The run closed December 12, 1942
- Opened
- October 14, 1942
- Closed
- December 12, 1942
- Performances
- 68
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Richard Rodgers Theatre
Of the 890 productions we hold that opened in the 1940s and record a performance count, this is the 292nd longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it21 named
Evelyn Brooks
Ralph Bunker
Joan Caulfield
John Clarke
Brian Connaught
Doris Dowling
Toni Gilman
Averell Harris
Eunice Healey
Eunice Healy
Juanita Juarez
James Lane
Johnny Mack
Leonard Sues
Romo Vincent
6 of these 21 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 15 are set from the identifier in the cast list, which is a slug of the name — so hyphens and full stops are lost and a few come out wrong. We hold nothing else about them. Nobody here is matched to a character: the cast list records who was in the company and not what they played.
Creative team
- Director
- George Abbott
- Choreographer
- David Lichine
- Orchestrations
- Don Walker
A producer is one string on this record, however many people or companies it names. Directors and choreographers are held both as text and as identifiers; where an identifier exists the name links to a page.
Around this production
This early career appearance by Elaine Stritch, who would become a Broadway legend, was in the chorus. Johnny Green was better known as an MGM musical director and Oscar-winning orchestrator.
- BEST FOOT FORWARD [Martin: October 1, 1941] and the forthcoming BEAT THE BAND [October 14, 1942]. Show Tunes 1905 1985 the Songs Shows and Careers of Steven Suskin 1st Ed New Yor, p. 213
- The one commercially successful show of the year was By Jupiter (427), with the last Rodgers and Hart Broadway score. Rodgers and Hart wrote the book, too, about the conflict between the Amazons and Greeks; one of the most amusing Amazonians was played by the moon-faced British actress Bertha Belmore. Everything else o… West End Broadway the Golden Age of the American Musical Adrian Wright Boydell B, p. 42
- Abbott was, indeed, a time-study man, with his stopwatch and laff-o-meter. The problem with this is that it can make the work become too formulaic. The shows were almost always well assembled, even when they weren’t good, and Abbott had his share of failures. (Does anyone remember Beat the Band, Barefoot Boy with Cheek… Broadway Yearbook 2001 2002 A Relevant and Irreverent Steven Suskin Kindle 2003 , p. 324
- Abbott next explored the world of swing bands with Beat the Band (1942) but, according to him, the show was destroyed by a series of mistakes on his part. The Abbott Touch Thomas Hischak 2023 Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 116
Passages naming this production, found by keyword across 178 books. Where it turns up in the literature, not curated notes about it.
What this page does not know
- No photograph of this staging. 48 of 13,459 productions hold one.
- No character names. We can say who was in the company and not who they played.
- No recording is held for Beat the Band at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.