![]() ![]() Houseman called him a genius, equal to Orson Welles that view is echoed by Mr. With his then-wife, Rosemary Harris, Rabb dominates the book as he dominated just about everyone he met. There he created a show called “Land Ho!,” in which Columbus smuggled a cargo of women to America, and saw it win an award as the nation’s “best collegiate musical.” He was born and raised in Saginaw, Mich., the son of a salesman, and felt awkward when he arrived in Ann Arbor in 1957 to study at a University of Michigan that “roared with unimaginable sophistication.” But his one obvious skill, which was playing the piano very well, brought the surprised boy membership in a glamorous fraternity. O’Brien’s memoir is about the making of a career which, as his subtitle indicates, he never expected. O’Brien helped to keep alive in the 1960s: A.P.A.-Phoenix, the last of the great American touring companies, one that brought ensemble acting and top-class repertory to Broadway itself. Mainly, the book is about the flame that Mr. Indeed he was, but only at the end of “Jack Be Nimble” does he give us any intimation of those triumphs. Hasn’t he won Tony Awards for staging work as different as the musical “Hairspray” and Tom Stoppard’s Russian-set “ Coast of Utopia” trilogy? Wasn’t he the artistic director of San Diego’s prestigious Old Globe for the 25 productive years that ended in 2007? O’Brien, who has just turned 74, has lighted and left plenty of flames whose heat we still feel. Hurdling over a candle without extinguishing it was an early-19th-century game, and Mr. It’s not just that a director as successful as he has had to be nimble and quick-witted to thrive in a precarious profession. It has been a very popular Mother Goose poem, that has been sung worldwide and probably will be, for years into the future.“Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.” So runs the nursery rhyme whose opening Jack O’Brien has made the title of his exuberant theatrical memoir, and it’s even apter than he may realize. There have been a wide variety of children’s shows that have used this rhyme in their programming including Barney, Sesame Street and Mother Goose Club. It’s a catchy kids poem that’s been used throughout the years at home or in school where some children even make crafts based on the piece – taking construction paper or felt to make pictures of candlesticks in memory of it, for example. Nobody is quite sure about the true origins of Jack Be Nimble, but these theories sure make one wonder how the famous nursery rhyme developed over time. Generally practiced at festivals in England, young girls would leap over a lit candle, trying not to extinguish its flame. It’s also been said, that the kids poem was created to explain the practice of candle jumping, which was famous back in the 1600’s. Loved ones of the ill would place a candlestick by the patient’s bedside in order to lessen their chances of contracting infections, giving possible meaning to the phrase, “Jack jumped over the candlestick”. It is also said that Jack Be Nimble was written in celebration of a Captain Black Jack.Īnother theory for Jack Be Nimble’s origins, is that it was written to tell the tale of an outbreak of yellow fever. The most common theory, is that the poem was originally a tribute to the famous pirate Jack Rackham, who in the 1700’s landed in Jamaica and had many adventures, until he was captured. Jack Be Nimble, is one of many popular nursery rhymes with a tale to tell. Changing ever so slightly throughout the years, some of the origins of these pieces may surprise you. Many poems for kids from long ago have hidden stories behind them. ![]()
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