In 1937, the year often considered the worst of The Great Depression, a musical called Pins and Needles<\/i>
\ncombined a series of unrelated sketches in an upbeat revue centered on
\nlabor issues. The sketches were the brainchildren of a number of
\nauthors, but the majority were written by Harold Rome, who also
\ncomposed the music for the show. Pins and Needles<\/i> was produced
\nby the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) as a part of
\ntheir social education program to create a better-rounded working environment
\nfor union members; it would <\/i>became the longest running show on Broadway<\/i>. I wrote my college thesis on the social commentary musicals of the Depression, but at the time, neglected to see Pins and Needles <\/i>for what it really was: a total PR coup. <\/p>\n
The Pins and Needles<\/i> creation story begins with the election of David Dubinsky as president of the
\nILGWU five years earlier. When forced to play the dinner party game
\n(“If you could invite 3 people, dead or alive, to dinner, who would you
\nchoose?”), Dubinsky would be first on my list. Don’t get your
\npanties in a bunch, Susan B. Anthony, you get to come, too; we’re
\nhaving pesto. The idea of the “Labor Stage” grew out of the new cultural
\nand recreational programs developed under Dubinsky. In his memoirs, A Life With Labor<\/u>, he explains, “But, for me, education without some salesmanship
\nwas not education. In my book, that meant showmanship.” His marketing savvy shone through all the educational programs he created. “Our
\neducational activities in the widest sense,” he stated, “should be
\nlooked upon from the point of view of the union’s public relations –
\nand sound public relations presuppose a sound union.” The benefit of
\n“social education”, as it was called, in a union was twofold: first,
\nthe union members presumably became better-rounded, educated and
\ncontributing citizens. Second, the union made the best possible contact
\nwith the non-union public. And in the mid-1930s in America, labor
\nunions had PR problems, problems that were worsening by the day. <\/p>\n
In A A Broadway sense of publicity applied to another industry: what a fantastic idea. <\/p>\n In Schaffer realized that play production could be Enter Harold When Pins and Needles <\/i>officially What did the press think of Pins and Needles<\/i>? By the end of the Pins and Needles<\/i> I phoned the correct Given the novelty of seeing workers on stage and the labor subject matter of Pins and Needles<\/i>, Only Happy Labor Day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1937, the year often considered the worst of The Great Depression, a musical called Pins and Needles combined a series of unrelated sketches in an upbeat revue centered on labor issues. The sketches were the brainchildren of a number of authors, but the majority were written by Harold Rome, who also composed the music […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-70","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nEurope, Dubinsky had witnessed a quarter million people watching an
\nAustrian trade-union pageant. Both the concept and the reception of
\nthe trade union-pageant were quite remarkable to Dubinsky; he wondered
\nif he could do the same thing with the ILGWU. He hired his friend
\nLouis Schaffer to give it a shot, and under Schaffer’s leadership, the Cultural
\nDivision of the Educational and Recreational Department soon held classes in drama, acting, dance and music. Schaffer organized local
\ndramatic groups and set up training programs for boys and girls “from
\nthe shops.” He also began selecting plays that would be appropriate
\nfor his newly formed “ILGWU Players”. In the book Tailor’s Progress: The Story of a Famous Union and the Men Who Made It<\/u>, Benjamin Stolberg describes Schaffer as: <\/p>\n
\nveteran newspaperman and labor editor with a long background in the
\nsocialist movement and in business. He is the typical New Yorker –
\nbreezy, sophisticated and extremely likeable. His sense of publicity
\nis far more Broadway than “proletarian.” He is a sort of link between
\nthe theatrical world and the New York labor movement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\npress releases, Schaffer stressed that his new group did not intend to
\npose as professionals, noting that no one performing in an ILGWU
\nproduction was a trained actor, actress or musician; they all literally
\ncame from behind the sewing machines. Well played, Louis Schafer. If the ILGWU shows flopped or weren’t
\ndeemed worthy by the press, Schaffer had an out – they’re not “real”
\nactors! But if the press came and liked what they saw, it would be a David and Goliath sensation.<\/p>\n
\nused to carry the labor movement’s message outside the confines of the
\nILGWU. A play within a play, publicity-wise. After producing one
\nunsuccessful serious drama (a play called Steel <\/i>about, you guessed it, a steel workers strike)<\/i>
\nwith the ILGWU, Schaffer recognized 1. the need to attract a wider
\naudience, and 2. that the only way to do that
\nwould be to create a highly entertaining product. Schaffer had the idea of
\ncreating an amateur labor revue that was funny and witty. This idea was
\nin complete contrast to the solemn, far left-wing proletarian dramas so popular at the time. <\/p>\n
\nRome, and cue another PR coup. Ironically, the man who wrote hundreds
\nof political skits and songs managed to avoid all political questioning
\nat the time. When asked if he was a
\nleftist in the December 25, 1937 issue of The New Yorker<\/i>, Rome retorted, “It’s not a question of being a Leftist…It’s
\na question of keeping your eyes open.” (I would have wanted Harold
\nRome as a client, for those of you playing at home.) Perhaps it was his
\nlack of political bias that allowed Rome to freely criticize both the
\nradical left and right and everyone who wavered in between. Unlike
\nmany of his contemporary proletarian dramatists and writers, Rome’s
\nonly political agenda was satire, satire of everyone and everything in
\nhis contemporary society. <\/p>\n
\nopened to the public on November 27, 1937, it was generally accepted as
\nthe second in an intended series of plays performed by the ILGWU
