Finian's rainbow1947

The play opened at the 46th Street Theatre in New York on Jan. 10, 1947, and ran for a total of 725 performances. Produced by Lee Sabinson and William R. Katzell, directed by Bretaigne Windust. Opening night cast included Albert Sharpe, David Wayne, Ella Logan, Robert Pitkin, Donald Richards, Anita Alvarez, Eddie Bruce, Royal Dano, Jane Earle, William Greaves, Roland Skinner, Augustus Smith, Jr, Arthur Tell, Sonny Terry and Diane Woods. The production won Tony awards for Best Conductor and Musical Director (Milton Rosenstock), Best Featured Actor in a musical (David Wayne) and Best Choreography (Michael Kidd). Yip Harburg was one of the pre-eminent theater-song lyricists and librettists of the Broadway stage during its first golden age, the first half of the 20th century. He was also one of a handful of artists who developed the form of the classic Broadway musical during the 1930s and into the 1940s. His best known project is MGM's 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz, for which Harburg not only wrote all the lyrics and edited the final script, but also infused the entire picture with his characteristic brand of humor and wordplay and his aptitude for fantasy mixed with reality. In his later work for the stage, Harburg combined his sense of humor and his lyrical genius with a political radicalism otherwise largely absent from Broadway musicals. Harburg openly criticized capitalism, racism and sexism in what was generally an apolitical mainstream, popular medium, and he got away with it. Finian's Rainbow was the first Broadway show to feature a racially integrated chorus. Despite their success with this show, Harburg and Burton Lane were temperamentally unsuited for each other, and never worked together again.