Finian's Rainbow

The story of Finian's Rainbow

Finian McLonergan arrives in Rainbow Valley, in the fictional Southern state of Missitucky, with his daughter Sharon, having stolen a pot of gold from a leprechaun named Og in Ireland. Finian is convinced that if he buries the gold near Fort Knox, it will grow, since he believes proximity to the government's gold reserves creates wealth. Og follows them across the ocean, desperate to reclaim his treasure before its loss turns him permanently human.

The valley is home to Black and white sharecroppers threatened by a bigoted local senator, Billboard Rawkins, and the plot turns on the three wishes the crock of gold can grant. When an outraged Sharon, unknowingly standing over the buried crock, wishes that Rawkins were Black, he is transformed and chased off the property by a sheriff who does not recognize him; Og's magic later makes him a kinder man, and the final wish turns him white again. Interwoven romances, between Sharon and the sharecroppers' union leader, Woody Mahoney, and between Og and Woody's mute sister, Susan, round out the story's whimsical satire.

The music and the makers

Burton Lane composed the score, with lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, who also wrote the book together with Fred Saidy. The songs mix warm, old-fashioned Broadway romanticism with pointed social satire, since Harburg used the show's fantasy setting to comment on racism and greed in the segregated American South of the 1940s. That combination of a leprechaun fairy tale and progressive political commentary was unusual for a Broadway musical of its era.

The score's best-known songs, How Are Things in Glocca Morra, introduced by Ella Logan, and Old Devil Moon, introduced by Logan and Donald Richards, remain standards of the American songbook well outside the context of the show. Michael Kidd's choreography gave the dances an energetic, athletic quality, and the original production notably cast Black and white performers together in its ensemble at a time when that kind of integrated staging was rare on Broadway.

Finian's Rainbow on Broadway

Finian's Rainbow opened on Broadway on January 10, 1947, at the 46th Street Theatre, directed by Bretaigne Windust with choreography by Michael Kidd. The original cast starred Ella Logan as Sharon, Albert Sharpe as Finian, David Wayne as Og, and Donald Richards as Woody. The production ran for 725 performances, a substantial hit for its era.

At the first Tony Awards in 1947, before a best musical category existed, the show won for David Wayne's performance as Og and for Michael Kidd's choreography. A Broadway revival opened at the St. James Theatre on October 29, 2009, directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, and ran through January 17, 2010; it earned Tony nominations for best revival and for stars Kate Baldwin and Christopher Fitzgerald, though it won none.

Finian's Rainbow: frequently asked questions