He transformed American musicals from being a show of independent artists appearing one after the other and turning them into a genre with integrity in itself.
American theater actor. It has made the American musical a genre with integrity in itself. He became interested in theater while he was a student at the University of Rochester. He transferred to Harvard in 1912 to be a student of Prof Baker, who had an important place in the formation of contemporary American theatre. When he showed his talents in a short time and received an award for a one-act play he wrote, he started working at Keith's Theater in 1913. He performed at the Fulton Theater in New York. He worked with director John Golden.
George Francis Abbott (June 25, 1887 – January 31, 1995) was an American theatre producer, director, playwright, screenwriter, film director and producer whose career spanned eight decades. He received numerous honors including six Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1982. the National Medal of Arts in 1990 and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
When The Fall Guy, which he wrote with James Gleason, was successfully staged in 1925, he quit acting and started writing, directing, and producing.
He successfully staged approximately thirty musicals until 1939. Although he worked in cinema for a while, this did not last long. He described his more than sixty years of theater life in his book titled Mister Abbott in 1963.
The musical Fiorello, which he wrote with Jerome Weidman in 1959, received the Pulitzer Prize.
Famous for his keen sense of the staging possibilities of the plays he tackled, George Abbott stood out as a hard-working and creative director. He transformed American musicals from being a show of independent artists appearing one after the other and turning them into a genre with integrity in itself.
WORKS (mainly):
The Fall Guy, (with Gleason) 1925;
Broadway, 1926;
Three Men on a Horse, (with J. C. Holm) 1935;
The Boys from Syracuse, 1938;
The Pajama Game, 1954;
New Girl in Town, 1957;
Fiorello! (with Weidman), 1959;
Mister Abbott (memoir), 1963.
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Mourning the Loss of Joy Abbott, 1931 - 2020
https://boyer.temple.edu/news/2020/02/mourning-loss-joy-abbott-1931-2020