The Streets of New York Tickets

Charlotte Moore’s musical adaptation of Dion Boucicault’s 19th-century play The Streets of New York brings a message of goodness and hope to the stage just in time for the holiday season. Get The Streets of New York tickets on TodayTix.

The Streets of New York is a musical that opens during the financial Panic of 1837. The bank owner Gideon Bloodgood knows the stock market is about to crash, so he schemes to take all the money in the bank and flee before he loses it. But when a captain personally deposits his savings with Bloodgood and promptly dies, Bloodgood pockets it and stays put, no longer worried about his finances. As he thrives, the captain’s family suffers in poverty, and they must expose Bloodgood’s shady dealings and get the money back.

Intertwined with this plot is a love triangle involving Bloodgood’s daughter, who wants to secure a place in high society by marrying a man born into it, Mark Livingstone. But he, too, has lost his fortune and wants to marry the woman he actually loves — the daughter of the deceased captain. Everyone has their own agenda, be it getting money or love. The Streets of New York is a show filled with scheming and intrigue, leaving you wondering until the last moment whether good will prevail over evil.

The original The Streets of New York Off-Broadway production in 2001 received two Drama League nominations. Charlotte Moore, who wrote the adapted libretto, composed the music and lyrics, and directed the show, received praise for taking “a forgettable play and [turning] it into a small but gleaming musical theater jewel,” as a TheaterMania critic put it at the time. Now, Moore returns to direct her musical once again at Irish Repertory Theatre, joined by original music director Mark Hartman and choreographer Barry McNabb.

Get tickets to The Streets of New York in New York now.

What to Watch For

• The Streets of New York is making a homecoming — Charlotte Moore’s musical adaptation premiered at Irish Repertory Theatre 20 years ago, in 2001! Moore was artistic director of the theatre at the time.
• It’s not the only musical adaptation of the story out there. Nearly 40 years earlier, in October 1963, the first The Streets of New York musical premiered at the now-demolished Maidman Playhouse Off-Broadway. The show featured music by Richard B. Chodosh and a book and lyrics by Barry Alan Grael, and it ran for 10 months.
• Though the musical adaptations are called The Streets of New York, Dion Boucicault’s original play is best known as The Poor of New York. The play’s plot and name were based on a French play called Les Pauvres de Paris (The Poor of Paris).
• The Streets of New York at Irish Rep coincides with another New York production about a con man: a Broadway revival of the classic musical The Music Man. That show’s main character, Professor Harold Hill, gets bands to hire him as their music instructor and tries to escape with their money before actually teaching them anything.