In the early 1920s, people started spotting a performer named Olive Thomas at Broadway’s
New Amsterdam Theatre, where she had previously appeared in Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.’s show
Midnight Frolic. The sightings were strange for two reasons: One, Thomas wasn’t scheduled
to perform at the venue. Two, she was dead.
Thomas had passed away in 1920 after an overdose of mercury bichloride. The circumstances of
her death are shrouded in mystery. At the time, her husband, Jack, brother of Hollywood
star Mary Pickford, had been taking mercury bichloride to treat syphilis. Some suspected
that Jack poisoned his wife, while others thought she overdosed intentionally after
discovering her husband had exposed her to the dreaded infection. Still others believed
she had simply confused the blue bottle for one that contained a sleeping medication.
Whatever the case, Thomas’s death at just 25 years old shocked the Broadway community.
And the glimpses of her ghost, little blue bottle in hand, were nearly as alarming. They
died down when the theater wasn’t getting much business in the mid-20th century, but
Thomas has apparently found new ways to make her presence known in the 21st century.
Several years ago, some New Amsterdam Theatre employees were talking about the 2011 film
The Artist when someone wondered aloud what Olive Thomas would’ve thought of it. Suddenly,
more than a dozen DVDs on a nearby table zoomed across the room and crashed into the wall.
As Dana Amendola, Disney Theatrical Group’s vice president of operations, told Playbill,
“They all sat in stunned silence. That stack had been there for a long time, and there
was no obvious way they could have fallen, let alone [fly] across the room.” Amendola
was sure Thomas was behind it.
Hi, I’m Erin McCarthy, editor-in-chief of MentalFloss.com, and welcome to The List Show.
Broadway boasts a lot more than ghosts with a flair for the dramatic. From the time Mae
West got arrested to the Carrie musical that failed in spectacular fashion, this episode
is all about weird and wonderful facts from the history of the Great White Way.
Another op'nin', another … video filled with fun facts and interesting stories. Let’s
get started.
Long before Broadway became a hub for entertainers and larger-than-life advertisements, it was
largely a Native American thoroughfare known as the Wickquasgeck trail. When Dutch settlers
took over Manhattan in the 17th century, they renamed the path de Heere Straat, meaning
“the Gentlemen’s Street.” And since it was really wide, people sometimes just
called it Brede Weg, or Broadway. That nickname stuck when the British gained control of the
area.
As anyone who’s seen Hamilton already knows, New York City was the greatest city in the
world even in the 18th century. So it’s no surprise that theater actors picked it
as a promising spot to set up shop. Head downtown to Nassau Street around, say, 1750, and you
could see Richard III performed by Walter Murray and Thomas Kean’s troupe. Companies
weren’t exactly revolutionizing the theatrical canon—they mainly performed whatever was
popular back in England, from Shakespeare’s plays to The Beggar’s Opera.
The New York theater scene quieted down considerably while the colonies split from Britain, but
things picked back up again in the 1790s. In January 1798, the Park Theatre (or “New
Theatre”) opened downtown on Park Row with a performance of Shakespeare’s As You Like
It, followed by a musical offering called The Purse, or American Tar. Though the theater
was technically still unfinished on opening night, it still got a glowing review in New
York’s Daily Advertiser, which said:
“We do not remember to have been in any Theatre where the view of the stage is so
complete from all parts of the house, or where the actors are heard with such distinctness
… The stage was everything that could be wished … The correctness of the designs,
and the elegance of the painting, presented the most beautiful views which the imagination
can conceive.”
The Park Theatre was also quite large for the time, seating some 2000 people. It ushered
in a new era of bigger, better venues, and other theaters proliferated downtown in the
following decades. They were far from what’s now the Theater District in Midtown, but some
of them were on Broadway.
Niblo's Garden, for example, was a theater on Prince Street and Broadway that played
host to what’s often considered the first real Broadway musical. After a fire destroyed
the Academy of Music in 1866, producers Harry Palmer and Henry Jarrett were left with nowhere
for their ballet company to perform. They convinced the manager of Niblo’s Garden,
William Wheatley, to let them combine their dance show with his upcoming play about a
sorcerer who trades souls to the devil in return for eternal life. The result was a
sensual, 6-hour-long extravaganza of song, dance, and drama called The Black Crook. It
was a smashing success, lasting for around 480 performances—hundreds more than a standard
run.
At that point, Midtown was still in its startup stage. Mayor Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence had
cut the figurative ribbon on 42nd Street in 1836, telling city dwellers to, quote, “move
up town and enjoy the pure, clean air.”
Broadway’s next big break went by the name of Oscar Hammerstein I. Around the turn of
the century, Hammerstein pretty much led the charge to transform Times Square into the
musical theater mecca we know today. Though at that point, it was still called Longacre
Square—the name only changed after The New York Times moved there in 1904. Hammerstein
built multiple theaters in the area, including the Olympia Theater in 1895 and the Victoria
Theater in 1899. And by the way, if this chronology isn’t adding up to you, keep in mind that
this Oscar Hammerstein is the grandfather of the famed lyricist who eventually teamed
up with Richard Rodgers.
