Shows · I’d Rather Be Right
I’d Rather Be Right was the most anxiously awaited theatrical event of the decade for two reasons: the central character was President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the part was being played by the legendary George M. Cohan, who was returning to the musical stage for the first time in ten years in the only song-and-dance show he ever appeared in that he did not write himself. The work, however, was considered not quite u…
- Opened
- 1937
- Performances
- 290
- Type
- Musical
- Era
- Early
Productions1 on Broadway
| 1937 | Alvin Theatre Original. November 2, 1937 · George S. Kaufman | 290 performances |
Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.
27 passages naming I’d Rather Be Right, found by keyword across 178 books. It's where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.
was the most anxiously awaited theatrical event of the decade for two reasons: the central character was President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the part was being played by the legendary George M. Cohan, who was returning to the musical stage for the first time in ten years in the only song-and-dance show he ever appeared… book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p105
ends with his final Broadway triumph in 1937 playing President Roosevelt in I’d Rather Be Right, the only musical in which he appeared that he did not write himself. book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p214
In fact, three years before the creative crisis that led to Lady in the Dark, Kaufman and Hart had drafted the first act of a musical based on psychoanalysis starring Marlene Dietrich before settling on I’d Rather Be Right with Rodgers and Hart, and George M. Cohan as Franklin Roosevelt. book:enchanted-evenings-the-broadway-musical-from-show-boat-block-geoffrey-oxford-new#p172
Sam H. Harris, who had earlier produced fifteen Cohan musicals, seven Berlin shows, the Gershwins’ Of Thee I Sing, Porter’s Jubilee, and Rodgers and Hart’s I’d Rather Be Right; book:enchanted-evenings-the-broadway-musical-from-show-boat-block-geoffrey-oxford-new#p651
The decade saw the final musicals of Gershwin, Kern, Friml, and Youmans, but also offered Broadway’s first look at Arlen, Blitzstein, Lane, Loewe, Rome, and Weill. Note that I’d Rather Be Right offered an occasionally peppery but mostly avuncular Franklin D. Roosevelt, and its gentle ribbing couldn’t have riled. book:the-complete-book-of-1930s-broadway-musicals-dietz-dan-rowman-littlefield-publis#p12
Other politically driven shows that opened during the decade include Free for All (socialism on the campus); Face the Music (a satire of Depression life); Saluta (which included a song-and-dance-man Mussolini, here named “The Dictator”); Parade (a left-wing revue); Mother (a pro-left diatribe); Johnny Johnson (an anti-… book:the-complete-book-of-1930s-broadway-musicals-dietz-dan-rowman-littlefield-publis#p22
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