the attached 2-part scan shows the 'snake'/flyer what i take to be NYCB's first full-scale fall season for 1949.

of possible interest:
the dancers are not yet listed alphabetically, and even given 'starring' billing
the only works with a designer's name attached are presumably those that have specifically designed settings
the use of the Picasso drawing harkens back a bit to Ballet Russe publicity
evening performance time was 8:45

Interesting that Robbins's name was in (slightly) larger type than anyone else's.

Love those ticket prices!

Thank you so much for this. I'm not familiar with Frank Hobi or Louis Ellyn, I'll have to look them up.

Frank Hobi was Ruthana Boris' husband.

Llike Farrell Fan, I wondered about the Robbins billing. Anyone have any explanations? His ballet "The Guests" was new to me, so I looked it up in Rep in Review, which makes it sound fascinating: The original cast were Tallchief, Robbins, and Magallanes.

Here's Robbins:

Re the Blitzstein score:

And this, from Maria Tallchief:

It's almost impossible to believe that there was a time you actually mailed your ticket orders and checks, unless you happened to pass the box office during business hours. Even in the '60s I got my info from the Times and sent in my orders and check weeks in advance -- from my parents house on Long Island and later, when I was in college, from Massachusetts. Amazingly, I don't recall a single problem, other than not being able to choose your seats. As for selecting your favorite cast -- not an option anywhere as I recall, so you didn't miss it.

By the time I made it to NYCB, only Hayden, Moncion, and Magallanes were still dancing regularly in the Company.

What a lovely program, rg. Thank you for posting it!

(Rather agog at the thought of seeing Tallchief, Leclercq, et al. every night for such lovely prices...)

emi

only guessing here, but w/ Robbins's success on Broadway and w/ Ballet Theatre's FANCY FREE i imagine the savvy Kirstein and M Baum figured they could 'advertise' this 'catch' of theirs to good ticket-sales' effect.
Robbins was musical-theater big and i imagine that might be considered good 'bait' for the NY City Center public.

Good explanation, rg.

Vipa, "Louis Ellyn" should be "Lois Ellyn." I also read it as Louis when I first saw it. She danced in Symphonie Concertante and the second movement of Symphony in C, according to Rep in Review.

Ellyn is the director of the Nouveau Camber Ballet in Fullerton, California, and runs a ballet school
http://nouveauchamberballet.com/

Her bio, with a photo, is under "staff".

Many thanks to rg and the other historians here. I treasure the few 1940's and 1950's NYCB programs and souvenir booklets I own, and I'll treasure this scan.

One small question: can anyone explain why this flyer is torn at the top like one of those plastic deals you hang on a hotel door to indicate whether or not you want your room cleaned? I'm not familiar with the term 'snake'/flyer. Betty Cage sent SAB students out to hang advertisement flyers after class?

'snake' i believe became the nickname for these flyers because of their long, narrow shape. they were printed and 'hung' in theater lobbies to note the offerings of a certain season - the Met Opera had them regularly (complete w/ daily casting) if mem. serves.
they were often hung by the punched hole on a peg/nail or somesuch and one could pull one off to take home or to the box office window as one decided what tickets to buy.
this one seems to have been torn away in this fashion.

Thanks, rg!

This sounds like a gross understatement but Maria Tallchief must have danced a lot. Bouree Fantasque, Guests, Orpheus, Symphony In C 1st movement, Symphonie Concertante, Divertimento, and of course Firebird. These all contained roles made on her or associated with her. It just underscores how very important she was to the success and building of the company.
Keep em coming RG!

Yes, rg, I remember them at the Met Opera when I first starting buying a lot of tickets in the early 70s. The snakes were printed on very thin paper and hung near the ticket windows. Back in the 70s when the Met would put a week's tickets on sale, they would put out the snakes and we would know the casting for that week.

regarding "workload" E.Gorey - a longtime NYCB follower, tho' not quite regularly from the time of this flyer - used to smile when anyone in the 70s mentioned in amazement that so-and-so was dancing two ballets on a given prog.
'in the old days,' he'd stess, 'people used to dance 3 and 4 ballets a night and no one thought a thing about it...'
o'course the seasons were smaller, but still it was a point worth making, i suppose.

The fall of 1949 was a pretty heady year for ballet in NYC---with NYCB at the City Center on W. 55 Street. Sadler's Wells was making its much touted debut at the Met down on W. 39 Street---plus Ballet Theatre and the Ballet Russe were around. While many BTers are swooning over a roster that includes Tallchief, LeClercq and Hayden, the male contingent listed on the snake was very limited technically---and that includes Robbins---and Hayden had not really achieved ballerina status at the time. The only snake I still have is the one for the Sadler's Wells of that year.


A note on those ticket prices----part-time pay for a very good typist was $1.00 an hour.........

What an amazing season. Imagine, the premieres of Bouree Fantasque and Firebird.

I note that "Pat McBride" -- not listed on the flier -- was the Prince's Bride in Firebird that first season. There's a photo of the final scene on p. 99 of Rep in review, with Moncion as the Prince (and a wedding cake with candles !!!)..


atm711, any thoughts about Reed, Tompkins and Ellyn?