In the early years of the 20th century, a whole slew of other theaters started popping
up. There were, to name a few, the aforementioned New Amsterdam Theatre, dutifully haunted by
Olive Thomas; The Belasco Theatre, which is also supposedly haunted—by its namesake,
David Belasco; and the Lyceum Theatre, now the oldest continually running Broadway theater
in existence (and, presumably, haunted by a very inconspicuous ghost).
It wasn’t just Hammerstein’s influence that made Midtown the place to be. Two huge
industrial advancements helped, too. One was electricity. Stuffy, gas-lit theaters weren’t
just uncomfortable—they were a fire hazard. Electric light bulbs made theater-going a
safer, more pleasant experience. They also gave advertisers a chance to dazzle pedestrians
with flashy street displays. Broadway was quick to adopt the bright new bulbs, earning
it a new nickname: “The Great White Way.” Although, quick sidenote: the first known
use of the phrase in reference to Broadway was actually in response to a big snowstorm
in the area. It’s hard to imagine the name would’ve stuck on the basis of meteorology
alone, though.
The other big development around that time was the first subway line, which opened in
1904. Suddenly, Times Square didn’t seem so inaccessible to downtowners.
Over the next few decades, Broadway saw many French-inspired vaudeville productions, and,
of course, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.’s famed Ziegfeld Follies. With all the beautiful women
clad in scanty costumes, Follies shows were an opportunity for people to see something
slightly risqué but still socially acceptable.
But the moral standard was far from “anything goes!” In February 1927, Mae West and about
20 other actors were arrested while performing a play called Sex, written by West herself.
The story follows prostitutes in Montreal’s red-light district, and the court described
it as an “obscene, indecent, immoral, and impure drama” that would lead to “the
corruption of the morals of youth.”
Though the charges would’ve been dropped had West agreed to shut down Sex for good,
she refused. As they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. She served her eight
days and then founded a prison library with the thousand dollars she earned from a magazine
interview.
One noteworthy theory about this particular bit of censorship is that it wasn’t really
about the play Sex at all. Multiple sources consider the raid more of a warning shot directed
towards an upcoming West production called The Drag. That play would’ve featured gay
men in gay roles. In the words of historian George Chauncey, West had “moved the sort
of gay act that had become a part of Times Square’s roof garden revues … and transposed
it to the legitimate stage.” If The Drag was the censors’ true target, they succeeded—the
New York production of the play was scuttled.
Around that same time, a Colorado-born actress was preparing to pivot from acting to directing.
Her name was Antoinette Perry, or Tony for short. ...You can probably guess where this
is going. With her production partner (and later lover) Brock Pemberton, Perry staged
an impressive 17 shows from the late 1920s to early 1940s. She also pushed for a national
acting school and helped found the Theatre Wing of Allied Relief, now known as the American
Theatre Wing. After her death in 1946, the industry honored her by founding the Antoinette
Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre. When Pemberton presented one at the first ceremony
in 1947, he referred to it as a Tony.
Nobody named Antoinette has ever won a Tony before, but seven Tonys have (not including
people who were billed as Anthony). The latest was in 2018, when Tony Shalhoub took home
the Best Leading Actor in a Musical award for his performance in The Band’s Visit.
There’s enough Tonys trivia to fill its own episode of The List Show, but here’s
one fun fact to impress your theater friends with.
In 1960, Once Upon a Mattress, composed by Mary Rodgers, nabbed a nomination for Best
Musical. She went up against her father, Richard Rodgers of “Rodgers and Hammerstein” fame,
who had composed The Sound of Music. In this case, dad bested daughter—The Sound of Music
tied with Fiorello! for the win. During a 1996 interview, Mary said she was happy just
to have been nominated. In her words, “I don't think either my father or I thought
I'd ever be nominated for anything.” Ouch, Richard.
In order to be eligible for Tony Awards in the first place, a production has to be on
Broadway—as opposed to off-Broadway, or even off-off-Broadway. The difference mainly
has to do with theater size, rather than location. Broadway theaters seat 500 or more patrons;
off-Broadway capacity ranges from 100 to 499; and only 99 people or fewer can fit in an
off-off-Broadway venue, by definition.
Broadway theaters are also usually in or right near the actual Theater District, which stretches
from West 41st to West 54th Streets in Manhattan, between Sixth and Eighth Avenues. But there
are definitely exceptions to those rules, and the official designation actually comes
down to production contracts. Of the 40 or so Broadway theaters considered “on Broadway”
these days, only a few are literally on Broadway: the Palace Theater, the Winter Garden, and
the Broadway Theatre. A couple other contenders could be considered *on* Broadway, as well,
but their official addresses list them on other streets.
Broadway tickets are also generally quite a bit more expensive than their off-Broadway
counterparts. With a little dedication and a lot of luck, though, you can score deeply
discounted tickets to many shows through a lottery system. For that, we have Rent to
thank.
Jonathan Larson’s ‘90s rock musical, inspired by the 19th-century opera La Bohème, follows
a group of modern-day Manhattan bohemians against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic.
