Radio City Music Hall

The Rockettes of 1967 worked 52 weeks a year where the current Rockettes only work 8-9 weeks per year. Im concerned that by recent events Cablevision would be very reluctant to bring back any in house stage shows during other times of the year. I hope both sides are flexible and compromise and are fair. I often wonder why London is so much cheaper to open a show compared to New York City.brucec

Also I am not forgiving of management for basically throwing them out of the building on Sunday, I guess no one remembers it was the rockettes who spearheaded the drive to save the theatre when the wrecking ball was about to strike.

During ‘67 when the Rockettes went on strike the musicians played. Maybe somebody out there with a knowledge of entertainers union history in New York can shed light on solidarity amoung the unions.

Cablevision wants to cut the musicians' pay for Christmas Spectacular. For 75 years, the musicians of Radio City Music Hall have been an irreplaceable part of the Christmas Spectacular tradition. Now, if Cablevision doesn’t get their way, they’ve threatened to shut down the entire show or rip off the public by putting on the show with taped music or amateur players, the Rockettes were escourted by security out of the theatre on Sunday,
I guess they plan on using some high kicking high school girls to take their place. They are even trying to put together a scab (non union)orchestra of musicians affected by the recent hurricane disasters.
Now I am sure many of you will disagree with me here but I must speak my mind. If cablevision continues with this plan of action I would hope the muscians union will picket the theatre and all other unions will respect the musicians and not enter the theatre. Let’s see them try and put on the show without stage hands, projectionists and electricaians. As far as I am concerned, Cablevision can shut the place down, board it up or turn it in to a parking lot for all I care but they cannot be allowed to treat the dedicated people who have made the theatre what it is today in such a disgraceful manner.

Please forgive any typo’s or grammer errors, I am mad as hell.

I always thought that the run at the Royale wasn’t all that long and Gigi had to leave due to the booking of a legit show. It however would have been beautiful at the Hall and considering that the Royale is fairly small and the booking exclusive(I don’t believe it played on Long Island or in North Jersey) the crowds would have been tremendous. Millie though was playing in Monclair(any Long island booking?) concurrently with the Criterion run so that would have been a problem.
Sweet Charity, Goodby Mr. Chips and Song of Norway only played a few months on Broadway(probably to not many patrons) so they too would have been good at the Hall.

Yes, Vincent: I wonder whether it would have been feasible for RCMH to pick up the ‘60s musicals and other spectacles after their roadshow runs? Here’s a Program from October ’57:

View link

View link

Some film historians claim that “Les Girls” was the last great Hollywood (read: MGM) musical to be made. After it, Gene Kelly retired from starring in song-and-dance films, just as Fred Astaire did a few months earlier upon finishing “Silk Stockings.” Future musicals might be bigger and splashier, but from one to another there would be no continuity in talent and craft such as the old studio system had nourished. And most of them would open as hard-ticket roadshows, which removed immediacy and spontaneity from seeing them and prevented RCMH from booking them. Little did we know this would happen when we saw “Les Girls” in October ’57. I don’t believe that at the time I was aware of either Kelly’s or Astaire’s retirement. Their swan songs, both deploying music and lyrics by Cole Porter, were just two in a stream of hit musicals that poured forth from several studios that year. So what if “Les Girls” seemed a little flat in its score and a bit depressive in its plot (a musical about a cad and attempted suicide?). We were sure that there would be new musicals to see in the coming months and new chances for Kelly and others to prove their stuff. Only later did we realize that it wouldn’t happen.

The stage show was exceptional for its emphasis on dance, and particularly colorful for a Russell Markert production, which tended to be more reserved and high-brow than Leonidorf’s spectaculars. The Ballet danced twice, and the highlight of the program came with the dazzlingly athletic star turn of Geoffrey Holder and Carmen de Lavallade in a Caribbean setting. They might have stolen the show from the Rockettes who followed, though that’s hard to imagine. The steam curtain and feathers topped it all off. Eye-popping.

Did Lost Horizon play at the Hall? I always thought it opened in Times Square as a hardticket(perhaps the Globe?)Was it a move over to the Hall? In a 1938 Music Hall souvenir book it is shown as one of the films to have played there.
If so I didn’t realize it was playing second run films that late.

Warrenâ€"

Here are two links to the Purdue.edu website with information about the Elliott Hall of Music. The first opens with a sharp color picture of the Hall (yes, its floor plan resembles that of RCMH) and includes a virtual tour of the facility (if you download to software to make it happenâ€"I didn’t):

http://1061web22.itap.purdue.edu/HTML/HallOfMusic/

The second includes an excerpt from the Hall’s original mission statement (“this new Hall of Music, then, will serve Purdue University’s first purpose-the building of its students into adequate and cultured citizens of the world”) and from its current function (directed by the superb film historian Ben Lawton, it serves as a program venue for the university’s departments of Theatre, Dance, University Bands, Liberal Arts, and Computer Graphics Technology as well as for students in the entertainment technology and production support industry).

View link

Oddly, however, I was unable to connect with a schedule of “current productions” when I clicked the button for that topic. Until now, I had never heard of this auditorium and its connection with RCMH. Thanks for the post.

March of 1955 MGM’s Cinemascope “Hit the Deck"
View link

1954 “Rhapsody” starring Elizabeth Taylor and the next feature “Rose Marie”.
View link

Thanks Denpiano, That is disturbing news, musicians are artists who deserve proper compensation for their contribution to the music halls success, I wish them well. I am also very disturbed by the lack of respect Cablevision showed towards the Rockettes by having security people escort them out of the theatre on Friday. A bit much wouldn’t you say? Of course there is always two sides to every story, but I would like to know what prompted Cablevision to take such dramatic and drastic measures.

Do we know why the musicians are unhappy?