By Jupiter
Encyclopedia
By Jupiter is a musical
with a book by Lorenz Hart
and Richard Rodgers
, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. The musical is based on the play The Warrior's Husband by Julian F. Thompson, set in the land of the Amazons
. By Jupiter premiered on Broadway
in 1942 and starred Ray Bolger
.
the women rule and do battle while the men stay at home, mind the children, and buy new hats. An army
of Greek
soldier
s, led by Theseus
and Hercules
, arrives in search of the Sacred Girdle of Diana
, currently in the hands of reigning Queen Hippolyta
. Accompanying them is war correspondent
Homer
, author of a recent bestseller called The Iliad
. The Greek warriors are captured by the Amazons, and romance blossoms between Theseus and Antiope
, the warrior-leader of the Amazons. A subplot involves Hippolyta's foppish husband Sapiens, forced on her by his wealthy mother, in exchange for financing the war against the Greeks, who employs his "non-traditionally-male wiles" to get his way with the opposite sex.
production opened at the Shubert Theatre
on June 3, 1942 and closed on June 12, 1943 after 427 performances. Directed by Joshua Logan
and choreographed by Robert Alton
, the cast included Ray Bolger
, Benay Venuta
, Vera-Ellen
, and Constance Moore
, who was replaced by Nanette Fabray
later in the run.
At one point, 20th Century Fox
considered pairing Laurel and Hardy
with Martha Raye
in a movie version of the show, but the idea was eventually shelved.
A revival opened off-Broadway
at the Theatre Four on January 19, 1967 and closed on April 30, 1968 after 118 performances. This production had new material by Fred Ebb
. Directed by Christopher Hewett
with choreography and musical staging by Ellen Ray, Bob Dishy
headed the cast. An original cast recording was released of this production, reissued in CD on September 11, 2007 by DRG.
Ian Marshall Fisher's Discovering Lost Musicals Charitable Trust presented a concert staging at Barbican Cinema 1 in May 1992, with Louise Gold
as Hippolyta and Jon Glover
as Sapiens. Issy Van Randwyck
was also among the cast.
42nd Street Moon, San Francisco, California, presented a staged concert from April 17 - May 12, 2002.
Musicals in Mufti at the York Theatre in New York City presented a staged concert from April 5 - April 7, 2002.
The musical proved to be not only Rodgers and Hart's longest-running Broadway hit, but their last full-length work. (They collaborated on a revision of their 1927 show A Connecticut Yankee in 1943, writing six new numbers.)
Act II
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
with a book by Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...
and Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
, music by Rodgers, and lyrics by Hart. The musical is based on the play The Warrior's Husband by Julian F. Thompson, set in the land of the Amazons
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
. By Jupiter premiered on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1942 and starred Ray Bolger
Ray Bolger
Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
.
Synopsis
In the land of the AmazonsAmazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...
the women rule and do battle while the men stay at home, mind the children, and buy new hats. An army
Army
An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...
of Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
s, led by Theseus
Theseus
For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...
and Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
, arrives in search of the Sacred Girdle of Diana
Diana (mythology)
In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt and moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy...
, currently in the hands of reigning Queen Hippolyta
Hippolyta
In Greek mythology, Hippolyta or Hippolyte is the Amazonian queen who possessed a magical girdle she was given by her father Ares, the god of war. The girdle was a waist belt that signified her authority as queen of the Amazons....
. Accompanying them is war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, author of a recent bestseller called The Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
. The Greek warriors are captured by the Amazons, and romance blossoms between Theseus and Antiope
Antiope (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Antiope was an Amazon, daughter of Ares and sister to Melanippe and Hippolyte and possibly Orithyia, queens of the Amazons,. She was the wife of Theseus, and the only Amazon known to have married...
, the warrior-leader of the Amazons. A subplot involves Hippolyta's foppish husband Sapiens, forced on her by his wealthy mother, in exchange for financing the war against the Greeks, who employs his "non-traditionally-male wiles" to get his way with the opposite sex.
Productions
The BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
production opened at the Shubert Theatre
Shubert Theatre (Broadway)
The Shubert Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 225 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York, United States.Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts, it was named after Sam S. Shubert, the second oldest of the three brothers of the theatrical producing family...
on June 3, 1942 and closed on June 12, 1943 after 427 performances. Directed by Joshua Logan
Joshua Logan
Joshua Lockwood Logan III was an American stage and film director and writer.-Early years:Logan was born in Texarkana, Texas, the son of Susan and Joshua Lockwood Logan. When he was three years old his father committed suicide...
and choreographed by Robert Alton
Robert Alton
Robert Alton was an American dancer and choreographer, a major figure in dance choreography of Broadway and Hollywood musicals from the 1930s through to the early 1950s...
