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THE 1920s – WHAT AN ERA!

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The Drowsy Chaperone - Original Broadway Cast. Photo by Joan Marcus.

THE DROWSY CHAPERONE supposedly opened on September 18, 1928, at the beloved Morosco Theatre in New York City.  Here’s a look at the events of “The Roaring Twenties,” that surely influenced this and many other productions:

1920

  • The average life expectancy of an American is 54-years-old, a 5-year increase from 1901.
  • The first commercial radio broadcast airs.
  • The Harlem Renaissance begins.
  • Women are granted the right to vote.

1921

  • Albert Einstein comes to Columbia University to lecture about his theory of relativity.
  • The first Miss America Pageant is held in Atlantic City, NJ.

1922

  • King Tut’s tomb is found.
  • Louie Armstrong joins King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, marking the beginning of The Jazz Age.

1923

  • President Harding dies of food poisoning while touring the West; Vice-president Calvin Coolidge takes over as President.
  • The Charleston dance becomes popular, launching a partying mind-set that helped coin the phrase “the Roaring Twenties.”
  • Time magazine is founded.

1924

  • The first Olympic winter games are held in Chamonix, France.
  • J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the FBI.
  • Two-and-a-half million radios are in American households; only 500 existed in 1920.

1925

  • The New Yorker magazine is first published.
  • Flapper dresses are the rage.

1926

  • The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is launched.
  • A.A. Milne publishes Winnie-the-Pooh.
  • Houdini dies after taking a punch to the stomach.

1927

  • The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) is launched.
  • Charles Lindbergh becomes the first solo pilot to fly across the Atlantic.
  • The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, debuts as the first full-length “talkie.”
  • Babe Ruth sets the record for home-run hits.

1928

  • Herbert Hoover is elected president.
  • Mickey Mouse debuts in Plane Crazy, the very first Walt Disney animated cartoon.
  • Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.

 

1929

  • The first Academy Awards are held; Wings wins best picture.
  • New York’s Museum of Modern Art is founded.
  • The New York Stock Exchange crashes on October 29; the Great Depression has begun.

The 1920s were one, long, fabulous, roaring party of a decade after years of horror and war.  Solemnity and seriousness were out – fun and spectacle took over.  The American people wanted a new way of looking at the world, a new perspective.  And they got it, in their music, their clothes, their architecture, and especially in their theater.  So much of the decade reflected the optimism, hedonism, the frenetic energy, and the abandoned, carefree attitudes of the postwar-boom era.  This is the joyous passion that THE DROWSY CHAPERONE celebrates.