Word: abbott
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...with academic tradition," was the way Abbott Lawrence Lowell described his 24 years as president of the University. But in those years, from May 1909 to May 1933, Lowell probably did more to determine the character of the College than any other president in Harvard's history...
Fiorello! (book by Jerome Weidman and George Abbott; music and lyrics by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick). Despite an exclamation point that gives it the look of an Italian war cry, Fiorello! matches up with La Guardia, telling the story of New York City's Little Flower from the time he first ran for Congress until his second and successful bid for mayor. The irascibly humane fighting gamecock, whose career, as a matter of fact, has something of the air of a war cry, displays in the theater, as he did on the platform, a naturally theatrical personality...
...straight-shooting Weidman-Abbott book weaves deftly in and out of the song numbers, and the lower they descend for their theme, the higher they mount in effectiveness. The boys in the back room are amusingly kidded in a lilting Politics and Poker; graft is hilariously drubbed in a dittylike Little Tin Box. Even more zipful are a pair of production numbers, a rousing electioneering street dance, and a fine 1920s high-kicking chorus line...
...best and generally fun, Fiorello! does have its weaknesses: a few flop songs and scenes, and a less lively second act. The show's chief liability is that bane of musicals, love, which-requited or unrequited-can seem banal. Even so, the show's chief asset. Director Abbott's testing everywhere for pace and pep, helps to shorten the doldrums. And for the evening as a whole, the reaction to the Abbott test is decidedly positive...
...Shakespeare's plays. He often signed his paintings with a butterfly armed with a scorpionlike tail. He inspired much of Trilby's demonic master villain, Svengali. His mistress-of-the-hour strutted nudely past his devout Episcopalian mother, neither one guessing that posterity would make James Abbott McNeill Whistler's mother the most renowned artist's model of all time...