The run closed September 19, 1931
- Opened
- September 8, 1931
- Closed
- September 19, 1931
- Performances
- 15
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Manhattan Theatre
Of the 1,388 productions we hold that opened in the 1930s and record a performance count, this is the 859th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it31 named
Charles Althoff
Olive Bayes
Lilian Bond
Julia Chandler
G Pat Collins
John Donahue
Al Downing
Edward Emery
Dorris Groday
Peter Higgins
Gus Howard
David Hutcheson
Dorothea James
Grace Johnston
Dorothy Knapp
Clair Kramer
Peter Lang
Jeannette Loff
Philip Lord
Vera Marsh
Rae Powell
Robert Randall
Edwin Saulpaugh
Harry Shannon
Thelma Tipson
Don Tomkins
Edward Walters
4 of these 31 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 27 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
- Oscar Hammerstein II
- Choreographer
- Bobby Connolly
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.
Recordings 1 held for the work
None of these is attributed to this staging. They are filed against Free For All, and nothing in the record says which production any of them documents. Closing that join is the point of this catalogue and it is not closed yet.
Around this production
Another Hammerstein-directed flop of the early 1930s, the show closed after just 15 performances. It was one of several failures that preceded Hammerstein's legendary partnership with Richard Rodgers.
"very thin, Irish-looking kid": Kenneth Turan, Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 28.
Speaker not recorded. Fosse Sam Wasson, p. 569“I thought plays were effete”: Kenneth Turan, Free for All, 27.
Speaker not recorded. Fosse Sam Wasson, p. 570- Hammerstein had a string of failures, including The Gang’s All Here (2/18/31), Free for All (9/8/31), and East Wind (10/27/31). None played more than 23 performances. Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 234
- Free for All kidded socialism, Mother wholeheartedly embraced it, and by evening’s end, the title character is swept up in political fervor as she raises high the Red flag and is determined to foment revolution. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 13
- Other politically driven shows that opened during the decade include Free for All (socialism on the campus); Face the Music (a satire of Depression life); Saluta (which included a song-and-dance-man Mussolini, here named “The Dictator”); Parade (a left-wing revue); Mother (a pro-left diatribe); Johnny Johnson (an anti-… The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 22
- Free for All may well be the most obscure of all Hammerstein’s musicals, and some lyrics are lost, unavailable, or otherwise incomplete. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 163
- Free For All (with Richard A. Whiting) after a dismal fifteen. Cambridge Companion To the Musical Cambridge Companions To Music the the Cambrid, p. 192
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.
- Which of the 1 recordings of Free For All document this run, if any.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.