One of the curious features of the show was that the cover artwork was reworked by Bonel, the same artists who did the Broadway souvenir program. The boobs were left intact (in fact, perhaps even more fleshy) but the detail was removed. Not sure why they did this.
These programs are very rare (as are any from the period due to age and the massive paper drives of the 1940s which apparently recycled 75% of ALL paper in America.). I paid almost two hundred dollars on eBay for the Broadway program, one week after an ABSOLUTELY mint, unopened copy was sold by a guy I know for almost five hundred. He was stunned when the bidding went that high.
I was stunned to get mine for less than half that price.
Here is the original artwork for Hirschfeld's illustration of the OBC. That's Ray Bolger in the fg, over Tamara Geva. It's hard to see from the scan but there is a thin blue ink wash over the artwork which was translated by the Times printers into a ben-day pattern of gray dots to represent the spotlight.
Wow! These are beautiful. I've always learned of On Your Toes being an important landmark in the history of musical theatre, with Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.
These pictures are so beautiful, and I absolutely adore the artwork of the souvenir program.
Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done.
-John Patrick Shanley
And this is Tamara Geva, the first woman to play Vera Barnova. This shot was taken while she was starring in Balieff's "Chauvre-Souris" which was basically a phony "Russian" production, "Straight from The Volga" which featured the talents of expatriot Russian stars.
In reality, many of the "stars" were obscure actors who gave themselves Russian names to sound authentic.
One was Eva Brigitta Hartwig from Germany. She changed her name to Vera Zorina.
Here's a wonderful and rare candid shot taken by one of the cast from the wings, stage right, during a run-through. Bolger as Junior Dolan is in the center, dressed in blackface (the joke is, he was pulled in to sub for an ailing dancer and nobody told him he's be dancing in just shorts, so his black makeup ends at his neck).
Over Bolger's left shoulder, watching from the opposite wing, is young George Balanchine.
Oh, and as you can see, the striped tights worn by the women in a previous photo are now worn by the men kneeling in the right.
Thanks so much for these photos! I adore Ray Bolger, and it's terrific to see these pictures from such an early point in his career.
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
I heard a great story about Tamara Geva. Apparently she decided not to do the tour following Broadway. Another actress was hired and rehearsed. Tamara showed up on opening night, backstage, in full costume and had to be physically restrained from going on.
An older Jack Whiting was in Jule Styne's unsuccessful 1953 musical HAZEL FLAGG which played the Mark Hellinger. It had a disappointing score, but Whiting's song "Every Street's A Boulevard in Old New York" was a hit, and deservedly so.
looking at these pictures makes me think of another famous Ray Bolger show: By Jupiter. do you happen to have anything from that show to share?
these pictures are AMAZING! i am a bit obsessed with this period on Broadway and love reading about it. Ethan Mordden talks quite a bit about it in his book about 30s musicals. i just got done reading his book on the 40s musicals and he spoke so eloquently about By Jupiter and it made me wanna learn more
I'm going to go off and do the writing I get paid for (hey, it pays for the scanners) and then I'll bring this to a great finale with all the British stuff and the other souvenir pages.