A Dangerous Maid is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 with a book by Charles W. Bell

Charles W. Bell

Charles Webster Bell was a U.S. Representative from California.Born in Albany, New York, Bell attended public schools. He moved to California in 1877 and settled in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, where he engaged in fruit growing and the real estate business. Moreover, he also served as a county...

, music by George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

 and lyrics by Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....

. The script is based on Bell's 1918 play A Dislocated Honeymoon. The story concerns an ex-showgirl who elopes with a society boy, but his family tries to break up the marriage. The Gershwins wrote ten songs for the musical, eight of which were used in the production, which premiered in Atlantic City, New Jersey

Atlantic City, New Jersey

Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...

 on March 21, 1921. It toured through several cities and ended in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

, where it closed on April 16, 1921.

The show was George Gershwin's second book musical and his first full score written with his brother Ira. The book is believed to be lost. The show is one of the few Gershwin musicals that never made it to Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

. The book was revised and retitled Elsie and, later, entirely new music was written for it by Eubie Blake

Eubie Blake

James Hubert Blake was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans...

 and others. This version was produced on Broadway in April 1923. Even though Elsie ran for only 40 performances, it made history as a rare early example of black songwriters writing for white performers. No one knows why director Edgar MacGregor abandoned the Gershwin score. Several of the songs were later reused, and Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

 had a success in 1959 with her recording of "Boy Wanted".

Plot

Elsie Crofton, age eighteen, is a former chorus girl. She has given up the stage to elope with wealthy, spoiled, but good-hearted Harry Hammond, the son of a government contractor. Harry's parents, Phillip and Eleanor, his sister Margery and her fiancé Fred Blakely consider Elsie dangerous to their social position and oppose the marriage. They arrange for Harry to go to a family construction site, to interrupt the honeymoon, and send Elsie to stay at their summer home, where their family friends Alfie and Anne Westford are also staying.

The family plans to destroy the marriage by placing Elsie in a compromising position with the willing and eager Fred. Anne also reveals her prejudices against Elsie. Elsie soon grasps the situation and decides to take action. She flirts with all the men, which dismays her visiting husband, but she gains the sympathies of Phillip, Fred and Alfie. Eleanor, Margery and Anne are furious, but Elsie reveals their scheme, and everybody reconciles.

Song list

Surviving songs from A Dangerous Maid

• Just to Know You are Mine – Elsie
• Some Rain Must Fall – Elsie
• The Simple Life – Elsie and Fred
• Dancing Shoes – Elsie and Fred
• Boy Wanted – Chorus Girls
• The Sirens – Chorus Girls
• Anything for You – Fred and Margery

Songs from Elsie
Act 1

• A Regular Guy – Parker and Girls
• One Day in May – Girls
• Hearts in Tune – Harry Hammond and Elsie
• 'Elsie – Elsie
• My Crinoline Girl – Harry Hammond, Elsie, Girls and Four Crinoline Girl Dancers

Act 2

• I'd Like to Walk with a Pal Like You – Elsie and Fred Blakely
• Two Lips Are Roses – Fred Blakely, Girls and Four Crinoline Girl Dancers
• Baby Bunting – Margery Hammond and Fred Blakely
• Honeymoon Home – Harry Hammond, Elsie and Girls
• Sand Flowers – Elsie and Girls

Act 3

• The Firefly – Elsie, Bunny and Girls
• Symphonic Poem – Alfie Westford (music by Gene Salzer)
• Everybody's Strutting Now – Fred Blakely, Margery Hammond and Girls
• Thunderstorm Jazz – Anne Westford, Alfie Westford, Margery Hammond, Fred Blakely, Girls and Four Goblins
• Clouds of Love – Elsie

Productions

A Dangerous Maid debuted in Atlantic City on March 21, 1921 with the production designed by the Robert Law Studios and staged by Edgar MacGregor, with help from Eddie Leonard

Eddie Leonard

Eddie Leonard , born Lemuel Golden Toney, was a vaudevillian and a man considered the greatest American minstrel of his day, at a time when minstrel shows were still acceptable as entertainment. He performed in vaudeville for 45 years before that medium faded in the 1920s, and was known for such...

 and Julian Alfred and musical direction by Harold Vicars. The show featured Juliette Day as Elsie, Creighton Hale

Creighton Hale

Creighton Hale was an Irish-born American movie actor who worked in the silent film era.-Career:While starring in Charles Frohman's Broadway production of Indian Summer, Hale was spotted by a representative of the Pathe Film Company...

 as Harry, Frederic Burt as Philip, Amelia Bingham

Amelia Bingham

Amelia Swilley Kingham' was an Australian dancer from Hicksville, Ohio. Her Broadway career extended from ....

 as Eleanor, Juanita Fletcher as Margery, Vinton Freedley as Fred, Arthur Shaw as Alfie, and Ada Meade as Anne. After Atlantic City, the show toured through Wilmington, Delaware

Wilmington, Delaware

Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...

, Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

, receiving warm reviews. During the tour, Vivienne Segal

Vivienne Segal

Vivienne Sonia Segal was an American actress and singer.Segal was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is best remembered for creating the role of Vera Simpson in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's Pal Joey and introduced the song "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"...

 replaced Juliette Day and MacGregor renamed the show Elsie. When the tour closed, MacGregor announced the show would be revised before any Broadway run.

Two years later, the show finally made it to Broadway, retaining the name Elsie, but with a rewritten book and a new score by Noble Sissle

Noble Sissle

Noble Sissle was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer and playwright.-Early life:...

 and Eubie Blake

Eubie Blake

James Hubert Blake was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans...

. Extra numbers were contributed by Alma Sanders and Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo (composer)

Hans von Holstein, better known as Monte Carlo , was a Danish-born Broadway composer and author.-Life:Von Holstein was born in Skamlingsbanke, Gravenstein, Denmark, on 14 July 1883....

. Elsie ran for 40 performances. Freedley played Harry this time, Burt and Meade returned as Philip and Anne, Stanley Ridges

Stanley Ridges

Stanley Ridges was a British-born actor who made his mark in films by playing a wide assortment of character parts...

 played Fred, Maude Turner Gordon

Maude Turner Gordon

Maude Turner Gordon .She was born in Franklin, Indiana, USA and died in Los Angeles, California. She was an American actress...

played Eleanor, and Marguerite Zender was Elsie.