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Performance history

The Threepenny Opera was first performed at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin in 1928. Despite an initially poor reception, it became a great success, playing 400 times in the next two years. The performance was a springboard for one of the best known interpreters of Brecht and Weill's work, Lotte Lenya, who was married to Weill.

It has been translated into 18 languages and performed more than 10,000 times; in French it was rendered as L'Opéra de quat'sous; (quatre sous, or four pennies being the idiomatically equivalent French expression for Threepenny and, by implication, cut-price, cheap). Georg Wilhelm Pabst's French version of his film also used this title. The Threepenny Opera has been translated into English several times. One was published by Blitzstein in the 1950s and first staged under Leonard Bernstein's baton at Brandeis University in 1952. It was later used on Broadway. Other translations include the standard critical edition by Ralph Manheim and John Willett (1976), one by noted Irish playwright and translator Frank McGuinness (1992), and another by Jeremy Sams for a production at London's Donmar Warehouse in 1994.

Broadway (New York)

At least seven productions have been mounted in New York, on and off Broadway.

• The first, adapted into English by Gifford Cochran and Jerrold Krimsky and staged by Francesco Von Mendelssohn, featured Robert Chisholm as Macheath. It opened on April 13, 1933, and closed after 12 performances. The brevity of the run has been attributed to the stylistic gap between the Weill-Brecht work and the typical Broadway musical during a busy and vintage period in Broadway history.

• In 1956, Lotte Lenya won a Tony Award for her role as Jenny in Blitzstein's somewhat softened version of The Threepenny Opera, which played off-Broadway at the Theater de Lys in Greenwich Village for a total of 2,707 performances. Blitzstein had translated the work into English; Lenya, Weill's wife since the 1920s, had sung both Jenny and Polly earlier in Germany. The production was important in New York's musical theatre history, as it showed that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format.^[4] This production is also notable for having Edward Asner (as Mr Peachum), Charlotte Rae as Mrs Peachum, Beatrice Arthur (as Lucy), Jerry Orbach (as PC Smith, the Street Singer and Mack), John Astin (as Readymoney Matt/Matt of the Mint) and Jerry Stiller (as Crookfinger Jake) as members of the cast during its run.

• A nine-month run in 1976 with a new translation by Ralph Manheim & John Willett at the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center, with Raúl Juliá as Macheath, Blair Brown as Lucy, and Ellen Greene as Jenny. The cast album from this production was available as a vinyl, but wasn't released in compact disc format until 2009.

• A 1989 Broadway production, billed as 3 Penny Opera, translated by Michael Feingold starred Sting as Macheath. Its cast also featured Georgia Brown as Mrs Peachum, Maureen McGovern as Polly, Kim Criswell as Lucy, Alvin Epstein as Mr Peachum, KT Sullivan as Suky Tawdry and Ethyl Eichelberger as the Street Singer. Sting famously grew a thin moustache for the role, and when it closed after 65 performances he shaved it off onstage with a straight razor.

• Liberally adapted by playwright Wallace Shawn, the work was brought back to Broadway^[5] by the Roundabout Theatre Company in March 2006 with Alan Cumming playing Macheath, Nellie McKay as Polly, Cyndi Lauper as Jenny, Jim Dale as Mr Peachum, Ana Gasteyer as Mrs Peachum, Carlos Leon as Filch, Christopher Innvar as Tiger Brown, Adam Alexi-Malle as Jacob and Brian Charles Rooney as a male Lucy. Included in the cast were New York drag performers Hattie Hathaway (Brian Butterick), Edie (Christopher Kenney), Flotilla DeBarge (Kevin Rennard), and performance artist David Cale. The director was Scott Elliott, the choreographer Aszure Barton, and, while not adored by the critics, the production was nominated for the "Best Musical Revival" Tony award. Jim Dale was also Tony-nominated, for Best Supporting Actor. The run ended on June 25, 2006.

• A highly regarded production was performed at the Westchester Theatre starring Jesse L. Martin as Mack, Melissa Errico as Polly, David Schramm as Peachum and Betty Buckley as a considerably older Jenny.

• A 2006 New York International Fringe Festival adaptation utilized stylistic and character elements of The Threepenny Opera under the title Imminent, Indeed (or, if you prefer, Polly Peachum's Peculiar Penchant for Plosives). It was written and directed by Bryn Manion in association with Aisling Arts.^[6]

West End (London)

• Empire Theatre, 13 April 1933.
• Royal Court Theatre, 9 February 1956.
• Donmar Warehouse, 1994. With a new lyric translation by Jeremy Sams.
• Nick Dear's adaptation for the Royal National Theatre, called The Villains' Opera, 2002