The Billy Barnes Revue

The Billy Barnes Revue
Cover of Original Cast Recording
Music	Billy Barnes
Lyrics	Billy Barnes
Book	Bob Rodgers
Productions	1959 Los Angeles 1959 Off Broadway 1959 Broadway

The Billy Barnes Revue is a 1959 musical comedy revue with music and lyrics by Billy Barnes and sketches by Bob Rodgers. The revue premiered in Los Angeles in 1959 and went on to be produced both on Broadway and Off Broadway.

The show is remembered for its acclaimed cast of newcomers, including Bert Convy and Ken Berry. Barnes continued to produce successful revues in Los Angeles.

In 1952, actress Joyce Jameson graduated from UCLA and married songwriter Billy Barnes. Their first collaboration was a new musical comedy called Baby Face O'Flynn, for which she wrote the book and played the lead role and he wrote the music and lyrics. The show opened in the summer of 1952 at the Gallery Stage Theatre in Los Angeles. The run of the show was cut short when Jameson became pregnant. For the next few years, Jameson found work, first by writing television scripts, and then by playing small parts in films and on television shows. She and Barnes were divorced during this period, but continued to work together into the 1960s.

In 1956, Barnes and sketch writer/director Bob Rodgers opened The Billy Barnes Revue at the "hole-in-the-ground" Cabaret Concert Theatre in Los Angeles. According to Barnes, "It's a nightclub, and people said that’s where we belonged. We were advised not to get ambitious." Producer Paul Gregory planned to bring the production to New York in January 1957 under the title Focus No. 1, but the transfer did not happen.

At one point, some producers decided to tour the show throughout California with just the music and no sketches, a venture which was quickly dropped. Meanwhile, the original show continued performances at the Cabaret Concert Theatre for nearly two years. It then played briefly at the Mocambo and the Crescendo in Los Angeles and at the hungry i in San Francisco. In 1958, Jameson, who had left the show to pursue her television career, returned to Los Angeles from New York City (where she had been appearing as the "honey girl" on The Steve Allen Show and as a regular on Spike Jones' NBC series, Club Oasis),). She rejoined the cast of the show when it opened at the Las Palmas Theater in October 1958. When the original cast took the show to New York City eight months later, a new cast, including Jo Anne Worley, continued the run for a total of 48 weeks.