Wiki Wednesday: Simple Simon (Musical)!

Simple Simon was a Broadway musical with book by Guy Bolton, and Ed Wynn, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, and starring Ed Wynn.

It originally played from February 18, 1930 to June 14, 1930 at the Ziegfeld Theatre, then reopened on March 9, 1931 at the Majestic Theatre.

The play, a loose plot designed to show off Ed Wynn's fumbling, clowning, punning style, cast him as a newspaper vendor who spends his time in a fairy-tale land where bad news doesn't exist. The song "Ten Cents A Dance" was introduced by Ruth Etting in this show. "Love Me Or Leave Me" by Gus Kahn and Walter Donaldson wa interpolated into the show about two months after it opened.

"Dancing On The Ceiling", cut during the Broadway previews, was eventually sung by Jessie Matthews in the London production of Ever Green, and became a standard.