Duke Ellington Beggar's Holiday (Twilight Alley) 1946 Handbill Tryout RARE Flop

Description

Original handbill flyer for the Boston Tryout of Duke Ellington's only Broadway Musical. Which had its name changed to Beggar's Holiday
Opening Date
Dec 26, 1946
Closing Date
Mar 29, 1947
Approx. 6" x 9"
Play summary on the reverse.
Ships packed in a rigid plastic holder
Duke Ellington wrote for Broadway only once, for Begger's Holiday in 1946. It wasn’t called that during its three-week tryout at the Boston Opera House, though. That December, it was called
Twilight Alley
, a street described by
Boston Post
critic Elliot Norton as “a generally handsome thoroughfare.” But, he immediately added, “It leads nowhere, and it is uphill most of the way, in a dull neighborhood where the folks are rather tired and tiresome, and the jokes are dull.”
Ellington wrote the music, and John LaTouchewrote the book and lyrics to
Twilight Alley
,  “a parallel in tempo to John Gay’s
Beggar’s Opera
,” a classic satire from the 18th century. Ellington sent Billy Strayhorn to Boston as arranger.
Twilight Alley
boasted an impressive cast and crew. Director John Houseman was a leading light on stage, screen, and radio. Playgoers knew leading man Alfred Drake as Curly from the original Broadway production of
Oklahoma!
Libby Holman, the bane of social conservatives, was then touring with bluesman Josh White. Zero Mostel played the thoroughly corrupt Peachum, and fellow actor Thomas Gomez would be the first Hispanic nominated for an Oscar, in 1947.
They weren’t enough. Columnist George Clarke wrote that
Twilight Alley
“came in for a pretty general shellacking,” and one of the critics was Ellington himself. The Duke was in Boston on December 1 to play a concert at Symphony Hall with Django Reinhart. He remained in Boston, and wrote in
Music Is My Mistress
that he attended a matinee, and afterwards told the crew the show was too long, the orchestra too loud, and some elements in the staging wouldn’t even be found in a high-school play!
The producers altered the show. It was shortened, songs were changed, and director Houseman was replaced by Nicholas Ray, in what was his only stage production. Playwright and director George Abbott  was called in as a script doctor, and he promptly fired Libby Holman and replaced her with Bernice Parks. And between Boston and New York, the name was changed to
Beggar’s Holiday
.
Little of Ellington-LaTouche music is known today. Duke recorded “Brown Penny” and “Maybe I Should Change My Ways.” Lena Horne had success with “Tomorrow Mountain,” and various singers have recorded “Take Love Easy.” But “The Scrimmage of Life”? “Ore from a Gold Mine”? “Quarrel for Three”