Avon Theatre, "Strictly Dishonorable"
setName: label: See more items in
content: Phillip Graneto Broadway Theater Collection
label: See more items in
content: Phillip Graneto Broadway Theater Collection / Series 4: Broadway Theater Programs (New York, New York)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1930
container: label: Container
content: Box 1, Folder 6
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The program cover features an illustration of a harlequin playing a stringed instrument on a candlelit stage. This production of Strictly Dishonorable, starring Tullio Carminati and Margaret Perry, ran for 557 performances between 1929 and 1931, and launched the career of its writer, Preston Sturges. The play is a romantic comedy about a couple who go into a speakeasy where the woman falls in love with an opera singer and subsequently breaks off her engagement. Sturges would later become known as the writer and director of screwball comedy films like The Lady Eve and the Palm Beach Story. Strictly Dishonorable was adapted for film twice, in 1931 and 1951, but both times the studio producing the film declined to have Sturges adapt his own script. At the time of its run, Strictly Dishonorable was one of the longest running shows on Broadway, and it was directed by Brock Pemberton, along with Antoinette Perry, for whom the Tony Awards are named. Program for a performance of the play Strictly Dishonorable at the Avon Theatre in New York City the week of August 11, 1930.