, the cast included Ray Bolger
Ray Bolger
Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
, Benay Venuta
Benay Venuta
Benay Venuta was an American actress, singer and dancer.Born Benvenuta Rose Crooke in San Francisco, Venuta attended finishing school in Geneva and lived in London where she worked as a dancer before returning to the States. She made her first screen appearance in the silent Trail of '98 in 1928...
, Vera-Ellen
Vera-Ellen
Vera-Ellen was an American actress and dancer, principally celebrated for her filmed dance partnerships with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye and Donald O'Connor.-Early life:...
, and Constance Moore
Constance Moore
Constance Moore was a singer and actress. Her most noted work was in wartime musicals such as Show Business and Atlantic City and the classic 1939 movie serial Buck Rogers, in which she played Wilma Deering, the only female character in the serial.-Life and career:Moore was born in Sioux...
, who was replaced by Nanette Fabray
Nanette Fabray
Nanette Fabray is an American actress, comedienne, singer, dancer, and activist. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and then became a musical theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life...
later in the run.
At one point, 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
considered pairing Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
with Martha Raye
Martha Raye
Martha Raye was an American comic actress and standards singer who performed in movies, and later on television....
in a movie version of the show, but the idea was eventually shelved.
A revival opened off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
at the Theatre Four on January 19, 1967 and closed on April 30, 1968 after 118 performances. This production had new material by Fred Ebb
Fred Ebb
Fred Ebb was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera....
. Directed by Christopher Hewett
Christopher Hewett
Christopher Michael Hewett was an English actor and theatre director best known for his role as Lynn Belvedere on the ABC sitcom Mr. Belvedere.-Career:...
with choreography and musical staging by Ellen Ray, Bob Dishy
Bob Dishy
Bob Dishy is an American actor of stage, film and television. He is married to former actress Judy Graubart .He appeared on Broadway in:...
headed the cast. An original cast recording was released of this production, reissued in CD on September 11, 2007 by DRG.
Ian Marshall Fisher's Discovering Lost Musicals Charitable Trust presented a concert staging at Barbican Cinema 1 in May 1992, with Louise Gold
Louise Gold
Louise Gold is an English singer, actress and puppeteer whose career has spanned almost four decades.From 1977, Gold was a puppeteer and voice actress for The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, and she has performed voice and puppet work on various other Muppet films and specials...
as Hippolyta and Jon Glover
Jon Glover
Jon Glover is a British actor. He has appeared in various television programmes including Play School, Survivors, the Management consultant in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Casualty, Bodger and Badger and Peak Practice....
as Sapiens. Issy Van Randwyck
Issy Van Randwyck
Issy van Randwyck is an English singer and actress of Dutch descent. She is a former member of British comedy singing group and satirical cabaret act Fascinating Aida, she has since acted on stage and television.-Biography:...
was also among the cast.
42nd Street Moon, San Francisco, California, presented a staged concert from April 17 - May 12, 2002.
Musicals in Mufti at the York Theatre in New York City presented a staged concert from April 5 - April 7, 2002.
The musical proved to be not only Rodgers and Hart's longest-running Broadway hit, but their last full-length work. (They collaborated on a revision of their 1927 show A Connecticut Yankee in 1943, writing six new numbers.)
Song list
Act I- For Jupiter and Greece
- Jupiter Forbid
- Life With Father
- Nobody's Heart Belongs to Me
- The Gateway of the Temple of Minerva
- Life With Father (Reprise)
- Here's A Hand
- No, Mother, No
Act II
- The Boy I Left Behind Me
- Nobody's Heart Belongs to Me (Reprise)
- Ev'rything I've GotEv'rything I've Got"Ev'rything I've Got" is a show tune from the Rodgers and Hart musical By Jupiter , in which it was introduced by Ray Bolger and Benay Venuta.-Notable recordings:*Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook...
- Bottoms Up
- Careless Rhapsody
- Ev'rything I've Got (Reprise)
- Wait Till You See HerWait Till You See Her"Wait till You See Her" is a popular song.The music was written by Richard Rodgers, the lyrics by Lorenz Hart...
- Now That I've Got My Strength