I Had a Ball

I Had a Ball
Original Playbill
Music	Jack Lawrence Stan Freeman
Lyrics	Jack Lawrence Stan Freeman
Book	Jerome Chodorov
Productions	1964 Broadway

I Had a Ball is a musical with a book by Jerome Chodorov and music and lyrics by Jack Lawrence and Stan Freeman. It starred Buddy Hackett, and featured Richard Kiley and Karen Morrow.

Set on the Coney Island boardwalk, it focuses on matchmaking grifter turned fortune teller Garside, who tries to set up his friend, fellow grifter and recent parolee Stan, with Wonder Wheel owner/operator Jeannie. Garside finds his crystal ball is real, as it foretells Stan falling in love with former Coney Island hawker (trade) and man-eater Addie (who's returned to the alley while on the prowl for rich husband number four), and Jeannie falling in love with Brooks, a loan shark to whom Garside owes a hundred bucks (even though he only borrowed four). Garside watches the mismatched couples meet while getting dragged off to prison by Officer Millhauser (for running a fortune telling scam) ending the first act. Other characters include Ma Maloney, who heads the Alley Gang: Joe the Muzzler, Osaka Moto, and Gimlet. Act II finds the successful couples returning the day Garside comes back from jail, only for the ball, which Ma has kept safe, to make another prediction. Jeannie celebrates her newfound happiness at a party, singing the title song, only to have it all dashed again when Brooks, who misinterpreted the ball's prediction as referring to a business deal, tells her they're broke; he's even sold the Wonder Wheel on her. Meanwhile, Stan catches Addie cheating on him and leaves her. As Addie is telling Garside about her failed marriage, Brooks shows up to get revenge for the bad business advice, and the two meet and fall in lust. As the newly poor Stan and Jeannie try to make a living on the boardwalk, they wind up chased by Officer Millhauser until he finally handcuffs them together, much to the delight of Garside, as the right couple has finally found each other, once he points out to them who's on "the other half" of their cuffs.