The run closed November 26, 1938
- Opened
- September 21, 1938
- Closed
- November 26, 1938
- Performances
- 78
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Winter Garden Theatre
Of the 1,388 productions we hold that opened in the 1930s and record a performance count, this is the 329th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it45 named
The Debonairs
Truman Gaige
Dan Harden
The Hartmans
Charles Kemper
Rex O Malley
June Preisser
Roger Stearns
Joanna Allen
Wesley Bender
Helen Bennett
Marion Broske
Mary Ann Carr
Dorothy Compton
Jacqueline Dahlia
Virginia Daly
Natasha Dana
Louise de Forrest
Ray Dennis
Enez Early
Helen Ecklund
Barbara Elliott
Eddie Gale
Grace Gillern
Chris Gustafson
Billie Hill
Helen Hudson
Irene Kelly
Edith Lambot
Alice Mcwhorter
Mary Ann O Brien
Mildred Ramey
Jack Richards
Mildred Riley
Gus Schirmer
Robert Smith
Lee Stephenson
Arlene Stone
Ellen Taylor
6 of these 45 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 39 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
- Rowland Leigh
- Choreographer
- Robert Alton
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
You Never Know is a musical with a book by Rowland Leigh, adapted from the original European play By Candlelight, by Siegfried Geyer and Karl Farkas, with music by Cole Porter and Robert Katscher, lyrics by Cole Porter, additional lyrics by Leigh and Edwin Gilbert, directed by Leigh, and songs by others. The show was written not long after the riding accident that left Porter semi-crippled.
You Never Know (9/21/38; 78 performances), Porter’s first Broadway assignment after the accident, opened at the WINTER GARDEN THEATRE. Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 438
- Porter’s score produced one evergreen, the controversial “Love for Sale.” Otherwise, the score offered first-rate but generally not well-known numbers that have become favorites with show-music aficionados and saloon singers who specialize in show-tune esoterica. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 105
- Except for “What Will Become of Our England?,” all the songs from the original Broadway production were retained, and four were added to the score: the non-Porter “The Continental” from the film version; two songs from Porter’s 1938 musical You Never Know (“For No Rhyme or Reason” and “From Alpha to Omega”); and “My Lo… The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 255
- Complete Lyrics also notes that “My Loulou” wasn’t listed in the program until two days after the New York premiere, but was apparently always part of the score and was heard at the beginning of the scene at the Café Martinique; although “To Get Away” wasn’t listed in the program, it seems to have been part of the “Gay… The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 408
- The musical underwent a prolonged and agonizing tryout that included both an overhaul of the script, the constant deletion and addition of songs, and the loss of several cast members. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 522
- Cole Porter bounced back from the debacle You Never Know with the hit Leave It to Me!, a very loose adaptation by Bella and Samuel Spewack of their 1932 comedy Clear All Wires, which played for ninety-three performances at the Times Square Theatre and was later filmed in 1933. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 539
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 You Never Know at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.