\nPlayers. Shockingly, it ran for nearly four years and was so
\nsuccessful that no other plays were ever produced by the ILGWU. The
\nshow filled the Labor Stage until June 26, 1939, when it was moved to
\nthe much larger Windsor Theatre for a year’s run on Broadway. Pins and Needles<\/i> was seen in three editions: Pins and Needles (original show), Pins and Needles 1939 <\/i>(April 20, 1939 to November 20, 1939), and New Pins and Needles<\/i> (November 30, 1939 to June 22, 1941). When the last road show closed in 1941, the show had run 1,108 performances, making Pins and Needles<\/i> the longest running musical to date. It is interesting to note that, with each new version the Pins and Needles <\/i>content was revised so that the piece remained absolutely relevant. For example, the song “Four Little Angels of Peace” was originally sung by Eden, Mussolini, Hirohito, and Hitler, but in the 1938 version, Chamberlain replaces Eden in the scene. <\/p>\n
\nOnly a few critics attended the November 27th opening. Rome recalled,
\n“First string critics went to important shows, and there were a lot of
\nshows in those days. Pins and Needles<\/i> was not an important
\nshow at first. We also played only on weekends at first, so it was
\nhard for critics to come.” Slow as they were, the critics did come,
\nand within a few weeks word-of-mouth praise and glowing reviews turned Pins and Needles<\/i> into a hit. (The New York Times<\/i> sent its second string critic to the opening of Pins and Needles<\/i>; the November 29, 1937 review was written by a certain “J.G.” Top Times<\/i>
\ntheatre critic Brooks Atkinson did not review the show until January
\n23, 1938, when it was already quite popular. How the times – and the Times<\/i>, for that matter – do not change.)<\/p>\n
\nrun, the Labor Stage had made the ILGWU approximately $1,500,000 in
\nprofits, all of which went back to the ILGWU’s educational programs.
\nThis was a tremendous amount of money, considering it was tax-free and
\nin pre-inflation dollars – oh, and that the original production costs had
\nbeen $10,000. To guarantee that all possible profits went back to the
\nILGWU, no independent ticket brokers were allowed. In his article, “A New Show Business” for Hollywood<\/i> magazine (February 1, 1938), writer Sidney Skolsky details his attempts to purchase a ticket to see the show
\nwhen he was in New York: <\/p>\n
\npeople to ask for tickets. They were polite, but very sorry that they
\ndidn’t have any tickets. I asked them to buy me a couple from the
\nticket speculators. They told me that the ticket brokers didn’t have
\nany. I had heard that story before. The ticket brokers always have
\nthem, no matter how big a hit the show is. I contacted several ticket
\nbrokers. Not one of them had a ticket…and couldn’t get them. I was
\ngreatly surprised. “Where are the tickets?” I asked a broker. He
\nanswered: The unions have all the tickets. It’s a new kind of show
\nbusiness. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe tremendous audiences that Pins and Needles<\/i>
\nattracted must be understood in the artistic environment in which the
\nmusical was created. First, other contemporary theatre groups had
\nalready
\ndeveloped a following for the kind of audience Pins and Needles<\/i>
\nwould garner. The Workers’ Theatre groups, the Yiddish Theatre, the
\nTheatre Union, and the Federal Theatre Project had all laid the
\ngroundwork for audience support of didactic, socially significant
\ntheatre. The Labor Stage had also utilized the professional resources
\nof these groups, using authors like Marc Blitzstein, John Wexley, and
\nGeorge Skylar to write sketches and skits at various times for Pins and
\nNeedles<\/i>. The Labor Stage also used artists from these theatre groups to
\nteach classes in acting, to direct workshops, and to lecture at Labor
\nStage cultural events. Consequently, the colleagues and fans of such
\nartists were interested in the Pins and Needles<\/i> project before the show even opened.
In
\naddition to such community building and groundwork, the economic situation of The Great
\nDepression lessened the amount of professional theatre on Broadway; Pins and Needles<\/i>
\nwas one of the few socially critical shows that was both poignant and
\nentertaining. The previous great Broadway successes were upbeat
\nmusicals and musical revues such as the Ziegfeld Follies<\/i>.
\nDuring the period between 1932 and 1938, however, productions had
\nbecome increasingly propagandistic and subsequently increasingly
\nserious. Louis Schaffer realized that to survive commercially a show
\nwould have to attract New Yorkers from all walks of society,
\nnon-workers included. He also realized that the workers who came to
\nlabor shows did not necessarily want to be preached at or inspired to
\nrevolution; the worker didn’t want to go to the theatre just because
\nit was labor theatre. By emulating
\nthe financially successful Broadway musical revue format and continuing
\nthe 1930s trend of socially significant theatre, Pins and Needles<\/i> attracted both audience groups.<\/p>\n
\nit is not surprising that the show directly appealed to union members.
\nFar less predictable, however, was its appeal to their bosses. To tip my hat even lower to this incredible PR machine and performing arts product, here is the best
\nimpossible-to-get-ticket story I’ve heard (or read) to date, as quoted in Harold
\nPhilips’ December 5, 1938 article “From Sweatshops to Stardom”:<\/p>\n
\nthe other day Joseph Breslaw, manager of the Pressers Local,
\nInternational Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union…phoned Louis Schaffer,
\ndirector of the Labor Stage, and asked, “Do you want to help the
\nunion?” “Of course,” Mr. Schaffer answered. “What do you want?” “We’ve
\njust settled a strike with a certain manufacturer,” the union leader
\nexplained, “But one of the conditions was tough. And you’re the only
\nman who can help us.” Mr. Schaffer: “How?” “We must have some tickets
\nto the show. You see, that was one of the conditions of the strike
\nsettlement – six tickets for the bosses to see Pins and Needles<\/i>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n