You’re very likely to read a Broadway-related press release or article filled with phrases like, “this show is the first…” and “this person is the only actor ever to…” However well-intentioned these claims may be, they are often incorrect and poorly researched. They have the potential to diminish the achievements of those who came before.
More and more of these erroneous “first ever” or “never before” claims are popping up across the industry.
Composer Lucy Simon
This past October, composer Lucy Simon passed away at the age of 82. Simon had a remarkable career. She released several solo albums, as well as albums collaborating with her sister, Carly Simon. She won two Grammy Awards for her work on the In Harmony Sesame Street albums. She received a Tony Award® nomination for composing the music for the 1991 Broadway musical The Secret Garden. She also served as composer for Doctor Zhivago, the stage adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s novel. Additionally, several of her obituaries offered another accomplishment: they claimed Simon was, in 1991, “only the third woman in history to compose for the Broadway stage” when The Secret Garden took its mainstem bow.
Women Composers Pre-1991: Some Quick Facts
Incredible to think that before 1991, only two women had ever composed the music for a Broadway musical! This begs the question – who were Simon’s two predecessors? It must be Mary Rodgers, who wrote the music for the Broadway musicals Once Upon a Mattress (1959) and Hot Spot (1963), and Micki Grant, who had triple duty (providing music, lyrics, and the book) for both Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope (1972) and It’s So Nice to Be Civilized (1980).
Or perhaps the two composers in question are Carol Hall, composer and lyricist of the long-running The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1978), and Elizabeth Swados, credited for the book, music, lyrics, direction, and choreography of 1978’s Runaways.
No, it must be Ann Ronell, composer and lyricist of Count Me In (1942), and Jill Williams for Rainbow Jones (1974) – another composer/lyricist/book writer all-in-one.
Or was it the composer of 1960’s Irma La Douce, Marguerite Monnot, and Barbara Damashek, who lent her talents to Quilters in 1984? Hmm.
The examples listed above quickly prove the wild inaccuracy of the “third woman in history to compose for the Broadway stage” statement. There were far more than two women who composed for Broadway before Simon – she wasn’t even the third woman nominated for a Best Original Score Tony Award. How did so many press outlets – like BroadwayWorld, Broadway.com, People, Concord Music, and even the Museum of Broadway’s Instagram – get this wrong? Most likely this egregious soundbite was written in one article, and then quickly replicated for other obituaries, a swift ripple effect, with, remarkably, no attempt to question the claim. Does no one fact-check anymore? Does everyone just assume information printed online is correct?
A Lack of Fact-Checking Leads to Diminishment of Others’ Work
The frequent replication of this ‘fact’ diminishes the achievements of so many other women. There were several women who, one hundred years ago (when the industry was far more male-dominated), wrote not only the score, but also the lyrics and book for Broadway musicals by themselves: Ida Hoyt Chamberlain for Enchanted Isle (1927) and Clare Kummer for Annie Dear (1924).
Equally of note, the 1922 romantic musical comedy Just Because featured an all-female writing team: composer Madelyn Sheppard, book writer Anna Wynne O’Ryan, and lyricist and book writer Helen Smith Woodruff, two of whom were making their first Broadway outing. This is not intended to discredit Simon’s achievement – her music for The Secret Garden is arguably one of the most lush, complex, and simply gorgeous scores of the last 50 years and beyond deserving of its Best Original Score Tony nomination – especially since she is not the one claiming to have been the third ever female Broadway composer.
Several other women should be celebrated for their work in a male-dominated field. We don’t want to discredit the accomplishments of composers like María Grever (Viva O’Brien, 1941), Helen Miller (Inner City, 1971), Addy O. Fieger (Dear Oscar, 1972), Toni Tennille, then billed as Toni Shearer, (Mother Earth, 1972), Nancy Ford (Shelter, 1973), Bertha Egnos (Ipi-Tombi, 1977), or Kay Swift (Fine and Dandy, 1930).
And not to mention the litany of women who collaborated with one or more individuals on other scores: Marie Horne with Howard Talbot for The Belle of Brittany (1909), Alma Sanders with Monte Carlo for Tangerine (1921), Marian Grudeff with Raymond Jessel for Baker Street (1965), Jeanne Napoli and Beth Lawrence with Doug Frank, Gary Portnoy, and Norman Thalheimer for Marilyn (1983), Patti Jacob with Bill Jacob for Jimmy (1969), or Nitra McAuliffe (billed then as Nitra Sharfman) with Gene Curty and Chuck Strand for The Lieutenant (1975). Lucy Simon is a more than worthy addition to Broadway’s cadre of female composers.
