“It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman” Playbill
date: label: Date made
content: 1966
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Program for the 1966 Broadway musical "It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman." Starring Bob Holiday as the titular superhero, with Patricia Marand as Lois Lane, Lynda Lavin as Sydney, and Jerry Fujikawa as Father Ling, the production ran for 129 performances at New York's Alvin Theater. Directed by theater legend Harold "Hal" Prince, the show was nominated for three Tony awards. Over the years, the play has been revived by regional theater companies and was the subject of a 1975 television special.
label: Description (Brief)
content: "It's a Bird... It's A Plane … It's Superman's" most successful song, "You've got Possibilities," was composed by Charles Strouse, with words by Lee Adams.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The character of Superman first flew into action in 1938. The costumed superhero was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish teenagers from Cleveland Ohio, who used, among other things, classical mythology and the era's popular science fiction and adventure writing for inspiration.
label: Description (Brief)
content: With his debut in Action Comics #1, Superman became an instant sensation with audiences, inspired by the "Man of Tomorrow's" virtue and heroics at time when the Nation was slowly emerging from the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression and moving closer to World War.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Born on the doomed planet Krypton, Superman was sent to Earth as a child, where our world's yellow sun granted him extraordinary powers such as flight, super-strength, near-invulnerability, as well as other extraordinary abilities including heat and X-Ray vision. As an adult living in the city of Metropolis, the alien, born Kal-El, protects his identity by assuming the persona of Clark Kent, a "mild-mannered" journalist.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Fighting for "Truth and Justice," Superman birthed a cultural fascination with superheroes, and has become one of the most recognizable and influential fictional characters in history. In addition to comic books, the character has been explored in all forms of media, including radio, television, and film, and has been used to promote a variety of successful consumer products, educational initiatives and public service campaigns.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
topic: label: Subject
content: Musical Theater
label: Subject
content: Superman
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: DC Comics, Incorporated
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1987.0213.175
label: accession number
content: 1987.0213
label: catalog number
content: 1987.0213.175
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Playbill
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 in x 6 in; 22.86 cm x 15.24 cm