Its distinctive façade was painted blue and white in the Wedgwood style, and with its minarets its frontage presented a brash contrast with the adjacent architecture such as the Old Magnus Buildings which were much more traditional in style. Inside the theatre auditorium had a seating capacity of 1000. In the early days during the twenties and thirties the theatre flourished, but by the fifties, like most provincial theatres, it fell on hard times. The façade deteriorated and its once proud front entrance was covered in peeling paint.

Not even visits during the sixties by such popular rock ‘n rollers as Marty Wilde and a young Cliff Richard could halt its decline. By the mid sixties it was just another bingo hall with very few live performances taking place. ‘Star Social Club’ (bingo) was the poster permanently displayed on its once proud exterior.

In the seventies local people rallied round and the building was bought for the community. It was refurbished and reopened as Newark and Notts. Arts and Leisure Centre. A new bar was created at the back of the stalls, much welcomed, but at a price – the seating capacity was reduced to 701. This refurbishment led to a surge of local groups making the Palace very much their home.

In 1988 the theatre was again refurbished and modernised to give much easier access and a better view from all seats in the house. The Theatre reopened on 17th October 1988 with the Newark Amateur Operatic Society production of Annie.

As a Society we are extremely grateful for all the Palace offers and are very conscious of how lucky we are in the Newark area to have such a facility.

As a result, the richest nation on earth learned what it was like to be poor – poverty became a way of life, especially in the entertainment business. Acting had always been a precarious calling, but by 1933 it had reached an all time low.

In 1927 there were 165 theatrical companies in the United States, but in 1933 only 33 remained. Broadway ticket prices which had risen to a high of $6.60 had dropped to a low of $1.10 a seat. In Hollywood the major studios had virtually abandoned musical films, but Darryl Zanuck had a feeling that the Depression audiences were thirsty for great escapist entertainment. He had a hunch that a backstage musical that was brash, bright and punchy would appeal to the public. The result was 42nd Street, scripted by Rian James and James Seymour with songs by Al Dubin and Harry Warren.

The film starred Warren Baxter, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, and Bebe Daniels. For Ruby Keeler, the result was the Hollywood dream – overnight stardom. The real star of 42nd Street though was the choreographer, Busby Berkeley.It sealed his reputation as the foremost dance director in Hollywood, and led to his famous Gold Diggers series of 1933, 1935, and 1937.

The show has been revived several times. In 1980 the Broadway production won the Tony Award for Best Musical. In 1984 it was produced in London, and won The Olivier Award for Best Musical, and in 2001 The Tony for Best Revival. With songs such as ‘You’re Getting To Be A Habit With Me’, ‘The Shadow Waltz’, ‘We’re In The Money’, and ‘Lullaby Of Broadway’ the composers Dubin and Warren became part of the folk lore of popular American music.

The four-day trip show–casing the society’s talents in the concert Night of the Musicals made all the hard work and effort, put in by those involved, worthwhile. The standing ovation given to us by our German hosts on the final night will be long remembered by those of us lucky enough to take part. Our annual production of Anything Goes also proved to be a great success. I am sure that anybody who came to see the production would agree that the six months of rehearsals undertaken by the cast were certainly worth it.

Members old and new put together an unforgettable show, which is currently in the society’s record books as being our most expensive to date, I’m sure our next annual production will challenge this!

Shortly after the curtain came down on Anything Goes, it was announced that an autumn show would be produced and rehearsals for ShowStoppers! began in June. Buoyed by the success of last years trip to Germany, many of the same people return to the stage for tonight’s performance, along with some familiar and some new faces.
It is comforting to be on home soil for our production of ShowStoppers!, in what we consider to be our spiritual home, the wonderful Palace Theatre. A tremendous amount of hard work has been put in by the creative team, cast and technical crew to provide what will be an extremely entertaining evening.

“The Society is not immune to the current financial crisis that is affecting us all”

Unsurprisingly, the society is not immune to the current financial crisis that is affecting us all, in one way or another. We anticipate our costs to significantly increase for the 2009 production of 42nd Street. Although our dedicated board of trustees works exceptionally hard to ensure that the long term future and stability of the society is assured, certain factors such as drastically increased costs and overheads will no doubt present extreme challenges for us in the not too distant future.

