Family Album (play)

Family Album is a short play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8:30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. It is described by the author as "A comedy of manners with music (period 1860)".

In the introduction to a published edition of the plays, Coward wrote, "A short play, having a great advantage over a long one in that it can sustain a mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if, by careful writing, acting and producing I can do a little towards reinstating it in its rightful pride, I shall have achieved one of my more sentimental ambitions."

Family Album was written and first performed in Birmingham during the 1935 pre-London tour of Tonight at 8.30 and was then produced in 1936 at the Phoenix Theatre in London. It was later presented in New York (1936–1937) and Canada (1938). Like all the other plays in the cycle, it originally starred Gertrude Lawrence and Coward himself. The play has enjoyed several major revivals.

Six of the plays in Tonight at 8:30 were first presented at the Manchester Opera House beginning on 15 October 1935, and Family Album was added on the subsequent provincial tour and first performed at the Theatre Royal, Birmingham, England, on 9 December 1935. The final three were added for the London run. The plays were performed in various combinations of three at each performance during the original run. The plays chosen for each performance were announced in advance, although a myth evolved that the groupings were random. The first London performance of Family Album was on 9 January 1936 at the Phoenix Theatre. Matinées were sometimes billed as Today at 2.30. The Broadway openings for the three parts took place on 24 November 1936, 27 November 1936 and 30 November 1936 (including Family Album), again starring Coward and Lawrence.

Coward directed all ten pieces in Tonight at 8.30, and each starred Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in the original British and New York productions. The London and New York runs were limited only by Coward's boredom at long engagements. Four of the plays in the cycle "break into spontaneous song ... in the most unexpected places".Family Album contains four songs: "Drinking Song", "Princes and Princesses", "Music Box" and "Hearts and Flowers". The play was withdrawn from the Tonight at 8.30 programmes following the death of George V on 24 January 1936, because its funeral setting struck an inappropriate note, and it was not reinstated until April of that year.

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