June Moon

June Moon (1929), a comedy by Ring Lardner and George S. Kaufman. [Broadhurst Theatre, 273 perf.] Fred M. Stevens ( Norman Foster) gives up his job as a shipping clerk in Schenectady to try his luck as a Tin Pan Alley lyricist. He hits it big when Paul Sears ( Frank Otto), who has been living off the meager royalties of his song hit “Paprika,” puts music to Fred's lyric for “June Moon.” Success goes to Fred's head, and he abandons his old sweetheart, Edna Baker ( Linda Watkins), in favor of the beautiful, but vicious and rapacious Eileen ( Lee Patrick), Paul's sister‐in‐law. But just as Fred is about to leave for Europe with Eileen, his eyes are opened up by the caustic pianist, Maxie ( Harry Rosenthal). Fred asks Maxie if the steamship line would mind his changing wives. Maxie assures him there will be no problem, “If you don't do it in midstream.” Robert Littell of the World called the Sam H. Harris–produced comedy “a lively show that gave Tin Pan Alley . . . a rich and merciless kidding.” Lardner later described the writing of the play in his “Second‐Act Curtain.” A successful Off‐Broadway revival in 1998 proved the comedy's stageworthiness.