for a wide variety of courses in theatre and entertainment history and will be enjoyed by anyone who remembers this period and the stars that lit up the Poconos and stage and screen.

Editorial Reviews

Review

?Drawn largely from archival holdings and personal interviews, this study chronicles a resident summer theater (1921-60) that operated at Camp Tamiment, an adult summer camp in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, supported, until its infrastructure failed, by The Rand School of Social Science, a Socialist Party organ founded in 1906. Although related to other "Borscht Belt" camp and resort venues, the Tamiment Playhouse was unique in developing full-stage productions (revues, book shows, showcases) with resident companies of performing artists and support staff, including writers, composers, directors, and choreographers. It became a major training ground for talent and an outlet for theater, dance, film, and television, helping to develop such disparate talent as Imogene Coca, Danny Kaye, Carol Burnett, Barbara Cook, Larry Kert, and Dick Shawn, as well as writers such as Neil Simon and Woody Allen. Most useful in Lo Monaco's study is the detailed explication of how various shows were developed and presented.?-Choice

About the Author

Martha Schmoyer LoMonaco is Assistant Professor of Fine Arts and Resident Theatre Director at Fairfield University and an active professional director.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Greenwood Press (March 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0313279969
• ISBN-13: 978-0313279966
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,674,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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