AN ARTIST'S MODEL

'''An Artist's Model''' is a two-act musical by Owen Hall, with lyrics by Harry Greenbank and music by Sidney Jones, with additional songs by Joseph and Mary Watson, Paul Lincke, Frederick Ross and Henry Hamilton. It opened at Daly's Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes and directed by James T. Tanner, on 2 February 1895, transferring to the Lyric Theatre on 28 May 1895, and ran for a total of 392 performances. The piece starred Marie Tempest, Hayden Coffin, Letty Lind, Leonora Braham, Maurice Farkoa, Marie Studholme, and Louie Pounds.^[1] It also had a Broadway run in 1895-96.
The success of ''A Gaiety Girl'' in 1893, the first musical by the team of Hall, Greenbank and Jones (followed by another such success, ''The Shop Girl'' in 1894), had confirmed to Edwardes that he was on the right track. He immediately set the team to work on ''An Artist's Model''. Edwardes wanted his Daly's Theatre musicals to be slightly more sophisticated than his light and simple Gaiety Theatre musicals. Hall's new book kept the snappy dialogue of the previous work, but paired it with a romantic plot, tacked on at the last minute when Edwardes managed to engage the popular Marie Tempest, and a role was quickly written in for her. This lucky chance set up the formula for a series of successes for the Edwardes-Hall-Jones-Greenbank team at Daly's Theatre.^[2]
''An Artist's Model'' was succeeded by ''The Geisha'', which was to be the biggest international hit the British musical theatre had known, playing for 760 performances in its original London run and thousands of performances on the Continent (one source counts some 8,000 in Germany alone) and in America and then touring for decades in Britain. Still more hits followed.

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References

External links

References

1. Compton-Rickett, Arthur and Ernest Henry Short, ''Ring Up the Curtain: Being a Pageant of English Entertainment Covering Half a Century'' (1970; first published 1938) Ayer Publishing ISBN 0836952995
2. Kurt Gänzl, ''The Encyclopedia of The Musical Theatre'', Blackwell, Oxford (1994) vol. I, pp. 435-36

External links

★ Profile of Hall discussing ''An Artist's Model'' and other shows

★ Listing of Sidney Jones shows

★ Daly's Theatre site includes links to programme and other images