The Theater: Coming Attractions

Broadway wiseacres are fond of saying that “the theater is dying.” This week, however, as Broadway’s marquees light up to welcome the new season, the projected shows—about 85 at last count—are certain to include a good number that will bring out crowds and rake in money. At worst, the list shows a varied group with better than 50-50 chances. Items:

Dear Charles (by Marc-Gilbert Sauva-jon and Frederick Jackson, adapted by Alan Melville), starring Tallulah Bankhead, a “comedy which proves conclusively that good manners are good morals,” opens in mid-September. A British play imported by Producers Richard Aldrich and Richard Myers, the show tried out with some success on the straw-hat circuits this summer.

On Your Toes (Richard Rodgers-George Abbott), a revival of the 1936 musicomedy, opens in October with Vera Zorina, Bobby Van, Elaine Stritch; choreography by George Balanchine.

Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie; music & lyrics by Mark Charlop, Carolyn Leigh, Nancy Hamilton, Morgan Lewis, Betty Comden and Adolph Green), which played this summer in San Francisco with Mary Martin, opens on Broadway Oct. 20, with Dancer-Choreographer Jerome (On the Town) Robbins directing.

Quadrille (Noel Coward), a play about a businessman and a marchioness, opened in London two years ago, stars Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, begins on Broadway Nov. 3.

Fanny (Marcel Pagnol’s plays Marius, Fanny and Cesar, adapted as a musical by S.N. Behrman, Josh Logan and Harold J. Rome) stars Ezio Pinza and Walter Slezak, opens Nov. 4 under Logan’s direction.

Silk Stockings (musical adaptation of Ninotchka by George S. Kaufman, Leueen MacGrath, Cole Porter), with Don Ameche and Hildegarde Neff.

The Dark Is Light Enough (Christopher Fry), a verse play that takes place during the Austrian-Hungarian war of 1848, is now playing in London, will star Katharine Cornell.

Along with such notable starters, ticket buyers will have a choice of a second group of possible hits: All Summer Long, by Robert (Tea and Sympathy) Anderson, with John Kerr; Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Mendelssohn’s music and Moira Shearer’s dancing; Graham Greene’s The Living Room; Lunatics and Lovers, a satire on sex plays, by Sidney (Dead End) Kingsley ; Portrait of a Lady, an adaptation of the Henry James novel, with Jennifer Jones; Truman Capote’s musical, The House of Flowers, with Pearl Bailey; Sam & Bella Spewack’s new comedy, Festival, starring Vanessa Brown; G.B. Shaw’s Saint Joan, with Jean Arthur; Sayonara: A Japanese Romance, a musical adaptation of James A. Michener’s novel by Josh Logan, Paul Osborn and Irving Berlin.