Overview
Credits
Musical Numbers
Venues
Recordings
Trivia & History
Posters
Photos
Video Clips
Audio Clips

Camelot

Original Broadway Production (1960)

Production Info

Previews: December 1, 1960 (2 previews)
Opening December 3, 1960
Closing: January 5, 1963
Length of Run: 873 perf.
Run Type: Open-ended

Location Info

Market: Broadway
Location: New York, NY

Credits Highlights

See full list

... Staging	Moss Hart
... Choreography & Musical Staging	Hanya Holm
... Additional Direction	Alan Jay Lerner (uncredited)

Cast

... Merlyn	David Hurst
... Arthur	Richard Burton (i)
... Guenevere	Julie Andrews
... Lancelot	Robert Goulet
... Pellinore	Robert Coote
... Mordred (Later moved to an earlier spot in the cast list)	Roddy McDowall
... Morgan Le Fey	M'el Dowd
... Sir Dinadan	John Cullum
... Sir Lionel	Bruce Yarnell
... Nimue	Marjorie Smith

See full list

Musical Numbers

The musical numbers list has been verified as correct.

Act One

Overture
I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight? .... Arthur
The Simple Joys of Maidenhood .... Guenevere
Camelot .... Arthur & Guenevere
Follow Me .... Nimue
C'est Moi .... Lancelot
The Lusty Month of May .... Guenevere & Ensemble
Then You May Take Me to the Fair .... Guenevere, Dinadan, Sagramore, Lionel
How to Handle a Woman .... Arthur
The Jousts .... Arthur, Guenevere, and Ensemble
Before I Gaze at You Again .... Guenevere

Act Two

Entr'acte
If Ever I Would Leave You .... Lancelot
The Seven Deadly Virtues .... Mordred
What Do the Simple Folk Do? .... Guenevere and Arthur
The Persuasion .... Mordred & Morgan Le Fey
Fie on Goodness! .... Knights
I Loved You Once in Silence .... Guenevere
Guenevere .... Ensemble
Camelot (Reprise) .... Arthur

Additional Musical Numbers Lists

These song lists document any changes that the production went through aside from the opening night song list.

Trivia & History

The First Out-of-Town Performance
The first public performance of Camelot took place on Saturday evening, October 1, 1960, at the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. Camelot was the inaugural attraction in the expensive new theatre.

In his memoir, The Street Where I Live, Alan Jay Lerner wrote that on opening night in Toronto, "The show ran four and a half hours! The curtain came down at twenty minutes to one. Only Tristan and Isolde equaled it as a bladder contest."

Was Lerner's Account Correct?
Some degree of colorful exaggeration (or simple misremembering) on Lerner's part may have been involved in his account. The day after the opening, a report from Toronto appeared in The New York Times, written by Lewis Calta, a theatre columnist for the paper who had traveled to Toronto to report on the opening.

Calta's article states that the curtain was scheduled to rise at 8:30, but "it wasn't until ten minutes later that [conductor] Franz Allers raised his baton to play the national anthems of this country and the United States."

Calta wrote that the curtain rose at 8:50. (The ten minutes between Allers raising his baton and the curtain rising were presumably taken up not only with the playing of the two anthems but also with the show's overture.) According to Calta, the curtain came down at 12:20.

If Calta's account is correct, the show, including intermission, ran about three-and-a-half hours. Calta confirmed these times in a Times column that appeared on October 10, also specifically stating that the performance "ran for three hours and thirty minutes."

In all likelihood, Calta was correct as other contemporary news items also mention a three-and-a-half hour running time for the early performances.