The Time of Your Life (1939)
Original Broadway Production - The Booth Theatre from October 25th, 1939 to January 29th, 1940, 185 performances. Transferred to the Guild Theatre for a run through April 6th, 1940.
Producer - The Theatre Guild and Eddie Dowling
Director- Eddie Dowling & William Saroyan
Music - Reginald Beane
Dances - Gene Kelly
Set design - Watson Barratt
Original Cast
Joe - Eddie Dowling
Kitty Duvall - Julie Haydon
Harry - Gene Kelly
Newsboy - Ross Bagdasarian
Mary L. - Celeste Holm
Tom - Edward Andrews
Wesley - Reginald Beane
Elsie - Cathie Bailey
Krupp - William Bendix
Blick - Grover Burgess
Killer's Sidekick - Mary Chaffey
Nick - Charles De Sheim
Nick's Ma - Michelette Burani
Kit Carson - Leonard Doyle
Killer - Evelyn Geller
Willy - Will Lee
McCarthy - Tom Tully
Lorene - Nene Vibber
Society Gentleman - Ainsworth Arnold
Another Cop Drunkard - John Farrell
Society Lady - Eva Leonard-Boyne
Arab - Houseley Stevens
A Cop - Randolph Wade
Notes
The Time of Your Life won Saroyan both the New York Drama Critics' Circle Best Play (1939) and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1940)
The original production featured several future members of the American Theatre Hall of Fame, including Eddie Dowling, Celeste Holm, Gene Kelly, and William Saroyan.
The setting for the show is Nick's, a bar based on Izzy Gomez's in San Francisco.
Made into a film in 1947, directed by H.C. Potter, produced by William Cagney, and starring James Cagney, his sister Jeanne Cagney as Kitty, and William Bendix as Nick.
New York revivals took place in 1940 (September 23 to October 19th) at the Guild Theatre, 1969 (November 6th to December 20th) at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, and 1975 by The Acting Company (October 28th to November 1st) at the Harkness Theater.
The Theatre Guild on the Air produced The Time of Your Life in 1947, with Dane Clark, Mary Anderson, and John Lund in 1947.
Playhouse 90 featured The Time of Your Life on October 9, 1958. Jackie Gleason played Joe, and the production featured future television legends Dick York, Jack Klugman, and Gloria Vanderbilt.
Broadway legend Patti LaPone made her television debut in Theatre in America's production of The Time of Your Life, alongside Kevin Kline.
The Time of Your Life was recorded at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958 with Francot Tone as Joe. The play was broadcast in the UK on Armchair Theatre on October 19, 1958
The Marines' Memorial Theater Group produced the first version of The Time of Your Life to be presented in San Francisco in August, 1948. Saroyan, then living in San Francisco, was invited, but did not attend.
