The Pajama Game

In honor of what would have been been his 95th Birthday, BroadwayWorld is looking back on the career of Hal Prince. See highlights from his incredible career in our interactive timeline and watch past performances from his works.

Americana and the Golden Age of the Broadway musical has happily landed at the Shaw Festival in their knock it out of the park production of DAMN YANKEES. After years without a staged musical at the Festival Theatre and repeated cancellations of it's production of GYPSY (thanks Covid!), the magic of the American musical comedy can be seen once again.

Just last week, The Music Man marched back to Broadway- the latest revival of a show from musical theatre's most glorious time- the Golden Age. What was the Golden Age of Broadway all about and what years did it cover? Study up!

The Way Off Broadway Dinner Theatre is preparing for a heartwarming romantic comedy this fall when its production of the Broadway classic The Pajama Game takes to the stage.  Opening Friday, September 10th, the production was rescheduled from earlier this season. 

Con motivo del aniversario del coreógrafo y director, recordamos algunos de sus espectáculos más emblemáticos

On this day in 1954, the classic musical The Pajama Game opened on Broadway at the St. James Theatre. 

Guild Hall has announced the artists and events for its landmark 90th season which begins at the end of May and will feature author Salman Rushdie, American Ballet Theatre, Emmy-winners Susan Lucci & Joy Behar, 5-time Tony-winner Susan Stroman, Oscar & Tony-winner Mercedes Ruehl, and more.

The criteria are that these shows have been nominated for Best Musical from the 3rd Tony Awards (the ceremony that started the Best Musical category) in 1949 to the nominations of what will now be the 74th Tony Awards in 2021. I will be determining their signs based upon their Broadway premiere date. With those rules in mind, here we go!

Tune in tonight (September 17) and tomorrow (September 18) at 8pm ET to find out which contestants made the Next On Stage: Dance Edition Top 8! In the meantime, we're celebrating musical theatre dancing with just a few of the most iconic Broadway dances from decades past.

Today's Theater Stories features The St. James Theatre! Learn about the first Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration, which Oscar-winning movie was filmed at the theater, the longest-running show to play the St. James and more!

The 65th Annual Drama Desk Awards will celebrate the life and legacy of American theater producer and director Harold 'Hal' Prince with the Drama Desk's newly established lifetime achievement honor.

Today in 1954, The Pajama Game opened at the St. James Theatre, where it ran for 1063 performances. The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell. It features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story deals with labor troubles in a pajama factory, where worker demands for a seven-and-a-half cents raise are going unheeded. In the midst of this ordeal, love blossoms between Babe, the grievance committee head, and Sid, the new factory superintendent. The original production won a Tony for Best Musical, and the 2006 Broadway revival won a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.

How do we make a list of the 101 greatest show tunes from the past 100 years? Well, we did the near-impossible task.  Check out our full list here! 

Renowned film critic Molly Haskell said, “I think Doris Day is the most underrated, underappreciated actress that has ever come out of Hollywood.” And Will Friedwald, popular singing guru, says “At her very best, she's worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald, yet she's never gotten a fraction of their respect.”

The musical based on a 1953 novel that made it's Broadway debut in 1954 comes to life at Fargo South High Theatre. The story about a labor dispute at a pajama factory with workers fighting over a 7 ½ cent raise. This one has a special place with director Kevin Kennedy as he himself played Pop in this show while he was a freshman in high school.

Irving Berlin's White Christmas opened Sunday night November 17 to a packed house at Theatre at the Center in Munster.  The cast gave a thrilling performance for an audience that was teeming with the holiday spirit.  Theatre at the Center Artistic Director Linda Fortunato directed and choreographed the show. 

Theatre at the Center's production of The Pajama Game had its opening night performance on Sunday, September 15 at the Center for Visual and Performing Arts in Munster.  Artistic Director Linda Fortunato cast Curtis Bannister as Sid, Elizabeth Telford as Babe, Cynthia Carter as Mabel, Kelly Felthous as Gladys, Jason Grimm as Hines, Dan Klarer as Prez, Rick Rapp as Pop and Steve Silver as Mr. Hasler in the musical comedy romance The Pajama Game.

BroadwayWorld has learned that Ken LeRoy recently passed away at age 92. No other details of his death are known at this time.

The Broadway community mourns the loss of prolific producer, director, writer, and the individual recipient of the most Tony Awards in multiple categories in history, Harold Prince, who passed away on July 31, 2019 at age 91. To commemorate his life and work, the Committee of Theatre Owners will dim the lights of Broadway theatres in New York for one minute on Wednesday, July 31 at exactly 7:45pm.

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report the passing of legendary Broadway director and producer Hal Prince at 91 years of age after a brief illness, in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The Crazy Coqs Presents: Pride at the Musicals

New London Barn Playhouse presents The Pajama Game running June 12th thru June 23rd

San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon (Daren A.C. Carollo and Daniel Thomas, Co-Executive Directors) has announced the full cast and creative team for Moon's next production, the 8-Time Tony Award-nominated musical 110 IN THE SHADE. Based N. Richard Nash's acclaimed 1954 play THE RAINMAKER (the basis for the 1956 film starring Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn),110 IN THE SHADE features music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones (THE FANTASTICKS), and a book by Nash adapted from his own play.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the independent, not-for-profit affiliate of SDC, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, today announced unique plans for its 2019 award evening, which will feature original choreographic pieces resulting from a special commissioning program, with the application period now open. SDCF also announced that Victoria Traube would receive a special 'Mr. Abbott' Award at the event, to be held March 25 at the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF).

Some musicals from the golden age of Broadway are done to death. Let's face it, how many productions of Guys and Dolls and Fiddler on the Roof can you take? Anytime a theater chooses to produce a show that isn't seen as often as the aforementioned ones I get very excited. When they are presented well, my musical theater geekiness goes into overdrive. Arena Stage has put my geekiness into overdrive with its current production of the 1954 tuner The Pajama Game. With the exception of a production at Roundabout Theatre Company a few years back, this show really isn't performed very often professionally anymore.