Among the major musical theatrical events of early 1924 was the opening of André Charlot’s Revue of 1924 on Broadway. The London import focused on its performers and intimate character and included the US debuts of Gertrude Lawrence, Beatrice Lillie and Jack Buchanan. An Italian version of Madame Pompadour opened in Milan, as did the zarzuela La leyenda del beso (The Legend of the Kiss) in Milan. New musical comedies came to Broadway, and The Three Graces, an operetta adaptation, played in London. The major event, though, was the premiere of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

Musicals that opened in November tended to operate in pairs. Annie Dear, a musical comedy starring Billie Burke and produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, opened days before a revival of the play Peter Pan, starring Marilyn Miller and produced by Charles B. Dillingham. Burke was known for her dramatic roles and Miller for her dancing and singing ones, so this was a reversal of norms. Two adaptations of continental European works opened on Anglophone stages: The First Kiss, a transformation of a Spanish zarzuela, in London, and a new version of Madame Pompadour in New York.

Transnational networks were significant in the production of musical theatre in 1923 and 1924. Musicals created in one country transferred to another (Stop Flirting, Little Nellie Kelly), composers were writing works specifically for different countries (Jerome Kern: The Beauty Prize for the United Kingdom, Stepping Stones for the USA), and some musicals told a story about a different country (Wildflower, Il paese dei campanelli (The Land of the Bells)). New stars such as Adele and Fred Astaire appeared on marquees, as did established ones such as Fred Stone. Works originating in one place, such as Maurice Yvain’s Ta bouche, from Paris, came to the USA as One Kiss in an adaptation by Clare Kummer. This vibrant co-existence of the old and the new, the established and the emerging, was a key part of musical theatre in 1924.

After a contextual overview of events in 1924, the legacy of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake’s Shuffle Along (starring Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles) on other Black musicals, including Runnin’ Wild, featuring Adelaide Hall and Elisabeth Welch, and Dinah, in which Gertrude Saunders introduced the Black Bottom dance, is discussed. Next is an introduction to the revue genre, with examples including Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1923, the Shubert’s Artists and Models and Charlot’s London Calling!, all of which played into 1924.

A sense of hope permeated the revues and musical comedies that appeared from March through May, though an underlying seriousness was emerging in both how the popular musical theatre was being viewed on the whole and how such works were being constructed. Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and Herbert Fields had two amateur musicals for schools appear (Temple Belles and The Prisoner of Zenda); the popular Spanish zarzuela Doña Francisquita began touring South America; the team of Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse and Jerome Kern reunited to create Sitting Pretty; and stars such as José Collins, Leslie Henson and Jack Buchanan starred in new productions.

On the first two days of September, two musicals opened that offered descriptions of different peoples of colour for white Broadway audiences: Sissle and Blake’s The Chocolate Dandies (African Americans); and Friml, Stothart, Harbach and Hammerstein’s Rose-Marie (Indigenous peoples of Canada). Problematic stereotypes were performed in both instances, though The Chocolate Dandies featured Josephine Baker and Elisabeth Welch in its cast. Musicals opening later in the month included a new edition of The Passing Show and George Gershwin’s musical written expressly for London, Primrose, with a book by Guy Bolton supervised by George Grossmith, Jr.

Three musicals opened on 1 December, two of which are especially important in the history of the American musical theatre: Lady, Be Good! with songs by George and Ira Gershwin, including ‘Fascinating Rhythm’, and starring Adele and Fred Astaire; and Irving Berlin’s Music Box Revue, the final instalment in the series that featured Fanny Brice, Grace Moore and Oscar Shaw. Also opening on that date was Princess April, a typical rags-to-riches tale about a young Irish immigrant. That type of plot had become so well worn that the show could not keep up with its competition. Lady, Be Good!, in addition to its brilliant score that included ‘Fascinating Rhythm’, ‘Oh, Lady Be Good’, and ‘Little Jazz Bird’, featured the duo pianists Victor Arden and Phil Ohmen and solidified the producing partnership of Alvin A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley. Music Box Revue had a framing story about Rip Van Winkle and included several overtly racist scenes as well as some stunningly beautiful ones, such as ‘All Alone’ performed by Moore and Shaw.

On 25 and 26 December 1923, three musicals opened – The Rise of Rosie-Reilly, Mary Jane McKane, and Almond Eye – each of which reflected takes on current theatrical trends, whether a rags-to-riches scenario or Orientalism, followed on New Year’s Eve by The Song and Dance Man, a play about a musician, and Kid Boots, a musical comedy created for Eddie Cantor and, as a Ziegfeld production, included a revue built in to the plot. Kid Boots marked a change in professional reputation for Cantor as he moved from being known primarily as a blackface, often crass, comedian to a physical comedian whose humour was always clean.

On 2 December, Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Donnelly’s The Student Prince in Heidelberg (or The Student Prince), a romance-filled operetta that does not have a happy ending, opened on Broadway, later becoming the longest-running musical of any sort to open on Broadway in the 1920s. Set in nineteenth-century Heidelberg, its tale of a prince who must leave behind his young love, a waitress at the inn he frequents, is set to an expansive musical score that features waltzes, marches, a buoyant drinking song and more. Other musicals that followed later in the month included Betty Lee, set in Southern California with a plot concerning a footrace in which a phonograph is the prize. Revues also appeared as the year drew to a close, further emphasizing the ubiquity of the genre.

Future highlights of the careers of many who appeared on stage in 1924, including Evelyn Laye, Florence Mills and Adele and Fred Astaire, are summarized, as are the legacies of musicals such as Kid Boots, Il paese dei campenelli, Madame Pompadour, Gräfin Mariza, Rose-Marie and The Student Prince on stage and screen.