Sing for Your Supper
In spite of the vast array of talent and hard work that went into the creation of Sing for Your Supper, the musical met with extreme challenges during its unprecedented eighteen months of rehearsal and its ten-week run that ended when the FTP was shut down. The talent included writer and lyricist John La Touche (1914–1956), composer Ned Lehac (1899–2000), lyricists and composers Harold Rome (1908–1993) and Robert Sour (1906–1985), and dancer and choreographer Anna Sokolow (1910–2000). The challenges included cast members leaving for other theater jobs. Dancer Gene Kelly (1912–1996) opened in a Cole Porter production shortly after leaving the FTP, and Will Lee (1908–1982)—who much later achieved fame as Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street—was hired away from Sing for Your Supper to perform in Clifford Odets’s Golden Boy. The play also suffered attacks from the House Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by Martin Dies, Jr., which singled it out for extravagance and inefficiency. Although the poster shown here places the production at Maxine Elliott’s Theatre, it actually opened at the Adelphi because the former theater had another booking by the time the play was finally ready to open.
In spite of the vast array of talent and hard work that went into the creation of <em>Sing for Your Supper</em>, the musical met with extreme challenges during its unprecedented eighteen months of rehearsal and its ten-week run that ended when the FTP was shut down. The talent included writer and lyricist John La Touche (1914–1956), composer Ned Lehac (1899–2000), lyricists and composers Harold Rome (1908–1993) and Robert Sour (1906–1985), and dancer and choreographer Anna Sokolow (1910–2000). The challenges included cast members leaving for other theater jobs. Dancer Gene Kelly (1912–1996) opened in a Cole Porter production shortly after leaving the FTP, and Will Lee (1908–1982)—who much later achieved fame as Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street—was hired away from Sing for Your Supper to perform in Clifford Odets’s <em>Golden Boy</em>. The play also suffered attacks from the House Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by Martin Dies, Jr., which singled it out for extravagance and inefficiency. Although the poster shown here places the production at Maxine Elliott’s Theatre, it actually opened at the Adelphi because the former theater had another booking by the time the play was finally ready to open.