Written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern, the production was the first major shift from the preceding lighter musical comedies of the time to the musical play, which saw a more wholesome integration of song, humour and dance into a single artistic entity with a much more consistent and credible storyline. It proved to be immensely successful, with both critics and audiences alike.

Unsurprisingly, other examples of this newly established genre emerged, such as Of Thee I Sing!, Cat and the Fiddle and Pal Joey, but none were as epic as the first of the Rodgers and Hammerstein masterpieces Oklahoma!

Oklahoma! firmly established the musical play as a significant art form. It was also notable for defying musical conventions, for example raising its first act curtain with a woman churning butter as opposed to a stage full of dancing chorus girls. It’s initial run lasted 2, 212 performances and was later made into a hit film. It remains one of most frequently produced of the duo’s projects. After Oklahoma! Rodgers and Hammerstein became the most significant contributors to the musical play, with such masterworks as The King and I, South Pacific, Carousel and The Sound of Music. The examples they set in creating works often rich with thought provoking storylines gave encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own, Lerner and Loewe, Frank Loesser, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim can all count Rodgers and Hammerstein as a significant influence in their respective works.

The 1950s saw a continuation of fine musical plays, My Fair Lady, an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, which at 2, 717 performances held the longest run record for many years. The Boy Friend ran for 2, 078 performances in London, becoming the third-longest running musical in West–End or Broadway history. The decade ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s last hit, The Sound of Music. It ran for 1, 443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version, it has become one of the most popular musicals in history.

It must be said, that whilst the musical play continued in its ascendance, the musical comedy did not fall by the wayside. More devoted to escapism and entertainment, musical comedy grew increasingly sophisticated, subtle, and imaginative. Perhaps one of the most notable examples is Guys & Dolls, based on several short stories by Damon Runyon, the show still proves immensely popular with theatre audiences of today.

More recent eras have seen diverse forms of musical theatre flourish: Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy are all good examples of 70’s rock music being a dominant theme in the orchestration. The 80’s and 90’s saw the emergence of pop influenced scores involving larger casts and with the advances in stage and set design, the production of musicals has become more complex, involving intricate scene changes and special effects.

Today, familiarity has been embraced by producers, perhaps influenced by the anxious need to ensure that they recoup the considerable investments required to stage a production. A producer will occasionally rise to the challenge of taking on the new and unusual, such as Avenue Q, which utilises puppets to tell an adult themed story. It is becoming increasingly common to see revivals of more traditional shows like Fiddler on the Roof and Guys & Dolls.

Writers also seem more inclined to base their work around previously established works. Films such as Billy Elliot, The Producers and Hairspray have all made the transition to the stage musical, whilst productions such as The Scarlet Pimpernel, Dracula and Wicked have been adapted from popular literary works.

As the show was in preparation, a passenger ship, the SS Morro Castle, burned and over 125 passengers perished. The original plot, which concerned a mad bomber running loose on an ocean liner, was deemed insensitive, and the Bolton-Wodehouse book was almost entirely recreated by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who became lifelong writing partners.

According to theatre legend, the show’s new title, along with the title number, was born from the haste with which the show was revamped: at a late night production meeting, an exasperated and over-worked member of the production team cried out “And just how in the hell are we going to end the first act?!” “At this point,” responded one of the producers, being more helpful than he realized, “anything goes!!”

The musical opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on November 21, 1934 and became the fourth longest-running musical of the 1930s, running for 420 performances. The production was revived in an Off-Broadway production in 1962, opening on May 15, 1962 at the Orpheum Theatre.

For the 1987 Broadway revival, John Weidman and Timothy Crouse (Russel’s son) updated the book and re-ordered the musical numbers, borrowing Cole Porter pieces from other Porter shows. It won the 1988 Tony Award for Best Revival and Best Choreography.
This version was also produced in London in 1989, at the Prince Edward Theatre with Elaine Paige in the role of Reno Sweeney.

The National Theatre revived the musical, which opened at the Olivier Theatre on December 18, 2002 and then transferred (2003) to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in the West End. Directed by Trevor Nunn, it starred Sally Ann Triplett and John Barrowman.Written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern, the production was the first major shift from the preceding lighter musical comedies of the time to the musical play, which saw a more wholesome integration of song, humour and dance into a single artistic entity with a much more consistent and credible storyline. It proved to be immensely successful, with both critics and audiences alike.