In 1937, the year often considered the worst of The Great Depression, a musical called Pins and Needles
combined a series of unrelated sketches in an upbeat revue centered on
labor issues. The sketches were the brainchildren of a number of
authors, but the majority were written by Harold Rome, who also
composed the music for the show. Pins and Needles was produced
by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) as a part of
their social education program to create a better-rounded working environment
for union members; it would became the longest running show on Broadway. I wrote my college thesis on the social commentary musicals of the Depression, but at the time, neglected to see Pins and Needles for what it really was: a total PR coup.
The Pins and Needles creation story begins with the election of David Dubinsky as president of the
ILGWU five years earlier. When forced to play the dinner party game
(“If you could invite 3 people, dead or alive, to dinner, who would you
choose?”), Dubinsky would be first on my list. Don’t get your
panties in a bunch, Susan B. Anthony, you get to come, too; we’re
having pesto. The idea of the “Labor Stage” grew out of the new cultural
and recreational programs developed under Dubinsky. In his memoirs, A Life With Labor, he explains, “But, for me, education without some salesmanship
was not education. In my book, that meant showmanship.” His marketing savvy shone through all the educational programs he created. “Our
educational activities in the widest sense,” he stated, “should be
looked upon from the point of view of the union’s public relations –
and sound public relations presuppose a sound union.” The benefit of
“social education”, as it was called, in a union was twofold: first,
the union members presumably became better-rounded, educated and
contributing citizens. Second, the union made the best possible contact
with the non-union public. And in the mid-1930s in America, labor
unions had PR problems, problems that were worsening by the day.
In
Europe, Dubinsky had witnessed a quarter million people watching an
Austrian trade-union pageant. Both the concept and the reception of
the trade union-pageant were quite remarkable to Dubinsky; he wondered
if he could do the same thing with the ILGWU. He hired his friend
Louis Schaffer to give it a shot, and under Schaffer’s leadership, the Cultural
Division of the Educational and Recreational Department soon held classes in drama, acting, dance and music. Schaffer organized local
dramatic groups and set up training programs for boys and girls “from
the shops.” He also began selecting plays that would be appropriate
for his newly formed “ILGWU Players”. In the book Tailor’s Progress: The Story of a Famous Union and the Men Who Made It, Benjamin Stolberg describes Schaffer as:
A
veteran newspaperman and labor editor with a long background in the
socialist movement and in business. He is the typical New Yorker –
breezy, sophisticated and extremely likeable. His sense of publicity
is far more Broadway than “proletarian.” He is a sort of link between
the theatrical world and the New York labor movement.
A Broadway sense of publicity applied to another industry: what a fantastic idea.
In
press releases, Schaffer stressed that his new group did not intend to
pose as professionals, noting that no one performing in an ILGWU
production was a trained actor, actress or musician; they all literally
came from behind the sewing machines. Well played, Louis Schafer. If the ILGWU shows flopped or weren’t
deemed worthy by the press, Schaffer had an out – they’re not “real”
actors! But if the press came and liked what they saw, it would be a David and Goliath sensation.
Schaffer realized that play production could be
used to carry the labor movement’s message outside the confines of the
ILGWU. A play within a play, publicity-wise. After producing one
unsuccessful serious drama (a play called Steel about, you guessed it, a steel workers strike)
with the ILGWU, Schaffer recognized 1. the need to attract a wider
audience, and 2. that the only way to do that
would be to create a highly entertaining product. Schaffer had the idea of
creating an amateur labor revue that was funny and witty. This idea was
in complete contrast to the solemn, far left-wing proletarian dramas so popular at the time.
Enter Harold
Rome, and cue another PR coup. Ironically, the man who wrote hundreds
of political skits and songs managed to avoid all political questioning
at the time. When asked if he was a
leftist in the December 25, 1937 issue of The New Yorker, Rome retorted, “It’s not a question of being a Leftist…It’s
a question of keeping your eyes open.” (I would have wanted Harold
Rome as a client, for those of you playing at home.) Perhaps it was his
lack of political bias that allowed Rome to freely criticize both the
radical left and right and everyone who wavered in between. Unlike
many of his contemporary proletarian dramatists and writers, Rome’s
only political agenda was satire, satire of everyone and everything in
his contemporary society.
When Pins and Needles officially
opened to the public on November 27, 1937, it was generally accepted as
the second in an intended series of plays performed by the ILGWU
Players. Shockingly, it ran for nearly four years and was so
successful that no other plays were ever produced by the ILGWU. The
show filled the Labor Stage until June 26, 1939, when it was moved to
the much larger Windsor Theatre for a year’s run on Broadway. Pins and Needles was seen in three editions: Pins and Needles (original show), Pins and Needles 1939 (April 20, 1939 to November 20, 1939), and New Pins and Needles (November 30, 1939 to June 22, 1941). When the last road show closed in 1941, the show had run 1,108 performances, making Pins and Needles the longest running musical to date. It is interesting to note that, with each new version the Pins and Needles content was revised so that the piece remained absolutely relevant. For example, the song “Four Little Angels of Peace” was originally sung by Eden, Mussolini, Hirohito, and Hitler, but in the 1938 version, Chamberlain replaces Eden in the scene.
