The run closed October 3, 1931
- Opened
- 1931
- Closed
- October 3, 1931
- Performances
- 87
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- —
Of the 1,388 productions we hold that opened in the 1930s and record a performance count, this is the 302nd longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it60 named
Rose Armand
Alice Bankert
Johnny Boyle
Lee Brody
Evelyn Carpenter
Cornelia Chason
Fanille Davies
Frances Dewey
Margaret Doncaster
Frank Ericson
Mickie Forbs
Bobby Gillette
Al Gold
J Gonzales
Taylor Gordon
Maerena Grady
Francis Guinan
Frank Hauser
Percy Helton
Jack Irwin
Julie Johnson
Albert Jordan
Joe Kaye
Irene Kelly
Don Lannon
James Libby
Constance Madison
Lela Manor
Lila Manor
Vida Manuel
Dolly Martinez
Nellie Mayer
John Mcavoy
Leslyn Miller
John Muccio
Edward Murray
Dick Neely
Edgar Nelson
Frances Nevins
James Notarro
Lester Ostrander
Nora Puntin
Inez Purdy
Jack Ray
Jerry Reardon
Margot Riley
Virginia Smith
Dorothy Snowden
Marjorie Sohmer
Anne Stanley
Morris Tepper
Winnie Turner
Helen Tuttle
Florence Winkel
6 of these 60 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 54 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
- Ted Healy
- Choreographer
- John Boyle
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
The revue was a cooperative venture where the cast and creators shared in the profits rather than receiving salaries, a response to the harsh economics of the Depression.
- Best Plays reported that Heywood Broun’s Shoot the Works! (or Shoot the Works, depending on which page of the program you looked at) was a “cooperative revue” presented by Broun “for the purpose of giving a hundred or more out-of-work actors temporary jobs.” And temporary it was, because the show ran for only a few wee… The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 156
- dancer Al Norman, who had impressed everyone in Shoot the Works!, had appeared in that show just days before the opening of the Vanities. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 160
- Paramount made two film versions of the play, in 1934 and 1939, and counting the source material itself, every version introduced a hit song: the play of course offered \"It\'s Only a Paper Moon\"; the 1934 film version was titled Shoot the Works (which wasn\'t related to the 1931 Broadway revue) and introduced the lov… The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 257
- Nobody got rich. Revues like this had been done in England but over here it was a departure from the usual commercial Broadway venture. Revue A Nostalgic Reprise of the Great Broadway Period Baral Robert Author 1st E, p. 197
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 Shoot the Works at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.