Bloomer Girl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bloomer Girl was a Broadway musical that premiered on October 4, 1944. Sid Herzig and Fred Saidy wrote the book, Harold Arlen the music, and E.Y. Harburg the lyrics. Agnes de Mille was the choreographer. The leads included Celeste Holm and Joan McCracken.

The plot concerned the daughter of a manufacturer of hoop skirts who was, herself, a convert to the cause of Amelia Bloomer, and her conflicts with her father on the eve of the American Civil War. The heroine was herself an abolitionist while her suitor was a slaveowner---one test she set him was to manumit his personal slave, Pompey.

While successful (it ran for 657 performances on Broadway), it has seldom been revived. One possible reason for this is the fact that the costumes, particularly for females, are quite complicated and difficult to deal with in the rather confined areas backstage of a typical theater. City Center Encores! staged a concert version in 2001.

The musical became available on CD in the early 1990s. Before that, it had almost been forgotten---it had been available on LP in the 1950s, but had long been out of print. An abridged version of the musical--eliminating most of Agnes De Mille's choreography, except for the famous Civil War ballet at the end--aired on Producers' Showcase in 1956; it starred Barbara Cook and featured many of the original dancers, including James Mitchell, Lidija Franklin, Betty Low, and Emy St. Just.

Bloomer Girl caused a temporary rift between de Mille and Jerome Robbins when, about a year into the show's run, Robbins summarily appropriated several dancers then in the chorus, including Mitchell and Arthur Partington, for Billion Dollar Baby (1945).