Broadway

Carol Haney as Gladys entertains the workers at the staff picnic. Photo by Friedman-Abeles. New York Public Library, New York.

The Pajama Game

Musical in two acts by George Abbott and Richard Bissell, based on Bissell’s 1953 novel 7½ Cents. Lyrics and music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. Opened at the St James Theatre, New York, 13 May 1954. Presented by Frederick Brisson, Robert E. Griffith and Harold S. Prince. Directed by George Abbott and Jerome Robbins. Settings and costumes designed by Lemuel Ayers. Choreography by Bob Fosse. Musical direction by Hal Hastings. Orchestrations by Don Walker. Dance music arrangements by Roger Adams.

In mid-1953, Robert E. Griffith (c.1907-1961) and Hal Prince (1928-2019) decided to set themselves up as Broadway producers. Both men had been working as stage managers for veteran theatre producer George Abbott (1887-1995); Griffith since 1935 and Prince since 1948 (his first job after graduating from college).

In May 1953, after reading a review of the book 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell (1913-1977) in The New York Times, Griffith immediately saw the potential of the story for a new musical. He contacted Prince and he too was taken with the idea. They decided to seek advice from their former boss.

In conversation with Harold Prince’s biographer Carol Ilson in 1983, George Abbott recalled: “I didn’t like the idea at first ... they had to sell it to me. It had a certain novelty in that there had never been a kind of romance show about a labor union, the least romantic thing I can think of. We just made a good story out of it.”

Abbott eventually agreed to direct the show, but on the priviso that they found a talented writer to prepare the adaptation.

“I did wish to help, and I began to have interviews with several authors in the hope that some good writers would accept the assignment. ... It was after a luncheon with Abe Burrows at the Harvard Club, where I had again failed to enlist an author, that as a result of my argument to Abe I began to see a new plot development.” So wrote George Abbott in his 1963 autobiography Mister Abbott.

And when he conceived of a catchy title for the show—The Pajama Game—he decided, if Bissell agreed to work with him, that he would take on the role of adapting the book himself. For the young producing team of Griffith and Prince, this was a godsend. Abbott was one of the most experienced men in the business. Brissell would contribute his “refreshingly tonge-in-cheek voice” and Abbott would craft it into a “well-oiled machine of a musical”.

But they still needed a composer and a lyricist. Frank Loesser (whose Guys and Dolls was doing big things on Broadway) was approached. He was not totally sold on the idea of a musical about a strike at a pyjama factory, so he recommended the young songwriting team of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. In 1953 their song “Rags to Riches” (sung by Tony Bennett) had proved a moneymaker for Frank Music Corp. (Frank Loesser’s own publishing company). On Loesser’s recommendation they contributed numbers to the revue Almanac (1953), and prior to that show opening, were approached by George Abbott to write the score for The Pajama Game. It would be their first complete Broadway show. Their style was bright, breezy and uncomplicated, and many of their songs would make it to the hit-parade: “Hey There”, “Hernando’s Hideaway”, “Steam Heat” and “Once a Year Day”.

Robert E. Griffith and Hal Prince with George Abbott (seated). Photo by Impact Photos Inc.

New York Public Library, New York

Publicity photograph of Jerry Ross and Richard Adler. Photo by Stephen Colhoun.

New York Public Library, New York

Griffith and Ross were keen to get Jerome Robbins to arrange the choreography, but he was busy on other projects, and put them on to Bob Fosse, suggesting that they go and see the movie Kiss Me, Kate (in which Fosse and Carol Haney danced “From This Moment On”, devised by Fosse). They decided to give the young dancer a go—but they wanted backup. Though Robbins had refused to take on the choreography, he was keen to move into directing, so agreed to work with Abbott as co-director. Fosse delivered one of the show’s most memorable numbers—“Steam Heat”—in which three dancers, dressed in black suits and bowlers, perform what Brooks Atkinson called, “a swift, high-pressure vaudeville”. With his first Broadway outing, the signature Fosse style was evident from the start.

Copenhagen-born film producer Frederick Brisson (1912-1984) was also looking for a career change. As the husband of Hollywood actress Rosalind Russell, he was keen to establish himself as a Broadway producer. Joining Griffith and Ross as the show’s third co-producer, The Pajama Game became the first of three shows that the triumvirate would produce, the other two being Damn Yankees and New Girl in Town. Brisson would go on to champion the plays of Pinter and Stoppard on Broadway.

As the show had no real stars, traditional backers were shy to invest in the project—and the producers were forced to look for support from “mum and dad” investors, including members of the chorus, employees and their families and friends. Still short of the $250,000 needed to mount the show, George Abbott contributed the final $28,000.

During rehearsals, the show changed little from the one originally submitted by Adler and Ross. A solo number for Sid Sorokin, “I Never Dreamed” was cut, however Sid was given a new number, “Hey There”. Adler thought the song was “too classy” and did not have faith in its success. However, it proved to be one of the hits of the show. A reprise of  “Hey There” (sung by Babe) in Act II was also added in place of “The World Around Us”, a duet for Sid and Babe. Musical chronologer Stanley Green called Adler and Ross “the brightest new songwriting team to emerge during the decade”. Alas, they would not go on to achieve the fame they deserved. In November 1955, after the successful launch of Damn Yankees, Jerry Ross died of a lung ailment. He was just 29 years of age. Without his partner, Adler turned to television, and apart from the musicals Kwamina (1961) and Music Is (1976), he spent his career composing TV commercials.

Ross was not the only casualty. Four months earlier, in August 1955, the show’s designer Lemeul Ayers died, aged 40. From 1939 to 1955, he created sets and/or costumes for some 30 Broadway plays and musicals, including Angel Street (1943), Oklahoma! (1943 and 1951), Bloomer Girl (1944), Song of Norway (1944), Kismet (1953) and Camino Real (1953).