I've seen Reed in the 1954 video of Filling Station (on the Jacques d'Amboise dvd), but don't remember anything else. She's the Rich Girl. Todd Bollender, who also appears on the 1949 schedule, is the Rich Boy. But their parts involve character dancing, really.

In the 1949 season Reed is listed as dancing the Fete Polonaise in Bourre Fantasque (with Herbert Bliss). LeClercq and Robbins had the leads. Balanchine did a "Pas de Deux Romantique" to music of von Weber for Reed and Bliss in 1950 and she was the Queen of Hearts in the 1951 revival of Card Game.

As for Tomkins, her first appearance in Rep in Review is in 1936 (the Met season) as a Can-Can dancer in The Bat. Her last is in 1952, as "Hamlet's Mother, the Queen" Tudor's, La Gloire. In between there seem to have been lots of character parts, especially mothers, girls, a cook, Chief Monster in Firebird, etc., but also the first theme of 4 Temperaments. and the Leader of the Furies in Orpheus. She led the 3rd movement in Symphony in C in 1948.

It appears that by 1949 she was a senior dancer and nearing the end of her career. She was the Chief Monster in the first cast of Firebird

Were there not still these snakes, or modified versions of them, for New York City Ballet, to announce none to soon the casting, as recently at least as the 80s? Just not hung on nails, I think just stuffed out and loosely against the wall in some sort of slots just inside the entrance to the box office, against the wall? Although they may have been on the nails still, the suspense is killing me, I won't deny that. Not that the non-star system is still not effecitve, of course, but perhaps they had disappeared entirely in the last couple of decades, given that it had become to some degree vestigial to audiences of years past--except for Bouder, of course, and when Hubbe was still dancing.

the marble tables in the former NYSTheater, that are now given over gift bar items and ticket-re-sale, were once used to hold brochures and flyers, and i think 'snakes' might have been placed there.
i recall looking over them, tho' i can't recall if they were hung by a top hole or not, in the 70s and maybe even the 80s.
casting per week is a somewhat new phenomenon. though it was sent to journalists, etc. in mimeographed? or photocopy form, it wasn't necessarily posted for the public in the NYST lobby.
when it was first posted, if mem. serves, it was simply taped, w/ transparent tape, the wall on the theater left (and eventually on the right as well) and hand-corrected with ball-point pen, sometimes by press officer, i recall Leslie Bailey, who succeeded Virginia Donaldson doing this, before she came to stand in her post to distribute press tickets.
nowadays,as NYCB regulars know,the printed weekly casting is posted in little, glass-door wall-cases installed especially for this purpose, with the current and upcoming weeks side-by-side.

re: ONDINE, among the new works that made up this season, it's noted in REP IN REV that even w/ LeClercq as Ondine; Moncion as Matteo; Hayben as Giannina; and Mounsey as Hydrola, Dollar's ballet had only a 1-season life. Blame for the failure of the "Romantic Ballet in three scenes"seems to have been placed, at least in part, and the Vivaldi ("Seasons") music to which it was set, even tho' Dollar, according to Reynolds, "had not wanted to use [it] in the first place." i can't recall ever seeing any still from this ballet.

I was just loooking at Martin Duberman's biography of Lincoln Kirstein. He has quite a bit about this "first season." For example:

-- Kirstein attended performances of the Sadler's Wells season and socialized with members of the company: "








P.S. When the second season began in February 1950, advance sales were $50,000 -- double what they'd been for the earlier season.

I did a little math:

Median family income in 1949 was $3,107, or $59.75 per week. Mean family income was $3,569, or $68.63 per week.

Median family income in 2006 was $58,407 or $1,123.21 per week. Mean family income was $77,315, or $1,486.82 per week

The highest priced ticket for NYCB’s 1949 season was $3.00, or about 5% of a week’s pay at the median family income; the lowest priced ticket was $1.20, or about 2% of a week’s pay. (Ticket prices per rg's snake flyer image.)

The highest priced ticket for NYCB’s 2009 spring season was $105.00, or about 9.3% of a week’s pay at the median family income; the lowest priced ticket was $20.00, or about 1.8% of a week’s pay. (Ticket prices per NYCB's 1/26/09 Spring Season press release.)

Morphoses today might be a more apt comparator for NYCB in 1949 (young company, same theater). Here's the math:

The highest priced ticket for Morphoses' 2008 New York City Center season was $110.00, or about 9.8% of a week’s pay at the median family income; the lowest priced ticket was $30.00, or about 2.7% of a week’s pay. (Ticket prices per City Center's website.)

(All income data: US Census Historical Income Tables. For a quick refresher on mean, median, mode, and range, see Ask Dr. Math. )

Make of it what you will.

Thanks, Kathleen, for providing that comparison. So ... the big difference is in the highest priced tickets. The best seats in 1949 were more affordable than today by quite a bit, in percentages. This is consistent with Baum's philosophy at City Center: The theater should be run for the benefit of the public as a kind of "people's venue". The people deserve access to the best.

City Center also had -- unlike the old Met -- a one-entrance, one-lobby policy, regardless of how much you paid .

Baum played a crucial role in making NYCB possible. Having a business-savy negotiator like Kirstein as a co-director of the company was equally important.