Productions
- In England, Noël Coward directed the West End version of the play in 1934, with a cast that included Laurence Olivier as Tony.
- Before moving to Broadway, the play had successful out-of-town try-outs in Newark and Atlantic City.
- The Royal Family opened one day after the revolutionary musical Show Boat, based on Ferber's novel of the same title.
- Edna Ferber herself acted in The Royal Family at the Maplewood Theater in 1940, in a production staged by Cheryl Crawford
- A revival of the comedy was one of the highlights of the 1975-76 season on Broadway. Directed by Ellis Rabb, it starred Rosemary Harris as Julie Cavendish, George Grizzard as Tony, and Eva Le Gallienne as the theatrical matriarch, Fanny. It won Rabb the 1976 Tony Award for best director. The production was later telecast on PBS, with Rabb replacing Grizzard as Tony, and this version is now on DVD.
- The play was revived as part of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre's 2001-02 season with Amy Morton and Rondi Reed in the cast.
- Another revival ran from September to December 2009 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. It starred Rosemary Harris as Fanny, Jan Maxwell as Julie Cavendish, and Ana Gasteyer as Kitty Dean.
Read more about this topic: The Royal Family (play)
Famous quotes containing the word productions:
“Most new things are not good, and die an early death; but those which push themselves forward and by slow degrees force themselves on the attention of mankind are the unconscious productions of human wisdom, and must have honest consideration, and must not be made the subject of unreasoning prejudice.”
—Thomas Brackett Reed (1839–1902)
“It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)