Irene (musical): History and Key Facts

Irene is a musical with a book by James Montgomery, lyrics by Joseph McCarthy, and music by Harry Tierney. Based on Montgomery's play Irene O'Dare, it is set in New York City's Upper West Side and focuses on immigrant shop assistant Irene O'Dare, who is introduced to Long Island's high society when she is hired to tune a piano for a society gentleman.

The musical opened on Broadway in 1919 and ran for 675 performances, at the time the record for the longest-running musical in Broadway history, which it maintained for nearly two decades. It starred Edith Day in the title role, who repeated the role in the London production. It was revived on Broadway in 1923, filmed twice, and had a major Broadway revival in 1973, starring Debbie Reynolds, that ran for 594 performances, followed by a 1976 London run that lasted 974 performances.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Irene (musical) by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.