[PW] Herbert Kingsley: dates and compositions/activities

[Winters, Murl]

For the archives:

There was a question asking for the life dates of Herbert Kingsley.
After checking several sources, plus help from the Project-Wombat
members, the following was found:

 

Kingsley, Herbert, 1882-1961 [Dates located on printed program: George
Mason University, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Department of
Music: Senior Voice Recital, Saturday, November 19, 2005, 7 p.m.,
Fairfax United Methodist Church, given by Ms. Yelin Kim, Soprano.] [no
source for dates provided]

 

Works:

 

GREEN DOG (composer)c.1939/1950 (art song)

 

ETERNAL PRODIGAL (ballet) (WPA Federal Dance Theatre) Choreography by
Gluck-Sandor; Music by Herbert Kingsley.

[He is found in the Federal Theatre Project Collection: A Register of
the Library of Congress Collection of U.S. Works Progress Administration
Records ... 2005 at
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/music/eadxmlmusic/eadpdfmusic/mu995001_x.p
df  . In Container 1257 there are 3 folders containing: Eternal Prodigal
- Herbert Kingsley, NY, NY (which apparently was where the work was
produced on stage).  Among the Production Records, 1934-43, in Container
1364 there is a note the material is Oversize. (It is within a section
carrying the subtitle: WPA Catalog of Transcriptions.)]

 

LIL OLE LETTER (composer); Langston Hughes (lyricist)

See also:

YALE UNIVERSITY
BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
YALE COLLECTION OF AMERICAN LITERATURE

LANGSTON HUGHES PAPERS (Series I-IV) 

JWJ MSS 26

by Timothy G. Young

New Haven, Connecticut

May 2002

 

 

2756

 

Sorel, Felicia 

1938-56, n.d.

 

 

 

Includes letter from Herbert Kingsley. 

 

 

 

 

NUTCRACKER JIVE (1943) composer with John Latouche

 

Listed in:

New York Public Library Digital Library Collections: Deakin (Irving)
Papers, ca. 1934-ca. 1955: Ballet and Music; Radio Program (Typescripts)

Box 3 
Program no. 70 
"Sing-Sing Prison Blues", "Rainy Weather Blues", "Careless Love Blues"
authentic blues. "Young Gal Blues", "Hard Luck Blues", "Hard Daddy
Blues" Herbert Kingsley. 

Box 3 
Program no. 66 
"Terminal" Herbert Kinsley. (Missing)

 

Kingsley also composed a ballet called LADIES' BETTER DRESSES, which was
premiered by the Philadelphia Opera Ballet in Chicago in 1938, and a
one-act ballet called TERMINAL, premiered by the same company in Paris
in 1937.  This from George Amberg, ART IN MODERN BALLET (1946).

 

And from Samuel Leiter, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE

1940-1950: <MUM'S THE WORD [Miscellaneous/Solo] CN/P: Jimmy Savo; D: Al
Webster; T: Belmont Theatre (OB); 12/5/40 (12) 

A largely unsuccessful effort at a (practically) one-man show conceived
by and starring veteran comic pantomimist Jimmy Savo. The diminutive,
derby-hatted, sadeyed Savo's talent was deemed by many more suitable for
a vaudeville act or for inclusion in a musical comedy than for a full
two hours with no assistance other than the between-the-scenes "verbal
annotations" of Hiram Sherman and the piano accompaniment of Herbert
Kingsley.>

 

As well as music for S(amuel)N(athaniel) Behrman's THE PIRATE (1943),
which was apparently played backstage and was almost completely
inaudible to the audience.