Edward Harrigan

Harrigan, Edward (1844–1911), actor, producer, librettist, and lyricist. Born in New York, where he originally apprenticed in the shipbuilding trade, he ran away from home and sailed to San Francisco. Although he had appeared briefly as a youngster with Campbell's Minstrels, Harrigan made his real debut in the burgeoning West Coast variety theatres, such as the Bella Union. After being teamed up with different comics, he met with Tony HART[né Anthony J. Cannon] (1855–91). Born into a poor Irish family in Worcester, Massachusetts, Hart apparently was the shortest member of the household and thus the butt of much unpleasant humor. His response was often so abusive that he was sent to reform school. He soon ran away, coming to New York, where he sang and danced for pennies in saloons, then performed with a circus and several minstrel troupes. While appearing with one in Chicago he met Harrigan. The fatherly or avuncular‐looking Harrigan, with his dry wit, and the almost femininely beautiful Hart, with his more rambunctious style, proved perfect foils. They quickly became one of vaudeville's most popular attractions. Harrigan wrote the sketches as well as the lyrics for their songs, which Harrigan's father‐in‐law, David Braham, set to music. Soon Harrigan began writing extended playlets, and these proved so popular that he eventually started expanding some. The pair took over the Theatre Comique, where at first the entertainments consisted of an olio followed by one of the playlets, but in time the latter continued to be so popular that Harrigan turned them into full‐length musicals. One of the earliest was The Mulligan Guards, a spoof of contemporary paramilitary groups that involved the adventures of Dan Mulligan, his wife, and son. Harrigan used the Mulligan family in many of his best works, including The Mulligan Guards' Ball (1879), The Mulligan Guards' Surprise (1880), The Mulligans' Silver Wedding (1880), and Cordelia's Aspirations (1883). Harrigan usually was Dan Mulligan while Hart played either the Mulligan son Tommy or the family's rambunctious black maid Rebecca; the latter was his most famous role. Harrigan peopled his plays largely with immigrant classes and spoofed not only the Irish but also the “Negroes,” Italians, Germans, and Jews. Among his other successes at this time were The Major (1881), Squatter Sovereignty (1882), and McSorley's Inflation (1882). Harrigan and Hart broke up following mutually recriminatory accusations after their theatre burned. Hart's subsequent roles included the desperate Isaac Roost in A Toy Pistol (1886) and the befuddled moonshiner Upton O. Dodge opposite Lillian Russell in The Maid and the Moonshiner (1886). His behavior, however, was becoming increasingly erratic and he was committed to a home, where he died of paresis. After the team separated, Harrigan's skills began to wane, although he enjoyed one final important success with Reilly and the Four Hundred (1890), with which he opened the new theatre he had built and named after himself. His last new work was The Woolen Stocking (1893). In later years he leased the theatre and acted intermittently in a few plays by other men. Harrigan's songs were among the most popular of his era. Hits such as “The Mulligan Guard March,” “The Babies on Our Block,” and “Maggie Murphy's Home” had widespread and long‐lasting vogues. His works presented working‐class life in relatively realistic, if comic, terms. The characters he created were richly developed and three‐dimensional, and their virtues and flaws were depicted consistently from one work to the next. At first Harrigan's works appealed only to regular theatregoers and were especially popular with newsboys and similar gallery gods of the time. Eventually, however, they attracted the notice and respect of leading critics and of writers such as William Dean Howells, whose praise gave the pieces a new cachet. Harrigan has been called both the Dickens and the Hogarth of 19th‐century American theatre, while Hart was considered one of the finest and most popular performers of his era. Biography: Ned Harrigan: From Corlear's Hook to Herald Square, Richard Moody, 1980.

Edward Harrigan (October 26, 1844 – June 6, 1911) was an American actor, playwright, theatre manager, and composer. Harrigan and Tony Hart formed the first famous collaboration in American musical theatre.

Contents 1 Life and career 2 Works 3 References 4 External links 5 Further reading

Life and career

Harrigan was born in New York, New York and of Irish lineage. He made his first acting appearance in San Francisco in 1867, and soon afterwards formed a stage partnership with Tony Hart (1855-1891), whose real name was Anthony Cannon. As "Harrigan and Hart," they had a great success on tour in the presentation of comic types of lower class characters drawn from everyday life on the streets of New York, especially the ethnic neighborhood "militias". Beginning as simple vaudeville sketches, Harrigan gradually worked these up into plays, with occasional songs, set to popular music by David Braham. The titles of these plays indicate their character, The Mulligan Guards, Squatter Sovereignty, A Leather Patch, The O'Regans.

By 1878, with The Mulligan Guard Picnic, Harrigan & Hart settled down on Broadway and played in seventeen of their shows over the next seven years (until Harrigan and Hart split up).^[1] Though still broad and farcical, these shows featured music that was integrated with a more literary story line, together with the dialogue and dance, and the shows began to resemble modern musical comedy.^[2] Harrigan wrote the stories and lyrics, and Braham wrote the music. These shows were very popular especially with New York's immigrant-based lower and middle classes, who were delighted to see themselves comically (but sympathetically) depicted on stage. The action of the plays took place in downtown Manhattan and concerned real-life problems, such as interracial tensions, political corruption, and gang violence, all mixed together with broad, street-smart comedy, puns and ethnic dialects. Harrigan played the politically ambitious Irish saloon owner "Dan Mulligan", and Hart played the African-American washerwoman "Rebecca Allup".

Harrigan married Annie Braham, David's daughter, on November 18, 1876. Their family continued in his footsteps, as son William Harrigan, daughter Nedda Harrigan, and granddaughter Ann Connolly all became Broadway performers. However, Harrigan's habit of hiring relatives soured his partnership with Hart, and they split up in 1885. Hart died at age 36 from complications caused by syphilis. Harrigan ultimately wrote the book and lyrics for more than twenty five Broadway musicals and continued writing and performing until 1893.

Harrigan 'n Hart, a Broadway show featuring songs written by Harrigan and Braham, played at the Longacre Theatre in 1985. It featured Tony award-winning Harry Groener as Harrigan and Mark Hamill as Tony Hart. It was nominated for 1985 Tony Award, Best Book of a Musical, Michael Stewart.

Works

• 1878: The Mulligan Guard Picnic
• 1879: The Mulligan Guards' Ball
• 1880: The Mulligan Guards' Surprise which included the hit song "Whist! The Bogie Man" words by Harrigan and music by David Braham.
• 1883: The Mulligans' Silver Wedding
• 1883: Cordelia's Aspirations
• 1890: Reilly and the Four Hundred

References

1. ^ Who's Who in Musicals: Hale-Harris at www.musicals101.com
2. ^ A History of the Musical at www.scaruffi.com

• Edward Harrigan at the Internet Broadway Database
• Edward Harrigan biography
• Profile of Harrigan
• Description of Harrigan and Hart shows
• Explanation of evolution of musical comedy from vaudeville
• Images and information from early Harrigan and Hart shows

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

• Ned Harrigan - Internet Accuracy Project
• Collected songs of Edward Harrigan and David Braham
• Photo of Harrigan and Hart

Further reading

• Kahn, E.J. (1955) The Merry Partners: The Age and Stage of Harrigan and Hart (Random House). Biography of Harrigan and Hart.
• Moody, Richard. (1980) Ned Harrigan - From Corlear's Hook to Herald Square. (Chicago: Nelson Hall)

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