An Artist's Model

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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 and directed by [[James T. Tanner]. It opened at Daly's Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes on 2 February 1895 and ran for a total of 392 performances. The piece starred Marie Tempest, Hayden Coffin, Letty Lind and Louie Pounds. 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 (and 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.

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.

[edit] External links

• Profile of Hall discussing An Artist's Model and other shows
• Listing of Sidney Jones shows
• Cast list