ABSTRACT
The brilliant playwright-director George S. Kaufman once quipped, “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” The show even featured long stretches with no songs at all, unusual for the period, though George provided underscoring. Kaufman began casting in August 1931. The role of Wintergreen needed someone both attractive and able to handle the character’s wise-cracking side. Producer Harris suggested William Gaxton, who owned good comic timing and had played romantic leads. The title song, which wittily blended romance with politics, caused the only major quarrel. Kaufman, known as the Gloomy Dean of Musical Comedy, believed adding the slangy “baby” was undignified. The crowning glory came with the announcement that the show had won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for 1932—the first musical so honored. The award rocked the theatre world. The New York Times ran the announcement on the front page.
