User:Peter Mintun/Crazy With the Heat

Originally staged in Locust Valley, New York, Crazy With The Heat was produced by Kurt Kasznar and starred comedienne and impersonator Sheila Barrett. The show opened for two weeks at the Red Barn Theatre, Locust Valley, Long Island on July 29, 1940. Most of the songs were by Rudi Revil, but Dana Suesse contributed Afternoon Of A Black Faun as a ballet vehicle for Albia Kavan (The Girl), Tony Albert (The Husband) and Willard Gary (The Boy). Other Suesse songs (unpublished) filled out the program: "Three Smart Girls," "How Far Is It To Broadway," "I Put It Right Back Where I Found It," I Don't Need The Moonlight," and "I Guess I'll Have To Count Some Sheep." Accompanied by the two pianos of Jacques Dallin and Carl Kent, the ten-member revue also featured tap routines by Henry LeTang and dialogue by Gus Schirmer, Jr. For a Boston opening, an entirely new version of Kasznar's revue was cast with Broadway veterans Willie Howard (of the team Willie and Eugene Howard) and Luella Gear with support from Richard Kollmar (late of Too Many Girls and Knickerbocker Holiday), Gracie Barrie and soprano Hollace Shaw.  Most of the songs were by Irwin Graham, but Dana Suesse contributed "Spindrift," an instrumental written for Casper Reardon, solo harp and orchestra.  The show opened at the Shubert Theatre, Boston on December 25, 1940. Instead of two pianos, they now had an orchestra, conducted by Harold Levey. The production was reputed to have cost $125,000. Some of the Boston critics were very favorably taken with the staging and the comic talents of Willie Howard and Luella Gear. Critic Peggy Doyle called it "...as exciting as a 25-carat diamond ring in the toe of your Christmas stocking." Stage designer Albert Johnson, alumnus of Billy Rose's shows, almost upstaged the whole show, according to newspaper article by Elliot Norton, who said, "The real star of the show is Albert Johnson, who has designed stage pictures of Babylonian splendor, with gold curtains, stages that revolve, rotate and move about like magic boxes, and pretty maids all in a row." Another Boston critic, Helen Eager, said there was a "wealth of talent, opulently displayed against striking settings." Dana Suesse contributed an idea, the music and the orchestration for a ballet. Of the Suesse composition, writer Elinor Hughes wrote, "For sheer novelty, I give you 'Spindrift,' the curious and interesting ballet number danced by Luba [sic] Rostova of the Ballet Russe to the accompaniment of Casper Reardon, the swing harpist - who also did an excellent solo later in the show." (Lubov Rostova won praise in 1933 in George Balanchine's Ballets 1933. Born Lucienne Kylberg in Algiers, she danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1938 until 1943. Except for a brief period when she appeared in The Lady Comes Cross, a musical comedy by Vernon Duke with choreography by Balanchine. She died at age 80 on January 13, 1997.)