To make sure real-life bohemians could actually afford to see the show, producers sold two
rows’ worth of $20 tickets a couple hours before each performance. The offering was
so popular that it became a safety issue, since young people had started spending the
night in line outside the theater.
The producers replaced the first-come-first-served policy with a lottery: Everyone enters their
name in person, and the winners get dibs on the $20 tix. The new system was so successful
that many other theaters with popular shows adopted it, too. These days, a lot of these
lotteries happen online.
If you’re a tourist with just one shot to see a show, however, you’ll probably forgo
the lottery and spring for pricier tickets. Maybe to see something classic—like The
Phantom of the Opera. As of March 2020, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical had been performed
on the Great White Way 13,370 times, making it the longest-running show in Broadway history.
Some of the orchestra members have been there since the beginning. On an episode of This
American Life from October 2020, Jay Caspian Kang interviewed some of them to find out
what it’s like to play the same songs eight times a week for decades. They all have their
own coping mechanisms.
The French horn players, for example, are the class clowns. One has even been known
to write on the bottoms of audience members’ shoes with white-out. Oboist Melanie Feld
told Kang that while she is putting her all into the work, it’s not for the audience,
per se, but to ensure the French horn players don’t laugh at her.
Other musicians stay completely disengaged—like Feld’s former nemesis, a trumpet player
named Francis Bonny who’s no longer with the show. Bonny actually attached a little
blinder to his glasses so he wouldn’t have to see anyone in the pit. Kurt Coble, who’s
clocked in for more than 20 years, doesn’t call himself a violinist. He calls himself
a violin operator.
Coble told Kang, “I've often compared it to working in a hospice. … We just keep
the show alive as long as we can.”
Nick Jemo, a trumpet player who joined the production more recently, compared the show
to something slightly less bleak: the movie Groundhog Day.
The list of longest-running shows plays host to another Andrew Lloyd Webber original. Cats,
which ran from 1981 to 2000 and had a brief revival from 2016 to 2017, is currently in
fourth place. If there were a list of musicals that used the most yak hair, though, I’m
almost positive Cats would be in the top spot. Over the show’s 18-year tenure, the costume
department went through 3247 pounds of yak hair for the performers’ wigs. That’s
around the weight of two—two!—fully grown wild yaks.
When it comes to ticket sales, though, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer got lapped by some much bigger
cats. And so did everyone else. The Lion King has raked in $1.68 billion since its debut
in 1997, making it the highest-grossing Broadway show of all time.
Translating The Lion King from screen to stage turned out to be a fantastic idea. The same
can’t be said for certain other adaptations—like Stephen King’s classic horror novel Carrie.
The musical arrived on Broadway in the spring of 1988, and everyone was generally appalled
at how, well, horrifying it was. One especially upbeat number called “Out for Blood,”
for example, is all about slaughtering pigs. New York Times critic Frank Rich likened the
show to the Hindenburg disaster. Carrie crashed and burned nearly as quickly as that ill-fated
airship, closing after only five performances.
But blood and guts aren’t always the recipe for a Broadway flop. Take Stephen Sondheim’s
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The story traces to a Victorian penny dreadful—a
cheap form of popular serialized literature from the 19th century. Sweeney Todd centers
on a vengeful barber conspiring with an accomplice to bake *unsavory* characters into *savory*
human meat pies. It premiered on Broadway in March 1979 and went on to win eight Tonys,
including Best Musical.
Another big award-winner, Chicago, also has a hefty dose of homicide—and its Merry Murderesses
were based on real people. The model for Roxie Hart was Beulah Annan, who shot her lover
in 1924 and then claimed self-defense, explaining that they had both reached for the gun after
he assaulted her. Much like Hart’s husband, Amos, sticks by his deceitful wife in the
musical, Annan’s spouse emptied his bank account to pay for her defense. The public
felt great sympathy for Annan, whom police described as “Chicago’s prettiest woman
slayer,” and she was found not guilty.
Velma Kelly was inspired by Belva Gaertner, a cabaret performer who shot her married lover
just weeks before Annan’s alleged crime. Though Gaertner was found with blood all over
her, she couldn’t remember a thing—and pleaded not guilty. As she explained to the
Chicago Tribune at the time, “No woman can love a man enough to kill him. They aren’t
worth it, because there are always plenty more.” The jury apparently agreed with that
sentiment enough to acquit her.
Whether you’re watching a show about crime, cats, or a chandelier-crashing angel of music,
there’s a slim chance you’ll be in Row I. Many theaters don’t have one. Unlike
buildings skipping the 13th floor, theaters going right from H to J has nothing to do
with superstition. At a glance, the letter I can easily be mistaken for the number 1,
which can cause confusion both when box office attendants are selling tickets and when ushers
are directing people to their seats in a dark theater. Some theaters omit Row Q and/or Row
O, since those look so similar, too.
Our next episode is going to recount our 20 favorite facts from 20 years of Mental Floss.
If you have a favorite fact you’ve learned from the magazine, website, or YouTube channel,
leave it in the comments. I’ll bump one of my own favorite facts to include it in
the video. We’ll see you then!