Rehearsals commence on 15 March under the direction of George Abbott and Jerome Robbins.

Among the newcomers, Carol Haney (1924-1964), who played the ingenue role of Gladys, was heralded as a star in the making. She had been discovered in Hollywood by Jerome Robbins. But it was her understudy, Shirley MacLaine, who would be noticed and who would go on to become a big star. The principal comedian was Eddie Foy Jr. in the role of Hines, with Janis Paige and John Raitt as the romantic leads.

Eddie Foy Jr. (1905-1983) was the most experienced of the cast. The son of vaudevillian Eddie Foy, he made his stage debut as a member of his father’s act, the “Seven Little Foys”, afterwards forging a career on his own on stage and in films. He played his father in numerous biopics.

Janis Paige (b.1922) began her career as a model and film actress in Hollywood. During the 1950s and 1960s, she divided her time between stage and film work, notably in film comedies and stage musicals.

John Raitt (1917-2005) enjoyed a long career in musical comedies. The Pajama Game was one of his early successes, and in one of his rare film appearances, he recreated his role of Sid Sorokin in the movie version of The Pajama Game (1957) opposite Doris Day. (Eddie Foy and Carol Haney also recreated their stage roles in the film, which was directed by Stanley Donen and George Abbott.)

Prior to the Broadway opening, the show played tryouts in New Haven (10 April) and Boston (20 April). It opened to good notices on 13 May 1954 at New York’s St James Theatre, where it played 1,063 performances. In 1955, it received several Tony Awards: Best Musical [The Pajama Game]; Best Featured Actress in a Musical [Carol Haney]; Best Authors of a Musical [George Abbott & Richard Bissell]; Best Producers of a Musical [Frederick Brisson, Robert Griffith & Harold S. Prince]; Best Composer and Lyricist [Richard Adler & Jerry Ross]; and Best Choreographer [Bob Fosse].

Walter Kerr, New York Herald Tribune (14 May 1954), declared: “It is a show that takes a whole barrelful of gleaming new talents, and a handful of stimulating ideas as well, and sends them tumbling in happy profusion over the footlights.”

Brooks Atkinson (The New York Times, 14 May 1954) called it “the best musical of the season”.

In 1958, another novel by Richard Bissell provided the storyline for a Broadway musical: Say, Darling. Set in the world of musical comedy, the plot concerned a small-town author who makes it big on Broadway, with the characters of the musical clearly drawn from his experiences on The Pajama Game, with the characters thus represented: Jack Jordan (Bissell), Ted Snow (Hal Prince), Richard Hackett (George Abbott), and Rudy Lorraine (possibly a composite of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross). The inspiration for the show’s glamorous leading lady, Irene Lovelle, is yet to be identified.

In the machine room: Eddie Foy Jr. (Hines) with John Raitt (Sid) & Janis Paige (Babe). Photo by Friedman-Abeles.

New York Public Library, New York

Carol Haney (Gladys) with Stanley Prager (Prez) on their way to the staff picnic. Photographer unknown.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

The Cast

* For some performances, the role of Gladys was played by Shirley MacLaine or Helen Gallagher

** Stephen Douglass substituted on a few occassions

*** Pat Marshall and Julie Wilson played the role a few times each into the run

Stanley Prager as Prez (top with glasses) announces that everyone will get their pay rise. Photo by Friedman-Abeles. New York Public Library, New York,

The Scenes

The action takes place in a small town in the Middle West.

Time: the present.

The Songs

* The program for the New Haven tryout lists a song called “Liebchin” in its place

** New Haven program lists “I Love You More”

** Replaced “The World Around Us”, which was performed on opening night in New York

Cover of playbill for The Pajama Game—with its distinctive cover design by Peter Arno

playbill.com

Sheet music cover for “Hey There”

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The Reviews

Musical Comedy Has Debut at St. James.

By Brooks Atkinson

The last new musical of the season is the best. it is “The Pajama Game”, which opened at the St. James last evening with all the uproar of a George Abbott show. He and Richard Bissell put the book together out of Mr. Bissell's recent novel, “7 1/2 Cents”. Applying the good old football spirit to a strike in a pajama factory, the book is as good as most though no better.

For, like the customers who are now going to pour into the St. James, Mr. Abbott is really interested in the color, humor and revelty of a first-rate musical rumpus. “The Pajama Game” fits those specifications exactly.

Richard Adler and Jerry Ross have written an exuberant score in any number of good American idioms without self consciousness. Beginning with an amusing satire of the work tempo in a factory, they produce love songs with more fever than is usual this year; and they manage to get through a long evening enthusiastically in other respects also. “Once a Year Day” is a jubilee number with a rousing finish; “There Was Once a Man” takes the goo out of love expertley. Mr. Adler and Mr. Ross write like musicians with a sence of humor; and Don Walker, who has proved impaginative orchestrations, shares their high spirits.

Extract, The New York Times, 14 May 1954, p.20

Bibliography

George Abbott, Mister Abbott, Random House, 1963

Dan Dietz, The Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals, Roman and Littlefield, 2014

Stanley Green, The World of Musical Comedy, fourth edition, revised and enlarged, Da Capo Press, 1980

Carol Ilson, Harold Prince: A Director's Journey, Roman and Littlefield, 2002

Deborah Jowitt, Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theatre, His Dance, Simon & Schuster, 2004

Greg Lawrence, Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2001

Steven Suskin, Offstage Observations: Inside Tales of the Not-So-Legitimate Theatre, Roman and Littlefield, 2022