Glen MacDonough

Who was Glen MacDonough?

Glen MacDonough was a US American writer, lyricist and librettist. He was the son of theater manager Thomas B. MacDonough and actress/author Laura Don. Glen MacDonough married Margaret Jefferson in 1896 in Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts, USA.

MacDonough is best-remembered today as the librettist of Victor Herbert's operetta, Babes in Toyland. MacDonough started out as a feature/human interest journalist in New York City, and according to one source, "...four years ago [MacDonough] was a reporter earning 15 to 20 dollars a week...but was rapidly advanced in salary and prominence. In one year on the New York Advertiser, he wrote 1,008 short stories...He [then] determined to abandon journalism and turn to the drama for a livelihood..."

The Prodigal Father is MacDonough's first work that received any note in reviews of the day. It was a comedy with songs, a form generally called "musical extravaganzas" at the time. His second work, The Algerian, was a collaboration with prominent songwriter, Reginald DeKoven. Much of the 1890s were taken up with writing farces and comedies or the book and song lyrics to a string of musical comedies. These musical comedies include Miss Dynamite, Delmonico's at 6 and a number of others. MacDonough's name is associated with more than two dozen plays and musical works. Most of them have become obscure with the passage of time, but some—besides Babes in Toyland—are worthy of mention and present certain points of historical interest.