What did the press think of Pins and Needles?
Only a few critics attended the November 27th opening. Rome recalled,
“First string critics went to important shows, and there were a lot of
shows in those days. Pins and Needles was not an important
show at first. We also played only on weekends at first, so it was
hard for critics to come.” Slow as they were, the critics did come,
and within a few weeks word-of-mouth praise and glowing reviews turned Pins and Needles into a hit. (The New York Times sent its second string critic to the opening of Pins and Needles; the November 29, 1937 review was written by a certain “J.G.” Top Times
theatre critic Brooks Atkinson did not review the show until January
23, 1938, when it was already quite popular. How the times – and the Times, for that matter – do not change.)
By the end of the Pins and Needles
run, the Labor Stage had made the ILGWU approximately $1,500,000 in
profits, all of which went back to the ILGWU’s educational programs.
This was a tremendous amount of money, considering it was tax-free and
in pre-inflation dollars – oh, and that the original production costs had
been $10,000. To guarantee that all possible profits went back to the
ILGWU, no independent ticket brokers were allowed. In his article, “A New Show Business” for Hollywood magazine (February 1, 1938), writer Sidney Skolsky details his attempts to purchase a ticket to see the show
when he was in New York:
I phoned the correct
people to ask for tickets. They were polite, but very sorry that they
didn’t have any tickets. I asked them to buy me a couple from the
ticket speculators. They told me that the ticket brokers didn’t have
any. I had heard that story before. The ticket brokers always have
them, no matter how big a hit the show is. I contacted several ticket
brokers. Not one of them had a ticket…and couldn’t get them. I was
greatly surprised. “Where are the tickets?” I asked a broker. He
answered: The unions have all the tickets. It’s a new kind of show
business.
The tremendous audiences that Pins and Needles
attracted must be understood in the artistic environment in which the
musical was created. First, other contemporary theatre groups had
already
developed a following for the kind of audience Pins and Needles
would garner. The Workers’ Theatre groups, the Yiddish Theatre, the
Theatre Union, and the Federal Theatre Project had all laid the
groundwork for audience support of didactic, socially significant
theatre. The Labor Stage had also utilized the professional resources
of these groups, using authors like Marc Blitzstein, John Wexley, and
George Skylar to write sketches and skits at various times for Pins and
Needles. The Labor Stage also used artists from these theatre groups to
teach classes in acting, to direct workshops, and to lecture at Labor
Stage cultural events. Consequently, the colleagues and fans of such
artists were interested in the Pins and Needles project before the show even opened.
In
addition to such community building and groundwork, the economic situation of The Great
Depression lessened the amount of professional theatre on Broadway; Pins and Needles
was one of the few socially critical shows that was both poignant and
entertaining. The previous great Broadway successes were upbeat
musicals and musical revues such as the Ziegfeld Follies.
During the period between 1932 and 1938, however, productions had
become increasingly propagandistic and subsequently increasingly
serious. Louis Schaffer realized that to survive commercially a show
would have to attract New Yorkers from all walks of society,
non-workers included. He also realized that the workers who came to
labor shows did not necessarily want to be preached at or inspired to
revolution; the worker didn’t want to go to the theatre just because
it was labor theatre. By emulating
the financially successful Broadway musical revue format and continuing
the 1930s trend of socially significant theatre, Pins and Needles attracted both audience groups.
Given the novelty of seeing workers on stage and the labor subject matter of Pins and Needles,
it is not surprising that the show directly appealed to union members.
Far less predictable, however, was its appeal to their bosses. To tip my hat even lower to this incredible PR machine and performing arts product, here is the best
impossible-to-get-ticket story I’ve heard (or read) to date, as quoted in Harold
Philips’ December 5, 1938 article “From Sweatshops to Stardom”:
Only
the other day Joseph Breslaw, manager of the Pressers Local,
International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union…phoned Louis Schaffer,
director of the Labor Stage, and asked, “Do you want to help the
union?” “Of course,” Mr. Schaffer answered. “What do you want?” “We’ve
just settled a strike with a certain manufacturer,” the union leader
explained, “But one of the conditions was tough. And you’re the only
man who can help us.” Mr. Schaffer: “How?” “We must have some tickets
to the show. You see, that was one of the conditions of the strike
settlement – six tickets for the bosses to see Pins and Needles.
Happy Labor Day!
Loved this story. Thanks for sharing it.