At the Drop of a Hat is a musical revue by Flanders and Swann, described by them as "An After-Dinner Farrago". In the show, they both sang on a nearly bare stage, accompanied by Swann on the piano. The songs were linked by contemporary social commentary, mostly by Flanders.
The show opened at the New Lindsey Theatre, a fringe theatre outside the London West End theatre district, on December 31, 1956. It was successful and transferred to the Fortune Theatre in the West End on January 24, 1957, where it ran for 808 performances. On October 8, 1959 the show opened in New York City at the Golden Theater, running there for 215 performances.
Although they had performed together in the summer of 1940 in a revue they both directed and staged, this was Flanders and Swann's first show performing in the format for which they would become successful, and from 1959 to 1967 they toured with it off and on, performing it a total of 1,700 times over 11 years around the world. The two continued to perform together for three decades.
Read more about At The Drop Of A Hat: Description, Songs, Unreleased Songs
Famous quotes containing the words drop and/or hat:
“Condemned to Hope’s delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“In families children tend to take on stock roles, as if there were hats hung up in some secret place, visible only to the children. Each succeeding child selects a hat and takes on that role: the good child, the black sheep, the clown, and so forth.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)