Broadway has been around a long time – not everything happening today is a record or a first.
Playwright Jordan E. Cooper
More and more of these erroneous “first ever” or “never before” claims are popping up across the industry. Playwright Jordan E. Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo’ opened on Broadway December 1, 2022.
The play, through a series of comedic vignettes, brilliantly explores the premise of the United States government providing every Black person, if they so desire, a one-way ticket to Africa. In previews, Cooper’s bio in the Playbill stated he is “at 27, the youngest playwright in Broadway history.” By opening night, his bio was slightly revised to state he is “at 27, the youngest American playwright in Broadway history.”
However, the show’s press agents did not use this verbiage; instead they touted that Cooper is “the youngest Black playwright in Broadway history” – a claim that was widely reported by press outlets. None of these claims are correct.
Besides the fact that it is nearly impossible to determine the youngest playwright on Broadway (you would have to have a confirmed date of birth for every single one of the thousands of playwrights who have ever had a show come to Broadway), many playwrights made their Broadway debuts when they were younger than 27 – American or otherwise.
Both Orson Welles and Shelagh Delaney were 21 when their first plays premiered on Broadway (Welles in 1936 for Horse Eats Hat, and Delaney in 1960 for A Taste of Honey). In 1916, Ben Hecht was only 22 when his play The Hero of Santa Maria opened. Rock Brynner’s solo play, Opium, opened in 1970 when he was still 23. Terence Rattigan (First Episode) and Irving Kaye Davis (The Right to Dream) were also 23; Tony-winning playwrights Terrence McNally and Christopher Hampton both made their Broadway playwriting debut at 24 with adaptations of The Lady of the Camellias (1963) and A Doll’s House (1971), respectively; Noël Coward and Moss Hart were each 25; Sam Shepard, Ira Levin, and Arthur Kopit were 26.
These are not just notable names – many of them are pillars of 20th century drama. How could they so easily be forgotten in claiming Cooper was the youngest playwright?
Perhaps Ain’t No Mo’s press team was aware; they noticeably did not replicate Cooper’s claim. However, they asserted he was the youngest Black playwright in Broadway history. Again, it is difficult to prove how every playwright identifies. Nevertheless, there were at least two Black playwrights who were either the same age as Cooper or younger when they arrived on Broadway. Obie Award-winning and Tony, Emmy, and Grammy nominated playwright Ntozake Shange’s seminal for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf opened on Broadway on September 15, 1976. Shange, like Cooper, was also 27.
How could Shange’s choreopoem, which explores and celebrates the experiences of Black women, be forgotten, especially when it was just revived on Broadway last spring?
Wallace Thurman’s Legacy
Even younger than Cooper and Shange was Wallace Thurman. Thurman was a prominent queer, Black fixture of the Harlem Renaissance, perhaps best remembered for his novel The Blacker the Berry, an exploration of colorism. He was 26 when his play Harlem (written with William Jourdan Rapp) opened on Broadway in 1929. Thurman died only a few years later, at age 32.
Like Cooper, Thurman offered Broadway audiences a real and sometimes uncomfortable glimpse into the Black experience. Harlem was a window into the quotidian life of Harlem’s residents in the 1920s. Due to segregated seating, Thurman was tragically not allowed to sit in the orchestra of the theatre to enjoy his own work – he was relegated to the balcony.
Why is Thurman not acknowledged as a precursor to Cooper’s work? Surely the efforts of both playwrights bringing Black stories to Broadway can be lauded. Did no one bother to check or even simply entertain the idea that another Black playwright was produced on Broadway at 26 or younger? Or was it assumed that it couldn’t possibly have happened, especially as far back as 1929, so no research was done? How unfair to Thurman that his contributions are diminished because no one bothered to fact-check.
Not Everything is a ‘First’
This speaks to a long-term memory issue in the theatre: if it hasn’t happened in the last few years, then it seemingly didn’t happen. Broadway has been around a long time – not everything happening today is a record or a first. Some claims are nearly impossible to prove one way or another. Playbill towed this line wonderfully in their recent article about Larissa FastHorse, stating the The Thanksgiving Play author is the first female Native American playwright on Broadway, but they offer the caveat, “that we know of.”
They have the humility to understand that it’s possible there was someone before her, if nearly impossible to prove. How refreshing! Surely, there must be a way of celebrating the successes of these artists and their accomplishments, while acknowledging those who came before?
Michael Abourizk spent eight years managing the content of the Internet Broadway Database as well as statistics for the Broadway industry as Senior Manager of Research at The Broadway League. He holds a degree in Dramatic Literature and Theatre History from New York University.