Charles M Barras

The Black Crook Charles M Barras

Complete libretto to the 1866 musical extravaganza. A phenomenon of the 19th Century, "The Black Crook" was the Broadway blockbuster musical of its day. With its suggestive story of wickedness, its chorus of scantily clad chorus girls, and its breathtaking scenic efforts it was, as The New York Times claimed, "decidedly the event of this spectacular age." Considered the first "book musical" because it supposedly interrogated music and dialogue into a unified story, its creation has become the basis that America invited musical theatre. After it opened in September of 1866 at the 3,200-seat Niblo's Garden on Broadway, the musical ran for a record-breaking 475 performances, toured throughout the United States and England, was revived numerous times, and copied by other musicals for the next three decades.