Dynamic writing duo Edna Ferber (the author of Show Boat) and George S. Kaufman (coauthor of The Man Who Came to Dinner, You Can't Take It with You, and other hit comedies) brought high comedy and laughter to American audiences in the 1930s with their witty, stylish hits Stage Door, The Royal Family, and Dinner at Eight. Stage Door was a huge Broadway success in 1936 at the Music Box Theatre (staged by Kaufman) and was made into a star-studded Hollywood movie featuring a young Katherine Hepburn. The play, however, is rarely done in modern times because of the large cast. A magnificent vehicle for theatre actresses, Stage Door is the kind of seldom-produced classic comedy that The American Century Theater was created to produce-and will be presenting in April of 2011.
Stage Door chronicles the hopes, ambitions, romances and misfortunes of aspiring New York stage actresses living in Mrs. Orcutt's Footlights boarding house. Ever hopeful, the girls pound the pavements by day looking for their big break and may return home downhearted or over-the-moon. Hollywood is seen as both a dream-come-true and a cop-out, and a decision to "go Hollywood" becomes a conversational pivot point of integrity and artistry in the play."Stage Door was on the list of plays we compiled when we were first envisioning a professional company dedicated to producing 20th-century stage masterpieces," says TACT artistic director Jack Marshall. "It fits our mission in so many ways-a great play that other companies hesitate to produce because of its requirements, a play that was overshadowed by a movie that didn't do it justice, and a major work of important 20th-century writers. And it also gives today's audiences a fascinating glimpse of what the life of an aspiring actress was like during the Depression."Videos